I am unmoored easily--drifting off into melancholy waters almost effortlessly.  Mired in the sticks. I am improving, though, in extricating my vessel and rowing away from those dim shores.  And that is accomplished so often by changing my mind. What am I emphasizing in my life: What's wrong? What's not been done?  The what ifs? I'd surely be happier if this or that was different.  If that person would just change their stupid ways.  I know better than to get stuck in this opaque sea.  I have the power to think differently.  And so I asked, "What's making me happy?"

I dream often. I attempt to record these parables that come in the night watches, but frequently they melt from my memory like a light snowfull on a sunny, wintry morning.  But not this one. The dream stayed with me.

Someone left a dog on my porch.  The dog was golden with soft fur--as soft as those throws that you can buy now at department stores--that if you lie down on the sofa and cover yourself with them, you'll never want to get up.  He was gentle and looked up at me with soulful blue eyes.  I couldn't imagine anyone not claiming this gorgeous creature. I thought, "Could I keep him?"  I hesitated.  He wasn't mine.  I looked for someone he might belong to, but there was no one.  And so I imagined that he could actually be mine.  He could be my friend.  Someone to walk with.  I love talking walks.  I became joyful believing he and I could walk the road by my house together.  His name was Elliott.

I looked at my calendar for December--not much white space--all the little boxes filled in with something.  Commitments, parties, shopping, decorationg.  I felt overwhelmed and caught off guard.  I thought I had chosen carefully this year--built in margin to create a more relaxed and tranquil holiday season.  Yet the configurations on my calendar did not promise peace.

So my task I realized was to cut through the pandemonium.  "But how?" I asked.  One of my truest ways to cope is writing pages every morning before I start my day.  I got the idea from Julia Cameron and her classic book on recovering creativity, The Artist's Way. Often the Morning Pages offer answers to living my life more creatively and sanely.  There in those pages I "practice the scales of life," so to speak.  I write about daily events and my emotions.  There are prayers on the page. I record ideas and dreams.  I recall good books I've read--movies that make an impact.  The pages are the keyboard, the words the scales, to help me fine tune the melodies of my life and heart.  I went to the pages again and looked back.  These are a few coping strategies that assist me in cutting through the pandemonium:

My mother had a penchant for the underdog. She could also look profoundly glamourous when she wanted to, but mostly she wore brown rubber flip flops and a pair of my father's green plaid shorts that hit her just above the knee.  She said they were the most comfortable thing she owned.  Often I'd come home from school, and there she sat swinging her slender, bare leg back and forth, the worn flip flop dangling off her bony but dainty foot.  "Put your books down," she'd say.  "We're going to see the couple who visited us at church last Sunday."  At that point, even at eight, I'd feel ambivalent.  My mother had this habit of just popping in on people.  Sometimes I'd feel embarassed, because I could sense discomfort when they stood in their doorways trying to hide the fact that the living room was a trainwreck.  But my mother in her shorts and bright smile would say, "We were just so happy to see you last week at church.  So glad you came.  Just wanted to welcome you and invite you back."  And almost a hundred percent of the time, those surprised folks would invite us in and offer us a glass of iced tea.  Maybe it was the fact that my mother was so unassuming wearing men's shorts and holding her little girl's chubby hand.

The day was mild and blue.  A zephyr breeze gusted lightly over our faces.  The sun caressed us. Burgandy sequins on my gown glinted in the tranquil light.  We celebrated this day.  A wedding.  My daughter, the bride, was sequestered away in all her finery. The groom stood under the chuppah, smiling and trim, formal and handsome in his tux. Waiting.

I could hear the guests, their voices a melodic murmur as they took their seats in wooden chairs placed on the green.  I looked out over the horizon and several boats sailed silently through the cobalt harbor waters.  I was an observer in that moment--just listening and watching and feeling as if I might have landed in an enchanted geography--whispers of Narnia.  This was a place that simultaneously contained a sense of pleasurable expectation and a delicate feeling of nostalgia.