Life Happens

By Mary Morony

After a brief illness, Doreen Dickie joined the ranks of the angels on March 10th. Without a shred of doubt, our loss is heaven’s gain. Gregarious by nature, Doreen loved people. You could tell by the way her eyes lite up and the way she hugged you with that big heart of hers. Anytime I had the pleasure of an encounter; I walked away with a lighter brighter step. Nor am I alone in this feeling, she left a swath of smiles in her wake like Tinker Bell and stardust.

If an equal measure like at Disney World: Not this tall? Can’t ride the ride- exists at the Pearly Gates I imagine it will be something akin to the way Doreen lived her life. The bonnie Scot epitomized geniality and good humor. She left everyone with the sense when parting of having left a dear friend. And dear, she was too! Who wouldn’t be endowed with twinkling blue eyes, and dimples? That charming Scottish lilt that made everything she said sound even more delightful!

How the town of Aberdeen allowed the Dickie family to leave is anyone’s guess. Scotland’s loss is our gain. Economics were bleak in their native Scotland in the early seventies before the oil boom. Bill and Doreen sought a better life. Having seen the world as a merchant marine Bill knew what he wanted for his family. He narrowed his search for a new home to Australia, Canada, or The United States. There were few kith and ken to leave behind. An offer from West Virginia to manage a cattle and sheep farm cinched the deal. The couple took a huge leap of faith and accepted the job. There next opportunity to landed us in Albermarle county.

Mama Dickie’s hugs are the stuff of legends. When enveloped in her loving arms all was right with the world. It matter not what calamity might have driven you to seek her sheltering arms. She sharpened her hugging skills as a pediatric nurse for twenty- three years. With the possibility of having such a nurse, getting sick doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. When grown her patients brought their children back to meet their caretaker. They wanted their children to experience her tender embrace. That love went both ways. Mum Dickie often checked in with her former patients, as well, with a card or a call from out of the blue.

Doreen, tipped off by angels, intuited those in need. Be it an ear, flowers from her garden or shortbread cookies, she provided them all. We can all be grateful that she stamped her family with her values. Joy, gratitude for life, smarts, and a volunteering work ethic are family traits. Oh, and sparkling blue eyes. No one in the family shirks hard work and sharing the wealth of their mother’s wisdom. Thanks to their mother’s tutelage, each one of her children pursues a life of service.

As the publisher of albemarle Magazine, Alison is always on the lookout to give non-profits a leg up. Bill Dickie is the manager of Plain Dealing Farm has served on the board of the Albemarle County Fair for years. Alison credits him for roping her into working at the fair for at least as many years as her brother. We have to share the bounty of such a family with other communities. Boston is lucky to count Lesley Dickie as a resident. How could you not feel safer knowing one of Doreen’s offspring is a vice president at Raytheon. That would be Lesley. She takes responsibility for eight hundred fortunate employees. The youngest of the clan Alan is the owner of Dickie Hauling. He lives in Nelson County and is active as a fire and rescue volunteer when he’s not working with people in need. Th watched their mother throw herself into her passions and have followed suit.

The nationalization of the Dickie family at Monticello was one of the most moving on record. Even in death Doreen Dickie continues to give to her adopted land. She left us with a magnificent family to carrying on her largess and a standard for all to aspire.

A Celebration of Life is planned for April at King Family Vineyard.  Because of Doreen’s love for children, in lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in Doreen’s memory to Kate’s Club, attn.: Rachel Ezzo, Development Director, 1190 W. Druid Hills Drive NE, Suite T-80, Atlanta, GA 30329, www.katesclub.org or Foothills Child Advocacy Center, 1106 East High Street, Suite 100, Charlottesville, VA 22902, www.foothillscac.org.

By Mary Morony

The guinea bird danced around gabbling at me, patience never being one of his virtues. Since I couldn’t remember when I last threw food out to him I was feeling a little guilty.  As I was barefoot, I assure you I would not have done so otherwise, I shoved my feet into Hub’s much-loved bedroom moccasins. To my surprise I had to hobble out to cast some cracked corn about for the impatient foul.

