The Feminist Grandma

Camping at Cumberland

 

 

 

 

 

 

In May, Joe and I went camping at Cumberland Island, a barrier island just north of the Florida border. Although there is some private property on the island, 18,700 acres have been set aside for the rest of us. No cars allowed, just people and bicycles, and lots of wild horses.

The world has so many beautiful places; this is one of them. A boardwalk traverses wide dunes to a long, empty beach. Salt spray discourages the live oaks from growing high, and their limbs twist to reach the sunlight. Underneath are palmettos, each frond with its population of tiny green frogs with large voices.

images: National Park Service

 

Only 300 visitors are allowed on the island at a time, so campsites and ferry tickets must be reserved many months in advance. There were few campers at Seacamp in midweek, and the beach near the campground was almost empty; back-country campers go to beaches farther north on the island.  Loud groups of school children arrived for daytime field trips, but we didn’t see or hear much of them. They were usually leaving as we went to the beach in the late afternoon.

The entrance to our campsite curved through the trees and underbrush so it was hidden from the trail. No water spigot, but there was a fire ring, a picnic table, and a high cage for all our food and sweet-smelling toiletries.  We hung our trash bag from the cage temporarily, thinking no scavengers would visit while we were in camp, but one well-fed raccoon came in boldly and chewed a hole in the bag  and another jumped on the table to get to our toothpaste and soap.

On the first morning I rose at five-thirty and boiled water for my coffee. I set out my big insulated mug and turned away to fill the cone and filter with coffee, then put them on top of the mug and poured the water through. The fifteen-minute walk to the beach through the twisted live oaks, the sky just beginning to brighten, brought memories of Amanda. We took her camping at Cumberland Island when she was seven, and as she and I walked to the beach at dawn, and saw the brilliant colors through the trees, she began singing ‘Mister Golden Sun, please shine down on me.’ click

 

 

I walked across the broad empty beach past rippling tide pools to the edge of the water, and watched the sky change. The sun was soon up, but it was another twenty minutes or so before a thin gleam outlined the dark clouds on the horizon. I drank the delicious, strong coffee. In my loudest tenor I sang what I remembered of a song from my youth – ‘Sun arise, she bring in the morning…’ by a now-disgraced Australian singer. It’s an old song, a chant and a rejoicing. click (the comments following the video debate the propriety of enjoying art by bad guys) 

I was purely happy, alone on the beach for half an hour, watching daybreak. Just a moment before the sun rose above the clouds, I heard someone walking up behind. I turned, and it was Joe. He hadn’t had his coffee, so I offered him my last swig. He took it gratefully, and then spat. “There’s something in it.”  It was an inch-long caterpillar, boiled. It had fallen into the mug as I put coffee in the cone. I had been drinking caterpillar soup.

 

Dawn post-caterpillar: still cheerful

 

We walked back to our camp along the boardwalk through the twisty oaks, past the bathhouse, down the trail. I tried not to think about the caterpillar. We met a woman and told her about it. “It touched my lips,” Joe said with horror. She answered without hesitating. “You kissed a caterpillar.” I was so impressed. When I encountered her again the next day, at the bathhouse with her husband, I praised her wonderful attitude toward life. “She finds something good to say about everything.” her husband said.  He didn’t seem to appreciate this, but it put a cheerful song in my head. click

Florida beaches are too hot from morning to late afternoon, so after breakfast we walked along the River Trail through the woods. Surprisingly, mosquitoes don’t seem to be very active yet; they only troubled us for about half an hour at dawn and dusk. It was a beautiful day for walking, with a soft, steady breeze.

The trail took us to Dungeness dock, and the broad pasture where wild horses graze. When we were there with Amanda, she saw a stallion’s imposing penis, and I explained, though I feared it could make sex scarier than it already is. Now it was the height of mating and foaling season, and the first thing we saw was a grazing bay mare with a white foal suckling beneath her, a bay stallion grazing a little distance away.

 

I was tired from the walk, though it was under a mile, and sat on a bench watching a dozen horses grazing, rolling in the grass, trotting around, while Joe took pictures. I was reading the park brochure when Joe called, “Look up.” I searched the sky for birds, but then heard hooves, and looked across to see the stallion galloping straight towards me, followed by the mare and foal. He hadn’t read the brochure about staying 3 bus-lengths away from people. I sat frozen, nothing to be done, but fortunately he turned about eight yards from me, and the family circled the field.

Feral horses grazing at the ruins  image: National Park Service

We walked on to the ruins of Dungeness, a mansion built by Andrew Carnegie. Joe headed to Raccoon Key, where he saw thousands of crabs swarming on the sand. I walked the mile back to the camp, exhausted and blue because my stamina is gone. As always, a song came to me, and cheered me up a bit, and I could sing freely on the empty trail.

I love camping.  I like the way daily activities become a slow ritual; showers, toilets, and potable water  were a ten-minute walk through the woods.  I like being outside in the dark under the stars. I like playing cribbage by lantern light.

I tried sleeping in the tent, but the ground, even with the Thermarest mattress, was too unyielding for my left bad hip and my right bad shoulder, and wouldn’t make room for my butt. So I slept outside in the string hammock, and I was blissful, looking up into the sky and stars until I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  The frogs sang all night and the birds began before dawn. 

It was wonderful, but this may have been my last tent-camping trip. I have less energy than I used to, and I need to sleep well at night. I can still spend parts of the night in the hammock in our backyard. I can still sit outside at dawn and dusk. And I can still remember, and sing the songs that cheer me.  click

 

 

Duct Tape

 

2 New Year's gifts for my dear readers: a light hearted encomium to the sine qua non of home maintenance, and an easy recipe.

