"Trees in Love"

The first time I heard Jim Post sing "Trees in Love" I fell off my chair. People say things like that all the time and what they mean is, I laughed really really hard. But I laughed so hard I really did fall off my chair. Really. Then, for years on end, every year on New Year's Eve we listened faithfully to the Midnight Special on WFMT fervently hoping and actually praying to hear "Trees in Love." Some years were good. Some, we had to settle for Woody Allen's riff on the Berkowitz' ("the moose mingled...), "Throw Your Cat Away," "Mooseturd Pie," "I Hate Liver," and Brian Bowers "The Scotsman." Then we moved to Colorado. No more WFMT. Until free internet live streaming. And now I am praying with my eyeballs squeezed real tight and my head bowed all the way to my chest and my hands folded inside out that we'll get to hear "Trees in Love" tonight. At least we get "I Hate Liver." The girls love it. So, this is revenge for Lady Gaga. New Year's Eve's I have known. Parties with a house full of friends, quiet nights with Swan Lake, the first New Year's Eve as a nervous mother who left the babe for all of forty minutes to run down to the corner restaurant and quaff a glass of champagne, nibble at a scrumptious round of baked brie with pinyon and apple before racing back home, to hold Her. Years of games, Trivial Pursuit, Apples to Apples, Scrabble, and noisemakers and movies and concerts. Somehow, thank God, I managed to miss church on New Year's Eve once I'd left my parents' nest and the yearly Moody Science Films and "Watch Services." Actually, one year, in an upstairs room of the church building, a high school boy kissed me at midnight. I was thrilled. And I don't even remember his name. Years we celebrated at 9 p.m. -- the new year, Halifax time, when the girls were little. Years I fell asleep, bored and tired before ten. The year, 1991, when, in San Diego, having carefully calculated the time difference, I stood in awe at noon, tears running down my face, as the flag of the USSR, all red and ruined, its hammer and sickle rusted, was lowered at midnight Moscow time, lowered over the Kremlin for the last time. The year, 2000, celebrating with Beethoven's 9th at the Symphony. So many new years, old years, memories, resolutions. Some kept, many broken, forgotten, neglected, given up. It is now midnight, 2010, over the Sargasso Sea, where the sea turtles whoop and holler. Soon it will be our turn. And the constants, every year: hoping and praying for "Trees in Love" and, yes, artichoke dip. Happy New Year everybody. May your trees, your friends, your families and your own dear hearts know great love this year. Love wins.

I'll Be Home for Christmas

Phew! Transition from Warsaw to Denver, or more particularly to suburban Denver, is always jarring. For a number of reasons: I can speak English. I have my family all around me. The aesthetic and actual comforts of my home are substantial. My favorite foods are easier to prepare and enjoy. Real Mexican food, Hatch chilis! But the most dramatic change is this: in less than an hour, I drove to the eye doctor and picked up new glasses, drove through the drive-through dry cleaner to pick up a coat, stopped in at the office supply store to pick up notebooks and pens, drove over to the mall to run in and get my daughter a shirt she wanted, and then went to the post office to buy stamps and mail a package. I covered roughly eight miles, back and forth, completed five errands. In Warsaw this would have taken me all day. Even with a car. We have a phenomenon here in America that has fueled our consumer binge spending: the strip mall, the mini-mall, the neighborhood shopping area. And, of course, wide roads that expedite driving several miles in minutes. Never is this more obvious than now at Christmastime. We literally do have one -- or ten -- of everything. A store for every possible consumer wish. And some we hadn't even thought of yet. The shops in Warsaw are packed with parkas and scarves and sweaters and jackets, tennis racquets, skiis, books, fine crystal and gorgeous pottery. The mall makes me feel at home. Sadly, pathetically, whenever I'm homesick in Warsaw, I head for the Zloty Terasy, Arkadia or the Galleria Mokotow. I find all the top European shops, Zara, Marks & Spencer, even H&M. There are luggage stores, a zillion jewelry stores, outdoor recreation shops, home furnishings, and, most curiously, dozens of fine lingerie shops. But that's nothing compared to what I find when I come home. It is over-saturation. Complete over-saturation. Stunning over-saturation. My first trip back to Warsaw a few years ago, after a long absence, was a shock. It seemed then a consumer paradise. And compared to the bleak communist period, it was. In the course of just a few hours, I took a bus across town to buy a CD player, groceries, had a lovely sit-down dinner of fajitas and fine wine, got notebooks and a framed poster for my apartment wall. That would never have happened before. It was a marvel! I was blown away. In the following weeks and months, I easily furnished an apartment with the linens and dishes, pots and pans, rugs, towels, and could have bought chairs and sofas more to my taste too. It felt like a wonderland! But, then I came home. And realized that even with all the new consumer razzle dazzle in Poland, it didn't come close to the craziness of home. And now. And now. Christmas. Williams Sonoma, and Hollister, and Crate and Barrel, and the Pottery Barn, Anthropologie, and Eddie Bauer, and 250 shops in the mall plus the acres of stores surrounding it, speciality shops for hair extensions, Bosum Buddies for specialty bras, Pampered Passions for exotic lingerie, twelve different furniture stores, fourteen cosmetic shops, and, surely, a store that sells a partridge in a pear tree. As exhausting as we say it is to negotiate the crowds at the malls, trust me: it's nothing, nothing at all compared to the hassles of driving from one side of Warsaw to another, no strip malls with ample parking and a vast variety of options. If you're into consuming, America is heaven. But if you would rather wander through parks blanketed with snow, and amble around gorgeous architecture sculpted by ice, marvel at a castle in the heart of town lit up by fairy lights, and spend your time in a steamy-warm cafe and a tall mug of hot chocolate, I heartily recommend Warsaw. I have just the place in mind. Ummm....

