Stepping Away from the Edge

Helen, Donna, and Nee-Cie

"You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream.  You've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself." 
-- Diana Ross

It's March.  Women's History Month.  I typically acknowledge this special month. . . even though I have a problem with women's history having to be assigned a month.  I know.  I know.  I've struggled with this over the years, and I've just decided to go with it.  A month is better than no month at all. 

So.  Women's History Month.  A time to celebrate the legacy of women.  This year, I've decided to acknowledge and honor those women who've had role in my life; women who've contributed to who I am today.

The other day, I started thinking about . . . music.  As you've probably figured out, I always have a song running through my head.  I listen to music in my car.  When I work at my computer.  In my kitchen.  When I work out.  Heck, I even work for music organizations!  And I wondered where this came from. . . when did that Soundtrack of My Life begin? 

My sister is like this, too.  Some of my best memories of our earlier times are of the two of us, huddled around some radio or another, waiting to hear one of our favorite songs.  (Procol Harem, Di?)  My sister even had one of those rare and coveted part-time jobs in high school -- working for the local record store. . . spinning vinyl. . . every day!

So, where did this come from?  Not our parents.  No.  The influence of music started early. . . and came from other sources.

Hit it, Supremes. . .

 

When we were little girls, my sister and I had two sisters as our babysitters:  Helen and Donna. I used to get pretty excited when Helen or Donna came over to babysit us (although Di hated for our Mom to go anywhere; she wasn't happy about babysitters) . . . because they were nice.  And cool.  It would have been the mid-sixties when Helen came; later in the sixties when Donna came.  They had bubble-flip hairdos.  They wore paisley dresses.  Donna had real go-go boots.  When you see the screaming girls who loved the Beatles or the Stones. . . well, that could've been Helen or Donna.

Helen used to come over and tune in the radio.  She loved Motown.  Diana Ross and the Supremes.  The Temptations.  Martha Reeves and the Vandellas.  The Four Tops.  She listened.  We listened.  I loved it!

I remember that Donna was more outgoing than Helen.  Very bubbly and giggly.  She was our sitter one summer, when my mom had just gone back to work part time.  She would come over and tune the radio to Larrrrry Luuuuuujack, a DJ in Chicago.  She loved Freda Payne's "Band of Gold."  She would listen for it all day on the radio, and then we'd all dance around the house whenever it played.  Donna had a little '45 record carrying case, and she would bring her carefully-organized record collection to our house sometimes to play on my little record player.  Donna taught me to dance.  The Twist.  The Freddie.  The Monkey.  The Pony.  She was awesome!

Donna and Helen provided my introduction to "rock-n-roll".  So different from the music of my parents!  So cool!  So hip!  They introduced me to Motown and Top 40 and popular radio stations. . . so much a part of my own love of rock-n-roll and pop music.  The very beginnings of . . . the Soundtrack of My Life!

And, then. . . there was Nee-Cie!

 

"Nee-Cie" (short for Denise) was the youngest daughter of some friends of my parents.  Nee-Cie was probably about 3 or 4 years older than me -- and I felt so lucky to be able to spend time with her.   She was So. Cool.  Nee-Cie would invite me into her room. . . her teen-ager room. . . her cool-beyond-belief teen-ager room! . . . and let me catch a glimpse of her totally-groovy 13-year-old existence in 1968.  I remember just . . . breathing in her coolness. Posters on her wall!  Make-up carefully arranged on a dressing table!  SEVENTEEN magazine!  A pink fuzzy rug!  It was like . . . having face-time . . . with Marcia Brady!!! 

Nee-Cie was far beyond a '45 record collection.  She played entire record albums for me!  Nee-Cie introduced me to the Stones.  Jefferson Airplane.  The Doors.  But, mostly, she shared her love of the Beatles.  I remember sitting on the floor in her room - on the pink fuzzy rug - as she carefully instructed me in all things Beatles.  She filled me full of Beatle-lore, showed me pictures, relayed stories, played me songs, wrote out lyrics . . . and then quizzed me on all of it.  Just to make sure I really understood.

And me?  I just sat there, playing with her Spirograph, taking it all in -- thrilled, feeling pretty cool,  and adding to the Soundtrack of my Life.

And so today, all these many years later, I acknowledge the Legacy left me by Helen, Donna, and Nee-Cie:  A love of pop music and a constant awareness of . . .what's playing on the radio!

 

Shine On

When I finished chemo (nearly 3 years ago now!) and started . . . living my life. . . there was a certain sense of . . . Newness.  Freshness.  Shiny-ness. . . all around me.  It was like I had been polished; like whatever had been hidden beneath (from all those years of lliving. . . instead of LIVING) had been suddenly exposed.  A little raw, surely, but also fresh. . . and. . . new. . . and shiny!

The colors seemed brighter; contrasts sharper.  My senses were heightened.  I was more aware.  Of everything.  And the world felt more . . . mine.  I didn't want to wast a minute!  I wanted to DO and GRAB and BE.  I wanted to SHINE.

I really liked that feeling. 

