Happy New Year

In the days since Suzanne Horne's life ended and her passing became public information via the blogosphere, I have heard from several bloggers. Some knew her well and others, hardly at all. Nonetheless, the conversations have been intensely frank, deeply personal, and purely honest. These conversations have been a wonderful gift that has presented itself from the nightmare.

Bloggers live online through the words and images they string together to tell the stories of their lives. We are who we are when we are online; there is no pretense, no tea and cookies, no straightening the house, no combing of the hair, even. We are real, and we care about stories because we care about life; therefore, we care about each other.

I was a regular reader of Suzanne's blog. She regularly visited mine. In fact, I came to her blog for the first time some time ago via a comment she left on a photo I had posted. At one point, I left a comment she responded to via email, and we emailed briefly while she was going through a rough patch with her ex-husband. From time to time, she would send me a funny message or video via email. And then there were the regular upbeat blog comments that oozed with personality.

In a recent blog post about suicide, I suggested that we should feel guilty--responsible--when someone takes his or her life. My point is that we should learn from this nightmare that kindness is important, that as much as we might know about someone, there is plenty we don't know, that we can't begin to imagine the effect of our words so we must choose them carefully, that silence is a gift only when we are present to give it. That loving our friends is a priority, not something to do when there is nothing else to do. That kindness is everything. Experiences like this one have taught me:

Be kind.
Be honest.
Be kind.
Be open.
Be kind.
Be generous.
Be kind.
Be loving.
Be kind.
Be humble.
Be kind.

Read everything. Twice. With heart. Never forget the power of touch even if you have to use words. And be kind. And happy new year, dear friends.

Wordless Wednesday: The Day after the Night of...

Wordless Wednesday

Suicide, Anyone?

Since I learned about the death of Suzanne Horne, who allegedly killed herself with a gunshot wound to the head, I have been thinking about this awful topic. My thoughts are here. I invite your feedback.

My World Tuesday: Bridgeport, Connecticut

Here's a broken boat doing its part to create some ambiance at Captain's Cove in Bridgeport, Connecticut. A capped landfill creates the skyline in the background of this little marina, where restaurants, ice cream shops, and gift shops together create a place worth visiting for a little while, strangely enough.

My World Tuesday

Weekend Snapshot: Durable and Enduring

The US flag hangs at the back of the sanctuary at St. John's Episcopal Church in Waterbury. I was in the loft on Christmas Eve to film some of my daughter's choir when they sang. As I turned to leave that afternoon, I was struck by the weight of this old flag. Inside it seemed still and peaceful and ever so durable--or should I say enduring. I love the flag; it it I see home.

Weekend Snapshot

One Single Impression: Star Dust

Stars fall.
Oh, indeed,
They do
And they
In their millions of
Shattered pieces
Find their place
Here and now
Mostly on the edges of things.
Look at these leaves
At your feet and mine
See the edge of every, single one
Encrusted with stars
Like opaque diamonds
That would dissolve
Under the crush of your foot
Or the heat of your breath.
This is the power and weight of life
Fast at work
Shattering illusions
In search of a pulse.
It happens.
Stars fall.

One Single Impression

Blog Your Blessings: Michael's Jewelers

This week's blessing is a small-town moment that has become part of my daughter's Christmas present

One day in the summer, we wandered the Brass Mill Center while Sears replaced my tires. We stopped at Michael's jewelers to browse the very beautiful rings and necklaces. We stopped at the opals, my daughter's birth stone, because there were so many beautiful shades of the stone there in the most beautiful of settings. The saleswoman there had all the time in the world for us then and offered to show us everything as she told us about the stones and the settings and her daughter. (It goes that way with women.) This happens on quiet summer mornings sometimes.

Two weeks ago, I was shopping in that mall with a friend, and we stopped at Michael's so I could get my daughter the earrings she liked the best. The store was mobbed with Christmas shoppers, and nobody had a spare second for small talk, to say the least. Nevertheless, while a saleswoman was wrapping up the opal earrings for me, the woman who had shown us the opals in August stopped to say to me, "Did you come back for your daughter's earrings?"

I felt warm and happy inside, like the most important customer who ever walked through Michael's, as I tucked away my $100-earrings for my girl. It felt good to be there.

Waterbury: poor and dirty little city or lovely little town? Yeah. And I love it.

