In the Still of the Night

I have returned from a trip to see my son. In some ways I wished I had never left. Because when you come home everything is pushed up on the calendar and you no longer have weeks in which to accomplish them. You have days, sometimes hours. And they are things you meant to do earlier. They are things you need to have done, in a timely fashion. But time is not and probably never will be your friend. And you face these things in the dead of night, while everyone else is blissfully snoring in their beds.

When the world is in slumber, I should be sleeping. But I'm making a list, then a sub list, then an even smaller sub list of what needs to be accomplished. I do not resent going to see my son. I resent the mess when I come home. And it seems night-time is the time to think about it. And wonder about what would happen if I missed this deadline or that on the horizon.

What is it about the night? I've spent a goodly portion of them sitting or half-reclining on the couch in the living room staring at the screen of the laptop or the iPad. Playing endless games of solitaire. Reading stupid books that I haven't really enjoyed just to get bored enough to fall off to sleep. When I was pregnant with my children, night was the time I paced the floors and wondered what kind of crazy person I was bringing a child into the world such as it is (or was about 30 years ago). And there are those nights when it might as well be the middle of the afternoon for how un-sleepy I have felt. Time drags when you can't sleep. I don't care what Einstein said, light at night slows down and there is no way an hour is just an hour.

I have spent a significant portion of nights finishing up really good books that I couldn't put down. Those are the nights when I finally stumble upstairs, bleary eyed but content that I figured out the plot before actually finishing the book.  There were occasionally books that freaked me out at night. When the boogey man definitely is waiting at the top of the stairs after I have turned off the lights to go up to the bedroom. A couple of them disconcerted me so much that sleeping never came until the dawn. I try to avoid them as I'm not pleasant when I don't get my 7 hours. With no sleep at all? Well, it's just not a good thing, trust me.

I've had more regrets, more sobering thoughts, more depression than at any other time when this part of the world is sleeping. I seem to be able to  enlarge and extrapolate troubles in the "dark watches". I become convinced that certain problems will never sort themselves out or certain unpleasantness will inevitably happen when faced with endless darkness (or at least about 10 hours of it). Sunlight seems to make me more rational. Starlight makes me a little crazy. I believe in magic more at night. I believe the impossible can and most likely does happen then. And when the sun comes up and proves me wrong, I shake my head at my foolishness until the sun goes down again and I wander the dark, looking for some light.

Moving to..What is that?

I decided recently, that I should begin an exercise program again. I had not done anything physical except walk for a long time. Lest you think I was a regular walking fiend, I walked only when the mood struck, which wasn't very often at all. I joined a gym in the same town we live in. I liked that its never an "open gym". You have to train with someone there. This is really good for me, asif I know someone is going to be there for me, I will make an effort to show up. I was never good with independent study at school either.

So here I am "suiting up" so to speak. I even bought new sneakers. The trainer is really nice. A good listener. She seems to know how far to push me and I remember now what aches and pains felt like when I exercised all those years ago. It's not a large space, so it keeps me from getting lost in a crowd. So far so good.

There is really only one thing I would complain about. It isn't really a big thing, but you see the music she plays? Well, let's just say it's not really my thing too much. Most of it just sounds like noise, but she apparently thinks it's motivating. I guess it could be. But I like music I recognize. Which is probably the kind of music that really isn't that great to work out to. Let's face it you really can't work up a sweat to Sinatra too much. So, maybe I'll learn to like whatever this stuff is she puts on. Or maybe I'll just switch off the hearing aids. And lip read. Sigh. I was never very good with change.

Sports as a Learning Experience, Discuss

I was reminded of something today regarding sports. But before I share the picture which was brought forward so clearly to my mind, I have to fill in some details. I like sports. I really like to watch pro baseball and football. I will occasionally watch basketball, ice hockey, even golf (though it usually has to be around the 16th hole or I turn the channel). I am not and probably never will be a rabid fan of any one sport, it just doesn't move me the way a book does. BUT when our kids were growing up, I knew it was important to play sports for lots of reasons. They learned how to use their bodies to do something besides watch television. They learned to be part of a team. They learned the rules of a game and how to conduct themselves when representing their town in traveling around local towns playing their sport of choice. When our kids were growing up, soccer had become all the rage. Parents were encouraging their kids to play when the kids could barely understand the concept of "kick the ball". Both of our children wanted and liked to play soccer. They were not star athletes by any means, but they consistently showed up and did their part. They were not picked to be part of the elitist traveling teams, but I didn't think this was tragic. They learned something from that as well, I like to think. Something along the lines of, "not everyone can be a superstar at everything." A good life lesson in my opinion.

