March 2017 – The View from a Drawbridge

On Leading Horses to Water

I have this unique gift. I know what’s best for everybody except, perhaps, myself. At least, that’s the reality I choose to live in much of the time. It’s really easy to look at people’s lives from the outside and come up with quick and easy solutions for them, isn’t it?

The real challenge is keeping one’s opinions to oneself. Usually that comes with age and experience. I must admit I still struggle with this sometimes.

For example, I know an amazing young lady who is talented and charismatic and creative and intelligent and thin and beautiful. She should be the queen of the world. But she drinks. A lot. I mean… a lot. As far as I know, she doesn’t let this impact her work, but it looms large the rest of the time. It breaks my heart. I want to shake her until her teeth rattle. “You have so much going for you! Don’t do this!”

I know another guy who hates his job and is constantly hunting for another one. He looks good on paper. He’s extremely intelligent and capable. He gets lots of interviews, but he never gets hired. He can’t understand why. I can. His personal hygiene leaves a lot to be desired. He looks and smells like he has been living in a cave his whole life. He’s actually kind of scary, if you don’t know him. From an employer’s point of view, this has to be a bit off-putting. If you can’t be bothered to take care of yourself, how can I assume you’ll take care of your job? I’m all for self-expression, but it can sometimes be self-destructive.

And then there’s this guy I have a crush on, who doesn’t seem the least bit interested in me. I mean, Hello! I’m amazing! I’m fun to be around, interesting to talk to, nurturing, non-smoking, fiscally responsible, great in bed… I’m a freaking catch! In other words, perfect for him. Why can’t he see that?

The bottom line is that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. If someone wants to be an alcoholic, look like a Neanderthal, or overlook true love, there’s nothing I can do about it. People have the right to walk their own paths. I don’t have to like it.

I get the “can’t make it drink” part. That’s obvious. But I often still try to lead those horses to the water. I really have to work on that. It’s a waste of time for them, and frankly, it makes me look like a pompous ass. Sometimes horses just prefer to roam free.

wild horses

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Take Your Marbles and Go Home

Dear President Trump:

Are you having fun yet? Are you getting tired of winning? Because you seem to be spending a lot of time in a rage or attempting to defend yourself.

And not a day goes by when someone isn’t either criticizing you or making fun of you in some way or another. Whether that’s “fake news” or not, it can’t be pleasant. I certainly wouldn’t bear up under that much character assassination, and I’m not even a classic narcissist.

I would think (because I’ll never know) that the whole reason for being rich is to be able to enjoy oneself. Otherwise, what’s the point? You should be able to golf on the weekdays as well as the weekends! Why haven’t you built a putting green on the White House lawn, at least?

Have you figured out what all of us already know? You’re being used. You’re the goat. The republicans can do their absolute worst without fear of retribution, because you will be there to take the blame. They’re laughing at you, Donald. And if you do get impeached in the end, they won’t care, because they’ll still be there. Nothing will have changed for them.

Why don’t you do yourself (and the rest of us) a favor: take your marbles and go home. (But wait. You lost them long ago, didn’t you?)

Surely this game has lost its appeal for you. Aren’t you bored? I suspect so.

But hey, if you do stick around, I’m looking forward to watching you defeat ISIS. Okay, I know you promised you’d do that in the first 30 days, but you’ve been busy, right? So anytime in the next month will do nicely. Seriously. Have at it.

Sincerely,

The Voice of Reason

marbles

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El Primero

I always get goose bumps when I have a brush with history. I just had one on my drawbridge. I opened for a gorgeous old yacht called El Primero. It’s not in the best shape. It needs work. But considering it was built in 1893, I think it has aged rather well.

And this isn’t just any yacht. This used to be one of only two steam yachts that plied the waters of Puget Sound for decades. It was so luxurious that 4 presidents have ridden on it: William Howard Taft, Teddy Roosevelt, Warren G. Harding and Herbert Hoover.

