The word for today is FLOAT. FLOAT can be a noun or a verb. We can decorate a FLOAT and then ride it in a parade. We can drink a root beer FLOAT at an old-fashioned soda fountain. We can FLOAT down a river on a raft or a FLOAT. Leaves FLOAT through the air, people FLOAT in water, angels (if you believe in them) FLOAT on clouds.
When we FLOAT something is supporting us, we do not have to work for or at it. When I was in high school in the high pressure, high performance suburbs of NYC, I used to anticipate the first time I could go the beach, to the ocean--the first time I could FLOAT. I would walk from one classroom to another or study for an exam annd imagine my first immersion in water, the weightlessness, the absolute lack of pressure, the easing of all my distress and worry.
I have lived near the water most of my life. Now, as a Midwestern resident for the first time, after 45 years on the East Coast, I live 1/2 block from Lake Michigan. I can walk into the lake, raise my legs, throw back my body and FLOAT. The fresh water does not have the same buoyancy, the vitality and energy of the ocean, but it does support me, it does relieve me. For a few moments I have no worries, only total trust in what lies beneath me.
When I was a girl, before high school, before grade school even--I remember being carried into the water by my father. My father was and is a relatively big man, 6 ft. tall, strong, capable. Maybe I was 3 or 4 maybe I could swim, maybe not, but he would hold me in the ocean, teach me how to float, lift me above the waves, protect me from the imaginary sharks. I have never felt either safer or more exhilarated.
There is a man who lives in my neighborhood, a relatively big man, 6 ft. tall, strong and capable (at least in my imagination). Sometimes we meet at 8:30 or 9 at night, after the lifeguards have gone off duty, after the sun worshippers have gone home, the moms have made dinner,the children have been tucked in. We dive into the water, we swim, I jump up and wrap my legs around him, he puts his arms around me. I recognize a feeling of primal safety. There is a lot I do not understand about my friendship with this man, but I do understand this feeling. It is very basic, very simple. It is a feeling that I've been looking for, either consciously or unconsciously, all my life.
I have also been wondering about the difference between floating and drifting. Floating sounds and feels safe; drifting implies a directionless danger. I could drift into the rapids, I could drift into trouble, I could drift away--and maybe no one would notice or no one would find me. But when I float there is no need to go anywhere to do anything, no need to worry. For that moment I am perfect, I am taken care of. I am home with nature. I am light, I am free.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Teeth
The word for today is TEETH. I think about TEETH a lot. I have dreams in which my TEETH are falling out. When I wake up they are all still there. I have worn braces two times in my life, once as an a child and once as an adult. Now I wear a retainer every night so my "fang" does not reappear.
TEETH are the hard individual masses attached to our gums that help us bite and chew food. When I lived in Maine, I used to joke with my girlfriends that I just wanted to go out with a guy who has his own TEETH. My dog has TEETH but she does not bite. When she was a puppy I put my fingers in her mouth and rubbed her gums, so she would get used to the feel of someone's hands in her mouth, so she would let me brush her TEETH or reach in and grab a piece of food or something else that wasn't supposed to be in there. Sometimes I put my fingers in a puppy's mouth; lots of puppies have really sharp TEETH.
When babies or animals are TEETHing they need to grind the growing masses against something hard to ease their pain. Babies have pacifiers, TEETHing rings, non-toxic chew toys, thumbs (not so good); animals get bones, chew toys. They find wooden legs that hold up tables or chairs, shoes and other items that have their owners' scent (not so good). They need something to work with so the tooth can emerge from the gum, come into its own and do its job. The tooth needs some kind of resistance to ease its pain. The tooth needs to grow up (or down as the case may be).
My father is getting six new TEETH, dental implants on the bottom gum. He has little TEETH, anything little (or not "normal" sized) is seen as a defect in my family. It's costing him lots of money, and time and aggravation and discomfort, to get these implants. The small ground down TEETH were extracted and a temporary bridge was put in. A couple of months later the gums were prepared to accept the implants, but he still has to wear the temporary bridge for another four months. My father is 80 years old. "I don't know if he would've done this if he knew how involved it was," my mother tells me on the phone. "The whole process is going to take almost a year." But I can't imagine my father with false TEETH; I can't imagine him without TEETH. I can't imagine him without power or competence.
What is it that gives someone, something, an action, an idea TEETH. If an idea has legs, it will travel and move forward, but if an idea has TEETH it has power, grip, it will take hold, it will cut through nonsense. I want my life to have TEETH. I want to be strong and stable; I want to cut through all the nonsense, taste it, digest it, and then be rid of it. I want to cleanse my palate with a little sorbet and then be ready for the next course.
TEETH are the hard individual masses attached to our gums that help us bite and chew food. When I lived in Maine, I used to joke with my girlfriends that I just wanted to go out with a guy who has his own TEETH. My dog has TEETH but she does not bite. When she was a puppy I put my fingers in her mouth and rubbed her gums, so she would get used to the feel of someone's hands in her mouth, so she would let me brush her TEETH or reach in and grab a piece of food or something else that wasn't supposed to be in there. Sometimes I put my fingers in a puppy's mouth; lots of puppies have really sharp TEETH.
When babies or animals are TEETHing they need to grind the growing masses against something hard to ease their pain. Babies have pacifiers, TEETHing rings, non-toxic chew toys, thumbs (not so good); animals get bones, chew toys. They find wooden legs that hold up tables or chairs, shoes and other items that have their owners' scent (not so good). They need something to work with so the tooth can emerge from the gum, come into its own and do its job. The tooth needs some kind of resistance to ease its pain. The tooth needs to grow up (or down as the case may be).
My father is getting six new TEETH, dental implants on the bottom gum. He has little TEETH, anything little (or not "normal" sized) is seen as a defect in my family. It's costing him lots of money, and time and aggravation and discomfort, to get these implants. The small ground down TEETH were extracted and a temporary bridge was put in. A couple of months later the gums were prepared to accept the implants, but he still has to wear the temporary bridge for another four months. My father is 80 years old. "I don't know if he would've done this if he knew how involved it was," my mother tells me on the phone. "The whole process is going to take almost a year." But I can't imagine my father with false TEETH; I can't imagine him without TEETH. I can't imagine him without power or competence.
What is it that gives someone, something, an action, an idea TEETH. If an idea has legs, it will travel and move forward, but if an idea has TEETH it has power, grip, it will take hold, it will cut through nonsense. I want my life to have TEETH. I want to be strong and stable; I want to cut through all the nonsense, taste it, digest it, and then be rid of it. I want to cleanse my palate with a little sorbet and then be ready for the next course.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Arms
The word for today is ARMS, the kind you lift with, reach with, hold with, hug with, the kind that go in sleeves, that have pecs, triceps, biceps, or flab. An arm is also a part of a chair, a part of an organization or military operation. As a verb ARMS means to provide with weapons. Ever since nuclear weapons were developed, countries have been trying to win or defuse the ARMS race. In the Constitution the second amendment of the Bill of Rights reads: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear ARMS, shall not be infringed.
I do not intend to write about the second amendment. I do though find it curious that the introductory phrase concerning a well regulated Militia, is so often, and so conveniently, forgotten, by those who advocate gun rights. When I think of the right to bear arms, I prefer to think of the right to BEAR ARMS, meaning everyone should be able to have big arms covered with brown fur that end in big padded paws. We could have bumper stickers that say "I believe in the right to BEAR ARMS" with a picture of a person holding a shotgun or automatic weapon in their big brown hairy paws! Of course one would have to decide if he or she believed in the right to black bear ARMS, brown bear ARMS, or polar bear ARMS.
So let's get back to the arms that are part of our bodies. When I was growing up I had long, gangly arms. My arms were so long that I had trouble finding jackets or blazers with sleeves that went down to my wrists. I didn't like to wear sleeveless tops. I thought my arms looked like fragile sticks protruding from an overgrown plant. Until just a few years ago, I preferred my arms to be covered up by fabric. I was ashamed of how long they were.
Now that I'm 50, I like my ARMS. My ARMS bear no flab, no shaking curdled skin unlike my thighs, sigh.. My long arms help me reach up high, they help me hold on tight, they help me hug and show affection. A part of me that I thought was a liability is really an asset. I am glad I have the right to bear my bare ARMS.
I do not intend to write about the second amendment. I do though find it curious that the introductory phrase concerning a well regulated Militia, is so often, and so conveniently, forgotten, by those who advocate gun rights. When I think of the right to bear arms, I prefer to think of the right to BEAR ARMS, meaning everyone should be able to have big arms covered with brown fur that end in big padded paws. We could have bumper stickers that say "I believe in the right to BEAR ARMS" with a picture of a person holding a shotgun or automatic weapon in their big brown hairy paws! Of course one would have to decide if he or she believed in the right to black bear ARMS, brown bear ARMS, or polar bear ARMS.
So let's get back to the arms that are part of our bodies. When I was growing up I had long, gangly arms. My arms were so long that I had trouble finding jackets or blazers with sleeves that went down to my wrists. I didn't like to wear sleeveless tops. I thought my arms looked like fragile sticks protruding from an overgrown plant. Until just a few years ago, I preferred my arms to be covered up by fabric. I was ashamed of how long they were.
Now that I'm 50, I like my ARMS. My ARMS bear no flab, no shaking curdled skin unlike my thighs, sigh.. My long arms help me reach up high, they help me hold on tight, they help me hug and show affection. A part of me that I thought was a liability is really an asset. I am glad I have the right to bear my bare ARMS.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Lap
The word for today is LAP. I thought I'd try a short, simple word since some of the words lately have been rather complex. Then, I looked up the definition of LAP in the dictionary. There is nothing simple about the word LAP.
There is the LAP that is part of the body from the waist to the knees (but only when someone is sitting down); there is the LAP that one runs on a track or swims in a pool; there is the LAP of a journey that has many stages; there is the LAP that occurs when an animal drinks water with its tongue; there is the LAP(ping) of waves against the rocks; there are parts of graphs or charts or actual pieces of fabric that (over)LAP one another.
The human LAP only exists when a person is sitting down. I can't think of another part of the body quite like that. An arm is an arm, a leg, a leg. We can cradle a baby by folding our arms, but we only have a lap when our thighs are perpendicular to our torsos.
Some dogs are called LAP dogs because of their size and propensity to sit in the LAP of a human. Though cats are more likely to sit in your lap, there is not a word LAP cat. Some computers are laptops. But we don't sit the laptops on our laps. Usually these computers sit on desks or on specially designed lapboards. When they were first designed they were considered small because they were smaller than desktop computers, but now there are notebook computers (the size of a notebook), and PDAs, personal assistive devices, which are much, much smaller than actual human personal assistants.
LAP is a word that makes me think of comfort. I do not have children, but there is nothing that feels as warm and safe as holding a toddler in my lap. Their body fits his or her 90 degrees atop my 90 degrees, I take my arms and fold them around the child. And for a short moment, we are both safe. Love and human kindness can LAP across our souls bringing the peace we feel when we hear water LAP the shore.
There is the LAP that is part of the body from the waist to the knees (but only when someone is sitting down); there is the LAP that one runs on a track or swims in a pool; there is the LAP of a journey that has many stages; there is the LAP that occurs when an animal drinks water with its tongue; there is the LAP(ping) of waves against the rocks; there are parts of graphs or charts or actual pieces of fabric that (over)LAP one another.
The human LAP only exists when a person is sitting down. I can't think of another part of the body quite like that. An arm is an arm, a leg, a leg. We can cradle a baby by folding our arms, but we only have a lap when our thighs are perpendicular to our torsos.
Some dogs are called LAP dogs because of their size and propensity to sit in the LAP of a human. Though cats are more likely to sit in your lap, there is not a word LAP cat. Some computers are laptops. But we don't sit the laptops on our laps. Usually these computers sit on desks or on specially designed lapboards. When they were first designed they were considered small because they were smaller than desktop computers, but now there are notebook computers (the size of a notebook), and PDAs, personal assistive devices, which are much, much smaller than actual human personal assistants.
LAP is a word that makes me think of comfort. I do not have children, but there is nothing that feels as warm and safe as holding a toddler in my lap. Their body fits his or her 90 degrees atop my 90 degrees, I take my arms and fold them around the child. And for a short moment, we are both safe. Love and human kindness can LAP across our souls bringing the peace we feel when we hear water LAP the shore.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Respect
The word for today is RESPECT. Not the R-E-S-P-E-C-T kind, not the angry, you owe me kind, but the kind that comes from somewhere deep inside, the kind you don't have to ask for, the kind you can't stop. The verb RESPECT means "to hold in esteem or honor," "to show regard or consideration for," "to refrain from intruding upon or interfering with."
I'm writing about RESPECT because I just watched the tribute to Michael Jackson that was held at the Staples Center today. Since his death, and often during his life, Michael Jackson has been the subject of 24-hour cable news fests. His life has been examined in ways, that, thank God, most of our lives will never be. Along with the great RESPECT we as a populace had for his talent, for his ability to perform, we collectively had no RESPECT for his privacy, for the part of him that he did not want to give over to the public.
In the days since his death I have not been compelled to write about Michael Jackson. I was not attuned to his incredible success in the 80s. Sure I liked his music, sure I saw some of the groundbreaking videos on MTV, but his persona, his pyrotechnics, his over the topness, never resonated with me. He became the stuff of tabloids and Entertainment Tonight. He was lost to the currency of serious culture. Until his death.
Since his death, I have begun to wonder why the news of his death hit our collective culture harder than John Lennon's, harder than Jerry Garcia's. It hit on the scale of Elvis's. People cared about who this man was to them. And he was different to everyone except in one key RESPECT. Almost everyone responded to his music with joy. He was an entertainer; he spread joy, and spreading joy is truly work of a higher order.
As I watched and witnessed today, the word that came to mind was respect. His life, his legacy and memory were treated with the utmost RESPECT. He was acknowledged as a man who wanted to use his gifts to bring the healing power of love to the world. I listened to everyone from Rev. Sharpton to Brooke Shields to Magic Johnson to Rev. Martin Luther King III to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee pay homage to the man. I listened to Jennifer Hudson, Stevie Wonder, John Mayer, and his brother Jermaine sing to us because he no longer could.
I just thought of the song "Wanna Be Starting Something." I never paid attention to the lyrics. Here's the last verse:
Lift your head up high
And scream out to the world
I know I am someone
And let the truth unfurl
No one can hurt you now
Because you know what's true
Yes, I believe in me
So you believe in you
After I watched the memorial I went to the coffee shop to write this blog entry. Michael Jackson made me want to start something. I hope he makes you want to start something too.
I'm writing about RESPECT because I just watched the tribute to Michael Jackson that was held at the Staples Center today. Since his death, and often during his life, Michael Jackson has been the subject of 24-hour cable news fests. His life has been examined in ways, that, thank God, most of our lives will never be. Along with the great RESPECT we as a populace had for his talent, for his ability to perform, we collectively had no RESPECT for his privacy, for the part of him that he did not want to give over to the public.
In the days since his death I have not been compelled to write about Michael Jackson. I was not attuned to his incredible success in the 80s. Sure I liked his music, sure I saw some of the groundbreaking videos on MTV, but his persona, his pyrotechnics, his over the topness, never resonated with me. He became the stuff of tabloids and Entertainment Tonight. He was lost to the currency of serious culture. Until his death.
Since his death, I have begun to wonder why the news of his death hit our collective culture harder than John Lennon's, harder than Jerry Garcia's. It hit on the scale of Elvis's. People cared about who this man was to them. And he was different to everyone except in one key RESPECT. Almost everyone responded to his music with joy. He was an entertainer; he spread joy, and spreading joy is truly work of a higher order.
As I watched and witnessed today, the word that came to mind was respect. His life, his legacy and memory were treated with the utmost RESPECT. He was acknowledged as a man who wanted to use his gifts to bring the healing power of love to the world. I listened to everyone from Rev. Sharpton to Brooke Shields to Magic Johnson to Rev. Martin Luther King III to Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee pay homage to the man. I listened to Jennifer Hudson, Stevie Wonder, John Mayer, and his brother Jermaine sing to us because he no longer could.
I just thought of the song "Wanna Be Starting Something." I never paid attention to the lyrics. Here's the last verse:
Lift your head up high
And scream out to the world
I know I am someone
And let the truth unfurl
No one can hurt you now
Because you know what's true
Yes, I believe in me
So you believe in you
After I watched the memorial I went to the coffee shop to write this blog entry. Michael Jackson made me want to start something. I hope he makes you want to start something too.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Flashback
The word for today is FLASHBACK. A FLASHBACK can be a device in a story that includes an incident that happened before the present time of the narrative; a FLASHBACK can be a spontaneous hallucination induced by drug use; a FLASHBACK can be a recurring image of an old traumatic experience. The local classic rock station uses the term FLASHBACK to label a chunk of programming devoted to music from a particular year. I'm at the tail end of the baby boom, so the musical FLASHBACKS I listen to go all the way from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. The Beatles to Pearl Jam--that pretty much sums up my reference points for pop music.
Whenever I go into the Whole Foods, the soundtrack is full of musical FLASHBACKS. Their marketing department must figure that customers will buy more products if they're grooving to a particularly fine musical FLASHBACK.
Sometimes I tell people that once upon a time I was a lawyer. Once upon a time I was a lot of different things, but lawyer is a very difficult identity to shed. I remember (a memory, not a FLASHBACK), my father and other relatives telling me that in law school you learn how to think, as if all the other forms of higher education taught something not quite as valuable.
Recently, I met a man who is a trial attorney. He invited me to come to a deposition with him, and out of a combination of curiosity, intrigue and (yes I will admit it) interest in this man, I went. I had not been to a deposition in almost 20 years. I got dressed up in lawyer clothes, heels, pantyhose, a dress and a linen jacket. I heard myself clip clop along the cement sidewalks, trying to keep up with my friend, trying to be with it. We got to the deposition (he was deposing the defendant's expert witness) and he introduced me as his partner, assistant, or colleague (I really cannot remember).
