Six Keys by Don Whittemore

August. On the other side of the year, counting down. Life is Creative Every Day’s theme for August, and today I had a stark reminder of being on the other side of life.

My dad is 92.  His memory is going.  There are visible changes daily, and he’s in that delicate stage when he recognizes it.  On the other hand, my mom’s been beyond that stage for so long that she has no idea she doesn’t remember. She thinks she still does things like cook dinner.

Walking in yesterday morning at 9:30, I found Dad at the breakfast table with a handful of keys.  He was agitated because he had lost his keys the day before and was trying to scare up extras.  As he fiddled with the keys on the table, he got more and more disturbed.  I know some of it was caused by him knowing he’d lost something he couldn’t find, knowing his usually well-orgainzed keys were missing tags, knowing he was losing his grip on things.

Mom walked in and said, “Do you remember this?”  She was holding the key rack I made in Camp Fire Girls so very long ago.  It’s green with two big flowers and three hooks, and I thought those were the very most beautiful flowers ever painted.  (I probably can’t do much better right now.)  We talked about it and she wandered off with the key rack.

Dad caused a lot of this agitation himself because he is who he is.  Some of us have insight into ourselves and can make changes.  Some of us, like my dad, both do and don’t have insight.  I’m not sure I understand it: he can bemoan some of the habits his father had, yet have the same habits himself without recognizing them.  He knows he can be difficult (difficult is an understatement) but he’s never been able to modify his behavior.

So my sister had told him she wasn’t going to be there the day he lost the keys, but for him not to worry, there were duplicates and she’d get them made.  She thought she had finally gotten through and he’d just relax and wait.  But that’s not my dad.  Even though he is 92 and knows his stamina is limited, he spent the rest of that day looking all over the yard, even raking it, sure he had dropped the keys when he was fiddling with the fountain (a whole other story).  I’m sure he lost sleep over it, and he hadn’t even eaten breakfast when I walked in.

He just couldn’t stop being him.  He never would have lost keys in the first place; if he did he’d find them right away, and everything would be in order and in its place.  Basically, he would have been in control.  He never recognized that he always had to be in control, yet he understood that about others.  How can a person have awareness, even self-awareness, yet be blind at the same time?

One thing led to another: my sister had taken the extra mail box key so he didn’t know how he would get his mail! (No, she had one made for herself and checked the mail frequently for them.)  If only mother would have agreed to put a mailbox key on her key ring, he’d have that. But Mom can’t even find her purse usually.  Dad knows that.  He was worked into a fine froth.  I made a mistake, trying to divert attention.  I said, “Dad, speaking of purses, do you ever wonder what Queen Elizabeth carries in her purse? You know, she always has a handbag with her wherever she goes.  I think it’s empty.”  The mistake was, he didn’t laugh.  He said he knew why she carried a handbag! To carry her intimate items.  I’m thinking sanitary pads (except that she’s a bit old for those), but Dad was thinking lipstick.  Oh well.

So I said, “Dad, I’ll look and I’ll find the keys.”  And I set out, outside, since he was convinced that’s where he lost them.  But my sister called and asked me to check between the dryer and the wall.  I did.  I saw something that looked like it could be a key tag, but the space was tight and I couldn’t budge the dryer.  So I got a meat fork and tongs from the kitchen, used the fork to snag and pull out what did turn out to be keys, and the tongs to secure them and lift them out.  I noticed the key rack was right above the crack (somehow Mother put it back where it belonged), and Dad had probably returned the keys to the right place but missed the hook. He was so positive they were outside.

I stood up, Dad walked in, and I said, “Are these the keys?” He leaned on the dryer and began to cry.  He was exhausted from this incident. He was hungry, tired, and emotional.  I think mostly he was crying because he knew just how close he was to the other end of life; he knew how much he couldn’t do, and it was just too much.

Portrait of an Old Man by Egon Schiele

I moved the key rack to the other wall so if things dropped, they wouldn’t disappear into the gap.  Mind the gap.

When I left I called my sister and asked her not to tell Dad that it was her idea to look between the dryer and the wall.  Because I was a hero, and I just let myself be a hero.  I knew it was useless to try to explain that it was Cris, not me, who thought to look there.  In his emotional state he couldn’t have processed, so I let him laud me as the hero, the person who could solve anything.

Besides, I think it brought back some luster to my branch of the family after my husband tarnished it in the plumbing incident.

The Beetles said, “All you need is love.”  Were they right? If you listen to the lyrics of almost any pop or country song, love – especially unrequited love or lost love – is all there is to sing about.  It’s like every song is the same song.  The same is true of books – every book is the same book about life, just expressed in different settings with different characters and plot development.  In fact, instead of “all you need is love,” it seems like love, while desirable, messes things up – at least love as we commonly view it.

It must say something about the importance of understanding life and love that we listen to music and read books that can be boiled down, at their essence, to almost the same topic.  I suppose because there are endless variations on love and life, and they both involve each of us, we are endlessly interested.  There’s a variation of love going on right outside my window at this very moment.  Froggie love.  Our backyard pond is outside my window and a frog is croaking; then there seems to be a corresponding “plopping” sound, as well as croaks that might fit a category of desire.  Of course I can’t go outside to look because it would ruin everything.  Although my husband and I did go out earlier to find frogs, and we saw this cute little guy heading for the bushes, I hope to eat lots of insects.  Now I’m hoping for lots of tadpoles.

Can love be distilled down to a universal truth? Are the longing, mournful, sad, or happy, joyous and euphoric lyrics about love as  universal truth? I don’t think so.  They are about longing, desire, sex, the idea that the next thing that happens will be the one that sets your life to rights.

