As the Beatles Say…

“It was 20 years ago today…”

In the week of July 14, 1990, the following happened:

After meeting with West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev reluctantly gives his blessing to a united Germany in NATO, stressing that a united Germany must choose its alliance. President George Herbert Walker Bush welcomed Gorbachev’s change of position. Removing the last big obstacle to a single German state, Poland declares itself “entirely satisfied” with firm new border guarantees. Reunification is expected to come December 2 with all-German elections. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev orders the immediate diversification of the Soviet Union’s state-run radio and television system, so that all political movements will have access to the airwaves, ending the Communist Party’s monopoly.

In news closer to my neck of the woods:

Cincinnati native and baseball star Pete Rose is sentenced to five months in prison and fined $50 thousand for cheating on his taxes. Rose failed to report $354 thousand in income from baseball memorabilia sales autograph appearances and from monies made from gambling, for which he was banned from baseball.

Bestselling books include:

Coyote Waits - Tony Hillerman

The Burden of Proof - Scott Turow

Message From NAM - Danielle Steel

The Stand - Stephen King

An Inconvenient Woman - Dominick Dunne

Dave Barry Turns 40 - Dave Barry

Men At Work - George F. Will

Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton - Edward Rice

Barbarians At The Gate - Bryan Burrough/John Helyar

Top albums include:

I’m Breathless - Madonna

Please Hammer Don’t Hurt Em - M.C. Hammer

Poison - Bell Biv DeVoe

Pretty Woman - Soundtrack

Wilson Phillips - Wilson Phillips

Step by Step - News Kids on the Block

Violator - Depeche Mode

Soul Provider - Michael Bolton

Brigade - Heart

Shut Up and Dance - Paula Abdul

I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got - Sinead O’Connor

And playing at the movies:

Die Hard 2 - Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, William Atherton, John Amos

Ghost - Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg

Days Of Thunder - Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman

Disney’s - The Jungle Book (reissue)

Ford Fairlane - Andrew Dice Clay

Quick Change - Bill Murray, Geena Davis, Randy Quaid, Jason Robards

Dick Tracy - Warren Beatty, Madonna

Total Recall - Arnold Schwarzenegger

Another 48 Hours - Edie Murphy, Nick Nolte

The Jetsons

Robocop - Peter Weller

Navy Seals - Charlie Sheen, Michael Biehn, Joanne Whalley-Kilmer, Bill Paxton

Pretty Woman - Richard Gere, Julia Roberts

Betsy’s Wedding - Alan Alda, Molly Ringwald

Thanks to Mr. Pop History for that walk down memory lane.

July 14 is also Bastille Day, named for the storming of the Bastille prison that marked the beginning of the French Revolution. So, for all my French readers and fans of all things French, “Vive la France!”

Most important to me, however, is that July 14 marks the day that I made the most important commitment of my life. It’s the day I got all dressed up in a frilly white gown, rode to the church in a horse-drawn carriage, walked down the aisle on the arm of my tuxedo-clad father, and married my best friend. Several things stand out in my mind about that evening: it was warm, but it wasn’t stifling hot like I expected it to be; the priest presiding over the ceremony had a broken arm; I giggled when I saw there were gnats in my bouquet of silk flowers; the overwhelming feeling of gratitude and love I had when I saw so many of my friends and family in the congregation; looking at the sparkling diamonds on my finger after we exchanged rings, dazzled and amazed; kissing my new husband while flashes went off all around us. It was a beautiful ceremony, a loud, fun reception, and a wonderful honeymoon on the East Coast.

It was 20 years ago today. And it was the start of the best years of my life.

My husband is still my best friend. He’s the one I think of first whenever something exciting happens, or when I need someone to console me. He’s a great listener, a fixer, a get-it-done kind of guy, with a wicked sense of humor and killer blue eyes. He’s a wonderful father to our two boys; he’s an amazing writer, musician, thinker, and partner. He has sacrificed so many of his own dreams for our family, and I couldn’t be more grateful to him for that.

I hope someday I can help him to realize the dreams he has yet to achieve. I hope that, when our boys are out of school and off on their own, we can travel, see the places we’ve dreamed about, and maybe retire in a nice little cottage by the sea or a lake. I hope that we both live to be very old and healthy as horses so we can continue to appreciate our lives and each other. I hope that we’ll have grandchildren and great-grandchildren to cherish, but that we’ll always put each other first in our lives.

Happy 20th anniversary, Keith. I cherish you and the life we’ve built together. Let’s build some more, babe.

Overcome

Have you ever had one of those moments when you’re overcome with emotion?

I went on my usual walk this morning, a path that’s a little over 2 miles at our local county park. It’s a meandering paved trail that goes up and down hills and around curves, and it circles a large lake. I like to go early in the morning when it’s quiet and fairly deserted. I usually pass a handful of joggers or dog-walkers on the trail, and I enjoy the solitude. Today’s weather was a bit more brisk than usual; frost dusted the greenery choking the sides of the path, and I could see my breath as I huffed and puffed up and down the hills. My hands and ears were cold, and I was walking faster than normal because of the low temperatures. But then, as I rounded a short bluff, I saw a sight that looked a lot like this:

The beauty of the lake, and the sight of the mist rising in the sunshine, stopped me in my tracks. My eyes filled up with tears. I can’t explain the feeling I had, but it was so overwhelming I had to stop walking for a minute to catch my breath. A profound sense of awe and gratitude filled me, a wave of emotion that I’ve felt before in fleeting moments. So I stayed in that moment, breathing, watching, allowing the feeling to wash over and through me, so grateful to just be alive to experience that incredible sense of joy. The song playing on my iPod was Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising, and it seemed the perfect soundtrack for this moment suspended in time.

I left the park with a light heart. I hope to carry it with me through everything I do today.

These are the moments we live for, even though they may be few, short, and far between. They are the moments of sheer ecstasy in the simplest thing: freezing air searing our lungs, the scent of water, mist hanging like lace in the air, birds streaking across the blue sky. These are glimpses of such powerful beauty that we stand still, unable to move, able only to soak them in, admire them, appreciate them. They remind us of what we are: travelers together on this planet, all of us searching for happiness and peace. God is in these moments, I believe, and we can reach out and connect with that Divine Presence at an intimate, awesome level.

I hope you will have one of these moments today, too, and experience the blessing that comes with it.

Thanks and Apologies

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to check out the new blog. It’s a work-in-progress (as are most things in my life), and I’m still getting used to it. This also means I’m still trying to understand how it all works. As a general rule, I’m not the quickest study when it comes to technology; as such, I often make errors and learn as I go. Which is why I need to apologize to several readers (Christine and two others) who kindly left comments on the first blog, which I then accidentally deleted. I promise–I now know that the DELETE button in the approval queue doesn’t just delete the comment from that list. It sends it off into the ethers of the Internet, never to be seen again. From now on, I shall stay my itchy DELETE finger and reserve its use for offensive comments only. 

Tracy, another commenter, asked if I would talk about clairvoyance in an upcoming post. Look for that in the next couple of days. 

Until then, take care…and watch out for those DELETE buttons.