Many moons have passed since last I wrote....too many. I am a whole other person now, shaped by the pandemic and by loss, and by PTSD rearing it's ugly head.  As I sit here, I think about how much I would like to write about the easy things, about the fun things, and I realize there just are NO easy things anymore. There is getting old, being sad, worrying about the world and where it is going...there is abject terror at the loss of our county's values. I never EVER would have thought that we would become a hardened, greedy people who take delight in hurting others, yet here we are. 

I find most days I cower. I hunker down and cut myself off from news, from tv, even from social media because the hate will kill me if I allow it to. I don't want to know that people only think the elderly or the already sick people will die and that we are dispensable. I don't want to hear the judgement that accompanies conversations about our value and worth and humanity. "She's too big..." "He doesn't make enough money..." "I can't believe they live in that tiny rundown house......"I do not want to hear it. I want to hear clever, articulate people talk about creativity and character and lovingkindness.  Maybe I like my echo chamber. (If you can hear me, shout out to me so I will know I am not alone in the abyss...."

I am reminded frequently of late, of other times in my life, how innocent they seemed and how far away this time would be.  I am not the person I was at 50, or 40 or 30, or even 60.  I am frighteningly aware that the time to do is now. the time to be is now. The time to speak is now. I will speak. I will speak my own personal truth to anyone insane enough to listen. I can no longer worry about their opinions, their distaste, and their deep need to silence me rather than hear the uncomfortable truths.

We can't go back. We cannot go back to a time when some people mattered and some people did not, where us whiteys were priveledged, based solely on the color of our skin and not the content of our character. We were blind, truly, to the racism and the hatred of the people with brown skin, and we cannot go back.  It is not enough to say, "I am not a racist." We must ACTIVELY change the world we are living in to include all people in all shapes, all sizes, all colors, all religions, all sexual and gender identities. It is only then when we can tap into the talent and skills of every one of us. We need to each take personal responsibility for raising a nation of children who care about the world we live in and the other people we share it with.

I told my daughters I was afraid if donald trump were elected, it would change the world we live in and drag us back in time. I realize now, we were already being pulled down that road, before his election by the people who support him, the people who are galvanized by fear and change. 

I won't be that person, not today, not ever. I seek to live my life with my eyes wide open and when I am troubled or fearful, I will not hide from it and demonize others to protect myself. I will simply ask for help. 

So,....after many, MANY years, I am back, trying like hell to form words that might resonate with someone, or maybe just myself.

Thank you Nadine for being my life jacket.

My grandbaby girl...the next generation.

Goodbye 2014

Here we go.....AGAIN!
I remember when I was about 20, or even 15, thinking ," When the year 2000 arrives I will be OLD" And here I am this afternoon on the precipice of 2015, as I work, knit, cook, eat, play, and love, I realize that life is not much different.
Somehow, as a younger person, I pictured all of us living in some Jetson-like world.  By this time, I thought we would all be flying in our personal spaceships to work and to visit friends.  I supposed I had a vision that at the very least, I would be living in a glass house or something.
And yet, here I am....................living in my comfortable old house, doing the same old comfortable things with the same old comfortable people.  And maybe I am old, but it occurs to me, "If you don't feel like you are old, ARE YOU OLD?"  Kind of like the old, "If a tree falls in the forest.................."
So I am taking a reality check this afternoon...you know, asking myself some questions, trying to decide where I fall in the young-old continuum.
1.  Am I wearing all polyester pants with elastic waistbands and big pockets that hold wadded up tissues and bent bobby pins.  NO....check
2.  Is my hair grey and in the shape of a helmet?  Yes AND no.  Yes to gray, but long and luscious and filled with blonde and silver pieces to catch the light.  It is the hair of a much younger woman who has earned every single gray through work and worry and love.  Helmet shaped?  Never,......(well, okay, close, when I wear it in a bun so long on holidays that it begins to dreadlock)  check
3.  Can I use "kidspeak"?  Can I understand it?  I CAN understand it, (for the most part), but speak it??????  Hmmmmmmmmmm.....Well, let's see..."She is off the hook." (or is it) "She is off the chain."...."She is A-OK"  Okay, okay...No, I cannot speak the language either.
4.  Do I try and engage in conversations with young people?  Do they appear to wander off frequently and disengage from said conversations?  Yes, and YES!  Egads!  I AM OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5.  Am I driving a Buick?
6.  Do I carry butterscotch hard candies in my purse?
7.  Am I fresh, relevant, informed?