Here comes the sun!

Waiting is not passive. Not always, not necessarily. This is not our year for the big blizzard at Christmas. Three years ago we were buried under a few feet of snow, the airport closed for two days and Kaia didn't make it home until Christmas Eve morning. This year, of course, it's the East Coast that is socked in and I'm reading of friends stranded in Cincinnati, Charlotte, and Burlington, trying to get home to Warsaw, Paris and Istanbul. To say nothing of Baltimore, Greenwich Village and Boston. We're lucky. The skies are clear between here and Minneapolis and, unless the pilots overshoot their destination again, by, say, a thousand miles and end up in San Diego, we should have a full house by tonight. We don't have to wait much longer. Waiting is not much fun at all. In my experience, waiting means one of two things: fretting, fidgeting, fiddling or paralysis, idleness, passivity. We wait for many things in this life. To get older, to get younger, to get wiser, to get richer, to get better, to get happier, to get healthier. We wait for people to arrive, for people to leave (!), for a new season, for a new possibility, new relationships, for renewed relationships, for understanding, for reconciliation, for sun. George Harrison wrote the sweet Beatles tune, "Here comes the sun!" at a particularly bleak point in his life. His marriage was ending, the Beatles were ending, his future felt closed, not open, regrets, fears, anxiety beset him and he was worrying, wondering, waiting for what would come next. He was out one early morning, feeling morose, and, voila! the sun rose. "Here comes the sun!" Today we can all sing, "Here comes the sun!" The Swedes up in my old part of the world, within mere miles of the Arctic Circle, where reindeer really do roam, knew something when they made this big fuss of the Solstice. The sun is coming! The light is coming back! This day is not the last day, it is the first day. The official Solstice came just an hour or so ago. So far I'm not quite feeling it. But that means nothing. It is happening nonetheless. It is happening. It is happening! Here comes the sun! The future is open, not closed. The days ahead are bright, not dim, not dark. Nature is so full of genius! We can hold fast to these hopeful signs from the heart of life itself. Life is telling us truth about itself, ourselves, our universe, our own worlds. In the darkest, shortest day, where in the far north there is nary a light at all, the promise is grounded in the motion, the rhythms of nature. Here comes the sun! Waiting for this sun, for light need not be a passive exercise, nor a cynical one. God knows, the process of moving back from dark to light, from despair to hope, from paralysis to purpose has been excruciating for me, for many, at times, for seasons. But always, this day, this day when the world does turn. When the very ground of being moves forward, edging purposefully and inexorably toward sun. Two things I read this morning --- thanks, Jim and Christy for sharing --- that speak to this movement. To sun, to light. "What gives me hope for the future is simple. I am certain that cynicism is the product of a broken heart, and that a heart that can break can heal...What is closed off can be opened; what is denied can be reclaimed." - Dorothy Allison, Contemporary American Writer As the light comes, I claim this promise, this healing for myself, first of all, this healing of heart, this closed off cynicism. And I hope and pray for it to claim you too, as you need it. The second word of wisdom from my brother, Jim, "...On this Winter Solstice...the Divine Giver is the Great Forgiver. I read that the Hebrew word for forgiveness translates to "drop it". Time to drop a lot, once again." I'm going to be dropping things today. If you hear crashes and bangs and thuds, it could be the stuff I'm dropping. Or perhaps it's the stuff you are dropping. Forgiving. Letting go, purifying, emptying in order to be made full. Perhaps along with the ritual of lighting candles to welcome the light, there might first be a ritual of dropping, to leave the darkness behind, of cynical broken-heartedness. Waiting need not be passive. It sounds like there's a lot to do. Even while sitting in an airport, or in traffic, or standing on line at the check-out, or waiting for the house to fill up. May the brokenhearted be healed, and the closed, opened. May the hurts and wounds we carry be dropped, if only to lighten and open our own souls. The church was really smart to tie its own story of God with us to this bleak midwinter, when the promise of life comes: of light in darkness, and the darkness can not, can not, will not overcome it, will not overwhelm it. That is potent stuff. Strong enough to stir up my cynic's blood today, my sad spirit tomorrow, and to go a long ways toward mending a broken heart. And, while we're at it, may the church itself be open, not closed, light, not dark, and may its own heart be mended. To honor the sun, or, the Son.