A couple of months ago Joe said, “I’d like a birthday party this year.” We only celebrate our birthdays in a big way every few years, so I told him if he’d give me the list I’d organize the whole thing. Then I forgot, and I think he did too, until eight days before the date. We went into high gear. He gave me the list, and some email addresses, and I sent forty invitations.

What about the menu? I suggested a big pot of chili, fried chicken from Publix, salad, and of course birthday cake. Over the years I have let go of the show-off cook, so I felt no need to prepare all the food for thirty or so people.Joe made it even easier. He wanted oysters, and he wanted to be in charge of them. He vetoed the chili, asked for deli sandwiches and fried chicken. And for everyone who asked “What can I bring?” the answer was salad.

After consulting with Luli, my sister and on-call food professional, I decided I could quadruple the Blitzen Kuchen recipe to make two sheet cakes without any unanticipated chemical reactions. (I did not consider the capacity of my stand mixer, and after beating the butter, sugar, and dozen eggs I had to transfer it to my largest bowl and mix in the flour by hand.)

The bowl was too small

The guests were all old (in both senses of the word) friends of one or both of us. There were clusters of guests - Joe’s poker buddies, his movie and football buddies, and the Muumuus - many with spouses. These were supplemented by a few outsiders who were welcomed by the different groups, including my middle-aged son - some of the people had known him as a toddler. And people saw old friends they had lost track of - there were warm reunions complete with pictures of grandchildren.

The weather obliged us. The sky was overcast and blustery, almost chilly, perfect for raw and grilled oysters out on the deck, with plenty of beer. As it got darker and colder, we moved inside to eat sandwiches and chicken by the fire, with Etta James on the stereo. Sitting on couches and folding chairs and coffee tables, people talked of books and movies and old affairs and (ugh) current affairs, which led Kristin to give us a song about Hitler’s (and Himmler’s and Goering’s and Goebbel’s) balls. She sings very well.

image:michael'stvtray.com

The party was well underway. Joe was basking in friendship - I’m not the only one who loves him. I was moving from place to place, checking on this and that, responding to the teenage girls’ boredom complaint with a look and then Netflix on my laptop, when Bruce said, “Liz, the front door won’t close.” “Whaaat?” (Translation: I don’t have enough to think about?)

It stood open about 18 inches, letting in the cold and letting out the cat. It wouldn’t go over the threshold. On our knees we discovered that the bottom of the door had come loose and slipped down. We agreed that this called for Larry, a retired cabinet maker with meticulous skills and a generous willingness to help. I went out on the deck and said, “Larry, please stop shucking oysters and come help with the door.” (We had bought a bushel and hired a shucker, but guys like to stand around shucking oysters and shooting shit.)

 

image:gypsygema.com

I went about my business while Larry and Bruce investigated, until Larry called for...duct tape. So much for the gifted cabinet maker. They jammed the bottom board up where it belonged and fastened it neatly. “To fix it you’ll need to take the door off the hinges. This is just a temporary fix,” Larry said. But I wasn’t so sure. Duct tape is a theme of our decor. The lovely silvery gray complements our lifestyle (I sneer at the brightly-patterned stuff they sell at Office Depot.)

Seven years ago Amanda was, to put it kindly, rambunctious. Sometimes it was a product of anger, but sometimes it was sheer exuberance. She was dancing in the shower one night when she slipped and grabbed onto the ceramic soap dish set into the tile. It broke off, leaving a gaping hole which exposed the pipes. (I still don’t understand how the weight of a slender seven-year-old could accomplish this, but that was her story.) Call the tile man? No. Get the duct tape. Joe, an ingenious - if not a handy - man, made a neat silver rectangle which has lasted to this day.

 

 Three years ago Amanda had settled down and we had a slumber party for her 11th birthday. click This entailed moving all the living room furniture against the walls and laying down pads and mattresses. It was a lovely and boisterous affair, and after she had slept it off, Amanda was very cooperative in restoring the house to our standard of tidiness. Alas, in pushing the piano back into place she smashed the light switch plate and rheostat. Clearly a job for...Superduct!

This repair only lasted a week or two. I was uneasy about all the unprotected electrons shooting around behind their silver cover, and tired of not being able to turn on the lights, so I called a handyman.

image:warningacooleelectric.co.uk

I have written before about our low standards of tidiness and decor click. I love to visit my friends, their houses filled with beauty and the tranquility that comes from order, at least when they have visitors. Our disorder is a product of laziness, distractions, and perhaps most of all, the way messes become invisible as time passes - I no longer see the shoes in the middle of the living room, the pile of books waiting to be shelved.

Joe and I are fortunate to be well-matched - I can’t imagine a tidy person living with either one of us. It’s not that I’m proud to be a slob - sometimes I even think how nice it would be to be otherwise - but I’m no longer embarrassed. And in the way we all redefine our faults as virtues, I have created a new etymology for sLOVEnly.

 

 

 

BLITZKUCHEN

350 degrees (325 for pyrex)   8"pan, greased and floured   25-30 minutes

1 C white flour

1 t baking powder

pinch of salt

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

3/4 C sugar 

3 eggs

zest and juice of half a lemon

1/2 t vanilla

Cream butter well, add sugar and lemon zest, beat well. Beat in eggs, lemon juice, vanilla. Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and beat in at low speed just till blended.

Frosting:

1 stick butter

1 C powdered sugar

2t vanilla

3oz unsweetened chocolate, melted (I do it in the microwave at 50% power)

Cream butter a LONG time, beat in sugar for a while, add vanilla and chocolate. If too soft to spread, refrigerate a while, if then too stiff, put in bowl of warm water and beat again.

