Suzy's Blog

	OUR STORIES 9/4/2008			One of the upsides of growing older is the stories you accumulate along the way. One of the downsides is, no one wants to listen to them, particularly your children. The grandchildren are occasionally willing because they have been taught to be nice to their grandparents, but they are quick to remind you "We've heard that one before," or they roll their eyes to let you know you are so uncool. One of the joys of traveling is, I suspect, not the sights that widen our horizons, but the people we meet who haven't heard our stories. At last, an audience! Somehow Ry manages to weave his diverse stories into the conversation - how he met Einstein, played tennis with Ginger Rogers, went to Cuba as a guest of the dictator's son, had a plane in college since cars weren't allowed etc., etc., etc. He wooed me with his stories. It all seemed so romantic, but when I said "I do," I had no idea I'd be hearing them for the next 50 years. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	FIRST IMPRESSIONS 8/28/2008			The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is having a blockbuster show of Frida Kahlo's paintings. I've been twice. The first time I was put off by the autobiographical nature of the work. I wanted to see the paintings as paintings, experience the use of color, the handling of paint, the division of space. Instead the emotional impact was so overwhelming, so gut wrenching, I didn‚t know how to absorb what I was seeing. Was it art or autobiography, visual story telling or a painting? Are the two separate? Back for a second look a month later, I realized the first time around I couldn't absorb the paintings, they were too painful. I had closed my mind to what I couldn't bear. This time I let it all in, getting a big lump in my throat. Those paintings are incredibly powerful. Powerful too was the realization it's wise to take a second look.... At everything. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	THE COYOTE 7/22/2008			5:30 a.m. Sitting midway up the barren, sun scorched hill that is an extension of our backyard, a young coyote sits barking. It’s a distinctive sound, carrying a hint of melancholia mixed with a bit of wild that distinguishes it from a dog bark. He quiets, looks around, begins again, continues for half an hour. The spot he’s chosen for this early morning oratory invites this kind of soulful outpouring. The open land under that big expanse of sky suggests the presence of a higher power, someone or something that might be in control. I too have stood there in my imagination, shaking a fist heavenward asking “Why have you done this?” I get my binoculars, see him close up. He’s so young, innocent, adolescent perhaps, not yet the wily coyote he’ll become in time. His plaintive sounds pierce my heart, seem to say to anyone who will listen, “It’s so hard to grow up.” Should I join him for a duet, sing an enriching harmony, a deep, mellow part that says “It’s hard to grow old too.” Click to submit a comment on this topic
	BREAKFAST 7/13/2008			I got up in a funk this morning. No reason. It's summer, the weather has been perfect, life is good. Why the funk? I don't know, but I do know funks are well treated by a walk in my nearby open space. About the time I reach the top of the hill with it's sweeping view of open fields, distant rolling hills and big sky, I feel better. All those good chemicals that get activated by exercise are flowing. This is the halfway point of my usual walk, the point at which I regularly start to think about breakfast. Eaten alone in the quiet of my kitchen with sunlight streaming in, it's a daily ritual of oatmeal with a variety of fruit on top. Today I will pick peaches from the peach tree in our orchard, add some strawberries, a few slices of banana and oh my, isn't your appetite aroused? How can there be funks when there's OATMEAL? It's the simple things. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	AFTER THE WEDDING 7/17/2008			“Nobody thinks about what lies ahead at weddings.” Ry says. “It’s a moment of happiness, celebration. Any tears shed, are tears of joy.” We are talking about how I feel at weddings, my mix of joy and sorrow. “What does this say about you?” he asks. I gather what it says is not good. Quite simply what it says is - I’m not a man. Have you ever seen a man who was not the father of the bride cry at weddings? Aren’t most women at least dabbing an eye? Do we women know something men don’t? I won’t say that. What I will say is, we women experience life differently. It took years of married life to fully understand this, to realize every husband of every wife sings right along with Professor Henry Higgins, WHY CAN’T A WOMAN BE MORE LIKE A MAN? We can’t. Louann Brizendine in a recent book, The Female Brain, gives scientific evidence why. We’re wired differently. It’s that simple - or complicated. Blame my concern for the future on the Mommy button that got pushed when Motherhood arrived. To quote Brizendine “ Motherhood … literally alters a woman’s brain, structurally, functionally and in many ways, irreversibly.” Is there a Mother who doesn’t look ahead and worry for the safety of her children and those she cares about? But, it's so difficult to be safe in this perilous world. Not then out of order to cry at this romantic, starry eyed moment because it is, yes beautiful and deeply touching, but also fraught with peril. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	A WEDDING 7/13/2008			Not a tear was shed at the wedding we attended last week-end. I always cry at weddings, why not today? The invitation came from the 8 Grandchildren of the marrying couple - HIS and HERS. They stood quietly as witnesses during the ceremony, young bridesmaids and groomsmen. When it came time to answer "Who gives this woman?" her grandchildren shouted in youthful enthusiasm, "WE DO!!!" As the final vows were spoken, the children blew bubbles into the air in celebration. There wasn't a damp eye in the garden, only smiles. Most of the weddings we've attended over the years are a joining of those starting out in life. So beautiful, this beginning, so full of hope and possibilities, but life is a mix of joys and sorrows which, in time, these starry eyed young couples will experience. My tears at these weddings are life's tears, a mix of joy and sorrow too. They fall for this human endeavor we all share. But, not today. This couple is seasoned, they've survived "slings and arrows", they make this commitment with a lifetime behind them. Today they vow to grow old together, charge into that proverbial sunset hand in hand. "HIS" grandchildren and "HER" grandchildren become "OUR" grandchildren, two separate families become one. It's so mellow, who could cry? It's also about time. Fifteen years is a long time to be engaged. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	REASSESSMENT 7/4/2008			My Mother a 1920's flapper? No way. Flappers were outrageous, sexually liberated, over the top party animals. That wasn't my Mother. Was it? We are reading Flapper: A Madcap Story of Sex, Celebrity and the Women who made America Modern by Joshua Zeitz for my book club. We'll bring pictures of our Mothers in flapper attire, tell their stories in our discussion. Did the Flapper really exist on a grand scale or was she mostly a figment of F. Scott Fitzgerald's imagination and the burgeoning advertising agencies of the time who used her image to sell product. We hope our Mothers will tell us. I page through old photo albums, looking for a young version of my Mother. I find her smiling back at me in a wonderful, white, long-waisted dress. She's in her late teens, the time about 1924. Her long, boyish torso wears the dropped waistline of the time well. I study her face, looking for answers. Who were you Mother before I came along? You're so young here, so full of life's possibilities. Is there a touch of impishness behind your smile, that bit of outrageousness that surfaced now and again when I was growing up much to my embarrassment? Did you kick up your heels, dance the Charleston, get tipsy, pet in parked cars? MOTHER .... you DIDN'T....did you? It's a possibility. At eighteen she was off to Europe on a scholarship to study violin with the famous teacher of her day. Her Mother came along as chaperone, but in time she returned home. Mother was young, free and on her own. There were other students. Oh the possibilities! We take turns showing our pictures, telling our Mother's stories. Most were immigrants. Their daughters, gathered here, years after their Mothers have died, think of them living lives burdened with care and responsibility. Life was too hard for the fun and frivolity history would have us believe was the Flapper's life. Our Mothers, it seems, prove, beyond doubt, the flapper only existed in exalted circles, in Fitzgerald novels, or as an advertising vehicle. Or ..... have we proved, beyond doubt, it's impossible to realize our Mothers were young once. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	THE ONGOINGNESS OF IT ALL 6/28/2008			Our grandchildren bring music when they come to visit. Not just the joyful noise that accompanies them when they walk in the door, but music on the printed page, music they will play for us on the piano sometime during our day together. Four generations of music lessons are part of their performance. My Mother played those pieces, I played those pieces, their Dad played those pieces and now, the next generation, our grandchildren are playing them. Andrew Mikkelson started this family legacy in 1911. As he lay dying, he told his wife and five year old daughter, he wanted this cherished child to play the violin. And so she did. Initially her efforts were a tribute to her father, but they soon became a passion, one that brought her to the concert stage at an early age. When she became my Mother, she made music a central part of my life too. In turn, I made sure our son would never say in later life “I wish my Mother had MADE me continue my piano lessons.” And now the grandchildren. The beat goes on, and with it the knowledge that within us there is a hidden presence of others that we carry forward. I like that, it comforts me as I live the final chapters of my life. Perhaps down the road, other generations of my family will be practicing an instrument and I will be their hidden companion. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	THAT YOUNGER WOMAN 6/15/2008			We're driving to the city talking about the novels we're reading. Ry's antihero has just left his wife for a younger woman. "You know, I understand that now," I say from the wisdom of my years. "I thought it showed a lack of character when I was younger, but what man wants to look at an aging wife and face the reality he's not getting any younger either." "Well, I've been looking," says Ry, "but I don't see very well." Click to submit a comment on this topic
	HUGGING 6/11/2008			Hugging proved the perfect tonic for chasing away the blues on my birthday. Who and what would I hug? Why? Just thinking about it made me feel celebratory. The "whats" were easy, they took place in my head. The "whos" were more complicated. Not everyone is comfortable being hugged, they emanate something that says don't get too close. That's George, our gardener, my second hug of the day. He's not distant, he's Japanese, being demonstrative is not in his genes. Approach him with a hug, he might turn and run. It's hard to know why he's on my "to hug" list. George is not happy with my garden. He doesn't like what I plant or where I plant it. Deaths in the garden are my fault for improper care, there's too much gravel .... the list is exhaustive. At times I hide in the house when he comes to avoid his criticisms. But George must be hugged. For thirty years of Monday mornings, we have walked and talked my garden, watched the seasons come and go therein, shared our love of nature, together cared for all that grows here. George is part of my garden and much as he would hate to admit it, my garden is part of him. "This is going to embarrass you," I say as I approach him. "Today is my birthday which began with depressing thoughts about getting older. As a tonic, I'm going to hug everyone I hold dear. You are one." I embrace him. He responds with a real hug back, a shared moment of special feelings. We're not getting younger, George and I. He's pushing eighty, I'm negotiating my early seventies. Perhaps it's time to say what's in the heart, time to seize a moment of affection, time, before George tells me I shouldn't have planted the parahebe, it's an inferior plant, to say, we care. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	MY BIRTHDAY 5/27/2008			I'm having a birthday today. Didn't I just have one? Slow down time, I'm not ready to grow old. Oh but it's all relative. Our children teeter on the edge of fifty, ask that we ignore that big one as it rolls around. FIFTY, to me so young, to them so old. That I add another year to my seventieth decade doesn't register with them. In their eyes, I've always been old. The day has yet to begin. I think about how I will spend it, this anniversary of another year lived, decide I will hug everything I hold dear. "Good Morning," "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" says Ry "Oh, I'm getting SO OLD I reply with mock anguish. "An oldie, but a goodie." He replies. He gets my first hug. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	WHY? 5/15/2008			Why can't we stick to the issues, I complain as the newspapers fill with the words of Reverend Wright. When Hillary and Obama debate, I am horrified at the questions asked, the lost opportunity to find out how they stand on the issues. It's all about entertainment, not substance. "What is this country coming to?" I often ask Ry as we read the newspaper over breakfast. This morning I'm still sipping my tea, engrossed in the newspaper after he's gone to start his day. He passes back through the kitchen, asks, "What do you think about the latest from Iraq ? Did you read Krugman on the economy? " No thoughts and no," I say, abashed, as I face the answer to my lament for substance. I've only read every word about Spitzer's fiasco. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	WHAT'S IN A NAME? 5/7/2008			Would I have done great things if I hadn't been Suzy? Have all of us with a y or an ie tacked on to perfectly good names been condemned to a lifetime of being cute, fun and yes, light. Who can take a Suzy, Annie or Katie seriously, least of all themselves. We remain, forever, the little one, the child. Hard to carry that into one's seventies. And yet --- the one time we get to choose our name, the one our grandchildren will call us, what do we choose? Nannie, Grammy, Mi Mi, Ami, all names we hope will be spoken with affection, become endearments as were the y‚s and ies tacked upon our perfectly good names. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	THE PRINTED WORD 4/29/2008			What happened to the reliability of the printed word? Words on a printed page used to have some authenticity. Words thrown into the air evaporate, but those in black and white have staying power, stick around to confront you at a later date, and are, hopefully, more carefully chosen. Aren't they? I often begin a sentence with - "I read somewhere...." , in my mind giving validity to what I am about to say. I like to think this attitude was born while reading all that great English literature, books filled with words that influenced my forming mind, their words something to believe, digest, act upon. I tell myself this because believing what you read is just as naïve as believing all you hear. Surely I am too old and wise to be naïve. But where do I find the truth? Click to submit a comment on this topic
