Parenting

If God Would Go on Sick Leave

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

It’s now been a whole year since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel in which 1,200 men, women and thirty-six children were horrifically killed and 250 abducted. Since then, over 40,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed and countless thousands have been injured and displaced, including mothers, children and infants.

Mothers, children, and infants, like my precious granddaughter…

My minister shared this poem on Sunday and it really struck a chord with our Unitarian Universalist congregation.

“If God Would Go On a Sick Leave: A Poem of Peace”

by Rabbi Zoë Klein

Nowhere is there more prayer.
The Nuns at the Holy Sepulchre.
The faithful at Al Aqsa Mosque.
The worshippers at the Wall.
The call to prayer at dawn and dusk
Warbling from the citadels.
The church bells,
The Persian trills,
The passion spilled over texts
From every major/minor religious sect.
Nowhere is there more prayer than Jerusalem,
Thanks be to God, Hamdilala, Baruch Hashem.
And yet,
I’m starting to think that it’s You and not them,
God, what’s the point of prayer?
If there’s nowhere where
There’s more prayer,
And terror reigns
Then, Who’s to blame?
If suddenly, without a whisper goodbye,
Jesus, Allah, Adonai,
The three men they admire most
All took the last train for the coast,
And the Moslems got up from their knees
And the Christians put down their rosaries
And the Jews stayed their hands from kissing
Their mezuzahs,
And everyone looked up,
And realized something’s missing…
God is missing.
Stop the praying! No One’s there,
They’d arrange a party to search everywhere.
They’d look for God
But there’d be no Presence
In Holy Books or stars and crescents
Or steeples and crosses.
People’d be at a loss,
Is He ever coming back?
They’d be so distraught,
Their searching for naught,
There’d be nothing on high
So they’d turn to on low,
There’d be nothing above
So they’d turn to below,
And they’d finally see there,
In the face of the other,
A semblance of sister,
The eyes of a brother,
They’d turn and they’d lean
Upon one another.
You see, every group can’t believe that they’re the ones chosen,
Every group can’t believe that the Holy Land’s owed them,
Sometimes faith in You, God,
Builds insurmountable walls,
And everyone falls.
Everyone falls.
How wise are the secularists for whom the dead aren’t martyred
But, quite plainly, murdered…
This might sound like an absurd,
ungodly thing to say,
A truly heretical supplication to pray,
(I say this only out of the deepest respect)
But if for a few days, God, You’d just give it a rest,
If You’d take a sick leave and just go away
And let Israel work this out without You in the way,
God, for that kind of peace,
You’re a small price to pay.

Image from Pexels

Grandma

~ MaryG ~ 19 Comments

My granddaughter is perfect.

There’s no feeling like holding your first grandchild for the first time. It’s an experience of pure love. It’s a bit different than the new parent feeling of baby love, which is such a huge life-altering event. (Your life is ever after divided into two parts—before and after.)

Becoming a grandparent is just a…gift. A gift from the universe. I’m crying as I write this. I don’t love the word “blessed” because of its association with traditional Christianity, but…I mean…heck… it sure does apply here.

I’ve been searching for quotes about becoming a grandparent that resonate. I kind of like this one:

“Grandchildren are the reward for those who have labored as parents.”

But I don’t love the word “reward” in it. Children are not rewards.

Becoming a grandparent is just awesome. That’s all I can say. I know I’m very lucky too. For whatever reasons, the birthrate is way down in the US. A significant number of millennials are choosing not to have children. I’m just so fortunate that my wonderful daughter and her partner have chosen to take the parenthood plunge.

And some practical advice for new grandmothers (based on my one week of experience):

Don’t be annoying.

Be helpful.

Let the parents figure out how to feed and care for their brand new baby. Do your best to take care of the parents—with meals, cleaning, recycling boxes, and whatever else they obviously need. Some ideas have changed since we had kids, especially around bottle vs breast “nipple confusion.” Don’t assert yourself too hard with your old ideas. And don’t say any of those annoying things that all mothers have up their sleeve! Tell the parents how awesome they’re doing at life’s hardest job.

One thing you will always be 100% in agreement on is that their baby (“our” baby 😉) is the cutest baby.

I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoyed the Leanne Morgan comedy special “I’m Every Woman” on Netflix. This bit about becoming a grandma is one of my favorite parts 😂🤣😂

Haiku for my granddaughter

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments

On the eve of you

I slept with a golden charm

My Daughter, my heart

To my readers: my granddaughter has arrived safe and sound – thank the universe! She is perfect in every way and so is her name, which I love, but won’t be sharing publicly at this time.

