Favorite Philosopher's Blog

Ok first of all. Before you listen to this, if you like homeopathy for whatever reason don’t turn this off because of his first comment regarding homeopathy.  You can do whatever you want and if you think it helps you, more power to you.

Secondly, listen to the WHOLE thing. Put aside your prejudices about everything. Listen to the whole thing with an open mind. Healthcare is broken. It’s on all of
us. None of us are passive participants in this national mess. When you hear him say Bernie is a moron don’t turn it off. Listen to why he says that. Open your mind. Healthcare is broken and needs to be fixed first. Listen to his opinion about the fact that we bomb the shit out of other countries and treat our
own citizens this way. He is not a healthcare apologist. The AMA is part of the problem. Listen to his statement that we have medicalized the problems in our country – (let the children get diabetes from eating McDonalds and then let the doctors figure out how to fix it. Let drugs and homelessness run rampant and then let the healthcare system deal with it.)

My son just graduated from med school and is now in his residency. The process of medical school is beyond grueling and the interview process for residency is just as grueling. He and his wife are lucky. They interviewed at Hahnemann. They ended up staying in Richmond. I know first hand the stress they endured and endure and the PASSION is the reason they do it.  They are, together, $400k in debt. So yeah, they didn’t do it for the fucking money. In the past two months their peers found out where they were going for residence, said goodbye to the lifelong friends they made in med school, uprooted their lives (some with families) to go, with great excitement and anticipation, to the next step in their
medical education. Those who went to
Hahnemann, like my son and his wife, work in the city, not some cushy suburban hospital. But this isn’t about them. The lives of the resident who are learning at Hahnemann, the lives of the staff at Hahnemann, the PEOPLE WHO ARE SERVED by these tireless passionate people are now turned upside down because of PROFIT. It’s so fucking sick I literally feel like throwing up right now. Listen to man.

I started to limit my FB interaction because I was too addicted, really, and it is so very easy to follow a posted story until you’ve read ten stories that had nothing to do with the story you started out being interested in.  There are one or two people – and you know who you are – who post such interesting things it makes it almost impossible to not click it….and we’re off for another half hour.

I wanted to delete my account completely but then I wouldn’t be able to message and I wanted that ability to have a real conversation if I wanted.  That has worked out fairly well and while I have been better about not obsessively checking FB, it is creeping in again.  Why do I have to have such interesting, clever, creative friends. Fie on you all!

Sorry.

Today I was looking for an old blog post about swearing in front of your kids and how it backfired on me.  These days I find myself surrounded by a younger generation who are generating reproductions themselves and the subject has come up of “holy shit, maybe I need to clean up my language before the baby comes.”  Meh.  Not necessarily, my kids turned out ok.

I went down my own rabbit hole of my writing and realized that I hadn’t written much lately, despite my plan to write more on blog versus spend time on FB.  So today is the day I start, ahem, relieving myself.  I will post links here on FB and you can decide for yourself if you dare to glimpse into the deep recesses of my noggin or not.

First stop…the scuba journey.

I have always enjoyed hiking.  When my parents would take us to the mountains I learned the rewards of hiking were many.  Before anyone knew the Grand Tetons existed, before Jackson Hole, Wyoming became a billionaire’s hangout, we’d take our tent and go camping in campgrounds with pit toilets and the occasional bear roaming through.

One hike we went on in the Tetons that became a jewel of a family memory was to Hidden Falls. We’d take a boat ride across the lake and be dropped off at the trail head.  Then we’d hike up; you could hear the falls long before you saw them.  Then suddenly you rounded a bend and there they were. My Dad snapped a photo of ten year old me kneeling down and drinking from the pool.  Yes, I’m that old, kiddos, you used to be able to drink out of streams without sterilizing the water first.  My Dad later painted an oil painting of that photo and it now hangs in my son Andy’s home.

Through the years I hiked a lot.  As an adult I admit I’ve never been a great uphill hiker (or biker for that matter). Al will tell you I’m a bit of a whiner, especially if it is hot,  but it was always worth it.

