Football

Football!  It is amazing how little it had to do with my childhood.  My father believed, truly believed, that it was an insanely dangerous game and refused to allow my brothers to play.  No one in our house watched sports unless it was the local little league when my brothers were young or a holiday when one of my uncles was there.

This did not make my brothers happy and one of my nephews was the local quarterback whose fame carried him as far as he wanted to go.

I became interested in football when the Rams had that unbelievable 1999 season and so I thought it was a lively game where players ran the field end to end and made amazing plays.  It was a fairytale year, almost a caricature of  game I've never seen played that way again.

Now I am more interested in college football, specifically the Alabama Crimson Tide.  "Roll Tide!"  the way Tuscaloosians say good morning!  It doesn't matter where in the country I am, if I see  a Bama shirt I know if I shouted out, "Roll"  they will respond, "Tide!"

I admit that I like the idea of football more than the actual games.   The energy, the way it pulls communities together, a game that rivals mythic wars astounds me.  It is stirring, fascinating and frightening to watch our modern day gladiators out there defending their cities and schools.  While the local goddesses urge them on with gymnastics and shouts that bring the Lorelei to mind.  These are the university royalty, the ones who bring in the money and keep the doors of higher education open.

Football season starts and I am settling in to continue my observations of these amazing anomalies that rule the weekends like nothing else I know.

The Virtual Grandmother

Remember The Electric Grandmother?  I loved that show, because I like the idea that someone will always be here, they can never die, or get sick, or move away, or turn away. . . and then she left!  Because they were grown up and her job was finished.  That still makes me sad.  I don't think you ever outgrow the need for a forever person to love and care for you, to hold you and make you feel safe.

It made it seem that life has rules, that things always have strings, that nothing and no one is forever, so you should never get too comfortable, or take anything for granted.

A small part of me is still afraid that is true, but another part of me says some things are forever and forever and forever, if I only have eyes to see them and a heart that recognizes them.

I felt that when I adopted my oldest son, that he was mine as surely as if he'd been carried under my heart for a million years and I feel it now when I look into the eyes of my granddaughter and grandson. 

I am a modern day version of the electric grandmother, a smiling face on the Skype program on a computer and my grandchildren seem perfectly at ease with that.  We laugh and talk.  We play.  I read them books and they sit there, chins on their hands, eyes intently looking at the pictures while I read.  It's the best we can do given the situation and it's pretty darn good.  I even get a hug and kiss when we turn off.

I am the virtual grandmother, but I am real.  I know that and they seem to too.

Little things mean so much

It is amazing what a simple phone call, text, or skype can do to improve someone's day.

I can't imagine what it was like in the olden days to grow old alone, far away from those you love.

Even in my youth a long distance phone call cost enough that many people could rarely make them and then only for a few minutes.  Today the words "long distance call" are almost meaningless.

In my Great grandmother's day (she was born around 1868) you might get a letter a few times a year.

I wake up to my best friend's texting almost every single morning.  It's what gets me out of bed.  Later on, if I'm lucky he will call and chat a bit.  It makes my day so much brighter.

My children text me a few times a week and I get to skype with my grandchildren fairly often now,  play with them as they build things and run around, dancing and talking to me.  It's not the same thing as being there, but they live more than 2000 miles away.

These are blessings not taken for granted in any way.

Giving me, the things I need

Apples never fall far from the tree -- unless they make a very concerted effort.

Cause the apples in that tree just assume they are doing it right, like all the apples before them -- right back to Johnny Appleseed.

But there's a secret many of them don't know -- it's that little grafted limb that made all the difference.

Daring to be different,  grow a little bigger and rounder, a little sweeter and smarter, will take you a long way.

Forgiveness

How often are people blinded by ideas, concepts and self deception rather than reality?

Watch an old woman's hand start to shake when her beloved son enters the house, or an old man shoved against the wall in his own home and talk about forgiveness.

Forgiveness will not change the perpetrator who goes merrily on transferring his pent up anger to first one and then another victim.  None of which are as apparent as those where he has total control, but all of which are dangerous.

There is a time and a place to walk away rather than forgive because forgiving has no meaning.  What is being forgiven?  Nothing has changed.  Innate meanness and anger are still there, perhaps lightly covered over for self serving reasons, but still there.

Knowing and doing nothing makes both parties guilty.

Quality of life

Life is a series of changes.  Everything changes.

I learned early on that houses change, people change, schools change, even preferences change, but the secret lies in loving through these changes.

