Bifurcation

The most terrifying thing in the world is to see the evil or mean side of a very good person, someone you love, someone you need to trust.

Passive aggressive smiles make me tremble with fear. Like Cheshire cat smiles, what you see isn't what is really there. It's like glimpsing evil through a veil of love.

Reality verses what you want to believe, challenges faith. Faith in reality. Faith in love. Faith in goodness. If someone really important to you, like your mother, is not exactly who she seems to be, underlying your love for her, your need for her is your fear of her.

You cannot live without her to protect you, but she is irrationally unpredictable.

She brings you all the safety and sweetness, all the creativity and joy and she brings you nightmares of fire and pigs with red eyes. She is the werewolf whose finger snaps and creates fire, fire that burns you alive.

The beautiful auburn haired goddess with the sparkling green eyes can turn into a banshee, throwing lightning strikes with her hands, splitting heads from across the room, cutting your joy out with a few concise words.

Yet there is no one else to heat the washcloths for your earaches, make you soft food when your throat hurts. There is no one who does more for you, or tries harder, to make you happy.

It is like one of those dolls you can flip upside down. One way she is an angel. The other a demon.

Both extraordinarily ferocious.

And she flips in a moment.

Here, in this moment

I approach nostalgia like dark earthy bogs.

I imagine there are hands in there that will pull me in.

Muddy my world.

Make it impossible for me to breathe or see the light that I cling to almost desperately.

I love crisp new horror movies, brilliant new adventure movies, lovely new cartoons.

I love rearranging my apartment into new configurations because new speaks of hope to me.

As long as things keep moving there is less chance of them settling into dark, or sad, or bad.

When I do slip down Memory Lane I am ever watchful for the darkness that creeps up through the petal strewn gardens of the past.

Who are the people in your neighborhood

I often look at pictures on Facebook and think these pictures might be appropriate advertisements for Bedlam.

Tongue sticking out, arms spread wide as if bowing for some great accomplishment like drinking straight from a bottle of booze, does not feel like a particularly laudable lifestyle.

It seems to me that if I were advertising my best self for the world to see and applaud I could do better than that.

Even worse, are pictures of the parents doing similar things. Bragging about how much wine they need, how hedonistic they are after work, feels like it is misleading to offspring who may never have the education, desire, nor money in a future being built on these straw foundations.

I am all for loving each other for who we really are, but a more realistic view of the future means I want my children to know how to do more than be codependent.

Teenagers are young, ignorant and under many misconceptions. They may equate a speeding car with skill, when it only means they know how to put their foot down. The same is true about making faces and guzzling booze from a bottle. Any child given the chance can do these things. It requires nothing. No skills. No creativity. No anything.

People deserve to know they can do better than that.

Who can ask for anything more

I think I have reached that stage in life where excitement and drama are mostly unwelcome in my life.

There is much to be said for contentment and peace of mind.

I don't need to be the heroine.

I don't need to be rescued.

I don't need anything except loving people and thoughtfulness right now.

This is once upon a time and in this moment everything is happily ever after.

It won't always be this way, but now I know it will occasionally come around again:

Who could ask for anything more?

Last retorts

With the prednisone done I was frustrated to feel itchy again yesterday.

Now I have gone the last mile I can think of.

I turned off the furnace and blower and have resorted to using my infrared heater.

It seems up to the task, now let's see if it works.

This seems like a poor subject for a thot, but sometimes one really must get down to the very basics.

Christmas Tea

Yesterday I went to a tea house with six other women and it felt so right. Three of these women will spend Christmas day alone, but they are okay with that. There was no mad need for anyone to take them in as if there was something wrong with them. One woman was there with her daughter, home from France for a few days. Another was expecting her first child and she and her husband had just bought a larger home. I am expecting to go to my daughter's late Christmas day and bring my grown granddaughters with me.

It was a moment in time where I truly felt like I belonged. I savored every part of it.

And yet, back home I feel like it really isn't Christmas. I'm not sure why.

All the decorations are here. The tree is adorable and exactly what I love. There is a Charlie Brown aspect to the way I set it up, but with an elegance that is only me. The presents are wrapped and decorated with handmade ornament tags. My cards hang on a red ribbon down the length of my front door and jingle bells ring every time I go in or out. My stocking is hung from the silver deer with care, but I know no St. Nicholas will soon be there.

I do all of this for me. No one sees my Christmas decorations. And still, it does not feel like Christmas.

What do I need to change that? I honestly do not know.

But I think it has something to do with the beauty of that Christmas Tea.

Surviving the holidays

Holidays are often difficult times.

We want everything to be fairytale perfect. Popular culture leads us to believe that is the norm, but it really isn't.

People are still alone and sick. Money problems are actually exacerbated by expectations of a mythical little elf providing all your dreams on Christmas morning. Sorrow can be held in a parenthesis of cheerful attempts to fit into the season, because everyone knows, "Tis the season to be jolly."

Sometimes the best thing to do is simply count your blessings. Try not to have expectations. Focus on what is good now.

Almost everyone has some of those. No matter how small, they are the beacons to look for.

The hardest thing

Today I am very concerned for the sweet dog I babysat last Fall. She is a lab and having surgery for tumors first thing in the morning.

I have never known a finer dog, nor a sweeter one. I just can't say it enough. Maddie is sweet. Sweet!

Her big brown eyes melt my heart. Her gentle ways make me not afraid of her. Her cute way of smiling when she's bringing back a ball is just indescribable.

I know that no matter what happens to Maddie she has the best people in the world loving her. She's has a wonderful life. No dog could ask for better people than her owners.

My heart is with them now and tomorrow and forever more.

Love is the greatest thing in the world, but it can also be the hardest.

One frog in the pond

It is one thing to be sad and to mourn. It is even understandable to believe someone is acting out in frustration and anger. These are reactions to grief.

The pond is full of life, dancing in the light, sparkling and sprinkling, bumping up against and rubbing sides with every other entity that is there. Each ripple creates hundreds of new ripples so that the pond is one undulating rhythmic symphony of sound, feelings and motion.

From the dark murky comfort of the mud below to the least bright drop of dew above, it is all connected.

One frog croaking on his lily pad can add enough dissonance to make every other part of this scene less than the idyll it could become.

Blurring the light, fracturing the ripples, destroying the beauty and peace of a wonderful pond will not bring back the bloom that once held him in stunned awe, but has now disappeared.

No matter how many times he pushes pebbles into the water; no matter how many angry plops he makes leaping in and splatting down on whatever he can hit; no matter how strident his song becomes: the lotus that is gone forever will not return.

He simply makes it harder for any others to rise from the depths below. He denies himself and others the blessings lying in wait, trying to rise up into the light through unremitting darkness.

One frog in the pond can make such a difference.

A movable room

I woke up this morning and (Sounds like the start of a country music song, right? But then it gets real.) my eyes were itching madly. My neck was too and my face was burning. I think I am allergic to something in my bedroom and I don't know what it is.

I have been sleeping in the living room all summer because it is cooler there, but I moved back to the bedroom at the end of October, about the time this started. Also about the time I bought the lettuce leaf fern. Maybe it isn't the ferns. They are gone. I have cleaned and cleaned and things are not better.

Sooooooo

At 6 AM I moved the bedroom back into the living room! And after all the chairs, plants, bed and so forth were moved, I washed all the sheets and blankets and bedspreads.

But tonight I went to a Murder Mystery dinner at the Mackinaw Winery.

Fairy tales do come true

Once upon a time a little girl grew up like many little girls, reading fairy tales and happily ever afters, dreaming of saints and miracles and all kinds of wondrous things.

She just never out grew these things. Deep inside of her was a little seed always ready to bloom at the first drop of love and life and possibilities.

People warned her. They said you must grow up and give up these childish things, so she tried, but it is like telling a peach to grow without its pit. Impossible!

You cannot be what you are not and she was born to live the fairy tales and mythologies that other children gave up long ago.

And because of this she has met knights in shining armor, Peter Pans, Brave Queens and kings and famous wizards -- all disguised as everyday human beings.

But she has also been locked in a dungeon, bludgeoned with words, shunned, and fooled by tricksters so evil they can do almost everything.

Except no one could take away who she was, so it was all worthwhile. The wonders, the joy, the love is so much brighter and bigger and deeper than the evil it all balances out on the good side.

That is the price of living a fairytale. Everything is so much more!

Midnight meanderings

Second night in a row I cannot sleep because of the prednisone, but I'm sure my body will sleep when it needs to. Right now nothing will change that. Not Benadryl by the handful. Not even this glass of merlot,

But the merlot is soothing and my book is good, the Christmas tree is lovely and I feel more at peace right now than I have in a very long time.

