Author: Mary Ann Noe

Late last fall I was still harvesting tons of tomatoes.  Those little cherry thingies.  What was I going to do with all of them?  Too small to cook down into sauce.  Too many to eat alone.  Even too many to cut in half on a salad, or on a piece of toast with mozzarella cheese and basil.  Of course, I could give them to friends!  I had more than enough.

Eerily, I had the same feeling not too long ago, far gone from tomato season, that feeling of plenty.  The flow of goodies from a cornucopia.

It hit me rather suddenly that my allotted days are more than enough now.  What a strange feeling!  It emerged after a week of wild rushing happenings, all beyond my control.  How can I explain?  Maybe you’ve had this happen to you too.  The stars line up, the dominoes fall just so, unrelated situations become an unbroken chain.

My chain went from a bout with vertigo, well over a year ago, which sent me–wrongly, it turned out–to a cardiologist, when my family doc thought it was heart related.  It was not.  A bit of physical therapy fixed that problem.

My dermatologist removed a bothersome mole from my back–totally benign–causing me to lose more than three weeks’ worth of swimming until the scab fell off.  A one-day-a-week swim could easily be replaced with my usual daily walk.  That fixed that problem.

Incidents started to accumulate when I got back to swimming.  That resulted in an accelerated heart rate and a “floating” feeling, which sent me to…wait for it…my cardiologist.  Yes, remember I had one, mistakenly.  She set me up for an EKG that same day, which ultimately sent me directly to the hospital, where I was wired up enough that I could’ve talked to the space station.  Long story short: my heart was pausing far too much, which set me up for a pacemaker.  Two days later, I was the proud owner of Paula Pacemaker, who now goes everywhere with me, and reports back every night, wirelessly, to my formerly unneeded cardiologist.  That fixed that problem.

As we sat in the hospital, we had to cancel a cruise we were set to leave on in four days.  Luckily, a wonderful travel agent and an early purchase of travel insurance got us a full refund of costs.  That fixed that problem.

The flowchart for that whole thing would astound any nonbeliever.  The seemingly unrelated dominoes tilted perfectly in a line, and the things I thought unimportant turned out to be enough.  More than enough, actually.

A final cherry appeared atop this mountain of happenstances.  My collection of poetry was accepted for publication as a book.  This within a day or so of my hospital escapade.  What a gift!

I bring all this up because I feel doubly blessed.  I’ve always felt watched over and lucky, but all of this takes me beyond this.  My life has always been full of “enoughs.”  Enough parental nurturing, enough friends’ love and companionship, enough husband’s support.  Enough.

What I have now, I realized just a short time ago, is more than enough.  If all of those things had been missing one step, I might not be here.  The bottom line is that I had a cardiologist who recognized I needed quick answers and got the help I needed.  Based on how quickly my heart was getting lazier and lazier, f I had decided to tough it out–which all of us do far too often–and go on that Caribbean cruise, I undoubtedly would’ve had more and stronger episodes of feeling that I was coming untethered from my body.  One of those times, I would have floated off, never to return, and I would’ve come home in an urn.

So, now I have more than enough.  More than enough time to enjoy this “second life” I’ve been awarded.  I hope I deserve it.  I’m certainly more aware of my own mortality, but more than that, I’m keenly aware of the need to actively work on deserving that second chance.  I must try to be a more tolerant person, a better listener.  More a rejoicer than a complainer.  With the world in such turmoil, as it is, I must remember that I’m here to help others lift up, not wallow down in the darkness.  On an individual level, on a family level, I can do that by awareness and thankfulness.  I realize I don’t have to say much, if anything, really.  my life should be an example of joy and gratitude.

St. Francis said, “Preach often; use words when necessary.”  Too often, we think of preaching as, at the very least, talking out loud.  But our simple existence in interacting with others can lift those around us, if we keep in mind that we have more than enough.  More than enough smiles.  More than enough gentle words.  More than enough compassionate silence.  Maybe even more than enough tomatoes!

Can I actually do it?  I’m only human, so maybe not as often as I should.  But that second chance should be acknowledged.  I’ve got more than enough time.

February is one of those oddball months.  Only 28 days.  Except!  Every four years we get another full day to leap ahead to what the calendar “really” should be.

What did people do before there was such a need for millisecond timings of things?  Well, they watched the sun, they tested the temperature, they kept an eye on the sky for returning migrating birds, they paid attention to when the robins started to pull worms like lengths of elastic out of the cold, but no longer frozen, earth.  The rhythms of outdoors set the rhythms of indoors.  Farmers rose with the sun, or even before it’s breached the horizon, and then went to bed at the same time the sun took the last of the daylight with it.

