Today, (June 10th) I humbly and gratefully observe the three year anniversary of our horrific motorcycle accident where my husband Sean broke his neck in five places. I firmly believe God sent immediate help and spared us from long-term injury, paralysis and even death! Here are two previous posts explaining what happened and why I say Thank You, God! God sent help Man’s Craving for a Beer Saved My Husband’s Life
Click here to hear Sean’s theme song by Chumbawamba
As a rule, I am not a brand maven preferring names like Campbell’s over store brand labels for soups, or Birds Eye over Stop & Shop brand for string beans. I am, however, an absolute snob when it comes to soft serve chocolate-dipped-in-chocolate cones. There is positively NO substitute for Dairy Queen. I should know. I had my fill working at a DQ in my late teens and have sampled hundreds of poor substitutes elsewhere in my life ever since. Though the menu of treats at today’s DQ has ballooned since the early 80s, I find myself going back to my tried and true treat.
There is just no better food (except perhaps peanut M&Ms) than a DQ chocolate-dipped-in-chocolate. It’s perfect hard shell is unmatched in taste, texture, and chippity-crunch. I may be giving away a trade secret, but if memory serves, there is just a hint of wax—yes, wax in the dip. I’ve read the back of the can and though may have been a little startled at first, it never kept me away from my devotion to DQ dip.
Since I’ve not found its equal, I won’t bother make any comparison with far trailing runners up here. Beneath the signature DQ curl, which only true DQ employees can make because of specific, franchise ingredients and top-secret training, is the softest, perfectly blended cool chocolaty, creamy sweetness. So what if it’s not actually ice cream? Who cares if it comes from a mysterious plastic bag and flows through a Wonka-esque machine with a huge shaft thingy, gears and oh-rings? Whatever is in it and however it gets from liquid to lusciousness in my wafer cone is absolutely no-never-mind to me.
I admit I can get a little moony when I settle in to nibbling deftly to avoid dripping and to make sure I get every lick. Cool, silky smoothness floods my every taste bud with unrelenting creamy chocolate, stealing my breath away. My eyes glaze over in pure ecstasy and I’ve been known to coo softly.
On occasion, a line from The Hollie’s song overtakes me, “Sometimes, I all I need is the air that I breathe…and my DQ.”
What’s your treat you just can’t do without?
Click on this for some Hollies:
Just for fun this weekend, I searched my name in meme using Google Image and my oddly spelled T-A-N-J-A. I thought “Tanja with a “J” would never come up. Lo, I found this among other “Tanja” memes, a good number in German. At first glance I thought this rather duded-out rendition of Jesus could be a bit irreverent, but I have come to know that divine messages are delivered in all shapes and forms.
My husband who is far hipper on-line than me is well-versed in memes and explained that this is the “Buddy Jesus” meme. I realize that someone generated this meme for another “Tanja” somewhere out there, but since we share the same spelling, I hope she won’t mind if I claim this meme as a personalized message for me today. It rather reflects on my current faith journey status: I am seeing Jesus not only my Savior, but as “my bud” who gets my back as a Heavenly bro. God uses the world wide web as well as burning bushes to get our attention. Can a I get a witness?
Can you imagine in this day of passwords, locks, and alarms to protect our most precious valuables, lifesavers (literally) like this one on the remote Ring of Kerry stay posted, unguarded? Talk about the “the honor system”! We saw a few of them on the western part of our recent trip in Ireland. They were not in plain sight, but around corners at the bottom of steep cobblestone and patch-work accesses of small beaches or old, hazardous boat launches. All the easier to snatch off the post and pop into one’s car if one was so inclined.
Yet the well-chosen, philosophical and theological one-liner, “A Stolen Ringbuoy— a Stolen Life” appealed straight to one’s conscience. Would you dare remove the buoy for any other reason than, God-forbid, its intended purpose to save someone drowning in the nearby sea? Would you dare risk eternal consequences?
