Collections

The first twenty years of my life I was expected to find something I loved very much and collect it.  That way I could buy things on vacation and people would know what to give me as gifts. My mother suggested salt and pepper shakers and having no real affinity for anything else (or even really them) I jumped on it and collected them for years, but I never sat around looking at them with great pleasure.

One day I realized I had collected quite a selection of turtles and that became the new collection.(Because everyone KNOWS you have to collect something if you are a middle class American woman, right?) Anyway, that lasted about thirty five years, but when I moved back to Illinois from North Carolina, I left it all behind and it was packed up by my son and put away. I don't really miss most of them.

If you had asked me last week, what I collect now, I would have said, nothing, but that's not true. I just realized that my newest hobby is my miniature dollhouse and it is truly a passion, which I think collections are supposed to be. I have always loved miniature things. The Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle at the Science and Industry Museum in Chicago was always one of my favorite places to visit.

I began modestly enough with cardboard boxes and moved on to the Playmobile Victorian Mansion. Then I bought a brownstone dollhouse with three floors and now I have the huge three and a half story bookcase dollhouse, which is my favorite because I can sit in my chair and see all the rooms.

I love redecorating it. I love shopping for exquisite pieces for it and I love just sitting here staring at it. Now that is a real collection.

Accountability

Some people try to force others to believe.

Appearing to believe can be a manifestation of fear, or a need to fit in. Fitting in is evolution in action. Herds, packs, flocks, schools, all rely on it to protect the whole, so people who acquiesce without really believing are common.

People who stand up for the truth and don't just pay lip service to the herd must be very brave.

Or very strong.

Or very stupid.

And fear of looking stupid is very strong in many people.

Everyone makes mistakes, or has accidents. The difference lies in how people respond. The honest ones admit it and learn from them.

The others will pretend you are the bad one, because God forbid they should take responsibility for their own actions. They might be held accountable.

Survival in the land of ice and snow

I live at the top of a pretty little hill that was one of the things that attracted me to this apartment, but today I have been trapped at home all day by the frozen tundra that covers it.

I made one valiant effort to escape after they cleared the front walk down to the mailboxes. Unfortunately, the parking lot where my car is has nothing to do with that walkway.

Stepping outside I found myself on slick, uneven ice with almost no snow covering at all, but I was able to make my way to the grass and walk as far as the corner of the building. There I had two choices, step onto the even slicker and more uneven river rocks, or go back up on the sidewalk.

I chose the later and it was a mistake. Although I doubt the other would have been any better. Once on the sidewalk I found myself sliding wildly downhill and grabbed the drainpipe. Thank goodness I didn't pull it off the wall.

Finally getting to the parking lot, about thirty feet from my car, I realized that stepping out onto that ice rink could be fatal for my old bones, so I decided to go back inside, which was easier to think about than do.

I could not get back up on the sidewalk the way I came and actually thought about knocking on my neighbor's window and asking if they had some way of hauling me up, but I couldn't reach their window.

Finally, creeping inch by inch down the driveway, using whatever snow cover there was for traction, I was able to get to the grass. That put me in good stead until I was back by my own patio again and had to brave the frozen tundra once more.

I called our apartment managers and they sent someone over around four to chop up some of the ice and spread ice melt between the apartment doors and the parking lot. I hope it is still working tomorrow because I have an eleven o'clock appointment.  I could take a taxi to a doctor appointment, but I can't very well take my Honda Fit to get its airbag replaced without driving the car.

We've had snow. We've had ice. Now winter is welcome to leave. I'm beginning to feel like Nanook of the North.

Over the border

They were a young couple walking miles and miles to save their son.

Walking until their feet were sore, their shoes worn through, but they would do anything to save their son and finally after what seemed like an eternity they reached the border seeking sanctuary.Thirsty and afraid, the young mother ran towards it, towing her child by the hand.

Then the tear gas hit and they tried to run away from it, but the more they ran the more it burned their lungs and the child stopped crying because he could only gasp for air. They crossed the border and were immediately swooped up.

