Swan Song...

Yep, that's me in the tree. Reaching, as always, for the biggest, reddest apple, never satisfied with the ones within easy reach. Maybe that's what best defines my life - that constant reaching and stretching towards something bigger and better. Perhaps this picture is quite symbolic. Oh, I've certainly never really "played in the big leagues" so to speak, never made a fortune, never been famous, but in my own way, I guess, I've stretched to reach my potential, and if I've fallen short, I think it's reflected my dissatisfaction with what I once thought of as worthy goals. As I get older, I tend to value different things than I once may have. I suppose that's true of us all. In my case, I grow more and more critical of society and the paths that it has taken - the awful, mindless consumerism, the lack of awareness about the earth, the desire only for instant gratification, the immorality of a people who would vote yet another jingoistic despot into power - why? Because they, personally, are doing okay even as others struggle to hold onto their homes, feed themselves, and access decent medical care? Even as young men and women - and even greater numbers of civilians - continue to die overseas in meaningless war? Or is it simply racisim, and their inability to imagine themselves as constituents of a black president - and the fact that they'd rather see this country slide right down the tubes into oblivion than owe its survival to someone not of their skin color? Scary. I don't know the answers, but more and more, I feel alienated from all of it - feel more and more like I'm seeing it all from a bird's eye view, and that it just doesn't have all that much to do with me.
About the apple tree. Every fall, we take the granddaughter to the orchards where she and I climb up to collect the topmost apples. She couldn't climb this year because her arm is still healing from a bad break six months or so ago. So, I had to climb for us both. But, I have to admit that it wasn't as lithe and fluid an exercise as it has been in years past. A few trees that I know I would've skinned right up in the past presented some real challenges this time out. And, after we were home and had peeled and cored our twenty pound bag of apples - and created a big tray of apple crisp and four pies, this old lady needed a hot bath and a heating pad on her hip.
I'm a little sad, because despite my three mile walks every day (which include side-steps, knee lifts and kicks) there are still parts of my body that are apparently stiffening up, and getting downright stubborn about what they're willing to do. I'm afraid that this past weekend's tree climbing represented my swan song; my tree-climbing days have about come to an end.
More change.
Naturally.

Existential Angst....

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -- Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5

Yeah. Exactly.

Sound and Fury. Drama. Stuff. And then nothing.

Oh yes, I have relationships - some of which are very important to me, in fact - and things to do; a job - social things, events, my exercise (walking three miles a day) so on and so forth. And I truly am invested in many of these things - interested, engaged, and happy enough about doing them. Except, of course when I'm tired and don't really feel like it, but that's neither here nor there.

More and more I find myself looking at things from a much larger perspective - looking at the way generations past and presumably generations to come lived/live/will live their lives and then step aside for the next generation to step in, "do THEIR thing" and step aside, on and on ad infinitum.

My youngest (age 31) daughter is pregnant with her second child eight years after her first was born. I think about how I was pregnant with my children - and raised them - and they grew up, became adults, and are now doing the same thing with yet one more generation. My daughter's life is very busy with her work, her husband and daughter, her friends, her church activities (she tutors school-age kids, sings in the choir, sits on the trustee board and no doubt is involved in many other things in the church of which I am not aware. At one time we were very close - spoke for sure every day, and saw each other at least a couple of times a week. Now, I'm lucky if I hear from her a couple of times a week and see her once or twice a month. And she lives five minutes away from us!

I feel like I am phasing out of motherhood, and phasing out, in general, of the *family* portion of my life. My middle daughter (age 37) has never been quite so attached as my younger girl was - we have always loved each other dearly, of course, but she was very independent as a child, and has only become more so as she has grown and matured. But with her, I'm used to a once weekly catch-up, and an occasional drop in visit when she wants to vent about her job (she's the executive director for MA & CT of a large, national non-profit organization) and, of course seeing her when we have a big family dinner for one occasion or the other. And my eldest daughter has lived her own life for many years, now - a good distance away from the rest of us, and so I don't see her often at all.

And my son lives in California. I see him two or three times a year, and speak on the phone once a month or so.

But my younger girl, I have always been very close to, and it's only been over the past year or so that I've felt her really detaching and creating a life for herself that doesn't revolve around our relationship. And it's disconcerting. Difficult. Dare I say hurtful to me? And what's truly crazy about this is that I really understand perfectly, because my damned graduate degree is in psychology/sociology!!!!!!!!!!! AND, I have done a good bit of work in exploring my own spirituality, and the sort of philosopy that advises that we detach ourselves from outcomes....etc., etc.

And that's fine, well and good so long as everything stays the same.....LOL.

Of COURSE this is all about change and my struggling for things not to change. But they will, and I will adjust, and life will, as Willie Shakespeare says, continue to creep in this petty pace from day to day, until it doesn't anymore.

No, I'm not depressed, or at least not dangerously so. Even as I write this, my mind is busy making adjustments and planning and strategizing for how I will evolve in this new set of conditions.

But I don't LIKE it, and I do sometimes wonder what the hell the point is, you know?

Yes...that's what I'm afraid of.

