We're all carried along by the river of dreams....

I keep having bad, bad work dreams.  And I haven't been to work now for over three months.  Crazy.  I've never had this much time where I didn't have to report to a job.  And instead of feeling wonderful, I feel.....guilty.  I have horrible dreams.

A friend of mine just left the same workplace and we saw each other over the weekend.  As we vented, both of our spouses said, "It's over."  Yes, we know. But part of the healing will come from venting and sharing our similar unfair and miserable experiences. And, quite frankly, seeing her socially, away from the confines of the workplace or a restricted lunch hour, I realized that it was the first time in years that I had heard anything positive out of her mouth. I warned her about dreams and how very long they can go on.

I will need a new computer of my very own.  My husband monopolizes the main one and my daughter's is not salvageable.  She dropped it and we tried to have it put back in working order, but it isn't worth spending more money on.  So, I have decided that I will get a new laptop in September.

I have also made the momentous decision that I an going to pull down "Astoria Story" and rewrite it. I have been told I am "too concise" and don't "elaborate" enough.  And, I think that is fair and constructive criticism.  In my defense, I felt that I was in a rush to complete it or it just would never get done.  I had time constraints because of my job and classes, so I hurried.  Looking back, I feel I wrote it in a way that sounded more like how I would have spoken to a therapist rather than writing to an audience.  It is actually a little exciting to go back and have a re-do.  I will just hate taking the old one down, though.  However, I have another project in the works and hope to release two books - the new one and the new "Story" - at the same time!

This really feels like a step forward in my reinvention.

(Joel, B.  "River of Dreams" 1993)

It Only Takes a Moment

A "liminal" moment. I learned what that meant on the night of my graduation ceremony at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center. Still learning.  Missing the process.  Wishing for the opportunity to do it more.

The word "subliminal" refers to information we process unconsciously.  Therefore, a "liminal" moment is one we seek out consciously, an occasion, if you will, to commemorate a passage.  Weddings, graduations and funerals are all "liminal" moments. 

I was able to meet people that I had interacted with via the class discussion boards but had never met in person.  I was able, I believe, to make a friend -- a person with whom I shared class time, discussion boards and several group projects.  After a couple of disastrous group projects, this person was a breath of fresh air. A team player who kept up her part of the bargain, did the work, did it on time and did it well and kept in touch throughout.  A gem. I am so glad we met in real life and will continue to know one another.  I consider it such an honor.

There was a gap between when I actually finished my studies (December 2012) and the commencement ceremony (June 2013).  And I went back and forth about the business of actually attending. Why?  I'm not in my twenties anymore. What does it matter? Well, it turns out that it does
matter. Three years of online work, which I personally found more intense and demanding than any other college courses I ever attended in actual classrooms, along with all years of cutting and pasting classroom experience from C.W. Post, to Hunter College to the University of Michigan all the way back to C.U.N.Y.  All of it mattered.  All of it, even if some of the credits weren't transferred.  The knowledge mattered.

So, today, I am the first one of my parent's children to obtain a college degree. Today I am on equal educational footing with my husband. Today I can die in New Jersey and the death certificate will say I obtained a B.A. degree. Today I am no longer a secretary. Today I join the 25% of Americans (a stunningly low number) who have a college degree.  Today I am an indie author.  I am an author.

Funny what one little liminal moment can do.

It's clouds' illusions I recall......

I am reading a book titled "Rachel and Her Children."  It was written more than a decade ago, but the words resonate still.  Only in the book it is Reagan and his administration being vilified, but we only recently heard the same sentiment from a certain Mr. Romney.  The book is a factual report of the plight of the poor and the homeless in the U.S.  It is shocking but that is a subject for another blog and another post. 

But it causes me to take stock. It also fills my heart with gratitude for where I am now because there was a time - quite a long time - when I was just one step away from that world. I don't think that "Astoria Story" gets that point across. I think I should rewrite it. Everyone should read this book.  It is enlightening and important. I don't believe you can read it and ever feel the same way or listen to the inane and cruel rhetoric and lap it up ever again. 

