Christmas reveals me

Every December, I imagine that this year the month is going to be relaxed and fun and sweet.  We'll decorate the house, I'll bake lots of cookies and share them with friends and neighbors, go to gatherings and sing carols, sit before the fire watching classic holiday movies.

It's never like that.  Even though I long ago gave up giving and wanting presents, I still find that the month develops a certain edge of tension.  I do send out cards, usually about 80, and that takes some doing, what with writing a note in each one, signing, addressing, stamping, going to the post office.  And I do bake cookies, but then we have a lot of cookies around.  I share them with as many people as I can get together with, but in these post-Covid days, there is still a lot of caution about gatherings, so I don't cross paths with as many people as I would like.  So I/we end up eating them.

Sweet Hubby and I do watch many of the classic movies, but SH also likes to mix it up by watching other movies as well, and since we take turns choosing, some of the time, we watch movies that have nothing to do with the holidays at all.  

I said in late November this year that, even though we don't have room for a tree, I still wanted to put our many pretty decorations around the house.  SH brought the ornaments box up from storage, but it has been sitting there now for more than half the month, and I haven't put up a single decoration.

That got me to thinking.  SH knows what I say about myself ("I'm going to put up decorations this year", "I'm going to lose weight", "I'm a playwright", etc.), but he also knows what I do, how I act.  So he knows that my actions, my behavior are much too often not aligned with my declarations.  I know he loves me, but how deeply can he respect me, how fully can he trust me, when I don't keep my word?

You might think I'm being too hard on myself, but if I actually were hard on myself, I would either speak who I truly am, or act as who I say I am.  It's an integrity issue, and one I'm not proud of.  I am able to look the other way and let myself get away with all sorts of slip-sliding.  But when I remember that SH knows me inside and out, for good and for ill, I find I want to do better, be better.  So I guess I'd better start now, this moment, because, after all, every single moment is a time to start fresh, not just January 1.

A question for Sauron

Sauron is a completely evil being who wants to kill all foes and be the one ruler of Middle Earth.

So here's my question: Then what?  Let's say Sauron were successful (as we know from the books and films he is not) and killed everyone who resisted him, would not bow down to him.  What would he do then?  How would Sauron pass the time, if he had no one left to conquer?  Would he be able to say "I won, the war is over, now I can relax and listen to some music, write that novel, clean out my cupboards?"  Or would he still be forever on guard for possible resistance?  What would  his army of Orcs do if they had no one to fight?  They were created to be warriors.  What do warriors do when there is no war?  What do haters do when they've killed everything they hate? 

If course I'm not talking just about Sauron.

Comfort

I realized recently that one of the outstanding features of my marriage is the level of comfort Sweet Hubby and I enjoy in each other's company.  Feeling completely comfortable, completely relaxed, was not a part of either of our childhoods and young adulthoods.  

In my parent's home, there was always an underlying tension as we all watched my father to determine what kind of mood he was in.  There was also the fact that we moved frequently, so my siblings and I were the new kids in school year after year.  In my young adulthood, and even into my 40's and 50's, I spent too much time with the wrong romantic partners, some of them very fine men with whom I was ill-matched.  Until I met  SH, I didn't know that love can be easy and sweet and safe.

SH spent his childhood and most adult years as a loner.  He had no siblings, and only one parent with whom he had nothing in common save their address.  He was always the smartest guy in the room, so was seen as - and was, and is - an egghead, meaning not one of the popular kids.  He had a few very good friends and a couple of brief marriages but, until he and I got together, he spent most of his time alone.

Last night, after we had gone out to a wonderful, fancy dinner, I suddenly became conscious of how very comfortable I am with SH.  Whether we are talking or not talking, joking and laughing or being quite serious, it's just so easy to be together.  We've been married long enough that I had stopped noticing what a relief it is to be totally myself without any guardedness, without worrying about taking a misstep, without judgment in either direction.  But I saw it in one of those quiet flash insights, and so am able to be grateful grateful grateful for this ease, this comfort, beyond my ability to express it properly.

Giving thanks

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, and I focused on being truly, consciously grateful for all the goodness in my life.  I contacted many of the people and groups that have added so much to my well being, to my writing, to my soul, to let them know how much I appreciate them, appreciate the joy and wisdom they have shared.

I'm most grateful, of course, for Sweet Hubby, and for my family and friends.  Those wonderful, kind, darling people always top any list of blessings.  But I'm grateful, too, for the gifts of modern medicine and dentistry; for the heating and air conditioning which make any season pleasant; for modern plumbing (where does it all go?); for how easy travel is.  (Yes yes, I know air travel isn't as much fun as it used to be, but still, it's rather amazing, isn't it?  That we can get to almost anywhere in the world in a day or less?) 

I'm so grateful that I decided to move to Seattle; it felt immediately like the right place for me to be.  I'll never know what brought me here, but whatever mysterious force it was, wherever in me the impulse came from, I'm so glad to be where I am.

I'm grateful for the muse that has made me a writer.  It was never a decision, and sometimes I wish I could give it up, but my imagination continues to throw ideas and concepts and beginnings and endings as me, and I simply don't seem to be able to ignore them. 

I'm grateful even for all the aches and pains and stiffness and limitations of getting older, because they all let me know that I'm still alive, that I've made it into my seniority, that there is still a world of promise and possibility for me to explore.  I'm still here to continue making a life for myself on this beautiful, if somewhat tortured, planet.

So much goodness.  So much to be thankful for.  It's almost too much to absorb. 

Don't believe your beliefs

I was visiting a friend recently, and saw something in her which really opened my eyes.  You know those moments when you see or understand something that has always been there but was just part of the scenery until it came crashing into focus?  This was like that for me.

My friend is divorced and has been dating, but is feeling discouraged about ever finding someone who will be the right partner for her.  "I just don't think it's going to happen for me," she sighed.  And I saw in that moment that we (human beings) get ideas about what is and isn't possible, and then shape ourselves to those ideas.  But those ideas, those beliefs, those thoughts have nothing to do with what is actually going to happen.  Just because she believes in this moment that she isn't going to find her right partner doesn't mean she won't.  But if she starts acting as though her belief is true, she might end up making it true by closing her eyes to opportunities and possibilities.

The only way in which I can take credit for getting together with Sweet Hubby is that, no matter how many relationships ended badly, no matter how old or discouraged I became, I still knew I wanted to be married, to love and be loved.  I never said "It's not going to happen for me."  Of course I had that fear, but still, I couldn't help but admit that I still wanted it to happen, hoped it would happen, and so kept myself open to the possibility.

I wasn't so bold as to say "I know it's going to happen for me", and I didn't promise that to my friend, either.  Maybe she'll meet someone, maybe not.   It's unknown, and that's the salient factor.  We don't know what's going to happen, how things are going to turn out, who or what will show up next, what surprises are in store for us.  So it's just silly to say "I don't believe this or that will happen" as though we can see the future.

If you want something, own the wanting, do what you can to make it possible, and stay open.  There might be disappointment ahead, but then again, don't be too sure about that.  'Cause you never know - and that's the point. 

Being 'good'

Sweet Hubby and I were recently having dinner out with good friends, a couple we tunnel fly with, lovely people.  Both of them have been dieting, and it shows.  When we ordered, the wife of the couple said she was going to have a salad because she's trying to be good.

I have always inwardly shuddered when people equate denying themselves food with being 'good', as though eating what they want to is being 'bad'.  As though there is virtue associated with dieting, ergo vice associated with not dieting.

But last night I began to look at it differently.  Since integrity (and lack of) is on my mind quite a lot lately, I realized that being good in the way our friend meant it is about having integrity, staying true to her word, keeping her commitment to herself to lose weight.

Sometimes I think our relationship to food is screwy (and my 'our', I mean 'my').  I don't know that there has been a day in my life when I wasn't thinking about my weight, no matter whether it was high or low.  Eating can't be given up completely, like smoking or nail-biting, so it  has to be monitored if one (and by 'one' I mean pretty much everybody) wants to lose weight; it has to be assessed and altered and constantly made conscious.  I'm sick of it.  I would love to see if I could go through an entire day without thinking about how much I weigh and what I'm eating and how much exercise I'm getting and whether I look good enough.

Want (not the play)

This evening I was doing one of my favorite Jane Fonda workouts, one of the ones she recorded as an older (70's) woman.  I had decided I was going to do all but 10 minutes of it.  Sort of like giving my word to myself about how long I was going to work out.

About 3/4 of the way through, I didn't feel like doing any more and thought about stopping.  And in that moment, I finally saw how much more often I listen to and follow my "I want to" and "I don't want to" voices than my "I said I would" voice.  Wow.  Seeing that explains a lot about me to myself.

I will give myself credit this time for continuing to work out instead of, once again, shrugging and breaking my word.  And now that I've noticed this tendency in myself, I'll be more aware of it and maybe choose more consciously and wisely which voice to listen to.

Until I don't feel like listening wisely any more.  Then I'll go back to following my wants.

That's a joke.  But maybe not.

VOTE

Vote.

Vote as though your vote matters, because it does.

Vote as though your rights depend on it, because they do.