Why is there a menorah in my pocket?

There's a menorah in my pocket. A small brass menorah has taken up residence, if you can call it that, in the left pocket of my green jacket. I almost forgot. It's been a good long while since I wore a jacket. I have two heavy wool sweaters that keep me as warm as the Triple Fat Goose down parka that lives in the back of the van, "just in case." I got the khaki green jacket in Warsaw mostly to shut up all the nosy ladies who felt obliged to tell me every day that I should "wear a jacket." The green jacket came home from Warsaw packed in a box that I sent by way of China, Samoa and New Zealand so I didn't have that jacket for a very long time. And lo, and behold, I got it out and there's a menorah in the pocket. We already have a beautiful menorah, a very beautiful blue china menorah with a white dove, so we didn't need another one. But I got this little brass menorah just outside the entrance to Lazienki Park one fall day because, it seemed to me, I should have a menorah from Poland. The vendor was always there with his small collection of ancient items, books and what nots, reminiscent of a long-ago and now mostly lost Poland. I bought the menorah not because it was the only one I'd seen in the country, not at all, but because I liked the look of the old man. He reminded me of something, in fact he reminded me of the old Poland that was mostly gone forever. Now the brass menorah lives near my desk, where I see it every time I sit down to write. I can't find candles small enough for it but that's okay, it is a beautiful symbol of a faith and a culture and a way of life that enlivened all of Poland's spirit for centuries. There is much to say, yes, very much to say about Poland and Judaism. And tonight is not the night for it. Except to say that, while hard to do, you can find signs of Jewish culture and life in Poland yet today. And a project very near to my heart is underway, a Museum of the History of Jews in Poland. Lighting the candles of the menorah is a reminder of tenacity. And faith. And courage. And cussedness. "We will survive, damn it. We will." Of course, the 20th century history of Europe tells a different story; Nazi intentions nearly won out. But not entirely. And this menorah is one more proof of it. Happy Hanukkah! Shalom!

Human Really Being

Perspective. One of the great gifts of being human is having perspective. You can think of this in a number of ways. The artist's use of perspective. The out-of-work banker's sense of perspective. The coach's perspective at half-time. And then there is perspective that we lend to every circumstance and situation in which we find ourselves. Put another way, we compare, use analogy, size up our mess by putting it alongside that of another. It is a sanity saver. Perspective. Consideration of one thing in relation to another. To be human is to have a sense of perspective. We do well to use it often and carefully. In the months after the declaration of martial law in Poland I was somehow able to talk and otherwise communicate with a number of friends for whom the shock of betrayal and disorientation had not yet worn off. In extreme situations, most of us manage to function at least partly, part of the time. We can drag ourselves out to the grocer, to care for children or parents, to meet basic obligations. But there is yet a sense of confusion, a haze, a wariness that does not soon wear off. So it was for those with whom I spoke. High-functioning, prominent and responsible men and women felt themselves at sea. Unsure, unconfident, and "so cynical I can't keep up." Yet. And yet. They went on. They taught their classes. They administered their bureaus, they carried out their research. They bathed and fed their children. They even went to the cafe, and to official functions in, if I remember it right, pajamas, and made fun of the whole sorry mess. What I want to tell you is that I was amazed at how resilient, determined, clever and energetic they were. They were. All of those things. Resilient, sassy (remember the description at the top of the blog!), creative, wily, courageous. It was impossible not to be impressed. Even with the bouts of depression and, as I described it yesterday, feeling "frozen," it was obvious from the start, these powerful demonstrations of will and wit and wisdom. But I was not amazed. That's the point I want to offer tonight. I didn't then realize how much it took, to be so strong, to get up and keep going. To be resilient and sassy and clever and creative. I took it for granted. I had no personal perspective from which to measure or evaluate their actions. When I sat, finally, with friends who described to me their emotional, very personal reactions to the initial declaration of war: the first frozen days, the biting cynicism that seemed frighteningly bottomless, the sense of life breaking in half, breaking down, the despair, I was profoundly moved. I assumed I understood the depths of their despair. I realized later, and much humbled, that I had not a clue, not really. And I assumed I understood also what it took, what it meant for them to express their courage and will, to enact this resilience that so attracted me. I had no idea. Until many years later. As I've already indicated in earlier posts. Perspective. The oddly wonderful human capacity to look at one situation and say, "you know, I remember something like this. I'm going to see if I can learn something from it." One good look at my last name -- Erickson or Erickson-Pearson -- and you can be pretty sure I'm not interested in Poland because it's in my blood. No, I'm drawn to Poland, as I've noted before, because it teaches me. The daring and sometimes darling creativity, sassiness and, here we go again: resilience of the Poles, is a perspective that continues to inspire me. And this reminds me, I need a nice pair of pajamas.