I know I wouldn’t, but then I had a cynical thought. What if a person was so full of wickedness or didn’t believe in eternal consequences? What if they didn’t care about their fellow human being? Could they be so caviler to vandalize? Remove the ring and toss it into some ditch?
Then I scanned the tawny, brush-topped cliffs sloping into the foaming surf, hemmed in by the mystical turquoise sea. Behind me were the endless rolling verdant hills dotted with sheep, rocks and old church foundations. How could one not feel closer to Heaven, or at least an unwavering, deep and reverent calm? An unquestioning obedience to that sign?
Cliffs and sea on the Ring of Kerry
It isn’t often you witness “the honor system” today. I did notice an unmanned stand at Dublin airport that allowed you to take liter of water trusting you’d toss one euro into a box. Come to think of it, two years ago at a national campground in New Hampshire we were on our honor to deposit the right fee in the tube as we exited. What other “honor system” situations are out there? Please share.
What happened to the fecking Who? The iconic rock band, launching their 50th Anniversary tour blew off Ireland! They were supposed to play in Belfast and last night here (26 Nov.) in Dublin, but we learned a few days ago they cancelled both shows for "logistical difficulties"! What? Apparently they had an unexpected? offer to play in Abu Dhabi on the 23rd and are claiming they couldn’t get to
Ireland? The UAE is not THAT faraway from Ireland, guys! I am thinking they got a better deal to party with the royalty and to heck with Ireland! Was there no way for them in this day and age to get back in time for “our” Nov. 26th show here in Dublin? Yes, I know this is such a first world rant but bear with me a bit.
Back in July Sean noticed The Who would be playing in Dublin at the beginning of their 50th anniversary tour in November. He asked if I wanted to go. I eagerly said yes knowing that he LOVES Ireland and The Who! Both in one place would be mind-blowing! But more that that, I was all for him going to one of his happiest of happy places—Ireland—to “get off grid” from his many stresses in the States.
We weren’t fully thinking in July that we’d be away for Thanksgiving so he bought The Who tickets that day. That kinda made us pregnant to take the trip!
I had a few misgivings about missing Thanksgiving, but also relished the idea of taking a break from 15 years in a row of hosting at our house. I’d miss our kids the most–and watching the parade in the morning, but our grown-up kids encouraged us to fly!
Even though we didn’t get to see The Who on this trip, we’ve had a great experiences already and have been privileged to meet some great people along the way–rock stars in their own right! Take a bow Brian and Helen, funky, classy hardworking hosts of the luxurious but comfortable Castlewood House B&B out in Dingle.
Thank you, thank you! to the very encouraging and hip Father David Gunn for welcoming us to your parish home at Port Magee for the tea and allowing us to pour over pages of hundred year old handwritten marriage and baptismal records as we trace more of Sean’s Irish heritage in the Ring of Kerry! We were welcomed right into the house and life “don’t mind the toys!” of a very cool cousin Sheila who introduced us to her wee ones, Shoon,3, Seamus,2. She made a phone call for Sean to see his cousins Mary and Tessie Cremens who lived up the road and across the street.
We were reunited with Tomas who spoils us at Kate Kearney’s Cottage in Killarney and now has his own photography business. It was so good to see John and Nora in at their lovely Ferris Wheel B&B at the Gap of Dunloe. We spoke at length to a very decent and bright woman at a woolen shop in Cashel— (Knitted) Hats off to Inga!
We anticipate meeting a few more “celebrities” as we spend the next few days here. Tonight, about the time you all back home will be enjoying your beautiful turkey dinners, (we’re 5 hours ahead), Sean and I will be taking a Literary Pub Crawl learning where Irish writers—Yeats, Joyce, Wilde, etc. hung out to discuss life, politics, their stories, and where they put down a few pints. Who knows who else we’ll encounter? Sean met Conan O’Brien on Grafton Street in 2012!