The mother was sent to a women's detention facility. The father to a men's and the child was taken into custody because both parents were criminals trying to escape an evil man in their own country, a man who would kill their son if he could get his hands on them. Jesus was put in a state run private facility because everyone was afraid to apply as a foster parent for fear they would be deported too, even if they were legal aliens. And the state didn't waste any of their good money on him either.

But wait . . .

That's not how it happened.

He will come again, but what if he isn't a white upper class wealthy American? He wasn't the last time.

Thinking

It is officially my birthday. Of course I will not be born until nearly eleven thirty, but it is close enough.

The first birthday I remember was looking up at the coconut covered lamb cake on the table as I sat in my Dad's big chair at the end of the table. I got white fur bunny slippers and a blue negligee set.

The next big birthday that I am sure I remember was when I turned six and we had a birthday party in the Lincoln room at my grandfather's restaurant. My favorite gift was a small doll diaper bag from Johnny Ball.

Then the year I turned thirteen we had moved to a country town where my dad taught school. I walked into the kitchen that morning and he said, "Welcome to the world of the teenager where you will feel (something about odd and misunderstood) for the next five years."

By the time I was twenty one I was married and living in Kansas where fields of sunflowers turned their faces all day long to really follow the sun.

I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner for my whole family and their families on my fortieth birthday. It was a huge crowd.

Fifty was scary because I had just gotten divorced, but my friends took me to the country club for Thanksgiving and I fell asleep afterwards.

Sixty was daunting, but I had met Bestest and life was looking up. I'd been living alone for ten years and was starting to feel comfortable in my own skin.

Now I am sixty nine and I have to say that it seems there have been some pretty dramatic changes in my body during the last two weeks. I'm hoping they are in my mind, but I'm not sure they are. My skin seems dryer and more wrinkled. My muscle tone looks off. I haven't been sleeping as good as I was.

But I still volunteer, go to the gym for an hour every day, take care of my apartment, shop, and play with the dollhouse. I read every night, write every day, even draw every day. I'm refinishing a doll house staircase and do my laundry. So, I'm really not slowing down.

I just keep trying to remember my grandmother at this age. She's my only real role model. I know what she did and how she did it. I only wish I knew what she was thinking and feeling.

Now there are three

Thirty three years ago I found myself sick with the flu whenever I went home for  a holiday, or my birthday. I kept getting sick every time I went home for over a year before I realized I didn't want to be there because my mother wasn't. She died that year when she was only 58 and I was 36. I got over it once I realized what was going on.

I suppose I should have recognized the signs, but my body is very good at deceiving me.  I have been sick for over a week. Flu like symptoms that won't go away and tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

This is the first Thanksgiving I will not spend with my brother in the sixty three years since he was born. He died last May and this was the one holiday we had managed to carry on throughout the years. It was much smaller as our children grew up and had children and moved away, but the core people were still there.

I am realizing how important that was to me, how quickly life flies by.

Once there were six of us.

Now there are three.

Reliable

Children are taught to respond to and respect authorities right from the day they are born. It keeps them alive in the best circumstances.

But along the way it can become a liability.

No one source is altogether supremely reliable.

Anything to do with people can be skewed.

People delight in quoting sources that suit their own agendas. Harm is often done backed up by zealots twisting the truth to fit their actions..

It is not enough to trust anyone or anything completely. Nothing exists that cannot be filtered through a haze of misrepresentation for whatever reason.

Hard critical thinking is the first and most reliable skill an intelligent person can have. Using this, they can evaluate all the rest.

Not quite

I have felt strangely detached from everything lately.

I hear myself talking.

I do what I am supposed to do.

But I don't feel like it is really me. It feels more like I am one of those pictures on the old antenna television sets that kept fading in and out.

Perhaps I am coming down with something.

Everything else in my life is almost perfect. Not quite, but almost.

Rehabbing

I didn't feel well today, so I stayed in bed late and pretty much did nothing until after noon. Then I felt better and I decided to start on my staircases.

My old dollhouse had two staircases that fit into my new one, but are totally unfinished.

I have grand ideas about how I'd like them to look when I finish. White with a dark cherry, or mahoghany railing, newel post, and treads.

