Elizabeth A. Havey's Blog, page 17
December 1, 2019
PEANUTS: A Glimpse into Our Futures
I read newspapers. I love the physicality of this habit—and the memories. The Chicago Tribune, cold from the front porch, crinkling on the breakfast table. And during the years I taught high school, the daily newspaper helped me answer student questions, be alert to the latest play, film, hit record, recreational drug. If you want to relate to high school students, you have to know more than the significance of the green light at the end of the dock or the names of Willy Loman’s boys. I even taught a brief unit on Don McLean’s American Pie. If you were not up on current music, you didn’t know what the hell he was singing about.
CARTOON MAGIC
There’s a familiar phrase used by comedians and journalists, See you in the funny papers. And there was a cartoon that supplied us with more than wonderful laughs. Because some people actually SAW themselves in its characters: Charles Schulz’s PEANUTS.
Today, in the LA TIMES, Patrick J. Kiger calls PEANUTS a pervasive cultural presence, “and in some ways Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy were the graphic equivalent of the Beatles.” YES! PEANUTS was that popular. And an influencer, with no Instagram in sight.
PROBLEMS in CHARLES SCHULZ LAND: A Few of the Characters
There was Charlie Brown (Schulz’s own persona) who struggled to have the Red Headed Girl notice him. He is the player-manager of the baseball team and often its pitcher, though his team is “winless.” Charlie Brown fights against his inferiority complex. When tomboy Peppermint Patty comes on the scene, she calls him Chuck. Fans of the sitcom, FRASIER–do you see Charlie Brown in the Kelsey Grammar character? My husband does.
Then there’s Schroeder, who would rather play Beethoven on his piano, than pay attention to Lucy, who tries to make him fall in love with her, who plays the role of the bossy girl. Snoopy is a beagle whose best friend is Woodstock, a canary. Snoopy decides that he is a writer and tries to get his work published. He also has a wonderful imagination.
It’s super long, but that’s the title of a new anthology where over three dozen novelists, memoirists, cartoonists, critics and journalists talk about how their childhoods and beyond were influenced by the PEANUTS characters and how they dealt with their own problems.
Do you see yourself in any of these comments??
Lisa Birnbach, coauthor of THE OFFICE PREPPY HANDBOOK, relates that she was a timid, self-conscious third grader who wore thick glasses because of her poor vision. She identified more with Charlie Brown, but when putting on a school production of The Wonderful World of Peanuts, her teacher cast her as Lucy, and told her she couldn’t wear her glasses on stage. Lisa panicked, but once on stage the audience’s cheers liberated her. She writes: “I suddenly felt like an 8-year-old femme fatales and I also decided that I didn’t have to be Charlie Brown my whole life. I could get contact lenses.
Kevin Powell is a writer and activist who wrote: MY MOTHER. BARACK OBAMA. DONALD TRUMP. AND THE LAST STAND OF THE ANGRY WHITE MAN, talks about his single-parent household and how money was terribly tight. He referred to the image of Lucy pulling the football away just when Charlie Brown tried to kick it.
“That image served as a metaphor for my own tough life. How will we ever not be poor? Will we ever be able to leave this ghetto life? Why do I feel so close yet so far from relief, from hope?” But in Charlie Brown, Powell also saw a kindred spirit, that “I related to instinctively.”
Rick Moody, the author of the 1994 novel, THE ICE STORM, says that he read Peanuts avidly and even wore a sweatshirt with Snoopy on a surfboard. He admired the dog’s cool, his ability to fantasize, imaging himself to be a World War I flying ace. But he recalls identifying with Charlie Brown and his awkwardness which mirrored his own social struggles.
Ann Patchett, author of eight novels, spent her summers in Paradise, California where she says she would lie in the grass near the birdbath reading collections of Schultz’s comic strips. She found herself drawn to Snoopy’s witticisms rather than to Virginia Woolf. “Even when I was old enough to know better, I was more inclined toward To the Doghouse than To the Lighthouse. I was more beagle than Woolf.” Patchett mentions the closeness that many writers feel to Snoopy and his resilience after his novels were rejected. “Snoppy taught me that I would be hurt and that I would get over it.”
THANKS FOR READING. Was there a PEANUTS character that you identified with? Of course for me, the cartoon at the head of this post says it all.
Thanks LA TIMES and Patrick J. Kiger
November 24, 2019
ROOTS: In the Country of Women
Cajon Pass, California
What would you find if you wanted to discover you and your spouse’s roots—and especially the women, the mothers and grandmothers in your lineage. Because if you have children, imagine the blend of DNA they possess, the women and men that came before and helped root your progeny to this earth. They are not only in your children’s eye color, skin color—but also in their tendency to certain skills, talents, interests and possibly the very ability to live and endure.
Susan Straight did just that (the questioning, the tireless research) and then set it down into beautiful prose in her book: In the Country of Women.
So today, I’m GIVING YOU Susan Straight. Because when you fall in love with a writer and her story of growing up and living in California, the first thing you think about is sharing. And though Straight’s beginnings meant that she did a lot of her own “raising”–her strength never falters. Her writing is exquisite.
“We were feral children, as were most of us then, in the 1960s and 70s, and our wild kingdom was the orange groves. The other kids threw fruit as missiles and set up bunkers in the irrigation towers. But after those wars, I sat under the white blossoms that fell like stars and I read.”
Straight’s mother took her to the Riverside Public Library. Straight writes: “where I attempted to check out twenty-two books. She limited me to ten.”
FINDING YOUR OWN SELF IN A BOOK
Straight read all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, Nancy Drew and Caddie Woodlawn mysteries and the entire Maud Hart Lovelace Betsy-Tacy series, which takes place in Wisconsin. Straight learned about snow and muffs and ice skating. Her own neighborhood was rough, and at the age of eight while reading Betty White’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, she found a place like hers!
