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My 71st Birthday July 30, 2007 - Needham, MA
Today is my 71st birthday, and it feels like a mini-milestone. It now seems like I'm headed toward 80, which has a really old ring to it! Meanwhile, our lives are really busy and interesting. We've spent much of the day packing for 12 days in Guatemala, and we'll leave tomorrow. We'll go to the Mayan village of Santa Maria Tzeja in the northern rainforest. It will be my 17th trip there over the past 20 years. We'll go with a group of 15 people, including translators. We'll spend two days in Guatemala City, learning about the current economic and social situation of the country and some of the major problems. Then we'll travel north to the village, stopping overnight in Coban, and then on to Santa Maria. During our 6 days in the village, we'll meet with their elected leaders, teachers, and women's groups, eat all our meals in family homes, and absorb the lives of our friends there. There are 5 high school students in our delegation, and we know these trips are life-changing experiences for young people. It's a privilege to have the opportunity to go to this village and work with the people on their goals and renew friendships developed over the years. So, what does it mean to be 71? Maybe I'll write a blog about that!
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National and International News July 20, 2007 - Boston, MA
Living in Boston, you would think we would have good national and international news coverage on our major TV stations. We're consistently disappointed that sensational stories and information about sports and entertainment stars often dominate the news coverage to the exclusion of stories that we view as more important. So, we have settled on three sources. I usually have NPR on when I'm working in the house or driving. At noon we often listen to Democracy Now, from Monday to Friday from 12 to 1, which is the most comprehensive news coverage anywhere. In the evenings, we often watch the Lehrer Report during dinner. We seldom watch the major networks anymore.
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Developing a different sense of myself July 17, 2007 - Needham, MA
As I approach my 71st birthday and complete my life map to this point, I've reflected on different pieces of my life, and I'm being helped to understand why I'm the way I am. This will be a preliminary attempt at explaining. I was the younger child, the second of two girls. My parents both had high school educations, but nothing beyond. My mother's father was a railroad worker, and my father was raised on a farm by relatives after his mother died in childbirth. My parents had a strong desire to be middle-class and to associate with people that had white-collar jobs and more education than they had. We were raised with traditional family values, going to church, doing well in school, always associating with other families who were more or less like us. We were expected to go to college, although the only careers we were led to think about were teaching, nursing, and secretarial work. My parents were prejudiced against people of color and people of other religions. We could not associate with any of those people. I knew only one person in high school whose parents were divorced. Although my parents both smoked and drank socially, I was forbidden to do either of those things. I absorbed their thoughts about other kids who didn't follow the rules they thought were the most important. I was surprised in my first year of high school when my parents forbid me to ride in a car with two African-American brothers who went to my high school. I had a couple of dates later with a boy from a Catholic high school, but my parents stopped that. When I came home for a weekend my freshman year in college and told them I had learned in my biology class that people of different skin colors were just alike underneath, I was told that was not true. When I worked in Cleveland for a summer, I dated a boy who was a conscientious objector because of his Mennonite faith. My parents strongly objected to that. As the younger child in the family, I had never felt fully a part of any family discussions. My sister was smart, and she knew what was being discussed. I often had little to contribute, so I withdrew. When my parents disagreed with what I was learning at church and in school, I just withdrew rather than argue with them. I think the combination of being female, the younger child in the family, and being from the midwest all combined to stifle my willingness to engage in discussions and to exert leadership. I knew that I was smart, but never as smart as my older sister. I got recognition for being a good friend, for my athletic ability(which wasn't valued in girls), and for my above-average academic ability. Later, going through my masters program, I got all A's, even in my first computer course. None of my good friends were going for advanced degrees, and none were working outside the home. I felt proud of myself when I got my master's degree and started my first counseling job, but I was ahead of most women I knew, and I didn't get much support or recognition from my parents, who viewed my job as being a wife and mother. My husband and I were married in 1958, and in the early 1960's the women's movement was in full swing. Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and other women leaders were pushing women to redefine themselves as equals with men. I was lucky that I had a husband who agreed with that idea, while many men fought it. When women got advanced degrees and then jobs, they put themselves into a position to be equal to their husbands. Sometimes women earned more money than their husbands. For women to change meant that men needed to change too. Men, on the other hand, had been brought up to think of themselves as strong, capable, able to support the family and to make the big family decisions. Many men were threatened by their wives' new ideas. Without a new marriage contract, marriages began to fall apart. That happened to so many people our age. One of the things that made it easier for us was that Clark's salary as a minister was never very high. For him to stay in that job, which was his dream, I had to work. But, he deserves a lot of credit for working with me to make the changes so that we could become more equal. In terms of my sense of myself and my abilities, I think the decade of my 40's was crucial. I started a doctoral program at Boston College in 1979 and did well. I was able to juggle graduate school and several internships and jobs, while stll holding the family together. My first year at Harvard was a huge jump for me. I was the oldest person among the 40 or so students in the program. I was married with three children, which made me different from my classmates. I had also grown up in the midwest, gone to a public high school and a midwestern college. No one in my family had ever gone to boarding school, and I had no family money. There was no one else like me in my program. I was competing with people that had been groomed for Harvard and aspired to positions in international educational institutions. People were surprised and in disbelief of my aspirations to improve the public schools. I began to find my voice. Finding my voice extended to taking leadership positions in my various jobs and leading committees at church and in the community. I began to experience myself as more capable than I ever had before. More to come on this later.
