Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself!

I am done with it. I’ll have no more of it. I am finally old enough to freely think, openly speak, and indiscriminately choose my own course of thought and action. And that means, at long last, I can finally, without guilt or impediment, feel sorry for myself. As sorry as I want to feel. Oh yes, I can and I will.

Though having avoided such an exercise for a lifetime, when I test this new thing that I avoided doing in my past, how shall it be tested, developed, controlled, and instated? Am I suppose to weep, wring my hands, get a monster lump in my throat, or just do a mental laundry list of everyone’s injustices to me? I really don’t know since I’ve never been here before.

And if it is a good thing, and I somehow think it is, should I find comfort and recovery in it? I expect I will because I’ve never felt comfort or recovery in not feeling sorry for myself -- just utter frustration.

I still remember my Mother forcing me to have an afternoon nap when I was just a toddler. I ranted and roared, balled up my quilt, and fired it repeatedly out of my little bed, crying and loudly wailing all the while, “I am NOT tired. I do not need a nap.”

And her response was, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. You are going to have a nap.”

What did she mean by that silliness? It had nothing to do with anything. The only thing that had something to do with anything is “I did not need a nap!” For all I knew maybe when you ball up your quilt and throw it on the floor, you are feeling sorry for yourself. Well, if that was the case, why didn’t she say so?

That’s when it started and I’ve heard it at every unfortunate moment in my life ever since. Whenever, as a child, an adolescent, an adult, even as an elderly, I have expressed a strong and true desire to do something that did not fit within another’s framework, [i.e. to nap, to leave the party early or avoid it all together, to eat, to knit, to withdraw], I was accused of feeling sorry for myself and badgered with the same old meaningless jargon -- “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.“ And I no more understand it now than I did back then.

I can only assume that if you feeling really bad and bite your lip, you are not feeling sorry for yourself. But, on the other hand, if you are feeling really bad and say, “Oh woe is me,” you are engaged in an activity more disgusting than playing with yourself.

The experts say that feeling sorry for oneself can lead to depressive and dysfunctional behaviour. Of course any sophisticated learned academia would never allow themselves to go there, so how could they know?

What could be worse than a depressed and dysfunctional academic? Particularly when splashing about in a puddle of their own specialty and expertise. God forbid.

As for me, I’ve never been there in that supposedly quicksand bog of feeling sorry for myself cause no one would allow me to be. But guess what, this is as I initially said, not going to continue. I am going to feel sorry for myself, because not feeling sorry for myself is exactly causing, you guessed it, depressed and dysfunctional behaviour.

Experts must be wrong, they have to be because they are theorizing these things, but I am living them and have been living them, this often woeful life without self-pity for more than fifty years.

And with that (my out loud confession of a ‘woeful life’) I slip into the comforting and nurturing halls of self-pity. It’s very nice here -- warm, comforting, nurturing. I think I’ll stay awhile.

I might even let you know next time we talk, how it’s working for me.

Back to Blogging with a Vengeance

Looks like I’ve completely run out of excuses. The garden is done, the yard work is done, veggie and fruit preserves done… I even have a brand new laptop that talks to both printers from the kitchen through some kind of invisible aura, but, despite all this, the blogging is not getting done.

In the knitting basket, there are socks getting done, and slippers getting done, but still the blogging is not getting done. There is Christmas shopping getting done, but no blogging getting done.

Hub is a bit dejected. Thinks I don’t appreciate the new laptop cause he can easily see the blogging is not getting done. And he knows that since 2003, blogging has been so important to me, and now of a sudden, the blogging is not getting done.

I think the real root of the problem is I am quite distressed by what is happening in this old world. The news I heard the other day has investigators, once again, looking for a missing child. This time a 7-month-old babe weighing, according to HNN’s newscasts, 10 pounds. According to the parents, the child went missing from their bedroom while they were sleeping.

Now as sad and distressing as these situations are, I find it comforting to know that the people discussing the situation on newscasts have more intelligence than I. I am comforted when they think of things that I would never think of to solve a case. But now I am quite distraught when, with this particular case, I realize they know so little.

In all their panels of expert detectives, lawyers, medics, newscasters, none zeroed in on the most significant up-front fact in this story. To me, the most outstanding detail in this mystery of the missing baby, described by her family as a little girl with a very big head, is that if a child seven month’s old weighs only 10 pounds, of course she will have a very big head.

And if she weighs only 10 pounds, it is obvious what happened to her. She physically faded away, before her body was hidden, taken, whatever the case may be. I would think any common-sense individual would know that unless a child has a serious hormonal imbalance that affects their growth, what child, at seven months, would weigh only ten pounds?

And so, then what distresses me even more is the realization that we seem to have become a culture that lives with a greater cloud of dread and fear of obesity, than our will and effort to promote good health. We have come to fear obesity to such an extent, that our children are bloody hungry. I see, in shops and on the streets so many babies that are so thin, so tiny, so delicate like porcelain dolls. I ask how old they are and am so shocked at how much older they are than what they look.

Doctors are not helping. Both of my daughters were told by their doctors not to feed their children any solid food until they were 5 or 6 months old. I am so grateful they ignored this advice. Their children got food at two months old and despite Nancy Grace reiterating again and again in the last few days that “babies do not sleep in”, this is not true. Babies can and do sleep in.

When they have had sufficient Pablum to hush hunger demands for eight hours, they will sleep ‘like babies‘ through the night at three months old.

I am just so offended that we do all those seatbelt safety checks, all that monitoring of childhood safety with toys, and bouncers, cribs and highchairs and rockers, and while all this is going on, children are not being adequately fed.

I know what hunger feels like. It is the most anxious, unsettling, empty feeling that one can have. A anxiety that is hard to label and understand. Especially when the child becomes a young toddler and parents are barking, “What’s the matter with you? Stop the whining. You had your supper!”

