Month: September 2016

Falling Down ?

/ Ann Coleman / 48 Comments

img_0919It’s taken a while, but the cool weather of Fall has finally arrived where I live.  And I’m not especially happy about it.  I’ve been feeling a bit down all day, ever since waking up this morning and seeing that the temperature outside was only 56 degrees with no sunshine in sight.  I know there are lots and lots of great things about Fall, and I appreciate most of them.   It’s just that I’m not ready to let go of summer, and the weather today is forcing me to recognize that the summer of 2016 is well and truly over.

The days are already getting shorter, which means that it won’t be long before I’m waking up in darkness.  I spent part of last evening digging out my sweaters and light-weight jackets since it’s already too cold to go outside without wearing one or the other.  Despite my careful attention, many of my annual flowers are looking tired and withered, and it’s only a matter of time before there will be a frost which kills them altogether.   Within weeks, I’ll actually have to turn on the heat and deal with the dry skin and static electricity it always generates despite our humidifier’s best efforts. I may be a Debby Downer, but honestly, I find all of this rather depressing.

But there’s no sense in fighting the inevitable and I certainly don’t want to spend the next few weeks wallowing in self-pity, so I have decided that I need to stop thinking quite so much about all the things I will miss about summer and focus instead on the things I really won’t miss at all.  Sure, it’s hard to forget about the backyard cookouts, the pleasure of jumping into the refreshingly cool water of a swimming pool on a hot summer day, and the convenience of walking outside anytime without having to put on any extra clothing whatsoever.  Not to mention the fresh fruit and tasty tomatoes.  But I’m going to try.

From now on, I’ll bear in mind that the arrival of Fall means I won’t have to circle the parking lot of the grocery store in the futile search for a parking space in the shade so the inside of my car won’t feel like an oven when I’m done shopping.  I can even buy ice cream without worrying about it melting before I reach home.  I’m going to remember that the time is rapidly approaching when I  won’t have to do any more yard work:  no watering the potted plants, deadheading the flowers, trimming the bushes, cutting back the ivy, and fighting a no-win battle against the weeds.

And best of all, no outdoor bugs.  I’m not sure if the cold weather kills them or, like bears, they simply hibernate all winter, but for whatever reason, they go away and I am grateful.  No more bees buzzing around my ears when I walk out the back door (they love the crepe myrtles we were silly enough to plant right next to the back porch), no more carpenter bees drilling holes in the eaves and (finally) no more mosquitoes!  If I were ever trying to argue that God does make mistakes, exhibit “A” would be mosquitoes.  The world would have been just fine without the pesky little buggers.

This new attitude must be working, because I’m already feeling better.  It’s time to break out the Fall decorations, stick a few pots of hardy mums and some pumpkins on the porch and hit the mall in search of a couple of new sweaters.  And then I’m going to come home and bake a pumpkin pie.

Losing Control

/ Ann Coleman / 55 Comments

For the past few months, I’ve been careful to keep to my blogging schedule of posting twice a week.  I usually post on Sunday, and then again on Wednesday or Thursday, depending on how my week is going.  I’ve become almost obsessive about it, which should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me.  I tend to establish habits and then stick to them, come what may, even about things that don’t particularly matter.  It’s not one of my more endearing characteristics.

So yesterday, even though I had a bridal shower in the morning, an out-of-town nephew arriving for a visit in the afternoon, and a family dinner to host in the evening, I still believed that I should somehow find the time to write and publish a blog post.  I mean, yesterday was Sunday, so what choice did I have?   Surely, somewhere in that busy day, I would find the time to write a and publish a short blog post, accompanied by an appropriate photograph, once I came up with an idea to write about.  But as the day went by, it became obvious, even to me, that I wasn’t going to be doing a blog post.

I admit, I fretted about it at first.  But gradually I realized how absurd it was to be trying to rush through something as important as a bridal shower, visiting with a nephew we don’t get to see nearly as often as we would like, and a family dinner just for the chance to write (yet another) blog post.  And once I had let go of my original plan for the day and just went along with the flow of what was actually happening, I found myself having a grand old time.

