Mourning

We have acclimated to the climate and, except for the steamiest of hot summer days, we do not turn on our air conditioning until mid-morning.  That means we still keep the sliding glass door to the lanai open in the early morning hours.  Our cat, Buddy, appreciates this.  He hunts lizards in the pool area and likes coming and going as he pleases.   

I am not a big fan of air-conditioning, but it is essential here.  I cannot imagine what life in Florida (or anywhere in the Deep South) was like before air-conditioning.  Still, we both like to put off turning it on until the sweat is dripping down the back of our necks.  Like everyone else in Florida I bitch about the heat; however, I would rather live through a Central Florida summer than an Upstate New York winter.  No contest.  I like the heat, and the humidity makes my hair curly. If only I had lived here in the late 1960's during my Janis Joplin hair phase.

I am slowly coming out of a deep funk that started when my mother died earlier this year.  I am surprised at how hard this has hit me because I thought I was ready for her death.  It is so confusing, this grief thing.  I have lived through the deaths of my father and two brothers.  As Amy Shumer's boss says in Trainwreck, this is not my first rodeo.  I wonder if it is hitting me harder this time because I am retired and I actually have time to grieve this loss? 

The past few weeks I have noticed a change for the better.  About damn time, too!  I am becoming more aware of myself and the world around me each morning.  I take this as a good sign.  I do not know about you, but I can usually predict my mood for any given day by how I experience morning. 

Early mornings in Central Florida are almost always stunning.  The sky is blue, the sun is shining, and there is lush green foliage everywhere.  The first 8 months we lived in this house I woke up every single morning thinking, "Another day in paradise!"  Then Mom died and I did not notice much of anything.  

The worst part is I have not been aware of what was happening to me.  Grief sneaks up on a person like the proverbial thief in the night.  I am reminded of a big cat when she is on the hunt.  She approaches soundlessly, quietly; the prey rarely knows she is coming.  In an instant she pounces and tears into the neck with her killing teeth. Clamping on with that unforgiving death grip, she shakes that poor critter till it dies from a broken neck. The only difference is that Grief goes for the heart.  Grief has taken me like that.  She shook me like an alcoholic housewife shakes her first martini of the day. If you have experienced grief OR if you are (or know) an alcoholic you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Not surprisingly I have spent this fallow period longing for the past, yearning for a whole shitload of things I have lost along the way.  You know - my amazing flower gardens up North, living in a progressive and liberal college town, my black-handled scissors, and a time when I still had a mother.  This really has to change.  I want to move on.  One can effectively deal with the present and make necessary changes that will affect the future; but the past is just that. Those things are GONE.  Except for the black-handled scissors, I think they are someplace in this house.  But anyway, here's the deal: Living in the past involves very little actual living.

All I have done for 5 long months is complain.  I cry, I lose my temper, I behave badly.  I am not trying to be this awful person - at some point I simply lost control.  Please do not misunderstand my complaints about grief; I think grief work is important.  It has meaning.  A person needs to go through it, needs to feel their emotions, blobbity, blah, blah, blah.  I am just so *^!%# tired of it.  Enough!  I am ready to be done with mourning.  I wonder if I can pull that off, change myself just by wanting it?  What are the practical limits of desire?

This morning I stayed in bed long after waking up, a guilty retiree pleasure.  I eventually got up and walked into the living room.  The sliding glass door was open to the world.  As luck would have it, I noticed the blue sky, the pool, and the palm trees out back.  I can assure you I was not looking for them, I just turned my head and there they were.  I immediately thought "Wow, another day in paradise!"  I felt good and I wanted more.

My handsome husband is an early riser and he always makes the coffee before I get up.  This is yet another reason why I love that man.  I poured myself a cuppa joe and thought how great it was to have the morning to myself.  I went into my home office (aka N's playroom) and turned on the computer where I sat down to check email and, perhaps, to write.

The view from my office window caught my eye.  I used to look out and observe my neighbors' comings and goings.  THAT was a waste of time! Consequently, I moved my computer screen and now it blocks the lower part of the window.  I no longer see my neighbor's houses.  Now I pretend I live in the woods.  I see blue sky, two large sycamores, a part of the neighbor's live oak, and the top of our screamin' pink crepe myrtle.  It looks like this:

Grief is a common ailment.  I have friends who are also mourning the loss of a loved one right now. For some the worst will last a few months, for others it might last a year or even more. Grief is not a one-size-fits-all emotion.  I do not believe the feeling of loss ever completely goes away, but at some point we find a way to rebuild our lives without the people we loved and lost.  This is what we do.  There is no shame in being human.  There is no shame in feeling pain or in feeling loss.  It is perfectly okay to ask for help.  These are the lessons Grief is teaching me.  If I learn my lessons well maybe She will leave me alone.

Hijinks

Our 3-year old grandson, N, thinks he is the boss of us.  He is a quirky, funny little person, a bundle of bedevilment and raw, wild energy.  He is also a fledgling megalomaniac.  We often babysit for him while our daughter M runs our amazing granddaughter E all over the county to take singing, dancing, and acting classes, or to participate in plays.  Or at least that is what M says she is doing.  For all I know she is at home taking a nap, the babysitting angle simply a desperate ruse to get away from him for a few quiet hours. I would not blame her.  Babysitting for him is exciting on both a psychological and historical level, because what we may actually be observing are his very first attempts at world domination.

Upon arrival, he insists that we run through an entire routine of activities every damn time.  First we play tag, hide-and-go-seek, computer games, cars, and Lego-type assemblage stuff.  He enjoys the occasional tea party.  He pours. 