It has since been converted to diesel, and it has two masts that were originally put into place in case of engine failure. It sleeps 22. I think El Primero is a work of art. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. The teak alone makes me drool. (I’m funny that way.)

And it has a suitably Pacific Northwest history. Its original owner, Chester Thorne, lost it in either a poker or a craps game 5 years after he bought it. That astounds me. Who would risk such a beauty in a game of chance? One wonders what he would have gotten had he won.

The most recent news I could find about El Primero was from 2015. The article said that it was being refurbished and was set to be a floating museum. If so, I’ll be the first in line for a ticket. I don’t know if they followed through on that or not. All I know is that I’ve had the distinct privilege to open my drawbridge for it twice in the past week.

Welcome back, El Primero! I hope to see a lot more of you. You make the world a much more beautiful place.

El Primero

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Ruins Before They Were Ruins

Many years ago I had the good fortune to travel through Turkey. That country was a crossroads of waves upon waves of various cultures, and because of that it has an incredible amount of ancient ruins. There are so many Roman pillars, Lycian tombs, gateways of Hittites, Persian and Seleucid cities, Ottoman palaces, Greek theaters, and Byzantine churches and caves that the locals can hardly be blamed for taking them for granted. Many’s the time that I saw people indifferently stepping over toppled pillars or swerving their cars around tombs without giving them a second glance. I found this fascinating.

Ruins, in general, enthrall me. I can often imagine when they were shiny and new. Every edifice that is erected is a point of pride for its people. They anticipate decades, even centuries of use. At their opening ceremonies, the citizenry certainly isn’t imagining that these creations will someday crumble to dust and be coldly trodden upon by passersby.

I wonder about that moment in time when something stops being a modern and useful building and becomes a ruin. Is it identifiable? When the last person to leave it snuffed out its candles, what was he or she thinking? Was their one last backward glance? Does one even bother to lock the door?

Look at the buildings around you. Can you imagine them as ruins someday? Do you think they will last forever? Will they be bulldozed and built over, or will they be abandoned as the sea levels rise? Which cities will become uninhabitable or abandoned, and why?

Time passes. History has its impact. Unless humanity disappears entirely, someday people will wander amongst our refuse and wonder who we were. Or maybe they’ll walk right by without giving it any thought at all.

The Roman theater of Aspendos in Turkey. Still used occasionally today, most notably for the International Opera and Ballet Festival

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A Hitch in My Giddy-Up

Yep. I’m getting old. I have slight arthritis in my hips, and some mornings it feels as though they’re not going to support my weight for a few seconds there. Rather than a morning smoker’s hack (the sound of my mother’s made me a nonsmoker for life), I have a morning hobble and groan.

I’ve also been feeling a twinge in my knee of late. As with small sounds in my car, I keep ignoring it, hoping it will go away. Fingers crossed…

And bell peppers don’t agree with me anymore. That’s a shame, because I like them. But if I eat them, I know I’ll soon regret it.

And the more grey my hair becomes, the more kinky and unmanageable it gets. It seems I did not inherit my mother’s silky, lustrous silver tresses. I’ll probably be one of those unruly, witchy women, in appearance as well as in word and deed.

But even though I miss my 19 year old body, I don’t miss the 19 year old me. If all these aches and pains are the price I have to pay for a life well lived, full of lessons and experiences, then I’ll take it. I’ll take it and come back for seconds.

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What is Cool?

I just saw a video of a woman who looks to be about my age. She’s playing the drums. That’s putting it mildly. She’s playing “Wipe Out.” She’s freakin’ rocking that song. I mean… damn. I want to be her best friend.

She’s not dressed cool. She’s wearing a pink golf shirt and some shorts. If you saw her in Walmart pushing a grocery cart, you wouldn’t think she was cool. But this woman is so cool it’s ridiculous.

What is cool, anyway? Someone called me cool the other day and I nearly choked on my tuna salad sandwich. Me? Cool? Hardly. I have spent most of my whole life feeling weird. I can’t imagine that anyone would want to emulate me. In fact, I wouldn’t advise it.

