Lost Identity

Lately I'm thinking, "This must've been what it was like being a housewife."

It's weird because I've never lived with a housewife.  My mom was never solely a housewife.  My whole life she worked outside the home and in addition kept the household (with our help).  Like her I cook — but unlike her, I've never been a housekeeper and I'll never be a good housekeeper because I hate cleaning house.  
I LOVE a clean house, but I don't want to be the one doing it.  
Just like salad — love eating it, hate making it.

Housewife.  Seems that's the only identity I have these days.

Not working in a regular job. No identity there.

Not a 24/7 mom anymore.  Of course my kids love me, still need me at times, but they're almost 25 and functioning pretty damn well on their own.  As my friend Lynnie says, I'm a mother, but I'm not mothering. 

Since my mom died almost nine years ago, no longer a daughter and not a sister or a sister-in-law.  With my sister and sister-in-law both gone (estranged from my only other sibling and his wife), even my sister identity no longer exists.

So I spend my days food shopping and cooking. I cook because in my family background, food is love.  Pea & lentil soup speckled with bits of smoked ham hocks and ground coriander.  A meaty Bolognese sauce loaded with minced onions, carrots, basil, oregano, and heavy cream.  A North African-inspired chicken with chickpeas and spinach — what Rachel Ray would call a "stoup" — a cross between a stew and a soup — fragrant with ginger, garlic, saffron, cumin, and allspice. 

None of it tastes like anything to me.

The Dreaded Mammogram

Mammograms.  UGH.  Yes they are valuable, important, life-saving. But boy do they hurt. The upper part of my chest, close to my underarms still hurts from the pinch of that machine.

In preparation, I email and call to find which facility (of the four in my town available to me through my insurance) has the most recent equipment.  No definitive answer but I'm advised to go to the Cancer Center as it's the newest facility.  

I enter the hushed wing.  The place was lovely.  An elegant waiting area, understated and beautiful changing rooms. Everything nice, welcoming, and meant to make you feel comfortable.  But there's no way your mammogram is gonna be comfortable.

The sweet technician, Connie, introduces me to the routine ahead, asks her questions, fills in her computer forms.  

"Any history of breast cancer in your family?" she queries.

"Yes.  My sister.  Died of breast cancer nine-and-a-half years ago," I answer as the tears well up and I bite down on my lip.

Trying to change the subject I ask, "Do you know what year this machine is?"

Connie is startled.  Not a question she's used to getting.  But like any good technician/customer service-provider she immediately starts to look at the machine.

"Well, gee, I don't know," she says examining any information she can find plated on that monstrosity, "I don't see the year but I can keep looking..." she assures me as she twists and turns around the gleaming monster.

"That's alright," I relent.  "I know they're new since this is a fairly new place."

"W-e-ll," she says slowly, starting to think about what I've asked.  "Actually some of the machines were moved over from Hospital South and I know this is one of them."

I must look crestfallen because she quickly adds, "But those machines aren't that old...I mean 2010 or maybe, MAYbe 2009."

Shit.  One more thing I should've checked on.

And so with gentle kindness, Connie positions first one breast and then the other. Stretching and bending and cranking and squishing as I grimace and hold my breath and just can't wait until it's over.

Let me ask you — IF men had to go once a year to check the health of their penis by laying it flat, on a tray, while an opposing surface pressed down hard, squashing it flat, and then a technician slowly turned a knob to compress the surface downward even FURTHER, and you felt the crunch of your appendage under that machine — don't you think if males were subjected to that kind of a test ONCE — let alone annually — a less painful option would've been invented LONG ago? 

It's not over 'til you get the results.
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UPDATE:  Results are all clear...thank goodness!

TLC — and I Don't Mean Tender, Loving Care

As I wrote in this blog almost two years ago in Write Your Life —  I had to answer this essay question on a national exam:  “If you had to choose only one object for people to find 100 hundred years from now that would give insight on our society, what would it be?” I said, the TV Guide was a window on our world and it wasn't a very flattering picture. Future generations could read it and know how we frittered our time away on game shows, soap operas, detective stories and more.

This is what I was troubled by and ashamed of in the late 80s. Little did I know what was coming 25 years later — far beyond soap opera — as they say in today's vernacular, "OMG." 

What is it about our culture that devours such awful stuff? The Learning Channel (now TLC) used to be a channel that sought to educate and improve the lives of its viewers.  But it was sold and bought and changed.  Look how far it's strayed. All the way to the other side — 180-degrees — with barely a quarter of its shows offering viewers any saving grace. Still, there must be an audience that watches the junk — over 3 million are glued to Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. THREE MILLION.

