Personal Musings

Stranger Danger

~ MaryG ~ 15 Comments

I’m making a sincere attempt to leave my political anger behind for the weekend…there will be no F bombs in this post.

I’m from Massachusetts. We don’t say “y’all,” except when it rhymes. Well, it’s fall y’all and it’s absolutely gorgeous here. If you’ve never been to New England in the fall, you should add it to your bucket list.

After a few days of true sweater weather in the 50s, it’s going to be back in the 70s today.

A view of a pond along the rail trail I walk daily
A skeleton seated on a tractor beside the rail trail
Late afternoon sun shining through some greenery along the rail trail

Speaking of “my” rail trail, there is an empty field that runs alongside it:

Interestingly, this field was used as a shooting location three years ago for “Salem’s Lot,” which is now streaming on Max. The movie is based on a book by Stephen King, the prolific horror writer from Maine.

Back in the fall of 2021 on my daily walk, I watched Hollywood transform this field into a 1970s drive-in, complete with numerous cars from the era.

This is the Salem’s Lot set under construction in October 2021. The blue building on the right is the projection booth for the drive-in.

As you can imagine, there was a lot of gawking by walkers and cyclists along the rail trail. It was still peak COVID, so many people were working remotely and there wasn’t much else going on. This was fascinating! By the time the filming actually started, there were production assistants keeping people off the field. But you could still see a lot of the activity from the rail trail. One day I saw what I thought were zombies crossing the field.

Well, last night we watched Salem’s Lot on Max and I discovered they weren’t zombies—they were vampires! As you might imagine, I paused the TV several times during the drive-in movie scenes to orient myself.

The beginning of one of the drive-in movie scenes in Salem’s Lot on Max. The blue projection booth building is on the left.

I’m sorry to report that it’s not a very good film, BUT if it’s free to you, it might be fun to watch it on Halloween night while you answer the doorbell for trick or treaters.

If you’re a GenXer like me, it might also bring back some bits of your childhood you’d forgotten. The story is set in 1975 and the kids in the film are about the same age I was then…10.

As a ten-year old, “Stranger Danger” was constantly lurking. Adults were always warning us about the possibility of somebody with a puppy or a candy bar luring us into their car. I never worried one bit about school shootings, but I did worry a lot about getting kidnapped!

When that first little kid gets snatched in the film, I thought to myself “stranger danger.”

Duh!

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments
Posted on Facebook by “Feminist News”

My first thought when I saw this post was “no shit.” Do some women actually think they have to vote how their husbands do? (And don’t even get me started on churches. Pastors should not be telling their flocks how to vote. And if they do, they should get their nonprofit tax-exempt status revoked.)

My second thought was “how sad.” So many women are stuck in power-imbalanced marriages and feel they can’t get out.

I’ve been married 31 years and my husband (thankfully) never even entertained the idea of voting for Trump, but we’ve had plenty of other fights. Two things he’s never done is physically threaten me (even though he’s much bigger and stronger than me) or try to control what I do (even though he earned much more money than I did when we were both working).

If you’re being controlled by your husband or boyfriend—either physically or mentally—you should be making your escape plan. I firmly believe that.

And did you see that interview that Kamala did with Fox News? Infuriating! Fuck Bret Baier. Fuck him right in the ass.

18 more days.

Sweater Weather and Anger

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments

I love the ubiquitous clip of Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph saying “sweater weather.” It’s dumb, but it makes me laugh every time. I think it’s because Amy Poehler is using an authentic Boston accent. She grew up two towns over from where I did.

It is, in fact, “sweater weather” in Massachusetts. And I’m very pleased to report that I wore a sweater out to lunch yesterday and did not regret it. Maybe my hot flashes are finally subsiding.

