I CONFESS - I HAVE HAD A SECRET LOVE

It’s eight-thirty on a morning that is approaching the pseudo-summer days of fall and I’m enjoying a gourmet coffee and cranberry-walnut muffin. A welcome breeze is rustling the leaves of a maple tree that wraps its arms around the corner windows where I sit nestled into a quilt covered futon. I could almost reach out to pluck one of those leaves from a branch tip, yet the limbs are not scraping against the siding. They are at such a perfect distance it seems they have been carefully groomed to create this tree-house like sanctuary.


From the street below comes the sound of occasional traffic. Voices of passers-by float through the window screens on the breeze. I have read the news, caught up on correspondence and will soon be coiffed and off to a few boutiques I’ve been dying to explore. The city is peppered with such shops in neighborhoods of venerable brick storefronts; small enclaves rich with character that has not been assassinated by the blight of malls.

I have dreamed of living exactly like this, in a second floor walk-up with a porch overlooking the street below. I have dreamed of morning coffee with pastries, of lunches in a storybook bistro where I would be a fixture – the author working on her next novel.

Having grown up in a very small town, and spending all of my adult life living in a rural community where everything of convenience is at least thirty miles away, the wonder of what city life would be has been a constant companion whispering in my ear. But mine was a life of keeping a home, raising children and tending vegetable gardens – envied by my city sisters.


I’m certain this secret longing I’ve had to experience the life of a carefree woman in the city has been just that, a secret. I didn’t talk about it, I didn’t write about it. It wasn’t a life goal on my list. It was an undisclosed love and yet, somehow, my daughter has turned it into such accurate reality it’s as if she knew my secret all along.


I is she who brings me to this place that I have dreamed of. It is a magical place suspended in time for me – sitting here, I feel like a young ingénue with the world awaiting. Yet, as enamored as I am of this place, I caution myself. I must not usurp my daughter’s territory. I WILL not be one of those mothers living vicariously through her progeny.

I have a hunch she doesn’t quite see the romance in all of this that I do. Like any relationship, the lure of the city grows faint with time. Battling her way to and from work on traffic clogged thoroughfares cools love’s flame. As time wears on, the warts of the city can make the once handsome suitor begin to look a lot like a frog.


I know that one day she will look back on this time with the fond memories one holds for a love than cannot be recaptured. I am hopeful that until then, she can appreciate this moment in her life for what it is; her awakening into self. And I thank her, for sharing this time with me.

As for me, I plan to visit now and then to remind her what a “catch” her life is; just not so often as to make her bar the doors. After all, this little perch in the corner of the second floor porch, overlooking the not too busy street below, is her home, not mine. I’ll have to remain content with being a secret admirer.

. . . . . mid
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THOUGHTS ON AUTUMN AND THANKSGIVING TURKEYS

Sigh . . . summer is drawing to it’s end in my neck of the woods and while I need the two or three months of temperatures above 74-degrees to thaw my winter frozen bones, fall is truly my favorite season.

It is also the shortest season and I would gladly sacrifice a month at the end of summer and at least three months at the beginning of winter to make it the longest season of the year. You have to understand, I’m not talking calendar seasons.

The calendar tells me that the first day of winter is December 21st. Maybe somewhere, but in the far north tundra of Wisconsin, by the time we get to December 21st we’ve been shoveling the white stuff for at least a month. The winter coats, hats, gloves and mittens come out of the closet long before that – ‘round about mid September. Oh sure, we get a random day, maybe even two, scattered throughout September, October and November where a sweater is cozy enough for a sunny afternoon. But for the most part it’s cold.

With our hardwood, deciduous forests the landscape blazes with color that can be matched by only a few other regions in our country. If we could just keep the leaves on the trees until after thanksgiving, I’d be much more thankful.

Our lives don’t just mirror nature, they are nature. The seasons of our lives run about the same as the seasons outside my window, with middle age – my autumn -- just a transition turning over to a long, cold winter. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad for that lengthy winter of life expectancy and I look forward to a time for rest. But just as I’d rather sit on my back deck admiring the fire of maple leaves, like flames licking the wind, instead of shoveling that same deck off so it doesn’t bow beneath the weight of two tons of snow, Id’ also like to enjoy my life’s rest in the warmth of long, lingering autumn years.

