All It Takes Is A Little Love

Many years ago my husband and I travelled with close friends to a ski village in Austria just after Christmas. It was a delightful vacation that I will always cherish. We stayed in the small town of Soll in a lovely inn with panoramic views of the mountains where skiers travelled up and down the slopes. The whole place literally looked like a scene on a Christmas card and the people and the food were outstanding in every possible way.

We visited other nearby towns like Salzburg and Innsbruck both of which were incredibly interesting but I would have been content just lingering in Soll. As a matter o fact one of the friends who was with us mostly did that. He was born and raised in Austria and donned his first set of skis when he was only three years old. He spent most of his days on the slopes having the time of his life while we set out to enjoy the nearby sites.

One morning we decided to travel to Berchdesgaden in southern Germany while the skier stayed back to rest his back that had begun to give him a bit of trouble. His wife had lived her life in Houston, Texas and she and I had known each other since second grade. We were in good hands with her because her mother was originally from Austria and she was quite proficient in German. Besides, she had travelled to the area many times so she knew the ins and outs of getting around.

We piled into our rented car and headed to the small town in Bavaria made famous as the site of the Eagles Nest where Adolf Hitler once entertained his friends and confidantes. From the center of town we saw the place atop a six thousand foot mountain. On that day it was eerily circled by dark clouds that seemed to warn us that bad weather or a bad omen was on its way.

We were not able to get a ticket to go to the top but we did manage to find a boat ride that got us as close as we might be without actually going higher. The weather was bitterly cold and somehow the whole place had a haunting feeling that I could not shake. I did not mention my skittishness to anyone but I felt as though I wanted to leave the whole time that I was there. Somehow the spirit of evil that was often discussed there by Hitler and his crew felt almost palatable. I didn’t even want a souvenir from there. That alone was strange because I rarely visit a new locale without bringing back a bobble for my Christmas tree.

It was beginning to get dark as our boat ride concluded. We were a bit hungry but only able to find a McDonald’s to purchase our dinner which we ate on the road back to Soll. All of us were oddly quiet as though the whole place had somehow been tainted by Hitler in the long ago.

The farther away from the town we got, the more lively our conversations became. We were driving on a mountainous road when the snow began to fall so rapidly that my husband who was driving was barely able to see what was in front of him. Then the car began slipping all over the slick icy trail that we were following. My husband found a place to park and attempted to secure the snow chains on the wheels of the car. He is generally quite advanced in his mechanical abilities but growing up in Houston, Texas had left him without knowledge of how to deal with snowy weather. Try as he may he was unable to attach to snow chains and suddenly we all went into a  kind of panic hoping that maybe someone would stop to assist us. Sadly the cars only buzzed by hardly noticing that we were there.

My friend saw a farmhouse across the road and decided to head there to beg for help. With her fluent German she was able to explain our dilemma and soon a young man walked with her to the car. He took only a few minutes to get the chains secured and we were once again on our way. My husband nonetheless drove as slowly as possible stiffened with anxiety as the snow turned into a blizzard.

After what felt like an eternity we got back to the town of Soll and drew a breath of relief as we parked at the inn where we were staying. The next morning we learned that the weather was so bad that the highway along which we had traveled was closed to all vehicles shortly after we finally got back on our way. There were reports of wrecks and stranded people that made us feel grateful that we had returned in one piece.

The two men took the rental car to assess what we might need if the bad weather continued. There they learned that we had mistakenly been given a car that was not outfitted with winter tires. The people at the rental place were amazed that we got as far as we did given the circumstances. They quickly gave us a properly equipped car and we enjoyed the rest of our trip.

