Write Right Now!!!

The other day I was going through some old boxes from college/high school looking for a picture and I found this story that my friend Susanne had written for me.  It was double sided, handwritten and apparently missing a page because I only held the 2^nd half in my hands.  Looking at that paper a few things dawned on me… 1- where is the other half?  2-dear god, how I miss Susanne and 3- she handwrote me a story that had to be about 4 pages long.

Reading that story, I started to smile because she wrote it to me to cheer me up.  Something way back in 1992 had made me sad and this wonderful friend of mine handwrote me a story about Santa Claus and the Grinch.  Beyond the point that she wrote me a silly story, I got to thinking how this would have never happened in today’s world.   That story would have been about 3 sentences long in an email.  It might have been a text message in code.  A silly picture posted to Facebook.  The sentiment would have been the same, but the delivery would have been entirely different and honestly, I think while I would have appreciated any method of comfort to cheer me up, a handwritten story trumps all. 

So with this tucked away in the back of my mind, I arrive at yesterday-  I decide to send my friend Britten a copy of a cd (personal usage only FCC!!).  While I am copying the music, I decide to do a little cover art for her-  I get out my pitiful art supplies that I have in my desk and set to work.  As I am doing this, I realize how much I miss sending and receiving letters.  I go to my mailbox each day and beyond the bills, catalogs, circulars and junk mail, it is rarely anything personal.  I miss that.  

In this world, we wish each other Happy Birthday via email, text and Facebook.  Don’t get me wrong, I love love love seeing all of the Happy Birthday messages on my wall, it is like a gift that gives all day each time I get a notification, but when is the last time you actually got a birthday card mailed to you?  (I’m not talking about the one your mom and dad gives you over cake).  Christmastime…  some people still send out cards, I try to each year, but honestly, I just ran out of time this year.  But even the cards are a shadow of what they used to be.  I’m guilty of it to, but how many of us opt to create a card via the internet on Tiny Prints or Snapfish and type in our happy message, love us, etc and then that’s it?  No personal message on the back, no I love you, hope to see you…  A few years ago I made my own cards using a picture I took of Gabe.  I wrote a personal note to each one, granted it might have been a line or two, but I used a real pen and wrote with my hand.  It was time consuming, it took forever, it actually cost me more than it would have cost me had I just used an internet card making service.  The next year I went the easy route again, but looking back at those cards, I realize now how awesome there were and so worth the time it took me to do them.

At work, I rarely have to write anything.  I “write” all day long, but I do it using my fingers camped out on the home row of my keyboard (Thanks Mr. Sheehan)-  I can type like nobody’s business.  I am fast and I make few mistakes.  The only time I honestly take pen to paper is when I am interviewing someone or talking on the phone and I am jotting down little notes as to what is going on with my call.  Drips and Drabs.. Not writing.  

Remember in school when you had to write an essay or answer questions using the dreaded BLUE BOOK?  Actually WRITE?  I can remember my hand cramping, shifting in my seat, sighing, etc, but we did it.  We filled those damn books full of our cramped handwriting.  I honestly do not know if I could survive one of those 20 page horrible books now, I would need a support team to rub my hand halfway through, someone squirting water into my mouth, a blanket around my wrist to keep it limber..  And that is a problem.  I should be able to write still..  

And so, I have decided to start a movement.  The Write Right Now Movement.  Hmmm, not sure about the name, I might need to work on that..  But the premise is that I am going to start writing.  I am going to start surprising my friends with notes, cards, messages, etc all created from my own hands.  Cards will be handmade, no more copping out with the internet making them (or if I am pressed for time and do make internet cards, they will come with a handwritten personal sentiment to the recipient).  I am going to try this for a year and hope it catches on with my circle of people.  I charge all of you to pick up a pen, crayon, marker and a glue stick and create something from your own hand.  I would love to look back 20 years from now and like I did with my story from Susanne, smile fondly at the work someone put into creating for me, just because.

