How To Be Sane In An Insane World

Virginia Creepeer

Virginia Creeper

“All through our gliding journey, on this day as on so many others, a little song runs through my mind. I say song because it passes musically, but it is really just words, a thought that is neither strange nor complex. In fact, how strange it would be not to think it — not to have such music inside one’s head and body, on such an afternoon. What does it mean, say the words, that the earth is so beautiful? And what shall I do about it? What is the gift I should bring to the world? What is the life I should live?
Mary Oliver (from “Flow,” Long Life)

While beautiful and amazingly wonderful things lie all around us, we often forget to notice them, finding ourselves angry, depressed, grieving, living in fear, and unable to make a difference in our horribly screwed up world.

How do we stay sane while thousands of human being are turned back as they seek refuge from war, death, and destruction in their home countries?

Why must we worry about school shootings, bomb threats, and other horrific events that have become a regular new kind of normal?

What can we do about the political voices spewing hatred, prejudice, and racial slurs over the airwaves?

There seems to be no end in sight of things to fear and worry about … the economy, global climate change, finding work, and keeping our families clothed and fed. But instead of making our lives miserable and filled with angst, we can become extra mindful, notice the good things, and spread the gift of positivity every where we go.

Notice the way the wind tosses the autumn leaves about. Hear them as they drop and hit the ground, sometimes silently, other times with a crunch.

Watch the birds gathering together in preparation for their long migration to warmer climes.

Say, Hello, to people you pass on the street. Give them the gift of your best smile. They may be angry, sad or depressed. But knowing that someone has seen them and recognized them as a fellow human being may help them find respite from their troubles, at least for a moment.

Point out the glorious rainbow arcing over the mountains to those who are complaining about the rain.

It doesn’t sound like much, and it may seem like a losing proposition to those who can only see the dark side of things. But being positive amidst the mess we find ourselves in, can make a difference, not only in our own behavior, but in those around us. Laughter is the best medicine and if we can find the humor in a situation and begin to giggle, we’ll often find others joining us, laughing so hard they can’t stand up straight.

We need to stop complaining and when the time comes, go out and vote for those who respect humanity and the struggles we all face. We’re too taken up by the loudest voices who bring us down, rarely noticing the good things happening behind the scenes. Change takes time. Begin to trust that amidst all of the chaos, noise, speed, and destruction we see around us, things can change for the better.

Every day watch the sun rise and be grateful for new beginnings. Hope and trust is present in every moment. Be there to experience it.

These are the things I practice to keep myself from giving up and expecting the worst.  What do you do to keep yourself happy and sane in this maddening world?

 

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How I Met The Love Of My Life, Part II

 

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For those who are waiting to hear Part II of my love story, here it is. If you missed Part I you can read it here.

As that summer moved into late June and early July, a few interesting things began to happen. Bill invited me to join the gang (Russ and all the kids) for a movie on a Friday night. I was tired and not thrilled about being with a whole bunch of people, especially kids, but decided, Hey, why not. It’s an opportunity to get out and do something different, instead of sitting around here at home.

Bill pulled into the driveway in his VW bus, loaded with Russ and three or four boys and the sister of one of the boys. I climbed into the front passenger seat which was empty. Russ sat in the back surrounded by kids telling jokes that weren’t all that funny. During a break in the chatter, I asked what movie we were going to see. Bill answered: “We’re going to Tarzan goes to India.”

Yikes, I thought. Then Russ piped up and said “I’m not going to that crap. I’m going to see Hud, with Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, and Patricia Neal.

Which movie do you think I chose? You guessed it. I went to see Hud, with Russ, I had no inkling that Bill’s invitation to the movies was supposed to be a date. Would you have thought it was a date? With a bunch of kids in tow?

Word got back to me the next day when my brothers told me that Bill had been very disappointed. The next time he invited me on a Friday night movie trip to town, I smiled teasingly and said, “No. If you really want a date with me, we have to go alone. No kids or Russ. And by the way, I’m not a Tarzan fan.”