Most things are not forever.  Knowing that and living through it, is hard.  There is a grieving period when something important changes, like a little death has occurred.

Except that as long as there is life there is possibility.

The important thing is to preserve the quality of life.

In a nutshell

Life goes on

Matter deteriorates

Wisdom stockpiles a little at a time

Morals, ethics and belief systems protect me from the dark side

And playing makes it all worthwhile.

Old and older

Growing older is deceptively more complicated than it appears to younger people.

If I could just dye my hair, have my wrinkles smoothed out, wear younger looking clothes, it would be one thing.  Those are things I can do for a while.

Eventually, though, I discover there is a more insidious process going on.

Things break a little easier, bruise a little easier, hurt a little more, like a swimming pool with a slow leak, it isn't apparent right away, but that doesn't mean it isn't happening.

And healing is slower, less efficient, kind of like blowing up that giant raft for the river.  When I started it was so easy.  Now I am tireder, more out of breath.

And then there is that feeling of frustration I feel on those days I feel really good and look in the mirror to see someone much older looking back at me.

Nothing quite prepares me for any of this.  In the past I only needed to try a little harder, wait a little longer, begin again . . .

And I do begin again, just this time I don't get to go back as far as I once could.

It becomes obvious that even I will grow old and older and the only alternative to that is not a good one.

Hard work

Children are incredible little people, so trusting, so full of belief and hope.

Tell them that if they do this and this and this, then this will happen, and they believe you.

We need to make sure it is true.  Go to school, work hard, persevere,  and you will have a good life.

It should not matter if they have to work sweeping floors at a fast food place, or as the CEO of a major company.   People who say entry level jobs were never meant to support an adult are missing the point.  If everyone has a little money to spend, believe me, they will spend it.

Companies whose top echelon make millions vastly underestimate how much they contribute to the poverty of this country.

Poverty of health, life and spirit.

Thirteen year employees, working 60 hour weeks and still struggling to pay the mortgage or rent, let alone buying any extras like new shoes for school, or a warm coat in the winter for a family of three is a sad benefit of being a loyal employee of these people.

Where do the children of these people learn about the value of hard work?

The good librarian

I went to the library today
The librarian was dressed in gray
From hair to shoes she grinned and schmoozed
No matter what I did say.

I asked for Uncle Tom's Cabin
She told me she had nothin
Her stomach it growled although she was proud
And then I really knew somethin.

If you go to the library at noon
An' the librarian's holding a spoon
She'd rather eat peas then crawl on her knees
Looking for books for a loon.

But she did it anyway.

Mirror mirror

Sometimes life is as simple as moving away from the mirror.

Disney's magic mirror was happy to stir things up by telling everyone who was the fairest in the land and people were so serious about it that they were willing to poison each other to change things.

I am so far past thinking I can win any kind of beauty competition that no one would think I'd care if there was a mirror in the house or not, but like a friend recently said, "Sometimes you just need a mirror."

And you do!

However, sitting in front of a mirror while you watch television is a whole other thing.

I've been sitting there for over three months.  Looking at this orangutang type creature sprawled out in her chair with baggy eyes and sagging jowls and growing more and more depressed.

Last night and today I switched everything around!  Now I may wake up and see myself in that mirror, but probably not.  I seldom open my eyes much before that first cup of coffee and I will now drink that on the other side of the room facing my television, or bathroom, or pictures -- but not that awful reflection of me.

I feel better already.

You

I hold you up to the light and see the world through the filter of you.

Don't underestimate how clear you are, how solid and vibrant and warm.

You think you are just ordinary, but what an extraordinary ordinary that is!

I reach out and you fill my hands with me

That I would be so valuable to you makes me think that maybe I am okay.
 
My tears magnify the wisdom of your being

Showing me ways I never thought possible until now

And I am carried away on this journey that seemed all uphill before.

Social media

Social media sites bring the thoughts of people we never used to hear from into view and sometimes it surprises me.

Among the shared pictures of children and families are bits of "wisdom," "inspiration," and comments that I find enlightening.  Not so much because of what they say, but because of the person who chose to share them.  I wonder what prompted this sharing.  What was it about this particular piece that made them want to attach their name to it and share with the world?  It is a fascinating look into their thought processes.

Then I look at all the sad little pictures of people trying to look "alluring" and "sexy," or engaged in "having a wildly fun time."  And I wonder why they are trying so hard to get this superficial momentary bit of fame?

