♪ I wore my coat, with golden lining
Bright colours shining, wonderful and new
And in the east, the dawn was breaking
And the world was waking
Any dream will do
♪ A crash of drums, a flash of light
My golden coat flew out of sight
The colours faded into darkness
I was left alone ♪
As of late the score from "Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" echoes in my head nearly all my conscious moments.
I've signed on to be a Dancer/Chorus person at the church I'm attending, and hopefully the choreography for the November performance will be adjusted to a cast with a large smattering of white middle-aged Texan women. ( We are not generally know for our stage and screen-worthy dance moves, although we can line dance like nobody's business. HA)
Until this fall my recent involvement with "Joseph" emerged as a greeting to my son's best friend, Jacob, who suffers through my musical "Jacob, Jacob and sons ♪" whenever I see him. Sorry bout that, Jakie. HA
But Joseph and I go way back. ( Hold that thought, I can hear my sons saying, yep she's that old. No, I was not born in the Bible days, even though some days my joints ache as though I went to high school with Jezebel.) Our Magnolia Presbyterian youth sang this jaunty little 40-minute cantata, back in the early '70's, when a website had a live spider in it and iPhones were only seen on Star Trek. The composers, an unknown pair named Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, hadn't yet burst onto the collective consciousness of the world. My big sister Karen and my brother Kirk had parts in the "play", and it was all very exciting to the third-grade version of me.
Due to my Stupid Cancer and other assorted Stupid Occurrences, I've not been singing for a few years.
Not even in the car so much, come to think of it.
I'd been singing since I could talk. A few years before the original little Joseph Cantata, the same youth who sang made me stand on a footstool in my parents' living room with my toy guitar and sing "Sugar Sugar", by the Archies. I dreamed of being a star, sang in elementary school chorus, junior high and high school youth group, took voice lessons, pored over Broadway albums by the hour, and once upon a time had a play sketched out for songs an album by some Swedish group named ABBA. HA! ( Sure wish I would have thrown that out there earlier! "Mamma Mia" might have been mine! ) Even as a young mother of three boys running, I helped the new crop of 90's Magnolia Youth write and sing a play for their Senior Year, using contemporary music to help tell the story. Music fills the soundtrack of my life, carries me when the dreams die and a hard reality takes their place. Always, always, new dreams materialize to a different melody line.
Joseph's whole life ran on dreams. He too was a precocious youngster, a star performer as a youth. He got knocked down by jealous siblings, picked up & recognized for his abilities, knocked down again by unscrupulous people, and finally found his place.
The last few years have been a reality check for any of my lifelong dreams, too. Been 'thrown in the cistern' more than a few times. Perhaps at long last I too have found my place, not as a big star, but a homing beacon for those who truly love me.
If I keep singing, keep dreaming, I may yet still have a golden chariot like Joseph. Mine will have Harley Davidson embossed on the side, but hey, a chariot is a chariot. Any dream will do...
May I return to the beginning?
The light is dimming, and the dream is too
The world and I, we are still waiting
Still hesitating
Any dream will do ♪
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Pouff! < nose twitching >
Amidst the latest social networking 'much ado about nothing', I realized that I have not one, not two, but three friends named Samantha. While not earth-shattering on any level, it prompted me to remember that I've long held a fascination with that name, and lately an electronic occurrence has kept her in conversation. But I digress.
In the late 60's, my pre-kindergarten self tried in vain to twitch my nose and make my toys jump into their toy box, like Samantha Stevens of television's 'Bewitched'. Standing knee-deep in a jumble of puzzle pieces, Fisher-Price Little People, and my brother's cast-off Tinker Toys & Lincoln Logs, I gave her eyes-closed/finger-snapping routine many valiant efforts. Every time I opened my eyes, I had not pouffed myself onto a cloud or anywhere else. Drat. I also once tried, also in vain, to Dippity-Do my limp cornsilk hair into the flip coiffure of my television idol, much to the chagrin of my mother, who had to put Dippity-do on the chalkboard grocery list for the next trip to the grocery store. Remember, those were the days when mothers and wives slept with bristly curlers in their hair, strands well coated with stinky, Jell-o like 'setting lotion'. ( And people wonder why the divorce rate skyrocketed in the 60's and 70's... ).
A decade after Samantha Stevens' magical fame had faded away, a geneaology project in junior high led to the magnificent discovery that my great- great- great- great- grandmother's name was Samantha! Samantha Fairchild. What an incredibly beautiful name! She must have been as lovely as her name would indicate, my newly -teenaged self imagined. I pictured this woman, garbed in fine colonial gowns, bustle and bodice and all, working a needlepoint sampler. Fair hair drawn up in a mass of curls, she demurely stitched whilst listening to a minuet playing in the parlor. HA! For all I know she had a rigorous life consisting solely of farm chores on the rocky slopes of Vermont. The only hard data I gleaned way back in those pre-Internet days was her birthdate, the Vermont birthplace, and the date she married my great- great- great- great- grandfather, quite patriotically named George Washington Bassett, in the brand-spankin' new United States of America. A few generations later, my grandmother joined the Samantha-Descendants, and another two after that, I did. I'd like to know more about her. Perhaps I should renew my Ancestry.com subscription and climb the branches of the family tree.