Sometimes we go into Grandpa T’s music room and then the three of us have a band.  He likes Grandpa to turn on the microphone so he can yell “One, Two….One, Two, Three, GOOOOO!”  Then we all play musical instruments badly and yell loudly.  I like to play the Conga.  Unfortunately, my Conga playing gets on N's nerves so he usually assigns me a different instrument to play, and dontcha know he tells me exactly how to play it, too.

He maintains a fort in our bedroom.  For most of the past year it was simply a quilt over a tubular quilting frame.  Unfortunately he figured out how to disassemble it, which quickly became part of the “routine” so we had to take it down.   It is too complicated to put back together all the time. Instead, we bought a fabric and post, castle-like structure at Ikea and now it takes up a good part of our bedroom.   Spoiler alert: the castle fort is his usual hiding place when we play hide-and-go-seek.

During the hot 6 months of the year we swim in the pool and there are swimming routines as well.  Once again this includes playing tag and hide-and-go-seek, but this time in the water amongst blow-up alligators and large round tubes.  He will hang on to the skirt of my bathing suit (yeah, I’m one of those women) and insist Grandpa hangs on to his (N’s) foot and then it is my job, no, it is my sacred duty to drag them all around the pool. Afterwards we bring out the water guns and he and I gang up on Grandpa.  In spite of our superior numbers, Grandpa usually wins.    

After an hour of swim play we try to coax him out of the pool.  It is helpful that there is a rainy season in Central Florida because we get short storms most afternoons.  He is well motivated to get out of the pool if he hears thunder.  Otherwise, it is a bit challenging to get him out of the water and into the house.  When we manage to get him inside he sits in front of the TV watching animated shows while eating the same exact food every time.  I have tried to trick him into eating different foods, but he notices right away.

After he eats and his “show” has ended, we have to argue with him (every time) to get him ready to drive home.  He simply will not go quietly into the night.  He cries and acts as if we have rejected him.  The guilt!  We really must take him home at that point because 1. All three of us are exhausted, and 2. He is now as mean as a snake.  If we are lucky we can get him to leave the house and head towards the car without further dramatics. Sometimes I just pick him up and carry him out, but then he screams bloody murder and flails his chubby little arms and legs right and left.  It is embarrassing once I realize the neighbors are staring at us. 

Of course, if we are not ready to leave he will bust out of the house and we have to chase him down before he runs into the street.  He knows how to unlock the door.  I am telling you, there is no stopping this kid.  

When we get outside he will inevitably break loose and run around the car, making us chase and catch him before getting him into the car and on his car seat.  He runs really fast, too - the little stinker.  That annoys Grandpa, who is usually on his last nerve by then.  You simply cannot imagine the sense of relief T and I feel when we hear that seat belt click shut, effectively locking him in place.  All three of us are usually screaming and fighting with each other as T backs the car down the driveway, and that is probably why none of the neighbors talk to us. 

Once we are on our way we must play the same children songs on the car stereo while we drive him home.  He lives a really long 12 minutes away from us.  He won't allow us to play the entire CD, only the handful of songs he calls his "silly songs."  Often he makes us replay one particular "silly song" over and over for the entire drive.  T really likes that part, I can tell.

Of course, he can also be sweet, polite, loving, kindhearted, and affectionate, but that does not make for an interesting post. 

Let kids be kids, you know what I mean?  Soon enough they will be subjected daily, hourly, by the minute to nearly constant judgment and restraint.  It sucks to be a grown up. 

You know, I can actually feel people judging me right now for spoiling this kid.  Luckily I am old enough not to give a shit.  I figure my job as Grandma is to love him and give him a safe place to be his stinkin’ glorious 3-year old self. 

N likes to yell, pretend to burp, laugh, tell silly jokes that make no sense, joyously run from authority, and eat chicken sticks.  He is also the last grandchild I will ever have.  I adore him and I love his little hijinks, just like I did with his older sister when she was 3-years old.  I think a joyous childhood can help one endure what life has in store for grown ups. 

In fact, I think it is just as important for a child to learn to be a stinker as it is for them to learn their ABC’s.  OK, I am starting to feel the judgment again.  My fingers are in my ears and I am singing our favorite "silly song" at the top of my lungs.  There, it is gone. 

I can hardly wait until he comes over again.  And yes, he is much better behaved and well mannered when he is around his parents and his other grandparents.  I am not sure why.  

4th of July

I meant to write a funny post.  Then I got sick last Friday just before the long 4th of July weekend.  While convalescing I read a lot of books, one of which took place during the Revolutionary War.  That put me in a 4th of July frame of mind.

My mind wandered as we drove through Tennessee and Kentucky last month on vacation.  I thought of my direct paternal ancestors who arrived in Virginia in 1714 as indentured servants.  They later migrated from Fauquier County in the Virginia Piedmont down to Rowan County, North Carolina and then to Grayson County, Virginia in the 1790’s before moving on to Southeastern Kentucky in 1807.  I tried to imagine the land as they might have seen it. I wondered why they moved so often?  I wondered what my female ancestors were thinking as they left family they would likely never see again?  I wondered how long it took those strangers to feel like they belonged somewhere?

I guess I share their wanderlust.  I am also reminded that, although I identify as a Northerner, I have a long and storied Southern heritage.  My father’s people did not move to Northern Indiana until 1925, and then only because the Southeastern Kentucky farmland was used up, making it hard to continue to support a family farm. Along with a number of their friends and family, my grandparents headed north to work in the automobile factories soon after they were married.  They may have found work, but they did not find a lot of respect.  All too often Southerners are deemed stupid by Northerners, and if they are rural Southerners, well - they are called hillbillies.  That's a bad word, by the way.  Nobody likes to be called that.  Please don't use it.

