I trust least the marriages wherein couples profess their intentions to frequently renew their vows.
Most do not, but some do this even on an annual basis. What for, I ask. What union needs that pressure?
The idea that peace, harmony AND romance MUST accompany an impending date every twelve months or so seems very problematic to me. Certainly when the early blush of matrimonial bliss is at peak, this all appears very do-able. After all, formal promises in a witnessed ceremony have just taken place. Usually, the whole "to-do" involved great contemplation and anticipation accompanied by passionate hopes for the long-term.
It's a bit like embarking upon weight loss. You have energized yourself with all this positive karma about a change-up in your life; a vision of yourself obtaining longlasting overall well-being. You're pumped up, and you're finally serious with the right mind-set. Once you reach your goal, it will be all about maintenence--the until-death-do-you-part kind.
You know what it feels like to lose enthusiasm over a diet, an out-of-date, broken-down car, a town or a job you've outgrown. Good though each may have been to you, sometimes it's just good to take pause, mull things over and sometimes even move on. Marriage is a little more serious than these things, even in these times. Most people still do not take the commitment lightly and most do not enter it without meaning for it to LAST.
A promise is a promise is a promise. If you believe marriage is a promise and you were one of the two central participants speaking the vows, the deal is sealed. Repeating them every so often doesn't make it a stronger promise; it may even cast doubt on the validity of the original promise.
Can you imagine being several years into a marriage of frequent renewals and finding that the next approaching one seems a bit much to muster enthusiasm over? Any honest marriage worth its salt has times when just getting through dinner and a movie together is a blessed achievement. It may just be a hill or a valley--a time to get through without alot of hoopla. The less fuss the less muss, and the beat can go on.
But to be several years in and one year abandon a renewal in discord--what does that do to the psyche of a union? Wouldn't the absence of what seemed such a vital tradition provoke thoughts as to the soundness of the partnership from then on? Once a renewal doesn't take place, can a couple ever go back? More importantly, can the twosome dial back and count their original, singular anniversary as good enough?
It should never be otherwise. The original date of your promise has always been good enough. Muddying the waters with too much emphasis on regularly getting into a celebratory and reconfirming mode invites a time when it's just not going to happen.
You didn't ask, but I'll say it anyway: If you are an idealistic one who thrives on the romanticism of vow renewals, STOP IT NOW. If you're not, but your daughter (or sister, or niece) is, STOP THEM NOW.
Conserve your emotional energy. Except for the occasional milestone, go your celebrations alone. Wasn't it supposed to be just the two of you in this marriage anyway?
Not very long ago a good friend spoke daily (to a number of us) about her upcoming renewal of vows. She and her husband had been doing this for years, she said. They invited near to a hundred people, and as planned a fairly good party took place. Friends and family showed up to enjoy cake and celebration, a bonfire and even trail (horseback) rides--the couple's favorite pastime.
Their tenth renewal went off without a hitch. (Except for the horses at the hitching post. Oh, and the fact that they essentially felt "newly hitched" again. Okay, sorry, enough.)
But not for long did they feel newly hitched. A couple of months later, my friend had her childrens' and her own bags packed with a "heads up" to the kids that if she gave the signal, they were to follow her, no questions asked.
Not a funny time at all. It took awhile, but thankfully differences seemed to get ironed out and the family is still together. But who needs to go through a renewal one month and a near-dissolution the next? Keeping a marriage on the bright side is tough enough without adding pressures that reach a breaking point by self-imposed expectations.
When it comes to the bonds of matrimony, take them seriously. Work at things, and understand that there will be times when "muddling through" is about the best you can do. These are the hills and the valleys. Usually, you'll laugh together again, if not about your hills and valleys, about the grandbabies antics or the way you both still can't sing but like to try.
When it comes to the idealism of vow-renewals, stop romancing that notion now, and let the chips fall where they may.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
"Sterbuck Farm"
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| It's winter now in Wisconsin |
For some, nothing is quite so motivating as adversity. As in: a lost job, a broken relationship, grieving from any source--anything producing that overall sense of "What do I do NOW?"
In the midst of just trying to put one foot in front of another, at times a huge leap is taken.
How this happens, to my belief, is providential. In the late eighties, something bigger than ourselves (the God we believe in) prodded my husband, Ramon, and I into moving forward in a big way--an action we surely didn't feel we had the resources to make, either spiritually or monetarily.
But we were so dejected (from long-term unemployment and then underemployment) that one day we packed up our old camper trailer and left Colorado to drive to Wisconsin, a place we'd never been before. We came here by crazy dreaming--chancing upon rural properties for sale in a national magazine and finding ourselves unable to squelch down the possibilities.
We owned our home in Colorado, and if we sold it, even in the depressed market that ruled the day, we could pay for one of the (suspected ramshackle) dwellings in the magazine. And owe no mortgage at all.
We were on our way then, to find out how ramshackle these places would be, upfront and personal.
Our closer look revealed many a bad bone, sinking foundation, rotting roof. In 1988, farmhouses in rural Wisconsin were a dime a dozen, and probably because their very presence hampered an otherwise good site to build a new and perfect home.
We wouldn't be doing that. We would have to take one of these farmhouses just as it was, and sure enough, one place, "Sterbuck Farm," crooked its finger at us and snared us for its very own. The house was a far cry from our our Colorado home, but it was livable, and priced right.
We regarded the place as a port in the storm of tumultuous times we'd come to know, but if we had been enjoying a perfect life it would have been hard to resist changing it all up for Wisconsin in the fall. Only in calendars had we seen such vivid colors and picturesque views. In Wisconsin, even ramshackle farmhouses emerged as palaces in such heart-sweeping panoramas.
