My Christmas Hug

I received a hug for Christmas this year.  Technically, it’s an Irish Cable Pattern Pocket Shawl from Aran Crafts – Ireland.  But I don’t call it that.  I call it my Craig hug.  Craig is my oldest brother and we bookend the five children in my family with me being the youngest.  He was 11 years old when I was born and I've never stopped looking up to him.

We’re polar opposites in a lot of ways.  He’s an athlete and I am anything but.  He’s always been a risk taker while I've walked the safe pathway.  He’s a big, universe type of thinker whereas my thoughts are generally closer to home. 

What’s bridged that gap has been our talks and the honesty that’s always been between us.  I didn't really enjoy being a kid – always wanted to be older than I was and Craig recognized that and treated me that way.  He talked to me like an adult, about adult topics.  He always answered my questions, gave me a different point of view or just listened as I chattered away.  The greatest lesson he taught me is the difference between love and respect and that you always love your family, no matter what, but that respect…well, that’s something they earn.  He opened my eyes to the world of Thomas Covenant and the Hobbit and I’m sure I fell in love with reading in no small part to mimic his love of the same and my collection of quotes, no matter how large, will never rival his for sure. 

We haven’t lived together since he left home at 20 to join the service, but over the years he’s welcomed me to visit him wherever he called home, whether in Bradford, PA., Dunkirk, N.Y., or Harrisburg, PA.  Thirty plus years of my visits there and his visits home to Grand Island have always included some portion of alone time where we catch up, share confidences, advice and a good laugh or two. 

On one of those visits home a few years ago he shared he was in end stage renal failure.  It’s been an arduous few years for him as he’s progressed through some harrowing medical situations and thrice weekly hemodialysis.  There’s not a doctor who sees him that doesn't marvel at his tenacity and acknowledges he’s a walking medical miracle. 

When I opened the shawl on Christmas Eve, he said he could picture me wrapped in its warmth as I curled up on the couch with a book.  I love his thoughtfulness and as he often is, he was absolutely right and it's been a wonderful week of doing just that.  But the warmth goes further than he anticipated.  It goes to not only being wrapped in my shawl, but wrapped in the comfort, love and warmth of a Craig hug for life.   

Weekend Writing Warriors

Weekend Writing Warriors promotes Snippet Sunday, when you post 8 sentences from a current writing project, published or unpublished.  The 8 sentences below are from the opening of my six year novel-in-progress, Creative Destruction.  Comments are most welcome.
 
The September chill crept into the car as I looked across the street at the house where the group sessions would be.  

I closed my eyes and saw the blue on a paint square.  I was familiar with those squares, the ones that lulled you into a false sense of potential as you stood among the palette of colors and dreamed that this color, among the hundreds available, was the one.  This blue never stood a chance, removed from the bright light of the store, slapped onto peeling shingles; it lost its promise to transform from the first brush stroke.  Peeled layers revealed a variety of blue shades, testament to the many attempts before.

“I need to be with a group of women who can say ‘I know what you mean’” I’d said.  

And this is where he’d sent me.   It was perfect.

My Mom’s Best Gift

My mom’s been gone just a little over five years now.  A few days ago I put a CD in my computer   She plays. “Beautiful Days”; a song she learned at the tender age of 11.  Her long gray hair is pulled back in a ponytail and as she sways back and forth on the organ bench, her arms pull the bellows in and out as fingers fly over unseen black and white keys, a look of pure joy on her face.  It’s a mesmerizing sight. 

and in a moment, on my screen, is my mother as she sits in front of her Yamaha organ, in a pair of slacks and her signature white short sleeved blouse, accordion strapped to her chest.

It was February 28^th, 2001 and she indulged me in my request to videotape her while she played the accordion and then the organ.  She wasn’t very comfortable about the idea of doing it, but went along with me anyway.   I was honest with her in my reasoning in that I’d listened to her play my whole life and couldn’t imagine that one day I’d never hear her play again. The tape was my insurance policy against that happening.

The day was cold and I’d gone to their house and set up my camcorder on the tripod in their living room.  We chatted for a while and had a bite to eat and a pot of tea.  It was a delightful afternoon. Afterwards, I played the video only once, to insure all had worked and then put it away.  I didn’t think to put it on a CD and share it with family members until after her death in 2009.    