I’m contemplating packing up the home-on-wheels and following autumn around the country like snowbirds follow summer. I can only imagine the foothill areas of more southern states like Tennessee and Kentucky stay warm well up to Thanksgiving. I’d take a Virginia ham smoked to perfection in our little kettle grill over an oven roasted turkey any day. Throw in some yams and Vadalia onions along with cornbread in the cast iron skillet and you’ve got yourself a real feast.

Unfortunately my current academic status prevents any autumnal vagabonding on my part. But if there are any friends out there who want to invite me for Thanksgiving southern style, I have a couple of frequent flyers the hubby and I need to use up.  I'd be happy to do the cooking.


. . . . . . mid

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WHAT A LULU

I’ve been quite busy since returning from my little island sojourn this past winter.  Living in a 28-foot by 8-feet-or-so space for several weeks was much easier than I’d anticipated.

Sure, the quarters seem close sometimes, especially when spouses aren’t seeing eye to eye, but the perks of sunny skies and mild temperatures more than made up for lack of space.  With a pool side chair and a good book, a disgruntled MAD Goddess can be a world away in a matter of minutes. 

Back to the busy.  Less than a day after returning to my cozy, three bedroom cottage the weight of life's accumulations fell down upon me.  What on earth do I possibly need all this stuff for?

Well, rainy, snowing, freezing cold, blizzard kickin’ me in the butt days are my first thought.  Winters in my northern realm are long - very, very long. They are cold, as in twenty to forty below zero for up to a month at a stretch.

Some people living here don’t mind the weather. They like to ski, and ride snowmobiles, and snow shoe and hike and winter camp.  Winter camping - nothing like s’mores that freeze before you can get them to your lips.

Anyway, I don’t like the cold and I don’t go out in it except for dire emergencies - like no chocolate in the house.  Which means I have a lot of stuff to keep me occupied for the duration.  Books, magazines, puzzles, paints (water color, acrylic and oil), needle crafts, bead crafts, and cook books.

The cook books require more stuff, cooking utensils obviously, but there’s also the fitness equipment – a failed attempt to keep the winter weight gain to a minimum.  In Florida, my fitness equipment was a five-speed beach cruiser bicycle.

After a lifetime of collecting junk and junque  - junque being the term for the flea market finds I filled half a garage and an overhead storage space with when I became obsessed with the “Chabby Chic” craze, I’m smothering!

Now that the weather has finally warmed up here, I have more than 1,000 square feet of garden beds to clean, weed and tend.  I have 360 square feet of decking, with associated railing, to stain and seal.  Virtually all of the trim on the house and garage needs painting.  My husband can keep the acre-plus lawn mowed since piloting the lawn tractor isn’t too much of a strain on his heart, but all the edge trimming is my job.

As long as we own this house, that stuff has to be taken care of.  So I’m on a rampage to get rid of the other stuff.  I want the spartan existence of snowbird – if it doesn’t fit in my RV, then apparently I don’t need it.  And the more stuff we rid the house, garage and yard of now, the less we have to worry about when we are ready to sell it.

We (that's the collective we, here, as in you too) don't own stuff.  Stuff owns us.  It takes our money and our time and our attention.  Free at last, free at last, good Goddess help me, I want to be free at last. 

But there’s an unhappy trend afoot here. My hubby isn’t on the same (ram)page as I. To him, all this stuff is good stuff, valuable stuff.  Let me just offer a favorite quote here:

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”
-- William Morris

Or in the words of Red Green, "Remember, if your wife doesn't find you handsome, she better find you handy."

In the meantime, I’m starting with my things, the ubiquitous flotsam of 33 years of home ownership.

I love gardening and home decorating magazines.  I have stacks of them.  Can’t throw these out! they are dog eared and have notations written on the covers for things I am going to do.