So, today, the lady I work with and I were discussing our sons and the sports they participated in. Her sons did karate for a while (she shared her terror of having one son race towards her as she held a block of wood to be annilated by his foot--as she dropped it and waited for the impact). And that's when I saw this picture in my mind. It has been dormant for a while, but it was so clear, I was transported just for a few moments.

Picture if you will, a tall, gangly young man in his freshman year of high school. He has played soccer since he was knee high to a grasshopper and it is the only sport he is interested in playing. He is not consumed with it, as some of his contemporaries are, he is simply interested. There are stellar players on the team, to be sure, but this is freshman year in a four year school and the school has a generous no-cut policy which means everyone who wants to play is suited up. The mother of this young man (me), is just happy he's out in the sunshine getting some fresh air. However, into the first few weeks of the season, it has become apparent that the coach is out to win at all costs. Therefore, the less than outstanding members of the team will not be playing in any game. They will be observing their team mates running up and down the field exhausting themselves, while the bench sitters get neck strain watching, but not participating in the action. I am appalled. And annoyed. And beyond livid when during one such game, played in the pouring rain, the bench sitters sat huddled together getting cold and wet while the super stars were wiped down with towels when they arrived gasping for air at this same bench. I did not intervene. My son learned any number of lessons that season. He also never played any sport in high school after that. And why would he? He was embarrassed enough that season, why go through that again?

He is accomplished and grown up now. He probably doesn't even remember the incident above. But I do. That coach's son attends the high school my son once attended and I wonder if he will be treated the same. Somehow I think not. And it's a curiosity to me why I still remember this so clearly after all these years. But remember it I do. Sports can be a good thing or a bad. Discuss among yourselves, but leave me out of it, thank you. I probably wouldn't be very objective.

Daffodils

It's been a long winter. This neck of the woods has been smothered in snow this year. Not blanketed, mind you. Inundated with it. Even little kids are rolling their eyes when someone suggests that another snow day could be in the offing. Most of the adults I know turn off the weather on the nightly news as the weather person gleefully announces another snow storm predicted. Enough we think, enough already.

So in the past few days the temperature has risen and the remaining small clumps of the white stuff has disappeared. The mountainous hills in the shopping center parking lots will no doubt be there until June. But the local turf is peeking through. I walked to my gym appointment this afternoon as it was finally not frigid. And I saw the slender stalks of daffodils pushing up through the ivy in the front yard. The second flower to come out in our area, crocuses being the first. They are one of my favorite flowers, daffodils. They announce Spring is coming. They are optimistic, daffodils are. They come up some years right through the icy crust of winter, defiantly shoving their yellow and white heads towards the weak sunlight. Their frilled crowns in the center seem almost trumpet-like. Make way! They broadcast. Make way for warmer days, more sun, fragrant air! It's hard to be grumpy with these things staring you in the face.

I bought some specialty daffodils from one of those catalog companies a couple of years ago. Some came up, but the squirrels enjoyed them more than I did, digging them up as a special treat I planted just for them. The regular yellow ones planted in the ivy by the people who lived here a few families back are the best. The squirrels either can't get to them because of the ivy or the newly planted ones are just so much easier to acquire, they ignore these. Whatever the reason, I feel so blessed that they come up so abundantly every year. And they are there now, not all the way up, still stretching skyward. But one morning I will look out and they will be there, nodding a benediction to Spring.

One Day Into The Next

It's sometimes amazing to me how quickly time goes by. My life of late is not filled with grand moments that make the days fly by. No, it's filled with the minutiae of the daily. Once the alarm goes off, I 'm off on the worn track in the carpet which takes me from the bed to the bathroom to the hall to the stairs to the kitchen to the back door, the car and work. Before I know it, the day is half done and I'm home eating lunch, then back to work to finish the day. A hiccup happens every couple of days when I go to the gym. But really, it's the same thing all the time. And the days roll by so fast that another month has been crossed off. I'm not a fan of this. I'd like more big moments, more grand happenings. Wait, let me qualify that--good things, please. No disease, no catastrophes, no funerals.

