"Do one thing everyday that scares you."
Eleanor Roosevelt

A Box Marked Confidential

I found the box of letters and old pictures in my grandmother's attic. Their discovery could only mean, a melding part of the long journey back to my old self and the unknown road ahead to the new self I am uncovering daily. I found them in the last place I told myself they could possibly be.

Finding them wasn't easy, I had to pry nails out of the attic trap door and unusual duct tape just to lower the stairs. Plus I had to do this with the precision of a safe cracker in MI:2 - if my grandmother knew I was breaking into her attic vault she would freak.

I climbed the stairs and when I reached the top, the box marked "Sabrina Confidential" was sitting at the top waiting for me (screaming READ ME! for anyone else to discover). I reached into the box and pulled out the first piece of paper that my hand touched. It was a letter. From him.

I sat down on the attic floor, my legs dangling into the ceiling of the hall below. I pulled the string and switched on the bare light bulb above. With my head in the rafters, I read one of the last letters he wrote me wishing me well. Confirming our break-up. It was like he were speaking the words to me that very day. I could hear his voice, his earnestness. I could see his eyes.

From below, my sister asked "Did you find it?". My daughter asking "Mommy, Can I see?" I put the letter back and didn't even pause to inspect the rest of the contents of the cardboard enclosure. I would save opening the rest for some quiet time. I had waited this long. I could wait a few more hours until I could find some alone time.

Driving back to Nashville, the box brought to mind the play "Love Letters" by A.R. Gurney that traces the lifelong correspondence and untapped relationship between two friends/wannabe lovers(?) and the unfolding of their lives via the written word. I remember that I wept when I saw the play at TPAC with Stefanie Powers and Robert Wagner.

Always a hopeless romantic before, but with my heart hardened due to sadness, mistrust and death of a few of the dreams I had for my life I wondered - would I weep when I read the letters in this box marked confidential? How would reading them make me feel? Our correspondence stopped when we both got married. I wanted to respect the boundaries of our marriages especially knowing that the feelings I still have are far greater than friendship.

For we were lovers in the greatest sense and we held each other's dreams in our hands and kept those dreams safe for each other. We believed in each other and always wanted the best for each other. And when we broke apart - it was peaceful with nothing else to say - no ill will - and the love I had for him the day we broke up still lives in my heart, in my mind and my memory and it is the gift that I carry with me. That I was loved by this wonderful person and how lucky I was to have had that kind of love.

Arriving home I left the box in the back of my car. As if it were a fragile artifact, I didn't want to move it again until I could pull all the contents out inspect each treasure in the right setting and with me in the right state of mind. I also realized that in these high-tech days of text messaging, e-mail and digital photography, that this box contained a preserved history - these letters, matchbooks, ticket stubs were little gifts waiting to be opened again.

As it turned out the opportunity to read the letters and look at the photos again presented itself that very evening. My daughter was going to hang out with her Aunt Dawn, I was alone for the night.

I took the time to slowly read each letter. I took note of when his stationary changed and remembered even the smell of the pages. How comforting it was to see the grid of the familiar graph paper, remembering his thought process and the emphasis of the things I remembered to be important to him. I read of trips we were planning to take together, the blossoming of our romance and relationship, rehashed phone discussions, chronology of the week's classes and study schedule, flight plans, career plans, true communication of our feelings, declarations, notes asking how my family and friends were doing. It was interesting to read the parts of the letter that pointed to the strife in our relationship. When he was into the relationship I wasn't and vice versa. Petty jealousies and immaturities aside we did a lot of growing up together.

The box held a cassette tape that contained songs we would record back and forth for each other. Don Williams, Phil Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Kenny Rogers - the dated music told the story of our feelings for each other also. Hidden messages when we were over the moon in love, mad, playful etc.... I gasped when I heard the first song on the tape, because after we listened to it for the first time he told me that he loved me. We were sitting in his car and as he hugged me, I felt him slip off his class ring from his finger while his arms were around me.

