Elizabeth A. Havey's Blog, page 19

Keep Calm and Carry On

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The above phrase which became a calling card for the British people during World War II can provide relevance and importance in our current age of instant news, constant news, Facebook and Twitter and the inevitable presence of THE PHONE.

There were days in the past, when you could sit outside in the grass and listen to the wind in the trees, the birds chattering–even your children quarreling–yet still remain calm. Why? Because the moments of your day were not cluttered with constant NEWS–which in translation can be warnings about THE PRESENT, THE PAST and always THE FUTURE. It was as if you could enclose yourself in a BLOCK OF TIME that was filled with peace. I can’t think of a better way to say it.

REMEMBERING 

There were days in my past, when I could live in the now and everything else melted away. Even though my husband was between jobs–not his choice–I could still find that block of sunshine on the family room floor where my daughters and I could build a tower with blocks or decide to make some pudding. Our biggest challenge? Chocolate or butterscotch.

REALITY 

YES! I know it sounds simple. It was. There were BIG SPACES OF TIME in our lives when our brains did not have to consider PROBLEMS, FEAR, FLOODS, DEATH. And there is something to be said for that old line: Innocence is bliss.

And I don’t mean turning away from reality. I don’t mean denying that children on the border are being separated from their parents. I need to know these things so I have the free will to be angry, to say NO–that’s not how we should live.

Even during World War II when my mother walked out into her backyard and hung her laundry on the line, looked up at the sky, lived a life so far apart from that of the people in Europe that you might say she was on another planet–she still knew some of what was going on. The words on the CHICAGO TRIBUNE headline did not totally go away. But maybe my mother and others who were worried about their loved ones, who were relying on rations to buy certain things–maybe THE SPACE between news and non-news allowed breathing, allowed some calm. And maybe not. If your husband was a flier in WWII or in combat in Viet Nam, maybe you didn’t sleep at night. Maybe every minute of your day was one of conflict and deep emotion.

EXTRAORDINARY RELATIONSHIPS: A NEW WAY OT THINKING ABOUT HUMAN INTERACTIONS 

In the above titled book, Roberta M. Gilbert writes about how to deal with your emotions. In order to observe emotional process, it is necessary to stay emotionally calm. Watching emotional process requires the detached focus of a scientist; the moment one’s emotions intensify, one sees less clearly. 

Yes. That’s how it feels sometimes, especially in the first seconds of hearing bad news. Emotions flow through your brain, your body. You have trouble breathing. It could even be the fight or flight response created by adrenaline.

Gilbert wants us to consider: What do you say when a friend reveals there is emotional trauma going on in her family? Do you react in the same way if it’s your sister who stops in and tells you that she is leaving her husband and children? Probably not. What do you say that might change the complexion of your day but certainly has torn up his or her life?

THE POWER OF EMOTION 

Gilbert reminds us (and this is so true about families) that emotional reactivity is infectious. If it is your sister and she reveals this explosive news at a family gathering–suddenly the room is roiling with emotion. What do you do? What do you say? Gilbert’s advice: work toward self-discipline. Try not to FEED THE SITUATION with THE FIRE OF YOUR EMOTIONS. It boils down to that old advice: stay calm.

Sometimes we try and are successful. Other times we blurt out advice and make the situation worse. I have learned when the emotion arises from the lives of friends or family members that are not my nuclear family, and when I am not directly approached and asked for my opinion, to listen and say little.

THAT BLOCK OF QUIET

Even while sitting in the same room where emotion is building and people are jumping in with advice (think: a family oriented film where the voices rise and rise and tears are building, escaping) I search for that block of quiet. I say nothing or very little, unless I am directly asked. When I do this, I feel I am helping lower the thermometer of anxiety and emotion. It’s not my place to escalate things unless asked.

Roberta Gilbert reminds us: The solution to most problems, especially when one is stuck, has as much to do with how one goes about the problem-solving process as it does with the actual content of the problem. READ THAT AGAIN. THINK ABOUT IT. 

A TAKE-AWAY

Gilbert relied on the work of psychiatrist Murray Bowen when writing her book. Bowen dedicated his life to the “human cause” and produced a new theory of human behavior, the family systems theory. The following is a statement made by a client who used the Bowen family systems theory to solve a relationship problem.

Working toward my own emotional calm and intellectual objectivity enables me to think more clearly and speak and act more constructively, while providing a tangible contribution to the emotional climate of my relationships. 

I guess one could just say simplistically: KEEP CALM and then CARRY ON. 

Photo: Thanks to the Guardian Newspaper

Lesson Learned; Lesson Kept

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When I was a freshman in college, one of my instructors was Ann B. Matasar, born in New York City, educated at Vassar, Columbia and later Northwestern–and super-smart. (More of her achievements are listed below.)
Looking back, she was closer in age to her students than I realized, but far beyond our “just out of high school” mindset.
The class was American Government, a requirement.
On the first day she said that in order to even PASS her class, we had to read a daily newspaper. She said we wouldn’t necessarily be graded on that reading (college students tend to be overly grade conscious) but that reading a daily newspaper was a must if we wanted to be good citizens of these United States and be able to participate in her class discussions. She was tough and rightly so.

THE TITLE OF THIS BLOG

That is THE LESSON in my blog title: that reading a daily newspaper can make you a good citizen, especially if you are reading a well-researched and honest publication. For me, Lesson Kept. No matter where I live, I read a daily newspaper. (You can read online too!)

