Old Man in a Chair

Old man sitting in a chair,

Staring out…who knows where?

Through the years and back to youth?

Hiding in shadows, avoiding truth?

You no longer hear the sounds,

Or see the visions that surround.

Your world is bounded by the chair.

And out of focus, even there.

If you feebly change your place,

Fatigue and weakness slow your pace.

Haltingly you walk and shuffle,

The gift of pain for your trouble.

Gone your youth full of play,

Gone your long hard working day.

Also gone, your loving wife,

Gone the exuberance of life.

That crystal clarity of mind

Is something you no longer find.

Random images now flow,

Fleeting thoughts come and go.

And so you sit as time creeps by,

Waiting for the chair to die.

For the physical to dissolve and fade.

For the spirit to survive…remade.

Flap over "Frozen"

I have seen the movie Frozen twice.  Once with granddaughters who were visiting from Florida and later with another granddaughter who lives nearby.  If I had additional young granddaughters, I would have cheerfully gone to see it a third and fourth time.  It was a wonderful movie.  The animation was beautiful, the music was powerful, and there was delightful humor.  I am disgusted that it is being criticized by the lunatic fringe as being supportive of the gay agenda, because of the song “Let It Go.”

If anyone is interpreting “Let It Go” as a message to come out of the closet, they need to consider that when Elsa sings this song she has actually come out of one closet only to step into another.  While living at the castle she was isolated and repressing her gift/curse.  Once it is exposed, it is not only destructive, but results in her isolating herself again…this time in a crystal palace of her own making.  She is cynical, lonely, and bereft of all human contact.  If there is any message here for gays, it is that coming out can happen in a way which is destructive and isolating.  Only when she learns to use her gift/curse with restraint and for the benefit of others is she able to live productively among her people again.

Also, consider that the basic theme of the movie could be described as redemption through sacrificial love.  The love between Hans and Anna turns out to be a cruel illusion.  But, the love of Kristoff for Anna is forged through facing challenges together, resolving disagreements and learning to work together.  Kristoff is even willing to sacrifice his love for Anna, because he thinks it is in her best interest and for the well-being of others.  I was delighted to have my young granddaughters see that message portrayed without it being a parental lecture.  Don’t fall for the handsome sweet talker.  Look for someone who knows how to be your friend, before he is your lover.

Anna exhibits even greater sacrificial love.  She is willing to face danger and even give her life to save her sister.  She does so without hesitation.  Her sister’s rejection doesn’t prevent her from continuing to love.  Her sacrifice is the key to the turn-around for Elsa and the kingdom.

So…if the gay community wants to own the song “Let It Go,” let them do so with caution.  As for the rest of us, let’s just enjoy this movie, soak in the beauty and go away with its powerful message tucked away in our hearts.

Pondering Perspective

I have been wondering if perspective is itself a dimension or if it is just a composite of the 3 dimensions in space and one in time with which we are most familiar.

An oriental rug looks very different from the perspective of a bug crawling around in it and a person standing on it watching the bug.

A particular place can look very different at different times.  I have passed through an area in the winter during a white-out and then passed through the same coordinates on a bright and sunny day marveling at the contrast.

…the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  (I Corinthians 1:18)

If one were inside the box with Schrodinger’s cat, one would know whether the cat was alive or dead.

The universe appears very different to a person standing on planet Earth peering into space, than it does to a God who encompasses the universe.

I once had a friend whose attitude toward me changed so radically, that I felt as though he had picked up someone else’s glasses with which to look at me.

Something which brought tears to my eyes at the time it happened may later seem funny.  (As in my post on The Tang Booby Trap)

Two people can watch the same performance and come away with vastly different evaluations.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

Perspective…exactly what is it?  What does it take to change it?  How do we know our perspective is correct? 

I am pondering perspective….from my own perspective…hmmmmmmmm.

The Tang Booby Trap

When my first two daughters were in early grade school, I woke up one morning feeling terribly ill.  I had a miserable cold, and my total focus was that if I could get them out the door and on their way to school, I could go back to bed.

I staggered down to the kitchen, only to discover that the older child, who was probably 7 or 8 at the time, had already been up and had apparently had a desire for Tang for breakfast.  She had attempted to mix it herself and had encountered difficulties. Both liquid and powdered Tang were pretty much everywhere…all over the countertop and table, on the floor and inside both the refrigerator and freezer.  When I inquired as to how this could possibly be, she explained that she had the faucet turned the wrong way and had used warm water.  Obviously, she didn’t want to drink warm Tang, so she had tried to cool it down in the refrigerator.  But, when she could see that wasn’t going to work fast enough, she had tried the freezer.  The container was too full, and you get the picture.

Sick and exhausted, I sent her back upstairs to get dressed for school, and somehow managed to clean up the mess, get the girls’ breakfast and send them on their way.  I fixed my own breakfast and collapsed into my chair at the table.  I realized too late that I had just sat down in a puddle of Tang.  I put my head down on the table and cried.  Now, I had to change my pajamas before I could go back to bed.

This was not the first time, and certainly not the last, that this particular daughter booby trapped my life in some way.  At least, I was eventually able to laugh about this incident.

The Day I Almost Ran Away

Once when I was a little girl, I had a dog…a wonderful mutt of a dog.  He was about the size of a German shepherd and probably had that breed in him along with several others.  He was mostly white with black and brown splotches.  He had floppy ears like a beagle, and his face was beagle-shaped.  His tail looped up in German shepherd fashion.  He was of a very gentle disposition, but was protective of me.