Sterbuck Farm's namesake family had left many decades before. They were the only family to live here any real length of time. The depression of the thirties had sent the family packing; the farmhouse that once teemed with promise was ushered into a stream of short-term renters, coming and going, coming and going--until finally no one came at all.
For thirty years no one lived here. That thought boggles my mind. Thirty years of freezing and thawing, sweating and dripping---the emptiness, the echoing, the loneliness.
By the mid-seventies anyone unfamiliar with the "neighborhood" wouldn't know a house sat back here. Situated well away from a town road, the country lane leading to it had entered the realm of the landscape, with the encroaching forest rendering the dwelling unseen. Only because locals knew it was here did they speak of it to a young couple in search of a home.
It was these two who took the place out of abandonment. They drilled a new well, transformed an outhouse into a chicken coop and changed a pantry into an indoor bathroom, all to plant themselves into the business of hobby farming.
Within five years the couple followed their quest to get more serious about farming, and they turned the house over to another couple.
Anyway you looked at it, an old farm too long neglected spelled WORK. Just when it looked like another string of short-term tenants would spin the place into another abandonment, we came along.
I well-remember exiting the realtor's tiny car and peering about the property. The setting, though stunning, was daunting in its isolation--even in the isolation I believed I longed for. How would we get out in a snowstorm, I wondered. We wouldn't without a snowmobile, I guessed.
We had left our California upbringing many years prior in search of a dreamplace, and this surpassed even Colorado with its promises of a charmed life. As I stood looking about, seeing no other house and realizing that 80 acres was far more than we NEEDED (but came with) I thought about how we were placing ourselves even further from the families we loved. Hard enough the first time, this new contemplation had a stomach-sinking effect.
But a mama doe and her two fawns were feeding in a field, and the hills and woods were feathered with fall colors. An imagined life here was filled with peace and harmony. The potential release from anxieties that had saturated our days now seemed a vivid possibility.
And so we took the leap.
Later, when we learned about our farm's history, we understood that during their hard times the Sterbucks came to believe their best hope to start over was toward an urban destination--Chicago.
How curious this reversal of our roles in the history of Sterbuck farm. Or, I should say, how PROVIDENTIAL.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
A Grand New World
And so it goes that each era ushers another one forth, each with intricacies so unique the years prove as almost a grand new world.
Which, of course, each era is.
This house (what you see of it) is our house, in the here and now. It carries our "tone" and reflects our time and needs. For example, we needed a garage; it never had one and we wanted to protect our vehicles. We hadn't paid a lot for our home in its ramshackle condition (in 1988) and not-so-funny-enough the prices of our vehicles (together) were exceeding the cost of the house; it was time to shelter our means of transportation!
So we did that, and we're very happy with the natural flow between the house and the garage. We step off the porch and in a few short strides we are ready to go to town when we need. It's convenient, with pretty green space in-between. It bespeaks our time of wanting to live in seclusion, yet be close to services and a way to get to the road that takes us to them easily.
There is everything to love about this, and we don't want it any other way. But I also enjoy imagining the era before us in our exact spot. For all the imperfections, those years present images of times most of us wouldn't want to live in as our "now" realities, but would still love to immerse ourselves in, if we could, just once in awhile.
It is that very narrow space between the house and the garage that used to be, we've been told, a "road to town"--and not anyone's very private driveway.
I love to picture that!! I love to envision the old-timers of the area sweeping through on horse and cart, or in the first automobiles, to merge with the woods on the way to Boyceville for their weekly needs.
It makes perfect sense, its angle and accessibility. For the few residents of several back roads, this simple rustic road would have saved miles by its weave through this land. Its eventual hook-up at one of our property's corners to another more public byway would have resulted in a shorter way to town and an easier excursion.
We're told this was the way it was, so in my mind I've thought of it often. It's such a narrow trail, but I remind myself the garage wasn't there, and neither a car or a cart would be very wide. It would have taken a generous, practical nature in people to be welcoming to frequent traffic so close to the house, but I've always been told the family who lived here was just that. They were humble Slovakian immigrants, salt-of-the-earth folks, who would never have felt better sending friends and neighbors "the long way around."
In my mind, I've often seen the woman of the house, upon hearing horses hooves or the rattle of a motor, walk to the kitchen door to see who was going to town that day. I've seen her pause long enough to give a wave, or maybe even step off the porch to pass a little small talk. I've seen her in her apron, getting back to work, never disgruntled at the traffic that came her way.
I admit it...I romanticize that image, and it's very true I'm very glad that "road to town" now goes in another direction. I'm not glad Boyceville and other small towns have fallen in viability, no. But it was this spot's very seclusion that lured us into the adventure of leaving all we knew to come to a place we'd never been before. SO, I can't pretend I would love for that road to come by my kitchen door now, no. Not at all.
That era has come and gone, but just as the family who built our farmhouse came from a far-off land to their "grand new world", so did we. We will take it, imperfections and all!
Here is a picture of our house with an open porch, more as it would have appeared in the days "the woman of the house" might have left the kitchen, to give a friendly wave to her friendly neighbors, on their way to town. Or so I imagine, or so I romanticize!!
 |
| Back at the farmhouse door |
And so it goes that each era ushers another one forth, each with intricacies so unique the years prove as almost a grand new world.
Which, of course, each era is.
This house (what you see of it) is our house, in the here and now. It carries our "tone" and reflects our time and needs. For example, we needed a garage; it never had one and we wanted to protect our vehicles. We hadn't paid a lot for our home in its ramshackle condition (in 1988) and not-so-funny-enough the prices of our vehicles (together) were exceeding the cost of the house; it was time to shelter our means of transportation!
