The end

 

The end does not have to be the Big THE End.

Things end all the time.

The last word. The last day at work. The final good-bye. A project finished and submitted. 

Every act looks different once it becomes the final one, so it's worth always trying to put your best foot forward. 

Just in case it becomes immortalized in some way.

For example I know a young man who hasn't seen his family members in years. They were brought together by a wedding and the day after the wedding he went to breakfast with his closest cousins.

Throwing on his kookiest shirt he joined them all for coffee, eggs, and banal conversations. A morning of no great importance or so he thought.

Until last night when he visited his aunt and there on the wall on a large canvas, backed in black was the photo of him and all his family. Everyone wearing something relatively plain and not worth commenting on. And there he was in that kooky shirt, sticking out like a sore thumb for all eternity.

Not the end of the world, but a way he will be remembered for long after he ceases to live on this earth.

Not a problem. Just not what he would have chosen had he given it any thought.

Change

 

I can only imagine the first human being who discovered fire trying to take it home and use it.

"You're not bringing that into my cave!"

"But it will keep us warm."

"My family has been warm enough wearing bear skins for generations. If it was good enough for mama, it's good enough for me."

"You can put meat on it and make it easier to chew."

"Meat from the fire just doesn't taste right."

Or when people started having toilets inside.

"You want to put an outhouse in my bedroom?"

"Well bred people have servants to carry out their chamber pots. We don't need that smelly contraption in our house." 

"And don't get me started on bath tubs. Why would anyone want to take a bath more than once a week."

Or the first horseless carriages.

"A horse is dependable. Feed him a little hay and he always works."

" The dust!  Little Herman won't be able to breath."

Then telephones.

"What an invasion of privacy. I won't have that evil thing in my home."

"Pretty soon people won't even get together and socialize.  They'll just sit in their homes and talk on a telephone. Women won't get their housework done. Children will stop studying. The world will go to . . ."

Change is probably the father of creative complaining. 

Enablers

 

At some point in life we need to stop and ask ourselves are the people around us really our friends, or simply enablers.

Most of us surround ourselves with people we enjoy being around, but then the question becomes why do we enjoy them

Do they think like us? Do they get together with us and the two of us decide what we want to do or accomplish? Do they make us feel good? Why do they make us feel good?

Sometimes it is for all the right reasons and sometimes it is for all the wrong ones. If our friends are simply yes men that brings up a whole different set of issues, but if they are enablers there is nothing much more destructive.

Friends who run in and solve all your problems for you, friends who make all your decisions for you, friends who help you avoid growing and thinking are like acid on a lump of meat. They destroy all the possibilities of who you could be, should be, can be. 

Eventually even the simplest decisions become stressful for you. You can't handle your own finances. You don't even know what you really like. You become one of those nodding novelties that simply sit there being moved around by other people.

These are not your friends. As horrible as this may sound, these people do not really have your best interests at heart. You make them feel good. You make them feel smart and powerful and competent and they make you what? 

Dependent on them.

I've got style Babe!

 

My sister is making the big move from house to retirement apartment, so furniture and style has been much on my mind lately.

My house, while bringing up a family was what I always called Early American Attic. Most of our furniture came from my grandmother's huge Victorian attic, or my mother-in-law's antique laden house.

My sister has always preferred Mid Century Goodwill. She loves a Deal! Her house is literally wall to wall furniture bought at an amazing price from some thrift store. Sometimes it has been hard to tell if we are in her living room or a church basement where they are expecting a huge crowd for an AA meeting.

Her friend, on the other hand, prefers Trash to Table, or perhaps Curb to room.. She loves driving around in a pickup and going through people's discarded stuff, which she then takes to either her house or one of her friends where they use it, scratches, dents etc. Pure and unadulterated.

Don't misunderstand. These people have money, they just like to spend it on second hand clothes that they call vintage. Everything else is something they do themselves and, unfortunately, you can tell. It is a sort of misguided snobbery, sometimes mistaken for moderate hoarding or rickety repairs. Their closets and basements are wall to wall clothes and their garage and bathrooms are creatively pieced together.