Vote as though you are expressing your most deeply held values, because you are.

Vote as though your future, and your children's future, and the future of this country depend on it.

Don't give up.  Don't be discouraged.  Don't become cynical.  Vote.

Please feel free to pass this along. 

I need help

Whoever you are, please send me some good news, something good that's happened to you recently, someone you saw do a kindness, a story you've heard.  The news is so bad, I need and want to be reminded of the goodness there is still in the world. 

Thoughts and prayers? Bah, humbug!

I wonder if the members of Congress who offer their knee-jerk 'thoughts and prayers' to the families of the victims of one of this country's many, many mass shootings ever call or visit those families in person, expose themselves to the profound, heart-wrenching grief.  I wonder what their prayers consist of.  Perhaps "Dear Lord, I wish (name of shooter here) hadn't had access to all those military-grade assault weapons with large capacity ammunition feeding devices.  Oh Lord, show me how to end this violence without having to enact reasonable gun restriction laws."

It seems to me that the members of Congress are in the unique position of being able to actually do something concrete to help curtail this violence.  Unlike the rest of us, they can do something more effective than offering thoughts and prayers, the which, to my knowledge, have not helped a single person and have not done anything at all to lower the numbers attached to each mass shooting, or any shooting, for that matter.  It's so easy to forget that each one of those numbers represents not just a person, but all the people who love that person, whose lives are forever torn by that person's slaying.

If a member of Congress lost someone in a shooting, would that strengthen his or her spine enough that he or she might finally be ready to say "Enough is enough.  We must do something about this."  Would that Congressperson finally realize that thoughts and prayers are not only not enough, they are nothing at all?  They are empty gestures meant to make everyone feel better - everyone except those dealing with the ugly aftermath of the shooting: the shattered lives, the broken hearts, the anger, fear, despair, loneliness.

Aren't they asking themselves "What will it take to end this?"  Or is the problem that they know what it will take and are simply too cowardly, or too in love with their own guns, to make the necessary changes to our laws?  They can't possibly think that this country's growing gun violence is not a problem.  Why oh why oh why don't they do something?   

Us at our best

Recently Sweet Hubby and I had a fight, one of the big ones.  I felt that he had stepped in on something we had agreed I would handle, which brought up the times that I have felt disempowered by him, as though he believes he needs to be in charge of everything, which implies I'm not competent, can't be trusted, blah blah blah.  This is what sometimes happens when two very strong, very smart people who have lived independently for a long time come together in partnership.  SH is used to doing things on his own, in his own time and his own way.  The trouble is, so am I.

It's true that he is much more skilled than I am in many more areas, and often it makes sense for him to take the lead when something needs doing.  But there are certain projects I want done that are not as important to him, so they simply don't get done, or they get done in a way that's good enough but sort of jerry-rigged.  This was one of those projects.  I had figured that, instead of pushing him to get to it, I would take it off his hands, because it seemed more important to me than to him.

Anyway, we stood there bumping heads and egos for a while.  I couldn't seem to get him to understand how it feels to me when he takes over something I'm doing.  He said at one point that he'd been concerned that I would complete this project without discussing it with him - so he took it over and he did what he did without discussing it with me.  At that point in the conversation, I had to go hole up in my office with the door closed (but not slammed - we don't slam doors on each other).  I was too frustrated about him not understanding why I this was so upsetting to me.

Maybe an hour later, our paths crossed again, and he, my wonderful SH, said "I've been thinking about it and you're right, I do that, and I'm really sorry."  I was sort of gobsmacked.  I have known all along that he is a big man, a mature man, a generous and well-meaning man, but for him to be able to take complete responsibility for what had gone wrong just blew me away.  Now I realize he is a great man.  Not many of us are able to say "I was wrong".  I certainly have a hard time with it.  But he gave it thought and saw himself and apologized.

And that's why this one is titled "Us at our best".  In each other's company, inside this partnership, we learn and grow and rise.  Oh my gosh, how lucky am I?

Time to stay home?

I traveled recently to Los Angeles to see a play of mine performed in a festival and to visit with some of the friends I left behind when I moved to Seattle.  It was a lovely trip; everything went well.  The play was performed nicely.  I got to eat at some truly wonderful restaurants.  I made my way around the once-familiar city fairly easily (thank you, GPS!), even though I was driving an SUV for the first time.  Although I had let a boatload of people know I was coming, only some responded or were available, which ended up being a blessing because it meant that the visiting times were intimate and personal.  All in all, it was a very good few days.  But man oh man, was it good to come home.

I have begun to anticipate the coming of a day when I'm not going to want to travel any more but will prefer to stay cozy and snug at home with Sweet Hubby.  I'm not ready for that day yet.  (My parents were never ready for it; when Mom died at 89, they were on a riverboat on the Mississippi on what was going to be - and was - their last vacation.)  I still have the urge to be out in the world, visiting, having adventures, experiencing new places and food and people.  Even so, these days it's just awfully nice to be home, not living out of a suitcase or hotel room, not to have the tension of making my way along unfamiliar streets and freeways, not being away from SH.

Maybe if SH liked to travel, my time of wanting to be out and about would last longer.  But he's a stay-at-home kinda guy.  When we do go out - and we do - it feels like a big deal.  After all, it takes effort to buy tickets, make a reservation, dress for public display, drive through traffic, look for parking, be among our fellow folks.  Even taking Covid concern out of the picture, it's not a small thing to go out.  So easy to be home dressed in our comfies with cats in our laps watching super heroes take on the bad guys.  So easy.  Very tempting.

But still, I'm just not ready for that yet.  It feels like a concession to old age that I'm not ready to make.  So I took that trip to L.A., and have another coming up soon to Pacific Grove to officiate my niece's wedding, and then another in early November to see a friend perform in Portland.  At this point, I'm taking advantage of travel opportunities almost as a challenge to myself, sort of like "Do it now because someday you won't want to."  I know I'll be glad I've gone where I've gone, stayed connected to distant friends, shaken up my routines a bit.

And then, man oh man, it will be good to be home.

Look at meeeee!

I have been performing my entire life.  Even before I knew I wanted to be an actress, I was rather desperately in need, not just of attention so much as of applause.  Sometimes it took the form of my sister and I and sometimes our younger brother putting on skits for neighbors, for our parents' friends, for each other.  But those stimulated rather than sated the desire to be noticed.

Because my family moved so often when I was growing up (one of the seminal factors in my life), I was the new kid in class about every year and a half and, because I was so afraid of being lonely and alone, I would almost immediately begin my little dog-and-pony show.  I wouldn't necessarily literally sing and dance, but I laughed loudly and often, raised my hand for every question, acted silly, gave off some razzmatazz.

There was even a period when I was pre-teen that I began to act in every moment of daily life as though a camera were following me (except when I was in the bathroom; I was very modest).  During that time, I wasn't acting the role of performer/teacher's pet/class clown; I was acting the role of a Very Good Girl.  At night I laid out my clothes for the following day, next morning would wake up cheerful and immediately make my bed.  I would do little unasked-for chores for my mother, such as organizing a messy cupboard.  I wanted praise from an invisible camera crew of documentarians who had somehow discovered that I was special, noteworthy, remarkable.

As I got older and my social life became wider and more complex, I often made an showy entrance at parties and made sure to be the center of at least one circle of attention.  When I began to pursue an acting career, of course some of my need to perform was channeled into that, but actors seldom get enough opportunities to scratch their itch so I continued to show off during every part of life.  I wanted the attention of men so they would fall in love with me, talent scouts so I could be 'discovered', potential friends so I wouldn't be lonely.  Needless to say (but I'm going to say it anyway), all this effort was rather exhausting for me, and must have been exhausting for others to be around.

I'm not sure where all this need from attention came from.  Was it exclusively because of the "new kid" experiences?  Was it in order to get the attention and approval of my dad?  Was it just an organic part of my self, in innate desire to entertain run amok?  Why was I so desperate to be seen as special and brilliant?

It took years of therapy and transformational seminars and life lessons for me to learn at last that I don't have to be the center of attention, and that my efforts are better spent at being quiet and attentive to others; that all that showiness was actually a way not to be fully engaged; that living an authentic life is much, much more important than having boatloads of friends.

I wonder if this urge to entertain and be seen is so common that it doesn't even deserve mentioning.  I wonder if everyone puts on a little show in order not to be scared.  I wonder if everyone takes as long as I have to un-learn childhood survival mechanisms.  Because I suppose that's all it was, really.  Just my way of getting through childhood intact, my way of exploring my own boundaries and my place in the world.

Fear and bravery

I think if I end up having one big regret at the end of my life, it will be that I've spent so much of my energy being afraid.

People tend to think of me as brave and daring.  That's because I can be bold and brassy, which are not the same thing.  It's true that I have taken some big steps throughout the years, such as dropping out of college and moving into a tiny apartment in Hollywood to pursue acting.  And leaving Los Angeles after 26 years to move to Seattle, a city where I knew nobody, had nothing waiting for me.  But those are not examples of bravery.  In both cases, I was excited to take those steps.  I was moving forward toward a life I fully expected to enjoy, in which I expected to thrive.  You don't have to be brave if you're not scared.