So we did that, and we're very happy with the natural flow between the house and the garage. We step off the porch and in a few short strides we are ready to go to town when we need. It's convenient, with pretty green space in-between. It bespeaks our time of wanting to live in seclusion, yet be close to services and a way to get to the road that takes us to them easily.
There is everything to love about this, and we don't want it any other way. But I also enjoy imagining the era before us in our exact spot. For all the imperfections, those years present images of times most of us wouldn't want to live in as our "now" realities, but would still love to immerse ourselves in, if we could, just once in awhile.
It is that very narrow space between the house and the garage that used to be, we've been told, a "road to town"--and not anyone's very private driveway.
I love to picture that!! I love to envision the old-timers of the area sweeping through on horse and cart, or in the first automobiles, to merge with the woods on the way to Boyceville for their weekly needs.
It makes perfect sense, its angle and accessibility. For the few residents of several back roads, this simple rustic road would have saved miles by its weave through this land. Its eventual hook-up at one of our property's corners to another more public byway would have resulted in a shorter way to town and an easier excursion.
We're told this was the way it was, so in my mind I've thought of it often. It's such a narrow trail, but I remind myself the garage wasn't there, and neither a car or a cart would be very wide. It would have taken a generous, practical nature in people to be welcoming to frequent traffic so close to the house, but I've always been told the family who lived here was just that. They were humble Slovakian immigrants, salt-of-the-earth folks, who would never have felt better sending friends and neighbors "the long way around."
In my mind, I've often seen the woman of the house, upon hearing horses hooves or the rattle of a motor, walk to the kitchen door to see who was going to town that day. I've seen her pause long enough to give a wave, or maybe even step off the porch to pass a little small talk. I've seen her in her apron, getting back to work, never disgruntled at the traffic that came her way.
I admit it...I romanticize that image, and it's very true I'm very glad that "road to town" now goes in another direction. I'm not glad Boyceville and other small towns have fallen in viability, no. But it was this spot's very seclusion that lured us into the adventure of leaving all we knew to come to a place we'd never been before. SO, I can't pretend I would love for that road to come by my kitchen door now, no. Not at all.
That era has come and gone, but just as the family who built our farmhouse came from a far-off land to their "grand new world", so did we. We will take it, imperfections and all!
Here is a picture of our house with an open porch, more as it would have appeared in the days "the woman of the house" might have left the kitchen, to give a friendly wave to her friendly neighbors, on their way to town. Or so I imagine, or so I romanticize!!
Thursday, February 9, 2012
"Use it or lose it"
The hardest thing about teaching an old dog new tricks is convincing her she can do it.
I can't believe the calendar is ushering me into the years one might be considered an "old dog," but there you have it. I'm in my late fifties, and it's not like when my thirteen-year-old granddaughter was a baby. Then almost anytime she was with me, someone would mistake her for my own. (Or at least I fell for it.)
Today with the brand new grandbabies, that's not happening. (Actually it happened once and like any momentous event I could tell you the time and the place.)
A couple of times in the past year I have even been asked in a restaurant if I would be taking the senior discount today. I don't know whether to slap the server or be appreciative of the offer. I usually take the offer; at least it's a tiny reward for accepting a truth I would just look a fool to deny.
The men that flirt with me now are such geezers I don't even bother to tell my husband--it's just embarrassing. But I notice that the women who flirt with HIM are not that bad. The hair on his head is almost nonexistent and his beard practically gray, but somehow this works for him. Me, if I added pure white hair to this package it would be totally giving up the ship--something I'm not ready to do.
We've all heard that both body and brain age more favorably with exercise--a "use it or lose it" principle. Lately I have read more about a time span in middle-age and even beyond where the brain , when stimulated, experiences a kind of "growth spurt." I can use this about now; if I can't reverse the obvious it would sure be nice to offset things with the benefit of a "smart" advantage of finally getting with the program of technology, for example.
This I have been an "old dog" about, ever since the earliest cell phone arrived in my life, about 1997. Yes, I got on board with a family plan, for sensible reasons and with a sensible phone. But if that first phone hadn't become obsolete, I would probably still have it. Clunky, with no features other than a keypad that enabled me to reach my family members and have them reach me; once I understood it I wanted nothing more.
Voice mail at home or on the move is irretrievable to me. Just too problematic: one system overrides another and passwords and codes are required to be reset far too often for me to keep up with.
Except to arrive at my favorite few channels, a remote control just boggles my mind. Programmable pads on things like our microwave oven, stove, washer, dryer and even coffeemaker go unused to their very "featuristic" potentials because I just don't get any of it. Just give me the basics, please, it's all I even WANT to handle.
A lover of words though, needs a computer, and the internet. One can still create a document the old-fashioned way, but the computer with internet plays a vast new role in how to get it from here to there, and how to get it READ, by one or many. The whole premise is a bottomless resource for someone who writes.
Or someone who sells. The internet has created such an affordable way of doing business that almost anyone who takes the initiative can try their hand. No longer does a person have to establish a physical storefront in a viable location just to get going. No longer is anyone dependent on a limited local clientele, or fully helpless when competition moves in across the way.
I've known this for a long time, but the internet came along about the time cell phones did, when I had already bought a building on a small town Main Street, and couldn't know how technology would impact businesses of all kinds everywhere.
And did I have the time, energy, and motivated wherewithal to even pay attention? No, I dismissed the importance of technology, thinking it, willing it not to play a role in in my business.
As related in my first blog entry, I did what I did and it was what it was.
I am now onto a new frontier, opening an online store with two friends. In order to open our store I'm now learning things I've resisted for many years. Most days it feels like one step forward and two back but I'm now clicking and dragging photos with the best of them, and soon I will try posting pictures to this blog. That is WOW to me; who would've ever thought I could do this?!
