Family heirloom

 

I don't know whether I believe in Fate or not, but sometimes an event occurs that makes me wonder.

I looked for a family heirloom before my daughter's wedding. It was a necklace that belonged to my great grandmother and was worn by both my mother and me at our weddings. 

I remembered offering it to my son for his wedding, but his bride wanted nothing to do with it. 

I thought I put it away in a chest where I placed many important family mementos, but it wasn't in there. Then I assumed I gave it back to my sister who collects everything, including jewelry. She could not find it.

Thinking back I assume I must have looked in my own jewelry box. In fact, I would have sworn I did, 

I seldom ever wear anything except a pair of platinum hoop earrings, but lately I have felt more like my old self. I've been wearing make up occasionally and even a bit more jewelry. 

Today I found that family heirloom in my own jewelry box! I am astounded! I am also thrilled and grateful to know it is not lost.

Now I must decide who it should be given to and when.

It is that important to me.

Tolerance

 

A human being's ability to tolerate inconveniences depends on so many things.

Some people do not deal well with the smallest things, a hang nail can turn them into raging maniacs. Others generally build towards some invisible and variable point known only to them.

And then there are those people who seem to be able to rock and roll with whatever punches come at them. My youngest son is like that. It is terrifying to think that his kayak could be caught upside down in a raging stream and he would be calmly probing his brain for his next action.

Today a block of people in our apartment building were told we would have no water until further notice. That meant no drinking water, no showers, no flushing toilets with no advance warning!

The optimistic goal of water being turned on by noon was tolerable for most of us. Three thirty didn't seem totally unreasonable since it was a water main they were fixing. But my phone call at three forty suggested it might be five, five thirty, or even six. 

I asked how we would know when the water was back on and discovered they had no plans for how to let us know. It simply hadn't occurred to them! 

That is when almost everyone's tolerance wore a bit thin. Not using the bathroom is no big deal if it isn't your bathroom and they did make other bathrooms available. One on the top floor. One on the main floor. 

I found myself on the way to the modern version of an outhouse. Not really an outhouse of course. It was a fully functioning, fully flushing toilet down the hall and ten floors away on an elevator. When you are an older woman you will understand how inconvenient that is.

Hours more holding-it-in awaited us all, but soon after I hung up the phone someone knocked on my door. The water was on and bathrooms were once more usable! Seven hours of horror ended! The sun came out, birds twittered cheerfully and little angels sang in choirs on every corner.

Thank goodness I made that call. I shudder to think we might have gone the whole weekend thinking we didn't have a pot to pee in.

Not all who wander are aimless

 

Tolkien said this. I must have read it years ago, but it didn't really hit me until tonight. Growing up a child of the fifties my goals were set for me. I wanted to grow up to be like my mother, my aunts, my grandmothers and all their friends. I wanted to be a wife and mother. But I was also like my father, curious and idealistic.

I became a wife and mother! I loved being that. It was and still is one of the most important parts of my life. Even though it was only the beginning of who I was to be, I took it very seriously, trying to see what the point of parenthood really meant.

To me it meant raising a human being to find its potential. Teaching someone not only how to survive in this world, but to thrive. Giving my children all the knowledge and skills I knew how to give them. Then stepping back and giving them the freedom to go and BE!

When they left. I left. I left a life of extremes; the joy of being a mother and the agony of being a wife to a man who did not share my ideals, or goals, or even dreams. We only shared concrete things like houses and food.

After my divorce I discovered a million new things. I experimented with all kinds of ideas. I moved from the city to the farm, to a bigger city, to a series of generic places I  called an apartment. Home really was where my heart was.

I met people I had only dreamed about, doing things I had always dreamed about and I began to find myself. I wasn't afraid to try new things. I took flute lessons and played a recital. I birthed a drum and learned to meditate in its vibrations. I took part in a Wicca wedding and gazed into the red hot rocks of a sweat lodge. I traveled all over the country. Alone. I transcribed the words of a famous author and edited books for another. I even allowed my inner child to try out its fantasies with more joy than I had dared to dream.

I have moved 29  times in my life and each move brought me closer to the woman I am. I am not ashamed to say I like me. I am far from perfect, but that is why I am interesting. I am constantly learning new things and learning makes me feel joyful. Who could aim for more than that?

Excuses

 

How many people do you know who always have excuses for not doing something?

I'm not saying they should be doing anything.

I'm thinking of the people who feel they need to have a reason for why they won't.

A long time ago someone told me to never give an excuse for not doing something. It only gives the asker something to counter with. If they can solve your dilemma you will feel required to agree to their demands.

I have tried to live by that knowledge ever since, but I know people who almost cannot function if they don't have a reason not to do something. They are the people pleasers. The ones whose self image requires them to make everybody happy. (Which of course, no one ever does, especially people pleasers.)

One woman relied on her jobs for excuses so much that when she retired, she nearly had a nervous breakdown until she got a dog. Then that dog became her excuse. He needed to go to grooming. He needed to be walked. He barked. His food disagreed with him. Whatever. No one was fooled.

She still complained about all the things people asked her to do, but now she had her dog to make her feel like a willing martyr.

