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Posts Tagged ‘learning at any age’

Spelling Gratitude: T-E-C-H H-E-L-P

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 23, 2013| 2 Comments »

Life begins where your comfort zone ends. (Karen White, author, “Sea Change”)

My desktop background reflects where I am on my life’s journey in an odd sort of way. I change the picture frequently—just because I can. It displays family memories, a season, a humorous notion, or an uplifting thought or scene. For a few hours I decided it would be fun to rebel against responsibility, so I let Donald Duck stand behind all my icons. He claimed that he wasn’t cut out for adulthood.

I knew when I gave him center stage he wouldn’t be there for long, and eventually chose a sign that fit the moment better: PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE FEARS. It made me smile, yet expressed truth at the same time.

Now, as I talk on the phone to my nephew, Alan, I want to pretend to be Donald Duck and let someone else do the work. Alan is my tech support. I am trying to renew my virus protection on my laptop and it has FAILED. It lets me know in bold, bright, horrifying color. Alan is calm. He is a genius nerd who knows his stuff. I imagine my world locked inside these 0’s and 1’s, swallowed by a monster virus.

“Okay, simultaneously hit Control and J,” Alan says. “That will bring up your recent downloads.”

And it does—the first time. That download doesn’t complete either. My throat is as dry as desert rock on a-120 degree day. My laptop has other plans. it seems to be saying, I’m loading down, sister. taking a nap instead.

I catch sight of my desktop pic and sigh. Won’t feed the fear, but I could use a glass of water.

My nephew remains on the phone. He leads me to safe directions. I see the promised land and read a most precious word: INSTALLED.

Halleluiah! I have passed through dangerous land without being hijacked, robbed, or killed.

“Thank you,” I say, feeling as if I just gave a miracle worker a twenty-five-cent tip.

“Well, if computers worked all the time, we tech-savvy people wouldn’t have anything to do,” he answers.

He’s right, but that doesn’t diminish my gratitude one megabyte.

pic from the Optimism Revolution

don't feed fears Optimism Revolution

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Out-of-the-Box Creativity

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 29, 2013| 1 Comment »

No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it. (Paulo Coelho)

At a writers’ conference several years ago, I heard an agent or editor, don’t recall who it was, talk about how important it is to have a polished ready-to-go manuscript. She emphasized the necessity to find a unique approach, a fresh angle. A memoir that simply tells “my story” can’t cut it. However, I believe in tact. When a woman wrote the story of her ordeal surviving breast cancer, this professional bluntly told the woman it did not stand out. It added nothing. In essence it was no different than anything already written. The writer broke down in tears. Perhaps that one-on-one rejection could have come with constructive criticism instead of an ax. But I don’t read so-so manuscripts all day long. I only edit my own groaners.

Writing is a tough business.  I write anyway, whether I make a lot of money or not. I’m addicted. When one small group of folk told me I had touched their lives with my words I felt honored. That doesn’t mean I don’t have goals. I want to write well. But, if I don’t touch hearts, I have failed by writing only fancy words.

Occasionally I also write songs. These are always positive and have a limited audience. When a friend shared a story about a 96-year-old man named Fred who wrote a song about his deceased wife, Lorraine, I was intrigued. He didn’t follow a single rule for the contest. He couldn’t sing or play an instrument. In fact he wrote that if he sang he would scare people. Yet the professionals who conducted the contest were touched by his sincerity, read his lyrics, and decided to record his song. It didn’t follow the guidelines for the contest, but it fit the requisites for the soul of a song.

Warnings appear on the YouTube clip to keep tissues close by, and don’t watch if you don’t want anyone to know you have working tear ducts. (Well, that’s not a direct quote, but it gives a clear enough notion.) http://twentytwowords.com/2013/08/26/widower-submits-a-song-about-his-wife-of-73-years-to-a-songwriting-contest/

Since I have watched the video, several times now, I find myself humming “Sweet Lorraine.” My son gave me a gift card for iTunes. This sounds like a good place to use it.