Giving up control is a hard thing for me, as I believe it is for many people. We get an idea about how things are supposed to be, or a schedule we are supposed to follow, and it’s only natural to feel a bit anxious, or even annoyed, when things don’t go according to plan.  Sometimes we even want to control how others react to us, and feel put out when they aren’t appropriately impressed by our latest news, or one of our blog or Facebook posts doesn’t get enough “likes.”  We forget that other people are the ones who get to decide how they are going to react to what we write, say and do, and that we….don’t.

So I’m glad that I had a such a nice day yesterday, and that I had the chance to enjoy a very fun and creative bridal shower.  I’m glad that I got to spend time talking to my nephew, and realizing again just what a fine young man he has turned out to be.  I’m glad that I got to host a family dinner, and hear about my daughter and son-in-law’s recent trip to Colorado, and to continue the discussion about whether my son and I will or will not be doing a mother/son dance at his wedding.

But mostly, I’m glad that yesterday was so busy that I wasn’t able to follow my usual blog posting schedule.  It was a great reminder for me that sometimes in life, the best things happen when we allow ourselves to simply lose control, even for just a little while.  And who knows?  I might keep the excitement going by accompanying this post with a photo which has no relevance whatsoever…..img_1498

 

Now That’s Impressive!

/ Ann Coleman / 44 Comments

img_4884The older I get, the less easily I am impressed.  Gone are the days when I got really excited by a grand-slam home run in a baseball game, or envy a friend’s beautiful new piece of jewelry, or even believe that winning the lottery would be the nicest thing that could ever happen to me.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy those things anymore, because I do.  (Note to my readers: if one of you ever does win the lottery and are looking for someone to share all that loot, I’ll gladly step up.)  It’s just that I have gotten to the point where I no longer find those things particularly impressive.

More and more, I find myself paying attention to, and often admiring, not so much what people have or what they do, but how they treat others.  It’s wonderful when a professional athlete is able to help his team win an important game, but it’s impressive when he uses his fame to help out a worthy cause.  It’s great when the new company that someone has poured their heart and soul into finally takes off and makes a lot of money, but it’s impressive when the owner of that company uses their money to give back to the community and create opportunities for others to succeed as well.

I especially admire people who are thoughtful and generous towards others when no one is looking and when they have nothing to gain from their kindness.  I will always be grateful to the surgeon who operated on my husband’s knee, because after the operation was over, he took the time to come into the waiting room and not only tell me everything went well, but also to sit down beside me and ask if I had any questions.  I’m sure he had a very busy schedule that day, but he acted as if he had all the time in the world to reassure an anxious spouse.  It was a small kindness, but at the time, it made all the difference.

It’s not always easy to be kind, especially when we are bombarded with things on the news, social media, etc. that make us frustrated, angry and afraid.  And it’s hard to be kind when we’re rushing through our days, trying to keep up with our hectic schedules.  But often in life, what is hard is also exactly what needs to be done.  We may not be able to solve all the world’s problems, or even fix all the issues in our own lives, but what we can do is remember that kindness truly does help make things better.  And to do our best to practice it as often as we possibly can.

And when we are able to be kind, and when we are able to treat others with the same degree of compassion and tolerance that we want shown to us, then that is truly impressive.  Each and every time we do it.

Shower Gifts

/ Ann Coleman / 36 Comments

Yesterday, I helped host a family shower for my son’s fiance.   I admit that I was a bit nervous about the whole thing, because I really love the young woman my son is marrying and wanted to throw her a nice shower to welcome her into our family.  My daughter, who also helped host the shower, wanted to do a champagne brunch, so we booked a room in a nearby restaurant for the event, ordered some petite fours and cake pops from a local bakery to serve, and in general, did all the things that one does when planning a bridal shower.  Still, I was just a little bit on edge, wondering if everything would go well and being more than a little bit afraid that something would inevitably go wrong.  Little Mary Sunshine, that’s me.

img_1795

But I am happy to say that everything went just fine.  The restaurant staff was very professional, setting up the room the way we wanted it and serving delicious food.  We had a nice turn-out, and everyone seemed to have a good time.   As is the tradition, at the end of the shower, the bride-to-be opened her gifts while we all watched.  She got some terrific presents and seemed very happy with all of them, which was a wonderful thing to see.

