She Always Loved Us

No one was prepared to hear the news about Dolly Parton this week.🦋

We knew she reluctantly postponed plans for a Las Vegas residency last year

We knew she eventually canceled them in May. 

We knew she was heeding doctors' advice to stay close to home in Nashville.

We knew she was being treated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. 

We knew she was "still healin', still workin'."

We never wanted to know that death would come for her so soon.

This one stings the soul.

Reading the bottomless cache of tributes flooding the internet is cathartic. 

What's the opposite of doom-scrolling? Love-scrolling.

My emotional thirst feels quenchless. The remembrances are the metaphorical band-aids that we fruitlessly try to stick onto our hearts, yet they slip off because our hearts weep.

I will bend toward the joy, laughter, and humor (especially the self-deprecating kind) that Dolly projected into the world. This was the intangible currency she lavishly spent on us. 

Up until ten years ago, I was neutral (at best) about Dolly Parton. I locked her talent and music into the country music vault and rarely opened it.

Aside from the obvious glory of her duet with Kenny Rogers covering the Bee Gees tune, Islands in the Stream, her movie debut as Doralee in 9 to 5 with that bouncy, feminist earworm of a title song, the 'leave my man be' warning of Jolene, and her pop crossover tune Here You Come Again, there was little room in my music-loving mind for country.

That all changed when my friend, Susan, who, knowing my fervor for music and concerts, casually asked if I would like to see Dolly perform at the Mann Music Center in 2016. 

I scrunched up my nose, replying, "I'm not really into country music." Poor Susan. Her apparent slam-dunk invitation received a surprisingly glum response. 

She persisted, asserting with urgent disbelief, "But it's DOLLY!"

As a child growing up in Missouri, where the sound of Dolly and Elvis music reliably filled her home, Susan now faced a curious, misinformed roadblock to her fun outing idea. Undaunted, she eventually won me over. 

I am ever grateful for Susan's wise tenacity. She is a college professor who immediately spotted a teachable moment. I also think she felt a little sorry for me and my wayward music limits.

Dolly Parton, Mann Music Center, 2016

Susan and I, 2016, Mann Music Center

                             

The concert was held three days after the horrific shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where 49 innocents died, with many others injured. It was, at the time, the worst mass shooting in the US. (That dubious marker has long been surpassed in this gun-obsessed country.) 

Enter the salve of Dolly.

The Pure and Simple tour was titled after her 2016 album. Dolly delivered just that - a pure and simple night of songs (28!) from her then five-decade career. She filled that perfect June evening with her infectious warmth, candor, and laughter when our psyches needed it most.

Her spirit not only sparkled, but her instruments (nine to be exact) and costumes exploded with glitter. Her stage patter about growing up poor in Tennessee, how love ruled her life, how leading with kindness was the only way to lead, and how her inclusive faith-driven beliefs welcomed everyone into the Dolly-sphere, entranced us.

Inclusion.

Every. Single. Person.

Her audience defied singular description because it was a diverse cross-section of race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and age. There we all were - drinking in Dolly in collective gulps.

I remember feeling Dolly's warm embrace all evening. She repeatedly assured us of her love while cracking jokes and sharing stories with the ease of a pro. Her humanity informed her performance style.

It is embarrassing to think I tried to blow off this chance to see Dolly.

It is equally embarrassing that I didn't recognize her prolific songwriting history, especially with I Will Always Love You. She assured the audience that when asked how she felt about Whitney Houston's success with the remarkable 1992 cover, Dolly would say, "I thank Whitney every time I look at my bank statement!" 

The songwriting royalties, estimated at $10 million in the 1990s, were partially used to invest in an office complex and strip mall in a historically black Nashville neighborhood. Dolly called it "the house that Whitney built."

Dolly-related items, such as a cup of ambition wine glass, and a Dolly Parton cookbook, have been lovingly gifted to me by Susan because "it's Dolly!" Susan traveled to Nashville in 2025 to see Dolly Parton: A True Original Musical; in January, I'll join her and another devotee to see it on Broadway. 

Dolly surprised the Newport Folk Festival audience in 2019, appearing (incredibly for the first time) alongside The Highwomen (Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Natalie Hemby, and Amanda Shires.) I didn't attend that year but read/heard that the female mega-group closed out the festival with silken harmonies and musicianship excellence, 

Things were always better with the Dolly dazzle.   

