Folks:
Everyone gives to charity in some way: time, money, prayers. You drop coins into the red bucket and get a bell-ringer's thanks. You drop a can of beans into a barrel and it feeds a needy family.
If you are in the Kansas City area, consider giving to the Harvester's Community Food Network Online drive:
https://vfd.harvesters.org/Index.asp?IdS=000228-29EE0B0
This worthy program provides food and "back pack snacks" for families and children in our community. If you give before noon this Thursday, you can dedicate your donation to someone and that person's name will appear in Sunday's Kansas City Star.
My husband and I donated, and I made the donation in the name of my dear little brother, Stephen Patrick Corley, who was born on Christmas Day in 1959 and died in June of 1997.
I am very pleased to be able to celebrate his birthday this way. You, too, can celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah in honor of someone -- by donating to this or any other charity, giving of your time or talents. For example, our two sons will continue the tradition of helping by delivering Meals on Wheels with my best friend, Katrina, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. I am sure there are many giving opportunities in which you can invest, and I encourage you to do so.
If your giving dollars and/or time are already committed to your personal limit, then give by sending positive thoughts out into the Universe, and remember: That clerk has HAD IT with unpleasant shoppers, so give her your smile. That's a gift that keeps on giving, 24/7/365! (or 366, if it's leap year!)
Merry Christmas,
Mugwumpishly tendered, with best wishes to all of you for a very, very safe and joyous holiday season,
Mary-Corinne Teresa Corley,
daughter of Richard Corley and Lucille Lyons Corley,
sister of seven Corleys,
wife of Jim MacLaughlin,
mother of Patrick,
stepmother of Cara and Ansel,
and your friend and colleague.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Saturday Musings, 17 December 2011
Good morning,
Grey sky greets me from the opening where the pale orange curtain parts from the dingy sheer falling to the floor at the side of my dining room window. I strain to find some glimmer of blue but the heavy clouds, with their burden of rain, ice, or snow, block the sun. My heart falls and I think for a moment about the eight-hour drive from Greencastle, Indiana, to Kansas City, and wonder if the Blazer will make the journey without incident.
Seven months into marriage, I still find myself somewhat puzzled at having gone from a family of two to a family of five. The wonder of seeing my stepdaughter walk across a stage, red hair falling in a silky sheath from beneath a mortar board, causes my heart to pound and tears to well in my eyes. I've known this young woman for just over two years and have seen her blossom from someone struggling to find her place in an adult world, to someone poised to conquer. I never doubted that she would reach this point, but I did not anticipate this overwhelming rush of pride.
I cannot deny the strength of feelings that I have for this beautiful young woman who has late come into my life. My son knows that he occupies the first place in my heart, but my stepdaughter and stepson have their own little nooks in that scarred chamber. I've been a stepparent before now, in my first marriage, and not a very good one. I watched my second husband struggle to fit into the nearly impenetrable bond that joins my son and me. I've guided countless clients through the morass of his-mine-ours debates about discipline. I have experienced the pain and pleasure from every direction but one, and I've seen enough to have an inkling of the child's perspective.
With all of that, I nonetheless have been taken very much by surprise at the rise of love which I feel for my stepdaughter. Putting aside the several young women whose younger years coincided with my son's childhood, and whose mothers graciously shared them, she provides my first opportunity for same-gender parenting. She's certainly old enough to need very little hands-on mothering. Still, I have taken full advantage of this chance. I've waited a long time. Though I love my son, I am, after all, the woman who, upon being asked by a helpful clerk if I had gotten what I wanted after standing in the Action Figure aisle for longer than the clerk thought healthy, blurted out, No, I wanted a girl.
I don't doubt that there would have been times when I wished the opposite. I remain convinced that boys cause less daily aggravation. Certainly, they often quickly grow protective of their mothers, as my son did, as my stepson is towards his mother and my son's friends are towards theirs. But something about ribbons, bows, and Barbie dolls makes my stomach clench even now. I have no problem finding Christmas presents for my stepdaughter; in fact, my problem takes the opposite form: stopping myself from getting many more presents for her than for the young men of our family.
I look backwards, with something like sorrow, at the disconnect that broke my relationship with my mother at the start of my college years, which I never quite overcame. I still hear her voice on the telephone, snapping at me, telling me that if you are not home by five o'clock, don't come home at all, occasioning my departure from the family fold just shy of my eighteenth birthday. I never looked back. Though we found a way to communicate, after a fashion, the damage never fully healed. I vividly recall sitting at a restaurant table in the Central West End during graduate school, talking about the silver market and over-sprouted beans, thinking, who is this woman. Had I known she would be gone six years later, I might have tried to find out.
But now I can only gaze at a sepia-tone picture of her dancing in our front yard, and plead with her to tell me what made her heart so glad. In the pages of an old picture album, I find other snapshots from the same day: My grandfather, with his lovely brown skin and tall, sturdy frame; and my brother Frank and me, standing in front of a sheet cake, holding a knife together. I realize that the occasion was a graduation for each of us in the same year. I see the light in her eyes, captured when she least expected, while she looked at me across the room. I am suddenly breathless. This, this, right here in this picture: that is what I felt when Cara walked across that stage last night. A mother's love for her child.
It matters not that she was born of another, who sat in the same auditorium with right of first pride. Nor does it matter that she came from the genes of the man beside me, whose arm I clutched, as I nagged him to quickly hand the camera down to one of the boys so we would not miss the crucial shot. And, finally, that my son was born of me does not diminish my feelings towards my stepdaughter, just as my feelings for her and her brother do not detract from my love of Patrick. Our family has blended.
I glance out the window and am astonished to see that the clouds have scattered, and an azure expanse rises above my neighbor's house. My coffee has been replenished by a man sitting at our table in tennis whites, working a puzzle. In an hour, one of those young women whose lives I have shared will be coming to help me with chores that are beyond my physical ability, and we will have a pleasant hour restoring the Holmes house to cleanliness. Later, when I have done a little shopping and a little fussing over my Christmas list, I will make dinner for the new graduate and her boyfriend, and sometime this evening, my first-born child will arrive for the holiday.
And all will be right with my world, as it turns again, and inches towards the close of another wonderful year.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
Congratulations, Cara Withers MacLaughlin, Bachelor of Liberal Arts Magna Cum Laude, 16 December 2011
Grey sky greets me from the opening where the pale orange curtain parts from the dingy sheer falling to the floor at the side of my dining room window. I strain to find some glimmer of blue but the heavy clouds, with their burden of rain, ice, or snow, block the sun. My heart falls and I think for a moment about the eight-hour drive from Greencastle, Indiana, to Kansas City, and wonder if the Blazer will make the journey without incident.
