A Wish

I wish I would stop attributing value points to the ways in which I spend my time. A few years back I came to know at a deep level of my being that time is a currency.

"To fill the hour, that is happiness." Anne Morrow Lindbergh

the broken leg is yesterday's news, and now I have more choices about what I can do.

I must admit that when faced with limited choice it was easier and more peaceful than now.

Now I can get the car and go somewhere.
Or I can get up and start listing things to make money.
Or I can sit here and read and write.
I can get up and do my free weights.


right now the rain is something else. August.

The Blessing of Tears

I was raised to avoid crying. I was raised to "buck-up and be strong". I was taught that others had bigger problems than mine, and that if I let loose with my feelings then all I was doing was making things worse for others.

I especially remember being told this when my parents were divorcing. I was twelve, and my mother's parents had come to help out.Some relative told me that I had to be strong for my mother. A display of emotions was considered undignified and showed a lack of self-control. What my Victorian era grandmother taught me,my beloved grandfather reiterated. He once wrote me a letter in which he said that I was too nice of a girl to have problems. So because i dearly loved and respected my grandfather who was indeed the best of men, I learned to maintain a stiff upper lip when in the presence of most people, and kept my problems to myself or for the therapist who got paid to listen.

During the course of my life I tried to toughen up at least I attempted to figure out what that meant. My father's advice once was that I needed to learn to be "more mechanical". I can do mechanical. I can immerse myself in routines, and aimless ambitions, but I can only do this for so long.

Words on paper became my confidante along with my many feline friends.I crfied alone in the closet with my face burried in to my clothes to muffle the sound. The stifled sobs turned to an anger which spiraled into a rage.

I was so mad one day when i was thirteen that I put my fist through the pane of my bedroom window.
That, of course, got a reaction. Punishment. Lectures about how hard I was making things for my mother. Lectures about how I was too old and too smart to act that way. I cried very angry tears in response.

The rage, of course, was the true part of me that knew i had every right to feel very sad, and that I had every right to cry when I needed to.

It is a solitary life for most of us. We learn to dust off our deep pain while in the presence of others. Perhaps that is the reason I prefer so much time alone. I want to be able to feel myself feel.

Crying never fails to give me relief, and it is always in the midst of my tears that I am reminded once again of the paradox of this life I live- that joy and pain coexist. Something my child-self innately knew, but that my adult-self had to rediscover. Tears are a form of grace that connect me with me.

childhood report cards report on me

Recently, I came across my report cards from my elementary school years. During those days each child's report card was handwritten. FIND THE PART ABOUT HOW I STAND BACK AND OBSERVE
I was often made wrong for being shy, bookish, and reticent to join in.

USE SCAN OF TEACHER'S REPORT CARD NOTES. painfully shy and overly sensitive- observes before she joins in what in the hell did that mean. as if these are qualities that need to be improved upon.
I had my ideas about how I wanted to spend my time, and even as a little girl I did not welcome being directed. Perhaps it has something to do with being a firstborn. After all, I had learned how to entertain myself without benefit of others.

On Denial

What I cannot do is lie to myself. Oh, and how many times have I wished that I could. How many times have I wished that a heavy cloak of denial would envelope me protecting me from the pain in my heart. Unfortunately -or perhaps fortunately- denial rarely finds a parking place in my mind.

How often I have wished that I do not see or hear or feel something that pierces my being. How many times have I tried so hard not to know that which I did not want to feel. For the world of pretend is lighter and prettier and much less scary.

My Young Pathetic Social Life

I didn't want to get to know the kids at the softball park. I hated team sports. I did not possess the easy ability to slide in with a group of girls. I can remember back in junior high being awed when a new girl named Georgia enrolled in our school. I remember the ease at which she smoothed her way into the group of popular kids. It was as though she possessed a a sort of magic trick one in whichI was sorely lacking in my social arsenal.

Recently, I came across my report cards from my elementary school years. During those days each child's report card was handwritten.
I was often made wrong for being shy, bookish, and reticent to join in.