When she heard about a bookmobile, Straight made her way through fields of wild oats, past the pepper trees…across railroad tracks, down into a steep arroyo…and up into a grocery store parking lot where in the bookmobile, she read about death. She read S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. She read James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, and soon after, Toni Morrison’s Sula. Wandering the wild mustard and the arroyos, Straight saw all these fictional children were like me. Books became her addiction.
When her stepfather bought a laundromat, Straight swept the floors, watched the people: descendants of Okies and slaves, braceros and Japanese strawberry farmers.
“As a child in the laundromat, I must have known my life would be about language, and place, because I saw people’s baskets full of stories…”
BASKETS FULL OF STORIES
Straight CENTERS US in her world: “I see the Cajon Pass, which everyone in our family navigated when they came to California.”
The generations that came through that pass were descendants of one of the most important women in Straight’s family story: Fine Ely Hofford Rawlings Kemp. Once a slave who was forced to marry one man and then another, Fine was the great-grandmother of Straight’s husband, Dwayne.
“Fine, born just after the Civil War, sent all her grandchildren across that same dessert and down the same pass (Cajon Pass) to Los Angeles.” Straight writes: “She was called Fine when she was orphaned. Then her name changed for each man in her life, for seventy years…a new possession to the white people who took her from the former slave cabin in the countryside northwest of Nashville, where she was born maybe in 1869, only four years after the Civil War ended, according to an 1870 U.S. Census document, or maybe 1874, according to information written on an application for social security just before her death.”
Straight imagines Fine as a child, standing in the doorway of a rough-hewn cabin when a wagon of white strangers pulls up to take her away: “ She never saw the brothers and sisters with SKIN that looked like hers and now her life was filled with cruelty …at the hands of an elderly matriarch to whom emancipation meant nothing.” There is even a photo of this stalwart women in the book!
“I imagined her as large and powerful. But she was slight and cautious. Watchful and intent. There was inside her a core of fury and independence and self-preservation, the genetic heritage of survival.” Don’t we all wish for that in our DNA?
HERITAGE, WRITING, RESEARCH, CHILDREN
In high school, Straight began to write. (She is now the author of elven published books and copious articles and reviews.) She also tangled with some rough societal issues. Her mother told her: “With your looks, you’ll probably never get married. The only thing you have going for you is your brain. So you’d better not mess it up with drugs. You’d better use it, because it’s all you’ve got.”
Straight’s mother should have given her better advice, Straight writing of events in her teen life that echo time, place and dangers in society. “My girlfriends and I, along with every other girl we knew, had been hunted for years. I had survived torn clothes, hands that bruised, violating fingers, pinching and twisting of body parts, random bites inflicted by older teen boys, my hair pulled and throat exposed.”
Straight did fall in love and married high school basketball star, Dwayne Sims. They had three daughters, who appear on the cover of the book. Straight explores the lives of her ancestors and Dwayne’s, writes with love and pride of the home she has lived in for fifty years, tells of her struggle to learn how to comb and care for her daughters’ hair.
“Most white women didn’t know about this kitchen, the dense hair prone to snarls at the nape of the neck. Most white women I knew expressed shock that I spent that many hours on your hair. My friend Holly used to laugh: ‘I don’t even think I …washed my kids’ hair until they were four.'”
She writes of following her eldest in a car, watching when a cop decides to pull that car over. Her three daughters and The six feet four Black Man. “He’s pulling her over,” Dwayne said resigned. “Of course he is. Car full of black kids in the OC.” (Orange County) “He wants D. He’s gonna make D get out of the car. And then something could happen.”
THE ROAD TO BEING AN AUTHOR
Straight and Dwayne drove across the US so that she could partake of a graduate program at Amherst. She had written four short stories with young characters who were fleeing violence and poverty. But her professors questioned her work: “You can’t use words like this. Not standard English.” “Aren’t you from California? Why don’t you write about surfing?” “Why do you keep writing about all these working-class people?”
Thankfully, there was also the afternoon, when Straight met with James Baldwin who had read her story about a young woman robbed at gunpoint on an LA bus. Baldwin analyzed the story, saying, “It is always the secondary characters who save us. You must continue to write. It’s imperative.” Straight tells us that she loves the word imperative. And dedicates this book to the six generations of women she writes about, quoting Baldwin:
“Your crown has been bought and paid for. All you must do is put it on.”
Photo Credits: Route 66 Travel Guide, Amazon;
November 17, 2019
After Another Shooting, I Think About…
I can picture my classroom–windows all along one wall–3 floors up. One entry door –my desk the first thing you see when you enter the room. No lockers in the room. Students in chair desks, metal-legged chairs with a wooden panel for writing.
No place to hide.
If I were surprised at my desk, I’d be shot first. I would not be able to help my students. My classroom would be the geography of chaos for me and my students. With the type of gun that our government refuses to restrict, there would be carnage.
MY HISTORY: BUT THEN ONE MORNING…
I taught high school English right out of college. I loved it! With my long hair, I was often mistaken for a student. And when the Superintendent of the school that eventually hired me, said point blank that some of the students had knives, asked if I could handle it if a student came at me–what to say? This was my third school interview. This was a position I really wanted. I assured him I could handle it. I’d been warned. I got the job.
MORE WARNINGS
I had been teaching only three months, when it happened. First period HOMEROOM, early morning. One of my students walks over to me, warns me NOT to go to second hour assembly. But I had to go, I had to take my class. But I have never forgotten that student, his name and what he looked like. He wanted to protect me.
At the end of the assembly a riot broke out. Students ran everywhere, through the halls, out the doors. Teachers tried to control rebellious students who were throwing chairs through the windows. I was told by a male teacher to go into a classroom and stay with the students in that room. I did. Probably within an hour, with extra police called in, things were calmed. All students were sent home. Teachers met to discuss the situation. This was because of the murders by Chicago police of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.
My time line is vague, but within weeks, another riot broke out. This time I was in the library helping my students. This time the student came at me and my group with a lead pipe in his hand. In retrospect the threat felt small, almost sad. The vice principal was right behind him and I knew the student, called out his name. That always ends things. And later, I had to give a deposition against him.