Seven months into marriage, I still find myself somewhat puzzled at having gone from a family of two to a family of five. The wonder of seeing my stepdaughter walk across a stage, red hair falling in a silky sheath from beneath a mortar board, causes my heart to pound and tears to well in my eyes. I've known this young woman for just over two years and have seen her blossom from someone struggling to find her place in an adult world, to someone poised to conquer. I never doubted that she would reach this point, but I did not anticipate this overwhelming rush of pride.
I cannot deny the strength of feelings that I have for this beautiful young woman who has late come into my life. My son knows that he occupies the first place in my heart, but my stepdaughter and stepson have their own little nooks in that scarred chamber. I've been a stepparent before now, in my first marriage, and not a very good one. I watched my second husband struggle to fit into the nearly impenetrable bond that joins my son and me. I've guided countless clients through the morass of his-mine-ours debates about discipline. I have experienced the pain and pleasure from every direction but one, and I've seen enough to have an inkling of the child's perspective.
With all of that, I nonetheless have been taken very much by surprise at the rise of love which I feel for my stepdaughter. Putting aside the several young women whose younger years coincided with my son's childhood, and whose mothers graciously shared them, she provides my first opportunity for same-gender parenting. She's certainly old enough to need very little hands-on mothering. Still, I have taken full advantage of this chance. I've waited a long time. Though I love my son, I am, after all, the woman who, upon being asked by a helpful clerk if I had gotten what I wanted after standing in the Action Figure aisle for longer than the clerk thought healthy, blurted out, No, I wanted a girl.
I don't doubt that there would have been times when I wished the opposite. I remain convinced that boys cause less daily aggravation. Certainly, they often quickly grow protective of their mothers, as my son did, as my stepson is towards his mother and my son's friends are towards theirs. But something about ribbons, bows, and Barbie dolls makes my stomach clench even now. I have no problem finding Christmas presents for my stepdaughter; in fact, my problem takes the opposite form: stopping myself from getting many more presents for her than for the young men of our family.
I look backwards, with something like sorrow, at the disconnect that broke my relationship with my mother at the start of my college years, which I never quite overcame. I still hear her voice on the telephone, snapping at me, telling me that if you are not home by five o'clock, don't come home at all, occasioning my departure from the family fold just shy of my eighteenth birthday. I never looked back. Though we found a way to communicate, after a fashion, the damage never fully healed. I vividly recall sitting at a restaurant table in the Central West End during graduate school, talking about the silver market and over-sprouted beans, thinking, who is this woman. Had I known she would be gone six years later, I might have tried to find out.
But now I can only gaze at a sepia-tone picture of her dancing in our front yard, and plead with her to tell me what made her heart so glad. In the pages of an old picture album, I find other snapshots from the same day: My grandfather, with his lovely brown skin and tall, sturdy frame; and my brother Frank and me, standing in front of a sheet cake, holding a knife together. I realize that the occasion was a graduation for each of us in the same year. I see the light in her eyes, captured when she least expected, while she looked at me across the room. I am suddenly breathless. This, this, right here in this picture: that is what I felt when Cara walked across that stage last night. A mother's love for her child.
It matters not that she was born of another, who sat in the same auditorium with right of first pride. Nor does it matter that she came from the genes of the man beside me, whose arm I clutched, as I nagged him to quickly hand the camera down to one of the boys so we would not miss the crucial shot. And, finally, that my son was born of me does not diminish my feelings towards my stepdaughter, just as my feelings for her and her brother do not detract from my love of Patrick. Our family has blended.
I glance out the window and am astonished to see that the clouds have scattered, and an azure expanse rises above my neighbor's house. My coffee has been replenished by a man sitting at our table in tennis whites, working a puzzle. In an hour, one of those young women whose lives I have shared will be coming to help me with chores that are beyond my physical ability, and we will have a pleasant hour restoring the Holmes house to cleanliness. Later, when I have done a little shopping and a little fussing over my Christmas list, I will make dinner for the new graduate and her boyfriend, and sometime this evening, my first-born child will arrive for the holiday.
And all will be right with my world, as it turns again, and inches towards the close of another wonderful year.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
Congratulations, Cara Withers MacLaughlin, Bachelor of Liberal Arts Magna Cum Laude, 16 December 2011
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Saturday Musings, 10 December 2011
Good morning,
I've balanced my laptop on a wooden table purchased at an estate sale for five dollars, more years ago than I can recall. A stout cup of French roast cools at my elbow. At the far end of the scarred oak dining table, an assemblage of Christmas decorations stands at the ready for a later event.
The five-foot tree purchased a decade ago at a January half-price sale shines in its customary corner, lights glowing, only a few plastic needles falling to the floor. Christmas stands proud at the end of the next two rows of boxes on my German calendar. I braved the "early shoppers" sale at Kohl's yesterday, and even did a round at Target, being as I needed cat food any way. Every single sales clerk whom I encountered flashed smiles; but then, it's early yet.
Nearly sixty Christmases span the backward circuit of my life. As I make my lists, check them twice, buying presents for everyone regardless of whether I consider them naughty, or nice, I think about successful purchases in the past: the radiant smile of my best friend's granddaughter Nora just last year, when she opened a life-size, soft Christmas doll; my son's grin at the remembered request of a clock made from reclaimed computer parts, which he had spied at the VALA Gallery; and years ago, the same boy's shrieks upon spying the tall Batman with light-up eyes that Santa had finally found after searching a dozen stores.
But one of the most satisfying presents that I've purchased -- and I have purchased hundreds -- was the American/French idiomatic dictionary that I bought for my cousin Kati's then-husband Bernard in 1983.
He had little English at the time. Kati and I had reunited on their relocation from St. Louis to Kansas City, sitting for hours in their apartment chattering about our childhood and the decade of events since our college days. Bernard could not follow our conversation. He thumbed through a French-English dictionary and could not determine the meanings of phrases rushing around him in our common St. Louis twang.
For weeks, he grumbled about his crazy American wife and her wild cousin Corinne, though said in French it sounded elegant. I got it into my head that he might feel less alienated if he understood our vernacular, so I set about -- in the days before Al Gore invented the World Wide Web -- to find a French/American idiomatic dictionary.
Not easy, I discovered.
