I am . . .

I am a grandmother. I am a mother. I am a sister, an aunt, a volunteer, and the list goes on, but today I realized one more thing -- I am a chameleon!

I was reading out loud, editing, paying attention to both the text and the sound, looking for anything left out, or typed wrong. This particular piece was filled with the prayers for communion and before long I was back in full churchy mode. Back to the time when my life was consciously governed by prayers and meditations that ran through my head almost continuously while showering, or vacuuming, or doing the dishes.

I take a break every ten pages or so and steam my sinuses for five minutes, because even though this is my favorite time of year, it is allergy season. Today, instead of counting my breaths to keep track of the time, I found myself singing the old prayers and meditations in my head. I'm like that. If I spend a few days with my siblings I find myself back in full country twang. When I volunteer in an elementary school I fall right into positive redirection and conflict negotiation. Wherever I am I am quickly assimilated. That's just who I am.

This changeable personality could be a liability, but although I may appear to become one with the moment and intensely dislike confrontations and scenes, there is, within me, a definite sense of right and wrong that monitors my breaking point. I may look like part of a group but my head is often observing as well as participating.

Like a chameleon my outward appearance fits in, but my inner porcupine never goes away!

At home

Not working requires a great deal of discipline if I want to be happy.

Going to work everyday makes people get up at a certain time, shower, dress, leave the house, do particular things for most of the day with a lunch hour tucked neatly into the middle. Coming home means doing those necessary chores before going to bed and doing it all over again.

There are decisions, but the regulation is there and the sense of having accomplished something is there, you feel justified in building your life around this job. It pays the bills, it performs some sort of service, it can be both a blessing and an excuse not to do other things.

Not working, or really just staying home, because, with rare exceptions, we all work, gives me a lot of freedom and that is not always a blessing. Now I have no excuses. I am the boss. I write the schedule. I am responsible to myself and for myself.

Not everyone thrives in this sort of situation. It means I need to regulate my own time. I must decide which things are the most important and in what order they should be done. My feelings of self worth rely on the sense that I am a productive, useful member of society who can take care of myself. I am accountable only to me, but that means I must be capable of saying no on my own, without feeling the need for back up or a reason like a job.

 I think staying home can be a lot harder than going out to work. I need to be strong enough to deal with the people who think I am doing nothing. I need to keep myself focused and know what is really important to me, then do it!

If I can manage all this, it makes me happy.

Pictures and words

I tried to do some research on "a picture is worth a thousand words," but most of what I found was only speculation, except for the fact that some man introduced the idea while writing about the effectiveness of graphics in advertising.  That makes sense to me.

 "The big picture" can quickly convey a glancing idea to everyone in spite of what language they speak, whether or not they can read, and even if they just get a glance at it driving by.

I'll admit that a great picture, a piece of art, can convey much more. All the shapes and shades and colors can lead to many hours, perhaps even a lifetime of thoughtful perusal and enjoyment.

Words are different. Words take me deeper. They can describe feelings and nuances that a picture really can't get into. They can pinpoint the author's exact meaning, no guessing required. They can present possibilities that might be related to this scene that I might not think of on my own.

I love how some books use words to describe a place, or situation in ways that allow me to "see" it with my own my mind. It is like a custom made story.

As much as I love pictures and I have a bookcase of albums filled with them, I think pictures and words depend on the situation.  Sometimes I want to fall into Monet's lily ponds and sometimes I want to be engulfed by a good book.

The names don't matter

The sun comes up every day. Whether I see it or not, it is there. I know it is there because it always has been and I am alive and breathing. The sun is the sun no matter what I call it. It does what it does whether I know what that is, or not. The names don't matter.

There is the same amount of water on earth as there was in the beginning. It comes around, goes around, lies stagnant in some algae ridden pond, but it's here. Like it or not I am sharing the same water that other life forms all over the earth are using. All kinds of people, mammals, reptiles, trees, plants and mountains full of minerals have touched this water that is now inside of me. We are the same in some ways. Our names do not matter.