It’s true that politics has always shaped part of THE MEDIA, THE FREE PRESS, but in my college days, the war between viewpoints was milder. Thus, Ms. Matasar said we could subscribe to any newspaper we wanted to. I chose The Chicago Tribune while the friend I sat next to in class read The New York Times.

THE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS 

Matasar’s focus in that government class, was to make us aware that the decisions of the Supreme Court were daily affecting and possibly protecting our lives and our freedoms in ways we did not understand. She took a few of the major decisions and explained them to us–one at a time.

Dred Scott Versus Sanford 1857: 7-2  This denied citizenship to African American slaves. But after the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, it became ineffective. 

Brown Versus the Board of Education 1954:  Separating black and white students in schools in unconstitutional.

Miranda Verus Arizona 1956: Prisoners must be advised of their rights before being questioned by police.

Gideon Versus Wainwright 1963:  Criminal defendants have a right to an attorney even if they cannot afford one.

LIFE TODAY and SCOTUS

As you know, Supreme Court decisions can be revoked because as time moves on, culture changes. Freeing the slaves through the 13th amendment to the Constitution altered the interpretation of Dred Scott.

But the decisions that SCOTUS makes do profoundly affect our lives. I wish I could take another class with Ms. Matasar and have her delve into: Roe VS Wade 1973. Conclusion: Laws prohibiting abortion violate the Constitution’s right to privacy. The Court held that, under the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause, states may only restrict abortions toward the end of a pregnancy, in order to protect the life of the woman or the fetus.

And then during the recent Democratic Debates, Brown VS the Board of Education once again was in the news. From the LA TIMES: In California, school desegregation was part of broader integration efforts, including the elimination of redlining, which kept black people and members of other minority groups from living in “white” neighborhoods. It was this practice, in L.A. and elsewhere, that gave rise to mandatory busing as a potential remedy to the harms of segregation.

In the late 1970s, more than two decades after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregated schools in Brown vs. Board of Education, L.A. Unified geared up for mandatory busing after failed court attempts to block it.

Thus Senator Kamala Harris, who is running for POTUS, revealed in the recent Democratic debate that she was bussed while in grade school.

One of my neighbors, who is white, boldly told me that she left the Democratic party that same year, refusing to allow her children to be bussed. Sadly, I am sure she was one of MANY. I made no comment to her admission.

Overtime, those states and school districts that finally became compliant to the SCOTUS ruling, found ways (not always fair ways) to make it work. The LA TIMES STATES: L.A. shifted to a voluntary busing system under court supervision. This became the “magnet” program. The idea was to create special academic programs that would be so attractive that they would act as a magnet to draw white students to schools they would not otherwise attend.

WE SHOULD NOT BE STRANGERS

All of this is kind of strange to me as I taught in a school of black and white students in the early ’70s. Obviously, my school district was complying with SCOTUS Brown Versus the Board of Education–but years after the 1954 decision.

And even today, there are people who hold on tight to their desire to NOT know people of other races and backgrounds, to stay in a closed confine that only admits folks like them. But I predict they will lose this fight. And once again, MEDIA will help open minds.

During the last election, I joined a small group of progressive women who helped elect THREE new members to our local school board. We did this so that the students would once again be able to read major works of fiction that would make them better citizens and more empathetic to people NOT EXACTLY LIKE THEM.

Would you believe that in our local newspaper folks are STILL COMPLAINING about high school students reading THE ABSOLUTELY TRUE DIARY OF A PART-TIME INDIAN by Sherman Alexie. They write these letters about that book ruining their children.

One teacher responded: I believe literature can move us into accepting others and understanding the importance of FREEDOM for others by having high schools students read books that relate the lives of people fighting for equality.

Lora Novack, a teacher in our local high school system, asked her students to write down their reactions to Part-Time Indian. Here are some responses:


It gave us a first-person perspective of what it’s like to live on an Indian Reservation. It was definitely interesting.


I enjoyed the book more than the other we read in class. Like any good book, it made me feel uncomfortable.


I really enjoyed Part-Time Indian. I felt like I really got connected with Junior and felt what he was going through.


This book was eye-opening. To begin, my father is an immigrant and he grew up in a relatively poor area in India that offered him few opportunities…I am of mixed race. I’ve always felt different from others and I was bulled by kids in my elementary school for my looks. I lost friends because of this…I found this book applicable to my life… I am glad I was given the opportunity to read Part-Time Indian.


Thanks for reading. I believe the future is our children…and yes we have all heard that before.
Career of Ann Matasar 

Associate professor Mundelein College, Chicago, 1965-1978. Professor, director Center for Business and Economic Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, 1978-1984. Dean Roosevelt University, Chicago, 1984-1992.

Professor International Business and Finance Walter E. Heller College Business Administration Roosevelt University, 1992—2005, professor business emerita, since 2005. Director Corporation Responsibility Group, Chicago, 1978-1984. Chairman long range planning Illinois Bar Association, 1982-1983.

Member education committee Illinois Commission on the Status of Women, 1978-1981.