Sarah Palin, painted for Women's Work, an online gallery exhibit of women's political art
©Zina Saunders 2008. All rights reserved

I don't know Zina Saunders, but she has certainly hit a nerve with me with this painting. Somehow, this image reached inside me and reverberated loudly. Yes. That's what I'm afraid of. Palin just seems like the ultimate right-winger - the strongly committed Christian who will fight a woman's right to end a pregnancy that will do no-one, including the unborn child, one iota of good. I worked as a social worker for a state agency for ten years after graduation from college, and saw the effects of unwanted pregnancies - and pregnancies resulting from incest and rape - play themselves out in the lives of neglected and abused children, and in children who were literally killed or maimed psychologically and physically for life, and unashamedly admit that in many of those cases, I came to believe that abortion would have been the kinder, gentler solution. It's easy - yes, EASY - for members of the religious right to insist that every pregnancy should result in a live birth, because THEY don't have to deal with the consequences, don't have to witness the life-long pain and anguish caused by their determination that their will should prevail. I've seen it, tried to rectify some of the damage, and far too often, haven't been able to. I once took a 13-year-old rape victim to an abortion clinic to get an abortion. That's right. And there was a Catholic priest pacing in front, carrying a sign with a photo of a shredded fetus on it. He approached us with an appeal for my young client to "think twice before committing murder." (If only the rapist had thought twice before committing rape, eh?) I looked at the man with what must've seemed like pure hate in my eyes, and said to him, "So are YOU going to adopt and raise all these babies you're trying to save?" Like I said, easy to take a stand when after your shift is over on the picket lines, you can go home, ask the housekeeper to brew you a nice cuppa tea and maybe bring you a little snack - no messy babies crying, no snotty-nosed children dragging on your robe, no worrying about how you're going to feed, clothe, and house them. But - once that fetus that you've saved from murder reaches 18 or so years of age, you have no problem supporting an adminstration that will now send him/her over to some foreign country to get killed. That's not murder; that's dying for your country. (Or oil, actually, which we all know is worth losing a *few* lives over). But, back to Palin - ruthless, egotistical, ambitious, dogmatic, self-serving Palin. Any woman who identifies with Sarah Palin, or buys that she is the quintessential "hockey mom" needs a serious reality check. Seriously. And call me squeamish, but that picture of her that's circulating around the internet with her and her young daughter proudly posed behind the carcass of a moose that she's shot in the face turns my stomach. Oh, enough out of me for now. I'm not 100% convinced that Obama is going to be able to make much change in the country, but I'm voting for him. The kind of change we'll see with McCain & Palin is just too gruesome to even contemplate before lunch.

Not bouncing back so quickly anymore...

I'm just now getting back to finding a moment or two to think and maybe write a few lines. This past weekend flew by, leaving me feeling like a wet dishrag that someone had wrung out and hung on the sink to dry. Seems like one of the things about getting older is that your (my) stamina decreases exponentially. Of course, I realize that we all age differently, and there are plenty of elderwomen out there engaging in much more physical - and mental - exercise than I do, and likely feeling less tired. I've never been overly physical - I skiied until I was in my early forties and a third broken ankle (same ankle, three times) caused me to hang up my skis permanently. Since then, I've done some swimming, boating, biking and hiking, but none of those on anything resembling a consistent basis. Just recently, I have discovered the Leslie Sansone *walking* videos - at home walking, that is. Walking in front of the TV set or computer monitor. I've been walking a mile in the AM before getting ready for work, another mile in my office (with the door closed) at lunchtime, and another mile when I get home from work. This exercise seems to work well for me, and what's especially good about it, I think, is that I won't have to look for alternatives when it snows out as I did last year when I was riding a bike around the neighborhood trying to get fit. Now, I'm not trying to regain my "youthful figure" - I think that's pretty much gone at this point - but I don't want to get TOO heavy, I DO want to build up some stamina, and I DO want to remain healthy if I possibly can for as long as I possibly can. But, about the LOSS of stamina - and feeling tired when I do anything out of my ordinary schedule: we went to my husband's nephew's wedding this past Saturday, out in New Haven, CT - close to a two-hour drive from where we live. We left at 3:00 in the afternoon and got home at 1:00 the following morning. Then, on Sunday, I had my daughter & her husband and little girl, and my other daughter and her husband and little boy for supper to celebrate my son-in-law's birthday. I didn't do any cooking that required a whole lot of preparation - a pork loin roast, baked potatoes with sour cream, corn (my son-in-law's favorite vegetable), a big tossed salad, homemade apple sauce, gravy, and the kids brought cakes and desserts. They all left by 7:30 or so because everyone had to be at work or school the next morning. And I was absolutely done in! I took a short soak in the tub, and was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. The weekend just flew right by, and before I knew it, my alarm clock was squawking, and it was 5:30 Monday morning. And I was STILL tired last night, and went to bed by 8:30. I'm finding that it takes me longer now, to bounce back from any change in routine. I ALSO think it makes me tired just thinking about the state of our country and those people who are vying for the head honcho positions. I won't make this a political rant, but for GAWDS sake, what are they THINKING? How sad - and gullible - can people be (or maybe the question REALLY is - how racist are they?) that they would even consider supporting a narcissistic old man like McCain with a running mate who is so flippantly nasty, so drivingly ambitious and power-hungry? Hell, if they get elected, she'll probably drop a little strychnine into his morning coffee just so she can be # 1. After all, she has no problem killing animals - and introducing her young daughters to the pleasures of shooting a moose in the face in order to pose next to it - she follows the laws of the wild, and when you could serve her interests better by dying, I don't think she'd hesitate to "cull you from the herd". If I were John McCain, and they DO get elected - well, I'd just watch my step if I were him, that's all. And, as far as her understanding foreign policy because of Alaska's proximity to Russia, an NPR commentator (I apologize for forgetting his name) said it best, I think, when he noted that he was standing next to Lake Michigan, but that "it didn't make him a duck". Now, mind you, it's not myself so much that I worry for. It's my children and grandchildren. I've lived the greater part of my own life, and I've raised my family. They're the ones who will have to deal with what happens to this country because of the greed and ruthlessness of those at the top. It'll take generations to "bounce back" from this mess. So, no wonder I feel tired, eh?

One of those days to remember....

