Month: December 2020

Monday was the two-year anniversary of Winks of Goodness. Instead of posting on the actual day, I’m posting a couple of days later just to keep the unpredictability of 2020 going.

            Like everyone else I was so looking forward to 2020. It was the beginning of a new decade, it was cool to say and we all jumped at the 20/20 vision clichés. For me, being four months out from my mother’s death, a new year was precisely what was needed. I made resolutions and lists. I got a new haircut. I even rearranged my home office. I was ready to embrace the changes in my life and move forward. (Remember how “forward” was my word for the year?)

            Well, 2020 certainly delivered change, but in no way, shape or form how I imagined it would. Sure, it began normal enough with our family jumping up and down in the living room as the ball dropped in New York City. It was the first time The Tots stayed up until midnight on New Year’s Eve, and we were certain this year would be better than 2019. And for a couple months, we were good. We enjoyed a quick jaunt to the mountains, I got off to a good start with my new gig and The Tots finished their first basketball season.

Then the lights went out. 

            Within days we were thrown into a new normal that was beyond anything I could have made up. My kids weren’t physically going to school anymore. My husband, who has never been allowed to work from home, was suddenly commandeering our dining room table with his laptop. And I was exercising on our sidewalk by myself instead of sweating with my tribe at the Y. A new stage was set, and I had no idea how to predict what was coming next — neither did anyone else. 

            But things kept coming. Whether misfortune struck my family and friends or our nation and world, it was there at every turn. Just as jewel thieves have to maneuver through a spider web of lasers to get their prize, I carefully stepped through 2020 each day hoping to claim patches of peace. And the best Wink of all is that I found it in the clear spaces that weren’t defined by death, diagnosis or disaster. 

            Serenity came to me while reading on my back stoop, listening to a favorite song or taking an extra walk. While those sound like stress tips you’d read about in a magazine (they are), I also found moments of calm by sitting with my coffee a few minutes longer in the morning, feeling the sun on my face or gazing at the moon through the trees. These spaces of stillness would have been ignored during a regular year, but 2020 was anything but that. 

            This bitch of a year taught me so many things, but relishing the tiny, ordinary moments in between the life-changing ones is my biggest takeaway. The more I did it, the more it soothed me and the more it became habit. Basking in these simple moments recharged me so that I could handle the next phone call, text or e-mail bearing bad news. 

             Though 2020 tried its best, it didn’t cloud all of the clear spaces. They’re still there to bring us comfort and joy, and there are plenty more waiting in the year ahead. So with the strength you have left, take in all that’s around you and stand up to welcome 2021. We’re going to be okay.  

            Happy anniversary to Winks and Happy New Year to you!

            A couple of weeks ago, our family was asked to light one of the advent candles at church. (Don’t freak out because our church does not meet in person right now, and there were only a handful of us in a giant sanctuary — masked and socially distanced.) Anyway, I immediately replied “yes” that our family would be honored to do this, even though I knew we would put some sort of Griswold spin on it — accidentally. 

            Well, last Sunday was the big day, and sure enough we were five minutes late for our call, and John missed his cue to read the prayer of forgiveness, for which we all forgave him. Both glitches were hardly noticeable, and somehow our family escaped mispronouncing a word while reading in front of the folks sitting in the sanctuary, watching on YouTube and listening on WDAV — no pressure. 

            When we were asked to do this, our minister didn’t send us the whole game plan for the service. He simply sent us our parts. So later in the service when I saw that we were singing Hymn 852, When the Lord Redeems the Very Least, my heart began swelling. I wasn’t familiar with the hymn, but I was so familiar with its tune, I’ll Fly Away. 

            I’ve always loved this song because it reminds me of the church I grew up in, and it’s also similar to Will the Circle Be Unbroken, one the songs that we selected for mom’s memorial service. I chose this song because mom wrote about it in a book I gave her to fill out, Mom, Share Your Life With Me. I think I gave her this book after I graduated from college. Regardless, she answered all 365 questions it contained, and I cherish every single page. (If you haven’t given one of these to your parents, do it now. Really! How else are you going to find out about a special valentine your mom received in elementary school?)

            Back to church. While the organist played the familiar notes to I’ll Fly Away, tears fell from my eyes as I stared at the Christmon Tree thinking about mom. She loved Christmas, and she adored Christmon ornaments. She made some for our church’s tree, and she cross-stitched a ton of them for her own Christmon tree. 

            Listening to this music and looking at a part of Christmas that my mother held so dear made me feel close to her, warm even. I could have listened to that hymn forever. It was the wink that I needed to continue powering through a holiday season like no other. 

            People say that the second year of losing someone is harder than the first, and I think that that’s true. Every day, I see things that remind me of mom, and the thought of her not coming back tugs at my heart constantly. But last Sunday for a few moments, I felt peace, and that’s really all I need for Christmas.

So thanks, mom, you always give the best presents and this year was no different.

The other day I was making my normal spinach salad for lunch when I discovered that I forgot to boil eggs for it. (Let’s be honest, a meal planner I am not, so some days I have boiled eggs in the fridge and some days I don’t.) Regardless, I was craving them, and I didn’t have time to boil new ones. 

            As I frantically searched our fridge for a boiled egg miracle, I started getting mad because this was just one more thing in 2020 that was going wrong. After looking for eggs with the tenacity of a narc, (drumroll please) I found one. The amount of joy I felt upon my discovery was ridiculous, and it made me realize how the pandemic has affected my expectations. 

