♪ The Way We Were ♪

So I'm listening to Barbra Streisand sing, at the Oscars last night...singing for the first time at the Oscars in 36 years. The last time she sang I had my first crush on Jon. We were 10, going on 11. HA

" Memories, light the corners of my mind Misty watercolor memories of the way we were. Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind smiles we give to one another for the way we were. Can it be that it was all so simple then or has time rewritten every line? If we had the chance to do it all again tell me would we? Could we? Memories... may be beautiful and yet what's too painful to remember we simply choose to forget...So it's the laughter we will remember whenever we remember the way we were. The way we were. "

I got misty-eyed listening to her... and more than a little wistful.

Every now and then, I miss my family. Not my boys, or my mom -- or her twin, since they have yet to grow weary of me and set me aside, or they love me enough to not do so. I miss my dad, but in a vague sort of way now that he's actually passed away. I missed him fiercely all those years, hoping for some sort of re-connection, and now that it's gone forever, it's more sentimental at best.

I miss the family I grew up with.  We still talk to each other... but I'm on the outside.

My outspoken, overzealous self painted me out of the family picture more than a few times, and now I'm pretty much out of frame. Either my multiple apologies for erratic behavior fell on deaf ears or worse, were never listened to in the first place. I've tried.

My first impulse this morning was to write to those who have set me aside, hoping to re-establish a semblance of relationship... but then I remembered I gave up co-dependence for Lent, HA.

Gave it up for good.

I have my memories. One of my nieces is expecting her first baby, and I wish I could share that with her, but I'm unforgivable. Sooo... I remember her as a little girl playing with my boys, a headstrong teenager vying for attention between her sisters ( I know how ThAT felt HA ). I remember happy family times with all of our children playing and laughing together. I miss her, and her mother, and sisters, and her brother and his family, but they are content without my infrequent presence in their lives. Her brother, the father of four boys, had one of them sit down and write a letter to another sibling about the things he liked about them.

Good advice. Wishing it would carry across the family, to me... but it doesn't. Oh well.  "So it's the laughter... we will remember.."

I have my memories of one who gathered all the family in on holidays, handled our anxious grandmother ( across town from her), before and after my ever-patient grandfather passed away. I have her recipes, the wooden clogs she sent me from Holland as a little girl, the reverence of worship that she taught me without preaching a word. I offended her one too many times with my political views, and multiple attempts at reconciliation have gone by the wayside. I guess I'm one of those memories that's "too painful to remember.. we simply choose to forget..."

I know some families don't stay close once everyone has grown up and moved on and such...but some do. And some of my family is close to the others. Just not to me. :-( That's where the wistfulness sprang from last night.

Like the baggage I spoke of in my last blog, we can either carry it, set it aside, or consider it a burden. I just remember the good stuff these days...but wish it was reciprocal. "Misty watercolor memories of the way we were. Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind smiles we give to one another for the way we were."

We were fun, once, and loving, and close. Thank God for memories, and for  the way we were. :-)

Baggage. It's everywhere. Get used to it.

Jonathan and I have a lot of baggage. Four marriages,  nine kids, four divorces, living in a war zone, living with cancer, PostTraumaticStressDisorder ( both of us, although mine is non-military related ), family goofiness, you name it. A lot of baggage. 

We also have a lot of luggage. Gorilla boxes, old garment bags, suitcases, duffles, military gear -- a lot of stuff.  Jon works overseas and recently had to get an ADDITIONAL passport because his was full. 

I have logged more air miles in the last three years than I did in the previous 43 cumulatively (including a trip to the Holy Land with my father once upon a time) traveling towards healing from cancer.  

Baggage. For the most part, we tend to handle it pretty well. Neither one of us enjoy hauling luggage around.

It's a pain, post-operative, or traveling alone after having chemo. 

It's a pain, hauling body armor around and waiting for Space-A flights that often take 24 hours to hop on to. It's just the way it is. You got stuff. It goes with you. You don't REALLY need it...you can always get more stuff. But it's your stuff, yours to lug along, for the journey. 

Occasionally, when we have money problems or a former spouse pops up like a bad penny, we have to carry that baggage again, momentarily, until we remember it needs to be stowed. 

Grief is like that. Initially it paralyzes you. It ebbs and flows and ebbs and flows until the tide recedes. Occasionally it resurfaces, and then goes out with the tide again. You never know when it will pop up. 

I remember a seemingly trivial occurrence, years after my dad left and moved abroad (AND disowned us), seeing someone put their cigar stub on the same flagstone that he used to, on a visit to the house. Daddy would come home, smoke his cigar for a few moments, then put it on that ledge and come in. In the morning he'd grab his remaining cig and head off again for another day. 

That person, repeating that small inconsequential action, had no idea it crushed me - almost physically - for a moment. 

That memory isn't baggage, in the psychobabble term. It's a memory. 