USE SCAN OF TEACHER'S REPORT CARD NOTES. painfully shy and overly sensitive- observes before she joins in what in the hell did that mean. as if these are qualities that need to be improved upon.


did not want to join the line-up of the other girls- did not want what they wanted only if I happened to really want that- did not want to have to change myself to be fit in- I wanted to fit in because I though that there was something wrong with me because I really did not want to.

much disservice is done to children in the name of conformity- it will take us much of our adult lives to find our lost selves, and this is a daunting and often painful process.

Latin class, knee socks and kilt, picture journalisn club. I was the pale girl in the blackwatch plaid kilt and the Shetland cardigan. I was the girl who wore the unattractive cat-eye glasses. I was the girl who got Ds in gym because I would not play team sports properly. I thought they were stupid and useless. I did not see the point.

during volleyball one day the ball had hit the upper edge ofmy pointy frames and pushed them first into the side of my nose and then onto the gym floor. Someone stepped on them. I was left relatively sightless with a huge gash on the side of my nose where the glasses had cut my face.

Smart Alecky Kind of Gal

you think like a man, she said did not know whether to take this as a compliment or an insult, but I opeted to go with the former.
I cannot tell you how often her words have replayed in my mind. It got me to thinking about what is the difference between how a man thinks and a woman thinks. A ha.

I say to myself, well, you damned well better think like a man.

Okay let's make a list.

mike ryan our forts we hate boys

Somewhere around the mid fifties Davy Crockett craze hit. Mike Ryan had a cowboy tent and stakeout set up in the basement of his house. For my birthday I recieved a Davy Crockett tent, a little red record of the theme song and little cowgirl suit.

I wanted to ride the ranges with the boys.

Teachers

david cutting an onion
helen rolling a lemon

A Bette Midler Sweetheart Soap Kind of Day

1960
Kalamazoo, Michigan

I am in my yellow bedroom with the Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater and Jack and Jill pictures.
It is bedtime.

I hear Mama yelling.
She tells Daddy that he thinks he is special because he has a penis in his pants.
He says something, but I can't hear.

The bottom drawer of the stove opens.
I know that sound.
Mama's goin' at it with the pots and pans.
Bam on the black and white speckled linoleum floor.
Bang come the lids. I hear one rolling on its edge.
I wait until I hear it fall over.

A door slams.
Mama is crying.

I tell my friend about what Mama said to Daddy about the penis in his pants.
I ask Mama why my uncle smells like New Year's Eve in the middle of the day


You don't get to talk truth in our house.
If you do, Mom takes you to the powder room
and she holds your head
over the lavender sink
while placing a bar of Sweetheart Soap in front of your mouth.

"Bite", she says.

And I do.
And I get the bad words washed out.
Mama's always telling me to "put a little sugar in my voice."

So see truth is not good, I figure.
It is something only for the grown-ups.
Not nice little girls like me.

Nice girls don't tell the truth.
They play by the rules of how a young lady is supposed to act.

Young ladies don't get mad.
Young ladies speak in soft voices.
Young ladies don't let themselves get dirty.
Young ladies ask; they do not state.

Mama hands me a booklet called You're a Young Lady Now.
It's got pictures of something called Kotex.
And a real ugly lookin' thing called a sanitary belt.

Book says I'm gonna be changing soon.
Book says things are gonna be different now
And that I will like it.

The young lady life don't seem fun to me-
well the pretty clothes part- but that's it.
I don't wanna be a young lady.

I wanna be my own girl.
I wanna wear my little mouse shirt that has snaps on the shoulder.
Mama says I'm too old because I have little bumps on my chest now.

She says that I am a young lady now.

Down and Dirty with Bette Midler
Johnny Carson
1984

Dignity and Me

Of the many values which were imparted to me as i grew up, maintaining a sense of dignity is one of the biggies.

A huge part of my upbringing was managed by my grandmother Pearl whom I called Mamie. The family story goes that the name "Mamie" just burst from my baby mouth one day because I could not say grandmother. But thinking back now and knowing my grandmother the way that I did, I will bet that name was suggested to me and that i was encouraged to use it. My grandmother was a staunch Republican, and Mamie Eisenhower was the first lady of the land at the time of my babyhood.

