You Call this Christmas?

December 1968: Schiller College, Germany

It was cold and I was excited to be going back to my family and my sailor boyfriend on the Navy base in Rota, Spain. Warm weather, Christmas cheer, parties. I'd just been back for Thanksgiving, so I knew the drill -- travel orders, passport, space-available military flight from Rhein Main in Frankfurt. Easy peasy.

The dorms closed and I took the train to Frankfurt. The terminal was packed with GIs trying to get home for Christmas. It was wall-to-wall uniforms. Just the way I liked it! Everything was great until I discovered I didn't have my passport. 

It had to be in my dorm room at school. I got on the phone and found that I could get in to look for it, but I didn't have money for train fare. One of the guys hitchhiked back to school with me and we turned my room upside down before getting word through a frantic trans-atlantic call that one of my housemates had accidentally taken it with her --- to Florida. No passport, no trip home to Spain. I would have to go to the American consulate in Frankfurt and try to get a temporary one.

My new friend sprang for a train ride for both of us. I put my plea in at the Consulate but found that everything was shutting down for the holidays. There would be no hope of getting the new passport until they reopened after Christmas. 

Back at the terminal, I fell in with a group of guys, me in my cute little mini smock-dress and my backpack. I had all the attention and admiration I could soak up. They bought me food and drinks, entertained me with stories and jokes, and at night they surrounded me while I slept on the floor --- to fend off the wolves, they assured me.

One by one my companions said good-bye and boarded planes for the States. By the end of Christmas Eve there was almost nobody left except a skeleton crew in the snack bar and in the office. Christmas Day I spent reading my book and had an ersatz Christmas dinner (sort of turkey or chicken?) in the snack bar with the kitchen workers. At least they let me have it for free.

Things powered up again on the 26th and flights began to leave. Space Available is always chancey, and I got bumped twice. The officer who bumped me the second time felt sorry as I stood there crying, and gave me a $20 bill. That was a lot of money in 1968. It didn't get me home that day, but it did mean I could have whatever I wanted in the snack bar.

Finally, on the 27th, newly minted temporary passport in hand, I was on the way to Rota Naval Station on a C140 transport. Seats? Naw, just the netting along the sides with lots of enormous containers down the center. But I got a box lunch to eat on the way. 

My first Christmas away from home felt like a disaster at the time. I missed my family terribly. I had felt all grown up when I went off to college, but there was no place I wanted to be more than around the Christmas tree with my parents and sisters and brother on that December 25th.

By the following Christmas, I had married that sailor boyfriend and we celebrated our first holidays together at his new base. It was many years before I spent another Christmas with my entire family. 2019 marks my 70th Christmas on the planet, but none has stood out like that first lonely Christmas in the airport.

Daily Production

For most of my life, all I wanted to do was read. As a kid, I was the one curled up in my room with a book. If mom sent us outside to play, I took Nancy Drew with me. And you best believe I still have something to read in the car, an honest-to-goodness paperback volume of short stories, just in case I get stuck in a blizzard with no cell service. Boots, a blanket, and a book. Not that blizzards are common in the piedmont of North Carolina. But you never know.

Now I'm 3/4 retired and I could read as much as I want, but there's a loud and insistent voice in my head that says NO! I should be productive, I should be working on something significant like mopping floors or cleaning out closets or painting the kitchen. I should be writing on the two books that are underway, practicing the piano, or at least doing laundry.  And there's always the office that is knee-deep in files and folders, photos and stacks of papers that need to be organized. 

Sitting and reading; what a waste of time.

I used to dream about retirement, how long and luxurious the days would be. No interruptions. Deciding from one moment to the next what I would do. It's not like that, at least not often enough. 

Aside from Jill's studio, which is filled with art, every room in our house has books, shelves and shelves of books, many of them never read ---- yet. I have books bought at auctions and used book stores. There's a bookcase filled with musty volumes from my parents and grandparents. My office and upstairs house research materials, writing and reference books, classics and mysteries and paperback novels.  Author friends have expanded my collection and Amazon provides innumerable selections not available in the library. 

It's one thing to collect them and another to make time to read. When I do, as absorbing and exciting as a text may be, the niggling guilt often overtakes me and I jump up mid-chapter to put in a load of clothes, start supper, feed the dogs, clean the bathroom. 

Here's the question, if not now, when? I'm 69 years old. No promises anymore; I could come to a halt any old time or hang on for 30 more years. Those books gathering dust on the shelves will outlive me either way. 

To read or not read?

I choose a book.

Between spaces

Where do you go when you sleep?

