Doodling

It’s Monday. One of many where I have had a dash of overwhelmed in my coffee. When I had a fulltime job, Monday was a no brainer. I knew where I was going and what I had to do, ready or not. That did not mean I didn’t often feel overwhelmed, but facing 100+ kids in the classroom did not allow overwhelmed to take hold. The one sure thing that actually prevented, or at least reduced, the panic was having to be prepared. There is nothing more sweat- inducing dreadful than facing a classroom full of students with no plan. The REAL overwhelmed happened when my other life kicked in after 3:05 and extended until 8:20 the next day.  You know, the life that involved my own kids which included sub-demands like dance lessons, art lessons, swimming lessons, doc appointments, HW (which included MORE sub-demands like shopping for science experiments supplies and such), grocery shopping, dinners, husband, home care, running kids to malls/ movies/dances, grading papers, lesson planning, grading papers, lesson planning, grading papers, and relaxing. Wait…..did I actually say relaxing??  Sure, let’s say I did. Those days when I could actually sleep with my eyes open, memorize the lyrics to all of  Raffi’s and Selena’s songs, and a plethora of popular songs on the radio (actually couldn’t get them out of my head), and, in between all of that, worry about other people’s kids. Now that it is all behind me, I marvel at my ability to have juggled it all. I must have done okay. All my children survived, and I think most of my students remained unscarred. None became serial killers (that I know of) or suicidal (that I know of) and blamed me (that I know of).

Then I retired. Nest was empty. Rooms that once bedded kids bedded piles of fabric, craft supplies, projects. Closets that once boasted fashionista outfits of the young became storerooms for more fabric, craft supplies, projects. All the things I said I would do when I retired came out at night and taunted me. The clock ticking became a loud metronome keeping time with the bizarre music of sleepless souls. I imagined those to whom I had listed what all I would do when I retired were peeking into my life wondering when I was going to begin (okay, I realize this borders on needing some professional help). I weighed the number of things I wanted to do with the number of years I had left realizing those years were on the downside of the hill. The years may offer wisdom brought on by hindsight, but the ability to do everything is a slowing down process. Although I warmly regarded suggestions from well- meaning friends about how I could use my time lest I withered away from boredom, I chuckled inside hoping I did not to show the laughter in my eyes. Yes, I told them, volunteering my time somewhere will keep me busy. Yes, it is important to find a reason to get out of bed. Yes, I have many talents that render me still useful. Before I retired from teaching, I met a woman in the plaza in Las Vegas, New Mexico, when I was sitting for my granddoggers. She was sitting on a park bench reading a book. I have this at-times-could-be-irritating habit of asking people what they are reading. This prompted a short conversation with her. She was in her new months of retirement and said, “THIS is retirement! Endless hours of just sitting and reading!” There was something a little unsettling in her expression. Something between bliss and suffering a blow to the head maybe by a book falling off her shelf. Now don’t get me wrong. I love to read.  Love it. And, I will admit, there was some appeal to feeling like that was the only mission in life for a retiree. I will also admit that the first summer of my retirement (I was a substitute teacher for two years after I retired), I did just that. I read incessantly. I chocked up something like 22 reads. Finally focused on adult reads. For me. Fiction, non-fiction.  Then, somewhere between the pages, the big plot of post-job years flashed. A list of everything I had never done or ever would do was plastered on my brain like post-it notes. I panicked. I began acting (according to some who consider themselves close to me…) as though I feared I would run out of time before I got everything accomplished I wanted to do. And that is how I felt. I actually became fearful. Didn’t want to sleep. Sleep was a waste of time. Eating wasn’t. Pffft…I could do that on the run. I knew how to do that. It was sort of like the project piper was playing her flute and calling me to the edge of my sanity. What was worse was that I acquired a following of people who thought that it was what I wanted and encouraged me. I was a passenger on a runaway train of my own making.