My friend is a middle-aged white man, the opposing attorney was a middle-aged white man, the expert witness was a middle-aged white man. The only other woman in the room was the court reporter. I flashed back to my time as a young associate at an insurance defense firm. I flashed back to all the times I sat in the name partner's office waiting to discuss my research on a case, while he took phone calls from his colleagues and recounted his son's feats as a hockey star at Boston College. I flashed back to the performance review another partner conducted with me in the car as we drove back from a deposition in Boston--the only time he could spare. I flashed back to the horrible degradation I felt, to my inability to function in the male lawyer world, for my inability to know myself, be myself, speak up for myself. All I could think to do was leave. Within two years I did. I left the firm before the firm could ask me to leave. I landed some part-time work with a legal services organization; later I used my skills in social services.
When I am with my lawyer friend I FLASHBACK. I FLASHBACK to a time when I did not know who I was. Then I come back. At the deposition I realized that I am no longer a 30-year-old junior associate; I am a 50-year-old woman, who has had some real accomplishments in the professional world, who has spent an enormous amount of time and energy learning to understand and live my values. I am no longer intimidated by white men in suits.
I am even thinking of taking the bar exam next winter. I'm thinking of how I can use my dormant legal skills to advance my values. I'm thinking of how I can live in the present, move forward, and not be detained by the power of a FLASHBACK.
Whenever I go into the Whole Foods, the soundtrack is full of musical FLASHBACKS. Their marketing department must figure that customers will buy more products if they're grooving to a particularly fine musical FLASHBACK.
Sometimes I tell people that once upon a time I was a lawyer. Once upon a time I was a lot of different things, but lawyer is a very difficult identity to shed. I remember (a memory, not a FLASHBACK), my father and other relatives telling me that in law school you learn how to think, as if all the other forms of higher education taught something not quite as valuable.
Recently, I met a man who is a trial attorney. He invited me to come to a deposition with him, and out of a combination of curiosity, intrigue and (yes I will admit it) interest in this man, I went. I had not been to a deposition in almost 20 years. I got dressed up in lawyer clothes, heels, pantyhose, a dress and a linen jacket. I heard myself clip clop along the cement sidewalks, trying to keep up with my friend, trying to be with it. We got to the deposition (he was deposing the defendant's expert witness) and he introduced me as his partner, assistant, or colleague (I really cannot remember).
My friend is a middle-aged white man, the opposing attorney was a middle-aged white man, the expert witness was a middle-aged white man. The only other woman in the room was the court reporter. I flashed back to my time as a young associate at an insurance defense firm. I flashed back to all the times I sat in the name partner's office waiting to discuss my research on a case, while he took phone calls from his colleagues and recounted his son's feats as a hockey star at Boston College. I flashed back to the performance review another partner conducted with me in the car as we drove back from a deposition in Boston--the only time he could spare. I flashed back to the horrible degradation I felt, to my inability to function in the male lawyer world, for my inability to know myself, be myself, speak up for myself. All I could think to do was leave. Within two years I did. I left the firm before the firm could ask me to leave. I landed some part-time work with a legal services organization; later I used my skills in social services.
When I am with my lawyer friend I FLASHBACK. I FLASHBACK to a time when I did not know who I was. Then I come back. At the deposition I realized that I am no longer a 30-year-old junior associate; I am a 50-year-old woman, who has had some real accomplishments in the professional world, who has spent an enormous amount of time and energy learning to understand and live my values. I am no longer intimidated by white men in suits.
I am even thinking of taking the bar exam next winter. I'm thinking of how I can use my dormant legal skills to advance my values. I'm thinking of how I can live in the present, move forward, and not be detained by the power of a FLASHBACK.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Date
The word for today is DATE. DATE can mean many things, a small dark fruit that grows on a tree, a specific moment in time and space--the time when food will perish, someone will graduate, retire, get married, celebrate his or her birth. A DATE can refer to an appointment between two people, colleagues can have a lunch DATE, Barack and Michelle (our POTUS and FLOTUS) have DATE night. This is the kind of DATE I'm thinking of.
I had a DATE on Saturday night. I knew it was a DATE because the man, who is also a neighbor, kissed me on the cheek and said "I can kiss you because we are on a DATE." When we arrived at the restaurant for dinner he said, "this is our first DATE." We had taken long walks and gone to a baseball game together, but I guess those didn't qualify.
I've gone out to dinner with male friends on weekend nights, but it's been a long time since any one of them specifically called what we were doing a DATE. In fact, I'm more accustomed to my friend who makes it clear to me that we are not on a DATE, we are just two friends having dinner together. Even the men I've known who have been interested in getting physical, didn't want to use the word dating; they were even more emphatic about not using the word relationship.
I had fun on the DATE. The man I went out with isn't like most of the people I spend time with. He's pretty straightforward and uncomplicated; he doesn't analyze or overanalyze his emotions. He said right away, "I'm not looking for anything serious, I'm dating a lot of people."
So now I am challenged. Can I adhere to casual dating etiquette? Since I know I am not the only woman this man is dating, there are lots and lots of things that I will not do with him, there are lots of feelings that I will not let myself have. I can go out for dinner, I can go to a ball game, I can go sailing or hiking, I guess I can even have some fun. I hope we have another DATE.
On Sunday I had tickets to a concert. I had asked a friend, a man I do not DATE, to go with me. At first he accepted, but then he changed his mind. Sunday came and I did not have anyone to go to the concert with. I did not have a DATE. I asked a series of friends, but we've been having a cold spell here in Chicago and the idea of going to an outdoor evening concert did not appeal to anyone I approached.
Once again, I would have to go on a DATE with myself. I got in the car and drove to Ravinia, where the concert was being held. I tried to breathe deeply and make that small lump in my heart and throat go away. I didn't want to feel sorry for myself; I just wanted to go and enjoy the music. As I was about to enter the concert grounds the friend who'd cancelled on me called. He'd just received a call from another friend of his who was at the concert. "Call her," he urged me, "she said you should join her and her group of friends on the lawn."
I called the woman and navigated my way towards her party via cell phone instructions. Soon she said, "you're wearing sunglasses" to me over the phone, and I knew I'd found her on the Ravinia lawn. Her friends had gone to enter a drawing for indoor pavillion seats. They won and we packed up the food and blankets they'd set out on the lawn and took the seats of our good fortune.
I didn't have a DATE. I had the company of a warm and welcoming group of women. I had wonderful seats. I listened to Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Patti Griffin and Buddy Miller. I remembered listening to the music of the three female artists over the last 20 years, through a lot of heartbreak, loneliness and hope. I remembered that I once had the kind of female friendship that exists among the women I had just met. I looked at the faces of the women next to me and I saw closed-eye contentment, satisfied smiles, authentic tears. I was in the right place at the right time. It was a very different kind of DATE than the one I'd had the night before. But I was just as glad to be there.
Link: The artists performed this song as the encore last night. Here's a version they performed in Roanoke, VA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Rx6DcEly0
I had a DATE on Saturday night. I knew it was a DATE because the man, who is also a neighbor, kissed me on the cheek and said "I can kiss you because we are on a DATE." When we arrived at the restaurant for dinner he said, "this is our first DATE." We had taken long walks and gone to a baseball game together, but I guess those didn't qualify.
I've gone out to dinner with male friends on weekend nights, but it's been a long time since any one of them specifically called what we were doing a DATE. In fact, I'm more accustomed to my friend who makes it clear to me that we are not on a DATE, we are just two friends having dinner together. Even the men I've known who have been interested in getting physical, didn't want to use the word dating; they were even more emphatic about not using the word relationship.
I had fun on the DATE. The man I went out with isn't like most of the people I spend time with. He's pretty straightforward and uncomplicated; he doesn't analyze or overanalyze his emotions. He said right away, "I'm not looking for anything serious, I'm dating a lot of people."
So now I am challenged. Can I adhere to casual dating etiquette? Since I know I am not the only woman this man is dating, there are lots and lots of things that I will not do with him, there are lots of feelings that I will not let myself have. I can go out for dinner, I can go to a ball game, I can go sailing or hiking, I guess I can even have some fun. I hope we have another DATE.
On Sunday I had tickets to a concert. I had asked a friend, a man I do not DATE, to go with me. At first he accepted, but then he changed his mind. Sunday came and I did not have anyone to go to the concert with. I did not have a DATE. I asked a series of friends, but we've been having a cold spell here in Chicago and the idea of going to an outdoor evening concert did not appeal to anyone I approached.
Once again, I would have to go on a DATE with myself. I got in the car and drove to Ravinia, where the concert was being held. I tried to breathe deeply and make that small lump in my heart and throat go away. I didn't want to feel sorry for myself; I just wanted to go and enjoy the music. As I was about to enter the concert grounds the friend who'd cancelled on me called. He'd just received a call from another friend of his who was at the concert. "Call her," he urged me, "she said you should join her and her group of friends on the lawn."
I called the woman and navigated my way towards her party via cell phone instructions. Soon she said, "you're wearing sunglasses" to me over the phone, and I knew I'd found her on the Ravinia lawn. Her friends had gone to enter a drawing for indoor pavillion seats. They won and we packed up the food and blankets they'd set out on the lawn and took the seats of our good fortune.
I didn't have a DATE. I had the company of a warm and welcoming group of women. I had wonderful seats. I listened to Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, Patti Griffin and Buddy Miller. I remembered listening to the music of the three female artists over the last 20 years, through a lot of heartbreak, loneliness and hope. I remembered that I once had the kind of female friendship that exists among the women I had just met. I looked at the faces of the women next to me and I saw closed-eye contentment, satisfied smiles, authentic tears. I was in the right place at the right time. It was a very different kind of DATE than the one I'd had the night before. But I was just as glad to be there.
Link: The artists performed this song as the encore last night. Here's a version they performed in Roanoke, VA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Rx6DcEly0
Friday, May 22, 2009
Perspective
The word for today is PERSPECTIVE. Actually, it has been the word for over a week and a half now. I have been carrying the word in my head, letting my thoughts ruminate, writing different phrases for this blog in my head, but not putting anything down or out into cyberspace. From the PERSPECTIVE of anyone who may follow this blog, it would have been reasonable to assume that I had abandoned it. I HAVE NOT.
When I looked PERSPECTIVE up in the dictionary, the first definition concerned depicting spatial relationships on a flat surface; it is a term that concerns art or drawing, a representation on paper or on a canvas of how someone sees a scene. In Webster's New International Dictionary Second Edition there is a wonderful diagram that depicts ground planes and picture planes and base lines and horizons. But the PERSPECTIVE that I'm interested in is "the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance," or "the ability to see all relevant data in a meaningful relationship." (Random House Webster's College Dictionary)
Maybe I have been putting off writing about this because it all seems too complicated. It is just as complicated to explain a mental perspective as it is to depict perspective on a flat canvas. I am trying to get the curves of my thoughts into the flat forum of written expression.
All I know is that I see what I see and I hear what I hear and I believe what I believe. What shapes my perspective? What is the ground upon which I stand, the place from which I form my view?
Not surprisingly, these questions came up in the context of a family visit two weekends ago.
I felt that I had honored my father in my last blog post, so I asked him to read it. After reading what I had written about him, he said "Amy, that's all nice, but I feel like I'm reading about a fictional character. That fellow you wrote about, that's not me."
I have been working on memoir pieces for the last several years, so this piece of feedback was more than a bit disconcerting.
"What do you mean Dad?"
"I never felt apart. I didn't feel different when I went down to Charlottesville. I felt anxious, but not because I was different; I felt anxious because I was doing something new. I thought we're all just people, I'm a person meeting other people."
"Ok," I said. I took a deep breath. I was as open as I could be to his PERSPECTIVE. "Maybe I was projecting," I continued. "Maybe that's how I would've felt. Maybe you're just a lot more well-adjusted than I am. Thanks for the clarification."
My Dad walked back from my sister's den to the dining table.
Later the same evening my parents started talking about how my father had never dated
anyone other than my mother. My parents have been married for more than 54 years. The fact that my mother had many boyfriends before she met my father, and that my father was not as popular with the opposite sex, has become part of the family lore.
"But Dad," I said, "didn't you date someone at law school. Didn't you date a non-Jewish woman. Isn't that why your parents wouldn't go to your graduation?"
"Where did you hear that?" my sister asked. My mother repeated the question. My father, after a long silence, said he never dated anyone during law school. I felt crazy. I felt like pieces of information that I had taken as facts, facts upon which I created a story, a story upon which I based my PERSPECTIVE, all of it dissolved and I did not know where I was or what I was looking at. I could not trust my PERSPECTIVE.
"I know I heard it somewhere," I responded. "Someone told me this, maybe Nana told me." Nana, my grandmother is dead.
"Maybe Nana made it up," my sister offered. "Maybe Nana made that up because it sounded better than saying her son didn't invite his own parents to his law wchool graduation because he was ashamed of them.?"
What, I thought to myself. Who made up what and why and how was I ever supposed to figure it all out?
"Well, there was someone I met once," my father acknowledged, throwing out a small fact, so there was something real that my grandmother or I might have based a story upon. I didn't ask for any more information.
When I got my bearings, as I left the family gathering and drove home to my own apartment, I realized that everyone has his or her own PERSPECTIVE. As a memoir reader and writer, I am learning this. Ultimately, no matter how much research I do, how many other people I consult, the only story I will be telling is my own. That so much of my understanding about life may be based on my own distortions of other people's stories is disturbing. The only thing that is comforting, is that most likely my approach is not that different from everybody else's. Let me know if I am wrong. I am truly interested in your PERSPECTIVE.
When I looked PERSPECTIVE up in the dictionary, the first definition concerned depicting spatial relationships on a flat surface; it is a term that concerns art or drawing, a representation on paper or on a canvas of how someone sees a scene. In Webster's New International Dictionary Second Edition there is a wonderful diagram that depicts ground planes and picture planes and base lines and horizons. But the PERSPECTIVE that I'm interested in is "the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance," or "the ability to see all relevant data in a meaningful relationship." (Random House Webster's College Dictionary)
Maybe I have been putting off writing about this because it all seems too complicated. It is just as complicated to explain a mental perspective as it is to depict perspective on a flat canvas. I am trying to get the curves of my thoughts into the flat forum of written expression.
All I know is that I see what I see and I hear what I hear and I believe what I believe. What shapes my perspective? What is the ground upon which I stand, the place from which I form my view?
Not surprisingly, these questions came up in the context of a family visit two weekends ago.
I felt that I had honored my father in my last blog post, so I asked him to read it. After reading what I had written about him, he said "Amy, that's all nice, but I feel like I'm reading about a fictional character. That fellow you wrote about, that's not me."
I have been working on memoir pieces for the last several years, so this piece of feedback was more than a bit disconcerting.
"What do you mean Dad?"
"I never felt apart. I didn't feel different when I went down to Charlottesville. I felt anxious, but not because I was different; I felt anxious because I was doing something new. I thought we're all just people, I'm a person meeting other people."
"Ok," I said. I took a deep breath. I was as open as I could be to his PERSPECTIVE. "Maybe I was projecting," I continued. "Maybe that's how I would've felt. Maybe you're just a lot more well-adjusted than I am. Thanks for the clarification."
My Dad walked back from my sister's den to the dining table.
Later the same evening my parents started talking about how my father had never dated
anyone other than my mother. My parents have been married for more than 54 years. The fact that my mother had many boyfriends before she met my father, and that my father was not as popular with the opposite sex, has become part of the family lore.
"But Dad," I said, "didn't you date someone at law school. Didn't you date a non-Jewish woman. Isn't that why your parents wouldn't go to your graduation?"
"Where did you hear that?" my sister asked. My mother repeated the question. My father, after a long silence, said he never dated anyone during law school. I felt crazy. I felt like pieces of information that I had taken as facts, facts upon which I created a story, a story upon which I based my PERSPECTIVE, all of it dissolved and I did not know where I was or what I was looking at. I could not trust my PERSPECTIVE.
"I know I heard it somewhere," I responded. "Someone told me this, maybe Nana told me." Nana, my grandmother is dead.
"Maybe Nana made it up," my sister offered. "Maybe Nana made that up because it sounded better than saying her son didn't invite his own parents to his law wchool graduation because he was ashamed of them.?"
What, I thought to myself. Who made up what and why and how was I ever supposed to figure it all out?
"Well, there was someone I met once," my father acknowledged, throwing out a small fact, so there was something real that my grandmother or I might have based a story upon. I didn't ask for any more information.
When I got my bearings, as I left the family gathering and drove home to my own apartment, I realized that everyone has his or her own PERSPECTIVE. As a memoir reader and writer, I am learning this. Ultimately, no matter how much research I do, how many other people I consult, the only story I will be telling is my own. That so much of my understanding about life may be based on my own distortions of other people's stories is disturbing. The only thing that is comforting, is that most likely my approach is not that different from everybody else's. Let me know if I am wrong. I am truly interested in your PERSPECTIVE.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Apart
The word for today is APART. This word interests me because putting a space in it makes such a difference. APART means separate, distinct, isolated, independent. The words "a part" usually mean "a part of" something bigger, a part of a whole, a part of a community or family.
Earlier today I felt APART. I was planning yet another MoveOn political event and I wasn't getting the support I wanted. One of our council members left for a rafting trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon; another is visiting family in the Phillipines; another needed to leave with her husband to pick up her daughter from college in Washington, D.C. It seemed as though everyone, APART from me, needed to be somewhere else, not at our event.
I wished that I could be somewhere else, that I did not have to lead our council's meeting with a congressional staffer. I wanted to close the door to my APARTment and be APART from the world. Of course, I did not do that. I showed up, I helped the other council members who showed up feel a part of a movement. I did my part.
Because of the way MoveOn works, I often do not know who will be at our meetings. Two men attended who are with the American Muslim Task Force. One of the gentleman has lived in this country for over thirty years and yet he, and other people from his native Pakistan, are treated as though they are apart from the rest of us, different, not to be trusted. Although MoveOn is not a "civil rights" advocacy group, I listened to his complaints about the lack of change in the Obama administration's treatment of detainees and alleged terrorists. I tried to think of other organizations that would be more helpful.
Somehow our conversation turned to the former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. "Ramsey Clark is my role model," said the gentleman. "I love that man. He came with me to visit a detainee being held in jail in Virginia." "I love him too," I responded. The gentleman and I were both holding our hands over our hearts. "When I was a little girl I received an autographed photograph of him. I still have it."
Some people set themselves APART because they are exemplars of truth, justice, and integrity, regardless. To me that is what Ramsey Clark stands for. His photograph has personal meaning to me because I almost met him when my family took a trip to Washington D.C. during the Johnson administration to visit my father's law school roommate, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department.
