I’m involved, right now, in writing a life history for a member of my extended family, a gentleman of 81 years, who is dealing with terminal cancer and most probably hasn’t got long to live. I feel so lucky to have been asked to do this.
I think the world has probably perceived him mainly as a little gruff and certainly as reserved. But I’ve been granted a window into his core and, boy, has the world got it wrong.
Like many men of his generation, he has spent a lifetime trying to emulate his father, who in this case was a tough cookie, bred on the tough streets of Chicago. He also had a tender core, just like his son, but that was something others rarely glimpsed. Both men were mainly concerned with providing as well as they could for their families.
I have a newfound respect for this generation. Besides having served in the military in vast numbers, men born in that era didn’t have an easy row to hoe in many other ways. There were strict expectations of these fellows and being carefree or self-involved wasn’t acceptable. Giving up dreams and settling into family life was the norm. Adventures were limited to that short period between leaving their childhood homes and entering marriage, if there even was a break between the two.
For the most part, these men succeeded, which the Baby Boom Generation can attest to, because we are the ones to benefit from the efforts of this generation to save significantly and provide for their own retirement, as well as leaving their children something when they pass on.
They are a tough group of guys to try to open up. It isn’t the first time I’ve tried it. It took nearly six hours to get to the meat of this man’s character. But it was so worth the effort.
Next time you spot an outwardly grumpy old man, see if you can’t get him to tell you about his life a bit. Really listen to what he has to say. You may walk away with a nugget of wisdom or two…and a new friend.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
You’re So Lucky to Be Creative!
How many times have I heard that? As a writer, many, many times and often from the most surprising people. It never fails to amaze me that people who don’t think of themselves as creative are many times the most creative individuals I know. They just don’t indulge in activities that the world looks at as artistic - therefore they don’t count.
Not true. I’m convinced that everyone has a creative side, because what is that after all? It is simply the ability to imagine something that you can’t yet see, hear, feel or taste – something that your senses haven’t yet experienced. Well, everyone does that in some form or another.
The housewife who wonders what rosemary would do to the wine sauce and then tries it, is opening a whole new channel of taste experience for at least herself. The scientist who suddenly envisions a new connection between two previously unconnected properties has just used her imagination and if that connection truly exists she has just created the awareness of it. How about the guy stuck by the side of the road with a broken accelerator linkage who then wanders around pacing until he finds an old piece of a spring and fashions a temporary fix?
All these people are creative. They just don’t access that part of themselves to paint or dance or write. They don’t live an artistic life.
I dearly wish those who labeled themselves as uncreative would throw that tag away.
They would be giving themselves a gift – the gift of allowing themselves to play with that part of their brain that imagines without judgment.
What pleasure could that bring them? Who knows? But wouldn’t it be a wonderful experiment?
Not true. I’m convinced that everyone has a creative side, because what is that after all? It is simply the ability to imagine something that you can’t yet see, hear, feel or taste – something that your senses haven’t yet experienced. Well, everyone does that in some form or another.
The housewife who wonders what rosemary would do to the wine sauce and then tries it, is opening a whole new channel of taste experience for at least herself. The scientist who suddenly envisions a new connection between two previously unconnected properties has just used her imagination and if that connection truly exists she has just created the awareness of it. How about the guy stuck by the side of the road with a broken accelerator linkage who then wanders around pacing until he finds an old piece of a spring and fashions a temporary fix?
All these people are creative. They just don’t access that part of themselves to paint or dance or write. They don’t live an artistic life.
I dearly wish those who labeled themselves as uncreative would throw that tag away.
They would be giving themselves a gift – the gift of allowing themselves to play with that part of their brain that imagines without judgment.
What pleasure could that bring them? Who knows? But wouldn’t it be a wonderful experiment?
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The True Witching Hour
Midnight has been found out! I have proof positive that 2:30 a.m. is the new midnight.
Two nights in a row my sleep has been disturbed by noisy, inconsiderate and even violent neighbors. Okay, so I live in a trailer park of ill repute but still….listen to this.
So, two nights ago, I’m snoring away. Yes, I do that occasionally. It’s a sign that I’m really in deep REM sleep – that’s how I’ve sold it to anyone I shared sleeping quarters with, anyway.
Suddenly my deep breathing (with sound effects) is interrupted by a few loud thumps. Nothing close enough to my RV to worry about, so I settled back in. A few minutes later, the banging around begins again and in my sleepy fog I try to locate where the sound is coming from. Still, I’m not induced to actually leave my warm bed in 33-degree weather.