My three Samantha-friends each seem to have her hale and hardy-colonist spirit, interestingly enough, and all three beautiful women have a way with words. None of them possess magical powers, dang it all, but between the mission work of one, the acerbic wit of another, and the insights into human nature of the third, they snap! tidbits of fascinating life-views onto my computer screen. Miss Acerbic Wit happens to be daughter # 3 of my homeward-bound-in-a-short-while best friend, which leads me to the thread of contemporary Samantha-isms I mentioned a while ago.
Jonathan and I Skype/Yahoo cyber-chat twice a day...once when he gets up in the morning in Afghanistan, which is usually just before I hit the hay stateside, and then God love him he sees my pre-coffee bleary self after I wake up and he has finished another day. He putters back and forth getting coffee, sometimes answering the door to the 'ninja' maids ( they wear black scarves and hoods, and although I'm sure they are perfectly nice Afghani women making big bucks cleaning up after contractors, they look scary! LOL ), leaving the frame for a few seconds, and sometimes I go fetch coffee and leave my webcam staring at an empty doorway behind my computer chair. Often the feed will freeze up, and when either of us return to our respective chairs, we do not show up on the monitor for a few seconds, and after our network catches up, we POP! back into view.
Just like Samantha Stevens. It's about time my nose-twitching worked. Been working on it since Armstrong ambled across the moon.
In the late 60's, my pre-kindergarten self tried in vain to twitch my nose and make my toys jump into their toy box, like Samantha Stevens of television's 'Bewitched'. Standing knee-deep in a jumble of puzzle pieces, Fisher-Price Little People, and my brother's cast-off Tinker Toys & Lincoln Logs, I gave her eyes-closed/finger-snapping routine many valiant efforts. Every time I opened my eyes, I had not pouffed myself onto a cloud or anywhere else. Drat. I also once tried, also in vain, to Dippity-Do my limp cornsilk hair into the flip coiffure of my television idol, much to the chagrin of my mother, who had to put Dippity-do on the chalkboard grocery list for the next trip to the grocery store. Remember, those were the days when mothers and wives slept with bristly curlers in their hair, strands well coated with stinky, Jell-o like 'setting lotion'. ( And people wonder why the divorce rate skyrocketed in the 60's and 70's... ).
A decade after Samantha Stevens' magical fame had faded away, a geneaology project in junior high led to the magnificent discovery that my great- great- great- great- grandmother's name was Samantha! Samantha Fairchild. What an incredibly beautiful name! She must have been as lovely as her name would indicate, my newly -teenaged self imagined. I pictured this woman, garbed in fine colonial gowns, bustle and bodice and all, working a needlepoint sampler. Fair hair drawn up in a mass of curls, she demurely stitched whilst listening to a minuet playing in the parlor. HA! For all I know she had a rigorous life consisting solely of farm chores on the rocky slopes of Vermont. The only hard data I gleaned way back in those pre-Internet days was her birthdate, the Vermont birthplace, and the date she married my great- great- great- great- grandfather, quite patriotically named George Washington Bassett, in the brand-spankin' new United States of America. A few generations later, my grandmother joined the Samantha-Descendants, and another two after that, I did. I'd like to know more about her. Perhaps I should renew my Ancestry.com subscription and climb the branches of the family tree.
My three Samantha-friends each seem to have her hale and hardy-colonist spirit, interestingly enough, and all three beautiful women have a way with words. None of them possess magical powers, dang it all, but between the mission work of one, the acerbic wit of another, and the insights into human nature of the third, they snap! tidbits of fascinating life-views onto my computer screen. Miss Acerbic Wit happens to be daughter # 3 of my homeward-bound-in-a-short-while best friend, which leads me to the thread of contemporary Samantha-isms I mentioned a while ago.
Jonathan and I Skype/Yahoo cyber-chat twice a day...once when he gets up in the morning in Afghanistan, which is usually just before I hit the hay stateside, and then God love him he sees my pre-coffee bleary self after I wake up and he has finished another day. He putters back and forth getting coffee, sometimes answering the door to the 'ninja' maids ( they wear black scarves and hoods, and although I'm sure they are perfectly nice Afghani women making big bucks cleaning up after contractors, they look scary! LOL ), leaving the frame for a few seconds, and sometimes I go fetch coffee and leave my webcam staring at an empty doorway behind my computer chair. Often the feed will freeze up, and when either of us return to our respective chairs, we do not show up on the monitor for a few seconds, and after our network catches up, we POP! back into view.
Just like Samantha Stevens. It's about time my nose-twitching worked. Been working on it since Armstrong ambled across the moon.
Friday, September 23, 2011
♪ Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...
Everyone is in an uproar about changes on Facebook..."an endless refrain of they want the old feed back / it's too much of a hassle/can't they just leave it alone???" has echoed on cyberspace for days now. I whined about it me-self. Facebook has a place in my quiet little life, a link to home, a landing place at the end of a day, a kitchen table visit with old chums. Cliché, perhaps, yet honest.
I doubt that many on Facebook have a vested interest in it, certainly no one in my Friends list seems to or will divulge that information. Yet we each have a page, a drop in the pond, and so it seems that we might have some sort of territorial claim.
Funny how we have the right to complain and kvetch, if you will, about a free service that does nothing for us but connect. Is it perhaps that we are so disconnected that social media is the only tie that binds? We have freedom of speech, and boy do we spew. One friend of mine noted, " Dear Facebook, A description of someone's sandwich does not deign it a Top Story, nor do the 30 hmmmms following. WTF?" Multiply that by a billion users... that's an ocean;s worth of kvetching. Oye.