Blog Your Blessings

Rest in Peace, Liquid Illuzion (aka Suzanne Horne)

I have a personal tradition of lighting a pillar candle and placing it on the front step on Christmas morning. It's my own little way of celebrating the Light at the heart of the holiday and inviting it in. This candle burned steadily on my front step from 6:45 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. yesterday.

I joked that it was my Hanukkah miracle because it was all but burned out when I lit it in the morning. In truth, I had forgotten the thing when we left for my parents', so I was lucky I hadn't caused a disaster at home. In truth, though, it was a miracle. There wasn't enough wax or wick for a 12 3/4-hour burn. But there it was.

Today I am dedicating this post--and the eternal Love in that little Light--to the memory of blogger Suzanne Horne, whose blog Liquid Illuzion was a source of fun, joy, and beauty for me on a regular basis. Suzanne died on Christmas Eve. I am very sad and sorry about this. She was an angel who visited my life for a little while and brought a lot of light with her.

In the spirit of blogging and in memory of this spirited blogger, TAG, YOU ARE IT. Tell everyone you know you love them. Get to them and say it. Somehow. Now. Be the peace Suzanne sought in her life.


Visit Suzanne's photos and poetry here.

Visit her friend Cliff's blog for more of Suzanne's story.

Here is her obituary from the Meridian Star:

Jeri Suzanne Horne
Jeri Suzanne Horne Services for Jeri Suzanne Horne will be held Tuesday at 2 p.m. at James F. Webb Funeral Home Chapel with the Revs. Joseph Hallman, and Dennis Marks officiating. Burial will be in Pine Springs Southern Methodist Church Cemetery. Mrs. Horne, 42, of Meridian, died Wednesday, December 24, 2008, at her residence. She was employed as a hairdresser. Survivors include her parents, Jerry and Betty White of Meridian, daughter, Isabella Horne of Meridian, son, Campbell Horne of Meridian, brother, Greg White and Ronna of Davie, Fla., niece, Madelyn White of Davie. Visitation will be Monday, 5p.m.-7 p.m. at the funeral home. Pallbearers will be Barry Murphy, Mike Grant, David Medlin, Bo Pierce, Richard Daniel, and Bryan Culpepper.

Click here to sign her guestbook.

Skywatch Friday: The Ghost of Christmas Present Fades Into a New Day

Skywatch Friday

This Christmas

This Christmas:

• I hope your fondest dream comes true,
• that you experience health and happiness,
• that each of us finds peace that will endure
• and be matched with an inextinguishable joy.
• May the love that is the magic of Christmas warm your heart and light your days.

This Christmas:

• I am grateful for a daughter who is wonderful in every way,
• my one-of-a-kind family,
• friends from the past with whom I share an enduring affection and love,
• health, home, work, and a routine that is as comfortable as it is challenging.

This Christmas:

• I hope you'll have time for this song.
• and this one.
• God bless you always,
• And may you see goodness in everything that comes your way in 2009

Wordless Wednesday: Seeing the Light

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: A Walk in the Connecticut Snow

The heavy snows finally came on Friday afternoon. We went for a walk shortly after it began; shortly after it began, it was pretty deep!

My World Tuesday

Weekend Snapshot: From the Tree

My grandmother put the mouse on a Christmas package for me when I was a very little girl. The blue glass ornament in the upper right corner of that frame is a ball that a friend gave to me when we were in high school. Craig loved Christmas, and this was one of his grandmother's ornaments, so it has always been a special treasure. The star in the second frame is made from fused glass. I bought this from a glass artist in Washington, Connecticut, years ago when my great-uncle took me to see her studio. I wish I could remember her name. She created what she called weed-ash glass. She would place weeds and grasses between two pieces of glass and fuse them together to make plates, bowls, trivets, and the like.

One Single Impression: A Winter's Day

You tell me you will come.

I wait. I watch. I listen.

I close my eyes,

And I imagine you are here.

Your arrival is a special occasion;

Your presence stops everything.

With me

The world inclines its head

In homage

To you.

I wait. I watch. I listen.

I close my eyes.

Nothing.

Silence.

This waiting is a cold hell that

Could erupt into a thousand flames

This instant

And consume every unkept promise.

"Do not wait for the one who leaves you waiting."

