![]() Although this photo looks like a senior from one of those commercials for medic alert devices who has “fallen and can’t get up,” it is actually me making a snow angel. This was the last time I visited the Midwest in the winter and although it was a wonderful trip it made me realize that winter for a little old lady is a whole lot different than winter was as a little kid. Having grown up in Minnesota I learned the art of making snow angels early in life. Protected against the cold by the multiple layers of wool clothes, mittens, and scarves that our Mom dressed us in to play outside, my twin sister and I took great pleasure in flopping down on the ground spread eagle and waving our arms and legs back and forth to create the angel effect. It was what you did with snow, in addition to snow balls, snow men, and snow forts. Winter meant sliding down the big hill in the front yard on our flying saucers and skating with our friends at the local rink that doubled as a baseball field in the summer. There are a lot of things about Minnesota cold that I don’t miss, but I do miss the snow. I remember walking home from school in the early twilight listening to my boots squeak with each step, surrounded by an eerily still, sparkly white world with the muffled sound of people shoveling their sidewalks in the distance. I loved the silence of winter and the way it made me feel safe and protected. I also remember looking out of my bedroom window at the stark blue cloudless sky on a bright January morning. The chimney smoke from the neighborhood houses was going straight up so I knew the air was very still and very cold. Despite the fact that the sun was glaring on the snow, it was -30 (yes, 30 degrees BELOW zero). Knowing how cold it was, I had a wonderful feeling of being inside looking out, basking in warmth and coziness. My Mom and Dad moved to California when the reality of dealing with winter as oldsters became overwhelming. It wasn’t fun to be cooped up inside, afraid of falling on the icy sidewalks. I felt the same way on my last winter visit back to the Midwest. The joy of playing in the snow as a kid was replaced by the fear of falling, the frustration of delayed flights, and the penetrating cold that makes your face feel like it’s going to crack and fall off. Now that time has passed and memories of those winters have faded, I have decided to spend Christmas in Washington with a friend. There will be snow. It won’t be below zero, but it will be cold. I probably won’t be making any snow angels. It’s a lot harder to get up off the ground as a little old lady than it was as a kid. I am a bit nervous about making this trip, remembering past winters where flights were delayed, but I am looking forward to being with my friend and sharing some adventures. Whatever happens I know I will be OK. I have a lot of snow angels in heaven watching over me.
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The other day I had a craving for biscuits. I tried to resist, but before I knew it the tube of Grands was in my grocery cart. I cracked open the can as soon as I got home, even though they would have kept in the refrigerator for a while. As soon as they were out of the oven I ate three.
Oops, that was a mistake. I knew I was headed into my addictive food zone but I ate another one for dinner anyway. These are not the deliciously crumbly, light and airy biscuits you make from scratch. They are like Wonder Bread; soft and squishy, they flatten out when you bite into them. And yet I couldn’t stop eating them. It wasn’t until the next day, and I had distanced myself from my biscuit compulsion by tossing the rest in the garbage the night before, that I remembered the last time I ate biscuits was with my twin sister Linda. It was one of the times when she came out to California so that we could celebrate Christmas and our January birthday together, a year before she passed away in February 2021. We were both feeling under the weather, so instead of a fancy dinner, we had canned chicken noodle soup and tube biscuits, which we ate on New Years Eve, wearing our pajamas. It was one of the best New Years I have ever had. Of course the reason it was wonderful had nothing to do with biscuits or chicken noodle soup. It was about being together with the sister I loved. Just being in the same room with her was the best Christmas present I could imagine. I have a lifetime of memories about past Holidays and they fill my soul when I think about them. Thank goodness I have been around the compulsive eating rodeo enough times to not turn a can of biscuits into an excuse for diving headlong into my food addiction. I am grateful I recognized what I was really hungry for. It was a perfect reminder to acknowledge that this is the time of year when I miss the loved ones I have lost, more than ever. I need to feed my heart with wonderful memories, instead of my stomach with food. And I need to be happy I can create some new memories too.
