‘Tis the season of thank-you notes, basic childhood preparation for essay writing. The purpose of the letter is followed by specific examples with detailed supporting evidence followed by a final thought. When I was little, my mom made me write thank-you notes, and I’d sit and stare at the rectangular white cards with the silver embossed twirly Thank You on the front. The entire process filled me with dread. Periodically, my mom would check on me and say, “Get writing” which was followed by threats of no playing, eating, or living til I was done. Man, I hated that.

I’d neatly arrange the cards into straight piles, sharpen my pencil, adjust my seat, and imagine raindrop patterns on the window and discover cool designs with lines on the palms of my hands. Tracing the freckles on my arms led me to examining each fingernail’s unique shape and size. My mom’s desk concealed secrets to her world – domed slots housed neatly stacked bills, and I’d silently and clandestinely open and close each tiny drawer to reveal lipstick, mints, an embroidered handkerchief scented with perfume, a rosary, a paper-pressed shamrock from Ireland, and other amazing treasures.

I’d wonder who made up this thank-you note rule, and I’d scheme about what I’d say to this big person:  Listen Mister, my Aunt Aggie and Uncle Jim love me. They didn’t give me that First Holy Communion check to make me sit here all day and write this. Or Mrs. Cronin is the nicest lady in the world. Does she know you’re making me do this?

Today, I’m happy my mom put me through that torture. As an adult, writing notes focuses me completely on the recipients, the shared experiences, the moments of laughing, crying, and helping. I’m left with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for having this person in my life. The thank- you note ends up being a gift to me.    

Last week, I started a note to my boss to thank him for his generous Christmas gifts, but got interrupted and later went for a run. While out there, I thought about how lucky I am that Jon trusts, encourages, and truly wants the best for me. He is patient, kind, humble, and wise. He supports my dreams, accepts my idiosyncrasies, and smiles at my jokes. He genuinely wants me to grow as a person, teacher and administrator. I reflected on the leadership and conference opportunities he has provided which led to thoughts of his homemade pumpkin cheesecake at Christmastime in the Deans’ Offices. This “if you give a mouse a cookie” mentality truly uplifted me. By the time I sat down to complete his note, I was all in. I mentioned how Brendan, Kevin and I enjoyed lunch at Panera with his gift card, how Tim and I loved the bottle of wine on Christmas Eve, and how nice the soap looks in the bathroom. All of a sudden, I was happy about returning to work this week after Christmas break.

Thank you notes are tricky that way.

P.S. TGIF.

Click. Publish. Oh no! Yesterday’s post led me to come up with my own little Simon and Garfunkel ditty while out on my run this morning:

Slow down, you write too fast.

You got to make the process last.

Just reading lines and quipping poems

Looking for oops not feelin’ stupid.

La da da da da da da feelin’ stupid.

Daily posts – just too much

floods the inbox with such and such.

Readers think, “What is this crap?

Blah, blah, blah. She’s such a sap.”

Authors broadcast – Do Not Fear!

Put hands on keys, get butt in gear.

Heart loses faith in what I write.

Scared to hurt with all my might.

Who am I to think I can

make meaning out of when I ran?

Six days of posting on the clock

readers beg for writer’s block.

Words flow forth without me knowing

where a thought is really going.

Perfect phrases duck, hide, elude,

Tease my brain with rhymes quite crude.

Can I get those words just right?

Can I overcome this fright?

Not good enough, why waste their time?

Suess-like stanzas judged a crime.  

Can I grasp them, stuck in mud

words of love, faith, joys that flood?

What is my purpose, my deep down goal?

To restore hope, to enhance the soul.

Feel called to write, not sure why

sometimes it feels like runner’s high.

Today I am not good enough.

Tomorrow’s new day won’t be so rough.

Merry Christmas! We love you!

Christ is born! Alleluia!

After sending Christmas cards for thirty years, this year I told Tim I was done. He didn’t hang Christmas lights, so I figured, “No lights, no cards. People just toss the cards anyway.”

In early December, I went for a run with Watson only to discover Tim up on the peak of our house on a twenty-foot extended ladder.  “What are you doing?! You’re going to kill yourself up there!” Scaring the crap out of me as he wobbled on the ladder, he looked down and replied, “I’m putting up lights.”

“Way up there! You gotta be kiddin’ me!”

Shrugging, he returned to the strand at the top of the roof. I prayed through the entire run for two things 1) For Tim to get down safely 2) For me to find a 2015 family photo. That afternoon, I placed my annual Costco order that somehow gets bigger as life gets fuller.  

So the task began. Two days that week, I was up by 3:30am handwriting addresses as I admired baby  Eileen’s boundless energy. What was I thinking not sharing the joy this child has brought to us? The Christening photo includes us all – including Jesus Christ on the cross in the background. I don’t write notes – the miracle of the full-family picture speaks for itself – we are alive, we are together,and we love you.