We spent the rest of the summer, going to shows at Vermont’s abundant summer theatre venues, ate luscious dinners together, and went to the movies alone now and then. I liked Bill a lot and began joining the gang for Friday night movies regardless of what they were going to see.

One night after a movie and a stop at the local ice-cream joint, my brother, Reid climbed into the front passenger seat. Bill told him to get in the back, but Reid refused, saying, “But I got here first.” Bill went around to the passenger side and pulled Reid out, pushed him up against the bus and said, “That is where your sister sits from now on.”

I’m not exactly sure of the exact moment that love sruck, but Bill became my best friend who listened to me and understood me. Best of all he loved my crazy family and they loved him. Bill and my father, argued philosophy and politics at the dinner table. And there were times when I thought Mom and Dad cared more about him than they cared about me.

When September rolled back around, Bill went back to New York City, to finish his masters at Columbia’s Teachers College. He was interested in international education and his dream was to open or be involved in a secondary school with kids from all over the world.

I went back to school as well, and resumed my job as a waitress and chambermaid at the Lodge. I stopped dating anyone else, and put all of my energy into my classes.

I missed Bill terribly and before long we were talking on the phone most evenings. Bill drove the four or five hours to Vermont for long weekends and school holidays. He’d put more work into the Round House, and we spent time hiking in the mountains and skiing when snow fell. He stayed at our house, not the lodge, and my father even allowed me to go down to New York to visit him. The big caveat was I had to stay in a hotel whose clientele were only women. The name of the place now escapes me, but it must have been one of last vestiges of the Victorian era. And knowing my father was not above checking up on me in his own sneaky way, I did stay there … at night.

The most memorable trip to see Bill was the day John F. Kennedy was killed. I was on the bus just outside of the city, when at one of the stops, a Trailways employee stepped up on the bus and announced that Kennedy had been killed. All of us on the bus were in shock, many of us in tears. Bill and I spent the next few days together glued to the television set, grieving the loss of the young and bright shining star who would lead us into a glorious future.

If nothing else can pull a couple together it is the processing of grief and loss. Through the sadness, we talked about getting married. At Christmas I had a ring on my left hand and traveled to Washington, DC, where Bill’s folks lived.

I had one more year of school to finish up. Bill, done with his Masters, applied for several teaching jobs in Vermont. He was hired as an English teacher and dorm master at St. Johnsbury Academy, in the northeast corner of the state, about an hour and a half away from Killington.  We spent the next year talking on the phone when we weren’t together, and on June 19th, 1965, a few weeks after I graduated from Castleton, Bill and I were married.

I don’t know where the years have gone. Some think that after 50 years together, some couples get tired of each other. Of course, we’ve had our not so good times, but we always worked our way through the problems. We still talk every day when we’re off in different corners of the world and always look forward to being together again. There is of course more to my story, and maybe over time I’ll have more stories for you.

Our Family, Summer 1970

Our Family, Summer 1970

Do check back here next Tuesday to learn about my monthly newsletter, which I’ll start sending out in October.

How I Met The Love Of My Life, Part I

A few weeks ago on her blog, my friend Shirley Showalter, told the story about how her parents met and fell in love. She asked me in her reply to my comment, how Bill and I met. So here it is for all the world to see.

December, 31, 1963.

William-Rough_HS4 (1)I was attending Castleton State Teachers College, now Castleton University, just outside of Rutland, Vermont. I lived at my dad’s ski lodge, The Summit Lodge, in Killington, one of Vermont’s newest and upcoming ski areas at the time. I commuted to school, and waited tables at night at the lodge. When there weren’t enough chambermaids about, I cleaned toilets, made beds, and did all the stuff that being in the hospitality business is all about. I wasn’t crazy about the work. But it was what I did to pay my way through college.

I wasn’t dating anyone seriously, but flirted with Bob, another college student who washed dishes at the lodge whenever school was on break. He wanted a serious relationship with me, but I wasn’t interest. He was one of twelve kids, and told me he wanted a huge family like his own. I didn’t really know what I wanted, but I knew it wasn’t a whole bunch of kids. I loved learning, being in school, and didn’t want to limit myself to changing diapers, housekeeping, and chopping wood all winter in the mountains of Vermont.

