Almost a Friend

I met her several years ago.  In consecutive summers we rafted on a wild and scenic river with a group of women.  The trips and the women were memorable.  Between breathtaking rapids were relaxing floats in sunshine and rippling water.  In the evenings there were long talks fueled by tall drinks and a crackling campfire. It was the perfect incubator for budding friendships.

Her daughter is just older  my granddaughter who was visiting later that summer.  Generously, they shared tickets and we all went to  a local “Idol” event.   It was thrilling for my granddaughter.

We saw each other again when planning some event, which I can’t remember, and then once more at a shower for the two children she and her husband adopted.

We didn’t build a stronger or deeper relationship.  Our lives are very different and our paths don’t cross very often.

We have each had some health issues over the past few years but haven’t contacted each other.  No harm, no foul.  We don’t have that sort of connection.

But I value her as a person and appreciate the way she moves through the world.   I saw her yesterday.  All of the good thoughts and feelings flooded through me.

Every communication between us is honest.  When we look at each other we see each other.  There is a link between us that transcends the years between our ages and our visits.  It stays true in the shortest conversation and I’m sure would hold us together for the strongest of friendships.

It probably won’t happen.  Life will go on as it has with each of us busy in our own sphere.   But it feels good knowing she is out there…

 

This grieving thing…

Maybe it’s the approach of El Dia de los Muertos or sorting old photos; something has pulled my grief from the back burner where it’s been simmering, waiting for its moment. It comes with questions: Am I past the acceptable time?  When is it time to grieve?  When is it time to stop?  Have I not done enough?

I envy the cultures in which mourners get to wail and bellow their grief to the world as they sit in the church, walk the casket down the street and then watch it lowered into the ground.  But this brings up another burning question: in the cultures that include caterwauling in the process is grief finite?  Does the survivor grieve and then go on?  I know there isn’t an end to the loss, but is there a quicker healing of the wound? I wish I knew someone to ask.  Maybe there’s been a study.

I find grief to be a bit exponential as I go through life.  When my sister died I missed my father.  When my grandniece died I remembered a friend who died in grade school.  Always, it seems to be unfinished grief: grief that is pushed aside to make room for going back to work; sorrow that is buried in the mountains of paperwork sitting on my desk; an aching heart that must be set aside to go to a friend’s wedding. It becomes a compound formula made up of the bits and pieces of pain that I have accumulated without letting any go.

And so occasionally I cry inappropriately.  I sob when the neighborhood bunny goes missing.  I have tears in my eyes when the ambulance goes by without knowing who’s inside.  I’m the walking wounded without a limp.

I am considering the tradition of wearing black.  Oh, not for any set time; and I wouldn’t want it to just be a little black dress.    If there were a national uniform for the days I am succumbing to grief, then everyone could recognize the times when they should be sympathetic, empathetic or slip quickly around the corner when they see me coming.

For now, I think I’ll watch sad movies for a week. Maybe I’ll see Shadowlands over and over.  Then I won’t have to cry the next time the Greyhound bus leaves the station with my parcel.

Xxoo

 

I am healthy!!!!!!!!!

My body is meant to behave.  When it doesn’t, I’m irritated.  Also, I am in a quandary: did it betray me or did I betray it?  My strong core belief is that I needn’t be sick, in pain, or incapacitated.

My mother used to say, “We don’t have to be sick to die.”  I believe her. For instance, I don’t get colds.  I say this, I mean this, and I haven’t had a cold since I made the decision.

I have a cold.

My body has won out over my will.  I have lost the struggle between treating my body well and being self-indulgent to my own detriment.

Back up a minute.  I have food allergies.  When I take care to avoid the foods that give me grief, I don’t have respiratory allergies.  When I indulge, my face breaks out and I don’t feel so very good.   I go round and round with myself about the allergies.

“Oh, I can have eggs every once in awhile.”

“Wheat isn’t that bad, it just gives me a bit of a cough.”

“Milk may not count if it is in baked goods, or cheese, or Greek yogurt.”

“I can have a LITTLE garlic.”

My constant mental game is about whether or not I have the allergies.  Can trick my body, and how far will it take me if I abuse it?  I know the answer…not very far without a tune up.

So how did I get a cold?
A.    Did I weaken my physical resistance?
B.    Did I let doubt weaken my will?
C.    Did some sniffling clerk expose me at the checkout?

I choose A and B.

