Troglodytes Among Us

Mr. Gaelic is a techno-geek.  For example, one night recently he sat at the library desk with the desktop computer, his laptop, his iPad, and his iPhone uploading several albums from the home CD collection to the cloud.  Not satisfied when the album cover was omitted from the upload, he found sites to copy a picture of the cover to download. 

I, on the other hand, am not an early adopter.  It took me years before relinquishing an old cell phone for a smart phone.  Music for me comes most often from the radio or CDs.  There is no sense of urgency in having the latest and greatest since it gives them time to work out the bugs and come down in cost. 

It reminds me of a friend who passed away a couple of years ago.  His children are my children's ages but he never wanted to be on any social media websites.  He always said that he could be relevant without Facebook. 

Are we relevant without social media, without our blogs, without constant connection, without instant gratification?  Can we still be relevant in an ever-increasing technologically driven world?

[Title very loosely based on this.]

Do You Like Me? Do You Really Like Me?

In the 30 Day Non-Facebook Prose-Instead-of-Pictures Challenge, there are hard challenges and easy challenges.  Today's is easy: 

18.A picture of your biggest insecurity

Growing up in a very small town in the South, you went to school with the same people you went to church with, did Girl Scouts with, took ballet class with, sang in the church choir with, and on and on and on.  So when one girl decided to turn all the other girls against me because she didn't like me, it made for a long eighteen years.  Thank God for college!  And that in my graduating class only five of us went away to a four-year college.  And my bête noire went to the cross-state rival.  Praise the Lord!

High school.  Ugh!  My cousin was the fun one.  My bête noire was the head cheerleader.  I was the smart one.  Plus, at five-ten in stocking feet, I towered over all but two boys.  I also weighed in at 110 pounds soaking wet.  Long and lanky.  Geeky is more like it.  Thank goodness I never had braces or wore glasses!

How many times did a guy from my high school ask me for a date?  Zero.

How many dances did I attend where a boy asked me to dance?  Zip.

Going away to college where no one knew me changed all that.  There was the sorority, the fraternity where I was a little sister, the college newspaper editor who wrote a front page story about me as a way to ask me out, the month I never made it home because I had an average of five dates (with different guys) in a weekend.  Yes, average.

But deep down there is still that little girl from that little town who is terrified of being alone, of not being liked.  And that, my friends, is my biggest insecurity. 

[Title taken from this.]

My Home's in Alabama*

*See Alabama.

No Noise Is Good Noise

Technology is amazing.  Apparently the forecasters are able to predict days in advance the massive storms, whether snowpocalypse in the mid-Atlantic two years ago or the tornadoes across the South in the last few days.  An update from FEMA came to my email inbox yesterday warning about severe storm in Alabama today.

After leaving work early today in advance of a possible tornado watch, I couldn't tear my eyes away from the computer.  The streaming weather report from a news station in Birmingham ran in the background as other weather sites were checked.  The long track tornado began in eastern Mississippi following I-20/59 northeast through downtown Tuscaloosa, near the airport in Birmingham, and the United Methodist Church in Goshen.

Watching the videos that became available, my mind raced to my childhood, growing up traveling those roads, visiting those towns with my parents to visit family friends, eating at the Krispy Kreme in Tuscaloosa.  I know those places.  As the tornado made its way along the general path of the interstate, I didn't want to stop watching until it was certain that my hometown was safe.  As a genealogist, my concern and worry even touched on the old graveyards where my ancestors are buried.  Who would right their headstones if the tornado hit the cemetery?

As the tornado tracked to the south of my hometown, my attention turned to possible tornadic activity a few counties away from my current home.  It's quiet out there right now.  Please no freight train noise during the night. 

Saint Gaelic

I just realized that when something is bugging me I don't/can't wait until the next day to blog about it (if I've already posted one today).

Take today for instance.  For the past three nights Mr. Gaelic and I have been called saints by several parents.  The latest ordeal began last Saturday night when Dierdre and her two friends Alice and Lori were planning on spending the night at Lori's house.  They were all downtown with their boyfriends before they were to head back to Lori's when they ran into another friend, Jordan.