APART from his time in law school and the army, my father, who turns eighty this Sunday (and who is my hero when it comes to integrity), has lived his entire life in what is known as the NY metropolitan area. I have to admit that he has a pretty good perspective on things, despite living so far APART from the rest of the country.
I often think of his time at the University of Virginia Law School in Charlottesville. It was the early 1950s. He was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, NY who got on a train and found himself in the midst of an institution designed by Thomas Jefferson (yet another man who had many parts to his life). After law school my father had difficulty finding a job. Even with a degree from UVa., he was still a Jew, the well-heeled NY law firms found reason to hold him apart. Eventually, he became a corporate tax attorney and spent his career as an executive for a large railroad and a retail giant. He done good.
My father was held APART, kept out, because of his religion, and maybe for other cultural reasons. But he was and is smart as hell. For reasons I never understood, throughout his entire life he held himself APART, from organized religion, from civic, cultural, and political groups. He has always been a very independent man.
I keep looking for the balance between the space in the word. Often I'm APART; yet I yearn to be "a part of." I want to feel together with something, someone, with myself.
In honor of togetherness I offer this adorable but hokey song from my '70s adolescence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEWU25aN67U&feature=PlayList&p=91541ADE5F0B295A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=39
Earlier today I felt APART. I was planning yet another MoveOn political event and I wasn't getting the support I wanted. One of our council members left for a rafting trip on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon; another is visiting family in the Phillipines; another needed to leave with her husband to pick up her daughter from college in Washington, D.C. It seemed as though everyone, APART from me, needed to be somewhere else, not at our event.
I wished that I could be somewhere else, that I did not have to lead our council's meeting with a congressional staffer. I wanted to close the door to my APARTment and be APART from the world. Of course, I did not do that. I showed up, I helped the other council members who showed up feel a part of a movement. I did my part.
Because of the way MoveOn works, I often do not know who will be at our meetings. Two men attended who are with the American Muslim Task Force. One of the gentleman has lived in this country for over thirty years and yet he, and other people from his native Pakistan, are treated as though they are apart from the rest of us, different, not to be trusted. Although MoveOn is not a "civil rights" advocacy group, I listened to his complaints about the lack of change in the Obama administration's treatment of detainees and alleged terrorists. I tried to think of other organizations that would be more helpful.
Somehow our conversation turned to the former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. "Ramsey Clark is my role model," said the gentleman. "I love that man. He came with me to visit a detainee being held in jail in Virginia." "I love him too," I responded. The gentleman and I were both holding our hands over our hearts. "When I was a little girl I received an autographed photograph of him. I still have it."
Some people set themselves APART because they are exemplars of truth, justice, and integrity, regardless. To me that is what Ramsey Clark stands for. His photograph has personal meaning to me because I almost met him when my family took a trip to Washington D.C. during the Johnson administration to visit my father's law school roommate, an assistant attorney general in the Justice Department.
APART from his time in law school and the army, my father, who turns eighty this Sunday (and who is my hero when it comes to integrity), has lived his entire life in what is known as the NY metropolitan area. I have to admit that he has a pretty good perspective on things, despite living so far APART from the rest of the country.
I often think of his time at the University of Virginia Law School in Charlottesville. It was the early 1950s. He was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn, NY who got on a train and found himself in the midst of an institution designed by Thomas Jefferson (yet another man who had many parts to his life). After law school my father had difficulty finding a job. Even with a degree from UVa., he was still a Jew, the well-heeled NY law firms found reason to hold him apart. Eventually, he became a corporate tax attorney and spent his career as an executive for a large railroad and a retail giant. He done good.
My father was held APART, kept out, because of his religion, and maybe for other cultural reasons. But he was and is smart as hell. For reasons I never understood, throughout his entire life he held himself APART, from organized religion, from civic, cultural, and political groups. He has always been a very independent man.
I keep looking for the balance between the space in the word. Often I'm APART; yet I yearn to be "a part of." I want to feel together with something, someone, with myself.
In honor of togetherness I offer this adorable but hokey song from my '70s adolescence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEWU25aN67U&feature=PlayList&p=91541ADE5F0B295A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=39
Monday, May 4, 2009
Margin
The word for today is MARGIN. I was thinking of writing about the word marginal, but I decided to stick with the noun. As a writer, the MARGIN I think of is the space that surrounds the print on a page (these days either a paper page or a computer page).
There are many other margins. The word is used in business in ways I find too complicated to explain here...to describe the difference between the market value of collateral and a loan or the amount provided as security or the point at which a business barely covers the cost of production. It is 7 am in the morning, and this is making my head swim.
MARGIN also means the limit beyond which something (usually abstract) ceases to exist, such as you have reached the MARGIN of my patience or tolerance. To me this sounds mean, a more distinguished form of time's up, too bad, so sad, or something like that. I have reached the MARGIN of my bank account; I have reached the MARGIN of my sloth. What happens when we use MARGIN with something concrete? I have reached the MARGIN of having clean clothes in the closet, food in the refrigerator; I have a one day's MARGIN of cat food or medication. There is a thin MARGIN between sanity, eccentricity and insanity. I haven't heard the word used that way, but I suppose it could be.
But let's get back to the page, which is where I feel most comfortable, because written words are my security. Since I was a little girl, I have noticed margins. I noticed the layout in books and magazines and how the amount of white space on a page gave the words a different impact. When I was in high school and college (a prehistoric time before desktops and laptops and cell phones), we produced the school newspaper by doing mock layouts on pieces of paper; we pasted columns of text on blank paper on top of a lightboard. White space was like one of the ten commandments.
Subconsciously, I knew that playing with margins was the stuff of poetry. (How unpoetic) Playing with margins is part of the whimsical intentionality of poetry. T.S. Eliot wrote that when the lines run all the way to the right the result is prose.
The margin is where the written word ceases to exist, and when words cease to exist, I am in dangerous territory. Or maybe if I can stay present in the emptiness, I will be in the purest territory imaginable. Maybe there really is life in the margins.
may my heart always be open to little
may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile
ee cummings
There are many other margins. The word is used in business in ways I find too complicated to explain here...to describe the difference between the market value of collateral and a loan or the amount provided as security or the point at which a business barely covers the cost of production. It is 7 am in the morning, and this is making my head swim.
MARGIN also means the limit beyond which something (usually abstract) ceases to exist, such as you have reached the MARGIN of my patience or tolerance. To me this sounds mean, a more distinguished form of time's up, too bad, so sad, or something like that. I have reached the MARGIN of my bank account; I have reached the MARGIN of my sloth. What happens when we use MARGIN with something concrete? I have reached the MARGIN of having clean clothes in the closet, food in the refrigerator; I have a one day's MARGIN of cat food or medication. There is a thin MARGIN between sanity, eccentricity and insanity. I haven't heard the word used that way, but I suppose it could be.
But let's get back to the page, which is where I feel most comfortable, because written words are my security. Since I was a little girl, I have noticed margins. I noticed the layout in books and magazines and how the amount of white space on a page gave the words a different impact. When I was in high school and college (a prehistoric time before desktops and laptops and cell phones), we produced the school newspaper by doing mock layouts on pieces of paper; we pasted columns of text on blank paper on top of a lightboard. White space was like one of the ten commandments.
Subconsciously, I knew that playing with margins was the stuff of poetry. (How unpoetic) Playing with margins is part of the whimsical intentionality of poetry. T.S. Eliot wrote that when the lines run all the way to the right the result is prose.
The margin is where the written word ceases to exist, and when words cease to exist, I am in dangerous territory. Or maybe if I can stay present in the emptiness, I will be in the purest territory imaginable. Maybe there really is life in the margins.
may my heart always be open to little
may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile
ee cummings
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Better
The word for today is BETTER, as in I feel BETTER, or this book, movie, recipe is better than that one. BETTER involves a comparison in which one thing or person is assigned more value than another.
I've been thinking about this word because I've been thinking about relationships, about whether any of my romantic relationships have been BETTER, more satisfying, than others. What I came up with, what I focused on, was that the last relationship in which I felt truly loved, was oddly enough, one in which I thought I was BETTER than the other person, BETTER than my partner.
I thought I was BETTER than he was because I had a steady professional job and he didn't; I had a car and he didn't; I rented a little house and he rented a room; I had credit with a bank and he had credit at the corner store.
For all these reasons, and because of my education and my upbringing, I thought I was BETTER than this man. I don't know how he dealt with it; I don't know how or why he put up with my attitude. I was mistaken; I still had so much to learn.
During my formative years, I was indoctrinated with the idea that I was BETTER. At college I learned that my classmates would do great things--we would be leaders in science, industry, academics, culture and government. I learned that I was different from other people, I was above them, I was BETTER.
Sometimes it seems as though I have spent the last twenty-five years losing everything. I have not actually lost everything, but I have lost a lot of my preconceived notions, a lot of the rigid ideas I had about myself and about other people.
The idea that I was BETTER kept me safe, kept me insulated. I had a reason to be separate; I had a reason to be apart. I had a reason not to open myself, not to be vulnerable to the myriad of people and conditions in the world.
Now, I don't measure myself by my job (I don't have one) or my house (I don't own one) or my car (I am grateful for my 10-year-old Honda Civic). I don't have a partner; I don't have children. All I have are my heart and mind and soul and a little bit of integrity. I have a small community of friends and neighbors and a family who, though they may be frustrated and bewildered by me, have never forsaken me.
None of these things make me BETTER than anyone else. They just make me feel a little BETTER so I can get on with my life and share whatever gifts I have with the world.
I've been thinking about this word because I've been thinking about relationships, about whether any of my romantic relationships have been BETTER, more satisfying, than others. What I came up with, what I focused on, was that the last relationship in which I felt truly loved, was oddly enough, one in which I thought I was BETTER than the other person, BETTER than my partner.
I thought I was BETTER than he was because I had a steady professional job and he didn't; I had a car and he didn't; I rented a little house and he rented a room; I had credit with a bank and he had credit at the corner store.
For all these reasons, and because of my education and my upbringing, I thought I was BETTER than this man. I don't know how he dealt with it; I don't know how or why he put up with my attitude. I was mistaken; I still had so much to learn.
During my formative years, I was indoctrinated with the idea that I was BETTER. At college I learned that my classmates would do great things--we would be leaders in science, industry, academics, culture and government. I learned that I was different from other people, I was above them, I was BETTER.
Sometimes it seems as though I have spent the last twenty-five years losing everything. I have not actually lost everything, but I have lost a lot of my preconceived notions, a lot of the rigid ideas I had about myself and about other people.
The idea that I was BETTER kept me safe, kept me insulated. I had a reason to be separate; I had a reason to be apart. I had a reason not to open myself, not to be vulnerable to the myriad of people and conditions in the world.
Now, I don't measure myself by my job (I don't have one) or my house (I don't own one) or my car (I am grateful for my 10-year-old Honda Civic). I don't have a partner; I don't have children. All I have are my heart and mind and soul and a little bit of integrity. I have a small community of friends and neighbors and a family who, though they may be frustrated and bewildered by me, have never forsaken me.
None of these things make me BETTER than anyone else. They just make me feel a little BETTER so I can get on with my life and share whatever gifts I have with the world.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Foible
The word for today is FOIBLE. A FOIBLE is a moral weakness or failing. It is also the part of a sword between the middle and the point of the blade; the part that bends and gives, as opposed to the forte, the part between the hilt (handle) and the middle, which is considerably stronger. The FOIBLE of a sword is like the branch of a tree that can bend and sway, until the wind is too strong, and then the branch is struck down, while the trunk and roots remain. Have you seen the trees with new branches growing from a cut or struck down trunk? These are foibles that will not die.
I heard the word FOIBLE when I was speaking with a friend, trying to describe what I had just done. I was certain that I had created a fiasco, another in a long line of humiliating failures. As Hemingway says in his memoir, A Moveable Feast, I was stupid. I was searching for a word to describe a part of myself that I hated. I thought that this particular problem behavior was part of my past. I did not know how to say that I had done something so ill-advised yet again, that I had gone out onto the social battlefield, and that I had failed.
This is one of your foibles, my friend said. And because my friend is a gentle man (and I suppose a gentleman as well), the word FOIBLE did not sound as harsh as the fiasco I was sure I had created. The word FOIBLE did not make me want to stick the point of the sword into myself and hurt myself even more than I was hurting already.
Everyone has foibles. It's okay that I have them too. A FOIBLE is a weakness, but it is just part of me. It's part of that same sword that contains my forte or strength as well. I have to have a handle on things, I have to hold on. I have to bend and I have to give. I have to learn to get out of the way when the wind blows too hard or my resistance is too weak. Given what I am learning, I know that my foibles are not the measure of my mettle, my courage or my fortitude.
As many an artist has said, well at least I got a song out of it. My You Tube is working again. Enjoy today's song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0JvWVbxOkQ&feature=related
I heard the word FOIBLE when I was speaking with a friend, trying to describe what I had just done. I was certain that I had created a fiasco, another in a long line of humiliating failures. As Hemingway says in his memoir, A Moveable Feast, I was stupid. I was searching for a word to describe a part of myself that I hated. I thought that this particular problem behavior was part of my past. I did not know how to say that I had done something so ill-advised yet again, that I had gone out onto the social battlefield, and that I had failed.
This is one of your foibles, my friend said. And because my friend is a gentle man (and I suppose a gentleman as well), the word FOIBLE did not sound as harsh as the fiasco I was sure I had created. The word FOIBLE did not make me want to stick the point of the sword into myself and hurt myself even more than I was hurting already.
Everyone has foibles. It's okay that I have them too. A FOIBLE is a weakness, but it is just part of me. It's part of that same sword that contains my forte or strength as well. I have to have a handle on things, I have to hold on. I have to bend and I have to give. I have to learn to get out of the way when the wind blows too hard or my resistance is too weak. Given what I am learning, I know that my foibles are not the measure of my mettle, my courage or my fortitude.
As many an artist has said, well at least I got a song out of it. My You Tube is working again. Enjoy today's song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0JvWVbxOkQ&feature=related
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Trepidation
The word for today is TREPIDATION. Actually, it has been the word for the past few days, but I have not sat down at the computer to write. Was that due to TREPIDATION? I don't know; I just know I have been holding onto the word. TREPIDATION is not something I want to hold on to.
TREPIDATION is panic, agitation or in its most basic form, fear. There is nothing to fear but....
Oddly, I like the sound of the word. The first two syllables sound like something I might trip over, or the act of tripping over--TREPI. I'm not sure, but I think "ation" means the state of. So TREPIDATION would mean being in the state of tripping over something, being in the state of being tripped up by one's own fear.
One of the many slogans or acronyms I retain from recovery is FEAR = False Expectations Appearing Real. But what about Real Expectations Appearing Real? What about when we can't push fear aside or push it to the REAR?
Another slogan I recall is Feel the Fear but Do it Anyway. I have learned to feel my feelings, but not get stuck in them. I have learned that my emotional process is not stuck in the mud or clogged like a drain. It flows. My feelings flow, my body flows, (yes, at age 50 my g__damn menstrual cycle still flows and flows and flows), my life flows. My emotions are like the clouds in the sky, like the weather--if I am patient, if I wait, they will change. Those who know me know how much I love language, and yet every one of these slogans, trite as they may sound, means something to me. I do not resent them. I believe, for instance, in the saying, this too shall pass.
Technology in itself is not very lyrical, but today, after a period of interruption, the music from my IPOD is flowing through my stereo speakers--Chopin, Mendelsohn, Bach,--what incredible pleasure I am capable of receiving. Also, my neighbor has fixed the sound from my computer so I once again have access to the YouTube videos and audio. My frustration was temporary.
But I was writing about fear, about TREPIDATION. My employment situation is precarious (ah, a word for another day), to say the least. On Wednesday, my Census crew leader told our team that we had almost completed our work. Apparently the government had "misunderestimated" the length of our assignment by 6 weeks! A month and a half of decent income-whooosh, gone. I felt fear.
Today I am meeting someone whom I have never met before. We have spoken extensively on the telephone--but that is different. I am meeting this person "in the flesh" as they say. I move from glorious anticipation to trepidation. I move back and forth and that is okay.
I have been thinking about another word--INTREPID. I did not know the word INTREPID until I learned about the battleship that is now permanently docked in Manhattan as a museum.
I love the word; I want to be INTREPID.
A brief history lesson for the day--with due credit to Wikipedia. The USS Intrepid is a WWII aircraft carrier that serves as a museum ship. In 1978, Zachary Fisher, a Manhattan real estate developer and philanthropist, saved the ship from being put to scrap. The museum ship served as the FBI's temporary headquarters after the destruction of the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001. A scheduled renovation, in 2006, was delayed because one of the ship's propellers got stuck in the mud in Hudson River. Eventually, the ship was dredged out of the mud and floated to Staten Island where renovations took place. The ship museum is back in Manhattan and reopened in November 2008.
Next time I am in Manhattan, I am going to see the USS Intrepid. In the meantime, I think I will just be intrepid myself!
TREPIDATION is panic, agitation or in its most basic form, fear. There is nothing to fear but....
Oddly, I like the sound of the word. The first two syllables sound like something I might trip over, or the act of tripping over--TREPI. I'm not sure, but I think "ation" means the state of. So TREPIDATION would mean being in the state of tripping over something, being in the state of being tripped up by one's own fear.
One of the many slogans or acronyms I retain from recovery is FEAR = False Expectations Appearing Real. But what about Real Expectations Appearing Real? What about when we can't push fear aside or push it to the REAR?
Another slogan I recall is Feel the Fear but Do it Anyway. I have learned to feel my feelings, but not get stuck in them. I have learned that my emotional process is not stuck in the mud or clogged like a drain. It flows. My feelings flow, my body flows, (yes, at age 50 my g__damn menstrual cycle still flows and flows and flows), my life flows. My emotions are like the clouds in the sky, like the weather--if I am patient, if I wait, they will change. Those who know me know how much I love language, and yet every one of these slogans, trite as they may sound, means something to me. I do not resent them. I believe, for instance, in the saying, this too shall pass.
