Love Remains

January 15, 2024 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

Sometimes I wish I could visit my friends and family during the best times in my life.

I would ask my favorite Grandpa & Grandma what their lives were like, and if they felt content. What challenges did they face and surmount? Did they ever ponder life’s existential questions, or was it a life too busy with ordinary concerns?

Like so many stories about going back in time, I don’t know if I’d change anything that would affect my life now (unless it was for the better).

And even if I thought that changing something would obviously better my life, I’d still be taking a risk that the opposite would be true.

It’s not really situations that I want to re-live, it’s to revel in my connections with friends and relatives – especially those that have passed on.

But, if I could time-travel, would it be helpful or harmful for my mental/emotional health? Would I find what I was looking for?

Am I just imposing what I wish now on what was?

I am betting those moments I want to recapture in their fullness are only partially, or even barely, what I’m attributing to them.

It’s deep and abiding connection with those who share my values, kindness & humor I seek.

Laughter is one of my favorite lights in the dark. Gladness and companionship continue warming my heart long after parting company.

‘Cultivate what is missing here and now,’ my inner wisdom whispers. Trust that my loved ones passed on will greet me at my end – but that I still have (hopefully) many good years to carry on in this world, and to create the kind of life that matters to me.

I’m not forgetting them; I’m bringing them with me. Their laughter can still ring in my ears, and I can revisit the love & goodness we all shared any time I want or need to.

Love remains.

That Ineffable Something

November 15, 2023 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

Did you ever drink or eat something while far away from home that you wanted to find again because it had an ineffable something to its taste or aroma?

For me it was a cup of coffee I had while visiting a friend in San Francisco in the 1980’s. (Yes, that’s how long I’ve been hoping I’ll once again taste that amazing coffee.)

I have tried every style bean, every way of making it, and while the coffee I drink is good – it’s not that one.

I will know it if/when I taste it again.

It could have been the water, that coffee batch, or the coffee itself could have had a particularly good growing year.

I get it. Let it go.

I’m still enjoying coffee. I wouldn’t want to have to live without it. It’s an elixir for me. It’s not just the taste – it’s the experience.

It’s the steam curling up out of my favorite mug into the chilly morning air as I sit on the porch steps. The coldness shivers me under my clothes, but cradling my hot coffee mug keeps me warm enough for those few moments of quiet reflection.

On that long ago visit, my friend brought us to some fancy hotel near Fisherman’s Wharf, or maybe it was the Embarcadero. She took my hand and pulled me along inside, telling me to just act like we had a room there.

There was an open buffet along the wall with delicious looking pastries, fruit, and other more hearty fare, but we were on a mission.

There were waxed-paper bags and to-go cups – so we did.

I so admired her brazenness. We got outside and laughed about our pilfered goods as we hurried to catch the ferry to Alcatraz.

My first sip of that coffee startled me with its strong, slightly bitter taste – but my second sip was better. Maybe the croissant I grabbed along with the coffee, the beaming sun, and the salty air as we sped toward Alcatraz combined to create an inimitable experience, but I still seek out that delicious taste that keeps me searching.

Peace, Love, Grief

August 20, 2023 / Hermionejh

There have been better days lately. I’ve been doing my best to fill up the friend-shaped space she once occupied.

We don’t know what, if anything, awaits us after this world, so it’s a crapshoot if we’ll ever meet again. We won’t have eyes to see one another, mouths to talk and share a laugh, or arms to give a hug, but we will recognize each other if we retain consciousness outside our body.

I saw another old friend today that I haven’t seen in years. He was part of our large mutual friend group when we were teens, and I’m grateful he hasn’t radically changed since then. Matured, yes, but still true to his essential self.

After we parted I was hit with a wave of loneliness or sadness that seemed outsized for the situation, but later realized that it was about belonging – and about loss, because my friend who died in May also belonged in our friend group.

It’s kind of silly that I wanted to cling to him emotionally, as if his presence would resurrect our friend, but she’s gone, and no one can bring her back.

We both had places to be, so we left, and I walked myself through the mental patch of grief left in his wake that he really had nothing to do with.

The starkness of grief can trigger my leftover childhood neglect trauma. It feels like standing alone in the midst of a crowd.

My inner peace comes from the center of my heart, because I have no peace without love, but it’s very hard to find the love without peace. Thankfully, it’s still possible, even if it’s only moments.

I’m still in my life. I have things to do and places to go. It’s ok to still be here. It will also be ok when I’m no longer here.

I wondered earlier today if the experiences we have and the knowledge we gain are not ours alone, but are directly feeding or enriching the spirit world.

