Conversations... As Long as We Both Shall Live

What a great week when dots and spots collide and conversations go from life headlines to in-depth reports and paragraphs of dates and octopus and a salted caramel tart, movies that still haunt me, and a forest so colorful my eyes lost focus. This week held conversations with old friends, a work buddy and my son that could be put to song or hung with prayer flags.

I skipped work for a day when Jeff and Denise whom I haven’t seen in a year, came to Chicago with a friend. Alex and I decided over texts as our offices began to clear on Friday to see Cloud Atlas and grab dinner, both of which would have been worth planning. Lonni and I unfurled a Portuguese lace, figural tablecloth with zodiac signs, measured, photographed and learned the words to describe it for sale on eBay, as she dismantles her home for a move she’d rather not make.  A co-worker, not known for drama or obfuscation came into my office, shut the door in a way that made her turn completely around like a swing-dance move and said, “I hate it here.” Libby and I walked Ryerson Woods, shared a long meal where conversations started and actually completed, and saw Perks of Being a Wall Flower that surprised us in its authenticity and brought us both to tears.

In nearly every set of discussions the topic of the future occurred. We all have one, for as long as we both shall live... Alex talked about his near term vacation trip to Japan and upcoming new job responsibilities. My co-worker Teresa looked for a way to get beyond that day’s frustration, not a new job, Jeff and Denise described traveling home to France and then to Italy, with Thanksgiving in-between. And Lonni who’s making a cod liver oil move for mobility sake, that takes her from her garden, gorgeous built ins and tree tops to a condo and allows her a time to write and make art again.

Me, I examine and adjust the columns I continue to use to choose my future: Accessibility to Family and Friends, Interests, Money, Location, Health, Comfort. Every time, when asked - whatever I’ve been mulling most recently gets discussed first, but I don’t come to a decision.

I posted an article from the Wall Street Journal this week which described a couple who sold their home to become virtual vagabonds. They live in different towns all over the world for months at a time, their belongings in storage. Waiting for Perks to begin, Libby asked if I’d want to live that model, her twenty seven year old daughter sent her the article and said she wanted to do that now.  For me, I recognize that way of living certainly speaks to interests, location and maybe comfort, but accessibility to friends and the money aren’t aligned. “No, I told her, I just liked learning about the option.” Maybe there is something in-between, maybe we create our own social network of places to stay among friends. This nugget morphed into the Friends with Beds post below to explore the idea.

Clearly, I am still exploring, though I feel I am way behind. By now, my parents knew they would retire to Florida, they’d narrowed it to the Florida Gulf coast, but were still choosing a town and a style of home. Each year they’d vacation in a different place even testing a mobile home among the condo and single-family homes. I don’t have a vision for where or how I will spend my time, though friends have advised to let that go until you punch the last time clock…but I can’t imagine walking into such a void. I just feel behind... and alone in the decision.

Coaching and writing continue to feed me. I do both now but on the side and rarely for remuneration. In neither have I found my voice, but I continue to receive positive feedback for both. Working for someone else remains safe. The paycheck, benefits, obligatory social network and the sense of contribution offer comfort on all levels.   Consulting is a possibility… maybe I should call it weaning.

The conversations this week propelled me into new thoughts. They taught me and they touched me. I am forever grateful to the people in my life and always wish them the best as they move into their future for as long as we both shall live.  

Friends with Beds - Retirement Travel

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS IDEA?

A recent Wall Street Journal article describe a retired couple who sold their home in order to live for a couple months at a time in places around the world. After a couple conversations about that model, I decided that it wasn't right for me, but there is something so intriguing about the concept. I agreed with a friend visiting from England, who said she didn't really like to travel, move from hotel to hotel, but she likes staying with friends. That unfortunately puts a burden on the host. One entrepreneurial friend offers her apartment in Chicago on AirBnB... it means she has to clear out, lock up her personal stuff, live with some goofy guy for the duration, but she makes extra money.

Here's my idea.... what if "Friends" created an underground accommodation system by offering their Empty Nest room, their extra bedroom for a fair fee? Not to host them but to make available a space for a month or os for someone to experience a town? The roomer(s) would pay a room charge, have use of the kitchen and other facilities as agreed upon. Perhaps, their would be an expectation that the room has a tv and internet. Though the focus is not about the visit, certainly at times the owner could invite the visitor to a shared meals like the owners at the Gites in France who made dinner for us.

This idea appeals to me. Friends with Beds. A website of common expectations, suggested pricing, and maybe a registration of friends. What do you think?

Cloud Atlas - Writing without a View to the Future

Introvert Mary speaks is what my friend Lonni called my writing after a recent posting. A high compliment, as I sharpen my focus and my pencil, so to speak, on expressing myself through a blog. She knows that I find people who know people I know in an elevator, network my chiropractor and hairdresser, facilitate webinars, give speeches, make campaign calls and other corporal works of extroversion. And, she knows every extrovert outpouring for me is like living in a klieg light, as a big font billboard that requires a sunlit, tiny font monitor to recharge and inform it.