I’m not sure of the expected life of the lining in fleece-lined shoes, though I suspect eight years exceeds the most liberal forecast. The insoles of Hubster’s slippers felt like the dingle berry end of an ancient ill-kept ewe must feel, like walking shoeless on lima bean sized river rocks.

Years ago when these shoes I had on my feet emerged from under the Christmas tree, they were comfortable fleeced-lined mocs. Contrary to Hub’s usual approach of eyeing a gift with suspicion, he jettisoned whatever he had on his feet and ensconced his tootsies into this new plushness. Two other pair of similar footwear I had trotted out for his perusal over the years never made it out of their boxes. Hubs exclaimed -something he never does- “these were the best present I’ve ever gotten!”

In the ensuing years, when he is home and when the ambient temperature is less than seventy degrees rest assured he will be shod in these sorry slippers. They stand at the ready next to his side of the bed to protect his tender toes from ever coming in contact with the floor and by the garage door for him to don before doing his equivalent of, Honey I’m home at night.

Like any good dutiful wife, I kicked off the repulsive footwear and made my way straight to the L. L. Bean website where I placed an order for an upgrade. To find the correct identifying number necessitated that I revisit the shoes once more. God forbid I order the wrong pair! My plan, formulated over years of living with the man, was a surreptitious replacement of the new with the old. The old boy doesn’t cotton to change and isn’t the quickest to notice. Confident that I had the exact right pair in the exact right size and color, I clicked the buy button and waited for them to arrive at my door by the end of the week.

On Friday night, home late from work wearing his slippers, he placed the mail on the counter. Busy with putting the finishing touches on an over-cooked dinner and a bad case of the hangries, the idea of replacing one for the other right then was beyond me. I said, “The box is for you.” We had to go through the whole explanation of no it’s got your name is on it. I ordered it for you rigmarole before he opened the package.

After tearing into the package, he plucked a shoe from its box like he was handling a snake. I presumed he held the offending item away from him so it wouldn’t strike. “What are these?”

Fighting the urge to snarl, “What does it look like?” Late for dinner and low blood sugar brings out my worst qualities. In my most controlled and dulcet voice, I managed, “I thought you might like a new pair.”

He looked down at his feet as if I had insulted a dear friend and raced to their defense, “I don’t need new ones. These are still good.”

I kicked myself for thinking even for a minute that my husband was capable of acting like a normal human being when confronted with a gift.

“Can I keep these for outside?” He pleaded for his old friends like he was appealing to the governor for a stay of execution. I did my best not to cut my finger off and his head as I chopped parsley.

“No, you already have outside more than covered. Why don’t you try the new ones on?”

At the dinner table, he sat and removed one old slipper. He pushed the placemat and cutlery out his way, placing the old shoe beside a new one he proceeded to examine them comparing them like he was all of a sudden quality control wonk.

“It’s just a shoe!”

In the interim between the two purchases, the manufacturers had the audacity to change the pattern imprinted on the sole and oh-über-observant one noticed. “They aren’t the same.”

How he could tell is a wonder since most of the imprint had long worn away from the old pair. While I congratulated myself on saving my true love from a terrible tumble by buying him new kicks, I lamented that I failed to I stick to my original plan and just replace the old with the new. He would never have noticed.

Unable to suppress an exasperated eye roll, “Would you mind taking your shoes off the table and try the new ones on? Most horses are easier to shoe. Put them on!!!”

After repositioning his place setting in front of him, I put his dinner down. While he slipped his feet into the clean fluffy new shoes, I snatched the old things and tossed them in the trash. He was about to protest until he allowed himself to appreciate the fluffy softness enveloping his little piggies.

If it is true that becoming set in your ways only worsen with age, one of us will not reach our dotage. Boy, you are going to have to make friends with change.

