Month: December 2024

A few weeks before Christmas when we were young, our mom and dad would take my sisters and me to downtown Chicago to see the department store windows decorated for the holidays. We would go to mass at 8:00 a.m and then to Almar Donuts where we would pick out our breakfast. Mom would pour her and Dad a steaming cup of coffee from the red plaid thermos she had filled before leaving the house and we would head towards the city.

Bundled up against the December cold, we would walk to State Street where we would ooh and aah at the windows of Sears, Carson Pirie Scott, and the big finale of Marshall Fields. Nobody was downtown on those early Sunday mornings so we could stand right against the glass and be mesmerized by the elaborate displays and decorations. Between the two of them, Mom and Dad would excitedly point everything out and as I got older I wondered if this adventure was more for them than us. It didn’t matter – it was an annual event just for us girls. If it was close to opening time we would go into Fields which was the Cadillac of department stores. Red bows hanging from every light fixture, the first floor perfume counters, and boxes of Frango Mints stacked everywhere. It seemed magical.

When our kids were little, Mark and I wanted to have our own tradition and so we decided to take them on a carriage ride on the Plaza where we could leisurely see the store windows and lights from the comfort of a horse-drawn buggy. The only problem with our plan was that the night we had reserved a ride was a mixture of snow and sleet and bitterly cold temperatures. Not to be deterred because Chicago was firmly embedded on our DNA, we forged ahead and hyped it up for the kids. Despite the conditions we were managing to perservere until we rounded the corner and sleet was hitting us directly in the face. Mallory was a baby and even though she was bundled up it wasn’t enough and I unzipped my coat and tucked her inside. Maggie and Will were crouched down on the floor to avoid the sleet. Maybe they were crying – I don’t remember because it I felt like I was a pioneer woman on a wagon train fighting for our lives – or maybe their tears were frozen to their tiny, frigid faces. It was miserable. Afterwards we were supposed to have a family dinner but only made it as far as McDonald’s. Mark tried to cajole the kids into walking a few blocks to a nicer restaurant but they weren’t having it. All they wanted was a happy meal and for the frozen blocks that were their feet to thaw out.

I’m not sure if it’s an age thing or no longer having a living parent, but this year the memories of all my Christmas seasons have been like a movie that’s been whooshing by on fast forward. The simplest task brings up memories of my mom and dad, how hard they worked all of the time but especially at Christmas to make it feel special. I see my daughter and her husband doing the same thing with their kids even when it’s clear they are exhausted. I remember those overwhelming days.

This year I am in a different house with a different partner. I’m not sure yet how Christmas will look, but Michael is kind and generous to a fault so I have no doubt that it will be lovely. But even if it isn’t, even if there’s some hiccups that throw a wrench in our day, we will show up in sparkles and plaid and a snapshot will temporarily stop the whooshing of time and prove that we were together and we did our best.

Therein lies the magic.

Merry Christmas.

If you are one of my followers on this blog or a frequent drive-by, you may have noticed that things here have been a bit off. When I wrote my last post I was unable to share it on my Facebook author page. After a few days of repeatedly trying I found out that all of my posts (900+) had suddenly been flipped to private meaning only followers had access to the content. How this happened is a mystery and after many tries on my end I reached out to WordPress for help via a customer chat. They offered to correct the problem and I was like ALLELUIA THIS IS MY BABY AND I NEED IT FIXED PRONTO. A malware problem, they said, and could do a one-time fix of $199 or a year of monitoring for $499. That’s when I realized that their logo was ever-so-slightly different from the real WordPress site and I’d just handed over my login information (but not my credit card) to a hacker.

Long story short this has been trying to say the least. My friend, Lisa, who six years ago helped me move all of my content from Blogger to WordPress was doing everything she could on her end. She enlisted her friend, Gina, for help. Gina (who I have never met) tried many fixes and sent me many emails with updates on what she was trying without success. I had an online chat for over an hour with Bluehost who tried on their end to flip my work back to public. Michael’s student, Thomas, came over for nearly two hours to work on it. I reached out to Mark’s biking buddies to see if anyone had experience with WordPress. A friend who is a coder offered to help. I had a small army of people trying to help me.

Yesterday I sat down again like I have done every single day since this happened and decided to changed the theme of my site. Though this was one of the things that had been suggested, I resisted making the change. I liked how this little home for my writing looked, but since nothing was working I gave it a go. Through the new theme I was able to change my posts to public and they didn’t immediately revert back to private like they’d been doing with my previous layout.

I could have cried from happiness and relief. However, if you have been getting a flurry of emails from here, it is because everything I’ve written in the past 13 years has to be manually changed to the public setting which I have found out results in an email. I’m so sorry for that but it’s the only way I can fix it so please delete them and don’t stay mad at me. I’m rather fond of this little blog and having it crippled and on hold felt debilitating so my early, most welcome Christmas gift is having it up and running with a new look.

Speaking of Christmas….as I have written about a few times, I have struggled with reading since Mark’s death. For years I have had no concentration with the exception of any book that promised to fix the unfixable. Other than that I could read for hours and not retain one word. Thankfully, that has changed in the last year. Maybe it was the passing of time or more likely it was having Michael in my life and the safety net of love and support that made me no longer feel like I had to be on high alert for trauma. That, too, is a gift.

Below is the stack of books that I’ve read since the spring. The Wedding People was good – funny, poignant, real-life kind of stuff. James was stunning. Buy it – it’s like nothing you’ve ever read before. Paradise was about the largest wildfire in California history and was one of the most harrowing stories I’ve ever read. I picked up Winter Birds at an estate sale for ten cents. The story is told through the eyes of a young boy who is a hemophiliac, the abuse his father reigns down on the entire family, and the endless cycle of poverty and violence. The Collected Regrets of Clover was about a woman who was a death doula, and her only friends are her clients who are dying. The Yellow Bird Sings – oof, this takes place during the Holocaust and is about a mother trying to hide her and her young daughter from the Nazis. It was really, really good.

I listened to Between Two Kingdoms on audio and it was incredible. It is the story of Suleika Jaoud (wife of musician Jon Batiste) and her diagnosis and treatment for leukemia. I highly recommend it especially on audio. She has an incredible voice and paints such a vivid picture with her storytelling that you feel like you’re in the hospital with her.

And last but not least is I Will Send Rain. The month Mark died was my turn to pick a book for the book club I was in. I chose this because a writer friend had recommended it. I had read about a third of it when my life was upended, and after many months I moved it from beside the bed to a shelf. Every time I came across it, I remembered talking to Mark about it and how I would be hosting that month. I couldn’t open it, and I couldn’t get rid of it. This summer I looked on the library site to see if it was an audiobook and downloaded it. It is a stunning book. The writing is exquisite, and this is another one that I think is worth listening to via audio.

Is it good to be back among the reading? Wondering what story is waiting once the cover is flipped open?

Yes, yes, and yes.