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Posts Tagged ‘learning at any age’

Lost Keys, Panic, and Peace

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on May 30, 2013| 2 Comments »

Hooray! Hooray! The end of the world has been postponed! (Hergé)

One definition of serenity: mind and body occupying the same space at a given moment in time. Tranquility, calmness, and peacefulness, all show up as synonyms on dictionary.com and meriamwebster.com. Sure, I’m serene; that’s why I can’t find my car keys. And I know they have to be in this small house. Somewhere. I used them less than two hours ago. And I need them again—now! Amazing how the loss of a few slivers of metal can create instant panic.

Okay, what story did my friend Carol share just a few hours ago?

She had been mowing the grass. She had a lot on her mind at the time, a mountain of responsibilities. Her husband has a rare and crippling disability, and he needs constant care. Life hasn’t compensated with extra privileges to make her job easier.

Yet, she knows how to redirect counterproductive thinking. She gave herself a task: a one-hundred-item gratitude list. It eased her work, lightened her being. I can do that. Who knows? It may even free my mind enough that I can focus and find my gosh-darned missing keys.

These blessings could appear on my list: a cool breeze on a hot day, a swim at the Y, an unexpected invitation to brunch, a perfectly brewed cup of coffee. At least they make a good start.

One activity at a time, Terry, I tell myself. Think logically. I already searched the pockets of the pink Capris I wore this morning. But, that was in panic mode. This time I explore more carefully. And the keys are in a side pocket. No mysterious disappearance at all. “Minor Armageddon” averted.

As my gratitude list grows I realize that sweetness comes from contrast. Dark versus light, cold versus warmth. A delicate spring flower expresses a deeper beauty because it survived winter. No one can live long without embracing sadness, even horror. However, what’s the point of living in the past? In cold or darkness.

That doesn’t mean I would ever tell anyone not to be sad, no matter the reason. An emotion is what it is. I would say, don’t isolate. Find a friend. See your own goodness, despite appearances. Sometimes a positive attitude takes work. And that is okay.

I start my ’97 Toyota with a single turn in her ignition. Okay, she’s old. But, by a young person’s measure, so am I. But not too old to begin again. One intentional step at a time.

negative committee

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Upside-Down Computer Screen and Spilled Pretzels

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Above all else, go with a sense of humor. It is needed armor.
Joy in one’s heart and some laughter on one’s lip is a sign
that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life. (Hugh Sidey) 

 Famous last words: Sure, one kid today? I can handle this by myself. After all, didn’t I take two sons through the stages of their early lives? Don’t Jay and I frequently have as many as seven children in, out, through this house? It gets a good scrub job later. But we manage. What damage can one three-year-old girl cause?

Ella climbs into the desk chair at the computer—time to watch her favorite videos: “Sesame Street,” “Sid the Science Kid,” “Curious George,” “Super Why.” We share laughs over the same scenes as well as a few new ones. Elmo from Sesame Street explores learning through humor. A bird and a fish don’t nibble the food Halle Berry gives them, so Elmo finds a tiger to demonstrate this word that means “tiny, tiny bite.” Absurdity and learning fit well together.

So do fluke events. At least I don’t think Ella means to find the exact spot on the screen that turns it upside down! My mouse is  confused, too. Fortunately I have a laptop so I flip it over to find an icon with a clue. No luck. Ella’s daddy could help me later, but I decide to call computer-whiz-nephew Alan. He talks me through it with relative ease.

After that crisis I check to make sure that all is upright in the laptop world. Ella escapes my radar. For three seconds. Small crash, fortunately only pretzels. All over the floor. She feasts from the kitchen tile.

“No! No! No!”

Ella is as unimpressed by my censure as the bird and fish were by Halle Berry’s insistence that to nibble does not mean to gobble the entire item, or worse, to absorb Ms. Halle’s hand. Ella grabs a handful of pretzels and stuffs them into her mouth.

“These only.” I give her the few that remained in the bag and reach for the broom and dustpan. “Then I peel a banana for her, better nutrition anyway.

Later, during a more focused moment I ask Ella, “Are you a little girl or a monkey?”