 PHOTO: LA TIMES 

When You Don’t Get the Window Seat

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Lately, when I fly, I never get a window seat–my husband is on the aisle, me in the middle. But I have memories of traveling alone from the Midwest to California to see my grandchildren, in the window seat, watching the land drop away, the green fields of Iowa and the mountains of the west below. Going to Chicago, I found the sight of Lake Michigan and the skyline thrilling. Beauty from the air.

This last trip? The young woman in the window seat kept the shade down EVEN DURING LANDING. Nothing to do, I tell myself. This is America where tolerance needs to apply in many situations. Let it go, even if travel might make me cranky and eager to say “Don’t you want to look out at Chicago, watch us glide over this amazing city and land?” I stay quiet. But on some issues, maybe I need to offer some words.

While flying from the west coast to Chicago–I did something.

I read a book. I read Ta-Nehisi Coates, BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME. 

I will never be the same.  * Please note that Mr. Coates testified recently before Congress concerning the issue of reparations for people whose ancestors were enslaved.

THE BOOK BEGINS:     And one morning while in the woods I stumbled suddenly upon the thing, Stumbled upon it in a grassy clearing guarded by scaly oaks and elms, And the sooty details of the scene rose, thrusting themselves between the world and me...taken from a Richard Wright poem

You all know Richard Wright! You read NATIVE SON in high school. In this poem, Wright comes upon the remains of a tar, feathering and burning, only to grasp that his future might be the same. But Coates, writing his book to his son, leaps from the scene to the present day. Some things are now outlawed. Some are not.

This is a book about Coates’ fear for his black body. For me, this book is a WINDOW on white privilege, on the impact of words that have come from my mouth over and over: bad neighborhood, ghetto, white flight, gangs with guns and drugs, working the system–.

Go ahead, stop and ask yourself what language you might unconsciously use to denigrate a group of people–and do it casually, like it’s really no big deal. Because it’s so a part of most of us we don’t hear it or see it.

As a child the rhyme, Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, Catch a–the object of which my mother changed to tiger. I don’t know when. But I said the original. I didn’t know what I was saying, but I SAID THAT while playing a game! Now it horrifies me.

It was part of the culture, inbred in daily living. Life without thought. Ignorance. Did I ever stop to ask myself why I said these things? No. Did my white body prevent me from digging through decades of pre-judgment–from seeing clearly that some of my choices smacked of fear? Yes. And then finally I asked myself why?

Because it was ingrained from my ancestors, forebears or the populace that came before me. They handed me a well-crafted picture–just handed it over and said:”Here, believe this, because this is how it is for you and how it will always be.” Were they good and loving people? Mostly, yes. Were they the product of the times, the whispered words, the judgments. Yes, definitely. And Christians also.

Separation. Fear. Build a wall–like don’t drive there after dark; don’t shop there. Don’t take the bus. 

My husband took the bus to college through those neighborhoods. NEVER had an incident.

Thank God for NOW because my grandchildren would ask WHY NOT TAKE THE BUS? And since reading BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, these phrases, these tossed off and accepted ideas that are so much a part of the nomenclature stand out in my mind like darts of poison–because I am part of this. So what can I do when my policeman relative tosses it off so casually? Try to understand and yet know I cannot change him; arguments take me nowhere. But my black brother-in-law from South Africa, he gets it. He and my sister-in-law have experience DWB–driving while black.

I taught in a school with a diverse population (one of the best things that ever happened to me). But even so, I brought with me some pre-conceived ideas. My friend Linda M. helped wake me up. Told me, WE NEED TO SHARE THE LAND. Yes.

And not just share a dying neighborhood or a crumbling public housing building. See how they trash everything? I cringe even typing those words, but this is what we hear, this is in the language. We need to wake up and challenge it, never make general assumptions. Or at least try to discern WHY some things happen as they do.

My older daughter’s master’s thesis in Urban Planning was on the rationale behind the housing projects in Chicago–many of which have been torn down, thank God, some of which remain. I read portions of her reference books and they pointed to a major fact: a human being needs to have a say, to identify with a dwelling, a doorway, a garden. That builds pride, leads to care. Pushed in one direction without agency in choice blocks attachment. Ever read RAISIN IN THE SUN? Ever think about living in a building 20 stories high with no sunlight in the stairwell, one or two windows lighting your abode and no ability to step outside on a deck or a patio to feel the sun on your face? Sounds a bit like a prison. It was.

We whites think we have struggled for safety. Here is Coates: To survive the neighborhoods and shield my body, I learned another language consisting of a basic complement of head nods and handshakes. I memorized a list of prohibited blocks. I learned the smell and feel of fighting weather…I recall learning these laws clearer than I recall learning my colors and shapes, because these laws were essential to the security of my body.

Coates emphasizes his fear that someone will destroy his body because he is black–and for no other reason. Thus he references the firm and physical discipline of his parents.The LESSON that all black mothers and fathers teach their children: avoid the police when walking the streets. Be careful. Watch yourself. Your life depends on it.