The addressing is an annual journey through our past as I scour four address books in thirty years for accuracy – old neighbors, childhood friends, mothers, brothers, sisters, cousins, co-workers, mentors, priests, friends’ parents, parents’ friends, past teachers, new neighbors, new friends, old friends, moved friends, and divorced friends, and deceased loved ones – each name graced with a silent God rest his soul or God rest her soul. Images flood of young children, young mothers and fathers, all struggling to do their best while remaining full of hope for a bright future. Life goes by so quickly, and each entry heightens a blessed sense of gratefulness and joy.  

Then there are the entries where I think, Who are these people? How do I know them? How did we know them? I try not to dwell on these lapses in brain function; otherwise the cards would become as frightening as hanging the lights. But why do some friends remain and others fade away?

Next year, I’m going to ask Tim to skip the lights and just help me stamp the cards. It’ll keep him off the ladder, and he can help solve the mysteries of the strangers in my address book. That way, we’ll both feel of sound mind.   

On Friday, Tim and I attended a fundraiser for the Bridget Anne Cullen Memorial Scholarship Fund at Bourbon Street on the Southside of Chicago. Bridget is from St. Cajetan, our parish home for the first ten years of our marriage and my childhood church, school, and world.

Growing up in that community, my earliest autumn memories include cheers of “We’re from Cajetan’s, couldn’t be prouder, and if we can’t hear us, we’ll yell a little louder!” which would gradually escalate into red-faced screams til we nearly popped blood vessels in our temples. I grew up down the block from Kennedy Park, the home field of the St. Cajetan Warrior football team, and I spent my fall Sundays at the park watching what I thought was the equivalent of the Chicago Bears.

My whole life revolved around St. Cajetan, and because I am the ninth of ten children, I honestly thought I knew everyone – such confidence for a ten-year-old. When Tim and I married, I said I’d live anywhere as long as it was in St. Cajetan. In 1986, we bought our first home, a two-bedroom raised ranch, at 10748 S. Maplewood six blocks from my parents and within two of four of my siblings. Our oldest daughter Katie was born two months later. Bethy was born Feb. 19, 1988, and that St. Patrick’s Day, I delivered Irish soda bread to neighbors only to learn from the Smith sisters across the street that they were selling their three-bedroom Georgian. With Bethy on my right hip, Katie at my side, and the steaming loaf in my left hand, I smiled and said without hesitation, “Well, if you are selling, we’d like to buy this house.” Tim says I violated every Pre-Cana Item of Concord with that statement.

A few months later, we moved into the Smiths’ home at 10753 S. Maplewood and stayed there until 1995 when we moved to Valparaiso, Indiana, an hour away but no longer stroller distance from my best friends. The Sunday before we moved, my kindergarten friend Peggy Kerrigan and I wept outside of mass. With great vehemence, I said, “Peg, do not let Tim bury me in Valpo.” At thirty-two, I had turned into my mother.

So two days ago, we were back with the St. Cajetan crowd, and it was as if we had never left. Our lifelong friends Peggy, Laura, Beth and Bill joined Tim and me as we gathered in honor of Bridget Anne Cullen, a Mother McAuley girl whose life ended on New Year’s Day 2013. Bourbon Street was packed with familiar faces showing support for Bridget’s family in their quest to find meaning in the loss of their daughter. The family had hoped to sell 300 tickets to raise money for Southwest side Chicago girls to attend McAuley with scholarships in Bridget’s name. They sold over 950, and my sister Eileen volunteered at the silent auction’s mob of friendly elbowing and trash talk.

Bag pipers, Irish tenors, folk singers, and rock bands played gratis for the cause as all wanted to do something, anything to help ease the pain. Bridget’s mother Anne climbed on stage and read from a prepared speech thanking the hundreds of attendees and volunteers as Tim and I held hands, praying for her, our children, and everyone on Earth’s children. St. Cajetan’s pastor, Father Frank, said a prayer as all bowed their heads in silence and remembrance.

Tim and I visited with old neighbors and old classmates. The connections were endless with banter as comfortable as an old slipper. I overheard a new friend say to Tim, “You went to Mount Carmel. What was the problem? You couldn’t get into Rita?” Tim is from St. Barnabas, a nearby parish, and he, like me, enjoyed the familiarity of childhood references. Old acquaintances delighted in the news of our granddaughter and bombarded us with jokes about growing old.  Over and over again, I was introduced as Eileen Rubey’s sister Nancy, something that never happens in Valpo. Greetings were followed by “I love Eileen.” “Me, too“, I thought each time the relationship was revealed.

Being part of something so much bigger and more beautiful than ever imagined reminded me of the old saying “good friends show up.” In this case, friends of friends of friends of family chose to become a community of supporters, short-term strangers, and believers united by faith in prayer, hope, and love.

On the way home, I said to Tim, “There’s a house for sale on the old block.”

“Not a chance, Nance. We have lives in Valpo.”