Evidently the scientists, who do their research and tell people my age: You can do this. You can learn and try new things and your brain will work with you to meet your goals.
I had to really want this to be willing to learn new things. What is it that you'd really like to try, but have resisted for your own reasons?
Maybe it's your time!
Note: Please look at my next entry to see how I arrived at my store name, "Sterbuck Farm."
I can't believe the calendar is ushering me into the years one might be considered an "old dog," but there you have it. I'm in my late fifties, and it's not like when my thirteen-year-old granddaughter was a baby. Then almost anytime she was with me, someone would mistake her for my own. (Or at least I fell for it.)
Today with the brand new grandbabies, that's not happening. (Actually it happened once and like any momentous event I could tell you the time and the place.)
A couple of times in the past year I have even been asked in a restaurant if I would be taking the senior discount today. I don't know whether to slap the server or be appreciative of the offer. I usually take the offer; at least it's a tiny reward for accepting a truth I would just look a fool to deny.
The men that flirt with me now are such geezers I don't even bother to tell my husband--it's just embarrassing. But I notice that the women who flirt with HIM are not that bad. The hair on his head is almost nonexistent and his beard practically gray, but somehow this works for him. Me, if I added pure white hair to this package it would be totally giving up the ship--something I'm not ready to do.
We've all heard that both body and brain age more favorably with exercise--a "use it or lose it" principle. Lately I have read more about a time span in middle-age and even beyond where the brain , when stimulated, experiences a kind of "growth spurt." I can use this about now; if I can't reverse the obvious it would sure be nice to offset things with the benefit of a "smart" advantage of finally getting with the program of technology, for example.
This I have been an "old dog" about, ever since the earliest cell phone arrived in my life, about 1997. Yes, I got on board with a family plan, for sensible reasons and with a sensible phone. But if that first phone hadn't become obsolete, I would probably still have it. Clunky, with no features other than a keypad that enabled me to reach my family members and have them reach me; once I understood it I wanted nothing more.
Voice mail at home or on the move is irretrievable to me. Just too problematic: one system overrides another and passwords and codes are required to be reset far too often for me to keep up with.
Except to arrive at my favorite few channels, a remote control just boggles my mind. Programmable pads on things like our microwave oven, stove, washer, dryer and even coffeemaker go unused to their very "featuristic" potentials because I just don't get any of it. Just give me the basics, please, it's all I even WANT to handle.
A lover of words though, needs a computer, and the internet. One can still create a document the old-fashioned way, but the computer with internet plays a vast new role in how to get it from here to there, and how to get it READ, by one or many. The whole premise is a bottomless resource for someone who writes.
Or someone who sells. The internet has created such an affordable way of doing business that almost anyone who takes the initiative can try their hand. No longer does a person have to establish a physical storefront in a viable location just to get going. No longer is anyone dependent on a limited local clientele, or fully helpless when competition moves in across the way.
I've known this for a long time, but the internet came along about the time cell phones did, when I had already bought a building on a small town Main Street, and couldn't know how technology would impact businesses of all kinds everywhere.
And did I have the time, energy, and motivated wherewithal to even pay attention? No, I dismissed the importance of technology, thinking it, willing it not to play a role in in my business.
As related in my first blog entry, I did what I did and it was what it was.
I am now onto a new frontier, opening an online store with two friends. In order to open our store I'm now learning things I've resisted for many years. Most days it feels like one step forward and two back but I'm now clicking and dragging photos with the best of them, and soon I will try posting pictures to this blog. That is WOW to me; who would've ever thought I could do this?!
Evidently the scientists, who do their research and tell people my age: You can do this. You can learn and try new things and your brain will work with you to meet your goals.
I had to really want this to be willing to learn new things. What is it that you'd really like to try, but have resisted for your own reasons?
Maybe it's your time!
Note: Please look at my next entry to see how I arrived at my store name, "Sterbuck Farm."
Saturday, January 28, 2012
"Having it All"
In the world-at-large, how fabulous is it the opportunities that women have?
Pretty fabulous. I'm not close enough to the subject to know whether all women are fairly compensated for similar positions held by their male counterparts. (I hear they're not.) I just know that successful women abound everywhere; they can do everything well and are paid amply enough that many are the head-of-household.
I think most women want to contribute, but I doubt all long to be the head of household, unless they are happily single. I know women such as the ones I described in the previous paragraph, and I see that they are where they want to be. They may (or may not) have had to fight their way to the top, but they worked hard, proved themselves and earned their positions. They are thrilled with their positions, and they don't just rightfully deserve their business moniker, they deserve all the feel-good benefits they can derive from it.
You go, girl. Getting what you want professionally is no small accomplishment. Being where you want to be is, as the now-old term goes--liberating. If you are where you want to be professionally AND personally, this has to be the biggest liberation of all.
But liberation has different meanings for different people. The most liberating thing I see is when women want to work away from the home and they do, and if they want to stay home to raise the family they do. If they can do either or both on their own terms, that's liberating. To career or not to career, to marry and have a family or not--freedom to choose in whatever and to what degree is liberating.
It's when you have no choice, or feel that someone (or something) is calling the shots for you that freedom becomes "just another word," one that is sadly not a part of your life.
In 2012, I know a number of women who feel no freedom of choice in whether to work away from the home or stay home and raise the babies. Frankly, I know plenty of women (without young ones) who would like to just stay home and pick and choose how to fill their hours, an option unavailable to them also. Something or someone has decided that these women, younger or older, must go to work.
Being home for the kids, seeing them off to school in the morning and greeting them when they arrive back is something they really want to do. They'd like to be free NOT to have to wave the baby off at daycare and wonder all day about the actual care the facility will give. They'd like to be free NOT to hand over an amount of earnings that makes one's efforts to hold a job questionable.
