pawspauseprose

It’s amazing when reality comes home and you can answer the door and have a long talk.  After raising daughters and living vicariously through several generations both young and old, the value of time and memory recently came full circle, and I found myself holding that infamous cigar.

Life as I was raised to live and love was a series of moments, not unlike antiquated photo albums that could be shared and held close, long after their ending.  Looking back at family and friends chuckling and crying over things they had done with me, to me and usually for me always gave reality a brighter focus.  However, as the years continued, life changed the need for these memories;  maybe because we’re too busy rushing along to our final destination.  Memories, just as those who love them are becoming obsolete.

At first I thought it was just me, having one of those pre-AARP moments where I ponder the what if, why didn’t it, I’m glad I was there series of quantum leaps.   However, the more I stood back watching those around me, I saw it really was more than a leap to see this evolution to the inevitable, which was tangible and happening every second of everyday.

Anymore memories are attached to crowd pleasing movie quotes, song lyrics or an occasional road trip on the travel channel having just as much substance.  Real ones however,  have doilies, black and white photographs and crayon drawn artwork and are sadly fading both physically and emotionally from life, leaving gatekeepers like me in unwanted unemployment lines.  Who knew after collecting and sharing life  there would be no place for it, that life would become nothing more than the sum total of hours each day, going up into smoke when the clock hits midnight, ready to begin again.  Life truly has become just what it is and nothing more, albeit a big something less.  Ashtray in hand (yes ceramic by the way and circa 1956), I look at this cigar burning at both ends and sigh.

As I move through each day with its series of unconnected moments and hours, I still find myself picking up pieces and slipping them into my pocket for a rainy day as I always have. I guess hope springs eternal even if our history won’t be.  Smart phones have become the keepers of our lives with text, messages and photos.  They are quick to the draw, produced in every conversation to illustrate a comment, and then just quickly put away or deleted.  There isn’t a need any more for the photos, school celebrations, birthday or wedding souvenirs, which to some collected more dust than attention, and certainly there is no time to look at them either.  It makes me sad wondering what my grandchildren will remember from life, and even sadder what they will learn from it as they grow into the next generation.

Yes, as I get up each day it is clear that it is just that, another day to breathe, eat and live with maybe an enjoyable moment or two soon to be quickly forgotten.  We used to talk about only children and single people, now however; we are nothing more than individuals who connect, hoping to enjoy what they can in the moment.  What has been scraped is so much more than a book, and although the colors are vivid on that expensive 64 gigabyte Smartphone, they are nevertheless fading from our connections.

Maybe I am the last of my kind, a dinosaur who remembers what a box lunch, ice cream social, lead paint on a swing set and riding a bike past dark in safety were all about. Laughing to myself I play back a colorful montage of Lawrence Welk, The Gong Show and Dark Shadows when it wasn’t a comedy, and I find comfort.  There are stacks of school papers and projects the little hands I gave life to created in pride boxed in my basement, and on my fridge I display new ones from a granddaughter and they all mean the world to me.  I think of myself now as an only mom, a single person who exists in an old house.  However, at least I know I lived and it was more than a passing moment in time, and I have the artifacts to prove it, even if I am the only one who cares to open the box.

As I type this, pictures of my daughters, grandchildren and friends make up both my audience and my life and I say a prayer.  It is just a small meditation into the universe, gratitude for what we have shared and what I hope is still to come. There isn’t any religious overture or doctrine; it is just my heart speaking the love that lives there and all that has come before this moment.

I also sigh as I write, because of how the written Word is blamed for most of the wrong in our world.  It is misquoted by the misguided, used to prove points by otherwise dull brains, and worst of all used as an example for living by people I wouldn’t want to even sit next to, let alone live by.  If you haven’t guessed by now, yes I am talking about the Bible.

After the horrific winds calmed down in Oklahoma this week and lives were changed there, as well as across the world forever,  it was time once again for those with nothing useful in their own lives to start talking.  When people have nothing to say they usually go after The Word, and by God they use it.  “So why are you praying now because people are safe? If there was a God wouldn’t he have already made them safe – little late don’t you think? What great being kills for fun?”

These comments and others like them twittered across the face of our social media circus, quick bursts of hot air during an emotional and painful time for mankind.  No different sadly, than the conspiracy folk who recently proclaimed there were  actors at the deadly Boston Marathon, so a terrorist plot could be staged making our government look effective.  Indeed, it is so easy to speak out when you’ve done nothing that matters, so easy to capitalize and criticize the plight of others when they are down.  To quote a rapper – WORD.

