Caution....and Kindness

On my way to work every morning, I pass a house located on a corner prone to flooding after heavy rain. I've noticed it's for sale.  I have so much empathy for those owners!  I know they must pray for dry weather when a potential buyer comes by, because they know if their yard is flooded, no one will touch their house with 10-foot pole.  Their yard is indeed dry 95% of the time, but that other 5% - well, it's a mess.  Of course, from the viewpoint of the buyer, one does have to check into these kinds of things.  The experts tells us that it is ideal to see a property in all kinds of weather and seasons before you sign that contract.  At this specific house, a beautiful dry day in summer looks vastly different from a spring day after a storm has moved through.

On the other hand, maybe it's the opposite with relationships.  Here, you aren't trying to make a huge financial investment and want your risks minimized; you are just encountering fellow human beings on good days and bad.  On my way home from work, I usually stop in at the grocery or another shop for an errand.  Most of the cashiers and salespeople I interact with are cheerful and smiling, but occasionally I get a grumpy one.   My first reaction is to be apathetic or even irritable myself.   Then I started wondering, "Am I seeing a normally nice person on a bad day?"  Hmmm....maybe 95% of the year they are charming and the other 5%, for whatever reason, they are not at their best?  Of course, there are some people who are 100% grumpy - we all know them.  But it is unkind, I think, to automatically judge a stranger based on one interaction.   Did they get some bad news?  Are they worried about their kids?  Are they afraid of losing their jobs?  Going through a divorce?  Fighting an addiction?  Burying a parent?  Or - maybe they just have indigestion or diarrhea and find it intolerable to think about 6 more hours trying to be friendly?  There's no way to know, and we probably ought to let our good natures shine and give them the benefit of the doubt.

It all reminded me of an article my sister wrote once about Mom.  Here is an excerpt from her touching tribute:

She was always especially fond of store cashiers, perhaps because she was once one herself in an earlier life, a life that existed “before motherhood.”  I remember Mother’s encounter with a particularly challenging cashier once, a woman who at first appeared to be completely impervious to Mother’s friendly banter.  We were at the grocery store on a very busy day.  The line was long, and it inched forward ever so slowly.   It was a stressful environment, to say the least, and it obviously was taking a toll on the lady behind the register, too.  She said little, and when she did open her mouth, the words that came out were surly and borderline rude. 

“My goodness, it sure is busy today!” Mother said cheerily.  No response.  “That’s a really pretty necklace you’ve got on,” Mother went on.  A gruff “Mmm-hmm” emanated from the woman’s lips, but I could see that the tightly drawn corners of her mouth were beginning to soften.  “Honey, it must be awfully frustrating to do your job,” Mother cooed.  “I really don’t see how you do it.  You must be worn out by the end of the day.”   

That did it.  With tears in her eyes, the cashier turned to Mother and began to pour out her heart.  I stood there in amazement, watching while Mother listened intently to the woman’s tale of woe.  That was years ago, and now I don’t even remember what the lady said.  All I know is that Mother’s willing ear and caring heart allowed that cashier to unburden herself to a complete stranger.  And as I watched the two of them together, for the first time, I realized that Mother was more than just a hospitable giver.  She was also a recipient.  She found a deep joy and satisfaction in encouraging someone else, even if it was just by offering a glass of tea or an attentive ear. 

The exchange only lasted a few minutes.  Once the sacker had finished bagging the groceries, we paid the bill and Mother grasped the cashier’s hand with a sweet, “Honey, now don’t you work too hard!”  As we pushed our cart toward the exit, I turned back to see the woman standing a shade taller, her shoulders pulled back and her head held high.  She looked as if she couldn’t stop smiling.   

And neither could Mother.  

Paper towel valentine

As you may be aware, my husband, Ed, used to be an active alcoholic.  He once told me he never drank on holidays like St. Patrick's Day.  When asked why, he said those were days for amateur drinkers and he was a professional.  He's been sober now since 1984, but there is one similar aspect of his personality he still reveals.  He is not a big gift-giver on days one would normally give gifts and he does his best gift-giving spontaneously and unexpectedly on other days of the year.  His reasoning is that a gift loses some of its innate charm when it is expected and "supposed to be given," e.g., birthdays, Christmas, and, yes, Valentine's Day.

Ed and I never "do" Valentine's Day.  I think we much prefer to show love the rest of the year instead.  Take the above picture, for instance.  Every morning I have to leave for work at 5:00 a.m., so I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a low-carb tortilla, wrap it in foil, and take it in a bag.  Then I eat it before I start work, while I'm sitting at my desk, getting things arranged for the day.  For my preparation of this delightful meal, I put out a paper towel or two on the granite countertop, a knife for the peanut butter, and a spoon for the jelly.  Several evenings after I have gone to bed at 7 p.m., when he thinks about it, Ed sets up my breakfast-making supplies on the counter before he goes to bed, so when I get ready to make my sandwich, there it sits, like a still life painting.  Except...it's a love painting.  It's a tiny thing my husband did to save me a little time in the morning, and to show he was thinking about me the night before after I was fast asleep.

Have you seen the surveys where women say what really makes them feel special and loved?  It's not always the boxes of candy, the flowers, the romance, the jewelry.  I've read articles where a woman said her partner saw a trinket at a store and it reminded him of her.  Another woman said her partner graciously volunteered to wash dishes, or wash clothes, or surprise her by doing another chore which was usually her own responsibility.  One lady gushed that her husband said, "I'll watch the kids for awhile, honey; go take a bath or read a book."  It's the little things, sometimes things that cost nothing but thought and consideration, that matter.  That paper towel valentine with its knife and spoon mean more to me than a dozen red roses and it makes me smile spontaneously more than any expensive exotically wrapped piece of jewelry could.

I've been blessed to have family members and good friends who through the years have done just that - sent me something special, maybe something no other person in the whole world would care about, but they knew I would appreciate it - with the simple message, "I was thinking about you."

In fact, I recently got a book in the mail entitled "Juggernaut" published in the 1920s.  I read it when I was a young teenager.  It was a suspense/mystery novel that both scared and entertained me simultaneously.  I long ago lost it.  I tried to find it when my sister and I cleaned out Mom's attic, but it wasn't there.  I even tried to see if Amazon sold it, but, of course, no.  I couldn't even remember the author's name.  So one day last month, the mail brought me an envelope from New York with a strange return address.  Inside was no note, no message of any kind - just a copy of the precious book I had so loved.  It took hours for me to figure out where it had come from.  Had I blogged about it once and someone who read that post sent it to me?  Who could have done it?  I finally learned it was my sweet sister who had tracked it down for me.  Apparently I had told her in the attic that day that I was hoping to find it up there, and she put that in the back of her mind and subsequently had combed the internet trying to find a copy.

So there we have it - a paper towel, knife and spoon - and a wonderful old book.  That, my friends, is love, friendship, care, kindness, generosity - all the things one associates with gifts, but do not always accompany them.

Now in closing, I must mention my son, Matthew, whose name means aptly "Gift from God."  He has written Mac software for the iPad called "Headlines" (it interacts with Google Reader) and he has sent it this week to Apple to be hopefully accepted and sold in their app store.  It takes all the blogs and RSS feeds and sites you subscribe to and gives them to you in a great reading format, learning along the way which ones you like the most so it can give those to you first.  (I beta tested it so I know how it works.) The only problem is my blog never comes up on his favorites.  He says I must not use the key words that Headlines knows he likes, which the program uses to move his favorite type of articles into his queue.  So I will hereby end this post with enough key words Matthew might "like" so that this poor little unseen blog will pop up at the front of his Headlines queue soon:    Apple.  Mac.  Computer. Programmer.  iPad.  MacYenta.  IOS.  Elegant Simplicity.  Steve Jobs.  Apps.  Rainstorm.  Headlines, Headlines, Headlines.  Flatcap. Beta.  Tomatoes. Crescent Fresh.  Buzz the Bee.  Buzzmobile.    Yeah, those last ones are a stretch, but you never know.

