TRUE OR FALSE? Deciding what is true and what is not true in the world is a struggle. Every news program has its own perspective. Defining who the heroes and villains are is more often dictated by our political leaning than by what used to be the facts. We now live in a world of alternative facts and we are the worse for it. FINDING THE LOST KING While searching for something to satisfy my Netflix obsession (although I actually found it on Amazon Prime) I discovered an interesting take on finding the truth in The Lost King, a film about a woman’s search for the body of King Richard III. Richard was the English king portrayed by Shakespeare as a ruthless hunchback, who was as ugly on the inside as he was on the outside. But was he really the nasty royal we have come to revile? The film is the true story of Philippa Langley, one of the screen writers, who chronicled her successful search for the grave of this infamous king. She received world wide recognition as part of the team that located Richard III’s remains in a parking lot in Leicester England. THE REAL HEROS Due to her tenacious commitment and extensive research she not only found Richard’s body, she fought for his recognition as a true English monarch. Although she is an amateur historian, Philippa managed to succeed where the professionals had failed. She was motivated by her experiences of being ignored and devalued because of her own physical limitations and she sympathized with the way Richard was treated in the history books because of his deformity. As it turns out, Richard’s remains revealed that he had scoliosis and was not a hunchback as Shakespearean literature indicated. Although he was vilified by the Tudors who succeeded him, in order to boost their own royal identity, Philippa found that Richard, last of the Plangent Kings, was as much a hero as a villain. Philippa seems like a hero to me as well. She did not let the people who dismissed her as different and unknowledgeable, because of her age, gender, and psychological and physical handicaps, stop her from pursuing the truth. Truth can be illusive. I tend to be wary of people who claim to have the only true understanding of anything. But I also believe in pursuing the truth in the way that Philippa Langley did, by digging into historical documents and making comparisons. She did not take for granted what the experts said. Instead she looked at history with a new vision, open to the possibilities that some of the accepted facts were not accurate. TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES We are now in the process of making history. We are moving into another election cycle where the truth will be bandied about and the process of deciding who are the heroes and who are the villains will be front and center. I try to keep up with the latest news and information from as many sources as I can and compare who is covering what on the different networks and how their perspective influences their facts. Of course I have my own prejudices but I want to make my decisions in a thoughtful way. I am aware that those decisions will affect not only my future but also the future of our country. I love when I find a movie like The Lost King. It brings history to life and makes me realize that the search for the truth has been going on for centuries. For me, looking for the truth involves trying to find a new understanding of the way the world works and what my place in it is. I would love to uncover some major new discovery like Philippa Langley, but I am happy to just keep an open mind to what the truth might be in the past, the present and the future. I believe it is possible to get closer to finding the truth when we open our hearts and minds.
0 Comments
SLOWING DOWN
I have now entered a phase I never imagined would happen to me, driving while elderly. It’s not a heck of a lot different than driving while young, just slower, like everything else I do. Needless to say I do not drive like the Little Old Lady from Pasadena who “. . . can’t keep her foot off the accelerator.” I can’t keep my foot off the brake. I suspect this is noticeable to other drivers because I get honked at more often than I used to. DRIVING LESSONS I learned to drive by taking driver’s training in high school the summer before I graduated. We started by learning the basics in the school parking lot, which was sectioned off into fake streets with places to make stops and turns. Then we were assigned a teacher who took us out on real roads. My twin sister Linda and I were driving partners. We would trade off driving while the non-driver observed from the back seat. The car had two sets of brakes. The teacher told us it was just precautionary and usually not necessary for him to use his brakes to stop the car except in an emergency. Evidently we provided an emergency because I remember he actually did have to use his brakes. Lin and I had really never driven before taking driver’s training. Dad had decided to turn over that responsibility to the school system. As we slammed to a stop everyone in the car breathed a sigh of relief, especially the teacher. We were glad he had his own brakes and happy Dad