Happy Thanksgiving to our American family and friends. And Thank You, friends and relatives we’ve met on this trip! God Bless, Salente, Cheers!
In 1975, I was ten and had no clue of what I was singing. Some of the songs we sang around the old campfire in Girl Scouts back then would get you burned, or maybe even a lawsuit today! Consider these lyrics: “Big red indian, beats upon his drum, rum tum-tum, rum, tum-tum. Woo-Woo-Woo!” There was an obnoxious hand gesture of hitting your lips in a war cry on the woo-woos!
Another song, which I didn’t get at the time, was about a man named Ruffus Rassius Johnston Brown not paying his rent on time. Another one that I thought was so funny was about Fried Ham, Fried Ham, Cheese and Baloney. Each of the four verses was sung in different ethnically-slurred accents! Gads!
The topper had to be “Just plant a watermelon right on my grave and let the juice slip through…Now Southern fried chicken might taste mighty fine, but nothin’ tastes better than a watermelon rind..”
A sign of the times. Don’t make it right.
I don’t mean to pick on the Girl Scouts. In fact, some of my best childhood memories are from Camp Higganumpus, a Girl Scout camp in Higganum.
We kids picked up politically insensitive lyrics on our transistor radios. At recess, we’d march across the playground belting out, “Half Breed” by Cher at the top of our prepubescent lungs.
It was around this time, thank goodness, of the advent of Archie Bunker and All In the Family. The creators did us a favor by holding up a mirror. Each episode was blaring hyperbole of how small-minded and racist we could be.
Do you remember thinking your older relatives “were just like Archie Bunker”?
There was still some of it going on in the 80s, though. Recall the movie Sixteen Candles by John Hughes starring Molly Ringwald? Whenever the international student staying at the main character’s house appeared in a scene, a gong would sound punctuating his obvious Asian background.
So what is my point? As decades are unfolding now, just rounding my fifth one, I have to believe we are a little less coarse and more sensitive as a society today. I am pretty sure the Girl Scouts of 2014 would only allow sanctioned ditties that are 100% PC as a matter of good conscience, and not fear of litigation.
What do you think? Are we politically correct enough today? Do you think we’ve gone overboard and are too overly PC?
Over the past few years, we’ve accumulated quite a collection of old LPs— 33 1/3 vinyl records. Some have come by way of tag sales, the swap shack at the transfer station, second-hand stores and record shops. Three so far, have come by what can only be labeled as freaky experiences where I’ve merely had to ask for them, and voila, there they were! The third time happened just five days ago, but let me replay the first two.
Lightning bolt #1: The first time it happened was back in March of 2012. Before I launched this blog, I had posted on Facebook the exciting and mystical story of my Shirley Temple album acquisition.
Some of you may remember this story. Others will simply shake your heads in curly top amazement. My niece, then 17-year-old Rachel and I were just talking about The Little Princess, Shirley Temple on a Friday as we walked in our neighborhood. I told her I was a huge Shirley fan when I was a kid and I had this pink album with her giant face on it. I remember telling her that I’d have to pay dearly to find this sacred album today if I searched on eBay, or the like. Rach is an extremely good sport with her crazy Auntie Tan and nodded politely (if not a little excitedly) when I said we should plan a Shirley Temple movie fest soon.
The very next day, Sean and I were on our way to Torrington to see Shirley MacLaine who was performing a monologue at the Webster Theater across the street. I told him my conversation with our niece and my quest to find THE Shirley Temple album of my childhood. Before the show, we strolled the 1950s style Main Street in Torrington. As fate would have it, or Shirley-shamanism, we took a side street for some “random” reason. At the top of the street was an old, dusty secondhand shop.
I had a weird feeling…so I went in. The store was so cluttered with stacks of LPs and stuff, that I had to walk sideways to find my way to the voice coming from back of the store. I couldn’t see the proprietor, but heard him greet me from under some mountain of rubble. “I am looking for something in particular,” I said to the pile. When the short, graying man stepped out from behind the stack, I relayed my quest for the pink Shirley Temple album.
