Category Archives: A childhood memory

Heartwings Love Notes 2015 Giving at the Holidays

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Heartwings says, “Giving needs to be enjoyable for the giver as well as for the recipient.”

Stephen and I were discussing what to give friends and family for Christmas.  We have a list, as always, and in previous years, we have accumulated gifts throughout the year and mailed them or given them away at the holidays. However, there no longer seem to be the choices as in the past. Covid dried up the yard sales where we used to find fun things. Lately, being less mobile, with less time, shopping has not always been an option.

Furthermore, one family member told us she didn’t want any more things. It seemed she and her husband were eliminating, not adding. More recently, we have ordered food gifts from a catalogue that carries a variety of packages of meats, sweets, and cheeses. Some we used to send to were on special diets, or didn’t eat some of the things they used to eat.

I thought about the plethora of catalogues piled on the sofa and sighed. With limited energy and restricted motion there would be no fun going to a mall or even a department store. It was getting late for online shopping especially if we needed to be wrapping and mailing anything to relatives far away. Christmas giving is supposed to be fun. It wasn’t feeling that way.

Then I thought about how nice it was to be able to chose something, using a gift certificate. The answer to my dilemma appeared in flashing lights. Exactly! The perfect solution: gift cards for purchases on Amazon. I turned to Stephen and shared my idea and he agreed. Problem solved. People get to choose what they would like and fortuitously, no postage need be paid by either giver or recipient. It was a win- win situation.

My grandmother always gave my parents some cash, brand new crisp bills from the bank, together with a carton of cigarettes. This was very welcome. As an old friend used to say, “cash makes no enemies.” My father told me that after my grandmother passed on, and he was going through her things, in her bottom bureau drawer he found every gift he had carefully chosen for her re wrapped, brand new and unused. He said it made him feel sad. I don’t blame him.

Her sister, my Great Aunt Alice, used to give strange, even weird gifts that no one cared for and usually could not return because their point of origin was unknown. I do remember one such gift I received from her which was a wood burning set. I had no idea what use to put it to, and for years it gathered dust on the top shelf of my closet.

Each Christmas my dad wrapped the gifts he gave to the gardeners who took care of the estates where he was hired to do tree work. Some got cartons of cigarettes, others ties, and a few got liquor. He wrapped each gift carefully and delivered them himself. It is fun to recall these special holiday memories.

May you enjoy your special holiday memories and share them.”

Blessings and best regards at the holidays and always,

Tasha Halpert

Heartwings Love Notes 2014 Catalogues Abound Now

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Heartwings says, “What to buy for gifts depends upon many factors.”

Every day more catalogues arrive in our small, personal mailbox. Once I found a bill squashed in the bottom of it because the mailbox had been so stuffed. How did the senders get our names? This is one mystery I know not how to solve. I used to call or email and ask to be removed from their list. The excess catalogues seemed to me to be a great waste of paper and postage. I’d even asked at the post office about getting rid of them, but their job is to deliver, not to hold back. Since I have no solution, I just keep discarding all but the few I welcome.

I do keep a small number that we order from. There is a food catalogue that give gifts from each year. They are reasonable and don’t suggest we buy pears that are 2 or 3 dollars each. Tasty I am sure but rather expensive for something that they don’t use fancy ingredients to manufacture. Some of our favorites offer money off if you order before a specific date. This is handy and merciful, especially if one remembers to order before the due date.

When I was ten or twelve, I made the first order I can recall from a catalogue. As I remember, it was a smallish black and white one, with things I thought might please my parents. I bought them a set of ashtrays that featured a heart, a diamond, a spade, and a club on each and were shaped to fit on the corners of a bridge table. How proud and how grown up I felt to have bought them a special present from a catalogue.

My parents and their friends all smoked cigarettes, didn’t everybody? I believe tobacco was different then, however I can’t prove it. My great aunt always had a box of cigarette on her coffee table and most every adult lit up after dinner. That was then, when doctors recommended a certain brand for whatever reason I no longer remember. No one smoked constantly, it was a simple pleasure to be indulged from time to time, not a need to be satisfied. I suspect you won’t find any ashtrays in catalogues these days.