I read the comments and the lack of adjectives and adverbs stands out like mud on a new clean carpet.  The shock value of the only word many people use has been totally lost by now.  It has become the vernacular of those with no access to more interesting and descriptive words.  Boring to the nth degree, it also categorizes the person using it.

I learn which causes are important to some people, who can present these things in rational and logical ways and which people are legitimately funny or entertaining.

Social media has become the billboard of the masses.  Anyone with access to a computer can now put themselves out there for all the world to see.  We are torn between trying to be honest by sharing our insecurities and thoughts and wanting to present a side of us that exists mostly in our minds.

We are all children, frighteningly needy and charmingly open . . .

It's raining

Today it is raining water.  Yesterday it was raining blessings!

Bestest woke me up with exactly the kind of chit chat I needed to hear.

My best friend locally showed up unannounced just to give me a hug!

I got to spend quality time with the Spelling Fairy and her side kick, Sam the builder as well as their great daddy on Skype.

Then it was off to the bakery to pick up a cake and gather up the people for a sweet little birthday party that started out in a restaurant and ended up in my apartment.

I dropped my last guest off at home around 9:30 and came home to post the pictures and go to bed.

This is the dream becoming real.

Angels among us

Sometimes, right when you need it the most, an angel shows up at your door with a hug and an armload of books she's written.

A moment in time that can make a lifetime of difference.

Who am I

One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Fiddler on the Roof when Tevye says, "May God bless and keep the Tsar . . . far away from us."

My opinions, my tastes, my preferences, each one of my every day choices define me as a person just as not having these things defines me.

I cannot escape the life style I choose.

What I need to remember is that I chose it.

The people I keep close to me, the way I display myself to the world, the way I conduct my own personal affairs is a statement -- to me if no one else.

I can make excuses for everything, but this is who I am.

A ton of feelings

I just realized what a huge bag of "stuff" comes with being over weight.

It feels terrible to be over weight.   In my inner most mind it shows that I lack will power and self respect and the ability to do things in an intelligent and logical way.

It feels bad to be hungry, like there's some kind of hole that needs filling -- not just with food, but specific kinds of food that I associate with comfort.

It is depressing to feel full, even though what I just ate was a salad full of greens and vegetables with no dressing a all.  Why?  Because it feels like it does when I over ate in the past and it was all the wrong things, the ones that put this weight on.

It is harder to exercise when just putting on socks is a long, breath taking reach and the back is tired five minutes after it stands up and the feet ache before they are even on the ground.

The feelings probably weigh more than the pounds!

So I go a little bit at a time, trying to be positive with every tiny milestone.  I get on the exercise bike for fifteen minutes -- frequently.   I did not eat toast for breakfast.  I -- the list goes on and on and that's really a good thing.

Somehow I have to unlearn all the bad stuff if I want this to be the last time I need to lose so much weight.

The weight of the world

Feelings are the gravity of the mind,

Allowing it to soar or lie dormant in a cave of bone and brain.

Discerning the world with sharp edged clarity,

Cutting deeply into the senses of those, blessed or not, who have a gift for seeing.

The toothy grin, the silent smirk, the insanely huge guffaw are only shields

Reflecting back Medusa's weighty truth

Hoping it will make a difference.

But it is like using an eye dropper to empty the ocean . . .

Parody

I find myself wanting to write a parody today.

My life is just overflowing with the fodder for one.

Funny take offs on sad subjects, family foibles that belong in white plastic bags set out at the curb before dawn.

Stories with fake names and occupations to protect the guilty and hide them from themselves.

Tales from the dark side that make me laugh so I don't cry and run screaming with the horror of their reality.

Girl friends

We set our children up for failure.

Boy friends and girl friends before thirteen, then what?

Married by eighteen (or pregnant before?)

Divorced by thirty because they weren't fully formed before the marriage vows and now they aren't even the same people?

And burdened forever with children born to immature parents.  Children who will probably grow up making the same mistakes because either no one knows any better, or they don't really care.

It's time someone in the family grows up and looks at the life long ramifications of these actions.  I doubt if anyone really wants to curse their child with a long miserable life because no one helped them make the right decisions when they were still children.

Yes, I'm angry.  Love should not be selfish.

Dream a little dream for me

Seven years old and the teacher says, "Write a story.  Use your imagination."  I see my classmates sitting there and I assume they are doing what I am.

What am I doing?  Why trying desperately to decide which one of my many ideas to use!

My imagination is like a race horse, chomping at the bit, raring to go, wanting to get out there and do what is was born to do.

