Laser Tag

Posted on August 6, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

Years ago it was popular to play laser tag.  I have no idea if it is still popular now, but fifteen years ago you could buy laser tag sets at the toy stores.  It was comprised of a “laser” gun and a chest shield.  I never understood how it worked, but if you hit the target of the other guy’s chest shield with your laser beam, it would make a noise and you’d know he was “hit.”  This all involved a lot of red lights blinking and lots of noise.  The general sound was very outer spacey, and it was fun and funny to play.  We somehow ended up with five of them, so one night Al and I decided to play with the boys.  Us against them.  The lights in the house went dark and it was on.  George the Dog was young and he was in the fray, lots of running back and forth, hiding behind doors, jumping out at each other, Al and I laughing like children as we tried to escape the tribe that outnumbered us. 

Suddenly Al and I found ourselves in the living room, alone.  The boys were upstairs planning their attack, we could hear them up there, whispering how they would ambush us.  Al grabbed me and we started to kiss as if we were oblivious to their sneaking down the hallway, and with great enthusiasm they finished us off.

I remember that night fondly, because raising children can so often get bogged down by duty and the heaviness of being a parent – do the homework, put the shoes on, tidy the room, help in the kitchen, for God’s sake be quiet for five minutes.  I remember feeling very warm and wonderful that night, kissing my husband in the dark living room, having our kids witness it, letting them “win” against us – I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect antidote to the stresses of those years.  I always wanted to play again, but it never did happen a second time.  The laser tag components were loaned out and not returned, we never replaced them, the time for such play melted into the past.   It was just one of those spontaneous  evenings that made being the Mom worth it, now that I look back.

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The Game of Life

Posted on August 5, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

Since I have not completed my report on the retreat, I’m jumping ahead a bit here.  However, one of the things that happened there was that I was asked to reflect on why I’m here at all.  We each must answer that question for ourselves, of course.    For me the hardest part was to place value on my life without feeling proud or arrogant.  To say what I really feel are my gifts seems somehow so lacking in humility.  However, I forged ahead and answered anyway, holding up a shield for the tomatoes that would surely come hurling through the air my way for even thinking about what my contributions to the continuance of humanity might be.

My first thought, having had dinner on several recent occasions with young women in their twenties, was to pass on my wisdom, especially about marriage, which is what they tend to ask me about.  Hard fought, perhaps I could spare them some tears.  There are many ways I could do this.  Writing just popped out at me as the first way – thus this blog and just getting started on the computer keyboard.

What did NOT come up for my reason for being here was something I have dedicated most of my adult life to: physical therapy.  I have helped hundreds of people along the way and my philosophy degree was part and parcel of making me be able to touch souls as I healed bodies.  To say I am holistic in my interactions with my patients is an understatement.  For many years it was my passion.  However, lately whether because I’m getting older, because the profession is changing, or whether I’m just tired of doing it,  I’ve been coming to grips with this loss of true passion for my profession. This is pertinent because last year I started the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at Rosalind Franklin University, my physical therapy alma mater.  The material has been interesting, certainly I have learned a lot, but I just can’t quite wrap my head around why I am doing it at all.  When I see myself in the future, I do not see myself walking through any of the doors that getting that degree would open for me.

At the retreat I found myself delving back into my first loves: philosophy and theology.  I brought a stack of books with me and read and wrote voraciously much of the time I was in retreat.  I walked out of the retreat house knowing that I would not finish the program.  After a few days I decided it would be prudent to simply take a leave of absence and think about it.

The first thing I did as I drove away from the retreat, was to call an acquaintance, Christoph, who had recently taken on a new career as “life coach.”  Now, I will in all honesty admit that when he had approached me for a free trial months back I politely demurred.  Cmon, “life coach?”  Get serious.  When I drove away from that retreat, though, something just said “call him.”  In the 6 weeks that I have been meeting him I must say he has helped me tremendously.  I have listed life-diminishing habits I want to change and life-giving habits I want to incorporate into my life.  Slowly I am feeling more in control of my life.   It’s been nice – I am exercising every day, I am playing piano almost every day, making time for silence, and of course, writing.

Today we tackled the subject of finishing the DPT.  The conversation that ensued was mind boggling to me.  We waded through all the things I love to do – write, sing, quilt, general home-makey kinds of things.  The conversation turned to music and suddenly memories came rushing back to me of a desire that was squashed in it’s infancy.

