News on the Work Front

Posted on February 3, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

This is just a little news update.  It appears that I may very well be finished with patient care by the end of the month.  I cannot believe how quickly this has all happened since the June retreat.  How I suddenly realized I didn’t want to pursue the DPT after all.  How I rummaged around in the back of my psychic closet, put on the clothes of the philosopher/writer that I hadn’t worn in 30 years – and discovered that they still fit, and are suddenly fashionable again.

It’s not a good idea to quit my day job, but after my week in August with Al and a cabin in the Oregon pines and a creek that couldn’t stop yammering on about the meaning of life outside the door, I saw myself plopping myself in front of one of the nice ladies at work and begging for something else to do, desperately spitting out my education background and writing and speaking skills within a minute and a half.  I couldn’t take the stress of patient care much longer.  I heard her say “Your timing is good, we need someone with rehab background in quality improvement department with all the Medicare changes coming in 2011.”  I found my clinical supervisor truly sorry at the prospect of losing me as a field clinician but fully supportive of me moving somewhere else in the company.

Now it is early 2011.  The new role is beginning.  The clinical supervisor and the area director urge me to “just say no” to patient care, to cut the cord, to jump on this opportunity to make a difference in the company, to use other skills (my old skills?), to realize the vision of making the changes easier for my fellow therapists to handle.  The area director is saying they need to develop a rehab supervisor position.  There is, in other words, plenty for me to do outside the realm of patient care.  The people in the administration of this company are so real, so down to earth and very smart.  They value their employees and understand that taking care of the employees means consistent success and loyalty across the board.  Even today when I talked to my clinical supervisor about the probability that I would not be treating patients, she gave me a huge smile and said “Now you go make it happen – they need you and it’s long overdue to  have a rehab person in there.”  No guilt.  No disappointment. Only joy for my good fortune and good timing.

A long talk with my husband finds the same support.  Even if I make a little less money while this all gets geared up, the goal is for me to be less stressed so I can pursue my other callings and battery re-chargers: writing, quilting, singing, and still and always and forever the most important calling and the one with the highest return on investment:

mothering.

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Black Rock Addendum

Posted on February 3, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Addendum 2/2/11:  The problem I have with poetry is that I keep it in my head and edit it all day driving around at work.  Today it has been bugging me that this didn’t have the same magical with a touch of creature features tone that the first narrative blog had.  In other words, a little too serious.  Oh well, that’s what writing class is for – to second guess yourself into the Friends of the Library monthly book sale…

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Black Rock

Posted on February 2, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Months ago I wrote Night Swimming – about skinny dipping back in New York at a place we weren’t supposed to be.  For the writing class – we have several choices of things to write each module – I chose to write a poem about something that happened to me from the point of view of a third person.  So I re-wrote the Night Swimming story as a poem.  Enjoy.

Black Rock

The station wagon rumbled along the dirt road

trespassing through the dense woods

neither moonlight nor headlights guiding it to the shore

the surface of the lake black ice on that muggy night

silently slipping into the scary void

naked young bodies taunting the unknown lurking below

stifling the noise of complicit fear

listening for approaching authority

and breaking all the rules

 

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Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation

Posted on February 2, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Here in San Francisco we have a thing on a local radio station called 10 at 10 – 10 Great Songs from One Great Year.  It is played every day at 10 a.m.  It’s a lot of fun, not only because they pull out some top hits that still get played as quintessential examples of a time period, but also they dig up some one hit wonders or songs that were popular but aren’t considered worth hearing much.  “Winchester Cathedral” from somewhere in the depths of the mid-60’s comes to mind as an example.

A local friend has taken to texting me when a particularly good set is playing, and because I’m often driving around at that time of day I am often sharing the fun memories that such music evokes.  We have been friends for a very long time, so the 70’s are a time period we get a kick out of.  I am particularly fond of songs of the summers in the 70’s.  I was in high school and college – just beginning to feel the freedom of young adulthood.