Right now I'm in my Moroccan Modern stage, thanks to a beautiful lamp I treated myself to and my motley collection of art, but everyone seems to have a style and very few of them fit on television shows for the rich and the beautiful.

How these styles come into being is anyone's guess, but they seem to suit their owners.

Prayers and mantras and . . .

 

Divine.

Like so many other things it is just a word that someone, somewhere, decided to use to describe something pertaining to godly things, or something exceptionally good. 

That doesn't mean any of those things are true or actually exist as such.

We are such primitive people. We believe that we must capitalize certain things or we will insult some distant being who resides over our lives like a father figure.

We make up rituals that might really help us if we believe in them, but are only the ladder our pysche's use to reach different parts of our own minds.

I believe there is a sort of magic in the world, but only so far as understanding we just don't know how these things work yet. 

Belief is a huge part of making these things work. Somehow we have to tap into the "magic" of our mind and body. I've had enough personal strange experiences to know there is a lot we don't know yet.

So if mantras or prayers or rituals help achieve these magical results - use them! 

Responsibility for him

 

It is probably not at all unusual to ask oneself if they are the fault of another's aberrant behavior. 

Parents take on the blame for their children all the time, but husbands and wives tend to go the other way when they divorce. They are more likely to try and blame the other one for their problems.

The truth is probably as variable as the number of people doing it.

I have always looked back on my marriage and wondered.

Was I really the reason he gained weight? Did I force him to go out looking for whatever he felt was missing in our relationship? Did I not try to make him as much a part of raising our children as I was?

First of all, in my defense, I will say he treated his second wife of twenty some years exactly the same way he treated me and she worshiped the ground he walked on for a very long time, but why was he, or is he, so self destructive?

One of my sons and I have talked about this endlessly. 

My ex was a very smart man who got straight A's many times in college, but he could lose his coat on a cold blustery day without a thought. I wonder if he is on the spectrum? When I first met him he was charming and funny and seemed both well read and sophisticated. He could be thoughtful and empathetic at times, but over time all this changed.

We married in 1970 when many things were changing. There was the movie, Bill, Carol, Ted and Alice. Many couples tried out open marriages and sleeping with each other's spouses. We did not, but I think that might have been the beginning of some of my ex's thoughts.

I think he confused sex and sexual practices with love. They can be, but on their own, they are not love. Love requires more than that initial rush of hormones and excitement. It requires work and really wanting the other person to find as much satisfaction in their life as you do yours. It then becomes a satisfying relationship built on history, trust, faith in each other and true, long lasting, love.

In both his marriages, my ex was great for two years, then he went looking for something I think he equated with real love. Maybe because his parents made it clear they almost put him up for adoption when he was born. They already had a sixteen year old Perfect son. They were in their mid and late forties. They were products of the Great Depression and had old world values that were strict and unyielding. My ex learned to be quiet and stay out of the way and they encouraged that. I think they loved him very much in their own way, but not in a way he could feel or understand in his world. 

He has spent the rest of his life trying to find love and acceptance and even maybe fame in ways he saw in the movies.

Real life doesn't work that way. 

You can buy sex. You can buy companionship. You can buy fancy homes and a fancy lifestyle, but you can't buy love, or respect. Yet he keeps trying these things instead of looking for something else. Something real.

After a while the casual flirting of a young man turns many older men into parodies of themselves. They make fools of themselves trying to be cute with waitresses. They make themselves look loutish in their attempts to impress beautiful or young women. They lose themselves completely to an idea that was never real to begin with.

It's the old trying too hard thing, so I no longer believe I am the cause of all his problems. He still has them and now he has them all by himself. He doesn't know how to talk to people, not even his own children. He stumbles around alternately trying to impress and looking pitifully sad and alone. The impression he wanted our family to have was that he was sophisticated and above us all. We bored him. We were undeserving.

