Category Archives: In the Company of Women

A safe place to share joy and sorrow, laughter and tears, triumph and disappointment.

Be Clenched

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I’ve been trying to post some ordinary wisdom each Wednesday on the Ordinary Legacy Facebook page and this week’s ordinary wisdom was from Susan Sontag:

“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.”

I was intrigued by the words “be clenched”.  How does one do that?  I get curious, I get paying attention, and I get eager.  Couldn’t wrap my mind around being clenched.  But I love the sound of it, I love the idea of it, I love the way it makes the right side of my brain spark.  I began wondering where the quote came from, one of her books, some off handed remark, and so through the magic of Google I found this:

Susan Sontag, Vassar speech, 2003

Despise violence. Despise national vanity and self-love. Protect the territory of conscience.

Try to imagine at least once a day that you are not an American. Go even further: try to imagine at least once a day that you belong to the vast, the overwhelming majority of people on this planet who don’t have passports, don’t live in dwellings equipped with both refrigerators and telephones, who have never even once flown in a plane.

Be extremely skeptical of all claims made by your government. Remember, it may not be the best thing for America or for the world for the president of the United States to be the president of the planet. Be just as skeptical of other governments, too.

It’s hard not to be afraid. Be less afraid.

It’s good to laugh a lot, as long as it doesn’t mean you’re trying to kill your feelings.

Don’t allow yourself to be patronized, or condescended to – which if you are a woman, happens, and will continue to happen, all the time.

Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead… Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. It’s all about taking in as much of what’s out there as you can, and not letting the excuses and the dreariness of some of the obligations you’ll be incurring narrow your lives. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.

You’ll notice that I haven’t talked about love. Or about happiness. I’ve talked about becoming – and remaining – the person who can be happy, a lot of the time, without thinking that being happy is what it’s all about. It’s not. It’s about becoming the largest, most inclusive, most responsive person you can be.

Oh this is rich.  This short speech delivered to the graduates of Vassar in 2003 is full of wisdom.  Sadly, she was fighting for her life at this very moment, only to lose that fight a year later. What a gift from such a renowned intellectual to put forth so succinctly a manifesto for life.

But I’m still drawn to the “be clenched”.  I find it interesting that in all the versions I’ve seen of this quote the eluding to the “taking in as much of what’s out there, not letting the excuses and the dreariness of some of the obligations you’ll be incurring narrow your lives” part is always missing.  What a mistake omitting the very thing that serves as the juxtaposition needed to “be clenched”.  I think I get it.

To be clenched is never to put the blinders on, no matter what you’ve seen.  To be clenched is to feel, the hair rising on the back of your neck.  To be clenched is to savor food for thought and moments in time.  To be clenched is to learn, differently than you’ve learned before from interesting and non- traditional teachers.

To be clenched is to know like you know that you don’t know what you don’t know.

 

Happy Mother’s Day from a Father’s Daughter

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With two you get eggroll

She loves her Chinese food, me not so much.  She has a million quips and quotes that somehow grew us up and we remember to this day.  She is eighty three and like most people her age she concentrates on herself, some amazing survival instinct of the aged. She truly made a silk purse from a sow’s ear, she scrimped and saved and has a wonderful nest egg, me not so much but she is generous.

In the eight years since my Father passed we have become…something.  Something more than we were and less than we will ever be.  I have developed a certain respect for her charm, her ability to bring people to her and to make them feel…something.  Loved, important, heard, special.  She has a long line of people who will always remember how she made them feel.  Including me.

But she and I couldn’t be more different in many ways.  I am hopeful that I’ve been able to cultivate that ability of hers to bring people to me.  Maya Angelou said today that her second greatest blessing has been her ability to turn people into children of hers.  I’ve had a string of people that I believe turned into children of mine but have now moved on into wonderful and satisfying lives through new jobs, new relationships or reestablished relationships with their own mothers, and new…something.

You never really know the effect you’ve had on people, there are no Mother’s Day calls when people have taken your love and lessons and moved on to send those lessons into their own worlds.  You can be grateful for the love and lessons you’ve received from a Mother you’re only now getting to know, love and respect.   I am grateful for both the sending and the receiving.

Happy Mother’s Day to all.

Brutto Bello

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ugly beautiful

Ugly Beautiful was the photo prompt on today’s Treasure Hunt.  The challenge was to find beauty in an unlikely place.   Make it come alive through the lens, see it into beauty.

This is not an uncommon concept.  According to urbandictionary.com:   Beautiful ugly is a term used in modeling, when a model has such striking or odd features that they could be considered quite beautiful or very ugly. This is especially rare, and highly desired, especially in couture shots.   They insist that very few “beautiful uglies” exist, as many are simply labeled unattractive, and unsuitable for any type of modeling.

I wouldn’t know a thing about modeling, having spent a good amount of time shying away from the camera.  But I understand the concept of beautiful ugly, in my case brutto bella.  I don’t LOOK beautiful but I AM beautiful.  There is a distinct difference.  I embody that difference and I’m now learning to embrace that difference.