Now, we set our own rhythms, sometimes at our peril.  I used to get up at 4:30 a.m. so I could eat breakfast and work out at the gym before going to work.  Of course, I compensated by going to bed at 8:30 or 9 p.m. to make sure I got in the right number of hours of sleep.  Crazy, right?  But it worked for me.  I didn’t fall asleep at my desk…well, almost never. That is one of the luxuries of retirement.  I can sleep until 7 a.m., or even later.  What a slugabed!  After 18 years of retirement, I still like getting up relatively early, but it’s so nice in the winter, when it’s still dark a while into the morning, to be able to check the time, groan, and turn over to go back to sleep.  Or just lollygag in bed, cocooned in a nice warm blanket.

But sometimes our own self-imposed rhythms are disturbed with a ripple, or sometimes even with a total tsunami.  How we deal with those “blurps” in our well-structured lives can really make a difference.  I remember the turkey on our first Thanksgiving, when we had a houseful of company.  We bought one of those aluminum one-use roasting pans.  When I took it out of the oven, it folded right over on itself and–you guessed it–hit the floor, stock splashing everywhere.  The five-second rule immediately went into effect as we scooped up the turkey and plopped it in another pan.  But there went the gravy fixings.  I, being a young and inexperienced cook, panicked.  Thank God for the brother-in-law who cooked in the military.  He went into action while I cried.

Having children calls for often and instantaneous reconfiguring.  When is that batch of cookies going to school with the kid?  Today?  Today!  When it happens once, it’s disaster.  By the second time, we know where the 24-hour grocery stores are.  Child’s first projectile vomiting/broken bone/car accident?  It’s amazing how quickly we can pivot.  Just remember to make sure the stove is turned off and the doors are locked when you leave for the doctor/hospital/police station.

Aging presents more and more instances to practice making abrupt turns, some 90º, some 180º.  Either way, with the practice of our younger lives, we can make those changes.  Some turns are graceful, like deciding on our own to give up driving, for safety’s sake, our own and others.  Other turns are wrenching, such as adapting to health issues that can’t be fixed with a bandaid.  By that time, we adapt because we have to.  We’ve done it before, we can do it again.

But let’s not go there.  Try this on for size:

We can handle many disruptions to our chosen rhythms.  Then why can’t we handle the time change in the spring and fall?  Don’t get me wrong, I think we’ve gone beyond needing such machinations.  The farmers know what they’re doing.  They don’t need an artificial system.  The cows tell them when they need to be milked, the chickens know when to lay eggs and cackle about it.

Well, that’s human nature.  To complain, that is.  I guess it could be a lot worse.  Even the human body adapts to the sun out longer in the spring.  It’s our minds that resist.

The next leap year is 2028, so we’re right in the middle of the march from the last one in 2024.  Here’s an opportunity to realign ourselves with the earth’s orbit around the moon.  There’s no going back to the times when everything slowly set itself, without need for human-built clocks able to detect the resonance frequency of atoms.  (I had to look that one up!)  Life has become more complex, richer, varied, and challenging.  When 2028 comes around, set aside that extra day to pick a personal rhythm tuned in to you, personally, and enjoy every minute of it.  Do that even now, if you can!

Who out there remembers the 1937 movie Lost Horizon?  Yeah, I know, nobody.  There was another one made in 1973, but it was not a very good rendition of James Hilton’s book of the same name.  I remember seeing the earlier version on television when I was a kid, and being entranced.  To remind you: After a plane crash in the Himalayas, the Western passengers are rescued and taken to Shangri-la where it never snows, people age very slowly (if at all), and all is harmonious.  Of course, it’s raging winter outside the valley, and one of them wants to leave.  Does this sound like Wisconsin in the winter?

Well, okay, people don’t necessarily age very slowly here.  Although maybe the cold has frozen enough of us solid that outsiders think we’re just well-preserved.  Preserved?  Maybe.  

But I digress.

This was headed toward reveling in the snowy Shangri-la that Wisconsin becomes in winter.  Shangri-la implies utopia, where all is perfection in action.  Okay, I give you that one.  No place is that good.  But sometimes here, it feels close to Shangri-la, especially in winter.  Now, you may not be a cold lover, so I’ll bow to you on that detail.  I, on the other hand, don’t mind the cold, as I can pile on the extra clothes to keep warm.  Can’t do the opposite in the summer.  One can only peel off so much to counteract the heat before the censors appear.  No, this is not the voice of experience.