Technology in itself is not very lyrical, but today, after a period of interruption, the music from my IPOD is flowing through my stereo speakers--Chopin, Mendelsohn, Bach,--what incredible pleasure I am capable of receiving. Also, my neighbor has fixed the sound from my computer so I once again have access to the YouTube videos and audio. My frustration was temporary.
But I was writing about fear, about TREPIDATION. My employment situation is precarious (ah, a word for another day), to say the least. On Wednesday, my Census crew leader told our team that we had almost completed our work. Apparently the government had "misunderestimated" the length of our assignment by 6 weeks! A month and a half of decent income-whooosh, gone. I felt fear.
Today I am meeting someone whom I have never met before. We have spoken extensively on the telephone--but that is different. I am meeting this person "in the flesh" as they say. I move from glorious anticipation to trepidation. I move back and forth and that is okay.
I have been thinking about another word--INTREPID. I did not know the word INTREPID until I learned about the battleship that is now permanently docked in Manhattan as a museum.
I love the word; I want to be INTREPID.
A brief history lesson for the day--with due credit to Wikipedia. The USS Intrepid is a WWII aircraft carrier that serves as a museum ship. In 1978, Zachary Fisher, a Manhattan real estate developer and philanthropist, saved the ship from being put to scrap. The museum ship served as the FBI's temporary headquarters after the destruction of the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001. A scheduled renovation, in 2006, was delayed because one of the ship's propellers got stuck in the mud in Hudson River. Eventually, the ship was dredged out of the mud and floated to Staten Island where renovations took place. The ship museum is back in Manhattan and reopened in November 2008.
Next time I am in Manhattan, I am going to see the USS Intrepid. In the meantime, I think I will just be intrepid myself!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Love
The word for today is LOVE. Why would I take on such a "preposterous" topic? I LOVE this blog more than any thing I can think of. And I was at risk of not writing in it at all.
When it comes to LOVE, I guess we do things we wouldn't otherwise do. I LOVE this blog so I will get up early, get out of bed, and sit down at the computer. (Actually, I got out of bed because the dogs I'm boarding were barking.) Really, I LOVE this blog, because I LOVE myself, it is part of my commitment to myself, to being open, to being heard.
So, if I work from this place, a place that combines heart and mind--LOVE is about being open, love is about being who you are, LOVE is about being able to share that with someone else. Sometimes, people will ask have I ever been in LOVE? I don't quite understand what they are asking. Have I ever been in a daze, have I ever been crazed, have I ever been in awe, have I ever felt passion? LOVE is selfless, love is blind? No, no.....I don't think it works that way.
I keep seeing the film clip of Barack Obama's victory speech on the election night 2008. He says, "Sasha and Malia, I LOVE you more than you can imagine." Then he tells them that they will get a dog. That works for me, because to me dogs equal LOVE, the unconditional kind.
But a couple of other things strike me as well. The look on his face after the statement. It is the purest, purest look that I can imagine. It is quite simply the truth. His expression is solid, a rock that his daughters can always hold onto. Yet I also notice that he chose the word imagine instead of know. He did not say, as my mind expected him to say, that he loves them more than they can know; instead he says he loves them more than they can imagine. Does this mean love is more of the imagination than of the mind or the rational intellect?
I will leave that question to your imagination. And I hope I will come back to the word, the idea, and the feeling of LOVE another day.
When it comes to LOVE, I guess we do things we wouldn't otherwise do. I LOVE this blog so I will get up early, get out of bed, and sit down at the computer. (Actually, I got out of bed because the dogs I'm boarding were barking.) Really, I LOVE this blog, because I LOVE myself, it is part of my commitment to myself, to being open, to being heard.
So, if I work from this place, a place that combines heart and mind--LOVE is about being open, love is about being who you are, LOVE is about being able to share that with someone else. Sometimes, people will ask have I ever been in LOVE? I don't quite understand what they are asking. Have I ever been in a daze, have I ever been crazed, have I ever been in awe, have I ever felt passion? LOVE is selfless, love is blind? No, no.....I don't think it works that way.
I keep seeing the film clip of Barack Obama's victory speech on the election night 2008. He says, "Sasha and Malia, I LOVE you more than you can imagine." Then he tells them that they will get a dog. That works for me, because to me dogs equal LOVE, the unconditional kind.
But a couple of other things strike me as well. The look on his face after the statement. It is the purest, purest look that I can imagine. It is quite simply the truth. His expression is solid, a rock that his daughters can always hold onto. Yet I also notice that he chose the word imagine instead of know. He did not say, as my mind expected him to say, that he loves them more than they can know; instead he says he loves them more than they can imagine. Does this mean love is more of the imagination than of the mind or the rational intellect?
I will leave that question to your imagination. And I hope I will come back to the word, the idea, and the feeling of LOVE another day.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Propitious
The word for today is PROPITIOUS. I like the way the word sounds. It sounds like something my grandmother would say--either a traditional Yiddishism or one of her potty-mouth variations.
Phonetically, PROPITIOUS (the second syllable is pronounced pish) makes me think of the saying--he didn't even have a pot to piss in or the disgust with which my grandmother might have responded to news of somebody else's supposed accomplishment--pish, who does he think he is anyway.
PROPITIOUS means that something is a good sign or omen; it describes something advantageous or helpful. When I told my father how much I like working for the Census, he said, it sure was PROPITIOUS that I saw the sign for the test. That's the way we speak in my family. My relatives use big words like PROPITIOUS even though they don't believe in signs or omens.
I have often talked about being raised not to believe in anything, being raised without faith. It's not quite accurate to say I was raised not to believe in anything. I was raised to believe in the value of hard work, honesty, and a pure heart (even when it was hard to have one). I was raised to believe in the value of loyalty and intelligence. I was raised to have a spine of strong integrity. I was also raised to believe that it was good to be like the people who raised me--even though I wasn't.
I was raised to be a professional. My ancestors had been bakers, bookbinders, tailors, factory workers. Wasn't it better to work with one's mind than one's hands? Wasn't it better to have a skill, such as being a doctor, lawyer, accountant or engineer, that would bring social recognition and financial security.
After spending the vast majority of my life learning from books or working in an office in front of a computer--I can't do it anymore. I realized that for the last year and a half I've worked outside, with the mailmen and women, the UPS and FedEx deliverers, the utility and construction workers, the lawn and garden service people. Sometimes it's cold and I feel a chill in my bones, sometimes it's windy and tears fall from eyes, sometimes I need to find a coffee shop so I can run in and use the bathroom, but I don't have that awful restlessness, that caged in feeling I had all those years when I worked in an office.
Meeting my friend Becky on the street a few years ago was PROPITIOUS. She hired me as a dogwalker, and now I board dogs at my house as a side business. Seeing the sign for the Census test at the Evanston Civic Center was PROPITIOUS, because I may have found something in which I can think ( just a little) and be outside and talk to people all at the same time.
When all is said and done--though I do not know where I belong, though I take part neither in a Passover seder or an Easter dinner, I do have faith. I have faith that PROPITIOUS things will happen in my life. Like meeting the job coach who dared me to start this blog. Now that was very PROPITIOUS!
Phonetically, PROPITIOUS (the second syllable is pronounced pish) makes me think of the saying--he didn't even have a pot to piss in or the disgust with which my grandmother might have responded to news of somebody else's supposed accomplishment--pish, who does he think he is anyway.
PROPITIOUS means that something is a good sign or omen; it describes something advantageous or helpful. When I told my father how much I like working for the Census, he said, it sure was PROPITIOUS that I saw the sign for the test. That's the way we speak in my family. My relatives use big words like PROPITIOUS even though they don't believe in signs or omens.
I have often talked about being raised not to believe in anything, being raised without faith. It's not quite accurate to say I was raised not to believe in anything. I was raised to believe in the value of hard work, honesty, and a pure heart (even when it was hard to have one). I was raised to believe in the value of loyalty and intelligence. I was raised to have a spine of strong integrity. I was also raised to believe that it was good to be like the people who raised me--even though I wasn't.
I was raised to be a professional. My ancestors had been bakers, bookbinders, tailors, factory workers. Wasn't it better to work with one's mind than one's hands? Wasn't it better to have a skill, such as being a doctor, lawyer, accountant or engineer, that would bring social recognition and financial security.
After spending the vast majority of my life learning from books or working in an office in front of a computer--I can't do it anymore. I realized that for the last year and a half I've worked outside, with the mailmen and women, the UPS and FedEx deliverers, the utility and construction workers, the lawn and garden service people. Sometimes it's cold and I feel a chill in my bones, sometimes it's windy and tears fall from eyes, sometimes I need to find a coffee shop so I can run in and use the bathroom, but I don't have that awful restlessness, that caged in feeling I had all those years when I worked in an office.
Meeting my friend Becky on the street a few years ago was PROPITIOUS. She hired me as a dogwalker, and now I board dogs at my house as a side business. Seeing the sign for the Census test at the Evanston Civic Center was PROPITIOUS, because I may have found something in which I can think ( just a little) and be outside and talk to people all at the same time.
When all is said and done--though I do not know where I belong, though I take part neither in a Passover seder or an Easter dinner, I do have faith. I have faith that PROPITIOUS things will happen in my life. Like meeting the job coach who dared me to start this blog. Now that was very PROPITIOUS!
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Down
The word for today is DOWN. Actually, it was the word for yesterday, but I didn't get to sit DOWN at the computer and write it DOWN. Since I've been working eight hours a day for the Census, I don't have as much DOWN time.
But don't worry. I am neither DOWN nor out. Neither have I been to Paris or London recently (acknowledgments due to Mr. Orwell). I do worry though that I may be coming DOWN with something.
I do miss the long, soft and slow hours I indulged with my hotel quality DOWN pillow and my DOWN comforter. I do resent that I have to get up and out by a certain time. On the whole though, I love the independence of working for the Census. I love being outdoors. I love the feel of the ground DOWN below me and the sight of the sky above. You could say I'm DOWN with the job.
In the dictionary the phrase DOWN East is defined as referring to the entire state of Maine. but if you're from Maine you're more likely to know the more specific nature of the term as provided by Down East, The Magazine of Maine : "When ships sailed from Boston to ports in Maine (which were to the east of Boston), the wind was at their backs, so they were sailing downwind, hence the term 'Down East.' And it follows that when they returned to Boston they were sailing upwind; many Mainers still speak of going 'up to Boston,' despite the fact that the city lies approximately 50 miles to the south of Maine’s southern border." The ships were often sailing to ports in Hancock and Washington counties, the Downeast coast of Maine. I used to love driving DOWN the long slender peninsulas along the coast or going DOWN to the rocky seashore.
As an adult, I'll play with kids and roll DOWN hills or get DOWN on the floor to play. I'm just more of a DOWN to earth kind of person.
I do have a special song for DOWN. It makes me feel better when I'm DOWN or blue, or just feeling plain rotten or out of sorts. It asks "How Can You Laugh When You Know I'm DOWN." And the minute that line goes through my mind I start to whistle and then smile. Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmsTT9bvWIg&feature=related
P.S. I was six in 1965 when the Beatles played at Shea Stadium....just a few miles from where I lived!!! Can anybody tell me the contemporary equivalent to the question who is/was your favorite Beatle? (Umm, Jonas Brother?)
But don't worry. I am neither DOWN nor out. Neither have I been to Paris or London recently (acknowledgments due to Mr. Orwell). I do worry though that I may be coming DOWN with something.
I do miss the long, soft and slow hours I indulged with my hotel quality DOWN pillow and my DOWN comforter. I do resent that I have to get up and out by a certain time. On the whole though, I love the independence of working for the Census. I love being outdoors. I love the feel of the ground DOWN below me and the sight of the sky above. You could say I'm DOWN with the job.
In the dictionary the phrase DOWN East is defined as referring to the entire state of Maine. but if you're from Maine you're more likely to know the more specific nature of the term as provided by Down East, The Magazine of Maine : "When ships sailed from Boston to ports in Maine (which were to the east of Boston), the wind was at their backs, so they were sailing downwind, hence the term 'Down East.' And it follows that when they returned to Boston they were sailing upwind; many Mainers still speak of going 'up to Boston,' despite the fact that the city lies approximately 50 miles to the south of Maine’s southern border." The ships were often sailing to ports in Hancock and Washington counties, the Downeast coast of Maine. I used to love driving DOWN the long slender peninsulas along the coast or going DOWN to the rocky seashore.
As an adult, I'll play with kids and roll DOWN hills or get DOWN on the floor to play. I'm just more of a DOWN to earth kind of person.
I do have a special song for DOWN. It makes me feel better when I'm DOWN or blue, or just feeling plain rotten or out of sorts. It asks "How Can You Laugh When You Know I'm DOWN." And the minute that line goes through my mind I start to whistle and then smile. Here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmsTT9bvWIg&feature=related
P.S. I was six in 1965 when the Beatles played at Shea Stadium....just a few miles from where I lived!!! Can anybody tell me the contemporary equivalent to the question who is/was your favorite Beatle? (Umm, Jonas Brother?)
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Pussy Willow
The word for today is PUSSY WILLOW. Actually, it is two words that refer to one object, a shrub that has a soft, silky, sexless flower called a catkin.
I've been thinking about PUSSY WILLOWS because they remind me of my grandmother, and I think about my grandmother almost every day. I've been thinking about PUSSY WILLOWS because I've been wearing a pair of earrings that I bought for myself a few years ago (in remembrance of her) that are small freshwater pearls set in oxidized bronze. The jewelry designer offers a much better definition than any I found in the dictionary: "The PUSSY WILLOW'S soft, silky buds find their name catkin from the Dutch diminutive of cat, in reference to its resemblance to a kitten's tail. The tree is a deciduous North American variety." (Michael Michaud)
PUSSY WILLOWS are soft to the touch, like fur. When I was a toddler I lived in one of New York City's boroughs, both my parents were city kids. My knowledge of nature consisted of grass, leaves, sand and the ocean, and common flowers like daisies and black eyed Susans. I'd never seen a PUSSY WILLOW growing outside. I remember rubbing them in a hypnotic fashion after finding them in a vase at my grandmother's house. For all I knew they could have been stuck on sticks in factories.
My grandmother introduced me to the sensual world. She gave me bubble baths, patted me down with baby powder and gave me back rubs before tucking me in at night. When I was in my 20s, she liked to hold my hand as we rode in a taxi cab or walked down the street. At the time that humiliated me. Now, as a single middle-aged woman, I understand, and honor, her need for touch. She taught me how to squeeze and hug.
I also remember going clothes shopping with my parents and my sister every year before school started. There was a store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Natan Borland's my father tells me, where they sold discount clothes. Even though I lived in a neighboring borough, Williamsburg seemed like another world to me. I've spent too much time this evening trying to research the neighborhood, before it became a site for artists and hipsters and real estate moguls. As a child, I saw imposing factory buildings, gated store fronts, and graffitti. I heard people speaking languages that I did not understand, Yiddish and Spanish. We found the doorway for Natan Borland's, maybe we had to walk up to a second floor entry, but once inside there were rows and rows of dresses and coats. I would look for the children's coats with the fake fur collars and "pet" them, then I'd find the thickest velvet dress that I could stroke. I didn't want leave when my mother said it was time to move to another rack of clothing.
Outside the building everything was dark and hard. I don't remember any sunshine in Williamsburg. My father's uncle owned a pastrami delicatessen in the neighborhood and maybe we went there for lunch. Maybe my father just pointed it out to us. I thought about the warehouses where racks of meat were smoked and spiced, and aged. We drove out of the neighborhood. My sister and I would wear the clothes we'd bought back on our sunny block, where our apartment had a terrace with geranium flower boxes and there were private houses with front lawns. I remember the light, thin feel of the geranium petals and the slightly thicker and waxier texture of a blade of grass.
When I moved to Maine I saw PUSSY WILLOWS in the "raw" for the first time. They grew on bushes near the bay. They grew on bushes near the beach roses, which are my favorite flower. The pussy willows did not have a scent, but the beach roses smelled fresh and light, and because my senses were developed inside, they reminded me of the scent of a lovely bath soap.
As many of you know, I live with my wunderdog, Rosie, and two aging kitties. They are all my PUSSY WILLOWS. They are soft to the touch, always there. I am never embarrassed to pet them. They are here waiting for me every day.
Yesterday, at TJ Maxx, I saw a hideous toy bunny rabbit, pasted with hundreds of pussy willows to make up its coat. It wasn't soft to the touch, it wasn't appealing to me in any way. I felt sad and angry that a factory worker had to paste those beautiful PUSSY WILLOWS on the rabbit shape.
Right now, my cat Charlotte, who is at least 18 years old, has jumped on the chair as I type on the keyboard. She rubs her soft face against the outside of my hand. In a minute, I will get up and pet my silky, spaniel Rosie, who is cuddled up on the couch. These creatures, who come from nature, have learned to live inside with me. I am so glad to have found them.
I couldn't quite bring myself to post the Tom Jones version of "What's New Pussycat," though I'm sure my sister and I listened to him sing it on television. We spent lots of weekend nights with my grandmother watching variety shows on tv with all kinds of schmaltzy music. Mike Myers does a great version of this tune, with just the right touch of kitsch. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH7p1Ftp3QI&feature=related
I've been thinking about PUSSY WILLOWS because they remind me of my grandmother, and I think about my grandmother almost every day. I've been thinking about PUSSY WILLOWS because I've been wearing a pair of earrings that I bought for myself a few years ago (in remembrance of her) that are small freshwater pearls set in oxidized bronze. The jewelry designer offers a much better definition than any I found in the dictionary: "The PUSSY WILLOW'S soft, silky buds find their name catkin from the Dutch diminutive of cat, in reference to its resemblance to a kitten's tail. The tree is a deciduous North American variety." (Michael Michaud)
PUSSY WILLOWS are soft to the touch, like fur. When I was a toddler I lived in one of New York City's boroughs, both my parents were city kids. My knowledge of nature consisted of grass, leaves, sand and the ocean, and common flowers like daisies and black eyed Susans. I'd never seen a PUSSY WILLOW growing outside. I remember rubbing them in a hypnotic fashion after finding them in a vase at my grandmother's house. For all I knew they could have been stuck on sticks in factories.
My grandmother introduced me to the sensual world. She gave me bubble baths, patted me down with baby powder and gave me back rubs before tucking me in at night. When I was in my 20s, she liked to hold my hand as we rode in a taxi cab or walked down the street. At the time that humiliated me. Now, as a single middle-aged woman, I understand, and honor, her need for touch. She taught me how to squeeze and hug.
