M and N

July 28, 2022 Sally4 Comments

Dear Kim,

Thank you so much for your text the other morning. I know that I haven’t responded, but you have no idea how much I need to hear from people like you. People who love me — warts and all.

I really want to try to finish the alphabet thing I started. As much as I WANT to write, writing just doesn’t seem to come. Maybe, I thought, if I write it in a letter to you — a long overdue letter — I’ll actually be able to put some words to the page.

So, here we go —

I like Magical places. A few weeks ago, Mary and I got permission to explore the grounds of an old estate house that had been razed decades ago. As we walked around, Mary kept saying, “This is magic. This place is magical.”

Here are a few pictures from that day:

Hmm…what’s sealed up behind that cement?

A sundial! Bricked into the earth — but it no longer gets full sun!

I don’t like mean girls. See, I thought Mean Girls was a movie based on my life in high school back in the mid-seventies. It turns out Mean Girls still exist today. And I work with some.

It’s disheartening to know that some women never outgrow the manipulative back-stabbing ugly behavior of their teenage years. However, I decided last weekend that these are the women who will help me grow into a better me. Every morning I thank God that they are part of my life.

Today I worked with one of them and the only thing she said to me all day was “Where’s the stapler?”

I smile when I think about it. How silly we can be!

Okay — N is hard. I was going to say that I like the New Moon because I took this picture when I got to work the other morning. The moon was so crisp and so pointy — all I could think was that it would hurt if I stepped on it. My photo does not do it justice. Plus it was a waning crescent, not a waxing crescent.

I like Neatness — to a point. I also like a certain amount of mess. I’m not sure why that is.

I like my Neighbors. My brother lives right next door! He’s a good neighbor. I know he’s always willing to help — and he calls to check up on me, which is nice. I also like his neighbor, the one on the other side. I see her at the gym often and she is a delight. I like our neighbor in Greene. She still helps with our lawn care. I liked our neighbors on Brooklyn Ave. I still see one of them at church every week. I liked our neighbors in Cheyenne. I guess we’ve been pretty fortunate in the neighbor department.

I don’t like the News. It is depressing. And yet I read it — multiple times a day. What is wrong with me??!?

SInce I wanted to end in the 500 word range, I’ll end now. Next time I’ll go for O and P. Maybe even Q if I can be succinct. It’s not really my strength, but I can always try.

Thanks again for messaging me.

Love you so much.

Sally

K

June 25, 2022 Sally4 Comments

Back at the beginning of June I had this brilliant idea to encourage myself to write — I would do my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month, choosing things I like and don’t like that begin with the letter of the day. Pshaw. Looky here. June is almost over and I’m only up to K. Still I will forge ahead with the goal of completing this before 2022 ends. Today I will tackle K.

I’m also using Linda Hill’s Stream Consciousness writing challenge to further encourage me and to get the job done. This week’s challenge is “product/produce.” She says, “Use one, use them both, use them any way you’d like. Bonus points if you use both. Have fun!”

K was a tough letter for me. I can think of a thousand things that I like that begin with the letter K — my son, Karl, being at the top of the list. I also like kayaks and kangaroos, kids, kindred spirits, and kookaburras. I could go on.

However, because I recently started delving into Kierkegaard, I’m going to use him as my like.

Soren Kierkegaard is fascinating. Utterly fascinating. He’s way over my head, but I feel like a beginner swimmer (I used to teach them) who delights each small success. I put my face in the water! I floated! I’m a long way from actually swimming, but when a tiny bit of understanding lights up my dense gray matter, I am thrilled.

At first, I dug in by trying to read one of his books. I was like a newborn baby trying to eat a steak. It didn’t go very well. So I started listening to podcasts discussing him. I started reading about him.

Since this is stream of consciousness, please forgive me if I don’t get this exactly right — but I heard this Kierkegaard quote, “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” And whoever the podcaster was talked about anxiety being that staring into the abyss of too many choices. Whew! Yes!

