Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
The following is a copy of the e-mail letter I have sent to family, friends, and colleagues. And now to you blogging friends.
Little did I know back when I made plans for Spring and Summer, 2018, that I would be involved in planning a move and preparing my home for sale. But it happened that the senior living complex I had been watching in its early approval stage would be coming to fruition. As it turned out, I have committed to a two-bedroom apartment (the Cosco) on the southeast corner as I requested. If you are interested in more detail, just click on https://www.thewatersseniorliving.com/wp-content/uploads/Excelsior-Unit-Floor-Plans-Booklet.pdf
To say that it made for a very busy life is an understatement. From the time I knew I’d be moving, I began giving things away. First my Forgiveness library went to Luther Seminary, followed closely by my Psychology of Women library and then the “Job/Mrs Job” collection. But there was so much more to do.
To leap to the end of the story — Thinking it would take a while for my townhome to sell, I put it on the market just before I went off for a week of studying writing with MaryCarroll Moore at Madeline Island School of the Arts from July 30thto August 3d – fabulous course, by the way, with a super teacher. I expected that would make it easier for the agent to show my townhome without my presence. But things moved a little faster than anticipated when I received a full price cash offer on the first day it was listed. To say that hastened things is an understatement. I returned home from the class on August 3d and began the intricate, somewhat frantic process of emptying my home to prepare for an August 30th closing. I won’t keep you in suspense. I did make it to the closing on time, though I feared at many points that it wouldn’t be accomplished.
But I can’t move into my new place until November 26that the earliest. Ah! So where would I live in the meantime? Answer, two lovely neighbors, one taking me in for the month of September and another for the month of October. That left November. Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to take my passport out of my file cabinet that would be stored with the moving company until my move into the Waters. My son Doug found us a bargain Holland America cruise to South America for November 3 to 19. That gives us a day at home (his house) after our return before taking off for our annual Thanksgiving weekend at Cove Point on the shores of Lake Superior.
Breathless yet? There’s more. Not knowing I’d be making this move, we had earlier scheduled a Viking River Cruise to Russia on May 16 – 28, and a cruise of the United Kingdom on Holland America line from June 19 – July 15.
On August 23d the moving company came to get my “Waters” furniture for storage and other things to go to Lisa’s in Williamsburg the next time a truck made the trip there. On the 24th,whole sections of the house were cleared, helped by the energy of Doug and Lisa. Along the way, things went to the shelves Doug had built for me in his basement, to the garage across the way where I’m staying for September, and to the guest room that would be my home for the month. And thank goodness for the friends who helped move my clothes and other essentials to my temporary digs there.
On Saturday the 25ththe lady in charge of the estate sale made my living room look like a department store with anything that I was leaving behind. Sunday the 26thI was advised to stay away, so I had a lovely shopping day and dinner out with my hostess neighbor. On the 27th I panicked – very close to meltdown — at the sight of all that was left. But thank goodness people came to remove the unsold books for the fair to be held in September at the Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian church. I found someone who was happy to receive the gift of my piano and people who were willing to facilitate its move there. I invited friends in on the day after the sale to take what they wanted, and there were even a few more big pieces sold. Thank goodness, during this whole process, the sun shone bright and dry. On the 27thI had a potlach[i]for the neighbors. I provided space in the garage and paper plates, napkins, and things to be used in serving the potluck dishes they brought; Their job was to take away as many things as they would like to have from the remnants of the sale. Not surprisingly people were reluctant to take things for free, so I had to hound them to do their job and take stuff. Wouldn’t you know, that’s when it decided to pour, but the rain did stop and we had a nice time.
On the 28th, the “Moving Forward 2day” estate sale folks took much of what was left to include in later sales, and the manager of RAK (Random Acts of Kindness) took most of what was left. On the 29th, a fabulous cleaning-and-you-name-it person cleared everything else out to Good Will and other sources and cleaned the house from top to bottom.
We made it to the August 30th closing! I am now free of home ownership.
From the time I knew I’d be selling, I felt no sadness or nostalgia, only the sense that I was keeping the place beautiful for potential new owners. The hardest part was clearing out my study, leaf bags full of records to be shredded, piles of things recycled that I had once used for my classes, workshops and other presentations — most seeming rather quaint now after so many years have passed.. And, of course, holding out enough for daily life in my temporary homes.
I told my daughter I think I’m suffering mild PTSD. She says it can only be TSD. It hasn’t been long enough to call it “post.” But even those sleep destroying dreams of facing the pile of things to be sorted are dissipating. I’m liking being free of home ownership and mortgages.
I hope this will explain my absence from almost everything, but now I’m making my way back – and eager to resume work on “My Father’s House,” after all the excellent feedback and suggestions I got at Madeline Island.
I guess a good title for this would be “A downsizing frenzy.”
p.s., I now know that – if all goes as planned – I’ll be moving into the Waters on Monday, December 3. As one might expect, they can’t have everyone moving in at the same time, so we are scheduled two-a-day, based on who gets to make the arrangements first. I was a little too slow to make November 26. At any rate, I expect to be living at The Waters beginning December 3.
