Category: Aging

My Hybrid Feminism

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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If there is one thing of which I am certain it is that politics have become toxic, and there is no such thing in most cases of a rational conversation about beliefs. While there are multiple points of few, most of them are immoveable. The idea of possibly changing someone’s way of thinking is ridiculous for the most part, and yet so many continue to try. Their posts and rants litter the commentaries of social media essentially for naught other than allowing the world to see where they stand. Those who agree with them rally in support and those who are at odds often condemn them for their ignorance and even ugliness. For those of us caught in the middle it can become a kind of irrational nightmare as we too struggle to enforce a bit of diplomacy which never quite gains traction. Instead we are accused of being without moral compass, cafeteria citizens who pick and choose what we support. We independents are seen as the worst form of persons because we don’t appear to be guided by a philosophy that might describe from whence we form our opinions.

I’m a combination of many different political persuasions. As a woman I am a hybrid feminist, part progressive and part conservative. I grew up in a world when most women stayed home to care for their families. My mother was somewhat unique in our neighborhood in being a single parent due to our father’s death. She was the child of a woman who was unable to either read or write. Mama’s high school diploma was considered a great achievement, and she might have been content with stopping her education there had she not suddenly found herself responsible for supporting a family. She worked hard to hold down a job and earn a college degree, but at the same time she urged me to always put my husband and children first because she believed that nothing was more important.

I grew up surrounded by friends with large families because birth control was still somewhat unreliable. My mother cautioned me to be “ladylike” and to save myself for someone who loved and cherished me. While she emphasized the power of education and urged me to go to college, she also maintained that all of that was secondary to building a strong foundation for the family that I would one day have. Once I was married, she urged me to be respectful of my husband, and sometimes criticized the amount of time that I spent on my job when I would become involved in projects that kept me away from my family far into the night.

I rallied around the feminist movements of the sixties and seventies. I planned my family by carefully using birth control. I earned two degrees and moved up the ranks in my profession. All the while my always enlightened husband supported every single idea that I had for living my life both in conjunction with his, and independently at times. I fulfilled my own wishes while also somehow balancing the many duties of family life. To this day, my husband and I see each other as equal partners, and we confer with one another in all of our decisions. He is as proud of my accomplishments as I am of his. As a woman I have enjoyed the freedom to be the person that I want to be.

Sadly, for the most progressive women, my brand of feminism is not enough to satisfy them. When I note that I struggle with the concept of abortion because in my heart I believe that it is a form of murder, they maintain that I am ignorant and that I obviously don’t care about the plight of women. When I mention that I did not work full time during my daughters’ early years so that I might build a strong foundation for them, I am told that my thinking is old fashioned and quaint. If I suggest that all women should allow each other to form their own opinions, I hear that there is only one way on  “ the right side of history.” If I complain that the rhetoric about men is often too generalized and damning, I am met with derision and disbelief. I am often made to feel that I am not a feminist at all, but an ancient throw back to a time when women were degraded and made to be prisoners of a male dominated society.

I’m not an angry woman. Perhaps I have been lucky in my interactions with men and the world of work. I have found boorish “male chauvinist pigs” to be the exception rather than the rule. I have been supported again and again by amazing people both male and female. I have enjoyed a freedom of mind and action that might have amazed my female ancestors. I don’t want to have to walk in tandem or be dominated by any form of group think. I take each issue individually and after study and contemplation form my own personal opinions. I firmly believe that this is the way feminism is supposed to be. I support my sisters by allowing them to think however they wish, but ask them to respect my philosophies as well. We need not argue because I know that we react to the world based on a lifetime of experiences. We form our conclusions depending on who we are and who we have been.

I suppose that many women are still trying to determine what their places in society should be. To attempt to create a one size fits all way of doing things is ridiculous. Neither do we need to destroy the men who live beside us with insults and slurs that demean them. Ours is not so much a fight as a process of discovery. Each girl child should be encouraged to approach life in a way that feels right. She should understand that men need not be her enemies. There is good and there is bad in both sexes. We must teach our daughters and granddaughters how to discern who is who, and that it is always okay to have personal beliefs and preferences, even when they diverge.

I like being a hybrid. I like being independent. I have had a very happy experience as a woman because the people closest to me have allowed me to be the person that I choose to be. In turn I hope to always honor the choices that my “sisters” decide are best for them. True feminism demands that we understand that there is no one pathway, and our quest is doomed if we demand that it be so. Our journey has to include a wide range of views and the other half of the human race known as men. Our power will come only when we see ourselves as individuals with all of the rights that such and idea implies.