Still, while I was watching my future daughter-in-law open her gifts, I found my mind wandering a bit.  I kept looking around the room at all the people who were there, and realizing how much I appreciated each of them being there.  Each and every person in that room made the effort to take time out of their busy weekend to come to this shower, showing their support for the newest addition to our family.  And their presence was a gift.

My sister helped host and provided the beautiful flowers for the shower.  My mother offered assistance in any way that was needed, and helped us set up the room.  My sisters-in-law from Iowa not only came a great distance to attend the shower, they showed up early to help us get ready and stayed late to help clean up afterwards.  My sister-in-law from downstate, her two daughters and her granddaughter, all came to help us celebrate and show their support.

Family friends came, some of whom I have known for my entire life.  Friends I met when I was just a baby and friends I met when I was newly-married and childless were all there, knowing how important this shower was to me and my family.  The youngest attendee was the seven-week old granddaughter of a dear family friend, and that baby represented the fourth generation in the friendship between our two families.  It doesn’t get much more special than that.

Yes, the bride-to-be received many terrific gifts at this shower, and that’s as it should be.  It was her day, and she handled it with grace and style, just as I knew she would.  But as I looked around the room yesterday and took in all the people who were there, the friends and family who showed up to offer their support and to welcome the newest member of our family, and to meet her lovely mother and grandmother, I couldn’t help but realize that my son’s fiance wasn’t the only one who was receiving gifts.

True, the love and support of family and friends is not a gift that I could open.  But it was a gift nonetheless, and one that I will remember and appreciate for a very, very, long time.

The Latest and Best?

/ Ann Coleman / 45 Comments

I don’t know about you, but there are times when I feel distinctly out of step with the modern world.  I may only be fifty-eight years old, but often I feel as if I am already a relic of a past age,  often bewildered by how fast things are changing and wondering exactly where it all will end.  And although I appreciate the many advances our society has made, and I do enjoy the conveniences of certain aspects of modern technology, I also can’t help but think that some of technology’s latest offerings are just plain silly.  And more than a little bit annoying.

I have seen several commercials lately advertising new refrigerators that are actually equipped with cameras on the inside.  Apparently, it is possible to obtain an app for my phone that will allow me to see what’s inside my fridge by looking at my phone, although why I would want to do that, don’t ask me.  Yes, it could come in handy when I’m at the grocery store to see if the milk carton is almost empty.  But only if the milk isn’t hidden behind a big pitcher of lemonade.  Or, as is more likely in my case, a large bottle of wine.  Do the cameras rotate, allowing us to see all possible angles, including the bag of moldy cheddar in the cheese drawer?  Do they zoom in so I can read the sell-by date on the sour cream?   It seems to me that it would be so much easier to simply check the fridge before I went to the store.

DSC00209My household is one of the few in America that still has a landline phone, without the benefit of caller ID, and I’m not ashamed to say that I actually like it (although I will get around to adding the caller ID eventually.)  It works even when our power is out, and I never have to remember to charge it, the way I do my cell phone.  And while I enjoy the convenience of my cell phone, I prefer to use it the “old-fashioned way” by using my hands, rather than my voice, to operate it.  I find it very annoying to listen to someone speaking their text message:  “We made it the cabin.  Period.  The weather is great. Exclamation point.  Hope the fish are biting.  Smiley face.”   Seriously?  That’s better than typing?

And then there’s that mechanical voice called Siri.  If they’re going to install robot voices on phones, they should at least have given us a choice of what kind of voice we wanted and how we wanted it to be respond to us.  Personally, I’d pick a deep male voice with an British accent that always referred to me as “my brilliant darling.”  Now that would be worth listening to.

I appreciate some of the new technologies for cars, like the reverse screen, but I read an article the other day that says they are working on a “smart windshield” that will actually display messages, including Facebook, across the bottom of it.  Apparently, someone out there feels that seeing the latest cute kitten video or photo of someone’s lunch is so important that it needs to be available to us even when we are driving our cars.  Or maybe they’re going to wait until the cars are actually driving themselves, which I’m also told is coming soon.

