Moving On

It's been a busy week, mentally.  Physically,the cat and I have been hanging out together on the sofa and watching Law and Order.  But mentally I have been in overdrive.  I have done the psychological  equivalent of decluttering, rearranging furniture and painting.  I think I still need to drag some stuff to the emotional curb and maybe hang some drapes.

Seriously, I still don't have a long range plan but I am good for the short run.  My daughter, Chelsea, is helping me rework and update the cookbook I wrote 20 years ago and we hope to market it as before.  I have a research project I am very interested in and it could turn into a writing project--not ready to share all of those details yet.  This poor old house has lots of work we can do, the last two years it has been neglected in favor of work.  I want to schedule a trip to Atlanta before Chelsea starts back to college and we have a new kitten.

I also am trying to digitize all our family pictures and identify folks in them. And that dovetails into my ongoing genealogy research  (36 years and counting).

So, I am looking forward, moving on.

There be Dragons!

 

There be dragons!

Old map-makers used to mark the edges of ‘known territory’ with those words – “Beyond here – there be dragons”. 

Having lived most of my life following a map of sorts, I find myself now veering off into unknown lands of retirement.  I am moving slowly and with purpose because like most folks, I fear the unknown—the dragons that lurk in the uncharted places.

I am still wondering what I want to be when I grow up.  Up till now I always had a plan, even if it didn’t make sense to others, I knew what I needed to do and had a plan on how to get it done.  Now that I have “arrived” at retirement I am looking off into the horizon knowing I need to continue my journey but unsure which way to go.  No matter which way, I fear that there be dragons.   So I have to figure out how to be a dragon slayer instead of dragon chow.  For now, I am building my strength and my arsenal and studying the map.  Stay tuned for more dragon adventures.

Making a Joyful Noise

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing. ---Psalm 100.

I love to sing, I mean I really LOVE to sing, unfortunately I am not very good at it.  I know this because the two people in my life who said they loved me the most told me I was not good.   Well, not so much not good but really, really awful.  My mother didn't like to sit next to me in church because of my "inability to find one key and stay in it."   She said she thought maybe it was because my grandmother Quinn had sung "Fly Away You Old Turkey Buzzard" to me one too many times.  My ex-husband begged me not to sing to our child but I did anyway.  She can carry a tune so I think she's reasonably undamaged.

I sing in the car, the shower, around the house. I play the autoharp and sing in the living room, just me and the cat. When I taught I sang to my class.  I know the words to thousands of songs and if I don't--well, I'll make them up.  It astounds me that others don't enjoy my songs---the music inside of me is so beautiful,how can it not be when it comes out?  I learned a long time ago though that it must come out, holding it in leads to resentment and I think might contribute to having excessive gas.


This leads me back to Psalm 100.  It says make a joyful noise--not a beautiful sound, not a melodious song, a harmonious presentation, but a joyful NOISE.  "Come before his presence with singing"; please note it does not say singing on key.  The Lord has given me many gifts, my singing voice is not one of them.  But He did give me A voice to make a joyful noise and I do so with gladness.


When I was a child my grandparents took my cousin Sheryl and me to an all night sing at some little church in their community.  I remember that Sheryl and I got up and sang a duet and my grandfather was very proud of us, took a lot of nerve I guess, we probably were not more than nine or ten.  The following is a poem I wrote based on my memory of that hot summer night, 50 or so years ago.

ALL NIGHT SING

                                                       We sing shaped notes,

                                                        the piano stringing us along.

                                                        Cardboard fans stir the fevered heat

                                                        that rises from the congregation

                                                        overcome by the smell of those

                                                        washed in the blood of the Lamb.

                                                       Wrinkled cottons, sagging crinolines,

                                                        hair sweat-stuck to foreheads,

                                                        with our all upon the altar laid,

                                                        we sing until faith soaks through

                                                        our Sunday best on Saturday night.

 

Why froggy?

I've been feeling kinda froggy for some time--and so I finally took the leap.  I retired from my job and now I have to decide what to do with the rest of my life.  It is a lot like graduating from college, but I don't think my looks will help me land a new job unless chubby white haired ladies have become some new erotic fantasy for personnel directors.  Also, I didn't get as many presents.

Friends keep telling me I can now pursue those avenues that were closed off to me when I was younger--I can pursue my true passions.  I had two rewarding careers--social work which was my true passion and which rewarded me greatly; and teaching, which was more like a weird second marriage--the honeymoon: love,trust and happiness for the first years; reality: struggling to understand education's mid-life crisis; and finally the Twisted Sister phase--I'm not to take it--ANYMORE!

So---true passions!  Dreams denied!  I wanted to be a hard-hitting, no nonsense radio news reporter about 1965--doesn't appeal to me now, if such an animal even exists in this day and age.   In 1963 I remember reading about the Profumo affair in England and being a high society call girl like Christine Keeler sounded exciting--but I was only 12 and did not understand all of the--job requirements, at the time.  I am afraid my moral code, not to mention my age prohibits that one.  I wanted to get married, I did. It didn't work out but I'm glad I did it anyway.  I wanted to be a mother.  I am, that has been the most rewarding thing I've done.

When I really think about it I am looking for a part-time job that would use my problem-solving skills; my creativity; what I call my "endless curiosity," which has been called nosiness when personal and doggedness when academic; and my vast collection of knowledge, trivial and otherwise. I am punctual, loyal, thrifty and brave.  I am also messy and an auditory learner who has to talk every idea out--out loud.  I have a very organized mind---I know where everything is, it's just a secret system.

This blog is one of the things I have been wanting to do.  I see it as a place to share what I hope is going to be a new adventure. I had to shed my old skin of teacher to be able to stretch and find my new way.  I hope to have some readers to join me on the trip.  So to get started I turn to my true passions--Diet Coke and Reeses cups!  Hi-ho away!