My search extended to the considerable reach of area bookstores available at the time. Harried clerk after harried clerk shook head after tired head. Finally, in Whistler's Books, then located in Westport, a salesman took pity on me. I'll try, he said, in a weary voice, seven staggering shopping days before Christmas. Don't get false hopes, he cautioned, and turned away to answer a question about the tells-all-star-biography-of-the-week, which No, they did not carry, we are an independent bookseller, we don't carry that kind of stuff, try Walden Books, he said, with only a slightly disdainful sneer.
Kati and Bernard had invited me to share a meal at their home for the holiday. I could never have declined. In addition to my craving for the company of family, the allure included the fact that Bernard, a French chef, would certainly provide something succulent and decadent. But I did not want to go without a present for Bernard, and I had despaired of finding what I wanted most to give him. I purchased a back-up -- I think it was a boring wool scarf -- and hoped it would suffice.
A half hour before I should have been arriving at their apartment, the phone rang. You ordered a book from us, said a very, very tired voice. It's here. I drove faster than I should through the thick traffic of last-minute shoppers, not noticing the lovely rise of Christmas lights on the Plaza, narrowly escaping a crash with Cinderella's horse-drawn carriage in my haste to get to Whistler's Books before it closed. My parking karma provided a narrow spot into which I crammed my vehicle, and I slammed the car door, barely pausing to lock it, arriving ten minutes before the store closed, and fifteen minutes after my scheduled arrival time at Kati and Bernard's apartment.
The man who had called was the same man who had promised to try to find the book. He handed it to me, and I gazed down at it with surprise. Slightly battered, a little care-worn, clearly used, nonetheless, it bore the title: Dictionary of American to French Idiomatic Translations. Or something like that. I looked at the clerk. How did you find it, I asked, with true wonder.
He smiled. I searched a lot of catalogs at first, he told me. Books in Print, too. Then, when nothing I did worked, I called a friend of mine.
The friend, it turned out, ran a bookstore in New York City. That friend had a friend who ran a bookstore in Paris, France. That friend had a friend who ran a used book stall on a side street in Paris, a hand-made structure with a slanted tin roof that did not even have a name. In the stall stood a small shelf of guides for French folks planning to travel in various countries, and on that shelf, my present for Bernard had waited. The Paris bookseller bought it, shipped it to the New York book store owner, who sent it to Kansas City, where I purchased it for less than the postage to mail it from France.
I gazed at the salesman with frank admiration. So much trouble for one book, I murmured, running my hands along its cracked spine. He shrugged. I told them about your cousin's husband, he admitted. About the two of you talking all night in their living room, and poor Bernard sitting in the kitchen, clueless as to what half your chattering meant. We all felt bad for the poor guy. He shrugged again, a careless lift of a wool-clad shoulder. I got the sense that his efforts rose more from his sympathy for a man with a crazy wife, and a crazy cousin-in-law, than from his desire to satisfy a customer. The motivations of the New York and Paris connections, I can only imagine.
I wished him a very Merry Christmas. I left the store, unwrapped book clutched to my chest, and made my way to Kati and Bernard's apartment. The meal did not disappoint, nor did the shining smile on Bernard's face when he saw his gift.
In an hour, three seven-year old girls will descend upon my home, to decorate my Christmas tree and paint glass ornaments. One of them, my friend Elisabeth's daughter Accalia, has hired herself out for the morning to raise money for Operation Smile (www.operationsmile.org). I will compensate her efforts with a check to that charity. I invited the others -- my friend Sherri's nieces, my flower girls, Courtney and Allie -- just to make a merry morning. I will feed them ants-on-a-log, and take their pictures to post on Facebook. When they have gone, I will sit in my rocker by the fireplace, and gaze upon the ornaments dangling from the branches of my artificial tree, recalling each Christmas that I have spent in this home. When I start to feel that I have been lazy enough, I will set aside that pleasant occupation, and get on with my day.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
I've balanced my laptop on a wooden table purchased at an estate sale for five dollars, more years ago than I can recall. A stout cup of French roast cools at my elbow. At the far end of the scarred oak dining table, an assemblage of Christmas decorations stands at the ready for a later event.
The five-foot tree purchased a decade ago at a January half-price sale shines in its customary corner, lights glowing, only a few plastic needles falling to the floor. Christmas stands proud at the end of the next two rows of boxes on my German calendar. I braved the "early shoppers" sale at Kohl's yesterday, and even did a round at Target, being as I needed cat food any way. Every single sales clerk whom I encountered flashed smiles; but then, it's early yet.
Nearly sixty Christmases span the backward circuit of my life. As I make my lists, check them twice, buying presents for everyone regardless of whether I consider them naughty, or nice, I think about successful purchases in the past: the radiant smile of my best friend's granddaughter Nora just last year, when she opened a life-size, soft Christmas doll; my son's grin at the remembered request of a clock made from reclaimed computer parts, which he had spied at the VALA Gallery; and years ago, the same boy's shrieks upon spying the tall Batman with light-up eyes that Santa had finally found after searching a dozen stores.
But one of the most satisfying presents that I've purchased -- and I have purchased hundreds -- was the American/French idiomatic dictionary that I bought for my cousin Kati's then-husband Bernard in 1983.
He had little English at the time. Kati and I had reunited on their relocation from St. Louis to Kansas City, sitting for hours in their apartment chattering about our childhood and the decade of events since our college days. Bernard could not follow our conversation. He thumbed through a French-English dictionary and could not determine the meanings of phrases rushing around him in our common St. Louis twang.
For weeks, he grumbled about his crazy American wife and her wild cousin Corinne, though said in French it sounded elegant. I got it into my head that he might feel less alienated if he understood our vernacular, so I set about -- in the days before Al Gore invented the World Wide Web -- to find a French/American idiomatic dictionary.
Not easy, I discovered.
My search extended to the considerable reach of area bookstores available at the time. Harried clerk after harried clerk shook head after tired head. Finally, in Whistler's Books, then located in Westport, a salesman took pity on me. I'll try, he said, in a weary voice, seven staggering shopping days before Christmas. Don't get false hopes, he cautioned, and turned away to answer a question about the tells-all-star-biography-of-the-week, which No, they did not carry, we are an independent bookseller, we don't carry that kind of stuff, try Walden Books, he said, with only a slightly disdainful sneer.
