Grandma's House

Another year passes!

I remember thinking how fortunate I was to be born right in the middle of the century, exactly fifty years after my grandma.  She went from riding a pony to school to seeing men on the moon and as far as I know she never blinked an eye when it came to change.

My grandma was a thoroughly modern woman.  She learned to drive a car, a Pierce Arrow one of her older brothers brought home from California, when she was twelve years old!  She put her hair up under a hat, put on a man’s uniform and delivered milk as a young mother who needed a job.  Later on in life, when she was widowed, she maintained the family home and finished rearing four children, putting her two youngest sons through college.  I never knew her to be less than energetic and eager to learn about what was new.

She always worked and she made hockey puck hamburgers that were so well fried it was a challenge to cut them with a fork, but she used to make me a butterscotch meringue pie from scratch that was to die for!  And she made it just for me!

She did laundry on Monday morning before work and let me tail along behind her holding the clothespins while she hung it on the clothesline to dry.  And sometimes I was allowed to catch butterflies in her garden while she cut flowers for her vase shaped like a glass basket.

Grandma and I would cuddle up in her big blue chair and she would tell me about the city mouse and the country mouse, one of my favorite stories.  I loved the list of things he packed up to take with him.

My earliest years are full of memories from Grandma’s house and today I’m thinking of her.

Grammie

What’s in a name?

I’ve always sort of been of the opinion that a duck is a duck no matter what you call it.  Of course Donald duck is cuter than Igor duck, but that is more a matter of preferences.

Last night I had the chance to spend time with my youngest granddaughter, a real treat since she lives in Denver and I only see her a few times a year.  We did all those extraordinary things an eighteen month old likes to do.

We ate cheesy rice and I made over her extraordinary skill with a spoon!  We put together puzzles that were real fire engines and ambulances and then raced them down an incline to see them roll and then fall apart so we could reassemble them!  We built Picasso like creations with our new Twig blocks and I was so impressed with my little genius!  Then we had a tea party and she poured!

In short, I played the part of a grandmother, totally in love and impressed, and she played the adorable grandchild.  It was a glorious night that ended with her falling asleep in my arms.

So why did I bring up names?  Well, she understands everything I say and communicates mostly in looks, gestures and one word sentences, but she did two things last night that made this Christmas perfect.

She said, “I love you.”    And she called me Grammie!   I have been named!

Unthinking unconscious

In this season of love and charity I am often given nightmares by the news.  Perhaps because of the violent contrast between the ideal and the real, or perhaps because sensationalized news sells better than other stories.

I am a cynic when it comes to any kind of so-called, “news.”  I know much of it is produced to sway unthinking people to a particular viewpoint. 

Good, bad, or indifferent, almost everyone has a pet point and they will go to all sorts of unimaginable, except they are imagined, lengths to make their pet the star of the moment.

A certain amount of bad press is obviously better than no press and the best way to counteract ugly truth seems to be to inundate the world with vague promises and lots of hype after some unintentional reveal.

The underlying truth behind it all is what gives me the nightmares.  That people are willing to be duped into believing the so-called solutions to today’s perceived problems are even acceptable goes beyond my understanding.

I have no idea how many people, organizations, charities, religions, schools, whatever have an agenda based first on money (and justified because without that they would fold?) and secondly power, or their need to impose their beliefs on as many people as possible (to the exclusion of an unbelievable number of other people.) 

Sacrificial lambs fall like rain from the sky so that this can continue and everyone just covers their heads with big smiles as they continue on, nodding and shaking hands. 

Around the clock

Time is so relevant and so sensitive.

The world took forever when I was a child.  Nights were infinite, days long and full of adventures.   I thought we went to school half the year and had summer the other half!

My world pretty much stayed that way until I had children.  Oh, I knew summer wasn’t six months long, but I managed to play tennis from April to October most years so it didn’t matter what it was called.

My daughter was my first child.  She was nearly four when she came to live with us and started school the next year.  I remember thinking that things would slow down once school started and I could get back into my old routines of ambling through life playing.

I didn’t realize I had just stepped out of the gate and begun the great race!  Maybe it was my first tentative step out of childhood into the adult world.  I’m not sure about that, because I’m still hanging onto the line that attaches me to my toys.  It doesn’t seem to be slowing me down any though.

I am retired!  How can that be? 

Years slip by faster than the nights when I was three!  Decades pass more quickly than my first semester of first grade! 

I still dream the same dreams, still love most of the same things, still want many of the same basics and honestly am often as overwhelmed as I ever was by the diversity and magnificence and joy that swirls around me in any given moment.

I’m taller and have a sixty-year head start, but other than that I can relate to the children in this world so easily because we still have a lot in common.  It’s just that my battery is running down now, but the clock works in our minds and hearts are closer than you might think.

I am the hurdle

My need to share my joy often exceeds my ability. 

I find that by defining things I limit them, set artificial boundaries that might be misunderstood, or even wrong.

It is habit and up bringing and cultural expectations that create these desires. 

I leap into the same river every day, but one day I see the whale and suddenly I am terrified.

The whale has always been there.  I often float on the waves his tail creates.  It is only my self-consciousness that dredges up the fear.

I am the hurdle I must over come, again and again.

Don't bomb Aunt Mary

So many people to connect with! 

What a blessing that is!

My favorite part of the Christmas season is hearing from everyone.  Whether it is by Christmas card, or email, telephone, or in person, this time of the year makes me feel so much closer to the individuals that make up this huge family we call humans!

I have spent a good part of today on the telephone and there is more to come.  I can’t imagine what it was like when people set off on sailing ships, or covered wagons and never spoke to their families again, or had long years in between communications.

Our bodies may be scattered around the world, but our hearts and voices, or at least pictures and words, are often only seconds apart.