The bounteous, luxuriant, varied numbers of life forms on earth all depend on each other by being born into being, drawing sustenance from the earth, dying and feeding all that comes after it. The cycle I call life goes on and on and on, intermingling at the most basic of levels. Our common denominator shows we are one. A name just describes the way the building blocks come together.

 The earth is old, the sun is ancient, the universe has age beyond comprehension and the creator of it all, by any name, is indiscernible.

I want to name this creator. I want to define it and find my little niche of power within the confines of this creator, but it is so much more than me that all I can do is try to fall into its arms and let it be, confident that I am part of something bigger than anything I can imagine and the names don't matter.

Magnified

Imagine waking up in the morning and you can't put any weight on your ankle, or knee, or lift much with your elbow, or your pointer finger. Sometimes even the joints of your big toes hurt when they bend.

That is the story of my life. Even as an athletic younger person I had this problem.

There may be a reason, but I don't know what it is. There have been many guesses, but none of them really make sense. In the long run, it is just who I am. Who I have always been.

Until recently this was a condition I pretty much accepted. Long narrow bones connected by weak tendons seems to be my lot in life.

Lately, though, I find myself frustrated and even angry.  I do everything I know to do and my body just keeps reacting poorly.

I think people think that I don't walk enough because I am lazy, but that's not true. I would love to be outside walking! It's easier on earth than concrete, but the unevenness of the ground has its hazards too.

Coming out of nearly five months of inactivity where I couldn't walk at all, I am trying hard to get up and out, but the joints of my toes ache when they bend this week, the dropped bones of my left foot still pinch when I walk, and this morning my left knee hurts when I stand on it, probably from walking at odd angles because of the other.  It is very frustrating.

I have reached that stage in life where everything is getting harder. My kidneys can't deal with salt, my uric acid can't deal with pruines, my cholesterol shouldn't have too much fat, my pre type two diabetes lives in fear of too many carbohydrates.  I am supposed to be eating healthy and getting more exercise.

I am making a last ditch effort to do all of this the best way I know how.

It seems that age is more than just a drying up of youth. It's also a magnifying glass that focuses on and blows up every little flaw. If I had any advice for those coming up behind me it would be:


Well, I really don't know, because if I did, I would do it!

Inner space

Meditation, or centering prayer, or just sitting quietly doing nothing . . . all of these things have great value.

It's one place where nothing is more valuable than anything else.

Things will come to mind. They will float in with one breath, or pop up on the next, but the secret is to let them go. Allow them to slip away without dwelling on them, or dwelling on the fact that they are there. You've done nothing wrong. Thoughts are simply being purged in gentle waves of air.

It is the spaces between the thoughts, the time between the breaths, the nothingness that allows these thoughts to slip in . . . and out . . . and prepare a place for possibilities.

How do you know? 

You really don't!

These are bedrock changes that affect the core of the soul and souls are infinite.

To change infinity with a breath seems impossible, but it is the only way I know.

In this United States

I love Pope Francis.  He is one of very few people who embody most of the things that I think Jesus would. One other being the Dalai Lama.

Listening to the Pope talk, watching the way he walks and gestures and treats people, is such a stark contrast to our politicians, and honestly, most of our public leaders. While I do not agree with everything he stands for, he sounds sincere, thoughtful, and real.

This pope does not rail and evangelize. He walks quietly among us sincerely aware of the people around him.

Sometimes it feels like our country has become a carnival of snake oil salesmen and hawkers, all shouting at the top of their lungs, promising miracles and easy solutions to complicated down to earth problems. Like boys on Pleasure Island, people allow themselves to be led astray because it is easier than doing the real work.

While I would not want our country to be led by the Pope, or any other religious leader, I do wish, our government leaders, and our population could grow up and act like reasonable, honest individuals who sincerely want the best for everyone. Instead of priding ourselves on how well we can scam each other, perhaps we could find pride in making sure everyone truly gets a chance for a decent life.

Waxing over weeds

Today as we were walking in the woods I saw so many "flowers" that florists use as fillers.