Writer's Block

I’ve sat down a bunch of times to write -  I get a thought in my head, YES!  Whoo hooo something to talk about…and then mid way through the first or second paragraph…nothing.  I lose my writing mojo.   It isn’t enough to sustain an entire post--  delete delete delete..  and try again.

I write this little blog as a catharsis for myself.   I lack that other grown up person to babble to at night about the arcane (and maybe not quite so) things that went on during the day (or in my head).   I need an intellectual release and so, I write.  And delete…. And write….and delete

And sometimes it makes it to “publish” where those of you that actually follow my ramblings can be held captive (or frightened) by the mind that is me.  Majority of you have known me forever, thank you for that, and so read to support me in this random endeavor.  

I fall in love with many different projects all the time-  I have a cabinet full of baking supplies, I have a drawer full of ribbons and pretty accessories, I have boxes of fabric, Rubbermaid totes full of paper, glue, glitter, and the like.  I flit from one thing to another as the mood hits me.  My projects are always creative in nature.  I jump in, get covered in glue and flour.  I lean too close to the sewing machine and get smacked in the forehead with the little arm that drives the needle up and down.  I make a huge mess and then become disenchanted when I realize that the maid I thought I hired isn’t coming.

I can laugh in the wake of all of this because I know myself.  I know that I am more driven in my own mind than in practice and with proper channeling, I could amaze even my own self with my efforts.  But I don’t do it.  That’s just me, I accept it and grab onto my creative spurts and ride the wave while it lasts.  

I, like most of my peers, am on Facebook.  I’ve reconnected with numerous friends and made incredible new ones through this website.  I get lost in playing games and wandering through peoples pictures of their happiness and heartbreak.  Lacking the adult conversation sometimes in my own home, I love spending time chatting with others, laughing at what they send me, debating what we might disagree on, learning about things I didn’t know about.  From time to time, people do these lists of seemingly random facts about themselves:  Get to know me, what you didn’t know, hopes and fears, etc.  I read them eagerly to learn more about my friends, but I never actually do them myself. 

So here, on my space, with my writer’s block intact, I’ll give some random facts.  And remember, you came here voluntarily…

I was born in England-  As a child, I was tormented with the fact that I was a Tory.  I cringed whenever we studied the American Revolution because I knew someone would revel in the fact that I was “the bad guy”.

I wore glasses, big coke bottle glasses as a child until my grandmother got me fitted for contact lenses.  I once fought with a boy, I punched him, he punched me back and broke my glasses.  He got in trouble.  I started it.

I had a beautiful 10 speed bike when I was younger.  I went too fast down a hill and flipped over the handle bars, sliding down the hill on my back and elbow.  My back healed nicely after they picked the pebbles out.  My elbow still shows the scars.  I never rode that bike again, it rusted sitting outside.  I am ashamed about that.

I am horribly afraid of fire.  I can deal with it in a fire pit or fire place, but the idea of a house fire terrifies me to my core.  If I watch a movie where there is an uncontrolled fire, I hide until it’s over.  I cannot watch Backdraft to this day because it scares me to death.

I hate Braham’s Lullabye.  Mary Ingall’s baby died in a house fire (see the correlation?) and they were playing that tune during that part of the show.  I refused to play any music boxes with that song when my children were infants.

I love dragonflies.  This one isn’t that big of a mystery, pretty easy to guess if you even know me a tiny bit.   I find peace and happiness when a dragonfly chooses me to visit.  I know it’s crazy, but I greet them as my friends and talk to them whenever they come around.  I talk to most animals and believe they understand me.  

I won’t eat mushrooms or eggplant.  The textures creep me out.

I’m stubborn.  I might appear to be easy going and relenting, but I’ll dig my heels in like a mule if there is something I don’t feel like doing (right or wrong).  I am working on that.

I’m insanely loyal which is a good thing, but sometimes it clouds my ability to be objective.  

I think I am tougher than I am.  I forget sometimes that I lack height.  

