I’ve been a busy bee. I’ve had to because it’s March already
and I still have winter goals that I haven’t accomplished. Snow is on the
ground and its 19 degrees outside but Easter stuff is in the stores so that's a clear sign my window of time is closing.
One of those goals was to get my husband’s speech therapy machine purged of all
the personal stuff and out of the house. He died six years ago and I really
should have done it long ago but after working on it this week---first to re-teach
myself how to use the Lingraphica, then to purge over sixty storyboards I built
for my husband---I can proudly say I’ve finally got the job done. Digging up
bones is an emotionally task but all I have to do now it to wait for a nice
spring day when I can take it out to the college’s speech pathology clinic where
I’m donating it and they will pass it on to someone without insurance. The
current version is smaller but the program itself hasn’t changed.
Storyboards consisted of pictures, words and voice-overs
which my husband could use to practice saying words and doing speech class
homework. Each storyboard illustrated sentences like: I had a stroke five years
ago; I need to pee; my name is Don; can we go out to eat; I need the jock rash powder; I need help finding my wife; I don't feel well today; or Levi, Come! It’s a slick program with thousands,
upon thousands of pictures in categories for everything and anything you can
imagine. Purging storyboards one picture/word/voice-over at a time brought a few tears as I remembered my
husband sitting at the dining room table parroting the machine while I made dinner. He never did
get his unprompted vocabulary up above of a couple of dozen hard-earned nouns
and the phrases, “Oh, boy!” and “Oh, Shit!” and “Oops!” But it wasn’t from lack
of trying. Now, that particular section of Memory Lane no longer exists and
there’s a sign posted where it used to begin that says, “He Never Gave up on
Himself.”
I just ordered a new book written by an author who is new to
me but you might know him---Parker J. Palmer. He’s 80 years old and has written
ten books. I found him by way of a Facebook meme with one of his poems. The poem was about reading one of his old journals
and finding 50 blank pages followed by a page that said, “The void is filled
with love.” When I got to that line in the poem, I had one of those moments that
literally took my breath away. I’ve got journals like that where I abruptly
quit writing and happy cycles explains the voids. One of the goals I had for
this winter was to go through all those journals and diaries and finally let go
of them. I haven’t done it yet but it’s moved up to second place on the list.
Anyway, I went looking for information on Palmer and found he’s got a new book
out ---On the Brink of Everything: Grace,
Gravity and Getting Old.
I don’t know about you but when I buy books on Amazon I read
a lot of the reader reviews. In the case of Palmer’s above mentioned book there
were 183 reviews and 80 percent gave it five stars and seven percent gave it one
star. Apparently he wrote some less than favorable stuff about Trump near the
end that upset some of his fans thus the one star reviews. A four star reviewer wrote: “This book is a great
invitation to philosophical, psychological, and spiritual reflection as we
enter our senior years. Loved the author's wise and insightful narratives,
poems, and quotes, as well as the narrator's voice. I could have done without
the constant hammering of Berkeleyesque political ideas such as diversity,
community organizing, and Americans' so-called white supremacy...” Anyone who
could use the phrases “so-called white supremacy” and “spiritual reflection” in
the same review peaked my interest enough to buy the book. He needs to do more spiritual reflection if he doubts that White Supremacists exist in America.
On his Amazon page Parker J. Palmer was quoted: “I don’t
want to fight the gravity of aging. It’s nature’s way. I want to collaborate
with it as best I can, in hopes of going down with something like the
loveliness of that sunset. For all the wrinkles and worry lines, it’s a
beautiful thing simply to be one of those who’s lived long enough to say, ‘I’m
getting old.”
Oh. My. God! I want to look at my life that way. I want that
loveliness of a sunset image stuck in my head to give me a look that says: I'm-at-peace-with-the-universe. Have you ever met someone who has that kind of glow coming from deep within? The Dalai Lama is the most famous person I know who has it. And if I wanted to end this post with an irreverent twist I'd say he's glowing because he gets to hide his pudgy body under flowing robes. I’d be happy, too, if I could
do that. Robes Rule! And the next time I’m caught by a surprise visitor
when it’s almost noon and I’m still in my bathrobe I’m going to plaster the Dalai
Lama’s sowing-happiness-and-wisdom look on my face and avoid making an excuse or
apologizing for my attire. ©
Photo at the top by Miranda Penn Turin; Dalai Lama and Archbishop
Desmond Tutu