My biggest challenges are often trying to figure out what I am "supposed" to be doing.  I'm not always good at reading other people's faces, or deciphering their words.  Otherwise my world is a flood gate of possibilities.

And when I go to sleep?  That is when my imagination really takes advantage of me!

As a youngster I had night terrors.  I was a sleep walker of gargantuan proportions.  My dreams were written by a Machiavellian creator who drew from the slightest echoes touching my life.  Sometimes I still do all these things, or even have dreams that remain for a few minutes after I wake up.

My amygdala is alive and well and may even have a mainline stream with my actual consciousness, but I have control over it when I'm awake.  Asleep is a whole different story.

No lucid dreaming for me.  I have only done that once or twice.  But my dreams really are pretty well structured stories with beginnings, endings and some drama in the middle.  If I could do the lucid thing I might never wake up.

I've often wondered if people who are labeled "crazy" or "senile" are really exhibiting signs that their dream wall has been breached.  If it is I want to be able to dream pleasant things so when the dream time takes over, life will still be good.

Happy hunting

A tiny bright yellow gold finch spent nearly five minutes checking me out today.  It flew up to my middle window where there is no screen and observed me, then flew up close to the open window with a screen.   It did these things several times.  In between it sat on my porch railing quizzically looking around.  I'm not sure why he was here, but these thoughts came to me shortly afterwards.

I think I'm going joy hunting today.

I might start with a zen laugh and move from there into happy contemplations.  Memories of good things, letting the not so good ones go once more -- and maybe forever.

Then perhaps I will just look for beautiful scenery, gorgeous skies, breath taking clouds, and lovely old trees.

And if all this fails I shall find a book that makes me smile and sigh with contentment.

Just wait

When darkness comes before sunset and weariness overwhelms the light

It is so easy to forget the warmth that manifests beyond all comprehension

So easy to think it is only a dream, only a thought, a passing moment in a world where life is mis-measured in dollars and pounds and everything except what it is.

Waiting, I thought it was the myth, but after tasting, I knew it was the truth and still I find it hard during the dark times to remember . . .

That all is well and all is well and all is very well and the universe cares for those open enough to believe that.

Bless this mess

It is amazing how much havoc one small spider can wreak in an apartment.

Every piece of clothing is on the bed or hanging from the exercise bike.  My shoes are all on the bed.  The suitcase is lying on the floor topped by some of my purses. The keyboard lies against the door and things like my lock box, sewing kit, and sewing machine are stacked neatly around the room.

I have lived here three months and just did next year's spring cleaning -- all because a spider the size of a quarter was crawling up above my patio door. 

I don't know where he came from, but it could have been from the closet and after eleven years of battling mice, slugs, spiders the size of my hand and centipedes that probably had ten thousand legs, I have zero tolerance for sharing my abode with creatures that make no sound and appear with startling speed when I least expect them.

After that I took a bath, slipped, and filled the bathroom with a deluge that would have made Captain Ahab wince.  Now I am washing towels and bath mats and one very soaked terry bathrobe.

Yesterday I was putting a single serving of orange juice in the refrigerator.  Allowing myself only a third of a bottle each day, I was truly looking forward to drinking it for breakfast.  But . . . as I placed in on the shelf, it crashed to the floor, the lid flew off and orange juice poured, splashed and dripped all over the kitchen.  Sugary, sticky, orange juice that I didn't even get to drink!

At this moment I find myself reluctant to even turn on a faucet, or making a cup of coffee.  I'm afraid that if I do it will end up anywhere it doesn't belong.

I am truly considering just going to bed.

Nothing is perfect

My father's sense of humor was so dry that it is a wonder I had one at all.  My first word was "Ahem," accompanied by raised eyebrows and a slight clearing of the throat.

I didn't cry, just tapped my tiny fingers impatiently on the nearest sounding board and when I learned to walk, it was with the sure knowledge that one didn't down off an elephant, but off a duck.

I took everything he said literally.  When he said a dollar was ten dimes or a hundred pennies, I thought he said "and" and decided that dollars were very cumbersome things.  He never had many and I could see why.

I asked him about ghosts one day and his answer was vaguer than they were.  From that day on I was afraid of things I couldn't discern.

I asked him where I came from.  He started talking about eggs and "worms" and I was sure he'd thought I asked about chickens.  My mother's story about a field where you could pick babies made much more sense.

I grew up in a strange place where dragons and deserts fielded my questions with an irony that left me persistent and prickly.

