The joy of breathing

No one lives forever, but some people barely live at all.

The fear that I might look foolish, or be a bit reckless, or make someone else unhappy, or behave in a less than "adult" way, was incorporated into many people my age.  And in some places it is still a vital part of "growing up."

It is true that I need to be able to take care of myself, but that alone is not enough to live a wonderful life.  I am not a biological creature here only to breed, raise children and then slowly fade into oblivion.

For one thing, I am an example for those coming after me.  If I slowly draw inward like a little hermit crab, only exiting my shell when others need, or want me, that is a poor example of how to live joyfully.

Every moment that I draw a breath I have the possibility of learning something, or doing something, new.  It's not a test.  No one worth knowing is going to grade me on how well I do it.  It is the doing that is the most important.

I loved raising my children.  I doubt that I will ever do anything more important, or more fulfilling (and I made lots of mistakes along that way.) Now I am free to do a million more things and who knows how important they may be?

It should be against the law to bury people before they die.  The joy of waking up excited about life keeps us breathing a lot longer than people used to think.

Seize the second!

All my life I have heard phrases like, "Go for the gusto," "Seize the day," "Live life like it is your last day."

This week I experienced all these things and more. 

For eight days I rolled out of bed before seven and spent my day literally wallowing in love and water and scenery so beautiful it makes my eyes water just to think of it. 

There is no one as honestly droll as a pair of young grandchildren.  They could make me laugh with a single look, a gesture, a simple comment, and my granddaughter gave me enough hugs and kisses to last until next year. (If I have to wait that long.)

If you want lessons in living ask a three and four year old.  Their joie de vivre was contagious! Like children of old, they went out every day, appropriately dressed for puddle jumping and fun.

We watched an octopus eat his lunch just before we ate ours.  We got to pet sea urchins and prod anemones.  We watched fish on the bottom of the sound through a window at the aquarium. We went to parks that had zip line swings for children.

And my grandson was so excited when he opened his birthday present he shrieked with uncontrollable joy as he tore the paper off --he was still playing with it when I left.

Every detail is important. A birthday?  Everyone in the family took part in making a carrot cake from scratch!  Everyone! 

It is truly the journey that counts and this journey has been stunning.

Wake up call

I slept hard last night, dreaming of escaping from a demonic person who kept us (children) there with a large toy train engine and barbed wire fences.  We were watched over by another who kept us in line by watching our faces.  If we turned red, he knew we were lying and could fling us across the room with a flick of his finger.

I figured out how we could escape and we did, only we ended up at George's Candy Shop and they were both there.  We hid and I pointed my camera at them, but it wouldn't work, so we crept back to our prisoner status in fear, the toy train in sections we were madly trying to reassemble before they got back.

Still we knew it was in vain.  Our only hope was that they would not be too mad at us.

Suddenly I was awakened by the fact that I remembered a section in my Agee work that I didn't remember transcribing.  I lay there wondering if I was still dreaming and finally got up to check it out.  Sure enough I had not typed the teacher's remarks at the end of one of the papers!

Some people are saved by the bell, I was saved by Agee! (And so, I typed in the last of my transcription before my trip.)

Thankful

In the past I often tried to keep up this writing while I was away from home, but I am finding I prefer to be in the moment more often now and that is difficult when I have to interrupt what I am doing to find a computer and sit down for the time it takes to think of something to write about.

So I probably will not be writing My Thots until November 29th.  Although you never know!

I hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving and finds many things they are thankful for. 

I am thankful for almost every single thing in my life right now.  I am so grateful for those I love and their part in my life.  I love my home and my town, my volunteer jobs and even my new doctor.  I love that I can afford to pay the bills and bring home the bacon as well as travel some.  It's hard to imagine life being much better.

The best parts

I am fascinated by people who are good at something.

Of course people can be good at many somethings, but that just makes watching them, studying them, loving them, more fun.

I suppose in a sense that makes me a voyeur, but only in a good way.  I am not lurking outside your bedroom windows, or sneaking around your house.  I am just enjoying your pictures, your work, your public antics.

I read your work and wonder at your brilliance.

I look at your dog and smile.

I like the innocent way your pillows are piled up beside the dog on your bed in a picture on Facebook.