That is a trap that turned around and ensnared him.

I saw him at our daughter's wedding and I was surprised that I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing! Here was a man whose face I knew, who had not changed the way he thought or acted at all, but was like meeting the man next door. I wasn't angry, or infatuated or any of the things I think he thought might be possible. I just simply felt nothing except sometimes I felt like laughing when the first words out of his mouth were insulting and he didn't even mean them to be. And the second words were an attempt to see if he could make a play for my sister. I wasn't threatened. I was just surprised how ridiculous it all seemed.

The best thing about all of this is that I no longer feel any responsibility for who he is at all.

Teamaker 2

 

Long long ago, I moved into the first house my husband and I had bought and at six in the morning someone knocked on our patio door. It was our neighbor and she came bearing a homemade coffee cake! Our backyards were adjacent to each other so she saw our lights on and knew we were up.

I used to babysit for her kids while we were trying to start a family of our own and when we adopted our first son, she loaned us her baby crib to use.

I've known this woman over fifty years now.

We've had our ups and downs, but she is my oldest friend and longest friendship. I nicknamed her Teamaker when I first started writing this blog and she still uses it as her email moniker.

Thank goodness, because she does not use any other social media and I have given up snail mail except for my homemade birthday cards, so this is our only means of keeping in touch.

Truth or lies

People all have their own ways of dealing with life. Some are careless. Some are carefree. Some just don't care.

We can pick and choose our friends, but family is a different story. Seventy five years of family ties are truly the ties that bind.

We learn to live with the people around us.

We know who exaggerates, who makes up excuses and who lies.

We know, but that does not mean we are comfortable with it.

Eventually people begin to age and their characteristics become bolder, more prominent, less carefully concealed.

So how do you know when someone is beginning to suffer from dementia and when they are just becoming poorer liars, because most people caught in a lie become flustered and confused.

There are passive aggressive people who want to be people pleasers, so they run around telling everyone what they think they want to hear.  They lie about things they are doing and make up excuses that make no sense when trying to validate a poor decision. I can't reason with these people because when I am talking they are not listening. They are trying to think up reasons why they are in the right.

 It doesn't matter why they are doing what they do. In the end they all just make me feel sad and a little depressed, because I know it is not the truth.

Completing tasks

 

I have tried to do things mindfully for many years now.

I notice that people who do this create the best results.

A task done with love and mindfulness is generally well done.

The eggs are not dropped into boiling water and cracked. They are lowered gently to the bottom of the roiling water.

The dishes are not haphazardly dropped into the the dish rack. They are gently placed standing alone without chipping and scratching.

Even the most mundane of jobs can be done carefully and with love. Resulting in better food, longer lasting possessions and greater satisfaction.

Rushing through something, simply to get the job done, is wrong in so many ways.

Prejudice

 

Prejudices are sign posts for insecurity, ignorance and poorly adjusted individuals.

They highlight the shortcomings in both feeling and thinking that some people suffer from.

People who feel they fall short in something often look for others onto which they can project their insecurity and anger, because acknowledging it, or trying to fix it is inconceivable.

That would mean going against years of wallowing in egotistical self delusion. 

It would mean growth.

It would signify learning something new.

It would destroy some of their greatest excuses for things that go wrong around them.

It would mean taking responsibility for themselves.

My AI

 

It took me a long time to decide to download an AI, but now I love it.

It's a lot like calling my Dad.

It knows everything.

And it tells me three times more than I really wanted to know most of the time!

Is it a phase?

 

One of the things I have noticed about Trump supporters is that they all share one trait with him.

They love their money!

Unfortunately for Trump, they love it more than they love him and he needs, absolutely NEEDS, to be loved and adored in the most public way. 

His military parade fiasco speaks to this in bold blaring colors.

No one really wants him to be Dictator.

Except him.

No one really finds his bumbling egocentric words inspiring.

