Sometimes I dip down --sort of touch depression, stay there 24 hours or so, then pick up.
It happened just the other day. I was down … but out taking an evening walk. A neighbor of mine – in the next block but still a neighbor – spotted me and invited me to get in her car and go with her to listen to a local outdoor concert.
I didn’t.
About half an hour later I realized that was a very stupid decision.
Sure my purse was right by my unlocked front door. Sure it was late, I looked pretty scruffy, and there were things I should be doing … but really … why didn’t I go?
Part of it is the (expletive deleted) Puritan work ethic that was force-fed to me as I was growing up: every activity should be purposeful. Every activity should be in its appropriate time slot.
(EXPLETIVE DELETED!!!)
And the rest of it is that no one ever taught me how to PLAY – how to be spontaneous – how to throw caution (and all of the ‘shoulds’ that surround us) to the winds.
I am actually better at spontaneity and having fun than I used to be . . . but, BOY, do I have a long way to go.
At least I ‘played’ a little this weekend. Did things just for the fun of them. And discovered (for the upteenth time) that I am energized by other people. That’s progress. And it explains why this particular post is more than 12 hours ‘late.’
Better late (in learning how to play) than never. Go have fun!
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Confession of a Luddite
Down in the right hand corner of this blog is a little box of text about me entitled, “Schizophrenic Luddite”.
You may question that description. After all, someone who has a website and a blog and uses email on a daily basis cannot possibly be a Luddite.
Wrong.
The word “Luddite” describes a person ‘who is opposed to industrialization, automation, computerization or new technologies in general.’ That’s me … selectively.
Anyone who writes anything has to love computers. Remember typewriters and carbon paper and whiteout and the tedious agony of revisions? All gone. God bless computers.
And research? The hours spent in libraries, searching card catalogues and dusty shelves for the specific, tiny reference crucial to whatever point you were making … gone. Or you’re zooming along with a powerful essay but all of a sudden you cannot remember the years when telephones became commonly used. Another trip to the library? Nope. Just a simple Internet search and there’s your answer. Hallelujah.
And email allows you to share news and thoughts and sympathy – or whatever you want to share - knowing that your message will be read at the recipient’s convenience and never cause them to leap naked from a warm bath in response to a ringing telephone or doorbell.
Websites and blogs are canvasses on which you can create a picture of who you are and how you think and what you write.
These are good things. I embrace them. When I called myself a Schizophrenic Luddite, I was acknowledging that I did indeed appreciate the many benefits of certain technologies ... HOWEVER I regard others with considerable trepidation … and awesome resistance.
Like cell phones. Lured by popular culture and the omnipresence of perfectly intelligent people walking around holding one hand over an ear while talking into space, I actually purchased a cell phone. Last October.
It sat in its box nine months. I knew it was there but I didn’t want to use it. I wanted to restrict my electronic (or whatever) communication. Keep it confined to my home/office. I did not want to sit at restaurant ignoring a companion in order to answer a call from someone else. Or any of that kind of thing.
But then I planned a trip the components of which required mobile communications. So I asked my 14-year-old grand niece to show me cell phone basics. And this July I actually used the thing. And I probably will again.
And someday, perhaps, I will master Facebook, and iPods, and even Blackberries or whatever other device someone somewhere – probably in California – is probably creating at this very moment.
Perhaps.
One or two things at a time. With great reluctance.
Sincerely yours, the Schizophrenic Luddite.
You may question that description. After all, someone who has a website and a blog and uses email on a daily basis cannot possibly be a Luddite.
Wrong.
The word “Luddite” describes a person ‘who is opposed to industrialization, automation, computerization or new technologies in general.’ That’s me … selectively.
Anyone who writes anything has to love computers. Remember typewriters and carbon paper and whiteout and the tedious agony of revisions? All gone. God bless computers.
And research? The hours spent in libraries, searching card catalogues and dusty shelves for the specific, tiny reference crucial to whatever point you were making … gone. Or you’re zooming along with a powerful essay but all of a sudden you cannot remember the years when telephones became commonly used. Another trip to the library? Nope. Just a simple Internet search and there’s your answer. Hallelujah.