Another podcaster (or maybe the same one) talked about Kierkegaard’s idea of losing yourself in the infinite — that dizziness of freedom — but also losing yourself in the finite — where you aren’t allowed to be yourself because you’re so busy conforming to prescribed ideas of who others think you should be.

It’s heady, mind-boggling, and I’m loving it.

(Non-Stream-of-Consciousness warning. I wrote this post just writing — true stream of consciousness — but I have a thousand and one misgivings about delving into controversial topics. Please feel free to stop reading here. I won’t be offended. And if abortion is a hot button topic, by all means stop reading. I’m not trying to push anybody’s buttons.)

What don’t I like that begins with K? This was hard. Even things that didn’t make my “like” list — for example, kebabs — didn’t make my dislike list either — I’m kind of neutral on kebabs.

However, yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling on abortion left me with so many mixed feelings. Please bear with me as I sort them.

I don’t like killing — that’s my K. I don’t like war. I don’t like murder. I don’t like the death penalty. I don’t like abortion.

However, abortion is such a complicated issue. When we reduce it to slogans on t-shirts or on protest signs, we miss that fact.

I know people who have had abortions. A high school friend. One of my freshman college roommates. Another woman who got pregnant in college. The wife of a Bible study leader. Yep — you read that one correctly. She was a diabetic and her kidneys started shutting down. Her husband said, “We can find another way to have a baby, but I can’t get another (fill in the wife’s name).”

I know people who have chosen to carry the baby despite adverse circumstances. The woman who cuts my hair. The daughter of some missionaries.

I know people who have adopted babies carried by unwed mothers.

In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller talks about listening to other people’s stories instead of judging. It’s been years since I read that book, but I remember a part where he set up a confession booth, not to hear other people’s confessions, but to confess his own judgmental-ness.

We’re too programmed with our knee-jerk reactions. I’m too programmed with my own knee-jerk reactions.

I hate killing. I don’t like abortion. But, then, there aren’t too many people who seriously like abortion. The issue is just so much more complicated than that.

If you are 110% pro-life, you need to sit at a table opposite someone who has made that awful decision and listen to their story of their hows and whys. If you are 110% pro-choice, you need to sit at a table opposite someone who has lived with the regret of that decision, or who was forced into that decision by some well-meaning person, and you need to go watch an ultrasound of a 10 week old fetus moving and see its tiny heart beating.

It’s complicated.

I realize that I have not used produce or product once in this post. But, hey, I produced a post! There!

How about you? What’s something you like that begins with K? What’s something you don’t like?

A to Z Blogging Challenge · friendship · Life

Dentist

June 4, 2022 Sally16 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment of something you like that begins with the letter D and something you don’t like.

Also, today’s post is my submission for Stream of Consciousness Saturday’s prompt — irony.

“You invite your dentist to your family weddings?” someone asked one of my children when they were being introduced to Dr. Kate.

I think it was Laurel that I was talking to about it, because she said, “I never really thought it was weird until they said that.”

We don’t invite Dr. Kate to weddings because she’s a dentist. We invite her because she’s a friend. She’s been a nearly lifelong friend to me.

I can still picture her when we were kids with her jaw wired shut and her head with a halo screwed into it to keep her neck in traction. I would go visit her every day after school at the hospital before getting a ride home with my father.

It was probably close to three months that she was in the hospital — so that’s a lot of visits! A friendship grows over something like that.

To be totally honest, I’m pretty terrible at keeping in touch with people, so we lost touch during the years that happened between high school and parenting. She went off to the dental school and Navy. I went off to Wyoming. Eventually we both ended up back in Cooperstown.

And yes, she comes to our family weddings. I love my dentist, Dr. Kate.

So I suppose there’s a little irony in the fact that I hate going to the dentist. It ranks right up there with having a gall bladder attack, another not-fun repeated experience in my life, but I’ll save that story for another day.