And I am scared a lot of the time, maybe even most of the time.  As a child, I was afraid of being alone and lonely, so much so that I learned to put on a good dog-and-pony show to capture people's attention, to make friends quickly, be the class clown and teacher's pet.  As I grew into womanhood, I became afraid of monsters, the human kind, the kidnappers and rapists and murderers who haunt our newspapers and our movies and our dreams.  Even now, living with the most security-conscious person I have ever known, behind double and triple locks, I carry with me an almost constant anxiety about someone coming into our home and doing terrible things to me and Sweet Hubby.

In the natural world, I'm almost phobically afraid of sharks, which is so silly, given how easy they are to avoid.  It's an accomplishment for me to go snorkeling because, oh my god, I can't see what's coming up behind me!  I don't have too many other fears in nature.  I'm afraid of heights, but only when I'm actually high up; it's not a fear I carry with me.  Snakes and spiders don't wig me out particularly.  On a long ago camping trip, a cougar came into our campsite, and all I could think was "I wish the others could see this."  If it had noticed and approached me I would have been scared, but when it saw me, it disappeared like a puff of smoke, the first time I've known that saying to be close to literal.  Again, I wasn't being brave because I wasn't scared.

My overriding background fear is of death; not my own, but my brother's and sister's and Sweet Hubby's.  I brood on those more than is probably healthy.  I'm terrified of having to live in a world without them.  It's a regrettable waste of emotional energy, this terror.  They're here now, they'll die someday, before me or after me, which is all completely natural and expected and universal.  I would love to be able to live much more in the now, enjoying everything there is to enjoy, and save my fear for when there is something concrete and present to be afraid of.  I don't seem to be able to brass my way through this kind of fear.  What a shame.  What a waste.

 

Sexy Ldy and her sisters

Long ago, when I was living in L.A., I went to a Taco Bell drive-through.  After getting my order, I tried to drive away, but the woman who had ordered before me had parked her car across the driveway while she went back to the window to ask for more hot sauce.  Her car was a little red convertible something with the vanity place SEXYLDY.  

She was, indeed, most Americans' idea of what a sexy woman should look like: perky breasts, small waist, impeccable make-up, high heels, and a lolling, fluid sort of posture.  I rolled down my window and told her that her car was blocking the exit.  She shrugged casually and said "Oh well", then turned back to the window.  The proof of her allure was that several sort of seedy men standing around sided with her and chastised me for daring to admonish her.

At the time I wrote her off as a bitch, but now, forty years later, I find I have some interesting, interested questions about her.  She advertised with her license plate that the thinks she is sexy (yes) and a lady (definitely not).  Seems to me that's a label you should let others give you, not claim for yourself.  And why did she want everyone to know that she thinks she's sexy?  This was Hollywood, so it's extremely likely that she was an actress, or at least a wannabe.  Was the license plate meant to attract the eyes of casting agents?  But if that's the case, why not have the plate TALENTD?  Or did she think being sexy was all she needed?  (The sad thing is that in Hollywood, sometimes it is.)

Was the plate meant to attract men?  Well, of course it was.  But to what end?  Was she hoping for a boyfriend or husband?  It doesn't seem to me that the kinds of men who would be attracted to her because of her sexed up idea of herself would necessarily be the kind of men who are looking for a partner, a real partner, a partner for life.  Did she hope maybe to draw the attention of a potential sugar daddy?  I image that's the only sort of man who would want a woman purely because she is sexy.  Did she just want men to want to fuck her, whether she would allow them to or not?  Really, I'm just fascinated.  What and who as the plate for?

The women I'm calling her sisters are two porn movie babes I've seen in a video.  Both have long, platinum hair and excessively large, unnaturally round breasts.  These women chose that hair and those breasts.  I can't help but wonder what they were thinking when they decided to undergo breast implant surgery.  What vision did they have of the future?  Did they actually want to be in porn videos?  Did they actually want men to jackoff at the sight of them?  Did they just want manly attention, any kind of attention?  Because having huge breasts is certainly one way to get that.  But to what end?  What did they hope that ogling attention would bring with it?

All of these questions spring from my thoughts on Hollywood's, and therefore this country's, and therefor this world's, beauty culture.  Because women are so objectified, how we look is our main strength, and our own focus on how we look is often our main weakness.  

Maybe women's focus on our looks goes back to prehistoric times, when men could fuck anything and anyone they wanted to, and women were made vulnerable by having both children and smaller muscles.  Maybe women evolved to learn that they had to do whatever it took to get a man to notice them, have sex with them, and then - and this is the tricky part - stay with them to protect them.  Is that what's driving women to artificially and surgically alter ourselves, go on lifelong diets, spend billions on beauty products, wear shoes that cause us agony?

I think I thought Sexy Ldy was a bitch because I knew I couldn't compete with her on the level of looks.  I imagined I was smarter, and knew for certain I was nicer, but she was winning in the way which, in Hollywood, counts more than any other.  I am so glad to be out of L.A., and so happy to be old enough now that nobody expects me to look any other way than I do.  I'm most especially glad that I married a man who loves me for who I am both inside and out, upside and down.  I wonder if Sexy Ldy and her sisters have that kind of love in their lives.  I hope they do.  Because time and gravity will have had their way with them, as they do with us all.

The small differences

Today I made it my mission to be aware of those actions I take habitually and to run interference, to see how different it would feel, for example to carry my water glass in my left hand instead of my right.

It feels weird.

I gave myself a few passes.  When I went out to run an errand, I didn't fool around with my driving habits.  It felt safer to drive as I always do, not to get clever with it.  I didn't try to write or eat with my left hand, because the idea isn't to become ambidextrous, but simply to wake up in those place where I have learned to sleepwalk.

I wore my Fitbit on my right wrist instead of my left, which felt weird.  When I poured my daily La Croix and pomegranate drink, I held the can in my left hand and the juice bottle in my right, which felt weird.  When I noticed I was reaching for something with my right (dominant) hand, which was most of the time, I would stop and reach with my left.  One of the surprises was that when I stepped into my jeans with my left leg first, I felt terribly awkward and tippy.  I always always always and for no particular reason put my right leg into pants first.  And it was also amusing to learn that my left hand doesn't know how to untwist a bottle cap without considerable thought.

All though the day I've had numerous chances to see how often I make the same moves in the same way: drying off after a shower, opening a door, approaching a chair, opening my wallet, on and on.  All of it done without thinking.  Not that that's a bad thing.  I just wanted to shake myself up a little.  I don't know if this exercise is going to have any lasting impact on how I get through the coming days, but it has been stimulating, and I have felt awake and conscious.  An ordinary day made interesting by itsy little changes.  Maybe there's something to that.

Spats and war

I always know the reasonable thing I could say or do when my feelings are hurt.  I certainly have an image in my head of me being clever and logical and polite and judicious.  The trouble is that I turn so quickly into an unreasonable, scared, disempowered seven-year-old on the verge of tears that, in order not to be vulnerable, I cover myself with bristles and ice, or run away, or go on the offensive, but cagily, tacitly.

I suppose pretty much everyone has some sort of self-protective construct or persona that she's created in order not to be hurt.  In my imagination, I see the possibility of simply listening, simply responding, saying what I don't like or what has bothered me or rubbed me the wrong way.  But Little Girl shows up almost instantaneously and with her appearance vanishes that possibility, and all I'm left with is the effort to cover up that my feelings are hurt or that I feel insulted or left out.

Feeling left out.  That's the big one.  The need to belong is powerful in my psyche, and right along with it, the feeling of not belonging.  The two sides of one emotional coin.  Is mine worse than most because I was the new kid in school so often?  Or it is what drive us all, the yearning to belong?  And with that yearning comes fear of the other, of what is unfamiliar, of what might be a threat.

When I see a war movie and all the weapons humankind has invented, the tanks, missiles, bombs, cannons, fighter planes, all I see is fear made manifest.  For heaven's sake, it is possible now for one country to literally, totally annihilate another, and still no one seems to feel safe.  I have come to think that the most basic feeling/sensation common to us all is fear.  TSA was absolutely born of fear, the idea that it's better for billions of people to be treated as suspects than risk another 9/11.  Personally, I would rather risk being hurt, even killed, than to live in a world in which the attempt to protect ourselves uses so much of our energy, time, and resources.

All this came from me feeling put out by something today.  I see myself in action, and in myself, I see everyone.  

Money and time

At this point in my life, I find I'm contemplating what I should do with my money.  (It almost feel weird to use that word 'money'; it sounds a little blunt and coarse, like asking someone how much they weigh, or saying 'died' instead of 'passed away'.  It feels like a taboo word, even though it's the word which drives so much human activity and desire.  Hm.)  After a lifetime of living on the edge, I actually have money to think about now, thanks solely to the hard work and wise choices of my ancestors and parents, not because of any accomplishment or virtue of mine.

Because my good fortune is a gift unearned, I feel I ought to be conscious and conscientious about what I do with it.  Should I better myself by traveling the world?  Support worthy causes (of which there are so many, I hardly know how to choose)?  Be generous to the people in my world?  Save it for the next generation?  I don't have children, but I do have nieces and nephews, and even though they are already guaranteed by a trust to share a good-sized portion of my estate, I still have to decide what to do with the portion that is free from restraints.