 

 

Que Sera, Sera

 

For years I’ve had an idea running unnoticed behind my thoughts, the way programs run in the background on a computer: this is the way my life is supposed to be.

image:slideplayer.com

 

It’s an idea that can lead to resentment, but recently I’ve had a revelation. There’s no supposed to be; there’s just what is. Maybe this new (to me) version of truth will help me with my quest for acceptance, as in, “Accept the things you cannot change.”

It’s not that I’ve ever thought life was supposed to be all gardens and beaches. Accidents and illness, struggle and heartbreak - I’ve long known they were part of the mix. Since I was quite young, I’ve had a vision of how life works. You go along happily for a few years, encountering joys and troubles along the way but staying fairly upright, when suddenly life comes along with a catastrophe and pulls the rug out from under you. 

 

image:missionblueprintonline

Still, I had a sense that there was some natural progression from infancy to old age, stages of life that would come in a certain order. This was one of a number of unexamined assumptions produced by a safe and secure childhood. As a child I lived in a luxurious cocoon. I was the youngest of four children, the baby of the family. My family was intact, my father made a very good living, my mother made a comfortable home life, my brothers adored me.

a luxurious cocoon  image:busyknitter.com

Some of these unexamined assumptions are useful: I can do it; I am loved. Some are just silly. I was born when my parents were in their forties; we lived in big houses. My grown brothers lived in tiny apartments. I concluded that when you’re young you’re poor and when you’re old you’re rich. This idea miraculously survived years of working in poverty law. I was probably forty when I realized there wasn’t a natural progression from one state to the other.

images:thetinylife.com, wikipedia.org

When I was little I assumed my future was college, husband, housewife, motherhood. (You can tell from this when and into what class I was born.) This assumption exploded with the second wave of feminism, with reading the Second Sex at fourteen and The Feminine Mystique at fifteen. When the dust had settled, a new assumption took its place. I was in charge of my life, I could choose my path.

I’ve always known life isn’t fair. When I was raising two kids they’d say, as siblings do, “It’s not fair.” And I’d annoy them with a little ditty, “You always, you never, IT’S NOT FAIR,” and tell them no, life isn’t fair, that’s just the way life is. Every year I’d spend a semester and three credit hours trying to teach my law students that life’s not fair. They had not entirely earned their good fortune, nor did poor people deserve their misfortunes; a good deal of everybody’s situation was due to luck, good or bad. click

Life is what happens when you’re making other plans. I’ve known this for years; I’ve said this for years. Yet there in the background, belying this knowledge, was the belief that my life would proceed in ordered stages. 

image:thepragmaticcostumer.wordpress

The gods have laughed at me over and over, yet I have to learn the lesson again and again. I had to learn it once more when my son came home to recover from a serious illness. Now the four of us - hard-working husband, retired wife, teenaged granddaughter, and middle-aged son - are bumping along together as well as we can. It’s not what I expected when I retired. It’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

All my life I have struggled to accept what comes my way. I should have been an alcoholic; then I could have gone to meetings and heard the Serenity Prayer. Maybe it would have sunk in. But I can’t go much beyond one drink without getting drunk, and I hate being drunk. I prefer musical inspiration anyway; I want to learn to take One Day at A Time. click

Writing has always brought me clarity. But I’m still confused, still trying to understand. There's no supposed to be. There's just what is.

N.B. This post is full of God and Jesus. I haven’t become a believer. Growing up in a sanctimonious culture, I’m saturated with pious aphorisms. And just about my favorite music is gospel, full of trouble, promise, and joy.

 

 

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Lavender and Old Ladies

   


Amanda came into my office this morning in a rare friendly mood and said,
    “Yes! Now this place smells like old ladies.”
She was standing right by Trisket’s bed, which is under the desk, so I wondered.

    “You sure it doesn’t just smell like Trisket?”
    “If I leaned over and smelled her bed it probably would. But no, this is old lady smell.”
    “What do old ladies smell like?”    
    “Cinnamon and old libraries.”
That was a relief. She might have said something about pee. I pointed out the musty books that produce the old library smell, then directed her to the dried lavender and roses hanging on the closet door.

    “Take a whiff of that.”
    “That’s it! That’s the old lady smell!”
    “Oh I’m so glad. People always say old ladies smell like lavender”.
    “You like that?”
    “Yes. I love being an old lady. And I love that smell."
    “You’re weird, Grandma.”

I’ve always loved smells - sweet, floral, sour, pungent, funky. Even nasty smells intrigue me, though I draw the line at those that make me gag. About ten percent of women lose the sense of smell as they grow old - this is known as anosmia. Parosmia- when fragrant smells turn foul - is worse. I hope I never suffer either one.

My garden is full of fragrant plants - citrus, roses, anise, tea olive and many more. The most successful is my HUGE lavender bush. It keeps going through frosty winters and baking-hot summers. I’ve never understood why it’s so happy in my yard. It reminds me of rosemary, but numerous rosemary plants have shriveled in the same bed. (I decide whether plants are similar according to whether they remind me of each other. I am not a skilled horticulturalist.) This year, for the first time ever, it has produced a single little flower. It also has a resident spider.

I love this plant. I tear off branches and carry them around with me for happy smelling. I used to put sprigs in all my drawers and in the linen closet and under the bottom sheet on our bed, until Joe told me he doesn’t like the smell of lavender. So now  I make big bunches of lavender to give to women in stressful situations, such as my friend April when she was pregnant and surrounded by babies. I hang bunches out on the atrium to dry, and then crumble them into ziplock bags to give away.

Every room in our house has a different smell, some pleasant, some not so. When I was little, I liked the musty smell of my grandmother's New York apartment. I cherish the title “old.” click  I’m happy that my room - my retreat and my refuge, filled with photos and paintings of women - smells like an old lady.

 

Paintings by Arupa Freeman click

My mother at twenty

 

Collage by me (images by many, including Esther Garcia Eder click)

 

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NEXT POST: December 11 (I hope - I got very sick on a family vacation and am recovering.)

