No more boxes here!

Posted on March 6, 2017 by Donna Coulson

As we prepared to sell and move out of our house in the country in October of 2014, I packed boxes furiously, getting rid of tons of stuff and sorting through years of accumulation.  I had an office in that house that Karl had lined with bookshelves, floor to ceiling, and I had literally tons of books.  Since we were shipping all our belongings by truck and then ship and then truck to the St. Croix house, I had to be brutal and get rid of the lion’s share of those books.  It hurt.

Fast forward to now.  Most of the boxes of books and curios that I packed over two years ago remained in boxes.  We had some remodeling to do before there was a room and shelves to hold them.  We’ve been here a bit over three months, and the first project is done.  We have a wonderful office that can double as a second guest room upstairs now.  It has an expanded walk-in closet to hold all my craft supplies, and as of Saturday, it has completed and beautiful bookshelves.  I spent a terrific day, all day, on Saturday, unpacking the last of the boxes in this house, and unearthing my most prized and most favorite books, my collection of turtle figurines (can you say goofy old lady here?) and other trinkets that mean so much.  They are now happily living, out in the open and easily accessible.

It’s all just stuff.  I get that. I know that I can live a fulfilled and happy life without them (I’ve done it for over two years!). But. I sit at my computer this morning surrounded by volumes with names like Ender’s Game, Moons of Mitra, To Dance with Kings.  I am in the company of characters created by Clive Cussler, Janet Evanovich, Dick Francis.  I am in close contact with the beauty of words written by Shakespeare and Chaucer and John Milton and Kalil Gibran, and I have easy access to the wisdom of Max Lucado and Miss Piggy (Her Guide to Life is very astute!).  In addition, I can see the troll turtle I got for Christmas when I was probably 11, a crystal turtle that first grader Jessie gave me, a small lighthouse Karl and I bought on a trip to bar Harbor, Maine.  To anyone else these things are just stuff, and I anticipate a time after I’m gone when my minimalist daughter shakes her head ruefully as she tosses most of it out.  That is and will be ok.  But for me, these small things and these volumes are a testament of who I am and how I got here.

I know that this world is not my permanent home.  I know that what we see here is a mere, dark image of the wonder that is to come.  I praise God for that.  I also praise Him for the big and the small gifts he gives us now, to give us hope and to sustain us as we move through this world on our way to eternity.

Categories: Random thoughts on being me, remodeling our house, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Bibles

Posted on February 27, 2017 by Donna Coulson

GailAnn, an amazing lady in my church and her husband, are on a mission.  It is a quiet, beautiful mission to make sure that all the children in our church have Bibles of their own.  She handed out four Bibles yesterday morning.  She’d given these children “Bible story books” at another time, but explained that they were now ready for a full Bible.  So she called them up and gave them one.  While they were still standing up front, holding their new books, Gailann spoke to them about the need to read them and encouraged the children to bring their Bibles to church each week.  Then, she looked out in the congregation and asked the young people (and there are a lot of young people in our church!) to hold their Bibles up to show they’d brought them.  Hands with Bibles went up all over the room.

That started me looking around a little.  Miss Veronica, who is an older lady I was sitting next to, had her Bible.  It has a brown leather cover that is seriously worn at the edges.  It has notes and papers sticking out of the pages.  That book has been through a lot.  The gentleman in front of me had a spiffy looking Bible cover on his.  I peeked over his shoulder during the sermon, and the book inside is far from spiffy, its pages ragged and bent.  All around me the story was the same, the older and more wrinkly the hand that held it, the more crinkles and creases on the pages.

What is even more important, though, isn’t the number of well worn, well-loved Bibles that show up with their owners each week.  It is this: the people at my church have the verses written in their heads and on their hearts as well as on the pages.  The proof of that is clear in two ways.  One, it doesn’t matter if it is during the sermon, or any other time during church, if the speaker starts quoting a Bible verse, voices from around the room join within just a few words, to finish it.  They have verses memorized – and I don’t mean just the ‘famous’ ones like John 3:16.  I’m talking verses from I Samuel and the hard parts of Ephesians or Hosea.  When I was a child, I did my duty to memorize verses for Sunday School so that I could get a trinket or piece of candy. Then I’d promptly forget it.  The adults I sit with each Sunday haven’t forgotten. Proof two is even more telling.  This church has taken the Bible seriously. They own it. It’s clear they are trying to live out what is written on the pages.  I see a lot of generosity, a lot of faith, a lot of thankfulness.