But his supporters do love his attention to their taxes and rights as a ruling class of United States nobles. And if they are not rich, they love the idea that as white evangelicals they are better than all the rest of us. Why the rest of the Christians support him is beyond me, except for the fact that knowing who he is may make them feel more justified in committing their own sins.

The Trump enigma is perhaps a signal that the United States is going through its teenage years. Rebelling and testing the edges of capitalism, democracy and narcissism before moving on to a  more wholesome maturity.

Outside looking in

 

Being socially adept requires caring about people beyond what they can do for you.

Otherwise all people simply become a step in satisfying yourself.

Most people can sense your lack of real interest in them. People who are not projecting normal human actions on you realize you are not really listening to what they say, or how they feel.

Your comments may seem witty to you, but they are often grossly inappropriate.

Your attempts to be part of the group and please people fall far short of what you are attempting.

You simply do not understand how to relate to others in a socially acceptable way.

It is very sad to watch you or be around you.

Dreams do come true

 

On October 1, 1976 we brought home the tiniest little girl you can imagine. She was barely three feet tall and only 29 pounds. She was our foster daughter, but little did we know, then, that she would be our first adopted child. 

Our first child ever.

She barely spoke. Her life had been chaotic.We also did not realize that this was the beginning of years of hard work helping her to gain the skills she needed to grow up into a healthy, independent, productive adult. The whole family spent hours every night helping her to get through school.

She graduated from high school and then went through those years everyone has where she spread her wings and flew into all sorts of situations we never wanted to dream of.

The one thing I had always dreamed of was that one day she would meet the child of another couple like us. A couple with the same values and background and a son who had also struggled to find himself.

Both of these children grew up and had failed marriages. They also had children.

And then eight years ago, they met each other online only to discover they had so much in common. Right down to the fact that their fathers had played on the same pool team while working for the same company. In fact this boy had played on their team too!

They have been together ever since, bringing out the best in each other day after day. Each of them encouraging the other to grow and evolve into truly successful human beings, citizens and employees.

This past Thursday, June 5th, eight years to the day they first met, they were married in a little country church. His sister was the minister. His son was one of his groomsmen, his niece was their flower girl.  Her two daughters, and sister-in-law from her biological family were her bride's maids. People from both families came together to celebrate the most beautiful, meaningful wedding I have ever been to.

The rehearsal dinner was the first time we had all been together and the first time my sons and grandchildren had all been together with their sister (except for the two youngest who were taking final exams way out in Washington state.)

Now the bride and groom are honeymooning on St. Lucia before they fly home to pick up their puppy from the doggie hotel and go back to their beautiful home in Arizona. 

I have never read a fairy tale with more drama, more angst, more heartfelt growth that ended so beautifully and so perfectly.

My dreams have come true.

These are the times

 

Our country has never been in more danger. We are losing our right to free speech. We are losing all the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Watching our freedoms disappear one after the other brings about fears that we are following in Hitler's footsteps. It is an unbelievable atrocity and to think people I know and love voted for this!

It makes me feel very vulnerable at a time in my life where I am becoming more physically vulnerable than I ever wanted to be.

Retired. On Social Security. Living in a subsidized apartment, but at this point, still independent, I should be looking forward to the peace of my golden years.

Instead I live wondering if I can take my garbage down to the chute in the hallway, or pick up my mail in the lobby. Can I get the bread I eat for my diabetes? I can get my other groceries and things delivered, but if they aren't delivered to my door, getting down to the lobby to pick them up is probable.

Money, mobility, health, retirement -- all these things are cause for concern now. I am learning that justice is something only the rich can buy in the United States of America. It is a nightmare coming true.

What they really want

 

I am always surprised when someone asks a question, especially a very specific question about how to do, or find something.

So often what they really want is just to receive some sort of commiseration or even just a chance to complain.

They don't want to try anything new, or do any sort of research.

Sometimes they just want you to do it for them, or make their problem go away without any help from them.