I’m not sure when it stopped being fun, when the view at the top became not worth it.  Not in Hong Kong, not in Washington State, not anywhere.  Maybe the Grand Canyon trip was the last straw. I could have lived without being one of the 1% of the millions of visitors who get to see the bottom – and then have to walk back up. That was 10 years ago.

This most recent hike with two of my dearest friends may have been the last uphill hike.  I felt bad, I was my usual whiny self  but this time it was different.  There was a sadness because I faced the realization that if I don’t like it so much, I should accept that, and choose easier hikes or stay home,  I asked Al to please remind me of that – I’m always “game” – and then sorry I agreed when I’m dragging my sorry butt up the trail, potentially making everyone uncomfortable.

The good news is there are plenty of flat hikes to be done. I walked 11 miles on Yosemite Valley floor a few years back, and it was wonderful.  I am just hoping that there are long, flat hikes in the woods, not just the visitor center “loop” but real hikes, at least a few miles and back, trails on which I don’t have to constantly be looking down so I don’t trip. Trails on which I’m not wondering how much more.  Trails on which I can look around and hear the birds instead of the voice in my head saying “I should have stayed home.”

This was a tough realization for me, but I guess it’s part of this time of life: determining what’s worth doing, what’s not, where I want to spend my time and energy.  I’m not done with this hike called life, I’m just done climbing difficult peaks that I don’t have to climb.

I’ll be waiting at the bottom with a cool glass of water for my friends, and they can tell me all about it and that will be enough for me.

I’ll be gone in thirty or less years.  But this will remain.

You know back in 1970 it seemed impossible that whales would make a comeback and that yesterday I was able to take visitors out to view these magnificent beasts swimming past our coast. As we wrote letters in biology class the first Earth Day to the companies in Chicago that were spewing out black smoke, we hardly knew that it could make a difference. A mere 40 years later, a friend who grew up in San Clemente says that when she was growing up, seeing Catalina Island a  23 miles away was a rare and exciting occurrence because of the smog. Now we see it daily.  Indeed my parents were in LA for a week back in the day and never even knew the San Bernardino mountains were right there.  So, even though your one straw might not “make a difference,” it’s the awareness that does, over time, change the world.  I truly fear it is too late.  But as Americans we should be leaders towards a better world and as people we should lead in any way we can.

Pleased as punch to say that my cheap Brother sewing machine was dead (the Hamlet costumes took their toll despite her stellar performance on the tough fabrics) and I fixed it!

The motor was seizing.  Of COURSE it was two weeks out of warranty. It was so inexpensive to begin with and not worth the cost of taking it somewhere, I decided to take it apart and see what was up.  A little jiggling, a little oil (new fangled machines you’re supposed to take to a dealer to oil – are you kidding.  I’ve been oiling my Kenmore for 38 years) and she’s as good as new sorta. At least it doesn’t appear I screwed up the computer innards. 

I love fixing things.  I’ve fixed washing machines more than once, microwave oven touch pad replacement, dishwashers, ice makers, don’t even know what else.  No better feeling than finding a part online for $20 and finding the You Tube video that explains what to do and then having the light go on, the switch work, the ice clunking into the glass, the dishwasher stop making that godawful noise.

This, though, fixing my sewing machine is a true moment of joy.

It’s been a weird couple of weeks.  Months really.  When I returned from fall travels I sat down with my piano – just my piano and me – my childhood Chickering spinet upright – and started at the beginning.  I took 8 years of piano as a child and am not too shabby at tickling the ivories and go through spurts where I play a lot and then don’t again for a long time.

I always say my wonderful teacher, Mrs. Maclean, spared me the torture and math of theory.  At least that’s what I thought until I sat down and started at the beginning, just practicing my scales every day.  Playing with the chords in each scale, teaching myself the theory, suddenly tonight I found myself composing sweet little tunes in different keys.  The more I “scribble” the more I find that she did teach it to me in the only way my little insecure girl self could learn it – by playing songs, lots and lots of songs.  And of course the scales.  It’s all in there’s waiting for me to find it.  It’s coming along much more easily than I thought it would.