He appeared in our neighborhood out of nowhere.  We lived out in the country, and my parents figured that someone didn’t want him anymore and just dropped him off and abandoned him.  He attached himself to me, and I adored him.  We took him in, and I named him Skippy.  He slept every night on the throw rug next to my bed.  When I played outside, he hung around.  If I walked somewhere, he went along. The only time he ever made me angry was the day I saw him trotting through the back yard with a rabbit in his mouth.  I didn’t feed him that night.

However, he did make others angry, specifically my parents and the neighbors.  It seems that Skippy was a bit over-sexed.  If there was a female dog in heat anywhere in the neighborhood, he was there fighting off other dogs.  He would come home with injuries from these altercations.  If we tried to keep him inside to prevent these incidents, he would howl loudly….all night long if he thought it necessary.  On those nights, he did not sleep next to my bed.  My Dad would lock him in the basement, but that did not prevent the howling, and it made my Dad furious, because he needed to get up at 5 AM to get to his job.

My parents put up with this quirk for a couple of years, but when he broke down the neighbor’s cellar door to get at their female in heat, it was the last straw.  My parents informed me that we could not be having trouble with the neighbors over Skippy’s bad behavior.  My Dad said he would take him to the pound.  My parents tried to convince me that he was such a nice dog that someone else would adopt him.  In my heart, I feared the worst.  I was inconsolable, even when I was promised that I could have one of the puppies that had resulted from his breaking and entering the neighbor’s cellar.

The night before he was to leave us, he slept next to my bed oblivious to his fate.  I lay in bed crying and trying to figure out if there was a way for me to run away with him.  No matter how hard I thought about it, or how hard I cried, I couldn’t imagine how Skippy and I would find food and shelter.  He could hunt rabbits, but what would I eat?  Where would we sleep at night?  How would we stay warm?  My heart was broken the next day when he obediently got into the car with my Dad, and he was gone forever.

I picked a sweet little female from the litter…the one who looked the most like him.  She was a smaller dog and slept in the chair next to my bed.  Queenie was a nice dog….but she wasn’t Skippy.   

I never told my parents how much I had wanted to run away.   I don’t think they ever knew how badly I hurt….but here I am thinking about it with sadness 60 years later.

Advice Regarding Genius

The news is currently reporting yet another child who is a "genius," perhaps smarter than Einstein.  Every time I see such things, I cringe.  If the parent is seeking publicity for a pre-schooler with a high IQ, a couple of mistakes have already been made.

Here is my advice on the subject.

1.       Do NOT have the IQ measured.  It is best if you and the child do NOT know.  There is nothing to be gained by having that number to cite.

2.       Do NOT seek publicity or join Mensa.  It can't possibly help the child.

3.       Homeschool the child allowing him/her to explore his/her interests, using non-traditional methods, but also making sure all the bases are covered.  Don't allow the child's knowledge base to become lop-sided.

4.       Aggressively seek out opportunities for socialization through the Y, clubs, church activities, neighborhood friends.  School is not a good setting for socialization.  It just means your child's schoolmates are slapped in the face with his/her brilliance every day, and your child is confused because his supposed peers aren't peers at all.

5.       Do not push the child in order to satisfy your own ego.  Wait until the child asks to take college courses, even if it is 2 or 3 years later than you think the child could handle it.

6.      Make sure the child does things which are physically active.  You don’t need to push a sport, but don’t neglect the physical in an attempt to develop the intellectual.

7.  Don't fail to help the child understand that there is no reason for arrogance.  He/she was given a gift and could just have easily been born without it.  He/she is responsible to use that gift wisely for the benefit of others.

AND
No matter how smart you are, the odds are good that there is someone somewhere who is actually smarter.

Not All Valentine’s Days Are Created Equal

Many Valentines celebrations have included a lovely dinner out….sometimes at a Sweetheart Banquet or among a group of good friends with whom there has been abundant laughter.   Some years, including this one, my honey has given me a beautiful arrangement of flowers.  Some years in our youth, the evening ended with me donning some special lingerie.  But, there have been other years when kids were sick or something unexpected made a shambles of our plans.

This year, my 96 year old father-in-law is living with us, and he can’t be left alone.  I didn’t want to ask anyone else to come and stay with him lest I mess up their Valentine plans.  So, I used Valentine napkins on the table, had my husband grill a steak out in the snow, made the meal colorful with fresh strawberries instead of a salad, and served a very pretty store-bought Valentine cake.  I don’t remember when I have ever purchased a cake instead of making one….but this year is different.  We are both tired and stressed.  We spent last evening in the ER with my father-in-law.

When we signed on for a life-time commitment to each other, we knew that every day wouldn’t be like a page from a romance novel.  If we had consciously thought about it, we would have known that every Valentines Day would not be special “us” time.  Tonight we are sitting on the sofa…each of us on our laptops.  My father-in-law is listening to his favorite channel on TV…which is NOT our favorite channel.  He has headphones on, but the sound is still so loud that we can hear it through his headphones across the room. 

But we still have what we did sign on for…doing things together, supporting each other through tough times, keeping a sense of humor, and extracting whatever sliver of enjoyment we can from whatever life throws at us.

Happy Valentines Day