Being beautiful is about a life well lived, lessons learned, attitude and resilience.  Being beautiful is about others, service and what motivates your actions. It’s about the mitzvah itself I heard a rabbi say this weekend at a bar mitzvah I attended.  My dear friend Linda’s grandson did so beautifully she could have bust.

Beautiful is about being comfortable in your skin while being comfortable in your clothes.  It’s finding your style, enjoying your own company, never feeding anything but yourself.   It’s about passing the mirror and recognizing yourself.  That took a bit of time.  It’s about having your picture taken, over and over again, looking in the lens each time knowing you ARE beautiful.

San, Lina and Toto too

It’s about passion.  Until recently I didn’t know what passion was.  I thought it was grand.  I never understood what all the damn fuss was about.  But I’m getting it now.  When I sit down to write, when I pick up my camera, when I read and when time slips away from me I know I’m engaging in something I’m passionate about.   Can’t quite put my finger on it, I’m not saving the world but in my own backyard I’m doing good things…with passion…more often than not.

Is that to say I never have a good solid stamp your feet pity party?  No, just had one thank you.

It means trying hard not to get stuck in your ways by declaring yourself a lifelong learner.  Remain curious, listen to people half your age, let them pick out your sunglasses, and strive for cool in your own way.  It will confirm you are beautiful, to them too.

Maya Angelou said it best; “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”   Make the people around you feel wonderful and heard and important and they will only ever see you as beautiful.

Capture Life

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cottage 960 capture life

Photo credit: Maureen Nichols, Cottage 960

Is it that you don’t know how things work for me?  Picture this (pun intended)…I’ve got a great camera, Nikon, I’ve got perspective, someone once told me, and I’m not using it.  Why the hell not?  Who the hell knows?  I believe, no, I know like I know that it’s the getting started that’s got me.  So….I put it out there and it’s just amazing what happens.

Maureen at Cottage960 (www.cottage960.com ) puts a really cool new pendant on her FB page of a woman in a beautiful 1940’s era suit, that alone was right up my alley, snapping a picture with her brownie camera.  On the back it says, “Capture Life”.  You know I own it now, right?  When I take the girls to get groomed the cashier says to me, “So when you capture life, what are you going to do with it?”  Here I am back at who the hell knows.

Then I get an email from a blog I follow called Super Hero Life (www.superherolife.com )   Subject:  Sad bananas and finding our joy again.  Ok, I’m listening.  Andrea Scher, creative force behind Super Hero Life is sponsoring a Treasure Hunt course starting May 1st.  For a small fee (from the email):

  • A creative photo prompt each day in your inbox
  • Photo tips + creative musings to inspire your work
  • A warm, encouraging community space on Flickr to share your work and support your fellow treasure seekers!

Come on that’s perfect and I am in.  I’m all about sparking creative juices.  So I’m signed up and looking forward to getting back into my camera and my perspective.

Then, I’m reading something on Upworthy.com and there’s a tiny little glimpse of an ad for this movement, seminar, thing called One Picture Saves a Life.  You can sign up for a seminar at St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Complex (www.sthuberts.org ) to learn how you can become a volunteer to photograph shelter dogs to bring them closer to adoption.  Send an email and if there’s room, first come first served, you’re in…for free…being taught by Seth Casteel (www.littlefriendsphoto.com ) of Underwater Dogs fame.  You know I sent the email, you know I got invited.

So Saturday morning I take a ride to Madison NJ to St. Hubert’s and participate in this seminar that blew me away.  Go to www.onepicturesaves.com to get the full story.  Suffice to say Seth Casteel is an awesome dude, and all of you know I never use the word dude. Generous with his knowledge, he (along with Petfinder, Greater Good, the Animal Rescue Site, and John Paul Pet) put this program together down to the last detail.  He even tells you what lens you need, camera settings, best backgrounds, shelters looking for volunteers.  I tell you I am stoked about this….who better than me, one part of Two Aunts and a Chevy fame to take this on.  It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning, learning with like-minded people, about how to help shelter dogs when you’re condo association says you can only have a minimum of two dogs.  I hope the other half of the Two Aunts and a Chevy is listening…just saying Toots you hated Chevy’s picture too.  But I digress.

The thing is I don’t have the lens, 50mm straight, and you know I looked on line and they cost a small fortune.  So I think let me go down to Bergen County Camera ( www.bergencountycamera.com ) and just look,  yeah right.  Do you know what downtown Westwood, NJ is like on a Saturday afternoon? It’s sunny and perfect for a day in one of the best downtowns around so it’s jammin.  Oh come on, you know I got a parking space, you know there was an hour left on the meter and you know like you know that BCC had a used 50mm for $79.00.  Of course they did, my sister is saying as she reads this.

