The Paris Room Dress-up Trunk
"Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home." Edith Sitwell
It's cold.
The kind of cold that surrounds one like an arctic plunge, a chilled-to-the-bone sort of experience, and I'm thrilled. I love the cold. I'm Swedish. It's clearly a genetic thing, along with a passion for dark chocolate, warm fires, and coffee. Throw in a good book, and we're talking heaven.
In the winter, I'm insulted by the things I love, and I have a great excuse to curl up by the fire, munch on pistachios, and read. What more could a girl want? Okay, there are a few things, like answers, revelations, and egregious good luck. Here's what I've been chewing on, reading, and exploring. I've listed them for you in no particular order but as a courtesy. You're welcome.
One: When my washer and dryer go off simultaneously, they whistle as if a duet, a clear, high-pitched rendition of Howdy Doody Time. It never fails to crack me up. I'm what you call a comedian's dream. Regardless, it reminds me that I have to rotate something. The thing is, we're always rotating something. Right? Our schedules, the expired ketchup in the back of the frig, nail appointments, the tires on our cars, the garbage cans, what we're planting in the garden, flower arrangements, bikinis and coats, bedding, library books, jewelry, even the planet we live on rotates.
Is God trying to make us dizzy, or are we just a giant pool ball rolling around the universe, avoiding the black holes?
Maybe I'm missing something, or the washing machine is the perfect metaphor for life. We're created as cyclical entities. Think wash, soak, spin, dry. Conception, birth, growth, death. Everyone is part of this cosmic never-ending cycle. In fact, we agitate each other, but that's a good thing because, in this metaphor, it removes stains. Hint; don't forget the softener ~ kindness.
Two: Larry and I are watching Fargo. It's a combination of intriguing, gruesome, horrible, and alarming. At the beginning of each episode, they tell you it is based on a true story. Of course, they change the names to protect the survivors, but everything else is "supposedly" factual (I remain skeptical, but that's just me).
The problem is just about every character is either chronically evil, stupid (and I don't use that word lightly), a bully, naive, incompetent, or animalistic, and they all hide behind a facade of Minnisotian kindness. There are a few people I would consider normal, possibly four, and I can't stop watching because, on some level, I relate to all of them. I'm complicated and I rotate my disposition as if the weather.
Don't we all?
Somehow Fargo is cold and desolate and comforting and sweet all at once. Oh, and the best part, they rotate the cast every season along with the cases they are trying to solve because we live in a cyclical universe, and we might get bored otherwise. I hear Jon Hamm is staring in the 5th season for those of you who miss Mad Men. Just sayin'
Three: I've had a breakthrough. I can't give you the nitty gritty details because it would be so obvious as to who and what it's about, as if trying to conceal a gigantic pimple on the end of my nose. All I can say is pain has a mind of its own, it's fertile, and when it plants itself in the heart, it's as if a cancer with a grotesque growth rate.
I was discussing this with a very wise friend. You know who you are, and I thank you. When I told her I was shocked to discover the fruit of all that septic pain was compassion, it was as if an unknown work was happening within me all along.
She said, "What changed?"
I said, "I asked for help."
She laughed and said, "When you need help, it matters who you ask."
Hint, when all else fails, rotate your resources, as in stop doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That's insane.
Four: I'm rereading To Bless The Space Between Us by John O'Donohue. It's an exquisite book of blessings for just about everything a human can experience, written for an ecumenical audience, with words that speak to everyone. It's the reason I asked for help with the above situation because he says, "The words of blessing can not reach, even as echoes, to the shore of where you are." You have to reach out to the love that waits for you.
O'Donohue says, "Your life is treasured beyond every frontier of despair you have crossed."
The morning blessing on page nine is worth reading every damn day. On retirement, he says this is where your life has arrived. I love that. And on marriage, he writes, you can bring each other's hearts to birth. I know. It's a gem. I rotate it into my reading cycle every year. It's that good, and it lives on my nightstand as a handy source of wisdom, an undeserved blessing, if you will.
Five: I don't know what sort of fuel has lit my fire, but I'm all a blaze for simplicity. Okay, when you stop laughing, I'll explain. It started with a wayward intention to repurpose (another word for rotate) one hundred things that I'm no longer using. Not just trash things I don't need but repurpose the things that might be of use to someone else.
My niece, my shoes, adorable.
It started with a darling pair of shoes that were too tight for me, and I offered them to my niece, who doesn't have gigantic feet and has actually been wearing them. She even sent me a pic (above)! I cleaned out the dress-up trunk in the grandkid's Paris suite. Some things had to be trashed, but others are going to the Good Will. Yes, I ordered new Paris apparel, but that's not the point.