But during those incidents, some young people were hurt–the rioters and those running from them. Glass windows and cabinets were broken. And we had to change our school schedule, have a policeman on duty all day every day. For a while. But being a teenager is the time of life when you are more than ever aware of the wrongs done to you, or the wrongs that could be done to you.
Fortunately, none of these students had a gun.
IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE ABOUT OUR YOUNG PEOPLE–INSTEAD IS IT ABOUT MONEY?
When we had riots at my high school, we also had the Second Amendment. But not one student had a gun. Now, after Columbine, it’s copycat or worse. Those two young men at Columbine had guns. Now with every student who is angry, depressed, ignored, or dealing with issues that involve mental instability–there is a gun. WHY? Is it about the Gun Lobby, the gun makers? Is it truly about guns being great for sports? Deer hunting. Duck hunting. Target practice. If so, why do we have guns that annihilate so many people in seconds and are easily obtained? If you can read, you know all the answers. Every time children are slaughtered in schools these reasons rise up again. Statistics Don’t Matter (even if only one student is wounded THIS IS WRONG.
FACTORS
TIME is part of modern slaughter. In the disturbances that occurred in my high school and many other high schools in past years, no one died. Though chaos might have lasted for 45 minutes, within that time, most of the instigators broke something, maybe punched someone and then ran from the building. The lead pipe in the library? It was a weapon, but such a weapon requires being cornered and up close. Students instinctively run or they were locked up in classrooms while the rioters ran free. Today’s weapons can often penetrate walls and doors. Older school rooms have only one entrance–no exit. Schools were built for learning–not escape.
DURATION: “An analysis of 41 school shootings from 2008-2017 by the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center found two-thirds of attacks lasted less than two minutes and nearly half were over in less than 60 seconds.” Death and mayhem in less time than it takes to tweet. Ah, our civilization.
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE SAFETY OF YOUR SCHOOL CHILD, GRANDCHILD?
Ken Trump, an Ohio School safety consultant, opposes choice-based training in schools. “The devil is in the details.”
After Columbine, schools went into lockdowns. But at Stoneman Douglas, the shooter set off the fire alarms, drawing students out of the classrooms.
Should students get involved? A student at a high school in Orange County CA was wrestled to the ground and unarmed after brandishing an unloaded gun in shop class.
In Colorado, four teens charged a classmate with a gun. The first student was hit and killed, the gunman was disarmed, but students died.
Responding to seeing students, who are not trained, jump into situations Ken Trump said: “We have to make sure we are not doing more harm than good. Lockdowns are the gold standard for a reason.There is little empirical evidence that fighting or running saves more lives–and few kids have the mental maturity to make accurate assessment of their best options.” He also believes that some of these drills or simulations that include shooting blanks or using fake blood can be unnecessarily anxiety-provoking for students and staff.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? LOCKDOWNS VERSUS STUDENTS ON THE ATTACK
I agree with Ken Trump, whose bottom line is this: “We are asking kids in these programs to make adult decisions when their brains have not reached that capacity. And moving away from lockdowns may leave students with disabilities or special needs behind.”
I do think that our teachers today are heroes. Yes, there are many schools that have not had to deal with these awful threats. But even one is one too many. I recently walked the outdoor areas at a school here in California. I was there with the League of Women Voters to register students to vote.
Most California schools are one level, spread out with swaths of sunny plazas appearing beside this building and that building. Students gather for lunch, for meetings. When I was there, each student-run club had a station with posters explaining what they do and urging other students to join. There was no gun club. This is what being a student needs to always encompass: FREEDOM in SAFETY.
Yes, I had to sign in at that school to get access to this inner sanctum. Yes, there is always a guard in the parking lot, not unlike the policeman that eventually walked the halls of my high school. But then there were no guns. No guns. And I never did encounter in my years of teaching–a student with a knife. Never.
PHOTO CREDIT: Teacher Magazine.com AU
Information for this article appeared in the LA TIMES, thanks to Anita Chabria and Nina Agrawal
November 10, 2019
Weather and How Life is Lived
Pepper trees blowing…
“Let’s start packing now. Last year we weren’t ready, but this year we will be,” my husband said.
We were packing our car with clothing, jewelry, computers and memories. We were packing our car because we live in Southern California, and it was October, and the Santa Ana winds were blowing. In past years, we didn’t think too much about it. In fact, one of the years we lived here some people were saying the drought was over.
THE WEATHER OF CATASTROPHE, of APOCALYPSE: Joan Didion
The drought is not over. This is global warming. And though there might be snow in our mountains and come January the rainy season might cause the arroyo behind our house to fill with water, so that you can hear it rushing as it seeks Malibu Creek and the Pacific Ocean, it’s not enough. And it sets up a vicious cycle, causing the wild mustard and lupine that spreads through the hills around us—to grow six feet high. It’s gorgeous, but when it dries, and it always does, it’s fuel for a spark that starts and then spreads as the Santa Anas blow and blow.
Joan Didion wrote in Slouching Toward Bethlehem: “Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.”
CELL PHONES STEP UP
What’s amazing is modern technology. No, it can’t stop the fires, but under the weather icon on our phones, it listed the hours that winds would be blowing—from 4:00pm on Tuesday through noon on Thursday. Blend that with weather predictions of 50 mph winds with gusts up to 70mph and you start to worry. You remember the dried-up lupine and mustard in the hills nearby just waiting to combust. Add the wind prediction and you pack your car.
Tuesday night it blew and blew. Wednesday morning it had settled somewhat, but then around nine we turned on the TV and a fire was raging near the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. The crow has to fly to make a connection to our little community, but what if that crow flew on a 70mph gust. We were packed. We waited. One good thing—we couldn’t smell smoke. The winds were blowing in another direction. I called my nearest neighbors, California natives. One was going to yoga. The other was packing a few things. The winds kept blowing.
