The Potpourri Post

Used as a noun, potpourri is usually thought of as a mixture of dried flower pedals and spices kept in a jar or mesh bag for their fragrance. But a potpourri can also be a collection of miscellaneous objects or subjects, even a musical medley. To the best of my knowledge no one has a computer that can dispense or detect smells so the potpourri in my title is obviously not the pedals and spices type. So what’s a potpourri post? I’m glad you asked. It’s a post with no central topic, just a collection of unrelated things to dump into cyberspace because that’s the way my brain is rolling today---nothing focused, nothing over-developed to the point of ad nauseam. 

I’ll start by finishing a train of thought I mentioned in my last post regarding the new “digitally enhanced bank” in my neighborhood that is replacing a full service branch. I still can’t get past the fact that a BANK will no longer deal with cash. The powers that be really do want us all to quit using the green folding stuff. There’s even a few places in town that refuse cash as payment to eat there. I can play tit-for-tat with the best of them so I refuse to go to those restaurants. However, I will admit that I’m in the minority. Between my Lunch and Movie Club, the Mad Hatters and the Gathering Girls, I go out with a lot of women for lunches and I’m guessing two-thirds of them use a credit card. I’ve turned into a fuddy-duddy haven’t I, who refuses to hop on the train of progress.

Next item in my potpourri: I learned how to do something new and exciting this week that has made a huge difference in my life. I changed the settings on my mouse pointer so that it’s a bigger, slower arrow and it’s a solid black over white pages that changes to a contrasting color if it passes over anything dark. Google can teach you how to do anything. I also learned not to pick up what looks like a chocolate sprinkle from a Nestle’s Lil’ Drums Drumstick and put it in your mouth. When I did that this week it turned out to be a ball of ink that must have come off the end of a ballpoint pen. It instantly turned my entire mouth and fingers black. Thankfully, it came off my tongue with toothpaste and a lot of scrubbing. That should teach me not to eat while working at my desk where crumbs are too inviting. The next day I had a bi-annual appointment with my internist and it would have been hard to explain why I ate an ink ball.

For spices in my potpourri I’ve been watching the parade of nightly town halls on CNN featuring the Democratic presidential candidates running for president. I’m fearful of the process of paring that long list down to the viable people who can actually win AND do a good job of bringing dignity and brain-power back to the White House. So far I’m putting my money on---in no particular order---Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Julian Castro and Beto O’Rourke. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden make me nervous because they’ve been in public life so long they’ll be spending all their time on the campaign trail defending past decisions in a political climate where those decisions are judged by today’s standards and not the standards of the past. Like Warren, for example, before DNA testing was the thing to do, who didn’t just accept the oral family history that was passed down by our parents and grandparents? No one, that's who.

Every potpourri needs a recipe---well, I would assume so. I’ve never made potpourri except for this ‘Potpourri Post’ which more accurately should have been named ‘Six Topics, One Post’ but I’ve never been good at naming any of my creative endeavors except for maybe “Toe Joe.” Who Toe Joe? He’s a clay sculpture I made back in college that’s had a place of honor in my house ever since. He inspects his toe while cursing his creator for making him so fat. 

I write these posts twice a week faithfully to exercise my dyslexic brain although it wasn’t always true when I first stated blogging back near the turn of the century. Back then I fancied myself as having some useful advice and humor to share with caregivers, and then after Don died I was sharing antidotes to make myself and other widows feel less alone in our plight to feel whole again. Now, I would say that isn’t entirely possible for many of us, but a shirttail relative disagrees. After a long and reportedly happy marriage she’s jumping back into the marriage sack and it only took her two years of bemoaning the lonely state of her life to find another guy. Oh, and he happens to live right next door and she's giving her house to her retired kids. Something must be wrong with me because living with Toe Joe and Levi the Mighty Schnauzer is all the testosterone I’m interested in blending with my hormones. ©

NOTE: Yup, that's Toe Joe in the photo above.

Beating Dead Horses and other True Confessions from a Widow

I have yet to meet a widow who doesn’t eventually get around to admitting that she still thinks about her husband often and/or she still misses him. It might be a fleeting thought or an all day long cry but it’s there waiting to judge us, if others found out. It doesn’t seem to matter if he died one or fifteen years ago, and no one should be surprised by that. They really shouldn’t! After all, something in our travels through life can remind us of parent, sibling or a best friend growing up and no one gets their dander up over those kinds of memories. But let a widow reveal she still thinks about her deceased spouse from time to time---even long for the old days when life was more idyllic---and that’s often viewed as “unhealthy” or “living in the past.” So we clam up from sharing what is going in our heads with people we know don’t understand and that puts a wedge where it shouldn’t be. (By idyllic life I mean we look at the past through the prism of time that filters out the petty quarrels over dirty socks on the floor, who forgot to lock the door, and farts in the dark with your head held under the covers. Why do guys think that’s funny?)

I’m sure there are exceptions to my unscientific observations about widows---the widows who were in unhappy marriages and may still remember but not in the I-miss-the-closeness kind of missing I’m writing about today. I’ll bet their memory triggers lead to rejoicing he’s gone or regrets about wasted time or memories they wish they could forget like in case of women who were abused. Memory triggers are everywhere. I once saw a yellow GM on the road that brought a flood of vacation “snapshots” in my head. Songs on the radio were big triggers in the first year. Even pot holes remind me of the summer I worked on Don’s parking lot maintenance crew. Thankfully, he gave up anything to do with asphalt after a few years because it was hard, dirty work and we were both still holding down other full-time jobs back then. Don was a workaholic, a byproduct of growing up poor with bill collectors pounding on the door.

I was a bit of a chameleon when I first met Don. We were 27 and 28 and I'd been in three serious relationships between high school and us meeting. And with each of the three relationships I hid my light and likes under a basket, so to speak, and became of fan of whatever those three guys liked. One was into tennis. I learned to play. Another was a skier and I took lessons. One was into playing cards with his unbearably boring family, and twice a week we went to the family card games. Sure, I still became interested in what Don liked doing BUT he also took the time to figure out what I was interested in and he encouraged me to follow my dreams. It was a regular mutual admiration society we’d formed. Looking back, I realize the three other guys didn’t know the real me, didn’t even try to peel away the chameleon layer. I was a Barbie Doll of their making. Hey, it was the early sixties, don’t judge me. Isn’t there a Bible scripture somewhere about a woman's role and place in a coupling that I may have misconstrued back then?

Back to the present: I’ve turned the corner on the mild depression that grabbed me by throat over the Forth of July. I’m walking again and have lost the weight my funk put on my hips. I’m back to healthier eating. I’m not listless anymore, not running on auto-pilot. My mojo is back! Hallelujah and praise the gods who look out for elderly women who don’t want to be swallowed whole like a guppy in a goldfish tank. That’s not to say the loneliness of widowhood is no longer there. It is. And it probably always will be. I also still worry about that day when I’ll need someone to take me to get a colonoscopy or cataract surgery and I have no close friends or relatives near-by to impose on or to call just because.

I like to believe there is a solution for every problem and I hope to find the answer to my no-close-friends dilemma next week when I’m taking a three hour seminar through a local college’s Olli Program titled, The Vulnerabilities of Aging: Laughter amid the Tears. I might still be lonely but I’m keeping busy and having some enjoyable days. My Fun with Metaphors class also starts next week so expect my writing to improve by the end of the month. I have high hopes I’ll no longer be beating a dead horse (aka a widow's unending lament about secret thoughts) when I write---and if you understand the first part of this sentence, you know more about metaphors than I do. ©