Something to cling to

Irish ballads.

My turn to songs for introspection, tears and sadness. 

There is something infinitely sorrowful about most of them. The Irish have suffered forever, but they also have a knack for finding the joy in a blinding moment before it disappears.

Maudlin, emotional, often fueled by alcohol, their music speaks to me of rich hearts, true hearts, hearts tried over and over again by unbearable loss and dinginess. I am not sure I would have survived the sadness, or the dreariness. I'd probably be buried outside the church yard under a tree somewhere.

Perhaps that is what draws me to them. 

When life is dreary, and I'm feeling sad, I need something older than me to cling to.

Same old

 

The same old stories told over and over again, about the same old things, happening the same old way.

The same old problems, dealt with in the same old way, year after year, after year.

The same old people, who once were young, but really haven't changed at all . . .

So why are things different?

Because I have changed.

We are not meant to cap off who we are, how we react or respond, or how we think and feel, and stop learning.

The world changes. 

There are so many opportunities for growth.

Wear a red hat if you like, don purple clothes, but dare to be really different. Don't just play at it. Change the way you look at things, do things, think about things. Find new solutions to old problems.

Vulnerable

Almost everyone has a soft spot for babies. Even if they don't want to raise one, or even care for them, they feel softer around them, because babies are so vulnerable.

They really have no defenses, except being adorable or cute. In fact, they can actually be quite annoying and a huge amount of sleep depriving work. Yet most of us easily love them. 

Vulnerability is not just something thrust upon us as we grow up. Instead, people tend to put up walls and all sorts of defense mechanisms between themselves and others. The less we trust them, the more defenses we have and that makes sense for our survival.

The more we trust someone, the fewer defenses we feel are necessary.  

I think that might be the measure of love.

The more you allow yourself to feel safe and vulnerable with someone, the more that says you trust and love them.

In all my life I think I have only felt totally and willingly vulnerable with one person. I have come close with one of my children, but there will always be a part of me that feels I must protect my children. Protect them against my less worthy thoughts and feelings as well as things I think they might not understand.

But there is one person in this world who knows all my hopes and dreams, all my kinks and cracks, who I feel totally comfortable discussing absolutely anything with. I think that is as vulnerable as it is possible to be.

And that may be the closest to real full fledged, mature love as we can ever be.

What class

I am trying to be healthier, so today I got out and walked! 

I made it in fourteen minutes and thought I would die before I got back to my car.

Now you ask, "How far did you walk and how fast?"

Half a mile! That is the pitiable rate of the thirty minute mile. Sort of.

But it was a stretch for me and then some.

Bestest runs miles every day and my son does too. In fact my son just negotiated class 4 river rapids in a tube with some seasoned kayakers.

But I am not in that class.

I am a class 1/2 walker, meaning next time I will take my cane that has a seat attached!

Things

I don't consider myself unique, but the people I feel truly at home with are scattered over this world like feed for free range chickens.

They are my family of the heart, those people who make me feel okay, like I belong, that my ideas are not odd, or airs, or anything except my own personal ideas.

Which translates into my feelings about whatever I'm reading, or thinking, or worrying about, because that is where most of my ideas spring from.

Strangely enough they are also the people most open to considering other ideas unlike those in my genetic family, many of whom stopped growing somewhere in their teens.

And I don't mean people who are full of passion and courage and a desire to explore new areas. I mean people who still want the same things they wanted at those ages. Fast cars, alcohol, sex, to be cool. They still mostly want "Things." And they mostly talk about people, or things. They are much more likely to want to talk about the garage sale they went to, or the lady next door, than the book they are reading.

Not everybody of course. There are people in my family who are more like me.

But not many.

In the now

I am balancing madly on a tightrope that hangs over an abyss.

I cannot look down because it makes me so dizzy I know I will plunge down into oblivion.

I cannot walk backwards because there is nothing left there.

So I stand here, paralyzed, quivering, just hoping not to fall off.

Hoping that I survive until November third

When they put up a net, or simply cut the rope.

Until it happens

The monotony of life during this pandemic is a mixed blessing.

Not catching the virus, or having anyone I love catch it is a gift.

Trying to do the right things, wear masks, social distance, etc. is not too hard.

Dealing with family that does not seem to understand any of that is hard.

People are getting careless. They seem to feel as long as it is family they cannot catch anything, so they are with family from all over the country and their response?

Nobody got sick.

I wonder how they will feel when that changes?

But I know they will simply say, "Wow, how did that happen?"

Both Trump and the pandemic really highlight the differences in people.