I cannot bring myself to worry, nor care much about the blood tests, or family dissension, not even our less than illustrious president. There is nothing I can personally do right now to change any of those things, so I have to concentrate on the things I can do.

I feel like I have come to some kind of peace with myself. I like being seventy. I like the sound of it. I even like the woman in the mirror more now too. She's done a lot of living and while life is not perfect, it is pretty close right now. (Minus these allergies!)

I feel like I have been waiting for this moment all along.

I know it won't stay this way forever. Nothing stays one way forever, but the flip side of that is the bad times don't either. Sometimes I have to just muddle through. But right now, in this moment, I feel complete.

Poison spores

I just shared the picture of my plants on Facebook and today the doctor confirmed that the rabbit's foot fern and lettuce leaf fern, as well as my poinsettia have to go!

That's the sad part.

The good part is that my daughter took them to her house and the prednisone is already starting to kick in. For the first time in over a month I am not itching! (too much)

Just in case you are wondering. Allergies to ferns manifest themselves as rashes that resemble poison ivy in nearly every respect. My skin is rough, red, peeling, itching and horrible. The skin around my eyes is puffed and swollen and I look like someone beat me up. The hives on my neck are nearly the size of pennies, but they are fading fast.

I was just beginning to think of my plants like little green pets, but it turns out I am no better off with them than I am pet dander.

I still have my peace lilies and pothos, an aloe and a spider plant, but even the spider plant is suspect.

As always I am on of the few. Evidently fern allergies are very rare. Whoopee.

True love

And if your hours are empty now who am I to blame

You think if I were always here, our love would be the same

As it is the time we have, is worth the time alone

And lying by your side, the greatest peace I've ever known.                               

Lyrics by John Denver that speak to the expectations of that first blush of love trying to carry you through the everyday doldrums that are part of living.

We live with the daydreams, hopes, and fanciful expectations of what it would be like in the perfect relationship and those lucky enough to find someone who seems to fill the bill are filled with bliss as well as hopes.

But bliss is an extreme state and it would be foolish to believe we can live there forever, so when life settles down there are chores to do, business to conduct, and just everyday tasks that cannot be avoided.

Love may make you a better person, but true love requires that you be a whole person first.  Love enchants and enhances, but it has to work within the real world.

Proud mom and grandma

My grandson, who is home schooled, just had his fourteenth birthday party and I think it was a ground breaking success.

First of all any fears I had about him not being able to socialize because of home schooling were totally put to rest. He invited ten kids his age and seven came to the murder mystery party that his parents devised.

It was a tremendous amount of work that forced his parents to work together if they wanted it to be a success. The house had to be sorted and cleaned for the first time in a long time, the food had to be made and my son had to write all the parts and make up all the clues then coordinate hiding them to make it real and fun.

There was a dead body, a risen spirit, mobius strips to figure out, chemical reactions, invisible writing, hidden clues and keys that kept all seven children in character and in high spirits throughout the party.

I have done a lot of parties in my day, but this was an extraordinary production and a resounding success.

Feeling a little pothos

I have always had pretty good luck with growing things. I have had a sunflower labyrinth with a 175 foot diameter growing in my back yard, the outside flowers reaching six feet or more. I had a pool in my backyard surrounded by roses, mint, bleeding hearts, a Japanese maple tree and blue delphiniums as well as other plants. And when I had a condo with an upstairs balcony I had blue morning glories cascading from flower boxes over the rails for privacy.

Indoor plants were something else. My zebra plant lived a long time, never having more than two leaves at a time that were fully emerged. My baskets of ferns were beautiful on the porch, but prompted my husband to ask if I was going to rake the living room when I brought them inside. The only plant I really had good luck with were spider plants which started outside and moved in in the winter. They were surrounded by tons of babies.

Now I have no outside to plant in, but the indoor plants seem to have finally taken to living with me. Except for the spider plant which had one baby one time period. But the peace lilies, rabbit's foot fern, lettuce fern and poinsettia that a friend gave me are thriving. The pothos is more than thriving. It is taking over! Last night I found it wound around my Green Tara who was totally tipped over and practically invisible.

Suddenly I had a picture, a horror film picture, flash through my head. No one hears from me for a week or two and when they come to check my apartment, there I am, lying on the floor next to my plants, totally engulfed in pothos vines! And all I have to say is:

What a way to go!

Just a little Christmas

Into each life a Grinch must fall.

Otherwise we might go right on living thinking life was good and sweet and reasonable and all the people in our life are that too.

But they aren't.

Some people are in too much pain to even pretend to feel good, let alone sweet, or reasonable.

And the sad truth is that most of the rest of us would do almost anything to make them feel better if we only knew how.

And I suspect they would let us if they could really imagine that happening.

But they can't, so they won't and it kind of puts everything else in perspective.

Intervals

Every day's a new day.

Except for this one.

Today was just an interval in my life where I finally found and used the post office they moved, bought almost out of date pumpkin pie at the grocery store, and slept through Myth and Monsters on Netflix.

I thought about mopping, and writing Christmas cards, and vacuuming, but instead I ate pumpkin pie with leftover whipped cream from Thanksgiving and played Words with Friends.

I talked to two people on the phone and one person texted me that they gave my Christmas tree away.

To a good cause.

Now I'm drinking Diet Coke and watching an Indian musical on Buddha in Hindi.

I don't speak Hindi.

A rare day

I almost did not go to the zoo today. I've been a lot lately and it was cold, but something just drew me in in spite of all that. I didn't take my camera, because I thought there wouldn't be anything new to take pictures of and people on Facebook were probably getting tired of my animal photos.

What a mistake!

I realized it right away when I was looking at the eagles as the keeper came to feed them. I have a video of them making all kinds of racket once before, but today they really put on a show. Hopping down off of their respective tree branches and loping down the slope of their enclosure where they squawked and jumped around until she threw each of them a rat. One eagle garnered both rats, so the keeper threw another one. Both eagles grabbed a rat in one foot and hopped to separate places. This went on for some time before one disappeared from view behind some branches and the other tore into his dinner. These are huge birds who can no longer fly, but they are something to behold.

Many of the animals still on display are much more active in the winter. I noticed they had Pallas cats both in their regular enclosure and in one almost hidden behind the reptile house. The zookeeper said they have now separated the boys and the girls because they are old enough to breed, but soon the kittens will go to other zoos and the two adults will be back together.

Both the otters and the guanacos came running when I approached their pens. Maybe they like to watch us as much as I enjoy watching them?

I went into the Rainforest exhibit reluctantly. It is always hot and most of the animals in there don't really attract me that much, especially since they removed the Macaw. I don't know where he went. The man removing his cage was deaf and couldn't hear me when I asked and the woman in the gift shop said, "He's gone to a better place. I'm not sure where, but I know it's better." When I asked if it was here she said yes, so I am supposing he didn't die, but I can't find him. I am reasonably sure he isn't dead, but her answer was strange for an adult woman.

Today there were new bright yellow birds running around in there and a new duck that attacked my ankles. I looked to see if maybe she had a nest, but I didn't see one. Evidently she is just a mean little duck.

When I got to the reticulated python I was transfixed. I don't know how long he is, but he is huge. I would guess maybe twenty feet long and today he crawled down into his water pond, his long muscles twitching and quivering as sections of him began to move. I think he was hungry and looking for food because he kept smelling around the back door and the door between his enclosure and the birds next door, but it was impressive to watch him moving around, his huge head and body reaching up, climbing over, poking into things.

The snow leopards were separated again. This time both of them on opposite sides of the door meowing and crying for the other. I wonder if they are getting ready to separate them and trying to get them used to the idea. That is a sad thought, because they are usually all cuddled up together in a corner somewhere.

And the tiger! I wondered if he ever played, if that bowling ball in there with what looks like tooth marks in it was ever really used? There is also a big plastic oil barrel hanging from a heavy chain in his cage and today he played with it while I watched in amazement. Banging into it with his head like a sledgehammer, the sound reverberating off the walls, then leaping up and grabbing around it with his big front legs and sharp claws. Tigers at play are fearsome looking creatures.

Today would have been the day to take videos, but with no camera I just had to be present and stand in awe of all the things I saw them doing.

Sense

Seldom have I felt as content with my life as I do now.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I think it is because I am starting to feel more comfortable just being me.

Being me is scary, because I know my size, sense of humor, sense of what is entertaining and sense of comfort are not particularly mainstream and there is nothing harder than opening yourself up to criticism, or, even worse, ridicule, for something you choose to be or do.

I love my apartment and I love the way it is furnished, not a consciously chosen style, just a conglomeration of things I love. It continuously surprises me when I look around and see who I am, but I like it.

