Worth Sharing

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I LOVE A GOOD SCONE. There is a certain texture and composition that makes a scone good--to me. I've tried to find a recipe that would be true and foolproof so I could make my own, but it eludes me.

When we first moved to our current house we had a neighbor named Julie. She was in fact one of the reasons we chose the neighborhood we did as we were house hunting. Julie, in addition to be a superb baker, was a prolific artist, particularly in pottery and fiber arts. Her too-young death was one of those that leaves you wondering why--when the world so desperately needs human beings like her.

Julie's scones were the standard that I strived for. Probably if I had asked her for the recipe she would have shared it. She was a sharer--of baked things, of hearty conversation, of knowledge and skills and techniques, and of pottery pieces like our teapot and the urn that held my parents ashes in between death and burial. Even if I had had her recipe the scones would not have turned out like hers.There is this real thing I'll call essence for lack of a better word.

I want to make a scone at least so good that I would want to take a bite, close my eyes a second, chew slowly to savor and then swallow with gratitude. I also want them to be of a level of goodness that I would share them with others--they would be share-worthy.

I like to write. From time to time, I write words that I think are worthy of sharing: maybe an insight or something humorous, maybe a eulogy for a friend, maybe something that will encourage or inspire. Sometimes I do share these words--here on this blog, or maybe in a card, or spoken out loud, usually quietly.

Many times; most times, the words I write are never shared. Maybe one of these days someone will dig through the wooden box of journals I have and read a few words, but those wouldn't really be shared words would they?

If you're old like me you might remember a song by the Moody Blues that said:

Nights in white satin
Never reaching the end
Letters I've written
Never meaning to send
Beauty I've always missed
With these eyes before
Just what the truth is
I can't say any more

So why bake scones you wouldn't share? Why write words that may never be read by others?

There's a line in one of my favorite movies, Finding Forrester, "Why is it the words we write for ourselves are so much better than the words we write for others?"

Maybe: we can be a little more honest, worry less about grammar and spelling and syntax. Mainly though we don't worry that our words will offend or hurt; or be twisted or misconstrued. To quote another song from the 60s, this time the band called The Animals:

I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood

That's all for now. My scones are in the oven and about done.

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.”
— Anaïs Nin

NOSTALGIA

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THAT'S A BIG WORD. It needs to be because it carries a lot. Here's sort of a concensus defintion from a few dictionaries:

A yearning to return to an earlier time remembered as happier or more pleasant, or a former place evoking happy memories; a longing to experience again a former happy time.

See what I mean?!

I'm fully aware of the biblical warning about too much sentimentality:

“Don’t long for ‘the good old days.’ This is not wise.”
— Ecclesiastes 7:10 NLT

More than likely I'm misunderstanding the theology here, but a little looking back seems innocent enough and even wholesome (as long as we don't get stuck back there in some kind of "Back To The Future" time warp.) I'm not trying to read the mind of the writer of Ecclesiastes or diminish his wisdom, but he was pretty deep in his "Life is meaningless" phase in chapter 7. I've always been pretty good at finding a way to justify straddling the lines of biblical mandates while staying within the guardrails of protestant guilt. [Is it metaphor mixing if your examples are on the same road, the one with a strong center line and high guardrails? We can burn that bridge if we come to it.]

It looks to me like there's one more loophole in the reminiscing rule: maybe it's okay to journey back to the good old days; we just shouldn't "long" for them. It's sort of like that shadowy line between temptation and lust. Lust is a sin; temptation is not. Remember the truth is that Jesus was tempted in ALL ways as we are yet without sin. Still there is that definition of nostalgia which includes words like longing and yearning. Let's call what we're doing nostalgia-lite. We're just visiting the back-in-the-day for awhile, resting in the innocence and the beauty of simplicity. We'll return to the present after the holidays when we make our forward-looking resolutions for 2026. We should probably drop some gingerbread crumbs on our sentimental journey so we can find our way back though.

