all of the selves we Have ever been
I see a lawn tractor ahead. The contraption is so loud that it sucks me into its sphere and deafens me to the whooshing sounds of passing highway traffic. Even my own thoughts drown in the cacophony. A spray of dead clippings showers the asphalt walking path. As I step among the grassy remains, I witness a resurrection. One-by-one dandelions spring up in the mower’s wake. They rise tall and regal in this field of stubby grass. Brilliant and moist, their lives are a sharp contrast to the brown and lifeless trimmings that cover my shoes. Like golden-haired ballerinas, the dandelions know just when to bow and when to rise for an encore. I laugh out loud as each milk-filled stem unfurls and reaches toward the sun. This troupe of tiny dancers has outwitted both man and machine. I doubt that these sassy blossoms ever considered succumbing to the executioner’s blade. Dandelions have work to do. They are every man’s flower, a poor man’s medicine, a starving man’s food. Despite war and climate change, the rise and fall of civilizations, dandelions have been going strong for 30 million years. More recently, they immigrated to this country aboard the Mayflower along with our Pilgrim ancestors. While adults may have forgotten the dandelion’s proud heritage and may call the humble bloom a weed or a pest, little children are still capable of awe. They can see the beauty in a simple thing without cataloging its faults. Despite adult efforts to eradicate them, dandelions are loved by children. A child’s love trumps pesticides, and, I believe, turns these flowers into masters of survival. Just the right size for small, chubby hands, dandelions are everywhere and within a child’s reach. These common flowers are not temperamental like orchids or thorny like roses. Generous bouquets can be gathered at no expense and proudly offered to people loved. Small bouquets fill teacups that adorn countertops and kitchen tables. Blossoms are jewels to be woven into crowns and necklaces. Colorful “stews” are concocted inside tents and treehouses. Magic wishes travel on puffs of dandelion seeds. Dandelions are a child’s birthright. They deliver a message of hope that life is abundant, persistent, and renewable. How else could a child survive? All of these thoughts fill my mind as the noise of the lawn tractor fades. Nature is a miracle. How does something so small, so ordinary, contain so much strength, agility, patience, and resilience? It is my turn to bow. I honor the dandelions as I pass. They are the heralds of spring, the rebirth I hungered for during the pandemic winter. The flowers comfort me with their familiarity and remind me that life goes on. In a time of shortages, they reassure me with their effortless abundance. When I die, bury me under a blanket of audacious dandelions gathered by the sweet, chubby hands of true believers. Send me down into the earth to mingle with these enduring roots.
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A few years ago some friends of mine decided to give up shopping for traditional holiday gifts. Smart, hard-working, and successful, this couple had been fortunate in their lives and careers. Their home and those of their extended family members were bursting with “stuff.” My friends decided that instead of more stuff, they would give their children, grandchildren, and relatives the gift of “experiences” such as travel, wine tastings, and game nights. I applauded the idea--what a wonderful way to share time, build memories, and solidify relationships; and for children and young adults, a precious opportunity to see older adults and grandparents as smart, curious, vital, interesting, active, and FUN. That conversation brought to my mind the first time I visited the RainForest Exhibit at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. I went to see the exhibit soon after its opening in 1992. The experience was every bit as exciting for the adults as it was for the children oohing and ahhing at the giant waterfall and interactive exhibits. As we made our way around the exhibit area, the lights went down, thunder began to rumble, and lightning lit up the “sky.” We experienced a tropical rainstorm. It was a moment of enlightenment for me, not because of the lightning strike, but because I realized someone, some person, made this happen. It was someone’s actual job to make it rain in a building! I might as well have been struck by the lightning that day because I have never forgotten the feeling that new insight gave me. So much more is possible than I ever imagined. While women had been instrumental in the war effort, growing up in the post-WWII era, girls were still expected to stay within the boundaries of traditional roles. By the 1970s, the Women’s Movement was shaking things up, and more teenage girls were going off to college, but career advice remained traditional. A young lady could be a secretary, teacher, nurse, or if Catholic, a nun. That was the narrow range of typical options as I prepared for entry into the adult world. Fast forward (really fast or it will take up your entire day)--2020 put all of our lives on pause as we tried to survive and wait-out a pandemic. It has been a time of