Just yesterday, I attended two events that I think define love as it should be, love as a concept that we can pledge allegiance to, and love that can change the world.  Because love isn’t reproduction, infatuation, sex, romance, and it’s not that tingling feeling you get right down to your fingertips when you have physical contact with that one desirable person.  Those are all lovely things, but love is broader than all that.  The first event, a graduation, describes it perfectly.

My dear friend Michael, whom I love deeply, was graduating from a two-year intensive program to be a practitioner at Agape International Spirit Center. Agape is the Greek word for unconditional love.  Through intense self-examination, many essays, and weekly classes, Michael, as a practitioner, can now engage in prayer sessions with people who request that service.  In essence, it’s counseling through self-examination and love.  So Mark and I drove to Los Angeles for his graduation.  This is what we saw.

We saw a sanctuary with walls covered with spiritual images – from Jesus to mandalas to Buddha, from images of Judaism and Hinduism to pictures of nature.  In other words, we had entered an inclusive environment.  Love is inclusive.  Love doesn’t have the energy to waste on exclusion.  We heard Reverend Michael speak, and he referenced God – or “whatever it is you call God, or the universal spirit, ” etc. – in other words, inclusive of beliefs from the traditional to spiritual to any notion you might have of a unifying force.

My Michael had been elected by his class to speak.  As he approached the stage, the spotlight shone on him as if he was a heavenly creature of some sort.  It was just the spotlight – but it created an image of love.

He was received with love.  Love for who he is, happiness that he was speaking – and if there was any jealously or resentment that he was the speaker, it was not evident. He gave a wonderful speech with just the right mix of humor, reverence, thankfulness, and love.

Reverend Michael approached his own remarks without negativity.  He spoke of what graduates had discovered about their strengths and their opportunities for improvement – not their weaknesses.  That may be a small thing – but really, it’s not, because negativity drains us of creativeness, forward movement, and love.  Wouldn’t you rather have an opportunity for improvement than a weakness?

Now, I’m not getting all sappy or anything.  I wasn’t amongst perfect people who float through the week leaving love and peace in their wake.  It’s just interesting to be in an environment where everyone is aiming for that ideal; to be in a place whose very premise is love and peace and inclusion among all faiths, races, nationalities, political leanings – in other words, a place where everyone just gets along.  That doesn’t seem too much to ask, does it? Couldn’t we call that love?

If we could all pledge our allegiance to that kind of love – a peaceful, accepting, inclusive love, and go about our business in that vein – imagine the change we could bring about.

I took a picture of Michael afterwards with Reverend Michael, and when my daughter saw it she said, “I know that guy.  I saw him on Oprah.  I really liked him.”  Apparently he was on Oprah talking about Proposition 8, the California initiative that banned gay marriage.  Which, of course, he thought was a very bad idea – a very divisive, exclusionary, hateful proposition.  He spoke about all the ways the Bible does not ostracize or speak against homosexuality. But Prop 8 passed.  I have to say, personally, that I don’t understand why anyone would meddle in anyone’s private life.  That is definitely not about love.

This next picture is of Michael with the Practitioner who helped him through his studies.  This is what love should be – just sincere joy and pleasure with and in the other person.

The graduation certainly set the stage for thinking about love as it should be – love as inclusion and peace.  That’s doesn’t mean we have to like everyone, but it would sure make life easier if we didn’t waste effort on not liking someone.

Graduation over, we drove back up to Bakersfield (takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours) for our oldest granddaughter’s Sweet 16 birthday party.

All nine of my grandchildren are equally special and amazing individuals, all with distinct personalities.  But I’ll just talk about Ali, the oldest, because it was her birthday and that, together with the graduation, tied in so well to love as it should be.

Ali is beautiful and brilliant.  She is also a person who doesn’t know how to exclude anyone.  Who truly does not have a mean, spiteful, jealous bone in her body.  She must have been born that way, but I know she has deep insights for her age on human nature and has spent enough time observing to form her character in the direction she chooses.

Watching Ali open her gifts was an atypical gift-opening experience.  She took the time to read, enjoy and appreciate every single card – and there were dozens of them – and gift.  She looked at and thanked each person.  She was equally as joyful at finding her favorite gum as she was at finding substantial cash.

You can see the kindness in her face. 

This exhibited to me what love is and should be – just like the morning’s graduation: inclusiveness, joy with every effort, gift or accomplishment, kindness.  How could this kind of behavior fail to spread peace among all peoples and be the true nature of love?

This pure happiness is love.  Ali is holding up a picture Jackson sent for her birthday (or Jackson’s mom, my daughter Karen sent).  Apparently it is a dinosaur brain.  Jackson’s almost five, and dinosaurs are very much on his mind, so what more precious drawing could he make?

I’ve probably run on enough about this.  The Beetles are right. All you need is love.  Love that embraces, includes, celebrates everyone.  Behavior that leads to peace.  It would be hard to kill someone whom you celebrated, wouldn’t it? War might disappear.  Don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon, but the more of us that join the positive force, the sooner it will happen.  For me, that’s love.

Before we start: I’ve realized that some folks are unaware of some of the features of a blog.  Whenever something is underlined, and putting your cursor on it shows it to be a live link, you can click and go right to whatever is being referenced.  Then just back arrow to go back to the blog post, or if it opens a new window, click back on the blog window.  Also, you can click on any photo to make it bigger and use the back arrow to get back to the blog.  With photos, keep in mind that the resolution has to be reduced to post, at least in Word Press, which is what I use, so you may not see the quality of photo you might expect.  The bigger you make a low-resolution photo, the grainier it will be.