The timber of the sounds had picked up as well as the pace, so finally, I pick up my cell phone to check the time. Sure enough, it’s 2:27 a.m. I drag myself out of bed and part the curtains between my abode and the cab of the truck. Peering out into the dark, I spy one of the creepiest of my neighbors schlumping around his RV like he’s looking for something he lost or maybe doing some spring – oops, winter – cleaning.
What an idiot, I think to myself. What the hell is he doing? Let me just explain. When I say creepy, I’m not using the term lightly. The first time I saw him up close I wasn’t truly convinced that he wasn’t a creature of the night – one of the undead. His pallor is somewhere between the color of octopus white meat and that grey part of an oyster, except the portions that are covered with tattoos, which give the old (I’m guessing 60 or so) guy a bit of color. I can’t explain why seafood comes to mind, except that both of these items are pretty slimy. Yep, that’s it.
He’s burdened with stringy, greasy, dyed, black hair that he covers with a drooping and dirty Gilligan hat. His personality isn’t exactly enhanced by the nervous jerking and occasional overly-long stare that usually accompanies drug use.
Anyway, I gave up on trying to figure it out and went back to sleep, more easily than I would have expected because the racket was still going a half hour later. Morning came too quickly and as I unlocked my car to head for work I glanced over at his space. The vehicle and its owner had vanished in the night.
Then, last night, I’m startled awake by a loud bang that at first I took to be a gunshot. But it wasn’t. It was my other disturbingly decrepit neighbor, who is a close encounter of the third kind (alien to more than an hour of sobriety) and his pals slamming his RV door. This was followed by a sound that could only be made by a fist hitting a body – hard. Moments later, as I slung open my own door (not a smart thing to do), I was witness to two men screaming death threats at each other and scrambling down the lane as if they were taking the fight to town.
Guess what time it was! Yes, of course, it was actually 2:36 a.m. About an hour later, after two sheriffs, an ambulance and a fire truck had visited, the park settled down for the remainder of the long winter’s night.
This evening I discovered that one of the men running had been stabbed. Hmmm…. Might be time for that move I’ve been talking about for a year.
Anyway, these two events I submit as absolute confirmation that just like 50 is the new 40 for women, 2:30 a.m. has replaced midnight as the witching hour. Especially on a work night!
Two nights in a row my sleep has been disturbed by noisy, inconsiderate and even violent neighbors. Okay, so I live in a trailer park of ill repute but still….listen to this.
So, two nights ago, I’m snoring away. Yes, I do that occasionally. It’s a sign that I’m really in deep REM sleep – that’s how I’ve sold it to anyone I shared sleeping quarters with, anyway.
Suddenly my deep breathing (with sound effects) is interrupted by a few loud thumps. Nothing close enough to my RV to worry about, so I settled back in. A few minutes later, the banging around begins again and in my sleepy fog I try to locate where the sound is coming from. Still, I’m not induced to actually leave my warm bed in 33-degree weather.
The timber of the sounds had picked up as well as the pace, so finally, I pick up my cell phone to check the time. Sure enough, it’s 2:27 a.m. I drag myself out of bed and part the curtains between my abode and the cab of the truck. Peering out into the dark, I spy one of the creepiest of my neighbors schlumping around his RV like he’s looking for something he lost or maybe doing some spring – oops, winter – cleaning.
What an idiot, I think to myself. What the hell is he doing? Let me just explain. When I say creepy, I’m not using the term lightly. The first time I saw him up close I wasn’t truly convinced that he wasn’t a creature of the night – one of the undead. His pallor is somewhere between the color of octopus white meat and that grey part of an oyster, except the portions that are covered with tattoos, which give the old (I’m guessing 60 or so) guy a bit of color. I can’t explain why seafood comes to mind, except that both of these items are pretty slimy. Yep, that’s it.
He’s burdened with stringy, greasy, dyed, black hair that he covers with a drooping and dirty Gilligan hat. His personality isn’t exactly enhanced by the nervous jerking and occasional overly-long stare that usually accompanies drug use.
Anyway, I gave up on trying to figure it out and went back to sleep, more easily than I would have expected because the racket was still going a half hour later. Morning came too quickly and as I unlocked my car to head for work I glanced over at his space. The vehicle and its owner had vanished in the night.
Then, last night, I’m startled awake by a loud bang that at first I took to be a gunshot. But it wasn’t. It was my other disturbingly decrepit neighbor, who is a close encounter of the third kind (alien to more than an hour of sobriety) and his pals slamming his RV door. This was followed by a sound that could only be made by a fist hitting a body – hard. Moments later, as I slung open my own door (not a smart thing to do), I was witness to two men screaming death threats at each other and scrambling down the lane as if they were taking the fight to town.