There was solidago, a beautiful bright yellow feathery flower, that people often request. Although many people ask for that pretty yellow filler, I always wondered how many would have done so if they knew its other name was golden rod.

I saw monte casino, tiny white daisies that are perceived as delicate miniatures to snuggle in between the larger flowers. People specifically ask for these sweet little flowers and wax ecstatic over their uniqueness.

And there was poisonous hemlock, which looks disturbingly like queen anne's lace to the untrained eye and mine has not been tested in a long time. I remember a botanist I met at the Illinois State Museum who had a beautiful big floral arrangement on her desk that I admired.  She grinned and said it was from her son and daughter-in-law, but she wondered if they knew they'd sent her hemlock!  I bet even the florist didn't know that! (Or they never would have done it.)

Dug out, sprayed for and hated in the garden, these weeds are loved in floral arrangements and I understand that. Today's walk in the woods was a riotous mix of flowers and butterflies.

In the end is the beginning

The Goose pond beckoned with strident honks and flapping wings, with water reflecting visions of dreams of old swirled in the magic of now and even the grease along the walks did not dull my pleasure.

The park four minutes across the parking lot sparkled with the promise of long hot mornings, dewy with Heartland summer humidity, spent lobbing my tennis balls against the old green backboard; and evening strolls around the pine trees growing in grass so lush it looked like velvet from my vantage point at home.

But today, the last day of summer, is the only day I lay one foot near these places.

Last spring, eons of walking on feet so flat they mimicked the geese, rose up and knocked those feet out from under me and I, not knowing what lay ahead, believed it would be another one of those awful inconveniences where I sat around for a few weeks and then sprang back up to resume my life -- only mildly inconvenienced.

Instead it turned into a life altering situation that leaves me floundering on the rim of old age, both arms waving wildly, fearing something worse than death if I do not recover. Calling in all the reserves I am fighting for my independence, something I value more than life, and striving to recoup at extreme costs.

So today I walked near enough the goose pond to see it and all the way over to the tennis courts, near enough to get a whiff of the nostalgic mill dewy smell of summer nets hanging limply from rusty poles. Then on the edge of a splintery picnic table in the shade of the shelter there, I rejoiced in my success.

I made it! My first summer walk in the shadows of the last summer day.

Scarcity vs enough

I grew up with the idea of scarcity. The fear that there might not be enough to go around, to last until the end, to give everyone enough. No matter how much there was.

You can't win with that kind of thinking.

But you can lose!

I watch my oldest granddaughter. Her attitude towards everything seems to be, "It will get done. There's enough of everything." She isn't easily ruffled, or swayed, or pushed, which can be a little frustrating, but actually works very well for her. She shuffles a full time job, four university classes, and a house she's in charge of.

Learning is a lifetime job.

In the course of living

I have the sweetest neighbor.  I met her one day when her dog charged down the hall barking at me and nearly scared me to death.  His name was Eddy and he was an eleven year old miniature collie.  Eddy and I were on a first name basis after that.We both limped around. We both loved to eat. And we both loved Mischa, his owner.

She was a Millikin University graduate with a Masters in English who was setting up two coffee shops for a local man.  She had been a teacher, but her son was murdered in a grisly accident a few years ago and she was trying to make a new start working sixty hour weeks  for this guy until everything was running smoothly.  Yesterday he let her go -- by text -- simply saying, "Money is tight, I have to let you go." There was no warning, but he let another man go who had been doing all his computer work too, thank goodness it was just before the guy quit his other job.

She was shocked, but she's not one to give up easily.  She came home, opened her door, and Eddy wasn't there to meet her.  He appeared to be sleeping soundly on his little bed by the other door, but Eddy had gone to join her son and Mischa had to take him up to her father's farm to bury him.

She's going to visit her sister, a vet near LA, for a couple of weeks. There's a little guest cottage by the sea there where she can recoup a bit.  Then she's coming back here, she told me through her tears, and looking harder for a place to start her own coffee shop.  Maybe she will even take over one of the ones she set up (if he's really so broke he's declaring bankruptcy and not lying.) And she has bigger plans. Her shop will be family friendly, maybe have a program for middle school children to come to after school.