Having cancer sucked, no doubt about that.  Chemo is just plain creepy and unpleasant.  It is shattering to pull back the Veil of Illusion and know, deep in your bones, that your life really IS limited (maybe not now, but . . . eventually).  I came out of that experience, though, with a new attitude.  A sense of . . . Freedom.  Appreciation.  Newness.  Clarity.  Prioirty. 

For a while, I really did live a shiny, new life.  Little things didn't bother me.  I was joy-filled and open to new things.  I felt free-er and happier than I had in a very long time. 

And, in most ways, that is still the case.  But.  I can also tell that some of life's "tarnish" is building up on me again.  It's been long enough (and that's a gift in itself!) that I'm losing some of that . . . shine!

So I think the word SHINE started coming to mind . . . as a way to remind me of what life felt like in that first year after chemo.  To encourage me to buff off the tarnish building up on my life.  To let that fresh, exposed me SHINE through.

One little word.

SHINE

 

Remembering

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Softer . . . and More Beautiful

"Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful." ~Norman Vincent Peale

Enjoy the beauty of the season!

 

Autumn Mosaic

Winter is an etching, Spring a watercolor, Summer an oil painting, and Autumn a mosaic of them all.            ----- Stanley Horowitz

It's been a lovely fall here in Michigan. 

Pleasant weather.  Nice weekends.  Blue skies.

I love the colors and textures of the season.

A true mosaic!

 

When A Good Tree. . . Goes Bad

"If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees." ** -- Hal Borland

We have many trees on our small plot here in suburbia.  We inherited them all when we bought our house, save the one lovely tri-colored beech we planted last year. . . and one tiny little Japanese maple I rescued from Lowe's last summer.

There is this one.

It is a Bradford pear tree.  Oddly placed near our driveway, kind of just randomly there. . .in the center of our side yard.

The tree has always been of questionable value.  It gets lovely, white blossoms in the spring -- but those blossoms smell really bad.  They reek, in fact.  Like. . . you get out of your car (being right there, next to the driveway) and say, "What's that SMELL????"  And then you remember.  It's the tree.

You'd think that, being a pear tree, that it would bear . . . fruit.  And it does.  But not the lovely pear you may be imagining.  It produces little, tiny pears that look like this:

The squirrels love them.  (Chipmunks, too.)  About this time of year, the little pear-ish fruits get ripe and sort of soft.  They drop.  Onto the driveway.  Where people track them into the house on their shoes.  Or they drop down onto visiting cars.  Or a storm comes and hurls them against visiting cars, making a horrible mess that people have to work really hard to remove (right, Dad?).

In the fall, the leaves on this tree are lovely; kind of a deep burgundy red.  The problem is . . .the leaves don't change color and drop until very late in the season.  I mean very late.  Like . . . Thanksgiving.  Most years, we have snow on the ground before the leaves drop.  (Trust me, no one wants to deal with fall leaves AND snow.)  The charm of the lovely leaves is completely lost when the time for snow is upon us!

There is also the problem with placement.  I have written here more than once that our yard has extreme geographic limitations, being built on a cross-slope hill.  As you can see from the photo above, the pear tree was planted right in the center of the ONLY level area of our yard (being next to the driveway).  The tree distracts from our being able to USE that level space.  Can't play frisbee; throw a lacrosse ball; or pitch a tent for a party.  Because of the tree.

But, still.  We liked the tree.  We enjoyed the company of the tree.  We took a deep breath before getting out of the car when the tree was in bloom, and we threw the frisbee in the street.

Then, in July, there was a huge storm that came through our area, knocking down several trees in our neighborhood.  (Even sending several crashing through roofs.)  We breathed a sigh of relief when we got home that day -- because all of our trees were still standing.

About a week later, though, I came back from the gym to find a huge branch from the pear tree blocking the driveway.  No storm.  No apparent reason.  Must have been delayed storm damage.

(Unforunate street view.)  Tom (excitedly) made quick work of the big branch with his trusty chainsaw, and all was well.  Although, as a Master Gardener, I knew this

was gonna be trouble!  Trees don't suffer damage like this -- and recover.  I knew it was Only a Matter of Time for the Bradford Pear.

What we didn't realize right away, though, was that the tree was suffereing from another serious problem.  Yep, once a huge portion of the tree was gone, the balance shifted. . . and exacerbated a pre-existing split in the trunk.

You're not supposed to be able to see . . . grass. . . through the trunk of your tree.  It was clear that our Bradford Pear. . . was going to have to go!

Fortunately, there wasn't any danger of the tree hitting our house.  Or anyone else's house, either.  But you probably wouldn't want to park your car in our driveway! 

We thought about waiting . . . to just see what would happen next.  But I know that one bad winter storm or one ice storm would do this tree in.  And, really, who wants to deal with a tree coming down in the winter!  (Somehow I'm sure that would be worse than dealing with the leaves.)

So we called in the cavalry.

They made quick work of the the Bradford Pear.

It made my heart ache a little, to see a big tree like that come down.  But you can see from the stump that it was not a healthy tree.

