What? Don't All Snow Men Carry Rifles?

Another school vacation week has finally come to an end. There were sinus headaches, yoga, super-sized play dates, wine, minor contusions, yoga, doctor appointments, wine, pancake suppers, yogaandwine, and lego explosions.

And, there was the obligatory winter vacation snow-man-making.

In which, when I go inside to make my little cherubs hot chocolate, a perfectly innocent, stick-smiling, carrot-nosed and scarf wearing Frosty



turns into an assault weapon carrying, bandanna wearing army man of snow




Of course it does.

Finding My Religion

I am giving up chocolate for lent.

This is an odd statement for me to write, for several reasons. The most striking one being that I don’t attend church, other than The Church Of The E Street. I am not Catholic, Baptist, Jewish or Born Again. I don’t practice Buddhism or Hinduism or even Sikhism. I was raised religiously unaware.

I can count on one hand the number of times I have willingly been inside a place of worship for anything other than wedding related events.

My first church visit that I can recall was in 1978, when my mother dragged my brother and sisters and me to church on Easter Sunday. There was no explanation that I can remember. We woke up that morning, and, instead of eating our way into a chocolate-bunny induced sugar coma, my mother announced that we were going to church. “To where ?!?” we asked, as we piled into the Oldsmobile.

I walked into our small town Methodist church, and was, literally and figuratively, lost. In a moment of surreal recognition, I noticed a classmate a few pews over from us. I wanted to both hide beneath the bench in embarrassment and wave at her in relief. Before I could decide whether to be seen or not be seen, she walked over to me and, with her red ponytail swinging behind her, said, “Chrissy, what are you doing here?”.

I shook my head and shrugged. What else could I do? Because the truth was, I had no idea what I was doing there. In my seven year old mind, Easter meant pretty hats and jelly beans and plastic egg hunts. It did not mean steeples and hard benches and a half naked man on a cross, for goodness sake.

Not surprisingly, we didn’t learn much that day at church. I think it takes more than one morning of forced religion before any spiritual enlightenment shows up on your doorstep.

I had another childhood friend, whose family was deeply religious. Their beliefs were at the very core of who they were. It defined them in a way I couldn’t understand. My friend and I were at the age when sleepovers were the pre-teen thing to do, and so, she often invited me to sleep over at her house on Saturday nights. This meant, on Sunday mornings, I would have no choice but to climb into their family sized van with the rest of her 4 siblings and go with them to their church. I can’t say I learned much there, either, other than where to find the best plate of cookies after the Sunday school lessons. To this day, I’m still unsure whether the Saturday night sleepovers were an attempt by her family to save my heathen soul.

Growing up in a town of mostly catholics, I got used to my friends’ parents asking me, "So what are you?". And, me answering, “Nothing. I’m nothing.”

I learned much of what I know about religion, which, admittedly, is not much, through a college minor in Art History. I had a bigger learning curve than most of my classmates, who already had a solid base of religious knowledge and were not raising their hands asking things like, “Mary who?” and “What are the Magi and who were they adoring?”.

I had some extra studying to do. But I came away with some basic biblical history.

Several years later, I met my husband, who was brought up in a religious household, and, as a child, dutifully attended the Episcopalian church every Sunday morning, whether he wanted to or not. In college, he chose a not-so-practical major of Religion and Philosophy, and spent several months in India where he practiced yoga, and explored bongo drums and other mind-altering experiences. He was trying to figure it all out, and came away, I think, accepting that he had created more questions than he had answers.

But, nonetheless, he took the journey and he asked the questions.

I have not. And now, at the age of 38, I have some questions.

A look at the current stack of books on my night table is like peaking into the thoughts rattling around my head these days. Books with titles like Devotion, Committed and Alice Hoffman's, The Third Angel. I'm going broke as I actually pay attention to and, subsequently, purchase Amazon's personal recommendations. Another 40-something woman's memoir about personal discovery? I'll take it!

I’m scouring all of these beautiful books searching for an answer. An answer to what, I’m not sure, other than, “what does it all mean, exactly?”

I'm coming up empty, folks.

Since the books haven’t revealed anything monumental (yet), and I have difficulty subscribing to any specific organized religion, I am biding my time by practicing more yoga. Can yoga be a religion? It is a spiritual practice, no doubt. Baron Baptiste tells me that if I open up my hips, magic will happen. So far, even in pigeon pose, no magic has been found.

Maybe the pursuit of spiritual magic calls for more drastic measures than a 90 minute yoga class. Next month, I will be retreating and rejuvenating at a secluded yoga retreat in Western Massachusetts. Could a few days of yoga, meditation and drum circles bring me the magic that Baron Baptiste promises? Spiritual discovery? Answers?

Probably not.

And most likely, depriving my body of chocolate as a way of practicing self sacrifice will not lead to profound enlightenment, either.

But at least I’ll lose a few pounds in the next 40 days. Lighter might be better in the quest for the meaning of life, after all.



*to the 3 people in real life who read this: not to worry; once spring, and then summer, arrives, I will stop all this existential contemplation and return to basking in the glory of the SUN and sipping umbrella cocktails again. Damn, these winters.

Our Inner Genius

I am approaching the final chapters of Elizabeth Gilbert's new book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage.

While I devoured every last word in her first "freakishly successful" memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, I find myself trudging through this follow-up. I really wanted to love it. I wanted to be inspired and enlightened. I wanted to find a little piece of myself on the pages I read.

That's a lot to ask from one book. One writer. One person, for goodness sake.