A loss to the senses

Two of my favorite things in life are books and fabric. I can remember how in my high school study hall, held in the library, I was overwhelmed by all the books surrounding me, especially Carl Sandburg's Lincoln series, which I coveted for years until one day, through generous friends, I received my own precious set.  I still enjoy going to libraries and bookstores. I love the smell of books, the feel of my fingers around their edges, the physical motions of turning the pages, the heaviness or lightness of the book in my hands.  I had a friend once who had an intriguing habit of signing his name on the book's page that represented his age when he read it (e.g., if he read the book at age 41, he would sign page 41) for a small bit of personal historical documentation.   Of course, a book's primary purpose is for information/education or pleasure, and that in the end only depends on the written word, no matter how it is packaged and sold.

My other love is fabric - all kinds - quilting fabric as well as fabric to sew into clothes.  If I had to have lived in any place other than my home growing up, I would have divided my time between the library and Hancock's Fabrics.  Again, the overwhelming sensation of entering a fabric store is familiar to quilters and seamstresses - the overpowering sense of color that jars the senses, the smell of all that new fabric, and, of course, the ultimate in sensation, which is the feel of the fabric.  From denim to velvet, cotton to tweed, I have always loved to "fondle" the fabric.  Again, fabric's purpose is in its use, regardless of how it is packaged and sold.

I find the tactile, olfactory, and visual stimulation from these objects heartwarming.  Both collections of books and fabric make my head swirl and calm down at the same time.  Both demand a response from my imagination - how will I take what I am reading and make use of it in my life?  This book has the power to the life-changing for me!  It can transform me, it can make me healthier, it can make me relax and laugh and it can open my eyes and be aware, and, yes, it can make me cry.  Every book, good or bad, demands a response from me.

It's the same thing with fabric.  On the bolt, it sits there without purpose, but people who sew don't see it just on the bolt or folded on a table; we see it as a dress, a blouse, a skirt, a pair of pants, a Halloween costume, a curtain, an apron, a stuffed animal, part of an incredibly beautiful quilt, and countless other ideas overpowering our creative brains.  Fabric certainly demands a response - before it is ever cut and bought.   Sometimes there is no idea or plan, but the fabric itself is so appealing that you buy it as an object whose future is uncertain and entirely open.  Sometimes the fabric just calls to you...and you respond as if in a trance.

I thought about these two classifications of things I love this week as I am reading the news on my iPad and browsing through www.fabric.com and www.gorgeousfabrics.com.  Oh boy, am I in the digital age or what?  And the news I read yesterday?  A local bookstore chain in Maine is going out of business after decades of existence.  There's a Mr. Paperback in Ellsworth and it's our only local bookstore.  Immediately I felt guilty.  I used to spend a lot more money there before I bought an iPad.  Now I read most of my books digitally.  In fact, digital book reading was cited in the article as one of the reasons for the closing - people just don't read regular books much anymore.   The iPad is so convenient - no matter where I am or what I'm doing, my books are by my side.  Of course, holding an iPad is not anything like holding a book, and as much as they try to simulate the book experience by "swiping" pages that "turn" and giving you options to "highlight" and "write" notes, it's still a computer.  It has none of the character of a book, and certainly none of that ink and paper aroma.  There's no variation between a heavy book and a light book - they all weigh exactly the same: the weight of an iPad.

And the fabric?  That's been a bit harder for me.  Our Joann's Fabrics in Bangor is the only large fabric store in our area, and even this, there is a limit to what they can carry, especially since over half the store is dedicated to other crafts, scrapbooking, etc.  I'm very tempted to get some fabric online, but even when I enlarge the sample fabric picture, I'm still looking at a computer screen.  Colors may be off, you can't really see what it looks like, and you certainly can't touch it.  But I know many people who have been exceptionally pleased with fabric purchases from well-established Internet sites such as these.  Certainly in Maine, choices are limited in everything locally.  We're kind of "at the end of a dirt road" in the world of shopping.  The Internet is a godsend for people in out-of-the-way places who would never be able to enjoy the choices it provides.  Joann's seems to do a brisk business, and I am hoping they are around in Bangor for a long time, but you never know.

I love technology, really I do.  I love my iMac and iPad and can't imagine life without them.  But I'm sad this week, because I have the niggling feeling that we have lost something in the process.  The very thing that drew me to "in-person" interaction with my beloved books and fabric is shifting; it is disappearing as fast as the brick-and-mortar bookstores themselves.  The ad with the catchy tune, "The touch, the feel of cotton...the fabric of our lives," is hard to measure against when one is peering at a square of fabric on a computer screen, trying to read a definition of something that can't really be defined in words because yes, it has to be touched and felt and interacted with in a very intimate way.

I'll probably be buying some fabric online soon, and I'll still be reading my books on my iPad, but I'll be the first to admit - it's just not the same.  I fear something precious is disappearing from the landscape - and it's a loss to us all.

The Same Age

It has dawned on me this week that I have now surpassed the age my mother was when Daddy died.  The above picture was taken on Easter, 1979, and it shows my parents with their granddaughter, Rachel, who at this point was close to her 1st birthday.  Daddy would be gone within in about a year, as he died shortly before Rachel's 2nd birthday.  Mama was 55 and Dad was 63 at the time of this photograph.

If I ever needed to have an inkling of what Mama went through at that age, this realization would do it.  I can't imagine being a widow at 57.  I can't imagine the sudden shock of suddenly being on my own, the sudden awareness that the "until death do us part" of the marriage vow had actually come to fruition.   It would be devastating.  She at the time of his death had two daughters in their 20s and one small grandchild.  She would live to see 3 more grandchildren born, and later (at the present time) 3 great-grandchildren.  She would experience decades more Christmases and anniversaries and birthdays without her partner by her side.

That would be heartbreak enough, but to understand Mama, you have to understand how dependent she was.  Daddy was the bank teller; Mama had stayed home to raise Joy and me ever since we were born.  She didn't have to pay bills or write checks or do taxes or even do much driving. He did all that.  He even wrote the Christmas cards!  She felt assured he would take care of her, as he did, her whole life - and it ended up being his whole life.

Of course, most everyone knows the statistics that the husband will probably go first, but that doesn't help when it happens, especially if you are middle-aged and caught off guard with little warning.

I know my sister Joy and I miss Daddy terribly - and I can imagine how much more that applies to Mama.   Oh, she managed well, even better than we expected, living independently, with some help from Joy and social contacts such as good friends from her church.  She's a survivor.

But it can't have been easy.  Now as I am caring for her here, I am looking at her with fresh eyes, knowing that here, at my very age, she was still trying to navigate a world turned upside down.  And here she is now at 88 years old, again trying to navigate her world turned upside down again, because after her accident, she is now dependent once again on her family, this time her daughters and sons-in-law.  It is a sacred trust on our part, one to Mama, one to Daddy, that in his absence we are to make sure she lives out the rest of her days in security and love.  In 1980, Daddy just passed the torch.  I hope we are worthy of carrying it forward on a rocky, frustrating, sometimes difficult but amazing journey.

