Before there were YouTube Shorts, there were short stories. With Christmas nostalgia, I have to think of The Gifts of the Magi. Who else remembers O. Henry?

He was the king of the magazine short story, famous for the surprise twist at the end. This story was from 1905. The story showed up in American literature textbooks for decades, it is probably still in some to this day.

The world he shows is grim. Britain had Dickens as the literary evangelist of the street urchin. The growth of the American cities created an outpouring of literature about the working poor, or just straight up homeless.

As was the fashion at the time, he was a socialist back when I was a theory without a lot of practical application. The idea then was to be nicer, share and have compassion on one another. The rich guys are not the heroes. The world might be against eh little guy, but things have a a way of turning out different than you’d expect.

The heroes in this story, are not terribly heroic. They were a young struggling married couple, desperately in love. They want to give each other their very best on Christmas.

The story invokes the three wise men of the nativity. These men study the stars and are so sure of what they know they set off to find what the star indicated.

O. Henry starts with the practical facts at the very beginning:
One dollar and eightyseven cents.

The wife, Della, has managed to save only this much for husband Jim’s Christmas present. She falls weeping at the thought of what she cannot give him. The story if very specific asbout their income and their costs. They don’t have much.

Even today, I have heard people complain about how Christmas is too commercial. Della want to give a good gift to her beloved. She sells the only thing of value she has: her long gorgeous hair. She didn’t earn her hair, it was a gift of genetics that she was able to have hair past her knees. She sold it to buy her husband a chain for his watch.

Jim had inherited his watch, passed from his grandfather to his father and to him. It didn’t have a chain.

And as he cam home to his wife’s shorn head, he is dumbfounded. He hugs her and she discovers that he sold his watch to buy her jeweled hair combs.

The IRONY!

He closes the story saying the Magi would approve of this couple. Hard to agree, since their sacrifices were in vain.

Schoolchildren have discussed and argued what these two should have done. As I review it, I see that there is a bit of arithmetic and home economics in there. It’s a good story for kids to learn from .

I could understand that a socialist would see the materials things as less valuable. And the celestial angels would agree. The point of the gift is that each gave their very best. I’d like to shake both of them and tell them to use their common sense.

Foolish as they were, they did know each other very well. They paid attention to what lit up their eyes. I am sure I will not be as wise as I hope with all my Christmas preparation, but I do hope to see delight in the eyes of those near me.

He’s making a list and checking it twice

Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice

watch out! Don’t get on the naughty list. I want to be good. I would be ashamed to be caught out in some failure, not matching what I’m supposed to be.

The truth is we all fall short. Lord save us from our falling shorts, speaking of the naughty list.

But seriously, if I take a cold hard look around, failure is way more common than success. For those following along, I’ve been sitting in my mud puddle of failure lately. I’m not living up to what I wish I could be. It’s a cold and slimy feeling. It’s been a tough couple of years.

I guess if I’ve stuck in the mud, I can make mud pies. There is a lesson in failure

It’s taken me those years, but this week I finished David Goggins’ Can’t Hurt Me. He tells how he set out to break the record of pull-ups done in one day. He went on TV to break the record in front of everyone.

And Failed. In front of Everyone.

He knew what’s he’d done wrong though, and set himself up for success for the next time.

And Failed. Again.

This time it was serious. There were reasons to call it impossible.

Not for this guy. Since he’d failed so publicly, he gathered all the insults, jabs and criticism and reviewed the video. There is a lot that went right in his failure. He dove deep to see what went right and get a clear view on what he could change to beat that record.

These stories in my mud puddle could use a different angle. He was right. I can walk back these stories I’ve been telling myself of how I fell short and look for how I did well. With some thought and strategy I can do better than next time and get higher on that list.

That would be nice.

This has happened to me before.

A lot of good things happened this last week that I could write about. One big event was going to the black belt test and cheering on my classmates to perservere in the test like I did last year. I had a lot of feelings while that was happening.

It was a year ago. And then it was this exact date December 10th that I had my 2^nd thyroid surgery. I remember shaking with nerves before the black belt test.

And I remember being dizzy before the surgery. I wasn’t allowed to eat, so I was weak. That whole process lasted longer than I wanted.

But that was a long time ago. A whole year ago.

But after watching the test from the bleachers, I could see how intense it was. Split from the memory of my experience and seeing it from the outside, I remembered how hard all the things that came after.

