Walking in Mama's Shoes -- Redux

While I was out of town, Jill undertook cleaning our bedroom closet. I only wish I had before and after pictures, because the results are spectacular.

One of the improvements concerns the organization of shoes. Despite the recent thinning of my collection due to a young dog who loves to chew footwear, I am still the fortunate owner of a gracious plenty of shoes, boots, slippers, flip-flops, heels, moccasins, and even an ancient pair of tap-dancing shoes and some bedraggled black ballet slippers. Among this extravaganza are many pairs that formerly belonged to my mother.

If you read a previous post Walking in Mama's Shoes, you'll remember that she was convinced that her shoe size was 2 sizes smaller than it actually was. This was not entirely due to dementia --- small feet are highly prized in our family. My mother's father owned a shoe store. Back in the 50s he even had one of those x-ray thingies, I think. I definitely remember the slide rule foot measurer and the slanted footstools. We bought our fall school shoes at Grandpa's store. I especially remember the red leather first grade shoes, the ones with the buckle across the top.

I'm not entirely immune to the small-foot fetish, and I have to admit that I've often thought that my pretty little feet are one of my best features. Yes, they're smaller than those of the other women in the family ---- except my teensy daughter. Even my sister teases me that my feet look like they've never been used. They haven't. I screw them off and put them in a satin lined, climate-controlled box every night when I go to bed.

In the interest of organizing our shoes, Jill purchased a fancy-dancy round, hanging shoe holder, with spaces for everything ---- quite amazing. Now that Mama's shoes were no longer tumbled on the dark floor among the suitcases, old gift boxes, and discarded t-shirts waiting to go to the thrift shop, I could see and wear them. Yesterday, I donned a pair of slip-ons, black loafers like I have never bought in my life, but since they were free.... The were too small, especially with warm socks on a cold day. But I was only going out for an hour. They would be ok.

By the time I got home, the toes that were not altogether numb from being squooshed, ached. I gratefully slipped the loafers from my feet and started to return them to the shoe bag, when I stopped myself. What in the world? Was I going to keep these shoes, and the other pair like them only a different color, just because they were free? Because they were Mom's? Because they have a lot of wear left in them?

That's what I've always done. That's why my closet it stuffed to the gills with things I rarely or never wear. They used to fit, but they don't anymore. They used to be my favorites, but they're old and outdated. They used to belong to someone I love. They were given to me free. They're vintage. They're soooooo cute (or I used to be cute in them, 30 years ago!). Not one of those is a good reason to keep clothes I don't use, but perhaps the worst is the "someday it may fit me" reason.

What if I simply got rid of everything that doesn't fit me right now? Even if it almost fits. Even if it's just a little too tight around the waist or across the toes. Even if the skirt hangs just a little funny, or the pants aren't exactly the length I like or I got it on a great sale, but never liked the color. What if I only had clothes and shoes I actually wanted to put on and wear, instead of waiting till that magical time when I lose weight, or have more money to shop, or go back to work, or have to go to a funeral. Well, ok. I'll keep the funeral outfit. Sooner or later I'll need it.

I have lived too much of my life making do and waiting for something to change. I don't have to wear Mama's shoes just because they're in my closet. They're too small to be comfortable. They were too small for her, but she wore them anyway. I don't have to do that ---- I don't have dementia.

What did you say your name was?

The other day I was in a gathering of women, some of whom I know well and many who are relative strangers. As part of the opening, we went around the room saying our names. There were a few repeats, as you would expect in a group of 35 or 40, but since the ages ranged from about 20 to 70, there was also quite a variety.

When my mind began to wander during the meeting, I spent some time examining individual people and trying to imagine them as babies or youngsters. It's one of the ways I entertain myself. It made me think about the names. They didn't pick their own, most likely. That's not how it's done. When they were born, their parents decided on a name and pasted it onto the new little person without a clue whether it would fit or not. And some names don't fit at all.

As I looked around and paired names and faces, I could imagine the parents full of hopes for their new little babies. There were Melissas and Lisas and Katherines and Susans, and even two Natashas. The older names sound so solid, and a little intimidating, like Mary Margaret or Nora or Dolores. Some have been shortened or altered by their owners --- Toni for Antoinette, Pat for Patricia, Jill for Julia. I was struck by the simplicity of Jane. You don't run into a lot of Janes anymore. Some of the more foreign or ethnic sounding names I can't even remember, but they definitely convey a cultural message.