When I was at Marquette, I didn’t know what I really wanted to do.  I went to the career center and took some tests that measured, I guess, inner desires or penchants for one thing or another.  The results came back with this: music.  The counselor recommended I look into it a bit more.  I made an appointment at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music.  I was excited to be looking into it – I loved to play the piano, I wanted to learn more, and it just sounded so…freeing.

The professor I met with practically laughed me out of the building.  You must understand, I was quite shy in those days, and it took a lot for me as a 17 year old to walk into the building at all, let alone present myself.  I didn’t have enough experience or education under my belt, despite 8 years of piano. I was wasting his time, that was clear.  I left the building convinced that I didn’t have any business pursuing music.  That was that.

Now, I like to live my life with no regrets, but today when Christoph told me how I “light up” when I talk about, for example, singing at a wedding, he encouraged me to revisit that desire.  I wrote it down on the paper, and it was a strange feeling – I had written that down before, long ago.  Perhaps it is time for me to continue a little further along that road – to hone my piano skills, to learn more about music theory, to pick voice lessons back up.   Seeing those words on the page it was almost like looking at my name.

I have been saying for quite some time that I have many fishing lines in the water, as I have so many interests, and am waiting for one to bob up and down telling me there’s a fish on the other end.  Suddenly I find myself picking up those lines, checking if there’s a small fish on there, too small to make the bobber go up and down, but big enough to eat and perhaps to alert me that there are bigger fish down there.  The writing is one thing, the music is another.  Time to reel in the line.  Time to take the line out of the water of physical therapy – that fishing hole has been fished out.It occurred to me today that 30 years have passed since I went to physical therapy school.  If I live to be 85, that means I have another whole adult lifetime to live.  It will still be my “day job” and I still do enjoy it enough, but I believe you are witness to an anguished but blessed decision – to “quit” and yet, to begin.

And as for Christoph, I must say I’m glad I called him as I left the retreat house.  Life coach? Seriously…

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Send Me Up

Posted on August 4, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

When the boys were little I would often lie down with them at bedtime, tell them a story about Little Squirrel who lived in our tree outside, or sing a song.  To be sure, I would also sometimes yell at them to get into bed and stay there.

My son, Andy, always used to say something when he wanted me to tuck him in and stick around for awhile.  He would toddle up to me, index finger in his mouth, the soft edge of “ba-ba” stroking his cheek, and say “Mom, will you send me up?”  I found that so endearing and not just a little spiritual.  Not tuck me in, not help me get to sleep, but “send me up.”   Where was “up?”  Was it what he felt as he was going to sleep?  Did he feel his little self drift away from his body as he drifted off to sleep?  Did he feel the arms of a angel envelop him?  I will never know, but I bet he’s not alone in that feeling while going off to sleep.  Children say it best, everyone knows this…

Posted in Raking the Playroom | 1 Comment

Rainbows Part II

Posted on August 3, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

For the hip young you tubers in my massive audience, you might note that the new header photo is a DOUBLE rainbow!  Wow!  What does that MEAN?????

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Rainbow

Posted on August 3, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

My little poem about rainbows does not express any great truths that have not been expressed before by greater minds than my own and in much more profound ways, but I like it because it was part of the poems I wrote for kids back in the day.  One boring day I asked the kids to pick a poem to draw pictures of and Andy at age 7 drew a picture of it that made it clear he “got it.”   That was the best critical review I’ve ever gotten of something I wrote:

Under the Rainbow’s Bend

Everyone knows of the pot of gold

That sits at the rainbow’s end

But there is also a spot untold

Found under the rainbow’s bend

It is the darkest point on earth

And to get to the treasured place

You must pass through this gloomy ground

Where the sun cannot warm your face 

Anyone who has found the gold

Will tell you it’s worth it to go

So do not fear your time in the dark

Keep your eyes  on the golden glow…

 

Posted in Melancholy | 1 Comment

The Wedding Dress

Posted on August 2, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

From the moment I learned to sew in Home Economics in high school, I knew I would make my wedding dress.  Ladies of today, “Home Ec” was a group of classes that young women took back in the day – we didn’t take woodshop or auto tech, we took classes in home economics – learning how to be a homemaker – classes in things like cooking and sewing.  I loved my sewing home ec.  I made jumpers and dresses – Sunday dresses, homecoming dresses, prom dresses.  They were so easy and so enjoyable.  It was simply never a question whether or not I would  make my wedding dress.  It was assumed I would.

Al and I decided to get married in January of 1982.  He had been offered a job in San Francisco opening the desk on the options exchange for E.F. Hutton.  It was a wonderful opportunity and I told him I would be happy to follow him – if he married me.  He bit haha! Off he went to San Francisco in March while I still had four months of physical therapy school to finish and a wedding to plan and a dress to make.

