If we make it through December ...

By JoAnne Young 

I knew December was coming. I keep it in the corner of my mind all through the year. It’s there beginning in January. It looms in the middle of summer, the beginning of fall. December unsettles me, even with its disguises of bells and ribbons, twinkling lights, angels, cookies and picturesque snow showers. 

 

It fools us with its jolly and sparkle, with the wreaths and evergreens and red splashes of poinsettias, all the while harboring an unwillingness to give up nights of howling north winds, morning chills of single digits, and the longest, darkest hours of the year. The skies turn gray and the earth goes fallow, to rest for the several months until April keeps its promise with slowly awakening color, dotting  our lives with hyacinths, crocuses and bleeding hearts. 

 

In December, we are so busy decorating, shopping, wrapping, along with working at our jobs and everyday chores, that we don’t have time to think about slowing down and finding peace as the earth below us and nature around us does. 

 

The women we know and love are in that December-busy now. If we’re being honest, the decorations and gifts under the tree, the wrappings, candles and sweet treats are the joys that happen because mothers and grandmothers, aunts and sisters make it so. We add that to our year-round responsibilities that don’t go away in December. 

 

I am thinking, especially right now, of the friends and loved ones who must consider their holiday spirit among health concerns and grieving of loved ones who have left them, very recently, or in past months or years. Walking invisibly with us through the holidays are our mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, children and beloved friends with whom we’d love to share this season.

 

The memories of past Christmases and Hanukkahs and Kwanzaas pulsate in December. We buried our mother a couple of decades ago in mid-December, just five weeks after our dad had died suddenly. Then my only sister died three years ago on a March afternoon. Some of you now will be gathering to celebrate with a newly empty chair at the table. 

 

I could be writing about the joys of December and holidays and families gathering around beautifully set tables and the excitement of children opening gifts, but I know two of my neighbors are missing daughters and my friend across town is wondering what she can scrape together for a holiday meal. 

 

How I wish we could dig a moat around December to keep out sadness, disappointment, worries and stress. We can’t. Those things have a way of walking on water, breaching our castles. Beloved teams lose heartbreaking matches. Illnesses cross our immune barriers. Dear hearts stop beating. 

 

We will make it through December. We will work it out or wait it out with courage. We will do it with attentive and thoughtful friends, with appreciation of those loved ones who travel across the state or country to be with us, or those who we will travel miles to see. 

 

Then, we will start to think about the New Year and the hope it brings, even with its uncertainties. I have great expectations for a return to normalcy in early 2025 from being off my feet for two months after a missed step in September and then spending a month practicing the get-up-and-walk-woman incantations, with a lot of help from physical therapists. 

 

I look forward to 2025, to hope mingled with craziness and the tiptoeing of light back to the spring equinox and the longest day of summer solstice. In the meantime, I will grow comfortable with my Eddie Bauer parka and sherpa-lined stocking caps. I will look forward to early morning walks in the cold that fire up my metabolism and boost my mental health. 

 

Until then, God bless you December, with all your faults. 

 

I will leave you with this message by Louise Erdrich, from The Painted Drum. (I love writers.) 

 

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apple falling all around in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”  

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Shining Through

by Mary Reiman

I see your true colors shining through

I see your true colors and that's why I love you

So don't be afraid to let them show

The words of Cyndi Lauper continue to spin through my head. Traveling to Minneapolis last week to see her Final Farewell Tour was more than I expected. Watching and listening to her perform for almost 3 hours, sharing the experience with my sister and niece. Feeling nostalgic.

Cyndi Lauper became well known in the '80s. Known on MTV for her voice and her hair color(s). Yes, you may have labeled her as the woman with pink hair singing ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun.’ She is indeed an entertainer. However, as with so many musicians, there’s so much more. Her first solo album was in 1983. She won the Grammy for best new artist in 1984, wrote the score for Kinky Boots in 2013, and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2015.

If you have the opportunity, watch her 2023 documentary, LET THE CANARY SING. You will learn her history. Running away from home, from the sexual abuse of her stepfather, at age 17. Being sexual assaulted by one of her band members. Injuring her vocal cords in 1977, and being told she would never sing again. She is indeed a survivor and a powerful voice in so many ways.  She’s been married for 22 years and has a son who is also a musician. 

This concert was more than the music. Yes, we were reminded of how many songs she’s written and performed during her years on stage.  But the most important moments were those between the songs, when she shared her journey, as well as her passion for helping others. I was reminded of why it is more important than ever to be an advocate. To speak and act and never give up the fight for our rights. 

Her music makes you think. Her lyrics tell a story, reflecting her life…and the lives of so many others. That’s one of the reasons the audience was there. To show their appreciation. She survived...giving them hope...and inspiration. She gives voice to those who feel alone and isolated. You might not like her music, but you do need to appreciate her powerful voice. 