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Church Book Club and Reading for Enjoyment July 16, 2007 - Needham, MA
For the past 5 years I have been part of a women's book club, which are all members of the Congregational Church except me. We read somewhat serious novels and have good discussions. We have a poetry evening once a year, and sometimes have a dinner where we invite our husbands. I find these discussions stimulating, and a good incentive to read more books. I also read other books for enjoyment and information. I have recently finished both of Barack Obama's books. I read Al Gore's recent book The Assault on Reason. I would recommend all three. I've also recently read The Whole World Over by Julia Glass and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I would recommend all of the above books. For our first book club meeting in September, we're reading The World to Come.
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My Mother would be 100 Today July 12, 2007 - Boston, MA
My mother, Berniece Orr, died in 1980, but if she had lived she would have been 100 years old today. It's a time for me to think about her life and what she meant to me. She and my father married during the depression, and worked just to get by. They each had just a high school education, but they worked hard, and got ahead. Through my early years, my father traveled a lot and was sometimes gone for two weeks at a time. Mother did all the parenting, and Dad didn't quite know how to fit in when he was at home, although he was always in charge. Mother was President of the PTA, was a PEO, and learned to do all kinds of projects around the home. She taught me to sew on her Singer treadle machine. I watched her make drapes, upholster and refinish furniture, make all our clothes, and plant a victory garden. She was my model for being a self-starter. My mother probably died of a stroke caused by her lifelong smoking habit. My father had given it up 20 years earlier, but she continued to smoke. She had just turned 73 when she died, and I'm two years from that now. I wish she had lived longer.
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Clark's surgery June 28, 2007 - Boston, MA
In late June, Clark had groin surgery, which he had been putting off for awhile. The surgery itself wasn't difficult, but the recovery has been painful and slow. We both find it annoying when health issues get in the way of our exercise programs and all the generally active things that we want to do each day. However, it reminds us to slow down, enjoy the garden, enjoy good meals and conversations, and pick up some parts of life that we sometimes forget about. I try to be a patient caregiver, as he has been so often with me after surgery.
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My Work as Garden Consultant at Briarwood Nursing Home May 1, 2007 - Needham, MA
In April I heard that Briarwood Nursing Facility, which is several blocks from our house, was looking for someone to be their plant consultant. I talked with the director and got hired! Briarwood is an Eden Alternative facility. That means that they try to overcome the usual nursing home idea that residents are sick and need medication and rest. The new philosophy thinks of nursing home residents as isolated and lonely, without meaningful work to do, separated from what has been meaningful in their lives, and with little ability to make decisions. So, the plan is to make the nursing home as much like their former homes as possible, with lots of plants, animals, and birds. Residents choose what they'll wear, what they'll eat, and there are a myriad of activities to stimulate their minds. My job has been to figure out how to get plants everywhere in the nursing home, work with residents and staff to plant and water the plants, and have conversations with them about plants in their prior homes. We've had a lot of fun. A challenge for this summer is to get hummingbirds to discover all the enticing red plants and feeders we've put up. We're also hoping to attract goldfinches. Most of the rooms now have windowsill planters, and the residents are helping to care for them.
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Daughter Heidi's Thyroid Surgery April 29, 2007 - Boston, MA
Heidi had suffered from hyperthroidism for many years, and she had finally agreed to surgery. She had been concerned about surgery because of other health factors that might have impacted her recovery. She was in the hospital a couple of days, and then came home to two weeks of nursing care. She was able to recover her appetite, get the thyroid levels adjusted, and begin to get her energy back. The recovery has been difficult, but not as bad as she had feared, and she was able to assume all the usual household tasks within a month. She feels much better than she has for a couple of years.
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20th Anniversary of the Guatemala Partnership March 20, 2007 - Needham, MA
The other event looming was the 20th anniversary of the Guatemala Partnership which would be the last weekend in March. Several committees of people had been working for two years to make this happen, and it was an amazing week-long event. Four delegates arrived from Santa Maria Tzeja the Wednesday before, and they were housed in three different homes. Other people that had been connected with the project over the years began arriving on Thursday and Friday. These included translators, travelers, NISGUA accompaniers, interpreters, special speakers, and Guatemala activists from around the US. We did many events with the delegates before and after the weekend celebration, but the weekend was the big thing. Friday evening we had a dinner, then a forum on the history of the village and our role in that history. Saturday was a marathon of a plenary session following a breakfast, then 8 different workshops. The lunch period included a presentation on medical work in Colombia by one of our mentors who had come from Colombia with his wife and baby for the weekend. Saturday afternoon featured a story-telling session, where people shared stories of their experiences in Guatemala. It was full of laughs! That evening was the big party where 260 people ate Guatemalan food, enjoyed a marimba band from the Berklee College of Music, danced, played games, bid at a silent auction, and signed a huge banner to be taken to Santa Maria in August. More events were on Sunday morning and early afternoon, setting us off with plans for the next 20 years. The celebration far exceeded all of our expectations!