The inflections of your voice on the phone.

I love knowing what makes you laugh and cry. 

People are the best part of my life.

Coincidence?

Coincidences happen all the time.

It's almost like setting up a room full of dominoes and then knocking one down. If I knock the right one down, they all fall over.  Otherwise just one or two tip over.

I remember working in a flower shop.  No one would come in for hours.  Then one person would appear and suddenly we would be deluged by tons of shoppers.

Or I wait and wait for someone to respond to my text, then the moment I get up and walk away, my cell phone announces its arrival.

I have waited over two years for my life to get back on track and up until today it seemed that it might just become more cluttered.

But today my doctor offered me some hope in solving a problem and I suddenly realized that my life is starting to take on order and shape.  I am sewing up loose ends right and left.

I am back in the real world where I, myself, have some control over my own life and that feels really good.

oh so fleeting thoughts

I was shopping today when I saw one of those young girls who walks arms straight down at her sides, back perfectly straight, eyes preternaturally wide open, hair braided absolutely immaculately like a doll from the fifties and a doll like smile on her unmoving face.

She was probably 12 to 14 years old and with her adoring parents who were asking her opinion. She turned on one foot, never loosing the pose that spoke to me of a doll attached to a stand hidden under her arms from behind. Reaching with her left arm she pulled a picture frame from the shelf and pivoted back, presenting it to her parent.  Smile brightly pasted on her strangely emotionless face.

She was perfection.  Frightening perfection.  Animated doll-like perfection. If she had been older I might have thought she was over-botxed and  maybe even a Stepford wife, but she was a child, infinitely more terrifying than Wednesday Addams and yet, very like more and more girls and women I have been seeing lately.

When did plastic girl become popular?  This calculated look and lack of unconscious movement is more disconcerting than the usual self conscious actions of teens in the past.

I wonder if it is possible that she looks normal to her parents? Of course I didn't have time to watch mom or dad.  I was so taken aback by her I was afraid of looking too nosey, so I breezed on by looking for a fake Christmas tree and trying to decide if I wanted a real looking fake one, or an outrageously fake-fake one.

Maybe that's what the world is coming to.

Prince and his people

I met a rooster once, out in the far out countryside of Indiana.

He had his own hen house, a big structure with a screened in porch and a cozy little cottage for all his ladies who were madly laying eggs for him, so I have to believe he was one fine rooster by chicken standards.

He had a sleek white cape and gorgeous black back and saddle.  His comb was a deep rich red and so was his wattle, but it was his feet that really changed his life.  That and the perceptive people he lived with.

Those feet were just the color of human skin.  Soft suedey pale gams with handsome claws and toes.  He was a prince of a fellow and that was actually his name. Prince! A name he definitely deserved.

Prince, as you might surmise, ran both the hen house and the people house. He was wont to sit upon tables and eye the drinks and food of his people as well as march smartly through the large garden out back.

He also worked as a watch rooster, flying up to startle those who walked too close to the garden.

And on top of everything else, he was kind of cuddly, although I had to be gentle of all those fragile feathers and delicate bones, but I suppose you expect that with royalty like him.

Prince is the first rooster I ever really got to know personally, but he is one memorable bird!

Labor of love

I always think of "real" work as being manual.  Real work is my sister mowing the lawn, tearing down dead vines along her fence, scrubbing her kitchen floor with a cotton tip on her knees!

Real work is my sister coming for a visit with two of her friends and washing my windows inside and out. I am not a fan of "real" work.

Not that I don't enjoy mowed lawns and clean houses, I just don't enjoy getting them there, so I do what I have to do, but I save my energy for MY real work.

And even though I may spend ten hours a day doing it sometimes, I never really considered it "real" before. Partly because it is a labor of love and partly because I do it sitting down, often moving only my fingers, or perhaps my eyes.

But I have been sick the past two weeks and for the first time I have noticed that after one of these marathon moments, my headache comes back, my body is exhausted and I am starting to cough again.  I might as well have been out running around the block.

Except it wouldn't have been as much fun.

One drop of water

I have lived through some hard times in my life.  Times when I thought there was no hope.  Times when any improvement seemed so unlikely that I couldn't even imagine what it could be.

In the beginning I would sometimes despair to the point where I considered rash actions.

