Forgetting is Still Funny!

Seniors are stereotyped as memory-deficient bumblers. I've drawn my share of cartoons of seniors in phases of forgetting. Most of us have known seniors passing through the stages of Alzheimer's, a disease now recognized as an epidemic in this country. Our personal sadness and sense of loss of our friends and loved ones is emotionally difficult to handle, and finding the humor in a serious issue helps us to cope.

If someone "just joking," of course, implies that I'm in that group of seniors with dementia--well it's not a joke. It's a stigma and a message that that person no longer considers me competent in my skills.

Still, forgetting is funny. That urge to laugh when someone trips or falls down, can also bubble up when we witness someone forgetting. The recent "Hangover" movie is a good example of the humor triggered by someone who can't remember.

If you smoke marijuana now, or if you were a joint-smoking hippie in the 1960's-1970's like I was, memory loss is hilarious. I still remember being stoned and laughing until my sides ached at Cheech and Chong's humor on their debut album. Remember the "Dave" track? And the guy who kept forgetting his lines for an Acapulco Gold advertisement?

One of the years I had Thanksgiving dinner with my mother in the nursing home, I felt sad as I looked around the table at her and four other memory-challenged residents and thought how I'd never imagined I'd be alone in the world, spending Thanksgiving with my mother in a nursing home dining room. We were all quietly munching when one woman pointed to her piece of pumpkin pie and said, "Someone took a bite out of my pie!" Yes, I saw her take a bite of her own pie. Then another woman pointed to her pie and said, "Someone's eating my pie, too!" A few minutes later, my mother pointed at her half of a piece left and asked, "Who's eating my pie?" After a few more minutes of silence, the first woman said, "I wish whoever is eating my pie would stop!" This went on until the pieces were gone. I could only feel thankful that my friend Judy wasn't there with me. We would have had to leave the room, we would have been laughing so hard.

My friend Georgia in Lexington, Kentucky, posted a newspaper clipping with a true story on her Facebook page. In the story, an elderly woman came out of a store, walked towards her car and saw four men in it about to drive away. She drew out a gun and told them to get out of the car. They did!  She got in to drive away, but her keys wouldn't fit, and she noticed items on the seat that weren't hers. Then she realized the car wasn't hers. When she found her car and drove to the police station to report her mistake, the four shaken-up guys were already there, reporting that their car had been hijacked by an old woman.

This, too, is another funny story, with elements that are so familiar! I don't carry a gun, so that part of the story isn't something I would do. But the rest of it--? When I come out of a store, I can never remember where my I parked my car. This is not a "senior moment" for me; it's been a problem throughout my adult years for numerous reasons, depending on which moment of of my adult life I was in--self-medicated or physician-medicated on meds with "amnesia" side effects, in love or getting divorced, sleepless, depressed, writing an article or song in my head, or multi-tasking.

Recently, I've figured out that I never know where my car is because the parking lot when I'm coming out of a store looks totally different than it looked when I was going in. Finding my car would be simple if I could remember to always turn back around to see where I just came from before I go inside. That new view would then be in my memory. (Yes! I have one!) Unfortunately, I'm already in the check-out lane and the bagger is asking, "Can I help you out with this?" when I remember that I forgot to look back before coming in. Then I remember all those times one of them followed me up and down the rows of cars while I looked for mine, and I grab the handle of the basket and say, "No thank you. I'll be just fine!"

My other problem with finding my car is recognizing it. It's a strange blue-green color that changes depending on the angle of the sun. The way I know it's mine is by the two little strings of beads (one given to me by my friend Estelle) hanging from my windshield mirror, which I can see glittering in the sun from far away. I'm waiting for a fender or part of the door to fall off. Then I won't have to look for the beads!

Memory does decline over the years. Spelling is a memory function, and we forget how to spell. Names are harder to grasp, too. Conversations with my friends over 50 sound like this:
Me: "Yesterday I watched a great movie about that guy who died young in the 1960's with--I forget. You know the one who made that song famous--what's the name of the song about the shark?
Friend: Yes, I know which movie you're talking about. I can't think of his name, either. I was reading a book by--uhm--you know, the author who wrote all those horror best-sellers--one was about the woman who was chained to the bedpost and the dog started trying to eat her?
Me: Yes, I know which author you're talking about, but I forget his name.
Friend: I'll let you know when I think of him. You might want to read this book.
Me: Yes. Call me if you think of it. 