I am addicted to cable TV news. I search it on my iPad first thing in the morning. I turn on my TV and watch while I am eating breakfast. I check out the “latest developments” during the day, and I tune in to the evening news as I settle into my recliner at the end of the day. I watch them all, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, and PBS, sometimes for only a few minutes just to compare what position they are taking. I remember gathering around the TV as a child to watch the local news and weather, and the Huntley-Brinkley Report. It was a family activity like going to church or the library. News was different in those days. There were no panels of guests pontificating and no alternative facts, just Chet and David who wished each other good night at the end of the program. The news changed when it became a money-making venture for the networks and ratings became more important than informing the audience. There have always been differences of opinion but it seems that our nation is now divided more deeply than ever about what constitutes the news and how it is presented. I struggle with how I feel about this great divide and the fear it brings up. It’s no longer just about a difference of opinion when people threaten violence to someone, and their family, over their interpretation of the news. I worry about the future, but it doesn’t stop me from watching, like a deer in the headlights. Many people I know don’t watch the news on a regular basis precisely because of this atmosphere of contention and conflict over what is true and what is not. They feel a need to shield themselves from the daily onslaught of fear and doom. I have thought about cutting back on what I watch but I don’t like being out of touch with what is going on in the world. Somehow I would like to find a way to deal with the feelings while staying informed. I can’t just stick my head in a paper bag and pretend the world is all butterflies and kittens, but I can work on my perspective. There are things I have no control over. Worrying about them won’t change them but it could end up putting me in the hospital with a heart attack and keep me from enjoying life in the moment. Despite the craziness I need to cultivate a sense of trust, not that everything will be all hunky-dory, but that I will be given the ability to deal with whatever happens. I have been thinking about my recent trip to Minnesota and how great it was to connect with friends and family. I really felt surrounded by a positive and caring force. That’s the feeling that makes it possible for me to survive the difficult things in life. You don’t see it on the news very often, but every once in a while there will be a story about someone who reaches out to others in need. My experience on my trip was that there are a lot more people like that on this planet than the ones who take advantage of others and create chaos in the world. I am about to start a new day, have my breakfast, and check out the cable TV channels for the latest disasters and conflicts. I hope I will be able to balance the negative stuff with that sense that the world is also filled with a lot of goodness. That is the kind of news that makes my day. Fifty-two years ago I drove across the country, as a newlywed, looking forward to my future in California. The Carpenters’ “We’ve Only Just Begun” was playing on the radio and the top of our wedding cake was packed into a cooler in the back of our little green Volkswagen Bug. I felt like I was heading out on a new adventure and I was filled with the hope and fear of what that might be. California was the land of “The Summer of Love.” Flower children from all over the country were there, searching for a place where peace and love was a lifestyle. I wasn’t one of them. I just wanted to get a teaching job and be a good wife. It was an incredible culture shock for me, coming from the Midwest. There was only one person on the whole campus where I went to college, who had long hair and wore sandals. I didn’t really fit in to the California scene, but I tried. I have now lived in California over twice as many years as I spent growing up in Minnesota. I am still a Midwest girl at my core, but I no longer feel out of place in my adopted state. I am blessed to be here, sitting on my deck, just a five minute walk to the ocean, with the breeze ruffling my now grayish/whitish hair. I could almost pass for a California blond, except my gnome-like body and pink skin betray my Nordic Minnesota roots. My outlook on life is still Minnesotan, socially conservative and politically liberal. Hard-working and determined, I got my teaching job, but I wasn’t so good at the wife thing. That didn’t stop me from finding love, it just wasn’t where I expected it to be. I found a whole new family of special friends who have given me the support I needed through a lifetime of experiences, both inspiring and devastating. I felt the same sense of adventure, on my recent trip back to Minnesota, that I felt when I first came to California, and the same combination of hope and fear. The isolation of the covid pandemic and my aging body made me feel vulnerable, but I wanted to travel again and see some of the people I hadn’t seen for a while. This trip gave me a chance to reconnect with my Midwest family, both actually family and the friends that feel like family. It was wonderful to be with the people who knew me as a kid. It always amazes me how strong that connection can be. Even though we aren’t young anymore, it feels like the years and physical distance slip away when we are together. When I left Minnesota I was barely out of my teens. I was totally clueless about life and the challenges I was about to face. Although I have been back many times since then, going back as a seventy-four-year-old senior citizen was a whole new experience. I appreciate my Midwest upbringing more than ever, but I also know that California has given me the freedom I needed to be my authentic self. It’s all good. I am a California girl with Minnesota roots and a Minnesota girl with California dreams.