Fast forward to this retirement thing now nearly three years later….I realized that I had spent my life on the run. I loved it. Had the job that totally fulfilled me. Felt needed, important to the world. Then, because we are conditioned to believe it is natural to have it come to an end and finally get to pay attention to ourselves, we are faced with a blank page. If we are lucky, we have enough money, we have our health. But there is still that blank page staring at us. What I discovered is that it is okay to leave it blank for awhile. Or maybe just doodle ideas, things we finally get to try out. I had a friend who always wanted to be a court reporter. After 30 years of teaching, she signed up for a class only to find out the younger ones were faster than she ever hoped she could be. But she tried it. She doodled. Had another friend who had taught Shop for 30 years. Upon retirement, he worked for his friend as a cabinet maker. Found he didn’t like working in houses with no heat. Quit. He doodled.

So now I am doodling. It’s easier than I like to admit to focus on aging. I was asking my daughters to help me with things that I thought were too difficult for me to do now. Lifting things, hauling junk to donation sites. Then a revelation. They aren’t difficult for me to do, they just take me a little longer. This has given me a better sense of time AND my ability to fill it as I go. I am a doodler.

Any doodlers out there with a story?

While You're Down There...

I have a Jehovah's Witness woman come over every week for Bible study. I am not familiar with their perspective on it, and the woman who is always in the pair (yes, they always come in pairs...smart women) is not from the US, which makes her perspective even more interesting.

The last study, she brought over...my neighbor. Funny way to meet someone. It appears her cat is the one raiding my cat nip in the back yard during the Summer.

We do talk about the bible, and their perspectives on it. They know I am Agnostic at best, and the rest I leave unsaid. They know I love learning about different religions. I do not waste time not being genuine. They accepted, and so far they have not tried to convert me. I imagine they get a lot of slammed doors.

The "in between" conversations that happen though bring us together as women. This last time, we were talking about age, and how some show it and some don't. My neighbor's son (who I thought was in his teens) is actually my age. I'll stop referring to him as a kid now. His mom, who was sitting at my garden soil and seed packet covered table LOOKS my age. Don't even want to guess.

My illness came up that day, wasn't feeling well but didn't cancel on them, the conversation is usually stimulating and the laughter makes it good medicine. Found out my neighbor is type 2 diabetic and has fibro like symptoms as well.

And here's what got us laughing so hard that our leak proof liners almost failed.

She mentioned how much she hated falling and/or getting down on the ground (yes, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference). BUT if it does happen, she doesn't let it get her down. Hand me a rag, lemme get those floor boards while I'm here. SON! Hand me a tooth brush, I can get that spot on the grout now. Put a mop under my butt..I'll get this section of the floor while I'm scooting around trying to get back up!

I will admit my house keeping skills are probably not up to their standards..they don't seem to care much that I sweep compost off the table before they sit down. I have given them eggs, last week I was given a note book because she noticed I had trouble remembering things from previous conversations.

There are things that bind us together as women that go beyond religion, dogma, or any other label..things like making the most of your time on the floor when you fall because that is the practical thing to do.

Valentines Day. The holiday least celebrated by the hubby and I..not because we don't love each other, but because we understand each other.
There was the first very awkward Valentines Day. We weren't married yet, and were trying to wind our way through a first Major Disagreement. We were at the mall, but not together. We met up, and he awkwardly handed me a blue plastic bag. I opened it to find a Marilyn Manson cassette. He got me. I bought him a pair of screaming underwear (best not to ask). It was a sucky gift in return, but I wanted him to know what he was signing up for with me.

Most years it passes us by, blissfully unaware..except for a few boxes of eaten conversation hearts.

This year is different. This year is novel.

Tomorrow, we are going to a TRUCK RALLY. Yep. I will be counting sleeveless flannels (excluding my own). And THEN, just for full effect, we are going to a Bernie rally. Because the two go together like....like....oil and water is too obvious..I'll think of something more appropriate.

