Oh I miss the garden of spring, bright green and fairly juicy with surging life, growth visible almost hourly.
The garden of summer, strong, tall, spreading and proud established its rightful territory hosting parties for butterflies and bumblebees while birds swooped and circled overhead for entertainment.
Comes fall and the autumn colors dazzle and your head spins with the abundance and fruitfulness: ripe maturity and the reward of the work of your hands. You gather and enjoy as quickly as you can, more than you’d hoped or dreamed for, more than enough. What will you do with the excess? The garden, only months earlier bare soil, became a hypnotic haven overgrown with delicious joy and frolic, intoxicating verdancy, flourishing symbiosis and riotous vitality.
Winter.
Winter. The winds have blown away the brown crispiness from branches no longer green in a purifying poof. And just like that – bare, faded, stark and desolate woody shrubs etch their way across the landscape looking for all the world like death in this blustery cold. I am forced inside where I stand at the window wondering why. What has happened in the Magic Kingdom?
The snow covers it all. The snow keeps falling and floating across the Magic garden Kingdom, and has settled decidedly upon each branch and every surface, carefully tucking itself around all shrubs and trees, blanketing the the 4′ x 4′ squares where vegetables once grew abundantly. There is quiescent hush there now where once the sound of the spade dug deep into earth, the fountains bubbled exuberantly and night fires blazed; children laughed and ran around while little weeds were uprooted and branches were pruned and sugar snap peas were hungrily crunched upon right then and there in the verdant Kingdom.
Covering.
But the snow covers all now and despite my sadness at the loss of earlier, greener days, the snow serves its true purpose hiding the ground, preventing the heat generated by the earth from escaping. This blanket of crystal white inhibits the radiant life energy from abandoning the roots of the trees and bushes and plants and they are graced with warmth and protection (often 40-degrees warmer) in the dark, deep soil of winter, regardless of what happens in the visible. Did you know roots have a life-pulse that continues through even the most frigid conditions? When the branches above have been frozen in their tracks by sub-zero temperatures, the roots are active and ready to spring into action at any moment, growing and spreading further and deeper even during the resting phase of winter. The snow covering is grace. The snow is mercy. The snow is a safeguard, a secure shelter for the deepest, most important, most delicate and valuable resources and treasures.
The snow covers it all. It unifies the the browns and grays and wheat-golds of the deciduous stand-bys. For this season, this cold and sometimes hope-dwindling time of year, the snow creates a formal gown of beauty for ashes, of gladness for mourning and becomes a garment of praise instead of despair (Is. 61.3). Sandy-the-Dog runs into the white, kicking up the flakes like dust and hundreds of birds fill the air in shock from where they’d been feasting on berries, but soon realize how harmless she is and go back to stake their claim. I laugh at the sight. Life goes on. In winter white.
He gives beauty for ashes
Strength for fear
Gladness for mourning
Peace for despair
When sorrow seems to surround you
When suffering hangs heavy over your head
Know that tomorrow brings
Wholeness and healing
God knows your need
Just believe what He said
He gives beauty for ashes
Strength for fear
Gladness for mourning
Peace for despair
Crystal Lewis, Beauty for Ashes
Hidden under a canopy of mercy on a melancholy winter’s day…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Spring will come again. My roots will be more established, stronger. Have mercy on me, Lord,have mercy…
pictured: The Magic Kingdom (aka my backyard) in September; and now.
“From my living room window as I write, I can look out across the broad front lawns of our farm like a lovely picture post card of wintry New England. In my fireplace the good cedar logs are burning and crackling. I just stopped to go into my gleaming kitchen to test the crumbly brown goodness of the toasted veal cutlets a la {?} in my oven. Cook these slowly…”Elizabeth Lane (as played by the versatile and provocative Barbara Stanwyck) sitting in her New York apartment (pretending to be on a farm in Connecticut) typing her column for the American Housekeeping Magazine in the movie, “Christmas in Connecticut”
No toasted veal cutlets warming in my oven here (I just had a slice of cold pizza for breakfast), but along with a rich cup of steaming-hot coffee I am enjoying a delicious, slow Sunday morning in the Colorado air where a light, dusty snow is falling softly like grace, covering the winter-scarred landscape with a sparkling beauty in a gentle silence. In a pallette of white alone, God manages to cause the somewhat lifeless winter look to awaken in splendor and reveal His mercy-covering nature to a fallen world.