We are so quick to complain about changes in our individual lives, so fast to pass judgement on anything we disagree with. We no longer even allow the freedom of speech to be freedom of opinion. Friends of a different ideology are shrugged at -- or worse, dismissed. The late great George Carlin observed, " Have you ever noticed that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster is a maniac?" You know it's true...and it goes much deeper than that. We've incorporated loathing of borders and racial divides to random drivers on the street.
Carlin uttered that highway observation within the last few decades. In his own lifetime, history bore witness to Germans massing to crush Europe and exterminate the Jews, Koreans dividing the nation and turning on their own countrymen, followed closely by the Vietnamese repeating, Communism promoting socialism while applying oppression there and in the U.S.S.R. ... centuries after the Catholics killed off the Calvinists, the Crusaders killed off the Muslims and other assorted infidels,after the Romans oppressed the Jews, after the successive kings and leaders of the ancient world sought out to slay anyone not of their kind.
Suffice it to say that we are hardwired to reject unity with other 'species' -- and at once, quick to cast aspersions or even shun 'infidels' from our own families and social circles.I have a friend who had a pretty tight group of pals until the '08 election season...and then they literally gave him the boot because he exercised his Democratic right and leaned to the left, no pun intended. In my own family, persons have been 'prayed for' because they sought a different faith, escaped a bad marriage, had kids outside of marriage. Gasp! That certainly NEVER happened in the Bible.
Think about it... you don't warm up to someone you meet at a social outing until you have something in common. Perhaps when you learn that they lived in your hometown or worked at the same company, share common religious or non-religious schools of thought is when you start to give them any type of acceptance. We are hardwired to seek similarities, "tribal marks', if you will, and wary of those who have no link to someone who does.
Most of our connections on Facebook have a 'tribal mark' work, school, church, community, lifestyle, etc., that we recognize, or at least are connected to through a 'known Friend'. It's not a new condition, kids, just a variation on a theme.
We all need to feel connected to the familiar, and Normal isn't even a setting on the dryer any more. Apparently the only normalcy EVER was ON clothes dryers...
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...
Turn and face the strain.. ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...
Where's your shame • you've left us up in our necks to it
.
I doubt that many on Facebook have a vested interest in it, certainly no one in my Friends list seems to or will divulge that information. Yet we each have a page, a drop in the pond, and so it seems that we might have some sort of territorial claim.
Funny how we have the right to complain and kvetch, if you will, about a free service that does nothing for us but connect. Is it perhaps that we are so disconnected that social media is the only tie that binds? We have freedom of speech, and boy do we spew. One friend of mine noted, " Dear Facebook, A description of someone's sandwich does not deign it a Top Story, nor do the 30 hmmmms following. WTF?" Multiply that by a billion users... that's an ocean;s worth of kvetching. Oye.
We are so quick to complain about changes in our individual lives, so fast to pass judgement on anything we disagree with. We no longer even allow the freedom of speech to be freedom of opinion. Friends of a different ideology are shrugged at -- or worse, dismissed. The late great George Carlin observed, " Have you ever noticed that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster is a maniac?" You know it's true...and it goes much deeper than that. We've incorporated loathing of borders and racial divides to random drivers on the street.
Carlin uttered that highway observation within the last few decades. In his own lifetime, history bore witness to Germans massing to crush Europe and exterminate the Jews, Koreans dividing the nation and turning on their own countrymen, followed closely by the Vietnamese repeating, Communism promoting socialism while applying oppression there and in the U.S.S.R. ... centuries after the Catholics killed off the Calvinists, the Crusaders killed off the Muslims and other assorted infidels,after the Romans oppressed the Jews, after the successive kings and leaders of the ancient world sought out to slay anyone not of their kind.
Suffice it to say that we are hardwired to reject unity with other 'species' -- and at once, quick to cast aspersions or even shun 'infidels' from our own families and social circles.I have a friend who had a pretty tight group of pals until the '08 election season...and then they literally gave him the boot because he exercised his Democratic right and leaned to the left, no pun intended. In my own family, persons have been 'prayed for' because they sought a different faith, escaped a bad marriage, had kids outside of marriage. Gasp! That certainly NEVER happened in the Bible.
Think about it... you don't warm up to someone you meet at a social outing until you have something in common. Perhaps when you learn that they lived in your hometown or worked at the same company, share common religious or non-religious schools of thought is when you start to give them any type of acceptance. We are hardwired to seek similarities, "tribal marks', if you will, and wary of those who have no link to someone who does.
Most of our connections on Facebook have a 'tribal mark' work, school, church, community, lifestyle, etc., that we recognize, or at least are connected to through a 'known Friend'. It's not a new condition, kids, just a variation on a theme.
We all need to feel connected to the familiar, and Normal isn't even a setting on the dryer any more. Apparently the only normalcy EVER was ON clothes dryers...
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...
Turn and face the strain.. ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...
Where's your shame • you've left us up in our necks to it
.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
♪ Run Between the Raindrops ♪
Every morning it's the same comfortable routine... I get a wake-up call from a faraway land, a loving, long-distance version of " G'morning...I brought you some coffee"; I get up; let my dogs out, they play while I get breakfast for Brett, and then I take them for a walk. Sounds monotonous and rather dull, I know, but I am a creature of habit and it's the only routine I have in this hazy stretch of recovery limbo. My college-attending son's pup, Zeus, is a nine-month-old Lab mix, of which we are certain some of the mix is good ol' hound dog. My rescued-from-abandonment 2-year-old Shiloh is also a blonde Lab with much more delicate mannerisms. I haven't had a dog for ten years, and for now I have a matched set. Who knew?