A few years ago, my husband and I visited the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park as one stop on a wider Fall road trip through the South. Seeing a chance to possibly visit the iconic Dollywood, we arrived in Pigeon Forge late Monday evening only to find that Tuesdays were the sole days the park was closed in October. Sigh.

As a strange and somewhat anemic consolation prize, that Tuesday we drove around the empty parking lot to lay eyes on something Dollywood. Leaving the area, an exit sign sparkled in Dolly's handwriting, reminding visitors one final time I will always love you!

Another hug. 

In a recent episode of Glennon Doyle's podcast, We Can Do Hard Things, Glennon hosted singer/songwriter Sara Bareilles. Promoting her Good Grief album, due next month, Sara said it grew from her experiences mourning loved ones she had lost in recent years. 

Their conversation challenged writer Jamie Anderson's widely quoted claim that grief is love with nowhere to go.

Glennon offered that instead of burying the dead with our grief, we give grief someplace to go. 

Sara replied, "What if we just carried the dead?" 

Let's be the spiritual pallbearers who carry Dolly forward every day. Let's start with books, just like Dolly. https://imaginationlibrary.com/the-dollywood-foundation/

Let's lead with kindness - just like Dolly.

...and we rely on each other - ah ah. 🦋

9 to 5 cup of ambition from Susan

        

Dollywood, October 2023

Light painting artist Darius Pearson (love his work) created this Instagram post to honor Dolly.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DcgjAMvzBJc/

Link to Philadelphia Magazine's brief 2016 review of Dolly's June 15 concert at the Mann Music Center in Philly. https://www.phillymag.com/things-to-do/2016/06/16/dolly-parton-review/ 

Link to a 2016 WHYY review of Dolly's June 15 concert at the Mann Music Center in Philly

https://whyy.org/articles/hope-and-a-flash-of-unity-at-a-dolly-parton-concert/

Link to a 2026 Boston.com article re: Dolly. https://www.boston.com/culture/celebs/2026/08/26/a-saint-and-a-unicorn-new-englanders-remember-dolly-parton/

Corresponding

What's in your USPS mailbox? 

I am willing to bet it's mostly advertisements. 

Do personal letters/cards ever appear in that mailbox? 

I am also willing to bet the answer is - rarely. 

Handwritten correspondence began to fade when emails roared on the scene in the late 20th century.

And, in what felt like the blink of an eye, email began to morph from chatty personal letters into a who's who of businesses carping for more of your business.

Blink once more, and texting quickly became the #1 way of corresponding, offering more efficiency in this time-challenged world. 

Handwritten notes were, at best, on life support. 

Is letter writing now dead?

A novel published last year by author Virginia Evans offers a refreshing and apparently unintentional return to writing letters. (See the link at the end of this post to Katie Couric's interview with Ms. Evans)

Evans' novel, The Correspondent, celebrates long-form communication, both in emails and letters. We learn about its diverse collection of characters solely from their correspondence with the main character, Sybil Van Antwerp.

The epistolary format is as intriguing as the array of characters.

The novel's letters, initiated by Sybil, celebrate the romance of writing on a sheet of paper, which, until the last several decades, was a staple around the world. I wish the novel's typeface choice included a cursive font for Sybil's letters. 

When necessary, Sybil composes emails instead of letters. While her crisp yet heartfelt manner is showcased in either form, it is the letters that keep my attention. 

I remember a time when I regularly took pen to paper and now wonder why I allowed that practice to wither.   

My written correspondence memories began in grade school when I had a pen pal who lived in England. Her name was Julie. We wrote of our little-girl lives and even swapped comic books. Sadly, those letters and comics have long been tossed. 

It felt incredibly exotic to page through those young girl materials from overseas. The tissue-thin airmail writing paper added to the faraway glamour. My box of blank Eaton's Berkshire airmail stationery was a prized possession because it was filled with possibilities. 

Another airmail-themed memory is with my friend Joyce, a high school and college pal, whom I continue to see regularly. Joyce did something tres exotic in 1973. She studied abroad in Paris at the Sorbonne for a semester. 

We telephoned only once, but we wrote, and wrote, and wrote letters on the translucent airmail paper, squeezing in every drop of news possible. We filled each precious page because adding another meant more weight and serious cost to those international missives. 

