"Bless your heart" is code for all kind of subtexts--but it's usually delivered around here in the category of the ironic. I was reminded of that when I got an email from Diana just now, that every time she hears that phrase she thinks of writing group.
I'm thinking today of Robert Earl Keene's music again--"Feels so good feeling good again!"
It took a village of soup bringers, NIA teachers, diet changes, supplements, exercise, great friends and conversation, but I have energy again, bless my heart!
It's been a hard year in many respects, more health issues than in my whole previous life (I typed "precious" by mistake) and more body and heart aches, but I'm dancing through them, making changes, and finding that the pain I've been calling fibro has seemingly disappeared.
Thanks to all of you who've been part of my village!
In the sauna this morning, I met a forty-year old woman who came in with a cane. She had juvenile macular degeneration and has been practically blind since she was eighteen; she's a single mother to two children. Turns out she lives two streets over and I volunteered to take her to and from the gym as often as we can coordinate our schedules.
Jaro, from El Salvador, is here today, touching up paint and fixing broken things. He's a wonderful man, father of three. We've been venting about politics this morning.
He's looking for a tutor for his 10-year-old daughter--if anyone knows someone who could help. It sounds as if she may have mild dyslexia and her vocabulary is limited. He's been trying to find extra help for her at her elementary school, but said they don't seem to be doing much besides what's done in the regular classroom.
To all of you--and I mean it straight up--Bless Your Hearts!
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
Real estate
One day last week, when my cell phone rang, I answered to hear Will say, "I need to talk to Granddadddy."
It reminded me of the days when we had land lines, when we'd answer the one phone in the house and wait to see "who it was for." I wished I could say, "Just a minute. I'll get him. He's right here."
I felt like crying, and saying, "I need to talk to him, too!"
Will wanted to ask him some real estate questions, an investment interest they share. Will buys rent houses; my daddy bought land. I said I wished I could channel Granddaddy's advice, but I don't know anything about real estate.
Will also wondered what Granddaddy would think about this election. He's worried about our future, like almost everyone we know is. He wonders what kind of world his kids will grow up in. When we get scared, we want someone older and wiser to tell us something, anything, to reassure us.
Most of all, I think he just wanted to hear Granddaddy's voice, and he knew he'd tell him, "You're on the right track, Buddy. I'm proud of you."
That's what grandsons want to hear, even when they are nearly 38 years old, even when they're captains in the fire department, even when they're fathers very much like their grandfathers were.
It reminded me of the days when we had land lines, when we'd answer the one phone in the house and wait to see "who it was for." I wished I could say, "Just a minute. I'll get him. He's right here."
I felt like crying, and saying, "I need to talk to him, too!"
Will wanted to ask him some real estate questions, an investment interest they share. Will buys rent houses; my daddy bought land. I said I wished I could channel Granddaddy's advice, but I don't know anything about real estate.
Will also wondered what Granddaddy would think about this election. He's worried about our future, like almost everyone we know is. He wonders what kind of world his kids will grow up in. When we get scared, we want someone older and wiser to tell us something, anything, to reassure us.
Most of all, I think he just wanted to hear Granddaddy's voice, and he knew he'd tell him, "You're on the right track, Buddy. I'm proud of you."
That's what grandsons want to hear, even when they are nearly 38 years old, even when they're captains in the fire department, even when they're fathers very much like their grandfathers were.
The $1900 pig
Nathan's project in 4H was raising pigs. He started with two, but his other grandmother's dog killed one. He took it in stride and kept fattening up the remaining pig.
Saturday was auction day and Nathan's pig brought in $1900. He was shy about going onstage, so he asked his sister to go with him--the sister who loves any limelight.
When they got off the stage, Nathan told his mom, "I about died up there."
But all Elena needed to know was this: "Was I cute enough?"
While Nathan held his number, Elena did a little improvised dance, no music needed.
Saturday was auction day and Nathan's pig brought in $1900. He was shy about going onstage, so he asked his sister to go with him--the sister who loves any limelight.
When they got off the stage, Nathan told his mom, "I about died up there."
But all Elena needed to know was this: "Was I cute enough?"
While Nathan held his number, Elena did a little improvised dance, no music needed.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Weekend Report
Going back to NIA after a two-year hiatus was like a homecoming, dancing on the wooden floor with Lorraine and fifteen other women, moving to the music of Leonard Cohen, my all-time favorite. I'd planned to do a half class, just a warm up--but surprised myself in staying the entire hour and feeling great afterwards!
While dancing, you don't think about or care, for that hour, who's president. You don't worry or regret or obsess or plan, you just are, yourself, and that's enough for an hour.
At the book signing the women in the book attended, some alone, some with family members, all dressed up. One came in and introduced herself, "I'm Page 27!"
Each one, some more reluctantly than others, stood up and spoke about their lives, read poetry they'd written, and thanked all the others for their inspiration. I had tears in my eyes, so proud of Bonnie for thinking of a project that meant so much to us all. We missed you, Lea!
Today, I finished a book (They Don't Mean To But They Do), then had a good porch visit with Freda. Then Lorraine and Jan and Pam and I went to a rally on Main Plaza.
The young man speaking for Black Lives Matter quoted Martin Luther King: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
While dancing, you don't think about or care, for that hour, who's president. You don't worry or regret or obsess or plan, you just are, yourself, and that's enough for an hour.
At the book signing the women in the book attended, some alone, some with family members, all dressed up. One came in and introduced herself, "I'm Page 27!"
Each one, some more reluctantly than others, stood up and spoke about their lives, read poetry they'd written, and thanked all the others for their inspiration. I had tears in my eyes, so proud of Bonnie for thinking of a project that meant so much to us all. We missed you, Lea!
Today, I finished a book (They Don't Mean To But They Do), then had a good porch visit with Freda. Then Lorraine and Jan and Pam and I went to a rally on Main Plaza.
The young man speaking for Black Lives Matter quoted Martin Luther King: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
Book Signing at the Twig
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| Bonnie and Muna |
Book Signing at the Twig: the best part was that every woman featured in the book--except for two who were ill today--stood up and spoke, talking about how much it meant for them to be a part of this project. "Thank you, Bonnie, for taking us out of the geriatric ward and making us famous!" one said.
Beautiful women, all!
"...the truth about her life"
The writer, Muriel Rukeyser, asked:
"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."
"What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."
Friday, January 27, 2017
The Refugee Ban on Holocaust Memorial Day
Today is a sad day in America.
And yet: mayors of Sanctuary Cities all over this beautiful country are standing up for their people and saying, "We're willing to risk loss of federal funds to do the right thing."
Martin Walsh, mayor of Boston, is promising protection of immigrants in City Hall and his own office, never mind withholding of money. (One of his constituents, a seven-year-old boy, said to him, "Thank you for protecting our city from a madman.") Stephanie Miner, mayor of Syracuse, New York, and other mayors of sanctuary cites are saying the same thing. People are marching and writing letters and knocking on the doors of Congress.
Maybe some of the "tears running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty" are tears of pride--that so many people are saying "No" to walls and "Yes" to bridges.
On a day to remember one of the most horrific tragedies in world history, a genocide rooted in religious discrimination, Trump has enacted an immediate ban on immigrants from seven primarily-Muslim countries, including Iraq, Iran, Yemen and Syria.
I'm with the many all over the world who are saying, "Lady Liberty is weeping."
A Somali-American legislator tells her story (MSNBC tonight) of living in a refugee camp for four years waiting to come to America, believing the narrative engraved on the Statue of Liberty. Somalia is on the list.
Well, say the people making up the list: this is retribution for September 11th. Yet Saudi Arabia, homeland of the majority of the perpetrators of the terrorist attack on America, is not on the list. Not one of the attackers is from a country on the list!
Refugees from war-torn Syria are on the list. Turn them away.
I didn't know this until today: In 1939, the United States turned away a ship containing 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi attacks. Turn them back to the Nazis, let them die in concentration camps. (Which they did.)
I didn't know this until today: In 1939, the United States turned away a ship containing 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi attacks. Turn them back to the Nazis, let them die in concentration camps. (Which they did.)
Partly in national shame for turning those people away, America has redoubled its efforts to open its doors to refugees, immigrants who have contributed so much to this country--until today.
Lady Liberty weeps.
And yet: mayors of Sanctuary Cities all over this beautiful country are standing up for their people and saying, "We're willing to risk loss of federal funds to do the right thing."
