The Heat of Summer and Writing Assignment #23 - Vacations and Travel

I love being cool. Alas, not Cool as in being “with it” in a way that would impress my teenage grandson… it’s too hard to keep up with the current trends to be that kind of cool.  I mean I love being cool, as in 65 degrees, partly cloudy, wear a sweater in the morning hours cool.

It’s officially summer now, and the heat has arrived outside my door but I’m not letting it in!  I have always given myself a summer pep talk about how the hot summer sun is God’s way of cooking the wheat fields so the bakers can grind the wheat and make their loaves of golden bread but…I’m not buying my own sales pitch today, it’s too hot and I’m miserable.

It has happened to me every year (of my adult life) at this time, I see it coming, I don’t want to accept it, I don’t want to embrace it and I’m certainly NOT going to enjoy it!  

A sudden memory takes me back to a distant summer, when I was 18, I had a dear friend who was blind.  He had been sightless all of his life, he’d never seen anything.  To ask him if he saw white or black was a silly question since he didn’t know the difference between the two.  He was a phenomenal musician however, and his music was vibrant with a full spectrum of colorful emotions. 

He could play a sunset on his piano. Through people's descriptions he recreated Orange played out as a slow moving “adagio” that would then  “crescendo” into an “allegro” and  “forte” Red and transition to a slow solemn “grave” Golden and “decrescendo” to a very slow “largo” and “pianissimo” almost silent Gray.

He could play winter and I would feel cold and his summer would leave me sweltering.   But he didn’t just portray the oppressive heat of July and August, no his music also encompassed the joyful pool splashing frivolity and joy of summer and all of it's colors as he felt them.

I must admit as I look out my window today that the flowers seem to like the heat.  They burst out with their most showy colors and finest greenery, the trees put on their full cloaks of leaves and the animals all seem to be contented all the while I’m grumbling about hot July and wishing for cool October.  

I’ve lived enough summers to know that by the end of August I will have forgotten my disgruntled shift from delicious spring to the oppressive heat of this unwelcomed season and start to entertain the fickle notion that I will actually miss the things that only summer and its heat can bring.

It’s only Day One of the first heat wave of the season but I’ll get a head start and try to "feel" the beauty and complexity of these next few months instead of just focusing on the soaring temperatures. I'll feel it the way my friend did and say “Hello summer, I welcome you and the heat you bring!” And I realize as I make this declaration that like so many things in life, it will come whether I bid it welcome or not. Might as well seek out the golden, shimmering moments with gratitude and anticipation. What's that old saying? "Two men looked through prison bars - one saw mud the other saw stars!"  I can choose my perception of this and of all things.  I think again of my grain baking in the fields analogy and....I'm sold this time.

To kick it off - perhaps in the morning I’ll stop by the new French bakery in the village and bring home a golden baguette.  Don’t you just love summer! 

WRITING ASSIGNMENT #23 - VACATIONS AND TRAVEL

• Start with your summer vacations as a child then move on to your teenage years.

Take the reader with you by recreating the experience. More great word pictures.

• Just keep answering the questions: Who, What, When, Where and Why and How it looked, tasted, felt and sounded!
• Then move on to your adult years. Vacations, travel!  Include photos if you'd like. But keep answering those same questions as above...Who, What, When, Where, Why and How it looked, tasted, felt and sounded!
• Have fun!

What's in the Box? and Writing Assignment #22 - School Days K-6

“Are you  Ok?” the banker asked as I sat across from her at the mahogany desk in the center of the bank. I was only slightly aware that I had stopped mid-motion, my pen in hand but in mid-air, staring at the form in front of me as suddenly and without warning a sense of bewilderment caused by the question that followed my name and address made me freeze and brought a quizzical furrow to my brow.  A question I’ve seen a hundred times but this time, for some reason, I wasn’t ready to answer quite so mechanically. All I had to do was put a checkmark in a box:

[ ] Single  [ ] Married  [ ] Divorced or [ ] Widowed

I don’t deny that the box I fit into now is [ ]Widowed but it surely isn’t a box I asked to be in. I’m happy to say that four lovely decades ago I freely chose to be in the  [X] Married category and happily put my checkmark there for all those years. I jumped out of the [X] Single box into the Oh so very comfortable [X] Married box when at 19 I happily and blissfully said “I Do! For now and forever, I really Do!”