had wisely made the decision not to be our driving instructor. During one of our driving lessons, our teacher gave us a brief experience driving a car with a manual transmission. I remember doing very little driving and a lot of uncontrollable lurching. I didn’t try to drive a stick shift again until my ex-husband decided to teach me how to drive his VW Bug while we were dating. When I had stretched his patience to the max (not a particularly hard thing for me to do) he had me pull over so he could take over driving. While I was still in the driver’s seat, he leaned down and grabbed the seat adjuster in frustration, flinging me back hard and fast. This left my short little legs dangling in the air and removed my foot from the clutch while the motor was still running. When my body was flung backward, the car lunged forward, whacking his head into the dash. Although it didn’t seem funny at the time it makes me smile now. CHANGING LANES Eventually I became quite adept at driving a stick shift and even learned a trick using the hand break to navigate the hills in San Francisco. Those days are long gone. Now I don’t even want to drive in San Francisco in a car with an automatic transmission. I avoid driving in unfamiliar places as my brain and reaction time have declined over the years. I haven’t given up driving yet but I have given up driving rental cars. Last summer I took a trip to Minnesota and managed to survive just fine using Greyhound, Uber, and the graciousness of friends and family to get around. One of these days, if I live long enough, I will have to do the same thing here in my home territory. I think about the possibility as I drive around doing errands. It is so nice to be able to just jump in the car whenever I need to get some last minute groceries or garden supplies. I will miss the convenience. It’s just one of the things I will have to learn to deal with among the many changes that come with aging. TAKING A DIFFERENT ROUTE My dad, in his inimitable way, gave up driving on his own. I found out he had had a few close calls before he finally made this decision, but I was happy he did it on his own. I hope I can be as gracious and self aware. After a year of trying to get around without a car he got an electric cart, which he used to go grocery shopping and get to doctor appointments. I can see that as a possibility for me. I hope it doesn’t happen too soon, but I can picture myself in my own little electric cart, chugging down the sidewalk and heading for many new adventures. Like my dad, I don’t plan on letting the lack of driving get in the way of enjoying life. Embracing ChangeREBUILDING MY FENCE
I have finally arranged for my old rickety fence to be torn down and replaced. Being a carpenter’s daughter, I thought I had a pretty good handle on what this involved in terms of the disruption of my normal life. Ha! I didn’t have a clue. Almost every inch of my little yard has been taken over by piles of Quikcrete bags, lumber, tools, tarps and orange webbed construction fencing. It took most of last week for the construction crew to tear down the old fence, dig post holes, clear out old concrete, and put in new posts. Now they are gradually assembling all of the other pieces. By the end of this week a new, beautiful fence will finally appear. OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW It’s made me think about what a difficult process it is to tear out the old and build the new. This applies to life as well as fences. It requires a vision to begin with, and the ability to let that vision evolve. It can be really messy and chaotic when change is happening but I have to trust that eventually it’s going to result in something amazing and beautiful, or maybe just something new and different. As much as I would like to control the outcome, I really just have to accept whatever happens. Fence building is definitely a metaphor for my life, which I realize is always a work in progress. Getting older has not meant that I can just rest on my laurels and not have to work at having a full life. Growth never stops, thank goodness. I would like my life to sail on without any storms but the reality is that chaos and messes are a part of the process. ACCEPTING AND EMBRACING CHANGE I lost a wonderful friend a few days ago. Her death was sudden and unexpected. It was an incredible experience to be a part of the team that helped her through her last days. She left instructions for the person who was coordinating communications with her many friends to post her last words, “We have lift-off.” I have an image of her rising like a rocket from earth and soaring into the clouds. As difficult as it is, the loss of my friend also gives me an opportunity to examine my own life. I am grateful for the upheavals as well as the successes and the fact that I am still learning from my mistakes. I am finding myself willing to let go of some of my old habits, like my bread addiction, and consider what new things I can persue. I am a work in progress too. MY HISTORY WITH BREAD