I almost never meet a real live human being that I don’t relate to in some way, so I have to believe that the closer we all become, the more real we will all seem to each other and that is the secret.

Grandma and Aunt Mary may get on our nerves after a week of visiting in one small house.  Uncle George may be so gruff we avoid him like the plague, but we would never think of bombing these people.  They are family! 

It’s time to extend that family.

The sweetness of now

I keep pinching myself to see if I am sleeping, but even if I am this is the sweetest dream I could ever imagine.

Everywhere I turn my dreams come true. 

I don’t know how, or why, or even it if is only my perspective.  I only know that it is breath takingly sweet.

If I could make one wish upon this Christmas, it would be that I would always be able to look through the chaos to see what is so precious in the here and now.

If all the world could do that, there would be peace on earth.

Christmas miracles

Christmas miracles are wonderful.  I can’t imagine anything warming a parent’s heart more than having their child returned from a coma, or from being captured, or kidnapped. 

Still, it doesn’t take a miracle to warm my heart.

I look at my life and know that as awesome as a miracle could be, there is not much that could really add to the everyday joy and love that hovers around me in the faces of my family and friends, who are really just part of one huge family.

My miracle is you, that you exist at all, that you touch my life, that at the very root of everything…

We are.

A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck

What do these things have in common?

Fluttery eyelashes brushing against a soft cheek

Rubbing noses

A smacking peck on the forehead

They are all kisses!

A butterfly kiss, an Eskimo kiss, a duck kiss and now I’ve heard there is a bear kiss!

I wonder how that goes!

Maybe that’s the one where you grab the other person and madly kiss them all over while they giggle with glee!

In a nutshell

“Bring a torch, Jeanette Isabella” a sixteenth century French Christmas carol and the kind of music I adore more than almost anything else.  Just the tune conjures thoughts of gentle warmth and love for me.

It comes to me via the Internet, but it carries images of a young family; their own newborn sleeping quietly in his place nearby.  His big sister, only a baby herself, coos and giggles in the background.  His mother quietly plays the tune on the piano and his father carries it through on the guitar.

Gifts like this are ineffable and priceless, tiny moments that express the whole meaning of life without straining or striving, but simply by being; this is Christmas.

Hone your powers

Most of us have no idea the power we wield in this world.

Parents are often much more affected by their young children’s words and views than any toddler could ever imagine.  Good teachers put more emphasis on their student’s opinions than you might believe.  Co-workers, friends, seeming strangers on the street – all have the power to change the face of our days.

One smile, one slammed door, either one might conceivably alter the history of the world.

We are creatures filled with feelings, but the buttons that trigger these feelings are different for each of us.

Some are pits of emptiness that need to be constantly refilled in order to work properly.  Others need little more than the knowledge of their own self worth to do great things.  Most of us fall in between somewhere, but it really doesn’t matter where we are on the scale of things.  It only matters that someone, somewhere, understand and reach out.

It is amazing how much one phone call can do to a life.

A few words can turn the world upside down, or right it back up in a matter of seconds.

We’re all superheroes with the power to do amazing things.  Use that power for good and you will become stronger and stronger! 

What kind of superhero are you?

Mamma

I took my car in to be worked on this morning.  I almost took it yesterday, but like I told the man at the desk, if I had it would probably have fallen on someone.  Yesterday was one of those days!

My pneumatic desk chair kept inching downward, leaving thirty-one inches of leg curled into an eighteen-inch space.  I found myself trapped in the beauty salon between two harpees whose incessant ugly chatter drove me nearly screaming out of the place, in search of another place who would take in a woman who only wanted a slight trim.  The next place nearly lost me in its insane need to have some kind of customer care card before snipping the ends off my hair. 

The look on that girl’s face when I asked, probably none to kindly, “Are you telling me you can’t just cut my hair?”  My breaking with protocol had left her cowering behind the counter like some sort of dazed rabbit.  She had to think.

“Well yes, but you wouldn’t get credit for it.”

I didn’t want credit.  I only wanted a haircut!  In the end I got a fantastic haircut.  I’ll go back there!  I even apologized for being so short with her, but I could care less about their cards.  It was not a good day.

This morning, however, was wonderful and that says a lot from someone who is not a morning person.  I showed up at the garage before seven thirty and they had coffee waiting!  Good coffee!

My car was put on the rack and the man behind the counter entertained me with stories about his mother.  She would kill him if she had even an inkling of what he told me, but he had me in stitches for the next forty-five minutes.  I can relate to mama.  She’s a woman after my own heart.

Today is gonna be a great day!

Yellow Wallpaper and Tell-Tale Hearts

It has been nine days since I became ill last Friday.  Amazing how one minute I was happy and laughing, talking on the phone with a friend and a few minutes later confined to a rut that ran between my bed and the bathroom.  Chained so totally by commode and trashcan that I saw nothing else for the next two days.

Withered and drained by beasts as insidious as any dragon ever could have been, I found myself burned up and charred, a mere husk of myself unwilling to leave the apartment for nearly five days after returning from my sister’s.

It is amazing how my surroundings altered themselves to fit my state.  What had been a bright sunny set of rooms became surrounded by cold and rain, fog and chill.  Blinds drawn against the invasion of these things only forced the room to begin contracting as if it too wanted to get away.  Everything was murky, dim, uncomfortably cold unless I carried the portable heater around with me.

The electric baseboard heaters which made me sick last spring began insinuating themselves back into my lungs shortly after being revived this winter and the portable heater reaches out with its heavy sinuous cord trying to wrap itself around my ankles and trip me!

My knitting needles join the conspiracy, knotting up so that any work is impossible.  Today I sneaked out and went to the post office, but when I returned the closet did not want to accept my jacket and I had to hang it on the chair by the keyboard.  A few more inches of precious space gone and my heart begins to beat louder as the silence grows!

