As it should be

Christmas Eve 2017

The dog had been barking for at least an hour. I had been outside at least four times− twice with a flashlight, once I even walked the alley− to find out what the *#&%^ she was barking at. Santa? Tiny reindeer? Apparently, nothing. I had been considering going to an eleven o’clock Christmas Eve service at a nearby church, but was cozy in my pajamas and didn’t feel like dressing and driving. After another half hour of Abby’s barking, I realized it was either go to the service or go outside and beat the dog. I had been looking forward to being with Abby at midnight to see if she’d talk to me, but I figured she’d be so hoarse after all this racket that I’d never understand her. So I dressed and drove to the service leaving my parents and the neighbors to suffer with her woofing.

A sign of the times: I fretted on the way that some gun bearing male would decide he’d had enough of people celebrating Christmas and enter the church to shoot himself a few worshippers. Gads.

When I got to the corner where the church was supposed to be, it was easy to spot because it was surrounded with luminarias or farolitos, depending on what you want to call them. Lovely. I sat down in the cool, quiet, candle-strewn sanctuary about one minute before a string quartet began playing. A pipe organist and a few choir voices soon joined in. I was beginning to calm down.

A child began shrieking a whistle-like shriek. The thought that I may as well have stayed home with the dog occurred to me, when the calm of the sanctuary took over and I reached for my pen and paper to write. It’s Christmas Eve. I wrote. The child is rightly excited. All is as it should be.

This church is an incense-burning church. The sanctuary is small, so as the thurifer strolled the aisles waiving the censer, the air got thick and heavy with burnt frankincense. It smelled like very strong baby powder, though I don’t recall baby powder smelling like frankincense. After a few passes, I could barely make out the altar candles through the smoke hanging in the air. Singing was a challenge. Breathing was a challenge, and I love incense. After a while, the air had cleared a bit and it was time for more incense. This was for the gospel reading which took place right next to me. The thurifer gave the holy scripture a few good swings of the censer because the Lord loves pleasing fragrances. Between that and breathing the smoky air at home where my father has lost some of his fire-building prowess, I felt like I needed to be treated for smoke inhalation. But all was as it should be.

One thing I like about the Episcopal church – at least the ones I’ve attended – is that they sing all the verses of the hymns. Sometimes this gets a bit time consuming and repetitious, but I still like it. It gives one time to look around. The man seated in front of me was wearing a Santa-red jacket that looked like it may have been velvet. I wore a pair of red pants that my choir director Chris’s wife Sunny gave me. I told him later that together we made a suit.

The homily was about a Christmas Eve the priest remembered from his New York days. He told of being in the subway where usually all you heard (in the 80’s) was boom boxes blaring hip-hop. He stepped off a car and heard the faint sounds of a violin. He walked and found a small gathering around a young man who seemed to be improvising on a violin. No music was in sight. The sound was nice and the instrument looked of a good quality. The priest soon realized that he recognized Paganini and Rachmaninov amongst other composers’ melodies threaded together with the occasional Christmas carol. This player knew what he was doing. After about twenty minutes of engaging the crowd, the young man stopped, put his violin in his case to silence. Applause seemed wrong, like it would cheapen or spoil something. He then thanked the people for listening. He thanked them. The priest had heard about a young man named Joshua who would occasionally play in the subway. It must have been Joshua Bell. I’ve met him! I wanted to shout, but didn’t. The message was all about being a light in the darkness.

During the announcements, the priest apologized for a few minor mistakes in the order of service. Their administrator hadn’t prepared the bulletin as she usually did, so the job fell to him. (He accidentally printed the final page of a hymn over the invitation to the party following the service, for example.) There was one mistake he hadn’t mentioned that caught me unawares. When we proclaimed the mystery (Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again - the only mystery I recall proclaiming) those familiar words had been replaced with we praise you, we bless you, we give thanks to you, and we pray to you, Lord out God. I wondered if the old mystery had been solved in the two weeks since I’d attended and we were on to a new one. It wasn't a mistake, just evidence that I haven't attended enough services or paid enough attention.