She smiles, looks me in the eye, and answers, “Ooh, ooh.”

Maybe it was that last banana.

(pic from The Secret of Humor is Surprise)

pizza on floor the secret of humor is suprise

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Memory Soup

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been, the
foresight to know where you’re going, and the insight to know
when you’re going too far. (Irish Blessing)

 I like to create meals, not throw a piece of baked chicken and microwaved potato on a paper plate and call it dinner. Nothing wrong with that. Sustenance is sustenance. However, in everyday life I prefer adding the attitude of gifting to my daily preparation: a color, a spice, or a hidden nutrient.

On those rare instances when my husband is out of town or has other plans for the evening, my spark fizzles. I have no interest in planning a surprise party for myself, no one else invited.

Sure I could “should” all over myself about how eating well is not pampering. But, it’s like going to the movies alone—no one to share the story with after the show.

In time either Jay or I will be alone; it’s inevitable since invincible isn’t part of the human condition. I’m meeting with a friend this week who knows that experience. Living alone. Grief. Cooking for one. Recalling the past. Walking into the future one baby step at a time.

So, I decided to share—soup, for me, for my friend. Besides, a pot holds as much liquid as I am willing to give it. And, I can save a portion for my granddaughter Ella.  She loves my homemade chicken soup. She absorbs it: through her pores, into her hair, over her shirt, spilled onto the floor. Soup Ella-style is more than a meal. It is an experience.

For this pot I will add all the usual ingredients: water, Amish bouillon, garlic, onion, pepper, and simmer it in the Crockpot for hours. I will also add prayer and good wishes, a willingness to accept the present as it is, leave the past to itself, and embrace the future. I have regrets. Don’t we all? But living there doesn’t change anything.

Each batch of soup tastes slightly different. I don’t use a recipe. But then life doesn’t follow rules in any exact order either.

For all, may this day bring unexpected blessings, and blend them with both the rare and precious.

for you

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Watercolor and Imagination Meet the Storm

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Perhaps imagination is only intelligence having fun. (George Scialabba)

My two older granddaughters want me to do watercolors with them, an honor. However, painting my hand and then splatting it on paper asks a bit too much. This artistry is part of their Mother’s Day gift for their mommy. And they are excited about doing it, in deep, dark purple.

My computer paper supply slowly diminishes and the dining room table looks like an upside-down wastepaper basket.

Finally Kate decides it’s hand washing time, much to my relief, and she begins another drawing. A purple girl with turquoise hair and a green hat. Her project has purpose. The girl has a story, in sci fi form, with human feelings, a past and a future. I listen, looking down at my wimpy sapling with a few dabs of pale green for leaves. I had no interest in creating it to begin with. It felt like a doodle on perfectly good 20-lb weight paper destined for the trash.

Rebe experiments with color. What happens when orange blends with blue? An odd shade of brown. Then what happens if it is streaked with purple? A storm has been brewing for the past hour. At the tender age of five Rebe knows what a lightning strike can do. The last crash felt farther away. She says that artwork has distracted her. Her wisdom brightens me.

I’m amazed at how easy it is to underestimate the insight of a child. The next day our little girl will pass her next swim test. I won’t be there, but will hear the joy in her voice when she tells me about it on the phone.

Then I will need to use my imagination, envision her quick strokes in the pool, not on paper. And hope that perhaps someday I can approach the world with the simplicity of children at play.

Somehow, as a child, I thought growing up meant knowing-it-all and freedom. Yet, if I’m really learning I discover that wisdom, truth, love, can’t be grasped and held. They expand and grow. Always. Like orange blending into purple and a child’s drawing becoming story, as an older woman watches two young girls embrace color as a gift. Not circles of hardened pigment swirled with water.

The storm passes. For now.

(pic taken from Morning Coach)

learning from children morning coach

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Being and Seeing the Beautiful

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 8, 2013| 1 Comment »

 A diamond doesn’t know how valuable it is to others. (Mark Tyrrell)

Five-year-old Rebe churns the water as she reaches the halfway point in the swim test lane. Anyone watching would have known I was her grandmother, even if I wasn’t screaming. My grin takes over my face.