Big fat juicy happy envelope arrives!

This has nothing exactly to do with Poland, although I'm sure I can come up with an angle if I think about it long enough. However, I'm too impatient. In one of those moments that parents everywhere can relate to, the college admission decision arrived in the mail today. We sit, with our kids, on needles and pins and wonder and wait. And I'm not good at waiting. There are small, thin envelopes and very big, thick envelopes. You know the instant you get to the mailbox what the decision is. There is nothing like seeing your daughter sprinting back from the mailbox, skipping up the sidewalk waving an oversized white envelope, her smile the size of the sun. She opened it up and those sweet three words said everything we cared about, "Congratulations and welcome!" We danced around, hugging and screaming -- I mean screaming -- for five minutes. So. That's the news from Littleton today. p.s. Annika says that even though classes don't start until September 7, she's planning to go out there in May and sit on the sidewalk with her suitcase and wait.

Next Day of the Apocalypse

It was impossible to know on December 14, 1981 what the next days would bring. It sounds histronic to use words like "apocalypse" to describe an action by a government against its own citizens that did not involve carpet bombings, summary executions and wholesale destruction of cities. As had World War II. On a physical scale, "martial law" or the "state of war" in Poland in 1981 had minimal impact. But on a psychological scale, the imposition of war, the government against the citizens, was devastating. Even those intelligentsia, inclined to a so-called 'realist' view of the situation that impinged upon Poland by its fraternal neighbor to the east, even those who were not sympathetic to the Solidarity reform movement, even everyone in Poland was shocked, appalled and disgusted. The justification widely observed held that if Poland didn't invade Poland, the Soviet Union would invade Poland. This may be true. It has been recently alleged, likewise, that the Polish Premier, General Jaruzelski asked the USSR to invade and when they refused, he ordered the Polish tanks into the streets. This will be a matter of judicial review for some time to come. The point, however, is this: within the tightly controlled Soviet empire, novelty could not be tolerated. The absolute authority, the so-called "leading role" of the Communist Party in each of the Soviet satellite nations could not be called into question. Solidarity was threatening to become an out-of-control mass movement of social action. It was already a mass movement of social action beyond the control of the Communist Party. The question was: how far would it push? How far could things go? Power likes itself. Power likes to keep its power intact. Power does not tolerate challenges with equanimity. Power is a force unto nature, insisting on remaining in control. Usually. There are wondrous and generative exceptions. But this was not one of them. The next day of the apocalypse was every bit as disorienting as the first. Telephones didn't work, for the most part. If one wanted to consult with one's family, friends, colleagues, one had to physically go out and find them. But where? Thousands of activists were arrested. Others were in hiding. Family units were disrupted. Business associations were stopped in their tracks. A strict curfew was enforced. It felt like a war on the streets of Warsaw and, I imagine, elsewhere in the country, during those wintry, ugly, bitter days. Paralysis sets in. The famous "fight or flight" impulse is stymied. Where to flee? And whom to fight? Both options are untenable. So the third option comes into play: freeze. "I didn't do anything at all." "I sat in a chair and didn't move, not even to eat, for two days." "I paced. Looked out the windows. Tanks in the street. Patrols on the sidewalks. I felt powerless for the first time in my life." I think the worst of it was the sense of becoming dispirited. Hopelessness. Options cut off. All movement stopped. There seemed no constructive means to confront this overwhelming show of force. There seemed to be no useful avenues for dialogue. It is hard to talk to a tank. And so, for weeks, really, weeks, the country was frozen. Frozen in an ugly gray wintry slush. Frozen in an ugly imposition of force against which, toward which any sense of dialogue seemed impossible. Power can be used in this way: to intimidate. To thwart. To impose, stomp out, cut down. To those who choose to use power in these ways, it seems to them an inevitability, the only means to protect what is most valued, most vulnerable. "We had no choice." But to those who are shut down, trampled down, cut down, the deeper reality is always something of which they are aware: there is another way. Dialogue. Mutual concessions, cooperation. The creation of something fundamentally new. One feels it in one's skin, one's bones and body, one's nervous system. The experience of being thwarted, stopped from making the most obvious, and useful, next move. It feels like being jammed up. It is unpleasant, like being electrocuted at low voltage. It is dangerous, if it builds up over a long time. And it is profoundly dispiriting, ennervating. Woe to those who abuse power. Woe to you who shut down, stop up, trample, intimidate, ignore, and thwart the legitimate exercise of will, of creative, generative, generous activity. In these days, we celebrate and commemorate very different events back to back to back. The imposition of Martial Law, the victory of the Jews over the Maccabees, the end of Communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall. Let this be lesson to those who win temporary victories. I keep a piece of the Berlin Wall on my dressor. I know what it means. "The days are coming...." It's Advent. Still, we wait.