And therein lies the problem, in a way. Life does roll along for a while and things seem mundane, when suddenly they aren't anymore. So I guess for now, the alarm will go off and the cycle begins again. Until the next day, until the next day, until something happens.

The Thief in the Night

I spent a couple of nights at my sister's house recently. I luckily had some time to take off from work and I just wanted to get away from the smell of paint and wood stain (hubby is fixing up one of the bedrooms). It is almost always a nice retreat. She treats me so well, leaves me alone if I need it, talks if I don't want to, listens when I do. Their home is inhabited with my brother-in-law, a generous, super-intelligent, bookish sort and his dog. It is not and will never be her dog. She resented the animal from the moment it entered their living space and even though he has mellowed over time, she still resents him. Although, there are cracks in the grumbling lately. He will follow her up to her office occasionally and she will let him stay while she clacks away on the computer keys, figuring out ways to help people communicate.

I have never really had a problem with the dog. He was a little high strung at first, rambunctious and rowdy. He has an unnerving habit of "smiling" at you, curling back his lips to show you his canines. He doesn't growl when he does this. But I've never seen another dog do that without the growl and snap of jaws immediately following, so this expression usually stops me from petting him for a moment or two. Her husband thinks the dog is wonderful. He also assumes that he is smarter than he is, the dog not the man. Evidence to the contrary abound, but, my intelligent BIL just doesn't see it. One thing the dog used to do was grab things off horizontal surfaces and drag them under a coffee table in another room. There he would rip, shred and demolish whatever it was, mostly eating it at the same time. It didn't matter if it was edible or considered food. My sister despaired of ever deterring this  behavior, and in her husband's defense he didn't like it either (maybe because he lost a pair of sunglasses or two) They tried lots of things to make him stop:  squirting him with a foul smelling substance whenever he did this, yelling, whacking, and eventually just moving everything they thought he wouldn't be able to wrest from the surfaces to another place. Because he's older now, he doesn't do this with any regularity. He has taken this habit though to a different level. As an example, I was sitting on the couch reading. I had taken off my shoes and curled my feet under a throw to keep them warm. The dog came over for a pet or two, which I obliged, but I decided that I was done and commanded him to "go lie down." You don't say please to a dog, it confuses him, or at least this dog. Anyway, before shuffling off to lie down, he reached down, picked up one of my sneakers in his mouth and shuffled off with it in his mouth. Depositing it in front of him after laying down under the coffee table. He didn't maul the shoe. He simply put it down and looked up at me as I stood to retrieve it. I took the shoe back and placed it next to the mate, but he didn't come back for it. He just made his point.

In the morning the following day, I was getting myself ready to go downstairs and realized one of my slippers had vanished. It was next to my suitcase on the floor when I crawled off to bed the night before. I opened the door to the guest bedroom and saw the slipper next to the door. Sure enough, my sister told me the dog had entered the room while I was sleeping, picked up the slipper and taken it downstairs and placed it under the coffee table. Not mauled, not shredded or mutilated. Just placed there to be found the next morning. The next day I was packing to leave. I had placed my pajamas on top of my suitcase and gone into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I came back in the guest room and the bottom pants of the pjs were no where to be found. I walked downstairs to the coffee table and there in a lump were my pj pants. I appreciated his not ripping them or otherwise damaging them, they are one of my favorites. I marveled at his kleptomaniac tendencies and how they had evolved. No longer destructive, just sort of benign attention getting. I could live with that and evidently they are. After all he's still there, under the coffee table, looking out.

The Girl Within, The Woman Without

I had the opportunity to sit in on a discussion with some young ladies the other day. It was enlightening and yet not. Some things never change. Some dorky big guy guffaws his way through class making fun or putting down the feminine species. It's just a big joke to them. The put downs. But their comments can hurt. And what is truly amazing is that it doesn't dawn on these Neanderthals that these young ladies will remember the name calling and the dismissive snort far longer than they will remember doing it. They will remember and the guys better hope one of these smart, funny, savvy people doesn't become their boss, or well, let's just say payback is not always a pleasant thing.