Forcing myself out of my stupor, I looked at the banker, sighed and put a small mark in the [x] Widow box and moved on to the next question.

I think what bothered me the most that day was not the realization that I am a widow but that I was becoming comfortable with that moniker.  And maybe even becoming comfortable in that box. Gasp!

There is an old saying…Not even the God’s can change the past.  As much as I’d like to wake up and find that it is Dale lying next to me each morning and not just a pile of toss pillows, the fact is, it’s just pillows now. That can’t and won’t ever change. 

It was a milestone and fortuitous day when it occurred to me that when I come upon a situation or a thought or a place, or hear an ambulance siren that no amount of thinking, or reliving that dreadful day; no amount of pain or tears will ever change what happened.  I am able to say to myself, It happened, re-living it won’t change it – go ahead - move forward you brave warrior you. I don’t deny that it happened; I just realize that focusing on it won’t change it! And I have been able to avoid many breakdowns that way.  I freely admit that it took time and many tearful experiences to get to that point.

But having conquered that, I'm wondering...am I now a little too comfortable in the [x] Widow box? I have no desire or intentions of ever checking the    

[ ]Married box again but I think I can start examining the confines of the   

[ ]Widow box that is created by society and then as is always sage advice…think outside the box before I lose …me.

The poet Seamus Heaney warns: “Unless that underground level of the self is preserved as a verified and verifying element in your makeup, you are going to be in danger of settling into whatever profile the world prepares for you and accepting whatever profile the world provides for you.  You’ll be in danger of molding yourselves in accordance with laws of growth other than those of your own intuitive being.”

And to avoid becoming a bit too comfortable…David A. Bednar explains "The journey of mortality is to go from bad to good to better and to have our very natures changed."  Or in other words…always be progressing. Which means that the discomfort I felt at the bank with the question of which box to check was a good nudge in the direction that I need to keep striving and learning and reaching for the sky.  There is just too much I still want to do that's outside the comfort of this cocoon!

My hand instinctively goes to my neck to touch the butterfly necklace pendant I’ve worn for nearly 2 ½ years now (a gift from my son) I smile, draw a box on the open page of my notebook and write next to it the words… 

[ ] Starting to fly.

And I make a big red checkmark in my new box - [X] Starting to fly.   I’m not sure a bank would accept that write-in description but I am sure going to!

[ ] Single  [ ] Married  [ ] Divorced  [ ] Widowed [X] Starting to fly

WRITING ASSIGNMENT #22  SCHOOL DAYS...

KINDERGARTEN - 6TH GRADE

• Do you remember your first day of school?
• Who took you?
• What did you wear?
• What did you do?
• How did you feel?
• What were the names of the schools you attended? (K-6th)
• How did you get to and from school?  
• How far was it from your home?
• What time did it start?  End?
• Can you describe your classrooms, your desk, who you sat by?
• Any special school friends?
• Any problems?
• How did you handle or solve these problems?
• What was your Elementary School playground like?
• What games did you play?  Were you good at them?
• Elaborate on any of these experiences whether they be frightening, fulfilling and/or humorous.
• What were your teachers' names?
• Give your impression of them.
• To this day do you remember something they taught/said/did that had an influence upon you?

Dogs and Horses and Birds Oh My and Writing Assignment #21 - Pets

I hate dogs.  (No, that’s a bit strong).  I like dogs.  (No, that’s a lie).  I tolerate dogs.

My relationship with dogs may have been ill fated from the very beginning:  Mother announces she’s going into labor, she’s quiet, lovely and in control, Dad grabs the pre-packed overnight bag, helps her down the stairs, tucks her into the car and closes her door, he runs around to his side. He’s anxious, his heart is palpitating; he steps on the clutch and jerks the stick shift into reverse.  He looks back over his shoulder, puts on the gas and runs over the family dog. I was born a few hours later.