I love the geographical place that I live and I know this because I have lived here since 1971 except for a brief moment in time when I tried other places before coming back.

I love my friends and family of the heart who surround me.

Persistence evidently pays off in the long run.  Continuously opting to not do things I don't love and continuously surrounding myself with people and things I do love has brought me into this sweet spot at just the right time in my life.

70 years ago today

I had breakfast with my daughter this morning
Bagels and coffee
Then I dropped her off home and went to the zoo
I like to talk to the animals
But today the eagles talked to me
Or, one of them did. I stepped out the door
Into his sight
And he let out a raucous series of chirps.
It had to be me he called.
It wasn't feeding time and no one else
Was anywhere near.
I took my picture with him
Only he didn't show up in it
It was just me, but the time
Showed on my phone and
It was the exact minute
I was born
Seventy years ago today!
I wanted to talk to the animals
They talked to me.

Talk to the animals

I put on my winter hat, the one I knitted with cable stitches and ribs.
It's very warm.
And I pulled on my wooly black gloves with the leather palms so I can drive.
Then I went to the zoo.

The lady in the admissions booth didn't even open the window.
She just waved me through.
And I thought, hmmmm, does she recognize me?
Or is she just too cold to bother?

The red panda was out with all her babies.
Eating bamboo and whatever they found
While crawling up the fence and onto the top of their house.
All three babies eating. Mama watching.

The eagles watched me with curious eyes and I wondered.
If my brother was in there someplace
Watching me through eagle eyes
From the great beyond where he has gone.

The goofy guanacos were cavorting
Kicking up their heels
Examining me watching them
Coming close for a nose pat.

I sat for a while listening to the tiger roar.
His striped patterns pacing
Back and forth, impatient, enclosed
Wishing he were outside in the cold.

But the snow leopards were outside
Cuddled up, asleep,
Looking for all the world
Like they'd rather be in.

I paused here and there
A lonely human communing
With those less fortunate than I
And I think the animals understood.

Behind the mask

Everyone should know true love at some point in their lives.

The earlier the better, because it can be the catalyst for so much more.

But any kind of real love is a miracle on its own.

Whether that love is for you or from you, for a person, or a thing, or any combination thereof, it is always a good thing.

Love is one of those things that only creates good. If it doesn't, it was never love in the first place.

Cause lots of things can masquerade as love.

Love

Love is probably the biggest word in the English language. I have never looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, or even Webster's, but I can only imagine that it would take volumes to talk about all the sorts of love there are.

Love is so liquid it leaks out into everything else. Into grief and joy, pity and pain.

I see it in the bare bones of a sculpture I bought. Pure, unadulterated love. No trappings necessary. No heart, real or crayoned in. Nothing but adoration pouring from one human being to another.

Love like that can't be bought. It can't be dressed up, or down. It can't even be vocalized.

Few things are that pure, that perfect that nothing could improve it.

No more

It was one of those gray wet days where the rain did not so much fall from the sky as seep out of the fog and into your pores. Everything was damp and soggy when I began my daily walk around the square of park allotted to me.

I pulled up my hood and it blocked my view like blinders on a horse. I could look straight ahead, but not much more and that is probably why my hearing was so vigilant. They say when one sense is inhibited the others fill in. I could hear footsteps behind me. Someone running in rubber soled shoes at a constant pace and I moved to my right to allow them to pass.

No one materialized. Finally, I sort of swung my whole body a quarter round to the left to see what was going on, but no one was there. I had heard someone. I knew that, but obviously they were no longer behind me. I just kept walking, really not giving it too much more thought.

Then, three quarters of the way around the block I saw someone across the street. She, or maybe he, I couldn't tell because of a hood around the thin, African American face, saw me and ducked behind a tree. I couldn't see her anymore, but I had seen she was wearing a yellow and orange dress.  Cheap looking cotton, like a house dress from the past, it came down below her knees, covering long khaki colored slacks. The slacks were slim cut and ended at her ankles like two tan pipes. It was all covered by a three quarter black wool coat that hung from her shoulders as though from bare bones.

She peeked out at me, saw I was looking and ducked back behind the tree. I looked up and down the street. A red pick up truck drove by, but no one else appeared to be near. Not wanting to upset her I turned and kept on walking.

That was when I heard the footsteps again, running, and glanced back to see her dart across the street towards the park . Not wanting to be obvious, I didn't look around for a few more moments.

The running stopped and I searched the park with eyes looking for any movement, anyone peeking out from behind a tree, but there was nothing.

I finished walking around the block.

No more sounds. No more glimpses of that strange figure. No more indication that anyone was around except me.

Now and then

She's squeaky clean by the world's standards, but who is really that blank?

It takes a lot of feelings to live decades of life, to raise a family, to weather a divorce, to be a whole human being.

And human beings reach breaking points sometimes.

Points where things got too hard and they opted for un-optible solutions that were life altering.

How much of this is pertinent to now?

It's not shame, or legal reasons that keep her from unearthing this part of her own archeology.

It is simply that they have been put to rest in a deep dark tomb and covered over with monuments that do not want to be moved.

Gotta get there

I am often befuddled by the differences I do not see when women go to $200 stylists and others who go to $30 stylists.

No woman in her right mind would ever say that to her friends who routinely spend so much money on their hair. I, partly because I need to go more often than they do with my short hair and partly because I always wonder if there is something I should be seeing that I don't.

When I took oil painting classes my teacher taught my eyes to discern very small differences in hues, so I know it is possible to learn something you never even knew existed before.

I can see the difference between a good cut and a not good one on me, but that can come from a Walmart hair stylist who is just good at her job. If I find a person who works for me I stick with her.

Still, it sends shivers down my back when the ladies begin talking about their hair. I don't know which of us is better at finding the right place, but I think it probably really depends on who has the most self confidence.

Most seventy year old women that I know are: drumroll -- VERY CONFIDENT.

A sense a huma

I think I have arrived.

Where once I got ads on Facebook about washing machines and Boho clothing now I get them for cognac and Porsches.

One of my friends flies off to her daughter's private island soon and others have recently purchased BMW's and other upscale automobiles.

My status by association has risen.

I am brushing shoulders with the up and coming.

Kind of like being a valet . . . except I don't get paid.

It's okay

It's okay to identify a problem and give it a name. If that helps you find a cure, or way to deal with it, I am all for it.

Just don't become the problem.

Don't identify yourself as one of them.

You are more than one set of setbacks.

Even if it is huge. Even if it is life threatening, or life destroying, don't allow one thing to define your whole life unless that one thing makes you feel good.

Find the things, or maybe even one thing, that does make your life better, that makes your life worth living and become that. Sometimes distraction is the only way.

It's okay to be honest and out spoken and vocal in every respect, but there is another big chunk of life out there beyond that.

Don't miss it.

What you do

Loving what I do has been a theme throughout my life. Perhaps because I am a little self-centered, or lazy, or stubborn, I have never been able to sustain doing things I don't care about.

It has served me well in the long run.

I love learning new things and I love music, so musical instruments figured heavily into most of my life. I took lessons on piano, saxophone, violin, oboe and flute. I also dabbled in the dulcimer. I am not a master on any of these instruments but the piano has been one of  my major turn-tos for survival. When I am sad, bored, depressed, or so joyful I need to express myself, I play the piano, or keyboard. But . . . teaching, or playing as part of a group like an orchestra, or band does not really grab me.

I did love teaching three year old preschoolers though! It was an occupation I stumbled into through a close friend and not once, in all the years I did it, did I not love what I did. And I did love being a most-of-the-time at home mom for my three children, so I can say with great experience:

Do what you love.

When you pick your life's work, pick something you are passionate about, something you truly care about. Something you would do if you didn't even get paid. It will make your life immensely better.

Some people pick a job because it is the best paying one they can get and I say great as long as money is the thing you love the most. If you are like the king in his counting house counting out the money and that satisfies something in you -- you are in the right place.

I know we need to make ends meet, but in the long run I have to love those ends an awful lot to be miserable doing it. I also know not everyone gets to have the choices I have had, but don't give up trying.

There is time and a place for nearly everything. Even quitting. I have quit several good paying jobs like working for a major company to move to places like a small flower shop where the personal benefits far outweighed the cut I took in salary. I also recently quit volunteering in a school library after doing so in one form or another for nearly forty years, but the joy and satisfaction I got from that stopped.

Only you know what adds quality to your life. Allow yourself the imagination, time and willingness, to find it.

Waking up

I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was jump out of bed and begin rearranging my apartment. I did not go to the bathroom. I did not make coffee. I did not take my morning medicine.

I moved two chairs out of my second room and one table into it. Then I went to the bathroom and made coffee and pondered my next move.

Six hours later I am still moving things and pondering.