Meanwhile the clock says half-past midnight, and that very small stomach was last filled at 5:30 p.m. and of course by now is quite empty.
___________

Yes, I am disheartened, sad, and crabby. Anxious and unsettled with a great empty feeling inside. But it is not hunger that makes me feel this way. It is sadness for children who are so helpless, so wholly dependent on our care and good will. I don’t think that legally one adult can force another to diet without ‘permission’, but kids and babies, that’s a whole different story. You must keep them safe, and keeping them safe, is to make sure you never, never, never, feed them as much as they would like.

Fly Poopies on My Toast

It’s quite okay that with aging my flesh has thinned and paled, my hair grayed, and that I have persistent and hardy curly black hairs descending from my chin, and the flesh on my neck is folding. I am not a vain person and I prepared myself to accept these changes with good grace…and I have.

But hey, there are other things going awry that I cannot so easily accept. And one of them, most annoying, most disconcerting is how something with a brain less big than an atom can drive me to such distraction. And how something can so rule my life. And so seriously challenge my sanity by squatting forever near me and casting its glossy eyes on me while rubbing its hands together with evil glee and sticking out its tongue at me with such obvious disdain.

And should I, for one moment, ignore his presence, he alights on my hair or flesh and walks about as if wearing hob-nail boots. He might be tiny, but you immediately know he is there – clomp, clomp, clomp.

So now this is what haunts every minute of my day and in the haunting has thoroughly crushed my confidence, courage, and control. For two long days he and I have been sparring. In my youth, I use to quickly take control of such a situation. But I am now an ‘elderly’ and I can only think it is because of that that I constantly and clumsily and fruitlessly misfire the fly swatter at that one annoying housefly.

No one ever told me that the ultimate curse of being an ‘elderly’ would be the sad day when I would have to give up in frustration on the killing of a housefly. And that someday I would become, in this combat, the weakest link, leaving me with only one ultimatum.

To cover my toast with a napkin and cup my hand over my mug while meekly and submissively horking down my food and drink as quickly as possible.

Country Living Protocol

I live in a quiet country setting. There are not a lot of comings and goings. But nevertheless, when I am in the garden, neighbors going by come into my driveway for a chat, or if I am shoveling the walk, they stop in and we head for the house for a quick cup of coffee. And when Hub and I walk the dogs on the gravel road, neighbors pull up alongside of us, roll down the window and inquire how we are doing.

And though I seldom talk to other of my neighbors, we still have spoken on occasion in the garden, in the yard, or on the gravel road. So I know their names and where they live and what they look like and where most of them work.

Now you must be wondering what this is all about. Believe me, it is about important stuff. Important because these are necessary conventions for country living.
____

Now if you will just set the foregoing ramble aside for just a moment, I will tell you what happened last Wednesday.

The power went off and about thirty minutes later, a neighbor came to the door. When I let him in, he frantically explained that down the road were two grass fires raging in the ditch where a tree had fallen and broken a power line.

My youngest daughter was visiting at the time. So while she phoned the fire department, Hub and son-in-law and neighbor rushed back to the fire with nothing more than the two pails of water they managed to get (with no power) and two old blankets I quickly gathered from my basement.

The fire was already threatening a house and outbuildings and with the gale-force winds there was extreme danger that the whole place would go up in flames. Hub and his small crew battled the edge of the fire that was threatening yard buildings with the bit of water and the gunny-sack substitutes I had given them.

The house was the home of the ‘Unknowns’ who have never stopped in, waved, or strolled in my yard. They were not home. Still after we contacted the fire department, daughter and I wanted to contact the people that lived there. But how?

They came from the city. That much we do know. And they have lived here for more than four years, but nobody knows their names. We still refer to their residence by the names of the previous owners.

Nobody knows where they work. Nobody knows anything about them. We only know the vehicle that drives by. We have discussed that they don’t understand country-dwelling protocol but none of us has ever felt adept enough to go to their door and try and explain it. How do you explain it?

So now there is a fire and we are in a real pickle. Nobody knows who to phone, how, or where. Then someone commented that they had heard that a relative of the wife-of-the-man-down-the-road, where the fire was, worked at a particular business place in town. I called there. Even to myself, I sounded like a total idiot, while I tried to explain that I didn’t know who I was looking for but there is a fire burning near a place down the road that is the home of someone related to someone that works there.

The individual who answered the phone was confused, and who could blame him, but recognizing the urgency, he re-conveyed in loud shouts and short phrases, all that I said to a shop full of workers. I was close to panic myself and my words were foolishly construed to begin with, but when repeated, they sounded even worse.

And so, within the mentality of country-dwelling protocol, I could only give approximate directions that were more dependent on fence-posts, trees, fields, and a list of names of dwellers of adjacent homes – than any kind of sound and specific intelligence.

It seemed to take forever to communicate any key intelligence to those on the other end of the phone. But finally, the very person who answered the phone, screamed, “That is my daughter’s home. They are away. I’ll be right there!”

With that contact resolved, I began phoning other neighbors. Meanwhile, Daughter jumped in her car to see if there was any way she could assist in the fight. She arrived at the scene just when the father-of-the-wife-of-the-man drove up. He came quickly. Well ahead of the fire trucks. By then Hub and his small crew had managed to quell the flames that were less than two minutes away from the house and outbuildings. But downwind the fire raged on.

Soon the fire trucks arrived, as well as two large water tankers, and two smaller ones, and a throng of neighbors. Some with water backpacks, some with shovels, and some with chainsaws. And another neighbor with a backhoe, that he used to push trees and underbrush out of the path of the fire.

There was little daughter could do so she soon returned to the house and what I noticed was wetness in her eyes.

“What happened?” I asked with extreme fear.

“It’s okay, mom,” she said, “they are able to contain the fire as long as the wind doesn’t change.”

“But why are you so disturbed?” I asked. “Was anyone hurt?”

“No,” she said. “But I spoke to the father-of-the-wife-of-the-man-down-the-road and I have never spoken to anyone so heartbroken. (Here her own eyes spilled a bit.) His voice was so choked he could barely speak. His body was quivering and tears were streaming down his face. I have never spoken to anyone that sad and emotional and I didn’t know how to react.”