I went to the best fabric shop in Evanston, Illinois and picked out my material with the assistance of the gentleman who worked there.  There was a bit of a snafu when the sheer material he sold me for the overskirt that was supposedly washable did not survive a soaking of water to remove the sizing  – it wrinkled and no amount of ironing could remove the wrinkles.  I took it back and after a bit of haggling on a busy Saturday morning he gave me my money back.  I found something else at another store that was appropriate. 

Mom and Dad spent the winters in Florida in those days, and I was holding down the fort, so their living room floor became my cutting table.   The dining room table became the sewing station.  My P.T. workspace was relegated to a small card table in the master bedroom.  My dress had a full train, an underskirt with a sheer overskirt, as well as a double layered skirt with netting for fullness.  There was miles of fabric everywhere, on the floor (on white sheets), hanging over chairs, you name it.  Fortunately there were no animals living there.

Evenings when I returned home from the PT internships, I would pull down the shade of the dining room window so as to not be creeped out that someone was looking in at me, and I would toil away, thinking of Al and missing him, dreaming of my wedding day.  Slowly the dress took shape before me.  A friend’s mom helped me fit the bodice even before I cut it out.  All was proceeding according to plan.

Mom and Dad flew home from Florida for a long weekend to help with wedding plans, probably in May.   The dress was ready to try on.  It fit perfectly.  Then the problems surfaced, and the tears and panic set it.  The bodice on the pattern view I had chosen had sheer material above bra line extending to the shoulder seam.  However that view had balloon sleeves and even back then I didn’t need anything “ballooney” accentuating my bosom.   I altered the pattern – or so I thought – so that the balloon sleeves would be straight fitted sleeves.  I tried on the dress.  Beautiful.  My Dad approached me as if to dance at my wedding and…I couldn’t raise my arm even close to shoulder level.  I was an experience seamstress, but not a professional and had failed to consider the difference in the allowance at the shoulders when “altering” my pattern.  Mom calmed me down and we went to the local fabric shop where the lovely owner, despite the fact that I hadn’t bought the fabric there, gently explained what I had done wrong.  There was only one practical answer, really, and that was to go with short sleeves.  I ended up doing that – cute half-cap sleeves like those you might see on a Chinese dress.  They looked darling and the day was saved.  I can’t imagine having anything other than those sleeves now.  I had great arms for an old girl of 28! 

We weren’t done yet, however.  I had lazily skipped a step in hemming the dress.  Why hem it properly when I was just going to sew lace over the edge anyway?  I’ll tell you why.  A dress that has not been hemmed properly will, when the bride pretends she is walking down the aisle across the living room floor, will “sloosh” together and not stand out following her as it should, full and gorgeous.  More tears.  Rip out the lace.  Hem it properly.  Re-sew the lace.  I am here to tell you the hem of a dress with a train is a LOT of ripping, hemming and re-sewing.   Walk across the floor.  Look gorgeous. 

I had the dress “hermetically sealed” at the cleaners.  I took it out years later when I was at the end of my rope with the little boys and Al had a prostate infection that temporarily left him unable to get to the bathroom in time which also left him in a pretty foul mood between that and his seizures.   I had a glass of wine and in a moment of pure desperation, trying to find the bright spot, pulled it out of the sealed box just to try to remind myself what the hell I was thinking 15 years earlier.  It did the trick.  Al was delighted.  He wanted to me to try it on – well, it sorta fit but not really, but it was good enough.  I hung it from the ceiling fan in the living room.  The boys danced around it enthralled.  I was ready for another go-round.

I had it resealed, not an inexpensive endeavor, but it was worth it to see it again.  In fact….

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Night Swimming

Posted on July 31, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

The haunting R.E.M. song “Night Swimming” never fails to move me – I really don’t know the lyrics, except that “night swimming deserves a quiet night.”  It takes me back to a night when I was in my twenties, living in Cornwall, NY, having followed a “bad boyfriend” out there after college.  There were a lot of good times, but I never really fit in, and ended up returning to Illinois.  At any rate, the group I hung out with seemed immune to real life.  Their parents had money, they didn’t seem to do much but party, although they all had menial jobs provided by their parents and their parent’s friends.  None of them had gone to college despite their opportunities, and there was a sense of them looking down at me because although I did have a college degree, here I was no better than they, working minimum wage myself in a little town in the Hudson Valley, an educated fool.   The world was their oyster – they were immune to all the dangers of youth and somehow I thought they knew something I didn’t and so I would be safe. I got involved in some crazy shenanigans with them.  It was okay.  I was exploring my life.  I have no regrets. 