In Scottish Gaelic:
Is toil leam am fiaclair agam.
(I like my dentist.)

Cha toil leam a dhol dhan fhiaclair.
(I don’t like going to the dentist.)

How about you? What do you like that begins with D? What do you dislike?

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Life

Authenticity/Aches and Pains

June 1, 2022 Sally23 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment of something you like that begins with the letter A and something you don’t like.

Authenticity

I’m applying for a new job. I saw Mary staring at the printed resume and cover letter in my hand. Her brow was slightly furrowed. “What?” I asked. “Does the paper look like it expired in 2017?” It’s kind of a running joke at the house these days. We keep finding outdated food items.

She pointed to the cover letter printed on plain old white paper. “This looks very professional,” she said. Then, pointing at the resume printed on a heavier slightly marbled-looking paper, she said, “But this is more you.”

“Great,” I said. “I’m going to use it.”

I hate trying to pretend to be something I am not. I said something like that to one of my co-workers when I was struggling to hide my irritation with a situation. “Stick with me,” she said, “and I’ll teach you how.”

She is masterful at gooey niceness and then making nasty comments as soon as the person is gone. It bugs me.

And I can’t do it.

Instead of learning to be fake, I would rather learn to appreciate the other person for whatever their strengths are.

And I would rather be true to who I am — dated marbled paper and all.

“The authentic self is the soul made visible.” Sarah Ban Breathnach

Is toil leam fìrinn.
Scottish Gaelic for “I like authenticity.”

I do NOT like aches and pains.

I’ve reached that age of joint pain and arthritis. Honestly, this is for the birds. I hate it.

My shoulder was bothering me a few weeks ago — a sharp stabbing pain when I stressed it in a certain way. I kind of like my shoulder. I especially like it when it’s pain-free.

So I called to see a health care provider in orthopedics about it. I just wanted someone to look at it and, “You’re fine,” or, “This is what’s going on.” My first appointment, which was scheduled two weeks out, was cancelled when the provider got COVID. The second appointment, scheduled two weeks after the first, was exactly what I had hoped for.

I had an x-ray. “You have a little arthritis,” she said, “but I would be surprised if you didn’t.” Advanced age and all that.

“Everything today looks fine,” she said. “Continue your usual activities.” These include swimming and climbing.

That was last week and I still have yet to do either, but I’m glad for the go-ahead.

Cha toil leam pian co-phàirteach.
Scottish Gaelic for “I do not like joint pain.”

How about you? What do you like that begins with A? What do you dislike?

Life

To Stay or Not Stay on the Trail

May 28, 2022May 28, 2022 Sally2 Comments

I’m housesitting for my daughter while she and her new husband are off on their honeymoon. Their home is surrounded by trees, and somewhere back on the property there’s a small cemetery where loved ones were laid to rest in 1800s. The realtor had to disclose that when they purchased the house, but I think it only added to the charm.

I thought about wandering back to find it this afternoon. The cool rainy morning gave way to a breezy pleasant almost-summer day. I knew it would be damp back there, but that’s not what kept me from walking into the woods. It’s poison ivy. I know that’s back there, too. And I know don’t really know the trails.

Where are the trails? Where’s the poison ivy?

Instead, this morning, I tried to drive to the mall. I got part way and the police were detouring cars off the main route. SIRI didn’t like that. Frankly, I didn’t like it either. Especially when the detour signs just stopped and I was heading north instead of south. I figure the last detour sign that was supposed to get me back to the route had either blown away or been swiped by some smart aleck. Either way, it was more trial than trail, so I changed my plans.

I went back to the house and my daughter happened to call. All the way from Iceland. She and her husband had gone for a hike up a volcano.

“I’m so glad we had a guide to take us up the volcano. At one point, he pointed to a trail and said that’s where most tourists go, but it doesn’t take them to the lava fields,” she told me. She had sent me pictures from the hike.