Here are some memory mistakes that I have made, many in the YOUNG years of my adult life! I'd love to know if you've done some of these--and what else you've done!

Have you ever--

• Forgotten that a friend was coming to visit you, and then when you answered the knock at the door, you didn't recognize her?
• Forgotten that someone was coming for dinner and you didn't have any food in the house for the meal?
• Stood outside a grocery store in front of two doors, trying to figure out which door to walk through--the IN or the OUT? (Hint: you have to know whether you're already outside or inside and then choose the opposite door!)
• Awakened in the morning with a strange man in bed next to you and couldn't remember who he was, how you got there, or where you were, including city and state?
• Been unable to recognize a dressed-up, sober acquaintance, and told him he resembled a person you knew who was bum? 
• Been unable to remember the number of your motel room, and your key wouldn't unlock any of the doors?
• Spent hours searching for your glasses and when you looked in the mirror you saw them sitting up on your head?
• Spent hours looking for an object, and then decided to start looking for something else, and there was the original object?

Seniors have had many years of experience covering up memory blunders. This requires quick thinking, imagination and skill, and an ability to appear credible. It should be listed on a resume as a skill.

The problem with the disease of dementia is that it robs us of our independence and our ability to think clearly enough to make wise decisions. Our personalities unravel, making it nearly impossible for anyone who isn't skilled to get us to take a bath or stop banging our heads on the wall all night. We become a liability to our friends and loved ones. At my age, the possibility of coming down with dementia becomes a serious, unfunny issue. Well--depending on who's witnessing my decline!

Four years ago, a neurologist put me through all of the medical testing and evaluations used to determine dementia diseases. The work-up included an MRI, blood work, and hours, over a period of 5 weeks, of paper/pencil tests to look for signs of the illness. I had no signs of it. I was so surprised! I'm so forgetful! And as long as someone else doesn't "joke" about the overall possibility that I have dementia, what I forget is still very funny--at least afterwards!

Hurricanes are on Their Way!

Preparing for hurricane season is like planning for death. It's impossible to know enough details to plan anything ahead. What's the point of even pre-paying for cremation? I could get burned up in a fire and wouldn't need to be cremated! Still, I need to make some preparations for this year's hurricane season.

Hurricanes are on the "cons" list for living in this year-round vacation paradise. One year, the first hurricane showed up on June 1st, the first day of the hurricane season. I thought, Right On, you smart meteorologists. 

Another year a hurricane passed directly over the apartment building I was living in. The wind roared and rattled the windows as the front of the storm passed through. Then for 15 minutes, everything outdoors was still, like nothing had happened. Living creatures in the grass outside shrieked, chirped, and croaked in a loud chorus. We were in the eye of the storm. And then the backside of the storm hit us like an electric mixer beating whipped cream at high speed. The building shook, windows rattled, and my partner Lew lay next to me in bed sound asleep through everything.

Another year, the hurricane hit a few weeks after I'd bought my first home in Melbourne. I was alone then, too. I paced through the house all night watching the water fill up my backyard like a bathtub and loom menacingly micro-inches from the top of my doorstep. The electricity went out, and the food in my refrigerator spoiled. Huge trees fell in my backyard, and one giant tree caught fire where the power lines passed through the branches. That's when I called the fire department. Poor guys having to be out in that storm! They gave me a valuable education. If a power line broke and fell into my backyard, I wasn't to touch any faucet or toilet handle, or any water in my house. I would be electrocuted. My birds and I hunkered down in the bathroom, unprepared for what was happening.

Last June 8, 2010, I moved into this double-wide trailer. In the 2004 hurricanes, the roof blew off the sun porch and carport rooms of this place, and the outer metal structures twisted up like pipe cleaners. Windows broke and porch walls came apart. Mother's husband John had the insurance to repair most of the damage.