Being New Year’s Eve, the dining room was filled with skiers of all ages, shapes and sizes, celebrating the end of another year. Outside the snow was piled high and still falling. The wind was cold, whistling down the chimneys and occasionally bringing in big puffs of smoke that were supposed to be traveling upward and out, not back into the room.

Tired of the holiday rush, waiting on tables, and connecting with the public, all I wanted was for everyone to go celebrate somewhere else, so I could relax instead of being constantly at someone else’s beck and call.

As the dining room was clearing out, my father introduced me to a couple from New Jersey, who were there skiing with their kids … and their daughter’s boyfriend. I had served their table.

That was the first time I laid eyes on Bill. He was tall, handsome, had dreamy blue eyes, and a cute chin dimple that I liked. That was it. No wedding bells rang. Cupid was off shooting his arrows somewhere else.

I didn’t see him again until May, when school was out. In the meantime, my dad had finished building us a house separate from the lodge, so that we could have some privacy as a family. We’d moved in to our new home during the early spring.

I was aware that Bill had been staying at the lodge occasionally and had become friends with my father who helped him purchase a piece of land, where Bill wanted to build his own private ski house. But I hadn’t seen him or talked to him.

Working as a cashier at one of the grocery stores in Rutland for the summer, I was bored out of my mind and trying to save up more money. One day after work, as I walked through the front door of my house, Bill stepped out of the bathroom off the hallway, freshly showered.

Everyone wants this part of the story to be different, but trust me, he was DRESSED in jeans, a tee shirt, and hiking boots.

The Round House as it stands today under it's newest owners.

The Round House as it stands today under it’s newest owners.

It turned out he was in the area for the summer. He and one of his college roommates at Princeton, an architect, were beginning to build the ski house they’d both been dreaming about. It was to be round and made out of stone. They were camped out at the house sight in a huge tent furnished with cots, a refrigerator, a telephone, and a tiny television set. But there was no shower and since the creek at the bottom of the property was icy cold, my dad had kindly invited them to shower at our house anytime.

Bill hired both of my brothers as gophers to dig holes, move rocks, and do whatever needed doing as the building process began. Reid couldn’t have been more than ten years old, which would have made Zed fourteen. He paid them a dollar an hour and as a bonus, took them and three or four other kids he’d also hired to the movies in Rutland every Friday night.

Bill and Russ, his roommate, were frequent shower users at my house and often stayed for dinner. My mother, a fabulous cook, loved their oohs and aahs over the food she prepared, which guaranteed them seats at our dinner table whenever they were around … which was a lot of the time.

They were both really nice guys, but I wasn’t shopping at the time. It was a period of my life when I spent my time as one of the walking dead. I worked by day and went home to my parents home, bored and wishing I was anywhere else. School was out for the summer so I wasn’t seeing anyone I knew. But having left school after my freshman year to go back to Long Island to work and figure out what I wanted to do with my life, all I wanted now was to get my degree, go off on my own, and find a teaching job somewhere far away and hopefully interesting. I didn’t want to live at home with my parents and never dreamed I would find love in the mountains of Vermont.

Oh, Darn. There isn’t enough room here to tell you what happened next, because the love hadn’t started yet. So you’ll just have to wait until next week to find out how our first date worked out and how a VW bus full of kids helped me find the love of my life.

In the meantime, you can talk amongst yourselves, share how you met the loves of your lives, and begin writing your own story. It’s important to do that … everyone wants to know about it, especially your kids and grandkids! 🙂

Oh, and forgive my use of current photos.  After searching through many boxes I discovered that Bill and I weren’t using cameras very much at that time.  

If You See Something, Say Something

up on the High Line in New York City.  Beauty amidst the crush of a big city.

Up on the High Line in New York City. Beauty amidst the crush of a big, sometimes dark city.

