Sunday, December 13, 2015

A pause

Saint Simons is a great place to breath and rest up. Been here a couple weeks and will spend at least six more in this sweet little condo with a marsh out the front door and a beach out the back. We even have our own lemon tree. K&E will come down for Christmas and that will be fun. Got to see many of our friends as they travel hither and yon (just like us...). Ken went to NYC and back to St Maarten, Pete to Milledgeville, Karen to the Bahamas, Beth has plans to spend some time in AZ. But we all seem to filter back through this wonderful place and find each other. (Murphy's is always a good place to meet up and shoot a game of pool). Good friends. David and Sherry, Dan and Cookie, Sue and George, Perry, David, Russ, Mimi, Jay and our Mary Helen. It's nice to be back.

December 8th was a beautiful day from sunrise to sunset. Thanks for the calls. Here are some pics.










Next adventure in February is 2 weeks on the 47 ft catamaran, Sunshine with Capt. Ken, Beth and other friends who we have yet to meet...

Merry Christmas, friends. Hope to see you/ meet you in 2016.

Monday, November 16, 2015

Another Passage

The kids are moved into their new house. Walls and ceilings have a new coat of paint. Rugs are gone and hard wood floors look great. All moved out of Pine Street. We are so glad we were able to "add value" and help them achieve their dream. Now all they have to do is pay for it...

Our rental on Lennox Street was such a blessing. Close to the new house project and to family. Close to Casco Bay with access to our own beach with lots of "beauties" for the pickin. Two gallons of sea glass! And our landlords were just the best. Thank you Kara and Zeb.

On to DC for Thanksgiving with K & E. Then on to SSI for a few months of R&R.

Life is good.




 



 

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Arundhati Roy

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
Arundhati Roy, War Talk

.hmmm..made me think. Empire; ie.unregulated capitalism or consumerism... all the isms, the military/industrial/education complex, oligarchy, political parties, religious dogma... deprive them of oxygen and watch them wither. Live with less. As Socrates wrote "The secret to happiness is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less." Eat healthy, not what the profiteering advertisers brainwash you to eat. Censure/control corrupt TV/internet/Hollywood. Paraphrasing Mother Teresa, we can do no great things, only small things with great awareness. Our parents told us, "Pay attention!". Attention is the intentional channeling of awareness. the antithesis of mindless consumption and violence .

Although we be many and they are few, THEY keep us fragmented and fighting among ourselves so THEY remain in power/control. The Republicans and the Democrats are blatant examples. The media/news outlets do it, too.



OK, enuf. Time to focus on painting a ceiling...

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Bucket Regatta on St. Bart












Two Weeks in the West Indies

Living on the 47 ft. catamaran Sunshine, hopping from island to island, beach to beach, bar to bar... glorious. Thanks Ken and Pete and Beth. It was the trip of a lifetime. Or perhaps the first of more to come... Living the Dream. Thanks for sharing it with us.



























Saturday, March 14, 2015

Mariam

I met an old woman this week and I can't get her out of my head. Perhaps I just need to get her on paper (or electronic digital format, as the case may be.)

We were in the emergency room at Mercy Hospital for 4 or 5 hours that day. Connie was having some tests, presenting symptoms of a cranky gall bladder or something. Turned out to be damaged muscles and floating rib, painful but best case scenario with no surgical intervention required. This winter has been a lesson for us. Despite our active lifestyles, healthy living and regular exercise we don't bounce anymore. At our ages, when we overdo it, we pay for it. We break. 

We watched the EMTs wheel her into the room across the hall and transfer  her to the hospital bed . She was experiencing pain in her right hip and could not get comfortable. The nurses worked with her for awhile before leaving her alone. She struggled to find a comfortable spot and we could hear her cries and whimpers as she wormed herself onto her left side and into the crack between the mattress and the bedrail bars. For a while she was quiet.

"Cold... I'm so cold," she cried.

I looked up and down the hall for a nurse. Finding none, I began walking around the ward collecting blankets which I layered on her. She looked up at me and I could see the angry red welt on her forehead from pressing her face into the bars so I padded the bars with a towel.

"Is that better?" I asked. She couldn't hear me so I leaned closer to her and asked again. "Yes, it's better. But my hip..."

She had sparse white hair and no upper teeth. She was thin and afraid.

I stayed for awhile and listened to her talking to no one about her husband, long dead, about how much he loved her. I listened to her cry because she was not able to give him the children they both so wanted. She slipped in and out of reality. Perhaps the nurses had given her pain medication. Perhaps she was dancing with dementia.

I pushed the red call button and retreated back to Connie's room to wait for a nurse to come. No one came. I didn't get it. She began to cry again.

I remember so many, many occasions being with our mother in hospitals and nursing homes when mom would suddenly begin tending some random older person or child. She never turned away from human suffering or animals either, for that matter. She never explained or asked permission. She was our role model and I see her unspoken lessons reflected so often in my sisters as they tend to whoever lives down the street or crosses their path.

I walked into her room and leaned down to speak with her, perhaps take her mind off her pain. 

"How old are you, darlin," I smiled.

She met my gaze and said, "I don't know... but I do know it's been 46 years since I've had sex."

I couldn't contain my laughter. "That's a long time, darlin," I grinned.

"It is a long time... and that's why I'm talking about it," she smiled a toothless grin.

"What is your name?" I asked.  

"Marian ( or Miriam). I was born in 26. My eye doctor doesn't believe me."

"Well, you will be 90 next year. That's a long time, too." I said. I pulled up some pictures on my cell phone of our grandson and our dog Sam and showed them to her. She had trouble seeing them.

"I don't have children. I have no one," she whimpered.

I stroked her hair and smiled at her. "I'm so sorry for your pain, Mariam. I'm so sorry."

The look in her eyes from receiving a touch and human compassion froze me. I had seen that look in my dogs eyes earlier that week when we put him down. A softness, a resignation, mixed with fear and incredible love. We both cried.

I tried to pull her off the bars, but was unable, with my broken arm. She needed attention. I walked out of the ward into the main ER. There was trauma and drama everywhere. No wonder the nurses didn't respond. They were hanging bags of blood, attending to broken, suffering people. No one paid any attention to me. But Miriam had been patient for long enough. I raised my voice over the din.

"The woman in 17 is in distress!"

Three nurses turned and gazed at me. One of them headed down the corridor. Mission accomplished.

She returned with a big orderly and wrestled Miriam out of the crack and into the center of the bed. Perhaps they gave her more pain meds. After they left, I walked over and stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Connie was discharged shortly thereafter. Her attending nurse wept as she watched us across the hall. She told Connie "I wish we could take the time to tend to our patients like they deserve, but the job is so frantic sometimes. You have to grow a shell to the suffering or you couldn't do this work." God bless the medical professions.

Mom, you taught us well. Step up. Speak up. Do what you can do. We are all just trying to follow in your footsteps.

Growing old ain't for sissies. Sending light and love, Miriam. Can't get you out of my heart.






Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Sampson

"We who choose to surround ourselves with 
lives even more temporary than our own,
live within a fragile circle that is often breached.
And yet we still would love no other way."
-Irving Townsend

What a noble animal. We will miss Sampson and Lulu forever, but we have solace in the knowing that they are together again, running the beaches of heaven... cause all dogs go to heaven.

Pope Francis said so... and therefore, it is so... infallibly so. Sometimes, they get it right...

They came to us when we needed them the most. They brought smiles into our sorrow and, over the 15 years we were privileged to have them, they traveled coast to coast six times, visited 42 states and charmed a million hearts. They were, in fact, little angels in dog form.




 

Well done, my good and faithful beasts. See you at the Rainbow Bridge.