Is it just me, or do so many of these new “advances” seem intent on making it unnecessary for humans to do much of anything at all for ourselves?  We won’t have to know how to write, we’ll just speak to our screens, which we will use for everything:  banking, shopping, communicating, you name it.  We won’t need to learn to drive, we’ll just hop in, settle back and let our cars take us where they will, hoping they get us to the right destination .  And we won’t need to remember anything, we’ll just ask Siri.  Ditto for doing any kind of research.

I don’t know about you, but there are times when it really does make me long for “the good old days.”  Never have I felt so old…..

Setting Boundaries

/ Ann Coleman / 32 Comments

A few weeks ago, I had an accident on a boat dock that resulted in a large and deep bruise on my outer thigh.  Even though I didn’t do any major damage…nothing was broken or torn…my leg was swollen and sore.  I walked with a bit of a limp, and I couldn’t stand to have anything touch the wounded area.  And while I thought that I would be back to normal within just a few days, it turned out that my recovery actually took a few weeks. I still have a small and somewhat painful lump, although I’m glad to report that my outer thigh no longer looks like a colorful abstract painting.

The point is, for a few weeks, I wasn’t able to do many of my usual activities.  I still went to the animal shelter three times a week, but I didn’t walk any of the big dogs, and I even avoided the smaller ones that were especially jumpy.   I skipped my yoga class, didn’t ride my exercise bike, didn’t take long walks around the neighborhood no matter how nice the weather was, and in general, made sure that I didn’t put any more strain on my leg than was absolutely necessary.  I was often frustrated by my limitations, and sometimes those frustrations were aggravated by the thought that I was letting other people down.

I worried that my friend who teaches my yoga class was going to be annoyed with me for missing so many sessions.  I worried that my fellow shelter volunteers were going to be unhappy that I wasn’t helping them get the big and rowdy dogs out for their daily walks.  And I worried that the huge decrease in my level of exercise meant that it was going to be even harder to stuff myself into my already tight jeans.

I wanted my old life back.  I wanted to be able to do all the things I was used to doing, and to be able to meet all the expectations that other people usually had of me.  I found myself fretting a lot, becoming anxious and short-tempered, and feeling that I had to constantly remind everyone that I did, indeed, have a sore leg that was taking far too long to heal.

Thankfully, I finally came to my senses.  I realized that while I might not be able to do the things that I wanted to do, and that other people expected me to do, I truly was doing all that I could do at that particular point in my life.  And I realized that by looking for other people to “give me permission” to step back from my normal activities, I was setting myself up for nothing but guilt and disappointment.  Because no one else knew exactly how my leg felt on any given day, or what I could and couldn’t do without causing unnecessary pain or fatigue.  I realized that it was up to me to set my own limits and live within them, and not to pay too much attention to whether or not other people understood or approved of them.

The thing is, we are each responsible for setting our own boundaries, whether they be physical, mental or emotional.  We know what is going on in our own lives better than anyone else does, and we not only have the ability but also the responsibility to decide exactly what we can or can’t do.  That doesn’t mean we ignore challenges or become self-absorbed and selfish, but it does mean that we recognize our own limits and stop apologizing for living within them.  And once we do, we stop being worrying so much about living up to other people’s expectations.

There’s an old saying that “good fences make good neighbors.”  Honestly, I think the same thing holds true for personal boundaries.  Because knowing our own boundaries, and respecting other people’s boundaries, makes for good relationships.  And that makes life better for all of us.

The Parents’ Table

/ Ann Coleman / 47 Comments

anns-bdayAt 58, I have reached the age where I can no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, consider myself to be young, or even “young-ish.”  I am stubbornly clinging to the middle-age category, although there are plenty of people who would argue that I am too old even for that.  I treat that argument with the contempt it deserves, because who knows?  I may actually make it to my 116th birthday.  We are making great strides in the fields of technology and medical science, and I intend to milk both for all they are worth. Still, every now and then, despite my best efforts, I come face-to-face with the reality of my age.

