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Posts Tagged ‘experience’

One More Time, From the Top

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 2, 2013| 4 Comments »

My grandfather always said that living is like licking honey off a thorn. (Louis Adamic)

I feel ridiculous. Sure I know how to tune my guitar. Strings get out of tune—all the time. I did this last night in forty seconds. Too much warmth and the wood swells; the sound becomes sharp. When the temperature drops the wood contracts. The E string goes flat and the others drop out, too. But, I’m using a different kind of tuner. The Snark works even in a noisy room. The room is filled with conversation, shouting, laughter. I’m the one distracted, not the electronic device.

Fortunately, a few deep breaths and minor adjustments remind me of the obvious. Externally, I appear calm. All I have to do is tell my internal self to do the same. I have at least thirty minutes of music prepared. Won’t need anywhere near that much for the few minutes I have at the YMCA senior luncheon, before and after the speaker. Today’s topic: “The Wise Way to a Healthier Brain.”

My part of the preparation feels like studying for an important exam: sixty hours of an intense mental workout for an hour’s worth of questions and answers. But then music is different. It is something the soul gives itself, for its own sake. The music lover doesn’t count practice hours. Actually, I have no idea how many hours I have spent getting ready.

Several years ago I stopped playing for months, many months. During that time my hands succumbed to arthritis. When I came back to my Big Baby Taylor, my fingers didn’t want to do what they once could handle easily. So, I did what anyone else who is foolish would do, I scheduled a gig, and forced those digits to cooperate. They did. Somewhat. However, since this girl didn’t pluck a string until she was in her mid-fifties, she can hardly be called a professional. Stubborn? Well, that is another matter. I have sat on my bed and played, paused, and then thrust my hand into a warm wrap to recover before continuing.

Come on, you can do it, I think. The arthritis pain is low right now. My middle finger on my right hand suffers most. But, my friend, Antoinette, did healing touch on it yesterday, and showed me how to send warmth to the swollen site. Here is one of the suggested techniques: http://www.spirithospital.com/Article–Healing-Mudras.html So far it is working. Positive thinking, more than a concept.

“The sound is ready. Go ahead,” I’m told.

Well, the sound could be better. I do what I can and give my best anyway.

Oh, very little in life is perfect, but several folk ask for the words to my original work. That is a plus. Seniors don’t applaud unless they mean it, and they clap with enthusiasm. My three-year-old granddaughter waves to me from the back, but doesn’t try to run from Grandpa and leap on stage. Perhaps the size of the group is too intimidating for that move. There are at least 150 people at the luncheon, not that I would stop to count.

I started awfully late in life to become a great musician, but if all I wanted was perfection I would miss out on a lot of joy, a lot of opportunity, and find regret instead.

Smiling, I pack my supplies after the event ends.

“We’ll have a better sound system for you the next time,” the set-up person says.

Okay. I guess there is going to be a next time. A few inflamed joints can’t win yet!

pic from The Optimism Revolution

music feelings The Optimism Revolution

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Scrubbing the Stove, Freeing the Mind

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 26, 2013| 4 Comments »

There is a road

that runs straight through your heart.

Walk on it.

(Macrina Wiederkehr, “Seasons of Your Heart”)

The top of my stove needs a good scrubbing. It wears the residue of dinner, at least the splattering from it. I’m amazed at how much it wants to remain adhered to the surface, like a memory: a trauma perhaps, or a life changing event.

Instead of staying with these thoughts I think about the joy I’ve had preparing special foods on this surface. I have created my own recipes, many that worked. I have also followed the directions in a cookbook, then dumped the result into the garbage, like the time I added baking soda instead of corn starch to a cherry pie filling. That caused one bubbling mess before I realized what I had done wrong. The clue came when I saw an unopened box of cornstarch on my counter. It helps to smile at my own foibles. After all, no one, except the cook, suffered from that experience.

The word suffered brings me back to my original concerns. Some folk I love are hurting. And I can’t scrub out their problems with elbow grease and a steel wool pad. I can diffuse the energy that binds me by cleaning—praying all the way. Somehow, that helps. Don’t know how, but it does.

