WELCOME AUTUMN!

Autumn in my little corner of the kingdom is a Janus-like season. Remember Janus? The Roman God of gates and doorways doorways--one face toward each direction.

Autumn is like that for me--looking forward, looking back.

One day, it's summer, and you'd swear August's picture is still on the wall calendar. The next morning, the leaves whip around wildly, skies are overcast (if not weeping buckets), and you wonder which closet you buried your rainproof jacket and umbrella in.

While the weather is doing its two-faced thing, I veer back and forth between two ways of thinking about life. 

Ahead of us is a season many people dread--Winter, with its more-than-generous servings of snow and ice, wind chills, and dangerous roads/driveways/sidewalks. In its nature, Winter is probably no more dangerous than other seasons, if we take precautions for our safety. But it's well to be prepared.

Behind us is summer (my least favorite season, as I believe I've said before)--a season many folks would love to see hang around a minimum of 200 days per year; the other 165 could be a little cooler, maybe a little rainy, but definitely not below 50 degrees. I prefer variety in my seasons.

But that's just weather. What about what's ahead of us in our lives? What changes will there be in my family? In my health? My town? My church? My friends? 

My grandchildren are young enough to be changing jobs, moving to bigger houses, looking for the best schools for their children. My children are more settled, but still open to new opportunities. My health is currently stable, so I keep on with my exercise programs to maintain the status quo. My town--well, they call it progress, I call it chaos: closed streets, tree removal. . . . My church constantly searches for ways, and people, to serve. My friends are going through their own challenges with health and other problems. 

What's behind me in my life is there for me to see in old photos, read in old letters I've saved, recall with my children in our telephone/email conversations. Some of the memories are smile-bringers--remembering a time and place and the people involved in a birthday party or a Christmas family celebration. Some memories bring sadness--folks no longer with us, relatives and friends lost to time and death.

But I count my memories as blessings--yes, including those memories I'd rather take out to the landfill and bury deep. Without who I was, I wouldn't be who I am today. Neither would you who are reading this post. There's always the possibility that we'll learn from our past mistakes, pass along some wisp of wisdom to a family member or friend, perhaps to a stranger.

My goal--my challenge to myself--is to dwell in the present. See the good around me. Help folks who need a boost, a kind word, a warm blanket. The past is past--I can learn from what's gone before. The future is not yet here--I can plan and prepare, but I can't live it until it arrives.

----- Yesterday I celebrated Autumn's arrival with a drive through the country. Not much color yet in our area, but it's coming, it's coming. I checked on the new chrysanthemum I planted a week ago and gave it a big drink. For supper I ate chicken and vegetable stew I'd made and frozen a month ago. An autumn supper, with bread and butter on the side.

Welcome Autumn your way--football games, tailgate parties; trips to the orchard for cider and apples; stocking up on pumpkins and corn shocks for the October look.

And while you're at it, celebrate being alive. Today.

MEMORIES

Lately my reading has veered toward the biography section at the library. (This is one of the areas untouched by the jumble method of shelving, which I ranted about a few months back—and the fact that nonfiction has escaped is an occasion for thankfulness.)

Biography section is a convenient umbrella that includes autobiography and memoir. I love memoir. Memoir is a way of living part of another person’s life and understanding not only what happened, but one view of why it happened, and how it has impacted the writer’s life.

Looking at my home-grown library, collected over the past fifty-plus years, I find a large number of non-fiction books that are based on memories and recollected stories: All of May Sarton’s journals; the James Herriott animal stories from his veterinary practice in Yorkshire; Russell Baker’s Growing Up, about his youth in the 1930s; C. S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy. . . .

The list is endless. There’s even a category on Amazon.com called “100 Biographies and Memoirs to Read in a Lifetime.” Here are a few you might recognize:

A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson

A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway

Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt

Anne Frank’s Diary

Seabiscuit and Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand

The Story of My Life, Helen Keller

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou

Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen

Night, Elie Weisel

As you can tell by the variety in the above list, there’s no one way to write a memoir. Bill Bryson’s is a humorous tale of outdoor life. Hemingway writes of the explosive political times in the 1920s and 1930s. Frank McCourt tells of an Irish childhood lived in poverty. Anne Frank’s diary recounts her family’s hiding from the Nazis in World War II. Helen Keller writes about her life as a multi-handicapped child.

Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit brought the 1930s horse scene to life; her Unbroken, a World War II survivorship story, was painful to read, but remains one of my favorite books about the resilience of the human spirit and the power of forgiveness.

The late Maya Angelou was a poet, but her memoir helped her rise above an abusive childhood as an African-American girl.

Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa became a lovely movie, based on the Danish woman's various writings—her stories, letters, and articles.

Elie Weisel’s Night is book one of a trilogy in which he ponders serious questions that arise for a survivor of the Holocaust.

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There you have a starter list of books to look for, if you want to experience someone else’s life, culture, and time frame.

Now for the big question—Have you ever thought about writing a memoir of your own?

(Don’t make ugly faces; you haven’t heard the rest of the idea.)

If you’ve managed to live through childhood, marriage/career, children (your own or someone else’s), you have a built-in audience. For example: Do your children know where you grew up? What it was like to live on a farm, in a big city, on a river, in the mountains, in another country? Do your children know their grandparents, aunts/uncles/cousins? Did your great-grandfather fight in the War Between the States? (Mine did.)

There’s more to Life than kids’ll learn in a museum. Why not tell them your story? Write about the time you won a blue ribbon for your prize animal/plant/project at the 4-H Fair. Never won one? Write about not winning. Who did win? How did that feel? Did it makes you try harder? Or give up?

What did you do for fun before technology came along and gave us hand-held games, computers, and videos? What was a treat in your family? How did you celebrate birthdays (if you did)?

My family never travelled much for vacations. In fact, vacations times were when we "got caught up on things around the place.” (Maybe that’s why I was never a fan of summer vacation once I went to school.) If you were one of the families that went to Grand Canyon, Grand Ol’ Opry, Epcot Center, camping in the wilds of Montana . . . wherever . . . write about it! Make it come alive.

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Okay, you don’t like the idea of writing about yourself. Just remember—no Memoir Police are going to come along with a red pencil and mark your comma splices or circle a misspelled word. This is not for publication, except for whoever you share it with.

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So--here’s another take on the subject of Memoir.

Do you know folks who live in nursing homes, retirement communities, assisted living, or other such types of housing, who may have stories to tell?

I used to walk at the Y with a man twenty years older than I, who hadn’t grown up in our town, but had moved here as a young man and become acquainted with—to hear him tell it—practically everybody over the age of ten. Wow, did he have stories to tell! And his memory was prodigious. He collected stories the way I collect books. I wanted him to go to the genealogy center here in town to record some of his stories (I knew he’d never write them down), but he hasn’t done it yet. He now resides in assisted living locally and continues to get out and about if someone drive him.

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There are many, many books in print, along with helpful websites, that tell how to write a memoir. But you don’t need to read those yet. Just get a spiral notebook, a good pen, and put on your smile. Sit down in a comfortable, and let the memories roll.

If you're writing someone else's story, let that person decide if the story is to be shared.

if you’re writing your own story, don’t share it till you’re ready. And if you’re never ready? Hey, that’s okay, too.

Keep in mind that you may not have been old enough to remember some world-wide things going on in your or your subject's early life—such as The Great Depression, World War II, or the Korean Conflict, or the Beatles’ invasion of the U.S. So, do some research. That’s what Google is for! You’ll be glad for the details to make these remembrances live for the reader. And details provide a context for what you or someone else can remember about family, work, or school.

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Kodak has us already in the mindset of “making” memories.

How about putting a few of them on paper?

 

 

 

KEEPERS OF THE KEYS

[No pictures today--my computer is experiencing technical problems. So you can imagine your own schoolhouse photos.]

Today is September 3^rd. In my young years, I would have been in school two days already, beginning the first weekday in September. This would be a short week, and so would next week, with Labor Day off.

Another generation of my family is off to school, some starting in mid-August. I’ve had news and photos of my great-grandchildren—in a Read-A-Thon, tested for advanced placement, waving good-bye with their backpacks in place.

This time of year I envy anyone going off to school. My memories are mostly happy ones—and those happy memories were created by teachers who cared. Today I want to recall a few of them.

First Grade – Mrs. Nabb presided over eight grades at Clear Spring School, in rural Coles County, Illinois. I have little recollection of the other kids because I was utterly, entirely, and overwhelmingly in love with Mrs. Nabb and Books! Emotional memory says that school was just for me. The books were all mine to read. (I guess the other people were there to keep the place running.) In Mrs. Nabb’s care, I read first, second, and third grade books. Took some home to read and return. Did workbook pages. A truly heavenly year.

