Ann Shields on Letting Go

Shorter Days, Longer Thoughts

Tonight's sky was emblazoned with color, pinks, purples and light blue with clouds gliding through the celestial pallete.  Winter sky in California with the days shorter and memories that reach so far back I can see myself sitting on a high chair at a birthday party for me.  My mother told me I cried because there was so much noise and no one paid attention to me.  Family has colored most of my memories over the years, so much that I often wonder what really happened.  Was I so egotistical at that early age, or just lonesome.  Lonely, more likely.

My daughter hands me back fragments of the past, too.  She is the family historian and regales me with stories I marvel at.  She has the memory of an elephant whereas my son just shrugs, never digging further than he cares to explore.  He rarely worries; my daughter is a fretter.  So, maybe remembering is not so great.

Someone has said that it is never too late to have a happy childhood.  I decided that I would work on that premise in the coming year and only dredge up happy memories.  The others will be dropped into a black hole covered over with duct tape and sprinkled with gorrila glue.  That is my husband's formula for sealing packages mailed to family members.  These packages are viewed with fear and trembling.  A stick of dynamite would be more appropriate.

As for memories, most of my contemporaries view their own memory retrieval systam with fear and trembling.  We wonder where the car keys are, or the glasses or the check book.  The cell phone is never out of sight.  But the other day I called the number with my land phone to hunt for it as it rang somewhere in the house.  Des thought that strategy up.  I am told not to worry about my losing the car keys; it is only a problem if I forget what a car is.  So far so good.

Tonight, driving home from Lowes where we bought fireplace logs, a fleet of birds in some formation flew past our vision and abruptly made a right turn, still in formation, heading somewhere else.  I asked Des if the lead scout forgot something.  He humored me and said he didn't think so.  Still, I wondered why the change in direction.  Was danger on the horizon?  Or did the poor lead scout's memory fail him and he forgot where he was going?  No one is infallible, not even a bird.

I once saw a sea gull walking in the rain, crossing the street at an intersection.  I wondered about him, too.  Did he forget he could fly?  Do we forget that we have wings to fly above our troubles, use our minds to transcend our thoughts.  It is all a mystery to me.  In the meantime, I'm working on my happy childhood.  Why not join me.  It could be fun.

So says Sassy

 

Mix and Match

If you haven't received our Christmas greeting yet, it probably is because we haven't mailed it yet. Don't despair though.  We are still breathing in and out and just got caught up in holiday distractions and xrays on Des knee after he fell in the garage.  No, it isn't broken, but our bedroom looks like a triage center  next to a battlefield.  His motorized scooter, Travel Pal, rests next to hid manually operated walker with a seat, next to a pair of crutches, next to several canes.

He is mobile now, for the most part and I have listed the garage 'off limits' unless another responsible adult is with him.  That includes some of his friends, excludes others.  And you know who you are.

Meanwhile, we just returned from buying a replacement for our dead microwave and are awaiting one of his responsible friends to help get it into the house.  So, no time to address letters yet.

Friday I took time for myself by going to water aerobics.  A daunting sight when I parked to see an ambulance and a fire truck blocking the front entrance.  Seems one of the trainers, who shall be nameless, was playing raquet ball with a member when the member collapsed.  What I relief, just a guy trying to be a jock, I thought to myself, rather unkindly at that.  Sorry.

Water aerobics was extremely rigorous due to our trainer, a slim blonde who whips us into shape with songs and anecdotes and yellow plastic dumbells.  She joins us in the water so you can't sluff off.  Like when she says to tread water and I scootch down to below my shoulders and assimilate a water treader.  She has treaded close to me on occasion, peering below the surface to see if my feet have left the pool bottom.  I then splash vigorously to fool her, all the while my feet are firmly rooted to the bottom.  My dad didn't raise no dummy.

Another distraction is my personal trainer who has walked me through various machines at the fitness center and promised I would be awesomely strong any time, as long as I manage to avoid knocking myself out reaching for an overhead movable bar.  That is my fervent hope.

The weather is anothr distraction.  It is cold, for our coastal city in California.  Even Malibu got dusted with flakes.  Snow flakes, that is.  You may have heard about other flakes in the vicinity.  You guys bragging about gazzilion feet of snow and arctic below freezing weather are laughing at us with much derision for complaining.  Well, it is all relative, and you relatives need to have more compassion for us.  We do get our share of floods, mudslides, fires and earthquakes.   In fact, I saw an old bearded guy at Lowe's the other day buying lots of lumber.  Muttered something about an Ark.  Oh well.

Back to the letter you never received.  It will be in the mail in due course, so don't send flowers yet  We are still breathing and you'll hear from us soon. Our renter just said that to us the other day.  We have faith.  Des keeps reminding me what a nice guy he is.  Des is not landlord material.  We are still waiting

So says Sassy

Hard Times

Recession/Depression is what we are in according to the governmant, newspapers and business owners.  No kidding.  Talk about a no brainer pronouncement.

Since I am old enough to have been born during that other Depression--okay I was born on October 11, 1931 if you must know--the family folklore has it that my father lost his job the week I was born.  I turned that cheerful memory into a short story and called it Little Black Rabbit's Foot.  That was me.  It was downhill from there.

My parents gave up their apartment three doors away from my grandfather's building to move in with 'the dreaded in-laws'.  That was my mother's take on the event.  Their apartment was owned by my childhood friend Sara's father.  Old Mister Bua he was called.  A jolly guy.  My grandfather was not a jolly guy.

Throughout my life I was treated to my mother's bitter memories of those days.  No money for milk for me, she remembered.  Not even a dime to take a streetcar from our near north side Chicago neighborhood over to her mother's house for relief from the gloomy atmosphere at 'the in-laws.'  On and on went the tales. 

I cried a lot as a baby.  Running ears, she said.  I wanted to ask where they ran to.  Not funny, Magee.  My grandfather didn't like the noise.  The favorite family tale was, according to mom, when I cried so much one night that she prevented my father from throwing me up against the wall.  I seriously doubt that.  Probably an exaggeration.  But fed into my image of little black rabbit's foot.

I remember it differently, those days.  The grandfather I remember would give me a quarter when my mother twisted my hair into rags for curles.  Of course, the quarter was to keep me from yelling.  He  had a nickname for me.  Occa de buga.  Cute.  On the other hand, it translates from Italian into 'eyes like a bug.'  I liked to think my eyes were dark brown, intriguing, even seductive.  But that was when I got older.  My husband likes my eyes, so there.

Back in those days of the Great Depression, times were tough.  So why did they call it so Great, I used to wonder.  You don't hear anyone calling today's economic woes, the Great Recession.  Anyway, there is a point to this ruminating.  Maybe the point is that we survived those days.  My dad got a job, they bought a house on the other side of town.  I became a writer in order to work my way though various traumas and understand who I am and what I really think about life.

What I really think is that gratitude is the best defense against any depression, and forgiveness is second.  Forgiveness for everybody for everything.  Even my parents who loved me in their own flawed way.  And my grandfather who hated himself more than anyone else and proved it by committing suicide when I was 12.

So, life goes on and people are hurting today, here in our great country and even more so all over the world.  My personal answer is to believe in a loving and personal God.  I trust that whatever outcomes are in store of us will work together for good.  Sounds naive, doesn't it?  I don't care.  it is what I think and who I am.

So says Sassy