In the Rearview Mirror: 2022

 Trying to Come to Grips with Covid-19

Looking back at 2022, I'd have to say there was a lot of stress. But it was overridden by the wonderful singers with whom I got to work.

Music:

The year began with "The Music Man," for which Laurie Henderson Jones, Noah Landry, and I shared the rehearsal accompanist duties. I've loved that show since I was seven or eight years old and Daddy bought me the soundtrack. We three, Laurie, Noah, and myself, understood from the beginning that Noah would play in the pit for the performance, singing in the quartet from the piano bench.  As we got closer to performance, it became clear that he would need to be downstage, singing closely with the other three singers for the harmonies to work. So I sat in the green room and then moved backstage for every performance, sliding onto the bench each time Noah moved to his place onstage to sing in those wonderful harmonies that Meredith Willson wrote. 

During the spring semester, I played for ten students, whose work included a senior recital in January, a Master's recital in late February, and a [theatre department] Senior Showcase in April.

In June, I served as the collaborative pianist for the Dana Vocal Performance Clinic, which is a week of learning and sampling life at Dana School of Music for about ten area high school students. Our Dana students serve as the instructors for this week, giving them a taste of life as a music teacher.

The fall semester found me with eight students, two senior recitals, and two hearings for a senior and a junior recital that will occur early in 2023. Oh, and the musical theatre voice teachers decided several weeks before end-of-semester juries that the students (who had been singing to tracks all semester rather than using a live accompanist) needed to sing with an accompanist for juries. As my superpower is saving students who can't find an accompanist, I stepped up and told the students I would play for their juries. So, in addition to the four classical juries and two recital hearings I had to play, I also scheduled 35 practice sessions or lesson attendance for 17 or the musical theatre voice students—while also practicing with my classical students for their juries or hearings. I was never so happy to see the last day of the semester arrive!

Laurie and I split the rehearsal accompanist duties again in September, October, and early November for "Godspell." I vaguely remember hearing the music in the 70s, but really only could remember two songs. It was great fun learning that repertoire. Then, because of a shortage of students with the appropriate skills, I was asked (begged) to play in the pit for the performances. So I got the opportunity to really master some heavy rock & roll piano! I surprised even myself.

As soon as "Godspell" closed, I went right into rehearsals for a Christmas show with the wonderful people who comprise "Area Community Theatre of Sharpsville [PA]." They ask me to work with them on shows like this and let me work my own personal magic on the accompaniment. Percussionist Stephen Ley and I have a blast working together. The day this show closed, the producer asked if I'd play with them again in December of 2023, and I quickly answered "yes!"

I've also been subbing around a lot of churches this year, saving up the money to go towards Jas's and my travel in 2023.

Household Happenings:

In early April, my granddaughter, who was 20 at the time, simultaneously lost her job and her apartment arrangement. When she called to ask if she could move in with us, I quickly said, "yes." It's been an absolute joy for me to have her around. After applying to jobs all summer long, in mid-September she finally found a server position at one of our local Perkin's Restaurants. And she turned 21 in mid-August.

Fiber Arts:

Baby blanket for dear Cleveland Orchestra Chorus friend Julie Cajigas's new daughter, Zoey. Link.

Many sample bags in preparation for commissioned bags for my cousin, Ken Case's wife, Diane, and her two sister  the fabric is vintage yardage they purchased in Africa or India many years ago. Link to the test bags.

Two bags finished and delivered to Diane. Link.

For my partner's July birthday, I made him a man bag to carry on our summer travels, especially the cruise. Link.

I treated myself to an Intermediate Bag Making class with the brilliant Ellie Lum of Klum Bags in Portland. Here's what I made.

Exercising [Our Brains]:

When the NYTimes bought Wordle, we jumped on the bandwagon. Tyler and Jas and I play the puzzle every morning and share our results to a three-way group text. It helps us keep in touch across the miles.

Travel:

Finally, Covid felt manageable enough for us to travel.

• Oops, while proofreading this post, I realized I forgot a quick trip home to Orlando during YSU's Spring Break. Here's the story.