Before The Bite

Eating - as essential to our life as breathing and sleeping.  Yet, what/when/how to eat has dominated and confused our society with each passing year.  The act of eating should be simple, but it has become unfortunately very complex - and in the journey towards simplicity, complex is not a welcome word.  After much research, I've concluded that there are many reasons why the whole food thing is so confusing.  It's not easy to eat anymore, and here's why:

Misleading information on what is healthy.   Uh-huh, we're supposed to believe what the experts tell us, right?  Experts like the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, American Dietetic Association, USDA, etc.?  There have been more flip-flops in the "guiding wisdom" offered by these and other so-called expert groups than can be found on a California beach.  We have a DVD of old TV commercials, and one of the saddest ones is an ad for margarine - good for the heart, more healthy than butter, they said.  Years later, we discover margarine with its transfats is one of the worst things you can eat.  Eggs are bad for the heart, they said earlier.  Now eggs are one of the most nutritious items on the menu!  Wonder bread builds bodies....now whole grains are the answer!  Wait - even whole grains are not heroes...(more on that later...)  Unfortunately, you can't just assume everything you hear, even from the "experts."  Do your own research, which will lead you inevitably to the fact that...

We've screwed up our food.  Oh yeah, we've really made a mess of things.  Antibiotics are given to cows who are force-fed corn when their stomachs aren't made to digest corn.  Growth hormones are given to many dairy cows.  There are fast food joints on every block.  And get this:  The wheat you buy and eat today is not the same wheat grown generations ago.  It has been genetically modified and tweaked so much that the ol' amber waves of grain are patented by Monsanto, et. al., and their "patented seed" is blowing into the farms of organic farmers, so everything is pretty much contaminated.  We've overfished the seas, and what's left is filled with mercury and other pollutants.  Pesticides cover everything.  Fruits and vegetables are grown to withstand a lot of travel and handling without bruising - not for taste and certainly not for nutrition.  Crops and animals are grown by large-scale industries who control the majority of our food supply and who appear to have little in the way of ethics. Which brings us to....

We have become aware of our food sources.  At first, this seems like a good thing, right?  Recall, however, the story of the Garden of Eden.  Adam and Eve were happy and naive in their own little world until "their eyes were opened."  In other words, they received the blessing/curse of knowledge, and they had to deal with that knowledge.  Anyone who has not heard of "Food, Inc" or "Fast Food Nation" or other books and movies has either been leading a sheltered existence or has deliberately avoided the ugly truth.  Our daughter and daughter-in-law are vegans for ethical reasons, but even from a purely health reason, to allow some of the "food" on the market into our bodies is pure insanity.  Descriptions and pictures of animals standing in their own waste, calves taken from their mothers and/or killed, chickens whose beaks are cut off so they won't peck each other from the anxiety of being stuffed in a cramped space, turkeys bred to have such big breasts that they can't even walk, - well, it's not a pretty picture and it is certainly not appetizing.  I'm not a vegan, not even a vegetarian - but it's getting harder and harder to eat the way I've been eating guilt-free.  I, of course, try to find my own way, meaning....

Everybody, literally every body, is different.  Whether you're allergic to peanuts or gluten, whether or not you can easily digest milk - you have to find out what works for you - a way of eating that is sustainable, where you can maintain a healthy weight and keep your body at optimal performance.  There is no one-size-fits all.  There will probably be compromises along the way.  Not everybody has the same system, or....

Financial resources.  Yep, you knew money has to figure in somewhere, right?  Organic food costs more, grass-fed beef costs more, vegan ice cream costs more.  Your budget can only go so far so you have to make some hard choices.  As our daughter posted on Facebook recently, our government kindly subsidizes the very crops and industries that are harming us - so we can get that cheap "food."

Eating - something that should be simple and instinctive - has become a burden so emotionally draining that it gives me a headache just to think about it.  Before the first bite, we have to consider the conventional wisdom versus our own research, the contamination of our food supply, the ethics of how our food is raised, our own body's reaction to what we eat, and how much we are willing to financially invest in our health.  It's still an ongoing journey for my husband and me to figure this all out, but if anyone hears of a magic pill I can take once a day so I can quit eating altogether, I'd appreciate a heads up.  What a bummer!  The next thing you know, we'll have problems with the simple act of breathing....oh dear.

I had it backwards!

I love to document things.  I have fun making all sorts of lists and I especially enjoy journaling.  I've been keeping a daily diary for years now; in fact, in 2009 I bought a 10-year journal that allows one small paragraph for each day of each year encompassing the decade from 2009 through 2019.  I may record anything - the title of an old movie we watched, or what Ed cooked for dinner, or maybe how things are going at work.  (I've got some excellent documentation of how many inches of snow we shoveled...and shoveled...and shoveled last January!)   I also have a journal on my iPad where I record my health progress for the day.  I also keep a running to-do list where I delete items after I complete the tasks.  Mostly, though, I just write about events of my day.

I, of course, do these things at the end of the day.  Well, duh, you have to wait until something happens before you can document it, right?  At the end of each day, I sit down and write what happened - if I got any exercise done, how much sleep I got, how many lines I transcribed, if I got to post on my blog, if I managed to work on the quilt or pay bills or balance that bank statement.  I sit in front of the computer or on the couch with my iPad with my various journals and reflect on my day, frequently chuckling over something funny that happened, or, in contrast, finding that I'm still stewing over a frustration at work.  I also intermittently end up chastising myself for not having done the things I thought I would get done that day.  I had such great plans, but now as I write the day's events down, they seem lacking.  Where did the time go?  How did I waste so much of it?  How many people had I snapped at?  Did I really eat that big piece of cake?  How many times was I in such a hurry I didn't pay attention to the important things?  So here I write, in the here and now, looking back in my immediate past and evaluating it.

This week I had a revelation when I read a quote from one of my Facebook friends:  "The bad news is time flies.  The good news is you're the pilot."  Or, as I prefer to look at it, I am the author of my own story.  

I realized then that I had it all backwards.  I was sitting there with a keyboard or pen trying to write the story of my day, when in fact, my day's story had already been written by me.  From the moment I awoke, I had been writing my story as surely as if I had held a pen to paper every second of the day.  Every choice I made created another sentence in the story.  Every attitude, every reaction, every bite I ate or word I said - it all went into my evolving journal.  Alas, by the time I physically sat down to write, the story had been written and it would stay unchanged and forever sealed.  There would be no going back, no editing, no deleting the things I regret having said or done, no adding things that I wish I had said or done - it was already written and - yes - published as it really happened.  A nonfiction documentary, a self-published autobiography, in real time.

I wish I could describe the feelings of energy and power that enveloped me when I had this epiphany.  To take responsibility for my own story?  Really? Oh, I'll admit other people contribute to the story.  (Yeah, like the nice gentleman who backed into our car last week - he tweaked my story quite a bit.)  But how I reacted to his contribution?  That was solely up to me.

I want to wake up and think, "What do I want to document in my journal tonight?"  Then, as they say, I want to "just do it."  The journal is not written after the day is done.  The journal is written as soon as the day starts.  If I want to laugh during the day, I will find opportunities to do so.  If I want to love and feel loved, I will do that too.  If I want to be in awe of the wonderful blessings I have, I will find time to pause and feel blessed.  If I want to be healthier, I will eat right and find time for exercise.  What goes into the story is up to me.  I can document my day's story in the evening, but I certainly can't write it.  That part has already been done.

Join me in this wonderful journaling as we write our own lives, minute by minute, day by day, choice by choice.  It is an awesome power we have been given and just as awesome a power to waste. I never again want to feel the helplessness of looking backward, wishing things were different.  I'm my own pilot, my own author, and darn it, I want to fly high with purpose and write my life with love and joy!

Release

Lily, our border collie puppy, is as energetic as they come.  She shares the cute trait many other dogs have - loving to play fetch.  We throw her a toy, ball, or frisbee, and she runs like a bat out of hell to get it, then brings it back.  Then we usually have a problem.  She doesn't drop it.  She prances and dances and wants to play tug-of-war with it - anything but drop it.  Little does she know that we can't continue playing until she gives the toy back to us.  We've tried saying things like "Hand it over!" or "Drop it!" or "Put it Down!" and even "That'll Do!" and nothing works.  Trying to snatch it out of her hand just gets her excited and may even get us an accidental laceration.

