Back in my regular church-attending days, before I got disenchanted/cynical/lazy? I learned a formula for night prayer which I've often used and found worth in.

The priest who outlined this in his sermon was one of the forces who contributed to my disenchantment and cynicism, but I hope that I'll remember his useful advice longer than I remember his silver trimmed boots and glam vacations whiled he railed against the spending habits of the congregation, many of whom were raising large Catholic sized families and buying their little shoes four and five pair at a time at Target. (Ooooh.  Haven't forgotten them yet I guess.)

Anyway, here's his advice.  Every night take time to reflect and think of:  
            Three things that you are truly thankful for;
            One thing you are proud that you did;
            One thing you are repentent for that you did;
            One thing you resolve to do in the next day.

The more I try to make the sets of three real and not the easy, "I'm thankful for my family, I'm proud I was good, I'm sorry I was bad, and tomorrow I'm going to be good," the more I get out of it.  I once read a quote from some person of spiritual note that the only prayer one needs is to say, "Thank you."  The gratitude part of the prayer has really come to mean the most to me and my sense of wonder at the good things in my life has grown by taking time to consider what makes my life valuable to me.

A side benefit of this prayer is that many times I fall asleep while I'm turning it over in my mind.  A lot of times I don't even get to the parts about being sorry and being better the next day.  It's kind of a gift of the thing, I think.

It is a perfect winter day.  It isn't necessarily a beautiful winter day, blue-skied, bright white snow drifts, sparkling icicles in tree branches, but it is a perfect winter day.

Snow there is, piled up, days old and still untrampled and dirtied.  It's been too cold for children to go out and use it, and too cold to have the snow in the trees melt and refreeze into crystal points catching sunlight.  And the sky is dull gray, no sun shiining through anyway.  The trees at the back of the lot are dark against the sky, but drought-weary and cold, they offer little variation in color.  The view looks very much like a black and white photograph, bright white snow, sculptured stone wall, and  dark tree silouettes rising into the flat gray sky.

There is color though, bright colors in all shades.  Jacket-clad students from the high school in the field are cross-country skiing their way through their phy ed. class period.  They glide just behind the trees, some of them graceful and seemingly effortless, others struggling with unfamiliar movements on unaccustomed to equipment..  Would they rather be in the sweaty atmosphere of the gym, climbing a rope or learning to swing dance, or breathing the chlorine of the pool playing water polo instead of in the cold air sliding on bright white powder?

It is a perfect winter day.  When their lives are taken up by responsibilities that keep them indoors, this is the winter day they'll miss.

I really didn't see this one coming.  Below is the pit of depression my husband went into yesterday, on that Valentine's Day I was so pinkheartsand laceed about.  I spent the day functioning as mom, dad, and friends to my son who had planned a day of father/son companionship.  The fabulous Valentine Day dinner I had planned never got cooked, T and I stopped for gyros, because that's what T wanted.  The damn steaks and strawberries can rot into a  moldy pile of green and black slime.

This brings back memories of a dozen years ago when he was seriously depressed and I was singlely-parenting children shell-shocked from a move that was supposed to be good for all of us.  We lost our day-to-day friend network and found ourselves in a different culture from our not-too-far away old neighborhood, he went to work at the same job with the same people in the same familiar surroundings.  At the time I sent another son who missed his dad to play at houses of kids where the dad would throw the ball with the kids and go to the sports card shop.  I wanted him to experience what being a man meant.  That kid is now doing well in life, though he's talked with me about the space in his past where there should have been some time with his dad., and when he needs a parent's ear, he usually comes to me, even when the subject is one his dad knows a lot more about. 

The boy who needs his Dad now doesn't have many friends, and his best buddy's dad seems more interested in himself than in his own son, much less his son's friend.

Sometimes I wish I had the luxury of falling into the pit.  It would have some aspects of, "Here, you drive.  I'm too tired.  I'm just going to rest."  He's admitted he sometimes chooses to let himself sink, rather than work on his life.

Today there are serious family commitments, so important even the off-site son is coming home.  I am grieved to have him come home to the dad-less landscape again.  On the phone last night I almost asked him not to come.  Last time I pretty much kept the situation out of  the view of people not in our house. 