Martin Walsh, mayor of Boston, is promising protection of immigrants in City Hall and his own office, never mind withholding of money. (One of his constituents, a seven-year-old boy, said to him, "Thank you for protecting our city from a madman.") Stephanie Miner, mayor of Syracuse, New York, and other mayors of sanctuary cites are saying the same thing. People are marching and writing letters and knocking on the doors of Congress.
Maybe some of the "tears running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty" are tears of pride--that so many people are saying "No" to walls and "Yes" to bridges.
It's the Little Things
Ever since writing about the splinter in my foot that I thought would go away on its own, and since writing about the mall kiosk kids who jump out at you like the "boo!" hiders in hide-and-seek, a certain song by Robert Earl Keene keeps running in my mind, a song Will likes to sing with his guitar.
It's called "the Little Things." It has the beginnings of a good country love song, but the narrative takes an unexpected turn.
Here's a snippet:
It's the way you stroke my hair while I am sleepin'
It's the way you tell me things I don't know
It's the way you remember I came home late for dinner
Eleven months and fourteen days ago
It's the little things the little bitty things
Like the way that you remind me I've been growin soft
It's the little things the itty bitty things
It's the little things
That piss me off.
It is, indeed, the itty bitty things, idiosyncratic annoyances, that can drive me up the proverbial wall:
An irritable honk from the car behind you with a fist raised meant to teach you a driving lesson. (You know exactly the expletives the male driver is shouting because you've been a passenger in cars driven by men who say those things to women drivers who don't accelerate to make the red lights.)
A hovering waiter who interrupts your conversation to ask you and your dinner mate "Is everything okay?" every five minutes. And the question when they want to remove your plates: "Are you still working on that?"
Certain sounds: nail files and the crunching of raw apples--even if it's me doing it; babies screaming in stores and restaurants; the music you have to listen to while on hold for customer service.
What are your itty bitty things?
It's called "the Little Things." It has the beginnings of a good country love song, but the narrative takes an unexpected turn.
Here's a snippet:
It's the way you stroke my hair while I am sleepin'
It's the way you tell me things I don't know
It's the way you remember I came home late for dinner
Eleven months and fourteen days ago
It's the little things the little bitty things
Like the way that you remind me I've been growin soft
It's the little things the itty bitty things
It's the little things
That piss me off.
It is, indeed, the itty bitty things, idiosyncratic annoyances, that can drive me up the proverbial wall:
An irritable honk from the car behind you with a fist raised meant to teach you a driving lesson. (You know exactly the expletives the male driver is shouting because you've been a passenger in cars driven by men who say those things to women drivers who don't accelerate to make the red lights.)
A hovering waiter who interrupts your conversation to ask you and your dinner mate "Is everything okay?" every five minutes. And the question when they want to remove your plates: "Are you still working on that?"
Certain sounds: nail files and the crunching of raw apples--even if it's me doing it; babies screaming in stores and restaurants; the music you have to listen to while on hold for customer service.
What are your itty bitty things?
Sunday, January 22, 2017
1970-71 School Year
Alex was a little dynamo--the age my grandson Jackson is now! One of his favorite books, I remember, was A Wrinkle in Time.
At the end of the school year, he organized a baby shower for me. I'm going to find that picture (I have it somewhere!) of Alex and those adorable ninth-graders gathered around me with presents and a big card they'd made on poster board.
I never forgot Alex. Many years later, after he'd gotten a graduate degree, he joined the UTSA faculty--and we were office mates for a short while!
As a first year teacher, I made a whopping $6000 a year--out of which I had to buy my own mimeograph paper and supplies, even class sets of paperback books. I remember buying The Outsiders for Alex's class.
Back then, just as now, teachers don't teach for the salary. When younger friends today mention "six figure salaries" in the corporate world, in law, in other fields, I always mentally compare it with my highest paying year teaching--that wasn't half that, not even close.
But over the years, I had thousands of students and I loved those rowdy, funny, bright, curious kids that started me off when I was a rookie teacher who could barely afford the clothes for school. That ninth grade class is unforgettable, and it was fun to be reminded of it this morning!
Marching and Walking
"These boots are made for walking...."
I've just been checking Facebook, marching vicariously with so many of my friends who got out there and put on those pink hats and carried signs, and I wish I'd been among them! I've been watching in-your-face speeches that were given at marches across the country, including Ashley Judd's rap about being a "nasty woman."
I didn't go for two reasons: my foot pain and Elena's birthday party.
In retrospect, I should have marched or walked or hobbled, whatever. I'd have been proud to tell Elena one day that I was part of a movement like this one, millions of women (and many men) who stood up for what they believe in.
Kudos to all of you who got out there and protested with your feet and signs and voices!
I've just been checking Facebook, marching vicariously with so many of my friends who got out there and put on those pink hats and carried signs, and I wish I'd been among them! I've been watching in-your-face speeches that were given at marches across the country, including Ashley Judd's rap about being a "nasty woman."
I didn't go for two reasons: my foot pain and Elena's birthday party.
In retrospect, I should have marched or walked or hobbled, whatever. I'd have been proud to tell Elena one day that I was part of a movement like this one, millions of women (and many men) who stood up for what they believe in.
Kudos to all of you who got out there and protested with your feet and signs and voices!
Friday, January 20, 2017
Reading Lolita in Tehran, 2
This "Memoir in Books" left a strong impression the first time around, but even more so today, having met two Iranian young people in one week.
The author, after leaving her post as a university professor, starts an underground reading group for women in her house. As the women read forbidden literature, they share their experiences in the frightening new regime.
For Azar and her "girls," as she calls them, the living room is their oasis. When they leave there, they have to cover themselves and walk home, looking at the ground, avoiding even eye contact with men. When they return to their houses, they can never let anyone know where they have been.
Their "real lives" are not out there in the public streets of Tehran, but in the room of literature where the stories open doors that allow them to speak their minds and ask questions of each other. In the privacy of their teacher's house, they take off their scarves and robes, under which are orange tee-shirts, jeans, and brightly colored skirts and blouses.
At any minute, there could be a knock at the door--officers wanting to search their houses, confiscate their secret satellite dishes, or question them about activities that might be illegal. Imagine this--children afraid to sleep because they've been ordered "not to have illegal dreams!" In one case, three students are reprimanded for "eating an apple too seductively." One of the women in the reading group was caught out with friends without a chaperone and given "virginity tests" by the authorities.
I can't stop thinking about a comment by one of the students regarding the censors cutting up books: "What Ayatollah Khomeini tried to do to our lives...turning us into figments of his imagination, he also did to our fiction...."
In a totalitarian regime, those with power don't see people as human beings; they see "things" that they can turn into what they want them to be. Breakers of arbitrary laws can be arrested and punished at the whim of the Ayatollah, and everyone lives in fear and secrecy.
"My generation [pre-revolution] complained of a loss, the void in our lives that was created when our past was stolen from us, making us exiles in our own country," the author writes. "Yet we had a past to compare to the present; we had memories and images of what had been taken away. But my girls spoke constantly of stolen kisses, films they had never seen and the wind they had never felt on their skin. This generation has no past. Their memory was of a half-articulated desire, something they had never had...."
The author, after leaving her post as a university professor, starts an underground reading group for women in her house. As the women read forbidden literature, they share their experiences in the frightening new regime.
For Azar and her "girls," as she calls them, the living room is their oasis. When they leave there, they have to cover themselves and walk home, looking at the ground, avoiding even eye contact with men. When they return to their houses, they can never let anyone know where they have been.
Their "real lives" are not out there in the public streets of Tehran, but in the room of literature where the stories open doors that allow them to speak their minds and ask questions of each other. In the privacy of their teacher's house, they take off their scarves and robes, under which are orange tee-shirts, jeans, and brightly colored skirts and blouses.
At any minute, there could be a knock at the door--officers wanting to search their houses, confiscate their secret satellite dishes, or question them about activities that might be illegal. Imagine this--children afraid to sleep because they've been ordered "not to have illegal dreams!" In one case, three students are reprimanded for "eating an apple too seductively." One of the women in the reading group was caught out with friends without a chaperone and given "virginity tests" by the authorities.
I can't stop thinking about a comment by one of the students regarding the censors cutting up books: "What Ayatollah Khomeini tried to do to our lives...turning us into figments of his imagination, he also did to our fiction...."