I also remember going clothes shopping with my parents and my sister every year before school started. There was a store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Natan Borland's my father tells me, where they sold discount clothes. Even though I lived in a neighboring borough, Williamsburg seemed like another world to me. I've spent too much time this evening trying to research the neighborhood, before it became a site for artists and hipsters and real estate moguls. As a child, I saw imposing factory buildings, gated store fronts, and graffitti. I heard people speaking languages that I did not understand, Yiddish and Spanish. We found the doorway for Natan Borland's, maybe we had to walk up to a second floor entry, but once inside there were rows and rows of dresses and coats. I would look for the children's coats with the fake fur collars and "pet" them, then I'd find the thickest velvet dress that I could stroke. I didn't want leave when my mother said it was time to move to another rack of clothing.
Outside the building everything was dark and hard. I don't remember any sunshine in Williamsburg. My father's uncle owned a pastrami delicatessen in the neighborhood and maybe we went there for lunch. Maybe my father just pointed it out to us. I thought about the warehouses where racks of meat were smoked and spiced, and aged. We drove out of the neighborhood. My sister and I would wear the clothes we'd bought back on our sunny block, where our apartment had a terrace with geranium flower boxes and there were private houses with front lawns. I remember the light, thin feel of the geranium petals and the slightly thicker and waxier texture of a blade of grass.
When I moved to Maine I saw PUSSY WILLOWS in the "raw" for the first time. They grew on bushes near the bay. They grew on bushes near the beach roses, which are my favorite flower. The pussy willows did not have a scent, but the beach roses smelled fresh and light, and because my senses were developed inside, they reminded me of the scent of a lovely bath soap.
As many of you know, I live with my wunderdog, Rosie, and two aging kitties. They are all my PUSSY WILLOWS. They are soft to the touch, always there. I am never embarrassed to pet them. They are here waiting for me every day.
Yesterday, at TJ Maxx, I saw a hideous toy bunny rabbit, pasted with hundreds of pussy willows to make up its coat. It wasn't soft to the touch, it wasn't appealing to me in any way. I felt sad and angry that a factory worker had to paste those beautiful PUSSY WILLOWS on the rabbit shape.
Right now, my cat Charlotte, who is at least 18 years old, has jumped on the chair as I type on the keyboard. She rubs her soft face against the outside of my hand. In a minute, I will get up and pet my silky, spaniel Rosie, who is cuddled up on the couch. These creatures, who come from nature, have learned to live inside with me. I am so glad to have found them.
I couldn't quite bring myself to post the Tom Jones version of "What's New Pussycat," though I'm sure my sister and I listened to him sing it on television. We spent lots of weekend nights with my grandmother watching variety shows on tv with all kinds of schmaltzy music. Mike Myers does a great version of this tune, with just the right touch of kitsch. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH7p1Ftp3QI&feature=related
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Homesick
The word for today is HOMESICK. Being HOMESICK, like being lovesick, indicates a state of longing, of yearning; it implies that this longing is a bad and unhealthy state. Instead of HOMESICK, I'd like to call the feeling homelove.
After years of great personal effort, and thanks to the support of many friends and colleagues, I have gotten over being lovesick. What is the best way to put it? I have conquered being lovesick, I have accepted it as a part of my essence, something that I do not have to struggle with, a longing that I can satisfy by focusing on and developing aspects of myself and my faith in something much larger.
Another way I have dealt with being lovesick is by changing my focus. I no longer fall in love with people, I fall in love with places. When I find a place that I cherish, it stays with me no matter where I am. For me places have personalities and moods, they can inspire my happiness or fuel my fulfillment, secure my safety. Places are very important to me.
It is now four years since I have moved from Maine to the Midwest. On most days, my intention is to be where I am, to experience and enjoy my surroundings, BUT I cannot get over being HOMESICK. During Census training I think about canvassing addresses in Maine, instead of Evanston and Rogers Park. I think about all the funky structures I used to see, the doublewides, the yurts, the barns, the lighthouses, the old mills--all of which serve as residences. I think about the gravel roads I'd walk down, the peninsulas with houses that are miles apart, hidden in the woods. Yes, this is nostalgic. There are new condominum developments and townhouses and group homes in Maine just like in the rest of the country. They are near rivers or bays or mountains or forests--and in my view that just makes them better.
Today, at lunchtime, I walked over to the new LL Bean store at the Old Orchard Mall in Skokie. I picked up an Outdoor Discovery Program catalogue thinking that there might be some local events in the Chicagoland area. All the events are either held in Freeport Maine or in Maryland. The catalogue is full of photographs of Casco Bay. I see Fort Gorges, which is located on a small island I could see every morning when Rosie and I walked the trail along Casco Bay. I see the view from Wolfe's Neck Farm and the islands off of Freeport. I had found the most beautiful place in the world, and then I left.
When it was time to leave Maine I knew I would miss the bay and the islands more than anything else. Even more than the precious, precious friends who nursed me through many a lovesick episode, who helped me become a fuller and deeper person. I remember saying goodbye to the view that last early spring. No more green rolling hill down to the bay, no more sailboats moored to their landings, no more islands spreading out to the horizon, no more forts, no more ferries and lighthouses. I remember this as well as I remember saying good bye to my best friend as she took the last few steps down my porch after helping me with my endless packing. I was sad, but excited to embark on a new adventure.
What would happen if I gave up my homesickness--either by returning to my beloved Maine, or embracing my life in Evanston/Chicago. I have tried to love the Midwest. I have driven through the rolling hills of southern Wisconsin, I have traveled across Illinois to see the mighty Mississippi, I have explored the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan, I have journeyed to the northern tip of Wisconsin to visit Door County, and also Lake Superior. It was only Lake Superior that truly spoke to me, only the very northern parts of Wisconsin and the western part of the Upper Peninsula that abuts it. These places reminded me of Maine, I could breathe some of the same chill and wildness.
If I gave up being HOMESICK I would have to make a decision. I would have to take action one way or another. I am not ready. My job coach dared me to start this blog--and I did. He also dared me to come up with a plan for returning East--and I have not.
Still, maybe I can use some of what I have learned about coping with lovesickness. What can I provide for myself that I have wanted from a loved one (or a loved place). How can I meet some of those unmet needs. While I'm in the Midwest, I need to take more roadtrips. I need to seek out elevation, I need to seek out large and wild bodies of water, national parks and forests, trails that go on for miles, places where the traffic is not powered by fossil fuels. I need to find places where I feel freedom and safety at the same time.
In the meantime, I'm going to a lecture on the geology of the Midwest. Maybe, just maybe I will learn to appreciate the flatness.
The song I offer for today is Simon and Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwQYH-6quEE
Oh, and another song for my morning people friends. (Might not really be a morning song, but it sure is pretty.) Norah Jones' "Sunrise."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-vOSlwLyyg
After years of great personal effort, and thanks to the support of many friends and colleagues, I have gotten over being lovesick. What is the best way to put it? I have conquered being lovesick, I have accepted it as a part of my essence, something that I do not have to struggle with, a longing that I can satisfy by focusing on and developing aspects of myself and my faith in something much larger.
Another way I have dealt with being lovesick is by changing my focus. I no longer fall in love with people, I fall in love with places. When I find a place that I cherish, it stays with me no matter where I am. For me places have personalities and moods, they can inspire my happiness or fuel my fulfillment, secure my safety. Places are very important to me.
It is now four years since I have moved from Maine to the Midwest. On most days, my intention is to be where I am, to experience and enjoy my surroundings, BUT I cannot get over being HOMESICK. During Census training I think about canvassing addresses in Maine, instead of Evanston and Rogers Park. I think about all the funky structures I used to see, the doublewides, the yurts, the barns, the lighthouses, the old mills--all of which serve as residences. I think about the gravel roads I'd walk down, the peninsulas with houses that are miles apart, hidden in the woods. Yes, this is nostalgic. There are new condominum developments and townhouses and group homes in Maine just like in the rest of the country. They are near rivers or bays or mountains or forests--and in my view that just makes them better.
Today, at lunchtime, I walked over to the new LL Bean store at the Old Orchard Mall in Skokie. I picked up an Outdoor Discovery Program catalogue thinking that there might be some local events in the Chicagoland area. All the events are either held in Freeport Maine or in Maryland. The catalogue is full of photographs of Casco Bay. I see Fort Gorges, which is located on a small island I could see every morning when Rosie and I walked the trail along Casco Bay. I see the view from Wolfe's Neck Farm and the islands off of Freeport. I had found the most beautiful place in the world, and then I left.
When it was time to leave Maine I knew I would miss the bay and the islands more than anything else. Even more than the precious, precious friends who nursed me through many a lovesick episode, who helped me become a fuller and deeper person. I remember saying goodbye to the view that last early spring. No more green rolling hill down to the bay, no more sailboats moored to their landings, no more islands spreading out to the horizon, no more forts, no more ferries and lighthouses. I remember this as well as I remember saying good bye to my best friend as she took the last few steps down my porch after helping me with my endless packing. I was sad, but excited to embark on a new adventure.
What would happen if I gave up my homesickness--either by returning to my beloved Maine, or embracing my life in Evanston/Chicago. I have tried to love the Midwest. I have driven through the rolling hills of southern Wisconsin, I have traveled across Illinois to see the mighty Mississippi, I have explored the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan, I have journeyed to the northern tip of Wisconsin to visit Door County, and also Lake Superior. It was only Lake Superior that truly spoke to me, only the very northern parts of Wisconsin and the western part of the Upper Peninsula that abuts it. These places reminded me of Maine, I could breathe some of the same chill and wildness.
If I gave up being HOMESICK I would have to make a decision. I would have to take action one way or another. I am not ready. My job coach dared me to start this blog--and I did. He also dared me to come up with a plan for returning East--and I have not.
Still, maybe I can use some of what I have learned about coping with lovesickness. What can I provide for myself that I have wanted from a loved one (or a loved place). How can I meet some of those unmet needs. While I'm in the Midwest, I need to take more roadtrips. I need to seek out elevation, I need to seek out large and wild bodies of water, national parks and forests, trails that go on for miles, places where the traffic is not powered by fossil fuels. I need to find places where I feel freedom and safety at the same time.
In the meantime, I'm going to a lecture on the geology of the Midwest. Maybe, just maybe I will learn to appreciate the flatness.
The song I offer for today is Simon and Garfunkel's "Homeward Bound."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwQYH-6quEE
Oh, and another song for my morning people friends. (Might not really be a morning song, but it sure is pretty.) Norah Jones' "Sunrise."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-vOSlwLyyg
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Morning
The word for today is MORNING. MORNING is when the day begins. But when does the day begin? Does it begin at 12 am, when the date of the calendar changes, or at 5 or 6 am when the sun rises and the rhythms of earth start anew?
I am not a MORNING person. While I do appreciate the sunrise, the fresh dew on the grass, the quiet before the day's commotion, I much prefer the time just before and just after sunset. The end of the day is my favorite time; it is a time of relief and satisfaction, a time to anticipate the moon and the stars, a time to savor the peace and rest that awaits.
At the beginning of the day, each MORNING, I wake up not knowing where I am. For the last year or more, I have not had to be anywhere first thing in the MORNING. I have been able to take the dog out and then visit with a neighbor or return to bed for another hour. And while this may sound like sloth, it is how I let my thoughts resettle after the rumble of sleep, it is how I locate myself in the day. In the early morning I can feel my tectonic plates shifting, finding balance.
This week I'm going to a training that starts each day at 8 am in the MORNING. I wake up at 6:30 with a blank mind. All I can think of are tasks, things that must be accomplished before I leave the house. I walk the dog, shower, put on presentable clothes, earrings, make sure I have my makeup, cell phone, wallet, car keys and work documents. I start the car and join the MORNING traffic. I know this is how the vast majority of working Americans live. But where are my original thoughts? I am going along a road with lots of other cars. I am going, going; I am gone.
At the training today, our crew leader told us that starting next week we will not have to start our project work until 9:30. I felt like singing and skipping down the hallway at the break. I felt like she had given me my life back. I think I can figure out where I am by 9:30 each MORNING. I think I can figure out who I am. I can stay up at night and write this blog. I can take a longer walk with Rosie in the morning. I can be a person, not an automaton.
I was very, very scared.
Today I offer two songs.
The first, the one I prefer, is a peaceful vision of MORNING.
Cat Stevens' aka Yuseef Islam's "Morning Has Broken."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TWd3skb-Rw&feature=related
The second is "Let the Day Begin," by The Call. A good morning commute song, a good I have to get energized song. It was one of Al Gore's campaign theme songs in 2000, and we all know how that turned out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXywSZ-Zdmg
I am not a MORNING person. While I do appreciate the sunrise, the fresh dew on the grass, the quiet before the day's commotion, I much prefer the time just before and just after sunset. The end of the day is my favorite time; it is a time of relief and satisfaction, a time to anticipate the moon and the stars, a time to savor the peace and rest that awaits.
At the beginning of the day, each MORNING, I wake up not knowing where I am. For the last year or more, I have not had to be anywhere first thing in the MORNING. I have been able to take the dog out and then visit with a neighbor or return to bed for another hour. And while this may sound like sloth, it is how I let my thoughts resettle after the rumble of sleep, it is how I locate myself in the day. In the early morning I can feel my tectonic plates shifting, finding balance.
This week I'm going to a training that starts each day at 8 am in the MORNING. I wake up at 6:30 with a blank mind. All I can think of are tasks, things that must be accomplished before I leave the house. I walk the dog, shower, put on presentable clothes, earrings, make sure I have my makeup, cell phone, wallet, car keys and work documents. I start the car and join the MORNING traffic. I know this is how the vast majority of working Americans live. But where are my original thoughts? I am going along a road with lots of other cars. I am going, going; I am gone.
At the training today, our crew leader told us that starting next week we will not have to start our project work until 9:30. I felt like singing and skipping down the hallway at the break. I felt like she had given me my life back. I think I can figure out where I am by 9:30 each MORNING. I think I can figure out who I am. I can stay up at night and write this blog. I can take a longer walk with Rosie in the morning. I can be a person, not an automaton.
I was very, very scared.
Today I offer two songs.
The first, the one I prefer, is a peaceful vision of MORNING.
Cat Stevens' aka Yuseef Islam's "Morning Has Broken."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TWd3skb-Rw&feature=related
The second is "Let the Day Begin," by The Call. A good morning commute song, a good I have to get energized song. It was one of Al Gore's campaign theme songs in 2000, and we all know how that turned out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXywSZ-Zdmg
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Cram
The word for today is CRAM, as in I have to CRAM for that exam. Today winter is cramming in one more snowstorm, a small kiss of accumulation coats the not yet budding branches and the pot-holed streets. My sink is cram full of dishes and I have a cramfull laundry basket of clothes. But the word for today is not cramfull, it is CRAM.
CRAM, I think is an ugly word. "Crambo" I have discovered, is a game in which one side has to provide a rhyme to a line of verse provided by the other side. Now that sounds like fun; I'd much rather sit around playing "Crambo" than cramming.
When I was young I crammed for exams. I still CRAM for life. I count the hours before something is due or before an event or a meeting and try to figure out how much longer I can sleep or otherwise avoid what I need/have to do. What is it that is so hard about getting prepared ahead of time, about making and sticking to a schedule, about giving myself a break? Oh yes, it's another dirty and not so little word--discipline.
As I get older, I cannot CRAM so much into my mind or my body. In college, I tried to read Moby Dick in a day and a half, I barely remembered anything from the book, although I did pass the exam. Now I can go back and read and enjoy detailed descriptions of mastheads or ambergris (discharge from the intestine of a sperm whale); I can contemplate philosophical passages on journeys and quests. I couldn't do that when I crammed.
Later today I am leading a local community meeting to garner support for MoveOn's PowerUp America campaign. I've been worried about whether we can CRAM all the people who want to come into the cafe space that's been donated. I've been worried about what I need to do: explain to about 50 people what MoveOn is doing to support the creation of green jobs and clean energy, describe the connection between federal funding and local action; introduce a DVD and several small group facilitators; reconvene the group. I'll need to be on, be ready, alert, engaged. I can't know everything before the event, as I mentioned before, I can't know the exact shape of it before it happens. I have been preparing for this event all week, but it is now four hours before and I need to end this post about the word CRAM.
I was about to write that I need to CRAM for the event this afternoon. Instead, I am going to take an hour and prepare; I am going to relax and bring my full, expansive self to the event. When I CRAM, I try to FIT too much information, too much activity. There is the implication that there is not enough room, not enough time.
One of my co-facilitators asked me recently, "Amy, do you have a problem with abundance?" I wanted to reply--no, as long as it's an abundance of time to sleep or wander with Rosie. (The brittle part of me also wished he'd stop his new age nosiness!)
There is yet another 12 step slogan that can help me today. It is How Important Is It? The answer--as important as I want it to be. Since I get to choose, I don't have to CRAM. The future of the world, the country, even of Evanston, does not depend on how much I can CRAM into the event this afternoon. I can choose to do what fits in the space and time and energy that I have. And maybe I can remember to make room for other people too!
Song for the day: Joni Mitchell's "Just Like this Train." Beautiful lyrics describing people in the train station waiting room.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Woo9SpTPDU
CRAM, I think is an ugly word. "Crambo" I have discovered, is a game in which one side has to provide a rhyme to a line of verse provided by the other side. Now that sounds like fun; I'd much rather sit around playing "Crambo" than cramming.
When I was young I crammed for exams. I still CRAM for life. I count the hours before something is due or before an event or a meeting and try to figure out how much longer I can sleep or otherwise avoid what I need/have to do. What is it that is so hard about getting prepared ahead of time, about making and sticking to a schedule, about giving myself a break? Oh yes, it's another dirty and not so little word--discipline.
As I get older, I cannot CRAM so much into my mind or my body. In college, I tried to read Moby Dick in a day and a half, I barely remembered anything from the book, although I did pass the exam. Now I can go back and read and enjoy detailed descriptions of mastheads or ambergris (discharge from the intestine of a sperm whale); I can contemplate philosophical passages on journeys and quests. I couldn't do that when I crammed.