Now whether it was that or the fact that when I was 7 years old I was walking up the hill to our home holding onto the hand of my 2-year-old brother when two large and angry Dalmatians attacked me.  One clenched his jaws around my thigh and shook me around like a rag doll. The other stood snarling, showing his angry teeth.  I was trying to protect my brother and screamed and kicked at the other dog, I heard a man’s voice yell a single command, I was dropped without ceremony and the attackers ran away.  I pulled myself up and took my brother’s hand and we walked painfully the rest of the way up the hill.  A neighbor lady came running out of her house to ask if I was ok and helped us home. A few days later, at Dad’s insistence, the owner of the dogs came to “look” at my injury; wildly purple, black and blue and with a perfect set of teeth marks surrounding my thigh.  We had heard this man crack a bullwhip in his backyard in the past as we walked by his house and we could hear satanic, frenzied barks with each crack. That particular day he had taken them to the vet to get their rabies shots and said they were feeling a bit anxious so he let them out to run.  Nice guy.

Or it may just be the fact that I have “dog poop” issues (very low gag reflex) but in any case, I’m really not a dog person.  Well in reality there was one time when I actually reconsidered my position.  My Mother-in-law who was famous for blurting out things that either sent shivers up your spine, raised the hair on the back our your neck, totally demoralized you or left you speechless, told my sons out of the blue one day at dinner that if they wanted a dog they would have to choose between the dog and her.  Hmmmm, my mind lapsed into a game of mental ping-pong; “Grandma…a dog…Grandma… a dog” as I awaited their response that seemed to be a long time in coming.  The boys chose to keep Grandma.

I remember very early on in my young life, Dad saying that if we wanted a dog we would have to clean up after it and I thought.  "OK…I’m through, that’s it for me!"  But my sister would happily tend to their every need, love them and clean up after them and they would follow her around as if she were the Pied Piper of Hamelin.  

She wanted a horse more than anything though.  Our bedroom was lined with her horse statues and books about horses, and one day Copper became her very own real life horse. It was so thrilling to see the herd and watch her pick out her favorite steed (I was 9).  I remember the thrill of watching Dad break Copper in the pasture next to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  The gentle coaxing of the bit into its mouth, the cautious placement of the saddle blanket on its coppery back, the way Copper froze and then protested when Dad flipped the saddle on.  But then Dad tightened the strap and slowly raised his foot to the stirrup lifted his other leg up over the top and off he went!  Bucking and kicking and…Yah HOO!!  I loved it! My Dad, my hero! Soon Copper was walking around the pasture with Dad riding atop, giving gentle nudges and calming words. He came back to the fence where I was sitting, along with my uncle, dismounted and stroked Copper’s wet neck telling him he was a good boy.  I was mesmerized. It was all so wonderful.  But Copper was my sister's horse.

I was also there the day a man with a trailer came and took Copper away because we were moving to the suburbs of Los Angeles where there was no room for a horse. Dad said that my sister would be too heartbroken to watch that happen. It didn’t matter, she was heartbroken anyway.

Grandpa’s neighbor had a daughter my age and they pastured their Pinto there at Grandpa’s field.  That was Trigger and I loved him! From the time I was about 6 years old, he would always come when I called and I would climb up on the white picket fence to be able to hop onto his back. He was brown and white and let me climb onto his bare back and ride for hours around the pasture, jumping over the tiny stream and he’d even let me kneel up on his back to pick apples out of the tree for us both to munch on.  When he got tired he would walk under the apple tree branches and try to brush me off.  I got pretty good at lying low on his back and sometimes even holding onto his mane and tipping way to the side.  When that failed to dislodge me he would curl his neck down to the ground, buck his hind legs and I would go toppling head over heels, landing on my back in the soft dirt, looking up at him looking down at me. 

