NOVEMBER 2004

The CORNUCOPIA Issue:

• The Calm Before the Holiday Storm - Lizbeth Finn-Arnold
• Sally Said (Short Fiction) - Regina Walker
• 'Tis the Season to be S.A.D. -- Elizabeth Katkics Thompson
• Thanksgiving -- Gerry Di Gesu
• Cold Harvest -- Elizabeth Ross
• Always a Child -- Jim Turner

The Calm Before the Holiday Storm

WHEN, I ask you, did Halloween become the official kick-off point for Christmas? Wasn’t it just a couple of years ago that Thanksgiving was the official start of the most crass consumer of all holidays? Why didn’t I get the memo, the one explaining that the Christmas invasion would begin early this year?

I found myself feeling a bit anxious in the middle of my supermarket on Halloween. Why? Because I ran in for a couple of last minute Halloween treats and found none to be in existence. Instead, I found aisles and aisles of Christmas products. They seemed to mock me openly – “Forget about Halloween, you loser, you’re already a day behind for Christmas…and you will fail.”

So much for living in “the moment” as the Buddhists encourage us to do. In our world, there is no such thing. Holidays should be celebrations of togetherness and provide opportunities for us to take a break from our oh-so-busy lives. But instead, the holiday season has become a stress-inducing time of hyper-planning that sets us all up for ultimate disappointment and disaster. Thanksgiving and Christmas become days in which we “fail” rather than moments for which we give thanks or meditate on the simple pleasures of life.

I look around and I see parents everywhere who are exhausted, tense, and stressed out. I see people who seemingly have everything, yet are still dissatisfied and unfulfilled. I see children who want everything, and then still aren’t happy once they’ve got it. I see a country of people searching for answers, binging on a steady diet of junk consumerism, filling themselves up with empty, meaningless material objects. On the outside, we are a fat and bloated society. But deep down inside, we are starving -- yearning for something more substantial and more filling.

In preparation for the onslaught of the holiday season, I have been trying to calm myself by reading the book, Buddhism for Mothers: A calm approach to caring for yourself and your children. Sarah Napthali writes:

“The cause of suffering and unsatisfactoriness is desire. The world we live in has turned us into creatures tormented by innumerable desires. The objects of our desire won’t bring us peace and we are often blind to the effects of our endless striving for them.”

There is no doubt that most of us want to be happy. And there is nothing wrong with that. But I wonder, why we think that we will find this happiness in objects that “WE MUST HAVE.”

Not that I’m perfect. Like everyone, I have a list of “things that I need to feel happy and whole.” But this year, the over-zealous, over-the-top marketing of Christmas sort of has me cringing with a bad taste in my mouth. I think maybe retail has gone a bit overboard in their attempt to compete for limited customers and extend the buying season. Target sent out it’s chunky holiday circular as an insert in the newspaper, not on Thanksgiving (as acceptable) but on HALLOWEEN!! Amazon.com, Gap, and Toy-R-Us, have already sent me email reminders to “shop early for the holidays.” Almost every retailer in America had their Christmas displays up by Halloween this year.

I feel surrounded and yes, THREATENED, by Christmas, a holiday I once loved and anticipated. Like a gluttonous kid who has binged on too much sugar and junk food, instead of feeling happy, I feel queasy. I am downright nauseated by just the sight and sounds of Christmas. And I feel myself developing an aversion to all things marketed as “festive must-haves items” of the holiday season.

According to Buddhism, “the keys to peace and calmness are within.” And so I remind myself that I can choose to ignore the holiday madness and calmly approach it in the ways that I prefer. Instead of becoming anxious about it all, I can close my eyes, take a deep breath, and remind myself that I already have everything I need for happiness.

And EVERYTHING ELSE is just gravy.

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Copyright 2004 Lizbeth Finn-Arnold

Lizbeth Finn-Arnold is a freelance writer and independent filmmaker who works and lives in suburban New Jersey with her husband, Mike, daughter, Olivia (8), son, Jared (5) and Labrador Retriever, Elvis (3). She is also the editor and publisher of The Philosophical Mother and a columnist for Literary Mama. You can read her daily blog, MOM & Pop Culture.

Sally Said

Short Fiction by Regina Walker

Sally said that my knee bones stick out too far so that means I’m chicken-footed. She also said my family is dirt poor cause we got plastic wrap in the windows instead of glass, but momma said that plastic wrap costs more than glass so we actually got more money and we change the plastic a lot and people with glass only change it when it is broke.

