The photo to the left represents freedom. Freedom for me. It might not look like much, just three little pieces of varnished hard wood. Nothing fancy. And it’s not very large. At it’s highest point it is a mere 30″. It is 14″ long and 10″ wide. And it weighs a whopping 7 pounds. It’s not much to look at and probably would garner a second look from most folks. But it offers a little bit of independence–ever so much–that makes my heart sing.

It doesn’t take much these days. I have had to learn to adjust to limitations. They define much of my life now. I cannot stand on tip toe, climb a ladder, kneel on the floor, sit cross-legged…so many things I can no longer do with my foot and my leg that I took for granted. Retrieving any sense of autonomy takes thought and ingenuity. I can reach many things–up or down–with the help of my hand-held grabbing tool. I can step up onto and down off of curbs if I take my time and concentrate all my energy on balancing on my cane. I have learned to sit on my butt and scoot around into the hot tub or onto our boat. I can sew if I use my left (less dominate) foot to run the pedal. Incremental steps from semi-paralysis to resuming many of the activities I could do before. If I could just reach up a little higher…

And so, I found my new little wooden friend. It was sitting brightly in a driveway at a yard sale. Normally I would have hardly given it a second thought. But I had recently been to the orthopedist where they had taken x-rays of my foot. In order to get to the level needed I was proffered a metal stool with a handle that I could use to leverage myself up onto and down from it. I had done this before but never thought of how useful such a gadget could be in my life. Until I found my little stool. Sitting there, waiting for me, as if it had been created just for me.

Now it sits at the ready just steps from the kitchen. My little stool has helped me reach those bowls and platters that I previously had to ask someone else to help with. We don’t need them so much any more, my stool and I. It has liberated me. Baby steps…

It must be nice (or so it seems from your passionate desire to stay there) in your ivory tower
Where everything is black and white, plain and simple, right and wrong
Where you can spout off about freedom
         (except freedom of speech, the speech that you so ardently                shout out from the safety of your edifice while meanwhile                wanting to deny that same freedom for others)
Freedom to have as many freedoms you want, including the
Freedom to deny freedom to those different from you, those who look different or act differently or feel differently or whose life experiences you could never hope to understand.

It must be nice to live a life so bereft of knowledge, understanding, empathy that you don’t have to hear the cries of the disenfranchised
          But can shout them down, swatting at them like irritating gnats
Cries that have no basis in reality–or so you think.
Simply whining, spoiled, self-centered cries.
They are so–or so you think
         Because in your ivory tower-existence you see only your experience.
The only experience that really matters.

Why don’t they just get over it? Pull themselves up by their bootstraps? Get a job? Go to college? Quit sucking from the government tit?

Oh, you say racism in America is over but you have no idea do you?

Have you ever…
         Been denied a job, a seat in restaurant, human decency because of your skin color?
         Been afraid to walk down a street, leave a convenience store, drive a car legally, host a pool                   party?
         Felt compelled to teach your children to fear law enforcement officers?
         Felt the ugly stares or comments because you married or are dating someone of a different race?

Well, you can have your ivory tower. I want no part of it. I am angry and disgusted and guilt-ridden.
And I’ll stay down in here in the street with the disenfranchised.

Am I a bleeding heart liberal? You damned right I am! Shame on you for not being one too. Your blindness, your prejudice, your hatred are accomplishing the goal…keeping us separated, unequal, unsettled.

It must be nice…

I finally launched my first published book this fall. There is something quite wonderful about hugging nearly 300 pages, bound in a shiny cover, of words that you have written. Even if you have to publish it yourself and even if you give away more copies than you sell. It is proof, right there in your hands, that you have accomplished something.

So the next accomplishment would be to sell a few copies and actually get someone to read it and maybe even give feedback. So as an enticement, for those of you who like to try before you buy, I present to you a sneak preview of of chapter. (P.S. You can also scroll back in this blog to find other excerpts if this one isn’t convincing enough!)