It is a process born out of too little control in my life for most of my life. When I cannot do other things, I can always rearrange my living space.

Yesterday I redid what had been my living room/bedroom. Moving furniture and plants around and then going to sleep only to dream I was living in our old family nursing home. Everyone was there. My grandmother, my mother, my aunts and even some of the women who used to work there. The only difference was that in this dream there was an old man in a bed in the library. He was hooked up to IVs and his bed, as only dreams can make it, was also an old beat up pick up truck. Everything was lit by that dingy yellow light incandescent bulbs give off. It was uncomfortable and I felt both defensive and awkwardly incompetent.

Waking up was slow and awful. I wanted to put as much space as possible between me and these feelings. I felt dirtied somehow and not the kind of dirty you can wash off in a shower. I think this was the first time I woke up and began moving things around before I did anything else. The only thing I paused for was to tie my shoes tighter to support my feet during the move.

Now I have completely flipped the rooms. I will sleep in what is supposed to be the bedroom according to normal standards and watch television in the front room. It has been a long process and I am still not finished rearranging the bedroom, but I am finally feeling better.

Maybe now I can break my fast and figure out the rest.

The gene pool

I come from a large extended family and one of the things I learned early on was that everyone had something to teach me.

My mother taught me to empathize with very young children and that girls are disposable after maturity. My father taught me to indulge my curiosity and continue to love learning for the sake of learning.

My grandmother showed me that working can be martyrdom at its best. You can escape anything and sound like a saint as long as you say, I have to work.

My brothers showed me the beauty of nature in different ways. One by striving to perfect it and the other by celebrating its wildness. They also taught me that when other people go fishing, I should read a book.

My sister taught me not to be passive aggressive and her daughter taught me that a life really can be centered around trying to scam the world.

My godmother told me to always keep a nightie under my pillow in case of fire.

We all have our own ways and means and some of them are meaner than others, but the trick seems to be to skim the top off of each one and keep on swimming.

One point in time

I never pass a park ranger's cabin without thinking of my brother, Tom. As a child he would walk right up to birds and other small animals and pick them up. Had I known about St. Francis of Assis, I might have wondered who this brother was, but we just knew him as a boy who always walked to the beat of a drum no one but he could ever hear.

His eyes were not good. He could not see six feet in front of him without thick glasses, but no one knew that until he started turning somersaults in first grade and the teacher thought he was "retarded." Several visits to a child psychologist later it turned out he was actually very gifted. He could already read, play chess and do most things -- if the spirit moved him.

But it took spirit to move him. Nothing else mattered enough to him. He couldn't play baseball like the other boys because he saw no point in running around hitting balls with a stick  and when he was standing in the field he was more likely to be watching that beetle carrying something through the grass than the ball flying towards him.

He wanted to be a Park Ranger when he grew up. He liked the idea of working out in the woods with animals, so in high school he got his first jobs mowing grass for a state park. It was a dangerous job working on steep slopes, but they just tied a rope to his waist and he was content.

After graduation he began taking the first steps towards this career. Unfortunately he also began dating a sixteen year old girl who wanted to get married. I think they imagined themselves living in that little house in the big woods together, but both parents were against it. So, being young and impetuous, they got pregnant! Solved their problems. They thought. In those days if you were pregnant you were married. And they were.

Now the boy who loved nature discovered you cannot pay rent and take care of a family mowing grass so he went to work in a factory. The money was good. He worked the night shift and sometimes in the daylight he could still walk in the woods. Sometimes.

That marriage didn't last five years and neither did the rest of them. He continued on working in factories and doing maintenance work to pay child support for his various children for the next forty years. Then he injured his back moving a five hundred pound stove and slowly succumbed to alcoholism, heart problems, and diabetes.

For a while he walked in the woods, but then he had to settle for watching nature programs on television. Smoking cigarettes' and watching Captain Kangaroo . . . don't tell me, I've nothing to do.

He finally died, a hard drinking, smoking man who quit both too late, missing two toes to diabetes with a bad heart and breathing problems. He was loved and missed by many people, but he was still  dead.

I think he would tell you he did it his way, a free man who walked to the beat of a different drummer, but I believe he took the wrong fork in the path when it really mattered.

Well loved

I remember moving into a new house right after my fifth birthday. My parents made that move because they wanted me to have the advantage of kindergarten, something that was not prevalent everywhere at that time.

The day we moved in I saw this man trimming the hedge between his house and ours. I was surprised, because I had been living in my grandmother's huge old Victorian house firmly planted on a corner where no one else ever encroached on my world. And being the kind of person I am, I immediately challenged this stranger. "Why are you cutting our bushes?"

Instead of being offended by an impertinent child he kindly explained that it was both of our bushes and he was just evening off the top. His name was Ralph Brown, soon to be known as Uncle Ralph.

Uncle Ralph and his wife, Aunt Jo, were interesting people. Unable to have children of their own they became surrogate aunts and uncles to many children through the years, but none turned out to be closer than my baby brother who was born the following spring.

Over the course of time they became a second home to him. All the rest of us were well loved and spent a lot of time with them too, playing on their back patio, watching our favorite television program in their air conditioned house, eating dinner at their kitchen bar, or even going to visit the farm. Sometimes, Uncle Ralph, who was the custodian for the local armory, took us to see important people like Gene Autry, or the Governor when they came there. We never missed a Ringling Brothers Circus, or any other wondrous event because our Uncle Ralph was the custodian.  In our eyes he was a very important man. But it was Henry who became the son they'd never had.

Uncle Ralph gave Henry all the wisdom and skills a boy usually gets from his father. Our father was working night and day just to try and keep our heads above water, but we didn't know that. In the end, many years down the road Henry took care of Uncle Ralph and Aunt Jo too, bringing them into his home and making sure they had whatever they needed until they died. He loved them and they loved him too.

That kind of bond seems pretty rare in this world, but no one can have too many people who love them so if you have the chance to become a surrogate parent, or are lucky enough to have surrogate aunts and uncles who love you enough to treat you like their own, consider yourself well loved.

Knitting

We are on the cusp of winter here in the Heartland. There is already several inches of snow on the ground and it is only the first of November. Of course that kind of cold will ebb and flow for a while. There will be days so warm it will feel like spring, but the trend will relentlessly move towards colder and colder.

Today when I put on my coat I looked for a scarf only to realize I must have given them all away in the great purge a few weeks ago. Necessity is often what tweaks my interest in renewing old skills, so I checked out my knitting bag. Sure enough there was a nearly finished short scarf in there.

Not the color I wanted and not quite the length I wanted, it sent my imagination soaring. I imagined all sorts of wonderful confections from fuzzy chenille to practical stockinette wool and after walking at the zoo this morning I stopped by to look at yarn.

The yarn I picked out was neither fluffy, nor any shade of coppery pink that I had imagined. Instead it is one of my old favorites of dark forest green and burgundy, but I love it and loving it is one of the determining factors for me knitting anything and finishing it.

I learned to knit from my next door neighbor, Aunt Jo. In theory because my mother was a lefty and didn't feel she could teach me properly. In truth, I never saw my mother pick up a knitting needle. Aunt Jo knit all the time. She made fine cashmere suits and soft beautiful shawls. And even more important she was very patient.

She stuck with me until my fingers learned the stitches. My eyes didn't see the difference between knit and purl for many years and I'm still not sure I could teach anyone else how to cast on, but my fingers know it and they remember it. It is the same way I played piano. My fingers seem to have a mind of their own and it isn't always attached to the mind in my head.

The last ten years have been a boon. You tube is always there with someone who can show me whatever I have forgotten. How to cast off, how to make a particular pattern, what ever I need and it will play it, replay it and replay it as many times as I need it. With this kind of help I have made a few pretty involved things.

But mostly I just like the feel of plastic knitting needles clicking in my hands and the sight of some beautiful yarn growing into a pattern that gets longer and longer.

Up up and away

Today is my brother's birthday. He passed away a while ago and while I didn't see him as much as I might have, I did see him fairly frequently. We would go off in his blue PT Cruiser and drive along the river roads, taking small ferries and eating lunch at some out of the way place where he could get fish and I could get chicken. He liked to drive the car and I liked to ride, so I bought the gas.

I miss him. Especially this time of the year which was when we were most likely to get together, but I feel his presence whenever I come across bald eagles, his favorite animal, and sometimes when I am out walking in the woods.

So, today I am thinking about him and I posted something on Facebook. I expected people to like it or love it, but not to feel sad. Not that it's wrong to feel sad, but these people really didn't spend time with him when he was alive. It makes me wonder. Are they sad because they didn't? Or are they sad because he's gone and they can't make up for it now? Or are they sad because it curries sympathy and attention?