By Mary Morony

About six weeks ago, the Monday after Thanksgiving, I ran into Yvonne (ee-vahn-uh) Waller in Charlottesville at Whole Foods. Since she pulled me out of her pedicure chair during the big earthquake our paths have not crossed. She swears she saved my neck when it occurred to her that the roaring outside was the earth quaking, not a train derailing. Standing in the doorjamb of her spa’s entrance, we watched the backside of downtown shake rattle and roll. Nary a single chip of paint fell, so I’m hard pressed to know how she saved me then, but she has now.

If a change in routine hadn’t forced me to create a new rut I might be as young looking as Benjamin Button in his twilight years. Time, however, quickstepped in stilettos across my face but hardly grazed hers. When you haven’t seen someone in five years you expect some changes. Shocked by Yvonne youthful visage, like any woman, I scanned her face for lines. None! Clearly, she had discovered the fountain of youth. Whatever she was up to, I wanted in. On the phone the next day I blurted, “Sign me up for what you are doing. I don’t care what it is, short of the black arts. If chicken feet are involved, we’d need to talk. When can you see me?”

To my amazement, she responded, “How about now?” Standing in her shop twenty minutes later, I suffered a pang of uh-oh-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into kind of dread. The lady in question is straightforward holding little if anything back. As I stood there just inside the door, I felt not unlike a field mouse must when aware it is caught in the bead of a hawk’s scrutinizing stare. I did ask for this appointment, so there was no way to back out now. Where I stood in the skin care specialist’s eyes was sorely in need of a facial and a mini peel. Afterward, she thought I would benefit from a laser treatment and twelve minutes on the Zaaz.

In lieu of a magic wand a laser will do the job. My dog Hagar owes his mobility to Dr. Chip Godine’s (Ruckersville Animal Hospital) skill with the device. Chip, by the way, is a world-renowned expert on veterinary laser therapy. He helped write the textbook right there in little old Ruckersville. Several years ago a broken ankle I suffered healed in three weeks thanks to Gordon Merrick’s abilities with the healing red lights. His brother Dr. Randy Merrick routinely employs the magic power of lasers in his practice in Orange.

With a twenty-first century arsenal of skin care on the table, without a moment’s hesitation, I put my skin in the game. I look fantastic for it, too! I’m not bragging merely stating the facts. Other than having the wisdom to follow Yvonne back to her magic emporium and placing myself in her capable hands, I had little to do with the transformation. I owe the remarkable change in appearance to De Estheticienne’s skill.

My metamorphosis didn’t escape Hubs’ notice though several days passed before he could figure out how to broach the subject with the utmost diplomacy. Prone to hyperbole, he says history has taught him to approach matters of this nature with extreme caution.

If I didn’t feel duty bound to share Ms. Waller’s brilliance, I would keep her under wraps to hear the speculation as to what sort of deal I made with the devil. As a public service announcement, I am imploring you to stop whatever beauty regimen you are following (especially if a knife or injections are involved) and high tail it to 202 Mayhugh Street Gordonsville as fast as your little legs can carry you. Here is the phone number 540-832-3688 so that you can make an appointment. This remarkably gifted esthetician’s abilities are nothing short of miraculous. She was able to take my old battered, weather-beaten face and make it better than it was twenty years ago, scout’s honor! Give the woman a prune and I swear she would hand you back a juicy plum in no time. She’s that good!

As many of you may be aware, Yvonne worked for ten years at the Keswick Club. In 2007, she opened a shop of her own. Don’t let her Dutch/Orange County patois fool you. Yvonne is not your typical pretty, unlined face. Before she moved to the U.S. from Holland, this smart lady spent two years after college as a registered pharmacist. Once her husband Gordonsville native, Conrad Waller finished his landscape design school he wanted to move back to his hometown. A four-year stint working in the inpatient pharmacy at UVa Hospital helped her decide to switch professions. Back home she went to school, she didn’t stop at becoming an esthetician. She received certification as a massage therapist including pregnancy massage. Never one to do things by half, she also got herself certified as an aerobics instructor through the best organization for such accreditation in her country The Dutch Gymnastic Association. To add to her list of skills she is a holistic health counselor and coach as well as schooled in aromatherapy.

