PLATITUDES

The longer I live, the more my head gets filled with platitudes. Some of them are useful to me and others make no sense. I've never understood the following, for example: Reach for the Stars. Being a relatively cautious and logical person, I know, concretely, it is impossible for me to reach a star and thus do not attempt what I am convinced will be impossible. Keep your face in the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows I've always found the trick to life is to find a way out of the shadows when you can't see the sunshine. A light box works well for me in that literal situation of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Dance like nobody's watching. Lastly, why would I dance as if no one is watching. If I feel like dancing do I really care whether someone is watching or not?

There are some are good rules, like: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Another I find useful is: The way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Some are just good quotes to keep in mind, such as: I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires, or another Susan B Anthony quote: Independence is happiness.

Not unlike many others who like to think about and solve problems, I love this Joseph Barbera quote: That's what keeps me going: dreaming, inventing, then hoping and dreaming some more in order to keep dreaming. Barbera also said, “Creating fantasy is a very personal thing, but you can’t take the process too personally” Platitudes, quotes, or any mnemonics I use to keep my mind aware of the rules that work for me is what keeps me functioning. When I tire of a senior repeating himself, perhaps trying to prove himself still of worth to the world, I remember my mother saying, quietly, in Greek, when my father repeated himself endlessly: Listen to an old man's words, not his flatulence. Another pithy quote from an unknown: (1)Everything depends. (2) Nothing is always (3) Everything is sometimes.

I do not pet strange dogs nor walk between a dog and a hydrant or tree. I do not wrestle with pigs in their home space or sty. Having gained adulthood, I no longer try to be center stage at all times. Once I learned the definition of infirmary, I try to stay out of them. I sleep when I am sleepy, even though it may mean waking up and finding my nose on the computer keyboard. I try to maintain a sense of humor through it all. From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere. (Dr. Seuss)

LOCAL SIGNS OF GLOBAL WARMING

Regardless of whether global warming is a natural cycle or not, there is every indication that humanity is hastening it by its bad habits on the environment. One of my favorite cartoons is of a father and son walking in the snow. The boy is as tall as his father's waist and the snow is just under his nose. The father is saying, "It doesn't snow like it used to when I was a boy." He makes a gesture passing his hand under his nose and states, "When I was a boy it snowed up to here."

When I was a child, snow started in the fall, early, and was high enough that we could make tunnels in it. In the past 50 years I have seen it deep enough to tunnel in only twice and that was almost 30 years ago in the blizzard of '78. Labor day was the day we put summer clothes away because we knew it would soon frost and all annual vegetation would be dead one morning soon. Our first freezing frost in now coming in November. As of today, the maple trees in my back yard have green leaves on one variety and yellow leaves on another, still on the branches. This did not happen before in my recall. My Impatiens finally went to its parallel universe and the blooms left my garden just a week or more ago. While it is lovely to be warmer and wear lighter clothing, and I love not having the freezing winters with which I grew up. There is a reason for it that many politicians seem not to want to hear.

In freezing temperatures, my Great Laurel closes its leaves up so that it looks like each whorl is hugging itself to keep warm. I was surprised last winter to see how seldom that happened. Even the burning bush (usually ablaze by this time of year) has not yet turned red all over. If these signs are in my limited cosmos, what about the pictures of glaciers I flew over in 1989 that are totally gone near Juneau? Today it is quite a different sight. The frozen past is almost gone.

Meanwhile, the short-sighted think it is a blessing with heating prices so high. 200 billion catalogs are mailed in the US each year. Environmentally that is like adding another 200 million cars on the road. I should think that companies could save a lot of money if catalogs were mostly online, or requested, since only about 1 1/2 % (if they are lucky) draw sales. We, the buyers, pay for all these catalogs, many of which land in the trash without even being opened. Think of the trees that would be saved, the more oxygen returned to the atmosphere and the more carbon dioxide being sucked up.

Oh well, as long as there are easily duped people in our world, things will go on as they have been for the past few years, downhill fast!

MY SPACE

Many friends put pictures of meaningful events in their lives on their walls . Others have every horizontal and vertical surface covered with framed images of their loved ones at all ages and rites. People decorate their spaces or hold onto the memories that make up their lives in their own personal ways. However, there are friends' homes that make me feel 'at home' and there are those that clearly say 'you can't get comfortable here.'