Convenience stores

 

Everyone wants their children to be successful, but some people misunderstand what successful is.

It is not just graduating from high school, or making, a lot of money.

It is not just hanging a piece of paper on the wall that says you attended a university, or college.

It is being able to take care of yourself and others. It is knowing how to tell the truth from the propaganda. It is doing the work to learn how to be whatever it is you wanna be.

If your mother does your school work, or writes your college papers, she is not helping you. If you buy an education, you are not educated. If you pay someone to do the work, they are reaping the benefits.

Pretty soon universities that can be bought will no longer be accredited. They will become convenience stores for the rich and famous.

I had a kidney doctor once, who I believe probably bought his degree. It didn't take me long to figure out how well dressed and dumb he was. (And that may have been why they were asking everyone to fill out forms about what they thought about him.)

Bricklayers apprentice for three to four years. Master Chefs start out in school for several years before honing in on the finest points. A chess master may take twenty years. There is a reason it takes time to become good at things. 

When we go to people for help, we don't want someone who is skilled in cheating, or buying fake degrees. We want someone with the experience and background to actually accomplish what we are hiring them for.

Today we have a president who only knows how to hire "yes men." That is one of the most expensive ways I know to be eternally ignorant.

Don't fall into that trap. As Douglas Malloch wrote:

If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill

Be a scrub in the valley--but be

The best little scrub by the side of the rill;

Be a bush if you can't be a tree.

But whatever you decide to be, really be it.

In that moment

 

I just watched a video of a crow prodding a hedgehog to finish crossing the street so he doesn't die. The hedgehog only moved reluctantly when prodded and had to be reminded several times before he got to the curb on the other side. The video ends after the crow tried to get him to climb up over the curb to safety, but it wasn't looking promising.

How many people do I know who live this same way?

They go through life depending on other people to guide them without a thought about anything except what they want in that given moment.

The hedgehog looked like he was enjoying something in the middle of the road. 

Things like cars, trucks, Covid-19, people who hate little spiky animals and just mean, cruel jerks in the world were not as important to it as that bug in that moment.

If it weren't for someone brighter and more alert, who cared enough to take the right action, the hedgehog might have died in a most unpleasant way.

It isn't easy to care for other people sometimes. 

As someone pointed out: ignorance is curable, stupidity is forever.

Responsibility

The right to vote is also a call to be responsible.

How and who you vote for determines the quality of life for the people of a country. If you don't vote, you are voting for whoever wins and that still makes you responsible. You cannot live in this country and not be responsible, so you better choose wisely.

When you vote for someone who is a known misogynist, who has destroyed nearly everything he has touched, who has no empathy for anything that does not directly affect him and no understanding of the constitution or the law, you are responsible for his actions.

You are directly responsible for all the children lost in his concentration camps at the border. You are responsible for all the people who have died from COVID 19, you are responsible for the rise in white supremacist hate crimes, you are responsible for the people who are out of work, losing their homes, putting their children to bed hungry. 

You voted for that.

You chose it.

You are who you vote for. Even if you didn't vote.

Great

I knew her as the aunt who loved to play. She was my great aunt, married to my grandfather's brother and she and my grandmother lived together most of their lives. She would sit on the library rag rug and secretly play penny poker with me, or at the kitchen table, playing school. When I came to visit we would always go shopping and buy a new dress, see a movie and go to George's Candy store for ice cream.

Born August 19, 1891, she was so small they placed her on a bed of cotton in a cigar box inside the cook stove. Her mother died giving birth to her and her father left her with Victorian grandparents while he went off to marry another woman. At the tender age of six, her grandmother threw her doll in the wood stove and burned it, because she was too old for dolls. By the end of eighth grade, they took her out of school, so she could help at home.

I never knew him, but he was born July 13, 1889. His parents were older, well educated and strict. His younger brother died. His picture hung on the library wall, a tiny emaciated infant in a coffin. His older brother was a very talented, obedient, beautiful, long-curly-haired "perfect child." 

He was a character. He turned 21 on July 13, 1910 and they had been secretly planning to elope to St. Louis for a long time. She was so excited. She bought a wedding dress and hid it away, but shoes were a problem. Starting out as such a premature baby, she had never grown very big, so the only grown-up shoes that fit her were size 2 samples. The man at the shoe store saved them for her when he took them out of his window display.

Three days after his birthday, they ran for the train and boarded,only to find his mother sitting there waiting for them! She bustled them off the train and took them both back to her house, where it is said she slept between them for some time!