You can’t change anyone but yourself. Not a new concept. But haven’t most of us tried, in one way or another? “Shoulding” all over someone leads to frustration. Distant silence translates into I-don’t-care. How, just how, do you find a way of letting people find answers? I listen. Yes, but it feels so helpless sometimes.

Eventually, as I scrub, I look outside and see the trees covered with snow. It’s the end of March. That isn’t out-like-a lamb, the way spring is expected to appear. Mother Nature doesn’t need permission from the calendar. The branches create an incredible, random pattern of white, one that won’t remain forever. Spring will arrive. At least it always has. The snow on the street has already melted.

The passageway out has opened. Now that the stove shines again, I look for the road that runs through my heart. It considers the possibility of miracles. They could happen. Maybe not. In the meantime, I release all choices that are not mine, and whisper love without judgment for someone special to me. The gray lifts as the sun peeks through, just a little. Hope. No promises.

I accept that as enough, for now, and take a stroll through the road that passes directly into my heart.

walking in the light

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True and False Memories and a Ten-Cent Parking Meter

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 20, 2013| 1 Comment »

The future is there…looking back at us. Trying to make sense of the fiction we will have become. (William Gibson)

I have just picked up Kate from school on the Friday of Kate’s ninth birthday party. We are on our way to get her little sister, Rebe, at her baby sitter’s house.

“Remember when I was in pre-school, Grandma?” Kate remarks. “You used to pick me up every day.”

My brain has an overflow valve. When it gets full, memories leak out. But this scenario is most unlikely. When Kate was four-years-old I worked in a hospital pharmacy. Sure, on Fridays, my day off, Kate and I went to the library for story-time, but that was not a daily event. I tell her so.

“Uh uh, I remember it.”

Apparently that time at the library expanded in her short-life’s memory data base. Books, a delightful children’s librarian, and Grandma must have been important to her. Somehow I don’t feel compelled to argue about facts, details. Her emotions surrounding that Friday event remain solid, valid, despite exaggeration. Some other day we will explore reality.

Recently my husband, Jay, and I traveled with another couple to Grantsville, West Virginia, where he and his friend since high school visited in the late 1960s. They stayed at a hotel owned by a navy friend of Jay’s. Our traveling team had no expectation of reliving those days; the hotel closed and the owner died several years ago. However, Jay’s friend had wanted to return to the area. The trip was a pilgrimage of sorts.

The charm of Grantsville  has remained, population listed on the 2010 census as 562. It went up to 563 in 2011. Grantsville is located in the heart of West Virginia, the quintessential small town. I knew where we were going to stop for lunch when I saw the sign on the local restaurant: Come in as strangers. Leave as friends.

The first person we met, at a small local museum, had an eerie resemblance to the hotel owner when he was younger. However, he said he is not related to the owner in any way. The hotel is set for demolition. I’d hate to think we went back into time—via Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone series that aired from 1959 to 1964.

Since we left intact, I’m pretty sure we didn’t journey into another dimension. The parking meters, however, did belong to another time, a pleasant surprise. Jay pulled a quarter from his pocket. There was no slot for it, only for nickels and dimes.

Therefore, I had to have a photo of that meter. Someday we can say, “Remember in 2013 when we stopped in that town and got 1 ½ hours’ worth of parking for 15 cents?”

Actually, I’d much rather recall snuggling with my grandchildren on the day of Kate’s birthday party—and maybe even exaggerate the heck out of how long that time had been. A little equal time in the false-memory game is fair play.

parking meter Grantsville WV March 2013

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Replace the Word Re—d with Respect

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on March 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil. (Hannah Arendt)

Computers fascinate my granddaughter Ella. She knows how to maneuver the icons on her Samsung Galaxy tablet, and her small fingers move with alarming speed from screen to screen. Sure, her tripled chromosome adds learning challenges. However, since she creates an atmosphere of joy wherever she goes, her efforts spread courage, too.

If Ella can work harder to reach a goal, so can I.

Since I have experienced the wonder and beauty of a child with Down syndrome, I wince when someone uses the R-word, that taunt that ends in a d. It is not used by the medical community, only by the unthinking. (By the way, Ella is a child with Down syndrome, not a Down syndrome child; the difference may appear subtle, but it isn’t. She is first a person, and second, she is a child who has a challenge to overcome. Also,  the word syndrome is not capitalized unless it is part of a title, such as the Down Syndrome Association where the emphasis is on an organization, not a person.)

