P is for Past

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana

Does the past shape us? Or maybe the better question is to what extent does the past shape us?
I used to love holding my grandmother’s hands. I always felt that by touching her hands I was touching the past, reaching directly back into history. My grandmother died when she was 101 and I loved all the history that she held in those hands…history that belonged to me, especially when her hand was in mine.

In my life I have two very opposing perspectives on the role the past plays in our present. My husband believes we are solely responsible for our present, more specifically he believes that we are solely responsible for our behavior in the present. Our past makes for good and sometimes not so good memories but memories don’t define us nor control our behavior unless we let them. He believes that as adults we know right from wrong, even if we weren’t taught some of those lessons in our youth and that blaming our youth for poor decisions is simply a cop out.  On the other hand is my best friend. She believes that our past is 100% responsible for our present and that unless we closely examine our past and heal old wounds we can never fully grow up and live in the present.

I am somewhere in the middle. I know that my past shapes who I am.  I carry all those experiences of my childhood, youth and all the years through yesterday into my today.  Those experiences influence my beliefs, my hopes, what weighs me down and yes, even at times influences my behavior. And I actually love knowing that.  Some of those experiences in my childhood were difficult. I was bullied when I was in the sixth grade and think that experience led me to be a bit of a bully myself at times. Nothing I am proud of.  Thinking about those times when I was bullied still makes my stomach knot but I can choose not to be a bully despite that pain (and I am succeeding).  But not being a bully did require a bit of thinking about my past to determine what may have been pushing my buttons in my present.  The difference between me and my best friend is that I don’t dwell in the past.  I don’t think every decision I make today is controlled by my past nor do I believe that every childhood hurt has to somehow be healed before I can move on. The difference between me and my husband is that I acknowledge how the past does influence my present, actions included, and that at times, that’s really a good thing.

Another aspect of the past that I love thinking about is my family’s past…my ancestry.  My mother grew up very close to her cousins so I grew up very close to my grand aunts and uncles as well as my second cousins.  I never knew my great grandparents but I heard some of their stories, stories of hardship and stories of love. When we were in Sicily, my mother and I went to my great grandparent’s church in the little town of Sambuca (not the town famous for the liquor).  I loved touching the pews where they may have sat, touching the past, my past.   I loved knowing that somehow I was connected to that church, to that town.  I think of my ancestry as this amazing group of people standing just behind me, people whose strength is my strength, whose story is my story.  One of my sister-in-laws is especially good at instilling a gratitude for the past in her children. They bake things their grandparents and great grandparents baked; they celebrate holidays with some traditions pasted down from long gone relatives.

When people ask where I come from I still say Brooklyn even though I have lived away from that city for more years than I actually lived in it.  But it IS where I am from even if it is part of my past.  I think each of us carry our past into our present, the good, the bad, and everything in between. It’s what we do with it that matters. And just maybe taking a look at our past will open new possibilities for our future.

O is for Omelets at the Oakland Diner

New Jersey is famous for its diners…those all night restaurants where you can get everything from eggs to a steak dinner. Despite the variety, most people get breakfast food, deli stuff and burgers…or at least most people I know. Diners were a big part of my younger days. I should say nights, well for that matter to be perfectly honest—mornings, very early in the morning! They were the go-to spot at the end of a weekend night of revelry.  At that time pancakes would be just the thing before calling it a night. 

Don and I still eat at diners. Until not too long ago, Don and I had a steady Saturday morning date going to the diner. I would get an omelet (cheddar, tomatoes and mushrooms) and my husband would get French toast (made with rye bread, always rye). I would drink coffee and we would talk about the week that just past and/or our plans for the weekend, the chores we had to do, that kind of thing. We still go to the local diner, the one in the next town over, and we still order omelets and French toast, though not always on Saturday mornings. It’s often what we do when I don’t feel like cooking.

Is this a rut? Something OLD people do? Say it ain’t so. Well I will…it’s NOT a rut!  A rut is a groove dug without thought and one that you would probably want to get out of if you gave it any thought. Our steady diner diet is not a rut for us but rather a time when we can just grab a bite and talk. It’s an easy way to get something to eat without making a big deal of eating out.