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Family Celebrations and Concerns February 1, 2007 - Needham, MA
We came back from Vietnam and plunged immediately into big family activities. Jered's 7th birthday was February 1, and Clark's 73rd birthday was February 5. The two of us have spent a lot of time with Heidi's three kids over the most recent years, and we always try to celebrate birthdays together. It gets harder as the kids get older and the families have so many other commitments. We were also increasingly concerned about Heidi's health. She had had thyroid problems for many years, and it appeared that the medications were no longer working. She was losing weight, had no energy, and doctors were recommending surgery as soon as possible. She had resisted it for a long time, but finally agreed to schedule it for the end of April.
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Memorial Service for my Brother-in-Law January 28, 2007 - Hanover, NH
We went north to Hanover, NH for the memorial service for my brother-in-law who had died in December. Two of our children were able to come, and our granddaughter, Brooke. The service was at the Kendal Retirement Community where my sister lives, and I gave the eulogy from the family. It was a privilege to have a chance to think about the ways that Bob had enriched our lives and to give the family's perspective on the amazing person he had been. We'll miss him very much.
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A Trip to Vietnam December 26, 2006 - Hanoi, Vietnam
We had been war resisters back in the 60s while we were living in Peoria, and we continued that resistance to the end of the Vietnam War. Through the years, we had agonized over the destruction of that country, the bombing of their holy and historical sites, and the long-term effects on the people. We had never expected to go there. Many of our trips have been to countries where we could use either Spanish or English to communicate. Even in Brazil, where Portuguese is spoken, we could communicate by a combination of languages. Going to Vietnam broke that pattern, since we had no usable language. At least the alphabet is almost the same as English, although the pronunciation is totally different. After a 6-hour layover in Dallas and a night in Tokyo, we landed in Hanoi and enjoyed the city through New Years Day. We stayed at a small hotel in the old quarter, where the streets are narrow and filled with ciclos, motorbikes, walkers, and peddlars, and the sidewalks are full of people selling everything, families cooking and eating, and parked motorbikes. We loved walking in the area, where each street features a particular product. There's a street of flowers, another of baskets, another of auto parts, etc. We spent New Years Eve first in a restaurant with traditional music, then meandering around the lake with thousands of Vietnamese, listening to an outdoor concert, and then back to the hotel. I don't remember midnight. I have a feeling we might have stayed awake long enough to see the ball drop in New York on CNN. We left New Years Day on a van to Haiphong, and then boarded a boat on Halong Bay, where we would be for the next two days. This is a United Nations World Heritage Site with thousands of funny rocky peaks coming up out of the water, some big, some small, and only three inhabited. We stayed a night on one of those three and did some hiking with a guide. A trip to a spectaclar cave and kayakikng in the bay were activities the next day. Then back to Hanoi where we boarded an overnight train to Sapa, in the northern mountains, near the Chinese border. Our prearranged guide, Mae, met us there and led us on hikes for the next two days. The weather was cold and rainy, and we slid our way down mountainsides with the help of very small indigenous women who helped hold us upright. There are more than 50 indigenous groups that live in the mountains in that part of Vietnam. They wear their traditional clothing, and we bought some weavings from them. We returned to Hanoi on another overnight train. Both train trips we shared our little berth with Vietnamese honeymoon couples. We then flew to Hue, where we visited the Citadel, site of destruction by both the Vietcong and Americans in the 60s, on to several other historical and religious sites. Then to Hoi An, a beautiful city not touched by the war, where there are seductive silk shops everywhere. I managed to be seduced. We then flew to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) where we were sobered by days spent in the War Remnants Museum and another historical museum. We took a 3-day trip to the Mekong Delta, where we saw lots of rice being cultivated with water buffalo and men and women with only rudimentary tools. We were on several different boats where we saw the floating markets. Our last trip was to the Cu Chi Tunnels, a 130 mile long tunnel network, three stories deep, built by the Vietcong. The US, unknowingly, built a big base right on top of the tunnel, and it took a long time to figure out why soldiers kept getting killed on night patrols. It was amazing to learn about the resourcefulness and determinatgion of the Vietnamese fighters under desperate circumstances. Before we left on this trip, we had read a number of novels about Vietnam. A particularly good one is Catfish and Mandela.
flowerk's LifePath entries
flowerk
Female,
located in
Needham, MA
Eons member since Apr 14, 2007