Grammar, however, is secondary. An understanding of people is what matters.

Today is the day to pledge to end the r-word:   http://www.r-word.org/

Many folk who have handicaps have more determination than college graduates. Actually, with help from the caring, some people with special needs have earned college diplomas.

So, today, right now, replace that put-down word with respect. It goes a lot further and delivers a lot more truth.

r words

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Ageless Enthusiasm

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

We are always the same age inside. (Gertrude Stein)

My maternal grandmother was a consummate seamstress. If she could imagine it, she could sew it. When she was a young woman she took a notebook to store windows, made crude sketches, and then went home and recreated what she saw—tailored to size for select customers.

Once she made a dress with a spider-webbed skirt. I never saw it since she had constructed it long before I was born. It remains part of the legend of Grandma. No one ever mentioned how much she earned; I got the clear impression her work was severely under-priced.

I decided to become a fashion designer when I was in middle grade school, probably because of the stories I heard about Grandma. I loved to draw. I made detailed descriptions of the front and back of dresses. Since I wasn’t keen on cleaning up after myself, I left my work and crayons lying around for Grandma to pick up.

Instead of complaining, Grandma made one of my imagined designs for me: a teal sleeveless dress with V-neck and V-back with a long fabric bow that reached almost to the hem line, a cinched waist, and billowing skirt. My grandmother always made clothes for me that were a tad too big, a result of Depression-era thinking. Clothing needed to last—for as long as possible. Hard times could appear again, by her way of thinking. She knew what it was like to have no food in the house. She remembered an occasion when her cupboard had been bare until her brother stopped by with a bushel of green beans. So, my custom-made dress was mad to last a loooong time.

Perhaps that fear that those few dollars she spent on cloth may never be replaced made her gift even more precious. Nevertheless, I recall how excited I was when I saw her creation, the shine in Grandma’s blue eyes—her payment, a granddaughter’s enthusiastic thank-you. I felt an appreciation of my ability to be creative, too. I could put down an idea on paper, then watch it develop, step into real life.

Enthusiasm comes naturally to a child who knows she is loved. That love doesn’t have to be perfect, just available, from some steady source. Grandma’s quiet presence and steady needle were always there.

I may never know what gifts I leave to my grandchildren. I can only guess. When I picked up Rebecca from pre-school last week she told me she had a surprise and couldn’t wait to show me: a picture of mittens, one colored yellow and the other blue. The text read: “If my grandma made me mittens . . .” I gathered that she was stating that whatever I give my girls, it wouldn’t be traditional. So far they each have a song and  a poem. Rebe envisions mittens in mismatched colors.

As long as joy is included in some form, it doesn’t matter how it arrives, colored in yellow, blue, plaid or indigo.

“What should we play now?” I asked her, eye to eye. After all, we were the same age at that moment, both children in spirit, eager to share our enthusiasm for one another.

“House,” she answered. Always the same answer, never the same game.

growing old optional

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To Be Or Not To Be—A Sponge

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on February 7, 2013| 3 Comments »

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. (Lao Tzu)

Somewhere I read or heard that washing a sponge in the dishwasher is a good way to destroy lingering bacteria. As I take a sponge that’s been through considerable scrubbing, with residue of Ella’s yogurt, spilled coffee, and whatever was imbedded on the stove top, I feel as if I could use a thorough run through the dishwasher.

Sure it’s great to be the confidante for several wonderful folk, but a time comes when I need to rinse all of that information away, relax, and begin again. I do not have a degree in psychology. I do have access to twelve-step material, a good church community, and an intimate woman’s faith group known as Apple. They all serve me well. Moreover, there is nowhere anyone can live—truly experience life—without picking up a few hints along the way. Nevertheless, all the assistance in the world doesn’t protect anyone from wearing out.

These are some of the hints that tell me when I am ready to wash my mental sponge with some downtime: meditation, fun reading, a cup of tea (without caffeine), an additional exercise routine or walk, perhaps a call to an understanding friend:

             sleeplessness or waking too many times during the night

            dreading that the phone will ring with more bad news

            an intense desire to overdo the chocolate

            losing and/or forgetting things.

