Calling Home

Had dinner with a good friend and former colleague the other night, and we spent the better part of four hours(!) on a rainy evening talking about all sorts of things.  We're each "only children," who have adult sons (also only children), we've cared for aging relatives, we run in the same musical circles and share several years of working in the same small office together.  So there's always plenty of things to discuss, and a couple of glasses of wine make the conversation all the more interesting.  That night we got on the topic of home, and how the concept has changed over the last three generations.  It came up 

 because my son is on the verge of moving from Florida to Texas, and my friend's son was contemplating a move from Vermont to Maine.  My friend and her husband, much like Jim and I, have lived in the same suburban home for the past 30 years.  

"I have no desire to move into some big mansion," S. says, or even to one of the "paradise retirement communities.  I'm not a house person," she admitted.  "Don't care if it's fancy or big, as long as it's comfortable and safe and mine." 

I found myself wholeheartedly agreeing, something I might not have done four or five years ago, when I was going through a period of wanting out of my old house in my old neighborhood and  yearning for something new and different.  Who in the world stays in the same place their entire life, I remember thinking then.  And why would you want to? 

Interestingly enough, now I know exactly why.  There is an unprecedented sense of history in where we live,  and although it isn't momentous in any way, it's unusual enough in the modern world to suddenly feel very special.  To live on a piece of land your father purchased in 1942, to live in a house he helped design and build, to walk the same hallways, sleep in the same room, look out on the same expanse of lawn that you have done for your entire life - that hardly ever happens anymore.   Heck, my son has already lived in more places than his dad or I ever have, and he's about to increase that total by one more...and he's only just turned 30. 

So we were talking about home last night, and S. mentioned that when her husband was planning his 50th high school reunion , he did a survey of his former classmates which posed the question, "Where do you consider home?"  Remarkably, many of these 60-somethings named the small town in upper Michigan where they all grew up, even though most of them had been gone from this place for decades.  I recalled that my mother in law, who was born  and raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, always referred to that city as "home," even though she spent 55 years in Michigan.  

I suppose what feels like home is different for everyone.  For me, home is tied up in the three houses here in Redford where I've lived since I was six.  They've sort of morphed into one place that's home, where my history is.  My schools, my childhood friends, my music teacher's house, the library, the park where I took my son sledding in the winter, the stores where I've shopped.  This aging suburb contains every bit of my life, every relationship that's important to me, all of it started here.  

Of course, we have our house in Florida, which is lovely and is a nice respite (especially during the winter months).  But is that, or could that ever be, home?  I don't feel as if I fit there in Naples, and don't suspect I ever would, with all the rich retirees and the golfers and the ladies who lunch.   And home to me is about fitting, like a piece that clicks  perfectly into whatever odd shape the puzzle requires. 

Not that there's anything wrong with moving around, with living in different parts of the country or even the world for that matter.  I'm sure you gain great social perspective, develop all kinds of insight, and learn to be adaptable, all necessary skills which scientifically ensure the survival of the species.   

But I guess I'm just a home-body, and though I may be part of a dying breed I'm beginning to think you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming out of this house and into whatever the next place I'll try to call home will be.   Because  I may very well live in some other place, but  it won't be home for real.  I think that definition has already been set. 

So, how about you?  Where do you call home?

Write Here and Now

I was busy packing my gig bag yesterday morning, tossing everything I thought might come in handy during a day of accompanying.   Music notebook - check.  Water bottle - check.  Novel to read during breaks between classes -check.   At the last minute I decided to toss in a blank notebook to update my things-to-do lists for the days ahead.  I remembered seeing one lying on our old desk in the basement, and grabbed it up when I went down to get clean socks out of the dryer. After my first class, I grabbed coffee and a cinnamon raisin bagel at a nearby Einstein Brothers, and sat at one of the sunny outside tables to enjoy the spring breeze.  I flipped open the cover of the notebook, my thoughts already turning to the myriad items on my mind.  Groceries, garden supplies from Home Depot, a baby gift for my cousin's little girl who arrived yesterday morning. 

To my surprise, the notebook was already half filled.  Glancing through the notations, I remembered this was one of the writing notebooks I kept a few summers ago.  There were ideas for blog posts, snippets of poems, quotes from essays on writing.   It reminded me of notebooks kept when I was a teenager, brimming over with passionate dreams and plans.

How sad, I thought - this notebook, once the repository of creative musings and ideas was being relegated to grocery and to-do lists.  When did that happen?