The items in some are almost irresistible, until I remember that my friends do not have any more space for new, ornamental objects than I do. I remember a long time ago reading a quote from someone requesting only gifts she could “Eat, use up, or wear.” Maybe that’s why I often end up with lovely soap, much of which I can’t use, unfortunately, due to the oils I am allergic to. I am also loaded with fancy teas. And nice as they are, I don’t need any more knit hats, either.

May you enjoy choosing from catalogues as you prepare to give your presents,

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS If you have thoughts and/or suggestions to share, I’d be so glad to receive them. For more Love Notes, check my blog at http://tashasperspective.com and click on Pujakins. You can sign up there to receive them weekly as well.

Heartwings Love Note 2000: It’s About Time

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This Love Note marks a milestone: Number 2000 in total over a period of many years, at 52 a year. You can do the math how many that is. I am eternally grateful to my readers and to the invisibles who have had a hand in the Notes’ creation.

Heartwings says, “Waste not, want not; use whatever time you have wisely.”

When as a child I visited my grandmother in her summer home in Beverly farms, I would stand by the big cuckoo clock in the hall to see the bird emerge. I loved it! I even remember being very little and someone lifting me to see the bird up close. My dear grandmother would even advance the hands to make it sound the hour ahead, just for me. Perhaps that was the beginning of my fascination with time and clocks. All these years later, its passage remains a mystery.

 I remember as a child waking up on sunny summer mornings and thinking about how I had a whole day to play, and what fun that would be. Indeed, the hours stretched out and brought me much joy as I amused myself. An only child until I was eight, I had developed a good ability to entertain myself. I was never lonely, though I was mostly alone unless an adult was interested in playing with me, and mostly they weren’t, so my time was my own.

Now, some eighty years later when I wake up on any morning, whatever the time of year, I go over in my mind what I need to get done, not to mention what’s left over to do from the day before. (Usually, I had planned more than I could accomplish.) Then as I get ready, beginning with my exercises, I prioritize my “to do” list. It’s simpler than it used to be. Eighty years holds a world of change, and hopefully I have learned what’s important.

Children tend to live as human beings; adults as human doings. And time is at the center of the action in either stage of life.  It seems there is only so much of it—sixty seconds make a minute, or so they say. However, how do you feel after holding your breath for sixty seconds or laughing for the same amount of time? Do they feel the same? That’s the odd thing about time. It’s supposed to measure the same, yet it does not, at least in my experience feel that way. Another example is going somewhere versus coming back, which feels much shorter, clocks to the contrary.

Stephen and I have always collected interesting clocks. Our small apartment is full of them. Most of them are synchronized, more or less, within five or so minutes. Several display the accurate time, and others may lag a bit, depending on the age of their batteries. However, I know which ones are correct. Also, I like seeing what time it is whenever I feel like it, even without wearing a watch—mine is currently in need of batteries. I’m not sure I get any more done by looking, but I do like to know. Recently I came across a study that showed that the heart’s activity influences our perception of time as it passes. Time is a conundrum it’s fun to explore.

Enjoy whatever time you have and don’t try to save it at the price of your joy.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

How do you feel about time? Do you take your time? Or do you find there’s never enough? How’s your time management. Write and tell me about your relationship with time. I so love to hear from readers. Please write me at tashahal@gmail.com. You can see more love notes on my website www.heartwingsandfriends.com, or see my blog at https://tashasperspective.com.

Heartwings Love Notes 1098 Where Can It Be

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Heartwings says, “Putting things back where they belong is important.”

As a child I was taught to be tidy. Emily, the practical nurse my parents hired to help care for me when I was around two or so, tried hard to make sure I learned to put my toys, and later, my clothing away. She was with us until I was around eight years old when she left to get married and have a family of her own. Unlike my mother, she was patient and physically affectionate.

I am not faulting my mother in any way. Her behavior was molded by her upbringing. While kind and a good mother, she grew up with strict German parents who did not encourage demonstrative behavior. Even as a grandmother she was reluctant to accept or to give physical affection. Fun and fond behavior was not a priority, neatness was. 