• As soon as the spring semester was finished, we flew from Cleveland into Dallas/Ft. Worth airport and rented a car for the five-hour drive to the Texas panhandle. My daughter-in-law, Leslie, had recently sold her in-town house in Amarillo, and she and Tyler and her daughter, Caroline, moved out to the family's ranch house, about half an hour southeast of Amarillo. This is the house where she and Tyler were married at Thanksgiving time in 2015. We wanted to see how they had made the house their own. The property sits on the edge of the Palo Duro Canyon, which is the second-largest canyon in the U.S., after the Grand Canyon, and we were excited to have the opportunity to hike into the canyon. Much of the canyon land is privately owned, so we were able to hike at will in the area that belongs to the Stephens/Williams family.

  After four days with the family, we headed back to D/FW and spent two nights with my elder son, Scott (who goes by T.J., but will always be Scott to the family). He lives in Lewisville and works from home as a specialist in computer network routing. Our time with him is usually spent attending his hockey games. He plays in several "beer league" teams. He's been playing hockey for about nine years and recently scored his 50th career goal.

• About six weeks later, we drove to Interlochen, MI, the home of Interlochen Arts Camp and Interlochen Arts Academy, where Leslie and Tyler met and from which they graduated in 1996 and 1994, respectively. She teaches dance every summer at Interlochen Arts Camp, and hopes to teach there year-round as soon as a permanent contemporary dance position opens up. They saw a lakefront house this summer, with which they fell in love. They were able to purchase the house, closing on September 1, before heading back to Amarillo for the fall semester, where she has been teaching for years at West Texas A&M University. Their initial plan was to rent the house out and let it pay for itself until they could relocate from Texas to Michigan.

  The actual purpose of this trip for Jas and myself was to attend a performance by Bonnie Raitt at Interlochen Arts Festival, a summer-long series of concerts in all genres. But as long as we were driving 7½ hours to see Bonnie, we made the trip last long enough to visit our Youngstown nextdoor neighbors at their summer house on Torch Lake, and to spend time with Tyler and Leslie.

  During the fall semester, Leslie learned that her summer teaching partner was pregnant and would be taking maternity leave, so she gave her notice at West Texas, and she and Tyler (who works remotely as a programmer manager) and Caroline packed up everything and moved to Interlochen during Thanksgiving week. I now receive beautiful pictures of the view of Bronson Lake from their bedroom windows most mornings.

  Here's the full story and pictures from the Michigan trip.

  And the bag I made for the trip.

• In mid-summer, our travel pals suggested we go on a cruise from Boston to Montreal. I had never visited Montreal, and jumped at the chance. We like the Holland America way of cruising, and we always have fun together, so on August 26, we flew from Cleveland to Boston, boarded the Holland America Zaandam on Saturday, August 27, and disembarked in Montreal seven days later.

  If you're interested in the long story and the pictures, this link will take you there.

• In early October, I took two nights off from "Godspell" and drove to Detroit to spend the night in a hotel near the airport. My late husband's son, Chris Ross, flew from San Diego and met me at the hotel. The next morning we got an early start and drove from Detroit to Interlochen, where we met his daughter, Elise, at noon and spent Interlochen Family Weekend with her. Elise is a senior piano performance major in her second year at Interlochen Arts Academy. We can't wait to learn what she decides to do with her education next year—what university or conservatory will capture her interest? She's an amazing young woman with a bright future ahead.

  I thought I had a reservation for one of the cabins on the Interlochen campus, but when we walked into Stone Hotel to get our cabin keys, the desk clerk said she didn't have a reservation for me. I spent about ten minutes trying to quell my panic (one NEVER goes to parents weekend or graduation without a hotel reservation!), then texted Tyler and asked if we could stay in his unfurnished house. He quickly said it would be fine. Chris spent the afternoon attending Elise's classes with her while I drove to Menard's to buy a couple of inflatable mattresses, sheets, blankets, and a few other necessities to get us through the weekend. I didn't mind spending the money, as I knew Tyler and Leslie would use all these items as soon as they arrived. Chris and I had a blast all weekend, and we were able to take Elise and a friend out to dinner and bowling.

  All I can think whenever I'm around Elise is how sad it is that her grandfather never got to meet her, and how proud he would have been of her musical talents and accomplishments.