These are some of the signs that come to my mind. In the meantime, I rinse out the excess soap and grime in my trusty sponge and put it in the top shelf of my old, but reliable dishwasher, and then wait for the full cycles of time to complete the process.

Eventually, the sponge will give up. It always does; it is made of finite material. But, hey, it’s been a good cleaning tool and has served its purpose. Fortunately, the human spirit can be taught depth, richness, and an ability to accept even greater challenges.

Okay, one…two…three. Press the start button and go.

dear stress

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Old Porcelain Dolls Explain Flexibility

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 19, 2013| 1 Comment »

Never forget where you’ve been. Never lose sight of where you’re going. And never take for granted the people who travel the journey with you. (Susan Gale)

As I went through a box of the collector dolls I gave my mother, I only remembered two of them, curly-haired blond kissing dolls I bought in Metamora, Indiana at least fifteen years ago. Mom displayed them on a table my father designed, instead of locking them in a china cabinet with the others. Apart, the two figures appear contorted, arms twisted, faces lifted, mouths eager, fish-like. Together, they symbolized young love.

I’m not sure I saw them as symbols of my parents when I purchased the porcelain pair. All I knew was that as a child Mom had collector dolls that had been lost. (It’s a long story that doesn’t matter anymore.) I tried to fill that void. Kissing dolls felt appropriate. After my mother died, the pair sat poised in the same position for ten more years. Together, as if Mom, the love of Dad’s life were still with him.

The dolls old-fashioned green-and-white cotton clothing aged in the dust and air, even if their young features didn’t. I managed to get the stains removed. However, I stopped trying to redress the girl when a few stitches from the lace at the neck tore. Her rigid arms couldn’t bend. My hands felt almost as stiff as the porcelain. I decided to try later, or ask someone without arthritic fingers.

I discovered later that I didn’t need to ask anyone. Granddaughter Kate and a neighbor, nine-year-old Hannah, worked together to get our partially dressed doll ready for her long-time puckered companion. Apparently completing a task impossible for me, was so easy for Kate and Hannah they didn’t think to tell me they had done it.

The girls didn’t seem to notice the contorted forms of the pair when separated. They saw what was supposed to be, not my symbols. Their wisdom belongs to their own time, not mine. I am grateful for my young people as they are. Now.

The dolls remind me of the importance of balance and flexibility. Sure, my past is important. It taught, and not all of those seeds have taken full root. Perhaps. sometime before this journey is completed, my path will appear clearer. When do I give up, and when do I simply try harder? It’s not always easy to tell. That’s why it’s such a gift to have loving companions along the way.

As part of her inheritance Kate grabbed a large old doll I’m sure I didn’t give my mother—it came from Germany long before I was born. Little Rebe wanted something cuddly. Ella was more interested in a snack. Priorities change in time, preferably accepted slowly, savored. Lived each moment as it occurs.

And in that acceptance, blessed.

slow down

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Toddler Teacher

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Forever is composed of nows.  Emily Dickinson

Our granddaughter Ella may be in her pack-and-play for a nap, but that doesn’t mean she has any intention of succumbing to sleep. Fortunately she isn’t putting up an ugly protest. This time of day is relegated to rest and our little one knows it. She doesn’t cry without a good reason.

As I work at the computer Ella babbles. She could be talking to a stuffed animal, an imaginary friend, or her guardian angel. Our granddaughter’s language hasn’t developed enough for us to know. Down syndrome has delayed her speech, but has elevated her understanding of the now, a place to be embraced—even if Grandma could be hogging all the fun Curious George games and Sesame Street videos.

I hear a cackle, perhaps the punch line to some joke only she understands. I shake my head and swallow a laugh. Apparently her run through Lowe’s didn’t wear her out this morning. It took two adults to keep one three-year-old girl from rearranging a huge hardware store. While I picked out an area rug for the computer/toy room, Grandpa followed our blonde tornado through the store. Ella made friends along the way, too. She always does, with her magnet-blue eyes and innocent smile. Her beauty and personality reach beyond the limitations of Down syndrome. She makes people feel chosen by her love. It relays an angel’s touch.