After reading several books on border collies, the term we finally settled on was "Release."  So that's what we're teaching her as an instruction to drop the toy.

I've always liked the word "release."  I've heard at funerals that the deceased had suffered terribly from cancer or whatnot and had finally been "released" from his pain.  Release is the at the core of the AA mantra, "Let Go and Let God."  When I picture the word "release" in my mind, it's always accompanied by a big, deep sigh and a little smile, as if in releasing a heavy burden after walking with it for a long, long time.

But it's not just pain and guilt and heavy burdens we need to release.  It can be good memories, too, that we are carrying - memories that are so good, in fact, that we still live in the past, clinging to the good ol' days of when we were young or attractive or talented or popular, tightly gripping in our teeth the perspective that that time was so extraordinary that life ever since has somehow been deficient and will never ever bring us happiness again.   Sometimes it's something else - we might have a chokehold on our worldview, our paradigm for what we believe (segregation, anyone?), and no matter how wisdom has shown us otherwise, we refuse to change.

The thing that we can't get Lily to understand is that until she releases the toy, the play comes to a halt.  Her fun is in limbo because of her stubbornness.  But she will learn eventually.  She will come to comprehend that the very thing she is avoiding at all costs - putting the toy down - is the very thing which will bring her more excitement, joy, and companionship with her human family when the play resumes.  Once she lets go, she can open her mouth for the next catch - and as we do the same, we can open our hearts for the next blessing just around the corner.

My hope for 2012 is that we can all learn to release what is necessary to let go of - so we can receive again.

Feathers

One of my favorite Christmas movies is Christmas in Connecticut.  In it, Uncle Felix, a rotund Hungarian chef, steals the show.  He is part of the plot to make his friend, played by Barbara Stanwyck, appear to be a Martha Stewart type character to keep her job as a magazine columnist when in real life she can't cook or do anything even loosely connected with housekeeping.  When her wedding is about to take place, Felix, who is a good friend of the bride, is asked by the judge if he will give the bride away.  Felix, who is frequently confused by American/English idioms, replies, "I don't give nobody avay.  Alvays I keep my mouth shut."

Sometimes people ask me why I bother blogging.  I'm not specialized enough to have a bunch of people interested in what I say (e.g., don't write about sewing or cooking or specialized hobbies), yet I still write every week or two.  My answer is that I mainly write for introspection, because it is only when I put things down that I realize what my priorities are and what problems I need to work on.  The only other reason is my grandkids.  I won't be on this earth forever, and I certainly can't assume I will still be here when my grandchildren are grown with the their own families (a situation my Mom enjoys), so I hope this blog serves as a window for my grandkids into their Grammy's mind and heart.  Maybe they can learn some life lessons from my mistakes and successes.

So here's my life lesson for this Christmas Eve:  "Don't give nobody avay.  Alvays keep your mouth shut."

Knowing when to just keep your mouth shut has to be one of the hardest lessons in life to learn.  Kids today grow up with rewind buttons everywhere, and the sooner they realize there is no rewind button for life, the better.  You'd think folks my age, born in the '50s without rewind buttons, would have easily assimilated that fact, but no.  I can speak from personal experience.   I speak, then I think.  Unfortunately, that's backwards, but hey, sometimes I'm a stubborn student.

There's an old story about a spiritual teacher who had his students roll all sizes of stones around a big area.  Then he asked then to go gather every stone and bring each one back.  It took a little time, but they did this with no problem.  Then he gave them feathers, and asked them to scatter the feathers and bring them back.  As you can imagine, the wind carried those feathers miles and miles all over the place.  They came back to the teacher in frustration, saying, "Master - the feathers have dispersed over miles; there is no way we can gather every one of them and bring them back to you."  The wise teacher said, "And that is how it is with words.  Once you say them, they are scattered forever and you can never take them back."

Throughout my life, I've said hurtful things on purpose.  I've said hurtful things by accident.  I've talked about people in a negative way to others.  I've said things that should have been left unsaid.  When I felt  accused, I've talked back defensively by reminding others that they're as sloppy/hurtful/inept/forgetful as I am.  I've offended, wounded, and distressed both people I am only acquainted with and people I dearly love.  It breaks my heart at times and fills me with awful regret.

Of course, my husband Ed has this fault, too.  I'm constantly berating him, "Why did you SAY that?!!" and many times he will reply, "I know.  As soon as it left my mouth I asked myself the same question." Ed also has taught me that the bad habits/transgressions that irritate us about others are a mirror into what we hate about ourselves.  I know when I get upset with him that down deep I am just upset with myself for harboring the same problem.

It only takes a moment to filter words in your brain before they are said out loud.  One of my New Year's resolutions is to be careful with words - once they are gone, I can't bring them back.

I wish everyone the blessings of Christmas and the New Year.   Live life in 2012 with the assurance that you don't need a rewind button, and watch those feathers.  They're light and buoyant and can be gone in an instant.

Pockets of insight

Due to the generosity of a co-worker who gave me a gift certificate as a belated birthday present, I bought a new purse last month.  It looks similar to the photo above.


Now, I've always had a difficult and frustrating time when I buy a purse.  I usually only have one purse at a time, so it has to be multifunctional.  That day, I stood around Penney's for a good hour examining purses.  In the first place, although it didn't have to be gorgeous, I certainly didn't want to wince when I looked at it every day.  It had to go with my wardrobe.  And as superficial as it sounds, it had to reflect a little bit of my personality, as a visible expression to the world of what kind of person I am (as most wardrobe items tend to do).   Most importantly, it had to hold the important things, and it had to have a few pockets that were necessary for me - specific pockets designated for specific things - a pocket for my keys, a pocket for my cell phone, and a pocket for my work ID badge.  These pockets had to be secure, because I throw my purse around a lot and don't want anything important falling out.  And then to top it off, the whole purse had to fasten securely so nothing could fall out the top.  It couldn't be too small or too big, and it couldn't be too heavy. There is only limited room in a purse, so one has to be picky about what goes inside and where everything goes.  If I decide to carry a calendar book, I might not have room for my bulky coupon holder.  I have to make choices, as I can't carry everything.  All this makes purse shopping a very frustrating and time-consuming experience for me.


As the year comes to a close, I thought about this in relation to my life.  I only have 24 hours in a day - my time is limited just like my purse space.  All the emotions that I carry, some justly, some out of habit, some for no discernible reason, have to be carried by me at once.  All the negative things that eat away at my psyche - guilt, shame, regret, anxiety, envy, feelings of revenge, anger - take up space where I could be carrying love, compassion, forgiveness and patience.  Every part of my brain that harbors the negative emotions just pushes out the positive emotions.  Every minute of the day I spend in worry is a minute I don't spend in contentment.


I've heard in simplicity circles that one of the best ways to embrace simplicity is to limit what you buy:  For everything you bring into the house (or closet, etc.), you should get rid of something you currently own.  I've also been told that the key to organizational contentment is "a place for everything, and everything in its place."


I think for 2012, my goal is to walk as many negative emotions out the door as I can and usher in the positive ones.   Just like how I get picky about choosing a purse, I want to be more selective about the feelings that I choose to carry with me day in and day out.  I do believe in a place for everything and everything in its place - and the place for those corrosive, energy-draining feelings is certainly not in my vision of what I want for my life. They are not how I would choose to represent myself to the world, and their presence crowds my mind and heart so that I lose sight of what makes life meaningful.


In the end, my purse is just a red pocketed container - a functional accessory to enable me to carry around other physical items in a convenient way.  I can find one I like, and use it until it no longer serves my needs, then I can replace it.  But this one life is all I've got, and I want to use it to carry ideals that are important to me, ideals that will sustain me, nourish me, and get me through the hard times.  If that means clearing some damaging things out to make room for some new healing ones, then so be it.  I think we all deserve no less.