Fourth Grade – Miss Kincaid taught all subjects in that one room. Lincoln School was in town, first four grades on the lower floor, two fifth and two sixth grade rooms on the upper floor. Miss Kincaid will forever be my very first writing mentor; she read a book to us after lunch period to get us to settle down, and we got so taken up with the characters in one such book that she invited us to write our own stories using those same characters. I discovered writing was almost as sacred as reading.

High School, Junior Year – Mrs. Peterka, who had been my eighth grade teacher at the junior high, was now an English and French teacher at the high school. I found myself transported to another culture learning French. Bonjour! Comment t’allez-vous? Je vais bien, merci! Et vous? A few years later in college I took a couple more years of French, just to get my Bachelor of Arts degree, but guess what? Those couple of years ended up being four, with beaucoup reading in the 19^th Century novelists (who couldn’t write a story in fewer than 400 small-print pages); so I ended up with a double major for my B.A.—English and French.

Indiana University – Dr. Sparapani, a recent addition to the faculty of the regional campus that year, taught Advanced Rhetoric. I know, it sounds grim beyond bearing. But it was really just advanced composition—and I’d already figured out I needed help, some kind of help, with writing papers for college classes.  Dr. Sparapani endeared himself to me forever when he said, “You have great ideas. You just need to learn how to organize them.” And that’s what he taught us.

Purdue University – Mr. Hollander was my professor for many advanced courses. Not content with my Bachelor’s degree (actually, not ready to give up my status of perpetual student), I continued my studies for a Master’s. After the first year (took me three years to finish the one-year course, but there’s a good reason)—as I say, after the first year, I discovered it was possible to teach as a graduate assistant while also taking (fewer) classes. I applied and eventually was accepted. Mr. Hollander returned one exam with the comment, “You’ll be an excellent comp instructor.”

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These five people are what I call Keeper of the Keys. Each one held the key to a part of my mind and heart. Each inspired confidence, made learning a joy, made me work hard, and through all that gave me a gift I can never repay. My role is to pass the love of learning along to someone else.

I did teach composition for about five years, but I had no interest in pursuing a Ph.D. so I wouldn’t have been able to teach more advanced courses at the college level. Eventually I needed to earn more income than was provided by part-time teaching, so I searched for and found a place to use my writing and analytical skills.

What I learned from my beloved teachers has expanded my life: reading, writing, learning another language all contribute to who I am and who I aspire to be.

During this new school year’s beginning, I celebrate all teachers. And I especially single out the five who gave me the keys to my life. They very likely never knew they did such a thing. They would say they were doing their job. But I know different.

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Today’s post is the 100^th since Thursday’s Child began in the fall of 2013. Thanks for coming by!

 

A few years back I bought a fingertip towel at my favorite fabric and craft store. It’s dark brown, with gold- and copper-colored embroidery, with the message: “A Season of Thanks.”

Obviously I bought it in the fall, when all the autumn and Thanksgiving items were for sale. In my house, though, that towel stays in the stack for constant use. It’s always a season for thanks.

In November you will notice on Facebook people begin posting 30 Days of Gratitude. Today, at the end of August, I’m starting my list of Gratitudes. Here are a few:

My oldest daughter recently moved from the Phoenix area to Flagstaff, AZ—elevation 7000 feet. The move included herself, her two cats, and numerous bits and pieces (actually boxes and boxes) of belongings she would need while she teaches at Northern Arizona State. I am grateful for her safe arrival and for her securing a teaching position. Things seems to turn out right, just in time, for her.

My Ohio daughter is hosting a garage sale today and tomorrow; I am grateful for such an excellent venue for my downsizing project. I hauled a carload to her last week (we meet at her work site in the evening on her meal break), and tomorrow I’ll go to her home to help staff the sale. We'll have all day to visit--a bonus!

Most Sunday afternoons I visit by phone with my youngest daughter in Minnesota. We share our joys, concerns, and everything in between. Solving world problems? Piece o’cake. Like most young career folks, she is always involved in various projects. I’m grateful for this time of sharing, and we both look forward to our Sunday visit.