I worked on the first coat of white for nearly three and a half hours today and quit when I began to feel nauseous. I stopped and it was some time before I felt better. I still don't know if it was because I wasn't feeling great anyway, or if it was the paint (acrylic titanium white, which should be perfectly safe) or just peering at such tiny spaces for so long, or maybe even holding my breath without meaning to.

But I am halfway towards putting the staining on one of them now and I think I am going to like it.

Although I can already see one thing I wish I had done differently. LOL

The real optimist

I have been called an optimist, which I know will sound odd to some people in my family, but that may be because I come from people so optimistic that they are still hoping for the best after 38 years of failure.

It's hard to compete with people like that.

I am more the sort of person who is willing to try one thing after another always hoping to land on the right answer.

But it would be hard to beat my daughter who came out of the restaurant at noon today, stepped into a dreary, drab, rainy, snowy, cold, windy day and said:

Wow, it's turned into a good day!

A long lost dream

I bought a dollhouse from a woman for almost nothing.. She considered it a toddler dollhouse, or maybe a toy shelf, or perhaps even a book case. To me it is the perfect dollhouse.

I thought I wanted one of those scale homes that cost anywhere from five hundred to a hundred thousand dollars, but when I got my first dollhouse that was similar to those for about a hundred dollars I was really happy. The only problem was the limited space inside, or so I thought.

I fixed it up and then it lost it's luster for me. I realize now, there were two reasons for that. One, it was finished, so what more was there to do with it? Two, I couldn't really see what I'd done unless I peeked in the windows, or opened up the side.

This new dollhouse is huge! It has at least seven rooms and some of them are big enough to be two rooms. It is sturdy and open and I can sit here in my chair and enjoy it all the time. I can rearrange the furniture, redo the walls, even redo the rooms.  I can't think of any toys that have given me this much pleasure in years.

I look at the bathroom, shown in the picture, and it just makes me feel good. I don't know why, but I do know that when I look at it, it feels as if I am fulfilling some long lost dream.

Descriptions

I was at the library today looking for a good book to read and as I ran through the list of authors in my head it occurred to me that my favorite authors leave vivid pictures in my mind. Often times I don't know if I have read the book, or seen the movie when it comes out.

Then I began thinking that this is because these writers are able to describe things that I see from my own point of view, which is why movies can be such a disappointment.

That led to the different ways people view things and what tags images in their mind. I would just like to throw out this description:

Lies rolled off his tongue like breath mints in a jackals mouth. A true power monger, he never let the truth come between him and a good lay, or anything else.

Don't tell me who you see. I don't want to know. It's enough to see the image in my head.

The strong man

I wonder how many people really have a good idea of their strengths and limitations?

Growing up I saw so many people, especially women, playing down their strengths, as if it was better to be weak and needy and clumsy. They seemed to think it was cute, or funny, or even sexy.

Now some of those same women are caught up in a web of their own making, because ineptness is neither cute, nor desirable.

On the other hand, I know some people who seem to believe they are so gifted and strong they can do anything! This isn't as great as it sounds either. Over confidence can lead to failure and even though that is not bad, it can be annoying or even dangerous.

The trick is to actually know who you are and what you can do, or not do, then make adjustments to counter balance your weaknesses.

I wonder how many people know their real selves?

Those are the strongest people of all.

Foresight

One might think that things would be less clear beyond the veil and I really don't know for sure, but it seems that as the veil thins, things become more doable.

"What is the worst that can happen?" One of my teachers asks me that all the time.

If I am honest, the worst is seldom much at all. Thinking I am the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega, the one and only is rather extreme. Most of the consequences in life are so much less than that.

I do not have to explain myself to anyone now. I do not have to ask permission. If I choose to do, or try, something, it is totally up to me.

When I decided to play the flute I took lessons and even played in a recital. I am so glad I did that. I only wish I'd had the courage to let my friends know when the recital was so they could have come.

I am not a courageous person, but I do have a zest for life, so if keeping what I do to myself satisfies me, there is no reason to share -- except that sharing often magnifies the pleasure.

Change

Perspective is so personal.

On days when I get up at the crack of dawn and Bestest calls while he walks the dog, my days begin with a ray of sunshine that light up the next twelve hours.

On days when we miss each other the hours feel longer somehow.