The Way We Were (Are)

Sometimes life is going so relatively smoothly that I want to take a snapshot of it and keep it unchanged.  I guess Thanksgiving has helped me concentrate on the blessings rather than the frustrations, but our lives are going well at this time.  Everyone in the family has a job, son Matt is putting the finishing touches on his software creation that will be offered for sale soon, Matt and wife Sarah just ran a 5K for the first time (pushing Joshua in a stroller), the grandkids are all healthy, Mom is doing great (her cholesterol level is actually better than mine....grrr...don’t go there!), Mom’s dog Jenny still hasn’t killed or maimed our new puppy, my older niece was elected president of her sorority, my other niece has been inducted into the National Honor Society, Caroline and Charlotte had an amazing violin recital and are doing well in school, my sister after years of hard work finally got our mom’s house on the market.... and you know, the list goes on and on.

But, of course, change does come.  On a description of this blog, I mention that my journey focuses on my response to aging, roadblocks to simplicity, grandparenting, acceptance and celebration of the past, etc., but basically here it is in a nutshell:  “....life’s changing roles.”  Change is everywhere, from my living situation to my aging body to all my family and friends.  Things cannot stay stagnant.  Even the seasons remind of that.  (Ed told me it is time for our annual call to our local newspaper to ask them to stop delivery until the spring thaw, as the carrier can’t get to the newspaper box because the snow plow drops it all in front, since we got our first real snow of the winter this week.)  Holiday commercials are everywhere, and Rachel calls us every day to remind us that her blender is being held together with duct tape and she really, really, REALLY wants a new top-of-the-line blender for Christmas.  

But can’t we keep things the same right now?  Mom is still with us, my aunt and uncle and Mom’s best friend, all in their 80s, are still with us.  I don’t want any more losses, any more deaths.  Everyone is healthy and happy and I want it to go on forever.

Change is scary because of the unknown factor, but just when I wish for the power to stop time just as it is now, then I wake to reality:  Joshua is a cuter-than-ever 16-month-old toddler, but I am curious to see what it will feel like to have him tell me about what he is doing in kindergarten a few years from now.  I wonder how Caroline will be excelling in violin as she grows and fine tunes her already incredible talent.  And Charlotte - now there’s a firecracker in training - I can hardly wait to see how she matures and changes!  What will the grandkids look like as they grow?  What will they be interested in?  What things can I help them with and teach them?

The cycle of life is so poignant.  Charlotte’s violin is very small, the size that Caroline started with, but awhile back Caroline upgraded to a bigger violin because she had grown.  When Joshua comes to visit, we pull out the plastic spoons and bibs that we used for the girls when they were little - and even a toy dog that I used when I was a baby!  Each object just shouts “CHANGE!”

Tomorrow our family will celebrate Thanksgiving here (after the kids go to their in-laws today).  Since Mom is here, we will have 4 generations together for the first time ever on Thanksgiving, so that will be a blessing.  We will gather in the living room to take our annual family Christmas photo, this year having Mom in the picture.  That photo freezes us in time, at our current ages, interests, skill levels, physical health - the snapshot of what our family looked like on November 25, 2011.  Nanoseconds after the photo is taken, though, things will be changing.  Cells in our body dying and replenishing, more life experiences to enter in our brains’ computers, more conversation, more learning - and yes, more pain, more sorrow, more anxiety.  

But for today, I close my eyes and picture our family as we are this second - healthy and content - and we all have warm houses, enough food, clothes, and money to live, friends who care about us, but most important, we have what you can’t see in the photo - oodles and oodles of love.  And that’s the thing that will support us through all the inevitable changes life will throw at us in the years to come.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I-Witness to History

Maybe it's partly my career, but I have always been fascinated by medical things in the news.  One story that intrigued me the most was that of Jill Bolte Taylor, who wrote the book My Stroke of Insight:  A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey.  Amazon's description of her book reads in part:

Jill Taylor was a 37-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist when a blood vessel exploded in her brain. Through the eyes of a curious scientist, she watched her mind deteriorate whereby she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life. Because of her understanding of the brain, her respect for the cells in her body, and an amazing mother, Jill completely recovered. In My Stroke of Insight, she shares her recommendations for recovery and the insight she gained into the unique functions of the two halves of her brain.

Basically, she watched herself have a stroke, and, being the curious brain scientist she was, she remembered details as it was unfolding and during the aftermath, almost as a third person observing an outside incident.

Thankfully, I have never had a stroke, but as I grow older, it still intrigues me to see my body change.  It's an eyewitness account of the history of me. Certainly, having my 88-year-old mom living with me has strengthened the observation, because, of course, we don't exist in a vacuum, and as I am watching myself age, I have watched her age as well.   I have been in her life 57 of those 88 years and I have watched her deal with changes in life situations as well as changes in her body - now as a daily occurrence.

I've been sick with a bad cold this week which has now congested my chest.  I've had three nights of lack of sleep, missed half a day of work, used up two boxes of Puffs, and have sat here berating myself for not having the energy or desire to do things I need to do on my weekend.  I recalled the weekends where I still did not accomplish anything, but had no illness excuse, and how I wished I had those weekends back to be productive!  You forget to appreciate everyday health until you lose it - either temporarily or permanently.

I asked Mom last night if she remembers what it was like to just jump out of a chair and go on her way without bouncing up and down about 5 times to get some rebound, holding onto a walker, and every so slowly pushing herself up.  She has one useless hand now, permanently in a clawed position, and I wonder if she ever thinks about the time when she had two good hands.  I know she misses being able to do housework (washing dishes by hand was her favorite activity!).   She has told me all my life, "Your health is everything," and now I see what she means.  She is an eyewitness to what getting older (as well as sequelae of trauma) means.  Every movement, every attempt to do anything, makes her painfully aware of what time has done to her once young body.

As it has on me.  I'm not in that bad shape yet, but I look in the mirror with astonishment almost every day.  My face and body are records of my life, and I am, as Jill Bolte Taylor was, an ongoing eyewitness - or as I like to say, I-witness, to my life being lived on this physical earth.  Some of the changes are just natural changes of aging, some were avoidable but I made poor choices through the years, some are specifically hereditary in my family.  It is intriguing to watch this process.  One has to try to do it with an open mind, and an objective sense, a sense of watching another person age, because if one carries to the surface all the emotional baggage involved, the journey can be too traumatic.

It all reminds me of the saying, "Don't hate birthdays; consider the alternative," because my mom, even with her arthritis aches and pains and vision loss and neurological deficits and dental problems and everything else that an average 88-year-old woman has on her medical problem list, she has been, in a way, privileged to watch herself get old.  As a 30-year-old, maybe she wondered (probably she didn't) what it would be like to be old, to look old, to feel old.  Now she knows.  And it's still an ongoing process - her doctor said she'd live to be 100, the news of which, I think, made her rather pleased but exhausted just thinking about it.

And so the journey of life continues.  I am contained in this physical body for an unknown number of years, and I have been, yes, privileged to watch its changes as I age.  These changes sometimes anger me, frustrate me, and make me wish things were different.  On the other hand, I'm mostly in awe of the process.  The changes are natural, they are expected, and they still are miraculous to watch as they unfold.

I heard once that we start to die the day we are born, and I can understand that.  The researchers are learning every day more and more about DNA and cell death and cell turnover and the telomere lengths and all that other technical fascinating stuff about why and how our  bodies gradually just fall apart.  I enjoy reading all their latest findings.  But for me, it all comes down to me, doesn't it?  And the things I am honored to watch - to see - to actually experience - makes me kind of lucky in a way.  Many of my friends did not make it to the age of 57, so aging needs to be considered a gift as well as a curse.

I'm planning on splurging on an iPad next month.  I'm been researching apps I'd like to have, but there is one app I've already got - iWitness.  And what a remarkable, exciting, incredible app it is!!