I've long been fascinated by the betweens. Dreams. Pretend. Reverie. Hallucination. What is the difference between vivid sleeping dreams and hallucination?

When I was in sixth grade, I used to get in trouble for daydreaming in school. My teacher, Mrs. Patrick, was strict but I liked her. We had just moved from the small towns of rural Iowa and fetched up in Germany on an Army base. It was 1961. Everything familiar was gone; I didn't even have favorite objects because our household goods hadn't arrived.

My desk was one row over from the windows because of course, we sat in rows. I gazed out the windows that overlooked the playground and grassy space and fell into deep thought. Mrs. Patrick thought I was dawdling; I knew if I didn't "daydream" I would cry.

People who dwell in imagination, children or adults, are often accused of being out of touch with reality. Lazy, head in the clouds, not all there. You've heard the words, whether they apply to you or not. "Why can't you just pay attention?" "Snap out of it!"

The netherworld I occupied most often was found between the covers of a book. It was there that new worlds opened and I could travel to distant times and places. It's a bit of a chicken and egg question: did I begin to dream because of the stories I read and those read to me, or did the stories I encountered mirror my innate inclinations?

I've reached a point in life in which I can dream more freely, just as my ambitions and "real world" options seem to be narrowing. In that regard, it's much like childhood. I have more agency now, and the ability to call my own shots. Nobody is going to move me from one continent to another without consultation. Perhaps that lack of decision-making gives rise to a rich childhood imagination for some kids like me.

I love being asleep because of the vivid dreams that come to me. At the same time, I resist going to sleep because being awake is so interesting and I'm afraid I'll miss something. So I stay awake "past my bedtime" (sorry, Mommy) and fall into a colorful panoply of stories and actors that I then resist waking from.

I've often heard people say they don't dream when they sleep. I don't know the physiology of that because I don't understand the mechanism of dreaming. But it's surprising to me how often that pronouncement is made with pride.

"I don't dream." (subtext: dreaming is a namby-pamby waste of brain power)
These are often the same folks who brag about only needing four hours of sleep a night. Hmmm. Is there a connection?

Me, I have taken to sleeping 8-10 hours a night and spending so much time in dreams that sometimes I can't remember what's real and what I dreamed. With my background of two parents with Alzheimer's Disease, that can be troubling, but there's no sense worrying. In the meantime, I reap the benefits by waking up with stories buzzing around in my head waiting to be written down.

Next year, ten short months from now, I will turn 70. Just as childhood is a time of rapid growth and change, I feel like this time of life is filled with questions and answers I would not have anticipated. As my body begins to change in ways I don't approve of, I find myself renewing my acquaintance with the pastimes and enchantments of my youth. I may not travel the world in real life -- too expensive, too difficult -- but I am once again loose in the liminal world between worlds and it's a welcome return.

Mom reading a bedtime story on the picnic table.

I'm My Own GPS

I live in a medium-sized city that's growing rapidly. That means more traffic, seemingly every day. Since I've been here more than thirty years urging the powers that be to pull the ropes up and stop the hordes of newcomers, I've watched it all happen, much to my dismay. Oh, I know. Growth is good. Progress, and all that. But when you start getting lost in your own town, things have gone too far.

This morning, I went to the dentist. I've been seeing him for years and he's by far my favorite dentist ever. Over time, I've learned to tack on more travel time so I could always be prompt, but since I only see him every six months things can change. He's clear across town. I know how to get there; I'm not directionally challenged and this is my home turf. 

I ran into traffic, the kind of traffic that stops across intersections and is three lanes wide as the lights blink ineffectually from red to yellow to green. Probably a wreck, maybe construction, whatever it was my mental GPS started to recalculate.

I zipped through neighborhoods avoiding crosswalk baby carriages and school zones. I wound my way across town only having to turn around in someone's driveway once. I discovered corner lots where the trees have been felled and a shiny new gas station+car wash or a "Welcome All" warehouse church grew up. Where do the birds and squirrels go?

I got to my appointment only a few minutes late but it made me think about how I got there. I was proud of myself for not having to consult the voice in the phone. I can still find my way. But the changes were startling. Sometimes, I drive familiar routes and find from one week to the next that trees or buildings have been removed and I'm momentarily disoriented. Where am I again? Is this the corner I thought it was?

Maybe I'm just getting old and senile. That's always a possibility. The old part is a definite but I think most of my faculties are still intact. I understand more about why older people talk (or complain) about "how things used to be." The longer I'm on the planet and the longer I stay in one locale, the more noticeable the changes are.

