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I am under the weather, which is difficult to be, since the weather is so low.
My mind was wandering, as it sometimes does, and it came to rest on a recent viewing on National Geographic or the Discovery Channel of a whale exploding on a flatbed truck in Taiwan. Totally disgusting. But of course, that made me curious and so I googled “exploding whale”. Lo and behold, I discovered that this is NOT the first time such a thing has happened (though it was a first for downtown Taiwan.) Back in 1970 on a beach in Oregon, they blew up a beached whale (it had already expired.) In fact, between 2001 and 2008, nine cases of exploding whales have been reported worldwide. You can find more information than you want at www.theExplodingWhale.com. Be warned – it can be pretty gross.
Big, fat, happy snowflakes are falling outside. As a follow-up to this morning’s post, I guess that’s one nice thing about winter.
Why is it that Pat gets defensive over any suggestion I make regardless of how I couch it, or what the topic is?
I bought myself a bouquet of stock earlier this week. It’s a lovely flower, mostly shades of purple and white, and wonderfully fragrant. I grew it in the garden once and was very proud of myself.
My feet are cold and I can’t warm them up. I should try my own suggestion of cayenne pepper in my socks. It seems a lot of old-timey remedies involved socks. (Like the sock full of hot salt for earaches.) Guess socks are one thing that pioneers always had?
There’s one damn Miller moth in my cottage. One. More than enough. One.
I am sick, queasy, and in the mood for ice-cold vodka – how freakish is that?
I miss my friend Diane. She’s like a big sister I’ve never met and I haven’t heard from her in months. I’m worried about her.
I would love to sleep for 24 hours. Sleep, nap, doze, nap. Whatever. Nap. Sigh.
Today is Cosmopolite’s Day, otherwise known as Shop ‘Til You Drop Day. It is also Pumpkin Day (in France) and Tube Top Day. So, for those of you who are so inclined, go ahead and shop your hearts out for pumpkins and tube tops – take a limo to get them! Indulge yourselves! Spend, spend, SPEND! Go ahead and spend money you don’t have on things you don’t need – after all, who deserves it more than YOU? (Did I mention it’s also Sarcastic Month? No? Go figure…)
Well, it’s the first day of winter. Isn’t it? It sure feels like it. It’s a day when you want to stay in bed and snuggle under the covers for the entire day and watch Elvis movies. While I’m not an Elvis fan, he actually wasn’t a bad actor, and his charm comes shining through in some roles. Did you know that his goal in life was to be an electrician and that he had a stillborn identical twin?
Anyway, it’s grey outside, windy, sleety. I left some laundry to dry overnight on the little patio and it’s wetter than when I set it out yesterday afternoon. I’m not ready yet! I need more summer! I’d even settle for more fall.
Perhaps this is a day to cultivate my appreciation for the winter weather – which would turn this into a full-on gratitude essay, and probably be good for my soul. Why I should be pleased about it when my hands are frozen and the sun is hidden. (Did you notice how subtly I slipped in that whine?) Let’s see…
OK, I’m drawing a blank here…perhaps I should turn the heat up.
Today’s poet — Mary Oliver
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice – – –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations – – –
though their melancholy
was terrible. It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice,
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do – – – determined to save
the only life you could save.
First things first – today is Mad Hatter Day. You probably haven’t heard about this holiday, but I love the concept. Read more about it here: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ari/madHatter.html. It’s a day for seeing how silly our reality actually is – and best of all, it originated right here in Boulder, Colorado.
Honoring the explorer in all of us, today is also Thor Heyerdahl’s birthday. I remember that E-Bro loved his books when we were young. Kon Tiki’s voyage was successfully recreated in 2006 on a raft christened Tangaroa, and Thor’s grandson was among the crew for that vessel, which I think is very cool.
How and at what age do we define our identity? Do we define it only once in our lives or many times over? I’m sure it differs for different people. Many of us fall into the trap of identifying ourselves by what we do – by what our work is. Losing that identity upon retirement may be a strong contributing factor in the phenomenon of people failing and dying soon after retirement. I can’t find any statistics to support this on a quick search, but anecdotally, we all know it happens. People whose identities are tied up in their work seem to lose purpose once they retire, and just fade away.