            I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’m swimming through mud on a daily basis. I try to rally a positive attitude every morning, but within a few hours (sometimes minutes) things begin to unravel. Whether it’s a friend’s diagnosis, a parent’s new ailment, a house repair, a new state mandate, a lost shoe or a celebrity death (the passing of Eddie Van Halen shattered my heart), something pops up to eclipse any light that was trying to come through. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t expect things to work when I plug them in, and I assume that any plans I make will be cancelled. 

            Though this is not the best place to be, maybe it’s where I need to be to get to where I’m supposed to be. Confused yet? Hear me out. The past year and a half for me has been rife with loss. I lost my mom within six weeks of her cancer diagnosis, and six months later the world shut down due to COVID-19. It’s easy to get upset and feel sorry for myself, and I’ve done that — a lot. But what I’m realizing is how this virus has changed how I deal with things. 

            Yes, I got inappropriately frustrated looking for a boiled egg, but when I found it, I didn’t just shrug my shoulders and say, “cool.” I was elated. This egg meant more to me than a bracelet from Tiffany’s. I took it as a sign that hope was not lost. It might be hard as hell to find in 2020, but it still exists. Our world is so broken right now, making it easy to notice every little thing that goes wrong, but it works both ways. Because so many things are bad right now, the smallest good thing becomes magnified. 

            Prior to COVID-19, I would have been happy to find a boiled egg for my salad, but the level of gratitude I experienced wouldn’t have been there. These days I feel gratitude when I can do anything remotely normal — dropping my kids off for two days of school a week, doing something outside with a small church group (masked, of course), running into a friend at the grocery store (six feet away, of course), walking my dog, driving down the street listening to Christmas music, the list goes on. 

            An acquaintance recently told me that we have to look for pockets of joy right now, but I think we have to look for them whether there’s a pandemic or not. Even though I write a blog about this very thing, I wasn’t nearly as good at finding Winks (or pockets) as I am now. After ten months of strangeness, surrealism and grief, I’m starting to get the hang of it.

            Finding the extraordinary in the ordinary is a talent, a gift, a superpower even. If you can appreciate the tiny things that are good in your life, think of the power and happiness that can generate. It’s a completely different way to fight the coronavirus, and it’s something we can practice when we’re beyond this pandemic. 

            It’s hard to imagine what life will look like when this is over, but the ability to notice and appreciate the smallest things will sweeten whatever world we’re left with. So yes, I will continue swimming through mud, looking for pockets of joy wherever I can find them. That’s where I need to be, and I’m grateful I’m getting there. 

            The other day I was driving through my neighborhood when The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” came on the radio. The first guitar chords of this song instantly take me back to eighth grade, where at the height of cool, I opted to write the lyrics of this tune on my yellow Tretorns. I wasn’t a complete rebel because I wrote in pencil, but I still thought those lyrics coupled with an anarchy sign certified me as a badass. 

            Thinking about that girl as I drove my sweet minivan made me laugh, and then I realized that I was wearing Tretorns. Sure, they’re now a fancy gold color and there’s no writing on them to be found, but they’re still Tretorns, and I’m still that girl. So many parts of me are the same, and the parts that are different simply evolved from that nerdy eighth grader with a bad perm. 

            I’ve been thinking a lot about aging lately because vastly different levels of it surround me. There are my 10-year-old twins who have entered tweendom in full force. Graydon has embraced sarcasm, and Margot is obsessed with clothes. (That apple did not fall far from the hanger.) It’s fun to watch them explore who they are and who they want to be. 

            Then there’s my dad and my in-laws. Dad misses mom terribly, and I’m right there with him (this year is so much worse than the first one), and my father-in-law has had a rough seven months with Parkinson’s, a bastard of a disease. Though my mother-in-law’s strength is astounding, everyone has a breaking point, whether they realize it in time or not. I worry.

            Right smack dab in the middle of all this are my husband and I. He’s 50, and I’m not far behind him. As we run the circle of life together, I frequently visit adolescent Lori in my mind. When I worry about what the pandemic is doing to my kids, I think back to how I thought when I was a pre-teen. By that point I had discovered anxiety, so I would have been frightened by how strange the world is right now. But I also would have escaped my fear by focusing on important things like Rick Springfield, Judy Blume books and pondering whom I’d have on my TV Christmas special. (I continue to do that to this day. I’m looking at you Michael Bublé!)

            And then there’s Christmas, a time when holiday memories take up some major real estate in my brain. Christmas connects me to my youth more than a scrapbook. I still search for candy cane pens as soon as Christmas decorations are in stores because they remind me of going to McCrory’s at Carolina Mall with mom to pluck one off of the store’s cardboard Christmas tree. I still listen solely to Christmas music until New Year’s Day, and my Snoopy ornaments hang prominently on our tree, just as they did at my parents’ house. Holiday trends come and go, but my traditions are just that — mine. 

            The girl who wrote on her Tretorns is embedded in me; she just has a lot more layers than she did back then. Now, she’s a composite of scars, life lessons, joy, depression, triumphs and daydreams. Regardless of where I am or where I’m going, my younger self will always be there to remind me of who I am and how I got there. I couldn’t ask for a better travel companion.