I nonetheless felt somehow haunted by seeing the Eagle’s Nest. My discomfort in viewing it never really went away. I equated it with so much evil that I did not see it as simply a tourist destination nor did I need to hear the history that I already knew. When I heard that it burned down a week ago I somehow felt a sigh of relief. It did not seem right to be earning a profit from showing such an horrific place. While I do not condone someone maliciously burning it down I find myself glad that it is gone. I do believe that there are places so vile that being near them is uncomfortable. Somehow the spirits of horror that happened in them never truly goes away. So it was with the Eagles Nest which sadly might have been a place of comfort and happiness if it had not been the domain of a truly wicked man. I understood why the townspeople originally wanted to tear it down. In my mind it became a haunted shrine to the one of the most horrific moments in the history of mankind.

The signs advertising folks who hang Christmas lights are cropping up all over the town where I live. I suppose that people have to plan ahead by reserving such folks while they still have available dates. Still, when I saw a crew already placing lights on the trunks of the trees in my neighborhood I was astonished. We haven’t even hit Halloween yet and thoughts of Christmas are spreading like a virus.

I walked through a Macy’s store last week and Christmas decorations were everywhere. I gave that retailer the benefit of the doubt because it will be the one hundredth anniversary of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and I suppose that they are anxious to spread to word. I know it will be a very special celebration for all of New York City. I certainly plan to watch the annual gala. I have not missed watching it for as long as I can remember. This year one of our hometown high school bands will be marching in the parade and I know some of the kids who will be performing with them. They have been planing and practicing for over a year so it will be fun to see them enjoying a very special moment.

I am a collector of Christmas ornaments. I have so many that I have to use multiple trees each year. I have a travel tree that holds the decorations that I purchase everywhere that I visit. I have a tree that holds special yearly ornaments that I buy each year. One tree is donned with Hallmark ornaments and another holds ornaments from friends and members of the family. I even have a tree that is dedicated to pigs which are supposed to be lucky as long as I honor them each year. My most recent tree holds only ornaments from England. So of course I have to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Macy’s parade with a special ornament that is waiting in my china cabinet until I begin my decorating at the end of November.

I had a friend who is sadly no longer with us who used to set out her Christmas trees very early and then keep them until after Valentine’s Day. She believed that it was too much work to decorate a tree for only a few weeks. Christmas was a state of mind, not a date, in her belief. To each his own I always say but I can’t deal with having Christmas for several months. I usually take things down no later than January seventh. I use the Three Kings holiday of January 6 as my last day of the Christmas season.

My father-in-law’s second wife grew tired of taking her Christmas tree and ornaments back and forth from the attic as she grew older. Her solution was to place the tree on a rolling base that she shoved into a corner of her living room after New Year’s Day. She covered the tree still doneed with decorations by using a neutral colored cloth that blended amazingly with her furnishings. Somehow the tree seemed to simply disappear until she uncovered it again and rolled it into a space where it was featured. I doubt that I would ever want to do such a thing but I have to admit that it was a rather ingenious way of keeping the Christmas spirit alive even as she neared her ninety second birthday.

Now I see people installing permanent lighting on the eaves of their homes that can change colors depending on the season. They turn orange for Halloween, green for St. Patrick’s day, red, white and blue for July fourth. When Christmas comes they simply use a program to make them shine in whatever scheme they wish. It seems like an extravagance to me but it is certainly a timesaver.

Just before Christmas last year my father-in-law had an horrific fall. His doctor’s said that it resulted because many of his organs were shutting down. He ended up in hospice care that lasted until the first day of October. We were is such a tizzy attempting to make certain that he would get the best care possible that we were way late in getting our Christmas decorations in place last year. We left the outdoors for last.

One of our neighbors has a big party for the people who live nearby each year. On the morning of the event he came over in a panic wondering if the Grinch that we always place in the yard was available. It seems that he and his wife had created a treasure hunt that used the Grinch as one of the clues. We grabbed the green guy out of the garage and our neighbor secured him in place. We laughed when we realized that the kids around us love the Grinch so much that they wait expectantly for him each year.

