drawing a blank

At the monthly Ladies' Craft Day at Mt. Olive church, I decided to work on my scrapbooks, and totally drew a blank. I have photos, letters, diaries, copies of old German documents from my grandmother, but I got hung up on who was who in the pictures. I wish I had listened more carefully (or remembered better) when Nanie told her stories at bedtime about when she was a little girl. I recognize Aunt Minnie as the person who answered little Paula's question of "What do bunnies say?" with "Nothing" and Nanie thinking for a long while afterwards that bunnies ran around saying "nothing nothing nothing." I see the photos of the Hartford grandparents, but know nothing of why Great-Grandfather killed himself. The people we called Theresa (with a hard "th") and Sister -- no idea how they were actually related! It doesn't help that one of the last names involved was Smith!

Most mysterious of all, of course, is the question of what happened between her dad and her mom -- gushing letters apologizing -- for what? Children being taken away -- why? How many dead babies?

I guess I'm going to have to join Ancestry.com and see if anything can be unearthed. One of my friends says I should just invent a story! But I'm convinced truth is probably stranger than fiction. 

 

Seaweed and Seagull Poop

Full moon, negative tide, seemed like a good day to go to Davenport Beach in search of Lundberg seaglass. Our first clue that it was not was not was when we saw almost no beachcombers there, as opposed to the last two or three times when the beach was packed with serious shovelers of sand and pebbles. We paced up and down, poked and prodded, waded, froze our toes, but almost nothing had washed up on the beach but seaweed and seagull poop. How disappointing!

When did going to the beach become measured by how much debris (for that's what sand, seashells, seaglass, driftwood, etc. really are, aren't they?) we transported home? I already have so much stuff I am planning to set up a beachlike corner of my backyard. I have makings for earrings, necklaces, and windowsill decor galore! Perhaps it's being from Toledo, so far from the sea, that makes it so hard to believe the ocean will still be there, with or without beachcombings, next week, next month. Perhaps it's recognizing that nothing I can craft, paint, write is as beautiful as the real thing that makes me want to appreciate every little shard of coral and rounded rock. Perhaps it's the same impulse I had as a kid, always walking with my head down, looking for lost coins and marbles on the playground, hunting for bottlecaps at the picnic grounds, picking neighbors flowers that dared poke across their back fences.   

Still, we lingered on the sand. The air was so fresh, the sky so blue except for puffy little clouds, the sea was deep blue and cloudy brown and frothy white. A flight of pelicans flew directly overhead -- we could see the color of the bottoms of their breasts and wings. Joey (the dog) was in ecstasy. I picked up a bagful of otther people's trash, candy wrappers, yes, bottlecaps, and cigarette butts -- left only footprints. I took a few pictures. It was a great day!

Time Taxis, Flies, Crashes

A million years ago in college I took a high-falutin' course called something like household management, and one of the things that was discussed was the philosophy of time. Everybody knows about the subjectivity of time -- flies when you're havin' fun, etc. But what I'm really starting to notice is how it wiggles and wobbles and keeps changing speed. Seconds, for example, move painfully slowly when I'm trying to hold a "plank" exercise. Minutes grind by slowly on the elliptical machine, unless I happen to be watching HGTV. A three minute commercial break takes forever until I remember I can pause my DVR, go do something quick, and come back and fast-forward. But a 1-minute "blitz solitaire" game is over before I know it.

A day seems to take just about the right amount of time, unless I 'm having trouble sleeping, which happened last week when I subbed three nights in a row and threw my body-clock out of whack. But the weeks whiz by -- seems like practically every time I turn around it's time to take out the trash cans again, and the other once-a-week appointments crowd up against each other too. Months are not so bad -- they have their little celebrations and themes that help me keep track of time.

Years -- for so long all the years were measured by the kids: how old they were, what grade in school they were, what activities they were involved in, and within the year, the school calendar which was also my own work schedule. Then everything was revolving around Greg's appointments and caregiving schedule. Now I have to figure everything out for myself, sometimes taking ten minutes to deduce what day it is if I'm not standing next to a t.v. or calendar. I want to know what's on for each day, but at the same time I  love it when there is nothing I "have to" do! All the things I thought I'd get around to when I finally "had the time" are still sitting there on my list, their urgency totally diluted by the concept of retirement. I just looked back at some of my journal entries from 3 years ago -- and there are those same agenda items!

Which brings me to past vs. present vs. future. I think I have more or less mastered living in the present. I no longer fear the future (although I don't really look forward to anything in particular, I would like to have a general sense of anticipation of good things). I no longer regret the past, but I do want to "capture" some of the experiences and history in a form useful to other people. "Legacy" my financial planner called this -- I've been watching a lot of "Who Do You think You Are?" and "Finding Your Roots" type programs on t.v., and I want to preserve and tell the stories. I wish I'd paid more attention when my grandmother was telling her stories. But how much of my one and only NOW do I want to spend loop-de-looping around in THEN?

Sleep in Heavenly Peace...

I spent 2 hours and 17 minutes in the dentist's chair today, and part of the time their music system was playing Silent Night! I was so tired I was almost asleep while I was waiting for the anesthesia to kick in. I find dentist chairs physically very comfortable, while psychologically very stressful. 

