What Matters Most

So a little time has passed, and with it some of the horribly angry feelings I wrote about here.  Your supportive comments were like balm on those wounds, proving once again that writing is good therapy, but so is the counsel of wise friends. I'm back online, with a brand new MacBook Pro, purchased in a wild spending spree yesterday that probably has more than a little bit to do with my improved outlook.  Nothing like spending someone else's money to make you feel better.  My dear husband keeps reminding me that we've been paying our insurance company premiums for over 34 years in order to reap these benefits.  That is certainly true, and I'm definitely appreciative.

In addition to the  (somewhat surprising) angry reaction I experienced, there has come a depth of awareness about what matters most in situations of loss.  I reckon you all won't be a bit surprised to learn that the despair  I've felt hasn't been about the loss of possessions themselves, for those are easily replaced.  The despair comes from the loss of those irreplaceable things that meant more to me than the items themselves.  My pictures, my documents, everything I've ever written since I began using a computer decades ago, including poems, essays, stories, and the manuscripts of two novels.   None of it was valuable to anyone but me, and the senselessness of stealing it makes the loss even more painful.  It was all diligently copied onto a small external expansion drive, just in case  my computer crashed or was lost or damaged during my travels.

Never did I imagine that someone would break into my home and steal not only the laptop, but the expansion drive as well, something that's worth about a buck (if that) on the open market, but priceless to me.

When I first heard the news about the robbery I was at work, and my mind flashed onto an image of the necklace I had left lying on the dresser earlier that morning.  It's a diamond pendant, a setting of my mother's engagement ring.  I wear it nearly every day, but on that particular day had decided to wear something different, and, in my usual rush, had left it on lying on the dresser.

"My necklace - is my necklace on the dresser?" I implored my husband, who was wandering the house looking to see what was missing.

"Your diamond necklace is there - is that the one you mean?"

"Oh yes," I gasped gratefully. "That's the one."

The things that matter most.

Priceless indeed.  The advertising guru's who created that familiar Master Card campaign were right on the money with that concept.  There is so much in life that money can't buy - much of it has to do with our experiences and the ways commemorate them.

A lot of those priceless objects were stolen from me Monday afternoon, but thankfully, not all of them.

And to paraphrase another recent advertising slogan - I'm not too worried, because I will make more.

Anger Management

Well. It's been a week here. 

Monday afternoon, while my husband and I were waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for his nephrology appointment at the University of Michigan Hosptial, there was quite a bit of excitement going on at our house.

Apparently, two men drove a battered white Escort into our driveway, walked around the back of our house, bashed down the back door, came inside and walked out with our 47 inch screen television, both of our laptop computers and both of our digital cameras.  They likely would have taken more (like some of the jewelry on my dresser or the cash in my desk) had one of our  neighbors not come out onto his driveway and spotted them, at which point they jumped into the car and took off.  He called the police of course, who came forthwith.  Very soon there were evidence officers inside our house dusting for fingerprints, while patrol officers tried to track down the vehicle (of course, to no avail).

By the time we got home, it was all over but the shouting.

My shouting, that is.

Bad as it is, there is much to be thankful for in this situation.  Both the dogs were at my mother's, so they weren't involved or hurt in any way.  Other than the broken garage door, there was not one bit of damage to the inside of my house - as a matter of fact, everything was eerily undisturbed.  Were it not for the dusty patches were the television and computers were sitting, you would never know anyone had been inside.

But I'm shouting nevertheless.

I have to confess, I'm a bit disturbed by the depth of anger and hatred I feel right now.  Those of you who know me personally, and even those who know me only by my words, would likely describe me as a gentle soul, someone who cares about others, perhaps even someone who wouldn't hurt a flea, as the old saying goes.

Until Monday, I would have described myself that way as well.  But right now, I'm so damn mad that I can hardly see straight.   I'm a person who has spent her whole life trying to do the right thing, working hard, living by the rules.  The nice things I have - the tv sets, the computers, the cameras - those are things I've worked for and earned.  And nobody - NOBODY - has the right to take those from me.  I don't care how underpriveleged you are, I don't care if your parents beat you or abuse you, I don't care if you were born addicted to crack cocaine, I don't even care if you're homeless and hungry. 

You don't get to break down my door and come into  my house and take my stuff.

No.