In a totalitarian regime, those with power don't see people as human beings; they see "things" that they can turn into what they want them to be. Breakers of arbitrary laws can be arrested and punished at the whim of the Ayatollah, and everyone lives in fear and secrecy.
"My generation [pre-revolution] complained of a loss, the void in our lives that was created when our past was stolen from us, making us exiles in our own country," the author writes. "Yet we had a past to compare to the present; we had memories and images of what had been taken away. But my girls spoke constantly of stolen kisses, films they had never seen and the wind they had never felt on their skin. This generation has no past. Their memory was of a half-articulated desire, something they had never had...."
For lovers of reading
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He writes:
"....I'm not the same reader when I finish a book as I was when I started. Brains are tangles of pathways, and reading creates new ones. Every book changes your life..."
I will spend this day, TV off, reading and savoring this book, then will go find the one he wrote earlier that describes the books he and his mother read together while she was dying of pancreatic cancer: The End of Life Book Club.
Reading Lolita in Tehran, Part 1
I've not read Lolita, the Nabokov novel--but it's next on my reading list.
What I'm reading, for the second time, is a memoir by Azar Nafisi, called Reading Lolita In Tehran.
I was at Day's house when I read it the first time and Jackson was about three years old, playing in the next room. I was telling Day about the lives these women lived in Iran after the Revolution under a totalitarian regime: they could not eat ice cream in the streets, could not wear make-up, were forbidden to fall in love.
Sometimes the morality committee would march into classrooms and inspect the fingernails of girls and if they were too long, they would cut them to the quick until they bled. They lived in fear of their houses being raided. They could only read books approved by the censors--which didn't include Lolita or any book that had to do with sex, adultery, or anything else forbidden by the government. Before 1978, they lived as we do.
Jackson ran into the room and asked, "Where do they do these things?
"Far away," I said, wishing he'd not overheard.
"In a country called Iran," Day said.
Three-year-old Jackson was indignant. "They have to stop! What can we do to make them stop?"
Day told him she'd have to think about that.
The next day, Jackson asked again.
"You have such a heart for justice, Jackson," Day said. "Maybe you could write a letter. Tell me what to say and I'll write it for you."
He didn't have to think long. Here's the letter from Jackson:
"Dear Bad People. Stop it. Love, Jackson."
What I'm reading, for the second time, is a memoir by Azar Nafisi, called Reading Lolita In Tehran.
I was at Day's house when I read it the first time and Jackson was about three years old, playing in the next room. I was telling Day about the lives these women lived in Iran after the Revolution under a totalitarian regime: they could not eat ice cream in the streets, could not wear make-up, were forbidden to fall in love.
Sometimes the morality committee would march into classrooms and inspect the fingernails of girls and if they were too long, they would cut them to the quick until they bled. They lived in fear of their houses being raided. They could only read books approved by the censors--which didn't include Lolita or any book that had to do with sex, adultery, or anything else forbidden by the government. Before 1978, they lived as we do.
Jackson ran into the room and asked, "Where do they do these things?
"Far away," I said, wishing he'd not overheard.
"In a country called Iran," Day said.
Three-year-old Jackson was indignant. "They have to stop! What can we do to make them stop?"
Day told him she'd have to think about that.
The next day, Jackson asked again.
"You have such a heart for justice, Jackson," Day said. "Maybe you could write a letter. Tell me what to say and I'll write it for you."
He didn't have to think long. Here's the letter from Jackson:
"Dear Bad People. Stop it. Love, Jackson."
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Merli--13 episodes
As a teacher myself, I always find it interesting to observe the ways others teach. Watching Merli was a treat--just had to read subtitles very fast.
Merli is his own man, flouting rules and conventions at every turn. He's judged harshly by his colleagues at times, but he engages his students and becomes their favorite teacher.
As luck would have it, his teenaged son winds up in his philosophy class, and the boy is angry at having his eccentric father (whose personal life is "messed up") as his teacher. For one thing, the son is a dancer and gay, and he's not ready to expose those aspects of his life to classmates. For another, he still blames his father for not being the father he wishes he'd had--long divorced from his mother.
This Spanish philosophy class is entirely different from any classes I've ever been in as a student or a teacher in high school or college. The students call their professors and the principal by their first names, creating casualness and open dialogue. Students disagree with their teachers in ways that would get them thrown out of most American classrooms, but Merli uses their disagreements to launch provocative dialogues.
The students and teachers talk openly about everything--sex, home life problems, happiness, fears.
Nothing is shrouded in euphemisms or secrecy. Everyone's secrets wind up coming out and the kids learn to accept the truths about their classmates and teachers without judgment.
One kid has agoraphobia and Merli goes to his house to teach him after hours--which finally leads the boy outside and back to school.
Kids fall in love, break up, fall in love with somebody else, kiss in the hallways, yell at each other, tell secrets they promised not to tell, and criticize their parents and teachers--all the things that teenagers do in the real world.
Merli is his own man, flouting rules and conventions at every turn. He's judged harshly by his colleagues at times, but he engages his students and becomes their favorite teacher.
As luck would have it, his teenaged son winds up in his philosophy class, and the boy is angry at having his eccentric father (whose personal life is "messed up") as his teacher. For one thing, the son is a dancer and gay, and he's not ready to expose those aspects of his life to classmates. For another, he still blames his father for not being the father he wishes he'd had--long divorced from his mother.
This Spanish philosophy class is entirely different from any classes I've ever been in as a student or a teacher in high school or college. The students call their professors and the principal by their first names, creating casualness and open dialogue. Students disagree with their teachers in ways that would get them thrown out of most American classrooms, but Merli uses their disagreements to launch provocative dialogues.
The students and teachers talk openly about everything--sex, home life problems, happiness, fears.
Nothing is shrouded in euphemisms or secrecy. Everyone's secrets wind up coming out and the kids learn to accept the truths about their classmates and teachers without judgment.
One kid has agoraphobia and Merli goes to his house to teach him after hours--which finally leads the boy outside and back to school.
Kids fall in love, break up, fall in love with somebody else, kiss in the hallways, yell at each other, tell secrets they promised not to tell, and criticize their parents and teachers--all the things that teenagers do in the real world.
Gold's Gym
I've been putting this gym thing off for a long time, but I did it. I not only joined, but I wound up taking a class called Stretch and Flex with Bonnie--who told me about it. The teacher is a sweet pregnant woman named Alicia, and I found that I could do almost everything a little bit, though I had to stifle a few groans when moving from one position to another. I'd expected a class full of beautiful bodies in Spandex, but most of my classmates were people over fifty and we were all about the same level of glamorous, not very.
The membership guy was a young handsome man with thick black eyebrows and hair with an accent I couldn't quite place. Turns out he's Persian and knows my new hair cutter, Leila. What a coincidence that I'd meet two young people from Iran the same week, as we don't have a very large community of Iranian people in San Antonio!
We talked for half an hour after my class and I'm excited about starting a new venture and improving this health situation. They have a pool and sauna and water sports are reputably the best for fibromyalgia or whatever this thing is I have.
Next stop: Synergy Studio to sign up for NIA, which I'll do at 8:00 on Monday mornings.
The outer space at Gold's is not attractive--all the machines. I won't be doing machines. But inside the class, it's quiet and peaceful and the teacher explains the moves very well for those of us who were stretched out on our yoga mats.
A bonus is that for older people, like me, the membership is free under Silver Sneakers, paid for by Blue Cross. Another is that I get a free personal training session tomorrow morning.
So--here goes!
The membership guy was a young handsome man with thick black eyebrows and hair with an accent I couldn't quite place. Turns out he's Persian and knows my new hair cutter, Leila. What a coincidence that I'd meet two young people from Iran the same week, as we don't have a very large community of Iranian people in San Antonio!
We talked for half an hour after my class and I'm excited about starting a new venture and improving this health situation. They have a pool and sauna and water sports are reputably the best for fibromyalgia or whatever this thing is I have.
Next stop: Synergy Studio to sign up for NIA, which I'll do at 8:00 on Monday mornings.
The outer space at Gold's is not attractive--all the machines. I won't be doing machines. But inside the class, it's quiet and peaceful and the teacher explains the moves very well for those of us who were stretched out on our yoga mats.
A bonus is that for older people, like me, the membership is free under Silver Sneakers, paid for by Blue Cross. Another is that I get a free personal training session tomorrow morning.
So--here goes!