Trying to prod these women towards a realization that they DO have choice is fairly futile, and often enough one can see why. A woman's employment might be the one in a partnership that holds the health insurance and retirement benefits. It likely would be problematic later to try to rejoin the workforce. There is always the reality of binding expenses to maintain a home that obliterate the option of making a decision based on personal choice. Especially in these times, a woman's work might be the ONLY employment carrying a household.
And why is it that taking care of a family, once managed by one income, now costs so much that two incomes do not seem to suffice? Is it a conspiracy that if women want to do well, we all have to pay well, for absolutely everything?
Of course there's a zillion answers. There's much more to covet these days, like homes that are much more spacious and feature-filled than the ones we grew up in, and technogadgets that serve us for both work and leisure. Things that our forebears never considered essential, like auto, homeowner's and health insurance are now practically rule of law for us, with good reason. And the truth is if two people (or more) are going to work in different directions and time frames, there is usually a need for each person to have a car--and all the related expenses. The list goes on and on.
"A chicken in every pot," a long-gone saying that once (circa1928, during a presidential campaign) insinuated if every family across America could enjoy a Sunday chicken dinner, that would be prosperity.
We've come a long way (Baby) from being satisfied with a chicken in every pot. It's hard to imagine a time that women (or men for that matter) could consider themselves wealthy or successful with so simple and small a status symbol.
Hmm....the conflicting meanings of "success." One woman has it in her career status that provides a good measure of what she considers to make a wholly meaningful life. For another woman, nothing would make her happier than to be home for the children--or just for herself.
The choice to do either, or at least to try to do either, is real liberation. It's a funny world when something that was once considered a non-choice (a woman's right to work equitably) later becomes yet another kind of non-choice--the belief that she HAS to work.
***Comments? What do YOU feel about the workplace and the part it plays in your life? Does it make you feel valuable or more strongly do you feel it diminishes your personal choice? If you are a babyboomer (as I am) what do you see your sons and daughters preferring these days as to time split between home, family, and work? Are they doing exactly as they wish, or do they feel the times have limited their options? I would love to hear what others have to say......Darlene
Pretty fabulous. I'm not close enough to the subject to know whether all women are fairly compensated for similar positions held by their male counterparts. (I hear they're not.) I just know that successful women abound everywhere; they can do everything well and are paid amply enough that many are the head-of-household.
I think most women want to contribute, but I doubt all long to be the head of household, unless they are happily single. I know women such as the ones I described in the previous paragraph, and I see that they are where they want to be. They may (or may not) have had to fight their way to the top, but they worked hard, proved themselves and earned their positions. They are thrilled with their positions, and they don't just rightfully deserve their business moniker, they deserve all the feel-good benefits they can derive from it.
You go, girl. Getting what you want professionally is no small accomplishment. Being where you want to be is, as the now-old term goes--liberating. If you are where you want to be professionally AND personally, this has to be the biggest liberation of all.
But liberation has different meanings for different people. The most liberating thing I see is when women want to work away from the home and they do, and if they want to stay home to raise the family they do. If they can do either or both on their own terms, that's liberating. To career or not to career, to marry and have a family or not--freedom to choose in whatever and to what degree is liberating.
It's when you have no choice, or feel that someone (or something) is calling the shots for you that freedom becomes "just another word," one that is sadly not a part of your life.
In 2012, I know a number of women who feel no freedom of choice in whether to work away from the home or stay home and raise the babies. Frankly, I know plenty of women (without young ones) who would like to just stay home and pick and choose how to fill their hours, an option unavailable to them also. Something or someone has decided that these women, younger or older, must go to work.
Being home for the kids, seeing them off to school in the morning and greeting them when they arrive back is something they really want to do. They'd like to be free NOT to have to wave the baby off at daycare and wonder all day about the actual care the facility will give. They'd like to be free NOT to hand over an amount of earnings that makes one's efforts to hold a job questionable.
Trying to prod these women towards a realization that they DO have choice is fairly futile, and often enough one can see why. A woman's employment might be the one in a partnership that holds the health insurance and retirement benefits. It likely would be problematic later to try to rejoin the workforce. There is always the reality of binding expenses to maintain a home that obliterate the option of making a decision based on personal choice. Especially in these times, a woman's work might be the ONLY employment carrying a household.
And why is it that taking care of a family, once managed by one income, now costs so much that two incomes do not seem to suffice? Is it a conspiracy that if women want to do well, we all have to pay well, for absolutely everything?
Of course there's a zillion answers. There's much more to covet these days, like homes that are much more spacious and feature-filled than the ones we grew up in, and technogadgets that serve us for both work and leisure. Things that our forebears never considered essential, like auto, homeowner's and health insurance are now practically rule of law for us, with good reason. And the truth is if two people (or more) are going to work in different directions and time frames, there is usually a need for each person to have a car--and all the related expenses. The list goes on and on.
"A chicken in every pot," a long-gone saying that once (circa1928, during a presidential campaign) insinuated if every family across America could enjoy a Sunday chicken dinner, that would be prosperity.
We've come a long way (Baby) from being satisfied with a chicken in every pot. It's hard to imagine a time that women (or men for that matter) could consider themselves wealthy or successful with so simple and small a status symbol.
Hmm....the conflicting meanings of "success." One woman has it in her career status that provides a good measure of what she considers to make a wholly meaningful life. For another woman, nothing would make her happier than to be home for the children--or just for herself.
The choice to do either, or at least to try to do either, is real liberation. It's a funny world when something that was once considered a non-choice (a woman's right to work equitably) later becomes yet another kind of non-choice--the belief that she HAS to work.