Unsolicited Advice*

    I’ve been retired for 13 years. But I still have days when, sitting reading the paper, I think “Yeehaw and hallelujah, I don’t have to go to the office.” This is what a more sophisticated writer might call a frisson.

 

 
Yeehaw and hallelujah! image:chroniclelive.co.uk

 

    With Amanda at camp, Joe and I took a road trip - two days with my sister in Chapel Hill click, two with Ed and Lisa in the Smoky Mountains, and two with Sue and Max in Atlanta. Ed has been retired since June, Sue has been retired six months, Max has been retired several years. So the trip gave me a chance to, among other things, ponder the puzzle of retirement.

 

Joe in the Smokies -pondering retirement?

 

Many people can’t afford to retire. Others think they can only retire if they have enough to continue living in the style to which they have become accustomed, or by which they have been trapped.

 

Trapped?   image:dailymail.co.uk

Free?     image:hgtv.com

 

Some people love their work and never want to retire; some dream of retirement all their working life. Often they have a list of all the things they want to do when they retire. My list was short. I wanted to write, garden, learn to play the piano, and get a dog. Six weeks after I retired I developed tendonitis, and couldn’t play the piano, garden, or write. I got the dog click. When the tendonitis was gone, I returned to writing and gardening and gave up on the piano.

 

Gathering dust   image:sweetlilmzmia.co

 

Generally writers don’t retire, though they may write less, or change their genre. In very old age, Donald Hall switched from poetry to prose click. Alice Munro keeps announcing her retirement, and then comes out with more stories. She claimed she couldn’t write fiction anymore because of her failing memory, but several years later she had another brilliant book.

 

Munro the Magnificent    image:therumpus.net

 

In the first few months after retirement, people fritter away the time. All our working lives we’ve dreamed of free time, and at first it’s every bit as blissful as our dreams. A friend sat on the couch each day and watched the birds in her back yard. I read old notebooks and letters.

 

image:birdorable.com

image:dreamstime.com

New retirees putter. Many begin with a long-postponed house project. I cleared out my bookcases.

Maybe I need to do it again

 

But thirty years of remunerated work, of dancing to someone else’s tune, leave their mark on the soul. With no schedule and lots of idle time, retirement can begin to feel empty rather than free. We lie on the couch, eating and feeling worthless.click click

Then we start making lists and plans for tasks and travel. We start, at least, an exercise program. We wonder where we might put our talents to use. For me, retirement meant giving up committees. No more collaboration and compromise. From now on, my work would be my own, no need for consultation or permission. I dusted off my No Bird to take care of all the requests that came in when people realized I had retired click. I was already part of the HOME Van, but I loved most of that work. It is an anarchic organization, and I never had to attend a staff meeting.  

image:powerpointforpreachers.blogspot.com

 

For a few years my retirement was what I had planned. Lots of writing, some travel, playing with friends, exercise programs that I often complied with. But as we all know, when people plan, the gods laugh. They may send illness, or death of a loved one. In my case, the goddess laughed and I found myself raising a child.

 

Hestia the hearth goddess laughed at me. image:theoi.com

 

So Fortune and I filled up my time. I had a mini-retirement when the HOME Van stopped doing drive-outs click. I was bereft, and wondered how I could find another work as wonderful as that. But I was surprised by how much time I gained - I realized I had been putting in at least a full day a week. So I puttered again, and postponed looking for other work, and then Arupa called and asked if I’d help with the food pantry one day a week. That is great fun - meeting people in small numbers and visiting with Arupa in between customers. And no eggs to boil or soup-makers to coordinate.

 

 

 

 After long experience with retirement, and spells of thinking about it all, I offer the following advice to people entering retirement: Allow yourself to flounder for a while, and relish the emptiness. When you’re ready to fill it, minimize the gottas and oughtas, increase the wannas, and enjoy good health and loved ones as long as they remain.

 

*"Unsolicited advice is the junk mail of life." - Leah Jackson

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NEXT POST:  SEPTEMBER 11

Old Woman

I began calling myself old at about sixty-five, but I wanted to claim the title even earlier than that.

My friends in their eighties laugh at the notion that I’m old at sixty-seven. Still, how long can one go on being middle-aged? Middle-aged carries all sorts of responsibilities and burdens - working for a living, saving for retirement, caring for teenagers and parents. Old brings freedom and power.

image:usatoday.com

As an old woman, I’m free from hoping that men will find me sexually attractive. When I was younger  I was on an everlasting honey-hunt. I  dressed and walked and talked to entice the male of the species. 

the honey-hunt  image:businessinsider.com

I’m free from trying to be what other people expect me to be. I can’t say I’m free from worrying what other people think - ‘How can she let her daughter dress like that?’ ‘She only reads bits and pieces of the Times’ ‘She doesn’t compost’- but I no longer expect perfection of myself, having long since stopped expecting it of anyone else.

I don't let her dress like THIS.  image: amazon.com

I am aware that when I simply act like myself - blunt, profane, opinionated - some people enjoy it because I don’t fit their notion of sweet old grandma. But as I have told Amanda, who is in middle school and at the painful peak of self-consciousness, the only person who pays much attention to me is me. Everyone else is far too busy worrying about themselves.

As an old woman, I feel powerful despite the crumbling - the whiny joints, hole-y memory and various other ailments. When my hair began to go gray, it was a tweedy pepper and salt. I died it purple for a couple of years, and when I let it  grow out it had become a lovely puffy white.  Irrationally, I gained confidence from my white hair. I walk into a meeting and believe people think I know what I’m talking about and am worth listening to. This may be delusional; it is  contrary to the common notion that old women become invisible.

 
worth listening to  image:nydailynews.com

The world doesn’t want me to call myself old (insofar as it’s paying attention, having rather more pressing matters to attend to.). Huge amounts of internet verbiage are dedicated to avoiding the word. As soon as people find out that one or another synonym means old, and refers to them, they apparently get pissed off and the word becomes verboten in its turn.