I am continuing to write letters and postcards to help get out the vote in swing states, but that will be ending soon. My extreme anger at the Trump movement has risen to the surface again. I’m really fucking pissed at everyone who voted for him in 2016 and/or 2020, including members of my own family (not my husband or my kids). And I truly HATE all of Trump’s Republican enablers in the GOP. My hatred extends to all the Republicans who don’t support him, but have strategically kept their mouths shut during this campaign. For example, my college classmate Jane Swift (former Governor of Massachusetts) has not said one thing in support of Harris. Fuck you Jane. Nobody cares about your daughter’s engagement ring. Post about something that actually matters. Be BRAVE, like Liz Cheney. Speaking of former Massachusetts Governors, where the fuck is Mitt Romney??!? He should be out campaigning for Harris. Bill Weld has been public about supporting Harris, but unfortunately nobody gives a shit about Bill Weld anymore.

19 more days.

I think I should stop watching the news and just watch videos of cats in sweaters for the next three weeks.

Haiku

~ MaryG

Sibling Alienation

A person who takes

A “lost soul” ever indulged

Parent enablers 

Image from Pexels

For personal reasons, I’ve closed comments for this post, but thank you for reading.

Art museums

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments

My husband and I are very different. In fact, we’re almost complete opposites. He likes a lot of things that I will never ever be into like weightlifting in gyms, football and other contact sports like rugby, and hardcore (punk) music. I like a lot of things that he will never ever be into like singing in choirs, going to musicals, and swimming.

For many years, we just kind of did our own thing. I went to the beach with friends, while he stayed home and went to the gym…

But if you’re going to stay married to one person for your entire adult life, you must come up with at least a few shared activities, especially after your kids fly the coop, or you will have absolutely nothing interesting to talk about!

One of the things we both like to do is go to art museums. We have memberships at a few local museums and we go to their major exhibitions. Yesterday was the Georgia O’Keefe and Henry Moore exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

It was an interesting idea. They took two artists who worked in different mediums (a painter and a sculptor) in the same time period (early 20th century) and put them side by side. The idea was to see how they were grappling with similar themes in their work, especially nature and tension/balance between shapes, and appreciate how they influenced each other.

The galleries were quite crowded (a great sign for art museums!), but that made it a bit difficult to fully consider the interplay between the two artists. Still, I think I got the idea.

This gallery, with a large Moore sculpture in the foreground and O’Keefe paintings on the walls, shows what the curators were going for with this exhibit.

My husband liked the Moore sculptures best. Me? I just love those famous Georgia O’Keefe flower paintings. As many times as I’ve seen them reproduced as prints and posters, the originals are so nuanced and gorgeous. What can I say? I like flowers and pretty colors. (They sort of reminded me of the Northern Lights.)

And then, for something completely different, we took a stroll through a Salvador Dalí exhibit. The famous Spanish surrealist was truly an extraordinary painter. Interestingly, he was a contemporary of Moore and O’Keefe. All three lived through World War II—an event so monumental no artist was unaffected by it.

The Three Ages (Old Age, Adolescence and Infancy) by Dalí, 1940. If you look closely, each section of the painting is a double image (i.e. the left side is a standing, stooped figure and also an old man’s face).
“This painting revisits Dalí’s most famous composition, The Persistence of Memory, which by the early 1950s had become emblematic not only of Dalí, but also of the Surrealism movement.
Here Dali once again places melting watches in a barren landscape, but now the context is the post-war atomic age. An elaborate grid of bricks recedes toward the distant horizon, the boxy shapes becoming missile-like forms. Typical of the artist, the picture’s meaning is ambiguous, though very much of the nuclear era.”

The Northern Lights

~ MaryG ~ 36 Comments

I think a lot of people in the Northeast (including me!) checked off “See the Northern Lights” from their buckets lists last night. This was especially rewarding for those of us who missed seeing them in May. Who knew our once-in-a-lifetime chance would come twice in one year?

The Northern Lights from my very own neighborhood last night around 7:15pm. I was on my way to choir practice and happened to look up.

This feels like a lot of things.

Remembrance

The lights and colors in the sky last night reminded me of my close friend from college, Carla, who died in 2022. She had brain cancer. She really wanted to see the Northern Lights before she died, but was too sick to travel, so her friends and family found a way to project them onto the ceiling in her bedroom in Santa Fe. It was beautiful.