What thoughts went through your mind, Dear Reader, when you saw a black mother scolding her child in a store, or pulling that child toward her? Negative right? Now read this from Coates as he addresses his son:

Now I understood it all…black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered. I think we would like to kill you ourselves before seeing you killed by the streets that America made. That is a philosophy of the disembodied,of a people who control nothing, who can protect nothing, who are made to fear not just the criminals among them but the police who lord over them with all the moral authority of a protective racket. It was only after you that I understood this love, that I understood the grip of my mother’s hand. She knew that the galaxy itself could kill me, that all of me could be shattered and all of her legacy spilled upon the curb like bum wine. And no one would be brought to account…because my death would not be the  fall of any human but the fault of some unfortunate but immutable fact of “race”…

Coates recounts his first trip to Paris, a joyful-sad experience for a man bursting from the historical bonds of American society. Sitting in a Parisian garden he writes: At that moment a strange loneliness took hold…It occurred to me that I really was in someone else’s country and yet, in some necessary way, I was outside of their country. In America, I was part of an equation–even if it wasn’t a part I relished. I was the one the police stopped on 23rd Street in the middle of a workday…I was not just a father but the father of a black boy. I was not just a spouse but the husband of a black woman, a freighted symbol of black love. But sitting in the garden, for the first time I was an alien, a sailor–landless and disconnected. And I was sorry I had never felt this particular loneliness before–…far outside of someone else’s dream. 

Yes, we all have dreams. But they have to be ours. SHARE THE LAND, let others have their dreams without a catch. J Beckett says in his Goodreads Review of Coates’s book: The tears came because Coates, in a few pages, captured, exposed, unlocked and translated what so many people of color, so many frustrated and frightened parents, and so many disenfranchised and nomadic youth found so difficult to dictate and explain. For them, the feelings were there but the words simply would not come. I wept because Coates’ story was my story..

And part of Coates story is my story–it’s my inability to fully see and understand. I have a bigger window on that story now, even though what I saw was not my plane landing at Ohare in Chicago, but the words on the page bright and vivid calling out to me.
Read this book. Let me know if his words touch you also.

photo www.youtube.com

Childhood: It Never Leaves Us

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It’s a moment I will always remember. Fourth grade. That day my teacher handed each child a form to fill out. I remember I wrote my name, carefully spelling out my last name, almost always filling all the given boxes—eleven letters in my last name.
Then there were boxes for Father’s Name. Mother’s Name. I wrote my mother’s name. But after that I sat, stared at the paper. My pencil got sweaty in my hand. I swung my legs back and forth, looked around at my classmates, their heads down, pencils moving. I put up my hand, but the teacher had her back to me, writing on the black board. I kept my hand up, waved it around. Nothing. Everyone else was finishing, their pencils hitting their desks. Finally, my teacher set her chalk in the metal chalk rail, turned around, saw me.
“What? What is it, Beth?”
“I don’t know what to write, where it says, Father’s Name. Because he…”
“Write deceased,” and my fourth-grade teacher looked down and busied herself with something on her desk.
Deceased? A word I didn’t know, but one that somehow described my life.  

WRITING THINGS DOWN 

We all have ways of coping with the ups and downs of our lives. Childhood, young adulthood often provides the impetus to who and what we finally become:

maybe we go into the parental business;
maybe we leave home at an early age to strike out in totally new territory;
maybe we are bound to the familiar, eager to teach, heal and build right where we were planted.

My escape, which has also become welded to my occupations and my purpose in life–is to write. So it only make sense that at some point I would find myself writing down my history.

I did this in my thirties and forties–my mother helping me with details. I badgered her with questions so that I could broaden and expand my memories. She was so generous, contributing to the story that she lived when her husband, my father, died and left her with three young children. Then I wrote it all down, generating computer printouts from our earliest printer–a daisy wheel. I still have those pages, though I have reentered, edited and expanded all of that initial material, finding what to me is treasure. And it being Father’s Day, I will now share some excerpts with you.

10055 SOUTH WOOD STREET, THE STORY OF A FAMILY 

Dedicated to She, my mother, for making our lives wonder-full from the very beginning.

I am three when my father dies—this house my life, this small yard of grass and weeds, these few trees and bushes, this overgrown garden. I know it, know that the ruts on the left side of the driveway become puddles when it rains; that she can easily open the left garage door, but not the right one; that the furnace always bangs and clanks, and that she will hug me, take care of me. But one day when I find her in the closet taking out my father’s suits, my father’s shoes, I will scream and cry.

After my father’s death, on one dazzling summer day, we are out for a walk, she pushing Bill in the buggy, John and I scraping our shoes along the sidewalk or searching for sticks in the grass. We meet a woman from the neighborhood who murmurs condolences, bends into the buggy to take Bill’s tiny hand in her fingers, saying, “But he left you three million dollars.” She, being realistic to a fault, wants to protest—’No he didn’t. Things are tough.’ But stops, seeing the look on the woman’s face, then nodding, understanding. The woman is childless.

This singular moment changes her. My father has left her gifts, left her us—her three million dollars.   But when a salesman comes to the door or an old woman wants to sell her potholders, she becomes “just a widow with three kids.” But every night at the dinner table, as the years stretch on, there is laughter or we argue about who will wash the dishes, or we watch Bill try to tell a joke and then fall on the floor laughing and rolling around. Later we sink into bed and sleep like the dead. We are safe, with no fears. At least the three of us are. We don’t think to ask how it is for her.

The swing on the cherry tree is mine and when I am older, she tells me that when my father died, I being three and too young to understand, I spent most of my time on the swing. It was a place of solace, one I refused to share with anyone, yelling, screaming when a little friend, Tigh, sat on it. My swing. Mine. From my father’s death in June to the cold autumn weather, I would swing, back and forth, back and forth, my little body taut with an energy I could not expend normally, my mind full of ideas I could not articulate except to sing a song my father taught me over and over “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily merrily, life is but a dream.”