Guess what time it was! Yes, of course, it was actually 2:36 a.m. About an hour later, after two sheriffs, an ambulance and a fire truck had visited, the park settled down for the remainder of the long winter’s night.
This evening I discovered that one of the men running had been stabbed. Hmmm…. Might be time for that move I’ve been talking about for a year.
Anyway, these two events I submit as absolute confirmation that just like 50 is the new 40 for women, 2:30 a.m. has replaced midnight as the witching hour. Especially on a work night!
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
I Have Logophilia and It’s Incurable
Before you panic – and I know you were almost there, trying to decide whether this requires a gift or maybe a card would be sufficient – logophilia is the love of words. Boy, do I have it and bad!
I’ve always loved words as far back as I can remember. In the fifth grade, I fell in love with pugnacious. The sound of it thrilled me. I would find any excuse I could to use it in a sentence - “You sure are pugnacious, today!” For those of you who aren’t crazy for words, pugnacious means ready to fight, combative. It wasn’t that easy to work into daily conversation without starting a fight myself, especially at age 11.
I moved on to tintinnabulation, a word created by Edgar Allan Poe, to describe the ringing of bells. Say it. It does, indeed, sound like bells pealing their musical sounds. And it’s very fun to say. So, in Junior High, I ran around saying tintinnabulation like everyone knew what it meant. I got some very strange looks.
Today, I’m a writer who rarely uses words beyond the scope of the average reader. I write very simply and I find myself annoyed by writers who will throw in a perfectly good, but seldom used word in the middle of a very prosaic sentence. Oops, there I go. I just did it. But, hey, I love prosaic – meaning dull or ordinary. I was listening to a news story on NPR this morning and the reporter referred to Congress as recalcitrant. How many listeners did he lose with that one?
Anyway – my love of words hasn’t diminished but rather increased. Only now, I don’t go around flaunting my beautiful, melodic expressions to just anybody. More often than not, I hoard them; sounding them out in my head or saying them out loud in the privacy of my own home. The interior of my car is splattered with the invisible remains of linguistic sounds I tossed out while driving just to hear them and for no other reason.
I told you. It truly is incurable.
I’ve always loved words as far back as I can remember. In the fifth grade, I fell in love with pugnacious. The sound of it thrilled me. I would find any excuse I could to use it in a sentence - “You sure are pugnacious, today!” For those of you who aren’t crazy for words, pugnacious means ready to fight, combative. It wasn’t that easy to work into daily conversation without starting a fight myself, especially at age 11.
I moved on to tintinnabulation, a word created by Edgar Allan Poe, to describe the ringing of bells. Say it. It does, indeed, sound like bells pealing their musical sounds. And it’s very fun to say. So, in Junior High, I ran around saying tintinnabulation like everyone knew what it meant. I got some very strange looks.
Today, I’m a writer who rarely uses words beyond the scope of the average reader. I write very simply and I find myself annoyed by writers who will throw in a perfectly good, but seldom used word in the middle of a very prosaic sentence. Oops, there I go. I just did it. But, hey, I love prosaic – meaning dull or ordinary. I was listening to a news story on NPR this morning and the reporter referred to Congress as recalcitrant. How many listeners did he lose with that one?
Anyway – my love of words hasn’t diminished but rather increased. Only now, I don’t go around flaunting my beautiful, melodic expressions to just anybody. More often than not, I hoard them; sounding them out in my head or saying them out loud in the privacy of my own home. The interior of my car is splattered with the invisible remains of linguistic sounds I tossed out while driving just to hear them and for no other reason.
I told you. It truly is incurable.
The Queen of Simple Pleasures
I love birthday cards! Actually, I love all cards. Many years ago, when I was stuck in an extremely unhappy marriage, I would sneak off to the grocery store and read all the funny greeting cards.
Cards still have the same effect on me today. My birthday is January 1st, so I just celebrated the start of my last year before I turn 60. One of the cards I got was from my “little” sister - she’s still got five years until she hits the big 6-0.
She wrote in the card, “Happy Birthday to the Queen of Simple Pleasures.” I was delighted. What a wonderful way to be described! And on reflection I realized its true. Yippee!
It really doesn’t take much to make me happy or bring me joy and I’m so thankful for that. For instance, on my birthday I took myself out for “linner” – my word for lunch/dinner and asked for a quiet spot so that I could journal about the year behind and my hopes for the year ahead. This is an annual tradition for me – starting a new journal on New Year’s Day.
I jumped right in and was busy eating and writing, when I looked up and saw a lovely woman hauling a baby carrier towards the table next to me. I couldn’t see the baby. Didn’t even try. Instead, I thought, “Oh, crap.” I envisoned a crying papoose ruining my quiet time.
