You Never Forget Your First Love

A blue VW convertible passed me the other day and I was reminded once again of my very first love. I am not in general a fan of blue, except in my babies' eyes or maybe a blue Hawaiian shirt on a salt and pepper haired man of a certain age, but your first love never stops triggering a certain feeling. My license to drive was just fresh in my wallet and we were on a family boondoggle to Watertown, South Dakota, when we stopped in to kill time at the Dodge dealership. It was my first inkling that my parents had been entertaining privately the idea of getting me a car, and I was too naive in the ways of car dealing to know that we were unlikely to actually walk, er, drive, out of the showroom with anything new that day, so I allowed myself to fall in love. It was a little sporty thing, and those more wise in the popular models of the time would know exactly what it was, but it was baby blue with navy blue accent trim and an ivory interior. They had me get in and try out the fit. Yeah! I could SEE myself cruising main street in that baby, I could SEE myself pulling into the school parking lot in that baby. I could SEE me in MY new car! And so, even though baby blue is far down on my list of favorite colors, always forevermore, a certain size car of a certain sweet pale blue will always make my heart flutter, just a little.

They Grow Up So Fast

I am going to try to write this without crying. People tell you this when you are pregnant and when your kids are little: Enjoy them while they are young because they grow up too fast. I am kind of a bitch about being told what to do, especially by strangers, but this one, I always welcomed. I had known friends and relatives who had kids years before me and now some of those babies were in their early teens. I knew it was so so true, and I welcomed those occasional reminders.
And I did treasure my kids. I held my babies more than the books said you should and I took too much time off from work to hang out with them and sometimes I left work early to get them out of daycare just because I missed them. I tried to remember to take them special places on days off and weekends and in the summer. I tried to remember to take them with me on errands as often as they would agree to come with me and I tried to talk to them in the car and at dinner and whenever I got a chance. Sometimes I am sure they were rolling their eyes, thinking, Jeeze, Mom, get your own life.
And now, now the oldest one has been at college for three years and I still miss him every day and the youngest one is deciding which college to go to in the fall, an especially mean trick of life since having him be my only child has made me get to know and adore and enjoy him more than ever.
And so, there is this thing I do. When I am out in public places, I smile at kids and I smile at their parents and sometimes I even tell them something good about their kids. "Aw, even when he is tired and a little cranky, he still cracks a beautiful smile" or "Your kids play together really well!"
Today, at a cafe in a big department store, a tiny boy was crying and having a fit as his grandmother was trying to watch him while the mother got their meals. But the grandmother gave up and took him to his mother, so when the mother got to the table with all their meals stacked on one tray in one hand and the boy in the other arm, she set down the tray and roughly plunked him into his seat. He was at the edge of crying all over again. I looked him straight in the eyes and smiled my biggest goofiest smile. He smiled back. His mother noticed and I smiled at her. She said "Oh, aren't you a pretty boy!" and went from angry and frustrated to delighted in her beautiful son again.

It's a small gift I can give to remind tired and cranky parents what a joy their kids are and it takes some of the sting out of how grown up and independent my own boys are.
Yes, I miss them as they move on to their own lives, but it's what we have them for: To enjoy and shape and send out into the world to make their own ways. My success at raising them to be competent and confident was due to involvement that makes it all the more bittersweet for the connections we share.

If you are a parent of young kids now, take a deep breath and reach for the joy: Appreciate them as much as you can every moment of every day because the DO grow up so so fast.

If you are a parent whose kids have grown up and moved on, take the time to share a smile with somebody else's kids and to remind them to enjoy their beautiful children who will grow up oh so much too fast too!