The Bible and our faith or lack thereof, have been the central ingredient for such simmering, stewing, and spewing for as long as people have walked the Earth, and just like a melting pot of soup if you look and taste long enough you can place any flavor you want into the blending.  This is particularly obvious to me, since I have people in my life who are free spirited, religious and gay – yup, there I said it, the big H,  so double hockey stick me to Hell right now.  What gets overlooked in the words behind Seek and ye shall find is that is was never meant to be a literal blueprint for faith, innocently resting between yellowing pages waiting to be preached by misguided individual interpretation.

Life is quite simply an individual journey with maps known only to our souls, and none of us can be certain where they will lead. It is however, through our actions and faith that we are able to take new steps each day, even if unknowingly for some they will be the last ones taken.  It is up to us alone to make a life that will matter, leaving behind something of ourselves to help another knowing that the Bible  is not an instruction manual with an answer key in the back.  It  is however, a tool of faith for anyone  needing comfort and hope or  guidence when we are unsure.  It is also a great read if you like mystery, drama, violence, sex, poetry, love and humor – but again, that is all in how you read it and of course, depending where your Lot in life might be at the moment.

If I were to find myself at the scene of a deadly automobile accident, the furthest thing from my mind would be to pull out the owner’s manual of the car and find fault with the driver, because he or she obviously did not follow page 6, which clearly explained the fault in over correcting a turn.  So why is it during times of human suffering God and the Bible are blamed for not having the right answer, or in the case of happiness in a gay relationship it has the only right answer – well as extremely right as possible, which is which is very wrong.

We read to enrich our lives, and through written words find comfort and satisfaction.  We learn there are pearls of a great price, love that is patient, spiders that spin webs to save friends and others that do unto one another as they would want done to them.  Maybe however if we took a little more time to live the words instead of just reading them, there would be a little more right than write in the social media that surrounds us.

My heart aches for the lost families suffering in Oklahoma, and also those in other cities where phone calls and police visits will deliver news every bit as devastating that won’t make any wire service. Individuals who unknowingly walk their last steps, do so for a reason and it is up to us to see past the event and look for their legacy.  There will never be an all powerful hand  dramatically reaching down from the skies to take a stand and make things good, that part is up to us.  We are the voice needing to be heard above the storm, the winds of change and the ever-changing climate, which of late is far too political.

There isn’t a rule book for life, we can’t second guess why we are here or why some of us leave in the way we do.  However, what we can do is listen to our hearts, before our mouth has a chance to repeat or speak words from pages never intended for the moment at hand.  We are one, we are mankind and it is time to act upon that kindness, and time to stop judging covers or wanting to guess the ending simply because we have a book in our hand.

I love hindsight, the privilege of being able to look back and be right, as well as to see what we didn’t know at the time.  I‘m waiting for a creative someone to develop an App that will eventually fix those I told you so times, making everything right before we leave the room.  However, until it happens we have innocent eyes, photographs and of course video.

Recently my large dog downgraded my 2 terabyte hard drive to the floor, sending roughly ten years of work, memories and stupidity into oblivion.  Recreating what I could, I found myself again transferring VHS to AVI, letting the past live on laptop, heart and cloud.  While watching old family films I did more than listen while my daughters chased people with our 6 pound handicam, I really saw what they filmed in those now long gone moments.  As if falling through a looking glass of half full reality, for the first time I looked into the faces of people I knew, this time without the assumption of their emotions I once had.  This time around I saw how they really felt and acted.

Taking life for granted is something we all do and that includes those we assume to know, understand or figure out.  In the heat of the moment, the rush or the celebration much is missed because we are too busy with our own agenda, assuming everyone else feels the same way we do.  However, years later when time opens these healed and scared hearts and emotions, it is an eye opener to see what really was going on.  It has been said seeing life through the eyes of a child is priceless; it is even truer if they have a video camera.

Because life is a journey of events we must live to gain knowledge and growth, we continually see it on our own terms, including even the most magnanimous of us.  It seems unconscionable that we would think someone didn’t want to be at our wedding, celebrate a child’s first over the top birthday or delight as an aging relative laughing on what would be their last moment.  It does however become painfully apparent in Dolby VHS-C rewind if we miss it the first time that those are first and foremost our moments, and even when we bring others along they don’t always enjoy the experience, or possibly they even have an ulterior motive we miss altogether.