One of the strongest memories from my childhood is the smell of baking bread. My grandma was a world class bread maker. I remember the shear joy of being at her house and eating a slice of freshly baked bread, just out of the oven, with the butter melting as it was spread on top. Bread is something I want, not just because of how it tastes, but because of how it makes me feel. It is my ultimate comfort food. I have known for a long time that bread is addictive for me. It’s one of those things that keeps me locked into an unhealthy weight. Although I have made some major changes in my attitude towards food that have helped me slowly loose weight, at the rate I am going I will be dead before I lose enough to be at a doctor recommended body size. I’ve spent many years learning to accept and love my body just the way it is, but I also know that part of loving my body involves taking care of it. I finally feel willing to take a good look at what is in the way of wanting to lighten the load of my addictive behavior. Letting go of bread is one possibility. FINDING THE WILLINGNESS TO LET IT GO I know I can’t do this by myself so I asked a friend for advice. She suggested I write a break up letter to bread. Dear Bread, Although you hold a special place in my heart and my mind I think it’s time for us to break up. You have changed from something warm and comforting to a food that drives me crazy. I have tried many ways to make our relationship work. I don’t buy you by the loaf anymore or bring you home, where you call my name from the kitchen while I am watching TV. It’s too tempting to have you within easy reach. I have tried just eating bread when I am out at restaurants, but that makes me cling to the impossible possibility that sometime, somehow, I will be able to have control over my compulsion to empty the entire bread basket. I have futilely consumed a myriad of bread substitutes like crackers and Naan bread, but I still want more. There are not enough Triscuits in the world to satisfy my desire for Sourdough. No, I am better off just making a clean break than staying in this spirit numbing battle. I’m tired of fighting with when, how, and how much I can eat without putting my health in jeopardy. I know I will miss you, but eventually I hope to find the same sense of freedom I have found by eliminating chocolate as a potential food. After years of saying no to chocolate I feel happily distant from its siren call. It doesn’t even seem like something edible anymore. Not that I can take my chocolate avoidance for granted. I am well aware that one taste will set off an explosion in my body that will drive me to seek it out and dive head first into a chocolate stupor. The thought of going there helps give me the ability to stop before I take even a little bite. I would like to feel this freedom around you, bread. You have brought comfort and pleasure into my life but I am ready to set some boundaries and move on. Thanks for the memories, but I want something more. I want to feel comfortable in my body and free from the struggle to feed that part of me that no food can satisfy. Sincerely, Leslie GOD AND BLOGGING Normally I would not consider writing about God as a topic for my blog. It’s too personal and too fraught with the possibility of offending someone who has different beliefs and a different perspective than me. But this morning I was writing, just for myself, about about prayer and meditation, two areas where I feel woefully inadequate, and it made me consider actually sharing this. MY IMAGE OF GOD I was brought up in the Lutheran church. In my home town there was a Lutheran church on every corner. There was a Swedish Lutheran Church, and a Norwegian Lutheran church; all of the Scandinavians and northern Europeans had their own Lutheran church. My concept of God was forged in those days, attending Sunday school and going to TAMS (Teenage Missionary Society) meetings with my friends, where we bonded over normal teenage issues and ate tuna casseroles washed down with Kool Aid. There was no talk of hell and brimstone in the Lutheran church. At the front of my church was a beautiful painting of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. As a child, I didn’t see the pathos in this scene, I saw a peaceful place and a loving God. In Sunday school we sang “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world” and looked at pictures of him gathering children of every race around him in a protective embrace. I saw God as loving and protective but he was a distant God, only to be found in church. I did not see God as someone I could turn to for help in dealing with day to day issues. I had to do that for myself, by myself. I did have my twin sister, and we supported each other and shared our problems with each other, but we were limited in our experiences and abilities to deal with the deeper issues of life. TALKING TO GOD As I continued on my path into adulthood I became more and more intrenched as a do-it-yourself woman until I got to the point where I couldn’t do it myself anymore. Through various counseling and support groups I began to open myself up to the possibility of a power outside of myself that was accessible through prayer and mediation. I still struggle with this concept. I am not a poster child for