Last Sunday, we decided to launch our new membership at Old Sturbridge Village by bringing my seven-year-old granddaughter there for the day. What fun we had! We started off with brunch at The Oliver Wight Tavern, and from there started hiking about to see the sights. Morgan is at that wonderfully inquisitive age, asking questions about everybody and everything, and her energy level is such that we were on the move constantly, except for the little bit of sitting we got to do while taking a boat ride up the river. Thanks to my two-mile-a-day walks with Leslie Sansone, I was up to the challenge, and really had a wonderful day with both Stone and Morgan, who are always laughing and carrying on together about one thing or another. Having Morgan on a Sunday is a rarity, because she is a soloist in her church's junior choir, and is typically expected to be there on Sundays. This time, we talked her mum (my daughter) into letting her play hookey for once. We're planning to visit Old Sturbridge Village as often as we can - there's so much to see, it would quite literally take days and days to see it all. Plus, there are special member's events, and we're thinking we'd enjoy thier Christmas program/dinner. It would also solve the sticky question for my children of how to plan Christmas without offending me OR their father (whom I divorced some years ago) because I've made up my mind not to spend another Christmas in his company. For the past two years, I've gritted my teeth and tolerated his presence, but last year, when he tried to press a $50 Applebee's gift certificate on me & my present husband, jovially telling us to "enjoy a meal on him", I had all I could do not to spit in his face, and that's the truth. This is the same man who was court ordered to pay half of his children's college tuition and expenses, and who never got up off a single thin dime - between loans, grants, and my share of the proceeds from selling our house, my kids all got educated. But now - now that they're all self-supporting, he wants to play doting daddy again. Tsk. Okay, enough with the bitter recriminations. Suffice it to say that rather than force the kids into an uncomfortable choice - and I know that if they had to, they would exclude him - I would rather spend Christmas eve with them and have other plans for Christmas day. We shall see. They do appear to have a lovely Christmas Day program at OSV. Okay - back to "a day to remember". Sorry for meandering off into that little unpleasantness, but if not here, then where? See? Sometimes you just go ahead and grow older, and the accompanying wisdom is a little slow in keeping up. But it's all good. My son will be home to visit on Oct. 15 for a week, and then back for Christmas, and my daughter does well and truly seem to be pregnant, and if my fellow countrymen have even a single iota of common sense, they will put Obama in the White House and end this eight-year reign of aristocratic entitlement, and maybe we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Today, incidentally, is Sept. 11. Somehow, I find it much more pleasant if I just remember it as my dad's birthday. He would be 103 if he were still alive. But I suppose that's the coward's way out. So I will think, not without pain, of those we lost on that date in 2001 - including a very good friend who was on the first plane to hit the twin towers.
Ruby Jean, you don't know how pleased I am that you found me here! Now we must lasso Ms. Close and get her here to visit, as well.
Love,
Z

Stereotypes

I am still working, of course - and planning to continue for another three years, I think, unless something unforeseen occurs. I feel like the "resident elderwoman" on my job, and have, I think, developed a reputation for quirkiness, always ready to share my own diverse views (especially in disagreement with "the team") and perhaps am fairly well respected for some degree of intelligence and wisdom (there ARE some benefits to aging.) There are a lot of younger people employed here in various and sundry capacities, some of whom I encounter on a fairly regular basis in the employee lunchroom where we all chat about this and that. Now, I should explain that outside of work, my DH and I are woodsy sorts who enjoy hiking about, climbing a rock or two here and there, and meeting up, two or three times a year with our many and varied group of friends at a woodland retreat up in the White Mountains of northern New Hampshire for long weekends (and sometimes, when everything aligns perfectly, entire weeks) of philosophical discussion and tree-hugging. Having said that, I work in an environment that requires professional dress and since it's required anyway, I tend to maintain a fairly decent "professional" wardrobe. So, yesterday at lunch, I happened to be sitting next to our young IT technician - an affable fellow in his mid-twenties, whom I've always enjoyed chatting with. I mentioned that my DH and I would be taking our granddaughter (age 7) to the apple orchards in another few weeks, and that I would once again (as I am every year) be expected to climb to the very tops of certain trees in order to pick the big, "perfect" apples that hang high above where they typically don't get picked and end up finally falling to the ground and smushed towards the end of the season. Lawrence (the IT tech) laughed and said "Riiiiiiiiiiight. You're going to climb apple trees. Sure." I. of course, was shocked at his disbelief and asked him whyever I shouldn't climb an apple tree if I wanted to. He looked a little uncomfortable, squirmed a bit in his chair, and finally replied, "You just don't look like the tree-climbing type!" Oh, I retorted, and why is that? Too elderly to haul my carcass up a tree, eh? "Oh no", he quickly replied, "You're just not my idea of someone who would be out climbing trees, is all. I mean, look at what you're wearing." Well, duh! No, I don't climb trees in my office clothes, but this wasn't about what I was wearing so much as it was about what younger people in our society expect of us older folk. I suppose it would fit his image more comfortably if I were to say that once I get home every night, I quickly don a grandmotherly housedress and apron and start stirring the stewpot. Well, I stir plenty of stewpots, but rarely in housedress and apron - more likely in jeans or sweats. Oh, I'm not offended in the slightest - it just took me by surprise, because despite my advanced years, I still think of myself as capable of doing pretty much whatever I want to do. Including climbing apple trees. It's interesting that others may see me as "too old" to do such things.

Back to the future....

