Counting my blessings on Easter, April 20th, 2025
April 20, 2025
Springtime came late this year in New England. We’ve lit the pellet stove every morning and each night. The cold has lingered and is starting to creep in now, as I write and the sun begins to set. I like the purr of the chips falling through the shoot, the warm air as it drifts up, and settles on my forearms and ankles. I like pulling a cashmere sweater around my shoulders while I hold onto to coffee and take deep sips. It takes me a while to wake, I appreciate the slow moments in the morning as the house warms and I wait for the rest of me to follow.
We had guests this weekend from my hometown of Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. So I skipped the gym, and enjoyed long, dog walks over the golf course and along the trails of Cunningham. We ventured to Plymouth for the afternoon, where we briefly joined a protest, and stumbled on a craft fair. A closing coffee shop made me a cappuccino, probably because I looked desperate. My husband made sure to show Amy and John Plymouth Rock, as underwhelming as ever. When we left we headed over to meet their son and daughter-in-law for dinner at a little Thai place in Braintree. Anchan doesn’t typically take reservations but when I explained I had guests, and we were a party of five, they made an exception.
We had wine and beer with dinner, Amy and May had fancy cocktails with flowers floating in them; the guys had cold beer in frosty bottles. We nibbled on shumai and spring rolls, duck, chicken, and squid. There was no room for dessert.
We came home, walked the dogs around the block, but just once, then settled into a show and an early bedtime. I was tired, brick tired, like I had run a marathon, cured cancer, or cleaned out my closet.
And then we woke to Easter, the most glorious day we’ve had so far. There was church, good friends, communion, a party this afternoon, and another slow dog walk around the duck pond.
It was a lazy, long, weekend, with one more day left to spend how I please. With friends. With dogs. With Netflix. Tomorrow, I can do whatever the hell I want.
And what a blessing, a gift, and a luxury, this weekend, and the days of my life, are.
My kids are close, and I know where they will sleep. My friends are all citizens, and though they go to rallies, sign petitions, organize protests, are, for right now, not in danger of being picked up BY an unmarked car and masked men.
I don’t have to wake up in a prison, in a jungle, on a floor. Or in a holding cell, waiting to use the phone. I don’t have to glance over my shoulder when I walk down the street or check the news for where ICE has been seen recently.
Because of genetics and luck, so far, the dark that is descending on families all over this country and all over the world, it has mostly touched me while I’m on my sofa, reading the NY Times on the phone.
Yes, it was a lovely, lazy, Easter weekend with the people I love and people who love me. But how comfortable and content can I be when the world around me is growing dim, where hope is flickering as calls don’t come, where others might never know an easy sleep or a slow, spring, morning again.
I do not have enough time left on this planet to count all my blessings. I just wish I could pass some of them on.
Speak out. Speak loud.
Speak for those who have been silenced, for those who will be silenced, for those who might have just been thrown into the back of a van five minutes ago or are being marched onto a plane, hands shackled, wrists shackled, to a destination, far away from this place we call the land of the free.
Peace. Happy Easter. I’m praying for miracles. You?
Not An Easy Sunday
November 7, 2022
Sunday mornings I start my day, sometimes in my pajamas, at 750 am. I go to the gym down the street for a 8 o’clock Pilates class. I reserve a space three days in advance; it’s popular because it’s ridiculously hard but eighty percent of the time, we’re lying down, on our backs or our bellies, so it suits the lazy, the hungover, and the people that want to look good in a bikini. The classes are never the same, but I can count on a Joni Mitchell, Taylor Swift, James Taylor, type music, on the playlist.
It is hard, it is not so hard. If I chose. I can do pushups from my knees and use light weights. I like staying low to the ground when I’m just waking up.
Today, there was someone new. The music was soft. The moves were hard; ten minutes of side planks on a Sunday? There was stretching, and then more work. It was lovely. It was different. It ended at 849 am, four minutes over.
Church is at 1030. I’d signed up to teach religious education, or Sunday School, which means I spent half the service with eight 7th graders, helping the lead teacher with the lesson of the week. I’ve been out of the loop for a while, so I didn’t know the kids or the teacher, at all.
I made friends with Leona, the artist, and Sebastian, the shy one. The lesson had an African theme, my husband volunteered to fry the plaintains, (a job assigned to me,) so I could join everyone out to the yard and watch our group play a game.