They roll around in the grass together like Simba and Nala of Lion King fame, sometimes running at each other so hard that one will tuck and roll upon impact. Lately Shiloh has learned that she can take Zeusie down by grabbing a foreleg in her teeth and sacking him, shades of John Elway or Jay Cutler. I usually yell out the kitchen door, coffee cup in hand, 'That's my girl!" I sure wish I could have done that to my brother back in the day. Would have evened things up a little.
So this morning it poured. HALLELUJAH! However, no puppy play today. ( I remember when the boys were little and we'd have to stay in on the two or three days it ever rained in Southern California during their childhood, and the hours (and my nerves) seemed to stretch like silly putty. Two young dogs who need to wrestle and frolic tend to recreate those young motherhood days.
Around noon I leashed them up and prayed the rain would hold off until we got back, intending to take them around the block just once. Just once, I did not put the training harness on 70-80-lb. Zeus, thinking,' I can handle this around the block'. 200 yards down the street my post-cancer arms were in disagreement. " Zeusie, Gramma gonna take you home. You are hurting me..." and after depositing the squirrel-chasing-with-the-velocity-of-a go-kart Zeus back at The Cottage, Shiloh and I set out again. Heading into our regular walk, which takes us down the block, up another street, and up a back stretch behind the neighborhood ending at our backyard, when my already frayed body and nerves wondered if perhaps I should change my mind and take us back home. What if it starts pouring and we are at the far point? Just then she circled me and I did a twirl with my arm over my head, just like ballroom dancing, to keep the leash from twirling me. I looked down at that beautiful toffee-colored canine thanking me with her eyes for a walk without The Pup for once, and said to her, "Welp, we're already out, and we'll finish what we started. Right? " Shiloh wagged her elegant tail at me in agreement and trotted happily along, splashing in the gutters.
My life adventures and misadventures very often resemble taking a dog for a walk in between rain showers. I haven't always planned well, and my leaps of faith have many times been into a puddle, knee-deep in swirling water. Sometimes I make it back home without getting soaked. More often than not, I get splashed by a passing driver too close to the curb, or go out lacking a jacket or umbrella and end up bedraggled and bemoaning my fate.
I can choose to either 'stay at home', be bored and unproductive and annoyed at my circumstance, or I can put this body and soul into motion, threatening rainclouds or not. It's easier to be annoyed when your endorphin level is elevated.
I've often wondered why I have had this extended recovery, balking mightily at the respite, thinking I OUGHT TO BE DOING SOMETHING. 'Staying at home' does not mean sitting on the couch and hoping for something good to happen. DOING SOMETHING is not always what is visible to the world. Only God marks your true progress... and I've learned that means using the time to heal and be a healer, 'clear out closets' of trapped thoughts, and being a good steward of my life and heart, and soul.
I didn't survive cancer to 'stay at home'. I have to keep walking to get home someday. Dogs may pull hard at the leash, they might knock over a trash can or two, and I may get chased by unleashed canines defending their turf. All of that pales in comparison to the gratitude of being alive, able to think, and sing, and walk, and pray, feeling the breeze on my face. John 16:33 " You will have trouble on this earth, but take heart..."
Pat Benatar, my opera-trained 80's rocker idol, sang it:
It's always one thing or another, seems like we never get ahead
You gotta run between the raindrops if you wanna see the sun;
Run run run between the raindrops, run between the raindrops if
you wanna see the sun;
Run run run, run baby run.
Think I'll keep taking the chances to be drenched.
They roll around in the grass together like Simba and Nala of Lion King fame, sometimes running at each other so hard that one will tuck and roll upon impact. Lately Shiloh has learned that she can take Zeusie down by grabbing a foreleg in her teeth and sacking him, shades of John Elway or Jay Cutler. I usually yell out the kitchen door, coffee cup in hand, 'That's my girl!" I sure wish I could have done that to my brother back in the day. Would have evened things up a little.
So this morning it poured. HALLELUJAH! However, no puppy play today. ( I remember when the boys were little and we'd have to stay in on the two or three days it ever rained in Southern California during their childhood, and the hours (and my nerves) seemed to stretch like silly putty. Two young dogs who need to wrestle and frolic tend to recreate those young motherhood days.
Around noon I leashed them up and prayed the rain would hold off until we got back, intending to take them around the block just once. Just once, I did not put the training harness on 70-80-lb. Zeus, thinking,' I can handle this around the block'. 200 yards down the street my post-cancer arms were in disagreement. " Zeusie, Gramma gonna take you home. You are hurting me..." and after depositing the squirrel-chasing-with-the-velocity-of-a go-kart Zeus back at The Cottage, Shiloh and I set out again. Heading into our regular walk, which takes us down the block, up another street, and up a back stretch behind the neighborhood ending at our backyard, when my already frayed body and nerves wondered if perhaps I should change my mind and take us back home. What if it starts pouring and we are at the far point? Just then she circled me and I did a twirl with my arm over my head, just like ballroom dancing, to keep the leash from twirling me. I looked down at that beautiful toffee-colored canine thanking me with her eyes for a walk without The Pup for once, and said to her, "Welp, we're already out, and we'll finish what we started. Right? " Shiloh wagged her elegant tail at me in agreement and trotted happily along, splashing in the gutters.