I’m with my mother, who said, when she turned eighty, “I can finally admit that I love winter.  They’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s just that crazy old lady again.’”  I’m not waiting until I turn eighty.  I do love winter too.  (Though as I age, I am sometimes more concerned about possibly falling on the ice than I am about the beauty all around me.)

At any rate, loving the outdoors as I do, I went out to capture some everyday winter scenes around here.  You can see the results of my expedition in the Photos section.  Here’s your chance to do some armchair ramblings without having to bundle up, feel the cold, or try and warm up when you come in.  Maybe that’s one of the fun parts, coming in to warm up.  Think fingers gradually getting full feeling back.  Think feet no longer encumbered by boots that make you feel like Frankenstein’s monster.  Think unpeeling one piece of outerwear at a time, then making a dash for the fireplace crackling and wafting heat for you to enjoy.  Think cocoa—no marshmallows, please.  Oh, man!  I’ll be back in a minute…  Yum!

Go back and fast-forward through arming up for the foray into the snowy Shagri-la.  Long sleeved top, thick socks, and jeans, or maybe even snowpants.  Then the good stuff: snowboots that have to go on first or you won’t be able to bend over to lace ‘em up.  Scarf around the neck, wrapped at least once, maybe more.  Then, one of those thick puffer jackets, one that covers the bum, at the very least.  (Commonly called stadium jackets, just to make them sound more posh.)  Hat.  The best ones make you look like one of those old-timey loggers from the North Woods.  Because they must cover the ears, of course.  Before the mittens–note: mittens, not gloves–go on, stick the cell phone in the pocket, because if you fall, you need to be able to call for help to hoist you up, with all that outerwear restricting movements.  Mittens get tucked into cuffs.  I myself have mastered the maneuver that squishes the cuff of the second mitten and pulls it into the cuff of the jacket.  Gently slide the hand down into the captured mitten and Ta-da! the mitten is secured from any snow sneaking into the wrists.

We’re ready. Let’s go!

Um…wait.  I feel like a toddler.  You know what I’m about to say?  Yup.  Gotta go potty…

The Roman god Janus had two faces, one facing back, one facing forward.  Thus, he was worshipped as the god of beginnings and endings, transitions and time.  Much like our personifications of the old year as an old man, and the new year as a baby, Janus presided over anything moving from one state to another:  birth to death, war to peace, old year to new year, and more.  The month of January is named after him.  Fitting, seeing as how this month is the beginning of something new again.  We’re kissing 2025 goodbye and stepping over the threshold into 2026, moving from the past into the future, where nothing is set it stone yet.

As with many thresholds, we can easily look over our shoulders and see what’s been accomplished, or what’s we’re leaving behind.  Until I wandered through my photos, I didn’t think I had a ton of bright lights to reflect on.  I was wrong!

A Caribbean cruise where we spent some fun time searching out hidden rubber ducks.  Magnolia trees exploding with pink, or the special yellow one by the library.  Lions basking in the sun at a Chicago zoo.  The crazy squirrel that found out a way to clamber up a fragile bush to balance on the hummingbird feeder.  (I think it’s the same one who’s scrambling up the patio door’s screen door…without making a single hole!)  The Fourth of July in Door County, including indulging in smoke lake trout.  A lunch with Pat Martino, a former student traveling the world working at various embassies and soaking up local culture and food.  The Holy Hill fun outdoor art fair with my extraordinary bonus sister (read, sister-in-law).  Apple picking with the grandkids and their parents…and the pies that reside in my freezer, soon to be baked in the middle of winter.  Meeting the new archbishop.

The sparkling crown of the summer: our entire family flew to explore my father’s German hometown.  That was probably my last chance to see the last cousin, whom I hadn’t seen since 1956, when we were both children.  He’s 80, so how much time is left?  I was so pleased and proud to share my heritage to our children and grandchildren.

And now?  Now, Janus stands at the threshold, gazing forward into the new year.

What’s in store?!  Another cruise, and this time we’re taking our own rubber ducks to hide around the ship, hopefully where children will find them.  Some book promoting events, of course.  I love meeting new readers, as well as return readers.  I continue to have fun both writing and sharing.  I went back to poetry and short stories, just for a little variety, and both are lots of fun…and challenging!  I look forward to fun with the grandkids, and our adult children as well. Beyond that, I’m happy simply watching the days unroll into weeks and months, as the weather warms and then shifts again.

As I turn another year older, I’m tying myself to the rhythms of Mother Nature.  Slow, sure, and often surprising.  Just like these buds on the magnolia–closed up tight and ready to burst into brilliant blossom–2026 is ready to give us plenty of wonderful experiences, if we simply pay attention.

When Martha turned around, she nearly dropped the glass of water she was about to deliver to her last customer.