I wonder what effect a name has on the developing child. Some names can be a definite hindrance, others can make the difference between fitting in or not. Some have associations that are thrust upon them by popular culture or famous figures. Do we live up to (or down to) our names? Do we take on characteristics of family members we're named after?

When I was a storyteller, I usually made sure that the villain had an unusual name that would not likely be shared by any of the children in the audience, while the hero usually had a fairly common name like Tom or Mary. I could always tell when I hit on a name in the group; all the other kids would turn to that child and giggle or point. By the end of the story, the heroic exploits of the character would be attributed to that child, who would often be beaming with pride. I always wondered how long that carried over.

One of the things I enjoy about being a novelist is that I get to come up with names. After all, you can only have so many babies in a lifetime. You wind up with a drawer full of unused names, perfectly good ones that would look so cute on a little kid.

That's one of the troubles though, isn't it? Halfway through the pregnancy the naming conversation begins. Everybody has an opinion. There are family names, traditions, customs and religion that can influence a child's name. And, of course, the trend factor. Everybody named Jennifer who was born in the 70s and 80s please stand up.

I collect names from live people, from books and news articles, baby name lists, cemeteries, movie credits, and my own genealogy. I just found a good one when I was looking through my mother's high school photo album. One of her friends was named Clella.

I guess I'm going to have to keep writing fiction until I run out of names. That's ok. At least it keeps me off the streets and well caffeinated.

Book Friends

I am a congenital saver. By some estimations, that could qualify me as a junior-grade hoarder, but I prefer to think of myself as a preservationist. I have been very fortunate to receive many beautiful pieces of furniture and material culture from parents, grandparents and great-grandparents and even great-greats. I love being surrounded with history, my history, my family's history. I continue to learn more about it all the time. 

There is a downside, though. Where do you put everything? As Jill's creative wings continue to spread, she needs ALL the space in her studio. Considering that my stuff is filling the rest of the house, it's not unreasonable for her to have one room that is totally her own. Until this week, she's had to put up with 4 bookcases of my books.

Understand, we have bookcases in every room except the bathrooms. Hmmmmmm..... 

The bookcases in question are laden with books that I do use from time to time --- history, reference, poetry. It's mainly the non-fiction collection. Plus photo albums dating back to the 1940s. She has had them covered with a brightly colored sheet, to make them look like a wall. Whenever I need to look for a book, I endanger her decor. So now, we're moving the books. 

This morning, I started putting books in boxes for the move and discovered a volume I didn't know I had. It's a 1900 edition of Collier's Cyclopaedia with an inscription indicating that it belonged to my great-grandfather Cramer. I don't know when I acquired it, nor why it is not shelved with the other antique books in my collection. I was happy to hold it in my hand, though.

Many of these books I have moved repeatedly over the years. I still have favorite books from childhood. I have books that were always on my parents' and grandparents' shelves, books whose bindings and titles became so familiar to me that I am instantly carried back to comfort and safety from seeing them on the shelf. Combine the visual image with the smell of an old book as I open it, and it is indeed like greeting an old friend. If it's a book I've read, often more than once, as with the Maida books or Alcott, I am transported into an inner world that is mine alone.

When I was a child, books were my friends. I wasn't a loner, misfit kid. I had friends as well as 3 younger siblings. We played inside and outside, often elaborate pretend games involving witches, fairies, pirates, orphans and royalty. The plots and characters were loosley drawn from the rich tapestry of stories and fairy tales we had been exposed to in books. Our parents read to us nearly every night, and we were surrounded with books and encouraged to read on our own. My brother and I turned out to be the biggest readers, though the other girls took it up later in life. Often, when sent outside to "get some fresh air" (that's mother for leave me alone), I would take Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, Maida or Jo March outside to play with me under a tree or in my hut. The slanted outside doors to the basement were a good place to read, but you needed a blanket to keep from getting splinters of wood or paint. Likewise, the little hill in the front yard, when it was in the sun, was a good place to spread out the old picnic blanket for a read. And when you were done, you could roll down it!

I don't look forward to the arduous task of lifting and tugging bookcases and boxes of books over the next few days. Makes me tired just to think about it. But handling, sorting, browsing, sniffing and delighting in my books while listening to Bach and Handel on vinyl (I just rediscovered those boxed sets!) will be a perfect way to spend the hours. And, at the end, I'll have three of the four bookcases in my writing/sewing/reading room where they belong, and Jill will be able to reclaim her own space. It's a win-win all around. 