It is November in New England and this morning the temperature was over sixty degrees. There is something delicious about spinning around in the leaves and the wind on a November morning in very short sleeves.
I can’t remember the name of our activity, but it came from Africa and hiding, then finding stones, was the point. The leaves have mostly fallen, so there were breaks to hang on naked branches, examine seeed pods, and discuss whose turn was next. No one slipped on the wet grass, or broke a limb, the human or the tree kind. At the end, we lost about half the stones, and the lead teacher said that was impressive.
We all tried the fried plaintains, and I don’t think they were that good, but some of the kids liked them or were polite.
I raced home afterewards to get ready for a funeral for a friend. This was a woman I worked with a long time ago at Quincy College. I can’t sum her up in a few words. She smiled with her eyes, adored sparkly eye shadow, spoke her mind without lowering her voice, and was someone I would call a friend today, even though it’s been four years, because she was loyal and fierce and…
I will think of her often. I wish I’d seen her before she died and after Covid.
There was dinner with friends and two glasses of Chardonnay. There was a walk around the block, Sophie sniffed, and Chanel sniffed and pulled.
And now, I am home. I am thinking about church and faith. I am thinking about my kids when they were young, and if the dogs will need another walk. The windows are open, so I’m thinking about global warming. I hear Colin’s voice upstairs, I wonder if I should remind him to bring his trash down tonight; tomorrow is Monday.
I am thinking about my friend Pat- years ago, she told me my boots were too beat up to wear to work, I gave them away the next week.
I am thinking about how two weeks ago, my friend and I talked about visiting Pat at a home and how she was a little confused. Both of us knew we didn’t have the time to make the trip.
So many people were there to say goodbye today. I hope she was watching.
We toasted at her when we got our drinks, and then conversation moved on- to classes, work, flight plans, holidays, kids and conversations.
That’s the way it goes, I guess. One day isn’t ever one day, really, it’s a million tiny days sandwiched between waking up and sliding in between the sheets.
May peace be with you, Pat.
May peace be with all of you,
Julie
The Opposite of Procrastination (a Sunday night experiment)
March 27, 2017
It all started with church,
This idea of getting ready for Monday-
To try on a different approach
To first light morning chaos.
I’d become one of those people
Who write hymns to their crockpots and can tell you
Which days the children
Need gym clothes.
(I am also a person who knows
Anything
Can happen.
Just because I’ve located
My stockings and checked them for tears
Does not mean I believe
I have control
Over tomorrow
Or anything else,
For that matter.)
I head to the gym for
A swim, some sweat,
and some space
To reach and drop
Stretch and bend.
I think about summer.
Maybe next Sunday,
I’ll schedule a pedicure
to get ready for spring
Or my next time at yoga.
At least once a week
I find myself surrounded
By well groomed women
In two tone leggings
Doing down facing dog.
In position, I’m faced with
Feet that scream neglect
Even louder than my kids
When I suggest last week’s
Corned beef and cabbage for dinner.
This evening-
One extra load, one last check with each kid
Do you need pencils?
Do you need a ride?
Tell me now because
You are old enough to know
I have no idea
When your recital will be, except that it will probably happen between now
and the first week of May.
Let me know whether your first game is at home or away.
Tell me, or text me,
Then tell me, or text me again.
I don’t care you don’t want me to be there.
I’ll put on sunglasses,
Wear the other team’s colors
and probably show up twenty minutes
After it’s over.
Coffee is measured,
Fruit is sliced,
Clothes selected, inspected,
Heels lean in the hallway.
Lunch is tucked inside tupperware,
This is good.
It won’t go bad
When I forget it tomorrow.
The world won’t come to an end.
(I know this because
I’ve devoted most of my life
doing everything I can to avoid
getting ready for anything
and so far… well, look outside.
You know what i’m saying?)
I spent an hour an a half doing
Everything I do every morning
in about twenty minutes.
And I still haven’t brushed my damned teeth.
or had a drink
or read the Sunday paper.
I’m ready for Monday
Though I’m carrying a bit of a grudge.
I like now,
Sunday night,
the moments before the alarm.
I like now.
.
The Opposite of a Tweet aka My Weekend So Far
February 17, 2013
This was one of those weekends.