I held my breath a moment expecting him to laugh. Instead, he turned to a nearby plastic bin filled with albums. “I just took it out of storage THIS morning and brought it to the shop.”
No way! My heart leapt as he extracted the Holy Grail of children’s LPs., but I remained poker-faced. If he saw how much I longed for this treasure, surely (pun intended) he would raise the price to several thousands of dollars. (OK, I exaggerate).
Then, in what felt like super slow mo, he handed the glowing square to me. Wah! Shirley was in perfect condition. The sticker said “$10.” I quickly rummaged through my wallet. Sean had come in by now and instinctively reached for his wallet. Oh, oh! We only had one five and four singles between us at that point. We were about to hit up an ATM when I impulsively entered the shop.
“Can you wait a minute and I’ll go to the ATM?” Sean, my knight said to the man.
“I’ll take nine,” he said. I thought I’d kiss him! I told him I was just saying yesterday how I wanted to find this album. We all laughed how some Shirley Temple-MacLane karma must be in the ether for this to have come to pass. I blessed the man and then bound out into the sidewalk where I cheered and almost did a cart-wheel!
Later I played the album at home—not a scratch or hiss—On the Good Ship Lollypop!
Lightning bolt #2: This past April I was at a huge flea market in south-central Florida with my great pal Bobbi (Can I get a witness to this story Bobbi?) We had browsed the hundreds of stalls of new and old trash and treasures. We washed down fried alligator with a beer at the food court. I told her I was on the look out for the self-titled Foreigner album, the one with the guys all wearing long coats on the jacket. The one I had from when I was a teenager was missing. We had combed through stacks of albums, a mishmash of genres, but so far no Foreigner. On our way out, we hit upon one last stall where an older man had a few stacks of vinyl. My unsinkable pal humored me as I rifled through the first stack of Englebert Humperdink-era artists. The second pile was 70s and 80s rock. “It’s in here,” I turned to Bobbi. “Yeah, right, girlfriend.”
I dug half way through the REO Speedwagons, the Kiss, the Cars. I already had these. Three quarters, through, The Go-Gos, AC/DC, nothing yet. “I can feel it!” I said with mock conviction. “No way,” Bobbi said. Then, the third or so from the bottom was Foreigner, Double Vision. The guys were wearing short coats, not long ones, but it was Foreigner none-the-less, and I didn’t have this one. Three bucks, the guys said. Sold!
The Third Lightning Strike— just five days ago. Let’s back track a bit. This summer Sean and I listened to Pete Townshend’s memoir Who I Am on cd as we road-tripped here and there. Sean is a huge Who fan and I am trying to study as many styles of memoirs as I can for writing purposes, so it was a great book for both of us to wrap our heads around.
Anyway, Pete Townshend, a prolific musician and writer gave a lot of back story to his interesting life, messed up childhood, rock-stardom, great albums and rock operas The Who created, and Townsend’s own remarkable compositions. One of the lesser shining moments Townsend confessed however, was The Who Sell Out album made in 1967. This wacky record featured The Who singing actual jingles to real products interspersed with their latest songs. The jacket also featured each of the rockers posing with these actual products and real, but painfully corny ad copy that would have made Darin Stevens blush!
Pete modeled with a huge stick of “Odorno” deodorant under his skinny armpit. Roger Daltry bathed in gallons of Heintz Oven Baked Beans. Keith Moon squeezed an over-sized tube of Medac zit cream on a fake lipstick blemish. John Entwistle posed with a bikini model, both in leopard print, pushing Charles Atlas’s muscle inducing vitamins.
“Wow!” I said to Sean as we envisioned this treasure. After doing a quick mental inventory of the records we had in the trunk at home, we decided we needed to get this album! With our history of asking for albums and having them delivered, we half-jokingly “put it out there” that we needed to find The Who Sell Out, as soon as possible.