Kati and Bernard had invited me to share a meal at their home for the holiday. I could never have declined. In addition to my craving for the company of family, the allure included the fact that Bernard, a French chef, would certainly provide something succulent and decadent. But I did not want to go without a present for Bernard, and I had despaired of finding what I wanted most to give him. I purchased a back-up -- I think it was a boring wool scarf -- and hoped it would suffice.
A half hour before I should have been arriving at their apartment, the phone rang. You ordered a book from us, said a very, very tired voice. It's here. I drove faster than I should through the thick traffic of last-minute shoppers, not noticing the lovely rise of Christmas lights on the Plaza, narrowly escaping a crash with Cinderella's horse-drawn carriage in my haste to get to Whistler's Books before it closed. My parking karma provided a narrow spot into which I crammed my vehicle, and I slammed the car door, barely pausing to lock it, arriving ten minutes before the store closed, and fifteen minutes after my scheduled arrival time at Kati and Bernard's apartment.
The man who had called was the same man who had promised to try to find the book. He handed it to me, and I gazed down at it with surprise. Slightly battered, a little care-worn, clearly used, nonetheless, it bore the title: Dictionary of American to French Idiomatic Translations. Or something like that. I looked at the clerk. How did you find it, I asked, with true wonder.
He smiled. I searched a lot of catalogs at first, he told me. Books in Print, too. Then, when nothing I did worked, I called a friend of mine.
The friend, it turned out, ran a bookstore in New York City. That friend had a friend who ran a bookstore in Paris, France. That friend had a friend who ran a used book stall on a side street in Paris, a hand-made structure with a slanted tin roof that did not even have a name. In the stall stood a small shelf of guides for French folks planning to travel in various countries, and on that shelf, my present for Bernard had waited. The Paris bookseller bought it, shipped it to the New York book store owner, who sent it to Kansas City, where I purchased it for less than the postage to mail it from France.
I gazed at the salesman with frank admiration. So much trouble for one book, I murmured, running my hands along its cracked spine. He shrugged. I told them about your cousin's husband, he admitted. About the two of you talking all night in their living room, and poor Bernard sitting in the kitchen, clueless as to what half your chattering meant. We all felt bad for the poor guy. He shrugged again, a careless lift of a wool-clad shoulder. I got the sense that his efforts rose more from his sympathy for a man with a crazy wife, and a crazy cousin-in-law, than from his desire to satisfy a customer. The motivations of the New York and Paris connections, I can only imagine.
I wished him a very Merry Christmas. I left the store, unwrapped book clutched to my chest, and made my way to Kati and Bernard's apartment. The meal did not disappoint, nor did the shining smile on Bernard's face when he saw his gift.
In an hour, three seven-year old girls will descend upon my home, to decorate my Christmas tree and paint glass ornaments. One of them, my friend Elisabeth's daughter Accalia, has hired herself out for the morning to raise money for Operation Smile (www.operationsmile.org). I will compensate her efforts with a check to that charity. I invited the others -- my friend Sherri's nieces, my flower girls, Courtney and Allie -- just to make a merry morning. I will feed them ants-on-a-log, and take their pictures to post on Facebook. When they have gone, I will sit in my rocker by the fireplace, and gaze upon the ornaments dangling from the branches of my artificial tree, recalling each Christmas that I have spent in this home. When I start to feel that I have been lazy enough, I will set aside that pleasant occupation, and get on with my day.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Saturday Musings, 03 December 2011
Good morning,
Daniel Pinkwater and Scott Simon read a children's book in the background as I study my "contacts" entries and wonder whether my words reach those on the list or succumb to the vicious slam of a delete key. Occasionally, I hear from people -- "thanks for leaving me on your list", say some. "Delete me," say others. I try to comply and wonder if columnists whose essays appear in the newspaper fare as well as I do. So far, the expressions of thanks outweigh the expressions of annoyance about 4 to 1. As I ponder, Pinkwater concludes his "occasional appearance" on Morning Edition, the rain softly falls on the peeling paint of the neighbor's eaves, and the other sentient beings in my home begin to rattle around or pour second cups of coffee.
The year draws to a close more quickly than I anticipated. Like the errant buttons of my old alarm clock, the pages of the calendar have leaped ahead. I am another year older but no wiser; still stepping on my own toes, while pushing my foot towards my mouth and flapping hopelessly in the conversational breeze. I'm living proof that those who cannot do, write about doing.
After pizza and a tour of the Benson Gallery last evening, we arrived in Mission just before the launch of the fireworks. The shooting stars sailed over the old Fine Arts theatre, the former lobby of which is now the VALA Gallery at its new location. As I stood on the slick cobblestones and craned my neck back to better see the streaks of red, blue and gold, a mother broke away from the group gathered around the fire pit to take a frightened child farther from the crackles and booms. I was instantly transported to a long-ago Fourth of July, when my own small child huddled against me crying, They're pretty, Mom, but why do they have to be so loud?
Christmas fireworks don't figure in my own family's tradition. We install a smallish artificial Christmas tree in the living room, and decorate it with ornaments whose history I relate to anyone foolish enough to stray close to the action. Lights and garlands adorn the mantle; a small collection of snow globes, the plastic Disney kind, nestle among pools of tinsel. I usually get this done on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but I have a trial next Monday and my attention has been distracted. I hope to have the tree installed before St. Nicholas Day, even though there are no longer small children whose shoes must be filled with candy overnight, and no longer anyone to anticipate a visit from the Tree Elf, who puts a small present for each child on the lowest branches the night of the tree's first appearance.
These rituals, slight variants of those which my mother orchestrated for my siblings and me, tell me that the year will soon fade into my increasingly cloudy memory. With less than a month remaining of 2011, I hold myself accountable for the failure to completely attain the New Year's Resolutions that I made on the stroke of midnight eleven months ago. I am no less catty; no less snappish; no better organized. I have not progressed towards getting published, nor gone paperless. In fact, the only one of my self-imposed goals that I accomplished this year was keeping slim. Three and three-quarters years after I started my diet, I hover between 108 - 111, depending on salt intake; I started losing weight at a horrible 175 pounds on March 1, 2008.
I mark the passing seasons by the changing colors of the trees rising above my neighbors' homes. Today they bear few leaves, and their dark scraggly limbs sag under the chilly weight of the winter rain. The view out my window could be anywhere but the most rural of locations. The houses press towards each other, dwarfing the urban clutter of wires and cables, looming over the SUVs on the small parking pavements at the end of the narrow driveways. Without the cheering rays of a summer sun, the roofs seem sad and dingy.