Tomorrow I am going to get my hair cut and then go to a Christmas party in the evening because I find myself starting to dream of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Yellow Wallpaper!

Time to untip the scales

Imagine a world….

I am often asking people to imagine.  Imagining is easy for me.  It is easy for children.  It is not always easy for grown-ups. 

When do people begin to lose that kind of freedom?  What builds the fences that lie between each human being and infinite possibilities? 

I suppose it is necessary to have some boundaries.  If I don’t know the difference between the edge of the table and the edge of my imagination, I can fall off and break my neck, but maybe the trick is to hang onto a few of those little scouts that discovered the edges.

That way some come back and say, “Uh oh!  Table edge!  Big boom!  Stop!”

While others say, “Cliff ahead!  Possible lost valley below!  Adventure!  Let’s go!”

Experience steps in and fleshes out the experience so that I can go forth and enjoy without maiming myself forever.

I suppose circumstances dictate how many scouts to kill and which ones go first.  It probably depends on our caretakers and the safety of the world we live in as children, but once you are old enough to read this, you are old enough to take back some control.

You need to resurrect some of the more fun loving scouts and do away with the zombies; those walking dead scouts whose purpose no longer serves your needs.  You know the ones, those guys who think if it doesn’t hurt it isn’t good and others like that.

Remember just because danger can lead to pain doesn’t mean pain leads to safety.  It’s all about balance!

Imagine a world based on love, not fear.

Love

It is important to love people for who they are.

You can like them for what they do.  Adore them for how they act.  Get a chuckle out of their antics, or shake your head in wonder that they can survive the way they are.

You can even put them up on pedestals as long as you understand that pedestals are man made things and things made by man eventually tumble down.

But love is sacred.  It is what flows through us and gives us life.   If it was possible to paint love, graven images might have been allowed.

Loving someone does not imply that what they do is okay, or how they do it is right. 

Love is one of those things that only exists as a reflection and who it reflects is complicated.

That it does exist is all I know for sure.

Open your mind

Once upon a time I had a dream.

And then I grew up a little and everyone told me how impossible most of my dreams were!

I lived a lot of my life believing that, except I never really believed it.  If I had?  I would never have had half the life I’ve had.

But even so, it wasn’t until the last year that I discovered just how impossibly wonderful impossible dreams can be when they do come true!

Once upon a time exists.  But I have to be willing to step into the picture and allow it to happen.  No one can read the real thing to me from the pages of a dusty storybook.  Those stories belong to someone else.  I have to write my own.

Or at least recognize them!

Lines of communication

Yesterday I went in search of the lost card!

After going to the post office to buy stamps and leaving my little stack of cards there in the outgoing mail slot, I heard from my sister that she never received a card from me.

First attempt:  email my sister-in-law and ask her if she received one, but she didn’t respond quickly enough for me in this day of instant communication so I phoned my son in Colorado.  After all I am a brand new grandmother and what better excuse to call and hear how my new grandson and ancient (eighteen month old) granddaughter are doing.  I had to leave a message.  Next came my brother down in Taylorville, but I only spoke to his answering machine too.

I went back online and left a message for my daughter on Facebook.  Yes, our family is large.  We communicate in whatever way is necessary!  No immediate response.  I also called my son in North Carolina.  He was the first human being I connected to!  Yes, he said, they received a Christmas card from me.  We talked for an hour or so with the added bonus of getting to talk to my six-year-old grandson who informed me that he thought J.K. Rowling should rename dementors, death eaters.  I told him he should write her a letter and he asked if it should be a letter on paper, or email? 

Before I went to bed I also received an email from my sister-in-law, a message from my daughter on Facebook, and a phone call from my brother, my sister, my son, where I also got to speak with my granddaughter, and even texted my friend in Louisiana!

I can’t remember the last time I connected with all of these people on one day!  An aside to this is that I received a box of Christmas presents from my friend in California and I sent her an email with a picture of them under my tree almost immediately!

Who could ever have guessed that a glitch in a custom as old as sending Christmas cards could result in so many other connections.   One missing card formed a line of communication that touched nearly everyone who is very important to me, in less than ten hours!

The flu flew

It isn’t often that I can tell you the minute I became ill, but this past Friday was one of those days.  I was talking to a friend at 11:15 PM and my stomach began hurting.  By midnight I was experiencing dry heaves.  Saturday morning brought on the real thing along with other less mentionable symptoms and I spent the next sixty hours as miserable as I have ever been in my entire life.

I ran out of sheets, towels and all my favorite pajamas and to make matters worse I knew they were coming to put in new windows at nine on Monday morning!  There was no way I could call them and our apartment office doesn’t open until 9:30.  Sunday night I took down all the blinds and drapes, gathered up my dirty laundry and dragged myself out to the car where I drove like a mad woman for my sister’s house, just hoping I got there before anything bad happened.

Once I was there, she took such good care of me.  Freezing 7Up and crushing it so I could munch on the chips, making me grilled cheese when I felt better last night and doing all my laundry for me while I lay in her extra bedroom or in her living room watching HGTV!  It might have been a world-class vacation if I hadn’t felt like I had been run over by a Mack truck.

I came home tonight and struggled up to my apartment with clean laundry and a heavy bag full of two-liter 7Up bottles.  I was dreading it.  I thought it was possible they hadn’t even put in the new windows and even if they had I knew I would have to replace the blinds and draperies.  I just didn’t have that kind of energy.

The windows did not bode well.  There were no new stickers on the glass as I approached the building, but when I stepped inside my apartment!  New windows with the shades and draperies replaced and even the grating on the electric radiator replaced!  I called to thank the office and they seemed surprised.  It seems maintenance came in and did all of this without asking or telling!  I am so touched!