"Jewels of Intention" by Michelle Oravitz

Intention on a personal level: Another quality on Coach Dian’s blog challenge is intention.  We all understand intent – the specific purpose for whatever it is we’re doing, and the end result of that purpose – what we hope to accomplish.   We don’t give it much thought usually.  We know in a vague sort of way that we need to do the laundry or water the plants, go to the market or call someone.  Then as we progress through the day, we either do or don’t do those things.

I think many of us are now thinking of intention differently, more fully.  We are thinking of actually acting with intent – not sleepwalking through something.  If we go through the day with intention, we have to think about what we’re doing.  It gets a bit muddled with purpose, or even something like being responsible.  What’s the difference and why does it matter?

Take, for example, visiting my parents.  That’s something I usually don’t look forward to these days.  But I do it.  I don’t have to technically, but of course, as a responsible daughter, I do.  My purpose for doing it isn’t often well thought out – I just know I’m going to, and if it ends up I don’t make it today, there’s always tomorrow.  To a degree.

What if I approached my visits with intention? Knowing it’s an important part of the day for my parents, and giving them the time it takes to have a comfortable conversation, I could relax during the visit and stay present.  After all, they spent a lot of time raising me – now I’m “raising” them.  Strange things happen when you relax and stay present – you may learn something,  internalize and remember the story that’s being told for the hundredth time, actually have a good time.

So that’s the difference then.  Visit perfunctorily, or visit with intention.  Either way, I’m going to do it.  It brings the concept of intention to a new level, rendering the dictionary definition sterile.

The artist who did the installation at burning man, asking us to consider different attributes and how actualizing those attributes would make America better, is having an effect on many of us, and we never heard of him and never went to Burning Man (although I’d like to).  Such is the power of art.  Because this person asked how we would pledge our allegiance to something, what it might mean for the world, we’re thinking about it.

I think one effect of people truly acting with intention is unexpected: the end of multi-tasking.  Yes, I know we are never going to not multi-task, especially women, because we can do it so well.  But if we telephone someone with intention, knowing we are going to set a lunch date, or just catch up, we’ll really concentrate on it.  I always find it unnerving to talk to someone and hear pots clattering in the background.  I know that person is putting an equal importance on doing the dishes – but not intentionally.  With the concept of intention, we could have a meaningful conversation and actually remember what we talked about.

I Skype with my friend William.  If we’re doing it on video, he concentrates on the conversation.  Kind of has to or he’ll appear very rude.  And basically I’ll say, let’s talk later when you can concentrate.  But if we’re Skyping without video, I know that he’ll be talking to me, perhaps someone else on Skype, there may be a Facebook chat going, and he’ll be responding to text messages, and looking up something on the internet.  If we were conversing with intention, it would go faster (there wouldn’t be huge gaps in response time), meaning trains of thought wouldn’t be broken and we might actually consider what the other is speaking about.

What this multi-tasking may be doing to young people as far as attention span, quality of work, and ultimately quality of life, is a whole other subject.

On a larger scale: If we all improved our intention personally, pledged our allegiance to living with intention, we would have a more focused, meaningful world.  We’d improve our quality of life.  More and more people think, however, that if enough people collectively focus on the same thing, change could be made to occur, perhaps even physical change.  Pooh, you say, that’s ridiculous.  Maybe it is, but I can’t say that with certainly because I just don’t know.  I’m willing to entertain any thought to improve our planet. -  they do stuff like that on Star Trek, pretty much my Bible.  We’ve only touched a small part of our minds.

Tomorrow I’m going to watch two world cup soccer games, write some fundraising letters for the Fannie Lou Hamer Statue Fund, refine my list of what I need to do, and start doing some of it.  I’m going to make a turkey meatloaf for dinner, finish off the marinated beets I made earlier this week, and have a gigantic salad (I have so much lettuce to use.).

Soccer is a good example of intention, because you can’t watch a World Cup game meaningfully unless you sit down with undivided attention.  You have to understand what you are going to do and do it entirely, or there’s no use.  You’ll miss it all.  Try it.

These are just my thoughts, off the top of my head, without reading anything about intention first except the definition.  I may have it wrong, but I don’t think so.  And writing this is a good reminder for me to act with intention – I’ve been trying to make it something I internalize this year, with varying degrees of success.

Links of Courage by Larry Poncho

Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue,

he has no security for preserving any other.  ~Samuel Johnson

I’m exploring the topic of courage on Coach Dian’s blog challenge. Everyone has been invited to discuss in any way at all one of the twelve subjects this particular art installation addresses, plus a thirteenth added by Dian. The art installation itself is from a Burning Man festival, and asks us to what do we pledge allegiance, learning to see with new eyes and act with new vision in the web of life.

Courage encompasses so much.

For many people, seniors and those with debilitating conditions especially, courage is getting up every day, getting dressed, and meeting the day.  I feel that the day one or both of my parents doesn’t get dressed, we’ll have crossed a threshold.

Courage for people in the armed forces, both past and present, seems to me to happen as much at home as on the battlefield;  returning home and having the courage to work through issues caused by war, and then lead what passes for a normal life.  My dad fought and painted as an artist correspondent in the Fifth Army during World War II. He endured what many think is the most brutal confrontation of that war: the Battle for Monte Cassino. To come home from that, start up a life with his bride, have children, work, and do all the things that a family man would do – that, to me, is exceptional courage. Not just for Dad, but for all the servicemen and women in all conflicts and wars.