I suppose that when I worry about the timing of Christmas cheer I am being a bit of a Grinch myself. I suppose that it does not really matter when or even if someone chooses to decorate for the season. I’ll no doubt stick to my usual routine or maybe start a wee bit earlier to celebrate along with Macy’s. Who knows? I just have to wait until the spirit moves me and right now it’s all about Halloween. I’ll see how I feel as we get nearer to Thanksgiving. Maybe good results in next week’s election will spur me to begin the celebration early this year.

Halloween is coming and I am ready. I have my witch’s cauldron filled with treats for trick or treaters. The ghosts are ready to light the pathway to my door. The pumpkins are stacked in a corner with lights peering through their smiles. I have my witch costume just waiting for me to don it. Of course I am a good witch who smiles with each child that comes to my door.

I am always amazed at how intricate the costumes of the trick or treaters have become. Nobody shows up with an old sheet with cut out eyes like kids used to wear. There are none of those creepy plastic masks paired with suits painted to look like a princess or a pirate. The kids of today look as though they are extras in a multi million dollar movie that skimps on nothing including the costumes. I am in awe of how remarkable they are.

I always loved Halloween when I was a kid. More often than not I dressed like a hobo or concocted a female pirate outfit with long skirts and a scarf tied around my head. Sometimes I’d just don some jeans and put on a cowboy hat. We had be ingenious back in the day but nobody noticed because none of the costumes were outstanding. The main point was to go from house to house filling our paper grocery store bags with goodies.

I went to Catholic School and All Saints Day, which landed on November 1, was always a holiday so that we might attend mass. That meant we could stay out as late as we wanted and of course we did. I lived in a rather isolated neighborhood where everybody seemed to know everybody else. We would keep going block after block until the adults closed their doors and turned the lights out. My mother would stay home to pass out candy so we were on our own and nobody worried about us. There were other moms constantly watching over all of us as we made our way from block to block.

Once my brothers and I returned home my mother had a ritual that we had to endure. She would upturn our bags and spread our loot on the living room floor inspecting each item to determine if we might keep it or not. Anything that was not securely packaged had to go. None of the homemade goodies passed her quality control. Sometimes we looked in sorrow as items that made our mouth’s water hit the garbage can. We never complained because we understood that she was just making sure that we did not consume something that might make us sick. We heard some creepy stories from other kids about items containing glass or razor blades but I never actually knew anyone who found such things. I often believed that those stories were just part of Halloween folklore.

Many years later when my two girls were young an horrific man poisoned his son with a pixie stick. At first he tried to blame it on one of his neighbors but the police ultimately found that he had opened the end of a pixie stick and placed poison inside. Luckily only one of his children consumed the tainted sweets. His horrific action ruined Halloween for a very long time. The big crowds of children coming to the house went down to a trickle after that. As a mom I began to be more cautious like my mother had been. My husband and I would take turns walking with our children as they scurried from place to place. More and more churches and schools and neighborhoods started having confined ways of treating the kids like parties and trunk or treat gatherings.

For some reason the children still come in massive numbers in my neighborhood. They are always accompanied by adults who sometimes even walk to the doors with them. I use packaged candy and toss any that has defective closures. I light up my home and greet everyone with a smile hoping that they will realize that they need not be afraid. I haven’t heard of anything terrible happening of late but I suppose that parents will always have to be careful.

The yearly tradition on October 31 usually ends much earlier than when I was a child. By nine the only visitors who come are the teens who don’t even bother to wear costumes. They are always polite and appreciative so I actually like that they are still enjoying the fun times of childhood before they will be way too old for such things.

If I end up with leftover candy I evenly distribute it to the children that I homeschool and tutor. They very gladly help me make good use of whatever is left. Of course my husband and I sneak a few things ourselves even as we both know that we would do well to watch our weight. I suppose the kid in us never really goes away.

I’ve been thinking about my mother after reading about the ordeal that Amy Acton endured from her mother’s husband. Thinking of how he raped her when she was only twelve literally made me cry. I thought of a former student that I taught whose uncle had raped her resulting in a pregnancy when she was only twelve. I can still see her childlike face and the sadness that dominated it even though it happened many years ago.