Because here's what I've learned about our relationship, and why I think it's survived. (BTW our marriage is old enough to drink this year!)

1. It's ok not to love each other all the time. But you have to trust each other.

2. Try new things. Now. Listen to each other's dreams and fantasies...see if you can make it work. Step outside of who you think you are as an individual and a couple. Don't be stupid about it..some things are still illegal or just not a good idea. Don't send me hospital bills if you follow my advice. I am well pleased that he and I have stories that can alternately shock the socks off of or garner belly laughs from people we know. If we make it to our rocking chair years, I imagine our "remember whens" will keep us warm and giggling.

3. Allow each other to change, and don't be afraid of trying on new hats. Throw your map of how it should be out the window. This is similar to #2. Just know that some of your adventures will lead to changes in your lifestyle. I never ever would have thought that those 2 slightly odd 20 somethings would end up where we are now..but the journey has always been interesting.

4. There is no need for a mid life crisis if you have plenty of mini crises to keep you occupied. (yes..it's a joke...sort of)

I am tired of this list, so I'll stop there. Here's what I want to do instead. I want you to think of a Valentine's day gift you can give to everyone....single, married, it's complicated, any gender. Lets get some love going....

I give to all my crones reading this a very special set of ear phones. When you put them in your ears, they will play the PERFECT sound track you need for that moment.

Hunger

An interesting interaction at the park today while waiting for a friend.

Fighting down pain today, but the sun was warm and I wanted to walk a few laps. I sat on the bench to soak up some sun hoping it would warm up the owies enough to get moving.

A woman comes over towards the bench and she is moving stiffly. She sits down and jokingly tells her dog to go play, she hurts too much to move. I chuckle and say it must be that kind of day and I am hurting too. She looks over at me, and I see the "fat girl" look cross her face. It's cool..we all have our thing..but I'm thinking maybe I found another spoonie and I want to try and offer some hope..cheer..something...

I ask her what she has that causes pain. She looks at me funny and says "Well, I just got out of yoga, and it kind of helps my sciatic pain. But I totally do it to myself..I am just INCREDIBLY addicted to exercising. So much that it hurts every day now. But I gotta keep up you know."

I didn't know.

Why would someone intentionally cause themselves to be in physical pain every day? What is the goal and purpose? I understand sore muscles from over doing it, but this is different. Her litany of joint pain and nerve problems echoed my own.

I felt very lost and alone in my world..how do you explain to someone that you spend every day just trying to get out of enough pain to just walk a lap, or get ready for the upcoming gardening season.

I got up and started walking. Part of me did it out of rebellion. I was not going to let her sit there in judgement of me, and then expect me to be in awe over her ability to injure herself with such dedication.

The other part of me walked away because I realized hunger comes in many forms.

May you be at peace with yourself today. May you have enough. May you smile, realizing the only person you have something you need to prove to is yourself.

It is Monday, February 8, 2016 – my father’s birthday. He would be 110 years old today. Even though I was a daddy’s girl being the youngest of his eight children, youngest of three daughters, I don’t think about him much except on his birthday. Not because there is nothing to remember, or that I have bad memories. I was 25 when he died, and I had many more years with my mother with whom I had a tumultuous relationship growing up. I was a spoiled teenager, she was an older mom, and, after eight kids, I think she was really tired. Fortunately, I was given more years with her. I had to have children of my own to understand her, and I came to cherish her.