I’m the swing and the swing is me—and we work our way up the dimensions of the yard day by day. The first few seconds my feet, my toes inside my shoes, can stretch to the patchy grass by the apple tree, then to the gravel car turnaround under that tree, and finally, when I’m really going, my toes touch the high branches of the apple tree and the roof of our house.

I fly and ride and then I’m singing: songs that I know, songs that I’ve learned rocking myself to sleep in my bed at night or listening to the old black record player that for years sits on the floor between our living and dining rooms, songs from the musical comedies our family loves—“Oh what a beautiful morning” and “I’m just a girl who can’t say no” (though I have no idea what the words mean) and popular songs like, “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s amore.” Most often I’m alone, clouds moving along the border of my sky, as if I’m seeing the very earth spinning on its axis.

But as I grow and my brother Bill grows, “boys” come into the yard, Bill and his friends, and older boys too. They play baseball till there’s no grass by the apple tree. But I keep swinging and singing, sometimes just watching the sky as I float back and forth, back and forth, my head held straight, my body like an arrow hurtling upwards.

But then one day I look down and the Davis boys are in the yard. They are fighting, rolling in the dirt and hitting with their fists on backs and stomachs. Bill runs into the house. One of the Davis boys starts to cry. One says, “I’ll beat the shit out of you.” I keep on my swing, high up, away from them. When they leave, I sing a last song, wait until my feet come back into the sand under the swing, until I am forced down onto the heavy earth where the clouds are harder to see and the wind doesn’t move as quickly through my hair.

THANKS FOR READING.

photo credit: Instructables.com

Some People Have a Gift for Helping, Remembering

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Curtis Jenkins is a bus driver. And a very happy man. He looks upon his job as important, and that decision–to grab on to his bus-driver identity and make something of it– colors his entire world.

WHAT CURTIS HAS CHOSEN TO DO

During the school year, he gives a present to each kid, something that after he gets to know them, he knows they will need and love.
He believes sincerely that while these children are in his care, he is totally responsible for their lives and their hearts. Driving his bus is his calling.
He’s decided to spend part of his salary purchasing a gift for each child. He talks to them, finds out about the emptiness in their lives and does what he can to fill up that emptiness.
He gave one student a bike!
He also assigns each child a position on the bus, so that they form a family that helps one another. One boy proudly said he is the administration assistant. The kids on the bus form a social organization, each child knowing every other child and often their needs, strengths and weaknesses. They have learned to help and protect one another. There are no fights or quarrels.

THE REWARDS OF A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

Curtis took on this role and blazed an unusual path. I know there are others like him, men and women who care about children and who smile through the noise and craziness that often is the major experience of the bus ride.

In my years as a teacher, I was blessed to know men and women whose devotion to their students did not end when the bell rang at three o’clock. Though teachers need to provide a responsible barrier between themselves and their students, the ability to encourage, to listen, to applaud, and to discipline with well chosen words can be the difference between a student who learns and succeeds and one who falls behind, drops out, gets lost.

Curtis represents a special love and dedication. One of his riders, a young boy named Ethan, states that the bus ride is the best part of his day. “He’s the father I always wanted. I wish my Dad could have been like Curtis.”

This story appeared on ABC’s Sunday Morning, a great show if you have the time.

PS ARE WE LIVING IN A TIME WHEN WE ARE UNABLE TO REACH OUT, HELP OTHERS? 

One cure for opening our hearts to others is to open our memories at the same time. If yours are filled with protection, love and care–then you will want to go there, think about snow forts and tree forts; boat trips and walking the dog with a parent; family get-togethers with cousins or the close friend you wished was your sister, your brother. Bike rides, ball games, ice skating or river rafting. Wherever you were raised, whatever you did, pulling those memories closer can make a hectic day or a lonely day much sweeter.

I enjoy reading a column every Saturday in the LA TIMES that is written by Chris Erskine. 

He’s an amazing story teller who can pull me back in time with only a few words, put a smile on my face, encourage me to keep writing my own Memoir about growing up in Chicago. Chris tosses out memories in just a few words: Schwin bikes, Bactine, Mickey Mouse Club, reading Little Women, or anything by Hemingway. He once wrote that Los Angeles can feel like a college dorm: Where you from? What’s your major? (job) 
And then Chris comes back to Chicago, which is his HOMETOWN too. He writes: “Hometown: I just like the sound of it—sonorous and acoustic. A bow across life’s cello.”
Have a lovely week, Beth

PHOTO; Thanks to Neighborhoods.com

Can A Scent Take you Back?

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This could be a scene from my cousin’s floral shop.

On Mother’s Day, my daughter and her family treated us to brunch. It was a cozy bistro where we all squeezed into a cushy booth for family time—my daughter, me and my husband on one side, my three grandchildren and my son-in-law on the other. Immediately our server brought two bouquets, one for me and one for my daughter. They were tall and spiky and tied with raffia and I loved the gift, loved the scents.

But it wasn’t until I was home, putting them in water, that the smell of the one flower began to flood my brain. An hour later I knew—this was a flower that is simply called STOCK. The photo above is stock, and over the years I have been drawn to it, tried to grow it, but was never very successful.

