Got It!

   

    Guess what?  There IS one thing on my bucket list!  Ha!  I fooled you (although not intentionally).  I have always wanted to live at the beach and, before I die, I would like to make good on that.  

    

      The ocean is a powerful draw for me and always has been. As children, we went on day trips to the California beach often and every summer there was at least one beach camping trip.  My college years were spent close to Santa Cruz and the Monterey area.  I went to the beach all the time.  Sometimes it was to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk or the Monterey/Carmel beaches.  But just as often, I trekked out to the more remote beaches between Santa Cruz and San Francisco.  Those days were always renewing. sometimes adventurous, always enjoyable.  Later I ended up living north of the Golden Gate and still spend plenty of days during all seasons of the year at the beach.

     Maybe twenty years ago, I seriously considered relocating permanently to a beach locale.   In order to be affordable, I would likely need to move to a fairly remote beach area.  Fairly remote means few jobs and that leads to no money for rent and food for the family.  Best to set that idea way over there to the side until kids are launched.

     Fast forward twenty years.  Kids are launched.  I'm still working but I can think about some other options.  Here's the thing.  I like my house.  I like my neighborhood.  I don't really want to deal with buying and selling property and I am not sure I want to be in the beach climate 24/7.  Anyone who knows me knows my thoughts on fog and gray.  

    But, here's the creative part.  Who says "living at the beach" has to mean relocating and living all day every day at the beach?  How about this?  How about if I were to really live at the beach for, say, one month a year?  How about I keep my house in my neighborhood but I go live at the beach for intervals?  Maybe one year I live on a NorCal beach for the month of January (one of the best times to visit NorCal beaches, I might add).  Maybe the next year, I find a place to stay on the big island of Hawaii for the month of February.  Perhaps the next year in March, I try Cape Hatteras in North Carolina.  And the pattern continues:  Gold Beach, Oregon, the Jersey shore, Cape Cod, San Diego, Key West, Florida, Acadia, Maine, you get the idea.

    Do you have a favorite beach?  Give me some words about it, please.

Tastes the Same

"The sea is nothing but a library of all the tears in history."

                                                                     Lemony Snicket

      Okay, I'm putting it right out there.  All of my life I have been afraid of tears.  They say I am weak.  They say there is something wrong with me.  Buck up, baby.  Show nothing lest you be seen.

     Here's the rule:  you can cry.  Just not in front of anyone.  Okay, maybe in front of your best friend but that's it.  Cry at any other time and you are less than.  My parents did not cry, my older brothers did not cry.  As a matter of fact, if you did cry, the response was, "Stop crying, young lady, or I will give you something to cry about."

      One exception to the rule is death.  Death is too big to hide from.  I even saw my dad tear up when his mother was buried. Tears are, indeed, a surrender to the power of death. Tears are sadness, anger, frustration, happiness made real.  Made visible.  Tears connect us humans in all of our deepest places.  Exposing those places?  What a risk!

     Lately I've been thinking that I might want to change the rule.  Maybe tears actually signal strength?  Maybe they say "Yes, yes, I know my pain.  And, yes, I know your pain.  You are not alone.  Nor am I."

     After all, let's get real.  Pain is a link for all humans.  For me to go inside and then deliver to the public my  heart and soul?  That takes strength.  Maybe even courage.  My tears connect me and I can be known.  Scary.

You're not alone
I'm with you, I'm lonely too
What's that song
can't be sung by two?

A broken home, a broken heart
isolated and afraid
Open up this is a raid
I wanna get it through to you
You're not alone

You're not alone, every night
I stand in your place
Every tear on every face
Tastes the same

A broken home, a broken heart

isolated and afraid

Open up this is a raid

I wanna get it through to you

You're not alone

A broken home, a broken heart

there's no need to be afraid

Open up this is a raid

I wanna get it through to you

You're not alone

I wanna get it through to you

You're not alone

On the Bench Again

If loneliness is the disease, the story is the cure.   
- Richard Ford

    There are lots of folks who sit on the bench in my neighborhood but the quietest one, and one I highly favor,  is the observer.  He generally straddles the end of the bench, chin in hand, eyes covered in RayBans.  His curly dark hair is always bunched under a hat, often a fedora but occasionally he sports the black and orange of the home team.  This dude just watches.  He's not above a chuckle and a high five when a passerby or someone else on the bench makes a remark but his primary goal in life appears to be contemplating the world.  He notices the details:  the cop waving to the little kid, the punk on the bike chomping his gum, the sexy lady singing to herself while walking downtown .  He hears that rat dog whining, the engine on that 1990 silver Toyota knocking, the blender in the kitchen across the street making margaritas.  It's all there.  Recorded for future reference.