 

But my father. He kind of rolled with my narcissistic ways. He was a master craftsman, an upholsterer. His shop behind our house was my sanctuary, and I was banished to it frequently by my mother who did not like that I was not like my sisters who knew how to do many of the domestic arts. I can still hear her frustrated voice saying, “When your sisters were your age, they were cooking meals!” “When your sisters were your age, they were sewing their own clothes!” I didn’t do well in the art of being a girl. I was six when my mother laughed at my question “when will I turn into a boy?” One of those kid questions that make adults laugh. It didn’t occur to me that I had two older sisters who never did. I came after five brothers and thought somehow one was born a girl and, at some point, became a boy. It was a blow when she said I would always be a girl. I envied my brothers who didn’t seem to be saddled with such expectations of domesticity. I was a complete tomboy. Do we still use that word today? Don’t even know if it is politically correct, but it fits what I was. In an era when girls were required to wear dresses to school, were encouraged not to be too smart lest they scare away boys and forever be doomed to spinsterhood, it was difficult for me to keep up with the finer essence of femininity. Girls had to take Home Ec while boys took Shop. Being banished to my father’s shop where I could create things with wood scraps and upholstery fabric remnants and help clean up tacks on the floor with his magnet was a respite from the demand of a woman’s work in the house. So when I asked the principal if I could take Shop instead of Home Ec, he laughed and told me I had a great sense of humor, and I was right back with Mrs. Haddock (who is a story for another day!). To make matters worse, we girls had to bake cookies and serve them to the boys in shop. Even though I didn’t have the courage to act, don’t think for a minute I didn’t have an idea how to add a little extra something to the cookies. While my brothers came home with handcrafted wood shelves, boxes, and other wonders that required dangerous tools, I got to come home with the satisfaction that I fed the boys in shop.

 

But, I digress. My father. He was a pacifist by religious belief. He didn’t believe in violence. He didn’t even spank me when my mother insisted he “take care of this girl” when I committed one of my infractions of the girl rules. He would take off his belt and whip the heck out of the door frame of the closet where I hid or the blankets under which I took refuge. But never did that belt touch me. Of course, I screamed, and that made my mother think he had taken care of me. When I got into my first physical fight involving Becky and her gang in sixth grade and knocked her to the ground, it was my father’s shop a block away where I ran to safety. I sat on his big cutting table that was high enough to allow me to swing my legs and told him what had happened. He listened with his mouth full of tacks and a steady pounding of his hammer fastening fabric to a wood couch frame. Then, when I finished my tale, he simply said that he had always preferred using words to avoid trouble before using violence. I figured he really didn’t know Becky and her gang and how they made my life miserable, and that was why he thought words would have worked. After that thought, which filled the short silence between his thoughts, he said, “But sometimes if words don’t work, you have to do what you have to do. Did you win?” When I told him how I had sorta won, he just handed me his stick magnet for me to clean up the tacks on the floor.

 

I did learn to use words. Not always wisely, and for sure, not always harmlessly. I learned to be a girl, and I wouldn’t change being a woman for any amount of money. I thought my father was the strongest man in the world. I thought my mother was weak. I thought I would never be able to live without my father, and I would pray at night that if God had to take one of them, take my mother because she could never exist without him and neither could I. Well, I was very wrong about that. I am grateful that I had years to learn to appreciate the incredible strength of my mother. But on this day, my father’s birthday, I am going to let myself be daddy’s girl and remember.

 

Would love to hear about memories from others.

Taking Flight-Introduction

Stretching my wings and preening my feathers..I got this Crone thing down. Wait...what's that you say? Menopause? Can you say that in public? Dealing with our cultural issues around women getting older? Fine..I'll just stop preening for a minute and go get my Surviving Womanhood Instruction Manual (S.W.I.M.)
It doesn't exist? What do you mean no one left us a map? How are we supposed to navigate this? What do you mean Mr. Wilson that the map is not the territory? Well..I guess there are initiations then..and secret knowledge. Yes...yes...as I say as I stretch my wings again, feeling the energy of powerful memories. I will tell you about one.

