Archive for independence
November 22, 2009 at 4:13 pm
· Filed under becoming poor, economy,fear,rules, healing,abandonment,peace,love,, independence, save your money for a while, world
There is something very inspiring about an empty planter. Sometimes I leave planters unfilled for an entire season. This is disturbing to many and inspiring to others.I like the looks of this empty red planter because it looks as if it has been empty for a long time. This morning in the Times there is an article about the economy which suggests the stock market can be turned around by a national mental condition of positive thinking. That is, if a larger group of investors believes the market is on an upswing, it will be on one. I can understand this theory as it seems logical to me. However, I do not believe we should count on this theory to save our necks in todays economy. I do believe we are all still frightened about what is going on. We have never seen an unemployment rate as high as ours which is frightening. We have also never seen such a high rate of debt. I have no idea where to invest in the future nor in the present. Some say we should be investing at least 40% of our net worth outside the country. I believe that may be true but still have no idea where we should invest. Is China a good bet? Shall we bet on the future of Brasil or is India the place to look ? Scandinavia is also looking good to some. So back to the theory of stock market swings and the emotional state of investors. What if the emotional state of americans is positively affecting the market and causing the Dow to rise as it has over the past 6 months?Now it is winter and in winter the truth always comes out. There are still many foreclosures and in some state the rate is rising not falling. People are filling the malls and buying things they don’t need for holiday gifts. Credit card debt is rising rapidly. A friend of mine recently lost her line of credit as the issuing bank canceled it claiming she had not paid the monthly fee on time. She claimed she had and protested the decision but to no avail. In the paper this morning there is also an article about a bank that changed its billing envelope to one without any markings. It was thrown out by many customers and the bank then collected late fees for balances due that were not paid. What is going on now? Is there a kind of game happening in the world of banks and credit card companies where the point is to trick the consumer out of their money so you win more money? This is a really paranoid way to think but what if it is true? What role would the government play in such a game?
I am disturbed about the way things are going and worried about our country. I think many people want to recession to be over because they have no attention span for deprivation. It is much more fun to spend what you want on things you really don’t need. It is easier and faster to go out and buy things rather than to look inside yourself and discover what fills the void without spending money. That’s my task for today. I am heading out to the paths in our neighborhood to find beauty and serenity and see if it makes me happy. I am hoping glances at the beauty of California will make me deeply satisfied with my Sunday. I hope it works as I am no better than anyone else. A visit to Nordstroms is better than vanilla ice cream.
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November 21, 2009 at 5:19 pm
· Filed under Gender Differences, economy,fear,rules, family, fun, independence, love styles, meditation, yoga and broken hearts, poetry
I think I used to be like a cactus but I have changed. I don’t mind so much being touched now and actually can hold hands at will.Coming upon a cactus is a bit like coming upon a rattlesnake: lovely to look at but deadly to touch. Having a cactus on your sink under the winter sun is a good thing. You don’t even have to remember to water it. If you look at the cactus and remember where it came from you can imagine leaving your own desert for an oasis. Creating your own mystical oasis is a good thing. If you have one you can go there any time without using frequent flyer miles. It doesn’t involve waiting in security lines or endless travel to and from airports. You can also create mystical relationships where you never actually see or touch the person you love. This is a safer way to live and love another. If you do this in place of real and present love, however, you may end out forgetting what it feels like to actually hold a hand when you want to. If you forget this you may forget how to breathe.
