I consulted with a few friends about the appropriateness of publishing my Holiday letter, and we all agreed — I’m old enough to get away with it. I don’t have to worry about my resume, and I think my reputation is sufficiently solid. I know this contains no pornography or even indecent language. So I should be good to go. Enjoy! Or not, as the spirit moves you.
MONA’S LETTER
As I write this it’s 3:55 p.m. here at The Waters of Excelsior in Minnesota and night is about to fall. Have you noticed that, at this time of year, it really does fall? In a few minutes I’ll turn on my Christmas lights ready to greet me when I get back from walking the halls for a half hour. (I have to keep my phone happy by completing its red circle. I don’t know how my phone knows what I need to do, but it says I should, so I will.) Anyway, to get to the point. I’m beginning to receive Holiday greetings from kind and timely friends, so I guess it’s time for me to roll my own news off the presses. And yes, I do have a bit of news.
Activities: I’ve been involved in the establishment of a Resident Council here. It seems that our first order of business has been to examine and encourage improvement in the way newcomers are welcomed. I think you know I’m an oldster here, in more ways than one, having moved in at the very beginning — December, 2018. By now we’re basically fully occupied with a waiting list of those who want to join us. I continue to find it a wonderful way to live, like being on a perpetual cruise without the potential for rough waters. I also enjoy the weekly meeting of our poetry/writer’s group here, expected to produce something to share every Friday. Most Thursdays I’m also in attendance at the Bible Study group currently led by Pastor (and musician) Mark Abelson from Mount Calvary Lutheran Church. Not always, though, because when son Doug is around there are many days when I’m off to various conflicting entertainments: The Guthrie Theater, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Cantus, The Bach Society concerts, and probably other things that are slipping past awareness right now. Oh yes, I should mention that I’m enjoying being the Correspondent for the Connecticut College for Women class of 1951. I didn’t like finding no news about us in the college magazine, as if we were gone and forgotten, so I volunteered. You do have to move pretty far into the back of the section to find us, though. I’m involved, too, in establishing a writer’s group at the Southshore community Center.
Travel: August saw son Douglas and me spending fourteen days cruising with Viking’s Octantis down the Great Lakes. It’s the same expedition ship we were on last year in the Antarctic. The difference from typical cruises is exemplified by the chemistry-classroom-like auditorium with lectures and documentaries on the broad screen up front instead of a performance theater. I don’t get to gamble, but I do satisfy my brainiac self while enjoying a cappuccino without having to pass a test at the end. While Doug takes advantage of every off-ship excursion he can fit in, I’m happy to stay on board most of the time. But I did enjoy the visit to the Ford Museum in Detroit. Wow! Those presidential limos are much longer than they seem when they appear in the news. And I enjoyed sitting in the seat that Rosa Parks had occupied on the bus when she refused to move to the back. Next year we’ll be anticipating a 2026 cruise to the Arctic on the Octantis’s sister ship, the Polaris. But, if all goes as planned, before that, in August, we’ll be cruising Viking up the Mississippi from New Orleans to Saint Paul, assuming there’ll be enough water in the river. Finally, I should mention that I did not renew my license to practice at the end of May, but, based on my academic and writing credentials, I am still available for tutoring and consulting.
Writing: Closest to my heart is working on a manuscript, intended to be a book if I can make it through the search for a publisher. Its initial title was On My Way Out, the personal story of my career in psychology with lots of tales of events along the way as the years and psychology changed. For example, My conditioned response reaction to Vaugh Monroe’s Blue Moon at the romantic high school after-prom party. But I changed the title to A Healthy Woman Was a Crazy Person when I realized how contemporary the ending was as men are now dealing with their “problem that has no name” in reaction to the success of the women’s movement. I’m available to share more info about that – eager, actually.
Summary: To tell the truth, I’m glad I’m on my way out. I’m so grateful for all the blessings I’ve received along the way, but I’m in no rush to close the door behind me. There’s just too much left to accomplish and enjoy. I have no doubt we’re entering a period of historically significant and probably startling change. I hope for all of us that what lies ahead will come to reflect the message of love we celebrate in this season displayed in the growth of kindness, gratitude, generosity, forgiveness, justice, and peace. In the meantime I’ll try to do my best.
