Facebook and Me

When I was a kid, we passed notes. They were elaborately folded affairs, tucked stealthily into lockers and textbooks. Mine were covered with rotund cursive scribbles—usually in an enthusiastic shade of fuchsia.

I miss those notes.

They were little islands of joy in the gloomy sea of my school days. They were tiny invitations into the life of the sender (usually my best friend, Angela). But most of all, they were bolstering reminders that I was not alone.

Away at college, I was an avid letter-writer for the same reason. For four years, I scrawled an endless stream of dispatches to friends and family. I did it as a way of maintaining that all-important connection. I needed to share my life.

That need hasn’t changed. That’s why I’m so fascinated with Facebook. It’s the grownup equivalent to that creased, ruled-paper correspondence that was so important to me in high school. Facebook has shown me that I’m not the only one who wants to make contact.

I used to shy away from social networking sites. They were narcissistic cesspools, encouraging users to indulge in a no-holds-barred, “look at me” frenzy that led to irresponsibility and embarrassment. And I wasn’t completely off base. Browse the profile pictures on any one of these sites, and you’ll see what I mean.

But I’ve discovered that self-promotion is only part of the attraction. For me, it began with baby pictures. My first niece was born this spring, and my sister promised me access to an endless stream of photos on her Facebook page. All I had to do was join up and become her friend. Voila! Instant grinning, drooling, bow-wearing gratification.

I lurked around the site for a while, looking for family and friends. I found them in droves, chatting at each other from across the state and across the country. They were posting pictures, making jokes, and even sharing recipes. When I finally got the nerve to put up a photo and a profile, I discovered the joy of adding my voice to the chatter.

It isn’t a perfect environment. It’s tempting to inflate your life for your online posse. For example, I recently lost the corporate job that I touted in the early days of my Facebook induction. I haven’t changed my profile to reflect that yet. Furthermore, I’m sure I’m not the only girl who spent several hours taking the perfect, “I just snapped this with my cell phone” profile shot. There are certainly smoke and mirrors at work, but they don’t seem to spoil the fellowship.

Through Facebook, I’ve reconnected with a passel of cousins. We were the best of friends as children, running through my grandmother’s house in endless games of “spy” and “haunted house.” But as an adult, I lost touch with them completely. I heard accounts of their marriages and their children’s births, only when they trickled to me through our tangled family grapevine. These days, I get a constant ticker of blurbs, anecdotes, and snapshots from those cousins via my Facebook newsfeed.

And it doesn’t end with family. I’ve connected with college chums and high school classmates too. All of them have been drawn to the irresistible connectedness of a place like Facebook. Like me, they’re enthralled with the unfettered ability to share their lives. It’s the reason we keep going back for more.

Well, that and the baby pictures. Keep them coming, sis.

Ollie Has Arrived!

This little snowball was a stray. He came to us dirty, matted, and covered in unmetionable creepy-crawlers. A bath and a haircut revealed a one-year-old lhasa apso. We call him Ollie.

Enter Autumn

There was a breeze this morning as I walked from my car to the front door of my day job. And I think it was an honest to goodness cool breeze—the kind of breeze that can only mean one thing: Summer is finally at the credits.

Each year as those last light days of spring change over to the summer’s blistering monotony, I brace myself with a steely will. I put on my flip-flops. I clip up my hair. And I take a deep breath, reminding myself that the heat can’t actually last forever.

I trudge through June, when the humidity makes walking from my car to my back door feel like swimming through a vat of cream gravy. I shuffle though July, when I strip the comforter off my bed, sacrificing home décor for a chance at a semi-cool night’s rest. I drag through August, when I would rather eat rootbeer for dinner three days in a row than stick one toe outside the central air-conditioning in search of a grocery store.

I’m definitely not a warm weather girl.

That’s why I think of fall as my own reoccurring miracle. Just when the middle months have worn my nerves to nubs, autumn tiptoes her way into September—quietly, gently, gracefully. She doesn’t need a thunderstorm to shock us into a change of season. She won’t demand our attention with icy roads or frozen pipes.

Autumn creeps in with moody skies and misty showers. She nudges us with the smell of wood smoke and pumpkin pie. And, if we’re lucky, she woos us with a show of color that rivals anything summer has to offer—blink and you’ll miss it, but it’s amazing while it lasts.

And there’s a mystery to autumn. Where summer displays her cards, all emerald trees and baked soil, fall holds a poker face with a practiced resolve. True, she can surprise us with an early frost or a thick fog. True, she can jolt us with a crisp wind or a starry sky. But, as a rule, autumn trusts her wonders to simmer, letting them rise up like steam from a pot to permeate our world and captivate our senses.

Before we know it, we’re hypnotized. We’re caught up in the magic of falling leaves and early dusks. We’ve abandoned dog-day sizzle for the lure of sweater-weather nights.

It’s still hot and muggy outside. The trees are garden-hose green and, and the summer sun is shining like he’ll never give up center stage. But I’m not worried. Fall has pressed the “all clear” button in my apple cider soul. I’m up to my nose in the magic and mystery of the season to come.

I’m lifting my head. I’m opening my eyes. And I’m letting out that breath at last.

Bostyn the Brave

My niece, Bostyn Emery Davis, was born two weeks ago. Arriving a month early by a planned cesarean, she weighed just four pounds.

I adore this child.

As I watch her fight to breathe and eat on her own, I wonder what she's thinking. Can she feel how much she's loved? Her parents, her brother, and an army grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins follow her progress. We let her grasp our sterilized fingers inside her incubator. We buy mountains of pink clothes, tiny shoes, and miniature blankets. And we wait...

Your perfect eyes are shadowed with smudgy purple now. They're badges of your struggle to live. Nestled in the dark cocoon of the NICU, you make your own light. You smile in your sleep. You wave a tiny arm. You are learning your gifts. You are testing your power.

Come home soon, little one.

"...so cold it was silver..."

--Patty Griffin, from Someone Else's Tomorrow.

I listened to my Melancholy Day playlist today as I braved a frenzied, pre Christmas Oklahoma City. I had to drop off some work, run a few errands, and buy a couple of last minute gifts--all under a misty, ash-colored sky. Don't get me wrong, that's my favorite kind of sky.

I love these first moody days of winter. Where autumn is mellow and magical, winter is mysterious, stubborn, and deliciously unpredictable. My world becomes a curious new planet when flashy fall foliage gives way to bare branches that stand out like black lace against a marble horizon.

It makes sense that we should celebrate Christmas in the stark black and white of a December landscape. It's a time of year when nature fights beauty with all its might--a time when it would be easy to believe that the world will never be lovely again. But somehow the radiant, bare-bones splendor of winter catches us by surprise and reminds us that beauty is alive and well every day of the year.

Merry Christmas to you and yours.

First Things First

It doesn't feel like Christmas this year. I can't put my finger on the reason. Is it this erratic Oklahoma winter--the now warm, then cold days that make deciding what to wear a daily gamble? Is it the fact that I'm recently unemployed, relying on a weekly severance check and a little freelance copywriting to pay my bills? Or maybe I've become irrevocably desensitized by the Christmas decorations that start showing up in shopping centers a week before Halloween.

It's difficult to find the magic in all of the muck.

That has become a trend in my life. It's a year round affliction that goes way beyond the holiday season. So, in the interest of reconnecting with the little things that make up the miracle of a well-lived life, I'm adding my voice to the blogosphere. I'll document my observations, my passions, and the things that inspire me from day to day.