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November 20, 2009 at 6:41 pm
· Filed under family, health,complimentary care, cancer, independence, poetry
Sometimes I wonder what my braid looks like and so I had a friend take a picture of it. I was surprised to see there were some gray hairs running through it. I have no idea why this surprised me as I am 60 and should have a few gray hairs. When my mother got cancer the chemo treatment made her hair fall out. I could see her hair was not completely gray and she was 87 years old so perhaps I have inherited a “saving money on hair color gene”.I don’t really mind about the gray hair which concerns my hairdresser. It seems most people who color their hair want to completely remove the gray hair. I have no desire to do that as I feel the gray strands are like the silver threads in poems: I like the feel of them. Rougher to the touch than colored hair, they remind me of the hard times I have been through. Each time I go to see my hairdresser she spends some time pulling up the many layers of my hair and clucking in a low and concerned voice. LAst time I saw her she commented on the fact there was a lot more gray in there.I guess that’s why I wanted my braid photographed. I wanted to see. I like the feel of this braid as it has stayed constant over the years. The weight of it has lightened but the complicated and bumpy feel of it on the back of my head soothes me. Sometimes I don’t comb it out for a couple of days as I like the messy way it looks after a good night’s rest. I am slightly shocked at my behavior when I do this as it seems very naughty. Something an old hippie might do…I find hair interesting . Once you decide to let it do what it really wants to do your life is infinitely easier.
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November 20, 2009 at 6:28 pm
· Filed under family, fun, health,complimentary care, cancer, independence, travel
I love Santa Fe…there are a lot of places there where one can get lost in images. I forgot how I loved to take pictures when I was young. I forgot all the time spent in a darkroom and remembered only the long days in a dark room in a hospital where I developed only cancer cells. This was my first job.I think that was what made me less interested in complicated cameras. I was the family photographer when my family was young and once my daughter asked me why there were no pictures of me in the scrapbooks. I was an invisible mother behind a lense. I think I was also an invisible mother some of the time. I wanted to be present with my children but I didn’t know how to be present with myself. I think for many years I was depressed and lacked knowledge on how to find help for this. I think many of us are depressed and can’t admit to this condition as it seems somehow shameful to the world. I know now there are may people with serious emotional issues who feel this way: as if they hold a dark secret from the world. It is interesting to me that having cancer is more acceptable than having depression. If you have cancer you also are likely to get more emotional support as other folks are not frightened of you. In any case my experience in Santa Fe made me understand the importance of solitude and the creative process. I am also beginning to understand the nature of competition in life and the importance of knowing how to handle it. I will never forget my friend, Steve, telling me to try harder when I felt uncertain about my photography class. I went back to class that day with a different approach and did try harder. I produced some of my best shots during the afternoon outing to Madrid and came back to my hotel feeling happy and relaxed. It was a great journey to a different place inside myself. I ma happy to be in a state of mind these days that allows me to make these journeys.
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November 18, 2009 at 3:02 pm
· Filed under fun, healing,abandonment,peace,love,, independence, single life, travel
For a single person Santa Fe is a good place to visit as it is casual and not focused on family entertainment. I am here for a photographic workshop which is probably my first since college. I find it challenging as well as frustrating as I am not as knowledgable as others in the class. We are learning how to use 35 MM digital cameras as well as Photoshop and the process is frustrating to me. I remember very well the beautiful simplicity of my Nikon camera with its simple F-stop setting and the round wheel that clicked softly when one changed the shutter speed. Now I have noticed in high-tech devices there is a fake sound attached to changes to make one aware the change has happened. I would rather have silence.
I first learned about cameras from my father who had many interests and many hobbies. A lot of very busy and successful people don’t have the time for this or the inclination but it is a good thing if you do. My father once went out to Yosemite and took a class from Ansel Adams. He came home with many photographs he had taken and was very proud of them. He decided we needed a darkroom in our house so he built one in our bomb shelter which had thankfully never been used for the original purpose. As it was 1969 by then I think he had decided the threat of nuclear war had ended or was at least in second place behind his new interest in photography. Before he destroyed the bomb shelter we had family bomb shelter rehearsals in it. There was a bike which someone had to pedal all of the time and boxes of fake food and games. Our family never played games so this box confused me. I don’t remember seeing water but this is not surprising as some of the time the most basic things were forgotten.