And on those rare weeks where we miss each other like ships passing in the night, the world becomes dimmer and dimmer.

Until finally I feel totally at sea.

Funny how a few words change a life.

Soul chart

We have so much in common, but they are often not what people look for and believe in.

Class, which people tend to associate with wealth, is more a matter of mind and manners than having money, which can only buy things, not binafide class.

Philosophy and religion are another place where people think they find brotherhood and camaraderie merely assuming that because you carry a certain book you are a certain kind of person.

The world revolves on facades, but not every mansion surrounds gentility and not every hut a beggar.

The richness of a soul is born out of humility and wisdom. Finding the commonalities of mankind takes desire and tenaciousness, which require time, honesty and an ability to take the higher ground even if it is rockier.

People who believe they can buy their way through life are often among the lowest creatures on the soul chart. Right next to those who believe they can achieve things by force.

It can be done, but it bypasses class and goodness and -- almost everything else worth having.

Book club

I went to my book club today. There were only five of us there because there were several other meetups going on at the same time, but I realized something important.

Out of the five of us, only two had finished the book.

That might sound like we are not the most avid readers, but actually we all are.

Discussing this book, we also happened to talk about why we had not finished it and one other reader said something that opened a door for me.

She doesn't like to rush through a book if she likes it..

That is exactly the way I feel. The more I love a book, the less I want to rush through it and finish it. Instead, I like to savor it, imagine it, see the movie in my mind.

Rushing through it for book club would be a violation of myself and ways.

Infinity divided by one

I am here. Always here, in the M.C. Escher version of living. Up, down, around, into.

I get the feeling that if I just look a little closer, or harder, or for the right amount of time, or at the right angle, I will see the truth of it.

As if everything is before me and I only have to learn to see it, to figure out how to maneuver, and the reality of it will reveal itself to me.

Right now it feels like my life is starting to come into focus. If I were Hansel and Gretel I would be able to see the bread crumbs. My homesickness would feel hopeful that we were no longer lost. It is as if my dreams have traded places with my other life.

It is like reaching down into a big soft bag and knowing that everything I ever wanted or needed is in there, but I can only pull it out if I recognize it with my fingers and mind -- not my eyes or rationality.

And then I pull back. Afraid, because when the veil is too thin and life feels too much like the fairy tale, I know there could be a big bad wolf lurking in the darkness, or a sea monster lying in the depths,or a bog ready to swallow me whole with my next step.

All around me are the souls of ancestors, recycled into me. One soul with a thousand hearts and a million thoughts, but only one essence appearing as everything.

It is a terrifying comfort when I feel like this.

Evel Knievel

Education is more than regurgitating rote material.

The surest way for a business, or country, or even household to start deteriorating is for the people to be kept uneducated and fed truisms by those with an agenda.

There is a difference between technical training and a classical education. It is one thing to learn how  follow directions and remember rules. It is something else to research, compile ideas and use them to come up with a well thought out conclusion.

People need to learn to think. Critically, carefully, thoughtfully.

It may not be the fastest way to get things done, or cause the least trouble, but it will serve the world better.

People will bend over backwards trying to do the right thing, but if Evel Knievel is just standing up there shouting directions and the people are mindlessly obeying?

That is dangerous! One day there will be a pitfall and all those direction followers will not be told it is there.

Run run run -- to freedom

This was written by an immigrant who came to this country 60 years ago, but it is pretty much the same story I heard from one of our school secretaries who came with her elementary school aged daughter a few years ago. Only she did not have the good fortune to come in safety on an airplane.

Grandmother Flordemayo

Grandmother Flordemayo

Today, November 5th, 2018 is 4 Kan. I’m sharing again my story of immigration when I came with my family from Central America to the United States.

Even now 60 years later. I have a difficult time speaking about this journey.

I was a child when my mother told us we are going to the US. I only had a few days before we left . My mind and my emotions were frozen. I remember those moments in time ...moving as if in slow motion. I looked around at the beauty of my surroundings the green plants the warm temperature the voice of my brothers and sisters. I remember my moms demeanor in her face was without expression. The night before we left no one slept. I was woken up in the cool midnight walking to the bus-stop.