The insides of the box held some of the greatest treasures my life has known; poignant and funny greeting cards, matchbooks from restaurants, ticket stubs from movies and plays, postcards from far off places, photos of us from various stages of the years we shared with one another. But the tangible items also contained love, the promise of the future, happiness, photographic memories of hiking and camping in the mountains, road trips, the beach, sitting on a swing quietly smiling because you are next to the one you love, an extraordinary dog named Charley.

I saved the photos for last because I thought that when I looked at them it would make me sad for the love I had lost. Instead, I saw something in the photos that surprised me. I saw Sabrina, happy, having fun, eyes luminous - the girl I had forgotten - the girl who had so much self-confidence that it was intimidating to some - the girl who was loved by an exceptional guy. I wept when I saw the photos - not out of sadness but out of shock and recognition - there was the guy I loved with the girl I had loved. In addition to my feelings of missing him, I realized how much I had missed her, because I never realized I had how much of myself I have lost along the way.

It was a quiet evening that I will always cherish. I felt like I had spent the evening catching up with a very dear friend. Reading his letters again made me realize why I think of him so much when I listen to the rain hitting the windows, smell the honeysuckle while driving down a backroad and pause when I see the dogwoods bloom for the first time in the spring and why when I go to the Smokies to hike or camp I feel like I am coming home. Why when I hear John Waite singing the verse "Everytime I think of you, I always catch my breath" that it ushers back some wonderful feelings I haven't felt in a long time.

So what do I do with all this? I feel fortunate to even have these old fashioned love letters tied carefully with a ribbon, hiding in a box marked confidential, locked in a closet waiting for me to shed some light on them again (maybe when I'm feeling a little bit nostalgic for that exceptional person and that extraordinary dog). With the internet, IMing and text messaging do people even send love letters anymore? I feel providential that I had this my "first love, true love" experience with him.

I can only hope that someday when my daughter experiences this that it is with someone just as wonderful. And hopefully, I will have the grace to reach back to the girl I once was and recapture that confidence and belief in myself and never lose sight of her again. I've lost touch with him over the years, but "I hear his name in certain circles, And it always makes me smile."

Putting on the Primer

While my daughter was out of town I decided to tackle a home improvement project. Painting my kitchen.

Before I could begin painting I had to prep the walls and this meant one thing. Removing the wallpaper. It started easy enough, one pull on the border put up in 1985 caused it come off in one roll. This was going to be easy.

Borders removed, I tugged on a corner of the wallpaper and the whole section came off in a huge sheet. Underneath it revealed a pattern original from 1975 when the home was built. I was surprised, it was a quaint yellow floral pattern with a zippy stripe. I tugged at its corner it wouldn't come off.

Oh my goodness, what have I gotten myself into? Two alternating layers on the wall - I had to move forward and finish the job.

I removed as much of the second wallpaper layer that I could and realized that I was going to need professional help. The first layer was never going to come off. Three walls were cleared and I took down the out of date lace curtains and threw the sheets of wallpaper and unwanted curtains in the trash. For some reason, it felt good to know I was never going to see those curtains again that had blocked the sunshine from coming into my windows.

After interrogating my sister and friends who have found themselves at the successful end of similar projects. I sought out their advice. Great recommendations abounded so I used the best of the best and was on my way.

A trip to Home Depot ensued and I wandered back to Floors and Walls and found some heavy duty spray solution to saturate the stubborn layer of wallpaper.

One thing my sister told me that would make the project go faster ... put on some good music. I started out with Billy Joel "Songs in the Attic". I realized listening to the music that it was probably written before all the wallpaper in this room was applied. When I finally psyched myself up to try the spray, I read the instructions, sprayed the solution and waited for 15 minutes and went at it again. Most of it came off in sheets but some unyielding remnants remained.

I was standing in a chair working on the area above the closet that houses my washer and dryer when I realized how winning the struggle over the resistant wallpaper and peeling off the final shreds felt reminscint of my inner conflict over my marriage that had ended and how I felt like somehow I had lost part of my soul.