Please DO Assume

If you've been there, you've wanted to kill. Maybe it was a school project, maybe it was at work. Let's say it was your boss, and he was griping that you did something wrong, made some wrong decision based on wrong data, and you make the critical mistake of using the word "assume". His face lights up, his mouth twists into a grin: I think "glee" might be the word to describe what he's feeling. He grabs the chalk and scrawls in huge capital letters ASSUME, and if he's smart and has done this before, he leaves space between the letters for what he is about to do, so it looks like A S S U M E. Then he says smugly, oh so very smugly, probably feeling like the spider just before she pierces her victim to suck out its juices, "You should NEVER assume" and here he pauses pregnantly then goes on "Because when you assume", another pause,"You make an ass" as he circles the A S S with a flourish, then separately circles the U and the M E, crisply clicking the chalk on the board with each circle, and finishes, almost quivering with delight "out of YOU and ME!" Then, in that moment, the normally calm passive compliant subservient sweet you would, if you were "packin'", pull out your weapon and blow his stinking brains all over the room. And you would walk away feeling justified. For just a short moment, you hate him more than you ever have or ever will hate anyone.
Imagine if at that moment, due to his smug lesson, you learned said lesson and ceased to assume. First you would have to check before every step if the floor were still solid. You would have to ask him if you should come in to work the next day, even if you should go home that evening, if you should continue to work on the same project, if you could continue to work from your office, if you would still be allowed to use the company rest rooms, if you should wear clothing to work, if you were still going to be paid for your work and if so, in money? You would have to call the Secretary of State before you could drive home to see if the traffic laws were still the same, you would have to call your spouse to make sure you were still married and still lived in the same house; you would have to ask at the grocery store if the groceries were safe to eat and if they took any of your formerly useful means of legal tender. And even with all that asking, you would have to ask if they were telling the truth or lying that day and we all know how those games go round and round.
No, your boss was the only ass in the room at that moment when he laid out his cute little visual aid for you, because we do and must assume thousands of times every day, constantly all day long. We assume the laws of physics and the laws of the land and the social mores still apply like they did yesterday. The dictum to "Never assume!" is preposterous beyond measure.
Instead of his useless theatrics, in this that could have been a fine teachable moment, he could have asked questions about what you assumed that was lead you astray and helped you understand why that particular bit of assumption was not appropriate and how in the future to differentiate between the few things that you must verify and all the rest of the things that you could safely assume.
If anyone ever pulls this on you, don't stand for it, but please don't blow them away either. Chances are, if anyone on your jury has been there, you will be acquitted, but don't risk it. Besides, your tormentor might have family. Just calmly begin to ask them questions about things that we normally assume until they get the point. Make it a teachable moment for them and save future students or employees the ridiculous lesson. Together, we can stamp out the smug and completely erroneous "Never assume!" and its aggravating little anagram.
And if you have ever done this to anyone, DON'T EVER DO IT AGAIN. DON'T. EVER. DO. IT. AGAIN. In fact, I suggest that you owe a sincere apology to every single person to whom you have committed the "Don't assume" atrocity and you should track them down and apologize. Perhaps with chocolate. And John Ostrander, this does mean you!

Vices and Virtues: Gratitude

Gratitude is the most poorly expressed of the virtues. Thanksgiving is the worst of holidays.
We set up a holiday that is to make us think about what we are grateful for and then what? We go to church and thank a deity for those things and then we go home and eat until we are sick. Does that make ANY sense?
What is the point of gratitude? The point of gratitude is not to just FEEL thankful but to express it. But where do the things you are thankful come from? By and large they come from people. The home, the clothes, the food, the stuff, it all comes from people. There are stores full of sales people and cashiers and baggers. The stuff got bought with money. Provided by your employer and with the help of your employer's accomplices, your co-workers. If you run a business, you have clients or customers who provide the money. There are countless other people who provide services that make your life comfortable and enjoyable. The house got built and repaired and maintained by people, often members of your family or your friends. Your kids have teachers, you have doctors and nurses and dentists and hairdressers and other people everywhere everyday that enrich your life. Even nature is there because someone preserved or cultivated it and you probably enjoy nature because someone accompanies you on excursions into it. Natural areas have caretakers and people who keep them clean and safe. Farmers cultivate the beautiful fields and your neighbor cultivates his beautiful garden. If you are thanking a god and eating too much due to your annual gratitude, you are bastardizing what gratitude is supposed to be. If your god has all the qualities you claim he does, he does not need to be thanked, but the people out there do! It would make their task a little lighter to know someone appreciates it!
Figure out who, which people, are responsible for each of the things you are grateful for and express that gratitude to those people. With a note in a card, with an email, with a phone call, with flowers or a gift. And don't do it just once a year, but do it on a regular basis, year around, often and always. When you receive the 'gift' from them is best but any time later that you think of it is really nice too. Live a life of gratitude by sharing it with everyone everyday all the time. An eat a nice light salad on Thanksgiving Day.

