Rejecting My Former Self

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Coming East

Interviewer: Let’s see here, Mrs. Okaty. You are applying for the job of mother. What experience have you had?

Former Self: None, Sir, but how hard can it be? I mean, we’re so much bigger than they are, right?

Interviewer: You would think, but actually, size doesn’t seem to matter. What qualifications do you have?

Former Self: Well…I have a college education, majored in English and minored in Anthropology. I can discuss the differences between austrolopithecus afarensis and australopithecus africanus. Oh, and I can quote nearly the entire introduction to Chaucer‘s  Canterbury Tales, in Middle English, no less. Would you like to hear me?

Interviewer: No, I’ll take your word for it. I’m sure those skills will come in very handy.  You’ll make your children, should we decide to give you any, very proud.

Former Self: Do I detect a hint of sarcasm there?

Interviewer: Let’s move on, shall we? How do you intend to pay for these children?

Former Self: Doesn’t the hospital take credit cards?

Interviewer: Ma’am, I’m talking about after the hospital. How will you financially provide for these children?

Former Self: Um…is this a trick question? I mean we have parents who will help. Haven’t you ever heard of grandparents? Duh!

Interviewer: Mrs. Okaty, I think you’re missing the point here. These are supposed to be your children, not your parents’ children. They will be totally your responsibility. No one else’s. Yours. Alone. Totally.

Former Self: …You mean forever?

Interviewer: Well, it might seem like forever, but your actual responsibility will end when they turn eighteen.

Former Self: That’s only five years younger than I am now and I feel pretty old already.

Interviewer: Believe me, you’ll feel a lot older before you know it.

Former Self: Jeez, I feel like I’m failing this interview and we really want those kids. I think they’d be kind of fun to play with.

Interviewer: Play with? I’m sorry. I thought you were interviewing for parenthood, not puppy adoption. Don’t worry Mrs. Okaty, all the other prospective parents don’t come in here any more prepared then you are. I don’t know why the Big Guy upstairs insists on these interviews. They’re really just a formality. I guess He’s hoping that some of you young people will realize how serious this parenting business is and plan a little better before you take the plunge. There’s no turning back, you know.

Former Self: So when my father said you could give them back before their third birthday, he was just kidding? Well, it’s good to hear that not many of us get rejected. I was beginning to worry. I’m not getting any younger and I want to get started on my brood so I can fit them all in.

Interviewer: Fit them all in? How many are you planning on having?

Former Self: Three. One of each, as my husband says…Don’t look so horrified. That’s a joke. You people don’t laugh much, do you?

Interviewer: Oh, we laugh more than you think. And the joke’s on you.

Former Self: I’m sorry, you were mumbling. Could you repeat that last part?

Interviewer: I said you are approved. Enjoy your life.

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It’s a Long Way Until November, and I’m Steaming Already

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Coming East

I wrote a post Sunday that I intended to publish this morning, but I thought I’d run it by my husband first before I hit the publish button. I usually don’t do that, but because this one was political in nature, I wanted to get my husband’s opinion. He said it was right on. He agreed with everything I wrote. Then he advised me not to post it. I reluctantly hit the trash button.

The fact that I even asked my husband’s advice means I already had doubts about the post. My husband said maybe I could rewrite it and leave out the politician’s name I was railing against. If I did that, the post would have been meaningless because it was the message of this particular candidate that made me so angry. I had to include his quotes, and then you would know who I was writing about. My blog posts have mostly been non-partisan, and changing now might alienate some of my readers and change the nature of my blog.  So I chose to delete the post.

I don’t want to leave it alone until I at least say this: People can always find ammunition to support their beliefs, even using the Bible. What makes me very uneasy is when the person promoting those beliefs tries to make me think that his beliefs trump my beliefs because he operates on a morally superior plane. Beware of candidates who claim that their faith is the one sanctioned by God, and anyone who disagrees with them is not practicing the right brand of religion.

Mahatma Gandhi  said, “I like your Christ.  I do not like your Christians.  Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” How sad is that?  And also how true.  This is not a government for Christians only. Even if we are a country of mostly Christian people, the tyranny of the majority is not what we are about. Sadly, even some Christians want to promote their brand of religion over other Christians, as if they have an “in” with God that those of us who disagree with them obviously don’t have. Good, moral people exist who practice many brands of faith or no faith at all except their faith in their fellow man, and they are fully capable of leading our nation. So when I hear a sanctimonious candidate promote his religious beliefs as what is best for everybody in our nation, that’s one person I will be steering clear of.