Mrs, Maclean lived in a big old Victorian farmhouse in  Mundelein, Illinois.  I would walk to her house after school when the weather allowed.  I was very shy and hardly said ‘peep’ when I was there.  When I would walk there after school she would have a cookies and milk snack for me.  I’d sit in that old farmhouse kitchen and not say a word.  I can still see her smiling at me, understanding that I wasn’t being rude.  I was just that shy. (Recitals were agony for me).  The house was always messy, so different from my house where everything was in its place.  I remember when she needed a pencil she could always find one somewhere in her baby grand, which was piled high with music.

I loved it there.  I loved her.  Lest you think this small town teacher was not accomplished – the whole family was comprised of musicians, she and her daughter and  (to me) ancient mother and father would give the parents a reward at the recitals by playing a recital of their own when we were done plunking our way through Baby Elephant Walk and Fur Elise. I can still see their hands, I can see them playing the duets, I can remember wanting to play like that. They were extraordinary.

On my piano sits a “head shot” of my godfather, Howie, my mother’s favorite cousin.  He was a professional musician, played piano all over Chicago, but to me he was the dear man who, after the dishes were cleared from Thanksgiving, would sit down at the aforementioned Chickering and play jazz standards for the extended family.  Off the top of his head! I never tired of listening to him.  He came to our home in California years ago and although his hands were old he still “had it.”  I not only have a video of him playing, but of my children sitting on the couch mesmerized, just as I had been at their ages. I can remember wanting to play like that.

At the same time I got down and dirty with piano again, I was making the decision that if I was going to sing by myself  for others enjoyment it would only be when I can accompany myself.  I was also making the decision to stop choral singing so that traveling with Al would be unencumbered by schedules and the pull of singing.  It was difficult, I like choral singing, but deep in my heart I knew that I would someday regret not following my personal travel agent wherever he wants to go, and following him happily.  The minute I made that conscious decision, I felt so much stress leave me.  I can’t wait to see where Al takes me. I also can’t wait to follow Ashley, my scuba instructor, to faraway places.  And I am thoroughly immersed in my piano again, on my own time and schedule which is every day.

Tonight after piano scribbling for a long time, during which I caught myself glancing at Howie’s photo and smiling at him, I pulled out an old piece of sheet music.  It belonged to my Dad.  Dad played piano by ear, but only in the Key of C and only a few songs: Stardust, Moonglow, maybe a few others.  He was always frustrated by his inability to read music.  In his retirement, he went to the same Mrs, Maclean to learn to read music.  The song was one of his favorites: The Rainbow Connection.”

I opened it and started to play and then started to stumble over the music because I found my eyes drawn to familiar writing: Mrs. MacLean’s pedal markings, “tied” reminders,   “play to here.” There was more, lots of writing about chords and noting key changes and pointing out interesting chords,  She was teaching my Dad theory.  There was more: my Dad’s writing, jotting down things she must have told him that he didn’t want to forget.  (The only thing missing was the stickers of flowers and birds that I got to pick out and put on the song I had mastered. Wish I still had those books.)

I could see them both, along with Howie, and I felt all of them come through my fingers.  “You can play like that, Mary.”  Well, they were my biggest fans and I’m not so sure I’ll have enough time, but I am sure that this time I will not stop.  I will no longer short change my piano. It truly was and is my first passion, from the day I woke up from my 5 year old nap to hear my mother playing the only song she knew: “The Isle of Capri.” The sounds of that piano captured my heart and soul and like everything else from those years was thwarted by my shyness and lack of self confidence.

Now it doesn’t matter anymore.  There are no music schools to dream of applying to.  There are no concert halls awaiting my arrival.  There is just me.  And my piano.  And that’s enough.

The Rainbow Connection

The last time we went to the canal, it was in one fell swoop from Atlantic to Pacific. This time it’s Pacific to Gatun Lake to just sit for the night and go back the same way tomorrow. Last time during that day there were ships in the lake waiting their turn and that’s what we expected.  Nope. It was this. Still. Quiet. I felt like I was in the boundary waters of Minnesota except for the hot and humid part. Everyone else on the ship was inside after getting up so early this morning.  So it was just Al and Mary up on the back  of the 12th deck.  Still. Quiet. Magical. 