Questions for Daddy

One of the most common memories I have of my dad is when he would be doing improvement or repair and I would be hanging around aimlessly and ask questions. Like we are in the basement and he is working on something and I hear water going through this big pipe along the ceiling joists and I ask "Daddy, what's that pipe for?" His answer would ALWAYS be "To make little girls ask questions." Damn, damn, damn, I certainly did HATE that. Even though the books were not written yet about such things, I was pretty sure that if you had a kid inquisitive enough to ask such questions you should encourage the curiosity by providing a good and cheerful and honest answer. Yet, I am pretty sure I phrased those questions such that he could use the easy canned answer. For example, instead of saying "Where does that pipe come from?" or "What does that pipe do?", I would remember to ask what it was "for". "What's that hole in the floor with the motor over it for?" I would ask about the sump pump. "What is that tool for?" I would ask of the big wrench with the screwy adjustment. "What is that wire in the wall for?" Or he would be reloading shells and "What's that part for?" Or he'd be tinkering with some engine: "What's that belt for?"
And so we would play the game. I would ask using the right phrasing, he would answer with a great big grin, I would get a little annoyed, I would keep asking only maybe in different ways, now that I had afforded him the privilege of the annoying jokey family-traditional answer, and after a few rounds, the number depending on his project deadline and frustration level, he would put down his project and give me a damn good and thorough answer. Lead me to the spot under the kitchen where the pipe came down from the sink and lead me around to where it turned the inside corner with the basement wall and explain how that sharp ninety degree turn shoulda been a couple more gentler turns because egg shells from the garbage disposal get stuck there and lead me to where the pipe goes under the stairs and along to the point where I had noticed it and asked and along further to where it joins a larger pipe that goes out the basement wall and into the septic tank. Or regarding the sump pump, he might take the flat lid off so I can see down the hole and run the shower next to it and show me how the float rises and eventually triggers a switch that turns on the pump that pumps the water to the big pipe to the septic tank. Yeah, I had a pretty good understanding of the bowels of a house and the workings of a farm shop and the mechanics of some farm machinery and how to load shells and how a watch worked and how a car was put together and an odd and varied assortment of how things worked and what was inside things and what caused what to happen by the time I was old enough to not think it was cool to hang out and watch my daddy do stuff.
And sometimes even, when my kids were little, I'd take a crack, just once in a while, at answering their questions with "To make little boys ask questions" though I didn't have the heart to carry on quite as long as he did, and I had all that book learning about fostering curiosity and all. Daddy, I miss you. Thanks for all the 'splainin' you did. Even if I had to put up with the "joke".

Fantasy

I bought some good intention. The hose is along the house right where people will walk if going from the driveway to the back deck. These 'hose pots' are supposed to contain the hose neatly. Hah, I know this is the last time it will ever be coiled this neatly in the 'pot' but at least visitors will know I had good intentions. The road to Margaritaville is paved with good intentions, or at least the walk to Margaritadeck has a good intention adjacent to it.

Raindrops on Roses, Well, Okay, Pansies

I had a wonderful friend who was a photographer. I was in my teens and he introduced me to a number of concepts. He was my first adult cross-gender friend. As a teen girl, you might have 'boy' friends, but because they are never quite removed from the 'datable' pool, you are not quite as 'free' with them as you might be with girl friends. But he was married, a minister, and much older. Not 'datable' so more 'friendable'. He was also my first friend that was not my age. It never really occurred to me that you could have friends that were not your age. There were potential friends among people your age, and there were 'little kids' and 'old people'. But he and I became friends based on a shared hobby of photography. I traveled once with him and his family and on that trip, we photographed together. Mountain scenery, close-ups of wildflowers, people, each other, bits of strange folk culture, more scenery, more flowers. He taught me many things, technical and technique, but he also exposed me to the idea of a philosophy of art. He explained his 'rules' to me and made it clear that they were not the same as the timing-and-aperture-and-ASA sorts of technical things that were truth based, but that these things were clearly of the take-it-or-leave-it variety. He also make it clear that I ought to be developing my own artistic philosophy, a reason for doing it and rules that I would adhere to. One if his 'pet peeves', if you will allow me to use a phrase that is one of MY pet peeves, was photographers who faked things. You were not allowed to spray water on the roses or move a bug from one flower to a more perfect one or to snip off an imperfect leaf. You photographed it as you found it and if there was an imperfection, you either skipped that shot or you made it part of the photograph. So when I see a flower with a naturally occurring drop of water, be it from morning or evening dew or after a rain, I love to rush out there and capture the drops of water, smugly sure that I did not spray them there! It is my little tribute to my photographer friend and my little chance to remember the things we talked about and the special friendship that we had so many years ago and that we carried on by letter, actual hand written letter, about every year or so until he died. And yeah, it WAS his turn to write . . .