During many hisorical movements that led to social change, courage was vital.  In the United States during the civil rights era, men and women, young and old alike, risked their lives to fight for the ability to exercise their rights – rights that already were theirs in law, just not in reality.  When asked if she wasn’t worried about being killed, voting rights activist and former sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer said she reckoned they’d been trying to kill her all her life anyway. To honor this brave woman, click here and make a donation, large or small, to the statue committee.  We building a work of art, a visual reminder of courage. Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, donated $10,000.  The Color Purple itself is a story of courage. You can watch a 10-minute video about Fannie Lou Hamer here - my granddaughter  and a friend made it when they were in seventh grade.

Addicts, alcoholics, those who fight every day to conquer their problems show courage.  It takes tremendous strength to decide to quit an addiction, and courageous determination every day to stay clean.  Those who move forward in the face of abuse and then try to help others are courageous.

I could go on and on because courage comes in all shapes and sizes; it’s not simply saving someone from a fire, or all the “big” things we think about.  Now, I know there is nothing simple about saving someone from a fire, so don’t get that wrong.  It’s just an example.

Because for me, personally, courage can be something as small as taking hold of oneself and moving forward – something no one else ever knows about.  Personal courage. It can be saying to someone, “I’m Jewish, and I wish you wouldn’t use the expression ‘Jew them down.  It’s offensive.’ “  Which I’ve had to do.  It’s publicly sticking up for someone getting bullied at school, not worrying about retaliation or how you will look to others. It’s doing what’s right.

Maybe that’s what courage amounts to – in the macro-situations like war, rescue or defense to the micro-situations like getting up and getting dressed each day when you’re 92 and just plain tired, or standing up for others.

So that’s what I think courage is – now, how do I use it to expand my view of the world, see with new eyes, act with new vision, and pledge my allegiance to this quality? This is tricky.  I’ve always tried to exercise personal courage and in many instances have, I think, and we talked about it a lot in the leadership class I taught in 8th grade.  I’ve never had to exercise courage on a large scale, however.  Now I wonder.  When you’re young, you are ready to put yourself in harm’s way for the sake of something larger than yourself.  When you’re older and retired, you wonder if you would have the energy to do the same.  So I pledge myself to the smaller gestures – to not letting an insult or slur pass me by, to stopping at the accident or picking up a stray animal even if it’s inconvenient, giving a cordial and civil greeting to the homeless person I pass on the street, even if it seems scary.  Doing what’s right, not what’s easy.

Mark Twain had something to say about this.  Mark Twain had something to say about almost everything, all from sharply observing the world.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.  ~Mark Twain

A wonderful vision of the world, of our country, would be to see everyone doing these small things, everyday acts of personal courage, that could result in a whole new world, dare I say a brave new world.  My vision of  courage would be to know everyone is working on what I call CSI – continuous self-improvement.  From that alone, the internal courage to face yourself, like yourself while working on what you don’t like, the external small acts of courage would result.  A new  vision of the web of life would be that with enough external small acts of courage, many of the large ones wouldn’t be needed anymore.  Maybe that would be called peace, with yourself and the world, in the world.

Tomorrow: Leah’s Creative Everyday Day theme of Bliss.

The move is winding down.  Or up.  Since we’re renting out the lake house starting June 25, it’s kicked us into high gear.

The book problem: Most of the books, it turns out are mine.  I had to separate into get rid of, keep but can sit in boxes for a while, and need now.  A bookcase needs to be built. The Harry Potter books, inexplicably since I just reread them all, are in the must have now pile.  All 11 of them.  Yes, I know it’s a seven-book series.

The bird feather problem: I find feathers here and there throughout the house.  Feathers scattered in the yard.  So far, only two birds (that I’m aware of) have made it into the house, but we have a feather problem.  Every new finding , even the smallest feather, requires searches under beds and in corners.

The frog problem: We found a frog floating at the bottom of the pond yesterday.  Dead.  Mark looked it over and it didn’t seem to be damaged.  The cats are highly interested in the pond, however.

Lily is up there on the rocks, Tiger below.  This is what they’re interested in.

The frogs.  The cats know they are alive and potential prey.  But while intensely interested, they can’t decide what to do.  I’ve caught both Tiger and Lily batting a frog lightly with their paws, claws retracted, trying to figure out what’s to be done about it.

They poke their noses into crevasses, and Tiger is especially interested in the spaces near the water filter.

I bought a water iris and a water lily, but those are for our pleasure, not the cat’s.

When not tracking frogs, Tiger and Lily lie in wait for birds.  It doesn’t matter if they’re in the house and the birds out.

The tension is palpable, especially when they go into the “bird alert” position: body tensed up, starting to twitch, and then the bird sound – the “eh eh eh eh eh” funny little excited sound cats make.

It’s a cat’s life, all right.  And when not stalking frogs or birds, they can be found in various stages of sleep, or CATatonic awakening.

The sleeping-in problem

In Tiger’s world, I should awaken and get up no later than 8:00 am.  She makes sure I know it, too, with an escalating series of warnings.  The first are minor.  I may open my eyes a fraction and see an orange cat staring, inches from my face.  I may feel a few gentle thuds on the bed, which would be Tiger leaping around.  Then, she might walk lightly over my body.  If these measures don’t work by 8:00, she lands smack on my chest, none too gently.  She’s an effective trainer.

The going-to-sleep problem

It seems a competition has developed: which cat can get on my bed first when I go to sleep?  We’re having some jealousy.  Tiger resents Lily getting attention – not always, but sometimes.  So if Lily makes it onto the bed and settles in first, Tiger gets up, pokes around near Lily, trying to dislodge her – which she can’t because I have my hand reassuringly on Lily.  Sometimes they both end up on the bed, in which case I sleep in a contorted position so as not to disturb the cats.