IF YOU REMEMBER A SNOW STORM, EARTHQUAKE, TORNADO, YOU REMEMBER FIRE
Because last year when driving back from a lunch near the LA airport we could see billows of smoke to the north and to the east. I couldn’t forget the words of many neighbors that very evening that fires never came our way. What? Do you believe in some kind of magic? Yes, in Sleeping Beauty the rose bushes grew tall and gnarled and kept everyone away from the castle. But fire can cut through anything. And that night the smell of smoke was strong and the wind was strong and soon phones were ringing and everyone had to GET OUT.
Last year we were not prepared, hurriedly packed, forgot things. Last year we were damn lucky and able within 18 hours to return home. No home in our little community burned, but just a few Chicago blocks away, houses burned and the park and duck pond about a mile away was scorched.
Last year we drove home to see firefighters smashing grasses and hosing down the hills near us. Last year five firetrucks were parked in the grocery parking lot near our home when we ventured out to buy food. Last year, there were banners across the 101 Freeway proclaiming our gratitude and love of our public servants—our firefighters and police, our paramedics and ambulance drivers. Last year people made signs and secured them to fences and house-fronts. THANKS THANKS THANKS.
AND SOMEONE WHO KNOWS NOTHING ALWAYS HAS A SAY… the political fallout. Someone drops in for a few hours and proclaims that we need to RAKE OUR FORESTS. That person didn’t offer any help.
CALIFORNIA’S ETERNAL SPIRIT
California is not dead yet. Neither is the rest of our country, though others deal with hurricanes, tornadoes, also drought and don’t forget earthquakes. Oklahoma now has many earthquakes because of fracking. California has earthquakes because it’s California, it grew up on major fault lines. Global warming is affecting everyone. Don’t kid yourself.
And after the fires were controlled, in the LA TIMES, Steve Lopez took up the criticism of nationwide publications calling doom and gloom on this amazing state. He listed what keeps 40 million people here. “The beaches, the mountains, the deserts, the sunsets, the rural, the urban, the red, the blue, the people, the wildlife, the languages, the history, the diversity, the endless curiosities, the energy, the universities, the music, the art, the food, the culture, the climate, the risks that work, the experiments that failed, the long tradition of break-away politics and the collective agreement that you can say or think of us what you will–we don’t really care one way or another-just shelter in place (unless you’re a firefighter) and please don’t move.”
When Joan Didion wrote about the Santa Anas…”To live with the Santa Anas is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deep mechanistic view of human behavior,” she might have been the foreteller of California truths. As Lynell George writes in the TIMES today: “We come to Didion for dusty palms, pepper trees, eucalyptus, the soft ‘westerlies off the Pacific,’ but also the concrete overpasses, cyclone fencing and deadly oleander. It’s home.”
Californians as a people love to dream. One of those dreams is that the fires don’t come your way.
Photo: Pepper Trees are Pretty Much My Favorite from PINTEREST
November 3, 2019
Perfectly Hidden Depression
What if you’re becoming worried about your son who has finished college and is home living with you. He seems fine, but whenever he comes back from a job interview, he claims that he turned them down. It wasn’t the right fit. After a while you begin to worry and you search online for signs of depression in young people to find:
Little interest or pleasure in doing things
Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless
Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much
Feeling tired or having little energy
Relief fills you. No need to worry, your son is exhibiting none of these symptoms.
Or what if you get a call from a neighbor one morning, who through tears gives you the address of the hospital where an ambulance just took your close friend, because she was found lying in bed with an empty fifth of vodka and a half-full bottle of potentially lethal benzodiazepines by her side. If in disbelief, you had immediately googled signs of depression in adults, you might have found the following list that just did not apply to your friend and made you wonder what was really going on.
Sadness or feelings of despair
Unexplained or aggravated aches and pains
Loss of interest in socializing or hobbies
Weight loss or loss of appetite
Feelings of hopelessness or helplessness
Lack of motivation and energy
Sleep disturbances (difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, oversleeping, or daytime sleepiness)
DEPRESSION THAT IS HARD TO SEE…
But as Margaret Robinson Rutherford writes in her new book: PERFECTLY HIDDEN DEPRESSION—the above list does not always apply, did not describe a friend who Rutherford had been seeing in therapy for anxiety. The friend often told Margaret: “I shouldn’t complain. I have it easy compared with most people.”
But on a morning when the client’s husband called Rutherford saying he was worried about his wife, Rutherford went to the house and found her client in the “vodka” scene described above.
And later, after the EMT’s had taken the woman to the hospital, Rutherford had time to think through other aspects of this frightening situation. In the house she found:
Tidy kitchen, gleaming appliances
Kids photos on the fridge, carefully labeled
Fluffed pillows and knitted throws on the sectional sofa
Empty trash bin
Children’s toys stacked in orderly bins
Impeccable bedroom with no clothing or shoes lying about. No paperwork piled on the desk.
Rutherford writes: “It would’ve been a perfectly neat suicide.”
Her client Natalie’s attempt was a potent wake-up call for family, friends and for Rutherford. She writes: …I learned Natalie had been sexually abused by her grandfather, but she’d never told anyone in her family; she only told me because I directly asked. She was dominated by her parents, especially her mother, who she could never please…Natalie had chosen her current profession as an accountant because her dad was one…She worked in his office, obsessive about the quality of her work…She admitted anger…with her mom, but couldn’t express it. In one session, Natalie smiled at the thought of relaxing or of not trying to be everything to everyone. She laughed, “When am I supposed to have time to do that?”
RUTHERFORD’S BREAKTHROUGH and PHD
Rutherford met with Natalie after she was discharged from the hospital. Rutherford explains in this new book, that as a therapist, she now understood what had become Natalie’s survival strategy: to go on living, Natalie had hidden much of her true self—and that almost led to her death. Rutherford says that helping this patient made her connect that particular case with others, finding more examples of PERFECTLY HIDDEN DEPRESSION.
THERAPY METHODS In therapy with Rutherford, Natalie had much work to do:
Confide in husband Rick the reasons for her struggles
Work through the issues of her childhood, the sexual abuse, the inner critical voice that constantly shamed her
Work toward sobriety, and define boundaries with her mother
Plan to leave her job, get out on her own, change her mind-set which would affect her relationships and her finances; get out on her own and do something she loved.