• My half-sister moved to Mount Pleasant, SC, about six months into the pandemic, to join her granddaughter and precious young great-granddaughters there. Immediately after my Christmas show at Area Community Theatre of Sharpsville closed, I hopped into the car and began driving toward Mount Pleasant to spend a few days with Debbie. I got as far as Morgantown, WV, that night. The next morning, Monday, I was out of the hotel by 8:30 and arrived at Debbie's house at 6:30. We spent 20 minutes basking in seeing each other after an absence of two years. Then I drove to her granddaughter Casey's house four miles away, where I would spend two nights. Debbie and I spent Tuesday together, catching up. Then we drove back to Casey's for a family dnner. I had planned to leave Wednesday afternoon, but the more I looked at the weather, the more concerned I got with the weather system that was coming up from the south. So at 10:30 in the morning, I hugged Debbie good-bye and took off. I was able to get to Marietta, OH, by about 6:00, and left in the morning as soon as the sun rose. After a stop in Akron to visit Wild Birds Unlimited to stock up on seed, I made it home by noon, just before the rain started. Talk about a whirlwind trip!

For 2023, we have two cruises planned. The first, to the Eastern Caribbean, will begin this week. Yea—sunshine and warm weather!

Extreme Sadness:

The detail about our Texas trip that I neglected to mention was the plan, on our way from Amarillo back to Lewisville, to stop in Denton, the home of University of North Texas, to visit my dear friend and former student, Sierra McCorvey. I had been Sierra's accompanist several times throughout her time at Youngstown State University, where she received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in vocal performance. She not only had an incredible voice, but she was the nicest and most loving person one could ever meet. Every young person she ever taught, every church member who listened to her sing, every professor or university colleague with whom she ever worked—everyone loved Sierra and considered her one of their best friends. That's how she made you feel.

We texted frequently once she moved to Denton and started her doctoral program. We had plans to meet for coffee on the afternoon of May 20. But on May 10, while kayaking on a large nearby lake, a ferocious storm blew up and she lost control of her kayak. When she didn't show up for work the next morning, her boss became very concerned. Her father immediately flew to Texas, and shortly thereafter her body was recovered.

Her death was a great loss to everyone who knew her. To meet her and hear her sing, you knew she had a fabulous career ahead, in whatever direction she wanted it to go. She blessed us all with her presence in our lives.

Sierra's website and bio

Sierra's senior recital video

And the Last Word

Oh, yeah, and I got Covid. The whole story is in the cruise from Boston to Montreal travelogue. I got sick on August 8, nineteen days before we were to sail. I tested negative again on August 17. I didn't know whether I would be able to board the ship until the day I boarded the ship!!! I didn't pack until the day before we were leaving to drive to Cleveland and fly to Boston. Quelle nightmare (to quote one of my favorite movies).

Happy New Year to you and yours. May you be healthy, happy, and wise in 2023. And may I never see another semester like the one I just lived through.

Thoughts on the Inability to Say No

This morning, I started to write an email to a blogger acquaintance who has studied with the same sewing and creativity teacher with whom I've studied. As I was writing and pouring more of my heart out into the email, I realized I wanted to keep this email and be able to refer back to it to make sure I've learned all available life lessons it had to offer. So that intended email is becoming a blog post on my seldom used everything-other-than-sewing-and-travel blog. Let the learning begin!

This semester, I have gotten in over my head. I did it to myself—I own it! How? Here are the components that have, one by one, become attached to each other like magnets.

I agreed last spring to play for a Christmas program at a community theatre the next county and state over. Since the first show I played for this theatre back in 2013 or 2014, I have received such love from these people, I just want to play with and for them. They let me do my own thing on the piano with their singers and not stick to the printed black dots. When they ask, I try to answer "Yes," as I know I'm going to have a ball with them.

Then my neighbor and friend, the professor who is head of the voice department at Youngstown State, asked if I'd come back to YSU and play for her students, as one of the accompanists had quit this year. I tried to keep my number of students to five, but now I've got eight. More (classical) music to learn, more lessons to attend, and more weekly performances to accompany to help these students learn and perfect their art form. (For the record, I'd rather be playing musical theatre and oldies than classical, but where there's a need ....)

Then my favorite musical theatre professor asked if I'd be the rehearsal accompanist for YSU's production of "Godspell." I love working with the MT students at YSU. They pour love all over me every day. [Sidenote: I had a narcissistic adoptive mother who was emotionally abusive, with the result that I grew up with no self esteem. These young people give me a whole new perspective on who I am - at 72! I adore them for what they've given me.] But then the professor went out on FMLA because of some issues at home, and suddenly everything was different. How lucky that the person who was hired to fill the absence in the department is a fabulous musician, teacher, and director. The show is going on, and all is well. I was able to bring in my favorite collaborative pianist sidekick, who plays on Thursday nights, giving me a break in the 5-nights-a-week rehearsal schedule. She also plays any time I have a conflict, which keeps a lot of cogs moving around.

