tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74353776941527851802024-02-20T03:24:48.725-08:00Can't Duck It"For me a brain tumor and its treatments are not a pause in the adventure of life, but instead a part of the adventure of life." Mary has survived big hair, a brain tumor, coming out, distressed bowel syndrome, hallucinations, radiation, and a car wreck. Here Mary takes us from public transportation horrors to the joys of sharing life with you. Though you probably won't want to have a brain tumor; you will wish that you could see the world through Mary's eyes. Sister JenMaryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.comBlogger548125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-67548336467133669362020-06-04T11:49:00.001-07:002020-06-04T11:49:31.157-07:00A Time to Mourn<h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.55em; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 20px;">
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<div class="lyrictxt js-lyrics js-share-text-content" data-container-id="lyrics" data-song-id="8936" data-title="The Byrds" id="content" style="background-image: url("https://www.lyricsfreak.com/static/images/txtstripes_large.gif"); font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 30px; margin: 10px; min-height: 598px; padding: 0px 10px; position: relative;">
<span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">And a time to every purpose, under Heaven</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;"></span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time to be born, a time to die</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time to plant, a time to reap</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time to kill, a time to heal</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time to laugh, a time to weep</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;"></span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">And a time to every purpose, under Heaven</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;"></span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time to build up, a time to break down</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time to dance, a time to mourn</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;"></span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">And a time to every purpose, under Heaven</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;"></span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time of love, a time of hate</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time of war, a time of peace</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;"></span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">To Everything (Turn, Turn, Turn)</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn)</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">And a time to every purpose, under Heaven</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;"></span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time to gain, a time to lose</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time to rend, a time to sew</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time for love, a time for hate</span><br style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" /><span class="lf-line js-share-line" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3); text-decoration: underline;">A time for peace, I swear it's not too late</span></div>
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<a class="song-page-conthead-link" data-tracking="["Meta","Lyrics","ArtistName"]" href="https://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/byrds/" style="color: #0f6294; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">e Byrds</a> – Turn! Turn! Turn! Lyrics</h2>
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<span style="font-size: 17px; font-weight: 500; text-decoration: underline;">Words-adapted from The Bible, book of Ecclesiastes</span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: 17px; font-weight: 500; text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: 500;"><span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe a revision of the final line: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-weight: 500;"><span style="font-size: large;">A time for peace with justice, I hope it's not too late.</span></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-36857650750599047102020-05-13T16:43:00.000-07:002020-05-13T16:43:08.372-07:00Time to Laugh<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<b><span style="color: #201f1e;">Introduction</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #201f1e;">I stopped reading articles with the US President’s name in the headline a year ago, around the same time I took time off from writing this blog in order to focus on writing my book. (Still working on Chapter One.) Though I read the local newspaper each morning, but a month ago, I also stopped reading articles with “coronavirus” in the title. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #201f1e;">I can sum up the news without reading it anyway: Trump is dangerous, people are sick and dying, and the economy’s a wreck. We don’t know when things will get better. We hope the coronavirus will. We know Trump won’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #201f1e;">My spirits have generally been good, but a few of weeks ago, </span>I succumbed to the couch and Cheetos. That week, I skipped my writing group. <span style="color: #201f1e;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #201f1e;">Fortunately, people in the group called and emailed. That week, two in this group of usually serious writers wrote about squirrels. What a relief it was to read about Sharon’s ongoing battle to shoo a squirrel from her birdfeeder and Elsie’s memory of her family’s birdfeeder as a squirrel swing. Her piece ends with her </span>ferocious orange tabby named Dandelion. Dandelion! It was great to laugh and to remember squirrel stories of my own. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Until the squirrel essays, I’d been writing an essay about similarities between having disabilities and being part of our global community during this pandemic. For now, though, I need to take a break from the pandemic, so I’m reading and writing about squirrels. It sure is fun not to have a goal. Sharon and Elsie have graciously given me permission to share their stories. My piece, Sharon’s, and Elsie’s are below. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b><span style="color: #201f1e; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Grandmother and the Squirrel </span></b><span style="color: #201f1e; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">by Mary Edwards<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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My eighty-year-old Grandmother was regal in her faux red-velvet chair, the marble-topped table beside her. She sat straight and tall, her white hair tidy and her stern blue eyes unblinking behind round glasses. As she listened to me talk about my new life as a teacher in Dallas, far from my North Carolina family, her eyes never moved from mine. Her jaw was set and serious, and I felt I was the world’s center.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The living room where we sat smelled familiarly of dust. I suppressed a sneeze.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Then, suddenly, Grandmother whipped her head towards the window in an ungrandmotherly fashion. “Well, I’ll be,” she said. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Outside the window, a squirrel on the birdfeeder returned her stare, the squirrel still except for a small mouth twitch. After a long moment of staring, it returned to nibbling on a sunflower seed. That little squirrel was defying my grandmother, something I’d never imagined anyone would do. I held my breath. How would Grandmother respond to such defiance?<o:p></o:p></div>
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Grandmother raised her voice, gravelly with age, and shouted at the squirrel. “Get down from there!”<o:p></o:p></div>
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The squirrel couldn’t have heard her, but it must have sensed her fury. It looked nonchalantly at her and then looked around, contentedly chewing its contraband. It didn’t move from its perch in the giant pecan tree just above Grandmother’s birdfeeder. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Fascinated, I watched this battle of stubborn souls. Grandmother blew air through her nostrils like a charging bull, moved her slippered feet from the ottoman, and counted to three as she gripped her walker and rocked forward. She rose to her feet and pushed her walker to the front door, a door I’d never seen anyone use.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I stayed on the couch near her chair. When she pushed her walker out the door, I could no longer see her, so I listened. I heard only the sound of wheels on concrete. I looked out the window to see the squirrel still chewing sunflower seeds. Grandmother shouted, “I told you to get away from there,” and then I saw a blue slipper fly by the window. The squirrel still munched.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I heard Grandmother turn her walker on concrete, bump over the threshold and roll across the carpet, moving towards her bedroom. Her feet shuffled. One wore a blue bedroom shoe, and the other was gnarled and naked. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Grandmother didn’t say anything, just moved towards her bedroom. When she was out of sight, I moved to the front porch and because there were no steps on the pecan tree side of the porch, I hopped down. The squirrel looked at me, twitched its tail and zipped away.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Heading towards the pecan tree to retrieve her slipper, I noticed a small pile of shoes. I gathered them and went to Grandmother’s bedroom. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Grandmother was coming out of her closet on the other side of her Mahogany four-poster bed with its white knitted bedspread. She was wearing two blue slippers, and I wondered how many blue slippers she had in that closet. Looking down, trying to move her walker past a bump in the rug, she didn’t see me. Softly placing her shoes on the floor beside her bed, I didn’t look at her but whispered, “Here you go.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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I silently to my spot on the couch where I stared at a brown spot in the carpet as Grandmother returned to her chair. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We never spoke of it. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Squirrel 8, Sharon 0 </b>by Sharon Morris<b></b><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Curious chickadees, feisty house sparrows and rosy finches flock to the bird feeder outside my study window. Always vigilant, they pick at the suet, crunch seeds and bring me joy while I’m under quarantine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;"><img alt="squirrel-at-window-1" height="221" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/627c5395-5644-417a-a146-4a3a5e92831a" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_5" width="147" /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">My Nemesis<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">When the birds quickly fly off, I rise out of my chair. The intruder is back–a Western gray squirrel that ignores the sign: no rodents allowed. He also scoffs at the “squirrel-proof” baffle hanging above the feeder. Although I’m not handy, I’m certainly smarter than an animal with a walnut-sized brain. I will prevail.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">I survey my enemy’s route. He jumps up on the barbecue, leaps to the roof, runs along the gutter and swings down to the bird feeder. Putting a slick, waterproof cover on the barbecue solves that problem. Now the squirrel can’t gain purchase and will give up his quest. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Before long I hear a familiar scratching on the metal roof, the birds flee and the fat gray squirrel plops onto the feeder. His back toward me, he gives an arrogant flick of his silver-tipped tail. I bang on the window, he retreats, but I know he’ll be back. The battle is on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;"><img alt="Plotting His Next Move1514" height="100" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/87a9da59-df7f-4b9e-ba64-bdfa25bc3c11" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_4" width="150" /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Plotting His Move<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">His next path is from a wrought iron hanging planter. I get on a stool and unhook the planter while my nemesis watches me from a distance. Am I imagining it, or does he have a wicked glint in his eye? He seems to enjoy our combat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;"><img alt="Cone of Shame3" height="170" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/0196e044-7395-4841-8d4f-61fd596cb00c" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_3" width="113" /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Cone of Shame<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Undeterred, he climbs up a downspout on the corner of the house. How can I block this route? Then I see the “cone of shame” our dog Toby had worn to prevent him from scratching after surgery. That should work. I retrieve my handy stool, some twine, and fasten the large plastic cone around the downspout.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Although the downspout is blocked, my foe is not defeated. While working at my desk, I hear a scratching, not from the roof, but right in front of me. The rascal digs his sharp little toenails into the window screen and climbs to the feeder. Again, this fix is within my skill set. I remove the screen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Wallflower<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">When he tries to climb the window frame, I find some decorative ornaments, called “wallflowers.” that my daughter made. I nail several on the wall and tie on bells to scare him off. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Despite my creative efforts, the squirrel always gets to the roof. Perhaps I can make it more difficult to get to the feeder. I cut a hole in an aluminum pie plate and secure it a few inches above the squirrel baffle. He sometimes spins it around but is not stopped.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;"><img alt="IMG_0971 Double Baffles and Wallflowers" height="300" src="blob:https://www.blogger.com/1e02fea2-ac6a-47eb-982d-5f7dabd7ab63" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1" width="245" /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Double Baffled<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4b5d67; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">Each time I block little walnut-brain’s path to the bird food I congratulate myself for my cleverness. And each time he wins. I, too, have enjoyed our struggle, but let’s face it, I’m not getting much work done. Maybe I should admit defeat and just feed my enemy. Away from my window so I can’t watch him gloat.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif;">Sharon Morris lives on Vashon Island, WA. Find her blog, Sharemore Adventures, is at<b> </b></span><span style="color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif;"><a href="https://sharemore1.wordpress.com/" style="color: #954f72;"><b><span style="color: #7f7f7f;">https://sharemore1.wordpress.com</span></b></a></span><b><span style="color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif;"> </span></b><span style="color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif;">She usually writes and presents about her ancestors’ personal stories in the context of significant historical moments. She is currently writing a book about her turn-of-the-20<sup>th</sup> century progressive grandparents.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">The Squirrel Swing </span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">by Elsie Hulsizer<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">In the seventies, my husband Steve and I spent several years living in a converted carriage house in Narragansett Rhode Island. We were in the middle of the woods, next door to an old stone mansion and across the street from a bird sanctuary. Having a bird feeder struck us as a natural addition to the house, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">One especially snowy winter we bought a wooden bird feeder and hung it from a large tree branch outside our living room window. The feeder consisted of two 1/2 spheres of wood: a larger one on top, open-side-down and a smaller one hung underneath, open-side-up. Bird feed went into the bottom sphere. The storekeeper who sold us the birdfeeder guaranteed it to be squirrel proof. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">At first the feeder worked. When the squirrels tried to get at the feed, all they could do was climb on the top sphere and swing back and forth as if on an amusement ride. Eventually, they discovered if they hung by their feet from the top, they could reach into the bottom and get the feed. A good part of the feed ended on the snow below as the squirrels ate and the feeder swung back and forth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">One day we discovered </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">a line of small animal </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">prints in the snow leading from </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">a hole </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">under the house to the bird feed in the snow. A coworker who had grown up in New York city, and therefore claimed himself a rat expert, inspected the prints and droppings and declared we had a rat. The bird feeder promptly went into the trash. A wooden Victor </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">Metal Pedal Rat Trap dispensed with the rat</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;">. Our fierce orange tabby, a great hunter named Dandelion, enjoyed at least one of the squirrels as dinner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif;">Elsie Hulsizer lives in Seattle, WA, often sailing with her husband up the northwest coast to Alaska in the summers. She authored </span><i><span style="color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.75pt;">Glaciers, Bears and Totems: Sailing in Search of the Real Southeast Alaska </span></i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.75pt;">and</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; letter-spacing: 0.75pt; line-height: 48px;"> </span><i><span style="color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.75pt;">Voyages to Windward: Sailing Adventures on Vancouver Island’s West Coast</span></i><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif; font-size: 18pt; letter-spacing: 0.75pt; line-height: 48px;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7f7f7f; font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif;">She blogs on sailing at </span><span style="font-family: "Abadi MT Condensed Light", sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.sailblogs.com/member/ospreyvoyages" style="color: #954f72;">https://www.sailblogs.com/member/ospreyvoyages</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-91368047325598433842019-05-24T17:24:00.002-07:002019-05-24T17:24:23.377-07:00Don’t say that!<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Since I had neurosurgery, people have sometimes said the strangest things to me. Though I believe most people are well-meaning, some comments have hurt. Here’s a short list of things people have said. If you’re well-meaning, too, this may be helpful. If you’re obviously disabled, like I am, you probably have things to add. Of course, this has been my experience. Other people with disabilities may think differently.</span></span><div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Will you get better?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A woman who was sort of my boss asked me this a few years after my surgery. She had not known me before, and her predecessor had hired me. When we met, she asked,<b></b>“Will you get better?”<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I responded, “I am better.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>What would have happened if you hadn’t had surgery?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">An acupuncturist who didn’t help me at all first asked me this question, and I have since often been asked. I think I would have had hydrocephyllus <a href="https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Fact-Sheets/Hydrocephalus-Fact-Sheet" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Disorders/Patient-Caregiver-Education/Fact-Sheets/Hydrocephalus-Fact-Sheet</a>and died a slow, painful death. I don’t remember asking what would happen if I didn’t have surgery. The tumor’s effects were already painful, and everyone I talked to seemed to assume I needed to have it removed. Asking me this question post-surgery isn’t helpful because I couldn’t go back and undo the surgery even if I wanted to.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>You’re so lucky you get to park in that [disabled parking] space!