Ask her to let you take her Zaaz machine for a spin. Twelve minutes on the whole body vibration machine is equivalent to an hour in the gym. And it makes a major difference in your body in less than three weeks. She applies as much precession in choosing her product lines, as you would expect from a former pharmacist. She only carries a few because everything she uses and sells must meet her rigorous specifications to not only enhance beauty but also health. An avid learner she is always adding to her well-stocked wheelhouse. She’s got you covered from head to toe.

Now that I have made an enormous humanitarian contribution to the area by informing you of the unheralded treasure down the road make sure to leave some time for me to keep up my beautiful new face.

By Mary Morony

Yesterday was the day, the first Tuesday in November. Eager for the onerous task to be done, I got myself to the polls early. The outcome never meant so much to me, nor did I care about it with such angst. Elections, in my lifetime, tended toward Tweddle Dee/Tweddle Dum options for the Oval office. The only seeming difference between the candidates was their party’s twist on graft, corruption, gerrymandering and the court, or whatever agenda du jour happened to make the ballot.

In the days before we became so fractured, our elected officials were hard to tell apart because the electorate was more homogenous. Not so much these days. Americans lost our innocence when those planes flew into the twin towers. Fear took over, driven by ego and greed.

I envied the verve women all around me felt for breaking the ceiling, but, oh, why her? Even the passion the basket of deplorables mustered for their candidate, I wished for some of it. For the last six months my abiding question: why can’t I get past the despicable personalities and focus on the issues? All I can see are two loathsome talking heads spewing invectives, pointing fingers and doing their utmost to separate our country into reds or blues. Name calling, and judgments ran like a leaky toilet for the past year.

After I voting my conscience, I took the canine friends off to the woods to clear my head hoping of find something positive to write. For most of the walk, I told myself the deplorable choice we all faced today was, in fact, our shadow staring at us. Like in comic strip Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” A noxious voice in my head retorts I was spouting new age hokum.

There is a favorite passage from A Course in Miracles I like to recite to remind myself of my purpose when I fall off track or to quite the noise in my head when it reaches a crescendo.

I am here only to be truly helpful.

I am here to represent Him Who sent me.

I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me.

I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.

I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.

Those words echoed on my tongue as I happened upon a bearded man, decked head to toe in camo, carrying a rifle. After exchanging greetings and pleasantries, we discussed his black powder gun and the size of my dogs. Did my hounds scare away his game? He assured me that it was no problem. Then confident of my candidate’s win, I left him with a gratuitous show of largesse, despite my certainty of his political leanings; I said, “don’t forget to vote.”

He responded, “Yes, ma’am I sure would if I could figure out which one I disliked least. You would think we could come up with better choices, wouldn’t you?”

I couldn’t stop it, I opened my mouth and out came my thoughts on how I believe we are responsible for this. If we want better representatives, there is work to do. No lecturing, just saying out loud what I had been thinking.

He said, “it’s in us. We are going to make the changes in our hearts if we want better leaders. Our hearts are going to have to change.”

We went on our ways. Still mulling what to put on paper, I half heard what the man said. Still grousing about the horrible the choice we were forced to make, focusing on the divided nation listening to my ego. With every step, my sadness increased until by the time I was back home I was near tears, still deaf to the hunter’s words. I had an appointment with a wise woman I admire. We talked, as I struggled to maintain my composure.

Off topic, I began to tell her the story of meeting the hunter and what he shared with me. He had repeated my thoughts back to me almost verbatim had without my knowledge. No words exchanged, I had made my mind up, dismissing him and his wisdom while going through the motions of conviviality.

My friend said, “You saw an angel today.” I wept in gratitude for the truth of what she said. Also, in humiliation for my judgment, which caused me to missed his essence.