I’ve been rather blue and agitated lately. Since this is not my normal demeanor when I experience such alien feelings I immediately search for the cause. It could be the sudden change in the weather. The last few days of August here have been mostly gray, often rainy and windy. It could be the unexpected power outages. Not being able to access electricity makes me cranky. It could be the uncertainty that is my life these days, particularly around our finances. It could be any of these things but on reflection I think I’ve uncovered something more sinister, more occult. Stephen Colbert might have summed it up using one of his signature terms: “truthiness,” which was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year 2006. In a nutshell, truthiness is “the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”

Actually it is not that I suffer from “truthiness.” In fact, I think we are all suffering from a failure to know–without a doubt–what are “concepts or facts known to be true.” What we are dealing with is an inability to even decipher what is truthiness and what is truth. In light of the conflicting “information” that comes at us daily via the media and the internet, I must confess that I am compelled to ask with Pilate, “What is truth?” We are dependent on others for so much of our “truth” as is it impossible to “know” and investigate everything. I try to be informed, well-read, and open-minded. I try to use common sense (which I realize is not so common). But as soon as I believe that what I believe is the truth, someone comes up with a convincing-sounding argument for the other side. And I begin to question my thinking. Do I indeed dabble in truthiness without knowing it?

I don’t mean to imply that I am like leaf or a reed, easily swayed by the direction of the wind. I don’t immediately jump to the opposite argument every time my “truth” is questioned. In fact the opposite might be true especially if it is a “truth” that I have long held to be so. But when the opposite argument seems reasoned and well-thought-out it can shake me to my core, cause me to question sources that I had thought to be trustworthy, and, yes, it can depress me. The depression arises out of a feeling of helplessness and helplessness arises out of uncertainty. I want to know that what I know as truth is truth. This is not to say that I’m inflexible. I am definitely open to new, alternative ideas and have been known to change my way of thinking to a more enlightened one. But what does one do when one feels the need to “know” what is right and to act on that?

Either the world’s climate is changing and the experts in the field who know these things are telling us the truth or nothing significant is happening and the “97% of scientists agree” is a fabricated number. Either vaccinations are necessary to prevent the spread of disease or the pharmaceutical companies are scamming us and those shots we’ve come to depend on are actually detrimental. Either GMOs are perfectly safe and necessary in order to feed a burgeoning world or they are contributing to the decimation of our agricultural system and making us sicker. The problem is that many times either side can make compelling arguments, cite convincing statistics and quote well-respected experts; so then how does one “know” what is right and what is a smokescreen?

Perhaps the larger issue is that things are hardly ever so black-and-white. Gray is the color of most issues, gray like the sky outside my window. So for now I will retreat to what I know, that there are sparrows outside on the deck railing, resting from dining in the bird feeder, perching on the bird bath to sip water or wash the dust off their wings, flying as a group to the safety of the neighbor’s tree. I will take comfort for now in what little I can really “know.”

“Sure, I’ll go with you.” I normally stay wisely in bed for the morning drop. Mine is more the reasonable afternoon pick up. I like crab but not enough to rise when the high tide is at 5:00 a.m. But I’ve been awake more or less since 3:00 so it doesn’t much matter.

I’m crabby myself. Not enough sleep does that to me. And in spite of the record heat of June and now early July it is cool this morning and the windchill on the boat will warrant a heavier coat over my shorts. Skipper and I settle into our seat; David pushes the boat off from shore and idles past the piling.

The water at this time of day is smooth like a lake. The boat fairly glides over the small waves created by the first boat out. We pull away from the shore and there it is…the sun making its way up over the hills behind us. Morning is out in all her glory. There’s a fine mesh over the mountains in the distance, the higher peaks caught in the web of a passing cloud. The water, now more rippled by boat traffic, comes in waves of alternating deep green and pale gray. The houses on the opposite shore are lit up by sunlight and look as though they’ve been strung together like gems on a necklace.

I rarely see the sunrise from the water for good reason. It is worth it though. And perhaps the worth will show in the crab pots as well.

