And So Today, My Potato Smiles

Every January, I take time to reflect on the past year and think of what I want to do differently in the New Year. While my resolutions always list many of the same goals—eat healthier, exercise more, and weigh less, I also like to add new pledges, too. Last year, I chose intentional kindness. Choosing a similar goal for 2013 was especially hard since the year began with the fiscal cliff, the rising debt ceiling, the aftermath of the tragic school shooting, and the memory of Hurricane Sandy’s devastation. I felt weighed down and arid.

I'm lagging behind and barely making my intentions by the end of January, but I tell myself it's never too late to choose a mode of self improvement or look for  a way to better the world. First, I realized I needed to get out of my funk.

I didn't have to go to Google to search. The answer was right in my kitchen. While foraging in the fridge for salad makings, I realized I wasn’t alone. There, on the middle shelf sat my potato bowl and in it, yes, my potato was smiling. I smiled back and ran to get my camera. That friendly potato lifted my spirits and set my mind farther along on my quest. But I wasn't where I needed to be yet.


The next morning I pulled out my plastic container of Florida strawberries. Plump and delicious, their fragrance beckoned. Lo and behold, inside nestled a strawberry heart. And just like the refrigerator light went on, I knew what course I should take. It was as evident as the smile on my potato's face and the curve of my fruited heart.

This year, I will look for the extraordinary in the ordinary, search for the beauty and uniqueness that a busy life often hides. I will try to view my world through a childlike lens.

That, I realized, was exactly what this year's special resolution should be. I needed to see the wonder of the ordinary. So, my goal this year is to see the world in new and different ways, to seek all its beauty and not permit the state of the world to make me lose an appreciation of what is before me. And so, that is where I am now. I’m pledging to become more childlike.

Rachel Carson said it so well: “A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.” With a conscious effort, I believe that doesn’t have to be so. And so, I am going to set out to view what was before me in a new and different perspective.

So, I invite you to consider joining me in purposely choosing to see the world through a child’s eyes. Searching for and treasuring the wonders that exist in our every day life won’t solve our country’s larger issues, but it will surely enhance our day to day experiences.

Here are a few more words on the value of nurturing your inner child:

“If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characterizes children…” Jean Piaget, Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher

“The end of childhood is when things cease to astonish us. When the world seems familiar, when one has got used to existence, one has become an adult.” Eugene Ionesco, French playwright

"We must remain close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet much taller than they are..." Friedrich Nietszche

                                                                                       
For more hints on successful goal setting, check out my blog, "How to make (and keep) Resolutions

 

It's all in a word

            Recently a neighbor told me a story about an old man she’d met at a graduation party.

“How old was he?” I asked.

“Old,” she said, “Had to be seventy-five, at least.”

“Oh, you mean he was an old(er) man.”

She looked at me with a blank stare and must have realized that I had to be approaching the age of the man she was telling me about. It was at that moment I decided I would never be “old,” but simply “old(er).” So much young(er) sounding, don’t you think?

 

The word “old” is a word to describe food left too long in the refrigerator. It just doesn’t smell right. Or underwear with holes in it.  Something to throw out.

As I ponder the vast chasm created between these words simply by adding -er, I realize what power the simple suffix holds. After all, who wouldn’t want to be rich(er) rather than just rich, smart(er) rather than smart, or thinn(er) rather than thin. Ah, scratch that last one. I’d settle for just thin since that’s not been an adjective applied to me in too many years to count… But the adding of this mighty mite of a suffix can also have a negative voice too. After all, who would want to be fatt(er) than fat or mean(er) than mean?

Just below that article, I see another headline, "Baby delivered by Atlantic City Policeman." Now there's an age word that conjures all positive images like cuddly and cute. All good unless you happen to be a new parent, then you might add sleepless nights.

I begin thinking of other words that connote ages. Teens, now there's one that definitely has a note of cool to it. Then again, for parents, it probably translates to more sleepless nights. How about middle age? I remember viewing that milestone as the first stumbling block in the world of age descriptors. That term resonated as rather frumpy and indecisive. Looking back, I see it as the approach to the precipice of negative age words.

And now, I’m really feeling unnerved by this whole age quantifier. I decide to check out some of the experts’ views. Erikson, that’s where I’ll start. During my graduate counseling courses he was always my go to guy for a psychosocial theory of development. Each stage of life, he believed, involves a particular task in order to move on to the next stage of life. I consult my number one research tool: Google.