And the one sure thing I took away from it was that nothing is perfect -- except Dad -- he told me so.

Bang bang you're dead

I just read an article about a pregnant woman who was accidentally killed while looking at a friend's gun collection.  I was shocked on so many levels.

First of all, the article appeared to be written by someone who had no writing skills at all.  It jumped from one topic to another and back again, listing events and comments in some kind of random order, one might expect to hear, not from a professional news service,  but between two gossips over the backyard fence.

This is a serious matter.  It is manslaughter, whether it was an accident or not.

Guns in the hands of the wrong people are much more dangerous than other toys people feel they are entitled to own and play with.

I think when someone is shot at, or with, a gun, then both the person using the gun and the person the gun is registered to should be held accountable to the full extent of the law.  They are equally guilty in my eyes.

Cause of death?  Didn't lock the gun cabinet.  Didn't OWN a gun cabinet.  Goofed.  Accident.  Anger.

It doesn't really matter to the dead.

The gossip stops here

This is the south, and we're proud of our crazy people. We don't hide them up in the attic. We bring 'em right down to the living room and show 'em off.  ...   Julia Sugarbaker on Designing Women.

The north is a little different.  We tend to sanitize,  glorify,  or even mythologize our family members, crazy or not.

My maternal great great grandma was an Indian "princess."  Great great grandpa was not a rambler and a rover.  He was a pirate whose fame made him wanted on all seven seas! So he sailed to America, changed his name, and married that Indian princess.

My paternal great grandpa grew up making antiques in a flat right over where Jack the Ripper killed his last victim.  (His job was to put the worm holes in the tables.)

Aunt Mathilda, who had a tendency to run up bills no one could pay, was born so small they put her in a cigar box and kept her in the cookstove till she was big enough to survive.

There is also a fair amount of envy behind the talk of rich old Uncle Bosworth whose girth exceeded that of four other people and whose smell preceded him by three counties.

These are the funny stories, the cute ones, the ones that we can all smile about because they are so far (in the past.) There is a lot more despair and fear, sarcasm and embarrassment when we talk about those family members still alive, and well, and dragging the family on a long rope behind them as they stagger in and out of the doors of the funny farm, jail, and poor house.

If I remember that the success of the rest does not diminish me, nor does their failure make me any better, life is no fun at all.

Normal woman

In the past year I have been in Nachitoches, Louisiana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, Nashville, Tennessee, St. Louis, Missouri, Knoxville, Tennessee, Denver, Colorado, Austin, Texas and Bloomington, Illinois.  Now I am a Normal woman --  Normal, Illinois, that is.

The fact that I drove myself to these places means that I was actually in many more cities and states along the way.  Travel agrees with me as do the friends I travel to see.

It is a way I enjoy living, the solitary traveler going to visit family and friends.  Free as a bird on the highway yet always connected by head and heart to incredible people.

Who could ask for much more than this from life?

Water under the bridge

The nineteen eighties and nineties were the age of blaming.  Counselors were rabidly after everyone and anyone who might take the edge off their client's problems.  It seemed right at the time.

Distance yourself from family members who may have caused you pain.  Confront those whose behavior made your life miserable.  Seek healing in the form of righteous revenge. 

Right, wrong, or simply desperate, I don't think it really solved many problems.

By the time it happened it was water so far under the bridge that even stopping it was probably a moot point because many of the perpetrators were too old to still be actively abusing their victims.  It did bring things into an awareness, which may have given future abusers pause for thought, but I don't think most of these people think about consequences much anyway.  They just act.

In the end, most people don't need revenge, they need healing.  They need to find a way into the light so they can move onward and upward.  Understanding why someone would do the horrible things people do to each other is simply asking why bad things happen to good people.

It seems to make more sense to make sure good things happen in the future.  There will always be crazies, but maybe there will be fewer of them if the next generation is raised in light and love.

Like you

Sometimes a person knows exactly who he or she is and sometimes they are only looking for validation and excuses.

In my nearly 65 years as a human being, I have discovered that people usually have a pretty good idea of who they are.

If they like it, they are generally pretty easy to be around, because that liking carries over into everything else.  If they don't like it, they can be real pains in the you know what.

Not liking yourself is not the same thing as being humble.  In fact, some of the most pompous people I know are trying to convince me of something they don't believe themselves.

But those people who are comfortable in their own skins, those people who know who they are, what they are doing, and why they are doing it, are some of the finest people I know.