“No!  It can’t be!” she said.  “Is that Daniel Sunder?”  No one but the bartender was around to answer, and he was too busy to pay attention.  “My favorite writer!  I’ve worked here for twenty-five years and never run into anyone nearly this famous.”  On top of the excitement, Martha felt anxiety descend like a rock.  Sunder was not known for his…shall we say, friendly personality.  But it was her table, and she had to serve him or lose her job.

Reaching the table, she set down a trio of cocktail napkins, stacked to absorb the moisture.  Before she even had a chance to add the water glass, Sunder—if it was Sunder, whisked out two of the napkins.  He never even looked up when she handed him the menu.

Martha was a little surprised.  She knew Sunder was about her age, but here he looked it, unlike those glossy photos of him on the back of his books.  At the server station, Martha took a napkin and penned a message: You look like Daniel Sunder.  Are you him?  Your server, Martha.  She couldn’t help herself.  She had to know.  She set the napkin down where he couldn’t miss it, and waited to take his order.

He took up a pen and added to her message:  Are you he, server Martha.  Food recommendation?”  He handed the napkin to her without looking up.

“Oh, yeah.  ‘Are you he.’  Sorry.”  She screeched to a halt for a moment.  “Um…Well?  I myself had a Reuben for lunch and…So.  Um.  They’re really good.”  She squeezed her pen so hard her fingers turned white.  She told herself to just shut up and take his order.

Fine.  Written on another napkin.

She chuckled.  “Comin’ right up, sir,” she said, her voice warm as butter.  She flashed him a smile, though she was sure he didn’t see it.

He caught her arm and handed off his last napkin.

Mr. Sunder, not sir, she read as she hustled away to put in his order.  “Ha!  Mr. Sunder!  It really is him!”

Before she delivered his order, she wrote on another napkin: May I have your autograph?  This time, she used her best grammar.

When she set down his sandwich and chips, she added a stack of napkins, with hers on top.  “If we’re going to correspond on napkins,” she said, “you need a fresh supply.  Enjoy your Reuben.”

As Martha turned away, Sunder grabbed her wrist with one hand and held up a single finger: Wait.  He pulled a napkin off the stack and set to writing another message.  He actually looked up at her as he handed her this one, the corners of his mouth rising upward.

A smile?  A smile!  Will wonders never cease?

Martha read the message and laughed out loud.  Daniel Sunder doesn’t do autographs, server Martha.  Sorry.

Sunder cleared his throat and actually used his voice.  “What’s for dessert?”

Okay, Martha, take a chance!  “Well, the German chocolate cake is pretty good.  But pecan pie is even better.”

Sunder nodded.  “Pie it is, then.”

“Well,” Martha cleared her throat, “we actually don’t have pie here.”  She stepped aside and tilted her head toward the front window.  Across the street stood a small shop: Patricia’s Perfect Pies.

Sunder’s smile blossomed.  The “wait” finger again.

When do you get off work?

“You’re my last customer, Mr. Sunder,” Martha said.

Another napkin.  Daniel. 

Still another, accompanied by a wink.  Pat’s in 20 minutes?

Martha nodded and returned his wink.  “Thanks for stopping in, Mr. Sunder.  Let me get your check.”

The End…or maybe just The Beginning.

I love shoes.  I used to love them more, but my feet offered their own opinion a few short years ago, and I was forced to listen.  Let me explain.

When I was young and…well, stupid…I wore high heels and pointy toes, because that was the fashion.  Oh, yes, they looked great.  Made my calves look defined and muscular.  Made me taller too.  I was 5’3” then, and I could add four inches to my height and still be the shortest one in the room.  But I felt taller, didn’t I?  Sure did!  The tradeoff was that my toes were squished down into those pointy-toes shoes.  But that meant that the pounds per square inch on those stilettos was equivalent to a 6,000 pound elephant! That was the first loud commentary to be heard from my feet.  “You’re killing me down here!  You know, of course, the Chinese outlawed foot binding in 1912.  1912!  You hear me up there?” Now, if you’ve ever Googled foot binding in Images, you know my feet were not that broken.  I mean, literally, broken.  It was a cruel custom.  But it had a long history.  Funny thing, the men never got to see the naked feet, only the lovingly embroidered silk slipper (too small to be called shoes, actually) that were supposed to make the woman’s foot look like a lotus blossom, to attract men.  Yikes!  Not even close.

But I diverge.  My toes weren’t punished that much.  But they did get a bit deformed, pushed out of being straight.  No toe agony though.  No elephant.  Whew!

