True?

Maybe? Sometimes.

Guiding Lights

My mother was a public health nurse, and I loved her and respected her. I imagine when deciding in high school that I wanted to be a social worker it was because of her. There was no way I could be a nurse, just not in me, so social work was a close relative.

My dad admired education, and looked up to teachers and administrators. When my social work program fell through (thank goodness), I decided to get my teaching degree. I guess all those years of listening to Dad helped to make that decision. 

It was the best decision of my life. I loved working with students, loved teaching, and was thankful that students came to my room and not me to their houses as social work would have had me do. I tried hard to level the playing field for all students, seeing each and working with each, often telling my students, "I might not necessarily treat each student equally but I treat each fairly."

Reading this obit today in The Week, I thought of Dad and his admiration of education. I had 33 years of teaching and am now in my 12th year of substitute work. He wasn't wrong. It's been great.

Parents 

Life's Necessary Nuisances

I'm used to constancy in my quest for conquering the various aspects of life. The tried and true, once understood, forever always at my fingertips. But, nooooo, not now. 

With today's technology our phones, our computers, our various apps, they change. Constantly. Bam! An update comes in, and we're off trying to figure out what to do, again. And again. And again.

Now, don't get me wrong. I understand that often the powers-that-be are tweaking mistakes (From a previous update!) or giving us a better experience, but still. Life can be tough enough without constantly dealing with new, especially new I didn't ask for. 

Thank goodness, though, for comics and coincidences!* 

I was there again today in the comics. While I don't break things, things tend to break me, I do get frustrated. And the coincidence? Even as I was prepping to do this post, there was another update. I canceled. Of course.

Laughter and absurdity, they can negate nuisances.

Negated

*And young people. Inevitably, if I'm lost in technology, all I have to do is find someone younger than me, and voila! Life goes on.

What Do Two Reflections, One Cartoon and a Quote Have in Common?

Reading a New Yorker review of memoirs of mothers, I saw bits and pieces I could relate to. Oh, not as concretely as some articles, but parts reverberated, if not literally but in the images they brought to mind.

From the first passage, while not most of it, was the phrase "the struggle is formative." Most women work to either become or  distance themselves from their mothers. Whether called a struggle or a process, it is formative. Certainly, so much of my mother I admired and strove to be like her, while yes, there were a few traits I ran from (and was that for the best? Maybe not.) The other reflection, "they leave their shadows and absences," resonates because as we age our mothers are not only what they did but the shadows we saw and the absences we felt. It was an interesting and thoughtful piece. 

In the midst of that was the cartoon, appropriately so, I thought. It'd be nice if mothers could stand on the sidelines and say, "I taught her that." Something significant but not all that noteworthy, like the doggy paddle. Not wanting to take too much credit because, as we all know, we come into the world with our own selves.

And finally, a perfect explanation of a funny story. Once, while driving a group of young girls, one was bragging that she'd won while another had lost. I responded by saying, "You know, we all lose in the end." Well. There was silence and then, forever then, laughter and ridicule for me. I still contend that they should have inferred what I was saying, that when victorious we should be humble and kind because we won't always be the winner. Unfortunately, that was not how it was taken, and to this day, I've been reminded of my comment. 

I have always felt for the failures; we win one day and lose in another. Being gracious in victory prepares us for our own failures, knowing that it's graciousness, not winning that matters. Did I get that from my mother? Who knows, but I think I'll give her credit for it.

Mothers

The Place

 

What was once

No More

Childhood

A friend recommended This Is Happiness to me last week. Surprisingly, it was available. Luckily she'd said the beginning was slow so I was prepared. As the chapters built, though, I could see the inkling of what was coming. Now only a quarter of the way through, I'm enjoying and looking forward to more. 

A story of one man's remembrance of his youth visiting his grandparents, it is probably more "fable," as the quote says, but an engaging, humorous and telling one. We see life in a small Irish town of long ago, how life was and what Noe garnered from that life and the people around him.  I love books like these!