I learned to ride saddleback from my cousin when we were both eight. Her family had a ranch and she could ride like the wind that girl!  They had many horses to choose from and we would have to stalk the ones that were hobbled in the sage brush fields (their back legs connected with a hobble so they could walk but not run), put on their bridles and saddles, take off the hobbles and off we’d go at break neck speed.  The horses, jubilant to be freed from their hobbles, would go into an instant gallop. Over the hills flew two little girls with blond ponytails flying in the wind and trails of dry dust rising behind us. My cousin leaning forward and holding the reins like a pro, her young legs sticking out from the belly of the horse and then kicking his flanks to go Faster ! Faster! Faster!  Me, holding onto the reins in one hand and the saddle horn in the other, (against the laws of good horsemanship but that didn’t seem to matter at the time) my feet too far forward in the stirrups and my knees clenched tightly against the saddle.  Slow Down!  Slow Down!  Slow Down!  But oh what thrilling times we would have.

We did have parakeets at one point. They had such a pretty song to sing, one was turquoise blue and the other was brilliant yellow.  I remember hating that they were caged and wished that they could have been singing in the forest at the cabin along with the chickadees.

Now it's your turn.....

WRITING ASSIGNMENT #21 - PETS

Pets can be a vital part of a person's life.  

Describe your childhood pet(s) and your special relationship with them. Don't just say what breed it was, detail it's unique markings and personality traits and any experiences you had with them.  

Then continue on to all of the pets you have had up to the present, include descriptions and photos if you have them...especially photos you might have of you with the pet(s).

Be Still and Know that I Am God & Writing Assignment #20 - Illnessess

In what would be Dale’s last weeks of life, he was in horrendous pain and couldn’t sleep and couldn’t recline in bed. With a courage that I can’t begin to comprehend, he bravely took on each day without anger or complaint and insisted on continuing to work.  I set up a little makeshift desk that rolled up to his leather chair to hold his laptop computer, his work files and his yellow notepad.  I remember one day when I was bringing a bowl of soup for his lunch I happily discovered that he was actually asleep and looked peaceful. I glanced at the yellow pad on his desk.  His hand was still holding his pen as he had just written the words… “Be Still and know that I am God”.  I realized with a sudden lump in my throat and with tears in my eyes that this was the source of his strength and the peace that he was feeling that allowed him to fall asleep.

Recently as I pushed the cart down the aisles of the local market appearing to all the world as normal with my basket full of organic vegetables and a package of brownie bites, I was in fact silently fighting health demons of my own that had of late joined forces with that dreaded silent woe – discouragement.

I passed by the greeting card section and my eye caught site of a card with yet another adaptation of the current world-wide love affair with “Keep Calm and Carry On”. I stood for a moment, closed my eyes and did what it said.  To keep calm, I thought of Dale and what helped him that day and I became still in my mind and spirit and felt a strength that hadn't been there a minute before.  I opened my eyes, put one foot in front of the other and pushing my cart to the check out stand....I carried on with the responsibilities of the day.

How very delicious these little nuggets of thoughts are in helping me journey on down this road of life.  They capture my attention and remind me of the good things in the world.  They give me hope and encouragement.  Bless the dear people that think of them and share them!!

Statements like these…

"Keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever." —Jeffrey R. Holland

"An old proverb says, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.” Now is the best time to start becoming the person we eventually want to be—not only 20 years from now but also for all eternity." —Dieter F. Uchtdorf,

"Do not expect to become perfect at once. If you do, you will be disappointed. Be better today than you were yesterday, and be better tomorrow than you are today." —Lorenzo Snow

And this from an unknown author:  “You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice”.

And the unexpected but thought provoking….”Sometimes we Win…and Sometimes we Learn”.

And the reminder…”Any sailor can navigate on smooth seas, it takes courage to take on a storm”

WRITING ASSIGNMENT #20 – ILLNESSES

In our lives we encounter certain illnesses and afflictions we must overcome or persevere.

Discuss your malady(ies), your attitude and how you have been able to endure or cure this (these) burden(s).

What have you learned from these experiences that could help your descendants?

Did your parents or grandparents or relatives have the same issues that could indicate that it is genetic?  This information is valuable to future generations that will be reading your autobiography.