Snow falls like grace and suddenly all things are new again.
“God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; He does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’ So that all men He has made may know His work, He stops every man from his labor.” Job 37.5-7 NIV
image found on google: Rocky Mountain Reflections Photography, Inc. by Andy Cook
Today is trash day and I threw away enough leftovers this morning to have fed the whole group again! Tsk. I mean that gravy? Was a.m.a.z.i.n.g. Really. Amazing! If I do say so myself. Lots of other wonderful food, too, by all the great cooks who came to the table. Stef & Wrex’s famous Red Hot Jello, and Tristan’s homemade bread (o the toast I have enjoyed this week) and Dessa’s corn casserole and Tara’s o-so-creamy mashed potatoes and Leah’s Mexican Pasta (the woman cooked like it was all in her court) and Stormie’s fabulous, fabulous pumpkin pies and so much more. It was 6 or 7 meals in one!
We sang karaoke like maniacs.
Wrex reeeeeeeallly loves to sing those country-boy-tractor-woman-lovin’ songs! Us girls all did a rousing rendition of “You make me feel like a natural woman!” And songs by the Monkees were popular!
The people who got the “wear black” memo.
Left: Dessa. Leah, Stef, Ali, Stephanie, Dave, Stormie. Right: three cooks in their aprons.
Those Thanksgiving boots were made for walking.
Ali, Stormie, Jovan, Stef, Tara, Tredessa
Boots were definitely the fashion footwear of the day.
We played the arguing game* and Wii.
And a certain rather large contingency disappeared into the basement for XBox 360…or something? Dave even brought out his childhood electronic football game so the kiddos could see an antique toy. : )
*The “arguing game” is actually Cranium Party Play-Off, available at Starbucks.
Sweet children ran and tumbled and jumped and spinned round and round.
Gavin and Guini, Hunter and Gemma, Averi and Samuel and Moses. They got along so well and were so sweet!
Family, by blood, by the Spirit, by choice.
Tredessa and Tara; Andy and Leah
Leah and Tara; Tara and DP; Stefanie and Wrex (aka “Sexy Wrexy”)
Did you see the full moon last night, first all huge and orangy just emerging over the horizon and then bright in the blue, white-puffy-cloud sky? Oh it was gorgeous (from my seat in the car in the church parking lot where it took a full half hour to warm up!). The stars were twinkling and the dry snow shimmered in its moonlit bath while I listened to a rather decent selection of Christmas music on Cozy-101.* And it was frigid, frightfully lung-freezing cold at 19-degrees, but there is something so pure, so quiet in that.
This is the only time this year I plan to romanticize winter. It happened. It was beautiful. Now let’s get back to a regular Colorado winter. For crying out loud.
*I want Delilah’s job (weekdays 7pm – midnight on Cozy!). And that cannot be her real name? Come on.
I watched the old, crisp-black-and-white, 1945 “Christmas in Connecticut” last night, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan. It is official. I am into Christmas. And I LOVE this movie (I have for almost 30 years, now).
Elizabeth Lane
Barbara Stanwyck plays Elizabeth Lane, a writer for a homemaking magazine, and just seeing it again last night made me laugh at myself, for I think I truly have emulated her food-writing style. It obviously has impacted my romanticism in regards to writing about the “homely arts.” She is gorgeous and tough, she is smart and sassy. She is self-sufficient and alluring. She absolutely sparkles in this sweet and silly old movie.