Yesterday was the anniversary of 9/11. Again. It happens every year. The eighteenth seems significant because the babies being born back then are pretty nearly grown now. There is a cohort of young people who have no memory of that day. It happens all the time, the national events of one generation become hazy history for the next. 

Whether it's D-Day or Kennedy's death, the Challenger or 9/11, all become faded with time as fewer people have direct memories of them. The same is true close to home, in the lives of all of us. Hometowns enlarge or shrink, a childhood house is torn down, cherished people die. The biggest celebrities, the most powerful politicians, wealthiest, most beautiful, most talented people all slip from prominence and fade away.

If you were to ask me for directions, I might be inclined to tell you to turn at the next road after where the K-Mart was that got blown down by the tornado. Or go to the Bojangles where the little post office used to be like I told my wife the other day. Except it turned out the Bojangles wasn't there either and had been replaced by a sketchy convenience store.

Change. I don't think I'll ever catch up.

My old house where I raised kids, now boarded up to be demolished.

Alas, Rejection

I was rejected last week. Excluded. Summarily dismissed. Kicked to the curb.

I had enrolled in a research study last year, a one-off, as far as I knew. I went to Chapel Hill to the EPA building and spent two hours being consented, ---- who knew that could be a verb? ----answering questions on the computer and being questioned in by a researcher. He turned me over to the nurse and I submitted to collection of blood and saliva as well as other medical measurements. It was largely painless and I enjoyed the people who were involved. At the end, they sent me to the bursar, I was given a check, and I went my merry way.

Now, nine months later, I got a call asking if I wanted to participate in a follow-up. It would mean three trips to Chapel Hill over 8 months and some questionnaires and saliva collection at home once a month. The purpose of all this was to measure specific markers that might be associated with air quality. I was in the right zip code and my previous participation marked me as a good candidate. It would pay $420, a sum that greatly added to its appeal. I felt comfortable and was glad I could add my little part to this research effort.

All went well until we reached the clinical part. It started going south immediately when she took my temp and found it was slightly elevated. Hmmmm. Then my blood pressure was much higher than normal, another glitch. We proceeded through a couple of other measurements, laughing and joking as we went. I mentioned that I’d had a pulmonary embolism in November and was scheduled for a stress-echo the next day, which made her frown. I climbed up on the table and she prepared to draw blood. Since the PE, I’ve been on a blood thinner, which concerned her about the blood draw.

She stuck me once. No blood. She switched to the other arm and still not enough to make a difference. With many apologies, she tried one more time with no result. It seemed I was all dried up. It was then that she told me that all these things meant I would probably be excluded from the study. She talked to the research guy in charge and sure enough, I was out. They sent me to the bursar for a check to cover what I had done and I was sent on my way.

I was surprised at how it made me feel. Driving home, tears welled, blurring my vision. It wasn’t the money, it was rejection. I was disappointed. It reminded me of being laughed at or left behind in grade school. I felt like a failure, not good enough. I went home and, against my better judgment, ate some ice cream and went to bed for a two-hour afternoon nap.

Some things echo for a long time, I guess. 

And I need to stay hydrated.

Confessions of a Political Naif

I saw recently that Lyndon LaRouche had died. Hard to believe he reached the ripe old age of 96.

Mr. LaRouche played an unwitting part in my development of critical thinking and political awareness. It was he who taught me to actually read and think before voting.

I suppose it was in the 1980s, back when I lived in Illinois. Backers of the LaRouche movement or party, however you want to characterize it, secured many spots on the primary ballot for statewide offices. I'd heard his name bandied about in the media and thought the ideas he espoused were abhorrent. I knew I would never vote for such a man. 

What I didn't know, and was not revealed on the ballot, was that a whole herd of LaRoucheites was running. They had refreshingly "normal" names, easy to read, familiar as the people next door. A few were even women, which appealed to me greatly. When the primary election rolled around I hied me to the polls and blithely marked the ballot for all the women and people with names I could pronounce, without knowing anything about them. 

When the results tumbled in over the next day or two, I was horrified to realize that I had helped advance many of Lyndon LaRouche's favored candidates to the general election. I did that. I was responsible for these batshit crazies being put before the electorate and likely being put in office in the fall. It was my fault.

Between the primary and the general, I educated myself. I hadn't been the only one to succumb to that level of ignorance and laziness. It was a well-thought-out tactic on the part of LaRouche and his henchmen. They read the voters and I was one of them. It was the last time I went to the polls without arming myself ahead of time with enough information to make a reasonable choice.