So in review, I am truly realizing that "old" is not an accurate representation of me....and maybe not most of us.  I am wise and I am witty.  I am cautious and I am impulsive, impetuous.  I am open minded, and I am close minded,.................mostly because I refuse to go back in time, I refuse to give up rights hard earned by my friends, and parents and grandparents..I refuse to allow my grandchildren and their grandchildren to go back to a day where they are valued only if they are a white heterosexual male who makes alot of money.
I am trying DAILY to live a life of kindness and patience and compassion.  A life of tolerance and standing up for what I believe in, for fighting for the underdog, and practicing gratitude for the many blessings I have been given.
So, as I look forward to this new year, I WILL work on accepting myself as, well,....."older".

Life is a Highway

So it's about three in the morning, and I am up, sipping tea, with quite possibly the world's worst cold EVER.   Okay, so I am exaggerating....But ever notice how every time you get a cold, you feel shocked, surprised, as though it has never happened before.  "What?  A cold?...... Me?"  I don't know about you, but I feel as though I am above it somehow, and always feel deeply wounded that my body, nature, whoever,... has some how let me down.

So, I am wide awake, thrashing about in my bed, wracked with coughing and thinking.  Thinking about the upcoming summer, thinking about money, thinking about the people who have the job of stuffing the pimento in the olive, but mostly thinking about my children.

See, my kids are never far from my mind.  I laugh with them, cry with them, yell with them, and cheer for them.  They are the product of every good thing I have ever done, and nothing is more important to me than their happiness and well being.  When I say happiness, I don't mean your basic "I've gotten a raise" happiness, or even the "we're getting married" kind of happiness.  Not that I am not pleased for them with that kind of news....but that is really the icing on the cake,....the gravy on the potatoes.

What I want for them is contentment, peace, joy in everyday life, friends and family who never let them forget they love them just the way they are.  I want them to see themselves through my eyes.  They are these amazing people who exist in the world who have a heart and a spirit and a love for people and not things.  (Well, mostly....we are only human, after all)  When I look at them, I see each one as a beautiful creation from God, given to me to care for and nurture.  When they cry, I cry, and when they hurt, I hurt.  Someone once said that being a mother is a lot like carrying your heart around outside your body.  It is actually more like carrying it around outside your body, during a windstorm, with bombs landing all around you, while running from a fleet of tractor trailers.  It is scary stuff.

So when they need some wisdom, some common sense answers to life's dilemmas, I try to have something to share with them, something or some solution that has worked for me.  I scramble around, thinking, and allowing myself to grope back over my life and my choices to think what brought peace to me, or at least acceptance.

So I am sitting at my desk by now, nursing a cup of tea, typing with my left hand while wiping my runny nose (constantly) with my right.  Damn this cold!

Things are going on in their lives that I can't fix, things they are going through and learning through that are part of their journey.  Their journey toward their own life of joy and wisdom.  And then it dawns on me, (again) that when they hurt and feel broken, there is the same God looking out for them that looked out for me, and the obstacles, the bumps in the road are what make us strong.  Strength.  I want that for them.

And I am remembering a story an old man once told me.  "Life is a highway.  We get a snappy little sports car and jump on the road on a sunny day.  We are all driving along, blissfully unaware that this highway we are on sometimes gets potholes, needs construction, has accidents and flat tires along the way.  When we are young, the sky is blue and the sun is high in the sky.  We ride along with our parents, our siblings, our friends, enjoying the breeze on our face.
Before long, it begins to get dark and we find ourselves navigating through the darkness, not seeing our friends and family, and feeling alone and vulnerable.  When morning comes again, we sometimes realize our parents, our friends, even our children may have gotten off at a rest stop, taken the scenic route.  We may catch back up with them or they with us, but basically our journey is now our own.We drive and drive, sometimes taking detours or getting stopped for construction.  We get slowed down in heavy traffic.  Sometimes we are sidelined by a repair that can take days or even weeks or months.  We get off at exits marked" new jobs", or" marriage" and pick someone up sometimes to go along for the ride.  Sometimes we take a wrong turn, and it can be a very long time before we are aware of it..Sometimes we don't even know we took the wrong turn until someone stops up and holds up a sign and tells us "Turn around and go back the right way".  As we travel, we gain knowledge.  Sometimes we feel road weary and just need to pull into a rest stop for a nap and some good food.  Other times we actually need to stop and get a map.  We choose bumpy roads and smooth roads and scenic roads.  We learn to linger over the beauty we see from our car window, and sometimes even get out and pay the admission to get into the park.  We drive on through rain and snow and wind.  We slide around on icy roads when we should have known enough not to be out driving in the first place.  We have to remind ourselves that it is never a good idea to drive through standing water.
After a while, we decide that the interstate might not be right for us, and we get off on an old highway, like the Rt 11 of life, and we drive along companionably with the people who have ridden most of the ride with us.  Sometimes they drive while we rest.  We go on like this until we see a beautiful lake off in the distance with the silhouette of a lone mountain in the sunset, and as we drive closer and closer, we realize this is where we have been driving to all along.  As we approach our final destination, we see our loved ones who arrived before us, we see friends and co-workers arriving in all manner of conveyance.  We look back at the way we have come, and we see many roads converging in this one place, and it is then that we realize that we have all arrived at the same place, we all just used different road maps.  And it is then that we realize that the choices we made are what formed us and shaped us into who we are today....No one else's map could have done that for us.
And looking back on it, isn't it better to have arrived with a few dings and dents from off- roading in the pursuit of something beautiful and rare than to arrive in a four door sedan with nary a scratch on it and seeing only what was visible from the road."