And the fur coat? I have it! I actually bought the exact same style of coat (made in the 40s) at an antique shop in Sioux City, Iowa in 1987. I want to be Elizabeth Lane!
I’m wishin’ that I may
I’m wishin’ that I might
Have the wish that I wish for tonight
Spoiler Alert…may give away some things (hopefully just makes you want to see it)
In the movie she is a city-girl journalist who can’t even boil water, but is forced to play farm wife and mother for her boss who doesn’t know her writing isn’t actually from a farm in Connecticut. Barbara Stanwyck is elegantly charming and totally lovable enlisting help from the men her life to pull this off: the horribly pretentious, prissy bore of an architect she is engaged to marry and Uncle Felix, the restaurant owner from whom she gets all her recipe copy. They set out to create the “Elizabeth Lane” persona for her boss, who has invited a war-hero sailor to spend Christmas with them at the farm.
When the hunky sailor shows up, the usually-cool Elizabeth knows she has met her match.
I adore the script-
Nora: I’ve never flipped in me life and I’m not gonna start flippin’ now for no man.
Felix: Nobody needs a mink coat but the mink!
Elizabeth Lane(about her boss): Every time I opened my mouth, he talked. I felt like Charlie McCarthy.
And watch for the “Christmas-card” scene. You know, like in “Holiday Inn,” and “White Christmas?” There is a moment when they take you to the Connecticut farm and it is snowy and there are sleigh bells and suddenly your heart is just pulled in to the story: this is what every Christmas should be, you feel, as the music rises majestically and you are magically transported to the fire-y hearth and can practically smell the good old Irish stew simmering from the kitchen…
It’s lighthearted, totally silly, borrowed babies, fake marriages, a nosy and overpowering magazine publisher, a little farcical and one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies. The really talented cast manages to create some well-defined and lovable characters. I am telling you, suspend some disbelief and just enjoy a “Christmas in Connecticut.” It’ll make you smile. And then we can talk more about it when I won’t be ruining it for you!
The 1945 Trailer
See? I mean, come on!
P.S. Believe me when I tell you that the early 90’s remake (Arnold Schwartzeneggar’s directorial debut, I think) was not nearly as wonderful, but it does have the beautiful Dyan Cannon – so that is something, I guess.
(1) Gather and eat a light and delicious breakfast, a little too early on a Saturday morning.
(2) Swap meet. Clean out your closet of clothes and jackets and jewelry and all manner of now-unwanted items. Throw them into a giant pile in the living room so that after breakfast, everyone can dig through and get what they want. Leftovers to Goodwill.
(3) Go hit a series of thrift stores looking for amazing deals and designer clothes for less and to replenish everything you just got rid of at the swap.
Meanwhile, Guinivere stayed behind to lend her hand to decorating the outside door garland. She works very meticulously, we have found, from left to right in straight lines.
I walk in the door just before dark while a twilight indigo still colors the sky. Home from a wonderful Heaven Fest meeting where we thanked God for what He has allowed us to be a part of and dreamed big dreams for 2010, Tredessa pulls up to the curb from the same meeting to visit. Into the house she goes, arms full of her current Christmas projects, so excited to pour her love into the gifts she is planning for her siblings. Dave has been working on the “big” tree, stringing 5 or 6000 lights on the 12-footer. The whole lower level is ablaze in light, Stormie in the kitchen baking her famous pumpkin pies with Martha Stewart’s dough recipe. Spicy cinnamon scents the pre-Thanksgiving air, even as Christmas music is playing. We are moving furniture to accomodate the people who will join us around the table tomorrow to give thanks.
