No place I wouldn’t go… maybe

Daily writing prompt
What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?
View all responses

There are so many places I’ve never traveled to.

There are few places I can think I’d never want to visit, one of which would be somewhere without an indoor washroom. My kids will attest to the fact that I typically don’t go … outdoors, and will travel miles to find indoor plumbing.

My youngest daughter, an adventurer by nature, has called me “city girl” more often than I care to hear it. I live in a state in the U.S. where winters can be harsh, and temperatures plummet to sub-zero, and anyone who ever had to stop at a remote rest area in January knows what it’s like. I don’t have to go into detail, but it can keep me in the car until I’m about to explode.

Shy of indoor plumbing, the only other places I don’t have any interest in visiting are those where biting bugs carry illnesses that can’t be cured with a little Calamine lotion or the reptile population is out to kill small children and other human beings. While I love being outdoors, I also like to come back into the house in one piece and without a trip to the emergency room.

I do love an adventure and exploring caves, waterfalls, mountains and prairies, cities, and countrysides are all quite attractive. There really is no place on earth I can say I’d never go. I’d even find my way to the bottom of the ocean if I found someone to take me there, and there was plumbing where I need it.

Prompt: What would your Wiki page say?

The thought occurred to me today, as I’m preparing to write a memorial article, and also piecing together a biographical work, that so often when I Google something the first thing that comes up is a Wikipedia page. As a journalist and a biographer, I know better than to use Wikipedia as a primary source of information, but this morning, I started thinking – what if I were to write my own Wiki page? What would it contain, and what would it say about me?

My first thought was to write down everything I’ve accomplished. Wiki pages don’t say things like, “She always wanted to,” or “She thought she would have…” They also don’t say something like, “She never,” or “She didn’t…”

Though they may have some lawsuits, and controversies, Wiki pages are the public information we don’t mind that the world knows, and depending on who contributes to it, there can be things we do. There was a time when the obituary pages were the legacy we left behind. Before the internet and Google search engines, it took a trip to the library, wading through pages of the newspaper, or reels of microfilm to find information about someone’s history. Not so these days – Wikipedia – as unreliable a source as it is – has everything. So, what would my Wiki page say?

As the writer, I could add details about my birth, my education, my children, my marriage, and my career. (Or, perhaps someone else could chronicle my life for me – therein lies the unreliability.) What significant details would I add, and what would I prefer to leave out? The details I would put in would add to my life story, in case anyone were to ever want to write it. A Wiki page needs to be something more than an obituary, but less than an autobiography. While there should be answers to relevant questions, I think my Wiki page should leave room for research.

Some Wiki pages are short, with a brief sidebar that reads more like the reference card in a library, and others are longer, depending on the notoriety of the person. As an ordinary citizen, whose work is simply by-lined articles, an occasional longer biographical work, or perhaps a published novel, mine might be blessedly short, too. There’s no who’s who, or tattle-tale criminal history – unless someone were to catalog my driving record, and no disc or filmography to detail. The sidebar would include birth, and if it’s occurred, death, schools attended, and perhaps what I’m known for.

Occasionally, I use writing prompts to come up with ideas, but today my thought was “What would your Wiki Page say?” Any thoughts? Write your Wiki page and see what you come up with today.

Jumping off the roller-coaster… or adding a twist.

The last five days have been a roller-coaster ride. I was laid off from a job I loved in the middle of the week, and although what I heard was, “it’s not your fault,” and “there’s nothing you did wrong.” I still have to go through the grieving process, and have spent more time analyzing what could have been, should have been, and would have been.

Thus, the jumping-off point.

When I was in journalism school, we called it an hourglass style, because the inverted pyramid hit a low point, then there was a turn. The turn – or turning point could even be in a narrative where the irony or twist happens. I liken it to reading the irony of someone like Flannery O’Connor, in whose work the antagonist at first seems harmless but then there’s the ironic twist, and he/she turns out to be a murderer. This is not to say that I will become a villain in this story – I just want to get to the pivot or turn.

As a news feature, the story might go something like this:

Two people were pink-slipped at one local radio station on Wednesday, as the ax fell across broadcast outlets nationwide. Of the nearly 170 stations coast to coast, program cuts left newsrooms, rock stations, country, and alternative stations running on already tight budgets, with few than two people in house at any one time.

Denyse… was one of those furloughed. Carrying her bag of belongings, and a coffee pot to her car, she wiped away tears as she bid farewell to her co-workers, and heard the business manager reiterate, “it’s not your fault.”

“I’ll land on my feet,” she said. “I always land on my feet.” (here is the turn).

What comes after leads to either a predictable end, a surprise, or an irony. I have yet to write what comes next and I hesitate to reveal that here, but I may as I go through this process as a way to bolster someone else in the same situation.

I’m still floating and waiting for an inkling of the as-yet unknown. I am ready to jump off the roller coaster whether it is from the top – where the emotions run highest and the fear wants to wreck me, or at the bottom, where I’m confidently filing one application after another and waiting for the phone to ring. Somewhere in between the rise and fall of the coaster car, there is a balance – a resting point where I find peace. For now, I’ve gotten to the turn in the story and know there will be more to come.

