Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Today at the Aging Conference
In front of me sat two nuns in green habits. Next to me was a thin Anglo man writing Arabic on a small pad of paper. He drew each symbol in the most precise manner. When he sensed that I was looking at his writing, he casually moved his arm to block my view. That might not be true. I might be imagining it.
The speaker was talking about how talking to strangers improves one’s health. He is a psychologist teaching in a major university, his research focusing on how people are reluctant to talk to strangers but afterward are glad they did. It’s more complicated than that but this was the core thesis.
In what I thought was going to be guaranteed chaos, he asked an audience of about 200 people to form two lines so he could match us up two by two to have a twenty-minute conversation about three questions, the gist of which was 1) what would a new friend need to know about you? 2) what are you most grateful for? 3) when was the last time you cried in front of someone?
There was a pre and post-test accessed with a QR Code, the results of which his research assistant in Chicago calculated in real time. Of course, our experience mirrored his research. We had low expectations for these conversations, but they turned out to be fun.
I kept staring at the backs of the two nuns. Why are they wearing habits in the first place and why are they green? I wanted to tap one of them on the shoulder but didn’t. Instead, I wondered about how they’d chosen that shade of green, a spring green, a new green, not a deep green, and really not an army green. A hopeful color. I should’ve talked to them.
The man writing Arabic had filled almost the whole page with his tiny writing. Was he taking notes or writing a letter? Was he just learning to write Arabic or had he grown up with an Arabic newspaper on the kitchen table? I don’t know. I didn’t ask.
On the way out, a friend told me that the last time she cried in front of someone (her husband) was last night at an episode of Call the Midwives. It made me like her even more.
In the Ear of the Beholder
“She’s brilliant but crazy.”
Which was meant as an insult, but I took it as high praise.
Always our choice – how we hear things and what we decide to make true.
___________________
Photo by João Pedro Freitas on Unsplash
100 Word Story: Strum
Unbelievably, his name was Bart. He wore cowboy boots and carried a guitar. He smiled a lot but didn’t sing or strum. None of that.
When the train pulled into to Laramie, he gathered his things. I played a game in my head where he tipped his hat and asked me to come with him. The town was dark except for the station light. No one seemed to be waiting for him.
At home, my boyfriend, who was an intermission boyfriend, was driving my yellow VW around town like he owned it. He didn’t play an instrument or pretend to.
I Dive No More but I Don’t Care
Funny you should ask.
I was just thinking about confidence or, more specifically, conquering fears, inspired by listening to Jeremy Renner read his book, My Next Breath, A Memoir. In the book, he describes in terrifying detail, the moments when a 14,000-pound snowplow ran him over, very nearly killing him at the base of the long driveway at his mountain retreat in Nevada during a snowstorm that had closed most roads and made rescue slow and chancy. He recounts every wheel, every tread, his bones cracking, his eyeball coming out of its socket, and then, in the immediate aftermath, the struggle he undertakes to breath. It’s gruesome.
In the recounting, he talks about a lifetime of very consciously identifying and tackling various fears. He picks a big one to start. Sharks. Now, I think a person can have a fear of sharks and have a perfectly fine life. Like just don’t go where sharks are. That isn’t hard. Hang out on the Great Lakes – a lot of water, great surf, and no sharks. But Renner decides he must conquer his fear of sharks by learning to scuba dive and then, of course, swimming with the sharks.
This made me think. I cured my fear of sharks and other large creatures swimming in the sea by looking at oceans and swimming in pools. This resolution came after spying a nurse shark (which grew in length each time I told the story) while snorkeling. Oh, nurse sharks never hurt anybody, oh sure, but I saw Jaws and so I swam to shore fast enough to create a wake. That was it. Done with shark fear.
The fear I landed on after I listened to Renner read his book was my fear of diving into the pool. Now I have dived into a pool before. In high school, I was part of a synchronized swimming club that did water shows. In one show, I, along with four or five other girls, dove in a synchronized fashion (of course) off the side of the pool while wearing – pay attention here – a leotard and tights with fringe along the sides. It was a Davy Crockett theme. What the heck was the song?
