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Daily writing prompt
If you started a sports team, what would the colors and mascot be?
I’d go with violet, teal, and fuchsia.
So, maybe the mascot could be a peacock, but like, a mean one.
The Mean(ish) Peacocks
Personal Musings
AIDS made me a lifelong lib
How have your political views changed over time?
I’ve gotten more liberal.
When I was young, my views were influenced by my parents and the Catholic Church. I remember defending Nancy Reagan in an editorial I wrote for a high school social studies class.
By the time I was a junior in college, I had totally changed my mind about President Reagan. Working in the arts after college, and being exposed to the AIDS activism in that community, opened my eyes further to structural inequities. The fact that the AIDS virus (HIV) was considered a “pre-existing condition” by insurance companies and could leave young, sick people without medical care was very real and horrific to me.
Reagan was so slow to even acknowledge AIDS was a disease (much less a full blown crisis), the arts community was absolutely furious and made a lot of art about it. That had a profound effect on me.
TO READ list
Daily writing prompt
You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?
I’ve read some nice posts from other bloggers this morning referencing famous writers. Their posts reminded me how Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own once affected me. It encouraged me to move into my own studio apartment, when I was just out of college. Living without roommates was a little scary, but somehow Woolf’s words from 1928 helped give me courage to live all by myself. I need to re-read that. I liked I.V. Greco’s post, which mentions Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, a book I’ve been meaning to read since my friend Kathy recommended it while I was in Paris. I was never a Hemingway fan, but I’m going to give his Paris memoir a shot. Also, Rebuilding Rob wrote about Henry David Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond in his response to this prompt. Another book I need to read.
Now that I’m unemployed/retired, I need to read more books. Perhaps that will be my New Year’s resolution. In addition to Walden, A Moveable Feast, and A Room of One’s Own, I’ve got a lovely book of poetry waiting for me to pick it up. I can tell by the poems that she’s shared in her blog that Ever So Gently by Lauren Scott will be a treat.
Here are a few photos from my most recent trip to Walden Pond in Concord, MA. It was an unusually warm day in very late October. I wonder if Thoreau ever could’ve imagined his Walden would become such a popular, though still pristine, destination for people from around the world. Less than 20 miles from Boston, Walden is an especially popular spot for city residents who just want to get out in nature for the day. I saw several folks perched in quiet spots along the pond reading books, all by themselves.
Back when we were tiny
What is your all time favorite automobile?
I’m not a car enthusiast, but I associate certain cars with certain events or periods in my life. For example, Honda minivans will forever remind me of my young parenting years. Those were the largest cars I ever owned.
On the other extreme, my parents owned a blue Volkswagen bug when I was very young. I have an early memory of stuffing myself into a tiny spot in the upper part of the back seat. I remember looking up at the interior ceiling. It had little dots or holes in the material and you could kind of blur your eyes and it created an optical illusion. The dots would seem closer than they actually were, like in a Magic Eye book.
I don’t have a photo of that car, but here I am, around the same time, stretching out my legs in my new red wagon. I fit perfectly!
Do you remember fitting yourself into a small space back when you were tiny?
Merry Christmas
How are you creative?
I’m up early (7:30am) thinking of all the parents of all the young children around the world who have probably been up for two hours already. Santa came! Woo hoo! Enjoy it…these years are a lot of work, but will fly by in the blink of an eye. (Sorry, I’m sure you’ve heard this once or twice – or like ten thousand times – before.)
I think my main creative outlet these days, besides singing and this blog, is photography. And I don’t even use a real (35mm) camera anymore, just my iPhone. Here’s a shot I got the other night on my way home from choir. I thought this deer was a holiday lawn ornament, then I realized he was real. I backed up my car, opened my window, and said “hey deer.” This made him stop munching the neighbor’s shrub and look up at me.
We’re not having a white Christmas here in New England, but at least we’ve got (rein)deer.
Grant Us Peace
I hope you enjoy this recording that my choir made in 2021 during the pandemic lockdown. We each recorded ourselves singing alone at home and then sent the files to our choir director. She mixed them together using some sort of software and it really sounds quite good, especially considering she’d never done anything like this before. It was also very meaningful to the choir, and to the congregation, to hear our voices blended again after being separated for so long. Many were struggling with loneliness and isolation.
The text “Dona nobis pacem” means “Grant us peace.” The melody has been passed orally, although it is sometimes attributed to Mozart. English-language hymnals usually mark it “Traditional.” It is sung as a round, so you can sing any of the three parts at any time. You’ll never be wrong.
Beyond use at church, the round has been sung around the world in secular settings as a prayer for peace.
Merry Christmas.
Peace on Earth.