Then maybe I can get back to entering here the comments that have only been rattling around my head.
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[1]pot·latch
noun
“among North American Indian peoples of the northwest coast, an opulent ceremonial feast at which possessions are given away or destroyed to display wealth or enhance prestige.” (Forget the wealth and prestige part.)
Is this really what we want? Click on link below.
Freedom of information
I’m happy to see action on the terrible policy of separating immigrant families. Here’s what the Psychologists have to say. Please don’t let us get to the point where we just accept such horror as ordinary U.S. behavior.
Please click on this link. The matter is so urgent!
http://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/05/separating-immigrant-families.aspx
Not only is it cruel and unAmerican– the federal policy of separating children from their immigrant, asylum seeking parents — it’s a basic cause of future mental disorders that affect not only the victim. It’s the perfect situation to create attachment disorder.
As a reminder of what that really means in terms of human destruction and future major expense, here’s a definition of attachment disorder that I just copied from the web. Try googling it. You’ll get more detail.
“Attachment Disorder is defined as the condition in which individuals have difficulty forming lasting relationships. They often show nearly a complete lack of ability to be genuinely affectionate with others. They typically fail to develop a conscience and do not learn to trust.”
Would we be as accepting if the children were being injected with a communicable disease? And remember, attachment disorder is almost impossible to treat.
I know, I’m basically useless as a blogger, and this is just a quick catch-up. I returned last weekend from a Viking River cruise in Russia. As usual, an amazing, eye-opening experience. As always, it wasn’t amazing at all — people are people everywhere you go. Preconceived notions and prejudices can’t help but melt away. If only we could all have the experience.
A few negatives to report
My trusty little old camera froze into deadly paralysis and ended in the wastebasket. My classy new camera was happy to oblige, but I must have done the settings all wrong, ’cause there wasn’t a good photo in the bunch.
My health held up until “the travel cold” hit on the flight home from Amsterdam and emerged full blown the next day to turn me into a hacking, somewhat aching, useless mess this past week.
Now I’m pulling out of it with enough energy to get back to the formatting problem that prevailed before I left for the journey and continues to prevail. I haven’t checked the dates, but I believe I’ve worked on “My Father’s House” for at least five years, reaching the end of the first draft and eagerly beginning the huge (but fun) editing job. That’s when I found problems with the formatting. If I inserted pages. there were crazy empty spaces in the content. Content held stable as long as I didn’t insert pages. I will say, Microsoft did it’s best to help. I think I got bumped — helpfully — all the way to the top. One tech helper had me remove all formatting and start over. That turned out to make a mess — mostly of my own making, I suppose.
So anyway, here I am, working on a manuscript that can’t be submitted to a potential publisher even after I will have done massive editing, unless the problem gets solved.
Read on if you find formatting of interest. On the trip, I found that if I showed the formatting symbols, it revealed that section breaks had been introduced into strange places. Yay! All i had to do was remove them. Nope!. They wouldn’t go away. I could click “continuous” so the lines came fairly close together, but then other strange markings showed up in different places.
Tomorrow I’ll get back to Microsoft to seek more help. Truth be told, I’m hoping some formatting genius is reading this and can help me. But I fear technical support is right and my document has been corrupted.
So there you have it, my excuse for being a faithless blogger.
I know. I’ve been off my blog for a long time now. Too many other things take priority. But I’ve just got to get this off my chest.
Our current U.S. administration is knowingly establishing a policy that’s guaranteed to cause mental health problems of the basically untreatable kind. It’s a policy no less damaging than would be deliberately exposing folks to e-coli, or similar toxins.
The latest declared intention – even action – to separate children from their parents as they arrive at our borders fails to recognize how essential constant relationships are to healthy development. Deliberate separation is a policy designed to cause adjustment disorder, including, among other things, poor social conscience – might I say sociopathy? At least interference with intellectual ability.
Possibly one can provide healthy nutrition, warmth, and even kindness, though even that deserves questioning. But it’s no substitute for the constant parental/child connection. And it’s no alleviation for the grief being imposed on both parents and children.
And then there are the reports of “lost track of” children. Where are they? How are they being protected from predators?
This separation policy is not just mean and cruel. It’s not just tragic in the intentional destruction of a human soul. It’s going to be very expensive for someone down the road.
Where are the protests against using children to fight the war?
I’m still taking time out from everything that can be postponed, including this blog, because I’m finally approaching the end of the first draft of “My Father’s House.” But I wanted to quickly share my discovery of a new, brief, and lovely, “right on,” review of “Figs & Pomegranates & Special Cheeses.”
I don’t recognize the name of the reviewer, so I’ll take the opportunity to say thank you here to Beverly Clyde.
Try this link and go to “reviews.”