I am guessing that in any spirit-filled church there are many members who can quote the Bible and who could finish a verse once the pastor begins it. Probably, people in many pews finish the verses with the pastor quietly or in their minds. {I can also imagine a church (I am truly only imagining this!) where members speak out loudly to finish verses to prove how knowledgeable and pious they are. That certainly would kill the buzz.} But for me, in this place and with this congregation, finishing the verse is a witness.  It’s a witness to me as an adult and it is a witness to those little ones who got their first Bible yesterday morning.  Having your Bible in your hand, wearing it out as you journey through this world, having the verses on your mind and lips, those actions are a given.  Those actions are part of what a person does to survive and triumph.

Categories: Frederiksted Baptist Church, Random thoughts on being me | Leave a comment

Lessons from Old Women – The end, sort of

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Donna Coulson

In the past few weeks I’ve shared with you brief stories of older ladies who made a difference to me.  They certainly are not the only women that have done so, but they are the ‘Big Four’.  Along with my thankfulness for them, I am awed by a God who so carefully provides.  When I needed to think carefully about my life’s path and be courageous enough to leave home, Esther and her letters so full of encouragement and down to earth-ness came along.  When I was lonely and adrift in Monterey,  Ella Jean invited me into her home and heart and anchored me. Learning to be a pioneer woman on the prairie of Wyoming could have been a disaster without the skills and smiles that Lula was willing and able to share with me.  And fighting the nagging voice that says I’m not really a writer and that I’m wasting my time on trying to write, Mary Jane has been excited with me and for me and egging me on. Looking back over the tapestry, I can see that God gifted me with them at specific and well-chosen moments.  I had not asked for them.  I didn’t know I needed them, but as soon as each arrived I was able to recognize that that she had something important to give and to teach me. I hope that each of these ladies had at least an inkling of what they’d done for me.

For sure, I could do a series on another kind of woman.  The ones who came into my life and the interaction was not positive.  (My third grade teacher, for example stands out as an unimaginative, mean spirited woman.)  Really, though, I am thankful for these women as well, because by them I have seen and learned who and what I did NOT want to be and I have learned a bit about forgiveness along the way.

So.   Only one thing remains.  I am an old woman now.  It is my hope and my prayer that when a younger woman comes into my life and I am given the chance to be an Esther, or Ella Jean, or Lula, or Mary Jane to her, I will rise to the occasion with love and care and wisdom.

For years I’ve had this saying on my bulletin board:

Here’s to good women,

May we know them.

May we be them.

May we raise them.

Amen!

Categories: Living on St Croix, Random thoughts on being me | 4 Comments

Lessons from Old Women – part four – Mary Jane

Posted on February 13, 2017 by Donna Coulson

First off, let me begin this week with a disclaimer.  Mary Jane is not an “Old Woman” in any way than that she is (a bit) older than I am.  Please, Dear Mary Jane, do not be offended with the title!  🙂

I’ve blogged a bit about Mary Jane Cozzens before. In brief, I was at a book signing several years ago in Encampment and someone bought three copies of Mountain Time and had me sign them for gifts.  This happens at book signings, and I didn’t think much of it at the time.  Sometime after Christmas that year, I got a remarkable email.  It was from Mary Jane who received my book as a gift and wanted to thank me for it.  It turns out, Mary Jane’s grandparents owned and ran a Mercantile in Encampment during the time frame of Mountain Time.  Mary Jane was wonderful to complement me on the book and how it reminded her of places she knew as a child.  We began to exchange emails and it became amazingly clear to me that she was a wealth of information about the area. She was instrumental in the writing of Peaks and Valleys because she supplied me with so many beautiful details about her grandparents, who are characters in it, and also sent me pictures and answered questions about them and life in Encampment.

At first, I saw our contact as a pleasant research resource.  But very soon it became clear that through our exchanges, a sweet and important friendship was growing.  We wrote to each other for over two years, then were able to meet.  A couple of months later, my friend Judi and I went to Moab and spent a long weekend with Mary Jane and her family. (See my blog from October 26, 2016).