We howled when reading those letters aloud in recent years, remembering what our teenage minds wrestled with decades ago. They are inky time capsules.

Corresponding did not always require thousands of miles for permission to write. The senders and receivers could live relatively nearby.

My maternal grandparents, Elizabeth and Vincent, split their time living six months in Atlantic City, NJ, and six months around the corner from us in Lansdowne, PA. Just 66 miles separated us in the warmer months, and letters, more than phone calls, connected us.

Elizabeth was a reliable correspondent from South Jersey, making sure one of her newsy notes would arrive weekly at our home. My mom returned the favor religiously. Elizabeth impressively upped her correspondence when I went to college, always reminding me that I was missed and loved. 

Here is one of her notes congratulating me upon entering college. 

Letter from my Grandmom Elizabeth

At college, my mailbox buddy jokingly told me that while I received lots of letters and care package notices, he received dust. In four years, I rarely saw a letter for him in Box 524. He would marvel at my correspondence volume thanks to my dedicated pen pals - my mom and grandmom! After hearing of his plight, my mom even offered to write him! 😊

Mom usually wrote brief one-page letters before she went to work. They were succinct and loving. This brevity resulted in the arrival of two to three letters a week. The combined quantity and quality created the perfect formula for this homesick college coed. 

Below is one of my mom's letters. A red arrow by the 'PS' is particularly noteworthy as it is a reminder of her upcoming phone call on Thursday after 11 PM. 

In the seventies and eighties, long-distance weekday phone calls with my family were ALWAYS relegated to 11:00 PM and later because the phone company rates were lowest then. No exceptions!

Letter from my mom when I was a college coed.

Seeing her sign off - Love from all, Love always, Mom - with her trademark wispy swoosh underneath feels as comforting today as it did in the seventies. Her love always came with flair.

My older brother attended the same college before me. He wrote often, always placing two, $1.00 bills in each letter to me for no particular reason. I still feel the warmth of that older sibling attention from far away. 

In The Correspondent, the character of Sybil, a retired law clerk now in her seventies and living a quiet life in Maryland, corresponds with a Texas suitor who questions her dedication to her writing practice. Sybil's response honors the power and possibility of letter writing when she explains:

.... even if they (letters) remain for the rest of time dispersed across the earth like the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion, isn't there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one's life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone? 

Letters preserve pieces of lives lived. 

My mother-in-law, Dorothy, who lived in Florida, was a platinum-level correspondent. She would first write a draft of her letters and then commit them to gorgeous note paper in a final version. Her penmanship rivaled any Palmer method devotee. 

The letters were precious in their content with immaculate cursive writing. Here is a sample:

During the summer between my eighth-grade and freshman year of high school, I corresponded with my beloved eighth-grade teacher, Sister Kathleen Thomas. As expected, her penmanship ranked in the stratosphere of beautiful handwriting. More importantly, she always cared deeply about her students, encouraging us to make the most of our expanding lives, as evidenced in the note below:

Letters can bring good news.

My first job in high school was at the J.C. Penney department store, located in Upper Darby's retail-heavy 69th Street. While the offer letter below is a one-way correspondence, it marks my entry into the part-time employment world.

Sentimentality is a core value of mine, so I was not surprised that my almost 16-year-old self was very proud of this particular "first." 

Penney's employed me throughout high school and on breaks from college. They were reliable to me, and I to them. 

My husband's maternal grandmother, Odie, also wrote to me starting while he and I dated. She was a retired school teacher and understood the value of written communication. She loved to share stories, especially from her years of living overseas in the 1960s. I am glad to have kept one of her letters.

Letters are sometimes the writer's final words. 

My mother had two older brothers who served as US Army soldiers in Europe during WWII. Pete, the middle child, died in Germany and is buried in a US cemetery in the Netherlands. 

Letters from Pete detail his soldier's story from basic training in 1943 to fighting facism on the front lines in Germany in 1944. He writes with optimism and reassurance. Pete reliably asks the family in every single letter without fail not to worry and to look after his beloved girlfriend, Gilda.

My grandmother saved over 50 letters from this soldier son.

Below are two particularly precious examples: Pete's last letter home and Elizabeth and Vincent's Christmas card to him. 

They crossed in the mail in October/November 1944. The parents and son had no idea they would be the final written words between them.