I don't think about it every second, but I remember that instance of grief, and years later, I'm grateful I can recall it vividly without the accompanying twinge. I'd have baggage if it caused me to write a manifesto... but I don't. I just have vivid memories...until someone says, "You've got a lot of baggage." " You've got a prolific amount of triggers that need to be healed." Then I find myself tucked into a ball on a chair, unable to react, the epic failures of my life dancing like skeletons around my heart. " Do you need counseling? " No. 

Do I have baggage?

Yeah, I do. Or... maybe I don't. Setting psychobabble aside, I have that particular gift of vivid memory that brings me back to certain events as though I'm still there. 

Yesterday a friend of mine, a Realtor back home, let me know that in the six-degrees-of-separation world that we live in these days, that she'd gotten a new listing right across the street from the high school we went to together. The house of my lifelong family friend, 'Aunt' Rose and her best friend of 54 years, 'Aunt Jo'. 

I practically grew up in that house. I learned to swim in the pool there, played in the cabanas out by the deck, chatted it up with the rabbi who lived across the street, shared confidences with Rose in the kitchen about love and life and faith, played poker with my sisters...wow. What a wondrous thing to have my high-school friend help a new family move into that wondrous place of happy memories.

Huh. I got tears in my eyes thinking of those happy days, and I wanted to run home and see the house before new furniture got into it, as though it would preserve it. Silly, sentimental, and sweet. 

Last weekend I got tears in my eyes when I chanced to intersect with my past, evoking memories of someone I chose to be with in a less happier time. Huh. I wanted to run home at that time, too, and I did. Home is good. 

Am I a baby for wanting to run home? Maybe. Maybe not. Home is a safe place, especially when someone tries to force you to do something or be something you are not. 

Baggage? Yah, I have baggage. Who doesn't? Who doesn't have a junk drawer, a cluttered closet? Who doesn't have memories that evoke emotion??

Baggage isn't necessarily bad unless it's lost or thrown at someone. Triggers aren't necessarily bad. They remind us that we have been failures, epic in nature, but we have also been huge successes. 

When we take it on a journey, baggage can either be a burden or a comfort. 

The trappings and trailings of our memories, the poignant moments for good or for bad which make us get tears in our eyes are good for our souls. Sometimes, like that guy innocently leaving his cigar on the ledge, sometimes the tears punch us in the stomach for a minute. Sometimes, they bring back images of swimming with my sisters and being loved on by special people, and our hearts are warmed and soothed. Perhaps it's His way of keeping us strong. Lugging it along, stooping to sit on it and close it back up, heaving it into the rubbish bin on occasion, or lifting it gently, to be stored in a special place. 

Jonathan and I have a lot of baggage. We've brought it all home, together. 

We'll continue to sort it out, together -- sometimes closing it back up until it's time to unpack it  -- and either file it or pitch it. 

We believe that Jesus died on the cross so we don't have to drape ourselves in it, and feel guilty for it for the rest of our human lives, let alone for eternity. We believe that the sackcloth and ashes that we have each worn, on certain days of our lives, are only for those certain days. 

Jesus died for us, to turning our mourning into dancing. Jesus showed up on the planet to bring life...

...so God doesn't want us to forget about our past. It's part of who we are, part of where He's led us, how He's shaped our lives. If there are parts that were awful, so be it. It's forgiven by His death on the cross -- but just because it's forgiven by Jesus, for all time, doesn't mean it didn't happen.  

Like Jon's passport, when it gets full and tattered, we get another so there are clean pages to stamp. 

That's the passport to peace, the peace that passes understanding. That's Jesus. 

♪ How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? ♪

"She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee, her dress has got a tear She waltzes on her way to mass and whistles on the stairsAnd underneath her wimple she has curlers in her hairI've even heard her singing in the abbey She's always late for chapel but her penitence is real She's always late for everything except for every meal...I hate to have to say it but I very firmly feel: Maria's not an asset to the abbey.
I'd like to say a word in her behalf-- then say it, Sister Margaretta -- Maria makes me laugh.

How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you find a word that means Maria? A flibbety-gibbet, a will'o'the'wisp, a clown? Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her, many a thing she ought to understand...but how do you make her stay? And listen to all you say? How do you keep a wave upon the sand? Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?"

Lyricist and songwriting team Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote these lilting notes to describe a novice Catholic nun living in Salzburg, Austria, in the late 1930's. ( My mother probably had no idea that these would fit her second daughter to a tee, as exasperated as she would become, and has  remained, regarding my unconventional Calamity Jane self. Sorry Mom. Least I can sing. ) As we all know, the orphaned Maria became governess to Captain Georg Von Trapp's seven children and they eventually married  -- their remarkable tale crafted into the R & H musical, "The Sound of Music".