It is so interesting how music can take us back – make us see and hear and feel things long forgotten.  “Benny and the Jets” – a hot summer night in Milwaukee in a pub on the East Side – not a care in the world, and feeling independent, my first summer away from home in the summer of ’75.  “Saturday in the Park”, driving to my first job at Wieboldt’s department store the summer of ’71, again a feeling of freedom that only a song could make me feel again.  “Smoke on the Water” the collegiate year I went to Lake Geneva for the fourth of July with Tony and Vince – free, free, free.  “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” – riding my bike to the Coliseum in Milwaukee to sit outside and maybe catch an earful of the Pink Floyd concert (it started to rain – pour – and word had it most of the visual electrical part of the show could not be performed).  “Ball of Confusion” – perfect anthem for the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school.

Each day on 10 at 10 the fans vote for Best of Set.  Today was 1973.  The song I am going to link to was a favorite of mine and it’s innocence mirrors exactly where I was that year – one year into college, part woman, part girl, beginning to learn life’s hard lessons but my protective shell not brittle enough to look down my sophisticated nose at such a sweet song.  Hearing it today brought me to a place I haven’t been in a long time.  A warm summer day in the Midwest, in love (I always was with someone) and romantic as hell.

Where were you?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJdkCs5RdQg&feature=related

 

 

 

 

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The Dangers of Writing Class

Posted on January 31, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

First of all, I dropped into a Barnes and Noble today to find a nice new journal book with which to follow the directions in the class I’m taking.  To jot stuff down all the time, blah blah blah.  This is already way too rigid for me.  But I’m trying to follow the rules if for no other reason than I might actually learn something.

What I discovered at Barnes and Noble is that it is a good place to visit when I start to think I’m a good writer with a hefty advance in my future or it becomes too much like work.  Just as in Quo Vadis when the emperor’s servant whispers “remember, thou art only a man” as the emperor is parading through the streets, the stacks of books at Barnes and Noble seem to whisper “Remember, thou art only a drop in the bucket of writers who make up the literate world.  So write for enjoyment, write for enjoyment, write for enjoyment.”  I have decided it is a good place to go if I get too stressed.  It makes the idea of actually being known for something I’ve written seem downright absurd.

Writing class is a riot.  We started out with imagery, so I wrote the thing on the bumper sticker.  We are supposed to comment on each other’s works and I already have a few people I hate in my class.  Not because they commented on my work, but because of the way they did it.  I am probably going to be hated because I refuse to take it too seriously.  I also take with a grain of salt (damn, a cliche, gotta avoid those) the suggestions of other people who, like me, are in a class to learn how to write.  Don’t get me wrong.  Some suggestions were right on and wonderful and validated my own criticisms of my work.  It was clear others wanted me to write it their way!  Those I will certainly ignore.  Write your own damn book.

The other danger is that I will stop doing what I am doing here – writing in this blog every day.  My son Jeff told me he hadn’t visited recently because I had stopped writing every day.  OK.  I’m back.  I promise to write every day if it kills me, and it will just be this nonsense that you all love so much.  If nothing else this class has already taught me that I don’t think I want to write the Great American Novel.  Too much work.  This is much more fun.   I think my future lies in telling stories about real life, my family life, my PT life, my life life. Nevertheless, I will continue with this writing program for a number of reasons.  I just think I should keep this blog down and dirty and honest and unstructured.  Keepin’ it real.  I will certainly throw my writing assignments in here now and again, but this is, after all, Favorite Philosopher’s blog and I don’t need no stinkin’ writing class to teach me how to do that…

 

 

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Guilty Pleasure: Ed the Dog

Posted on January 28, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

After George died, and we brought the wild man Ed the Dog home, we agreed he wouldn’t be allowed on the bed or furniture, as we had been sucked into that with George as a puppy.  Unfortunately George the Puppy turned into George the Horse.  He took up three quarters of the couch when he would lumber up there.  As far as the bed was concerned, there were two schools of thought on this.

I loved it.  In those days I was not working and after dropping the kids off at school on a rainy day there was nothing more seductive than hopping back into bed.  George would take the cue and rearrange himself to snuggle close to me, often “spooning” in the crook of my knees.