But I realized as my head was close to my ceiling and reaching for the final pieces of tattered wallpaper that the first layer of paper that was hanging firm on the wall was my authentic self. The second layer I was struggling to peel off the walls was akin to my married persona I had taken on and even the sad surrender I had given in to during those years. Some of it I had to spray a second time and come back later and examine if it's ready to give yet and break free from the wall- that piece wasn't ready to give yet - much like my psyche not yet ready to relinquish that part of my fractured soul.

I listened to the Billy Joel CD so many times my portable CD player had gotten hot, so I switched to my stereo and put in a cassette tape of Kool & The Gang's "Emergency". Wow, memory lane of my girlhood self ... songs like Fresh, Mislead, Celebration, Emergency, andSurrender were playing. As I was jamming and peeling wallpaper my dog was looking at me as if I lost my mind. I think I was scaring her gyrating so close to the ceiling while standing in a chair and picking wallpaper strips off with my fingernails.

And while I have been blabbing that I miss the old me so much and what I wouldn't give to reclaim that girl I used to be, I realized that like the cheery, quaint yellow zippy striped wallpaper that I had a fondness for - I wasn't going to let it stay up on the walls. It was time for a new coat of paint, one that matches the swatch I taped to the wall that proclaims this is the new color for my kitchen, this is the new color for me.

It is time for my home (i.e. self)-improvement project undertaking to capture what I like about both the original wallpaper and remove the parts of the second layer that I didn't like. I might have to get my hands and fingernails sticky along the way to remove those layers, but that's okay - the end result is going to be worth it. Not an extreme home makeover, but a fresh new (out)look.

After the wallpaper is removed, I'm washing down the walls and getting out my primer.

Jesus Called

Sometime during the last years of my friend Martha's struggle with breast cancer, she made all of her girlfriends promise her that on the anniversary of her death we were to meet at Calvary Cemetery and pour a vodka martini over her grave. We diligently promised her, "Yes" we would do this.

You see Martha had faced death for so long that she could easily joke about dying. She not only wanted her life to be celebrated, but for her death to be celebrated as well. Sometimes it was hard to laugh at her jokes about dying or accept her shocking bluntness about her diagnosis. Her brothers and sisters faced it with her and could joke at death's expense also. The seven kids had faced the death of their parents together.

Sometimes I had to ask myself "if she can laugh about it why can't you?" Most times it was hard watching her suffer both publicly and privately and I couldn't do it, I couldn't laugh at the off-color jokes no matter how brave the face she put on.

Year after year, she won the costume contest at my annual Halloween party. The first time, bloated by chemo therapy and bald as a cue ball, she simply wore a black graduation gown, painted her entire head white and after putting a light bulb in her mouth was transformed into the Addams Family's Uncle Fester. From the way she laughed and carried on - most of the people at the party did not know she was in the midst of her treatments and living with cancer.

She died a few years ago. It was August. She had progressively gotten sicker from the drugs she was taking and she had run through her nine lives. We knew this was going to happen - it was inevitable wasn't it? But, it was hard when the time came to say goodbye to her.

We laughed and carried on at the wake - drank shots of Jagermeister in her memory and told "Martha" stories that left us all shrieking with laughter. The next day reality set in and we cried and held on to each other at her funeral. She had planned her funeral months, perhaps years before and knowing Martha she would have been extremely proud of the fuss made with all the Pomp and Circumstance that only a sister of a beloved priest could muster at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in downtown Nashville.

When I heard the shovel full of red dirt hit her casket with a muted thud and smaller pieces of dirt scattering, I again was stunned into realizing that she was finally gone, finally free of living life with her cancer. When I made her acquaintance ten years before, she had just celebrated her no-more chemo party. I guess you could say her funeral was her no-more cancer party.

So on the anniversary of her death a year later, on a hot, humid August day we made plans to meet after work at Calvary, the Catholic cemetery in town, and pour the ceremonial martini like we had pledged. She had threatened to come back and haunt us if we broke our promise. Some of us took it us a joke, others took it a bit more seriously.

