December 09, 2003 8:41 P.M.

Somewhere, It Is Still Like This

�Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.� ~Norman Vincent Peale

The above picture is one that I scanned several years ago, from a Christmas card. I loved it, and put it up as wallpaper on my computer. I still resurrect it every holiday season.

I think I just want to be�there.

I am very aware that most of you read many journals and BLOGs, and sometimes it becomes tedious, just to keep up with all of them. Occasionally you are so swamped with reading material that you hesitate for a moment, and then�just push the �delete� button and skip the reading. Not often, but upon occasion. Well�maybe it is just me that does that.

The first journal I became attached to, and read faithfully for years, was �Willa�s Journal�. For what seemed like years, she faithfully posted a new entry every day. She was committed to it. And I faithfully read it every day. I was committed to doing that. It was sort of my �Soap��or if you are a newspaper reader, it was my �daily comic�. Or my Sports Page. Or whatever. But, I wouldn�t miss it.

My family used to tease me; �What�s happening to Willa today?� They didn�t understand this �journal reading� stuff. I mean, who cares about somebody�s cats?

Well, somehow�I did. Or something.

I have never been one to simply read a journal regularly, without corresponding with the writer. So the writer becomes a friend. To a degree.

I will never forget faithfully following a journalist in the Baltimore area through her trials and tribulations with family, health, and life�s circumstances�for several years, and then she suddenly was not there anymore. I know she is still on the face of the earth, because she teaches at a university, and she is still listed on the staff. (I had thought maybe not, because she had a bout with cancer at one point.) But she not only did not want to write the journal, but she did not want to correspond with any of her readers. I know. Because she is the one who first called me a �Homespun Philosopher�, and I was only exchanging email with her at the time.

It was hard to let go. I cared about her life. And Willa�well, the day came that it was sort of like withdrawals. But I decided that I would not read the journal on a daily basis anymore. It was like a major life change decision.

Willa is still writing the journal, of course. I think not on a daily basis anymore, but regularly. And I owe her a lot. It was through her that I really discovered the whole world of on-line journalists; Anne Lamott; Salon Magazine; web page layout possibilities�and I could go on and on. I also discovered that there are a lot of people interested in hearing you write about your cats�and the weather�and whether or not you have a headache�and�

So why don�t I write about such things? Well I may do so at times. But that is largely not my style. Beside the fact that I don�t find MY cat and two dogs to be that interesting. (I have a tabby and two miniature dachshunds.) But I can enjoy reading about yours. Go figure.

I want to get back to the picture at the top of the page. Well, sort of.

Once upon a time, when I was a young mother, our little family of three children, spent a wonderful year living northeast of Baltimore, in a small all-American community. We had a Fourth of July parade and town picnic. We all took walks in the woods, which surrounded our home�walking to the creek, which was a tributary to the Chesapeake Bay. We picked wild blackberries in the woods on the other side, going downhill to the town center; brought the berries home and baked a fresh pie. The kids walked through the field over to the nearby school, without a care in the world. We drove through the neighboring Pennsylvania Dutch countryside and took mental snapshots of the rolling hills, Amish barns, and covered bridges.

And that Christmas, we traveled to my aunt and uncle�s farm in Illinois, where we experienced the touch of a Courier and Ives Christmas.

During the night, Christmas Eve, a silent snow fell. We awoke to a world blanketed with white. The barns were red, of course, and in one of them, during the night �a baby Black Angus calf had been born. We all wrapped up warmly and ran out to the barn to see the newborn Christmas �gift�, which my uncle named, �Noel�. The presents, the roast turkey feast�farm scale, of course�and the long shadows contrasted with the gold of a setting sun paletted across the snow, brought the perfect day to a glorious conclusion.

Somehow, that picture reminds me. And I want to be there once again.

I am trying to get myself into Christmas. I am working on it. Might as well. It�s gonna be here soon. Maybe this one will create some great memories too. We can look for them.

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