upheaval and re-evaluation. The usual and the traditional were torn apart. Some folks lost their health, others their lives. Some people found they could work from home, and they liked it. Others realized they had been in need of more family togetherness. Some said the togetherness was too much. Many women homeschooled their children and discovered they did not want to be teachers or fulltime homemakers. People were forced into a new experience and many came to new insights about themselves, their lives, and possibilities. With the coronavirus vaccine reaching more people, it is time to prepare for re-entry. What will life be like on this new earth? We’ve been away for a while. When astronauts prepare for re-entry from outer space, they don’t just fall back to earth. NASA has planned for a controlled descent, a careful trajectory to bring them home. Adjustments are made to the “attitude” or orientation of the spacecraft and a heat shield protects the returning vessel from bursting into flames. Parachutes and balloons deploy for a safe landing, and fresh air enters the craft as the astronauts bob about on the ocean awaiting their ride to dry land. It has been a time of re-evaluation for me. I grew older and crossed over the line into Medicare. It gave me an unanticipated sense of freedom that I no longer had to be tied to work in order to have health care. I began to think about the freedoms I had during the pandemic and the things I lost and missed. The pandemic turned out to be precious time to think about what it is that I care about and enjoy. What I can live with and what I can’t live without. I am seriously considering my new trajectory and my attitude, trying to adjust so that I don’t burst into flames. Bobbing around on the ocean might be fun. Maybe I will learn how to make it rain in a building or do something that has never been done before. In the pandemic shift, there was a gift of experiences and possibilities. Prepare for re-entry. You might have guessed by now. I got a new calendar for 2021. I never knew there were so many holidays. There seems to be a special occasion every day of the year. If it weren’t for all of the COVID-19 restrictions, life would be nothing but party, party, party. The month of March is Women’s History Month, yesterday was International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. Sounds auspicious, but I didn’t hear much about it. Instead, the news was filled with stories about women being sexually harassed in the work place by the governor of New York. The top story was Meghan Markle’s depressed mental state while serving as a royal duchess. Lawyers were appointed to investigate the Cuomo allegations and Markle left The Firm. Buried in the back pages was a blurb about the two million American women that departed the work force due to the changes wrought by the pandemic. I guess all of that news put a damper on the International Women’s Day festivities. Looking ahead on my calendar for a better day, I notice that International Women’s Day is one week before National Napping Day that occurs on March 15th this year. Is that merely a coincidence? I think not. After all of those hard won and lost achievements, women are tired. A nap is in order, but why is napping only given a day and not a month? Why not an entire year? And why isn’t the holiday international? After further research, I discover that National Napping Day is a day to raise awareness of the positive benefits of napping and to catch up on that lost hour of sleep due to “springing forward” for Daylight Savings Time. A holiday inaugurated by a lost hour of sleep? For real? Women are so chronically sleep deprived that the only springing forward left in them is to lunge for the throat of the next person who says women running households “don’t work.” I swallow the lump it my own throat, it is my beef with the women’s movement, a movement that elevated everything that men do– opportunities that come with a pay check, but it did nothing to elevate what it is that women do. Why can’t it work both ways? The world has long ignored the contributions of women, especially their contributions in the home—the numerous social welfare functions provided by women for free: watchful eyes in the neighborhood that add to public safety, the socialization and discipline of children, education, homework help, before and after school care, health checks and medication dispensing, meals, summer programs, transportation, help for elderly and ill neighbors and extended family members, orderly homes, healthy meals, intimacy and social connection...Those burdens have been passed along to schools, social service organizations, and government. Many of the services continue to be provided largely by an underclass of “working” women for whom we show our regard through substandard wages. Ironically, it is women in the home who add to the life expectancy of men. Studies show that married men live longer than their unmarried counterparts. The same does not hold true for women. Why? Because it is women who remind their husbands to take their medicine and go to the doctor, to eat right, and get some exercise. Men call that nagging. The nagging wife has become the derogatory social