In the meantime I celebrate an out-of-the-box success. The video has gone viral. The words don’t suggest that there was anything different about Fred and Lorraine. They lived an ordinary life. Well. But, they did it for 73 years. And that is tougher than facing a hard-nosed publishing world with a few pages of printed words.  

Kudos to Green Shoe Studios! You found the treasure because you could broaden your vision. Thanks.

Fred hears his words come to life in song.

Fred Sweet Lorraine

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Patience Power—in Toddler-Size Three

Posted in kindness, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 14, 2013| Leave a Comment »

In this world, you must be a bit too kind to be kind enough.
(Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux)

Ella runs toward another child with white-blond hair as if their fair heads were halos meant to merge.

“Hi! Hi!” Ella is finally talking. Her vocabulary is limited. She still uses sign language for most communication. Down syndrome has affected her development. But she has always expressed enthusiasm with complete clarity.

The boy seems puzzled, but accepts our little one’s hug. His sister, perhaps a year younger, continues toward the parking area at the Museum Center. Then she hesitates. I suspect she isn’t going to miss out on the love her sibling is getting. Ella doesn’t disappoint her.

Ella, Grandpa, and I are on our way to the Museum Center. However, our three-year-old girl is in no hurry. Each step on the journey brings its own adventure. She sees a little girl in a stroller and blocks Mama’s path to ooh and ah over someone younger than she is.

While my husband and I apologize for the interruption I hear my name called. I see Marcia, a very special friend who has enlightened my life’s path in deep and beautiful ways. I’m both surprised and happy to see her. Her smile fits the halo image. An embrace feels in order.

She introduces me to Mama and the little one in the stroller. The child is on her way to nap time and barely tolerates Ella’s gushing. Fortunately, the little girl isn’t screaming yet. And I am grateful.

I don’t count the number of stops it takes to get to the door. After all, we aren’t late for a plane. A fountain, a cloud, or a block of cement can fascinate if approached with curiosity. Adult responsibility has damaged a lot of my spontaneity. If I don’t catch my granddaughter’s life lessons, she will show me again, without any sign of irritation.

In one play area inside the museum she insists upon putting on a sheriff’s vest by herself. Unfortunately it includes a scarf with an opening along the back that could be an extra arm hole. Although Ella never figures out how to maneuver the vest, she doesn’t give up, and she doesn’t throw a tantrum and blame costume construction for getting in her way. Life is what it is. Difficult. She has known that since she was born seven weeks early with multiple medical needs. She has overcome most of them.

One girl seems insistent upon going up a slide the wrong way. Ella waits patiently at the top. Within minutes the two children are playing together. The other girl runs back to Ella to give her a hug before she leaves with her grandparents.

One embrace has led to another. So simple and honest. And it took a child with a tripled twenty-first chromosome to begin the cycle. May one kind gesture direct another… and another…and another.

hug

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The Clubhouse in the Attic

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.  (Nelson Mandela)

Service we needed done in our house takes up a large portion of the afternoon: drilling, decisions, and comforting a five-year-old who doesn’t like noise. No time left to go to the Y for a swim. I expect Kate and Rebe to express serious disappointment. They handle the situation well.

Rebe gets custody of PBS Kids on my iPad while nine-year-old Kate and I do artwork in the second-floor storage area of our house. There is no air-conditioning here since we have no place for duct work, but this has been declared girl territory, a clubhouse arena of sorts. The heat isn’t as horrid as August usually offers. I’m holding out. Rebe manages for a while, and then returns downstairs to the cooler air and Grandpa.

“You can have this page,” Kate says, tearing it out of her brand-new book of designs to create and color. “You can make cards for the family, and then copy them on the computer.” Kate is always planning. She wants to turn our storage area into a play room. That will take not only time but ingenuity. With Kate’s enthusiasm, however, I can see it happening.

She watches as I show her how to blend colored pencil, rounding strokes inside a circle, adding depth by easing orange around the edges of yellow. “See how it looks if you leave a tiny bit of white in a block of turquoise—on purpose.”

We share, heart to heart. I feel free to tell her that someday Grandma and Grandma may need to sell this house and move to a condo, when Grandpa gets too old to mow the grass. Not now. Someday.

“I hope that never happens,” she says. “There are too many memories in this house.”