We boarded in the early morning hour with a ride to Managua, Nicaragua. That was the moment my journey started. My body was use to the mountain air & surroundings. I found myself in a city that was totally different busy with cars, people all around me, noise & the temperature was so hot. All I could do is hold my moms hand very tight. We stayed that night at my moms friends house to leave the next morning. We flew from Managua to Miami to La Guardia airport in NYC. My mind went into another transition. That became imprinted in my heart. The reality of my home, my town was all gone it was like it only existed in my mind.

I often asked my mom before she passed. I was younger than 17 years old

“Mama why did we come to the US her answer was always the same
Hija (daughter)

I wanted you to have a better life

We have no rights in Central America we as women

We cannot say NO to sex

We cannot say how many children we want to have

We cannot speak & express our thoughts

We have No rights to an education

We cannot say NO to all of the domestic and field work that we do

We cannot say NO to cooking & looking for food

We have no rights on what clothing we want to wear

We are under the domination of someone else

I brought you here to have a better life than mine

I had NO rights as a women in Central America NO rights at all
So we run- run — run— to find freedom

Love and Light,
Grandmother Flordemayo
#grandmotherflordemayo #familiesbelongtogether

The death of freedom

The elections tomorrow are important. I voted by mail weeks ago.

We need to send a message that we don't want this new way of aggrandizing violence and intolerance in our country.

A country founded on the principles of tolerance has suddenly done an about face that is escalating faster than most of us dreamed possible.

Intolerance is becoming the new norm, lies from the top down make people believe it is not only okay, but American to kill those they don't agree with.

We have become a country of scapegoats. Any problems are blamed on people who are a different sex, or religion, or who love people we don't approve of. Immigrants seeking asylum are put in pens, separated from their children and accused of being criminals when all they want is to escape the gang and political violence of their own countries.

We not only want everyone to look like us, love like us, worship like us, think like us, but we are willing to assault them if they don't and somehow this is American? It is becoming more common now than it has been in years.

We are losing freedom faster than you can say white supremist.

Our watery world

I went to coffee with some friends this morning and afterwards stopped at the gym to exercise for almost an hour. The tricky part of all that was running through the rain from my car to the buildings and back again because I did not wear a jacket, or raincoat.

It made me think about what an anomaly water is.

Bathing in a hot tub of it is so relaxing. Running through a cold Autumn shower of it is freezing.

Water is so soft and  pliable. It takes on the shape of whatever contains it and yet a raging river of water can carry away buildings and trees!

Gentle enough to wash your baby, water can wear away mountains and create Grand Canyons.

A drop is here and gone in a second, but it is the persistence of millions of years that wears away those mountains and canyons.

It makes up a large part of our bodies.

It can be flavored to become coffee or tea, fizzed to make soda, boiled to make soup, frozen to make ice.

It reconstitutes many dried things and becomes a conveyance for soap to wash away bacteria.

It is necessary for life, fun for entertainment, productive enough to run machines and make electricity, and dangerous enough to take a life.

It can turn into a gas, a liquid, or a solid and the things you can do with, or in, those is almost endless.

All this from two tiny molecules of hydrogen and one of oxygen!

Facebook

I hear people talking about how bad Facebook is and I doubt it's any worse than other modern inventions have ever been.

Once upon a time the telephone, radio, and television were the target of people who felt they distracted people from their jobs and being with other people. At least the telephone and Facebook are interactive.

In fact, I think it would have lengthened my father's life to have had a computer. He was bored to death in the elderly high rise and nursing home. A computer would have put a library on his desk and a way to communicate with his friends, not bimonthly, but daily.

Now I watch my sister's granddaughter on Facebook. Her best friend moved away and she has some learning problems, but she likes to put pictures on Facebook, so she is constantly on there with her baby showing it off. I think if she didn't have this, she might not be quite as enamored with an under one year old. She also might not have such easy access to parenting tips and ideas. It's a multigenerational way to share mothering skills for someone who doesn't drive and lives in a small town.

I like Facebook because it allows me to share my own pictures with friends and relatives across the country. In a world where my children live in three different states and coast to coast, that is a blessing.

There is no danger for me on Facebook. I simply don't put anything on there if I don't want the world to know it. Common sense goes a long way.