First Day of the Apocalypse

Oh, I don't want to write this post. December 13, 1981. A Sunday, as it is today. Families living on Pulawska Street looked through the frost on their windows that morning to notice the marquee on the Moskwa Theatre, "Last Day of the Apocalypse." But for them it was the first day of the apocalypse. Tanks on the streets. Soldiers on patrol with bayonets, automatic rifles. Martial Law. Poland had declared war on itself. Barbara learned that morning to never leave home again without listening to the news first. She left her apartment early with plans to meet a friend near the city center. She walked only a few blocks to the main avenue in her district before she saw the first shocking signs of war. Armored personnel carriers. A trio of soldiers -- in Polish uniform -- goose-stepping their way past a kiosk selling bus tickets, cigarettes, and magazines. A mother and daughter sitting on the bench at the bus stop, crying softly. A man standing stock still, too stunned to move, to speak. On the bus, Barbara sat alone, near the back, afraid, confused, trying to puzzle out what was happening. A policeman got on after several stops and Barbara asked him, "what is going on?" "I was just going to ask you," he replied. They shook their heads. "I only just got back from holidays," the officer said. "I am going in to the headquarters for the first time in a week." Across town, another friend looked out his window and saw tanks on the corner. More soldiers. More assault rifles. More truncheons. It had been a tense time, difficult confrontations between Solidarity and the communist government led nowhere. There were always fears of a Soviet intervention. But this, Polish tanks on Polish streets, Poland at war against itself, nobody expected this. Friends of mine had happened to have been at the Moskwa Theatre the night of December 12. As they passed through Our Savior's Square later, they saw tanks blocking the side street, Mokotowska. Where the Solidarity headquarters were housed in an old school. But still, it didn't occur to them that this was war. Martial law is our term for it. Polish language lacks an equivalent and simply called the whole tragic mess, "a state of war." Polish troops patrolled the streets, thousands were arrested and interned, it became impossible for Poles to leave the country, telephone connections between Poland and the outside world were severed. Poles turned on their radios and televisions on that early morning, December 13, 1981, expecting to see traditional children's programs but were confronted instead with the somber visage of General Wojciech Jaruzelski, leader of the Polish Communist Party and of its government, announcing the formation of a Military Council of National Salvation. Schools were closed, businesses disrupted, travel within the country was restricted. I woke up that morning in Hyde Park, near the University of Chicago, with plans to meet Polish friends, Fulbright scholars, for a late lunch. WFMT, the classical music station, led with the story, spare on details. Public radio. TV news. Frantic phone calls. No more news. A few days later the newspaper featured a photograph taken in front of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where I had been to class. Tanks. Tanks in front of PAN, the equivalent of tanks blocking all access to Harvard. Professors were among those arrested. Still, no detailed news. What was happening? The state of war lasted more than a year, but the sense of betrayal and mistrust can still be felt. We are betrayed in life by all sorts of people, with varying consequences. Some of the infractions are small, easily repaired. Others more challenging. And then, there are the betrayals that shake the foundations on which we stand. Betrayals of trust that suck at the very center, the core of our being. My Polish friends felt that way about the state of war, about martial law. I felt that way years later about the behavior of a bishop and other church leaders I trusted. It is a life-changer. Not to equate one with the other, but the human impact of betrayal of trust cuts one to the quick. Cynicism, anger, the impossibility of trusting others, disruption of significant relationships of all kinds. Healing and recovering takes a long time. When I was able to get back into Poland in June, six months later, my best friend met me at the airport, "Welcome to our war." It's over. It is over. But the wounds are still with us.