When I was young, I thought the Fonz was cool. Now I look at re-runs of Happy Days and I think he’s kind of silly at most. He was a loveable, leather-jacketed clown who reduced women to the worst versions of themselves.

Cool for me is unique, but not weird. It’s not about popularity, but yes, it’s often envied. It’s being confident about blazing your own trail. It’s about being so comfortable in your own skin that you don’t care what other people think.

Cool is that guy who shows up at that rally for Planned Parenthood. Cool is wearing a Hawaiian shirt over a sweatshirt in the dead of winter, simply because you like the shirt. Cool is that woman who spends her time raising an endangered species of butterfly because she can. Artists are almost always cool. And anyone on the Jamaican Bobsled Team is cool by default, in my opinion. I also happen to think that anyone who has invented something that makes the world a better place is way, way cool.

Cool is also standing for things when others don’t have the courage. That anonymous guy who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square? Coolest. Person. Ever. I hope he survived.

Malala Yousafzai is cool because you secretly wish you were her. At least I do. She has a moral compass that never deviates. She lives a meaningful life.

The bottom line is that cool is hard to define. You just know it when you see it. Who do you think is cool?

Happy_days_motorcycle_richie_fonzie_1977

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Spring is in the Air

I’ve been feeling restless of late. I want to get out and explore. I want to go places and do things. I want to have some fun. I want to go zip lining! I want my life to begin again.

The problem is, the weather is still crap. Sometimes I think if I don’t see the sun soon, I’m going to lose my ever-loving mind. And I don’t really have anyone to do things with. It’s frustrating. I have all this energy that’s not getting expelled. It makes me fidget. I’ve recently started shaking my leg again, which is a bad habit I had in high school.

What is going on with me? Is this just sexual frustration writ large? A delayed mid-life crisis? Too much caffeine?

And then I look in my front yard and notice that the azaleas and rhododendrons are all in bud. They’re on the verge of bursting forth in riots of color. Any day now. Change.

Spring fever. Now I get it.

Rhododendron

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Compassion

Compassion, defined as the “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings and misfortunes of others,” is something you either have or you don’t. At this moment in history, perhaps more than any other, it is obvious that no fence-sitting on this issue is acceptable. Pick a side. Own it.

One shouldn’t have to have experienced tragedy to feel compassion for others who are experiencing it. The human brain has evolved enough to allow us all to imagine situations that we have not gone through ourselves. Compassion can be learned. It should have been modeled for us by our parents if we were raised in a functional household. Religions spend a lot of time focusing on this subject as well. “Do unto others…” is all about compassion.

But part of it is also instinctual. If you see someone smash his or her thumb with a hammer, it should be natural to wince and think, “That’s got to hurt.” It would be normal to have that thought even if you’ve never held a hammer in your life.

So when I hear that the White House’s budget proposal would defund Meals on Wheels because “it’s not showing results”, I am horrified. I immediately think of one 75 year old invalid who wouldn’t otherwise eat a healthy meal. I think of the fact that she has so little human contact, and looks forward to this visit each day. I think of how she’s been able to stay out of a nursing home at taxpayer’s expense because she’s still independent enough to manage as long as someone checks on her daily.

When I hear that the White House wants to take money away from the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Parks Service, I am appalled. I think of the future generations who will not know the beauty and health that is provided by a sustainable planet.

When I read that guns can once again be placed in the hands of the mentally unstable, I am horrorstruck. I cannot imagine what possible good this will do for society, but I certainly can anticipate the tragedies it will create. I also ache for the families of past victims, who must be devastated by this outrage.

When I hear that people want to pour even more money into our already over-bloated military budget, I am revolted. I think of the death and destruction and domination and pain and anguish that is the end result of every single war, no matter how justified we think that war may be.

When I read about immigrants, illegal or otherwise, who are ripped away from their families, and/or prevented from trying to break the chains of poverty, I am ashamed. I think of my own family history and wonder what would have become of me if my ancestors were beaten down by this same heartless stick.