I've always been a lot like Maria Von Trapp. Always late, always singing, always hoping for the best but fairly hapless in achieving the best, always judged by others as just not quite acceptable,  loved and cherished as long as I'm making everybody laugh and am a sparkly pretty party favor who follows the rules without question.

I AM a lot like Maria in the fact that despite all that, I am loved and in love with a man who has several slightly incorrigible children who need to be loved. :-)

I'm pretty sure that's also where my interest in Catholicism began, all those years ago, listening to the Nonnberg nuns sing praises to God.

I'm also pretty sure my year's journey into Catholicism has run its' course.

I just returned/escaped from a morning at a Catholic "retreat".

Convinced by peers and associates that it was not Catholic but Christian and a "faith-building" weekend, I reluctantly went, hoping to be blessed by camaraderie and fellowship and time to pray and reflect. I was supposed to stay until tomorrow night. I lasted from 6:30 am for four hours, after being herded to and fro by a team that Captain Von Trapp would have been proud of.

All they needed were ship's whistles.

A team that snapped at me when I wanted to step outside for some fresh air. ( YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO GO OUTSIDE). Huh?

A team that did not allow anything but water to be brought into the upstairs meeting room, even though they'd stated several  times that we were to make ourselves at home and ask for anything we needed. (Don't ask Catholic ladies on a planning team for coffee. Not a good idea. They're on a schedule.)

A retreat without cell phones is one thing. A chance to reflect, to pray, to be away from everyday life, yes, that's what I reluctantly agreed to.

A rigorously scheduled PROGRAM, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. at night, that the parish priest won't make time to come in to bless, one which does not allow one to reflect, to pray, or to relax, is not a retreat.

It's an in-service.

After being banned from the coffee three times, banned from the outdoors-- to the extreme of cardboard over all the windows--  and desperately trying to keep my claustrophobic self from freaking out in a small room crammed with fifty women, I asked to speak to one of the team in private -- and even THAT had to be approved. By someone else.

" Do you know her? Let me see if it's okay." Really???

We finally got to go outside. GASP -- the horror.

I told her that the crux of my dilemma was that one of the team leaders happened to be the aunt of the girl that my former husband had denied knowing. Denied seeing someone else, denied getting engaged when I saw them together WITH their engagement pictures, and denied being STILL MARRIED TO ME after I called the pastor who married THEM. While WE were still married.  Yep. That's what we call bigamy, folks. And that's what my lawyer told him  -- and my former Hurricane Husband promptly sent the divorce fees, got a divorce from me four months AFTER marrying this lady's niece.

I wasn't mad at that niece's aunt-lady. She didn't marry him. Lucky for her.

I'm not mad at the niece. She was lied to, just like I was when the serial groom married me after abandoning his first marriage.

But because of all that, I couldn't concentrate fully in the room crammed with fifty women and no window to look out of ,when I wanted to ask her if she liked my furniture which he took from me when he left, if the big screen TV I paid for had a good picture for the Super Bowl last week at her niece's house.

 I know. Get over it. Yep. Move on. Thank you.

Same thing people tell my dear friend who lost her first-born four years ago.
"You've got to move on."

We do, dammit. We move on because it will kill us too if we stay there, but we'd rather lay down and die. We keep moving on. Until we find a baby shoe in a drawer, or until we see someone who knows the someone that we loved, even if it was the wrong thing to love them.

Sometimes it's too much, especially when leaders of a retreat see you crying and still make snide remarks, and get irritated with you for disrupting THEIR PLANS EVEN THOUGH THEY SAID THEY WERE THERE TO SERVE, just like the nuns in the Abbey in Salzburg.

I was in a corner, FINALLY with coffee in my hand, trying to collect my sad self in the corner before rejoining the group with the little dignity I had left.

Another Team lady walked past me, looked over at me, and said, " Let's hope she's done talking...".

I thanked them for their 'hospitality', grabbed my stuff, and headed home.

Problem solved for the Captain Von Trapp Team leaders. Now they can stick to their schedule.

TWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTT.

I'm at home, and in seclusion, just like Maria at one point.

The Catholic Church has run just fine, yep, sho' has, for two thousand years without me, and it can keep on going that way. I love the antiquity of the Church, the traceable continuity to people who KNEW Jesus, who ate with Him, and walked with Him.

A 2,000 year-old-faith, built on the message of the Messiah who never snapped at anyone except money-changers defiling the Temple, unfortunately still remains in the clutches of power-mad peeps. I do not love the rigid order of things that is explained  vaguely as " there have to be rules...". No duh.

That's what the Ten Commandments are for.

I AM like Maria. I sure as hell don't fit in the Abbey.

I do not fit, anywhere -- except in a room full of young children.

Funny, that's what one of the staff told me one day, that I had skills and talents that worked well in that room, and that's where I should stay. I'll do just that, until my own 'Captain' comes home and whistles for me.

How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? With care and awe. It doesn't stay long...