So, I take stock.  I reflect.  I've looked at clouds and love and life from both sides now. (Joni Mitchell) Funny, too, that this week, out of the blue, the ghost returned yet again.  Someone may be trying to establish a false identity - the dead former wife's. We got some very strange phone calls.  Nice.  I asked my husband to change the phone number five years ago.  He wouldn't. He saw no reason. He saw it yesterday.  The next book is going to be a freaking page ripper when I get to this stuff.  I may have to label it for adults only if only for the  epithets. And still I wander and digress.

The events of the past several weeks have been interesting.  I got laid off.  Not fired, mind you, but laid off.  My former employer is probably patting himself on the back for what a wonderful thing he did. I got severance and my accrued vacation and my health care for a year.  The f-ing healthcare that is drowning me in bills.  He just didn't want to pay someone to work for three days a week.  (He has a nurse who works three days a week and is a giant slacker, but that's ok).  So I am not yet officially eligible for retirement and I am not officially disabled.  I am in limbo. 

I will be speaking to my doctor about disability when I see him which isn't for awhile because I had an infection ("Infections, sometimes fatal, may occur") and could no longer take the medication I was on that allayed the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis.  And I now know how much that medication was helping because it is an effort of will to move.

I am just so heartily disappointed in the people and place that I worked.  A medical institution.  But, like the disenfranchised in "Rachel and Her Children" it's nothing personal. I was just a cog in a giant machine.  I raised a disabled daughter, I provided health insurance for my family, I kept a roof over our heads and food on the table.  But, ultimately, I feel so useless.  I did stupid work. I pushed paper around.  I answered phones. Granted, I had to use judgement, but, the only people grateful were few and far between, a few exceptional patients.  I hated my job.  I always hated it.  Always.

The first time I was close to homeless I was very young (22), divorced and temporarily in my mother's house.  There was no question about me leaving.  No question.  I had a sister who knew a chiropractor who needed a secretary.  What the hell does a secretary do?  Had I gone to college, stayed in college, and worked - I could have been a teacher who retired years ago. Sixteen when I graduated from high school with a dysfunctional,  almost non-existent family, I had no support, emotional or financial, and no direction.  So I took the job.  And I became a "medical secretary" for the next forty years.  Do I regret it?  You bet I do.  At the same time, I had no idea what else to do.

The second time I was almost homeless was right after my former mother-in-law said that we would "be in the streets."  I did worry about that and by god, I wasn't going to let her win.  I could live without her lousy son who sucked every dime out of what I earned. But I was worried and lived on the edge the whole time I was in Astoria.  That part will be in the next book.  Let's just say it was easy to keep my girlish figure.

I DID get that dog.  He is a rescue from the south, about two years old, a black and white pointer/hound.  The first couple of weeks were a little rough because he was afraid of everything.  EVERYTHING.  But we have settled into a routine and he is feeling safe and his dopey personality is starting to blossom.  He gets so absolutely delighted when I offer him a dentabone that he doesn't know what to do with his body.  The paws go up and down and his head goes side to side and his tail wags so hard his back end wiggles, its hilarious.  His name is Harry and we are becoming family.

And that little girl who was diagnosed with autism at age six now has a Bachelor of Science degree. Although she still has social deficits she has come so very far and I am quite proud of her. 

Now I have to figure out what to do with and how to do it for the rest of my life.  It's amazing how long it takes to adjust.  I've been sleeping lots.  And nooks and crannies of the house that hadn't been cleaned in forever have finally been spritzed, wiped and shined.  I still don't have a grasp on a regular routine for myself and I need to enable another computer so I can work.  The nice thing is that now I don't feel like I have to rush.  Just breathe.  Breathe, walk, gaze........."It's life's illusions I recall, I really don't know life at all."