It isn't unkind to simply say, "No. I'm sorry." Or, even simply, "No." If someone pushes you beyond that you have the right tell them the truth if you choose to. These people are not your real friends anyway.

Sometimes it is even kinder to just be honest up front and not leave people believing you really want to do something you have absolutely no desire to do. Don't lead them on.

They will get over it and if they don't? There may be one less person asking for favors. (But don't count on it.)

I voted

Today is St. Patrick's Day. That gives me a reason to get dressed. In green!

Today is also election day and I voted, so I am wearing my little I Voted sticker and plan to wear it to my third reason for getting up and getting dressed.

Today is our building's monthly potluck.

I was thinking of the ways we think of ourselves and who we influence this morning.

Long long ago I worked for the top auto insurance company in the world. I had the second lowest pay grade they had, but I was good at what I did and it never occurred to me to be ashamed of my lowly status.

Later I taught old fashioned preschool. Two classes of fifteen three year olds twice a week and I was proud of what I did. Influencing the future people who would run our country, teach our children, and care for our earth.

Now that I am retired I sometimes do not even have to get up and get dressed. That is a dangerous state of mind. Everyone needs a reason to get up. I don't really have a problem with that part. There are many things I do when I'm up. I paint, play my keyboard, read, write, play games on my phone, rearrange my furniture. But I can do all of those in my pajamas!

When I summon up the energy to actually dress up and get out a bit I feel really good, so you'd think I'd do it more often.

I don't.

When I do, just wearing my I Voted sticker influences people. Small things. Small perspective, but it counts.

Who are you

 

There is no such person as the woman before me. 

Oh, she has height and girth, hair, and a face with two terrified eyes and one trembling or grimacing smile, but she does not really exist.

She is the sum total of other people's opinions. Her best friend's inner most thoughts shape her wants and needs. Her mother is the god who lives in her head and says what is always right in this world, whether it is something owned, done, thought, or dreamed. Nobody's opinion carried more weight than that memory of a woman she called, Mom, whether it was true or existed or not.

She walks through her world playing the part of a thousand mid century love stories where women are fragile and beautiful, loved and nurtured and always get their man in the happily ever after. Only there is no happily ever after for her. There is not even a happy present for her.

Her world is a jumbled confusion of jumping to the right cues and expecting some reward to be tossed into her mouth if she does it quickly enough. No thinking needed. No thinking allowed. She walks a tightrope of not knowing. Not wanting to know, because that would mean thinking on her own and expressing an opinion.

She is fiercely protective of her non being. Proud of it in a sort of stubborn way that put to any other use might have taken her in a much different direction. Words flow out of her mouth contradicting each other sentence by sentence, but she neither notices, nor cares. Confronted, she only becomes louder and more emphatic, but it does not change the fact that she really isn't listening at all.

Life in motion is the rule.

Movement is her salvation. In constant motion, she vacuums, mows, shops, walks, exercises -- anything to avoid thinking or participating in real life, her own, or others'. All creatures suffer at her hand. She has no discipline to offer, nothing to teach, leaving any dependent creature completely at sea in a world that eats those, who don't know the rules, alive. But she sees their suffering as her blessed mission in life.

By creating these creatures who have no notion of how to function, she creates a place for herself; swooping in to do good and loving deeds that keep them chained to her forever.

Necessary or luxury

 

With stuff comes responsibility. 

Whether you call that stuff, necessary or luxury, you still have to take care of it.

This is true whether it is money, household gadgets, geegaws, or even clothing. Everything requires something of you. 

It must be figured into your taxes, or dusted, or filled with gas. It may require insurance, or veterinary bills, or grooming. Washing, drying, weeding, watering, mowing, painting, re roofing, shoveling the snow, nothing comes without a price.

If you believe you have someone who takes care of all of this for you, think again. There is a price for that too! Actual payment in money, and/or relinquishing control of your life. 

Everything you bring into your life makes some kind of a difference and only you can decide if it's worth it.

Living by proxy

 

The older I get the more limited my life tends to become. I don't have a lot of money. I can't afford to be ferried around the world in a wheel chair and so my life must be centered on what I can do.

I've always loved rearranging things, especially rooms. It allows me to feel like I am in a new place and I love new places.

Done right a room conveys a feeling as much as anything else. It can be airy or cozy, elegant or rustic, whatever I choose to make it.

I can no longer change where I live, but I can change the way I live in a place; how I look out the windows, where the focus is going to be, what I do with a space that gives me a certain sense of being.

There is a large evergreen tree outside the front of my apartment. Viewed from one room, I could be in the Alps, or a forest. Viewed from different windows it looks down upon what might be a formal garden or patio or even a city scape, especially at night.

It only takes a hint of something and my imagination to enjoy where I am and due to years and years of extensive reading my imagination is immense.

I have collected an eclectic assortment of household goods. I have a Moroccan floor lamp, a beautiful Quan Yin, an Armani stallion, among some staple things like chairs and secretaries or dressers. It feeds my need to be creative. And it's all movable, so I can create almost anything I can dream up.