Blessed Foolishness to Think You Can Make a Difference

On this New Year's Eve, I offer a prayer from my Christian faith. Please ponder it through the lenses of your faith beliefs...

"May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

"May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you will have a passion for justice, equality, and peace.

"May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you will reach out your hand to comfort them and change their pain into joy.

"And may God bless you with the foolishness to think that you can make a difference in this world, so that you will do the thing which others tell you cannot be done.

"Amen."

(Note - The stained glass window is by Marc Chagall (1887-1985) and is entitled Peace. Per the United Nations. "The 'Peace Window' was a gift from the United Nations staff members, as well as Marc Chagall himself, presented to the United Nations as a memorial to Dag Hammarskjøld.  The 'Peace Window' was dedicated to his memory on 17 September 1964, exactly three years after Dag Hammarskjøld, then the second Secretary-General of the UN, and 15 other people with him died in a plane crash.")

Is Post-Election America Fraying at the Small Edges?

America, or at least my little corner of America, is making mistakes lately because businesses and people seem to be moving too fast, too frantically, especially since the elections.  Micro mistakes, I grant you, but mistakes that hint of new unreliability... 

Over the last couple days, I've experienced...

A medical office sending prescriptions three times to the incorrect pharmacy location, an inconvenient one, despite clear requests. (Turns out they were using an incorrect FAX number. Offices still FAX?)

Amazon losing an important package, then finding it, then losing it again, then delivering it to their own surprise. Beaten up.

Sporadic mail delivery in our neighborhood.  One recent night, our beleaguered, hard-working carrier was doling out mail at 11 pm.  The confused carrier yesterday confessed that he's a temporary import from another city because our post office is understaffed for mail volume.

Scrutiny of our cable bill revealed monthly charges of $15.99 for a movie channel we've hardly heard of, never used, and certainly never ordered. Have you tried to review your bill with cable TV customer service, much less demand a credit for back over-charges? Yeah, been there now...

Even El Pollo Loco asking me three times to come back for a small order I pre-placed earlier... 

All workers were consistently pleasant, kind, and helpful.  All workers seemed genuinely overwhelmed. 

This aggregate of mistakes could be the sign of a growing, vibrant neighborhood pacing ahead of service providers. Ours is, indeed, a growing, vibrant area with new local businesses and new housing. 

These could be signs of organizations deliberately under-staffed to meet year-end profit targets, a common management technique. 

This, of course, is God challenging and testing me on patience. You know, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff." 

But it also feels subtly like something more. Like tiny details of my tidy American life are fraying at the edges. Like the assumed reliability of comfortable, trustworthy suburban life is suddenly a bit less reliable.   

I unconsciously equate these to the grand traditions of our great country fraying at the edges.  I unconsciously sense that life in these United States feels less stable than before the election.  

And I wonder about and pray for our American way of life, both at home and across the nation.  

Nobel Vindication of My Moody Youth: Bob Dylan's Music

The music of my moody youth won the Nobel Prize in Literature today. I feel vindicated for my then-maligned taste, and relieved that the world sees what I saw, heard and felt... and still see, hear, and feel. 

I was deeply obsessed with one album, "Any Day Now - Joan Baez Sings Bob Dylan" a double-album released in 1968, when I was a high school junior. My conservative parents worried I was weird... 

I still have it, my original album from all those years ago.  The only vinyl I've kept, after selling hundreds of others. The album remains part of me. It sits here on my desk, propped against the wall. 

Dylan's most famed tunes... "Like a Rolling Stone," "The Times They Are A-changing," "Rainy Day Women," even the iconic "Blowin' in the Wind"... are not on this album. (I love those songs, too, mind you. Can never refrain from singing along. Just ask my embarrassed husband.)

The album's sixteen powerful tunes, instead, are ones of empathy for others, of struggles of the downtrodden, of dreams for a better life and world.  The poetic songs demonstrated love for others... prisoners, immigrants, drifters... like I'd never before heard, witnessed or experienced, and it touched my heart.  Over and over and over... Still does. There but for the grace of God... 

Included on "Any Day Now," which is the refrain from one of the album's songs, "I Shall Be Released," are:

• "I Pity the Poor Immigrant"
• "Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word"
• "I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine"
• "Tears of Rage"  (with extraordinary acapella by Joan Baez)
• "Dear Landlord"
• "The Walls of Redwing"
• "One Too Many Mornings

And "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands," 11 minutes, 18 seconds long, and I knew every word, every breath, every pause.  My poor mother... I must have played this cut a thousand times, and never at low volume, as I immersed myself in feelings of Bob Dylan's sacred lyrics and score. 

"Dylan has the status of an icon. His influence on contemporary music is profound..." wrote the Committee.   And, I might add, the subjects of his music... empathy, struggles, unfairness, rebellion, keenly observed experiences of others... are entirely consistent with the body of literature honored by the Swedish Academy since its 1901 founding. 

Congratulations to the Nobel Prize Committee for Literature for awarding the 2016 award to Bob Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."   Indeed! 

Of Pumpkin Spice Lattes and NFL Football

I savor the small rituals of each season, but especially of my favorite, autumn.  

