Calendar

Each year begins with unwrapping a new calendar. Hopefully, I have located one with the moon phases and signs. It usually takes me a few trips to find just the right version. Next, all the birthdays are added and a note a couple days ahead to remind me to buy cards on time. After the birthdays, the calendar is taped onto the side of the refrigerator where I can see it when I am doing dishes or making the coffee. Dentist appointments, upcoming birthdays, and social events accumulate on the once pristine squares.

The calendar from the previous year is difficult to part with. Flipping the pages, I go back to the rafting trip on the Middle Fork, the party in the hops yard, trail rides in Herron Park, my daughter’s wedding on the Atlantic, the long awaited visit from my sister, a retreat in California, the Halloween costume party and the Christmas Stroll in Kalispell, to mention a few. These events were initially just a note on the calendar to reserve the time in a crowded schedule, then came the planning and arrangements. The laughter and joy are now a memory, a few notes in my journal and a scribble on the jam packed page. Yet, the recollection lives on in my heart with related tastes, aromas and sounds.

Every year has its ups and downs. It’s unavoidable. It’s a part of life on this side of the turf. In spite of any loss, these scratches on my calendar help me recognize how lucky I am. I had more opportunities to join in activities than time to do them, more invites by friends than days in the week. My life is brimming with potential. Not reflected on these pages were the quiet mornings with Aries at the lake and the evening rides with Lakota. These treasured moments need no reservation. The solitary wish I have is more time with my daughters. Lately, our calendars have intercepted around holidays, weddings, graduations and birthdays. I am humbled by the amazing women they have become and grateful when I have even a minute to share with them. This too, is a part of life once our fledglings have flown the nest. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

This blank calendar holds the promise of new adventures and untold stories. What will I be reviewing next year at this time? What color threads will I have added to the tapestry of my life? Will I visit somewhere new? Will I make a new friend? Will I find my new house? Will family find time to visit this majestic place I call home? Will I take up a new hobby or return to an old one?

My intention for this year is not the eternal lose ten pounds, keep healthy, call my mother more often. It is to be a light in the world. There is a great deal of strife and conflict on the planet right now. I look at it like an infection. How can anything or anyone heal if there is a festering wound that has been lying hidden, undiagnosed? It must rise to the surface to be treated. Hatred is fear. It can only be addressed with compassion. Let us all seek to be mindful of those right around us. Can we be more aware of our fearful, judgmental thoughts? Can we turn them around and be more understanding?

At the end of next year, when I look back, I hope that I have given something of myself each day to another person that benefitted them on their journey. Maybe it is as simple as a smile in the grocery store, gardening advice in the office or taking an aging friend to dinner. Let me be an instrument of peace. Allow me to be a part of the solution. I set my intention to be even more than I am this year, to continue to grow into the Divine Being I was born to be. Permit my freshly unwrapped calendar to reflect a life of goodness and joy, easily shared, continually optimistic, weathering the storms and loving as wholeheartedly as possible.

Happy New Year!

Best wishes,

Pat

What's on your tree?

Each year we would wrestle the giant cardboard box out of the attic and down the fold-up ladder to its place of honor on the toy box to be gently unpacked. At first, as toddlers, my daughters were only allowed to watch as each ornament sprung forth from its tissue paper cocoon. Their eyes danced with excitement as one by one the characters, buildings, animals and sparkling pine cones were revealed. It was as if old friends came each year to share and add to our holiday joy.

The Christmas tree had been carefully selected. Sarah and I preferred fat trees that barely fit through the door. Kate and Jim preferred tall thin trees that dared the angel to find room at the top. A compromise was always found and we hauled our treasure up onto the front porch for its trim and mounting into the wrought iron stand. The ever present cat and dog gave the final inspection and approval before the intruder came into our home.

The lights were strung, multi-colored and festive, before the gold beaded garland. Now it was time to hang the ornaments. A tradition of telling the story of how each ornament had come to find its place on our tree had been established my mother and my grandmother. The girls would sit with rapt attention as each tale was told as it had every year.

There was the tiny glass church that looked exactly like the place that Jim and I had married. A tiny angel made of gold safety pins and glass beads had been made by Grandma Kid, our neighbor. On family vacations we had purchased a seagull and sailboat in Rockport, a golden leaf was from Vermont, a Mickey Mouse was from Disney World. My mother had given me a silver spider whose Christmas legend had been lost a long time ago. Sarah selected ornaments that reflected her sweet tooth: sugar coated cupcakes, fruit slices and shiny lollipops. If there was a penguin, that would be hers, too. I had acquired a fuzzy sheep, a Santa hugging a cow and a stack of chickens. Kate possessed a soft ball pitcher, horses and snowmen.

As the girls got older, they would recite the stories. Each detail had been committed to memory. It was if there was a sacred wisdom being passed down from generation to generation through the telling. The girls knew the rich history of my mothers and my grandmother’s ornaments. My grandmother had glass ornaments from England, tarnished real silver garland and hammered brass leaves from Germany. My mother’s ornaments were beautiful. Her favorite was a long glass hand painted Pinocchio. I could never understand her affection for this pointy fellow, but there he was, always front and center.

My assortment of ornaments has changed through the years. The girls have taken many of theirs with them to seed their own collections. The construction paper and dried dough decorations have long ago departed. The majority of our favorites were lost when several years ago, the tree slipped out of the stand and fell onto the hard wood floor. There were not many survivors. Over time, some of my mother’s and grandmother’s items have joined mine. A cloisonné teardrop followed me home from a trip to China. I was gifted with a deerskin horse made here in Montana. New friends mingle with the old.

There are years when I travel back east to visit family for the holidays and the ornaments stay in the box. There is no tree that year. They wait faithfully in their wrappers. I have the same rush each time I bring them out. It does not matter how much time has passed. I smell the orange peels and cloves that I used to keep boiling on the wood stove. The girls are once again covered in frosting and sprinkles decorating Christmas cookies. The music is playing Oh Holy Night. Presents are hiding in the attic ready to be wrapped. The stockings are ready to be filled with Santa’s treasures.

This cardboard box is worth the world to me. It is a container of cherished memories. I may be old fashioned, but I’m ok with that label. There is no price that can be placed on a little felt angel with button eyes and ric-rac trim that says “Sarah 1992” on the back.

I can’t wait to unpack my old friends again this year. I will tell myself the stories in front of the fire in the cabin. It’s a Wonderful Life will be on my screen. Somethings change, somethings stay the same.