Frequently, upon waking, my mind starts to run forward into the day before my head is even off the pillow. I have tried many times to reign it back in if it’s too early and I want to sleep longer. But like a dog that is straining at the leash, it tugs and tugs at me until I just have to give up. Thoughts range everywhere from “what do I have to do today?” to “why did I drink so much wine last night?” and everything in between. Sometimes I actually wake thinking about writing, mostly chastising myself about not writing. On those days, I hear the voice of the character “Larry,” played by Billy Crystal in “Throw Momma from the Train,” admonishing his writing class students. “A writer writes!” he declares. And I get up determined to go downstairs to my computer and do just that.

But somewhere around the third or fourth step my mind has already wandered off in another direction and by the time I land on the first floor I’ve already forgotten the admonishment. Everything else gets in the way. A writer writes. Indeed. Perhaps, as I think I have tried to establish multiple times, this is exactly why I don’t write. Perhaps it is because I am not one. Perhaps it is because, as evidenced by my moniker, I’m a thinker not a writer. And thinking is a much more dangerous thing.

One of my best friends brought back from a trip a little gift for me. It’s a postcard which I use as a bookmark. It is a glossy pale gray with a black and white photo of an old typewriter. And in large print it reads: “I write because I don’t know what to think until I read what I say.” I’m sure she had good intentions; she thinks I am a writer so she probably thought I could relate. I don’t know if it was so much a gift as it is a curse. I spend what some might consider an inordinate amount of time pondering that quote. I’m just not sure what I think of it. At the very least it annoys me because it reminds me almost daily that I mostly don’t write. But it also challenges me mentally. Is that true for me, for one who is mostly not a writer? Or is it only true of those who physically write. I feel like I think a lot. And while I’m thinking I’m mentally typing words on imaginary paper. Is that the same thing? Does that count? I get so wrapped up in thinking that I don’t actually write; I don’t actually put thoughts down in actual words. Thinking might actually distract me from writing! See what I mean?

And so, once again, I am determined to set aside not only time but thinking, on a regular basis, so that I “just write.” Just start putting something on paper so that when I do start thinking it might actually flow through my fingers and not out into the ethosphere. A writer writes. A thinker thinks. And maybe the two can co-exist.

photo source: www.writersrelief.com

I heard the other day that Victor Hugo, when faced with writer’s block had a unique method for getting back on track: he ordered his servants to remove all his clothing from his room, essentially hiding it from him so he would be forced to write naked to avoid all distractions. I know that most people think that writer’s block is the worst malady a writer could suffer from but I would like to propose that distraction is worse. And unlike Victor Hugo, who might have been distracted merely by his clothing, writers today would have to hole up in a lead box with only a typewriter to avoid distraction altogether!

As a working mother, a product of the ’80s and ’90s, I was the great multitasker. I could change a diaper while talking on the phone while getting dinner on the table while starting another load of clothes while helping another child with his science project while balancing the checkbook. This was born out of necessity: there is no way that the millenials could have survived to become the greatest critics of the baby boomer generation without mothers who could make a sandwich while driving the gang to soccer practice. And, sorry dads…it was the mothers who did all the multitasking. This is entirely the fault of Revlon’s Enjoli commercial, launched in 1978. I hold the ad executives who created this commercial solely responsible for at least two decades of suffering by young working moms. Because of them we all felt that we should be able to “…bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, ever, let you forget you’re a man…” And so, we did…at least we tried. I’m not sure about the last phrase but I did my share of bringing home bacon and I definitely was the one, more often than not, that fried it up. Along with completing every other household chore. So for me, to not multitask meant more than failure to live up to an ideal; it was my gender imperative.

Now, of course, brain experts will tell you that, in fact, the brain can only really focus on one thing at a time and so in truth we cannot really multitask. For that you would need a computer, which is where the term started. But mothers of the latter part of the 20th century will tell you differently. We did multitask and we did it actually pretty effectively. I mean, my children got their homework done, dinner was tasty and edible (translated: not burnt), bills were paid on time, the dog and cat were fed, the garden weeded, the volunteer calling done, and that was after putting in my 8 hours on the job (and sometimes during that job). I mean, it nearly killed an entire generation of women but look at the great generation of kids that came out of it!