If you want an overview of how this channel went from positive educational content to prurient pablum, read this article from Business Insider that chronicles the downfall. A far, far fall.

Today TLC boasts on its very own YouTube channel:

TLC is television network dedicated to covering "real life" reality 

and finding fun and beauty in the unexpected!

Along with...

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo

I choose another of TLC's finest...

America's Worst Tattoos

So that's what they call it..."finding fun and beauty in the unexpected"...hmmm...

I admit that I like and watch 19 Kids and Counting, Say Yes to the Dress, and have watched (some frequently, some occasionally) What Not To Wear, little people, BIG WORLD, little COUPLE, and Long Island Medium — they each have redeeming value (well, maybe not Say Yes) but represent just a small portion of what TLC offers the viewing public.

For your edification, in my own order, here are those shows that clearly indicate TLC is certainly following the life spectrum in its line-up of "real life" reality ...

[Well, this last one is a saving grace...it's not in the same category as those before.]


After watching all these other "peeping tom" shows that voyeuristically look at what is not best about us, is it any wonder  __________________________________________ ? 

(You fill in the blank.)

I Confess

The year is almost over —  out with the old, in with the new.  So before the clock ticks down here are the topics for posts I THOUGHT I'd write about and didn't.  They just stayed "drafts."  Some had titles some did not.  In no particular order, here are the posts that didn't get written:

• I'd heard the columnist/commentator (in the truest sense of the word) David Brooks say that at some point in our future, my future, minorities in the United States will become the majority.  I wanted to write about —  how had demographics changed?

• The Freemasons are the oldest and largest fraternity my father wasn't a joiner —  my father was a Mason, in fact a Grand Mason.  He wanted to be buried with his Masonic objects.  There is a story to be told.

• A final post on television, My All-Time Favorite Series – Our World, profiling Battlestar Gallactica (2004), Homeland, and I hadn't gotten the third.

• Being your own medical advocate because my dear colleague and friend Dr. Meg Korpi —  who has been battling cancer this past year has reminded me —  (as I well knew over the 27 months of Robin's cancer, but it's almost been a year since her passing, so I needed reminding) you must be your own medical advocate.  Meg is a believer, a wife, an aunt, a researcher, an educator, a comfort in the world and a dear friend, human being, advocate, beautiful shining light AND a fighter.  May she win this fight in 2014.

• A look at some of the worst television we feed on as a culture and then cause the growth of more shows on
  such as — 
   

America's Worst Tattoos

My Crazy Obsession

Extreme Cougar Wives

My Teen Is Pregnant and So Am I

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo

• Once there was a time BEFORE everything we ate was chemically treated.  Now, it's true that you can try to avoid chemicals by eating organic and local, but you still can’t avoid what’s coming down from the sky. As our friend — and third-generation-Iowan-farmer — Aaron says, “Water knows no state lines.”  We need to wake up.

• I wish I knew what was fair.   I wish I could magically figure out the give and take that's mandatory — if you're going to be successful in a relationship.  I think it's really hard to always make choices that match the ebb and flow of two people who are each in their own orbit of life and yet coexisting as a couple.

• Decades ago I did what I did this year— left my full-time job to go freelance.  Back then I was young, single and fancy-free.

• And a set of random quotes that intrigued me:

"Have your fear, don't become your fear" Rev Ed Bacon

"I love myself exactly as I am." Deepak Chopra
Truth trumps loyalty   Rushworth Kidder

"Regrets are mistakes you don't learn from..."  Analeigh contestant on ANTM 

"A love so profound that it allows us to forgive."

Can I live what I know?
  "Look for the wealth in your life...Ben Stein aug 4 on CBS Sunday Morning

"You're making a mistake."
"I'm used to them by now."  the newsroom, first episode

"You put that all together really fast." Maggie
"It's not an original story..." Mackenzie

"She's like a sophomore poli-sci major from Sarah Lawrence"

"Don't go to the well, there's no water there."  Trudi to Peter on Mad Men

and my favorite

“Children begin by loving their parents. After a time, they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them” Oscar Wilde


Well, maybe these drafts get tossed out with "the old,"  but, when you can,  comment  on which draft I should save! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Wishing You Every Good Thing

Dear Friends, Dear Readers,

I'm taking a break, enjoying the holidays and the turn of another year and the love of family and friends. And I hope you are doing the same wherever you may be.