In the 1990's, I was stopping by this place every day to feed the cat while my mother and stepfather visited relatives in Michigan when a storm went through. The new carport room they'd just had built flooded with three inches of water. I cleaned it up and put in fans to dry up the carpet.

For some reason, though, I wasn't worried about hurricanes when I moved in last season. I was too busy cleaning out all the stuff left behind by two dead people and trying to take care of the many details required to straighten out my mother's will and establish my ownership. Hurricane season was suddenly over, and no storm had threatened Central Florida.

This year I feel differently. I have a hunch that a hurricane will pay us a friendly visit this year. If one comes close, evacuation is mandatory for residents in this community. I've already located some nearby pet-friendly hotels, and I'm assembling enough stuff to live somewhere for three days. The sad part is that I'm already resigned that if a hurricane damages my house, I might not have the money to repair the damage. I have minimal insurance with high deductibles. This week I'm going to sign up to go on the waiting list at the Towers, a high-rise place for seniors with limited incomes in downtown Melbourne. If my name comes up on the list (years from now!) and my trailer is still standing, then I won't go. Simple.

Now I'm making a list of stuff to keep in a place near the door, including meds and vitamins, a sleeping bag, charcoal, lighter, and the little table grill from the utility room; dry and canned food, a weather radio, two small cleaned-up bird carrying cases and unopened bags of food for each bird, along with little birdy dishes; 4 1-gallon jugs of water, a packed overnight bag with enough clothes for three days, paper cups and plates, utensils and dish soap, and a flashlight with extra batteries. My important papers are in a notebook that I can grab at the last minute. I've signed up to receive alerts on my cell phone, and I'm connected to the National Hurricane Center on Facebook. You can write it into the Search box and when the page comes up, click "Like."

Yes, I like the convenience of Facebook for keeping in touch with the outside world. Too bad my laptop died. I won't be online while waiting out a storm in a motel room, but who needs a computer anyway--besides someone like me who's addicted to it?  

Repent for the End is--What?

According to a noisy few, this is the last day of the world. They believe that today an earthquake will happen and it will take another five weeks (or is it months?) before all of those who don't believe that Jesus is Lord will die.

I've thought a lot about the end of the world. Without humans and computers, who would be around to care that I ever existed? No one would know that I wrote songs and published stories. No one would care about all of these pieces of paper lying in stacks everywhere. No one would be around to throw thousands of pictures and mementos of my life into the trash. 

It wouldn't matter what I do or don't do today, because no one would be around to remember what I did or didn't do. And if I'm going to die anyway, what's the point of eating healthy meals, getting plenty of exercise and sleeping eight hours every night? With no one to remember, I wouldn't have to check my mouth at the door before I enter a room. In fact, I wouldn't have to go anywhere or do anything. That sounds like a delightful life.

Instead of the world ending tomorrow, thus proving that those crazy evangelicals knew their stuff, I would rather believe that if the world ends soon, it will be on December 21, 2012, the day the Mayan calendar ends. Even if the world keeps on going, I am resigned and resolved that just like bugs and dogs, humans have a life span. I've never known anyone who survived this life. 

What happens to me after death doesn't bother me. It's what happens before my death that I care about. My worst fear about the pre-dying period is that I will die with dementia. If that happens, my worst fears are that I would (1) answer to the name on my birth certificate--the name I changed 25 years ago, and (2) forget that I'm an agnostic and end up praying to Jesus and repenting at the soothing persuasion of some Christian chaplain sitting by my bed whispering in my ear. 

It's important to note that Jesus was portrayed in the Bible as an apocalyptic believer, telling his disciples that the end of the world might come while they are still alive--in other words, SOON! Read Bart Ehrman's book God's Problem for more about that subject.

So what would I be doing right now if I knew today would be the last day of the world? Exactly what I'm doing right now: sitting at the computer in my nightgown writing this piece on my blog. And if the world doesn't end today, how will I live out my life span? See paragraph #3. Hee hee!