My life adventures and misadventures very often resemble taking a dog for a walk in between rain showers. I haven't always planned well, and my leaps of faith have many times been into a puddle, knee-deep in swirling water. Sometimes I make it back home without getting soaked. More often than not, I get splashed by a passing driver too close to the curb, or go out lacking a jacket or umbrella and end up bedraggled and bemoaning my fate.
I can choose to either 'stay at home', be bored and unproductive and annoyed at my circumstance, or I can put this body and soul into motion, threatening rainclouds or not. It's easier to be annoyed when your endorphin level is elevated.
I've often wondered why I have had this extended recovery, balking mightily at the respite, thinking I OUGHT TO BE DOING SOMETHING. 'Staying at home' does not mean sitting on the couch and hoping for something good to happen. DOING SOMETHING is not always what is visible to the world. Only God marks your true progress... and I've learned that means using the time to heal and be a healer, 'clear out closets' of trapped thoughts, and being a good steward of my life and heart, and soul.
I didn't survive cancer to 'stay at home'. I have to keep walking to get home someday. Dogs may pull hard at the leash, they might knock over a trash can or two, and I may get chased by unleashed canines defending their turf. All of that pales in comparison to the gratitude of being alive, able to think, and sing, and walk, and pray, feeling the breeze on my face. John 16:33 " You will have trouble on this earth, but take heart..."
Pat Benatar, my opera-trained 80's rocker idol, sang it:
It's always one thing or another, seems like we never get ahead
Reaching out for the brass ring, and landin' in the dirt instead
We can't get past yesterday, we're only countin' down from ten
It seems like every move we make, brings us back where we beganYou gotta run between the raindrops if you wanna see the sun;
Run run run between the raindrops, run between the raindrops if
you wanna see the sun;
Run run run, run baby run.
Think I'll keep taking the chances to be drenched.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
♪ The Last Flight to Kandahar ♪
No, folks, that isn't really a song... once upon a time, in a life far away, a trio titled Exit Strategy covered Ray Wylie Hubbard's "Last Train to Amsterdam". The catchy tune ricocheted through Vincent's, an artsy, hip-happenin' coffee bar where we all used to gather on the weekends back in my Olden Life, before Stupid Cancer. ( And I thought my life sucked back then. LOL )
Carrying my phone this past weekend, like a life preserver, that tune echoed in my head , albeit with different lyrics of my own composition.
There's a new life waitin' to be born
There's a warrior, weary, worn and torn One of them waits to hear he's okay One brushing off dusty gear, putting fears away Well he's waiting on the flight line, and we want him home from war And rotors are turnin' on the last helo to Kandahar
Carrying my phone this past weekend, like a life preserver, that tune echoed in my head , albeit with different lyrics of my own composition.
There's a new life waitin' to be born
There's a warrior, weary, worn and torn One of them waits to hear he's okay One brushing off dusty gear, putting fears away Well he's waiting on the flight line, and we want him home from war And rotors are turnin' on the last helo to Kandahar
As I have so often this last year I sat vigil, waiting for texts from my best friend, letting me know of departures and arrivals across Afghanistan while contracting with the Army to maintain IT systems for the troops. " Checked in" "Boarding" " Delayed in terminal...need coffee" " watching Family Guy on AFN
( military channel ), maybe fly tomorrow... " have made frequent appearances on my mobile phone for the past several months.
It's been an education for me, being connected with someone in Afghanistan. The images that filter through the media depict all contractors as greedy bastards ( which I am certain some are ) and the efforts in Gaghanistan, as we refer to it as unnecessary, of which I'm certain there is some truth.
Never before has a close family friend of mine been driving to work and had to turn around because the local grocery store blew up, killing women and children shopping for the next day's 'Sabbath'. The grocery store in question was bombed to protest the foreign contractors WHO SHOPPED there, bringing revenue.
Never before have I known anyone who pays $3000 a month for a heavily guarded, 180-sq. ft. train-car compartment with a restroom, sink, mini-fridge, microwave and Internet. Even rents on Manhattan aren't THAT bad -- for that amount you can have a 2-bedroom with views of the City, a gym, swimming pool, recreation room AND a rooftop lounge. Oh wait, there's a rooftop lounge over my friend's compartment -- where his co-worker lives. Helpful, 'cause if he sleeps too late the pounding of footsteps overhead wakes his butt up, so they can fly out and be in the field for two weeks .$3000 for 180 square feet, slept in 12-15 days out of the month.
Traffic in Kabul sounds much like Manhattan, blaring horns, crazy drivers, takes 25 minutes to go 400 feet... with the addition of mule carts, ancient Toyota Corollas usually jammed with over a dozen people, and the lovely smell of open sewage. Hence the Gaghanistan phraseology.
Tales of these, coupled with scanning the news more avidly to make sure Something Bad did not happen to him over there has been a governor on my self-pity motor.
Yes, going through a year of treating cancer, losing my hair twice, and having my bustline taken away not once but twice, recurring problems, still waiting for reconstruction and my body to completely heal has been really agonizing at times. But I've been in my own home, my own bed, and even when in treatment or the hospital, surrounded by people who cared for me. Not quite as agonizing as staying up for three days straight waiting at Bagram International for a 15-minute helo, not as agonizing as sleeping on an office floor because the tents were full up on that visit, not as agonizing as walking two miles each way to the USO in the southern Gaghanistan summer, not as agonizing as a season-less ,vacation-less existence. Not nearly as agonizing as being stuck at Bagram International, with 48 hours to a visa expiration, needing to leave and catch a scheduled flight to Dubai to renew said visa.