Anyway, I can’t imagine diving in wearing all that gear or diving in naked for that matter. I can’t imagine any circumstance in which I would dive into a pool. I lack the confidence to dive into a pool. Who cares, you say. I don’t. I’m just making conversation.
You can find me at the shallow end of the pool, dangling my legs over the side, fixing my goggles, arranging my swim cap, and then standing in the waist deep water for a good four or five minutes and then finally, as they say, taking the plunge by starting into a breaststroke. And it is that moment that I despise most – my chest and arms hitting the cold water. It’s so shocking.
So, that’s my answer. I am not the most confident person I know. Maybe I used to be but I’m not anymore.
______________________
Photo by Jess Zoerb on Unsplash
Lost in the Waving of Signs on a Street Corner
This morning at the sign protest, a woman walked up to us wearing a button that said Minnesota – Pretti Good. She said she was visiting Milwaukee and came out to thank us for holding our anti-ICE, pro-immigrant, anti-war, pro-peace, anti-lawlessness, pro-Constitution signs at one of the busiest intersections in the county. She hugged each one of us and we talked about Minneapolis’ leadership and how much we admired and appreciated their resilience in protecting their communities and helping their neighbors.
We do our sign protest every Saturday, 10-11:30. All four corners, each side of each corner, so eight groups of people. I am part of the southeast corner of 76th and Layton crew. We hold our signs and chat during the red light and then when the green left turn signal comes on, we hold our signs up high and wave. And smile. Oh, the power of a smile is awesome. Then when the eastbound traffic comes, we redouble our efforts, relaxing only at the red light. Then maybe we do little dances to the music coming from somebody’s boombox across six lanes of traffic on the opposite corner.
I like to yell at the county buses, “We love the county buses.” I also like to stick my tongue out or blow kisses at people who give me the finger, but only after they’ve passed. I had somebody roll up in front of me a few years ago, get out of the car, and spit on me so I make sure grumpy people are well on their way before expressing myself.
A more refined or cerebral person would have a productive hobby or meditate. Do yoga or knit. I stand around on Saturday with a bunch of other old people who are holding signs, waving, and making wisecracks. It’s like going to church, just going someplace to be with other people and letting go of all of it. And right now, all of it is an unbelievably heavy load of craziness, injustice, violence, and immorality.
After the sign waving and the respite it provides is the work, whatever the work is that week – the calls, the letters, the meetings, the showing up. Nothing heroic but always something. Little tiny cog in what I hope is a big wheel and grateful for my sign sisters and brothers. Missed the woman who usually shows up with donuts, though. That pushes the Zen of sign waving to a whole new level.
Fat Cat, Kettle Corn, Back to School Girl Friday Round-Up
When I went to pick up my student ID, the twenty-something in charge barely blinked an eye. “Have you had a Panther ID before?” he asked. “Not for a while,” I answered, ‘not for a while’ being forty years ago. He was just checking not starting a conversation. “Do you have a preferred name?” was the next question and then he asked me to take a seat while the machine printed my ID. He couldn’t have been more nonchalant, like it was every day a 77-year-old person came to get a student ID. I loved that so much. I took a picture of my ID right away because it made me so happy.
I finished the kettle corn. It had to be done. Enough with the dainty snacking. It was time to move on.
Herc, the cat, has gotten portly or broad in the beam as we call it here. This is because he takes steroids and because he eats a lot. We indulge this by keeping his bowl full of dry food all the time and giving him canned cat food, fluffed up with a fork, at cocktail hour. For the latter, we hoist him up on the counter lest the hounds disturb his concentration. We do this because a year ago, Herc was on death’s door, skinny with a weird, undefined shadow on his X-ray. To counter his bulked-upness a bit, I’ve deepened my commitment to playing more with him. This distracts from my scrolling time so it’s a sacrifice but he’s so worth it.
