Over the past several years, I have imagined several avatars for myself. Here they are, in descending chronological order:
playing with my avatars
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“the sun, the sun, and all we can become”
It’s sunny out today, finally, although the temperature still hasn’t hit 50.
The title of this post is from the end of this poem by Theodore Roethke, one of my favorite crazy dead poets.
Gilda Radner‘s signature phrase “it’s always something” is playing through my brain today. Just when I’m revving up for some physical movement and some windowsill seed planting, I do something to my left knee and I’m down for the count. Ice packs and visits to the chiropractor are helping, but at my age healing takes a lot longer than I like.
I’m not exactly sure what I did to my knee, but I think it has something to do with rolling out of bed one night a week or so ago in the middle of a dream about Bing Crosby. (I have no idea why I was dreaming about Bing Crosby, but, as he was sitting in my living room singing to me, I reached over to pick up a sheet of lyrics that dropped on the floor and that’s when I rolled out of bed.)
I am an elaborate dreamer, often playing out scenarios that seem so real that, when I wake up, I’m not sure where I am.
Hmmph. The sun is gone again. Maybe it will be back tomorrow. Maybe my knee will feel better tomorrow. Maybe my son will find work.
The sun. The son. The sun.
in case you forgot how crazy it is out there….
Each week, Harper’s publishes a weekly review of what’s happening around the world with links to the original source.
What I’m always interested in is the stuff that isn’t widely covered, for example, these in this past week’s Review:
! In Afghanistan, suicide bombers attacked the defense ministry and spectators at a game of buzkashi, a sport played on horseback using a headless goat carcass.
! In Egypt, where the attorney general’s office was encouraging the practice of citizen’s arrests, soccer fans set fire to a police social club, a fast-food franchise, and the headquarters of the national soccer federation in protest of death sentences that were upheld for 21 rioters involved in a 2012 stadium riot that killed more than 70 people.
! Archaeologists in England uncovered a mass grave thought to contain the corpses of fourteenth-century Plague victims.
! In Tshwane, South Africa, eight-year-old Sanele Masilela was ritually wedded to 61-year-old Helen Shabangum.
! in Amsterdam 70-year-old twins Louise and Martine Fokkens retired from prostitution. “It is very different now,” said Louise. “No sense of community these days.”
! Faced with a shortage of swordsmen, Saudi Arabia was considering replacing beheadings with executions by firing squads.
It all makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
maybe old friends are still the best friends
I have had the urge to get in touch with people with whom I was close but haven’t been in touch with for more than 30 years — former colleagues with whom I shared both professional and personal adventures.
Maybe it’s because I really haven’t made any new friends since I moved out here to Massachusetts almost four years ago. It isn’t that I haven’t made an effort; I just haven’t connected with anyone with whom I’d like to hang out.
So, that’s just another reason to love the Internet, where I am able to track down folks even if they have a very low cyber-profile.
We are all elders, now — retired and involved in both the tribulations and the pleasures of being where and when we are now. And most find it fun to reconnect at this point — each sharing the stories of our past 30 years, as well as sharing, again, memories of younger and more vitally engaging times. This is a time for opening memories.
OK. I’ve got to face it. I’m ready for the rocking chair — well, really I’m ready for Spring and the awning-shaded yard swing where I like to laze away the days, reading, knitting, and, often dozing. And catching up with old friends via my iPhone.
lost books that need to be found
I know that at my age I could easily be misremembering, but I don’t think so.
Back in the early 1980s, I found two books that I gave to my pre-pubescent son to read.
Girls: A Book for Boys and Boys: A Book for Girls
They were the best two books for kids that I ever saw analyzing gender/sex and the physical and psychological changes of puberty in a way that supported respect for both your own and your opposite gender. Both the explanations and the illustrations were clear, honest, and age-appropriate. Together, they provided an approach to sex education that also placed a high value on each gender, encouraging understanding of the differences and appreciation of the human similarities. I eventually I gave them away to another mother, and now neither Amazon nor Google has any mention of them.
I think of these books now because of all of the discussions around the rape of the 16 year old girl by the high school football players.
My son says that he doesn’t remember reading those books, but I sure do remember sitting there and watching him read them, ready for any questions he might ask. Even though he doesn’t remember those books, the reality is that his strong respect for females can be traced, in part, back to the concepts in those books that became embedded in his subconscious.
Next month he’s participating in this, offered by Ball State University:
Gender Through Comics: A Super MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) that examines how comic books can be used to explore questions of gender identity, stereotypes, and roles. This highly engaging learning experience is designed for college-age and lifelong learners. I guess that there are some things I did right as a single mom bringing up a son.
I keep thinking that kids today need those two books more than ever. But all traces of them seem to have disappeared from both the real and virtual face of this earth.
If you know any feminist parents who were raising young kids back in the 80s, please ask if they remember those books. They were published about the same time as the original Our Bodies, Ourselves.
cooperative Tuesdays
Tuesdays is Home School Co-op, where my grandson goes to learn as part of a group; where parents teach what they know best (science, language arts, history, etc.); where my daughter teaches history with an interdisciplinary, creative, and dramatic flair that includes costumes and role playing and presentations laced with the fun of technology.