I suppose I have given Mary Jane a fun glimpse and a reminder of her heritage and her past by writing about Encampment and asking her questions about her grandparents.  I hope I have given her smiles and joy as our friendship has grown.  What I know without hesitation is that she has given me many things in return.  From the beginning, she sparked my imagination and my curiosity with stories from the past.  More than that, she’s been an avid supporter of my writing.  She is one of the few people I know reads this blog on a weekly basis.  She is a one woman cheering squad who reminds me again and again that I have something to say. It goes deeper than that, though. Mary Jane is a beautiful role model for me.  She is giving and thoughtful.  Her life has not been easy.  It isn’t my story to tell, but the hurdles and heartaches she’s been confronted with in her life would be the undoing of many.  Not Mary Jane.  She hasn’t endured. She isn’t a just survivor.  She has triumphed  over all with never-ending energy to meet the next day, a sense of humor that I envy, and a joy that bubbles out and infects anyone around her.  I am richer because she has touched my life and I am so thankful to her and for her.

Categories: Peaks and Valleys, Random thoughts on being me | 1 Comment

Lessons from Old Women – part three Lula

Posted on February 7, 2017 by Donna Coulson

Did you miss me yesterday?  Sorry this is a day late- we had BFFs from Wyoming here for a week and I didn’t want to spend even a few minutes not enjoying their company.

I’ve mentioned my friend Lula before, I think.  She and her husband were our closest neighbors (about a third of a mile away) when we moved out to our country house east of Cheyenne.  Lula welcomed me with a pound of bacon from one of her own pigs, a dozen eggs that she’d gathered that morning, and some wild flowers from her garden.  As we got to know each other, she taught me how to can carrots and green beans and make pieced quilts, and she shared cuttings of peonies and raspberries.

From early on, I saw her as a kind of ‘mom’, mine was already gone and Lula’s gentle, old fashioned (pioneer) view of life became a wise whisper that spoke loudly to me. Like so many times when God gifted me with an older woman in my life, Lula and I developed a strong and precious bond.  We’d known each other several months when the conversation turned to birthdays and we discovered that my birthday and her daughter Sari’s birthday were the same day and just one year apart. It was that fact that encouraged Lula to share with me one of the darkest times in her life.  When Sari was very little, Lula, Sari and her brother and Lula’s husband were driving into Cheyenne to deliver eggs.  That was long before cars had seat belts.  Somehow, their car drifted into the oncoming lane just at the top of a small hill, and they crashed into another car head on.  Lula’s husband was killed and so was Sari.  Their son was injured, but not horribly, and Lula had a broken pelvis among other injuries.  In just an instant, a family was decimated and lives were changed.

By the time Lula and I were friends, the accident and Sari’s death were carefully healed and year-faded scars.  Time and faith and life had gone on. Lula healed physically from her injuries and found ways to go on with her life.  She married Gene after a few years and started a second family to add to the first and discovered that she could be happy again.

The last birthday that I celebrated with Lula before her memory began to fade, she gave me a sweet gift and told me that she felt that God had brought us together so that she could better imagine what Sari may have grown up to be had she lived.  After the wickedness of age and dementia had taken over much of Lula’s mind and she’d been moved to a care facility, when I’d visit, sometimes she’d know me and sometimes she’d call me Sari.  In either case she was glad to see me and I was glad to be there even though it was painful.

I don’t want this to be a sad story.  Lula was a gift to me.  I came back home to live in Wyoming and God gave me a replacement mom to treasure and He gave her a lost daughter to cherish.  Beyond that, I can’t list how I blessed her, but I can make a list of how I am a better and richer human being because this quiet little farm woman. Here are three important life lessons I know because of Lula:  1. People should never leave your home empty handed.  (jam, fresh bread, eggs, a cookie, a plant cutting, a magazine article she thought I’d like.  Never, Never did I leave her house empty handed.) 2. Never forget that God loves you and has your best in mind. (Even when it feels insurmountable, God’s grace is enough)  3. Laugh.  (There is always some way to see beauty or humor in the day.)