Once I was married and had children of my own, I did my best to be as tidy as I could. This grew more difficult with each addition to the family, which eventually added up to five children. I didn’t have a lot of time to devote to being neat or organized. My mother often criticized me for my “messy house,” and it never seemed to occur to her that there was a good reason for this. I thought it was more important to enjoy and care for my children than to be neat.

Neatness does have virtues beyond looking nice. Having things in order means when I need to find something, I’ll know where it is and can find it without any difficulty. That is why the saying, “a place for everything and everything in its place,” has been my guideline as long as I can remember. For instance, I try hard to keep all of my tools where I can easily reach them and as close as possible to where they will be used. Being a systematic Scorpio, I have sectioned off the shelves in my pantry by assigning them to what I can make or do with the contents.

However, unfortunately this works as long as I am the only person putting things away. Also, there often is more to be put away than the shelves can conveniently hold. This results in items get shoved to the back, effectively disappearing from view and becoming unavailable. So, although I no longer have little children to run around after or an eagle-eyed mother judging my attempts to be tidy, I struggle still with my tidiness conundrums.

The current state of my health doesn’t help either. Despite Stephen’s great help, much does not get done. There are days I simply only have enough energy to cook meals and see to my immediate emails, not to mention attend doctors’ appointments. Prioritizing becomes important, and as it was once so it is again: I do what is important and let the rest go.

Heartwings Love Notes 1091: Birthdays are Timely Occasions

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Heartwings says, “Years can seem like weeks when memories cluster together.”

Our country has been celebrating its birthday on July fourth for quite a long time now. In three more years, it will be the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of the United States of America. While the first celebration was actually in 1777, it took time to catch on, and catch on it did. In the 1800s celebrations were widespread. Now, of course it is common and even commercialized.

The time passes so quickly now, it was only a few years ago that we celebrated the two hundredth, or so it seems to me.  For me, that holiday has always been filled with memories. I recall the wonderful parades that marched past our home in the town in Massachusetts where the children’s father and I raised our family. I have happy memories of the occasion as one for a gathering of townspeople later that day in the afternoon, with games and races for all ages.

My children participated in all the events and often won them, being well coordinated and athletic, unlike their mother. Unfortunately for me they always insisted I run in the tired mothers’ race—as it was called. Never having been much of a runner, I almost always came in last, but they were proud of me anyway. There was a children’s parade as well, and of course costumes to be cobbled together and happy faces as my family marched with the other children.

I remember as a youngster attending the fireworks held at the beach in her town, with my grandmother. We sat on the sand, watching the set pieces that had been attached to a wooden pier that jutted out into the water. It was a special and cherished experience. Nowadays I usually watch the fireworks on television listening to music. When I lived in Virginia, together with friends and a few thousand others, I got to see the fireworks over the Capitol—a most remarkable display.

Because Stephen’s birthday falls the day before on the third, we celebrate for several days, including the fifth, which is our wedding anniversary. We usually have a party with friends and when we had our inner peace center, we often had some who came from afar and tented in the back yard. July fourth has been a special day for me for as long as I can remember.

As we get older, the years seem to go by faster and faster. While this is surely an illusion, it is a very real experience. The celebrations of memory, with my children in costumes, parading along with others, seem just a few moments from my time with my grandmother and a few more from the parties we called Three Days of Peace and Love—July 3, 4, and 5, with tents on the lawn. Presently, our celebrations of these special days are quieter, and we will not be seeing live fireworks, however they will be just as special as they have always been, in their own way.

May you enjoy your celebration with those you love.

Blessings and Best Regards, Tasha Halpert

P.S. How do you celebrate the Fourth? Share with me if you like, I so enjoy the stories you do. Write me at tashahal@gmail.com.

Heartwings Love Notes 1078 Food for the Body, Food for the Soul

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Heartwings says, “Taking care of ourselves is very important, and dandelions can help.”

    I have always loved dandelions. My memory holds an image of my four-year-old self making a crown for my mother–picking the dandelions, carefully slitting each stem and then poking the heads through to make a bright golden circle. I also remember picking great bunches of them to give her and being disappointed when they closed up, never to reopen. I love to spot them flowering in vacant lots or beside city buildings; their cheerful brightness refreshes my soul. These little golden suns are starting to show up everywhere these days.