***Comments? What do YOU feel about the workplace and the part it plays in your life? Does it make you feel valuable or more strongly do you feel it diminishes your personal choice? If you are a babyboomer (as I am) what do you see your sons and daughters preferring these days as to time split between home, family, and work? Are they doing exactly as they wish, or do they feel the times have limited their options? I would love to hear what others have to say......Darlene
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Less Resolution is Plenty for Me
In the peak month of diet resolution, I have thought more than acted on weight loss.
I'm a little past trusting my own January-hype of recent years. I tell myself at least if I haven't lost neither have I gained, but this too is small comfort.
We all know what it takes to lose weight. The formula is simple: eat less, move more. Keep eating less, move even more--the feeling of "slim" will taste better than the best chocolate cake you've ever had.
I know this to be true. I have a favorite chocolate cake recipe, and the sense of lightness I've enjoyed after shedding a few pounds is the far sweeter experience.
This losing weight thing was never a problem for me. Eat the cake, stay busy, maintain near-to-ideal weight. Even after the babies, I could eat the cake and still wear flattering clothes.
I could blame it on menopause, and I think I will. Too, I do not own the mindset that perpetually thin people seem to successfully take possession of, whatever the years bring.
My husband is a perfect example of this mindblowing mindset. The other morning, we were watching a typical January morning news show offering weight-loss advice. The segment discussed temptation-resistance strategies, meals assessed to the calorie, and promoted the latest and "best" exercise equipment.
All this prompted Ramon to speak aloud an observation: "I think people who say they can't lose weight really don't want to. People don't need particular diets or expensive equipment. If they really want to lose weight, they will just get it done, don't you think?"
I looked around the room. Was he talking to ME?! In the manner of a peace-seeker, I said quietly but firmly, "Don't even go there."
He got it, and didn't go there.
The thing is, at every meal he eats fully twice the amount of food I do. He doesn't put butter on his pancakes or cream in his coffee, but he'll enjoy a second WHOLE dessert to my one half of one piece, everytime. He'll drink three glasses of a sweet beverage in one day when the most I take in is water. (Oh, and the cream in my coffee.)
Yes, he does physically exerting work almost every single day, and if he doesn't think he's expended enough energy he'll go into the garage and kickbox for an hour. Even babysitting the grandkids is a whirlwind of exercise, flying them about in laundry baskets or racing them down our lengthy driveway.
I work hard too, but it's usually with "ordinary" housework and alot of pencil-pushing. I'll purposely take the stairs a few more times than necessary, but it never takes much before I feel that futile effort is cutting into my valuable time.
One would think his sins would offset mine, but it doesn't work that way. He's fit and lean and wears a smaller size in jeans than he did when we got married in 1973. I stopped buying clothes over a year ago. I have plenty of good things to wear, I just have to fit into them again.
Which reminds me of other advice I read recently: a magazine article suggests if I 've been hanging onto clothes that I haven't worn in over a year, it's time to donate.
I'm all for donating unused items, but really? These are clothes that if I lost a few pounds and could fit into again, I would purchase once more at full price.
That kind of waste doesn't help another kind of "waist," my waistline. If I give over clothes I like because I don't fit into them anymore, am I really then going to lose the few pounds that would let me wear favorite clothes I no longer own?
Common sense, where are you? This January I seek you more than ever. I've been there and done that with exercise equipment, slimming "meal" drinks, long walks in the woods with a salad and broiled chicken afterward. That is all good and well, but not sustainable for me.
My husband doesn't even think of the day he can't do all that he does to stay slim. He just keeps doing it, thinking that by this he will ALWAYS be able to do it. Good, good, GOOD for him, and I hope he's right.
As for me, I can't imagine that a voraciousness for exercise will yet overtake my life. As well, I know that sporadic bursts of mindset do me small good anyway.
Just as I hoped, writing this has spurred me to a new and I hope sustainable mindset of my own. I will start with the proverbial eating less and moving more, but in increments that are not highly noticeable to anyone but myself. Oh geez--I just "put it out there," so I guess I've made it noticeable, huh?
I'll keep you posted--in hardly noticeable increments.
I'm a little past trusting my own January-hype of recent years. I tell myself at least if I haven't lost neither have I gained, but this too is small comfort.
We all know what it takes to lose weight. The formula is simple: eat less, move more. Keep eating less, move even more--the feeling of "slim" will taste better than the best chocolate cake you've ever had.
I know this to be true. I have a favorite chocolate cake recipe, and the sense of lightness I've enjoyed after shedding a few pounds is the far sweeter experience.
This losing weight thing was never a problem for me. Eat the cake, stay busy, maintain near-to-ideal weight. Even after the babies, I could eat the cake and still wear flattering clothes.
I could blame it on menopause, and I think I will. Too, I do not own the mindset that perpetually thin people seem to successfully take possession of, whatever the years bring.
My husband is a perfect example of this mindblowing mindset. The other morning, we were watching a typical January morning news show offering weight-loss advice. The segment discussed temptation-resistance strategies, meals assessed to the calorie, and promoted the latest and "best" exercise equipment.
All this prompted Ramon to speak aloud an observation: "I think people who say they can't lose weight really don't want to. People don't need particular diets or expensive equipment. If they really want to lose weight, they will just get it done, don't you think?"
I looked around the room. Was he talking to ME?! In the manner of a peace-seeker, I said quietly but firmly, "Don't even go there."
He got it, and didn't go there.
The thing is, at every meal he eats fully twice the amount of food I do. He doesn't put butter on his pancakes or cream in his coffee, but he'll enjoy a second WHOLE dessert to my one half of one piece, everytime. He'll drink three glasses of a sweet beverage in one day when the most I take in is water. (Oh, and the cream in my coffee.)