All over

Mothers are tearing out their hair trying to perfect their daughters' hair. Dads are saying, "let's just get on with it." Chubby legs no longer than my forearem are being stuffed into lacy tights and crisp taffeta and silky velvet dresses with itchy collars are being pulled over tiny heads overflowing with copper curls. Legions of tiny Tim's are clipping on ties and pulling at their long sleeved dress shirts. Their new shoes are too tight. Older children are fidgeting with hairbows and goofing around with the dog as they wait for the signal that "it's time to go!" Young 'tween girls have argued with their mothers about getting to wear nylon tights for the first time and have secretly put on a smudge of mascara. Boys are pulling lint out of their pockets and wondering what is something interesting they can put in them to ward off the inevitable boredom. Tomboy daughters are being bundled into the least frilly dress their mothers could find. A younger brother is about to bust out the seams of his too-small borrowed-from-cousin sport coat. And all across America tonight families are smushing into cars and driving over to school for the Christmas concert. Mr. Nelson in rural Minnesota got the car started ten minutes early, to warm it up and has brought it over to the front walk. Four kids and two frazzled parents listen to the tires spin on the icy farmyard before catching traction and moving out. The yard light, high on a pole, always their beacon that home is near, shines a halo of sparkly white light across the garden and out toward the feed pens. A single star is visible in the sky. Mrs. Johnson in Cleveland recovers two stray barrettes from the table at the doorway as she hustles her children out into the cold night. The girls walk gingerly in their new patent leather t-strap shoes, while their brother tries to pretend he's not cold by offering his scarf to Mama. They meet up with the Silvio's and the Mahoney's at the corner and slip-slide their way across, numb knees and stinging cheeks red from exposure. The yellow light in the school yard beckons them and they scuffle along, trying above all not to fall. In upstate New York and southern New Mexico, Delta Mississippi, spongy Seattle, and wooded Arkansas, in tiny hamlets and the nation's biggest cities, in rural Iowa and hilly Pennsylvania, from Anchorage to Miami, families of all kinds and all sizes and all ages and degrees of dysfunction are going to school music programs tonight. As I sit here in the crowded auditorium of Arapahoe High School in suburban Denver, where anyone arriving less than forty minutes before start time is not going to get a seat, it dawns on me that we here are participating in a ritual that is shared across this land and, no doubt, many others. Parents are rifling through the programs, making sure their child's name is spelled correctly, noting that Laura must have dropped orchestra this year. Dad's are fidgeting with the buttons on video-cameras and moms are chatting about the latest ordeal, or delight. As we slid over slick roads to get here tonight, I thought of all the cars in other towns and along rural highways and the subways and buses and sidewalks that were carrying other families to similar scenes. The old Chevvy pickup packed with a family of four up front, crunching over the frozen snows of Wyoming, the Volvo in Naperville, the Taurus in Chattanooga. All of us engaged in this ageless ritual that I hope will go on and on and on. Somewhere tonight someone else's two-year-old will rock back and forth on her heels as she sings "Mary had a baby boy," thankfully leaving out the virgin aspect for the moment. And somebody else's second-grader will be dressed up in a black and white checked outfit with matching tights and cool boots, leading the long line of students into the auditorium singing about Christmas around the world. And another family will be grimacing, but still pleased, by the sound of a grade school orchestra playing White Christmas. A clarinet will screech. A drum will beat one beat too many. Somebody will stand in the wrong place and somebody else will fall off the risers. Out there in America tonight is a child whose parents fought all the way over to the school in the car and who wants to just disappear. And a child whose dad didn't show up, or mom didn't. And a child who looks out into the asssembled crowd, freaks with fright and starts to wail. And another child who looks out into the audience and sees her mom and dad and can't help but say, "Hi mom!" and wave. A toddler will pull her dress up over her head and her parents will be mortified. Another tyke will play with his pants zipper all through the performance and, of course, both of these children will be -- no matter what city or town -- in the front row. A high school senior with curly black hair and an Irish lass charm of smile will hit every note of her solo with bell clarity and the audience afterward will gasp with satisfaction. Beauty, perfection. A choir will sing its hardest song so well -- and so surprisingly perfect -- that the conductor will have tears running down her face. Parents of the youngest and the oldest of these children have something precious and poignant in common. That first pre-school pagaent, the first wiggles, pushing the child standing next to him into the right place, even if it knocks said kid over. The sheer unpredictability of it all, the wonder, this tiny creation, up in front, standing on carpeted steps singing about frost and stars and the magic of a baby. This wisp of a person, so recently so small, small enough to be inside you, is now standing up in front of a crowd and belting out the words, wishing us a Merry Christmas. And the parents of the high school (or college) seniors are remembering every single concert -- or feeling a smack of guilt because they can't -- and tearing up at the thought of this being the last Christmas concert and then the last Winter Dance and the last Prom and, whoooosh, it's over, this school time, this very precious and, as it turned out, fleeting schooldays time of life. The girl who stands with poise and presence in the center of the choir, who sings with honest emotion and expression, who has learned the value of discipline and rehearsal, this girl with a gorgeous face and flowing hair, this girl who is going away to college in too few more months, shines like the sun and her mother and father wonder what on earth they are going to do when she moves away. When there are no more school concerts to go to. Savor. Savor, savor every moment.