GenX arrives
Share what you know about the year you were born.
OK, I cheated and googled it. A fantastic photo journey through 1965 from The Atlantic came up. Check it out here.
The eldest members of Generation X arrived in a big year – Selma, Vietnam, The Beatles, the first moon walk, the Voting Rights Act. I did not know that Winston Churchill died in 1965, or that the US occupied the Dominican Republic that year.
Now I’ll admit to a horribly vain thing that I do: I keep track of a select list of female celebrities – born in 1965 – for the sole purpose of watching them age and comparing myself to them. I’ll literally pause a TV show and ask my husband if Sarah Jessica Parker looks older or younger than me. He knows the right answer is always “about the same as you.” You don’t stay married for 30+ years without learning basic shit.
Here’s my “born in 1965” vanity comparison list with birthdays. I was born in June, so I’m within 6 months of each of them.
Kyra Sedgwick, 8/19
Diane Lane, 1/22
Sarah Jessica Parker, 3/25
Elizabeth Hurley, 6/10
Brooke Shields, 5/31
Kristin Davis, 2/23
Paulina Porizkova, 4/9
Viola Davis, 8/11
Julia Ormond, 1/4
Maura Tierney, 2/3
Marlee Matlin, 8/24
Shania Twain, 8/28
Linda Evangelista, 5/10
I seem to have a special fondness for my fellow GenX Gemini, Brooke Shields. (She was looking at colleges the same time I was and visited some of the same schools.) I really enjoyed the recent documentary about her (Pretty Baby). She’s keepin it real and, in my opinion, looks better than ever.
All bets are off
No, I am not a good judge of character. Prior to the 2016 election, I would’ve had a different answer. Back then, my idea of “good character” was still based on what I’d learned over the years in school and church and from my family. Lying and stealing were bad. Racism and misogyny were also bad. Nazis were the absolute worst. Sure, I had rejected the Catholic Church and become a Unitarian Universalist, but I believed that most people (liberal or conservative) had a common understanding of the differences between right and wrong. I did not vote for John McCain or Mitt Romney, but I understood why reasonable people would. They were men of good character. Then, 63 million of my fellow Americans, including the man I’ve loved and trusted since Day One (my dad), voted for someone who had been caught on tape admitting to sexual assault and I realized that I never really knew anything about anyone.
LOL
Wow, tough prompt. There are different kinds of happiness. There’s contentment, relief, satisfaction, pure joy, thrill, etc. I was relieved when I woke up in my warm bed this morning and realized again (re-realized?) that someone I truly dislike is out of my life forever. Ahhhhh.
I’m content sitting here looking at my beautiful December delivery from BloomsyBox.com. I’ll be satisfied when we finish our Christmas puzzle, but – horror or horrors – it appears that a piece may have disappeared into the vaccum cleaner. Lifting up my voice with others in song is pure joy, especially when I feel like our choir is really nailing it and the congregation responds. Travel can be thrilling. My very first glimpse of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris from the taxi on the way to the hotel was a thrill. There it was – the real thing.
But there’s nothing quite like laughter – tears in your eyes laughter – to really make you feel happy. Here’s where I admit that I enjoy smoking weed, always have. I have so many great memories of smoking a joint and giggling with my dear departed friend Carla. Looking into her big beautiful eyes and just cracking up about something. I’m not saying I need weed to laugh helplessly, but it does tend to have that effect on me. Most recently, I smoked (well, vaped) and watched a really funny Netflix stand-up comedy special by Pete Holmes (whom I’d never heard of before) and laughed out loud. White, straight, male stand-up comedians can go either way for me – I either hate them or I love them. Holmes has a modern, silly, interesting male perspective and goes a bit deep on things like God and atheism. Plus, he’s got some absolutley hysterical GenX bits, including one about the old “See and Say” toy we all had. Check it out. High or not. Hopefully, you’ll LOL like I did.
Puzzling
In the past, I wrote about how we did a lot of puzzles during the pandemic, but then I decided I really only enjoy doing them once a year – at Christmas. It’s so nice to work on it together in the same room as the Christmas tree.
The only hard part is figuring out what music to listen to while we puzzle. I like the “Classical Christmas” station on Amazon Music, but after a while that tends to drive my husband out of the room. (To be honest, one too many versions of “Greensleeves” by the Celtic Women is annoying – even to me – and I love that stuff!) I came home the other day and he was working on the puzzle all by himself and listening to everyone’s favorite holiday band: Black Sabbath. 😂
I think we’ll finish by Christmas. We’re making good progress.
White Mountain Puzzles of Jackson, NH makes a good puzzle. Made in the USA. https://www.whitemountainpuzzles.com/
50 Happens 