My husband is not really a foodie…and that is to say the least. He would just as soon take a meal pill rather than eat an entire meal.  When we go out for a real dinner its usually Italian or steak, both foods he actually enjoys. He also likes lamb chops, so they may be ordered if it’s a good chophouse. But that’s about it for his menu of choice.  It’s not to say he is a picky eater because he will pretty much eat whatever is served but food for him is solely for nourishment of the body.


Oh how we differ!  Food is an event for me, be it the cooking or going out somewhere…food is something I love to share with friends and family.  My mother always served great special meals for holidays and other gatherings (my father actually did some of the cooking at Christmas) and sharing those meals were a big part of my childhood. Part of the excitement was not just the eating but the shopping, the cooking, and even the beautiful tables set for these events. I love serving up our own traditional (and not so traditional) meals to create memories for our family.  Fortunately the kids are much more adventuresome eaters than their Dad.

It does cause a little stress at times between us…this difference of opinion about food.  My family will sometimes choose to celebrate some events at high-end restaurants and my husband doesn’t see the point of spending the money on food.  Why not just have the meal at home?  Because that is ordinary and the event is extra-ordinary!

But my husband has taught me a lot about food. For one thing, I battle weight and he doesn’t and that has as much to do with way food was treated in childhood as it does my behavior and my genes. For another, he has taught me that I can seriously simplify those special meals and they would still be special because of the time spent with those we love.

Food is one of those things in life where it’s all about balance and it’s one of those things for which, at least for me, it is oh-so-easy to get out of balance.  Getting back into balance once we find ourselves tipping, or worse, completely flipped, isn’t easy. When we are at tilt with anything everything seems skewed. And when everything seems skewed getting back in balance becomes overwhelming and can seem like a daunting task.

At those moments in life it’s helpful to remind ourselves that serving a simple meal will get the job done just as well as an elaborate effort. In other words, take it a step at a time. Unfortunately, when I get out of balance, with whatever, is when I most easily forgot the basics and conjure up a need to create and serve a complicated menu getting myself even further out of whack. I spin myself up.  I lose sight of the most basic of prayers: Give us this day our daily bread and I fail to remember that the answer to that prayer is sufficient.  I need what is sufficient and nothing more.  

Getting back into balance begins by answering God’s invitation to break bread with him and celebrating that invitation with each other. It is about a simple meal that will be sufficient. Maybe even one of omelets and French toast (made with rye bread).
                                                         

N is for NEW YORK YANKEES!  The boys of summer are back baby!  The Yankees are a big part of my family and my marriage. We are a Yankee Family, that's for sure.
When we got married, we went to Vermont for our honeymoon. Friends and family gave us a wonderful suite at a lovely B&B. It was in October.  Before we confirmed the reservation we had to confirm that the Inn had cable TV…it was the play offs and we couldn’t miss that!  May not sound romantic to you but to us it was to us.  When we returned from our honeymoon, my brother greeted us with tickets to see the Yankees play in the World Series…that was quite a thrill.
I am actually not a huge baseball fan. I would never watch a game that didn’t involve the Yankees. I actually don’t mind missing some games early in the season…but when August comes, I get seriously involved. Because I am such a Yankee fan, there are some games I have a hard time watching. For example, I have a hard time watching the Boston/New York series. I always get too anxious. And forget the play offs…I am a wreck! I watch between my fingers as I hold my hands to my eyes.
I love the Yankees but don’t share that feeling with the team’s owners. I never cared for father Steinbrenner; it really angered me that he built the new stadium and limited the number of cheap seats. The new stadium is ok, but I think the Yankees would have been better served by renovating the old Cathedral that was Yankee Stadium.  But there are so many more reasons to love the Yankees…because well,  they are the Yankees for crying-out-loud.