In fact it soon reminded me of one of my favorites novels from my teaching days, A Long Way from Chicago, again about a boy's time of being sent during the summers to visit his grandmother, a woman of note in a small town during the Depression. It is a funny and sentimental with a loving view of a tough lady who believed in fairness, justice and caring, even if it was often meted out in her own particular way. 

This morning from the newest New Yorker, the style issue, I was reading Rachel Kushner's recollections on her efforts to find her style during her childhood. I smiled. I too got one new pair of shoes each fall, wore red converse sneakers and struggled to define my style. 

But in that, I had a mother who always was willing to indulge me. My love of old clothes, no worries from her, and as a seamstress, she made me the beautiful velveteen Christmas dresses and the dotted Swiss Easter outfits every year. She also created, though, the incredible look of Linda Evans'a riding outfit from The Big Valley: long culottes and vest in a beautiful wool pinstripe. Another memory: standing in the kitchen as Mom measured the hem - never worrying about how short it was - of my unique paper dress. So too could I have hot pants (with not a whit of a body that was hot) sewn by her hand. 

Memories or fable, to be one of the lucky ones, I am!

Remembered

Proof Positive

Just returned from a wonderful weekend of friends at the beach. My first morning home reading The Week I saw this: 

Our trip was a perfect example of the data given. There wasn't much we didn't do together. Funny to say since much time was spent reading, a pleasure usually reserved for quiet and solitude, but at any moment we could share our thoughts. And the cooking, cleaning, walking and evening time? We sure know there's 

Joy In Numbers

Humor

 Taking attendance in homebase today, I saw this: 

                             There are two types of people in this world: 

                                  1) Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data

Looking for more, as in number 2, it struck me, and laughing out loud, I thought, you bet! 

One of my pet peeves is the number of people who can't - or won't - infer. They refuse to stop and think, or maybe they've never been taught, to deduce the meaning of what's being said from both the stated and the implied information. Of course, there are times when, say, a person has been having a conversation in their head and begins in the middle (I am famous for that), but there are so many instances where people just miss the leap. 

Comprehension skills are so important. When I was a teacher, the skills were front and center on my board right behind my desk. We practiced using them every day. I always told my students I didn't want to tell them how to think but to teach them to think. Extrapolation is one of the keys. (There are two people who were especially irked by my belief in inference. I smile remembering.)

Hats off to the eighth grade student who has the intelligence to wear that shirt and who understands this!

Knowledge

How We Find Our Books

One of the first books I remember having recommended to me, or the one which has stayed with me, was Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist. My friend thought I'd like it because there was a dog in it. But then, when reading it...the dog died! The thing is, though, Tyler did become one of my favorite writers. For a long time every time I read one of her novels, it connected to and paralleled my life. 

From Bookbrowse, and note, Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Strout mentions

Over the years I've learned who I can trust with suggestions. In our women's group there are some who are more intellectual and like deeper books than I and some who like ones which are more social/cultural and emotional for me (for want of a better way to say that). But that's okay. It's actually fun deciding the people I want to offer my books to (just as they do the same with theirs). 

Family also share their books, but a sister and I seldom connect; the same with other relatives. It makes it that much better when we do. Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, The Listeners and a Scottish novel of love, growth and ghosts (the name forgotten) come to mind.

I also have reviewers that I trust. Three of my favorites (above) have given starred reviews to the book I'm reading now. I know I added it to my hold list after reading about it somewhere - couldn't remember where and was trying to find it, thinking it'd been New Yorker or The Week. Failed with that, but in doing so I decided to check reviews. Voila! I'm not the only one enjoying Bug Hollow.

Another book, Olive Kitteridge, was recommended years ago by my sister-in-law. She said Olive reminded her of me. Well. Looking forward to it, I read it and thought, "This woman reminds her of me?!?" The protagonist was not someone I'd want others to think of when they thought of me. Again, though, Elizabeth Strout, the author, became one of my favorites authors and I've read all of her books.

Now I'm reading Bug Hollow, and who does the mother remind me of? Olive Kitteridge...and, yes, me. How can that be? Not a lovable figure and so like Olive Kitteridge, and yet, there is a whiff of me. Darn!