The idea to visit Minnesota began when I got an invitation to my cousin Carol’s 50th wedding anniversary. I knew I needed to go. I wanted to see my cousins and their families. I also wanted to see old friends. I didn’t know until I got to Minnesota, that my best friend from high school, Jean, was also celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary this month. I love looking at their wedding photos alongside current pictures. Fifty years is more than half of their lives, and there it is in the photos, the passing of time recorded in full color. The miracle of photography shows us the physical changes of time but also stirs the memories that bring us to where we are today. The years between those photos were filled with the ups and downs of life. These are the memories of the birth of children and the struggles and joys of raising them, the successes and challenges of making a living and showing up as a responsible citizen, the physical and emotional moves from one place to another, the ideas we embrace or throw away as we learn about the world. This trip is turning out to be a celebration, not just of 50th wedding anniversaries, but of the people who made it to this milestone in life. I’m not one of them. When I got married, 52 years ago in 1970, it lasted only five years. At the time, I truly thought it was going to be a life-long commitment, but I don’t regret getting divorced. I realize now that I was not capable of being my authentic self in that relationship and divorce freed me to find her. Although my life experiences have been different from my cousin and my friend, I have also had the struggles and joys of watching children grow, the successes and challenges of a career, and the emotional and physical adventures of exploring and learning about the world. The only difference is that I experienced it all as a little old lady with cats, supported by my friends and family, and I know that is something to celebrate too. A Trip Back in Time
I am old. I am old enough to remember my family gathered around the radio listening to the Lone Ranger before there was TV, and I am old enough to remember going to a neighborhood grocery store before there were supermarkets. Our neighborhood grocery store was Thorps. It was on 8th street, about 3 blocks down the hill from our house. It seemed like a big store to a kid like me but it was much smaller than Denfeld Super Valu, the store that replaced Thorps. Denfeld Super Valu is gone now too. Officially it was called J.J. Thorps. I found a listing of it in a 1916 copy of “The Labor World” newspaper. I had no clue it had been there that long. After a bit of research I discovered that J.J. Thorp was an immigrant from Norway. He had a big family and they lived in the house next to the store. J.J. Thorp died in 1945, before I was born, but I found another J.J. Thorp who was a grandson. His obituary said he was called “Bud.” Bud started working in the family store at 11 and went on to become a manager of the Thorp stores. I think I remember Bud. In the days of the neighborhood store, people knew the owners and the people who worked there. I remember my Dad chatting with someone named Bud. When Thorps opened the new big supermarket near Denfeld high school it was spacious and sparkly and you could pick up your groceries at the curb, but I don’t remember my Dad having any chats at the new super supermarket. Although the new store was giant and impressive, the atmosphere just wasn’t like the old neighborhood store. One of my strongest memories of Thorps wasn’t about the actual store. Our whole family used to go to the store together. Even though it was just a few blocks from the house we all piled into the car and drove there. I remember one time when my sister Linda and I were around 5 or 6, we were waiting outside for Mom and Dad to finish shopping. For some reason we got into an “I dare you” thing and I decided to walk home by myself. The store sat at the bottom of a hill and I think there were stairs up the hill to the next street. I took off, climbed the stairs, and ran home. I was not the kind of kid who purposefully did something I knew was “bad.” My focus was always to do what my parents wanted me to do. I knew they wouldn’t want me to take off like a bat out of hell and run home. Fear gripped me as I headed towards our house. I threw open the front door (unlike today, we never locked our door for something as mundane as a trip to the grocery store). I ran up the stairs and squeezed myself behind my bed to hide from what I figured would be the wrath of my parents. God only knows what Lin told Mom and Dad when they came out of the store. It didn’t take long for them to come home and find me hiding behind the bed. I suspect they were more worried than angry. I don’t remember getting punished with anything more than a stern word about making bad choices. I think they were just glad I didn’t get run over by a car or carried away by a rabid dog. So was I. Who WAS that kid that abandoned her family and ran home from the grocery store? What was I thinking? Looking back from my little old lady perspective I see a part of me that disappeared not long after. It was the part that took dares and ran with them even when I was scared. This memory makes me want to find her again. Reading was a family adventure when I was a kid. My Dad would take “his girls” to the little neighborhood library next to our school where we each collected a pile of books to last until the next library visit. “The Bobbsey Twins” series were some of my early favorites. Later I moved on to horse books like “The Black Stallion,” and then to “Nancy Drew” a mystery series featuring a spunky girl detective. Reading was an escape, like being ejected from an endangered space ship inside an emergency pod. I was on a different planet when I was reading. It was exciting and safe at the same time. The first book that touched me in a deeper way than just entertainment was "Anne of Green Gables." I remember being moved to tears. I could relate to Anne’s struggle to be accepted for who she was, even though I was not like Anne. She was always getting into trouble and was way more adventuresome than I would ever dare to be. I loved the way she stood up for herself and I loved seeing the world through her eyes. Reading still makes me feel like I am immersed in a new world. I can see the people and places in my imagination. I find myself being a part of a world that is different than the one I physically inhabit and I always get a new perspective on life. I just realized that I haven’t read this kind of book for a long time. I have been caught up in non-fiction self-help books, analyzing the challenges of aging. I like these books. They are enlightening and inspiring and I do shed a few tears when I read about people who are dealing with grief and loss like me, but they aren’t fun. I feel like I’ve lost the joy of reading. Maybe I need to find something that challenges my imagination instead of my psyche. I have been struggling with putting fun and humor into my writing. I know how important reading is to writing and I think I need a boost in the non-analytical side of my brain. I want to take a trip to the library, just for fun.
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Leslie Masona woman in search of her post-retirement future Guess what! By subscribing, you get notices about the latest Little Old Lady with Cats posts sent to your mailbox!
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(from an entry posted on 5/1/2015) “I definitely fit some of the characteristics of a little old lady with cats: Retired - check, Single - check, Like to knit - check, Have cats - check. . .I do not want to get stuck in my Little Old Lady persona, however. In fact, this blog is a risk taking experiment in exploring and redefining what I want my retired life to look like.” Categories
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