When she started playing, her instructor first taught her the classics, telling her once she mastered those, she’d be able to play anything the rest of her life.  On the screen she moves now through those classics to popular favorites like “Harvest Moon.”  I’m back in elementary school, hearing the notes when I reach the end of the driveway after walking home from school.  Entering the kitchen from the back porch, I’d find her perched on the kitchen table edge, eyes closed, swaying to the music.  Again, that look of pure joy on her face.

I never tire of watching her.   She always played this large and cumbersome instrument with a measure of grace and lightness that defied reason.   The left hand playing chords as the right hand carries the melody.  Knowing she never learned to read music and that it’s all done by ear and memory only adds to her mystique. 

She flows into a song, mentioning it was her parent’s song.  When she’s done I ask her if she remembers the title and her voice breaks…“I Never Knew I Could Love Anybody Like I'm Loving You”, and then continues softly with the main verse…

“I never knew I could love anybody,

Honey, like I'm loving you;
I couldn't realize what a pair of eyes and a baby smile could do.
I can't sleep, I can't eat,
I never knew a single soul could be so sweet,
I never knew I could love anybody,
Honey, like I'm loving you.”

And in a moment, I remember my grandmother never referring to my grandfather as anything but her ‘Honey”, and it all comes together. 

The last song she plays on the accordion is my favorite, “Twilight Time.”  In hindsight, I think it may have been one of her favorites as well.

After a short break, she switches to the organ and the music I remember her playing most, at night, as I lay upstairs in my bed before I fell asleep begins.

Her back is to the recorder now as she flows through “I Get Misty”, “I Don’t Know Why I Love You Like I Do” and “Apple Blossom Time”.  I made a collage of family pictures to scroll as she plays – her and her parents, as a young girl with her brother, through her marriage and us kids growing up and her grandchildren.  It’s bittersweet to listen to her play this lovely background music as a slideshow plays of her life.  My favorite is her standing at a ledge at the Grand Canyon, a lifelong dream of hers and as beautiful as the canyon itself. 

I didn’t know that five short years after making this tape, she would have a traumatic brain injury.  For three years following until she passed, the music was gone as all her efforts were put into rebuilding other areas of her life and maneuvering her injury on a daily basis. 

I didn’t play the tape during those three years, instead waiting until after she passed for the time it was purposed for.  And a few days ago, as every time I play it, it serves the purpose.  Some days I just watch the screen and enjoy the sight and sound of her.  Other days I’ve just put it on while I was cleaning or writing, as background music.  I’ve even found myself walking towards the living room a time or two to request a song before I remember she’s not there.

My mom gave me a lot of gifts over my lifetime, but I've come to cherish that gift of her indulgence that cold February afternoon most of all.  Her music, the memories it holds for me and the joy it gives me each and every time I hear it.  

Who Am I?

Twenty six years ago, in 1988, I wrote/compiled a book for and about my family as a gift to them titled “Heart of One”.  I was 27 at the time, around half the age I am now.  The book was a blend of family history, stories and individual profiles of my parents and their five children. 

Just before the end of the book, I devoted a single page to each person, giving myself the freedom to mix what others had written and my impressions of them as well.  I picked a poem for each person I felt best described them.

I pull “Heart of One” out every now and then and read it.  I’m warmed by the memories it evokes and always a little surprised at how my feelings about stories and events evolve over the years.  I’m struck by both the clarity and obscured vision I had of my family members, and myself.

My page started with:

Her most precious possession was a magic box

that she kept hidden in a very secret place.

And whenever she wanted, she would unlock her magic box,

and out would fly all her favorite thoughts ~

Beautiful thoughts like the colors of a sunset

or the gentle flutter of a butterfly’s wings.

For 51 years, I've tended that magic box.  It holds all the slivered pieces of “Who I Am”.  Daughter, Sister, Friend, Wife, Mother, Gatekeeper and Writer.  I’m not the blindingly faithful (or naive) person I was then.  Now, when I ever so gently lift the lid (usually to engage in a writing piece) I don’t only see those favorite thoughts that mirror sunsets and butterflies.  I see a life balanced with joy and pain.  One that holds love and sorrow and surely more blessings than I deserve. 

A magic box indeed.  A place to safely cradle the pieces of who I am, the stories that got me there and the threads of where I’m headed.