I have been nose-to-nose with my grandchildren, lips-to-lips with my husband and side-by-side with passengers on airplanes, all of who had colds.  I haven’t been infected.  Now I have eaten everything possible that I shouldn’t eat; ignored the resultant cough, ignored exercise; and harbored a fear that my immune system is lagging because of my behavior.  Gotcha!

The first night I talked to myself in my wakeful hours.  “You don’t have a cold (but you deserve a cold}.” “How can you admit you have a cold, you don’t get colds.”  “I’m going to be VERY good tomorrow and settle these allergies down.”

Now I have been in hiding for two days.  My better reason is that I don’t want to expose anyone.  My selfish reason is that I don’t want anyone to tell me I have a cold.  I am in here trying to figure out how to regain my solid stance.

I don’t want it to be that I get colds once in a blue moon.  I want to say and believe that I don’t get colds.  I want to be secure in the knowledge that I worry about the swine flu.  I want my will, my courage, and my immune system to be indomitable in the face of exposure to illness and injury.  I want to see the cause from a distance and prepare my defense.

So I am creating my personal health challenge to myself: Walk the talk!

A-a-achoo!  Starting here, starting now…

xxoo

 

Economic Privilege

Dear Kids:

Last night I watched a show that reminded me of my fortunate birth.  I wrote this almost a year ago.  Sometimes I forget…

I am sitting on the porch of my casa in Mexico.  I wake early and so I have poured my coffee and am doing sudoku with my favorite mechanical pencil.

I was just admiring my pencil and thinking how much I love this particular style (I bought two extra to bring to Mexico); when Luis walked by carrying a five gallon plastic bucket.  I realize where he is going because he stopped by on his return yesterday.  He is on his way to the lagoon to catch some fish for his extended family.  If he catches enough they may sell some to the Enramadas (palapa restaurants) on the beach.

Luis, his wife, and three children live with my caretaker, Raul and his wife, Inez.  Also living with Raul and Inez are three other daughters, two other sons-in-law, and two more grandchildren. To paint the picture: Raul, Inez, Luis, Maria Jesus, Kimberli, Itzallana, Raul Antonia, Jose, Leticia, Enrique, Victoria, Estrella and Brittany are living in a house the same size as the one I am living in by myself.   .

I watch the woman from next door walk by and return with some soap powder, a coke, a sprite, a packet of cookies and a candy bar.  Breakfast?  I will have my breakfast of shredded wheat with soymilk and a banana and then go to the beach to work on English with Alda.  Many of the vendors want to learn enough English to speak to the tourists when the season begins.

Alda sells hammocks on the beach.  Every day she carries approximately 15 – 20 hammocks to this location.  She lives in Zihuatenejo so she must bring her wares on the bus and then change to the pasajeros (back of a pickup truck rigged with seats) and  return the same way at the end of the day.

She and all of the other vendors who carry great masses of jewelry, baskets, wood carvings, decorative dishes, etc., etc. make this trek 7 days a week. They do it in the off-season even though many days the transportation may cost them nearly as much as they make.

My landlady owns an enramada.  She is financially fortunate in the hierarchy here.  But EVERY morning she carries fresh food and supplies to her spot.  It is the end of the rainy season and until last Monday the lagoon water came up to her seating area.  During this slow season she is lucky if she has a customer.  But she feeds her family from there and must stay open in case a customer should pass the other enramadas and order her Sopes or Camarones a la Diablo.

This is not a poor village and they are not poor people..  They fish, have small stores, run their restaurants and/or work at shops.  One woman makes and alters clothing.  There is a thriving group of women who have received micro lending as a group and own  different businesses.  Some men drive the pasajeros or taxis.  Many are builders or construction workers.  All families have food, clothing and a roof over their heads.  Some have cars and trucks.

But it is hard to get ahead here.  Many parents have trouble affording schooling for their children because they must pay for tuition, books and uniforms.  Education is not a priority for all families.

When you were growing up I would not have called us privileged. In our economic world we were pretty low on the scale.  Certainly we had what we needed. We always had food.  Shortly after we were married, your Dad found a job and was always employed.  We may have worried about the bills in the winter, but we were always warm.

Leaving aside the different faces and types of privilege, I didn’t recognize economic privilege for what it is:  opportunity for education, opportunity to work with our minds rather than to do continual back-breaking work; being aware of resources and knowing what  resources were available; being raised with an awareness of health and the path to that health.

Is it god’s blessing?  A random luck of the draw in the gene pool of life?  Many people work as hard as we have worked and do not have what we have.   I don’t know that answer.