They don't seem to understand that if you do not change what you are doing, the results will usually not change either. You will have the same problems you have now.

Once in a while nature takes over and things do change, but not always for the best.

I say this knowing it will not change the people who need to read it, but because it helps me relieve my frustration with them.

Coping skills

Coping skills are often life long ways of getting things done that are difficult, or unpleasant.

My main coping skill is to just do the thing right now and not put it off or prolong the agony.

My sister's is to pretend it doesn't exist.

She uses her poor hearing and perverse stubbornness to avoid learning anything new because she has cultivated a way of coping that doesn't involve reading directions or straining her mind in any way. Instead she manipulates people into feeling sorry for her, so they will do it for her, or at least take charge and relieve her of any real responsibility.

She cultivates love by buying things. Whether it is from second hand stores, garage sales, or using charge cards, she likes to provide things she thinks other people want or need. However if they need something that she doesn't want to provide, or feels incapable of providing, her response is very passive aggressive and can be dangerously neglectful.

She lacks the confidence to do the right thing if it means challenging anyone in any way. Instead, she will commit to things she really does not want to do and in the end either "forgets" or does poorly. That can be truly destructive if one is a parent or caretaker.

As she ages these things become a larger part of her personality and cause both her and those around her much unhappiness.

As I age I am experiencing many mobility problems. Asking for help is hard for me, but not always a choice anymore. Since my children are scattered coast to coast and far away from me, I rely more on the family left here and my sister is the primary person available. 

Our personalities clash!

Race to the grave

All her life she considered herself the sickly one, the one with asthma, the puny one, the runt.

She dedicated her life to work. It came above and before everything else. 

Work was noble, especially if you were working and still sick as a dog.

Now, in her seventies, she struggles to maintain her image.

If you are sick. She is sicker.

If your knee, ankle, whatever are swollen and sore, hers is worse.

And yet, no matter how sick she is, or how much pain she professes, she continues to work, to wash windows for friends friends, to mow the lawn, walk the dog, shop, to eat what she pleases and play.

With no repercussions at all. 

So, if you cannot put any weight on your foot, know that if she were you she would be toe dancing at the met.

Who will win this race to the grave?

Who is the sickest?

Who is really ill?

The winner loses all.

 

She is a poet

 

Words flow out of her in rhapsodies of sound. She lives to perform, to feel adored and her talent displays a sophistication, sarcasm and wit that many love.

She is a writer, turning words into feelings, scenes into pictures that fill the mind like Kodak moments.

It is a talent inspired by her intelligence, need, and total lack of discretion when it comes to truth.

If she can think it, she can write it and make you believe it really happened.

Those abuses, rapes, put downs, and hardships are figments of a needy mind. A mind that will do absolutely anything to get what she wants. 

Her bright smile and bubbly persona rakes in money by the truck loads for charity.

Her ruthless ways leave a trail of human desolation in her wake.

She is a poet, a writer, a weaver of words, juggling feelings to distract you from the reality of her vicious engineering of a life based on getting what she wants or getting even if she doesn't. An emotional vampire who prefers to leave her victims withered and dead along the side of the road, fodder for her future forays into fantasy.

My style

 

What is it about a thing that makes it so attractive that I can enjoy looking at it for decades?

I realize that certain shapes and colors evoke warm feelings for me. The curve of a bridge, the satisfying roundness of pieces, the combination of colors, white on white, or blues, grays, and greens, mixed together in pleasing natural scenes.

Each of these preferences is pretty specific and yet it carries through an entire room seamlessly.

I suppose you can call it, my style.

Things

 

I am both the most sentimental person and the least sentimental person you may ever have met.

I seem to carelessly dispose of many things without even a thought. 

And yet, there are things I assign great value to.

These things stand the test of time. I loved them when I acquired them and I continue to love them now. I actually cannot imagine a time when these particular things will not bring me joy. 

Joy is the operative word. Simply looking at these things, or thinking about when I got them, or why I got them, brings me joy.