     Yes, what isn't obvious from the bench is that the observer is also a recorder.  What he reckons is that everyone has a story.  Everyone.  Sometimes people know their story and sometimes they don't.  Not yet, anyway.  And maybe never.  He is curious about  their stories but he knows enough to realize that you can't force the telling of the story.  So he watches.  He lets people tell their own details, even if they can't hear their story.  He waits for the unfolding.  And records what he knows.  In the stillness of 4:00 in the morning,  the stories fall out of the observer and onto the keyboard.  And he feels connected.

     

Bucket Lists

    I don't have one.  A bucket list, that is.  You know,  like in that movie The Bucket List?  Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman?  Old guys trying to do the things they want to do before they "kick the bucket"?

    I don't quite get it.  I get lists and sometimes I even make lists but I don't have any check off list of what needs to be accomplished before I fold into the mystic.  That seems so huge and so transient to me.  What I want right now is, in all probability, not going to be what I want in six months or a year, let alone in ten years.  I guess you can make the list and change it a lot but what exactly is the point of the bucket list?  Do you make one because you might forget what it is you want to do?  Or is there some internal satisfaction in checking off the old list.  Just wondering.

   Do you have a bucket list?  Tell me one thing that's on it.  Make it something that doesn't have to do with travel, if you can.

Into the Mystic

     I stumbled over some vintage Van Morrison the other day on my way to somewhere else.  Isn't that how it often is?  On your way to one place, you find the real treasure along the path?  The cosmos gets us like that.

     I hadn't listend to this little piece of Van in a long time and it knocked me over when it fell from the sky.  Thing is, you know, I am still wrapping my head around my friend's death and then this little wondersong stops me in my spinning.  It is such a powerful, sensual, and haunting almost hymn. Some  might even claim magical and spiritual. What I know to be true is that it made me pause for a minute and just be. That's a good thing in my book.

     Life is finite.  I know that:  "We were born before the the wind, also younger than the sun"
 
     The call is to live it to the fullest:  "Smell the sea and feel the sky, let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic."

    Make room for love:  "I will rock your gypsy soul, just like back in the days of old."

    And make room for acceptance:  "We will magnificently fold into the mystic."

     The thing is, I hold Van Morrison's music close.  Common Irish roots?  Don't know, doesn't matter. His music makes me feel alive.  This is one song that I wouldn't mind hearing someday, on a warm summer evening, as I say goodbye to this world that has held me for lots of years.

 

We were born before the wind
Also younger than the sun
Ere the bonnie boat was won
As we sailed into the mystic

Hark, now hear the sailors cry
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic

And when that fog horn blows
I will be coming home
And when that fog horn blows
I wanna hear it, I don't have to fear it

And I wanna rock your gypsy soul
Just like back in the days of old
Then magnificently we will fold into the mystic

When that fog horn blows
You know I will be coming home
And when that fog horn whistle blows
I gotta hear it, I don't have to fear it

And I wanna rock your gypsy soul
Just like back in the days of old
And together we will float into the mystic

Too late to stop now?

The (Body) Machine Shop

      To my dismay, I have become way too familiar with the physical therapy clinic. Because I am a highly active person who also happens to have inherited arthritic tendencies, I have become a fairly regular visitor at PT over the past ten years.  The sessions have sometimes been related to the arthritis issues but sometimes are a result of overuse or accidents that have occurred because I like to move. No matter why I am going there,  I am grateful that I have access to physical therapy (even if it is a literal pain and a disruption to my day).  I am also finding the clinic to be an interesting classroom for the study of human beings.

   When I walk in for any appointment, I take in the big room with all the equipment and the various combinations of therapist/patient at work.  It's odd to me that, although this is a medical establishment, privacy is not a priority.  The room is open and the conversations are accessible for anyone in the room.  My current therapy is entirely related to the joint replacement surgery that I had on my right hand  in early March. I am primarily ensconced at a table in the "hand section" of the office.  I mostly sit at the table while my hand is massaged and manipulated, electrified and examined, heated and cooled.  I do WWF, or make with the chit chat with the therapist or sometimes other patients who are also having their hands entertained.  But mostly?  Mostly I just watch the people there.