This morning, I am challenged to love the parts of me I shove aside, dismiss as not worthy or despise. I can no longer afford to straddle the fence and condemn. The time is here to reject my ego’s siren’s song. The time is right to heal to learn to love every part of me for all our sake.

By Mary Morony

Unfortunately, there is an extreme amount of uncertainty for us to fear currently.  There’s the presidential election, enough said.  There’s also climate change, international, economic and political uncertainty all around us.  All of this uncertainty makes for a scary proposition when we’ve already snuggled into bed with the devils we know; It is hard going to rouse much enthusiasm for a new bedmate. What if the new one is worse?  What then?  And what if the solution we choose ends up giving us more problems to resolve?  It’s entirely possible.

My old furry friend and fellow blogger, Hagar (MaryMorony.com/canine-conundrums) is consistently teaching me lessons that help me laugh at my fears and uncertainties.  Especially when we walk together in the woods. There are so many things to rile up our worries in the forest. For me, there are snakes and ticks. For him, there are flies.  Hagar is a Great Dane by breed, (in case you’ve never read about him before) and at 11 hands, that’s 44 inches.  I had to measure him with my hands because he is afraid of a tape measure, the idea of him being afraid of something as small and insignificant as a fly, borders on the absurd. It is ridiculous, even more so for me. Look at the ratio of me to a tick or snake. Size clearly has nothing to do with fear. When I think about it, isn’t almost everything we fear smaller than we are? Odd isn’t is?  But I digress, back to the walk.

So, try to imagine walking with a dog taller than a Shetland pony who insists on walking on the narrow deer path inches ahead of you.  This behemoth stops whenever he hears something whiz by or is touched by something as small as a blade of grass or butterfly.  Hagar waves his huge blockhead around like a searchlight looking for his boggart (a being that takes on the form of his worst fears) OR he hunkers down in the path to protect his belly from the perceived attacker. I stumble and trip after him, safe in the knowledge that while it may not be the most relaxing way to traverse the woods, there are no snakes in my path.

As Hagar thrashes his way along the trail, I find myself laughing at his irrational fears and forgetting my own. “You silly dog, it’s just a little fly.” A small voice whispers to me easy for you to laugh as it occurs to me how asinine I am stumbling along behind him.  I couldn’t help but think of J. K. Rowling’s witty charm to tame boggarts—Riddikulus! Laughing at our fears is a start to conquering them.

While Hagar has a sense of humor, it isn’t developed to a fine enough degree that he laughs at what he fears.  During moments of courage, he will even charge cows, ignoring my shouts that he shouldn’t, but never without the protection of a fence between him and the harmless cud-chewers. When they race off in a flurry of bovine frenzy, his hearing magically restored, he trots up with an equivalent of a chuckle in his gait.

Like Hagar, there are some fears that our humor is just not developed enough to see the irony. That’s when his variation on the theme works well for humans. Put distance between you and what you fear – like a fence. Snakes, for example, are much less terrifying at the zoo behind glass. I can’t say I like them all that much more, but they are less of a frightful thing. Ticks—there’s always bug spray.

Still, there is the dread of the uncertain. For Hagar, it could be a measuring tape or a Mylar balloon. Last night a mysterious silver orb lay on the grass along the drive, gently swaying in the breeze.  Hagar was keenly aware of that fact that it had never been there before. In a feat of his most daring-do, stealthily he approached this unknown object with a warning growl as if to say, “Don’t mess with me you, you strange thing.”  Caught up by a puff of wind the balloon bucked forward. My less than intrepid friend jumped back as the silver blobs underbelly waved and proclaimed a garish happy birthday. With tail tucked, he slunk behind me. I picked up the string rendering the dread thing immediately safe and known. He trotted along not in the least bothered by the strange silver object as it floated behind me. When I tied it to the fence and left it immediately, it regained an object to fear status.  How often do I find the unknown fearful?  And when I think I know something, how often does my fear evaporate only to reemerge at the slightest change, wondering I still laughed at my pooch’s antics?