As I think about, I'm wondering if a better question is to ask what to do with my time.  Rather than subscribing to the old saying that "Time is money", I have always believed that "Money is time".  Having money means that, instead of spending my life at a job I may or may not enjoy, I am able to write, read, be with friends, travel, play, learn, expand, explore, give, receive, sit still.  So I guess that's what is most significant to decide: What do I want to do with my time?  I want to do, and do do, all the aforementioned.  But am I frittering?  At the end of my life, what am I going to regret not doing?  I have heard and believe that deathbed regrets are almost never about what one has done, but about what one neglected to do.  (Like the woman in the Lichtenstein painting: "I can't believe it.  I forgot to have children.")

I'm not writing this because I've come to an answer, but mostly because I am so aware that it's time to take these questions seriously.  In one's 20's, 30's, 40's, even 50's and 60's this isn't a particularly urgent matter, but I'm 70 now, and although I expect to live long and healthy life, I know I have more past than future.  I don't feel panicked or anxious, but really, I want to wake up as fully as I can to how I spend that future.  I don't want to be driven by habit, inertia, or carelessness. 

Partly to address this subject - I've started another blog!! I'm really excited about it.  It's called "I do something new every day".  And I mean it too.  For however long I can keep it up, I'm challenging myself to do something new every single day.   I'll continue to muse and opine on this blog, but I find I'm very much looking forward to seeing how true I can stay to the idea of doing something new every day.  It's going to be a hoot!  This doesn't completely answer the question of "Is this how I want to spend my time?" but it should, at the very least, be stimulating and keep me alert and conscious.

Check it out at idosomethingneweveryday.blogspot.com. 

Superstitions

Being a wordsmith as I am, there are few things I enjoy as much as understanding a word or figure of speech in a new way.  I had such a moment of understanding recently when I looked afresh at the word 'coincidence'.  I realized it means co-incidence, things happening at the same time.  There's nothing mystical or magical about it.  And yet so many of us think that a coincidence has some kind of meaning or import.  "I was thinking about you and you called me!  Coincidence?  I don't think so."

I see that way of reacting to a co-incidence as a kind of superstition.  A similar superstition is thinking that if someone says "Things are going really well", that person is automatically doomed to failure, as though there is some impish god or natural force whose job it is to make sure none of us acknowledges our good fortune without being punished for it.  I simply can't take that seriously.

I'm the sort of person who, the moment I step into a theater, wants to say "Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth", the saying aloud of that name being considered an evocation of the worst possible luck to a theater or production.  It knocks me out to learn how many people hold that superstition as sacred and true and very, very real.  And they're not kidding.  I guess you'd call me an iconoclast, or just a troublemaker.  Other people's superstitions just seem so very silly.

My own, of course, are sacred and true and real, so much so that I don't even know if I have any because, of course, to me, my beliefs don't seem like superstitions.  I'm trying to think of one.  I'm sure I must have at least one.

I have sat here quite literally for fifteen minutes and can't call to mind any belief or behavior of mine that is based on a superstition.  I guess I'm just too smart for such primitive thinking.

Well, it's after 2am, so I'm going to say "purple turkey pie" three times, bow to the north, and go to bed.  Works every time.

A mixed experience

Yesterday was the final performance of the world premiere performance of my latest full length play Want.  I'm really proud of this play.  I've worked on it steadily for a few years, until I feel it is finally the play I wanted to write.  It's my grittiest, most provocative play, definitely for mature audiences.  There were several Zoom performances of earlier drafts of this ply during 2020-21, but this is its first live performance, and here in Seattle, my home city.  It has been a very mixed experience.

What was good:

I could attend rehearsals, talk directly to the director (a writer doesn't talk to the actors as that confuses who is in charge), see the play myself, and invite my local friends to see it.  It's a rare occasion when a play of mine is done this close to home, and a lot of my friends here don't really know me as a playwright.

During rehearsals and performances, I was able to hear the play newly and have been able to edit, refine, and polish the script, so it is now even stronger than it was at the beginning of rehearsals.

I appreciate the producer, who put together an excellent technical crew, comprised of talented young women who created a poster, a set, lighting, props, and costumes which beautifully supported the play.  And I appreciate the director, who was very open to my comments during rehearsals.

24 of my friends attended performances, one even coming from as far as Portland.  (I invited 140.  I'm not shy about promoting my work when I am confident about it.)  It was generous of each of them to give time out of their summer days to come see live theater.

What was not so good:

Very sadly, the audiences were small, and they seemed even smaller because the production was in a mid-sized theater (130 seats)  That's at least partly on me.  The producer was looking at smaller theaters, but I wanted this play to have a noteworthy first production, so I asked that we go to a larger theater.  Hubris on my part.  I didn't take into account that 1) it's an unknown play 2) by an  unknown playwright 3) during summer, when theater attendance is always down, and 4) that COVID is still making some people leery of indoor public events.  Why it's sad is that the producer may have lost money, and that the actors didn't get the important symbiotic energy exchange with the audience.

The two lead actors were miscast.  They are talented performers, but just didn't have the right whatever - personalities, style, rhythm, insight - for these characters.  They worked waaaaay too hard, as though they didn't trust the script but felt they needed to make a big moment out of every line.  So disappointing.  I don't really feel I've seen the play, at least not the play as I imagine it.  It was actually painful to watch sometimes.  I had to remind myself that the audience didn't have preconceived ideas about how the play should go and probably just accepted it as it was performed, but I know how much nuance was missed, how many moments were misplayed or overplayed.  I know what it could be.  I almost lost confidence in that, but really, I know what is there, I know how good it is.

It was also very hard that I knew the director wanted me to be happy with the production.  I really like her and hated to keep discouraging her by giving her my frustrated notes after rehearsals.  I finally had to accept that the actors were going to do what they knew to do and that there was no point in wanting to get them into different shapes.

So now I have a better play, and the experience of seeing it performed live, and a lot of my local friends now see me as a writer.  It has helped all along to remember that this production is not the end of this play's life, and not the end of my writing life.  It is notoriously difficult to get a second production for a play; if a theater is putting on an unknown play by an unknown playwright, they want at least to be able to say that it's a world premiere, and that ship has now sailed for Want.  But I'll keep sending it out and sending it out, and meanwhile, I'm at work on my next play.  Oh lord above, will it ever end?

Fear the mundane

Years ago, reports started circulating throughout the Internet of a newly discovered venomous spider, which liked to live in dank places such as public restrooms and had bitten several people who subsequently died (the people, not the spiders).  Like many people who read those accounts, I began to feel leery of public restrooms, and started inspecting the underside of the seat whenever I used one.

But then it occurred to me: How many millions of people use public restrooms every single day?  Let's say six million, just for fun.  So two people out of six million had been bitten.  That meant the chances of me being victim of that spider were one in three million.  (This spider report turned out to have been a hoax.)

After picking raspberries recently (one of summer's greatest pleasures) I noticed an itchy little bump on my arm, which turned into a hard little blister.  Probably a bug bite.  Sweet Hubby saw it and told me to watch it carefully in case it turned out to be monkey pox. Monkey pox is a real disease and there are real cases of it, 5,189 to date in this country, which includes 120 in my home state of Washington.  That's 120 cases out of a state population of 7.512 million.  So my chances of getting it are one in sixty-two thousand six hundred.  Those odds don't seem worth worrying about, but because SH had been reading about monkey pox, it was on his mind and had become a concern.

This is one of the downsides of the Internet.  Stories, both fact and fiction, get passed around so quickly, become so thoroughly part of the social conversation and thinking, that they take on a size and weight completely out of balance with their size and weight in real life.  My chances of injury or death from driving, or from getting into and out of the shower, are much, much higher than from  monkey pox, but I drive my car and take my showers without a second thought, without a worry, while the thought of monkey pox gives me the shivers.  (Photos of pox victims are truly gross.)

I've decided to do my best to keep my thinking about the world's dangers on a realistic level, and to act sensibly in the face of real threats while ignoring the obscure (and sometimes completely imaginary) ones.  COVID is a true, and truly pervasive, threat, so I'll continue to wear a mask.  Monkey pox is an obscure threat, so I won't give it a moment of my precious time and thought.  There's too much in the world that deserves real thought and real worry - for example, will our democracy survive the insanity of the current GOP? - to waste a moment on the latest scare meme. 

Embracing failure

My full length play Want, which has been in rehearsal for weeks and was scheduled to open July 29, will now open Aug. 4 for a two-weekend, rather than a three-weekend run.  Our leading lady got COVID, which put rehearsals behind, and the set took longer to build than expected.

I think this was a really good decision.  So much better to have a shorter, stronger run than a longer, wobblier run.  Besides, this might mean larger audiences each night.  I know this decision relieved everyone involved of a lot of tension and anxiety.

I, oddly enough, have not been tense and anxious at all.  I learned a long time ago that, instead of biting my nails and hoping everything is going to work out and worrying about everything going wrong, I can simply embrace the possibility of failure.  The actors might be terrible.  Or the actors might be great but no one comes to see the play.  Or people might come to see the play but everyone hates it.  Yes, any of that could  happen.  Okay then, let's all just do our best.