Once I started jogging in college, I needed more support.  My feel congratulated me on my good decision on that one.  So, many years later, I still take a lot of time finding just the right shoes for walking.  (I no longer jog.)  It’s Skechers for my money.  Great arch support for my high-as-the-sky arches, comfy support, and good-looking styles besides.  I am far from being an athlete, but poor support when walking even a couple of miles every morning is a no-brainer.  If you’re gonna do anything faster than sitting in a recliner, you need good support for your feet.

Which brings up sandals.  Some folks swear by them.  As for me…well, as long as I’m away from sand or debris, and have good arch support, they’re great for the summer.  Some folks can hike in sandals.  Miles and miles.  Concrete or beach, it doesn’t matter to them.  Not me!  The minute I get a grain of sand under my foot, I’m a goner.  So irritating!  People get mad at me because I simply have to sit down and get that irritant out.  Slows everyone down.  And they’re not happy with me.  I’m very careful when I wear sandals.  And no high-heeled sandals for sure!

Boots are a whole ‘nother case.  I finally bought myself a pair of those big clunkers for winter walking.  Boy, are they ugly!  They make me look like a lumberjack.  But you know what?  I don’t care.  They encase my lower calves, lace up with those bright orange laces, and have a collar of fur around the top.  Can I walk in them?  Picture the Creature from Frankenstein.  I usually don’t do my morning constitutional in them, but I do break them out when I need to fire up the Big Growler (read: snowblower).  With the wind plastering me with snow, those boots are a Godsend.  I may look like I’m ready to fell some trees, and I know I won’t win any fashion points, but my machine and I are in harmony.  After all, no one would wear ballet slippers to snowblow now, would they?

Barefoot used to be de rigeur for summer wear when I was a kid.  No concern about what was lurking in the bare soil, just waiting to drill into the bottom of my foot.  Apparently, there was nothing, because I never had problems.  If I were traveling in the backcountry of some areas, foreign or domestic, I’d wear shoes, but not outside around my home.  Once I was married, and had my own garden, I often worked barefoot out there.  That was when my husband picked up the grass when he mowed.  I could mulch my garden paths a half-foot deep with grass clippings.  Oh, what a wonderful cushion!  The aroma of cut and drying grass was perfume.  Of course, once it started to ferment…  Well, that was another story.  I don’t go barefoot much anymore.  Too sensitive now.  I stick to summer bare feet in the house.

As we walked to my mother’s wake, my daughter and I passed a shoe store.  We stopped, exchanged a meaningful glance, and, without a single word, pivoted and pulled open the door.  It was as if my mom, who also loved shoes, leaned down from heaven and said, “Psst!  You need to go in there and buy some new shoes for my funeral.  You know how good they’ll make your feet feel.  And if your feet feel cherished with new shoes, you’ll feel cherished too.”  How could we ignore those direct instructions?  She was right.  We did feel better.

Support your feet!  After all, they’ve supported you for years!

When the afternoon weather changes, and the sky darkens when it normally wouldn’t, I check to see what time it is.  These crepuscular moments are so fascinating.  But wait!  What the heck is crepuscular??

I love that word, but it’s so obscure that I don’t use it much.  You know that time when it’s no longer day, but not quite evening?  Most folks call it twilight.  Which, by the way, refers to both the time just before dawn, as well as just before dark.  Anyway…  Those times of day, and that kind of light, is what’s called crepuscular.  Leave it to the ancient Romans to coin a term for that short-lived break between night and day, on both ends.

Back to those wonderful times.  The light feels like it’s suspended, just hanging there waiting for the air to resolve itself one way or the other.  That happens also on those summer afternoons when a storm may be brewing.  The world holds its breath, waiting for the clouds to firm up into thunderheads and shoot out fragments of lightning.  It hasn’t happened yet…but any minute now…

I think that’s what gave Monet that luminous shade of lavender in his famous water lily paintings, or the ones of the river Seine.  In the real world, those moments usually don’t last long.  Either the clouds break up, or the sky starts rumbling, and the moment fades.  But for the time it is there, I love to go outside and feel the atmosphere.  (Unless there’s a tornado watch!)  It doesn’t last, which is what makes it so…crepuscular.

Those liminal times, the times between one thing and another, are not found just in times of day.  Border times are everywhere.  One of my favorites is not from the natural world at all.  It’s at the airport, of all places.  Everyone there is in a liminal moment.  We all wait for the adventure, the travel, to begin.  We’ve sloughed off the everyday world and are caught in that liminal moment when we are neither “here,” in our normal world, nor yet at the new “there.”  Caught between.