When I went forward for the Eucharist, something funny happened. I always hold the wafer and dip it in the wine rather than sharing a cup with everyone. At this church, the practice is the Eucharistic minister dips the wafer for you and feeds it to you. I’ve never had that done, so when she snatched the wafer from my hand as I was about to dip it I was taken aback. Hey! What the . . .? It reminded me of the time that, at my church, one of the priests was about to hand me the wafer when he pulled it back out of my fingers and said, “No!” He then turned to get another wafer. He thought I was gluten intolerant. For an instant I thought he knew something I didn’t and I’d be denied communion.

After communion, we were each given a tall, slender lit taper to hold. There was no cardboard drip protector. I assumed they splurged for dripless candles. Nope. We held these tapers while singing Silent Night. The hot wax making its way onto my knuckles made the high note of sleep in heavenly peace quite easy. But that was fine. It reminded me of singing in the choir in St. Paul with my folder and taper in one hand and a bell in the other while processing through the dark, candlelit aisles of the church. I missed singing with the choir that night, so, hot wax and all, all was as it should be.

Now it's Christmas Day. I’m sitting and writing as my father and I listen to Christmas music. It’s one o’clock in the afternoon and he hasn’t turned on the television yet. Considering that there’s a John Wayne marathon on, I’m surprised. I almost feel guilty for not reminding him, but I like the break from the TV. He’ll eventually tire of the music and turn on the westerns. Maybe that’s as it should be too.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Acupuncture

I started acupuncture treatments last week. I have temporomandibular joint (TMJ) syndrome and it has been encroaching on my ear canal (or Eustachian tube or something) for some time. My ears have felt like they are plugged up for years. In the last year or two, I've experienced tinnitus. Sometimes the tinnitus is a distant ringing, sometimes it’s a distorted high pitch that comes rhythmically like some alien being is trying to communicate something to me in Morse code. (I’ll let you know if I actually learn anything from it.)

So I went to George Washington Medical faculty to see an ear, nose and throat specialist. He told me that this is my TMJ acting up. He recommended acupuncture. Though intrigued, I put it off hoping I could concentrate on relaxing my jaw and take care of things in that way. I’ve always carried tension in my jaw and I still do. I don’t grind my teeth at night, but I play with my teeth and the insides of my cheeks and my tongue throughout the day. It's a regular carnival in there. I’m learning to not let myself do that.

The ear, nose and throat specialist asked me if I could hear my pulse in my ears. No. That was several months ago. But now I notice that, when I have earplugs in at night, I can occasionally hear the whoosh-whoosh of my pulse for four or so beats. So off to the acupuncturist I went.

What I knew about acupuncture was very little. I’d heard that the needles were very thin. True. I’d heard that you could barely feel them going in. Sometimes true. What I didn’t know was that, after inserting the needle, they give it a little nudge or pat to deepen the contact. In some areas of my body, this is no big deal. In the areas where I have issues (my hands, wrists and jaw) it hurts. It’s an odd sort of pain, though. It’s like something inside is being reluctantly awakened to go to work. (On a scale of one to ten, one being a pin touched my skin, ten being my arm caught in a meat grinder, the pain is around three.)

What I also didn’t know was that sometimes electrodes are attached to the needles and electricity is pulsed into my body. Interesting feeling that. In the sensitive (doctor’s word for painful) areas, each pulse stirs whatever has been awakened. It’s being forced to pay attention and go into action. It’s making room for the chi to pass smoothly throughout my body.

Please remember as you read this, that this is a piano teacher’s take on acupuncture. If you really want to know about it, talk to someone who knows more than I do. Your neighbor, maybe. Or the guy next to you at the gas pump.

I lay on my back motionless for thirty minutes with a dozen or so needles inserted from my toes to my head, feeling the electricity pulsing. It’s amazingly relaxing, even though it does hurt a bit. I haven’t slept, but I’ve drifted off into very pleasant places. 

Weird picture, I know. I see my grandmother in those sunken eyes.

