Excluding family

People enter our lives in so many ways that it's hard to imagine how the most important ones, both connect and remain there.

Excluding family, because family is in your life, whether you like it or not -- for life. You may choose not to see them, or talk to them, or even believe you don't love them, but they are still family and in the grand scheme of things that trumps everything.

One of my oldest friends appeared at my back patio door at six o'clock in the morning bearing cake. Forty three years later she still shows up at my door unexpectedly, bringing gifts and hugs that I will never take for granted.

And Bestest sent me an email about something I wrote. I thought that was strange, but strangely interesting so I wrote back. We kept right on writing until we began talking on the phone, and eventually getting together. That was nearly eight years ago and now we talk on the phone once or twice, or more, almost everyday.

The universe has a unique way of pairing people off. I don't know how it happens, but I do know that I am eternally grateful.

Take it to the Lord in prayer

For all those holier than thou people who don't believe in evolution, or climate change, or good people who don't fit into your narrow definitions of godly, religious, sexual. racial, etc.

Has it occurred to you that you to might want to build an ark?

Or maybe you aren't getting that message.

Just saying.

That is the question

I don't begrudge anyone nice things or new clothes. I like new things too.

What doesn't sit well with me is when people feel entitled to things, especially things that are outrageously priced in order to keep others from even thinking of buying them.

The woman who tweets that her belt is a Salentino, her shoes are Gargantuan alligator, and her purse is a King Midas original strikes me as a name dropper, a snob, a nouveaux riche, and an entitled ass.

If  she has nothing better to do with her time than list the maker of each item of clothing, she needs a more purposeful life. Perhaps she could save time by just wearing the price tags dangling from them like Millie Pearl did -- of course that was just part of her act, not a real discourse on who she was.

Wear anything you like. If you can afford it and it pleases your eye, or the way it touches your skin, or the beautiful way it fits you. Even if it just makes you feel better, then go ahead! Wear it as long as no one was abused in the making of it.

I suppose if name dropping gets you a big discount,  you need to do it, but then, doesn't it kind of ruin it when you think of yourself as a walking commercial commodity?

Cheeks

All my life I loved my grandmother's sisters, my great aunts, with their adorable chipmunk faces. I know that sounds like a weird statement, but it's true.

My grandmother was the youngest of eight children, all two years apart. She was born in 1900, exactly fifty years before me. Grandma prided herself on being thoroughly modern and thoroughly beautiful all her life. She swore she never dyed her hair and her figure spoke for itself. The rumor is that she never broke a hundred pounds except when she was pregnant.

Her sisters were something else.

The oldest, Luella, was married at sixteen to a tall city boy who promised to, "Buy (her) a baby at Sears Roebuck just as soon as he raised (her.)" Aunt Lou was the city mouse of the family. She'd had all the countrified living she wanted growing up and had no desire to get back to the farm. She still planted big vegetable gardens, but she hid them behind roses, marigolds and other cutting flowers. She dressed like a city woman in hose with a seam down the back, tailored suits she made herself and lovely drapey dresses, topped by hats with discreet veils.

The next oldest, Chloe, married a chicken farmer. She made no pretense of ever being more than she was, the salt of the earth. Aunt Chloe wore her long hair in a neat little bun, topped her dresses with mother Hubbard aprons, wore sensible shoes and sometimes, to her sister's horror, even white anklets! She, of course, also had a big vegetable garden and didn't waste a row on frivolities like flowers.

Both of them were close to five feet tall, with white hair, perfect complexions and the cutest little chipmunk cheeks I had ever seen.  Of course I didn't know either one of them until they were close to sixty, but I thought they were adorable.

I am well over five feet, have dark very short hair and have never seriously considered growing vegetables. I never think of myself as beautiful, or cute, and especially never adorable, but when I looked in the mirror this morning . . . as I am trying to lose weight for my health,  I realized there is a side effect to that I never even dreamed of.

I think I'm going to have the same chipmunk cheeks those great aunts had and I'm wondering how they will look on one very tall chipmunk.

Norm

I watch these movies where the people all resolve their differences by the end and I wonder if that really is the norm?

It seems I have been trying to figure out what "norm" is most of my life.