Chris and I once climbed Mt Whitney, the tallest peak in California. There is a part on the trail called the ninety-Nine switchbacks. There are in the middle. Climb up, but there are still miles to go to get to the peak.

Miles to go.

Later, I could look back and see the path I traveled.

Watching my teammates last Saturday, I admired them. I foggily realized I could admire myself too. My fight had continued after I left the mat. I still had to keep my courage to face the knife in surgery twice more.

It until a year later that I had the clearing to look back and see what I’d traveled. I couldn’t stop along the way. There were miles to go.

On the mat, seconds had to be managed as I defneded against attacks. Hours and days had to be managed after surgeries, taking attention to ensure they passed successfully.

Many days have passed since then. The fight has gone out of them. I’m left with a quiet victory.

Like that saying

IF a tree falls and no one hears, did it really fall?

I bore witness to myself. I remember. My classmates remember too.

Some others bore witness to the stuff that came after. Even though it feels like a dream, all this really happened. I feel like I should be over it, but on this year anniversary of the surgery I am remembered how scared I was at the time.

I have to choose what comes next, in this quiet victory. That’s a big part of what I fought for, to have time to choose.

I am never satisfied with what I create. That is what is means to be an artist

I try to make the time. I will cherish the ideas, the vision that comes in my head to create.

Capturing the muse, making it into a reality—I don’t always do it. But if I make the habit—like this weekly wonder essay—some of those idea will become a reality.

Many will slip back into the mist.

Some few I will take the time to realize. I’ll string the material, the words, together to sketch the idea.

Which is never what I hoped for.

It could be better. I could be better. I wish for more time to give it what it deserves, what I can see in my vision of what it could be.

Not just time. I wish I had the skill and the ability

I don’t yet. I suppose time is part of the package that would create the skill I wish I had but I don’t yet

I’m not satisfied. I would like to do better. I’d like to be better.

The drive to create is never quiet. I’ve got a backlog of things I want to make, and more new ideas are still coming.

That’s the reason for the habit of creation. I don’t want to stop up the flow. I know nothing I make will be up to the mark I am thinking of. All the same, something is better than nothing. I spare line sketch might leave the faintest impression of the idea I have, and yet it realizes a suggestion of the concept I’m reaching for.

As I create it, the idea becomes more real to me and the goal seems more and more unreachable.

I come to a point where what I created is enough. I have learned to be content with an imperfect version.

I hope for more, but I have to be satisfied with what I made. Next time, I will do even better. And I”ll have the chance with my habit to keep creating.

Faith in life is the belief that I can do better. Every little bit of better counts. That makes this day something to believe in.

I started during lockdown. I was isolated in the biggest city in the world-almost. Yes, my family was around me but I felt alone alone alone—like the American homesteaders who lived 10 miles by buggy from the nearest neighbor. I could look out my door to see the long expanse of sky and land. And the shut houses of all my neighbors

I could see so far and there was no one to talk to. We were separated from each other by fears and regulations.

I stood at my porch withal those scary feelings.

For the first time realized the house faced the sunrise. I could see the sunrise like those prairie pioneers. I joined those hardworking courageous people in something better than isolation.

I began to take a photo of the sunrise with my phone from my porch each morning. How many days to start a habit? Or to flip it, how many days does a habit continue?

The lockdown is over but my pictures are still going.

I learned to frame the shot. As time passed, changes came. I trimmed my tree to keep it out of the skyline.

Framing the sky, I notice things.

The tilt of the earth over seasons.
Where to expect the sun to peek in December.
Where to find it in June.

Tomorrow is the thanksgiving holiday. Everyone knows that we are taking this moment to be grateful.

It’s a frame. During the hard times of the lockdown, I framed my fear and isolation into a story that gave me a hero tribe.

Everything was still there, but it changed what I looked at. I could l see the things that brought joy and pass over the ones the dreadful parts.

I could think of it like some IKEA furniture, I’m going look for the pieces that are supposed to make that picture a reality. At some point I will be sure I am missing an indispensable piece and I will start to despair. When I get to the end I will discover I had everything and I still have extra to add intrigue

With the frame of thankfulness, I won’t despair in seeking. I can face the prospect and find what I need to create what I’m hoping for.

As the littlest, it was my job to set the table. Since we never had matching dishes or silverware. I put a lot of thought into the choices for each place setting. The plates were mostly basic Corel ware, white with a blue or beige decorative circle mainly.