Now here’s the rub: the problem with learning to multitask is that it’s even more difficult to unlearn. And technology has not been our friend in this. Instead of computers making our lives easier they have succeeded in making them more cluttered. I remember the day my husband excitedly unwrapped his new IBM 8086 computer and announced to me that his friend, Don (the closest thing to a computer nerd we knew in 1984) was going to give him lessons in how to use it and that I should join them. I also remember thinking he was insane (and probably told him that). I had just given birth to the second child in 2 years, had a large house and yard to take care of, ironing, washing, cooking, etc. and had absolutely no time left over for such silly things as a computer!

Wow was I naive–about a great many things but especially about the infiltration of technology that would quickly take over our lives, rendering us helpless without it and creating within us a powerful addiction. Fast forward 31 years and here I sit, in front of my HP Pavilion dm4 laptop with 64-bit operating system, 6 GB of installed RAM, and a 2.20 GHz Intel Core CPU (already outdated the minute I removed it from the box about 6 years ago). And I’m now connected to the world through Facebook (where I have control over 11 pages, have more than 400 personal friends, and like/follow more than 470 pages), Twitter (where I follow more than 225 accounts and have more than 135 of my own followers), Instagram, Outlook email, Gmail (where I have/control at least 5 accounts), Blogger (where I personally have at least 10 blog sites) , online newsletters, subscriptions to other person’s blogs, etc. And then of course there’s Pintrest, LinkedIn, Nextdoor, Skype, YouTube, and Messenger. And then there’s my iPhone with texting and phone calls going on all day. Suddenly multitasking has taken on new meaning and dimension. And so has the problem of distraction.

To exacerbate the situation, I use my computer to write. I mean, who doesn’t? The very act of sitting down and turning on my computer provides me with a plethora of opportunities to multitask and a multitude of distractions, even if I’m just innocently using Google search to do research on what I’m writing. Suddenly I find myself brain-deep in the “rabbit hole”of the internet, two hours have gone by, and I haven’t done a lick of actual writing. If writing was difficult in the days of Victor Hugo because of distractions, how much worse is it now and does it have the capacity to get. Today writer’s block can’t hold a candle to the internet.

Mr. Hugo: I meet your wardrobe and raise you one computer connected to the world wide web.

Against my better judgment I was headed out this morning to walk the dog. It was cold and windy and my fibromyalgia is really acting up. Needless to say, it’s probably a good thing I have a dog who needs to walk to do his daily duty or I would spend more mornings holed up inside rather than getting a meager amount of exercise. Anyway, we were just starting out when our neighbors and good friends, a couple who live two doors away were also headed out in their car. They paused en route and she rolled down the window to greet me. As if to answer my predictable question before I uttered it, she “responded” with “Birthdays and a funeral.” “I’m there with you,” I said, thinking about the memorial service I’m supposed to go to this afternoon. And then they waved good bye as they drove off.

Birthdays and a funeral. I pondered this phrase as I walked down the street. Birthdays and a funeral.

commons.wikimedia.org

Bookends to life. Birthdays–the day we enter this life and then the subsequent celebrations of continuing to reach those days yearly; funerals–“celebrations” of life we euphemistically call them now. Both happen every day. It’s just ironic when one encounters them in the same day. Or perhaps not.

Birthdays and a funeral. Beginnings and endings.  Yin & yang. Every day we experience beginnings and endings. We start a book; we finish a book. We start a task; we complete a task. Life ends; life goes on. There is a natural order to things and life is full of beginnings and endings.

But I know that one of the birthdays my friends were going to celebrate was that of one of their granddaughters who just turned 19. And the funeral was for someone much older. The memorial service I was going to was for a teen-aged boy–not much younger than their granddaughter–who took his own life just last week. There is a natural order to things and that is not the way it is supposed to be. It is widely accepted that you just don’t jump to the end of a book. You’re supposed to start at the beginning and gradually work your way through it. We consider it cheating when someone reads the end first. Young people aren’t supposed to die, particularly by their own hands. At 17 there is, conceivably, more life to be lived, more of the story to be told or revealed, more birthdays to celebrate. We should not be “celebrating” the life he lived but rather celebrating with him the continuance of life until some other much later time. Until the task is finished, until the book is completed.

The book doesn’t end when we always expect it to and sometimes it has a surprise ending. Birthdays and a funeral.