What, really, is success?

Daily writing prompt
Who was your most influential teacher? Why?
View all responses

She had reddish blond hair, long and wavy, and she was slender. Her hands and features were delicate, and on this particular day, she wore a cream-colored high necked, knit dress. I wish I could remember her name, or even what school it was, but I’m pretty sure it was 8th grade, and she was my English teacher.

The reason I remember this particular day is that I received what I thought was the “holy grail” of grades, and an acknowledgment I’d carry with me for decades. She gave me an A+ on my essay and told me I was a good writer.

I would like to say that accolades carried me into a career that has been fraught with success and high honors, but instead, I took home my accomplishment and gave it away. What I received back looked nothing like what I had handed off. “That’s nice, honey, but you really need to focus more on math. You’ll probably make more money as a bookkeeper or secretary.” Defeated, I dropped my face into a book, lauding, envying, and coveting the recognition of others, seemingly more suited to the task.

Looking back, I can see that had I listened to that still small voice that told me I was good enough, I could have stacks of novels or academic accomplishments to my credit; instead, I look back at the mountain I’ve climbed. I am nowhere near the summit, though I am at a precipice where I can see the world from a whole new point of view. That teacher started me on a path toward success that Arts and Letters cannot laud, but a life lived in curiosity and willingness to keep searching for the Truth.

She’s Two

The novel coronavirus comes with more than a debilitating illness. For many people, like us, it also comes with unique opportunities for service and growth.

Typically my husband and I are empty nesters. Our three kids are grown and living elsewhere. We have two grandchildren, one of whom we get to care for on weekends her mom works. Those four-day weekends are a joy, even though our sleep is disrupted and we’re exhausted at the end of them. For the past year and a half we’ve had our granddaughter every other weekend from Friday through Monday.

There have been times when I’ve fantasized about having her here on a longer-term basis, but it’s a fleeting thought, and not something I wished for. Then came the day when her momma said, “I may have been exposed to the virus,” and very suddenly that fantasy became somewhat of a reality. We’d picked her up on Friday and implemented the quarantine plan on Saturday.

My daughter works in a progressive care facility with residents ranging from their sixties to centenarians. Though we hoped it wouldn’t happen, we were suddenly faced with keeping a 2-year-old for what has become an indefinite length of time. Despite all of the precautions taken, masks, gloves, hand-washing, etc. someone brought the virus into the facility, and with each new case the length of quarantine grows.

Before that happened, our empty nest had already started to fill back up. Our youngest daughter and her dog came to stay over spring break and didn’t leave. Her law school program went from spring break to online zoom classes overnight. I am not complaining. My heart overflows with the gratitude of knowing I get to have a full house again, and I’m open minded enough to learn some new things from both of them.

One might suspect that the only thing I can learn from a 2-year-old and a 20 something is how to sleep and sing endless rounds of nursery rhymes, like the alphabet song and “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” but not so. The little one is teaching me the value of things that I thought were oh-so important. For a toddler, life is simple, and as an adult with work to do she’s giving me the opportunity to look at life with a child-like view.

Years ago when her momma was small, our favorite flowers were dandelions and pussy-willows. With this one, her favorite flowers are anything that blooms. Her favorite birds are those that sing. Her favorite color is the one she’s wearing. She has no prejudice when it comes to favorites, and the thing that makes me realize is how much we as adults make those decisions for them. I tend to dress her in my favorite color, point out my favorite flowers, and take her to my favorite places. She’s okay with all of it, because she’s with me.

I used to think that she was growing up too fast, but now I see that she’s growing at just the right pace. I am the one who needs to slow down. While I’m sitting at my “desk,” which is usually where ever she is, she makes me take time for her. “Mahmaw – om mere,” she says wrapping her fist around my finger and pulling me in the direction she intends that we go. Perhaps it is time to take a break. She doesn’t understand deadlines or commitments – she understands now.

It’s been two weeks and counting, and I’m still looking with gratitude at my ability to alleviate some of my daughter’s anxiety over exposing her child to the virus. At the beginning of this “vacation,” I thought about how much she would change my world in terms of rearranging my schedule, adapting to a new sleep pattern, potty-training, and all the things that make raising a toddler a challenge. I hadn’t really considered what she would do for me – rearranging my internal world.

Though I am getting a whole new view – through the eyes of a toddler. I am learning much. When I parented her mother and two other children through this phase, I can see I did things much differently. It was a lifetime ago and I was in another place. My view of the world has evolved a lot since then. Patience then was lacking, as it can be today, but what I want to remember is the joy I get to experience every time she squeals with glee, and even when I get to teach her something out of her defiance.

In March, when the pandemic started to spread and the world changed so dramatically, all I could really thing was that Satan was taking a tighter reign over the world. Over the last few weeks, hearing her little voice as she emerges from her room – “guh morning mahmaw!” and seeing her little smile as she greets the day reminds me of a line in the Gospel we read just the other day – Jesus said, “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” Yes – right now in this world there is trouble, but through my granddaughter’s eyes I can see that trouble in a different light – a brighter light that shines on this moment alone.