It’s 6:30 on a hot and humid August morning. My dogs, Sam and Max, are anxious to get back home, where Bill has their breakfast mixed and waiting for them. They’ve taken care of their “business” and I’m now awake and sweaty after a brisk walk and just as happy that in a few minutes I’ll be back in my air-conditioned abode.

As I turn the corner toward home I notice an old car parked facing out into the street in a driveway to my left. I don’t know the people who live there, but I walk these streets every day and have never seen this aged, black Volvo station wagon before. As I get closer I see its dings and dents, and someone sitting in the drivers seat. The car isn’t parked next to the other cars much further up the driveway and close to the house. This one sits right at the edge of the road as if it’s ready to make a quick get-a-way.

I live in one of Charlottesville’s oldest and most beautiful neighborhoods. The streets are lined with stately tree and in the spring the yards are filled with a riot of color with azaleas, forsythia, Chinese magnolia, dogwood, redbuds, and cherry trees blooming one right after another. Most, if not everyone who lives here feels safe and loves our little community here in the gulch, tucked between several hills.

It’s a 1950’s kind of of a neighborhood. When they’re not in school kids of all ages are out playing together, riding bikes, or shooting baskets without being looked after by overly doting parents. Occasionally a police van drives slowly through the area and though we hear of an occasional nearby car break-in, we who live here, are trusting and don’t live in fear.

This morning there is no one else about except that person in the car. The sun is up and the birds are singing, but it seems that most people are still sacked out or sipping coffee as they read the morning paper. I wonder who that person is in that car and what his business is.

As I pass in front of the car, I notice what looks like the long barrel of a rifle pointing out into the street from the front passenger seat. But I think nothing of it … until I’m about to turn the next corner and begin to feel a rush of adrenalin coursing through my body. I run home, dragging the dogs behind me, who now if they had their way, would stop to sniff every blade of grass we pass.

I tell Bill about what I saw. He says we should call the police, but we look at each other and agree that there must be a rational explanation for the car, the man, and the “rifle.” We’re both thinking, Bad things just don’t happen here.

Brave and brazen, Bill decides to drive around the block to see what’s up. When he returns a few minutes later, he comes in smiling. He tells me that when he drove by the scene of what I now think was all my imagination, the man was out of his car, unloading tree trimming tools. The gun barrel I saw was a long pole he was about to use to trim the neighbors trees.

I was relieved but still distressed and shaken to my core. I’ve suddenly seen my own neighborhood in the shadow of the violence that seems to fill the headlines on a daily basis in this country. That we live in a time when we must be continuously reminded that if we see something suspicious, we must say something, is nothing short of discouraging and often depresses me.

Whether we know it or not, we live in two worlds; the world of home and community where we feel comfortable and safe, and the world we read about or view on tv, in which innocent children and every day good citizens, some whose jobs are to protect us, are shot down for no reason at all. And we can’t always be sure which world we’re in during any given moment.

Had we called the police about the tree trimmer, how would I have felt to learn that he was just an innocent man, getting ready to do his job, but first having a smoke and finishing the last drops of his morning coffee before unloading his tools? I would have felt like a jerk and been kicking myself in the butt.

But how would I have felt if someone in my neighborhood was shot and killed because I never reported what I saw to the police, refusing to believe that bad things could ever happen here?

I know horrific events can and do happen anywhere. And yes, we must say something if we see something that disturbs us and could be harmful to ourselves and other people. It is always better to be safe than sorry.

But constantly being on guard and ready to speak out about the things that frighten or anger us, can make our days darker and our anxiety levels sky rocket.

Perhaps we could grow our awareness, our sense of reality, and stem the tide of anxiety and depression if we also spoke out about the beautiful things we see around us.

Perhaps if the next time we witness an awe inspiring sunset or a person doing good deeds benefiting all creatures and point it out to everyone around us, we can spread the notion that indeed we live in a wonderful world. By sharing the goodness as well as the badness, we can all be happier and live more fulfilling lives. Reality is both frightfully horrible and outrageously wonderful.

We can soften the blow of the horrible by recognizing the beauty that surrounds us.