Natalie’s story has a happy ending. But as Rutherford writes, it’s a familiar story. Basic lists on the internet cannot begin to quantify and explain the complicated processes of depression.
Rutherford ends her Preface with these words: I hope you’ll join me in learning from Natalie’s healing and the healing of others who have worked hard to get off the perfectionistic treadmill they’ve created or that was created for them. It may save your life.
THE FIVE STAGES OF HEALING As you read Rutherford’s book, you will follow the stages of healing for Perfectly Hidden Depression or PHD.
Attain Consciousness “How Could I be Depressed? My Life Looks Perfect”
Make the Commitment “I’m Scared to Be Any Different…What If I Fail?”
Confront Your Rulebook “I’m so Incredibly Hard on Myself”
Connect with Emotional Pain for Healing “It’s Hard for Me to Feel.”
Change Your Focus from Perfection to True Happiness I Want to Risk Self-Acceptance. Where Will My Journey Lead?”
LIVING YOUR TRUE SELF The last two chapters…
Chapter 4 Growing into Your New Imperfect Skin
Chapter 5 Breaking the Silence and Discovering a Happier Life
Thanks for Reading. The Book is available on Amazon. Click here
I have written other posts about Rutherford’s work. Click here to read about depression in men.
October 27, 2019
THE LITTLE WOMEN COOKBOOK
When a writer knows her way around food, has contributed articles and recipes to major magazines like Better Homes & Gardens and Country Home and has previously published a splendid cookbook like The Bonne Femme Cookbook, Splendid Food That French Women Cook Every Day—then we know we are in good hands if that writer, Wini Moranville, publishes something new.
And this new cookbook is special, Dear Reader, because no matter what your age or your ability with a homemade soup, muffin or blanc mange, somewhere during your life, you met by reading, being read to, or viewing in a film, four special women: MEG, JO, BETH and AMY—the March girls, the characters in Louisa Mae Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN.
In September of 2018, LITTLE WOMEN celebrated its 150th anniversary. Now Wini Moranville celebrates Meg, the oldest and most responsible, Jo the creative and independent one, the gentle and timid Beth, and the precocious will o the wisp, Amy—with her new cookbook, THE LITTLE WOMEN COOKBOOK.
CELEBRATING THE HISTORY…
In this beautifully illustrated work, Moranville celebrates the comforting and delicious foods that are often the centerpiece of scenes in the novel. For in any society, food brings people together, celebrates a birth, a wedding or the passing of a life well-lived.
Wini writes in her foreword, that to come up with the actual recipes that Alcott refers to in the book, she searched American cookbooks that were published from 1850-1880. From there she asked herself some major questions:
Given what the reader knows about the March family and where they lived—what foods might one find on their dining table. A few are specifically mentioned in the book, but Wini wanted to expand on that. She also asked herself what recipes were popular at that time, and discovered that every cookbook from that time period had a recipe for macaroni and cheese!
She also considered whether the exact recipe from that time period would translate to something we today would want to eat—thus she replaced Amy’s pickled limes (which today’s cook would probably not enjoy making) with a wedge of lime jelly candy.
And note that these recipes call on modern methods, use modern products and appliances–and of course ELECTRICITY!
And though some recipes call for a “baking mix”–in most cases Wini stuck to “scratch” cooking, wanting to tap into the “spirit of a dish the March family might have enjoyed together.”
SOME RECIPES TO ENJOY–
Cheese and Jam Turnovers
These turnovers were an institution, and the girls called them “muffs,” for they had no others and found the hot pies very comforting to their hands on cold mornings. Hannah, their cook, made hot turnovers every morning for the March sisters. Hannah never forgot, no matter how busy or grumpy she might be, for the walk was long and bleak.
Wini notes that the recipe makes 12 turnovers and lists the following ingredients. All her easy-to-follow instructions are in the cookbook. 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon sugar, Pinch salt, 1 stick unsalted butter, cut in pieces, 1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, 3 to 4 tablespoons 2% or whole milk, plus additional for brushing pastry; 1/4 cup fruit jam or preserves, such as apricot or blackberry. They bake at 375 degrees 25-30 minutes. You will need a 3 & 1/2 inch round cutter. YUM!
Meg’s Macaroni and Cheese
While the cooking mania lasted, Meg went through Mrs. Corneilus’s Receipt Book as if it were mathematical exercises, working out the problems with patience and care. Sometimes her family were invited in to help eat up a too bounteous feast of successes.
The recipe makes four servings. You will need: 2 cups dried elbow macaroni, 2 tbls unsalted butter, 2 tbls all-purpose flour, 2 and 1/2 cups 2% or whole milk, 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese, preferably aged Vermont or Irish, and 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper. All the easy instructions are in the cookbook. It bakes for 25 minutes at 350 degrees.
HOW DID COME TO KNOW LITTLE WOMEN?
Most probably you read a copy of the book which was first published in 1868. There have been many editions since that initial publication. It became a play on Broadway as early as 1912. The novel has been been made into a film eight times.
Some of the actors taking the part of Jo March include:
1933 Kathrine Hepburn; 1947, June Allyson, with Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret O’Brien, Peter Lawford and Janet Leigh.
1994 Winona Ryder with Kirsten Dunst as young Amy, Samantha Mathis as older Amy, Trini Alvarado as Meg, Claire Danes as Beth, Susan Sarandon as Marmee and Christian Bale as Laurie.
A television production in 1978 Jo was played by Susan Dey, Meredith Baxter Birney as Meg, Eve Plumb as Beth, Ann Dunsenberry as Amy.
The newest version coming to theaters soon includes: Saoirse Ronan as Jo with Emma Watson as Meg, Eliza Scanlen as Beth, Florence Pugh as Amy, Laura Dern as Marmee and Meryl Streep as Aunt March.