                                                                        ###

This is in response to the “Who Am I” prompt from “The Blogging Lounge”.

Cheap and Relaxing Kicks Off 2014

Steven and I have a running joke that it doesn’t take much to amuse us.  We don’t mind splurging on ourselves once in a while, but generally cheap and relaxing is what we look for in activities with the main ingredient just being each other’s company.  I’ve been off the past two weeks – a gift of time when the Catholic University I work for is closed for Christmas/New Year’s and the addition of a few vacation days. 

It took me until I turned 50 to really enjoy sleeping in and taking naps!

It’s been blessedly low-key.  With Steve’s work schedule, we got a lovely mix of days and evenings together.  We slept in and took naps (a past time I’ve only recently come to appreciate in the past year or so); worked on a couple house projects and watched a few movies and TED talks with the new Google Chromecast he got us for Christmas.

It was also a reminder of just how much I enjoy our time in the kitchen.  I wouldn’t call us foodies, but we enjoy sharing our meals and have developed a smooth flow around the kitchen when we cook together.  Steve’s often inspired to combine foods that I would never think to (with delicious results!) and I love to cook a wide range from simple to elaborate meals.  We can easily entertain ourselves with a night of conversation over a good meal. 

Ours looked just like these from the website!

Steve mentioned he’d like to make a bunch of crock pot freezer meals for when I go back to work and our schedules get tight.  And in Team Morgan fashion, it became an adventure.  Friday we looked at the website, Mommy’s Fabulous Finds, reviewed the recipes, shopping list and headed to the store.  Yesterday afternoon we laid everything out on the counter, brought over Steve’s lap top and started the prep work.  In just a few hours, we chopped peppers, onions, garlic and meats, assembled and labeled the ten meals and cleaned up.  We had a ball and are already talking about ideas for the next batch of meals.

Like I said, it really doesn't take much to amuse us.  Long live cheap and relaxing!

2014 - Make It So

“Writing is not life, but I think that sometimes it can be a way back to life.”

     -Stephen King, On Writing

I’ve been silent on this blog for 158 days.  On the two year anniversary of “My Writing Corner” I admit that’s not a good thing.  However, in being true to its tagline of it being “A place to share my writing, the process of doing so and the part of me that it comes from”, I apologize for the silence and move forward into 2014 with a renewed commitment. 

Two years ago today I started out with the dream of beginning a blog, “ready to take the plunge and open myself up to sharing my writing…to hone my skills as a writer, dedicate myself to the craft of writing more and see where this adventure takes me.”

I had 67 posts in 2012 and found myself sharing not only my fiction, but surprisingly, different parts of my life as well.  It was an unbelievably productive writing time with the frosting on the cake being a published piece in Chicken Soup for the Soul: finding my faith. 

2013 began with a blog about my “growth as an artist as well as a writer” – heady stuff.  I started the year with I Should Be Writing BootCamp with Lisa Romeo (worth every penny, educational and inspiring!) I submitted a handful of pieces to different places and yes, received a couple rejections, but also had a My View published in the Buffalo News and an essay accepted on the “this I believe” website.  I wrote the 17^th blog post for the year on July 27^th and stopped.

I know from past experience that I don’t just stop writing for no reason.   And although there were numerous ones, in part, depression, like it or not, is part of where my writing comes from.  Sometimes I am able to write through it and other times, like the past five months, it numbs me and nothing makes the passage from my thoughts to the paper.   I’m fortunate to have good people in my life who help me through these times and thankfully, am starting 2014 from a better place. 

I am pleased that I did manage to write one piece in the past five months about a lesson learned from my mom, and got it submitted by the November deadline to Chicken Soup for the Soul for an upcoming book on traumatic brain injuries (I have not heard anything back yet.) 

I’m not sure what direction my writing will take this year, but feel ready for the glide of the pencil of paper and the tapping of my fingertips on the keyboard. It is with thanks to my husband Steven, son Abram, sister Darcey and longtime writing friend Elaine Kehoe of the blog, Tea Leaves for the love, guidance and gentle nudges that have helped make it so. 

The Magical Mystery Date

I’ve dated the same man for thirty two years.  Some would say that’s remarkable for the staying power alone, but it’s not really.  You see, we’ve been married for thirty of those years.  That is the remarkable part. 