Definitely, a downer. Strange, I think, how as a forty-year old student, I believed he was right on target, totally hitting the bulls eye of life. Now I’m not so sure. I read on and see I’ve reached the eighth stage of development. The point at which I must answer the question,  Did I lead a meaningful life?

 

Wait a minute. I’m still in the midst of that meaningful life, busy trying to do all the things I never had time to do. No time to worry about the past. Maybe lat(er)… I read on and see that according to my former counseling super guru I am also at the final stage, the last step on the stairs, of my earth journey. That sounds so final. And according to Erikson, this stage started at age 65. I don’t let that number get to me, though, because a lot has changed since he developed his thesis sometime in the ‘50’s. 

 

     I continue reading and see my present life task is all about reflecting back on my past life. Well, I have to grudgingly admit he may have a point there. I do find myself thinking about my former experiences from time to time and I know my children and grandchildren get a glazed look in their eyes when I repeat stories they’ve heard a gazillion times. The word “gazillion” is one of their words, not mine. And so, I guess I must admit that I am in that place. Sort of, but not totally. 

But more than I think about my past life, I think of the present and the future with hope for what is ahead. Instead of focusing on reflections of past accomplishments and misdeeds, my efforts include tasks like finding a place to dance—before 11 PM to music I love. And if not, I can always dance in the kitchen with my lov(er), the old(er) man who’s danced with me for the past 50 years.

So, I will continue to grow old(er), but never be old.

  

psychology.about.com/od/psychosocialtheories/a/psychosocial.htm

Flowers of Winter

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.  ~J.M. Barrie, Courage, 1922

 

Every December, as Christmas approaches and the end of the year draws near, for me, is a time of reflection, a looking back. Generally, this contemplative time begins after the shopping and mailing of packages is completed. But this year, my annual life review threatened to sabotage the necessary tasks that come with the holiday.  Daydreaming replaced concentrated, organized gift selection!

I blame the change on my neighbor, Harry, a consummate gardener whose talents we enjoy all summer from our front deck. The day before Thanksgiving, he brought over brought over an armful of roses from his still flowering garden. We were enjoying a wonderfully warm fall, even eating lunch in the sunny protected corner of our porch. "Hard to believe they're still growing," he said.

"Yes," I answered. "Hard to believe, but wonderful, too." I clipped the stems and placed the bouquet in a green vase on my dining room table. In the next few weeks, I passed by the roses a lot. Each time I did, I thought how comforting it was to see them bloom this time of year.

As the temperature dipped and we moved further into December, Harry's bouquet brought to mind Barrie's wonderful quote and my thoughts turned to how increasingly important the role memory takes as we get older. Not that I'm done making memories—not by a long shot, I hope! After all, I'm only seventy now. I still cling to the autumn years of my life, with their wonderful lingering warmth from my summer season.

I like to think the winter of my life is still far from away, but based on how rapidly my life has gone thus far, I know the approaching winter of my life is much closer than I want to believe. Sometimes, I wonder about what it will be like once my winter fully arrives.

We visit a senior center once a month to do a program entitled, "Remember When." These seniors (older than I am, of course!) are firmly entrenched definitely in the winter of their lives. They prefer sharing their memories, memories evoked by old the movies, events, and songs of their summer years, mostly the forties and fifties, rather than their later years. I learn from them that the days ahead can also be filled with joy and laughter, but most of all, bolstered by the memories that keep us warm.

Here's a few nonscientific things I've come to believe about how memory works as we get older:

• Memory is fluid and dynamic, ever changing. Each memory takes on a different hue, tone, and meaning when we view it from a distance created by time.
• Memory is a way of holding onto the things we love. It tells us who we are in our innermost self, and is tied to things we never want to lose. As a result, it only a natural evolution that we find it holds so much a larger part in our lives as we age.
• Memory is the book we write in the silence of our hearts. And like writers, we can discover the freedom to alter our history and tell it a little more like we wanted it to be. Have you ever noticed how the fish in any fisherman's tale gets larger with each telling?
• Memories, like the proverbial fine wine, improve with age. And as we get older, we gradually may become the only one who is the memory keeper of our family. An awesome, but joyful thing to contemplate!
• Memory is selective. As Austin O'Malley notes, "Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food. Nora Ephron speaks of this in her new book, "I Remember Nothing." Have you ever searched your mind for details of some neamingul event in your life and come up blank, yet you can remember an incident that would appear to have no significance whatsoever in the broad schematic of life?
• Memory, like the sea glass we find on the beach, holds fragments that we treasure without reason. Or as Cesare Pavese (The Burning Brand) says so well, "We do not remember days; we remember moments."
• Memory of our childhood remains imprinted in our memory bank for all of our lives. Sometimes, I ask myself why I remember all the details of my elementary school yet scarcely remember the hallways of the college I attended when I was forty years old?
• Memory of bad moments come mostly in the middle of the night. Have you had any of those moments when what you failed to do or did haunt you?