I learned from her that appearances mattered. I learned this each time she gave me a throrough going over before going down to the sidewalk to visit the grocery store. I learned this lessn well that it is important how I appear to others. In my grandmother's house, I learned to do things Mamie's Way. puuled the hair tight rubberbabd--fingernails dug into forearm
Teaching me to care about appearance was a world that she understood, an din spite of the often painful ways in which she taught me, she did this from a place of love, for to her the world was a frightening place- one in which going over the line of propriety was analgous to flirtin gwith the devil.

The way she knew to love me by was teaching me about what she knew about life. And I felt that love each time teaparties, horisies, dress-up, etc.
Mainting oneself properly and playing by the rules was what she believed would keep her safe.

teaparties loretta young charleston

the shoe store, Manistee, the last leaf, sharing a bathroom with strange man,
her bathroom reader's digest and the sweet creamy smell of her foundation make-up.

her checks were soft as she brushed her face into mine. the clippity clack of the horses on the wallpaper came to life for me as she carried me upstairs for my nap

Mamie's Way meant

The dignity lesson was so emblazoned in my mother, Mamie's daughter that the first thing I remember Mama saying after she was told that she had about three months to live is, "I do not want to lose my dignity."

I, who was only thirty-nine at this time, blurted out, "Mom, no one can take your dignity from you." Those words just shot out of my mouth. I did not even know if they were true at the time, but they sounded good.

Several years earlier upon returning from a trip north to visit her parents, Mom and I were discussing the visit. with tears in her eyes she notes that my grandmother had a stain on the hat she wore to the Sunday service. This tiny detail conveyed to my momther that the mother she knew was aging, for Pearl noticed everything when it had to do with appearances. Maybe my mother thought that my grandmother was losing her dignity by appearing in public with a stained hat. But that is not it.


It is sad and hard to let go of the things that we think will protect us. We get a sense of safety from our daily rituals adn routines. We like to know that a trusted friend is just a phone call away. I have even noticed in myself that just the appearance of the same cashier behind the register at Publix can give me some sense of safety. for To even dance on the edge of vulnerability is frightening.

In late spring I threw a big party at my home. I had the luxury of working on it for days in advance. I prided myself on that fact that I, indeed, had covered every base. My house was sparkling clean and ready for guests. My grandmother would have approved. the party went off without a hitch. And the next morning I arose early feeling good about what a perfect success it had been. I cleaned the house from top to bottom that day. All was ship shape by early afternoon.

That evening I went out and was involved in a horrible car accident. Life can turn on a dime.

There is nothing dignified about wearing an ugly black hinged brace on one's knee especially when the velco sticky part is stuck up with cat fur.
There is nothing dignified about falling on your face in the shower and having to pull yourself out on your bottom because one of your legs is broken. I guess the fall is what made me face the fact that I had to ask for help. And somewhere along the line I got the idea that to ask for help was not a dignified thing to do.

After I got myself out of the shower onto the floor of the bathroom, I just lay there staring at the ceiling for what was probably only a few minutes. I lay there working at getting my emotional grip. I was focused only on how to get off the floor. My phone lay on the counter within reach.
but I did not htink of using it. With the use of my left arm and my unbroken right leg I was able to hoist myself up to the top of the commode. there I was able to dry myself off, get myself on the walker and get to my bedroom where I clothed myself.

It was only after i was in clean clothing, my hair combed into a neat topknot that I allowed myself use of the phone. I do not remember who it was that I called, but it was when I heard a familiar voice on the other end of the line that I broke down. My voice shook as I conveyed how very frightened I was.

I don't know at what point I will lost my sense of what it is that I think I must do in order to mainstain a sense of self. I know that being in a position of need is a position that I am not at all comfortable with. somehow I have needing mixed in with the loss of dignity. And maybe that is wrong, but it is my sense of dignity that continues to seve me well.

that is why even though it may seem fake, I still get up, fix my hair, put a decnet outfit on which is getting harder due to the weight gain with the mandated inacitivy because I still need to feel some sense of control even if it is that my hair and makepup look nice as i pass myself in the mirror on my walker.

Giving Ourselves Mercy

A few years ago I started thinking backward more than I was thinking forward. From what I have studied, that seems to be the case for people when they pass mid life.

This thinking back is a good thing and a bad thing. It brought up feelings of sadness. It brought up feelings of intense gratitude for the good fortune I have enjoyed in terms of loving people, a myriad of fabulous experiences and just plain old-fashioned good luck.