During these war rehearsals my Dad would explain how we were going to survive in the shelter for the requisite 8 weeks until the nuclear fallout had vanished.We were all assigned jobs to do in the event of an alert. My job was to fill several large, green cans with gas so we could drive to Vermont if we had time. There was an even larger bomb shelter there. He would take out a hand gun stored in a box and explain it was to be used to keep the neighbors out of our shelter as there was only room for our family. I found the gun terrifying and thought if there was an actual nuclear event I would run away in the neighborhood and take my chances with the fallout. I couldn’t imagine being contained in that small room with my family for 8 weeks as I had the distinct feeling some of us would not end out as we had gone in. Who would ride that bike all those hours? I rode my bike to school often but that was a 20 minute ride.
Anyway, the darkroom became our family photo lab once the threat of nuclear war was over in my father’s eyes. He took a few hours to show me how things worked but wasn’t the most patient teacher so I promptly forgot. My friend, Leslie Simmons, showed me once again some weeks later. The two of us spent many hours in there watching images appear through the developer like monsters from under a green and mysterious sea. My first job was developing photographs of cancer cells in a hospital as that was all I knew at 19. I had dropped out of college and needed to work so I took the first job I could find . After six months of trying to focus on cells, I returned to college.
Anyway back to Santa Fe…I think the most interesting thing about the class is how I tend to panic if I don’t think I can do what everyone else is doing with apparent ease. Yesterday I felt like I was in math class in seventh grade and the instructor was explaining an algebra problem. I could feel a slow daze freezing my brain and a feeling of exhaustion come over me .I started to think I shouldn’t be there and I had no place in the class though it had been billed as being for beginners.I think there are a lot of us who like to say we are beginners even if we are not as we are afraid of looking stupid. I have taken classes and said this only so I could feel a bit of confidence learning what I needed to learn. Once we were in the lab with the pictures we had taken that day and everyone was showing their pictures on the screens I felt inadequate and as if I were somehow not good enough to be there. Looking back on my life I see this is something I have felt before: an unwillingness to admit a lack of ability or knowledge as I might appear to be weak or pathetic in some way. This is so interesting to me as I thought I had overcome this but apparently I haven’t. It is good to be in a place where I am not even close to being as good as the class as I have to ask for help and try harder. This is not easy for me. I would like to be easily the best. I think I will sign up for another class.
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November 13, 2009 at 2:01 am
· Filed under family, independence, single life
- path
I have been remiss about writing in my blog because my personal GPS seemed to be broken. As much as I tried I could not see a direction and therefore I had little to write. The path is clearer today and I am happy about that. I have been reading about “Intentional Communities” which are communities formed by those who want to live in a social group. These groups are often based on spirituality, common interests, or economic purpose. I am finding more and more people who do not want to live alone any longer. The American ideal of self-sufficiency is no longer as appealing to many single people and we are looking for alternatives. This concept is not new but one which has been tried a few times in the past some more successfully than others. Imagine living with a group of people who were all connected with purpose and love. I think that would be a wonderful way to enjoy life and have the support of friends.
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October 30, 2009 at 10:41 pm
· Filed under independence, single life ·Tagged single life: weekend activity!
So it’s friday and the weekend is upon us once again. Here’s my truth about weekends if you are single. They are basically not my favorite two days of the week. On weekdays I get up, go to work, exercise, eat meals, talk to friends, blah blah blah. On the weekends I notice how many couples there are and how few single people I see around. Starting Thursday night I review my calendar to see if I have enough events on it to travel through the weekend in a happy state. Here’s the reason why this is. SHAME! It is the shame of the single people. For those of us who live alone there is a common element of shame as we believe somehow we are defective for living in this state. We make excuses for it, we deny we are bothered by it, we act as if we couldn’t be happier to be sitting alone in a restaurant or movie theater, but actually we are all ashamed we find ourselves alone at this point in our lives. I know, I know…there are a lot of folks who will argue and say they are perfectly happy with their single lives. They have no desire to live with anyone else. They feel no shame whatsoever. I don’t believe them. I don’t believe if any single person is asked the question about their life they will answer in the negative. You wonder, what is the question? Here it is. If you could live with someone whom you loved and who loved you, would you want this? If there was someone home at the end of the day who was happy to see you would you want this? If you had a stroke in the middle of the night would you want to have someone there to call 911 for you? I doubt there is a single person who could honestly say they did not want this in their lives. I think all of us do better in a relationship even if the relationship happens to be with an animal (pet). Life is better and feels happier when we have someone in the house with us. Some friends who are married and don’t dare leave tell me I am wrong in this. They tell me how lonely they are living with their spouses. I ask them why they don’t leave and they say it is because of the money. They are afraid they won’t have enough to live with. I understand this as I understand fear. Having a lot of money makes life infinitely easier. Having a lot of money and living in a fearful state is not a good thing. Living with someone you don’t love because you are afraid of being alone is very common. Many people are in marriages where they feel little comfort and little joy. They stay because they don’t believe they have a choice. They stay because that is what they were raised to believe was the right thing to do. They stay and then they have affairs and lie about them. They stay and sometimes fall in love again with their spouse but it is often too late for the spouse. I still think it is better to live with someone else than not because there is a lot of stress to being single. It is easier on friday night to not have to plan for something over the weekend. If you are living with someone it really doesn’t matter if you have a plan as you can hang out with your partner and be fine. You don’t have to suffer from the panic of no plans!