I am impressed by the depth of a child who hasn’t reached double digits yet. She adds that she is not disappointed that she didn’t get to swim today. She got to spend time with me.

I look around at the haphazard space around us: old blankets, photos, a box with my old published materials, the dolls I bought for my mother—nothing of outstanding value. No one from Better Homes and Gardens has ever approached us with an offer to do an article. Nor do I expect any in the future. Yet, I am blessed.

Finally Rebe returns upstairs, her demeanor comments on the heat as she looks at us working in the corner. “Whatever are you thinking?” she asks.

Kate and I laugh. One more memory has been added to the rest.

learning from children morning coach

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Perfect is Only an Adjective

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 5, 2013| 1 Comment »

There’s something ugly about the flawless. (Dennis Lehane)

As a child I thought perfection was attainable. Expected. On multiple levels.

On an achievement test my sixth-grade teacher emphasized how important it was to erase completely. Pencil residue could be picked up and two filled-in boxes would mean an automatic wrong answer. I sat in the back corner of the room and sighed. That day had been particularly difficult, although I don’t recall why.

Not far into the test I needed to erase. The process became gruesome to this literal student. I moved so slowly through the pages that I eventually gave up. The next year the psychologically ignorant teacher positioned us in rows according to the grade we got on that test. There wasn’t enough room for the last two rows of desks—they were shoved together. I sat in the dummy section. After all, if we cheated the answers were bound to be wrong.

I must admit that seventh grade turned out to be fun. I sat next to the class clown. However, the image that teacher had of me stuck and showed up in my grades. Once again, why bother?

Then, that winter we were given an assignment to write a one-act play based on a book by a Catholic author. Mine was taken from “Fabiola” by Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman, first published in 1854, a, thick book from my parents’ book shelves. It spoke of persecution in the lives of early Christians in the catacombs during the reign of Roman Emperor Diocletian. My teacher did not believe I had read the book much less written the play. My parents needed to verify the fact that I had chosen each word with the required fountain pen at the kitchen table. I had to bring the book to class so that both the principal and teacher could see that I had not plagiarized my assignment. Strangely, I was not frightened. I knew the work I had done was honest.

I won first prize in the Greater Cincinnati area from that one-act play. My grades improved drastically. Yet I was the same child, in the same row. By then I wouldn’t have chosen to sit anywhere else.

Those students I sat next to weren’t dummies either. Perhaps their skills didn’t include diagramming sentences and answering multiplication tables within a given number of seconds. I have no doubt that those conjoined rows housed kids who eventually owned their own businesses or who became beloved parents and grandparents, exemplary citizens, military heroes. They became folk who could find that glitch in a car’s engine no one else could find. Many probably graduated from college and earned degrees because they had learned to work for what they wanted.

They created common miracles no one ever chronicled. We are all important—in different ways.

(pic from Positive Words to Love By)

dogs and differences Positive WoRds

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Water Wisdom

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 23, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. (Oprah Winfrey)

Water is a symbol for the unconscious. I may not be in a deep sleep, approaching a great sea, but the Y pool brings its own unexpected gifts. I find myself drawn to people who tell me stories, or share wisdom. Some of the facts in the next paragraph have been altered—for the sake of anonymity. The purpose of this sharing is for enrichment, not gossip.

Two women always smile when I arrive. They live generosity. The father of one of the women is being forced to move to a nursing facility. He is neither ill nor feeble. She stands with him, not with the convenience of other family members. I listen, blessed. The other woman cares for her brother-in-law who has a debilitating illness. This does not keep her from volunteer work among other disabled people. The gentle spirits of these women blend into the pool water, mix with the chlorine somehow, and make me richer.

On another day I bring my granddaughters to the indoor swim lanes. Rebe pauses at the shallow end and picks up a water weight. Her imagination continues on land or in water. She pretends to be an instructor, directing me, her make-believe daughter.

“These are really heavy,” she says. “So be careful.”

“How much do they weigh?” I grin knowing that she has no idea how much is too much.

“To infinity and beyond,” she answers with make-believe authority.