First is Pete's last letter, written 10/31/1944. He consoles his mother in what appears to be criticism she received from a friend for not crying or worrying in front of others about her son fighting overseas. 

Pete writes with tender understanding and, as always, a reminder to "keep up your courage and never worry." 

Pete's last letter home written 10/31/1944
(1 week after his 21st birthday & 1 week before he died in combat)

Next is the Christmas card sent from Elizabeth and Vincent, mailed in October, 1944. It expresses hope that this will be their son's last holiday overseas. It includes Vincent's signature. He never learned to read or write, but he could, with Elizabeth's encouragement and guidance, sign his name. 

(Every card my siblings and I received from Elizabeth and Vincent that celebrated a holiday, birthday, graduation, etc. included Vincent's signature emphasizing the moment's importance.) 

I can't imagine the searing emotion my mom and grandparents felt seeing this Christmas card returned to them during the seven months Pete was MIA. 

Note inside the Christmas card from Elizabeth & Vincent to my Uncle Pete postmarked 10/18/1944

  

Christmas card - Elizabeth & Vincent's signatures    postmarked 10/18/1944

Softly moving my index finger across the words stills me. These fragments are emotional portals, and I am a willing traveler. I honor this uncle whom I would never meet. I honor his parents' unsinkable love, which I luckily had for 21 years.

Such is the pulse of written correspondence.  

We not only hold something the writer once held, but we see something of their personality in their unique script, whether it is chicken scratch or elegant. They are embedded within each pen stroke. 

I remember touring Boston University with my eldest daughter and stopping in the school's library. There, protected in a glass case, were letters written by Dr. Martin Luther King in the 1950s when he was a BU student earning his PhD. 

Seeing his longhand felt so personal. It was visual oxygen breathing life back into this martyred leader. The handwriting brought him closer. 

History is saturated with letters penned by notable and mundane figures. They are treasures because they capture a moment in time, in the voice of the time, as experienced by the author. No filters. No AI. Just thoughts. 

From hieroglyphs to early alphabets, to modern languages, the urge to communicate affirms the essential human desire to be seen/heard. 

Letters freeze time.

A friend's daughter chose a love letter as a wedding ceremony reading. It was from her grandfather, who was serving as a US soldier during the Korean conflict, to her grandmother. Hearing those loving contents not only moved those of us who were guests; they landed powerfully for their recipient, the bride's grandmother, who was also in attendance without her deceased spouse. 

However, in a Cyrano de Bergerac twist, it was discovered that the grandfather deputized a fellow soldier all those years ago to use his eloquent writing skills to pen the love letter. He would then copy it onto his own notepaper and mail it to his stateside sweetheart.  

Authorship aside, the loving intention won the day, and they married shortly after he returned home from duty. 

Inspired by The Correspondent, a friend has initiated a pen pal effort with me, even though we live relatively near each other. I even have a few sheets of my mother-in-law's pretty writing paper to use.

Sitting in a quiet space, holding a particular pen, and writing one's thoughts in that moment feels different from a phone conversation or a text. It fuels contemplation.

Taking time to write forces my mind to slow down and think about the next word, which cannot be easily deleted by a quick tap of a keyboard key.  

It is emancipating and painstaking. 

It is art. 

Author Virginia Evans summons our inner correspondent. 

Let's heed the call.

 

*QUESTION: What handwritten letters have you saved from your past? Why have you kept them? 

*VIRGINIA EVANS INTERVIEW: Katie Couric interviews the author re: The Correspondent. 

 https://katiecouric.substack.com/p/my-first-kcbc-talk

*SUGGESTED READING: Want to read some letters written by notable historical figures? Click the link below. The website, The Marginalian, has been produced solely by Maria Popova since 2006, and offers insights via literature, science, philosophy, and human behavior themes. 

"Letters from The Greats"

https://www.themarginalian.org/2012/01/16/famous-correspondence/ 

*SOME ADDITIONAL WWII ERA CORRESPONDENCE

Letter to Elizabeth and Vincent identifying their son's gravesite in the Netherlands

Letter to Elizabeth and Vincent that accompanied their son's Purple Heart medal.

November 1944 telegram confirming Elizabeth and Vincent's son is missing in action.

June 1945 telegram confirming Elizabeth and Vincent's son was killed in action.