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My Anti-Bucket List

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Coming East

I do not have a bucket list. I can’t think of anything at the moment that I must do before I kick that old bucket. I always wanted to see whales out in the ocean, and I did that a few years ago, so I’m content. Besides, at my age, some of the things that were once on my bucket list are unattainable now. For example, I was an anthropology minor in college. I wanted to major in it, but my father thought I should major in something that would get me a job. So I majored in English. My engineer father didn’t see the difference. Anyway, I always wanted to go on a dig in Africa with Dr. Louis Leaky. Ain’t going to happen. I’m too old, and perhaps more importantly, Dr. Leaky has been dead for forty years.

Yesterday I was reading a blog that mentioned a writing prompt about making a reverse bucket list. In other words, make a list of the things you don’t ever want to do. That’s much easier. Several things come to mind immediately. For one, bungee jumping. The idea of jumping off a bridge with a giant elastic band tied to your ankles and dangling upside down over a raging river is not my idea of fun. I know, call me crazy.

Camping would be another thing on my anti-bucket list. I know many of you fellow bloggers would relish a camping trip to the Grand Tetons or the Appalachian Trail, putting up your tent and cooking over a campfire, but my idea of roughing it is staying in a hotel without a sleep number bed and no USA Today left outside my door. I love the Great Outdoors, but when nighttime begins to fall, I want to be back in the Great Indoors. You know, the one with an actual bathroom?

I once thought I wanted a Volkswagon Karmann Ghia, but besides the fact that they haven’t been made in nearly forty years, I’ve outgrown my desire for a little sports car. I’m a little claustrophobic, I don’t like speed, I don’t like to ride low to the ground, and getting in and out of those little cars with my old knees and hips is downright painful. I would prefer a fully loaded Buick LaCrosse ( actually, I’d prefer a Mercedes CLS63, but my son-in-law is an engineer with General Motors, so I want to appear to be a good mother-in-law).

What are some of the things you would never want to do?

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The Story of our Lives

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Coming East

Last year my husband bought me volume one of Mark Twain’s autobiography, a book of 736 pages in small type.  Two more volumes are forthcoming.  Most everybody knows that Mark Twain refused to have his autobiography published until 100 years after his death.  One reason was because he didn’t want to offend anyone still living, so he said.  The other reason was because he didn’t think it was even possible to capture his life in words.  He wrote:

 “What a wee little part of a person’s life are his acts and his words!  His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself.  All day long, and every day, the mill of his brain is grinding, and his thoughts, (which are but the mute articulation of his feelings) not those other things, are his history…These are his life, and they are not written, and cannot be written.”

How can we tell the story of our life except through our own interpretation, and doesn’t that interpretation keep changing?  So many events are lost to me, and the ones I remember look different each time I think of them, as if I’m seeing them through different lenses.  Yet each time they seem so real, as if I were living them again.  I understand what Mark Twain meant when he wrote about his life on the farm:

“I can call back the solemn twilight and mystery of the deep woods, the earthy smells, the faint odors of the wild flowers, the sheen of rain-washed foliage, the rattling clatter of drops when the wind shook the trees, the far-off hammering wood-peckers and the muffled drumming of wood pheasants in the remotenesses of the forest, the snap-shot glimpses of disturbed wild creatures skurrying through the grass,—I can call it all back and make it as real as it ever was, and as blessed.”

I have only to close my eyes and I am in my grandmother’s kitchen again on East 98th street in Manhattan, sitting at the table as she brought me a soft-boiled egg with a pat of butter in the cracked white egg cup.  I can hear the horns honking and the sirens screaming, I can smell the steamy pavement and feel the stillness of the summer air as I hung out the window and watched the traffic.  Yes, I can bring it all back to me, but I cannot write so you can see it the way I see it because it goes beyond words.  The feelings of my life are my story, are my history.

I have this picture of my mother when she was about the age my daughter is now.  My father captured her in a pensive moment early one morning as she sat by the window in her robe.  I wonder what she was thinking?  Her expression makes me think that she was deep in thought about her life.  I wonder how she interpreted that life?  What history was she writing in her thoughts and feelings?  We think we know the story of a person’s life, but we only know some facts, and even  those can’t be trusted.  History without feelings is empty.

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning Didn’t Have a Lock on Love Letters

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Coming East

Perhaps the most widely quoted love letter is Elizabeth Barrett Browning‘s “How Do I Love Thee” which she wrote to her husband, Robert, but there have been many more outstanding ones that were never made public. I’m here to remedy that with a few excerpts from some of the more memorable ones.

“My Dearest Baby Love…” This is how my grandmother started a letter to my grandfather when she was away from him while visiting her parents. They hadn’t been married very long, no kids yet, so it had to be early in the 1920’s. She ends the letter by signing, “Forever your Sweetheart Love.”. I’d give you the in- between stuff, but out of respect to my grandparents, I think I’d better keep it private. Let me just say that it is incredibly sweet and touching.