So, after thinking about the journey we all must take, I want you to take the scenic roads, the ones that have honeysuckle vines growing on the embankments....I want you to linger as long as you like and don't let anyone hurry you.  This is your journey, not mine, and I want you to be proud of your choices.  But please, for the sake of your worried mother, park the car before darkness falls and get a good nights rest before getting back on the road in the morning, and whatever you do.....don't forget to take the road to mom's house, frequently.

I love you all more than you can possibly imagine, and even in the dark, I see your headlights.

Mama, mama, wherefore art thou?

May 11..............
I am 53 today.  And yet, somewhere, in my psyche I am 7, ...15,..............26,...........................40...I am no longer a young woman.  I often think about my mother at this age.  Was she feeling old?  Tired?  Spent?  Wasted?  I think about her life at 53.
At 53, my mom had a 15 year old daughter, (like me),.....two 25 year old daughters, a 31 year old daughter and a 34 year old daughter.  She had 8 grandchildren....She worked full-time, ran a home, and had her own social life.
How did she do it?  Did she feel like she was 30 some days and like she was 80 on others?  Did she feel like she had years left to do the things that SHE wanted to do and see the things that SHE wanted to see?
Did she spent hours, days and weeks hurrying toward some day in the future that she could call her own, while pedaling so furiously fast she was missing the landscape of today?  Did she see beauty in every day?
I think about my mother and I pray that she took the time and the care to live every moment, in the moment, savoring every taste and smell for what it was.
This is my challenge.  and sometimes I say, "Mama, mama........................where are you?"  I need to ask you these questions.  I need to know how much of me is me, and how much of me is her?  Sometimes in my head, I *become* her mother.  I feel so much older now......................and the wise me longs to take the young mom in my arms and tell her to live life slowly, and to savor every moment,...to live for herself, and that by doing so, she will be living an example for her children.
Maybe she did.....maybe she is somewhere, looking down on me and pondering what a child I am, will always be.  Maybe her message to me is the same as my message to her.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  Ultimately, there is only love, and while we grow, we need to think of our mothers as the bastions of strength and love,.....We ARE our mothers......and all that they learn and share, we also learn and share.  I am my mother, as she was her mother,.....I am neither older nor younger than my mom.  We just *are*

Well....here I am again, AND  in the same month.
  I am feeling a gravitational pull here, I think...I want to write, to express my thoughts, and yet............when I sit down to the computer, some times I have a very hard time capturing them, stopping them from running roughshod through my brain long enough to put them down on paper.  (if you will)

So,.....as we approach Christmas, here are my thoughts:  We spend so much time making lists, and thinking things through, and planning our shopping experiences.  So much time bemoaning the money we are spending, the time we are wasting, when all any of us want is a beautiful and memorable holiday.  Am I right?  Ask anyone, (other than a child) and they will tell you they just wish that they could sit by a fire and sip hot chocolate and watch it snow...

The Christmas season, by all accounts, (at least as told us by retailers) goes from November 1 to January 2.  That is two entire months of shopping, cooking, baking, planning, wrapping, worrying, fussing and fretting, and one entire day of spending time with our loved ones exchanging gifts, eating and making merry.  What is wrong with this picture?