My son’s home now houses two families—himself and my daughter-in-law, and their son and his wife and two children. My grandson received a medical discharge from the army, so I am grateful my son and daughter-in-law provided a safe and secure place to live while their son and his family work out a new life journey.

A close friend recently underwent heart tests at IU Medical Center in Indianapolis; a change in medications is making a big difference at the moment. I am grateful for medical personnel who watch patients carefully and recommend specialist treatment.

I am grateful for friends who check on me from time to time via phone, snail mail, email, texts, and visits. Their care and concern warm my heart.

My final Gratitude is to God for allowing us to have a cooler-than-normal summer and sending us the start of the autumn season a little early. We’ll no doubt have some hot days in September—that’s a given in Northeast Indiana—but Autumn is just around the corner.

Do you have reasons to be thankful, any season of the year? Write them down. Read over your list from time to time. Add new reasons as they come to you. And have a wonderful week!

 

 

AUGUST

Hot days. Cooler nights. Cicadas chorusing. Fog some mornings.

Flowers wilt in the sun, lawns turn brown.

Doesn’t sound especially attractive, does it? But August was always a welcome month for me. I knew if I could get through its 31 days I’d get to go back to school.

Nowadays, school starts long before the first of September. Some school districts in my area welcomed students August 4^th, others on the 6^th. Some of my great-grandchildren began their school year on the 18^th. And these are not year-round schools.

One of my Eeeek moments comes in August, when I realize I have only four months to be ready for Christmas. (I know, I know—it’s ludicrous to think about the end of the year when we have another month of summer ahead of us. However, we all know how time flies. . . .) Back to holiday prep: making gifts, baking cookies (fewer these days, but still…), choosing and practicing music for whatever services I’ll be playing. Not to mention decorating, which is on the lines of minimalist these days.

And before I get to Christmas, I have other high points: birthdays in September, November, and December. So I send cards and notes and gifts. Thanksgiving dinner in Ohio with several of my family members. I bake the gluten-free bread and take something else, probably a veggie tray. And then there are the special lunches and church programs, and figuring out how to cram in One More Thing when the calendar is already bulging. Any wonder the mind boggles?

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It’s pretty easy to get overwhelmed just thinking about what’s on the agenda for the next few months. If I can remember to take time to enjoy each activity, as it arrives, instead of thinking of it as a chore, then life is a lot less stressful.

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Here are some of my coping strategies:

·         Make lists. (You know I’m a list-maker, but Thanksgiving and Christmas call for mega-lists.)

 

·         Don’t sweat the small stuff. (If the house doesn’t get cleaned every week, call it small stuff and go on with what needs to be done now.)

 

·        Simplify. (Although I love making gifts and even shopping for them, I’ve learned that to be practical, I really should give some of my family cash instead of a wrapped gift. Because I don’t know what they have, what they need, or what they like. Cash is always a welcome gift, in my recollected experience as a young mom with responsibilities.)

 

·        Take charge of your life. (If somebody else seems to have everything under control, does three times what you do, works a full-time job, and still looks neat and pressed . . . well, I’m sorry, but people like that aren’t in my world. I don’t keep them out, I just don’t attract them. But if you have to deal with them, don’t let their uber-organized life make you jealous. Do your thing. You’ll live longer and enjoy it more.)

 

·        Finally, take time to, um, smell the cookies baking. Read a different author you’ve been wanting to try. Put your feet up, drink a cup of tea, and sample the cookies while you read. Do whatever it is you like to pamper yourself--a long walk, fishing, shopping, picnicking in the park with kids. And while you’re relaxing, take time to give thanks for all you have, all you’ve been given, and all you are able to do.

 

Happy Holidays!

 

  

WEEDS!

Wild Tiger Lilies

Weed: n. A plant considered undesirable, unattractive, or troublesome, especially, one growing where it is not wanted in cultivated ground.

Uh-huh.

Weeds make a good metaphor for “undesirable, unattractive, or troublesome” parts of our lives.

Consider, for example, a broken ankle. Or, if you prefer, a sprained wrist. Nothing too terribly disabling, but definitely undesirable, and probably unattractive (my wrapped ankle looked twice its normal size), and thoroughly troublesome (hopping is a darned slow way to get anywhere).

Something less physical? Okay, how about a too-full calendar, making it difficult to find wiggle-room in your busy life?