I hear the advice;

I feel the heat of the scornful glance

That says:

Think better of yourself; move on.

I turn away, run to the window:

I am waiting

For a storm

That will not come.

One Single Impression

Blog Your Blessings: The Weatherman and Henry

The kids I teach are a handful even on a good day. Though they are in my classes because they have performed poorly on standardized reading comprehension tests, they are not stupid. In fact, most of them are very bright,but they don't know how to play by the rules; they don't know the first thing about sitting still and getting to work. Nevertheless, they can talk what they won't write. So my job is about getting these extraordinary but different kids to do things the plain and simple way everyone else does.

It ain't easy.

Take the Weatherman and Henry. One is gay and proud of it; the other, the picture of urban white machismo--a brawler. They sit on opposite sides of the classroom because they hate each other passionately. While Henry used to badger The Weatherman about being gay, the Weatherman could give as good as he get and would tell Henry, "You wish you were gay."

All of this would go on before they even sat down.

In a sixth grade literacy class.

What's a nice white girl from the suburbs to do?

One day I was at the end of my Standard Operating Procedures for Classroom Discipline rope. Nothing impressed these kids. So I told my gay student to be the Weatherman and look out the window to keep an eye open for atmospheric changes. "Let me know if anything happens." And that's what he did. Just stared out the window. Anybody looking in on us would have sworn he was not engaged in classwork even though he was doing exactly what I had asked. But you have to be there....

Henry functions quietly when I call him Henry rather than his given name. I gave him a new one when he wouldn't respond to me when I called him by name. "If you won't answer me when I call you by your name, I'm calling you Henry. What's the difference?" I asked. Now when he comes through the door, we agree he is someone else altogether: not himself, the tough kid who hates gay kids, but Henry. Anybody looking in on us would swear I didn't know his name. But you have to be there....

Now I get a regular weather report from the one child and a daily reminder--"You know my name is Henry!"--from the other. And things are reasonably peaceful. Which is just fine in my fragmented little world.

The blessing: Sometimes the kids get that I get them sometimes. Sometimes.

Blog Your Blessings

Skywatch Friday: Morning Star, Day Star

Skywatch Friday

Thursday Thirteen: A New Thought for Christmas

1. Melissa Etheridge's 2008 Christmas album A New Thought for Christmas is less about a new idea than an ancient one: love, love, love for the sake of love in the name of love.

2. I've enjoyed the album since my daughter gave it to me a few weeks ago because it gets to the heart of the holiday.

3. In her deep, gritty, and soulful way, Etheridge breathes new life into "Angels We Have Heard on High" in "Glorious" with this delightful play on the old lyrics: "love, love, love/it's glorious." The song is delightful, happy, hopeful. It's light.

4. Likewise, "O Holy Night" travels through time in O Night Divine.

5. With guitarist Philip Sayce's accompaniment, she transports this ancient Christmas songs into a present and leaves me believing that it really is possible to live Christmas throughout the year: "Throughout time we've watched the sky/ And waited for the sun to come and save us/ Save us from the longest night."

6. "Ring Those Bells" is full of heart and hope, too: "I belive in peace my only wish/ I belive taht we can coexist/ Let's go further than we've ever gone before/ And ring the bells/ Ring the bells of change." It is beautiful, sweet, and sure.

7. In the same vein, "Christmas in America" is an impassioned plea to "send my baby home" from war: "Hey mister, send my baby home/ This December I don't wanna be all alone/ Christmas in American I need you i my arms/ Far away from harm/ Send my baby home."

8. In the album notes, Etheridge points out that Christmas songs and celebrations are based on solstice traditions that predate "Roman Christian times."

9. For her, Christmas is about seeing the light.

A new thought for Christmas? No--an old on whose time has come:

10. What if we did create peace on earth
11. How would we feel about ourselves
12. Would we eknow we were perfect and good enough
13. For all we desire as well

Merry Christmas

Thursday Thirteen

Wordless Wednesday: Go Ahead,Take It...

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: Second-growth Sunrise

This weekend I spent a lot of time finding my way through and around second-growth trees in search of a clear Skywatch photo. I did not succeed. Why should I? This is Connecticut. It is what it is. There are fewer wide-open vistas in my corner of Connecticut than there are opportunities to look way up. If I ever find that wide-open space, I'll find myself wishing for the trees that make home what it is.