The shower problem

Lily is a water-lover.  When I turn on the sink, she’s there.  When I start the tub, she’s there.  In fact, the other night I couldn’t get her inside on time, so I took my bath thinking, gosh, Lily’s missing the bath.  I have three daughters, sons-in-law, nine grandkids, and a tenth on the way.  It’s not like I have to turn the cats into my kids.  Yet I find myself thinking about stuff like Lily missing the bath.  Sheesh.  Now, however, the morning shower has become a contest: can I get out before Lily gets in?  And if she gets in, should I shut the shower door? Or let the water from the door drip onto the floor.

The other problems

There really aren’t any.  Mark is constructing a pantry in garage and he’s almost done.  It’s like a little room, really.  He’s finally conceded that I need some of the garage – not a lot, but enough for the freezer, my bicycle and some storage.  He can have all the rest.  I’ve got my closet arranged and rearranged, and will do a final rearrangement tomorrow.  If I have time – getting ready for a graduation party for my oldest daughter.  She’s just completed her master’s degree.

A final note

I was watering plants this morning, dead-heading flowers, pulling weeds.  I leave a little trail behind me for Mark to clean up.  Today I told him it was customary for wives to do that – I’d read where Katherine, or Jeanne, or someone does that also.  So is that right? Do most of you leave weeds and trimmings for your husbands to pick up?  Or do most of you guys have to pick up after your wives?

I think it’s bed time.  Tiger has gotten into her little bed and Lily is alseep, fondly dreaming, on my desk chair.  So I’m going to bed also.

Disclaimer: Google has started putting some political ads on the blog.  I am not endorsing or not endorsing anything that’s advertised.  Want to make sure y’all know that.  I put adsense on so I can earn money.  I get paid when my earnings reach $100.  So far, in a year, I’m almost at $7.00, so this is a money-maker for sure.

One of my Twitter friends, whollyjeanne (you’ll find her at the barefoot heart on my links on the sidebar), included me in a tweet from Coach Dian. It’s one of those challenge things.  Dian came across this installation from a Burning Man festival, and the moment I clicked on the link and saw this piece, I knew I was in.  Without even reading about it, you sense the mission statement.

The challenge is to take the twelve topics the installation explores, with a thirteenth added by Dian, and write about them during the month of June.  So you know what? I’m going to.  And I’m going to start with self-awareness.

Sounds so obvious – self-awareness.  We’re with ourselves 24/7.  But I’ve been feeling a little lost lately as to who I am, and since I’m 63 years old, you’d think I’d have a handle on this by now.  But I’m retired – I’m not anchored by a job or a routine, and I’ve done several lifetimes of community and volunteer work and I don’t want to do that anymore.  I’ve been in charge of enough  people and jobs  and I don’t want to go to one more committee meeting or be in charge of anything other than a dinner party ever again. I’ve become schedule-averse.  I’ve become an artist.

Solving this whole conundrum of why I lose myself  started with a realization about my mother.  Regular readers know my mom is in and out of dementia in various stages, which seem to be tied to my father’s level of alertness.  That doesn’t surprise me.  They’ve been married over 65 years and they are so intricately intertwined that one can’t exist without the other.  (Do you know, my sister went over there the other day and our parents were on the coach holding hands?  They do that frequently.)

Family is the obvious place to begin to define self-awareness – who we are.  Frida Kahlo’s painting My Grandparents, My Parents, and I is a good start on the journey. Knowing where you came from helps you know who you are, and artists are ever looking inward.

I don’t think I really know who my mom is deep down.  I used to tell her what a mystery she was to me.  Now I understand, and the explanation is the same as to why visitors say, “There’s nothing wrong with your mom.  She seems fine to me.”  It’s because my mom’s public self was the only self we saw.  Years and years of good manners and routine actions have enabled her to appear normal.  She knows the questions you should ask visitors, what kinds of greetings to give, how to comment generally on the weather, how to inquire as to health and family.  As a mother, she was outwardly-focused in giving us stability so we didn’t see what was inside her.

This question of self-awareness is timely because just days ago, I understood that I do what my mom did – in groups, at events, with friends even, I jump into a public self and I disappear.  I carry an inner tension that I’ve not actually recognized before now. There are very few people with whom I am completely relaxed.  Well, maybe that’s not true.  Perhaps “relaxed” is the wrong word.  Because it’s the social situations, the groups, in which I disappear.  For whatever reason, it’s with young people that I feel most like myself.  (I guess that’s one reason I was a good seventh-grade teacher.)

Somehow, getting older and I hope wiser, I’ve become passive.  Things don’t bother me, I don’t get all fussed at other people, I just try to understand.  I find it hard to imagine why anyone would be interested in me, yet I write reams of my deepest self on this blog for the whole world to read.  And you know what?  Proving my theory a bit about not knowing a parent, I printed out six months of my blog and gave it to my dad to read. He needs things to do; his 92-year-old body doesn’t cooperate in allowing him to be as physically active as he was.  His reaction? He told me he’s learning a whole lot he didn’t know about his daughter.  So maybe I’ve been my public self with my family even.

Getting back to the passivity, while it’s nice to move forward on an even keel, something needs to fill the places that used to be jammed with everyday, garden-variety tensions, turmoil, and trivial matters.  I fear I am becoming, or perhaps have already become, boring.  I don’t want to be boring.  But the reflective me has disappeared also.  That is not a good thing, according to Plato (amazing how Plato pops up all the time), who says the unexamined life is not worth living.