Laid low with a nasty cold, bored to tears, I thought it might be a good time to tackle the magazines, at least get them sorted, organized into some kind of reference library. Between the sniffle-nose, sore throat virus and the dust laden magazines, I broke. Some of the magazines were more than five years old. If I haven't  made the whimsical stepping stones, a watering can fountain or rain chains in the last five years, chances are I'm not going to get around to it in the next.

The magazines are now sorted and bundled by category.  I’ll offer them up to home and garden enthusiast friends first, but if there are no takers – off to the recycling bin they go.

I’m planning on tackling closets this week.  I’ve finally given up the idea that I’m ever going to workout hard enough to fit into my skinny jeans again.  Instead, I’m going to splurge and spend more than $19.99 on a pair that fits and flatters the body I have.

I don’t need a work wardrobe for the time being.  If I need one again in the future, I think I’ll buy new stuff. Long dresses left over from formal occasions.  Hhhhmm.  All but one of my daughters is married, and if she ties the knot, again, I think I want a new dress for the occasion. Out they go.

(THESE DRESSES ARE BAD ENOUGH, CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT HAIR? from Dallas Vintage Shop)

Craft supplies.  I hit the jackpot here.  A friend that works with a non-profit in a near-by metropolis is looking for donations of any craft items.  All I have to do is box it all up and give her a call.

I’m tackling one bunch of stuff every week.  Want to join me?  I’ll be posting the details and challenges on my Facebook account. 

Join us - Ladies United to Lighten Up – LULUs

. . . . . . mid
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IN SEARCH OF MERMAIDS

Well, it finally happened. I am off in search of adventure with my home on wheels, or the Gypsy Wagon, as she is fondly known. We've parked her on a small island off the gulf coast of Florida.

What is it about palm studded isles that unleash the artistic muse? There are more artists here than Pablo could shake a paint brush at.

I could hang out at Lovegrove Gallery and Gardens all day long. The space vibrates with a creative buzz. I feel so fortunate to have two pieces of her art hanging in my makeshift office on board the Gypsy Wagon.

Then there is Bonnie's place. I spent almost an hour in there, talking and laughing with the artist. She's a real treasure and I can't wait to take one of her classes while here.

Wandering through the art environs, I started to feel a sense of mystery. Not in the Sherlock Holmes genre, more of the metaphysical kind, a feeling that something or someone was calling me. Then I saw them, the mermaids.


They are everywhere; in the galleries, in gift shops, in taverns, restaurants and even the bathrooms. They've sung their siren call into my heart and I am obsessed. I am on the hunt for the perfect mermaid.

I may have found her basking beneath the celestial orb that controls the tides of her ocean home,

hanging around on a fingernail moon,

or, if I'm so inclined, hanging around my neck.

Perhaps a tattoo would consummate the sense of myth, mystery and feminine sovereignty I am seeking. That's a tall order, since most of the woman/fish tattoos I've seen are of the male fantasy variety.

I did find this beauty. She reminds me of Hollywood legend, Rita Hayworth. I see her rendered with auburn locks and sea green tail.  Definitely a mermaid who is slave to no man.

The hubby isn't too fond of the idea of a tattooed wife.  I'm not too fond of being told what to do.

Confrontation or personal declaration of freedom to be? Stay tuned.

Well, the rain has stopped and the sun is coming through the palm fronds.  Time to return to the hunt.





. . . . . . mid

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SPRING PASSAGES

March winds blow in the season of April proms and May graduations. Being an empty-nester, I am so done with all of that.

Proms are a fun and exciting time, especially for the mother of three daughters who each attended three proms. Do the math – I could be driving around in a cherry, classic Mustang convertible for the price. Add in the grad portraits and I could have some impressive custom wheel covers.

I am eternally grateful that we snuck by on the cheap with the first two girls - that's the middle daughter (in the middle) wearing my early 80's disco diva dress. You can see by the expression on her face that the girl has attitude. With the third daughter, we managed to keep a firm, though somewhat weakening hold on the budget - from her first prom (less than $200 total expenditure) to her last prom, in which she went all out.