 

Books That Raised Me

I'm an ardent reader. I read to learn about many things including how to better manage my life and how to be a better writer. If I want to float around in other worlds to give myself a respite from my own, I read the fiction works that have won the awards. I believe that to be a better writer, one must read the finest literature to learn the rhythm of the writing, the vocabulary, and the crafting of the story. 

At some point I realized that reading two or three books a week of someone else's writing was keeping me from writing my own. I scaled down my reading to one book a week and started writing humorous stories that were published. I'm in the process of recording an audio book of those stories. 

Managing my grown-up life has been hard for me. As a child, I wanted so much to know and understand everything. It wasn't possible. Learning who I am has come slowly, through story--my own and others'.

Below are a few of the most important books I have ever read that influenced me. They inspired me to change my perspective, gain new awareness and form my beliefs, and they served as guides for living a better life. I could write a book about each of these books (and their authors) and what I learned from them. Instead, just know that these books are relevant, probably for your life, probably for right now, today. 

Nancy Friday, My Mother/My Self: The Daughter's Search for Identity

Robin Norwood, Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He'll Change  (This book taught me how I manipulated others and why.)

Colette Dowling, The Cinderella Complex: Women's Hidden Fear of Independence

Bart Ehrman, God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer 

(Ehrman is a Biblical scholar, authority of New Testament in Greek, with Ph.D. from Princeton Univ. He chaired the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina.)

Lecture by Bart Ehrman, Univ. of California

Al-Anon Family Group Head, Inc., One Day at a Time in Al-Anon

 

Joshua Cooper Ramo, The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It.

Derrick Jensen, Endgame, Vols. I and II 

(Jensen is called the poet and philosopher of the environmental movement)

Jensen's Web Site

Jensen's Interview on Democracy Now, 2010 

Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values 

Tomorrow I'll share my reading list of books that have instructed me and inspired me to write.

Are You Careful, or Conscious?

My mother was probably the first person to tell me to be careful. As someone who has lived my life on the crumbling edge of a cliff, I was always willing to risk safety and comfort in favor of dangerous excursions into unknown black holes of mind and body. Friends and family members have often told me to "be careful," a warning of danger from a place of their own fear for my safety. "Be careful" translates to the idea that life is a constant threat of death.

The command "be careful" can also translate to "be full of care," which takes on these different meanings:

• Be conscious
• Stay in the moment
• Be aware of what you are focusing on
• Focus on what's going on around the obvious

The call for accepting and being conscious is greater than ever before. The universe's events are not predictable, and the old laws, processes, and ways of doing things no longer bring predictable results.

Joshua Cooper Ramos writes about this in his exciting book, The Age of the Unthinkable: Why the New World Disorder Constantly Surprises Us and What We Can Do About It. In a style similar to Malcolm Gladwell's, Ramos presents his ideas in true stories that fit together to create that flash of "Ah-hah! I get it!" 

Below are links where you can buy Ramos' book and see Charlie Rose's live interview with him.

The Age of the Unthinkable 

Charlie Rose's Interview with Joshua Cooper Ramos 
  
Here is my list of meanings for "Be careful":

• Be mindful
• Be present
• Be aware
• Be conscious
• Be vigilant
• Be focused on what you want
• Be thoughtful about your choices of what you say and do--think before you say a discouraging word

My life of risking, losing, accepting circumstances, and constantly adapting has prepared me for this time in my life. I don't know when my slowly-multiplying white blood cells will finally take me into the phase of leukemia that makes me ill, how the illness will impact my ability to function, and whether I'll choose the treatment, and if I do, what the consequences of that treatment will be.
  
I don't believe that I can control my thoughts. They're constantly running through my mind in an ongoing movie. But I do believe that I can choose which thoughts I will focus my attention on. Some thoughts are worthy of cartoons, while other higher-self thoughts require words and actions. The life skills I have learned--being mindful and present, aware and conscious--grow flowers along the path of my journey into the unknown.