Pushing myself to explore self-awareness will help my real, authentic self to re-emerge, but only if I keep the door unlocked. To do that, I have to remain self-aware.  It’s just a giant circle after all, like the tee pee in the art installation.  I think I know who I am; I just have to be me.  That’s what I’m going to work on.  Just being me.  I may find, just be being myself, that I don’t know myself so well after all.

What a hornet’s nest this self-awareness has stirred up!  Then again, I could just go with Oscar Wilde, who said “Only the shallow know themselves,” and “The final mystery is oneself.”

Note: I’m unable to attribute the image of the eye – I found it on an autism blog with no identifying information.

Just finished an amazing book by Rebecca Skloot.  Non-fiction. It’s about cells – HeLa cells.  Cells that are immortal because they grow and grow and grow, existing in probably every lab in the world.  Where did they come from? The cervix of Henrietta Lacks, a black woman who died young from cervical cancer.  The tissue had been removed without her permission during a procedure and that tissue truly revolutionized cell culture.

Ok, so what is so compelling about a science story? Imagine being black during Jim Crow, having little education, living in a downtrodden area of Baltimore.  Besides all the ramifications to that, which this book deftly describes, you have children.  After you die, your children know nothing about you, have one image – the one on this book cover – and some 20 years later, they find out you are still alive.  Or your cells are still alive.  They find out about HeLa.

At first I thought, so what?  So your mom’s cells are alive in cultures, have been used in major scientific discoveries such as the polio vaccine.  But it’s not a “so what?”  To this family, those cells WERE their mother, and as Skloot delves into the mystery of who Henrietta Lacks was and unravels it after spending literally years gaining the trust of the family, I gradually began to understand.

I’m not sure I can explain how powerful the moment was when I realized the emotional complexity of sorting out your mother from cells, or knowing cells as your mother, which helps the children define themselves.  To them, HeLa IS their mother.

These are HeLa cells.  Henrietta’s daughter carried this picture for a long time before giving it to her brother.  To them, it was a picture of their mother.

Their story touches upon so many issues, many of which are with us today – issues of abuse, poverty, lack of education, striving without too much hope of achieving.  Racism is alive in this story and it’s unsettling because of what Skloot and Henrietta’s daughter discover.  It’s a story of greed also – from many sides.  It’s also a story of self-discovery and growth and amazing strength.

If you have time, or can make time, read it.  You won’t want to put it down, and you will start to see life in a new way.  What is that way?  I don’t know – I’m still synthesizing my feelings and conclusions.  But it has to do with knowing oneself, and how a huge, grounding chunk of yourself comes from knowing your parents, especially your mother. Even if all you have is a picture of her cells, cells that became famous without your knowledge.

Flip the coin and imagine how the scientific world viewed HeLa differently when they had a face and name to put to them.  Someone to honor.

Finding your mom and getting to know her through cells is just almost more than the mind can grasp.  It’s a powerful story, a non-fiction page-turner.  Read it.

“A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes” ……. Mahatma Gandi

Late yesterday afternoon I did a quick check-in on Twitter and saw that Adam Lambert would be coming up on the KISS concert in Boston. Great timing for me – I didn’t even know there was a KISS concert.  I’m don’t know much about this radio live-streaming stuff.  As I waited, I reflected on my fangirl experience and realized I’d learned a lot about being non-judgmental.

I believe I have basically always been non-judgmental in that I try to be open to anyone, no matter how odd that person seems at first or what he or she looks like.  Others in my family tell me so – and that they operate from exclusion, not inclusion – they say so, not me.  I’m the one that invites people to Thanksgiving when they have no where else to go, and at first my family was not happy.  But I was cooking the dinner so I did it anyhow, and it turned out just fine.  Still does.  Why would we not include people if we are able to?

As I embarked upon my year-long study of fandom and started following other glamberts (fans of Adam Lambert) on Twitter, sometimes I’d think, That person is a little scary; why is that person so obsessed, or that person must be living in a fantasy world.  As I prepared to go to Fantasy Springs for Adam’s first concert, I bought flashing antenae, which – face it – could be seen as more than a little weird. And, let’s face it again, I was being judgmental about something I had no real knowledge of.  And I was a little bit scared. But I started to meet people, people I’d known only on Twitter, or whom I hadn’t even seen on Twitter.

This is what I found out. One woman, who seemed a little bitter and in need of attention, had experienced an unexpected divorce a year prior, right when Adam’s season of Idol began.  She had no children and was adrift.  This was giving her an anchor, at least until she sorted other things through.  Others had simiilar situations.  Some were just having fun.  Some, like me, had just fallen in love with this wonderful man and felt fiercely protective and supportive.  I didn’t think I was scary, obsessed or living in a fantasy world (although sometimes I’d like to).  Why had I been feeling so judgmental?

And I found out this: I was one of those fangirls that could be seen as a little obsessed (but could we say focused instead of obsessed?).  According to my previous thinking, I was just as scary as anyone else.

I remembered that one of my daughters likes the eHow I wrote on How to Control your Anger in Traffic better than any of the others.  In that little article I said it wasn’t worth getting fussed at drivers who sped ahead, did something rude, because we didn’t know what was going on with them.  Sure, they may be rude people, but they may be rushing to get to a hospital or a child, they may have had a horrible day, someone in the family may have died – we just don’t know.  So how can we make judgments? Perhaps of an act, but  not of a person.  If I live by the premise I try to, that everyone is doing the best they can, where they are with what they have, I have to believe that the rude person is doing the same.  I don’t have to like it or befriend that person, but there is it.

And this is what I found out, and have continued to see on twitter: the Glamberts are kind, generous, non-judgmental, inclusive, and caring.  They are positive people.