One of the guys in the group had access to the Black Rock Forest.  It was private property owned by Harvard University and because his father had gone to Harvard, he had a key to the gate that let us onto a dirt road that wound through the forest.  A quick Wiki search reveals that it was used for research and although now it appears that it is a little more open to the public, back then it was private property.   I recall feeling rather privileged.  I was impressed that I knew someone, even secondhand, who went to Harvard.  We often snuck in there during the day to wade in the pools and observe the beaver dams.

One dark summer night five or six of us loaded up into a car and headed out for the forest.  I was loathe to break the law, still am, but it was exciting to be sneaking into the Forest at night.  It was pitch black with only a hint of moon, and at one point E turned off the lights of the car while still driving along the dirt road – I was scared and thrilled and begged him to turn the lights back on. 

We arrived at the lake. It was a still, hot night and the lake was an inky glass sheet.  I could not have been more frightened and challenged.  I wasn’t supposed to be there.  They wanted to go swimming.  I was sure that the Hudson Valley equivalent of the Loch Ness monster was waiting for me in that black expanse, or that I would be hauled off to jail by powerful people from Harvard who could have me put away for a lifetime.  

One by one my friends took off their clothes, then slowly my courage rose and I did the same.  The water was not cold, just cool and refreshing.  I was afraid to make noise – what if we got busted? Even my feckless friends spoke in whispers, we kept the splashes of our water treading to a minimum, our giggles muffled, lest some unlikely security personnel hear us.  I was more concerned at that point that we would awaken the fish and slimy critters that surely lived under the creepy black glass cover.

When I hear that song I am taken back to that magical night, when there seemed to be no consequences to doing something not morally wrong, but against the rules.   I see my friends silently slide into the water ahead of me, and then finally,  I am there as well.  Night swimming.

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Labyrinth

Posted on July 30, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

It is really way too late to be writing, it is actually “tomorrow,”  but I know that if I let myself off the hook with the “promise to be back soon” business that it could be weeks before I write again.  So here goes.

This writing comes from the retreat but is not too heavy.  Just before the end of one of the sessions, Sr. Ishpraya gave a few reminders of meditative walking.  To walk with no other purpose than to just be, stopping if something catches your attention, stop and listen to it, not talk to it, but listen to it, to hear the voice of God manifested in earthly glory.  I had learned this on my own on my many trips to Yosemite.   My friend Terri, a practicing Catholic, refers to Yosemite as church, and indeed it is. It is quite easy to see God manifested in everything at Yosemite.

San Damiano retreat’s main building sits on a hillside.  Down a couple of dozen steps you can go to the retreat vegetable garden and pond, and in that setting is the labyrinth.  The path is bordered by stones, there are flowers here and there along the way.  Walking a labyrinth is done slowly, silently, meditatively.  I actually had not done it before and now understand its appeal and popularity on the grounds of many churches.  After lunch, I went down to the labyrinth and was alone for most of my meditation.  When something caught my attention, I stopped and listened.  The ways in which I related these whispers to my own life are probably best left unwritten, but feel free to think about what they might tell you that can be helpful today in your own life.

From the bee: You can go from flower to flower, even from plant to plant as you desire, leaving traces of yourself wherever you go.  Those traces of previous flowers may or may not be beneficial to where you land next.  Many interests and passions can exist in one’s life with equal importance, each enriching and informing the other.

From the flower:  Isn’t it amazing that we are here together today?  I am so beautiful and I’m kind of stuck here in this one spot, but damn I’m gorgeous!  And everyone says so who passes by…I’m very happy to be a flower thank you very much…

From the gentleman who joined me in silence on the path: Two people can be on the same path at the same time, sometimes passing close to each other, and then suddenly as far apart as can possibly be and then just as quickly passing close to each other again.

From the rocks that lined the path: We are the guides.  We don’t move, we seem unimportant, but without us there would be no path.

Good night, or should I say good morning…

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Christmas Cookies

Posted on July 25, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

It was the day before Christmas Eve, 1994.  The boys had reached that moment just before Christmas where children appear that they are going to burst with anticipation.  Despite the fact that we didn’t reinforce it, the idea that Santa won’t bring you presents if you’re naughty permeated the air in the weeks before Christmas.   One year I even had to take Andy aside and reassure him that he HAD been good enough, that Santa WOULD bring him presents.  As Christmas had approached, the more he tried to be good, the more acutely he recognized that he was screwin’ up, and his little meltdowns became more frequent.   He was much happier after our little talk!