I hope anyone who might feel sad when I'm gone chooses to spend some quality time with me now. It's not that I won't appreciate a big mushy send off into the great beyond -- but I probably won't. I fervently hope to be flying unencumbered by any emotions at all as whole as it is possible to be by then.

If it turns out I am aware? Wow that's a whole different game! Maybe I'll have fun haunting the people who seem to put the most sad faces on any Facebook posts that are about me. That's a warning. (Hee hee,) I want you to be glad I am free from all these worldly problems. Just enjoy any memories of me you have that are good and get on making your own.

Eat, sleep, play

I am a reader, a writer, a former teacher, mother, wife, volunteer and often find myself asking why am I here? It is not that I am suffering from any great identity crisis. It is simply that sometimes I wonder if there might be a bigger picture that I am missing out on where I might be more useful.

Sometimes I envy those peasants whose hovels surrounded the castle. Their purpose in life was to survive! They knew why they did what they did. Of course I don't really envy any of that. Their lives were horrible, sad, painful, etc.

Then there are the people in the castle, the upper crust, whose job appears to be looking good, looking happy, displaying their accomplishments in decorative endeavors. They have more time to indulge in extra curricular activities and that seems to be the point of their existence.

And in between the suffering and showing off are the people who make a difference. At it's highest form the noblesse oblige, martyrs, saints, and social reformers, but also those people who make small personal contributions during their every day lives.

I don't have the energy, or perhaps even the desire, to be a great reformer or saint. I don't have the courage to be a martyr. I don't have the money to be like Carnegie or Gates. But I think I do have some of what it takes to make the world slightly better in small ways.

And that is when I find myself wondering, why am I here? Is there a point where I will have fulfilled my quota of usefulness? What happens then? Or, is there a guilt trip waiting down the road where I find the great aha and realize I should have done this or that?

Or maybe it is all gratuitous.  I should just eat, sleep, play.

Sixteen

He entered a contest for war bond stamps and didn't win. "Jesus saves why don't you." was not a popular poster at his school. But his mother thought it was clever. Embarrassing, but clever.

That was last year.

Now he is far from home. There is a war going on, but he isn't fighting. He is barely sixteen.

The brightest boy in his school last year, he knows no one here at college. The girls are all two or three years older. They seem so sophisticated and the boys do too.

It is a gray night in October 1942 and he looks out the window of his second floor walk up. The butcher across the street has closed up shop, but he can see in through the window. He grinds up meat scraps into a big bowl, then he adds egg shells and leftover vegetable parts and some other old meat scraps too.

When he stops grinding it up, he mixes it with his big beefy hands and the gray mixture looks like brains, or entrails, or some other disgusting stuff.

Until the man adds potassium and suddenly the boy realizes this is tomorrow's hamburger.

He gags.

Girlish memories

It is a dark rainy afternoon in 1960. The wind is blowing the rain into the big eyed faces peering out from hooded raincoats as children go back to school after lunch.

Back then most children went home at lunch time and on rainy days they were like little ducks splashing in the puddles, running, laughing, playing all the way back to school.

One little girl, wearing a speckled rain coat with orange, yellow and red splotches all over it is carrying a wicker basket. She is walking a little more carefully than all the rest because she doesn't want to drop her basket.  It has a domed top that opens in the middle and is held closed by a long stick running through two wicker loops.

Today is show and tell and she is bringing one of her favorite show and tells ever. It belongs to her Daddy who keeps it high on one of his bookshelves beside the skulls of a porpoise, an alligator, a monkey and something else she can't remember.

It is one of two, but this one is the best because it has a jaw that hinges down underneath. Not attached of course, that would require tendons and muscles, but there is a jaw and teeth and you can hold it to show how it would work.

And, best of all, in her opinion, this one is a ten year old boy's skull and she is ten years old too!

Triggers

I am happily divorced and have been for over twenty years, but last night's dinner party triggered all sorts of things.

First of all it was my daughter's housewarming dinner where both sides of the family came to meet and be together. My ex-husband was not there because he lives in a distant state. It should have been a simply wonderful night and it was for the most part.

There were the typical personal quirks that we've all learned to deal with - with a sense of humor if nothing else. Like my daughter's absolute complete and total adoration of one of her daughters who made it home from college. Instead of making room for her at the table when she arrived, my daughter leaped up and gave her her seat. Everyone offered to scoot over, or move or do something until I finally said, "That's okay, Becky will just stand by Brooke." Everyone laughed.

But it was true. That is exactly what she did!

The hard part for me was that I was seated by a couple from my past. I used to play pool on the team he and my husband played on for years. I was the handicap! It brought back a lot of memories of those times. The pool playing was fun. Many other things were not.

Then on top of that, both the man and his wife grew up in the same town I did. They went to one of the junior highs that I attended and both of them graduated from the high school I would have graduated from if my parents had not moved to a small town just before my senior year.

Up front they appeared to be everything I thought I wanted both back then and now. Although I am actually quite happy the way I am, last night I had nightmares all night long. Old nightmares about old problems that no longer exist, but they felt real in the way of nightmares.

Stories to tell

Everyone has a story to tell.

Some people have lots of them and some of those are extraordinary.

But most of our stories are more important for us to tell than they are for others to hear, so we listen and listen and listen to the same stories over and over again.

Not because they are good, but because they need to be told until all the power and garbage and echoes in them fade away.

That's called being a good friend.

And listener.

What about the flamingos

I love our local zoo. It is small, but it has grown over the years and it is as humane as any zoo could ever be. They do some breeding, some rescuing, and some borrowing from other zoos, but the people here care about the animals.

One of my favorites is the white alligator. I wasn't excited when he first arrived because it meant losing the seals we've had for over forty years. I don't know much about him except that he is a male and that he will continue to grow until he is too large to winter in our zoo, so he won't be here forever, but right now I really look forward to seeing him.

October blew into central Illinois and he was gone! Into an indoor pool where I can't see him, but he is more comfortable.

I understand that, but I miss him. I told friends about it and several asked, "Well, what about the flamingos? Are they still there?" They were.

I kept going to the zoo and pretty soon the porcupine was gone, and then the turtles, and tortoises,  and some of the outdoor monkeys. Always someone asked, "What about the flamingos?" They were still there.

Yesterday the flamingos were gone! I guess it is finally too cold for them to be outside and our zoo doesn't have many indoor viewing places except for reptiles and big cats.

I just hope wherever they are stored for the winter they have light and room and feel cozy instead of trapped.

Thinking

I am beginning to think that what I think is more important than what is.

Now in this time and place that is scary because we have a president who evidently feels the same way and that obviously does not work for him, or us.

But for me and most of the people I run into I think it might. Not on everything of course, but on our perspective of our little slice of the world.

I know people who always feel cold, or hot, but lately I've seen them both all bundled up when they are outside. That might make sense if this were a normal October when the weather trips in around 38 degrees, but we've had days where short sleeves are just fine and people are still in jackets zipped up to their chins. It's Fall. They expect to be cold.

The same is true for other feelings. People who once worked two or three jobs while raising children were always tired. Now the children are grown, they work four days a week and they are still always exhausted. Not exhausted enough to retire, but exhausted enough to continue not doing all the things they never did anyway.

Growing up there were foods I abhorred, or thought I did. Now I love most of them, but if I am eating salad and I think about some Facebook blurb that said they found worms in food, I will gag on the shredded cheese.

Anyway, if thinking it makes it so . . . today I choose to be happy.

Raggedy Ann

I am going to a baby shower today and I have been very excited about it for a long time. The mother is my sister's granddaughter who is naming her baby Percy after Percy Jackson of literary fame.

We are supposed to dress in costumes because it is a Halloween themed party and I have a fantastic Raggedy Ann costume I haven't worn in over twenty some years that I made for preschool.

Now I am suddenly not so excited.

Everyone, I mean everyone, has told me to take my costume, not wear it, because: It is a long drive and I might have to stop and other people may decide not to wear costumes.

I honestly do not understand what would be so wrong if people saw me pumping gas, or buying a snack in a Raggedy Ann costume. And if other people decide not to wear costumes, why would I also choose to ruin the mother's excitement?

But I am copping out and taking it. I am not wearing it. And I am no longer super excited. Now I am feeling like there might be other things I'll do wrong, where before I was just thinking how much fun it would be.

I know some of the other people feel she is odd because of her choices. They have never read the Percy Jackson books. They are traditionalists who want this to be a blue and white thing and they aren't very impressed by the mother's lifestyle choices.

She is young, but unlike her siblings and cousins she has been self sufficient and working for quite some time. She pays her rent, buys her food, is making a home for this baby. She has opinions, seems very bright and I think she will make much of her life. If only her family doesn't get in the way.