Child of the Night

In my earliest childhood memories, beginning at the age of three in Canton, Ohio, I was a child of the night. At first it was fear. I knew I would have terrifying nightmares. When I begged my mother to leave on the light at bedtime, she not only refused, but she told me a rooster would fly in through the window and sit on my lip if I cried from being afraid, and then she told me demons under the bed would grab me if I got up. So I spent some years waiting up all night, ready to fight off the rooster. The "If I die before I wake" part of the nightly childhood prayer I had to recite at bedtime didn't encourage sleep, either. I reasoned that it meant I would die in my sleep; therefore, if I didn't sleep, I wouldn't die.

Nightmares have plagued me throughout my life. Sleeping at night meant that I would awake in silent darkness in the middle of a dream and have problems getting out of the dream. Staying awake through the night and sleeping during the day makes it easier to reorient myself after a nightmare. I've managed to nearly stop one recurring type, which I'll write about in another blog post.

In elementary school years in Ohio, Alabama, and Tennessee, I discovered my parents' nightly conversations after their lights were out. It was more fun to listen to them than to sleep. By the time I was 11 years old, I figured out that there was a world of literature waiting for me that would satisfy my hunger for a world of fantasy and sexual adventures. Nights were filled with reading every adult book I could buy in a store or check out from the library, by flashlight under the covers.

I'll never forget the morning my mother discovered Peyton Place (in paperback), Marjorie Morningstar, and Lady Chatterley's Lover (both in hardcover from the library) under my mattress. "Bill!" she shrieked to my father, carrying them out of the bedroom in a stack away from her body as if they were crocodiles. He was still in their bedroom, so It must have been a weekend morning. "Look what your daughter is reading! What do we do?" This was her eardrum-piercing siren voice. He said something so quietly, I couldn't hear it,  this man who had long ago awakened in me an awareness of everything unspeakable that dwelled underneath layers of clothes and went on behind closed doors. I was mortified at being caught in my choice of reading material, the way a guy must feel when his mother catches him in a sex act. In a few minutes, Mother returned to my room and handed the books to me. I don't remember what she said, if anything. From then on, I didn't have to hide what I was reading, but all night, under the covers--that still had to be with a flashlight I could click off the minute I heard her coming down the hall.

Children of the night do not do well in school or in life in general! In the classroom, I couldn't stay awake or pay attention. In junior high school in Delaware, teachers threw chalk and erasers at me that bounced off my head and made everyone laugh. My surly attitude caused me to spend many hours after school in detention halls, balancing on the back two legs of my chair, defiantly chewing gum and glaring at the teacher.

Life in the college dormitory in Kentucky was no easier, with a housemother whose apartment was on the first floor, underneath the stairway next to my second-floor room. We had rules--no showers or washing hair or partying in rooms after 10 p.m. The housemother knew my footsteps on the stairs as I crept down to disobey every night rule. She must not have slept much at night, either, because she chased me down the hallways to send me back to my room. It's a good thing I had some intelligence when it came to learning, because although I seldom made it to my morning classes in college, I still managed to squeak by with passing grades.

I spent the best years of my life on the road with my band and as a night club entertainer. Going to work at 7 or 8 p.m. and getting off at 1 or 2 a.m. was the perfect life for a night person. After work we ate "breakfast" in the all-night restaurant and came back to the motel room to sleep. No alarm clock woke me in the morning, but we did have to battle motel maids who couldn't read "LEAVE US ALONE!" signs. In general, my husband Whitey and I could sleep through the morning, take a nap in the late afternoon, and be wonderfully rested for a night of music and fun.

Except for those years on the road, lack of sleep hasn't served me well as an adult. Unfortunately for us night people, the world operates during the day, and those of us who can't or don't sleep at night struggle during the day to function and to escaping ridicule and scorn for nodding off in unpredictable moments. Staying awake after lunch is impossible for me. By mid-afternoon, it feels like I've been hit with an elephant dart. I pass out anywhere I happen to be. Here are some of the places I try to avoid, because I know I will fall asleep if I'm not playing music or facilitating a group of my own:

Church services in mainstream churches
Corporate meetings
Weddings
Funerals
Meetings for any reason

Sleep deprivation can result in a surly disposition, hallucinations, manic episodes, and an irrational approach to life. I believe (but I could be very mistaken!) that I've become more adept at suppressing such outward behaviors as I continue to be a child of the night. I would love to awake after a good night's sleep, feeling rested and refreshed for a day of high achievement--like in the TV commercials for sleep medications--but now so many different problems awake me throughout the night, there's no magic pill to address them all: night sweats, nightmares, restless leg syndrome (diagnosed in a sleep lab), asthma, pain in my joints, and limbs that go numb.

