Bumping into the past ~ Relationship Reset

Over the past four weeks I have attended a wedding, a 50th Wedding Anniversary "Shed Party" and a college graduation party for a 40-something who has tackled his first advanced degree in pursuit of yet a more advanced degree.  All three events were centered in relationships established in my youth or during the years during which my children were growing up.

In each of these situations, I saw people that used to be part of my life on a regular basis.  Since moving to the "cities" in late 1998 I have had no contact with most of them, some contact with others and kept close contact with a treasured few.

I had a great time at each of these events and enjoyed conversations with everyone.  And I had a chance to see once again how perspective informs the conversation.  For many of my peers, the conversation began with I haven't see you in a long time.  Where do you live now?  How long have you been retired? (like they don't already know the answers to all these questions) to I have heard you have a really good life and now I see you do   to oh my gosh, how are you?  What are you doing now?  and ... ... ...

Most interesting for me are the oh my gosh how are you, what are you doing now questions that came from my kids peers!  They expect that life moves on, that people make new choices.  On the other hand, questions from my peers tended to be all about the past or about retirement.  When they learn that retirement is not a part of my reality (some days I long for it and others I never want it to come my way), they run completely out of things to say.  Some of them have been retired for over 10 years. 

My kids peers on the other hand are comfortable to talk and talk and talk about life being full of possibility and opportunity and they want to talk about what that is like in their lives and mine!  Their lives have always been about change, they never knew life when people made a choice upon graduating from high school and lived that choice their entire lives.

Perhaps the most exciting thing about these exchanges is that I am renewing some connections and I am very excited about that.  The new in all of this is that I am renewing connections with people who knew me in the past and now that we have reconnected, we want to know and spend time with each other in the now that is real and exciting! 

So for today, I am calling this great gift Relationship Reset!

To add a little fun, I decided to do a Google Image Search using Relationship Restart ... almost without exception the images are couple based or are images of Dr. P. touting his most recent tome which of course uses the word relationship in the title and then he adds the word, rescue.  Not what I am talking about here at all! 

Oh geez, now I may need to ponder whether the word relationship is the right word to use in this Just Thinkin' post. As today's youth say over and over and over again, for today It is what it is!  Period.

The Perfect Body

Auntie Lena (Ginger Hedstrom)

In 1990 a dear friend, who happened to be full-blooded Norwegian, turned 65 glorious years old.  A group of us wanted to surprise her and we also knew that it was she who was the queen of giving.  She flunked receiving with more "F's" on her report card of life than any of us ever could!

So I created Auntie Lena, a character clown, in the hopes of bringing a little levity to the surprise party to provide some ease for her ... taking some of the attention off her ... for a few minutes.  I created my "one time ever costume" wrote a poem about her life from stories her family and friends shared with me, brought a "deesh to pass." In the tradition of clowning, as the fool who created an interruption changing "momentarily" the tone of the event.

It was a grand party and she had a tremendous time receiving all the love from her family and friends.  This time she got an A+ as she received it ALL. Today, almost 13 years since her death in June 2000, I can still see her face as she drank in the fun and the love surrounding her.  Oh, yes, I can hear her laughter laughter too. 

The absolute unexpected consequence of all of this was that people began asking Auntie Lena to create an interruption for them.  In the ensuing years I have created many and just like the first, each one has something to teach me.

Two weeks ago I was asked to interrupt the 50th Wedding Anniversary of dear friends.  I have known the bride since we were both in grade school and the groom since my teens.  This was planned with their children who told them that due to my recent bi-lateral foot surgery I would not be able to come as Auntie Lena. 

My props for the day included a decadent "made from scratch" chocolate cake topped with a used candle and wrapped in an embroidered "Saturday deesh towel," a quart jar of homemade egg coffee wrapped in old newspapers, an antique Victrola with 78 rpm polka records, and a clothes stomper for a cane. 

This morning I can still hear the laughter of the crowd, especially the bride!  I do love to hear laughter and since I can't respond with laughter, I remember it even more clearly after the fact.

One of the things that I learned that day was about body image.  What is okay at one age and is not okay at another.  In the picture above my costume includes a polyester dress that was made in the 1970's by my great-aunt Ella.  The hem is right above my knees.  I also wear pantyhose, a pair of old fashioned nylon "granny panties" over them and cotton stockings knotted at my knees.

