Moderation, you say?

Moderation has slyly crept into my life, almost unnoticed. I've always known I have a severe allergy to moderation and structure but somehow, perhaps from sheer exposure, I've begun to reckon with it. Embrace would be too strong a word, tolerate implies too much consideration. It's more like catching a movement from the corner of your eye, whipping around to see what it was, and a bit of color disappears around the corner. It's there, but hard to substantiate.

You see, there are many so-called virtues that I have spent a lifetime avoiding --- organization, structure, moderation, and foresight were at the top of the list. Look before you leap? Hell no! Leap first then holler all the way down. More? Yes, please. I'll take as much as you'll give me and still want more. I'll find something I like, that makes me feel good, and do it until it doesn't. Once an addict, always an addict, I guess.

So what's with all this stealthy moderation that seems to be creeping in? Is it simply that I'm getting old and tired? Very possibly. Finally realizing that if I cool it a little, I might be able to avoid some pain? I guess that would fall into the category of learning from experience. Not one of my strong suits, but also not unheard of.

I better be careful. Next thing you know I'll be preaching delayed gratification. . . Planning ahead . . . Decluttering. If it gets to that point I better avoid mirrors, because I would not recognize myself.

Brrrrrrrr. A shiver just hit. Somebody walking on my grave, the old saying goes.

Maybe I oughta have a cookie and think about this some more.

Off the field

Last week there was some sort of game on tv that got everybody all bunched up. Everybody except me, I guess. See, I'm not just uninterested in sports, I'm borderline hostile. I know, I know. That's sacrilege in the US of A. But it's just not in my genes, and so much of it I find offensive.

I've heard all the arguments, how participation in athletics builds character, teamwork, competition and cooperation. Wait, what? See, that sort of contradiction is part of the problem.

I come from a long line of non-athletes. Musicians, artists, writers, dancers, actors, and educators ---- the family is rife with folks of that ilk. The only calisthenics to be found in my family of origin were intellectual. We read aloud at the dinner table. We played word games, spelling games, information games. One of my favorites was being given a subject to look up in the encyclopedia and report back something I learned. I didn't learn to ride a bicycle, but I sure knew how to use a dictionary.

Being the oldest of 4 kids in 5 years, I had a built-in repertory group. We staged elaborate productions in the living room or basement or back yard. Since we were enrolled in dance classes, the choreography was a breeze, often developed by the sister who had staked out dance as her specialty. Sword fights bloomed in my brother's capable hands, whose biggest hero from the age of three had been Zorro. My youngest sister was most versatile, taking on roles from baby to prince to monkey queen.

It caused me some trouble at school. I couldn't throw a ball (still can't), return a volley, or shoot a basket. It's not that I particularly wanted to. Left to my own devices, I rarely would choose to play a sporty game. But in school, you were forced to play and watch sports, and the athletes were adored in a way that smart kids never would be. It was not a social advantage to be able to recite the states and capitals or write a poem.

I tried to make up for it by working magic onstage. I sang in small groups and large choirs. I wrote, acted and directed plays. I played clarinet and oboe in the school orchestra. It was not like playing football or being a cheerleader, but it helped fulfill a need to be recognized.

I was lucky to have gone to college during the years that education was not only encouraged by the larger society, it was affordable. Accepted to several colleges, I don't remember money being a large part of the decision. I married young (18) and we both needed to go to school. He had GI Bill but we would have to pay for my college expenses. We wound up at the University of Illinois. The state had a tuition waiver for in-state students whose grades stayed high enough. Mine did. Kids today are not so lucky. An athletic scholarship is the only way some young people can ever hope to go to college, but is that the best way to support their education? And what about the many youngin's who are like I was?

The money in sports and the money in politics fall into the same category to my way of thinking. Wasted resources. That money could be so much better spent to make up for the losses to public education, for after-school programs, preschools, quality daycare centers, health clinics, affordable housing. We have many people who are hurting, are even going hungry. The amount of money in big sports and big politics is positively obscene in the face of hungry and homeless people, working people who cannot afford healthcare or daycare, elderly people who live on social security. (By the way, check to see how much SS you would be getting if you were old, and see if that's a living.)

If people love to play pick-up soccer or basketball games with their friends, if children who like to play games are able to get together with friends and play at the park, more power to them. It's not my choice, but whatever floats your boat. I can understand the fun that sports can generate. What I find offensive, objectionable, obscene is the business of sports, the deathly competition that creates hooligans, the resources in time, money and effort that are siphoned off from other needs.