If I could really have my way, I wouldn't have any need to sleep! Then I'd have more time in my life to do what makes me happy: complain!

Who's Fault?

Mother's Day makes me reflect AGAIN! about my life and the ways in which my mother influenced it. My mother, Marguerite Beem Hall was the older of two children, and as the daughter of two busy school teachers, she was a latch-key child in the 1920's and '30's when other mothers stayed home with their children. As a graduate of Canton Actual Business College in Canton, Ohio, where her parents taught, she began her adult life as a court stenographer, respected for her ability as a writer/typist with a command of English grammar, mechanics, and punctuation that was not known by many others, then or now. My father made her give up her career. They divorced when I was 16, and Mother was at a disadvantage trying to find work after so many years of housewifery. 

Mother played five instruments, including piano, mandolin, violin, and guitar, and she sang alto harmonies. She gave me the gift of music, teaching me to sing in tune and harmonize as soon as I could talk. She took me to the radio station, to her friend who was known as "The Story Lady," on a radio show so that I could sing. Yes, she had me in Shirley Temple curls, too! 

She started me in piano lessons with a concert pianist when I was 5 years old, but bragged over the years about how my teacher saw my talent and wanted  Mother to "give" me to her (I never knew what that meant), but she refused. "I just couldn't give up my little girl!" Mother would say. Even as a child, I thought Mother's decision was a tragedy. 

When I was in fourth grade, Mother took up puppetry, a project that lasted for years and included my younger sister and me. Mother built a puppet theater with lights around the inside of the window and a curtain that pulled open and shut. After she, my younger sister, and I made up a story, she made puppets for the story out of sawdust mache and sewed their clothes from material scraps.

Our stories were always musicals--vocals with harmonies, accompanied by one of us on a ukelele. All three of us played by then. We wrote new words to familiar song melodies to match the stories and included songs we'd learned in school and scouts. We performed our puppet shows in the communities where we lived. The shows finally ended when the three of us were unable to stop fighting long enough to agree on anything. By then, my sister and I were headed towards careers in music for life.

When it came to me, Mother did not have good parenting skills. Before I started into first grade, I was convinced that I was a rotten child and everything that happened in the family was my fault. Sometime in elementary school I decided to never have a child. I just knew the child would be despicable like me. It was a decision I stuck with, and a wise one. We get our parenting skills from our parents. I would have been the Mother from Hell. 

I must have grown used to my mother's scorn and disgust with me, because I married and had long-term relationships with men like her over and over. It's likely I deserved to be treated with scorn and disrespect in my adult years, but I doubt that as a little child I deserved it.  

I began forgiving my mother in my 50's, after my sister informed me that there are no rules written that require a mother to feed, clothe, and provide shelter for a child. Mother did feed and clothe me and provide shelter, along with protection, at least at first. When my father came home from WWII with a brain injury, Mother told me she could not leave me alone with him in those first few years--he had no impulse control and would have killed me. By the time I was in fifth grade, her protection was over. Maybe she secretly wished he would kill me, because she was away from home attending church and scout leader meetings most nights of the week, leaving my sister and me to our father's whims. 

With brain-injury as the top injury of soldiers returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, I worry about those families. My sister and I are the poster children for such a family.

Until my mother died in 2009, she and I spent our lives together in a painful dance. The details would fill volumes. I blamed myself when she died (of course!) and from the last look that she gave me as she lay dying, I could swear that this woman with advanced dementia (who hadn't recognized me for several years) blamed me, too.

When do I stop blaming her for my disappointments? For why I don't have a child of my own? For my years of mental illness? For the years I've had to spend in therapy and on medication? For the years of failed relationships, including the relationship with myself?