What surprised me was how much I felt when the needles were removed. In the sensitive areas, this hurts as much as the insertion. Once, when Dr. Young was removing the needles, she lost one in my hair. That was funny. I have lots of hair; a lot can get lost in there. Another time, after Dr. Ho left me in the room drifting off to the sounds of Chinese music, one of the needles from my jaw with an electrode fell out onto my neck. I called, but no one could hear me. They were having their parking lot expanded and the workers were occasionally running loud equipment. Eventually, I heard a rustling in the hall and called again. I then heard little feet running. "I'm okay." I said, hoping to calm those feet. She was so polite, she still knocked on the door before entering the room. She replaced the needle and, giggling, boasted that I was receiving acupuncture twice that day.

Do you ever just feel comfortable with someone? That's how I feel with Dr.s Ho and Young. Once, when Dr. Ho was examining me, I couldn't take my eyes off her. Just looking at her brought ease and relaxation to me.

Then she told me that I had big feet. I already knew that. And that my body had inflammation. I misunderstood her. I thought she said my body had information. I thought that was good. But, as she talked, I realized it wasn't and I figured out what she'd actually said. Consequently, she wants me to limit my diet. I'm not happy. Apparently I must now eat like a Minnesotan - no seasoning except salt. I'm not sure this is possible. 

I looked up TMJ on line and, in order to stay relaxed, I'm not supposed to sing. I'd rather live with stopped up ears than quit singing.

I sure hope this acupuncture works. I'd love the excuse to visit these ladies a couple of times a week.

From the Maine Woods

For the last week and a half, Douglas and I have been on vacation. We decided to try not to curse, hoping that we’d curse less when we return home. Instead of quitting suddenly – rarely successful – I decided that we could curse as much as we wanted as long as we curse like barnyard animals. There’s been quite a bit of squawking and grunting in the car, along the trails and in the cabin. But I’ll tell you, you can’t stay upset for long when you grunt in disgust, squawk in frustration or crow in anger.

Douglas and I are in the Belgrade Lakes region of Maine staying in a cabin on Long Lake. We’ve sat around the cabin reading and playing games on the grey, rainy days. We’ve lit candles and stared out the windows from the main floor and the loft.  There are loons on the lake that call out. The sun sets slowly so we get quite a show of shade and color. And there are books. I brought along a book to read, but there is a certain allure of other people’s books that I can’t resist. On the fairer days, we’ve been canoeing and hiking.

The view from our cabin window.

We took a four-day meandering road trip to get here from Silver Spring. We stopped at Robert Frost’s home, which is now a museum with hiking trails around it which we walked. We hiked to Dingman and Silver Thread Falls while in Pennsylvania and Ripley Falls  (on the Appalacian Trail) while passing through New Hampshire.

Douglas and I in front of Ripley Falls

We were warned about the ticks. We took precautions. We wore sleeves, pants, sprayed ourselves with diethyl-meta-toluamide (deet), and we wore hats because we were told that the ticks drop from the trees. Drop from the trees? What the snort?

So we walked and walked. Douglas usually led the way down the narrow trails, braving the cobwebs and spelunking gnats (always intent on entering his ears and nostrils) and thereby clearing the way for me. Later, that night when I was about to step into the shower, I instead ran out to Douglas. I was pointing to a tick that had penetrated deet, jeans and more deet. It had embedded itself waaaay too near the swimsuit region. After he realized I wasn’t being amorous, he jumped to help me and successfully removed it. Thank God for tweezers.

Fast forward a few days and we’re hiking in the Belgrade area. Same precautions. A thorough check afterwards produced no stowaways, but I had to take a sleeping tablet to fall asleep that night – I kept feeling things.

Next day, I walked into town on the road. Douglas met up with me later. We were sitting outside a bakery and he was enjoying a slice of pie when I, playing with my hair, felt something. I again pointed, and yes it was another tick. Baaaaaahhh! I happen to have the tweezers in my purse and he pulled the trespasser out – it was not embedded. After that, we started discussing the possibility of my wearing a tick collar. Gee, I thought, I hope they still make the pink ones with the rhinestones. Then we have fun imagining him buying one for me.

“How large is your dog, sir?”  

“It’s not for my dog, it’s for my wife.”

We considered that I could wear it as a headband. I’m seriously considering this. In the meantime, we'll just have to go home and play gorilla while he works his way through my thick head of hair looking for interlopers. 

The cabin we're staying in.

The authoress relaxing  by a covered bridge near The Robert Frost House . . .

. . . and her handsome husband.