" But those contractors make so much money! No one held a gun to their heads... they aren't military. They could work stateside..." All true. All so true.
Yes, the DoD pays big bucks to their companies, a great sum of which goes to pay for armed compounds to live in, and no, they do not have to be there. Most of them are former military, though, and so it's what they know, who they are. Most often they are American patriots to the core who know full well that the tribal forces in the region will never yield to democracy, tribal forces who murder their own families to make a statement. Patriots who want to keep those tribal forces on their own turf, not ours, and serve and support this next generation of soldiers as much as they can, so they "re-enlist" under a different set of orders.
Cancer, schmancer. There are drugs for that. There's no cure for war.
Well he's shipping off his trappings, briefly coming home from war While others step up to take the next flights to Kandahar
( military channel ), maybe fly tomorrow... " have made frequent appearances on my mobile phone for the past several months.
It's been an education for me, being connected with someone in Afghanistan. The images that filter through the media depict all contractors as greedy bastards ( which I am certain some are ) and the efforts in Gaghanistan, as we refer to it as unnecessary, of which I'm certain there is some truth.
Never before has a close family friend of mine been driving to work and had to turn around because the local grocery store blew up, killing women and children shopping for the next day's 'Sabbath'. The grocery store in question was bombed to protest the foreign contractors WHO SHOPPED there, bringing revenue.
Never before have I known anyone who pays $3000 a month for a heavily guarded, 180-sq. ft. train-car compartment with a restroom, sink, mini-fridge, microwave and Internet. Even rents on Manhattan aren't THAT bad -- for that amount you can have a 2-bedroom with views of the City, a gym, swimming pool, recreation room AND a rooftop lounge. Oh wait, there's a rooftop lounge over my friend's compartment -- where his co-worker lives. Helpful, 'cause if he sleeps too late the pounding of footsteps overhead wakes his butt up, so they can fly out and be in the field for two weeks .$3000 for 180 square feet, slept in 12-15 days out of the month.
Traffic in Kabul sounds much like Manhattan, blaring horns, crazy drivers, takes 25 minutes to go 400 feet... with the addition of mule carts, ancient Toyota Corollas usually jammed with over a dozen people, and the lovely smell of open sewage. Hence the Gaghanistan phraseology.
Tales of these, coupled with scanning the news more avidly to make sure Something Bad did not happen to him over there has been a governor on my self-pity motor.
Yes, going through a year of treating cancer, losing my hair twice, and having my bustline taken away not once but twice, recurring problems, still waiting for reconstruction and my body to completely heal has been really agonizing at times. But I've been in my own home, my own bed, and even when in treatment or the hospital, surrounded by people who cared for me. Not quite as agonizing as staying up for three days straight waiting at Bagram International for a 15-minute helo, not as agonizing as sleeping on an office floor because the tents were full up on that visit, not as agonizing as walking two miles each way to the USO in the southern Gaghanistan summer, not as agonizing as a season-less ,vacation-less existence. Not nearly as agonizing as being stuck at Bagram International, with 48 hours to a visa expiration, needing to leave and catch a scheduled flight to Dubai to renew said visa.
" But those contractors make so much money! No one held a gun to their heads... they aren't military. They could work stateside..." All true. All so true.
Yes, the DoD pays big bucks to their companies, a great sum of which goes to pay for armed compounds to live in, and no, they do not have to be there. Most of them are former military, though, and so it's what they know, who they are. Most often they are American patriots to the core who know full well that the tribal forces in the region will never yield to democracy, tribal forces who murder their own families to make a statement. Patriots who want to keep those tribal forces on their own turf, not ours, and serve and support this next generation of soldiers as much as they can, so they "re-enlist" under a different set of orders.
Cancer, schmancer. There are drugs for that. There's no cure for war.
Well he's shipping off his trappings, briefly coming home from war While others step up to take the next flights to Kandahar
Saturday, September 17, 2011
♪ Take Me Out to the Ballgame ♪
'Bout nine years ago, I seemed to be spending a lot of time at the Little League fields here in Wichita Falls. I'd spent lots of time on the Little league fields back in Southern California, too, from 1994 when Randall first played t-ball on the Tigers to Craig making All-stars in 2001.
Brett was 8 years old nine years ago, and I had a stint at a daycare at the big Methodist church downtown in the toddler room. On days when I wasn't at practice or a game, my tiny charges kept me hopping from playing on the floor to changing table to playground to lunch time to changing table to naps to snack to toys on the floor again. Andrew was a blond-haired blue-eyed sweetheart, who never cried unless he was tired -- and then that kid seemed to have a flip-top head, and would howl like nobody's business. Funny, too, because his last name was Howell. HA. His peeps in the room, Nathan, Sean, Jeremiah, Lily, and Cason all had their own charming personalities, but Andrew had a hold on my heart. It could have been because his folks, Mark and Nancy, were the only ones who were interested in the folks that cared for their precious one, lingering at the end of the day, becoming familiar with us, truly grateful to us, and not just because we were getting paid to watch their child while they went off to work.