A Sign

I know I’m not alone in feeling a lot of anxiety about the state of the country and the way it feels like we’re never going to go back to “normal” — no matter who wins the election. I’ve never in my life been afraid of a US election, but I’m afraid of this one.

Similarly, I never once saw the Northern Lights as a kid growing up in Massachusetts, but this year, many New Englanders saw them twice! A little girl standing near me last night said, “this is God.” Maybe so. Or maybe it’s a sign of transition to a new era—an era where completely new things happen.

Unknown new things are scary and I have a strong urge to “circle the wagons” and try to protect the ones I love. (I think to myself, “please stay in Massachusetts where you’ll maybe be a bit safer from gun violence, flooding, dangerous reproductive care, crappy public schools, etc.)

But I know that’s not really possible.

My new granddaughter will hopefully live into the next century. She will live out most of her life in this new era, whatever it may be. I want her to feel free, adventurous, and safe to explore the world beyond her home state.

Living in the transitional time

An activist friend of mine left for New Zealand yesterday. She’s staying until the end of the month. She said she just needed to get out of the country for these last few weeks before the election. I can relate. In some ways, it’s all just too much.

Maybe seeing the aurora borealis is the reminder some of us needed to center ourselves and live in the moment. Humans have been around a long time and have accomplished many great things and many terrible things. Even though it sometimes feels like end times are upon us, there’s a decent chance that something great is just around the corner too.

Final thought: just breathe

Related post:

Northern Lights II

Florida

~ MaryG ~ 16 Comments

I’ve spent more time in Florida than any other state outside New England. I like Florida. I love the beaches. I like the theme parks. I love all the outdoor dining. I like the diversity. I love the winter weather. I like how easy it is to get there from Boston with many cheap, nonstop flights daily.

We have close friends and family in Orlando, the Palm Beach area and Naples. They have been through many hurricanes and they don’t typically get too concerned. Therefore, I did not immediately change my travel plans when a very late season hurricane (Nicole) was forecast in November 2022. We were scheduled to look at condos with a realtor and she would’ve been highly inconvenienced if we cancelled. (We were actually thinking of purchasing a second home down there at the time.)

Hurricane Nicole hit on Election Day in November 2022. (Governor Ron DeSantis was overwhelmingly reelected—possibly a bad sign for this Massachusetts liberal.) We were told we had to evacuate our hotel because it was in “Zone B” – a barrier island. I never even got to try the pool. We left and checked into another hotel outside of Zone B.

The hurricane itself wasn’t too bad where we were, but I had a bad reaction to the extreme barometric pressure change. It caused a problem with my inner ear and triggered vertigo. Not fun. I sat in my hotel room with a barf bucket in my lap waiting for the moment we could go to the airport.

After that trip, I decided I would never again visit Florida during hurricane season and really didn’t want to own a condo there. (Renting is fine.)

But I still like Florida.

Hurricane Milton looks horrific. I’m scared for the state. I hope it’s not as bad as they’re saying it will be.

Here we are at my nephew’s wedding on Longboat Key (which looks to be in extreme danger from Hurricane Milton). It was just one of many, many good times I’ve had in the quirky, beautiful, unique state of Florida.

If God Would Go on Sick Leave

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

It’s now been a whole year since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel in which 1,200 men, women and thirty-six children were horrifically killed and 250 abducted. Since then, over 40,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed and countless thousands have been injured and displaced, including mothers, children and infants.

Mothers, children, and infants, like my precious granddaughter…

My minister shared this poem on Sunday and it really struck a chord with our Unitarian Universalist congregation.