In college, my parents let me borrow our old Nissan Sentra for the last week of classes.  My dad filled the tank before I left.  I was to drive it to KSC and park it.  I did not do that.  I drove all over the place all week and wound up breaking down on the way home from school, car loaded to the roof with my belongings.  I had to walk to the Yarn Barn to call my mother.  She came to rescue me.  I was caught because I told them that I had stopped to put gas in before I left to head home.  They were not happy.  The car never ran again.

I was taught by example.  One day I got a flat tire in Marlborough, NH.  I called my father to come help me as I did not know what to do (I was all of 18-19).  My father drove 45 minutes to come help.  He jacked up the car, took off the old tire, put on the spare and brought the car back down.  Then he put the car back up, took off the new tire, put back on the flat tire and lowered the car.  He handed me the jack and said, “now you do it”..  I have never forgotten that-  I have never been stranded with a tire on the side of the road again and more over, that gave me the where with all to figure things out in a time of need.

And lastly; I think that I am a great singer in my car.  I hold rock concerts and I am the star.  I always have my hairbrush poised for my incredible vocal stylings.

Ellie Reincarnated-Grace Personified

As a little girl, I was lucky-  I had Gram and Gramp in the house and Gramma and Grampa in the trailer (they had a 5^th wheel camper that they camped everywhere in, no..they weren’t nomads, they did have a home!)  I grew up through most of my childhood with full family Christmases, lots of noise, presents and grandparents. I have incredible memories of my grandparents, my grandmothers in particular.  They were both so cool, but so totally different in almost every way.

My grandma Ellie had to be about 4’11’’ with size 4 feet.  She was tiny with a head of poodle tight curls.  Looking back, she might have been all of 50, but she looked like a grandma-  She drove a big huge car (with air conditioning, such a luxury back then..hmm...actually it is as well now too seeing that my poor car’s is broken).  I remember driving with her to do errands and how she’d always peel out at the end of the road.  She was wild and she had a hell of a lead foot.  Ellie had an 8 track player and an organ in her den.  I remember being the star of my own show, banging away on that organ.  I sounded so awesome.  My cousin Kenny and I would put on performances to Islands in the Stream, I can still see us now- Talking through the news was forbidden—“Shush, listen” she’d say.  Midday she watched her “programs”, again, it was very important for us to listen.  I never quite understood that as a child, but I now realize she was nicely telling us to shut up!  

My grandpa used to travel when I was a kid and since they lived right down the road from me growing up, I would go down and stay with her when he was away.  She didn’t like to be alone at night.  I had the fortune of really knowing my grandmother well, maybe better than my brother or sister did-  She wore little tiny Minnetonka moccasins, had a craftmatic adjustable bed with a “puff” (her word for comforter), couldn’t cook an unburned piece of toast to save her life and always had a milkglass full of m&m’s.  

She passed when I was 16 and the world became just a bit less cool-  I take those wild and fun parts of Ellie with me, though, I think through my life and now through my daughter.   The little spitfire that lives with me is her mimic, down to almost the same way she speaks.  My daughter,  Ellie has a little Massachusetts/Boston accent that I did not put there.  Just as she looks like I did, this kid is all Rathbun, she favors her “gramma gramma” in an amazing amount of ways.  I am excited to see what more comes as she grows.

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My Gram, Grace, passed away 13 years ago today.  It is in her memory that I am writing, she is my muse today.  I find myself thinking about the lessons she taught me, the wisdom she passed along and realize that I carry these teachings with me in my life now.  It is common in my family to stop and wonder: What could Grace do?  She had a serenity that I strive to achieve.

She was named aptly: Grace.  My grandmother always had a regal air about her, but she wore it humbly, you would never describe her as haughty or stuck up.  Her hair was pretty much always spot on perfect.  Even in her robe, she was put together.  Lips painted, maybe a necklace and earrings, perfect.  She always looked what I imagined a 1940’s film star would look like once she got a bit older and retired from making movies.  She was classy.  Pure and simple.