So I really hope we all dress up and have a rollicking good time at the most promising baby shower I've been invited to in a long time.

On your terms

To the people who will never read this even though they have it sent to their email and/or have a link on their screen.

Did it ever occur to you that other people have things to say besides you?

If you don't read your email or your text messages and you don't give other people a chance to talk when you telephone them, how are they supposed to communicate with you?

The world is large enough to encompass everyone today. I have friends all over the United States that I keep in fairly close contact with, yet I cannot keep in touch with you and you live much closer.

It is not being true to the old world, or funny, or cute, that you won't take the time to learn a few simple new things: Like checking your phone for text messages, or even phone messages, or your computer for emails.

It is simply being stubborn and feeding into the old stereotype that old people can't learn new things.

You and I both know you can learn anything you want to.

So I'm beginning to assume you just don't want anything to do with me except on your terms.

Noticer

I am a noticer.

I notice things other people don't necessarily find interesting.

Maybe it is because I am curious, or nosy, or just like to poke my nose into places it may not belong!

But, the interesting thing about this is how some people think I am really smart, or clairvoyant, or have some kind of esp.

When I am simply a person who pays attention to what is going on around her.

Puzzled

It might be a sign of age, although I experienced similar feelings as a very young child riding in the car with my family at night, but I feel more settled when everyone is in their right place, with the people who love them.

Bestest called me nearly every day he was in Italy. In fact he called me twice a day while I was babysitting Maddie. I counted up 61 phone calls in five weeks! That's a lot of love and caring flying back and forth across the world, but I've slept better and felt better since he got home.

Even though his home is far away from here I know he is where he sleeps best, where he has both people and pets who love him close by, where the food is good and the routines are better.

My world is like a giant puzzle and I like all the pieces locked into their proper places. Otherwise it feels unbalanced.

One good thing

I cannot remember a time after I was in third grade that my body did not betray me in some way.

I lived using a vast array of supports my mother seemed to have on hand in our dining room buffet drawer. There were leather wrist supports that strapped around my wrist and gave it the strength to do whatever needed to be done. There were pigskin arm supports that must have been the forerunner of tennis elbow braces. There were ankle supports, arch supports, knee supports, even things for my neck which would sometimes not be able to turn without pain.

I would reach, or over reach for things and pop my shoulder sockets out, wake up unable to step on my feet or knees or lift things with my forearm.

I assumed all people lived this way and while I have found it painful and inconvenient I think it may have prepared me for old age better than people who were born being able to run, jump, and stand for hours at a time without a thought.

I cannot get out of bed, or stand up without putting my tennis shoes (with orthotics) on. If I do I know I risk being incapacitated for days, maybe weeks. And when I walk there is always pain. It just depends on how much on any given day.

But all these things have been a part of my life for nearly as long as I can remember. My husband blamed it on me being overweight, but his definition of that was far below what even modern medicine uses. It is just that I have some inherited form of weak joints. Everywhere my bones are separated from other bones is an opportunity for a mishap.

And yet I have played tennis, still walk, and function pretty much the same because it IS the same for me now that I am older, while many of my friends and family members are experiencing it for the first time.

They are having to wear special shoes more, get up more carefully, alter their lifestyles in ways that makes them feel old and depressed.

I am slightly more limited now than I was at thirty, but not much.

And that is one good thing!

Whose fault is it

There are people who appear to have an inordinate share of bad luck, but if you look closely it turns out they make many poor decisions.

Trying to please other people might feel good sometimes, but in the long run it won't make you happy.

For example I know a woman who really wanted her oldest daughter to be around more. The girl was off at an out of state college. She had a boyfriend and a job and no car, but the woman tried to reorganize every event around the dates this child might come home. And when she didn't come home there was a mad scramble to change everything at the last minute.

This same woman really enjoyed having her boy friend's teenage son around and also changed her plans to try and include him in everything even when he showed little interest in it.

She had a mother and another daughter who tried to plan things for her and with her, but were constantly relegated to the sidelines.  If it was possible the older daughter, or the boy would be there, these two would be quickly pushed aside.

The woman also idolized her boy friend's mother. She tried to include her in her life too, but the mother was already busy and didn't really have much interest in doing anything more. She was kind, brought the woman small gifts when she traveled and included her in their family outings. She did not really want to participate in anything else, but like the teenage boy and older daughter, the woman kept trying to force the issue and include her.

In the end the woman found herself eating at bad restaurants at odd hours with two people (her own mother and younger daughter) she didn't particularly care about, but who were willing to go wherever she decided to go,  paid for her meals and brought her presents. Her holidays were depressing and she felt it was her mother and daughter's fault, never realizing she was always the one in control and making all the choices.

Drama

Drama seems to go hand in hand with certain people.

People manufacture it to add importance to lives that feel humdrum, or unexciting.

People mistake it for the real experience of adventure.

People use it to manipulate others when they lack the imagination to use something else.

I am starting to tire of drama.

Unless it is on a stage or television I don't really want it anymore.

Those little stories about family members or coworkers that never seem to end get old, like soap operas after a while.

In one morning I went from riding with people to a fun event to driving myself because they "might" not have enough seatbelts, to maybe going later because somebody fell and might need help, to who knows what will be next.

I know I am only being included because I am bringing presents and paying and that is depressing.

The Nightmare in Utopia

In the beginning all animals devoured each other without guilt, but then we discovered agriculture and the future looked brighter.

No longer confined to eating one beast at a time, we could plan a bit for the future.

Thinking that some day there could be enough food to feed everyone and cures for whatever ailed us must have seemed like a utopian dream.

The dream is coming true, but it has turned into a nightmare. The predators are ahead a thousand to one and their god walks among us, a shapeshifter made of gold with deep pockets and short arms.

No food for the poor. No medical treatments for the poor. No safety nets for the poor. No decent housing for the poor. No living wages -- to keep them poor.

But wait!

If we get rid of the poor who will clean our bathrooms and pluck the fruit from our trees?  Who will take care of our children and prepare our meals?

Maybe that is why abortions and birth control are being banned. We need enough poor to make them disposable.

Serving up people without guilt.

Feeding my soul

Live this day as if it were your last. I like the idea of that, but what does it really mean?

As a young woman I thought it meant go out and do something hedonistically wild. Something I would never normally do. Conquer my fears. Sing on street corners. Go on vacation. Act out in crazy or wild ways.

I think many people think that, but would I really?

To be something I am not seems like a waste of my last hours on earth.

In truth, what I would really love to do is cuddle with those people I love the most and talk about our favorite thoughts, hopes, books, and wishes.

Pas à pas

I pretty much only do what I want to anymore. If something is not fun, or doesn't make me feel like it was worth the effort, I avoid it.

That being said, I still manage to injure myself.

My feet and ankles have truly been my Achilles heel all my life. There are all kinds of speculations about why, starting with the fact that my mother, with the best of intentions, had me in high top leather shoes until I went to kindergarten. She had weak ankles and thought she was protecting mine.

Whatever the reason, I am flat footed, wear orthotics,  and still often go to bed feeling fine only to wake up unable to put pressure on my feet or ankles because they are inflamed. It is as if I run marathons in my sleep!

I helped my daughter move a while ago and even though I avoided the stairs, I made many trips carrying heavy boxes. My left foot has still not recovered. The bone on the outside of my instep is very sensitive. It has prevented me from going on the Cemetery Walk with my friends and put a crimp in most of my other activities.

Pas à pas. Step by step.

Be mindful of this moment.

It is as if everything in my world conspires to remind me of this.

Seasons

There is so much talk about seasons, seasoning, seasoned. Whether it is people, or food, or weather, my favorite is always Fall, Autumn, bright, colorful, fresh and crisp.

I am in the Autumn of my life now and trying desperately to find those things in me.

I see the dewy newness of Spring in my sister's great grandchildren and even my friends under thirty. In Springtime things are soft and pliable, filled with hope, open to almost everything.

I see the mature sturdiness of my children in the summer of their lives as they build families and homes, preparing for their or their children's futures. Summer is the time for growth, for fertilizing and nurturing. A time for strength and perseverance.

I am in the Autumn of my life and it is the time to savor the fruits of the last two seasons. Savor the contrasts between passion and stony cold, store up a reserve for the winter to come, but do it knowing this is the last big hurrah, the last season when nearly everything is still possible.

Winter is coming and I want it to be the serenity of white hair and volumes of memories, all filed neatly in easily accessible places. Winter is the time to gently fade into the atmosphere, become one with the world as it really is and eventually disappear into that reality so that I will be a whisper in the wind, a drop of warmth in the light, the soft touch of raindrops falling on the faces of those I love.