<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’ve often written about this. Here it is:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Leaning my weight onto my cane, I struggled to remain upright while I stepped off the curb to my little blue Honda in its disabled parking spot. A middle-aged woman whisked past me. It was the end of the day at the high school where I worked as a literacy specialist, and I was so tired I couldn’t feel my fingertips. The speedy woman kept looking back at me on the way to her car in one of the two non-disabled spots past mine. I could feel her watching as she zipped to her car and I fumbled with my keys, cane and backpack. I hated being watched when I struggled.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">She hollered over her shoulder at me, “You’re so lucky you get to park in that space!” Then she dropped into her car, ripped into reverse and spun her tires as she left the small lot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I paused in my attempt to get the key into the keyhole, fuming. I wanted to yell something cutting at her, something that might make her regret such a stupid comment. I wanted to tell her that when I had walked more easily, I had parked further from the door, leaving closer spaces for those who needed them. I wanted to tell her I had hiked in the mountains, biked more often than driven, traveled the dusty backroads of lands where I knew neither the language nor the customs. I wanted to say I had been a high school classroom teacher, but I couldn’t manage teaching teenagers anymore, so after taking a year off for healing and learning to walk again, I was now working part-time, trying to help other teachers. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I wanted to tell this zippy woman about loss and about how I was doing my best. I wanted to tell her the comment hurt. I wanted to hurt her back. But she was gone, so I returned my focus to my key, my cane, and backpack, held the window’s edge for balance, and worked my way into the car. Before driving, I took a deep breath and exhaled, shaking my head as if I could shake off how offended I felt. When my hands stopped trembling, I put the key in the ignition and backed out of the space. I drove home slowly, so I wouldn’t run into anyone. Each time an impatient driver laid on the horn, I pretended I had a bumper sticker that read, “Honk if you think I’m beautiful.” That way I could laugh at their impatience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>You’re evil. That’s why you are the way you are.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This person didn’t say this to me, but to another person with disabilities who was riding the bus. I wrote about it soon after it happened. Though it wasn’t directed at me, I felt like I’d been punched. Here’s what I wrote at the time:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Today, I am riding the Metro bus. I sit on a front bench seat with other people with disabilities, and a well-dressed man in his fifties boards the bus with three plastic bags from the drug store. He talks loudly on his cell phone. He sits in a seat generally reserved for people with disabilities, and drops his bags in the middle of the aisle. A woman who walks with a cane has trouble getting by, and he turns away from her so as not to see her struggle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">She asks him to move his bags and to give up a seat for her. He interrupts his cell phone conversation to say, “You’re evil. That’s why you are the way you are.” Then he returns to his phone call, jiggling his penny-loafered foot. I want to scold him, but I can’t get his attention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fortunately, such meanness is unusual.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;">Here are some of my favorite questions and comments. <o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Are you a pirate?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Once a far away teenager saw me walking with a walker and sporting my pirate-like patch. He yelled out, “Argh!” This pissed me off, but usually small children asked, and they seem so excited. It happened a lot, but here’s what I wrote once:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A three year-old boy notices my black eye patch and asks, “Are you a pirate?” I say to him, “I am. What are you?” His father seems afraid he’s being rude and pulls him away. I hear the boy say to his father, “I get to ride on the airplane with a pirate!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>She’s blind! She’s blind! She’s blind!<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This one could go in either category. Ann and I were downtown. Because going downhill into the parking garage was hard for me and didn’t seem safe, so I waited on the sidewalk while she got the car and pulled up. When I moved towards the car, a man walking towards me on the other side of the car panicked and yelled out, “She’s blind! She’s blind! She’s blind!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I‘m not blind, but my glasses had turned dark in the sun, and I was using a cane, though it was for balance and wasn’t red and white. The man ran around and “helped” me into the car. I said, “Thank you” because he intended to be helpful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Having someone “help” in a way that isn’t helpful infuriates some people with disabilities. I generally find this kind of unintentional blunder, which happens all the time, amusing and say thank you because the person intends to be helpful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes, however, someone puts me in danger by “helping” me in a way that isn’t helpful, such as grabbing my arm to keep me from falling (offer an arm or a hand, but don’t grab someone) or opening a door that I am pushing open.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Do you need an arm?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A helpful offer. See above.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Go ahead.<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’m slow, so I often move aside for others to pass, especially when I’m going downstairs or getting off a plane. Usually people say thank you (or not) and whiz past, but every now and then someone says, “I’m in no hurry. Go ahead. Take your time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When I hear this, I don’t feel so lonely. This kindness makes me feel connected to the world and to others around me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">5)<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span></b><!--[endif]--><b>I read your blog. <o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This makes me feel like someone cares what I think, so thank you for reading. I need to take a break from writing this blog for a long while so I can work on my memoir and continue helping other writers. I will post information here about my publications—I hope shorter pieces in the near future and later a book (which I’ve been writing for 12 years now and started as this blog.) If you receive this post in your email, this info will go directly to you. If you’d like to receive updates in your inbox, go to this blog <a href="http://www.cantduckit.blogspot.com/" style="color: #954f72; text-decoration: underline;">http://www.cantduckit.blogspot.com</a>and provide your email address in the right-hand column. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Much love to you. Mary<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-58847442030588761042019-05-01T07:27:00.001-07:002019-05-02T09:38:40.190-07:00Beginning Again<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: large;">For my writing class, I have written three possible beginnings for a personal essay and outlined four others. It’s not just that I’m having trouble getting started. It’s that I can’t quite figure out what my story is. And I’ve been writing it for twelve years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This difficulty getting started reminds me of the time, seven years ago, when I sat down with my niece Isabella, who was struggling to write her personal essay for college admissions. She had asked for help, but I didn’t want to help her if all she needed was a little encouragement, so I asked if she’d tried already. She said she had, and her eyes watered. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“How many have you tried?” I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“Eighty-five.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I helped her. She graduated from Duke last year and now works for Twitter. The problem, clearly, was never smarts, and it wasn’t that she didn’t have anything to say. Maybe she was putting a lot of pressure on herself to write something that was both true and effective. Or maybe that’s my issue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I’m not going to try and re-try 85 times, but I feel like I’m on Isabella’s trajectory. I keep thinking of Prufrock’s lines in <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock" target="_blank">T.S. Elliot’s poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: large;">When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: large;">Then how should I begin <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: large;">To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: large;">Prufrock seems to be trying to express love for someone, but he’s frozen, immobilized by his fear. I’m not trying to express love, and I don’t think I’m afraid to speak, but I do feel paralyzed. How should I begin?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: large;">First, I’m thinking and re-thinking about what I want to say. I’ve been so surprised about the gifts of these tumors that I haven’t been writing about the losses. I wonder if grief is at the heart of my story, and I need to address it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><span style="font-size: large;">Thinking about this Sunday night, I wrote: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My story is that I have never been conventional, one of the crowd, one to fit in. But I have tried. I was a feminist from a young age, staging my first feminist protest when I was five (or 6.) At 30, I divorced my husband and came out as a lesbian. Also, I did not choose a career where I might have made a lot of money, though I’m pretty sure I could have. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now disabilities have freed me—or cut me—from any possibility of being “normal.” Now I am not trying to be something I should be, rushing, overworking. I am more myself. Unconventional.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This has been freeing, but it’s also upsetting. In addition to being released from social expectations, I have lost parts of myself that I didn’t want to lose. So though there have been gifts from my tumors and disabilities, the losses are painful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Although I’ve been writing about how grateful I feel—and I do feel grateful for my life and the gifts of this life—I’m also pissed. So far I’ve only been writing about gratitude, but I need to also write about feeling angry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">So how should I begin? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe I should begin with my anger, like this: <o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The curb seemed steep, and I needed to step down it to get to my car’s door. Leaning my weight onto my cane, I struggled to remain upright while I stepped off the curb to my little blue Honda in its disabled parking spot. A middle-aged woman whisked past me. It was the end of the day at the high school where I worked as a literacy specialist, and I was so tired I couldn’t feel my fingertips. The speedy woman kept looking back at me on the way to her car in one of the two non-disabled spots past mine. I could feel her watching as she zipped to her car and I fumbled with my keys, cane and backpack. I hated being watched when I struggled.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">She hollered over her shoulder at me, “You’re so lucky you get to park in that space!” Then she dropped into her car, ripped into reverse and spun her tires as she left the small lot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I paused in my attempt to get the key into the keyhole, fuming. I wanted to yell something cutting at her, something that might make her regret such a stupid comment. I wanted to tell her that when I had walked more easily, I had parked further from the door, leaving closer spaces for those who needed them. I wanted to tell her I had hiked in the mountains, biked more often than driven, traveled the dusty backroads of lands where I knew neither the language nor the customs. I wanted to say I had been a high school classroom teacher, but I couldn’t manage teaching teenagers anymore, so after taking a year off for healing and learning to walk again, I was now working part-time, trying to help other teachers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I wanted to tell this zippy woman about loss and about how I was doing my best. I wanted to tell her the comment hurt. I wanted to hurt her back. But she was gone, so I returned my focus to my key, my cane, and backpack, held the window’s edge for balance, and worked my way into the car. Before driving, I took a deep breath and exhaled, shaking my head as if I could shake off how offended I felt. When my hands stopped trembling, I put the key in the ignition and backed out of the space. I drove home slowly, so I wouldn’t run into anyone. Each time an impatient driver laid on the horn, I pretended I had a bumper sticker that read, “Honk if you think I’m beautiful.” That way I could laugh at their impatience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes, my losses since neurosurgery to remove my first brain tumor overwhelmed me, but I kept trying to return to the life I’d lived before surgery. I couldn’t. I felt frustrated and angry at this woman and at my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now, twelve years out from surgery, I’ve had radiation for a second tumor and survived a car accident that sent me to the regional trauma center. Now, I neither drive my car nor work for a living. I’m living a new life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In this new life, I do not feel lucky for my losses. I do feel grateful for the gift of living more slowly, more patient and aware of beauty everywhere, more open to so much kindness, less offended by the rapid world I am no longer part of. I am making peace, but I’m not at peace. I wonder if I ever will be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe I should begin with a moment of realizing my life had changed, like this:<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I looked at the high school freshmen, and they looked back at me. Twenty-four students sat in chairs crowded into the square their teacher had marked with masking tape. For this moment, the students were quiet and still. I was not their teacher. I was a literacy coach working to help their teacher meet their learning needs. I wasn’t assigned to him because he was weak. He had a strong reputation and had requested we work together in this class he was teaching for freshmen whose middle school teachers and counselor had identified as at risk of dropping out. Each week, we planned together. Then I observed the class and we debriefed the session. The previous week, we had talked about this class’s need for a crisp lesson, and he had asked me to model this crispness. I was excited for this opportunity to lead a class full of students, something I’d seldom done since neurosurgery to remove my first tumor had left me with disabilities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I fumbled the papers in my hands, trying to hold my cane as well as holding the papers where I could read them. I needed to get started, but there was so much to figure out. How could I keep my balance and seem confident? How could I read and simultaneously pay attention to them? This used to come so naturally. Now, I couldn’t even get started. I knew their attention, I was fragile and likely to break, so I started talking even though I wasn’t ready. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">For the first ten seconds, the students looked quietly up at me, the closest boys so near they could probably see my hands trembling. When I struggled to hand out papers, these boys twisted to look behind them at the second row of boys who were kicking their chairs. As I finally began to read from the example, the whole class giggled at one another and gave up even a pretense of paying attention. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In our work together, Todd and I had been talking about how to teach his freshman class. It’s a lively group, smart but not scholarly, and Todd struggled to get and maintain their attention during lessons. I was also struggling, and I suspected I was not helping. This had been so easy in my imagination. Even Tricia, with whom I’d connected throughout the year, started giggling with the friend next to her, then yelled at a pair of boys in the back, “Shut up!” She was laughing. My stomach tightened like I was going to vomit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The students were restless, talking to one another over me. I tried to continue, but it was impossible. I just couldn’t do it. I could not do what I used to do. I looked at Todd.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Todd scolded the class for treating a guest teacher so rudely and regained the responsibility of working with the group as a whole. For the rest of the class period, I worked with smaller groups. After the class, Todd and I discussed what we had learned about the students, what we wondered, and what his next steps with these students might be. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">After the debrief, I confessed how hard it was to experience what I could no longer do. In this moment of quiet reflection and confession, I wept. A tear slipped from my left eye, running warmly down my face. My right eye had not teared since surgery. I couldn’t even cry like I used to. <b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was time to acknowledge that the high school teaching part of my life was over. I was no longer the person these students and their teachers needed.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I ‘d need to feel gratitude for the time I’d had, and to seek my new adventure, but I wasn’t yet ready for gratitude. I hurt with loss.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe I should begin with the emotional complexity of the gifts and losses I’ve experienced, like this:<o:p></o:p></span></u></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I sat on a log in the shade while my partner Ann throw a miniature tennis ball for our dog Dosey. Ann threw. Dosey ran. I sat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It was a blue sky day in usually rainy Seattle, and the April air was cool without the hint of snow it had all winter. Ann picked up the orange and blue ball to toss it underhanded across the dog park’s square. Dosey raced off before Ann had even gotten the ball. Dosey’s hair streamed back from the force of her speed, and her tail, usually a fluffy plume, flew straight behind her like a flag on a windy day. The ball hit a tuft of spring green grass and bounced high in front of her. As she leapt and twisted her twelve-pound body to snatch the ball, her brown ears flopped back, and her body’s white hair gleamed. I could swear she was smiling as she trotted back to Ann, dropped the ball a few feet in front of her, and dashed off again. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I loved watching our puppy playing so joyfully, and I felt frustrated that because of my disabilities I couldn’t drive her to this park or throw the ball myself. I could only sit on this log in the shade, my cane close at hand, and watch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I knew there were gifts from my tumors, and Dosey was one of them. We couldn’t have had a dog before my brain tumors. In those days, we both spent our week-days at work. I was away from home most of the day, rising at four a.m. to be at the gym by five to swim and lift weights and hurry through my sun salutation before my workday began. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This was a happy day, and mine was a happy story. Through my losses, I had learned to live differently and found a kind of peace in my slower, unemployed life. My wife was lovely, and my dog smiled. Without this disease, my life with my wife would be different than this one. We wouldn’t have a puppy. How lucky I was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I could think cheerful thoughts, but I didn’t feel happy. The muscles around my throat tightened, aching from the strain. I felt a gob in my throat that I couldn’t swallow, and I couldn’t pull enough air through the nostril that took in air today. I ached, but I smiled. I held my body stiff, still. I would not cry. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I can imagine so many ways to begin. After all, I have a lot of stories in me. It’s been twelve years since surgery, and a lot has surprised me. Tired of drafting beginnings, I went to shorthand for the next four:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Being helped across a street I did not want to cross. I stood on the corner and thought about: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Complications from surgery—conversation with nurse Joey or learning to walk<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->After surgery: The graduate class I couldn’t participate in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Who I thought I should be—golden retriever<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">d.