As a mother, I can tell you it’s pretty darn stressful to have your own precious daughter go through labor and delivery. I wrote this haiku during the first night of her labor, which went on for two whole nights. I barely slept a wink!

I’m a grandma, people!!!!!

Best promotion ever!

💕

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Major news

Charm Bracelet

~ MaryG ~ 18 Comments

Back in the 70s, charm bracelets were a common gift for girls. Typically girls got the bracelet with one or two “charms” as a first gift and then additional charms for birthdays and Christmases ever after.

Charms were little silver representations of some hobby or activity that the girl liked to do.

I loved my charm bracelet. I have kept it in a box in my closet for decades now. It lives with a bunch of other sentimental jewelry that I no longer wear, but cannot part with.

I recently bought some of those tiny silver polishing cloths to shine up some old jewelry and decided to clean my charm bracelet.

As we very eagerly await the birth of my granddaughter sometime within the next two weeks, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to show it to her and tell her about the meaning of all the charms.

There are 17 charms on my bracelet. Most represent things that were important to me as a child and teenager.

Counterclockwise from 1 o’clock:

  1. Santa’s sleigh (I loved Christmas!)
  2. An upright piano, just like the one I played
  3. A Camp Fire Girls 5-years charm (I had forgotten how important the CFG were to me)
  4. A set of silver bells (not sure why I had those, but I’m assuming they were Christmas-related)
  5. A Camp Fire Girls 6-years charm
  6. The B-1 Bomber (Unusual, yes, but my Dad was an engineer and a pilot and his company made some navigational components for the B-1. He was always going to California on business and he must have brought this charm back from one of his trips.)
  7. An ice skate – I loved figure skating.
  8. A tall ship, probably the USS Constitution. The bicentennial in 1976 was a very big deal in Massachusetts. The tall ships visit to Boston was a part of it.
  9. A baton (I loved twirling and being a majorette in high school)
  10. A tennis racket and ball (I had forgotten, but I was quite serious about tennis for several years. I made it to the club finals in singles one summer. I played on the high school team for a year or two.)
  11. A starfish – I loved the beach. (I ill-advisedly took a starfish home with me one time and that thing reeked like hell for months. It was probably still alive and I didn’t realize it. Poor starfish.)
  12. Mickey Mouse – I was one of those very lucky kids in the 70s whose parents took them to Disneyland.
  13. A heart with my birthstone in it
  14. Another Camp Fire Girls charm – my mom was a leader of our group
  15. The Eiffel Tower (I hadn’t been to Paris back then, but I must’ve liked the idea. I sure did love it later on in life.)
  16. A saguaro 🌵 cactus that says Tucson. I had an aunt and six cousins that lived out West. My grandmother would periodically move out there to help them.
  17. The last one is a bit of a mystery. Maybe it’s supposed to be a bicycle. I loved riding my bike. But it looks a bit more like a moped. I remember seeing mopeds a lot on our visits to Nantucket and Block Island, but people were constantly getting seriously injured on them. I don’t think my parents ever let us ride them, so let’s just go with bicycle for that one.

Thankful Thursday (sorry, vegans)

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

I’m thankful that I got to have lobster (“lob-stah” – if you’re from around here) last night. I typically have one lobster dinner per summer, so I’m glad I got this one in before Labor Day—the unofficial end of summer.

Growing up in New England, I’ve eaten many, many lobsters. And yes, as a kid, I was extremely concerned about the seemingly cruel manner of death – by boiling. But once I had that delicious claw meat dipped in hot, melted butter, I got over it.

For those who have never had a lobster, the best ones are from the cold New England waters, especially Maine. (I made the mistake of ordering a lobster in Hawaii once. It was a totally different experience.) In my opinion, boiled lobster is best accompanied by a baked potato and either fresh corn or good coleslaw.

And if you’re a GenXer like me, you must recall a certain song, whenever lobster is served. (You know the one.)

Five more days of summer!

The City

~ MaryG ~ 26 Comments

Growing up in Massachusetts, I should have visited New York City before age 18, but I did not. For some reason, my parents never took us there, even though my mother’s parents were true Brooklynites—Dodgers fans before “dem bums” moved to LA. I remember my grandmother always pronounced certain words the Brooklyn way—“earl” for oil and “erster” for oyster. (My grandparents moved to Worcester, Massachusetts early in their marriage and never returned to Brooklyn.)