The other thing I noticed is this:  although I am significantly older than these young ladies, we all had kind of an aura around us which was obviously learned from somewhere that we are not the power holders. We are the power seekers. We strive and strain and lurch our way to some goal feeling all the while that we have to be better, faster, more somehow, than our male counterparts. Why is this? Who taught us this? Where did this model come from. My mother, a product of the '50's mentality, had this as part and parcel of her upbringing, but I don't remember her beating it into me. I grew up with Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinheim and bra burning. I am woman, hear me roar, remember those words? We sang them with gusto. We believed them! Then we got older and it was harder to live up to those ideals and promises. We had careers but we may have stopped to raise kids, or we raised kids and kept the career and there we were being pulled so many different ways that we even forgot there was something we were striving to do! How did that happen? You can let someone have power over you, we were told, or we could show our own power and shove back. Are we shoving back? Not so's you can tell. The power still seems to be in someone else's court. And the bullying, blathering big guy with the big mouth is still leading. I don't like it, I don't like it at all. Something's got to change. We need a new Helen Reddy with a new anthem. Something to move these young ladies to go forward. Something we older women can get behind and push for them. What do we have? I don't know. I'm still looking around. And I'm not feeling hopeful at the moment.

Reading the Obits

It's Saturday morning and hubby and I are perusing the papers. He is reading the sports. I am reading the comics. Perhaps this is symbolic? I don't know, its just how it is. Anyway, after looking at the sports he goes on to look at the local happenings and then the world stage. I will go on to read the advice columns, the entertainment news and then on to the obituaries. I don't read them with hope of seeing someone there, honest! I read them for lots of reasons. I scan them first to see if any names pop out at me, people I know who have been very sick or I haven't seen for a long time. I look at the small section that lists people who are famous or at least seminally so, to see if I recognize their accomplishments. I don't study them and usually don't read any in depth unless there is a particularly long or flowery one. Sometimes it seems like the paper will group them into geographical regions, I'll see more on one side of the river than on the other some days. I never asked if this was the case, I'm not obsessed with obits, after all. Just curious. I could branch out at this point and begin to wonder what it was like when the deceased "crossed over", but that isn't the direction I wanted to go in today.

I saw a name I recognized today. I lived in a small town growing up. It bordered another small town, but this one boasted the area high school that my siblings and their friends and my husband and his siblings all went to. If you lived in either of these small towns you went to this high school. You dated people from this area and I know many people never left the area, settling permanently with their spouses to raise children who would also go to this high school. I took the road less traveled and attended the vocational school during my high school years. But the guys from the next town were the available guys to date, so even though I didn't go to school with them, I dated some of them. One of those guys lost in memory...his father passed away. I saw the name, read the obituary and was transported some 45 years back to a time when I knew the son. Knew his wavy brown hair and luscious chocolate brown eyes. Knew that when he smiled, there was a little dimple in his cheek. Knew the roguish twinkle in his eyes and knew NOT to be alone with him in the next room, tempting though it might be. How could one name bring all that back with such clarity? I have no idea. It's happened on more than one occasion. This guy and two of his other compatriots were part of a sphere of my adolescence that changed me from the young girl in elementary school to the young lady of high school. They didn't do anything special, there wasn't some breakthrough moment or some heart-rending tragedy which embedded these guys in my brain. They were just there, helping me without knowing it, to be part of growing up in a small town. I felt sorry for this guy I used to know. My own dad passed away about 25 years ago and it's not an easy thing to lose your father. Of course, being me, I thought I should send a card. But really? A card? From someone in this guys very distant past who probably wouldn't recognize the name even if I signed it with my maiden name. No, a card was a dumb idea. But I offered sympathy in my own way. By writing down my thoughts in this blog.

Sorry for your loss, Vince. Take care. It'll get better.

Winter Doldrums

The air is stale
With the perfumed air
Of poinsettias on the sill
They're drooping you see
From the past revelry
The holiday long been fulfilled.
The plants are distressed
As they peek through the mist
Of the fogged over windows
Of winter
Looking out in the night
 Of the last rays of light
Remembering highlights
Of summer.
The sigh of the plants
With the mistress's rants
The scorning of earlier lamplight
It's hard now to toil
For the scent of the soil
Buried so solid with snow.