It might be that that is not how any of this works, but it made me feel like I’m possibly contributing something worthwhile to the whole.

Who knows?

Have A Fabulous Halloween

October 28, 2015October 28, 2015 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

What type are you? Like to throw lavish parties, or perhaps a more intimate gathering? Whatever your festivity profile is, here are some simple steps to make this Halloween fabulously fun!

If you like lavish costume parties, or unhooked dance-a-thons, you’re a planner, so you have nearly everything ready; but, if you’re like me, it seems party day comes up all too soon.

Don’t have that scarecrow you were going to have made yet? Neither do I! Dig out some balloons, if you can find them, or if you have them – or go buy a package at a dollar store. Long skinny balloons fill the arms and legs nicely, and round balloons will fill the body. * Tip: Bigger balloons are better to fill the main body, but you might like a variety of sizes – experiment!

If you don’t fill the balloons too much, they’ll be less likely to pop when you’re stuffing, or moving your scarecrow into position. You can use a pumpkin-shaped bucket with a straw hat for the head, decorate a large balloon, and tie a hat on it, or sew a head-shaped pattern, draw your scarecrow’s face, put a balloon in the opening you left for stuffing, and then blow the balloon up, or stuff your scarecrow’s head with fiber-fill or some other suitable material, and add some straw coming out of the hat, as well as straw sticking out from the cuffs of the sleeves and the pant legs.

This year, I shoved a bunch of cornstalks up against the garage, meaning to make an artistic arrangement later, but I never got to that either, so putting a pumpkin next to it makes it look rustic – and I saved myself a bunch of time!

Photo credit: Jerri Higgins

Making your home festive is a snap too! Press a few vinyl clings on your window, or glass door, get a Halloween or fall-themed dish towel, some pumpkins, gourds, and a few pots of mums, and you’re done!

Photo credit: Jerri Higgins

Now for the invites. If you’re a planner, you’ve already sent them, and because your parties are always fab, you’ve gotten RSVP’s too. However, if you’re like me, you’ll have to contact everyone by phone, email, and social media to alert them of your event.

Of course, they all already have plans, so they won’t make it, but I can freeze my Harvest Pumpkin Soup, my Cinnamon-Nutmeg Roasted Pumpkin Seeds, and my roasted Brussels’ sprouts, carrots, and sweet potatoes, for another day.

The pumpkin pie, and meticulously ~~made~~ (ordered) graveyard cake will last forever in pictures, even though the scent of the hot-buttered rum cider can’t be captured, and it will be drunk – and I’ll be drunk – by myself, as my S. O. rarely drinks, and doesn’t like rum. Yo, ho, ho…

It’s too bad I ran out of time to carve the pumpkin, it really was the perfect shape.

Season’s Greetings

September 4, 2015October 6, 2019 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

August is the beginning of Druid autumn, I found out several years ago when telling a friend that I feel mournful in August, even though it’s still summer. Learning that the Druids considered August the beginning of autumn resonated with me, and gave me a place for my sadness this time of year.

It’s now September, and the physical signs of change are showing. Red and yellow veined green leaves began spotting the road under the maples about a week ago. Some are fully red now, and although a harbinger of the coming cold season, they are so pretty.

I picked up several of my favorites, and as my mother showed me when I was little, I placed them between sheets of waxed paper and ironed them together. I put a rag underneath and on top of the waxed paper, and kept checking to make sure it was working.

Pressed autumn maple leaves

My S.O. wasn’t all that impressed when I showed him later, but its a simple craft helping me ease into autumn. I’m sure I could have created something more sophisticated, but I also enjoyed its childhood link.

As the earth has moved in its orbit, the garden is now burgeoning with tomatoes, green beans, squash, carrots, and late corn – harvest time well under way. Maybe I’ll learn to can food this year, but it feels too much like work… 🙂

I suppose we could dry the tomatoes, freeze some of the corn, carrots, and green beans, as well as what we’re doing, which is making as many recipes possible with all the fresh food.

It’s also nice to know where and how our food was grown, and I feel more connected to our land than before I started gardening.

The cooler breezes are more welcome than the humid dog days we’re leaving behind, and sleep is more restful with cooler air too.

I’m not ready to give up summer, and wish it lasted at least another month, but I’ll savor all the warm days ahead, and do my best to accept rather than resist – or figure out how to move to warmer climes!

Birthday Wishes

August 31, 2015October 6, 2019 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

Tomorrow is my birthday. Birthdays were so exciting when I was younger. Getting older was somehow an achievement, and I suppose it was, depending on how many risks were taken, or accidents met and survived the previous year.