Married at the time to an AF med tech who was TDY ( on assignment ), I picked up on Mark and Nancy's love for each other and for Andrew. Not that the other parents didn't love their babies, but that they were such good friends as well as spouses and Andrew was so well-adjusted at such an early age. ( I had remarried after an abusive first marriage and moved to Texas, hoping to reprogram myself and my children in a better life). A few years later that hope died out, and I found myself once again raising my three boys on my own. Mark and Nancy and I kept in touch through occasional e-mail, and eventually ended up attending the same church where my oldest son worked with the children's programs -- bonding with Andrew and Ben. Randall, my oldest, and Mark were baseball / beer buddies. We spent more and more time with them. I marveled at the way their easy way with each other had waxed into a even more beautiful relationship, and what a joy-full family they were. They sure graced everyone's lives with their presence and love.
Fast forward to today. The same bleachers where I dwelled, all those years ago, bore witness to my little Andrew and his former crib-mate Nathan having their first game of fall baseball. Today was the first game Andrew ever played without his dad in the stands. Mark had routine surgery in late July -- and we lost him to unknown complications, and Nancy mourns his loss every second. Conversely, today I wait for my love to come home from serving in Afghanistan, next month, when we'll start our future face to face.
It's the seventh-inning stretch for we two forty-something mommies. While the organ plays the familiar strains, Nancy heads on an unknown ( and unexpected ) journey without her soulmate, and I head into a future with one I'd never even hoped to find. Nancy and Mark had been together for 25 years -- almost as long as it's been since Jon and I have seen each other. We'll stand and cheer on our teams as we each take on new field positions. She can coach me in the ways of a loving and real relationship, and I can coach her in the delicate balance of being a loving mom AND ersatz-dad to genius/baseball-loving/talented boys. God love us, and play ball!
Brett was 8 years old nine years ago, and I had a stint at a daycare at the big Methodist church downtown in the toddler room. On days when I wasn't at practice or a game, my tiny charges kept me hopping from playing on the floor to changing table to playground to lunch time to changing table to naps to snack to toys on the floor again. Andrew was a blond-haired blue-eyed sweetheart, who never cried unless he was tired -- and then that kid seemed to have a flip-top head, and would howl like nobody's business. Funny, too, because his last name was Howell. HA. His peeps in the room, Nathan, Sean, Jeremiah, Lily, and Cason all had their own charming personalities, but Andrew had a hold on my heart. It could have been because his folks, Mark and Nancy, were the only ones who were interested in the folks that cared for their precious one, lingering at the end of the day, becoming familiar with us, truly grateful to us, and not just because we were getting paid to watch their child while they went off to work.
Married at the time to an AF med tech who was TDY ( on assignment ), I picked up on Mark and Nancy's love for each other and for Andrew. Not that the other parents didn't love their babies, but that they were such good friends as well as spouses and Andrew was so well-adjusted at such an early age. ( I had remarried after an abusive first marriage and moved to Texas, hoping to reprogram myself and my children in a better life). A few years later that hope died out, and I found myself once again raising my three boys on my own. Mark and Nancy and I kept in touch through occasional e-mail, and eventually ended up attending the same church where my oldest son worked with the children's programs -- bonding with Andrew and Ben. Randall, my oldest, and Mark were baseball / beer buddies. We spent more and more time with them. I marveled at the way their easy way with each other had waxed into a even more beautiful relationship, and what a joy-full family they were. They sure graced everyone's lives with their presence and love.
Fast forward to today. The same bleachers where I dwelled, all those years ago, bore witness to my little Andrew and his former crib-mate Nathan having their first game of fall baseball. Today was the first game Andrew ever played without his dad in the stands. Mark had routine surgery in late July -- and we lost him to unknown complications, and Nancy mourns his loss every second. Conversely, today I wait for my love to come home from serving in Afghanistan, next month, when we'll start our future face to face.
It's the seventh-inning stretch for we two forty-something mommies. While the organ plays the familiar strains, Nancy heads on an unknown ( and unexpected ) journey without her soulmate, and I head into a future with one I'd never even hoped to find. Nancy and Mark had been together for 25 years -- almost as long as it's been since Jon and I have seen each other. We'll stand and cheer on our teams as we each take on new field positions. She can coach me in the ways of a loving and real relationship, and I can coach her in the delicate balance of being a loving mom AND ersatz-dad to genius/baseball-loving/talented boys. God love us, and play ball!
Friday, September 16, 2011
Joining the Chorus
This past Wednesday I went to a rehearsal for "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat". We watched the DVD where Donny Osmond sang the songs of Joseph, the wronged little brother of Bible fame, (looking not unlike Weird Al Yankovic in a long-haired wig. ) I love the music in this show, and thought to myself wow I have the perfect voice for the narrator. Wouldn't that be fun?! I could really belt those show tunes...and yet, oddly enough, I declined to go for a bigger role.
• Two years ago this past Wednesday, you'd have found me in a hospital room, recovering from a double mastectomy and the news that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. I have of photo of myself that my sister took of me, long blonde hair braided into two plaits, sporting a plethora of hospital bracelets, drain tubes and heart monitors and all sorts of gadgets hooked up to me.
•A year ago Wednesday, I had finished chemo and radiation and a long arduous year of receiving lots of attention, of both the beneficial and the downright gruesome. Suffice it to say the Plan for my treatment went awry on several occasions...and Irregular People added to my stress. Oye.
•This weekend marks the year since, when I have been reconnected to my childhood sweetheart/pal, now the Great Love of my Life. In this Year of Recovery ( and isolation from the workplace and many social endeavors of the past), he and I have had the splendid opportunity to remember and rediscover our true selves in the company of each other. Six days apart in age, we are truly the Gemini companion to the other.