And email allows you to share news and thoughts and sympathy – or whatever you want to share - knowing that your message will be read at the recipient’s convenience and never cause them to leap naked from a warm bath in response to a ringing telephone or doorbell.
Websites and blogs are canvasses on which you can create a picture of who you are and how you think and what you write.
These are good things. I embrace them. When I called myself a Schizophrenic Luddite, I was acknowledging that I did indeed appreciate the many benefits of certain technologies ... HOWEVER I regard others with considerable trepidation … and awesome resistance.
Like cell phones. Lured by popular culture and the omnipresence of perfectly intelligent people walking around holding one hand over an ear while talking into space, I actually purchased a cell phone. Last October.
It sat in its box nine months. I knew it was there but I didn’t want to use it. I wanted to restrict my electronic (or whatever) communication. Keep it confined to my home/office. I did not want to sit at restaurant ignoring a companion in order to answer a call from someone else. Or any of that kind of thing.
But then I planned a trip the components of which required mobile communications. So I asked my 14-year-old grand niece to show me cell phone basics. And this July I actually used the thing. And I probably will again.
And someday, perhaps, I will master Facebook, and iPods, and even Blackberries or whatever other device someone somewhere – probably in California – is probably creating at this very moment.
Perhaps.
One or two things at a time. With great reluctance.
Sincerely yours, the Schizophrenic Luddite.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Passport to the Future
In this country more than in some others, when a child becomes an adult she or he moves out of her or his parental orbit, veers off into the galaxy and may (or may not) create her or his own world.
If parent-child relations are cordial, the parent may get news from this world; descriptions of what it is like, who lives there with the child-now-adult, and (an expurgated version) of what kinds of things go on.
Typically, the child-now-adult may visit her/his parental world and exist there, cordially, on a very temporary basis. What they experience during these visits is polished a little brighter than the parent’s ordinary surroundings, the food substantially finer, and the social/cultural phenomena a little richer than whatever the parent usually experiences (or eats).
None of this is bad but it is constricted. Neither parent nor child really knows the whole cloth of the other’s world – only selected strands.
Once all the perceived traumas and tragedies of a particular childhood have healed, it may become possible for the child-now-adult to admit her/his parent into the world they have created.
It is, in my opinion, the highest honor – the greatest respect – that a child (now adult) can show a parent.
It happened to me just two weeks ago. I visited Chicago – not the sectors where once I lived and worked and had my being but my son’s sectors. I stayed in his apartment in an area of Chicago that before I had only vaguely known about. I walked the streets he walks, ate the food he eats, took the buses he takes. I saw the richness of this formerly foreign neighborhood – its flashes of art and music – the languages spoken, the eddies of community within the general flow. More than that, I dined with his friends – knew them in person rather than by hearsay; met the people with whom he creates musical and visual art; visited his workplace and met his co-workers.
Finally, I was able to piece together a picture of his life; not complete by any means, but exponentially greater that the fragments I had earlier concocted.
It was like seeing my DNA evolve-- seeing the possibilities inherent in a subsequent generation. His generation, making its own world, creating its own values, exploring its own truths.
It is good. I had always suspected it was good. Now I know. And this little essay is a kind of thank you note to my son.
Hallelujah!
If parent-child relations are cordial, the parent may get news from this world; descriptions of what it is like, who lives there with the child-now-adult, and (an expurgated version) of what kinds of things go on.
Typically, the child-now-adult may visit her/his parental world and exist there, cordially, on a very temporary basis. What they experience during these visits is polished a little brighter than the parent’s ordinary surroundings, the food substantially finer, and the social/cultural phenomena a little richer than whatever the parent usually experiences (or eats).
None of this is bad but it is constricted. Neither parent nor child really knows the whole cloth of the other’s world – only selected strands.
Once all the perceived traumas and tragedies of a particular childhood have healed, it may become possible for the child-now-adult to admit her/his parent into the world they have created.
It is, in my opinion, the highest honor – the greatest respect – that a child (now adult) can show a parent.
It happened to me just two weeks ago. I visited Chicago – not the sectors where once I lived and worked and had my being but my son’s sectors. I stayed in his apartment in an area of Chicago that before I had only vaguely known about. I walked the streets he walks, ate the food he eats, took the buses he takes. I saw the richness of this formerly foreign neighborhood – its flashes of art and music – the languages spoken, the eddies of community within the general flow. More than that, I dined with his friends – knew them in person rather than by hearsay; met the people with whom he creates musical and visual art; visited his workplace and met his co-workers.