Harriette Simpson Arnow, the Kentucky-born author of The Dollmaker, was a distant cousin of mine (to say the least).  Our closest kinship is through her paternal grandmother wherein we are 2nd cousins, 3 time removed via the Shearer family. Her grandmother, Louise Shearer, and my 3rd great-grandmother, Margaret Ann Shearer, were sisters.  I just happen to have a picture of the two of them with their other sister, Rebecca.  My 3rd great-grandma (Margaret Ann Shearer Huffaker) is in the middle and Harriette's grandma (Louise Shearer Simpson) is at the right.  They look kind of stern, don't they?
It turns out I am also Harriette's 4th cousin, 2 times removed through her maternal Foster line.

And finally, I wonder if she is also related to me through a man named Reuben Simpson on her father's side?  There were unrelated Simpson families in Wayne County back then, so I am not sure.  The problem with proving these old families is that the U.S. Federal Census did not start listing all the names and ages of people at a residence until 1850. 

Like I said, no hillbilly jokes.  These particular families were educated, upstanding, and separate families.  Please don't challenge me to prove it, because I can and it would bore you to tears.  I have a 22,000 member family tree and I know how to use it.

The Dollmaker was published in 1954.  It describes the hardships rural Kentucky hill people endured when moving from Wayne County, Kentucky to the industrial North during WWII.  In 1984 that book was made into an ABC TV movie starring Jane Fonda.  Fonda won an Emmy for her performance.  The Dollmaker is actually the third novel in a trilogy Arnow wrote about Southeastern Kentucky hill people.  The first was Mountain Path; the second book in the trilogy is Hunter’s Horn.  Joyce Carol Oates was a huge fan of Arnow's and I have often wondered if Oates' great novel, Them, was influenced by The Dollmaker.

The most recent common Simpson ancestor we "might" share is a North Carolina man named Reuben Simpson.  He was a Loyalist who fought on the wrong side of the Revolutionary War.  Apparently his father-in-law, Capt. William Sherrill, and his own brother, William Simpson, were on the right side.  Author and genealogist Nona Williams states:  

"When William learned that Reuben had joined the Tories at Ramsour's Mill, William rode his horse into the ground in a futile attempt to reach the battlefield in time to kill his brother."

If true, it was a failed attempt - Our Reuben enlisted, fought, and lived to tell the tale.  I will admit I was not thrilled to find him in my family tree.  But as my brother, Big D, keeps telling anyone who will listen, "You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family."

On second thought, he probably did not tell the tale very often.  Loyalists were hated by the general populace after the War and were often forced to leave the community.  In 1798, he traveled through the Cumberland Gap to Wayne County, Kentucky with his family to start over. 

Harriette Simpson Arnow published her novel about a Revolutionary War soldier in 1974.  Her protagonist was a Patriot and an Overmountain Man who was traveling through the Kentucky backwoods looking for his family after the Battle of King's Mountain in South Carolina.  The book is called The Kentucky Trace.  I quite liked it.

Cousin Harriette had a gift for understanding everyday life and people living in the late 18th century.  She was also interested in all sorts of obscure, obsolete practices, like how to make saltpeter in the backwoods in order to make gunpowder, or the logistics of loading a Kentucky Long Rifle during an Indian attack on a forted farm.  I have limited interest in these things, but certainly enough curiosity to keep me reading in awe of her extensive knowledge.  She also wrote two nonfiction books of social history about 18th century Kentucky and Tennessee; however, her personal opinions are dated and she romanticizes the Scotch Irish a bit too much for me.  I like her novels better.

My Southern ancestors fought on both sides in the Revolutionary War and they did the same in the Civil War. I cannot claim a moral purity or even a political consistency in my genealogy.  I wish I could.  I wish they were all heroes; however, the world does not work like that.  Some of my people were brave, some were kind, and some of them were mean-spirited jerks.  The only thing they all seem to have had in common is that none of them were rich.  Like so many other Old Settler families, my father’s line includes many interesting characters.

My direct, paternal 6^th great grandfather, Jesse, is buried somewhere in Lawrence County, Indiana, just south of where the wedding we went to last month was held.  He has been on my mind ever since we were up there.  His wife (aka "Unknown") is the reason I took up genealogy years ago.  It bothers me that nobody knows her name.  I have been trying to find her for years.  Still looking. 

Old Jesse was a Revolutionary War Patriot who fought at the Battle of Yorktown and was present when the British General Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington. 

In 1807, his son Samuel left Grayson County, Virginia to go to Wayne County, Kentucky and marry his childhood sweetheart, Rutha Simpson.  Rutha was the daughter of the aforementioned North Carolina Loyalist, Reuben Simpson.  The night before Samuel left for Kentucky, old Jesse Rector made his son swear on a family bible that he would remain faithful to the United States.  I kind of love that story. 

Fitting the Crime

It is hard being surrounded by the pain, hardship and hatred that is rampant in this old world.  I notice the wrongness of it even more since my life has slowed down.  I am often crippled by despair when faced with cruelty and injustice.  The recent murders in Charleston have been a struggle to process.  I must say, the young man who committed those atrocities seems less than human to me. There is something sadly rotten about his inner core. Not only do I grieve for those innocent people who were murdered, I grieve for the death of the murderer's humanity.  That he sat through that peaceful time with those good people, found it hard to perform his evil deeds because the people "were so nice to him," and then to have still killed them for the sake of ideological hatred and divisiveness, that is pure evil.  There is no getting around it. 

His crimes are extreme.  He wants to incite a race war.  He wants to turn humanity upside down and in his bizarre notion of reality he wants us all to behave like sick, rabid animals. 

His are crimes against humanity. All crimes are, actually, because we are a community.  When crimes are committed within our community all of our humanity is diminished.  We all suffer. Crimes have that ripple effect.  Some crimes are worse and more far-reaching than others.  And that is why it is important that the punishment fits the crime.  