Even as a child of three or four I used to wonder what the adults in my life were thinking. Really thinking. Looking back I don't really understand why I did that, but it implies that I must have sensed some kind of not real in my world.

I know I was aware of it later on. People always want children to give black and white answers, simple answers, Sally, Dick and Jane answers, because they think that is all they are capable of understanding. I found that confusing.

I still find that confusing.

So many things in life are not what they seem to be.

I have always found the Cheshire cat terrifying. He is the embodiment of my world where a being appears soft and sweet and purrrfect, but that is because that grin, the one that glows in the dark, is hidden and hiding the real thing behind the soft fur.

Is that the norm?

I have always hoped not, but many people in my life have seemed to embody that.

Misery and awe

Once upon a time I was so afraid of getting up in front of people and performing, or giving a speech, that I wanted to drop out of college before taking Speech 101.

Fortunately I took the right class and the professor turned us around by ingenious methods. One of which was having our first attempts be "bitch sessions," speeches on things we were upset about, then felt strongly about, etc.

It worked.

Now I am finding that writing My Thots is much easier when I am in angst, or writing about something that really upsets me. Since my world is pretty even anymore, the only thing that really gets me going are politics and I am trying not to write about that.

It makes it hard on days when I'm not miserable, or in awe. However it does remind me that a great deal of my life has been spent in one of those two extremes and life is much easier now it isn't.

Sometimes disabled

I am grateful for all the blessings in my life. There are so many, but one is kind of a mixed bag.

I am amazingly healthy considering all the things wrong with me. I seem to manage each one in a relatively easy way.

Except for my feet and ankles!

I'd like to say this came about as I aged, but it has always been the mysterious malady in my life. I can walk a mile, sit down in a chair and get up to find a bone out of whack. I can even go to bed, get up several times in a night to go to the bathroom and in the morning find myself unable to put any weight on one, or both feet.

With a few exceptions, some Tylenol and putting my feet up will take care of it in a few days.

The problem is when that doesn't work. I have a walker and a cane, but both have limited capabilities. I don't have a handicap sticker, so I cannot park close to the grocery store, or even the doctor, when I am down.

This is an unpredictable and unpreventable problem for me. It can happen once a year for a day or two, or many times and last for months, but since it is mostly pain associated with some genetic weakness in the way I was made it does not fall into any kind of situation that is easy to deal with.

I am sometimes disabled and although that feels strange to say, it is very much the truth.

How I got there

It feels good to succeed.

In a perfect world I'd know how to succeed at everything I do, but in my real world a lot of my successes feel mysterious. I don't know how I got there.

I am lucky. That is one thing I am sure about.

But I also think that I pick up on many things unconsciously and those subtle noticings make my successes happen more often.

It is true that nothing breeds success like success. If I believe I can do something, my self-confidence soars and I am less likely to hesitate and out think myself. Confidence does not come easy to me, but I learned to fake it a long time ago.

Of course faking confidence only fools others. The real me knows, but sometimes I can get caught up in acting like I know and that is almost as good! I can see how people become power hungry. Succeeding is addictive.

The secret seems to be that it is okay to fake the confidence, but I can't fake the success, so when it's real, those are the times to celebrate.

When I fail, that is a time to learn and that is why it is so scary not to know how I got there.

Bits and pieces

Being me is probably not what you think it is.

I eat like a rabbit. Romaine, carrots, onion, avocado (well, maybe an exotic rabbit.)

I hop like a turtle, but I walk like one too, so that's not all bad.

I like to play pretty much like I always have.

But in spite of trying to eat right and exercise, I just keep on falling apart like something made out of Tinker Toys by an uncoordinated four year old. Just about the time I get my sugar in line, my left foot goes out. Get that foot working right again and my eyes get blurry.

If life is a picnic the ants are ahead about thirty percent of the time anymore.

Emotionally? I think it's better than it's ever been in my entire life up until now. And that makes all the difference in the world.

The secret

Mid-August.

Chilly night air causing flowers and leaves to fall in heaps on wet ground warmed by the daytime sun until those heaps become rotting piles of detritus.

Sinking knowledge of vacations almost over and time once again chopped up, slotted up, rerouted and ordered by others.