In the Sweet Buy and Buy

There are many memories of the days following 9/11, for me, but one of the most memorable, oddly, is the president telling everyone to get back to business as usual:   "Get on board.  Do your business around the country.  Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots.  Get down to Disney World in Florida.  Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed."   I totally understand what he was trying to do and why, of course - to reassure the American people after fear had suddenly paralyzed everyone.  Even his brother, Jeb Bush, said, "We need to respond quickly so people regain confidence and consider it their patriotic duty to go shopping...."  The truth, though, sometimes hurts.  And what is the truth embedded in these quotes?  Our whole economy depends on consumerism.

It's that time of year again - Halloween is over and The Holidays are in full swing, with businesses flooding radio, TV, and other media with the message, "Go shopping!"  Of course, it's a catch-22:  Companies don't hire workers because there is not much demand for their products because people can't afford to buy; people can't afford to buy because they have lost their jobs because companies aren't hiring workers....and on and on.

Our local Lowe's, for instance, announced its closure last week, with many employees suddenly out of work.  It was apparently an "underperforming" store.  Now, Ed and I have shopped at Lowe's many times, but still there was the nagging guilt in my head:  Should we have shopped there more to save all those jobs?  Do I really have to spend beyond my means in order to be patriotic and help the economy?

In the next couple of months, consumerism will be paramount.  The messages are all similar:  Spending a lot on a gift shows you love someone.  Spending more than you can afford helps the economy and saves jobs.  Maxing out your credit card will enable you to have happy holidays when you don't have the cash; in fact, with some credit card offers, you even get a percentage of your expenditures back, so the more you spend, the more you "save."  It's much better to buy something you really don't need at half price for $50 than for full price at $100.  (The option of not buying it at all is never mentioned.)

We have to feel some sadness for the state of the world, our country, our economy, and our addiction to a lifestyle that is not sustainable in the long run.  Just as banks should not become too big to fail, an economy totally based on buying (and charging) more and more and more is doomed to falter.  Those who cannot afford to buy, or choose not to buy, or limit what they buy, should not be made to feel guilty for their lack of "appropriate participation" in bringing our economy back to life.

I'm so sorry for those folks at Lowe's and every other place whose jobs were lost or cut because I'm buying less than I used to, but for me, to live within my means and to live with personal integrity, that's the way it has to be.  We know in our hearts that "buy more stuff" is not the message of Christmas or Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or any of the other religious observances - but it comes through loud and clear anyway.  Sigh.  Happy Holidays.

         

Faces of our Lives

As one of my simplicity priorities, I am always seeking balance. Life is full of joys and sorrows - we can't get by without either one - and somehow we must learn to cope with what we see around us, with us, and in us.

When I was pregnant with Matt in January 1983, my maternal grandfather lay dying.  On that very same day, my cousin's wife was having a baby girl.  I remember the conversation going on long distance over the phone, with the family at Paw-Paw's bedside encouraging him to hold on, that he was getting a great-granddaughter any minute.  Paw-Paw died, and Hope was born into the world.  One went out, one came in.  Sorrow and Happiness holding hands.

Every time I am grieving, a part of me realizes that others are happy at the same time that I am sad.  I may be heading to a funeral while others are going to a wedding.  I may be struggling with despair while others just down the street are celebrating remission of cancer.  Conversely, I may be enjoying watching my grandson play while others are hearing the news that their son has died overseas.  

This yin and yang of life has always fascinated me - and one interpretation of yin and yang is that "their interaction is thought to maintain the harmony of the universe and to influence everything within it."  It brings to mind lyrics from that old song "Love and Marriage" - "Try, try, try to separate them, it's an illusion....You can't have one without the other."

We just got a new Border Collie puppy and named her Lily.  I took her to work on Tuesday to show her off.  She charmed everyone; who doesn't like a puppy?  On Wednesday morning, I found out that my supervisor's dog had been accidentally run over and killed the evening of that visit, and another co-worker had to take her beloved terminally ill pet in to be put down that very day.  A new pet coming in, two pets going out.  And life goes on.

I think my happiness and contentment will forever be a little tempered by the knowledge that others are simultaneously suffering, and too, in my times of tears and sadness, I need to remember that there is still joy and happiness in the world coexisting with my pain.  As humans, we are connected in that way.   We grieve with each other, and we celebrate with each other.  Sometimes that makes life hard.  Sometimes, though, it makes life bearable.

Supported by Strangers

I have always believed in the power of dreams to teach us lessons that we are meant to discover.  I had a dream last week that made me think about my life in a new way.

In the dream, Ed was driving Mom and me to the grocery.  When we got there, he parked in a place that I thought was too far from the store, even though it was on even ground for Mom to maneuver.  So while they went into the store, I decided to re-park the car.  The next part, of course, is strange, as most dreams have those moments which don't make sense - but I ended up parking the car in a big crowded room of people sitting in folding chairs.  The room was full of these people, leaving only a sliver of an aisle on one side, just enough for me to squeeze the car in and drive it all the way to the front, which put me right smack in front of the grocery building.  I was pleased with myself about finding a parking space so close, but it was then that I realized Ed was going to freak out when he saw what I had done.  I myself was panicking!  On my own poor judgment, I had gotten the car wedged into a tight space, so tight that Ed would never be able to back it out, and besides, I couldn't even open the doors for him and Mom to get in when they came back to the car.  I was so upset at what a stupid thing I had done.  How could I have been so idiotic?

It was that moment in the dream that I happened to look around, and everyone in those chairs had seen my predicament and had voluntarily gotten up, moved their chairs over, and sat back down again, leaving me ample room for the car.  They had done this without my asking.  They had done it as strangers.  They had supported me in my time of desperation and had done what they could to help.  They had done it without fanfare, without demanding my gratitude; indeed, they had done it so quietly, I hadn't even realized I was being helped until it was over.

Looking back on my life, I realize I have been supported hundreds of times by total strangers, as well as friends and family who openly encouraged me, and friends, family and acquaintances who worked anonymously behind the scenes.  I was given their gifts, for the most part, without my asking, and many times, when I didn't deserve it - because, after all, I know how to make my own messes, my own poor decisions, and it's my own fault, right?  Yet, they were there through it all, without blame, without punishment, without lectures.  They got up, moved their chairs, and sat back down again.  They inconvenienced themselves for my benefit when they saw the need.

So you can see how coincidental it was that after that dream, another stranger inconvenienced himself to brighten our lives.

Mom listens to WDEA radio in Maine, and her favorite disc jockey is a guy named Rick Foster.  She loves his signature sign-off, something about asking his wife to put on the coffee pot, "I'm comin' home."  She talked about him enough that I finally decided to find his picture online so she could see what he looked like.  I found a photo on the station's web site, but it was too small for her to see clearly, so on the spur of the moment, I e-mailed Mr. Foster, explained the situation, and asked if he could send her a larger picture of himself by e-mail or regular mail.   He wrote back, saying he would be happy to do that, but "would she be up for a visit?" Oh, what a surprise was in store for Mom!

So on Wednesday afternoon, Rick and his sweet wife, Becky, drove to Hancock to see my mother.  She was shocked and overjoyed.  We had a wonderful visit, and Rick did indeed present her with an 8 x 10 autographed photo which I told her I would frame and hang on her wall.   Mom has since told the story of that visit to a few family members and friends - and I love to hear her tell it, because she is still shocked and excited that it ever happened.  As my sister, Joy, remarked, "We try so hard to find something to buy for Mother that will bring her pleasure, never really succeeding, and here it is - an experience like this, a relationship, a memory, that overshadows anything we could have possibly bought."