A month or so later, “Ding, dong…universe calling.”
We stopped in Mystic, CT on our way home last Wednesday after Sean’s work conference. After a quick lunch at Mystic Pizza, we window-shopped up and down Main Street. We turned down an alley toward a hip coffee shop when we noticed a record store right next door to it.
Sean and I were drawn like moths to a light. “Do you have The Who Sell Out?” I blurted to the guy behind the counter. He looked up dumbfounded. There, in his very hand was The Who Sell Out album! I kid you not. “I was just putting it on E-Bay!” he said. He showed us he had just listed it for $65.
Woh! or Who!
He showed us the unwrapped album with a sticker stating this was a “200 gram Super Vinyl Profile Quiex SV-P.” Huh? Sean translated that it was a special edition re-release between 2000-2005 when the tracks were laid down on this heavy-duty vinyl that weighed 200 grams. This meant it was very high quality and would have incredibly great sound.
“It’s Shirley Temple all over again!” I marveled. Sean quickly relayed our Shirley Temple experience to the record guy. “Wow, be careful what you ask for or you’ll go broke!” He laughed as he gave us his card with the date of a special record sale.
There really was no way the we were not going to purchase this album. He gave us a pretty good break from his E-bay price. It was a still a little more than the usual $1-$6 we are typically willing to pay for vinyl, but we easily justified it as an early birthday present for Sean.
Hallmark (and other companies) create greeting cards for nearly every occasion. Births, sympathy, encouragement, graduations…but searching racks and racks of prose, I just couldn’t find one that aptly says Good-Bye and Thank You to my retiring psychologist!
The card I finally ended up giving my therapist, I had narrowed it down to four possible but mediocre choices, was a bit wordy. On the front it said, “Finally, a thank-you note that says how I really feel.” Relational enough to give to a therapist, but even after a ton of descriptive words such as “grateful, happy, supported, content, forever in your debt, acknowledged, peaceful…” it still didn’t quite nail it. The writer in me added “thankful” and a deeply personal message. Yet, mere words didn’t fully express the depths of gratitude I wanted to convey to my professional advocate and guiding light for helping to save my sanity, salvage relationships as well as extricate myself from toxic ones, and who knows, possibly extended my very life! Reflecting now, I think that the incredibly accurate, succinct and perfectly-timed lyrics I heard on my car radio as I drove away from my last session fully expresses what is in my heart and pays tribute. Enjoy the song at the end of this post.
I had my very last appointment on August 28th with one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever been blessed to know, clinical psychologist Dr. Ella G. Marks, PSYD. I began seeing Dr. Marks on a weekly basis over four years ago because at 45, all the stuff I tried to keep stuffed down, held back, or tried to hide just wouldn’t stay buried anymore. Four and half decades as an adult child of an alcoholic family, a product of divorce, years of appearing to “fly right” but still over-indulging in risky behaviors, being lost, pressing my luck, and meandering off-track had blurred and scalded into a hot mess. It began oozing out in physical symptoms of panic attacks and heart palpitations. I couldn’t ignore it. It was time to really take care of me and do some very heavy, but very necessary lifting. Or else.
I prayed and researched and left voice messages. There was something about Dr. Mark’s soft-spoken, lovely, Virginian- accented-voice message that gave me courage and lead me to her kind but firm care. When I still rather hesitantly made my way to her creamed-colored office with a bright white couch in the office park in Madison, CT, I was comforted by her soft creased face, her sparkling blue eyes and billowy white hair. I found out by peeking at the dates on her framed diplomas in her office that she had to be in her early 80s. I learned early on that she had studied at first to be a dancer, but then married an Episcopalian preacher, had four children, and then decided to go back to college.
She completed her bachelors in her late forties, her masters in her 50s and fought to enroll in her doctorate program at the tender age 59. She served as a social worker, then earned and hung her shingle as a psychologist and bariatric medicine doctor at the age of 71. How blessed was I to connect with her a decade later!
