things i don't enjoy

i planned on reading the book for book club this month. at the risk of being mean, i've decided to attempt to write this post without saying the name of the book i'm talking about, but we'll see how it goes. (or rather, to avoid coming across as mean.)

it was not a book i had selected or voted for. in fact at the time we chose it as a group i can't recall if i mistook it for its sister book or if i knew already i didn't want to read it. memory--at leas mine--is fickle like that.

in any case, when i heard we were reading it this month at first i mistook it for its sister book.

two friends--very funny--write books.

my kid who at the time was fascinated by tv comedy and movies and screenplays and all sorts of clever (because he is clever) bought both books.

with my money, but still, they were his.

in any case, i tried to read the first one and didn't get much past the first chapter.

there was an edge, a bitterness, yes, i'll say it, a meanness to it.

i didn't like the way it made me feel.

so, in my mind confusing the titles even though i full well knew better if i would have thought about it, i was at least someone excited to read it thinking it was the other one. i sensed it had a different tone.

and then i heard it was funnier on audio book in the author's voice.

and after two days of hoop-jumping to renew my apparently accidentally expired library card and get access to the audio book i realized my confusion.

we were reading the mean one.

i figured i should get over myself and give it a chance.

maybe it was funnier in her own voice.

maybe it was kinder, gentler.

maybe i would feel better about it.

maybe i would enjoy it this time.

i didn't.

i even shopped around for a different chapter (maybe she was nicer when she got past her childhood--some people are).

i found a few poignant moments.

i may have laughed a time or two.

but i didn't enjoy it.

so i returned it.

and now i'm listening to the sister book.

there is still a bit of an edge.

there is coarse language.

(i don't enjoy coarse language.)

but it is kinder, gentler.

and i enjoy it.

100 years old

my grandfather--well, one of them--lived to be 98 years old.

nearly every day i saw him the last handful of years of his life--you know, the five plus years he was on hospice. and oxygen. he would say to me

"growing old ain't for sissies."

well shoot.

i'm just a bit over halfway there and i'm already hurting, so i just don't know about that.

i'd like to think that as long as i keep moving--even if s-l-o-w-l-y--i'll be ok.

but i just don't know.

sometimes i want to live a long time and visit all the places and see and do all the things and love all the people and watch all the babies be born and grow and do things and become who they are and get married and have their own babies.

some days i worries this is a hard cruel world and i don't know that i can lose anyone else or watch any more people i love suffer any more and i want to be done sooner rather than later.

i just don't know.

sometimes i have hope we will clean up our acts and our air and learn to work together to make the world a better place and that good will prevail not just in the next life, but in the hear and now.

sometimes i can't wait for it to be the next life because i don't know if i can watch things keep getting worse.

war and apocalypse and dystopia are so much better left in the imagination lost in a good book.

but at least a part of me wants to grow into an old eccentric woman who can get away with wearing and saying whatever she likes, as long as she is kind. can still read and quilt and walk.

and can sleep at night.

i don't understand

i don't understand a lot of things. i don't understand why i'm content to not yet understand some things, but discontent to not understand others.

this prompt was issued before the latest school massacre.

i don't understand why so many this year already, so many the year before, and the year before, since ??, since columbine, since forever.

and we do nothing but yell at each other across the divide.

i told my son today i'd like to think there are rational people who understand we need to quit yelling at each other and find some common ground and sit down at the table together to find some solutions both sides can live with but that the media doesn't talk about it because they get more clicks from the yelling (i don't hate the media. i know there are good people working hard to sort fact from fiction and get to and reveal the truth. but greed and profit seem to rule the corporate world.)

i don't understand why we are tearing apart families and yanking providers and caregivers right out of their homes and why we can't keep our promises to children who've lived entire productive lives here in our country as march 6 (or was it 5) looms near and we are too busy yelling at each other or feeling superior and self-righteous or changing our minds to save them.

i don't really understand yelling at each other any way.

why it's not accepted that perhaps we can stand up for one thing without being hateful to what is perceived as its opposite.

why it's not accepted that we can love people--not just tolerate, but truly love--while not agreeing with them or experiencing the world in the same way they do.

i don't understand unkindness.

i don't understand meanness.

i don't understand willfully hurting someone.

or brutally killing them.

grapefruit

The best posts I read about fruit are metaphorical rather than literal, but the truth is I love grapefruit.

Instead of buying soda, I sometimes splurge and purchase the rather expensive fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice available sometimes at Macey's.

I work really hard not to see again that time I was there while the Macey's employee was pushing fresh citrus down the machine.