“I know. I just had to mention it, just to throw it out there. You have to admit, it would be pretty funny to own three houses on that block.”

“No, no, it wouldn’t,” he replied and kept driving across the border.

Valparaiso is our home now, but I’ll always brag that I’m from Cajetan’s. My roots and my identity are wrapped up in St. Cajetan, my church of solace and peace. And on Friday, I couldn’t be prouder.

Far from it. I was a fun-loving, twenty-year-old without a care in the world . . . except what pants would accommodate by my big fat butt. In 1983, I left my beloved Chicago Southside family and friends for ten months to study in Cardiff, Wales. That Christmas, my friend Martha and I spent our six-week holiday traveling through Europe on a Eurail pass. Completely open to new experiences, I viewed, listened, read, and mostly ate and drank my way through Europe. Lavish, slowly poured Guinness and rich English toffee in London, delectable chocolate truffles in Brussels, bratwurst and beer in Munich, crisp, cold Heineken in Amsterdam, schnitzel and Mozart balls in Salzburg, creamy tortellini alla panna in Florence, fettuccine al fredo in Rome, and buttery croissants in Paris created sensory memories to last a lifetime. I systematically stopped at every bakery, chocolatier, gyro stand, cafe, and pub in my path as Martha and I scoped out  cathedrals, museums, and river walks. Saint Martha traveled with a walking, talking Ratatouille.

Upon returning to my dorm room in Cardiff in January, I felt hefty and sluggish. Thank goodness there were no scales or selfies back then. I mastered the art of not completely drying my skin tight jeans, lying flat on my bed, grunting and tugging them on inch by inch, and sucking in my blubbery gut to get those suckers zipped. Days later, while savouring a favorite fish and chips snack from a chippie vendor, my friend Lisa challenged me to run with her the next morning.

Promptly at 5:30am on Jan. 17, 1983, Lisa tapped on my dorm door. Bleary-eyed and dry mouthed, I shuffled at her side while she ran along and chatted nonchalantly. Unable to utter a word, I struggled to survive. That breathless, painful plod changed my life. Lisa diligently continued her pre-dawn knock on my door, and by March 1st, I was hooked. I began logging my miles, and I’ve been neurotically doing it ever since.

On June 20th, 1984, I arrived at O’Hare to discover that my parents and lifelong friends were waiting for me outside of customs. I was styling a pair of second-hand much smaller jeans, a goofy hat, and new perspective on life. I had discovered the rhythm of movement, the peace of discipline, the joy of energy, and a strong desire to see the world from the viewpoint of trails, cobblestones, sidewalks, and roads, not from cafe windows. Travels are remembered by breezes, woods, lakes, moss, sand, flowers, mountains, snow, and sunshine. And somehow the world is a much brighter place.   

Flipping the calendar to a new year feels like a fresh start, a clean slate – kind of like Catholic Confession. We set goals to lose weight, eat healthy, take vitamins, and floss daily. Some pledge to change in deeper ways, to create, to make a difference in the lives of others. We want to be better human beings, greater contributors to society, and better caretakers of our health. This led me to an extensive to-do list.

Resolution List:

1) Write 2) Be prompt 3) Stop talking so much 4) Call the kids three times per week 5) Visit Mom once per week 6) Call my mother-in-law once per week 7) Learn to knit 8) Learn to cook 9) Quit swimming so much – related to #1 – you can’t write while in the pool and my skin is so so itchy 10) Stop fretting about things I can’t control 11) Stop biting my nails and cuticles – related to previous item 12) Eat only real food; eliminate preservatives 12) Remember my vitamins 13) Grow spiritually 14) Fear less 13) Stop after two glasses of wine.

Thank you, Tim, family, and dear friends for putting up with a perpetual train-catching, Tostito-munching  dreamer / yapper who spends 90% of her free time running, swimming, going to yoga, drinking wine and lamenting how she wants to be a better mother, daughter, friend, believer, artist, cook, and philanthroper and often gets so wound up that she naws her finger tips til they bleed.

That was rough. Ouch. Upon review, Resolution List #1 includes 16 weekly phone calls – no can do. Cell phones are out while running, doing yoga, swimming, praying, and working. State laws prohibit calls while driving, and that’s often the only time I am not moving, writing, or working. I try to be early, but in my quest to be present, I lose track of time. I’m working on that. Food restrictions might be good for my cholesterol, but they wreck havoc on trips with friends to Taco Real in Hammond. Am I supposed to skip the queso fundido and chips? Wine headaches are an issue, but there must be an alternative.

Revised Resolution List :

1) Write 2) Be on time 3) Listen and pay attention 4) Love unconditionally. The kids, my mom, and loved ones have their own lives, and they don’t need scheduled talks with me to feel my love 5) Find balance in my fanatical desire to exercise 6) Have faith 7) Switch to vodka.

The revision remains too complex for a focused 2016 goal.

Final Resolution List:

1) Love – love others, love life, love what you do, love who you are, and love God – and skip the booze.