What's it all about

Modern mores would have us believe that people who truly love each other can read each other's minds. They don't have to ask for things, or say I'm sorry, or I love you, or tell you anything. If you really love them, you will know!

Hogwash!

If you really love them, you will tell them what is important to you and talk with them about what is important to them.

Communication is probably the most important connection two people have. Don't set each other up to fail by implying, or testing, or any of those awful things you see in movies.

There can still be misunderstandings, but once again communication comes into play along with playing fair and realizing everyone can make a mistake.

Life is not about winning, because that can actually be losing. Strong silent types and passive aggressive types and drama queens can be very lonely people.

How hard can it be? (Well, actually it can be hard,) but talk to each other.

And listen.

The grand old dame of yotzonot

The grand old dame of Yotzonot,
She weighed ten thousand pounds,
She laughed when she was up,
And cried when she was down.

And when she was glad, she was up,
And when she was sad, she was down,
And when she was neither glad nor sad,
She could neither smile nor frown.

A counselor she should know,
A counselor she should know,
She'll talk about Freud until she is void
And then to Jung she'll go.

The grand old dame of Yotzonot,
She weighed ten thousand pounds,
She ate when she was up,
And ate when she was down.

Library

I volunteer in a school library.

I cannot think of a better place for me.

It reflects most of those things I love and feel are most important in life.

There is purpose, order, knowledge, and entertainment available for free for everyone who walks in the door of the library.

No matter what you do in here, you will learn something. (Even if it is just to be respectful of other people's time and space, which is no small thing.)

You can find the way to do almost anything else you want to do here too.

I seriously cannot understand how anyone could not love a library.

Holes

The emptiness creeps in unseen

unheard

unfelt.

Taking up space,

Aching to be filled.

What's it all about

In the end my brother's ashes were simply blowing in the wind, but they carried our hearts with them, across land that he loved and I believe his passing drew our family even closer together.

As I draw closer to the inevitable end I am amazed at how short life is.

This summer has been long. Perhaps the longest summer I can remember. There were so many disappointments, so much sorrow, so much waiting, so many things that seemed to be moving backwards instead of forwards.

But maybe directions are just an illusion. Forwards. Backwards. Sideways. It's only here that really matters and here is always different. Different points of view. Different places. Different people. Different beginnings and endings.

All the pain, all the gloriously unique and special moments, good and bad, are only the bricks along the road that change the way. Almost always leading to something better in the end if I am honest and patient.

Right now, in this moment, most of my life is so sweetly perfect I am afraid to even think about it for fear it will dissipate and show itself to be only a dream and not the real foundation of living it really is.

But in the end, I too, will simply be ashes in the wind . . . and I hope it's at a Fall wiener roast where rosy cheeked people are eating caramel apples, and the scent of burning leaves fills the air.

"Come, little leaves,"
Said the wind one day,
"Come over the meadows
With me, and play;
Put on your dresses
Of red and gold;
Summer is gone,
And the days grow cold."
 
I want to rise in the in the aftermath of that wiener roast and leave the hearts behind me cozy and warm.

Yesterday

Yesterday was a seven doughnut, rearrange the entire apartment day.

It began with me talking to Bestest and working on the computer, but then I had too much time before picking up my daughter for the library and lunch and I texted people.

I was just feeling so good and loving and I wanted to share that with those I loved, but I never heard back from one and that has me concerned and  another was having a very bad day.

By five o'clock in the afternoon I went shopping for my drugs of choice, sugar and carbs, bought seven doughnuts, one sub sandwich and some Diet Coke.

Then I came home, ate the doughnuts and switched out the bedroom and living room! In a way that made sense. I freeze all day sitting near the air conditioner in my living room and sweat all night because I need to be covered up to sleep in the other room. It was good exercise moving all that heavy furniture and finagling it around corners,

I should have slept well, but I had nightmares all night long. One of the worst was that someone I love very much burned me and I had to put my hand in the stream to stop the pain. Then it was just chaos, finding and losing my children, buying them school clothes that were adorable, but way too expensive and being threatened by huge German Shepard dogs at every turn.