When the previous professor asked me to be rehearsal pianist, I confirmed with her that I wouldn't have to play in the pit band. I prefer playing for rehearsals, and don't love being in the pit. But you can hear it coming, can't you? Now I'm going to be in the pit the weekends of 11/12 and 11/19.

Then I received a request to accompany the opera chorus for Opera Western Reserve as they prepare for their production of "La Boheme," which will be staged Nov. 11 at Stambaugh Auditorium. That means four Sunday nights of rehearsals, that will happen when I'm usually out for Mexican dinner with our friends. And more importantly, it means I've got a lot of choral music to learn.

And then there's the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Ohio auditions on Oct. 22, being held at Baldwin Wallace University, 75 miles away. And we have six students competing for the honors and prizes. And I'm playing for all six. New music to learn. And because of NATS' very strict copyright law policy, a bunch of music must be bought, as my comfort level is playing on an iPad with a page turn pedal to solve that problem, not playing from paper with a very kind graduate student turning the pages for me.

I have two senior recitals and two junior recitals coming up, again with a whole bunch of music on each recital.

[I didn't mention two Music at Noon performances I played at the Butler Institute of American Art, one on Sep. 28 for the Musical Theatre department and one on Oct. 5 for the Classical Voice studios. Or the rehearsal I played for Stambaugh Chorus so their regular accompanist could play for Yom Kippur service. Or the choir rehearsal—Messiah, of course—I've got to play in November.]

And finally, the day after the NATS audition in Berea, OH, is the voice studio fall recital in Bliss Hall. Seven students to accompany in performance. And then head straight to my Boheme chorus rehearsal.

I reiterate, I did this to myself. I find it very difficult to say "no" where I see a need. And every penny I earn through all these musical activities is going to pay at least half of the cost of our cruise/tour of the Inside Passage and Denali National Park next May. So there's that!

And while I was busy with music, the Jazzman was contacting contractors and figuring out how to best repair our side porch, which was built in 1927 and covered with cracks. We wanted to preserve the cold room that was hidden underneath it, in case I ever started canning vegetables. No, I joke. I will never start canning anything. But, in my mind, having the coldroom there preserves the integrity of this wonderful old house. The benefit of this rebuild is that it won't collapse when we have fifteen friends sitting around it. The downside is we didn't think ahead about the contractor's use of a concrete saw and the amount of dust it would generate. The door between the cold room and my sewing room was open during the reconstruction, and my entire sewing room is now covered in dust. Fortunately, when we realized what was happening, we ran downstairs and quickly grabbed every blanket and drop cloth we could find to cover my fabrics and machines. Also, not enough and not soon enough. And with my level of music busy-ness, it's going to be Thanksgiving break before I have a moment to go into that room and start ridding it of dust. Oy.

The concrete work, clockwise from top left. Before; during the dust storm; shoring up the cold room; the finished product; and we redid the base of the driveway.

Oh, the photo at the top? That signifies the "big five" wildlife that are a Denali sightseer's prize: moose, bears, Dall sheep, caribou, and wolves. That cruise will be worth every moment of practice I had to invest in making this very difficult semester run its course. Photo credit: Alaska Tour and Travel, alaska.com

The Hackney Pouch from Sew Sweetness

This cute pouch, handy to store so many of your small treasures, is from the Minikins Season 3 collection of patterns, designed by Sara Lawson for her company, Sew Sweetness. I'm entering it in the August challenge and have to link it to my URL, but my regular blog is suddenly and inexplicably not reachable. I'll contact GoDaddy when I can carve some time away from the piano.

The beautiful hydrangea digital print quilting cotton is designed by Chong-A Hwang for Timeless Treasures. I got mine from 4my3boyz.com, but you can also find it by using these search terms: "Timeless Treasures - Misty: CD6897 Black Packed Hydrangea - Digital Fabric"

The pattern is available in this collection.

Other wonderful bag patterns designed by Sara are available here.