Over time it became evident that they would not be able to have children, so she worked in the newborn nursery at the hospital, and mothered every child in the family. Walking to and from work every day, she never learned to drive. He drove a delivery truck for the family store and sometimes across the country, so he kept a gun in his truck. She was not okay with that and one day when they were arguing about the safety of it, she pulled it out of his hands and it went off, shooting him!

He lived to fight in World War I where the story was that he was a pilot in the infantry. He piled it here and he piled it there! She lived with his family and went house to house during the flu. Sometimes whole families were completely at the mercy of neighbors who had to come into their homes to feed  and care for them. One day she sent him a letter saying his mother would not give her sixty-nine cents for material to make a new dress.

When the war ended he came home and every Friday night they would walk downtown to have a beer and see a movie, in spite of their family's objections.

He died in March 1947, before I was born, but she kept his photograph on her dresser and would tell us stories about him. Including how she could still feel his hand patting her when she went to bed at night.

She died in January of 1982, sitting on the edge of her bed, reading a book tucked into her Bible, so my grandmother would not see she was reading a novel.

She really was a great aunt in every sense of the word.

August 15, 1948

 

July, 1948 my father sat in his office and watched a beautiful auburn haired woman cross the street. He was already engaged, but his heart leapt and he exclaimed, "Who is that gorgeous redhead?"

The man sitting in front of him replied, "THAT is my sister!" 

My dad broke off his engagement and, in spite of his objections, my uncle-to-be introduced my dad to my mother and soon they were dancing in the moonlight, on a covered bridge while the car radio played in the background. He called her his little bean blossom because soybean flowers are so delicate and bloom for such a short time. He felt she was a rare beauty.

August 14, 1948, they decided to elope and drove down to Paducah, Kentucky, but that fell through, which is just as well since there was a huge formal wedding planned and both families would have been very put off. 

August 15, 1948 Harold and Corrine were married in front of over five hundred guests and soon set off for their honeymoon in Canada. That was an experience they would never forget. Among other things a wolf ran along side their car for miles and when they stopped to eat, the French Canadian restauranteurs  stood and watched in horror as my mother ate a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. It was a chore ordering it, not just because she didn't speak French, but the people in the restaurant had never heard of such a thing. My mother finally ordered a bacon sandwich along with some tomatoes and lettuce.

Back home, my father reserved the furniture store after hours and took my mother up to pick out all her furniture and have it delivered to their home.

They were eager to get settled and start a family.  He had a Masters in English and owned a car dealership in a small town. She was anxious to become a mother. They tried everything. My dad even tried to learn to fly the family floatplane so they could escape to their vacation home in Minnesota more often, but it was not to be. They were 20 and 21.

I wasn't born until November 25, 1949. My mother finished Thanksgiving dinner then my father surprised her by telling her she was going straight to the hospital because I would be born by caesarian section the next morning. Three more caesarians followed in the next five years before their family was complete.

Just before the third baby was born my father sold the dealership and went back to school. Financially, it was pretty much downhill from then on, but in spite of that they had the love affair of the century. I used to squeeze in between their hugs to be part of them and I don't remember hearing them ever argue. My mother died suddenly in 1986 and my father fully expected to die shortly after, but he lingered on until 2000. 

When I asked him what he wanted for Christmas that last year, all he said, was, "To be with your mother." He died December 26, 2000 and it was hard to be sorry, because it was something he had wanted desperately for a very long time.

A new doc

 

I finally bit the bullet and made an appointment with my new doctor. The old one moved to Chicago.

I have really only three feelings about this.

1. I wish I could avoid the appointment and just get my prescriptions renewed over the phone.

2. I wish I could pronounce her name.

3. I am glad she is so busy she has to book down the road. It makes me think I might have picked a good one.

A carpenter

I have always been the romantic, sure that the people I admire, or love, are special beyond belief and whether that is pure silliness, or mere wanting, I will probably never know.

But sometimes I get a feeling. A feeling based on talking to a person, or a feeling based on when that person has to hang up, or is interrupted to do something else, that says this person is different.

This person is not just a thinker, or creator, or  kind, but a bit extraordinary. 

A person who goes out of their way to connect with the most unlikely people. One who stops jogging to help a man load his truck, or give water to a stray dog.

A person who empathizes with people and animals in unusually kind ways.

And who also happens to be a carpenter.

Hair

 

I really didn't give my hair too much thought growing up. Mom cut it, styled it with bobby pinned curls once a week and did whatever she thought looked best, or maybe the best she could do and I just assumed that was it.

Then around fourteen I began to take an interest in it. Enough so that I slept on gigantic brush rollers about the size of orange juice cans to make it bouffant and not frizzy or curly. It was painful. I remember pushing my fingers up between my scalp and the rollers to protect my head when it hurt too much, but it never occurred to me not to do it.