In that moment I was informed that the girl’s uncle was threatening to kill her for telling her parents what he had done. The principal of the school cautioned me to be on the lookout for a man attempting to pull her from my classroom. He told me to hit the panic button if he came. I remember being terrified of encountering such a vile person. Then one of my male students asked if he might make a small change to my seating chart. He proceeded to created a screen using himself and some of his friends so that nobody would be able to see her if they came into the classroom. I almost cried again understanding that this young boy was protecting the child mother.

My own mother became a widow at the age of thirty. She was an exotically beautiful woman who attracted the stares of men wherever she went. Even as a child I saw her allure. She quietly devoted herself to me and my brothers. It was not until I was in my late teens that she began going out to meet new people and of course the men flocked to her. Nonetheless she kept her meetings with them public and casual noting that she did not want a man in our house who might get the wrong idea and do something horrific to me.

Back then I thought she was being overly careful. I saw myself as a scrawny girl who would be of no interest to a male. In spite of my protests she stuck to her plan and did her best not to be the person who accidentally brought a man into my world who would.

It was only after I was teaching that I learned how may young girls were sexually abused by older men who should have been making the world safe for them. In one case that hit me particularly hard it was a fellow teacher who was accused of foundling his stepdaughter while her mother was out of town He admitted his sins publicly but I felt betrayed as did all of the teachers and female students at our school. He was incredibly contrite but the description of what he had done and how it had affected the young girl was shocking.

I suppose that I should have thanked my mother for working so hard to make certain that I would never have to endure such a situation. I ultimately appreciated her vigilance but I never found a way to tell her how much I loved her for insuring that I would not end up in a situation like Amy Acton, or that twelve year old student, or the stepdaughter of a teacher that I had once admired. Her love for me was so unconditional that she was unwilling to even take a chance in feeling certain that a man that she brought to our home would always be a perfect gentleman.

As a nation we have been bombarded with stories of sex trafficking in our midst. We are aware of the egregious actions of Epstein and his girlfriend. We have learned that the file on his life is filled with the names of prominent people who have also been accused of heinous acts. None of them have been tried for their crimes, not even our president who was obviously a good friend of Epstein. We know only that Donald Trump was tried and found guilty in a lawsuit for sexually attacking a woman in a dressing room. We know that he bragged about grabbing girls in an inappropriate way. We have heard the accusations from dozens of women claiming that he violated them.

So when a sordid political ad shows up in Ohio accusing Amy Acton of lying and somehow being deficient and unqualified for office based on a violent act that took place when she was twelve we expect everyone to condemn the very idea. Instead both our president and vice president boasted that it was fair game to bring up what must have been one of the most horrific moments of her life. Somehow my stomach tightens and I feel the urge to scream or shed a tear in witnessing the lack of humanity that their coldness defines.

This has been a problem for women throughout history. All too often the women are blamed as the villains when men sexually attack them. Maybe they were too flirtatious and sent the wrong vibes. Maybe they were drunk or drugged out and asked for it. Maybe they should not have taken the risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe they are simply just lying to get attention and make trouble. Over and over again we challenge them more than we do with the men. When the two men holding the highest offices in our nation are unwilling to denounce an add that brings up the horror of a twelve year old girl we have surely hit rock bottom. This is especially so if we decide to go ahead and vote for the man in Ohio so desperate to win that he goes into the gutter to get there.

I cry for all women who have ever had to endure such egregious behavior, especially when their own mothers betrayed them. Surely one day we will all be better but obviously we are not yet there.