Celebrating someone for their birthday is a wonderful time for connection, reflection, and, especially, festivity!

Time’s passage is tough the older I get because I want to keep the problems of the relatively young and not get any problems of aging. Too bad, I know. Perspective is a perk as time moves on, as well as caring less about how I’m received, but this ship of life I’m sailing leaves a wider berth the further I get from port, leaving some things smaller, although not less significant, as they recede and I travel on.

Even though I often feel that I’ve not accomplished anything, or much of what I wish I had done, I have traveled. I won a ten-day tour of Switzerland, with a side trip to Liechtenstein. I made it to Australia, where I stayed with my childhood pen-pal, and her family, and we met each other’s children (child in my case), and saw lots of Victoria, including a day in Melbourne, hiking in the Dandenong Mountain Ranges, a rain forest walk in the Yarra ranges, and a gorgeous trip down the Great Ocean Road, ending in Warrnembool, and the site of the Twelve Apostles rock formations, during our stay.

I’ve driven through or visited at least half of the United States, including Hawaii, but not Alaska. I’ve been to Canada, and Mexico, though not extensively in either country. I brought my son to Ireland for his high school graduation present, but really because I’d wanted to go my whole life and that justified the expense well enough – or at least, it did – until I just wrote that.

Pilgrimage to Haifa, Israel, was the last big journey I took, a gift that I’ve not well repaid seeing as I’m now an atheistic-leaning agnostic.

I’ve climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty, back when you could do that, and have been on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, when it was free. (It’s hard to believe that anyone would pay $57 for the dubious privilege nowadays).

Contentment with my lot is the message I try to embrace, but my adventurous spirit doesn’t understand that sentiment. There are so many more places to see, things to do, and the beautiful aspects of life on Earth that I’ll never have again.

As long as I can get through the rough patches, the pain, suffering, and challenges we all endure, and hopefully, surmount, I will add more sweet than bitter to each year that I’m graced with, have more meaningful time with those I like and love, and be glad for what’s been given.

Full Moon in Wendell Brings A Coffee House

January 20, 2014January 20, 2014 / Hermionejh

Last Saturday, January 18th, Livingston Taylor played in bucolic Wendell, Massachusetts, at their monthly fund-raising Full Moon Coffee House. The day had been snowy off and on, my boyfriend and I wondering if the event would be cancelled, or if we should attempt the winding back-road drive in the now heavy-falling snow, but it was so worth the risk getting there and back!

Taylor’s voice is higher toned, although of similar timbre or resonance as his older brother, James’ – but Livingston has a playfulness and sardonic sense that’s evident in his music and story-telling. He grabs your attention from the start and holds it to the end through his self-effacing stage presence and excellence. Whatever talent he defers to his older brother, he has himself, regardless of public acclaim differences.

The show opened with Carrie Ferguson playing the piano and singing several of her songs with her lilting, tremolo, vocals and sweet sound. Taylor took a few moments after her performance saying that’s a tough act to follow, and then continued with ‘notice how I’m standing here, waiting for the memory of what you just heard to fade. I’ll give it a few minutes more.’

From that opening, to his songs such as Life Is Good, Never Lose Hope, Pajamas, I Will Be In Love With You, Everybody’s Just Like Me, and several more entrancing tunes, he wove stories, and musical history through a magical hour and a half, bringing us snippets of Yip Harburg’s pop song work, who was inspired by Arthur Sullivan and W. S. Gilbert, and Harburg inspired others such as Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart, who also clearly enthralled Livingston Taylor, informing his musicality and love of music history.

Livingston Taylor teaches at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and his performance made me want to take his classes, and become the best musician I can be. I bought his book: Stage Performance, and asked him to sign it for me, to which he readily obliged. When asked to whom he should address it, I said ‘to Jerri, and add how wonderful it is to meet me, and what a great time we’ve had…’ His droll smile illuminated his face as he penned: “Wow! What a time! To Jerri, Livingston Taylor” I’m most pleased that I made him smile.

Taylor’s performance closed with his sweet rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow, to which we all joined in, and it was a truly lovely ending to a superbly entertaining show.

Kit-Cat Klock

January 26, 2013May 19, 2015 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

Kit-Cat Klock (Photo credit: World of Oddy)

I bought a Kit-Cat Klock for my son one Christmas, nearly ten years ago now. He had it hung up in his room, and when we moved, I was happy to see that he put it back up on his wall. I really like the way its eyes and tail move back and forth, but it’s not the most accurate time piece. This one is battery operated, but I think the original Kit-Cat Klock was electric.

