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Posts Tagged ‘choice’

Age, Youth, and Discovering the Moment

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 24, 2014| 1 Comment »

Old age ain’t no place for sissies. (Bette Davis)

My 94-year-old mother-in-law sleeps on a narrow couch. She looks as uncomfortable there as she does inside her fragile body. She smiles and seems emotionally touched by the gentle stories I tell her about her grandson and great-grandchildren. But, I suspect she would agree with Bette. I have enough tact, however, not to discuss the obvious.

While my mother-in-law rests I elevate and ice an amazingly painful foot. I injured it the first day we arrived. This isn’t the out-of-town weekend I had in mind.

At the same time I sit with my youngest granddaughter, Ella, on the back porch of my brother-and-sister-in-laws’ house. Ella watches Peppa Pig on my iPad as I watch my ten-year-old granddaughter learn the art of hooking a bass with a lure. Ella and I are at the top of several rolling hills so I can’t see Kate’s face, but I know she has wanted to do this for a long time.

The action on the porch is different, subtle. Several ruby-throated hummingbirds flit close by. Then other species of hummingbirds appear—long enough for me to see their color, nothing more. A striped lizard makes an appearance. The next heat wave hasn’t passed through yet. The shade brings amazing comfort.

I think about my mother-in-law sleeping inside. My limitation, even though this one seems temporary, reminds me to celebrate what I can do—not what stops me. Sure, I can’t trek through the woods right now, but someone needs to stay with our youngest granddaughter. A four-year-old could create a hazard among swinging hooks. And who would have volunteered to be a companion to our littlest one, even if she didn’t have a foot the color of bad sunburn? Uh, Grandma?

Ella points to the screen as Papa Pig dives into the water without making a splash. She grins. Perhaps she realizes the absurdity of diving anywhere without making an impact of some kind. Ella already knows life isn’t easy. She approaches Down syndrome with an up attitude.

I study the striated skin on my arms. The challenges of aging occur slowly. I have no idea how many losses it will ask of me. But I’m not living in tomorrow. Today a blonde beauty smiles at me with a love of life that’s contagious. She doesn’t count wrinkles; she looks straight into the heart.

I chose to spend time with Kate shortly after she was born because my mother-in-law had bonded with my children. She showed me how much that connection is worth. Nothing less than priceless. That lesson isn’t lost because my mother-in-law is now in the winter of her life.

Here’s to the older folk of the world. We’re all headed that way. Eventually.

enjoy little things words of wisdom

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Simultaneous Dark and Light, Sweet and Bitter

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 16, 2014| 2 Comments »

You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgotten—it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive. (Maya Angelou)

Before the temperatures temporarily dropped in my corner of the Midwest, I watched the fluctuating dark and bright skies and wondered if they were playing some kind of game. Either that or the atmosphere has a bipolar disorder with rapid cycling. At the pool on Saturday my husband and I were able to tread water for almost two hours while the sky simply made threats. By Sunday we weren’t in the water thirty minutes before the thunder and lightning started.

Storm and blue sky often coexist in metaphorical ways, too. They just aren’t always as obvious.

I’m trying to figure out a problem with the computer—something like asking a second grader to solve quadratic equations. A message has popped up about the validity of my word processor. My gut suspects it is spam; emotion makes a different response. So, my head suggests that I try the checks I know.

While I wait for my icons to reappear after an update and restart I study my current desktop photo—of my two older grandchildren in matching Sisters-Forever T-shirts. The girls both appear happy, confident in their own styles: Kate’s natural smile shows her readiness to embrace the good in all. Rebe’s closed-mouth grin promises humor, in some form, as well as the blunt honesty innate in children too young to be anyone other than themselves.

Actually I have no idea what the girls thought or felt as the photo was taken. A photo presents only one moment. The observer guesses based on clues.

I’m asking what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-my-computer? I’m also questioning my ability to solve problems. And this waiting feels longer than the minute or two it actually takes to watch for the bizarre message to either reappear or vanish into whence it came. The speed of thought is rapid. It can go backward and forward through decades within sixty seconds.

By the time I was the girls’ ages, I already had accepted false notions of myself. Insecurity could have been my mantra, stated in so many forms I automatically went to the end of the line in almost any situation. If I could I would go back through the years and rewrite history, become a different person. However, that person wouldn’t have walked the same journey, and these two dressed-alike granddaughters wouldn’t exist.

I think about positive attitude all the time. However, the notion that all must be blue skies and sweet-smelling flowers interferes with reality. Sure, I need to have an outlook that says today’s effort is worth it. But, sometimes that effort can cost a few tears—maybe even a complaint or two—before success is realized. No one or no thing is perfect. Sometimes success means choosing another path, without crying, Why me?