I hate being a married single parent.  I hate being a lonely wife.

I've been down there before He said.

It's quiet and dark

I crouch down, turn to the wall and shut my eyes tight.

I pretend I'm alone and then you all pretend too.

And it's all about me

And I can do it whenever I want to.

You know I go down there on purpose, but

You can't prove it.

And you can't stop me.

I go whenever I want to.

And I don't care if you're alone in the bright lights

and the noise. 

Because I'm in the dark quiet

And I can be there whenever I want.

You're in the loud glare alone and I know you won't run,

Won't hide.  You stand there and take it.

And I go whenever I want.

So, what are the big lively things I'm doing? Reading and sitting in my car waiting for people.

While waiting for someone on Sunday I ran to Barnes and Noble for a book because I've been a very good girl and deserved a treat.  Although I wandered around so long I was a half hour late back at the pickup point, I couldn't find any book I was interested in. (Note to simplelsie: Write an entry on all of the subjects you don't want to read about.) This has happened a few times before in my life and always makes me feel unsettled. Reading has always been a passion of mine, and if I don't feel like 'doing it', it must mean I'm hormone-unbalanced in some disturbing way.

The hormone therapy I decided to employ was to pick a book of short stories and shop for a new author that way. I bought "The Best American Non-Required Reading Book," a collection of pieces from books, magazines, websites, and who knows where else. I doubt I'm going to find my new author in it, but the pieces are very interesting. One is a study of Saddam Hussein which has been a fascinating change of subject for my Houdinibun in Wonderland brain. Another one traced a woman's T shirt donated to a New York charity resale shop as it was sold to a clothing reseller and sold to a grandfather in Africa.

The biggest surprise in the book however is the first piece. The string of events that led me to having already read it a year and a half ago is so improbable, it's kind of a story in itself. The Simplefolk  went on long car trip filled with adversity and our Great Lakes habituated car traversed big states in 100+ temperatures (the car body actually buckled from the heat) and climbed mountains it's 160,000 mile old engine wheezed up and down. Just over the Continental Divide it broke down, as so many over the hill pioneers had expired before, and its bones were left in Butte, Montana.

We had to Amtrak back from Whitefish, Montana. To pass the time on the train I bought a Time magazine with a Lewis and Clark expedition story on the cover. Lewis and Clark were very big that summer. It was a significant anniversary of their funfilled Westward trip, and reading about while passing parts of their trail was a serendipitous combination for a former history majorwho usually had no free time to read during the summer months.  And that's how I came to read "What Sacagawea Means to Me", which I didn't care for much the first or second readings, but which brought me some very happy memories.

Last night LJ and I celebrated a 21st birthday with my best friend and her daughter.  I've known them since K was 2 years old, toddling around in diapers and it was fun remembering some of her special ways of toddling through those early years and really knowing the people we were with.  K's dad died about five years ago, and had suffered from depression as does my husband, and was hospitalized while K was still a preschooler.  I used to babysit for her while her mom B went to visit the psychiatric hospital to see J.

Sometimes it's amazing how life works.  I didn't know about J's illness when I first got to know B and  my husband's depression hadn't yet made itself so obvious that I recognized it yet.  We were good friends before the RF's first real descent into the pit.  And in the years since, B has been the only person I know who really knows what it's like to live with a depressed person.  She knows that I have his depression, our children have it, the paint in the house seems to have it.  I can tell her about the catastrophic decisions he makes when he's not competent  to make decisions, and what a jerk he can be and she knows he is not his illness and is pleasant to him when she sees him.  And just as important she knows that it is not in my power to save him, cure him, excuse him, or leave him.

And for those times when life is on an even keel, B is funny and wise but still  generous to the point that complete strangers show up at her door with improbable stories of why they need money and she gives it to them just in case they really do need even when she knows in her heart they are lying to her about why they need it.  She never attended college, but is better informed and more savvy than I am.  I have to stay somewhat aware of events or be shamed by her understanding of politics and the economy.  She reminds me to give the people in my family the benefit of the doubt, but she's still my friend and defender in all matters.

So today I am in awe of how B came into my life before I ever knew I'd need a friend like her.