As Wini writes in her Introduction: As I researched and wrote this cookbook, I fell in love with Little Women all over again…I hope this cookbook brings you closer–with joy and gratitude–to those you cherish most.
And something else to take with you in remembrance of LITTLE WOMEN:
“I do think that families are the most beautiful things in all the world.” Jo March
THE LITTLE WOMEN COOKBOOK IS AVAILABLE NOW.
October 20, 2019
KEEP READING—READING IS A GIFT
Dear Reader,
The illustration above caught my eye, the awakening and vivid colors: she’s on a train (I like reading on trains, on airplanes, even if I’m a passenger in a long car ride) and the word LIFE on the magazine or book she’s reading. Like the apple on her tray, the cup of water—reading is life-giving, reading should always accompany us on our life’s journey. And notice the colorful stamps on her luggage, stamps people once used to reveal, to celebrate where they had been.
A bookcase full of books or a Kindle jammed with titles, does the same thing, celebrates where you have been. Because reading is always about taking a journey, about opening your mind and emotions to someone’s ideas.
DAILY NEWS SOURCES—NEWSPAPERS, THE NET, MAGAZINES, TELEVISION
In today’s society, newspapers are struggling, but if you happen to subscribe to the magazine THE WEEK (I do) you will find major newspapers and magazines are still very important in pinning down stories that profoundly affect the bottom lines of our lives.
True, that many people now get the news online—or rely only on television news. But that doesn’t always provide you with an analysis, an interpretation to guide you through the pitfalls of opinion. When you READ, you can pause and evaluate a situation, you can compare the writer’s point of view to what You already know, what You have already read or an opinion You have maintained for a long time. Reading helps you grow, because it often challenges an idea or opinion you have held for a long time.
When you engage with a different point of view—that’s a good thing. Yes, we bring personal experience to almost every idea we encounter. But staying lock-step without looking around to investigate, might lead us to a dark place—or the wrong place.
And getting the NEWS isn’t always politics. News can be about an advancement in medicine, the pros and cons of self-driving cars or CBD oils, the latest advances in tech—anything you are currently interested in, anything that might change the society, the environment we share.
POETRY, ESSAY, NOVEL, NON-FICTION, QUIRKY
To stimulate your appetite for READING, I pulled some books off my shelves.
POETRY: Billy Collins, our poet laureate from 2001-2003; verses from ONLY CHILD (he wishes he had a sibling)
I would gaze into her green eyes
and see my parents, my mother looking out
of Mary’s right eye and my father staring out of her left.
which would remind me of what an odd duck
I was as a child, a little prince, a loner,
…and maybe we would have another espresso and a pastry
And I would always pay the bill and walk her home.
ESSAY: Marilynne Robinson, from WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?
The U.S is in many ways a grand experiment. Let us take Iowa as an example. What would early 19th century settles on the open prairie do first? Well…they found a university, which is now about 170 years old. Agriculture became, as it remains, the basis of the state economy. How did the university develop in response to this small, agrarian population? It became…a thriving and innovative center for the arts–theater, music, painting and, of course, creative writing. ..the arts are the signature of the place and have been for generations.
NOVEL: Alice McDermott, from CHILD OF MY HEART
...all their interest and enthusiasm was reserved for the places they had left. Like exiles, their delight was not in where they now found themselves, but in whatever they could remember about the place, and the time, they had abandoned.
NONFICTION: Margaret Robinson Rutherford, PhD from PERFECTLY HIDDEN DEPRESSION
As I’ve stressed before, the characteristics of perfectly hidden depression, in moderation, can be helpful. But when they begin to govern every aspect of your being, they can become a huge problem. It becomes self-destructive when your perfectionist critical voice is screaming at you nonstop in the background.
QUIRKY: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS ( quirky, because this little book of 48 pages could change the world.)
Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture… My own definition of a feminist is a man or woman who says, “Yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better.”
HAPPY READING, Beth
P.S. Thanks to amreading.com for the photo.
October 13, 2019
I Celebrate Autumn, Halloween & Beggars Night
Getting read for Beggar’s Night
My son lives in the Midwest, and said this past week that he could smell autumn in the air. He also reminded me that autumn is his favorite time of year. MINE TOO. And I immediately felt nostalgic.
Because at this moment I’m a woman of few seasons, I’m in California. And though all parts of our beautiful country have seasons, some are more theatrical than others—and certainly living in the Midwest or the Northeast provides one with amazing drama. But this is not a post about global warming, though because of climate change the drama that our seasons present does often endanger people.
No, this is a post about enjoying seasonal change, of focusing on how autumn or if you prefer, fall—should be honored as a time of beauty, of subtle miracles, and of a call to all peoples to embrace one another.
THE SIGNS
Autumn encourages a settling in. Its chillier weather alerts us to our surroundings. Those who obey the law of spring cleaning—the open window thing—must acknowledge that autumn makes us turn inward. With windows closed, we can still tidy and organize, find that the comfort of indoors means more to us now. Our time inside is increasing.
And how delightful that Mother Nature imbued her trees and shrubs with fiery color during this season. Because we have learned to take those same warm hues of orange, yellow, ocher, and gold and bring them into our homes. We symbolically pull light and fire into our living spaces at a time when the earth is spinning away from the warmth of the sun. We need that warmth. We claim it once again with the pumpkins on our porches or kitchen tables, the colorful shawl, pillow or blanket in our living rooms. It’s like we’re lighting a fire that will burn safely in our homes, even after the sun goes down.
GATHERINGS
And no matter who we are or where we live, autumn increases the warmth between us, encourages us to join together. The turning inward flows in our blood streams, is part of our DNA. We remember an ancestral need for family and friends, for other warm bodies. We harken back to those who built fires, stayed in caves, built huts or teepees—all part of seeking the warmth of indoors, of others gathered close.
It’s a lovely co-incidence that our American forefathers and mothers celebrated Thanksgiving just when the sun was departing and the winds were blowing cold. It’s again a lovely coincidence that within the Gregorian calendar sits the special day of All Saints, from which came the concept of dressing up to honor a saint or to scare away the ghost of that saint and then later evolved, becoming the eve of all hallows or Halloween. The 31st of October.