The house is warm and happy. But I can’t resist the deepening blue sky and nippy air so I head out for a vigorous walk through the neighborhood. And I think about simple things that make me happy and things I am thankful for and how sometimes I have selfishly pouted over not getting what I wanted when really, I have been blessed so far beyond what I even deserve. I am blessed. I need to say it more, I need to recognize it more. I need to remember and speak it out and be grateful for all that has been and all that is. I have been blessed. And it is the simple stuff that just makes life so rich, isn’t it? The little things, the silly surprises and the unexpected moments of grace – the stuff we almost forget to acknowledge. So as I passed houses lit up in the emerging night, already smelling good food as my neighbors are surely preparing for tomorrow like we are, I listed off simple things for which I am grateful, deeply thankful and I thanked God, from Whom all blessings flow. He has been so good to me.
5 little reasons to be thankful: Gavin, Hunter, Guini, Gemma and Averi
Simple things for which I give thanks:
a gentle rain…the smell of rain (not enough of that here)…being able to remember the lyrics to any 1970s song because I lost so much memory 3 years ago-it makes me happy to be able to sing along with Karen Carpenter (“Long ago and oh so far away…”)…currently having 2 really great-fitting pairs of jeans – seriously! That is a miracle!…that pumpkin pie with whipped cream is going to be so. flipping. awesome!…true friends, true even when you are a crud…new friends – so much ahead, but you just know when you have met a “keeper”…old friends, because they knew you “when”, in a certain time and space and even though you come from nowhere, they remember you somewhere in time and they become your roots and your home, the keeper of the proof of you…and good friends, the ones who count forever even if you don’t get to see them as often as you’d like…I’m thankful for the tire swing where I first started singing love songs from my heart to Jesus…autumn colors and what my friends are now calling “Jeanie green”…
…the brilliantly-colored sunset I witnessed from the Northern Hills Church cafe during our meeting and all sunsets I have enjoyed this year…sunny days are here again!…crystal-clear views of snow-capped mountains these November days that remind me of God’s faithfulness…I am happy about things that make me smile a real, genuine, heartfelt, eye-wrinkle-inducing smile (“polite” smiles aren’t, really, and forced smiles are tragic)…wry humor…my old mangy, but o-so-loving dog…quiet mornings and strong, black coffee…the girls downstairs singing “My Heart Will Go On” together- right this second-very loudly, so cute!…don’t you just love music?….
…a full moon…3 jackets from the beautiful Stef at the swap, I love jackets because coats make me too hot…the fireplace in the early dark morning so when I get out of the shower I can remain toasty and being hot is a good thing…google, that’s right, google.com, I love it. It has changed everything for this information junkie…I am thankful that dark chocolate is actually good for your health…
…So grateful for the seed catalogs that will be arriving in the next couple of weeks reminding me that these short days and long nights will have an end and spring will come just when I think I cannot go on…good conversation…funny conversation…Tredessa and Stormie are on a singing spree having moved past “My Heart Will Go On” to “Hotel California” and then Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.” It is making me smile an eye-wrinkle-inducing smile…I am thankful for a movie or book or point of view on some one’s blog that teaches me something or surprises me or just plain entertains me…for anything that can actually entertain me, because that is not an easy feat…Can you believe the girls are singing “Dancing Queen!?”…that’s entertainment!
…for God trusting me to be a mom…for God just giving me 5 grandbebes and all the ones to come…for great siblings and parents and a husband who has endured me…for the great GRACE of God (the Holy Spirit empowering me to be who He called me to be and to do what He called me to do)…for these things and more, I am thankful. And I am humbled.
The funny thing about Thanksgiving…is that you spend 12 hours shopping for it and then chopping and cooking and braising and blanching. Then it takes 20 minutes to eat it and everybody sort of sits around in a food coma, and then it takes four hours to clean it up. ~Ted Allen
Don’t be like Charlie
Jimmy Stewart’s character on the classic movie, Shenandoah – Charlie Anderson: “Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested it. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be eating it if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank you Lord, just the same for the food we’re about to eat, amen.”
Let’s not rush into Christmas without considering a certain other “holiday” which does not get enough mention, in my opinion. There are some Thanksgiving movies out there. Here are 5 I like in no particular order…
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.