I know she'll do whatever she needs to.  Mischa is one of those indomitably cheerful people who won't stay down, an inspiration to me and anyone else who knows her.

Under the magnifying glass

Not feeling good is a drain on my whole body, but I need to beware of learned habits and feelings blocking the real ones.

Age takes every little flaw and magnifies it.

And everything is tied to everything else.

So today, when I was carefully walking through the antique store, having trouble keeping up with the elderly woman going to unlock a case for me, I suddenly picked up my speed and was amazed that it didn't hurt, or pinch! Part of it was the wooden floors. They are much more forgiving than concrete and tile, but part of it is that I might be really healing!

I've become so used to re-injuring myself, that I didn't realize how much I might be over compensating.

By the end of the day, after an hour or so in the store and a short walk in the park, I came home thoroughly exhausted, cold and head-achy. I couldn't get warm, but finally conceding to taking some Tylenol and wrapped up in blanket and quilt, I napped for a couple of hours, got up and ate dinner and felt much better.

There's a fine line between pushing enough and too much. Lean too much either way and I could handicap myself forever.

It's always my choice and it's always a matter of judgement.

Baby steps

Baby steps.  That's the only way to do something difficult, but I never want to go through all that.

The universe doesn't care. 

It happens the way it happens.  Of course I do have to do the work.

In this case, my work is all about what does, or does not go in my mouth and that means everything from liquids, to medicine. On top of that I need to move more, which is much easier said than done.

I truly am taking baby steps, but I am seeing small gains and that helps me keep going.

The other thing that keeps me going is that I don't want to walk in my family's footsteps -- the ones minus toes and the ones that die early drinking thickened water, or -- well, just die early.

It's not a big secret, or a surprise, live right, or pay the consequences, but it still is not easy.

Security

My boys are in Seattle. My daughter and her children are here in Bloomington-Normal. If only my one grandson could be with his father, we would all be in two cities. That gives me a sense of security I do not understand.

As I have said before, when I was a child I loved traveling with my family in a car at night. It made me feel so content, so safe, as if anything could happen but we would be okay. And when other little girls dreamed of horses I dreamed of a large mechanical elephant, big enough to hold our whole family on top and store whatever we needed in his belly. I would make him move by moving levers attached to his front legs.

I think I've always loved small compact places. Cubbyholes when I played dolls. Hollows in the bushes when we played house outside. My luxury studio apartment. Add the ones I love and the essentials, and I sleep well.

This is as close as we all get anymore and that's okay. I wanted my children to be lovers of life, adventurers -- people open to new ideas and possibilities.

It's the quality time together that counts. Carving out spaces with each child watching them do the same, may be a big part of our legacy, close encounters of the most precious sort.

Knights in shining armor

The frustration level in today's world has risen far above what I remember in my earlier years.

People seem to be trying to live up to television standards of success, forgetting that stories are generally made about exceptions because humdrum doesn't interest too many people.

Instead of the cautionary tales of our past like Hansel and Gretal, or Goldilocks, told to us by loving papas and grandmas, we have super heroes in living color, blasting across fifty inch screens with stereo sound.

The idea of apprenticing into some useful trade or following in the footsteps of mom and dad is now obliterated by thoughts of being the new Donald in a shiny tower somewhere. It doesn't seem to matter what he does, he's rich, so people wander off into the world oblivious of their own personal abilities to try and replicate rich in any way they can.

A new generation of grifters, climbers, distraught, unhappy people reach the age of maturity trying to be something they aren't. Our new knights in shining armor sit on top whittling down the workforce beneath them, hiring as few people at as low a wage as possible to do just enough to amass millions.

The underneath people know they are not super heroes, so they feel little pride in their jobs and even though they can barely put food on their tables and clothes on their children, they go out buying "stuff" to make them, at least, look successful.