Jordan is a very petite blonde who was adopted from Russia by a single mother.  There has always been some sort of drama surrounding Jordan and her mom.  The biggest was last summer when Jordan ran away and moved in with a boyfriend several years her senior.  Two other mothers became involved before Jordan was returned to her own mother.

Last Saturday, Jordan told the three girls that her mother had said it was alright for her to sleep over at Lori's too.  Lori's mom asked Jordan if it was okay when all the girls showed up.

On Sunday while Mr. Gaelic and I were sitting in church, my cellphone rang.  We had left Maeve at home because she was tired from babysitting the night before.  I didn't answer my phone but shoved it deeper into my purse to muffle it.  Turns out that the police were at my house and wanted Maeve to call us.

Jordan's mom had called in a missing person's report on her.  The police had gone to all the places that she had been known to go.  Apparently they hit our house before hitting Lori's house.  That's where they found her.

Deirdre and Alice, who returned from the sleepover just after I arrived home, were telling me the whole story (which, believe it or not, I've shortened here) when the police pulled up in front of my house again.  This time Jordan got out of the cruiser and walked to our door and the police drove away.  No how-do-you-do, no nothin' from the police.

Jordan and her mom needed a cooling off period.  It was agreed that Jordan would stay with Alice for two nights and with us for three nights.  Mr. Gaelic talked to her about what her plan was.  She had none.

Mr. Gaelic is the only male in her life.  Her mother is a never-married woman; Lori's father died 11 months ago; Alice found out about her father's affair before her mom did and he moved in with his much-younger girlfriend.  But Jordan needs more help than any of our skill sets allows.

In talking to her mom today for almost an hour, she and I decided that we would drive Jordan to her mom's house this evening.  I don't know whether Jordan will stay or leave again.  As much as I would like to help, she just can't stay here another night.  And I'm not about to turn her out on the street. 

This is what I was actually writing about the other day with the tractor-beam parents and the lighthouse parents.  I really have come to appreciate lighthouses.  They can be the saviors of many.  But still some ships are lost at sea.  I'm ready to hand back my sainthood.

There's a Light, Over at the Gaelic's Place

A couple of years ago, the adult ed hour at our parish was led by a phenomenal woman who works as a chaplain at a local private school.  Her talk was about children and parents and relationships.

She said there are two types of parents -- tractor beam parents and lighthouse parents.  Remember the scene in Star Wars when the Millennium Falcon gets caught in the Death Star's tractor beam and pulled into the landing bay?  That's like a tractor beam parent. 

They are intent on making the child into what they think the child should be and do and learn and say and befriend.  They latch onto the child and draw that child into their ways, their beliefs.  The children aren't allowed to fully become their own person.

Now imagine a lighthouse.  What does a lighthouse do?  It stands on a craggy outcropping shining its light out into the darkness.  If a ship were to go toward the lighthouse, what would happen to the ship?  It would be destroyed on the rocks.  Ships see the light from the lighthouse and know that the light is leading them to safer waters, not drawing the ships toward danger.

Finola, who sat in on the discussion, claimed that she was the lighthouse to many of her friends.  She thought that being a lighthouse is a very tough position to be in as a teen among peers.  Perhaps she was born old, more mature.

Being a lighthouse parent is also a hard row to hoe.  We've tried to be lighthouses for our children.  Recently we've been shoved into the lighthouse role for Deirdre's friends.  I see the tractor beam of the other parents.  They want their children to be what they want the children to be.  And the children rebel in various and sundry ways, often reaching out to us "the cool parents".

We are no less strict than other parents.  We just know when to pick our battles and which battles are more important than others.  Parenting is a difficult and sometimes thankless job.  I am encouraged by the knowledge that my children's friends feel comfortable enough to seek refuge in the calmer water to which we can lead them. 

With time, perhaps the tractor beam parents and their rebellious children will learn to live with each other's differences.