Last week at work, an appointment for this past Thursday popped up in my Outlook calendar.  The subject line read “Mystery Date.” The invite was from my husband.  My heart skipped a beat and I hit accept.  

“Mystery date?” I asked that evening over dinner.  He smiled, nodded his head.  “Hmm,” he murmured. The only other information I got out of him was “casual clothing, launch time 9:30 am”.

Our mystery dates have become a highlight in our gallery of dates.  Why still court each other? Because we’re not the same people who were friends for seven years before we began dating.  We’re not the same as when we got married, established our home, or raised our son. 
Over the years, dates have run the gamut from a simple drive around the island when Abe was a baby, to pizza dinners by the river, to author talks, a run through the car wash followed by a trip for ice cream, to classic car shows and to full-blown formal nights out for dinner and a concert.  The constant?  It’s just the two of us.

So what was Thursday’s Mystery Date?  One of the best EVER! We hit the road at 9:30, stopped for breakfast at a local diner and were on our way.  A relaxing hour and a half drive later along the water on Route 5 took us to our destination, the Chautauqua Institution.  You could easily spend a week or more there, but we made the most of our day trip. 

Steve picked out two events I fell in love with.  First, we enjoyed two of the seven finalists in the 18^th Chautauqua Piano Competition Finals.   The young woman and gentleman we saw were stellar performers.  Their 25-minute solos provided two completely different styles in the pieces they chose.  We left them to have a bite to eat before heading over to the Hall of Philosophy, a huge outdoor Greek style pavilion to hear author Margaret Atwood speak on The Handmaid’s Tale.  She talked about her writing process and influences on the plot lines.  Topics ranged from the choice of dress for characters to the setting of a totalitarian society.  The couple hundred people gathered were enthralled with her stories and personal experiences.  For this writer (and Atwood fan), it was a huge treat.  

Why bother planning these for each other?  For the simplest of reasons.  It’s wonderful to plan something for the other that caters to an interest (like writing for me or classic cars for Steve).  Dates give us time to reconnect and center attention back on each other, away from jobs, commitments, family and hobbies.   Sometimes they’re just a whole lot of fun and laughter.  

The point is in taking the time to plan, to invite, to participate and appreciate.  Something I look forward to for many dates…and years, to come.  

Route 66 baby ~ “FROM CHICAGO TO LA ~ IT’S A WRAP!” (A blog series of our two week adventure!)

Thursday, 5/16/13

Still smiling two weeks in!

We started the day just a short distance away from the end of the route at the Santa Monica Pier.  The California traffic however makes for a very SLOW travel day.  Throughout the day we hit our first McDonalds that has a TESLA charging station.  I’ve fallen in love with the Tesla on this trip and am excited we are going to a gallery to see one after the trip is over. 

We hit the smog in San Bernardino and looked to have lunch at a famous Route restaurant, Bono’s, in Fontana, CA, but found it to be another closed icon, fairly recent by the looks of it.  Onward and through Rancho Cucamonga where I spot my first “Mexicatessan” – a new word for me! We picked up Foothill Boulevard here and traveled it through the next 10 cities to Pasadena.  It’s very slow going and the traces of the original Route are far and few between the strip malls, chain restaurants and urban sprawl we pass through. 
 
In Pasadena we followed the Arroyo Seco Parkway to the final section of Rout 66 – Sunset Boulevard.  We turned onto Santa Monica Boulevard at 3:34pm with just a short distance to go through Hollywood, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills before reaching Santa Monica.  And this began our trip in near dead stopped traffic for almost two hours.  Soooooooo close….and yet so far away….

The corner of SM Boulevard and Ocean Avenue

We finally reached the intersection of Santa Monica Boulevard and Ocean Avenue, at 5:16 pm on a beautiful 65 degree sunny evening, 2,725 miles from our starting point.  After parking the car, we walked to take our final Route 66 pic at the Will Rogers Highway plaque.  Down the road a bit was Palisades Park and the Santa Monica Pier, in full swing.

So this was it.  It was bittersweet to realize we were finished.  Honestly, we could have kept on going.  As vacations go, this was one of our best.  We saw a lot, had some great adventures, met some nice people, a special little smiling French fry and fit in a little unexpected four wheeling!  We ate well, drank copious amounts of coffee and tea, and had some fun with our meals and snacks.  We laughed hard, shared comfortable silences and had awesome conversations.  It was months in the planning and provided more than I ever expected.  It was a journey that provided a bit of history, some truly beautiful landscape and most important, the opportunity to explore it over two leisurely weeks with each other. 
 