I listened to Obama's speech last night, and felt guardedly optimistic - very guardedly, you understand - about his chances at being elected. I don't see Obama as some kind of savior, mind you. I think it's going to take more than decent leadership to put this country back together again. And I think it's going to take a very long time, and I'm not entirely sure that we're even going to have decent leadership, because experience has taught me to distrust the election system. The Republicans have unashamedly stolen two consecutive presidential elections in this country - we all knew they stole them, but they got away with it. So, what's to prevent them from getting away with it again? It's amazing to me the way Americans - those in leadership, I mean: those that we elected to represent us on the local, state and federal levels - have become just so completely greedy and aquisitorial that they will sell us out for what amounts to lunch money from the lobbyists. They - and by this I mean the majority, not those few exceptions who challenge the rest but get nowhere - are so focused on who owes them, and who they owe, and what they want and need for themselves that they can't afford to buck the system on our behalf, not if they want to continue living in comfort and acquisitorial splendor, they can't. It's not what they get paid for their political work that supports their lavish lifestyles, it's all those perks and side deals and constituent "appreciation" that does it. You and I - with our measly little one vote - don't even cross their radar screens. And so, the wealth in this country has rather quickly - over the past several decades - risen to the very top. And they just keep getting richer and richer, and they just keep indulging themselves more and more, and their income, which is in the multiples of millions if not multiples of billions, just keeps growing exponentially while the middle class in America is sinking just as exponentially. See that picture up there in the right hand corner of this blog? That's the child labor that built so much wealth for the robber barons of the 19th and early 20th century in this country. For many of us whose families have lived in New England for a few hundred years or more, that's where a lot of our ancestors worked from dawn until dusk six days a week - in textile and shoe mills under the worst imaginable working conditions. And while our ancestors grew old before their time, or developed serious health conditions because of the dyes and toxic chemicals used in those factories and died at early ages, the rich grew richer still - we've all read about the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald and his ilk. Those robber barons left so much money to their families that there are quiet family "dynasties" all along the northeastern seaboard where just the interest off those estates is keeping hundreds of descendants living in the lap of luxury. One such family had a little scandal within its ranks a few years back - it seems that their trusted "financial advisor" had, over a period of years, siphoned about $50 million out of their accounts. The kicker? THEY didn't even notice it! It only came up when they changed auditing firms and the new firm apparently didn't have the same arrangement with the financial manager that the old firm had. Can you imagine "not missing" $50 million????? Ah, but that's mere chicken feed to those people. Now, after WWII, the middle class in this country actually started to come into their own - actually started to send their kids to college, to buy homes, to drive decent cars, etc., etc.. The age of the robber baron was, ostensibly, over. We were growing into a new society with equal opportunity for all. Life was good. Too good, evidently, because the big dawgs got a little uncomfortable with it, and had to put their heads together to get themselves back up to the tippety-top where they belonged. And, they've done it. The chasm between rich and poor in this country is currently as big as the Atlantic Ocean, if not bigger. And, I look at that picture - at the children and women whose backs our economy was built on, and I ask myself, "Are we headed back in the same direction?" How many houses John McCain owns isn't the important question. The important question is how many houses does it take to SATISFY him and his cronies? Now I know that people see things differently than I do. If age has taught me anything, it's that arguments that seem perfectly logical to me are NOT shared by everyone. I think that they're uneducated fools who can't be bothered to think logically, but they think that there's something wrong with my thinking, so how do you get past that? How do you bring together two diametrically opposed factions? There are people out there who buy into the Republican propaganda. My favorite irony is the fellow driving down the highway in a ten-year-old rustbucket with Bush/Cheney stickers on the bumpers. Are you kidding me? You can't even afford to drive a decent car, and you think these guys should stay in office? (Obviously these are old stickers, undoubtedly slated to be replaced by McCain/whomever as soon as the new bumper stickers come out. Same car, though, only now it'll be eleven years old.) I actually have spoken online to a couple of people who are losing their homes to foreclosure, but are STILL diehard Republicans. Huh? The logic escapes me, I'm afraid. I am just fervently hopeful that folks can break through their racial biases long enough to vote for their children's future, you know? I am fervently hoping that our voting machines don't get tampered with yet AGAIN. I admit to being a bit haunted by the above picture.

Regards,

Z

Stone's birthday - August 27

Sixty-two. That's us - two peas in a pod, except he has better hair than me. It's usually back in a pony tail - especially when he's playing IT consultant and dressed like a conventional person. We've been together for seven years, now, and it's been an interesting ride, to say the least. We've been discussing birthday plans - nothing extravagant, it's not like he's ninety or something, but certainly we want to acknowledge and celebrate in our own, quiet but hopefully meaningful way. My kids are planning a cook-out on Sunday - we'll celebrate Stone's and my daughter Kim's birthdays together. She will be 38 on Aug. 31st, he'll be 62 today. It'll be fun and busy and energetic and nice for him, since he has no offspring of his own, and has (informally, but very committedly) adopted my four. But we - he and I - will also celebrate more quietly by ourselves, as well. I'm at work today, but tonight we'll have his favorite supper, and I'll bring him flowers, a card, and some sort of "healthy" birthday cake. (When I was on the Atkins diet for lo, those ten-odd years, my kids would make me a "hamburger cake" with cheese frosting and always too many candles.) Stone & I are not doing "Atkins". I ate enough red meat during that period in my life so that I don't even want to look at it anymore, nevermind eat it. No, we are eating lots of high fiber foods - multigrains, vegetables, chicken and a lot of those faux-meats that are soy-based. When you marinate them properly, and gussy them up with sauces and stir fry ingredients, for example, they are actually very palatable. About six months ago, Stone's doctor informed him that his glucose levels were too high and that he was "pre-diabetic". That's when he started eating what I had been eating for the past year or so - the high fiber, etc. - and we started a modest exercise regime - walking (with our quarterstaffs) at least three times a week. Not a whole lot else, but he lost seventeen pounds, his glucose levels dropped right back to where they belonged, and his doctor was astounded when he went in for his follow-up visit a month or so ago.
Stone and I really ARE "two peas in a pod" in so many ways - too many, really, to even count. But, we both have a love of reading (our house overflows with books), both are very committed to our artwork - he with painting, me with sculpting - we both write some, both enjoy the outdoors and some minimal kinds of gardening (the kind we can do in urns - very low maintenance) and we enjoy hiking about in the woods and talking about philosophy, personal belief systems, politics, sociological trends, social programs - what works, what doesn't - and etc. Amazingly, despite the wide range of discussion subjects, we have never, ever had an argument within the context of our personal relationship. (Yeah - we sometimes find ourselves on the opposite sides of a philosophical debate, but that's stimulating and fun - about ideas rather than the realities in our everyday life together.)
So, in conclusion, it's a nice day today, and we'll have a nice, quietly celebratory supper when I get home. On Saturday, he'd like to go to Old Sturbridge Village, which is located about 20 miles from where we live, and is the reconstruction of an entire New England village, circa the mid-1700's. So, we'll do that, and spend the day traipsing about chatting with all the historical re-enactment folks. Back in July, one Sunday, we had headed out to a reservoir a few towns over just to do a little hiking, and came upon a Revolutionary War re-enactors event. There were patriots and loyalist camps, and even a mock battle, which we watched. I have to wonder what the attraction is in re-enacting war. Bad enough that we have to suffer through the damned things - what's the point in romanticizing them through re-enactment? There are groups that do Civil War re-enactments too. Oh, well. I suppose, somehow, that the Revolutionary War and the Civil War are seen as "righteous" wars - wars that accomplished something important. Unlike the "unrighteous" and immoral war we are fighting today over in Iraq. I don't imagine they'll be doing any re-enactments of THIS war a couple of hundred years from now.
But here I go again, running on. That's why I can't write a book. I'm too easily distracted from what I'm supposed to be writing about. Here I was, doing a nice little tribute to a very good man on his birthday, and I end up talking about war.
Ah, well.