The birds are back
My "pet birdies" (as Elena calls them) are back in full force. I've been neglecting them except for throwing out all my bread and wheat crackers for their dining enjoyment, but I ordered a couple of bags of sunflower seeds from Amazon last week and now all the feeders are alive with feathered friends.
It feels like a chilly spring morning and my yard is full of birds as I make my trek to Synergy to rejoin NIA and to the gym to sign up for Silver Sneakers and do a little mild workout to get my day going.
It feels like a chilly spring morning and my yard is full of birds as I make my trek to Synergy to rejoin NIA and to the gym to sign up for Silver Sneakers and do a little mild workout to get my day going.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
"My One and Only Love"
I woke up thinking of love songs, probably because of hearing a few iconic ones on Sunday at the concert of classic rock-n-roll.
Somebody should write a book about the messages seeded in our impressionable young heads and hearts via music.
Any story set to music is more potent (more dangerous?) than the same story without voices, drums and saxophones--though I love hearing some of them as much as the next person. They stir nostalgia for the fantasies of yore and make me sentimental about being young enough to believe them.
At the risk of sounding bitter, I'll just ask it: How many people get to have and be another human being's "one and only love" as the lyrics describe, always, til death do they part? When I start counting these lucky souls, it doesn't take all my fingers.
Don't we all, deep down, want to be somebody's "one and only"? Don't we want to be known and cherished, forever, no sharing, by one other person?
As we danced on school cafeteria and gymnasium floors, didn't we imagine that the lyrics were being channeled right into our hearts by the man "who held us tight"? Those beautiful, unforgettable, unshakable, awful songs! They snuck in under the Radar of Real and landed like paint balls on our baby blank slate minds.
"For your love, I would do anything," for example. Sung just right, that song still makes me teary, even though I can't say I've experienced this in the real world. A more accurate version might be: "For your love, I would do quite a few things for a week or a year or until I find someone else."
The Platters' "Only You" was my anthem of falling in love the first time:
Only you can make all this world seem right
Only you can make the darkness bright
Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do
And fill my heart with love for only you
At fourteen, what a seductive power trip it was to believe that "only me" (Who me? Little ole Me?) could make somebody's darkness bright! At fourteen, or forty, or sixty four, who doesn't wish to be somebody's giant light bulb and thrill-maker?
Hopes for romantic paradise are often dashed early in life when the truth of personal experience trumps nostalgia and sentimental tropes. Mine were. He might have been the giver of the Platters' records, he may have wished the words were true, but he wasn't channeling them as I thought. That was the work of my imagination!
Maybe I'm just not the "one and only" type--though I suspect I was wired to be.
Somebody should write a book about the messages seeded in our impressionable young heads and hearts via music.
Any story set to music is more potent (more dangerous?) than the same story without voices, drums and saxophones--though I love hearing some of them as much as the next person. They stir nostalgia for the fantasies of yore and make me sentimental about being young enough to believe them.
At the risk of sounding bitter, I'll just ask it: How many people get to have and be another human being's "one and only love" as the lyrics describe, always, til death do they part? When I start counting these lucky souls, it doesn't take all my fingers.
Don't we all, deep down, want to be somebody's "one and only"? Don't we want to be known and cherished, forever, no sharing, by one other person?
As we danced on school cafeteria and gymnasium floors, didn't we imagine that the lyrics were being channeled right into our hearts by the man "who held us tight"? Those beautiful, unforgettable, unshakable, awful songs! They snuck in under the Radar of Real and landed like paint balls on our baby blank slate minds.
"For your love, I would do anything," for example. Sung just right, that song still makes me teary, even though I can't say I've experienced this in the real world. A more accurate version might be: "For your love, I would do quite a few things for a week or a year or until I find someone else."
The Platters' "Only You" was my anthem of falling in love the first time:
Only you can make all this world seem right
Only you can make the darkness bright
Only you and you alone can thrill me like you do
And fill my heart with love for only you
At fourteen, what a seductive power trip it was to believe that "only me" (Who me? Little ole Me?) could make somebody's darkness bright! At fourteen, or forty, or sixty four, who doesn't wish to be somebody's giant light bulb and thrill-maker?
Hopes for romantic paradise are often dashed early in life when the truth of personal experience trumps nostalgia and sentimental tropes. Mine were. He might have been the giver of the Platters' records, he may have wished the words were true, but he wasn't channeling them as I thought. That was the work of my imagination!
Maybe I'm just not the "one and only" type--though I suspect I was wired to be.
Merli
In college, I learned two things in Philosophy 101:
(1) That all philosophers were men. (According to the textbook title, Socrates to Sartre, and all the chapters between Socrates and Sartre)
(2) It's not a good idea to pick up a kitty on campus and take it to class in your book bag--or the professor will ask you to leave and take your cat home.
The content of the course was way over my sophomore head at the time and I wondered, "Who thinks about this stuff?"
I wish I'd had a teacher like Merli--in the Spanish series I'm watching on Netflix!
Unlike my rather dry professor, whose name I've long ago forgotten, Merli of Barcelona teaches philosophy as he does everything else--flouting the rules of the school and teaching each philosopher in the most engaging ways.
His students, including his son in the class, are seventeen-year-olds driven by hormones and unhappy home lives, smart and curious and funny and crazy about their teacher most of the time, except when they're furious at him.
It's a brilliant series about classroom dynamics and learning, judgments of other people, compassion, and students learning to question authority and think for themselves.
When one of Merli's more mature female students is humiliated (by a nude video sent by her ex-boyfriend to one of her classmates who sends it all around the school), Merli manages to downplay the drama and teach the kids to imagine how hard it is for her to get past a former mistake. Spontaneously, several of the kids take off their shirts and blouses in a moment of solidarity with her.
As you might imagine, Merli gets in trouble with the principal more often than his students. He flouts the rules at every turn. He's a tender, caring, eccentric, teacher whose personal life is as bumpy as his students' lives are, but he uses it--as he does theirs--to illustrate the universal questions discussed by Socrates, Plato, the Sophists, and the rest.
(1) That all philosophers were men. (According to the textbook title, Socrates to Sartre, and all the chapters between Socrates and Sartre)
(2) It's not a good idea to pick up a kitty on campus and take it to class in your book bag--or the professor will ask you to leave and take your cat home.
The content of the course was way over my sophomore head at the time and I wondered, "Who thinks about this stuff?"
I wish I'd had a teacher like Merli--in the Spanish series I'm watching on Netflix!
Unlike my rather dry professor, whose name I've long ago forgotten, Merli of Barcelona teaches philosophy as he does everything else--flouting the rules of the school and teaching each philosopher in the most engaging ways.
His students, including his son in the class, are seventeen-year-olds driven by hormones and unhappy home lives, smart and curious and funny and crazy about their teacher most of the time, except when they're furious at him.
It's a brilliant series about classroom dynamics and learning, judgments of other people, compassion, and students learning to question authority and think for themselves.
When one of Merli's more mature female students is humiliated (by a nude video sent by her ex-boyfriend to one of her classmates who sends it all around the school), Merli manages to downplay the drama and teach the kids to imagine how hard it is for her to get past a former mistake. Spontaneously, several of the kids take off their shirts and blouses in a moment of solidarity with her.
As you might imagine, Merli gets in trouble with the principal more often than his students. He flouts the rules at every turn. He's a tender, caring, eccentric, teacher whose personal life is as bumpy as his students' lives are, but he uses it--as he does theirs--to illustrate the universal questions discussed by Socrates, Plato, the Sophists, and the rest.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
Jamie, Miracle Worker
Jamie is half my age. She's in town from Kansas for a week-long workshop for a NIA blue belt training and renting the casita behind my house.
When I told her about my pain, she asked if she could come over and show me some NIA moves--as she intends to work with patients experiencing pain.
I was grateful for her offer but dubious--because my energy level has been nil and my feet hurt when I walk. I walked to the door with difficulty, then got up and did exactly what she asked me to do--for a full hour!
It was a slow and easy workout but my pain began to dissipate as we moved slowly on the rug.
Tomorrow, I'm going to sign up for NIA and get moving, hoping to hold on to the shift I'm starting to feel. NIA is a combination of moves to music, part martial arts and similar to a dance-version of yoga. I used to do it regularly, but dropped out a couple of years ago. It's always a little difficult to start a new regimen, but here goes!
Then I ate a bowl of homemade chicken soup--recommended by my friend "Dr. Linda" in Los Angeles. Yummy!