Historical episodes of  betrayal, disinformation, misrepresentation and prevarication.

Mid-August is not my favorite time of the year and yet it has taught me one of life's best secrets:

I cannot change the past, nor often even the circumstances of the present.

I may have to wriggle around them, even pile new experiences on top of them.

Not letting others define my life for me.

Mid-August becomes the hypocenter for making the best of a situation and moving through it in spite of whatever else is going on.

It is making pretty purses from sow's ears.

Making an old dog's tricks endlessly fascinating.

Lifting someone up with a feather.

Mid-August has taught me to seize not just the day, but the moment.

A long road

Everyone seems to have a thought, or solution for the world's problems. And many of them are not wrong.

The problem is this spider web of existence we live in where plucking one string makes all the rest vibrate - either in resonance, or dissonance. And knowing that, we have to make decisions about which one is best.

Educating people so that they understand why something they grew up taking for granted as normal is considered hurtful, or racist is necessary. Most people do not truly want to make others feel like second class citizens, or make them less than, but there are people whose security and sanity seems to rely on just that.

How do we get the attention of those who are so damaged, hurt, and defensive that they have become a major obstacle to civilized society?

Hurting them more probably won't work. Condoning their behavior is wrong. It becomes a paradox that does not require the services of our armed forces as much as our wisest sages.

There is no one answer that will cure all the problems for any one thing forever. Any father (or mother) of this country must deal with millions of frightened, hurt egos beginning the transition into the age of reason before some of them have even been taught to listen. There is a long road ahead of us.

And right now we are orphans.

Music

I love music and there was a time when it dominated, or accompanied nearly every part of my life.

Maybe that is what makes it so hard to listen to now.

When I hear music that really speaks to me, it is like a living spirit. It reaches right through me.

Down deep into my heart and soul, grabbing at the most vulnerable tendrils that still float there, tugging so poignantly that it nearly turns me inside out.

Just enough

Growing older can be both a blessing and a curse for so many reasons.

People surrounded by young grandchildren and family can be swooped up in all the chaos that goes with this, but people who do not, or whose funds do not permit unlimited travel, shopping, eating out, and exploring places that require fees can be left out.

Volunteering gives purpose and joy to days that go above and beyond mere existence.

Household chores can require more effort now than they once did and health requires more careful monitoring, but there is still a lot of time left in most days.

In the past I might have walked more, or rearranged furniture more, or even gardened more, but now the bones in my feet have a lot more to say about what, when and how I do things.

The secret seems to be being endlessly creative.

Over time (and when you are my age there is a lot time you've been over) many things become kind of old hat and less inspiring than they once were.

I do not have the money to travel the way I wish, but maybe that would get old after a while too. I don't think so, but it might, so I just have to make the best of what I have in this moment.

I read. I draw. I walk. I muse. Sometimes I knit, or watch movies. I find new ways to meet people, new opportunities to volunteer, new ways to fill in the time I have been given on this earth in a body fortunate enough to be relatively healthy.

And sometimes I write about the difficulties of those blessed with just enough money, just enough health, just enough good fortune to be caught in the cusp between old age and youth for a very long time.

We cannot give up

Hate groups cannot be tolerated.

Hate is not some slow moving miasma, some heavenly sent green fog that creeps across the land swallowing up first born sons, or infecting people with a dread plague. Although it can be that -- an insidious perception that something is out to get me and I don't know what, so I keep adding culprits to my list. First the Jews, then the . . .

Hate is a wild animal trapped in a corner madly slashing out with teeth and claws at anything that comes near. Irrational to the nth degree, but not unintelligent. It can plot and plan with such focused intent that it becomes the most dangerous thing on the planet, because it has no morals, no loyalty, except to itself, no boundaries at all. It is a mob mentality where every member of the mob is an unknown threat to society.

Tolerating hate  is like thinking you can contain a drop of black ink in a glass of clear water.  It may not be imminently visible, but it is there contaminating everything else. Often the realm of young men whose hormones are raging so loud they cannot hear anything but the beat of war drums, the rail of the pipes calling them to arms, it is a tricky thing to deal with.