I really don’t understand people who don’t have compassion. I didn’t realize until recently that there are so many of them out there. And many of them claim to be religious. What am I missing? It sickens me.

compassion-857765_960_720

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My Pussy Hat

Ever since the Women’s March on Washington the day after the pussy-grabber’s inauguration, pink “pussy hats” have sort of become a thing. It’s a woman’s way of saying, “Yep. I have one. You have a problem with that?” Seeing that sea of pink hats on the Mall, the largest protest in the history of the world, made me really proud. So naturally, I had to get a hat of my own.

The problem is, I don’t knit or crochet well. So I bought one off Etsy. The woman who made mine says she has several small children at home, and therefore she can’t easily get out to protests, so she’s glad to do her part this way. Good for her. (Of course, she’s also profiting off of the movement. But still, I choose to believe it still counts.)

I was really excited when my hat arrived in the mail. And now I wear it every chance I get. I’m really surprised that you don’t see more women wearing them when they’re not attending rallies. That kind of makes me sad. It’s a statement.

Just the other day I was walking into a grocery store, proudly behatted, and a woman gave me a high five. I also get lots of compliments on it. It always makes me smile to interact with a fellow traveler.

I’m equally surprised at how many people I come across who have no idea of the significance of the hat. I mean, have you been living under a rock? Even if you don’t share my political views, I can’t imagine how you can be so out of the loop in the modern world.

I wonder what it would be like to wear this hat daily if I still lived in Jacksonville, Florida rather than Seattle, Washington. I guarantee you I wouldn’t be getting many compliments or high fives. I’d be jeered at by my old coworkers, who for the most part seem to have been covered in amber around 1950. I’d probably have things pelted at me from passing pickup trucks. Same country, different world.

I hope that some day, long after I’m gone, my grand-nephews will see a picture of me and say, “Mom, why is Aunt Barb wearing that funny hat?” And I hope my niece will reply, “Because Aunt Barb was an amazing, outspoken woman with very strong convictions. I hope your daughters grow up to be just like her.”

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It’s Normal to be One of a Kind

Many of us, especially when we’re young, try desperately to “fit in”. We want to be like our peers. We don’t want to be an outcast or an oddball. It feels much safer to graze with the herd rather than blaze one’s own trail.

It’s also quite common for us to pigeonhole other people; fit them into nice, neat little cubby holes so we don’t have to make much effort to get to know them as individuals. If you’re that religion, you’re violent. If you’re that skin color, you’re lazy. If you are from that country, you can’t be trusted. (This is such a common habit that you most likely filled in the blanks regarding which religion, skin color or country I was referring to. Let that sink in for a minute, because it’s really sad.)

Here’s the problem with all of the above: We are all one of a kind. Unless you are an identical twin, no one on the planet has the exact same DNA that you have. And even twins have different life experiences, and that shapes them over time.

We have all lived different lives. We’ve seen different parts of the world. We’ve experienced different tragedies and triumphs. We’ve loved and lost and learned and laughed and cried, each in our own ways.

A very, very rough estimate tells me that the number of people born each second on this planet is about 2. So there might be someone in the world who was born the same second that you were. (Actually, by my admittedly rough calculation, one human is born every 0.576 seconds, so you may even have your second all to yourself. It could happen.) But the odds that you and your second-mate, if you have one, will both die at the same second, unless the whole world explodes, is pretty slim. So it’s safe to say that no one, no one will experience the exact same span of history that you will.

And then, if you start comparing favorite colors, career paths, place of birth, politics, and whether you prefer chunky peanut butter or smooth… well, you can just imagine what a rare individual you are! You are truly one of a kind. And I think that’s wonderful.

My question is, why are we so loathe to celebrate our differences, in spite of the overwhelming evidence that they exist?

Today, as you walk through your unique life, look at the people around you, and revel in their individuality. And take a moment to appreciate yourself for the miracle that you are. Vive la différence!

You are a gift!

gift

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