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My Grandparents' Creche
I always put up two creches at Christmas. The one in our family room came from a 1960's Woolworth’s, where it was displayed in the same aisle as the plastic window candles and aluminum trees. Some of the figures still have price tags on the bottom that say twenty-nine cents. A few of the lambs are amputees and the original cardboard stable has long since disintegrated, but this is the creche I grew up with, and I still cherish its delightful tackiness.
My other creche is a w
Anne Moul
Dec 11, 2020
I Need an Advent Calendar this Year
I think I might need an Advent calendar this year. Not those lovely ones made for adults that hold tiny bits of chocolate or miniscule bottles of wine behind each door. I mean the old-fashioned kind, with doors opening to reveal a simple toy or Christmas decoration printed on tissue thin paper—the ones that don’t provide a tangible reward for getting through another day. The kind with beautiful snow scenes showing rosy-cheeked children gathered around the village Christmas tr
Anne Moul
Nov 22, 2020
November Perspective
Quiet Sunday, as most of them are these days. No rushing off to church and choir practice or drum corps rehearsal. A lot to process as we trim back bushes and shrubs and clean up pots of fading annuals which have given it their all since May. As the hibiscus and mandevilla continue to push out a few token blooms in the seventy-degree weather, it’s hard to believe we’ll be hanging Christmas lights in a few short weeks.
Recent days brought stress and shock and relief and joy al
Anne Moul
Nov 8, 2020
Things I Learned from Cleaning Out My Closet
I put away the shorts and sandals this week and replaced them with corduroy pants, sweaters and, ugh, shoes that require socks. I’m a neat freak who needs her clothing organized—solid or print tops, dress slacks or jeans, shoes grouped by color, etc. When I do this in the spring, it’s with joyful anticipation of outdoor swimming and deck-sitting at Ocean Pines, but the fall changeover tends to depress me, because holidays aside, I’m not a big fan of the dark months.
Like many
Anne Moul
Oct 31, 2020
We Were a Team
You and I were a team. We were the yin and yang, the passion and the patience. You pushed me when I needed it. (“Let’s do a strings festival with every kid in the program.”) I pulled back when you needed it. (“No, you cannot send that letter to the school board.”) I was your enabler—the one who made sure the permission slips were sent and that the printed program was not only finished on time but grammatically perfect. You were my musical inspiration and my go-to person for a
Anne Moul
Oct 23, 2020
A Tale of Two Shoppers
Yesterday, for the first time in months, I was in a retail clothing store and that was only because I had to return items purchased online. The store was following all the protocols—limiting capacity, masks required, hand sanitizer everywhere. I noticed a woman loaded down with clothes approach the dressing rooms. One of the sales associates gently reminded her that she needed to wait to be assigned a dressing room. They were keeping every other cubicle vacant and wiping down
Anne Moul
Oct 10, 2020
Two Refrigerators
We’re expecting a new refrigerator to be delivered this week. The one we have has worked faithfully for twenty-three years, but we thought we’d be pro-active and not wait until it died. It’s a nineties side-by-side with limited space, so years ago, we bought a small used Kenmore for the garage to hold beer and sodas and extra food for picnics and holidays. I use it constantly, especially for garden harvests in the summer and as a staging area for big grocery runs, which I do
Anne Moul
Sep 21, 2020
Find a Way In
I made a chocolate cake last weekend because my husband’s aunt was coming for dinner, and I thought she’d enjoy dessert. The cake wasn’t anything special—just a mix jacked up with a cooked homemade frosting. I froze most of it because we don’t need that much cake and put the remainder in the refrigerator. When I sliced off a piece today and tasted that ridge of cold icing, I was reminded of the Sarah Lee cakes my grandmother used to bring home from the Acme. She and I would p
Anne Moul
Sep 4, 2020
Constancy of Crisis
Some days I feel like the pandemic has dropped a screen over my life or perhaps, more accurately, a cage. I go about my business while straining to see through the filmy mesh of worry and fear, trying to finagle my hand through the bars to reach some vestige of my previous life. I cherish what remains the same about summer—the taste of fresh corn on the cob, the pleasant exhaustion from swimming laps in the pool, the August song of insects heralding the start of another schoo
Anne Moul
Jul 31, 2020
Grand Pause
I haven’t sung since the second week of March. Well, that’s not completely true since I recorded (with much angst and frustration) a piece for a virtual choir and a few hymns for a friend’s church service, but that’s it. This is the longest stretch in my adult life that I haven’t sung. When I try to sing along with the hymns and familiar liturgy of live-streamed worship, my voice sounds the way I feel, which is miserable and sad. Those of us who sing are stuck in one Grand Pa
Anne Moul
Jul 7, 2020
The Beach...this year
For many of us, the yearly visit to our favorite vacation spot is something we look forward to with anticipation. There is travel which offers an opportunity to explore new surroundings and then there’s travel that provides rest and relaxation and the soothing comfort of knowing exactly what to expect when we arrive at our destination. A friend recently posted that he just had to get away for a few days to breathe in the salt air and savor the crab cakes, Grotto pizza, and Th
Anne Moul
Jun 28, 2020
The Absence of There-ness
I started crying when I opened the cereal cupboard this morning. One of the things Vinnie would still eat in his last days was cereal. His favorites were oatmeal, Life (not the Target brand) and Quaker Oat Squares. I don’t think he felt well when he got up and licking the dregs of my cereal bowl and snitching a few crumbs of muffin or toast helped get him started toward eating his own breakfast. On Sunday, when he didn’t finish my oatmeal, I knew we were in trouble.