Sipping tea while eating my humble pie, I opened my eyes to that level of that innocence and realized again the world is more than just the space I occupy and my heart takes care of.  Just because I delight in my family and moments others will never know, doesn’t mean they want to share them, possibly they want to even ruin them.  That brought me back to the script life has been directing and looking past the fake and façade, I located those who were smiling and laughing, happy to be included in my production.  Sadly as the years passed my cast of characters changed as well, many no longer alive, divorces, relocations, and others simply disappearing.  However, those who have kept my life in their eyes are still here, even though tape was no longer rolling.

Hindsight may give us knowledge, but those special faces making up their lines in our lives are what give us character, strength and acceptance.  It is ironic really, since they are the same ones taken for granted as stand ins and extras as we film our productions, because we assume they will always be there and know they belong in the film – talk about needing a rewrite!

Next time I hit the movie icon on my camera or cell phone preparing to keep an unscripted moment forever, I’m going to ask myself if everyone included in the viewfinder would buy a ticket. Then looking at the cast, I will fully appreciate the understudies who know the lines of my face and words on my heart.  Directing my attention to that obvious cast, just as in any successful movie it will be easy to see they are the ones carrying the plot and adding the emotion needed to make it worthy of an award, even if they’ll rarely see one.  It will be worth it to take time weeding out the extras that there just for my show and their tell, allowing me to see life through the eyes of those wanting to included.  The result will truly be a celebration for everyone, especially when the camera stops filming and many of them leave to take their place with the real stars, because I will forever hold them close in an encore.

It’s amazing what goes unnoticed each day as we choose to see life.  Some people say the best way is to see through the innocent eyes of a child, or the experienced ones in an old soul, but truly the best way is to drop our defenses,  judgments and agenda’s and just open our own.

Instagram recently took over social media, allowing us to post photos of life that change, challenge and intrigue us in sepia and blurred focus.  I find it ironic how we rush to make these new memories appear rustic and old, while walking past the real ones on a daily basis.  I guess we’re so busy looking at life, that we don’t realize it is developing around us in the blink of an eye.

Before my mother passed away, she commented how she had seen the invention of the ball point pen, used carbon and liquid paper and a delete key on both  computer and camera. She found it amazing how we could correct both mistakes and moments in time and think nothing of it.  Personally, the amazing part is how we want to correct everything but our behavior towards one another.

Today Mom would have been 96, she loved birthdays and good food, baseball games,  her garden and above it all family and friends.  I can’t remember a time when she was in my life when there wasn’t a pot of coffee, a plate of cookies and  springs of nature rooting in the kitchen window.  There were magazines in the bathroom, chairs on the porch and either soft music or a television in the background,  usually fighting for air space against noise from the garage.  Life was a gift then, one none of us saw as clearly as we should have; only now seeing it as what made us who we are.

Each moment we have is what we choose to make it, and depending how we see it, will in turn define how others view us.  Thank you Mom  for the gifts of your lifetime, which continually remind me to open my eyes, heart and soul and see what is present around me and not just what exists.

Life needs a rewrite, a mulligan or heck just a verbal what were you thinking once in a while, and the time has  come  biblically speaking for a big one. Yes, those original seven deadly sins were chart toppers, however in this day and age the addition of Rude for self-serving attitudes needs to be added to the list.

Growing up  in our home there was  no need for paddles, belts or social services – we had respect.  One look from my father was enough to know I crossed a line, crossed his brow and crossed my heart it would never happen again. Love and respect went hand in hand in those days, which was also why your hands didn’t have time to create something in the devil’s workshop. Therefore,  it should make sense with all the advancements in our world, that  we’d be even more respectful of people and accomplishments.  However, that’s not the case.

During the time I cared for my elderly parents, I was horrified at some of the condescending behavior from business and medical professionals, as well as a general lack of compassion and understanding. This dark circle of interaction the world has settled for needs to be put out of action before everyone forgets common decency! Don’t get me wrong though, we did have some excellent care along the way I’ll never forget.  However instead of being a sea of faces, there were only a few shipwrecked ones mercifully floating to see if they could help.  Insert note -  it isn’t just those providing care with issues, there is an evolution of nasty in those needing and receiving care, which has brought us all to the infected side of human nature.

Professionals who are primarily  geared to help, offering service and aid are there by choice. No one is born with a law journal, blood pressure cuff or badge in their hand. They recognize in themselves a need to serve, no different than a religious calling.  They put those they encounter first, ahead of their own needs, opinions or beliefs. So why is it that the average person feels they have the right to denigrate, humiliate, harass or just under appreciate these people? Have they not realized  the circle eventually will become unbroken, and as my father used to say it will come back and bite them?