 

Corporal Peter J. Labate, US Army
112th Infantry Regiment
28th Division
October 21, 1923-November 7,1944

Things I Learned in 2025

Happy New Year! Here are some random thoughts on 2025 .

Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to the Universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety, and life to everything. It is the essence of order and leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful. - Plato

Plato nailed it.

The addition of Pips to the assortment of the daily NYTimes Games energizes my dominoes-loving inner child. 

I quickly morphed into being a Sporty Spice when tickets for Super Bowl LIX were purchased hours before the big game in NOLA. 

Being in the Superdome to witness the Birds eviscerate the Kansas City Chiefs in February defines bliss.

Can someone send word to Taylor and Travis that I am patiently waiting for the nod to be their officiant? (Pay no attention to my previous Super Bowl musings)

Despite the above sports entries, I am, as the kids say, sports adjacent.

Hospitals are stressful labyrinths. Hospital volunteers are stress-relieving angels.

It is unclear why anyone would move out of the state of Colorado – she is magnificent!

Choosing the wrong option when trying to transfer my Apple iphone photos to my Microsoft Surface laptop resulted in the loss of thousands of photos. It is a massive disappointment. It is also strangely liberating.

A muffuletta sandwich from New Orleans Central Grocery & Deli is the closest I will ever come to sandwich paradise. (I see you DiNics roast pork sandwich with broccoli rabe!)

I believe in magic when a couple marry at ages 73 and 74 and describe their delight this way: Sometimes love comes and gives you a fairytale!

Officiating is magical.

Combining vodka and many vanilla beans makes homemade vanilla extract. Leave the bottle sit in a cool, dry place for 6-12 months and voila! Best kitchen hack.  

Driving around Albuquerque, NM, visiting various filming locations used in Breaking Bad re-ignited my obsession with that show.

Having your kitchen knives professionally sharpened is a culinary imperative. (I'm embarrassed to say how infrequently I've had it done.)

Keeping a box of Band-Aids near said knives is also an imperative. 

What we run from pursues us. What we face transforms us.                        Author David Kessler on grief.

While taking a sheet of cookies out of the 400-degree oven, one of my earbuds fell into the crease between the door and oven. Fishing it out quickly while avoiding third-degree burns took unknown dexterity. 

Bonus: that earbud was unphased and is working properly.

Country singer Luke Combs was not on my list of ‘must-see’ artists until he closed Saturday’s performances at the Newport Folk Festival. His vulnerability and beautifully curated set turned me into a fan.

Big Bend National Park is, well, BIG! Texas is BIG. That’s right – my first visit in February confirmed what I’ve been told my entire life.

Regarding Texas politics - pfffft. 

Hospice workers elevate humanity when we are at our most vulnerable. 

Preparing your parents’ home of 47 years for sale is a bittersweet labor of love that also includes a strange exhale on settlement day.

MAGA is outsized white folk fear untethered. It worships a convicted felon. It terrorizes immigrants and defaces democracy. I am tired of re-learning this every darn day. Mid-term elections are coming.

Ken Burns’ “The American Revolution” is a respectful study of all aspects of how this country was colonized and the global impact – warts and all. It should be required viewing in every HS History class.

Author Wally Lamb taught creative writing at York Correctional Institution for Women for over 20 years, facilitating writing workshops that led to published anthologies. 

Thanks to the Merriam-Webster daily Instagram posts, these words are new to me:

Librocubicularist – (this is me) n. A person who reads in bed. From the Latin 'liber' (“book”) and 'cubiculum' (“bedroom”). The word was originally coined by Christopher Morley in his novel 'The Haunted Bookshop' (1919).

Psithurism – (glorious nature!) n. Greek. The sound of wind in the trees and the rustling of leaves.

Kakistocracy – (MAGA) n. government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state. A state or society governed by its least suitable or competent citizens. 

This new-to-me bird is described perfectly by this humorous content creator:

                                                            

Taking us into 2026, glorious Patti Smith reminds us who has the power. I have this on repeat. 

***

Raul Malo’s voice may have been silenced this year, but it lives on in the ethers. Treat yourself to 6+ minutes of his soulful baritone and guitar licks singing Blue Moon with The Mavericks.  

***

Spoken word poet, Andrea Gibson, appropriately has the final say to close out this post. They died at age 49 in July. Please read any of their books or watch any of their performances via youtube videos.  

They are lightning. 