Wiki states that this is hoary stock,[1] a species of flowering plant in the genus Matthiola. The common name stock usually refers to this species. It’s a common garden flower, available in a variety of colors, many of which are heavily scented and used in floral arrangements.

“FLORAL ARRANGEMENTS”– REALLY? 

I kept reading: Stock is native to southern Europe…prefers calcareous soils and often grows on cliffs overlooking the sea, or on old walls. It is a plant of the coast, but can be found, naturalized, even in the hinterland up to 600 miles of altitude. I took another deep whiff of those flowers. Is there science involved here? Yes!

The smell cells in our noses are linked to the limbic system – which in evolutionary terms is among the oldest parts of the brain – the part that governs our emotions, our behavior and long-term memory. Scents are the tripwire to memory… could my DNA have something to do with my love of scents of stock? Yes, definitely.

SOME OF MY HISTORY…

My maternal grandmother and grandfather were married in southern Germany and made their way to America in the late 1800s. They had been florists in their native village and when I look at photos of Baden Baden where they came from, YES, the altitude would have been an ideal place to grow stock. In the U.S. they bought land way south of Chicago, tilled an acre and planted flowers and next to that built a rambling Victorian home. Quite a number of years later, their grandson built a shop across the road, one that I visited often as a child. It was the same building that I entered a month before my wedding and asked my cousins to create the bouquets for my wedding.

The Singler Florist house-shop was on a corner. You jangled a bell to let them know you were coming inside. Immediately the scents of flowers filled the air. The floors sloped and creaked as you made your way to the back of the house were large glass-doored refrigerators held floral buckets of flowers, one beautiful bouquet after another.

A greenhouse was connected to the back, and in the spring you could buy your bedding plants there.

THE SCENTS OF MEMORY

That Mother’s Day, when I paused to take in the scent of the stock in my bouquet, the fragrance triggered memory–all of it–the place, the people: an older woman named Aunt Angela, the widow of my grandmother’s brother Henry, who the story goes was killed in an auto accident while swerving to avoid hitting a dog. Henry died. Angela’s jaw was wired for the rest of her life. But she was there, smiling in that old shop–she part of the memory, the scents, the creaking floors.
When my Mother’s Day Bouquet was finally dropping petals and had to be tossed, I saved the dried up pieces of my flowering stock. Maybe when I need something to write about, another memory, they will tripwire my brain back and back some more…

 

WHEN I REACH PEOPLE…IT’S AWESOME

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A quick post from Beth  (Elizabeth A. Havey)
This past week I wrote about measles and other childhood diseases and being vaccinated. And I want to thank ALL OF YOU, who read the post and commented. It was so rewarding to hear that MY POST helped some of you, one reader even getting a blood titer to check for her immunity and finding it lacking. I want to be that person that can help someone else.

My brother also read the post, remembered how sick we all were and how grateful we are that future generations have not had to deal with these diseases because of the MMR and other vaccines. He mentioned polio, and we remembered how our mother worried every summer that we would get this horrible disease. Then Dr. Jonas Salk offered a vaccine, became a hero and wow—summer was a happy time again for all of us.

Medicine is never flawless, but science and research EVERY DAY brings health and hope to many. I had cataract surgery on Friday, and thus this post will be short. But I promise if I learn something new from this experience I will share it. Many of my friends who are younger and older have had these procedures, have advised me, even helped me find the right surgeon. They agreed it was fine if I napped yesterday and watched THE CROWN, even though I’ve already seen it. It’s called “comfort viewing.”

When you have Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and other medical conditions, talking to someone who is going through it really helps!! Having a team right there, reading your questions and responding in minutes can really boost your spirits.

SO, THANK YOU FOR READING

Once this post is done, I’m going to limit my reading. But Memorial weekend is a good time for the rest of you to catch up on your reading, unless you are cooking for a crowd. We have old friends stopping over tomorrow, but opted for ordering some of the meal.

ON a PARIS BALCONY, or on the COUCH with the CAT

This delighted article appeared in the LA Times yesterday. The title of the piece appeared in a section entitled Reading Nook. I know my readers on The Women of Midlife and others are big readers. Phillippe Beeson, the author of 18 books, wrote the piece. He lives in Paris, near the Centre Pompidou. He describes the view from his balcony: an old cobblestone street for pedestrians only, cafes, treetops and a partial view of the Pompidou Center in the distance. He has a cat named Leo, who will cuddle with him when he reads inside on his couch.

Beeson writes: Reading takes us elsewhere, to another geography, another temporality. And when we end up closing the book, normal life comes rushing back. For me, normal life is the balcony, the treetops, the branches of the olive tree, the scene of oleander, the heat of the sun.

Thanks for reading this today, tomorrow, whenever. I hope you have a restful Memorial weekend. Now I need to rest my eyes, maybe later watch more of THE CROWN!

P.S. I have some roses to keep me company. 

Let’s Talk Measles…Especially Rubella

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In my early forties, when I started nursing school, I was required to provide my program director with the results of an antibody titer. This is a blood test that detects the presence and measures the amount of antibodies within a person’s blood and thus my ability to not infect a patient or have a patient infect me. 

Now with measles in the news, and wanting to write about it, I got out my Baby Book. Yes, I still have it–and  wanted to know details concerning measles, three-day measles (rubella) and mumps.

Put all three together and they are the MMR—an immunization that for the first time in modern history is being scorned and avoided.