It is said a dog can only be beaten so long before finally turning on the hand that feeds it, and the same can be said for those who willing offer us compassion or aid. How can we expect to be taken seriously and given the best someone has to offer,  if we continue to see them as  mere recipients of our impatience and hostility because they can’t do enough to make us happy?

Thank you and a warm smile cost nothing to give, and understanding and compassion don’t need a coupon. However, they are becoming harder and harder to find, making them priceless in their value. When my daughters went into the working world, I told them  work as a cashier or a telephone receptionist at least once. Jobs at the bottom of the salary food chain that interact anonymously everyday with an uncaring public will give the insight of a lifetime.

When we don’t see the face we are talking to it’s to make them the brunt of our rage – now it is cyber attacks and troll behavior, worse than just raising a voice in anger. Simply said, it’s easy to blame the cashier for a wrong price or defective item, especially when you can’t yell at the company president. Likewise, there is no Miss Manners when our credit card is declined and of course we have to blame someone. Obviously no one has realized why harassment cases and assault charges were almost non-existent years ago. Maybe it was because we were patient, understanding and appreciative.

The next time you take a call, accept a receipt or leave behind your used paper gown in an exam room, smile and thank the person who was there for you. Maybe the news you got or the price you paid wasn’t what you wanted, but it wasn’t because of something they personally did, they were only there for YOU and the process. Think how they will leave you, moving on to another face, another place, another space and how the seed of your gratitude and understanding might just bloom for someone else.

Yes, there is a golden rule, which those deadly sins measure up to eventually, and the funny part is if we just took a few minutes and followed it so much could be straightened out, and there wouldn’t be an edge for anyone to stand on.

If I read one more stuffed shirt magazine article commending people my age for caring for their family I’ll need a barf bag! Yes, the world has changed a lot since Wally and Beaver snuck cookies, and got lost in the sarcastic soft soap Eddie cleaned up with, but seriously? What is with all this you’re a good woman Charlene Brown crap? If you’ve been blessed with a family, that means you care and when they age you are there.   After they are gone you realize what the word really meant, and why it rhymes with share.

I raised three beautiful daughters who took their own paths of success. Two  even sent me souvenir grandchildren from their journey, that have “visited” with me since they were born. I delight in teaching them projects and recipes; hunting for bugs, playing with cars and applying makeup in grand Disney style, while my daughters  go into the world making life better for their own little people. I savor the moments that better my life in the process. It reminds me why I became a mother, who I am as a person and how making a difference is only a touch or hug away.

My parents aged almost to 100, which says a lot for who they were. We never had much materialistically, but there was food on the table, clothes on our backs, love in their hearts and  a smile on the lips, which incidentally was every time we walked in or out of the house. Those are blessings, and they were sandwiched between the same stress, life and happiness we still experience ow. The only difference is back then was we called it a family, everyone had one and no one thought it was special.

After being a professional in business, married, divorced and raising children into their teens, I also began to care for aging parents that were frustrated more at what they viewed as an inconvenience in my life, than a failing in their own. That’s what family does, they care for each other first, only later discovering they are the ones missing buttons with worn places no longer Velveteen. I wouldn’t trade the laughter and tears in those years for anything. Misspoken words, jokes at the wrong time, hugs at all the right times and memories, necessary need  to feel them near my broken heart. That is after all what love is about.

Years ago when I was in my office, my father needed to go to the hospital. The person I worked for had no concept of a family, and would have been first in line at the overused Sandwich Deli Commentary. He told me to call Dad a cab. I’ll never forget that day, the fact dad came home okay, told a dirty joke to the nurses I’m sure they still laugh over, and how he amazed people with what eighty plus years old could be if taken seriously, loved and wanted.

Likewise, one of the last batches of cookies mom made before passing at 92 were small clay miniatures made into ornaments.  She wanted to insure her family  always had her for  holidays. She also designed her memorial card years before passing with that same thought. She wanted not an overused prayer, but a very worn sugar cookie recipe, praying her warm love would continue being held in an empty hand in years to come.