I learned this lesson in the late '90s when I did my one and only skydive, a tandem, meaning I was strapped to a dive master.  I was terribly nervous about it as I approached the plane, so much so that I was awfully afraid I was going to back out.  So I thought to myself "Something might go wrong, and if it does, I'll probably die.  Knowing that, accepting that, do I still want to do it?  Hell yes."  I simply put myself in the hands of my dive master; I did everything he said without thinking about it.  If he had told me to set my hair on fire, I would have done it.

Of course I want my play to be a roaring success.  Of course I want the actors to be brilliant and the audiences to be moved to laughter and tears.  Of course I want the play to go on to greater success, to win a Tony and a Pulitzer.  Of course I want my next play to be even more brilliant and more successful.  Any of those things might or might not come to pass.  Do I still want to write?  Do I still want to see my plays performed?  Hell yes.

The Eloi and the Morlocks

Sometimes when my siblings and I have our bi-weekly Zooms, we will talk about politics.  My sister and I will go off on how stupid and mean and mendacious the current crop of Republicans are.  My brother reminds us, and accurately, that they say the same things about us ("us" here referring to Democrats/liberals/the Left).  "But this is different," sister and I could cry out.

I've never felt as though I were adequately explaining, or even understanding for myself, in what ways the Left is different from the Right these days.  But it suddenly hit me: I can't think of a liberal equivalent of Sean Hannity, or Tucker Carlson, or Marjorie Taylor Green, or Steve Bannon, someone whose mission in life is to sow discord, rile adherents to violence, spread lies, relentlessly excoriate the other side.

That's the trouble with us Lefties: we want the world to be fair.  We want everyone to win.  We don't seem to have it in us to fight unfairly.  We're like the Eloi to the Republican Morlocks.  We just don't have the stuff to fight dirty, to eat our opponents.

I certainly don't want to become like what I hate, but I do see the disadvantage to the famous Lefty bleeding heart.  That's thrown in our faces like an insult, but isn't it a compliment?  That we want to be generous and take care of others?  That we feel for those who are suffering?  In a way, I don't care that the Morlocks will 'win', at least in the short run.  I'd rather be a loser than a Rush Limbaugh or a Maria Bartiromo.  Those people are ugly, inside and out.  There is a vileness in them, at least in their public personae, a viciousness that seems to know no bounds and no shame.  

I know, I know, they're human, I'm acting like them right now, see, there really isn't any difference, blah blah blah.  But I beg to differ.  I'm thinking these things, but I do not act on them.  And if I had a spotlight and a microphone, I would not use them to rave about how terrible 'those others' are, or spread lies, or support what is clearly corrupt, or try to rile anyone to violence.  I just don't have it in me.  Which may be both my finest quality and my downfall.

I am not who I thought I was

I have always thought of myself as an earth mother type, someone who wants to and could live an elemental sort of life.  After all, I read and reread all the Laura Ingalls Wilder "Little House" books and imagined a prairie life for myself.  When I was ten-ish, I used to go around our home collecting the things I was sure I would need when I became shipwrecked.  (As I recall, those things consisted of a small box of raisins, some safety pins and paper clips, some twine, and a deck of cards.)  When the TV show "Survivor" began its run decades ago, I thought "This is a show created with me in mind" and applied to be on it several times.  I thought an experience like that would be as close as I could come to living in the most elemental, stripped down way possible in this modern world.  (At least, for a middle-class American in this modern world.  I'm aware that many people do live in ways which put mere survival at the forefront of their existence.)

Because I lived in a small apartment in the concrete jungle of Los Angeles for so long, I never had a chance to put my hands into dirt, to grow things, grow my own food, own a cow and a goat and some chickens.   Never had the chance to live out that fantasy version of my life, the simple life lived in relationship to the earth.

Well, the joke's on me.  For the thirteen years Sweet Hubby and I have been living in our current home, with our great big backyard, I have had the chance to dig and grow and be who I've always said I wanted to be.  And have I so much as put one seed in the ground?  No I have not.

Every year, when winter begins to thaw and spring starts to creep toward me, I continue to fantasize about all the wonderful vegetables and flowers I'm going to grow in the planter boxes SH built.  And every year, I just don't get around to it.  Too busy with very un-elemental, un-earthy pursuits, such as having lunch in a restaurant with friends, and writing, and reading, and seeing movies, and answering emails, and playing online games with family and friends, and going to live theater performances.  I'll pull a weed or two every so often.  But that's about the extent of my prairie life.

SH is the farmer.  In the past, he has planted onions and lettuce and carrots and radishes.  The blueberry and raspberry bushes he planted early on continue to thrive and give us the most wonderful berries.  On the deck he built with his own hands, he puts up pots of herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, and peppers, and lots of flowers.  And I?  I'll pick what I need to cook with.  That's how involved I am.

It's a strange feeling to bump up so unmistakably against a long-cherished image of myself.   An image I continue to nurture, but secretly, in a way I don't even want to admit to myself.  The earth still calls to me.  One of these days, I'm going to farm our land and gather fresh eggs from our chickens.  One of these days.  It's going to be so lovely and satisfying.

Instincts and creeps

Many years ago, while I was living in Los Angeles, I was walking home from my job on a Friday night. I had $10 in my wallet, which was my money for the weekend.  (That's how long ago it was - $10 could provide a weekend's entertainment plus gas.)  As I walked along the dark street, I saw two boys (maybe 14 or 15?) walking ahead of me, whispering together.  My hand tightened on my purse strap and my heart beat a little faster.

"Stop being so paranoid," I scolded myself.  "They're just kids, they're not criminals."  They peeled off in another direction and I kept walking.

About a minute later, one of them came running up behind me.  He had a knife, which I believe he planned to use to cut my purse strap, a snatch, not an assault.  He wasn't expecting me to turn around and start talking to him.  

The upshot of that event was that he got my $10 but let me keep my wallet, and I even got an apology from him.  I was rattled but not hurt.  This was the first of several muggings I experience during my time in L.A., the only one I saw, or felt, coming.  All the rest of them were hit and run, ambushes.

About a week ago, I decided to walk on a path I had driven past but never explored.  It was broad and straight, with houses on one side and a forested area on the other.  The day was fine and it was a pleasant stroll.  

I noticed that another, narrower path took off from the broad path into the trees, so I decided to take that walk as well.  As I started on that walk, I saw a man who looked very much as though he were going to walk the broad path.  But when I turned around a few moments later, he had instead followed into the trees, coming up behind me.  I stepped aside to let him pass, but as he kept walking, he turned around a few times to look at me.  I decided to back out of that area.  I just wasn't comfortable with what had looked to me like him deciding to follow me into the forest.

I walked about a half mile away to another path that led into the forested area.  Even though I was among trees, there was a big apartment complex in sight, and a well traveled road within sound, so I felt fairly safe.

As I walked along that second path, I came up behind two boys (again 14-15 or so) with skateboards.  They didn't seem to be doing much, not actively skating.  I saw them go up ahead of me, then turn off the path and go stand among the trees.  It creeped me out.  I couldn't think of why they would take their skateboards off the path.  It just didn't feel right.  So once again, I backed out of the trees and just walked along the road to my car.

I'm now grateful to my first young assailant.  My experience with him helped teach me that I should listen to my instincts.  If something doesn't feel right, I should honor that feeling and act on it.  I don't even need to be right about what I fear.  I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't backed out those two times.  I don't need to know.  All I need to know is that both those moments just weren't comfortable for me.  

 

Letter to the Supreme Court Justices

Honored Justices Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett,

Well done.  You did it at last.  You finally had the opportunity to overturn Roe v  Wade, and you did it, with all the courage of your convictions.

You were bravely undeterred by the fact that the majority of Americans support a woman's right to decide if she wants to bear a child or not.  Undeterred by 50 years of precedent.  Undeterred by the fact that many women will not be able to travel to a state in which abortion is legal and so will either have to perform abortions on themselves or give birth to children they do not want and most likely can't afford.  Undeterred by the fact that, in some states, a victim of rape or incest will be forced to bear the child of her assailant.  Undeterred by the fact that outlawing abortions does not eliminate abortions but only turns women into criminals or unwilling mothers or corpses.  Undeterred by having revealed for all to see that any liberal cause stands no chance in the high court.  Undeterred by the fact that this country's standing in the view of the civilized world has once again been diminished.

Knowing now that you have sided with the rights of gametes over women, I am very curious to see how you take on gun rights and limitations, should such a case come before you, as it most surely will.  Are you going to side with gun owners, or with the rising number of people killed by guns in this country every year?  

And Justice Thomas, a special note just to you.  You have already signaled your eagerness to reconsider other rights that have previously been granted by the court, specifically citing contraception, gay sex, and gay marriage.  I'm wondering if you are going to include interracial marriage in that package of issues, and if so,  how does your white wife feel about that?

Let's think about that

I acknowledge that a lot of what's in this post comes from the wisdom of others.

Someone says "The illegals are coming into the country and taking our jobs."

