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Growing up my mother would always use the over-ripe bananas to make banana bread. She never threw them away. She grew up during the 1930’s and 40’s when nothing was ever wasted.

I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. Wastefulness was becoming more routine. I’ve thrown many an over-ripe banana away. Recently I’ve been re-evaluating this habit.

When I caught a glance of myself in the mirror the other day, I had the thought that I was becoming my mother. She removed the gray from her hair up until her early eighties. I’m beginning to slowly shrink in height the way she did.

Today the transformation took another step. I began to mash three over-ripe bananas with a fork. I stirred in the sugar, butter, vanilla and eggs. Then added the flour, chopped nuts, a little soda and salt. It’s in the oven now. It was really pretty easy to make. I don’t know why I haven’t done this sooner. The smell is already beginning to lift my spirits.

 

This summer when I was reorganizing my bedroom and clearing space for a more peaceful and serene setting, I did a little redecorating to usher in the new me. I took off all the old pictures on my walls with the exception of a water color painting of yellow and purple pansies. It is in an exquisite antique frame. It had been painted by my paternal grandmother’s mother, Estella Grant Stamps. She apparently was deaf, but still managed to raise three daughters, and she was married to my grandmother’s father.

If you were to see the painting, I think you would agree that she was a talented artist, though I don’t think she was ever recognized as one. This is one of the few things that I have from my father’s family, so it has a great deal of sentimental value for me.

I have digressed with this little bit of family history. I set out to tell you about a new piece of art I purchased this summer. I wake up to it every morning since I placed it on the wall right next to my bed. It seems to haunt me in a way, and yet it also challenges me, though at the time of purchase this wasn’t clear to me.

It is a photograph of a conch shell resting on the beach with the ocean waves gently curving behind and around and down a stretch of sand. It is printed on a large canvass, so it deceptively looks like a painting. The sunlight is lighting up the spiral details of its head. I was drawn to it for many reasons.

Following the death of my father a number obsession took hold of my brain, and it had me tumbling down a path in a frantic search for patterns. The shell’s spiral seems to symbolize this for me. It is almost like a ghost on my wall and a reminder of hidden messages. Now that I  have made it out of this tunnel, it still seems to push me forward.

The other day a restlessness took hold of me. It was as if my subconscious had picked up a new message for me and it was trying to communicate it. I was compelled to look up the word shell in my dictionary, though it felt like I was grasping at straws slipping away from me. And then at the very end of the definition I saw: she’ll. This is slang for she will and she shall. The message pierced my mind and made an imprint.

The picture no longer symbolizes a cast-a-way of life or as a ghost of past lives. Now I see it as a motivational message for the future. She shall overcome and move forward.

I think my thoughts were being influenced by all the female empowerment that I have been watching on the news recently, however, I am taking it on as a personal challenge for myself.

 

 

 

 

 

The word that has caught within my mind’s snare today is the word “scratch”.

If you look it up in the dictionary you will see that is has many varying definitions, all depending on its context.

The best cakes that I’ve made in my life have been from scratch. In this context, it means to use basic ingredients, nothing pre-packaged. Though to be honest, some basic ingredients have been packaged in a way.

In any case, today the word scratch applies to my mind-set when I sit down to write. I’ve always been a writer in my heart, however, my vision has suffered greatly over the years. Part of the human condition is a self-centeredness that demands that all our thinking revolve around ourselves. (For ex: How do I benefit?, or listen to me, or watch me.) All our choices and decisions are inherently centered around our own well-being, and our own desire for attention and admiration.

Since none of us live completely alone in a vacuum, we need to navigate our world. Our vision has learned to look beyond ourselves to our family, and neighbors. We have learned that to survive we need to build alliances. Trouble comes when our vision cannot see far enough into the future to see all the tribes that extend out from our own world. In order for the tree of life to survive, humans need to extend their vision and honestly see the condition of our shared world, and all the hidden connections.

I will stop preaching now since I don’t believe I have it within myself to be a preacher. I always have a low level of discomfort when telling others how they should live their lives. Personal choices need to come out of individual hearts, and not be coerced.

My own heart has a heavy streak of resentment when someone tries to tell me what choices I should make. This is called oppositional defiance. I believe this breed is the hardest to teach. However, we are teachable if the teacher can be patient enough and constantly experiment with different approaches.

The whole strangeness of my thought process these past few years is that I believe that both the student and teacher has resided together within my own mind.

Scratch can also mean an aimless search, and this too has applied to me at times.

Today is the first day of the new year (2018), and I have decided that I really do need to sit back, and extend my vision, and practice it daily. And maybe then I will be able to tell the story  my heart wants to tell.

 

 

These are two pictures that I took several years ago and combined in a photo editing program. I was just playing around.