Much later when Hub returned, and gave an update of the fire, now well under control, suddenly he said something that caught my attention.

“I spoke to the father-of-the-wife-of-the-man-down-the-road,” he said. “He is a crushed man.”

Now Hub is a practical man that takes little notice of emotional conditions, and for him to say this spoke volumes. This man must be distressed beyond comprehension.

Now somewhere in all the ensuing discussion, it was revealed that the father-of-the-wife-of-the-man-down-the-road had just buried his own father a few days earlier. But as I pondered that and what daughter and Hub had said, it seemed that since he was in his late fifties, his dad was probably in his seventies, maybe even older. So of course the loss would cause sadness, but it should have been eased somewhat with his own maturity and the acceptance that this is the normal rotation of life.
___

The next day Hub and I drove up the road so I could see how much of the landscape was scarred and burned. The fire had covered a much broader area than I expected.

As we turned around to come home, I said to Hub. “I can’t forget what you and daughter said about the father-of-the-wife-of-the-man-down-the-road being so incredibly sad. He is a grandfather himself. Surely a man of his age could not find it that hard to accept the death of his father. And even a fire, and the risk of the damage fire can do, could not be the sole cause of such severe sadness.”

“I agree,” said Hub. “I think what overwhelmed him was a total and unexpected never-felt-before feeling of gratefulness. The shock of seeing how many cared and the shock of seeing that his daughter is part of a community where every single soul within a thirty-mile radius stopped what they were doing and rallied to assist without hesitation.”

I am awed by Hub’s comment but I have to admit, this perspective explains best the extreme emotional state the fellow was in.

While still pondering the man’s condition and what Hub has said, I begin to wonder if ‘gratefulness’ and ‘loss’ pluck at the same heart strings, but with a different beat and sequence.

Making the identity of tears of sadness and tears of gladness much confused.

Love Risks

I loved Paul Newman, and I love this story.

Of Liars and Loves

Liars, all of them. All of those strong-minded women who always proclaim they did the right thing. They married the right man and chose the right career. And that they chose every path in life through wise choice.

They smugly consider themselves as the pinnacle of wise choices and wise intelligence. They pretend even failures happened by choice. And although that much might be believable, they go way too far when they adamantly insist that they are never haunted, in their minds, by any ‘what ifs?’ over ex-loves.

They are dismayed that I would even ask them if they have regrets about any events in their lives. What a stupid question when every choice was made with such intelligence and forethought?

Well, they can deny it as adamantly as they like. But I don’t believe it, not for a minute.

I tell a different story. Yes, I have never regretted the life I’ve led, the husband I wed, but I have to tell you, if we’re going to be totally honest, I have engaged in ‘what ifs’. And those what-ifs have led to more than forty years of a haunting of my reality, my night-dreams, and my day-dreams. And what’s more, the haunting is the conjured up image of an ex-love and I hesitate to admit it, but it is true – an ongoing love.

He might have been my first love. I’m not certain now. It was so long ago. But, I tell you true, I have never before or since had such a crush. This man took up permanent residence in my soul the very first time I saw him and nothing could chase away his image from my dreams, mind, or imagination. Hub is a maniac driver, but so was he. Still no matter how fast he drove, he could not drive himself out of my mind or affection.

When Michael J. went from black to white, I could not help but ponder for a time if Hub could have a face-transplant to make him look like my lover-haunt.

I want to describe my dearest love but words fail me. All I can say is that each time I saw an image of him, I felt so warmed by the presence I perceived. The first explosion of affection was sparked by incredibly soft, oh so sensual lips.

Where are the words? I can’t find the words. Maybe there just aren’t any for this circumstance. It sounds so dumb and inadequate to say that his lips radiated a pull like a powerful magnet. No matter whether his lips were compressed with rage, hurt, or fear, it was impossible for those lips to successfully hide their strength and beauty and softness and warmth.

Eyes, blue eyes, with the same attributes as his lips. The same magnetism, and intensity. Tiny pools set within that handsome face, small and crystal blue, but so overwhelming to me that I was swept away in them as if by a monster flood. It was as if, between the sensuous lips and the blue eyes – as soft, meaningful, caring, and loving as those lips – that the sight of him set off a pressurized tension that tugged at every fiber of my flesh, bone, and soul, and every cell and follicle of my being.

And although that swagger when he walked, was a wee tiny bit less endearing than those eyes or lips, still it could not be ignored.

And although I love Hub dearly, although I’m appreciative, although he’s special, I still must confess that my reality, and my daydreams and nightdreams, are haunted by ‘Hud’, more often than Hub. And that, dear friends, was not a spelling error.

Those women I spoke of earlier in this rant, who so quickly say they have never made a regrettable choice would probably call these admissions immoral, uncharitable, sinful, deceitful, and a host of other malicious names. They would call my honesty vain pettiness and my admission of such pettiness, crude and sinful betrayal within the context of a monogamous relationship.

But what they need to understand, if they have the withal to understand it, is that Hub and I do not have what is termed an ‘open-relationship’ in today’s modern-speak lexicon. We have an ‘open relationship’ in the context of what those words originally meant. In our archaic configuration, an ‘open relationship’ means brutal honesty about all things.

So with that philosophy in place, Hub does not need to say, “I know in your past you have loved others, but do you still love someone more than me?”

He’s always known without asking. He knew when we were courting, he knew the day we got married, and he knew last week, last year, last month. He has always and forever known that I have loved someone more.

But for your edification, if he were to ask, I would be compelled to say with brutal honesty –

“Yes”. You know that. You know that I always have, and always will, love Paul more than you!”

______

Paul Newman passed away on Friday. I cannot help but weep. I am sad, but so is Hub. Hub is sad for me because he knows how much I’ll feel the loss for today and for all time…

The Leaving

Damned shroud, ‘Out!
Out! Out!’ I say.
And take with you your misty splay.

Out, out damp mist and evil shroud
Cast from heaven’s celestial cloud.
Get off my field and garden arbor
Go to swamp or to the harbor.