Quite a head case, I remember saying to her, ” I have lots of anger and confusion. Am I too much for you?” She smiled graciously and said, “No, you are not. You have a lot of mourning to do.”
I would discover over the next four years just how well-equipped this woman was for the likes of me. She guided me to some really tough and ugly places to repair years of damage, grief, and anger stemming from a tumultuous alcoholic environment as a first-born. I worked honestly through confusion, hurt, betrayal, marital challenges, a serious motorcycle accident, extended family woes, and a recent exodus from a church I’d given my soul to for 46 years. She praised me often that I was “what they call a worker,” and reminded me that therapy is a “partnership” whenever I thanked her for helping me. She gave me permission to give myself some credit for my healing, for good things I have done and am doing in my life.
I had written in my card to Dr. Marks that she will forever be a part of “my new psychological DNA.” I will from here on out have greater success with stopping a negative thought and replacing it with a better one. I will think of what she would advise and say in any given situation. A life-long dividend of the work we’ve done.
I know it was hard for Dr. Marks to retire from her beloved work. She who practices Pilates and walks every day is in excellent physical as well as mental shape and “presents herself” as someone at least a decade younger than her actual age. She reluctantly wound down the over 20 years of her practice, extending her calendar for months since she’d first announced earlier this year she’d be retiring. “My family wants me to leave before they ask me to leave,” she’d smile, “but I am going on one more month.” That lead to another and another, until finally the end of August was really it.
I cherished her guidance and wisdom to the very last session. My throat tightened as I pulled into her parking lot. As I climbed the stairs for the last time, I took photos of the waiting room, her office, but out of privacy, I did not take any of her.
So surreal. She lead me in from the waiting room, the one last time. Into her office, one last time. “How are you?” She asked in her customary greeting. “Full of emotion,” I squeaked out. I noticed she was welling up a little, too. “This must be hard for you saying goodbye to everyone,” I said. “It is,” she confided.
Then we settled in across from each other. I gave her my card and photo of me hula-hooping that was taken at the recent Buzzi Reunion at my house. I joked that I wasn’t meaning to be a narcissist, but wanted to show her my happy spirit, celebrating our years of working together. She smiled, “You are a worker!”
As we sat, I said that I hoped we could see each other again, for coffee. Always the good doctor even up to the very last minute, she wanted to impart one last tool to help me hereafter to cope with stress and any mild depression. Meditation. She told me of a study where participants who meditated each morning and evening fared better than the group which took only medication and the other only talking therapy. I balked a bit saying I’ve tried meditating, but my mind wanders like a herd of cats even when I try focusing on a monosyllabic word or sound. Because she knows my faith walk, she said to me, “Just try to say, “Be Still and Know that I am God.”
I smiled because I was wearing that bracelet that very day for extra help knowing I’d be saying goodbye.
Half way through our last session, I had arranged for my husband Sean to come in and meet my Dr. Marks. I had shared so much between the two of them that it only seemed right they’d finally meet in person. It was one of those spiritually-charged, crystallized moments in time as I made the introductions. Sean thanked her as he sat on her white couch next to me. They chatted casually, each feeling as though they’d known each other well—I guess after all this time, they sorta had!
Sean asked her what she had planned now that she was retiring. Without hesitating my heroine said she was going to travel to India where’d she’d gone many times on sabbatical, “but after the monsoon season in September,” and then she was going to join a hiking club!
God bless her!
When it was time to say goodbye, Dr. Marks and I hugged for a very long time. “We can get coffee now, can’t we?” I asked hopefully. “Oh, yes. We will no longer be bound by hippa.”
“We have each others phone numbers.”
As I began driving out of Dr. Mark’s office complex for the very last time, tears of every emotion streaked down my face. Sadness,closing a chapter, a sense of accomplishment, good health, new beginnings, joy!