Sally said we’re friends but only sometimes when nobody’s watching cause her mother sez that my momma’s trash cause she’s got loads of kids, but no husband and no money. And Sally’s mother said I wouldn’t be no better ‘cause the apple don’t fall too far from the tree and Sally don’t need no friends from that side of the track. Sally said she likes me anyway but she hates my sister ‘cause my sister picks her nose and doesn’t wipe it with a tissue when she sneezes. She also said my sister’s always got a scab on her knee and it’s always bleedy because she picks that too and eats it, but I never noticed.

Sally always asks me about my dad, but I don’t know. When I ask momma she sez he died in a war in England before I was born but Sally said that’s not true ‘cause her mother said there ain’t been no wars in England and my brother and sister are younger than me. My momma said Sally’s mother don’t know what she’s talking about ‘cause she ain’t worked a day in her life.

Momma told me I don’t need a friend like Sally and I should stick with my brothers and sisters ‘cause they’re the only ones I can count on in the end and she heard Sally’s mother was making a stink at the school ‘cause people like us was moving into the neighborhood. I told Momma ‘bout Maria’s nose always running and her knee always bleeding, but she said she never noticed it neither.

I like Sally even though momma told me not to ‘cause she’s the only one at school who lets me borrow her pencil and she sez that even though I’m chicken-footed I got nice hair ‘cause it’s blonde. She said if I wash it more often it might be blonder but momma said that’s a load of crap and Sally’s just jealous ‘cause she’s got mousy brown hair and her eyes are too close together. Momma said that Sally’s mother is prejudiced against us cause our clothes are old and one day Sally’d be just like her and I don’t need no friends if they’re gonna have their noses up in the air.

Sally said she saw Maria kissing some fat boy behind the school and that Maria’s probably pregnant because of it, but she said her mother said my momma wouldn’t even notice ‘cause she’s already got so many kids and they’d all probably become tramps like her. Sally’s mother said my momma’s ignorant ‘cause she’s got holes in her shoes and does other people’s laundry, but don’t do her own.

One day I told Sally we probably shouldn’t be friends no more since her mother don’t like my momma and my momma don’t like her mother, but Sally said it was okay because she didn’t mind. Sally said she felt sorry for me because her mother told her people like me never get anywhere ‘cause even if I’m smart it costs money to get an education and money is something that people like me just don’t got. Sally said maybe if I washed my hair her brother would marry me, but her mother said she didn’t raise her son to marry trash and besides people like me ain’t for marrying. Sally said she still thinks I got a chance but Maria don’t ‘cause of her knee and her nose and ‘cause of the fat boy and all. Momma said it’s okay ‘cause you can’t depend on nobody anyway and Maria can’t get pregnant from kissing.

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Copyright 2004 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine. Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com. Her work will be featured in an upcoming issues of Atheist Bear and Motherload. She is the author of the "Clinical Viewpoint" column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. Regina received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University. She is a social worker and addiction treatment specialist in NYC. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

'Tis the Season to be S.A.D.

By Elizabeth Katkics Thompson

It starts somewhere around the mid-September, when the weather starts to cool and mums begin to appear on the neighbors’ front stoop. Just about the same time when the playgrounds are packed with fresh pine mulch and are filled with drunken honeybees.

It takes place soon after the first soccer game and before the first class photo. While the days quickly turn into night and the trees begin to drop their leaves suddenly. About the time when the parkways have emptied of endless shore traffic and the countryside harvests are well underway. When the grass grows a little slower and the late afternoon cicada song shifts from solo to chorus.

While picking up my children from school a few weeks ago and being bombarded by the ghost of holidays to come:

“What do you think I should be for Halloween?”

“When is it my birthday?”

“Is everyone coming to our house for Thanksgiving?”

“How many days until Christmas?”

“When is it my birthday?”

My four children are already thinking two holidays and a full season ahead of schedule.

I admit, having contributed to the chorus of moans and groans upon seeing Christmas decorations in September, my first thought of the holiday season is, “Ugh! And it starts…”

Why?

One of the many reasons, I think, is that motherhood has conditioned my brain toward responding, inescapably, to the effects of high volume advertising and pre-season blowouts including, but not limited to, the back-to-school sale. This typically requires some form of shopping be done….in a store….full of other people….shopping…. and the binding family style dinner.

But, when did the holidays turn from annoying to down right sad?