 And, Sometimes, What We Find

Ps. Started this draft yesterday and have since, just now, finished it. What a wonderful decades long look at a family. Each perspective, each character their own. Not perfect, but people, members of one family, however unusual and diverse. The mother, that Olive Kitteridge character, imperfect, but a complex human, with foibles and furies living as true to herself as she could. 

Why I Love the Comics

 

A story 

  in four panels 

     with a quirky ending. 

Nothing More Needed

Responsibility Rests

Or dies when the powers cave. Cassidy, who could have and sounded like he would have back when Kennedy was being put forth as the new Secretary of Health, has now only stated that there will be oversight. Oversight on a man who is turning our public health into a mockery, who is taking away funding and doing away with vaccines. A man of medicine, Cassidy sold his soul to the devil then and is continuing to now while trying to tell the American people he cares. And there are others. Bah. It is shameful. A pox on them all.

We live in a time when all that matters is kissing the a** of a foul figure and keeping power. It is beyond sad, and sadder still are the American people who voted and still support the GOP. The day will come - if we're still here - when so many will say, just like middle schoolers, "I didn't realize," "I didn't know," and "I didn't understand." I, for one, will be hard put to care. At least not until atonement is made. 

Atonement? Responsibility? There is none. Not now. All we have is the cowardly and corrupt.

The Republican Senators

Reading

 A few years ago my friend and I were on a hitch of reading novels set around book stores. I'd read one and recommend and  then she'd read another and do the same.  The internet played its part. We were hooked on bookstore stories.

I might be on another ride: novels written in letters. Oh, I've read a few and enjoyed them, having them come to me singularly, the first being, perhaps, Daddy-Long-Legs and one of just a few years ago, although written in 1978, A Woman of Independent Means. This time, though, it'll be through the direction of the algorithms. 

Who knows where I got The Correspondent from (I think I need to start annotating that), but I loved it. Starting off slow and light, a woman in her seventies writes to any and all, famous or family, neighbors or old friends, giving opinions, asking questions, gifting praise. As the story goes on, we learn of her family, work, and life, adding layers to who she was and is. We see life as it was and is and even as it might be. And ultimately, we see the courage it takes to live a life. 

Then, looking to see if the author, Virginia Evans, had written other novels, another great way for me to find more wonderful books to read,* my latest read was suggested.  I'm only a third of the way into Letters from Skye, but I am thoroughly enjoying the tale. Told in letters penned before both WWI and WWII, it's a love story while painting a portrait of life then and lives lived when letters were still the norm. 

The funny thing is it's taking me back to my mother. When I was a freshman, I would call home each Sunday night, the gist of which is forgotten now. The calls were a check-in, a way to connect and for my mother to hear my voice - a voice, I'm sure, that conveyed my homesickness. I'm not so sure how much consolation I got from those calls. My mother knew, though, that the connection gave me the time I needed to settle and to find the outside world not so much a foreign and fearful place but a place where I could begin to grow. (I was also told by her that I could only come home every other weekend - another directive which hurt then but later became clear to me a necessary step to my adjusting.)

It is my mother's twice or three times a week handwritten letters to me about nothing, really, just the mundane minutes of her days, that I remember most clearly. She was giving me her time, her love and most importantly, a reminder that home would always be there without asking much in return. Oh, I'd write back but now can't fathom what I wrote about. My mom wasn't a 'best friend' mom. I didn't tell her secrets or worries. Who knows what I wrote. Maybe it was the same to her that Mom gave me. Love comes in many forms, and my mom's love was there in every letter she wrote.

How I digress! Reading does that, though, doesn't it? It takes us on voyages to new places and times, gives us ideas to think on and grow into, and yes, it can take us right back to ourselves. If we're lucky - and I am - it connects us to our own wonderfully full lives. 

Remembering

*My latest example of one book leading to another is Small Mercies. Unlike the two I'm writing of today, it is a serious look at life in 70s Boston during the upheaval of desegregation of the schools. Knowing little and coming away with so much, I'd call it a necessary book for growth and understanding.  From this book I now have a whole series to read. Set in Boston and in much the same gritty style of Small Mercies, it is another in the genre of private eye/sidekick books. Totally enjoyable. 

This

 

should be

          wish be

Me