Millennial Assistance?

One of the advantages Millennials have is that they were raised with technology. I was not. My first exposure to computers – and I am dating myself – was in high school. They weren’t the laptops, tablets, and computers we carry around in our pockets. They were behemoths of wiring with black screen CPUs and we had to learn how to program them. In one of my classes we learned about COBOL, FORTRAN and BASIC. And, all I really remember was there were zeros and ones and the order they were in meant something. Technology was beyond my purview and so far off my radar as to be part of a black hole in the atmosphere. It still is.

Why does this matter? Recently, I saw a debit in my bank account for hosting my website, not unusual because I set up the account. The thing that I had assumed was that a few months ago I paid for hosting with another provider, and then transferred that account to WordPress. It’s my own fault for knowing so little about websites, their care and maintenance, that it was unclear who was hosting my site, or what I’d paid for.

As a writer, I leave a lot up to the fates, to the designers of technology, and to the unseen, voiceless keystrokes behind a “live-chat.” I think the term live-chat is an oxymoron, since the “person” on the other side of the screen could be a robot for all I know. As a member of a generation a few decades ahead of millennials, I am somewhat at a disadvantage technologically, which puts me and others like me at risk of being taken advantage of. It’s food for thought as I sit with my website, writing blog posts, opining my own ignorance when it comes to web hosting, web-page development and the like.

It’s not that I’m incapable of learning the intricacies of it, nor that I am completely ignorant or a technophobe. There is still, in the recesses of my mind the notion that one must be mathematically savvy, or at least have some inclination toward it in order to master computers. I know how to use the programs I have installed, I can even sit with a manual and write, using the jargon of programmers, but therein lies the end of my interest. So, in the end, when I am being double-billed for hosting, paying prices beyond necessity, it is not the faceless, voiceless script running on the “live-chat” that is to blame.

What are your thoughts? Are you of a generation that embraces technology enough to understand the techno-syncrasy (idiosyncrasy is a word attributable to humans) of artificial intelligence?

New Year’s Resolutions

Honestly, I don’t like making resolutions. It’s too easy to get caught up in the idea that I have to change something I’m doing and report it, then when I fail to do whatever it is for even one day, that resolution is broken. So why write this then? I’m heading into the last quarter of my 29th year for the 28th time. Shortly I’ll be staring down another decade and it’s time.

For the coming year I do want to knock a couple of things off my bucket-list. They’re not huge, just some things I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but didn’t allow myself for whatever reason. They’re things I want to do before the next joint replacement in other words.

The first thing on my list is to participate in a 5K. I’m beyond caring whether or not I win any races; I just want to participate. There are a couple of obstacles to overcome in the challenge – the first of which is my artificial knee. Last year in April I had my right knee replaced, setting me up for some limitations as far as running. A bigger challenge for me is the willingness to move beyond my own fear. Those “what ifs” tend to creep into the recesses of my mind when I’m not looking and include things like what if I look like a fool? In answer to that, I have a friend who continues to ask – “what’s the worst that could happen?” Nobody ever died from looking foolish.

My daughter told me about an upcoming 5K that we can both participate in, that isn’t one of those organized events where hundreds of people line up with numbers, a starting point and take off at the sound of pistol-fire. It’s called “The Happy Little 5K,” and is open to anyone – including those of us who haven’t run in a while. The race is one of those run at your own pace events, and rather than trying to keep up with a pack of people who run marathons, I can walk, run or even hike the 5K over the course of 10 days. It’s completely doable, and would give me the chance to tick this one off my list.

Next on my bucket-list is to ride in one of Michigan’s preeminent bicycle classics the DALMAC (Dick Allen Lansing to MACkinaw) ride. It’s been on my list for years, and for this reason or that, I’ve gotten to the starting gate (registration) and shut it. I have gone so far as to try and get my kids and my husband to join me but have decided, this year, I will go it alone if necessary. Relying on someone else to go along has me putting my bucket-list on someone else’s shoulders. I don’t want to go alone, but I know if I keep putting it off until I have a companion, I won’t go. This year I’m going.

In order to think about riding the DALMAC there are a few things to consider, primarily conditioning. I once spoke with a rider who said to prepare for the five-day event training means riding at least four times as many miles over the course of the intervening months. At that time there were a couple of routes coursing across the state, the shortest of which was about 300 miles. I’d be selling myself short if I decided that the West Michigan Route (338 miles) was too difficult and hilly to attempt. I’d miss out on the Lake Michigan shoreline and tunnel of trees for the shorter, more familiar Sunrise Side (284 miles) route, up the coast of Lake Huron. My plan is to prep for the west route. It will be killer on my knees, but if I make it, all the better for me.

There it is – two of my bucket-list items to tick off this year. There are a few other things on that list, too, but not-to-worry, I won’t be jumping out of an airplane. My list is pretty tame. I want to travel to a few special places, but these physical things mean more. In light of my age – 29x(almost)2, and after the damage I did by carrying 100 extra pounds for too many of those, these challenges are for me to get through and say despite myself, I did them.

What are your thoughts? What are the things on your list you want to accomplish to say you’re an over comer?