News in Slow Time

This past summer I spent quite a bit of time recovering from a hip replacement that had a little extra glitch. In anticipation of the first surgery my wife, who knows me so well, subscribed to the newspaper. She remembered my wistful reminiscences about the real, tangible, printed paper and a cup of coffee, even though I had quit subscribing before we ever got together. This would be my treat during recovery.

Now I've been reading a daily paper for four months and I've noticed a few things. First of all, the newspaper with a cup (or two) of coffee has not lost its charm for me. Each morning I head for the stove where she leaves it, right beside the coffee pot. This woman is definitely a keeper.

I've been trying to remember when I stopped reading paper news, and I believe it was when I got a "real" job. As long as I was working for myself, I had enough mornings with extra time to make it worthwhile. Once I started teaching, I found that not only did they expect me to be there on time every single day, but I had to be prepared, as well. Teaching ate my life and spit out such trivialities as reading the newspaper, watching tv, reading for pleasure, and meeting friends for coffee. 

Without time to eat breakfast and read the paper, I started snatching news from NPR on the car radio and occasional clips on news sites when I should have been doing something else. By the time I reached retirement I had become accustomed to relying on the computer for instant news gratification. In fact, I preferred it because I could pick and choose what to read more precisely. 

And that is what I have been thinking about since I resumed the leisurely perusal of a morning paper. I read it differently. 

When I have an actual newspaper, I open it and take a look at the entire page --- or two pages, if it's spread all the way --- and move across the page from one article or picture to another. Headlines are important, but not as likely to dissuade me as are the headlines in a list on the computer. 

Confronted with a list on a news site, I'm dead certain I'm not going to read all of them. I'll run down the roster and pick one or two. When I open the newspaper, I'm willing to read at least the first paragraph of almost anything, just to see if it grabs me. Often, articles that I would have summarily dismissed on the computer wind up enticing me in. It's how I learn things I would never have chosen to look at.

It strikes me as similar to the difference between looking at a paper map and using the GPS on my phone. The GPS gives me a narrow, specific route with verbal directions so I can get where I'm going with the least amount of uncertainty. A map provides context, a more global view of where I am and where I want to go, along with everything in between, including places I never knew about. Both maps and GPS are useful but engage different parts of my brain. 

I've been in love with the printed word since kindergarten when I discovered that I could read on my own. I spend a lot of time reading and writing on the computer and thank goodness for the keyboard and screen. But I still love actual books and usually have both tangible and electronic books going at the same time. Now I have regained my affinity for unwieldy, smudgy, scattershot newspapers, and it adds to my enjoyment of life. There's nothing like sitting on the deck, the dogs playing in the yard, the cat trying to curl up on the pages before me, and a mug of hot coffee at the ready. 

Thank you, Jill, for reigniting my mornings. 

Down in the Valley

It has been months since I wrote a blog post and nearly as long since I made any progress on the nearly-finished novel that's underway. What started as a needed break seems to be turning into something akin to sloth.

What actually drove me to the keyboard today was yesterday, the anniversary of 9/11. I avoided it almost completely. I always do.

When that attack happened 15 years ago, it became an instant touchstone for the country. Where were you when you heard about it? It joined so many others --- Pearl Harbor, Kennedy Assassination, King Assassination, Challenger Explosion. Where were you? What were you doing?

But you see, it was followed so quickly with the national meme that "Everything changed on 9/11" that the layers piled up quickly. What changed for the country? What changed for me and mine?

Is there a before and after for an occurrence that was not only predictable but probably overdue? Did Americans think that we were immune? What kind of arrogant, self-satisfied certainty could give rise to the presumption that it could never happen here? The USA is the greatest country on earth, the biggest, baddest, country ever. American Exceptionalism. 

We're not exempt from the world, and maybe that's what became clear the day the towers fell. Maybe that's also what fuels some of the anger that underlies politics and dissension in the public square now, fifteen years later.

My father fought in WWII in the Pacific. By the time I knew him, he was a well-educated, artistic, reasonable man. He was not intentionally unkind to people and had broadened his horizons from the small town start he got in 1920-30s Iowa. But I still remember him referring to people of Asian descent as "Japs" when I was growing up ---- and there was a tone of voice that went with it.

The slurs and hatred I hear in public discourse now, especially during the campaign, remind me of that level of unexamined, habitual bigotry. 

Everything changed when the US took a hit. But did it really? By now, we have the reflexive reverence that is trotted out every September, with especially fervent expressions reserved for years that mark the fives. That will no doubt continue, though as more people die who remember the original day, and more are born in its wake, it will become less evocative and more like the other "where were you?" days.

