Show & Tell: This year's Christmas card

As I explained in a Show & Tell post last year about my Christmas card strategy, I almost always know my Christmas card for the year when I see it. In past years, Classic Pooh has been a favourite theme, but Pooh designs seem to be in short supply this year, at least hereabouts.

I found my last year's card at a Chapters/Indigo store, and I saw one design I liked at a Chapters store, during the week that we were on vacation last month. Mid-October seemed a tad early to be buying Christmas cards, though (!!), & I decided to look around just a little bit longer. I'm glad I did, because another Indigospirit store I was browsing in recently had a card I had not yet seen at the other store -- one that stopped me dead in my tracks to say, "Yes, THAT one."

I went back & practically cleared out their supply today. (It's STILL awfully early, but I didn't want to go back two weeks from now & not be able to find it.) Like last year's card, it's by Papyrus. It's called "Little Boy Pulling Red Sled" -- but I think it could very easily be a little GIRL pulling the sled, don't you? ; )

The message inside reads, "May the simple joys of the season be yours/Happy Holidays."

It was more expensive than the Hallmark cards I usually buy -- but so worth it.

To see what others are showing & telling this week, pop over to the Stirrup Queen's blog.

(A Place to) Hide Away

After writing that last post earlier in the day, the fragment of a song, in Karen Carpenter's achingly beautiful, crystalline voice, started sounding from the recesses of my memory: "I need to find a place to hide away."

So I Googled "The Carpenters lyrics I need a place to hide away" & up popped the lyrics to "Hideaway," from a 1971 album by The Carpenters -- which I still have somewhere, in vinyl (but haven't played in many years).

Tonight at home, I did some more Googling & on You Tube I found this clip from 1971, from their summer TV series, "Make Your Own Kind of Music" (which I remember watching at my grandmother's house). She was just 21 years old when she sang this.

I always loved The Carpenters, & I have several of their albums. The one Christmas (1983) that dh & I were apart, before we were married, I listened to "Merry Christmas Darling" obsessively. God, what a voice. What a loss to the world when she died.

Hideaway

I've got to find a place to hideaway
Far from the shadows of my mind
Sunlight and laughter, love ever after
For how I long to find a place to hideaway

I hear you whisper and I must obey,
Blindly follow where you'll be
Knowing tomorrow brings only sorrow
Where can I go to find a place to hideaway

Bright colored pinwheels go round in my head
I run through the mist of the wine
The night and the music remind me instead
The world once was mine

I'll save my pennies for a rainy day
But where can I buy another you?
Dreams are for sleeping
Love is for weeping
Oh, how I long to find a place to hideaway.

The world beyond my front door

Talk about cocooning. I think dh & I could be the poster children for it. Most nights, we come home from work (perhaps stopping at the supermarket en route to pick up whatever we need for dinner that night), close the front door & don't open it again until the next morning. Especially at this time of the year, when the weather gets cold and dark.

Safe and snug inside our cozy cocoon, it's easy to shut out the rest of the world, to focus on each other, and on the good things we share in our life together.

Even if we don't have the children we once dreamed about.

One summer evening, a few years ago, we had to go out around 7:30 p.m. As we drove past several schools, we were somewhat amazed at what we saw. Streets lined with cars, spilling out of parking lots. Field after field, full of children in motion, wearing brightly covered jerseys, playing soccer or baseball. Throngs of parents standing or sitting along the sidelines, in canvas lawn chairs, clutching portable mugs of coffee and video cameras, cheering them on.

It really hit me then: there was a whole world out there that, until that point -- sheltered as we were in our cozy, childless cocoon -- we really weren't aware existed. (Dimly, perhaps, but not in a real, tangible way.) A world beyond our grasp, beyond our comprehension.

I was reminded of that day a few weeks ago, when we were on vacation. We decided to get up early (the vacation equivalent of early!) one day & take the train into the city. Normally, we head for the train around 6:30 a.m.; this day, it was two hours later. On the main road near our house, there are two high schools -- a Catholic high school to the north of us and a public high school to the south of us.

At 6:30 a.m., the sidewalks are mostly empty, aside from the occasional early morning jogger or dogwalker. At 8:30 a.m., the sidewalks were teaming with teenagers, travelling in both directions -- lugging backpacks, shivering in too-thin jackets, kilts hiked thigh-high (Catholic) and jeans slung low (public), sneaking cigarettes and trying to look cool (both)(some things never change in 30+ years….). Traffic, too, was much heavier, much to dh's amazement. Once again, we marvelled at this whole world that we were unaware of, coming to life while we were already at work in our cubicles in the city.