I believe people shy away from the word out of fear. Along with freedom and power, aging brings loss. Regardless of what you call it,  the last twenty years or so of the journey will have challenges and growth that we never imagined when we were younger.  

One of the lesser challenges is how to respond to young people who insist on denying we are old. A waiter recently asked, “And what will the young lady have?” Finally fed up with this sort of thing, I said, “I’m sure you don’t mean to offend, but I’m not a young lady. I’m old.” He actually began to argue. I insisted, “I’m proud to be old,” and he retreated, looking very uncomfortable. I left a good tip to make up for it.

 
image: huffingtonpost.com

A group of journalists interested in aging issues surveyed 100 journalists about appropriate ways to refer to old people. (They didn’t say whether any of these 100 were nearing 100.) In Words to Age by: a Brief Glossary and Tips on Usage, they came up with guidelines “intended to help journalists represent midlife and older people in socially neutral language that respects their individuality without appending presumptuous labels to them, either directly or indirectly.”

The favorite term was “older.” Than whom, I have to ask?  They also approved, with much discussion and many cautions: elder, middle-aged, midlife, boomers, senior.  They disapproved of: baby boomers, senior citizen, elderly. After a while of reading all this I stood up and yelled “OLD, OLD, OLD.”

So if I’m rejecting synonyms and euphemisms, and insist on old, is it old lady or old woman?

Hip young men used to refer to a lover as “my old lady.” Though the phrase has a nice musical sound, ‘lady’ belongs to a class system and a set of rules. The concept puts women on a pedestal. It's a great place to be if you want to be revered, but it restricts travel. I never heard those hip young men call themselves gentlemen.

old lady  image:enchantedserenityperiodfilms.blogspot.com

As a young feminist I rejected the sense of ownership, the elitism, and all the strictures that come with the name. My father used to tell me to sit like a lady - ie legs down and closed. A lady doesn’t admit to having  genitals, or if she does, she calls them private parts. She doesn’t ever use bad language. Now, as an old feminist, I can’t possibly call myself a lady, since I’ve taken to dressing inappropriately, in warm weather wearing nothing but a caftan all over town, letting my body take the air.

Just half the collection
 

 Old woman. The words come to a full stop. The sound is forceful, not flowery. Woman is strong, generative, sexual. Since I stopped being a girl I’ve been a young woman, middle-aged woman, and now I’m happy to call myself old woman.

Old is a proud title. By the time we are old most of us have walked many miles and climbed many mountains. We have survived our own mistakes. We’ve had lots of sorrow and lots of joy, some triumphs and accomplishments. We may have the wisdom to keep regret and pride in proper proportion. We have a lot to think about: our past is a multi-volume novel, and our future looms close with some of the biggest challenges of our life. I am awed, and yes, scared. I know I may have a very hard journey toward the big End. It will be no easier if I try to deny it.

 

 

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NEXT POST: NOVEMBER 28

 

Gratitude Journal

    Recently I went to a presentation billed as “Silencing the Inner Critic.”  It was very disappointing, and the speaker was very irritating.  She teaches all-day workshops on creativity, and her hour-long talk was nothing but an outline of those workshops. It was full of enthusiasm, vivacity and charm, but very little matter.  As you can tell, she certainly didn’t silence my inner critic.

image: pathseekerslifecoaching.com

But there’s always a nugget or two to carry away from these things.  Nugget #1 was my resolution to resume daily, first-thing-in-the-morning writing in my notebook.  And #2 was the gratitude journal.

image:gemrocksauction.com

I’ve kept a notebook for many years, a cheap spiral bound thing, badly battered by the time it is full.  Once I tried keeping several - green for gardening plans, blue for my diary, red for writing projects.  That was a silly, if elegant scheme - I can’t keep track of three notebooks - and I soon abandoned it. Now my notebook is always red, because I would like to be read. (We seldom-published writers must have our amusement.) My current notebook, a lovely fat one, is extra-special because it was a Christmas gift from Amanda. It was the first time she gave Christmas gifts, and I was delighted by her empathetic selections (Joe got a foam rubber football.)

image:amazon.com

My notebook holds my diary, my free-writing click, first drafts of fiction and blogs, and many shopping and to-do lists.  Sometimes in my diary I describe or celebrate a special day, but more often it’s where I focus on my troubles and try to come to terms with them.  Sometimes it’s therapy. Sometimes it’s whining.  

image:pal.ua.edu

I had heard the term “gratitude journal,” but it never grabbed me.  Now I thought I’d give it a try.  And I have been surprised at the effect. Here are samples, one from my normal diary, one from my new gratitude journal:

May 16. Friday.  Tonight is Amanda’s Honors Chorus Concert.  Yesterday I had a gloomy, out-of-sorts day followed by a night of poor sleep due to an upset stomach. Boy, this is writing that cries out for me to stop, and is also putting me to sleep.  My life is irksome. I stay irked.  I think I look for things to irk me.  I am falling asleep.                      

