Category: Freestylin’ (Page 1 of 2)

To see the world more clearly.

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. Resolutions are too harsh, and they lead to frustration and despair and a sense of failure…because, of course, few resolutions make it past the first week or month of the New Year.

I do New Year’s Intentions. Every year I intend to be a better person, eat better, get more exercise, stay in closer touch with my loved ones…and you know, just be kinder and gentler.

There is a lot less pressure with intentions, and you can start over if you fail early in the year. In June, when you take stock of how your year has gone so far, you can still revisit the “intention” to be a better person, but resolutions are gone until the next New Year’s Eve.

This year, I have a couple of more specific intentions, though; intentions that relate to my personal goals. Goals are another way of setting one up for failure, but they aren’t so rigid as resolutions. One of my personal, all-time goals is never to stop learning, never stop searching, so I’m building that into my New Year’s Intentions for 2021.

My main intention for 2021, though, relates to my problems with seeing.  Quickly, I will point out that I’m not talking about physical vision. My eyesight literally (and I can say that because it is true) has never been better since cataract and lens replacement surgery. I no longer rely on glasses to navigate my world as I have since I was nine years old. Oh, I use reading glasses, but that’s pretty normal at my age. The fact is, I see at a distance better than 20/20, and I never, ever thought that would be possible.

So, my eyesight isn’t the problem. It’s more…how can I put this…heart sight or, here’s a good word…insight.

Back when I was doing a lot of newspaper photography, I saw things others did not see. When you’re a photographer, you have to see the whole picture before pressing the button. You don’t want a tree in the background that looks like it’s growing out of your subject’s head. You do want their classic car in the background if that’s all they can talk about as you interview them. You do want to catch the quick look a bystander is giving to a subject with blue hair. You do want the subject’s shadow pointing to the car crash they walked out of unharmed.

Over the years, I’ve lost some of my ability to see. My intention for 2021 is to see the world around me. I don’t want to just look over things; I want to take them in, all the things before me.

This year has been a challenge; a year we have been very focused on keeping ourselves safe and healthy, a year we found we have very little control over that. 2020 has been a year that something outside of us, something outside of our control, something we can’t see or touch, can take our lives or the lives of those around us.

As this year winds to a close, I find that people I have never seen have gone and, in a sense, a way of life we never fully appreciated is gone as well. Some things will never be the same; some families will never again be complete; some things that could have been will never be.

So in 2021, I intend to look and not just look, but see life around me. I want to see each day, not only with my eyes but with my heart and mind.

That’s my New Year’s Intention. Good luck with your New Year’s Resolutions…I think my way is better!

Happy New Year.

September = soups and other comfort foods.

There shouldn’t be a difference between August 31 and September 1, but there definitely is. For some reason, September 1 has become a sort of milestone for the progress of a year. It can be 85° on the last day of August and 87° on the first day of September yet something seems changed, something has come to an end (or a beginning). I begin to think of soups and stews instead of fresh vegetables; blankets and long pants in place of shorts; books instead of bike rides.

I thought my feelings on this might be colored by the fact that I have a birthday in September, but I’ve been asking other people about this and many agreed that September just feels different. The day’s heat seems to vanish at sundown, mornings are a little crisper. And of course, there is a noticeable difference in the length of the days. It’s almost as if the sun is sliding away from us, the nights of winter are looming.

The fact is I love September. It has nothing to do with my “special” day and everything to do with this sense of change, this return to the inside life as opposed to the outdoors. Even in this time of Covid-19 and social distancing and self-isolation, I’ve been living my life “outside.” Sitting on my deck has become a morning habit. A walk to the mailbox feels like an adventure. Visits with my family all take place outside, 6 to 10 feet apart.

But now…September. I’ve already made a pot of Taco Soup, dug out my long-sleeved blouses and washed up my sweatshirts. I’ve started working to restock my “to read” bookshelf that I keep for weeks I can’t make it to the library. And of course I’ve checked my jigsaw puzzle stash…there are 5 on the stack that I haven’t yet worked.

In the spring you throw things off, open things up, spread your arms to welcome everything.