For every successful magnate I imagine there are thousands of un-super, unhappy, unsatisfied, frustrated, people -- and these include people working in factories, teachers working in school systems, and doctors working for amalgamated groups.

Where has the simple joy of living gone?  The rat race is no longer just a concept. It is an accepted way of life for too many people.

A life where there is enough to eat, a decent place to live, a purpose for being and a hand in the future should not be considered a loser's dream.

Bestest

Today was one of those delightful days when things started out good and got better.

I realize that everyone is many things, but at this point in my life I am mostly a mother and grandmother and bestest.

A picture, a text, or a phone call from any of these people can brighten my day way beyond what most people might believe.

The words, labor of love describe the best way I know to spend a day.

Today I spent many happy hours doing what I love best to do.

And that makes this day the bestest ever.

Word disease

Words.

People tell children that words can never hurt them, but words leave the most indelible prints of all. They are the harbingers of feelings, seeds for a world of hurt.

Nightmares spring up from them like weeds gone wild.

They inflate blood pressures like sour balloons.

Burrowing in like word disease they develop a life of their own.

Then eat away at our sanity until it looks like Swiss cheese.

The next miraculous discovery should be a cure for unwanted, embedded, un-erupted, and impacted words!

By pass the shelf

I got up this morning and went out to get in my car only to discover the check air in tires light on.  That shouldn't be a problem in a Honda.  In theory you just drive over to the service department, honk your horn, they open the door, you drive in, they inflate your tires, and you drive out. Today there was a line two deep and four long outside the door. Annoyed I drove over to Midas, but when I went in there was a new picture on the counter. Adrian is gone!  I don't know the new guy and he wasn't at the counter. I left there too. I ended up going home and going back to Honda later this morning when there was no line.  Instant service. Job done.

I joined the neighborhood talk fest for a bit before coming in to rearrange my apartment. Suddenly overwhelmed by fatigue I nearly dropped into my chair and I would have been worried, but a friend pointed out this morning that I am actually doing a lot more than I have for months, so it makes sense that it wears me out.

Last month it was still a big deal to walk to the mailbox every couple of days.

It would be easy to write off everything to old age, but one does not become old overnight. However it is easier to lose energy as you age so it becomes even more important to keep going, to push a bit even. I don't want a misdiagnosis by a doctor to end up being my ticket to the shelf.

I keep hearing Dory's voice in my head. "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming." And that gives you an idea of how old I am today.

A stuffed marshmallow

I am bored with me.

I don't know whether it is the result of so many months of isolation and immobilization from my foot, or the fact that they are changing my blood pressure medicine, but I have become a no energy person.

Sometimes I think of an idea, but just do not have the energy to follow through with it.

Honestly, I can spend a whole day deciding to do something and never get around to doing it.

I volunteer two days a week and I love that, but by the time I get there, do my job and get home I am worn out.

Sometimes I am too tired to sleep, but then I fall asleep in my chair and wake up stiff and feeling like a stuffed marshmallow who was inflated while sleeping.

I am at a dead end.  I see the mile markers along the way and think, "It's too late for this or that." My body has betrayed me and now my mind wants to catch up.

This dullness on my part is like being tethered to nothingness by a cloud. It reminds me of the dreams I had as a child whenever I was sick.  I would feel like I was climbing uphill in knee deep snow. Now the snow is in my bones.

I think if I could get out and walk in the woods, breathe fresh Fall air, it might get better.

Even a stuffed marshmallow has something to look forward to.  Good or bad it's likely to be roasted over the fire and melted into some soft gooey chocolate, or perhaps, just immersed in a cup of hot cocoa.

A good life

I love to read novels about adventure and love and mysterious happenings. And yet, when these things happen in real life I tend to think there is something wrong with me, or life is irredeemable.

It's so easy to read these stirring stories because I know my favorite authors will never let me down and write a bad ending.

The tiny black and white pictures drawn in words by talented authors resemble people I know and sometimes even me. They are the adventures I would never really want to have.