"Both Sides Now"  J. Mitchell

 

Who knows where the time goes?

There are two mug trees in my kitchen that together hold more than a dozen mugs.  The two at the bottom are there just for show.  They can't be used anymore because they have some cracks in them and I'm afraid they will break, but I still like to look at them.  I think they're pretty- they have a cafe au lait color on the inside. Outside they are white with deep blue designs that I suppose are an Asian motif, since one is bamboo stalks and the other is a sylized rendition of cherry blossoms.  These mugs are nearly forty years old.  They were the first ones I acquired as an adult person on my own.  They remind me of many things, one of which is the friend I had who pointed out how very personal mugs are.  Indeed.

They remind me of the apartment I had on Long Island, of my job and of my big, fat orange cat, Huey.  They remind me of the people I knew, of C.W. Post College and what it was like being young and naive. And they make me marvel at how long ago that was.  Where did it go?

I discovered once again how personal mugs are when my husband and I were dating.  We had issues surrounding his deceased previous wife.  I finally blew my stack over the mugs.  He was totally clueless, naturally, but one day he handed me a cup of tea in a mug they must have purchased at Disney World.  There were two, actually, one that said "bouncy" and one that said "naughty."  It didn't take me long to figure out what the reference was and I was tired of being made to feel like I was being handed a cup of his former sex life with someone else.  Oh, yes, it was personal, alright. No woman likes to feel that she is being invaded, accompanied, overwhelmed by another when it comes to her love life.  After my banshee fit the mugs disappeared.  But there were others (fits)  about other things.  I could write a whole book about that alone. Beware of widowers.

Gradually we have built a set of our own.  A mug from Barcelona, one from Florence. One from work and one from school.  One from the Blue Note where we heard Jane Monheit sing. He brought one back from Guernsey when he was there on business. For some unknown reason that one has become my favorite one to use. It's bright with warm colors and seems happy. Another one comes from the little bistro we have in town. All of them much more interesting than Disney World.  He apparently got the message about the unique personal quality of mugs. They are rather like songs in the way they can transport you to another time and place and evoke a host of memories.  They can make yesterday, even forty years ago, seem like a mere blink.



 

School's out for ever...

Having graduated from high school at sixteen, you would think that a college degree would have been finished by age twenty-one.  If I had been a rational and more mature sixteen year old, that would have been the case.  It was not.

I made the mistake of listening to friends.  I made the adolescent mistake of trying to get as far away from my mother as I possibly could.  And I was not mature enough for a big move to a place I did not understand or care for.  I screwed up.

Then, when a few years had gone by, at the urging of a very nice man who was a patient of the doctor for whom I worked, I went back to college part time while working full time. I was still young and strong and full of energy.  I did that for eight or nine years.  But I got married.  Another mistake.

Well, at long last, I have a Bachelor's Degree.  It only took me forty years.  And considering all the credits I lost by transferring and making myself obsolete after so much time, I may have the only B.A. that required one hundred and fifty credits.  (There is no such thing as an English Literature degree anymore, that was for the dinosaurs.)  But, nevertheless, I did it.  That makes me the only child of my parents to finish college.  It also, if they ever hear about it, will irritate my ex-in-laws.  Good.  And it means that when I die, my death certificate will indicate that I have a degree.  Whew!  I was worried about that.....

It means I accomplished something and I did it without being given any favors. Don't get me wrong there.  I mean that no family member paid my way.  I was extremely grateful for the couple of scholarships I got many years ago and for the fact that the institution I work for contributed to my tuition costs.  Still, I earned my degree in every sense of the word.  No free ride for me.

So you know what my first reaction was when I realized I was completely done?  Was I happy?  Was I relieved?  I cried.  I cried for all the lost time, all the lost opportunities, all the could haves and would haves and should haves.  One big cry.  I guess that was simmering for a while, like a few decades or so.  I'm past that now and felt better this morning.  I felt.......worthy.   It takes a little getting used to, but it's pretty good.