So here is my proposal:  Let's just say we make December 23 a National holiday.  We'll call it Prepariboxandfretalooza day, and it will be the day when we all turn out to make each other miserable.  We'll shop till we drop, snatching and grabbing as quickly as we can off of store shelves... (perhaps this could even turn into an Olympic event), then we'll rush home to wrap, cook, bake, and fuss with one another.  There can be no merry making on this day, no pleasurable memories being made, and certainly no photographs.  It will be illegal to sit down and relax over drinks on this day, at least until after 8PM.  The only people working on this national holiday will be retail staff, and they will make triple time while they do it, and they will also be assigned their own substitute shoppers and cookers.  We will use this day to prepare our feasts for the morrow, and if we find ourselves out of a neccesary ingredient, we will have to scour the neighborhood for it, and hope that we can rely on a neighbor to kindly donate.  OR we can find our way to the nearest convenience store, where if we are lucky enough to find the missing ingredient, we will pay at least 4 times the usual price for it.
Another activity for this national holiday will be wrapping presents.  It will become an evening tradition for all to gather around together, fighting over tape and scissors, and almost gone rolls of paper.  It will go on long into the evening, and there will be at least one present in every household that gets wrapped with scraps from 3 different rolls of paper and the local newspaper, and this present is usually saved for the mother in the household.
Children are exempt from the traditional Prepariboxandfretalooza festivities, however they will probably carry the memories of short tempered mommies, daddies and grandparents well into their adulthood and so anxiously await their turn on this holiday for years to come.
The day will end with a mad rush of housecleaning, and then everyone will drop into bed dirty and exhausted, as there will be no hot water left for showers.

Now, let's talk about the rest of the holiday season.  Late mornings over coffee and breakfast will become the tradition.  There will be at least 45 days of sharing time together, of sleigh rides and snowman making (in the north) and strolling and lolly-gagging (in the south).  It'll be a time for helping neighbors with projects, for making special memories with grandma down at the nursing home.  We'll bake cookies (if we feel like it), and eat them while sitting around our Christmas tree.  We'll pick out a tree together, and take a week to decorate it, and maybe we'll each have three or four.  No single Christmas tree home will have a "theme" tree, unless that theme is kid-friendly.  Communities will have small unplanned gatherings to sing and rejoice over our blessings, as well as to give to those less fortunate.  Traditions will grow and many a family will add on to the treasured memories of yesteryear by adding a family "spa day", or "no dress day", when everyone stays in their pajamas to loll around by the fire, reading or knitting or daydreaming. We'll go out at night, carrying lanterns, and singing carols as we watch the snow fall.  Children will play, parents will smile and all will be well with the world.
The traditions will culminate on December 25, Christmas Day.  Families will come together to share a meal, and to share in their blessings.  They will spend time together exchanging small gifts, most of which are handmade, and catching up on each others dreams.  The children will all play with their cousins, taking turns holding the new baby doll or racing the new car.
As the day fades into evening, the family might load up into a wagon, covering themselves in blankets and quilts and carrying thermoses of hot chocolate and hot cider, while the horses trot through the snow and into the country.  There will be songs of gratitude, and joy and hope and peace on earth, and every child will hear the Christmas story, and learn the meaning of giving.
As the moon rises high in the sky, families will arrive back home to say a prayer together, and give thanks for this day.

That's how I want my Christmas season to be.....not stressed and overpriced.  No over expectations, and under funded.  Just plain old relaxation, love and kindness and peace on earth, starting in my family, my neighborhood, my community.

What do ya think?
National  Prepariboxandfretalooza Day?
Sign the petition here...................

A Quickie..

Just so you know, I AM still here.......................still working, still playing, still painting, still praying...I want to write, to channel the insanity from my head and heart onto paper, (or in this case, computer), but the time just does not come.
The busyness of real life intrudes, day after day, all day long, and by the time those few precious moments present themselves, I am numbing myself by stalking Facebook and eating junk food simply for the way it crunches beneath my teeth.
I know...............we hear it all of our life.  "YOU NEED TO MAKE TIME for the things you want to do"...I am virtually positive that the person who started that dirty little command had neither job, (let alone two) nor family.  And so it goes...............
We are coming up on the holidays, so maybe, just maybe I will find a little pocket of quiet, all alone and feeling inspired, to make music linguistically.............or maybe, just maybe I will find myself locked onto Facebook, (AGAIN) and chewing candy canes, over and over and over again.
In the meantime, my loves................my babies, big and small, my friends,.................those beloved ones who "get" me, my husband........................remember this:
Keep on keeping on.  One day we will meet on those golden shores again, and we will have time to talk.