    Some will groan and go out to buy weed killer. Big mistake! In addition to the damage most weed killers will do to the surrounding denizens of the year with paws or wings, not to mention humans, when you know how to use them, the greens are good food. You can use them in salad as well as cook them. Somewhat bitter, dandelions are nutritious food. In addition, you can add the steamed greens to steamed kale, collards, spinach or asparagus and whirl them together with garlic and olive oil in a food processor. Promise you won’t experience the bitter at all.

Dandelions contain a whole pharmacy of healthy ingredients. According to Susan Tyler Hitchcock, writing in Gather Ye Wild things, one half cup fresh dandelion greens provides 14,000 milligrams of Vitamin A, as well as half our daily requirement of vitamin C, plus minerals–most especially potassium, calcium and others.

Still want to poison them? Consider that every part of the plant is edible, that the early settlers who brought the seeds here from England used to make coffee from the roasted roots, and that your liver as well as your kidneys will greatly benefit from eating the fresh or sautéed plant. Anyone who wishes to diet will do well to eat dandelions as well as drink dandelion tea, available in health food stores in tea bag form. It is a healthy, inexpensive diuretic. It makes a great wine. It’s easy, tasty, and fun to share.

Ingredients: three lemons, three oranges, six cups of sugar, one package of dry yeast, a quart of dandelion blossoms and a gallon of boiling water. Method: Slice the lemons and oranges into a bowl. Pour the sugar into the bowl and stir to blend. Leave over night. At the same time, pour the boiling water over the freshly picked blossoms in a large crock, or enamel or stainless-steel pot and leave overnight. Never use an aluminum vessel.

The next day, combine all in the large crock or pot, sprinkle with yeast, cover with a cheesecloth or netting and leave for five days. On the sixth day, strain out the fruit and blossoms, bottle the liquid, and cap with a balloon. Set aside to ferment. When balloons hang limply, fermentation is done. Cork tightly and store at least six months, the longer the better. This recipe makes about five bottles of a slightly sweet, mellow, green/golden wine. It is best served after dinner or as a special treat. To me it tastes like a Spring Day.

May your dandelions nourish you in whatever form you have them.”

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS Please write to me with your thoughts, messages and suggestions. I so enjoy your dear letters and will always answer you sooner or later; that’s a promise. My email is tashahal@gmail.com and my website is www.heartwingsandfriends.com .

Heartwings Love Notes 1068: Avoiding Expectations May Be Wise

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Heartwings says, “The future depends on how the present  proceeds.”

At our New Year’s Day gathering Stephen and I were sitting together on the sofa when a friend began taking our picture. The light was reflecting off my eyeglasses so he asked me to take them off. I heard the echo of my dad’s voice saying, “Take off your glasses and look pretty.” I laughed to myself and removed them. These days, confident in my appearance and no longer impressed by my father’s prejudice, I am happy to be photographed with them either on or off. My expectations have changed.  

Expectations often dominate a new year. After all, that’s how we express our resolutions.  These may or may not be realistic, fall by the wayside, or bring results. However, they may be doomed by our expectations. This failure comes about as a result of the unconscious programming behind them. Our programming is the unremembered precepts we grew up with. They are often reflected in our self talk: my weight is inherited from my mother’s side of the family or I am lazy and uncoordinated.

Do you listen to yourself? Do you hear how you respond mentally to plans? To resolutions? Here’s the thing: At the start of the new year many resolve to lose weight or exercise more. If they were listening to their inner responses, here’s what they might hear: “I’ve tried this before and failed, why bother trying.” Or, “I’ll just fail again; it’s too difficult to exercise, and anyway, I don’t want to take the time.” If the resolution involves depriving oneself of the pleasure of eating, or projects the boredom of exercise, where’s the incentive? These may be the negative expectations that arise when resolutions are expressed.

Or it may be possible to avoid expectations, both positive and negative altogether. There is a way to do this. It comes from the practice of Buddhism and is called beginner’s mind. I once had a yoga class with a teacher who said his mantra—a saying to help one grow spiritually, was “I know nothing, I want to learn.” This is an excellent way to express beginner’s mind. Back when I first heard this I scoffed, thinking that I was creating an affirmation of stupidity. This was incorrect. By affirming I know nothing,, as I later realized, I was clearing the slate of the expectations, definitions, or prejudices I might carry in my mind.