I wonder what the best and most effective punishment for this particular young man might be?  What might best benefit the community - the entire country?  Let us assume that he is neither mentally ill nor of subhuman intelligence.  If he is simply an evil man who committed a heinous atrocity, what is the best way for him to atone for his sins?  Is it even possible? 

It is easy to fantasize in anger and imagine him being executed in pain, or to have him spend his entire life in solitary confinement.  But what is appropriate punishment for someone like him, someone who wanted to plunge an entire country into "race war?"  Remember, he is someone who wants evil to triumph over good, for ignorance to be valued over intellect. This is heady stuff!  

Punishment is supposed to provide a means for a criminal to atone for a crime so s/he can be forgiven and reintegrated into the community.  Sometimes we lose sight of the rehabilitation aspect of imprisonment.  But what would it take to rehabilitate a man like this?  Could something clear this murderer's mind of hatred, jealousy, and fear? What would enable him to think instead of just feel? How could he begin to understand exactly what he has done? If only he could begin to comprehend the vast and terrifying repercussions of his crime, victim by victim.  He would experience the overwhelming sadness and loss his actions engendered in each family member and friend. He would see clearly how his actions fanned the flames of hatred and distrust in both the bad people and in the good people throughout this troubled country. Let's face it, making bad people more hateful is like taking a day off; but doing something so terrible that it makes good people begin to hate is a sincerely horrifying transgression.

Is there any possible way for him to atone for his actions beyond understanding what he did and then suffering endless regret?  And if understanding and regret are not possible, is there really any reason for this young man to continue to live?  I hate asking that question.  I do not have an answer. 

However, I do know this.  Those family members who stood up and forgave him the very day after the murders are the heroes of humanity.  They stand as an example for every person who ever wanted to be more fully human.  Why?  Because they are good people who refused to hate.  In doing so, they triumphed over evil and their actions are our hope for the future.

Affinity as a euphemism for belonging

A friend sent me the following poem. She knows I miss the trees that grew on our land when we lived in Upstate NY. 

The Mangroves
by Mary Oliver

As I said before, I am living now

in a warm place, surrounded by

mangroves.  Mostly I walk beside

them, they discourage entrance.

The black oaks and the pines

of my northern home are in my heart,

even as I hear them whisper, “Listen,

we are trees too.”  Okay, I’m trying.  They

certainly put on an endless performance

of leaves.  Admiring is easy, but affinity,

that does take some time.  So many

and so leggy and all of them rising as if

attempting to escape this world which, don’t

they know it, can’t be done.  “Are you

trying to fly or what?”  I ask, and they

answer back, “We are what we are, you

are what you are, love us if you can.”

I think about trees a lot.  I am thinking increasingly more about Central Florida trees.  I love the big shade trees that provide the forest canopy:  American Sycamores, Live Oaks, Laurel Oaks, Cabbage Palms, Southern Magnolias, Bald Cypress, and whatever the hell kind of pine trees those are.  There are many more. Unfortunately, I do not know what most of these native trees are called and it is frustrating to not know their names. 

I also think about the understory in natural areas; the smaller trees, palms, and shrubs that grow below the canopy trees providing the deep, dark, wild feeling to the woods.  Without the understory there would be no snakes, no lizards, no fairies!  Anyway, I especially want to thank who or whatever is in charge of creation for Saw Palmetto, Beautyberry, and Firebush.  Nice job!

We live near a really nice, long bike trail.  My husband, T, and I both have Electra Townie bikes.  I have heard them referred to as city bikes, or cruisers.  You can sit up fairly straight as you ride.  They are oldster bikes, and we love them. Mine has black and tan Hawaiian print plastic fenders.  I also have brown leather hand grips and seat, and a black mesh market basket for the front.  The basket comes off easily when we go to the Farmer's Market.  My bike is très chic! 


The younger bikers speed past me on the left, hunched over on their sleek, fast bikes with uncomfortable seats.  They are going places, I can see that.  I am simply meandering along with the trail. 

At what point did I go from being a dynamic youngster to a daydreaming oldster?  I don't remember.  Age snuck up on me.  However, by the time I noticed, I was ready to slow down.  So far I am reasonably happy with aging, except for this unfortunate thing that has become my neck.  I am definitely happy with retirement.  I do not miss being in a hurry.  I enjoy having time to think.  As long as we both stay healthy and active it is a pretty good gig.

Occasionally someone on a fast bike will yell "nice bike!" as they whizz by.  I have to confess; sometimes I wonder if they are laughing at me.  That's OK, sometimes I laugh at what they look like in their biking costumes.  Nevertheless, I admire their energy.  I hope they get wherever they are going on time and I send loving and encouraging thoughts their way 'cause, you know, they are the future and all that.  I prefer to believe they are happy to see older people still active on the bike trail.  If they are lucky, someday it could be them on the trail riding an Electra Townie with Hawaiian print fenders.  Maybe they are lusting after my bike!  Yeah, that's probably it.  Bikers, for the most part, seem like a pretty decent bunch.

On our morning bike rides we go through beautiful natural areas that are being bulldozed and razed for new housing developments.  There are more and more of them.  It scares me.  I fear someday there will no longer be a canopy or an understory surrounding any part of the trail.  The large, old trees are the first to come down.  They once shaded the trail. Now more and more of the trail is open to the blazing sun because of the developers' lack of vision.  It is hotter than hell down here, we NEED some shade.  I do not understand people who only care about making a profit.

I guess a developer can make more money if s/he eliminates all the mature trees on the site.  That way they can lay out the ever bigger houses closer and closer together, without regard for trees or tree roots, which are just an obstacle to development if you think about it... 

The newer subdivisions have huge houses that are unbelievably close together with virtually no back yard.  There is no way they can have pools, or trampolines, or swing sets out back.  There is no room.  Oh Gee, now I am filled with anxiety about the future of humanity.  I need to take a pill, and quick.