“If God Would Go On a Sick Leave: A Poem of Peace”

by Rabbi Zoë Klein

Nowhere is there more prayer.
The Nuns at the Holy Sepulchre.
The faithful at Al Aqsa Mosque.
The worshippers at the Wall.
The call to prayer at dawn and dusk
Warbling from the citadels.
The church bells,
The Persian trills,
The passion spilled over texts
From every major/minor religious sect.
Nowhere is there more prayer than Jerusalem,
Thanks be to God, Hamdilala, Baruch Hashem.
And yet,
I’m starting to think that it’s You and not them,
God, what’s the point of prayer?
If there’s nowhere where
There’s more prayer,
And terror reigns
Then, Who’s to blame?
If suddenly, without a whisper goodbye,
Jesus, Allah, Adonai,
The three men they admire most
All took the last train for the coast,
And the Moslems got up from their knees
And the Christians put down their rosaries
And the Jews stayed their hands from kissing
Their mezuzahs,
And everyone looked up,
And realized something’s missing…
God is missing.
Stop the praying! No One’s there,
They’d arrange a party to search everywhere.
They’d look for God
But there’d be no Presence
In Holy Books or stars and crescents
Or steeples and crosses.
People’d be at a loss,
Is He ever coming back?
They’d be so distraught,
Their searching for naught,
There’d be nothing on high
So they’d turn to on low,
There’d be nothing above
So they’d turn to below,
And they’d finally see there,
In the face of the other,
A semblance of sister,
The eyes of a brother,
They’d turn and they’d lean
Upon one another.
You see, every group can’t believe that they’re the ones chosen,
Every group can’t believe that the Holy Land’s owed them,
Sometimes faith in You, God,
Builds insurmountable walls,
And everyone falls.
Everyone falls.
How wise are the secularists for whom the dead aren’t martyred
But, quite plainly, murdered…
This might sound like an absurd,
ungodly thing to say,
A truly heretical supplication to pray,
(I say this only out of the deepest respect)
But if for a few days, God, You’d just give it a rest,
If You’d take a sick leave and just go away
And let Israel work this out without You in the way,
God, for that kind of peace,
You’re a small price to pay.

Image from Pexels

Grandma

~ MaryG ~ 19 Comments

My granddaughter is perfect.

There’s no feeling like holding your first grandchild for the first time. It’s an experience of pure love. It’s a bit different than the new parent feeling of baby love, which is such a huge life-altering event. (Your life is ever after divided into two parts—before and after.)

Becoming a grandparent is just a…gift. A gift from the universe. I’m crying as I write this. I don’t love the word “blessed” because of its association with traditional Christianity, but…I mean…heck… it sure does apply here.

I’ve been searching for quotes about becoming a grandparent that resonate. I kind of like this one:

“Grandchildren are the reward for those who have labored as parents.”

But I don’t love the word “reward” in it. Children are not rewards.

Becoming a grandparent is just awesome. That’s all I can say. I know I’m very lucky too. For whatever reasons, the birthrate is way down in the US. A significant number of millennials are choosing not to have children. I’m just so fortunate that my wonderful daughter and her partner have chosen to take the parenthood plunge.

And some practical advice for new grandmothers (based on my one week of experience):

Don’t be annoying.

Be helpful.

Let the parents figure out how to feed and care for their brand new baby. Do your best to take care of the parents—with meals, cleaning, recycling boxes, and whatever else they obviously need. Some ideas have changed since we had kids, especially around bottle vs breast “nipple confusion.” Don’t assert yourself too hard with your old ideas. And don’t say any of those annoying things that all mothers have up their sleeve! Tell the parents how awesome they’re doing at life’s hardest job.

One thing you will always be 100% in agreement on is that their baby (“our” baby 😉) is the cutest baby.

I’ve mentioned before how much I enjoyed the Leanne Morgan comedy special “I’m Every Woman” on Netflix. This bit about becoming a grandma is one of my favorite parts 😂🤣😂

Haiku for my granddaughter

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments

On the eve of you

I slept with a golden charm

My Daughter, my heart

To my readers: my granddaughter has arrived safe and sound – thank the universe! She is perfect in every way and so is her name, which I love, but won’t be sharing publicly at this time.

As a mother, I can tell you it’s pretty darn stressful to have your own precious daughter go through labor and delivery. I wrote this haiku during the first night of her labor, which went on for two whole nights. I barely slept a wink!

I’m a grandma, people!!!!!

Best promotion ever!

💕

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