I feel a sense of listening, waiting, in the air around me, in my home and outside in the stillness of my street. Standing on the porch an hour or two ago, bending to retrieve the paper in its plastic wrapping, I let the cold air rush over me and closed my eyes. Winter drives the dog-walkers indoors. I have not seen the usual strollers in weeks, and when the first snow falls, I will close the blinds on the outside world, and retreat to my writing desk, where I will begin to compose another set of resolutions.
Perhaps next year, my successes will outweigh my failures, and I will not be overwhelmed by winter's gloom when December arrives.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
Daniel Pinkwater and Scott Simon read a children's book in the background as I study my "contacts" entries and wonder whether my words reach those on the list or succumb to the vicious slam of a delete key. Occasionally, I hear from people -- "thanks for leaving me on your list", say some. "Delete me," say others. I try to comply and wonder if columnists whose essays appear in the newspaper fare as well as I do. So far, the expressions of thanks outweigh the expressions of annoyance about 4 to 1. As I ponder, Pinkwater concludes his "occasional appearance" on Morning Edition, the rain softly falls on the peeling paint of the neighbor's eaves, and the other sentient beings in my home begin to rattle around or pour second cups of coffee.
The year draws to a close more quickly than I anticipated. Like the errant buttons of my old alarm clock, the pages of the calendar have leaped ahead. I am another year older but no wiser; still stepping on my own toes, while pushing my foot towards my mouth and flapping hopelessly in the conversational breeze. I'm living proof that those who cannot do, write about doing.
After pizza and a tour of the Benson Gallery last evening, we arrived in Mission just before the launch of the fireworks. The shooting stars sailed over the old Fine Arts theatre, the former lobby of which is now the VALA Gallery at its new location. As I stood on the slick cobblestones and craned my neck back to better see the streaks of red, blue and gold, a mother broke away from the group gathered around the fire pit to take a frightened child farther from the crackles and booms. I was instantly transported to a long-ago Fourth of July, when my own small child huddled against me crying, They're pretty, Mom, but why do they have to be so loud?
Christmas fireworks don't figure in my own family's tradition. We install a smallish artificial Christmas tree in the living room, and decorate it with ornaments whose history I relate to anyone foolish enough to stray close to the action. Lights and garlands adorn the mantle; a small collection of snow globes, the plastic Disney kind, nestle among pools of tinsel. I usually get this done on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but I have a trial next Monday and my attention has been distracted. I hope to have the tree installed before St. Nicholas Day, even though there are no longer small children whose shoes must be filled with candy overnight, and no longer anyone to anticipate a visit from the Tree Elf, who puts a small present for each child on the lowest branches the night of the tree's first appearance.
These rituals, slight variants of those which my mother orchestrated for my siblings and me, tell me that the year will soon fade into my increasingly cloudy memory. With less than a month remaining of 2011, I hold myself accountable for the failure to completely attain the New Year's Resolutions that I made on the stroke of midnight eleven months ago. I am no less catty; no less snappish; no better organized. I have not progressed towards getting published, nor gone paperless. In fact, the only one of my self-imposed goals that I accomplished this year was keeping slim. Three and three-quarters years after I started my diet, I hover between 108 - 111, depending on salt intake; I started losing weight at a horrible 175 pounds on March 1, 2008.
I mark the passing seasons by the changing colors of the trees rising above my neighbors' homes. Today they bear few leaves, and their dark scraggly limbs sag under the chilly weight of the winter rain. The view out my window could be anywhere but the most rural of locations. The houses press towards each other, dwarfing the urban clutter of wires and cables, looming over the SUVs on the small parking pavements at the end of the narrow driveways. Without the cheering rays of a summer sun, the roofs seem sad and dingy.
I feel a sense of listening, waiting, in the air around me, in my home and outside in the stillness of my street. Standing on the porch an hour or two ago, bending to retrieve the paper in its plastic wrapping, I let the cold air rush over me and closed my eyes. Winter drives the dog-walkers indoors. I have not seen the usual strollers in weeks, and when the first snow falls, I will close the blinds on the outside world, and retreat to my writing desk, where I will begin to compose another set of resolutions.
Perhaps next year, my successes will outweigh my failures, and I will not be overwhelmed by winter's gloom when December arrives.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Saturday Musings, 26 November 2011
Good morning,
Muscles ache which I have not used for months. I suppose they are the famous "Mommy muscles" -- the ones that allow us to bend low, so as to lift a small child or a twenty-pound turkey; to push a damp mop across a kitchen floor; and to peel potatoes. But I awakened this morning to a house that sparkled, dishes snuggling in their cupboards, and a lingering aroma of fresh sage. I planned my life well: long-time guests who do not leave until the dishes are washed, dried and put away.
I enjoyed two Thanksgiving dinners this week, as I often do. On Thursday, we gathered at my parents-in-law's home. Last evening, our oldest and dearest friends (among many friends whom we hold dear) graced our table. And now I roll my shoulders to clear the happy stiffness resulting from eight hours of cooking. I smile over the pictures of young men teaching a bright five-year-old to play chess, and recall other chess games played in my house, a decade ago, when these same young men were serious ten and eleven year-olds. The world turns, and we move another click towards our collective and respective destinies.
I went to a new physician this week, an arrogant young woman who dismissively scribbled on my carefully penned medical history. For all of her supposed knowledge, she still got my symptoms wrong, as I learned when a testing lab phoned me to schedule their contribution to the puzzle. I put down the turkey baster to spare the woman a few moments, although she offered to postpone the scheduling interview until Monday. As we talked, I thought about the biting cold of the day on which I visited the doctor's office earlier this week.
When I left the medical building, I rued again my decision to dash over to the appointment without my coat. I stood on the curb, preparing to cross two lanes of parking lot traffic to reach the handicapped spaces. I stepped into the mark crosswalk, looking down at a long crack in the pavement. My eyes flickered forward as I gauged the potential for safe navigation to the center aisle, and I caught sight of a slim foot in a gold sandal extended towards me.
I noticed the thick support hose in which the foot was encased, and slowly raised my eyes. The woman wore a long, shimmering silver skirt that fell straight and stopped mid-calf. Her arms were bent towards her waist, her hands encased in white gloves such as I had not seen since my Catholic school days. The simple woolen jacket closed with a single large button. My gaze reached her face and met her eyes, for just one brief second, not long enough for me to register emotion. Her raised chin inched slightly upward. Her face was framed by thinning silver hair, swept up and held back no doubt with small metal hair pins.
She turned away from my scrutiny, unconsciously displaying the little tube running from behind one ear.