Education. Calm, rational, explanations that the mass of people can understand is a beginning. Getting the old guard to stop inflaming the mobs is another beginning. Calling on people who profess to love their neighbors as themselves to think about what they are doing might help. Who knows what else, but we cannot give up as long as hate exists.

Three generations

Today was a good day.

Three generations of women went out to celebrate the youngest's birthday and I realized 22 was the key number. My granddaughter turned 22. My daughter was 22 when my granddaughter was born and I was 22 when my daughter was born.

Of course I didn't know my daughter until she was four (2plus 2)and she didn't hold her daughter for nearly eight weeks after she was born weighing only 2 pounds, 2 ounces.

All of that means nothing really, but we had a wonderful time having lunch in a tea room and then visiting a Victorian Manor full of Dewitt County firsts. It was the first to have electricity and its library was the first one in the area and the reason the public library exists today, according to the caretaker.

I came home exhausted, but managed to get in 2 of today's walks, so I don't feel guilty about the amazing chicken salad, croissant, baked potato soup and caramel bread pudding I ate.

It was truly a celebration worthy of remembering.

And that is a good day.

Motivation

Everyone knows that success is a great motivator, but do we really believe it?

I have spent most of my life trying to find the motivation to eat right, exercise more, and be healthier. In my twenties tennis was my great motivator. It took up a lot of time I might have spent eating and it burned calories like pinewood in a forest fire.

After that one thing after another got in my way and food is a fast and soothing way to reward yourself when life is rough.

A few years ago I lost a lot of weight with a friend, but with a major difference. He decided to eat healthier. I decided to lose weight eating special foods. We both lost, but I gained mine back right away.

Now I am trying to eat healthier while still eating things I like. I've even found some new things that really are satisfying to my palate but not loaded down in calories. I am exercising three short times a day, so I never feel overwhelmed.

I lost twelve pounds last month. It didn't seem like a lot until I picked up my twelve pound bag of cat food and was surprised how heavy it felt. I don't feel any lighter, but seeing the number on my scale and knowing I have maintained this healthier lifestyle for nearly six weeks has been an amazingly powerful motivator.

Today I walked for almost two hours shopping with my daughter and still managed to take my regular three short walks. I am exhausted, but proud of myself. That's something I've seldom felt able to admit before.

The game of existence

If we were all one thing, the same thing, no matter what that thing was, the world would be a very poor place. In fact, if that day should ever come, the world will eventually not be at all.

There is a balance in nature that humanity has never been able to achieve. Perhaps because only some power people call God and others call a higher power, and still others have no name for, could possibly conceive and execute such a divine plan.

A world where whatever one species creates, or emanates, or exists as, is used by some other part of the world to exist. The cycle of being has balanced itself out for millions of years.

Now there are those among us so ignorant, so egotistical, so clueless, that they believe we have the power to do anything, but what is this anything? We know how to kill bacteria, remove diseased organs, split atoms, melt some things and burn others. We've got force down, there is no denying that.

But we cannot create yet. Cloning requires another human to supply the material. A tree can grow from a seed, but we don't know how to create that seed ourselves. We can make things in factories, but we don't know how to make the ore that makes the metal, or the base chemicals that create the plastics. We have become experts at using what is already here, but creation at ground zero is far from our powers.

Our impotence causes some people to think they are better than others, more valuable, more important, but exquisite existence requires a recipe so complex and patience so infinite that humanity probably cannot even envision it.

Every single life on this planet has some value. In fact, every single thing on this planet, this universe, this existence does something and until we know what all these things are, we better stop destroying and killing and shunning. This is a game where we are out matched.

All the world's a stage

Crowds of people can be a challenge for me. I prefer one on one, or small intimate groups where we can actually talk and interact personally, but occasionally I find myself out of that comfort zone.

Yesterday was one of those days. I took three family members with me on a short road trip to an historical site. It was surprisingly crowded and busy with people, volunteers, and performers everywhere. We had a relatively long wait before our tour began and used that time to walk around and see the outside sights -- including all these people.

I was surprised how clueless people are.