All of a sudden Kenny Loggins’, “I’m Alright” began playing on my car radio. I kid you not. Sean, who was tuned in to the same station, called me from his car ahead of me. “Can you believe what is playing?” I blurted first. “You are alright,” he said.
I’m alright, Dr. Marks. Thank you, and thank you, God, for Dr. Marks! OK, and thank Heaven for the serendipitous Kenny Loggins’ lyrics as I was driving on!
Have I totally lost it? Or have I officially been messaged —repeatedly now—by an angel, a departed loved one, or even God?!
Ordinarily, I get through the toils and snares of my life by praying, reaching out to wiser ones, and meditating on The Serenity Prayer. But time and intensity can take its toll. Truth be told, lately I’ve felt almost ground down to the nub. I know am very blessed with a wonderful nuclear family, a host of quality friends, and an incredible, insightful therapist. I know I can’t make it without turning to my Higher Power on a daily basis. Yet, even with these supports, I confess I’ve been struggling to keep the faith.
Maybe I got to critical mass last week and somebody, somewhere thought I needed serious signage!
Last Tuesday when I was at my grant-writer job reading my mail, I noticed something a bit odd. A particular and faithful corporation who gives us a good-size check every year at this time had a “bungle” on the salutation part of their formal business letter explaining their grant award.
They had addressed the letter to Tanja Esperanza Moriarty. Esperanza? Well, my professional ‘signature’ for the past 9 years has always been “Tanja B. Moriarty.” I don’t even spell out or usually hyphenate my maiden name at work. I just use the B and a period.
In my very limited Spanish, I know that Esperanza means “hope.” Ha! I’m sure short in that department, I thought.
I showed the letter and “Esperanza” to my co-worker Val. A woman of strong faith without missing a beat claimed, “That’s God giving you a little encouraging punch on the shoulder.”
I was still in “self-wallowing mode” and said, “Hope-schmope!”
“Come on, Girl,” she scolded.
I smirked, but since I’ve had more than a few funky/spiritual things happen in my life (see Mind,Body, Soul posts), I decided to make a copy of the letter to keep in my pocketbook. Had the door to my hardened heart opened just a crack?
Exhibit #1:
The very next day, I went to outpatient radiology for my annual mammogram. I checked in at the window and was told to take a seat. I grabbed a chair in the waiting area and wouldn’t ya know it? Right in front of me was a small table with this tri-fold brochure staring me right in the face:
Exhibit: 2
My heart jumped a bit. The crack of the door of my boarded-up heart pushed open just a teeny bit further. “O.K.” I said aloud. “I’m paying attention.”
Later that afternoon, I had met my wonderful pastor for cup of coffee at Sweet Harmony Cafe and Bakery on Main Street. Pastor Joon Lee and I periodically do this to check in with each other. After a good-sized gingerbread-chocolate latte I contemplated the extremely cold weather and bouncy-back road ride home, and decided it would be wise to hit the little girl’s room before I left.
You won’t believe this, but as I sat on the porcelain, I turned to my right and saw THIS was hanging on the wall:
Exhibit: 3
The small print reads, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, HOPE for tomorrow.”
It was like lightning! Esperanza! Hope is Power! Hope for Tomorrow!
I left the coffee shop tingling, and it wasn’t all from the caffeine! Someone, somewhere was conking me over the head to “Have Hope, Tanja “Esperanza” B. Moriarty!”
Here I was, feeling at the end of my rope…and out of God-knows-where comes a barrage of “hope”, “hope”, “hope.”
What do you think, my friend? Who has been messaging me with these signs? Or would you say it is just one of those coincidences? Please share your opinion, your personal experiences.