Commentability

I have been using Feedburner to enable blog visitors to follow by email. Now Google is disabling the use of Feedburner, so I have removed that capability. I'm searching for some other tool to use.

I'm not using this blog much, but there's a lot of content on here that I don't want to lose. And, occasionally, I want to write something but don't want it on my jancrews blog, so I stash it here. I will continue that practice.

Thanks for reading.

Two Outies, Two Innies

I work a picture puzzle on my iPad every morning in the Jigsaw Puzzle app from Critical Hit Software. I usually choose 64 pieces. I love picture puzzles. When I'm doing physical puzzles, I usually do 1000-piece puzzles. I can't start one when I'm preparing for a gig, as I get totally obsessed with working on it. "Just one more piece and then I'll go practice." Working a virtual puzzle every morning is just a way to start my day. (I've usually finished the night before adding a few words to the NYT or LATimes crossword puzzle, or perhaps spending five minutes on an easy Sudoku.)

This morning I wondering how I fell in love with picture puzzles. (Is that the Southern name for a jigsaw puzzle? One time I told someone I was working on a picture puzzle, and they looked at me with blank eyes. They had no idea what I was talking about.) 

I don't recall either of my parents or my brothers ever working puzzles. I know I got my love of crosswords from my daddy, as my younger son got his love (obsession?) from me. (He once started a crossword puzzle tournament in Youngstown. It only ran a couple of years - maybe his work got in the way of all the planning activity. Or maybe his divorce. I don't know.) And my grandson frequently works crosswords with his dad, while  my granddaughter is more prone to sit down at the jigsaw puzzle table when she comes over to visit. My elder son tells me he loves picture puzzles, but his cat-from-hell would turn a standing puzzle into chaos  

But how did I start doing picture puzzles? Someone had to have bought a puzzle for me. I've been doing them since elementary school days. Did I save my allowance and hop on my bike and ride to the Rexall Drug Store in Maitland where I might have bought my first puzzle?

[Like a flash while typing the previous sentence, I suddenly have a very faint memory of having a puzzle at our vacation cottage in Cashiers, NC. I know we bought that house furnished, so maybe several came with the property.] 

I have very few memories of high school. I attended Forest Lake Academy, a Seventh-day Adventist high school, grades 9-12, northwest of Orlando  The school's administration building burned down a month or so before school was to begin in the fall of 1968. The administration building had held a number of classrooms, without which the entire student body could not have all gone to school at the same time. The solution was to have a split day. The freshmen and seniors would go to school in the morning, and the sophomores and juniors would go in the afternoon.

The morning session began at 7:00, I believe. Because of where I lived, I was the first person on the bus every day. My daddy always went to Florida Hospital to make rounds with his surgical patients before going to the office, leaving the house before 6:00. For my entire freshman year, my daddy drove me to meet the bus at the Rexall on the corner of Horatio and 17-92. We would sit in the car and talk until the bus arrived. Tears well in my eyes as I write this. Those were some of the most precious times in my life. It was certainly the most extended time Daddy and I had together.

My mother was kind to me when it suited her. It didn't often suit her. Verbally tearing me down suited her much better. But my daddy poured love all over me  I frequently think he was the one who wanted to adopt me, not Mother.

After our morning of classes, we had band, choir, lunch from 11:00 to 1:00 ... activities that involved the entire student body of roughly 300. Then I boarded the bus and rode home, where I was the last person off the bus. The bus let me out on 17-92 at Manor Road. I had about a mile to walk to the end of Manor Road. Sometimes Mother would pick me up, but my memories are of lovely solitary walks home. (And now I look it up on Google Maps, and learn my walk was less than half a mile.)

I must have practiced the piano or the oboe or the organ when I got home, but my memories were of sitting on the floor in the living room at the large square coffee table and working on whatever puzzle was laid out there. Daddy had a stereo system set up nearby, with a reel-to-reel tape deck and a turntable that he taught me to use. He would buy records that he knew I would enjoy. The soundtracks to "Oklahoma," "The Music Man," "The Sound of Music," and albums by The Lettermen, Sergio Mendez, the Reader's Digest set of the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan .... I lived for my afternoons of solitude - Mother working in the kitchen or sewing in her bedroom on her Necchi and leaving me alone. I was listening to music and singing at the top of my lungs, and methodically putting pieces into the puzzle.