Snout Pits and other Ephemera

 

If you look closely above, you will notice that there are many small, cone-shaped holes all around this young Magnolia tree. Those are snout pits.

Snout pits? I had never heard of them until recently, either. Oh, the things you learn when you get a new puppy! We've had diggers before. Tori was determined to dig to China. No matter what Jill filled the deep hole with, it wasn't long before she had it dug out again. Fortunately, it was not in the ordinary path for walking, so there was no danger of falling in, but it was right beside the deck and threatened to undermine one of the supporting posts. Jill-the-Builder finally filled it with cement, which effectively stopped the digging. Whatever Tori was after must not have been available in any other part of the yard.

For awhile, both Buddy and Lucky were digging beneath the maple tree, one hole that they took turns on. Buddy liked to drop toys in it. Lucky had started the hole, and didn't seem to appreciate his contributions, which sometimes caused hierarchical disputes. Lucky won.

But now we have snout pits because we've lucked into having a "Dixie Dingo", aka Carolina Dog. It is one of their most enduring, defining characteristics, this digging of shallow nose holes in which they snuffle around and eat some unknown bug or mineral out of the dirt. Unlike the other dogs, it's not the gravitational pull of one or two holes for burying toys or digging for fun. We have snout pits all over the yard. She digs them side by side sometimes, effectively creating a trench, or more often in a large circle which gradually becomes a maze of little holes. There's no walking in the backyard after dark, if you value your ankles.

Besides my amazement at this built-in behavior, it makes me think about myself and other humans I know. She's born that way --- sound familiar? She can no more stop digging snout pits than any of the other inbred behaviors that were adaptive to the native environment of South Carolina coastal wetland life, which is where these dogs originate. And humans? Well, we seem to have some built-ins as well.

I've been watching the pissing contest in Washington with dismay and some amusement. Sometimes, a depressive bent of mind is helpful: all these clowns will be dead sooner or later, some much sooner than others. Somehow, I find that reassuring. Even though there is no shortage of others to take their place, this particular political setpiece will become another chapter of history, has already moved in that direction. And people who learn about it later will shake their heads in wonder, just as we do when reading about the South Carolina senator who, in 1856, beat fellow senator Charles Sumner with his cane, on the Senate floor, over the issue of slavery. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_Brooks

Are these things immutable human behavior? Is this kind of posturing, power seeking, and aggression simply bred into the human psyche? Part of our DNA? Our other dog, Buddy, is a runner and a climber. He has climbed up the fallen willow, several feet off the ground, to chase a squirrel. In order to keep him from climbing over the fence and running the neighborhood, we had to run an electric wire around the top of the fence. He didn't decide not to climb over the fence anymore, he learned it wasn't worth getting his little nose zapped by a shock (very small, I assure you. I've felt it myself, most recently this morning when I accidentally leaned against it.)

Are they teachable, these politicians and corporate power/money mongers? Can they be curbed? They seem determined to pursue their self-selected goals unto the death, which, to me, does not seem adaptive in the long run. I guess these questions have been around as long as there have been people. We teach small children prosocial behaviors in order to make them fit into the prevailing culture. We shape their natural instincts by demanding that, over time and when it's developmentally appropriate, they start toileting in the accepted manner for their society.  It differs by location and culture, but I don't know if there are any communities in which toileting is not circumscribed in some manner. We're not born using the bathroom, but we sure do learn it. As far as I know, all these Congress and Wall Street folk are toilet trained, so they must be teachable, to some degree.

So where do aggression and violence fall on the continuum of social behaviors? Make no mistake about it, verbal aggression is simply a precursor to violence. It's no accident that verbal debate led to Senator Sumner being beaten so badly that he was unable to work for three years afterward. And yet, Preston Brooks, after resigning his seat, was later re-elected --- a seal of approval for his violent behavior.

Our doggy companions want nothing more than to please us. Perhaps, through positive and/or negative reinforcement, I could make Nanalu quit digging treacherous snout pits all over the yard. Maybe I could train her to only do it in certain parts of the yard, if I really cared that much. She is, after all, housebroken, so I know she can learn to modify her natural inclinations.

I believe this tension between instinctual and learned behavior is one of the most fascinating topics there is, and undoubtedly a major reason I was a career educator. Why humans and animals do what they do and learn what they learn is endlessly interesting to me.

You think we could get up an army of preschool teachers and go to Washington and do some intensive work with these guys? Sharing, taking turns, being kind, compromise, using your words and your inside voice. Or maybe just sideline them and show them how it's done. That's the ticket!