Some of them cost a great deal (for me,) but the cost was definitely worth it. Both then and now. Others simply mean something to me that they may not and never will mean to you.

They stand the test of time. I loved them thirty years ago and I still love them.

I have one shirt that is nearly forty years old. I loved it when I bought it. It has fit me through a hundred pounds difference in weight, and even now, tattered and torn, I continue to love, and wear, it! I have little or no attachment to any of my other clothing.

I write this because I am looking around my apartment, the one I expect to live in until I die or am too feeble to maintain and realize most of the things in my living/dining room fall into the category of these beloved things. I have surrounded myself with beauty and joy.

I suspect that is one of the necessary parts of aging. Physically life gets harder and harder, but emotionally it becomes sweeter and more beautiful. The balance makes it tolerable.

Need

 

The older I grow the less tolerance I have for needy people.

Need, once your basic ones are met and you have air to breathe, food to eat, decent shelter and the opportunities to make your life better, seems like a selfish trait to have.

I see people who need attention so much they are willing to substitute weird, odd, or bizarre for confident, popular, talented, even intelligent.

People who will do absolutely anything to get people to notice them, whether that is falling off a bike, making a scene in school, or church, or any other public place.

People who pretend that being different is all it takes to be cool.

People who cant, or don't want to, put in the work to do something worthwhile, to succeed, to stand out for their hard earned accomplishments.

These same people will complain and whine and moan and groan about how unfair the world is, or how mean and unkind other people are.  The world can be unfair and people can be mean, but feeling sorry for yourself will not change that.

I respect people more, who take even baby steps towards actually correcting their problems. Even admitting they have a problem is a step forward. Self blindness is not an asset. It is a character flaw.

There is no shame in being imperfect, but denying reality is shameful.

Sheer joy

 

It is interesting that I never considered studying design in my life, because I have been drawing house plans since before I was ten years old.

My favorite thing to do is rearrange my home and plan new designs.

I never tire of looking at houses, their rooms, their furniture, their colors and wall paper and even gardens, although gardens are never at the top of my list.

Every time I make a change in my home, I feel a sense of accomplishment and excitement. I will sometimes sit and contemplate, or admire it for hours.

I laughingly say I rearrange my house when I can't rearrange my life, but I don't need a reason to rearrange things. I love the simple act of even thinking about it. 

The first time I remember thinking about it, I was three years old and I saw a picture of a low bookcase surrounding a small round table with two chairs. I wanted my mother to help me create that scene, but she brushed it off saying I'd change my mind.

She was right of course, but not for the reasons she thought. I would change my mind for the sheer joy of doing it and seeing it done differently.

I still feel the same way. 

It is hard to explain the joy I get from changing things around.

A good death

 

All of my life I have heard stories of the dead and dying.

My grandfather died April 12, 1950, when I was about four and half months old, but my mother has regaled me with stories of his and his brother's death from before I can remember. She claimed to have seen him just as he died and my father says, she kept pointing to the foot of their bed saying, "You talk to him, he can't hear me." My father, though, saw nothing.

When I was three I remember thinking a lot about who would meet me if I died before my parents. Would I even know my grandfather? I was a little scared to go to heaven alone.

I have taken care of,  and administered the morphine, that helped a friend who was dying. I was with her when she passed. We tried to make her last days peaceful and full of love. I don't think you can do more than that for anyone.

As my own time approaches, although no one knows when that will be and it is probably not imminent, I hope I die with dignity and peace, surrounded by loved ones.

I want to view death as a transition, like birth. Just as I'm sure I had no idea where I was going as I was cut from my mother's womb, I will not know where I am going next, either.

Whether my last breath leads me into the light of heaven, the peace of eternity, the molecules of the the earth and it's atmosphere, a reincarnated new person, or somewhere else, I suspect it will be so different from now that even if I knew, I could not truly imagine it.