 

 

 

Categories: Random thoughts on being me | 1 Comment

Heaven…

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Donna Coulson

[Due to something that happened over the weekend, I am interrupting my series on Old Women for this week.  It will most likely continue next week!  🙂 ]

I am going to make an admission that could make me sound heathenish: I believe that I am going to heaven.  The trip is  an eventuality I feel confident of because of Jesus’ love and sacrifice on the cross for me and everyone else who accepts His gift. When I think about dying and going to heaven though – for eternity – I think about how cool it will be to swim in the ocean deep and wide without fear or a snorkel.  I think about maybe God will allow me to fly and feel the freedom of a bird’s wings.  I think about the amazing beauty I will get to enjoy that isn’t tainted by man’s sinful pollution.  Can you imagine the sunrise’s glory with no smog?  Can you imagine having lunch with Esther (either the Biblical Esther or my own Aunt Esther, both are on my list of people to spend time with!) or sitting around a camp fire listening to Peter or Isaac or your own great grandma?

What I struggle about are the verses in the Bible that describe how we will spend eternity standing around the Throne of God, continually worshiping him. I haven’t actually ever liked that description of heaven because it sounds boring. Yup.  There’s the admission. Heaven in my human, sinful mind would be pretty boring if all I get to do participate in a continual worship service. For eternity.  Hence my hope that I can worship God’s glory by experiencing and enjoying His amazing creation in its perfection.

Now let’s back up a little so that I can give you my own personal context.  I was raised in conservative, quiet, churches. While I am certain that the depth of feelings and commitment to God was genuine, we sat quietly in the pew as the service progressed.  We stood and sang demurely an ancient song from a musty hymnal, not too loud, then sat back down. People whispered if they talked at all and if you needed to cough, you excused yourself and went out in the foyer.  As I’ve grown older, I have gravitated towards more demonstrative worship styles. When we lived in California, we attended two different churches. They were a little more “spirit filled” and I remember the first time I ever raised my hands up while I sang a praise song. The music was louder and more upbeat, the hymnal exchanged for words projected on a screen. Yes, much better, I thought.  But still not something I would look forward to doing for eternity.  Our little Golden Prairie country church in Wyoming, with its loving chaos during a noisy greeting time, louder country praise band music, and the occasional laugh out loud or spontaneous “amen!” from a congregant was better, but frankly, the idea of heavenly worship 24/7  still reeked of dullness to me.

That was then. I don’t feel that way now.

You might, logically ask why the change?  Here it is:  This weekend our church in St. Croix, Frederiksted Baptist, celebrated its 55th anniversary.  It was quite a celebration with a banquet on Friday that was beautiful and a special service last night.  The service last night was the game changer for me.  First off, there were lots of people there.  I mean LOTS.  People and their pastors from many other churches (not just Baptist!) all over the island and a few that flew in from points far away were there.  The small sanctuary was so full they added folding chairs in the aisles, people were standing in the back and the youth sat outside under a tent and watched on a TV.  More people joined us by watching the live stream on the internet.  Now, lots of people crowded together don’t necessarily mean good things to me.  Crowds often are intimidating, especially when I don’t know many of the members and I am a newcomer. Crowds are hot, noisy. I was uncomfortable as the place filled up before the service began.

Then, the singing started.  It took the first verse for the congregation to focus and by the second verse, I began to get a glimpse of what worship should be – what it will be – when we are all there in heaven around the throne.  I joined my voice with everyone’s, though I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear Karl singing beside me. Our voices rang out, though, and merged with the others in a way that I knew God could hear the total and the individual. People clapped and smiled and raised their hands.  As the two hour service progressed, there were speakers and poems, a dynamite sermon and more songs. What songs!  People danced and smiled and sang TO GOD!  And what is amazing is that I know He was listening.  He was there with us- probably dancing and singing, too.  Maybe that’s the part I never was quite able to picture before.  Standing around the throne of God singing and worshiping isn’t a musty ritual. It isn’t boring or just something we will be made to do.  It is joy enacted.  It is a gift I give and we give to a God who has given us Everything including our eternity.  All my hesitation about standing at the throne of God worshiping are gone this morning.  In fact, I am looking forward to it because I now understand how beautiful it is.  (Though I still harbor the hope that I will also be able to swim and fly…)

 

 