Most noteworthy is her passion for kids in need, those on the fringe. In 2008, she co-founded the 'True Colors United' and in 2022, she started the ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights’ Fund at the Tides Foundation. After Roe v. Wade was overturned, to support organizations that advance women’s rights and health, she said, “I never thought I would see the day that a fundamental civil right for half of the population would be taken away in this country. We must push back…I believe in the United States and I believe that we will not only regain the right to choose, but one day actually secure full equality.” In 2015, she testified before a Senate sub-committee to support homeless teens.

Last Tuesday was Human Rights Day, celebrated internationally in honor of the day 76 years ago, December 10, 1948, when the United Nations General Assembly announced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

The White House recommitted to “upholding the equal and inalienable rights of all people.” The White House Gender Policy Council has been created to advance the rights and opportunities of women and girls across domestic and foreign policy [and] rejoined the United Nations Human Rights Council to highlight and address pressing human rights concerns. They are also working to stop the misuse of commercial spyware, which has enabled human rights abuses around the world as authoritarian governments surveil their populations, and to fight back against transnational repression targeting human rights defenders.  I believe Cyndi Lauper was pleased with these actions. 

As we move into 2025, her words linger. She reminded me of the importance of advocating for those who don’t feel they have a voice, who feel isolated and alone. She is indeed powerful and inspiring.

Don’t be afraid to show your true colors, time after time, because girls just want to have fundamental rights.

If you're lost, you can look and you will find me

Time after time

If you fall, I will catch you, I will be waiting

Time after time

 

Still Drawn to the Light

 

By Marilyn Moore

Hmm…some of you may be thinking….didn’t she write about that the last time?  Good recall on your part, yes, I did.  In early November, before the election, I wrote about being drawn to the light, particularly candidates who saw promise and potential, rather than darkness and despair, who wanted lift people up rather than push people down.  That’s where I was in early November….

And now, in mid-December, with the election in the past, and many of the “darkness and despair” candidates readying to take office, I’m still drawn to the light.  

What I’m realizing, now that I’m past (sort of) my initial WTF response, is that I may have to look harder for light.  I can do that.  There is much light shining brightly in the neighborhood and city in which I live.  People are already stepping up in support of those likely to be harmed by proposed federal policy changes, like “tightening” Medicaid and Medicare, reducing food benefits to low-income families, “rounding up” anyone who even looks like an immigrant (and just how demeaning is that language….), and removal of protections for members of the LGBTQ community.  

Advocacy groups are watching, readying to testify, readying to file suit, ready to protect.  They will do the hard and necessary work of shining a bright light on the likely consequences of proposed actions.  I am drawn to that light, not to be the lawyer, but perhaps to be the one who writes a check, contacts a legislator, writes a letter to the editor, or marches in a protest.  

There is also light in the actions of individual people…good folks, stepping up to lend a hand, to make life a little easier or better for those who struggle.  I see Free Little Pantries being re-filled.  I see groups planting trees to make the air cooler and cleaner.  I see families welcoming immigrant families, retired teachers volunteering to teach English to newcomers wanting to learn.  I see people coming together to build beds for children, to pick up trash in parks and on trails, to provide gifts for people they do not know at this holiday time, to provide homes for rescue animals.  

I’m under no illusion that these volunteer efforts, laudable and magnificent as they are, will care for every need of every hungry, homeless, or ill person.  As Scott Young, retired executive director of the Lincoln Food Bank said on many occasions, “We cannot Food Bank our way out of the widespread food insecurity people are experiencing.” And he always followed that up with the pledge that the Food Bank would do all that it could do, with the resources provided by volunteers and donations, to assure adequate and nutritious meals for our neighbors.  

Scott is so right, about food, and about the other basic needs.  Habitat for Humanity can’t build enough houses to end the housing shortage.  Clinic With a Heart can’t provide medical care for all those who need it.  But what they can do, they do…and their work shines a bright light, one to which I’m drawn.  Writing checks, volunteering time…I can do that.  And I can also support the efforts of advocacy groups who work to address systemic realities that result in hunger, in homelessness, in poor access to medical care.  I believe the basic health and welfare, the promise and potential of those who live in this country, should not be shouldered only by volunteers and the goodness of their hearts. These are justice issues…and may justice roll like a mighty stream.  That looks like light. 

As the days grow shorter, and we approach the winter solstice, the day of the fewest hours of light and the most hours of darkness, I treasure the light in the sky.  I stop on the Rock Island trail for quiet moments of peace and tranquility in the fading light of the day.  I listen for the light in music that gives me goosebumps.  I read for the light in the words of favorite authors and those of faraway friends whose greetings we are beginning to receive.  I feel the light in warm and caring embraces.  And in this post-election time…I treasure the light, I look for the light, I commit to the light. And I know that I am not alone…millions of others are doing the same. 