My World Tuesday

Weekend Snapshot: Close to Frozen

After a week punctuated by heavy rains, the weather turned cold. This is the surface of the little pond near my home on Saturday morning.

Weekend Snapshot

One Single Impression: Distractions

You are distracted
He said
I was looking away
Out the window into the distance:
A beaver lodge
On top of which stood a Canada goose
Below which
Muskrats silent and sleek
Cut across the swamp
Under clouds drifting and dripping
Into shadows that drenched the hills
With cool and sleepy darkness
Even as the morning light,
A six pointed star,
Was rising from the earth,
Climbing the trees and
Running away with the moon

Without a backward glance

Distracted,
He said.
You are distracted. Again.

Perhaps,
I thought--
Or I am attracted to everything. Everything.

How I would love to
Fall backward
Off this stage
Into the hands of an attractive world
Into a love affair
With every

Single

Little

Thing.

I wouldn't look back.

One Single Impression

Blog Your Blessings: Boys

My daughter had been neglecting Tapper, her guinea pig this week, and Tapper knew it. The other evening as she climbed the stairs to bed, he squeaked and squeaked until she came back down and cuddled him for what he felt was a decent amount of time.

Tapper is a physical little dude. He knows when he's hungry and says so. He knows when he needs affection and says so. We try to meet his needs before he has to talk about it, but when we drop the ball, he calls it--and that's the problem solved. In this way, he's a good friend. No head games. Of course, he's a simple little rodent.

He's also a he, and his straightforward nature is similar to the nature of the other important little men in Dell's life: her cousins. Alex and Adam are her best friends. They too know when they're hungry, when they want to play, when they want a hug from her. When it's not in front of them, they ask for it. Simple.

I have told Adella over and over again that boys are an oasis of peace and honesty and to cherish that. Often I make this point by way of contrast with the little game-playing cliquey girls who populate her days at school. Their individual desires to be in and first and best with the most popular girl of the hour often cause them to be hurtful to each other--and most especially to my gentle and sweet girl.

I have stood by to let her work it out and I have stepped in when the girl bullying has been hurtful. Rich white suburban girls can behave like rabid little dogs, and they can inflict serious injury. When they are themselves--cruel and selfish--I remind my daughter that her best friends are her cousins and her guinea pig, and they cause no pain. Stay with the people who don't mess with you, I tell her, even if these people are rodents. Choose carefully.

This week's blessing: the boys who are good to my daughter because they love her through and through.

Blog Your Blessings

Skywatch Friday: Snow Skies Returning

Skywatch Friday

Thursday Thirteen: Beautiful December

I think December is beautiful because
1. The long shadows cast by the sleeping sun bring the trees down to my size; I can climb them.
2. The light does not last long, and it's nice to turn into warm, softly lit places where I am welcome.
3. The cold air makes riches of simple things like warm blankets,
4. Hot chocolate,
5. Old movies,
6. Old books I've read and remember like acquaintances I want to meet again.
7. There is no magic like that found in the first flurry of snow in December.
8. It's the time of the year that makes those wonderful old Claymation Christmas movies good and new again.
9. They remind me of the simple innocence of childhood
10. And the best lessons learned during that grand month:
11. Take care of your friends (Frosty)
12. Your best gift is your best you (Little Drummer Boy)
13. And we're all beautiful somehow, somewhere, and always.

Thursday Thirteen

Wordless Wednesday: Angel, We Have Heard...

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: St. Anne's Under Light Snow in Waterbury

Before church on Sunday, I stopped at Home Depot to get a few keys cut. Stepping out of the car, I caught this view of St. Anne's Cathedral in Waterbury, Connecticut. I liked the way the church blended with the tree line on the frontier of the parking lot. Waterbury is full of beautiful surprises like this one.

I came around the back of the church after that errand and saw the church from the perspective above. The old factory houses continued the line of the cathedral, and I thought that was as it should be. One home should be part of another. This view also brought to mind a Roman creche I saw at the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Connecticut, a few years ago. An alley off a Roman street comprises the elaborte nativity scene. Through the tiny windows I could see babies in the company of their mothers. There was no central Holy Family to be found. The message: that Christ is born in each of our hearts. That suited me just fine. May the love that makes His story be found there for each of us.