Real life is not compact and predictable like books. The time implied in 500 pages can sometimes take years in real life. But that doesn't mean the struggles are not just as heroic.

That's why people write memoirs of "the good old days," and grandparents tell stories about when they were young . . . it's really all one long story.

So don't be afraid to throw in as many adventures and mildly outrageous maneuvers as you have room for.  They lighten up the moments and make for great tales later on.

No one wants to read page after page of sunshine and light, or chapter after chapter of goodness and joy -- it's the contrast that makes it all interesting.

It's the conquering that makes it moving.

Tomorrow

Why is it that some people make all their decisions in the past?  It makes me angry to hear them talk to me based on assumptions. I am not who I was twenty years ago. I am not who I was fifteen years ago. I am not my mother, or my grandmother. I do not expect to live or die like anyone else in my family and that is not an accident.

I have worked hard to be me. I have broken most of the old habits, played out most of the old games, and given up most of the limitations bred into me by fear. It isn't always easy. Easy would be to fall back into these old routines, into the comfort of the tried and true, except that I know where it leads.

It isn't easy to break new ground. I make lots of mistakes, but that is okay. At least I'm not burying myself, or my children in old outmoded ruts that will tie us like scarecrows to desiccated land.

We will keep the good things, and there are many, while exploring the possibilities of the unknown.

I already hear the next generations belting out songs I would have been terrified to try. I see them branching out on their own, supporting themselves and unafraid to stand on their own two feet. They are more realistic, more level headed, and more courageous than I ever was.

I say courageous because I suspect they are just as afraid as I was.  You can't be courageous if you aren't overcoming fear.

I can't take the credit for their successes. They are doing it on their own, but I can be proud that I'm not intentionally holding them back by passing down my shortcomings like family heirlooms.

I know this world is hard, but I also know my children and grandchildren are strong and smart and willing to do whatever it takes to make it. I want all future generations to have half of their parents problems and twice their strength, then life will only get better and better.

Something fishy

Sometimes I think there is something fishy about my life.

I mean, maybe I am a fictional character in someone's story, or a figment of a cartoon.  There are times when I just go along doing the same old things over and over, but then there are the other times.

As if someone got really excited and wrote a whole new chapter.  Adding things no one could possibly dream of for a woman my age and in my position.

It's always been this way.  I live a normal life in amazingly not normal ways (even though I live in Normal.)

Today it poured down rain, so I put off going out to the mailbox.  I've been barely missed by lightning three times before, so I have no desire to tempt fate, or mother nature, or maybe my creator. When I finally did go to the mailbox it was still raining. It rains a lot in my life, especially on important occasions. I got three small packages!  Any day you get three packages in the mail it is exciting.

I came inside, grabbed my scissors to open the packages and decided to prolong the joy by opening the regular mail first. So I did. Then I carried that mundane business mail over to file it away.  Scissors in one hand.  Mundane mail in the other I reached out, dropped it on the table and turned to walk away.

A moment later I was flying through the air and falling, scissors in one hand, pictures playing fast forward in my mind of how I was going to land, impaled upon the scissors I'd used to open the mail, watching my computer flying through the air because I had tripped over its cord and probably ruined it --  and  my sister.  Why my sister?  Because my sister falls.  That's what she does.  She falls off the curb. She falls off the porch. She falls over the clothes on her basement floor and sometimes she just falls flat on her face because . . .  that's what she does. I usually do not fall.

I fell two years ago when I stubbed my toe on a crack. It didn't break my mother's back, but it nearly broke my knee which is relatively healed now.

Or it was until today when I landed, not on the scissors, but upon that same knee. It's what I do.  When I fall, it is on my right hand and left knee.

Now I am sitting here with a partially used bag of frozen fish sticks on my knee because that is all I had that would fit my knee in the freezer.  Well, that is badly worded.  I did not fit my knee into the freezer. I fit the fish sticks onto my aching knee to ice it.  Only now they are defrosting.

It's okay.  I don't really like fish sticks anyway.

The Rule of Law

I don't have a problem with people standing up for what they believe, but there should be some kind of credibility behind what they do.