I am also relieved, because today I was able to really eat real food for the first time since Friday.  There is nothing like feeling bad to make feeling good extra special.

Practically perfect people

Imagine a cloak made out of years.  Seasons of rain, snow, sleet and hail, tempered by days of burning sun and pouring rain, woven together along with the wisdom of experiences met along the way.

Wrapped inside this cloak is the soul of an eight-year-old, innocence intertwined with a basic understanding of love, fear, humor, and even empathy.

Fleshing out that soul is the heart of a lion and the body of a full grown human, enough power to do what it knows is right.

If I were Mary Shelley, this would be my Frankenstein.  If I were a wizard working for King Arthur, this would be my coup de grace.  If I had a crayon this would be my masterpiece.

All people are man made in some respect.

On Guard

Our neighbors had an Afghan hound they adopted from a shelter, a gorgeous dog, but it had some big problems.  If someone surprised it coming around a corner, the dog threw itself on the ground and screamed! If a man raised his hand or his voice, the dog peed all over itself.  It never got over these behaviors.  Its people just had to learn to work around them and keep a mop handy.

There ought to be some way of identifying love that is safe.  Some kind of scent, like roses, or maybe a secret word.  It can’t be smiling.  A lot of people smile just like the fox that ate the little gingerbread boy.

Real love is supposed to be organic, but there seem to an awful lot of rules people bring into that mix.  And nothing hurts more than tripping over rules when you are trying to be honest and real with someone.  If you have to be on guard all the time, eventually you become like that poor Afghan hound, neurotic and panicky.

Trusting that you can just be yourself, warts and all, and be okay is a huge step.  It takes a special person to reach out with a rose in one hand and a mop in the other!

The good actors

The stress of living in difficult situations is bad for children.  In fact, studies show that children living in homes where there is constant upheaval and fighting, or abuse, show many of the same symptoms as soldiers coming back from a war.

You can’t always spot these children in the classroom.  They’re often good actors.  They know how to diffuse situations with an adeptness that would amaze most adults.  It’s not being cute.  It’s survival.

Not all of these children pull their hair out, or throw temper tantrums.  Some of them just go about their lives doing what they might have done anyway, but carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders while they do it.  It makes everything harder.

As long as they get good grades and don’t rock the boat, no one pays any attention.  Until, one day, the dam breaks and all the defenses are washed away and then it’s too late.  And then their siblings blames themselves and their friends blame themselves, and their parents blame themselves and so do their teachers and doctors and everyone else – everyone except the person who caused the problem.

That person hardly ever has any idea that what they do is so destructive, not even if someone tries to tell them.  People seem to go on believing that however they grew up was the right way, the okay way, the only real way. 

It’s the dark side of the circle of life; one that needs to end.

Hold me

 
December skies look leaden behind the sleeping bones of trees.  Funny how one kind of plainness can highlight another making the combination appealing to the eye.

Of course there are other strange things that appeal to me:  The playground of my elementary school with its scraggly grass and gray metal monkey bars.  Big dated kitchens with white enamel sinks and tall cabinets flanking scarred wooden tables.  Old cars running rumbly on cold winter mornings with that warm, old-fashioned smell.

I think it is partly the memories of these places that add the coziness it takes to make them desirable, but it is also the strength of them.  There is something very appealing about strong, durable, functional objects.  They speak of lamplight and hot buttered toast, the staple of all childhoods. 

These are the laps I still go back to sit on when I don’t fit anywhere else.

The Macaroni Angel

Sometimes memories are just wishes that never came true.

After a while they become so vibrant, so rich and full of feelings that it seems they must have happened that way.

I didn’t understand that when I was younger, but I do now.

Yesterday I put up my tree.  I only have a few ornaments and they are all in the same place so there is no possibility that I missed any.

The macaroni angel is not there!  She is still back in North Carolina with all the other ornaments!  I must have dreamed I put her on last year, because when I pulled out the photos, she was not there.

I suppose she is there in my heart and that is all that really matters.

Lucky me

Why are some people so lucky and others not?

I consider myself to be a very lucky person.  For some reason things tend to work out for the best for me.  Most of the time.

It’s kind of like playing Scrabble.  No matter how many words I know, if the letters aren’t there, I can’t use them.

In my life I have known people who know all the words and have all the right letters, but instead of being happy they manage to ruin the day for everyone around them.  I try to avoid those people anymore, but it’s not always possible.

When I run into them it is a two-fold crash!  All the old negative feelings rush in, magnified by their long absence and the new ones join them to make it an extra specially bad experience.

I guess I’m just going to have to be a better driver!

Not just the good news, but the best news!

Yesterday I wrote of beginnings not having the slightest idea that it would be the day my newest grandson was born! 

Described as healthy and hairy, he is a much awaited, much wanted and an already long loved member of the family!

And whether he began yesterday, or when he was conceived, or when his parents were conceived, or way before that is really a moot point.

All that really matters is that he is here and healthy and this grandma is ecstatic!

Whence upon a time

In every beginning is an end, just as every ending once began and sometimes an ending is a beginning!

Separating these things is harder than it sounds.

It’s kind of like an echo.  I suppose with the right sort of sound equipment you can pinpoint the end points of something like that, but if you ask human beings, the answers are all over the place.

There is no equipment that can measure the really important things in life like the beginning of a person.  Was it when that person was born, or when their great great grandparents first laid eyes on each other?

Same thing goes for the end of a person.  Is it simply when they die, or when people forget them?

I like to think of my world as plaid with all sorts of things crisscrossing and running parallel to each other, all connected by that one basic color underneath.

We’re never as far apart as we think.