My World Tuesday

Weekend Snapshot: Greyish Waves of Water

The first snow and the first blast of genuine winter cold sent ripples through the water and created some lovely illusions. Sunday afternoon was surreal, a walk through an Impressionist painting. I love winter!

Weekend Snapshot

One Single Impression: Doodles

Whispering to the woodpecker wintering here,
To the soft, supple pine boughs refracting winter light,
To the white-tailed deer who has come upon me as
Easily and unknowingly as
I have come upon him,
I begin a story
While I walk.

Later
I will not remember
The sweet nothings
That write themselves
Across my heart.

Not exactly.

I will remember
How good the writing felt,
How those lost words
Seal my love now

As they do every morning
When I begin a story.

When I can
I will perhaps search for those words
And make some kind of use of them.

One Single Impression

Blog Your Blessings: Calm Kids

When my daughter was very young and we watched Barney for the first time, I was driven to distraction by the characters' constant movement. Barney, the children, and the adults were always bouncing from one leg to the other in the magical playground full of color and movement, movement, movement. It drove me mad. I can count on one hand the number of times we watched Barney.

That's not to say we didn't watch TV, though. After lunch, we would be faithful visitors to Mr. Roger's neighborhood, where that calm and kindly gentleman invited us into his home and included us in the ordinary pace of his day. He took his time with everyone and found pleasure in ordinary people and the nature of their lives and work. It was easy to be there. In fact, I still remember the places he took us and the interesting people to whom he introduced us.

I thought of this contrast when I heard the advice from a colleague at the college where I used to teach. He helped kids with learning disabilities navigate the public university system. He said, "Kids are used to constant movement; you've got to be entertaining and fast-paced when you teach or you're out." This can't be, I thought.

I have recalled his words when I am teaching. Whether I am passing out papers and pencils, teaching, or taking attendance, I am on because my students are looking to me for constant activity. When I ask kids to work independently, there are those who manage to race through the task and shout to the world, "I'm done!" in a matter of seconds. They want something else to do for the minute or two others need to complete the same task. They want a game, a puzzle, a coloring page--something ro fill the empty 90 seconds.

In response, I hear myself saying,"Relax," more than anything else these days. Rather than provide something for them to do--and they expect that I will--I tell them to breathe for a minute or two. This is a new idea for many children. Stop bouncing around. Still yourself. It seems to me that's a lesson, too.

For kids who won't settle and won't follow directions or who desire trouble--and there are many in my classes full of smart but poorly performing academic underachievers--I find myself calling their parents day and night to ask for their help in teaching their kids to value their education and to respect themselves, their peers, and their teacher by working in class and listening quietly. It's a hard task. It is a task that wearies me as I make those calls from my living room at the end of a work day.

Tired of being weary, I decided to make a different kind of call this week. I called the parents of kids whose bad behavior had turned around significantly and told them their kids were doing a lot better. I called the parents of a few kids who are always good and told them their kids are always good. Next time I had those kids in class, they worked like dogs from one end of the period to the other. It was a beautiful thing. More often when I said, "relax," the kids did. So many of the other kids--the chronic malcontents--wanted me to call and say something good about them. So they too are learning to calm down. They are finding a little bit of quiet is far more worthwhile than a whole lot of fight. It's a way to feeling good and being good. It's a lot nicer in my neighborood, and it's nice to be there. That's a blessing.

Blog Your Blessings

Skywatch Friday: Homeward

Just an ordinary day. I love the light of late autumn. The early dark appeals to me, perhaps because I am a bit of a homebody and early dark means going in and enjoying a book or the company of whomever is around.

"If you were far out in space, you would see that the sun neither rises nor sets but that it shines constantly." (Eckhart Tolle)

Skywatch Friday

Wordless Wednesday: Their Scent Became the Sky

The pain turned to music, and the music softened into warm rain, so gentle that once you were wet you couldn't feel it as something different than what you were. And the thirsty flowers opened and their scent became the sky. The work was done, and what there had been to give was given. (Tim Farrington)

Wordless Wednesday

My World Tuesday: The Swamp

Home in Connecticut is near a wonderful swamp that teems with life during the warm weather. In the cold weather, I enjoy walking along the edge of it to enjoy the color and the patterns that undergird all the color and beauty of summer. It's all good--even if most of the residents are off on vacation.

My World Tuesday