Later today I am leading a local community meeting to garner support for MoveOn's PowerUp America campaign. I've been worried about whether we can CRAM all the people who want to come into the cafe space that's been donated. I've been worried about what I need to do: explain to about 50 people what MoveOn is doing to support the creation of green jobs and clean energy, describe the connection between federal funding and local action; introduce a DVD and several small group facilitators; reconvene the group. I'll need to be on, be ready, alert, engaged. I can't know everything before the event, as I mentioned before, I can't know the exact shape of it before it happens. I have been preparing for this event all week, but it is now four hours before and I need to end this post about the word CRAM.
I was about to write that I need to CRAM for the event this afternoon. Instead, I am going to take an hour and prepare; I am going to relax and bring my full, expansive self to the event. When I CRAM, I try to FIT too much information, too much activity. There is the implication that there is not enough room, not enough time.
One of my co-facilitators asked me recently, "Amy, do you have a problem with abundance?" I wanted to reply--no, as long as it's an abundance of time to sleep or wander with Rosie. (The brittle part of me also wished he'd stop his new age nosiness!)
There is yet another 12 step slogan that can help me today. It is How Important Is It? The answer--as important as I want it to be. Since I get to choose, I don't have to CRAM. The future of the world, the country, even of Evanston, does not depend on how much I can CRAM into the event this afternoon. I can choose to do what fits in the space and time and energy that I have. And maybe I can remember to make room for other people too!
Song for the day: Joni Mitchell's "Just Like this Train." Beautiful lyrics describing people in the train station waiting room.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Woo9SpTPDU
Friday, March 27, 2009
Star
The word for today is STAR. On the way to training for the Census job this morning, the rock station for middle-aged folks who like to think they listen to new music once in a while (like when the Pearl Jam or Phish or the Rolling Stones put out a new album) was playing the Sly and the Family Stone's classic "Everybody is a STAR." I had one of those I don't want to get out of the car moments. I could listen to that song forever.
When I walked into the training room it didn't feel like I or any one of the 20 odd other folks in the room was a STAR. I began to think about what my niece had said to me a week ago, "Aunt Amy," she asked, "do the other people working on the Census have the same kind of degrees you have, did they go to the kind of schools you did? Why are you wasting your education?" I looked at the personal profile sheet of the woman to my right, it said high school graduate; I looked at the sheet to the left, it said the same thing. Oops, I thought, maybe my niece is on to something.
The crew leader, a young perky woman, with a mop of curly brown hair tied atop her head, told us this would be a verbatim training, meaning she had to read word for word from a big government instruction manual. Oh boy, I thought, this could be really boring.
She read fast, she whipped us through the papers we needed to sign, the fingerprints we needed to make, the details and the generalities. She made eye contact, she checked in to see if we were following along, she smiled a lot. This woman is my crew leader, I thought, this woman is a STAR. Toward the end of the training she said, ok, I don't need to read anymore, now we can be regular people, let's tell each other something about ourselves.
I listened to people introduce themselves. I discovered that I'll be working with an architect, a pianist, an actor, a laid off computer programmer, a real estate agent, an interior designer, a stay at home mom, a cartoon animator, a romance novelist. I didn't check where they went to school or their degrees. I could tell that each and every person in that room is a STAR.
At home this evening, I put on my bluetooth headphones and typed in a YouTube search for "Everybody is a Star." I walked around my house and played that song over and over. I listened to all kinds of funk classics. (James Brown is on the headphones right now.) I discovered that Madonna had incorporated "Everybody" into a medley during one of her concert tours in the 1990s. I thought about Sly Stone, whose genius, whose STAR burnt out into drug addiction, rehab and finally just became utter strangeness. I thought of Madonna, who I have always thought was strange, but has been a STAR without fail, without interruption, ever since she broke into the music scene in the early '80s (when I lived near her haunts in the East Village in NYC).
When I started the day, I thought I would need to prove something at the training. I thought I'd need to prove that I was better, smarter, sharper, more capable than the other people in the group. I noticed another woman who spoke a lot and drew a lot of attention to herself. She's doing what I had planned to do, I thought. She's forcing herself to be a STAR.
In nature, a star just shines, it doesn't have to force itself. At home this evening, with the help of good music, food and companionship provided by my next door neighbor, my animal companions, the people who read this blog, my STAR has been shining. Thank you!
Song of the Day: Sly and the Family Stone, "Everybody is a Star." Inspirational!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aKVpxR4rUc
When I walked into the training room it didn't feel like I or any one of the 20 odd other folks in the room was a STAR. I began to think about what my niece had said to me a week ago, "Aunt Amy," she asked, "do the other people working on the Census have the same kind of degrees you have, did they go to the kind of schools you did? Why are you wasting your education?" I looked at the personal profile sheet of the woman to my right, it said high school graduate; I looked at the sheet to the left, it said the same thing. Oops, I thought, maybe my niece is on to something.
The crew leader, a young perky woman, with a mop of curly brown hair tied atop her head, told us this would be a verbatim training, meaning she had to read word for word from a big government instruction manual. Oh boy, I thought, this could be really boring.
She read fast, she whipped us through the papers we needed to sign, the fingerprints we needed to make, the details and the generalities. She made eye contact, she checked in to see if we were following along, she smiled a lot. This woman is my crew leader, I thought, this woman is a STAR. Toward the end of the training she said, ok, I don't need to read anymore, now we can be regular people, let's tell each other something about ourselves.
I listened to people introduce themselves. I discovered that I'll be working with an architect, a pianist, an actor, a laid off computer programmer, a real estate agent, an interior designer, a stay at home mom, a cartoon animator, a romance novelist. I didn't check where they went to school or their degrees. I could tell that each and every person in that room is a STAR.
At home this evening, I put on my bluetooth headphones and typed in a YouTube search for "Everybody is a Star." I walked around my house and played that song over and over. I listened to all kinds of funk classics. (James Brown is on the headphones right now.) I discovered that Madonna had incorporated "Everybody" into a medley during one of her concert tours in the 1990s. I thought about Sly Stone, whose genius, whose STAR burnt out into drug addiction, rehab and finally just became utter strangeness. I thought of Madonna, who I have always thought was strange, but has been a STAR without fail, without interruption, ever since she broke into the music scene in the early '80s (when I lived near her haunts in the East Village in NYC).
When I started the day, I thought I would need to prove something at the training. I thought I'd need to prove that I was better, smarter, sharper, more capable than the other people in the group. I noticed another woman who spoke a lot and drew a lot of attention to herself. She's doing what I had planned to do, I thought. She's forcing herself to be a STAR.
In nature, a star just shines, it doesn't have to force itself. At home this evening, with the help of good music, food and companionship provided by my next door neighbor, my animal companions, the people who read this blog, my STAR has been shining. Thank you!
Song of the Day: Sly and the Family Stone, "Everybody is a Star." Inspirational!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aKVpxR4rUc
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Listen
The word for today is LISTEN. Sometimes when President Obama answers a reporter's question the first word he says is look. But what he really means is LISTEN. LISTEN to what I have to say because I have really thought this through. I like to LISTEN to President Obama.
I LISTEN to a lot of cable TV news--too much. There isn't much to LISTEN to. In this 24/7 news cycle, everything gets repeated over and over. The actual news is a small ball of solid glass packaged in a large box of styrofoam peanuts. Instead of looking through the glass, the cable news anchors and their guests spend their days and nights popping the peanuts, popping that small kernel of news into oblivion--and I LISTEN to them. I LISTEN to them when I don't want to LISTEN to myself.
To truly listen is to pay attention. More often than not what people really want is attention. One of the playwright Arthur Miller's most haunting lines is "Attention must be paid." To me it is more haunting than any quote from Shakespeare.
People crave attention, more than alcohol or ice cream or even status or success (unless they bring attention). Sometimes when I listen to a friend, he or she says thank you for listening. But I don't like it when I find myself saying that. It goes against my pride--a defacto admission that it is difficult to find someone to LISTEN to me.
A woman who lives in my neighborhood starting talking to me when we were out walking our dogs one day. She had finished graduate school, she had started a job, she was homesick for Texas. I got the sense that she was lonely; I got the sense that she needed someone to LISTEN, to pay attention, to acknowledge where she was in her life. Recently, her 93 year-old grandmother, who lives in Texas, had a stroke and was hospitalized. My neighbor is worried about her grandmother. When I saw her this week she told me she didn't think that people in her family were making the best decisions concerning her grandmother's care. But she wasn't there, so why should they LISTEN to her.
This woman has gone to Texas to visit her grandmother. Maybe if she is there with her grandmother, with her family, someone will LISTEN to her. She may say LISTEN mom to her mother or LISTEN Uncle Fred, this is what is going on. When I listened to her, this is what I heard. I heard, I'm worried, I'm scared, I'm lonely. Maybe something bad will happen and I can't change it, or maybe I can. Maybe if some one just LISTENS to me.
I LISTEN to a lot of cable TV news--too much. There isn't much to LISTEN to. In this 24/7 news cycle, everything gets repeated over and over. The actual news is a small ball of solid glass packaged in a large box of styrofoam peanuts. Instead of looking through the glass, the cable news anchors and their guests spend their days and nights popping the peanuts, popping that small kernel of news into oblivion--and I LISTEN to them. I LISTEN to them when I don't want to LISTEN to myself.
To truly listen is to pay attention. More often than not what people really want is attention. One of the playwright Arthur Miller's most haunting lines is "Attention must be paid." To me it is more haunting than any quote from Shakespeare.
People crave attention, more than alcohol or ice cream or even status or success (unless they bring attention). Sometimes when I listen to a friend, he or she says thank you for listening. But I don't like it when I find myself saying that. It goes against my pride--a defacto admission that it is difficult to find someone to LISTEN to me.
A woman who lives in my neighborhood starting talking to me when we were out walking our dogs one day. She had finished graduate school, she had started a job, she was homesick for Texas. I got the sense that she was lonely; I got the sense that she needed someone to LISTEN, to pay attention, to acknowledge where she was in her life. Recently, her 93 year-old grandmother, who lives in Texas, had a stroke and was hospitalized. My neighbor is worried about her grandmother. When I saw her this week she told me she didn't think that people in her family were making the best decisions concerning her grandmother's care. But she wasn't there, so why should they LISTEN to her.
This woman has gone to Texas to visit her grandmother. Maybe if she is there with her grandmother, with her family, someone will LISTEN to her. She may say LISTEN mom to her mother or LISTEN Uncle Fred, this is what is going on. When I listened to her, this is what I heard. I heard, I'm worried, I'm scared, I'm lonely. Maybe something bad will happen and I can't change it, or maybe I can. Maybe if some one just LISTENS to me.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Out
The word for today is OUT, as in spin OUT, wipe OUT or chill OUT. Or the runner is rounding second, heading to third, going for home, and he's OUT! Sometimes when I call someone I get their voicemail and the message says the person you are calling is OUT. Sometimes I go to the store to pick up an item advertised on sale, but the item is sold OUT. Sometimes, if there is an intruder in a nightmare, I'll scream get OUT!
Is there anything good about the word OUT? I consider the many conversations I've had with my wunderdog Rosie. When the conversation doesn't center on food, there is only one other topic, when are we going OUT, or more accurately she tells me, I want to go OUT. For Rosie going OUT means she has opportunities, to visit the neighbors, to find fast food in the street or peanuts or breadcrumbs along the curb, to smell where other dogs have peed, to roll in the mud or the grass. OUT means relief from her blase life on the couch. Oh, I almost forgot, OUT means physical relief for her too. She knows only to relieve herself when she is OUT.
Tonight I wanted to go OUT. I wanted relief from the blase life in my head. My thoughts were OUT of control. I needed to get those thoughts OUT of my mind, get the feelings out of my body. For years, whenever I was troubled my friend Bertelle would say, up and OUT Amy, just get it up and OUT.
A friend had a change of schedule. I thought I was going to be OUT in the far suburbs he said, but I'm in Evanston if you want to get together and play Scrabble. I love to play Scrabble; it always puts me OUT of my misery. The point of the game is to make a word OUT of the letters you pick and to place that word in the highest scoring position on the board. The person who is leading towards the end of the game tries to go OUT, to use all his letters to end the game. If you go OUT and you have the highest score then you win.
Sometimes people say, I just need to get OUT of the house. Sometimes people say, I have to get OUT of my relationship. Sometimes people say, what did I get OUT of that experience? Don't worry, I hear myself saying, it will all work OUT.
In my days working in non-profit management I learned a principle of data management-- garbage in, garbage OUT. The same is true about life, what I get OUT of it depends upon what I put in. The ingredients determine how the meal turns OUT. I'm not going to turn myself inside OUT over this entry. I'm OUT of ideas for this post. It's over and OUT.
Is there anything good about the word OUT? I consider the many conversations I've had with my wunderdog Rosie. When the conversation doesn't center on food, there is only one other topic, when are we going OUT, or more accurately she tells me, I want to go OUT. For Rosie going OUT means she has opportunities, to visit the neighbors, to find fast food in the street or peanuts or breadcrumbs along the curb, to smell where other dogs have peed, to roll in the mud or the grass. OUT means relief from her blase life on the couch. Oh, I almost forgot, OUT means physical relief for her too. She knows only to relieve herself when she is OUT.
Tonight I wanted to go OUT. I wanted relief from the blase life in my head. My thoughts were OUT of control. I needed to get those thoughts OUT of my mind, get the feelings out of my body. For years, whenever I was troubled my friend Bertelle would say, up and OUT Amy, just get it up and OUT.
A friend had a change of schedule. I thought I was going to be OUT in the far suburbs he said, but I'm in Evanston if you want to get together and play Scrabble. I love to play Scrabble; it always puts me OUT of my misery. The point of the game is to make a word OUT of the letters you pick and to place that word in the highest scoring position on the board. The person who is leading towards the end of the game tries to go OUT, to use all his letters to end the game. If you go OUT and you have the highest score then you win.
Sometimes people say, I just need to get OUT of the house. Sometimes people say, I have to get OUT of my relationship. Sometimes people say, what did I get OUT of that experience? Don't worry, I hear myself saying, it will all work OUT.
In my days working in non-profit management I learned a principle of data management-- garbage in, garbage OUT. The same is true about life, what I get OUT of it depends upon what I put in. The ingredients determine how the meal turns OUT. I'm not going to turn myself inside OUT over this entry. I'm OUT of ideas for this post. It's over and OUT.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Shape
The word for today is SHAPE. I wanted to pick a simple word, a word I could get my head and my hands around. Then I started thinking about SHAPE and as with so many things, the simple became complicated.
SHAPE is one of the first things we learn. I remember a set of colored wood blocks. Someone held a block or put it in my hand and said circle, square or triangle. I felt each different block, I remembered the word that was said, I remembered the name of the SHAPE. Later there were blocks shaped like bars of soap or candles or towers. Later still there were parallelograms and trapezoids, and other shapes containing angles and formulas I could not touch. When I was a toddler there were holes I could fit the shapes into. I wrote about the word FIT before. When we're young we're taught that shapes FIT into spaces. Things FIT.
I don't remember anyone ever teaching me about dimension. What makes something flat and what not? I didn't really understand the concept of dimension until I took hallucinogenic drugs. I saw the shapes of leaves, like cookies cut from the light blue dough of the sky, I saw the other side of the stars, I saw the roots of trees beneath the soil. Often drugs are referred to as a gateway to a life of abuse, but for me they were a gateway to another way of seeing. For the last twenty-five years, I have not used drugs, but I have seen many, many shapes that I never could have imagined. Nature has given us the gift of a myriad of building blocks, an infinity of shapes.
It is difficult to imagine how things will take shape. I am planning a political event with a friend. We conceive, we discuss, we set forth our intentions, yet the shape of the event will not be known until it happens. When I graduated from college, I did not know what shape my life would take. I could only see a long black tunnel. I have always hated tunnels.
Now I know my life is as big as the sky, as big as the ocean. I live next to Lake Michigan. Can you see across the lake, someone asked, is that dark line the state of Michigan? Oh no, I answered, that's just a different color on the horizon. I want to feel the SHAPE of a bar of soap or a cup of tea in my hands; I want to be able fold a clean, dry sheet into a rectangle. I don't want to know the shape of the sky or the ocean or even of a great lake. These shapes, which are constantly changing, and even the SHAPE of my life, are all well beyond my grasp. That pleases me very much.
SHAPE is one of the first things we learn. I remember a set of colored wood blocks. Someone held a block or put it in my hand and said circle, square or triangle. I felt each different block, I remembered the word that was said, I remembered the name of the SHAPE. Later there were blocks shaped like bars of soap or candles or towers. Later still there were parallelograms and trapezoids, and other shapes containing angles and formulas I could not touch. When I was a toddler there were holes I could fit the shapes into. I wrote about the word FIT before. When we're young we're taught that shapes FIT into spaces. Things FIT.
I don't remember anyone ever teaching me about dimension. What makes something flat and what not? I didn't really understand the concept of dimension until I took hallucinogenic drugs. I saw the shapes of leaves, like cookies cut from the light blue dough of the sky, I saw the other side of the stars, I saw the roots of trees beneath the soil. Often drugs are referred to as a gateway to a life of abuse, but for me they were a gateway to another way of seeing. For the last twenty-five years, I have not used drugs, but I have seen many, many shapes that I never could have imagined. Nature has given us the gift of a myriad of building blocks, an infinity of shapes.
It is difficult to imagine how things will take shape. I am planning a political event with a friend. We conceive, we discuss, we set forth our intentions, yet the shape of the event will not be known until it happens. When I graduated from college, I did not know what shape my life would take. I could only see a long black tunnel. I have always hated tunnels.
Now I know my life is as big as the sky, as big as the ocean. I live next to Lake Michigan. Can you see across the lake, someone asked, is that dark line the state of Michigan? Oh no, I answered, that's just a different color on the horizon. I want to feel the SHAPE of a bar of soap or a cup of tea in my hands; I want to be able fold a clean, dry sheet into a rectangle. I don't want to know the shape of the sky or the ocean or even of a great lake. These shapes, which are constantly changing, and even the SHAPE of my life, are all well beyond my grasp. That pleases me very much.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Shave
The word for today is SHAVE. Many men SHAVE every day; some women do too. Right now, lots of people have to shave their spending. Ten years ago, when I turned forty I went to see a gynecologist. The physician's assistant told me I could expect to grow facial hair as my hormones changed with age. Thank god this has not happened--or else my eyes are just so bad I can't see if it has.