When I told her about my pain, she asked if she could come over and show me some NIA moves--as she intends to work with patients experiencing pain.
I was grateful for her offer but dubious--because my energy level has been nil and my feet hurt when I walk. I walked to the door with difficulty, then got up and did exactly what she asked me to do--for a full hour!
It was a slow and easy workout but my pain began to dissipate as we moved slowly on the rug.
Tomorrow, I'm going to sign up for NIA and get moving, hoping to hold on to the shift I'm starting to feel. NIA is a combination of moves to music, part martial arts and similar to a dance-version of yoga. I used to do it regularly, but dropped out a couple of years ago. It's always a little difficult to start a new regimen, but here goes!
Then I ate a bowl of homemade chicken soup--recommended by my friend "Dr. Linda" in Los Angeles. Yummy!
Drummers in the cold
Today was my first time in drumming group, Kate leading in a red bandana--along with Freda and Charlotte and Marlene and Elaine.
It's a drum-mediation that lasts about twenty minutes; this group has been meeting for "ten to fifteen years," but I was a newcomer with my new yellow drum.
My drum is stained yellow birchwood with a red-leather head, no stick; the others use Native American round drums with big drumsticks. I drummed my quiet little drum with cold fingers.
I enjoyed it, but it was c-o-l-d outside, so we were all bundled up under the grandmother trees.
Then, I went to Trader Joe's to stock up on gluten-free foods for the freezer and ingredients for chicken soup, which I will make after my nap. I'd forgotten how good Trader Joe's is--hadn't been there in a long time.
San Pedro Park: I've lived her for fifty years and never explored this beautiful park with a spring-fed swimming pool, a gazebo, and wonderful trees.
It's a drum-mediation that lasts about twenty minutes; this group has been meeting for "ten to fifteen years," but I was a newcomer with my new yellow drum.
My drum is stained yellow birchwood with a red-leather head, no stick; the others use Native American round drums with big drumsticks. I drummed my quiet little drum with cold fingers.
I enjoyed it, but it was c-o-l-d outside, so we were all bundled up under the grandmother trees.
Then, I went to Trader Joe's to stock up on gluten-free foods for the freezer and ingredients for chicken soup, which I will make after my nap. I'd forgotten how good Trader Joe's is--hadn't been there in a long time.
San Pedro Park: I've lived her for fifty years and never explored this beautiful park with a spring-fed swimming pool, a gazebo, and wonderful trees.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Elena's 5th Birthday
I'm remembering this day five years ago when I heard the words I'd hoped for: "It's a girl!" (to which Nathan cried in protest: "But I wanted a bwuvver!")
They hadn't wanted to know the gender until she was born. Six weeks premature, Elena was delivered by Caesarean, weighing under five pounds. She spent the first few days in neonatal ICU, and the nurses said, "She's a strong one."
I am fascinated at the incredible amount a five-year-old human knows and the rate at which they learn.
They know the nuances, vocabulary, and sentence structures of their native language--able to make complex sentences, create metaphors, analogies, and smilies (old trees are like grandmothers), and make jokes.
They have a sense of their own short history. Elena compares her present experiences to those "when I was three." "I used to know Spanish better when I was three," she told me. Or "Back then when I was three, I used to ...."
Their personalities are probably indicative of the adults they will be. This five-year-old is resilient and independent, not wanting help with things she can do herself. Once, last summer, when her older cousin Jackson was trying to help her with her seat belt, she said, "That's not your job!"
A child's memory is incredible. She can remember the names and characteristics of any animal she's ever met or seen in a book. She corrects me if I get it wrong. (Right now, she's amused that I mispronounce the word, orange--to her way of thinking--though I can barely hear the difference between mine and hers.)
Five-year-olds can instantly assess the extent to which other humans like them. On Friday, she asked me: "Is there anything you don't like about me, anything you think I should change?" Maybe she asked because she knew the answer: "You're perfect just the way you are!" or maybe she wanted reassurance for some reason. Maybe someone at school had pointed out a flaw, as children can do? Or maybe she wanted a lead in to tell me: "I like YOU just the way you are!"
Five-year-olds have enviable physical skills--climbing trees, balancing on stone ledges, squatting, somersaulting, running, even horseback riding if she's been doing it since before she could walk. Whatever "it" is, she'll do it over and over and isn't deterred by falls and flops.
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| A girl after my own heart, Nikon around her neck |
Dancing, she has a beautiful rhythm; drumming--I noticed on Friday, trying to teach her--hasn't emerged as her likely forte.
A five-year-old's attention span can be intense (coloring or drawing) or sporadic (sewing, cooking, and making crafts.) If she wants to sew, and if her grandmother takes out the machine, cuts the fabric and lines it all up, this five-year-old may wander off before the presser foot is even lowered to the fabric. She likes the idea of sewing more than she actually likes to do it.
Same with cooking. "Let's make chocolate cupcakes like we used to do when I was three"--means she wants to get her hands in soft butter and sift some flour, then she's off to pretending she's a cougar or something--while I sweep up flour, finish combining the ingredients, cook, and wash the 27 assorted utensils and ingredients she's gathered for her cookery.
"When I grow up, I'm going to be a chef," she announced Friday night, thrice-sifted flour all over her face.
"What other ingredients do you think go into the making of a cake?" I asked.
"Eggs?'
Right.
"That flour I sifted?"
Right.
"Vinegar?"
It's too early to predict whether Elena will ever be a chef, but she's totally present in being a five-year-old, and her grandmother can't keep her eyes off her!
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| Elena's photography: Yenna and Beary |
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| Elena and Build-A-Bear Catherine |
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| Coloring as the Tower Turns over San Antonio |
Sunday, January 15, 2017
The Men of Eastwood
What I never knew--until Freda, Bonnie and I went to the performance at the Little Carver this afternoon--is that many of the musical luminaries of the Fifties sang and played at the Eastwood Country Club in San Antonio. Some even got their start here on the Chitlin' Circuit, a music venue for black musicians. Etta James, Otis Redding, BB King and others sang in the little San Antonio nightclub, then went on to make records.
The Carver space was set up to replicate the actual Eastwood, and we sat at tables of four--listening to what sounded like a reincarnated and flamboyant Little Richard, then a red-frocked James Brown, and others.
The music was outstanding, every song. The rendition of "Your Precious Love" was my favorite--along with a beautiful opening rendition of a gospel song, "Precious Lord," by the only woman in the cast.
I'll be hoping for another show like this next year as part of the Martin Luther King week. This one was based on a book called The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock and Roll by Preston Lauterbach and recalls what must have been a fascinating time in San Antonio.
Afterwards, Pam and I met at Earl Abel's for dinner and she remembers going there in 1962 or 1963 and hearing James Brown sing!
The Carver space was set up to replicate the actual Eastwood, and we sat at tables of four--listening to what sounded like a reincarnated and flamboyant Little Richard, then a red-frocked James Brown, and others.
The music was outstanding, every song. The rendition of "Your Precious Love" was my favorite--along with a beautiful opening rendition of a gospel song, "Precious Lord," by the only woman in the cast.
I'll be hoping for another show like this next year as part of the Martin Luther King week. This one was based on a book called The Chitlin' Circuit and the Road to Rock and Roll by Preston Lauterbach and recalls what must have been a fascinating time in San Antonio.
Afterwards, Pam and I met at Earl Abel's for dinner and she remembers going there in 1962 or 1963 and hearing James Brown sing!
Saturday, January 14, 2017
On The Media
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/otm/
For those of you interested in linguistics and this year's political-speak, for those of you who share my sentiments about the upcoming inauguration, and for those of you who wonder why you might be feeling horror at the thin-skinned and bullying Tweeter we've elected, this episode is illuminating.
"On the Media" is an excellent program on NPR any day, but this particular hour-long episode is not to be missed if you're tracking, as I am, the quakes in the ground under our feet.
For those of you interested in linguistics and this year's political-speak, for those of you who share my sentiments about the upcoming inauguration, and for those of you who wonder why you might be feeling horror at the thin-skinned and bullying Tweeter we've elected, this episode is illuminating.
"On the Media" is an excellent program on NPR any day, but this particular hour-long episode is not to be missed if you're tracking, as I am, the quakes in the ground under our feet.
Fibro-what?
For a while now, I've been downplaying my condition and calling these days "fibro-days," but I'm going to use my blog space to record what it is and what I intend to do to banish it. I've reached the point that I'll eat pea soup every day if that's what it takes.