Just as I used to be able to figure out the clientèle in a bar by looking at the bottles the bartender had behind him, I now like to play games about the kind of people who live in any particular space. My space is filled and I have conceded that it always will be. A barren house is like a barren mind to me. I love the stimulation of things to be read all around me. Most of the pictures on the wall are original art, a couple are prints or photographs but not of relatives (with two exceptions, my parents' wedding picture in 1910, and a pastel portrait done of my now deceased husband, when he was 4 years old). The piano always invites me to sit down and play a bit as I pass it.

I have a shadow box with tiny shelves holding souvenirs from some of my trips and gifts from others, like the little glassed-in princess my son brought back from the United Nations school trip when he was nine, or the lovely sounding 3" tall brass bell, on a handle, a friend brought me from Venice 55 years ago. When I sit in my patient-office chair, I can glance at that shelf of miniatures and feel years of my happy life pouring comforting feelings back into me. My eye wanders to a Near Eastern coffee pot from a dear friend; a barometer in a box built by one of my sons; a clock that chimes, built by my husband in the cherry wood he loved so much; an antique Chelsea clock that rings nautical bells, given to me by my father-in-law in appreciation for my having given him a 'talking' clock when he was legally blind over 23 years ago; and so many reminders of the beauty and creativity in this world. There are painted tiles from Greece; copper Gods from Japan (brought back in 1949 by my sister); dragons from India, given by my grandson on his trip last year, and so many other 'things' that represent people and their caring to and for me. With all this surrounding me, I do not feel lonely.

Have you ever looked around your own space with the thought of what it says to you? Have you considered what you want it to say? Are you comfortable in your space, mentally and physically? Are you welcoming people into it or are people uninvited until it is clean or picked up? If I waited for that no would ever step over my threshold! My space is clean but rarely 'picked up' because there is no place to put all the stuff that is there. Thus, people are welcomed to accept me as I am. My guests are welcome to make themselves at home here. I'm never sure that is easy for people who are used to order in their lives. I know how difficult it is for me to feel at home in someone else's space. Nevertheless, as long as people don't destroy things or hide them, it is fine with me.

My space, in fact, is my life. I have no desire to leave it other than necessity. Everything I want in life is here...my toys, my memorabilia, my hobbies, my entertainment, my bed, my toothbrush, and all other comforts. Do you to feel the same about your space?

NEW LANGUAGES

We have all heard that identical twins have sometimes made up a language of their own which totally separates them as a unit distinct from all others. Apparently there are lots of made-up
languages. I always knew that I was raised bi-lingually but learned only a few years ago that I was 'tri-lingual'. Apparently when my parents and all their parents and peers came to the USA at the turn of the century a hundred or more years ago, there was no communication with their motherland. Media was not instantly international, radio was not common, TV not yet invented, and the Internet not even a vague hope. One might wonder what happens to a group of people for whom there is no word for things like car (which became 'caro' with a rolled r), airport which became 'aeroporo'. In fact, the word for car is autokinito..pronounced afftokeeneeto (literally meaning 'goes by itself') and airport, actually aerodromio, pronounced ah-erro-thromeeo (meaning air road).

Greeks who went to visit Greece in post WWII found that they were difficult to understand in what they thought was a native tongue. My brother, cousin and I had fun compiling a Fractured Greek dictionary, grown to several pages long over the years. There are almost enough words to make an entire new language. That language will die a natural death with the current survivors of that immigrant group.

Another facet to languages is that words can not be easily translated. For example, when I tried to tell a cousin in Athens that I was only window shopping, she looked at me with a very strange glance. I later learned I had told her I only buy window glass. The concept of window shopping is entirely different. When shops have windows, they pay more rent. There is a term for it...shopping 'vitrina'. That means you look at the store that has a window display, check the price and go to a store without a window and but it there at a lesser price.

Words and languages are wonderful. There are so many concepts that can't be translated from one language to another. Yiddish Chutzpah is one of my favorites. It is subtly different than any of the English words that people try to use for it, like nerve, gall, etc. I guess it takes a bit of Chutzpah to write a blog and think that anyone out there really cares to read it.

DENIAL

I've never mastered the fine art of denial in the face of reality. I think that gene is missing from my genome. I know that I will not look any better if I never look in a mirror again nor will I ever see a 21 year old look back at me if I do. I learned that buying a smaller size of clothing will not make me lose weight. Nor will I lose weight by paying for a gym which I seldom frequent. Not putting away my summer clothes will not prolong the season, and not bringing out the winter clothes will never hold the cold at bay. Weight will not slide off of me as long as I say, "I'll just eat this goodie just this once" (only it is a new goodie every day). I know if I go through life telling everyone what I think they want to hear...they will just grow to mistrust me, not like me more.

Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person is faced with a fact that is too painful to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite any overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It can work to 'save' people from unbearable painful facts, or it can cause great harm by lulling people when they should be taking action.

Lacking the denial gene was worse when I used to be compelled to tell people what I saw as the truth. Truth, I now know, is in the eyes of the believer. Telling people that which they are denying goes nowhere, but has frustrated me greatly in the past. When I learned to live in my own skin it became easier to ignore denial in other people. I learned to trust myself and my own judgment and leave others to their reality or denial, whichever worked for them.

Many of us may know someone who continues to deny that a loved one is dying. 'Miracles happen, you know" is a frequent part of that. Undiagnosed symptoms send me right to the doctor. Denial of an illness can rob someone of the opportunity for cure. Whoever wrote: "Denial is not a river in Egypt" had the right take on it. Denial is real and harmful to the deniers and all those around them.

IN THE INTEREST OF RESEARCH

Today I sold two hours of the remainder of my life for the grand sum of ten American dollars. We, the participants, were all visually and behaviorally seniors. The student who planned to write a thesis on the ultimate results of this study is probably paying for college by writing technical manuals, his unclear instructions fit the profile. We were shown video pictures, from 1 to 7 seconds, of a woman smiling (sometimes grimacing) and asked to rate whether the smile was spontaneous of posed. Since the same face might have been shown in succession, most of us (at some time) lost our place and asked that the researcher occasionally call out the line we were on. He did that...in 75 or more pictures he called out once, and then only when asked, proving that he listened to instructions as accurately as he gave them.

He seemed not to have grasped the requests from the first half and repeated in the same way. This time I realized I had lost my place when I was distracted by something, saw the same face and expression, thinking I had already seen it, and went off by one in successive answers until I asked what number we were on. The second portion was to rate the intensity of the smiles. It became clear that people were losing their place frequently. I can't imagine that any of us under those circumstances were even worth the $10.

Trying to figure out in a second whether a smile was spontaneous or posed is quite a challenge. It made me wonder what cues I use to decide. Length of time spent changing from smile to straight was one, eyes matching the smile or not was another. When someone's shoulders moved in laughter, I assumed that also was not posed. Glancing around me I instantly knew why it is so easy to misinterpret facial expressions. I suppose that makes life much harder for the hearing challenged. Online, not seeing the facial expression loads the opposite handicap. Thus emoticons were invented, though some people refuse to use them and then get angry when people don't realize they are joking.

Emotionless expressions on comedians make the absurd more intense. Clinically depressed people show little facial expression and often tell me they can't feel emotion. Context is missing in those pictures shown. I somehow doubt this student will end up with a Nobel prize and can only wish a passing grade for him. However, I asked for a copy of the results because I can't believe that what I saw and heard will end up with believable conclusions.

The Beyond Bezel Workshop

Writing a blog gets to be part of a daily routine...for me, anyway. The past three days have been totally fun with no time to even think about a subject for blog eyes only. I've been at a workshop to understand something I have been doing incorrectly for years...no wonder I was frustrated every time I worked at making bezels in jewelry ( as in setting stones). For two days, John Cogswell, the person teaching the course shared knowledge it took him 40 years to develop and he gave much of a tiny area of it to 12 of us in a couple of days. Iyt looked easy when he demonstrated until I tried to do it. Instantly my other nine fingers turn into thumbs. Nevertheless, I have hope that practice will one day allow me to say, "I made that.", with pride instead of having to mumble that I'm just learning. One day someone will catch on that I am still 'practicing' the pay job I've had my whole life and 'just learning' the hobby I've had for 10 years.

Some people never share what they have learned. They give a recipe with a critical ingredient left out so that yours will never taste the same or as good. One maker of jewelry refuses to teach because then she would not be in total command of a technique she will probably die of old age before a pupil could master her technique as she has. My mother used to try to teach me to cook with 'knead the dough until it feels right' but the elusive 'right' was never explained. It took hours to get to the criteria she used to use to know it was right, it seemed so natural to her. I've often wondered whether that will ever happen for me, convinced that it won't.

Always fearful that I will forget something, I take copious notes. The writing of them, and consequent reading as I write, puts the information into my brain in deeper storage than just hearing it or watching processes does. The good part is that I can re-read my notes to prepare for the 'someday when I get time to do this again' mantra that echoes in my head.