That  Christmas Eve-eve, it was cold and foggy and I decided it would be a warm, cozy, old fashioned thing to do to bake cut-out cookies.  When I was a little girl, my Mom taught me how to roll out the dough, dip the cookie cutter into a little pile of flour – I loved the soft powdery feel – then place the cutter on the rolled out dough, press it in and remove it, magically making a little Santa or star or angel.
So I prepared the kitchen – cleared the decks,  made the dough,  pulled out all the cookie cutters, including the ones from my childhood, made one little pile of flour for each of the boys and got ready to roll.  There was only one problem.  Boys don’t do anything gently.  They held the cookie cutters above their heads and slammed them down like little bombs, causing a mushroom cloud of flour to rise.  Too much fun!!!!

I quickly felt intense frustration bordering on anger well up inside of me as my little Christmas card scene turned into a chaotic mess that would be left for me to clean up when the party was over.  I had been conscientious trying not to have meltdowns myself, I was very burned out on being a mom and was rather depressed during that time.  So I excused myself, said I’d be right back, and went into my bedroom where I sat in a little rocking chair and cried. 

Because I was writing little poems in those days, the words came fast and furious and I wrote them down:

Hope

I put on my warmest jacket

and grabbed my flashlight

made sure the batteries were good

and went out looking for Hope 

first I looked in all the obvious places

nearest to home

but Hope was nowhere to be found

not answering my nervous call

I began to search the neighborhood

getting slightly panicked, I admit

I went around the block five times

no luck 

I decided I needed some assistance

called a few friends

all were very concerned about Hope’s whereabouts

and promised to help me find her 

we looked everywhere

questioned where she might have gone first

where she might be now

how we might entice her back

becoming frantic

we started to backtrack

found ourselves covering the same ground

crossing paths too frequently 

we finally gave up

my friends went home brokenhearted

I sat alone in the dark, grieving

not believing she could be gone forever 

I fell asleep

and was awakened by the soft touch

of Hope returned

she was very sweet 

she apologized for not having phoned

to tell me her whereabouts

said she didn’t know I would worry so

and that I should really trust her more

we have a deal now

she will leave me a little note

if she is going to be gone for more than a day

or if she cannot be contacted

and I will not think the worst

if I find her not at home

and will take the opportunity

to just enjoy the quiet desperation

I went back into the kitchen, revived.  I found Hope there, and not only that, but she had brought her good friend Joy with her.  When I walked into the kitchen, it was snowing.  The boys had taken the opportunity to fully appreciate how beautiful flour is.  I grabbed not my flashlight, but my camera, and the photo below is my favorite photo EVER of my sons as they were growing up.  The joy in their faces will forever remind me that I was a good mother, after all.

Posted in Raking the Playroom | 1 Comment

Illegal Naps

Posted on July 25, 2010 by favoritephilosopher

I once told my friend Terri that I had taken a wonderful “illegal nap” that day.  She said “what in the world is an illegal nap?”   Let me enlighten you as I enlightened her.

An illegal nap is a nap that is taken when you don’t have time, have a million other things to do around the house, the stores are open and you have a list of errands, but mostly, and this is what takes it from misdemeanor illegal nap (which is a long nap on a lazy Sunday afternoon) to felony illegal nap: it is taken in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon, and for as long as you like and it must be, according to Mary’s Dictionary of  Alternative Definitions, guilt free. 

An illegal nap is not half an hour in between the morning chores and afternoon errands during which you just gather enough energy to carry on.  An illegal nap starts anytime after noon and must go for at least two hours, preferably three to whenever-you-wake-up hours.  An illegal nap does not end when you wake up and think “I should get up and get moving.”  An illegal nap continues as you happily realize you are runnin’ from the sheriff of How Dare You Take a Nap County and need to keep on sleeping to escape his clutches and get sent to the slammer of cleaning off your desk, doing laundry and getting stuck in Saturday afternoon youth soccer league traffic.  You smile as you roll over and dive back into dreamland. 

I just took one today.  Oh man, there is NOTHING like it.  A regular nap is a duty, like brushing your teeth.  Better take a nap, or I’ll feel tired later.   Not an illegal nap.   It feels like you are getting away with something when in reality you are giving yourself something that just feels deliciously decadent.  An illegal nap feels like a day at the spa…a luxury, rejuvenating, non-essential. 

Mmmmm, I may have to break the law again tomorrow, although being Sunday, it will be a lesser crime…

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