Mind Tricks, Isolation and Solitude

 

It’s been a hard week on my ego and loneliness meter…and that sucks. There’s that word again, the one I claim to hate but have been using too much lately. What am I whining about this time? Woe is me, there wasn't many people around to interact with this week. Ya, I know, everyone (but me) had places to go and things to do and those who didn’t were camping out in front of their air conditioners trying to avoid the blistering heat. Even the blog community has been slow. Ditto on Facebook and replies to a mass e-mail sent to my Gathering Girls group seeking RSVPs for our bimonthly brunch came in so late I was nervous we’d have to cancel. And worst of all, one of the few humans I saw all week, the cashier at the grocery store “chatted” in grunts, having left his words at home in his other pair of pants. Who knows, maybe his Guinea pig died that morning and grunts were all he could muster for a woman old enough to be his great-grandmother. Wait! Was I wearing my hearing aids? Maybe he was just a low talker like the guy featured in a Jerry Seinfeld episode.

Either way, the lady at Starbucks spoke in full sentences while she finished cleaning a machine, “I’ll be right with you, Sweetie," she said. "Give me a minute to get this back together.” Grey hair earns you nicknames like that, but I’m not complaining. The only other voice I’ve heard the past few days was the “card services” robocall-lady---Rachel---who promised to lower my rates if only I’d press #1 and give the scammer my credit card numbers. Sometimes I wish I had one of those old Chatty Cathy dolls who’d talk to me with a pull of her string. But she was a needy lump of vinyl under her nylon wig, always saying things like: “Tell me a story” and “Please brush my hair” or asking questions like, “Do you love me?” “Will you play with me?” and “May I have a cookie?” That’s just what I’d need, someone else competing with me for the cookies in the house. Levi my Might Schnauzer can smell sugar-loaded treats from two rooms over.

Four of the seven in my Gathering Girls group did show up for our two hour brunch on Monday. (The other three had medical issues keeping them from joining us.) We had a spirited conversation about books, movies and bumpy finger joints, fancy rings and the relentless heat. I love being with these ladies. We crack each other up continuously. I was the only one without some place to go on the 4rd of July. (That would be another 'woe is me' if you're counting.) I wish we all lived within cup-of-sugar-borrowing distance. Not that I have much use for raw sugar these days. I did clean, hull and mash two quarts of strawberries for shortcake that could have used sweetening. My belly and my freezer thanked me for the berries anyway. And so did Levi. He sat patiently at my knee when I cut them up waiting for the slivers he got every time 4-5 strawberries went into the stainless steel mixing bowl. He’s got great manners. Levi also got a great haircut this week. Yes, his social life was equally as isolated as mine over the holiday week. My brunch and his haircut were the sum total of our fun.  

“Isolation is aloneness that feels forced upon you, like a punishment,” wrote Jeanne Marie Laskas. “Solitude is aloneness you choose and embrace. I think great things can come out of solitude, out of going to a place where all is quiet except the beating of your heart.” I do find that beating-of-your-own-heart solitude from time to time but I’m sure I’m not the only one who occasionally struggles to find that illusive factor that turns times of isolation into solitude. Over the Fourth, people all around me were having family time or traveling and even if I stayed off Facebook my mind’s eye could still see those happy faces and almost smell the food on their grills. (Oh, wait. that's my neighbor's grill I'm smelling. I'm guessing its steak.)

Doris Grumbach in Fifty Days of Solitude wrote: “The reason that extended solitude seemed so hard to endure was not that we missed others but that we began to wonder if we ourselves were present, because for so long our existence depended upon assurances from them.” Oh. My. God! That’s me! Apparently I need people to (metaphorically) pat me on the top of my head and feed my ego by saying, “Good girl!” Painting, writing, cooking, knitting, reading, keeping a nice house---none of those are good enough if it’s only my own voice telling me I did well. 

I send these thoughts off with the winds and whims of Mother Cyberspace hoping they’ll find someone who knows how to do the “mind trick” that transitions our hours of isolation into solitude. And it is a mind trick, something that has to come from within... ©

If this were true for humans, wouldn't I have wings like Tinker Bell by now?

It's all Over but the Crying...

It’s the middle of December and Christmas has come and gone for me. I started the season out gleefully anticipating the six parties on the calendar but I only got to go to four of them before winter got in the way. Wednesday the Alberta Clipper dumped 6-8 inches of blowing snow where I live, creating havoc for drivers and my Red Hat Society party got canceled. Since the fifteen of us were supposed to meet at a restaurant, we were able to move the reservation to January when the weather could very well interfere again. On the good side, the gift I bought for the exchange is one I really love and I will be thrilled if I get to keep it. Everything has a silver lining. I’ve never come home from a Red Hat party with something that didn’t go directly into a donation box. I wish they’d go to the ‘consumables only rule’ that is popular down at our senior center. All door prizes and gifts given down at the hall cannot add clutter to our houses. Twice I tried giving consumables at Red Hat Society parties but they didn’t go over as well as things like cookie jars, flashy jewelry, lawn ornaments, tree ornaments, kitchen gadgets, etc. Clutter for people with more life behind us than in front of us.

The road crews did a great job clearing the roads after our storm and the next day I was able to go to our book club party. We each brought a tray of finger foods and no gifts except for the one the club bought for our facilitator. Several people raved about the tarts I made and I’m going to get sick of them before the year is out because I had already brought the ingredients to make them again for my family’s party but I won’t be able to attend. I can’t drive after dark, especially out in the boondocks, and the niece who was going to drive me back to the city with her husband following behind in their car has decided to go south for a couple of weeks. Good call on her part. I’d take a beach community over snowy Michigan, too, if I could. But the knitted hats I made for everyone are with my other niece so they'll make it to the party.