There’s always a lot of media mention about “the holiday blues” this time of year. It’s supposed to be “the most wonderful time of the year,” but for some people it’s not. I remember reading somewhere about a mood disorder associated with the seasonal changes in light. It’s called seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and the National Mental Health Association states that, “Some people suffer from symptoms of depression during the winter months, with symptoms subsiding during the spring and summer months.”

Could this be what I was feeling? Or was it just your normal, average, everyday mommy stress?

The article went on to say that, “…as seasons change, there is a shift in our 'biological internal clocks' or circadian rhythm, due partly to these changes in sunlight patterns. This can cause our biological clocks to be out of 'step' with our daily schedules. The most difficult months for SAD sufferers are January and February, and younger persons and women are at higher risk…”

Okay. So, I was definitely in the “higher risk” range, but could I truthfully say that I was spiraling into some sort of seasonal depression?

Then I remembered 1956.

I wasn’t actually there, but I remembered the story. It was the year my father spent the holidays in the United States for the first time and contemplated suicide, ever. He was nineteen and alone. Not without friends, because there were three others that escaped with him, his sponsors (a local American family with Hungarian ties) and the local priest, who he didn’t care for much. But, they weren’t family. He missed his father, his sisters and physically ached for his mother’s voice and was reminded of them at every turn. He found himself experiencing Thanksgiving for the first time and wondering if there was anything truly to be thankful for. Could he have imagined a day when he would push away from a table filled with food, satisfied?

While he sent boxes of canned food to his family back home, his depression became worse and his first New Year’s Eve, in America, was spent at the corner bar, listening to other folks complaining about their families as he wondered… was his freedom worth leaving all that he knew and loved?

Fortunately, he pulled through and still calls it, “the Christmas that I almost wasn't,” and often says he understands why people often succumb to their depression at that time of year.

So, I’m thinking that it’s okay to not feel so happy about all the hype. That no matter how much I clean or how early I shop, one of my children will most likely be sick and there will always be a place that sells it that much cheaper! And as long as I get through it with my mind, body and new Kia Sedona intact, I should be fine. That maybe I ought to think about lessening my expectations for the holidays. And then maybe, just maybe, I won’t be as disappointed when they don’t match up to what the media version of a perfect holiday.

Alas, some old habits are hard to break… because the kids have already composed their letters to Santa… and so have I:

Dear Santa,

I have been a very good mommy this year. I have tried to express, in many different ways, how much I love my family and friends; tried to listen more than speak; tried to forgive and forget; went another year without knowing my exact weight; changed what I could, and made peace with the rest.

The only thing I want for Christmas is a space to call my own.

Today’s mail is hiding somewhere under a mass of pumpkin drawings. My desktop publishing CD is missing and has been replaced with Mr. Potato Head. Thanksgiving recipes are mixed in with job search responses. Remodeling brochures are mixed in with coloring books. PTO donation reminders, Girl Scout community service requirements, and class mom reminders are posted everywhere. Donating my time has become second nature to me, now. I’m perpetually logged onto EBAY and QVC… and what the heck is that sticky spot just to the right of my “I Love Nantucket” mouse pad, anyway?

So, come on Santa baby, make me into the well-organized and well-informed person that I seemed to have lost somewhere in between MOTHER and HOOD.

Yours faithfully,

I.M. Amess

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Copyright 2004 Elizabeth Katkics-Thompson

Elizabeth Katkics-Thompson is a mother to four children and has been married for 13 years to her husband, Pete. Liz also writes a weekly column entitled, Married With A Whole Lot of Children at Just For Mom and has had essays posted at The Imperfect Parent. You can read the ongoing adventures of her life at This Full House, the blog. Liz lives and writes in New Jersey.

Thanksgiving

Serendipity: “The gift of finding valuable things not sought for.” One of my favorite words reminds me again that there can be a pleasant surprise or positive aspect to almost every situation if we look hard enough. Perhaps it’s been an entire year you’d like to forget, but Thanksgiving is the time to poke around for positives. You might be surprised at what you find.

Our kids often drive us crazy. We always seem to be driving them somewhere, waiting for appointments, hurrying to speed them on their way to becoming adults. Why not say thanks to those who help them through the maze of childhood and adolescence: Scout leaders who spend hours planning meetings, special events and camping trips. Religious education teachers who volunteer their time to help our kids become caring, concerned people. Coaches who help them realize their potential in athletics and instill a sense of sportsmanship and camaraderie.