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Sleeping at Susan and Rod’s<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My “helpers” gave each other high fives. I crossed back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->In the trauma center, after the car accident. Sitting with Ellen—"Ann’s been through too much.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Surgery. “Complications.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->“Goldie”—Alex’s nickname for me because I always wanted things not too cold and not too hot; not too hard and not too soft; not too loud and not too quiet…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Working with Todd and realizing I couldn’t do this work anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“I changed my mind. I would like some morphine now, please.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Watching the boys kick the trash can and stopping them<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The graduate class when I couldn’t participate<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Being helped across the street<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The prayer in the park<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Intervening<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">4.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Sitting in the office that used to be mine—What I see and what I remember<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Jargon like “summative and formative assessments”, “metacognition”, “NCLB”, “UDL” (Universal Design for Learning)<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "source sans pro" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Surgery<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Principals’ certification<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">c.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The boys kicking the trash can<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Leaving the office/meeting with my colleague<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Main idea—My life had changed. I needed to accept that there had been losses without being sunk by them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">And later: That’s what life is. Pissed and grateful at the same time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now I think of <a href="https://whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1891/poems/27" target="_blank">Walt Whitman in "Song of Myself"</a>: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="color: #242d35; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Do I contradict myself?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #242d35; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> Very well then I contradict myself,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #242d35; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"> (I am large, I contain multitudes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps my story is not so tidy as I had thought. I guess I need to write a more complex story, but I’m not sure how. What do you think? How should I begin?</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-57144486205598313912019-04-19T11:33:00.002-07:002019-04-19T11:33:39.847-07:00Routine, Interrupted<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Monday night, Percy, our dog Dosey’s BFF, came for a sleep-over. Dosey’s a 12-pound Cavapoo, a King Charles Cavalier and miniature poodle mix. Percy’s a miniature Australian Shepherd, but he’s not tiny. At 45 pounds, he’s about four times Dosey’s size, but he’s a gentle, sweet dog. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Most days, Dosey stalks Percy’s home. When I take her for a “walk,” she goes to Percy’s house, and if he’s not there she returns home. If he is there, the two whine like they haven’t seen each other for years. When I let her in Percy’s back yard the two race around and wrestle for maybe five minutes. Then they ignore one another until Dosey starts digging like a maniac, and I tell her it’s time to go home. Nina puts Dosey’s leash on, and Dosey and I head out the gate. Neither dog seems too upset that we’re leaving. Hello is the most important part of the routine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Monday night, Nina brought Percy and his giant bed into our home, and the dogs wrestled and raced, then ignored one another. A few times, Percy looked at the door and cried, confused about why Nina had left him here and wondering when she was coming back. Mostly, the BFFs were happy to be in one another’s company, though when Percy started rooting through Dosey’s toy box, she scowled, an expression I’d never seen on her face before. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">At bedtime, Dosey and Percy curled up in his bed near the foot of ours, but sometime in the night Dosey went downstairs and Percy stretched out on the floor beside Ann’s side of the bed. We all rose around 5:00, and when the time seemed reasonable, Ann took Percy and his bed home. As much as Dosey and Percy love one another, I think both were relieved to return to familiar routines. I was, too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When Ann and I decided to get a dog, I wanted a furry being to nap with or sit in my lap while I read. Ann wanted something that would break us from our routines. We got both. Fortunately, most nights Ann and I still get our sleep-through-the-night routine.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">This has been a month of broken routines, however. Often in good ways, but the changes throw me off. One week, Ann and I travelled to Palm Springs, where we vacationed with her brother and sister-in-law. My critique group, which usually meets weekly, hasn’t met all month. Monday my parents will come from NC for five days. And—horrors—our tv died. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We’d had our old tv for about fifteen years, and I was just beginning to figure out the remotes, but then the sound stopped and the trouble-shooting technician told us it was dying. So we bought a new one, and Ann installed it. Though she got frustrated, I don’t think she cried. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">It turns on. We celebrated our 24<sup>th</sup>anniversary of living together by sharing a tasty halibut meal and then watching the first thirty minutes of <i>A Fish Called Wanda</i>. We wanted to see if we could figure out how to watch a movie. We’d both seen this one decades ago but didn’t remember much about. About fifteen minutes in, Ann’s head started jerking to the side, a sign that she was falling asleep, so we called it a night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Dosey slept in her bed and we in ours, and in the morning, Ann and I did yoga. Dosey did downward-facing dog and upward-facing dog, like usual. Ah, back to our routines for a few days. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Of course, life is full of broken routines. My parents have moved from the home where they lived for 45 years. My sister and her husband are moving from the home in New York where they raised their kids to a beach house near Charleston, South Carolina. My brother’s getting married, and his teenage kids will be in the wedding. Ann and I have gotten on a waitlist at a retirement home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I remember a college friend saying, “If you’re not changing, you’re dead.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Not dead yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-37898163643196919132019-04-04T17:11:00.003-07:002019-04-04T17:11:55.439-07:00Circumstances we can neither name nor control<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Wednesday afternoon, I rode the Rapid Line D bus from North Seattle to downtown with a friend. Crowded as usual, the bus took on more passengers than it let off. A democratic means of transportation, it welcomed all riders. Maybe some people paid and some didn’t. Certainly people paid different fares. As we rode, my friend and I talked about how much we loved the bus.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Downtown, the driver helped a woman he called Judy off the bus. As he lowered the ramp for her to disembark, she pushed her walker in front of her. She navigated the aisle, and I admired her purple silk pants. “You may have time for a cigarette before the 4 gets here,” the driver said to her as she was leaving. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I love this place of being known and being anonymous. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">A few years ago, a friend’s neighbor at a wine tasting and I were talking about riding the bus. She curled her lip in distaste as she said, “I hate the bus. All that unwashed humanity.” Then she sipped her wine, her hand curled in a caress around the wine glass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">“I love all that unwashed humanity!” I enthused. It seemed clear she and I wouldn’t be friends.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I thought of all these people when I read the news later that that same day, on another bus in another part of the city, a man shot into the bus from the middle of the street. The driver, miraculously, backed the bus to safety. A man driving his car was shot and killed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">What to make of this? Judy with her purple silk pants, the driver who knew Judy’s name and habits, unwashed humanity and those who love or don’t love them, the bus driver who was shot, the car driver who was killed, the shooter, the bus I rode and the bus I didn’t…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">So much depends on circumstances we can neither name nor control.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">The thought takes me back to the film</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Run, Lola, Run.</i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">The film re-shows the same event maybe six times, each with slightly different circumstances (for example, in one a car backing out of an alley slows Lola’s running). The slightly differing circumstances lead to dramatically different endings. The film seemed to argue small changes make huge differences we can neither name nor control.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Last night, Ann and I watched the film <i>If Beale Street Could Talk</i>, based on a James Baldwin novel. The film shows a young black couple whose lives are torn by the false accusation by a woman who was raped. In the film, the circumstances can be named as systemic racism but cannot be controlled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I went to bed thinking of my own life, at the accidents of race, gender, economics, nation, citizenship, and time that have defined my life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Of course, my brain tumors, gender, disabilities, and homosexuality have situated me outside of those who hold the most power in this country, but I have been mostly privileged in my life. I wish everyone were. I don’t how to help that become a reality. The inequity feels out of my control. And out of control.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-67326134765485359522019-03-14T17:29:00.002-07:002019-03-15T07:29:04.086-07:00Resolved<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 20pt;">Last Sunday, I went to church pissed. My little church was one of the first Methodist churches in the country to celebrate, not just “accept” gay people, and the sanctuary has been a home for me for decades. My congregation prayed for me when my brain tumors were diagnosed. From this congregation, I made friends in a rural Salvadoran community. My partner and I became wife and wife there. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 20pt;">Last week, the international Methodist church voted to maintain language in the Book of Discipline that says “Homosexuality is not compatible with Christian teaching.” The international body increased penalties for pastors who are found to be gay or perform gay union ceremonies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 20pt;">I argued years ago, when a lesbian coming out committed suicide, that our church should separate from the larger church. How could we remain part of an unjust organization? I was told our church needed to remain part of the larger organization in order to change the larger church from the inside. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 20pt;">It’s true that the Western conference to which our church belongs embraces those of us who are LGBTQIA+. In fact, at the end of the General Conference which just occurred, the final proclamation came from our bishop, asserting that the Western Conference would continue to defy the larger church’s rules. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 20pt;">The worry among many Methodists in the years leading up to this decision was that the church would split over “the gay issue.” If that happened, the argument went, U.S. connections to African and Pilipino churches, to their people and ways of understanding the world, would be severed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 20pt;">It occurred to me in an after-church report on the conference that we are already split. The question, it seems to me, is not a spiritual one so much as a legal one. Will we continue to be part of an unjust system, or will we break away. To quote our church’s much-revered Cecil Taylor, “We must save our souls.” We must break away. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 20pt;">That’s what I think now. I’m not pissed. I’m resolved. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 20pt;">It’s true that separating will be complicated. Who will separate? Will churches leave individually, or will the more liberal churches leave together to create a new denomination? Will our church keep our property? Will retired pastors still have their pensions? What will happen to LGBTQIA+ members of more conservative churches and conferences? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 20pt;">Each of those questions is big, and I don’t know the answers. I can’t even guess at them. The only thing that seems clear to me is that our international church has already split. Our divorce seems inevitable. And necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 20pt;">I wonder if one day I’ll say the same about our nation. I pray not, but I wonder.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-15221361411819998162019-03-01T20:44:00.000-08:002019-03-01T20:44:03.215-08:00A Semi-Good Woman<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">My long-time friend and neighbor Annabella died last week. She would have been 99 on April 20, and she was in hospice because she had stopped eating and drinking, so I knew her end was near. Her death was not a surprise, and yet I miss her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">My partner Ann and I visited Friday afternoon to say good-bye. Before we entered her room, a worker asked us to wait so she could “change” her. I thought this would be for toileting, but the “change” took only a minute, so maybe she was being repositioned which would have helped prevent pressure sores. As we waited, we heard a young woman saying into her phone, “Her breathing is shallow.” We guessed this woman was Annabella’s hospice nurse, and we were glad our dear, spunky friend was being so cared for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When we entered Annabella’s room, she was lying on her side. Her eyes were closed and the skin on her face was relaxed. She was clean and looked beautiful in her soft blue sheets. She looked remarkably like her younger daughter, something I had never before noticed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ann leaned over Annabella, her hand resting on Annabella’s thin arm. Ann said, “Hey girl,” which is how Annabella had always greeted us. Ann recalled good times the three of us had had together. Annabella lay quietly, as if in an easy sleep. After a few minutes, Ann said, “I love you,” and stepped back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I stood from my chair and leaned close to Annabella, trying to rest my hand on her leg but finding instead what must have been a box under the covers to vary her position. I recalled times we had laughed together. I remembered the time years before when Annabella had been talking about her death. She said, “When I die, they’re going to say, ‘That was a semi-good woman.’” I told her she might have been a semi-good woman, but she had always been a good friend to me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I stepped away, and Ann approached again to say a final good-bye. As she spoke Annabella made gurgling sounds. Her eyes were still closed, but she seemed agitated. Maybe she was trying to speak, or maybe she was just trying to breathe. Maybe she knew we were there, and maybe she didn’t. Ann said, “You don’t need to say anything. I love you,” and Annabella settled again into soft, shallow breathing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ann and I have known Annabella since we moved into this neighborhood 23 years ago. Soon after we moved in, Ann and I delivered invitations to a house-warming for our neighbors. As we came back to our home, the phone was already ringing. I answered it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Hi,” said a gravelly voice, “I’m Annabella. Your neighbor. I drink beer. Not the hard stuff. Beer.” I tried to assure her we’d have beer, but the line went dead. She’d hung up. I’d learn over the years that was how Annabella ended a phone conversation. I’d also learn to love her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When she was a spry 91 years old (and she was spry), I told her I was writing a book, and she said, “Books are boring. ‘The sky is blue. The grass is green.’ You should write about me. I’m interesting.” So I started interviewing her and writing down details of her life in New Orleans and Seattle, including her work as a Riveter during WWII. I wrote funny things she said. I did publish a couple of pieces about her, like <a href="https://southseattleemerald.com/2017/03/06/31-days-of-revolutionary-women-6-annabella-morgan/" target="_blank">this one</a> celebrating revolutionary women in this area<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">She’s schooled me through the years. She said, “It’s good to live a long time to tell the stories.” She told me more than I can share here, but I’ll try giving you a taste of her independence, humor and wisdom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Annabella was stubborn and strong-headed. We didn’t always agree. She liked to say, “The Lord makes fools and mules, and I’m no fool.” Once, when she said something dicey, she said, “I tell it like it is.” Another time she said, “Don’t tell me I’m wrong because I know, and I don’t mind telling you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">She was gruff, but she could also be sweet. Once when we were eating at The BluWater, her favorite restaurant around here, she said, “I’m different than most people, but people like me. Why? They kiss me, and I tell them I love them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Once, she said, “I know a lot because I’ve lived 93 years.” Another time she told me, “I can cuss. It comes natural,” and later, “If you need to cuss, you can learn from me.” Remembering her childhood and the mom whom she adored, Annabella said, “My sister drew back when my mom was gonna whip her. I’d curse her out.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Annabella was funny, and she could also be wise. A “colored” woman, she taught me a lot about race in the U.S. About the integration of schools, she said, “I just really think you shouldn’t have all White or all Black schools. You don’t learn anything like that.” Maybe she learned that from forty years volunteering in elementary school classrooms.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Annabella was a devout Catholic. Once, she told me, “I may be bitchy, but I don’t miss mass.” She loved Ann and me. One night, I pointed out her demographic: “colored,” elderly, Catholic, Southern born and raised, and asked why she bucked a trend that indicated she would reject us because we are lesbians. She pointed a knobby finger to her temple and said, “I have my own mind.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">As Annabella got deeper into her nineties, she talked more about her death. One morning she told me, “It’s already a beautiful day. Every day’s a beautiful day when you wake up.” She won’t be waking up anymore, and I’ll miss her, but my days will be more beautiful because I’ve known her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-16096842348183611692019-02-21T18:21:00.003-08:002019-02-21T18:21:42.504-08:00House-bound<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I spent most of the last two weeks in my house and </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">developed sympathy for people under house arrest. After the first day or so, I sought whatever might distract me from my imprisonment. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">I went to my email several times in an hour, hoping there will be something new awaiting a response. I revised multiple drafts of pieces for my weekly writing group. I also wrote several “flash non-fiction” pieces for an editor who had only asked for one. I cut my fingernails. And my toenails.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Why? <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/02/11/record-february-snowfall-hammers-seattle-more-is-coming/?utm_term=.632b6dedad9d" target="_blank">Seattle’s gotten more snow this February than in any February since the city started keeping records in 1880</a>. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">In fact, <a href="https://www.seattleweatherblog.com/snow/february-2019-seattles-snowiest-month-50-years/" target="_blank">this has been Seattle’s snowiest month in 50 years</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">As a disabled person, I’ve felt trapped, or “twapped” as my young nephew said decades ago. (When he was three, we rode the train around and around an amusement park, and each time we reached one spot, he got agitated and kept yelling “twapped.” My partner Ann finally figured out that the painting of a caged monkey upset him.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Because I walk unsteadily, I didn’t risk walking down the sidewalk in front of our home. So I haven’t left the house much. Last Monday, Ann vowed she’d take me out, and she drove the slick roads to our YMCA, which we’d read was open. It was open, but the parking lot was not. Again, I was “twapped.” We returned home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I felt house-bound, which reminds me of the term “wheelchair bound,” and one user’s comment on the ridiculousness of the term. She argued that the wheelchair freed her to move around. She was not “twapped” by it; she was freed. (BTW, don’t say “wheelchair-bound.” </span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">As the <a href="http://www.newmobility.com/2015/09/dont-say-wheelchair-bound/" target="_blank">article in the link</a> explains, “<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">To say someone is ‘wheelchair-bound’ is to perpetuate an unfortunately popular misconception that someone’s wheelchair is the most prominent and important aspect of that person. It’s as if the person who uses the wheelchair is not really a person, but rather some type of machine.”)</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> Yes, I’m talking semantics here. I think they’re important. I’ve often heard someone say, “just semantics” to dismiss a person’s point. I find that foolish, and <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1yqbtv/arguing_that_something_is_just_semantics_is_a_cop/" target="_blank">I’m not the only one</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: normal;"> Understanding words is essential to clear thinking that goes beyond biases and assumptions. One of my favorite <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/843488-bhikkhus-the-teaching-is-merely-a-vehicle-to-describe-the" target="_blank">Ticht Nhat Hanh quotations</a> is, “</span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: normal;">A finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. The finger is needed to know where to look for the moon, but if you mistake the finger for the moon itself, you will never know the real moon.” </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: normal;">To me, this quotation acknowledges how limited language can be in describing truth—and by extension how important it is for us to recognize language’s limitations. <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: normal;"> To some people, I know semantic discussions are frustrating, even seem ridiculous. To me, they are essential. In the twelve years since I’ve become disabled, I’ve been intrigued by disagreements about using the phrases “disabled person” and “person with disabilities.” I’ll tell you how I understand this right now but put your metaphorical seatbelt on. It’s going to be a wild ride.<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> People who aren’t disabled and want to be respectful, signaling the social model of disability instead of the medical model use language differently in the U.S. from those in the rest of the world. (<a href="http://www.disabilitynottinghamshire.org.uk/about/social-model-vs-medical-model-of-disability/" target="_blank">“</a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://www.disabilitynottinghamshire.org.uk/about/social-model-vs-medical-model-of-disability/" target="_blank">The social model of disability says that disability is caused by the way society is organized. The medical model of disability says people are disabled by their impairments or differences.”</a>)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: normal;">In the U.S., people who aren’t disabled and want to signal their association with the social model of disability use “person-first” language. That is, the person is more than the disabilities. The person is first human. Therefore in the U.S., this group of people uses the phrase “person with disabilities.” <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: normal;">Those in the U.S. with disabilities, however, may choose to describe themselves as a “disabled person,” emphasizing the importance of the disability to their identity. As I understand it, this expression is a sort-of defiant in-your-face identity. This is how I now describe myself, though I’m not very in-your-face, and until recently I called myself a person with disabilities. <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: normal;"> In places outside the U.S., people who want to signal the social model of disability use language in the opposite way. They say, “disabled person.” </span><span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: normal;">(<a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/stella_young_i_m_not_your_inspiration_thank_you_very_much" target="_blank">The link</a> takes you to a good Ted talk. I recommend you listen to it.)<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: normal;"> So where does this leave you? If you’re in the U.S. and ascribe to the social model of disability but don’t have disabilities yourself, use the phrase “person with disabilities.” If you’re in another part of the world, use “disabled person.” And if you’re disabled, you have decide. Yes, it’s harder for you. Everything else is, so why not language?<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="color: #181818; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">And then, of course there’s more. There’s “disability justice,” which is the theory I now ascribe to. As one writer who ascribes to this theory wrote, “</span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I want to the world to see people with disabilities as whole beings, whether our disabilities are physically marked or not”<span class="apple-converted-space"> http://feministcampus.org/whats-disability-justice-anyway/ I can’t figure out how to write about disability justice without being a “</span></span><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44129/the-sun-rising" target="_blank">saucy pedantic wretch</a></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">,” and perhaps this semantic lesson is enough for now. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">It’s good you’re reading this today, because by tomorrow this may be out of date. After all, like our lives, our language keeps changing.</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-66173480310047665082019-02-06T15:40:00.003-08:002019-02-06T15:41:29.901-08:00Sports and Politics<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Last night, watching the State of the Union address, I felt like I was in a high school sports arena. Congress—Democrats and Republicans, men and women—erupted three times with a U-S-A chant. Trump said he liked the sound of the chant, and its tone and lack of dignity seemed appropriate in a speech weighted with words about “winning” and being the best, “the envy of the world,” with our military the “most powerful on earth.” I did not like the chant. Not at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Sports is not an appropriate metaphor for justice, policy or culture. We are not—or should not be—in a win or lose contest with the rest of the world, where we can win while everyone else loses. I don’t think we can prosper because others fail. In fact, it seems to me that in order to live well in the U.S., we need a strong world economy, a world at peace with its neighbors. What happened to “a rising tide lifts all boats”? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">These times worry me. They upset me. It’s not like I can look back to an ideal past, a time in this country when all was right and just, but I feel like we’re moving in the wrong direction. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ann read Michelle Obama’s <i>Becoming </i>to me over the past few weeks. The book was surprisingly well-written. (I’ve been writing a memoir for the last decade. It’s hard to do.) It was frank and hopeful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">But I found it depressing. Sunday after church, I asked a friend, “How did we go from those hopeful years to the last two?” Though I seldom cry, my voice cracked with emotion. And that was before Congress erupted into Friday night football cheers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I need to say here that I generally hate State of the Union addresses, with manipulative rhetoric and one team’s fans standing and cheering while the other team sits dourly, arms tightly crosses across their chests. I hate these addresses even when I like the president. Maybe I hate them because they show in bright lights our country’s worst blemishes. They expose our nation’s divisiveness. They ignore complexity and nuance, exposing the simplistic duality of our politics: red or blue? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I’m looking for hope, belief in Martin Luther King’s moral arc of the universe bending towards justice. I don’t find that hope in politics or national systems. I do sometimes find it in individual stories of grace, instances of one person helping their neighbor, times when people live through loss and tragedy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In her book, Michelle Obama writes,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16pt; letter-spacing: 1.2pt;">“Life was teaching me that progress and change happen slowly. We were planting the seeds of change, the fruit of which we might never see. We had to be patient.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16pt; letter-spacing: 1.2pt;">Her words echo </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">’s words:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 16pt; letter-spacing: 1.2pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us….<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest…. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I’m simply not good at patience when patience means accepting that people are dying and hurting from human causes that could change. I see that Michelle Obama, Martin Luther King, and other wise ones take the long view, and if I were wise, I’m sure I’d do that. This is one way of many I know I’m not yet wise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">But I’m not dead, so there’s hope for me yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-34694709708040421332019-01-29T09:47:00.003-08:002019-01-29T09:47:38.304-08:00Slowing Down<div class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); color: black; font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Today is my “day off.” With no commitments, I get to work on my writing, which is my favorite thing to do. The conundrum now is: which project should I work on? I could write a blog entry I’ve been planning called “Solace” about peaceful times in this difficult winter (inspired by Mary Oliver and a church service using her poetry), a blog currently titled “Remembering Hope” (inspired by Michelle Obama’s memoir</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span><i style="font-size: 16pt;">Becoming </i><span style="font-size: 16pt;">and a Homecoming celebration for a friend’s teenage child), an essay on Gratitude for an upcoming contest, or another final chapter for my memoir, a chapter I’m excited about. So many excellent choices! Or I could write this blog entry.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">With fatigue and my commitment to continue being part of the wider world, I don’t have time to do as much as I’d like to. Actually, I never did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">A week has passed since my last blog entry, and I used to post weekly, so maybe it’s time to do this. Or maybe not. Perhaps you’ve noticed I’m not blogging as much as I used to. Last spring, I consulted my writing teacher about what I should do to move towards publishing my book. (I’ve been working on it for 12 years now, and I think it’s time.) I read her the list of things I thought I needed to do: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Finish book: Find readers and a writing group<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Publish shorter pieces<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Bulk up blog<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Look for contests<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Read good books, including some related to my theme and/or topic<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Apply for the Tin House conference in the summer and ask for a manuscript review<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Courier New"; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Courier New";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">o<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Other?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When I asked her what more I should do, she said I should do less. When I asked her what to cut, she didn’t hesitate: the blog and Tin House.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I thought of the 6<sup>th</sup>century B.C. poet Lao Tsu’s writing. “One must know when to stop,” which has been my mantra for decades, informing my decisions to leave my marriage and my career. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Perhaps,” I thought, “it’s time to stop writing this blog.” Then I thought, “But I like writing this blog, and readers seem to appreciate it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">So instead of stopping, I’m slowing down, which is what I’m doing in much of the rest of my life, too. In fact, a draft pitch for my memoir begins, “Anything that slows me down is a gift. Even brain tumors.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">But I wonder if you’ll stay with me in my slowing down. I hope so. You, too, are a gift.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-4906164634032893832019-01-19T17:39:00.002-08:002019-01-19T17:39:59.323-08:00Tears <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Early last Monday morning as I lay in the warm bed, I heard Ann talking in the other room. To be on the phone so early was unusual, so I was alert when she came in the room. She was sobbing. When she told me about our friends’ tragic night, I was stunned and just kept saying, “Oh my God.” As torn as my heart was, I didn’t cry. I struggled for a deep breath, and my throat ached because my body wanted to cry but was holding itself still.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This inability to cry has been a lifelong disability. I’ll go months without crying, and when I finally do, I can’t stop. I sob and shake like I have a high fever. I sobbed at my first wedding breakfast and again when I told my parents I’d left my husband. I sobbed when I came out to myself as a lesbian and when a woman going through the coming out process committed suicide. I sobbed again before brain surgery, when Ann said our dinner blessing on her own because I was shaking too hard speak it: “Oh God, Remind me all of life is grace. Let me respond in gratitude.” I didn’t feel grateful, not at all, and I wondered if I ever would again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">There are of course other times when I’ve cried, but not nearly enough of them. At my last meeting with a therapist after I had divorced my husband and come out as a lesbian, my therapist told me, “If ever you haven’t cried in the last few weeks, see a sad movie or do something to make yourself cry.” She told me women cry on average 3 or 4 times a month, and I should strive for that. (The innerwebs agree. For example, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/he-speaks-she-speaks/.../the-crying-game" target="_blank">according to <i>Psychology Today</i> women cry on average 5.3 times a month.</a></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">) </span><span style="color: #545454; font-size: 16pt;"></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">My therapist said not crying but holding my emotions inside could lead to depression. (The innerwebs also agree <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/features/how-crying-can-make-you-healthier-1009169.html" target="_blank">crying has significant health advantages</a>. )</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ann, who is emotionally present, cries like a Texas storm. Her skies are blue and sunny. Then suddenly a dark cloud covers the sky and pelts down a waterfall. Then it’s sunny again, and the world is fresher for the wash. I wish I cried like that. But I don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My tears come more like a lid that’s super hard to unscrew. I work and work and work at what seems impossible. If it ever comes loose, I’m relieved. If not, I shrug and go on without it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our church and our friends are grieving. Perhaps we need to cry, to sob, to wail, to <a href="https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/keening" target="_blank">keen</a>. Pastor Ann’s sermon Sunday was about grief, about the importance of ritual, music, and friendship as we grieve. She and others read poems, music that stirred my tears.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">She quoted </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Judah Halev: “</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">‘<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/725858-tis-a-fearful-thing-tis-a-fearful-thing-to-love" target="_blank">Tis a fearful thing / to love what death can touch</a>.” A wise friend quoted Washington Irving: </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/washington_irving_149294" target="_blank">There is a sacredness in tears</a></span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/washington_irving_149294" target="_blank">. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.</a> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16pt;">Our pastor continued by quoting C.S. Lewis after his wife died. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/649744-no-one-ever-told-me-that-grief-felt-so-like" target="_blank">No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear…. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing</a>.”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: normal;">For me, there was solace in these poetics of pain, and from some writers solace in grief, such as in the poet Rumi’s “<a href="https://allspirit.co.uk/birdwings/" target="_blank">Birdwings</a>.”<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror<br />up to where you are bravely working.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,<br />here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.<br />If it were always a fist or always stretched open,<br />you would be paralysed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding,<br />the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated<br />as birdwings.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Rumi’s solace is not about life returning to normal. It’s about continuing to move, not becoming frozen in grief.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Jesus’s words, too, offer comfort: “</span><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+11%3A28-29&version=KJV" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Come unto me</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16pt;">, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">all</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16pt;"> ye that labour and are </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">heavy laden</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16pt;">, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">me</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+11%3A28-29&version=KJV" target="_blank">; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30)</a>.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t think the pastor said much about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_(biblical_figure)" target="_blank">Job</a>, the Biblical character who honored God and yet lost all that he loved. His story seems to raise the question, “Why do good people suffer?” As I remember (but couldn’t find on the innerwebs), the story originally ended with a man bereft and grieving yet still faithful. Perhaps not satisfied with this ending, someone gave the story a more earthly ending, and that’s the one in the Bible: Job’s family is reunited, his home and health restored, his possessions returned and his wealth multiplied.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first version seems truer. After loss, it seems to me, we do not return to the same beings we were before. Our previous world is not restored. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pastor Ann was wise not to go to Job, but to go instead to our poets who teach us, not that pain goes away, but that in pain we deepen. We learn that life goes on, but we live differently than we did before. We are forever different. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This our poets know, so we go to them in times we do not understand. I think of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47651/after-great-pain-a-formal-feeling-comes-372" target="_blank">grief as described by the poet Emily Dickinson</a>: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; text-indent: -12pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; text-indent: -12pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; text-indent: -12pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; text-indent: -12pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The Feet, mechanical, go round –</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; text-indent: -12pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A Wooden way</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; text-indent: -12pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This is the Hour of Lead –</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; text-indent: -12pt;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"> For me, the ending’s complexity feels true: “– then the letting go –” Letting go of what? Pain? Life? Hope? Despair? Yes, I suppose, all of that. And none of it. It's danger feels true, too: "Remembered, if outlived." We can stop in grief, be mired in it, become concrete, a pillar of salt, a fist.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Grief’s story has no easy ending. No ending really at all. Just change. And to get to that change, I suspect we have to cry as we recognize and grieve our losses. And maybe those tears are where wisdom lies. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-64619862467689122502018-12-26T14:33:00.001-08:002018-12-26T14:33:40.216-08:00Weary, Furious and Fearful<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">A few weeks ago, a woman I respect and don’t know well got hot under the collar about churches and hypocrisy. She stopped herself before I could hear enough of what was on her mind to understand her fury, but I notice enough hypocrisy, particularly in the news, to get hot under the collar myself. After all, Trump calls himself a Christian, and so do some people who support him. I think every president and his followers have.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Which brings to mind a question for a later blog entry: Will a non-Christian or a woman be first to assume the US Presidency? (Decades ago, female friends and I wondered aloud if a black man or a woman of any race would become President first. We all thought a Black man would.) If the question were, Will a bully or a woman be first to assume the US Presidency, we now know that answer, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Back to the topic at hand: I understand peoples’ anger about church hypocrisy. Lots of folks, some of whom are LGBTQ+, some divorced, some I know and many I don’t, have been hurt by churches. I even experienced a mild version of this hypocrisy when I lived in Dallas and visited 17 churches in search of a good fit. I didn’t find one. First Methodist seemed to me like a social club and the Unitarian church seemed like a college class. The others fell somewhere along that continuum. (Decades later I met a group of people in El Salvador from a small Dallas church that was a few blocks from where I’d lived. If I’d known the term “social justice” at the time, I might have found them.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Most of my experience in churches, however, has been at Pullen Memorial Baptist in Raleigh, NC, and at Wallingford United Methodist in Seattle, WA. In both of those churches I’ve loved genuine people who recognize all creation (all people, all animals, the trees, the earth…) as from God and of God. These folks ache and celebrate. They have more questions than answers. Some have a lot of money, and some don’t. They seek, and they wonder. Or I should say “we”, not “they”, because these people are my people, and I am theirs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Monday night, our church had a lovely Christmas Eve service, with the telling of Jesus’s birth story, and an angel always telling folks not to be afraid. Interspersed throughout the story were Christmas carols. When we got to our fourth carol, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” I started noticing the same words kept appearing throughout the hymns. Some I would have predicted because they’re the happy words I hear so often: angels, singing, joy, peace, love, and gold (that last one’s complicated for me). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The word in “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” that got me noticing the patterns, however, is not such a happy word and resonates with me. Weary. I am so often weary and always have been, even before brain radiation. One of my first formal baby photos, perhaps the first, catches me yawning. One nickname in my twenties was “Weary Mary.” I have always loved Tennyson’s lines in his poem “Marianna,”: “’I am a-weary a-weary,’ she said.” (I’ve never continued with the next line, “I would that I were dead.”)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Lately, I am most weary of the daily news about Trump. News of a government shutdown. News of abusive treatment towards immigrants. News about tweets and bigotry. Unkind news about health care and everything else. I find myself beat down by this. And terrified. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Hitler parallels strike me—all those people in death camps: Jewish, disabled, queer…the list goes on, and it includes me and my ilk. What will we do about this man? What will we do to take back our country? What am I doing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I’m writing. I’m asking you to notice with me. I do not believe this man and his followers represent us. I do believe we are mostly good people. I hope we will stay good and become aware. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Whatever that means.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-75601077634425337102018-12-18T17:27:00.005-08:002018-12-18T17:27:58.328-08:00Be Not Afraid<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">Today as Ann turned left near the intersection where a speeding SUV sent my little Honda to the junkyard and me to the regional trauma center seven years ago, I felt my breath catch. I squeezed my hands together in my lap, and my fingers turned white with the blood pressed out of them. My feet tingled, and I felt slightly nauseated.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I have felt afraid at this intersection—indeed afraid at any possibility of auto-danger (and possibilities abound)—for the past seven years. Truthfully, though, fear is not new to me. I have long feared walking in dark places, being alone in a house, crossing the street, and spiders, among so many other things.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">In my twenties, I told a hiking friend that I clenched my teeth because I always feared falling when I went up and down rocks, and I didn’t want to bite off my tongue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">“That’s psychotic,” he said to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Actually, though I didn’t know it at the time, I probably had a brain tumor that made falling more likely for me than for others, so my fear was likely justified.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">In the Christmas story, which I keep hearing in this season, fear abounds. An angel keeps telling people—<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+1%3A26-38&version=NLV" target="_blank">Mary</a>, <a href="https://gracetruth.blog/2014/12/20/do-not-be-afraid-is-at-the-heart-of-the-christmas-story/" target="_blank">Joseph</a>, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+2%3A10-11&version=KJV" target="_blank">the shepherds</a>, and <a href="https://biblehub.com/matthew/2-12.htm" target="_blank">the wise men</a>—not to be afraid, and it seems to me every time the angel says, “Be not afraid,” there’s reason for fear. (Mary’s going to be pregnant even though she and her fiancée haven’t had sex; Joseph’s going to marry a woman pregnant with someone else’s child; the shepherds are being called from their solitary work into a revolution; their king wants to kill the wise men). Including this story, <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jessica-kastner/top-5-scriptures-that-ban_b_11786842.html" target="_blank">“fear not” is used 80 times in the Bible</a>! Call me chicken, but the call not to be afraid makes me afraid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I suppose the angels didn’t cause scary events, they just appeared for comfort. Seven years ago an angel appeared beside my wrecked car after an SUV had t-boned it, with me in it. My angel, a woman in a pink raincoat with images of giant flowers on it, told me not to worry, emergency vehicles were on the way. Once the emergency responders got there, she disappeared. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I don’t know where she came from or where she went, and I don’t know her name or her story, but she kept me calm in a chaotic time, and I’ll always be grateful to her. I think of her when I am afraid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">I have been fretting a lot lately about a book I’ve been writing since my first tumor’s diagnosis in 2007. I fear I won’t be able to publish it. If not, I wonder if all these years I’ve invested in it will have been wasted. It is a story of hope and perspective when life doesn’t go as planned (and I’m realizing most of our lives don’t). I believe it’s a story that would give its readers solace, but it won’t if I never publish it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">“Don’t worry,” I hear again my angel saying to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">“Be not afraid,” I read again and again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">But I insist on worrying and being afraid. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">There’s so much grief in my world now that my heart can hardly contain it. Personally, friends living with losses from aging, deaths and disease; in the wider world some people living in tents while I sit comfortably at my computer. A quotation from a WWI memorial in Melbourne remains written on the inside of my eyelids, haunting me when I sleep and when I blink: “Fascism is failed democracy.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Perhaps serendipitously, Ann and I received a card from our friends Stef and Lin today, with this Talmudic quotation:<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7480295-the-talmud-states-do-not-be-daunted-by-the-enormity" target="_blank"> "Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Maybe in these words I find a call to act and to be at peace. That word “humbly” seems important.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Maybe, I think as I have thought so many times, I need to be okay with the fact that I’m not in control. Again, I wonder at Rumi’s words:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?50569-Rumi-s-Poems" target="_blank">What hurts you, blesses you.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?50569-Rumi-s-Poems" target="_blank">Darkness is your candle.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?50569-Rumi-s-Poems" target="_blank">Your boundaries are your quest.</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?50569-Rumi-s-Poems" target="_blank">I can explain this, </a></span><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?50569-Rumi-s-Poems" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;" target="_blank">but it would break</a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?50569-Rumi-s-Poems" target="_blank">the glass cover on your heart,</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;"><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?50569-Rumi-s-Poems" target="_blank">and there's no fixing that.</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Perhaps the glass cover on my heart is breaking again, and perhaps I need not be afraid. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Perhaps.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-54185920111869083712018-12-05T11:41:00.000-08:002018-12-05T11:48:32.569-08:00<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #212121; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">If you’ve ever been to<a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Skagit+Valley+Tulip+Festival+photos&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjGm_GloonfAhVUIjQIHavZA5sQsAR6BAgAEAE&biw=1019&bih=530" target="_blank"> Skagit Valley’s Tulip Festival</a>, you might have seen me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You’ll remember the acres of tulips, ribbons of reds, pinks, yellow, purples, and oranges (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvjn-Se37Os&vl=en-US" target="_blank">Can you sing a rainbow, too?</a>) You’ll remember the snowy mountain backdrop and old barns. Do you remember that yellow tulip by itself in the wide swath of red tulips? That was me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As a child, I never really fit in. When I was growing up, people often told me, a girl born and raised in Raleigh, NC, I didn’t seem like I was from the South. When I asked where I seemed from, I was always told I seemed like a Yankee. Though being called a Yankee in the South is nearly always an insult, they didn’t intend to insult me, and I never took offense. They were merely sharing what they’d observed, and I was glad to hear there might be some place I did belong. In the South, surrounded by a loving family and a clutch of friends, I felt alone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I don’t know why I was always different. Perhaps that feeling of difference started because I was a red head in a blond world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Also, I was a young feminist in a culture where “feminist” was the f-word. I loved to play sports in a culture where girls ached to be cheerleaders. I found barbies boring, preferring to ride my <a href="https://www.youngexplorers.com/itemdy00.aspx?T1=Y182321+ORRD&srccode=NXCYC6&utm_source=google&utm_medium=comparison&utm_campaign=datafeed&source=pla&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI68fXp7eJ3wIVgXt-Ch309wx_EAQYAiABEgJshfD_BwE" target="_blank">Big Wheel</a>. As a teenager, I loved to read and write and never skipped school or smoked a cigarette (or anything else.) <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/im-nobody-who-are-you-260" target="_blank">Emily Dickinson's "I'm Nobody, Who are you?" </a>was my favorite poem. I loved to go to church, too, so much that my dad once said, “You’re getting awful churchy.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Maybe it was that church that made me so different. Though <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullen_Memorial_Baptist_Church" target="_blank">Pullen Memorial Baptist Church</a> was a large church, otherwise it wasn’t like other churches I knew. I wore blue jeans with peach patches to church while other girls wore fluffy dresses with patent leather shoes. My cousins in a different city learned the names of all the books of the Bible in order. We didn’t commit the Bible to memory, and read broadly from other spiritual texts. For example, I remember one youth retreat where we read <i><a href="https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/williams/rabbit/rabbit.html" target="_blank">The Velveteen Rabbi</a>t</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As a teenager I attended a Wednesday night youth group that sometimes went to Burger King for dinner. Often, people asked us what we thought of our minister. “He’s boring,” I remember saying. Though I had tried to listen to his sermons for a long time, I never understood them and only focused on the minister’scombover when he got excited and the combover fell into his face. (I finally gave up on his sermons and started sneaking to a nearby park to swing on the swings with a friend before he spoke, returning for the closing hymn.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Though I didn’t realize it at the time, the minister, W.W.Finlator, was a controversial figure in Raleigh, locally famous for Progressive sermons and particularly anti-racism work. Fittingly, he’s listed in the <a href="http://crdl.usg.edu/people/f/finlator_william_wallace_1913/?Welcome" target="_blank">Civil Rights Digital Library</a>. <a href="https://docsouth.unc.edu/sohp/html_use/C-0007.html" target="_blank">This 1986 interview with him</a> will give you a sense of who he was. As I read it, I notice what a strong influence he must have had on me, even though I skipped so many of his sermons. He was a good man, one of the truest Christians I ever met. (Another was his successor, the <a href="https://mahansiler.wordpress.com/my-story/" target="_blank">Reverend Mahan Siler</a>, perhaps best known in Raleigh for facilitating a church discussion about gay people and then in 1992 conducting the congregation’s first gay union ceremony. A third is Rev. Siler’s successor, the <a href="http://www.wunc.org/post/meet-nancy-petty#stream/0" target="_blank">Rev. Nancy Petty</a>, an out lesbian and fighter for justice for all people, particularly LGBT, Black, and Muslim people.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">These people are heroes to me. Perhaps their influence called me to work for social justice as an adult. Perhaps they’re why I feel at home far from the place of my birth. Perhaps they’re why I attend <a href="http://wallingfordumc.org/" target="_blank">a little Seattle church with a similar passion for justice and inclusivity</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Here in Seattle I’ve found my stream of yellow tulips, and I don’t feel alone anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-74852512333479896492018-11-28T08:39:00.001-08:002018-11-28T08:42:27.523-08:00Exulting Somewhat<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria, serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">My partner Ann and I spent this Thanksgiving at Little Sister Jen’s (LSJ) home in Pound Ridge, a New York City suburb. Her six-bedroom <a href="https://www.houlihanlawrence.com/property/240717793/141-lower-shad-road-pound-ridge-ny-10576" target="_blank">home</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> is beautiful, on a large plot of land with a tennis court, swimming pool, and family-sized soccer field. (They're selling if you're interested.)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">LSJ has a law degree. (My favorite story of hers from law school is about her taking the part of her skull that was removed to a professor when she needed an extension. She’s funny that way.) LSJ now works in risk management (yes, that's funny, too) for an investment firm, and her husband sold his hedge fund in the 1990’s, so they’re doing all right (though they’re building their new home in South Carolina, so contact them if you want their house. If you want to shop around, Little Brother Matt is selling one across the border in Connecticut, and Mom and Dad are selling theirs in North Carolina.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">LSJ lives a suburban life with four beautiful children, a life I thought I might live, but my route through life had some surprising detours, so I’m a disabled, lesbian, Seattle feminist instead. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The day after Thanksgiving, my brother's girlfriend told me about how surprising her adult life has been. Her story resonated with me. She'd thought she'd marry in her twenties, have a few kids and a suburban home, and "<span style="border: 1pt none windowtext; padding: 0in;">do the mother thing." </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="border: 1pt none; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; padding: 0in;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Instead, she's had several serious boyfriends and moved to Colorado for 10 years before returning to her home town in Connecticut. She's also started two successful businesses (interestingly, a candy shop in Colorado and now a <a href="http://saltwaterwellness.com/" target="_blank">health coaching business</a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">"Life hasn't gone as I planned," she said, "but my life makes sense to me now. Suddenly I have your brother and his kids. And there's a lot more of my life to live. I'm happy about it."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’m happy about my life, too, so glad it isn’t going as I'd planned. How could I have foreseen such an amazing partner as Ann, our Seattle life with good friends and a delightful puppy, my writing life, and even my brain tumors’ gifts (though I’m not yet embracing my losses.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Though I studied English literature in college, I didn’t read much poetry there. Much to my surprise, I was assigned to teach poetry my first year in teaching, and in that teaching I learned a passion for poetry, a passion that provides solace in my most difficult times. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">As I listened to Jenny, this Stanley Kunitz poem occurred to me, again a gift. Though I don’t believe any part of my life is already written, this poem and Jenny’s story remind me I’m not alone. So many of us took multiple paths as we sought our own, and we have been graced with the journey. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Read it for yourself. Maybe it resonates with you, too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54897/the-layers" target="_blank">The Layers </a><o:p></o:p></span></span></h1>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I have walked through many lives,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">some of them my own,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">and I am not who I was,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">though some principle of being<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">abides, from which I struggle<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">not to stray.