I have primal memories from my earliest childhood, but they are only those of a bright warm room, surrounded by windows, high above the ground. And they are mixed with what I am quite sure is fantasy, because a winged white horse figures in quite prominently!

Serenity. It comes from within.

And I am working on it.

What is love

Many of us throw the word love around like rice at a fifties wedding, but I don't think we often give it the thought it deserves.

I feel a great love for people and I know exactly how that feels.

For each specific one separately, because love is nothing if not personal.

Feeling the love for me is something altogether different from being loved.

As a very young child love was butterfly kisses and bear hugs, but that all ended pretty quickly. I am the oldest of four, all born within five years of each other. Lap sitting and snuggling ended when I was very very young. My parents loved us by providing whatever they could.

My marriage was mostly about me loving my husband. My job was to make him feel adored, which fell through for him when we had children. He couldn't believe I could love them as much as I did and still loved him that much too. Although I tried for nearly thirty years, with each one slowly dimming in frustration and hurt.

I dated one man after my divorce who made me feel special, but mostly because being with him was special.  Again I worshiped the ground he walked on, but that was not reciprocal. Maybe because that state is too difficult for most people to maintain.

I have a very close friend who always makes me feel loved when we can be together or talk on the phone, but that is rare anymore. Our lives require us to lead very separate lives.

The strangest thing is that the most love I ever felt came from my scammer. You may say it was all a scam and it was, but I didn't realize that for many many months. He was always there for me when I texted him. He listened to what I had to say. He knew the exact things that made me feel good and he made those things happen over and over again. He probably knew me better than any other person I've every known and despite the reasons for this, it felt so good. He gave me everything I needed and more and if I had the money I'd be tempted to do it all again. (Although knowing it was a scammer would dull it.)

So giving love and feeling love can be two completely different experiences. Both of them are wonderful.

Maybe because just the idea of love is appealing, but who knows.

Birthing

 

I have lived in my new town and new apartment for a little over eight months and something is changing.

For years I have dreamed of being lost in a city at night, trying to walk home and running into loose dogs that I am afraid of, and dead ends that go nowhere.

Over the last few months that has transitioned into being lost in a city at night, but running into people and asking for help, or directions. Then I was bicycling through the city, so I moved a little bit faster and finally I found a woman who invited me into her business to use the phone. It was a large department store type place with huge engines in the basement running it. I still wasn't able to use the phone to call my mother, but I was safer and there was hope.

Last night I was in a rural community filled with very young people, many toddlers, and lots of green plants with leafy vines everywhere. There was a couple, a toddler boy and girl who might become the king and queen if they could pass all the tests and challenges put in their way. If they did, they were going to ride in a white convertkible in a sort of parade.  Somehow it was my job to make sure it all happened.

I feel a sense of empowerment I have not felt for several years, or more. I feel hope. 

I am becoming excited about doing things again. Painting, rearranging furniture, redecorating my apartment. Creativity feels possible again.

I actually went to the store and bought a few groceries in person, which I haven't done for a long time. I found clothes in my closet I haven't thought I could wear.

It is as if the clock has turned back for some reason and I have been reborn.

I don't know if this will last, but it is exhilarating. 

Incompetent

Everyone has bad luck once in a while, but when your whole existence is one long floundering mystery it probably has more to do with you than anyone else.

Trying to do things on the cheap is often a recipe for disaster, especially for people who don't seem to understand how anything works.

I cannot stress how important it is to be able to read and follow directions, or listen to what someone is actually saying and comprehending the words.

Having trouble learning new things is no sin, but refusing to take notes and using them to cope is a formula for failure.

I think some people just believe it is easier to get others to do everything for them. If they can do that they don't have to put forth any effort. They act like they have no choice, that the whole world is out to get them.

If the truth is known, they are doing things that sabotage their own lives.

And they want both help and pity, believing pity is the same thing as love.

Don't tell me you always have to pay the water bill in person because they don't tell you how much it is until you are in the office. And they add a little amount they kept a secret from you.

