Something About This Time Of Year

Something about this time of year. Since multi-tasking is no longer my best sport, I find myself dominated by lists and wanting nothing last minute to happen. I understand the shopping that needs to be done—don’t we all?—but leave me with my lists and plans. No going off the path. In the face of the unexpected? I falter.

For example: I email my busy, New York lawyer daughter- in- law asking what she would like for Christmas and right back at me comes: “gloves.” She doesn’t want black because they are “too easily lost in the back seat of cabs.”  

Gloves, I think. That’s easy. I can do that. Zip up to Lord and Taylor’s in Trumbull and they’ll probably be on sale. I write to her, “What size are you?” Right back again, “Oh, I don’t know. Probably a 5/6.” That seems small to me, but who am I to say?

 So last weekend I am in Trumbull buying gloves, along with most of Fairfield County. It’s OK, because I am seething with purpose, filled with self-satisfaction that I am getting this done! Yes! 

Deciding that no one over twenty-one could possibly be a size 5—I buy her 6s. One lined, leather, New York-type pair on sale and one pair—to surprise her—that I like, newly offered by UGS, the last word in comfort and warmth. Done!

Then what do you know? I get an email from her this week telling me that she has discovered that her glove size is a size 7.

 What? I stare at the packages from Lord and Taylor. This is not good. I have gift slips for the gloves. Can I get back up there? Maybe it would be better for her to take these back and get the color and gloves she really wants? I fret. The gloves remain in the bag on the kitchen floor, staring at me.

Also this week my daughter, who hosts us all for Christmas, emails me and asks if I will be responsible for dessert? Maybe a Buche de Noel?  

I experience a momentary, “Oh, No!” I don’t bake. Even if I did, all I could produce would be a modest gingerbread. Certainly not a Buche de Noel. Not a lot of places will take orders practically past Thanksgiving, but suddenly I am all over this one and grabbing the phone to call Riverside Baking Company in Fairfield. (203 451 0331)

“Richie,” I plead. “I know it is late but could you possibly make me a Buche de Noel for pick up on Christmas Eve? There will be thirteen of us.”

“Sure, Cecily,” Richie Schneider obliges.

My shoulders drop down three inches.

 Richard Schneider is possibly the best baker on the planet and has started his own baking company just this year. I’ve known him and his wife for years and am thrilled that he can do this. I will be bringing the best Christmas dessert my family has ever tasted.

 A long outbreath.

Now about those darned gloves . . .

And thus it is at Christmas. Remembering to expect the unexpected. Remembering, for example, a baby born to ordinary people “of low estate” in a stable in a no account village where there was no room for them in the inn. A baby who would change the world.

Prophesies notwithstanding, how unexpected was that?

                                           ***

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!  Like you, I am sure, I pray for peace in this twisted world of ours.

I love this by the Indian poet, Rumi. I pray that in 2016 we are able to find even a corner of the field of which he speaks.

“Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make sense any more.”

Perfect However It Turns Out.

 Do you remember the weather prognosis for Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving? The wintry mix along the coast, the wind, the cancelled flights and the travel warnings for I 95: to say nothing of the prediction that there would be a record number of drivers on the roads because of the drop in gas prices. Even in good weather the Thanksgiving traffic toward Hyannis, where I was headed with my youngest son and his family, is horrendous, so this weather prediction was daunting.

The thought of the six hour drive north and east on Wednesday toward ferries that might not even run and, if they did, would be madly rocking to and fro during the two hour crossing, began to make me more than somewhat nervous. To go or not to go: that was the question. I didn’t have the same determination to get to their house on the island as my son and his family did. I wanted to be there with them; I just didn’t want to get there.

 Letting go of the outcome of it all, my prayer about Thanksgiving became, “Let this Thanksgiving be perfect however it turns out.”

On Tuesday evening I had a conversation with my daughter, who said, “Come to our house” (in New Canaan) “and see the boys.”

On Wednesday morning I spoke with my daughter-in-law, who admitted that the whole Thanksgiving in Nantucket thing was very stressful even for them. “I can get pretty snippy about it,” she told me.

That did it. I opted out.

Instead, I spent Thanksgiving with the six-member, New Canaan contingent of my family. A treat to see the older boys, all of whom are working now so glimpses of them are rare. I cooked with my daughter and held my favorite grand dog in my lap. On the way home I counted myself blessed to have had such a wonderful fall back plan.

And the blessings didn’t stop.

A childhood friend of my oldest son, who lives in Wilton, CT, and whom I have known since she was born, has just begun to read this blog. She had read The Privilege Of Pies and therefore was aware of the pending Nantucket trip. Our families were good friends during my married life in Ohio and Peggy emailed to say that if, due to the terrible weather, I did not go to Nantucket, her mother and older sister were visiting her and they would all like to see me.

A chance to see her mother, my friend, Kay, who was my tennis and paddle tennis and bridge-playing pal of twenty years? And two of Kay's three daughters, whom I watched grow up and who were so much a part of my children’s lives? Yes!

We met on Friday for lunch. When I saw Kay, I couldn’t stop hugging her. She has been through some medical issues so she is a bit frail, but there is no change in her bright eyes and spirit. The girls--no longer girls, of course—are attractive, smart and interesting and, above all, as they always have been, they are loving. The four of us caught up; we laughed and we remembered.

“May this Thanksgiving be perfect however it turns out.” 

Isn't it amazing how often when one plan folds, something totally unexpected and wonderful takes it's place?