We discovered personal hair dryers about the time I was seventeen and that meant we could sit with some kind of hood, or cap over our head and dry it in less than an hour, which was much quicker than the all night process up to then. Of course about that time I also went to college and my dorm mates would iron my hair straight for me on an ironing board with a tea towel and hot iron!

Somewhere around age 23 I began using just the hose of my hair dryer and a brush to style my long hair into sweeping long locks minus the frizz. And a few years later they came out with actual blow dryers thst changed everything.

The one constant, though, was that I felt I had to do SOMETHING to make my naturally curly hair presentable.

Now, for the first time since I can remember, I simply wash and condition my hair, then fluff my fingers through it and let it go! 

I am in style and it only took seventy years.

Yep, I guess all things do come to those who wait -- long enough.

Book in the mail

 

Who would ever have thought I'd get to the day where getting dressed was too much trouble?

Yet, many days I feel just that way.

Getting dressed to take the trash out, or get the mail is not very rewarding except on days like today when I have a new book in the mail.

I never considered myself particularly shallow, but I guess my only real interest in clothes is what other people think of them. Left with just my own company I am perfectly willing to wear the same outfit until it goes into the wash.

And it doesn't even necessarily have to match, or be pretty. 

However, today being a book in the mail day, I wore earrings!

Second chances

People often over state things to make a point. 

Unfortunately that act dilutes their point in the long run.

It doesn't take long to learn they don't actually mean what they say.

They are unreliable.

Children who grow up with adults shouting, "I'm gonna kill you!"

Or "I'll take you out to Mr. MacGregors spanking machine."

Soon teach their children people are all bluff.

These are often the same people, who out of guilt, write their kids papers, or allow them to take Twinkies and soda to bed, so their children miss out on all the rules successful kids take for granted.

Perhaps these are the same people who grew up with similar parents so they believe these are the right things to do, or they grew up with strict parents and they are indulging their own needs now, but either way, the children are the losers.

Given a second chance, would they change? Do they see the danger in this sort of "love?" Or will they go right on sabotaging their child and their grandchildren? 

In the real world there are consequences for most people who don't learn to play by the rules.

Not, never having to say I'm sorry

People think everyone knows what love is, that it is a no brainer. That there is no need to teach about it, or explain it. They believe it is something that just happens organically.

They are wrong.

Lust happens organically. Infatuation happens all the time. Liking pops up like wild daisies on a mountain side. Possession imitates love and protection is as fierce a form of mother love as there is.

But love, the kind that lasts between two mature people, must be cultivated.

It is a meeting of minds that don't need to meet, a respect for opinions that will vary widely over the years, a mutual caring that is willing to step beyond comfortable and easy. It is looking beyond the moment no matter what it is, because there is a trust that passes all understanding.

It is not never having to say, "I'm sorry." It is not perfection, because like the ocean, it is too large, too deep, too full of mystery to be any one thing.

Love is a cloud that wraps around you. Ethereal, transient, and filled with a life that cannot be bought, sold, owned, or killed. 

Liking something

Just about the time I decide I could move anywhere in the United States, if I am going to have to live inside the four walls of my apartment, I find a new way to rearrange that makes my present apartment novel again.

Not just novel, but evidently cooler! 

It all began when I was looking for a different size comforter for my bed and that evolved into seeking a trifold screen to go in front of the window.

In the end I simply flipped the bed end for end and put the dollhouse in front of the window. It blocks the sun, gives me more privacy, and evidently recirculates the air in a more efficient way.

I don't understand it, but I like it, which is pretty much the only criteria I have right now.

I don't understand my country. I don't like a lot of its people and ideas, but liking something helps and for me it is this apartment.

Parenting

Did I do enough?

I think most parents ask themselves this about the way they raised their kids.

I think the more important question might be, did I do the right things?

And if I didn't, is it too late?

And the answer to that is, you will never know unless you try.

If the old ways did not work, you need to do something different.

You may need help knowing what that is and how to do it, but if you keep on doing the same old things, the same old results will continue to follow.

If these are things you love and admire, go for it.

If these are things that will eventually kill your child, maybe you should change.

What do you do

Where are the lines between running away from something, getting rid of things, and being a F---- you person, which I have been described as.

My ex often told our counselors that I was a survivor. It didn't matter what happened,  I would be okay, even fine in the long run. 

That may be true, but it is not a pleasant way to live.