Being the baby in my own family, I remember my mother’s excuse for everything I got away with (according to my older siblings). “I’m old. I’m tired,” she said summarily dismissing the ranks. Oh, how true. It becomes so easy to choose your battles when you are road-weary from traveling that path before.

I am enjoying a window of respite from this season of high emotion and high priced necessities before my first born grandchild is ready for her first prom. I admit, I’m a little (okay a lot) excited about dress shopping when the bill is on her father.

Of course, this grandma might be tempted to fork over the extra dollars for that dress she just has to have or she knows she’ll die. Ah, the payback is rich! For now, I am thankful to sit back and observe this season of young adult passages.

Like all grandma’s who sit in their rockers thinking their thoughts, I can’t help but wonder at how things have changed.

Several years ago in the autumn of the year, a college administrator sent a memo to his staff reminding them of the things the incoming freshman had never experienced. The list became somewhat famous, and now current versions can be easily found on the internet. Here’s my spring passages version ~

The young folks shopping for proms and graduations this year have never known a world without malls and chain stores. It’s unthinkable that they might wear their sister’s or cousin’s prom dress from two years ago. And they can’t believe that dress shops never“registered” your dress so that no other girl at your school would show up in the same one.

They have no idea what polyester is or what leisure suits were and have never danced with a man in stacked heels as high as their own (thank the goddess for small favors!).

They can’t imagine being restricted to going to prom as couples only or arriving in their parent’s four door sedan. They wonder if we didn’t have limos in our days.

Their feet never danced across the floor of a crepe paper festooned gymnasium. They rent ballrooms and receptions halls and drink punch (we can only hope it is only punch) in engraved stemware.

They’re dumbfounded by the suggestion that one or two poses are enough for graduation portraits. What about the sports pose, the sexy pose and the outdoor pose? What about touch-ups to remove glare from glasses, pimples on noses and flyaway hair? What about the Photoshop special effects – black and white drama with pseudo hand tinted accents?

They expect full scale receptions for graduation parties, complete with music and dancing. If they were given a suitcase (the classic gift from my day with the hint that it was time to move on being apparent) they would expect it to be the “gift box” containing their tickets for a graduation trip to Cancun.

Greek philosopher Heraclitus said “The only constant in life is change.” Bob dylan expounded on this theory in his song The Times They Are A-Changin’. As Dylan so aptly sates, we parents and grandparents can either keep up or get out of the way:

“Come mothers and fathers throughout the land

and don't criticize what you can't understand.

Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command.

Your old road is rapidly agin'.

Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand,

for the times they are a-changin'.”

. . . . . . mid
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UNWELCOME VISITOR

This tears it! I thought it was over. I thought the last box of tampons I bought were the last box of tampons I ever bought. They’ve sat idle for months now and I was envisioning them in a sort of shrine – an homage to the end of bloating, cramping, bleeding – aching head, aching back and aching boobs.

I should warn you, if you get squeamish at the mention of womanly body parts and female functions, you might want to stop reading now.

About a month ago, I had the worst cramps I could ever remember. I gave birth with less pain (and that was completely drug free - nazi doctors!). Killer cramps but no visit from my Auntie Flo? Odd, but it isn’t like I wanted to see her again.

A few days later I noticed that my body-temp surges had completely disappeared. This was a huge disappointment in itself. I live in the northern most realms of Wisconsin. It’s cold here. It was 35 below in late January - February wasn't much of an improvement. Those flushes of intense body warmth were the only thing getting me through the winter.

Cramps & hot flashes gone? Could all of this be pointing to a spike in estrogen levels? Sure enough, I woke up to the gift of bloody sheets this morning. I warned you to stop reading if you were squeamish.

Toddling to the bathroom with legs pressed together, I remember how nice it was to be done with all this. Toss the panties in a bucket, add cold water and pour in some peroxide (it lifts the stains like nobody’s business if you get to it right away). Grumble through a shower, dig the tampons out from the back of the bottom shelf in the linen closet and get ready for the struggle.

Struggle? It would seem that my body is staging an all out defense against these bullets of compressed cotton on a string. To be blunt (pun intended) I can barely force the little buggers in. Once there, they won’t stay put. The first time I have to pee, the tampon practically drops into the toilet.