Today I wrote a poem about the moon and I was reminded of this picture.

Here is the poem:

Watching the glow of the moon in the night sky has fascinated humans for centuries. Animals in the wild innately follow her cycles. She controls the tides which can wash life away or bring it to shore.

Upon inspection at higher resolution, one can’t miss the craters on her face. This is a price she has had to pay to protect our earth and hold our lives within her grasp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today I went Christmas shopping. I decided to go to Tyson’s I shopping mall, and I drove all the way down Route 7. The traffic was fairly slow, so I had time to think about my environmental surroundings and how they have changed over the years. I’ve lived in this area long enough to have witnessed farm land being transformed into a highly populous urban area. My family attended a church in the 7-Corners area of Falls Church, and the older man, who had sold the farm land that is now the Tyson’s development, attended our church.

When I was growing up I shopped at Tyson’s I. This was before there were multi-deck parking garages and before the mall was expanded, and long before Tyson’s II was even a dream. As a matter of fact, my family regularly ate at Hot Shoppes cafeteria after church on Sundays. It was one of the few restaurants inside the mall.

Today when I stood in the outside parking area of Tyson’s I and looked around me, I had a feeling of surrealism sweep over me. The office building directly across the road looked like it had been constructed with a toy erector set. It was so shiny and new looking. I even wondered if real people worked there. Though from my experience of cars and trucks on the road and all the people inside the mall, I was convinced it must be real.

As I was conversing with a young black man at the Footlocker shoe store, I heard myself saying that even middle-aged white women are stereotyped. Then I wondered if I was even considered middle-aged anymore since I’ll be 59 years old in about 2 months.

Before my conversation at the shoe store, I had gone looking for the Disney store. My daughter has been asking for an Elsa doll for a couple years now. I kept telling her she was too old for dolls. This year I’ve decided it doesn’t matter. So, at the age of 27 she will getting a gift doll set of Elsa and her sister Anna.

While in the store, I looked through the Star Wars merchandise. I have very recently seen their latest movie.  There was a nice white and black Storm Trooper sweater tunic. I tried it on and it fit, and I thought it would look good with black leggings. I laughed as I purchased it for myself. I just needed the perfect shoes to go with the outfit.

This is how I ended up at the Footlocker shoe store. I purchased the smallest men’s size in a Timberland black leather slip on ankle boot. They looked to me like they could pass for Storm Trooper boots. They were very comfortable and they had no women’s shoes anything like them.

I showed the young man who had been helping me my new sweater. He loved it and he agreed I had picked out the perfect boots to match.

So, this Christmas both my daughter and I will be defying the normal expectations for our ages. Fortunately, I can get away with wearing this since I work at a middle school.  I can imagine it will spark a conversation or two with some of the young boys and maybe a few of the girls.  Though it is usually the boys who make comments to me about these things.

 

 

 

 

            Image taken from grit.com

When I was young and living at home with my parents, the Christmas season was filled with candy-making. My father was the one making it, using traditions handed down from his father.

He would make fudge with and without nuts. Black walnut fudge was my favorite. Opening and picking out the kernel of a black walnut is notoriously difficult.

He would make sheets of peanut brittle. He would break it up into smaller odd shapes to fit into containers. He made caramel candy which we would wrap individually in wax paper.

As I got older he would sometimes make rum or bourbon balls.

The strangest candy he would make was called Divinity. I often wondered how it got its name. I don’t ever remember having this question answered.

All of these memories were brought back to me today. Recently when I was picking up art supplies for my daughter at a store named Michaels, I saw a recipe magazine/book that caught my attention. I purchased it on a whim. I don’t normally do this. The book was published by Southern Living, Special Collector’s Edition. It was titled Best Cookies & Bars.

Hopefully, this Christmas season I’ll do a little more baking, though none of us need the extra calories.

I am at home today still recovering from a fever and chills that wracked my body yesterday. The fever is gone now, though some residual stomach and intestinal problems are still settling.

Since I am at home alone, the quietness inspired me to pick up this recipe book and begin to look through it. On the last page of this book is a recipe for Divinity. This particular recipe calls for one cup of toasted pecans, or as an alternative, you can omit the pecans and substitute them with one cup of chopped red candied cherries.

I don’t ever remember my father adding anything to his Divinity. His version was plain white, feather-light, and “tender”. Maybe, this is how it got its name.

 

 

 

I still collect fortune cookie fortunes. They no longer have the power to be my puppet master. I keep them now as reminders of my dark days when paranoia clung to me.

Some of them are rather interesting. One in particular has been mulling in my thoughts recently. “A good memory is fine but the ability to forget is the one true test of greatness.”

At first I thought this statement was ridiculous, and I still think this to a certain extent. I have never heard anyone say that forgetfulness is a quality of greatness.