Animals really know how to sleep – cats, dogs, you name it.  They have no worries to keep them pacing in their heads, wondering what to do about the patient tomorrow or how they are going to be at two places at once over the weekend.  They fall asleep.  They sleep.  Deep hypnotic sleep.  I find it relaxing just to watch them sometimes! George was the king of sleep.  He didn’t get much during the summer when the boys were home, playing was the main event.  We would laugh that when winter came it was “dog law” that he would have to sleep twenty FIVE hours a day.  He was happy to oblige, and when his body would become one with the bed on those rainy mornings, I would find my body melting as well. In the silent vacuum created when three noisy boys, backpacks flying, shoes barely on, would leave for school, we would sleep a long healing sleep.

Al did not like George on the bed.  I had to agree after he passed away that it was nice not to have to wake up in the middle of the night to move what essentially was a 60 pound bag of cement on my feet.  Dogs (and cats, for that matter) do not give up their sleep space easily.  I guess it’s something from the wild, but once they’ve claimed their territory, you have to assert full owner control to get them to move.  So.  We decided no Ed on the bed.

Ed the Dog is a bit more hyper.  He sleeps, all right, but more often than not he is sitting next to us wherever we may be, sometimes actually sitting ON our feet, apparently worried about something in his unknown puppyhood. In six years we have not been able to relieve his neurosis with all the food and love a doggie could want.

When Al was gone working so much a few years ago, I was alone in the house, and I got into the habit of cuddling with Ed on the couch and watching TV until I was sleepy enough to go to my own bed and not hear ghosts and burglars.  Ed was still not allowed on the bed, but I gave in to the couch – I was lonely and cold, and he was cuddly and sweet – my own personal heating pad stuffed animal.  I dare you to resist such a remedy.

Al is so good natured.  When his stint of major travel time ended he began to joke with me “What’s he doing on the couch?  He’s not supposed to be there.”  They have a hilarious running battle now, and although Ed “knows” when Al walks in he might as well rouse himself and move, sometimes even Al can’t resist.  When Ed starts his snoring and the fire in the fireplace is warming the room and Al is reading the paper, I can get him to sometimes admit by his facial expression that it’s nice to have a warm puppy curled up next to you.

Al is home more now, and Ed took his rightful place again, but sometimes just for old times’ sake I lie down on the couch and cuddle up, fighting with Ed for blankets and position.  I grab the remote and play channel roulette until I fall asleep with my natural heating pad.

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Guilty Pleasures

Posted on January 25, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

If you can all hang in there with me, I’m supposed to be writing in my “journal” regularly, and there are prompts for that in this writing class, so I figure this is as good a place as any to do so.  One tactic is to write lists, which I can see is not a bad idea – eventual fodder for my great american novel.  I decided to list my guilty pleasures.  Then we’re supposed to choose one and write a paragraph about it.  That will be next. As a matter of fact if you are reading this and would like to know more about one of these, drop a comment and I’ll make it a priority to write about that. But for now (drum roll please):

Watching court TV shows (I certainly need a paragraph to explain myself on that one, huh…)

Going back for a second bowl of ice cream

Lying on the couch cuddled up with Ed the Dog playing channel roulette

Starbuck’s Mocha Frappucino Light – especially guilty because it costs money and I can make it at home

Looking at the celebrity awards show photos on the internet

Reese’s Peanut Butter anything

Staying in bed too long in the morning

Popcorn for dinner

Buying fabric for quilts I may never get around to making

Eating an entire can of olives or container of deli kalamatas yum

Buying impulse items at the office supply store

Boy that’s all I can think of?  There must be more!

 

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Writing Class

Posted on January 23, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Our first assignment is about imagery.  We are to take a bumper sticker we’ve seen, describe the car, the person, what we find in the car etc. etc.  Here goes, for your reading pleasure, my first (since high school) creative writing endeavor!