Or an unexpected happening—emergency surgery for appendicitis, sudden death of someone you know well, storm damage to your school/church/home?

Weeds.

Mustard

Every community has a business that specializes in weed control or weed eradication. They come in, and, for a generous donation from your bank account, wave their poisonous wands, and your lawn is—or will become—weed-free.

Don’t get me wrong—I love seeing my green grass uncluttered by dandelions in various stages of undress or clover creeping from corner to corner. Beautiful as these weeds are, they attract bees, and bees seem to like me more than I like them.

But I do wish I could like weeds. Along the roadside as I drive to Fort Wayne, I see fields of mustard, long swaths of chicory, clumps of tiger lilies, trumpet vine doing its invasive thing on somebody’s old shed. I actually love Queen Anne’s Lace and wild purple coneflowers. And sunflowers, wild or domestic, always make me smile. Maybe their distance from my life as they flourish along the highway makes them more acceptable.

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I’m not crazy about the weed metaphor in my life. I can’t hire somebody to come in and spray chemicals on my life to remove all the physical, mental, emotional, and psychic problems and frustrations that assail me. But after all, I’ve learned, they’re part of Life.



Chicory--great in coffee

If we look at the upside of weeds (I assure you there is one, for at least some of the weeds), we can see they may have positive uses.

Did you know:

·         Wild mustard is edible?

·         Chicory root dried and ground makes a coffee substitute? Or added to ground coffee, makes the signature chicory-coffee of New Orleans?

·         Red clover can be extracted into an herbal remedy? (Also bees love red clover, and help themselves to the nectar for later transformation into honey.)

·         Queen Anne’s Lace is also called wild carrot, and parts of the plant are edible?

Queen Anne's Lace

·         Dandelion leaves, snipped early in spring and wilted in vinegar and bacon drippings, are tender and sweet?

·         Dandelion leaves after maturing making a wonderful salve to use for itching insect bites?

·         Sunflower seeds feed birds?

So far I’ve not found anything edible about wild tiger lilies or trumpet vine, though both are lovely to look at. Maybe that's their reason for being, to add beauty to our lives.

Red Clover

Consider the places where weeds literally grow: along the roadside, in abandoned fields and yards, in gardens (flower or vegetable). My Grandpa Jenkins must have spent a lot of time and energy keeping his humongous garden clear of weeds so the vegetables could grow and mature. As big as the garden was, he used a hand-plow, walking behind it and pushing it between the rows. His big straw hat kept his head cool. Weed control had to be a never-ending process.

Weeds in our lives may be less visible. Bad habits, neglect, lack of consideration for another . . . we don’t want these characteristics, but they may be lurking in an abandoned corner of our lives.

Too bad personal weeds aren’t as readily seen as roadside weeds.

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Do you have weeds in your life? Are they poisonous? Or merely irritating? Do they cause you to be less than the person you were meant to be?

Weeds. They’re everywhere.

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[PS—For anyone who’s interested, my car needed a left front wheel bearing and is now a happy auto. As am I. Thanks for asking.]

 

Trumpet Vine - offering a sip to a
hummingbird

LIFE IS SO DAILY!!

Many, many years ago, someone wrote for the first time, “Life is so daily!” We all understood what it meant. Life repeated itself, every day (or nearly every day) (or it seemed like every day), and we grew weary.

Yeah, well, mine isn’t quite daily, but it’s often enough to make me take a deep breath and sigh. My car—lovely old (going on sweet sixteen) super-duper, big (think chest freezer on wheels) and protective, my best traveling companion for over nine years—is giving me fits. This post will be quite short because I need to call the nice people who love to see me drive in; I’m guaranteed income on wheels.

The obvious answer—I know someone will comment on this—is to buy a different car. With my brand of luck, it will be an exchange of my problems for somebody else’s.

Think I’ll wait to see what my guys say out at the garage.

In the meantime, till I post again, have a lovely week. Enjoy the summer weather (if that’s what you’re having—we are, finally). Take a deep breath. Stroll around the neighborhood and admire other people’s flowers and lawns (they did a lot of work you didn’t have to do, right?).

And give thanks for problems, great and small, for they’re what keep us on our toes, exercise our brains, and deliver us from the pitfalls of accumulating too much money.

Life is still daily. We can't change that. So--celebrate it!

‘Till next time. . . .

 

Showing off my CLEAN car!