spiritual enlightenment but I have found ways to talk to God. 1. BREATHING This is the closest I get to any kind of meditation. When I find my brain whirling around in restless thoughts and fear, I stop and take some deep breaths. I can feel the stress being released and my mind opening up. This makes it easier to listen to another voice besides the one rattling around in my head. 2. LISTENING I have learned to recognize God’s voice in the people around me. I have heard this called God with skin on. Sometimes it’s the voice of friends and family. Sometimes it’s something I hear someone say in a movie or TV show. Sometimes it’s an inspiration I feel while listening to music. The trick is to recognize it when I hear it. Not everything I hear is the voice of God. I also have competing voices in my head giving me advice. When I have to make a decision, even something as mundane as what I should eat, I hear those voices telling me what to do. I am learning to recognize the voice that wants the best for me, not the one that caters to my obsessions. The more I listen to my positive inner voice and act on it, the stronger it becomes. 3. WRITING I never thought of myself as a writer, but more and more I am turning to writing as a way of clearing and focusing the voices in my head. Writing can be very meditative. There is a point in the process of writing where I move past my intellectual brain and write from my heart. I can actually feel it happen. Often the process of writing will bring up a strong emotional connection. This morning I had that feeling when I was writing about prayer and meditation and the struggle I have with doing them. I have heard that prayer is talking to God and meditation is listening to God. The biblical image of the burning bush conversation with God has never happened to me, but sometimes I get a message by breathing, listening, and writing that can feel like a burning bush. TUXEDO CAT
His name was Kyle. I called him Tuxedo cat. Long before I got my cat Abby, he had been hanging out in my yard, napping under the foliage and pooping in my raised garden beds. This was his territory and he and Abby had a few dust ups over who was in charge. At first they just eyeballed each other through the glass of my screen door, but when Abby managed to escape from my fenced yard she would chase him out from under my car or any other sanctuary he was trying to establish in my yard. Their last fight left Abby with a slash on her nose and a trip to the vet for antibiotics. Kyle would run away when I got anywhere near him. I tried speaking softly to him and moving slowly but he was shy and didn’t trust me. After he and Abby began getting into actual fights I was happy my presence sent him on his way. THE NATURE OF LIFE AND DEATH This week I found Kyle in my yard, or what was left of him. He had been attacked at night, probably by a coyote, and there were some missing parts. I could still identify his black fluffy body with white chest and white paws, but it was painful for me to see how terrible his demise had been. I have never seen anything quite as ghoulish and disturbing happen to an animal I know. I didn’t want to look too closely but I had no choice. I wanted to cover up the poor creature so that he wouldn’t be exposed to the dog walkers and their pets that pass by my house in the morning. This was nature in the raw, the stark reality of survival of the fittest. It’s not something I see every day in my quiet little neighborhood, or anything I ever want to witness again. Now I know up close and personal the reality of coyotes, or whatever predator it was, and the cruel look of what they can do. There have been sightings of a mountain lion in my neighborhood as well, and evidently another cat was killed in a similar way the day after Kyle met his fate. It’s dangerous out there. Nature can be brutal. This issue of the food chain hierarchy and the constant struggle of life and death is one of the many questions I ponder about the nature of nature. It’s why I am having a hard time deciding whether or not to make Abby an indoor cat and also a reminder of the fact that Abby is a predator too. I have been keeping her inside ever since she killed a bird. When I saw Abby with the bird in her mouth, I came face to face with the fact that, despite her furry cuteness, she is as much a predator as the animals I want to protect her from. A BLESSING FOR KYLE I put a notice on the Nextdoor Neighbor website and the woman who lives next door called the animal shelter. They came and picked up the remains. Later Kyle’s owner came by. We had never met before although he lives only a block away. I shared what I knew about the attack. That’s when I heard his name for the first time. Just knowing his real name makes me feel closer to Kyle. He is no longer a random neighborhood cat digging in my freshly amended veggie garden. I know that he was loved by his family. My housemate suggested that we have a little blessing ceremony for him. She lit a bundle of sage and we spread the smoke around the spot where he probably took his last breath. Rest in peace Kyle. WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?