Times like that can become chunks of reality, of course, as we perhaps chat with a stranger, or take time to pick up some food.  Personally, I love to people-watch, which feeds into my habit of creating characters for future stories.  Sometimes it’s an unusual hairstyle or piece of clothing.  More often, it’s faces:  shapes, colors, cheeks, lips, eyebrows, facial expressions and gestures.  Such fun!  For me, that liminal moment, between being on the ground to boarding and flying away, is a rich border to mine for diamonds.

Waiting for something to happen can be either frustrating, or a chance to recognize a liminal moment.  Take a breath, hold it, and realize you’ve removed yourself for a moment from the hubbub around you.  A small personal liminal moment to rejuvenate and renew.  Exhale and step out to begin again.

Thomas Wolfe once said, in his novel of the same name, “You can’t go home again.”  But that’s not true.  You can always go home.  To paraphrase a Robert Frost poem, “Home is where they take you in.”

That was grandly illustrated a few weeks ago on our trip back to my dad’s home town in Germany.  It’s a tiny village, less that 1000 folks, and, for me, doesn’t hold but the son of one cousin, the last of the line.  He owns the house built by two sisters five or six generations back, but he works in a town an hour away.  So, he only gets back to the family homestead on weekends.  But he met us in the next town over, where all nine of us were staying, embracing me, my husband, and our daughter, all of whom met him on earlier trips.  That left six other folks, including the grandkids, so far removed in the genealogical line so as to know only my generation, and no farther back, or forward either.  It was fulfilling to see that the man who greeted us was delighted to see the connection across The Pond maintained.  Hugs all around.

You see, home is all about the people.  And the people in Germany are family, and that’s home.  I was lucky enough that I was able to strengthen the very tenuous thread that exists between relatives that are both old and physically remote.  My cousin Gerhard and I used to wander the hills above the town when I was nine and he was–What? Eleven?.  Now, I’m 78 and he is 80.  And we haven’t seen each other for 69 years.  That doesn’t seem possible.  And yet, I can look back at those photos from 1956 and be transported to that ruined tower on the top of the hill that looks like a beer stein.  Or see the string of relatives frozen in time, hiking along a forest edge, heading for some kind of treat–was it strawberries and cream?–at the restaurant in the hills.  On this trip, our daughter took a picture of Gerhard and me strolling in front of her, sharing an umbrella, in perfect step with each other, looking just like that famous Hummel of two children under a huge Regenschirm.  For us, we were still the two children who roamed the hills all those years ago.  A truly magical moment.

This was all made possible by a bevy of people:  our two children and our two bonus children (read: in-laws) deciding it was time to visit the past before it was too late.  (read: before we got too old to walk, or, heaven forbid, dead!)  A scant handful of Christmas letters was enough to establish contact with Gerhard’s son, Oliver, who plunged wholeheartedly into helping with arrangements to get us all together again.  What a delight!  With a generous heart (and I’m sure a good deal of curiosity), Oliver brought his father to us so we could have a full day together.  Gerhard and I could reminisce, gathering in the rest of the family to our embrace.  Time seemed to stand still.

So, see?  You can go home again.

What you can’t do is “go house” again.  Even on our trip to Germany, the old family house was no longer the same.  My cousin’s son works very hard to clean up the extensive area he has no time to garden.  I look back over the many, many years I have connected with that building, and know, it will never be the same as it was before.  In 1956, the house had a small attached barn with two cows, a pig, and a flock of chickens in the loft above, and a vibrant extended family living there.  In 1971, the animals were gone, that annex converted to a garage, and the hayloft turned into a bedroom.  Changes continued through the years as each generation passed away, making room for the younger.  It is a house.  Simply a house.

Several years ago, when I returned to my hometown, I drove around, revisiting old haunts.  The last house I lived in there was still in lovely shape, having been sold to another Mary Ann.  But the parents that made it home were no longer alive, so it was simply a house.  I was quite satisfied with that.  Then I drove a few blocks to see my maternal grandparents’ house.  The house was the only connection I had with them, as they were both deceased long before I was born.  To my acute dismay, nothing remained of the house.  It had burned to the ground since my last trip.  Even the nursing home housing my mother in her last year or two had been razed, leaving a stretch of only well-tended grass.  Nothing left.  Though a shock, what really brought me consolation was the realization that a building is not a home.  It’s only a house.  Very different from a home.

Home is all about the people.  The distant cousins.  The grandchildren.  The parents, even if they’re no longer physically there.  The cherished neighbors and friends from our pasts.  Home is in the heart, not on a static street with a house.  Home travels with us.  There, we can always go.

A house changes, perhaps deteriorated, perhaps renovated, perhaps even disappearing entirely.  A home, however, is always with us, perhaps flickering, perhaps glowing, but always a place where you are taken in, even if just in your mind and memories..