This n' that -

Ronni Bennett has wrapped up a perfect argument with regard to who should (or shouldn't) vote for John McCain. I am appalled, frankly, that the Republican party still has the audacity to HAVE a candidate for the presidency. Haven't they done enough damage over the past eight years? How do these wealthy folks whose major stress in life is trying to figure out how to SPEND the money they have lying around because we middle-class (and sliding) folks are footing the bill for everything the government does - well, I mean, how do they live with themselves? How can they enjoy $5,000-a-plate meals knowing that 18% of the children in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA are living in poverty? We have more kids here in poverty than any developed nation in the world. How can John McCain and his wife own so many residences that they can't keep track of them while the greatest percentage of increase in homelessness has been among families with children? How can ANY presidential candidate justify the money they spend on their campaigns - the money they spend just to GET elected, when their campaign chests could most likely come pretty close to wiping out hunger and homelessness throughout the entire country? I have to say that I can't get excited over any candidate at this point in time. I don't see how ANY of them, Obama included, is going to make things any better. Our national debt has reached the point of no return; China OWNS us. People are losing their homes, losing their pensions, losing jobs, losing health coverage. The cost of education is rapidly escalating beyond what the ordinary citizen can afford. What else is there to lose? What kind of world will our grandchildren and great-grandchildren live in? Oh. Sure. I'll vote for Obama. I'd vote for Mickey Mouse just to keep McCain out of the white house, but I've got to say that I am increasingly pessimistic. And, to be perfectly realistic, I've got to wonder whether my vote will make any difference, anyway. Bush and the Republicans stole two elections already, and suddenly they're going to play by the rules in this election? If you believe that, I've got a few bridges you might be interested in buying! Maybe I'll be in a better mood tomorrow.
Ciao for now,
Z

Thursday, then Friday....

And so on and so forth....

Stone has gone up to Canaan, N.H. to help a friend cut firewood for winter. It's about a 2 1/2 hour drive - maybe a little more than that, actually - and he stayed there last night and will probably stay tonight, as well. Our friend lives on about 40 acres of primarily undeveloped forestland right in the heart of the White Mountains. She and her third husband (and soul-mate) bought the property about five years ago with plans to build a simple house for themselves and turn the rest into a non-denominational retreat for friends, acquaintances, and future friends and acquaintances to come to for renewal and rejuvenation. They had just about six - maybe seven - years together when her husband died unexpectedly of sudden heart failure. They had cleared a large amount of property, but hadn't started building their house. When he died, they were living in a rented house in town. Since then, friends have come forward to help her, and the house, designed after old New England barns, with a basement that she spent all last winter in, and two floors above, is framed up waiting for a permanent roof, wiring and plumbing. Last winter was very hard on our friend, and she's been anxious to get the roof finished so that the rest of the interior can be completed, and she can move herself upstairs where she'll have some sunlight and bright space. So, whatever capital she has will go into that roof, and friends - including Stone - will help cut and stack firewood so that she'll have a free source of heat for the winter months this year.

I was looking forward to some "Me" time - relishing the thought of some SPACE, since Stone and I have been together constantly since last November when he was summarily fired from his job as a software engineer for a major New Hampshire medical center. Odd, don't you think, that it happened right on the heels of his sixtieth birthday? This, after some ten years of employment with glowing annual evaluations and steady pay increases? Now, suddenly, it seems that he "works too slowly". Ah, well. He's filed an age-discrimination suit, but we know how unlikely it is that anything will happen on that in the foreseeable future. Better to take stock of our resources and move along from there. That way, if anything should come of the discrimination suit, it will be a lovely surprise, but nothing that we'll count on, for sure. He was able to collect unemployment up until mid-July, when it reached its limit, but then the 13-week extension was signed into law, and he has applied for that. We're just waiting on them processing it. Luckily, of course, my job actually covers most of our living expenses, and he has applied for his SS retirement, which is due to start coming at the end of October. Then, hopefully, he can find some part-time work that will get him out of the house on a regular basis, as I do think that the isolation is wearing on him at this point. And I know that it would do wonders for our conversations if he had something to tell me about each day beyond having cleaned the cat box and watered the tomatoes. But, to get back to what I was saying, I thought a few days apart - and being alone in our apartment would be "just what the doctor ordered" for me. You know - an opportunity to eat a candy bar for supper if I wanted to - and loll about watching inane TV shows if I felt like it (the only TV he and I watch together are documentaries or some highly recommended movie - we've seen "What the Bleep..." a dozen times. We really must get the sequel.) or just plain loll about doing nothing at all.