Now when I look at the New Year I see it through a lens of confidence, sure I approach it without any idea what will happen. However, regardless what does, I know I will grow from the experience because I wish to. My life may or may not go in a direction I am prepared for, That’s not important. What is, is that I greet any and all happenstance without prejudice but with the confidence that I will benefit if only by learning not to do something or else to do what is needed. That way a new year is truly a blank slate I can look forward to writing on, just to see what happens next.

May your new year of life be filled with blessings of all sorts, known and unknown,

Blessings and best regards Tasha Halpert

P.S. Did you make any resolutions? How are you doing with them? I always enjoy your comments so much. Write me on my blog or at this email: tashahal@gmail.com.

Santa is Real and his Gifts are Many

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Heartwings says. “Santa does not have to be visible to be real.”

From my childhood I remember an old nylon stocking stuffed with presents lying on the front part of the Franklin stove in my bedroom and the excitement of taking out and opening the small wrapped packages within it. Later in my childhood came the fun of shopping for small, inexpensive stocking presents and wrapping them, and the feeling of glee as my contributions were opened and exclaimed over. In our house Santa only filled the stockings. All other gifts were labeled with the name of the giver and placed under the tree to be opened on Christmas eve.

Santa was a mysterious figure in a red suit who always managed to evade my view. Once revealed as a myth, in my mind he remained and still does to this day, as real as real can be. Santa is the personification of generosity. He never expects anything, though cookies are often put out for him, and, too, celery sticks for his reindeer. He is an amalgam of myths and legends, and an important part of Christmas. There are those who think he takes away from the Christian focus on the birth of Jesus at this time, yet the details of that too are a collection of myths.

The myths surrounding Santa are built around the reputation of a real man, St. Nicholas, a kind Turkish bishop who was said to provide dowry money for several young ladies so they could get married. There are other sources for today’s man in the red suit that have coalesced around him. They all involve gifts in some way or another. Another favorite of mine is La Befana, an Italian woman who puts gifts into the shoes of young children because she is looking to give them to the Christ child. The three kings had stopped by as she was doing her household chores and she was too diligent to take up their invitation to go with them, so she set out later and wanders still, leaving gifts.

There is a German legendary figure called the Christkindl, and more figures, if one digs around on the Internet, all bearing gifts. No matter the name or the language, the spirit is the same: the spirit of generosity. Absent the commercialism of the day, the idea that we can celebrate the gift of the returning light—the Solstice, or the birth of a baby who became a holy figure, with gifts makes so much sense. In days gone by the gifts might have been placed on an altar. As time goes by, customs change, some continue and some do not, yet the theme remains the same. Giving and receiving, the returning of the light, the birth of a new brightness in the sky, and hopefully in our hearts, is what Christmas is about. 

No matter how they occur or when, may your Holiday celebrations be merry and bright.

Blessings and Best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS, Please consider sending me a few words about your holiday celebrations or anything else you might wish to share. It is a gift to me when I hear from a reader.

Heartwings Love Notes 1065: Future Shock Is Real

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Heartwings says, “It is not easy to adjust to rising prices as one gets older.”

Some of my older friends may feel as I do: what happened to money? In 1970, a book called Future Shock by Alvin Toffler gained a lot of publicity. Perhaps it ought to be reissued. It describes how persons are affected by changes, especially financial, over time. For instance, when I was a child I could buy a comic book for a dime and an ice cream cone for five cents. When I used to take my little ones for a cone it was a quarter. I don’t have to tell you, times have changed. What is more shocking is by how much any item seems to increase.

When McDonald’s first began to raise its golden arches in New England, there was one near where I took the children for swimming lessons. A dollar bought us a drink, a burger, and fries, with change. Now there are many similar venues and you can’t find anything for a dollar in any of them. Of course, to the twenty-somethings who work and may lunch at a fast-food restaurant, that is business as usual. To families trying to eat healthy meals, it’s an occasional treat, because restaurants cost so much more than they used to.