Let's think about that.  Someone can't really just take a job.  They have to apply, usually be interviewed, sign paperwork.  Were you standing in line for the busboy job and just as you were about to be hired, a Honduran stepped in front of you and grabbed the hire slip?  The premise is bogus.

Someone says "Late term abortions are horrible, murder, criminal."

Let's think about that.  If a woman is in the last trimester of her pregnancy, she has probably already chosen a name for her child, bought clothes and a basinet, painted the nursery.  Late term abortions are not done casually.  They are tragic.  They are based on there being a serious threat to the health of the mother or a serious defect in the fetus.

Someone says "The Jan. 6 rioters weren't Trump supporters, they were Antifa or Black Lives Matter or Democrats pretending to be Trump supporters."

Let's think about that.  Do you think it's possible that Antifa or BLM adherents or Democrats wanted to disrupt the election certification and keep Donald Trump as President?  That's completely backward.

Someone says "There's evidence for massive voter fraud, even if no one has presented it."

Let's think about that.  If you were accused of a crime, would you want the prosecuting attorneys to say "We have evidence of this person's guilt.  We'll present it a few years down the road.  But we really do have it.  We promise."  Wouldn't you want there to be clear, concrete evidence, undeniable proof of your wrongdoing before you could be convicted?

Someone says "Homosexuality is disgusting, it should be illegal."

Let's think about that.  I happen to find your attitude disgusting.  Does that mean I get to make your attitude illegal?

Too often it's easy to get caught up in a strongly voiced or cunningly phrased assertion, but almost always, all it takes is going one question further to start to unravel that assertion.  Perhaps that is a key to having conversations that actually have substance.  There are too many meme-driven opinions strangling critical thought these days.  Time to look deeper. 

Sad, but not all sad

Yesterday morning a vet came to our house to assess our sweet boy cat Flow, who has been slowly declining.  We had prepared ourselves for the possibility of euthanasia, but were also hoping she might be able to suggest some way to give him more time.  She listened to our descriptions of how he has behaved, the changes in his habits, and looked him over very gently.  She never urged us in any one direction, but she did agree with our inevitable conclusion that to wait any longer would be to let him get to a point where he would be suffering. 

She gave him a mild sedative, so artfully delivered that he seemed not even to notice it.  Then she slipped away to allow us a few moments to love on him, whisper sweet nothings to him, reassure him that he is loved and has been one of the best parts of our life.  Finally she very respectfully and almost invisibly gave him another sedative, and then that last fatal dose.  It was all done quietly and kindly.  She took our boy away, and now the house seems much emptier.

Good-bye, Flow.  Thanks for all the purring and playfulness and for waking us up at 4:30 in the morning but being so darned cute that we couldn't mind it.  Thank you for making us a family and our house a home.  Thank you for all the lap time and bag love time and for the way you used to patrol the perimeter to keep us safe.  Good kitty.

So it was a sad day for us, but not all sad.  It was the first sunny day in quite a while, a squeaky clean sky, crisply blue, sunny but not hot, fresh fresh fresh.  Sweet Hubby and I took a walk in a nearby wooded park, so peaceful and cool, bird songs, people out with dogs, glimpses of hummingbirds.  I made us some wonderful muffins, baked with a dab of jam in the middle and a cinnamon-sugar topping.  We ran errands together, and held hands all day.

The nicest part of the day was getting an email from a theater company in Florida which had chosen my play Want for development and production.  They wanted the rights to a world premiere production, but those rights belong to the company currently rehearsing the play for an opening here in Seattle, so I had to turn down the Florida theater.  The Artistic Director wrote back, of my rejection, that he was "pierced through the heart!"  (The exclamation point was his.)  It was very reassuring to see another theater excited about this play.  It is gritty and provocative enough that I have been concerned about whether anyone would embrace it.

So all in all, a good day, a full day, with a portion of deep sorrow in it to balance, but not cancel, the goodness.

The Professor and the Artist

I think Sweet Hubby and I should be a sitcom.  We're practically one already.  It would be called "Gus and Trudy" or maybe "Augie and Gin".  They are an older (not old!) couple dealing with family, politics, money, and their sometimes colliding world views.

He's a professorial type, sort of grizzled, very, very smart, retired from a job at NASA.  (Sweet Hubby used to work at NASA.  When I first learned this, while we were still courting long distance by phone, I said "Wait wait wait, let me just take that in.  My boyfriend is a rocket scientist!")  He's grounded, practical, skilled at almost anything he tries his hand at, loves doing project around the house.  To stimulate his great big brain, he often will spontaneously take a class in some subject he knows nothing about.  Although he sometimes seems gruff or anti-social, he's got a fluffy soft spot for cats and a wicked sense of humor.

She's an artsy type, a writer, or so she thinks of herself.  Her career path has been more checkered, a wildly curving road to his straight line.  She is highly social, loves books and parties and dancing and travel.  While not actually bipolar, she does experience high high and low lows, but for the most part her moods are happy and energetic.  She has written a moderately successful series of romance novels, and has been working for several years on a literary novel, which she despairs of ever finishing.

In one episode, their beloved cat has died.  He wants to get another cat, but she wants a dog so that she will have a companion when she goes on her long walks.  It turns into a fight until they realize that they can have both.  In another episode, she has invited a houseful of people to come for a weekend visit but forgot to tell him (or did she just pretend to have forgotten because she was afraid he'd say no?).  In another, she sets up a threatening situation, without telling him it's a set-up, because she wants to see how it plays out so that she can put it into one of her books.

As in most sitcoms, it's not the situations that cause the comedy and poignancy, but the characters, the people who come into our houses week after week until we feel that we know them as friends.  I think people would like Gus/Augie and Trudy/Gin.  I know I already do.  

I probably won't ever write this myself, of course.  TV writing requires a stringency, a discipline I'm not sure I have.  But it's a fun idea to play with, one of the many hundreds which plague my waking dreams.  This is another case of what I call Writer's Deluge, the opposite of Writer's Block.  It's a mixed blessing, or a mixed curse, one I relish and am grateful for but which can be exhausting at times.  After my death, if someone bothers to look in my "Incomplete writing" folder, oh what treasures they will find.

Rights

 I have the right to own a dog, but must keep it on a leash.

I have the right to freedom of speech, but may not use it to slander someone, or tell a lie under oath, or yell “Fire!” in a theater.

I have the right to own and drive a car, but not to drive it on a sidewalk, or 100 mph on a residential street, or against the flow of traffic.

Every right comes with restrictions and limitations, all of them agreed upon for the sake of public safety.  Shouldn’t this be true for gun ownership as well?

Shouldn’t every gun owner be trained and licensed and found to be fit to manage a lethal weapon?  Own a gun for personal protection or a rifle for hunting, fine.  But who besides a mass murderer needs an assault rifle?

What has happened to this country that our supposed leaders would quite seriously promote the idea that school buildings with only one door is the solution to school massacres?  What has happened to this country that our supposed leaders continue to be held in the sway of the NRA when well over half the country, even gun owners, believe there should be more restrictions on who can have a firearm and what kind of firearms should be available for purchase?

Madness, madness.  So very discouraging, and frightening.

Travel travails and the mysterious leg

I recently had an opportunity to get out of town and get together with friends.  I was so looking forward to this gathering, but it turned out the travel itself was not without a few trouble spots.

I was working in Tacoma as a faux patient in a nurses' training program the morning I was to leave, and there wasn't time to go home after that, so just drove directly to the Seattle airport.  Sweet Hubby took the train and met me to say good-bye and drive the car home.   I had 3 hours at SeaTac, then a short hop to San Francisco, 5 hours in SFO, then an overnight flight to Baltimore, and 3 hours at the Baltimore airport waiting for the shuttle that would take me into Delaware to meet up with my friends.

It made for a very, very long day/night/day, and I didn't get any sleep on the overnight plane, but I knew what my itinerary was and so had plenty to read and also used the time also to walk and walk and walk and occasionally eat.  SFO, by the way, gets my vote for best airport.  It is roomy, as lots of comfortable places to sit, terrific art installations, and even has yoga rooms, one of which I used to stretch my limbs and rest my mind.

So it all worked out.  I got together with my friends in a big rental home on Fenwick Island, a sweet, touristy town on the DE coast.  I was tired, but feeling fine when I went to bed that night.  However--

The next morning I woke up virtually crippled in one leg.  The back of my left knee, upper calf, and lower thigh were so tight and sore, I could barely straighten that leg, nor put much weight on it.  Besides the pain, which was considerable, I was also plagued by the question of what the heck had happened????  There were no incidents nor accidents during the night.  The couple of times I got up to pee, I was normal, feeling just fine.  What on earth had caused this tightness and soreness?  There was no swelling, no bruising, no wound.  It was the weirdest thing, and the weirdness of it, the mystery, continues to nag me to this day.  

The pain itself began very gradually waning on the second day, and I was able to enjoy being with my friends.  The weather was blustery, so we mostly stayed indoors, laughing, snacking, playing games, talking.  It was an almost perfect four days - except for this stupid leg.