May 19. Monday. Gratitude: I am thankful that yesterday I could talk with Joe about my misery in this hard time with Amanda.  Only he understands what is happening here; only he need know.  And yesterday he gently reminded me what Dr. Lynne said about temporarily letting go of the demands we would normally make as parents.  That makes it easier for me to try and let go of my demands without feeling I’m being lazy, irresponsible, without feeling the people looking over my shoulder saying I’m a lousy parent.
    I’m grateful that he wants so much for this trip to NY to be what I’m hoping for, and that we are going to NY and staying in Chinatown.

image: wikipedia.org

I am grateful - almost breathless with excitement - that I’m driving to Orlando Thursday to meet Sue and Anne, staying in a luxury hotel.  I think we’ll drive back to Gainesville on back roads.
    I am grateful that yesterday Amanda played in the pool with me - a little hostile, a little aggressive, but still we played.
    I am grateful that I took away two precious nuggets from the empty talk yesterday at WAG - the gratitude journal, and the renewal of daily writing, which has disappeared in the chaos and grief.  I do indeed, have indeed, focused on my misery instead of my joy, and am/was becoming a negative gloomy glump.  Maybe there was something to Dad’s reply to “How are you?” “Oh, I’m always well.” He did live to 98, after all.

Always well: Dad at 90

    I am happy that I planted my three gaillardia yesterday, maybe rescued (I hope) the one poorly-planted cleome, THAT A MONARCH BUTTERFLY finally came to my thriving milkweed, and that I have three more milkweeds to plant.  Soon, if the monarchs come, I will have six ugly naked stalks.  And maybe the ugly nameless plant Bill gave me, with its tubular salmon-colored flowers, will bring me a humming bird.
          

image:thebutterflysite.com

    I am grateful that I am making progress with singing.  An die Musik - itself a song of gratitude and perfectly tailored to my situation, about the escape, comfort, release, shelter of music - is coming along.  Two techniques - head singing and pushing out my diaphragm through a whole phrase - should solve my range and breathing problems. Though I have trouble executing both of them.  Still, my range in warm-ups is already wider than it was - down to Bflat below low C, and up to high E.  These music lessons are my salvation.  Indeed I have many salvations.
    I am grateful that I can talk to Joe, and that he is helping me ease back on Amanda by taking on some of the reminding himself.
    I am grateful that I have this morning time.  The quiet sleep-breathing of Trisket behind my chair - she always wants to be where I am.
   
    I am late to the party. I googled gratitude journal, and of course I found a long list of links. I could read 8 tips for starting one, or take 11 steps to a powerful one. Berkeley presented research. Oprah weighed in. I found ads for beautiful little notebooks titled Gratitude, prices ranging from $9.99 to $156 for used(!) Amazon offers free two-day shipping if you subscribe to Amazon prime. You can also buy the “Bargain Attitude Changer. The #1 gratitude journal app for over five years. Use it for at least three weeks and your life will never be the same again. See demo.”                

available used for $156.19 image:amazon.com

    I think I will pass.  I’m perfectly content with my red spiral notebook from the dollar store. It makes a big difference to begin my day rejoicing, and it helps me notice small delights throughout the day. I am grateful for my gratitude journal.

 

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NEXT POST: JUNE 27

Prancing to Paradise

 

 

Gainesville, Florida is a most marvelous place. Though we have our share of ill and elderly, hardly anyone dies here.

image:kerli.buzznet.com

Like many boomers approaching seventy, I’ve started reading obituaries. I like the little nuggets of stories they present, though it surprises me that many families write such long ones, considering the cost. (I believe newspapers didn’t used to charge for obituaries, but everything now must be a profit center.)

The obituary page was particularly full today, with fourteen obituaries. But only two of the dear departed had died. Half of them passed away and one passed on. Number 11 took his stroll onto Glory Lane, number 12 went to be with the Lord, Number 13 set sail on her final and greatest journey. And the heavens became brighter as they received Number 14. Considering the subject, the obituaries page is a very lively place.

image:gospelofprovidence.com

Some of my dearest friends have told me that I am very blunt. This is a tactful way of saying that I am tactless. I deny the charge - nobody knows how often I bite my tongue - but I admit that I detest euphemisms.

I often bite my tongue. image:topenglish.sk

Recently some good people in Gainesville organized a service to help homeless people with terminal illnesses.  One of my favorite local geniuses, who shall remain nameless, proposed a design for the business card. It was clear and simple: “Croaking? Call (phone number)”. I thought it was just right, but I’m not involved in the project, and nobody asked me. 

In idle moments I like to imagine my own obituary.  I think about the things I did that mattered to me at the time, and wonder how far back I should go. I feel no need to say where I attended elementary school, that I came in third and last in a swimming race when I was five, or that I earned a sewing badge in Girl Scouts by making an apron. (Gainesville obituaries delve deep.)

 

                                                images:cnn.com fabricland.com                                          

I know that I wouldn’t want to mention a beloved dog or cat as a survivor, but I fret a bit about which children I would list, and how they should be described, what with steps and fosters. I couldn’t truthfully say they all mourn me.

So I edit and revise, happily dithering. The one statement about which I have no doubt is the description of what happened. I don’t intend to pass on, or away, or into Glory. I’m just gonna die.

image:faithislam.net

 

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NEXT BLOG POST: APRIL 25

I Lost a Friend

Mike Chielens died last Saturday. The many online comments on his obituary noted his love of baseball, beer, and rock and roll. Chielens was director of Legal Aid of Western Michigan, and the comments also spoke of his kindness, his fight for the underdog, his respect for everyone. But I knew Chielens when he was a brand-new legal aid lawyer at Jacksonville Area Legal Aid - JALA.  He was a laughing elf of a man, a tiny guy with a huge heart, round face, red hair, freckles. 

ROCKING AND ROLLING

Chielens loved to flirt. Though he looked like Howdy Doody, with a little boy’s physique, his charm and intensity could bowl women over. But he was loyal to his fiancée in Michigan, and whenever Van Morrison sang Brown Eyed Girl, Chielens talked about Jan, a warning to us to keep a safe distance.