Each morning I rise early from my slumbers at a time when my home is still dark and quiet. I proceed with a routine mostly without lights that involves making my morning cup of tea and microwaving a small tidbit for breakfast. I open all of the shutters and blinds downstairs and often see neighbors taking advantage of the lower temperatures of that time of day by walking for exercise. I suspect that their daily efforts keep them healthy and contribute greatly to lowering any anxieties that they many have. As for me, writing is my go to morning drill. The act of typing my thoughts onto a blank page is better than all of the exercise and pills for calming the concerns on my mind.

Some days I struggle to find a topic for my musings. On other days I am hardly able to move my fingers fast enough to capture the thoughts running through my head. I find composing to be one of the most relaxing things that I do for myself almost every single day. I suppose that if Sigmund Freud were to analyze me he would no doubt posit that I used writing to overcome my grief after my father died thus creating a lifelong habit associated with my difficulty in moving beyond that event. Regardless of the psychological reasons for why I love to paint word pictures with my thoughts the process has become a lifelong passion. It is a physical outlet for the ideas that race through my head.

I once dreamed of becoming famous for my wit and wisdom but soon enough realized the limitations of my ability to craft essays that keep the attention of my readers. It takes much more talent than I possess to become an author able to create a loyal following with words. Like homespun artists who create drawings and paintings beloved by family members but lacking in the kind of originality that moves them to the next level, I am a plain vanilla every day kind of author describing the limited ideas that I have. While I will never capture the big time, I suppose that I revel in the selfish idea of how soothing my artistry is to me personally.

I try not to rant too often but in truth the present time has me so concerned that most of my thinking focuses on the fears that rattle around in my brain. I see a nation that has become untethered from the ideals that we have never totally achieved but for which we seemed to be striving to one day attain. Instead our government feels broken and brokered by a single point of view emanating from a man who can’t seem to get past his personal need to be continually adored and praised. Like a small child Donald Trump insists that only those who bow to him will receive the rewards that he doles out in very strange ways.

I have been watching the professional journalists slowly becoming a bit more combative by recording the lies that Trump parses out daily. Nonetheless there is still a reticence and tendency to cloak their rebuttals in wishy washy words that don’t quite deliver the truths that they would normally tell. There is a kind of fear of Trump in far too many quarters while independent journalists are telling it like it is. Sadly the vast majority of Americans have no idea that such wise writers actually exist and so their investigations and their truths are all too often seen only by those who take the time to find them.

I suppose that if I had to choose one aspect of our Bill of Rights that I would literally die for it would be the freedom of press. Each of us has the right to speak our minds but the Trump administration all too often bullies anyone who chooses to speak the truth as they see it. Now we have protestors who show up at rallies being physically attacked while MAGA cult member schant, USA! Trump and his family members send threatening letters to those who write and post their thoughts about the state of our nation. He sues networks and makes life uneasy for anyone brave enough to note the problems with how he is handling the government. Still, there are incredibly courageous souls who speak their minds daily even as the danger of what they are doing grows.

In the long ago the colonists in what would eventually become the United States of America voiced their concerns with the king who single-handedly ruled them from across the ocean. They openly stated their needs only to be ignored and in some cases even punished for daring to challenge the monarchy. The revolution that followed would stun the world. The courage of those who joined the movement resulted in an imperfect nation striving for freedoms that the world had rarely before seen. Freedom became the holy grail and foundation of how we hoped to be even as it was understood that pointing out flaws in our way of life would be part of our duty as citizens.

We are not automatons who will cheer for violence when someone disagrees with our thinking. We are a vast assemblage of many differing ideas about how to live together peacefully. Some may want to scorn diversity or even suggest that we silence those who are different but that kind of thinking is anathema to what our founders hoped to achieve. There is no one perfect set of beliefs that we should all be bound to follow. Our true strength lies in the very diversity that so many fear. Our greatness becomes apparent when we strive to create a way of life that allows everyone to excel, not just those with a certain point of view.

This is why I write. This is why I sometimes seem to rant. My thoughts turn into words and my words are meant to bring us together, not apart. You be you and and I will be me. This is the United States that I hope to see.