On my last visit to the doc for his annual invasion of my private regions I was still having pretty regular periods – pretty and regular being relative terms here. Ugly surprise attacks would be a better description. You never know when they’ll show up and the hemorrhaging flow gets ugly.

I asked if things had changed down there. Doc was confused. I told him the problem with the tampons. He suggested I try a lubricant if I was having trouble inserting the tampon.

If dryness is the problem, why the heck are they sliding back out on their own? I asked.

If an obstructed cervical opening were the problem (as I’d suggested), how would they drop back out once I had them in place? He countered.

My body is clearly rejecting these nasty foreign objects. If all of that isn’t bad enough, they’re not doing their job. I think it’s called by-pass leakage. I know it means I have to wear a pad too.

After days of this, I start to worry about Toxic Shock Syndrome – you remember back in the 80’s when they told us that wearing tampons overnight (or for more than a few hours at a time) could kill us?

So, I ditch the tampon and pray for the best luck with my latest brand of pads. Forget it. If it shifts forward, I bleed backward. If it shifts if backward, I bleed forward. If I try the extra long, I bleed over the sides. The winged-wonder pads twist and stick in places they shouldn’t (can you say ouch - dammit!?).

I’ve stained so many pairs of underwear in the last two years I’ve lost count. Sometimes you can’t get to them right away (like if you have to work for a living – gross, but true). Instead of throwing them out when I get home, I throw them in the washer with lots of bleach. I stash them in the back of the drawer to wear the next time Auntie Flo comes to visit (again, gross but true). I’m through ruining $5 a pair panties.

My mother was done with all of this fuss by my age. My sister was done. My cousin was done. What’s up with this? I should be done. I want to be done.

Doctors can suck your fat out, cut 6/8ths of your stomach size out, give you drugs (with a list of frightening side effects longer than both arms) to regulate your mood, help you sleep or clear your sinuses. They can prescribe Viagra for your husband even though it may cause blindness (hey, listen to the commercial “sudden change or loss of eyesight”) or death (when you shoot him for pointing that thing at you one more time) but the FDA regulates the use of drugs to stop menstrual flow with a slam of it's patriarchal fist.

If men had to go through this ritual every month (or two weeks as it seems near the end), you can bet the minute the family was complete, the factory would somehow be closed.

As for me, I will (impatiently) wait for the next walk-out strike my hormones stage and hope that management finally shuts down production for good.

Gray Hair Is Not The Problem

“My eyebrows are falling off and landing on my upper lip.”

I laughed hysterically when my mother said that to me more than 20 years ago. My mom always went for the laugh. She was good at it too.

Still, her comment isn’t as funny today as it was back then. I am of south-central European heritage. The women in our family don’t have eye brows; they have great, hairy black beasts growing in a line across their forehead. I learned the finer points of plucking and waxing at an early age (and not just eyebrows).

Lately I’ve been thinking that my eyebrows have finally surrendered to the near 40 year assault. I foolishly believed the propaganda telling me that repeated plucking would result in less re-growth.

Mom was a woman of the 30’s and 40’s Hollywood glamour school. She had a real vanity, with mirrors framed by graceful wooden curves and a matching bench. As a young girl, barely a Saturday went by that I didn’t watch my mother, with fascination and admiration, sitting at her vanity to apply her makeup and style her hair before going on her standing date with my father. In later years, a triple magnifying mirror with a long, curving goose-neck took its place among other essentials on the vanity top.

Recently, I purchased just such a mirror and to my utter horror I realized that it’s not hair follicles I’m losing – it’s my eyesight.

Okay, the hairy black beast has been thinning a bit – but not nearly as much as I thought. Anybody who can still read a menu in a dim restaurant – scratch that. Anybody who can still read a menu without holding it at arm’s length in an outdoor café with the high-noon sun over their shoulder, can plainly see that I need to schedule a waxing appointment. The sooner the better.