When you have a very tiny yard you cannot plant large shade trees to replace the ones that were destroyed when the house was built. Not only is there not enough space for them to grow, it would take 20 - 30 years for them to reach a decent size.  Instead, the developers "landscape" by sticking in spindly palms here and there.  I like palms but a single palm tree provides virtually no shade and anyway, most people trim them to look like trees that belong in a Dr. Seuss landscape.  I would laugh if it didn't make me want to cry.  It cannot be good for a palm tree to be over-manicured like that.  They are trees, too.

If only it WAS mangroves I was seeing when I walked outside my house in this damn Central Florida subdivision! Mangroves are seriously interesting trees. Why couldn't our daughter, M, and her family have moved to the Florida Keys so we could have followed them there to be near the grandkids?  I could have passed as normal in the Conch Republic.  Plus, I always figured retirement would be my last chance to be an outlaw.  Yet another dream deferred.

Fury Road

T and I finally went to see the new Mad Max movie (Fury Road) the other night.  Fury Road was not nearly as good as the gloriously futuristic Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, from 1981.  Fury Road fell short because it has a few of the corn-ball, Disneyesque elements that ruined Beyond Thunderdome for me.  

OK, I realize I am probably losing my audience right now.  Yes, this is a 63 year old woman writing a review of a post apocalyptic action movie.  Let me ask you to keep an open mind for a few moments, though. I am trying to figure out WHY I liked Fury Road.  If you have any sense of the absurd at all, the fact that a 63 year old woman can like a movie like this is weird enough that it justifies further consideration.

• It was fun, fast paced, and loud
• I like it when the bad guys get blown up
• The bad guys looked like neo-nazi skin heads, making it even more satisfying to see them get blown up
• The skinheads go into battle with a heavy metal music war-vehicle featuring skin head drummers on back and a headbanger guitar player tied to the front playing a huge red electric guitar
• The skin head army is motivated to fight and die in battle by their leader's exhortation that dying in battle is the price they must pay for entrance into paradise, Valhalla (giving even Vikings a bad name!). 

Gotta love all that!  Most compelling for me, Fury Road includes a story line wherein women are trying to help each other.  Women are trying to be heroic.  It alluded to actual female culture (a rarity in any kind of movie) and there was no great romance.  Post apocalyptic, indeed!

Fury Road's good guys included women of various ages, including multiple gray haired women. I liked that, too; although they most certainly did not develop the characters for the old women.  Come on, it is a pop culture movie and it is NEVER going to get it right or be great art.  But at least they acknowledged the older women as courageous and worthy human beings. They also put them on motorcycles and gave them guns. That's new.

Deep Thought

The other morning I almost made pasta sauce with peppermint instead of oregano.

I decided to make red sauce in the slow cooker for a change.  I have two friends who are sisters.  I have known them since high school.  Their Italian mother used to make a memorable sauce wherein she simmered it all day.  It was the best thing I had ever tasted when I was 16.  They keep telling me her sauce only consisted of tomato paste and veal, but I cannot bring myself to cook with calf meat; it is too sad.  I wondered if I could get a similar intensity of flavor with my own red sauce if I used the slow cooker for, say, 7 hours?  I figured while it cooked I could go to the Farmer's Market and buy veggies, and perhaps even purchase the Gardenia I have been dreaming about.  Maybe two.

I had just finished watching a 20 minute long YouTube video of Oprah interviewing the Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, Thích Nhất Hạnh.  Just to give you an idea about how special this guy is, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967.  His thoughts on suffering and compassion, anger and love are pretty logical; not the least bit goofy.  I was feeling kind of spiritual, hopeful even, after watching the video.  Considering my nearly constant struggles with the issues he raised, I was a bit preoccupied as I subsequently started to make the red sauce. I was deep in thought.

We have both oregano and basil in large pots on our lanai, as well as spearmint and peppermint, cilantro, and thyme.  I need some dill.  I am trying to grow tarragon from seed, but I am not having any luck.  I know it is because tarragon cannot grow here; they don't even sell it at Lowe's.  What is wrong with me that I cannot surrender to reality?  Even though Lowe's does not sell French Tarragon, they do sell something called Mexican Tarragon.  I imagine it is really Mexican Marigold Mint.  I should stop being so damned stubborn and give it a try. 

I am usually too lazy to cook with fresh herbs.  T is the master cook around here.  But I just had my mind blown by a holy man and I was determined to be uber-cool and make dinner with fresh herbs.  Yeah - "cool."  I got it all wrong as usual.  I am not bragging.  Sometimes I cannot stand myself.

Anyway, I was deep in thought about issues of great spiritual import while I was harvesting herbs.  Thinking does not make for mindfulness, by the way.  The peppermint is right next to the oregano.  I happily snipped peppermint sprigs and brought them into the house to clean them alongside the basil.   Luckily they did not smell right when I washed them and my olfactory senses brought me back to reality.  I thought, "Wow, this is really odd oregano" before recognizing it for what it was, reliving the snipping experience in my mind, and realizing I had been hacking away at the wrong herb.  Sometimes I forget that I need to pull my head out of the sand once in awhile and come up for air. 

I am almost sure I don't have dementia, nor was it a Senior Moment.  I have always been like this.  I can be a very sloppy thinker.  On the road of life I am more of a daydreaming passenger than a focused driver.

I took a break from writing and went to the Farmer's Market to buy that Gardenia.  I am sad to say the Gardenia vendor was not there.  It was disappointing; however, I will try again next week.

The best part of my trek to the market was stumbling upon a new vendor, a lovely middle-aged, red-headed Belgian woman.  Her red hair was pulled up in back and she had long, straight bangs.  She was elegantly slender, as so many of those Northern European women are, and she was wearing a simple, sleeveless white cotton dress with a nice, tasteful green design that looked to be stamped on the fabric.  I want straight hair.  I want that dress.  I wonder if they make it in a size 14, petite?