As I write these words, I'm sipping my first Starbucks pumpkin spice latte of the year while watching the first Thursday night NFL game of the season,  the Denver Broncos v. Carolina Panthers.    
My fall calendar lights up again with activities next week after a long summer sojourn... Living Vine bible study and small groups, Homework House volunteering to neighborhood kids, two book clubs.  

Our kitchen is brimming with fall organic produce for heartier meals... tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, carrots, potatoes, sweet bell peppers, onions, herbs, and early apples.  

My writing calendar is full, too, with an active book project, blogs, and an inspiring conference in San Luis Obispo in a few weeks. 

And today is my beloved son's birthday.  

I feel blessed and deeply grateful for a fresh, creative start to a new, different season in my life. 

Welcome, fall!  I've been waiting for your warm glories... 

Facebook Victorian-Style, Circa 1881

I've long been charmed by American culture around the turn of the 20th century, from about 1880 to 1920.  Little charms me more than this Autograph Book of my maternal great-grandmother, Jessie Belle Gibson Hutchison (1862 - 1952).

Autograph books were a fad in Victorian-era America, from about 1850 through the 1880s. Until replaced by yearbooks. Telephones. The internet.  And Facebook... 

Per Wikipedia, autograph books originated in Europe in the Middle Ages to record family genealogy, and among college students. "Traditionally they were exchanged among friends, colleagues, and classmates to fill with poems, drawings, personal messages, small pieces of verse, and other mementos. Their modern derivations include yearbooks, friendship books, and guest books."

In fact, Princeton University archives house a collection of "219 autograph books from 192 members of classes between 1825 and 1884. The books were used to collect not only the autographs of classmates, but also good wishes, bits of favorite verse, letters of farewell, or reminiscences of shared events during undergraduate years."

I appreciate my great-grandmother's Autograph Book for the extraordinary genealogy record she later, at age 71, listed in it in 1933.  

But even more, I'm charmed by the eloquent, sweet, serious, clever, often funny autographs collected in the early 1880s from family and friends by 19-year-old Jessie Gibson of farming community Sigel, Kansas. 

And it strikes me how much civility and graciousness Americans have lost in the last 150 years, from Victorian-era autographs books to Facebook today. 

For your enjoyment, a small sampling...

"Take this, it is a gift of love

That seeks thy good alone.

Keep it for the writer's sake,

And read it for thine own.

Your friend,

Laura M. Flagg, April 17, 1883"

"Our lives are albums written through

Of good or ill, of false or true

And as the angels turn the page of our year

Oh may they greet the good with smiles

And blow the ill with tear.

Is the wish of your friend...

Eva Cade, September 8, 1881

Lawrence, Kansas"

"Forget me not is all I wish,

And if it proves too hard a task,

Forget me.

As ever your friend,

Hattie Frazier, November 10, 1883

Alfred, Kansas"

"Oh believe me dear Cousin Jessie when I say that through life, 

my best wishes shall be for Thy happiness, and

a pure desire that we may spend eternity happily together

in the presence of our Heavenly Father.

Adda C. Petefish, October 20, 1881

Belvoir, Kansas"

"When you stand before the tub

Think of me before you rub

And if the water is too hot

Cool it, and forget me not.

Effie Hutchison, October 27, 1883"

"Miss Jessie,

Youth is life's bright morning

Age is coming on.

Watch and pray and labor

Youth will soon be gone.

'Hope'

Why do we hope? Disappointment will fret us

And laugh at our dreams ere our wakings begun.

Why look to the future? That will not forget us

If something is lost, there is more to be won.

Yours Truly,

James F. Morris, October 28, 1881

Richland, Kansas"

And from Jessie's future husband, my great-grandfather, Charles Hutchison (1858 to 1941) , who she married in 1884...

"Tis hard to part with those we love

Tis hard to part tis true

Tis not as hard to part with some

As tis to part with you.

Charley Hutchison, October 1883"

Charming, indeed.  I mourn the graciousness and innocence of those pre-Facebook days.

(In the photo, from left are Charles Hutchison (1858-1941), son Alpha (1884-1962), daughter Marie, my grandmother (1897-1987), daughter Gertrude (1886-1962), Jessie Gibson Hutchison (1862-1952), daughter Clara (1888-1975).)

Mammogram from Hell

Well, that was the mammogram from hell. My first mammogram from hell, after two decades of annual mammograms.

Men certainly suffer physical exam indignities.  But I doubt any man in a medical office was treated with the condescension I met this morning. Ever.  

Privacy was not the problem. Heavens, I've given birth three times.  Once a mother, few women think twice about a bit of breast-flashing in a medical setting. No, privacy's not the issue.

The problem was the attitude of the energetic radiology tech who rushed through what's probably a boring drill for her.  Older woman. Healthy patient. Routine exam. Blah blah blah. 

She raced down the hallway, oblivious that I'm a slow walker, given my wobbly right hip. When she noticed me lagging behind her track-star pace, she coaxed me sedately as though I was not comprehending her "OK, turn right. Now it's the fourth door on your right.  See? This door..." 