Perhaps an angel is teaching her the tricks of the trade—right now. And I don’t know a thing about the lesson. I can’t see or hear her life teachers. I may not have been born with the competition gene, but that doesn’t mean I don’t compare myself to folk who achieve a lot more. I also grow restless when time steals moments I feel are rightfully mine.

No day belongs to me. It is a gift, just as Ella is a gift.

Eventually the noise and rustling stop and I hear two voices in the bedroom. Grandpa and Ella laugh. It is post-rest time. Let the blessings continue. After all, I have a lot to learn.

It's today Pooh shared by Jane Friedman

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Learning Heart, The Rest Is Incidental

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 23, 2012| 1 Comment »

The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit. (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière, actor and playwright, 1622-1673)

Eight-year-old Kate calls the day before Thanksgiving to talk to Grandma. She wants to know what her cousin Ella has done today, especially anything funny. I’m getting ready for the big feast, so I don’t have all three of my grandchildren at the house on my usual Wednesday. Sure, it would be difficult to prepare with three active kids in the house, but I miss the precious presence of the other two children.

I tell Kate about how I found Ella’s shoes on Barney, the Dinosaur. It’s the kind of story she wants to hear. Later I learn this game was initiated by Grandpa, but it doesn’t matter. It makes Kate laugh.

Ella reaches for the phone. She’s been out of the loop too long. I put the conversation on speaker, and then let our youngest granddaughter communicate, in her own way. She kisses the receiver. Blessings fill the air.

After Ella reluctantly gives up the phone, Kate tells me about someone she knows who is pregnant. The baby may have Down syndrome. The parents are waiting for test results; they are frightened. I am amazed at my granddaughter’s adult understanding. She knows what a joy her cousin is—and yet, she recognizes the difficulties of caring for a child with special needs.

Ella tries to climb onto the television stand. “No!” I call to her. She stops before I get to her, and I am grateful, but I am also glad she is extending her horizons.

It’s been a long haul since our little one was born seven weeks early, facing two surgeries before she was three months old: one for duodenal atresia and the other for an A/V canal defect. The second meant open heart surgery.

When her heart was cut open, our hearts were, too. The entire family learned what was important and what wasn’t. We continue to grow with her, to share enthusiasm when Ella points to the first letter of her name and pronounces “E” clearly. No, we probably won’t have a Harvard graduate. But a positive attitude teacher? Definitely.

“See you tomorrow, Kate. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Grandma.”

I’m not sure much of anything else matters.

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Learning in the Key of B Positive

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on November 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

He who is afraid to ask is ashamed of learning. (Danish proverb)

I grew up in the age of carbon paper and typewriters, when term papers meant staying up until one in the morning, bleary eyed. An error always occurred at the bottom of the page. It couldn’t be erased, and the entire page needed to be retyped. The backspace key had not been invented yet. But tears had been. They flowed freely. If only. . . If only my fingers wouldn’t falter I could get an A-plus in Ancient History. Maybe. Who knows? At least that was my fantasy.

The single light bulb above Dad’s old manual burned as dimly as my enthusiasm by page five. Intelligent thought faded into the carbon paper by the end of the assignment. Black. My future looked black.

Now writing five pages, at least from an efficiency point of view, isn’t such a chore. However, my understanding of my precious computer comes from a brain born in the technological dinosaur era. My three-year-old granddaughter with Down syndrome discovered how to get Facebook for five cents a minute on my cell phone while I was in the bathroom at a hotel in St. Louis. We are talking less than two minutes! I had no idea my I-don’t-even-text phone could do that.

Life is a mystery. So are the 0’s and 1’s that draw me to the computer, even when I should be doing something else. Actually, the keyboard draws me especially when I should be doing something else.

I ask questions. And don’t want you-do-it-for-me. Well, not unless the problem is so knotted even a genius needs to confide in the next genius up.

Now, my word processor is giving me new challenges. One of my best friends gave me one answer, then another problem took its place. I have thought about chucking my precious laptop and printer out the window. However, that could be counterproductive, to say nothing of a mess to clean up in the yard.

Does anyone else fight with technology?

(I suspect this photo, found in an e-mail sent by a friend, is strictly a set-up. At least I hope it is.)

Image

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