In the fall you pull yourself in, feather your nest, prepare to hunker down.

With no apology to those who have seasonal affective disorder (which I too begin to experience about March 1)…I really love September.

New love, old love…it’s all good when it’s real.

Author’s Note: This is a little something for Valentine’s Day, traditionally a day to celebrate young love. But old love is important and we should celebrate that as well.

The old man sat rocking, clutching his cup of tea. He stared into the fire, glancing from time to time at the old woman who sat next to him. He tried to see the young girl in her, the young girl he’d fallen in love with, the young girl who had made him feel strong and fierce and brave.

He tried to see her dark brown hair that had brushed his cheek when he could get close to her. He tried to remember the bright brown eyes that looked deep into his own eyes as she told him what she wished for their future. He tried to remember how soft and smooth her skin was at night in the firelight.

But that girl wasn’t there. She wasn’t there because the boy who had seen her that way wasn’t there. He was old now, and all he could see was the old woman beside him. The woman who had been there for so many years. The woman who stood and sat and lay beside him for almost as long as he could remember.

He couldn’t remember before her because the time before her didn’t exist. He could only see everything she was, all the years of her, all the pain and joy and anger of her. He couldn’t strip away the days of their lives together to see what she had been before him because all he could see now was all she was to him.

He sighed, sat his tea mug down carefully, and closed his eyes. Suddenly, briefly, as he breathed his last breath, he saw her, the young girl, the woman, the old woman, all the same, all there beside him as she had always been, and he smiled.

Sometimes I just wonder what’s really going on?

I’ve been hearing a lot about the opioid court cases lately what with the decision in Oklahoma imposing a fine of 500 million-plus dollars against just a couple of the drug companies, as well as speculation that a major manufacturer is considering settling claims amounting in the billions by declaring bankruptcy.

This is going to go on for a long time…court cases, appeals, opinions, and yes, there will be ruined lives at the top of that food chain, but they will never quite mirror the ruined lives at the bottom.

I want to say here and now I have some experience with Oxycontin. I was not mindlessly prescribed the drug, nor was I ever addicted. I was prescribed the drug by a caring doctor back in 2000 before the drug dam broke and flooded the country. I had excruciating pain following surgery. Other medications did not even dull that pain, so my doctor prescribed one pill a day of Oxycontin.

I was skeptical. I doubted that one pill of any drug could possibly help, but desperate for any relief at all, I took AS DIRECTED.

Let me make this clear, taken as directed, under the care of an ethical doctor, opioids are a miracle drug. My pain never returned. After about three weeks as I slowly recovered from all the other effects of the surgery, I voluntarily quit the oxy before I had even taken the entire prescription.

There is great tragedy in the uncontrolled sale and prescribing of this drug, yet I can’t help but think of the people with chronic pain who are now unable to receive a drug that was, for me, an important aid to my recovery.

Five hundred million dollars doesn’t sound like enough money to penalize a company who coldly, knowingly shipped thousands, even millions of pills to tiny communities of only hundreds of residents. As the facts of this case come out, the numbers add up and up: the numbers of pills, the numbers of the addicted, the numbers of dead, the numbers of families affected. The number of dollars assigned to punish the guilty just don’t seem like enough.

Dollars alone will never offset the pain and loss.

Just sayin’…

I regularly read a magazine which is not targeted to me as a demographic. It has excellent, in-depth reporting on some subjects, and it amuses me to see how the “other half” lives.

Well, sometimes it amuses me. Today, it just annoyed me, so I’m sharing.

The magazine had two small “shorts,” one about a guy who collects sneakers (yes, sneakers) and another about a company making dog food from human-grade food, meaning food for dogs that probably appeals to the owners more than to the dogs. Have you seen what a dog will eat?

Actually, the company would be offended by what I just wrote because they market their product as “food for dogs, not dog food.” Whatever that means.

I love dogs. I’ve owned dogs much of my life (though not currently), and they are great companions. Dogs can be comforters, they are not judgemental, they can lift you up when you are having a bad day, they love you no matter what you do or say to them, and they never tell your secrets.