So right now, this gentle soul who can't bear to look when her husband kills a spider or a fly, who was sick to her stomach the one time she hit a squirrel with her car, this same person is fantasizing with great satisfaction about pointing a nine millimeter pistol at those intruders and blowing them to bits, splattering their ignorant brains all over the sidewalk.

Wow.  Scary, isn't it?

What's even scarier is the way that violence begets violence, the way even the best of us can be turned in an instant into someone filled with hate and anger, someone we don't even recognize when we look in the mirror.  There is just so much injustice, and unreasonableness, and trouble in this world we live in, I marvel that any of us makes it through the day without being overcome by anger.  We go through the motions and hold all the uneasiness at bay, suppressing our emotions with platitudes, when really we're nearly consumed with turmoil.  And yet deep inside it festers away until one day something causes it to overflow and we're lost.

My anger may eventually fade.  I may just be in one of the "stages" crime victims inevitably travel through as they come to terms with the way they've been violated and the things they have lost.  Then again, it might be that an indelible mark has been left on my soul, that the gentle person I once was has been stolen away, has disappeared into the night along with my possessions.

And that would be the greatest loss of all.

Food for Thought

Redskin potatoes bathed in olive oil and dusted with fresh rosemary are roasting in the oven.  Salmon is marinating in the fridge.  Salad fixin's await tossing with garlic vinaigrette.  A gentle rain is falling outside, although it's  too little too late for the flowers and grass which have wilted in last month's arid heat. We have plans to go out tonight, and I'm kind of wishing we didn't.  It's getting more and more difficult for me to work up any enthusiasm for social functions, especially when the climate simply screams "Stay home!  Make popcorn!  Get the blankets out, cuddle up with puppy dogs, watch a movie!"

But our outing tonight is for a good cause, one I do want to support monetarily and with my presence.  It's a benefit concert for our city's symphony orchestra which is facing huge deficits. The musicians are being asked to take a 29% pay cut.   The orchestra management is playing particularly odious hard ball, and the musicians will most likely strike before the start of their regular season next month.

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra is one of the top 10 orchestras in the United States, considered World Class among the nation's symphonies.  That's kind of a big deal, when you think about all the other urban orchestras, and when you consider that Detroit is not exactly a mecca for artistic folks.   We've attracted high caliber musicians here because of our ranking and very competitive wages.   With the cuts currently on the table, that incentive will disappear, and with it the orchestra's first class ranking.  It won't take long for the really high caliber musicians to go in search of greener pastures.  I rather doubt if our illustrious new conductor, Leonard Slatkin, will renew his contract.  I would predict that within five years our symphony will be only a shadow of its former, world-class self, a shabby remnant reflective of the scores of burned out buildings and vacant lots which surround the historic Orchestra Hall where they perform.

That thought saddens me, largely because it's so symbolic of the entire city.  Detroit itself is just a shadow of the city it once was, a gritty but vibrant urban center where cars were king but culture was given it's just desserts.  As one of our local newspaper columnists put it, soon the only music Detroit children will hear is the sound of slot machines in the casino's dotting the city skyline.

There are people here in Detroit who say that's alright.  That Detroit should no longer care whether it supports a world class symphony orchestra, that there are more important priorities in this city than whether we have the top echelon of musicians on stage.

I certainly can't argue that the public schools and public safety departments deserve all the support the city can muster.  But naturally I think the arts are worth supporting.  I'm a musician.  Although I'm not an athlete, I think professional sports are worth supporting.  I wish there weren't such a disparity in the way we treat our local professional athletes and our local  professional artists.   Their performing venues are less than five miles apart, but the difference in their economic and popular standing is like the difference between here and the Milky Way.

The point is that a successful society should encompass a healthy variety of cultural, recreational, occupational, religious, and social opportunities.   We should strive for the best in every one of those endeavors, and not be willing to settle for second class because it's economically expedient.

Now I'm off to eat dinner, and then put on some nicer clothes, dig out my raincoat and umbrella, and take a drive in the rain to hear some wonderful music performed by a world class symphony orchestra which belongs to my home town.

I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to do that ~ even on a rainy Saturday night, when it would be so easy to stay home.