Not only restaurants but everything costs so much more, most especially to someone like me who grew up licking a five cent ice cream cone. I remember my grandmother would save up her pennies and when they filled her hands, she would give them to me with a simple ritual she had either devised or learned—I never asked her where it came from. Holding her closed hands full of pennies over mine, also closed, she would say, “Hold fast all I give you three times, then open her hands and spill the pennies into mine, held open in expectation. I was delighted with my small hoard and spent it on whatever took my fancy at the time.

Coping with this difference between then and now, has for me become a work in progress. I am a firm believer in the abundance prayer and also in the principle it represents: I will always have enough for what I need. This grows increasingly more difficult. “Reality” in the form of visits to the supermarket, or a meal at a restaurant would seem to contradict this. Yet why should I not believe? My abundance need not falter or fail to keep pace with inflation. The child that treasured her pennies needs reassurance, and only I can give it, which I do.

So, when doubt creeps in and I wonder how to cope, I repeat my prayer ending with the affirmation that all is well for me and likely to remain so. Then I do what I need to do and carry on. So far, it seems to be working, let’s hope it continues.

May you deal creatively with future shock if and when it arises.

Blessings and Best Regards, Tasha Halpert

P.S. Have you experienced this for yourself? How have you coped? If you’d care to share, I would love to hear what you have to say. Let me know at tashahal@gmail.com, I’m hoping to hear.   

A Memoir of Days Gone By

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Tasha's Family 1955010My great Aunt Alice, pictured on the far left,  was a “maiden” aunt. Never having marred, she lived with her mother, and then by herself in the grand home built by her late father. It was set amid the lawns and gardens of an estate on the outskirts of a small seaside town. We lived in a smaller house that had been built for the full-time gardener. A lifelong sportswoman, she had a collection of trophies from horseback riding, as well as her tennis matches. A vigorous woman I remember her saying she always parked her car at a distance from the store she was going to, so she’d get more exercise. I also found her intriguing because she wore socks over her nylons, and never wore trousers.

Aunt Alice also had a beach cottage we went to sometimes on weekends in the summer.  It had once been her Girl Scout camp. She had had a troup once and they still kept in touch. She also for many years had dogs, always small and yappy: Scotties and Sealyhams, and later, Dachshunds. I can also remember as a very young child being held up to pat the nose of a horse she had in a pasture. There was a stable with a horse stall, though I have no memory of ever seeing a horse in it.

Over the fireplace in the hall of her home there were hunting trophies: Fox tails from when she rode to the hunt. There were lots of books, both in her library with the window seat and the plush green velvet sofa and elsewhere. I loved that window seat. Aunt Alice was good enough to pay for two years of wonderful riding lessons for me. She also put me up when my parents went away on business and I had to stay and go to school. That was fun. I enjoyed her company, and she was always kind to me. As I think about her now, I realize that she was a great example of an independent woman. Her sister, my grandmother was also, though she had been married and was now a widow. Aunt Alice worked for various charities and was generous to them.

As we went there often for holiday meals my memories of her home are vivid. Her dining table was always set with beautiful china and silver, together with a flower centerpiece and silver candy dishes, piled with chocolates. When I was small there were cocktails in the large parlor downstairs. I used to enjoy her toy truck with the blocks, and a mechanical rabbit in lettuce that rose up and munched, flicked its ears and sank down again. When I was older, I remember gathering upstairs, where she had a music box like an organ grinder’s that played various tunes when the handle was cranked. The cigarette box was always filled with the brands my parents smoked. Daddy mixed the cocktails, and Ritz crackers with peanut butter were a featured hors d’oeuvre.

Aunt Alice was quieter than my grandmother. She also unlike my grandmother, who gave out checks for Christmas presents, went to the store and bought things. Her choices were notoriously bad. Of course, we never told her that. After I grew up and got married, when I could I’d bring my children to visit her. She enjoyed their antics. By then she was rather absent of mind. Alzheimer’s caused her to fall asleep at odd moments, and make it difficult for her to remember much. The children made her smile and that was reason enough to visit. I will always be grateful for her generosity to me, and of the wonderful example her life provided me.