Worse yet, mom’s great joke is on me. Like dandelion fluff that blows in the wind and plants a million seed on the lawn, the eyebrow hairs that have fallen off have landed on my upper lip and taken root! And on my chin, and worst of all, around the edges of my nostrils.

Certain benefits accompany age – like a larger income to spend on great accessories. If you live in the north, where I do, you might flaunt your discretionary spending status on fur-lined, kidskin gloves, or maybe a fur-lined full length coat. But a fur lined nose? – HELL NO to that!

When mom grew older, she worried about spending her final days in a nursing home. She asked if I would, please, at least pluck her eyebrows and her moustache regularly.
Oh sure, I thought. I’d be holding her down with one knee on her chest while ripping out facial hair with a tweezers and she’d be begging me to stop. Behind my back, she’d tell the nursing staff not to let me visit because I hurt her.

The other day, my 19 year old daughter told me she wouldn’t be wiping my drool when I was old and feeble minded. I can’t remember how we arrived at that particular subject because I’m already old and feeble minded. I’m not too worried about the impending drooling, though. I’m sure the chin whiskers will wick it right up.

COMING OF AGE

Being a MA’d Goddess woman isn’t necessarily about age (as in middle aged). It’s about a stage that all women come to – some sooner, some later.

This past weekend, I went to the chick-flick premier with my daughter. It (our evening, not the movie) was all about a girl’s night out and started with a potential group of about half a dozen. One by one, our entourage dwindled until it was just the two of us.

First to drop was my daughter’s girlfriend, whose not-exactly-boyfriend (translate, when he’s interested he’s her boyfriend), suffered serious injury through his own stupidity. Now, I’m not so callous as to deny succor to the stupid – after all they generally don’t know (or maybe can’t help) that they are the dullest crayon. But in this case, the crisis was past and his prognosis was good. Still, she couldn’t possibly go out and have a good time with her gal pals while he just lay there in agony – and the care of round-the-clock nurses seeing to his every need. Her time would be better spent, at home, babysitting somebody’s kids. The whole thing sounded like doing penance to me but I’m not sure if it was for the sin of contemplating having a good time with her girlfriends, or for not being in the accident with the guy who’s not exactly her boyfriend.

Next to drop us like a dirty shirt downt he laundry shoot was the girlfriend whose husband decided this was (finally) the perfect time to install the floor tiles in their kitchen. She couldn’t leave him there to do it all alone after she’d been bugging him for so long and kept promising she would help if he could just find the time. Suddenly finding the time when she had other plans is a classic man tactic. The diversion saved him trouble of telling the truth, which is, “I don’t want you getting dressed up, looking hot and traveling with a pack of other dressed up hotties. You’ll draw the attention of men . . . who I know are pigs . . . because I’m a man.”

Oh, how truly clueless some males are about the ritual of girl’s night out when you’re a MA’d Goddess woman. Sure, we dress fine and we like to turn heads, but if we’re out looking for anything it’s a break from PMS – putting up with men’s shit. The last thing we want to hear is some line of bull from a horny animal.

So, with all the no-shows it was just my daughter and I. We had a perfectly lovely evening, starting at an A-list restaurant my husband suggested (even though he’d wanted to take me there first). Dinner was on her husband, who knows how to treat his mother-in-law right. Drinks at the coolest martini bar in three counties were on my husband, who knows that no man shall part a MA’d Goddess and her martinis – and a wise man will keep them coming.

And then, in a darkened theater, the screen lit up on a New York skyline and a familiar, simple tune gave rise to a cheer of Ma’d Goddess women heard round the world – or at least in our time zone. And whether they were 20-something or 50-something, they shared a bond of wisdom, a knowledge not born of a certain age, but of reaching a stage of certainty. Of finally figuring out that we don’t need anybody to complete us, just to meet us halfway.

And on that silver screen, four women confirmed that life is never perfect, that loving somebody is the hardest thing you’ll ever do, that your heart will be broken, but it can be fixed (one way or another), that when you stumble you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and get back up on those high-heels (literally or metaphorically), and if you keep doing that, eventually, you’ll come to know yourself and what you want. And lastly, that once you figure it out, who gives a shit what anybody else thinks.

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