Mom did not disappoint. A page in my Baby Book is labeled:

PREVENTIVE MEASURES AGAINST COMMUNICABLE DISEASES.

There, Mom listed injections for Diphtheria and Whooping cough (Pertussis)—both serious illnesses. Because an inoculation for Tetanus was unavailable then, I probably got that inoculation later, but Mom didn’t make a note of it. (Now all three are contained in the DTP vaccine.)

But what I was looking for was the page labeled ILLNESSES.

Mom listed three.

Measles
three-day measles (which is also called German measles or Rubella)
Chicken pox. (Varicella Virus)

Next to the name of each, Mom wrote a word that would recall how sick I was. She wrote:

Measles—Very severe.

Chicken pox—severe

Three-day measles—she simply wrote German

WHAT I EXPERIENCED 

Mom was right about measles! I remember I had such a high fever that I was delirious, saying weird things, not knowing where I was. Mom told me later that she spent every moment watching over me, praying she wouldn’t lose me.

When my brothers and I all got the chickenpox, Mom went from room to room bathing us, applying lotions to deaden the itching, or putting bandages or a soft cloth on the skin where we had scratched so much we were bleeding.

Mumps isn’t recorded in my baby book, but we all got that too. There has always been a concern that mumps in male children can lead to infertility. Mom was aware of that. You can read more about that complication with mumps here.

Then finally, all three of us got the German measles, which was basically a breeze. But this measles, called Rubella (now part of the MMR), can actually be very serious.

RUBELLA: Sensory Deficits in Children  

Growing up, we knew the reality of this. A friend of Mom’s, who had not had rubella as a child, was exposed to the virus, and became ill with it while pregnant with her daughter Catherine. Because of her exposure in utero to rubella, Catherine was deaf and afflicted with poor eyesight. Her parents helped her become a strong person, but she struggled with these deficits and died early in her life. Today, there is no reason a woman should bear a child who has been harmed by the rubella virus, no reason that child should suffer. There is a vaccine to prevent this.  

A PROBLEM THAT IS ON THE RISE AGAIN

Mark Dorsey is deaf. In 1966 when his mother was in her third trimester, she contracted rubella. Mark Dorsey’s mother felt no ill effects, but her doctor warned about what could happen to her fetus. Babies exposed to rubella in the first trimester face dire results: miscarriage, stillbirth, and if they survive, lifelong disabilities: deafness, blindness, heart problems, liver and spleen damage, cognitive impairment.

Mark Dorsey considers himself fortunate and has spread that positive attitude while working for 23 years as a counselor at the California School for the Deaf in Riverside. But now Dorsey is concerned about future unborn children. He and Loran Rutherford, a deaf counselor and social worker who works with Mark, realize that people have forgotten how devastating rubella is. Parents who are not allowing their children to receive the MMR, who are raising children that will grow up, fall in love and have their own progeny are part of what Dorsey and Rutherford call the Wakefield generation, the sons and daughters of parents who still believe Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s disproved research that the MMR causes autism.

Thus, so far in 2019, 625 measles cases have been diagnosed in more than two decades. And measles is extremely contagious, having a respiratory component where droplets fill the air. The infected person gets the rash, high fever, flu-like symptoms that can lead to pneumonia, a brain infection and even death.

Mark Dorsey and Loran Rutherford state they have have not seen increased numbers of deaf children since the arrival of the MMR. But with the Wakefield generation getting older and having babies, that could change. Imagine a scenario where a girl whose parents refused to vaccinate her with the MMR that protects her from rubella. Later she gets pregnant and then contacts rubella from others who are unvaccinated.

“It’s the grandchildren of those strong anti-vaccination activists who will be affected,” Rutherford said. “It’s job security for me and Mark—but that’s gallows humor, because we are going to get many more deaf kids coming here.”

THOUGHTS    What parents have going for them now is access to vaccines that will keep their children, and also themselves, from suffering through measles, mumps, whooping cough, chickenpox, rubella, etc etc. I  have also written about the scourge of polio that afflicted children in my grade school before the vaccine became available. 

Eula Biss writes in her fascinating book: ON IMMUNITY: Debates over vaccination, then as now, are often cast as debates over the integrity of science, though they could just as easily be understood as conversation about power. Miore on that in a later post. Thanks for reading.

Photo credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum

Thanks to Robin Abcarian in the LA TIMES.

WINDOWS

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She’s on a ladder, washing windows.

Below is a compressed version of my story WINDOWS, part of my: A Mother’s Time Capsule collection. 

Kate has two children, girls. She’s on a ladder washing windows and stopping to peer into the room of her older daughter, Brynn. Kate’s become a voyeur; on the bed, three books, a stack of notebook paper and a pile of rumpled clothing. On the floor, Brynn’s underwear scrunched and rolled up—and then, almost kicked under her bed but not quite, a box of Kotex. Kate’s talked with Brynn about keeping these things rather secret, not secretive-scary, but reasonable. Jody is only five and doesn’t need to be asking questions. Brynn should put her private things away.

But Kate sees that it is all new to her. Brynn’s had only one period and Kate guesses today is the start of another. But she peers into the room as if to find another explanation. There could be only one: Brynn doesn’t have her period again, the box just got kicked out from under the bed. Kate smiles, starts down the ladder. But then something moves forward in her mind, something she feels more than thinks, like a shiver to signal that she’s about to topple from the ladder—Brynn does have her period and doesn’t need to mention it to Kate—ever again.