I had similar thoughts as I watched the excited trick or treaters outside my door on Saturday night, beaming parents bearing cameras hovering behind them. (Smile on my face. Tears occasionally stinging at my eyes.)

There's a whole world beyond my doorstep that I really know nothing about (just as they know very little about the life dh & I lead).

We might have ideas about what each other's lives are like. We can guess. We can speculate. But we don't really know.

I can watch. I can observe. I can hover around the edges. I suppose if I really wanted to, I could venture out with a friend or relative while they take their children trick or treating.

But it wouldn't be the same.

It's a world I cannot really enter, can't really take part in.

A world that briefly tantallized me, with all of its promises.

A world that isn't, and never will be, mine.

Blogoversary #2!

Two years ago last night, I took the plunge. I'd been setting things up for a day or so, but after the trick-or-treaters had gone home and we closed the front door and turned off the lights, I came upstairs to the computer & hit "publish" on my very first blog post.

I intended to do the same last night -- but after the last kids had left our doorstep & we closed up shop for the night, I got watching "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" on TV for the umpteenth time -- & after a half-hour of that, following a full day of cleaning, laundry & getting ready for the big night ahead, I was exhausted, so I crawled into bed around 10.

(I've only ever seen the entire movie all the way through once or twice -- including once at a decrepid old theatre on Main Street in downtown Winnipeg in about 1982, where we squirted water pistols & hurled toast & toilet paper & yelled at the screen (and Winnipeggers will know what I mean when I talk about Main Street -- I kept my feet off the floor through almost the entire movie because I was afraid a rat would run over it). But whenever it's on -- which is usually on or around Halloween -- I simply have to watch it, at least up to "Time Warp" (which was always played at our university residence socials) followed by Tim Curry strutting his stuff through "Sweet Transvestite," & I'm good for another year.)

("Phantom of the Paradise" was on at 11, but I couldn't stay awake for that. It was a huge, HUGE hit when I was in junior high in the mid-1970s -- I can still sing along to the soundtrack. I did not realize until many years later that it was actually a flop everywhere in the world except, oddly, for Winnipeg/Manitoba. Go figure. Anyone else ever see it? )

Anyway -- including that very first post and this one, it's now 330 posts later. (165 posts a year, about 14 a month or one every other day on average. Not bad.) When I wrote that very first post, I stated two intentions: (1) to add my voice to the few I could find, articulating the view of women (& men) who remain childless/free after infertility, & (2) to participate in Mel's next book tour. Although I didn't articulate it at the time, I was also looking for an outlet as I approached the 10-year "anniversary" of my daughter's stillbirth.

I've written about all these things and more -- some IF/loss related, some not. And I've loved every minute of it. I don't always get to write (or to read or comment on your blogs) as often as I like -- "real life" has this nasty habit of intruding, lol -- but, as I said last year, on the occasion of Blogoversary #1:

Blogging has been the release & record I sought -- and more. It has been a blessing in my life. I did not know who, if anyone, would care to read my blog, and I didn't start out with the intention of writing for an audience. The blog is, first and foremost, for me. But it's been gratifying to read your comments, to feel your support, to know you're out there struggling with the same issues and feelings too -- that you understand.

Thanks again for reading/listening & commenting!

And this year's most popular Halloween costume is...

...Octomom! Put on a long dark wig (& maybe a big pair of sunglasses), & a snuggli filled with eight baby dolls, and voila!

Someone posted a photo they'd seen on a message board I frequent, & now at least two people on the board have picked up the idea & are making their own Octomom costumes for Halloween parties, or to wear when trick or treating with their kids.

Part of me thinks it's hilarious, & a brilliant idea.

Part of me cringes. I hate to see that woman get any more publicity than she already has. I hate to see infertility and multiple births treated as a joke.

(Last year, the costume du jour was Sarah Palin: put your hair up in a librarian's bun, add a pair of glasses & wear a business suit with an American flag pin. And lipstick. Very important.)

Last year, I posted about how unexpectedly painful Halloween was for me. I honestly don't know how I feel about it this year. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

What do Iraq war veterans and bereaved moms have in common?

I've read so many great articles lately where I keep thinking, "I should blog about this." And then the paper gets thrown out & I can't remember which paper it was in, etc.

Fortunately, I did make note of this one. The New York Times has a great blog called Home Fires: American Veterans on the Post-War Life, which features personal stories from Iraq war veterans. A recent entry described the challenges faced by soldiers who are re-adjusting to the civilian world. After it was published, the blog received many comments from Vietnam war vets, describing their own returns to civilian life. Some of these were highlighted in a separate blog entry, titled Coming Home Again.