Unlike ca
Anne Moul
Jun 11, 2020
Give It to Marian
Marian was a black woman who “did” for my grandmother. Marian cleaned and ironed and occasionally helped out in the kitchen when my grandmother entertained. A tiny woman, she moved through the house like a wispy shadow, rarely speaking unless she was spoken to first. I was told Marian was one of the few people who could quiet me as a baby. In her later years, a stroke garbled her speech and limited her to doing only the lightest housekeeping chores. But Marian still showed up
Anne Moul
Jun 6, 2020
Should Have Been
My husband and I should have been singing our spring choral concerts this weekend. Should have been describes all of our lives right now. Should have been getting married, running a business, taking the trip, going to the gym. Should have been visiting family, watching a ball game, graduating from high school, dining in a favorite restaurant. The list, like this quarantine time, is endless.
Our calendars are virtually empty except for the harsh lines crossing out the rehearsa
Anne Moul
May 9, 2020
What I've Learned from Quarantine
That I’m married to the right person.
That pets, even high-maintenance ones like ours, are a blessing and a comfort. (mostly)
That there is joy to be found in what my mother called “putzing around the house.”
That I love seeing Jimmy Fallon’s kids almost as much as I love Stephen Colbert’s monologues. Some nights, it’s hard to choose.
That, much as I enjoy cooking, I miss restaurants. A lot.
That phone calls are way better than texts. I had forgotten about phone calls, but no
Anne Moul
Apr 15, 2020
Redux
As we make our way through these bizarre days of virus quarantine, I think about what my grandfather experienced during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. He was in his last year of medical residency at what was known then as Graduate Hospital, a now defunct teaching institution affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in Philadelphia. That September, a Navy ship from Boston docked in the harbor and within days, 600 sailors were diagnosed, and the disease
Anne Moul
Mar 17, 2020
Strange Times
I am not old enough to remember the scourges of the previous century--the diphtheria, typhoid fever, and polio that put sinister quarantine signs on people’s doors and kept children away from swimming pools and playgrounds. But in this age of mass immunizations and state-of-the-art medical care, here we are.
Are we fanning hysteria or being proactive and sensible and where’s the line? This isn’t like a snowstorm or weather disaster where there will be a finite end to the eve
Anne Moul
Mar 11, 2020
It's Our Turn
It really is, you know. Now is the time for the Baby Boomers and those traveling close behind who are retired or have more flexibility in their schedules to keep things going. It’s our turn to make sure the symphonies, the regional theaters, the dance companies and choirs, the Scout troops and the civic and philanthropic organizations—all of the non-profit entities that enrich our lives and communities, survive. Because those organizations lift us up, and Lord knows, we need
Anne Moul
Feb 9, 2020
Decluttering
The bed in our guest room serves as the staging area for items destined for rummage sales and Purple Heart pick-ups. The ten-year-old sweater that’s sprung a hole, the electric can opener that only works on Mondays when there’s a full moon, the pants that alas, have become too tight in the waist. (mine, never my husband’s.) I love the British tradition of Boxing Day when that which was replaced by Christmas gifts is boxed up and donated to those in need. Sometimes I think of
Anne Moul
Jan 18, 2020
Tiny Stars
Outside the beautiful church where we sang one of our Christmas concerts lies a sad mound of raggedy sleeping bags and blankets that serves as a bedroom for those who have no home. There is a tendency to avert your eyes as you drive by, to use that “if-I-don’t-see-it, it-doesn’t-exist” mentality which is so easy for those of us who are blessed with more than we need. And yet, a chorale member saw to it that one of our recordings was included in a fund-raiser CD which to date
Anne Moul
Dec 21, 2019
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