A man had one hand on the woman's elbow. As I passed the pair, I came close enough to recognize the smell of Old Spice clinging to his jacket. I reached the other side and turned back to watch him gently guide her to safety on the far curb. His suit fell away from his frame, its fabric countered before time robbed him of his sturdier presence. But his arm circled her as reliably as it surely had for decades, and in the brief second before the doors closed soundlessly behind them, he glanced back in my direction with a warning menace.
I closed my eyes and let the lingering fragrance settle in my lungs, a mixture of his after-shave and Chantilly Lace perfume. This is the smell of time, I thought. The scent of something that endures. I felt my body sway, and heard the voice of someone on the sidewalk talking into an invisible mobile device. I shook myself from my reverie, and continued into the parking lot, fumbling for my keys, pulling the stamped ticket from the pocket of my jeans. I took my place in the exit line and handed the ticket to the same woman who takes my ticket every time I visit one of my doctors. I listened to her cheerful greeting, and returned it, raising my window again before pulling out into the lane of traffic and resuming my mindless journey into evening.
A quiet rustle from the living room pulls me back into the pleasant air of a rainy Saturday. I spy the dog sleeping outside my son's closed bedroom door, and I catch a slight hint in the air of burned coffee. In a little while, I will rouse my son and we will venture into the city. He has not gotten a chance to do any of the clothes shopping that we planned for this holiday because his poli-sci professor handed out an assignment just before the students left campus for Thanksgiving Break. My son spent most of the last three days driving home or writing a paper on special interest groups. Today we will sip coffee at Dunn Brothers, and brave the aisles of Nordstrom Racks. Tomorrow the clock will resume its march toward the end of 2011 as he drives back to a place where he is not my just my son, but a person in his own right -- a world that exists on a three-hundred acre plot on which he has also staked his future.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
Muscles ache which I have not used for months. I suppose they are the famous "Mommy muscles" -- the ones that allow us to bend low, so as to lift a small child or a twenty-pound turkey; to push a damp mop across a kitchen floor; and to peel potatoes. But I awakened this morning to a house that sparkled, dishes snuggling in their cupboards, and a lingering aroma of fresh sage. I planned my life well: long-time guests who do not leave until the dishes are washed, dried and put away.
I enjoyed two Thanksgiving dinners this week, as I often do. On Thursday, we gathered at my parents-in-law's home. Last evening, our oldest and dearest friends (among many friends whom we hold dear) graced our table. And now I roll my shoulders to clear the happy stiffness resulting from eight hours of cooking. I smile over the pictures of young men teaching a bright five-year-old to play chess, and recall other chess games played in my house, a decade ago, when these same young men were serious ten and eleven year-olds. The world turns, and we move another click towards our collective and respective destinies.
I went to a new physician this week, an arrogant young woman who dismissively scribbled on my carefully penned medical history. For all of her supposed knowledge, she still got my symptoms wrong, as I learned when a testing lab phoned me to schedule their contribution to the puzzle. I put down the turkey baster to spare the woman a few moments, although she offered to postpone the scheduling interview until Monday. As we talked, I thought about the biting cold of the day on which I visited the doctor's office earlier this week.
When I left the medical building, I rued again my decision to dash over to the appointment without my coat. I stood on the curb, preparing to cross two lanes of parking lot traffic to reach the handicapped spaces. I stepped into the mark crosswalk, looking down at a long crack in the pavement. My eyes flickered forward as I gauged the potential for safe navigation to the center aisle, and I caught sight of a slim foot in a gold sandal extended towards me.
I noticed the thick support hose in which the foot was encased, and slowly raised my eyes. The woman wore a long, shimmering silver skirt that fell straight and stopped mid-calf. Her arms were bent towards her waist, her hands encased in white gloves such as I had not seen since my Catholic school days. The simple woolen jacket closed with a single large button. My gaze reached her face and met her eyes, for just one brief second, not long enough for me to register emotion. Her raised chin inched slightly upward. Her face was framed by thinning silver hair, swept up and held back no doubt with small metal hair pins.
She turned away from my scrutiny, unconsciously displaying the little tube running from behind one ear.
A man had one hand on the woman's elbow. As I passed the pair, I came close enough to recognize the smell of Old Spice clinging to his jacket. I reached the other side and turned back to watch him gently guide her to safety on the far curb. His suit fell away from his frame, its fabric countered before time robbed him of his sturdier presence. But his arm circled her as reliably as it surely had for decades, and in the brief second before the doors closed soundlessly behind them, he glanced back in my direction with a warning menace.
I closed my eyes and let the lingering fragrance settle in my lungs, a mixture of his after-shave and Chantilly Lace perfume. This is the smell of time, I thought. The scent of something that endures. I felt my body sway, and heard the voice of someone on the sidewalk talking into an invisible mobile device. I shook myself from my reverie, and continued into the parking lot, fumbling for my keys, pulling the stamped ticket from the pocket of my jeans. I took my place in the exit line and handed the ticket to the same woman who takes my ticket every time I visit one of my doctors. I listened to her cheerful greeting, and returned it, raising my window again before pulling out into the lane of traffic and resuming my mindless journey into evening.
A quiet rustle from the living room pulls me back into the pleasant air of a rainy Saturday. I spy the dog sleeping outside my son's closed bedroom door, and I catch a slight hint in the air of burned coffee. In a little while, I will rouse my son and we will venture into the city. He has not gotten a chance to do any of the clothes shopping that we planned for this holiday because his poli-sci professor handed out an assignment just before the students left campus for Thanksgiving Break. My son spent most of the last three days driving home or writing a paper on special interest groups. Today we will sip coffee at Dunn Brothers, and brave the aisles of Nordstrom Racks. Tomorrow the clock will resume its march toward the end of 2011 as he drives back to a place where he is not my just my son, but a person in his own right -- a world that exists on a three-hundred acre plot on which he has also staked his future.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Midweek Musings: 22 November 2011
Good morning,
Only time will tell if I live to write another Saturday Musings -- we are all visitors, even strangers, on earth. None of us know when our tickets will get punched.
So in keeping with my belief that if one cannot be a good example, one should be a horrible warning, I'd like to share with you that someone did something really wonderful for me today. It came out of the blue, and I cannot share the details as to do so might inadvertently disclose a confidence. Suffice it to say that I left home this morning with a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat, but wearing, above my winter coat, a very broad smile.