I arrived before everyone and since the area bordered on the iffy side of town I decided while I was waiting in this enormous expanse of hallowed ground to cruise around and see if I could find where the circle of priests were buried. To no surprise, I found it on top of the highest hill. I got out and walked around the circle pondering the mysticism and majesty of the Da Vinci Code-like symbolism that you could see every where you looked. Dramatic crypts and beautiful statues abounded in every direction. My gaze fell on pewter colored crosses and marble angels that had faded to the color of putty. I couldn't help but notice the little lambs and sweet cherubs on the smallest headstones that adorned the children's section of the cemetery. I paused and said a silent prayer for all who were buried here.

I climbed back in my car and headed back down the wooded, cement filled hill and saw something big and bright pastel yellow flash at the corner of my eye. I stopped and looked out the car window. Nothing. All I could see were trees and drab grey headstones. I put my car in reverse. Coming into my peripheral vision I saw it again.

Oh my gosh! That doesn't spell out Big Momma does it? An enormous flower arrangement spelling out the words "Big Momma" in yellow carnations. Who in the world would do something so tacky at a funeral? Well, obviously in this case it was Big Momma's family.

Thinking of how much Martha would love this I glanced down at my watch and discovered now I was late for my meeting at her graveside. I put the car in drive and headed off down the hill again.

The rest of the gang had arrived, we laughed told "Martha" stories and finally at the end poured that martini over the ground that covered her. "Martha, wherever you are - I hope you are smiling." I thought to myself.

As we disbanded, I mentioned my discovery and piquing my friends interest they asked me to take them to see Big Momma's grave. We drove up the hill and as I was passing the area and pointing out my window the other cars started pulling over and parking. I didn't mean for us to get out!

As we walked towards Big Momma, more arrangements were coming into view. The pastel yellow carnations had lots of colorful company.

Some of the arrangements had fallen over and someone righted one. Someone picked up another until soon all of the arrangements were standing up again. The flowers were still fresh. Big Momma had lots of tribute arrangements and her family had a dark but delightful sense of humor. I mean I grew up in the South and I have never seen anything like this display of adoration and affection.

White carnations were molded into the shape of a cake and the banner read "Angel Food Cake." Another baby blue arrangement formed into a telephone - the dial pad spelled out what could have only been Big Momma's phone number and the banner read: "Jesus called." At the bottom another banner read "Big Momma Answered"!

Oh my gosh, who was this woman?

A tangerine carnation purse was labeled "Shop Till You Drop." The "Gates of Heaven" were represented in mint green carnations as was the off-white carnation chapel that Big Momma and Mr. Big Momma must have gotten married in. Another sweet arrangement in the shape of an angel proudly wore a baby pink halo with the label "Precious Angel."

Someone in our group jokingly, but seriously inquired if our examination of the flowers was a sacrilege. But I think not. Big Momma couldn't help but get our attention. We delighted in the love that was shown to her by these colorful flower arrangements. Her family was obviously able to let go and honor her in death by the way she must have lived her life.

A few days later I searched the online obituaries for any mention of this woman who had an Irish name which I read off the tin temporary plate at the foot of her grave. I wanted to learn more about her. I hadn't missed the irony of her heritage because Martha was Irish also. I couldn't find anything that would tell me how old she was, when she was born, how many children and grandchildren she might have had or anything about this person who had to have a fabulous sense of humor. I just knew one thing - she was loved.

So was Martha, and I realized that although they were strangers they had a lot in common. It is my hope that somewhere in heaven they were up there together laughing at us. I was proud that we kept our promise to her because I could finally understand why Martha wanted us to remember her in death by the way she lived her life - joking, her gang of girlfriends together, raising a glass in her honor and reminding us that when "Jesus Calls" it's not supposed to be sad - I learned from Martha and Big Momma that it's meant to be quite a joyous occasion.