And I realized this: Adam never says anything negative about anything or anybody.  He’s a master of diplomacy, yet – that’s the way he is inside.  He is always telling people to be positive, that being resentful is “so yesterday,” that entitlement “isn’t sexy,” and when his fans ask if he likes gifts from them, he says of course he does, but he’d be happy if people gave him receipts from charities they’d donated to instead.  How can you not love this beautiful human being – beautiful inside and out – with an indescribable voice?

I guess like attracts like, and that’s why Adam has attracted such a large, loyal fan base that share his values.  He sets a positive, non-judgmental, inclusive tone.  When a Glambert -or – anyone – says something negative on twitter, that person hears about it – nicely, from other Glamberts.

Last night when being interviewed and asked about the fan gift thing, Adam said to donate to a charity and give him the receipt instead of a gift.  He didn’t specify what charity.  I tweeted to @glamulli to help spread the word about the fund drive I’m involved in to build the statue for Fannie Lou Hamer., seeing it as an opportunity to maybe bring in some money and shoulder my part of the fundraising effort.  I said $10 a person would help even. And that I thought Adam would approve of this charity.

@Glamulli did retweet my request because Glamberts can count on the support of other Glamberts.  It’s actually amazing.  Already someone has tweeted she made a donation, and not for Adam this time, but because Fannie Lou Hamer needs to be “remembered and celebrated.”

I’ve not been successful getting many donations. A plea on facebook resulted in two.  I’m guessing I’ll get more from Glamberts than any other source. It’s easy to donate on Fannie Lou Hamer.

So that’s my train of thought, my journey through judgment in the last few days, my belief that being inclusive is so much more positive than being exclusive.  I’m glad I was reminded of it because since I am not a perfect person, I have to keep on striving.  I hope I never become a perfect person – it would probably be boring – and it would end the journey, the climb.  We’ve got to keep climbing until the very end, when we topple over into wherever it is we end up.

Benjamin Franklin said it well: “The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.”

And like Fannie Lou Hamer, celebrate the positive.

Can you do great art, or even good art, or any art, while waiting in an airport? You can do the “any art” category with sticky things from an American Girl  polka dot book and watercolor pencils.   You can connect the dots.

I had a lot of time in the Denver airport, so I fooled around with a journal page I started at my daughter’s house.  It was idle time, which lets my brain sort, file, and process.  After all the mess of moving, during which I went to the soccer tournament in Las Vegas, the art opening in Oceanside, and Colorado for 10 days, I felt rather scattered.  Travel time helped me connect the dots.

I came home feeling settled, unhurried, and interested in connecting with family and friends.  I felt like, although we still have boxes and boxes to go and lots of little details, that I can be part of real life again.  It’s been like having a cold or the flu – you know you must have felt well at one time in your life, but you can’t remember what it felt like and can’t imagine feeling like that again.  And then, one day, you are better.  You remember.

During this time I had written an email to William.  Life was feeling surreal to me, and by writing I can process.  I called it Strange Days, and I’m going to copy it in here to try to explain how disturbing this move has been.  (I changed all the “yous” to “William” so it would make more sense.)

April 15, 2010

I’m having the oddest feelings lately and it’s all connected to moving.  Having made the conscious decision to move, making sure that we chose the kind of house we think we should grow old in, every single thing I put away, every picture I hang, takes on a new meaning.

My bedroom is now in its satisfactory state of clutter.  The only thing in the room indicating it’s a bedroom at all is the bed.  That’s a pretty strange and unconventional approach to a bedroom, but for me it’s functional.  Mostly it’s an office – I have two printers and a scanner, a computer, all my photo supplies.  Large bookcase.  I have a new curio cabinet full of all my little collectibles – the enameled boxes in the shapes of animals, the little glass animals, old metal monopoly markers, my Planter’s Peanuts salt and pepper shakers, an old skate key, a metal ice cream spoon that used to come with those sundaes in the freezer case, etc.  So many of the objects are rooted in the past.

As I put the objects in the cabinet, I think, what will these objects mean to me when I’m 73, or 83, or 93?  Will they be a comfort to me and I’ll still enjoy them? I have this odd desire to render everything sterile right now. But at the same time I plan to buy cabinets so I can finally display my Star Trek action figures and my Harry Potter action figures.  Then my mind fights a battle with itself – you’re 63 and you collect action figures?  You want to display them?  Well, why not?  Why can’t I do what I want?  But is it going to matter in 10 years?  Then I wonder why I’m thinking about it at all.

I feel kind of removed from things.

I look at the wall across from where I’m sitting – I put up pictures today.  There are five objects on the wall opposite.  My Bright Eyes Buddha poster, the birch tree photo I took in Alaska, the green leaf photo William took, the map William drew in 7^th grade, and the beautiful leaf and fruit he drew for me the first year I came to Lugano.  Then on other walls there are two posters Michael gave me from shows he was in, two mirrors he made for me, lizards William gave me for my birthday the third year in Lugano, a special horseshoe Michael brought me from a trip, and on and on.  Nothing is fantastic art but it’s all precious.  It’s personal.

Over my desk I have the autographed photo of Jonathan Frakes (William Riker on Star Trek), the autographed photo of BB King, the poster of the Titans signed by so many of them (from a history day project), a photo signed by all the old 5^th period lunch bunch from Fruitvale, and something Jeff Johnson made for me after I organized my first film festival at the Fox.  And my two Arthur Rackham book plates from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

I’ve pared down the photos.  I have quite a few of me with people who’ve died.  AIDS.  Michael Barrie, Ron Aiello, Charlie O’Malley, and then Dell Allen.  Cancer.  Then photos of family, William and Michael.  William and Michael qualify as family.