	BEING HUMAN 4/24/2008			She was cleaning the closet. On the top shelf sat the box she'd avoided all the years since John's death. It was one of those boxes we all have, a box where we've put treasured moments of a lifetime, the things that touched our hearts. No matter that we rarely open them, it's just nice to know they're there, something to hold, more tangible than diaphanous memories. Growing up in England during the second world war, she developed that famous stiff English upper lip, a no nonsense attitude about life that would, you'd think, preclude this sort of box, but there it was and today she got it down and opened it. She knew the letter was there, the one John had sent after their first date in high school. Not a love letter exactly, but full of the wit and daring that attracted her long before he asked her out and, in time, married her. The memories come back in a flood along with years of unshed tears. "I don't know why I'm telling you this this," she says as we conclude our phone conversation. She's embarrassed to have revealed a part of herself, but what she's told me is not just her story, it's about what it means to be human. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	GRANDMOTHERS 4/16/2008			Oh Grandmothers, you are having such fun with your grandchildren. I love to hear your stories, see your faces light up as you tell them, hear your laughter. Joanie, who waited so long to be a grandmother, tells me Oliver is walking now, those first wobbly steps. "He has changed my life," she says, beaming. "Ours is a special relationship, like none other. When I get in his playpen to play with him, I feel like a child myself." I catch myself smiling, laughing inwardly for days as this image of Joanie and Oliver in the playpen runs through my mind. We grandmothers will do whatever it takes. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	SUNDAY MORNINGS 4/11/2008			Sunday morning, sitting in my car, waiting for the light to change, I watch the countdown for a safe crossing. Several families hurry across the street in front of me, all on their way to the big church on the corner. I’m on my way to church too, but mine is held in the parking lot of the local train station. Mine is the Sunday morning farmer’s market. Walking the colorful aisles of fruits and vegetables, I envision the other church, the one where they might now be singing a hymn to God’s bounty. I’m seeing it, touching it, gathering it, soon to be eating it, feeding my body and soul. Other members of my congregation stand beside me in the bread line, strangers a moment ago, we are now discussing the merits of spiced versus plain ciabatta rolls, exchanging recipes, connected in this world of food. With my basket overflowing, I make my last stop, buying the flowers that will spread joy in the house throughout the week. Home, at my kitchen sink, cutting their stems and arranging them, I think about my fellow man coming home from his church. He has been told about heaven. I have experienced it. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	LIFE'S LESSONS 4/5/2008			Plantar fasciitis: a condition of the foot that produces a jabbing pain every time you put your heel down, a pain like someone hammering a nail into your heel as you walk. I have it. I’m not alone. As I hobble about, bow out of my athletic activities, I often hear, “Oh yes, I had that. Not much you can do to make it well, except buy expensive orthotics and stay sedentary.” Sedentary? Not my style. When will it go away? Whenever. Ah, another life’s lesson in patience. I have long suspected this is one of the answers to the question “Why am I here?” To learn patience - among other virtues - you know those things that are so hard to achieve. Each week I get on the phone to find someone to fill my space in my tennis games. Each week it becomes more and more apparent, my space can be filled by someone else. Oh dear, another life’s lesson. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	DARK THOUGHTS IN THE OPERA HOUSE AND SYMPHONY HALL 3/28/2008			A moment of sweet sonority, the hall is hushed, the cellophane crackles. I let it pass. There are worse things -- Like the lady humming along behind me. I leap over the back of my chair and choke her - in thought. As the lights go down at the opera, he falls asleep beside me, snores. At intermission, leaping out of his chair, he rushes to the lobby where, meeting his friends, he engages in a lively discussion of the merits of the production. "Don't believe a word," I want to say as I pass by, "He"s been dreaming." They flip the pages of their programs searching for additional entertainment, the multi taskers of the audience, or perhaps those with ADD. The hall is a sea of distracting, rippling paper. I bring out my imaginary fly swatter, the one with the extendable handle. WHACK. That flamboyantly dressed woman on the front row at the opera catches my eye, the one with the voluminous bag at her feet, the listening device on her head. At intermission in the café, she talks with a friend. He pets the little dog snuggled in her bag, and asks " What's the score?" Mozart's score? No, it's the Lakers ahead at the half in the NBA finals. I wonder why they come. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	MORE ON MY BOOKS 3/13/2008			My books from the dismantled bookcases are bagged, sitting on the basement stairs - waiting . I’m not quite ready to say good-bye just yet. Those that made the cut are piled high in a closet waiting too, waiting for space I will have to find in other bookcases. I stalk the remaining shelves. What goes, what stays. Why? There’s Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the enormity and complexity of life so overwhelming to my young mind as I read them. Still forming my ideas of how to live a life, they spoke to me of challenges I had yet to experience and how they might be met. Worth a reread now from the perspective of a life mostly lived, but I don’t need them here. When the time comes, I’ll go to the library to find them. And here’s Chaucer. Memories of the terrifying Mr. Patch who taught my college course flood my mind. You never knew when he might call on you to recite passages in old English, something I did badly. They are vanity books. I mean, how many people have several volumes of Chaucer on their bookshelves? Never matter that in fifty years no one has noticed or cared, it amuses me that once I studied Chaucer. He stays for the smiles he engenders as I pass by. And Milton, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, taught by an unmarried Professor for whom Milton was lover, and thus to us her students. Oh let me read to you this passage from Milton, I said to Ry early in our marriage. It took a long time to find it in those many pages. When I did, I wasn’t sure what it was all about. But once Milton aroused a passion and passions once aroused are hard to let go. They’re an interesting collection, my books. Not all of them are what an English Major would have on her shelves. There are art books, gardening books, books on all aspects of music, all of Robertson Davies. Don’t get me started. What astounds me as I stop to think carefully about each volume is, I am my books. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	KISSING 3/6/2008			I haven’t really thought much about kissing for a long time. I mean really thought about it like I did when I was young, unmarried and breathlessly wondering, IS HE GOING TO KISS ME? Kissing now? Hello, good-bye, goodnight - peck. End of story - mostly. Arrive the episode of the face. A face full of sores does not invite contact. I became an unkissable. Not that I wanted to be kissed, that would have been too painful, but I missed them. Oh the things we take for granted. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	BEING DIFFERENT 3/3/2008			My dermatologist held up a picture, a miserable face looking back at me with big, red welts, scales, scabs and swelling. You’re going to look like this, he said, writing the prescription for an ointment to attack all those pre- cancerous invasions on my fair skinned face. Ten days later, as predicted, I am that face. I wear big, dark glasses when I go out in the world, but am still someone people want to avoid. Forgetting about the new me, now and then I speak to strangers, say something about the weather to that lady standing next to me in line, make her uncomfortable when she looks at me to reply. After a week of this, I find myself always looking down, retreating into myself. Facing the world has new meaning, requires new skills. Happily for me this is temporary, but what will remain is an understanding of what it means to be outwardly different. Click to submit a comment on this topic
				Suzy. I read the Jan and Feb musings. I enjoy the style, content, and especially your turn of words and heartfelt emotions. Thank you for sharing this part of you with all who enjoy you through blogosphere ….Doug
	MY BOOKS 2/24/2008			Of course I am going to read EIGHTEENTH CENTURY PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT-- sometime. No matter that it has been on my shelves unopened for 25 years, you never know when a passion for Voltaire might strike. Good to be prepared. Yes, definitely, into the box marked SAVE. Weighty literary decisions are in process. I am dismantling two bookcases, each eight feet tall which currently also function as headboards to the twin beds in the guest bedroom. Since we live in earthquake country, the prospect of death by tumbling volumes has probably occurred to many a guest. Not a bad way to go if you have literary leanings, but probably better to cease tempting fate. There isn’t room for all these displaced volumes, some will have to go. Will it be those classics, holdovers from my college days as an English major? Or all those contemporary authors I discovered to my delight thereafter. I linger, I fondle, I remember, I grieve. They are like old friends. We have spent hours together, quietly sharing ideas and our deepest thoughts. It comforts me to know they are here if I need them. Parting is such sweet sorrow... Click to submit a comment on this topic
	WHAT DO I DREAM ABOUT? 2/19/2008			With dreaming on my mind, I catch myself during the day identifying dreamy thoughts as they happen. What do I dream about ? Simple things. I've been lucky. So many of the big ones came true. I pile them in a corner of my mind, take a tally and discover my dreams are no longer about the top of the mountain, it's what I'm going to discover on the way down. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	HAVE WE GROWN TOO OLD TO DREAM? 2/14/2008			"Have we grown too old to dream?" Ry asks as we drive into the night. We're on our way home from dinner in San Francisco with longtime friends who are looking for a condominium or town house here in the Bay Area. Currently they live on a farm in the San Juan Islands, a dream they left the Bay Area to pursue 17 years ago - a dream that involved buying land, building a house, a barn and raising sheep. That dream isn't the perfect fit it once was for a variety of reasons - new pursuits in the Bay Area beckon, the winter months of perpetual gray have begun to pall, health problems have surfaced and bottom line, they're not fifty anymore. They are coming off a dream, our friends. Are there more to come?. We could give dinner dream status. The food was delicious, the wine mellow, the conversation animated. We felt young in the flickering candlelight as we were regaled with the real estate options our friends had spent the week exploring. Their excitement was palpable. Each day they had found something they considered buying, each morning after, they had second thoughts. But, in time, it's going to happen, this new house, this new life. They're dreaming about it. No we haven't grown too old to dream, they're just not the dreams of our youth. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	ALZEHEIMERS 2/11/2008			When he was well, Roy and I often passed one another walking in the neighborhood, stopping to chat about the concerts and operas we’d attended recently. With his beautiful tenor voice, he’d sing me snatches of arias we both loved. On rare occasions, we played piano duets together, pausing to marvel at how blessed we were to have music a central part of our lives. Everyone wanted Roy at their party, he played the piano all evening with a contagious joy. Roy was lots of things besides a man of music - a Doc, a tinkerer with cars, a reasonable volley ball player in neighborhood games, a motorcycle rider, a husband and father. He embraced life with an almost childlike enthusiasm, greeting each new day as a special gift. As his mind began to fade, he walked the neighborhood incessantly. I’d see him standing at the end of our driveway, looking at our house. He seemed so lonely. “Come in for awhile,” I called to him one day. “Keep me company while I mop the kitchen floor before my guests arrive.” He brings all that old childlike joy with him as he comes in the door, telling me with a flourish that he is composing an opera. He goes straight to the piano, sits down and begins to play, then to sing Nessus Dorma from Turandot, one of those arias that turns you inside out. He is playing and singing, I am mopping and sobbing. So much is gone for him, but the music, the music is still there. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	ALZEHEIMERS COMMENT Mimi Kugushev 2/19/2008			The mind and music seem to be the last to part ways; friends, even lovers present, may sleep in the deepest recesses, but music can awaken, or be awakened. A man rendered aphasic for many months after a stroke, suddenly starts singing Christmas carols when he heard them; a seemingly comatose woman on a gurney in a convalescent home, starts to move her big toe in time to the music. Music is one of the great wonders of the universe. Those who do not hear its sounds, its messages of joy and sadness, of simplicity or complexity, are bereft, indeed.