If you're wishing for something to read, search the archives or the labels and find something to read about my life in publishing, about the things I collect, about the importance of character and family, or about the loss that's inevitable in all our lives.  I have my favorites, but I always wonder which post is a favorite of yours?

In the meantime, wishing you and yours every good thing... 

Facing the New Year

Clearly I've been having a problem writing.

I know why.  Partly it's the holidays and all they demand.  Partly it's a year since my sister-in-law's brain cancer took over and ended her life.  Partly it's the looming of another year gone by and another year when I've not achieved what my contemporaries (in fact a few years younger) Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates have achieved.  Yes, that's aiming a bit high but even a smidgen of their success would be huge.

It's the time of year for reflection, regrets, reassessment, and rejuvenation.

Reflection: What did I gain this year?   What did I lose?

Regrets:  Looking back what would I have done differently?

Reassessment: Moving forward what needs to change to make me and those I love happy? 

Rejuvenation:  What can I celebrate in terms of my accomplishments and how can I challenge myself to fill my soul and make my body healthy?

Am I willing to put in the time and energy to answer these questions?

Can I answer those questions?

Can you?

Every Picture Tells A Story — Don't It?

Amongst all the trees in my living room — 51 of them to be exact — one wall is devoted to people — all of them close to me but none of them known to me.  I'd like to introduce you to a few of them...just one grouping of my people.

This little girl was the first to join my "family." She's standing anxiously alone in an airport with some luggage marked Canadian Pacific AIrlines (now defunct).  The wooden frame this photo is set within is delicately carved along the sides. The back is signed "Dawson '74." 



Next to join my troupe is what I think of as a mass-produced hotel art. I've always called her "Lydia."  She's very Deco and there was a similar image of a vase of flowers which I didn't purchase, having spent the royal sum of $4 for Lydia.  At the time, an $8 investment was more than I could spare for a want and not a need.  I do regret that at times.

The magnificent horn player at right is a Mirage Editions 1981 poster done by John Martinez who is famous for doing New Orleans Jazz Festival posters.  I asked my cousin Ara what instrument this guy was playing and he seemed to think it was a zurna (a conical oboe) which didn't mean much to me but was an instrument from Anatolia which encompassed the birthplace of my grandparents.  No wonder I was drawn to this image.  [I hope you will forgive the shadows and reflections in these images that cloud their actual beauty.  While I am an excellent collector, I'm no photographer.]


On the right, this grim gentleman is "Uncle Gene," a member of The Wedding Party series painted by Nan Gressman.  Part oil painting, part collage — with his newspaper shirt, pasted paper collar and tie — no one understood what I saw in this gruff portrait of an old man.  All I can say is that the blue background of this canvas is scattered with bits of tobacco embedded in the paint — and for some reason, his stern face, pronounced cheekbone, and the thought of him puffing on a pipe filled with cherry tobacco made me want to bring him home.  And bring him home I did — despite his sorry expression.

Talk about grim — these two — these two, I don't know.  I was in a local thrift store sorting through the framed pictures (always looking for wonderful frames) when I came across these two old souls.  I tried leaving them behind, said I didn't need to spend $3 on these sorry souls, even if the metal frame was old with intricate engraved designs.  The quintessential Old-World couple who immigrated to America without a sou, centesimo, quid, pfennig or penny in their pockets.  These folks look miserable!  But — but — they could be Italian, Lithuanian, Albanian, or — Armenian — what's your guess?

This work is far crisper and more toward grays and charcoals than I've been able to capture.

And that brings me to the image at top of this grouping: Untitled (Launching No. 2) by Tom Gregg.  I was single.  I had lots of discretionary income.  I loved art.  It was my first trip to Block Island and there in the Sea Breeze Gallery was a stark black and white image of two boys kneeling expectantly in the dusk (or dawn), about to launch their boat.  It reminded me of those old Polaroids with the scalloped edges.  The gallery owner told me the artist was a student at The Rhode Island School of Design.  A student!  I bought and framed his work just as I imagined.  In spite of the dark and the hush — these two boys — I sensed their hopefulness and dreams.  

Glad someone in this family is looking forward and not back. 

The Clock With Contempt For Time

Growing up in our kitchen there was a clock.  Everyone had a kitchen clock.  It was simple, it looked like chrome, it kept time.  

This clock, my mother's kitchen clock, would — for no reason at all — start going backwards.

See for yourself.

                             

My mother hated that clock, felt frustrated with that clock, swore she'd get rid of that clock if it was the last thing she did. But to me it was amazing. I LOVED THAT CLOCK and begged her to keep it.