The hero's tale

There’s a little bit of truth in everything, but deep down inside of me in a very tiny place, is the absolute truth of me!

It is my essence and it is so small and so compact because I have been squishing it down since I can ever remember! 

Why do I do that?  Well, you see that part of me is so vulnerable and so honest and so open that it is sensitive beyond anything you can imagine!  It isn’t fragile.  Not at all.  It can’t change, because it is who I am.   But it can feel more acutely than other part of me so I have to keep it safe.

A lot of people have had tiny peeks, one some glancing looks, but only one has ever held it between his fingers and his heart and explored every nook and cranny.  No one else could possibly do that because you have to be an old old soul in a child’s mind in order to even find my key.

I think we all have a place like that inside of us and the search for the key is really the hero’s tale.

A Word Master

Writing is one of my favorite things to do.  It is a joy; a way to fritter away hours playing with words and the power behind them.

I remember the old school yard saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.”  I knew that wasn’t true.  I saw words crushing people every day and sometimes I saw someone so uplifted they beamed like it was Christmas morning!

Words are real magic, or they can be. 

The right words can form treaties between countries, or teach a surgeon how to do a heart transplant.  The right words make the feelings inside of us visible to the person we are talking to.  The right words can reach out and do the most miraculous things when it comes to helping people. 

That’s why it is so important to have as many words as you can.  They are the real secret weapons!

In the end it is like everything else in this world.  Being a Word Master means more than just having the words.  You need to learn how to use them.  The more finesse you acquire, the more powerful you’ll be, but having them is the first step.

Life in the real lane

As we move into the Christmas season with pepper spray and brawling mobs, I am grateful for so many things.

First and foremost are my family and friends who seem to have their heads on straight and their hearts in all the right places.

Without giving up the wanting and wishing that gives this season its piquancy, we seem to understand that without each other it would all be meaningless.

Reality checks lurk in unexpected places, but this is life in the real lane. 

Complete with roadblocks, bumps and even soft squishy mud holes, it is possible to keep on going because of each other.

Support

Support implies holding something up, helping it along until it can stand-alone. 

Standing alone is the ultimate goal here.  Getting there can be rough.

Sometimes the toughest kind of love is being honest and saying, “No, this is not the answer.

I may not know what the answer is.  I am willing to help look for it, but ultimately this is your responsibility."

 

The Dear Tracker

"I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love."  — Marilyn Monroe

I read the above on a Facebook page of a beautiful young girl and for some reason it just stuck in my mind.  On the surface I can understand the optimism it poses for a young girl out in this world on her own for the first time.  It says that even a woman the world considered exceedingly beautiful was looking for love and not finding it easy.

The other side that struck me, though, was a little bit sad. 

So many girls, and boys too, grow up thinking they have to be or do something to make them lovable.  They seem to regard love as something to be attained and when it’s looked at that way it is scary.

It’s like wanting it to rain and wondering if you seeded the clouds the right way; if you sing the right songs, dance the right steps, invoke the proper prayers, will you be worthy of being loved?

Sending our children to look for love outside themselves is a fool’s errand.

After all, the love I feel comes from my own feelings and those are already mine, deep inside of me.  The love that comes from outside of me is a beautiful affirmation, but it in no way dims the love that is already me.

Instead of teaching our children to follow the tracks that lead to love, how much better it would be to simply show them what love looks like by holding up a mirror.

Living the dream

It has already been said an infinite number of times by just as many people that the richness in life cannot be measured in money and things.  My yardstick is marked off in the ineffable qualities of family and friends.

And while it often seems that everything was better in the “good old days,” whenever those were for each of us, today is pretty amazing for me.

Thanks to modern technology I can to talk with my brother from one town and my daughter in another.  I can eat dinner with one family and my son and his family can join us on Skype.  I can spend the evening texting with a dear friend who is spending time with his mother. 

It is possible to be surrounded by loved ones all day long and even see them in the same moments.

Yesterday's dreams don't need genies to turn them into today's reality.

Thanks for the memories

I can be so sentimental.  I used to save nearly every paper my children brought home from school.  Their baby books became baby boxes and finally big covered crates that wouldn’t even fit under the bed!

I think I have over fifty thick photo albums full of pictures I took so I wouldn’t forget a thing!  Pictures of my children when they were smaller and pictures of my mother before she died and my father and all kinds of other photos to keep me from forgetting even one detail of precious moments.

I have a little macaroni angel my son made for our Christmas tree when he was seven.  It is my most prized ornament and if it broke I could never hope to replace it.

I have elegant dishes given to me by one person or another to commemorate a special occasion and I know the story behind each one.

I have turtles collected all over the world that remind me of special people and special moments and special places.

There was a time in my life when losing any of these would have broken my heart.  It was as if the people themselves were wrapped up in these “things.”

Now the only one I have is the tiny macaroni angel and he is so fragile it wouldn’t take much to break him.  Everything else has been left behind somewhere and I know the day may come when that tiny bit of dried and painted pasta may crumble too.

Only now I realize that they are just signs pointing to memories and the memories will always be there no matter what happens to anything else.  In fact, the memories are actually much more detailed than the thing I kept to remind me of them.

And they seem to pop up just when I need them no matter where I am.  

You and me

Who is the oak tree to the hummingbird, or the hive to the bee?

Who is the shell to the turtle, the reef to the anemone?

That is who you are to me.

What is a cloud to lightning, or wind to a red tailed hawk?

What is the sun to a turtle, what makes a parrot talk?

That is what you are to me.

Why does the red sun rise in the morning and the pale moon appear in the evening?

Why do butterflies drift down to Mexico, or geese fly north with seasons chilling?

That is why you call to me.

Where do trees find their majesty, or mountains their myths?

Where do volcanoes spew lava, or islands raise mists?