Looking back still gives me pause sometimes, but mostly now I can see that if I hadn't been there, I might not be here.  I sometimes amaze myself with my resiliency even if I can't see it except in hindsight.

I guess if I had a mantra for my life, it would be this, "This too will pass."

That got me through the biggest life change I ever had to make -- just barely.

Now, most of the time, those difficult times seem so far away I don't even really remember how awful they felt. But at the time they seemed like they went on forever.

The secret for me, is to grab hold of any bright spots as they fly by -- no matter how small, or how fleeting I know they will be.  On those days I am a thirsty woman in the desert, one drop of water seems meager, but I still scrabble for it.

Dream

Sometimes I am amazed at the ease with which I am moved, or touched.

A casual mention on the radio, a flashing thought after a commercial on television, a line in a book I am reading at bedtime, the scribbling of a man who died in 1955. . . all of these things burrow into my mind and morph into personal viruses.

They crawl into my creative consciousness, eating holes into memories so long forgotten I don't dare claim them as mine, opening worm holes into adventures I have yet to have.

I call them dreams. My body thinks they are real and maybe they are -- for the moment.  My heart races, I perspire, my muscles ache from the exertion.  My moods flow from terrified, to morose, to ethereally in love. 

I can see why some Native American tribes believed the dream world was the real one.  It certainly seems like a viable other-one.

I wonder if "crazy people" are only those who have got one foot stuck in both worlds, or if Rip Van Winkle was only vacationing in this chaotic world where the power of the human mind is recognized and realized in all its potential.

When I am asleep I experience the purest form of time present, time past and time immemorial.  It is kind of like playing a musical instrument.  I use the same fingers to play the keys, blow into the same hole, but it's only in tune when I get it just right and that is an infinitesimal difference in the shape of my lips, the direction of my breath, the speed with which I blow.

My dreams make me believe that life is much more malleable than I truly believe and that it is in the believing that these things come to pass.  You can't fake believing.

I suppose the next best thing is acting like I believe. In a way, that is like practicing.  The longer I do it, the better my chances are for discovering my own potential -- I just have to believe that is enormous.

The truth, or most of the truth

How much is truth worth?

My world has lots of little white lies because, no matter how hard I want to be totally truthful, a part of me is afraid of the unnecessary pain, or damage it might do.

And yet.

If I am not truthful, how much honesty can I expect from those I am around?

I tend to lean towards the idea that if it really isn't important then a little white lie is okay.  For instance, I honestly don't care how you wear your hair, or your clothes if it makes you feel better about yourself.  And yet, if those choices are going to hurt you career wise, or socially, isn't it kinder for me to express my opinion?

What if I voice my real concerns about something you are contemplating doing?  In a way I am only transferring my own experiences, insecurities, and worries to you when you many never experience those things at all.  Am I only causing you unnecessary sorrow, or am I helping by laying out my own problems?

Life is a series of decisions.  It is almost never black and white.  There are way more than fifty shades of gray between one thought and its polar opposite.

I would say that it all depends on how much my thoughts influence your life, but who ever really  knows how important their opinion is to someone else? 

In the end I think it pays to be as honest as possible all the time, but always temper the sharing of opinions with true love and kindness.

And even that is hard, because people tend to skew their feelings about what is loving and kind to fit their current mood, so perhaps the most important thing of all is:

Always be truthful to yourself.

Belonging

Up until 1999, when I thought of football, it was more likely to be about the time I lost my shoe playing in the band and marching around the track before our Homecoming game.

In 1999 I met someone who was a huge fan of the St.Louis Rams.  What a team and what a year!  I thought all football was people running the length of the field to make a touchdown, or perhaps throwing the ball halfway there first where it would be adeptly caught.  Kurt Warner and Marshal Faulk became as familiar to me as Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever.

Last year I began to follow the Crimson Tide at the University of Alabama.  Bestest teaches there and his enthusiasm caught me up almost immediately. College football is different than the NFL, but it has an excitement all it's own and if you want to watch it, Bama is one of the best.

My old self would never believe that I was up tonight, groaning and cheering through an agonizing game that was tied up right until the end when LSU was three points ahead until The Tide tied it up again in the last seven seconds.  Then, in overtime, after being reconciled to loosing, we won!