The same can be said of women who only view themselves as mothers. Perhaps I draw fire from some for doing a lot of things that focus on me, and not on Kelsea, but I am NOT just her mother. I am a person in my own right, with goals, dreams and an identity that I am trying to define in this stage of my life, an identity that is independent of anyone else. Being a mother, a worker, a writer, a photographer, all play into who I am as a whole, but I am not limited to one of those roles. It’s as if I am a self-contained melting pot. What an interesting concept. And to Kelsea’s benefit, it probably keeps me from smothering her and sets a good example for independence. (Maybe too good an example – we’ll see how the teenage years go.)
While you never stop being a mother, many women whose identities are completely enmeshed in maternal duties must experience a small death as their children become independent, and find themselves at a loss as to who they are and what they are supposed to do, which must put a strain on both the individual and the marriage (if it still exists).
So, with that said, does an identity need an anchor? Or does that once again lock you into some prescribed, pre-defined role? Some people find comfort in an identity based on their religion. Others base their identity on their political beliefs or where they come from. Is the anchoring identity only useful as a reference point for others, or is it also necessary as a reference point for oneself?
I suppose a parallel question would be, “If I have no name, what do I say when someone asks me who I am?”
Thought fodder for the day…
Today is Ray Kroc’s birthday – did you go to McDonald’s to celebrate? It is also Improve Your Office Day. I wonder what Ray Kroc’s office looked like?
During my travels this weekend, I had a lot of windshield time, with very limited radio reception, which is always a good opportunity to contemplate life. Among the things I gave thought to were:
Why do we have dogs as pets, and how did that start?
What do you DO when you live in the middle of nowhere?
What is going to happen in 2012 (and as a follow-up last night, Kelsea asked me why there were so many movies about the end of the world in 2012. I think I should ask Theresa her opinions about that.)
Why are all drivers except me so incredibly stupid?
How do entire towns come to die?
What am I going to do when this contract is up?
I could, and probably will, write on any and all of these topics. But today, I choose to write on the topic of age and time, because it kept coming up over the weekend.
I am of the opinion that we are all always every age. I’ll sometimes joke with Kelsea about this. She said this morning that she can never remember how old I am, so she hedges on the low side. I told her that was always a wise idea when speculating on a woman’s age or weight.
At any rate, I have noticed particularly since I’ve been a mom that I sometimes parallel Kelsea’s age. That’s what made me such a good playmate for her when she was little-little. I could play dinosaurs, or Harry Potter, or restaurant, for hours. I could make bath toys talk (and sometimes they would argue with each other, which was really creepy). I made up voices and characters by the dozens. I found my inner child, and sometimes she would get sulky if Kelsea didn’t want to play her way. But I almost felt more like a child with her than I did when I was a child myself, when I was always in a hurry to grow up, and wasn’t kind of pissed off about being here in the first place.
I remember my Mother coming into my room when I was about 14, sitting down on the bed and bursting into tears – which was something she almost NEVER did – and saying that I was 14 and she was almost 50 and I was older than she was. She was not lamenting my excessive maturity, but her own sense of missing cosmic wisdom, which I never saw. I always considered her completely capable, sound, and a spiritual role model. As a mom myself now, I sometimes feel the same way about Kelsea. She seems so much wiser now than I have ever been. Interesting. Perhaps it’s a generational legacy of some sort.
I can feel as young as Kelsea (or younger). I can relive moments (some that I don’t want to) as if I were actually there. I spend most of my time these days feeling like I’m in my early 20’s, likely because so many things are changing and my life is opening before me, heading in unknown directions. Every so often, physical reality catches up to me, in the form of pain from the cold, or a bad mirror, and I recall my real age. And some days, I feel as old as the Blue Ridge, tired, settling, still growing, but worn down by the years I’ve seen for eons.
But I’m as comfortable hanging out with most infants and most seniors as I am with my peers. I’m so not the typical Rock Creek mom that I am comfortable hanging with Kelsea and her friends on occasion. (I know the time is coming where SHE won’t be comfortable with this.)
Guess as with many things, I’m all over the map. And I don’t mind a bit.
My Mother was always amazed when she looked in the mirror – she didn’t know who that old woman was looking back at her. Despite her cancer, she felt inside as if she were still in her 20’s – just as I do now.