Everything hurts. The bottoms of the feet hurt. The brain is foggy. Moving from one position to another is excruciating. I feel very teary. After about three days of this, I'm totally grouchy! Even certain sounds hurt my ears--and I don't mean just Donald Trump's voice.
Yesterday, I stretched my stamina by having an otherwise wonderful 5th birthday day with Elena, but at 2:00, I said, "I just have to sleep," and we came home and I did, while she watched videos.
"I got the wrong thing," she reported. "I went to You Tube and what I saw was inappropriate."
"What did you see?" I asked, redirecting her to Netlfix Kids. "I don't remember," she said, "But I'm pretty sure it was inappropriate."
We started the day at the McNay. The museum wasn't open, but she loved the grounds, the big trees, the ponds of gold and orange fish. Using my camera, she took about a hundred pictures of the fish. "The museum looks like a big pink cake," she said.
Then, she found some old trues to climb. "Old trees are like grandmothers," she said.
At Build A Bear, we replaced the hideous Christmas-present troll with an Appaloosa. She loves the ceremony of choosing the stuffing and saying magic words over the fabric hearts that go inside. She loved it so much that we chose a pink panda for her birthday present, a little Catherine bear who can sort of ride Snuggles, the horse.
While we were having lunch in the Tower of Americas, when we overheard a girl about her age crying, I said, "You never have been a drama queen."
"Oh yes," she said. "I can be a drama queen--just not with you. I always like to be my best with you."
She loved being in the turning tower-top for lunch, gazing at the city down below!
Afterwards we'd planned to go to Yanaguana to play, but here's where I gave out of steam and my feet hurt too much to walk all the way.
By bedtime, I was almost unable to move; by morning, it was even worse.
While my rheumatologist insists that diet doesn't play a role in CREST syndrome, I'm convinced it does. I'm going to ban sugar and gluten for starters and see what other dietary changes make a difference. A situation has to get pretty ragged to make me consider giving up the usual comfort foods, but ragged this week has been.
A young Kansas woman is renting my apartment for the NIA blue-belt workshop this week. When she arrived last night, she told me that she'd had something that sounds very much like my condition (all-over pain) and that she's found enormous improvement through the exercises of NIA. So, after I get the inflammation under control enough to start, I'm heading back there, too.
Everything hurts. The bottoms of the feet hurt. The brain is foggy. Moving from one position to another is excruciating. I feel very teary. After about three days of this, I'm totally grouchy! Even certain sounds hurt my ears--and I don't mean just Donald Trump's voice.
Yesterday, I stretched my stamina by having an otherwise wonderful 5th birthday day with Elena, but at 2:00, I said, "I just have to sleep," and we came home and I did, while she watched videos.
"I got the wrong thing," she reported. "I went to You Tube and what I saw was inappropriate."
"What did you see?" I asked, redirecting her to Netlfix Kids. "I don't remember," she said, "But I'm pretty sure it was inappropriate."
We started the day at the McNay. The museum wasn't open, but she loved the grounds, the big trees, the ponds of gold and orange fish. Using my camera, she took about a hundred pictures of the fish. "The museum looks like a big pink cake," she said.
At Build A Bear, we replaced the hideous Christmas-present troll with an Appaloosa. She loves the ceremony of choosing the stuffing and saying magic words over the fabric hearts that go inside. She loved it so much that we chose a pink panda for her birthday present, a little Catherine bear who can sort of ride Snuggles, the horse.
While we were having lunch in the Tower of Americas, when we overheard a girl about her age crying, I said, "You never have been a drama queen."
"Oh yes," she said. "I can be a drama queen--just not with you. I always like to be my best with you."
She loved being in the turning tower-top for lunch, gazing at the city down below!
Afterwards we'd planned to go to Yanaguana to play, but here's where I gave out of steam and my feet hurt too much to walk all the way.
By bedtime, I was almost unable to move; by morning, it was even worse.
While my rheumatologist insists that diet doesn't play a role in CREST syndrome, I'm convinced it does. I'm going to ban sugar and gluten for starters and see what other dietary changes make a difference. A situation has to get pretty ragged to make me consider giving up the usual comfort foods, but ragged this week has been.
A young Kansas woman is renting my apartment for the NIA blue-belt workshop this week. When she arrived last night, she told me that she'd had something that sounds very much like my condition (all-over pain) and that she's found enormous improvement through the exercises of NIA. So, after I get the inflammation under control enough to start, I'm heading back there, too.
Friday, January 13, 2017
Anger
Anger is exactly the right emotion sometimes, though it's usually regarded otherwise, especially to the person at the receiving end of it.
Not long ago, I sent someone a snarky text message, to which the response was, "Anger doesn't become you."
Doesn't become me? Is anger a fashion accessory, not my color? Or the emotional equivalent of a bad haircut?
Well, that didn't deter me. Anger feels, well, liberating.
"Where's the real Linda?" the text continued.
It's true that my go-to emotion is not anger; it's the frozen version of it--depression. Could that be because I received messages--as most women in our culture did--that we don't look good angry? That we should be sweet and agreeable, even when what's happening is disagreeable and enraging?
In high school autograph books and yearbooks, we girls wrote to each other unfortunate messages like these:
Stay as sweet as you are. Never change.
U R 2 Sweet
2 B forgotten....
Sweetness is overrated. It masks unappreciated emotions and flattens nuances of feelings. It keeps us in our boxes, keeps us silent, and covers up some of the less pleasant authentic feelings that rise up when we feel we've been wronged.
This is why Harriet Lerner's book spoke to me. When we tell another person that we've been hurt by something they've said or done, what we really want is a validation of our feelings, not one of the plethora of defenses:
"You're crazy!"
"It's not my fault. It's So-and-So's fault."
"That's hilarious."
"You're so cute when you're mad."
"Anger doesn't look good on you."
Not long ago, I sent someone a snarky text message, to which the response was, "Anger doesn't become you."
Doesn't become me? Is anger a fashion accessory, not my color? Or the emotional equivalent of a bad haircut?
Well, that didn't deter me. Anger feels, well, liberating.
"Where's the real Linda?" the text continued.
It's true that my go-to emotion is not anger; it's the frozen version of it--depression. Could that be because I received messages--as most women in our culture did--that we don't look good angry? That we should be sweet and agreeable, even when what's happening is disagreeable and enraging?
In high school autograph books and yearbooks, we girls wrote to each other unfortunate messages like these:
Stay as sweet as you are. Never change.
U R 2 Sweet
2 B forgotten....
Sweetness is overrated. It masks unappreciated emotions and flattens nuances of feelings. It keeps us in our boxes, keeps us silent, and covers up some of the less pleasant authentic feelings that rise up when we feel we've been wronged.
This is why Harriet Lerner's book spoke to me. When we tell another person that we've been hurt by something they've said or done, what we really want is a validation of our feelings, not one of the plethora of defenses:
"You're crazy!"
"It's not my fault. It's So-and-So's fault."
"That's hilarious."
"You're so cute when you're mad."
"Anger doesn't look good on you."
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Why Can't You Apologize?
When I got in the car at 1:15, I heard someone saying, "Take the but out of your apologies." The voice went on to say that apologies should not be followed by explanations of our behaviors or words, just simple heartfelt apologies when we've wronged the other person, even when the hurt we've caused is unintentional.
We have a new program on TPR, 89.1, called THINK. It airs at 1:00 each day, Monday-Thursday.
What a lucid conversation today's episode was--with the psychologist and writer, Harriet Lerner, prompted by her book, "Why Can't You Apologize?"
http://think.kera.org
Years ago, I read two other books by Lerner, one of which was the excellent The Dance of Anger.
In this interview, she talks about how to decide to apologize (even decades later sometimes) and how to do it without making the other person feel even worse about what you've done.
The wronged person doesn't need to have us justify our wrong moves or words; the wronged person needs to have you validate their experience. Only apologize, she says, when you genuinely feel that you've caused the hurt, not when the other person blames you for something you haven't done.
"A true apology asks for nothing in return, even forgiveness."
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Nora Ephron
For all of you writers out there, for all of you who enjoy Nora Ephron's movies and books, you gotta watch "Everything is Copy" (HBO).
It's a wonderful documentary, made by her son, and it includes fascinating interviews with her husbands, her son, her three sisters, and her huge circle of friends/writers/actors/producers.