I'm rotating, which, as we know, is God's plan. I sort of gave Kelley a pair of beloved sandals, she actually took them without my permission, but I spotted them when we were in New York. So that counts. I gave my sister-in-law a set of knives I no longer need, and I'm donating some Christmas decorations to the Good Will. It's a start. I plan to tackle not only my closet but the hall closet and the medicine cabinet next. I realize all of those have been on the list for a loooong time, but this time I'm rotating, and that makes all the difference. I'll keep you posted.
Six: I realize it's trending. Some would say it's horribly cliche and driven by something other than one's inner counsel, but we decided to do it anyway. I suspect we're testing our ability to abstain from our favorite evening ritual as if moths mesmerized by a tantalizing flame. So here we are, rotating alcohol for sparkling flavored water and tea with honey. It's referred to as Dry January in most parts of the country, and it is not referring to a dry Sauvignon Blanc.
Of course, we started late, and we'll probably end early, but one week in, we are no longer claimed by "a simplicity, sinister in its singularity," as John O'Donohue so cleverly describes. Alcohol takes control rather quickly, as if a Tesla that knows how to drive itself, but ends up steering you in the wrong direction. We're actually enjoying the break, basking in the warmth of new shores and the gentle waves of clarity. Oh, and bonus, we're less testy with each other, I'm more amicable, and he's not as cantankerous. So there's that.
Seven: It's winter, and let me just say the dry, crisp, and cool temperatures are delightful for Scandinavians but hell for people who suffer from psoriasis. The truth is I want to show off my skin again, possibly in a few months, when we attend a wedding in Sayulita, Mexico, in late February. So I did what everyone has been schooling me to do, rotate my doctor.
I made an appointment with a new doctor, who happens to be in our network, and I went to see her on Monday. Her assistant, Mary, was divine, and we hit it off instantly. I have what you call white coat syndrome, and it wreaks havoc with my blood pressure. I told her not to call 911 but to try it again. She indulged me, told me to close my eyes this time, and it worked. I was back in a normal range. Whew!
After going through my entire medical history with a fine tooth comb, they gave me a referral to a dermatologist who has quite the success rate for impossible rashes! If he can heal my sores, I'll consider it a miracle. Then Mary (isn't that a provocative name) came back with two shots, and I said, "This is why I have white coat syndrome." She laughed and stuck me anyway. Mary's no pushover.
Eight: I'm reading simultaneously a book by Ursula K. Le Guin, of whom I'm completely obsessed, called Dancing On The Edge Of The World. I was specifically enthralled with her essay entitled Women in the Wilderness, it's about the unknown experience of Women.
Le Guin says, "All we can do is try to speak it, try to say it, try to save it. Look, we say, this land is where your mother lived and where your daughters will live. This is your sister's country. You lived there as a child --have you forgotten? You lived in the wild country. Why are you afraid of it?"
She talks about the two separate crescents that women and men populate separately and the civilized space that overlaps. Ursula stresses that we know all about the men's crescent because that is what the legends of the culture are about, but the women's crescent is still unknown because historically, she says, "This is the group within the culture that is not spoken [about], whose experience is not considered to be part of human experience." Le Guin notes that something is changing, rotating if you will, and the voices of the muted crescent are on the rise. If you're worried, it's a good thing, because our search history is about to change.
We all know that our crazy rotating planet is a messy place to live, there's pain and suffering, but it's also beautiful and unpredictable, both a blessing and a curse. We all suffer, not with the same circumstances, but in ways uniquely ours, situations possibly designed to help us to grow and evolve should we dare to perceive them as opportunities instead of pimples on the tip of the nose.
Maybe life is just random, chaotic, and completely arbitrary, but I like to believe there is a design to all things, like the heart that has four distinct chambers, but they're interconnected. It's designed to constantly rotate our blood. The heart receives the depleted red liquid, oxygenates it, and sends it out again to nourish the body. How cool is that?
This world is spinning so fast it makes you dizzy trying to comprehend it all. I do like the fact that God fashioned seasons that rotate, I realize they sort of blend in California, but nevertheless, we've learned to be more discerning.
The winter is a time to rest, rejuvenate, and prune, so we're ready for the spring. It's part of a cosmic rotation designed to keep us moving through the cycles, stagnation is death, movement is life. When we're lost in the dark night of the soul cycle, remember the light of the moon can guide us home. I'm sure when my final cycle is over, I'll get a Howdy Doody Time alert, one I won't be able to ignore because I'm beginning to believe that the final rotation is not the end, but the beginning of an entirely new journey. Don't worry. It'll all come out in the wash.
I'm Living in the Gap, looking forward to our discussion, what cycle are you in?
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