Take your white bone-chilling mass
Get it off my garden grass
There are no granite headstones here
No companions of your certain peers
No witches, ghouls or chilly bones
No silent mold or mossy stones.

Go weave your mist in ornate gates,
Thread your ribbons through steel grates,
Roll up your batting; be gone from here
Fold your pack of troubling fear.
Take your leave – full and complete,
Take with you, your winding sheet.
Go to quiet fields of stone,
Just leave my yard and field alone.

’Cause here, my life is pleasant play
Sufficiency in each new day
And so you MUST be on your way.
A friend is coming for the day.

He shoots a sharp gold keen-edged spike
You’ll quick be gone; without a fight!
Oh, happy charm and quiet grace
Sun, has nicely cleaned the place.

The God I Loved

At the age of five, I hoped I wasn’t too different from others. I hoped that others saw the world through similar eyes. The last thing I wanted to be was the only one of its kind. How forlorn that would be.

So I did a lot of questioning and prodding to find out if others thought like me. Biggest difference I found was that I was openly willing to tell others what I was thinking. But others were not. They guarded their thinking like some big, grand secret that they could not share. Still, for those secretive individuals, unwilling to share what they were thinking, I had something in my heart and head that could lead to discovery of the unspoken part of them – my intuition.

Not many men have the same intuition a woman has. Women can intuitively read truth in the eyes, in barely audible sighs, and in body language (without having studied it). And when it comes to their offspring, Mother’s intuition has for all time amazed the Medical community enough that Doctors are finally learning to listen to it and trust it.

So be as secretive as you like. It matters not to me. I can still feel out the air around the occupants of a room and determine if that room is steeped in mistrust or anger, with nary a word being spoken. With my intuition, I can sense danger, when none is apparent. And my intuition consistently prods me from solid slumber to alert wakefulness when I hear nothing more than a soft rustle in another room.

I use my intuition in other ways as well. I use it to form quick first-time assessments of the nature and character of those I meet. As an important helper to decide whom I should trust and whom I should distrust. And yes, I use it to form assumptions. And when I say that, don’t even start in on me about how ‘assumptions’ are so bad, and how ‘ass-umptions’ make an ‘ass’ of us all. That’s total crap.

Whether you like it or not, we all drag around assumptions as surely as we are constantly trailed by our own shadow. We connect life experiences to our childhood environments, to our upbringing, and to our own unique life experiences and in that blend we form perspectives on everyone around us. These are the tools we use to form first impressions and from these impressions, we form moral judgments, and from these moral judgments, we decide whether we are open to affection or rejection.

So with that introduction to my thinking, I now want to frankly discuss with you my assessments of someone I met years ago. We were friends for a time, good friends, but in that first meeting I gazed at all things I normally gaze at to build that first profile. I liked what I saw. Serene eyes, adorned with crystal-clear windows of truth. A fine athletic build. Open friendliness and an unabashed way of speaking.

Once past those first introductions, our conversation flowed into a creative and stimulating discourse. We discussed sensitive things, practical things, and imaginary things. We discussed the human condition of both men and women. We discussed vital forces, agonizing tensions, vanity, and sincerity. We even discussed the misunderstandings women endure that normally remain veiled and unspoken in their relationships with men.

And in all this, every word from the lips of that man was wonderfully sweet. I was hypnotized by the smoothness of his voice, the parsing of his words, the wisdom of his lyrics, and the poetical magic of his wit. He knew all the tough stuff and all the sensitive stuff. And he showed no reluctance to discuss those things, that as a woman I find hurtful in such curious ways, that it is almost impossible to adequately articulate them.

He was so amazingly adept at bypassing my clumsy mix of words and drawing from them such a fine and clear interpretation. I laid out my torn heart and mind and soul and he reassembled it in a healing and orderly fashion. And in all that exchange, in all that affiliated thinking, even my weirdest perceptions were merged into a comforting understanding by a young man omnipotent in his wisdom – superior to all men in every way.

And how did I feel about him? I loved him immediately. I loved every line in his face, every hair on his head, every tone in his voice. I loved the girth of his shoulders, the serenity of his countenance, the spicy scent of his after-shave.

But the affection I felt that so ardently burned like a fire, discounted, with puzzling revulsion, any desire for bodily contact. There was something perplexing in the thought of his cheek pressed against mine though my soul was fired with soaring affection. Perhaps because it was difficult to see him as a mere mortal.

He was more like a deity, an ethereal form made flesh. Descended, through some kind of ‘assumption’ (different from those first assumptions we discussed) that unified God and man. All I can say is that in his presence, I was enveloped in an aura that filled my heart with awe, respect, reverence, and love.

So now what? Should I just let him go? How do you invite romantic overtures from a god? It’s shouldn’t be so difficult. It’s not as if I am not bold enough to know how to flirt. I can be right brazen and downright lewd in order to get what I want. But in the presence of this kind of purity, how sacrilegious would that be?

I must devise a plan of gracious capriciousness that will wholly surpass the most rigid of Puritan and principled thinking. But it is unknown to me, completely foreign to me, how to conduct this kind of seduction. I’m highly doubtful that diverted eyes, blushing cheeks, and silent and reverent prayer will work.

Let’s face it. Even absolute modesty and shallow indifference skids into the realm of hussy-flirtation in this highly uncommon situation. But obviously I cannot just let him go. This deity that is so sensitive and a kindred spirit like no other I have ever encountered and known. Whose presence is like a wondrous gift of warm tonic that is rich and soothing to every microbe of my emotional being. Nothing in paradise can surpass the dream of living a lifetime in his presence, in duality with his mind, buried in the sweet melody of his voice, and bathing daily in his quick wisdom.

So why is there this unexplainable chasm that separates us from sharing the awesome love and respect that I feel for him. I don’t exactly know how he feels about me, but I am secure that he cares about my simplest hurts. All I can see affirms that he is truly special; a prize, priceless, one of a kind. But still that inner intuition repeatedly flings up a wall of fear and distrust.