It didn't turn out that way. One daughter was parked in the driveway when I got home from work. Her husband had somehow managed to lock her out when he and his mother left earlier in the day to take my six-year-old grandson to the zoo about 50 miles from home. My daughter came in to wait for his call saying that they were home and she'd be able to get in. So we sipped iced tea and chatted for a good hour or so, and then when she left, I had no sooner started to undress so that I could take a long, leisurely bath in my deep clawfooted tub when my other daughter stopped in with her little girl, and they stayed for nearly two hours. I had some of my clay out on the worktable, thinking I might play around with it a bit after my bath, but my granddaughter ended up making an array of turtles and fish and birds that I'll fire up next time I'm doing a batch of my stuff. Lately, I've been focusing on faces - tribal and otherwise - to use for pendants on leather thongs, and some small spiral goddess figures. But you never know what I'll be doing next. Maybe I have ADD - I can't stick to just doing the same sort of thing over and over again. So, by the time I got to my bath - and out of it - it was time to get myself to bed, and was I ever surprised to discover that I couldn't get to sleep! So much for some relaxing "alone" time!

So the picture is me with my quarterstaff. I didn't know it was called that until I read one of Ronni Bennett's Time Goes By blog posts. I'm learning a lot now that I've dicovered some folks my age here in cyberspace. I've also joined the Elderwoman network - the brainchild of author (and so much more!) Marian Van Eyk McCain. Something tells me that I'm going to have to start using my brains again, and I'm looking forward to it! Anyway, the picture shows a rotund me who has gained about seven - maybe eight (I refuse to step on the scale) pounds while visiting with my sister in N.C. I DID do some hiking and rock climbing (really!) but not nearly enough to offset all the eating. I moved around and exercised, yes, but if you only knew how much I ate....and am still eating. Good grief - I've got to get a handle on this. I've given myself until the end of this week to splurge. Then, I'll have to get back on the wagon. Ugh.

I guess I should do a little work. I AM at my desk, after all.

Z

North Carolina

This is the scraggly little peach tree out in my sister's backyard in Hendersonville; she's lived there for eight years, and this is the first year it produced. The peaches were small, but juicy and sweet. They would make wonderful peach preserves, but I don't think sis will make any. With just herself and her husband, who picks at a little of this and a little of that, but doesn't really actually eat a whole meal at any given time, she's not very motivated to create wonderful foodstuffs. She does enjoy puttering about her yard; her house is built atop a little wooded knoll that nestles, nearly completely hidden from passersby, at the corner of a major suburban route and a smaller country road. She's completely surrounded by trees and huge, flowering shrubs. Her house started out, I think, as a basic two-bedroom ranch style, but with a full basement that when renovated (before she & her husband bought it) added two more bedrooms, two more baths, and a laundry room. The main floor of the house has a huge living room with french doors opening into an equally huge sunroom in addition to living room, dining room, kitchen, two bedrooms and bath. She complains about how much work it is, trying to keep up with so much space, but of course it's great when she has guests.

Our relationship has evolved over the past several years, and as we've grown older, we've grown closer, and more able, I think, to understand - and even empathize with - the way our own personal choices in life kept us apart for so long. And also, the way our personal choices led us to our current life situations. With understanding - and empathy - a lot of old bitternesses and resentments have fallen away, and we've been able to appreciate each other as "family" - as our very real connection to where our people came from and where they're headed.

I am not an easy person. I never have been. Not with women, at any rate. My relationship with my mother - or perhaps the lack of such a relationship - left me feeling uncomfortable and unsafe in the company of other women. Because my father and I were so close, I suppose - the long mornings and afternoons spent trudging about the woods, the skeet shooting, the horses, the ocean - I always tended (often with less-than-desirable results) to trust and confide in men rather than other women. Thank gawd that's all behind me! Well, it was primarily one man - my ex-husband - and as it turned out, he was probably the LEAST trustworthy person on the face of the earth! I might as well have put my fate in the hands of the pizza-delivery guy or some anonymous convenience store clerk. And, at age 61, living with his second wife, he is STILL dabbling in little side affairs. Good grief, will the man EVER wind down?

Peaches - if fresh, juicy and sweet enough - can provide a great deal of comfort, and that's the truth.

My eyes are blurring. I just got new glasses a couple of weeks ago. What's going ON?