The Sky Is Falling! Run For Your Life!!

I'm old enough to remember the Sixties. Whether I do or not, is a horse of another color ---- oooo looky, green! pink! orange swirls! But I digress.

This morning I jumped out of bed like a kid on Christmas, running to the kitchen to see if the government had shut down while I slept. IT DID!

Now what? The tree outside the kitchen window is raucous with birdsongs. The sky is lightening up into a smoky blue. No sirens. No heavy trucks rumbling by. I haven't seen a single black helicopter. Might as well go back to bed.

If the sky is about to fall, you couldn't tell by me. But look on facebook, look on news sites, look on twitter, and it sure does seem as though civilization, as we know it, is about to collapse. It's breathless! It's exciting! It's NEWS!

I'm not belittling the effect it will have on individual people, lots of them. Years ago, when I was a lowly GS-3 in the Department of Labor, Congress had a spate of budget arguments that resulted in short term CRs. On again, off again, with rumors constantly flying. I was a single mother living in a basement apartment with a table, a chair, a mattress on the floor and no refrigerator. I wasn't making much to begin with. So yes, I know how painful it can be for your run-of-the-mill government worker to lose out on paychecks.

The thing is, who remembers that? Only the people involved. An entire generation has grown up and taken positions of power, who have no recollection of the budget wars of the 70s and early 80s. Even the more recent, highly publicized Clinton-era shutdown times are fuzzy in memory. Somehow, as urgent and important as they were at the time, we got through them, the "leaders" involved somehow solved their differences, and the country lurched on to the next crisis.

Will that happen again? Probably. I'm sure, for every failed state there is a time to look back and see the moment it happened --- the single, final straw that took down the whole bloomin' ship. But we're not likely to recognize it at the time. So this will get resolved somehow, and we'll all turn back to jobs and kids and getting sick and getting born and dying and living, just like people always do. Will it be the same? Mostly. There will probably even be people who don't realize our government has just come through a crisis so deep that it had to shut down for awhile. But there will also be change.

Here's what changes: teenagers and young adults who believed in something, will get cynical and turn away. People who thought that reason would always prevail, will be disillusioned and drop out of politics altogether. Some will be radicalized, energized by the fight, the drama, the life-or-death competition, and they will jump in with all barrels blazing. Some people will use the divisions that are so stark right now as a reason to leave the country, to fight with their families and friends, to dig into the problems in their own communities, to strengthen their own faith or bludgeon others with religion, to deepen their commitment to
their own pursuits of love, art, literature, camping, roller derby, four-wheeling or football.

As a matter of fact, what with all of this happening right around time for the World Series and during football season, there's a sizeable chunk of the population who probably aren't tuned into it at all!

As for me, I consider myself a historian and a world citizen. I try to take the long view. I look back, tease out common threads, try to extrapolate the future from what has come before. I take a further step back and realize that everything passes, even the 'exceptional' USA. Babylon's not a world power now. The Cold War is already 60 years old. Remember how long ago the Mayans were a power in governance and knowledge? Remember how the sun never set on the English Empire? It's been like that as long as there have been people (Ahem, -- men) trying to subdue others and grab power.

I'm an optimist. In my own life, I have learned that even the most dispiriting circumstances hold lessons I need to learn. I think we can learn as a society, as a country. I think we CAN. Whether we will or not is a horse of another color ----- oooooo pretty, painted purple horsey.

Push through the Pain

As I've stated before, I'm no athlete. Never was, never will be. I have not, however, been exempt from athletic endeavors over the years, either by coercion or misguided attempts to stray from my natural path. So I have been on the recieving end of exhortions to: 

"Push through the pain!"                                                          "No pain, no gain!"

Not being a fan of pain either, this never made any sense to me. As far as I could see, pain was a big, red STOP sign, to be ignored at one's peril. Perhaps, in our more enlightened age, these urgings to brush aside body cues are not as prevelant as they once were, but I don't imagine they've disappeared ----- not by a long shot.

For folks like me, who were looking for a good reason to be sidelined in the first place, pain seemed a logical stopping point. 

"It hurts. I quit." 

"I'll just sit over here and watch . . . or read my book . . . or write a poem . . . or hum to myself . . . or talk to my equally sports-challenged friend."

"I'll just stroll around the track and stop to pick some flowers to make a necklace and look for four-leaf clovers. Ya'll go right on ahead with your game. I'm fine."

Of course, there are other kinds of pain. 