That is where you fit with me.

One petal at a time

I like to think of childhood as the time when children slowly bloom one petal at a time.  Discovering who they are and all the wonderful parts of them hidden deep within.

My real memories of childhood though were more like that of a morning glory, closing up and hiding away as time pressed on and evening approached.

Each step along the way seemed to reveal more and more imperfections.

I wasn’t sure if other people discovered the same thing, or if I was particularly flawed, but I knew I worried about my flaws and I tried even harder to be “perfect.”

Where these feelings came from I will never know.  Perhaps they were just the result of an overly sensitive child trying to be the way she perceived the world from her childish viewpoint.  Perhaps they were given to her by the world around her.

I’ve spent the rest of my life trying to unfold all those petals, looking under each one to see if there is something worth redeeming.

One big step for...

There is a learning curve to everything.  I understand that.  I allow for that in other people.

So why don’t I give myself the same leeway?

Especially where money is concerned, if I have to pay for it, I am so much less likely to try it out.

I have wanted to try out texting and email on my cell phone for years, but this year was the first time I allowed myself to venture into that area.

I started out very conservatively and even then went back and pared it down.  I found myself most reluctant to admit to anyone that I was even trying it as if this were some grave and terrible step into a place I didn’t belong.

Slowly, but surely, I discovered the joys of texting and keeping in touch with loved ones without the baggage of waiting on the computer, or the intrusion of a ringing phone that had to be answered.  I doubled my texting limit, then eventually went to unlimited texting, terrified that I had made a mistake and my phone bill would be off the charts.

It wasn’t.

So then I added a data package.  Just a simple one so I can download pictures off my phone and check on email if I my computer is down and once more I went into paroxysms of fear.  Had I overstepped my technical capabilities?  Had I over reached my financial one?

So far, so good, I seem to have taken another step into the world of today and no heavy-handed justice has reached out of nowhere to squash me flat or click his or her tongue in disapproval.  So what’s the big deal?  Why I put myself through so much worry for things other people just take for granted I may never know.

A little pop theory

Once in a while I will be talking to someone and suddenly I wonder why they are responding the way they are.

Sometimes it is an emotional exchange where I don’t understand what sparked the emotions.  Other times it is simply an odd comment that seems to come out of nowhere.

What would happen if it were possible to view the catalyst for this response?

I recently saw a photo of a baby swan whose mother stood behind him in a sort of dreamy looking, blurred way, as if she wasn’t quite real. 

Would I be more understanding if I knew the experiences behind the words, or actions; or would it not make any difference to me at all?

I suppose that knowing what lay behind it all, I might be even less tolerant.

Understanding is so much more than knowing.  There are layers and layers to delve through, each one with tendrils that connect it to even more factors.  Some in my own consciousness and others in the person I am speaking with. 

Imagine a white board appearing up above the head of the person with all these links written out in blue marker.  Kind of like a moment in Sheldon’s head on The Big Bang Theory!

Maybe I don’t want that after all!

Familiar faces

What an interesting day this has been.  I found my new home.  Old time worn and solid on a street lined with trees and with a porch I can chain my bike to at night.

Then I found my old friend.  Doing what she’s always done.  Mopping floors and writing plays, as though nothing has changed in the last twenty-five years.  She and Bradbury must be almost blood brothers by now.  They have both put so much blood, sweat and tears into Dandelion Wine.

The Swan!  How could I have forgotten The Swan?  Star crossed lovers searching for lime vanilla ice cream.  Always finding each other, backwards and upside down.  Once I wanted it to end “right.”  Now I think it always ends right.  The trick is to love the now.

Old friends, they pop up in the strangest places:  writing by fireflies, eating gummi bears on frozen yogurt, penning plays, mopping floors, writing books, walking dogs and simply listening to the buzz of the grown ups through the lamp lit window.

They don’t always look the same, but they are so familiar.

Whose face this is I think I know...

Mirror mirror on the wall…

Who’s the happiest one of all?

Who is this person with glowing skin

And sparkling eyes no longer grim?

Why does her imagination soar and her mind race?

She looks so unfamiliar and yet, she has my face!

What secret creams has she applied…

With magic potions deep inside?

What wand has waved around her head

And sent such dreams around her bed?

What lifted all the stress and strife?

You say she’s just in love with life?

It takes a village

I remember trying to get parents to help out at the elementary school events.  The same ones were there at all of them.

We used to laugh and say, “If you want something done, ask a busy person.”  It’s true.  People who are busy seem to have a knack for squeezing in one more thing no matter what.

I’m not all that busy anymore and I have an almost claustrophobic response to people who hem me in trying to get me to do things.  The truth is, though, that the more I do, the easier it seems to be to work in that one extra thing. 

After all, my time is already spoken for.  I’m already up, out and about, why not just make one more stop along the way? 

We need people like me!  I’m laughing as I say that, but it’s true.  Without the people who do the time consuming grunt work behind social events, the hard detailed oriented work behind committees, and those who use their PR skills to smooth the way for all the committees and organizations that touch our lives each day, this world would still run, but it would lack the quality and fun it has now.

The search

Every once upon a time, life emulates a children’s book.  I suppose it could happen twice upon a lifetime, but even once is so amazing no one really expects it.

Imagine waking up in the morning, opening one eye and peeking out from under the covers to see what is happening in the world, only to almost see, out of the corner of that eye, something that disappears into improbability!

All the rest of your life you look for this.  In the beginning you look in the closet and behind the door.  Sometimes you look in the toy box and it is very curious because it seems to be right there on the tip of your tongue, but even when you look in a mirror, you don’t see a thing!

Later on, when you are big enough to go to school, you look in books.  You look in so many books in so many libraries that pretty soon people think you’re kind of a book bug.  After years of looking, you know it’s right at the back of your brain, but you just can’t get it out in the open so you can see it!