Neal and Del (Steve Martin and John Candy) are hilarious in this 1987 movie about a business man desperate to get home in time for Thanksgiving and forced to travel with an obnoxious, yet engaging shower-ring salesman. If you can watch it on TV, probably better, as the language on the DVD is pretty, wellllll – watch out!
Quotes of note:
[waking up after sharing the same bed in the motel] Neal: Del… Why did you kiss my ear? Del: Why are you holding my hand? Neal: [frowns] Where’s your other hand? Del: Between two pillows… Neal: Those aren’t pillows!
“My dogs are barking.” ? “You’re going the wrong way.” ? “I have, uh…two dollars and a Casio.” ? “Git’ yer lazy butt out of that truck!” ? “Honey, I’d like you to meet Del Griffith.”
And? It has one of my all-time favorite songs, “Every time You Go Away ~ you take a piece of me with you.”
Oh, yeah. Funny movie! You’ll laugh.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.
Why must you see this before Thanksgiving again? Don’t ask that. Just do it! Do you really know anyone wiser than Linus, more vulnerable than the sympathetic Charlie Brown, more capable than Lucy (mygosh that girl is smart and such a choleric!), more talented than Schroeder, more loyal than Marcie, or more apt-to-question-her-feminine-identity-as-an-adult than Peppermint Patty? And could there be, other than Gemma or Guini, perhaps, a cuter little sister than Sally? Come on people, enjoy this o-so-sweet classic again. And again.
[after singing “Over the River and Through the Woods to Grandmother’s House We Go.”] Charlie Brown: Well, there’s only one thing wrong with that. Linus van Pelt: What’s that, Charlie Brown? Charlie Brown: My grandmother lives in a condominium.
About a Boy.
This isn’t actually a Thanksgiving movie-because they don’t really celebrate Thanksgiving in London, since it is an American holiday. And though it ends with a Christmas scene, and even though the main character is a man living off the royalties of his late father’s kitchsy Christmas song (which he loathes), it isn’t “Christmasy-enough” for me to watch it in December. So, I enjoy it near Thanksgiving.
Wil (Hugh Grant) is living a hip, but shallow and pointless life compared to his friends, “My life is made up of units of time. Buying CDs – two units. Eating lunch – three units. Exercising – two units. All in all, I had a very full life. It’s just that it didn’t mean anything.” He passes himself off as a single father so he can meet single moms (feeling they’ll be grateful for his attention, but easy to leave behind when they want commitment). His game is interrupted by the eccentric Marcus, an odd 12-year old who desperately needs lessons in being cool, but is known for breaking out singing oldies in class (songs that make his wacky “suicide granola” mother happy).
When Marcus becomes a target for school bullies, Wil starts to understand the importance of his role in the young boy’s life. They could have named the film About Two Boys, because initially, the 38-year-old Wil resists being an adult, but once he ever-so-charmingly steps into the young boy’s life, Wil begins to finally understand that “No man is an island,” or rather as he says it: “Every man is an island. I stand by that. But clearly some men are island chains. Underneath, they are connected…” And so, this movie warms our hearts when we think of the people, the times and the circumstances that have connected us and with whom we shall celebrate Thanksgiving, grateful for the people we love. Sweet movie.
Pieces of April
The “black sheep” of the family, the one child the mother has only one good memory of, tries, with all her heart to make amends on Thanksgiving. Her siblings dislike her for past mistakes, her complicated and withholding mother has terminal cancer and anything that can go wrong is just going wrong. As odd as April may seem, you cannot help but love her, root for her and understand her very empathetically by the end. Because at some time or another, we have all been her. Or is it just me?
Quotes:
April’s mom about enduring Thanksgiving at April’s apartment: This way, instead of April showing up with some new piercing or some ugly new tattoo and, God forbid, staying overnight, this way, we get to show up, experience the disaster that is her life, smile through it, and before you know it, we’re on our way back home.