Happy birthday, Kaia! We got you pipe cleaners

She will be thrilled. Short of actually hacking into a human brain and watching the process in real time --- which of course wouldn't happen because, if you actually hacked into the human's brain it wouldn't work anymore now, would it? so this really is better --- the best way to recreate the process of glycolysis is with pipe cleaners. On the wall. Kaia will be spending part of her 22nd birthday today -- December 9 -- glorying in the wonders of biochemistry. She just aced the test and says it is because she used the pipe cleaners to make three-dimensional diagrams of the processes and then put them up on the wall for her housemates to enjoy too. I too was there to bear witness and what this girl can't do with a diagram of glycolysis simply then can't be done at all. 22. 22 Decembers. 22 summers. 22 years of wide-eyed discoveries and 22 years of unexpected adventures and 22 years of carefully planned expeditions. She has made her way, discovered her way, followed a way forged by others, all of the above. She has decided that "to whom much is given much is expected," and that there is no way but "you make the way by walking," and that what the world really needs is someone who has come alive -- so figure out what makes you come alive and do that! I get all soppy and sentimental on the girls' birthdays. I have nothing profoundly poetic to say, nothing of that nature to do justice to the glory of their existing and breathing and singing and laughing and learning and loving. I treasure their being, their being alive, their being who they are. And so, Kaia, I treasure you. From Italy to Estonia, from Berlin to Paris, from South Africa to South St. Paul, you make the world better by offering yourself to it, by being part of it. From the funky lofts of Printers' Row to kid heaven in Naperville to life in Littleton, to the mountains and oceans and deserts that have called to you to explore, to learn, you have covered a lot of territory. But it's still just beginning. Can you imagine that? Twenty-two. I can hardly wait to see what evolves out of your interests and skills and talents and sense of responsibility. Choose, always choose what makes you come alive! And happy birthday! Have some chocolate. Love you, Mmo

The cost of a sweater

I'll never know for sure. But I'm pretty sure that the price for that rich, warm, gorgeous Afghani (or was it?) sweater I was almost persuaded to buy 29 years ago would have been higher than the thirty American dollars I was asked to pay. My first trip to Moscow. December. 1980. As Ellen Goodman once wrote, "the last westerner to be invited to Moscow in the middle of winter was Napoleon. And we know how that turned out." My visit was enchanting and successful. The snow sparkled on the trees, the steam rising from thousands of boilers looked magical. Gorky Park had none of the sinister connotations it has in the novels of Martin Cruz Smith. Skaters skated, sledders sledded, and the golden domes of the Kremlin towers and cathedrals gleamed. I cleaned up on cut-rate Mischka the Bear Summer Olympics souvenirs. As you may remember, the U.S. had boycotted those Olympics because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Tourists stayed away in droves. So sweet little bears filled the shops and I brought home marble bears, wooden bears, and lots of Mischka pins. They still show up around here and make me smile. Day three. Ukraine Hotel, Moscow. One of the statuesque and Stalinesque monstrosities that loom over the skyline. It felt so Soviet, so completely Soviet, right down to the bugs in the walls and the monitors at the doors and the "floor ladies" who kept your key whenever you left your room. It was Advent and, as a guest of the Russian Orthodox Church, my meals were strictly in keeping with the Advent fast. Lots and lots of fish. No meat. Creamy red borscht. A menu that most Moscovites could only dream of. After dinner, I took time to browse the Berioszka shops in the magnificent lobby. More bears. An amber pin. Carved toys. Marble angels dancing together. Lots of tiny inlaid boxes. And an attractive man, also shopping, who became very chatty, friendly, as we wandered from one display to another. Finally, far away from the attendants, he spoke in a low voice, "I have sweaters, Afghani, and carpets, my room. You see. Room 712." If I didn't have a heart for adventure I wouldn't have been in Moscow at the height of the Cold War in the first place. So his invitation was a temptation that I could not resist. I dragged a colleague along. We wandered the halls a bit, a labyrinth of hallways that turned in on themselves and led to elevators that took us up and down and finally to Room 712. Sure enough, this charming, exotic, Omar Sharif-looking character was waiting, offered us tea. "No thank you." He was in Moscow, he said, from Afghanistan, a civil servant learning how to rebuild his country's infrastructure according to the Soviet plan. And he had a room absolutely stuffed with carpets, woolen blankets, mittens, and sweaters. It was his own private store, and the prices were attractive. He showed me a sweater, a heavy, fisherman knit type, with a marbled pattern, tan and white. It was very very nice. And I stood there thinking, wow, what a story. "Yeah, I bought this on the black market from an Afghani in Moscow who was there officially to learn to be a good Soviet diplomat but was secretly critical of the USSR and running his own underground scam market out of his hotel room." The sweater had a flaw. Not a big one, and it could have been repaired by a good knitter. But I hesitated. He lowered the price. In fact, he kept lowering the price so much that I began to wonder. Just how desparate was he to unload this sweater? He spoke of supporting his family at home. But I knew the rules, the protocols. How would he get this money back to Kabul? And, moreover, how would I get this out of the USSR, through customs, when I left in a few days. Still, the story was compelling. Every time I shook my head and said, "no," this inky voice inside said, "oh, go for it!" My friend, Fran, shot me looks that said, "DON'T" and finally I thanked "Omar" profusely for the generous offer but said that it would not be possible to buy a sweater, or mittens, or a large carpet, either. He was crushed. We backed out the door and took our leave. We left the hotel for a brief walk -- that's what you did when you needed to talk without 'minders' or 'ears' listening in. Perspective. The frigid air and the wide boulevards gave me a necessary perspective on the experience. What had happened in there? Was I being set up? I'll never know for sure. But probably. Given everything, what are the odds that he could have been selling all this loot with impunity. What would I have faced when the train crossed the border in the middle of the night again at Brest? It was a good idea to not buy that sweater. But I miss it every single day.