Once upon a now, in a dream, I was standing beside my own bed. I looked down at my sleeping form and was shocked. She looked NOTHING like what I saw staring back in the mirror.
My first thought was "She's SO fat!". It wasn't a judgement, or criticism, just a change in perspective. Like seeing a flower and noticing how YELLOW it is. I looked closer at the sleeping body on the bed and thought I won't likely have a dream from this perspective again, so I should take a closer look.
Look..there..see that scar on my ankle? That was where a lawn chair bit me and tore a chunk of flesh out. Those matching scars on my shins? Yeah..ow..I remember that. My hands slipped on metal bars while trying to jump on a playground toy..smacked both shins pretty hard landing on the metal edge.
Ha! Look..that one is recent..it's a dog bite. Ohhh...there is that scrape on my knee from a hot metal spiral slide..how did we ever survive in pre-protective child bubble days?
Ahhhh..those stretch marks..look at all of them. And no child bearing to blame it on. Volcanic cracks and heaves from a body in unrest. Eating disorders and auto-immune disease. Look at how they kind of shine in the light...
Those spots on my arms? Constellations of scars from a near life time of needle pokes, IVs and blood draws.
I look at my/her face. I am snoring..my poor hubby has to wear ear plugs at night. Look at those dark circles under her eyes...wow.
I am overwhelmed with compassion and love for this being on the bed. Those scars hold a collection of memories and experiences that make her who she is. I feel deeply the wonder that is her, traveling through space and time..it is overwhelming. I have never felt that deeply about myself before. I am in deep awe.
The dream changes and I am lying in a hospital bed. I feel trapped by the tubing all around me. Panicked but determined to appear competent, in control, and not scared as hell and defeated. I wish I could be more accepting of human touch. My mind doesn't recall a lot of physical closeness growing up...part of our culture I think. I feel the lack of it with the plastic tubes and the plastic coated wires intruding on me.
My mom is in the door to the hospital room now.
"What are you doing here?" She asks in my dream.
"I'm sick mom" I say, and my inner walls start to crumble..so I cry.
She walks over to my bed, and crawls in it with me. (She somehow manages not to get tangled or pull any tubes out..that's the cool part of dreams!)
I am tiny again next to her..I shrink down to pint size... a small child, I am a representation of when the world wasn't quite so scary and scars and dings could be kissed or blown on to make them all better.
She wraps her arms around me and holds me close to her chest. I realized those physical moments were there...often. I relax in the comfort of a mother's love. I sob. I wake up sobbing. Release. Alchemy. Initiation.

I find myself amused that my mom and I are starting a blog together. We are both intensely creative and emotional people. We've been poking at the other for years to share our writing, our talents, our visions. We are so very different and so very the same. We are so yearning to create maps and explore territories and bring back tales of adventure and humor, sorrow and growing. We both seem to like the idea that this blog will be a place where you want to see what we are up to. We create. A lot.
As for me, I am a spoonie. I am also a fiber artist, beekeeper, urban farmer, food preserver, and any other hat I can try on. Most days I fancy myself a sorceress and mystic. I play banjo.
I live in Denver with my hubby, dogs, chickens, and bees. We run Bloominkraft Urban Ag. 

What if I got swallowed by a word?

What if the word

opened so wide

my whole being fit inside

and I slid down the curves

and zigzags of its letters

and landed in silence,

in nothingness?

What if the word tried to spit me out

into a thought

and it didn’t make sense,

and the thought ricocheted

from boundary to boundary,

 horizon to horizon

from beginning to end

of the universe looking for just one soul

who would understand it?

What if woman was the word that swallowed me?

My thoughts come in pieces. Much like a quilt, A variety of textures, colors, shapes sewn together bordered with the essential woman wherein my spirit is wrapped. I can introduce myself as one who lives in this world in a physical form. It would look like this: My name is Suzanna Marie, named after my mother, Anna Marie, youngest of eight, sister to five brothers and two sisters.  I am a mother, a wife, a retired/rewired teacher, a neighbor, a friend, a poet, a writer, a maker of schtuff. But to introduce you to my spirit, you would have to walk along side me, engage in conversation with me, stay awhile. There is nothing more beautiful than women gathering together, celebrating their edification of one another, their fearlessness in being swallowed by the word woman. Welcome to Crowing Crone Revival.