Mona
No, it doesn’t mean to restrain your feelings and thoughts like captives in your own private prison. It means having a thorough understanding of yourself and willingness to be open with others given appropriate methods and situations. And I’m about to expose you to my private example.
I think being raised Swedish had something to do with it, but I thought that the Scandinavian brand of stoicism was heroic. Looking back, I think it led others in public school to think I was “stuck up.” I know it must have frustrated my parents when my response to being sent to my room in punishment was a toss of the head and a gesture indicating that I loved being alone in my room. I guess it’s supposed to make one seem superior as one who is insensitive to pain.
At any rate, the effort to train me to experience myself was begun by a friend in the Masters Program at Boston University who pointed out – basically nagged me about — the automatic gate that shut somewhere around the throat level preventing a head and body connection. I’ve told the story in other places of my excitement in teaching a course sometime later at the University of Vermont when I felt myself blushing in a lecture about masturbation.
But there are other stories, liking meeting a very attractive, well-organized therapist who admitted she tried to teach her clients to be like her. I came away from that meeting hoping never to run into her again. No vibes. Her emotional life seemed to be locked away far inside where one couldn’t access it.
On the other hand, there’s the experience in the neighborhood where Lou and I raised our two children. It was a suburban setting where many back yards came together essentially providing one large playground where we could feel safe about letting our kids enjoy their own creative games. One woman, I’ll call her Mrs.X, lived directly behind us, and we enjoyed coffee together on occasion. As a matter of fact, she’s the one who taught me to clean the toilet tank on a fairly regular basis. Her little boy was about my Lisa’s age and part of the playgroup that gathered on sunny days.
Then came the day, several months after the birth of Mrs X’s daughter, that I was hanging a load of laundry on my pully line. (I loved my pully line) when I noticed the ladies in the neighborhood sitting in her yard, chairs situated so they were all facing me. I waved, and they waved back, calling me after they returned home to ask why I wasn’t there – I hadn’t been invited. Just a sign of things to come. But what did get to me with a huge gush of pain was when she bought exciting toys for her yard which had attracted the children in the neighborhood. When my Lisa, about four-years-old, ran over happily to join them, she was told to go home. She wasn’t allowed to play in Mrs. X’s yard. Of course, my Lisa cried in hurt and wondered what she had done wrong to cause the rejection. I wondered too.
I still believed that any problem could be solved by talking about it, but Mrs. X would have none of it. Lisa (and apparently I, also) was banned from her attractive playground of a yard. All I can do when I think about it is imagine how it was for little black kids rejected because of their color and grieve for the sad experience it was for Lisa.
I can’t remember for sure, but I think Lisa’s big brother and the neighbor kids made a point of including Lisa away from Mrs X’s yard, but the rejection and sadness went on until one day – and this is the point of the story – I blew my calm, cool, collected (?) stack and stood on my porch shouting every insulting obscenity I could come up with. Mrs. X just calmly looked at me like I had gone crazy. Well, maybe I had. Maybe it teaches something about how situations can drive one to otherwise unacceptable behavior. But the victory came when my two kids came running to me and I realized how important it was to them that I had stood up for them. Yes, that disconnect between emotion and action had been weakened.
I don’t recommend frequent such tantrums.
The situation with Mrs. X and Lisa, however, didn’t change. I thought we would have to sell and move, but unfortunately the town had allowed our lots to be approved even though they were basically red rock. Truth was, everyone in the neighborhood had a septic problem. Some overflowed into yards, or others, like ours, backed up into the basement. (We threw the dishwater and bathtub water out the back door, practiced minimal flushing, and let the washing machine water out through a hose running down the driveway.) In other words, we couldn’t in good conscience try to sell the house. I remember the feeling of being stressed and trapped. (Sound like any other more unfortunate neighborhoods one may talk about?)
There is a happy ending to this story, though I think my Lisa is still affected by the trauma. The town finally put in an appropriate sewage system and Mr. X was transferred out of town. Four of my very favorite people moved in, with one for each of us – Mr. V for Lou, Mrs V for me, a son (still friends) for my Doug and a daughter Lisa’s age.
All this to say that self-control doesn’t mean denying one’s emotions by sealing them away in one’s own dark, closed closet.
And, for heaven’s sake, I hope you don’t think I’m advocating temper tantrums!
By the way, in reference to conditioned responses, we still feel a certain nostalgia when driving through neighborhoods with certain familiar distinctive smells.
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