Did he wash it first? (I always wash my produce before I cut into it.)

Did he wash his hands???

The other day I stopped at the El Salvadoran restaurant on my way home from seeing The Post--by myself (the restaurant, not the movie, where I was met by a friend) and ordered their steak and fries because I knew the steak is marinated in grapefruit juice.

(I keep mistyping grapefruit.)

Even though I like it so very much, I rarely buy grapefruit.

Is it because the best grapefruit are sold at Sam's and I only have a Costco membership?

Am I lazy?

It takes time to loosen the flesh from the membrane and then scoop it out.

It's messy.

Ha! Life is messy.

And then you have to squeeze the dismembered--is cutting out the flesh dismembering? Disemboweled? I'd better stop two sentences ago--rind hard to extract all the tart juice.

In any case, I do love grapefruit.

I should enjoy it more often.

my work is loving the world

my work is loving the world.

that means finding joy in cloudy skies

happiness in rainy days

enduring a too-warm too-dry winter that wasn't without at least too much complaint, maybe only feeling a little guilty for not hurting from the cold

looking up and finding light when your heart is down or feeling dark

laugh a little, even when you feel like crying

being kind to yourself even when the voices you hear in your head are harsh

that's where it starts

then it means looking outward even when you feel compelled to retreat inward

lifting, loving others whose hearts and heavy and feelings are dark

noticing and appreciating and paying forward kindness both small and large

remember, there are no small things

being of good cheer even on those "fake it till you make it" days

maybe especially on those

seeking understanding and responding in kindness to those who lash out and wound

maybe even removing yourself from target practice or that which drags you down

seeking instead to life where you stand, even if it seems only a little

offer a word of encouragement

point out a silver lining

remind yourself "it's not about you"

seek to see others in a different light when needed

build bridges

make friends

choose kindness

Something I'm proud of

Today I'm proud of getting back on the horse.

Several weeks ago I went to write my post and was horrified to see words to the effect that nothing was here. In other words, this is not the blog you're looking for.

After losing years of writing before, I was tempted to panic, but didn't. At least at first. It was easy to think maybe the issue was with GoDaddy. "Perhaps GoDaddy got up and went." I thought.

But as days went on and after multiple calls by both me and my friend whom I thought was hosting my blog, it became apparent the issue was more serious. Apparently there had been a miscommunication between my friend and I went I took over responsibility for my domain name and while I still don't know who has been hosting my blog since that time over a year ago, or how or why it got disconnected, apparently I am both host-less and blog-less.

Well, unless you could my half-dozen other blogs on blogger.

I have been stressed at work and loathe to take on something that feels and is over my head, so time passed. I finally got back to it this week. I am uncomfortable having conversations trying to fix something about which I don't have enough knowledge or information to address knowingly.

Finally I quit putting it off. I had lame conversations with GoDaddy and others who know more than I do and whose vocabularies are over my head.

And while I'm reassured--at least somewhat--believing the database and my files are safe somewhere and will eventually be sent my way where I can then send them on to someone who make be able to help, there is a part of me who is still afraid that the past couple years of actual writing--plus all the years before (the ones that weren't originally lost) are lost.

In any case, here I am. Writing again. And I have a brand new blog to which I hope we can eventually transfer the files. And tonight I decided not to wait any longer for resolution, but to pick up the hypothetical pen and write again while I wait.

And that feels satisfying. Which is even better than proud.

8-minute memoir revisited

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend." Martin Luther King Jr.

Sometimes I feel I'm a broken record, writing the same stories over and over. I've written before about several people with whom I did not exactly hit it off, but who I later came to view as a close friend.

I was thinking about this recently and about how this happens. I love Brene Brown's work on vulnerability and wonder if perhaps the short cut is when someone shows you their heart--even if briefly--which illuminates a path for your love to work it's way in.

A friend of mine (Internet friend, of course--we've never met IRL) recently wrote a Valentine's tribute to her husband. It wasn't soft of mushy. In fact in it she mentioned she is not easy to love and described both her husband and herself as hard coolies. But then she went on to pay tribute to some of the great qualities she noticed and admired in him.

I think that's the key. When presented with a hard cookie who doesn't present an easy target for your arrow of love, maybe you can pass the time waiting for a brief glance of vulnerability noticing and appreciating the good qualities of said person. The way this person makes the world a better place.

Perhaps in the absence of vulnerability, appreciation can be the conduit of love that may soften, somewhat a hard cookie. If nothing else it will certainly soften one's on heart.

And perhaps the only perception over which we have control by which to identify friend or enemy is our own.