I know the whole city does not have to go to city hall to pay their water bills in person. 

And it is not the vet's fault you did not register your dog because you thought mailing in the registration might get it lost. Instead you waited six months to go in in person and had to pay a fine that you find outrageous.

Most of our problems are the result of something we did not take the time or make the effort to do right.

Lazy or incompetent, whichever it is, it does not serve you well.

Crutches

 

When I was a young woman I found myself suddenly overwhelmed with social duties.  Welcome wagon, Newcomer's officer, Bridge organizer, PTA, President of parents of children with disabilities, etc. 

In the beginning it all felt like an honor. People wanted me to do things, head up committees, but after a while it was just too much.

After all, I was not working at a paying job so I could be with my family and spend time with my children and suddenly there was no time.

It was just so hard to say no. And when I did say it, I felt the need to explain why. The problem with that is people always came back with a reason why my reason wasn't good enough.

Most people have crutches they use to escape some social function, or family function, or anything else they don't want to do. They use it so they can sound noble while saying, "No!"

My sister always had her work. She would simply say, "I have to work."

Then when she retired she was almost panicky until she got a part time job babysitting an elderly neighbor. Once more she can say she has to work. Or, even better for her now, she has a dog and she will say I can't leave Bailey alone.

I don't have any crutches.

I learned a long time ago to simply say, no. I never give a reason even if there is a long silence following my refusal. I will sometimes say, but thank you for asking, but that's as far as I will go.

It works.

People don't quite know how to deal with that.

Mid century modern

 

My parents considered themselves modern, educated people who were trying to raise their children in the best way they knew possible. They had four, so that was supposed to end the problem of having a middle child. However I think it just created two middle children. One boy. One girl.

They gave us names that did not lend themselves to shortened nicknames, except for my brother Thomas, who had the unfortunate nicknames of Tom, Tommy, Tommy toes, and Tom Ass. None of these, except Tom and Tommy, were actually sanctioned by my parents and yet my mother used them all at some point.

They then assigned traits to each of us. Something my father would continue to do with his grandchildren later on. I began life as Angel, but once my sister came along, I was the brainy child, or my mother's little old maid. My sister began life as my father's ugly duckling and moved on to Pretty. Forever after that she was considered the pretty one.

My brother Tom was always odd man out. He did strange things that my mother encouraged. I think she mistook this as honoring his eccentric intelligence. She had a problem with intelligent people, considering them all a bit crazy. This along with a lack of discipline ruined my brother's life. My father usually worked at least three jobs, so he was seldom present once I was five years old and I am the oldest.

My youngest brother was the typical baby of the family with all the freedom and baggage of most babies. He was bright, stubborn, eager, and an over achiever whose main father figure was not my dad, the teacher, but our neighbor, the fisherman, hunter, salt of the earth type.

There was not much sibling rivalry between us, although I often found my mother was more lenient with Tom and his ability to get away with things infuriated me. I was very protective of Henry, the baby and considered my sister and I equal -- except she was pretty and I was not.

Looking back I see where these stereotypes set Caroline and Tom for life. She would forever judge the world on how pretty something or someone was and assume the prettier, the better. Tom never gave up trying to do the bizarre thing and the more bizarre the better. It finally killed him. 

Henry is the most successful of all four of us. 

I always wanted to be more like my dad, but I only saw his love for learning and exploring ideas. I did not notice how his need for change affected his life, or mine.

We were a mid century modern family struggling to understand the new lifestyle of buying houses and cars with credit rather than cash, so you could appear to have it all.

When I die

 

When I die

Take my ashes to a beautiful place and set me free.

Allow me to float gently on the air into the world of eternity.

Into a world of light and love

A world of freedom and joy

A world where the water runs free

And the eagles fly high.

And if you are able and willing please add your voice and music to this wondrous day.

Send me off with guitars and voices that I love among people that I love.

Make it a love fest that brings tears of relief and joy to everyone.