Look at it this way:  We took Mother away from her close friends and other relatives, her familiar surroundings, her house. We moved her to a place where she doesn't know anybody but family.   Her accident took away her easy mobility to walk around or drive a car.  Macular degeneration is taking her eyesight, rheumatoid arthritis is taking her fine motor skills, and the radio becomes a constant companion.   Rick Foster, who has been entertaining her through the airwaves, was gracious enough to visit her and lift her spirits, in turn giving her a story she is excited to pass on to whoever will listen.  Mr. Foster did this of his own initiative, without being asked, once he saw how he could make a difference.

Rick Foster - one of the many people in that room of my life, who got up and moved their chairs, inconvenienced themselves for me and those I love.  I am truly blessed.

Potential

One of my favorite family Christmas stories is something that happened when our daughter, Rachel, was little. It was after Thanksgiving, the world was decorated for the holidays, and as we were driving one day, we passed a produce market with evergreen trees lined up, just like in the picture above, ready to sell.  I said, "Rachel, look at all the Christmas trees!"  She was dismissive.  "Those aren't Christmas trees," she said.  "Those are just trees."

Rachel in her limited wisdom of the world at that time couldn't fathom that what she was looking at were Christmas trees.   In her mind, Christmas trees weren't Christmas trees until they were illuminated with lights, decorated with tinsel and shiny, colorful ornaments, with angels on top.  She was pretty sure she could recognize a Christmas tree, and those didn't qualify.

Adults, however, have had many years' experience seeing the potential in bare evergreen trees.  We are aware of the destiny for which they were grown, and we have imagination to see them in their full glory.  Picking out a bare tree to adorn for the holidays can be a demanding process.  No detail is overlooked.  Is the tree fresh?  Is the height tall enough for that big room or small enough for those low ceilings?  Does it smell good?  Is it the type we want - cedar, cypress, fir, pine or spruce?  How about the cost - is it an amount we are willing to spend?  The perfect tree for one house may not be the perfect tree for next door.  The perfect tree when the kids were home may not be the perfect tree for empty-nesters.

We are experts in seeing the potential in bare evergreen trees, but as a society we seem to have a lot of trouble seeing potential in other places.  I was at Grandparents' Day yesterday at the school of Caroline and Charlotte, where a relatively small building was inundated with their regular students through 5th grade plus one, two, maybe three or four grandparents in tow for each child.  It was quite a scene!  As I watched all those kids, I was impressed with what I saw of the teachers.  It is always my hope that teachers will be able to see the potential in each individual child and be able to tap that.  Rachel, all grown up now, is teaching gifted and talented students this year, and one of her goals is to help teachers realize that gifted/talented kids are not always the stereotypical smart, well-behaved kids.  Sometimes they are the daydreamers who can't focus on their work.  Sometimes they are those who are problem students, who misbehave because they are bored.  Others don't even look like they could succeed anywhere (Charlie Brown tree, anyone?). There is a whole variety of gifted/talented kids who, to reach their full potential, could benefit from extra specialized learning and attention.

The same is true for all kids, whether gifted or not.  Just like a bare tree destined for glory, each child is unique.  Some can reach their education potential by going to college.  Others will fulfill their life's dreams by manning a lobster boat.  Others will thrive in trades such as electricians, carpenters, and plumbers.  Some will feel called to help society in different ways, such as being social works, ministers, firefighters or police officers.  Others will spread beauty and love in the world, through music, art, drama, and literature.  To look at an undeveloped child, full of raw unrecognized material that is waiting for someone to help mold it, is to look at a bare tree and trying to figure out exactly where it belongs and where it can develop its potential.  However, this is not one person picking out a tree and making the decision on where it should go.  This endeavor involves our whole society, and not only school teachers, but parents and other family members, friends, neighbors, medical providers, etc.  In real life, everyone is a role model and every person a teacher.  Everyone who comes in contact with that child has a beneficial or detrimental effect on encouraging learning, curiosity, discovering his/her passion, and helping the child find direction in life.

It won't be long before many of us will be heading to the market or the farm to pick out, as Rachel said, "just trees."  But we will see the potential of what they could look like, what environment will bring out their beauty, and where they could shine the brightest.  I hope society gets to a point where it is able to do as much with our precious children.

Letting Down My Hare

Have you ever been in an Asian restaurant and passed the time by looking at their zodiac signs on a placemat?  Ed and I love to do that occasionally.  Apparently he's a dog and I'm a horse.  I can't remember whether or not we are considered "compatible" or whether a relationship should be avoided at all costs, although I guess after 37 years of marriage, it really doesn't matter.  At any rate, I take it all with a grain of salt.  In the first place, how could a zodiac chart that only goes by birthday year presume to be correct?  It is basically claiming that most of my classmates in our high school graduating class constitute one personality type, which, when you think about it, is really ludicrous.

Aside from the birth year problems, there's one major reason why I don't subscribe to the truth of the Chinese zodiac.  It's because I have learned for certain that I'm not a horse and Ed is not a dog.  I am a HARE and Ed is a TORTOISE.

Anyone who knows us well is already aware of this.  Literally, our walking styles fit this picture.  I like to go out, walk fast, get it over with, and come back indoors to resume other activities that I find much more pleasurable.  Ed goes out and walks slowly, sometimes covering 6 miles a day.  He stops to light his pipe, he stops to blow his nose, he stops to talk to a neighbor.  He even (gasp!) tries to commune with nature!

Why am I so accident-prone?  Because I'm always in a hurry.  Heck, I've got things to do - important things!  And, like the famous hare in the fable, I end up underestimating the time involved on a project and end up resting under a tree when I should be gaining some ground in the race.

The funny thing is that I rarely win the race.  I end up setting myself on fire, getting head trauma from a cabbage (appropriate for a hare, n'est ce pas?), or suffering some other calamity of going too fast and not paying attention, the injuries of which take me out of the race for a good length of time.  Sometimes I'll look at how far the finish line it, and say, "To heck with it," because the whole thing is just too daunting to even start.

Enters Ed, the Tortoise King.  He is never in a hurry.  He says he has read that slower people who smoke tend toward pipe smoking because it is a slow process (loading, packing, lighting, relighting, cleaning the pipes), or, conversely, people who smoke pipes are automatically slower folks because of these steps.  Whether his nicotine habit has anything to do with it or not, I don't know.  All I know is it is impossible to get him to hurry up.  When I try to, he just gets nasty and upset and blames every subsequent mistake he makes on me.

In my ongoing attempt to improve myself and organize my life, I came upon a book Self Discipline in 10 Days which is short and to the point in breaking through the barriers that prevent us from living the productive, organized lives that we want.  In the process of reading the book and taking notes, I decided that I would make a contract with myself to quilt 15 minutes a day.  Now, the whole idea sounds pathetic.  What can one possibly accomplish in 15 minutes a day?  You might as well not do anything!  Yeah, that's what I thought.  To my surprise, I can get a lot of quilting steps done in only 15 minutes a day.  I find the timing of every day helpful, for instance, to remember where I am in the sequence.  This avoids the frustrating inner dialogue of  "Do I need 80 7 x 7-inch squares of the print, and 80 sets of 2 x 2-inch squares and 2 x 3-1/2-inch square of the cream? ...and where the heck am I, anyway?"  It has actually helped me to become more of a tortoise, slow but steady, making progress that is not so evident daily but after a week or so, is all laid out for me to see.

I will never stop trying to get everything done quickly and Ed will never stop ambling along enjoying the scenery.  That probably means I'll burn myself out and he'll win the race with energy to spare, smiling all the way.  Oh, well.  I get him to appointments on time and he makes me slow down enough to see an eagle's nest.  Come to think of it, I think it will really be a tie score and we'll hopefully end up crossing the finish line hand in hand - if I can slow up enough to be able to finish the race with all fingers intact!