Yep, yesterday was a seven doughnut, rearrange the entire apartment type day.

Singing

The old grey ostrich she ain't what she used to be. Many long years ago.

Of course she is really much better and I hope everyone knows that.

Both herself and those around her.

Comfort is the basis of her life now.

She's more comfortable with herself and her choices. She's even more comfortable with change and unusual situations.

Something clicked the other day and she put the scale in the cabinet, closed the door, and moved on to healthier pursuits. Like reading more, being more creative, and enjoying life.

Her friends are a motley assortment of other creatures who may appear to have nothing to do with her, or her species, but she finds comfort in them too.

It's nice to sink into a life of comfort and allow it to billow up around you.

Shoes

It's hard to walk in someone else's shoes, because we don't know where their feet have been.

What kind of medicine they took as a child that influenced their growth.

What their brain is capable of understanding.

What their ears actually hear.

What the sights they see mean to them.

All of our senses influence the way we perceive the world and then our brain takes that data and comes up with a belief system that suits both who we want to be and what we actually are.

Imagine an elephant wearing spiked heels.

Or an ant in a size twelve sneaker.

Stumbling through life in the shoes of another is almost impossible.

I didn't know

GI Joe always said, "Knowing is half the battle," but I think knowing is highly overrated.

At my age, what I think might just be more important than what is perceived as the truth, when it comes to who I am and how I look.

I felt young, cute, even pretty, on a recent trip with my sister.

I wore my old, what I had thought was too small, swimming suit into the Hotel pool.

I wore an outfit that was comfortable and stylish in my mind.

And I had a great time!

I had infinite energy and endurance. My joints all held up perfectly. I ate when I was hungry and when I wanted to enjoy a special treat.

All in all it was just as good, or better than any vacation I have ever had in my life and that says a lot.

Then I saw the pictures . . . and all those ugly old voices went to work on my head.

Instead of GI Joe I thought of Archie Bunker. "Will you stifle yourself!"

Stage Four

Nine months ago, close to my 68th birthday I was several months into a new life style. Instigated by a need to improve my health and egged on by a dissatisfaction with my life the way it was. Or, perhaps not really a dissatisfaction, but rather a feeling that I was waiting for something.

Last night I dreamed that I was pregnant and then I delivered my own baby! I was surprised in the dream, but she was a gorgeous baby girl and I was completely happy. Some bad things happened in the dream, but I was totally capable of dealing with them in a conscious and positive way.

Yesterday evening my daughter gave me back some of my favorite clothes that I had given her. Now she has lost weight and cannot wear them and I have decided that I prefer comfort to the smallest size clothes I can squeeze myself into.

Last week I found the perfect size and color Queen Anne wing chair for my apartment. I once again have lovely plants in my home. I have my beautiful amethyst geodes out of storage, my artwork up above the cabinets and on the walls and I have slept comfortably in my bedroom for two whole nights.

Bestest calls me nearly every day and we chat. I am volunteering in the school library. My children are all comfortable and loving.

I believe this is what I have been waiting for.  The baby is born and a new stage of life begins.

Decked

We have moved into a new house. My parents, my siblings, my children and I. My siblings and my children are the same people, but that doesn't seem important.

There is a second floor deck off the kitchen and the children and I are down below in the yard, gold plating something big, bulky, top secret and dangerous. Every so often my mother calls down from the deck telling us to hurry and every so often I leave to go next door to the high school where they are having graduation exercises. At the school I stand in long lines and shake hands with dignitaries who are there to watch us, but I always go back home to work in the yard.

We (my children, or siblings and I) are madly trying to finish gold plating the bomb in the yard when we hear a helicopter coming.  My mother warns us and we think about trying to escape, but I am caught holding the bomb, trying to pretend it is only a gold pumpkin as I start to slide down a water chute to get away.