Back on the ground, Kate lifts the light aluminum ladder and moves it down the side of the house. She’s almost done. One more window.

Other women have time to shop, I mean shop for parties they’ll attend—or they meet for lunch or play cards. Other women– 

“God, I never want to play cards,” Kate says to the birds in the trees.

Her mother had been smoking a cigarette, the ashtray on the floor near her feet so the smoke won’t bother anyone. She’d just had her hair done, and though Kate is never really sure what that means, she remembers that it looked, was always, the same. Then the older woman had immediately complained: He’s been out of town, right?

Mother, my husband’s name is Ted and yes there was a business trip this week.

Kate again goes up the ladder, balances carefully, works at each window corner where a thick layer of grime has settled. She’s good at pushing away things her mother says, but she better not fall while doing this chore—her mother would explode in front of Ted. And right then Kate gasps as the roll of paper towel slips from her grasp and falls. She holds tightly to the ladder. She’s a story and a half up. Her mother would have to nurse her, watch the children—she’d get to hear about the unnecessary fall every five minutes.

And then, up high, Kate clinging to the sides of the ladder, her mother’s immutable story comes circling back: You were just a little girl; I got locked out of the house when hanging the washing. The door blew shut and I was locked out. You were asleep in the upstairs bedroom and the windows were open to the breeze; so I pulled a ladder from the garage and climbed it high onto the front of the house. I prodded you with a broomstick to wake you up. I knew you were old enough to go down and open the front door for me. I was just frantic going up that ladder. I had to get back inside to you.

Photo Credit: ourvintagehomelove.blogspot.com; somavida.net; all you.com

For more from my A MOTHER’S TIME CAPSULE   GO HERE

GIVE YOURSELF A GIFT on MOTHER’S DAY

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Give yourself some down time. You deserve it.

What can I, a mother and grandmother, do on Mother’s Day, that would be a gift to myself? Answer: take a nap. It’s an old family tradition, one my own mother taught me.
While raising and being the only provider for her three children, my mother would sometimes walk into our living room and “collapse”—her word. She would lie on our dark green sofa and instantly fall asleep. If I walked away and came back later, I often saw her struggling to awaken, to get back up and do what she needed to do. I began to understand in my kid-way, that she longed to have a reason to JUST RELAX, to LIE THERE AND DO NOTHING.
A MOTHER’S DAY GIFT FOR ME
Even today, with my children grown, I have to convince myself it’s fine to take a nap, to let other things circulating in my brain simply—go away. And I don’t trick myself into saying I’ll read or meditate. No. I want to fall asleep. All mothers deserve time out, time set aside for their own thoughts, dreams and “collapsed” sleep.
OTHER GIFTS…
Of course, some of you might want a massage or a manicure. My mom did her own nails, had lovely hands, and even as they aged, her hands became two beautiful symbols of all she did to raise, nurture and love her three children. Hers were hands that soothed us when we were sick, clapped at every piano recital, Scout event or baseball game we participated in and lay gently on our shoulders to encourage a developing skill, to let us know that we were everything to her.
FROM MOTHER TO DAUGHTER
On this Mother’s Day I am blessed, for like my Mom, I have also been gifted with three children. I kept a baby book for each of them, recorded birth weights and size, taped in their footprint sheets, recorded their growth charts, new teeth and first words. Illnesses, birthdays, funny and amazing proclamations–all got recorded.
And even better, each of our three children is wildly different, making our parenting roles more exciting and challenging.
HOW DID OUR THREE TURN OUT?
They are loving, thoughtful and amazing. When my husband and I hurt, they are there for us. When we cry, they cry; when we laugh, they laugh. They can get wild and crazy, are always creative, curious and interesting–and all have found amazing life-partners. They love adventure and yet can sit with us on a cold winter night or a warm summer evening just talking–sharing ideas on music, books, film, politics. They all have ideas and beliefs. They all have opinions. It’s wonderful to bask in their knowledge and eagerness.
A LITTLE DOWN TIME, PLEASE
As we mothers click off the years, the Mother’s Days–we collect more cards, candles, bottles of perfume, beloved books and always hugs and kisses. But concurrently, our hands begin to reveal the hours of hugging and soothing a sick child, diapering and dressing, cooking, driving, encouraging and of course clapping when a child succeeds. My hands, your mothering hands, whether still smooth and soft or lined with age spots and ropey veins are our particular symbols of giving, nurturing and raising a child. Maybe on this Mother’s Day give them a rest! Let someone else make the meal, drive the car while you take a nap! We mothers, grandmother’s and caregivers certainly have earned it.

 P.S. The scene below is taken from my story FRAGILE, which appears in A MOTHER’S TIME CAPSULE:

When she tucks her children in bed that night, they are exuberant. As she goes down the stairs to be with Adam, they call over and over the words: “Love ya, see ya in the morning, good night. Love ya, see ya in the morning, good night. Love ya…” 

Tess stops. She listens, the words falling on her with their weight of wonder. And welcoming all of it, she holds them, keeps them like a charm her children have hung gently around her neck.     

above photo credit: Ed Yourdon

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A Mother’s Day Gift!

photo by:


Ed Yourdon