	OLD FLAMES 2/1/2008			We're having our annual lunch with old friends from Connecticut here to enjoy some of our lovely weather, which at the moment, is rainy and cold. Bruce and Ry grew up together so once the events of the year just passed have been discussed, their conversation invariably falls back into their old stories. Soon they are remembering those sisters they dated way back when. We've heard these stories before, Winkie and I, long ago agreeing our men were SO LUCKY those romances didn't become permanent. Ry produces an old photograph of young Bruce, one he recently found while going through his pictures. At Bruce's side is that aforementioned young heartthrob of his past, only Ry has whited her out in deference to Winkie. Bruce is standing by a ghost. Before we say good-bye, Bruce takes Ry aside, asks for a full rendition of the photograph. Like General MacArthur's soldiers, old flames it seems, never die, they just fade away. Or do they? Click to submit a comment on this topic
	A Wallow In The Past 1/26/2008			“Why are you saving all that stuff?” Fran asks as we hike up the trail. “Do you look at it once every ten years? Do you have ten years left for another go ‘round?” Fran is not, I discover as our conversation progresses, immune to the saving habit she now deems pathological. She is only feeling above such things as she has recently moved out of her big house into something smaller. Out went the memorabilia of three grown children beginning with the drawings of three year olds to college graduation programs. Out went the Waterford she inherited and never used. Out went at least half a lifetime of accumulations. She is feeling superior, virtuous and free. I on the other hand am mired in memories as I try to get a head start on the possibility of downsizing. My nemesis is the written word, boxes of letters begging to be reread. There are the letters I wrote home in my young adulthood which my Mother saved, the letters my parents wrote me which I saved. All contain family history, all are fodder for passing the time on gray January days or, as I envisioned while I saved, all are for reliving a lifetime while in the nursing home. Is a periodic wallow in the past a bad thing? Should those boxes go now? I don’t think so. It’s a little by little project, a process. It’s watching from a safe distance, the unfolding and growing of the self you’ve decided to save and conversely, as the wastebaskets fill, discovering what part of that self you’re willing to let go. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	Those Old Photographs 1/16/2008			All those old photographs. Shelves and shelves of them. Our son growing up, the big events of our lives, the trips we have taken. In boxes, in albums, all overflowing precious shelf space. Do we ever look at them? Hardly ever. We decide to weed, purchase special equipment to transfer slides to the computer. Squinting through a magnifying glass at tiny images on negatives, we make decisions. What goes, what stays. Ry starts with his college photos. For several weeks he breathes nostalgia, talks of his memories, remembers old girlfriends. I look at their pictures, all so young, so pretty, so fifties. I try to whip up some jealousy. Can’t. We’ve been together so long, it’s hard to imagine he ever had a life without me! Do you want to relive it all, be young again, I ask him. No. Would you do it differently given a second chance? Not possible. It’s MY journey of self discovery. To have done it differently, I would have been someone else. I like that answer, it gives some purpose to what I sometimes feel is just bumbling along. Though the future has an ever closer finality, we agree, it’s today and our tomorrows we want to live. BUT WAIT…..I’m having second thoughts. I’d relive the excitement of all the first times - the first time I really fell in love, the first time I heard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, my tears flowing it was so movingly beautiful, the first time I held that baby, the first time I saw Paris, the first time……..oh there are so many, all full of magic, viewed, of course, selectively. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	Oh The Delights of January! 1/3/2008			Oh the delights of January! Everyone is weeding. No, not the garden, it’s too wet and cold, but the house. Closets are being cleaned, drawers organized, bags filled for the Salvation Army. OUT! Even my sister, the minimalist, can find things that have to go. I’ve found this to be an annual event. Is it a reaction to the excesses of Christmas? All those decorations invading the house becoming, on January first, overbearing? Oh for simplicity. Oh for the virtuous feelings that overcomes me as the garbage and recycling bins fill. I am, unburdened. A fresh start, along with the New Year. But, like New Year’s resolutions, I’m fooling myself. By March or sooner, new stuff will have accumulated, drawers will be full, everything that was in its rightful place at the beginning of the year will no longer be there. Again, I’ll be looking for my glasses. “‘Tis ever thus” * part of the human condition. On the other hand, “Hope springs eternal”. In 1877 William Leighton published the following poem in the United Presbyterian magazine ‘Tis ever thus: the spirit pants For all things peaceful, fair and sweet; For joys that leave no aching wants, For bliss that is not incomplete. But all these yearnings vague and fond Must anchor in the great beyond. Alexander Pope 1733 An Essay on Man, epistle 1. Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest. Perfection it seems is only achievable in heaven. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	HAPPY NEW YEAR! 1/3/2008			New Year’s day arrived here in Northern California bright, sunny and a bone chilling 33 degrees. We Californians complain to anyone who will listen when it gets this cold. I try to extract sympathy from my sister who lives at 8,000 feet in the mountains of Colorado. She calls me a wuss. Wuss or not, I was not going for my usual walk in the adjacent open space until things got warmer. At a still chilling 38 degrees, I finally ventured forth. As it was a holiday and later than usual, the people on the trails were not the early morning gang of familiar faces, those seriously exercising before going to work. Mostly everyone was out to celebrate the start of the New Year with a walk on a beautiful, albeit cold day. We’re a variety of nationalities, those of us who walk or run in this park on a regular basis. Some mornings no English is spoken and no Caucasian faces appear. Yet we all share and cherish this precious bit of open space. Today as we pass one another, strangers all, we call out, “HAPPY NEW YEAR!” and comment on the cold. Each of us is enjoying this beautiful place, this beautiful day and so happy to see another human being with whom to share our delight. Why can’t the world be like this? Click to submit a comment on this topic