Bob Hope always finished his performances with a song called, "Thanks for the memories." Yet, memories are the flowers of our winter and it would be a very cold time without them. And like the roses of winter, they keep us warm. They're what we're made of and what we're left with.

Quotes That Stand the Test of Time

How so many writers throughout history have been able to pen words that endure through the years always fills me with awe, especially when they pack a lot of ageless wisdom into those words.

So, whenever I see a quote I like, I add it to my "angel" book, noting the date and the individual who laced those words together so well. Eventually, I'll collate them all into a small collection, note why I like them and take it to Staples and have it made into a spiral book for family members—my way to keep those wonderful quotes alive and share what I love with those I love.

When I was writing a recent blog, "A world without childhood?" the expression, "youth is wasted on the young," came to mind. While I didn't use it in my posting, I keep wondering: Is it a quote or a cliché? Or a quote that became a cliché? Sayings sometimes seem to have a way of doing that—said so often that time seems to wear them down like the tires on a farm truck. It wasn't in my book of clichés, so once again, I turned to Google, the place where you can find almost anything except a clean pair of underwear.

When the page came up, I was surprised to see George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) coined that expression. My curiosity piqued, I searched through some of his other quotes. Definitely found some that belong in my quote book. But what truly amazed me was how relevant they are today. Consider these quotes:

On Politics

• "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul." Whatever side of the political fight over what our country should do or not do regarding tax cuts/increases and the nation's debt crisis, this quote would certainly describe the views of some of our politicians, don't you think?
• "An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it." It seems to me whenever any politician appears to rise in the polls, some hint of scandal or incapacitating illness surfaces. Like Michelle Bachmann's migraines. She wouldn't ever be my choice, but would a migraine really preclude her ability to be president? Pundits predict the 2012 election will be the worst negative campaign in the history of our country.
• "An asylum for the sane would be empty in America." Do I need to add any comment to this quote?

On life

• "Don't waste your youth on growing up." This hits home today especially when I see little girls sporting Madonna like outfits and eye make up, or little girls playing with breast feeding dolls. Childhood needs to be a time to be a child. Otherwise, George Bernard Shaw's other quote, "Youth is wasted on the young," becomes sad but true.

• "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." So, whatever your age, be silly! Dance in the kitchen or join a flash mob, perform at an Open Mic, sing in a karaoke bar, wear whatever you like no matter how much you hate your flabby arms. As my grandson, John says, "take a risk."
• "I want to be all used up when I die." This quote is perhaps my favorite of all. Such a lovely sentiment—to have done everything you've wanted to do, to have lived life fully with no regrets, to have loved unconditionally, loved long and hard.. Yes, I definitely want to be all used up when I die.

Facts about George Bernard Shaw:

1. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1925.
2. For seven years, he wrote five unsuccessful novels.
3. He was a socialist.
4. He supported women's rights and wrote about them in 1891.
5. His last play, Why She Would Not, was completed on July 23, 1950, three days before his ninety-fourth birthday.
6. One of his most famous plays was Pygmalion.

For more information about this great playwright, visit these sites.
Bernard: A Brief Biography
http://www.biography.com/articles/George-Bernard-Shaw-9480925"
http://www.notablebiographies.com/Sc-St/Shaw-George-Bernard.html

A World without Childhood?

My lunchtime drink of choice is always Diet Peach Snapple. I love the taste. An added bonus is checking out the fact printed on the lid of each bottle. Some are funny, others surprising, but all are conversation starters. Yesterday's was thought provoking: "Bees are born fully grown."

