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Courage


2010
06.09

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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.


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It’s a cat’s life: more notes on the move


2010
06.06

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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.


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Do I know myself? Sometimes. Do you know who I am?


2010
06.02

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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.


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Book report: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks


2010
05.24

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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.

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Being non-judgmental, inclusive, generous and positive: a reminder from the Glamberts


2010
05.23

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“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.



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Connect the Dots – an End to Strange Days


2010
05.10

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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 7th 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 5th 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.


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For Mothers, About Mothers, on Mother’s Day


2010
05.08

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I just read a book, a memoir by Mary Karr called Lit.  Silly me, I thought the title must be a reference to literature (she is an author and poet, after all) – until I got into the book and found out Karr was just that – lit – for much of her adult life.  The book relentlessly chronicles her struggles with herself, which manifest in substance abuse.  In adulthood, that substance was alcohol.

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.

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The Rhythm Changes


2010
04.28

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Visiting the Davies Five in Colorado, land of big skies, small towns.

No stop lights in Paonia.

Land of the coal trains, the bread and butter of the Western Slope.

There’s still snow on Mt. Lamborn.

Spending over a week with three children under six,

Time for thought, analysis, reflection goes into deep background.

No time to think, only time to plan, do.

Meals, groceries, laundry, dishes, floors.

Outside play, hunting for snakes, reading books, games.

Don’t frown, Jack.  Room for everyone on the swing.

Colorado.  Land of big skies, changing weather.  A storm is brewing.

No problem. Coloradans are rugged. A little wind doesn’t send anyone inside.

Just makes it more fun.

How can it be lunch time? We just had breakfast.

Where did these dishes come from? I just put some away.

Is the laundry basket ever truly empty?

Taking Abbo to kindergarten.  Late? Why is she late?

Oh. Late start day is next Wednesday.  It changed.

Getting groceries. Free cookies at the market for the kids.

Such an ugly pink.  Such a horrid taste. I don’t need a bite.

I just know. The kids love them.

Is that a new dresser in the kid’s room?

No, it’s just plastered with stickers.  It’s art.

Found art.  Art in progress.  Why not?

Our youngest used her walls like an autograph book.

The puffy paint was a mistake, though.

Jackie plays with cars.  He doesn’t need roads.

The roads are in his imagination – what a delightful word.

Like The Land of Counterpane, where bedclothes become hills and valleys

The sofa becomes a super highway.  Jack’s cars talk to each other.

The weird squishy yellow ball with stretchy yellow protrusions

Talks to the cars.  Jack counts the protrusions.  Hundreds he thinks.

Jack can count to one thousand.  He taught himself.

Hundreds of homes across America, the same scene plays out.

In this home of course, the scene plays a cut above.

How could it not?  These are my grandkids, being raised by

My daughter, who was raised by me.

How does she do it so much better? She’s a kid herself.

A pregnant 37-year-old in the kitchen singing “jelly lelly lelly lelly” with Sponge Bob.

Note:  One of my beloved twitter/blogger friends said she was looking forward to more of my art after the last post I made – Life is OK.  Almost all of my art is on my web page in the Art Gallery – the Altered Landscapes series, the Chinese Lantern Series, Muse, some journal pages, and various collages on canvas.  Feel free to visit.  I am going to update the gallery soon to include sizes since William recently, who had only seen these online, was surprised at how big some of them were.


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The last move


2010
04.10

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Move move move.  Dance moves. Pick-up moves. Sneaky moves. Move it!  Get a move on.  Smooth move. And so on.  And then there’s the biggest move of all – the house to house.

What would we do without family?  My son-in-law and daughter, Matt and Jen; sister Cris and her husband Bill; nephew Daniel and his girlfriend Melissa; niece’s husband Jeff; my husband Mark who is always a hero; and The Bakersfield Six.

They all made it possible to get the heavy stuff over.

This is the last move for sure.  I feel so out of sync, out of time, out of the real world.  I can’t quite remember what I usually do with a day – all I’ve been doing for weeks now is moving.  And fulfilling previous obligations, which were fun – the trip to Las Vegas for granddaughter Sarah’s soccer tournament, the Black Eyed Peas concert. And this week William came to visit.

William was a student of mine in 7th grade – six years ago?  He’s twenty now.  He went off to boarding school in Lugano, Switzerland, where I visited him three times, and then to college in London, where I visited once.  I had to cancel last November’s trip because of the recession, so I haven’t seen William for 1 1/2 years.  Naturally, when he came to Bako to spend three days with me, I didn’t unpack one single box!  The time was dedicated to him.  The drive to get him at Union Station in Los Angeles was beautiful.  Until I got into Los Angeles itself and my navigation system went berserk.  It took me all over the place and when I saw Staples Center I knew it was kaput.  So I got off the freeway, pointed the car in the right direction, and made it – frazzled, but I made it.  The final insult was that the CD player wouldn’t regurgitate the navigation disk until the next day, when it spit it out unasked for.

So besides those events, it’s been pack, carry, move, unpack.  Over and over again.  We’re rich enough to buy a beautiful house but not rich enough to hire movers.  Wow, we have a lot of stuff.  I’m getting rid of more and more as I unpack.  I’ve taken pictures of each “discard” and put them on Kodak for my kids to see so they can claim what they want. I’m up to “Up for Grabs Album Six.”  Lots going out.   Whatever wasn’t adopted went to Goodwill.

We did have a lovely sky on moving day.  View from the backyard.

I’ve also been taking pictures of special items as I unpack, and I’ll write on them why that item is special.  Already, I look at something and wonder if it was my grandmothers or Mark’s moms.  If I can’t remember, is the object still special?  Things are just things ultimately.  But for me, things are part of the fabric of my life.  I like to look at something and recall where we bought it – which country, which vacation.  I like to remember events and people.  My things all say something to me.   They all have stories.