The helicopter, which is shaped like a huge yellow boomerang, swoops down in front of me, forcing me back to the yard, then it lands in the back of the yard and several military officers disembark. They herd us all up onto the deck and the bigwig, who looks suspiciously like my grand-pop, gives a speech.

He tells us that we are heroes and our country appreciates what we have done and because of that he is giving me a gold colored band for the arm of my coat. I realize he is just bamboozling us and the band is less than worthless, but say nothing. He ends up giving me his uniform coat as well and the woman with him escorts us back down to the yard to resume working.

I think this is all a crock, but I am afraid to buck the system, so I wave at my mother up on the deck and she waves back smiling happily.

In the soup

Imagine finding yourself in the conference room of a very nice hotel.

The only person there besides you is a man in a tuxedo drinking champagne.

He is floating on his back in the murky waters that have flooded the place, so all you can see are some dim lights along the walls and a huge expanse of dark water.

You are floating along the wall, away from him, but flutter your feet back and forth like a mermaid, or fish and find yourself tearing through the water, feet first, towards him. It is exhilarating and shocking. And backwards.

When you reach him, you stop and talk for a few moments. He says he is getting married today and you wonder why he is down here drinking champagne and floating, but you drift away before he answers.

Suddenly you see a commotion in the water. It could be stingrays, or sharks, but there are a lot of them and now you are frightened and want out of the water. Flapping your feet seems like a bad idea because it might attract them to you, so you lie flat out, trying to keep as much of yourself out of the water as possible. You might even be lying on a surf board. You only know you want to leave the room without being bitten.

The man doesn't seem particularly concerned so you float towards him and he heads into the stair case. You realize that this is your best chance. If you float up really close to the steps you might be able to get out onto a dry one without being bitten by the sharks whose fins you see behind you.

Both of you pull up together and he reaches for the hand rail and offers you a hand up.

You wonder if you should take it because you don't know him or the bride!

And then there were two

I have several groups of people that I hang out with and one is the Ironwood Ladies.

We are a group of older women who live, or once lived in the same apartment complex. Our ages are within a year of each other except for one of us who is 81 and the spryest one of all.

Today we were supposed to get together for breakfast at a local cafe and I got there first. I didn't sit down because I wasn't sure how many seats we needed.

On a good day there could be nine of us.

Today there were two.

May's daughter, who lives on a private island injured her back exercising and had to hire an airplane to get to the doctor. She needed her mother. (And this knocked off the two women who sometimes come with her.)

Martha stayed up late last night emailing about the goose poop littering her walk and needed to sleep in.

Clancy and Fran, two sisters who often come together, had to go to the hospital because Clancy's twelfth grandchild was born this morning.

Beth has disappeared. Maybe to her quarrelsome daughter's house where a new grandchild appeared a month ago, and maybe she had to reschedule a dialysis treatment, and maybe she just changed her mind!

That left me and Anna Marie and she was late because of a freight train that may still be parked across Linden for all we know and all the other people who accosted her to tell her why they wouldn't be coming.

But . . . two for tea, or coffee and pancakes, is still pretty good.

Fly karma

I keep some thoughts jotted down on small index cards. They are just things that come to me at odd moments that seem worthy of not forgetting for one reason or another.

I was adding this thought today: Sometimes I feel like a fly battering myself against the window pane. I can see the world with all its possibilities and freedom, but I can't touch it or get there.

Then I happened to look back. Another thought was this: How many of us buzz madly about, bumping into things, totally ignoring the obvious way out?

And finally this: The most horrible of all things is to keep creatures who love each other apart.

Three separate thoughts, on three separate days. Not consecutive. Not consciously linked, yet indicative of my life lately.

All inspired by flies whose dead bodies accumulate in the crack of my window well, having died unfulfilled and helpless against their own limited understanding of the world as they know it.