My "writing life," such as it is (or ever was) has definitely taken a back burner to my "real life."  I still write, here, and at Bookstack, but sometimes my writing seems without purpose, lackluster.  I don't yearn for the page like I once did, and though I still have ideas aplenty, the words with which to impart them seem harder to come by.  Like any passion, the one I have for writing has cooled a bit and requires more tender loving care to fan its flame. 

But something inside eggs me on, refuses to consider giving up this space, the place to order my thoughts and play with words.  I still need it, I think, as a way to make sense of a crazy world fraught with change, a way to record my impression of life in general and my own in particular. 

A place to write - here and now, and in the days to come.

Empathetic Eyes

You can sense the emotions of those around you.  You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own.  People feel comfortable telling you their innermost thoughts and feelings.  You do not necessarily agree with each person's perspective or condone the choices they make, but you do understand.  You yearn to be thought of affectionately by most people.  You search for ways to fill their lives with joy.  You might embody the proverb  "still waters run deep" - that is, quiet people are profound thinkers. 

Empathy was the second strength identified by the StrengthsFinder assessment I completed a while back.  Again, it's eerily correct.  Ever since second grade when little Cathy A., the class outcast, attached herself to me, until the present day when someone at my workplace (who shall remain nameless) so regularly bends my ear about all kinds of personal problems that I've been tempted to hang up my shingle announcing "Psychiatrist 5 cents" , I've been a magnet for anyone who needs some empathetic understanding. 

Sometimes, like the legendary sin-eaters, I feel satiated to the point of bursting with other peoples angst.  Nevertheless, I can't seem to control my heart which continues going out to anyone and everyone around me.   I've been advised to grow a thicker skin, to turn a deafer ear, but somehow I can't seem to put this  advice into practice.

So how does this characteristic help/hinder me in terms of my professional life?  It allows me to be aware of  others perspectives, gives me a clearer idea of how they will react  in a given situation.  It also enables me to intuit what may happen before it becomes common knowledge.  I've seen this played out at work with boring regularity recently, pertaining to some issues with personnel that have resulted in more than a few shake ups lately.   But since I can see what's about to happen in these situations, I also get worried and anxious  waiting for the other shoe to drop.  And because I care about the people involved, my empathetic nature fires up and sets my heartstrings fluttering.  

I can also use empathy to help defuse potentially volatile situations and to assess people's moods to ascertain how they might react.  I think empathy helps me be a better judge of character, too, and allows me to envision how people fit into the workplace environment or don't fit in, as the case may be.

While the StrengthsFinder assessments seem focused on workplace use, it's interesting to think about one's strengths in terms of family an romantic relationships, too.   My husband probably appreciates my need to maintain harmony in our lives, and hopefully my empathetic eyes enhance my value in terms of our partnership.  I'll remind him of that the next time he turns all Analytical on me.  Because even though he's not taken the assessment, I'd be willing to bet that's his top strength.  And since I'm so perceptive about people, I'm probably right.

On Aging

The conversation around the lunch table at work had turned to a familiar topic.  "She's gotten really picky about food," Jill said.  "She used to eat anything, but lately she turns her nose up at everything."

"Try milkshakes and ice cream," Deb suggested.  "And what's the name of that place where you ordered diapers and they delivered them so cheaply?"

"Oh, Sav-Mor Drugs," Jill answered.  "You can get wipes there too."

The same conversation occurred tonight at choir rehearsal.  "I don't know what I'm going to do with him," Sandy said. "I found out quite by accident that he had taken the car again without telling us.  I guess we'll have to take the keys away."

Seems like every time I sit down with a group of women friends these days, we fall into the same conversation.  I recall similar conversations about 25 years ago, long discussions about feeding habits, and the best places to buy supplies, conversations which over the years turned to diatribes about unruly teenagers.

But though the topics are similar, the subject of these discussions have changed.

It's no longer our children we're talking about, it's our aging parents.

In the past decade or so, I've shepherded both my in-laws, as well as my aunt and uncle,  through the last stages of their lives.  And while the caregiving is remarkably similar to that required by infants and children, the emotional  reality is much different.  Because the roles are reversed, because the child becomes the authority figure, the one making the hard decisions that the parent often rails against.  And because the outcome of this scenario is not a child who grows up to embark on a successful independent life, but a loved one  reaching the end of one.

There are so, so many elderly people in this country right now, requiring various levels of care, and those numbers are only going to grow as my own generation ages and lives longer and longer.  I could start counting off all of them I know personally, and name a dozen within 10 seconds.   Most of them are floundering in one way or another.  They try to remain in their homes too long without the help they need, either because they're too proud to ask for it or to poor to pay for it.  Or they're institutionalized  among other people in similar or worse physical and mental condition, and they deteriorate for lack of stimulation and the loss of their assimilation in  mainstream society.  They lose the ability to be useful in society, because we compartmentalize them and ignore the many gifts they still have to offer.   They lose their independence because there are so few alternatives to transportation or safe independent living. 