     People come in with their broken body parts, each broken in its own way and each significant to the owner.  But to the physical therapists, each body part seems to be just that - a broken part of the machine.  Isolate the problem and attack.  Most of the PT's, frankly, look bored. As in, here I am repeating these same old knee exercises for, what, the 5th time today?  the 10th time this week?  the 100th time this year?  They stare off out the window or make jokes with the other PT's while their victim groans their way through the exercises.

   The patients are a diverse lot.  They are a collection of bodies, more over 40 years old than under 40.  Most seem perplexed or uncomfortable with the exercises. It's almost as if they don't know that part of their body very well. That last description includes me.  The patients come in all sizes and shapes.  Very few fit the cultural profile for attractive but they all come with bodies that are functional and in need of some kind of repair.  I observe some patients just resting on tables or enduring (enjoying?) some hands on therapy.  Awkward.  Some are working out on machines or with big exercise balls or long rubber tubing. Yes, you read that right.  Long rubber tubing that you use to stretch and strengthen muscles (it has been part of some PT sessions in my past).  Most appear not particularly graceful nor comfortable with what they are asked to do but they plod their way through it.  I am more interested in what their faces say than in what their bodies do. Faces say things like, "You want me to do what?" or "Well, this is fun!" or "Is it time to quit yet?".  Or maybe those are just the thoughts in my own head.

     When I walk into the room, I tend to distance myself from the others, as if somehow I am above this.  What's that about?  I am self conscious and wonder what other people watchers are noting about me.  I don't know why this place makes me highly uncomfortable.  Perhaps it speaks to vulnerability and flaws?  That makes sense to me.

     What's your take on physical therapy? Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Saying No

    I had a dream the other night which engages me on several levels.  In the dream I am at a medical facility.  There is a group of 6 or 8 doctor types gathered around me.  They are telling me that they need to do some kind of highly invasive procedure that will be quite painful.  They tell me that there is no guarantee that they will be able to gather any useful information but they MIGHT get some answers to some questions they have.  They want me to sign the paper so they can go ahead with this.  I very calmly look at them and tell them no.  No, I don't want that procedure.  What?  They are aghast!  What do you mean no?  This is what we have to do in order to attempt to fix you.  You will have to submit to this procedure or we can not help you any more.  You might die.  Okay then, I say calmly.  So be it.

    Weird, heh? I like that I say no in the dream.  I like that I make the decision for myself.  No one is going to railroad me into something that doesn't work for me.  I suppose I could be seen as foolish.  After all, they are trying to "fix" me.  I should comply with them.  But I am not interested in the painful, invasive procedure.  Not if there isn't a payoff.  I don't like their attitude.  It is as if they know what's best for me and I should take their word for it.  Guess what, peeps?  I am the only expert on me.

   I suppose part of this dream might stem from the sadness and frustration I feel about my friend Lesly's recent death.  Lesly and her family fought with cancer for over three years.  If she had known from the start how this was going to end, would they have fought the battle so long? The last six months were especially difficult, fighting always for some, if not improvement, at least pause in the cancer's progression.  Such a hard time and yet the ending came anyway.  Far too soon.  Who knows what avenue I would take in a similar situation but I wonder if I would carry on as long as Lesly did.

How About That 2013? (Part 2)

      On January 1, 2013, I made a list of fifty things I might do in 2013.  These were not meant to be high pressure goals but just random thoughts about what lay ahead in the new year.  I checked in in March to see how that list was looking in the light of spring.  Now it's time to see what the mid way point in 2013 looks like.  I'm not going to review everything on the list but I'd like to consider three things that I have actually done and three things that I might still choose to do.

     In March I celebrated the progress made on kitchen improvements and hand surgery.  Neither of those items can be completely checked off the list as done but they continue to move forward.  Item number 12 seems to be a focus for now:  paring down possessions (see Dump It All).  That feels important and freeing.  I know I am also well aware of item number 13:  avoid accumulating even more possessions.   In April, I reveled in the stunning peace and beauty that is Yosemite.  Those few days definitely take the prize for being the highlight of 2013 so far.  I enthusiastically placed item number 7 on the list in January.  I was so jazzed to plan to participate in the A to Z Challenge.  That tower of enthusiasm crashed as April got under way and I moved on.  Some things just don't go the way you planned, you know?