Now that I've established that we can do some harmless, seasonal reminiscing let's get started. This time of the year is just bursting with opportunities for nostalgia. All the triggers are here: the sights and sounds and smells, the music, the twinkling lights, wreaths and bells and trees; peppermint and pine. When it comes down to it, isn't that what the season is about: remembering and celebrating? Senior adulthood requires that I watch and read the news and acknowledge the reality that many, too many, in our world have little to celebrate. The harshness of the world in front of them is bound to obscure the promise of hope and peace. Nostalgia for many is bittersweet at best.

Admittedly, nostalgia for me these days is a way of escape. Without getting too bleak, I find the debasing of civility, the dehumanizing rhetoric of politics and the blurring of what is really good and true and beautiful to be disheartening. So, reverie is like layering on warm quilts, turning on a good movie like "Love Actually" or "While You Were Sleeping"; blocking out the uglier ooze. Another tactic for me is to try to provide an alternative to all that while creating the fodder of future nostaligia for the kids and grandkids--sort of like that hapless hero of happy family memories creation: Clark Griswold. In the classic story of Clark and his high hopes for the ultimate Christmas, "Christmas Vacation", we get to see the perfect portrayal of nostalgia: Clark sitting in the attic, wrapped in discarded clothes, watching old home movies of Christmases past and remembering them "better than they were." And in the background we hear the song...

Christmas is the time of year
For being with the ones we love
Sharing so much joy and cheer
What a wonderful feelin'
Watching the ones we love
Having so much fun

I was sittin' by the fire side
Taking a walk through the snow
Listening to a children's choir
Singing songs about Jesus
The blessed way that he came to us

Why can't it remain
All through the year
Each day the same
That's what I wanna hear
It's truly amazin'
That spirit of Christmas

All the kinfolk gather 'round
The lovely Christmas tree
Hearts are glowing full of joy
Sense the gifts that we're giving
And the love that we're living

Why can't it remain (Why can't it remain?)
Oh, all through the year (All through the year)
Each day the same (Each day the same)
Ah, that's what I wanna hear
Listen to me, it's truly amazin'
That spirit of Christmas

Every year our boys would decorate gingerbread houses their mom made for them. And, for seventeen years and counting she has made them for our grandkids and hundreds of other peoples kids and grandkids.

This year for Christmas I decided I wanted to relive the moment of one of my favorite Christmastime memories--the year I got a real Lionel train set. In true Griswoldian style I've created a little Christmas village for my new train. In a few days the grandkids will make their houses and they will become the homes that the train encircles, all done in the spirit of treasurable moments.

Quickly, these moments will pass and I'll ask, as the song does, "Why can't it remain all through the year, that spirit of Christmas?"

RELEGATION

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The cheap seats, back of the line, general admission, the bench, boarding group C, looking in from the outside... Sometimes we might feel like we have been relegated to something "less than". But hold on to your dinner roll a minute.

Tis the season; a trip in the grocery store and the first displays to greet you are the boxes of Stove Top, the cans of yams and bags of marshmallows, cranberry sauce and of course the trifecta of key ingredients for the green bean casserole. Besides the turkey these are the key fixin's on every Thanksgiving table--or should we say "tables"--plural. Just as the pilgrims before us, at any family gathering there will be the lowly Kid's Table. And, by lowly, I mean literally, physically lower than the big table; and also low enough to create a sense of longing to see the day when we can move up. But maybe the Kid's Table has gotten a bad rap and/or rep. Maybe it's not the place of relegation it appears to be. Maybe it's not a bad place to be.

Look at it: there's little chance of walking away from the kid's table stuffed. You've probably only had to eat "just one bite" of something. The only thing you're eating for sure is the big dollop of Cool Whip from the top of your pumpkin pie, or if you're lucky (as our grandkids are), you'll have a spray can of something akin to whipping cream which you can shake vigarously and squirt directly into your mouth.