I am the oldest grandchild on both sides of my family.  I might be the wildest of the bunch, I am not sure, but when I hit puberty, Gram took control in reeling me in.  She decided it was time for me to understand how to be a “lady”.  There was a store in Windsor called Sage Allen’s (or Sage’s as Gram called it) and I was taken there to go shopping.  I had a little brother and sister by this point, probably 2 little crazy cousins too, so a trip with Gram all by myself was something to celebrate.  I am sure we made a day of it, maybe some lunch, I am not sure.. Definitely a stop at Geisler’s on the way home to get some nice bread and maybe things to make a green salad, but the day was all mine.  Yay.  We hit Sage Allen’s and walked right back to the intimates department.  Dear Grace had decided that it was time for me to properly “fit” for a bra.  I still had no clue what this meant.  How naïve I was..  fast forward about 15 minutes and you have me, beet red, standing in a dressing room being measured, pinched, pulled and inspected by not only my grandmother, but the sales associate as well.  I wanted to crawl under a mannequin and disappear.  But, my grandmother looked me in the eye that day and told me something that I carry with myself to this day.  She told me to be proud to be a woman.  Stand up tall, pull your shoulders back and lift your chin up.  Walk with purpose and grace…and “for godsakes, Hezer Ree, please make sure you learn how to walk in high heels, there is nothing worse than watching a woman clomp about in shoes she can’t walk in”

Holidays were always fun.  After 8's, gherkins & olives, pickies... Our family has a leprechaun, Michael Patrick.  He came every year, his arrival singled by a bell, leaving us goodies and presents.  When I was really little, my aunt and uncle were still in high school/college and Christmas Eve at their house couldn’t be beat.  As an adult, I always wanted to enjoy a Christmas Eve like the ones I remember.  Pictures of those nights make me smile as I can now understand how much fun the adults were having.  She was one of the best cooks I have ever known and handled her kitchen with an ease I am still trying to mimic.  She commanded a room with a glance, god help you if you were on the receiving end of one of her stares.  Well deserved of course, but you would be stopped in your tracks without her ever needing to say a word.  (I still need to learn how to do this better, I haven’t fully mastered the stare)

The attic on 40 Wilton Rd is still the coolest attic I have ever seen to this day.  Nooks and crannies of stuff!  Boxes of my mom’s old school papers that we’d look through over and over again.  That box was so much cooler in the attic than it was when it was finally brought down when they moved from that house.  She had these garment bags hanging up there and we’d hide in them, jumping out to try to scare an unsuspecting grown up.  Styrofoam mannequin heads that terrified you as you came up into the attic, made worse by my uncle (ask Jeremy about that one).   Christmas decorations, furniture and I am sure more than most of it was just “junk” but to us, it was a treasure trove.  There was a huge radiator in the kitchen with a metal lattice looking grate.  I think I must have put at least 2 full barrels of monkeys down through the spaces in between.   When I remember my grandmother, it is this house where I have her placed in my mind.  I can still remember everything, the calendar on the door to the cellar, how shiny the staircase was and the wallpaper in the dining room.

Memories of Gram sitting at the table, plastic cup of warm Coke, playing cards in hand-- Making lists of things to do, presents to buy.  Notes in the margins, reminders of what someone liked, or would possibly liked.  She dotted her i’s with a circle.  Watching her dance with my mother and aunt in our living room to Strokin’, I remember being so horrified that day-  my mom had just discovered line dancing and was teaching some moves.   Going out for dinner at Sapino’s (spelling??), down to the Elks Club-  everyone knew her and loved her.   She truly came from a different age, she personified grace.  She was a true lady and I only hope to be half the woman she was.  

I never realized it when I was a child, but I had the incredible fortune of knowing my grandmothers.  They were so totally different from one another as they could have possibly been, but I am the better for what they both gave to me.  I miss them terribly.  I wish they could know me now and guide me when I struggle.  My daughter embodies them, although right now I believe she only carries Grace in name more than manner, but I’m patient.  I hope that they grow up with the warm memories of their Gramma’s house that I do.  And with Michael Patrick set to arrive in less than 2 weeks, I think they might be off to a good start on that--