Last night Alex and I saw Cloud Atlas. What a blast to see Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Sturgess, Jim Broadbent and my favorite, Doona Bae working their way through five and more characters. Much of the story hinged on writings… love letters, an incendiary report, a journal, a badly written book, a book turned into a screen play… each affected the next act and another generation. Each author wrote in hopes of a certain audience and an intended impact. None… none realized the true influence. How would the 1800s journal writer long dead know when he wrote, that his journal published, bought by a composer and torn in half to steady a table would motivate a suicide by someone staying in the home with a rickety table? We don’t know what our writing wreaks.

The more I write, the more I need to write. Concepts, phrases, opening lines, sentences and paragraphs float through my brain. I wish someone would invent a shower keyboard to capture thoughts, but the waste of water, and the increase in late work starts could severely limit my livelihood. When I discovered the voice recorder on my Android, my world got a little better. Thank you to the *Dictaphone people who paved the way. Just think, I am benefitting from a process improvement that allowed a boss to speak his correspondence so a secretary could type it at her own typing speed. That last sentence reeks of old school... what is correspondence today? What is a secretary? What is word per minute typing? Here I am looking for easier ways to convey my correspondence... not unlike a thread of influence in Cloud Atlas.

Lonni chastised me today for not putting notices on FaceBook that I posted a new blog. First, she complained, like a dutiful friend, that she now had sixty blog posts to read. Then she confessed she felt like a slug, guilty and angry at herself, that she should be writing. (I agree with her… she is a fabulous, down to the bone, writer. Or, as my mother, whose only swear was “damn” would say, quiturbitchin’. Get to it!) My blog posts aren’t, until this very moment, about telling people to write, but that’s what the last posting about aging, sorting and moving rendered.

Writing like much of art is a solitary act that requires an audience. As a writer, I may have a specific audience in mind… a person or a group. I could layer on top ambition for the writing to have influence, to sway, to cause change, so I seek opportunities for distribution of my writing through publishing, but I don't. Today, I’ll take the chastisement. For my blog, being followed is the highest compliment. I appreciate a “share”. A written comment makes my post a conversation and feeds Extrovert Mary, and  a “like” is something to be liked. Any response recharges Introvert Mary. 



*History of Dictaphone

My Declaration on Stuff

Stuff demands a personal constitution: Beliefs about oneself and how you relate to stuff.  I am… one might state… frugal, trendy, prepared, charitable, fiscally responsible, sentimental, pragmatic, curious, free spending, creative, innovative, independent . Declarations and actions come from a constitution. The words that show the behavior from that constitution.  You can count on me to… recycle, reuse, donate to Salvation Army, sell on e-Bay, scour garage sales, buy the newest styles or buy wholesale or make it myself, or hand-it down, or maybe for some people, hoard, for example.

No matter the length of a declaration on stuff,  the fervor in which it is lived, nor the sentiments attached, the first words once one decides to move and begins to plan the packing, What the hell was I thinking!!!

I walked into my friend’s condo a couple days after it was staged for showings. The heart was gone.  No music greeted me - the CDs were stashed. The buffet, normally an altar of keepsakes… cleared except three candlesticks matchy-matchy. Plants creating an elegant jungle, removed like deforesting in the Amazon.

Moving requires careful inventory of each and every room, and closets from top shelf to floor. It necessitates the infliction of memories whether wanted or not. Going through a drawer and finding a button from a coat long donated, but snapped off in a rush to catch a child from a fall from a bike. Or finding a sweater you got in 1991, made of the softest lamb leather and warm alpaca wool that matched your hair with divine precision that was a little snug at the time it was given to you as a hand me down… and never got less snug. Old receipts, tax returns, catalogs, and birthday cards… they are always in consideration for keep or toss. It just isn’t an easy decision.

My friend lived in her place for twenty-two years. She’s sentimental, loving, artsy and spiritual. I haven’t stayed in the same home for more than five since the nineties. Watching her go through this process reminds me of snapping the top off a dandelion. She’s getting rid of twenty-two years of stuff in one pop. My multiple moves were more like a flower girl distributing petals down the aisle. Step-toss a couple, step toss a couple more. Reaching the rows close to the altar, the basket is pretty much empty... but it's a long walk down the aisle. My moves have each marked a new stage in my life, ending a relationship, closing a business, empty nesting.  Obviously, they coincide with advancing age. (Funny how that phrase while it could be used for five year olds turning six, more often is used for fifty nine year olds turning sixty.) I'm baffled at this point of my life.  I'm not retiring. I am working on what and where to do next... an advancement in career, a slow down in work, a left turn onto a new path that I’ve taken a couple steps on, but haven’t had the nerve to explore beyond the picker bushes of doubts. What clothes, or books, parent’s stuff, journals, vases, silver ware, jewelry, furniture do I need, will I care about? Will some day I say, where is that… transistor radio?