I feel like I don’t have a direction. Even though I have been writing about it, everything I put down into words leaves me feeling like I have hit a dead end. I keep wondering where am I going and what I need to do to get there? Although it’s been an interesting adventure, this dating thing was not what I had in mind as something for a single 75 year old to explore; it just came out of nowhere. I saw the ad for speed dating and thought, “What the heck.” I was open to the possibilities. The initial excitement of meeting new people and actually going out on dates is winding down. Although it has opened up my perception of what my life as a little old lady with cats can be, I don’t see a clear path to follow into the future. I don’t want to go backwards but I don’t know where to go from here either. MAKING CHANGES I feel a little like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz except I have a cat in my basket instead of Toto. I have been swept up in a tornado of circumstances that require making decisions for the future, and dropped into an unfamiliar world. My yellow brick road seems to go in a million directions and I can’t make up my mind about which ones to follow. I know I need to make some changes and change doesn’t come easy for me. It feels overwhelming. There is a part of me that thinks it requires a monumental effort where I have to make a total turn around and sign up for online dating. The truth is that change happens in imperceptible degrees, the kind an airplane pilot makes to stay on course. A slight wing dip to the left and then to the right, all the while keeping your eye on the horizon. You barely realize the change in direction because it happens so gradually. OPEN TO THE POSSIBILITIES Maybe I don’t need to try so hard. I can’t make new relationships automatically happen, but I don’t think I need to sign myself up for online dating. I’m not ready for that kind of challenge. My dating experience actually started with just being open to the possibilities of a new kind of relationship. Perhaps just trusting that by keeping myself and my heart open, I will be guided onto the right path. In many ways it has been the unexpected things in life that have brought me the most joy. Rather than looking for the right answers I think I need to get out of the battle of who I am and who I want to be and be grateful for where I am right now. Yes, at 75 I have some time limits and some physical limits, but most of my limits about where I am going are in my head. I just need to put one foot in front of the other and enjoy the journey on my yellow brick road. MY ABBY CAT TURNS TWO BUT IS OLDER IN HUMAN YEARS
I got a birthday card in the mail today. It wasn’t for me, it was for my cat Abby. It was sent by Chewy, a pet supply company. How very thoughtful of them to let me know they have a lot of gifts appropriate for this special occasion. According to her records from the Animal Shelter, Abby was born on May 27, 2021. She just turned two. I checked on line and found out that every year in a cat’s life is equivalent to 4 human years except the first two. During their first year they mature rapidly. A one year old cat is like a human teenager, about 15 years old. Their second year zooms them into young adulthood similar to a 24 year old human. I got Abby when she was 9 months old and she actually was a lot like a preteen. The last year has definitely been her difficult teen years, but recently I noticed she has been calming down a bit. Now I know she actually has moved on to young adulthood and is ready to take life seriously, but not too seriously. THE CHALLENGES OF BEING A CAT MOM The teenage phase was challenging. She matured quickly from a somewhat uncoordinated adolescent to a skilled acrobat. Climbing and flying from one perch to another are her specialities. She can easily jump from a standing position to the kitchen countertops in a nano second. She is smart too. She has figured out how to overcome every barrier I have put up to try and keep her safely contained in the yard. It is also sometimes difficult to deal with the more mature Abby cat that is emerging. Of course it makes sense that she would present me with proof of her hunting skills by recently killing a bird. She was very proud; I was traumatized. Now I see it as an important stage in her cat life. She is ready to leave the nest (no pun intended for bird lovers) and fend for herself. I am not ready. In fact I will never be ready. There is no way I would turn her loose to create havoc with the neighborhood bird and small mammal population. No matter how wild she thinks she is, it is my sworn duty to domesticate her to the best of my ability. THE GOOD ALONG WITH THE BAD AND THE UGLY Of course bending a cat to my will is an impossibility. Clearly she is not going to be as submissive as my other cats were. They were happy to seek out a sunny spot to nap during the day and a warm lap in the evening. They never killed anything bigger than an occasional fly. Abby is a different bag of potatoes, but maybe one I needed. Life with Abby is not dull. She challenges my patience and my creative abilities to find solutions to curb her less appropriate behavior. She makes me laugh when she chases her feather-on-a-stick through her cat tunnel and sends it, and her, sliding across the wood living room floor. She warms my lap and my heart when she has a brief but adorable nap while I am watching my favorite PBS mysteries in my recliner. She can disarm me with cuteness and a simple head tilt even when she causes damage to my furniture or other personal property. GROWING OLD TOGETHER I feel lucky to have her in my life and I am looking forward to many more birthdays. If she lives to be 18, like my previous cats Mario and Kitty, she will be 96 in human years. Assuming I have the same longevity as my parents, I will be 93. If not, I think there will be a place for us in heaven where she will probably still be driving me crazy, in a good way.