I used to be a total dentophobe, with a period in my life when I actually avoided going to the dentist for 8 years! At which point all my childhood fillings, of which there were a lot, had to be replaced, wisdom teeth drawn, etc. Another five year hiatus after I moved to California. Various kindhearted boyfriends offered to refer me to their dentists, make the calls for me, physically transport me. It was Greg who broke through to me by saying "you have such beautiful teeth" (an exaggeration, to be sure, but compared to his cleft palate mouthful....) I also came to realize that one of my phobic reactions was to men having their fingers in my mouth, and a female dentist whose motto was "Gentle Dentistry" made a lot of difference. Also, it took a long long time for novocain to work on me, and all my previous dentists hadn't waited long enough before digging in.  Dental insurance removed the I-can't-afford-it excuse. I learned to apply Lamaze-style breathing, mindfulness meditation, and relaxation techniques and the innovations of suction instead of having to spit, warm neck pillows, and earphones also helped. 

Still, almost 2 1/2 hours with my mouth open wide, having to have six impressions made for the replacement of a crown (only a year old) reactivated a lot of the old reflexes: I became obsessed with the whiny and growly noises of the drill, the rasps of the suction machine, the beeps of the timer, the high-pitched and maniacally cheery voice of the hygienist in the next cubical "selling" a couple of preschoolers and their mom on x-rays, the droning recorded spiel of the how-to-floss video on the other side. As the numbness began to wear off I had to tell myself that that did not necessarily mean it was going to start hurting (and it actually didn't, much). The dental assistant was a new one on me, and she dropped a couple of little things (god knows what they were) on my head. The dentist, also a new associate, was apologetic: "we want this crown to be perfect" -- too bad they're not paid in tips, because she wouldn't have gotten a big one.

I'm tired of all this. My mom had all her teeth pulled when she was 35 and lived happily with dentures for almost 40 years although she was too vain to ever be seen without her teeth. She said she never regretted it.

A word to my readers: floss, damn it.

Memorial Day-- My Dad served in the Navy in WWII and my uncle was a medic in Korea, but no one in my generation in my family was ever in the service (brothers, cousins, husbands got college deferments or lucky lottery numbers during the Vietnam War). I was a peace marcher in the 70's. More recently, some of my most inspiring students in ESL classes have been refugees from South Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia.  I got a different perspective. Now my son is in the California Army National Guard and I feel a closer connection with service men and women and their families. I just watched the whole Memorial Day Concert in Washington DC -- sobbed through a lot of it. Nothing is as simple as it used to seem -- brave people, stupid wars, just causes, horrific results. Compared to a young wife with little tots losing her husband in Afghanistan, my loss of Greg to Parkinson's seems somehow....less. We had a life. What about civilians being killed by drones? What about all those little girls who can't go to school when the Taliban is in charge? Why is it our fight? Why shouldn't it be? What can peace-loving people (talk about the 99%!) do? 

After 33 years, I still get a thrill...

I BARTed up to San Francisco yesterday for a meeting with my financial advisor and a day out with my friend Morag. I still get such a thrill every time I hit the City. I love the fact that you can find your way around by landmark bridges, buildings, hills. I love all the little hole-in-the wall shops and galleries, and the inifinite choice of restaurants! We did a "tea-tasting" in a tiny shop in Chinatown, talked to a photographer who had an amazing photo of the Golden Gate Bridge focused up-side-down in a hundred raindrops on a windshield,  and a discussed life-choices with a teacher-painter-turned-novelist who was selling locally handcrafted jewelry. We ate fresh lychees! We went into a glass art store, which had crappy souvenirs cheek-by-jowl with $1000 Chihuly-style glass chandeliers. When we asked him what the heck he did in case of an earthquake, the proprietor shrugged and said he had no idea (and evidently cared less!) Everywhere we went we saw people walking tiny dogs in pairs: Scotties, Highland terriers, poodles, cockers....Our BART car on the way up there was crammed with Chinese-American middleschoolers, and on the way back down was full of seated Indo-American engineer-types. We even got rained on, just a little bit! What a lovely day!

Public Display of Exercise

I took my friend with me to the Fitness 19 place yesterday, with great hesitation, because I am very shy about sweating, grunting, and grimacing in public. 

I think it all goes back to high school gym class: those horrible little one-piece gymsuits, stall-less showers, humiliation of being the last one picked, standing out in left field praying the softball never came my way. Swimming was, and is, OK because most of the body is under water! (forget the diving part!) I have always self-defined as a klutz, and I do think my kinesthetic sense has always been a little off -- I often bump into doorways, bang my ankle bones and elbows into furniture.

Jenny Craig program appealed to me mainly because of the privacy of the weigh-in and the one-on-one counseling, and I was able to carry that over to the fitness center because, face it, I know I'm never going to impress a tatooed  ex-wrestler less than half my age, so what the heck. I don't know a soul there, which is good. I have trouble exercising and talking at the same time and I keep losing count of my reps even when I don't have anybody to talk to. But going with my friend (who signed up for a membership!) turned out very well. She validated my efforts and it was kind of fun to be the "expert" based on a few weeks of experience. Having her there will also give me another layer of accountability, and fewer, feebler excuses. 

I don't feel stronger, fitter, more flexible or with more endurance -- YET -- but I do feel proud I have kept at it, six weeks now. That's a whole grading period in 10th grade!