Releasing Restrictions On Ourselves: What Fun!

I’ve been asked to give a talk to the new parents of Unquowa School on April 10. It will be “informal,” I’m told. I’m to talk about how I feel about the new stage the school is raising money to build: why I think that is important. (And I most certainly do.) So far I have scribbled some thoughts on paper. Not much more than that.

But yesterday on my walk I began to think again about what I wanted to say. As I have written in this blog, now that my three-year walking partner has left town, I walk alone each day. As much as I miss her, I have discovered that a lot of my blog writing gets created when I am pounding the pavement on my own.

Yesterday, to my complete surprise, instead of thinking about it, I talked the talk for the Unquowa School. I kid you not. I was walking and talking.

It just happened. That’s all I can tell you. At first, as I strode along, I was thinking about why I cared so much about the stage for the drama program—my happy times on the Unquowa stage that used to exist and my years in high school when I was happiest on that stage, either acting, dancing or singing.

Gradually, as I rounded the corner of Mill Hill Terrace onto Acorn, I was talking out loud, addressing the new parents of Unquowa. School. Not in a normal speaking voice, mind you, rather, sotto voce, but still, speaking nonetheless. Really into it: totally concentrated. Saying aloud what I wanted them to hear. Memories were flooding me, pouring themselves out in descriptive words with the ease of flowing water.

It wasn’t until I was at the top of Acorn that it occurred to me that anyone passing by—and a couple of people had passed by--- could easily tab me as a loony old lady walking and talking to herself. I knew that’s what I would think.

But I was having so much fun getting this talk together in this crazy way that I decided I didn’t care. Anyone on the road who picked up my soft sounds could think whatever they wanted. What possible difference could it make? I was happily getting some work done and having a great walk at the same time.

Why do we waste so much time worrying about what other people think of us? How silly! How tiresome.

When I got home. I wrote it all down. Except for polishing, I am ready to roll on April 10.

The Tech Trap

I have lost a friend. My Kindle died. An avid reader, I always have a stash

of books. Books are my “fix,” so much a part of my daily life they could be called an addiction—and I wouldn’t mind.

My publisher son-in-law got a Kindle early on and one weekend showed me how it worked. Dazzling!

The idea of easily transporting twenty books to the UK in summer, nicely secured in this efficient tech-toy, seemed perfect. And it has been for five years. I have alternated with real books, but for traveling? My Kindle has made delayed planes bearable and perfect bedtime reading when visiting a friend.

Now my Kindle is dead. Maybe I dropped it? I don’t know.

 I went online to get a new one.

Not a single Kindle offered looked familiar. I had no idea what to buy. I found myself trapped and dismayed by upgrading---a word I have begun to dislike. The device had metamorphosed.

I didn’t want to upgrade. I wanted my Kindle back! I knew how to use it; I was fond of its blue leather cover with the light. What were they doing to me? No new Kindle was even the same size as mine. So much for the extravagant blue cover which had been a gift.

I ordered the least new-fangled Kindle and it arrived swiftly. I opened the box to find, as I had dreaded, not my friend at all, but a complete stranger.

I understand that tech companies are under intense pressure to improve their products. It’s a tough, competitive world they play in. It’s not the technological leaps themselves that I mind; it’s being trapped into them that I object to.

Couldn’t they allow buyers the option of purchasing the upgraded, whizziest, new toy—seducing us with its bells and whistles--at the same time that they offer the familiar standby? Is there no profit in offering consumers the option between old and new models?

Apparently not.  Not in America. We have upgrade mania. New is always better and we rush to buy it.

What happened to good enough?

Thinking myself perhaps too senior to tolerate rapid, radical, product alteration, I raised the trapped-into-upgrading subject with a young friend, who is skillful with all things technological.

“I know exactly what you mean about compulsory upgrading,” she said. “It’s ridiculous. I am keeping my original Blackberry until it dies.” (She’d better not drop it.)

The woman on Kindle Help told me not to worry, that this new Kindle would also become my “friend.”

 Right now, after four phone calls to Kindle Help? It’s hard to believe.

A Powerful Jolt

The first day of spring, March 20, was almost spring-like.

I went grocery shopping. After heaving the bags into my trunk, I closed it, and prepared to walk around the car on the driver’s side. But I could not. The door of a black SUV parked next to me on the left was open and totally blocked my passage.

A young woman, dressed in a red jacket and red baseball cap, her dark hair pulled back into a long ponytail, was bent over the back seat, arranging a two year-old boy into his car seat. She was making a game of it, smiling and chatting away at him. He was giggling.

I was watching.

She buckled him in, her hand fondly mussing his light brown hair and then, to his obvious delight, she began a game of catching and kissing each of his fingers.

Any hurry I had in me evaporated.