So far, so good in the computer fix department, even if I don’t know how I did it. Not sure it matters.

being happy

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The Imagination Masters

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 10, 2014| 3 Comments »

“There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.” (Walt Streightiff)

Sometimes the imaginative play of my two older grandchildren makes me laugh out loud. I’m their quintessential audience. They know it; so do I.

Rebe’s doll-under-the-T-shirt-motherhood game expands as she decides she is a mama who gives birth to a new baby every day for ten days in a row. Every doll and stuffed animal comes off the toy shelf: dog, rabbit, cow, even Barney the dinosaur. Rebe glories in her perpetual-motion image. Her ten-year-old big sister, Kate, recognizes the impossibility of it all and expands on the scenario. She decides that she is among the newborn lineup. Not only is she the product of a mob birth, she can talk, crawl, and create mischief.

Naturally, Kate notes, this phenomenon would draw the attention of paparazzi. As soon as a fantasy crowd appears she says, “goo.” After they leave, her antics return.

I write fiction and have been publishing frequently with http://pikerpress.com. However, my stories need a basis in reality. Rebe mimics a rooster to announce morning and then moves the day into evening thirty seconds later. Characters change places midstream.

For a child an empty plastic teacup holds coffee, tea, or a magic potion that turns a bird into a frog or a chicken into a dinosaur. Possibilities are endless. A youngster’s chi embraces the sky and has arm room left to grasp more.

I am in no hurry for my granddaughters to grow up. Sure, I’m tired by the end of the day after trying to keep up with individuals who move with hummingbird-wing speed. My own chores remain untouched. I have written nothing. All tasks have been put off for tomorrow, maybe the day after. But, not many people have been in the presence of a woman who gave birth to ten babies—almost simultaneously.

Besides, there’s something priceless about sitting in front of the television between two girls who both want dibs on Grandma. Actually, I’m not owned by either girl, just temporarily transported into their world where anything can happen. A zombie may suddenly appear and eat us alive. Yet, we can laugh through the experience and leap into the next one, without losing any of the fun.

save the kid in you

 

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A Boat Full of Imaginary Soup—And Pie

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 3, 2014| 2 Comments »

Dare to be naïve. (Richard Buckminster Fuller )

Our youngest granddaughter, four-year-old Ella, sounds out words but doesn’t talk in many sentences yet. Down syndrome has affected her speech. She understands, but is limited in her ability to speak fluently.

I am giving Ella a bubble bath as she plays with water toys. The boat soon becomes a cooking pot where she makes soup.

“What kind is it?” I ask.

“Green.”

As she pours that pot out into the tub, she dips more suds into her boat-pot. “White soup.”

I suspect that she wants to add some dessert to the menu when she says, “pie.”

“What kind?”

She grins—with an energy that reaches across her face, pauses, and then mouths what sounds like flatulence.

That is not the answer I expect. Apparently her interaction with other children at school and daycare has extended her life appreciation in multiple directions. “Fart-sound pie,” I tell the towel rack.

“Fart,” she says, once, the R well-rounded and clear. She giggles. So do I. Fortunately the word does not become a mantra the way it does with most children when they discover minor vulgarity.

She merely laughs, her blue eyes flashing simple delight. After she is dried and dressed she runs holding the boat out in front of her, leading it from one room to the other. She has places to go and is eager to travel—wherever her path leads.

When her older cousins, Kate and Rebe, arrive several days later the first thing they want to know is when they can see Ella next. Since I don’t have a date yet I share the bathtub story. Ella’s sense of humor can be present anyway.

Kate and Rebe repeat the tale as if they are putting it into a mini-drama and need to memorize every detail. It will grow stale, in time, replaced by another incident. But I hope the three girls are always eager to see one another, to celebrate the freshness of who-they-are. May their naivety remain intact for many years. And may they continue sharing it with Grandma.

After all, Ella’s first full sentence was, “I love you.”

 

bath toys

 

 

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Broken Wings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 28, 2014| 3 Comments »

I don’t like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn’t of much value. Life hasn’t revealed its beauty to them. (Boris Pasternak)

One accidental nudge while dusting and one of my ceramic angels falls to the hardwood floor. She loses her wings. Super glue helps connect the thin wings, but not for long. The next day they sever again when I try to attach them to her back. Maybe glue isn’t an adequate celestial adhesive.

Human beings who try to follow angelic example tend to be fragile sometimes, too. I aim toward the positive, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be thrown off balance when an unexpected burst of anger heads toward me, or some tragedy affects someone I love. I suppose that if perfect balance could be bought at the discount store, it wouldn’t be worth much.

From the back this kneeling de-wingled angel could have a rare bone disorder. From the front she looks like a pale, pious young girl. I am well-freckled, slightly tanned, and not pious. Only the over-ninety-set would consider me young. I am not made of plaster; bending is possible, both physical and mental. Generally, the latter is far more difficult. Physical injuries tend to be easier to overcome. Moreover, I can roll a single resentment down a metaphorical mountain and create an avalanche.