But the silverware grabbed my attention. Some of the utensils were undecorated, flat sliver top to bottom. Some had lines on the handle, lending an elegance like a stalk of grass to the presentation.

But my favorite were the handles with flowers. A fat puffed up knife handle with knobby flower embellishments, and sometimes a scrolled leaf or bud climbing the stem—these required contemplation and investigation. Should that elaborate spoon be placed next to the plain knife? The fork was all the way on the other side of the plate allowing for a new visual statement.

First pass to set the table was from my gut, making choices for each setting. The plate and its attributes was the center of my choice for cutlery and I made the decision based on who was sitting at that spot. What would best please and suit by father? My mother was a puzzle too.

I would reach the end, and as I added the cups I’d have a chance to consider my selections. Was I fair? Did one person get too many of the most beautiful silverware? I might take a fork and change it out with the one at another setting.

Once, my mother showed me some pieces of silverware she’d inherited from her family. These serving spoons had one set of extruding blossoms on the top side. When turned over, a completely different flower design was visible. I marveled over these special occasion pieces. What gorgeousity, two designs!

Dinner happened every day. Years were spent making these value judgements of which person should have what ration of beauty at the meal.

I cherished the sight, the feel and the expression of each.

I rationed for myself too. had the power, I could have hoarded the most beautiful pieces for myself. No! Don’t be greedy! I would work so that I had the right amount of the pretty ones.

I’m not little anymore, and I look back and realize my family did not love those pieces like I did.

I remember them to this day. If I could, I would go tell myself to hoard the best pieces. I loved them, and I appreciated them like no one else did.

If I see the beauty in something and love it, that is a particular right of ownership. The choice that pulls at me, draws my eye and thrums my heart demands attention. It’s worth securing.

We all got to take an hour of time out of savings this weekend.

I suppose I am putting it to use and I’m happy to wake up more rested. But when I try to redeem that hour to increase it, the bar is very high.

Across the table from me—sitting one seat over in the truck—my girl is using every minute on the hardest schoolwork she can find to chase down her goals. Not a single complaint as she works and reworks the physics problems that want to defeat her.

She has the high school experience that I never did, and she’s chasing it down like she has a machete in her teeth.

I’m support staff, not competition. And yet I feel shame that I pursue my goals with a fraction of her intensity.

Last Friday, SpaceX launched the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space force base. It went up during the day, otherwise I could have seen it from my yard. The burn it takes to reach velocity to leave the planet’s atmosphere lights the sky for more than a hundred miles.

My daughter knows the score, and is pushing as hard as she can at this start of her launch. She’s been at it for longer than I remember. It’s been a while since I cheered to see her walk across the room independently.

She wrestles with physics and I am relieved I don’t have to learn it. On the ride to school I tell her about how I struggled with statistics in college and was so relieved with the C on my transcript.

She likes the story.

I drive back home, coasting downhill. There are things I have to do today, and still I could coast past most of them. It would matter. Who would know?

The atmosphere of my personal launch is behind me. I can remember it.

And I’ve done big things since.

I said it, I’m coasting. I made the effort to achieve momentum. I could do it again.

Seeing my child gather herself together for one of her very first lift off is nostalgic and a re-run

Am I ready to bite the machete again? Maybe I can put it in the holder and check out the map first. I’ll get moving with a little more preparation.

NOTE: last week’s offering inspired a few reponses. Thank you! I love to hear from my readers.

My cancer diagnosis and treatment plan unfolded like the petals of a flower in the sun. At first it was a tiny manageable bud, ready to be nipped

Then the petal opened up, and slowly the magnificent structure of the careful slow poisoning of my body—the enemy cancer was the target, but there was collateral damage. The baton relay of specialists who managed the stages of the assault was unexpected and continuous.

After I was handed off the team of surgeons and I video-met the oncologist, while I still had a drain in from my mastectomy, the oncologist with patience and kindness told me the new news:

The next phase was going to be 4 months of chemo.

FOUR MONTHS

I asked my questions, in a state of groggy shock. My husband was there too. “Thank you, that’s all.”

Click

I stood up and grabbed my husband and sobbed . I had come to terms with the diagnosis, and the surgery.

But 4 months of misery broke me.

Heh. It was way longer than that in the event.

The tear-drenched shoulder on my husband showed my despair and the value I place on celebration, adventure and joy.

2 and a half years ago, I heard what sounded like prison doors slamming from my oncologist..

6 months ago, in the twilight of my last cancer treatment, groggy and weak I took a leap of faith in the future and bought the plane tickets I to New Orleans.