I’m fortunate to have a job I enjoy, a boss with integrity who treats me with consideration and kindness and co-workers it’s a pleasure to greet each morning. We disagree at times and get on each other’s nerves, but I think I’m lucky. One co-worker talks incessantly, but the guy at the next desk brings me coffee each day. That’s the way it goes.

I have friends and neighbors who are always there when I need them. They collect packages from the UPS driver, bring in the garbage cans twice a week or drive me fifteen miles to pick up my husband’s set of keys at work after I lock myself out of the house. It’s a glorious feeling to know I can pick up the phone and receive help immediately. I’m spoiled for there aren’t too many neighborhoods like mine any more.

Thanks to the priests who lead my church community in the search for peaceful solutions to the problems of mankind. Their job isn’t an easy one -- to keep perspective while not losing their smile, to console others when they may be hurting more, to inspire faith when theirs may be lagging. Then comes the joy of mass, baptism, communion or confirmation and my faith is re-affirmed again.

Thanks to my three kids for putting up with my ever-changing moods. I tell them "all geniuses are moody" and they just laugh. To a daughter who patiently keeps trying to help me look “jazzy”. To three super kids who leave books, sneakers, and socks strewn around the first floor all week but help me vacuum and dust each Saturday. For two sons who cleaned up the house and prepared a tasty Italian meal for us after their dad and I returned from a long weekend. They tell me I look pretty as I leave for a wedding reception. They encourage my writing and leave me alone when I want solitude. They hug me every day.

Most of all this holiday, I’m thankful for my husband. We’ve been married a long time and will always be in the process of “adjusting”. He’s a man who does the grocery shopping, laundry, and cooking. He's a considerate man who sorts out the mess I’ve made of our checkbook and takes time to prepare a huge antipasto for a friend’s surprise birthday dinner. He’s a gentle man who can always fix the barrette in Nancy’s hair or tie the bow in her dress -- better than I can.

He still gets a hug and “good night dad” from teenage sons even after bellowing at them over dinner because they know how much he cares. He’s a man who surprises me with a bowl of flowers and a lovely note on the kitchen table after a stormy argument. I am blessed. So are you. Look around.

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Copyright 2004 Gerry Di Gesu

Gerry is a retired school secretary who divides her time between homes in New Jersey and Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Her essays and poem have appeared in the New York Times, Catholic Digest, Cape Women magazine and a variety of publications and anthologies. Her recently published collection of essays – “Keep Quiet, You’re Only A Girl” – is available from iUniverse, Amazon, Barnes and Noble.com and at your local bookstore. E-mail gerry at gerrycapecod.net@att.net.

Cold Harvest

It’s always been a battle of sorts at the holidays, determining who does what, which family should be visited, which family should receive a tepid refusal.

When I was young, it was easy, since my father’s family never pushed to have us over for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. So we’d typically pile in the car and head to the city to join my mother’s family for a not-so-well prepared turkey dinner, and a long evening of close company in a house that really wasn’t meant to accommodate the 12 or more people invited.

The numbers dwindled as the years went by, and by the time I was married with kids, there was a great deal of animosity built up by my now ex-husband about my family’s tradition. They tried to like him, but his personality didn’t lend itself to harmony with a fur-friendly household, something that was brought to a head when he started discussing recipes for cooking rabbit, obviously implying that he was considering the family pet for a main course.

I won’t lay blame for the rift in the family on my ex, since I knew very well that it started building before I was born. There was something about my mother leaving on her honeymoon, and returning to an empty bedroom in my grandparents’ house, apparently emptied of her childhood treasures by her mother and brother in her absence. I know the story well, and although I’ve never seen proof of it, I did see signs from both my grandmother and uncle that they were perfectly capable of the act.

Now, I am laying odds that I will be left with the Thanksgiving meal this year, as there is no real reason for my mother and uncle to make outward signs of familial solidarity. My grandmother is dead. She was the last thread to hold the family together, and even if there was some chance to sew some seams, I doubt that anyone concerned has the patience or ambition to bother. I may extend an invitation to my uncle and his family, but I doubt I will get anything more than a rapid refusal, begging pardon for their other obligations.

The situation doesn’t bother me greatly; as it leaves me with less work, and the possibility that I would not have to hire an extra table and chairs for the day. My mother in contrast will undoubtedly fall deeper into the funk that has been grasping at her since my grandmother took ill. Thanksgiving will be a harbinger of loneliness for her, further proving her hypothesis that she truly has nowhere to belong, no family.