The Rusty Gael

For someone who gave up drinking months ago, having one little drink is a lot.  I'm a bit rusty at holding my liquor.  Last night was a scotch tasting event in conjunction with the Christmas parade, which is today. 

At the event, distributors bring in several of their single malts.  Dewar's and Johnnie Walker were there as well, but moving on to the real scotch . . .  There was Aberfeldy, Balvenie, Glenmorangie, Macallan, Laphroaig, Craggenmore, Dalmore, Dalwhinnie, Glenfiddich, Talisker, Glenlivit, Highland Park, and a few more that I can't remember.  The tastes are served in thimble-sized plastic cups.  So not really enough to make a full drink. 

It's also used as a meet-and-greet by the local politicians.  The mayor, various city council members, school board members, muckity mucks, they were all on hand.  The food was, well, what's the word I'm looking for . . . forgettable.  Unfortunately in past years the heavy hors d'oeuvres were enough for a light supper. 

My usual ritual is to compare the less peaty ones as I work my way around the room.  Why I continue to this I do not know.  My favorites include everything from Glenkinchie to Dalwhinnie to Oban to Balvenie.  Never ever put a dram of Laphroaig or Ardbeg under my nose. 

After I determine my favorite of the evening, with two thimble fulls in hand, I make a beeline back to the Dewar's table that I purposefully skip.  In my opinion, blended scotch isn't scotch but a travesty.  At the Dewar's table, my request is simple -- two thimbles of Drambuie.  All four thimble are swirled together in a larger cup (that they have for water and sodas).  Four or five cubes of ice.  Perfection. 

That's it.  I'm done for.  Take me home, James.

How the Grinch Saved Christmas

My daddy told tales from his childhood of putting up the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve.  In the old Cary Grant-Loretta Young version of "The Bishop's Wife", they decorate the tree on Christmas Eve.  Donna Reed and kids are decorating the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve when Jimmy Stewart comes in with trouble from the bank examiner.  According to Anglican church tradition, Christmas decorations don't go up until after all four Sundays in Advent have been celebrated.

This year we're following suit. 

It seems that the Christmas creep gets earlier and earlier every year.  Stores were decorated this year even before Hallowe'en.  The week before Thanksgiving there were at least two houses in our neighborhood in full Christmas-light regalia.  Some of my high school friends asked on Facebook whether the day before Thanksgiving was too early to put up the tree.  And some of my close friends put theirs up on Black Friday.

Through the years, I've begun feeling that people seem to be hanging onto Christmas a bit too much.  They try to milk every last drop of party time out of December and leave up the lights on their houses until St. Valentine's Day.  I'm reminded of the Chip and Dale cartoon where they wished for Christmas to happen every day.  After a while it got old.

To appreciate the specialness of the season, it must be fleeting.  To appreciate the happiness of Christmas, we must remember Good Friday.  For to really understand and have a gauge for happiness one must understand grief and sadness.

[This is where my mind races off in tangents about non-Christians, especially those raised in the church who never darken the church door, adorning their living rooms with evergreen trees and giving presents to each other on December 25th.  But that's another rant, er, I mean, blog.]

So in these days of Advent, there is going out a decree from Mrs. Gaelic that all the Gaelic household shall observe Advent during Advent and Christmas during Christmas.  There will be no pop-guns, bikes, roller skates, or drums, no checkerboards, trikes, popcorn, or plums.  No presents, no ribbon, no wrappings.  No tags, no tinsel, no trimming, no trappings.  Not one little speck of the holiday season.  Not 'til the calendar says it's time for the Christmas season.

[Yeah, yeah, I know I'm mixing my allusions here.]

While everyone else in the world (so it seems) is decorating their trees, and mantles, and banisters, and front doors, we'll be lighting purple and pink candles.  And while everyone else in the world (so it seems from past years) will be flooding the stores for 75% off Christmas merchandise, we'll be just getting started with our celebration. 

I may sound like the Grinch with my stern decree.  But for twelve short days, my family will know that Christmas is here for only the briefest of moments before being swept away into the gift-giving season of Epiphany.