Less than a foot away is a portal to that other world and it opens frequently. Had they been able to focus on that one thing, their lives would have been totally different.

Home medicine

My new apartment is slowly revealing itself to me.

Whispering in my ear that this corner, or that one, needs more light, or a plant, or maybe even another mirror.

Motioning to me to move the chairs around and consider a loveseat.

Reminding me that there is lots of storage in the closets and not everything needs to be on display.

Opening up chances for renewal and creativity that brighten my day and soften my nights.

Even when I'm feeling puny, the idea of changing things up makes me feel better.

My music

I have been listening to Pandora more lately and I guess I didn't really understand how it worked until tonight when I stumbled on the Browse setting.

There are all those mysterious stations I love, but didn't know how to get back to! I didn't know they were saved in one place for me.

That being said, I had to laugh at the strange little eclectic collection there.

I have Yo-Yo Ma Radio, Domenico Scarlatti, Country Hymns, Classical Guitar and Ballet Music Radio, as well as the Three Tenors and The Irish Tenors.

I do like some Indie music, but I seldom find myself sitting here in the evening aching to hear it. On the other hand, the music here sometimes breaks my heart with its beauty.

My favorite music is played by people I love in person, but if I can't have that I am very happy with Pandora.

Questions

What is the lowest common denominator for security?

How do I find that place where I am least likely to get hurt or suffer?

Living alone in the smallest quality apartment is a start.

No partners to be unfaithful, or wander off.

No bills so huge they will wipe me out.

Friends and family available, but at arm's length most of the time.

Have I pared my life down too far?

Or am I just being sensible?

Frightening thoughts.

The true walking dead

I find there are so many things in life that I don't know, or didn't know, about until it was too late. Things that maybe I wasn't ready to hear at the time my mother, or aunts, or older friends might have wanted to share them, but mostly I think we just don't talk about those things in our culture.

My sister often comments that our grandmother said when people ask how you are you tell them fine, because they really don't care and honestly don't want to know. Experience has proved her right many times.

However there are things I do care about and do want to know and people gloss over them with silly smiles, or pretend contentment, or Facebook hearts and smiley faces when the truth would open the door to some truly meaningful and perhaps deep conversations.

I come from a family divided between teachers and geriatric caregivers of many sorts, so you might think I would know a lot about aging, but I don't really. As a child of ten I spent a lot of time talking to the ladies in the Guest Home and learned so many wonderful stories, but grandmas don't share much else with children, especially other people's children.

Now I want to know, what is it really like to be old -very very old - and still have an alert, inquiring mind? We focus on dementia, but perhaps there are things worse than dementia - like a lively, curious, hungry mind trapped in a body freezing up and becoming more and more isolated.

I remember my grandmother lying in bed, unable to move or speak while her television spewed religious shows and cartoons into her room twelve hours a day. I felt horror for her then.

I am terrified for me now. It must feel like being a novice DEAD person. You are practicing not being there while you still are and now instead of interesting people discussing wonderful ideas with you, you listen to people who have nothing in common with you except that you are both human, gossip all day like you aren't there. Gone are the fascinating books if you don't have a way to read them, and the wonderful movies, if you cannot hear them. Long are the hours when you no longer have access to your old hobbies and the freedom to get in a car and just go, or walk in the woods unless someone chooses to take you.

People take care of your body.

But what about your mind?

It's all that's really left.

Unconditional

I think the most amazing thing about Bestest is that he is the way I experience unconditional love. And the fact that it took sixty years for me to realize what it was.

I may, in fact, have experienced it before, but it certainly was not consciously and consciously experiencing something enhances it to almost fairy tale standards. The dragons are more terrifying when you know they could burn you alive and the magic is more precious when you realize the heights it can carry you to. Those are fairy tale standards.

There is also the quest, that searching for the elusive something you know in your heart will never be found, but that you also know just looking for (and truly knowing it is there) is so fulfilling it doesn't matter.