Conversely, this line of thinking also made me face all of the dumb things I have done. I thought about opportunities that I had passed over. I was at the point in my life when I was realizing that all of the things I thought I might do at age twenty were not going to happen during my lifetime.

I went through a period of what lasted about three years in which I was so angry, frustrated, frightened and awkward-feeling that I did not like to be around myself much. And to be honest, I must say I have usually thoroughly enjoyed my own company.

***********************************

early spring sometime in the late 1950's

A girl of nine stands at the window outside her bedroom door. The view to her right is of her mother's kitchen window. Soon purple irises will bloom in the area under that window. But for now there is only snow- dirty, muddy, middle of March snow.

The girl sees the gray sky and the leafless trees. Today she has been told to stay home from school to watch over her mother. Mom has been in out of the hospital a lot lately. No one will tell her what is wrong with her mom. She just knows her mom cries so much, sleeps so much, and when she does get up to do something she isn't fun anymore.

Gone is the Mom who dances to Ricky Nelson in the living room on the big braided rug.
Gone is the Mom who sings while she whips up lemon meringue pies, hot cross buns and Easter bunny cakes festooned with coconut and jelly beans.
Gone is the Mom who puts a stick of Blackjack gum over her front tooth to get a laugh.

Here is the Mom who is sad.
Here is the Mom that the little girl must cheer up.
She knows so because her grandparents and father have told her that is her job.

They have told her not to cause trouble or ask for too much because your mother has worse problems. "You just be a good girl and make Mama happy," they say.

Down the hallway in her antique bed, Mama sleeps.
Still staring out the window on this very gray of days
the little girl wraps her arms around herself as if to ward off an inner chill.
And she tells herself, "I will always have me."

***********************************

During so many of my young adult days I expected too much from myself. It was like I thought I had some dues to pay or something to prove. This force inside of me propelled me.
It was a drug as heady as good sex.

A few years back I just stopped trying so hard. That in itself has been a whole new challenge.

At some point, hopefully earlier than later, a woman must take sum of who she is and rejoice.
We are all too hard on ourselves.

Shortly after my mother died, I met Ram Dass. I was struggling with grief but sadder still was that I was passing judgment on myself as to how I was grieving. Was I doing it right? Was I taking too long?

Ram Dass stared me straight in the eye and said these words, "We must learn to give ourselves mercy."

I am fine just the way I am. And you, dear reader, are just fine the way you are too.

Let us stop being hard on ourselves. We've come a long way.



*Quite a few years went by before I realized that the following song was about loving and accepting oneself. It was written by Linda Creed, a young woman who died of breast cancer at the age of thirty-six.

Department store shopping in the 50's

It is a warm summer day in 1958. I am wearing a flowered sundress and a soft yellow shrug. We have just come home from shopping downtown at the mall. We watched a fashion show while we ate lunch in Gilmore bros. Tearoom. I had a club sandwich and a piece of cocnut cream pie.

Mom bought me a new Nancy drew book from the table display at the bottom of the escalator. We stopped at the perfume counter to give ourselves a squirt. Mama bought some new hand towels for the little bathroom, and Melanie got a new coloring book and a giant pack of crayons.

The job that interests me most is the elevator lady. From what I can tell gilmore's employs too. I always hope we get the young pretty one instead of the old one who wears a long black dress and asks in a too shril voice, "Going up or going down."

Up is fabrics and notions. We don't go there often because my mother does not sew. She is the only mother I know who doesn't. But the department I always look forward to is the preteen one.


Gilmore's basement lunch counter. lime and orange swivel stools. I alway order a club turkery sandwhich because it makes me feel like a big lady plus I love the little red and green swizzle sticks that are stuck in each of its. four sections.

Cracklin' Anny Pays Paula a Visit

Was eight in the morning on my birthday

Voice inside said you hang in the hole today

In the hole I don't bathe or brush my teeth

In the hole I don't try to make nice

The hole don't have no Warm Fuzzies or Smiley Faces

It got no course in compulsive positive thinking.