Mike Chielens and Mike Milito shared an apartment.  They were fun-loving wild men, smart, determined, and fierce for justice. I knew them when we were young, when all of us were young, a gang of northerners with law degrees who descended on Jacksonville to be turned into lawyers under the leadership of two slightly older Harvard Law graduates.

SOME OF THE GANG IN 1975

 Jacksonville was a blue-collar city, with a large poor black population, a large poor white population, some uppercrust southerners and a whole lot of insurance executives.  Lefty lawyers had trouble finding friends outside legal aid, so we became a close-knit group, living in little bungalows in Riverside,  near downtown. Some of us lived at Jacksonville Beach, and kept open house on weekends. 

    
RIVERSIDE BUNGALOWS

LAWYERS AT THE BEACH: SUE, SARA, LIZ

When we first came to Jacksonville, my five-year-old son Eric and I stayed with Sara until I found a place, an upstairs apartment with no air-conditioning, but well shaded by thick pine trees. Later, when I was no longer a VISTA volunteer making three thousand a year but a staff attorney making ten, I moved to a house, and new arrivals would stay with us.

On Saturday mornings I’d start my laundry in the laundromat on King Street and Eric and I would walk to visit one friend or another while the clothes dried. Julie and Graddy kept M&M’s on the back of their toilet to encourage their toddler to get up in the night to pee. Sue and Max always had coffee aging in a percolator.

 
MAX, SUE, AND EMILY - ALWAYS READY TO REHEAT THE COFFEE

In the evenings we often gathered at my house so I wouldn’t need a babysitter. I cooked dinner, Jim brought his guitar, and we sang harmony. I had serial crushes on most of the guys, but generally avoided fishing off the company pier, and instead paired up with quite unsuitable men whom I found elsewhere.

UNSUITABLE MEN

My family came down for Thanksgiving, and legal aid friends joined us.  My father was impressed that fourteen people could be so jolly on only two bottles of wine. He didn’t notice some of us sneaking off to the back of the house to smoke dope.

THANKSGIVING FUN

 One day our program director came into my office and found me crying.  I had discovered that Eric’s after school care was atrocious, and didn’t know where to turn.  That night, Paul’s wife Shirley called and said Eric could come to her house after school - she had four daughters from elementary to high school. They lived two blocks from me, and two blocks from Eric’s school.

Shirley and I decided to train for the first Jacksonville River Run, so every morning she knocked on my door at 6:30, and we ran through Riverside and Avondale, on past the huge oaks and houses of Ortega. After the River Run, I drove to the beach and joined a party that lasted well into the night.

LIZ AND SHIRLEY IN THE FIRST JACKSONVILLE RIVER RUN

JALA LIKED TO PARTY

I stayed at Jacksonville five years before I moved to Gainesville. One by one, my friends left JALA for Atlanta, Grand Rapids, Providence, DC, Los Angeles. Most of us stayed connected to poverty law in one way or another.

At every time and place of my life, except one desperately lonely year in Montreal, I have had a group of friends. Happily, in every group there is always one who keeps us all connected after we move on.  For the JALA gang it’s Marie, who writes long, chatty Christmas letters, who organized two reunions in Florida, who made an email list of old JALA comrades and told us when first Mike Milito, and then Mike Chielens got terrible cancers. 

 

MARIE (far right) ORGANIZED REUNIONS

Milito and his wife Judy went on Caring Bridge, where we could read the step by step horrors of his treatment, and finally, thank God, his slow recovery.  Chielens didn’t use Caring Bridge, but Jan sent emails and Marie forwarded them to us.

MILITO, CHIELENS AND JAN IN HAPPIER DAYS

Mike and Jan put themselves through torture, with the hope that they would have many years on the other side  They didn’t; his condition grew worse and worse and after about a year of hell, Chielens died.  I got the news from Marie, and cried and cried. It was Marie who sent flowers in all our names, with Dylan lyrics - ‘May you stay forever young.’  And Marie who said, 'don’t pay me for the flowers,' and organized a group contribution to Western Michigan Legal Aid.

I hadn’t seen Chielens in over thirty years, and only kept up with him second-hand. But I grieve for him, and for that time, for that community of young people happily misspending our youths together.  We played hard, but we also worked hard, certain that our cause was just, hopeful that we could change at least one little corner of the world. 

I have reached an age where my friends and famiy will be dying, unless I go first. Many of my friends have survived cancer, some are battling it now. I write this in Miami Beach, where we have come for the unveiling of my late brother-in-law’s tombstone. Adam died suddenly, a few weeks after his fiftieth birthday celebration.

ADAM, JOE, AND FRIEND

Thinking of my own death doesn’t dismay me much, though I hope to hang around long enough to launch Amanda and see her land on her feet, and it would be nice to see my books published and acclaimed before I go. But losing my family, losing my friends - that’s very hard.

SHE'LL LAND ON HER FEET

Young people see old age as boring, or at best, peaceful. They think all the excitement and adventures are theirs.  But facing all this loss, facing my own mortality, this is a profound, if difficult, adventure.

Here's to Chielens. Here’s to all the friends I have lost touch with, and all the friends I will someday lose.

 

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NEXT POST: NOVEMBER 29

 

 

 

I'm Scared

It’s not funny anymore. It’s frightening.

I’ve just finished Connie Mae Fowler’s five-day writers’ workshop in St Augustine.click The best part was the workshop sessions and new writer friends.The second best part was having the hotel room to myself.

 

ALL MINE

The farewell dinner was last night.  About 6:30 in the morning I wake to a steady rain. I get dressed.  I pay attention when I put my cell phone in its holster, because the last five days I’ve kept it silenced in my purse. Methodically, I pack up each area - the bathroom, refrigerator, closet, dresser, desk, bedside table. Nobody distracts me with “Grandma, can I go get a donut?” “Liz, have you seen my glasses?” With everything packed I go through the room one more time, to be sure I haven’t left anything. Then I load the car.