She was selling French Madeleines, Dutch Specaloos, and Belgian Waffles.  I was beside myself with joy.  Her accent was heavy and her command of English was weak.  Still, I persisted in engaging her in conversation.  I discovered she had only been in the States for 5 weeks.  She had a French/English dictionary lying on the counter in case she could not remember a word in English.  That just about broke my heart. T and I did a stint at the Farmer's Market last winter selling homemade candles.  I know how rough some of those customers can be, even when English is your first language.  I was a little in awe of her courage in managing the kiosk alone.

She was a stranger in a strange land and by all that is holy I wanted to make her feel welcome. Talking to her reminded me of the multicultural landscape I used to inhabit over the 37 years I worked at Cornell. 

Getting to interact with people from all over the world was the very best part of my working years.  I was a staff member, not an academic.  Being in a place where I could actually interact with people from other countries was heady stuff for a working stiff like me.  I often shepherded new and confused foreign faculty or graduate students through the workings of a complex university bureaucracy. I always felt honored to help them. 

Like me, the pastry vendor had recently left her home, a place she loved, to move to this strange place called Central Florida to be near her grown child.  Unlike me, she has two other children.  One still lives in Belgium, and the other lives in Vietnam.  She will be visiting her son in Vietnam this summer.  What a brave soul she seemed to be.  It is interesting, living a life.  When you live for love you never know where life might take you. 

Speaking of which, I bought a bag of madeleines and a bag of specaloos and I drove home.  When I got inside I wondered why I had not bought the Belgian waffles, too?  She had told me she made with Belgian Chocolate chips!  I got back in the car, drove back down to the Farmer's Market and bought the waffles. Good thing, too, because those were T's favorite.

Our tween granddaughter, E The Magnificent, was spending the night with us that night.  She imagines herself a foodie.  I looked forward to sharing them with her and T.  Perhaps someday, many years from now, she will be eating a madeleine and will suddenly, inexplicably remember her dear old grandparents.  I understand eating madeleines with a hot beverage can invoke these special powers.  Of course, I forgot the tea!

I recently started counting calories again.  I rode my bike in advance to make room on my balance sheet for pastry.

Just Plain Mean

When I was a little girl I liked to hide just out of sight on the breezeway steps so I could hear my mother and Bernie (the next door neighbor who also happened to be my adored and adoring godmother) gossip at the kitchen table.  They had a coffee klatch every morning while the men were at work, and I loved to hear those women talk.  I learned a lot that way. Most of what I learned while surreptitiously listening to The Women was about human nature, about people and what motivated their actions.  It was fascinating and my interest in analyzing people's motives and desires has never waned. 

I am fairly certain Mom never realized I was there, listening.  She probably never knew what a treasure trove of illicit information she was for me.  Talk about a liberal education in the humanities!  Those two women were pretty insightful.  Not only did they do a close reading of most people, they deconstructed them to the bare bone.  I think that is one of the reasons I did not want to go to kindergarten.  Good stuff was happening at home in the kitchen.  That and I did not want to miss watching Captain Kangaroo.  I loved Bunny Rabbit. Not as much as Mighty Mouse, but almost.

One thing I suspected back then, and have since learned to be true, is that some people are just plain mean.

If you do not believe me, move someplace new or start a different job where you do not know anyone and they do not know you.  The Big Meanies will step up to bat and reveal themselves to be players, quick as shit.

I am beginning to understand meanness.  I think it is a strategy insecure people use to maintain the status quo and to ensure that others will not be mean to them.  Big Meanies are cruel to newcomers as a means to establish their authority and mark their territory.  We really are just base human animals when we do not take the time to think or feel. 

Newcomers suffer accordingly; eventually the Big Meanies throw them a bone of kindness to test the waters and see if they will bite.  By then the newcomers are so traumatized by isolation and loneliness they will do anything to make the BM like them, including agreeing with everything the aggressive BM says or does for the rest of their natural born lives. Ick. It is all so disturbingly stupid.  I am determined to forgive people when they hurt me, because I know they often cannot help themselves.  However, I would have to be an idiot to then want to be around someone like that, or to forget what they are capable of.  Cruelty is a social game I prefer not to play.

Try not to take it personal if it happens to you.  It is almost always about them (the BM), and rarely about you.  You could be anyone and the mean person would respond in the same exact way.  They do not realize their insecurities are showing.  BMs mistake meanness of spirit for strength.  And they want to feel strong.  We all want to feel strong, and it is much easier to be mean than to be kind.  It just is.

I hate to say it... but exposing yourself to a Big Meanie from time to time might just be good for what my Father used to refer to as "your immortal soul."  Allowing yourself to be vulnerable is brave.  Only when you are vulnerable will you notice the scarcity of good intentions that exist in this old world.  This is information you need to know and can definitely use!  Understanding meanness just might tip the scales as to whether you become a Big Meanie yourself or not.  We all have that meanness in us.  I try to control mine each and every day.  Mean is one of those things you have to actually try hard not to be.  Making that noble effort is part of our humanity.  When we think and feel and empathize, we become more fully human.

You really notice meanness when you become a stranger.  Middle class culture did not invent the Welcome Wagon to make newcomers feel welcome, they invented it as a marketing tool to get newbies to spend their money at local businesses and to introduce them to local norms.  If your neighbor brings you a cake as a "welcome to the neighborhood present" for no other reason than s/he wants to make you feel welcome, then by all means glom on to her/him.  S/he is a kind person - a rare find.

What I really hate are cliques.  I hated them a million years ago when I was in high school and I hate them now.  Is there anything more distasteful than adults  circling the wagons for no better reason than to exclude others so as to maintain the status quo? 

