Cozy Connections

I send a text message to a group of friends this week with a photo of my Wednesday latte. Katie writes right back saying that being loved from places all over the world “makes the planet feel cozy.” That made me feel warm and loved, and cozy.

Technology does make the planet feel cozy. Except when it makes it sad and scary. Like the news on TV and radio yesterday of fighting over Gaza (again). And a school bus accident in Egypt that killed dozens of kindergarten children. But there’s a baby elephant about to be born in Portland after a two year pregnancy, and a nearby highway repaving project has been delayed for fear the vibrations might disturb the sensitive mama. The news story mentions the 1962 birth at the Portland zoo of Packy. I remember that! Childhood suddenly seems less distant.

Also this weekend:

• “The leaders of China and long-time rival Taiwan had rare direct political contact after Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou sent congratulatory messages to China's new and outgoing Communist Party leaders, Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao. 'Looking towards the future…’” 

• “60 per cent of the largest US cities now have smoke-free laws.” 

• “Everyday life [in Iraq] is showing signs of becoming more stable, and the government says it can now look again to funding the arts.” 

• “A positive cycle of enterprise financing and increasing citizen empowerment is slowly improving Africa's economic prospects and reducing poverty.”
• “Moscow's new Jewish museum is Europe's largest and Russia's first major attempt to tell the story of its Jewish community.”
• “A report, by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), found 61 per cent of Chinese consumers would pay more for a product made in the United States.”

You can actually Google “good news from around the world.” Somehow the stories don't make it onto the mainstream newsfeed, but the internet can make the world feel cozy, and not like such a bad planet.

I met a family member by marriage at a family reunion a couple years back who lives in Hungary, and is Hungarian. I see her on FaceBook. I read about the lives of cousins on FaceBook, too, who would just be names on the family tree. While we may not agree politically or religiously, I love virtually knowing them and their children, and celebrate difference and blood ties. I am not an island. I chat online in real time across time zones with friends and family in North Carolina, Illinois, Virginia, and Colorado, and in Seattle. I recently connected on chat, unexpectedly (it's always unexpected), with my childhood friend and neighbor from 45 years ago. I have friends who play scrabble-type word games with friends online. I might join them, except I suck at word games. Say what you will, the internet can connect people who otherwise would not be connecting.

I am continuing, for now, to create the newsletter for my previous employer, remotely. I am grateful to live in the age of technology. Because I don’t have the computer program I need on my Mac, however, I use the neighbor’s computer. No one ever brought me tea and cookies while I did it on-site. It made me feel all warm inside.

My sister and her beautiful shop “HUBBUB” celebrate their seventh anniversary this week. I am so proud of her. One of our friends buys a scarf I made a couple of years ago. I sat on my yellow sofa on a chilly winter evening, my legs covered with the shawl my other sister knit for me, a cat on my lap and a fire in the fireplace and candles on the mantle; and I knit that multi-colored scarf. I had no idea back then that two years later I would live on the other side of the country and sell the scarf to a new friend. I made several other scarves that winter, scarves that have been gifted or sold by me in North Carolina, or by my sister in Washington. I don’t know if they were kept by the buyer or given away as gifts. But I knit my story into those scarves. Across the continent, and who knows where else, people wrap my story around them. They aren't aware of it, but we are cozily connected.

I wake up one morning this week to a photograph of my five-month-old grandson on my phone. His mama wrote, on his behalf, “Good morning, Gigi! Love you!” Makes my day cozy, and every time I open my phone I smile and virtually squeeze his adorable little plumpness.

As I write this Saturday evening, it is raining on the roof, and on the garden, at my new home. My sister’s afghan is over my legs, and my mother is in the chair next to me. I am living with another human for the first time in almost nine years.

Friend Laura, three time zones away and up late, just popped up on FaceBook chat for a couple of minutes. I now know she is exhausted from a leak under her house, precipitating digging a new drain. I got to wish her a good sleep. Soon I will go downstairs to my cat and my cozy chair that my dear friend Dori gave me when she moved away from physical proximity. I am glad she is still close by via the internet, and her chair. It is cozy in the garden.

Marking the Years

I don't know about other civilizations, but this one has an obsession with anniversaries. Young lovers celebrate their time together in months, or even weeks; partnered couples mark the years; and, happily or reluctantly, we all make a nod to our annual birth anniversary. We also remember less happy occasions each year: divorces and deaths. In my nuclear family and family of origin, June is heavy with anniversaries. I mark 58 years today (Father's Day). I share my birth month with my mother, one sister,  and my son. It is also the month my son and daughter-in-law were married. And 15 years ago tomorrow, on the longest day of the year, my father died.

I was out for a walk that evening at twilight. Nearly home, I rounded a curve on the greenway into a small glade. Before me were more fireflies than I had ever seen; their hundreds of little lights flashing in the grasses and just above the ground. I stood mesmerized for several moments before walking silently through them. It is the closest to magic I have ever been. Thirty minutes later my mother called to tell me my father had unexpectedly died...thirty minutes earlier. I have been back to that glade at the same time on the same day. I have been to mountain glades that are known as firefly mating areas. I have never seen it again.

June is also an abundant anniversary celebration in my garden. The annuals I planted from seeds after the last frost began to bloom this month. The first sunflower opened its face yesterday. The hostas, summer phlox, and Rose of Sharon began their blooming this week. The tiger lily buds are pregnant with expectation. The plants and flowers are all my favorites in their own unique ways. I feel the same way about my friends who joined me last night to celebrate my birthday, that of my friend, Grace, and the summer solstice. As I looked around the circle under the dogwood tree, in the flickering flames of the tiki lights, I felt incredibly blessed. There were new friends, friends I have known for several years, and friendships renewed. I saw in my heart,  the friends who couldn't be there. Each soul is unique, and together they make a whole. A whole heart, a whole community, a whole family. I need them all in my life.

As I grow older I find that I am less and less inclined to believe one person can fill all the nooks and crannies in my life that need filling. But when I have been in a primary relationship I have lost that knowledge, and my Self with it. Perhaps that is why I don't seem be able to be monogamous. Not in the biblical sense, but in the wholeness-of-life sense. For the first time in my life, I don't feel that any one person has Most Important status. Also for the first time in my life, I have a community that is Most Important. And I am grateful. 

The garden would be a dull place if the same flower filled each space. The Raleigh Rose Garden is a beautiful sanctuary; but though there are many unique varieties of roses, they are still all roses. I want some in my garden, and I have a plan to add them; but have you ever gently wrapped your fingers around the incredible softness of a ball of hydrangea petals? Breathed gardenia-infused air? Contemplated the face of a sunflower reaching for its mother sun? Delighted in the fireworks imitation of allium? Found the first spring bloom of crocus? Watched a banana tree grow before your eyes? And the balloon flower: my prize for most fascinating transformation of bud to bloom; the name says it all. It puffs up like a balloon, changing color from green to periwinkle, then bursts open. Its unfolding reminds me, too, of the paper fortune tellers we made as children.

As each flower and each friend provide me with something only they can, each flower and each friend ask something different of me. They require me to stretch, to look for what I can uniquely provide, and to look for opportunities to extend that love to them. As I mark this birthday, my intention for the  coming year is to find new ways to show extravagant love to the dear ones in my life. And to allow them to love me back in their unique and wonderful ways.

To Ed, the father of my children; to Nicholas, the father of my grandson; and to George Russell Staebler, my imperfect and beloved father--I wish you peace, love, and flowers.