Ann Shields on Letting Go

Blogger's Block Cracked Open

I have been avoiding my blog for weeks.  Call it blogger's block.  I get focused on a topic and then get sidetracked.  Or I procrastinate due to life insertions.  Like doctor visits and a new computer and college graduations and dentist stuff. 

Inspiration struck me to blog on the first weekend in June when the anniversary of DDay captured our attention.  We watched the three hour documentary on the History Channel of the Battle of the Bulge and right in the middle Des spotted his brother, Ep, who was killed in Belguim but first wounded on Omaha Beach on DDay.  We froze the frame, played it back and forth, and then I photographed it with my digital camera.

That documentary swept our memory  back to our visit to Ep's memorial in Belguim in 1994 where we walked the road he traveled in the little town of Soy along side the man who found his skeletal frame under dirt in his father's field.  Ep, as you may have heard from us before, was buried under a German tank and wasn't discovered for four years, after the war ended.  It was a chilling, somber walk on that same country road.   We felt it again as we viewed the documentary.    Des is certain it was Ep.  He sure had a sweet smile.  Much like his younger brother's, I think.

Nostalgia captured my attention during the June 14th graduation ceremonies at UCSB of our grandson, Matt Weber.  I remember sitting in that audience when his mother Judith graduated from there.  So did his father, Joe.    Sat there again not that long ago to see granddaughter Suzanne graduated there, as well as her boyfriend Ryan, now her husband.

The day of the graduation was remarkable especially after the ceremony while sitting in an Italian restaurant on State Street in Santa Barbara with 18 others including great grandson Lucas to realize that I was surrounded by all of my immediate family, minus one.  Des wasn't up to the challenge of the day physically and I missed his presence, but it was a joy to be amonag the rest of my kids, grandkids, their mates and Lucas.  I really meant to write about that.

 Every third week of June for 18 years, I drove up highway 101 to settle in at the blue tile roof of the Miramar where I spent a week at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference. I learned more about writing and people and how the rich and famous and not so famous are more like the rest of us than we ever imagined.  I loved that conference, missed it after I quit going.  The excitement in those weeks was palpable.  The conference meets somewhere else now.  The Miramar is  history and just as well.  The place held secrets  dying to come out.  I could write forever about those weeks.  Don't tempt me.

So, now you know why I haven't blogged for a few weeks, but I think the blocked is cracked open.  This has been a heavy weekend with Michael and Farah and Ed  dying.   Sad for so many  But what luck for that  governor in South Carolina who defected like some idiot schoolboy for the sake of lust/love/insanity to have his folly erased from the headlines by the untimely death of a world icon.

So says Sassy

Confessions

2009 is barely a day old and began ominously.  We have not mailed our annual Christmas greeting to friends and family dispersed all over the map.  I can see them spread out on the dining room table, not the friends, silly--the greetings.  There is the letter, reproduced at Kinko's, a bunch of envelopes already hand-addressed.  Forever stamps at the ready.  Discipline at a level one.  Now I am guilt ridden.  Des is half way there, but he is too busy eating a piece of blueberry cream cheese pie from Marie Callendar's.  This after his lengthy nap.  He has no shame, nor guilt.  But, I am Italian, remember. Guilt is my middle name

Every other year, we have been praised for our Christmas greetings.  The pressure was too great to bear this year.  I decided I lost my cleverness.    What I wrote was boring, but I did include a picture of us.  By the time you get it, we will have aged considerable. I am the one with the most hair. 

So why am I guilt ridden?  Well, I worry about all the people who expected a letter from us and now are convinced we have joined that celestial choir in the sky, or we would sure have written.  And speaking of that celestial choir, that is the only time I will ever be allowed to sing in one.  Trust me, this voice is not melodious.  My mother convinced me of that when I was a little girl trying to sing like Shirley Temple.  My mother would sigh, look at me and say, "Ann Marie, quit moaning."  Obviously, my mother escaped the guilt gene.

This morning, we vowed to mail out the letters before dark.  Easy to resolve while all tucked under a warm blanket watching the Rose Parade.  Resolutions weakened from that point on.  The day got frittered away and we never left the house. 

I didn't even list any new resolutions for 2009.  Just Hit the rerun button on all the other WWW's.  Walk-Water-Write-Worship-Wonder---in no particular order, lest you think my spirituality needs a tune-up.

During the fritter part of the day, I decided to abandon a 500 page novel after plodding through 71 pages.  "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski was an Oprah choiece about a mute boy who understood dogs better than people.  How dare I be bored by an Oprah choice, you may wonder?  Well, I did feel guilty about it, so I picked up a book of short stories by Elizabeth Berg and it soothed away my guilt.  I understand her. I want to be her.  That is my test of a good writer, one I envy.

At mid-day, Des wandered into the living room and I pointed to the Christmas greetings.  He sighed, sat down, tried to fold and stuff a few into envelopes and begged off.  Needed a nap.  See, the letter even bored him.  So off he went, followed by Murphy, the Irish cat who needed a nap,too.  The other cat, Mitzi, had already settled in my favorite chair and yawned. 

The beginning of the year was a lazy stretch and now it is too late to mail anything.  Darkness has descended.  If you are on our mailing list for Christmas greetings, rest assured that we are still alive, appreciative of the letters we received this month from all of you, and plan to send ours out any day now.  If you receive it after Valentine's Day, consider it an early greeting for next December.

So Says Sassy