And please, don't tell me that the Met siphons off money, too. I know that. I can't afford to go to Broadway. Hell, I can hardly afford to go to Raleigh Little Theater. But when was the last time everyone gathered at work talking about the big opera that was on last night? Sorry. No comparison.

Oh wait, does this make me some sort of elite, smarty-pants, liberal? Yup. All my life.

Tea and Cookies

Jill is on a baking jag. Until now, I've always been the baker in the family. A few months ago, she took it into her head to begin baking pies. She's done apple, peach, strawberry and, I think, pumpkin. In spite of the well-known fact that I have the best pie crust recipe in the world, she insists on using her own. It's remarkable that she can make such a good crust from an inferior recipe.

Now, it's cookies. Until about ten days ago, she had never made cookies. Think of that. Never made cookies! I think I started baking cookies when I was in fourth grade --- on my own, that is. Before that, I helped my mother. Baking cookies was a favorite Saturday pastime for my friends and me in Jr. High. That was well before sports for girls, so no, I wasn't ever on the soccer field. Not that I ever would have been anyway. Sports. Ick.

Her cookie debut came in the unexpected form of molasses cookies. Since her favorite has always been chocolate chip, that would have seemed like the more obvious choice. She followed the recipe to a T and the results were delicious. When she hauled out the butter and molasses again the other night, I made a tiny request for a little more ginger. The result? Even more delicious. Too delicious to leave sitting there in the cookie jar, calling to me, sweet siren song of confection. What's a girl to do?

Hot Typhoo Tea. Peeled Juicy Orange. Ginger-Molasses Cookies. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Maybe I can get her to start on quickbreads next.

What you resist, persists

I've been thinking about this aphorism that I was introduced to so many years ago, long before I got sober and started hearing the well-paired quote from the Big Book, that "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today..."

Essentially, what I've done with both of them is realize that the importance of pretty much everything lies in my own perspective. That's excluding the possibility that there's some sort of objective measure of importance. I'm not going there.

So it's very interesting to find that I can look at the same thing with different eyes, and give it different meanings, or take different lessons. To wit: When I was in my mid-twenties I was, for a time, a single welfare mom. On the one hand, it is certainly true that I was living hand-to-mouth. I obviously didn't get the memo about how to live high off the hog on welfare and food stamps, because it was penny-pinching beyond anything I'd experienced before. And that was even while I was getting occasional infusions from my parents and working under the table at a bar. I was able to augment my food stamps with leftover food from the bar. I did some occasional babysitting for cash. I kept body and soul together for my baby and me. You do what you have to do.

On the other hand, that time was rich with personal growth. I was getting free counseling from Family Services, so I had a therapist and a group to turn to for support. I was fresh from a high-drama divorce and feeling terrible about myself and my prospects in life. In that group, I found friendship, learned what to accept and what not to accept, started seeing my part in life events, thus discovering that I was not a victim after all. I learned to give and take in friendships --- ask for help when I needed it, offer help before it was asked for. I came to the realization that I DID want to continue living, something that was very much in question the first time I walked into the therapist's office.

So what's the truth? Was I a down and out welfare chiseler living on the public dole? After all, I didn't follow the rules to the T. Was I mentally unstable and an unfit mother? Or was I a seeker, on a spiritual journey? Or maybe I was a closeted lesbian, tortured by living a lie.

It was during this time that I finally acted on the long-held desires I contended with from my late teens onward, and finally found the woman of my...dreams? A girlfriend anyway. It was the one in the joke, the one with the U-Haul after the second date, no lie. Her longtime partner had kicked her out. Actually, it didn't go any better than any other relationship I'd ever had. Go figure. So back in the closet I went. It felt safer in there, until it didn't.

Perspective. As I look back, I can focus on whichever aspect I want to, put it under the magnifying glass, look for the connecting threads and try to follow them out. I rather imagine that other people do that, too. At least I hope so. (see mentally unstable, above) I find that my story has different emphasis depending on who I talk to and why. The story I recount at a "what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now" sobriety meeting is different from the "coming out" story I have or the "poverty" story or the "art, music and writing" one. You see how that works?

I'm writing a love story right now, between two unlikely characters, which makes it more interesting. I carry their backstories in my head, at least in outline form, but as I get to know them better, more details come out. It's a lot like talking to myself. Wait. That's right. It IS talking to myself. Being a novelist is so confusing sometimes.

Take home lesson:
The woo-woo people are right, I think. Whatever I focus on becomes bigger.
The therapy people are right, too. I get to choose where I focus.