People need to actually know what they are "standing up for."

For example: Where were all these devout "Christians," who live strictly by the Bible when divorced people were issued marriage licenses? Luke 16:18, Matthew 5:32, Matthew 19:6, Matthew 19:9, and others seem to indicate this is not Biblical behavior. And then there is Matthew 6:5 .(And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.)

Rather than just filming them chanting and carrying signs, I want to see reporters asking them to justify their beliefs according to the above.  What will they say?  Do they really believe everything they say they do, or are they there for less stellar reasons like personal prejudices or a love of acting out in the limelight?

Everyone has a right to their personal opinions, but if they are going to live in a country governed by laws they need to act responsibly.  Protesting in the street is fine, but common sense dictates a vegetarian should not seek a job as a meat cutter.  A deaf person cannot expect to be a telemarketer. If I can't issue marriage licenses to people legally allowed to have them, I should not be the county clerk.  Expecting people to rewrite job descriptions because I don't like them is not reasonable.

Laws keep us from anarchy and believe me most people benefit from that. There are nearly 320 million people in the United States. Imagine each one choosing which laws they feel compelled to ignore.

It is disturbing to see so many people trying to twist personal prejudices into debates on religion, or philosophy, and law.

Rings and things and buttons and bows

I was driving down the street when I got a whiff of the air and immediately thought, "Rain!" Had it been my girl friend, she would have thought, "Worms!"  and the only difference is the way we interpreted that smell. When she was small, her parents told her it was worms.  Mine told me it was rain.

Both of these are wonderful, but that is just one example of how important our childhood is. It teaches us things we retain for the rest of our lives. Some of these things are merely up for interpretation. Others become the standard by which we judge and base much more important things.

It is one of the reasons I worry when little girls are dressed up and sent out into the world to be judged the prettiest, or turned into little cheerleaders for the boy's football teams before they are even old enough to understand anything more than this gets them tons of approval from their immediate world. There isn't anything wrong with being pretty or being a cheerleader, but girls need to know they can do things themselves that make people cheer for them because they are strong and confident and beautiful just the way God made them -- without  those, "Rings and things and buttons and bows."

And I worry about both little boys and girls when I hear relatives at their six year old birthday party ask if they have a boy friend, or girl friend. Do we really want children paired off in elementary school, and maybe mothers and fathers before they're out of high school?

I'd be so much more comfortable if little girls and boys were playing soccer, basketball, and baseball, and becoming Young Authors, or Junior Zookeepers. I want to ask, "Who's going to put something in the science fair?" Or, maybe, "Did you decide to play a musical instrument?"

Let's get away from sleeping beauties who need a prince to wake them up, or kings of the mountain who win because of stepping on all the others on the way to the top.

Learning to get along with others, pull your own weight, and be a team player makes for happier adults.

It's time to celebrate people instead of nostalgia.

Abracadabra

It is so hard to say what is in our hearts that sometimes we talk about everything else.

Everything!

We share the most intimate details of total stranger's lives, or talk about the wherefores and what ifs of life's disappointments, or a past so distant that no one knows the real truths.

Rather than all that unimportant stuff I wish we could just pour our feelings out and take a chance that the real words might make things a little bit better, because words are about all I have.

Words have brought about some mysterious and magnificent  happenings now and again.

Back in the saddle again

Six months ago I had no idea I would be down for the summer, but this past week I started volunteering again and today I went to an Antique mall with my daughter! 

I may, or may not, ever play tennis again, but I am up and out!

It was not a marathon day.  We weren't out to see who won the endurance title for shopping.  We just ambled along looking at things for a couple of hours and enjoyed visiting.

And it was topped off when we ran into my younger granddaughter.    She waved at us, grinning ear to ear, just before she got on the city bus to go home. 

Life is moving on. We are all branching out and busy and happy here.

Growing pains

I went to visit my oldest granddaughter tonight. It was a house warming visit.  She is renting her first house for the first time and I am so proud of her.