I guess what I need to accept without question is that the ways of gods are too profound and mysterious for mere mortals to understand. It is like trying to understand why the God of the Bible allows so much sickness, war, and tragic death. Or trying to understand why his son threw a childish temper tantrum and whipped money-changers in the temple.

Likewise I cannot understand the traitorous ways of this loving ‘god’, who so completely understood the feminine mysteries of my being, and shared such a parallel connection with my soul. Who surpassed all that I could ever dare to hope a man to be, yet who so quickly, without warning, left our sweet alliance to become the life-long partner of a man!

______

Here I will be quite blunt with you. Going back to my own assumptions, I risk being politically leprous by admitting that despite facts, exposure, and education, I still remain reluctant to accept without prejudice modern-day theories about sexual preference.

I do accept that some individuals have hormone imbalances (or a physical duality), that triggers that sort of thing. But my inner convictions tell me that the rest are simply bored with ‘standards’ that have become too mundane. And at the same time, these are transformations buoyed by allegorical and symbolic flags of social acceptance that wave in the breeze and invite them to a new, more exciting, citizenship.

I guess even gods can be seduced by that approach.

My 'Funny' Little Valentine

I was in Grade 5 when I found it on my desk with other valentines. It was a small card flagged with immoderate blowzy, ruddy, fevered red that was both startling and sweet. And framing that warm glowing fire was a ripple of delicate white lace secured by tiny pastel violets.

The beauty of it, the lace, the color-stir of red and white formed into emotions of a strange and mystifying blend.

The arrow looks like nothing more than an icon. But I am deceived. It sails right off the paper and pierces my soul with a sharp agonizing sting and then forces my body to drink from the angular tip. A tip envenomed with a potion that caused heart palpitations at a critically dangerous romp.

Already, that is enough, but now add to that the bewitching charm of a chant of minuscule rhyme. Condensed into a faulty iambic pentameter of twiddling words and a silly pun. Silly enough to make me laugh. Lyrical enough to raise goose-bumps. And then, when I least expect it, coming to a halt with the catchy spine-tingling freeze of a sweet musical strain.

Fullness of understanding should come quickly, but it doesn’t. It waves and falters. Building like a gentle wind before a storm into a gathering stir. Gently blowing here, mercilessly blasting there. And amidst all this toss, I check, and double check and check again. Yes, there it is. In labored graphite pencil…his name…his sweet seal…approving the message.

This is an insidious hypnotism. That’s what it is. I am under some kind of intoxicating spell. With much difficulty, I attempt to mask emotions beyond my control enough to keep a cool professional-looking Grade-5-exterior. But maintaining dignity without strength is so hard to do. I am as weak as a kitten. I want to laugh. I want to cry. And so, with lips pressed together in a tight grip, and eyes ahead, I run to the bathroom, hide my face in the wall, and do both.

It was not the arrow or the fire or the lace or the violets or even the rhyme that converted me with one bold, staggering blow from realist to a hopeless romantic. It was the scrawl of that penciled signature.

Love, love, love. I am surrounded with love, embedded with love, enveloped with love, cradled with love, skipping with love, and emotionally scarred for life by the significance of one small Valentine.

Alone and Forgotten

I’ve been given clearance so here’s my story.

“Roberta’s weird,” my friends and family say. “Congenial enough, but she’s like a hermit crab. Never leaves her house.” And that is true.

What I think it all boils down to is preparation for the inevitable ‘alone and forgotten’ stage of life. It strikes me that I should let Hub know what I’m thinking but he could neither accept or understand it, so why bother? Besides, my philosophical imaginings drive him to distraction without adding more. And so, without adequate explanation, Hub fits into my hermit-crab venue as best he can while he and the kids mutter among themselves about my mental state.

And then occasionally Hub gets all geared up to drag me along on a wild and woolly day of shopping, visiting, or driving about, and that’s when I say to Hub with sympathy in my voice.

“I know we haven’t gone anywhere for a long time. I know you appreciate me coming along, but honestly, there is no way to avoid it. I have to bake bread today.”

And I promptly pull out the flour canister and bread pan and set to work. It’s a devious political move. He is a practical man and in this way I can minimize his feelings of rejection by masking the situation in practical necessities. (Bread-making part of a political relationship? Who would have thought?)

And so Hub’s enthusiasm comes to an abrupt end. The labor of bread baking is a reality he discerns. He is well aware that after the mixing, there will be a first rising, a second rising, putting the stuff in pans, a third rising, then baking and cooling. The whole business a long stretch that will completely lap up the special outdoor pleasures of the lovely day so ardently beckoning to him to ‘come and play’.

And so I bake bread with as much sticky guilt in my mind as sticky dough on my rubber gloves. Guilt that perhaps my stubbornness has wounded not the man, but the little boy within. I find it truly quite amazing the way men retain the ‘little boy’ within. I see the little guy peeking out often through my husband’s eyes. I don’t think the same can be said of women. But that’s another thought for another time and so to return to my story.

So, despite Hub’s preference for home-made bread, I believe there are days he would gladly eat store-bought bread even though it promptly turns to dough when touched by saliva and glues itself to his upper dental plate. Still, some days that would be better than once again having the excitement of his plans postponed.

I can relate. I understand how he feels. I know well from my own experience that as I get older it is seldom that unexpected vigor strikes. But unfortunately, despite all the time Hub and I have been together, his desire and my desire at any given moment, seldom mesh.

I know too that I should be more flexible. And I find it puzzling that I am not. I don’t fully understand my wish for solitude either. I often think it might be the result of the fate of elders I have observed over the years.

I remember a sad old fellow down the road, showing me a large calendar where he marked the sparse visits of family members. The moon waxed and waned more often in a month than his family.

And I remember the neighbor who consistently sent her old father to his room where he was forced to dine alone whenever she had company. And I remember a visit to a retirement home. I remember a female elder there displaced from a Stony Indian Tribe.