Friday night was a workshop at our church about conflict run by Reverend Eric Dawson and his wife, Tammy Tai. I wish I could do it justice, I can’t. I will say ages from 6 to 65 were present, there were snacks, and games, and laughter. I think we all walked away with a heightened awareness of what they referred to as our “escalators”- factors that intensify our responses to conflict. My escalator is when my son gives me the dead eye stare, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but if you have, you know what I’m talking about.
Today was easy, for me anyway. The day started with an extended dog walk. My friend invited someone that doesn’t usually join us on our morning stroll. This newcomer brought her dog, a puggle, and before we even got to our spot, this puggle had pooped all over the back of my friend’s car. It didn’t bother me, it wasn’t my car, and I experienced that wonderful moment -“thank God my dog didn’t poop all over the back omy friend’s car.” It was not our usual dog walk on a Saturday morning. But the snow falling made the world look pretty. It wasn’t cold. I needed the exercise, and so did Sophie, the most amazing of dogs. She’d never poop in a car. Right after we brought her home from the pound I took her for a ride. She waited until I got to our destination to throw up. And she didn’t even know me that well.
Saturday afternoon I spent home with kids. We watched Glee. I talked about canceling my plans. They talked me into going out. I blew dry my hair. Is there anything more boring than blowdrying hair? My hair is shoulder length and thick so it takes a long, long time. At the gym I read magazines while I wave the dryer around. At home all we have are National Geographics and Sports Illustrated for Kids. Not entertaining material for vanity projects like making curls fall into long straight waves. And my blowdryers old, so it’s loud. If I turned the radio up, the neighbors would think my kids were having a party.
So I sucked it up, dried the hair, put on the dress and went to the party with one of my favorite people in the world, Julie Baker. You’ve probably seen her on Twitter, or Facebook, or out on one of her sweaty walks. If it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t have gone. It was snowing, and I like to stay home in bad weather, and I’m lazy, and there’s that hair thing I mentioned… I don’t blow dry my hair for a night at home with my kids.
We went to the benefit, Dances for Hope, a cause that helps St. Judes Hospital. We volunteered at the door. We were responsible for checking people in, figuring out who merited VIP status, who ranked as a sponsor and making sure they got the appropriate wrist band. The power, the responsibility… Actually, not really. People seemed pretty honest, I didn’t meet any gate crashers. Just checked off the names and gave out the bracelets.
And then, since our service entitled us to VIP status, we went upstairs for cocktails and snacks. Free cocktails and snacks are pretty exciting to me, I’m currently a little “cash poor,” (meaing we’re broke, but doesn’t that sound so much better? It implies that I have property, or stock, or something other than cash, but I’m everything poor. For the record.) So I gobbled down crab puffs in filo, and bread pudding in cups, and salmon in paper whenever the waiter came by. I was drinking rum and diet coke and I didn’t want to make an ass of myself. It was a benefit. And I wanted to dance without wobbling.
The first dance was the Wobble. That was pretty stupid. Nobody knew it, myself included, but it was short. After that, the DJ played a million songs. Why do they always have to mash everything up? Aren’t there any songs out there that merit being played from point a to point z? Maybe it’s helpful when trying to satisfy the Michael Jackson demographic simultaneously with the Pitbull Jay Z crowd. It was fun dancing. It got a little intimidating when all of the professional dancers came on the floor. Did I mention there were professional dancers? And that they came on the dance floor?
I wish they’d stayed on the stage, and gone somewhere else to boogie afterwards. I don’t mean to sound like an ass but when I get on the dance floor I don’t want to look over at a professional being amazing. I want to glance at some idiot swaying out of time and a couple doing a waltz and a whole bunch of girls laughing and trying out the macarena.
It was fun, even with all the Fred and Gingers showing their stuff. And then it was time to go home. Kids were waiting, and dogs needed to be walked.
Actually the kids would have been thrilled if I’d stayed out. And the dogs were sleeping. But it was time.
I’m home now. Tomorrow is the science fair. Monday is the JFK Library. In between, there are meals, and laundry and showers and dog walks and a million other details; if I listed them all I’d never, ever get up in the morning.
Ten years ago, I never liked getting up in the morning. I hated it; I’d sleep until noon. Now I do. I think it is truly the best thing I can say about my life… I like waking up to my life.
But this was one of those weekends. I think tomorrow I will have to sleep in.
julierichmond 