This country has been at war for nearly an entire generation. It is a war that shows no sign of coming to a close, and may continue to burn like those underground peat bogs that smolder for decades. It has never caught on among the American public. There are no incentives for the population as a whole to get behind it; no liberty bonds, no victory gardens, not even an attempt to pay for the damn thing. It provokes far more criticism than support among the general population, when it's talked about at all. 

The only thing the citizens get behind is "supporting the troops" and I put that in quotes because I doubt that actual support, any substantial financial or societal support, will ever be whole-heartedly embraced by either the lawmakers or the populace. You know who supports the troops? Their families. Individuals. Veterans. The country may be fighting a war, but the country is not feeling the pain.

I'm exhausted. I thought the 2012 presidential campaign was a never-ending nightmare, but it was nothing compared to this one. It feels as though the entire country needs an extended vacation, a month at the beach, time to chill. This is like the time all your kids get sick one after another, your boss cuts your hours, the car breaks down and needs $1500 repairs and your spouse is spending ever more time away from home. (Well, it's only like that if you're in the 98%.) We all need some time away.

Instead, we get bombarded every day with louder voices, wilder rhetoric, more devastating stories of suffering, pictures of tormented children and animals. The louder the shouts, the redder the faces, the deeper the pain, the more I want to crawl under the covers and cuddle with my dogs.

Welcome to my valley. If you want to stay you'll have to use your indoor voice. No smoking, please.

Walking off the job

Two months ago, my hard-working, highly principled wife was fired from her job of fifteen years for insubordination. The month before, she had been "Employee of the Month" --- well deserved, I might add. Insubordination? Sticking up for a team member who had been treated shabbily. That's my girl. They told her she was terminated immediately and sent someone with her to her locker and out to the parking lot. Fifteen years. No recourse. There are few employee protections in the "Right to Work" state of North Carolina.

All that is water under the bridge now. After six weeks of nail biting, she got a better job. But today, as I listen to the news, I wonder again about our folks up in Washington, D.C. and the kind of jobs they have.

The House Democrats are sitting-in. It's a last ditch effort to be heard and to bring legislation to a vote which so many of their constituents are asking for. House leadership decided, after decrying this tactic as a publicity stunt, to pack it in and leave more than a week early for the July 4th holiday. It's the congressional equivalent of taking your bat and ball and going home.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a job where you can not only call all the shots, not entertain opposing ideas, and get paid whether you're there or not? They simply walked out during the work week and did NOT GET FIRED.

Oh, you say, they can get fired at the next election. Hmmmm. It sure would have helped when Jill got fired if she'd had several months to line up another job before the paychecks came to an end. 

This is simply another indication of why they are so far removed from the lives that most of us live. In real life, you don't get to do things like this. You don't get to have tantrums and plug up your ears and say "La La La, I can't hear you" or go on vacation when you're uncomfortable with the task ahead.

Should the Dems be sitting-in on the House floor? Should they have to, in order to get their jobs done? We all know that gun legislation won't fly. But not even bringing it to the floor for a vote is a slap in the face to all the voters who go to the polls hoping that the person they elect to represent them will actually be allowed to do so.

No wonder voter turnout is low. It's hard not to think it doesn't matter.

I believe I'm haunted

I'm haunted by the past and its linear opposite, the future.

It's not just that I'm writing a book now that has ghostly encounters. That's fun, and I delight in those spectral characters, but they have another message for me. And isn't that why those of us who are afflicted with the writing bug do it? Writing stories gives me a chance to sneak up on myself and eavesdrop on what I'm thinking.

When I was much younger and life stretched before me almost into infinity, I filled steno notebooks with angst and questionable poetry. The past was whatever someone had said about me at school the day before. The future harkened freedom from the bondage of obligation to parents and lessons. The present inched by with the creeping pace of an ant's attempt to cross our enormous stone patio. I didn't have the patience to watch it to completion and had to dance off to find other amusement.

Now I find myself in this day being showered by whispers from the past --- not my past, but further back, often beyond living memory. Every room in our house contains books, words written mainly by people who no longer walk the earth. Every time I have a new realization or insight, it seems, I find that a long-dead author brought it to life decades or centuries before I was born. 

That doesn't diminish my own revelation. After all, no matter how many youtube videos I watch, I'm not going to learn how to fix the kitchen sink until I get down there with a wrench and do it. I bring my unique life experiences to each day, each thought. We all do. Right now I just have more time to indulge them.

Next month I have the opportunity to resolve a hip problem I've dealt with all my life. It never got bad enough for intervention before, but I've accommodated it since I was in short dresses and patent leather shoes. After 65 years I've worn it plumb out! Now I get a new one.