While trying to put the Victrola together and get the music playing, my polyester dress hiked up in the back.  It always does.  It is supposed to!  It always brings laughter, gales and gales and gales of laughter.  And like many older women I have been blessed to know, it doesn't bother Auntie Lena any more than it bothered them.  On this occasion however, it was problematic for one of the guests who came up behind me and tried unsuccessfully to pull the dress down!  Well honey, there "ain't no pullin'" it down!  It is planned to be that way.

What I have been wondering since that afternoon during my moments of reflection and introspection is, was this person trying to protect my dignity?   Or was the imperfection of my aging body offensive to the eye (s) of the beholder (s)?  After all, no one would think of pulling down the tiny jean skirt of a teenage girl or any woman with a young lean trim body or for that matter any woman considered "young."  I don't know and it really doesn't matter.  The experience simply gave me something on which to be "just thinkin'."

None of these things would enter my mind if it weren't for the ways we as a society view the aging body as flawed, imperfect, wrong, a cause of embarrassment.  There is a billions dollar" anti-aging" industry to keep us from becoming wrinkled, preventing facial hair" and warding off the unpleasant sight of gray hair. Exposure of elephant" knees and/or "wing" upper arms, presenting images of elders in swimming suits, shorts or swimming suits and the response is often sound of absolute distain"eeewwweeeeeee."

From my years of working with elders and now literally being one, I realize that even suggesting that aging persons continue to be sexual persons is utterly repulsive.  There are not enough e's or w's in the English language to express the collective repulsion. 

Actually as I keep just thinkin' it seems that the only people we should celebrate as healthy and vibrant and sexually appealing are the young, the thin and the beautiful, the painted, primped hetero-sexual beings who are served abundantly and unceasingly by our billions and billions and billions dollar perfection based marketing media machines!

As always, I am still just thinkin' about live as it shows up!  Wrinkles and gray hair and wing arms and elephant knees and laugh lines and ... ... ... life IS good! 


 

Missing and Missed: Blue Sky of Spring

Puerto Morelos April 2013

I chose this picture
to help me remember
a blue sky

On this May 4, 2013
Saint Paul Minnesota
blue sky is a distant memory

Or at least so it feels
while California is
battered by relentless wild fires
we are simply living under gray skies
daily snow
record snow fall
Southern MN in May!

And though I miss the
warmth of spring
more
more
more than anything
I miss the
Blue Sky of Spring
in Minnesota.

I am working hard on
patience
knowing the sun shines
above the clouds
that will leave
then I will STOP
everything
and go outside
to see
to feel
the sun
savor the
Blue Sky of Spring.

And pray that the
dangerous and destructive
live changing
fires fueled by strong winds
in California
abate soon
very
very
very soon!

"IT" has happened AGAIN

Considered VINGAGE!

I woke this morning after a perfectly glorious week which started with a heavy APRIL snowfall followed by sunshine, warming temperatures and the disappearance of the snow that this year threatened to become a 12 month a year phenomena.

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of appearing as "Auntie Lena, the Old Norwegian Woman" at the 50th Wedding Anniversary of dear friends.  The party was on the farm where the "bride" grew up.  I visited there often as a child. I drove there almost on auto pilot.  The roads had changed some, Minnesota 52 is now four lanes, the access to the county road now has a curve carved into it to "slow" traffic lest drivers think the road goes straight through. The farm?  Well the old barn remains with new siding and porch-like addition on one side.  All the other buildings are new, the "old Thompson Place" is now clearly the "Olson Place" and still in the family!  Where fields of corn, beans and alfalfa once grew undisturbed and cattle once grazed an enormous cell phone tower signals the 21st Century is fully present.

As one son-in-law of the honored couple said, "This is so amazing.  Who is married 50 years anymore? I tried to explain to my daughter (six years old) what it means to be married 50 years. All she knows is that her daddy is not yet 50 years old!"

"Auntie Lena" brought a deesh to pass: Made from scratch decadent chocolate cake with from scratch chocolate frosting complete with a used candle which she lite with a farmers match; homemade egg coffee in a Ball canning jar wrapped in newspapers to keep it hot "yust like ve used to do ven ve took it to da fields ven pa vas plantin' in da spring;" an antique portable Victrola on which she played polka music when it was all cranked up to handle 78 RPM records and ... ...  it was a grand time!  I wouldn't give it back for a million dollars.

Then the sun came up this morning.  Yes, I woke to a sun-filled morning with the sun steaming in ALL the windows in ALL the rooms of my home.  Struck by nostalgia, I made another pot of old fashioned egg coffee in the same "vintage" pot I used yesterday.  It really is the best coffee in the world whether made in the kitchen or over a camp fire.