There’s a big shout out thank you to add to the end of this series.  The one aspect of the trip I haven’t written about has been the group of family and friends who came a long for the ride in spirit.  We got sent information on the Route, our friends the Stouters travelled it a month before we did and shared highlights, there have been Facebook “likes”, blog “follows” and great comments in both places as well as on the Facebook picture album.  Sharing the trip has been a pleasure and privilege and we thank you for coming along for the ride and adding to the adventure!

Route 66 baby ~ “FROM SITTING ON A JACKRABBIT TO MEETING WILSON” (A blog series of our two week adventure!)

Tuesday, 5/14/13

A quick stop at McDonald’s after we left the hotel that morning for coffee and tea allowed us to restock the glove compartment with a couple of cookies. The remainder of the morning travels took us through the rest of NM and into AZ.  The scenery was just spectacular.  Red cliffs dotted with green rose high above the horizon to our right before losing their red and green shades and transform to a brown/tan mix. 

No One Else In Sight!

We hit AZ around noon and pulled into the Hilltop Café in Holbrook for lunch.  Our first clue should have been the singular, beat up old station wagon out front.  Not another car in the parking lot but we went in anyway.  The proprietors (owners of the singular car I’m sure) either didn’t or barely spoke English.  They seemed bemused that we were there but we managed to communicate enough to order a grilled cheese on sourdough and a BLT.  Feeling a sense of responsibility to “stick it out” we stayed to finish lunch (with some misgivings) and luckily, found a Dairy Queen a short ways down the road to help cleanse our pallets!   Ah well, all part of the go local Route 66 experience!

A ways into Arizona, we passed the Wigwam hotel.  They were closed and we couldn’t tell if this was a permanent situation or not.  For the middle of the day, it was pretty deserted, but the grounds seemed to be well kept with the classic cars parked out front of each wigwam.  We hoped it wasn’t another spot that has recently gone by the wayside.

We were pretty stoked about getting to the Jack Rabbit Trading Post, another iconic stop of the Route 66 glory days, just outside of Joseph City, Arizona.  We were a little disappointed with the merchandise inside, but had fun with taking pictures on the large fiberglass jackrabbit out front. 

We went from mediocre to maximum with the Meteor Crater near Winslow, Arizona (which we know we drove through because we saw the sign, but don’t recall anything about the place even though it’s listed in the song!).  Nearly one mile across, 2.4 miles in circumference and more than 550 feet deep, the crater takes your breath away imagining the power of the impact.  The wind is wicked strong at the rim and it took some truly fancy maneuvering for Steve to position the camera (held with the giraffe) to get our picture with the crater behind us. 

Dinner was in Flagstaff, AZ at Mamma Louisa’s Italian restaurant with the strangest bread rolls we’ve ever seen.  They were shaped like huge cinnamon rolls and we again, saved one of those and some of Steve’s Chicken Parm and my Lasagna for a dashboard lunch the next day. 

Wednesday, 5/15/13

We worked our way through the Kaibab National Forest which went much farther than we realized. It was odd to see such an abundance of evergreens after so much flat, brown land, but the dirt road we drove on was just great.  The winds were just wild through this section and we could feel the pull on the Tahoe like mad as well as watching the evergreens bowing low to the force.  Just before Seligman we approached Ash Fork and the beginning of the longest unbroken section of Route 66 that would take us to the California state line.
Right around here we started hitting the Burma Shave Signs.  This use of a series of small signs, each of which bore part of a commercial message, was a successful approach to highway advertising during the early years of highway travel, drawing the attention of passing motorists who were curious to learn the punch line.  One of our favorites: “He tried/To cross/As fast train neared/Death didn’t draft him/He volunteered/Burma-Shave. 

 








And hello – it’s the Snow Cap Drive-In in Seligman, Arizona (home of Wilson!) The Snow Cap is a historic eatery, built in 1953, built mostly from scrap lumber obtained from the nearby Santa Fe Railroad yard. To bring attention to the restaurant, the owner sliced the roof off of a 1936 Chevrolet hardtop, adorned the automobile with paint, horns and various automotive emblems and even an artificial Christmas tree in the rear of the car.  The rear of the property has a collection of old automobiles and kitsch in general.  The current owner is a hoot, has a wonderful camaraderie with regular and new customers, joking and performing sight gags as he takes orders and gets orders started. 