Early last year she played in the shallow end—safe, preferring to stay in the pretend world. Within months she jumped off the side and let Grandpa catch her. Oh, she still loves the imaginative. But, this expansion of her spirit warms me. The next step, to tread water for a short period of time, should be easy for her, as soon as she gains the confidence. I have no doubt that she could have traveled the length of the pool, back and forth, as easily as she could have walked poolside.

You are a diamond, little girl. Your surfaces haven’t been polished yet, but, somehow, that gives the innate you even more possibility.

Of course I don’t talk to a five-year-old child in metaphors. “Good job, Rebe,” suffices.

I want my granddaughter to see her potential, her beauty. However, as I think about some grownup friends, I realize it’s not necessarily that easy to reflect the goodness I see. When someone suffers deep sadness, pain takes over.

I tell one of my friends what I see in her. She can’t look me in the eye. She isn’t ready to accept anything more than grief. And, somehow, I suspect I would not fare any better if I walked her path.

Perhaps it isn’t easy for any diamond to be shaped and formed, not easy for any person to develop either—at any age.

 In the meantime, an almost kindergartener passed her first swim test at the Y. And a yellow wrist band sparkles, in its own way.

(pic from Positive Inspirational Quotes)

becoming PIQ

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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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Pretending 101, Further Lessons

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on March 13, 2013| 5 Comments »

Nothing is better than simplicity (Walt Whitman, 1855 “Preface to Leaves of Grass”)

As Rebe stuffs a cloth doll under her shirt I know she is Mommy and I am Daughter. Again.

“When’s the baby going to be born, Mommy?”

She changes her mind several times. First the birth will occur on Tuesday, then Saturday, then Sunday. All the while, Mommy shifts baby’s position, not down, but up—as high as chest level.

Somehow I refrain from laughing. After all, I’m either three or five-years-old and couldn’t understand the absurdity of a bumpy-chested pregnancy. Pretend mommy keeps changing her mind about my age. Doesn’t matter. I’m in this game to celebrate my granddaughter’s simplicity for at least a little while. It is a precious invitation.

The birth occurs in a hospital, suddenly, appearing directly from an imaginary car to a bed. Mother drives herself, by the way. And three-or-five-year-old daughter is present for the entire experience. A C-section. Mommy doesn’t know that word, obviously, but she knows the baby needs to appear somehow.

“The doctor has to cut my belly,” Rebe says. “Then he has to put me back together again with a needle. That’s the tricky part.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“She cuddles the doll with genuine maternal instinct.”

“Where’s Daddy?” I ask.

“He’s the doctor.”

“Right.” I nod. “That’s why he couldn’t stay. Because he is so busy.”

“He is also the nurse.”

I bite my lip, and then add, “Really, really busy.”

“He also does the laundry.”

I want to ask if she means the laundry at home or in the hospital, but I can feign a serious face for only so long.

“So is the baby a boy or a girl?”

“A boy.”

“Have you decided what we are going to name my little brother?”

She thinks for a minute, and then says, “PBS Kids.”

Uh, I have a brother named PBS Kids. I am known as Daughter. It’s too bad Dad is so busy as doctor, nurse, and laundry worker. Maybe he would have chosen more conventional names.

Rebe hands me my newborn brother, a cloth doll with eyes that don’t close, dressed in pink frills, and further humiliated by being forced to wear a diaper made of a facial tissue and Scotch tape. Sure I have imagination, plenty of it. But, it isn’t pure like my five-year-old granddaughter’s.

I have a to-do list for the rest of the week that would be too much for the next two months. But, right now, I can forget about all that and spend time with a little girl who won’t be small forever.

save the kid in you

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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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THE BIG PICTURE AND PINT-SIZED PERSPECTIVE

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

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. (William James)

Five-year-old Rebecca knows the days of the week now, and she knows I pick her up from preschool whenever I can on Wednesdays. However, the message didn’t get through the system today, and the kids lined onto the buses a minute or two earlier than usual. Since the parents and grandparents have to wait outside, this freeze-cat grandmother waited in the car until the last minute.

