Three bloggers I admire very much have nominated me for a Sunshine Award. I feel so honored to be included on their lists of “bloggers who inspire,” lists that include the names of many bloggers who inspire me. Over the next day or two, I will answer all their questions and come up with my own list, but until then, I’m going to answer one question that both Amy and Michelle asked: What is your “one little word” for 2014?

Balance. We hear this word everywhere. Balance your checkbook. Eat a balanced diet. Balance your tires. Entire Eastern religions are built around the idea of balance. In art, balance is achieved when no single element of a work overpowers another. So why is it so easy for our lives to become unbalanced? How is it that we forget the importance of eating right, exercising, doing things we love, and finding time for friends and family every day?

I took this picture at Point Judith lighthouse in Rhode Island last September. The asymmetry of the construction of this cairn intrigued me. How does the small stone on the left remain poised on the end of the stick? Does the stability of the larger rock on the right allow this?

In 2014, I want to be the small stone on the left, poised on the brink of whatever the day brings, yet able to maintain my balance. Just as bridges have firm footings and extra capacity (thanks, Anne!) that allows them to withstand forces of use, wind and weather, the firm foundation of the large rock keeps this cairn in place. I think that if our beliefs are solid, if we know our own mind, we have a firm foundation for our choices, both personal and professional. We may waver or deviate a little, after all flexibility is a good thing, but with secure footing and a good support system, we’ll be able to withstand whatever life throws at us.

Cairns have been used since prehistory to mark trails. This cairn will be marking my path through 2014, helping me to keep my balance.

Thank you to everyone at Two Writing Teachers and all my fellow slicers for their friendship and support over the past year. Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and balanced New Year!

“The spark divine dwells in thee; let it grow.”

~Edna Wheeler Wilcox~

On Sunday, my friend June and I went to see The Nutcracker. Dancers from a local theater and dance studio performed the ballet to Tchaikovsky’s beloved music. The cast was full of students from my school and it was wonderful to see them in a different light. Each dancer’s face beamed as they jetéd and glissaded across the stage. As I watched them, I was reminded of something I had read earlier in the day about yoga and the belief that “there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra.” (Yoga Journal) Their Divine spark was shining through, bringing joy to every person in the auditorium.

June and I have known each other since Kindergarten. Our friendship has waxed and waned over those almost 50 (gasp!) years, but we have always been bound together by our love of music and dance. We started ballet class together when we were in second grade, and we sang together in chorus through all our years of school. We sing together still in a local choral group. Yet somehow, neither one of us had ever seen a performance of The Nutcracker. What more appropriate way for us to celebrate Christmas than by watching one of the most famous ballets in the world?

Thank you to everyone at Two Writing Teachers for providing this space to kindle our divine sparks. Wishing you all a season of light filled with love and joy and peace, filled with friends old and new.

Last weekend, I took advantage of the extra days off to get ready for Christmas and did some cleaning. When I dusted some long-neglected shelves, I found a phone dialer from my grandmother’s house hidden in the shadow of a vase. As I held this totally obsolete object in my hand, I marveled at how perfectly its design matched its purpose: a finger-length cylinder tapered at the base so it could be easily grasped while a phone was dialed. I remembered watching my Grandmother as she used this dialer to call her friends or sisters to chat about recipes, gardens, and grandchildren.

Although my grandmother, and the phone she dialed, are no longer around, the urge to reach out and connect with others never fades. From letters, phone calls, emails, and tweets, people still crave connections. The mode may change, but the desire remains.

Maybe it’s because of my age, but I still prefer phone or face-to-face conversations over emails, texts, or Facebook. But these new-fangled forms of communication let me keep in touch with high school and college friends who are scattered around the world. And I’m grateful for all the connections I’ve made through blogging and Twitter.

Although I can no longer use this phone dialer, I’m glad I have it. I’m glad I can hold it in my hand and remember the deep, loving connection I had with my grandmother. And I’m glad that when I put the dialer down, I can turn to my computer, and connect with the world.

Thank you to everyone at Two Writing Teachers for supporting this connected community!

One of my earliest memories is of being at a local ball field, watching my father play baseball in the town league.  After the game, we drove to Carvel’s for ice cream. Although I couldn’t have been more than four, I remember sitting on a picnic bench trying to eat the soft vanilla ice cream before it melted.

My father loved baseball, and he passed that love on to me. When the play offs roll around in October, they always brings memories of him.

He grew up listening to the Brooklyn Dodgers on the radio. Stung by the Dodgers’ 1958 move from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, he rooted for the Mets for most of the 1960s. On the day the Mets won the World Series in 1969, we had a double celebration because it was also my birthday. (I double checked this memory and discovered they beat the Baltimore Orioles–the team my husband-to-be was surely rooting for from his home in Bel Air, Maryland that day.)