As for discussion, the Kid's Table talk is free of politics and religion. The most heated conversation I've heard lately at a Kid's Table was the one between our two grandboys ages 8 and 5: Is fishing a sport or not? The 8 year-old who loves fishing is firmly on the side of definitely a sport. The 5 year-old, who had a successful T-ball season says "No Way!" He also doesn't feel that cheerleading is a sport. Luckily his older sister the cheerleader wasn't at the table.

This week, on November 17, our oldest Grand turned 17, her "golden" birthday (the calendar day of her birthday matches her age). I asked her about being the oldest at the Kid's Table. "When does one promote to the Big Table?" She said "Maybe 18?" with a hint of innocence lost in her voice. So this year will be her last at the Kid's Table. The little ones will miss her. The grown-ups will still be the grown-ups.

As kids, my brother and I, along with our parents, would make the pilgramage to a little town in Louisiana where our Dad was born and raised. Our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were there, as was the Kid's Table. We knew our place. We were reminded of what that meant on the long roadtrip "over the river and through the woods". "Eat a bite of butter beans and try the duck. Remember to say yes sir and yes ma'am. Asked to be excused from the table when you're through eating."

It seems like in the deep south, knowing and staying in one's place was a sign of respect--respect for tradition and acknowledging social and familial status. It was also expected. And, in the 50s and 60s, those expectations could have an air of relegation to them.

Remembering the One from whom all blessings flow, with a counting of some of those blessings, a deep breath or two of fresh air and grace, all of the tables become important, they all become the same height, they are all in the same room, the same significance and fraught with the potential to listen and learn and love.

Maybe there's something we can discover from the Kid's Table. Are there grateful little hearts at that table? YES! Sometimes gratitude is most evident in joy. Watch the joy and fun radiating from that little table. Maybe when Jesus talked about being like the children he was pointing to the Kid's Table. Maybe if Jesus were to come to our house for Thanksgiving He would sit at the Kid's Table. Maybe I should too.

GOOD AND A GOOD STORY

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"Let's watch 'Garfield'."

"No, 'Sonic'!"

"I want 'Lyle, Lyle Crocodile'."

"We watched that last time."

We had three of the Grands spending the night with us. We had just finished the buffet that Mimi fixes because there is no concensus among: quesadillas, scrambled eggs, corn dogs, sloppy joes, and spaghetti. The last word of one of the parents after delivering 2/7 of our bundle of joy: "They've probably had enough sugar already today."

So after lemonade and ice cream sandwiches, it's movie time.

Cutting off a filibuster by the five-year-old, I offer the solution. "Let's watch 'Karate Kid'." The aforementioned 5YO tells us he knows karate and starts his demonstration on his brother, his cousin and his Pops.

"Is this a good choice?" My Amazing Missus asks, but means, "This is not a good choice."

"Is it appropriate for kids 5, 8, and 10?" she asks.

I explain that it is rated PG-13, which in my interpretation stands for "Pops' Guidance" and I can give 13 reasons why this will be fine, and besides they're going home tomorrow and their parents can debrief them.

It proved to be an excellent discussion starter--not about the key issues of things like: intergenerational friendships, balance, focus, looking deep enough to see the morsels of beauty in life, being able to catch a fly with chopsticks, but still...

The questions were more like: why is his mom making him move from his home? Where is his dad? What is a bully? Isn't that a bad word? Then why does he keep saying it? Can we switch back to "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile?" Can I have another ice cream sandwich? Why is Mr. Miyagi making him do all that work?

"Just wait and you'll see!" I tell them, giddy for the moment that Mr. Miyagi reveals his subterfuge and demonstrates that by building muscle memory with stuff like wax-on; wax-off, sand-the-floor and paint-the-fence, he has in fact taught him karate. I look at them carefully in that moment to watch their eyes when the eureka lightbulb comes on for them. NOTHING. No "aha". The connection fails. Maybe later at the finals of the "18 and Under All-Valley Tournament."