Parking in St Augustine has taken all my cash, so I drive a couple of miles to Publix to get money for a housekeeping tip. I buy a sandwich for the road. I leave the tip, check out, grab a banana from the buffet, and head home through the driving rain.

 

IMAGE:NEWBYREALTY.COM

The thick, dark clouds are breaking up in the sky to the west, and by the time I reach US 1 the rain is slowing.  I leave the town behind, and now I’m on 207, a fast secondary road with trees, egrets, and puddles on both sides.  There is little traffic. I am entirely happy; the workshop revived my flagging writer, giving me energy, confidence, determination. I’ve made two decisions.  I will put writing first every morning, and make no dates before 11.  I will no longer say, “I’m retired,” but “I’m a writer.”

'O Happy Day' is playing on the CD player.  I think I’ll call Joe, share my happiness. I reach for the phone. It’s not in the zipper pocket of my purse. It’s not anywhere in my purse. I feel my jeans pockets, my shirt pocket. Nope. I review all my packing, and I’m puzzled. I remember turning off the alarm - is it possible I left it on the bedside table?

I pull over on the shoulder, trucks whizzing by as I get out to search. Passenger seat and floor, tote bag with notebooks, books, and magazines, computer case with a zillion compartments, center console, suitcase, under the seats. Nothing. And nothing to do but drive back to the motel. I consider calling to ask, but of course...

I’m proud that I’ve stayed calm, not frantic - it helps that I left early so there’s no worry about getting to my 11:00 therapist appointment in Gainesville.

I LOOKED EVERYWHERE

The worry begins after the friendly desk clerk has given me a new key card, after I’ve methodically searched each area of the room, looked in all the drawers and under all the furniture, after I’ve stripped the bed, after I’ve returned to the buffet and asked the woman who’s making new coffee if she's seen my phone. Back to the car, a more careful search with no trucks whizzing by two feet from my butt. I empty each bag, check the pockets in all the dirty clothes, move both seats and feel around under them. By now I know I’m repeating myself, hoping magic will put the phone where it wasn’t. I pat my jeans pockets, then my shirt pocket, and my hand bumps the cell phone belt.

Such a rush of relief. Then the real worry begins. By the time I reach the place where I pulled over,  an hour after my first departure, I’m near tears. This is no short-term memory loss. This isn’t like the comical incident of dressing a salad in a colander click, or locking my keys in the car.click. I paid attention when I stowed my phone, but with all the searching, all the thinking about what I had done, I didn’t remember it. 

The Muumuus and I joke about senior moments and brain farts, cozy and comfortable in our aging together. This wasn’t a moment; it was an hour.
Now my thoughts are flying. Alzheimers. Dementia. Researchers say about 1 out of 8 people over 65 suffers from dementia. I’m afraid to tell Joe, afraid tell Dr. Lynne, my therapist. I have told Joe that when I don’t know him anymore he can put me in a nursing home and divorce me, but he has to visit regularly to make sure I’m well cared for.

IMAGE:WISCONSINWATCH.ORG

I already have a strategy for my keys, and almost always put them in the basket by the door. Now I need a strategy for my glasses and phone too, and a mental checklist whenever I leave the house. I will have to establish compulsive habits. I must be present in every moment, pay attention to the now.

MY KEYS ARE HERE

But if I can’t let my mind wander, how will I write? Half the writing happens in my head when I’m cooking or cleaning house, swimming or walking. Just when my writer has come alive again, my mind starts to melt. It will only get worse. I will call my doctor and have the annual checkup that was due in July, ask for a referral for a neurological workup. There is a drug that can slow the progress of Alzheimers; best catch it early.

Last night I read a New Yorker piece about Phillip Roth and his friends. Roth decided to give up writing fiction at 78. “It’s hard to remember from day to day what you’ve done.” In Iris, the movie about Iris Murdoch, there is a scene where, as Alzheimers advances, she puts down her pen because she cannot remember words.

 

PHILIP ROTH IMAGE:NYTIMES.COM  IRIS MURDOCH IMAGE:TELEGRAPH.CO.UK 

I arrive at Dr Lynne’s with ten minutes to spare. We’ve been dealing with an old trauma, so that I can put it behind me. But this is too urgent; my fear is right at the surface. So we plunge in. She has theories about memory loss, information about how it works.  My story doesn’t worry her, and so I worry less. That night I tell Joe about it. He understands my fear, but thinks it’s like looking all over the house for his glasses when they are on his head. I see his point and feel better.  But I still want an assessment.

This morning in the paper, two items. Glory glory, Alice Munro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.  (In a New Yorker interview a year ago she said she would probably stop writing because “I’m eighty-one, losing names or words in a commonplace way.”) And Julie Samples, a graduate student at the University of Florida, has just published a pilot study in the Journal of Neurological Sciences.

The first deterioration in Alzheimer’s is often in the olfactory nerve, and begins on the left side of the brain. Julie put a dab of peanut butter on the end of a ruler, and brought it closer to each nostril until the person could detect the smell. She and her advisor report, “If they can smell it far away it means that nerve is working.  If you have to bring it all the way up to the nose it means it’s not working as well...We were blown away with what we saw...The right nostril was normal, and the left had impairment” in Alzheimers patients but none of the other subjects.

You know I went straight to the peanut butter jar. I put a bit on the end of a knife, blocked each nostril, and sniffed. Both my nostrils (and hence my brain?) worked just fine, smelling the peanut butter from about eight inches away. When I used the whole jar, I could smell it from a couple of feet away. I suppose I will mention this to my doctor when I get around to my so-called annual physical. And maybe I’ll ask for an assessment. But I am greatly reassured.

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NEXT POST: NOVEMBER 1