Category Archives: It’s a Legacy THING

Collections, stuff, and you know it’s a “thing”

Spending the Day

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There are days, no matter how hard you try to avoid them will remind you that life is short.  Those days are usually wrapped up in anniversaries that are so incredibly painful that you drag yourself from bed kicking and screaming only to return to it two or three times.  It takes a few tries to see through the veil of tears to get your face washed and your teeth brushed, make up is not an option.

There are rituals involved and as comforting as they may be sometimes only the ordinary can ease you through.

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Turkey and Swiss on a toasted bagel and a tiny bag of chips.  The smell of toast is nostalgic but comforting in a school-day-breakfast sort of way.

Not running out of gas, animated conversation, good parking karma and an excursion to the hardware store to gather paint chips.

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Buying mums and pumpkins and gourds oh my.  The kids at the petting zoo, you at the petting zoo. The beauty of the day and the time of year.  The crisp air and the warm sun. It’s the “change” time of year with nature giving you permission to let go as it is letting go too.

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spending-the-day003The wave of kids, dozens and dozens of them piling out of school.  The laughing, the yelling, the kinetics, the colors and the music.  All vaguely familiar from long ago.

A fresh cider doughnut and more conversation.

A glass of red and dinner in the merriment of the local pub.  You’re still reminded but the ordinary life around you becomes a salve. An exhale, the day is over and the ordinary has done its job getting you from beginning to end. That and the love of friends, and family and dogs and life.

Ordinary Legacy Moment: Eagle Scout Project

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curiousCuriosity leads to ordinary legacy moments, make no mistake about it.  When something catches my eye, even in the midst of garage sale goings-on, I’ve got to take a look.

What a moment I stumbled upon.  Picture this, it’s 86 degrees around noon on the day of my cousin’s garage sale.  We are scrambling to put up a tent for cover from the sun and I see this van stop up at the corner.  Some kids jump out, and get to work?  On what?  By the time the tent is up, I’ve missed it.

But looking down the other side of the street there they are again.  Ok, I’m curious (otherwise known as nosey, I get it) because they are all crouched down on the screaming hot pavement painting a Maltese cross on the black top.  Did I mention it’s 86 degrees?  Probably 155 on the street…ok I exaggerate but it was damn hot.

Can I ask what you’re doing?  Sure, says Daniel Buda, it’s my Eagle Scout Project.  We’re painting a Maltese cross on the pavement in front of every fire hydrant in Dumont (NJ) so that in inclement weather our fire fighters can recognize the hydrant location.  If a hydrant isn’t shoveled out in winter, chances are the cross on the pavement will be seen after the snow’s been plowed.

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And there you have it, Daniel Buda of Scout Troop 1345 (Dumont/Bergenfield NJ) and his friends Sean Adomilli, Naomi Castaneda, Kendra Chaiken, Kyle Villareal and Eric D’Anna were going from hydrant to hydrant on one of the hottest summer days to insure that the firefighters of their town could do their job most efficiently…say what you want about the youth of today, these are the kids who are already ordinary legacies in the making. They were off again in a matter of minutes, on to the next location, being led by Daniel and shuttled by two wonderful gentlemen volunteers, I regret I didn’t get their names.

Later in the day when I was done with my garage sale shift I met the man who’s house was behind the hydrant, he hadn’t been home when the kids did their thing.  We had a great conversation about how cool it was and he told me that he’s lived in this house his whole life, I estimate his age at around 85, and his father was once the Fire Chief in town.  What a moment, what a good bunch of kids.

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Made my day then, even more coincidentally I couldn’t help noticing all the Maltese crosses I passed on my way to Gramma’s today.  That is an ordinary legacy moment relived.  Thank you Daniel and company for a job well done. Let us know when you make Eagle Scout.

 

Superpower…

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The concept of superpower implies seemingly impossible abilities. According to Wikipedia: There is no rigid definition of a “superpower”. In popular culture, it may be used to describe anything from minimal exaggeration of normal human traits, magic, to near-godlike abilities including flight, superstrength, projection of destructive energy beams and force fields, invulnerability, telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, super-speed or control of the weather.

 Doesn’t mean a mere mortal like myself can’t have a superpower, doesn’t mean you can’t have a superpower. My superpower is pulling together a meal for anywhere between two and eight people at a moment’s notice using nothing other than what’s in my pantry, the magic fridge (as my sister calls it) and a bit of Sunday afternoon mise en place. Or as I call it chop/roast/sauté therapy.

So while Sunday morning looks like this:

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Sunday afternoon looks like this:

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The result of this is the ordinary legacy moment of the week. That moment when my neighbors and I are chatting on the deck and we decide we’re all hungry. Minutes later we are dining on slices of lasagna made the previous day in a loaf pan, tomato-zucchini-mozzarella-basil salad with dark chocolate balsamic and olive oil dressing and for dessert the now famous angel food-blueberry-gelatin concoction that tastes exactly like you want summer to feel. Cool and refreshing. Nothing makes me happier.

Have a good week.

 

 

 

 

 

How Would You Know?

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As is so often the case, people will come and go from your life. Especially on this weekend I think of many of those people. I don’t have war dead but my heart breaks for those who do. What I do have is gratitude for their sacrifice and I find myself taking moments here and there over the weekend to pray for them and theirs.

While this weekend is about honoring those lost in sacrifice to our country I can’t help but honor one lost too soon. I tend to question why sometimes but I could almost hear him answer with another question, “how would you know?”. That question was the answer to many a question over the years. I hadn’t thought of him saying that for quite some time.

I was reminded of that question, while watching Grace and Frankie of all things. That question and the concept of relevance. “Am I relevant”, asked Grace and all I could hear in my head was, “how would you know”?

Every person who sacrificed their life for our country became instantly relevant. Not only to those left behind but also to those who live in freedom because of them. A person who lives an ordinary life becomes relevant to those they leave behind also but “how would you know” if you’re relevant among the living?

The fact is you won’t know unless the living say and do something to assure you that you are, indeed, relevant. I believe in that whole heartedly and hope I’m doing enough of that. There is a song about if I die young bury me in satin, lay me down on a bed of roses, sink me in a river at dawn, send me away with the words of a love song. While that die young ship has sailed for me every time I hear that song I think DON’T DO THAT. Don’t come and say and do when I die, come now, say now, do now and think of me now so I know like I know that relevance is real and I am it. I will do the same for you, that’s “how we’d know”.

Many minds will wander this weekend to people who have come and gone from this life and I urge you to have your moments, like at the sound of taps.  But I also urge you to stay among the living where you can be comforted and assured of your relevance and you can do the same in return.

It’s A Legacy Thing

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There are so many things that could be considered legacy things that you couldn’t even begin to categorize them all.  An ordinary legacy thing is something that is, well, ordinary.  The things that are often overlooked, taken for granted, summarily dismissed until something brings your attention back to them, then they become a thing. The ordinary legacy things are always there, always useful, always within reach, until they’re not.

There are legacy thing stories in the everyday tangibles like my screamin red coffee cup or park benches and in the intangibles like birthday parties or on and on.  The choices are endless.

Rather than expound on them in print I thought it might be fun to explore them through video like my screamin red coffee cup.  Not only do I love typing that but I could say it a million times too.

For those of you who receive these posts by email you’ll have to click through to the site in order to see the videos or hear the audios until I figure that whole thing out.  I’m sure it will be a legacy thing at some point.

I expect you’ll enjoy my two cents in two minutes and I’ll not hear the end of it.  Please comment away to make this interactive, I’d hate to see my audacity go to waste!