These unwelcome intrusions of painful reality into my fantasy life are nothing new.  I remember shopping with a friend one day when I was in my  late twenties, and I automatically headed for the store’s “Junior Department.” My friend refused to follow me, saying bluntly, if honestly, “Ann, we aren’t Juniors anymore.”  Huh?  Then I looked around for the “Fashionable Young Women Who Aren’t Juniors But Are Still Young and Hot” department, but it simply wasn’t there.

My hair’s natural color used to be a soft brown that I was actually rather happy with, and unlike many of my friends, I never even considered changing its color.  Even after I started spotting the occasional grey hair I firmly believed that I was far too young to be actually turning grey.   Until the day I sat down in my hairdresser’s chair and she asked me, “Have you considered doing highlights?  You know, to cover up all this grey hair?”  And a few years later, that was followed by the day that the highlights were replaced with a total dye-job.

Then there was the time I was accompanying my teenage son to his high school sports banquet.  My children may have been in their teen years, but deep down, I still thought of myself as a young mother.  But then I realized that a young mother doesn’t sit in the passenger seat of a car with a hot casserole dish on her lap while her son drives them to a banquet.  It was, no matter how I looked at it, a distinctly matronly moment.

Last weekend, my husband and I attended the wedding of one of my daughter’s best friends, and we found ourselves seated at a table with three other couples we didn’t know.  They looked about our age, and as we introduced ourselves, we realized that we were all parents of the bride’s good friends.  Laughingly, we referred to ourselves as “the parents’ table,” and sat happily on the sidelines, watching the young people dance.  I remembered when it was my parents’ generation at our weddings who were watching us dance, and marveled at the realization that I was now officially one of the “older generation” myself.   Surprisingly, I found that in this case, I didn’t mind it one bit.

Which is not to say that I have completely internalized the lesson that I am no longer young.  I think it is impossible, really, to always be aware of our true age, because on the inside, I’m still the same person I’ve always been.  And that’s why it will be quite some time before I change the name of this blog to “Muddling Through My Old Age.”  Some illusions are just too hard to give up.

Time Well Spent

/ Ann Coleman / 51 Comments

I was hurrying to my car early yesterday when I heard someone call, “Good morning!”  Looking around, I saw that my neighbors, whom I know only slightly, were in their back yard with their toddler son.  As I waved back at them, they scooped up their son and brought him over to the fence for me to see.  “He’s going to be one-year old this coming Tuesday,” they told me proudly.  I admit that I hesitated for a few seconds, because I was running late for church, and didn’t really have time to stop and talk.  But then I did the right thing and went over to meet them at the backyard fence to admire their son and chat a bit.   I ended up being even later for church than I usually am, but it was more than worth not hurting the feelings of the very nice young parents who live behind us.

We rarely have enough people on our walking shifts at the local animal shelter where I volunteer,  which means we are usually working as fast as we can to make sure all the dogs get out for their daily walk.  Often, people visiting the shelter will approach us with their questions, and our usual response is to direct them to the staff at the front desk, who are happy to help them.  But every once in a while, we are approached by someone who wants to tell us about a beloved pet that has recently passed away, because it’s not uncommon for people to look for a new pet while they are still grieving for their old one.  And when that happens, we pause for a little while to hear their stories.  Grieving people need the chance to express their sorrow, and that can only happen if we take the time to listen.

Of course there are times when we truly are too busy to pause, even for a couple of minutes, just because someone wants our attention.  But I also believe that there are many times when we just hurry on our way, believing that we don’t have the time to deal with someone else’s problems, or can’t possibly spare a moment on someone who isn’t an integral part of our day-to-day life.  And that’s a shame, because that means we’ve lost an opportunity to form a real connection to another human being, especially at a time when the other person desperately needs that connection.

IMG_1767Most of us do live busy lives and keep hectic schedules, and aren’t always able to “stop and smell the roses” as the old saying goes.  That means time is a precious commodity, and like all precious commodities, it should be spent wisely.  But there is a difference between spending our time wisely and hoarding our time with little or no regard for the needs of others.  And when we are able to be generous with our time, and use it to truly help someone else, then that is always time well spent.