 For there in the ever-moving, careening-cart, super market parking lot, this young mother had halted. She had ceased whatever rush she may have felt, to play with her son.

She had no idea that I was watching, four feet—and a car door—away from them, so intent was she on her baby.

It wowed me. I could feel their happiness, the web of love she wove between them as she kissed his tiny fingers. Love all around them, a private, encompassing sort of light.

I don’t know how long I stood there, maybe three minutes, when, suddenly, he laughed out loud and so did I. I couldn’t help myself. But it broke the spell, slanting into their intimacy like a sharp knife.

Mother and child turned at once to look at the stranger standing so near. The little boy shot me an enormous smile.

“What a lovely smile!” I said, directly to him, wishing I hadn’t laughed and crashed into their time together.

The mother immediately understood that because her back door was open, I couldn’t get into my car. Reaching toward her son to settle him, she said to me cheerfully over her shoulder, “He’s a very smiley little boy.”

She closed the door and allowed me to pass.

“I can see that!” I responded, acknowledging her and waving at him as I walked by.

When I turned on the ignition, a bright-voiced announcer from radio WNYC informed me that not only was it the first day of spring, but it was also officially Happiness Day!

I’ve never heard of Happiness Day but it was fine with me.

I was already giddy and full of gratitude from the vicarious, but exquisite jolt of pure happiness that I had just witnessed.

Running Ahead Of The Car

Kind Readers,

I apologize for cluttering up your airwaves this week with three blogs instead of the usual two. I know how busy you all are and how much you have to read. I was so charged up over the Stupid 10 stories that I couldn’t wait for Thursday to post My Fuzzy Lamb Expanded.

Thank you for reading Life Opening Up and a special thank you to Sandy, Alice and Margaret for sharing their Stupid 10 stories. Margaret definitely gets a 10 for her story of the car she thought she had turned off, only to find it following her across her yard into her house. What bravery she demonstrated by jumping in and turning it off rather than running into the kitchen, crouching down and hoping for the best!

(Anyone else ever left a car running that was not in Park?)

And, as Margaret mentioned in her post: it’s all about mindfulness, isn’t it? Paying attention. We need to slow down, know where we are and what we are doing. We need not to be doing one thing and thinking about five other things at the same time. We need to stop and breathe consciously now and then in order to save ourselves from ourselves.

I wonder what it would be like for us humans if we had to remember to breathe--if breath didn’t happen at all unless, in some fashion, we activated it a couple of times a day? Would we learn how to do that—if our lives depended on it---or would we just fall down in clumps all over the place, having forgotten to turn on breath according to schedule?

The Energizer Bunny keels over.

Put to that kind of test, we might actually grasp how important it is in our lives to take the time to STOP and breathe mindfully for a few moments at least once, if not several times, during each of our days.

Good, deep breathing to you all. And thanks again for reading Life Opening up.

My Fuzzy Lamb: Expanded

So far people have weighed in on yesterday’s blog—My Fuzzy Lamb-- with stories of sleeping with a stuffed dog, a soft rabbit and a snuggly blanket. It would seem that numbers of us are hugging something warm, other than, or in addition to, a husband, in bed at night. A lovely leftover from childhood.

One honest husband writes that he is certain that were he not there in the bed, his wife would fill it with cute, fuzzy animals that do not snore!

Any more stories out there?

Sandy Smyth posted her experience of driving through the car wash with the sunroof of her car half open. Way to go, Sandy! That’s a Stupid 10 if there ever was one. Alice, having removed her wallet from her pocketbook, put it in an odd place and the frantic search made her late for church. Possibly a Stupid 3 or 4?

My most recent Stupid 10 was the following: My old Medicare card being Kleenex-soft and frayed at the edges, I sent for a new one. When it came I took it to Granville Printing where they said they could laminate it for me in an hour. I headed off to nearby Mrs. Green’s to buy vegetables and other sundries and returned to be handed this beautiful, gleaming, laminated Medicare card. It was gorgeous! I was so proud of it and could not wait for the next doctor’s appointment when I would whip it out and dazzle the receptionist with its up-to-date glory. 

I was still admiring it in the car when it dawned on me that something was wrong. Yes, indeed! I had failed to sign it. The card was absolutely blank where, at the bottom, it said: Signature.

You can imagine my dismay.

Now I carry both cards: I offer the new one, but in case someone gets fussy, I am able to produce the old one that does have my signature. (So far, no one has made that demand.)

Definitely a Stupid 10.

We have to laugh! Isn’t it remarkable that at the same time that we humans are bungling through the world, clutching, childlike, our stuffed animals or soft blankets in the night, we are also capable of spontaneous deep, original thought, creativity and acts of love, generosity and kindness unimagined?

Let’s celebrate every aspect of our being with delight, good humor and admiration.