But when I looked up the woman was putting the cutest baby I’ve seen in years into a high chair and I melted. Here was a chubby-cheeked, curly-haired baby with the sweetest expression I’ve gazed upon since I stared at my own children. In fact, the child greatly resembled my daughter when she was about a year old.
I tried to tear my eyes away, but I just couldn’t. He was a bit of a flirt and his mother, who was eventually joined by her husband, didn’t mind the attention at all. Thank goodness, because I was smitten.
For about 45 minutes, I communed with the child with silent smiles and little waves with an occasional comment to his mom and dad. I returned dutifully to my journal, but was regularly pulled away by his gurgles and happy laughter. Finally, I’d eaten my fill and come to the end of my writing for the time being and gathered up my belongings.
When I walked out, I paused to thank the parents who had let me enjoy their baby so much. I told them it was my birthday and I couldn’t imagine a better present that just to spend time soaking in how precious their son was. I meant it.
So, when it gets right down to it – I guess I’d rather have that very simple pleasure and others like it than all the money, travel and luxury in the world. I am the Queen!
One last thing – Hail to the Queen! (I mean what’s the sense in being Queen if no one hails you, right?)
Cards still have the same effect on me today. My birthday is January 1st, so I just celebrated the start of my last year before I turn 60. One of the cards I got was from my “little” sister - she’s still got five years until she hits the big 6-0.
She wrote in the card, “Happy Birthday to the Queen of Simple Pleasures.” I was delighted. What a wonderful way to be described! And on reflection I realized its true. Yippee!
It really doesn’t take much to make me happy or bring me joy and I’m so thankful for that. For instance, on my birthday I took myself out for “linner” – my word for lunch/dinner and asked for a quiet spot so that I could journal about the year behind and my hopes for the year ahead. This is an annual tradition for me – starting a new journal on New Year’s Day.
I jumped right in and was busy eating and writing, when I looked up and saw a lovely woman hauling a baby carrier towards the table next to me. I couldn’t see the baby. Didn’t even try. Instead, I thought, “Oh, crap.” I envisoned a crying papoose ruining my quiet time.
But when I looked up the woman was putting the cutest baby I’ve seen in years into a high chair and I melted. Here was a chubby-cheeked, curly-haired baby with the sweetest expression I’ve gazed upon since I stared at my own children. In fact, the child greatly resembled my daughter when she was about a year old.
I tried to tear my eyes away, but I just couldn’t. He was a bit of a flirt and his mother, who was eventually joined by her husband, didn’t mind the attention at all. Thank goodness, because I was smitten.
For about 45 minutes, I communed with the child with silent smiles and little waves with an occasional comment to his mom and dad. I returned dutifully to my journal, but was regularly pulled away by his gurgles and happy laughter. Finally, I’d eaten my fill and come to the end of my writing for the time being and gathered up my belongings.
When I walked out, I paused to thank the parents who had let me enjoy their baby so much. I told them it was my birthday and I couldn’t imagine a better present that just to spend time soaking in how precious their son was. I meant it.
So, when it gets right down to it – I guess I’d rather have that very simple pleasure and others like it than all the money, travel and luxury in the world. I am the Queen!
One last thing – Hail to the Queen! (I mean what’s the sense in being Queen if no one hails you, right?)
Monday, January 3, 2011
It Doesn't Have to be My Way!
I’m stealing this idea from my sister. It’s her recently adopted mantra. Every time she starts to get a little bunged up because something isn’t going the way she’d imagined it she repeats this phrase – “It doesn’t have to be my way.”
She shared this with me and I’ve begun to chant it to myself as well. It has a very nice rhythm and the refrain soothes the savage beast inside me that formerly insisted that it did indeed have to be my way.
What’s so wonderful about having installed this belief in my mind is that my brain is finally able to wrap itself around the idea that somebody else might have a better idea and even if they don’t it doesn’t really matter. How great is that?
I mean – does the centerpiece really have to be in the center of the table? Must the reports be stapled on the top left corner? Is it critical that Susan from Accounting sit next to Jemma from Human Resources or can the two of them be separated just this once? Is the sun going to wither and die if we don’t have the traditional cranberry sauce – the kind that slides out of a can with its own rings intact - this Thanksgiving?
At the next family gathering, sales meeting or planning event, when your mind begins to wander and you find yourself at the “Are these people idiots?” buffet, try switching off the mental agonizer and switching on the replay button for “It doesn’t have to be my way” and see if you don’t calm right down.