Primrose Farm

The Grand Opening was a week ago last Sunday. It has been a long time in the making. Primrose Farm is a working living history farm restored to teach about farming and farm living in the 1930's. It will be a good thing for the community. People need to know history.
They need to know about how agriculture shaped out land. They need to know where our food comes from.
They need to know about how people worked in earlier times. They need to know how people lived in earlier times. I worry that they will not understand this farm's place in history and therefore fail to understand what modern agriculture is like.
I worry that this farm will romanticize farming in an unrealistic way. I am happy that it might get kids outdoors. I am happy that it is open green space kept open and fairly green.
I am happy that our friend Kirk runs the place and that our friend Mary works there. Primrose Farm will be open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays and by appointment and for special events. The farm is located just south of Bolcum Road on Crane Road in St. Charles, IL.
What can you learn there? How can such a living history project help you live and make choices in the real world? What is the relevance of our history?

Farming Sucks

The romantic myths of farming make me want to puke. Ah, the farm is so pretty, it must be great to work with the cute animals, "farmers feed the world", winters off, being outdoors all the time, no hours to keep, no office to go to. It's a job. A job like anything else has its good points and its crappy parts. Like never knowing if what you put into it will pay off at harvest time. Like being at the mercy of the weather. Like the dirt. The mud. The shit. Literally, if you raise animals. Or work outdoors where there are birds and bugs. The wind. Sunburn and dry skin and pollen that makes your head swell shut and dusty grit on your skin that turns to slimy mud when you sweat. And sore muscles from every new thing you do. It is comfortable out there about 3 days of every year and before that it is too cold and after that too hot and way too hot and even hotter and then it is okay for 3 more days but it is windy as hell and then it goes back to being too cold until next season when it starts cold again. And wet. Too wet until it is just right for that one day then too damn dry for the rest of the summer until it snows so you can't get a tractor into the fields for the goo. Pests in the form of weedy plants and insects and birds and raccoons and deer. Crops lost to drought and flood and hail and hard pounding rain and too early snow. Long long hours. Dinner for the farmer after the rest of the family is long in bed sleeping soundly. Sundays off but barely enough to catch up on rest before starting all over again at sun-up on Monday. Yeah, it's a great life. If you like hard work for questionable iffy maybe payback. If you like risking most of what you have saved again each year. If you like being uncomfortable or actually in pain. If you like working in solitude most of the time. If you like boring routine most days and work halting crisis of an expensive breakdown every now and then. No, farming sucks. It is hard hard work. For fairly good pay sometimes and an utter loss others, all at great and uncertain risk.

Perfect Children

They let me teach Sunday School one year. It began innocently enough. The first weeks were spent mainly getting the kids used to letting mom or dad leave them there. I read them books of fun Bible stories from picture books and let them play with each other to develop social skills. Advent was nearing and I was determined that 'my' kids would know the story of Jesus's birth inside and out. I made construction paper puppets of Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus and shepherds and angels and innkeepers and kings and donkeys and sheep and a construction paper city street scape of inns and the barn and a construction paper manger and a construction paper star. Each week, we acted out the story with our puppets. Someone got to be Mary and someone got to be Joseph and we would go walking around outside until we were a little tired then we would go back in and knock on the innkeepers' doors until one let us use his barn. The baby Jesus was 'born' into the manger. The angels came to the shepherds over on a nearby table and they brought their sheep to the barn. The kings studied the star and followed it to the barn. We reenacted the story at least 3 times each Sunday, with kids playing many roles and changing roles each time and coaching each other thru the roles. It was rewarding to watch them pull their parents by the hand to see the puppets and to hear them tell new parts of the story that they had internalized that day. I am confident that 'my' kids did indeed know the Christmas story by the time the holiday rolled around!
After Christmas, I read them the happy stories about Jesus healing people and making more wine for the party and stopping the storm by walking on the water and teaching people and making that one fish and one loaf be enough for huge crowds of people. What fun we were having learning about Jesus!
But soon, Lent arrived and it was time to tell the kids that Jesus was going to be tortured and killed and then rise from the dead to redeem them from their sinfulness. I couldn't do it. I could not look those little kids in they eyes and tell them that this guy they had learned to love had to be cruelly killed because they were sinners that needed saving. I "lied" and told them bad people didn't like what Jesus was teaching so they killed him, but because he was God's son, he came back to life and that was what we celebrated on Easter.
I could not bear to tell them the 'for your sins' part. I just didn't believe it, so I could not teach it to them. Kids need confidence and competence, not shame and guilt!
I have read a great deal on brain science and evolution and psychology and sociology since then and this I have come to believe: Three year olds have no sins. People are not born sinful. People are born perfect. Jillions (scientifically speaking) of years of evolution made people able to adapt to conflicting needs by giving them conflicting desires and conflicting skills. We want to acquire goods and amass wealth because in times of scarcity, those that did that were the survivors. We want to help others and share with them because in times of plenty, that allowed more of us to survive and ensured the continuation of the species, keeping our gene pool richly diverse. So kids might give too much of their lunch away one day and steal the cookie from a friend the next, but that is not sin. That is just the skills and abilities that evolution gave us to keep us adaptable and survivable. And we should not be taught to feel guilty for those things, but rather taught to manage them for the best of our own health, the health and happiness of our family and our friends and our community. We have those conflicting wants and needs and abilities because we have evolved to be wonderful and perfect and we have the brains to learn to manage those wants and needs and abilities to be good and productive and kind and generous and all the things we value. Sin is a stupid concept and I won't teach any child ever that they are born sinful.