Genius in the room?

I don't suppose we can ever really know whether someone else is the genius they appear to be, or think they are.

We can test them, but not everyone tests well and besides there are things you just can't genuinely test for.

But I can tell you this.

There are people who think they are geniuses and spend a lot of time trying to force that idea down other people's throats and then there are people who just go about living their life and let people think what they will.

I have always suspected the latter are the true geniuses in this world. They have nothing to prove to either themselves or anyone else. That is probably the least important thing in their life. They are too busy doing to try to be impressing.

If you  know what you want out of life and you can do that in a kind and productive way, what else matters?

Litter

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Play nice.

Two basic rules we all hear while we are still very young.

Then the fun starts. It seems human beings like to make rules, need to make rules, are driven to try and control every tiny thought and fill the world with enough litter to drive any rat in a maze nuts.

Who we love, how we experience religion, the way we treat our bodies, things that should really not be anyone else's business unless we choose to share them become part of the rules defining right and wrong.

The problem is that many people feel they need to make rules for other people, so they will do things their way and the other problem is that people trying to follow all the rules cannot possibly do so. The rules contradict each other and often make no sense at all.

Rules are just things people make up. Sometimes they are good, like look both ways when you cross the street. Sometimes they are just litter scattered by people with their noses in other people's business.

The best reason to have rules beyond those two at the top is so that people can break them. People love to break rules. It excites them, makes them feel brave and daring and special. Without rules to break there are so many things that would cease to be "fun."

Picture after boring picture of people sticking their tongue out on Facebook.

People sneaking around having sex in airplanes and libraries and other places where they might "get caught." People having secret affairs.  If we just said, "Go to it." The novelty might wear off. Maybe it would even go the opposite direction and people would secretly be faithful to the one they love.

Everyone knows that many people at the top of any chain ignore the rules they don't like, so that means rules are for other people. Right?

Without all the rules what would social media be horrified about?

Maybe just the things that actually hurt people?

And we are right back to those two basic rules. The one we start children out on, play nice. And the one we hope people grow into, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you can't abide by those, all the rest are just litter in the cage.

Contrast

I love innocence. I suspect everyone, or almost everyone, else does too. There is something alluring about sweetness. It makes horror movies like The Fly all that more terrifying. Flies are drawn to sweetness.

They want to gobble it up, Wallow in it. Lay their eggs on it. Raise their young in it. In a way it is their own steadfast faithfulness to being true to who they are, but to others, like me, it is a horror story filled with squirming larva.

Contrast fills this world. It is as if nature was afraid we might miss something so it gave us day and night, birth and death, health and putrefaction, youth and age. Such large complex differences are hard to miss.

I am aware that my body has been slowly decaying since the day I was born. By age ten I spent hours with the very elderly and knew what was coming. It seemed so far away then. Now it looms over me in ways I am unsure of.

Part of me feels as if I am slowly fading into the atmosphere, becoming one with everything else and less of a force myself.

Part of me sees the horror of that beautiful blonde baby now bloated with age and over indulging.

I wish I could be one of the innocent old ladies sitting sweetly in the sunshine watching the young people get on with their lives, nodding in affirmation, but I still want to be part of it all.

I just don't want to be a suffering harridan projecting my pain out onto others around me; a lighthouse highlighting imperfection and disgruntlement.

The Miracle

Perfect places filled with human beings are impossibly imperfect.

Homesickness and joy, fear and wonder, creativity and boredom all tumble about in a conundrum too confusing to ever sort out.

The miracle is that there is no miracle in Paradise.

Conceiving and producing any great project takes hard work and perseverance. Doing it in community may add to the diversity, but it also adds to the complexity.

In the end, a great work of art may be just as hard, or harder, to produce in Paradise.

Sometimes

Sometimes the best thing you can do is leave.

I just spent hours helping a relative move. It was hot, physically grueling work. I really didn't mind the work, but the lack of organization was frustrating.

All of the suggestions I have made about sorting out what you don't want to keep ahead of time were laughed off. They wanted to keep it all -- until today when they realized they don't have room for it all.

All of the suggestions I made about labeling boxes were ignored. Things were mostly just thrown into open boxes, or even into the cars in piles and then there was a great deal of talk about what and where it went as we unpacked the trucks and cars.

I unloaded six van loads of stuff mostly by myself as they struggled to decide what to do with the surplus of stuff and the big furniture.

When I left this afternoon, after a day and a half of work, the cars and vans were empty, but the trucks, with four people working, were not.

He suggested I help her sort through boxes inside and put things away. I knew from experience she would ignore anything I said and besides, who can decide which of someone else's things is worth keeping?

Everyone was exhausted and we would have only ended up bickering.  I have moved many times in my life and organization is everything.

I realize that these people all have minor disabilities, but they never waver from their right to be the ones in charge and they think they are absolutely right about everything. Sometimes the best way to learn that your way doesn't really work is to just do it and find out.

But of course they may not even realize it didn't work. They may think that every move is this uncoordinated, this long and this messy.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is finish your part and leave. You are not obligated to clean up the messes they choose to experience.

Dangerous help

Lately I get up in the morning, check my blood sugar, take my blood pressure, weigh myself, as if I am some sort of invalid.

I feel fragile.

Yet nothing has changed except that I am going to the doctor and he has ordered heart tests, blood tests, raised concern over all of my body's functions.

Up till then I felt good. I felt strong. I was walking, working, doing everything without a thought.

I know that keeping all these things in check is ultimately important, but I also know that I am mostly a mind and bundle of emotions encased in a body, so how I feel is equally important.

I don't know how much my high blood pressure is my heart and arteries and how much is psychological. I can feel my heart begin to pound the minute I take out my blood pressure cuff now.

How do I survive old age without being swallowed alive by well meaning doctors?

Musings

Years after my mother died I still liked to put my nose up against the few things of hers I had kept in my closet, a woolen kilt I had given her for Christmas one year and a navy blue suit she wore to work. Both of them carried her signature scent and if I had been smarter I might have put them in plastic bags to keep it longer. But I did not think of that back then. I was too heavily immersed in surviving something that felt surreal. Now all I have is the large kilt pin from that skirt and her squash blossom necklace and earrings, which I honestly never saw her wear, but I know she treasured them and so I try to wear them to important events like my sister's birthday and my brother's funeral.

I also have her Italian cameos that she always intended to have reset. I also had that intention, but I know I never will. Somehow they have become sacred just as they are.

I don't really have anything of my father's. He was writing a book. I had read the first chapter, but that disappeared. My niece and his wife swooped in and it was all gone before I knew what had happened, but that is okay. I mostly think of my father when I am writing, or reading. Learning was something we both shared a love for. My father will always be a voice in my head. Nobody can take that away.

It's strange to think that I never worried about my parents dying. They were young when I was born, 21 and 22, but they were fragile souls. Barely made for the world they lived in and entirely unsuitable for the world today, it's probably good they went when they did.

The only other member of our immediate family who has died is my brother. It's funny, he always said he was going to come back and haunt me and in a way he has. I can't really mourn his passing, because I always feel as if he is  "still here dammit!" That was the way he always answered his phone because we had been waiting for him to die since the day he was born. He lived well into his sixties and his stories will probably live forever. Tom was a character, a womanizer, an adventurer and everybody loved him. (Or hated him!) It was always expected that he and all but one of his five ex-wives and their children would come and sit together at all the family weddings and funerals. That is just who he was.

I sometimes wonder what people will remember about me. I hope it is the inscriptions in the books I helped edit. Those are some of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me and I am really proud of those.

The more the scarier

I am not a more the merrier type person. When I say I would like to do something with you that is exactly what I mean. You. Not you and your three best friends unless we are attending a class reunion.

If I say, "Oh, please don't bother." I mean it!

The last thing I want before doing something fun is to be kept waiting for late comers and the last thing I want at the end of a long trip, or day, is to come home to a house full of people that I will have to interact with, or possibly entertain.

People who need people seem to find joy in the chaos of interminable indecision. Factor in all the possibilities each extra person brings with them and by the time those decisions are finally made I want to throttle most of the people around me.

I can't tell you how many times I've been held hostage by some inconsiderate person who relies on the fact that others don't want to hurt her feelings, so they are willing to wait hours while this person satisfies all her personal urges. She sees herself as fun loving and free. I see her as annoying as hell.

The more the merrier is actually the more the scarier. The possibilities for misery are endless.

Self discrimination

It is interesting how I see myself.

My dad always said he saw my mother the way she looked in their wedding photo. I attributed that to being a man and being in love.

You would think that living with me day in and day out, I would be a lot more grounded in reality when it comes to knowing what I look like, but . . .