January marks the beginning of knitting season at my house and I have to decide what to make. The hats for twenty-nine people was too ambitious a project for me. I got bored and tired of making them and I barely got them done by spring. The year before I made sweaters for babies and three winters ago it was baby car-seat blankets. Another year I made mittens for the senior hall sale but they don’t hold their annual crafts sale anymore. I will probably make something for my niece’s grandma drawers. They both have houses on lakes and they are carrying on a tradition my mom did with them. She had a chest of drawers with extra clothing for her grandkids because weather is often colder around the water and parents forget to bring extra sweatshirts, sweatpants or hats and with winter sports, dry mittens are always in short supply. I’m not fond of knitting with four needles but I’m thinking about making kid sized gaiters. I love gaiters and finger-less gloves. I wear both all winter long including inside the house. It’s a thyroid thing. I’m always icy cold, even in the summer.

I won a beautiful pink poinsettia at the union hall Christmas party and it’s the only holiday thing I have in the house. Unless you count the decorated tree that is nicely wrapped and sitting on a shelf in the basement and the two beautiful door wreaths with big velvet bows in their custom wreath boxes stacked on the same shelf. How lazy was I this year! Three trips up the basement steps could have put some holiday spirit in the house, but it felt like I'd be putting ruby-red lipstick on a whore hoping to score. See my big red bows, stop by for a visit! I've got holiday cheer inside! But I’ve been faithfully visiting my tree and wreaths when I go down to check on the mice and I’m happy to report that I’m winning that war. Ya, I know. I could have multi-tasked while I was on mice patrol and brought my Christmas stuff upstairs since I was going that way anyway. But I didn’t and I don’t really know why. Sometimes it’s better not to exam things like that too closely because we might not like what we find. ©

It's All Over but the Crying

The Ink Spots

It's all over but the crying
And nobody's crying but me
Friends all over know I'm trying
To forget about how much I care for you
It's all over but the dreaming
Poor little dreams that keep trying to come true

The Holiday Random Act of Kindness

Friday morning, the 3^rd of July, I went to the blood lab to get my thyroid re-checked but they were closed. Then I went to the township offices to pay my summer taxes. Closed. Third stop: a new real estate office, opened by the guy who walked us through the building process when we moved here in 2001. Closed. At the bank I tried to see the investment guy but he took the day off. I was batting zero. My bad. No scratch that phrase. I hate it. I should have known all the natives would be leaving town the day before Independence Day. Then I went to Lowe’s knowing nothing short of a hurricane, forest fire or flood would close their doors so close to a holiday known for backyard warrior projects among those of us left behind in the city. I scored some patio stones and half price geraniums. 

Then I took myself out to an early lunch at an actual sit-down and eat restaurant. No drive-through this time. I was in the mood to be a lady of leisure. I sat with my back to the wall doing my best imitation of Hemingway as I jotted notes about my fellow diners. Straight in front of me in my section was a table of four teens showing off the tiny charms in their Origami Owl necklaces. What a great way to lure guys to within kissing distance. I made a mental note to wear mine more often. To my right side was a sad looking guy with a big belly and a vacant stare, and next to him was an older couple who didn’t speak much. When the guy in the couple finally did I figured out why they weren’t conversing in public. He had one of those voice boxes that makes you sound like R2D2, the astromech droid from Star Wars. It was loud and caught everyone’s attention. On my left side was a young, dejected looking mother with two children under three who sat alone while her husband was outside talking on the phone. To his credit, just after they placed their order and before he left to use the phone he kissed her on the lips. A sweet, I-love-you-babe kind of kiss. Still, I felt sorry for her.

It’s the kind of restaurant that leaves the check on the table when they bring the food---my kind of service because waiting for bills churns up childhood feelings of being made to stay at the table until bedtime if I hadn’t cleaned my plate which happened on Thursday liver nights and when ever my mother cooked orange vegetables. When I finished eating at the restaurant I moved my plate to the side, on top of the check, and when I went to get it the dishes and the check were gone. I flagged down a waitress and I told her that whoever took my dishes away also took the check with them. Off she went to look for my bill. She couldn’t find it and by then another waitress got in the act to help her look. Finally, a third waitress came over and told the rest of us that my bill was paid by another customer. I was so shocked that all I could say was, “What? Why would anyone do that? Wow!” I might be articulate in print but in real-life situations, not so much. 

“Because,” the waitress replied, “There are some really nice people in the world.” And with that my lips puckered up and tears rolled down my cheeks. Jeez! The waitresses all took off like roaches under a light, fearing, I’m sure, that I'd start sobbing out loud. 

As I drove home I kicked myself for not telling the waitress to thank my benefactor if she sees him or her again. I hadn’t spoken to any of the other customers or even so much as exchanged eye contact or smiles. It was a mystery. I figured it wasn’t the table of teens who paid for my breakfast or the mother with the babies. R2S2 had his back to me so I eliminated him and his wife. That left the sad guy with the pot belly who caused me to cry. Or maybe it was someone from another section all together.

Those tears came completely by surprise and made me wonder if I wasn’t more lonely and alone than I would have guessed, had I thought about my state of mind earlier in the day. Long holiday weekends, after all, are hard on most widows. Regardless of what brought the tears on it was the second time this year I’ve been the recipient of a random act of kindness. That means one of two things: 1) I do, indeed live in a good neighborhood or 2) I look so pathetic out in public that others think I need cheering up. My money is on choice number one…though there is a third possibility that just occurred to me. Maybe one of my fellow diners actually thought I could be a budding Hemingway and he/she just wanted to give me something colorful to write about. ©