Categories: Living on St Croix | 2 Comments

Lessons From Old Women part two – Ella Jean

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Donna Coulson

I left home at age 18.  I joined the Navy, spending nine weeks in boot camp in Orlando, Florida, then transferring to Monterey, California and the Defense Language Institute to learn Russian.   I didn’t know it, of course, but I was Naive.  I capitalized that on purpose.  I wasn’t just naive.  I was Naive. I was not only unsophisticated,  inexperienced, guileless and trusting.  I also thought everyone else was just like me.  I knew there was bad in the world, but I didn’t realize that badness was everywhere or that it was mixed in with the good.  It isn’t that I grew up pampered or advantaged.  Far from it.  My parents brought this baby girl, their third, home to a two bedroom trailer.  I had experienced difficult times, I knew sinners and knew I was definitely one, but at the same time, I somehow had lived my first 18 years in a cushion of love and innocence.

SO.  Leaving home to join the Navy provided me with culture shock of epic magnitude. I fought the disillusionment and homesickness.  I studied hard and tried to be a ‘good girl’ while all the time watching how others chose to live (and without guilt!). I learned that hard work doesn’t guarantee success – learning Russian was the most difficult thing I had ever tackled.  I learned that girls that I liked cussed and stayed out all night, and guys could be sneaky and full of lies. It was a difficult time.

I kept the habit of going to church and nearly every Sunday, I tucked myself into a pew on the left hand side of the sanctuary about halfway to the front at a local church.  On one  Sunday, I slipped into a seat on the aisle next to an old woman.  We smiled at each other, but then remained solitary as the service progressed.  When we stood for the first hymn, I opened the hymnal and offered to share it with her.  She kindly held half the book during the song, but didn’t sing.

I didn’t think about it or her again that week.

Next Sunday rolled around.  I sat down in my normal venue.  Before the service began, that same old woman came down the aisle, then stopped at the end of my pew.  “Could I sit next to you?” Her voice was quiet and kind, a little raspy, like old women voices can get.  I smiled and nodded, and moved over.  During the service, we again shared a hymnal, and again she didn’t sing. When that service ended as we both gathered our things and prepared to tackle our own lives, she thanked me.  “I like sitting next to you, because then I can hear the words of the songs.  My eyesight keeps me from reading that small print from the hymnal.”

And with that admission, a precious friendship began.  We introduced ourselves.  Her name was Ella Jean Kirk and she lived in an assisted living facility.  She invited me to come visit her and we set a date. I can’t explain exactly how or why she became so dear to me.  Looking back, maybe I just needed someone who’d survived the chaos of life to hug me and show me it was possible.  She listened to me. She shared her own life with me. Her little apartment was an oasis from the swirling craziness.

Ella Jean died the week I left Monterey.  I’d visited her in the hospital, I told her I loved her. But I was wrapped up in my own selfishness and the excitement of graduating from Russian school and moving on to my next adventure. And I didn’t go to the funeral.  I still regret that decision.  I didn’t show her the respect that she deserved. I wasn’t there to sing for her one last time.

I know she wouldn’t want me to feel guilty, but I still do, even after all these years.  I have a small, round, carved wooden box with an ivory bird on the top that she gave me.  It is one of my most prized possessions. I look at it and I miss her.  I look at it and I thank God for giving me her sweetness when I really needed it.  I look at it and am reminded that small things are important and that I shouldn’t ever miss the chances I am given.   When I think of the passage in Hebrews 12:1 that talks about a ‘great cloud of witnesses’ that surround us, cheering us on so that we can run our race, I picture Ella Jean up there in the stands.  Now that I am an old woman myself, I look forward to meeting her again in heaven.  We will sit in the mansion Jesus prepared for her and share our stories and our love and our friendship again.  What fun that will be!
Categories: Random thoughts on being me | Leave a comment

Lessons from Old Women -part one – Aunt Esther

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Donna Coulson

As I shared last week, I’ve been thinking about my current state of ‘old woman-ness’ .  That has lead me to a series of memories of the most wonderful, venerable ladies who have graced my life.  I can readily think of four women, who I considered ‘old women’ at the time they were in my life, who have had a deep and abiding impact on me.  With only one possible exception, these ladies lived quite small lives as far as I know.  They were not famous or well known, they weren’t influential on a grand scale. But. Each of them has influenced me and taught me important lessons about life and living and being female.  I’d like to publicly thank each one of them and tell you a little of the story of them and me.