Then she said, “It was so cool walking on the lava field. Our guide also knew when we needed to turn back because of the gases.”

Yes, I was glad, too, that she had a guide who took them off the trail but still kept them safe.

Life is so like that, isn’t it? We need to find that balance between blazing new trails and following old ones.

Sometimes, it’s important to have a guide.

It’s also helpful to be able to identify poison ivy — or poison gases.

This post is in response to Linda G Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt trail/trial.

family · Life

Children: the Gift I Didn’t Know I Needed

May 9, 2022 Sally11 Comments

This weekend I was getting some things ready for a bridal shower for my oldest daughter and came across a notebook in which I had written this quote: “This is often the way God loves us: with gifts we thought we didn’t need, which transform us into people we don’t necessarily want to be.” ~~ William Willimon

I looked up the source of the quote and read through the whole article which you can find here: From a God We Hardly Knew. In short, it is a Christmas message about Isaiah 9:6 — “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given” — in which Willimon makes the point that Ahaz, in the original context, was looking for an army and instead God promised a child.

A bridal shower and Mother’s Day seem appropriate days for me to think about my children. I heard from all eight this weekend. Plus all three daughters-in-law. I am rich indeed.

And I never could have imagined this.

Ever.

There was a point in time when I had been told that I wouldn’t have children without using fertility drugs.

Okay, I thought, a family is not in my future.

One of my favorite professors in college had encouraged me more than once to pursue medical school. “I don’t usually do this,” she had said. “I’m usually trying to dissuade students who think they want to be doctors.”

But I got married two weeks after graduating college. I supported my husband while he finished his schooling and began his first job. Once he was settled in, I began thinking about medical school and figuring out which classes I still needed — Calculus and Organic Chemistry. I contacted the nearest university to find out how to enroll.

Then I found out I was pregnant.

When you’re in high school, the guidance counselor never suggests motherhood as a career track. When you’re in college, the career office doesn’t suggest it either. Honestly, it wasn’t even a blip on my life radar.

Yet here I am today to tell you that being a mother — a full-time stay-at-home mother, who decorated funny-looking birthday cakes and washed-dried-and-folded mountains of laundry, who read the same books over and over until I could “read” them with my eyes closed, who played road-sign spelling games to entertain on long road trips and refused to get an entertainment system in our minivan because I WAS the entertainment system, who shopped at yard sales and thrift stores and sorted through bags of hand-me-down clothing because living on one income isn’t easy — being a mother was, and IS, the absolute best thing in the whole world.

Children are the gift I didn’t know I needed.

In addition to all the dandelion bouquets and crayon artwork, I received from them the very best lessons in patience, kindness, forgiveness, generosity, understanding, perseverance, creativity, humor — and that list could go on and on.

There’s a part of me that feels like I need to apologize. I know that not everyone has this opportunity. Not everyone can have children. Not everyone can afford to stay home. Life happens in different ways to each of us.

But I’m not going to apologize. I’m simply going to be grateful.

family · Life

Who Knows?

April 16, 2022April 16, 2022 Sally4 Comments

The other day someone called and asked, “Is it going to be busy in the bowling alley this afternoon?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I thought about making a snarky comment about my broken crystal ball.

I think it was the same day that some called and asked how far we were from Woodstock. “I suggest using Google maps for that,” I said.

That was the same caller who asked about what else there is to do in Cooperstown, NY, besides our sports center. “Most people come here for the Baseball Hall of Fame,” I told her.

“Oh, I don’t know anything about that,” she replied.

How or where she got our number remains a mystery to me. Why someone would call a sports facility with questions like that also remain a mystery.

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

“Where do you see yourself in ten years?” My friend who had asked me about my goals asked me that question yesterday.

Who knows? Literally, who freaking knows?