I’m Married….Not Dead

I see the bumper sticker on the parked car and laugh out loud: “I’m Married…not Dead.”  There are other bumper stickers on the car – “Hungry? Eat an Environmentalist!” and “Hang Up and Drive!” and “I’d Rather Be Workin’ on the Railroad” plastered haphazardly on the back bumper of a sky blue 1966 Plymouth Valiant.  The paint on the roof is chipping off revealing the gunmetal gray undercoat, and the hood of the trunk looks like it was used as a place to vent one’s frustrations with a baseball bat.  From the shelf inside the back windshield, a bedraggled white stuffed dog with one eye missing is staring at me and smiling despite his ratty condition and lifetime spent incarcerated in the back of the Valiant.

My folks had a car like this when I was a kid and before I can stop myself I have opened the unlocked door to peek in for a nostalgic journey.  I am immediately set back by the smell of one of those pine scented cardboard Christmas trees, which is trying to and only partially succeeding in masking the smell of dog hair and cigarettes and mildew.  The driver’s side of the bench seat is covered with a green bath towel, duct taped in place on the sides and back and on the driver’s seat itself is home to a worn brown corduroy pillow with indentations that indicate it has been there for a long time. Just as I remembered, there is the little button on the floor next to the brake and when you clicked it with your foot the brights would go on.  There are little triangular “vent” windows that you could open if you wanted just a little air.

The passenger’s side is occupied by several stacks of old Model Railroader magazines,  tightly tied with string, that appear as if they are about to topple.  The dashboard, cracked from the sun, is a storage space for several years’ accumulation of dust and grime, a pair of sunglasses,  four half-full cigarette packs, a dancing Hula doll, a map of Contra Costa county, several faded  Safeway receipts and a dirty comb.  The windshield has a clear spot in the driver’s field of vision that is framed by the blue smoke film on the rest of the glass. I can’t help but notice that hanging by a ribbon from the rear view mirror is a fresh color photograph of a man and woman snuggled close to each other, wearing huge giggling smiles as if the photographer has said something very funny.  They are dressed in shorts and tees and, posed in front of a limousine,  are raising their margarita glasses to the sky.

Across the parking lot  I see a tall man, wearing a light green dress shirt unbuttoned at the top, dark blue jeans and clean athletic shoes, coming towards the car carrying a sack from Trader Joe’s and a bunch of three monster sized sunflowers wrapped in cellophane with a bow.   He is rushing towards the car, his full head of fluffy hair bouncing in rhythm as he walks. I quickly try to determine his age, but it is difficult as his snow white hair does not match his erect posture, although there does seem to be a bit of a limp in his left leg.  Sixty? Eighty? I couldn’t tell. .One things that’s clear is that it is his car I’m checking out.  It is too late for me to close the door and walk away, so I just step back a few steps, wondering how I am going to explain myself.

He looks puzzled and suspicious as he approaches me and says, “Hey, sweetie, whatcha doin’ there?”   I mumble something about thinking it was a real dog in the back window and wanting to see if it was okay.  He hesitates and then he looks down at the ground, begins a low laugh and shakes his head.  As he looks back up at me and I can see the deep wrinkles around his eyes, his forehead is a mass of horizontal furrows,  his eyebrows are scraggly and unkempt and his eyes are watery and rimmed in red.  The corners of his smile radiate out into several dimples of increasing size until they disappear into cheeks that resemble pizza dough sliding down to his jaw line.  It is impossible to ignore his huge sagging ears from which are sprouting hairs that appear to have been transplanted from his eyebrows.  From this close proximity I can tell that he is not a young man anymore, at least 75 or 80.  He smells like Old Spice and coffee, and as I move aside from the open door he gently places the flowers on top of the magazines and places the grocery bag over the back of the seat and onto the floor of the car.  “What were you really looking for?” he asks, turning around to look right into my eyes.  For a moment his eyes have stopped being friendly, and I am unnerved.