I lived far away from my Dad’s mother, and while she was a remarkable woman, she and I never spent much time alone together.  My mother’s mother died when I was barely five.  I remember her cuckoo clock and that she fed peanuts to squirrels by hand from her kitchen window.  So instead of a grandmother, I was gifted with my great Aunt Esther.  Aunt Est lived in Mount Vernon, South Dakota, which was about 500 miles from Cheyenne, Wyoming where I grew up.  That was a very long way away back then.  I do not remember exactly how it happened, but during the summer of 1973, the year between my junior and senior years of high school, I spent a week at Aunt Esther’s house.

For all intents and purposes, it should have been an incredibly boring week for a 17 year old.  We didn’t do anything or go anywhere outside the house that I remember.  She taught me to do hairpin lace crochet.  (We must have gone to the store, because I bought yarn that week and began an afghan that I still have and love, though I don’t remember the trip.)  We walked her dog, a dachshund named Fellow who loved cookies. We watched Days of Our Lives, As the World Turns, and the Watergate trials.  The soap operas were commonplace to me, my mom watched them.  They were just what being home in the early afternoon meant.  The Watergate Trials were a different story.  I didn’t understand them, and Esther, with patience and simplicity, explained them to me, step by step.  So began an interest and understanding of politics and the political world that I would never had if it hadn’t been for Esther.  We also talked.  I don’t remember specific conversations, but I do remember leaving her home armed and enabled in a way that I’d never felt before.

The me before that week was different than the me after that week, and while she didn’t overtly encourage me do do so, I registered to vote on my 18th birthday and joined the Navy right out of high school – actions at least indirectly related to the empowerment I got from Aunt Est. In the places that my mother, in love and fear for her last born child and her own innate timidity, couldn’t grant me encouragement, Esther could.  It was fitting, then, that after I left home, Aunt Esther and I continued our friendship by mail.  I have each letter still, tied with ribbon and kept safe.  I have transcribed each one, so I can read them digitally whenever I want  or need to.  Her letters: received at boot camp, when I was struggling at the Defense Language Institute, in Rota, Spain where I was later stationed, as a lonely girl away from home, as a newlywed, as a mom-to-be.  Her letters shared with me the wisdom of a life lived with faith, love, integrity and commitment.  She told me stories of growing up on a very poor farm, a girl when girls weren’t prized. She shared how, without an education, she immersed herself in books and news to teach herself what she needed to know to become a better person.   She shared sadness and defeat and gave me glimpses of how one could triumph over events that seem overwhelming. (How could you live on when your husband accidentally shoots and kills your toddler as he cleaned his gun?) Above all, she loved me.  Unconditionally.  She didn’t always agree with me, and she encouraged me to slow down and take time to think things through.  But, when I didn’t, she didn’t send recriminations or disappointment, she was just there to love me.

Aunt Esther died while I was in Spain.  My mother’s letter, telling me the news is tied with a ribbon with the rest.  I’ve never been back to Mount Vernon, and I’ve never put a rose at her headstone.  But I don’t need a rock or a plot of land as a memorial to my Aunt Esther.  I hope, more than anything, that I have internalized her love of reading and her love of thinking as well as her love for living life in such a way that I myself am a monument to her.

 

Categories: Random thoughts on being me | Leave a comment

Timing is everything

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Donna Coulson

It used to be that you weren’t supposed to wear white in the winter.  The rule was you could safely wear those pretty white pumps or that white dress only at Easter or after, but only before Labor Day.  I’m not sure who made up that rule or why, but it provided safety for those of us who wanted to be stylish without really knowing what we were doing.  We don’t adhere to that guidance anymore – its another of our social conventions that have gone out the window, and because of this new permission to do the forbidden, I am sometimes worried what the rules really are.

On that same note, I want to tell you that for many years – many years- I have treasured a poem by Jenny Joseph called “When I Am An Old Woman, I Shall Wear Purple”.  If you haven’t heard of it, stop right now, Google it, read it at least twice, then come back here and finish with me.  Seriously, read it, but don’t forget to come back.

Welcome back!  As I was saying, I love this poem.  I love it because I truly believe that in this life we must seek continually to ‘make our own fun’.  Certainly, the world doesn’t always provide opportunities for joy, and I believe that it is up to us, it is a call by God actually, to find our own paths to joy and laughter.  (See Philippians 4 about rejoicing in the Lord…but do that later, or you’ll never finish this blog!)