I know this column will not be a great success with either the single group or the married one. Neither group wants to hear about unhappiness or loneliness for that matter. Most people want to read about solutions to problems they are suffering with. I have solutions to this problem as well. Sure, there are lots of solutions. Become religious! Go to church on Sunday! Join a walking club and walk all weekend! Volunteer! Make plans with other single friends. I think the biggest solution to this problem is to admit the problem exists. The first step is admitting to the loneliness and moving on from there. I meet people all the time who tell me how lonely they are but they only tell me after a long dialogue about how full their lives are. They only tell me when I admit how I may feel on any given day myself. I think there should be a single people’s hot line where we each have a call list. Just like people who are about to take a drink or use drugs and need help not to do this, we should have a number to call when we are lonely. There should be a matching service with other singles who want to do something at that moment! We could find each other and go out for dinner or to a movie. There would be no shame. As long as we no longer have families who care for their parents as they get older we need to find other ways for single people to find companionship aside from Match.com. There is a large group of us out there range in in age from 50 or so on up. We are the fastest growing demographic using the internet. Single people of the world, unite! We can conquer this.Call me!
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October 13, 2009 at 10:22 pm
· Filed under family, independence, single life, world ·Tagged road trip
I can understand why my Grandfather wanted to get out-of-town now that I am in it. Don’t get me wrong, I love New York! The drive here from Connecticut took all of four hours and was pretty much the same scenery all the way once I had crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge. I listened to NPR and wondered why I was doing this until I saw my “sign” . If you wonder what I mean about “sign” just read my last blog. In this case my “sign ” was a road sign saying “Promises Fulfilled Valley.It was all I could do not to let myself steer off the highway as I thought maybe there might be a promise for me in that valley.
This part of New York State struggles between true poverty and weird business. There are some farms left here but most seem to be gone. There are a lot of discount malls advertised on the highway. The towns are factory towns and Painted Post is not really either one. I stopped in Corning as I was tempted by the Radisson Hotel’s “Sleep Number ” beds as the one lone motel in PP didn’t sound inviting. At the front desk of the Radisson I was treated with courtesy and given a room with not one but two “sleep number” beds. I plan on pretending to be Goldilocks tonight and trying them both.
I think I know why I am here but I can’t be certain. I want to discover why my grandfather decided to be a great success. I want to understand where that desire came from and all the discipline to fulfill his dream. I would like to know what his original dream was and where it came from. Of course I know I won’t be able to figure all of this out in one night but making the trip is a beginning. It is a way to pay homage to the man who built IBM and a way to see what his life was like as a child. The light in Steuben County hasn’t changed much in the 130 years since my Grandfather was born: the harsh, blue/white of the sky still fades softly into the good night of the hills around the town. The bite of approaching winter is felt in the air and the people here still work hard.
Tomorrow I will find the Watson Homestead and walk on the land where my relatives worked and lived.
