Country Thoughts: Vulnerability and Ferocity

Whenever I visit our home in Pennsylvania, I have a feeling of being closer to nature, closer to the earth. That may have something to do with the fact that our windows face nothing but forest, trees, deer, and chipmunks. We don't hear the incessant cacophony of leaf blowers and lawn movers. Perhaps my age is showing, but the peace and quiet is comforting and the solitude is nurturing.

In recent months, I have been surrounded by news and reality about people in my life experiencing health issues (myself included) and the ultimate transition we all face - death.  I don't think I'm anywhere near dying, but it has given me pause to think about how we all face life's last ultimatum.

Having experienced my beloved parents' transitions during the past two years, I had a first hand view into how well they were, or were not prepared for this passage.  Most recently, I also was fortunate enough to observe a colleague who had been valiantly dealing with the ravages of cancer for ten years, whose courageous demeanor and bearing during the last month of her life was a model for all of us. All this observation provided some information about how I think we can all prepare for this eventuality.

All of us are born into this world with built-in obsolescence.  That is, from the day we are "driven out of the lot," our minds and bodies begin to take on the appearance of every genetic marker and every environmental factor that our lives inherit and encounter. So, we are naturally vulnerable. Vulnerability.

How we choose to deal our our natural vulnerability is how we face our lives.
When I was younger, I never gave it a thought. I simply moved from situation to situation, illness to illness, diagnosis to diagnosis, taking the medication and doing my best to follow doctor's orders, including all emotional and mental episodes. Back then, I didn't see the cumulative picture of my vulnerability bucket, so to speak, not thinking much about it, just moving on.  But I was very lucky.

I was the fortunate recipient of a genetic predisposition to be fierce.  I wouldn't have characterized myself that way until recently, but looking back I can see that my knee-jerk reactions (that were often not carefully considered) were most of the time fierce retorts to my innate vulnerability.

The memory of my mother and father has helped me to arrive at this juncture where I can see that without a determination or a predisposition to be fierce in the face of life's ultimatum, we would all be victim's of our innate vulnerability. My father, without having the awareness to name it, was the fiercest person I have ever known.  In the face of many major illnesses, he got himself up and honored his life, loved his loved ones and continued to be a creative and positive force for all of us.

My poor mother, on the other hand, was the victim of vulnerability long before she really had to stand up for herself at death's door.  Her tough childhood along with a sheltered (of her own making) marriage, did not prepare her for the ultimate test - my father, her protector, died first. It wasn't supposed to happen that way.

What does this all mean to me?  Or to anyone who sees any meaning in my theory?  We are all vulnerable. But we have a choice about how we deal with that vulnerability.  My choice is to face everyday with the resolve to be fierce, to love my loved ones with every bit of strength I can muster and to honor myself and my work.  That said, I know that in the throes of illness or pain (mental or physical), it is often difficult. But understanding is always a great focus from which I can always summon strength.  For that I am very grateful. And I am very sad for those who cannot see the peace that it brings.

Spring Dream

I love dreams because they reach into the deepest recesses of our psyches and retrieve data that is then combined with reality to create stories either that mean absolutely nothing, or are sign posts to places we need to explore further. In this dream I am in an apartment like the ones I've inhabited in Brooklyn and Montclair -in upper floors of older homes.  Everything is old and cozy. 

My daughter has decided to leave (no sign of her husband in this dream).  Is she going long-term? for the evening?  Don't remember.  But I am left to care for little Molly, my granddaughter. 

But most of the dream centers on my friend Diana, who has also decided that she is moving, without her husband Evan, who is also in the dream, and being very helpful about her move.  They decide to go to Manhattan to shop for items for her new place. 

When they come back, they have purchased a very spiffy and shiny armoire and other items, which Evan is busy putting together.  By the way, this Evan is not like the Evan I've seen and met.  The Evan in my dream has long hair in a pony-tail and his hair is streaked with some kind of plastic highlight that he picks off throughout the dream.

