tollipop

all at once, the blossoms made their debut into society and became an overnight sensation

 
It really is like that here in Las Vegas, dear reader.  One day you are walking down the street and the tree branches are spindly and bare.  The very next morning, an explosion of pink.
 
 
It infuses some people with boundless energy.

 
While others are inclined to dream.

 
The signs are achingly fleet, yet like every beautiful moment, have a way of lasting the longer you stop to enjoy them. 

foreign film

 
Dear reader, today's post features something new and perhaps a bit ill advised here at Tollipop.  While it is not especially unusual for me to talk to myself or even to make friends with girls in mirrors, it is rather odd to tape myself doing so.  And then to display it for anyone to see. 

In other words, today you are privvy to some top secret stuff.

Whether you do or don't speak French, please allow me to offer a brief translation...since I'm still not sure if even the francophones will be able to follow.  It's just that ever since I started taking French lessons, I've received several lovely emails from readers asking about my progress.  And I somehow got the brilliant idea this would be a good way to respond. 

But it is very nerve-wracking to speak French to oneself in a mirror.  Believe me.  As it so happens, the situation feels contrived and doesn't exactly lend itself to natural behavior.  Hence, I go on to deliver a soliloquy so affected and dry (and peppered with ums), it would have almost certainly been pelted with rotten tomatoes had I been living in the days of William Shakespeare.

The nice thing about being in one's forties is that I don't care too deeply, one way or another. 

At any rate, by way of translation, I'm basically saying how much easier it is to understand when the French language is being spoken to me as opposed to trying to speak it myself.  It truly is a bizarre discrepancy.  How is it possible to understand foreign words and phrases from someone else, yet not be able to articulate them when it's my turn to speak?  I wonder if there's a connection between this phenomenon and how scientists say babies can understand a language long before they develop the skills to speak it?  I guess I'm just like a little French baby. 

Also, I'm wondering if any francophones out there can even understand what I'm saying (I have this weird fear I'm unintelligible and it makes me very self conscious). 

How I wish I had some French friends!  We would hang out at cafés all day long and I'd sit there devouring pain au chocolat, looking mysterious and unfathomable, the whole time trying to understand exactly what was being said. 

I think that would be the best French lesson of all.   

brown paper packages tied up with string

 
Dear reader, don't you just love giving gifts?  Especially when the shade of the ribbon so perfectly matches the shade of one's dress?

 
And a tiny bird lands on a polka dotted teacup to say Chloe is the cutest baby ever?

Dear me, I don't know if I'm so much talking about giving gifts as I'm talking about wrapping them up.  Indeed, for me, it's easy to confuse one thrill with the other.

 
Which leads me to this important announcement: Anthropologie is in the process of getting a new line of packaging for their merchandise.  I don't know what this entails, exactly, but the store associate was able to show me their new, personalized tape.  It's so pretty and light and thin, just like Japanese deco tape.  I practically had to grip the counter to keep from falling over. 

And now I can't help but imagine how happy it would make me to have such a roll of tape for myself.  What would it say?  Tollipop would seem obvious, but perhaps not terribly meaningful to the world at large.  How about you make me happy?  Or even je t'aime.  Something I could whip out and stick on things whenever the spirit moved me. 

 
I don't mean to make too much of this, or to imply trimmings eclipse the sentiment of a kind gesture.  They don't.  And they should never stand in the way of one's efforts to make such a gesture. 

But at the same time I love how a thoughtfully wrapped gift has this effect on me.  This feeling of excitement, this appreciation for prettiness and attention to detail which brings a special delight in and of itself.

sweet caroline

 
Dear reader, we have a tradition in our home of gathering together before bedtime to have a family prayer.  It usually occurs after I've read a story and recited a favorite poem, and the mood is happy, united, and warm. 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should also note there are many evenings when bedtime does not avail itself to such harmony, when there is exasperation, fatigue, and children who cannot seem to pull off the simple task of brushing teeth if their lives depended upon it. 

 

At any rate, it was Caroline's turn to pray last night.  I love listening to my children pray...it's like downloading their innermost thoughts, it's like seeing the world through their eyes.  Caroline, in particular, prays over a litany of people, places, and concerns. 

 
At one point she brought up a homeless man she had seen the week before.  She asked God to help him find something to eat and drink that evening.  And then she said, "If he has to lay down on the street to sleep tonight...please make it feel to him as if he's in a bed." 


 
I don't know, dear reader.  Something I love about life is how differently we approach it, how the various perspectives of others help me to appreciate a greater landscape than I would navigate on my own, how their influence helps me to see more clearly a way of looking at things that is meaningful to me. 

Listening to Caroline's prayer last night was like that.  It wasn't some naive, childish recitation...it was like pausing to consider some of the true sorrows of the world, and not being afraid to look at them when one's heart is filled with love.