(Side note: my use of “freaking” indicates what a frustrating question that is, but that’s about as far as I go with “f”-words. Side-side note: I saw an story yesterday that the actor who plays Roy Kent on Ted Lasso had done a bit on Sesame Street about his favorite “f” word — which turned out to be “fairness.” Well done, Sesame Street.)

Where do I see myself in ten years? I started doing mental math on how old my children and grandchildren would be. Laurel, my youngest daughter, would be 28. Wilma, my youngest granddaughter, would be 12. My oldest grandson would be 17. My oldest son would be 47.

The more mental math I did, the more I realized how much I define myself by the people in my life.

So what about me? In ten years, I will be 72.

At the gym I see 72 year old women climbing the rock wall. Heck, I see a 92 year old woman who comes in nearly every day to swim and walk the track.

But if COVID has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that life is fragile and can’t be taken for granted. Health and life can be snatched away with little warning.

Where do I see myself in ten years? Phooey. I hate the question. It ranks right up there with “What’s your goal?”

As hokey as this saying is, I think it holds a lot of truth — “Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. And today? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)

(This post is mostly Stream of Consciousness writing based on the Linda Hill’s prompt: nose/noes/knows for today.)

Life

Crying at Yoga

April 14, 2022 Sally4 Comments

“I’m terrible at yoga,” I told a friend a few years ago after I had tried some yoga. “I keep falling asleep in it.”

My friend had laughed. “I’d say you’re doing it right,” she said.

That was back in the day when my father was still alive and I was sleeping with one ear open in case he wandered in the middle of the night. It wasn’t much different from the perpetual tiredness of a young mother.

I tried yoga because I had heard it was good for de-stressing, but in yoga class, I would lay on the mat, close my eyes, and fall asleep.

I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the right way to do yoga.

In retrospect, however, I suppose it was de-stressing.

I also suppose that’s why I wanted to try it again. Life these days is pretty stressful. Suddenly my blood pressure, which has always run low, is in hypertension-land. Suddenly I can’t cry.

I take that back. I DID cry a few weeks ago. I was sitting, alone and upset about life, when my youngest daughter came in the room. I honestly don’t remember what was said or not said. All I know is that she came, sat on my lap, wrapped her arms around me and pulled my head to her chest. I sobbed and sobbed, with my little girl holding me. (Okay — she’s not so little — 18 years old and 3 or 4 inches taller than me.)

It was all wrong.

I’m the mom. She’s the kid trying to figure out life. But I’m a bit of a mess right now.

So, anyhow, I tried yoga again.

I asked an instructor that I enjoyed talking with at the front desk. I’ll call her Edna (because that’s her name). We chatted about this or that any number of times, one of them being a conversation about young people having old names. She’s young and vivacious. Whatever you picture an Edna to look like, she’s not it.

So I came up with the brilliant idea of having a private yoga session with Edna and inviting my daughters to join me. I talked to Edna about it and she was willing. I gave her my number so she could text me some dates.

Later that day, I got a text from an unknown number that began, “Hey, Beautiful – checking my calendar.” I almost deleted it, thinking it was sexy spam or something. A second message followed so I peeked at it and it was Edna. Yep, she calls me Beautiful. That’s how she is.

Yoga with Edna was fun. Three daughters and one daughter-in-law came for the private lesson and it was fun.

But I didn’t cry. Or fall asleep.

Edna gave me confidence, though, that I could try another class.

I went to Restorative Yoga this week. Katherine teaches that class. She’s quiet and gentle and soothing. The class was very meditative.

When she talked about going inside ourselves, I thought about the passage from Howard Thurman — “There is in every person an inward sea, and in that sea there is an island…”

I pictured the sea.

I pictured the island.

I sat down on the beach of the island and stared at the sea.

I could feel the waves lapping at my toes, and the sand washing out from under them as the waves pulled back.

I started to cry.

In yoga class.

I can’t tell you why I cried, but it happened again the next time I took a class taught by Katherine.

I don’t think I’m doing yoga right.