At some point, I decide that I need to prepare some food.  I pull together salad of fruit and other items.  I think it is just enough and then Lenny tells me that we need to invite more people because we have so much food. 

Diana also helps me to sort the fruit and salad.  I have somehow put them altogether an unappetizing jumble.  She asks me if I have bigger bowls, and, of course I do and I supply them. There is a small fruit in the mix that looks like a small pineapple but when opened reveals lots of little colored berries.  Molly loves this and I show her how to open the pineapple. 

I don't remember much more except the feeling that I was redecorating the place a little at a time throughout and feeling like it was an improvement over the shabby, dreary place it was. 

Go figure. Yesterday, I had salad for lunch and salad for dinner and a small portion of cheese as a treat later in the evening.  The rest of it?  Diana has figured in my life as someone whom I love and admire and whose relationship with her husband I admire.  Caring for my little granddaughter is something that is very natural to me as it is in the dream.  But where's my other granddaughter, Lucy?  And, hilariously, Lenny makes a brief appearance to advise me on the food, which is a constant in our relationship.  He's always advising me about one thing or another, but especially about food. 

Must have something to do with the spring cleaning blog I just wrote.  

 

New Years Day 2015: Musings

Waking up this morning, New Year's Day, my mind started to wrap itself around the concept of 2015.  It really seems, like no other New Year, the beginning of the rest of my life. 

I no longer have parents on earth.  One after another, they left and my life goes on without them, though I miss them sorely, especially my dear smiling happy father. 

I have a challenging new career in real estate, which I still find curious, frightening and exciting. 

I turn to my beautiful children, grandchildren, extended family, my partner, Lenny, and dear friends now and going forward for foundation, for comfort, for support, for fun.  Having no siblings, I have always said that I made my family of friends.  I have, therefore, many sisters and brothers, but we are not blood relatives.  No matter.  They have meant as much to me and have loved me perhaps better than siblings could. 

But I'm thinking about the future and what it will hold.  I'm not morbidly musing on how long I may live, though learning this morning about the death of a friend from college poises me to know that this will start to happen more and more as I get older and older. 

No . . . I'm musing about how things will change, evolve, progress.  After having a lovely celebratory meal in a lovely restaurant last night, I wonder what the future of good food and fine dining will be.  I began to think that someday we may all take a pill once a day that will provide us with all the nourishment our bodies require.  Think about all the food accouterments that will become antiques, unneeded - pots, pans, dishes, cutlery, stoves, refrigerators, dining rooms furniture.  The list is endless.  No need for a kitchen at all.  No need for a dining room at all. 

Houses will shrink.  And as entertainment devices become smaller and smaller and mobile, no need for living space to accommodate screens and comfy chairs.  No more barcaloungers. 

Our homes simply will be spaces to accommodate our sleeping needs.  And who knows how that could change. 

Oh!  And no need for garages or driveways - only small landing pads to accommodate the landing and take-off of our personal transportation devices. 

Old fashioned types or those who remember the "good old days" when families actually sat down to a meal together, or shared family time, will be considered bohemian - or worse - criminals.  There will be farms that will be set up to house these rebels and keep them separated from society.  As in the film "Fahrenheit 451" where people became living books in a society that banned and burned them, these foodie bohemians will roam the fields of the fooditentiaries talking about menus, recipes, ingredients, and china patterns.

So, in 2015, my mind is moving to what the world might evolve to be.  But seriously, my prayer is that the world evolves to be at all.  Food is an easy fantasy subject for me, and so my fantasies don't move in the direction of things that are cataclysmic or terrifying.  Daily life provides enough of that. 

I'd take the food supplements over terrorism, deaths from handguns, and the bitter hatred that seems to grip our country.  I'll take the nourishment of knowing that my grandchildren and their children and grandchildren will have a world as lovely as the one I've known, to enjoy in their future.

The lovely view from our Pennsylvania retreat