If You Can't Say Anything Nice

Sure, I know, it is an old cliche. But sometimes old cliches get to be old because they are true. "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." My dad said this one all the time, when my sister and I were fighting in a mean insulting-each-other sort of way or when one of us was complaining about someone or something. It carried so much weight, in that it said "Be nice to one another" but also "Be thankful for the good things." It recommended first the restraint to just keep your mouth shut, but then also carried the challenge to find a nice thing to say.

And it meant all the more because he lived it. My memory might be polished brightly by time and adoration for my father, but I do not remember him saying bad things to anyone or about anyone. He never called any of us or anyone that I can remember a name or blurted out an insult. It could be frustrating at times. We would so WANT him to take our side and rail against some perceived wrong or wrongdoer. But he would try hard to point out the other person's motivation and intent and help us understand it from their side.

I remember once when he was very angry with me. Well, no, he was just very angry. He loved to do projects at our house when he visited, so I would try to keep a list of improvements that would genuinely enhance the place and also be somewhat interesting for him. There is a soffit between the top of the kitchen cabinets and the ceiling, and the only light in the room was in the center, so that when standing at the sink, your work was in your shadow. It seemed like a couple of can lights up there would be a grand idea. My dad and my husband set about cutting holes in the soffit for the can lights and cutting a hole in the wall between the cabinet and the counter top for the switch, then tried to run electrical wires down to the basement to connect lights and switch to each other and to power. Every way they tried, they ran into obstacles. There was much standing on stepladders and twisting into uncomfortable positions and feelings of being too far into the project to abandon it, what with the holes in the wall and the soffit. And I, in my ever annoying manner, was attempting to photograph the workers in action. Instead of blowing up at me for getting him into the project, yelling, telling me I was irritating, berating me for being a pest with the camera, he turned to me and calmly said "This is not something we are going to look back on fondly." There, that comment portrayed both his desire that I cut with the picture taking but also his admiration that I did, with my camera, often save for future enjoyment most events that we would and could look back fondly upon.
Thirteen years ago today, I learned that you could be so wracked with grief that you could wake from sleep already crying. Each year, missing him gets a little easier. I try to honor him by passing on stories about him. I try to remember to be just a little more like him.

Over and Over and Over and Over and OFF!

I am a sad blogger. My laptop is broken. It froze. Like a deer in headlights. Like a Dew left in the car in winter. Like the nozzle of the Super Glue the next time you try to use it. So I restarted it in some special mode and ran some recovery stuff. And some more recovery stuff. My son tried to feed it some CDs. I reset some stuff and cleared some stuff. Now when I try to power it up, it pops up this crude looking window that says something about a password not matching and starts the start up process over until it gets to that window and starts the start up process over until it gets to that window and starts the start up process over until it gets to that window and starts the start up process over until it gets to that window and starts the start up process over . . .
So I have few posts scheduled and I might log in from the laptops of others, but don't count on any comments getting approved quickly or any clever or biting emails from me or any regular posts or any brilliant new Power Point presentations on natural landscaping or the aesthetic principles of art. I am down for a while, a blogger without a laptop, one whose social like depends on email, and whose news comes from online news magazines and various blogs that point me to interesting stories. It is different world, unwired. Not better, not worse, just . . . different. I miss it. But I will maybe read some books? You know, paper books, maybe some of the good kind with hard covers and those annoying dust jackets that slip off. Maybe I will get the artwork for the compass rose for the slate tile done. Maybe I will clean the accumulated piles of riffraff around the house. Maybe I will catch up on napping. Maybe I will solve the remaining questions of physics. Maybe I will call my "PC Medic" again and get the damn thing fixed.
"Thank you for your patience and understanding."