Rise and Shine Morning Thoughts and Memories

My upstairs neighbor woke me up at 7:00. For such a little thing I can’t understand how she can sound like an elephant stomping around up there. I wish I could be in two places at once. If I could I’d ask her if I could follow here around to see what she is doing to make so much noise. She did tell me she pushes furniture around with her walker---she's a cleaning fanatic, does it every day to my once a month. Others in our complex complain about the same noise issue so it’s not just me in case you're thinking I have super sensitive hearing aids. They built these buildings with great sound barriers on the side walls but nothing in between floors. 

Someone asked me if I was sorry I didn’t pick a top floor apartment because they don’t hear anything. “No,” I told her, “I wouldn’t like having to take the elevator all the time and if we ever have a fire or a tornado to run from, you’ll be wishing you had a downstairs apartment.” Another woman living on the third floor thinks I’m going to get murdered in my sleep by a stranger passing by my ground floor unit. She's such a scaredy-cat I can’t help laughing at her. I’m not being naive, I look at the crime rate map from time to time and know it's very low in this area. She’s in far more danger going to the mall to walk like she does every day. I wouldn't tell her that. She thinks she's safer there and if I ever sent her a link to the crime rate map she'd never go anywhere. A new member of our Creative Writing Group called his 3rd floor apartment a penthouse apartment and I had a hard time not laughing out loud at the pretentiousness of that.

Back to the topic at hand: I laid in bed another half hour this morning wishing I could fall back to sleep but finally my bladder made me get up. I wasn’t sure what day of the week it was but I have one of those old people clocks in my bathroom that told me it was Friday, March first and confirmed the fact that it was too damn early for a night owl to be rising and shining. My mom used to wake me up by calling out, “Rise and shine! It’s daylight in the swamps!” I tried it once or twice on my husband but he was such a sound sleeper it took over a half hour of badgering and occasionally waterboarding him to get him out of bed. Before we lived together my brother, who was an electrician, made him an alarm clock out of a factory bell---the kind they ring at break time and when the shifts change. It hung over his bed and the neighbors across the street could hear it go off. They’d often come over and bang on his bedroom window to get him to wake up and turn off his super-doper alarm clock.

Since I’m looking for blog fodder today, I googled the “Rise and shine. It’s daylight in the swamps” phrase to see where it came from. On the American Heritage Magazine website I learned the last part---it’s daylight in the swamps---dates back to the colonial times. It’s the first thing generations of lumberjacks in the logging camps heard every morning: “Daylight in the swamp---all out!”

The rise and shine part of the phrase comes from biblical times and the 1611 King James version of the Bible made it popular in Isaiah 60:1 “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee.” By the seventeenth century other Christian texts rephrased it to: “ “Christians (shall) rise and shine so the glory of God shall be upon them.” I also learned that I’m not the only person who is on the cutting edge of the Baby Boomers who has memories of being woke up with calls of, “Rise and shine. It’s daylight in the swamps.” Apparently some old time radio show used the phrase when it came on the air and our parents picked up on it. And men who spent time in the Marines way back before my time on earth also heard it in the mornings when they served. I often wonder how many phrases that are coined in our times will still be around several centuries from now. I’m guessing not many because with the swift moving social media the way it is today, nothing new lasts long enough for it to become a cherish memory like so many of the phrases we older people remember from our youth.

The month of March in a place like where I live---a non-profit, faith based continuum care complex---is on the boring side for those of use who are not religious because most of the lectures and activities are geared with an eye toward Easter. The Chosen movie series is once again on the agenda plus the Friday Stations of the Cross series is scheduled but not much else besides a St. Patrick’s day dinner, a Show Your Irish dress up day will probably pop up and I found special St. Patrick's Day Mahjong Cards online that we’re going to use one day to add a little spice to the game.

Co-teaching mahjong with someone with Lewy Body Dementia has been---challenging but worth it. She’s got 32 years of playing the game behind her plus she taught all our current players, but she forgets now and then. For example, she came over to my table during the last class to ask me what a one bam tile looks like and when I showed her one on the table she wanted to argue about it. I then showed her a picture of a one bam in a book that was labeled and she backed down but it was tense for a minute or two. 

The classes were my idea. I designed the class curriculum, wrote check-off teaching guides and the hand-outs for all three classes and had her proof-read it all. I also coordinated everything with our Life Enrichment Director. I did a thorough job so anything she might have missed teaching her half of the class they would get by reading the hand-outs and watching the online videos assigned for homework. We all know each other’s back stories and she’s open about her dementia and she’s tells others that I am her star pupil, the heir apparent leader for our group, so to speak. Still, I try not to overstep my place as Luke Skywalker to her Obi-wan Kenobi ...and it's hard. She thanks me often for doing all this to grow our group so I think I'm walking that fine line okay.

Until Next Wednesday. ©

* My beautiful, new mahjong set with an aluminum case. One of the racks is Barbie pink and is so bright that I might have to wear sunglasses. I'm still going to look for a butterscotch aka Bakelite antique set just because I'm not dead yet and antique picking is in my blood.