My father begins a letter to my mother, “My Darling Wife, the days go by, but each one leaves me empty without you…”. He ends it with, “Remember, I’ll be loving you always.” It is a letter from the war years when he was in the South Pacific and my mother was in Dayton, Ohio. Again, out of respect to my parents, I cannot share the contents of these love letters, but let me tell you that they leave you with a sigh  and more than a tear or two.

And now to my own true love. My favorite “love letter” is one which I received when we were both in college.  It arrived by “air mail” in the form of a paper airplane that sailed across my husband’s dormitory room as he sat at his desk and I sat on his bed.   I was studying my anthropology, and he was studying me. He wrote, “I’m madly in love with you and am dying to give you a big giant kiss and hug this very instant but can’t because you are studying and the door is open.” Um…out of respect to my children, I think I’ll keep the rest private…

I’ll leave you with another great love poem, Robert Burns‘s “My luv is like a red, red rose,” set to music and sung so tenderly by Eva Cassidy.

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Sharing the Joy

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Coming East

On this cold winter Monday morning, after reading Anne Sexton‘s poem “Welcome Morning,” I thought of all the things I could find joy in. I found it in the sweet morning kisses of my husband. I found it while sitting over a cup of morning tea and homemade toast with him before he went off to work. I found it in birdsong and sun in my courtyard. I found it in the steamy shower I took after breakfast, and the feel of the warm wool socks I got for Christmas as I put them on my cold feet. As Anne Sexton wrote, “There is joy in all.”

Unfortunately, Anne Sexton was not able to keep that joy in mind. She suffered depression all of her adult life and committed suicide when she was in her forties. I thought about Whitney Houston, too, as I read that poem. Though we do not know the cause of her death, we know she led a troubled life. Happy people do not take drugs. Some people will say that she was a victim of her own bad choices. That may be true, but no one chooses unhappiness. It just seems to follow some all their lives.

All of us have experienced, or will experience, depression. No one escapes it, no matter how charmed one’s life seems to be. The loss of a friend or a loved one, the loss of a job, the children all leaving home (though there is joy in this, too, especially if they are in a good place in their lives), and the other vicissitudes of life, bring us moments of sadness and sometimes despair. Fortunately, for most of us, these times are short-lived. Imagine, however, those sad days going on and on with only brief moments of reprieve. Until we have walked in someone else’s shoes, we have no business judging. We do not know what masks people are hiding behind.

Anne Sexton ended her poem by writing, “The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard, dies young.” So I’m sharing this with you and hope you will find joy this day.

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Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Target

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Coming East

If my husband were to clean the house, he would be finished in two hours, and it would look like it had been cleaned. I, on the other hand, could work on it all day and you wouldn’t know I’d touched a thing. That’s because every time I start, I find a drawer or a closet or a pantry that seems cluttered, and I have to run to Target immediately to remedy the situation. I can’t stand clutter. Surely Target will have some container or closet organizer, or drawer divider that would make things better.

After the trip to Target, I need to spend time sorting things, making a pile to go to Salvation Army, which naturally leads me to go through all the closets for more things for Salvation Army, and don’t you know it, my cabinet with all the plastic wraps and foils is a mess, and now that I think of it, my spices keep falling out of the cupboard every time I open the door, and doesn’t Target have a turntable that would solve that problem?

When my husband comes home and looks around, he scratches his head and thinks, “I thought she said she was going to clean the house today,” but he doesn’t voice this because he is one heck of a smart guy. Eventually, though, he sees what I’ve been up to when he opens a drawer and things don’t fall out, or he walks into our bedroom closet and he sees all the shoes sitting neatly on a shoe shelf instead of scattered across the closet floor. “Been to Target?”  He know me well.

I thought about the difference between men and women last night when one of my sons called me. I had sent him a text yesterday morning, asking him if he could use a file cabinet I didn’t want anymore. “Thanks, Mom, but I don’t think we really need one.” The gasp in the background was loud and clear as my daughter-in-law said, “Yes, we want a file cabinet! We have stacks of papers all over the place. A file cabinet would be great!” A girl after my own heart. My son got back on the phone. “Yes, Mom, apparently we do need that file cabinet.” A woman knows.

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It’s For Your Own Good

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Coming East

My husband has been lusting after a pair of pewter oil lamps he saw awhile ago at the Shirley Pewter Shop in Williamsburg, Virginia. We make the hour drive to Williamsburg about every other month, just to get out of town for a few hours, and no visit is complete unless we’ve made a stop to see his oil lamps.  I suggested that we buy each other those lamps as an anniversary present to each other. My husband was so excited, he was like a little kid. He couldn’t wait to get them, so we stopped in Williamsburg on our way back from our anniversary trip to D.C.

The pewter shop was temporarily out of the lamp oil needed to burn the lamps, but they told us we should be able to get it at any hardware store. On the way home we stopped at Lowes, a big-name hardware store chain, and went looking for the oil. None was to be found. We asked one of the store personnel, and she told us that they had taken all the lamp oil off the shelves and would not be selling it anymore. “Why?” I asked. Her reply stunned us.