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When I look behind,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">as I am compelled to look<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">before I can gather strength<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">to proceed on my journey,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I see the milestones dwindling<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">toward the horizon<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">and the slow fires trailing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">from the abandoned camp-sites,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">over which scavenger angels<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">wheel on heavy wings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Oh, I have made myself a tribe<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">out of my true affections,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">and my tribe is scattered!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">How shall the heart be reconciled<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">to its feast of losses?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In a rising wind<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">the manic dust of my friends,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">those who fell along the way,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">bitterly stings my face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Yet I turn, I turn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">exulting somewhat,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">with my will intact to go<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">wherever I need to go,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">and every stone on the road<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">precious to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In my darkest night,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">when the moon was covered<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">and I roamed through wreckage,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">a nimbus-clouded voice<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">directed me:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“Live in the layers,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">not on the litter.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Though I lack the art<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">to decipher it,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">no doubt the next chapter<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">in my book of transformations<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">is already written.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I am not done with my changes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">--</span><span class="c-txt"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: #494949; font-family: , serif; letter-spacing: 1.05pt; padding: 0in; text-transform: uppercase;">BY</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: #494949; font-family: , serif; letter-spacing: 1.05pt; padding: 0in; text-transform: uppercase;"> </span></span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="border: 1pt none; color: black; letter-spacing: 1.05pt; padding: 0in; text-transform: uppercase;"><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stanley-kunitz" style="color: purple;"><span style="color: black;">STANLEY KUNITZ</span></a></span></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-71945113788954498342018-11-16T08:47:00.002-08:002018-11-16T08:47:43.146-08:00New Old Words for TrumpWorld<div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">My friend Marilyn Raichle (like Cheryl Strayed's brand of hiking boots) has been sending new words since Trump was elected because she needs a new vocabulary for these times. I love the words, and she has given me permission to share them here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Interestingly, most of these words are new to me, and presumably to her, but they're old words. Perhaps these times aren't new but old, and we'll survive them like folks before have done.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Pace yourself. There are a lot of them. I recommend one a day, sort of like that multivitamin for women. In case you just can't stop yourself, I'll give you the next 14 of the list in a couple of weeks. (To date, there are 449 of them!)</span><br />
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<tr><td style="padding: 0.75pt; width: 477.45pt;" width="477"><h1 style="break-after: avoid-page; color: #365f91; font-family: Cambria; font-weight: bold; line-height: 21.466665267944336px; margin: 24pt 0in 0.0001pt;">
<u><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">WHEN WORDS FAIL US TO DESCRIBE TRUMPWORLD, WE NEED NEW WORDS.<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></h1>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Mouldwarp’s Strammers<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">MOULDWARP<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">n. a stupid, worthless, or good-for-nothing person; a senseless person; a dolt ...1928 Amer. dial.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="ilfuvd"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">often used as a symbol for Richard III.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Middle English: probably from Middle Low German moldewerp, from the Germanic bases of mould and warp; compare with Dutch muldvarp.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">STRAMMER<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">n. a big lie, a falsehood ...1746 Eng. dial.<br />vb. to lie outrageously ...1790 Eng. dial.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the midst of his Confloption, he becomes ever more Gumple-Foisted<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">CONFLOPTION<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">n. a great flurry, confusion, panic, fluster ...19C Sc. & N. Eng. dial.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">GUMPLE-FOISTED<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">adj. in a bad humour, out of temper; ill-humoured ...1824 Sc.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">PURTING-GLUMPOT<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">a sullen, sulky or ill-tempered person ...1837 Eng. dial.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">from purt (vb.) to sulk, to pout (dialect)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">SHONDFUL<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">adj. shameful, disgraceful; infamous ...<em>a</em>900<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Old English <em>sceandfull</em>, from Old English <em>sceand</em> shond (n. shame, disgrace) + -ful<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">BADMASH<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="ind"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">A dishonest or unprincipled man, </span></span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">one following evil courses; a bad, wicked, or disreputable fellow; a villainous man; a rascal, a scoundrel, a </span><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rogue" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" title="rogue"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">rogue</span></a><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">, </span><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ruffian" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" title="ruffian"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">ruffian</span></a><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> or </span><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/miscreant" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;" title="miscreant"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">miscreant</span></a><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">...1843<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Anglo-Indian Persian and Urdū, from Persian <em>bad</em> evil + Arabian <em>ma'āsh</em> means of livelihood<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">HUMDUDGEON<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">n. a big, stupid person of an evil disposition ...B1900 cot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>from hum (n. a piece of humbug, an imposition) + dudgeon (n. a feeling of anger, resentment, offense)<br /><br /><strong><o:p></o:p></strong></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">HUMGRUFFIN<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">n. a terrible or repulsive person ...1842<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">WREAKFUL<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: normal; line-height: 16.799999237060547px;"><span style="font-size: large;">adj. given or addicted to revenge; vengeful, malicious, angry ...1531. <o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: normal; line-height: 16.799999237060547px;"><span style="font-size: large;">from wreak (n.) (in early Northern texts a normal variant of wreche (n.) vengeance;<br />in later use probably substituted for this, or for wrake (n.), under the influence of the verb.) + -ful<o:p></o:p></span></span></h2>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">First the Ninny-Watch.<span> </span>Then we need to Skrim<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">NINNY-WATCH<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">n. a disturbance, a state of confusion, excitement or a longing expectation or desire; a vain hope; a quandary ...1746 Eng. dial.<br />vb. to get into a state of confusion or excitement ...1866 Eng. dial.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">SKRIM</span></strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"></span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">vb. to bustle about; to work with energy and success; to conduct a vigorous search for anything ...Bk1904 Sc.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">to skirmish; to dart ...1375 Sc.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">to strike; to beat vigorously ...1889 Sc.<br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Words to vote by<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.wordsandphrasesfromthepast.com/blog/speratory" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><b>SPERATORY</b></span></a><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"></span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">adj. resting in hope or expectation; hoped for, hopeful, expected ...1629</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">resting in hope or expectation; hoped for, hopeful, expected ...1629 obs.<br /><br /><span> </span>from Latin <em>speratus</em> hoped for, expected, pa. pple. of <em>sperare</em> to hope<br /> </span><span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><b>EPINICIAL</b></span></span></span><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"></span></strong><strong><span><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">adj. relating to or celebrating victory ...1774Speratory</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>from epinicion (from Greek. ἐπινίκιον song of victory, neut. of ἐπινίκιος (adj.),<br />from ἐπί upon + νίκη victory) + -al<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">NAUCIFY<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">v. to set nought by; to disesteem; to have a low opinion of;<br />to consider worthless ...1656 obs.<br /><br />from Latin <em>nauci facere</em>, from <em>naucum</em> a trifling thing<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Magnanimate!<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Together we can catamidiate this spewsome bladderscat<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">MAGNANIMATE</span></span></span><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"></span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">vb. to imbue with steadfast courage; to inspire with greatness of mind; to render high-souled; to cheer, to inspirit ...1640</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>from Latin <em>magnanimus</em> (from <em>magnus</em> great + <em>animus</em> soul: corresponding in formation to Greek µεγαλόψυχος, and in scholastic Latin used as its translation) + -ate<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">CATAMIDIATE</span></span></span><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"></span></strong><strong><span style="font-family: Calibri; line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">vb. to put one to open shame and punishment for some notorious offense; to scorn, to defame ...1656</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>from Greek καταµειδιάειν (katameidiaein) to despise<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">SPEWSOME</span></strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"></span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">adj. dreadful, awful ...1996 Aust. sl.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">BLADDERSCAT</span></strong><strong><span style="line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span> </span>n. a deceiving person; one you cannot trust ...1969 Amer. dial.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span><span style="font-size: large;">The Imputable Cheesedick<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<strong><span><span style="font-size: large;">IMPUTABLE <o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span><span style="font-size: large;">adj. open to accusation or censure; blameworthy, reprehensible, culpable ...1660<strong><o:p></o:p></strong></span></span></div>
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<strong><span><span style="font-size: large;">CHEESEDICK / CHEESEDIX<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span><span style="font-size: large;">n. a disgusting or contemptible fellow; a stupid person ...1986 US sl.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span><span> </span>See also CHEESEHEAD </span></strong><span>n. a fool; a stupid person ...1919 Amer. dial.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><b>TERRICULAMENT</b></span></span></span><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">n. a source or object of dread or terror, especially of needless dread; a bugbear ...1548<br />vb. to inspire with groundless fear ...1644</span><span style="line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Origin<span> </span></span><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Mid 16th century; earliest use found in William Patten (d. ?1598), author. From classical Latin terriculāmentum object of terror, bugbear (2nd cent. a.d. in Apuleius) from terriculum (also terricula) something that excites terror (from terrēre to frighten + -culum (or -cula)) + -mentum.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Fascious Bangster continues to Bespatter<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">FASCIOUS</span></strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">adj. troublesome, annoying, vexatious; difficult to please, particular; unfortunate, shameful ...1725 Sc.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: windowtext; line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">BANGSTER</span></span></span><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"></span></strong><strong><span style="line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">n. a rough, violent fellow; a bully, a braggart, a blustering fellow; a ruffian; a thug ...<em>c</em>1570 obs. exc. Sc.</span><span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">BESPATTER</span></strong><strong><span style="line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"><o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">vb. 1. to asperse with abuse, flame, flattery, praise, etc., to hold in contempt ...1644<br />vb. 2. to cover with abuse; to vilify or slander, to calumniate ...1653<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">BESPATTERMENT</span></strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><b><o:p></o:p></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">n. abuse ...1870<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">ABOMINE<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">vb. to abominate; to feel extreme disgust and hatred towards; to abhor, to loathe ...1683</span><span style="line-height: 16.866666793823242px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">Attested from the early 16<sup>th</sup> century until the early 18<sup>th</sup> century.]</span><a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/abomine#cite_note-1" style="color: purple; text-decoration: underline;"><sup><span style="line-height: 15.333332061767578px;">[1]</span></sup></a><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;">NANGNAIL</span></strong><span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 18.399999618530273px;"><span style="font-size: large;">n. an ill-tempered, troublesome person; a tyrant ...1856 Eng. dial.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman";"><b>PRORITATE</b></span></span></span><b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">to stir up, to provoke, to irritate, to incite ...1620</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;">from ppl. stem of Latin <em>prōrītāre</em> to provoke, incite, entice<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</style>Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-18643901176349848512018-10-28T16:17:00.005-07:002018-10-28T16:17:57.163-07:00Ache<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This morning at our church, the Wallingford trio sang in beautiful harmony a hymn to which I wrote the words and <span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;">Nan Beth Walton wrote the music. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;">Though I wrote the words 15 months ago, today it seems again appropriate. I ache for the Squirrel Hill community and all who are affected by violence. Here are the hymn's words. A women's singing group in Pittsburgh has asked to sing the hymn</span></span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">, which is a prayer</span><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">. I hope it brings some small measure of solace to their great pain. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">O God of beauty and of breath</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>(Please) Ease my ache with loveliness.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>(Please) Slow me down that I might see</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>All the gifts you’ve given me.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><br class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>Slow my stride that I might see</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>A leaf in all its symmetry.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>A snowflake’s drift from clouds of white</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>A full moon on a cloudy night.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><br class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; caret-color: rgb(33, 33, 33); color: #212121; font-family: "Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>O God of beauty and of breath</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>(Please) Ease my ache with loveliness.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>(Please) Slow me down that I might see</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>All the gifts you’ve given me.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><br class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>Slow my days that I might feel</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>Notice Kindness that might heal.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>A prayer for love, a hand of peace,</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>A hope that caring would increase.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><br class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>O God of beauty and of breath</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>(Please) Ease my ache with loveliness.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>(Please) Slow me down that I might see</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>All the gifts you’ve given me.</i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><br class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></i></div>
<div class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<i class="" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><span class="x_Apple-tab-span" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre;"></span>O God of beauty and of breath.</i></div>
</div>
Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-71902869614759585762018-10-25T12:02:00.000-07:002018-10-25T12:02:16.271-07:00Speaking Australian<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">Ann and I returned from our Australian adventure last week. Though many Americans and Aussies speak English, our ways of speaking are in some ways so different.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">Australians (or Aussies) shorten words whenever they can. This doesn’t seem to be caused by a national habit of hurrying, quite the opposite. Maybe they’re just too laid back to say whole words. There’s Mellie (a person from <a href="https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Pages/home.aspx" target="_blank">Melbourne</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">), brekkie (breakfast), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxhqXzVBen4" target="_blank">Footy</a> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">(Aussie football, sort of a cross between rugby and soccer), and so forth (choccie, Chrissie , specco, Tazzie… See vocabulary list below.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">We watched <a href="https://www.penguins.org.au/" target="_blank">the penguin parad</a>e, </span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">an event on Phillip’s Island where hundreds of penguins come on shore to breed and chirp each night. You might think Aussies would call these little penguins “pennies”, but they don’t. Oddly, they call them “little penguins.” When I first heard an Aussie used the phrase “little penguins,” I thought she was being affectionate. She wasn’t. The penguins were about a foot tall.</span><span style="color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Aussies also like TLAs (three letter acronyms). The <a href="https://www.mcg.org.au/about-us/about-the-mcg" target="_blank">MCG</a>, also abbreviated to “The ‘G </span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">(The Melbourne Cricket Ground) is Mellie’s giant footy stadium. The <a href="https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/" target="_blank">NGV</a> </span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">is the National Gallery of Victoria, and the CBD is the Central Business District, where we stayed. (The NGV is in Mellie's CBD. The MCG is not far away.)</span><span style="color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;"><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Then there are just different ways of saying and doing things. “Rockets” are arugula; “Give way” means yield. “Take away” is take out. Look both ways before crossing the street, and note they drive on the left. Also, if you’re riding your push bike, dismount and push it if the hill is too steep.</span><br /><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">If someone apologizes, don’t say, “No problem.” Say, “No worries,” so they’ll understand you. Actually, say “No worries” no matter what they say. Then you’ll fit in. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">Vocabulary List (I’d love your additions.)<br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Aussie = Australian</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Mellie = a person from Melbourne </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Footy = Australian rules football</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Brekkie = Breakfast</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Chrissie = Christmas <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">Pressie=present</span><span style="color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">“No worries” = You’re welcome, no problem, Don’t worry about it </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Take away = Take out</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Choccie = chocolate</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Rockets = arugula </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The MCG = the Melbourne Australian rules footy stadium </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Give Way=Yield</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">Little penguins = Little penguins</span><span style="color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">NGV = National Gallery of Victoria</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Specco = spectacular</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Push bike= bike you pedal</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Tazie = Tasmania </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Melb = Another Melbourne abbreviation</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Take away = Take out</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Cattle station = Ranch </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Costume = bathing suit</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Jackaroo = </span></span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222; font-size: 16pt;">a young man working on a sheep or cattle station to gain experience</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">Jillaroo = </span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222; font-size: 16pt;">a young woman working on a sheep or cattle station to gain experience</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">Billabong= water hole</span><span style="color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">In the munga = In the boonies</span><span style="color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;"><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Swag = a hobo’s roll (blanket rolled up)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #212121; font-size: 16pt;">Stuffie= Stuffed toy<br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Pokies = slot machines </span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Spondooley = money (I think)</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Zushy = swanky (sounds like Suchi)</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Rabbit = a fool (I think)</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">The Big Smoke= Sydney (as a result of pollution during industrialization in the 1800s)</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">CBD = Central Business District (downtown)</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">“Yeah”= uh</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Silver tails= richies = rich people</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Jumbuck = sheep</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Grub = booze</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Grubs = worms eaten in the bush</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Footpath = sidewalk</span><br /><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;">Banana hammock= men’s Speedo</span><br /></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-55930174850155238762018-10-15T08:42:00.001-07:002018-10-15T08:42:14.293-07:00Out of the Closet Down Under and Up Here<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<i style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Note: Thursday was National Coming Out Day in the US. I was coming home from Australia. This is the first of several blog entries inspired by my trip.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Walking down the street in Cairns, Australia, I notice a sign, “Out of the Closet.” This is the first I’ve seen of anything gay in Australia, so I’m curious and walk towards it. When I get there, I see vintage clothing and the shop’s subtitle. This closet was your grandma’s closet. She might have been a lesbian, but that’s not the idea here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I continue to an art gallery where I am the only customer. When I mention Ann to the salesperson, he shows me a photo of himself with another man. It takes me a few moments to realize he’s just come out to me as a gay man. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We chat about our partners until another customer enters the shop. I’m about to continue the conversation, but he gives me a panicked look, his finger over his lips in a “shhh” gesture. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I’m so accustomed to being around people who love Ann and me as a couple that I’ve almost forgotten being out isn’t safe for everyone. When I first came out to myself, I was quickly schooled by the district superintendent being gay wasn’t safe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">That day began normally, rising at 6 am to do yoga and rushing with stacks of graded papers in my arms to the high school where I taught, spending my day with my 180 favorite students. After school, things changed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Walking down the outdoor hall at the school (the outdoor halls in this wet climate are from a time when our legislature didn’t fund indoor school hallways), I rounded the corner and saw a student I knew well. She was usually a bright-eyed and soulful student, but this day she looked pale and shaken. She did not look me in the eye, and uncharacteristically, she did not smile. Whereas she was usually warm, she seemed absent, distracted. I asked, “Is everything okay?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">She responded, “Something really weird just happened. I’m going home.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I could see she didn’t want to talk about it, so I told her to take care continued to the office to do some Xeroxing for my classes the next day. As I headed to the Xerox machine, the principal told me he needed to talk with me, so I followed him into his office. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">He was a kind man, fair and compassionate. Somehow he was friends with the bigoted superintendent. He closed the door, took off his glasses, and rubbed his eyes and his balding head. He did this when he was stressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">He said, “Someone has reported that you are grooming a student, and the district is conducting an investigation.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I could see this was serious, but I had no idea what “grooming” was, so I asked.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The principal explained: “Preparing to molest someone. The district has contacted your student’s parents, and I have talked with her.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I was stunned. I thought of her expression as I had rounded the corner a few moments before, and I was angry that this homophobic investigation was happening. I was also angry my student and her parents were being drawn into this harassment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I said very little. What was there to say? This harassment seemed unreal, but it wasn’t. I hadn’t been a target since middle school. I had thought I was beyond that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">After the principal and I met, I told my closest colleagues what the principal had said, and they advised me to contact the union immediately. I did and talked with a supportive investigator who said this district and this school had a history of harassing gay and lesbian people. She would look into it. In the meantime, I should do exactly as she told me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">After the phone call, I went home exhausted, lay down on the bed and fell into a deep sleep. The phone rang, jarring me awake. Half-conscious, I answered and listened as I woke up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Hello, Mary. This is the superintendent. I know your principal talked with you today, and I want to follow up with you about the report.” He sounded professional. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">“I received an anonymous call in my office, charging you with preparing to molest a student. This is a serious allegation, and we are investigating.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">He continued in his emotionless baritone: “The call came directly into my office rather than going through my secretary as most calls do because it was after hours, and she was away from her desk. Therefore, I talked with the informant directly, but I don’t know the person’s identity.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I startled awake. This detail was an odd one to explain. I thought, “He’s lying. He knows who ‘the anonymous caller’ is, and he and the caller are harassing me together. They are trying to end my career.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The next day, I called my representative at the union after second period (because we started early, and I had taught seventy students before most people went to work.) I told her about the conversation. She advised me, “If he calls again, don’t talk to him. Don’t talk to anyone. This has gone too far. I will call him right now.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Half an hour later, the principal summoned me to his office to talk with him and the superintendent. When I arrived, the principal said, “The investigation is over.” He was standing, and the superintendent sat rumpled in a chair that was too small for him. He did not look at me, but sat mutely in his dark coat and superintendent tie looking at his hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The principal continued, “The district has agreed to end its history of harassing gay and lesbian people in the schools. I will announce the district’s determination to the faculty, but I won’t use your name.” The superintendent still did not speak or meet my eye. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I was relieved, but I was still angry. I considered a lawsuit, but the superintendent was already being investigated for harassing his lover’s husband, had a restraining order so couldn’t enter one of the district’s elementary schools, and it looked like he was on his way out anyway. I also didn’t want to involve me or my student in an ugly trial. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Years later, when I went to a different district, I was cautious about being out with staff and never came out to students, though some of them knew. I suspect my being closeted among students didn’t help those who were struggling. After a gay teacher in another school told one student I was gay, the student came to me in disbelief. “I can’t believe I told you all about myself and you just sat there with your secret,” he said to me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">(By the way, coming out for someone else is against the gay code of ethics.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I opened my mouth to share my experience, but closed it, realizing he didn’t need to hear this story. He was a poor, black young man out as gay in a high school. I knew he’d been harassed. I closed my mouth, then opened it again to say, “I’m sorry I disappointed you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I met another gay Aussie in Sydney, and when I asked her to describe what it was like to be a lesbian in Australia, she said, “Australia’s a progressive place. Especially the cities. No problem here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I said, “That surprises me.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Because we legalized gay marriage so late?” I nodded in response to her question, and she continued. “The population here is much more progressive than the government. A referendum passed in every precinct but two throughout the country.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">As one of our guides often said, “That’s Australia for you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">So Australia isn’t why the salesman didn’t come out. Maybe it isn’t good for business, but there’s probably some reason I can’t guess. I can’t judge him. I don’t know what he’s been through or what he fears. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In the last years of my teaching life, I was out to everyone but my students. Probably I was chicken, but maybe I was having the wisdom to know the difference between the things I could and things I could not change. No, I’m pretty sure I was chicken, but I was doing the best I could at the time, and that’s the best any of us can do. Actually, I believe we all do the best we can at the time, but that’s another blog entry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I conclude from this experience that Australia is much like the US. Lots of folks are supportive, but some aren’t and a few are dangerous. We just never know with whom we’re dealing. Maybe that’s the US and Australia, or maybe the unknown threat is everywhere. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Maybe that’s just being human.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-90945997580136614552018-09-03T21:02:00.002-07:002018-09-03T21:02:43.806-07:00Looking Back<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Mom and Dad sent Ann and me a card with blue sparkles and doves for the ninth anniversary of our commitment ceremony. Outside, it reads, “Happy <b>Day</b>, Happy <b>Couple</b>, Happy <b>family </b>who loves you.” Ann and I began our celebration with this card before looking at photo books of the week-end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Family and friends, some of whom flew to Seattle and others drove or walked to the <a href="http://wallingfordumc.org/" target="_blank">church</a>, for what was in some ways a traditional ceremony. Unfortunately, Ann’s mom was not well enough to come from Texas. We missed her, though both of us felt confident in her love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Friday night, we rehearsed the ceremony in the sanctuary.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> Dinner at Tutta Bella, a tasty pizza restaurant, followed Friday night’s rehearsal. I recall much of that night: Stephen’s scotch gift (MacCallum’s—yum), Alex’s giggly toast, the phenomenal amount of tiramisu our nephew Jack ate. A favorite memory is of our niece Lucie.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Throughout the dinner, Lucie asked repeatedly, “Auntie Mary, who ARE all these people?” Each time, the question was more emphatic, and she'd wave her hands even more dramatically than the previous time. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I finally responded in a way that satisfied her: “They're our friends.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">She seemed dismayed: “You mean they're all here for <u>you</u>?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">I was thankful that she and all our nieces and nephews saw that gay couples, like straight couples, could have a community of support. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Out of town friends and family joined us for breakfast and a pool party at Katie, Diana, and Bailey’s home Saturday morning. It was chilly, so the kids swam while we adults ate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Saturday at 5 pm, Ann and I went to the church. We were both dressier than usual, in slacks and tops. I’d even brushed my hair for the occasion. Our nephews, dressed in colorful khaki slacks, escorted guests to the pews. We walked down the aisle as our friends Marilyn and Sara played with their quartet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">My brother's youngest kids, Lucie and Gretchen, carried flowers from <a href="http://pikeplacemarket.org/" target="_blank">Pike Place Market</a> down the aisle, and our older niece Isabella read from First Corinthians: <i>“<span class="text">Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres….</span><span class="Heading2Char" style="font-weight: bold;"><sup></sup></span><span class="text">And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="text">Our friend Cheli, Ann’s student decades ago, read a poem called “The Eagle,” which I remember but cannot find.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span class="text">Our friend Pam played and sang Sara Hickman’s song “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-9l0Dl5z2U" target="_blank">Simply</a>.” </span><span class="text">After the ceremony, Dad said, “You told me Pam sang, but I didn’t know she could <i>sing</i>.” Yeah. She was awesome.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our minister conducted the ceremony and gave a talk about love. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ann and I exchanged wooden rings and vows we wrote ourselves. The minister directed our community to support our relationship. Ann and I kissed. People took a lot of photos, and we all went to a reception to eat and dance. Ann and I exchanged chocolate bites of a fancy cake, four alternating tiers of chocolate and carrot cake.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">In some ways, our wedding was traditional. In other ways, it wasn’t. No father walked us down the aisle to give anyone away. There were neither bridesmaids nor grooms. The minister did not invite anyone to speak up if they disapproved. We were both women.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">This was a night we celebrated so many gifts that Ann and I are grateful for: one another, our families and friends, our faith and community. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Our siblings toasted our love, and Little Brother Matt and Ann’s brother Gene both get choked up during their toasts. They hugged, one of my favorite moments of the night.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We all watched a slide show I'd put together to Tom T. Hall's song, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk64JluO4CI" target="_blank">I Love</a>." Bless Rod Margason, who helped me with the show and probably hears, "I love little baby ducks..." as the soundtrack to his nightmares. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Ann and I danced the first dance to Exile’s “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjidCLOo3Y4" target="_blank">She’s a Miracle.</a>” Everyone watched as we swung in slow motion. Ann held me tight, and the music played: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">She’s a miracle, a sight to see.<br />Ohhhh, the way she touches me!<br />Way down deep, in my soul,<br />Something’s got ahold, and it won’t let goooh.<br />If I stumble, if I fall,<br />She’s waiting right there to catch me.<br />Ohh, she’s a miracle, a miracle to me!