Z

Accepting cronehood; struggling to embrace it

I am no spring chicken. I am, in fact, well into my crone years. I've arrived here somewhat incredulous, and often in denial of the obvious. Yes, my 73-year-old sister and I still climb up and pose ourselves on the jetty at Sakonnet point (see picture, right) but certainly not on a regular basis. I am envious of people my age who live in the country and are hardy and hale souls who tromp about in the woods and find interesting bits of twig and lichen that they hang or display fecthingly in their houses. I'm envious, and yet know full well that I'd last only briefly without a bit more social interaction - although I DO like my "space", and tend to get quite frustrated when I don't have enough time to myself. I'm still in the process of figuring out who I'm supposed to be, I think, and that seems a bit affected and silly at my age, but I'm afraid that I just don't feel quite "finished" - am still wondering, I guess, if "that's all there is"? I wonder if others at my age feel quite so unfinished as I do. Increasingly - not daily, and not even monthly: more like once a year or so - I see an obituary for somebody my age, and think, Omigawd, what if I died tomorrow? It's certainly perfectly possible, and if I did, there would be so much left hanging. I feel, most of the time, like I have years and years ahead of me, but my sister, who is eleven years my senior (I thought ten, but on the trip I just took down to North Carolina to visit with her, she corrected me - it's eleven) has aged considerably since last fall - even had a valve replacement done on her heart back in February, and is now functioning with the help of a pig's valve. Odd. She seems a bit more fragile, although I went with her to her "walking place" - a sweet little park with a duck pond not far from the center of Hensersonville, and we did two laps around the park together. I had my quarterstaff, which is a tad shorter than I would like, and since she had none, I decided to find myself a new one while I was in North Carolina and leave my old (shorter) one for sis. She's 5'2 to my 5'6, and she has always been tiny and petite while I was and am sturdy and prone to the stockiness that I have battled since I was in my 20's. Part of accepting (if not yet able to embrace) cronehood has been to re-evaluate my body, which isn't all that bad, but neither is it "all that good". I have dieted on and off for years and years - frequently with success: during my pregnancy with my last child, who is now 27 years old, I gained 50 pounds, and lost it within six months on the Atkins plan. I continued with Atkins for ten years, and stayed slim and athletic all that time. Then, I was seduced one year while vacationing on Cape Cod by a jumbo hot fudge sundae, and haven't been on Atkins since. I've gradually climbed back up a good 25-odd pounds, and have taken ten off here and there, but haven't kept it off. I do well for a while, and then stop doing well. More recently, I've been wondering why I need to worry about being on the heavy side. Who cares? My (second) husband of the past seven years doesn't seem to mind the way my first husband did - that one was always commenting that it looked like I'd "gained a few pounds" no matter how thin I was. Anorexic, even, for a time. Now, I'm happy to say, I have a healthier relationship with # 2, and as a result, seem to be developing a healthier attitude towards my body. We eat quite well, actually. Lots of fresh vegetables, lots of fiber, fruit, and no more red meat. I use a lot of the soy-based meat substitutes, and if you marinate them to add a little flavor and serve then in a stir fry or salad, they are every bit as tasty, and far less fatty than real meat. We do eat chicken and turkey and I do an occasional pork roast, but we've cut the red meat out entirely, and now I don't think I could eat it even if I didn't have anything else. Too much of it, I guess, all those years on Atkins. But, back to my ambivalence about cronehood. On the one hand, I like the idea of relaxing my standards some - around appearance, I mean. I still have to dress professionally for my job, but I mean mostly about weight. There is simply no need for me to kill myself trying to be thin, even though if I had my druthers, as they say, I really WOULD be a slim and elegant old woman with silver hair in a long braid down my back. Or, with silver hair cut EXTREMELY short in a little wispy helmet, which I could do easily enough, but not being slim at this particular point in time, and NOT having a long, swan-like neck atop which to display this short wispy little helmet, I would end up looking like a scoop of ice cream with a cherry on top. Okay, not that bad, but not good, either. I need the hair to balance out the wide shoulders and thickening waist. My legs are still pretty good - reasonably sized, and with slim ankles, but there are a few quarter-sized spots where the veins have broken, and my calves aren't as firm and muscular as they used to be by a long shot. But, again. what's the difference? I'd LIKE to be slim, trim and athletic well up into my eighties or nineties, but I don't think it's so important to me that I'd work particularly hard to achieve it. I'm really in awe of those who do.

As an aside - after years and years of being an over-achiever (you know, the ones who arrive early, stay late, and spend evenings at home sending and replying to e-mails) I am finally realizing that killing yourself at work doesn't earn you much more than the occasional accolade, and the same free coffee in the employee lunchroom that even the underachievers get. I'm slowing down, thinking about what I want to do - and where I want to be - when I retire (unless I get fired or something) in three years. My husband is already retired, and keeps busy with his art (he paints, sculpts and writes) but is contemplating getting some sort of part-time job just to get himself out of the house. He's taken on a volunteer project - evaluating and redesigning the computer lab for a neighborhood center in the city where we live (He spent 35 years as a software engineer) - but it won't get started until October, and in the meantime, he's feeling a bit restless. Not to worry - I left instructions regarding preparation of a pork roast for our dinner. That will keep him busy for a time.

Over and out.

Shorter seasons...

It's true. The older you get, the more quickly the seasons - and days, weeks, months and years - pass. It seems like summer barely gets started, and we're up in the last weeks before fall takes over and the sun grows weaker and weaker. I knew I hadn't posted anything on this blog in some time (I admit it; I couldn't remember how to get back to it - elder blogger, indeed!) but had no idea it's been quite so long as this. It's been a busy, if not exactly eventful, summer. I just got back from visiting with my sister for a week down in North Carolina. I'm back to work tomorrow, so I need to get myself off to bed. 5:30 in the AM rolls around way too quickly. But, I'll get back here tomorrow sometime. I'm glad to have found my way.

Preserving the Family Stories

Here we are, Sis (second from left) and I (far right) visiting with our cousin, Susan (far left) and Auntie Eleanor (third from left, next to me) last fall in Little Compton, RI. The house behind us is Auntie Eleanor's and the roof - and siding shingles - look like they haven't been changed since I was a child, visiting her 50 years ago. Auntie Eleanor is 96 years old now, and to tell the truth, Sis and I hadn't seen her when we did this last "grand tour" for more than 20 years. Closer, actually, to 30. Omigosh! More than 30! The last time I saw Auntie Eleanor was at my Dad's funeral in 1974. She was just a spring chicken, then. She was very pleased to have us visit, and smiled happily as we sat there in her unchanged parlor - everything a little dusty, and with the dark patina of age. Her home, unlike my childhood recollections, is a very small "Cape Codder" - kitchen, pantry and bathroom across the back of the house with a central entranceway, and living room and dining room across the front separated by a small front entrance with stairs leading to four small upstairs bedrooms with low slanted ceilings. As children, we never went in the front door, and I don't believe anyone else ever used it, either. The house is situated at the bottom of a hill with a dirt/stone road running down to it. It's a family compound, really - a private road with only related folks allowed to build houses there. But, unlike the Kennedy compound, these house are quite modest, although those built more recently by grandchildren are a little more spacious and upscale, so to speak. But, there's still plenty of land between each house - land, and trees and lovely, lush and tangled shrubs, including a lot of wild grape vines and currant bushes. I remember Auntie Eleanor's currant jellies well, and with relish. But the reason we all used the back door at Auntie Eleanor's is because they built the house with it's back to the road. The front of the house just faces a narrow "front" yard surrounded by shrubs and bushes and the like, with only a small dirt path winding around to access the road at the back of the house. My cousin Susan and her husband have since built their house across from the "front" of Auntie Eleanor's, with plenty of space, bushes, trees and even a small field and driveway separating them.