Rebe sees me from her bus. She had already told the bus driver, “Grandma could be coming.” All turns out well. I am known at the school and my appearance is part of an established routine. However, I am glad the confusion happened because it is concrete evidence of how important I am to this little girl. She told all her friends, including her favorite bus driver, she was spending the day with Grandma.

Rebe grins. Fun time begins. A stop at the grocery that should take five minutes requires twenty because Rebe sits in a car cart, her taxi, and we stop in the wider sections of the store to pick up and drop off imaginary passengers.

When I bring her home she becomes the mother and I am the child, always an interesting scenario.

“I’m going to have a baby,” she says as she pats her cousin’s cloth doll, positioned under her shirt. “Today.” The delivery, of course, is simple. She pulls the infant out from under her shirt. No hospital admission. No paperwork. No bed necessary, really.

“So what is the baby’s name?” I ask.

“She doesn’t have one yet. She was just born.”

At least we know the baby is a girl. “Oh, well then how about Emily, Grace, or Mary?”

Rebe looks at me with complete seriousness: “Hadalittlelamb.”

“The baby’s name is Hadalittlelamb?”

“Yes.”

Do not laugh. Smiling is okay. But the full-blown guffaw is forbidden. “Okay.”

“We can go home now.” All life is shortened and edited in Rebe’s imaginary world. I don’t always know where we are in it, however.

“I’ll go get the baby’s car seat. Okay, Mom?”

Apparently I made the right choice. It’s hard to tell with a child’s fluctuating imagination. But Rebe forgives me for not reading her mind in the world of pretend. After all I’m pretty rusty at it.

I do know that there will be Wednesdays when I won’t be able to be at school for a variety of reasons, so she will have to ride the bus to her babysitter’s house. My little girl will need to know—in advance.

Yet, somehow, I feel like I will be missing something on those days, too. We’ll catch up on the next week. She won’t be little forever, and my wrinkles deepen just a little bit more every day. May I savor every precious moment.

pic from What Makes My Heart Sing

from What Makes My Heart Sing

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Music In the Key of A for Arthritis

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

Aging is not “lost youth” but a new stage of opportunity and strength. (Betty Friedan)

The knuckle on my middle finger on my right hand looks like it belongs on a gnarled tree branch, the kind that has led a part of the tree in a peculiar unexpected direction.  Oh, my skin, bones, eyes and ears have aged, too. In fact my five-year-old granddaughter asked who the bride was in the forty-one-year-old photo on her grandfather’s dresser. I laughed at that one. But it’s that finger that troubles me now. It gets in the way of smooth finger-picking on the guitar. And I have three gigs lined up these next two months.

I am not the only person who needs to overcome difficulties to get to a goal. Pictures fill the Internet of runners on  prosthetic legs. I revel in stories of  persons who have survived stage-four cancer or the young person with Down syndrome who earns a college degree. My challenge isn’t that great—all I ask is to entertain a few seniors at the YMCA and nursing home and make them smile, perhaps sing a few more years and let new words and chord patterns blend into a fresh song.

The going has been rough, especially in southwest Ohio where temperatures tend to be bipolar. Middle finger says uh-uh and nicks the wrong string or rebels entirely.

“Oh no you don’t,” I tell it as if it were a belligerent child. Then try again.

Funny, that hasn’t eased the pain one bit. Help came from another source—a call from the Activities Center at the nursing home where I played last month. “Can you come back on March 21 when we celebrate birthdays?” The voice on the other end sounds sunny. Apparently I got good reviews from the residents, despite middle finger’s balking. I mean, ouch isn’t in any of the lyrics. By the end of my last performance I had to single strum a few times before beginning again.

The arthritic rebellion quieted after that phone call. I managed the Travis pick without swollen, painful interruption. Apparently, yes you can are powerful words. I have decided to use them even more often as I speak to other people—maybe even give myself reinforcement instead of reprimand. Who knows what can happen?

from the Optimism Revolution

expect miracles Optimism Revolution

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