“It’s too dangerous. People light oil lamps and forget to blow them out and they could start fires. All the big chains have stopped carrying lamp oil. You won’t find any at Home Depot, Target, WalMart, or any other of the big chains.”

Standing in a store that sells power tools, we were being told that we couldn’t buy lamp oil because we might not be careful and set our house on fire. But we could feel free to buy an $800 multi-cutter table saw that could chop us into little pieces. Would they be coming to our house to make sure we were wearing our safety goggles?

Lowes also sells gas stoves. What if someone leaves the stove on? Couldn’t that burn down the house? Maybe they should stop selling stoves. Stop selling bathtubs. You could fall asleep and drown. Obviously, candles should be done away with, too. You can have a romantic flashlight dinner instead. I’m so glad Lowes is looking out for my well-being since I’m too careless to do it myself.

We got back in the car feeling a little panicky. Our beautiful oil lamps. What good were they without lamp oil? We decided to try Taylor’s Do It Center, a little hardware store close to our house, just in case they hadn’t gotten the memo that consumers are not to be trusted to look out for themselves. They not only had the brand we needed, they had another brand as well, and they had both brands in multiple sizes. Clearly, they don’t care about us.

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Will Love Conquer All?

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Coming East

Yesterday morning I read of an HBO documentary about the fight to end the ban on interracial marriage. A young couple who fell in love in Virginia in the late 1950’s could not marry because Virginia was a state that banned marriage between couples of different races. They traveled to Washington, D.C., to marry but were arrested as soon as they returned to Virginia. They fought the law, and in 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned it. The reason Virginia banned interracial marriage in the first place was that the majority of the voters believed that marriage between races was an abomination in the eyes of God.  Believe it or not, there are a good number of people today who still think it is wrong.  You will never change some people’s minds.

Yesterday’s article naturally led me to think about the issue of gay marriage and it’s ban in most of the country. I know race and sex are two different things, but I can’t help but wonder when it comes to love, why are so many people against allowing two people in love to marry each other if they are of the same sex? This troubles my heart so greatly that I can’t keep silent. Life is hard enough. Why do we have to make it harder for some people?

I’m all about love. If you’re lucky enough to find it, then it needs to be protected. Why should people like Newt Gingrichget to decide that a loving couple cannot marry unless they are of opposite sexes? Is love more sacred between a man and a woman? So same sex couples having a loving and committed relationship is an abomination, but what people like Gingrich do, and quite a few evangelical ministers, I might add, such as cheating on their wives and being serial monogamists, is not?

One of the arguments proponents of the ban offer is that only marriage between a man and a woman can produce children, and we need to protect that. What about the thousands of people who produce offspring outside the bonds of marriage or the couples who marry who don’t want any children? How on earth does marriage between homosexuals hurt procreation? Some supporters of the ban also say that equal legal rights can be given without marriage. But there is something so special about marriage that nothing less is equal. Empty arguments, both of these reasons.

I do not believe the Bible is fact. I believe it is Truth, but the men who wrote it were bound by the knowlege of their times. They did not understand homosexuality as we do today. They believed it was a choice, not a part of who a person is. I don’t think it should matter anyway. If you are one of the people who think the Bible teaches homosexuality is wrong, I’m not trying to change your mind. You are entitled to your opinion. I’m just reminding you that the Bible is not the law of the land; the Constitution is. I hope that love wins out.

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Our Fabulous Weekend Getaway

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Coming East

I don’t know whatever possessed us to get married in February in Connecticut. Every time our anniversary rolls around, it’s too darn cold to do anything close by and too expensive to get far enough away to escape the cold. People sometimes ask us why we married in February, and my husband looks at them and says simply, “We had to.” When their jaws drop, he explains, “We had to because we were madly in love.” Well, we were definitely crazy.

Since we’ve had a fairly mild winter so far, we decided to celebrate our 40th anniversary by taking an extended weekend to Washington, D.C., less than four hours away. We left Friday morning and returned late Monday afternoon, but we packed a ton into those few short days. Saturday we spent six hours in the Newseum, and I could have spent more, but we stayed almost until closing as it was, and we had dinner reservations. This museum alone is worth the trip to Washington. Sunday we went to the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery of Art. Our hotel was on 14th Street NW, so we could walk everywhere. I walked my little legs off. We can’t wait to return because there is so much more to see. If you’ve never been or haven’t been in many, many years, consider treating yourself to a great getaway.

Occupy D.C. tents. The occupiers had a skirmish with the police early Saturday morning.

A piece of the Berlin Wall at the Newseum. This was on the West Side. The East Side portion was white, a reflection of the rigid regime the people in the East were under.

Inside the National Gallery of Art

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