As I anticipate this event, it makes me think about all the women in my family who went before me. I do that frequently anyway, but this is especially poignant because I feel like I'm joining their ranks. Replacing a hip makes me feel old in a whole new way. I envision them, mother, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, aunts, and great-aunts. I've known most of them personally and have very clear memories and impressions of them. I can hear their voices and I listen to the admonishments and encouragements they whisper.

It's strange to me that what might seem a calamity to one person makes me feel like I'm part of the ebb and flow of life. I belong. I'm in the current, holding my place, fulfilling my position in the order of things. I'll get through this with its attendant pain and subsequent renewal, and it will amount to one more badge on my Girl Scout sash, one more milestone completed. 

Permanence. Transience. What feels durable and constant today inevitably becomes mutable later. The tension between those states of being, finely balanced, is what keeps me set in the moment. 

Thank you, Ava, Ida, Anna, Blanch, Mabel, Nancy, Margaret, Marjorie, Harriet, Phyllis. I love your company along the path.

A welfare tale

In 1974, I was married and pregnant. I was a college student going into my senior year and student teaching. My life seemed pretty well ordered. We all have our ups and downs, and uncertainty prevails throughout our lives, but still, we try to move in promising directions.

In 1975, I had an infant and a demolished marriage. These things can happen, and happen unexpectedly. When they do, you deal with the reality that presents itself.

I could have dropped out of school and gone to work, but being so close to the end, that seemed a bad idea. Plus, I was on scholarship. Back in those lost, golden days, in the state of Illinois, if you were at a state university and kept up a good grade average, tuition was waived. I was an excellent student.

So I went on welfare. I had never done so before, unless you want to count taking advantage of the tuition waiver. Some people might count that, these days. I qualified for a small check (which included the child support collected by the state from my ex-husband) and food coupons (yes, actual coupons which you had to tear out at the cash register) and WIC. I breastfed my baby --- no formula to buy, and it was what I wanted to do. I used cloth diapers and washed them myself at the laundromat. I drove a $300 car as little as possible. It was no picnic, but without welfare, I would not have been able to finish school.

I graduated into a glut of new teachers and couldn't find a job. I worked in a restaurant/bar and in a factory. Throughout that time, I had a childcare subsidy so I could hold a job. After two years of assistance, I finally got a teaching job. I have been a productive citizen and educator ever since. I went on later to get a graduate degree. That child, nurtured on food stamps, WIC, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) grew up to become an emergency room doctor.

Was I a "Welfare Queen?" Nope. Did I need help through a difficult transition? YES! 

The social services have been devastated by decades of villification and budget slashing. Programs that are lifesavers for people have been cut to the bone and beyond. Citizens who might, with enough assistance at the crucial time, become stable, productive, engaged members of society are ignored, punished, stigmatized, and ostracized. Children without enough to eat or proper healthcare, develop poorly. Parents driven to despair turn to drugs, crime, hopelessness, suicide. 

The attitude that "I did it, so can you" has an implied undercurrent of ("you lazy bum, freeloader"). Those words are most likely to come from the mouth of someone who is afraid and resentful, or simply blind about their own place in life. It dehumanizes the "Other" and reinforces "Me and Mine". We hear it a lot in the public square right now.

Thankfully, I learned in my early twenties that making a plan doesn't mean I know the outcome. Every one of us is subject to the vagaries of life, and to think "it can't happen to me" is pure denial. 

I was reflecting this morning, after teaching a class of people in their 80s, that I take for granted they will be there each Monday. I show up. They show up. We do our class and it's lovely. But given the circumstances, there is a good chance that somebody could be gone before next week, including me. How do we, at every stage of life, find the balance between planning and uncertainty? 

We can't live tentatively, always wondering and cringing about the unexpected. That would be exhausting and crush the spirit. But we can't go about demanding a certainty that doesn't exist for ourselves or anyone else. There is a balance that the well-developed human has to live with. 

I'll go back next Monday, God willing and the creeks don't rise, as they say. Hopefully my students will still be hale and hearty. But I know, just as I learned 41 years ago when my marriage blew up and I had to alter my course and ask for help, nothing is certain.

All I can do is be grateful for this moment. And that's enough for me.

I dream of flight

A recent article has me dreamily in the clouds.

One of my favorite night journeys doesn't happen nearly enough. I've had flying dreams since I was a child. They're never scary, always exhilarating and surprising. 

I assumed that everyone experienced these flights of nighttime fancy, but have found that it's not true. Maybe that's why, in my dreams, I often try to teach other people how easy it is to fly.

I'm rarely aware of lucid dreams, and can't will myself to dream anything in particular. I wish I could. But then I would lose the delight of surprise. In fact, when these special dreams happen, I'll suddenly realize that I'm flying and the joy that accompanies it surpasses anything in my waking life.