On the trip home, more travel travails.  I was driven back to the Baltimore airport for a short hop to Detroit, there to learn that the plane from Detroit to Seattle was postponed - until the next day.  The airline (which shall be unnamed, since whatever caused the long delay probably wasn't anyone's fault but was due to mechanical issues, or short crew staffing, something like that) did put me and whole lot of other people up in a nice enough hotel for the night, and the plane did get me safely home the next day, so it all turned out all right.  No lost luggage, no COVID, and thank goodness I didn't have to be back for a job interview or wedding or anything.  Now it's all just a fun story.

Now, almost a month later, the pain in my leg is basically a whisper, there but not a problem unless I fold my leg up to kneel or whatever.  I may never know what caused this; don't see the point in going to my doctor because I doubt there's anything he could actually see or find.  But still - what the heck happened?  I guess my body is feeling it's age, but my spirit, ah, my spirit is still young and energetic and still wants to do cartwheels, which makes having to limp around like an old granny quite annoying.

Cool things someone said

It takes a mighty good husband to be better than none. - Amish saying

It's not how old you are, but how you are old. - Anon.

How do we consume in a way that does justice to the lives we take? - Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass

Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars. - Gustave Flaubert in Madame Bovary

As one grows older it is more and more necessary to reach out your hand for the sturdy old vines you knew when you were young and let them lead you back to the roots of things that matter. - Lillian Hellman in The Autumn Garden

Are we being good ancestors? - Jennifer Peedom and Robert Macfarlane in the documentary film River

They tried to bury me.  They didn't know that I was a seed. - Sinead O'Connor

The day I stop collecting recipes is the day I'll know that I have finally accepted that I'm not going to live forever. - Granny Owl

Sometimes in life you get eaten by the boa constrictor – in a dark place being squeezed on all sides.  Remember: 1)  It’s not your fault.  2)  All you have to do is hang on, because the snake will eventually shit you out into the light.  - Cynthia Whitcomb

The ultimate aim of the quest must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others. - Joseph Campbell

Death destroys a man, but the idea of death saves him. -   E.M. Forster in Howard's End

Awareness itself is the primary currency of the human condition, and as such it deserves to be spent carefully. - Andrew Olendzki in Busy Signal

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and close from fear of further pain. - Oriah Mountain Dreamer in The Invitation  

Goofin'

Sweet Hubby and I goof around a lot.  We'll be in the bathroom, for example, flossing our teeth, or in the kitchen preparing dinner, and just crack each other up, with wordplay, cultural references, inside jokes, giving voice to our cat, acting dumb.  Believe it or not, the word "so", said with a particular inflection, can send us both into paroxysms of laughter.  We laugh a lot in each other's company.

I wonder if all couples play like this.  I hope so.  I would love to think that we are an example, not an exception.  But thinking about this makes me realize that I don't know, none of us knows, what people are like in their most private, unself-conscious moments.  I can't imagine any of the couples I know using silly voices or making weird sounds and laugh laugh laughing.  Everybody besides us seems too mature for that.  But maybe we seem too mature for it as well, when we're in the public eye.

This curiosity I have about what other people are like hits me when I'm driving, passing other cars, wondering "Where are they all going?  And why?  And how do they feel about it?  What's on their minds right now?  Are they wondering about me?"  Sweet Hubby and I sometimes make the observation that for other people, we are just background players, just atmosphere for their lives the way they are for ours, but that for themselves, their lives are as full as for them as ours are for us.  Do they giggle and chuckle with their loved ones?  Do they speak in strange voices or burst into made-up songs or suddenly start dancing for no reason?  I hope so.  All that goofiness sure makes the world a happier place for me. 

Have I the right?

I know that there are some people who believe we choose, or chose, when and where and into what family to be born.   It would be reassuring to believe that.  It would be lovely to believe that I had something to do with the good fortune of my birth, as though I had earned the right to elevated circumstances, or was smart enough to choose better than most unborn souls seem to.

That's an idea that must be taken on faith, on pure belief, because it can't be proved and there is no evidence.  I don't believe it, reassuring as it would be to think my good fortune is deserved.

I know that I am no more at fault for being born healthy and white in the 20th century in the United States to a family that revered education and loved one another utterly, than another person is for being born a female in Saudi Arabia, a country which stills women's voices and allows them no freedoms.  I can't think she chose that for herself.

So what do I do with all this good fortune? 

Changing Flow

I love our boy cat Flow the way Republican Senators love Trump; no matter how many turds he drops around the house, I am still slavishly devoted to him.

Flow, like any animal, has always been utterly himself, with his own quirks and habits and personality.  We had had Flow and his sister Stachie in our home for four years before he would sit in our laps (Stachie was a lap cat after only a month), but once he started, he always got in the same position: stretched out on our legs, facing away.  When he would sleep on the bed with us at night, he always curled up below our knees.  We sometimes called him Trotsky because when we were ready to set down a meal, he would trot a little circuitous path through the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, and back to the kitchen.  He and Stachie both loved their food with a noisy passion, and would start asking for it two hours before the feeding times we had chosen for them.  We knew Stachie was sick the day she turned away from food.

Stachie died in 2019 of kidney failure.  Flow has enjoyed being an only cat these past years.  But he has begun to eat less, and has to be coaxed to eat at all.  He drinks prodigious amounts of water, so his kidneys are probably failing.  He doesn't seem to be in pain or even uncomfortable, so we love him up as much as we can.  He still wants affection, but he doesn't sit on our legs any more and doesn't sleep with us at night.  He used to like to curl up in either of two big fuzzy beds we put under the hutch in the living room.  Now he sleeps mostly in a little round gray bed in the coat closet.  When we walk past, he almost always blurps a funny little mew, which sounds as though he's saying "Hey!" or "What?" or "I didn't do it" or "Don't forget me."  We also sometimes find him meat loafing in odd places: twice on the bathroom floor behind the toilet, and recently half on the hallway carpet and half on the bare floor of the guest room, staring off into space.

Flow is changing. He's old and dying.  It's natural.  It's inevitable.  There's not really anything sad about it, although we'll be terribly sad when he dies.  But still, I'm grappling with that inevitability.  I still think about my Mom and Dad and Stachie and think "Really?  I'm never going to see them again?  Really?  How is that possible?"  I just don't get death, can't quite absorb it.  Flow is so much a part of the landscape of our home that it's almost unthinkable that he might - will at some point no longer be with us.  I see it coming, bit by bit, that loss, but somehow I just can't quite believe it.  Our sweet, funny, strange old man kitty.  Gosh but I love him. 

Body beautiful

Several years ago, PP (pre-pandemic), I led a workshop called Loving Our Bodies for a group of women at my UU Church. I talked about the reasons to love our bodies: all the ways it is able to heal itself, which are rather amazing, and the fact that our senses allow us to experience this gorgeous world.  I wore a sports bra and workout pants, which revealed my lumps and flab and flaws.  (I had considered leading naked, but thought that would probably be too distracting.)  I sent them home with little bags of items, each of which was chosen to appeal to one of the senses: rosemary for the nose, a little bell for the ears, a piece of soft fabric for the fingers, a Hershey's kiss for the tongue, and something pretty (can't remember what) for the eyes.

If I were going to lead another workshop of that type today, I would do it differently.  First I would ask everyone to put her hands on whatever part of her body she is most dissatisfied with, or, if that were too awkward, as in the case of hammer toes, for example, simply to visualize that part.  I would encourage the participants to close their eyes and just breathe for a moment, to take some time to truly connect with their bodies, and to notice and allow any feelings that arise.

Then I would tell my own story.  I have spent almost my entire life criticizing my body.  I don't know at what age that started, but it was early, and once begun, that self-criticism has never let up.  My hair is too lank, my knuckles too big, my thighs too chunky, my lips too thin, my chin too undefined, on and on and on.  And always the over-arching accusation of not being thin enough.  (My thyroid once went hyper and speeded up my metabolism so much that I lost a lot of weight, eventually down to a size 4 from a 12, no matter how much I ate.  The only time in my life I didn't think I was too fat.)

I would say to the participants, "Today, let's take a break from that critical inner voice.  Let's allow ourselves to be with our bodies exactly as they are, to experience our feelings about them, as well as our feelings about how we have treated ourselves.  Anger, sadness, grief, amusement, disappointment, resignation, confusion, whatever those feelings are, to let them arise unimpeded."

Then I would get to the topic of how to love our bodies, which is to decide to love them.  It's really the only way there is to counter all that self-criticism.  This kind of love isn't based on reasons, even though there are many reasons for it (see first paragraph).  It must be a choice.  When the critical voice arises, it must be recognized and put aside.    

Self-criticism is a habit.  The way to change a habit isn't to break the old one but to create a new one.  It takes awareness, the ability - and willingness - to notice and acknowledge the critical voice and to consciously create a new voice.  "No, I don't need to do that.  I'm fine as I am." Or "Thank you, body, for housing my soul and allowing me to experience the world."  Like a mantra used to focus the mind.

That's really all there is to it.  Simple, though not necessarily easy.    

 

Two great mysteries

There are, of course, many mysteries great and small in the world of being human, but I am plagued by two in particular.