Saturday, I took a bike ride with my brother who pulled a red transistor from his pocket to listen to the end of the Notre Dame game while we pedaled. At once I thought it quaint and also cool, from a re-use perspective. I donated my turquoise transistor from the sixties after seeing it in a drawer next to a Walkman that I later donated when my tapes turned to CDs, which of course, morphed into MP3 files. The sweat shirt he wore when I pulled up with my bike rack had so many little tears and holes that I asked if he’d been shot by a bee-bee gun. He said, “Remember this? I wore it when I delivered mail during college breaks... um, forty five years ago.” A forty-five year old sweatshirt. Wow! I admire that. I gave up sweatshirts for fleece when my twenty-seven year old was in seventh grade and did a science project comparing heat retention with wool, fleece and cotton. Fleece proved best. I bought fleece. I am not sure why I didn't keep the wool and cotton. My brother's transistor worked. It fit into his pocket. The sound was good and Notre Dame won… a happy turn around in the time of our ride. In my moves, I’ve gotten rid of so many items that still worked, still had application, still fit.  A forty-five year old sweatshirt. That is a commitment. And, I might add, clearly a reason he is in much better financial shape than me.

In my newest home of less than a year, the fixtures, counter tops, cabinetry, floors and colors are current.  A few years from now, the granite will be obsolete... the light wood floors scuffed… the faucets and sinks will no longer be cool. If I don’t update them, I used to think, people will come into my home and make opinions about me. They will suppose lack of funds, lack of taste or too old to be cool.

Last night, at a reception following a concert, my friend Lanni and I shared a table with a woman who was to move to a new home later this week. Her hands when we shook reminded me of my sixth grade catcher's mitt still sitting in a box in the garage, dried and cracked. (Wish I knew why I would save that over my transistor.) She sorted and pared down from a large home in a tony neighborhood to move to a senior living facility with an aging in place feature. She divvied items among her grown children and grand children. We talked a bit more, I we learned that the woman who was about to move is sixty-eight... and a widow of eight months… and has stage four breast cancer. Chemotherapy -the explanation for the dryness of her skin. If that was me... Moving in four days to a place without my spouse, knowing it is likely my last home… what would I pack? How would that inform my declaration of stuff?

I know it’s a work in progress, here it goes.... I am loving, curious, creative, pragmatic, active, fun, and generous. You can count on me to give away what I don’t need, keep stuff that allows me to teach my son about the people who came before, or help me be creative, or interact with people or learn and understand and be involved in current events. Commitments to my constitution don’t require latest clothes, new linens or a fancy car. And, I don’t need to keep my iPod when it gets too rickety or a pair of glasses if my prescription needs to be changed… I have complete choice. We the people like our stuff and we will let it go when the time is right.

And you?

Movie Title War Story - In Theaters October 20, 2012

“Here comes the boom”, Atlas shrugged II.

“I wish we could count on paranormal activity”, replied Alex, cross that the Hotel Transylvania was smashed by sinister Frankenweenie and his seven psychopaths. “Our pitch perfect master says that it must be the perks of being a wall flower that this War of the Buttons hasn’t Taken 2 long and become a looper.

“We argo’n to end it with tai chi ... zero casualties”,  the man with the world on his shoulders responded. 

My favorite? Argo


At: THEATRE - CENTURY 12 EVANSTON/CINÉARTS 6 AND XD

Can’t get this outa my head:

• Pulling out from a blind spot on Lower Wacker the other night and a speeding Saab nearly banking into the wall because of me. 
• Walking to work on Pearson near the Lake one gorgeous May morning when an old woman walking a few feet ahead of me dressed in an ankle length black wool coat and pumps tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and fell nose first into the cement.
• The moment Oscar took his last breath as the vet administered the second shot.
• After months of minimal communication and weeks of  nourishment from a feeding tube, my dad’s smile in recognition of taste during a procedure where they placed orange sherbet on his tongue.
• The video of a baby elephant and its mother in Kenya running toward each other when the baby is freed from a well
• Though they didn’t tell me, knowing that when my parents took Debbie to be boarded while they were going on a trip, it would be the last time I’d see her. I told them I’d walk her to the corner where they could pick her up and I’d walk back home where the baby sitter waited. (No my parent's werent like that. Neither of my siblings were boarded. Debbie was the dog.)
• Taking a spill with my niece on the back of the bike in her carrier.
• My mother’s painted finger nails and the smell of Aphrodisia and cigarettes as she readied to go out for dinner with my dad.

Morning at the Train Station

A large flock of geese fly against a early morning fall sky, with clounds that remind me of three stacked baguettes at the bakery. Nearing the municipal baseball field across from where I stand at the train station, I watch the flock split. The larger group drop and land. The other part continue then bank and circle completely around like we do so often over the Lake in five o'clock O'Hare air traffic. They surprise me in their full spiral and glide low to land with the others. I wonder if another batallion might be behind. Looking up I watch a sole bird sweeping back and forth across the sky like the cowboy erasing his trail.  A higher flying hawk crosses over the station and the park into the bread-cloud. "Metra commuters", the announcement breaks my awe. "The inbound train is now arriving." 10/15/12

All Time Favorite Innovations

• Words
• Aspirin
• Anti-biotic
• Music
• Radio
• TV
• Computer
• Sugar

And yours?