	CHRISTMAS '07 12/29/2007			As I laid in bed Christmas eve waiting for both the sound of reindeer hooves on the roof and the sandman, I began to think about all those Christmases past. Not each and every one, but how they fell into groups, markers if you will of life’s passages. Oh the excitement of the event as a child. The paper chains my father made of stick people joined hand in hand. We hung them in my room. Everyday I tore one off to keep count of how many days were left. And when they were all gone, and Christmas morning had at last arrived, coming down the stairs to see a tree surrounded by packages was pure magic. A CHILD’S CHRISTMAS. The best of all? Certainly superior to ADOLESCENT CHRISTMASES when all those enticing packages never fulfilled the promises they seemed to offer. And better too than that first Christmas home from college, so happily anticipated all around and such a disaster. We had to negotiate a new me, the one who had changed in those months away from home. We didn’t do it well. The Christmases that followed all come under the heading, YOU CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN. Something new needs to evolve. It does. You have children of your own. Thus begin the SANTA CLAUS CHRISTMASES, the ones as parents who make the magic for those wide eyed little ones. Aptly called the hurricane years by my mother-in-law, our Santa Claus Christmases blew by without time for savoring, but, in retrospect orchestrating a child’s Christmas is right up there with being a child yourself. Christmas ‘07 has come and gone now, in another hour it will be Dec. 26th. I’m again tucked into bed, fending off the sandman so I can relive the day just passed. There is granddaughter Malia opening her last package, sorrow covering her happy face. “Oh no,” she says, it’s all over.” Oh but it’s not, I think as my eyes close and the sand begins to gather. So many Christmases yet to be lived my little one, until one day, if you’re very, very lucky, a cherished little girl will be sitting on your lap unwrapping her last Christmas package while her treasured brother stands over her watching and you will be overwhelmed by the joy of a GRANDMOTHER'S CHRISTMAS. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	CHRISTMAS 12/20/2007			What fills my mind, usually fills the page, so it surprises me that December is almost over and I haven't written a word about Christmas. In Decembers past, there wasn't room in my brain for thoughts of anything else. Not so this year. December, a month generally fraught with frenzy, has been to date, comparatively sane. What's wrong with me? This is not bah humbugging. The house is full of greenery, I'm making lists, checking them twice, the Christmas cards are in process, the plans are jelled. Obviously some thought has been given to the matter. What's missing is the "snit fix", a term my sister coined years ago to describe how I get the big things done. Maybe I'm maturing, realizing life goes on quite nicely if I don't find the right presents or they're not artistically wrapped or the Christmas card arrives after the event. I don't have to - actually can't - and no one expects me to make it happen for them, whatever IT is. Ah such wisdom finally arriving at the eleventh hour of my lifetime. I suspect, however, it's more physical than mental. I can't seem to whip up a froth anymore. A good thing or a bad thing? I haven't decided. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	WHAT WE WEAR 12/14/2007			They had the most beautiful voices and sang the most heart rending music. Completely absorbed, I followed the text of the poetry they were singing in my program. Occasionally I looked up to watch them perform. When I did the music became secondary. I began to worry. Would the soprano's ample breasts fall out of her perilously low cut dress? And what was it the mezzo was wearing, that complicated pea green mass of material accentuating an already large frame. I lost her voice in the folds. If , as Mark Twain said, "Clothes make the man" * or in this case woman, thank goodness they can sing. *The full quote. Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	GREEN 12/5/2007			My Mother-in-law had a mental poison ivy tree where she hung those who had crossed her. I don’t think her thoughts progressed to visions of her victims with oozing, itchy sores. She just hung them and moved on. The rest was up to nature. A lovely, gentle violence, green in its way, isn’t it? So much safer for perpetrator and victim than suicide bombing. Were she alive today, back in her role as New York advertising executive, she’d write a jingle – the itchy bitchy song – a catchy tune about going green with our anger. The world would not only be a safer place, but the profits of the makers of calamine lotion would stimulate the economy. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	PROMISE 11/30/2007			Her drama teacher thinks she has talent. Her artwork is exceptional. Her clarinet teacher thinks she is a prodigy. She excels in sports, is very pretty and knows how to charm the world. I know all this because my son told me. She's his nine year old daughter, my granddaughter. She's not alone. While we walked the trails this morning, my friend Sally tells me about her grandchildren. Her newly teen-aged grandson is currently in a play in Denver, a major theatrical event with equity actors. His theatrical career is already in process. His eleven year old cousin writes exceptional, award winning poetry. Another cousin attends a school where only Spanish is spoken. She excels, grows up bi-lingual. Amazing isn't it? Our grandchildren are so outstanding, so full of promise. Weren't we all. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	PERFECTION 11/24/2007			This reaching for perfection is crazy. Oh yes, it's an entertaining (and frustrating) challenge, but it's never going to happen for anybody. I know that. Yet every day I sit down to practice the piano trying to make every note perfect. There are thousands of notes in the pieces I play, thousands of possibilities for errors. I make them, correct them, practice them again, make them again. Will I ever learn? Happily I am not alone. Listening to one of my fellow players at our monthly performance group play something I knew well, I was astounded at the number of mistakes she made and how beautifully she played them. You had to know the music intimately, to know this was not a perfect performance. Perfection it seems is how well you cover your mistakes. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	PRACTICING 11/16/2007			I practice the piano almost daily. It’s a given, like having dinner. If I miss a day, I feel hungry. This isn’t a new pursuit, it’s been a lifetime passion. It would make sense if I had some driving talent or were performing, but mostly this is something I do just for myself. I’ve never asked why. The answer seems obvious - it’s something I enjoy - but while reading Glenn Kurtz’s book, Practicing, a Musicians Return to Music, I began to realize there’s more here than meets the proverbial eye. Music, writes Kurtz, puts us in touch with the profound. Perhaps it’s an exaggeration to call John Thompson’s Song From My Old Wigwam profound, but that’s where I got hooked. I pounded out those C chord drumbeats in my left hand with gusto, discovering that rhythmic, primordial part of my nature. When I got older and the music more sophisticated, what I played spoke to me of questions I didn’t know how to ask, about feelings I had but didn’t understand. When adolescence descended, music became therapy; Bach restored order, Chopin repaired a broken heart. As a young Mother, music was a refuge from the squabbles of young children. Do not disturb Mother when she’s practicing I taught them, only if you’re bleeding. Practicing focuses my mind. Admittedly sometimes I find myself at the bottom of a page having planned what we’re having for dinner rather than paying any attention to what I’ve played, but for a mind that is perpetually on the run, music is calming. Finally, and not insignificantly, practicing is a time, finally, to sit down. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	PRACTICING COMMENT: Mimi			Adding a couple of thoughts: I started playing the piano because I had to practice the violin standing up and I really wanted to sit down. And thinking over the decades of my relationship with the piano, I think it became so important to me because #1 I found it challenging at times, calming at other times, and nurturing all the time. #2 Playing the piano was rewarding to me by bringing me close friendships as well as a wonderful sense of sharing an important personal joy with my students, which I hope has enriched their lives. And yes, Suzy, I feel too that music can often put me in touch with something so profound it cannot be expressed any other way.