Yes, he does physically exerting work almost every single day, and if he doesn't think he's expended enough energy he'll go into the garage and kickbox for an hour. Even babysitting the grandkids is a whirlwind of exercise, flying them about in laundry baskets or racing them down our lengthy driveway.
I work hard too, but it's usually with "ordinary" housework and alot of pencil-pushing. I'll purposely take the stairs a few more times than necessary, but it never takes much before I feel that futile effort is cutting into my valuable time.
One would think his sins would offset mine, but it doesn't work that way. He's fit and lean and wears a smaller size in jeans than he did when we got married in 1973. I stopped buying clothes over a year ago. I have plenty of good things to wear, I just have to fit into them again.
Which reminds me of other advice I read recently: a magazine article suggests if I 've been hanging onto clothes that I haven't worn in over a year, it's time to donate.
I'm all for donating unused items, but really? These are clothes that if I lost a few pounds and could fit into again, I would purchase once more at full price.
That kind of waste doesn't help another kind of "waist," my waistline. If I give over clothes I like because I don't fit into them anymore, am I really then going to lose the few pounds that would let me wear favorite clothes I no longer own?
Common sense, where are you? This January I seek you more than ever. I've been there and done that with exercise equipment, slimming "meal" drinks, long walks in the woods with a salad and broiled chicken afterward. That is all good and well, but not sustainable for me.
My husband doesn't even think of the day he can't do all that he does to stay slim. He just keeps doing it, thinking that by this he will ALWAYS be able to do it. Good, good, GOOD for him, and I hope he's right.
As for me, I can't imagine that a voraciousness for exercise will yet overtake my life. As well, I know that sporadic bursts of mindset do me small good anyway.
Just as I hoped, writing this has spurred me to a new and I hope sustainable mindset of my own. I will start with the proverbial eating less and moving more, but in increments that are not highly noticeable to anyone but myself. Oh geez--I just "put it out there," so I guess I've made it noticeable, huh?
I'll keep you posted--in hardly noticeable increments.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Passing the Baton (in Food Traditions)
When I was a young girl of twelve, my mother was the lone preparer of meals for her family of nine, soon to be ten. About this time, she began to experience a bemusement at her third daughter (myself) who had been lolling around the house in long hours of boredom.
No requests from me to do much of anything my pre-teen counterparts were doing; just let me make supper, please.
She must have had a hard time quashing her obvious pleasure over this. You know, as soon as a young person realizes what they're having fun with is actually work, well, it becomes WORK. The offers to help just stop coming.
Wisely, Mom subdued her reaction and casually retreated to her newspaper in the livingroom. Recipes and measuring cups didn't play a big part in our household, but after watching Mom prepare meals for most of my twelve years, where to go from here just felt natural.
Thus I began to imitate Mom's classic comfort foods and the traditional Mexican fare of our culture. But if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I wasn't just out to make Mom feel good. I wanted to make my own mark. While I knew I was enjoying myself, there was something missing from my experience--something on the periphery, soon to arrive and not anything I would soon let go of.
One afternoon Mom commented that she had all the fixings for tacos. With that mention, my wheels of creativity began to turn. Here, I thought, I will break away from the taco that I know to the taco I can get excited about.
Now don't get me wrong. Mom made a good taco. But it was the one cultural favorite that I had for some time felt she was too complacent about. Brown the meat, season with garlic and salt, fry up the shells, add lettuce, cheese, and salsa. Every other dish Mom made was vivid with flavor and texture, and in comparison, her tacos were paling.
Once a year for many years we had tacos at a Mexican festival in a churchyard a few miles from our home. Now those tacos were memorable, with spicy, tender meat submerged in tasty juices that oozed messily from their soft shells into waxed cardboard "boats." The lettuce, crisp and cool and finely shredded, gave just the right contrast to the heat of the meat, while threads of a rich Monterey impacted all the flavors with a creamy tempering.
Garnishes like smooth guacamole, salsa fresca amply flecked with cilantro and roasted chilies , and tangy crema blanco were lined up in iced receptacles for diners to heap onto their tacos. Served from a mobile stand to be eaten at picnic tables while being serenaded by a live Mariachi band--could a taco experience be any better than that?
If I couldn't compete with the atmosphere, I would try my hardest to recreate the flavors.
Digging into Mom's pantry, I scared up all the seasonings of color and taste I thought would work. As did the bazaar stand of my hopeful emulation, I used the ubiquitous ground chuck everyone seemed to gravitate toward for tacos. These days roasted and chunked meats are my preferred "carne" of choice, but for this occasion I slow cooked the hamburger into reduced, then replenished stocks of tomato and chicken. When ultra tender and juicy, I assembled the tacos with all the accompaniments laid out to look every bit as festive as were the ones at the, well, festival.
My dad, settling himself before a plate at the table, was served the first one. As my mother readied hers, she seemed intrigued and commented nicely about the added colors and qualities of the meat.
Like a twelve-year-old (or maybe NOT like a twelve-year-old) I watched from the stove, still stirring protectively my body of work. Both anticipation and dread over their opinion washed through me. I had probably overtasted the food, and didn't know anymore if it was all that good. Maybe, I thought, it's really, really bad.
Dad's first taste dispelled my qualms. Not one to overdramatize things, his eyes widened and his expressive, if few, words made me blush with pride.
"Luisa," he gushed to my mom, as much as macho Latino males can gush, "These tacos taste JUST like the ones at the festival....taste one, taste ONE!"
In that ego-pumping moment, I suddenly became aware that my mom's take on my dad's response might not fly so well. She might feel slighted by his enthusiasm, and even in my immaturity I knew I wasn't looking for THAT.
My mother was too smart a cookie for that. She enjoyed her plate every bit as much as my father did, and as often happens when one does a job too well, for some time then taco-making became my exclusive task.