Now, many of you may have already known that, but somewhere in my science education, I missed that lesson. The thought of anything being born fully grown never occurred to me. Imagine no frisky puppies, soft little kittens, or pink piglets. Sounds rather glum, doesn't it?

Sure enough, Will, my significant other, and I became fully immersed in thinking about this phenomenon. Will brought up a movie we'd seen entitled "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." The lead, Brad Pitt (Benjamin), is born old and gradually grows younger—the opposite of what really happens in life. And while not quite the same scenario as being born fully grown, it's the same kind of premise that can spur the "what if" in many of us.

So, what would it be like to be born fully grown? As I went through the day, the concept continued to tickle my imagination. Who would I be if I had no childhood? The older I get, the more I realize how my childhood shaped me. I find myself thinking more about those earlier years than I ever seem to reflect on those spent working and raising a family.

We lived in the country—not the countryside you might think of with rolling hills and other houses nearby, but the isolated kind of country in one of John Steinbeck's books. Our house stood surrounded by fields of weeds. And to reach our nearest neighbor, we had to walk down the dirt road in front of our house to get to a paved road to a huge farm.


Until I went off to first grade, I didn’t see too many other children. In today's world, I guess that would sound grim and lacking in socialization, but I had my imagination and daydreaming to nourish me. I spent hours alone in the fields and the woods. Wild strawberries grew in some of the fields and I can still see myself in suspendered overalls eating them, alone but not lonely. That time spent in solitude, I believe, made me self sufficient, but perhaps a little bit of a loner.

Each spring, I followed my cat to find where she'd hid that year's litter of kittens. I'm not sure how I knew she would have them every year but I think it was because she grew fat, then thin. The question of how the kittens came to be within her never occurred to me. I think it was trust—the innocence of a child who assumes all will continue to be the same in her world.

That simple, artless time of growth is why childhood is not something to be missed. What would it be like to be born fully grown? To be without that time to be, to think, to daydream? It's a treasure we carry our entire lives, but often holds pain, too. My childhood, like most people's, is an amalgam of good and bad memories. For me, the good news is that the distance of time helped put the unhappy moments more in perspective.

My wish for you is that if your childhood was laced with more sadness than joy, you will reach that moment when the sadness is like the sting of a bee, intense when it happened, but short lived in your memory.

In Search of Shampoo

"How can I control my life when I can't control my hair?" Author Unknown

It all began innocently enough last January. We were getting ready to head south for the winter and one of my last tasks was my usual haircut. I'm not sure why, but I asked the hairdresser, "Do you think I should consider changing my hairstyle?" Maybe it was the cumulative effect of seeing myself in that hairdresser dull drape with the same short hair style for nearly fifty years. Is it time for a change?

"A bob," my hairdresser said, "it's a cut for all ages. You'd look good in that style." She said it would take about seven months to complete the transition. Being away seemed the perfect time to start. The first couple months were uneventful, with an occasional shaping to keep it in some semblance of order.

As my style change advanced, I began to realize a woman's relationship with her hair can be a complicated thing, and I begin to question whether how one chooses to wear it says something about where she is along her life journey. My daughter, Christina, believes a woman who never changes her hair is leaving it in the era where she was most happy.

Hmm. That's interesting. I first cut my hair short when I started nursing school (see picture). I know I'm much less serious these days than I was then, much more content with life, but let's face it, age 19 is a pretty exciting, carefree time in our lives. Or is that I'm merely older and less passionate about life now? I hope not.

In 1985, Hubert de Givenchy wrote in Vogue magazine, "Hairstyle is the final tip-off whether or not a woman really knows herself."(for more hair quotes, go to http://www.quotegarden.com/hair.html)  Sorry, Hubert, but I don't want to believe that. And yet...

And so, I began my pilgrimage of growth. Hair, that is. In the past, I paid little attention to my coiffure. Once I combed it in the morning, I figured it was on its own. Suddenly, I now find myself checking every mirror to make sure the ends are smooth, not sticking out in all directions. When I wake up in the morning and sit up in bed, I can see myself in the large mirror directly opposite my bed. My hair is definitely beginning to look just like that of the caricature on the vase my granddaughter, Julia, gave me about five years ago. Does she have some sort of forecasting power, I wonder?