Here what it do got:

It got my real

The walls are plastered with icky gold-veined mirror panels

Keep me starin' back at myself everywhere

I stare so long that I see behind myself

Seein' behind myself

Hole is scary

Hole is about my Edge

Hole is about following my gut

I flash on the old lady

Who runs down Florida Avenue

She got pigtails and a backpack on

I see the guy who boogie woogies

In the median

At Florida and East Fowler

I figure it is about time

To get out of the place

I am afraid about what may happen

If I step over the Edge

Cracklin' Anny she shows up

She backs me up hard

Against the gold-veined mirrored wall

She is mad

And she has a good

Tongue-lashing for me

Let us listen to what she has to say:

"You push me back

Say I ain't nice to look at

Say I don't act right

Say you embarrassed of me"

"You treat me like refugee

But I been here whole time

Anny on your side

She got your back"

"I got some things to say

But you never listen

This time you listen

Time runnin' out"

"Your house too clean

You used to sleep in bed with kitty fur, cookie crumbs and paper piles

You happier then"

"You been thinkin' moresn' good for you

Been thinking all you life

You stop now"

"You hoop- dee- do girl

You kick it up more, you hear

You ain't nice girl"

"Nice girl smiles when she wants to cry

Nice girl agrees when she really mean fuck off

Nice girl goes along when she really want to go away"

"That ain't you

Don't mean you bad

Mean you grown-up

You sixty now"

Hoop-Dee-Doo
Doris Day

Bathing Suit Gals

Paula and Marcia in their Twenties

Mom and I sit on her sexy white wraparound couch talking about everything and nothing. She has her hands folded and her fingers are laced. As she speaks she twirls her thumbs. I know what this movement portends- sad news. Rotating our thumbs is what we do when bad stuff is coming down. Mom tells me her father has cancer. She cries.

Our conversation totters a bit on the subject, and then takes a strong right turn. Perhaps we discuss the new polka dot pillows I have brought for her sofa. Perhaps we talk some nonsense about the latest in celebrity news.

Mom stands up and lifts the leg of her trousers to mid thigh. She points to the zig zaggy purple lines on legs. She tells me that she is paying $350.00 to have these spider veins removed. I detect a hint of hopeful triumph in her voice.

"Good, Mom”, I say.

But my thirty-something mind wonders why. Mom is a woman in her late fifties. Age is bursting out everywhere on her body. Visions of the little Dutch boy who tried to stop a flood by sticking a finger in the hole of a dike cross my mind. Certainly this spider vein procedure cannot stop the inevitable fallout of age, I think to myself.

Later we go for dinner at the clubhouse. Two men my mother's age offer to buy us drinks. I hate this. I am a woman who does not let men buy me drinks. I am an “I will pay my own way thank-you very much “ type, but Mom is different that way. I give way to a cocktail. We drink, chat and leave.

Back at the condo, she models the yellow linen dress she has bought for her next blind date She has high hopes, for her vein procedure will be completed by then she reminds me. She has been actively seeking men for a few months now. Three marriages under her belt and a string of love affairs later, she still believes that she needs a man to be complete. The fluorescent light of the bathroom vanity accentuates every line in her fifty-something face.

“It’s real pretty, Mom. You look good,” I encourage her. Inside I pray that I won’t be this desperate at her age. "Hey, you will find a man if that is what you want. Look at those two men who just bought drinks for us."

She turns away from the unkind light, looks me straight in the eye, and says, "Paula, those men were interested in you- not me."

My heart breaks for her. She is probably correct, but I play dumb. My stomach squeezes in on me.

Mom grew up believing that her appearance was her most valuable currency. She had been able to trade on it for most of her life. She feared losing its spending power.

Oh, Mom, why did you not see that your raucous sense of humor, your keen intellect and your willingness to share your deepest feelings were your special gifts? They could have carried you gracefully over the threshold of aging.

A Young Sarah

Now Aunt Sarah, well, she did aging differently. Her body had its fair share of pooches, droops, and discolorations. But Sarah trusted who she was. And if she did feel a bit wistful at times about the loss of her youthful looks- and I am certain she did because I knew my aunt-she was not going to dignify it with any dialogue.

In the eye of memory I visit her. Today she is wearing old shorts and a paint spattered shirt. She gardens now as I look on, and as she does she sings:

"White coral bells

Upon a slender stalk

Lily of the Valley

Deck my garden walk

Oh, don't you wish

That you could

Hear them ring?