     Reflecting in June on the list made in January makes me keenly aware of how much things change.  For some unknown reason, many of the items on the list don't capture my attention these days.  So be it.  Maybe they will come into focus again later but not now.  I am experimenting with item number 20:  accept the darkness.  I would make it much broader now.  I am learning to accept a lot of things as the way it is.  Not good, not bad. Just the way it is.  Number 28 (Learn what it means to make and apply my own rules to myself) seems to be a theme for these summer months.  I wonder where that will go. I suppose it will be influenced by number 38: engage in frequent and random conversations with myself.  Interesting thought, that one.  Sometimes I feel as if I am the only one available for me to talk to.  The people with whom I might want to talk are, for lots of reasons, just not available right now.  I am an observer, a recorder, and a reflector.  I have to know that a person wants to engage in real conversation before I begin to share any of those self to self conversations.  Real conversation means they will talk back about things that matter.

     In theory, I will check in again in September.  I expect that number 47 (Look for surprises) might be on the agenda.

      

Speaking of Anger

       Last night my good friend and neighbor Lesly died.  She had been diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 2009 and lived the ups and horrible downs of life with cancer ever since.  There is a huge hole in the world this morning with Lesly's departure.  She was a smart, creative, caring, and fun person.  She leaves a beautiful family mourning her death.  Her presence in the community was quiet, helpful, and always accompanied by good wishes.  She was a highly valued employee of FedEx and the customers along her route cheered every time she returned to work after facing yet another round of chemo.  We will miss her.

    Lesly was the parent of two children.  Her insurance with FedEx paid for not only her medical care but that of her children.  She accrued retirement benefits and those should be useful for her family, right?  "Should be" - operative words.  Lesly was not married.  In fact, Lesly was legally not allowed to marry her life partner.  Even though Stacey and Lesly were committed to each other for 27 years and had two now teenaged children together, they could not legally marry.  A very practical outcome of this situation is that Stacey cannot access Lesly's retirement account.  It died along with Lesly.  Social Security benefits died with Lesly too.  That enrages me.

      I am married and have two children.  If my husband dies, I am entitled to his retirement and SS benefits. Stacey and Lesly would have been married if the love they had for each other was recognized by the state of California.  Stacey, Clare, and Ian would have at least had some kind of financial security if that marriage had been recognized.  I understand that some people hold onto a belief that marriage is a union only between a man and a woman.  Explain to me, please, how Stacey and Lesly's union cannot be recognized as the marriage that it was. Certainly people are entitled to their own beliefs and, trite as it sounds, if you don't support gay marriage then simply don't choose that option for yourself.  But it is wrong to deny benefits to couples like Stacey and Lesly simply because your religious beliefs stand in the way of such a union for you.

The Rhetoric of Pop Culture

   That was the name of a course I took when I was an undergraduate in the field of Speech -Communication.  That class focused on the movies, music and tv of its time and I really enjoyed it.  I was pop culture savvy at the time and thrived on all things contemporary.

    I am still intrigued with pop culture but feel so removed from it.  I suspect that this distance is common with people who are old enough to remember vividly the Summer of Love but that doesn't make it acceptable to me.  How does this happen?  How is it that younger people can be infused with pop culture while older people are distanced?  Or are they?

    Really, I want to know this.  I want to know how I can rejoin the popular culture.  Or is it even possible?   I get distracted by a demanding profession.  That profession does involve teenagers so you would think that might help and it does - a little.  I also get overwhelmed with the abundance in the culture.  How do you make time to stay tuned in to new music, new technology, new movies especially when your first impulse is to read and do physical things outside?  Do I make myself not read the contemporary fiction and non fiction (leaning the most toward biography, sociology, and philosophy) but rather read lots of blogs and on line periodicals?  And I'm not talking about being plugged into celebrities.  I don't really care about them.  I am talking about being plugged into the ideas that make the culture alive now.

    For those of you that fancy the pop culture, what is the route I should take?  Four years ago I secured a  part time job at an Apple store mostly because I wanted to develop Apple acumen.  I did.  I gained a lot of knowledge but I also wore myself out (I was still working my "real" job).  That attempt at staying current was fun but too much. My best connections to now include Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Wired, The Atlantic, The Rumpus, other websites, and, of course, my own kids who are in their 20's and plugged in.  What avenues would any of you recommend for touching the ideas that float around the culture these days?