Spread your broken wings and learn to fly....

I am currently reading a book titled "Slave in the White House" by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor.  To a person in the 21st Century it is shocking. Somehow my elementary and high school educators failed to teach us much more than a cursory look at "slave trade" and the Civil War.  There is a huge hole in my education and so I assume that same chasm exists for most American students and may be far worse than my own.  I grew up in New York, the Northeast, the Union side.


This book chronicles the life of a man named Paul Jennings - half African American (his mother was a slave) and half English. ???? There is no record and hence no explanation of who "Jennings" may have been. But any offspring of a slave "belonged" to the owners of the mother. I feel strange even typing out that word "owner" in reference to a person. It's abominable. Paul was unusual because he could read and write.  He must have been extraordinarily astute since it appears he just absorbed the knowledge from being around the white owners kids when they were instructed.  Oh, by the way, the owners were James and Dolley Madison. Mr. Madison was the fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817.  One of the "Founding Fathers." He spoke a lot about the equality of man, expounded upon the evils of slavery.  Yet he had them.

I often wondered about the lack of last names for the emancipated people but according to this book, like Jennings, they had last names, they just weren't really allowed to use them. There were no birth certificates, no formal papers to preserve their names, no marriage license since their marriages were not "legal" or officially recognized. The owners also made a habit of using a diminutive or nick-name when possible for their first names.  This is a subtle way to show lack of respect, remove dignity and ensure that a person knows where they stand in the hierarchy.

Madison had a plan for emancipation.  He seemed to know that the day would come eventually when Americans would have to give up their human property. His plan was to send them to Africa. I don't know yet if Africa was consulted on this plan, I am only one third of the way through the book.

There was a news article today about a teacher in Georgia.  The teacher was outraged by clear and blatant racist questions on a test for young students. The teacher resigned because math problems were posed as such: "if eight slaves pick them (56 oranges) equally then how many...?" Slaves???? My stomach churns reading about what went on in the early 1800's.  What kind of people live in Atlanta today? Four teachers are being "investigated." How do you come to adulthood, get a college degree and become a teacher with a head full of hate?

Paul Jennings gained his freedom through a loan from Daniel Webster.  But the question remains,will we ever be free of this kind of ignorance?

I didn't sleep at all last night....

No one in this household did.  Today the college kids were allowed to move back into the dorms.  Consequently, my daughter was up just about all night.  Transition. Transitioning into change.  She was up and down the stairs countless times.  She had tea or coffee because I could hear the Keurig going.  Lights were on downstairs and up, leaking into our bedroom under the doorjamb.  My poor husband had to get up at five a.m. to go to work. As if having a grown step-daughter with autism wasn't enough, just as he was drifting off (I could tell by the rhythm of his breathing) the damned deaf ancient cat came into the room, jumped on the bed and proceeded to start heaving. (Woka, woka, woka) Since I was WIDE awake I was able to get him onto the floor before he tossed his cookies in the bed.

"I didn't sleep last night!"
"Yes, we know, we didn't either. We could hear you."

Any response? Nope. Time and time again she has been told that this keeps us up and she either just doesn't get it (possible) or just doesn't care (also possible) or both.  I am always afraid of instigating a huge shouting match so I let a lot go. I let this go.  At least we will sleep tonight.

It was cold and rainy here today and because of my recent surgery, other than driving her to campus, I was totally useless as far as helping her move all her stuff back in.  Others were there, some with parents, some with friends. I admit it makes me sad to see them because I envy them and I was secretly relieved that I could not help and she did not complain. She also did not attempt to hug goodbye. Nor did I.  I don't force those moments anymore as I used to when she was younger.  She is no child anymore and it is just too awkward. Just a blank eyed stare was all I got. Perhaps that is why, all the way home, I could feel myself fighting back tears as I rode through the gloomy raindrops, feeling cheated somehow.