"Mommy, mommy, please!  This is a GREAT clock!  What clock did you ever see that goes backwards?  Mommy!  It's a clock that doesn't care about time!!  It's like no other clock in the world."

She just shook her head with a disgusted look on her face, unplugged it then plugged it back in (which often made it reverse direction) and left the kitchen.  And one day — when I came home from college for a holiday — the clock was gone.

Then, years later when I was finally getting married (as my Gramma would remind me) at my engagement shower I opened the last box (another from my mom) and there, nestled in pink tissue paper, was the CLOCK!  Though she was still shaking her head in disbelief that anyone could want this clock, she'd saved it for me and now it was all mine.

A clock that went backwards. How great was that?  It felt as if that clock had a personality and it was feisty.  Irreverent.  Able to go against its very purpose and show it had a mind of its own.  How often does that happen?

Our first real home, a townhouse, was the place I got to hang my beloved clock.  Upon closer inspection I realized it was only painted silver — so I repainted it to match the trim in my new kitchen, a muted teal.  I plugged it in, and then, rather anxiously, waited for the time it would go backwards, hoping for my clock to reverse direction and slowly tick, tick, tick the seconds the wrong way.  Thankfully it did. And there that clock kept time and in two houses more.  Whenever it felt like it, it went backwards.  Oddly enough, that made me happy.  And it still does.
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On this Thanksgiving weekend, I am thankful to my daughter for showing her technologically-challenged mother how to embed a video!

Miss Ruby's Retirement

On the Occasion of Ruby's Retirement

I typed the text because it wasn't readable in my shot.

Well Miss Ruby, the big day is here

An event you've cherished all through the year

But when you start setting your lamp on fire,

We all think it's time for you to retire.

You've brightened our mornings with a cheery Hello,

Except when the weather threatens to snow.

And without the least hesitation

You told us all of your operation.

Through the years you have given your all

Driven some of your bosses right up the wall.

But we'll all miss your thoughtful ways,

and wish you were back in the coming days.

Ah yes, when the debits and credits don't settle

It will surely test our mettle.

And when all those reports are overdue

We will simply blame it on you.

Oh Miss Ruby if you'd only been here,

We could have dumped it on your desk to clear.

And you'd have grinned and straightened your back

And gotten it done before your mid-morning snack.

We'll miss all the flowers you'd always bring

The lovely bouquets at the first sign of Spring.

But we know that this is a SPECIAL DAY

And then there'll be no tars as we sincerely say —  

Now you can travel and garden and cook

And once in a while read a good book.

All of your friends send you love and best wishes

But please help Kermit sometime with the dishes!

Now let us be clear: I do not know Miss Ruby.  
I know nothing about her but now, I guess I know a bit about her.

She was hard-working, well-respected.
Her job had to do with numbers.  She loved flowers.
Her colleagues relied on her.  She stood her ground.
She had health issues.  She deserved her retirement.    
Apparently, she didn't care for doing dishes.

I was searching for a particular sized frame when I found this one, with its faded testament.  I wasn't crazy about the walnut but that could be changed.  The size was almost exactly right.  The green dot price tag said $2.00.  I took it home.

But when I started to dismantle the frame, I had to stop.  I felt bad.  I felt bad for Miss Ruby.  Here I was, ready to discard the culminating document of her professional life.  I  read through the lovingly hand-drawn now-faint calligraphy, tenderly composed, and delicately embellished.  How sad this honor to her ended up on my living room floor.

Who was Ruby?  Where did she work?  When did she retire?  What did she do after her party?  Why was this affectionate tribute left in a thrift store?  Was she still alive?  Would I ever know the answers to any of my questions?

It took a couple of days for me to grieve Miss Ruby's loss.  The loss that comes when one leaves one's home for a place with greater care.  The loss that comes when one leaves this world for the next. Whatever the transition, Miss Ruby no longer needed this written celebration from her colleagues.

I spray-painted the frame in a black matte finish and had my wonderful framers insert this silk-screened individual page — one-twelfth from a talented artist's rendition of the calendar.  I only bought this one page (for a dollar or two) because — for some reason — it spoke to me.  I love the way John (tiny signature-with-no-last-name upper-right of the "R" in November) made his letters with a comb-effect and the way he fashioned the zeroes.  Of all the other single pages of his calendar, only this one spoke to me — even though I have no associations with combs or November.

I love the way it came out.

I hope Miss Ruby would approve.
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As the last recipient of the thanks honoring Miss Ruby, let me share my thanks for each of you...wishing all my readers a very Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Hanukkah!