That will happen

Only when the fairies sing"

She has a joy in her heart that will not pay duty to the boundaries of age. She pauses to admire her flowers before heading to her studio, for while she was gardening she got an idea about how to solve a problem in her current painting. This has been gnawing at her for several days now, and she cannot wait to get started.

Today she will work in her studio in the woods until the late July heat beckons her to pull on one of her stretched-out swimsuits for a delicious swim in the bay. She rejoices that her heart still beats, her legs still carry her and that her eyes continue to seek out beauty.

The water of Grand Traverse Bay is just cold enough to be refreshing this evening. The geese cry as they fly in formation overhead. She is glad and give thanks for yet another day as she enters her eighty-second year.

Sarah in her 70's

Age has made me naked. It has shucked me right down to my stalk- raw and exposed. Pretending does not work any more. I catch myself lying to myself too fast these days. I have blown my own cover.

I put on my new blue bathing suit. I am the fattest I have ever been compliments of the broken leg.

I stare at the woman who looks back at me in the mirror.

If I, but for a moment, hear myself pass judgment on that woman, I shall stop. I will hold myself tight in my own arms until I find her- my own true blue gal.

The Fertile Void

what I know about myself is that the farther away I get from my truth the more obsessed I become with trying to control the small stuff- the stuff that shouldn't matter- the stuff they say you won't remember when you are dying- the stuff that we do to keep us from really facing the important stuff

I was always messy. I started one project before putting away the materials of another. I draped my clothes over chairs and beds. I slept in a bed with kitty fur, cookie crumbs and piles of papers.

i was okay with this until one day when i got the idea that external order trumped all else.
Staying busy straightening and cleaning is a way that I have avoided answering the questions that need to be answered.
Stay busy with repetitive chores is a way that I have kept myself in sort of a anesthetized state. repetitive chores give me an artificial sense of rightness about the way in which I am living my life.
And even as I participate in them the truer part of me knows that I am not getting away with anything. All I am doing is filling up time and space, so that I do not have to deal with what writer Suzaane Braun Levine calls "the fertile void"

I have lived a long time. I had a thirty-four year long career. When I left teaching, at first I felt as though I was a kid with a pockerful of nickels in a candy store.




I am borrowing the term "the fertile void" from writer Suzanne Braun Levine. Ms. Levine, a former editor of Ms. magazine has written a couple of books on aging. I read them both and connected with much of what she had to say.

She describes this fertile void as that space in a woman's life when what she has been doing for the majority of her life is finished. In my case, my retirement from thirty-four of classroom teaching brought about many interesting changes- many of which caused me to feel awkward and uncomfortable.

Routines and roles often serve the purpose of providing a woman with a sense of connection, identity and purpose.

I was absolutely clear that I was finished with teaching. I loved my students, and I loved my job. It was absolutely the right career choice for me, but it was time to stop.

for the first few years after leaving my career, I was like a kid with a pockerful of nickels in a candyshop.. I was running here and there. I still spent a large amount of my time making money. I was not in great need of adding to my income, but making money was what I knew to do. It was comfortable, and it took up a lot of my time. This past year I decided to take a year off from making money.

The fertile void is a scary place to hang out. You know that the way in which you are spending your time is not totally satifying, but you are afraid to let your mind wander there too often because then you must face your thoughts.

Like many, I can do a pretty darned good job at playing pretend with myself. But I always know when I am doing this, and after a point the thundering in my ears about the lying I am doing is too much to bear, and I must listen to my gut.

The problem is that I am not sure what it is that I really want to do. I feel like a hen that has been sitting on eggs too long. Nothing has hatched , but I still keep sitting- waiting for for a signal of some sort.

I am also aware that I have allowed myself to be led around by life itself . I wonder how many really conscious choices I have made about the direction of my life. I sometimes think that I have been a person who rather than take the bull by the horn has been one who has lived much of her life in reaction mode.

I admire greatly woman who put themselves really out there. I have many ideas of things I would like to try. but I am not doing any of them yet.

The broken leg deal has not only been physically uncomfortable, but it has forced me to spend hours on end just sitting. I think about what I will do once I can be up and about again.

My greatest fear is that I will keep replaying the same tune. I want more. I need more. I aim to create more.

I am afraid.