This prompts me to suggest that each of you consider whether you can bestow an unexpected kindness. Lie in wait for it. Don't announce it. If possible, don't take credit for it. It need not be large; it need not involve an expenditure of funds. It can be simple. It must, however, be heartfelt.
I bid you all a wonderful Thanksgiving. As you and your families and friends gather, remember to do your "Thankful-Fors". This is a practice, started by my mother, in which those gathered each identify something for which they are thankful. We make the circuit from youngest to oldest, but you can do it any way you like. Get the hankies ready, and prepare to cry, and laugh, as your host carves the turkey.
Among the many things for which I am thankful: The Small Firm Internet Group to which my Musings are initially posted each week. SFIG is a family of colleagues which has given me both a forum and my voice, along with a keen awareness of the pleasures of our profession and an appreciation for its challenges.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all. May the Universe, and the deity of your choice, bless you, and may it provide many opportunities for you to pay your blessings forward to one who might need a tender touch.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
Only time will tell if I live to write another Saturday Musings -- we are all visitors, even strangers, on earth. None of us know when our tickets will get punched.
So in keeping with my belief that if one cannot be a good example, one should be a horrible warning, I'd like to share with you that someone did something really wonderful for me today. It came out of the blue, and I cannot share the details as to do so might inadvertently disclose a confidence. Suffice it to say that I left home this morning with a tear in my eye and a lump in my throat, but wearing, above my winter coat, a very broad smile.
This prompts me to suggest that each of you consider whether you can bestow an unexpected kindness. Lie in wait for it. Don't announce it. If possible, don't take credit for it. It need not be large; it need not involve an expenditure of funds. It can be simple. It must, however, be heartfelt.
I bid you all a wonderful Thanksgiving. As you and your families and friends gather, remember to do your "Thankful-Fors". This is a practice, started by my mother, in which those gathered each identify something for which they are thankful. We make the circuit from youngest to oldest, but you can do it any way you like. Get the hankies ready, and prepare to cry, and laugh, as your host carves the turkey.
Among the many things for which I am thankful: The Small Firm Internet Group to which my Musings are initially posted each week. SFIG is a family of colleagues which has given me both a forum and my voice, along with a keen awareness of the pleasures of our profession and an appreciation for its challenges.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all. May the Universe, and the deity of your choice, bless you, and may it provide many opportunities for you to pay your blessings forward to one who might need a tender touch.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Saturday Musings, 19 November 2011
Good morning,
The mums which we purchases largely for their splash of color, one September Saturday, have decided that if we did not want to continue watering them, they would not continue to grace our deck. They have succumbed to neglect and the fierce whip of autumn winds, and now roll in their weightless pots behind the table. Fall threatens to yield to winter, and I pull my sweatshirt closer to my frame as I gaze around me before deciding to retreat to my idyllic bedroom with its early-century paneling and its cathedral ceiling. The wind batters my bungalow but I feel safe.
I have become a virtual parent. I felt this stark reality in recent days, as I watched my SmartPhone for messages from my son and his step-brother, one of whom attends the college that the other left to visit this week. I pull the laptop towards me in the evening and scroll through Facebook for news of my adult step-daughter and her adorable boyfriend, and there, too, do I exchange greetings with the boyfriend's mother. I do not cyber-stalk my son, but I do take note of the pictures on his Facebook page, and I cannot help but feel gratified by the complacency that I decide appears on his features. I feel a small wince of worry at the ever-present and barely disguised beer bottles, but I have only to reflect on my own college days to know that he has not yet attained the depths to which my friends and I sank during our own college careers, and so, I persuade myself to watch but not worry.
By text-message, I learn of his play that has been accepted for presentation in the playwrights' festival, and his short story that will appear in the campus literary review. I praise my son for these accomplishments, remembering the clench of thrill in my gut, nearly forty years ago, when I learned about the planned publication of three of my poems in a local literary magazine in St. Louis.
I got that news by mail, since the virtual word had not yet been born. I stood at my mailbox and tore open the self-addressed stamped envelope required with each submission. The editors of Eads Bridge are pleased to announce that we have accepted three of your poems for publication, which will appear as a triptych on adjacent pages. We enclose suggested edits of those poems, and await your approval. I clutched the paper and grinned at passing students. It was not my first publication. I had been a high school correspondent for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and a guest-essayist for a Christian magazine aimed at teenagers, the publisher of which employed my sister. I had been the editor of my high school literary magazine in my senior year, on account of which, to no one's surprise, my writing had been published. But the submissions to Eads Bridge differed from my prior accomplishments in that I had no guardian angel and no captive audience. If the editors of Eads Bridge liked my poetry enough to publish it, then maybe -- just maybe -- it was good.
In the end, only two of the poems appeared. I regretted that, but the editors had final say. I had written the poems together, and to me, they only made sense together. But I did not challenge the final decision and I accepted the "writer's copies" which were my only compensation. My father evidenced the most pleasure at my being a published poet, since his father had also been. From the example of my grandfather, who died years before my birth, I began to wonder if I couldn't go to law school and write as a vocation, while supporting myself as an attorney. I set my sites on this goal.
The rest, as they say, is history.
And now, my son has grown into a writer as well as the musician that he could not help but also be. He sends his short stories to me for review, and his essays, and his papers. I comment; I encourage; I support. From my perch, overlooking the neighbor's roof and the distant trees, I walk the line between mother and editor. I read what he writes wherever I am when I receive it. This story seems unfinished to me, I told him, texting from Division 3 where I awaited my very tardy client on Wednesday. Ugh, came his reply. Then, a few seconds later, okay, what should I do?
And although I know he seeks direction for this one story, which I imagine must be tendered to his writing professor within mere hours from the time he sent it to me to read, I find myself giving him broader advice: Just keep writing.
From the tenor of his answering text, I know he must be laughing. I give him more specific advice about the story itself, and why it leaves me wondering. He's better at essays than he is at short stories, but he is young, and might well find himself excelling in any of these genres. I haven't read the play as of yet, though I have asked to do so. He'll send it, in his own time, and, hopefully, one day I will receive a doc file of his first novel.
I am, when all is said and done, both a virtual parent and a dishonest one. If I bared my soul, I would admit that I want him to pursue his gift of writing in part, at least, because I did not. But as the wind whistles outside my window and the sounds of NPR drift around me, I protest to my silent, spiritual self that I do not strive to live vicariously through my son. Rather, I yearn to spare him from the isolation of regret that I feel for a road not taken.