So, Tuesdays is my day home alone, when I try to be cooperative and help out by doing some chores, like cleaning out the double sinks and putting dishes away from there and the dishwasher.
Other than than, my household chores are limited to my own living space. In the house at-large, my daughter does the cooking; my son-in-law does most of the cleaning. They don’t expect me do help with much of anything. But on Tuesdays, I try to cooperate a little more.
With that done, now it’s time to tackle my own laundry and clutter and bathroom. I’ve never been a great housekeeper, but never having had anyone who would cooperate with me, I had to learn to tear myself away from doing fun stuff and take care of my own necessities. Which is what I’m going to do now.
a total spring cleaning
Obviously, I’ve cleaned out my blog house, going for a fresh new look. Now, the challenge is to clean the cobwebs out of my head and start to write here again. It’s not unusual for bloggers to take a break every once in a while.
I’m also motivated to tune up physically — went to the chiropractor today. Of course, it helps a lot that my daughter (who cooks for the family) has upped our intake of delicious vegetables and cut down the fleshy portions of our meals. That means I’m eating healthier (except for my late night snacking, which I’m trying to control). With Spring will come more walking and a greater willingness to get myself out for the exercise classes at the well-equipped local Jewish Community Center.
My next challenge is to clean out my living space and make room for the new Lazy-boy glider recliner I bought myself for my birthday with my tax refund.
In the meanwhile, I’m still putting out heirloom seeds for wintersowing, even though it’s kind of late for that. I can’t wait to get out and garden.
My son, who is still job-hunting, has been motivated to publish his late father’s novels, which have been sitting on old 5 inch floppy discs in WordPerfect. They are available via Amazon Kindle, and he has put up a website to promote them: www.myrlnbooks.com
The Wheel turns.
The wheels turn.
Spring. Sunshine. Energy. Hope.
where did my neck go
I know that I used to have one, although it certainly was no rival to Audrey Hepburn’s. 
But I do remember, as a 50s teenager, knotting a small scarf around my neck, western-style, as was the fashion in those days. The fashion these days is those long, wide scarves, wrapped twice around the neck. I love the look, but you need a neck to make it work. On me, that kind of scarf covers me from clavicle to mouth. Maybe OK for chill winter weather, but as a fashion statement? Uh uh.
And whatever happened to my chin? Where did all that extra skin come from?
Getting old is neither for sissies nor the vain.
Funk and Folly
Funk and folly. That’s sort of been the theme of my life over the past several months. Funk gets in the way of lively living, so I’m trying to add a “y” and move toward “funky” — a place where I’d much rather be.
Last month, I had to put my 17 year old cat down for the count; I’m never getting another pet, but the family has added an adorable kitten, Kasza, to the two other big male cats who already live here. 
The spunky little female now rules the kingdom. Spunky. Rhymes with Funky. So far so good.
I ran out of energy volunteering several times a week at the geriatric center. Part of it is that it’s winter, and I just want to hibernate; part of it is that I really took on too much responsibility there, and they need to be more organized. I’ll probably go back, but with a much lighter schedule.
I will be 73 next month, and I am reminded that my father passed away at age 73. Of course, my mother lasted until 94, so who knows which way I’ll go. In the meanwhile, however, I need to have some fun.
I always feel better when I’m engaged in a hands-on creative outlet, and I love playing with fabric and yarn. I had made some funky walker bags and gave them to a few of the women at the geriatric center; they really like them and I loved making my own designs and playing with the materials. 
I think I want to try to sell them. Thinking about an Etsy store. How about “Kalilily’s Funk and Folly” for a name? “Funk and Folly.” I think I’ll make that my official trade mark right now.
My living space is filling up with funky creations in wild colors and combinations of materials — hats, wristlets, leg warmers, boot socks. I might try a variation on a kind of overhead shawl I designed and made years ago. It might all be folly, but it’s fun folly. Fun, funky, folly.
By next winter, I should have enough stuff to do a holiday craft fair. Just for fun. I need something fun toward which to look forward.
Funk and Folly — fun stuff to wear and share.
a family tradition of “orphan ornaments”
My daughter just won an Amazon gift card for submitting this true story to some website that was having a contest. I thought it is worth posting here.
My father had a tradition every Christmas — he’d “rescue” a new “orphan ornament” from some store. He’d hunt for these strange, oddly made ones that looked like mistakes (like one riding a hobby horse, but the horse was actually impaled through the little wooden elf body) and otherwise would be rejected or left behind. Like the Island of Misfit Toys. He’d get one or a few and add them to the tree. I lost my father a few years back quite suddenly and unexpectedly — the orphan ornaments came home with me and we hang them with our own son, now ten, each year — in memory of “Pa”. We honor him, and a lesson (albeit maybe accidental) on acceptance, tolerance and reaching out a hand to those who might otherwise be overlooked. Even now, as we begin our search for a family dog at different rescues, our son gravitates towards those that are listed as “still waiting” or “overlooked” for some reason, wanting to give them what they need. It’s silly, it’s sweet, and it instilled in us a way of thinking that was probably unintentional as far as his reason for getting the ornaments, but that had an effect on us nonetheless.