By 1975, his allegiance had switched to the Boston Red Sox, where it stayed for the rest of his life. The World Series that year was a big deal at my house. We watched almost every minute of that series together. Except for this:

To this day, I hate to go to bed before a game is over.

Baseball isn’t as big a deal in my house today as it was when I was growing up. While my husband loved the game as a kid, he doesn’t pay too much attention anymore, and neither of my boys are really fans. I only watch an occasional game during the regular season. But come October, I’ll be in front of the television, marveling at the grace of a well-turned double play or holding my breath as a ball soars into the outfield. And you can be sure I’ll be watching tomorrow night, cheering for Boston, thinking of my father.

Thank you to Stacey and all her new co-bloggers at Two Writing Teachers for hosting Slice of Life Tuesdays.

This sign hangs above my kitchen door. And no, I did not tilt it for effect. The cobwebs are real, too. For 25 years, this sign has made me feel less guilty about not cleaning my house as often as I should.

But on Sunday, I reached a new low. I let a 10-month old baby crawl around on a rug that hadn’t been vacuumed in a month. I know; I’m a terrible person. To be fair, his mother didn’t tell me they were coming until about 15 minutes before they arrived. Still, I could have at least vacuumed the living room.

The frustration (and guilt) this incident caused me was forgotten as I played patty-cake with Max and my niece and I chatted about her new house. Also forgotten was the pile of work I brought home Friday afternoon and the plans for writing a blog post or two.

Maybe next weekend I’ll have more time to develop some ideas that have been percolating in my brain for the last week. For now, I’m going to go vacuum. Just in case.

Thank you to Stacey at Two Writing Teachers for hosting Slice of Life Tuesdays!

I graduated from high school in 1978. This was the era of that old perfume commercial with the song: “I can bring home the bacon; fry it up in a pan.” When I arrived on the Orono campus of the University of Maine in September of that year, this was the very hazy vision I had of my future. And that is, for the most part, how it’s turned out. The route certainly hasn’t been direct, but 35 years later, here I am with my family and career.

That hazy vision of the future led me to the first friend I made at UMO (as we called it then). My favorite posters had made the journey from Connecticut with me, but any way to secure these to the walls had not. Fortunately, the girl across the hall had a little kit full of thumbtacks, nails, and other odds and ends. By another stroke of good fortune, she was kind, friendly, and generous, and shared her thumbtacks with me.

Over the next two years, we shared much more, and she was a bridesmaid in my wedding. When my first son was born, she was one of the first people I called. And despite the distance between Maine and Connecticut, her career-track life vs. my detour  at home with my kids, and the fact that telephones and snail mail were the only means of communication, we stayed close for the next ten years or so.

I last saw my friend in 1990 or 1991, when I met her in Boston for a Monet exhibit. Nothing in that visit led me to believe it would be our last. Even though our lives were very different, we spent the afternoon talking about our lives, and laughing at memories of our younger selves. We said goodbye as if we’d see each other again in a year or so, but would be in touch by phone or letter long before that.

And then, before, I knew it, more than a year had passed since I heard from her. My Christmas card was returned, the forwarding order expired. I called a mutual friend to see if she had a current address. She hadn’t had any recent contact either. I even tried locating her parents, but it seemed they had moved also.

More years passed with no word to anyone she had known at UMO. By now, the internet was ubiquitous, but somehow it never occurred to me to search for her. After 9/11, I scanned the New York Times daily for her name. Boston had been the last place I knew she lived, after all. Thankfully, her name wasn’t there, but it was as if she had vanished into thin air.

When my high school class was organizing our 25th reunion, I volunteered to locate addresses. As I sat at my computer one afternoon, it occurred to me to try and find my long-lost friend. Suddenly, there she was. A Very Important Person at a Very Important Company. There was even a picture! I was overjoyed. I wanted to phone her immediately. Because it was Sunday, I didn’t, but I did write her a letter and sent it to her work address. I didn’t expect a response immediately, but I did think she would respond.    Months went by. I even asked my cousin, who also works at a Very Important Company, if I’d breached some rule of etiquette. She didn’t think I had.

Friends come in and out of our lives every day. I know this. But somehow, my loss of this friend seems more personal. I’ve always had a nagging suspicion that my choice to stay home when my children were little or to be a teacher were unworthy, that I wasn’t good enough for her glamorous life. These thoughts come from my own insecurities and are completely unfair to her, but there they are.

I often I think of my friend at this time of year. Because any and all information is available every minute of they day, sometimes I Google her for the heck of it. She’s still at the same company, where she’s now an even more Important Person. But I haven’t tried to contact her again. Nor will I. I have my memories of the many happy times we spent together, and those are enough.