This game was nearly four hours long and they were not fun hours.  One of the announcers equated it with a game in 2011 where sixteen players were later inducted into the NFL, meaning both teams were so good and so evenly matched that it kinda looked like a comedy of errors to me.  Good players were dropping the ball and doing things I've seldom seen them do. It was awful and yet, I couldn't turn off that television and go to bed.

I don't understand how I can feel so happy watching someone else play a game, but I do. It's as if I am part of that team in some way and have achieved a personal triumph.When I was younger I was only interested in Tennis and even then, mostly only if I was playing. Team sports didn't interest me.  The idea that a bunch of other people might rely on me to carry the team forward, or that my mistake could lay them all low, was too terrifying to contemplate.

And the idea that I would care to watch what I could not do, seemed ridiculous.  Perhaps now the fact that I really long to play tennis changes things?  But . . . I think it is more than that.  I think that I enjoy it now because I am familiar with the players and the rules and, too, I am old enough that I can't really play any sport, so the Crimson Tide fills up all these little holes in me and makes me feel like I belong too.

Belonging is nice -- even if it is only in my head.

Manufacturing reasons

It is so much easier to change a word, a name, a story, than it is to change an idea, an action, or a  belief.

Society sanitizes words to make them more palatable, but as long as a need remains for special words, the situations from which they arose, still exist.

As long as we are counting, categorizing, naming, distinguishing something as unique, different, strange, needing special consideration, that situation still is.

People have always been wary of differences.

Not understanding something causes us to draw together into similar groups and it is when we begin to categorize our differences instead of our similarities that we set ourselves up for the long haul of ignorance and loss.

There are so many obstacles already in this world and each of them keeps us from finding the cure for cancer, the way to fight viruses, the way to feed the world wholesome food, the knowledge to live together in peace, the ability to live in the utopia earth could be.

Manufacturing more reasons to keep these things at bay by pretending the color of person's skin, the nationality they are born to, the person they choose to love, the size of their body, or it's shape, or any of a thousand other surface differences, makes any real difference in our basic humanity as human beings, keeps us all suffering.

There are people out there who still believe these things do matter and until we find a way to educate them, their ignorance holds us all back.  Changing a word may draw attention to the fact that things are changing, but it also indicates that we have a long way to go.

The day my cell phone died

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how that phone used to make me smile
And I knew if I could text
My friends would not be vexed
And maybe they'd be happy for a while

But when those cups fell on my phone
Shattering every word I honed
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step

I can't remember if I cried
When the crystal was cracked and fried
But something touched me deep inside
The day my cell phone died

[Chorus]
So bye-bye, Verizon good bye
Drove my Honda to the store, but the store was sly
And them good old boys were waitin on friends and guys
Singin' "She is stuck and her hands are tied
She is stuck and her hands are tied"

Now for two years I've been sittin at home
And no one grows happy on a broken phone
But that's not how they said it would be
In a store where it they sold it to me

Oh, and when I moved out farther from town
The bars just slowly slid down
The texts were so slow they adjourned
No verdict was ever returned

And while others talked on phones and texted
Verizon left me in the dark
And I begged for bars in the park
The day my cell phone died

I flew to AT& T today
They waited on me right away
And the plan was less than I now pay
For a phone that never worked anyway

 [Chorus]
So bye-bye, Verizon good bye
Drove my Honda to the store, but the store was sly
And them good old boys were waitin on friends and guys
Singin' "She is stuck and her hands are tied
She is stuck and her hands are tied"

Lucky

Once upon a time doctors were readily available to almost everyone, as long as they could find one.

There were a few glory years when doctors were available and affordable.

The past twenty years has seen the decline of modern medicine.  Doctors were, and are, being substituted for by Nurse practitioners.  Nurse practitioners can be very well educated and they are more willing to spend time with patients.  They are also cheaper, or were.  Now many people pay for doctors, but see nurse practitioners and there is a difference.

One big difference are the years of schooling and training.  Nurse practitioners get a four year degree and then another 2-4 years.  A doctor gets eight years plus extra training, up to 14 years total, and the end result can be huge.

I could not get, or afford insurance for the last fifteen years, so I was grateful for whatever medical attention I could get, or afford. Our local clinic was good.

