It’s one of those nights when my body can’t lie still. So it’s a good time to try out blogging from my new phone pad — lying in bed, Simon and Garfunkel playing in the background because I’m feeling nostalgic for a time that I romanticized even more then than I do now.
It’s too slow going on this flat screen keyboard. If I’m going to do this I’m going to have to get a little keyboard.
I’m wondering what ever happened to Art Garfunkle.
This is a test.
I’ll admit that I am writing this because there’s a contest at nerdwallet.com. I don’t know whether my suggestion falls under “service” or “purchase.” I would think both.
I can’t imagine any mother who would not just swoon at the thought of getting a chair massage. Whether you’re a young mom hauling around a baby or toddler, a typical mom keeping up with household chores while also (or not) holding down a job, or an empty nester still carrying around the weight of family cares, your shoulders and upper back can always use some TLC.
Even an enterprising offspring might have a little trouble tracking down a place to get his/her mom that 20 minutes of nirvana, but it can be done. Fitness centers, spas, and Senior Centers sometimes offer them. Sometimes massage therapist offices do. You have to call around. But it’s worth every minute and every dollar spent.
I am lucky. My neighbor, a massage therapist, does them in her home. I think I’ll give myself one for mother’s day.
Almost twenty years ago, I was a pretty decent intermediate ballroom dancer. When the New York State Museum, where I worked in administration, was holding a fund raiser centered around a 1940’s exhibit, they asked if Dan Molloy (a museum scientist and ballroom dancer) and I would do a swing dance performance. This is a rehearsal shot; somewhere, I have videos of our performance and of a television promo that we did for the event. That’s “videos” as in “you need a VCR to play them”. Who has a VCR any more?? Not me.
I put a lot of miles on my feet in those days. By the time this photo was taken, the heels on my dance shoes had gotten considerably lower than they had been during my disco days, when I danced in heels so high that I now marvel at how I ever managed those intricate Latin Hustle steps. (No, I’m not in that video.)
That was then. This is now.
My brand new La-Z-boy glider recliner arrived yesterday. I’m in love. And so are my feet — especially my left knee, which hurts all of the time. I do have an appointment at an orthopedist, but I couldn’t get in for another couple of weeks.
I really haven’t had a comfortable chair in which to relax since I moved here several years ago. It’s a small space, and I had to do some saving and thinking and shopping. I couldn’t have found a more comfortable relaxing place.
Crazy as it is, I still have one brand new pair of ballroom dance shoes that I can’t bear to give up, even though I’ll never wear them again. They have these really sexy ankle straps and a medium high heel. I’m thinking I’ll wear them to my some-day cremation. It seems like a good way to dance my way along to Star Stuff.
It’s sunny out today, finally, although the temperature still hasn’t hit 50.
The title of this post is from the end of this poem by Theodore Roethke, one of my favorite crazy dead poets.
Gilda Radner‘s signature phrase “it’s always something” is playing through my brain today. Just when I’m revving up for some physical movement and some windowsill seed planting, I do something to my left knee and I’m down for the count. Ice packs and visits to the chiropractor are helping, but at my age healing takes a lot longer than I like.
I’m not exactly sure what I did to my knee, but I think it has something to do with rolling out of bed one night a week or so ago in the middle of a dream about Bing Crosby. (I have no idea why I was dreaming about Bing Crosby, but, as he was sitting in my living room singing to me, I reached over to pick up a sheet of lyrics that dropped on the floor and that’s when I rolled out of bed.)
I am an elaborate dreamer, often playing out scenarios that seem so real that, when I wake up, I’m not sure where I am.
Hmmph. The sun is gone again. Maybe it will be back tomorrow. Maybe my knee will feel better tomorrow. Maybe my son will find work.
The sun. The son. The sun.
I know that at my age I could easily be misremembering, but I don’t think so.
Back in the early 1980s, I found two books that I gave to my pre-pubescent son to read.
Girls: A Book for Boys and Boys: A Book for Girls
They were the best two books for kids that I ever saw analyzing gender/sex and the physical and psychological changes of puberty in a way that supported respect for both your own and your opposite gender. Both the explanations and the illustrations were clear, honest, and age-appropriate. Together, they provided an approach to sex education that also placed a high value on each gender, encouraging understanding of the differences and appreciation of the human similarities. I eventually I gave them away to another mother, and now neither Amazon nor Google has any mention of them.
I think of these books now because of all of the discussions around the rape of the 16 year old girl by the high school football players.
My son says that he doesn’t remember reading those books, but I sure do remember sitting there and watching him read them, ready for any questions he might ask. Even though he doesn’t remember those books, the reality is that his strong respect for females can be traced, in part, back to the concepts in those books that became embedded in his subconscious.
Next month he’s participating in this, offered by Ball State University:
Gender Through Comics: A Super MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that examines how comic books can be used to explore questions of gender identity, stereotypes, and roles. This highly engaging learning experience is designed for college-age and lifelong learners. I guess that there are some things I did right as a single mom bringing up a son.
I keep thinking that kids today need those two books more than ever. But all traces of them seem to have disappeared from both the real and virtual face of this earth.