Well, for my family, Halloween was the 31st of October, until we moved to Des Moines, Iowa. What a surprise when our son came home from school to tell us that now we would be celebrating Halloween on the 30th.
LOCAL COLOR and A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY
The current editor of the well-known magazine BETTER HOMES & GARDENS wrote recently about his move to Des Moines four years ago. Like us, Stephen Orr was surprised when he learned that Halloween had a new name and was celebrated on the 30th of October. Orr writes:
…there are many special things about my new community, one of my favorites is the charmingly idiosyncratic way Iowa’s capital city celebrates Halloween. We don’t. In the late 1930’s Kathryn Krieg, recreation director for the city’s playgrounds, came up with a novel idea to discourage the recent outbreak of petty vandalism. By replacing Halloween with a holiday that occurs one day earlier (on October 30th) Krieg hoped to decrease the destructive behavior that had grown up around the holiday by substituting something more manageable—bad jokes. By the 40s, the holiday known as Beggar’s Night had become widespread, with school leaders and the local media helping establish the tradition. …From a 1948 article, here are the rules: “The kids will tell a joke, sing a song, recite, dance or ask a riddle. In return, they’ll want a stab at a cookie jar, ice cream tray or candy box.”
Orr then writes about how he has come to enjoy this “different” version of Halloween.
When we were living there, we loved it too. The children would come up our front walk, already knowing what riddle or joke they were going to tell—and I was always at the door, ready with my treats.
“Why did the skeleton NOT cross the road? Because he didn’t have the guts.”
“Why can’t you hear a pterodactyl go to the bathroom? Because the P is silent.”
Orr writes and I’ve been a witness, that sometimes the younger children balk at having to earn their treat and yes—there have been tears on my front porch. But as Orr concludes in his piece:
Even so learning a bunch of 8-year-olds’ corny punch lines and witnessing a vintage slice of Americana that welcomes families from all walks of life are the only treats I need this Halloween.
Thanks, Stephen Orr—you too bring warmth into a time when the days are colder, darker and shorter! HAPPY FALL, HAPPY AUTUMN, HAPPY HALLOWEEN –Everyone!
Photo: My front porch, ready for Beggar’s Night
October 6, 2019
THE HUMAN URGE TO HAVE AN ENEMY
Old clichés can stick around: woman have it good; men take care of them; women are the weaker sex. And sometimes: women are the enemy.
But I don’t believe any of those cliches are essentially true, though sometimes, as a female, I wonder how I made it this far. Made it safely, my body and my mind intact. I say this because of my position as a female in this world and of all the struggles females have had to make–still have to make–physical and mental struggles. Yes, I have been fortunate. Yes, I have great, wonderful men in my life from my husband, my brothers, son, son-in-laws, friends, fellow workers etc etc.
But I don’t believe women are the weaker sex. It’s just not true on any level. (My mother raised me and she was as strong as they get.) The weaker sex thing is some mystique or “bill-of-goods” society has tried to sell us. Or it’s the roles we’ve been forced to take. You pick.
Consider that almost from the beginning (and I write almost because I wasn’t there), men have physically lorded it over woman. Some would argue it is part of biology, anatomy—though through evolution or just plain choice and decision-making, there are woman who are physically more prepared for battle today, than many men. And there’s Billy Jean King and Bobby Riggs.
And even though Elizabeth I of England had great power as did Catherine the Great of Russia, Cleopatra and Margaret Thatcher to name a few—the fight is still on. 45 (I just can’t use the name) would have had to suffer some terrible disease or a major heart attack to escape facing that a WOMAN beat him in the 2016 election. So, he cheated. Face it, he’s still cheating.
And some say: But everyone does. Yes, there is that. It’s how many people roll. In order for their blood flow, their desires to move them through life, they must have an enemy. They must get ahead of or around someone else. And often—it’s a woman. The physicality thing, the power thing, is still there. I’d prefer that honesty and intelligence be a major consideration when selecting a so-called winner–or a leader of our country.
HISTORY NEVER DIES
A few years ago, my husband was watching some historical series about the Greeks and Romans. Okay. But I stopped to watch at an inopportune time. A phalanx of Roman soldiers were marching along a dusty road. You can picture it—the battle attire, the olive trees, the sand wafting up. And some woman with a basket has wandered out of the trees on her way home.
Immediately, the leader of the legion stops his troops, gets down off his horse and accosts the woman. Right there on the sandy road, her basket rolls away, she is on the ground and he is raping her while all his troops stand and watch. She is nothing, after all. She’s some woman. When this evilness is accomplished, the leader adjusts himself, gets back on his horse and the troops move on. Just television? No. I think history.
When Dr. Christine Blasey Ford heard that Brett Kavanaugh had been nominated for a position on the Supreme Court, memories overcame her. She had not been raped like the woman along the dusty Greek highway, but only because Ford was able to fight back and then happenstance saved her—the two men fell off the bed and Ford escaped.
But make no mistake—she was attacked, laughed at, vilified. Her body which encased all that she was—her loves, her thoughts, memories and accomplishments—none of that was considered when Kavanaugh and a friend attacked her. She was only a body, a victim. She was the Greek woman along the road. If she or the Greek woman were impregnated—who knows and who cares. Not the attacker.
MODERN POWER—PICK AN ENEMY
It’s always been the case—to win, you have to beat someone. In: sports, contests, politics, auditions. Even getting into college—you have to beat out someone else, hope that they are less smart, less prepared or whose background might or might not work against them—people of color, people who are not economically blessed and not in the very distant past—women.
How horrible for a man to lose to a woman! Not so horrible anymore. Happens all the time. Women are frontrunners, women are winners.
Unless the fix is in. I mean we all saw Brett Kavanaugh with his face twisted up in anger, his body leaning on the desk as if he wanted to hurl it at someone or slug Ford, try to destroy her all over again. If Dr. Ford was angry about Kavanaugh attempting to rape her, he was incensed that she even had a right to sit there and accuse him. HOW DARE SHE.