She could speak no English. From morning till night she rocked frantically in her chair canting rapidly in a foreign riddle of sounds magically formed without lip movement. But mostly she wept without ceasing. The story told to me is that she was found in the snow, abandoned by her Tribe and left to die when old age made her more of a liability than an asset. And the other surprising thing an Attendant at the Home told me is that speaking with lips of stone is what led to the Tribe being called the Stony Indians.

And what I also remember is the chill of a tangible fog of loneliness duplicated in each of the circumstances I have mentioned. For some it was emotional rejection, for the Indian woman, physical rejection, but if you group them all, and condense them, it all boils down to the same thing. Old people will eventually find themselves alone and forgotten!

So in reflection of all this, I tend to frequently ponder the choices I need to make now to cope with that impending stage of life. And what seems most obvious to me is that I can minimize the insidious attack of old age and the chronic grouchiness steamed by self-pity that goes with it. All I need to do is practice and perfect until I like it and get it right – the craft of being alone and the art of being forgotten.

And yes, right now I know what you are thinking and of course you are right. If you were to ask, I am totally convinced my children will always care for me and be there for me. The irony is that my parents said the same about me, but I didn’t do so well.

So I ready myself for the inevitable. Pondering the things I will do with dimming eyes, feeble fingers, and wasted limbs. It seems more sensible in the context of ‘alone and forgotten’ to think about things I prefer to do without interruption and things that at the same time will give me constructive purpose and gratefulness for solitude.

The plan must have a sensible evolution and it does. If my sight fails, I will move from fine crochet to bulky knitting and if necessary from that to the larger work of hooking fabric strips. If my limbs fail, I will paint even if I have to move from realism to abstractions with a brush in my teeth. And if finances fail, I have a grand stash of materials waiting to fit into usefulness in some other evolutionary form. And if I can no longer drive, it will be no big deal. Whatever occurs, I am envisioning and preparing for it.

The most surprising thing in all this wild philosophy is that up until now, ‘plan’ was a dirty four-letter word that I never used. Up until now, spontaneity was all. But I’m not convinced spontaneity will work for the ‘alone and forgotten years’. I fear that for this final stage, the irony is that it is ‘spontaneity’, rather than ‘planning’ that jumps out unexpectedly like an evil Jack-in-the Box. And then JB jeers, winks, and nudges while delivering a homily cleverly disguised as dignified thinking about a dumb and stupid and unnatural way to end it all.

So I plan and practice loneliness in my readiness for perhaps not a long time, but a good time, when I am faced with the eventuality of being alone and forgotten.

Treating Friends Right

I got Matador for Christmas last year. He is my robot vacuum cleaner. And he still happily buzzes around the house cleaning up floors for me. Doing his job, sweeping corners with his little broom, and waving a cheery “Hello” to me with it as he dashes across the wide expanse of my livingroom. Or playing hide and seek in the bedroom as he dashes under the dresser and the bed skirts and then suddenly pops out when I cannot find him as if to say, “Had you fooled, didn’t I? Here I am.”

So he's been part of the family for almost a year. But then YD (youngest daughter) phones a couple of weeks ago to say, "Did you know Matador has a carrying handle?"

“No, he doesn’t” I said.

“Oh, but he does. I saw a man carrying a robot just like him on TV.”

“You must be mistaken. The newer robots may have a carrying handle but Matador doesn’t.”

I was sure YD must be mistaken. So I took Matador out of his usual parking spot to have a look. Sure enough. He did have a bit of a handle so cleverly disguised that I had never discovered it even through regular dismantling of his parts to clean them. And even when told what kind of handle it was, it wasn’t that easy to find. But yes, he does have a carrying handle, a cleverly disguised moonshape flap blended in so well with his overall appearance that one would never know. How amazing is that? I have always carried him around cradled in my arms.

So now, knowing this, do I carry him by the handle?

Absolutely not. It strikes me that carrying him around by that little flap is as unkind as the unfeeling dog-dealing brute that showed ED a litter of basset puppies, one at a time, by lifting them out of their pen by their long, soft, tender, silky little ears! Only a brute that carries rabbits by their ears, and kittens by their tails would carry around Matador in that uncaring way.

Now some may think that odd, but later when I asked YD if she carries her robot that way she replied “Most definitely not!” Turns out she feels the same about her robot as I feel about mine. If it had only been a carrying harness with a soft belly-band, we would have been infinitely pleased and carried the little fellows around without remorse.

I hope Matador isn’t offended with me, but I wanted to show you how I would carry him if I was a brute and if he and I didn’t have this special relationship we have and you will then see for yourself how reckless and mean-spirited it would be for me to carry him that way.

Oh, Sweet Valentines!

That which to adults appears as nothing more than a superficial act, often holds much deeper meaning for children.

Do you remember when manufacturers of Valentines made books for children with cards to cut out and envelopes to cut and glue as well? Even in our one-horse town, my mother could always find me a Valentine Card Craft book for Valentine’s Day.

And so for a week or more before Valentine’s Day, I’d be busy as a little bee, cutting out my Valentines. Cutting out the little arrow that went through a slit in the Cupid-angel’s heart and the tiny hearts that needed to be pressed into a slit in his basket. Every Valentine absolutely unique and every Valentine a work of art. Then there were the envelopes that also needed to be cut and glued. It was such fun. It was a grand occupation.

But it was more than that. It was a reflective occupation that magnetically inscribed things into my inner being. While I crafted with scissors and glue delightful little cards, a similar crafting was taking place in my soul. Empathy, tolerance, understanding, and a new appreciation for others was being cut and pasted into my childhood convictions through the context of the paper icons that I was so patiently cutting from each page.

And Valentine’s Day. How exciting. Recognizing the wonder of giving. Thrilled by the kindness of getting. And when he, who my heart painfully longed for as a ‘boyfriend’, but yet so disappointingly never gave me notice, sent me that cut-out bouquet of roses stuck and glued so carefully in that Valentine heart with his own hand, that was as good as it gets.