Ceramic statues can’t do much on their own. I’m grateful that as long as I have survived, the beauty of life remains available, with or without wings. Funny, but when I recognize the places where someone else’s severed wings have left scars, I feel a blessed camaraderie. Sure, I want to hear about another person’s accomplishments. But the struggle to get there is where the beauty lies.

wingless angel

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Sound, Hearing, Listening

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 20, 2014| 5 Comments »

You are imperfect, permanently, and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful. (Amy Bloom)

After nine years my hearing aids gave out. The parts are no longer made, something like finding a replacement carburetor for a 1948 Chevy at the corner auto repair shop.  New hearing aids cost as much as a private jet and I have put off the purchase a tad too long. Of course I have joked that what I hear can be a lot more interesting than what someone actually said. Sometimes what I catch makes no sense at all. At other times it is best-not-repeated in a PG-oriented setting.

My new set is nothing like my old pair. Unfortunately, the left side of my mouth just happens to be bleeding from an archeological dig made to fit a replacement crown and my neighboring audio canal is responding with intense sympathy. The ear doesn’t want to be bothered with a microphone and wire. The right side decides to play ally and balk against foreign materials as well.

Fortunately my audiologist knows some tricks. She suggests a gel as well as a wiggling motion to get the gosh-darned-thing into place. She says that everyone has different ear canal shapes. I’m amazed. I know mine are slender, unlike the rest of me. (I don’t need two airplane seats, but I’m not a model’s size either.) While I’m not comfortable I hold onto the hope that tension and repeated in-and-out-of-foreign-objects-into-my-ears is making this situation difficult.

Now, days later, I stand in my living room at six in the morning and listen to the birds, singing in stereo outside the front and side windows. I revel in the fact that I hear, and that I can adjust the level of that sound—although I’m a bit clumsy with the buttons. The house grows silent and I suddenly wonder if my sound-wonder tools have fallen out. No. I hear a slight rustling as my finger touches the surface. This is a good sign.

I’m a bit clumsy with anything new. I claim both imperfection and permanent flaws. The journey would be downright boring if I already knew everything.

In this picture my hearing aids suggest the beginning of a fantasy song—in the key of C, adjustable, flowing, imperfect maybe, but full of possibilities.

hearing06192014_0000

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Helping Mama Turtle

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 15, 2014| 1 Comment »

Love is the bridge between you and everything. (Rumi)

A cool breeze and a moderate temperature turn our walk in a county park into a mini utopia. It’s the kind of day where people pass by and say, wow what a day, as if they could hold onto the beauty longer. Storms and hot weather will return soon. Then, something peculiar in the grass on a hill to the left of the path catches my attention.  At first I think it is a piece of plastic caught on a hidden twig. But the shape isn’t right. It is too perfectly round. As we draw closer I see a turtle digging with her hind legs into the grass, apparently readying the area for her eggs. The lake is about three feet from the other side of the walkway.

Jay and I move closer, but not into her space. She remains focused on her work. As we watch Mama another walker stops. He and my husband discuss the hazards of eggs buried in that shallow open spot, mowed by park workers, within a predator’s view.

“Well, turtles aren’t known for their intelligence,” the man says, and then moves on shrugging his shoulders.

A reply comes into my head too late. I don’t equate intelligence with the right to exist. True, I wouldn’t take a vole to the vet, but that’s because it has a life-span of three to six months. Moreover, I’ve never met one. But this example circles the truth: Love is the bridge between me and anything.

Jay and I look at one another. We decide to notify a naturalist. At the camp store the woman behind the counter calls the naturalists’ office. The office seems pleased we let them know about our discovery.

When we return to the hill where we saw Mama, the search doesn’t turn out to be as easy as we expect it to be. Jay finds the spot, now a packed circle of dirt. Fortunately my husband’s memory is better than mine. The area he chooses to survey is right on. Mine misses it by several trees and thirty feet. He places three yellow warning flags around the mud turtle nursery.

The Midland Painted Turtle is known in the scientific world as Chrysemys picta. These turtles often bask on logs or stones in lakes with their friends, sunbathing with the stillness of the surfaces under them. Perhaps Jay and I didn’t save much, but a few more painted turtles may have a chance to celebrate the water and sun someday.

We didn’t bring a camera, so my quick colored-pencil rendering will have to do. One form of life may feed on another, but sometimes one life form helps another, too. The red stands out exaggerated in this picture, like dark stitches or scars. Life always has its cost. But that doesn’t make it any less beautiful.

Some scavenger may find all of Mama’s eggs. Maybe. Maybe not. I have no control over tomorrow. For now Jay and I trek hand-in-hand over the bridge that crosses the lake, and I wonder what the next bridge will ask of me.

