Saturday, December 26, 2015

Life is Like....

What is it about a photo or a moment that causes the mind to slip back and forth with questions, with reflections, sorrow, or delight? 
Letty and grandson Isaac, at the Viacom building NYC,
sitting on the Forrest Gump bench. 

Forrest would have been proud of our vacation to NYC, and the amount of territory we covered in five days.  It was a trip reminiscent of the great explorers, architects, artists, and financial wizards in history, except we were merely voyeurs of their footsteps.  Shortly after walking back onto the streets of NYC from the Viacom building on Broadway, our footsteps took us to the M&M Store, where the kids bought a box of chocolates, all M&M's of course, but some printed with the names of Isaac's classmates "Ms O's Class". A large bag of chocolates gets very heavy after walking ten miles in NYC, we learned.  With commercialism at its best, I bought a magnet that says, "Melts in your mouth, not in your Han." Thank you Star Wars and Disney for the humor.

Life is like a box of chocolates.You never know what you're gonna get.  fg  

My mind, being what it is, wanders around in a pool of memories floating in a body of emotions. Today I'm celebrating my sixty-eighth birthday in a reflective mood.  It happens yearly now as the days and the decades pass, allowing us time to breathe deeply in a moment of reflective thought.  It wasn't always that way.
Sunshine at Bryant Square

Life is like painter's palette filled with choices. lw

There was a time when I anxiously awaited turning thirteen, sixteen, eighteen, and twenty-one. Every moment of my life was filled with energy and enthusiasm to get older. Lucky for me, I am older and greeting each day with a little stiffer walk.

Life is like riding a train through the mountain tunnels.  You never know what you will see around the next turn. lw

Sixty-eight years ago my mother gave birth to me in Arcadia, California.  Since I was two weeks past the due date, she and my father climbed the mountains of San Bernardino on Christmas day, with the hopes of bringing a child into this world sooner. Like that train in the mountains, we lived there for two years before returning to Kansas, and then onto Oklahoma, where I did indeed become a Sooner.

Life is like a game of football.  The game plan is drawn, studied, and visualized, but sometimes altered by other players. lw

Fifty-five years ago this morning I awoke in tiny stucco motel with brown tile flooring and windows filled with sunshine in Pasadena, California on my thirteenth birthday.  By 9am on December 26, 1960 our family of four stood in line to enter Disneyland. I have no photos of that day, but my mind is filled with memories: we signed in as guest at a pancake shop right underneath the signature of Mr. D'Avignon and his family (my eighth grade science teacher from Miami) and I learned about small world stories; We floated undersea in a submarine, then glimpsed at what the future might hold in a futuristic home made of plastics; We shot through the Matterhorn on a roller coaster, and splashed into the cold waters; We ducked and screamed as pirates and alligators attacked our ship; We shivered as we rocketed into space; I saw my first flip book showing how animation was made; My mother claims she actually saw Walt Disney walking by, but I argued that we just saw Mickey Mouse and Goofy.


The real Matterhorn 1996 trip to Switzerland.

Like the ride through the Matterhorn, I've spent my life on the move, and have been richly rewarded. Some moves I made completely knocked me off balance and left me bruised and beaten, while other moves bolstered my heart and lifted me upwards because of the love of friends and family, and the blessings of this Earth and faith in God. 

Like my mother used to sing,  Que Sera Sera by Doris Day 

Sunday, December 20, 2015

The Memorial With Love and Respect


I saw it in his eyes, as he passed on a vivid memory to his ten-year old son, the shock and terror of seeing those planes fly into the Twin Towers. As he pointed to pictures, scenes, burned fire engines, badges of heroism, melted steel beams, the story unfolded.  The sadness, the heartbreak for those who died during the attacks of 911, filled his eyes with tears and his heart with questions; Why? What animal lives to kill and die at his own hands?  How do we share with our children this tragedy, and then pray that they never experience or witness such horror?

I have no answers, but those who worked there repeated this thought, "Please, we don't want to forget what happened here. Pass this history onto your children. Remind them that we live in American, the land of the free and the brave." Between where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood, a concrete wall sparkling with sky blue tile now exists. It stands out as every visitor walks down the stairs to the lower level. Behind the wall is the repository of nearly 8,000 unidentified human remains. The quote, though controversial for classicists, pulls at the heart strings when read over and over.  The message is clear, we shall not forget.        Virgil's quote

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend." I hope I live long enough to see that happen. 

One World Trade Center

Spending an early Christmas with our son, Matt, in New York City turned into a family vacation.  Our grandson, Isaac, wanted to see New York, with the goal of visiting every state before he graduates. We arrived expecting winter's blast in December, but we walked the streets in balmy sixty degree weather.  We crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot; walked through the Twin Towers Memorial; shed our tears as we stood by the moving water falls outside; agreed that the water soothed the soul; then walked to Battery Park and visited The Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island, all before dinner on day one.  

Though our feet felt wearing and flattened by the concrete steps, we carried ourselves from Battery Park northward to Wall Street where the glitter of Christmas began to come to life. Afterall, the meaning of Christmas is clear even in the crowded city streets and stores.

Love and Time are the only two things in this world that cannot be bought, only spent.   
  --Gary Jennings

May you each enjoy the Love and Time with Family, and show Respect to everyone this Christmas.
 --Letty Watt

Sunday, December 6, 2015

Icy Ice Beauties

Sitting in my writing chair
 viewing nature's icy rain

Tree limbs bending bowing low
 sagging in the howling winds

Leaves the color of honey
 suddenly encased in time

Colors of fall clasped in ice
 gleaming like lacy diamonds

Berries of red and purples
 glisten like crystal baubles

Red finches dance on feeders
 fluttering tweeting eating

Cardinals pecking laboring
 on frozen crystallized seeds

Sculptured hues of greens and brown
 ice beauties sparkling bright

*Thank you Carol Torpey for sharing your colorful photographs.