Even Ms. Gilbert admits in the preface that any sequel to an enormously successful piece of work will never live up to its audiences' expectations. Especially an audience of about four million readers.

I will post a full review of the book as soon as the last page is turned. After all, it wouldn't be fair to share, or even form, an honest and complete opinion until I have respected the book enough to, you know, finish it.

But I will say this. I like her as a writer. I like her ideas, her thought process, her humor and her willingness to keep going.

And I really like the speech she made last year at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference.





I am aware that watching a 19 minute video on a blog is not on your top 10 or even top 100 things to do today. But, if you have a creative spirit (and I think we all do), I would encourage you to pour yourself a warm beverage, sit back in your most comfortable space, and ponder the possibility of a visit (or two, if your lucky) from your inner genius.

The Valentine's Day Box

My mother was one of those crafty-type moms when we were young.

The 1970s and 80s were an explosion of all things Craft at our house. There were cupcake lunches, gingerbread houses, hand-stitched quilts for our dolls, hand-stitched quilts for us, terrariums and Easter hats. There was one solid year of full immersion into the long forgotten stenciling fad. Every bare surface in our suburban ranch home became subject to a folksy stencil pattern.

Every year, about a week before Valentine's Day, we would create the mother of all crafts: the infamous Valentine's Day Box. My mother would bring up a dusty, old cardboard box from the basement, cover it in brown paper bags from the A&P, and hand us glue, scissors, paper and markers.

The project kept us busy for the better part of an afternoon as we glued white paper doilies cut into heart shapes onto the box. Once fully decorated and sufficiently sticky with drippy globs of wet Elmer's, my mother would cut a large slot at the top. Then, over the next week, we would stealthily drop Valentine's day cards into the box. Finally, when the big day arrived, the box would be ripped open, and cards, chocolate and candy distributed.

High excitement in the eyes of an 8 year old, let me tell you.

Thinking back, though, I wonder now if all this stay-at-home-mother craftiness was born out of necessity rather than genuine interest. Being stuck inside for long winters with four kids tends to jump start one's creativity. Hell, being stuck inside for long winters with TWO kids tends to jump start one's creativity.

So, in an attempt to recreate a childhood tradition, and because it's been below 20 degrees for the last two months, I brought out an old cardboard box from the basement yesterday...



And while it didn't occupy my craft-adverse boys for as long as I recall it occupying us, it still killed some otherwise idle indoor winter time.

Happy week before V-day!

Limited Connectivity

I don't know what is more depressing: February in New England or The Internet.

Both have been messing with my head. Or so it seemed.

It's easy to get dragged down into the deep, dark winter around here. The days are short. The nights are long. The sun is scarce.

My need for light is overwhelming sometimes. And so, understandably, the bright, flickering screen of a laptop is enticing. It lures me into another world, a welcome escape from the bottomless pit of a New England freeze. And maybe most appealing of all, it demands nothing of me, other than my passive presence. All I have to do is show up at my kitchen table, and The Internet takes care of the rest, providing me with a convenient winter hide-out.

But after awhile, I start to take notice. All those bad laptop ions seep into my already winter-blued brain. My Yahoo homepage is filled with dreary headlines on the state of the world, country and even my own small town. My email inbox overflows with nothing but 25% off offers from Lands End and Pottery Barn, but in this economy, we really shouldn't be frivolously spending money. My social networking sites start to resemble a high school reunion gone terribly wrong.

And then, finally, I wonder, is it really the bleak winter days that are to be blamed for my narrowing world, or is it the damn Internet?

It's the Internet.

So I unplugged last week. I stopped logging into Facebook and reading about my happy friends' beautiful, successful lives. I didn't peak at my Google email telling me to post something on my blog. I didn't even succumb to the temptation of the local 5 day weather forecast website, for obvious reasons. Nope, instead I powered down my machine, my mother's little helper of the 21st century.

What did I do without Firefox by my side?

I visited a museum. A real, live museum that didn't have the word 'Children's' in front of it. I stood in the middle of a room and absorbed thought-provoking-not-for-young-kids exhibits.

I went out to a fancy shmancy restaurant with my husband, ordered a $19 glass of chardonnay and ate escargot and truffles. Decadence on a plate.

I practiced yoga (and, oh, it felt good).

I sat in a beautiful city church on a brisk Sunday morning and listened to a choir sing (I know, this one's hard to believe, but really, I did, and that felt good, too).

And I read this article in the NY Times about integrating yoga and food, and generally bringing our senses back to life, without technology getting in the way.

There is a new yoga class that serves up savory dishes to students immediately after class. The post-yoga food, they claim, tastes, smells and even feels better than it would have pre-yoga.

The idea is that by engaging in a sensory peaking activity, yoga in this case, we perceive the world around us differently. Everything becomes positively magnified.

This is not a new finding. Do you remember, as a teenager, falling in love for the first time? Flowers smelled sweeter, the sky looked bluer, parents became nicer. Teenage love, it seemed, heightened our senses, making everything around us, well, more desirable.

Unplugging for periods of time and engaging with the world in non-routine ways, I found, have a similar effect. During my week with limited connectivity, my kids became more interesting, the written word more inspiring. The snow covered branches outside my window turned from daunting to near-brilliant.

I experienced, first hand, the little known 'Logged Off Effect'.

David Romanelli, a young, Grateful-Dead-listening yoga instructor, puts it even more simply, “'Remember before you had your first e-mail address or your first cellphone,” he said. “Don’t you think that your food tasted better back then?'”

Yes, Mr. Romanelli, yes.