When my son went to college, the clock remained here, even though I suggested taking it as a memento of home. I removed the battery and put it with his things that I’m keeping in case he wants it in the future, which I realize isn’t likely, but you never know. If he ever has kids they might enjoy stuff that was once their Dad’s, or at least having a physical connection from the past to the present.

I was cleaning the other day and saw the clock and decided to dust it off, put a battery in, and stick it up on the wall. I forgot how much pleasure I take in simple things, and I’m so glad I decided to claim it, and went through the trouble to put it up.

Holiday Events

December 17, 2012May 19, 2015 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

The town next to me has a theater built in the late 1870s. It has seen several revivals of sorts throughout the years, its most infamous use being when the Renaissance Community – the commune/cult I grew up in – owned it. I spent many days and nights in that theater as a teenager, so it has a difficult history for me, but that history has become less overwhelming since 2000 when I auditioned for my first play at what is now the Shea Theater. Its renovation removed the gaudiness that Michael Rapunzel (née, Metalica) imposed on the once beautiful theater, but the balcony was removed, leaving only a light and sound booth for shows, and tiered rows of seats down to the ground floor of the theater.

The other night, several community groups helped present a large screen showing of: It’s A Wonderful Life, for free, but people were encouraged to bring canned goods or monetary donations for our regional food bank and local food pantries.

I wasn’t going to go, but I wasn’t born when that movie was first shown in theaters, so I thought it would be fun to see on a big screen, even though I suspected I’d be in a largely empty theater. Boy was I wrong! The theater was packed and there were many families in attendance. It was a festive experience to see the film with all those people, some seeing it for the first time, and probably plenty for the last as well. I mean that last part to convey that it’s an outdated movie whose quaint filming and content don’t satisfy a movie going public in the way it might have when it was first released.

After the show, the crowd was told that the pub across the street was serving ‘flaming rum punch’, a drink that Clarence, the angel (second class), tries to order at Martini’s in the alternate world he’s escorting George Bailey through. I decided to go over, and again, thought I’d be among very few, but the pub was crowded, with more filing in after me, and many there had just come from seeing the film. It was a very jovial crowd, and it felt somewhat surreal, like we were all characters from the story somehow. I half expected a saxophone rendition of Auld Lang Syne to play over the pub’s stereo.

The rum punch was just spiced cider with rum, but it was warm and soothing on a cold, dreary night. The people sitting next to me at the bar started chatting with me, and I asked them if they had ever seen the movie before, and they hadn’t. They said they liked it, and thought it was a great idea to offer, and hoped there would be more community events like that. A young woman related that she had always wanted to see the film, but her mother hated it, saying it was too depressing, and turned it off any time it was on television, so the woman just assumed she’d hate it too. She was pleasantly surprised to find that it was more uplifting than depressing, even if set during the Great Depression and World War II.

It was a lovely oasis in a difficult time, not only for recent tragedies, but for this dark time of year that starts my yearly descent. I hope this will be the year I fall no further.

Enjoy each other, tell those who matter that you love them, tell strangers you’re glad to meet them, be helpful, and kind, and you may receive no heavenly reward, but you will uplift humanity, and I think we can all use more gladness, even if momentary. Peace.

Fair Days

September 8, 2012September 8, 2012 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

Our fall harvest festival, The Franklin County Agricultural Fair, is here again. I had wanted to enter some photography in their annual contest this year, but I always miss the deadline. I also think there’s an entry fee, but I’m sure it’s not that much.

A dear friend gave me entrance tickets, and I’ll bring a sandwich, and my water canteen with me. I don’t need to spend money on any attractions or food. Just seeing so many people I know, and all the fair exhibits, is interesting enough for an afternoon. It’s only a mile away from where I live, so I can even walk there. Having no money doesn’t equal having no fun!

I look forward to seeing all the cows, sheep, goats, chicks, and ducks, and geese… and the surrey with the fringe on top! Oh, sorry, I was in Oklahoma for a minute. Maybe I’ll even find my very own Curly McLain there! I played Ado Annie Carnes in The Country Players‘ 2008 production, and she is a far more interesting character than Laurey Williams is, even though Laurey is one of the main characters. Ado Annie is the comic relief minor character, and it was so much fun to play that role. As long as I don’t meet a Jud Fry at the fair, it’ll be a good day. (I just realized I starting reading the words as I typed them in a mid-western accent.)

Maybe I’ll go around the fair using my Oklahoma accent and then switch to the English Country dialect I used for the Mutton & Mead Medieval Festival! Well, the skies aren’t looking too friendly just now, so I better git while the gittin’s good! Cheers!