I could go on describing it all but I guess the point is I’m looking at it all from the perspective of being 80 or 90.  And I can’t even imagine what that will be.  I suppose that Mom and Dad’s current state is mixed into this strange feeling.  I really hope I’m not watching my future.  And I’m not even expressing the feelings I’m having with accuracy.

I like my clutter.  I’m happy with my things.  But I wonder about the feeling of removal.  I think it might have to do with the newness of the house.  Getting familiar with the area and getting it all arranged.  It may be less than a mile from our old house, but it feels isolated.  I didn’t think it would feel like that.  Being in a small, gated community on a very quiet street without much happening feels isolating.  Yet I know it’s just because it’s all new, and it’ll be a neighborhood like any other once we’re established.  I mean, the people from next door brought over homemade cookies to welcome us.  They have seven kids!  Wow.

I think what I have to do is start going to things again – openings (missed one tonight), gatherings (missed the writer’s workshop last night), get back in public and mingle.  But maybe what I really need is for my studio to get organized and for all the paintings to be hung, etc. so we feel like we are living, not moving.

I suppose this ill-defined feeling will pass of its own accord.  Hope it doesn’t take too long.

Of course, the feeling passed.  I’m home, things look and feel like home, and we love this house.  We’re thrilled with it.  The whole process of calling this move “Operation Old Age” in light of what we’ve learned from and about my aging parents, put a new slant on the idea of moving.  Psychologically, it was working a number on me that I didn’t even recognize.

Thankfully, I’ve connected the dots and it all feels right.  I feel like me.

She came by her struggles honestly, with a childhood and parents that would challenge anyone to doubt him or herself and the seemingly fragile world. That Karr can write so engagingly, un-self-consciously, and honestly about her family is a testament to her skill as a writer.  It was probably also a form of therapy.

But this isn’t a book review.  Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so this post is about mothers.  Karr’s mother was complex and frightening.  She had a razor-sharp mind but an unconventional way of approaching parenting.  She encouraged her daughter Mary to do anything she wanted, even when it was clearly dangerous and inappropriate.  Karr’s mom was under the influence most of the time until she achieved sobriety later in life.  She came and went abruptly, leaving her daughters to wonder if they’d see her again.  She locked herself in the bathroom with a gun threatening to kill herself.  She appeared in front of her daughter with a butcher knife threatening to kill her.

Karr’s mother was so extreme that you’d say someone like her could never exist – except she did.  You never doubt the complete honesty of Karr’s writing.

You’d expect a child to shut a mom like that out of her life, but the tie between mother and child isn’t that simple.  Even if you think you’ve cut yourself off, broken the ties, buried the past or the truth – you haven’t.  Karr’s stuggle with substance abuse was as much her struggle with her mother, both her parents, integrating them somehow into her universe with understanding and love in spite of being totally (the F word would be appropriate here) screwed up by them.

Such is love.  We all struggle with our mothers one way or another.  Probably because the hardest thing to do is give someone permission to be him or herself.  When my first child was born, my mom said, “Don’t expect me to babysit and go to recitals and be that kind of grandma, because I’m not.”  I don’t remember being unduly upset, maybe because we lived across the country from each other.  I did resent it on the few occasions I really did need her help.  But I think I realized that Mom knew herself and what she was capable of.  She was a wonderful mother to us, but she’d done her time and knew her limits.

That’s what I mean by allowing someone to be herself.  It didn’t matter what I wanted or thought; what mattered was what Mom knew she could do.  It was up to me to understand that because I can’t control my mom or anyone else, I can only control my reactions.  I’m much better than I used to be about choosing the easy way out for myself – which means not stressing about something I can’t change.

Somehow Karr kept seeking that relationship, keeping her mother in her life, and gave her loving care at the end of her life.  They did achieve peace with each other and reached an understanding.

When I finished the book, I was stunned.  I wouldn’t have thought there was a way in the world that anyone could accept and love a mother like that.  Underneath it all is the realization of what Mother means – and unless we come to terms with our mothers and let them be who they are, we won’t really have peace.  We need our mothers, figuratively as well as in reality.

I’m so lucky.  My mom is am amazing woman.  Now, as she’s in and out of dementia, but always diminished, I have to fight sometimes to remember this is MOM.

Tomorrow when I give her her Mother’s Day card and gift, she’ll be confused.  She’ll read the card several times, not quite realizing that she just saw it.  She’ll know it’s a good thing to receive cards and loving thoughts, but she may not remember it’s hers.  In fact, I’m not giving a gift – just a card and a plant.  Gifts confuse Mom now.  She can’t remember why she has them and keeps trying to give them back to the proper person, not knowing she is the proper person.  The plant’s in a really cool basket, but she’ll take it out and then try to give the basket to someone, asking each child and grandchild in turn as they visit, “Is this yours?”

I’m hanging on to Mom as long as I can.  The urgency of that thought, and this entire post, was prompted by a quote in Lit.  Karr starts each chapter with a quote from a poet or author, and this one by Nabakov clobbered me with the need to understand it:

They are passing, posthaste, posthaste, the gliding years…The years are passing, my dear, and presently no one will know what you and I know.

I don’t want Mom to pass without anyone knowing what she knows.  She’s not going to tell me anymore, however. I have to know by keeping Mom present as fully as possible.  Soon it’ll be my turn to recite those lines.  I hope my children will have given me the gift of accepting me for who I am (I believe they already do), as their children will do for them.  And so it continues, that line of mother and child, mother and child, that can’t be broken no matter how hard we or our moms may try.  We cannot sever the links nor, ultimately, the love.