I have let some friends put enough peer pressure on me to try out things I wouldn't normally do on my own like painting my nails (which seems to have ruined them) and dying my hair. I have had no luck with finding a hair color I like and want to stick with, so I have been in transition for two years now.

I don't mind this latest transition, but I feel like Brienne of Tarth, the lady knight in Game of Thrones. It's a shame I don't look like her when she is not acting and is actually a high fashion model.

The truth is almost unbelievable. I still think of me as the dark brunette with long hair and a tall willowy frame. I haven't been that since before I turned thirty.

I am still tall. Maybe taller if the world is right, but my hair is short, blond at the moment and I am rotund. If I were a guy, I would be wearing three piece suits and smoking a cigar! I could see myself sitting around some old gentlemen's club discussing -- well all kinds of things, but not what I look like.

I hate that I care what I look like and truly I think if I were a man I could give myself permission to be exactly who I am now minus that one fact.

So why can't I do that as a nearly seventy year old woman.

In the good old summertime

During the last twenty years I have been traveling alone a great deal and it has given me the opportunity to watch many new people in far away and interesting places. Places right out of history and story books, television and all kinds of misconceptions. I don't believe you have the same experiences when you travel with someone. The security of being with someone you know allows you to be pretty insular. You never really have to get out of your own comfort zone if you don't want to.

For the past two weeks I have been in Alabama, home of the University of Alabama Football team, The Crimson Tide, where people routinely call Roll Tide to each other and hang university flags on their front porches. The accents are soft. Even the voices are soft, but the spirit is tough and the weather is brutal. Today I thought it was cool for a change, but it was still above 85.

This is a gated neighborhood. I can stand in the alley behind the garage and see a BMW, a Mercedes Benz, and a Porsche and the parks look like something right out of  The Twilight Zone. I expect to see bright uniformed bands materialize in the pavilion playing In The Good Old Summertime while ladies with parasols parade by two by two over the manicured grass and under bright blue skies with fluffy white clouds.

Instead I see people running. Running in racing shorts and tank tops. Running with big dogs racing along beside them. Running two by two and one by one up and down the streets of the otherwise empty looking neighborhood. At night I see golf carts overflowing like clown cars with ten year olds driving up and down the streets and today I saw a tiny little girl in a princess costume, complete with crown, driving a motorized convertible while her Daddy walked beside her. She smiled and waved very regally, melting my heart.

I join in with the mothers and babies, they with fancy strollers, me simply strolling and walk blocks through this heat shimmering perfection while carrying bags of dog poo. I understand having to pick it up. I'm not sure I understand why all the trash receptacles have signs saying, No Animal Feces.

Tomorrow I go home and I will miss my sweet four legged charge who understands, "just a minute, give me the ball, drop the ball, wait and come here." I will miss tucking her into bed every night after taking her to go potty and I will even miss checking on her water bowl twenty times a day because she drinks even more than I do.

Fairytales do come true

Like Pinocchio, Peter Pan, Hansel and Gretel, you appeared out of the blue in black and white. A tale too good to be true, but fascinating all the same.

A real disembodied voice speaking through the miracle of the Internet. A reflection of my most innermost thoughts that made me doubt your existence.

I was afraid to look into your eyes for fear of what I might see. Scorn? Sarcasm? Criticism?

Avoiding you while savoring your senses became the focal point of my life. Going round and round, wondering, imagining -- afraid.

Courage. Faith. Fear. Resignation. A wave of Cinderella's Fairy Godmother's wand and you appeared. A real life prince whose hug turned me from a frog into a princess.

For years we hung around the lily pond putting our best, most regal, feet forward. Fairyland at its best with lightning bugs and butterflies, sunshine, stories and Chucky E Cheese.

We stopped writing and began drawing from the world around us until we found ourselves far from the pond, wearing everyday faces and sharing both our dreams and woes.

Until we reached that final frontier where happily ever after comes with chores, floors and stores and being real is security.

Canterbury Tales vs Beowulf

I am always a very vivid dreamer.

Since I came to Alabama to watch Maddie my dreams have changed drastically. They are filled with people from my past and homes I never lived in. Most of the people are power figures in my life. People who held sway over what I did or did not do while I was with them, although none of them have been my husband.

In all of them there is a fantasy feeling where things are a little more dramatic and  fanciful than reality. My dog, Chauncey, a Shih-Tzu, showed up as a very rotund curly apricot poodle with long legs, running around in a giant hamster ball! I only recognized him by his toothy grin. My travels are mostly inside homes with doors that open into endless dark wooden stairways that take me to other buildings and even other states and towns -- like worm holes.

I am often trying to get ready for school or some big event and something or someone is holding me up so that I am afraid I will be late. But there is also a surfeit of wonderful and exciting clothing, knickknacks, nooks and crannies all around me.

These are frustrating dreams because there is always someone or something trying to keep me from doing what I need to do.

They are dangerous dreams where there is some unknown thing haunting or stalking me.

They are rich dreams where I am young and healthy and have everything I ever dreamed of and more.

I think of them as Beowulf dreams, epic, fast moving, exciting, and a bit grandiose.

One step behind

It was one of those days.

I woke up twenty minutes late. The dog was dancing on two legs by the front door and we were across the street in the grass before my feet even felt the first step.

I watered the patio, the front porch and the dining room floor. A few plants got lucky in the process.

I did one load of towels -- in three short re-starts because I kept finding more towels.

I took my blood sugar five times in a row and got five numbers almost a hundred points apart! I'm looking for a new meter.

I made it through the whole first walk this morning without seeing a single loose dog then when I went to throw away the bag of you know what, there was a ginormous dog as wide as a football linebacker walking down the alley.

Maddie kept putting her Chicken Little in my face during the Alabama Football game, so I took her out and threw the ball. Turns out she was actually hungry. I fed her at 6:10. That's ten minutes late.

Now it is time for our last walk and it is raining, but maybe that is a good thing the way things have been going today.

In the groove

I am halfway through babysitting Maddie and I am noticing several surprising things.

First of all, my body no longer feels like it was run over by a truck. I think I am adjusting to walking. According to my Fitbit I have walked 24 miles and some mornings I felt like I walked them all overnight. Not today. Today I woke up feeling good.

I no longer feel my heart pounding when I walk! Maybe because I am more comfortable with neighborhood dogs and maybe because I am in better shape.

I finally figured out how to safely throw the ball with Maddie. I don't know why it took me a whole week to think of the back yard. It just didn't look that big, but I actually have to use the ball thrower to get the ball from one end to the other. Of course now my pitching arm is feeling it, but I will get used to that too. (About the time I go home.)

And last but not least, now that I am in to my routines of when to put the trash and recycling out, when to turn the garage fan on and off, when to water the flowers and how much, when to feed Maddie and how to keep her water bowl full, when to get the mail, when to turn the thermostat up or down and the best times and ways to walk -- I'll be going home on Thursday!

I'm going to miss all this!

Close Encounters

I am afraid of dogs. No one who knows me doubts that, but if the idea that doing something you are afraid of means you are courageous -- then I am courageous!

I have had more encounters with these four legged critters in the past week than I have had all year. And that is not counting Maddie, who I am not afraid of.

I have been scared almost witless by two different growling, snarling, barking beasts in two different places on two different occasions. They were both in fenced in yards, but the fences were very short wrought iron ones that wouldn't even have kept me in had I wanted out. We still walk by those yards every single day. Cautiously. Very cautiously, but we do it and so far have been fortunate enough to miss any repeat performances by these Brutus beasts.

I  had a woman with a small schnauzer type dog lay in wait for me at the park. No matter how much time I gave her, nor how much of a detour I made, she managed to snag me. We talked for quite a while. I know all about her family, the ages of her parents and the upcoming trip to Italy. Her dog frolicked around Maddie the whole time we talked.

There is a lovely white fluffy dog whose owner is very solicitous. I don't mind her but she is the only one who seems to be aware that we are trying to just do our thing and walk without any big to-dos

There was one little boy who had his dog on one of those retractable leashes that he couldn't seem to hold on to. The thing got away five or six times, finally wrapping it's long line around and around my feet. His mother stood back by the pavilion smiling sweetly and offering us no help at all. I didn't topple over and Maddie was a doll.

Then there is the corgi mix who sounds horrific, but who, the lady, with the fluffy dog, assures me is fine. I'd rather not test that out if I don't have to.

One dark night a collie dog ran at us. Coming out of nowhere he was following a boy on a bicycle. That dog really scared me, but he had almost no interest in us at all. He just gave Maddie a sniff and breezed on by.

And last, but not least we had an encounter with two hummingbirds that flew right over our heads at the park today! 

This afternoon we avoided all of them by playing chase the ball in the backyard. I think we'll do more of that.