Wikipedia tells me the first commercially available puzzle was made in 1760, and that sales soared during the Great Depression. They were an inexpensive form of entertainment and could be used over and over again. Sales fell off after the depression, when rising wages caused higher prices. Interestingly, the Covid pandemic of 2020 caused renewed interest in jigsaw puzzles!

So, back to my original thought - how were jigsaw puzzles introduced into my life. I believe first with the wooden puzzles that were sold in the 1950s where large pieces would fit into a frame to help toddlers develop manual dexterity. I remember seeing those in my house as a child, after I had outgrown them. And then, quite possibly, the serendipity of buying our North Carolina mountain property and being introduced to puzzles there as a vacation activity.

And here I am in my early 70s, still finding great joy from putting the final piece into a puzzle.

By the way, Wikipedia also tells me, "According to the Alzheimer Society of Canada, doing jigsaw puzzles is one of many activities that can help keep the brain active and may reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease."   

It looks like I'll be working picture puzzles for many years to come.

There's no defined name for the thing that sticks out from a puzzle piece, enabling it to be locked into the adjacent piece  I refer to them as outties and innies when talking to my son, as in, "I hate those puzzles where all the pieces are the same - two innies and two outties."

Pondering Religion

I'm going to say something here that I never admit to anyone: I no longer go to any church and can't say that I believe in god any longer. I go into churches for weddings and funerals, and to play the piano for their worship services when their regular musician needs a vacation day. But I don't believe the words they're saying and the prayers they're praying. It's all gobbledygook to me.

When people ask, I joke that I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist church, then married a Southern Baptist who had gotten off into all the charismatic stuff, then married a Lutheran, then a Mormon, then a golfer, and I liked his religion the best. For the record, after the death of my One True Love, I had a four-year relationship with a man who was Jewish, then a 10+ year relationship with a man who was a lapsed Roman Catholic. Just to round out the story.

In June of 1950, I was given away for adoption by my thirty-seven-year-old, never-married birthmother. I was her second child to be given up for adoption. The first had been in 1935. I found my half-sister on Ancestry in 2016, when we were 80 and 65. 

So there was the initial abandonment. 

Then I was adopted by a couple who, in their mid 30s, already had two sons, ages seven and five. 

These two mothers sewed up the baggage I've carried around for 71 years.

My adoptive father was, I'm convinced, the driving force behind the adoption. He wanted a daughter. He was a general practitioner and general surgeon, and let all his obstetrician friends know that he and his wife would like to adopt an infant girl. When my mother went into the hospital in labor with no plans for me, her OB called my daddy and said, "If it's a girl, it's yours."

And so, six days after my birth, I was removed from the hospital and driven to my new home in my second mother's arms. My daddy didn't go along to pick me up. They were afraid he would be recognized and that, at anytime later, my birthmother would change her mind and want me back. Only thirty-three years later did I learn that she might recognize him because she knew him! She had come to Orlando to stay with her brother from their native Gloucester, Massachusetts, during her pregnancy. Her brother had heart problems and, as coincidence would have it, my daddy was his doctor and she went with her brother to all his doctor's appointments. 

I say I think Daddy was the driving force in the adoption based upon the years of unequivocal love and emotional support I received from him, in contrast with the emotional abuse I received from Mother. The spankings and slaps when words I spoke to Mother were deemed by her to be "sassy." The harsh and denigrating things she said to me. Years of criticism of me from a very narcissistic woman, whom I've said through the years had no business mothering a daughter, much less adopting a daughter.

But she was not the only person who was critical and judgmental toward me. Because of three of my husbands' devotion to their respective churches, there were many more people looking for an opportunity to take me down a notch  

-There was an Adventist woman on a Saturday night at my elementary school, where many of the Adventist kids congregated after the end of the Sabbath at sundown, with or without their parents, to watch church-approved movies (usually true stories or documentaries about wildlife) or play kickball and tetherball and so on. I don't think I even knew who she was at that time. She had a child with her, a little girl probably three years old. I loved being around children. I bent down to say hello to the little girl and waved at her. The mother yanked her away from me and said to me, very sternly, "Were you thumbing your nose at her?" I not only didn't know what thumbing one's nose meant, I wouldn't have even thought to do it had I known. That was totally not my style. We didn't have a television; we didn't go to movies; where would I have ever seen the gesture called "thumbing your nose." That event occurred about 63 years ago, and if you gave me a map of my elementary school at that time, I could take you right back to the exact location the interchange occurred. 