Valentine’s Day was the special Day that our classmates bonded together as an affectionate group. Sure there were kids in the class that I sneered at as kids are wont to do – but they got Valentines from me and I got Valentines from them, and even that small act corrected rifts in our subconscious. The exchange of Valentines was like a peace offering between all parties, even the school bully, or the misfit. An offering with meaning that I guess I never fully realized until today even though some cards were only sent because the number of Valentines at my disposal exceeded the number of classmates I had.

But than some a--, who will never be my Valentine, started manufacturing books with die-cast pre-cut Valentines. And no envelopes. No scissors needed, just press out the valentines. This effort, without fail, ripped the best cards. And the die-cuts were so sloppy most of them were farther outside the line, than I have ever colored. And so, when pressed out, the Valentine was too much of a disgrace to even give to someone I didn’t care about. Even receiving these Valentines from others meant so little. There was no ambiance of affection in the preparation of these Valentines. Anyone who had them was too buried in the frustration of sloppy cuts and torn edges to think affectionately about anybody.

And then some other a--, who will never be my Valentine, got the crazy notion to package valentines, custom made, ready to go, most of them duplicates of another, in plastic bags. What fun is it to have no hand in the Valentine-assembling process? To have no need for scissors, glue, staples, or tape? To displace the sweet basic meaning and intent of Valentines to a mindless dispensation of a pack of shuffled cards? Even the puns and clever witticisms of the cards, juvenile as they were, had sadly weakened and waned.

So why didn’t I send you a Valentine this year? Because, my heart wasn’t in it? Someone stole my heart years ago when they made ready-made ready-to-send Valentines. At least I have my glue and staples and tape at-the-ready to try and repair some of the damage.

P.S. Amazingly the Grandchildren did get Valentine books from which to assemble Valentines. Yes, they were pre-cut as sloppily as ever. But still, the Grandchildren couldn’t have been more thrilled. Daughter told me, she was thrilled as well to find these books though the search for them was a truly difficult quest.

I WAS NOT so thrilled. Why? She didn’t buy me one!

The Inevitable

I can afford an overly-long rant today because I may not be posting again for a good while. Cause tomorrow is my eye surgery so I’m forced to let it creep back into my thoughts. If you read my last blog you can readily see the stress of the effort of controlled ‘not-thinking-about-it’ has been making it impossible for me to intelligently string rational thoughts together.

But this morning, I finally allowed myself to contemplate what is so soon about to happen. At 8:30 when I woke up I felt good. Rested. Sun streaming in the window. Still lying in bed I covered my good eye and looked across the room. I could see. And then I thought, ‘Why am I doing this scary thing, when I can see? Maybe not so good, maybe not well enough to drive, but not so bad either.’

Then I began wondering. Is cataract surgery elective surgery? And isn’t elective surgery something that the patient elects to have? Something offered as a possible alternative, but not necessarily accepted? Is that what it is? A mere offering? Then why was I told, point blank, by two separate specialists, that I couldn’t have glasses? Why did they say, ‘You HAVE to have surgery.’

I’ve never involved myself in all those other elective offerings, so why this one? No spinal whatever it’s called for childbirth, no hormones for hot flashes, no drugs for the prevention of osteoporosis. My mother did perfectly well with none of it and so can I, or should I say, so did I – up until now.

But this morning, that’s a whole different matter. For tomorrow I want hormone therapy pills to chase away the blues, I want a spinal thing to numb my senses, and I want the bone thing so I can kick and flail my arms wildly enough to retain control over the whole process.

When I went for a physical three weeks ago, my doctor didn’t check anything. He went through one quick motion with his stethoscope of listening to my breathing. He did not check my heart-rate, my blood pressure, my throat, ears, or blood. Sure I look healthy, feel healthy, can walk and sit upright in a chair, but Gees, doesn’t he understand what comforts come with attention to details? How mind settling it can be for me when he shows an interest?

I want health care the way it used to be. It would be so nice to think the eye surgeon has a hospital room reserved for me in case I need it, with little terry slippers laid out, a soft quilt folded back that invites one to crawl into the bed. Crisp white linens, and a pair of cozy pastel pajamas that you tie at the waist. And nurses in crisp white little hats and rustling uniforms hovering over me like angels. Bringing me a cup of weak tea and telling me the discomfort will soon pass as they stroke my arms and hair. Nothing is as healing as that kind of rapport. The comfort is the solid knowledge that preparations have been made and no one will be going home until recovery is guaranteed. These are the comforts I want.

But this doesn’t happen anymore and added to that are new hate-crimes that society is insidiously blending into the fabric of our thinking. Hate-crimes that are happening that we see, but prefer to ignore. But the evidence is there. While I was in my G.P.’s office getting a pre-opt check, he asked me if I smoke. And yes, although my breath was mint-fresh, my clothing odor-free, and Hub and I came to town in the ‘town car’ rather than the ‘dog car’ (that would be the car that no one smokes in), I was still honest. “Yes,” I said, “I do smoke”.

I had indicated so on my pre-opt form. And with that honest confession, he suddenly pulled the stethoscope from my chest, ignored the tongue depressor set out on the table, and the blood-pressure monitor hanging on the wall right next to my shoulder and backed away from me like I had the plague. And that’s when he wrote “N/A” as fast as he could down my form next to “Heart Rate, Blood Pressure, Lymph Nodes, Nose, Throat, and Lungs”, then rose quickly and steered me by the elbow out of his office.

A few days later I phoned the hospital to get final pre-opt instructions. I ended up whining to the receptionist in the OR about my General Practitioner’s sudden change from a partnering rapport to rejection. “I know,” she said, “I’ve seen this kind of thing before. I understand because I am a smoker too.” And then she said the kindest most comforting words I could hope to hear in all this bloody melee.

“We are so close to extinct, I can’t help thinking that when I see you we should embrace and let our tears mingle.” Now I’m not being over-dramatic when I say that her words really touched me. My heart, having suffered for so long the pain of the new societal hate crimes that have even invaded doctor’s offices, connected to hers and in those kind words I found sweet bonding.