Ashes to Ashes, Mortar to Dust

I was alone as I approached.  Where I stopped there were what looked like the remains of a campfire near my foot on the sidewalk.  First, there was just me.  Then another woman, then a third woman and her two dogs, then a fourth woman.  We stood and tried to come up with new adjectives to describe how we felt.  Devastated was the consensus word.

Before us was the front wall with its steep pitched point topped with an ironwork cross.  Above the patterned bricks was the rose window.  Or where the rose window should have been.  Yet we were held back by yellow Police Line tape.

When a historic church burns in America, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms is called in to investigate.  The vehicles were visible between two other buildings.  A lone police officer sat in his cruiser watching us.

We stood silent taking in the unimaginable.  The slate shingles still covered bits of the roof.  But over 80% of the roof was gone.  Replaced with the skeleton of blackened rafters. 

Journalists somehow manage to accurately and vividly describe the aftermath of such a fire.  But like a surgeon who won't operate on a family member, it's difficult to put words to the emotions that welled up in my chest and brought tears to my eyes.

The doors were always unlocked.  Finola would walk to the chapel after school to practice on the beautiful pipe organ.  For organ aficionados, it was a tracker.  Even worse, it was a Fisk.

As I stood looking in complete dejection, I wracked my brain trying to remember whether the Pascal Candle was always lit whenever I would pick up Finola after practice.  Maybe the chapel had knob-and-tube wiring that finally gave out.  The thought of someone carelessly tossing a cigarette or match or anything into a plastic trash can crossed my mind but I couldn't entertain the thought without a sick feeling coming over me.

Many were the days that I'd sit in a quire stall listening to the last practice piece as the cleaning ladies polished the pews with oil until the wood glistened.  I'd read the inscriptions below the stained glass.  Or the exhortation above the altar.  "Go ye into the world and preach the gospel."

A church is gone.  The church will survive.  A church is a building.  The church is the people.  The church community is strong, with deep roots and branches that stretch around the world.  Graduates have gone into all corners of the world.  The Good News is that no one was hurt. 

The Good News is that even a horrible fire of a beloved chapel cannot extinguish our hope and our love and our communtiy.  Even in ashes, the chapel brought together four strangers on a beautiful fall day. 

It Was Nine Years Ago Today

Remember where you were exactly nine years ago today, the tenth of September 2001?  Me either.  But I remember the feeling.

It was an innocence much like growing up in the 1970s in the rural South.  A time when, subconsciously, you knew that there was something going on in the world but you weren't sure what. 

My father insisted that I stop playing in the backyard to watch breaking news of some airplane landing on an airstrip in a distant country, a man walking down the steps, and kneeling on all fours to kiss the ground.  My father pumped gas that cost 37¢ a gallon into our AMC Gremlin and complained when the price shot up.  My father plowed several rows of vegetables at my grandfathers farm and got upset when the collard greens had more holes than greens.

I didn't understand my own innocence until the next day and the years that followed.  I felt like I had been thrust unwillingly into a maturity and adulthood that I didn't want or even know existed.  My former innocence was a flickering memory. 

As in an old cartoon when a character gets hit over the head and forgets everything only to get hit over the head and have his memory restored, it took another large event to return my innocence to me.  During the summer, my neighborhood experienced a weather disaster that left everyone without electricity for 48 hours. 

As darkness engulfed the individual houses, the neighbors on my block gathered on a centrally located porch lit with candles and glo-sticks for the kids.  One neighbor hauled over their fire pit to the hosting neighbor's front walk.  Everyone brought out their best scotch, tequila, wine, marshmallows, ice cream, and cheese. 

Nine years ago tomorrow, our innocence was attacked because of how we lived.  We were one of the few countries in the world that didn't have armed military patrolling our airports.  We went about our daily lives without our children learning how to duck and cover.  We celebrated our achievements and shared our innovations (the Internet, GPS, heart-valve surgery, Velcro, the light bulb, the assembly line) with the world.  We were a bit cocky and a bit too big from our britches.  But we were happy.  And that happiness really vexed others who weren't happy with their own lives. 