Mother and me in mid-1990s

Mother's Day gives me a new kick in the butt every year to grow up and take responsibility for my life. This year it starts with the flowers she planted in the backyard of her home that I was able to inherit last year. She loved plants and flowers like I love them. 

It starts with the satisfying life I've had, immersed in the expression of my heart through gifts that were the same as hers--music and writing.

My blaming ends with the most beautiful sentence ever written--one of the seven last words attributed in the Bible to Jesus on the cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I don't need a divine "Father" to forgive people for me, and I don't believe that forgiveness is called for, because it is inherent in the second part of the sentence: ". . . they know not what they do."

Mother couldn't have known the impact of her behavior on me, and I will never know the depth of the pain and hurt I inflicted on her. In some ways we were blind to each other's needs. If we had known, our dance would have been very different. I believe that. 

Mark Twain's Right Plan to Write His Autobiography

The gift card Sharon gave me for my birthday bought Mark Twain's autobiography, Volume I, which I've wanted ever since learning it was published. And wouldn't you know! On page 5 of the book, it says that the entire book is published on the Internet, right here:

Mark Twain's Autobiography

On that site, you can even click a "Cite" button next to any paragraph to keep the quote for your use! Still, I'm glad I have the book for highlighting and carrying on my dialogue with Clemens (Twain) in the margins.

I want to share with you today Clemens' brilliant plan for "writing" his autobiography, which, incidentally, he dictated to a stenographer. This is how he described his plan:

"Finally, in Florence in 1904, I hit upon the right way to do an Autobiography: start it at no particular time of your life; wander at your free will all over your life; talk only about the thing which interests you for the moment; drop it the moment its interest threatens to pale, and turn your talk upon the new and more interesting thing that has intruded itself into your mind meantime. Also, make the narrative a combined Diary and Autobiography. In this way you have the vivid things of the present to make a contrast with memories of like things in the past, and these contrasts have a charm which is all their own. No talent is required to make a combined Diary and Autobiography interesting.

And so, I have found the right plan. It makes my labor amusement—mere amusement, play, pastime, and wholly effortless."

Clemens also said that it is impossible for a person to write an autobiography, because acts and words are but a "wee part of a person's life." The real life is going on in our heads--our thoughts. He estimated that if we wrote down our thoughts, "every day would make a whole book of eighty thousand words, three hundred and sixty-five books a year." He concludes this idea with, "Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of a man--the biography of the man himself cannot be written."

Are you ready to write an autobiography by wandering freely, at your leisure through your whole life, moving from present to past and everything in between, as long as the subject matter interests you? Sounds like the question in a wedding ceremony! A project like this might take 'til death you do part!

That's what my intention has been with this blog, with a few differences. Clemens' idea was to publish his biography after he'd been dead for 100 years, so he would literally be speaking from the grave. He believed his orders to publish the book after he was dead would allow him to freely speak his mind in the present. "The frankest, freest, and privatest product of the human mind and heart is a love letter," he wrote.

My writing and publishing now is, for me, a statement that I'm releasing myself from the bondage of fear of abandonment from my friends and loved ones. What I write from my heart is a reflection of my relationship of acceptance and forgiveness with myself. If I survive this unscathed and stronger for it, maybe it will inspire other readers to do the same. 

Socrates wrote, "A life unexamined is not worth living." Writing our lives lays us out on the examining table and turns on the lights.  

Writer's Block, Cartoonist's Heyday!

What a breakthrough! It's something I knew when I was in kindergarten! I can trace my cartoon character so she always looks the same by putting the light that shines upward (that my friend Gail gave me) under my glass dining table on the sun porch. Then I lay my original drawing on the table and a blank sheet of paper on top, and there's my drawing, clearly showing through, ready to be traced onto the paper on top! I've been trying to figure this out for 4 years! How simple! It doesn't help that I live in an artistic vacuum, due to  circumstances I can't help right now. I'm sure everyone else knew this and could have told me if I'd just asked.

Anyway, here are my latest toons. The Polka Dot toon is about my lovely case of rosacea that blooms in tough times. Click on these to make them larger.