The families who came to see their people perform blocked the doorways both during and after the performance, so people could neither come in, or go out until these people quit visiting. A well dressed woman probably in her early fifties whizzed up and down streets blocked off for pedestrians only, which was understandable since she needed her little scooter to get around, but her obviously intentional need to claim her space almost ran down my granddaughter on the sidewalk. My adult granddaughter also has special needs that make getting around difficult.

The woman made me angry. She knew she was forcing people to scurry out of her way and seemed to feel totally justified. She dropped one of her pamphlets as she zoomed by and I called out, "Excuse me." She glared back as if daring me to say a word. "You dropped your pamphlet." I walked over, picked it up, and handed it to her. She did have the grace to look a little embarrassed.

During the actual tour of the house, a tall, middle aged couple constantly took the front row, blocking the view of everyone else, especially my daughter and granddaughter who are both under five feet tall. Then this couple talked loud enough to drown out our tour guide in nearly every room with their chatter intended to impress us all. They did make an impression on me.

There weren't a lot of children there, mostly babies and young adults, but one family had brought their boys, probably between eight and ten years old. I never had any doubt where they were at any given moment. Everyone could see them racing around, throwing a ball and performing. and no one could escape their overly loud family interactions. If they were close, we could hear nothing else. I wondered if these proud parents realized the disservice they were doing to their boys.

It sounds like I was just there to criticize the crowd, but on the whole we had a wonderful day. Many people graciously shared seats and shade with those who came after them. Another little boy held the door open while we all walked in to one of the houses and there were conversations all around as we read the plaques talking about the Underground Railroad that once ran through here, or the pioneers who turned Springfield into the city it is today.

In these turbulent times, places like this give Americans a venue for showing the world who they are -- not by what we say, but by how we act.

Musings

I am sitting here wondering how suggestible I am. One of the drugs I was on turns out to cause memory loss, tiredness, muscle aches, difficulty sleeping, and blurry vision, all of which I have been experiencing more and more over the last two weeks. I stopped taking it last night and slept better than I have in some time. How could that possibly be? Of course I was only on it for a month, so I am hoping all the other symptoms disappear quickly.

On the flip side of my life, where I am not constantly concerned with my health, I found a home for the dollhouse!  People familiar with My Thots might recall my foray into the world of miniatures last year and my decision to try and build a dollhouse that claimed children over twelve could do it with the help of an adult. I opened the lid with great glee and met 4000 pieces of what looked like balsa wood piled neatly in a box about three by four feet. Now my friend Teamaker has found an 81 year old woman who has already built two houses and wants to build another for a grandchild, so today we maneuvered the unwieldy box into her trunk and off she went. I cannot explain the true joy I felt watching her drive off with it. For some reason, this feels absolutely right, like it was meant to be

Teamaker and I go back a long time, 1974 I think. Her moniker is from when I first began writing My Thots back in 1999. She was my role model for mothering, the woman who has never forgotten my birthday, the person I call when I am stranded or feeling lost and a woman whose purpose in life seems to be truly living the life of a real Christian. She is unfailingly kind and loving no matter what is going on in her life and there has been a lot.

I think she is the only constant in my life outside of family over the last forty three years.  So, today especially, I am counting her as one of my greatest blessings.

Band wagons

Nothing is more boring than listening to someone on a band wagon go on and on about whatever it is that is on their mind at the moment.

Other people's victories are wonderful and fun to hear about -- until they aren't.

I am the one up there now. Standing in the light, glorying in the success I am feeling . . .

I want the world to be filled with wonder and awe. I want to write books about how to do it.

But I think I should probably wait a bit longer. I've been here before. Noshing on avocados and romaine, dreaming of hummus and almonds, only to turn around and gobble up every loaf of French bread within driving distance.

Aged

I feel like I am in some sort of transition right now. Everything seems to be changing. Bestest is busier than he was two years ago, so although I talk to him a lot, I actually see him much less. My doctor has diagnosed me with type two diabetes, so I am eating whole foods and more vegetables than anything else. I am taking more medicine than usual and I think it is affecting my sleep. I am walking, not like three years ago, but still getting in about 36 minutes a day. I've discontinued cable television, but I still have plenty to watch.

All of these things should be good for me, but I feel oddly off balance. As if I am teetering on a fine point that could be radically rocked with almost no provocation.