Imagine a city of around 2 million people with no one on the silent streets.  No cars or buses, no flowers, no stores open (although there are enticing displays in the windows), no sidewalk cafes…  Well, all right, one cafe with three tables way-y-y-y down the street, populated with a handful of silent coffee drinkers.

Now, fast-forward to a city of close to 4 million people.  The streets are still uniquely quiet, with a background of murmured conversations and soft shared laughter.  However, there are people everywhere: lounging on the benches or on the grass in the parks, clustered at the cafes stretched along all the major streets and many of the minor ones, groups following like ducklings behind a well-versed guide.  In spite of the leisurely pace of most, the vibrancy of a living breathing city is palpable.  

Welcome to Berlin, Germany.

Those first images are from 1971.  The Berlin Wall, erected in 1961, was still “protecting” the Easterners from the vicissitudes of the West.  It totally surrounded the city of west Berlin.  All 96 miles of it.  That’s the distance from the Wisconsin state line south to Joliet, Illinois.  The view was pretty bleak.  We were traveling from East Germany into Berlin, and crossed into the West at Checkpoint Charlie.  Almost two hours on the Russian side, while they took our passports and luggage to examine in another room, culminated in the warning to stay on the sidewalk, as the areas on each side were mined and studded with barbwire, to say nothing of the watchtower, the dogs, and the Kalashnikovs.

But enough of that.

Now, Berlin is none of those things, Gott sei Dank’!, as the Germans say.  Now, when we pulled into the main train station, we were surrounded with the hustle and bustle of a city on the go.  We piled into taxis and were shepherded efficiently (Germans do everything efficiently!) to an apartment that would hold all of us in comfort.  A kitchen!  Four bedrooms!  Two bathrooms!  And a vast living space glassed in along one wall, with a substantial balcony for relaxing. And for doing Tai-Chi for me in the morning.

Many of Berlin’s sectors are designed with courtyards.  So, from the street, what looks like a gap between buildings to allow cars in, opens out into a deep courtyard, sometimes centered with grass, sometimes with cobblestones.  People living cheek-by-jowl don’t feel crowded or pressed too closely.  The outdoors, with sky, birds, bats at night, is right there off their balconies.  Lovely.  We were in the area known as Mitte (middle), which, as the name says, put us smack dab in the middle of the city.

I got chills when I walked through the Brandenburger Tor, which was in the Death Zone before the wall came down.  Nobody could get close.  Now, it’s a pedestrian area packed with a young man blowing gigantic bubbles here, and umbrella-wielding tour guides shepherding people hither and yon over there, bracketed by the US embassy on one side and the French embassy on the other.  Water bottles and sweaty tourists prevailed in the sprawling square in between.  A veritable United Nations of languages too.

We took a river tour on the Spree, and our guide was, I swear, at least 50% Muppet.  He walked and bobbed around, sprinkling jokes in between his explanations of what we were seeing.  The Cathedral was open, and someone was practicing the organ.  You’ve never experienced a church, especially some of those old European grand dames with domes spread like 19^th century skirts sheltering the incredible interiors, unless you’re there when someone is hidden way up there, doodling away on the keys.  Wow!  To walk in on Bach booming out into the nave is a visceral experience!

A two-hour tour on foot focused on the Third Reich, and the Cold War.  Walking history!  Monuments, memorials, the site of Hitler’s underground bunker (now a nondescript parking lot; a fitting end), parts of the 1961 wall, and, finally, Checkpoint Charlie.  If the replica of the kiosk from the border crossing were not there, the area would be perfectly ordinary.  For me, seeing that little hut positioned in the middle of the street had me superimposing the street as seen in 1971 over the street as it exists today.  Huge buildings with lots of glass and modern designs now take the place of the no man’s land that was the crossing earlier.  Totally unrecognizable.  And beautiful.  A tribute to the possibility of humanity to erase the ugly and resurrect the good.  The loud Palestinian organized protest, with the expected counter-group of Jewish supporters, with a heavy, but quiet, police presence, was a reminder that openness and tolerance were back in place.  As well they should be.

Speaking of openness, the new federal government building, the Bundestag, more commonly known as the Reichstag, has a beautiful glass dome.  We were able to climb up inside, which gave us breathtaking views of Berlin.  But the best part was the cone of glass mirrors that focus sunlight down, down, down into the room where parliament meets.  Visitors can see the politicians at work way down there.  See, but not get close to without a special permit.  Anyway, it’s designed specifically to highlight the transparency in the government, in contrast to the Hitler era.  Certainly a stunning symbol.