Anyway.  The poem says that when she becomes old she will wear garish clothes and not worry about what the fashion police say.  She’ll eat what she chooses and not worry so much about cholesterol or pounds.  She’ll indulge herself with the things she loves, even if those things include hoarding pencils or, in my case, sea shells and sea glass and turtle figurines… She laments, though, that she can’t actually do all she wants right now because she has responsibilities.  You know, mortgages and car payments, judgemental neighbors, children who need her.

So here is the crux of the matter.  When exactly am I going to be an “Old Woman”?  When exactly can I start wearing purple with a red hat?  When can I legitimately stop worrying about convention and properness and really go for it?  ‘Cause here’s the deal – I am 60 now.  I am retired.  I even have a card from the Virgin Islands government that deems me a senior and affords me discounts and special privileges.  BUT – I still feel bound by habit and social pressure. There are still bills and shaking heads and unwritten rules that tell me that a woman of my age shouldn’t get a tattoo or wear THAT in public. When I’ve told friends I was retiring, I’ve been asked dozens of times, “What will you DO now that you are retired?” What if I don’t want to DO anything?  What if I want to take up guitar playing and sky diving? When will I be an old woman enough that I  let go of the threat of someone disapproving?  Hmph.

 

Categories: Living on St Croix, Random thoughts on being me | 2 Comments

Happy New Year 2017

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Donna Coulson

I love Christmas Eve.  All the anticipation of the season is concentrated on this day.  It is a quiet, soft day no matter where I am or what the weather is.  The anticipation of presents and fun and dinner and all the wonderful pieces of Christmas tradition come together to create an air of waiting on Christmas Eve that is precious.  I love picturing the scene of the shepherds in the fields, a young couple making their way to somewhere to get out of the dark and finding nowhere but a stable.  Can you imagine what Mary was thinking?  She’d been visited by an angel and she knew the Babe she carried was the Son of God.  Don’t you suppose she was confused about not being able to find a place to stay?  I love Christmas Eve because the whole world held its breath that night to see what was going to happen, and I can relive that wondrous waiting each year on some sort of mini scale because of the beauty of Christmas Eve.

New Year’s Eve is a different story.  New Year’s Eve is often taking a nap and having your nails done in preparation for a crazy night out – if you engage in that sort of revelry. The night itself isn’t set up for introspection or quiet, we stuff millions of people in Times’ Square and shout the year away. Surely there is some planning involved, but it just isn’t the same. The wonder is gone. Actually, Karl and I didn’t do anything different than we always do.  Mostly, it was a Saturday.  Mostly.  In the evening, we did stay up all the way to ten pm.  I did drink sparkling wine with dinner.  But over all, even during the years we have gone to a party or done something festive, the day of New Year’s Eve is simply the day before New Year’s party.

That’s why I think the Crucians (natives of St. Croix, of course), have the right idea.  They don’t acknowledge New Year’s Eve, at least not the way mainlanders do.  They don’t even call it New Year’s Eve.  No.  We just celebrated Old Year’s day and night, and then celebrated New Year’s Day.

I’ve been pondering the power of naming it differently.  By giving the last day of the year its own name, its own title instead of linking it with the next day, I spent the day entertaining fleeting thoughts about 2016 and years past, but mostly I spent the day in the here and now as opposed to in tomorrow.  That seems pretty powerful to me, as I often waste time (lots and lots of time!) worrying about what is going to happen, or what might happen, or what could happen.  The lifestyle on my new island is laid back.  We’re famous for being the “No Hurry”.  I appreciate that, and that is one of the aspects of island life that drew me in.  But I think there’s a more subtle and powerful aspect than just pace.  I think that’s one of the lessons God is teaching me.  Retirement and taking it easier doesn’t mean just heaping less on my plate, or doing it slower and with less urgency.  It is living today – just today.  For me, that isn’t an easy lesson, but when the afternoon gets hot and the sea calls, it is easier here to leave the grindstone my nose has found and just go swim with the fish.

May 2017 be a beautiful year for you.  May you live each day in the here and now.  Me, too!

Categories: Living on St Croix, Random thoughts on being me | Leave a comment