Thanks
First of all I want to challenge the date I mentioned in the previous post. According to our guide, Muslims invaded India regularly to rape and pillage until 1142 when they decided to stay, destroyed churches and turned some to mosques. And that leads me to point out something about our first sightseeing day in Old Delhi. Right from the beginning there’s the evidence of a mix of religions — not just side by side, but seemingly more intimately connected than that in some cases.
I’m not sure it shows well in the photo, but monks were a common site wherever we went, including at the Gandhi memorial (below). look at the far end.
As the label of the photo indicates, Ghandi was assassinated on January 3, 1948, shortly after he had accomplished his goal of independence for India.
Assasinated January 3, 1948
There is no doubt Ghandi is revered in India. Each person who did a presentation for us started out with the story of his accomplishments and assassination. In a later blog I’ll take you with me to the site where he was murdered.
Add to this memorial the statue in the same location.
Now on to our next experience. One advantage to being a real grownup is that I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do — well, mostly. Like I don’t have to do that scary thing of climbing long flights of stairs with no railing — unless I really want to reach the goal (In which case there were wonderful people ready to hold my hand.) In the following case, the goal was the Jama Masjid mosque. Karanveer, our guide, was good to me. He helped thread me through the crazy Indian traffic so I could get a photo of the mosque from the bottom of the steps. I left it up to the others to climb to the inside.
But I think I may have had the more memorable experience as someone else threaded me back to the bus so I got a photo of the mosque with a good view of the traffic.
As for the traffic, it’s no news to anyone else who has been there, but the fact is the roads are shared by cars, busses, bicycles, rickshaws, people, cows, motorized rickshaws, and dogs — many of who were sleeping in the middle of the road — all of whom seem to be going wherever and whenever they want to go. But they all survive. Even the cars seem dent free.
We figured out it’s a dance, the rules for which we are not familiar. But on another day, as I was trailing along with the group, following the leader across the street, there was suddenly at my right hand a car. I stopped and threw up my hands (like any good American would do, I guess) and I think the driver did the same. It dawned on me as I made it safely across the street that I had interrupted the dance. If I had just kept going at my pace there would have been plenty of room behind me for the car.
That wasn’t the end of our days adventure. There’s a rickshaw ride to come. But I’m ready for bed now, so that story will have to wait for my next entry.
Namaste: the divine presence in me acknowledges the divine presence in you — hands pressed together with a bow.
Such a beautiful greeting, and such beautiful people to greet. I wish everyone could travel and discover there really is no “other.”
One of our earliest stops was the Qumwat-ul-Islam Mosque in Delhi.
I won’t risk reporting too much history — definitely not one of my strengths — but according to our guide, the Muslims decided somewhere around the eighth century to go beyond plundering forays into India and just move in. One of the fascinating things to observe is the apparent intertwining of Hinduism and Buddhism. In the beginning, rather than a military effort to replace Hinduism, Muslim invaders appealed to what seems to be partial conversion, or a comfortable blending, with individual differences, of dedication to Hinduism and Buddhism. So it was that we spent time appreciating the sites representing both religions — sometimes, it seemed, at the same time.
Notice the “namaste” greeting in this photo as we first entered the Mosque. And that’s where it started — selfies with Mona. Apparently the Indians like little old American ladies. It started with a group of young people, but soon there were groups wanting selfies with me. Thanks to David Osmundson, one of the members of our delightful Smithsonian group, I have this photo of folks taking photos. Oh my goodness, aren’t they beautiful?
Off to the right of this photo, another woman in our company was entertaining her own group asking to be photographed with her.
But it didn’t end there. Joyce and I found a quiet place to sit while the photographers among us were exploring possibilities. Again, it began with the young folks, but grew to a regular stream. I did get one man to take a photo on my camera so I could have a record of the love and joy I felt.
And besides. It proves I was there.
There’s more. Doug just sent me a few from his camera. Raw and unedited, so a real gift from him who is so professional.
Now I’ve started. I hope it won’t be too long before I’m back with more for our fabulous days in India and Nepal
Now to begin sharing some of my fabulous India/Nepal adventure with you, as I did with a wonderful group of people on a busy,strenuous, well-worth-it Smithsonian tour of India with a few days of Nepal added.
I’m starting with these amazing photos taken and shared by Richard Buchen, our librarian member. I asked his permission to include them here because they are beautiful in themselves and they tell so much.
In Varanasi we witnessed Diwali at the height of its glory and beauty from a boat on the Ganges. This Hindu celebration of light, representing the victory of good over evil, shines like a combination of Christmas, New Year’s Eve, The Fourth of July, and every other holiday we honor in the U.S. It also brings out the crowds that vastly outdo most of those we might expect in the States.
These two photos shared by Richard are alive with the spirit as we floated down the river in the brightly lighted night as Ganga, the living goddess of the Ganges. ruled over the scene.
To her right reigns Shiva, the destroyer of evil and the transformer, responsible for change through destruction and new creation.
Richard invites you to enjoy some of his other photos.
And I’ll be back with more words and photos.
monagustafsonaffinito 