The best part?  We were with family.  Six adults and all three grandchildren.  So much to see!  So much to share!  Half the fun for my husband and me was watching everyone else absorb the city, the history, the shopping, the food, the sheer excitement of everyone around us, locals and visitors alike.  The Berliners were hospitable, tolerating my German and speaking English to those in our party who knew little German.

The cafes, especially the smaller ones off the beaten path, were never in a hurry to move us along.  We sat, we ate, we drank, we laughed, and then we settled back and started the cycle all over again.  All this along quiet, tree-lined streets with lots of bicycles, walkers, cars going to and fro.  For such a large city, Berlin is surprisingly quiet, even the tourist filled squares and buildings.  No driver lays on the horn, no cars spew roars like caged lions (except for one Maserati…), no one yells at someone in the way.  A busy place surely, but with a place with manners.

After sharing an apartment with the entire family, I hated to leave.  We moved smoothly around each other, with no complaints about bathroom use or food disappearing from the refrigerator.  Every morning, we seemed to come together in good time, after slow-motion dances of everyone making their own breakfasts, and shuttling in and out of bedrooms, bathrooms, and balcony.

Ten days together without a single important disagreement.  What more could I ask?

Consider getting out of your armchair and heading for Berlin.  It’s one of my favorite cities in the whole wide world.  It could be yours too!

The other day, when I reminded my daughter to tuck in the other front tail of her shirt, she informed me that, “Mom, that’s the fashion nowadays.”  Really?  Am I out of touch!  But that’s nothing new, I guess, considering fashions change as quickly as the weather.  When I was a girl…Oh, let’s not go there.  But it is rather fun to think about such things…and laugh, most of the time.

One of my complaints was always “Ship and Shore, you make me poor!”  Who remembers that brand of shirts?  They came in all sorts of shapes and styles, and were well within my price range…except I loved so many of them that I could easily spend a fortune anyway.  One shirt I found matched my current boyfriend’s orange, white and yellow striped shirt, so, naturally, I had to buy it.  But we never left the shirttails untucked.  And certainly not just one.  Times change…

No more housedresses either.  And that one I’m not sorry to see go.  I picture all of those yard decorations that show a “hefty” woman’s backside as she bends over to garden.  Always in a housedress too.  Yikes!  That and the ubiquitous apron.  No, not one of those frilly things, but a full-on, covers it all, apron.  Actually, I have one of those, and it’s much better than splattering cake batter all over my front.  Plus, I can just run my hands down the front instead of rinsing off the little glop of goop, and then having to hang up the towel again.  Maybe that fashion statement wasn’t so dumb after all.  I picture my husband’s grandmother coming in from the garden.  She discards her gloves, runs her hands down the apron and whips it off.  “Come on, let’s go…”

Along with that last picture, comes the sight of white ankle socks and white wedge sandals.  Not the best look, I’ll tell you!  But pinch your lips shut and keep quiet!  It’s just as bad, I think, when men wear black dress socks with white tennies.  Fashionista?…or Flub?  Although, socks with sandals have gone in an out of style since forever.  One type of “socks” I’ve been happy to see bite the dirt are the stockings that attach to garters.  Personally, even pantyhose can rot in my dresser.  But those girdles and garters!  Yikes!  I love writing about women back in the 1920s, sliding up their flapper dresses to reveal that little bit of skin above the band of silk stocking, and the precious little garter holding it all up.  Sounds so…No, it doesn’t.  Not to anyone who had to struggle with tugging up a girdle while being flogged by those flailing garters hanging down.  Burn our girdles, ladies, not your bras!

The other end of the anatomy was, and is, so much better:  the head.  I love hats.  I mourn the passing of the everyday hat.  Used to be that everyone wore a hat to church, to travel, to go to the theater.  Not so much anymore, unless we’re talking about winter in Wisconsin.  Then, anything goes.  Low-pile fleece that gracefully curves down over the ears, with long ties with tassels or pompoms on the end: toasty!  Cloches that look like upside down salad bowls: great for wind control.  Scarves wrapped like turbans for those foolish enough to go out without a hat and must improvise: if you do it right, it can be downright fashionable.  Fedora types look great…but they don’t do much when it’s sleeting, or when the winds come whistling down the plains.  The best are those big furry things with earflaps; you know the ones that deer hunters and snowmobilers don’t go without.  Bring ‘em on when the temps drop.  At that point, fashion goes out the window.  It’s survival of the fittest, and those of us living in the Snow Zone are some of the fittest…or some of the most foolish-looking.  Take your pick.

Some fashions never change, and some come around again.  I guess that means, never clean out your closet!