I know you think this world is too dark to even dream in color

but I've seen flowers bloom at midnight

I've seen kites fly in gray skies

and they were real close to looking like the sunrise,

and sometimes it takes the most wounded wings

the most broken things

to notice how strong the breeze is,

how precious the flight.

***

Dear Reader ~ If you've made it this far into this annual vanity post, bless you! I am grateful and humbled to have your attention. Here's to a satisfying start to 2026. Let love and truth be our guide. 

Movin' On Up

The home's empty rooms inhale memories and exhale potential. Unshackled by the weight of furniture, rugs, and framed pictures on the walls, the sparseness is surprisingly liberating.

This is not my childhood home. It is my parents’ place, purchased when I was a young adult.

In 1978, this house checked off all the boxes on my parents’ wish list. This single brick and stone residence with a backyard, a separate two-car garage, a screened-in porch, a den, and 2 full bathrooms actually exceeded their real estate dreams.

They were movin’ on up, just three miles from the compact rowhome where they raised my three siblings and me.

My folks had arrived.

As with every arrival, a departure is imminent. My mom died in 2020, and my dad passed in April of this year. After 47 years under their care, it’s time for someone else to move on up.

The house is being sold.

I find myself switching between the nouns house and home when speaking about it. Saying the word house feels generic and common; saying home adds heart and soul.

Powerful memories reside here, but this house has neither my childhood heart nor soul. I've stored those with the home where I grew up. 

For my folks, however, this home was a cherished vault of family life. They became grandparents the year they moved in. Seeing them realize their American real estate dream left a mark on each of us as we ventured out into our future homes. 

This was the only home their grandchildren and great-grandchildren knew where to find their grandparents. It had generational heft.

Holidays, birthdays, barbecues in the backyard, gatherings with friends, and family Sunday dinners, all hosted here, gave breath to this inanimate structure. 

Life here encircled my parents with a satisfying tempo, similar to the pleasure they felt swaying on their porch glider on any given summer evening. Death eventually stopped the melody as they, each in their nineties, took their last quiet breath.

The Burt Bacharach/Hal David song - A House Is Not a Home - bubbles up as I hear Luther Vandross sing:

                A chair is still a chair even when there’s no one sitting there,                                    But a chair is not a house, and a house is not a home                      When there’s no one to hold you tight. 

While the song explores themes of broken-hearted loneliness, it also conveys a deeper message about the presence of Life within a home. I couldn’t agree more. 

I slept at my parents’ home the two nights before my wedding, as did one of my brothers and his family, who flew in from Maui. My sister lived with my folks for most of her life. My other brother and his family then lived two blocks away. We reveled in this rare time of togetherness and proximity. 

When I worked in Philadelphia, my parents cared for my daughters one day each week, making it my favorite workday. My mom would wait on the front steps with the girls to greet me as I drove up to the house after work. 

I can see that tableau like it was yesterday - the girls waving wildly at my approaching car. Any lingering work stress disintegrated under the sparkle of those smiles. It is a treasured memory that I grab when I seek extra joy.   

As my folks aged and my family grew, my home became the gathering place for holidays and celebrations. In December, my mom would regularly ask, “Come see my tree.” It wasn't hard for her to relinquish hosting around Christmas, but she disliked the unintended shift in her home's activity.  

Her mother, who lived around the corner from my childhood home, made the same request in the 1970s as she eventually passed the holiday hosting baton to my mom's care. I owe my Christmas hosting devotion to these two unsinkable, loving women.

Singer/songwriter Katie Gavin's lyrics from The Baton whisper:

      Go on girl, it's out of my hands ~ I can't come where you're going ~                 But time unfurls and you'll understand ~ The baton, it will be passed again.

While recently sorting through my mom's holiday decorations, "Come see my tree" slipped into my thoughts - a reminder of her passion for Christmas and her joy in sharing her decorated home. Since my daughters live out of state, I more fully appreciate her feelings.

The décor in my parents’ home eventually began to fray around the edges as they both aged into their late eighties and early nineties, but the home's bones were supported and updated. They both knew the value of staying on top of their most valued asset.

 …but a chair is not a house, and a house is not a home…

Once the house was emptied in the Spring, I felt myself inhaling and exhaling deeply. Seeing the newly painted interior and the floors restored to their golden oak splendor reignited what my folks must have seen in the late 1970s. 