Hello, Wilson!

We ordered a chocolate malt and an order of fries. The fries weren’t worth two dollars, but perched on top of the order when it came was Wilson – a smiley Ore-Ida fry that immediately reminded Steve of Wilson in the Tom Hanks movie, Cast Away.  Wilson became our mascot for the remainder of the trip, sitting shotgun on the dashboard, checking out the sights with us and partaking in the occasional Shock-top tasting.  I’d like to say he photo bombed a couple of shots, but to be honest, they were completely staged! He now resides on the window shelf of our kitchen, watching over our daily life and making the occasional appearance at the dinner table.

Just down the road was Historic Seligman Sundries, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Although it now describe itself as Seligman’s only gourmet coffee bar and gift shop, it’s full of plenty of Route 66 tourist knick-knacks to buy and we picked up some jalapeno popcorn for Abram and a pair of Route 66 boxers for Steve, which were packaged like a bank sponge (a good source of Morgan family jokes) not to mention a good evening’s entertainment when we got home!










Just past Seligman, the landscape changed dramatically to a flat brown. No trees – very few green bushes.  In fact, they weren’t really bushes, more like spiky cactus.  As the temp outside was climbing, it was a good dashboard lunch day. It didn’t take long for our tinfoil dashboard oven to warm our cooler chilled food to a nice warm temp.  We pulled over to enjoy lunch with a nice ShockTop and Wilson standing guard and taking a sip or two on the side. 

Antelope are under the tree!

 








With temps in the mid 90’s, we approached the Black Mountains and their awesome terrain and were gifted with spotting a herd of antelopes grazing a bit in the shade.   The mountain pass consisted of two very thin lanes with sharp drops on the passenger side of our car and not many guard rails at all.  The wind whipped the outside of the car and I was grateful to have Steve navigating the hairpin turns.  At the top, we stopped to check out the view and found a cemetery with at least 15 graves.  The most recent I saw was one from 2010 – and the wind up here nearly knocked us over! 

Through the mountains, we ranged from an elevation of 2480 feet and 93 degrees to 490 feet and 100 degrees.  We ended the mountains just outside Topock, AZ., and were greeted by palm trees everywhere, which I didn’t expect.  Then, after all that dry desert landscape and heat, a huge amount of water, aptly named, “Catfish Paradise” which is at the southern end of the Topock March along the Colorado River. 

There's where our road ended - with those big boulders

We reached California around 5 pm, just in time to have our most adventurous stretch of road present itself to us.  Our road ended.  So I took a moment and took a picture of the big group of boulders that were in our way.  At this point, with nine days of deciphering our Route 66 maps, we’d often looked at a section of road that wasn’t marked and took it anyway.  So, we didn’t have any trepidation when we headed off the road and onto a dirt path.  We did however remove Wilson from the dashboard and put him into a safety compartment! And good thing, as our dirt path quickly turned into a dry riverbed.  We got out to survey and decided we could make it across the riverbed and back to the “road”.  Steve was fabulous, maneuvering the Tahoe in 4-sheel drive through the deepening sand and dirt, around boulders and bushes to make it to the other side.  Up the riverbed we went and down the dirt pathway a bit and Hurrah! There was the road.  And in front of it was a BIG chain link fence.  So, a three point turn and it was back through the riverbed to where our road had ended.  The Tahoe earned her stripes on that one!  I wouldn’t say I was nervous, but that one picture from the beginning of the adventure is the ONLY one I have of it. The adrenalin was rolling so fast after the run I never even thought to take a picture again.  If you ask either of us what the highlight of the trip was, the riverbed run is in the top two!

Looking for routine to counter the adrenaline, we stopped in Needles, CA., and celebrated our run with a Dairy Queen stop in the 102 degree heat.

The road to Barstow, CA, our planned stopping destination for the evening gifted us with TWO sunsets as we drove.  The changing elevation played with the setting sun on the on the horizon creating a spectacular double show. It was nice consolation for the obvious return to civilization, cities, lights and increasing traffic flow.