stereotype for smart women. But science doesn’t call it nagging. Science calls it conscientiousness. The conscientious live longer, even if vicariously. Unfortunately, for women, due to lower wages throughout life, the ladies live longer but too many end their lives in poverty. Women are expected to be virtuous, not acknowledged or compensated. The symbols of virtue, all of virtue’s heavy-hitters, are women. Lady Justice tramples the snakes and does it blindfolded for not a single billable hour. Lady Liberty stands on her feet night and day for hundreds of years holding a lamp beside the golden door. She gets a crown and a good view, but no one wants to admit that what she does is hard work. Instead, all folks can do is complain about the people she lets in. And poor Mother Earth—she’s having hot flashes and begging for someone to turn down the heat, but can she get an ounce of cooperation? Perhaps Edna St. Vincent Millay was right: “It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it's one damn thing over and over.” Giving birth to civilization has taken a lot out of women even if none of the effort was considered “work.” Taming the flames and keeping the home fires burning is what women do. Even if unrecognized and unpaid, it is not without value. So, if the International Women’s Day festivities were a bust in your house too, grab your superhero cape, claim your worth and your place on the couch. Monday, March 15th is National Napping Day. This one’s for you, tired sisters. . Start the presses and spread the news! There is still time to shop. It is National Oreo Cookie Day. If ever a cookie deserved its own holiday, it is the Oreo. I don’t even mind if the government halts mail delivery. Oreo is the signature product of the National Biscuit Company, the food manufacturing giant better known as Nabisco. The cream-filled cookie also made Hoboken, New Jersey famous for something other than its view of Manhattan. A grocer in Hoboken was the first to sell the treats in cans for twenty-five cents a pound. No one knows where the name Oreo came from; perhaps it is O for the O-shaped cookie, or O for the “Ohs!” uttered by the tasters in Nabisco’s test kitchens. I once thought the Hydrox cookie was a sad wannabee, the second born, a disappointing substitute, but it turns out Hydrox was the first chocolate sandwich cookie of that type on the market. Hydrox made its debut in 1908, four years before Oreo’s introduction in 1912. The Oreo has been the best-selling cookie ever since. Sorry, Hydrox, nice try, and a good idea…but the name Hydrox sounds more like an antiseptic, and the taste, compared to an Oreo, well…a lot like the taste following oral surgery. The Oreo has stayed strong through two world wars, a great depression, and a bazillion weight loss trends. The beloved cookie now comes in double-stuffed, thins, minis, Neapolitan, and Mega Stuff. As of 2019, 450 billion Oreos were sold worldwide. Add the consumption during the COVID pandemic year, and I am sure sales have easily climbed to 1.9 trillion. The National Biscuit Company was granted a trademark for the Oreo on March 14, 1912. National Oreo Cookie Day is celebrated on March 6th because that is the day Nabisco made its application for the trademark. That makes two miracles for the Oreo—the greatest cookie of all time and the fastest turnaround by a government office in history. The product’s tag line is “Milk’s favorite cookie.” Sure, there are a lot of dunkers out there, but there are many ways to eat an Oreo. The best known strategy is for “a kid to eat the middle of an Oreo first and save the chocolate cookie outside for last.” The process is important. Lifting or prying the cookie apart is much less effective than the gentle twist that leaves the creamy layer intact to be scraped off by the eater’s two front teeth. Oreo fanatics have expanded the brand. Oreos are now a staple like flour or sugar. Oreos appear in recipes for pie crusts, pies, cakes, ice cream, milkshakes, candy bars, and are even coated and deep fried at county fairs. Oreos are a snack, a dessert, a special treat, and paired with milk, they are practically a health food. The standard package notes that a serving size is three cookies with twelve servings in a pack. Really? Who can eat just three? I suspect that an entire row is more typical. Three Oreos? That just wets the appetite because Oreos are as addictive as cocaine. They are the preferred party drug of the tea party crowd. Decades ago, I experienced an Oreo overdose. My mother had gone to the hospital to deliver a baby—my brother or sister? I can’t remember because the real event was the Oreo tea party authorized by our father to keep my older sister and me out of his hair. Mary and I each consumed far more than the suggested serving of three Oreos. For dessert, we topped off our tea party meal with the Oreo’s favorite cousin, a bag of M&Ms. When it was time to retire for the night, my sister and I climbed into our bunk beds that were covered with matching white chenille Sleeping Beauty bedspreads. Initially, our stomachs gurgled just a bit, but before we could fall asleep, our guts erupted like Mount Vesuvius. Eventually, we slept well. The nightmare came for our mother