I am a very different kind of fan then my husband. He yells at the players when they make an error. And don’t get him started on Girardi (the manager)…he gets so angry at some of the decisions he makes. Even when I think they deserve it, I wouldn’t yell at the players. Somehow I think that is not being a good fan. Now the funny thing is that my husband only gets angry at two situations: Yankee mistakes and stupid drivers, especially drivers driving slow in the left hand lane. I on-the-other-hand can yell at the drop of a hat. I do have a temper…it rises in a flash but then goes away just as quickly…must be an Italian thing.
Sports fan are pretty good at showing anger…throwing down their caps, screaming at umps who can’t hear them, and of course cursing, lots of cursing. My guess is that with those bursts of anger most sports fans release the emotion and move on to the next play.  But are sports worth getting angry at? If not, what is?
 Anger is a natural human emotion. It serves a purpose when handled well, but how many of us handle anger well?  Not handled well anger can fester and turns into bitterness and hatred. It grows exponentially and takes over; it then takes less and less to trigger our anger.  Anger is a dangerous emotion, one that I dance with too closely. Saying it’s just an Italian thing is a poor excuse. I need to learn to let go of my anger and, more importantly, not got too angry to begin with…I need to remember the words from James:
This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. James 1:19-20,Well this is a short post because the Yankees are on and they have lost their first few games of the season…but I am not angry!

M is for Mend

M is for Mend…I am on the Mend! Last week I was felled by a wicked stomach virus. I was truly knocked out. Is there anything worse than stomach stuff? Well of course, but seems like not when you are in the throes of such an illness.  My poor husband got it the week before while I was out of town. The illness is why I skipped the letter L in this meme series and hopped onto M.  We think the culprit was one of our peanut sized grand-nieces who came over one evening and promptly informed us that the night before she “spitted up a lot!” Thanks for sharing Dani!

For as miserable as I felt ( I am not a good sickie, just ask my husband), the feeling of joy was even greater at the moment when I realized I had turned the corner, when I reached that point in time when I realized that I was in fact  on-the-mend! With a little help from a prescription my wretched stomach had calmed itself enough to begin the process of mending. I couldn’t have been happier though tired, wiped out even, but indeed grateful that the worst was now behind me.  I was on the mend to being made whole again.

We spend a lot of time as human beings on-the-mend, though I am not sure we realize it. We spend much of our time healing from the small and not small tears in the fabric of our well-being. Those scrapes and bruises that come from daily contact with other human beings.  We bristle at the coworker’s indifference, get irate at being cut off on the highway, frustrated by the young person’s teenage eye rolls, or whatever happens to get under our skin. For the most part we are able to release these things and not even realize that our bodies processed pain, released it, then, even on a cellular level, began to repair the damage that the stress has caused. We are in a state of constant mending.

Marriage is filled with times of being on the mend. Not major events of some consequence but rather moments filled with simple opportunities to mend. We tick each other off only to realize that  we were wrong, by our action, inaction, or reaction, then apologize and begin the mending process. A simple heartfelt apology sets in motion momentous mending.  Most often it’s something so inconsequential that it doesn’t even warrant a discussion but the mending process is no less real. 

Marriage isn’t a series of negotiations but rather an ongoing recognition of the need to mend. It’s the recognition that both partners are fragile, easily torn but that with each tear, the person and the marriage become stronger by the opportunity to strengthen the binding. Of course some of the tears are deep, but fortunately rarely so permanent that love’s binding qualities can’t repair. I am not saying the repairs are always instantaneous; the tear may stay torn for awhile. No doubt about, we are not perfect, just people on-the-mend.

This Palm Sunday (actually every Palm Sunday) the Passion was read. At the moment of Christ’s death we learn that the curtain in the temple is torn in two, from top to bottom. This is the curtain which separated the Holiest section of the temple from the rest of the sanctuary. Prior to this only the High Priest was allowed to enter this area and he only once a year.   The tear of course symbolizes the end of the old ways of keeping the people from accessing God. Christ’s death opens a pathway to the Father. HE IS the pathway. Although it is symbolized as a tear, Christ’s death and resurrection actually heals, binds, mends.  His resurrection sets in motion the process by which we continually seek healing from our often self inflicted tears because we are people always on the mend. Fortunately, we believe in the great tailor who is capable of mending whatever shredded garments we bring His way.