“Such a goal,” I think. A few minutes ago I encouraged my girls to go for their dreams. Actually I have no idea where my five-year-old granddaughter gets her ideas. But in the water today, her eyes tell me she is happy. This is female-bonding day: Grandma, Kate, and Rebe. We have plenty of time left before Mommy and Daddy arrive to bring the girls home.

Nine-year-old Kate continues to swim laps, grateful that there are no adult-swim-time interruptions in the indoor lanes.

And the water responds with caresses as gentle as the strokes we create. I celebrate the sweetness of this “now.”

Sure, life on life’s terms continues. This time in the pool is only a respite. I can only pray for my friends who face injustice. A raging thunderstorm makes the drive home slow, as I calm a frightened kindergartener by telling her to count after she sees lightening. If the boom takes a while, the strike is far away. If the thunder comes quickly it has already passed by—and it hasn’t hit us.

“Okay, girls, hit the garage door opener!” I call as we arrive home.

They don’t need to be asked twice.

The troublesome storm continues a little while longer. But the sun has never left. It returns like a good parent.

sail boat

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“Things,” Wisdom, and Love

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on July 16, 2013| 2 Comments »

Every human being’s essential nature is perfect and faultless, but after years of immersion in the world we easily forget our roots and take on a counterfeit nature. (Lao-Tzu, philosopher 6th century BCE) 

A fellow writer and very successful blogger avoids the word, thing, as if it belonged in the bottom of the pit of grammatical horrors. He’s right; ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time another word gives a better description. That doesn’t stop me from saying, “I’m not that interested in “things.” Most people understand what I mean. My second-hand furniture and ’97 Toyota with enough dents to belong in a demolition derby, are adequate for my needs. I don’t require designer clothing to feel okay inside.

Interior satisfaction costs far more than any expensive object. It means tearing up the me-schedule. It means listening instead of talking. Waiting instead of hurrying. It means abdicating the center of the universe position.

Interior peace comes with patience, with recognizing beauty in places that aren’t obvious. A good friend tells the story of her daughter when she was in kindergarten. “Mommy, my teacher is so beautiful!” But when the friend met the teacher she saw a woman with incredibly plain features. Not until the woman spoke and her eyes sparkled with love and enthusiasm, did my friend see what her daughter had experienced—true and deep beauty.

I feel that brilliance in the person of my three-year-old granddaughter, Ella. She has physical attractiveness, almost white hair, saucer-sized blue eyes. But Down syndrome has delayed her development. She sounds out words phonetically, gets excited about the magnetic letters on our refrigerator, yet has never said more than two words together. And those moments have been rare. Yet, she understands and responds with a love few adults have mastered.

I learn from her more than she learns from me. I would have to give up a lot of pride to even consider touching her level of acceptance, her innate wisdom.

Perhaps that is part of the reason why I renounce “things” in such a general way. No one noun covers the entire experience. The world isn’t clear enough to me yet, everything that I need, everything I don’t.

I require further lessons from less complicated folk.

having what you want, wanting it

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The Inside of a Ping Pong Ball, The Outside of an Egg

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 10, 2013| 1 Comment »

Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg before it is broken. (M. F. K. Fisher)

I wanted to get in trouble when I was in sixth grade so that I would be given a unique punishment: Write 500 words on the interior of a ping pong ball. However, I was sure that the punishment would be changed, suddenly, inexplicably, the second I chose to play the role of rebel. Besides, for me out-of-line felt as uncomfortable as drowning.

Actually, I have no idea what I would have written, probably something based on fantasy. Too many decades have passed to know for certain. I know the real me hadn’t emerged yet. It was inside that ping pong ball—or probably a better metaphor—my egg hadn’t hatched yet. While many people yearn to be young again, give me over-sixty and retired any day. Sure, it brings plenty of problems. I didn’t have arthritis then, and I didn’t need to get up at night to relieve a complaining bladder. Yet, in those days I wasn’t aware that the world held almost infinite possibilities. A zit on my chin signaled disaster. And no amount of logic could have convinced me otherwise.

Maybe that’s part of the reason why I love to get eye-to-eye with my grandchildren, let them know they are not second-class citizens because they are under age eighteen. I can’t spare them crises as they grow older, but I hope to ward off as many unnecessary traumas as possible.

