A 'RePost' From February 2009

TODAY I am going to repost something from 2009. On Seth's Altered Page blog he has reposted the most beautiful "handbook" he produced. It is wonderful and gives me great ideas, as always. I think he must have more time to shop for odd bits of this and that, or maybe there are just more dumpsters in New York!

Check out this link if you'd like to join me in "Remembering the Future."

p.s. I've corrected that link to Seth's Altered Page, but I hope you found something interesting in the other page, if anyone happened by last night. (Comments, comments, please!)

Isn't It Surprising My 'Re-Posts' Are Both About People and Not Art? Or Maybe Not Surprising.

Seth at The Altered Page has let us have another chance to "repost" a blog page or two. I "talk" so much I'll only post one.

Thursday, December 6, 2007 Not Alone in the Dark.

IT was a dark and stormy night. Really, it was!
It was pitch dark, pouring rain and I was leaving Clackamas on the right highway headed in the wrong direction: north instead of south. There was no turning back. I knew what eventually lay in front of me. It wasn’t going to be pretty, either. It would involve three lanes o f traffic, with more vehicles constantly merging onto the road on my right.
I stuck to the middle lane. All of us were eager to get home, especially those large pickups and SUVs — passing on both my right and left — throwing up water spray that covered my windshield. The wipers were going rapid fire, “swish, click, swish, click.”
Northward I flew, saying aloud “I can do this!” Again, aloud, I spoke to my fell ow drivers: “We all just want to get home safe.”
The radio was off. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but staying in my l ane and remembering to breathe.
Parkrose exit. I could have gotten off there. Powell - another exit with a name I knew. I pi ctur ed the long stretch of Powell Boulevard and the bridge to the other side of Portland.
The freeway seemed to collapse in length and become shorter and shorter as the minutes went by. The airport exit came up before I knew it. I would have to get off this road soon or end up in Washington.
The airport exit! I knew the airport. I could find my way home from the airport. I had gone out of my way by a long shot, but from there I knew I could find my way home.
Unfortunately I turned off at Cascade Station, thinking it was the first parking area for ov ernight or weekly parking at the airport. I didn’t know it was a humonguous new shopping center with stores for almost anything you might or might not need.
I considered going in and asking for directions, but something akin to a Y chromosome kicked in. If I asked for help I would be admitting defeat: “I couldn’t do this alone.”
I have a difficult time asking for help, but that’s too long a story.
I did call my husband on my cell phone, however, to let him know I might be late getting home. I had called him when I left Clackamas.
“Where are you now?” he asked.
“I’m out by the airport. Yes, I can see it from here. I’m at Cascade Station, near that new Ikea store. Oops! Someone’s in back of me. Gotta’ go.”
I dropped the phone into my lap and drove off. Ahead of me was a Subaru in a right turn only lane. I saw a blue sign: I-84. Things were looking up. When the light changed we both turned right and then stopped at another light. I decided to trust the Subaru and followed its taillights when the light turned green. Soon we were on I-84 ... going in the wrong direction.
Sandy Boulevard. Another familiar street. I abandoned my friend in the Subaru and left the freeway. Now I was on Sandy, headed east or west. Your guess would have been as good as mine. No daylight; no sun to show me my way home; no stars either. Only more rain.
My cell phone rang. It was my husband asking “Where are you now?”
“I’m headed down Sandy,” I said. “Say, there’s an adult toy shop. Need anything?”
I don’t know who I was trying to reassure with this attempt at humor, him or me.
I stopped at a light then. There was a car beside me on my left and I glanced over at the intersection of the one-way cross street looking for information and saw a sign that read “City Center.” Yes!
“I’m at an intersection,” I said, “and there’s a sign to city center.”
“Take that,” he said. “You can find your way back that way.”
However, to go that way I would need to cross three lanes of traffic — one beside me on my left and two other oncoming lanes. I remembered my driver’s education manual and knew this wasn’t an option. Then I spotted a motel on the right just through the intersection.
“I’ll bet I can turn into this motel, go through their parking lot and turn onto the one-way street headed toward downtown. Goodbye,” I said.
Soon I was hurtling toward “downtown” which turned out to be I-84 again, but in the correct direction. I got into the left hand lane to make sure I would get the Salem and, eventually, Beaverton exits.
Finally I was really on my way home. I was on my way to the safest place in the world. Why had I ever left it, I wondered.
That night, holding my husband's hand and trying to fall asleep, I was amazed to have traveled all that distance and come to rest, at last, here in this snug harbor. A million thoughts went through my head. They were all related to my trip and the “what if’s” that so often haunt us late at night.
What if I’d had an accident? What if I hadn’t been lucky?
But I had been. I was lucky to find my way home safely, lucky to be snug in a safe little house with someone I love. Lucky, lucky, lucky.
I believe in skill. I believe in intelligence. But I’ll trust lucky any day.

BURIED TREASURE.

ALONG with several others and most especially our leader, Seth at The Altered Page, I am reposting one of my own favorite blog entries from March 2, 2008:
Every Calendar Day is Special to Someone.

I AM writing this on Oct. 2, 2008 — which would have been my mother’s 86th birthday. She passed away in June 2006.
This morning in Athens, Ga., on Oct. 2, my niece - and my mother's granddaughter - Amy, gave birth to her third child, a boy, Guillermo. The baby has blue eyes — for now, anyway — and so did his great-grandmother.
Today I can feel my mother so close to me on this day - her birthday. I can imagine how excited she would be that the new great-grandchild was born on "her" birthday.
I recall the times I remembered her birthday with a card, or lunch or a sleepover at her house. I remember forgetting her birthday once! (It's OK. She forgot mine once, too.)
I close my eyes and I can feel her arms around me and the special "Mom kisses" she would give.
I can remember the last time she walked into my house and I remember the evening she left it.
We all wish, of course, that my mother could have witnessed another great-grandchild in her "portfolio." There aren't many who love babies as much as she did.
"My goodness, what your dad and I started," she used to say. They had seven children. My mother told me my grandmother (her mother-in-law - whom she loved dearly) asked her one time, "Margaret, how are you going to take care of all these children?"
And she stubbornly answered, "I'll feed them and love them." That's exactly what she did, day in and day out without fail.
It’s odd how certain dates have a way of pulling us back in time. As the post title says, every calendar day is special to someone. It might be a birthday or an anniversary of a glad time or a sad time - a beginning or an ending.
Now we've been blessed with these wonderful grandchildren and we are so lucky to have them all healthy, smart, loving people - and we have our parents to thank for that last part, I think.
Amy's paternal grandfather, William, passed away very recently on Sept. 13. That was a really sad day for everyone. William also had blue eyes.
I will always think of this new baby, "Gil," born on Oct. 2, with the bluest of eyes, as a link in the generations and a reminder that miracles keep on happening everywhere we look.
I'll also remember that the saddest day on the calendar to me might be the happiest day to someone else. This is a happy day. Mom was born today and Gil was born today. Welcome to the world, Gil, from Great-Aunt Jeanne! I know Javi and Isa and Daddy are waiting eagerly to get you and Mommy home.
NOW: Here is Gil today with his eyes just as blue and the joy on his face reflecting the love that comes his way. This boy will grow up to be somebody, you betcha! With all the spark, good humor and kindness that marked his great-grandmother, Margaret, and his grandfather, Billy -- all three with blue eyes filled with mischief and stars - femminismo