-About 57 years ago, at the railroad crossing on Virginia Drive approaching North Orange Avenue in Orlando, Mother asked me something. I don't know what she asked; I don't know what I answered. But she clearly didn't like what I said.  She hauled off and slapped me as hard as she could. The location where this act occurred is indelibly burned in my memory. This woman who lived and died for her church thought nothing of taking her open hand or a flyswatter to my skin when my actions didn't meet her requirements. Her actions must have scared her that day, as she never slapped me again. But that was only the last of many such occurrences. 

-When my first husband and I divorced after ten years of emotional abuse on his part, he said horrible things about me to acquaintances. At a women's Bible study a few weeks before our ultimate separation and the following divorce, the woman sitting next to me told me I should be nicer to my sons.  (I remember very few people from that speaking-in-tongues and dancing-in-the-aisles church, but I'm pretty sure this woman's name was Cookie.) WTF? Judgmental much? All in the name of Christ. And because we had moved to that location for my husband to attend graduate school in a Southern Baptist seminary, and our only non-school activities were with the church he had chosen for us to attend, when we divorced, I lost every friend I had made in that town so distant from my friends of many years.

-In my 40s, I began dating an Adventist man whom I met at work. I should have known better, but I was driven by the need to be accepted and loved. I became very close friends with his sister, who was also very active in her Adventist church. She was one of the worship leaders in that church, and once she learned how well I played, she asked me to start being the church pianist. We spoke by phone almost daily and had frequent family gatherings with her extended family. Until one day when she didn't like something I said or did, and told me I wasn't a good enough Christian and she didn't want to be friends with me anymore. "Good enough Christian?" I didn't know there was such a scale. 

Again, all in the name of Christ. 

When presented with the "religion" category in various online profiles, I respond "Kindness." I try to be nice to everyone. I try not to criticize. I don't want to hear negative things that other people say about people I know. I want to like people. I feel I wasn't liked. My mother drummed that into me: I had no value, no worth, no redeeming graces.

People shouldn't have to be raised with a lack of self-respect, with a feeling of not mattering. And if your words that make another human feel worthless are driven by your religion, then you're losing the game of life. In my opinion. 

When someone asks for prayers, I make sure that person knows I'm thinking of them. I'm thinking of their well-being. I'm wishing them a swift recovery from whatever kind of problem they're having. But praying for them? Not in the traditional religious sense. I don't think it's anything more than words and thoughts. 

Your religion is important to you? Good. Good for you. But, for your and everyone else's particular god's sake, don't go around with a sense of superiority. Don't say your religion is the only religion, the only true religion. It just ain't so. Believe what works for you  But don't go trying to force everyone else to believe as you do. It doesn't become you!

My greatest desire is that, at my memorial service when I'm gone, someone--or many someones--will stand and say, "She was kind." Not "she was kind for God's sake" or "she was kind in the name of Jesus." Or Buddha. Or Allah. Or Mother Earth. Or the universe. Just, "she was kind."

I wish for you the same thing. 

The photo is of Kress Memorial Seventh-day Adventist Church in Winter Park, Florida, the church in which I grew up.

A Little Rant for a Headachey Day

 

I have a headache from the crap weather this morning (but while I'm ranting, my heart goes out to the people in the Pacific Northwest and the western states who are suffering from the horrific heat and drought). But my rant is this: if someone mentions that they have some condition that's making them feel bad, don't try to fix it for them. Just say you're sorry they don't feel well. And please don't tell me to talk to my doctor in my annual female physical this morning! I've had headaches since I was 16 or so, and migraines since 18. I'm as on top of it as anyone can be about migraine. I know far more about my headaches than my female-doctor ever will. Just say, "I'm sorry you don't feel well. Is there anything I can do for you?' And I'll say, "No, but thank you for asking." And we'll be done with that. 

So annoyed with Spousal Equivalent this morning. This is the second time in twelve hours that he's told me what to do: last night it was when to get over into the turn lane; this morning it was, yet again, about my headaches. Really, it must be such a burden for him to know everything about every damned thing. Yes, that was sarcasm! 

I needed to rant. I wrote the first paragraph on Facebook, then cut it to paste somewhere else—here—rather than air my dirty laundry where it could come back to haunt me. 

Thank you for letting me rant.