Midland Painted Turtle06142014_0000

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Under the Sink, Open and Flowing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 9, 2014| 2 Comments »

If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there? (Casey Stengel)

When is this sink ever going to drain? I ask myself. Sometimes aloud. Sometimes not. With or without an oath. The plunger is my friend, but sometimes it gets lazy and refuses to let the water move no matter how much energy I put into my part of the job. After all, I have not dropped crud or grease down the pipes. Sure, the man who put in my new dishwasher said I should have one of my old pipes replaced, relatively soon. It looks like it came from Rome’s original system. But, if it has lasted this long, and all I have is a few occasional drips easily captured in an aluminum pan, what should it matter? Someone is coming next week to look at the problem.

“Sure, I can handle it,” that man says as he squats under the sink. Then comes the uh oh. The piece breaks off in his hands. I suppose I should have taken a picture of the rotted, clogged, rusted pipe that has been living under our sink since the house was built in 1957—but it wouldn’t have drawn many people back for a second look. If this piece of pipe had been living tissue it would have needed emergency bypass surgery. The medical team would have wondered how the patient had managed to stay alive.

Nothing short of a miracle has kept water flowing through galvanized metal blocked so thoroughly acid would need to fight to pass through. And yet, this old hunk of metal has done the best it could until the end. Sorry I made you work so hard, I tell the severed piece lying on my kitchen floor. Although I’m not really talking to an inanimate object. I’m telling myself to pay more attention to those aspects of the ordinary that give me clues I ignore, generally because I’m busy with so-called more important matters.

Sure I know where I’m going. Sort of. On a spiritual plane anyway. But since I happen to live on this existential planet it might be a good idea to recognize where I am, every step, stone, and pipe along the way.

tomorrow year not specified06092014_0000

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When the Ordinary Isn’t Ordinary

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2014| 2 Comments »

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you. (Maori Proverb)

The man at the pool grill, grate-thin, talks to my husband and me about the brats and hamburgers he prepares. He compares them to other means of cooking and rewarming. With a smile that expands him beyond his slender frame he announces, “I have stage-four cancer.”

My hearing is poor. I need new hearing aids; after nine years the old ones gave up trying to help me catch sounds—and occasionally actually to listen. Even if I didn’t hear every word this sunny gentleman said, I caught the line about his health, thrown in like a significant clue in a fascinating stay-up-all-night mystery novel. His tone sounds out of context. And yet, it doesn’t at all. He faces the sun and lets the shadows fall behind.

I watch his eyes and try to follow the level of his fascination for life—even the mundane turning of food on a grill at the YMCA pool.

The ordinary is no longer ordinary when someone’s hours could be counted, when those do-it-sometime-in-the-future dreams become a maybe. Taking-a-blessing-for-granted is not a luxury.

I am not a big fan of fast food. I like to create different vegetable and main course combinations maximizing color as well as choose salads with multiple greens. But somehow, as Mother Nature offers a blue overhead that can’t be duplicated by creatures, a pleasant warming sun dries our bathing suits, a gentle man demonstrates perspective. A white bun with grilled meat doesn’t seem all that boring.

This moment is innately good.

(quote found at the Optimism Revolution, tiny illustration by Terry Petersen)

beautiful things in humble places06042014_0000

 

 

 

 

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Treading Water with Dragons

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 28, 2014| 2 Comments »

Facts and truth really don’t have much to do with each other. (William Faulkner)

For well over an hour I tread water in the adults-only side of the pool and feel temporarily invincible. The air is hot and the water cool as I kick and spread my arms over the water, no need to touch the bottom to feel safe. Of course I know this is play. My life is okay at the moment, with more ups than downs—not perfect. Few people live a utopian existence.

However, one simple thought about imperfection brings to mind some people who need a miracle, immediately. I can’t provide it. In fact, every time another bit of news about their particular situation arrives I find myself holding my breath, as if I were underwater; it doesn’t help. The facts don’t change. And truth is beyond my understanding. It is far larger than anything I can comprehend. I keep hoping that this is only their forty-years-in-the-desert portion of a glorious adventure in a grand new land. But, I don’t have any of the previews for tomorrow. I scarcely have all the information I need for my own agenda for the rest of the week.

I suspect many people have concerns about friends, family, that little old lady next door who seems to have experienced more than her share of disaster and sure doesn’t deserve it. Life isn’t fair, not a new notion.

All I can do is to continue to tread, in and out of the pool—and to love as fully as I can. Dragons can be beaten. Sometimes swords just make them angrier, but forgiveness and acceptance confuse the heck out of them. I guess you just need to know that particular dragon’s vulnerabilities or needs. And that is how the miracles come in. I pray for that kind of truth; when slaying dragons it’s the only kind of knowledge that counts.

 

dragons can be beaten

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