My two most willing (not really) subjects (victims) Toto and Lina are being snapped a frame a second. They are giving me the Moooooooom look.  They are taking themselves to bed and having no more of it.  Not to worry I will find other willing (maybe) subjects to snap.  I know like I know that as Karma would have it anything animal related, carried out for their greater good, will only serve to increase your personal Karmic equity.  I will be golden my friends…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wallyball Forfeit

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speak the truth

What the hell is Wallyball?  Oh you’ll love it.  You play in a racquetball court with a volley ball and a net. You play off the walls, it’s fast and it’s fun and it will be hysterical.  Was this the plan the whole time?  Well yeah, we didn’t want to tell you because…Because I’m not the least bit athletic, because I smoke, because I’m bigger than any two of you put together, because I’d be the one running for towels and wouldn’t that be perfect?

I’ll take the forfeit.  You can’t forfeit, it’s her fortieth birthday party.  Yeah I know.  I’m going to take the forfeit.  Why are you saying that, she’ll be crushed.  No she’ll understand.  I have no idea if she understood, I never saw her again.  In my heart I knew that would be the case but I did it anyway.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I was ready to quit this friendship but my method of breaking it apart haunts me to this day.

We had been friends on and off since high school.  It was an interesting friendship, she the blonde athletic beauty that all the boys adored and I the dark haired side kick that all the boys lamented to about never getting her attention. There were times when I thought she keeps me around just to clean up the messes and,  although I could hold my own on the looks side of things, didn’t I make her look all that much more beautiful for my curviness and Italian features.

The relationship was on again for most of the major life events, her wedding, my wedding, her annulment, her next wedding, and the birth of her children.  I was maid of honor, matron of honor, Godmother to one of her children and her mother used to call us sisters.

We weren’t sisters.  There came a time that we no longer wore the same size clothes.  There came a time that I began to smoke more.  There came a time that I seemed to be relegated to the kitchen during parties while she socialized with her, now quite beautiful, friends.  These were the young mothers with all that entailed and all that I had no interest in.  I am a favorite Aunt with all that entails but they couldn’t grasp the importance or the prestige of that title.

At the same time she moved an hour away.  Visits became infrequent and thankfully I didn’t need to recount the goings on in my life with a husband that had become addicted to drugs.  On the rare occasions we did get together, always at her much bigger much more expensive home, the uneasiness was palpable.  I knew this was not going to be a lifelong friendship after all but I’m a never-say-die kind that just keeps trying and blaming myself for the lack of improvement.

At one point in my life I realized that no one had ever left me.  Interesting thought to cross one’s mind but it’s true.  And why would they?  I am a giver, I’m the one who will loan you the money, clean up the mess, make an excuse on your behalf and generally make sure you are comfortable and accommodated. Not always to your benefit I came to find out when my husband and I finally divorced after twenty six years of marriage.

So as I was putting all the pieces together toward moving on, this party arises.  In my heart of hearts I couldn’t imagine I would ever do a thing like not show up.  But I couldn’t, I just couldn’t.  I could not bear the embarrassment of people jumping in front of me for a ball as they had so many times before.  I could not chance the unpredictability of my husband’s behavior.  Who the hell knows what side of the high he might find himself on and did I want to haul an hour away only to turn around anyway.  I couldn’t stand trying to put on a fun face in front of all the slender young mothers again.  And I could not be the one to fetch the towels.  Or serve the food.  Or take the pictures.  Or be invisible.  I just couldn’t.

So that was the end of that.  Why does it haunt me?  I’m not sure.  Did she turn out to be right about my husband and the one sided relationship. Yes.  Was she right when she warned me that being a Godmother was a big responsibility not to be taken lightly before I made the decision to say yes.  Yes.  Was she right about health and smoking and vegetables. Yes.

I’m sure it haunts me because it was heartless and it could have been handled better.  It haunts me because it doesn’t represent the way I do things.  It haunts me because I let them down and I’ve tried my entire life never to let anyone down.  It doesn’t haunt me because it ended but because I was completely selfish in my execution of the friendship’s end.  The irony of using the word execution does not escape me.  I didn’t speak the truth to the person who needed to hear it.

So now it is seventeen years later and I think of her on her birthday each year.  I wonder if I should apologize for my behavior.  And then it occurs to me that she has probably gotten beyond the Wallyball forfeit years ago and I am giving myself entirely too much credit for “ruining” anything.  I look at the state of my life on this day and feel I’ve done more good than harm in the seventeen years that have past but somehow I can’t seem to let it go.  It doesn’t stay with me every waking hour but it does give me pause when there are hard conversations to be had with friends.

I’ve developed an interesting mix of friends since leaving my husband four years ago.  The life I was living was one of isolation so now that I am reengaged I am careful to monitor when to engage fully and when to hold back just a bit.  This is not a constant vigilance but I never again want to fail to recognize when my comfort level is being threatened.  I never want to be relegated to the kitchen unless it’s my choice and oddly enough it’s usually my first choice now.

I no longer smoke. I am slimmer now but certainly not near the curvy figure I once had.  Thankfully, I am much healthier, nuts, berries and the occasional vegetable to thank for that.  I’m older now and I know I will never recapture my youth; it’s gone and mostly cherished for its lessons learned.  I know like I know, that I will try to speak the truth and continue to honor myself in my friendships and that the mishandling of a friendship, or its breakup, is nothing I ever want to repeat.