Remembering Easter

Easter was the second big deal of all holidays when I was a kid. Our church was a frenzy of preparations. Choir rehearsals, the church breakfasts, the choir robes got dry cleaned (!), the parish hall floor got a new finish, there were flowers all over the place, inside and out. It was beautiful.

The biggest deal to me, before I was old enough to join the choir, was the Cross of Flowers. There was a 7' shadowbox cross with a chicken wire cover on front. Every Easter it was at the edge of the altar, waiting for the parish kids to fill it with the flowers they'd brought. When I was 4 or 5 I scrambled over my family to bring my flower to the cross first, to the embarassment of my family and amusement of everyone else. But I remember being so overcome with wanting to give my flower to Jesus that I didn't care about anything but getting up there to my minister so he could put it on Jesus' cross. When filled with all the flowers it was a sight like an Easter card and filled the church with the once a year truly heavenly smell of flower gardens. I have a photo of our minister, Dr. Marion Matics (a remarkable man) and me standing with it the last year I went. I believe I was 12. Good memories.

Easter was also a "turn out in your finest" event. If we didn't get all new clothes, we got new accoutrements to make old outfits fresh. Sometimes the accoutrements weren't technically new, but new to us. Since I was the only girl I always got a new hat and shoes at the least. Which meant that Easter Sunday was pain. That elastic string under your chin was irritating no matter what you did with it but you didn't complain. Jesus had just suffered and died for your sorry ass; don't bitch about anything. At least the hat could come off when you got home; the shoes were another story. Usually they were black patent leather (or pleather in the lean years) and they were your church shoes for a year. You'd best make them last til next Easter. They'd be big on your feet, so you could grow into them for a year. They'd give you blisters on your heels everytime you wore them until sometime in the fall. All your socks and tights had bloodstains at the heel; it was ripping scabs off to get them off your feet. I remember that at Thanksgiving my shoes were always at peak- still in good shape, but totally broken in, fitting me without friction blisters. From then on it was a game of making them last til the Spring. One year (4th grade) a pair was so tight by February that I couldn't bend my feet- they were bound stiff in them. They were also the only pair I had that got on my feet at all, so I pretended I was Chinese and my feet were being bound so I would walk like a lady. Which also led me to walk with a book on my head, like they did on the Patty Duke Show. To this day I can mish my toes together into the perfect shape of those shoes.

Easter also meant that we would be at Nana's house. It was a combination of dread and awe to go there. My Uncle Bert's study was a ham radio station and where he did his artwork. We crept in there expecting to be thrown out at any moment. Nana's furniture was Victorian and dark and stodgy. Her parlor rug was sacred. They were remains of the family's wealthier days, pre-Depression. There was no running, no loudness, no tomfoolery. It was exhausting to contain myself, to behave with the manners Nana demanded. My brothers, older, could adapt by harassing each other with low voices. I wasn't old enough to know how. Anything I did was loud and childish so I hid under the library or dining table, playing silently to myself or stealthily watching TV. Or pouting.

By the 60s TV was a big deal. Uncle Bert was an electrical engineer, and was always rebuilding his stereo and TV. He built a color TV, the first I ever saw. I think we spent more time watching my Dad and Uncle tearing these things apart and replacing things than we ever did watching entertainment. But Easter was mandatory TV watching. The Wizard of Oz, with its joys and horror. Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. The Wonderful World of Disney (the Disney colors!). Midget and Women wrestling. So Easter became the "Watch Colour TV" holiday at Uncle Bert's house (by that time Nana was gone).

I stopped going to church in the early 70s. Easter, I learned, was only one among many Spring religious traditions. While the formal church fell away from my life, some traditions went on. To this day, I still have colored boiled eggs and chocolate around on Easter, I still eat lamb for dinner, I still want flowers to fill my head with dreams. This year finds me more than at peace with the church. But not so much that I'll go.

Anyway. Happy Easter however you perceive it.

And the Fear Goes On

Vermont made all marriages equal this week. I'm so damn proud I cried. Esophageal cancer took Our Seth before he could partake, but I know he's happy to see it from where he is. It wasn't easy; it was right down to the finish line hold your breath is it really gonna pass I don't wanna watch scary. But it passed in a very unusual override of the Gobner's veto. I have nothing but disdain for Dandy Douglas.