It takes a certain mind set to live a fairy tale.

Bravery, imagination, belief, and love.

Most of all love.

The unconditional sort.

Night Music

If I were going to write a ghost story, or horror movie, the first thing I would do would be to set the mood.

One dark night as the wind blew the trees and the moon began to drown in a torrential rain, thunder rattled the apartment windows and she snuggled down deeper into her quilts and sheets until only her nose stuck out.

Next I might add a bit of tension.

Telling herself that the pitch black darkness of the room was only because the windows were shuttered and the bathroom door closed, not to mention she had just turned off her reading light, so her eyes had yet to adjust, the woman rolled over and grabbed her teddy bear. She told herself she didn't believe in ghosts and even if she did her bear would keep anything bad at bay. That's what teddy bears were for.

After that I might ease up and allow a false sense of security to take over.

Closing her eyes, she dozed off. Teddy bear clutched under her chin, pillow too. Snug as a bug in a rug she allowed the storm outside to become a lullaby that carried her away.

But then the shock!

Nearly sound asleep, she jerked away as something lifted her sheet and quilt and flapped it back down on her back. She tried desperately to recreate that with no luck since her sheets and quilts were way too heavy and too long, but perhaps she dreamed it.

And then the lull that leads into the climax.

Awakening, she listened to the beautiful voice, a high, rich, soprano, smooth as syrup on warm pancakes and backed up by the most emotional music played on sitars and sarods, sarangis and flutes. It seemed to wail and trill and tell a million stories in a million voices until it occurred to her that it was nearly three AM and everyone should be sleeping. It grew fainter.

She got up and thought if she turned off all three of her fans and her air conditioner she might be able to hear it again. And then she thought maybe it had been a trick of her sleeping mind. Hearing the fans and air conditioner and thinking it was music. She heard nothing more, so she turned everything back on and went back to bed.

This happened twice in one week minus the thunderstorm the second time.

Beautiful. Heart rending. Lovely music that slowly fades away into the night.

One month

I moved into my new apartment exactly one month ago today.

I have already rearranged the rooms and even changed up the patio!

I have spoken to a few neighbors and love the diversity here. From my living room window I see African Americans, Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Japanese Americans and plain old Caucasian Americans. One of the qualities they all share is obvious, as are so many others. They are mothers, fathers, children, grandparents and neighbors.

I can hear the sirens when the fire trucks up the road leave to help someone out and occasionally I hear the airplanes coming in for a landing down the road at our regional airport.

The people who mow the lawn here actually clean up their clippings and leave everything tidy, unlike my old apartment complex.

The garbage people seem to come before the garbage overflows or smells.

I've figured out how to cool the bedroom down enough to sleep well. (We'll see if I can afford that when my first electric bill comes due.)

I love being able to easily access the library and have already gone three times.

In fact, the location of this apartment makes nearly everything easy to get to and use.

Life is good.

Mother Margharitas

To sea to sea
To have a party
Home again home again
Jiggety jee.

To party to party
And then to turn forty
Home again home again
Jiggety jorty

I owe I owe
It's off to work I go

(Oh wait, that's a whole different story!)

Observing

I have been walking a few miles a day with my daughter this summer. It gives us lots of time to gossip, share great secrets, plan events, argue and observe each other.

She observed me the other day and commented that I was dragging behind a bit. She was right. It has been a miserably hot and humid summer and by the time we are closing in on our second mile I am out there mostly because it is good for me.

But I have observed her quite a few times when she has gone out of her way to say something very kind, or nice, to people we pass on the street. And I can see that they are pleased, and/or touched by this. I love that!

I love knowing my children can be such wonderfully kind and good people.

I've observed both my sons do similar things. Their manners are impeccable. They are as just as any people I know anywhere on earth and they are both very good fathers. I've seen them squat down to their children's level and calmly explain some important, but complicated concept to them.

Although I am sure they observed and learned many things from me as they grew up, I have learned and continue to learn even more from them.