In the "real" world, I've always had trouble being punctual. I'm getting better, but it takes great deliberation to get places on time. (Jill has helped with this -- she just gets in the car and I know it's time to speed it up.) For years I've claimed that the reason I'm late is that I still believe, from some previous existence, that I can leave and arrive at the same time. See how this all fits in?

In 1979, I had a near-death experience in a medical setting. It was amazing and not at all frightening. In fact, it was sublimely joyful, and changed me in subtle ways. Only when I am asleep and flying have I been able to come close to that experience again.

I know, I know. It's brain stuff. Something to do with neurons and synapses and neurotransmitters. I'm down with that. I like science. I'm used to brain-based, pleasure-center experiences carrying me into alternate realities. I'm an ex-addict, remember? But that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy zipping through the universe in my dreams.

Life is full of mysteries. One of the speculative observations in that article stated that people with positive mindsets are more likely to experience flying dreams. I choose that theory.

The happier I am, the more I fly. And now I can do it without substances. Pretty cool.

Where do ideals fit in?

I was reading an article this morning that reported on results from some focus groups with Millennials. Take that as you will. I am the mother of a so-called Millennial, and a so-called Gen-X, neither of whom like those labels and will tell you so. Me, I'm an out and proud Boomer. What can I say?

I know I'm biased. I happen to have an innate optimism about life in general, and young people in particular. I will never yell at you to get off my lawn. (However, I will strongly suggest you do not tease my dog. He'll likely bite you.) So as I read poll results, political, religious, social, environmental, whatever, I tend to see them through my several biased lenses.

This particular piece was articulating results from political focus groups. That's the biggie right now, isn't it? What in the world is going on in this election cycle? And who are the youngin's going to vote for in the end?

Being a self-proclaimed Boomer of the late-leading-edge variety (1950), I came of age in the 1960s with all its tumult and idealism. I still wonder where all those folks I used to protest with on the U of I quad have gone. (Well, besides hanging out in Unitarian-Universalist circles.) Of course, when you're in the middle of a cataclysm, you think that the entire world is on fire, when actually there were tens of millions of my cohort who were bumbling along, shaking their heads, going to war, wondering what in hell those liberal-hippie-commie-love-children were doing. "GET A JOB!"

To me, it was my entire generation and it was some heady stuff, indeed. We were bringing on the revolution. We were changing everything. Power to the People!

Maybe that's why I'm inclined to be more in sync with the young voters who are massing around Bernie Sanders' political revolution. It may never come to pass, at least not like he and his followers envision, but the idealism and the energy are invigorating. They prod my hope and feed my optimism.

They also shine a light on my cynicism. Yeah, but it's too late for all that. That ship has sailed. We're all in this creaky little lifeboat and about to be washed over and sunk. David and Goliath is a myth, and anyway Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are like leering caricatures of giant Goliath, and the Sanders folk are feebly waving pitchforks against a tidal wave.

The other factor, the one I'm least proud of, is my claim to age and experience. It gives me some comfort, and provides a little cover. But it's an unattractive quality that I'm quick to point out when I see it in the cynical, fatalistic politicos who deny climate change while stuffing their pockets with donations. "What the hell --- I'm going to die soon anyway. I won't be around to see what happens."

That, my friends, is the worst. When I find myself making the logical, pragmatic arguments, am I really just saying, "Meh, I'm queued up for the infinity ride ---- ya'll take over and I'll see you on the other side."  Now that's the position of no personal responsibility. Who is that person?

It comes down to this, as it always has. Do I go with my gut, my values, my hope, my ideals? Or do I go with practicality and down-to-earth reality? Is it really an either/or?

(Back in the dark ages, before Jill moved into the land of light and love, we had an argument about the use of the Peace Rose in my classroom. It was a means of teaching 6-8 year olds to solve their own disputes without the adults getting involved. We used an actual (silk) rose which they passed between them as they worked things out. Jill accused me of always wearing rose-colored glasses, that teaching peace to children was a hopeless effort. You should see the pink lenses she wears these days!)

Boomers, all of us, are shuffling off stage left. We're not done yet, not by a long shot, but that's the direction the line is moving. And, as they should, our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren ---- I can't believe how many of my friends are great-grandparents now! ----- are in place to take over. It's always happened. It always will. It may be hard to give up the reins of power and the rock-solid beliefs and values we formed in a different world 60 or 70 years ago, but that's the way it goes. This is a new place and time.

Gen X. Millennials. Whatever the next ones are called. It's their show now. We better pay attention because they're the ones calling a lot of the shots. In some ways, it makes it easier. I can go cast my vote. I can work for a candidate if I want to. I can volunteer at a non-profit I believe in. I can Morally March. I can still do all of that, and I don't have to get so wound up that I lose sleep or raise my blood pressure.

Maybe I can still hold onto my ideals after all.