Finally, I was able to piece together a picture of his life; not complete by any means, but exponentially greater that the fragments I had earlier concocted.
It was like seeing my DNA evolve-- seeing the possibilities inherent in a subsequent generation. His generation, making its own world, creating its own values, exploring its own truths.
It is good. I had always suspected it was good. Now I know. And this little essay is a kind of thank you note to my son.
Hallelujah!
Friday, July 30, 2010
'Meet Me in St. Louis' reprise
On May 12, I posted a blog about four friends with whom I have a deep rapport based on many, many years of honest communication. I said times with them were my “Meet Me In St. Louis” moments. The reference was to the Judy Garland movie full of nostalgic Norman Rockwell family times – with inevitable happy endings.
Our group has been our group for more than 30 years. And we weren’t that young when we first got together. None of us has had a life replete with happy endings and all of us face the physical, mental and emotional challenges of growing older … and the even more difficult challenges of dealing with diminishing partners.
As I planned my trip to Indiana/Chicago, I of course factored in time with our group. I live in Colorado. They live (most of the time) in widely scattered regions in the Chicago area. This time, none of them had home situations that could accommodate a guest, even if that guest was me. I stayed in a Chicago hotel and we worked around that.
Over the course of four days, I had a chance to be with these women – sometimes all four, sometimes one or two. And it was, as it always is, fun and deep and full of mutual affection. We trooped around to many of Chicago’s wonders, delighting in what we were seeing and in the delight we saw each other taking in the day.
The facts of our respective lives – however difficult – were shared without apology or complaint. We gathered strength from each other.
One sort of bonus day, a lunch meeting in one of our homes, I asked a question that was imbedded in my psyche. A question I could not ask of any other acquaintances. A question that I needed answered before proceeding with my trip.
I asked, “Why do we let our children judge us?” Frankly, I thought I was the only mother who put herself through this ringer. I learned that I was not. To some degree, each of us sought to be ‘acceptable’ in the opinions of our grown children. That was amazingly reassuring. I was not the only one. And knowing that, smiling at that unnecessary vulnerability, made me less vulnerable – less likely to imagine condemning thoughts roiling in the minds of my sons.
It was a “Meet Me in St. Louis” moment – reassuring, reinforcing, re-energizing. Essential. And this little essay is my thank you note to the universe – a thank you for the presence of these women in my life.
Our group has been our group for more than 30 years. And we weren’t that young when we first got together. None of us has had a life replete with happy endings and all of us face the physical, mental and emotional challenges of growing older … and the even more difficult challenges of dealing with diminishing partners.
As I planned my trip to Indiana/Chicago, I of course factored in time with our group. I live in Colorado. They live (most of the time) in widely scattered regions in the Chicago area. This time, none of them had home situations that could accommodate a guest, even if that guest was me. I stayed in a Chicago hotel and we worked around that.
Over the course of four days, I had a chance to be with these women – sometimes all four, sometimes one or two. And it was, as it always is, fun and deep and full of mutual affection. We trooped around to many of Chicago’s wonders, delighting in what we were seeing and in the delight we saw each other taking in the day.
The facts of our respective lives – however difficult – were shared without apology or complaint. We gathered strength from each other.
One sort of bonus day, a lunch meeting in one of our homes, I asked a question that was imbedded in my psyche. A question I could not ask of any other acquaintances. A question that I needed answered before proceeding with my trip.
I asked, “Why do we let our children judge us?” Frankly, I thought I was the only mother who put herself through this ringer. I learned that I was not. To some degree, each of us sought to be ‘acceptable’ in the opinions of our grown children. That was amazingly reassuring. I was not the only one. And knowing that, smiling at that unnecessary vulnerability, made me less vulnerable – less likely to imagine condemning thoughts roiling in the minds of my sons.
It was a “Meet Me in St. Louis” moment – reassuring, reinforcing, re-energizing. Essential. And this little essay is my thank you note to the universe – a thank you for the presence of these women in my life.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
I'm Back
Re-entry into routine after being away has its own traditions. Catching up on laundry. Going through the mail—both snail and electronic. Remedial attention to cats. Checking out the garden – weeding, looking for raspberries and tomatoes, deadheading pansies and roses. Re-stocking the refrigerator. Getting photos developed. Writing thank you notes. All of this takes time.