I inherited my father’s pragmatism, making it very difficult for me to empathize with my mother’s current plight. In my mind, I don’t see my mother having any real use for my uncle, as he’s never been very brotherly to her over the years, so she may as well toss him aside as she would anything else that doesn’t work for her. I have said this to her, but my words are no comfort. Since my advice isn’t helping, I have begun harboring ill will towards my uncle on her behalf, a feeling that increases daily as I watch her fall deeper into depression over his apparent disregard for her feelings.

Typically, I had always looked forward to the air turning colder, the nights growing longer, and the local farm harvest season preceding the holidays. The time before Thanksgiving was enjoyable, as I looked at it for its own time, not a prelude to the dreaded weeks of preparation for Christmas. December had already been marred for me by family history, since it is the month of loss, holding the anniversaries of the deaths of my great-grandmother, and both grandfathers. November will also hold that onerous position for me now, if only vicariously so, since it holds the first significant day that will undoubtedly mark the dissolution of my mother’s family, Thanksgiving.

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Copyright 2004 Elizabeth Ross

Elizabeth Ross is a 32-year-old mother of four, freelance writer and editor from Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Imperfect Parent, MomsVoice, and is slated to appear in Momentum, the magazine of the National Catholic Educational Association. She is the publisher of River Walk Journal, a bi-monthly online literary journal which is an expansion of her online editing group.

Always a Child

The holiday season is upon us and so it begins -- the time of year when our families gather in large groups to imbibe in the bounties of the year. My family is no different.

I have a large family, and we all have stayed close to home, making it easy to congregate for large feasts at Thanksgiving, and large parties at Christmas. Through the years, my mother’s home was always the one where we seemed to flock like salmon during their annual spawn, when we always seemed to make it home. Nowadays, we still make time to gather at one house as a family.

I always remember having more family and friends in our home than we could fit at one table. There was always that friend from college, or the family that had no other place to go, and the old man from the nursing home without living relatives that somehow ended up sharing our food. We could always improvise and provide a place setting for everyone. The ping-pong table, the garage sale banquet tables and the time we had saw horses and a sheet of 4x8 plywood. Someone should call Jeff Foxworthy I have an addition for his act. Of course there was always the table where the children gathered, the table that was far from the adults where food could be dropped, drinks could be spilled, and where eating was actually optional. The kid’s table is the place where the dogs crowd for one chance at a spilled plate. The kid’s table is where children that don’t want to eat the real food before pumpkin pie, drop the veggies on the floor where dogs are eager to lap it up.

We always aspire as young children to make it to the next level, to be promoted to the table where the grownups eat; to partake in grownup conversation. At the grownups' table you might hear the latest in politics, economics, or the latest family gossip. I look back on a time when I was the awkward age when I hated being at the kid’s table, but did not yet have the ability to mingle with the adults. I can still remember the time when my mother announced that I too had a spot at the adults' table. It was a rite of passage that won’t soon be forgotten. That day I looked at my younger siblings and with chest out and grin on my face -- I sat as the adults welcomed me into the group.

My family has changed through the years, and the torch has been passed to me as first born and oldest amongst the children to host family gatherings. The children’s table is segregated in our home to another spot that cannot be harmed by spills or the occasional dropped glass or plate. The back door is close for sneaking those yucky things that mom put on your plates that in a million years you would not even try or even eat.

Now that I look back, my mother spent a large amount of time at the kids' table when we were young. I have reached the age where I sit at the head of the table and carve the family turkey and conduct the family toast, but the irony sets in, I have again been banished to the kids' table. The last gathering I seemed to spend a lot of time around the kids cleaning up spills, and playing referee over spats of who had the pie and who had the ice cream. So many years ago, I remember looking at my younger siblings with head hanging down and a smirk, as I was moving up to the big table and would not included in their group any longer.

Things have come full circle in my life. I began at the kids' table wanting to earn my way to the head of the grownups' table. I finally made it to my destination and was immediately demoted to watcher of the kids' table once again. I look now to pass the torch to the next person in the family, and look forward once again to sitting at the table of grownups to enjoy my food and the adult conversation -- and to look as the next set of parents wipe mouths, clean up spills, and separate fights over who has the most whipped cream on their pie.

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Copyright 2004 Jim Turner

Jim Turner is the father to Annika (4) and Jake (3) and newborn, Aidan James. Jim keeps a daily blog called Genuine in which he shares his whimisical musings on fatherhood.