Winding Down

Yesterday was the first day of school here in Michigan, and the evidence of that was everywhere, including the weather.  Mother Nature cooperated nicely, giving us a little foretaste of fall with some cooler air and hefty breezes that sent dry leaves and twigs scuttering about. There was definitely something in the air yesterday - an ill wind was blowing, it seemed, for it was one of those days where everything that could go wrong, did.  Nothing catastrophic or life altering, thank goodness, but a day chock full of minor annoyances which multiplied into a killer of a headache.

It was an unfortunate day for that to happen, because it was a day I had decided to embark on a new philosophy of living.   I've been feeling a very real need to throttle back, to slow down the hectic pace of my life and relax.  It's an odd time to do that - just at the moment when  fall activities are gearing up, I'm talking about winding down. But I think it's more of an attitude adjustment than anything else.   I tend to plunge headstrong into everything, full speed ahead, bull in a china shop sort of plunging.   Just lately something has come over me, a very strong feeling like I've never felt before, urging me to breath deeply, slow down, look at things though a calmer and quieter lens.

I don't always have an easy time with stillness.  There's a restlessness in me this past decade or so that I don't recall having in my younger years.  True, my life has been busier in many ways during the recent past,  what with working, and caring for people, and musical activities, and dogs, and traveling...but even when I have the opportunity to rest and be still, I found it hard.

My friend M. was talking about her daily routine the other day.  "Usually about 3:00 I go upstairs and lie on the bed to read for a while," she said.  "Sometimes I take a nap, but usually I read for an hour or so before it's time to get dinner."

For some reason my eyes filled with tears and my heart swelled with longing when she said that.  To lie on the bed in the middle of the afternoon and "read for an hour or so." Imagine the luxury of that!  Then I remembered that I used to do that very thing nearly every day.  When my son was small, I'd often go into the bedroom and lie on the bed while he napped, reading happily until he awoke when I'd pile him into his stroller and take off for our daily jaunt to the park.

Something in me needs that now, and I'm not sure what it is, but it's a clear and strong feeling that I need to marshal my resources and live differently, to pay more attention to myself and what I need, to slow down my movements and my activities and the pace of my everyday existence.

Yesterday things were happening lickety split and  problems were cropping up all over the place. But when I came home from work I made a conscious effort to go into my little room, curl up in the chair, and read for about 20 minutes.  Just quiet reading, as they say in school.

It felt really good.

I've realized that my on-line activities have played a large part in the frantic nature of my lifestyle over the past few years.  And while I'm not intending to stop writing here or at Bookstack ( in fact, I'm hoping to write more, because writing is one of the things that helps me make sense of life in general), I need to be more mindful of the time I spend on  line and make it productive.   With Twitter and Facebook, the tendency is to communicate so often and in such bursts of thought, it's like our mind needs to be in hyper mode, vigilantly thinking in 140 character phrases, posting and reposting, engaging in the conversation.

It's too much, I think.

I seem to recall writing about this before, about being spread too thin in terms of my commitments and activities, and  I really have pared down my actual physical responsibilities.  This time the need is different - it's a slowing of the spirit that's required, a need to use  time in a more restful and mindful way.

Like lying on the bed and reading for an hour or so.

How about you?  Are you winding down or gearing up in your life right now?

One Step Forward....

...two steps back is the way that old saying goes. Perhaps not two full steps in this case, but once again life conspires to put you in your place if you get a little to cocky.

My husband (or the Expert Engineer as he is affectionately known around the home office) has had an excellent billing month.  Without oversharing, let's just say if he worked like this every month, we'd soon be living on the proverbial easy street.

Of course,  we know only too well about the fickle nature of the manufacturing business.  Why, it was only two months ago that he sat around twiddling his thumbs for three of the four weeks.  But we're flush around here right now, and I'd actually started thinking about buying some things...like new bedroom furniture and carpet, and a new floor for the bathroom.

But then, here came a stack of medical bills from the University of Michigan Hospital.  And a call from our tenant in the Money Pit (aka the rental home in Naples) about a leaky faucet and broken garbage dispoasl.  And here at home last night  a bath tub full of rust colored hot water, signaling the demise of our 20 year old water heater.   Plus the property taxes due in two weeks, and the homeowners association fees due in three.

Money, money, money.

So for the umpteenth time, I put my ideas about new things on hold and figure I'll just soldier on with the old a little while longer.

At least until we can take another more giant step forward in the financial department.