Suddenly, the planets align, harmony falls over the unruly crowd and a glimmer of hope begins to win out that the family will not end up in a verbal Armageddon or the sales meeting might actually come up with some new ideas. And even if the world isn’t completely perfect, you are no longer a part of the anguish.
There now, doesn’t that feel good?
She shared this with me and I’ve begun to chant it to myself as well. It has a very nice rhythm and the refrain soothes the savage beast inside me that formerly insisted that it did indeed have to be my way.
What’s so wonderful about having installed this belief in my mind is that my brain is finally able to wrap itself around the idea that somebody else might have a better idea and even if they don’t it doesn’t really matter. How great is that?
I mean – does the centerpiece really have to be in the center of the table? Must the reports be stapled on the top left corner? Is it critical that Susan from Accounting sit next to Jemma from Human Resources or can the two of them be separated just this once? Is the sun going to wither and die if we don’t have the traditional cranberry sauce – the kind that slides out of a can with its own rings intact - this Thanksgiving?
At the next family gathering, sales meeting or planning event, when your mind begins to wander and you find yourself at the “Are these people idiots?” buffet, try switching off the mental agonizer and switching on the replay button for “It doesn’t have to be my way” and see if you don’t calm right down.
Suddenly, the planets align, harmony falls over the unruly crowd and a glimmer of hope begins to win out that the family will not end up in a verbal Armageddon or the sales meeting might actually come up with some new ideas. And even if the world isn’t completely perfect, you are no longer a part of the anguish.
There now, doesn’t that feel good?
Life in Three Stages
I believe most people would recognize that we live our lives in stages in many senses; each stage defined by sociologists, psychologists, our parents and their parents, basically the world outside our own selves.
I recently had an epiphany, which relieved my mind greatly. I was struck in a flash by the distinct stages of my own life as defined by myself.
I realized that if I were to divide my life so far, at the age of 59, into parts that were clearly on one path, it would divide fairly close to thirds. Until the age of thirty, I would say I had spent most of my life without direction, in pain and basically screwing up everything. This was my infancy.
From thirty to sixty- or 59 to be more exact - I have been in the process of finding myself, growing and becoming a personality that is individual. I am now clearly my own person, unafraid to declare my beliefs and more importantly, fearless in pursuing my one true passion – writing.
I’ve spent sometime beating myself up for taking so long to get here. But the truth is I wasn’t ready to write anything substantial until a few years ago. A story had to be about something other than what I knew because to write about what I know – as everyone says you must – I would have revealed too much of myself. Even to me.
So, now I’m set for the last third of my life, during which I plan to do what I do best – write – and pursue another great love in my life – travel. These are to be the top priorities as I cruise through the best stage life has to offer – what I’m calling my True Blue period.
We all develop differently. I am not a prodigy – that’s for sure. But I’m not a failure either, because I’m not yet done with trying to secure my success in the one thing that matters to me – writing. I guess I’m a late bloomer. Picturing myself as a bulb that’s been lying dormant for years, finally gathering enough nutrients and water to push through the ground and at last bloom into a beautiful tulip – my favorite flower – is somehow warming to my soul.
Whatever stage you’re in, may you soak up everything you can and enjoy as much of it as possible.
I recently had an epiphany, which relieved my mind greatly. I was struck in a flash by the distinct stages of my own life as defined by myself.
I realized that if I were to divide my life so far, at the age of 59, into parts that were clearly on one path, it would divide fairly close to thirds. Until the age of thirty, I would say I had spent most of my life without direction, in pain and basically screwing up everything. This was my infancy.
From thirty to sixty- or 59 to be more exact - I have been in the process of finding myself, growing and becoming a personality that is individual. I am now clearly my own person, unafraid to declare my beliefs and more importantly, fearless in pursuing my one true passion – writing.
I’ve spent sometime beating myself up for taking so long to get here. But the truth is I wasn’t ready to write anything substantial until a few years ago. A story had to be about something other than what I knew because to write about what I know – as everyone says you must – I would have revealed too much of myself. Even to me.
So, now I’m set for the last third of my life, during which I plan to do what I do best – write – and pursue another great love in my life – travel. These are to be the top priorities as I cruise through the best stage life has to offer – what I’m calling my True Blue period.
We all develop differently. I am not a prodigy – that’s for sure. But I’m not a failure either, because I’m not yet done with trying to secure my success in the one thing that matters to me – writing. I guess I’m a late bloomer. Picturing myself as a bulb that’s been lying dormant for years, finally gathering enough nutrients and water to push through the ground and at last bloom into a beautiful tulip – my favorite flower – is somehow warming to my soul.
Whatever stage you’re in, may you soak up everything you can and enjoy as much of it as possible.
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