My creativity appears to be lying dormant. I am not feeling passionate about anything at the moment. That feels odd.

And of course I am growing older. I don't feel older. I hope that is not an illusion, because I still need to look forward to doing and being and changing in good ways.

An age is just a number. It doesn't come with a pattern I must slip into and I haven't found one I really want to follow yet, but I think I am on the edge of something.

Good things

I don't know why some things seem to work effortlessly and others don't, but I am beginning to realize that spending too much time worrying about it is like kicking a tiger in the tush. He will surely turn around and bite you if you keep it up.

I have been able to stick with a new lifestyle for a month come Monday and it has been relatively painless.

That both thrills and terrifies me.

I need to keep it up in order to live the rest of my life decently, so I don't want to jinx, or mess up whatever is making it work.

I've done similar things in the past. Once it worked for nearly ten years before collapsing in upon itself. Other times? Not long at all.

I guess I can only count my blessings, or list all the things I can be grateful for, or any other thing guaranteed to keep the serotonin pumping through my brain, because this is a good thing.

Listening

People hear what they want to hear, what they expect to hear, and sometimes, almost nothing at all.

Minds wander, sometimes to troubles and concerns. Other times to anticipated fun in the future.

It is sad how much of the present is lost because no one is actually there, or at least one is not there.

People accuse each other of lying, or omitting things when it was their own listening that was the lie.

They don't know when their checks are coming, or their bills are due.

They don't know what people really want from them, or need from them.

They don't understand how some people live seemingly easier lives than they do.

I listen. It's one of the reasons I prefer to go out with one other person rather than two, or three, or more. I can only really listen to one person at a time and I really care what is said.

Listening may be the magic word. It brings knowledge, not just in the classroom, but everywhere.

Carrots

What spurs you on?

What is the one thing that will make you get out of bed and move when you feel like you've been run over by a truck and had your mind put through a wringer?

Whatever that is, it's the secret to your success.

For me there is an invisible groove that I get into where everything is somehow easier. Once ensconced in it I can eat right, exercise to a degree and get most of my ducks in a row. The trick for me is finding out how to get there.

I don't just step in and say let's go.

It becomes a complicated weaving of fear (from health issues and age,) wallowing in the sense of accomplishment that comes once I am solidly entrenched, and having certain foods, spaced out at reasonable intervals, that I look forward to.

Not the most sophisticated plan. In fact, it really is a sort of donkey and carrot thing, but when I get into it, it works for me and I think that is the secret. It doesn't usually work to buy a book, or copy someone else's plan in the long run. It needs to be tailored to you and your particular hates and loves.
 
I need short periods of exercise along with three meals a day to cut my cravings and laziness. Then the end result -- way out in front -- dangling like that proverbial carrot, is being healthier and thinner.

Best man still wins

In a world where one-up man ship has become the accepted norm, it is sad to see the people who once would have been mentors and respected elders stooping to throwing their weight around.

Weight throwing implies a last resort, a failure of the chain of command, it is what people do who can't make it any other way, or believe they can't.

The very people who should be above and beyond the despicable behavior of plagiarizing are the ones who know the most efficient ways to do it. They have the experience to subvert the laws with the weight that they carry for being respectable.

In the end no one can do anything about it, but concede they've been one-upped by a master who can retire knowing he didn't really deserve any accolades for such nefarious work.

And after the concession, the human being who still owns his own dignity just has to let it all go and move on knowing he is above that kind of behavior, that he doesn't have to resort to thievery to publish and can make his own name with his own work.

Unflinching kindness

Words in an email or text or even a card.

A disembodied voice coming over the airwaves of a huge country and world.

And finally the soft resonate sound of air pushing through vocal chords tuned exactly to my frequency.

We were meant to meet, you and I.

You have everything I want or lack. I am in awe of your knowledge, your talent, your sweet face and sweeter ways.

The longer we know each other, the more I respect and love you. I cannot think of a single thing I would change about you, or the way you bring out the best in me.

But if I had to pick your most outstanding trait it would be your unflinching kindness. No matter what the situation is, your meticulous understanding always reaches deep enough to find the kindest way to deal with everything.