Life is a journey and a gift, nothing you stick in a bag with chips. So many we know never had a chance to have one, or left way before the party finished. Our duty is to allow the soul to grow and experience life, which isn’t done behind the counter of life’s fast food me track. Those of us who have had the chance to emotionally remember smiles and stories are better for it, and there never will be a category or generation demographic for it.  Although according to a recent commercial there is an entire industry called “A Place For Mom,” which will help you stick her somewhere.  I know that place – I called it my  family, and whoever came up with that horrid marketing tagline deserves a time out of epic proportions! Maybe that also explains the need for overly prescribed antidepressants and anxiety drugs for people unsure of their own  place in life, something that got lost along with dinner at a kitchen table.

I think about my parents a lot since passing fifty, ache in all the right places and have gray hairs in all the wrong ones. I miss them, especially at meals thinking how mom was always proud and dad  satisfied.  Our conversation would keep time with a small black and white television watching Walter Cronkite. Oh Walter, that really was the way it was, they way it should be and at my house the way it still is. I’m sure my daughters will read this and  who knows,  maybe we will also reminisce and laugh, and maybe when we do  it will  be over a BLT,  because after all that was Mom’s favorite sandwich.

That annoying itch when a wound is healing or is infected always calls out to be addressed. Therefore, we remove the band-aid and between air and antiseptic, it feels better. However, we also get to look at the inner workings of our body and some bacteria, which usually isn’t pleasant. I recently had a similar glimpse into the underbelly of relationships  causing me to gasp for air.

Because of recent news  documenting women killed and/or assaulted after contacting men on a certain “List” I had to wonder. Seriously, do people really date someone from the same place they sell old lawnmowers, used breast pumps and potty chairs? Regardless, just like ripping back a band-aid I was itching to understand this lower level need for companionship. I clicked onto men seeking woman and let the  infection begin!

I’m not exactly sure what man in his right mind – and that may indeed be my answer, assumes a photograph taken by cell phone in his bathroom with the heading “love me big jugs” would send Sinatra style chills through women. I know what it sent through me, and even though there were chills involved, it stopped short of a serenade. The ads continued from there every bit as dysfunctional, disgusting and delusional as the next, which left me bothered, bewildered and far from bewitched. Needless to say, there were close to 200 of these assaults to my sanity, leaving me to wonder what was sadder the women who answered them or the men writing them.

Keeping that thought in mind, I moved to the women seeking men column wondering what my fellow hunters in the dating jungle were looking for, and found myself amused. Although there were titillating titles, what immediately struck me was the lack of them. In stark comparison, the ratio must have been 2 for every 25 on the male side. Either  demographics for the human race are changing, or women have just given up, and if asked I would agree with the latter.

Listing qualities I someday hoped to find in my soul mate  very long ago was part of the time honored ritual of the single young woman. There was fantasy and even a little naughty, hoping Prince Charming would appear and we would age watching the sunset. Sadly,  the majority of those dreamy Prince’s have announced they’re Queens and no longer young women, we have been left with an underbelly of back hair covered crude testosterone, which  I for one prefer to walk away from – even if they think it’s good enough to advertise and photograph.

It must be something in the water as my mother used to say, because for the life of me I don’t remember honest, compassionate, funny and romantic men being put on the list of extinct species. Why is it so difficult to find someone to share a sunbeam across a week-end couch, laugh at an old cartoon or just touch feet with in the night, knowing it conveys as much satisfaction and emotion as any wild week-end? However, don’t get me wrong a wild week-end of frolic is always a good thing, and even this old gal remembers what a can of chilled cream can whip up. It is though that warm sunbeam and what it represents, which is the foundation for such whipped up romance and it is also what seems to have disappeared between too many lists in life.

The hunters have become flabby bottom feeders because they no longer need to seek out feminine prey and the one time femmes are far from fatal, putting very little effort towards the inevitable. Self-esteem has fallen off everyone’s list if you ask me. Maybe if it weren’t so easy to punch a few keys on a computer for cyber companionship there would be more honest matchmaking and sparks firing up the world making date night hot once again.

I remember a playboy cartoon years ago with a woman using her feet to fondle her naked husband as they sat across from each other reading magazines. The caption said, “No Edna I don’t think you’re kinky, you’re just lazy.” At the time it was humorous, but thinking about it now there isn’t anything funny about it, just a harbinger of relationships no one ever saw coming.

We don’t need to worry about the political decline of our world; it is already slowly matching the overall decline of who we are, our expectations and our commitment to really just about anything. Our food, dating, relationships and even children have  all become fast and easy, most times selected from lists and usually not completely thought out. The list is simple for the vast majority, wake up, work a while, go back to bed and before you know it, it’s time to die – nothing that requires much effort.

Amazing how far we have come and yet nobody has ever mentioned everything important we seem to have left behind.