I love the way it ends: her list of "Things I Will Miss When I Die." including--her two sons, her husband, Nick, spring and fall, riding over the bridge into Manhattan, Paris, bacon.....and pie."
Nora gave the world "Sleepless in Seattle" and other romantic comedies, but she's also known for her many essays, searing, angry, biting, and funny. She died a couple of years ago of leukemia.
For a woman who always claimed "there are no secrets," and who seemed to be completely self-disclosing, she managed to keep her final secret (that she was dying) even from her closest friends.
It's a wonderful documentary, made by her son, and it includes fascinating interviews with her husbands, her son, her three sisters, and her huge circle of friends/writers/actors/producers.
I love the way it ends: her list of "Things I Will Miss When I Die." including--her two sons, her husband, Nick, spring and fall, riding over the bridge into Manhattan, Paris, bacon.....and pie."
Nora gave the world "Sleepless in Seattle" and other romantic comedies, but she's also known for her many essays, searing, angry, biting, and funny. She died a couple of years ago of leukemia.
For a woman who always claimed "there are no secrets," and who seemed to be completely self-disclosing, she managed to keep her final secret (that she was dying) even from her closest friends.
Porch Talk
On this beautiful January-spring day, Kate made a great lunch and dessert for Gerlinde, Charlotte, and me to celebrate Gerlinde's birthday. We sat on the porch, we four seasoned women, vintage hippies, and talked about men, the changes we've seen in San Antonio, and our early marriages. We didn't even talk about politics, all four of us on the same page.
Love's a timely topic, always, no matter your age. As young brides (17, 18, 18, and 22) we were clueless. About everything. We were, as Kate said, a generation of women in the crack between Ozzie and Harriet and the feminist movement. "Obey" was still in the now-archaic wedding vows--but only for women. Men took care of the cars and had the higher paying work; women took care of the house, the laundry, shopping, doctors' visits, the kids. We were not allowed to work when we were pregnant and "showing," so the men we married had better career momentum.
The four of us on Kate's porch talked about our treatment from men in those days ("Clean up the G.....d.... house!" or "Wash those dishes!" or less than happy welcome-homes after giving birth to babies). We talked about our models of manhood, the few happy long-married couples we know, and whether or not love the way we once envisioned it is even possible. We talked about how we wished we'd had older friends, mentors, and family nearby to help us navigate those early years.
Back then, we were mostly alone to figure it out by ourselves. I had to walk to a phone booth to call my mother or wait for their visits to Texas or ours to Georgia, but I had no friends who knew one bit more than I did. With a few variations, we four navigated many of our rites of passage alone.
We remembered our deferential attitudes toward doctors (mostly men) in childbirth. We talked about the role of religious beliefs and media models in shaping our attitudes toward husbands, marriage, and authority figures who made the rules. We were all here in San Antonio at the same time, but we hadn't met each other yet. "If we had," Kate said, "We'd have all been free much sooner."
We had to wait decades to find older wise women (until we became older wise women ourselves), but it's way better late than never.
Love's a timely topic, always, no matter your age. As young brides (17, 18, 18, and 22) we were clueless. About everything. We were, as Kate said, a generation of women in the crack between Ozzie and Harriet and the feminist movement. "Obey" was still in the now-archaic wedding vows--but only for women. Men took care of the cars and had the higher paying work; women took care of the house, the laundry, shopping, doctors' visits, the kids. We were not allowed to work when we were pregnant and "showing," so the men we married had better career momentum.
The four of us on Kate's porch talked about our treatment from men in those days ("Clean up the G.....d.... house!" or "Wash those dishes!" or less than happy welcome-homes after giving birth to babies). We talked about our models of manhood, the few happy long-married couples we know, and whether or not love the way we once envisioned it is even possible. We talked about how we wished we'd had older friends, mentors, and family nearby to help us navigate those early years.
Back then, we were mostly alone to figure it out by ourselves. I had to walk to a phone booth to call my mother or wait for their visits to Texas or ours to Georgia, but I had no friends who knew one bit more than I did. With a few variations, we four navigated many of our rites of passage alone.
We remembered our deferential attitudes toward doctors (mostly men) in childbirth. We talked about the role of religious beliefs and media models in shaping our attitudes toward husbands, marriage, and authority figures who made the rules. We were all here in San Antonio at the same time, but we hadn't met each other yet. "If we had," Kate said, "We'd have all been free much sooner."
We had to wait decades to find older wise women (until we became older wise women ourselves), but it's way better late than never.
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Movies
"A Place Called Home" kept me watching all four seasons--but it turns into quite a talky soap opera after Season 1.
Most enjoyable movies of the year so far:
The Visitor (streaming, STARZ)
Moonlight
La La Land
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
Most enjoyable movies of the year so far:
The Visitor (streaming, STARZ)
Moonlight
La La Land
Fences
Hidden Figures
Lion
Empathy
2016 was the bumpiest year I remember in a long time--a few psychic and skin bruises, along with other jolts both personal and national. I loved Meryl Streep's acceptance speech at the Golden Globes--and her admission that she'd lost her voice due to screaming and lamentations.
An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that, breathtaking, compassionate work.
But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart, not because it was good, it was -- there’s nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.
It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege and power and the capacity to fight back. It, it kind of broke my heart when I saw it and I still can’t get it out my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose....We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage....
Once when I was standing around the set one day, whining about something, we were going to work through supper or the long hours or whatever, Tommy Lee Jones said to me: “Isn't it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor?” Yeah, it is. And we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight,
As my, as my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once: “Take your broken heart, make it into art.”
There are a lot of things I'd rather not happen because I'd really prefer happy happy all the time, but as Elizabeth the physical therapist said, "Sometimes we learn the most when things are not easy." And as Carlene says, "Everything is tuition."
With this new administration, we don't yet know what the payment plan will be--just as we don't know what we have to pay for personal life lessons--but both include disillusionment and heartbreak.
Certain challenges shake our confidence more than others, cutting deep into the psyche of who we are as a country and as individuals. We're beyond lucky if we have friends and family members who are on the same page when we are, or have been there, or who see the ups and the downs as the life lessons they are. Meryl Streep said it so well: the act of empathy is a privilege and a responsibility.
An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that, breathtaking, compassionate work.
But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart, not because it was good, it was -- there’s nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.
It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter, someone he outranked in privilege and power and the capacity to fight back. It, it kind of broke my heart when I saw it and I still can’t get it out my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose....We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage....
Once when I was standing around the set one day, whining about something, we were going to work through supper or the long hours or whatever, Tommy Lee Jones said to me: “Isn't it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor?” Yeah, it is. And we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight,
As my, as my friend, the dear departed Princess Leia, said to me once: “Take your broken heart, make it into art.”
There are a lot of things I'd rather not happen because I'd really prefer happy happy all the time, but as Elizabeth the physical therapist said, "Sometimes we learn the most when things are not easy." And as Carlene says, "Everything is tuition."
With this new administration, we don't yet know what the payment plan will be--just as we don't know what we have to pay for personal life lessons--but both include disillusionment and heartbreak.
Certain challenges shake our confidence more than others, cutting deep into the psyche of who we are as a country and as individuals. We're beyond lucky if we have friends and family members who are on the same page when we are, or have been there, or who see the ups and the downs as the life lessons they are. Meryl Streep said it so well: the act of empathy is a privilege and a responsibility.
Friday, January 6, 2017
Spreading the Joy
Kate--(bless her heart!) gave me my blog subject when she woke me up with a cheery phone call. She'd had, she said, a great time at the funeral yesterday! "It was a two-martini funeral," she said, and she got to see all her cousins and relatives. For our extrovert Kate, it was a jolly day all around. (The departed was our age but well ready to go, by the way.)
She also had news of renting her apartment yesterday and skipping yoga due to the two martini effect and other happy news. "Okay, I have to go now and spread more joy," she said. I love that--starting a day of spreading joy!
Tonight we're going to try to get in to see the much-hyped movie, Hidden Figures, and I'm planning to spend the 17-degree-windchill morning watching one more episode of my series, A Place to Call Home, and doing some reading to prepare for my week of writing groups. I've downloaded a bunch of book samples on the Kindle to get me in the groove.
Accompanied by loud mariachi music from the construction site across the street, I'm settling in for a delicious morning of books and movies and solitude. And joy--from Kate!
She also had news of renting her apartment yesterday and skipping yoga due to the two martini effect and other happy news. "Okay, I have to go now and spread more joy," she said. I love that--starting a day of spreading joy!