For the last three years she has worked full time (and more) while putting herself through college and maintaining a car.  Now she has taken the next big step.

Not only has she left the security of home, but she has taken her younger sister with her and, along with a friend, they are setting up housekeeping completely on their own.

It's a big step simply to take on the financial duties of such a situation, but to take on responsibility for another human being and the upkeep of a house and yard is huge.

I have to say it again, I am so proud of her and I know she will continue to be a beautiful granddaughter, diligent daughter,  loving sister, dependable friend, good student, and valued worker.  That's about as good as it gets at twenty-one.

Others

Once upon a time I thought all people were drawn to each other for basically the same reasons and that these feelings were biologically installed in us for the evolution of our species. Nature, and many of the people in my neighborhood, seemed to favor big men who were powerful and aggressive, good at making money so therefore good providers and good catches for young women with nice even features indicating they were healthy, so they could give those dominant males healthy little heirs.

Then I realized that a lot of those men and women certainly did not appeal to me and, more interestingly to me, people not in those categories did. Over time I realized that perhaps even more importantly, I would rather be alone than be with a lot of people over any extended period of time. It isn't that I particularly want to be alone, but that I prefer to be alone rather than be constantly annoyed or constantly defending myself. That was what made me begin to think about what attracts me to other people, people whose company I enjoy, whose personalities I find endearing, people I like to be around more than many others.

I think the first biggie is probably respect.  I am very attracted to people I respect -- for a whole host of different reasons.  I like to be around open minded rational people, people who are curious about the world and constantly driven to find out more about it. I like people who are not, not afraid, but who are willing to go above and beyond their fears to check out new things. I like people who are so confident in who they are that they feel obligated to be kind to those less fortunate. I love people who put two and two together and never come up with three.

The people I am most comfortable with live on the edge of the box without paying much attention to the fact that there even is a box, so when they move outside it -- they are simply playing. They are people who believe that nothing is too sacred to be challenged or examined, but if there is one big rule that should be followed, it is the rule of civility. The ability to live in polite society makes life nicer.

I see no point in making a stir for the sake of the stir. I have no need to draw attention to myself in negative ways, but I am almost willing to die for what I believe in strongly enough. Other people like that touch me to the core.

Even though I often fall far short of all of these things, they are still the things that draw me to other people and make me want to be around them.

Feelings

Human beings are made up of so many strange things and none is really stranger than feelings.  Not the sort that says, "Ouch I just stepped on a nail," but the kind that says, "I have a hunch," or "I am terrified," or "I am happy, or miserable, or sad."

Jealousy is often portrayed as a green eyed monster and that monster has eaten a lot of relationships alive. Sorrow has drowned innumerable people in its tears. Love has given people the strength to do amazing things.

Feelings must be harnessed the way one might corral twenty mules for a team in Death Valley.  It takes focus and a lot of strength.  I might think I would simply rather get rid of them, but that's not really an option.

Without feelings we are stone people, cold empty shells of what we are supposed to be.  We need feelings, so life becomes one long trial until we find the balancing point -- that place where the joy and creativity and edginess of feeling balances out the irrational and unbearable.

The good news for me is that I know it's been done before.  The world has gone through millions of people who have experienced all these same feelings, some better and some worse, and found a way to cope.

Surely I can do that too.

Cautionary tales

Expectations are strange creatures.

They heighten the anticipation of events as we imagine and re-imagine what is going to happen.

They can be like an echo chamber for fears, allowing them to roll over us again and again, growing, maiming, fooling us into thinking we are working hard when we are only imagining what we might do if there even is a problem.

Or we can already find ourselves basking in the light of something that hasn't occurred.  I find this one a little bit iffy, because maybe imagining the best will help me bring it about, but maybe I am just setting myself up for a huge disappointment.

I guess if I have to err on one side or the other, the positive approach is less stressful in the long run if I can let go of the disappointment should it arise.

But the sad truth is that expectations can mar what was a perfectly wonderful day by imagining just one small detail, and when that does not occur, it ruins the whole day for me.

Who wants to do that?