A collaborative poem is comprised of stanzas contributed by many people on a common theme. I am not a poet but had an opportunity to contribute to a poem entitled “They too, had Names,” a “collaborative poem to acknowledge those who have died while in ICE custody in 2026, to date.” Organized by Kim Suhr of Red Oak Writing through her Use Your Words effort, the poem is very solemn, sometimes very hard to read. Here is a link to Kim’s Substack and the full poem. My contribution was this: I tell them if they take me/I will die/They don’t look at me/They talk only to each other/My bones fold into themselves to be carried to the car.
After a year of this madness, I have adjusted. I am no longer lying awake at night worrying about the fate of democracy (although I’m still very worried about it). I am not out of kilter all the time. I have relearned the fine art of compartmentalization, of having a place for everything and everything in its place. And I reminded myself of the healing balm and energizing nature of forward thinking, of having a beautiful goal. My beautiful goal now is to complete this graduate certificate in gerontology, a joyful thing despite the fact that the first course is Death and Dying. I’m going to be brilliant, I just know it.
Stop with the Rope Pushing
I am becoming overwhelmed by extreme pluck.
Today’s megadose came by way of Cindy Abbot who decided to cope with a diagnosis of a super rare and potentially fatal disease by climbing Mt. Everest and then doing the Iditarod sled dog race, thereby becoming the only woman to do both. Her husband, a retired cop standing in the back of the room where she was speaking at the Iditarod lecture, was her training partner as they climbed mountains in the U.S., Russia, Turkestan, and Argentina. He’s a great man, she said, and all heads turned to see said great man, dressed in a T-shirt, khakis and sandals. He shrugged, it was nothing. Heck, any guy will tool around the globe to help his wife climb mountains. Half of us were wondering where the cash for all this gallivanting came from. Not my half. A different half.
But, oh, it’s more complicated than that. It took her 51 days and numerous ups and downs between base camps to summit Mt. Everest, at points walking on ladders laid across 2,000 foot crevices and when one was missing, jumping across. It took her three tries to finish the Iditarod, the first time scratching late in the race only to find that the terrible pain she’d been experiencing since a fall early on was the result of a broken pelvis. Yes, she rode a sled pulled by 16 dogs through the wilderness for several days with a broken pelvis. The second time she injured her shoulder and had to scratch. But the third time, she finished. Last. After 14 days mushing alone through the Alaskan wilderness. The winner finished in nine days. She got the Red Lantern Award, meaning that she was given the honor of taking the symbolic red lantern down from the Iditarod finish line in Nome.
My coffee was cold so I went to get a new cup. Nothing worse than cold coffee.
I need a more remarkable life, I told my husband. I need to do something extraordinary. Maybe you could be more like Cindy Abbott’s husband, I suggest to him, thinking that a team effort aimed at my greatness would be smart. He reminded me that he was driving me to Dayton later this month to go to the Erma Bombeck Writing Workshop.
It’ll make me a better blogger. I dream the impossible dream.
I feel Lilliputian in spirit and gumption.
Cindy Abbott’s not the only pluck that’s overwhelming me today. There’s Mitch Seavey, Jeff King and Brent Sass, all champion mushers I heard today. And then there was the documentary about Lance Mackey. A pluck tsunami. But there is a difference between female pluck and male pluck. It’s only the former that gets me checking my own pluckiness. Why is that? you ask. You can’t figure it out? I answer.
Anyway, the guys told me things that will come in handy in my little careful future like:
“You can’t push a rope.”
” To go faster, we need to slow down.”
“It’s all about energy management.”
I wrote these things on a tiny piece of paper and looked at them tonight, settling on my favorite.
You can’t push a rope. Absolutely, I get it. And I wouldn’t even try.
_________________________
When we met Cindy Abbott in 2016, we had no idea that several years later, she would be the musher who would connect us to our beloved sled dog retirees, Tempest and Durant. Better believe we stay in touch, sending updates all the time because we love these dogs so much. It’s crazy.
Twenty Years Ago, There was a Party
[The prompt, borrowed from Red Oak Writing’s Kim Suhr and given to the people in my new writing group was I am in _______’s kitchen and I am ______. Here’s my take.]
I am in my kitchen and I’m watching my husband Howard chopping raw garlic to be used, he says, as a garnish for the chopped liver he has made from scratch.