I have a feeling, though, that Katherine might say that I am.

family · Grief · Life

Maggie

February 25, 2022 Sally6 Comments

Maggie would have loved the snow this morning.

Even in this, her 14th year, she would run out the door when she saw fresh snow, throw herself down into it, and roll on her back, like the snow was scratching some itch that she couldn’t otherwise reach. When she was on her feet again, she would shove her snout into the snow, bringing it up with a small white pile on her muzzle. She always liked to grab a few bites of snow on her way back in the house.

I’ve never seen another dog love snow like that. The joy of Maggie’s snow-love always brought a smile to my face.

This morning’s snow is pretty — but there’s no Maggie to revel in it. No Maggie to bound through the depths of the drifts. No Maggie to chase the snow thrown from the shovel as we clear the driveway. No Maggie to leave that odd dog-snow-angel print just off the deck.

Maggie had been my birthday gift 14 years ago. I had long wanted for a dog, but my husband was resistant to adding a furry member to our family. In 2008, I received a leash, a collar, a dog dish for my birthday — and I looked up at him and said, “What’s all this?”

“You can get a dog,” he said.

And thus Maggie was adopted into our family.

On my birthday this year, we had to put Maggie down.

I still haven’t even been able to cry about it — life is too full. If you’ve ever been in that place of not being able to cry, you’ll know the giant lump of ice resting in your chest that can only be melted by tears — and the tears won’t cooperate.

I looked at the snow morning and missed Maggie intensely.

Now she’s a real dog-snow-angel and I hope someone somewhere is throwing snowballs for her to chase.

Rest in peace, Maggie.

friendship · Life

On Seeing

February 1, 2022 Sally1 Comment

Dear Kim,

So much for writing every day for a month. See how I am? My last draft was January 21 and I called it “Catching Up.” I planned to cram all the missed prompts into one post. Meanwhile, prompts kept piling up like unopened mail. Sigh. I gave up.

It’s February — a new month. Time to try again, eh?

My morning reading is from five separate books. Does it ever happen to you that disparate readings coalesce into one concept? Yeah, well, that happened to me this morning.

I started a little project last year of writing down all the questions Jesus asked in the gospels. Then I moved on to the questions that people asked Jesus. Now I’m writing down all the questions — and who asked them — and what the reply was. Every morning, I write one question and the reply.

Today Nathanael asked Jesus, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered “I saw you under the fig tree.”

How do you know me?

I saw you.

Ponder that for a while.

I moved on to Brian Doyle. In a “proem” (which is what he called his combination of prose and poetry) titled The Shrew, he describes an encounter with — you guessed it — a shrew. He ends with these words:

For just an instant I paid attention with every shard and iota of my being.
Maybe we couldn’t survive if we were like all the time, I don’t know,
But when it happens we see that which none of us can find the words for.
Sometimes we are starving to see every bit of what is right in front of us.
Brian Doyle, One Long River of Song

I think we are starving to see.

And to be seen.

I had an unnerving conversation at work several weeks ago. Someone said something to me that both thrilled me and bothered me. I talked to Rachel, my therapist, about it. “You were seen,” she said — and she was a hundred percent right. I’m not used to being seen. For a brief moment someone saw behind my facades, and I’ll admit that it was slightly terrifying.

Perhaps that’s what Nathanael felt. Thrilled and terrified. How do you know me? I saw you.

I can remember the first time I saw you at Church of the Redeemer. You were instantly someone I wanted to know. Why is that? Perhaps, I had a sense of our commonalities. I don’t know.

To see and to be seen. That’s what’s swirling in my thoughts today.

On a different note, I’m sorry you’re not feeling well again. I wish more people knew about the long-term effects of COVID. I wish more people understood that fighting a pandemic is a team sport, not an individual one. It’s like a massive round of Tug of War. The stakes are high. We need everyone to join in pulling on the rope.

You’re in my thoughts today.

Love,

Sally