I was brought up to do what I was supposed to do, what I was told, what was the right thing. Sometimes those are not the same things. In my life those were often not the same things.

It took some pretty miserable times, where I felt I had to protect my children, for me to learn to walk away, to get rid of, those things that were too painful.

And like most learning curves, there were periods where I got rid of too many things for all kinds of reasons; all the Christmas ornaments, the coffee table, various pets and eventually my husband. He left three times, but the last time I went to an attorney the next day and filed for divorce.

Within three months I was off the antidepressants and my life did not come to an end like I thought it would. In fact, it got better and better over the years.

Some things can be changed.

You get rid of the rest.

Love

I was traveling to meet my friends, we were young women, probably in our mid twenties, independent, strong, free, when I found myself stopping the car.

I felt some confusion, because I didn't know why I had stopped. 

It was dark and I got out of my car, walking over towards a streetlight on the corner. Standing there, in a pool of light in the middle of an unknown place, in the middle of the night, was a familiar figure.

We stood there mutely as recognition crept into every pore of our bodies. Taking my hand, he led me to his apartment. I walked beside him, the old familiar feeling of belonging enveloping us both.

A second floor walk up, it was simple, plain, yet very cozy. I was overwhelmed by disbelief. Was I really here? Was he really here? Did we still feel this way?

He stood with his back to me, looking out a window, pride creeping into his voice as he told me how his career was thriving. He was ordinary in every way except for that voice., a young tenor who made the world swoon, but whose love filled me with awe.

We were both confused by what was happening. It should have been unlikely at the best and impossible at the worst. 

We talked and talked and then I found myself lying next to him, my head on his chest as we continued to talk. It was a moment in time I never wanted to end.

And neither did he.

But we knew it would.

He wrote his phone number on a scrap of paper and put it in the cookie jar above the refrigerator, then went out to buy us food. When he left I retrieved the paper and put it in my pocket, knowing it made no difference.

I was standing at the window, looking out when his friends came. They had no idea who I was and I didn't feel it was my place to tell them. They were questioning me when my friends showed up at the door. I didn't know how they had found me. They couldn't imagine why I was there.

It was already over. 

I left with my friends, looking back at the room devoid of him as always. His friends, standing there, mute, confused about who I was and why I was leaving.

And now there is an old emptiness in me that I have carried forever.

Filled only in impossible moments like this.

Routines

Bestest says routines are life savers. 

He's probably right. His life is a long set of routines that have pretty much given him his dream job in his dream house with his dream partner.

He has instilled a few routines in me and I had one already in place. All of that works well for me even when I am reluctant to perform on command. (Even if the command only comes from me.)

Every day I try to write a Thot, draw a picture for Bestest, brush my teeth as soon as I get up and just before bed when I use the water pic, take my medicine at specific times, make my bed, play words with friends, win one solitaire game and read. 

I realize that bar is pretty low, but it's the best I can do right now. Sometimes I get in a shower and dress in street clothes. Those are good days. I have also given up drinking almost anything except two cups of coffee and water, which is good, but I love to eat.

I keep trying for a set bedtime and sometimes I can maintain that for extended periods of time, but I also like, almost need, to nap and that can mess everything else up.

I have a good role model now, but I also have a lifetime of bad habits, so it's always an uphill struggle.

Reality

Imagine God telling you. "Everybody dies and you are always being watched, even when you think you are alone."

God, in the all powerful form of my mother, taught me this from the moment I was born.

I remember wondering what heaven would be like because the only person I knew there was my grandfather and I had no memory of him, except through my mother's memories and words.

I also remember my mother repeatedly warning me. "You might think I'm mommy, but I might really be Santy Claus here to watch you, so you better be good."

I was three going on four.

To this day I have concerns that people are not who I think they are.

Thanks to my mother's careful cultivation I was always aware that we were moving and leaving all my friends behind, so I had better be grateful for my family, and aware that even that could be taken away without notice.

I've never expected people to stay long. And yet my husband, a narcissist who was probably also on the Asperger's Autism spectrum, which I didn't know at the time, stayed around for thirty years. I was afraid to leave him and miserable with him. And it wasn't until recently that I began to understand some of the whys.

Now I am seventy years old and for the first time in my life feel there is no real future, or at least not one with any meaningful differences to look forward to. Any romantic relationships are headed for age related problems in the near future. And I don't have the energy for starting new projects anymore.

I will probably not leave this apartment, it is as close to perfect as I can afford. I will probably not have any more pets, they deserve better. I see no reason to try and lose weight, or get healthy. I have no goals. Nothing to look forward to.

So, do I stick around for the finale or what?

Is it worth it?