There are libraries full of history books to try and insure that people don’t forget. Though, a certain degree of skepticism can be a helpful tool.

Unfortunately a lot of history is forgotten by many people, and this does not in itself make them great people.

As usual I could not just drop the fortune cookie thoughts. I had to pursue what virtue the fortune writer might be alluding to.

I have decided that the word “forget” needed to be followed by the words “or forgive”. The writer must have been associating the word “forget” with the words “let it go and move forward”.  In order to do this grudges must be released either through forgetfulness or forgiveness.

This release will liberate the mind and bring a joie de vivre that will bring forth a great life!

To end my thoughts for today I will share a silly poem I wrote some time ago.

The Beast

The under belly of the beast is the soft fleshy part that is closest to the ground. It growls when hungry for food or mischief.

The tongue paints strokes of persuasion stirring up the pot in search of flavor and energy.

The eyes shift, roll, open and close, trying to sustain focus on multiple directed tasks.

The brain is inundated with information waiting to be processed and filed. It looks for cohesion and purpose and assesses risk and reward.

The tail can be long or short depending on the day. It helps to steer and guide and maintains balance within its life.

The boat couldn’t sail without its rudder.

 

 

 

Dear God,

Please help me to see the good in people and focus on their strengths rather than their weaknesses.

Please help me to see beyond myself and forgive those people who I feel have done me wrong. Help me to see that their actions are based on their own imperfect perspective, and are not necessarily a reflection of my truth.

Give me the strength to carry on with hope, love, and charity for all.

I pray for those that are suffering. My hope is that they can find it within themselves to persevere and see the good in people and in life.

Amen.

I start back to work on Monday. The summer has flown by as usual, and eventhough, I didn’t do anything extraordinary by other people’s standards, I feel great about my summer.

I have much greater peace of mind now that I’ve cleared away a ton of clutter, and brought beauty and organization back into my personal spaces.

Finally, I was able to give up some of my mother’s things that I realized I would never or rarely use.

I set up an art table for my daughter using an antique desk that had been my mother’s when she was a young woman. The desk had been in my bedroom just taking up space. I was using it as a repository for unfiled papers and junk mail, piling them up on top. Finally, I went through all this paper, and set up files for important information and other less important information that was still worth keeping. I shredded the rest. It took me about 2 weeks to do this. The shredder barely survived.

I gave away boxes of my mother-in-law’s Avon collectibles. Someone had given me the idea that they had value and I should try to sell them. I finally accepted the fact that I would never do this.

I still have some work to do, but I feel like I’ve moved mountains, and I’m taking a break. My most important areas have been cleared and beauty has moved in.

My husband’s work space is another story, and a future project for me. However, I will let it be for now.

I’ve neglected my running tree of thoughts here, which has been very important for my mental health, and helped me to work through an emotional and sensory bombardment that I was exposed to. But, the time had come to move from the thoughts and words in my head and more into the physical reality around me.

This movement has done wonders for me. Words without action eventually become meaningless in a living reality.

I now harbor an energy that I had forgotten was within me. I now realize that to keep this energy going, my actions need to feed it. My mental stamina is now aligned with the physical tasks ahead of me.

I am my daughter’s legal guardian, and my actions need to be able to keep pace with my responsibilities.

And, I will define my success by my own standards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I find myself slowly returning to the roots of my parent’s mind-set. They were both movers and shakers until illness overcame them. When they passed away they left no clutter or untended business for their surviving spouses to clean-up.

On the other hand, my mother-in-law had forty plus years of accumulated disorder left for my husband and I to tackle. Though, I don’t want to judge her because it is hard to keep disorder at bay. It takes discipline and daily attendance to keep the things going out equal to the things coming in. She had an attic full of unused products, no doubt purchased on sale.

Now that I am on summer break I’m assessing my closets and cabinets, and I’m realizing that I have many things I no longer use nor plan to use, and even some things I’ve never used nor plan to use. I have the time to bag them up and throw or give them away. I need to do this away from my husband’s eyes because he is always taking things out of my trash. Everything has another purpose in his mind. Recycling is in his blood, whereas I have to make a conscious effort.

We are both products of our upbringing and our parent’s modeling. However, twenty-seven years of marriage has had an impact on both of us.

I got weary of the daily struggle, working alone to move things out. My discipline suffered set-backs, and other tasks claimed my attention, and of course the modern escape of the internet was insidiously claiming more and more of my time.

My energy and will is returning. My desire to fight the tide of disorder is returning. I do have the wisdom of age to draw the line between what I can control and what I can’t. Hopefully over time I will be able to nudge my husband in the same direction. Our daughter will not be able to tackle our mess when we are gone.