So, goodbye Bradford pear!  No more messy fruit.  No more smelly blossoms.  But don't be thinking we'll have a place to play frisbee. . . because this gardener is already plotting and planning what to do with that new, level, EMPTY spot of lawn!

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** But NOT the Bradford pear!  There are some lovely trees that are not recommended for home landscapes.  The Bradford pear is one of those trees.  While they do have a lovely shape and are fast-growing, there are numerous problems (as we've experienced) with them.  Not all trees are created equal in the home landscape!

Day by Day

"My formula for living is quite simple.  I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night.  In between, I occupy myself as best I can."  --- Cary Grant

This week, Carole asks us about the Ten Things We Do Every Day; those things that fill our time - day by day - between the getting up and the going to bed.  Here's what I do:

1. Grab a cup of coffee
2. Charge my phone
3. Survey the garden
4. Update my to-do list
5. Call my Mom; text my kids
6. Walk Jenny
7. Eat dinner with Tom
8. Do a little reading; a little knitting
9. Sip a glass of wine
10. Floss

How about you?

A Secret Place

"We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same." -- Anne Frank

When I was a young girl, I was a voracious reader.  I visited the little library in my school and the slightly bigger library in my neighborhood whenever I got a chance.  I always, always had my nose in a book. 

As a fifth grader (age 11), I particularly liked reading biographies and historical fiction -- generally those books geared to children, but I was a good reader (and running out of books!), so at about that age, I started venturing into the "teens" section.

One day, I discovered "The Diary of a Young Girl."  The Anne Frank book.  Bingo.

I think I may have read the diary in one sitting.  I was totally engrossed . . . but I didn't realize it was REAL; that it had actually happened.  I hadn't had much exposure, yet, to World War II and the Holocaust.  In fact, at that time, my main source of "information" about World War II, sadly, came from the television show Hogan's Heroes.  (By contrast, by that time in my life I was very well-versed in the American Revolution and the Civil War thanks to school and my own interest in historical fiction; and the Vietnam War was playing out right there in front of me.  I just hadn't discovered World War II quite yet.)

So, my parents did some explaining.  They gave me the context I needed to more fully understand the context of the diary.  It touched me deeply.  I was horrified.  I read the diary again.

I even created a "secret annex" in my own closet; a secret place where I would go to be quiet and still and, maybe . . . to not be found.  I read books there (and sometimes Tiger Beat magazine).  I thought about what it would mean to be in hiding for all that time -- and then to be caught.  And taken away.  And to die - horribly, senselessly.

Suffice it to say . . . Anne Frank had a profound impact on my early adolescent mind.

Later, when I was in junior high school, I read the book again in one of my English classes.  I loved it still, but it wasn't the same.  Discovering it on my own gave much greater impact than reading and discussing it with a class of (mostly) cretins.

My sister (who had a similarly profound response to the diary) and I visited the Anne Frank Huis the very day we arrived in Amsterdam.

It was an amazing experience.

To walk the stairs Anne walked; to see the movie stars she had pasted on her walls; to look out the attic skylight.  And. . . to see the actual pages of her diary.

Anne was there in my thoughts as I walked the streets of Amsterdam.

Our lives are so different; and yet the same.

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Travel Tip:  If you go to Amsterdam and want to visit the Anne Frank Huis, my sister and I highly recommend purchasing an advance ticket.  With such a ticket, you are assigned a specific time to arrive and tour the house/museum, and you get to enter immediately through a reserved door.  When you see the long, long line wrapping the streets near the Anne Frank Huis (because her diary had a huge impact on so very many people), you'll be glad you did!  (Longer lines than anywhere else on our trip!)

 

Green Day

"There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth.  We are all crew." -- Marshall McLuhan

I'm taking a little break** from blog-as-travelogue today to celebrate Earth Day. 

Every year, on Earth Day, I make a personal commitment to doing . . . something . . . to show my commitment to the environment; to take responsibility for being part of the crew.  These are small acts of green, sure.  But my small acts of green turn into habits and change the way I live.

In the past, I've committed to composting, planting a tree every year, switching out my light bulbs, using cloth diapers, organic gardening, recycling, using more native plants in my landscape, feeding the birds, growing my own herbs, attracting bees to my garden.  Things like that.

This year?  Tom and I signed up for a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share.  We're committing to the "eating local" movement as much as we can.  We're really excited to be part of the Eater's Guild CSA in Bangor, Michigan -- and we're looking forward to picking up our weekly shares, beginning next month.

It's Earth Day.  Celebrate.  Make a commitment.  What can YOU do?  (And once you decide, visit Earth Day Network and log YOUR Act of Green.)

**The photos in my blog post today are from Claude Monet's garden at Giverny in France.  I'll do a post on that incredible place next week.  In the meantime, if the beauty of Monet's garden can't inspire us to make a commitment to the Earth, I don't know what can!

Loving the Questions

Sometimes. . . it takes a lot of time and a lot of patience. . . and a LOT of "loving the questions". . . to set things right in your own mind.

I'm there now.  And I thank all of you (and you know who you are!) for being patient with ME. . . while I was being patient with all that was unsolved in my heart.