We all cheer for and celebrate Daniel's win; for various reasons.

As Mr. Miyagi beams with pride for his young student, as the dark husks of Cobra Kai slink back to their dojo. As Daniel San hoists the trophy and finds balance with Ally, his tormentors and himself, I wipe a tear from my eye. The Grands don't notice. They're too busy practicing the "Crane Technique" on one another.

Reflecting on this movie that I've seen too many times, I can't help but draw comparisons between the “No Mercy, Sir” essence of the Cobra Kai dojo and the meaner side of The Whitehouse. I can't cleanse from my psyche the image of J.D. Vance in a karate costume with that smirky grin, along with Musk and his chainsaw, yelling "Sweep the leg Donnie!" in a trumped-up fight with PBS, NPR, The Kennedy Center, public education, higher education, The National Endowment for the Arts, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and all things that can enrich and inspire, which we've apparently taken for granted. This fight, it seems to me, isn’t so much between left and right, or good and evil. It’s about illumination vs. darkness.

The youngest of our group won the battle for the next feature of movie night: Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. Turns out there are lessons to be learned here too. Consider Mr. Grumps who hides his manipulative ways behind the persona of being a good neighbor. It's a cautionary tale to be wary of those whose ruse is "keeping things right" or making something nebulous great again. Watch out Mr. Grumps, we see you for who you are. Even your cat has turned against you.

I have a friend, Alissa Wilkinson, who is a movie critic at The New York Times. She has a new book out called, We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine.

In an interview with Sojourner magazine about her book featuring the writer Joan Didion, Alissa is asked:

You write, “We seek meaning and order in the world by creating story arcs that tell us why things happen and how they will sort themselves out.” What is one of the prevailing stories you continue to tell yourself today?

So here’s the thing: You don’t know that you’re telling yourself that story. That’s kind of the point that she (Didion) makes throughout her work, starting from when she is writing The White Album where she writes the line, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” But she was saying this much earlier than that, just not crystallized yet.

Everyone tells themselves stories, whether it’s stories like “this person deserves to experience this political repercussion because they are bad in this particular way,” or simple ones that the movies are always telling us like “good things happen to good people” and “follow your heart” and “don’t let anyone tell you who you are, be yourself.” Those are stories that we make up. They’re longer in story form, but those stories tell us how to live.

I think for Didion, the thing that you had to do if you were a person of any moral seriousness was to try to see the story and continually try to figure out where it came from and whether it is the right story or whether it needs modification.

I love stories and seeing the stories we live. But, I realize we have to be careful. To Alissa's point, if we hear a story, for example, about a young leader in Ukraine being an aggressor, subjecting his country to death and destruction, we are hearing a false narrative. It's told for truth and it's told again and again and again until it sounds plausible. We need "to see the story and continually try to figure out where it came from and whether it is the right story or whether it needs modification."

Objectivity is not a strength for me. For some reason I cannot see black and white exclusively and distinctly. Like the days of TV when I grew up, when our TVs were called black and white but in reality they were shades of gray. Now I still see those shades; and colors too. I hope that each story will end with: "and they lived happily ever after." But I'm older now and more calloused, and jaded, and starting to think not all stories end as I had hoped. But, still...

BONSAI DANIEL SAN. BONSAI!

Why does Mr. Miyagi yell Bonsai to Daniel?

Mr. Miyagi yells “bonsai” to express his enthusiasm and appreciation for tasks done exceptionally well. The phrase implies that the task has been completed with precision and care, much like a bonsai tree is sculpted into perfection over time. He also uses the phrase as a motivator, encouraging those around him to strive for excellence in their craft. Beyond this, he likely uses it as an expression of pride at having passed down his wisdom and skills to others who can now use them to find success. --bonsaitreehelp.org.