who returned home with a new baby and plenty of laundry to do. The entire episode was easily forgotten by me and my sister. It may have contributed to our parents' later divorce, but Mary and I never fell out of love with Oreo cookies or tea parties. Oreos have been around a long time. Even their current design has remained unchanged since 1952, longer than I’ve been alive. I like things that stand up to the test of time and remain sweet no matter how many times we encounter them. I feel a tea party coming on. Hold the M&Ms. A friend of mine lives in a suburban neighborhood where the wildlife is becoming too friendly, some might even say BOLD. Despite repeated attempts to discourage them, the groundhogs have taken up residence underneath decks and porches and the deer walk right up to the front doors and ring the bells. The family pets do little to deter the wildlife, and that includes a pet pig that can moonwalk on command. It appears that the animals have taken up the lives we used to have. My friend spent the first half of the pandemic trying to woo a groundhog out from underneath her back deck and then keep him out. Since I am not sure where all of this is headed, my friend shall remain anonymous. Let’s just call her Q. Q began her interventions by placing a small fence around the groundhog’s front door. To no avail. The groundhog simply dug a bigger hole and went underneath the fence. Next, Q piled small stones around the entrance to the tunnel, but the creature moved the stones to the side, crafted a pair of gargoyles that looked remarkably like my friend, and went on inside. Q thought the natural animal fear of a predator might work. Q got a large plastic owl and placed it at the entrance. The groundhog knocked the owl over, slapped it to the side, and spit on it before regaining entry to its groundhog digs. Giving up on barriers, Q then tried appealing to the groundhog’s senses. Q sprayed the area with ammonia. Again, to no avail. Perhaps, the scent was no worse than the typical smells of a groundhog home. Q also tried sprinkling cayenne pepper at the entry, but it appears that the creature preferred life spicy. Shiny, spinning pinwheels were no distraction and may have been enough extra wind power to provide electricity to the underground tunnel. Q tried sleep deprivation as a discouragement strategy and kept bright lights focused on the groundhog’s home night and day. Q was pretty sure she heard the groundhog laughing at her. Desperate, Q left the groundhog a written notice of eviction and posted a Keep Out sign at the entrance to the hole beneath the deck. Q later found a tiny pair of reading glasses in the snow. The Keep Out sign was turned around with the words Live, Love, Laugh printed on the back. There was no response to the eviction letter. Q then sprinkled baking soda around the deck to track the groundhog’s footsteps so that she would know when it left the tunnel and which direction it had gone. While the animal was out, she backed up the truck and filled the area with large rocks. Q says she hasn’t seen the groundhog since, but Q has no will left. If Q sees signs of the groundhog’s return, she plans to declare him a dependent on her income tax return. Now the neighborhood is getting together on a Zoom call to discuss the deer problem—upping their game so to speak. My friend is eager to hear what the neighbors have to say. This has me worried. We are all a little on edge given the politics, the pandemic, and the weather. I remind my friend of the lyrics to that old folk song, Home on the Range: …where the deer and the antelope play…never is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day. We need that… but I think it might be too late. He told them I was valiant, and that became my name. Prince Valiant The house fell on us this year. Everything went wrong. With a virus running rampant and restrictions in place, people were unable to travel. Some could not even leave their houses. We discovered that “there is no place like home,” is only true when there is somewhere else to go. Home, it turns out, is both a place and a way of life. No ruby slippers, no click of the heels, can take us back to the way it used to be. It was a year that was tough on love and a year for tough love: weddings delayed, marriages strained, parent-child relationships taxed, children behind computer screens, older relatives behind glass windows. It is difficult to find love when gathering places are closed and we are masked and standing six feet apart. This will be a different Valentine’s Day. The traditional holiday symbols of red hearts, paper doilies, perfumes, and chocolates have been replaced with face coverings, stockpiles of toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and lavender-scented wipes. Chocolate is no longer reserved for a special occasion; it has become a daily over-the-counter medicine for a chronic case of hard times. The longer the pandemic drags on, the broader the definition of hard times becomes. In addition to the coronavirus, we’ve endured weather disasters and wild fires, social unrest, political upheaval, and insurrection. On Valentine’s Day, the snow is up to our noses. No wonder we’ve replaced “Have a nice day!” with “Stay safe!” The words “Happy Valentine’s Day” can be a mouthful to a toddler learning to speak. When my children were that age, the words came out sounding more like “Happy Valiant Times Day.” I thought those greetings were innocent mispronunciations, but it turns out, children can be clairvoyant. This year I am trading “Happy Valentine’s Day” for “Happy Valiant Times Day” with my childhood mental images of Prince Valiant and his Singing Sword undefeatable in a fight for a worthy cause. It has not been easy weathering this medical, social and political apocalypse. For the past year we’ve focused on the worthy causes of staying alive and protecting the lives of others. It has meant many days of isolation, fear, loss, boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion, and financial uncertainty as chaos overtook the spaces where we once lived in peace. Many lived terrified each day with nothing to think about except how the rent would get paid or where food might be found. Even as people took action to preserve their health and safety, they wondered if they would live to see their grandchildren again, if they would ever work again, or have the simple pleasures of going to a restaurant or trying on new clothes. They wondered if they would ever again feel comfortable going to a concert or using a public restroom. Throughout the past year, we dangled from the windows of our old world: drive-throughs and grab-and-go restaurants, curbside pick-up-and-delivery, kisses blown into the wind, hands pressed to glass…it has been a daring, no-contact battle. We never imagined the determination it would take to follow the not-so-simple health and safety guidelines, the courage it would take after 365 days of solitude to stay home one more day, the dedication that would be necessary to show up at the computer and do the homework. Those who were able to do so kept working and serving others—steering wheels and syringes, grocery bags and boxes became the new Singing Swords doing overtime. This year, our hearts were tested and the contents exposed for everyone to see. This year made it evident: to give your heart, you must first have one. May history look back on this time, look back on us, and remember that we were kind, generous, cooperative, selfless, determined, and brave. May they call us valiant. For the millions of people who lost loved ones this year, this holiday is especially for you. Happy Valiant Times Day! It is Groundhog’s Day. Nothing new. We’ve been living the same day for more than a year. Just when we thought that hope had arrived inside a syringe, epidemiologists advise us that we are not nearing the end of the pandemic; we are at the beginning of a new variant-inspired phase that could be worse than anything we’ve experienced thus far. Happy Groundhog’s Day. I am waiting for social media to light up in outrage that Punxsutawney Phil got to see his shadow this morning when the rest of us have been social distancing, afraid to even look in a mirror. How do you know that you have been effectively social distancing for a year? You know you’ve been socially distancing when-- 1. Taking out the trash is an outing. 2. You think of the curb outside your home as a nightclub. 3. You ask the neighbors to blow their leaves into your yard so you can rake them up. 4. You replace the plumbing just for something to do. 5. Moving your car from the street into the garage is a road trip. 6. You schedule a time to talk to yourself. 7. You send yourself emails. 8. You eat food right out of the package--and that includes salad and baked beans. 9. Telemarketers have stopped calling because you talk too much. 10. You make a telehealth appointment to see how the doctor is doing. 11. You forget how long it has been since you last showered. 12. You put 14 miles on your car all year, and it will be 214.8571 years before your car needs an oil change. You go ahead and book the appointment. 13. You forget how to eat with a fork. 14. You salivate when the doorbell rings. 15. You buy stuff online just so you can return it. 16. You are arrested for trimming the neighbor’s shrubs. 17. You walk stray dogs. 18. People think you are making fun of them when you say have a nice day. 19. Someone gives you the finger and it feels like a friendly gesture. 20. You long for a church sermon about the annual fund drive. 21. A workout is sitting up straight. 22. You forget to wear pants. 23. A fire drill is a nice get together. 24. You turn yourself in for removing the tags from your mattress and sofa cushions. 25. You’ve binge watched everything including your home security camera footage. 26. You are jealous of your friend’s dentist appointment. 27. You realize that smell is not coming from the litter box… 28. When someone asks where you live, you give them your IP address. 29. You don’t realize you are still in your pajamas until you spill coffee on yourself at the convenience store. 30. You are willing to do hard time just for a hug. If you can identify with the above, then you’ve been social distancing. I am hoping Punxsutawney Phil is right—just six more weeks of this. Happy Groundhog’s Day! |
AuthorLilli-ann Buffin Archives
April 2024
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