	ARE YOU HAPPY? 11/7/2007			“Are you happy?” I ask him over lunch. He’s my 47 year old son and even though his happiness is no longer something I can do anything about, I have to ask. It’s a Mother thing. He is startled by the question, not something he’s thought about in the rush of his days. He thinks for a long moment of silence then answers, “I wouldn’t use the word happy, but things are going well.” I am reminded of his youthful answer to my question “How was it?” in regard to the events in his life. He generally replied, “Fine,” without embellishment. What is fine? A man cutting to the bottom line? What I wanted to hear was a resounding “YES,” I am very happy, with some specific examples of joyful moments. That would have made ME happy, but as I drove home from our luncheon date, his answer made sense. You can’t paint happy with a broad brush. It’s in the little moments like today’s lunch, a grandchild on your lap, or taking a walk on a beautiful day. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	WEDDING PRESENTS 11/2/2007			The fine print at the bottom of the invitation to celebrate a recent marriage suggests I call this number for help with gift suggestions. I do. “They have registered for clothes,” a solicitous Nordstrom sales person tells me from the other end of the line. As I’m digesting this, she continues. “What would you like to spend?” I tell her. It seems a reasonable amount. “I’m sorry, there isn’t anything at that price,” she replies cheerily, “but for ten dollars more you can get a shirt for him.” “I’ll take it,” I reply. “Would you like to get something for her?” Already I am more financially committed to this couple than I originally intended and, oddly, missing the joy of participating in the creation of a household with my gift. Clothes? I hear my mother’s voice from the grave, “What is the world coming to?” “No, nothing for her,” I say. “She can enjoy looking at him!” I recite the numbers from my Visa. We include the addition of another $8.95 for delivery, say thank you, good-bye, hang up. I haven’t, however, hung up on my feelings. Tucking my card back into my wallet, I face a grim reality. The world is passing me by. I have become an anachronism. Not a good feeling, but maybe it happens to us all if we live long enough. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	FOOD SYMBOL 10/26/2007			I knew he’d love me because I’d read lots of books and could talk about them. I knew he’d love me because I could play the piano and make beautiful music for him. I knew he’d love me because I laugh a lot and he could laugh with me. What I didn’t know was he’d love me because I feed him. Why didn’t I realize in my misguided youth, my most important role in life was to be that of food symbol. I might have learned to cook. Oh yes, those aforementioned attributes were attractive to my man, but when we married, he came home for dinner. Later a baby joined us, crying loudly, FEED ME. When that baby grew up and went to school, his parting words were always, “What’s for dinner Mom?” The dog followed me around salivating. I never lost them, they all came home when they got hungry. Truth be told, I considered cooking an indignity, there were so many more important things to do. The time I spent in the kitchen was only about staying alive or …. was it? On my walk through the farm this morning, the ranger was opening the doors of the barn to let the animals out. Breakfast was waiting in the troughs. The animals heard his footsteps, his thumb on the latch. They began to bleat, quack, squeal, and cackle and by the time he flung open the doors, the barnyard was full of joyful noise. In one glorious chorus the animals seemed to be saying, “Another beautiful day is beginning, you’ve come to feed us, we’re so glad you’re here, oh do let us begin.” I watched them eat, envied the ranger this morning chore. He too is a food symbol, a "nourisher", a word Webster defines as promoting growth, supporting, maintaining, cherishing, and comforting. Not a bad legacy, food symbol. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	WHY LADIES FIRST? 10/18/2007			Why ladies first? I explore the internet with futile results, conclude without substantiation, the concept originated with courtly love, you know, the kind of love knights practiced. When I think of ladies first, I envision a deep manly bow; one leg stretched forward, one hand over the heart the other doffing a plumed hat. The lady passes….first. It seems an antiquated concept, abandoned with the arrival of women’s liberation, but is it totally dead? No. It is now a matter of confusion. We arrive at the check out counter together, he one step ahead. With an abbreviated, courtly bow. he motions me ahead saying, “ Ladies first.” “Oh no,” I protest, “you were ahead of me, ladies first is no longer relevant.” “Who takes the garbage out at your house?” he asks. “My husband,” I answer. “Ladies first,” he insists. I step ahead. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	AT THE SYMPHONY 10/13/2007			Symphony season has begun. It's Thursday afternoon, the series that attracts an aging audience. I used to call it old dowager day when I was in my forties, but now that I am on the cusp of being an old dowager myself, I don't find that so amusing anymore. Instead I marvel at the difficulties the audience has overcome to get here. Many lean on canes. Others are pushing walkers that threaten to run away with them as they plunge down the steep aisle to find their seats. Still others cling to the arms of loving friends. It's some kind of miracle watching these music lovers fill the hall. During intermission, standing in that interminable line for the ladies room, I watch an elderly woman carefully comb her hair, refresh her make-up. I want to say FORGET IT LADY, it's too late, but then I look around at the women in line with me and realize it's never too late if there is music in our souls. Click to submit a comment on this topic
	THE OAKS IN OUR LIVES 10/6/2007			I am not a tree hugger. You won’t find me living in a tree to save it’s life, not my style. But today when the newspaper announced sudden oak death disease had struck and killed oaks in my town, I wanted to hug each one on my property and whisper into the bark, “stay strong, we love and cherish you.” For we Californians the oaks that share our land are family members. We love, and nurture them as we do our children, honor them for their strength and survival as we do our parents. If they die, we mourn them. I wandered my property checking the health of my oaks. As I did, I realized they not only enhance my property, they play a role in the living of our lives. An old beauty spreads its branches over the entry to the house like a mother hen protecting her flock. We nap in the leafy shade of the oak that shades the deck. We count springs progress by the leaves appearing on the oak in the field, and across the way, on top of a hill, the big daddy of them all speaks to us of strength and endurance. Not just any old tree, our oaks. They are part of our inner as well as our outer landscape. Life wouldn’t be the same without them. Click to submit a comment on this topic.