I was always bad at world geography in grade school. Don’t know why. But my mom would make study questions for me and even then I was extremely elated and grateful for a low ‘B’.  Never had a problem with US geography – maybe living in the middle of the country made it somehow more accessible.  I also was not great at world history – waaaay too much of it and I couldn’t keep straight all the kings with the same names and the constant wars and the dates and blah blah blah blah blah.  My eyes would glaze over.  US history was a favorite subject, so no problem. Only less than 200 years to keep track of. I got this.

Now that world travel is on the horizon I bought a world atlas and I cannot believe how awful my sense of geography is.

It’s embarrassing really.   If I had a better visual grasp of world history perhaps it wouldn’t have shocked me that I don’t have to go far from Denmark to hit Russia.  What?  Russia is RIGHT THERE? (Cue Al – “Mary, the world wars?”). I guess I always did wonder why the Germans and the Russians were fighting when they were so far away from each other. Why would they bother with th harsh winter thing.  Oh, now I get it.  But isn’t Russia over near China? (The answer, Mary, is “yes, that too.”)

My friend who is of Armenian descent? Hmmm, I don’t see it anywhere here near Greece where I thought it was.  I had to look in the index.  It’s WHERE? Just north of IRAN AND IRAQ?  Okaaaaay…..

This is the worst and what prompted this blog:  I honest to God thought the Galápagos Islands were near Antarctica.  As in SOUTH of South America.

They are not. They are just southwest of Central America.  I am stunned.  Maybe I will get there after all.  How could I be so oblivious to where stuff is in the world?

I know that Americans have a reputation for not knowing world geography – to be fair, how many Armenians know where Illinois might be and how it is the greatest state in the union – but I seem to be way off the bell curve for someone with my level of education and general awareness of what is going on around me.

Well, I have my trusty world atlas now.  So maybe, like scuba diving and singing, it’s never too late, especially since I won’t have to make maps colored with crayons and then try to label over the crayon-ing the principal seaport and then draw little pictures of cows or  manufacturing plants or whatever is the main industry of the country.  It all turned out to be a such a fucked up mess – my maps were never hung up on the classroom walls, I guarantee you that.  I tried using colored pencils but it wasn’t much better.  I DID like making relief maps of the US though – making those Rocky Mountains and coloring the rivers, now that’s right up this miniaturist’s alley.

The Galapagos near Antarctica, though. Jeez.

I have asked myself this difficult question many times over the years and have never been able to answer it well. Had I been a Catholic woman in Hitler’s Germany would I have housed my Jewish friends in my attic at risk of my own life and the life of my family? Obviously I like to think yes.  But would I have been that brave? That selfless? There is really no way of answering that question without being faced with it in real life and hopefully I will never have to face it.

I have never been as challenged by that question as keenly as I have been with the  national conflict regarding our border issues. I get all the legal/illegal alien arguments and don’t necessarily disagree. However, is the price of wanting to flee poverty and persecution and come to America having your children taken away from you? Do these people realize the gravity of the situation when they come? Are they educated enough? And if they don’t and aren’t, is this really the best we can do as a “deterrent?” “Go back and tell your friends if they try to come here the price of entry is your CHILD.”

If that is the best we can do then I believe we need to take a good look at ourselves, perhaps we are not as great as we think we are as a nation and that’s  not the fault of any group of illegal immigrants. That’s a national moral vaccuum at worst and a lack of good old Yankee ingenuity at best.

I guess in the final analysis I’d rather give up everything I have than be on the wrong side of history.  This practice is heartless and must stop.  The coldness with which our leaders justify this barbaric approach is indeed chilling and I can’t help but think of how cold a border agent must be to carry out the “law” to separate a child from his parents.  At what point does an individual begin to not question the order to carry out such an act and if I were capable of being able to do that, what else am I capable of doing with my hardened heart? Whispering “yes, the Jews are hiding over in that shed”? 

I like to think I’m better than that, that I’d do the right thing, that my Jewish friends  would be sheltered at the risk of my life, that human decency would be more important than my own life, that the values I was taught from an early age would give me courage, that martyrdom for the sake of standing up to evil would not give me a moment’s pause.

I hope I never have to find out, but right now I am more afraid of that day coming than I have since the 60’s when fire hoses were the method of choice to quell protests.