I do know that economic privilege is not a thing to be ashamed of.  It isn’t a reason for guilt or dismay.  But it’s sad not to recognize that privilege.  It is important to appreciate our blessings and do our best with our resources.  You all remember your childhood and realize your advantages.  I hope you pass that gratitude to your children.

As for me, I know how lucky I am to be able to choose the pencil I love and to spend even a moment in my day thinking about that choice.

 

Globetrekking as Self-Improvement

I am a homebody.  I love to be home.  My happiest days are spent in my own house and garden. The space I have created gives me great joy.

And I always have a plan to leave it behind.

I want to spend a month of each year in Mexico.  Before I die I want to experience at least two months in New York City.  I want to live for a month in San Gimignano, Paris, Southern Italy, Folegandros, Aix-en-Provence, even Portland, Oregon.

I love dipping into different cultures.  When I wake in the morning to new sounds, I am invigorated.  I walk village streets with a smile.  The cacophony of  unfamiliar languages is musical to me.  My curiosity carries me through my days and I am apt to follow an older woman carrying her shopping bag through an open market.  I sit at a sidewalk café for hours listening to strangers, hoping to understand enough to know something of their life.  I join a man and woman sitting on a bench in the square and try to strike up a conversation.

Vagabond trips don’t interest me as much now.  I want to be a part of life when I visit.  My stay must be long enough to get to know the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.  A thrill rushes through me when the woman at the local market smiles, says “Good Morning” and expects me to understand as she explains the cheeses.

People seem to live so differently in other places.  Life is more simple.  There is time to walk to destinations, meeting friends on the corner and stopping to exchange prolonged greetings.  Eating is leisurely,  with time for chatting and sipping dessert coffee at tables surrounded by other relaxed diners.  There is a rhythm to hanging out wash on the line and sweeping the front porch as the neighbors are sweeping theirs.

My friend says that no matter what we do, we take our personality with us.  Another way of saying “No matter where you go, there you are.”  If it’s true, then I think my personality is better when I travel.  I take my personality with me but I don’t take my bad habits.  I don’t take my “to-do” list and I don’t take my worries.  I am not rushed, harried or impatient.  I am “there” in the best sense.  I am present.

Scary if I have to leave my wonderful life here in order to be my best self.  I need to work on that!

 

Waiting…

Dear Daughter.

I want to write this BEFORE you hear about your position. For me, who you are and what you are doesn’t depend on what you do for a living.  But since we are speaking of that…

Is there nothing you can’t do?  No, there is nothing you can’t do.  So whether or not you get this job may affect you for the short-term, but it certainly won’t change your trajectory of personal success.

You are a thoughtful parent, a gourmet cook, an accomplished designer and carpenter, an award-winning teacher, a writer, an organizer, an entrepreneur, and the list goes on.  So is this job your dream for now?  Does it get you where you want to be?  If so, I hope it is yours.

But keep dreaming, my love.  Watching your innovation and determination through the years has been such a trip for me.  From the time you gave your speech at graduation to the time you tore out your bathroom floor, I have been in awe of your capabilities.

When I sat in your classroom at the University I had that chest swelling moment of realization that you were way beyond me.  Your poise, your knowledge and your ease of delivery captivated your students, your 6-year-old nephew and me.

As my lifelong “self-expression” teacher you have nudged me, guided me, edited my writing and challenged my thinking.

As my daughter and my firstborn, you have been my dream come true.

You are fine!

xxoo

 

Welcome home, Granddaughter

It is so good to have you home.  Well, you aren’t really HOME yet.  You haven’t seen your house, seen your friends, settled into your life.  But, you have re-entered the United States.  People speak English around you.  No one stares at you.

I found this letter that I wrote to you overseas.

“I am getting little hints that it is pretty difficult for you right now.    I understand what you must be going through.  You made it until Christmas with the anticipation of your vacation and seeing your boyfriend (a bit of home for you).  Now the dead of winter is here and it seems like you will be there for the rest of your life!

In some ways it is brutal to spend a year of your high school time in a “foreign” school.  While it is enriching and expanding, it can be lonely.  It’s hard to make close friendships with such cultural and location differences.  After all, you have lived your last few years where you could walk or ride your bike to most of your friends’ houses.  It was easy to get involved after school hours.  Now your social life ends when school is out since your school mates live all over the city.  Visiting friends in free time is not the norm.