Yesterday, I met a man at the Missouri Bar Fall Meetings who professed to have encountered me in the past, perhaps when he came to Jackson County as a visiting judge. I searched my data bank but found nothing to corroborate his memory. He asked me what type of law I had practiced in the past, and I told him: Lobbyist, prosecutor, civil litigator, family law practitioner. He remarked on the varied nature of my career, and asked of which endeavor I felt most proud. Actually, I told him, the job at which I think I most excelled was raising my son.
It might be the holidays making me a bit maudlin, or the long ride back from Jefferson City listening to country music. Perhaps in standing on my front porch at four yesterday afternoon, coat in hand, fishing through the mailbox, I triggered a recollection of that nausea which I felt long ago, holding the return envelope, wondering if Eads Bridge had accepted my submission. And perhaps that memory opened the flood gate of my most secret yearnings, of the life I did not lead, the loss of which I feel without diminishing my happiness in the life that I chose instead.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
The mums which we purchases largely for their splash of color, one September Saturday, have decided that if we did not want to continue watering them, they would not continue to grace our deck. They have succumbed to neglect and the fierce whip of autumn winds, and now roll in their weightless pots behind the table. Fall threatens to yield to winter, and I pull my sweatshirt closer to my frame as I gaze around me before deciding to retreat to my idyllic bedroom with its early-century paneling and its cathedral ceiling. The wind batters my bungalow but I feel safe.
I have become a virtual parent. I felt this stark reality in recent days, as I watched my SmartPhone for messages from my son and his step-brother, one of whom attends the college that the other left to visit this week. I pull the laptop towards me in the evening and scroll through Facebook for news of my adult step-daughter and her adorable boyfriend, and there, too, do I exchange greetings with the boyfriend's mother. I do not cyber-stalk my son, but I do take note of the pictures on his Facebook page, and I cannot help but feel gratified by the complacency that I decide appears on his features. I feel a small wince of worry at the ever-present and barely disguised beer bottles, but I have only to reflect on my own college days to know that he has not yet attained the depths to which my friends and I sank during our own college careers, and so, I persuade myself to watch but not worry.
By text-message, I learn of his play that has been accepted for presentation in the playwrights' festival, and his short story that will appear in the campus literary review. I praise my son for these accomplishments, remembering the clench of thrill in my gut, nearly forty years ago, when I learned about the planned publication of three of my poems in a local literary magazine in St. Louis.
I got that news by mail, since the virtual word had not yet been born. I stood at my mailbox and tore open the self-addressed stamped envelope required with each submission. The editors of Eads Bridge are pleased to announce that we have accepted three of your poems for publication, which will appear as a triptych on adjacent pages. We enclose suggested edits of those poems, and await your approval. I clutched the paper and grinned at passing students. It was not my first publication. I had been a high school correspondent for the St. Louis Globe-Democrat and a guest-essayist for a Christian magazine aimed at teenagers, the publisher of which employed my sister. I had been the editor of my high school literary magazine in my senior year, on account of which, to no one's surprise, my writing had been published. But the submissions to Eads Bridge differed from my prior accomplishments in that I had no guardian angel and no captive audience. If the editors of Eads Bridge liked my poetry enough to publish it, then maybe -- just maybe -- it was good.
In the end, only two of the poems appeared. I regretted that, but the editors had final say. I had written the poems together, and to me, they only made sense together. But I did not challenge the final decision and I accepted the "writer's copies" which were my only compensation. My father evidenced the most pleasure at my being a published poet, since his father had also been. From the example of my grandfather, who died years before my birth, I began to wonder if I couldn't go to law school and write as a vocation, while supporting myself as an attorney. I set my sites on this goal.
The rest, as they say, is history.
And now, my son has grown into a writer as well as the musician that he could not help but also be. He sends his short stories to me for review, and his essays, and his papers. I comment; I encourage; I support. From my perch, overlooking the neighbor's roof and the distant trees, I walk the line between mother and editor. I read what he writes wherever I am when I receive it. This story seems unfinished to me, I told him, texting from Division 3 where I awaited my very tardy client on Wednesday. Ugh, came his reply. Then, a few seconds later, okay, what should I do?
And although I know he seeks direction for this one story, which I imagine must be tendered to his writing professor within mere hours from the time he sent it to me to read, I find myself giving him broader advice: Just keep writing.
From the tenor of his answering text, I know he must be laughing. I give him more specific advice about the story itself, and why it leaves me wondering. He's better at essays than he is at short stories, but he is young, and might well find himself excelling in any of these genres. I haven't read the play as of yet, though I have asked to do so. He'll send it, in his own time, and, hopefully, one day I will receive a doc file of his first novel.
I am, when all is said and done, both a virtual parent and a dishonest one. If I bared my soul, I would admit that I want him to pursue his gift of writing in part, at least, because I did not. But as the wind whistles outside my window and the sounds of NPR drift around me, I protest to my silent, spiritual self that I do not strive to live vicariously through my son. Rather, I yearn to spare him from the isolation of regret that I feel for a road not taken.
Yesterday, I met a man at the Missouri Bar Fall Meetings who professed to have encountered me in the past, perhaps when he came to Jackson County as a visiting judge. I searched my data bank but found nothing to corroborate his memory. He asked me what type of law I had practiced in the past, and I told him: Lobbyist, prosecutor, civil litigator, family law practitioner. He remarked on the varied nature of my career, and asked of which endeavor I felt most proud. Actually, I told him, the job at which I think I most excelled was raising my son.
It might be the holidays making me a bit maudlin, or the long ride back from Jefferson City listening to country music. Perhaps in standing on my front porch at four yesterday afternoon, coat in hand, fishing through the mailbox, I triggered a recollection of that nausea which I felt long ago, holding the return envelope, wondering if Eads Bridge had accepted my submission. And perhaps that memory opened the flood gate of my most secret yearnings, of the life I did not lead, the loss of which I feel without diminishing my happiness in the life that I chose instead.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
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The Missouri Mugwump®
- M. Corinne Corley
- I've been many things in my life: A child, a daughter, a friend; a wife, a mother, a lawyer and a pet-owner. I've given my best to many things and my worst to a few. I live in Brookside, in an airplane bungalow. I'm an eternal optimist and a sometime-poet. If I ever got a poem published in The New Yorker, I would die a happy woman. I'm a proud supporter of the Arts in the California Delta. I vote Democrat, fly a Peace flag, live in a tiny house on wheels, cry at Hallmark commercials, and recycle. I am The Missouri Mugwump. ®