April, describing her “role” in her family: I’m the first pancake. Evette: What do you mean? Eugene: She’s the one you’re supposed to throw out.
April [becoming somewhat emotional over some old-fashioned turkey shaped salt and pepper shakers that Bobby-the-boyfriend bought]: We had these when I was a kid. [sad pause] April Burns: The one time [my mother] let me hold them she said, “Be careful, they’re worth more than you are.” Bobby: Well, that’s terrible. April Burns: Next year they were gone. Bobby: So, what happened? April Burns: A hammer I was holding fell on them.
Scent of a Woman
1992. Rated R for language. This film surprised me. I had seen the trailers and they all seemed to support the title. I feared it was going to be about some dirty-old-man obsessed with women. But it was Al Pacino, after all, so I tried it out anyway, and wow! In this Oscar-winning performance as blind, retired Army Lt. Colonel Slade, he was a.m.a.z.i.n.g! He plays a man filled with somewhat-controlled, darkened (both in his sight and in his heart), gloomy rage and harbors life-sucking anger towards himself; a man born to be a hero, but with no deposit for his legacy.
Then you’ve got Chris O’Donnell playing Charlie Simms, a prep-school student totally out of his league with the regular crowd there, he, a poor scholarship recipient. To earn money to get home for Christmas over the Thanksgiving weekend, he is hired to “watch over” Colonel Slade and an education for them both becomes inevitable. Charlie learns about the Tango (great scene with Gabrielle Anwar), women (warning on his passionate discourse on women…just warning) and fast cars. The Colonel finds a worthy recipient for his protective instinct and life’s heritage.
The “family Thanksgiving” scene is anything but warm and fuzzy, but you can’t help enjoying how the Colonel irritates and baits the twerp-of-a-nephew. Not exactly a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.
When the reserved, and innocent Charlie is being taken advantage of by school officials and parents of boys with no integrity (Philip Seamore Hoffman is great in his role as one of Charlie’s weak, partying classmates who is torn between doing right and following the money-crowd), the warrior in Colonel Slade emerges as he takes on the school, the parents and the classmates themselves urging them to let Charlie be the man of character he knows him to be. The speech is a stand-up-and-applaud moment!
This is a movie about a bitter man who needed love and needed to love some one, and a young man who needed a hero to help him become the person he was created to be. It’s about what there is to love in life and all the reasons living is so wondrous. It is a connection between two men whose highest virtue is integrity and it’s about love. And women. Hoo-aah.
Honorable mention:
Holiday Inn, which covers most all of the holidays in a year, with a special focus on the bookend Christmases of the movie, has a great Thanksgiving song/scene with Bing Crosby. Down in the dumps because Fred Astaire has stolen his sweetheart, he sings: “I have plenty to be thankful for…” Bing is wry and tender and the guy can sing!
For your Thanksgiving entertainment… from Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Uh, yeah. Thanksgiving is only 5 days away. Planning a menu and buying a turkey right about now would be a good thing.
Joe brought me a present from his beautiful wife and my sweet sister-in-law (aka: Robin – sister of my heart) when we met in Springfield a few weeks ago. She made me some perfectly earthy cinnamon and all the spices of autumn-seasoned pumpkin butter, beautifully presented in a prismed jar. She also sent some of her delicately tangy and ambrosial apple-pear jam.
Breakfast. The most scrumptious meal of the day.
I brought them home and showed them off under the pretense of sharing, but I hide them in the refrigerator, moving them frequently, so that on early, dark mornings I can toast some thick slices of multi-grain bread and have one of each: apple-pear jam and pumpkin butter (with real butter, of course…does that go without saying?). And my black coffee. My very dark, very strong black coffee.
Black coffee.
In my soul, I am Julie London and this is how I sing about black coffee (and anything I am really into). Yeah. That’s right, I am this passionate about black coffee.
A good start to my morning…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Call Robin because I am almost out of my delicate, almost-floral bread spreads.