She directed me to the usual chair encircled by a hospital curtain, but cautioned, "Don't sit down. It's hard to stand back up again!"  Huh?  I sat down, removed red tank-top and pink bra, then donned the requisite ugly front-opening half-gown. 

I stepped to the digital radiology equipment (see above), and started to lean in exactly as I've done yearly since the medical group went digital.  The tech rushed over... "No sweetie, not like that. Just follow me. Drop your arms.  I'll show you..."  Sweetie?

I go limp, and let her contort my arms and chest into awkward picture-friendly positions. And then it happened. Once.Twice. Two more times for lateral views. 

She affixed my breast between the two mega-slides, then ZAP, she auto-closed the slides. For good measure, I assume, she then manually twisted knobs twice (or more?) to tighten the vise with the power of a weight-lifter.

Electricity coursed through my system. Shocked, I briefly yelped.  Never before have I experienced intense pain at a mammogram. This pain was searing. I told her it was too tight.  Her response?  "Be quiet. You need to hold still."  Uh, what?  "Look how red my breast is," I nicely complained about my mottled strawberry-red skin.  "Happens to everyone," she quipped, not bothering to look. 

She rapidly repeated her process three more times. Never letting up the unnecessary pressure.  Never listening or responding to me. In fact, the last two, it seemed she clamped that vise down a tad harder, if that was physically possible. But maybe my breasts were so sore by that time, the torture felt more acute. Intimidated, I stayed quiet. 

Lest you think I'm a whiner. I've been told by the best that my pain tolerance is pretty high (except for childbirth, of course). A respected orthopedic surgeon once lectured me at length that I need to be more aware of pain.  That being too mind-over-matter coupled with obliviousness to pain is not a formula for good health.

I sat in the curtained chair to clothe. Done with her tasks, the radiology tech shouted to me, "Do you know how to get to the lobby?  Turn left out of the door, then left at the corner."  She abruptly exited another door, slamming it hard in her hurried wake. 

I am grateful beyond measure for good medical care. I am grateful for the technical skills of this radiology tech.  I am grateful that almost without exception, I have dealt with medical professionals who treat patients with respect and reasonable sensitivity. 

Today, though, I experienced the mammogram from hell. This mammogram was painful and more than a little humiliating, and in only 20 minutes.   

I finally understand why many women detest, and often wrongly avoid, mammograms.  Hard to imagine that men are treated with the same indifference or condescension as shown to me in this simple medical test. 

Still Crazy After All These Years

It's me. Still here. Still crazy after all these years, to borrow from a famed baby-boomer philosopher.   Deborah Bowen (Clark) White. Debi White for more than 25 years, though, the longest time I've been known by one name.

Just returned from a refreshing weeklong vacation on the big Island with Ron, of course. (See my window for ritual morning coffee, at right.) Ready to return to my blogging roots.  

Aloha, friends! 

I haven't written at The Crazy Woman ("TCW") for two years. Been busy, growing and expanding, experiencing highs and lows of this life.  More about that later... I lost four years of TCW writings, from 2010 to 2014, including a few deeply poignant pieces. I have high hopes of still salvaging the posts from a bungled download. But writing, like life, must carry on... 

The Crazy Woman was my first blog, and remains the blog I love best. It's personal, not political or professional or bound for big-time publishing. It's my musings. It's my blog, my page, my thoughts. 

I started TCW in 2003 when I first heard of blogging, in the same year my oldest daughter, Trisha, married.  In the year that the U.S. started the Iraq War, and changed everything in this country.  

Much has changed for me, too, especially in the last four years. Trisha is no longer married, but living the life she always wanted in New York City.  Successful woman, that one, especially at marketing.  Can scare up a terrific job faster than anyone I've ever known. 

My parents both passed away earlier this year, of separate but similar causes.  Married 67 years, they were part of each other in every way.  Theirs was a marriage full of joy, fun, and sadness, misunderstandings and too much illness.  But always, family and commitment. 

As for our other adult children, Kevin and lovely wife Lauren, fashion and design guru, live in Berkeley with two cats. Kevin continues to be a star in marketing for a major database corporation.  Lucky guy takes BART into The City, and works two blocks from the Giants ballpark.  Ryan (and kids) reside near us here in Orange County, and labors mightily in the software field. We feel blessed beyond words to see them often, and be part of their lives. 

Yours, mine, and then there's ours... Andrea, our only kid still a twentysomething, lives in greater Washington D.C. Astonishing that she graduated three years ago from that college in Connecticut. She works at a health-related think tank funded, in part, by the Gates Foundation;. is finishing a post-bac pre-med program at University of Maryland; and plans to apply next spring to medical schools. Lots of her friends live in D.C. and New York, so you can imagine, we don't see her much.  

Here's the thing.  Our kids have their own lives. "Cat's in the Cradle" and all that jazz... they don't need us much anymore.  We are finding our way again.  I am finding my way again. Still crazy after all these years, I'm pleased to report. 

That's what I will be writing about now at The Crazy Woman. Finding my way, post-parenting and post-parents. Check back often. I'd love to share this journey with you.