If it had, if I had developed facial hair, I would know better than to SHAVE it. Long ago, my mother taught me that if you SHAVE something it comes back stronger, thicker, tougher to resist, better, she advised, to completely pluck it out. She brought me and my sister along when she got her legs waxed. As teenagers, way back in the 1970s, we were old enough to have our legs waxed too. Ouch, it hurt. The price of vanity. Sometimes, when my mother didn't go to get her legs waxed she used the hair removal product Nair. My sister and I did too. Nair smelled vile, it was one of those products you believed in partly because it smelled so bad. It looked like calamine lotion, but it smelled like nail polish remover and ammonia and unflavored cough syrup all in one. It worked. I remember the small black hairs falling away as I rinsed the thick pink goop off my legs.
Crazy people don't SHAVE. There are street people (men) in my town who have long white beards. I stay away from them. Recently, the LA TIMES printed a photo of a 70-year-old Charles Manson. He is bald and his beard is close shaven. He doesn't look as scary as he used to--is it his age or the fact that so much of his hair, his power is gone. Part of the enigmatic power of Osama Bin Laden is in his beard. Sadaam Hussein looked crazier and scarier when he was taken out of his hiding cave, unkempt, unshaved, than when he had used chemical weapons to kill Kurds. When he killed the Kurds he shaved and wore a suit. I think the Iraqi government had Sadaam shaved before he was hanged, but I don't know what he was wearing. I don't understand the logic in these things.
Sometimes people who have given up don't SHAVE. Maybe they haven't given up, maybe they just don't see the need to bother, maybe they don't see the need to conform. No matter how much I may personally resist it, spring is coming, spring for the earth, spring for me. You see I am one of those curmudgeons who likes the cold challenge, the stark severity of winter, its subtle whites and grays and blues. But I will conform or at least admit that I can't hold back spring's energy. Already, people are out and about in the 50 plus weather, college kids playing frisbee, regular folks running, riding their bicycles, some of them even wearing shorts and t-shirts.
The other morning in the shower I looked at my legs--lots of little black hairs made me feel old and ugly. They reminded me of my grandmother's legs. When my grandmother was still alive, I would look at the twists and turns of the hairs under her stockings. Her hair was not thick, but it was there, stating with much certainty that she was "off the market." My grandfather had died when she was in her late 50s, she lived almost 40 more years without finding another partner.
Unlike my grandmother, I am not completely "off the market." I know I will SHAVE my legs. I SHAVE my legs whenever there is a potential him. Spring is all about potential. (Notice the potent in potential.) I will probably get a pedicure where a woman from somewhere in Asia will shave the dead skin off my feet. I will remember to apply moisturizer to my legs and use a pumice stone on my feet. I will remember to groom my body and my mind. I will pluck my eyebrows. I may even whiten my teeth. I don't want to be crazy, I don't want to be left out, I don't want to go 20 more years without a partner. I don't want the OUCH of waxing or the horrible smell of Nair in my house. I think I'll just go and SHAVE my legs.
If it had, if I had developed facial hair, I would know better than to SHAVE it. Long ago, my mother taught me that if you SHAVE something it comes back stronger, thicker, tougher to resist, better, she advised, to completely pluck it out. She brought me and my sister along when she got her legs waxed. As teenagers, way back in the 1970s, we were old enough to have our legs waxed too. Ouch, it hurt. The price of vanity. Sometimes, when my mother didn't go to get her legs waxed she used the hair removal product Nair. My sister and I did too. Nair smelled vile, it was one of those products you believed in partly because it smelled so bad. It looked like calamine lotion, but it smelled like nail polish remover and ammonia and unflavored cough syrup all in one. It worked. I remember the small black hairs falling away as I rinsed the thick pink goop off my legs.
Crazy people don't SHAVE. There are street people (men) in my town who have long white beards. I stay away from them. Recently, the LA TIMES printed a photo of a 70-year-old Charles Manson. He is bald and his beard is close shaven. He doesn't look as scary as he used to--is it his age or the fact that so much of his hair, his power is gone. Part of the enigmatic power of Osama Bin Laden is in his beard. Sadaam Hussein looked crazier and scarier when he was taken out of his hiding cave, unkempt, unshaved, than when he had used chemical weapons to kill Kurds. When he killed the Kurds he shaved and wore a suit. I think the Iraqi government had Sadaam shaved before he was hanged, but I don't know what he was wearing. I don't understand the logic in these things.
Sometimes people who have given up don't SHAVE. Maybe they haven't given up, maybe they just don't see the need to bother, maybe they don't see the need to conform. No matter how much I may personally resist it, spring is coming, spring for the earth, spring for me. You see I am one of those curmudgeons who likes the cold challenge, the stark severity of winter, its subtle whites and grays and blues. But I will conform or at least admit that I can't hold back spring's energy. Already, people are out and about in the 50 plus weather, college kids playing frisbee, regular folks running, riding their bicycles, some of them even wearing shorts and t-shirts.
The other morning in the shower I looked at my legs--lots of little black hairs made me feel old and ugly. They reminded me of my grandmother's legs. When my grandmother was still alive, I would look at the twists and turns of the hairs under her stockings. Her hair was not thick, but it was there, stating with much certainty that she was "off the market." My grandfather had died when she was in her late 50s, she lived almost 40 more years without finding another partner.
Unlike my grandmother, I am not completely "off the market." I know I will SHAVE my legs. I SHAVE my legs whenever there is a potential him. Spring is all about potential. (Notice the potent in potential.) I will probably get a pedicure where a woman from somewhere in Asia will shave the dead skin off my feet. I will remember to apply moisturizer to my legs and use a pumice stone on my feet. I will remember to groom my body and my mind. I will pluck my eyebrows. I may even whiten my teeth. I don't want to be crazy, I don't want to be left out, I don't want to go 20 more years without a partner. I don't want the OUCH of waxing or the horrible smell of Nair in my house. I think I'll just go and SHAVE my legs.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Bitch
The word for today is BITCH, as in a female dog is a BITCH, or that woman is acting like a real BITCH. I'm not even going to get into the term bitchin'--bitchin' is way out of my league. Maybe when I'm 80 or 90 I'll be able to say bitchin' because then it'll just be so bitchin' to be a feisty old lady who doesn't give a rat's ass about what anybody thinks of her. (Obviously, I'm not there yet.)
I'm thinking about the word BITCH because I was a BITCH today. But first, I want to mention an actual BITCH in the neighborhood, my friend's new dog Sarah. Sarah is a seven-year-old cocker spaniel whom my friend rescued from the animal shelter a couple of weeks ago. The folks at the animal shelter said that Sarah was aggressive towards other dogs and could not be adopted out to a family who had a dog. My friend and her husband already have Charlie, also a cocker spaniel, so she brought Charlie to the animal shelter to meet Sarah and to prove to the animal shelter "officials" that Sarah and Charlie could get along. Charlie is the kind of dog who is scared of his own shadow; he is incredibly sweet and docile, not a threat to anyone or anything. He and Sarah did (and are still doing) just fine.
Sarah came home with Charlie and my friend. She accepted my dog Rosie into the pack. On the streets of southeast Evanston though, Sarah has something to say. She barks at joggers, cyclists, baby strollers and other dogs. My friend tries to distract her and is honing in on the best ways to break the barking habit. When Sarah barks, Charlie joins in, and sometimes Rosie does too. Sarah isn't used to all the interaction with other dogs and other people. When a new dog comes into Sarah's new turf, Sarah not only barks, she shakes and shivers, her body rattles, her heart races. The barking is the fight part of her fight or flight response. It didn't take long for my friend and I to realize that Sarah is just scared.
This evening I met my sister and my nieces for dinner at a local restaurant. One of my nieces has a birthday in February, the other at the end of March. Before I met them for dinner I stopped at a local store to pick up gift cards--I had about 10 minutes to spare and I'd still be able to get to the restaurant on time. And, since I have a well-deserved reputation for being late, I really wanted to get there on time.
No problem I thought as I walked into the store. I interrupted two employees talking at the customer service desk and asked if they still carried gift cards. Oh yes, over there, one of them said and pointed to the front of the store. I ran over, found the cards I wanted, and went to the cashier--five minutes to spare. The clerk rang me up, I swiped my card, transaction approved, but then the clerk told me, oh, one of the cards didn't activate, I'll have to ring it up again. I already had a receipt that said $50 (for the two gift cards) and the clerk rang up another receipt that said $25. Why do I have receipts for $75 when I only bought $50 worth of gift cards I asked her? One of them didn't activate, you weren't really charged, she tried to tell me. If I wasn't charged why do I have two receipts that show my credit card is charged both times? I was an impatient customer with an attitude. The clerk really didn't know what she was doing. She brought me back to the customer service desk--no more time to spare.
I don't mean to complain, I said to the customer service representative (of course I did), but that cashier doesn't know what she's doing. The customer service rep. read through the two different receipts with three different gift card numbers as though he were translating them from Greek. Well at least he was being careful. If I had long, manicured nails I would have been tapping them. If I had chewing gum I would have been cracking it. If I had fangs I would have been showing them. If I had claws I would have been scratching something or someone. But all I had was a bad attitude. I could almost smell the nastiness exuding out of my body. I just want to pay for two gift cards, I said curtly, two gift cards that work, can't you just void out the other transaction and start over so we can do that? According to the store clock, I was now three minutes late for dinner....
The customer service rep. did finally correct the transaction. The original clerk disappeared into the land of shameful mistakes. I strode out to my car, dumped everything out of my purse, and called my sister from my cell phone, ready to blame my tardiness on the ineptitude of the store employees. My oldest niece answered the phone. Are you there already, I asked? Oh no, we'll be there in about five minutes, she said. Me too, I told her. I pulled into the parking lot just as my sister and my nieces crossed the street to enter the restaurant. I waved to them, smiling and friendly. I'd already left my angry BITCH behind. I hadn't kept my sister and my nieces waiting; I hadn't screwed up; I hadn't disappointed anyone or done anything wrong;--except be a BITCH because I was scared of doing any one of those things I just mentioned yet another time.
I'm thinking about the word BITCH because I was a BITCH today. But first, I want to mention an actual BITCH in the neighborhood, my friend's new dog Sarah. Sarah is a seven-year-old cocker spaniel whom my friend rescued from the animal shelter a couple of weeks ago. The folks at the animal shelter said that Sarah was aggressive towards other dogs and could not be adopted out to a family who had a dog. My friend and her husband already have Charlie, also a cocker spaniel, so she brought Charlie to the animal shelter to meet Sarah and to prove to the animal shelter "officials" that Sarah and Charlie could get along. Charlie is the kind of dog who is scared of his own shadow; he is incredibly sweet and docile, not a threat to anyone or anything. He and Sarah did (and are still doing) just fine.
Sarah came home with Charlie and my friend. She accepted my dog Rosie into the pack. On the streets of southeast Evanston though, Sarah has something to say. She barks at joggers, cyclists, baby strollers and other dogs. My friend tries to distract her and is honing in on the best ways to break the barking habit. When Sarah barks, Charlie joins in, and sometimes Rosie does too. Sarah isn't used to all the interaction with other dogs and other people. When a new dog comes into Sarah's new turf, Sarah not only barks, she shakes and shivers, her body rattles, her heart races. The barking is the fight part of her fight or flight response. It didn't take long for my friend and I to realize that Sarah is just scared.
This evening I met my sister and my nieces for dinner at a local restaurant. One of my nieces has a birthday in February, the other at the end of March. Before I met them for dinner I stopped at a local store to pick up gift cards--I had about 10 minutes to spare and I'd still be able to get to the restaurant on time. And, since I have a well-deserved reputation for being late, I really wanted to get there on time.
No problem I thought as I walked into the store. I interrupted two employees talking at the customer service desk and asked if they still carried gift cards. Oh yes, over there, one of them said and pointed to the front of the store. I ran over, found the cards I wanted, and went to the cashier--five minutes to spare. The clerk rang me up, I swiped my card, transaction approved, but then the clerk told me, oh, one of the cards didn't activate, I'll have to ring it up again. I already had a receipt that said $50 (for the two gift cards) and the clerk rang up another receipt that said $25. Why do I have receipts for $75 when I only bought $50 worth of gift cards I asked her? One of them didn't activate, you weren't really charged, she tried to tell me. If I wasn't charged why do I have two receipts that show my credit card is charged both times? I was an impatient customer with an attitude. The clerk really didn't know what she was doing. She brought me back to the customer service desk--no more time to spare.
I don't mean to complain, I said to the customer service representative (of course I did), but that cashier doesn't know what she's doing. The customer service rep. read through the two different receipts with three different gift card numbers as though he were translating them from Greek. Well at least he was being careful. If I had long, manicured nails I would have been tapping them. If I had chewing gum I would have been cracking it. If I had fangs I would have been showing them. If I had claws I would have been scratching something or someone. But all I had was a bad attitude. I could almost smell the nastiness exuding out of my body. I just want to pay for two gift cards, I said curtly, two gift cards that work, can't you just void out the other transaction and start over so we can do that? According to the store clock, I was now three minutes late for dinner....
The customer service rep. did finally correct the transaction. The original clerk disappeared into the land of shameful mistakes. I strode out to my car, dumped everything out of my purse, and called my sister from my cell phone, ready to blame my tardiness on the ineptitude of the store employees. My oldest niece answered the phone. Are you there already, I asked? Oh no, we'll be there in about five minutes, she said. Me too, I told her. I pulled into the parking lot just as my sister and my nieces crossed the street to enter the restaurant. I waved to them, smiling and friendly. I'd already left my angry BITCH behind. I hadn't kept my sister and my nieces waiting; I hadn't screwed up; I hadn't disappointed anyone or done anything wrong;--except be a BITCH because I was scared of doing any one of those things I just mentioned yet another time.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
License
The word for today is LICENSE. To LICENSE is to give permission. You need a LICENSE to drive, to own a gun, to operate a tattoo parlor, practice medicine or law, get married or own a dog--but not a cat or a bird or a ferret, as far as I know. You do not need a license to have a child, or two, or three, or.....you get the idea. You do not need a LICENSE to run for public office. You do need a driver's LICENSE (or some other federally authorized photo id) to get on an airplane. This can be a problem if you get stopped by the police on the way to the airport and they take your LICENSE.
When I moved to Illinois just about four years ago, I held on to my Maine driver's LICENSE for as long as I could. I held on to a lot of things from Maine as long as I could. But my driver's LICENSE expired and I needed to get a new one in February 2006. Not so simple. Suffice it to say that I have had trouble keeping track of my paperwork in the past. I discovered that to obtain my new Illinois LICENSE I needed a Social Security card. I couldn't recall the last time I'd seen mine. I had lived as a fully privileged US citizen without one for years. A month before my LICENSE expired I went to the Social Security office to order a replacement card for "Amy Kurtz." Much to my surprise I was told that I did not exist. But I've been paying taxes under that name for years, I told the clerk, the IRS seems to think I exist. Well, we have no record of you, she replied, have you ever used another name? And then I realized, that when I got married in 1986, I had legally changed my name. I had agreed to take my husband's name and he agreed to wear a wedding ring. The logic in our agreement now completely eludes me.
But I've been using my maiden name for the last 18 years, I told the clerk. The IRS thinks I'm Amy Kurtz, my law school diploma says Amy Kurtz, all my paychecks, my bank accounts, my Maine driver's LICENSE, my lost US passport, my voter's registration card. You have to bring in your divorce decree she told me, then we can put in an application for a replacement card with a change of name.
I went home and looked through all my important papers. I found the divorce decree that had arrived in the Rural Route delivery box in Harpswell, Maine in the fall of 1989. I brought it back to the Social Security office. I can't accept this, the clerk told me, it is not a sealed copy from the court. In the eyes of the metaphorical eyes of the Social Security Administration I remained married. I could not believe that I was still unraveling the effects of a marriage that had ended in 1989, in what I have frequently referred to as one of my other lifetimes.
My marriage and my divorce took place in the borough of Manhattan in the City of New York. Through family I knew a practicing lawyer there who was kind enough to obtain a copy of my divorce decree with the proper court seal. At this point, my Maine driver's LICENSE was on the verge of expiring. I brought the document to the Evanston Social Security office, but it would take several more weeks before my replacement card would come in the mail. And, I could not get my new Illinois driver's LICENSE without the Social Security card. I entered the world of illegal behavior; I drove without a valid LICENSE.
I now have an Illinois driver's LICENSE. It doesn't expire until February 2011. I have a Social Security card with MY name on it. On the back of the card it says DO NOT CARRY IT WITH YOU. It does not say, except to the Department of Motor Vehicles when you are applying for your initial Illinois license or when you are applying for a job with the federal government (although you will need to have it in your physical possession on both these occasions). I have a sealed copy of my divorce decree and a sealed copy of my birth certificate. I am relatively certain that I exist. And if I ever have any doubts, I'm sure that Equifax, Experian and Transunion, as well as a host of security cameras and other surveillance devices, could provide some unsolicited confirmation. I am sure they have LICENSE to monitor me, though none of them ever asked permission.
When I moved to Illinois just about four years ago, I held on to my Maine driver's LICENSE for as long as I could. I held on to a lot of things from Maine as long as I could. But my driver's LICENSE expired and I needed to get a new one in February 2006. Not so simple. Suffice it to say that I have had trouble keeping track of my paperwork in the past. I discovered that to obtain my new Illinois LICENSE I needed a Social Security card. I couldn't recall the last time I'd seen mine. I had lived as a fully privileged US citizen without one for years. A month before my LICENSE expired I went to the Social Security office to order a replacement card for "Amy Kurtz." Much to my surprise I was told that I did not exist. But I've been paying taxes under that name for years, I told the clerk, the IRS seems to think I exist. Well, we have no record of you, she replied, have you ever used another name? And then I realized, that when I got married in 1986, I had legally changed my name. I had agreed to take my husband's name and he agreed to wear a wedding ring. The logic in our agreement now completely eludes me.