That's the story of, that's the glory of

Most people have met mothers whose child is perfect. Now imagine being the little brother of the perfect child, especially if that older brother was not only perfect, but sixteen years older. He is not just perfection. He is aged to perfection!

His mother's memory has rubbed all the rough places smooth, erased the wrinkles, and embellished the shiny spots. He was not a child whose walking was delayed- he chose not to walk until he knew he wouldn't fall down -- perfection!

For eighteen years the little brother was fighting a losing battle. How can anyone compete with a mythical creature who never really existed? And woe to the one who also has a touch of attention deficit disorder. Every less than great thing he does, or is part of, is immediately over shadowed by an edited memory of his super brother. And every flaw is proof that he will never be the memory his brother has plated in gold.

That little brother breathes a sigh of relief when he flies the less than cozy nest and looks around for role models. Unfortunately one of those role models was a fictional one born in the sixties by movies like Bob, Carol, Ted and Alice, a movie that was first and foremost just that, a movie. And a movie that did not follow up with the real life consequences of a man who is healthy, wealthy and forever unwise.

A man who needs the constant affirmations from every woman, especially young woman, he comes into contact with, can never be faithful to the one woman who truly loves him. He doesn't believe he's lovable, so he doesn't truly value her love.

He goes through life making an ass of himself in front of every waitress, flight attendant, store clerk, office girl and woman on the street, thinking he is being debonair and charming while hurting the woman who stands by him, knowing who he is, night and day.

Until she doesn't.

And then he moves on, unable to believe it has anything to do with him, he searches for new adventures that will ultimately end up the same way.

That's the story of, that's the glory of . . . living life off of a faulty script.

Inglenook

I made it almost a whole month before rearranging the living room! (The bedroom didn't make it two weeks.)

In times of stress, when I can't rearrange my life, I have always found comfort and enjoyment in rearranging my home.

Tonight around seven o'clock, after talking to my son and learning that he still has not found their family dog, Eben, I suddenly had the urge to redo the living room.

It makes sense in many ways, because I like to be cool, but I hate drafts, so by taking the television out of what could well be an inglenook (if I ever put in a fireplace) I opened up a place for my big comfy chair.

The television is not limited by cable anymore, so it can be anywhere -- and I can be snuggled up in my little inglenook watching it without cold air blowing down my neck. My computer can be docked to the right which it is wired for and if I want to read there is plenty of light.

Life is good!

What a week

Bestest goes on a vacation where he is totally inaccessible and the world gets messy.

My ex, out of the blue, announced he was getting a divorce and I am actually feeling bad for him. I thought his "new" marriage of seventeen years was going along splendidly.

Two days after the first announcement he announced that he needed to move, immediately!  My son was on the road for hours in driving rain in order to help him do that.

It turns out the new wife had the same problems I had with him. I knew who he was and while I feel strangely validated that it also happened to her, I still find it sad.

While my son was helping his father, his geriatric dog wandered off, so when he got back home tonight he went out looking for her.

It was past midnight when he texted. He still hasn't found her. He's staying home from work in the morning to continue looking.

What a week.

Mind pictures

I have had a picture in my mind since I moved last month.

I can see it as clearly as day. A small box filled with things from my doll house.

A violin, a Tiffany lamp that lights up, a small oval frame from Goodwill that I used as a coffee table, all lying gently jumbled together with china, pots and pans and even silverware.

In a place I cannot find.

Yesterday, after wallpapering and putting in flooring I took pictures and posted them on Facebook, without any of the things from that box.

It's not like I haven't looked for it. I even had the feeling I had seen it since the move, but it was not anywhere I looked now.

Until after midnight last night when I was putting my book away and saw the little cardboard boxes where I keep my special rocks (collected from all over the world.) There it was! A small box of treasures tucked up and stored in my reading bin with rocks!

I can't tell you how relieved I am.

Or why I stored it there.