Auntie Eleanor is quite fragile now, and her mind wanders a bit - she has forgotten that so many of her contemporaries have died, and she remembers visiting with so-and-so "last week" when it was really a few decades ago, but it was still really quite lovely to see her again, and lovely, if a little surprising, to see how unchanged her house is. I suspect it's because she wants it that way, because she certainly has grown children - some of whom are older than I am - whom I'm sure would oversee renovations if she wanted them done. But no, everything is the same - and considerably worse for the wear, but overflowing, I'm sure, with memories both good and bad, as with all families and lives.


There's an old piano on one wall in the dining room, and the top overflows with family pictures. Eleanor as a young and beautiful woman in period dress, her handsome husband in his Army uniform - for years and years, now, I've thought that our Uncle was a "Navy man", and at least an admiral or of some elevated rank, but no - there he was on the wall in a place of honor, dressed in his khakis. And, on his gravestone, located across town in an old cemetery where my grandmother and many other family members are buried, there is a brass plaque identifying him as "private first class" in the United States Army. I couldn't help but contrast and compare how differently the service men and women of today are looked at. Back in my Uncle's era, soldiering was a pround and honorable thing. Auntie Eleanor and my Uncle had a genuine love affair, I believe. She remains wild about him to this day.

I was the "baby" of my family. My sister was 12 and my brother fourteen when I was born. My mother was a nurse who had just gotten back into the workforce, doing what she loved when she discovered that I was on the way. My father had insisted that she stay home with my brother and sister until they hit their teenaged years, and now, at 40, she wasn't having any of that! So, I had an Irish "nanny", whose family became as close to me as mine was - except for my sister. When my sister wasn't in school, she carried me about on her hip everywhere she went. We joke about that today, as I've turned out to be a good four inches taller than she is, and have always been bigger boned and more gangly altogether. She also reminds me that she carried me until my feet started dragging on the ground, and I still didn't want to be put down.

Oddly, after I got married, my sister moved down south to Florida with her second husband, and I rarely saw her for more than 30 years. Our kids don't even know each other very well; they only visited with each other three or four times in all the time they were growing up. And her children, of course, were older than mine - until she and her second husband had two together who are close in age to my two older girls. (I have four children: three girls, ages 39, 37 and 30, and a son 27.)

Now, with children grown, my sister and I have made it an absolute "must" that we get together at least once every year, and sometimes a little more frequently than that. We've missed a lot of each other's lives, but we're not planning on missing what we have left.

That's all for now.

Z

getting acquainted, settling in...

Well, here I am. I haven't lived the most exciting life, I don't suppose, but I've lived, and that's worth something, after all. I'm pretty technologically challenged - use Word at work, and have learned a lot about online grant submissions, dabble in Excel. Well, what I'm trying to say is that this is going to be a pretty basic-looking blog. I'll see if I can't figure out how to add pictures and such as I go along, but for now, just finding an acceptable password has exhausted my intellectual capabilities for the duration. I've spent the past day or so perusing "older bloggers" and oddly enough (Hello?) I really like what I'm reading. We seem to have quite a bit - at least attitude and opinion-wise - in common. Mostly, I do see some intrinsic value in sharing our thoughts and memories at this stage in our lives. I'm doing a journal of sorts - with some pictures of ancestors, etc. - for posterity; for the errant descendant who may be interested in what we were REALLY like back in "the old days". I decided to do that after becoming temporarily obsessed with genealogical research - worked furiously for a couple of weeks, mostly using the Church of Latter Day Saints website, and managed to trace my father's family back to England - he had ancestors on the Mayflower - and farther back to the Norse Odin, whom I though was a mythological character, but as it turns out, was an actual human being, and even farther back, if it can be belived, to someone named Godwulf Asgard born in the year 80 in Asia/Eastern Europe. It would also seem that Lady Godiva is a great-great-multiple great(s) grandmother, and there were even some kings and queens in the mix. Of course it's proven to be a highly fertile line - we descendants appear to be in the multiples of thousands. I wish some-damned-body who came before me had the foresight to remember that we'd be coming along some day, and a nice old house in Newport (R.I. - my father's family were rooted in Little Compton & Tiverton, just across the bridge) might have been a nice legacy to pass along, but apparently our line was as self-centered as it was fertile, because I never got so much as a seashell collection passed along to me. Okay, okay, my POINT in getting into all of this is that after having found all these names and birthdates and death dates, and husbands, wives, children, etc., I still didn't know much of anything about my ancestors - not what they believed, thought, or how they lived or how they felt about anything. And it started to bore me. And frustrate me, as well. May as well 'fess up - I have my masters degree in clinical psychology and worked in the field for many years before giving up my hands-on practice and concentrating on writing for a living. The way people think and why they think what they think interests me. Facts and figures just aren't my forte. So, I'm writing my cantankerous observations and cutting-edge analysis of "the way things are", so at the very least, anyone who comes after me and has any interest whatsoever, will have the capacity to know a little bit about my world view and not be left guessing (too much). Oh, wait. I see an "add image" icon up there. Maybe I can give this a shot -

And what do you know? There I am, on Sakonnet Point at sunset last October when my sis and I went together - two old crones - on a "sentimental journey", revisiting our childhood haunts together. Sis, incidentally, is 74, and can still navigate those rocks like a mountain goat.

And, I am off to sleep, perchance to dream as Willie would've said.

Catch you later -

Z