I feel silly saying I just wanted to look inside, and never consider that the second story I make up would sound sillier.   “I always wanted one of those dancing Hula dolls and to be honest I intended to snatch it off the dashboard and be on my way.  I’m sorry.  It was stupid.”  The hula dancer really does her thing as he wiggles her back and forth to release the suction, and when she is finally it is released from the dashboard he hands her to me. “Here ya go, no charge.  It cost me a whole ten cents at a garage sale and I’ve had my fun with it.  But you know, you really shouldn’t go snooping through people’s cars.”  His smile is gone completely now.

The photograph swings a bit with all the commotion.  By now I know it is a photo of the man. I’m curious to know who the woman is and where they are, but mostly I want to change the subject.  I mention that the photo is nice, where was it taken?  He softens a bit tells me it was taken just a month earlier in  Monterey, where he and his wife celebrated their fifty-second wedding anniversary.  The trip was a gift from their three children, and it included the limousine and a weekend at a bed and breakfast.  “We had a great time, and now my wife is back in Denver where she lives.”  I must have looked confused and he continues as if he is tired of explaining this again. “I live in Walnut Creek  – I like both the ocean and the mountains, and she just likes the mountains and wants to be near the grandchildren.  I have lived here all my life and my small scale railroad buddies keep me young.  So we just travel back and forth, see each other at least 6 times a year.  It works for us.  Do you live around here?”

Right about then is when I notice the nose of a jet black Walther .22 sticking out from under a pillow in the back seat, and decide it may not be a wise idea to answer any personal questions.  I tell him I live in San Francisco and now I am late for my BART, so I thank him for the hula doll, apologize again for trying to steal it, and walk away quickly with an uneasy sense that although he was nice about it, it could have ended quite differently…he is right, I should not snoop around in other people’s cars.  I am married and not dead and want to keep it that way.

I put the hula doll in my purse and walk towards the BART station.  At the corner I push the button for the walk light and as I glance back towards the car,  I feel my face go numb and panic surge through my body – he is standing on the sidewalk, looking right at me, with the gun in his hand.

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Albuquerque

Posted on January 22, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

Why does it seem to happen this way?  I wait for months for a conference and on the flight to Albuquerque the unmistakable fullness of the throat combined with a bit of scratchiness heralded the start of a cold.  I arrived at Bethany’s and she, too, had broken out with a bug that day.  What a pair we were.   I thought I was doing okay but by yesterday afternoon it was clear I was in the thick of it.  Last night I got very little sleep, coughing and dealing with the parched mouth of a person who can’t breathe through her nose, and had to drag myself through the talks today.   Quite disappointing, as I was unable to talk to my  table mates – no voice – and it felt neither comfortable nor appropriate to join anyone for lunch to discuss the ideas we were sharing lest I infect them all.

At any rate, the conference subject was Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey. The speakers were Richard Rohr, OFM, Ron Rolheiser OMI and Edwina Gateley.  I will leave it to you to dig into the internet to learn their backgrounds.  The talks were inspiring and exactly what I had hoped for as I continue my gradual goodbye to my physical therapy career and walk a different path.

The gist of it is this: the first “half” of our life is based on doing and getting – security, families, stuff, prestige, careers.   Rolheiser calls this essential discipleship.  Then we experience transition in generative discipleship – the desire for and struggle against giving our lives away.  We may become bored, restless despite our comfort and the fact that the struggles of youth are behind us.  How do we react?

Wellll…there’s the old “midlife crisis.”  Or resentment of the life we’ve created.  There may be joylessness.  It is a time of life when many of us say “What’s next?  Why am I here? What’s it all about?”  Those of us who ask those questions are doomed to either face those questions head on and move forward to “radical discipleship” or fail to fulfill God’s purpose for us here on earth.

Our choices then, in a nutshell: we can become the pathetic old fool – having your plastic surgeon on the speed dial, or dumping your wife for a 23 year old cheerleader, for example.  Or perhaps you will become the embittered old fool, nurturing the anger and resentment that your life didn’t turn out the way you planned, or maybe you wasted your life with addictions that prevented you from building anything worthwhile in that first part of life.