I first went to NYC on a bus from my college in Hartford in the mid eighties. We went for the day. I’ll never forget seeing those vertigo-inducing Manhattan skyscrapers for the first time. New York is so much bigger and taller than all the other American cities. Chicago, Miami, Philly, DC, LA, San Francisco, and of course Boston, are all special in their own ways, but New York is the greatest of them all. (And I say this as someone who grew up despising the New York Yankees.)

On that very first trip to NYC, I remember a shopkeeper asked me where I was from and I said “How do you know I’m not from New York?” He answered, “Because you’re not wearing black and you smiled and said thank you.” He guessed I was from Connecticut. Also, on that same trip, my friend Ann told me to quit gawking and saying things like “I can’t believe I’m in NEW YORK.”

I was determined to expose my kids to NYC before they were 18, so they wouldn’t seem so naive and Connecticutty when they visited.

A photo I took of my sister in NYC in 1987. (She was living there at the time and did not give Connecticut vibes like I did.)
My friend Andreada in Washington Square Park in 1988. That was a wild trip. NYC in the late 80s was a bit scary. I had to sit near a nasty perv on the bus down and got robbed of my leather coat while I was out at a bar. AIDS and drug addiction were casting a pall.
My daughter in the Empire State Building, 2005
My son’s first trip to NYC, 2011
A mini-reunion with high school friends in Manhattan in 2011.

In 2018, I just HAD to see Hamilton on Broadway, so my friend Dina and I planned to go down for the day in late March. I thought we’d be safe from winter storms, so I bought tickets to a matinee. But then a freak spring snowstorm was forecast so we went down on the train the night before, so as to not miss the show. Well, the snowstorm was so bad that they cancelled our Amtrak home and we had to stay over a second night. It was quite a snowy adventure! We ended up running into a friend who took us to see a second Broadway show (Carousel starring Renée Fleming) for free. (She had extra tickets because her friends wouldn’t brave the snow.) We ate at the famous Sardi’s restaurant after the show.

The Hamilton marquis on Broadway, 2018
My friend Dina outside the Bryant Park Grill in March 2018. Amtrak shut down for two days due to this little bit of snow! We took the bus home instead.

I went back to NYC for a conference the following month. There was no sign of snow then. I think that was my last trip to the City. I’m not sure when I’ll go back again, but I will.

About last night

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments
Full text of Kamala Harris speech

Last night I was on a boat, in my pearls & chucks, with a bunch of people who didn’t seem to care that history was about to be made. We saw some lovely views of Boston.

Thank goodness I made it home in time to see her speech live.

I truly felt like I was experiencing history in the making. I mean, come ON. She was phenomenal. Many tears were shed.

How could any American not choose Kamala Harris to lead the United States forward over the alternative—whose name does not even deserve to be in the same sentence as hers.

I am beyond excited that my granddaughter will be arriving into this new world, filled with hope and possibility.

Here I am earlier in the day yesterday with people who do care, very much, about what happened last night. We were thrilled to have a special guest with us. Funny, she didn’t seem nervous at all about the huge speech she was about to give.

“And to be clear, my entire career, I’ve only had one client: the people.” ~Kamala D. Harris, Democratic National Convention, 2024

The DNC

~ MaryG ~ 23 Comments

The Democratic National Convention is SO good. Oh my god…what a difference from the RNC.

From Republican Stephanie Grisham, to the roll call, to the Obamas (especially Michelle), it was all so inspiring last night.

This introduction of Doug Emhoff by his son Cole was a highlight for me:

www.instagram.com/reel/C-6tT42AAOk/

76 more days!

Writing postcards to help get out the vote in Ohio with others on Zoom yesterday

Thankful Thursday

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

I’ve never done a “Thankful Thursday” post before, but here goes.

I’m thankful for a solid house that does not leak. With hurricane season upon us, I’m reminded of past interior flooding — both in the home I grew up in and in the first house we bought after our daughter was born (a 150+ year old antique with a leaky fieldstone basement). I know there are worse things than standing ankle-knee deep in dirty brown water in your own basement, but I’m very thankful I haven’t had to do that in the past twenty years.

It is my understanding that Hurricane Ernesto has knocked out power for half of Puerto Rico (which still has not fully recovered from the devastating Hurricane Maria in 2017) and is gaining strength as it heads towards Bermuda. And hurricane season has only just begun…

Beautiful San Juan, Puerto Rico in August 2016, the year before Category Five Hurricane Maria