While sipping my coffee and reading the paper I noticed a herd of dust buffaloes hiding under the newly recovered "vintage" chair in my den. My eyes then wandered over to the "vintage" unfinished bead-board cabinet that serves as a stand for the television.  Yup, another herd was lurking under the open edge.  As I returned to the kitchen to fill my cup, I noticed that herds were present in corners, under the china hutch, dining room and kitchen tables and ... ... ...

For about 10 seconds I lamented that I had let the house reach this point of disarray.  Well, I got over that real quickly!  I remembered visiting the home of a woman whom I admired greatly in the late 1970s.  There were piles of papers, stacks of books, projects in process and some dishes in the sink.  It was at that moment that I realized that she clearly made choices that fed her life and the lives of countless others; that her home reflected the richness of her life rather than her failure to keep the "perfect house."

It was also about that time that I made a commitment to myself and have stated that commitment often over the years to others: "If on the day I die all they can write on my tombstone is that 'she kept a perfect house' that would be proof that I missed out on a lot of life!"

So, in the past five weeks I:
~Spent time with family and friends
~Recovered from bi-lateral foot surgery on March 15
~Spent eight days with 11 amazing women near Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, Yucatan
~Attended and celebrated Brooke's (grand-daughter) confirmation (Marissa, her big sister was her sponsor)
~Returned to full time work
~Attended the opera Turnadot with a dear friend
~Coordinated the Just Immigration Reform: 2013 Window of Opportunity (click on survey shows)
   event at work featuring local and national presenters
~Attended the wedding of dear friends
~Attended the Cantus benefit honoring the 30th Anniversary of the Advocates for Human Rights
~Had dinner with friends at the newly opened Daily Diner on the corner of University & Dale in St.
  Paul (great food, atmosphere, staff and MISSION)
~Volunteered at the HISTORY THEATRE in their development department (now showing This Side of Paradise)
~Shared "Auntie Lena" with dear friends

About the herds of dust buffaloes...I think they can live happily at least one more day.  After I finish the last drop of my egg coffee I am going to enjoy spring by spending the day OUTSIDE!

Sometimes I forget that every choice I make determines how I spend MY life.  I have to make a pot of egg coffee in my "vintage" pot more often and smile at those buffaloes as I pass by!

"Relationship is all there is!

I wrote the blog below six days ago but did not publish it. 
Nearly a week later, I still have come to no conclusions.  There is so much that is mystery ... so much to think about ... what seems to be the "answer" today often proves in days, weeks, months or years later to be not so clear.  So, I will continue to ponder life by

Just Thinkin'

Who we are with each other is who we are with the world." Carol Zinn, SSJ, CSSJ NGO- Representative to the U.N. (7/07)

I just turned off Sunday morning TV.  There was some "news" that was not tied to the Boston Marathon Bombing, the suspects, the victims both alive and dead...the way our lives are made different because of this violent situation.

There are a couple of words that stand out for me in the reporting through all forms of media:  terrorist, terrorism, Muslim, heroes and friends.

It feels like an impossible task to imagine the thousands and thousand of times we have heard and read the words, terrorist and terrorism.

In the order most spoken, most written:
(From my perspective, it is the only one I have!)

Terrorism:  Once again we hear this word used to describe a local incident that has national implications.  We hear that once again we must prepare ourselves for more such incidents ~ translation ~ more police presence, more "security," more scrutiny into our every day lives.

Terrorist:  the person (s) who perpetrate public violence?

Muslim:  I do not remember when I have ever heard the perpetrator of violence, public or in the home, defined as Lutheran, Episcopalian, Catholic (exception, pedophilia), Evangelical, or ...

Hero:  A right and just word used for people who come forward, either because of their profession or their innate sense of caring for others, to provide instantaneous care for those on whom the violence has been perpetrated.

Friends:  In the report this morning which was part of CBS Sunday Morning one of the suspected perpetrators was quoted as saying in an online communication, that he had no American friends.  He had been in the United States for more than 5 years and yet he had NO "American friends."

Did he want to get to know people?  Did people want to get to know him?

We put laws and policies in place to guard against terrorism and spend billions and billions of dollars to create a false sense of safety.  From my perspective, there is simply no guarantee that we can actually provide safety on this level.  On 9/11 a total of 128 people were killed and hundreds more were seriously injured. In the ensuing years, the number of people in the United States killed by terrorists committed to perpetrating terrorism against people they do not know include those killed at Fort Hood, Texas; Virginia Tech; Aurora Theater; Newton, CT and ... ...