I read an essay the other day written by Gerda Learner, a historian, author, and teacher, who specialized in women's studies.  In her most recent book, this 90-year old educator and thinker, has some profound thoughts on aging.  In 20th century society, she writes, "there is no model for aging well that is appropriate to the new reality."   She talks about the inevitable losses that come with growing older, but she also points out that aging is a natural process, and one from which we should not shy away.   "Aging is a process of purging , of purification," she writes, in which "one makes peace with one's life and one's way of living; and one learns to treasure the gift of each day." 

My mother, who is 83 years old, still lives in her three bedroom home on 1/2 acre of land in the suburbs of Detroit.  She shops, cooks hearty meals for herself (and for me, and often for her neighbors, most of whom are in various stages of infirmity).  She has lost virtually all the family and friends of her generation.  Yet she perseveres each day, gets up every morning despite arthritis that stiffens her joints in the cold Michigan winters. "I have to keep going," she says.  "I can't just give up, can I?"

Although she's doing pretty well today, I know that could all change in a heartbeat.  How one fall could spell the end of her independence, one missed dosage of blood pressure medication could ignite an explosion in her circulatory system, one trip up a flight of stairs with a load of laundry prove too much for her heart.   Sometimes that future rushes at me like a freight train, and I picture myself lying here tied to the tracks, helpless to stop it. 

"Because modern society excludes or marginalizes old people and avoids dealing with death," Learner concludes, "the healthy and living are full of fears and have no preparation for their own process of aging.  Old age is not a contagious disease. It is the ripening of the fruit, the preparation for the harshness of winter when the roots grow and strengthen, a time when leaf mold decays making a new seedbed for the growth of mushrooms.  It is the closing of the circle; the fulfillment of the contract between generations.  It needs to be treated with respect and honor."  ~from Reflections on Aging

Those of us caring for old people now should look long and hard at this reality and decide how we want it to change.  For aging happens to us all, and in the blink of an eye it will be our children gathered around those dinner tables talking about us.

Mother's Day: The Flip Side

If you've come looking for a gushing tribute to mothers, you won't find it here today - not exactly anyway.  It isn't that I don't have a wonderful mother (for I certainly do) nor that I haven't loved being a mother (because I have).  Perhaps I'm a bit Scrooge-ish in terms of this holiday, because I've been thinking about the message it sends to women who aren't mothers or who don't have good relationships with their mothers or whose mothers are no longer with them either by choice or by reason of death.   Also, by making all this hoopla about motherhood in general and our own individual mothers in particular, are we saying that women who don't bear children are somehow less worthy of celebrating than those who do?  I don't believe that for a minute, and I suspect most other American's don't either.  Certainly there are thousands of women who would give their eye teeth to have children, and cannot do so for a myriad of reasons.  There are likely just as many women who have a houseful of children running around their feet and would rather never to have set eyes upon any them.   For every Hallmark family with smiling mother  and perfectly dressed children bearing gifts today, there is a family mired in dysfunction, or one bereaved, or one with empty arms and womb crying out to be filled.

Motherhood is not like anything else you do in life, and it calls on skills that no one can really teach you.  Most of it is learned on the fly, by doing and by having successes and failures of varying proportions.  Some people have a natural gift for it, others have to work harder at it, some of us succeed in spite of ourselves, others fail after valiant effort.  There isn't and cannot be an archetypal mother, mostly because every child is different and therefore requires unique responses and upbringing.   Having one day per year to recognize the awesome responsibility that goes along with this job title seems like too little too late.  

Truthfully, all the adulation and expectation associated with this holiday makes me a little bit uncomfortable.  Trying to be a good mother isn't something I did (or do) with reward in mind - the real reward isn't in candy or flowers, but in having helped another human being live a healthy, satisfying, and productive life.  If you've done that, at least a little bit, and you have some sense that your children understand and are appreciative of your efforts, that's about all the recognition I would need on any day of the week.  (Incidentally, that's exactly the kind of gift I got today, and I couldn't be more pleased.)

Given a choice, I'd like to make celebrating mother (or father) more of a private affair, one that's not so in the face of every other person on the planet.  Perhaps one's birthday is a great day to offer mother some remembrance and recognition, a way of saying "thank you for having me."    Since we're so often concerned with being "politically correct" in regard to issues of race, gender, religious affiliation and sexual preference, perhaps we should extend a similar courtesy to family connection.