Now playing in the Theater of the Addled Brain

I posted this a while back in my old blog; spending time with friends I love tonight prompts me to post it again....because if you're fortunate enough to have friends like mine, you can never, ever be too grateful.
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Ever notice something about memories? Some of the best are just snippets -- random, accidental, everyday moments that etch themselves into conscious permanence.

I got thinking about this today as one such moment came back to me, for whatever reason. It was nothing, really. Just the image of a very good friend sitting on a couch in a shaft of late afternoon sunlight -- that red-gold glow that makes life feel so mellow and grand. When that light shines into another person's eyes, it seems to illuminate the soul -- and in that fine moment, I was grateful for the friendship of the person I was peering into.

When I reach for them, I find so many such freeze frames from the past; strung together, they make a movie of a pretty fine life. Oh, there are other dramas, tragedies and comedies in the library of my memory...perhaps happiness depends on which of these mental movies we play for ourselves most often. The players are the proverbial cast of thousands, but not many are extras, so great are their influence.

If you have blessed me with the gift of your friendship, you are a star with a handprint on my sidewalk. I like that.

Be leave

In tonight's World News With Charles Gibson, correspondent Robert Krulwich featured an interesting piece on why leaves fall. In simple terms, the weight of snow on leaves would stress the tree beyond its ability to survive. So the tree does what we all should do to people and things that have the potential to destroy us: It basically tells them to make like a leaf and leave. This phenomenon is a bit more purposeful than a passive fall, so Krulwich proposes a new name for this beautiful season.

Three cheers for the self respect of trees -- and for journalists who skillfully boil down the complicated into a piece that's still interesting.

Have a wonderful Get-Off-Me :-).

A quick note

Just to avoid confusion: I received a request to change this blog's title, as it was identical to that of another blog on a different host. I don't mind, really -- I don't exactly have (or expect) a large readership.

So I've gone from "virtual" to "broken." Or maybe I'm "virtually broken"?

Oh, and my blog, too.

;-)

Se lo costruite (If you build it...)

From Under the Tuscan Sun, airing tonight but originally based on what sounds like a novel I must read:

"Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come."

Hope and faith are wonderful things to run on.

We all float on

A boy is on my mind tonight, the son of a man who died in a tragic accident this week. He is the friend of my daughter, someone she feels is special and sweet and silly. I've met him only once and I find myself tonight wishing I knew him better. This, so I could tell him that I remember what this is like, that I understand, that the breadth and depth of emotion racing around in his mind are normal and okay. That he will crumble and cry in one moment, and punch a hole in the wall the next. That he will replay the last week, the last year, the last everything over and over again, asking in frustration why his father wasn't just a minute later or a few seconds earlier that horrible morning, until he sleeps at night. And that his faith will come into play like a clutch three-pointer in the last second of a basketball game.

What I really would like to say is that the pain will go away, but I can't. Because I'm incapable of lying.

All I could tell him is that, as in a foot that's fallen asleep, the numbness will turn to a nagging buzz, then almost insurmountable discomfort...but then he'll be able to walk again without realizing he's gotten up. The good days will come to outnumber the bad, and he will heal. With time, he'll be able to remember without the crushing weight of grief. His family will see his father in him as he grows into a man, shaped by the countless lessons he didn't realize his father had taught him. In this he will find the sweetest of surprises: that anyone loved this much never dies.

In the coming months, he'll want to fall back mindlessly into whatever's behind him. And what is behind him is a safety net of friends, many more than he realizes, more willing than he knows, to catch him. I learned to lean on my friends back then, and their steadfastness was a gift I've never forgotten.

I just wish I could do something to help. Say the right thing. Offer a hug.

Maybe it's just the mother in me.

A point to ponder

A birthday card I saw today posed this interesting question:

How old would you be

If you didn't know how old you are?

Wisdom, 9-year-old style

"Mom. Boys are drooling, babbling idiots," she said. "Were women always smarter, Mommy?"

She'll change her outlook very soon, of course. But as she teeters on the edge of preadolescence, it can be a decent ballast.

Who knew an old episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" could bring about such lively discussion?

Red wine moonshine?

Despite all their efforts through the ages, alchemists just could not create gold from dirt.

However, we just might be able to brew some fine wine from a can of Welch's. I think I'll try it.

Somehow, I think pouring wine from a milk jug just won't be the same.

Somehow, I think no one will care.

Mainly because I have amazing wine-loving friends who are up for most anything.