You might think I am taking undue advantage of my buddy by laughing at his fears. While Hagar may worry his way through a walk in the woods, when he lies down to sleep all of that worry is a thing of the past. I, on the other hand, spend many a long night awake worrying about things that never happen. Who has the last laugh do you suppose?

By Mary Morony

Wishing and dreaming can be some potent stuff. If you look back on your life and see how many things you wished for showed up, you just might be surprised. Sometimes we miss a fulfilled wish because it didn’t manifest in the exact way we envisioned.

Take this gig (Life Happens) for example; I never dreamed or imagined having a monthly platform to share my thought du mois, but I did regularly toy with the idea that it would be fun to share my deepest (and oft times meaningless) thoughts with a larger audience than Hubs. The chances are good that he did too, possibly for a whole set of different reasons which we will not go into here.

Wish fulfilled in my case, whether for my husband’s sake or my own – but what about the cost? Everything, we all know, has a cost. The cost for your wish coming true may not be apparent at first and certainly, doesn’t always show up in dollars and cents. Nonetheless, it comes with a vibrating –for emphasis, not palsy- hand out. Hence, the caution we often hear “careful what you wish for – you might get it.”  When the time comes to pay for it, you might have wished you’d been a little more circumspect.

The cost of a wish fulfilled in my example is that it has become incumbent on me to have a thought worth sharing, every single month! No biggie, right?  Sometimes coming up with an idea to write about is like making orange juice from an already juiced orange. But that is only one part of being on the fulfilled side of wishes and dreams.

Getting bogged down by day-to-day life is part of the design, even when the day-to-day is a dream come true. Think how well evolution would have worked if our Neanderthal forbearers had been happily content just to plop themselves down in their undecorated caves with a just a stick and a club and no other plans, hope or desire. Driven by an evolutionary to-do loop; we humans Seek, Find, and Repeat. If a genie granted you just one wish – what would you wish for?  Another wish. We can never be satisfied with what’s in front of us.

Boredom is built into the human psyche right along with fear and world-weariness. How do I know this, you just might ask. That’s simple. The French and Germans have specific words for it, so it must be so. There is “angst” from the German for fear, which occurs when your wished-for, let’s say, JOB appears. Will you keep it? Is there a better one?  It’s a long commute. Your co-workers are just meh. If you even notice this angst working on you, dismiss these things as the cost of a wish fulfilled. You aren’t exactly worrying about it, but thoughts of dissatisfaction have a way of worming their way into your initial joy. As the worm trails start to overlap, you find yourself wishing for a new job.

Then there’s the French word “ennui” for boredom. Boredom can suck the life and soul out a dream that comes true. Cinderella would have been an entirely different story if her fairy godmother hadn’t the foresight to impose a very strict deadline on her big night at the palace.  With too many dances with the Prince and all the tedious bowing, the ‘wished-for’ becomes empty and vacant, inciting yet another longing for even the so-called ‘happily ever after’ to be different.

The Germans have another word that encapsulates weariness with the world and all that is in it – Weltschmerz or “world pain”. Not logical, like the philosophy of pessimism, but an emotional response to the idea that there is more bad than good in the world – including your wishes and dreams. If you have given up wishing due to the sadness and you know your dreams will never be all that they could – you are suffering from Weltschmerz.

Every dream that comes true and wish fulfilled is the stuff of miracles and the juice that makes life so good. Remember that dream job? Great at first, right? When tedium sets in, ‘great’ morphs to ‘good’ and sometimes not even close to that. What do you think is the trick to keeping our dreams alive and vibrant? Why do suppose we lose our verve? Like Thomas Wolfe said, “you can’t go home again.”  You can never stand in that exact spot where you initially dreamed your dream or wished your wish. That was then-water over the dam. The fulfilled desire is over, and there is a new desire, dream and wish to dream anew.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you find that your wishes lead to more wishing and dreaming, if wishes were horses, beggars would ultimately be unsatisfied, even with a Ferrari.