	THE OAKS IN OUR LIVES COMMENT: Helena			Suzy, you can't get so poetic about your oak trees, they live and die like the rest of us!
	THE OAKS IN OUR LIVES COMMENT: Marty			In Rocky Mountain National Park, Co., we are losing our pine forests to the beetle. I know just how you feel, it's heartbreaking.
	THE GERMAN LADIES 9/24/2007			They’re coming toward me en masse, that group of power running ladies who speak German while pounding the trails. I note a tightening in my stomach muscles, and have thoughts I’m not going to divulge. I was just a little girl during the second world war, only aware of rationing, black outs and sitting against the walls in the hall at school as we practiced bombing procedures. We collected newspapers. With our father too old to fight, the war was just a fact of life which didn’t get in the way of being a giddy little girl. But I got older, read the books, saw the movies, currently watch Ken Burns as he explores WWII. I’m sure those ladies are very nice individually. We might even be friends if we were to meet in different circumstances, but en masse, they make me nervous, remind me of horrific events, a country gone mad. Not their fault. They are all too young to have been part of the atrocities, but in my mind I connect them. Will future generations of Americans bear a similar stigma in relation to the war in Iraq? Click to submit a comment on this topic.
	THE DINNER PARTY 9/22/2007			“How do you know the Whittiers?” he asks after we’ve seated and introduced ourselves. Whoa, I think, that’s MY opening gambit. By the time we’ve finished the salad, having found out I went to college with our hostess, he is asking what I did with my education. What is wrong with this man? My male dinner partners generally assume that of the two of us, they are the most interesting. I shine the spotlight, they provide the entertainment. The evening passes, the social contract plays out pleasantly …… or not. After a boring evening, I occasionally think black thoughts about male entitlement -- you know it’s all about THEM. But, tonight, I find I’m uncomfortable in the spotlight. What DID I do with my education I ask myself and how can the passion I felt while I was doing it be related over the music to a man I’ve just met? It can’t and I don’t want to try. But they do, those men upon whom I focus the spotlight. With a questioning woman at their side, they fill the void. And thank goodness they do, it makes the social whirl go round. Click to submit a comment on this topic.
	THE DINNER PARTY COMMENT: "CM"			I asked those women with whom I was lunching - a doctor, lawyer, teacher, artist, orchestra conductor - if their male dinner partners ever asked about what they did. Rarely. Oh what they're missing!
	THE DINNER PARTY COMMENT: "Doug"			You go girl...how typical of those dinner parties...loved your blog this month...Also, "It is not your wedding." When do we men get it right..?
	THE DINNER PARTY COMMENT: "EM"			Glad to read about your dinner party conversations. I always thought it was just me.
	PERSPECTIVE 9/17/2007			He makes me laugh, so important. I tell him he’s wonderful. He smiles, says nonsense, he’s just another ear to feed. We’re going to a wedding for which I have new clothes as well as bags under my eyes, stringy hair and a runny nose. What a waste I say, I’m going to look terrible. He looks me over carefully, announces, “It’s not your wedding.” Click to submit a comment on this topic.
	DOWNSIZING 9/12/2007			My generation is moving. That beloved house where we raised our children, planted gardens, endured remodels, that special place we've called HOME for much of our lifetimes no longer fits. We call it downsizing, a word with underpinnings of mortality. Those on the move appear to do so without a backward glance. Restructuring their lives in a new place is rejuvenating, abandoning the responsibilities of the big house a relief. I look around, take stock and conclude, I can't move. I need to awaken to that special light that fills my bedroom aerie every morning announcing carpe diem. The brilliant winter sunrises that splash across my big view of sky remind me life is beautiful. On the hill across the way, a venerable oak speaks to me of standing strong when life's winds blow. And When the day ends and the last light touches the tassels of swaying grasses with gold, I'm so thankful to have lived another day in this place. It feeds my soul. Without it, I might starve. Click to submit a comment on this topic.
	WHAT'S IN A WORD 9/7/2007			Wonderful is another one of those words I need to re-examine. As I reread a thank you note I had just written for an absolutely wonderful party I attended last week, I realized, yes, it's a wonderful word, but by its fourth utterance in a short paragraph, you can appear empty headed, and overbearingly thankful. I consulted the thesaurus to find some wonderful substitutes - miraculous, marvelous, stupendous, incredible and extraordinary.