If living well is the best revenge, then reclaiming our national happiness and our former innocence is the ultimate victory.  Some people may accuse me of Pollyannaness or being an ostrich with my head in the sand.  Perhaps.  But in the 1970s, my father, who was active in the local civic theatre, portrayed The Mime in The Fantasticks.  The most memorable song from that play keeps running through my head today.

Try to remember the kind of September

When life was slow and oh, so mellow.

Try to remember the kind of September

When grass was green and grain was yellow.

Try to remember the kind of September

When you were a tender and callow fellow.

Try to remember, and if you remember,

Then follow.

Street Dreams (Are Made of This)

Do you have a recurring dream?  My dreams aren't usually the exact same dream so much as a theme.  They typically are about houses and graveyards.  But in a good way. 

All types of houses - palatial, modern, gothic, cramped, secluded, etc.  Exploring the layout of the houses.  Upon awakening from a house dream, I'd be able to draw a blue print of the house in my dream and vividly describe every detail, piece of furniture and speck of dust. 

The graveyards in my dreams aren't the spooky, cobweb-covered nightmarish kind.  They're the kind with old markers, that I'm usually eagerly discovering on crisp fall days with lots of golden leaves in the trees and on the ground.  The kind of cemetery where I feel peaceful and am wanting to uncover bits of my family history.

But the past few months my dreams have been about a large city.  It's a city that seems familiar but isn't a city I've been to in waking life.  It's bustling with lots of cars and buses and taxis and pedestrians.  In my dreams, I've visited different areas of the same city. 

Last night it was a beautiful museum next to a small river.  I was so overtaken by the beauty of the scenery of the shops and parks just across the river that I didn't make it inside the museum, instead framing pictures in my camera's viewfinder looking through weeping willow branches.

Yes, yes.  I know what each dream "means".  Houses usually relate to oneself and personality.  Graveyards typically relate to unresolved grief.  Cities generally relate to community and one's social environments.

But do you think that this could be a case of a cigar being a cigar?  As a child, I wanted to be an architect and to this day still love drawing floor plans for my dream home (no pun intended).  I'm a genealogist who adores working in graveyards.  And I love to travel, often to large cities to experience new cultures.

Either that, or I'm a person with an ever-changing personality, who is grieving over someone or something, but who has a large circle of friends and opportunities.  I'll stick with the cigar theory.

In My (Real) Life

Facebook is the number one online social network in the world. Truth in advertising – I use Facebook as well. I have over 400 “friends” on Facebook. Some of my “friends” have well over 1,000 of their own friends. In actual reality, I have about twenty friends. Of those twenty, only three do I consider close friends.

I can tell when my friends or I am taking a mental vacay because I (like them) am very apt to take inane quizzes such as “Which Sex and the City Girl Are You?” Or “What Decade Are You?” Other folks tend toward Farmville or Sorority Life or some other virtual reality game. Secretly, I love when my friends post their game updates. There’s a way to hide those updates on the news feed but only when they show up in your news feed first.

As of late, I’ve been using Facebook as a news aggregator. I get my news updates and fixes from my select organizations. But the problem is that those pesky “friend” updates get in the way of the newsy updates. Like the guy that went to my high school but graduated two years after me. Or my daughter’s former lacrosse team member’s mother. It’s not that I’m easy and can’t say no. It’s that I was a closet “friend” collector, trying to fulfill the saying that “She who dies with the most friends wins.” In my old age, I’m becoming more like Thoreau and his three chairs.

My conclusion? I plan to ruthlessly unfriend many of my Facebook “friends”. My cousin’s high school sweetheart? Gone. My former co-worker who now lives in Greece? Gone. Two friends from actual reality who have since passed away? As much as I love their memories, their Facebook pages have become remembrances by people who can’t seem to come to grips with their own mortality. Gone.

After all, as Samuel Johnston said, True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice.