It seems that my pain specialty is internal. I've been pretty lucky about injuries and illnesses --- I haven't had too many. But ask me about depression. Or addiction. Or relentlessly poor self-esteem. Therapists were invented just for me.

I don't actually think I have a lot more psychological angst than many other people. I simply seem wired to be more aware of it ---- and fascinated by it. You know how sports enthusiasts collect statistics about their favorite games and players? Sometimes they can recount, in painful detail, every play from a game fifteen years earlier. That's how I am with therapy.

I have kept a journal for more than fifty years. One would think that it would contain all sorts of interesting tidbits about life in the 'olden days'. Fifty years is a long time. Some of you don't even remember when gas was 20 cents a gallon and candy bars were a nickel. But my journals are not troves of obscure facts about life in Europe in the Sixties, or groovin' through the Seventies. They're me, processing, long before I knew the word or its meaning. Me, figuring out life, or bitching about life, or thinking about thinking and feeling. As a record of the times, even the major events of my own, they're pretty much a bust. But they trace emotional ups and downs with excruciating attention.

I have been endlessly curious about, not just my own interior life, but other people's as well. I want to know what makes people act the way they do. I read terrible news clippings and try to imagine what was going through the minds of the people involved. I take something I've done or said, and try to roll it back, unravel it, looking for antecedents, try to predict outcomes. People say I listen well, and that's probably true, because I'm forever in search of answers. I've never understood the folks who espouse "Ignorance is bliss" as a philosophy of life.

So yes, I look to the past, especially my own past. I watch for patterns, unpack delusional thinking, confront painful illusions. I do it on my own and with professional help. I do it, when necessary, with friends and especially with my wife, Jill. Because if I don't go through the pain of this sort of growth, I'll be doomed to tread the same turf over and over, and that, my friends, really is painful.

Aging in Never-Never Land

I'm a Baby Boomer. In some circles that's a pejorative term. There is no way to calculate the impact of the Baby Boom generation on our country and our society, but we all know it's been significant.

Some people assert that "youth culture" originated with the BBs. I expect there's some truth to that. But we're far from young now, and the youthful orientation of everything from fashion to music to food and shelter still predominates, especially in the media. What does it mean that the vast majority of images, entertainment, and even news are directed toward young people, with elders shunted to the side or relegated to the wrong end of jokes? And has it always been this way? I suspect it has. After all, Wallis Simpson was saying "A woman can never be too rich or too thin" long before World War II.

What's missing, for me, is a positive template for aging in the midst of youth culture. My mom, who has modeled many positive behaviors for me throughout my life, completely missed the boat on this one. She never actually reconciled herself to being old, which played out bizarrely in the years when dementia was setting in. No help there.

The archetypes we're all familiar with provide glimpses, but don't pertain well to the 21st century. We're not going to be little white-haired ladies in long skirts and aprons, feeding the chickens and up to our elbows in bread dough. We're not going to retire to the front porch with the rocking chair at the tender age of 65, surrounded by our brood of perfectly attentive, adoring grandchildren. And nobody wants to be the lady with dyed red hair and bright pink lipstick whose matching polyester pantsuit was all the rage in 1978.

Who do we model ourselves after, if anybody? Gloria Steinem has served for a long time, and continues to be a vital woman. Nothing seems to be slowing Hillary Clinton down. But if you're like me, and you've spent your life going along, doing what needs to be done, with no acclaim or celebrity, how do you hold onto the feeling that life is still interesting, there are more things to learn, it's still important to get up in the morning and keep on going?

I do much better when I shut out most of the media noise. I choose my information content and limit it to what I think is important. Who the hell cares what's styling this year? Why would I ever feel like I have to spend money I don't have on things I don't need? I don't go shopping. I don't watch tv. When I start to feel like there's something wrong with me ---- I'm not good enough! I'm not thin enough! I'm not smart enough! I'm not successful! ---- I back it up a notch or two. 

Life is not a competition. We're all heading toward the same end --- I'd like to pace myself and reach it, as a friend on facebook recently said, with a smile on my face. There's so much ambient noise these days, too many ways to be thrown off track and into doubt. Forgiveness is the watchword for me right now. Forgiveness of the foibles of the people around me, and forgiveness of myself. 

So bring it! I can stay up playing games and listening to TED talks till all hours if I want to. And I can sleep late with my doggies, as well. Because who's going to tell me I can't? I'm a Baby Boomer and, at 63, I'm a little bit tired and a little bit grumbly and that will just have to be enough.