My dear friend had a house there and I had a standing invitation. I’d thought of her and of that city while I lay abed dreaming of my chance to go.

As I write I am flying home— I had a full week to realized all those sleepless night dreams.

I didn’t go on Marti Gras, the famous celebration. I went on a Tuesday in October–an ordinary day.

And even so, the expression of joy music and fun was pumping.The machine was primed to keep going with celebration.

Musicians had learned the music

The people in the kitchen knew th4 recipe.

They didn’t forget after the parade was done.

My host took me to a gorgeous old bar, and the fourpiece band (Mostly brass) played all the songs.

Joyful and jumping.

And Then…

Witches—women in elaborate witch costumes—with all their friends walked into the bar. The band played on.

It seems that once they got the habit of dressing up, the people take any occasion to do it again.

Through the whole weekend, more costumes showed up as we went around town—a fabulous pirate, a green Poison Ivy. One older couple came to the Zydeco show in full body penguin jammies.

I tried to liven up the cancer treatment. Theses guys have tught me something.

Wear the costeume. Play the music. Yes, order the drink. Celebration is a habit I can pick up.

It is fall and cold has snapped. Only at night, some days are still too hot for long pants. But at night the calendar and the weather are agreeing that it is nearing winter.

We even had a full day of rain last week. My daughter said “I spent half of my life in a drought. Rain is startling.”

There is a nursery rhyme:

Rain Rain

Go away

Come again some other day

But we lived through the drought and longed for rain. We know that rain is a blessing.

We also know it’s cold and wet.

Blessings aren’t always comfortable.

Rain does not come every year but fire does.

No one wants a fire. Almost a year ago, the world watched as the terrible fires along the coast in Los Angeles destroyed so many buildings and history.

I cannot remember a year without a fire.

Rain is gentle. And we can work around be careful with the water that remains so we can get through the years of none.

Fire is not gentle. It consumes and roars through the hills faster than people are ready for.

I hear the stories of homeowners who don’t get out fast enough. Some of them get caught behind the fire or in the crush of evacuation and perish.

Some will stay to pour water on their roofs to keep the flames away.

The ones that make it are the heroes.

On this terrain—any terrain—life brings harsh choices. What’s the right one? The drought says be careful and conserve. Cut out extras and do the small things to conserve.

Fire demands immediate action. GO! RUN! GET OUT!

Or

Get the hose, and use all the water to spray the roof. Don’t Stop, don’t hold back.

As devouring as the fire, consume everything in reach to fight.

Fire and Rain

Each a calling.

When they come they require from me a response.

When it comes the choice is in my hands

Am I ready?

Two weeks ago I realized I’d hurt my neck and shoulders. It took me an absurdly long time to figure it out.

There wasn’t a moment of OUCH. It was a whole lot of things that led me to realized that I’d been injured for several weeks—months?—and I didn’t realize it until it reached a crisis.

There are sensitive nerves in the shoulders and neck. Nerve damage results in weakness. I thought I was tired when I felt like my head wanted to nod down.

My physical therapist friend helped me figure it out. I wished I’d seen him sooner.

Why is it that I always find what I’m looking for the last place I look?

Once I find it I stop looking. See, I thougth I had found the answer. I thought I wasn’t getting enough rest. I’d been going to bed early ole time, based on that theory.

I was totally wrong.

For hundreds of years, the best medical treatment was based on the four humors, Doctors check their patients for how choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine and melancholic they were. Leeches were part of the treatments then.

It was a working theory. Everyone knew you had to watch the humors.

Until a better theory came along.

That’s not giving the right picture. The first theory—that one that everyone agrees on—does not let go without a fight.

It’s predictable. I’ve talked about The Structure of Scientific Revolution before. Theories about how things work, and what is going on, they are very sticky. People keep to their first idea very persistently.

I was really sure that I was not getting enough rest. I wondered if I needed to eat more vitamins or something. Why was I so TIRED all the time? I couldn’t keep my head up.

It wasn’t a bad idea to get extra sleep, I’m sure. But it wasn’t the root cause of my problem.I didn’t suspect that my neck muscles were weak, yet in hindsight I see I should have thought of it.

I have more energy now that I’m letting my shoulders heal. Since I clearly was hanging on to the wrong end of the stick on this, what else am I doing wrong?

I’m pretty sure there are a lot of things I’m wrong about. I just don’t know what they are yet. I should not stop looking.