Shame on Me!

I'm always asking life writers in my groups to look under the rocks in their past and present lives and to write about what is lurking there. Those dark, painful memories and emotions are the seat of our creativity. Becoming familiar with our "dark" side is the key to what makes us tick.

What role, if any, does a sense of shame play in your life? That emotion is closely connected to guilt. Guilt can trigger a sense of shame. 

Shame plays a major role in my life. It goes deep. It is the subject matter of every terrifying nightmare that awakens me. My sense of shame prompts me to do whatever I can to distract myself from it and escape it. I believe it is the reason for most of my actions, including over-working at a job, watching TV, playing Free Cell on the computer (before my lap top went under!), learning to manage technology, and cleaning house. When I create--write a song, draw a cartoon, design a CD cover, plant flowers in my yard--it's all to bring on the euphoria and escape that dark feeling of shame that would smother me if I didn't take action. 

I've gotten quiet and meditated when I felt it coming on. I've allowed myself to feel the feeling of shame and let it pass on by. I will sometimes drink a cup of tea (a miraculous anti-depressant). I've talked back to it, constructing new logical "yes-but" arguments to scare it off. I've connected that feeling to my childhood and discovered the possible roots of it. Still, it's an ongoing, recurring emotion that confronts me. Every event in my life, and everything I do and don't do finds its way to the shame-pit. 

Who would I be without that painful sense of shame nudging me forward into creating a better life and a better me? Good question.

What part does shame play in your life? 

 

And Then? And Then? And Then?

Today I asked the question on Facebook, "Where were you & what were you doing when you heard the news of OBL's death? My friend Becky Bolt responded, "I just now read it on FB. Obviously, I live in a box." Her answer made me think about what I'm paying attention to and why, and whether it's important in my life.  

Throughout my childhood, my mother complained loudly in front of me, to anyone who would listen, that I wouldn't sleep or settle down to a task because I was afraid I'd miss something. Was she reflecting her own sense of "missing something" onto me?

So much is going on in my neighborhood, my city, the state, this country and the world--And then there's outer space! I don't want to miss anything--after all, I might miss the party!

All the years I performed music on the road, I was sure I was missing the party! I just knew something was going on somewhere else that if I knew about it, I'd rather be there. I never thought that I might be the party, or at least at the party. Did all those people who came to hear our band and spend time with their friends drinking and dancing think they'd missed the party? Or did they think they were the party?

I spent the last two years grading online English class assignments for my students, knowing for sure there was a world outside my window and a life that was passing me by. Now that I'm not teaching (at least right now), I still know I'm missing the party! The evidence is everywhere. My friend Marilyn gave the Sunday talk at the New Way yesterday. I missed it. My friend Sharon performed with her dulcimer group at the Cocoa Beach Library yesterday. I missed it. One of my favorite musicians, Bo Frazer, performed with a bluegrass group at a public place yesterday, and I love bluegrass music and Bo's fiddling. I missed it. My life is dragging me behind it! I can't catch up with it!

Is knowing everything and showing up everywhere necessary? Is the party always somewhere else and I have to keep searching for it? Am I spending time cluttering up my mind listening to useless information and paying attention to things that have nothing to do with me and the important relationships in my life or the practicalities of living my life?

The questions I would like to ask myself before I choose to spend the precious lifetime I have left are these: 

• Am I paying attention to something that will impact my immediate life? 
• Could I take action that might change it? 
• Who or what needs attention in my immediate life, in order of priority of importance to me?

It's all about being mindful of what we are paying attention to, making choices and setting priorities, and staying focused on what is really important to us. Living life well and doing everything that is ours to do requires discipline and focus--like being in a box!

Unfortunately, discipline and focus leave out two elements that I'm afflicted with: curiosity about all of the stories unfolding everywhere, and fear that I'm going to miss something important, including, yes--the party!

Janis Ian told a group of songwriters that a song must keep answering the question, "And then?" "And then?" "And then?" I have a mind that keeps on asking that question about everything. Have you noticed that living stories don't have an end?