In contrast: "The number of people killed by firearms in the United States remains high.  According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, between 2006 and 2010 47,856 people were murdered in the U.S. by firearms, more than twice as many as were killed by all other means combined." (ABC News August 25, 2012)
 
And then if we look further we learn that the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan and Iraq: 6,614 and the number of women, in the same period, killed as the result of domestic violence in the US: 11,766 (50 Facts about Domestic Violence. Soraya Chemaly, 11/30/2012).

So what is my point anyway?  As I have been "just thinkin'" about everything this week, there are several things that stand out for me.

1.  There seems to be a perception that the FBI, law enforcement and the general public can predict who the terrorist is and what the terrorist will do.  In reality, we hear over and over again that people who know the perpetrator are "shocked" to learn that the person they knew could be capable of such violence.  In some instances we hear that they were loners with some quirky behaviors but rarely anything to really allows law enforcement or others to predict that they will perpetrate a violent act.

We heard this from classmates and friends of the suspects of the Boston Marathon Bombing,
the perpetrator of the Newton School shootings, Aurora Theater Shooting, etc.

2.  Now to back to the issue of domestic violence.  Once again extended family, friends, co-workers, neighbors are shocked to learn that the one who killed his wife/partner was capable of such violence. 

So all of this leaves me wondering:  how is it that we can expend billions and billions of dollars in efforts to stop public terrorism when we do so little to address the reality of terrorism in our homes and our city streets where everyone hopes to really be safe?

3.  How different would our homes and our public spaces be if we really cared about and for each other?  What would it be like of we had the capacity to respect all people regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religious affiliation?  What would it be like if we spent more money on creating environments were people can create community rather that build structures that are based in fear and mistrust?

What if we lived and moved and had out being from a place of knowing and believing  that "relationship is all there is.  Who we are with each other is who we are with the world?"

What do I really know anyway?  Not much.  Much of life truly is a mystery!

There is so much that is mystery to me and I truly believe that we can continue to spend billions and billions and billions fear-based dollars in our efforts to end public terrorism when in truth we can not guarantee it will end.

I also believe that we can really make a difference in our relationships that absolutely influence how we relate with others and therefore the world.

Traveling Goddesses Spring 2013 Trip to Puerto Morelos, Quintana Roo, Yucatan

A picture IS worth a thousand words!

Women from Minnesota and California guided by Traveling Goddesses: Transformational Travel for Women owners, Connie Delgado (MN) and Margo Hinnenkamp (CA) experienced an extraordinary week living in two villas overlooking the Caribbean Ocean: breathtaking views with every blink of our eyes; sumptuous food planned, prepared, presented and devoured on site and in the village; massages at the Jungle Spa (Mayan Women Healers) and on the veranda overlooking the Caribbean; a trip to Akumal to snorkel and swim with the turtles; and a trip to swim in the Akama Cenote.
Add in time for leisure, swimming, strolling the beach, experiencing yoga on the beach, dancing at the Infinity Pool; lounging with a good book, getting to know each other through story telling and laughter, lots of laughter. 

This picture, taken after an evening on the town and dinner at the Argentinian restaurant that says it all...incredible women sharing an amazing trip!  THANK YOU CONNIE AND MARGO!

Missing in Action

Well these past months it has happened again!  Back in October I was SO sure I was back online blogging with regularity.  Then "life" showed up again and I disappeared  once again for another five months!

Wearing MY shoes again!

I used to get really upset when situations like this reared up AGAIN.  Upset gets me nowhere except frustrated at me and if there is one thing I have to stop doing is being frustrated with me!

So today, I simply recognize that it is:
 ~~good to be back in action today
 ~~good to have had bi-lateral Morton's Neuroma surgery and be in my third week of recovery
 ~~hard to be patient with healing, I want to walk for exercise (not yet), I want to take a long hot
     shower (not yet), I want to take a long hot bath filled with lavender (not yet) and I want a
     pedicure (not yet)
~~exciting to be wearing my own shoes again and not the velcro closure post surgery "shoes"
~~thrilling to know that I will be back to normal daily activities in two weeks and able to walk for           exercise in four weeks
~~amazing to have three fabulous, caring, loving, kind, generous adult children and who are parents
     to my outrageously different and magnificent grand-girls and grand-boys (two each)
~~and a raft of friends near and far who live life's roller coaster rich vibrant journey with me.

So for today, I am back in action.  As if I am ever OUT of action!  I simply choose the actions that make each day and live into them until the sun sets on today and the sun rises on tomorrow.  It really is that simple!