But I've been using my maiden name for the last 18 years, I told the clerk. The IRS thinks I'm Amy Kurtz, my law school diploma says Amy Kurtz, all my paychecks, my bank accounts, my Maine driver's LICENSE, my lost US passport, my voter's registration card. You have to bring in your divorce decree she told me, then we can put in an application for a replacement card with a change of name.
I went home and looked through all my important papers. I found the divorce decree that had arrived in the Rural Route delivery box in Harpswell, Maine in the fall of 1989. I brought it back to the Social Security office. I can't accept this, the clerk told me, it is not a sealed copy from the court. In the eyes of the metaphorical eyes of the Social Security Administration I remained married. I could not believe that I was still unraveling the effects of a marriage that had ended in 1989, in what I have frequently referred to as one of my other lifetimes.
My marriage and my divorce took place in the borough of Manhattan in the City of New York. Through family I knew a practicing lawyer there who was kind enough to obtain a copy of my divorce decree with the proper court seal. At this point, my Maine driver's LICENSE was on the verge of expiring. I brought the document to the Evanston Social Security office, but it would take several more weeks before my replacement card would come in the mail. And, I could not get my new Illinois driver's LICENSE without the Social Security card. I entered the world of illegal behavior; I drove without a valid LICENSE.
I now have an Illinois driver's LICENSE. It doesn't expire until February 2011. I have a Social Security card with MY name on it. On the back of the card it says DO NOT CARRY IT WITH YOU. It does not say, except to the Department of Motor Vehicles when you are applying for your initial Illinois license or when you are applying for a job with the federal government (although you will need to have it in your physical possession on both these occasions). I have a sealed copy of my divorce decree and a sealed copy of my birth certificate. I am relatively certain that I exist. And if I ever have any doubts, I'm sure that Equifax, Experian and Transunion, as well as a host of security cameras and other surveillance devices, could provide some unsolicited confirmation. I am sure they have LICENSE to monitor me, though none of them ever asked permission.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sign
The word for today is SIGN.
Today I saw a sign in a Kinko's window "SIGNS MEAN BUSINESS."
In just about two weeks I will start a part-time, temporary job working for the US Census. How did you think of doing that, somebody asked. I was at the Civic Center getting my 2009 parking permit and I read the SIGN. The SIGN stated there would be a test for people who wanted to work for the Census, it gave the date, it gave the time, it gave the location; I showed up.
So maybe this post is about showing up, or showing up and reading the signs. Long ago, when I lived in Maine, I dated a man who rented a room in a boarding house. When I first met him I thought he drove a Volvo and worked for a graphic arts firm. The Volvo was a friend's car and the graphic arts job an unpaid internship. He had three teenage daughters who came to visit him on the weekend, they all slept in the same room on air mattresses and in sleeping bags. He owed back child support, he smoked a lot of pot. He was a very sweet and lovely man, gentle and kind--an addict. Every time I left his house I saw a SIGN as I pulled out of the driveway--Dead End it said. I dated this man for three years.
A friend of mine recently failed her written driver's license test. They had all these questions about signs she told me. The test asked her to identify road signs by their shapes alone without any words or pictures. I've been driving for over thirty years, she said, but I've never seen some of these signs. I guess I better read the book before I take the test again.
When we're on the road, they--the government--wants us to read the signs. They want us to be so familiar with the signs that we know them just by their shape. We know a stop SIGN by instinct, the curve SIGN on a steep hill when we can't see around the bend. The more we know
the better for us, the better for everyone else on the road.
We know the signs of a troubled person, someone unkempt, bedraggled, sitting on a street corner or standing at a busy intersection--with a SIGN, Please Help, Will Work for Food. Do we know the signs of some one trying to hide their troubles. Do we notice our cohorts with one too many worries than they can handle, trying to look as though everything is fine even as tears fall from their eyes? I see more and more people like this every day. In the past, I have been one of these people.
I was walking by the lake with a friend this afternoon and a man passed by on a bicycle. That's stringy haired Harry, said my friend, he's a photographer, he's out of work. How do you know, I asked wondering if my friend interpreted being outside at 2 pm as a SIGN. He told me, said my friend, he told me the last time I saw him.
Listening is one way to know something, so is looking, so is feeling. I've been feeling tired, ornery, off, crabby, short-tempered, lonely, dissatisfied. I took these feelings as a SIGN, a STOP SIGN. I needed to stop noticing the signs of trouble in everybody else's life and start paying attention to my own life's signs. I don't need to wait until I can read all the letters or see the symbols, the shape of the SIGN is enough for me to know--pay attention Amy, something is wrong, or at least not quite right. I don't need to wait until I am so tired that I am velcroed to my bed.
The SIGN I saw right after "SIGNS MEAN BUSINESS" said "Information and Assistance." Now that's a good SIGN.
Today I saw a sign in a Kinko's window "SIGNS MEAN BUSINESS."
In just about two weeks I will start a part-time, temporary job working for the US Census. How did you think of doing that, somebody asked. I was at the Civic Center getting my 2009 parking permit and I read the SIGN. The SIGN stated there would be a test for people who wanted to work for the Census, it gave the date, it gave the time, it gave the location; I showed up.
So maybe this post is about showing up, or showing up and reading the signs. Long ago, when I lived in Maine, I dated a man who rented a room in a boarding house. When I first met him I thought he drove a Volvo and worked for a graphic arts firm. The Volvo was a friend's car and the graphic arts job an unpaid internship. He had three teenage daughters who came to visit him on the weekend, they all slept in the same room on air mattresses and in sleeping bags. He owed back child support, he smoked a lot of pot. He was a very sweet and lovely man, gentle and kind--an addict. Every time I left his house I saw a SIGN as I pulled out of the driveway--Dead End it said. I dated this man for three years.
A friend of mine recently failed her written driver's license test. They had all these questions about signs she told me. The test asked her to identify road signs by their shapes alone without any words or pictures. I've been driving for over thirty years, she said, but I've never seen some of these signs. I guess I better read the book before I take the test again.
When we're on the road, they--the government--wants us to read the signs. They want us to be so familiar with the signs that we know them just by their shape. We know a stop SIGN by instinct, the curve SIGN on a steep hill when we can't see around the bend. The more we know
the better for us, the better for everyone else on the road.
We know the signs of a troubled person, someone unkempt, bedraggled, sitting on a street corner or standing at a busy intersection--with a SIGN, Please Help, Will Work for Food. Do we know the signs of some one trying to hide their troubles. Do we notice our cohorts with one too many worries than they can handle, trying to look as though everything is fine even as tears fall from their eyes? I see more and more people like this every day. In the past, I have been one of these people.
I was walking by the lake with a friend this afternoon and a man passed by on a bicycle. That's stringy haired Harry, said my friend, he's a photographer, he's out of work. How do you know, I asked wondering if my friend interpreted being outside at 2 pm as a SIGN. He told me, said my friend, he told me the last time I saw him.
Listening is one way to know something, so is looking, so is feeling. I've been feeling tired, ornery, off, crabby, short-tempered, lonely, dissatisfied. I took these feelings as a SIGN, a STOP SIGN. I needed to stop noticing the signs of trouble in everybody else's life and start paying attention to my own life's signs. I don't need to wait until I can read all the letters or see the symbols, the shape of the SIGN is enough for me to know--pay attention Amy, something is wrong, or at least not quite right. I don't need to wait until I am so tired that I am velcroed to my bed.
The SIGN I saw right after "SIGNS MEAN BUSINESS" said "Information and Assistance." Now that's a good SIGN.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Marriage
The word for today is MARRIAGE. What do I know about MARRIAGE? Not very much. I was married for three years in my twenties, in what now seems like another lifetime. I arrived in that MARRIAGE with all kinds of personal preconceptions--that my husband and I were supposed to do everything together (everything I wanted to do) and that my husband was supposed to love everything about me while I could change whatever I disliked about him. Given those preconceptions, it is no wonder the marriage didn't last. At the time I thought it was my husband whom I could not tolerate, but it was really the person I had become whom I could not stand.
So now when I look at MARRIAGE, it is from the outside, a view from which it is easy to be judgmental. I look at couples quibble, disagree, put one another down, I look at them respond to each other with silent frost or angry heat and I think, never in a million years would I want that kind of relationship. I idealize about a relationship based on mutual respect, honesty and admiration, in which partners treat each other with reverence, care and kindness. Then I get slapped back to reality by none other than my very own wunderdog, the one and only Rosie.
This morning, mid-March in Chicago, was one of the warmest days of the year. Rosie and I took a walk to the neighborhood coffee shop and I tied her up to the tree outside, as I have done many, many times. I went inside and ordered my cafe au lait, and she began to bark. I wondered if she was bothering the other customers, some of whom looked up from their laptops, so I went outside to tell her "No Bark." When I returned inside to wait for my order, she began to bark again, so I returned outside to wait with her next to the tree. She was definitely the one in charge.
Once I had my cafe au lait in hand, I untied Rosie and prepared to head home. We made it just past the coffee shop and Rosie decided she didn't feel like going home. She didn't feel like going anywhere. After all, I had gone inside a place where food and drink were available and I did not emerge with anything for her. What was I thinking? Obviously I had been inconsiderate of her desires and therefore did not merit her cooperation.
So she sat and stared at me as I tried to get her to walk. She was having none of it, and as she glared at me I imagined her thought bubbles (no way, why should I, who the hell are you anyway.) "Let's go Rosie," I said, "let's go home. Time to go. No, honey, you can't stay. Sweetie, let's go now." And as I began to lose my patience with her, I realized that this game between us has been going on for nine years. Rosie and I have been together--dog and master (or more accurately human servant)--for nine years. We've been going to this coffee shop for almost four years and we're still having the same "conversation" on the street. Oh no, I thought, it's like we're married! Any one observing us would think we looked ridiculous, but we're in a pattern, we've been doing the exact same thing with each other for so long, that it feels natural.
That's just what my parents had been trying to explain to me about MARRIAGE. Mom and Dad, I'd ask them, how can you treat each other this way, how can you stand the disagreements, the arguments, the standoffs. In his and her own way, each of them told me, Amy, that's what marriage is like, that's what happens after 54 years. But I am single and sanctimonious. Until this morning that is, until my dog set her butt on the ground, stared up at me and taught me that I too am blind in the most intimate of my relationships.
So now when I look at MARRIAGE, it is from the outside, a view from which it is easy to be judgmental. I look at couples quibble, disagree, put one another down, I look at them respond to each other with silent frost or angry heat and I think, never in a million years would I want that kind of relationship. I idealize about a relationship based on mutual respect, honesty and admiration, in which partners treat each other with reverence, care and kindness. Then I get slapped back to reality by none other than my very own wunderdog, the one and only Rosie.
This morning, mid-March in Chicago, was one of the warmest days of the year. Rosie and I took a walk to the neighborhood coffee shop and I tied her up to the tree outside, as I have done many, many times. I went inside and ordered my cafe au lait, and she began to bark. I wondered if she was bothering the other customers, some of whom looked up from their laptops, so I went outside to tell her "No Bark." When I returned inside to wait for my order, she began to bark again, so I returned outside to wait with her next to the tree. She was definitely the one in charge.
Once I had my cafe au lait in hand, I untied Rosie and prepared to head home. We made it just past the coffee shop and Rosie decided she didn't feel like going home. She didn't feel like going anywhere. After all, I had gone inside a place where food and drink were available and I did not emerge with anything for her. What was I thinking? Obviously I had been inconsiderate of her desires and therefore did not merit her cooperation.
So she sat and stared at me as I tried to get her to walk. She was having none of it, and as she glared at me I imagined her thought bubbles (no way, why should I, who the hell are you anyway.) "Let's go Rosie," I said, "let's go home. Time to go. No, honey, you can't stay. Sweetie, let's go now." And as I began to lose my patience with her, I realized that this game between us has been going on for nine years. Rosie and I have been together--dog and master (or more accurately human servant)--for nine years. We've been going to this coffee shop for almost four years and we're still having the same "conversation" on the street. Oh no, I thought, it's like we're married! Any one observing us would think we looked ridiculous, but we're in a pattern, we've been doing the exact same thing with each other for so long, that it feels natural.
That's just what my parents had been trying to explain to me about MARRIAGE. Mom and Dad, I'd ask them, how can you treat each other this way, how can you stand the disagreements, the arguments, the standoffs. In his and her own way, each of them told me, Amy, that's what marriage is like, that's what happens after 54 years. But I am single and sanctimonious. Until this morning that is, until my dog set her butt on the ground, stared up at me and taught me that I too am blind in the most intimate of my relationships.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Stress
The word for today is STRESS. I cannot STRESS how much I want to keep this blog as a daily practice, and yet I STRESS about it.
My neighbor has bronchitis and sinusitis--STRESS. Of course I'm stressed she says, I'm the sole breadwinner for a family of four, my co-workers are getting pink slips, my 10 year-old tells me he wants to get a job to pay for basketball camp, my 4 year-old needs a scholarship for kindergarten, my husband to get his teaching certification. I am fortunate. I do not have my neighbor's kind of STRESS.
My mother has a STRESS fracture in her foot. You know what's the worst part, she tells me, I think it's related to my osteopososis. I can't take Flossomax or Boniva, she says, because of my stomach. Both my mother and I experience our STRESS gastrointestinally. We are high-strung, nervous, anxious, fast metabolizers who have a hard time relaxing. I have to wear this ugly black shoe for six to eight weeks, she continues. You know how restless I get, what am I going to do?
Recently, my mother was angry at my father's doctor because the doctor ordered blood tests to check my father's liver enzymes shortly before a scheduled vacation. Doesn't the doctor know we're going away, she wondered out loud, doesn't he know he's causing STRESS. But then, my mother got the STRESS fracture and she and my father agreed not to go on their trip.
My mother got the STRESS fracture the day before I turned 50. She had invited me to visit her and my father in NYC for my birthday. My mother, my father and I were walking around the Central Park reservoir. My mother is a regular walker; she is a fast walker. It was the end of February and there had been some warm weather in NYC. The ground on the trail was pocked after a recent thaw. My parents each set out with a determined stride and did not talk to each other or to me; they walk for exercise, not pleasure or socializing. Sometimes in my family we say too much, but frequently we say nothing at all. As we reached the last quarter my mother and father were a good 10-15 yards in front of me. My father started to open a lead. My stomach was growling, my head was congested, my ears hurt. I thought about trying to catch up, at least to my mother, and then I decided no, this time I'm going at my own pace, a pace with which I feel comfortable. They didn't look back once. The analytical, resentful part of me thought, story of my life...I've fallen behind and they just don't seem to notice or to care.
Later that night I noticed my mother limping as we walked to the a theater. She went to the podiatrist the next morning. At first he thought it was just an inflammation, but when it did not get better in a week, she returned and the x-ray revealed a stress fracture. She is certain that she fractured her foot because she was walking too fast along the reservoir's uneven path. You know your Dad gets competitive with me, she explained, he was showing off how fast he could walk, and I was just trying to keep up with him.
There is a lot of STRESS involved in keeping up. For a while last year I stopped. My stress had evolved (or devolved) into depression and fatigue, a constant weariness and achiness. Years of anxiety had paralyzed me. All I wanted to do was to sleep, walk dogs and play Scrabble. I didn't want to feel any STRESS.
I hate when people say that STRESS is a necessary part of living. I hate the phrases, STRESS management, time management, anger management. I don't want to manage these things. I want them to go away.
But I don't feel stressed about this blog any more, and I don't feel angry or resentful the way I did for much of the weekend. That's because I did my entry for the day. Phew....
My neighbor has bronchitis and sinusitis--STRESS. Of course I'm stressed she says, I'm the sole breadwinner for a family of four, my co-workers are getting pink slips, my 10 year-old tells me he wants to get a job to pay for basketball camp, my 4 year-old needs a scholarship for kindergarten, my husband to get his teaching certification. I am fortunate. I do not have my neighbor's kind of STRESS.
My mother has a STRESS fracture in her foot. You know what's the worst part, she tells me, I think it's related to my osteopososis. I can't take Flossomax or Boniva, she says, because of my stomach. Both my mother and I experience our STRESS gastrointestinally. We are high-strung, nervous, anxious, fast metabolizers who have a hard time relaxing. I have to wear this ugly black shoe for six to eight weeks, she continues. You know how restless I get, what am I going to do?
Recently, my mother was angry at my father's doctor because the doctor ordered blood tests to check my father's liver enzymes shortly before a scheduled vacation. Doesn't the doctor know we're going away, she wondered out loud, doesn't he know he's causing STRESS. But then, my mother got the STRESS fracture and she and my father agreed not to go on their trip.
My mother got the STRESS fracture the day before I turned 50. She had invited me to visit her and my father in NYC for my birthday. My mother, my father and I were walking around the Central Park reservoir. My mother is a regular walker; she is a fast walker. It was the end of February and there had been some warm weather in NYC. The ground on the trail was pocked after a recent thaw. My parents each set out with a determined stride and did not talk to each other or to me; they walk for exercise, not pleasure or socializing. Sometimes in my family we say too much, but frequently we say nothing at all. As we reached the last quarter my mother and father were a good 10-15 yards in front of me. My father started to open a lead. My stomach was growling, my head was congested, my ears hurt. I thought about trying to catch up, at least to my mother, and then I decided no, this time I'm going at my own pace, a pace with which I feel comfortable. They didn't look back once. The analytical, resentful part of me thought, story of my life...I've fallen behind and they just don't seem to notice or to care.
Later that night I noticed my mother limping as we walked to the a theater. She went to the podiatrist the next morning. At first he thought it was just an inflammation, but when it did not get better in a week, she returned and the x-ray revealed a stress fracture. She is certain that she fractured her foot because she was walking too fast along the reservoir's uneven path. You know your Dad gets competitive with me, she explained, he was showing off how fast he could walk, and I was just trying to keep up with him.
There is a lot of STRESS involved in keeping up. For a while last year I stopped. My stress had evolved (or devolved) into depression and fatigue, a constant weariness and achiness. Years of anxiety had paralyzed me. All I wanted to do was to sleep, walk dogs and play Scrabble. I didn't want to feel any STRESS.
I hate when people say that STRESS is a necessary part of living. I hate the phrases, STRESS management, time management, anger management. I don't want to manage these things. I want them to go away.
But I don't feel stressed about this blog any more, and I don't feel angry or resentful the way I did for much of the weekend. That's because I did my entry for the day. Phew....
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