The new family photo

* this post deserves a new title Christmas cards are arriving already. You will never offend or annoy me by sending one of 'those' Christmas letters filled with adventures and accomplishments, of your kids, of you, of your mother, of your dog. It's all good. I saw the best family Christmas photo I'd seen in years the other day. Story has it, three hours at Target, arranging the three kids, searching for the discount coupon, rearranging the three kids, running home to get the forgotten discount coupon, rearranging the kids again, adding the parents, turned the process into something of an ordeal. But what an outcome! A gorgeous photo. Gorgeous, wonderful, lively family photo. You know those kids from their pictures. Impish, magical, responsible kids. Adorable. A little red hair, a halo of curls, taffeta and velvet for the sweet girl. Boys looking serious, and, sometimes, silly in bowties. I need to ask permission to share a copy here. Check back. These three wonderful children and their parents have turned out some terrific family Christmas photos. I especially like the one where both moms are sitting with the kind of look on their faces that says, "quick! snap it quick! this is the one still moment of the day!" Poland's leading magazine has an adorable baby on its cover this week. With the question, what about homosexuals who want to be parents? I invite Polityka readers to take a look at some of my friends. Not just a look but a long conversation is in order. This is not some impossible lifestyle. It is life. Just life. Family life. Juggling workloads when the kids are sick. Getting sick from the kids. Making dinner. One mom is in charge of tennis lessons. The other mom is in charge of shopping for bows and frills. They clean, they negotiate. They help each other figure stuff out. They both help with homework. I don't know who does windows. They read to the kids and put them to bed, they stay up all night with a sick child. They have birthday parties for the twins that create giggles that won't stop. They go to parent-teacher conferences and school programs and help make exploding volcanoes (okay, that hasn't come up yet but, oh, my friends, it will, it will!). It's a family. Three kids, two parents, both of whom happen to be moms. They love and nurture, feed and clothe, laugh and discipline, hold and hug their children. As I do. As my husband does. What's not to work? Life in America has changed. I have many such friends, most of my friends have many such friends or acquaintances. It's life. Poland is finally struggling honestly and assertively with gay life. This magazine cover -- adorable baby or no -- is challenging and disturbing to many. More than it would be here by now. It took us awhile. It is still taking us awhile. Not every Target photographer is so nonplussed and accepting of two moms showing up with their three kids in tow. Or two dads with their brood. But now sexual orientation is a protected human right in this country. The way I see it, if the Poles could get rid of communism, they can surely change their culture, their hearts and minds about homosexuality. Homophobia makes people act in ways that would otherwise embarrass and upset them. Long-term vendettas, family fractures, church splits, blackmail, and bullying still plague us. Prejudice, derision cause us to be childish. We're not any of us where we want to be. But I saw a vision of that new world in Palm Springs last year. Gay couples being as properly affectionate in public as my husband and me. We kissed goodbye in the parking lot of the restaurant as we go our separate ways. We held hands. So did the gay couples we were with. And I'm not talking the fake kiss on the cheek, I'm talking lip-smacking, "love you, see you later," kiss. I cried. It was a beautiful sight. Right there on main street in front of God and everybody. Normal. Normal. Haven't seen too much (well, really, not any, none at all) of that here in Littleton lately. But it will come. It will happen. And, I hope the next related cover I see on a Polish magazine has an affectionate family, three darling children and their two dads. It will happen. Keep those cards and letters -- and especially those great photos -- coming, friends. I love seeing you with your kids. In all of the variety those families are configured. Just don't pinch the kid's cheeks to make her smile. "Mice twice" seems to work magic for photos around here.