I guess I understand how cliques happen and why they exist.  Belonging to one is the easy way out.  We work hard to build relationships with people who are like us, who share our values.  I am not saying values are good or bad, I am just saying all too often what is most important in cliques is that the values are shared.

I know, I know, it feels good when everyone is just like you. But a personality can molder if life is too straight and narrow. All too often "easy" just turns out to mean dumb, and "safe" turns out to mean lazy.  Most of us will not put in the effort required to think about an issue unless we are challenged.

So why am I bringing this up?  Someone was mean to me, and it got me thinking.  See what I mean?

Good Grief and the Good Earth

What is this thing they call dirt in Central Florida?  It looks like sand mixed with a little topsoil to me.  You should have seen my face when I first dug up a clump of "grass" only to find salt and pepper underneath trying to pass as dirt.  I was perplexed.

I am spoiled when it comes to soil.  I grew up in the 1950's and 1960's in the Midwestern corn belt.  The dirt was dark and rich and vital. If you stuck a seed in the ground it would never fail to grow. My sweet Mother had a vegetable garden as well as flowers.  Getting things to grow was never a problem for her.  When I was a little girl, I liked to follow her around to see what she was going to do next. She was everything to me back then.  I knew if I stuck close to her, interesting things would happen.

Outside in late spring or early summer, she would sometimes keep me out of her hair by giving me a packet of zinnia seeds to plant. They would most definitely sprout and grow into beautiful flowers.  They were my flowers.  I helped them grow from tiny seeds.  It was magical.  That is probably when I first caught the gardening bug.  Thank you, Ma!

When T and I first moved to upstate New York, we would often go for long drives in the country to compensate for living our lives as worker bees in town.  We could not help but notice the soil when the NYS farmers would till their fields. Those Upstate New York fields were filled with large rocks.  How in the world they manage to plant crops I will never know.  Apparently it is a constant struggle because with freezing and thawing the ground keeps pushing up rocks from the deepest depths of the earth.  If you notice a preponderance of lovely stone walls and fences in NYS it is because each year the farmers have to pull big stones and slabs of rock out of the fields so they can plant seeds. They have to do something with those piles of rocks. Consequently, stone fences are what they used to mark their property lines and field borders.  It must have been especially hard and discouraging work for the early settlers with their simple tools.  Thankfully they stuck with it and figured out how to work that stubborn land. They created beautiful stone fences with the rocks and stones.  The results are unique and amazing, well worth the effort. 

Once we moved out of town and into the country we got serious about perennial gardening.  In addition to removing rocks, we enriched the heavy clay soil on our land.  T was still young back then.  He did some impressive "double digging" for numerous perennial beds. We read gardening books.  We badgered other gardeners with questions. We made mistakes. We figured it out. We changed. We learned.

The first year on that land my Mom came to visit and brought us small, old-fashioned yellow bearded irises she dug out of her own garden.  She also brought us a start from her infamous trumpet vine.  The original plant had been in her father's garden.  She took a cutting from his trumpet vine before he died in 1961 and she kept it alive all those years.  Those were the plants we started with.  

For years we mulched with composted horse manure in order to improve that soil.  Is there anything more comforting than having a mountain of composted horse manure delivered to and dumped on your property?  As I said, we lived in the country.  It was fully composted, so it did not smell. No one ever complained about our manure pile. I figured they wished they had one, too.  Who wouldn't? 

We spent every weekend for 6 weeks each spring shoveling shit into our wheelbarrow and then hauling it all over our land to mulch the flower beds.  Eventually the mountain became a mole hill.  When it was gone, I would plant pumpkin seeds in the good dirt that remained and it became the source for our Halloween pumpkins. 

I am assuming our current HOA will not allow us to have a mountain of composted horse manure delivered to our front yard in this subdivision in Central Florida.  Bummer.  Where would we put it?  In the garage?  Oh, that IS an evil thought.  Please do not let me do that.  Instead, we must buy our composted cow manure in bags, for crying out loud. Like normal people. How did it come to this?

So here we are starting over, not knowing the land nor understanding the soil. Again.

I get up each morning and stroll out through the lanai, peering out of our screened-in "birdcage" to stare at the new plantings in the back yard, imagining they have grown overnight.  I need to get my fat ass out the screen door and commune with those plants!  I need to walk the land, and stop thinking of it as just a small yard.  The Good Earth deserves more respect.  I need to surrender to this sandy soil and figure out what likes to grow in it. 

A friend once gave me a button that said "I don't know where I am going, but I'm on my way!"   It made me smile because it was so true.  I like to think this is me at my best, aching and floundering; slouching towards change much like Yeats' rough beast from Bethlehem. 

Up North I had daylilies of every type and color I could find. The wild ones started blooming in late June.  I thought wild daylilies were the most beautiful wildflower of all; however, now that I have seen Maypops in the wild at Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont, Florida, wild daylilies may have to try harder to get my vote.  Maypops are also called passionflower vine.  The Latin name for Maypops is "Passiflora incarnata!"  I think you get the picture.

Once the wild daylilies were spent Up North, one hybrid variety after another would bloom through the end of August.  I loved my daylilies.  For 9 long months of every cold, gray year I waited for them.  When they poked their way out of the earth and started growing, I was happy.  I miss them like an old friend.  I heard rumors there are varieties that grow in zone 9.  I am not sure if I believe it because I have yet to see a daylily down here. 

The last ones I saw were Stella D'Oro daylilies just starting to bloom at a South Carolina rest stop on our way down to Florida in late March 2014.  I distinctly remember how happy I was to see them!  We were homeless, frazzled, and on the road.  And then I saw them.  I trilled to T: "Oh, the daylilies are starting to bloom here!"  Then I thought, "Oh yeah, WE don't HAVE any daylilies." I got back in the car and we resumed our journey to Central Florida, slouching all the way.