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A curious Thanksgiving with surprising slices of peace on earth

 

By Mary Kay Roth

My very first official “adult” Thanksgiving happened in upstate New York where I was a blushing bride, working on a newspaper, and had invited my new Ohio in-laws to dinner.

When I was growing up my mom had been a perfectionist cook who never allowed anyone in “her” kitchen, most especially over the holidays – a solid line etched between the living room shag carpeting and the lime-green kitchen linoleum, preventing anyone from entering her domain.  

As a result, I’m self-taught at cooking and baking – and that early Thanksgiving I was nervous and inexperienced. Thinking I was clever, I had purchased a goofy turkey apron and meticulously plotted a menu timeline. 

As scheduled I started by baking a pie early Thanksgiving morning and subsequently watched the piecrust fall off as I peered through the oven window.  Since I didn’t know you needed to cook sweet potatoes before you baked them in a casserole, everyone bit into rock-hard yams. The turkey was fine, it’s tough to kill a turkey, while the mashed potatoes were  oddly lumpy. Frankly, I can’t remember what we had for dessert … probably a bald, strange-looking pie.

I’ve come far since then. Long ago I found a lovely roast turkey recipe in an old Parade Magazine and each year my family now crowds into my home and pretty much demands the same obligatory dishes. I managed to add a dry brine to the turkey without rebellion, but whenever I add anything extra to the dressing my daughter quietly separates it on her plate and sniffs a bit.

More importantly, perhaps, I’ve learned much over the years about the timeless threads of tradition and custom, how they give us grounding. And yet despite those deeply instilled lessons, as the holidays approached this year I found myself anxious and worried … over politics, missing loved ones from our table, a heaviness hanging low.

I’d lost my way … at least, strangely enough, until I took a few holiday detours, a journey that started when I rented a cabin at Platte River State Park for this past Wednesday and Thursday.

I figured my stay would be completely solo, my own family not gathering until Friday, and everyone else insanely busy over Thanksgiving.  Strangely enough, folks stopped by. We ate appetizers and hiked trails and lit fires and drank wine and even broke the steadfast Roth directive – we actually listened to Christmas music BEFORE Thanksgiving. OMG. 

Thanksgiving morning, I walked around the park at dawn all alone, getting lost as I always do but stumbling upon an old wooden tower.  And as I climbed to the top I found a brilliant sunrise peering over the treetops, deer grazing beneath me and squawking geese above.  

Throughout that day, my dog Pip and I tromped around the park, holiday lights strewn at the occasional cabin, the smell of turkey everywhere.  One ambitious fellow had towed an entire U-Haul filled with Thanksgiving fixings to his cabin.  It was tradition, he explained, and invited Pip and me to join his family for dinner.  We graciously declined, instead lighting a final fire that evening as a few snowflakes sailed down and we listened to the silence of the night.

The next day I returned to the raucous busyness of Lincoln and roasted a turkey for a Friday house-full of family.  It wasn’t exactly Norman Rockwell.  Pip barked furiously at everyone arriving at the door.  I sliced open a finger cutting onions, forgot to assign anyone the task of bringing beverages and realized – fairly late – no one coming to dinner knew how to carve a turkey. 

And yet, somehow, we found our way …. just as we have for decades.

Family members hugged hello – scribbled on the annual “Blessings” poster – played the Who-Am-I game with Post-it notes stuck to their foreheads.  And, as always, in that grand finale of closing meal preparation, we all crammed into the kitchen as I stirred the gravy, my son mashed potatoes,  grandchildren bounced about helter-skelter and my daughter attempted to carve the turkey while watching a how-to YouTube video.

Believe it or not – embracing all puppy and carving catastrophes – the feast was served in fine form.  No politics were spoken. No doomsday forecasts or  agonizing over the next four years. And when we went around the table per practice to count our blessings, we tallied up quite a few. 

So, as I write this blog early Sunday morning, I’m not completely sure what I learned over Thanksgiving this year.  But it feels like I learned something important.

Despite the pall of politics and the collision of family ballot choices, we still came together in a miraculous moment of thanks – in an unexpected and glorious mix of new and old tradition. 

Through the silence of a sunrise and the firelight of night, I found my familiar sense of belonging and faith – the comfort of ritual, conversation and good cheer – the salvation of connection.  

I found my steady heart again … my own slice of peace on earth … when loved ones hold you close and you hold them right back.

And yeah, yeah, I know, the barrage of news will continue to break our hearts. I know it’s not really quite this simple.

But at least for a few days over Thanksgiving, perhaps it is entirely enough.