Tell Me Are You a Christain Child?

My second daughter was supposed to do the yard work in order to gain her freedom from the most recent grounding. She was supposed to do it Saturday.

Saturday came and went. No yard work. Sunday came and went. No yard work. Monday. No yard work. The wisteria was beginning to grow across the front gate making it impossible to open.

As I was pushing the mower yesterday, a woman handed me a flier about a neighborhood Southern Baptist church. I told her I was an Episcopalian.

"Do y'all believe in God and Jesus?"

"Um," stunned for a moment. "Yes, we do."

Blank stare on her part.

"We were one of the first Protestant churches."

Continued blankness.

"Like when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the church door?" hoping it would jog something in her memory.

More blankness.

"He was a German Catholic priest or monk who wanted to reform the Catholic church, which began the Protestant Reformation."

"So you're a Christian?"

How can people be so ignorant of history? Especially the history of their own denomination?

When I recounted the story to our youth minister at church last night, he told me there are some people who don't think Catholics are Christian. When several major branches of the Christian Church are in ecumenical communication, it seems very isolationist to consider one's denomination to be the One True Church.

As she turned to leave, I thought how sad that her daughter standing beside her might turn out just as ignorant. But any hope for future generations was dashed as she told me she was a teacher.

And people wonder what they're teaching kids in school these days? Ignorance must be bliss to some people.

Light a Candle

For those of you who haven't seen this elsewhere, it's very powerful. Check out the video here. Then check out the website here.

Life Stinks

Baruch dayan emet (Blessed is the one true Judge). Into your hands, O Lord, we commend our brother (sister). Allaahumma ighfir lihaayina wa mayitina wa shaahidina wa ghaa’ibina wa sagheerina wa kabeerina wa dhakarina wa unthaana (O Allah, forgive our living and our dead, those who are present among us and those who are absent, our young and our old, our males and our females). Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant(s) with thy saints, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.

Those words, which should give comfort, have been spoken by me and too many of my friends recently. Within the last twelve months, we have lost a wife, a father, a mother, an actress, and are now close to losing another mother. In the last two years, I have sat Shiva with both a young mother of three six-year-old-and-under daughters and an older daughter who had an astonishing tale to tell about her extraordinary mother. I took food to homes and our fellowship hall for parishioners’ families’ meals and receptions.

Just yesterday a neighborhood friend walked up with her dog and my god-dog. I was surprised to see her with my dear friend’s dog. She informed me that the reason was that my friend and her family had gone to New York to see my friend’s mother who might not be with us as I type these words. It’s ironic how two Upper East Side transplants from across the Atlantic were/are both in hospital in New York and one is mourned by the world while the other will be mourned by only those who knew and loved her personally.

I will take food again and sit Shiva again and shed tears not only for my friend and her mother but for my neighbor and her mother and for me and my father. I will help her understand the pain and the labor that grieving requires of us. And I will be thankful that she has a strong synagogue community to support her.

My own thank you notes sit unwritten in a box from the funeral home which the funeral director topped with a picture of my father. Another friend told me that the thank you notes are the finality of death. Writing them is to acknowledge that your loved one is gone. I’m not to that point yet. I’m in limbo – that dreadfully depressing time after the casseroles stop coming, when everyone expects you to be “back to normal”.

There is no more normal for some of us. We are now widows and widowers, motherless daughters and adult orphans. We have been left alone by the world because we aren’t always up and happy. People don’t like to be reminded that there is sadness and grief and anger and any other emotion than happiness. Depending on your religious beliefs, our dearly departed are in a better place, free from pain, rejoicing in the Everlasting Light. But those of us left behind need nurturing and caring and checking in on.

Next time you ask us, “How are you,” look us in the eye and mean it. Ask it with conviction and a real desire to know how we’re doing. And don’t let time and society dictate when we’re supposed to be fine. Sit with us for a week. Pray for us for four months. And check up on us on holidays and birthdays and anniversaries. And slowly, hopefully, we’ll be able to answer you back is an honest “I’m okay.”