SURVIVING THE APOCALYPSE I saw a cartoon in the paper this morning that reminded me of my Dad. In the cartoon, a group of smiling kids in scout uniforms were enjoying a beautiful campfire, completely surrounded by a landscape of apocalyptic destruction. The punch line was that their scouting skills made them more successful at surviving a worldwide catastrophe than any gun-toting prepper. My Dad would have fit perfectly into that gang of scout trained survivalists, if he had lived long enough to experience the apocalypse. DAD WAS ALWAYS PREPARED Not that he didn’t try. He lived to be 101. In his closet was a well organized collection of camping gear, canned food, water, and survival tools ready for the next earthquake or other potential disaster, whatever it might be. He also advised the seniors at his apartment on planning a way to transport people to safety if a tsunami threatened to wipe out the city, and he inspired me to put together my own survival kit. Dad truly lived the scout motto, “Be Prepared.” He used his Boy Scout skills to deal with everything. I remember one particular time when we were out picnicking. He was using a hatchet to chop wood for a fire, like an experienced scout would do. The hatchet slipped and he hit himself in the shin. Quickly switching to his first aide mode, Dad wrapped a handkerchief around his leg to stop the bleeding, loaded us all into the car, and drove to a hospital emergency room. My Mom didn’t drive and my sisters and I were too young to drive. After getting stitched back together he drove us home, all the while maintaining his usual calm, matter-of-fact demeanor. MY SURVIVAL SKILLS I do not have the level of survival skills my Dad possessed. It’s possible I might be able to start a fire using my glasses as a lens to focus the sun’s rays on some kindling, but I have never actually tried it. I’ve been through a 6.9 earthquake but luckily my house was still standing. Thanks to my survival kit, I had plenty of flashlights and batteries to last more than a week without electricity. Thank goodness it was a warm fall and I never even had to build a fire in my fireplace. It could have been worse. Dad knew that my generation was sorely missing basic survival skills, even though he did his best to encourage us to be independent and self sufficient. We had all the benefits, as well as the disadvantages, of growing up with a multitude of modern conveniences that he did not have as a child. I am completely dependent on electricity and computers. My world would come to a screeching halt if access to the internet was massively interrupted. I remember when the earthquake happened in 1989, it took out the electricity throughout the county. I couldn’t get gas for my car. The gas station pumps didn’t work and neither did the cash registers. I didn’t have enough gas in my car to get to a place where everything was still working. It was an experience that literally drove home how vulnerable I was. BEYOND BEING PREPARED Dad did more to prepare me for life than just helping me prep for a disaster. Instead of fixing things for me, he showed me how to fix them myself. He was a poster child for staying engaged in life and getting involved in what was going on in the world. He watched the news religiously and kept up to date on politics and world issues. Even when his sight deteriorated he was a voracious reader and used a device that the veterans administration had given him that could scan the pages of books with a camera and blow up the print on a TV monitor. He was a walking encyclopedia on history, science, and nature. I was so lucky to be a caregiver for him in his later years. He was a role model for me in how to handle the challenges of aging and the physical changes that go with it. Next year it will be 10 years since his passing. I am grateful for the skills he taught me. Because of him I know how to grow tomatoes, fix a leaking toilet, and vote with an informed political conscience. I may not be prepared for every potential disaster in the way he seemed to be, but I am every bit as much of a survivor as he was. |
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!
* * *
The Book Naked Little Old Lady with Cats A collection of Little Old Lady with Cats blogs * * *
WHAT IS A LITTLE OLD LADY WITH CATS - REALLY?
(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
All
Archive
June 2024
|