However, I just have to draw the line at spending more per week on a dog’s food than I do on my own. Seriously.

Now, let’s talk about the guy who collects sneakers. He used to collect vintage cars, but for whatever reason, that just wasn’t fun anymore. He spotted an article about an upcoming sale of sneakers at Sotheby’s. They had 100 pairs to be auctioned off, and something about that just woke this guy up, so he contacted Sotheby’s and arranged to purchase 99 pairs prior to that aucton. He snapped up the lot for a mere $850,000.

You can do the math.

He couldn’t buy the 100th pair of sneakers because the owner wanted it to be auctioned off, which was a good call on the owner’s part…final price for that one pair: $437,500.

I’m not even going to apologize for thinking it is obscene to pay those kinds of prices for shoes. It doesn’t matter who designed them, who made them, whose name is on them, or what they look like. You can argue that they are works of art, but seriously people …they’re shoes. I know I sound like a whiney, ordinary upper-lower-class, lower-middle-class person who works for a living, but here’s the thing—I pay my bills and if I’m lucky, have a little left over each month for a nice meal out, a movie, a decent car. I can’t understand the appeal of $400,000 sneakers.

It makes the world just seem a little wobbly on its axis.

I’m just sayin’.

What were you wearing?

I actually posted earlier in the week but felt I owed my readers more, so here goes.

The Question

At this time of the year, the school where I work mounts a display or show called “What She Wore.” It never fails to stop me in my tracks as I walk through our Commons. Pinned to the wall are various outfits, jeans and t-shirts, pretty dresses, shorts with sweatshirts, bathing suits. Beside each outfit is a written account of the outfit in the actual words of the subject who wore that outfit, because, for some strange reason, that’s a question that is always asked of a rape victim: “What were you wearing?”

I will admit, I’ve seen some pretty inappropriate outfits, but I don’t recall any that would indicate a woman (or a man) should be attacked and damaged in the many ways that rape can destroy a victim. Experts tell us that the act of rape is often more about control than about sex. If that’s the case why do we care so much about what a victim was wearing?

It may be that the question is more relevant in the case of what we call date rape, but I have a difficult time imagining that any woman (or man) dresses to invite abuse. And I also believe that most rapists don’t even see their victims as people…only as vulnerable “others” to be overpowered.

Investigation

I’ve been struggling to learn who and why visitors to my website are…well, visiting my site. I write because I want to write, but I have to admit, it means a lot and is encouraging to know that people read because they want to read — what I write.

Recently I installed a new “helper” to help me see more about my visitors. Don’t worry, it doesn’t track you individually, I still don’t know your names or anything about you other than generally where you come from and the pages you view.

Here’s where you come from — China. Apparently, the majority of my visitors are from (in this order): China, the US, and Alaska. Yes, I know Alaska is the US, but it shows up differently on the map I’m shown, so I list it.

I hope I know who my Alaskan visitor is (here’s to you, Nina) and I’m comfortable with the US visitors probably being friends and family, but I’m a little confused about the China visitors.

There’s a little more information in the report I get, and that is that my security software has rebuffed some 900 malicious login attempts and 24 spam comments.

I’m thinking those are all coming from China. I read the news. I just can’t figure out why I’m such a target.

Or if those login attempts and spams are NOT coming from China, the country, how do I have so many fans in China?

It’s a mystery.

And Finally:

Just read a lengthy article on the study of reading comprehension that found students learned better from printed text than electronic.

To quote the article: “Students said they preferred and performed better when reading on screens. But their actual performances tended to suffer.”

Another observation: “It would be wrong to assume that students will automatically be better served by digital reading simply because they prefer it.”

Now, I’m not going to go into all the details here, but I thought it was interesting that while you can read online text faster, you comprehend actual printed material much better. (Thanks to Barbara H. who posted it for me to find.)

If you want to read the entire article, it is on the businessinsider.com website and is written by Patricia A. Alexander and Lauren M. Singer. You can find it at printed text vs. digital

So, what I want to say here is…if you have trouble understanding what I’m writing, you might want to print this out and read it slowly.

Just sayin’.