Elsie's Notes from New England - THEMission edition

Sometimes when I’m posting here, I feel smudged in narcissism, which feels only a little less pleasant than being smudged in fudge sauce. I know it’s probably not healthy, but who doesn’t love fudge sauce? In less than one week, John and I will celebrate 30 years of wedded bliss, and the question has come to me from time to time in the past few weeks, why does love stick sometimes, and not other times? Why are we still together when so many wonderful people I know just couldn't stay happy, or stay together . . . or just stay happy together? Sunday is our anniversary, and while we’re happy about that, we can’t tell you how or why it happened. We’ve invested time and energy to keep each other happy, but we have no oracle to share. We met through his roommate, who had a crush on one of my roommates. He felt encouraged enough to call up one Friday evening to invite her to come to his apartment and eat a cake he had just made. The cake had ice cream in the frosting, and needed t

Amber and I took my oldest brother to the Nubble last week. Dave spent twenty years in the Navy, during which time he did a lot of things I never knew about, like reconnaissance in Vietnam. Scary stuff. Somewhere in there, he spent a little time at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and a few years ago when I invited him up to visit us here in New Hampshire, he told me he'd seen all of New Hampshire that he needed to ever see. Well, I have a couple of siblings who heard that story, and between their efforts to guilt him into coming to see me, and my youngest daughter, who has this particular uncle completely wrapped around her pinky, he called a couple of weeks ago to announce that he wanted to "swing by" to visit after my nephew's wedding in D.C. (Since New Hampshire is such a short jaunt out of the way when you're driving from D.C. back home to Missouri . . .???) I love my brother. He also told me he'd never been to Maine, so I promised to take him there. W

I have always thought of myself as gregarious and outgoing. When I took the Myers’-Briggs’ personality test, I was sure I was going to be an E (for Extrovert). I love people. That’s what I do. I run around and pat heads and stroke shoulders and generally do way too much hugging for the comfort of most of the folks, or so I’ve learned. Extrovert, right? Then I learned something about the MBTI ratings. Extrovert doesn’t mean outgoing and people-liking. It means that that’s where you get your energy – that you recharge by surrounding yourself with people and their energy. Introvert, on the other hand, doesn’t mean mousy and shy and people-avoiding. It means that you recharge, when your life battery is flashing red, by getting away from the noise and bustle and turning inward for a bit. What a revelation that was to me, and it explained most of my childhood. There were the hours I spent curled up under the stairs in the cubbyhole that I made by pulling the dresser there out a couple of ext

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I think of myself as a positive person. I'm not a doom and gloom-er, and actually get a little agitated when political discussions around me get heated and, well, vitriolic, shall we say? I don't like the contention, nor do I believe that our country, or our society, or the world in general is going to H-E-double-hockey-sticks in any kind of a basket. I always believe there is hope. It keeps me breathing every day. That said, I read a paragraph this morning that is going to be hanging over me for a very long time. I can tell by the way it pierced itself into the depths of my soul and rang a bell so resonant within me that I had to stop reading and think. Hard. Not that the thinking was hard, nor that I don't like thinking hard, but it happened so fast, I'm still reeling a little at the implications. That's too big of a build up, I'm afraid -- now you're going to be disappointed, but let me share this with you. The book is entitled "Last Child in the Woo

Steaming day Scalding barefoot torture Hopping frantically Junior Indian firewalker Slightly less spiritual. Steely clouds gathering As the sun hides her face The sultry wind lifts Then stills Through the heavy air A single drop dives to destruction On the scorching cement With a nearly audible sizzle Followed by another And another Until the scent of their demise Ascends in earthy incense Satisfying as the aroma Of baking bread The oblivious scouts, Vaporized by summer’s skillet Blaze a trail for the Following millions Hurrying to find a dry spot To homestead for an instant Until the walkways flood And the gutters teem And the sun regains her courage Mopping up the wet.

The rickety, clackering old fan Sucks air from the room Pretending to cool But only moving misery inside To misery outside In a pointless, sweltering cycle Steam rises from the filled sink Invisible in the hateful haze Of the August afternoon No amount of complaining Will end the torment ahead; That lesson well learned! So they roll up their sleeves And squirt the lemony freshness Batting at “cheaters” Which refuse to pop And float instead in magical dozens By the jetted breath of Joy Frothing bubbles into piles With the Mystical Handsprayer Until there is more foam above Than water below Now giggling and grabbing At soapy goatees Until with an impish eye, Handfuls are launched through that fan To descend in speckles on the lawn below Whose reluctant barber was Grousing grumpily at his own duty Now surprised by summer snow