On the surface, these men have nothing or very little in common with me & my readers (infertility, pregnancy loss). But reading some of their comments, I was struck once again by the "transferrability of trauma," & how much we have in common with others who have been through a traumatic experience, even though the circumstances of those experiences may be very different.

Here are a few of the quotes I could most relate to from Coming Home Again. (You'll probably see why when you read them.):

To Brian Turner, all I can say is that four decades since the year that lanced through my life, I’ve never really talked about it to anyone. I don’t recommend that. What you are doing is good. It is not that we “get over” things like this or “find ourselves” again. It is more that out of the shards and bits and broken pieces — those museum uniforms isolated behind glass — something new is fused, grown. We become what we were but so much other and hopefully more, the more having the insight of the “sailor home from the sea.”

Yeah, it would have been nice if we’d have come back as a unit and someone had walked up and said, “Welcome home” and “Do you want some coffee?” Almost
makes me cry.

— Posted by Robert S

These days I work with trauma survivors who have P.T.S.D. If they are military veterans, Blackwater cast-offs, rape victims, or clergy abuse survivors, they all have the same P.T.S.D.... Rituals help us heal from our P.T.S.D. trauma, regardless of how we got it. Native American rituals and traditional rituals help nourish and heal the soul.

Best advice to help someone with P.T.S.D.: If they talk to you about their experiences, just shut up and listen without judgment. Don’t interrupt and tell them about your own sorrows or you know someone like that. It may be the one time they are able to talk about it and heal. Don’t shut it off. Second piece of advice: sustained prayer.

— Posted by John Zemler

I felt as if I had snuck back into the U.S. from Vietnam in ‘71. My family was proud of me, but they tiptoed around a lot of questions... in a casual conversation with an Air Force colonel, he asked if I had ever served in the armed forces. I said yes, and he did the mental math and asked if I had been to Vietnam. When I said “yes” he just said “thank you.” That was the first and only time anyone had ever said that to me. I cried...

I think the Bush-era ban on returning ceremonies for soldiers killed in action bordered on criminal neglect. The British publicly honor every fallen soldier returning home. I suspect they do a better job of honoring all of their soldiers. I wish America would too.

— Posted by Robert Easton

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I left in that last pargraph, even though it doesn't really relate to the rest of the post, because it reminded me of the repatriation ceremonies that take place at a Canadian air force base, about an hour down the road from where I live. Each time a Canadian soldier is killed in Afghanistan -- and there have been more than 130 since the Afghan mission began in 2002 -- his or her body is flown to this base, where there is a "repatriation ceremony." The body is then carried in a convoy down Highway 401 to the coroner's office in Toronto, after which it is released to the family for burial. (Initially, the Conservative government -- taking their cue from the Bush government, no doubt -- wanted to ban news media from the ceremonies. They backed down after a bereaved father voiced his objections.)

Canadians are not generally a flag-waving people. But something amazing began to happen. Members of the public began lining the fence at the base to show their support for the soldiers' families. And people from communities along the 401 began to gather on the highway overpasses, bearing Canadian flags, and paying their respects as the procession passed by. Parents with young children. Veterans in dress uniforms and firefighters standing atop fire trucks, saluting.

Nobody told these people they should do this. It was entirely a grassroots thing -- one group joined by another and then another. Eventually, a newspaper photographer noticed what was happening and took some photos. (Last year on Veteran's/Remembrance Day, NBC News even ran a piece on the phenomenon.) Today, hundreds of people might be standing on & around a single highway overpass; thousands along the route -- which, since 2007, has been officially renamed "The Highway of Heroes."

I'm usually at work when these ceremonies have taken place, so I have not personally witnessed a procession. But it does travel past my community en route into the city, and I have seen the photos and television footage.

Just thinking about it -- or writing about it, as I am now -- brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat.

Thank you x3

I've been tagged with not just one, not just two, but THREE awards over the past little while from kind readers.

First, one from Rebecca of Into the Light Again. I haven't done this meme before & it looked like fun, so here it is:

Here are the rules:
1. you can only use one word!
2. pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers
3. alert them that you have given them this award!
4. have fun!