“Don’t inhale,” M laughed. If I wasn’t so afraid of burning down the place or branding somebody with the volcanic lump at the end of three foot long pipe, I would have hammed it up for our good friends M and K. They stood at a safe distance outside the half door of the little studio. M & K had invited us to spend a day at Narragansett but the overcast weather lead the four of us to nearby Newport, Rhode Island’s shopping mecca. Sean and I followed our pals down Thames St. thinking K was looking for a particular antique shop she had heard about.
When we reached 688 Thames Street, I noticed the corner shop with the half door and the young guys inside tending to some sort of orange glowing furnace. Ah, a glassblowing shop! I quickly fast-forwarded to our pending trip to Venice where we might take a vaporetto to Murano where we’d see artisans from days of old blowing glass.
“You two are going to blow a glass ornament now,” K said calmly. Ha, ha! Wouldn’t that be a hoot! We followed K and M into the display side of the shop expecting to politely browse the hanging eye-candy and then move on down the street. Glass globes, paperweights, glass fish, tinkling with light captivated us.
“Go on, pick out your colors,” K said. A woman behind the counter beckoned us. “This is the couple who is celebrating their anniversary I called about,” K explained. What?! She is serious! Though our 25th was a little over a month away, I nodded and thanked the woman as she congratulated us.
“Pick out your colors and then we’ll go in the back,” the proprietor said. Sean and I looked at each other. Believing to be craft-challenged, Sean tried to deflect this task to me. “Oh, no. You have to do this with me!”
We both focused on the colors and options before us. Sean is a blue kinda guy and I am forever a purple passionate, Piscean. After we signed our life away that we would not hold the artisans accountable if we torched ourselves, we followed a 20 something guy into the bowels of the shop.
We were cautioned where to handle the long pole and not touch beyond the halfway point, lest we blister our hands and run screaming. The young man started the process by sticking the metal pole into a blistering orange hole in the wall that belched dry heat into the room. There must have been some kind of container inside because as he spun the pole it picked up a gob of clear molten glass. It reminded me of a carnival vender collecting spun sugar onto a cotton candy tube. He had Sean hold the stick over some sort of anvil and had Sean to apply pressure to square the blob. He then had Sean dip each side into trays of our colored speckles of blue and violet. The opaque and speckled dradle-looking square was inserted into a slightly cooler oven. Then it was my turn. The guy told me to blow into the end with a firm and steady flow. I did as was instructed—a flash to measured Lamaze breathing—and I concentrated as the blob rounded out slightly at the end. Back into the heat it went.
In a minute I was instructed to blow again, but lightly now, and the guy kept rotating the pole. A little awkward, but a good thing because sometimes I can’t walk and chew gum! After a few more passes from my lips to the kiln, I was instructed to lay the glowing ball into a trough and squeeze a scalpel thing to help form the neck of the ornament. In seconds the globe was sturdy glass, and no longer easily malleable. Later, the guy would add our 25th anniversary date, October 1, 2013.
The ornament had to set and cool for three days before it could be mailed home to us.
The whole process must have taken all of fifteen minutes. In that quarter hour, I realized this glassblowing mini-adventure could be a microcosmic comparison of my married life. On October 1, 2013, we will be married 25 years! Thanks be to God!
When we first started out, we were that blob of colorless love at the end of the pole. An amoeba of hot, molten passion! As time, life and trials rolled on, we eventually morphed into a circle with a seemingly indefinable beginning and end. Over the years we’ve swirled and whorled, burned, and hopefully refined with life challenges—miscarriage, a war, internal and external conflicts with family, careers, raising two children a burgled home, and a recent and horrific motorcycle accident. The heat, fire, pressure, shaping and purifying, has given us a brighter and more solid sheen than if we had never blended in the first place.
Our anniversary ornament needed three days to cool and set properly before it could be mailed to us. These days are also symbolic. Sometimes we’ve needed cooling and setting before we could move to a new place to once again reflect light and shine in our combined colors.
Like the blown glass ornament, our marriage needs to be handled with care and every once in a while calls for a little buffing to keep its shine!
Here it is!