                   
I'm noticing the color, too. Again, something that never concerned me before. It's white, has been since I was in my 30's so I've never seen white hair as part of my own aging, but now, I notice some yellow tinges creeping in. Not blonde, much more like slightly used dish water. Most likely it's due to the annual flushing of our water lines here on our island, but somehow, that never bothered me as it does now. This hair thing is getting more and more complicated.

So I trek over the bridge to the mainland in search of shampoo, the kind for silver hair. I've seen it before, even bought it once or twice on sale. Funny how they never call it shampoo for gray or white hair. Another sign of ageism in advertising. That discovery is reinforced when I notice even the lady getting into the tub with the side door on the TVadvertisement is younger than the real women who need this assistive device, as are those lucky ladies on the Viagra commercials.

See how this whole hair thing is mushrooming. Ah, if only my hair would grow as fast. I am beginning to ask myself: why a change now?  Is it to prove some sort of flexibility point or only my exceptional stubbornness in not knowing when to fold this whole hair quest?

Back to my search for shampoo. CVS has lots of shampoo, as does Walmart. None for white, excuse me, silver hair. Target wins the variety award, hands down. More than one long aisle is full of shampoo – for coarse, curly, fine, oily, limp, dull, dry, damaged, stressed, or straight hair. Flavors, too. Lemon scented, strawberry, watermelon. It's possible, I think, to end up smelling like a fruit salad just by shampooing your hair. Such variety, but no shampoo for silver hair, none to get the yellow out, though, lots for blonde hair that needs a lift.

As I drive home from my fruitless shampoo search, I wonder whether my quest is really for shampoo or a new style. The journey, for sure, has led me to a greater awareness of how women perceive themselves and how self image and worth are affected by our image driven media.

I think about all the brave women who have shaved their heads in defiance of the impending loss of hair as a result of chemotherapy for breast cancer. I think of my granddaughter, Grace, who at age 13, grew her hair long enough to donate it to Locks for Love ( http://www.locksoflove.org/).  And the absolutely beautiful young woman with alopecia who is running for Miss Delaware. She definitely has a strong sense of self.

Their courage in the face of  adversity inspires me, and I think, perhaps my search for shampoo isn't really that at all, but a seeking for something much more than a simple bob.

For more information on how to donate hair for women and children with illness, go to: http://www.pantene.com/en-us/beautiful-lengths-cause/default.aspx.  or http://hair.lovetoknow.com/Donating_Hair_for_Cancer_Victims

Seashore Seasons of Life

The choices we make influence so much of our lives, choices like the places we choose to be and live. Living by the sea on an island was one of those choices that created so much of that influence for me. When I look back on my life, I can't help but compare it to the seasons of the seashore.


In the spring of my life, the seashore served as a backdrop for my yearnings, especially my dreams of romantic love. In that time, there were so many false starts - kisses without substance on a moonlit beach - made all the more lonely because the nights were so beautiful. Then the promises of the sea became mine. I met my soul mate and the promises whispered by the waves became a reality.

That was the spring of my life.


Summer came with a bright and blazing intensity - my childbearing years. Days replaced starlit nights in importance. And sunny days were filled with sand buckets, snacks, and suntan lotion to protect tender skin. Vigilance was the keyword during the summer season of my life as I watched the little ones skitter on the beach, much like little sandpipers. Later, bobbing in the surf. Then later, I played the watchful waiting game while they visited places with names like the Tide, the Ketch, the Shell - places with sea-like names, but completely alien from my beloved sea.

That was the summer of my life.


Now I'm in the autumn of my ocean watching. This season is calm, still warm kissed by the remembered intensity of the summer sun. Relaxed now, I watch my grands hurl themselves toward the incoming tide, calm because I know the children of my summer are in their summers - secure in their own lives and loves. I am tranquil and filled with peace in the fall season as I clasp the hand of my spring season lover, my companion in three seashore seasons.



I find I want to hold this season more than I have ever wanted to hold any other season in my life. This September song grows more poignant, more precious than any other, for the sun-warmed sea still holds a strong whisper of summer, and the remembrance of the everlasting promise of spring.

This is the autumn of my life.



I do not know what lies ahead of me as I push away the thought of the approaching winter of my life. I do know God has been good to me through these three seasons. Perhaps the best has been saved for last. I will find out if I get to spend my winter by the sea. In any case, I realize life has its cycle, and whatever comes, life will continue, and future generations will carry at least a small piece of me through their seashore seasons.