The Fun Part:

1. Where is your cell phone? purse
2. Your hair? short
3. your mother? whirlwind
4. Your father? steady
5. Your favorite food? pasta
6. Your dream last night? unremembered
7. Your favorite drink? tea
8. Your dream/goal? retirement!
9. What room are you in? "office"
10. Your hobby? scrapbooking
11. Your fear? loss
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? near-retired : ) (do hyphenated words count as one?)
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something that you aren't? assertive
15. Muffins? cornmeal
16. Wish list item? time
17. Where did you grow up? Manitoba
18. Last thing you did? TV
19. What are you wearing? sweats
20. Your TV? Sony
21. Your pets? none
22. Friends? loyal
23. Your life? good
24. Your mood? happy
25. Missing someone? always
26. Vehicle? Camry
27. Something you're not wearing? bra ; )
28. Your favorite store? Chapters
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When was the last time you laughed? tonight
31. Last time you cried? a week ago?
32. Your best friend? dh
33. One place that I go to over and over? Starbucks ; )
34. One person who emails me regularly? Mom
35. Favorite place to eat? Montana's

*** *** ***

HC of May I Say Something nominated me for the "Kreativ Blogger Award" because she likes the articles, books & news that I highlight here. I'm not sure just how truly creative that makes me ; ) but I thank her for the honour!

The rules for the award:

1) Thank the person who nominated you for this award. (Done.)
2) Copy the logo and place it on your blog. (Done.)
3) Link to the person who nominated you for this award. (Done)
4) Name 7 things about yourself that people may not know.
5) Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.
6) Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate.
7) Leave a comment on each.

Seven Things that People May Not Know About Me:

1. I'm a skincare/makeup junkie. My favourite brands include Clinique, Estee Lauder & Prescriptives -- which, sadly, is being discontinued as of January 31, 2010. (Needless to say, I have been stocking up...!) I am a complete sucker for gift-with-purchase promotions.

2. Oddly enough, although I have literally dozens of lipsticks, I tend to put some on in the morning & never remember to reapply it during the day.

3. I line up the milk cartons in the fridge with the plastic spouts facing the same way (right).

4. My LPs, cassette tapes & CDs are all filed alphabetically. (Yes, I still have all my LPs and cassettes).

5. The first album I ever got (along with a record player -- a joint Christmas gift to me & my sister) was the "Mary Poppins" soundtrack. (I can still sing all the songs.)

6. We did a stage version of "Mary Poppins" when I was in high school. I got to be Mrs. Banks (Jane & Michael's mother) & sing "Sister Suffragette."

7. The second album was a present for my 6th birthday, shortly after Christmas. It was "The Best of Herman's Hermits, Vol. II." My mother had taken me not long before that to see a Herman's Hermits movie & my best friend's older sister had one of their records. (I still have it.)

*** *** ***


And finally, Illanare of My Words Fly Up nominated me for the Honest Scrap award. I did receive this award from another blogger earlier this year, but I thank her just the same!

The rules are that you reveal 10 things not previously known about you, and pass along the award to others (number not specified).

So here are (another!) 10 things about me that you may or may not have already known (I'm starting to run out of things to list, lol):

1. Other stage roles in school productions (referring to Mrs. Banks, above) included Auntie Em and Gloria (a character not in the movie) in "The Wizard of Oz," and Josie Pye in a non-musical version of "Anne of Green Gables."

2. I played alto saxophone in our school band. And for a long time, I was the only girl saxophonist. (I was Lisa Simpson long before there was Lisa Simpson, lol.)

3. I learned to read when I was 4 (& haven't stopped since!).

4. When I was in Grade 1, they were still using Dick & Jane readers

5. I bought my first computer in 1996. (It was replace by the one I'm using right now in 2003. Almost time for a new one, I think....)

6. When I was in high school and a (gulp) Bay City Rollers fan, I had something like 100 penpals. All at once. Needless to say, most of those relationships didn't last very long (some just one exchange of letters.) This was pre-Internet, of course, so everything was written longhand & sent through the mail. My sister & our friends used to "compete" to see who had the most penpals & from where. Penpals from outside Canada & the U.S. were the most prestigious, and a penpal from Scotland was like gold.

7. I am still in touch with one penpal from those days, from New Zealand. We have been writing each other for more than 30 years, although these days, it's mostly just at Christmastime. At one time, we used to exchange letters that were 20, 40, 50 pages & longer. (Again, all written longhand, sometimes over a period of weeks....!)

8. I think I like blogging & message boards because it reminds me of those days...!

9. I tend to be a bit of a packrat. I find it very hard to throw things away. Once in awhile, though, I will get a burst of energy/inspiration, & two hours later you'll find me in the middle of a closet with piles of stuff in garbage bags around me.

10. Dh is the opposite, & it's probably one of the main sources of conflict in our marriage. (His mother threw out his high school yearbooks, for crying out loud.)

Thank you for your kindness. While I am breaking some of the rules, I'm not going to pass these on right now -- since that would mean coming up with well over a dozen names (!) & linking to them -- & I am just too darned tired right now. ; ) (Which is NOT to say I don't know a dozen awesome bloggers!) But feel free to use any of these memes in your own blogs if you like.