When my mother-in-law died, we sorted out her possessions.  I took many of them because no one else wanted them, but I knew that they all meant something to Marian.  I was sad looking at the mound of collectibles, some old and chipped, and wondered if that was what a life boiled down to – the accumulation and degradation of objects.  So I took her china, the Waterford, the collectibles she bought on trips all over the world.  In my weird way, I honor Marian when I use these objects, display them, etc.  Not in excess – a great deal did end up at Goodwill.  So that’s why I’m writing on photos of my special objects, just in case my children wonder about them.

For example, Mark’s grandfather gave us this dish on our wedding day.  It’s hand-painted china; don’t know if he got it somewhere or already had it – and it wasn’t quite the kind of question you could ask.  “So GG, did you buy this for us or did you already have it around?”  Wish I  knew, but I guess all that matters is it came from GG and it’s old.

I want the kids to know that this cocktail shaker was my parents, and it witnessed many a great party with singing, dancing, food and drink.

Another strategy I’m being careful about is making things accessible.  I don’t want platters stacked high, so I have to move and lift and replace when I want one.  I want my tablecloths easy to find without digging through plastic bins.  If I run out of room, I’m going to have to get rid of something.

The house has challenges.  It’s so much bigger than the old one, yet I’m down a couple of cupboards with shelves, like the cupboard under the stairs, and I’m down bookcases.  We’ll solve those problems, and indeed, they are wonderful problems to have.

Being flat-out exhausted is a wonderful problem to have also, in that we’re moving from one beautiful house to another, and that puts us in the highest echelon of families world-wide.  We are not rich by any means.  At least, in how America defines rich.  But we have riches beyond compare when measured against the rest of the world.  So my complaints are not real complaints.

BUT – I am never moving again.  I’ll have to be hauled out feet-first, or taken to the old-age home if it comes to that, because this is a strenuous occupation for 63, and I don’t want to be contemplating it at 65, or 68, or 73, etc.

We have so long to go until the move is complete. The living room looks pretty good.

But my husband’s office is still a work in progress.

But we’re far enough along for me to reenter the real world.  I have friends out there, on facebook, on twitter, and in person, plus family members, and I need to reconnect.  I haven’t blogged for quite a while.  I never feel isolated like this when we’re on vacation, but this moving is a whole different deal – bone tired, unable to think, cook, process, much less interact.  When William was here, I felt like I’d been released from prison!

So that’s that.  The Big Move.  Underway.  In progress.  Step by step.  And next week the cats get to go outside.  Meanwhile, they have adapted well and look much like they did in the old house.  Lily just stretched and is contemplating if she should really get up, or extend her afternoon nap.


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Moments: Revelation


2010
03.11

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This is an excerpt from Moments, the second in the series.  The other day I blogged about A Moment of Transcendence at Fort Bowie, Arizona. Today I’m blogging about Revelation.  My series of moments are not in chronological order.  This one is from college, 1964.  That 1964 is 46 years ago seems impossible, but I’ve never forgotten the feeling I had from this experience.

This introduction applies to all the Moments:  How many special moments do we get in a lifetime?  I mean the truly magic moments that stop us in our tracks to marvel, that imbue a sense of awe that we remember forever after.  On this Friday the 13th, 2009, a beautiful Spring day, it seems like a good idea to recall those moments if for no other reason than to remember.

This is a journey for the meaning of life. I think we all grapple with this at one time or another, and for some of us it seems harder to come to peace with this quest. For me personally, it was a journey that started perhaps in junior high school, intensified in my senior year of high school, and just about broke me down in college. I wasn’t raised in a religious home and I was intensely curious about God – first and foremost, was there a God. This contributed to the complexity of my quest. It went like this:

A freshman at University of California, Santa Barbara, I was majoring in philosophy. As students do, I was searching for the meaning of life, the big picture. I was desperately unhappy, which compounded, or was perhaps caused by, the search for meaning. My work habits were spotty – I studied best at night and stayed up very late. I didn’t fit in with the other kids in my residence hall – I was quirkier, liked solitude, and was drawn to more complicated people – and I wasn’t finding any. Now I realize what an arrogant thought that was, but I was a Democrat in a suite of four intense, conservative Goldwater Girls and so very out of place. My best friend was the vending machine with Hostess Fruit Pies and Paydays.

In a period of solitude, intense reading, many sleepless nights, and constant thinking that had my head spinning, I had a flash. A moment that one could perhaps call mystical. My thoughts were colored by sleep deprivation and had forced me into a meditative state. And there it was – a glimpse of the meaning of life, a picture of the whole, and I was in what I would now call a state of grace. Whatever the universe was composed of, I was one with it. I was both apart from it and part of it. It was in me and around me.

I couldn’t hold on to the state of grace and the clarification, but I did remember the revelation – life was about nothing except living. Here we were, it didn’t matter why, so the thing to do was live as if it mattered, live a good life, and have fun. Yes, fun. Learn, do no harm, and have fun. It didn’t matter if there was a God or not because that would not affect the manner in which we should live. This was both a simplistic solution to the quest but also a very profound one.

I wish I could say that I lived a less troubled life from then on but I didn’t. What I didn’t know until decades later was that I was actually clinically depressed for most of my 20s and 30s, but that is another story. I’ll just say that it’s hard to fight a battle when you don’t know who the enemy is. Eventually, I thought hard enough and lived long enough to return to that night of revelation – that was indeed all I needed to know to live a productive, satisfied life. It’s a relief to stop wondering about the meaning of life, about the existence of God, and all those intangibles that we won’t know until much later if at all. It just doesn’t matter. We’re here.


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