I've nearly always voted. A few times I missed or sat out an election when I was out of the country or between residences. Other than that, I've cast my ballot in every election I could, beginning with the 1972 primary when I was finally old enough to vote. I had just turned 21, which was the voting age until it was lowered to 18 in July 1971. I proudly cast my vote for the presidential candidate, Shirley Chisolm. I had read and heard about her. Did I research the other candidates on that ballot? No, I just voted for all the Socialist Worker Party candidates and filled in with Democrats and women where needed. 

Moral of the Story: Don't vote unless you know who you're voting for! Political parties, TV personalities, social media buzz, and familiar names don't mean a thing if the politico in question is a charlatan. Dig deep and then VOTE! ---- every time they crack the door at the polling station.

Once upon a time in Gibraltar

Fifty years ago today, I was a bride. I was eighteen years old.

The love of my young life was a sailor stationed aboard the USS Canopus in Rota, Spain. I was a high school senior when we met. To me, it felt like a match made in heaven. He was six years older, gorgeous, worldly, smart, artistic, and divorced. That's why we went to Gibraltar to marry. It was 1969 and Franco was in power in Spain. Divorced people were not allowed to marry on Spanish soil, not even on an American military base in the base chapel. So we set out for British soil where they weren't so picky about such things.

As it happened, it was a Monday and the people who were married just before the weekend in the same office, by the same somewhat elderly, very British official, were John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Not that we saw them. But they did scandalize the officiating bureaucrat by showing up barefoot which he described with much indignation. Heaven forfend.

There is no remaining photographic evidence of our nuptials. They were lost somewhere in my parents' move from Spain to England. Nonetheless, I remember some small details. I was shocked to see myself referred to as a "spinster" on the marriage certificate. I did not like the dress I was wearing. It had been purchased for my HS graduation from the Base Exchange and was brown and white. Who wants to get married in brown? Was it an omen?

My family toasted us at a Chinese restaurant afterward, a treat not available where we lived. Altogether, it was a long and happy day. We took a train to Madrid for our wedding night, followed by a honeymoon hitchhiking through Spain and Morocco.

Fifty years is a long time whether or not a marriage lasts. And a relationship can outlive a marriage by a long shot. We had a son after 5 years and split up when he was a baby. Ever after, we've all been family. New marriages, more kids, many moves and life's vicissitudes haven't changed the fact that once upon a time there was love. And marriage. And fun.

I'm lucky to have had many lives in this one incarnation. 

Welcome Back, Kiddo!

I'm going to pretend I haven't been missing in action for the past nine months. I invite you to do the same.

The last time I wrote it was about protest, poverty, and education. There was a great deal of energy behind those issues nine months ago. I hope it's still simmering beneath the surface. In Trump time, nine months is somewhere between nine years and infinity.

I have had to look at my addiction to the news. Being retired and only working seven hours a week, I have a lot of time to get into mischief. Five days a week, I start my day by having coffee with Rachel. You know, the smartest talking head on cable tv. I rely on her to take apart the difficult issues and explain them in detail. Then, she calls in experts, legal and otherwise, to explain them some more. The teacher in me appreciates how thorough she is.

If there's time before work I switch to lighter fare, Seth Myers or Trevor Noah, for some short takes that will make me laugh while I eat my yogurt and fruit. If it's a work day, I'm ready to get out there and see my favorite senior citizens.

The best part of my little retirement job is the students I teach. No lesson plans; I teach the same two Qigong sets over and over. But each day is different because of the people I'm with. This meditative practice brings a measure of peace and centering as we keep all our moving-parts moving. 

If you're not over sixty-five, you might not understand the ways your body begins to sabotage you. Every morning is a new opportunity to wake up with a stitch in your back or new creaks in your knees. Pains come and go, or sometimes come and don't go. Things you took for granted all your life suddenly need more attention, like slowing down so your feet don't get out ahead of the rest of you. Or paying attention to what you're doing without distractions. Multi-tasking can spell disaster. And lost keys.

Slowing down to pay attention has lengthened my days. Learning to breathe, to focus on the present and appreciate what I see, are side effects of this Qigong practice. Or maybe the whole point.

One of the blessings of aging is that competition falls away. When you know too many people who have already died, every day is a blessing.


As I watch entirely too many videos of politicians, read too many news stories, try to keep all the Russian names straight, and spend too much time on twitter, I try to balance it out with focus. Breath. Movement. And laughing with my seven classes of folks who used to be strangers and now are people I treasure. 

All of us are in this together. Worry doesn't help. Time to breathe as one, relax, and love what is right before us.

Unexpected goat love.