A cappella

My dad, as I've noted before, was an awesome choir director for several decades.  He didn't wear a robe or hold a baton, but with his smile and facial expressions and his hands always in motion, he managed to extract beautiful music from our relatively small choir.  One of his favorite things to do was to direct the choir in an a cappella song (without accompaniment, just voices).  Now, this is not an easy thing.  It would be hard enough for a soloist to hear a starting note, sing a song without aid of accompaniment, and end on the correct pitch - but a whole choir?  Very, very difficult.   All it takes is a slide up here, a slide down there, and the ending pitch may be off a whole note or more.

When Dad was ready for the choir to practice a certain song a cappella, he would have the organist play for the choir the starting notes for all parts - soprano, alto, tenor, bass.  There would be a general soft humming as voices prepared with their specific notes.  Then he would raise his hands, make sure everyone was watching, and he would start to direct.  The song would evolve (and believe me, most songs suitable for a cappella were absolutely gorgeous if everyone sang correctly and with emotion), and then came the end.  Dad would lower his hands and then give a motion to the organist, who played the chord of what was supposed to be the ending pitch, and Dad would react accordingly - if we were off, with a slight wince and a quick smile and an "Oh well, better next time" attitude - or, if the choir had kept perfect pitch, a wide grin that just radiated a "We did it!!" response.

I thought of that this week, as around this time of year I always enforce upon myself the fearful task of retrieving my New Year's Resolution list and giving my objectives a thorough examination as I evaluate how close I have come to fulfilling my dreams and plans for 2011.  Actually, I don't call them resolutions (I hate that word), but I call them goals for the year.  They cover all sorts of categories - my health, my hobbies, my work, my relationships - and under each one I list what I consider are priorities to concentrate on during the coming year, and I even have sublist of things that I wouldn't consider a priority but I would love to accomplish if I had the time or other necessary resources.

First, though, I start the page off with a list of accomplishments from the previous year - just to give me a little encouragement that I can be productive and get these things done, at least part of the time.   Most of the time, though, I have a long to-do list and never get it done.

Oh, I manage to get birthday cards off in the mail and Christmas card family pictures taken and sent, and I manage to pay all the bills on time and balance the checkbook and all the other things that if they didn't get done, we would be in hot water, but when I look over my goals and objectives, I have fallen so short. The year is over half over, autumn is in the air, Christmas will be here before I know it, and I haven't done any CEUs for my recertification, I never did enter a sewing contest at Pattern Review, I didn't even get close to piecing the top for Matt and Sarah's quilt, I haven't learned any new sewing techniques, I haven't played the harp much at all, etc.   We've been in this house now for 5 years and every year I put down "Paint the inside of the house" and we're still living with the white walls that came with the modular home.

It seems very much to me that I start off the year with perfect pitch, but somewhere, somehow, along the way, I always end up on the wrong note.   Don't get me wrong - the song of 2011 has been wonderful and adventurous with a lot of surprising twists and turns that have altogether combined to make lovely music, but I fear - no, I know for sure - that I will end up sadly out of pitch.

Of course, there are many reasons for this, chiefly my ever-present tendency towards procrastination and biting off more than I can chew, my propensity for having endless creative ideas but not much follow-through, my paralyzed response to being overwhelmed where I just sit and do nothing, and last but not least, my perfectionism that makes me afraid of doing anything if I can't do it perfectly.  But I will admit that this year has been rather unusual and has brought many challenges, with moving my elderly, debilitated mom and her dog up here from Tennessee (constituting two trips and a lot of planning), making a room for her out of my former exercise room (making exercise an even more inconvenient thing to accomplish), and trying to eat healthy when mom likes her starches and sweets.

I realize that I will never have a perfect pitch year.  And that's OK.  I will still make my obligatory goal list for 2012, if for no other reason than to focus my attention on priorities, and on January 1, 2012, I will start a new a cappella song on the correct note and I will sing my heart out through the year, belting out the highs and the lows and everything in between.  Sometimes I'll be sharp, sometimes I'll be flat, sometimes I'll be right on the note, and sometimes I'll take a good rest between the notes.  Sometimes I'll be singing along with a group of others, sometimes just by myself.  Some of the song will be sad, I'm sure, and some will be gloriously ecstatic. Some parts of it will be so lovely, it will make me cry in pure joy.  Some parts of it will make me wince and want a do-over.  Sometimes I will follow the music exactly as it is supposed to be sung, and other times I'll just make it up as I go along.

But - in the end, it's my song, and my wish is that it will be authentic, loving, patient, grateful, and full of hope and possibilities - with some self-discipline and flexibility thrown in for good measure.  So what if I end a note or two from where I should be?  If I concentrate on the beauty of the song and not on its imperfections, I think I'll still make my Daddy proud.  All I have to do is what The Carpenters advised:

Sing, sing a song
Sing out loud, sing out strong
Sing of good things not bad
Sing of happy not sad

Sing, sing a song
Make it simple to last your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not good enough
For anyone else to hear
Just sing, sing a song

Turning over a new leaf?

I saw a cute sign that would be perfect for my 8-year-old granddaughter, Caroline, a voracious reader.  It said, "Life is Short.  Read Fast."  Of course, "Hurry Up" is my mantra.  Ed is constantly berating me for doing everything too fast.  He says the reason I'm accident-prone does not evolve from some physiological impairment; it is just because I'm trying to move too quickly and I don't pay attention - with which I completely and sadly agree.

Of course, I was reminded of this at my annual physical this week.  Alas, I had to enumerate the many ways I had suffered injuries this year, including hitting my head on the corner of the bedside table which necessitated a trip to the doctor for a heavily bleeding scalp laceration; hitting my head on a bathroom drawer that was at hip level (long story); and, the most embarrassing of them all, how my head collided with a giant cabbage.  The latter happened when I had returned home from the grocery, was putting things on the counter in the kitchen (including the monstrous cabbage), leaned over to get more items out of a bag on the floor and the huge cabbage rolled right off and smacked me with great force on the back of the head.  (Well, at least I have an excuse for my senior moments.  My brain has been undoubtedly damaged.)  At least the cabbage story was a little funny.  We went at it head-to-head.

This is only a small sampling of my accidents through the years, the major one of which was burning my face with fire starter gel and in the process, setting fire to the curtains in the room and having to be taken by ambulance to the burn center in Portland.  They also include having a sewing machine needle break and pop in and out of my eye, years after having another sewing machine needle jam into my finger as if it were a piece of fabric, bending inside when it hit a bone.

In my defense, however, I must mention that my job demands speed.  I am a medical transcriptionist, sit and type all day transcribing dictation, and I get paid by production.  The more I transcribe, the more I get paid.  Once I start the work day, I'm at breakneck speed until I leave.  Even at lunch, I walk to the cafeteria too fast and eat my food too fast.  I'm on a roll.

And the toll all this speed takes on me is evident from all the above mishaps.   When I race through my 40 hours of work a week, it's hard to slow down for the rest of my off-work hours.   This tendency reveals itself to Ed and me, for instance, in our walking styles.  When I go out to walk/exercise, I like to walk at about 4 mph and get it over with.   Ed likes to stroll, and, gasp!, try to pay attention and enjoy nature.   I'm a hare and I married a turtle.

With all my sticky notes tacked up on every available surface, my to-do lists and calendar appointments, I think the Slow Down sign above should be probably be the top priority reminder for me.  My family already winces when they see me with a needle, knife, or scissors, as well they should.  They flinch when I'm around an open flame.   They even get nervous when I am negotiating around a sharp corner on a piece of furniture or an open drawer.   I think, though, I have hit rock bottom in my addiction to speed.  You know something has got to give when you have to relate to your doctor the story of a massive cruciferous vegetable inflicting head trauma.  I'm already not allowed in the cooking implements aisle, or the office supplies aisle, but I certainly don't want to be banned from the produce section.   Sigh.  Yeah, it's time to slow down.