When you return to your high school you will be exotic and interesting to your friends.  You already are exotic to your cousins although you may not hear that from them.   You are having an experience that many kids dream of and not many get to have.  Just remember, though, that it took a lot of courage to agree to this trip. I admire you for doing it.  And it still takes courage.   Almost every day holds some challenge for you that seems impossible to meet.

If I thought it would solve anything I would have you come back here.  Or I would hop a plane and come to you. I know that I can’t protect you from feeling bad nor can I change things for you.   Your parents are offering you some choices, but I don’t know what is right for you.

If you come home and board at school it will have its difficulties.  You have been a tightly knit foursome for a long time and it will be a lonesome old town without your family for the next several months.  If you come home without your brother it will be very lonely and it will be pretty hard for him being in school alone there.  Maybe this is one of those times in life that you just face each day as it comes, knowing it will be over in a few months.  I don’t know the answer.

If you can tough it out you will look back with both joy for what you gained and sorrow for what you missed.  You are learning a ton about a country with a culture totally opposite of your own.  Already you look at life and the world with new perspective.  And you will bring back ideas that will make a difference here.

You will survive, my sweet.  I am just writing to let you know that I understand, that I don’t judge you for how you feel, that I love you, and that you can call or write anytime and I will listen.”

Hooray, you survived!  Welcome home.

xxoo

Grammy

 

Welcome home, Grandson

It’s so nice to have you home.   I am glad to see the fine man you are becoming.

I love your gentle heart.  I see this crusty exterior that shields an irresistible soft and sweet center.  Have you ever had a chocolate covered cherry?  That’s what I mean.  I believe you feel things very deeply but you are good at deflecting inquiry into your heart and soul. It may seem that you are insensitive.  Nothing is further from the truth as I see it.  this is why you are a child magnet.  Children have a way of divining the true nature of the people around them.  Your little friends trust you implicitly.

Maybe it is because of your seemingly limitless patience.  You are Mr. Mellow (until you finally lose it).  That’s another lesson I can learn from you.  Where do you go in your mind when you have to wait or tolerate or abide?  I wish I knew so that I could follow you into what appears to be a peaceful realm.

One of the great things I admire  is your mind. You remind me of your Uncle when he was growing up.  He didn’t always think or respond in conventional (to whom?) ways and so many times he didn’t slip easily into the system.  But he is one of the best and the brightest…as are you.  As a child you had the ability to concentrate, to think out, and to build imaginative Lego objects.  You were way ahead of your age with that and now you have carried that talent to electronics.

And your brain…where did you get that great big thing?  When you find something that interests you it carries you away.  Who else who has listened to and digested so much information and considered it to be entertainment?  When I watch you puzzling at a problem, I know that you will quietly come up with an answer. Sometimes struggle with schoolwork but when you HAVE to knuckle down you catch up and thrive.  That has been a hard lesson for me.  I still struggle with doing what I HAVE to do without bogging myself down and leaving no time nor energy for what I WANT to do.  I hope you learn that one earlier than I have.

I am sorry that your athletic and physical talents have been shelved for a bit.  It will be great when you can have your knees taken care of so that you can continue your active physical life. You have so much native talent in golf that I hope we can do more of that together.  It is never too late to be a good golfer…especially when you have that natural swing! Although you are mesmerized by television and electronics, you have always needed those spurts of intense activity in between your reading, viewing and tinkering.  Maybe now that you are back maybe you can get your Ya-Yas out with biking.

Welcome back.  You have not only been a survivor, you have grown and flourished.

I love you this much……………………………………………………………………to infinity and beyond.

 

And then I said…

I love quotations.  …Other people’s words, that is.  A few years ago I had one of those daily quote tear-off calendars.  Each page was a tiny tidbit of insight, knowledge or spin.  When these sheets  pop up in stacks of paper  I can’t bear to throw them away.  I want to thrill again to the emotions or dreams inspired three years ago on January 10th.

How do writers, poets, statesmen, etc. encapsulate thoughts and ideas in so few words? I hope I’m not missing something about quotations.  Are they really only well-packaged clichés?

I believe in them.  I want to be quotable when I grow up.  I want to think in pungent word bytes redolent with wisdom.  I’ll say them in public or in writing and then, perhaps, someone will look me up on Google because they are so captivated by my quotable quote that they find me intriguing even though they’ve never heard of me.

Or do I need to become famous first?  It could be that my wonderful thoughts would not rise to the top unless I was noted for some other great deed.  Ah well, then my aspiration must change.

I want to do great things!  (And after that, be quotable.)