“You are a natural swimmer,” I tell Rebe. Then I ask Kate to make up one more song, on the spot about a topic I give her: rainbows, sports, sunshine. The subject doesn’t matter. And most of the time my poor hearing doesn’t catch her lyrics. Doesn’t matter. My girls need to know they can do whatever they choose to do. They have potential that can break open and grow at any time. They are not the nothing inside a ping pong ball—like I thought I was.

No one is.

cracked-egg

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Dust, Flaws, and Possibilities

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle. (George Orwell)

Last week while Jay and I vacationed in Colorado, a housekeeping crew caught the dust before it settled on anything. In my home dust moves much faster than I do. But it doesn’t need to be my enemy, even if it is listed among the many allergens that make me sneeze or wheeze.

Actually, the only reasons I bother cleaning are to breathe and to live without complete chaos. No innate satisfaction involved. So, to keep my mind from feeling like a soiled rag I need to think deeper than spilled soup on the stove. What lies above and below the stains? What is important? What isn’t?  What should change in my life now, and what can only happen slowly? Not always as obvious as the question sounds. It’s so easy to wipe off the surface of a problem and leave resentment behind.

When someone admits a flaw I can relate. The trick seems to be in finding a balance since I tend to be easier on others than I am on myself.

Sometimes, to clarify perspective I try to see through the eyes of someone with simpler vision. On Wednesday our five-year-old granddaughter spent the day with us. She loves spending time with Grandma. As she pretended to give birth to twins, two soft dolls stuffed under her shirt, she said, “Look, they are wearing caps.”

Impossible in the real world? Well, yes. But she is centered in childhood’s innocence. The fact that her grandparents slept until five minutes before she arrived, didn’t faze her. She needed an unmade bed for her thirty-second spontaneous doll delivery, and a too-neat bedspread would have been in the way.

Grandma plays with her. Maybe I don’t have the same spontaneity as a kindergartener. I’m a bit stiff when it comes to switching roles mid-play, and I get distracted when the pretend world creates too much clutter in the world the grown-up Grandma will need to repair later. However, there are many levels in this existence, all happening at once. Dust and grime, imagination, beauty, and infinite possibility—all coexisting. I don’t want my blackened dust cloth to distract me from the whole.

pic from Positive Inspirational Quotes

different perspective PIQ

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Talking Freckles

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on June 11, 2013| 1 Comment »

If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud. (Emile Zola)

On land I could never run with a lanky nine-year-old girl on my back. In the water, however, I pretend to be a horse. So does my husband—with five-year-old Rebe on his back. Jay moves much faster. In or out of the water. I’m more pony height.

When Grandma horse and Grandpa horse trade riders, Rebe gives me a name. At first it is Sleigh-ride. Then she changes it to Head-chopper. Kate turns Grandpa into a dolphin, more appropriate for the water. Imagination “reigns.”

Then Kate chooses another game. What if things spoke? What would an object say if it could? She calls out a word and my job is to give it a voice in two to three sentences. Most of my responses wouldn’t be worth editing. Fine for grandparent-grandchild play, but way too silly for a public forum. Moreover, I can’t remember all of the inanimate objects she suggests.

“Freckle,” Kate says.

A good friend calls them angel kisses. Summer has made Kate’s darker and larger, a random pattern like wildflowers scattered in a field. I see part tomboy and part let’s-pretend feminine. I see blossoming kindness, innate to her being.

But I don’t alter the game with metaphors, even if they do compliment my young granddaughter. I say something about how the fresh dark freckle chatters away to a face, and that face ignores it. Somehow, Kate finds the scenario hilarious.

Objects don’t communicate, except in fantasy. And people aren’t always that good at it either. I know I can assume. Sure, I hear what another person says. Sort of. Not on every level. That takes time.

Perhaps I’m not always clear either. It helps if I can learn to live as out loud as my grandchildren. Celebrate life as it comes. Learn. Be. Grow. No matter what. Celebrate color as if it had the power of breath, and recognize the power of dreams.

I dream in color

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