If you know any feminist parents who were raising young kids back in the 80s, please ask if they remember those books. They were published about the same time as the original Our Bodies, Ourselves.
Obviously, I’ve cleaned out my blog house, going for a fresh new look. Now, the challenge is to clean the cobwebs out of my head and start to write here again. It’s not unusual for bloggers to take a break every once in a while.
I’m also motivated to tune up physically — went to the chiropractor today. Of course, it helps a lot that my daughter (who cooks for the family) has upped our intake of delicious vegetables and cut down the fleshy portions of our meals. That means I’m eating healthier (except for my late night snacking, which I’m trying to control). With Spring will come more walking and a greater willingness to get myself out for the exercise classes at the well-equipped local Jewish Community Center.
My next challenge is to clean out my living space and make room for the new Lazy-boy glider recliner I bought myself for my birthday with my tax refund.
In the meanwhile, I’m still putting out heirloom seeds for wintersowing, even though it’s kind of late for that. I can’t wait to get out and garden.
My son, who is still job-hunting, has been motivated to publish his late father’s novels, which have been sitting on old 5 inch floppy discs in WordPerfect. They are available via Amazon Kindle, and he has put up a website to promote them: www.myrlnbooks.com
The Wheel turns.
The wheels turn.
Spring. Sunshine. Energy. Hope.
My son says this on his web portal:
As we get older, they matter even more as we struggle with bad eyesight, poor hearing, and dozens of other major and minor infirmities.
My first day of volunteering at an assisted living center affirmed what I already believe: a smile and a little bit of sincere attention make all the difference in the world to people besieged by a world over which they have little control.
These days, given the economy et al, that’s pretty much true for all of us, but it’s even more true and important for the elders with whom I spent some time yesterday. Patience, courtesy, a smile.
I really enjoyed being able to help them out a little. I will be going back a couple of times a week.
More than a dozen years ago, when “personal” blogs were beginning to blossom, I managed to brazenly infiltrate a small group of such bloggers. all of whom were expert in some aspect of communications technology. That they welcomed me — a technological dilettente –into their virtual family still amazes me.
In many ways it was the best of times for personal bloggers, as we played off each others’ posts, bantering and badgering and behaving pretty much like affectionate siblings — even though many of us had not met in person. Like most siblings, after some years of sharing a rolicking range of adventures across our global homestead, we drifted apart — catching up periodically these days via the much less adventuresome terrain of Face Book.
Michael O’Connor Clarke was a warm, funny, and energetic member of that original blogger family. To learn that he is in the hospital with esophageal cancer is more than just disturbing.
But it is not surprising to learn that members of that old virtual family are again coming together in an effort to generate both emotional and financial support for his actual family, because as our blogger/friend Jeneane Sessum shared on Face Book: They are a one-income family. That income is in a hospital bed right now and for the foreseeable future.
One of the blessings of the Internet is that it enables the coming together of like minds and hearts to help things happen. We can’t cure Michael; that’s up to his doctors in Toronto. But we can help him by helping his family. If you are moved to do so, go to http://supportmichaelocc.ca/ and see if you might be able to help.
What’s a “snatchel”?
Before I get to that, let me just explain that I have in my life marched in protests carrying banners with symbols proclaiming my positions on critical issues. During the wartime 70s, I sewed a gigantic “Peace” banner and hung it from a tree limb that hung over our driveway. I believe in the power of symbols. I believe that sometimes you have to get in the faces of those who refuse to hear what you’re saying.
So, I’m joining the Snatchel Project.
First, go here to find out about the project, supported by a group that proclaims:
— We are women, we are strong, we are smart. And we have a sense of humor.
— We do not need government interference with our doctors or our healthcare.
— We do not need government probing our vaginas to help us make decisions about abortion.
— We do not need government to give us guidance about whether or not to take birth control.
So, here’s my original knitted interpretation, my contribution. I am thinking that I might just make a bunch of them and send them to the group to distribute appropriately. I will make a little card that says:
Get your pre-historic laws out of my personal private parts.
The Snatchel Project already has received considerable media coverage, as listed here.
I realize that there are lots of people who think sending uterine and yonic representations to legislators who are trying to drag us back into the Dark Ages is a waste of time.
Well, maybe it is. But for us pissed off feminist knitters, it’s a hoot.
And hey, you never know. At least it will get their uncomfortable attention. Works for me.
I used to walk around with it on my forehead on this annual ashy Wednesday. Rituals are important, I still believe. It’s just that these days I believe in different kinds of rituals, ones that are created to empower, not depress.
Today, though, as I walk around attached to a heart monitor, I am confronted by coincidentally timed reminders of the fragility of my mortality.
It’s Ash Wednesday and my mortal coil seems to be “sproinging.”
I have a theory about where these symptoms are coming from, and I don’t believe they start in my heart, although that is where they wind up. I wish there were a Dr. House in the house who would sleuth his way through the electrical impulses of my body to shine his light on the first cause.
But this little picture works the same way as the big picture: we might never know the first cause, so we just keep examining each clue, each symptom, eliminating possibilities, one by one, until we get to the point of it all.
And, all in all, the only point might be that we are, after all, only the beginnings of ashes and dust.