I mourn the loss of my sweet Mother's yellow bearded irises. That is another plant you cannot grow down here.  Now that Mom is gone, I wish I could have brought some with me.  However, I know they would not have survived. Instead, I am planting Louisiana irises in a wet area next to the house.  I think I will like them more than bearded irises anyway.  They have a more elegant shape.  My mother would understand.

I am quite happy to be free of that damned trumpet vine.  I loved my Grandpa, but his legacy plant quickly became a greedy gut, invasive weed that wanted to take over my soul. I was tired of fighting it. 

I actually bought three Stella D'Oro plants last month and put them in the ground.  Not to worry, I enriched the soil. Stella's are small, but they are the mighty workhorses of the daylily world.  If any daylily can make it in Central Florida it will be Stella. 

Unfortunately, it is only late May and my daylilies already seem to be burning up.  I am not used to watering daylilies.  I am more of a "survival of the fittest" gardener.  But I have been watering these.  I am going to give them my all.  If I cannot have a daylily on my land I fear I might have to rethink just about everything I believe to be true and good.  Then again, maybe it is time to rethink everything.  Canna lilies are good.  It is also true that I can grow them here.

Here is a photo of everything I believed to be true and good circa 2013 in Upstate New York:

Here is Ma's old fashioned yellow bearded iris:

Here is a photo from behind the naturalized "drop-gardening" area looking up towards our old garage.  Refer to my Flower Lust post for more about my "drop-gardening" technique.  The house is hidden behind that Crimson King maple tree on the right. If you look real hard you will see my Grandpa's trumpet vine blooming up in front of the brown garage like a small tree.  That garage was great, too.  It had garage doors in front (facing the street) and in back (facing the gardens).  Brilliant design for riding lawnmowers:

 

Below is a better shot of that damn Trumpet Vine.  T built a pergola for it to climb over, but it really wanted to climb up over the roof and embed its sticky suckers under and over the roofing tiles.  It did such damage to the garage.  We had to cut it back, hard, every year; but still it persisted. It was WAY stronger and more determined than we were.  It dropped seeds that grew all over the ground in front of it, and in every garden bed close by.  They always grew and their roots were deep.  Trumpet Vine can serve as an inspiration to us all but in someone else's garden, please.

Claustrophobia

I just came back from an imaging clinic where I was supposed to have an MRI.  I am wildly, breathtakingly claustrophobic and the prospect of having an MRI is one of those big ass fears that can keep me up at night.  I understand why I have to be awake for this procedure.  I need to periodically hold my breath while the MRI technicians take pictures.  Yes, that is correct - they want to stick my entire body inside a narrow, enclosed tube AND they want me to repeatedly hold my breath while they take pictures.  Half way through they will then pull me out, inject me full of dye and then stick me back in the tube to do the procedure all over again until I am done.  This should only last 35 to 40 minutes they said.  I thought: that is about how long Survivor lasts if you take out all the commercial breaks.

The clinic staff are not able to do an MRI on a fully sedated person.  You have to go to the hospital for that.  I told everyone before and up until I laid down on that damned MRI table, including my doctor when she originally called to recommend this procedure,  that I was seriously claustrophobic.  I am not sure why they still sent me to the clinic where I would have to be awake for this procedure.  Perhaps "seriously" was not a dramatic or descriptive enough adjective.  I will communicate more effectively  next time.  Sometimes it seems like no one really cares enough to listen, though.  Or maybe they are listening but they do not really care.  Or maybe the burden is on me and the lesson here is to be even more dramatic.

At the time of the procedure I was mildly sedated on Valium, and all ready to go.  I felt pretty good, Valium being what it is, but I most certainly did not feel adequately drugged or anxiety free.  They were inserting me into the miserable MRI tube and my head was just starting to follow my shoulders inside when the panic hit.  And when I say "panic" what I really mean is "terror."  And when I say "hit" I mean that I was psychically sucker punched.  I simply had to make them stop, which I did.  I could not let my head enter that tube.  The horror of claustrophobia was too great.  I had hoped I could just keep my eyes closed, listen to the music on the headphones and wait it out.  I had practiced deep breathing in anticipation of this event.  I wanted to get this over with.  I wanted to do this.  But no, I could not.  I just could not do it.  Damn. 

Just for the record, I did not freak out or fling my body parts all over trying to get up.  I simply said "Stop," and they stopped.  I then said, "I don't think I am going to be able to do this."  I was calm.  However, there is no doubt in my mind that if my head had gone inside that miserable tube, I would have destroyed it trying to get out. 

The two aides then asked me to relax on the MRI table, wait for a few minutes to see if the Valium would overcome my fear, and then try again.  I said OK, because I aim to please.  Plus, I really wanted to get this stupid procedure over with.  And, of course, I was weighted down on the table with with substantial magnetic throws and I had earphones on.  Waiting seemed like the right thing to do.  After a few minutes when they came over to me and asked if I was ready to try again, I had to say no.  Just the thought of my head once again slowly moving into that miserable tube was enough to make me want to jump out of my skin.  Mere Valium was not going to alleviate my fear.  

Now I will have to go to the hospital where they will put me out and an anesthesiologist will take charge of monitoring and, when needed, holding my breath for me while I am "asleep."  I do not find that reassuring.  The clinic staff are not waiting for me to make the appointment (so I can put it off indefinitely), they are making the appointment. 

I have been re-watching Star Trek, Deep Space Nine for the past few months.  Great series, with a wonderfully bright, genetically enhanced doctor.  HE has a hand-held scanner that he uses quite effectively as a diagnostic tool.  That is exactly what is needed here.

I wonder if Xanax or Ativan might have been a better sedative choice?