She dared. SHE HAD A RIGHT TO DO SO. Progress.
The woman on the Greek road had no rights. Even in ancient Rome where a republic existed and men could vote, women could not vote or hold public office. They were excluded from speaking out on the Senate floor. The only time a woman could speak out in Roman life was as a victim, a martyr or a protector of her family.
FEELING UNCOMFORTABLE
When women assert themselves, like Dr. Ford, Billie Jean King, Anais Nin, Gloria Steinem—they can make some people feel uncomfortable. That’s the point. That’s good. They are stepping outside familiar norms. They are stating that their equality exists on every level. They don’t want men to be their enemies. They do want men to acknowledge them as equals. BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN FROM THE BEGINNING.
Think of all the words you have read, the video that you have seen throughout your long or short life that subtly asserts that all this struggle is normal. And people get comfortable with normal.
with men beating their wives, domestic abuse;
with a presidential candidate bragging about assaulting women;
with ignoring the presence of the casting couch;
with saying “That’s just the way it is” when Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment and a newsman later commented about Hill: “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty;” Case closed, though he later said what he wrote was a lie.
AS THINGS IMPROVE
Social media has helped women to come forward and tell their stories. #MeToo; #WhyILeft; #YouKnowMe—all have allowed women to come forward, the fear of physical retribution lessening because of safety in numbers. As Dr. Ford told the Washington Post when discussing her hesitation to speak out: “Why suffer through the annihilation if it’s not going to matter?”
Kamala Harris, Senator from California, wrote about Ford: “Her courage, in the face of those who wished to silence her, galvanized Americans, and her unfathomable sacrifice, out of a sense of civic duty, shined a spotlight on the way we treat survivors of sexual violence.”
And how did Ford respond after being in the spotlight: “Although coming forward was terrifying, and caused disruption to our lives, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to fulfill my civic duty.”
Now that’s not looking for an enemy. That’s an attempt to tell the truth, a truth that matters to many of us going forward.
Thanks to Lyz Lenz SHOUTING INTO THE VOID Time, Sept. 30th
ARTWORK: Stick Girl Drawing at Painting Valley.com and Workplace Psychology.net
September 29, 2019
When a Friend Lectures You
Maybe it’s a fault in my character, that in these contentious times I often stay silent when I should shout. Why am I falling back into my own thoughts when I could step up to the plate? Maybe it’s because when a friend lectures me–about anything at all from how to prepare fish to a conclusion that her health outweighs mine and I must be doing something wrong…I don’t argue. I stay silent. Am I a chicken for handling it that way? Maybe.
During a recent book group meeting discussing the novel AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones, and focussing on the wrongful imprisonment of a male character, one woman boldly said, “Why do black people complain all the time anyway?” Silence around the table. No one took her on. I was hostess and might have joked: “Do you have three or four hours?” I should have taken her on.
WHEN TO SPEAK OUT
Growing up, I was fortunate to live within a family circle of SMART WOMEN. My world was truly matriarchal with a grandmother, mother and two maiden aunts all well educated and well read who could take on a topic and dissect it–easily. Yes, there was some talk of cooking, but mostly music, books, travel and occasionally politics. AND US. The three children in the room. My older brother learned early on to jump in, us his growing knowledge to rise up in the group, share his point of view. It took me quite a bit longer.
When I did learn to not fear the so-called stage, my speaking out, my sharing of ideas within a kind and loving circle, prepared me for my later role as a teacher, nurse and parent. That’s not to say that in all those roles I might have made mistakes, even hurt someone. But that has never been my goal.
MY TALK WITH F.S.
F.S. was my student. He was 17 when he stood at my desk protesting a story I made him read in an English summer school class. It contained moral platitudes and condemned sex outside of marriage. I was a brand new teacher, following the curriculum. F.S. was bright and articulate. He liked me and he realized that in return for my efforts, he could teach me, the true facts of life, teach a very naive and young teacher with a totally different background from his. He basically lectured me.
“I have sex whenever I can,” he told me. “Sex is good. There’s nine people in my family. My parents and seven kids. No space. We sleep in the same room, all of us. So my whole life I am hearing my parents have sex. Nice sex. This story you are teaching me? Says nothing to me. Nothing.”
F.S. was kind, and I will always be grateful to him for his approach. Maybe it was a lecture, but it was one I needed to hear. I was so innocent those first years. What I took from that experience is that I needed to be open, to sometimes just LISTEN to what the other person was saying. To not JUMP on his or her words.
My rule: don’t be pushy and loud.
Listen and wait for the opportunity to make a valid point.
Problem: wait too long and the opportunity might be lost.
Problem: stay on the sidelines and you’ll never get in the game.
WHEN A BOMB EXPLODES IN THE CONVERSATION
What do you do with this one? It wasn’t a lecture. It was a flat statement made by Karen W. with no emotion, not communicating concern or snark or humor. After I had shared some event in my life she responded: I’m just glad it’s you and not me….
All I remember feeling blind-sighted and wondering how to respond. Maybe I had made an awkward plea for advice, for help. Maybe I had announced an illness or a move–obviously some change in my life and I got that response. I think I said nothing. But is there a pattern here? Do I need to jump into the fray more often?
FINAL THOUGHT
Please know that in this same book club when reading BEFORE WE WERE YOURS, I did respond to one careless remark. I said that as a country we needed to be taking care of all children, especially the children at the border. That issue still fires me up AND breaks my heart. And that night someone tried to silence me. TIME TO LEAVE THE BOOK CLUB? Or stay and become the one who attempts to teach, to explain.
Surely many of you reading this have found yourself in a similar situation. All I know is my goals have grown over the years. And now my hope is that what I share, what I do say in tense circumstances can help a child or an adult, can lift up the heart of someone else so that more and more we listen instead of lecture. More and more we are not afraid to help one another.
Artwork: Liesl Schillinger Rules of a Book Cub that Stays Together Oprah.com