Now that I qualify for medicare and have a supplemental PPO I can afford to go to a doctor of my choice and my prescriptions are free.  The small amount I pay for the PPO is about what I paid for the prescriptions in the past, so I come out way ahead.  A fifteen dollar copay gives me access to a full fledged doctor who seems to really care and makes the time to do what is necessary, including calling me herself this morning!

I couldn't be happier, but it is a shame that everyone in this country cannot have this same experience.  I get it because I am retired . . . and probably just pretty lucky.

Creative Ailing

Nothing is as boring as health issues -- unless you are not feeling well.

Then my imagination kicks into overtime.  I find myself imagining all sorts of awful things and yet, history tells me that almost every one of them was a wrong guess in the past.

Right now I am battling a bad cold, dealing with plantar fasciitis, and now my new doctor, who I like very much so far, is trying to find the right blood pressure medicine for me, so that is an issue.

Any and all of them can affect the others.  Standing up, lying down, walking, even breathing, or talking is an issue right now.

Stopping my old blood pressure medicine can cause a headache.  So can a cold. Add to that, I am not going into school this week.  I just don't feel good enough.

Now I have all the time I need to obsess over and research dire diseases. Creative Ailing 101 is my specialty. In fact, I could probably write a book called: Everything you ever wanted to know about what you don't have.

So . . . instead I guess I should get back to transcribing.  All the puzzles hidden in these tiny half formed scratchings should keep my mind off of me!

Old timer's lament

It's not enough that my heel feels bruised (plantar fasciitis) or that my allergies are causing my eyes to gum up, or that my voice is gone due to a head cold, but now I am coughing and running a low grade fever.

Add that to the worry of missing my volunteer jobs and that I want to be healthy when I go to visit my grandchildren later this month.

And . . . add to that my fear that I won't be able to get through the airport on the bum heel and my mouth is full of sensitive places that show up when I am nervous about things.

As I grow older I heal slower.

I don't have to do as much as I used to, but I WANT to do pretty much the same as always, so if I thought I had developed patience and tolerance before, now is the time to really hone those things.

On the edge of a great big sneeze

It has been a strange weekend.  Pleasant in most respects, but unusual.

My brother and his son dropped in unexpectedly and surprised me.  Bestest called yesterday and today, like he usually does.  My youngest son called to chat. I skyped with my youngest grandchildren; and their father, my older son, sent me beautiful pictures of the family outing up on Puget Sound.

I have seldom been so well loved and thought about in such a short period of time. 

In between all this love and attention I have either worked on transcribing, or sat half-asleep and ill in my big recliner. I have a head cold of mammoth proportions and no amount of steaming, or vitamin C, or Coricidan helps much.

I have almost no voice and even my youngest granddaughter mentioned that I probably had lots of germs!

If only the people at school felt the same way and stayed home when they had "germs."

I am going to Seattle for my birthday and Thanksgiving and don't want to be sick!

On the up side, I am seeing a new doctor for the first time tomorrow, but it's supposed to be just a well person check up and a refill of my prescriptions.  I hope that's all it turns out to be.

Generational puzzles

I've known several people, in my life, who enjoyed doing puzzles.  Jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, seek and find puzzles, even three dimensional puzzles like Rubik's cubes and those old wooden cubes and spheres.

I've never considered myself a real puzzle aficionado.  I leave a crossword book in the bathroom and I've done a few jigsaw puzzles in my lifetime, mostly with children because they are good for building pre-reading skills.

I never realized that the most difficult puzzle in the world, the one that challenged every part of my mind would be transcribing.

Transcribing the miniscule, hand written work of a man about the same age as my grandfather turns out to be the most difficult thing I've ever done.

Not only is the script small and hastily scribbled so that just making out the letters and words can be almost impossible, but there are bigger problems.

If he were to try and make sense of my work , even though it is carefully typed, I suspect he might have some of the same difficulties.

The jargon, the popular phrases, magazines and books, the slang, even the nicknames for the musicians and writers as well as the trending hobbies are so different from generation to generation and when one generation is skipped it can become almost impossible to figure out.

Thank goodness for the Internet, it is the best tool I have beyond my own imagination, but this transcribing is the hardest puzzle I could ever imagine.