He is throwing a party for me because I got an award from my alma mater. He has decided to make the party the occasion to try a dozen new recipes, each requiring many steps and utensils we don’t own. It is crazy in the kitchen. Much stirring and direction giving, helpers bumping into each other. I watch from the door, not wanting to get involved in any way.
The guests are milling about in the dining room, murmurs of this and that, new knocks on the door. Our son walks in, his wild hair unrestrained by the company (mostly my professional colleagues and a few old friends) or his flat brimmed baseball cap. He is holding his two-week-old baby.
The baby is wearing a onesie and one sock. It is April in Wisconsin. I shoot him a look and point to his baby’s foot. He shrugs, covers the foot with his hand, and keeps talking to the political science professor standing next to him. He is nonplussed by my sideways glances that anyone else would read “Put pants on that baby!” “Wrap her in a blanket!”
In the kitchen, Howard is urging his helpers – our younger son and his girlfriend – to hurry up peeling the shrimp. His tone gets too urgent and our son drops the shrimp he is working on in the sink and goes upstairs, temporarily removing himself from the kitchen corps. His girlfriend soldiers on, having become much more adept at peeling. An older friend takes a break from watching the peeling to hand me a coffee mug that says “World’s Greatest Grandma.”
Meanwhile in the dining room, I overhear one friend whisper to another, “Watch out for the chopped liver. It’s loaded with raw garlic.”
“You can scrape it off!” my husband yells from the kitchen. He comes through the door carrying a tray of peeled shrimp. In the middle of the platter is a glass bowl of shrimp sauce which I can tell even from several feet away contains at least half a good-sized jar of horseradish. If the guests are intimidated by raw garlic, they’ll faint at the horseradish.
The guests ask to see my award. It is an official, university imprinted document mounted on a wooden plaque. It is on the mantle over our fireplace for the start of the celebration but when the professor who gave it to me learns they’d gotten my middle initial wrong, she takes the award off our mantle and stuffs it in her purse.
All night people ask me, ‘where’s the award?’ and I have to tell them the award is in the professor’s purse.
This puzzles people, including me, but we all decide to make the best of it. The party goes on as if nothing happened. Howard brings out dish after dish from the kitchen. He is in heaven, having orchestrated this extravaganza for me, so I don’t chide him about the garlic or the horseradish and decide that the people murmuring about one or both lack appreciation for spicy cuisine and culinary adventure. I realize I am lucky about everything in this moment.
Later, we find out that the garlic was to be sauteed. It is too late and we don’t care anymore.
______________________
Elvis and Me at the Baseball Jamboree
Of course, we had dinner where an Elvis impersonator sang long and hard. And, of course, we sang along with Sweet Caroline even though it wasn’t an Elvis song. It was fun. And, of course, we’re going to our grandson’s fifth tournament baseball game this morning which some of us sort of, kind of hope they lose so there isn’t a Game 6 or, heaven forbid, a Game 7.
The baseball playing grandson is, however, the most delightful young man on the planet which means we can’t beg off and go to grown-up major league spring training baseball on the lovely sunny day in Phoenix (unless they lose early and who would wish for that?).
I’m not a storybook grandmother. When I commented to a friend that I wasn’t the greatest grandma, she said, “That’s okay. You’re good at other things,” a remark which took me aback for its scalpel like quality, but which I’ve since recognized to be true.
Oh well. There are minutes and there are hours, days and years. I’m good for the minute. Game 5!
Making Do with No Pie
We leave the roadside, rough boarded, giant signed, world famous Rock City Cafe without having pie which seems wrong and unfriendly as if we’d besmirched generations of pie makers with blueberry-stained fingers for the sick reason that we were ‘full,’ but we stop at a worn out gas station to buy a Hersey bar which I unwrap and then snap off a piece for my husband putting this gift on the lid of his searingly strong coffee where I notice in minutes the chocolate melting and oozing so I take the lid off the coffee, open the car door, and lick the chocolate off the lid while holding it over the oil-stained concrete, a process which quickly becomes a metaphor for something lovely but I’m not sure what.
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
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