The first is: How is it possible that so many people in power either are or have become so terribly hypocritical, mean-spirited, divisive, angry, smug, corrupt, greedy, and ignorant?  I have never been able to completely rid myself of the assumption that on some level, these fanatical Republicans of whom I speak know full well that they have backed a bad horse and are perpetuating lies about a supposedly stolen election and an insurrection they say deserves no deeper investigation.  They must know they've sold their souls.  Or, even more disturbing, have they actually bought into their own lies?  Such a puzzlement.

The other mystery is: What on earth are Sweet Hubby and I doing when we're asleep?  Every morning, I find that the mattress has crept over toward SH's side, the sheets are pulled over toward my side, and the bedspread is way over on SH's side.  How is this even physically possible?  What weird tossing and turning are we doing that results in such uneven distribution of the bedding?  How is it possible for the sheet to go one way and the bedspread another, and why is the mattress moving, and always in one direction?  

These are some of the conundrums taking my attention.  There are others, but these are the big ones, and, unless I set up a camera to record us sleeping, I will probably never have a satisfying answer to either one.

The good ol' factory

Would I know if I lost my sense of smell?  Since that can happen to people who contract COVID, it's  something to be aware of.  But I'm not sure I would notice.  

Certainly if something smells really strong ("Honey, the fish has gone bad.") or is right up close to my nose ("Smell my watchband."), I can smell just fine.  When I'm out walking and pass a rosemary bush, I love to pluck a few needles, crush and inhale them deeply.  That's one of my favorite fragrances.  When I'm baking muffins or some such deliciousness, I can smell them when they're baked just about right.

But most of the time I'm simply not aware of smelling much of anything.  Would I notice an absence of something I'm not aware of to begin with?

I once watched our little girl cat, the late, snuggly Miss Stachie Lou, tracking something on the living room carpet.  She went back and forth, then in tighter and tighter circles, until she finally found what she was sniffing for.  Bip, her little tongue flicked out to get it.  It was a crumb so small, I couldn't even see it, but she was able to hunt it down by smell.  How rich the world must be for animals, at least for those whose sense of smell is their primary way of finding and identifying.

We humans must have had much more acute senses at some point in our distant past.  But I guess they've diminished, become almost as vestigial as appendixes.  We don't need them so much any more, now that our survival depends more on electricity and almost not at all on our connection to nature.

I wonder if what I'm missing isn't the ability to smell, but awareness.  If I took time to notice, the world, truly notice it with all my senses, which would require an enormous stilling of my thoughts, might I discover more of the richness of the natural, and even the human, world?

Will I be satisfied with speculation, as usual, or will I actually give it a try?  Yes, on tomorrow's walk, I am giving my word here and now that I will be as aware as I'm able, to truly see what I am looking at, to truly listen to what I hear, to smell whatever is in the air.  To let my senses, as it were, stretch their legs and do what they're meant for.

Trust

Just before the pandemic shut down theaters, and everything else, I played a role in a fantastic play given a fantastic and very successful production at one of my favorite theaters, a theater where I had wanted to work ever since I moved here.  I was working with a stellar cast, two of whom I had known previously and two of whom I was secretly a very admiring fan.  This ended up being one of the prime experiences of my stage acting life.

There was a glitch, however, which dimmed the bright light of the experience.  During one performance, I left out a chunk of dialogue.  It didn't damage the story at all, and the stage director, watching from the booth, didn't even notice the omission.  But the woman I was acting the scene with did.  She is one of this city's most sought after actresses, and with good reason.   She is incredibly talented, versatile, and always rock solid in her performances.  I was, and continue to be, terribly embarrassed by my gaffe.  She didn't make a big deal of it, but I rather suspect that, in that moment, she may have decided, even if unconsciously, that I was someone she wouldn't want to work with again.  And I really couldn't blame her.

In the moment of my forgetting, I broke trust with her.  On some level, she might from then on have had in the back of her mind, "Is that going to happen again?  Can I count on her (meaning me)?  Am I safe in our scenes or do I have to stay on my guard?"

Breaking trust with someone, even when it's accidental, always comes with a price.  When my darling Sweet Hubby says he's going to be ready at a certain time, whether it's to walk out the door or sit down to dinner or settle in for a movie or whatever, and then he isn't, I begin to think I can't always count on his word.  And I know the same goes for me breaking my word to him, by saying I'm not going to have snacks in the evening and then help myself later on, or that I'm going to write that day and then don't, or any time I say I'm going to do something and don't do it, I make a dent in his trust.

Worse, of course, is that I make a dent in my trust for myself.  During the play, after I forgot that one small section of dialogue, I was probably more worried than my fellow actress.  Was I going to forget again?  I became more anxious, and the performances became just a bit less fun.  When I break my word about anything - eating, writing, working out, accomplishing anything at all - I stop believing in myself.  I damage my own integrity, my personal reputation.  So that the next time I make a promise, or a decision to do something, I don't quite believe it, and as a result, can be sloppier about keeping that promise or seeing that decision through, because, oh well, I already knew I probably wasn't going to stay true.

However, every single moment is an opportunity to build up one's integrity, one's sense of self, one's strength of character.  I have to remember that, take that with me into all the next new moments.  As a wise friend reminded me, I need to have as much compassion for myself as for others, because we're all human, all doing our best.  Even when our best sometimes looks pretty darned raggedy.

The wrestling match

Every day I wrestle with myself: Will I write today?  And too many days, "I ain't feelin' it" wins.  Because the truth is, I ain't feelin' it, not so much these days.  

I probably would feel it if I sat with my works-in-progress every day.  I know from decades of experience that getting inside and staying inside the world of a play makes it easier to see how to continue to craft that play.  But the thing is, no matter how much time I've spent pounding and chipping away at them through the years, not many of my plays end up being the first class works they might be in more talented hands.  Or is it, in more dedicated hands?

I've written a lot of plays, and have had a lot of success on a certain level.  But by this time, shouldn't I have something like a career?  And if I don't, then maybe it's because I'm just not a good enough writer to have a career. 

Or maybe I don't really want a career.  Maybe I am avoiding the responsibility of being expected to be good.

I feel stuck.  I don't feel as though I have the juice to go on, but I don't seem to be able to stop, not completely.

And I did have an idea for a new short play last night that I'm pretty excited about.

So I guess I'm a writer.  One who is either not as talented as I'd hoped, or just too lazy to fulfill that talent.  Will I write today?  Okay, all right.  Yes.  I will write today.  I make no promises about tomorrow. 

A perfect anthem

I was dancing my ass off last night to my favorite rock anthem, Foreigner's "I Want to Know What Love Is".  I realized that this aching, poignant, fierce song perfectly expressed the state I was in when I met Sweet Hubby:

I've gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I'm older

This mountain, I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
Through the clouds, I see love shine
Keeps me warm as life grows colder

In my life, there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me (hey)

Gotta take a little time
Little time to look around me
I've got nowhere left to hide
Looks like love has finally found me

In my life, there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
Can't stop now, I've traveled so far
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me

Why so harsh?

I have just returned from a wonderful visit to L.A. where I spent time with some of my closest friends, saw my niece and her fiancé play the Macbeths, and attended an emotional memorial for a long time friend and playwrighting colleague.

There is one incident from that visit that has continued to niggle in a way that is both uncomfortable and amusing.  As a friend and I were walking in downtown L.A., a young woman asked if she could use a phone.  I know one should never agree to something like that with a stranger, but I also believe it's important to be kind to people, to assume the best about them, and to help out when possible.  So I offered to dial the number for her, then handed her the phone, standing close by in case she bolted.

It sounded as though she spoke to her mother (because she said "Mom"), a quick conversation, then she handed the phone back and I went on my way, feeling rather virtuous.

Later that day, a text showed up from that number.  It said "Are you in the car you stole?"  (Actually, it said "Ate uin the car you stole?")  That took me by surprise, of course.  I texted back "She borrowed this phone.  Please don't text this number again."  I assumed that would be the end of the exchange.

So I had an even bigger surprise when, the next afternoon, I got another text from that number.  "FU".  That was all.   And that's the part that has been staying in my mind.  (Although the idea that I was dealing with car thieves didn't put me at ease either.)  I found that blunt message both amusing and puzzling.  Why did that person take the time to say 'fuck you'?  What was s/he mad at me for?  Trying to frighten me?  Maybe s/he felt threatened by knowing that I now knew that car theft was involved and so tried to act tough so that I wouldn't report it?  (I did call the LAPD, by the way, but since I wasn't the registered owner of the car and didn't know the license or any of the details, they were not at all interested.)  It just seemed like an unnecessarily brutal thing to say for no reason.

Me being me, I'm fascinated by moments like this, moments outside the fabric of my own life.  When I encounter someone who acts so differently from how it would ever occur to me to act, differently from pretty much everyone in my life, I can't help but ask unanswerable questions, make up stories, wonder about who that person is, what her life has been like, how he came to see the world as he does.

I'm not foolish enough to continue to engage with this person in order to get any of those questions answered, of course.  But the FU has stayed with me, and left me bemused and sort of sad.  It seems to represent a meanness, an anger, a violence of spirit that has to be learned somehow.  

But at least I learned that I should never again lend my phone to a stranger.  So there's that.