However, the fear and hate mongers haven't stopped their attacks. I went to our Green Mountain Daily website (a site for and about the VDP and its issues) and saw this piece by Julie Waters, fabulous person:
http://greenmountaindaily.com/diary/4325/compare-and-contrast

So they're back at their nameless fear tactics. Everybody's gonna die! Oh Jesus run for your life! There's a storm growing! AAAAAAAGGGGGHHH! What the fuck is wrong with these people, and do they really think we're all that stupid? I do enjoy the youtube acting auditions for the parts, but how much ya wanna bet that ol' Edith in her living room sees this and writes them a check?

What's most curious to me is the nameless threat -that "some of the people who promote Gay Marriage" are also up to something else with big black lurking Satanic clouds helping them. Well, what are they up to? These freaks don't say. It's enough for them to engender fear. The populASS has been trained via Bush's Big Brother Broadcasting to be told they have to fear something. That's enough for these chickens. They'll be calling their friends and saying something at church, that's for sure, oh you betcha. There's something to fear! Hooray, we have something to fear! But what that something is, they can't tell you. Because they don't know. It's a secret.

Oh, BTW, if you say to them, "But I'm one of those people, I'm not up to anything!" They'll give you a patronizing look and tell you you're being used and don't know who you're affiliating with and give you some kinda pat on a body part. All very superior. Not very Christlike. But then neither is bearing False Witness. Or prejudice.

Read it and weep:
http://greenmountaindaily.com/diary/4325/compare-and-contrast

Spring Haiku

Today is just like
A child's laughter at tickling.
Soft, sunny Spring day.

I Love You, So Change

Always comes on time
Its own time, not when we say
And we love the Spring.

Oh, I too will change
But why do you push me to?
I thought you loved me.

Love does not have strings,
Rules or eggshells to walk on.
That's love that has died.

Insecurity
Won't bind a loved one to you
Nor rivers of tears.

I will grow and change,
As I wish, on my own time,
With you or without.

If love is now dead
Much better it be buried
Than call control love.

Ye Cannae Gae Ais A-rithist

I never know what to expect from April.
So far, this year it's been a hemorrhoid. Miscommunication by authorities who do not take responsibility. Uncharacteristic disorganization on my part. Crazy people getting crazier (though I'm very happy that 2008 swept the hardcore disfunctional nuts out of my life- those left are at least able to wipe their own asses and have been able to since toddlership without yelling for Mommy- a good sign). And death, as usual, still takes the hindmost.
However, what's disappointing is that our dreams of going back to the family seat are over. The memorial judgment my cousin sent says that while the court recognizes the fraud committed and sees reason for all the grievance, it's too long ago (well, that was for good reason-we didn't know we were being ripped off when it happened) and basically fuck us for calling. We're entitled to our titles and matriculation, but that's it. If I ever meet a Mitchell-Innes, I feel for them. We figured out cousin Jack is our Clan Chief, and he'll get the baroncy arms. We'll all matriculate from there on.
So that's over and I can put that dream away. Kinda sad, but it was always the family legend and the history that mattered. It's damn good to know my forebears were right, not deluded and not grasping for something that wasn't ours to claim. It's just too damn late.
In other important things, Gay Marriage is just a hair away from happening in Vermont. I'm always proud of this place but I choke up to think we've finally gotten this far against such prejudice and out of state pressure by big monied bigots. Some of the Legislature members gave heartbreakingly honest speeches. Wish I could send them all flowers. Of all things, Iowa's SC made it legal today. One state at a time, sweet Jesus....
And still, Uncle Glenn's estate drags on. Who knows what will happen with that? The RE market is pretty dead; houses are selling for half the price they were. I ain't "living for dead men's shoes" but it's been a year and 3 months and nothing? Right now I can't afford the lawyer to lean on his lawyer. But I'll be calling and asking on Monday, "Hey, Cosmo, WTF?"

And then there's Mr. Right. But he's a subject for another day. Nice to find someone not entirely insane in this town, this world, these days. :)