Tonight we're going to try to get in to see the much-hyped movie, Hidden Figures, and I'm planning to spend the 17-degree-windchill morning watching one more episode of my series, A Place to Call Home, and doing some reading to prepare for my week of writing groups. I've downloaded a bunch of book samples on the Kindle to get me in the groove.
Accompanied by loud mariachi music from the construction site across the street, I'm settling in for a delicious morning of books and movies and solitude. And joy--from Kate!
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Drumming
Be careful what you ask for. I wanted cooler weather and looks like we're going to get us some for a few days, which is fine except that it sets off this fibro-thing, creating aches from the shoulders to the soles of the feet. It's overcast today, in the forties, but I see some low-thirties and twenties in the forecast for the weekend. I'm hoping to finally light a fire in the casita wood stove for writing group this weekend. The wood has been stacked in there for two years, waiting for a chance to be ignited.
The film, The Visitor, made me return to a former interest. Maybe it's my partial Cherokee heritage, maybe not, but I've always had a hunch that I'd love drumming. I bought a Native American drum once at the Taos Pueblo made of beefalo hide, a combination of buffalo and cow hide, but I've long since given it to Elena and Nathan. So today I'm researching drums online and hoping to find another so that Elena and I can start drumming lessons (I'll teach myself a bit online so I can be the teacher) for her fifth birthday this month.
I love the sound of gentle shamanic drumming, and I'm planning to join Kate and Charlotte's drum circle this month. Until I find my drum, I'm using a simple toy drum that looks like a lollipop, one I found on Amazon for about $10. I've been playing it tonight and its sound is, well, quite drum-like.
Etsy has beautiful drums, handmade from all over the world, but I'll wait and invest in a handheld drum or djembe until I find out if I'm going to stick with it.
Drumming, some say, has healing powers. There's a community drum circle at Synergy on Thursday nights. Maybe I'll pop in tomorrow with my plastic lollipop drum and see if they'll let me play.
The film, The Visitor, made me return to a former interest. Maybe it's my partial Cherokee heritage, maybe not, but I've always had a hunch that I'd love drumming. I bought a Native American drum once at the Taos Pueblo made of beefalo hide, a combination of buffalo and cow hide, but I've long since given it to Elena and Nathan. So today I'm researching drums online and hoping to find another so that Elena and I can start drumming lessons (I'll teach myself a bit online so I can be the teacher) for her fifth birthday this month.
I love the sound of gentle shamanic drumming, and I'm planning to join Kate and Charlotte's drum circle this month. Until I find my drum, I'm using a simple toy drum that looks like a lollipop, one I found on Amazon for about $10. I've been playing it tonight and its sound is, well, quite drum-like.
Etsy has beautiful drums, handmade from all over the world, but I'll wait and invest in a handheld drum or djembe until I find out if I'm going to stick with it.
Drumming, some say, has healing powers. There's a community drum circle at Synergy on Thursday nights. Maybe I'll pop in tomorrow with my plastic lollipop drum and see if they'll let me play.
The Visitor
Richard Jenkins (the father in Six Feet Under) starred in a movie a few years ago called The Visitor. I watched it again last week and loved it even more than the first time around.
Jenkins plays a college professor whose life has shriveled to the point that he's almost robotic in his teaching, his routines, and his dealings with people. Then he meets a young couple, immigrants who have taken up residence in his house without his knowledge. His life changes from the encounter.
He befriends the young Syrian man who teaches him to play the djembe. Music and the friendship are like transfusions of joie de vivre into a formerly deadened existence. Unfortunately, things do not turn out so well for the Syrian man.
In the light of threatened deportations by the new administration, the movie was particularly poignant as it depicted the humanity of people who had come to this country to build new lives, yet lived under the constant cloud of having to leave.
Jenkins plays a college professor whose life has shriveled to the point that he's almost robotic in his teaching, his routines, and his dealings with people. Then he meets a young couple, immigrants who have taken up residence in his house without his knowledge. His life changes from the encounter.
He befriends the young Syrian man who teaches him to play the djembe. Music and the friendship are like transfusions of joie de vivre into a formerly deadened existence. Unfortunately, things do not turn out so well for the Syrian man.
In the light of threatened deportations by the new administration, the movie was particularly poignant as it depicted the humanity of people who had come to this country to build new lives, yet lived under the constant cloud of having to leave.
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
La La Land
I'm not usually a huge fan of musicals (except for my favorite of all time, Les Miserables), but La La Land was exactly what I needed to see today. I'm hereafter revising my opinion of musicals and planning to download a couple of my favorite songs from La La tonight.
When I got home, Jan--my precious friend and neighbor--delivered delicious vegetable soup, blue corn bread, and an amazingly delicious fruity dessert.
All day I had thought that I'd be returning home to the smell of hot roast beef that I cooked yesterday, but when I got home, there was no aroma. I had forgotten to plug in the crock pot!
I think I'M in La La Land!
When I got home, Jan--my precious friend and neighbor--delivered delicious vegetable soup, blue corn bread, and an amazingly delicious fruity dessert.
All day I had thought that I'd be returning home to the smell of hot roast beef that I cooked yesterday, but when I got home, there was no aroma. I had forgotten to plug in the crock pot!
I think I'M in La La Land!
San Antonio, 1967 to 2017
Forty-nine ago, my first winter in San Antonio, it was 21 degrees on the 4th of January. This week we're having spring-like weather in the high-70s.
In 1968, I bundled up to walk to my classes at San Antonio College, then the next year I drove the Volkswagen to St. Mary's University, walking to classes as fast as I could. Tony, my German Shepherd puppy, waited for me in the cold car. It was the year of Hemisfair, but we only went once--when my parents came to visit.
I loved San Antonio with its new-to-me Mexican food, mariachis, colorful paper flowers, pinatas, and chili peppers. I loved the open-air mercado, huge fruit displays, and Mexican hot chocolate. In those first two years, we lived on three streets, all named for trees--Huisache, Mistletoe and Magnolia.
During our second year, there was a crime spree, and two of our best friends were among the victims of a pair of robbers/rapists who called themselves the Thieves of Baghdad. What little our friends had was stolen after an agonizing night of terror. For a while, our neighborhood felt dangerous, and we were all jumpy until the Thieves were finally caught. We sat on our front porch with a shotgun--but it was Tony's ferocious bark that kept us safe.
We moved to Helotes--thirty minutes north--and my babies were born and grew up there. In the Eighties, we had a thirteen-inch snow--and we made sleds out of cardboard boxes. I bought the kids snow boots after that, just in case, but they were never worn.
Twenty years ago, I moved back to San Antonio, on my own. I found this house, just a couple of miles from Huisache, Mistletoe and Magnolia. I often drive those streets, and I remember what it felt like to be the 19-year-old girl I used to be, walking to San Antonio College, driving to the grocery store or laundromat, or just riding around with Tony, listening to music on the radio.
In 1968, I bundled up to walk to my classes at San Antonio College, then the next year I drove the Volkswagen to St. Mary's University, walking to classes as fast as I could. Tony, my German Shepherd puppy, waited for me in the cold car. It was the year of Hemisfair, but we only went once--when my parents came to visit.
I loved San Antonio with its new-to-me Mexican food, mariachis, colorful paper flowers, pinatas, and chili peppers. I loved the open-air mercado, huge fruit displays, and Mexican hot chocolate. In those first two years, we lived on three streets, all named for trees--Huisache, Mistletoe and Magnolia.
During our second year, there was a crime spree, and two of our best friends were among the victims of a pair of robbers/rapists who called themselves the Thieves of Baghdad. What little our friends had was stolen after an agonizing night of terror. For a while, our neighborhood felt dangerous, and we were all jumpy until the Thieves were finally caught. We sat on our front porch with a shotgun--but it was Tony's ferocious bark that kept us safe.
We moved to Helotes--thirty minutes north--and my babies were born and grew up there. In the Eighties, we had a thirteen-inch snow--and we made sleds out of cardboard boxes. I bought the kids snow boots after that, just in case, but they were never worn.
Twenty years ago, I moved back to San Antonio, on my own. I found this house, just a couple of miles from Huisache, Mistletoe and Magnolia. I often drive those streets, and I remember what it felt like to be the 19-year-old girl I used to be, walking to San Antonio College, driving to the grocery store or laundromat, or just riding around with Tony, listening to music on the radio.
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