Soon, (hopefully) the next lucky residents will be welcomed with a renewed, airy freshness as they launch into their own set of memories. 

This house rightly stands on the threshold of becoming a home once more. 

  

"Come see my tree."

Christmas at my parents' home

                                                                 "The Baton"

Things I Learned in 2024

-A book should grab you by the lapels and kiss you into tomorrow.                 (Author Kevin Ansbro)

-Death Valley National Park - a diverse wonder - defied its doomsday name when experienced in February's 70-degree temps. 

-Viewing a solar eclipse in the zone of totality became a life imperative. Visiting Vermont for the first time was a bonus. 

-Switching between two phones while using a laptop to track cloud cover percentages for total-eclipse-day fried almost every one of my brain cells. 

-Welcome back to Spotify Joni Mitchell. (and Neil Young)

-Watching my 5-year-old grandniece skip down the street as she blew kisses to the sun, the beach, the sand dunes, the flowers, and the sky informed my definition of seashore bliss.

-After 34 years, the deer have found our meager summer garden.  Curses! 

-Palmyra, Samm Henshaw, Molly Tuttle, Hermanos Guitierrez, and New Dangerfield were some of the 'new-to-me' performers at this year's Newport Folk Fest whose music now resides in my Spotify playlists. 

-The clean-up icon in the iPhone Photos app is a platinum-level addiction. 

-First visit to LasVegas + Super Bowl weekend = Wowza! 

-Never say never. Joni Mitchell's weekend concerts at the Hollywood Bowl were as far-fetched a dream as any. And yet, there we were in October listening both nights to a 27-song set that dove into her rich catalog.

-Sharing that weekend with my music-loving eldest child quenched all thirst.  

-Spoiler alert - we are lucky to live in the time of Joni Mitchell. 

-My reading skills met their match with 100 Years of Solitude.

-We could have had an intelligent woman and a competent Congress leading the country.  But, you know, the price of those darn eggs. 😐

-No matter where we go, sharing time away with my college friends fuels my soul and tickles my funny bone.

-The magic created when a couple chooses to marry on the 15th anniversary of their first date softens the toughest among us.

-My youngest daughter's varied travels in Southeast Asia have unlocked little-known wonders inside my Pennsylvania brain. 

-Attempting to sign into any accounts via phone or computer when I am away from home seems equal to trying to steal the nuclear codes.

-Visiting Christmas markets in Strasbourg, France, and Basel, Switzerland along with seeing the refurbished Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris amped up holiday magic. 

-Strolling out onto the Ocean City NJ Fishing Club's 635 ft. long pier this summer when it was open to the public for one night, almost made me want to fish.  

-When swarm, cluster, colony, or loveliness are the synonym options for naming a group of ladybugs - loveliness will always get my vote. 

-Giving a solo standing ovation at the end of the film, Wicked tracks for me. 

-My unscientific observations made while traveling in Europe this month confirmed that European footwear easily out-styles US footwear by a very wide margin. 

-Spotting W. Kamau Bell at an airport gate challenged my fan-girl sensibilities. I praised his work, lauded his activism, and asked for a selfie. No shame. 

W. Kamau Bell & a fan

Dearest Reader, 

Another spin around the sun - another reminder of the ticking clock. 

Thanks for taking your precious time to read this vanity project post. 

Peace and good health to you and to those in your heart. 

And now, a poem for you. 

a wish for the new year

by Megan Failey

 

 because I cannot wish anyone a year

where nothing hard happens, I wish

you a year where you meet what is 

hard with softness.  where you know

softness is an impeccable strength. I 

wish you a heart like a neon sign that

blinks: OPEN 24 HOURS. I wish you an

advent calendar of a year behind

the door of each day: a small gift,

a surprise sweetness, an unexpected

bliss.  I wish you a life like a crowbar,

prying your chest open, letting more

love in

Joni Mitchell - Hollywood Bowl -10/20/24

Below is the link to the December 2024 podcast by NYTimes critic-at-large Wesley Morris along with his editor Sasha Weiss as they share thoughts on attending Joni Mitchell's return to performance at the Hollywood Bowl concerts in October. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/25/podcasts/the-daily/joni-mitchell-blue.html

And lastly, I learned the word for this airborne ballet

 is murmuration. 

It's something  I could watch for a very long time! 

(seen in Ocean City NJ)