Graduation And Remembering A Life

The Daily Progress, May 18, 2015

The Daily Progress, May 18, 2015

This past weekend the University of Virginia held its 186th commencement. There were 18,000 folding chairs set up outside on the lawn for well over 6,000 graduates and their loved ones. The university expected some 35,000 people to be on grounds for this festive event. The rain respectfully held off until late afternoon.

Graduation weekend here in ole C’ville is always a big deal. When first year students come to UVA, their parents often make hotel reservations for their kid’s graduation, four years away. They may also make reservations for their celebration meal at one of the areas outstanding restaurants, making it impossible for those who live here to go out to dinner, never mind finding a parking place anywhere in town.

On Sunday, I observed a parade of cars towing U-Haul trailers leave town, and was forced to remember my own graduation from college many years ago and what commencement out into the world meant to me.

Most dictionaries define graduation as a time when you have completed your education and receive a degree. I’ll add that it’s supposed to prove you have done your work, and are ready to take on the world. It also means letting go of a whole lot of things. You’re suddenly a grown up and it’s time to leave behind your teddy bear, blanky, and all of your other childhood pacifiers. What you hopefully get is a job and the ability to live your own life away from the rules and regulations of family and University.

I’ve been through two graduation ceremonies. The first was in 1960, when I graduated from Northport High School, on Long Island, and then again in 1965, when I graduated from Castleton State College, in Vermont. Yes, it took me five years to finish up because I took a year off and went back to New York to work and figure out what I really wanted to do with my life.

During this memory-fest, I thought about how we will all one day graduate from The School of Life. Along the way there are no paper degrees that we can hang on the wall when we commence from one step to the next.

My mind traveled to other events in my life that marked times of letting go and moving to the next step. I took two steps at a time when I got married one week after graduating from college. In 1967 I gave birth to my first child, and commenced from being childless to being a mother. Gone were the days of sleeping in, having privacy in the bathroom, and being able to do whatever I wanted to do, whenever I wanted to do it. Instead there were sweet hugs and kisses, and the thrill of watching my own children learn and grow.

When my kids had their own graduation ceremonies and moved out into the world, I was left with an emptiness I found hard to get over. I missed their mischief, their quiet presence when everyone was at home, safe and sound, and even the doors slamming when I said something they thought inappropriate. I took on worry, wondering where they were and what they were doing, until I slowly and gloriously realized that I was my own person and able to move about as I pleased.

When Lisa gave birth to Zoe, the word “grandmother” slipped into my vocabulary. Though I loved little Zoe to bits, I complained that I was too young for that. I didn’t want anyone calling me grandma, granny, grammy, nana, or ma-maw. A grandchild meant I was getting old. But I was in complete denial about aging. I finally caved when Zoe began calling me “Batty,” of her own accord. I took solace in the idea that this adorable little girl “got me.” We must have been together in a former lifetime.

Now Zoe is a teen. She’ll be fifteen and a sophomore in high school this coming fall, and already thinks she knows where she wants to go to college. She’s learning how to drive and will get her learners permit sometime in the near future.

So guess what that means? I AM old. My days are numbered and as Lisa used to say whenever I told her what to do during her terrible twos, “No, I don wanna.”

I’m seventy-two. I will have been married to the love of my life for fifty years on June 19th, and will have graduated from college fifty years ago, on June 12th.

Where has the time gone and where was I during all those happenings? I honestly have to say, I don’t know. It just all slipped by when I wasn’t looking.

I suppose my next and final graduation could happen any day now. But so far I’m feeling pretty good and trying not to complain too much about having difficulty getting up off the floor after a yoga session, or falling asleep before it’s bedtime. For now I’m going to pretend I’m fifty again. That’s when I really started figuring things out and began wanting to live life to the fullest.

I watch as new wrinkles take over my face and watch others my age retire to rocking chairs. I want to keep on going, full steam ahead. I figure that if I allow myself to accept those changes and find newness in my oldness, I’ll do fine.

How do you see it? What does graduation mean to you? What about aging?