During this time, I have begun to sort out where I was and what happened. As usual, so much was packed in to each day away that there was little time to ponder significances.
My photos are back. They are surface reflections of all the worlds I visited. There were so many. This particular journey, more than prior trips, seemed to delineate all the separate worlds within which we move and have our being.
Appropriately, the first was an archeological dig in northwestern Indiana. Conducted by volunteers from the Kankakee Valley Historical Society supervised by Notre Dame anthropology professor Mark Schurr, the dig has been conducted for three weeks a summer for the past eight years. Sifting through debris on a small parcel of land that was never farmed, volunteers and grad students have unearthed artifacts ranging from 8,000-year-old arrowheads to 19th-century coins. This summer, I held pottery shards that were at least 1,000 years old. We never know how many worlds are under our feet.
While in Indiana, I stayed with friends, one of whom has been my friend since September 1959—almost 51 years. She and her husband have created their own world: a house facing a meadow and hugged by a curve of woods. A forest of bird feeders draws a rainbow of feathered creatures performing for whoever is lucky enough to be on their screened-in back porch. Deer, possums, raccoons, and wild turkey wander through the bird feeder clearing where corn is provided next to salt licks. And within the house, the accumulated love and struggles of two people dealing with their respective pasts and futures threatened by the challenges of getting older.
Twenty minutes away, a daughter and her family have created their own world full of gardens and music and all the complications of two adolescents. I am always welcome there; glad to share their vibrant lives and wonderful stories.
From Indiana, I took the South Shore train into Chicago – nearly 3 million in the city and at least 9 million including the surrounding suburbs. And every single one of those millions of people lives in her or his own world, with its own perspectives. I experienced about a half dozen of these – each rich with history and hope. More about those in my next posting.
During this time, I have begun to sort out where I was and what happened. As usual, so much was packed in to each day away that there was little time to ponder significances.
My photos are back. They are surface reflections of all the worlds I visited. There were so many. This particular journey, more than prior trips, seemed to delineate all the separate worlds within which we move and have our being.
Appropriately, the first was an archeological dig in northwestern Indiana. Conducted by volunteers from the Kankakee Valley Historical Society supervised by Notre Dame anthropology professor Mark Schurr, the dig has been conducted for three weeks a summer for the past eight years. Sifting through debris on a small parcel of land that was never farmed, volunteers and grad students have unearthed artifacts ranging from 8,000-year-old arrowheads to 19th-century coins. This summer, I held pottery shards that were at least 1,000 years old. We never know how many worlds are under our feet.
While in Indiana, I stayed with friends, one of whom has been my friend since September 1959—almost 51 years. She and her husband have created their own world: a house facing a meadow and hugged by a curve of woods. A forest of bird feeders draws a rainbow of feathered creatures performing for whoever is lucky enough to be on their screened-in back porch. Deer, possums, raccoons, and wild turkey wander through the bird feeder clearing where corn is provided next to salt licks. And within the house, the accumulated love and struggles of two people dealing with their respective pasts and futures threatened by the challenges of getting older.
Twenty minutes away, a daughter and her family have created their own world full of gardens and music and all the complications of two adolescents. I am always welcome there; glad to share their vibrant lives and wonderful stories.
From Indiana, I took the South Shore train into Chicago – nearly 3 million in the city and at least 9 million including the surrounding suburbs. And every single one of those millions of people lives in her or his own world, with its own perspectives. I experienced about a half dozen of these – each rich with history and hope. More about those in my next posting.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Spanish Rose
I went to Spain to explore some of the Paleolithic caves in northern Spain -- settings for much of my manuscript: FAMILY TIME, A GENEALOGICAL MEMOIR.
The Alhambra is in southern Spain. I took a detour there just in case I might never get back to that country. One of the best detours I ever took. Perhaps I'll share more photos in the future.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
while I am away . . .
I am going to let my photographs fill in for my paragraphs.
These poppies exploded in my back yard this past June.
I'll return with more words circa Sunday, July 25.
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