I still enjoy making tacos that way, and even though I think I have a pretty good handle on many other Mexican dishes, my mother had a way with hers that is hers and hers alone. I think I'm doing pretty good, and then I remember the nuances of her specialties that I believe I have yet to capture.
What I have captured, and what captivates me, is this enjoyment I retain for carrying on food traditions that are so vulnerable now to going the way of "lost arts." I hardly fear that tamale-factories will stop churning out tamales, but it does seem possible that they will become a thing of the past in home kitchens.
Last Christmas, I had to take a phone call in the midst of the holiday tamale-making session. Thinking my thirteen-year-old granddaughter, who was helping me, would wait, I lingered over the call in another room. When I returned, there was the whole assembled batch, waiting for the roaster.
She may or may not make tamales from scratch to finish in her lifetime, but she has the seeds of knowledge and she beamed at a task well-done. As well, she loved the final product, and knows this: you can't find tamales in Wisconsin as easily as you can in California, where Grandma was raised.
Sometimes, if you want to enjoy a tradition, YOU might just have to be the one who keeps it alive.
No requests from me to do much of anything my pre-teen counterparts were doing; just let me make supper, please.
She must have had a hard time quashing her obvious pleasure over this. You know, as soon as a young person realizes what they're having fun with is actually work, well, it becomes WORK. The offers to help just stop coming.
Wisely, Mom subdued her reaction and casually retreated to her newspaper in the livingroom. Recipes and measuring cups didn't play a big part in our household, but after watching Mom prepare meals for most of my twelve years, where to go from here just felt natural.
Thus I began to imitate Mom's classic comfort foods and the traditional Mexican fare of our culture. But if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I wasn't just out to make Mom feel good. I wanted to make my own mark. While I knew I was enjoying myself, there was something missing from my experience--something on the periphery, soon to arrive and not anything I would soon let go of.
One afternoon Mom commented that she had all the fixings for tacos. With that mention, my wheels of creativity began to turn. Here, I thought, I will break away from the taco that I know to the taco I can get excited about.
Now don't get me wrong. Mom made a good taco. But it was the one cultural favorite that I had for some time felt she was too complacent about. Brown the meat, season with garlic and salt, fry up the shells, add lettuce, cheese, and salsa. Every other dish Mom made was vivid with flavor and texture, and in comparison, her tacos were paling.
Once a year for many years we had tacos at a Mexican festival in a churchyard a few miles from our home. Now those tacos were memorable, with spicy, tender meat submerged in tasty juices that oozed messily from their soft shells into waxed cardboard "boats." The lettuce, crisp and cool and finely shredded, gave just the right contrast to the heat of the meat, while threads of a rich Monterey impacted all the flavors with a creamy tempering.
Garnishes like smooth guacamole, salsa fresca amply flecked with cilantro and roasted chilies , and tangy crema blanco were lined up in iced receptacles for diners to heap onto their tacos. Served from a mobile stand to be eaten at picnic tables while being serenaded by a live Mariachi band--could a taco experience be any better than that?
If I couldn't compete with the atmosphere, I would try my hardest to recreate the flavors.
Digging into Mom's pantry, I scared up all the seasonings of color and taste I thought would work. As did the bazaar stand of my hopeful emulation, I used the ubiquitous ground chuck everyone seemed to gravitate toward for tacos. These days roasted and chunked meats are my preferred "carne" of choice, but for this occasion I slow cooked the hamburger into reduced, then replenished stocks of tomato and chicken. When ultra tender and juicy, I assembled the tacos with all the accompaniments laid out to look every bit as festive as were the ones at the, well, festival.
My dad, settling himself before a plate at the table, was served the first one. As my mother readied hers, she seemed intrigued and commented nicely about the added colors and qualities of the meat.
Like a twelve-year-old (or maybe NOT like a twelve-year-old) I watched from the stove, still stirring protectively my body of work. Both anticipation and dread over their opinion washed through me. I had probably overtasted the food, and didn't know anymore if it was all that good. Maybe, I thought, it's really, really bad.
Dad's first taste dispelled my qualms. Not one to overdramatize things, his eyes widened and his expressive, if few, words made me blush with pride.
"Luisa," he gushed to my mom, as much as macho Latino males can gush, "These tacos taste JUST like the ones at the festival....taste one, taste ONE!"
In that ego-pumping moment, I suddenly became aware that my mom's take on my dad's response might not fly so well. She might feel slighted by his enthusiasm, and even in my immaturity I knew I wasn't looking for THAT.
My mother was too smart a cookie for that. She enjoyed her plate every bit as much as my father did, and as often happens when one does a job too well, for some time then taco-making became my exclusive task.
I still enjoy making tacos that way, and even though I think I have a pretty good handle on many other Mexican dishes, my mother had a way with hers that is hers and hers alone. I think I'm doing pretty good, and then I remember the nuances of her specialties that I believe I have yet to capture.
What I have captured, and what captivates me, is this enjoyment I retain for carrying on food traditions that are so vulnerable now to going the way of "lost arts." I hardly fear that tamale-factories will stop churning out tamales, but it does seem possible that they will become a thing of the past in home kitchens.
Last Christmas, I had to take a phone call in the midst of the holiday tamale-making session. Thinking my thirteen-year-old granddaughter, who was helping me, would wait, I lingered over the call in another room. When I returned, there was the whole assembled batch, waiting for the roaster.
She may or may not make tamales from scratch to finish in her lifetime, but she has the seeds of knowledge and she beamed at a task well-done. As well, she loved the final product, and knows this: you can't find tamales in Wisconsin as easily as you can in California, where Grandma was raised.
Sometimes, if you want to enjoy a tradition, YOU might just have to be the one who keeps it alive.
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