Or.  Radical discipleship. You may seek to become the “holy old fool.”  Holy here does not mean religious. It means wisdom.  It means being quieter, so that you can hear the inner stirrings of God in your heart. It means being ready and content when life winds down and it is time to go, and leaving your family and those you’ve loved in your life with that legacy.  It means understanding at the moment of death that “belonging to the system” doesn’t matter. We came from God, we return to God.

Obviously I cannot possibly summarize 6 hours of lecture by three world renowned speakers/thinkers on this subject in my meager blog, but I can tell you this.  Over and over again I was affirmed.   When the question that was asked in the silent retreat in June “why are you here?” the instant answer was “to share my wisdom.” I say that I answered that question, but truly it was answered by a power much larger than me, which is why I probably still feel uncomfortable with it.  Who am I to think I have wisdom to share?  Well, actually I don’t think I have wisdom to share.  The “somebody up there” who loves me thinks so.

I acceded that I am someone who has struggled with faith in dark times.  I have struggled with motherhood, through no fault of the people I was mothering, I have struggled with marriage, through no fault of the person who shares my life, I have struggled with depression which colored all of the above.  And…here’s the thing…I have come out the other side for the most part stronger, happier, and more in touch with the Ultimate Reality, God or whatever you would like to call it because of those dark times.

That concept, that adversity can bring us to wholeness with God, that has been stated in many ways over the centuries by mystics of every major world religion, nevertheless must continue to be spoken by any of us who have the words, especially in this day and age when it seems like we are stuck – as cultures, as nations – in the “it’s all about me, my religion, my political beliefs, my lifestyle.”

This will not happen tomorrow.  I have absolutely no clue as to how I will mesh the first part of my life with the second.  I know that the writing is a start – but will the years of looking into the eyes of people who struggle with illness and impending death be enough?  Will having struggled with marriage and motherhood be enough?  Will I need to move out of my comfort zone for the flower to bloom?  Do I need to acknowledge that desire, which has dogged me for years, to go on a medical mission, and which I now think I am “too old” for? (Please, God, I don’t want to do that!!!!  I like my warm bed, my Diet Cokes!!!!  Ed the Dog!!!!!)

I don’t know.  I only know I continue to put one foot in front of the other now.  The conference was, indeed, “just in time” for me, because without my even realizing it and definitely without my consent, I was called to begin my further journey last year.   What’s your further journey?

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Yes, Officer

Posted on January 19, 2011 by favoritephilosopher

I have been putting off admitting this, because whenever you get a ticket from a peace officer it’s a drag.  But this…this is so…so…so…  I had my phone on speaker.  My friend  said “I can’t hear you” – so I took it off speaker to tell her I was going to pull over.  Here was my big error.  I kept talking while I turned a corner, turned another corner into a bank parking lot and parked – a matter of about 30 seconds.

Looking in my rear view mirror, the paranoia struck deep as the old song used to say.  What had I done?  Oh duh, I’m STILL talking on the phone.  “Grace, I’m getting a ticket for talking on my cell phone, bye” click.  No mercy from the handsome young cop old enough to be my son and he should be ashamed of himself for picking on an old lady like that.  The worst was I couldn’t seem to find proof of insurance, except my AAA card and a “call anytime” card with the insurance number on it.  He didn’t give me a ticket for that (and now my purse is in chaos from ripping through it looking for something, anything) but I was busted for the cell phone.

I hear the fines are brutal – the DMV site says $20 for first offense $50 for second but guess what, in these days of government needing to suck every dime out of us so they can give money to people who study the effect of Cuddly Dudley on the psyche of American children in the 1960’s, the “add on” fees usually rack the ticket up to over $100.  I’m holding my breath.  Some folks have  paid close to $200.

Cost of Bluetooth: In my case, nothing because I found out Al had an unused one lying around.  Score another point for the importance of communication in a marriage.

Cost of Ticket: Anywhere from $100-$200.

Getting to connect with lovely Grace, who is my massage therapist and with whom I trade massages on a monthly basis (we have been baaaaad about that in recent months) and with whom I scheduled a date after the ticket fiasco: Priceless.

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