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We had practiced for hours in our kitchen, so I didn’t stumble and I didn’t fall. We danced amid reminders of our Northwest home: totems, a carved canoe, a sunset over the sound. We danced amid reminders of how much we were loved and how much we loved one another.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">A lot’s changed in the nine years since our ceremony. I had a second brain tumor; Ann retired from teaching; I had to leave teaching and other jobs in high schools because of my disabilities; I started my own writing, like this blog; we had a state-sanctioned marriage; we’ve lost some friends and family to deaths; we adopted our puppy Dosey. The list goes on. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Some things haven’t changed. We live in the same home and attend the same church. Many friends and family from nine years ago are still in our lives. We still attend Seattle Storm games, though we have better seats now. We still love one another and feel grateful for each moment we’re together.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">We're still living this miracle.</span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-25312845528816615542018-08-17T13:50:00.001-07:002018-08-17T13:50:27.198-07:00R-E-S-P-E-C-T<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Listen and remember: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0" target="_blank">Aretha sings R-E-S-P-E-C-T.</a></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0" target="_blank"> </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Here are <a href="https://genius.com/Aretha-franklin-respect-lyrics" target="_blank">the lyrics</a> in case you’d like to sing along<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">What you want<br />Baby, I got it<br />What you need<br />Do you know I got it<br />All I'm askin'<br />Is for a little respect when you get home (just a little bit)<br />Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home<br />(just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)<br />I ain't gonna do you wrong while you're gone<br />Ain't gonna do you wrong cause I don't wanna<br />All I'm askin'<br />Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)<br />Baby (just a little bit) when you get home (just a little bit)<br />Yeah (just a little bit)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I'm about to give you all of my money<br />And all I'm askin' in return, honey<br />Is to give me my propers<br />When you get home (just a, just a, just a, just a)<br />Yeah baby (just a, just a, just a, just a)<br />When you get home (just a little bit)<br />Yeah (just a little bit)<br />Ooo, your kisses<br />Sweeter than honey<br />And guess what?<br />So is my money<br />All I want you to do for me<br />Is give it to me when you get home (re, re, re ,re)<br />Yeah baby (re, re, re ,re)<br />Whip it to me (respect, just a little bit)<br />When you get home, now (just a little bit)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">R-E-S-P-E-C-T<br />Find out what it means to me<br />R-E-S-P-E-C-T<br />Take care, TCB<br />Oh (sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me)<br />A little respect (sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me)<br />Whoa, babe (just a little bit)<br />A little respect (just a little bit)<br />I get tired (just a little bit)<br />Keep on tryin' (just a little bit)<br />You're runnin' out of fools (just a little bit)<br />And I ain't lyin' (just a little bit)<br />(re, re, re, re) When you come home<br />(re, re, re ,re) 'spect<br />Or you might walk in (respect, just a little bit)<br />And find out I'm gone (just a little bit)<br />I got to have (just a little bit)<br />A little respect (just a little bit)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I had planned to write a blog entry today about how Ann and I celebrated Wednesday night, the ninth anniversary of our commitment ceremony, but yesterday I heard Aretha Franklin died, and my head is full of Aretha Franklin’s voice. My heart is full of my stories where her voice sings the soundtrack.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">A beautiful spring Friday. My first year of teaching. Dallas, Texas, 1987. I was 23 years old and sat outside the upper school building with three freshmen students: Luke, Joey, and Kate. Luke and Joey teased Kate in the way adolescent boys tease girls they like, poking her, pulling at her bra strap, and goading her with comments I can’t remember. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Though I usually laughed along with these students, this time I was stern. “Don’t let them treat you like that,” I said to her. She just looked at me like she was used to it and calling attention to their antics would just make them worse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">I turned to the guys. “Don’t treat her like that,” I said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Joey looked at me, a smile fading over his braces. “I thought you were our friend,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">“No. I’m not your friend,” I responded. “I’m your teacher, and I’m telling you to show women of all ages respect.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Joey nodded, and I left the group. The next Monday, when I entered our classroom, students were already there, and Aretha Franklin boomed from the boom box, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T. </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Find out what it means to me.”</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Joey smiled, and Luke looked sheepish. This time, I laughed. They’d gotten my point, and there was still humor between us. I’ve always loved Aretha Franklin for that moment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">If you’re remembering, too, and want to hear that powerful voice some more, you can hear the whole album, <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tKKsqI919g" target="_blank">I Never Loved a Man the Way I Loved You</a></i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Aretha…I just can’t call her Franklin. She’s Aretha like Ellen Degeneres is Ellen. In this case using her first name is an indication of respect. And affection…. Aretha recorded her first record, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIq4IFKky20" target="_blank">“I Grow Closer” </a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">in her father’s church in 1956 when she was 14 years old, like the 1987 Texas students I’d been scolding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">For a full retrospective, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/16/aretha-franklin-her-greatest-songs-from-the-church-to-the-dancefloor" target="_blank">click here</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Written and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvC9V_lBnDQ" target="_blank">sung by Otis Redding</a>, this song needed a powerful woman’s voice, and Redding recognized it was no longer his when he heard Aretha recording the song in the studio.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">This song was Aretha’s song. And mine. And anyone’s who has ever felt disrespected. So she sings on. Even after death. She sings on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-11518306222673161892018-08-05T17:38:00.003-07:002018-08-05T17:38:56.637-07:00Power<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">
<span style="font-size: large;">I tried to take a nap this afternoon, but with the Navy and Marine jets flying overhead, I felt like I was in a war zone. This siege happens every year as part of Seattle’s annual <a href="https://www.seafair.com/events/2018/seafair-weekend-festival" target="_blank">Seafair </a>weekend.</span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">On August’s first weekend, hordes go to Lake Washington’s shores to sit on tin bleachers in a tin cage (Okay, it’s really metal fencing to keep out the freeloaders). The hordes watch speedboats making as much noise as possible as they race in a circle. Their race reminds me of one <a href="https://www.nwtf.org/hunt/wild-turkey-basics/behavior" target="_blank">turkey</a> I saw chase another around a bush in <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/mexico/michoacan/pictures/michoacan/ruins-of-church-destroyed-by-volcano" target="_blank">Michoacan, Mexico</a>, only it’s louder. Apparently, the land-based hordes eat and drink a lot, as there are 23 places at the event to get food and/or drink. Some hordes watch from their own boats, I suppose so they can save money on food and drink.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As part of the weekend, the Blue Angels roar over our home. The first year we lived in this house, we didn’t know about this event. As the planes flew a few yards over our roof, the house shook, and scurried down from the ladder where she was painting our arbor. Then for a couple of years we tried the “If you can’t beat’em, join ‘em” tactic and went to a nearby park to watch them fly. Since then, we’ve gone to Mount Rainier’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/paradise.htm" target="_blank">Paradise</a> for the weekend, where most hikers were from our neighborhood or China. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now that we have our puppy Dosey, who can’t stay at the Paradise Inn, we’ve stayed in town, and my partner Ann has taken Dosey to other parts of the city to walk and swim. Instead of going with them today, I went to bed to try napping through the siege.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Fortunately, the annual <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Angels" target="_blank">Blue Angels</a> siege has ended for this year. <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/time-to-retire-the-blue-angels/" target="_blank">An opinion piece</a> in today’s Seattle Times argued it’s time for the Blue Angels to retire from this event I agree, but I’m much less appreciative of all they’ve done than the writer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">To me, The Blue Angels celebrate war in a way that displays power but doesn’t put us in danger. They terrify my dog, wake me from a much needed nap, and remind me with each roaring fly-over how much our country celebrates testosterone. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Friday night, Ann and I saw powerful women on two WNBA teams play. Our <a href="http://storm.wnba.com/" target="_blank">Storm</a> downed the <a href="http://lynx.wnba.com/" target="_blank">Minnesota Lynx </a>by 10 points. I love these games. Though there’s a lot of noise from the loud speaker and the fans (over 12,000 there Friday night), the noise stays in the arena for those who have chosen to participate in this event. Generally, the game and the crowd are family-friendly: no one’s obnoxiously drunk; people generally don’t boo the refs; and the crowd applauds great basketball from eith team (though there’s more applause for the Storm.) After the game, drivers exit politely from the garage, pausing to let another car into the stream.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Ann and I missed the stream Friday night because we got to have our photo taken with <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=breanna+stewart+wnba+highlights&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8" target="_blank">Breanna Stewart</a>. “Stewie,” as she’s affectionately called, is talented, tall, and kind. She’s a shero.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At the end of October, 2017, she came out as a <a href="https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/breanna-stewart-me-too" target="_blank">sexual abuse survivor</a>. Her story, like her play on the court, is courageous. Unlike her presence on the court, she’s vulnerable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">I know males and females who have been sexually abused. #MeToo is not just a women’s issue. To me, it does call into question our country’s, my city’s, celebration of predatory behavior, of power that overwhelms, of sky jets and speed boats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-42987478090355135932018-07-19T09:28:00.000-07:002018-07-19T09:41:54.723-07:00Prayer<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Our pastor asked Ann and me to write a paragraph about prayer. That’s impossible! I never write just one paragraph. Besides, I wasn’t sure what to say about prayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When I was very young, prayers were the words I used to delay going to bed. My parents remember I blessed Mommy and Daddy and every other person and thing I could think of. They’re probably right that I was stalling, but what if I really had been so grateful for every person and thing. That’s a lovely thought. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">As I grew up, and our family grew, my little sister put her hand on top of her head when we said grace over dinner. I suppose that makes as much sense as any gesture of prayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In my teenage years, prayers seemed endless. At Thanksgiving dinner, I remember Mom asking her brother Tommy to pray before we ate, and I remember Aunt Cindy yelling, “Keep it short!” He never did. I thought he was long-winded, but perhaps he was just so grateful for the food and the hands that made it that he couldn’t keep it short. (Kind of like me and my “paragraph” about prayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Every night before dinner, Ann and I say a prayer, a few words that Ann noticed in the liturgy twenty years ago, when Jim Head-Corliss was our minister. Those who visit our home know this prayer because we say it every night. “Oh God,” we say as we hold hands with each other and anyone else at our table, and close our eyes, “Remind me that all of life is grace. Let me respond in gratitude.” For us meal, and especially dinner, is a sacred time, a time of communion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">The only time in the last twenty years that I have not voiced that prayer was just after my brain tumor diagnosis. For a couple of dinners, Ann voiced the prayer, and we held hands. As I cried, I nodded so God might know I agreed but was in too much pain to say all of life was grace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">We voiced other prayers in that time. One night before going to sleep, Ann asked, “Should we pray?” and again I wept as Ann voiced our prayer. Also, before I went into neurosurgery, our minister at the time, Jim Carter, said a prayer that settled my nerves and helped me enter this unknown with some peace about my lack of control.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">In much of our lives, however, prayers have not been words to God with our heads bowed and eyes closed. These prayers have been in moments that we remember are sacred: practicing yoga, reading a well-loved poem, marching for justice, witnessing this area’s stunning beauty from a bike (or trike) seat or a hiking path or napping at the edge of a mountain lake on a warm rock any sunny day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">When our pastor asked us to reflect on prayer, I thought first of a line that seems unconnected to the rest of Mary Oliver’s poem, <a href="https://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html" target="_blank">“The Summer Day”</a>: “I don’t know what a prayer is.” The line occurs at the middle of the poem, and the rest of the poem belies that claim:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #111111; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 16pt;">Who made the world?<br />Who made the swan, and the black bear?<br />Who made the grasshopper?<br />This grasshopper, I mean-<br />the one who has flung herself out of the grass,<br />the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,<br />who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-<br />who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.<br />Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.<br />Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.<br />I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.<br />I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down<br />into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,<br />how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,<br />which is what I have been doing all day.<br />Tell me, what else should I have done?<br />Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?<br />Tell me, what is it you plan to do<br />with your one wild and precious life?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;">Prayer, the poet seems to be saying, is slowing down to notice the world’s wonder. In that noticing we ask questions of creation, of living and dying, and about our wild and precious lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">P.S. I also like Mary Oliver's poem </span></span><a href="https://thevalueofsparrows.com/2016/06/10/poetry-praying-by-mary-oliver/" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 16pt;" target="_blank">"Praying,</a><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">" and "<a href="http://www.homesongblog.com/spring/i-happened-to-be-standing-a-poem-about-prayer-by-mary-oliver/" target="_blank">I was Just Standing</a>," </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">another</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> her poems about prayer. And Rumi's quotation: </span></span><span style="background-color: #f8f8f8; caret-color: rgb(42, 42, 42); color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Chronicle Text", Times, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">“There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground” from t<a href="https://onbeing.org/blog/parker-palmer-a-prayer-for-when-we-wake-up-empty-and-frightened/" target="_blank">his poem</a>. </span></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7435377694152785180.post-34220192053573046952018-07-13T17:01:00.003-07:002018-07-13T17:01:34.323-07:00Annabella at 98<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Most weeks, my partner Ann and I visit Annabella, who used to live two houses down and now lives in a group home for assisted living. She lived in her home until last year, her 97th. Some days, even moments, she’s agitated and confused and others she’s fairly lucid, appreciative of her daughters and the workers and place where she’s staying. On these days, she’s reflective and funny. I have always loved her sense of humor. Monday was a lucid day, a day of much gratitude, and I want to share it with you before it gets lost in some cluttered drawer in my memory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When we arrived, a white-haired woman in her late fifties was talking with her mother in the garden, and Ann stepped into the shade with them to say hello.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When Ann said, “Vicky?” the younger woman’s chin dropped and she nearly skipped around to hug Ann. Vicky and Ann knew one another when Vicky was in her twenties and was a good friend of one of Ann’s previous students. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">After introductions, Vicky shared with us what a caring group home this has been for her mother and how caring the owner was when Vicky’s partner’s mother had lived here and had to move to a group home in Canada for insurance reasons. The owner even flew with this woman to Canada!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As Ann and Vicky reconnected, I went inside to see Annabella. I wanted to be sure to catch her before her afternoon nap. (Ann and I have arrived too late twice and watched Annabella sleep in that green lazy boy chair in front of the mesmerizing television video of colorful fish swimming in and out of coral.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Monday, Annabella sat at the first table I came to when I entered. She said she knew who I was immediately, but she worried about Ann. I tried to tell her about Vicky, but that was too complicated, so we agreed Ann was parking the car. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">When Ann joined us, Annabella told us how beautiful the flowers in the garden are. There were also blue and pink hydrangea blossoms on the table. “Beautiful,” she kept saying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">She also told us how nice it was to have four friends visit yesterday, and she agreed that her hair, which was short and curly, looks real nice. “I have good hair,” she said, something she’s said across the 22 years we’ve known her.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">She told us about the women getting her up in the mornings for breakfast. She says, “Let me sleep a little longer!” but they lift her legs and make her rise. She was being funny about how stubborn she is in the mornings, and I heard the women in the kitchen talking and laughing about her rendition of their mornings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At one point, Vicky walked behind Annabella and mouthed to Ann, “She’s a character.” Yes, she is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Another week a woman who’s 103 was sitting close to the television where we were. Annabella nodded her head towards this woman and said, “She’s been dead two days.” Another time she had gotten her hair done and thought she was at the beauty parlor. She looked at a bald man who sat in the room watching the fish swim, and she said, “I don’t know why he’s here. He doesn’t have any hair.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">She is definitely a character, and it is so nice to see her in these grateful, easy moments. Of course, it’s anyone’s guess what she’ll be like next week, but this week was lovely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Maryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04273302165429093896noreply@blogger.com0