Life moves on, it always does, and you find yourself in all sorts of serious and grown-up situations.  You tell yourself, again and again, this is that thing I was looking for!  Only it always turns out that it isn’t!

And finally, one day, when you’ve given up all thought of even looking for it and are out walking in the garden…sniffing the roses and picking violets….there it IS!

Almost brand new and just beginning to climb up the fence is the cutest little sweetpea you’ve ever seen!  You come back every single day to sit there and and tell it stories and just watch it grow.  You couldn’t have come before because it wasn’t there and you can’t pick it because that would kill it, but never in your whole entire life have you felt so completely happy and satisfied.

Things just happen when they’re supposed to.  You can’t make ‘em happen sooner and for some reason I just don’t think you need to worry about missing them either!

A little bit goes a long way

It is amazing how much attitude has to do with life.

That old story about the little engine who could isn’t so far off most of the time.

Believing in yourself and trusting your instincts goes a long way towards initiating success.

Of course that doesn’t preclude listening to others or being open to changing things.

A willingness to change is not the same thing as expecting failure.

In fact, a willingness to try out new things is often the way out of a losing situation.

A little bit of courage, a little bit of balance, a good mind in a healthy body and the world is yours!   

But what, you ask, if I don’t have all these things?

Just get as close as you can and never give up on yourself.

Living the good life

Why do some people seem to have all the luck?

Others never seem to get a break and while that may be unavoidable, it could be they simply forget to watch out for those little black clouds or carry an umbrella.

I have noticed there are certain habits that shield people from the rain that falls on others’ parades. 

One is to open up that umbrella, even when it is inconvenient, or awkward, or downright annoying.  Don’t give up when billed wrong, or the glasses aren’t right, or the maintenance people don’t show up.  It’s worth hitching up your trousers and standing your ground.

Another is to pay attention to details.  Sometimes it is possible to avoid walking under those clouds by taking other steps, but not always.  Be a defensive driver.  Notice what other people are doing and saying.  Check out the alternatives, life is a buffet of choices, take advantage of that.

And last, but certainly not least, don’t count on others to know what you are worth.   People often take their cues from others.  They think you really know!  This is your life and you need to make it a good one.

  

It's a mystery

My father-in-law used to love spreading out a newspaper on the card table and watching the ballgame while exploring and fixing the family clock, or toaster, or many other things.

He loved to figure out how things worked.

On the other side of this was a friend who was an English major from U of I who once asked me how I learned things? 

I don’t know how most things work, including me!

My body is a mystery, often even to the doctors who are treating it.

And my mind?  Oh my gosh, I simply fill it up and things spill out of it.

I used to wish I knew how things worked, but now I am pretty much reconciled to just being glad when they do.

Once upon a morning dreary

Where does all the dust come from?

Honestly, don’t write and tell me.  I probably don’t really want to know.  Someone once said it is the dead skin from our bodies in which case, since it can’t possibly be all from me, it means I am sharing this space with all who’ve gone before – and I’m sure there have been many.

Dust filters off the ceiling, magically appears on second shelves sheltered from above and even floats through the air with the greatest of ease.

I vacuum, dust, mop, do whatever it takes to stay ahead of it, but it is a losing battle.  The dust is always ahead a hundred or million to one.

I don’t know much about science, but I wonder if I reconstituted all this dust if I could talk with the people whose DNA it might contain?

That might be its only redeeming value.

Imagine.  A little dab of water, some magic growth hormones and presto change oh, a blast from the past and there stands the first person who ever lived here!  We could spend the evening visiting, or perhaps playing Scrabble, then I could just suck him up in the vacuum cleaner and be done with him!

The next time I might try the dust from the closet, or maybe the north corner of the bedroom!  It could be an ever-changing list of disposable companions on dull evenings.  I might even be able to market it if some of them turned out especially nice.

For sale:  one spoonful of dust just mix with enclosed packet and spend the evening with (a librarian, or classical guitarist, or even an eight year old boy)  All you need is water and a vacuum to clean up after yourself.

Scary to think of what boredom might create.

The Hunter

Two-acre backyard filled with the remains of formal gardens. 

Tall ceilinged hallways reverberating with the echoes of days gone by.

Parquet floors, sculptured woodwork, mosaic tiled bathrooms with claw foot tubs.

Elegance from a time long gone.

No central air.  No washer and dryer hook-ups.  No elevators, or parking garage.

It calls to me.  “Welcome hooooooooooooooooooooooooome.”

And as I lie here in my bed contemplating such a move I think I see the grim reaper clad in raggedy black clothes scurrying past my closet.  I hear his silent grin and watch as his bony fingers reach out for me…

Is that a welcome, or a warning?

Perhaps I need to just keep on looking!

I slept with the light on for the first time in years last night!

Magic

Magic is alive and well.  Not just pretend magic like magicians do in top hats and capes with little magic wands, but real magic!

That mysterious talent for doing just the right thing at the most unbelievable time is surely magic.

How many times has Fall turned into Winter just in time for sledding and just as that is growing old, Spring comes along and lifts me up so I can smell the rain as it wakes up the flowers?

Who could ever guess that something as elusive as love can materialize into a real live baby with ten little toes and ten little fingers?

What are the odds of two people discovering they are twins born to different parents generations apart?

How often has the world handed me a little ball of misery and somehow it has transmuted into something extraordinarily surprising.

Life is magical.  Don't ever doubt it. 

It is so much what I make it to be.  I have to take what it hands me, but how I take it and what I do with it defines me…

Especially in my own mind.