Now, back to a discussion about my eyes. Doesn’t anyone appreciate what my eyes mean to me? Seeing is a small part of it. Besides sight, my eyes are where I store so many treasures. I store everything in my eyes. My remaining beauty (now that I have crows-feet, frown lines, and withered skin), my love, my care, my empathy, my longings, my romance, my pleasure, my displeasure, my satisfaction, and my reflection.

So can I let a surgeon take out the lens on my right eye that reflects all these emotions and change it to a man-made mask that lacks the natural luster needed to convey my innermost soul? Can I put a generic lens under the delicate mesh of my retina and still be the same person I am now? Will the emotions resident in my soul that come frequently to peer out at others through the windows of my eyes, become shadowed and sealed away from Hub, the grandchildren, my sweet daughters, and their husbands? Will I look at them after this as if through a distortion of emotions that makes it impossible for them to read in my face feelings of appreciation and joy that go well beyond what words can express?

You know, for the most part, as a human race, we are thoughtful and clever. Always seeking, it seems to have understanding take precedence over emotion. So I can’t help thinking that something yet undiscovered by scientists is causing the new hate-crimes against the obese, smokers, couch potatoes and choco-holics? Could it be that the perpetrators have all had eye surgery and through that process now have a ‘mote’ or ‘beam’ in the eye that distorts what they see? And so prior to instalment of an artificial lens, they saw and felt unimpeded acceptance for all of society, included those whom they now see as ‘misfits’. But since surgery, that acceptance has been over-ridden by a changed image. A distorted image that now sees warped reflections through a man-made lens of a world with two distinct races/species not dictated by birth. A race/species of plague-carrying degenerates and a separate race/species of supremes who are Journeymen of self-discipline and self-preservation.

Now I started this post out suggesting that I see well enough to forego surgery. That was my first excuse to cancel. But now I have a better excuse to cancel. To preserve my clear understanding and perception of ‘what I see’. But, unfortunately, it is too late to cancel now. I will have to go with the flow and hopefully when the eye scars are healed I will still see ALL mankind and womankind as one race and one people.

You know it. I am very stressed. I may not be back here for several weeks, at this point I don’t know. And yes, I am scared, I think more so by the unwritten exclusionary clause because I smoke. But I am going to embrace the nurse in O.R. as promised, mingle my tears with hers, and then turn myself bravely over to a surgeon, who I hope, deep in his heart, harbors no bias.

“See???” you all later.

A Picture of Fear

I took the dogs for a walk today as I do every day. I wanted to get a picture of them on the dog trail but it was so difficult. Trying to keep the camera warm enough but not too warm so it wouldn’t steam up the lenses. Trying to get all three dogs in the same frame at the same time. Meanwhile knees vibrating and trying to take a picture and at the same time look over my shoulder to see if I was being stalked.

Neighbors, bless their souls, they mean well, but some things I’d rather not know. Last fall they told me there was a bear in these woods. I was a little disappointed to hear that but a bear should be okay. He’s probably just out for a walk ‘cause his porridge is too hot or he’s on his way to a teddy bear picnic so why would he dally around here where the only fare is one aged, tough, sinewy old woman.

But now, just this weekend, the neighbors told me there is a wolf in these woods. They know because they saw him. A wolf? Now that is scary. They blow down houses, gobble up little girls with red hoodies, and even disguise themselves as grandmothers. They probably even chase little helpless road-runners as ruthlessly as coyotes.












So, there you are, that’s why I didn’t get a better picture.

We, The Ordinary People

We, the ordinary people, have done it all – the crying, sobbing, and weeping. But you know, and I know, what we most hate about melt-downs.

There is the contorted countenance, the runny nose, and the unstoppable sniffles – always when one hasn’t got a Kleenex. There is the soppy pillow or shirt, the shiny nose, the red eyes, the tear-streaked face. And for woman, even worse, is the sooty rivers of mascara or muddy rivers of matte make-up descending down the nose and cheeks. There is the need to awkwardly wipe the face on one’s sleeve until one is bathed from the waist up in an awkward bath of phlegm and salt water. And when one looks to find a Kleenex to mop up the mess, there is none. A friend may eventually hand over, from the bottom of a dusty purse, a tightly wadded tissue or napkin that although dry is still highly suspect of being used. And always when we just get ourselves pulled back together, there the contagion factor. The need to weep on seeing the face of another, even a stranger, with tears in their eyes. That is the face of sad, but ordinary people.

But we, the ordinary people, are doing it all wrong. I see politicians and starlets and other of the rich and famous on TV every day, particularly on News briefs and talk shows, not ‘weeping’ (which means to shed liquid), not ‘crying’ (which means to shed tears of grief, sorrow, or pain), but ‘sobbing’ which means ‘convulsive gasping’. But for simplicity sake, we’ll just call it ‘crying’.

They don’t cry the way we, the ordinary people, do. Yes, they speak in the husky choked voice of the melt-down, but there are no tears. No sniffles. No slimy drops of nose phlegm or rivers of tears with all their converging tributaries. No soggy sleeves. No smeared make-up. No frantic searches for tissues.

So if you haven’t been paying close attention, this is how it’s done. You cover your face with your hands, or bury your knuckles into your eyeballs. You talk in a choked voice. You shake your head and droop it to your chest or look away. You wring your hands. You contort your face and say, “Excuse me” in the middle of a sentence and refuse to go on for a time. You stutter and sputter fractured speech. You run a finger tip gently along the underside perimeter of each eye frequently, but not too frequently. And without tears, the grandest part is you won’t need a tissue to blow your nose or mop up the mess.

You see it’s not so hard to do. And like coughing into the crook of your arm, this approach is so much neater, dryer, and hygienic. Give it a go.

Oh for cryin’ out loud. That performance was terrible. Guess I forgot to mention that you also need to ignore empathy, sympathy, and sincerity. Don’t let the situation touch your heart. You’ll end up drowning in another slimy phlegm and salt-water bath and crying like we, the ordinary people, do.