Enough about age. Now, onto time. They are related, you know, though exactly how I have yet to figure out. It’s not as obvious as it might seem.
Time warps exist. I’m convinced of it. We’ve all become such slaves to time and clocks and deadlines that we have locked ourselves into a certain reality of time. I myself haven’t worn a watch in years, though I still mostly wake up to an alarm clock.
Have you ever noticed how sometimes a trip that takes 5 minutes feels like it has taken 15? Or how the sign said 32 miles, but it took you an hour and a half to get there? I am an occasional practitioner of time control. I firmly believe in playing with time. I’ve practiced making minutes stretch when I need to be someplace and don’t have enough time to get there. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
That curious phenomenon called “Island Time” is perfectly compatible with my philosophy that time is both relative and fluid. Depending on how you choose to play them, days on vacation, and particularly on an island, can last forever, or can go by in a blink. I choose the forever path. I can spend four days on an island and feel like I’ve been gone for 10. On one trip where I was gone for 13 days, I felt as if I’d been gone a month. Is it that there is no prescribed time for most things, with the possible exception of ferries? And even then, if you miss one, another soon come? (Or if not, you wind up spending a night on another island – boo hoo.) You eat when you’re hungry, you drink when you’re thirsty, you sleep when you’re sleepy. It gives time a totally different quality.
I need to get my ideas more clearly thought out before I write more about time. Is it possible that it’s ALREADY time for another road trip???
Hola! Did we all have nice weekends? I did!
I played a lot with the 365 Photo Challenge. It’s making me look at things differently and has really fired my photographic eye. I spent hours taking pictures this weekend and catching the last colors of autumn. If I had waited a week, it would have been too late. It’s a nice reminder of the good things in Colorado, even if the cold is painful on my hands. At least there are hot springs, and warm gloves, and the dreams of warm hands to hold and eventually, another trip to the Caribbean. Ah, the irony that Pat will get to go somewhere warm on my money before I do. He’s considering going to Florida and staying at a friend’s house for his birthday.
No matter.
We will have to have all of our divorce paperwork completed before then, so look for another entry in Divorce Diaries soon.
I’m kind of tired, and creatively spent, and so, good night.
Today is Guardian Angels Day, World Farm Animals Day, and Phileas Fogg’s Wager Day.
I just read (well, about three books ago) Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days for the first time. That seems unbelievable to me but it’s true. It was a good book – if you haven’t read it, you should.
It is also the the birthday of both Groucho Marx and Ghandi. I wonder if Ghandi liked Groucho Marx movies?
Today is Fire Pup Day and Homemade Cookies Day. Just FYI, homemade cookies ain’t gonna be happening in this home.
In talking with a friend last night, the point arose that women fall in love and then try to change the men they fall in love with – a phenomenon that is especially evident after marriage. I had to ask myself if I was guilty of that in my marriage. And the answer is…..not right away. I didn’t expect or try to instigate any changes for years – not until I myself changed (read that, grew up) and then I automatically expected Pat to change. Wrong-o. It doesn’t happen like that.
But why is this need to change someone such a constant in relationships? A quick google search on this topic reveals lots of opinions, blog postings, and Yahoo! Answers, but no solid psychological research. Maybe I didn’t look deeply enough.
Men do also do this to women, but it’s definitely to a lesser extent. Is it something about exerting control over one’s partner? Or a subconscious discomfort with sharing or shifting power?
We always put our best foot forward in the early stages of a relationship – the house is cleaner, there’s less farting, and generally more effort expended towards impressing the potential mate. And once the mate has been won, we seem to put less effort into the relationship and more effort into keeping ourselves out of trouble with that mate. Again, why? Is it some kind of primal thing? We can’t get any first-hand reports from Cro-Magnon man (or woman), and I doubt cave drawings do an effective job of documenting this issue, so we can never know.
Why are we harder on our partners than we are on our friends? We treat our friends so much better than our partners, and yet one’s partner should be one’s BEST friend.
And where did that expression ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’ come from?
Perhaps a better question is, if you recognize this phenomenon in yourself, can you resist giving in to it? Or does it just happen, regardless of your intentions?
I think I need some grant money to study this.
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