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October 13, 2009 at 12:44 pm
· Filed under family, fun, independence, single life, world ·Tagged IBM
I am always surprised at how late the sun is these days. For some reason I am having a hard time sleeping and I toss and turn until about 3:30 AM at which point I go to sleep. When Rosie wakes me at 6:30 it seems way too soon to be getting out of bed as the sky is still dark and there are no bird sounds whatsoever.This morning was no exception. I feel like staying in bed and I wonder why I am even making the effort to drive to Painted Post. What sort of “Eureka!” moment am I hoping for? An explanation for my life, I think, and this is why I reach for a new watch to wear during my expedition. I carefully remove my very chic watch and strap on my Timex Expedition. I am smiling as I do this. Isn’t it great I have found this watch in my closet? It must be a sign I am doing the right thing.Signs are important in our family. My Grandfather took it as a sign he should never drink alcohol again after his horse and buggy with his samples in it was stolen outside of a tavern where he was celebrating a sale. He took it as another sign he should never fly after the plane his family was going to fly in at a county fair crashed. They had decided at the last minute to get ice cream and had given up their turn. My grandparents always took ocean liners to Europe and my grandfather never flew again. My father had a lot of signs as well. Once when we were on a deserted island in Maine my father became convinced he had heard the voice of a woman calling out to him. He had all of us searching the island for the invisible voice in order to find the source. When no one was found he remained convinced it was something from another world. I think it was . There is a lot of psychic energy running through our group! I have often dreamed about events in future and not been surprised when they happen. sometimes I see information in my head as if I am watching a film when I work on a client.I am pretty much right on most of the time.
I think the Mormons are right to send their young church members on a mission in the world. I should have been sent to Painter Post years ago. Maybe along the highway I would have seen a sign directing me to the right future. Maybe a farmer’s market in western New York state would have brought me a vision as to what I should be doing or knowing. It is interesting in life how most of us don’t get the chance to try anything new. Most of us have to go to work in the same job daily which we are grateful for particularly today. Most of us stay married to the same person and have children and grandchildren along the way. Life is like the concentric circles written about with patterns happening in lives that spread in the same pattern out into the world: ripples from a stone thrown into a still pond. My life has been about throwing stones into different ponds and creating new circles in each one. This isn’t good or bad, just the truth. Yesterday I was having lunch with a friend and I remarked that my life was pretty much ready for me to shape it again as I wouldn’t have grandchildren to enjoy for a few years and I was lucky enough to have the freedom to do whatever I wanted.
Some people think I am spoiled when they read something like this. I think I am spoiled in material resources, but I would protest I am not spoiled in my belief system.
In our family we learned early on we were supposed to sing for our supper and “leave every campsite better than we found it.” We also learned that “It’s hard but it”s fair” and “When the going gets tough, the tough get going”.My father’s favorite book was “Cheaper by the Dozen” and he believed that negotiating a better price for six children for almost anything was the highlight of his day. I read recently in the new book about my family my mother persuaded my father early on in their marriage practical jokes were not a good idea. This is not a true statement as I could recount many practical jokes my father enjoyed during our lives. His favorite holiday was Halloween as it meant he could resurrect an old bear costume that must have lived in mothballs in our attic for years. Even though we knew it was him under all that fur we always screamed in terror when he jumped out from behind a curtain in our breakfast room. Never content with just one jump. he would go back behind the curtain numerous times until he collapsed in laughter on the floor. I think we thought this behavior was somewhat strange but acceptable as it wasn’t unusual. My parent’s generation was always having costume parties and loved dressing up.Once my mother invented a game for her dinner party where she paired off each guest with someone they were not married to. She gave the couple a paper bag with some material, straight pins, and a pair of scissors, instructing them they had 30 minutes for the man to design a costume on the woman. Unfortunately the housekeeper quit the next morning as she had overheard one man saying to his partner she must remove her dress or her couldn’t be really creative.