Over the past 24 months, my spirit has been broken, bandaged, and bent, along with my body. I'm no longer the blonde bombshell I imagined myself to be. ( Jonathan says I am beautiful, and who else's opinion matters, save the man who truly loves you?) My shorter, darker, albeit wonderfully curly hair doesn't fit my memory of myself, and the Picasso scarring that swirls upon my concave chest is nowhere near the physique I once had. Cancer is gone, yes! but as a fellow cancer survivor, my dear friend Siobhan, says,
"Yeah, cancer gone. Weight on. Boobs gone. Arthritis here to stay...Whoo hoo."
Cancer is gone... a blessing indeed... and after a long year of introspection, self-obsession, and searching to find harmony somewhere in this brave new life, the need to also have the "solo in the show" has diminished considerably. That covers a plethora of neediness, mind you. My DNA urges me to "be in the inner circle",
"do something significant ", all guised in humility, what evah... so... from the time I sang in Chorus in fourth grade until my body's most recent transformation radically rearranged my psyche, I engaged in active jealousy over anyone who did better than I, and then in self-pity. These past two years have leached that out of me, one chemo, one radiation, one surgery at a time, until my spirit tuned into God with a grateful heart instead of a whiny one.
I've had lots of chances in 37 years since I first started singing in a group, to not be an attention-monger, and ignored most of those. My stubborn and insecure self eventually had to go through surgery, chemo, radiation, and isolation to arrive at the needed conclusion which I'd evaded all my life.
I am amazing whether I have the big solo, the best classroom, the highest performance in the workplace, the posh home or the newest model car. I might not have made it on Broadway, or written the Great American novel, or won on American Idol, but "look how the wild flowers grow: they do not work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers." Matthew 6:27-29
Joseph had to be thrown into a pit, and then live in a jail cell innocent but valuable to other prisoners, before he learned humility and grace -- and then he rejoiced with the very people who threw him into exile.
So, for now, it's better for me to 'sing in the chorus'...there's less to remember, I get to watch the show right from the stage, and if I miss a note or a step during the Big Number, chances are no one will notice as if they would with me taking the spotlight. And, and, I still get wear pretty costumes and sing my heart out. The ones that love me will be able to pick my voice out in the crowd. 'Specially the One who gave it to me...
• Two years ago this past Wednesday, you'd have found me in a hospital room, recovering from a double mastectomy and the news that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes. I have of photo of myself that my sister took of me, long blonde hair braided into two plaits, sporting a plethora of hospital bracelets, drain tubes and heart monitors and all sorts of gadgets hooked up to me.
•A year ago Wednesday, I had finished chemo and radiation and a long arduous year of receiving lots of attention, of both the beneficial and the downright gruesome. Suffice it to say the Plan for my treatment went awry on several occasions...and Irregular People added to my stress. Oye.
•This weekend marks the year since, when I have been reconnected to my childhood sweetheart/pal, now the Great Love of my Life. In this Year of Recovery ( and isolation from the workplace and many social endeavors of the past), he and I have had the splendid opportunity to remember and rediscover our true selves in the company of each other. Six days apart in age, we are truly the Gemini companion to the other.
Over the past 24 months, my spirit has been broken, bandaged, and bent, along with my body. I'm no longer the blonde bombshell I imagined myself to be. ( Jonathan says I am beautiful, and who else's opinion matters, save the man who truly loves you?) My shorter, darker, albeit wonderfully curly hair doesn't fit my memory of myself, and the Picasso scarring that swirls upon my concave chest is nowhere near the physique I once had. Cancer is gone, yes! but as a fellow cancer survivor, my dear friend Siobhan, says,
"Yeah, cancer gone. Weight on. Boobs gone. Arthritis here to stay...Whoo hoo."
Cancer is gone... a blessing indeed... and after a long year of introspection, self-obsession, and searching to find harmony somewhere in this brave new life, the need to also have the "solo in the show" has diminished considerably. That covers a plethora of neediness, mind you. My DNA urges me to "be in the inner circle",
"do something significant ", all guised in humility, what evah... so... from the time I sang in Chorus in fourth grade until my body's most recent transformation radically rearranged my psyche, I engaged in active jealousy over anyone who did better than I, and then in self-pity. These past two years have leached that out of me, one chemo, one radiation, one surgery at a time, until my spirit tuned into God with a grateful heart instead of a whiny one.
I've had lots of chances in 37 years since I first started singing in a group, to not be an attention-monger, and ignored most of those. My stubborn and insecure self eventually had to go through surgery, chemo, radiation, and isolation to arrive at the needed conclusion which I'd evaded all my life.
I am amazing whether I have the big solo, the best classroom, the highest performance in the workplace, the posh home or the newest model car. I might not have made it on Broadway, or written the Great American novel, or won on American Idol, but "look how the wild flowers grow: they do not work or make clothes for themselves. But I tell you that not even King Solomon with all his wealth had clothes as beautiful as one of these flowers." Matthew 6:27-29
Joseph had to be thrown into a pit, and then live in a jail cell innocent but valuable to other prisoners, before he learned humility and grace -- and then he rejoiced with the very people who threw him into exile.
So, for now, it's better for me to 'sing in the chorus'...there's less to remember, I get to watch the show right from the stage, and if I miss a note or a step during the Big Number, chances are no one will notice as if they would with me taking the spotlight. And, and, I still get wear pretty costumes and sing my heart out. The ones that love me will be able to pick my voice out in the crowd. 'Specially the One who gave it to me...
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