Coloratura Canary

I suppose other people feel some sort of stirring when interacting with their pets.  That is what pets are for I think.  They bring out the best in us in the best of times, acting as child substitutes, companions, best friends and sometimes just good listeners.

I’ve had many pets through the years, including cats, kittens, puppies and dogs.  As a child I had monkeys, alligators, parrots, cockatiels and even turtles and canaries. 

And yet I have never had a pet like JAC. 

I can’t cuddle or pet him.  I can’t let him fly loose around the house like I did our cockatiel, or talk with him, or even dress him up.  One might actually think he was a pretty sterile pet and in fact he lives in a Sterilite box!

Actually he lives in a cage that is placed in a translucent Sterilite box for two reasons.  One, he sheds feathers by the truckload and two, my apartment is too cold and drafty for him otherwise.  The top of his cage protrudes from the top so he can sit on his upper perch and look out.  He can even really see through the rest of it.  I know because I can see him through there too.

They said if I gave him a mirror he would think it was a female canary and stop singing, but if anything it has made his singing more full-throated and richer!  I think he believes the bird in the large mirror on the other side of the bars is simply in another cage.

I have never heard any creature sing like JAC does!  Of course, like all birds, he sings whenever there is any kind of talking or noise, but he does more.  When there is great music on he sings with it!

A full-fledged coloratura soprano with rich trills and runs who sings both pianissimo or forte depending on the music he hears, it is as if he knows the score!   Sometimes his songs bring tears to my eyes.

He is extraordinary.

You gotta have heart

I remember, as a child, hearing, “Money can’t buy everything.”

It used to be considered common sense to believe that, after all money can’t by life, or love, or health and it shouldn’t be able to buy death.

It seems a lot of people began to doubt these things during the last ten years.

There are now people in this world who appear to believe that if they have enough money the rules don’t apply to them.

It is hard to deny that when the rest of us bend over backwards letting them believe it.

We began handing over just about everything they asked for.  After all, they’re rich, that means they really know, right? 

Know about what?  Fair play?  Compassion?  Equity?  How hard the rest of us work to achieve just a modicum of what the rich take for granted?  

We are now beginning to reap the benefits of our actions.  Certain drugs are no longer available for everyone.  Unemployment is rampant despite all our bailouts.  Jails are so crowded that white-collar crime may be merely a token stay in a county jail.  

The valley between the haves and the have-nots grows daily, dug deeper by the people who can afford the biggest bulldozers, so I am truly heartened by Ohio’s voters.  They really rose to the occasion.

In this life

If I wait long enough and believe earnestly enough, failure is bound to occur!

Anything is likely under those conditions, but why set myself up for that.

Isn’t it better just to plow on ahead thinking all is well?

I mean as long as I’m not planting weeds, something is bound to pop up that will please somebody and you know, in today’s world even the weeds might bring a smile to someone’s face.

Personally I love nothing more than walking into a field and seeing it rampant with dandelions, violets, chickory, goldenrod, queen anne’s lace, all those things people seem to want to get rid of!

There’s nothing particularly great about suffering when you have a choice to do otherwise.

Relevant

Relevant, an interesting word meaning to be connected, to have some reasonable connection with what is going on.  It implies that whatever is happening has some kind of bearing on what is happening right now.  It is relevant!

Tonight time is relevant.  People all over the country are setting their clocks back an hour.   

Imagine having the power to reclaim an hour of your life!  If only it wasn’t limited to the last hour!  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could choose which hour to reclaim?

That day I stuck my foot in my mouth and nearly choked on what came out!  The moment when I leaped before I looked and landed in a really awkward spot!  Or maybe the time when I should have leaped, but spent so long thinking about it that it was all over before I jumped in!

Of course, if I could recall an hour now, then in the spring I’d like to double up on one glorious hour from the last year and maybe just revel in it a bit longer.

That kind of relevance is really only in my mind, but there are a million other ways to be more relevant.  

Whatever it is that gets me out of bed in the morning is very relevant!  The method I use for going to sleep has a relevance unrivaled by any others in my life.  The things that make me smile and feel good about myself are more relevant than one might believe.

How relevant can something, or someone be?

More than you might imagine!

Birthdays For Beloveds

When I think of my birthday I think of candles and cake and maybe balloons.  I think of getting older and presents and other things that make me feel childish and old all at the same time.

When I think of your birthday I think of how lucky I am that you were born.  I think of all the good things you’ve done in this world and how loved and good you make me feel.

Really your birthday makes me happier than my own because I love thinking about you and what you are in my life.

Just think, all those years ago you were born!  You were this little tiny baby squashed in between your parents like some kind of little love sandwich.  Everything you did amazed them.

You still amaze me.  That’s why I love celebrating your birthday.

I want you to know how important you are to me.

Quality verses Quantity

 If there is one thing I have learned it is that everyone has some sort of agenda.  Eye doctors think nothing is more important than every little test they can perform and heart doctors feel that without each one of their services a life is at risk.  Dentists are diehard fans of those things each one specializes in and so it goes.

Most of us understand that there is a limit.  Money is usually the first one.  Who can afford to do everything every dentist and doctor wants?  And experience has shown it isn’t even necessary.  Nearly forty years ago two very good dental experts told me emphatically that unless I had surgery on my gums right away my teeth were gone! 

Not only are they still here, they are in pretty good shape by anyone’s standards.

Limit number two is time.  If I went to every appointment and tried to do everything everyone told me; I would have time for very little else.

Limit number three is endurance.  There must be some quality to life and if most of it is spent obsessing over my health what is the point?

Life is a crapshoot.  Common sense and a sense of what is important to me are the guidelines I use.  I want quality over everything else.  Better ten years of this than thirty years of misery.

Only you can make the decisions that affect you, but better for it to be you than someone else.   If there is one place you need to be in charge, it is over your own life.