Another friend of my parents had a baby party and all the guests arrived dressed as babies. They entered the house via a children’s slide which had been moved to the front door and drank martinis from baby bottles. By the end of the night I think the hosts wished for a group of babysitters to arrive and straighten things out. Anyway I think my parent’s generation had more fun that the generations since. I say lets revive these traditions and fill up our costume closets!
It’s only 8:27 here and I have to wait until 10:00 AM to leave on my trip as my camera is broken and I need one to document all of my adventure up north. And that reminds me…why in the world did my Dad love Charlie Chaplin so much? We saw every single film of his and many, many times over. My father loved films and had a closet turned into a film room which had a projection window made of glass enabling the projector to shine the film through the window while the audience couldn’t hear the rustle of the projector .We sat on the floor of our living room and watched these silent films for what seemed like hours. Sometimes we watched family films where my mother was always the star with her lovely face and glamorous gestures. My mother had been a model before she married my father and she had no money. She had three blind dates in her life and ended up marrying the third. The first two were with Jimmy Stewart and Jack Kennedy. She had a bit part in a film in Hollywood when she was 20 called “Vogues of 1938″ and my father destroyed the copy of the film after they married as he was a jealous man! My mother loved to tell the story of her return from Hollywood where she had been paid $1000.00 in cash for her movie appearance. She jumped on her bed throwing all the cash around her and felt very rich and happy. The next day she came down with appendicitis and had to use the money for an operation. My mother had a great attitude in life and seemed to enjoy herself no matter what was happening.
Time to finish packing .
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October 12, 2009 at 9:42 pm
· Filed under family, fun, independence ·Tagged IBM
I wonder what to bring on my great adventure so I think about what I have packed in the past when I wanted to find an answer. I never travel with a lot of stuff as when we were little we went all over the world and we always kept track of our own stuff. Sometimes we were given stuff to carry home in addition to our own suitcase. Once when we were returning on a chartered bargain flight from Switzerland my Dad gave me a painting to carry through airports and find places for on our various flights. The painting was about 4 feet by 5 feet and very unwieldly for an eight year old. I remember how hard to was to hold and carry and how the stewardess helped me find a place to store it on the plane. The flight had to make several unscheduled stops as it was an old plane that kept breaking down. I think we were in Newfoundland for three days. I kept the painting in my room with my sisters. I remember one sister had a large cowbell to watch over and the other, an alpine horn. Alpine horns are very long horns but can be broken down into six foot segments.I don’t remember complaining or hearing anyone else complain.
Anyway back to Painted Post and what to pack. ..Evidently my grandfather was born in East Campbell and when he was old and becoming more nostalgic he purchased his old family farm and turned it into a retreat place for religious groups. I found it on the internet. Isn’t it interesting no one in my family seems to know about this place? It is as if the Watson family disappeared with the death of my father and this is because there is no legacy.There is no legacy because no one in my family believed there was anything to leave a legacy for in the first place. Both my grandfather and my father thought their lives would be forgotten in the blink of an eye as neither saw their imprint on the earth. I think they were busy running the company and their families and didn’t contemplate the future. I find this amazing but I suffer from the same belief. I remember being in high school and noticing all the clocks in the school were IBM clocks and thinking my father must have given them to the school It took me years to realize that the IBM cash registers in the supermarket in our hometown were not donated but standard in most stores across the county. Everyone in Greenwich was a company family to one extent or another and none of us felt we were in any way different. I think in todays’ world the difference is famous parents live a much bigger life in Greenwich than they used to and this appears to be true all over the world. Our parents believed that you kept a low profile and bought one pair of new shoes once a year. I won’t even begin to tell you about the size of my shoe closet now as a result of childhood deprivation!
I also think you want to leave a legacy if you have had a joyful life. As I mention previously in this blog, my father and grandfather did not experience this. I am packing a coffee maker as I think I will need a few cups of Starbucks to clear my head after I see the family farm. No doubt it will make me sad, but maybe it will make me happy. Maybe there will be a connection in my brain and a stirring in my heart. Maybe I will see a reason why hard work and obsession breed unhappiness and why sometimes, only sometimes, they do not.
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