A Brilliant Choice

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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On this day in 1968, my husband Mike and I pledged to love, honor and cherish each other for the rest of our lives. For fifty years we have steadfastly done our best to live by the standards of our pledge, but in truth being married for five decades has required far more than adherence to a promise. The two of us are best friends in every sense of what that concept may mean. We enjoy being together and sharing our lives both as individuals and as a couple. We have certainly grown during our five decades together, and become even better as a team than we might have been alone.

I was nineteen years old when I walked down the aisle. My mother had to sign a document giving permission for me to marry. I was as naive as anyone might be when entering such a serious contract with another person, but I was dead certain that Mike and I had a very special relationship that was centered on love. I have often been reluctant to take a firm position of belief during my lifetime, but on the Friday evening when I walked down the aisle of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church I had no doubt that I was doing exactly what I was meant to do. Somehow it seemed as though the heavens themselves had aligned to bring me and Mike together, and I was unafraid to take the grand leap of faith that binds two people together for eternity.

We were joined by friends and family for our celebration. The church was gloriously bathed in light as Mike stood at the front of the church. The organ began to boom accompanied by the crystal clear sounds of a trumpet and my bridesmaids, Susan, Nancy and Ingrid made their way slowly toward the altar along with the groomsmen, James, Jack and Alan. When it was my turn I held on tightly to my brother Michael’s arm thinking of how proud I was that he was doing such a grand job of standing in for what might have been my father’s duty. I was lightheaded, giddy and nervous but mostly ecstatically happy. Admittedly once I reached the front of the church and stood next to Mike much of the rest of the ceremony became a blur. I recall the homily with clarity and I can still hear Mrs. McKenna’s beautiful soprano voice as she sang Ave Maria, but mostly I remember how secure I felt just being with Mike.

Our reception was a simple affair as most of them tended to be back then. We gathered in the Parish Hall and feasted on cake, punch and finger sandwiches. Mike and I greeted our guests and did all of the traditional tasks of cutting the cake, throwing out the garter and bouquet, and running under a hail of rice as we rushed to our car which was decorated with shaving cream and streamers of tin cans. Then we were off to our honeymoon in New Orleans and a life filled with challenges and good times.

We certainly did our best to be loving and honest and supportive of one another over the years. Our intentions were put to the test less than a year after we had married when my mother had the first of her mental breakdowns. It was such a strain that it might have broken our bonds, but Mike would prove to be my rock, my foundation, my support. It was a role that he would so lovingly assume over and over again whether during the times when I was caring for my mom or when I got ideas about degrees that I wanted to attain or work that I wanted to do. Mostly he was always and forever my sounding board. A voice of wisdom and concern on whom I knew that I might depend.

Our joy with one another only grew over the years as we were blessed with two daughters. We had a happy little family that was made better and stronger by the friends and family members who shared our child rearing years. I doubt that we would have been nearly as successful in our efforts had it not been for them. We had fun and exchanged concerns and sometimes even shed a tear or two together. Our circle became bound to an ever growing number of incredible people who were critical to our own matrimonial success.

Before we were even able to catch our breaths our daughters were leaving to begin families of their own. Our nest was empty and we began to enjoy the quiet contentment of just doing simple things with each other like sharing a passage from a book or laughing over a funny movie. We worked hard and together found solutions to the inevitable problems that enter every life. We centered our focus on God, family and friends. We lost loved ones and met new and wonderful individuals. The sun rose and it set through one day, one year, one decade after another.

We have weathered many a storm and celebrated even more joys. Our love has been the constant in our lives along with the people who shared our journey. We have seven grandchildren who are our pride and joy. Our daughters are as good as we had hoped we might teach them to be and they are married to very fine men. We are quite content with the story that we have created together. We know that not everyday will be sunny, but we have somehow always managed to weather the storms.

Joining our lives together fifty years ago was the very best thing that either of us have ever done. Together we are stronger than we might ever have been alone. We know that our family and our friends have also been part the success that we have enjoyed. I thank God every single day that we made that brilliant choice on October 4, 1968.

Good Fortune

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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From September until the end of December I have always been deliriously happy. It somehow seems to be the best time of year for me. Six of my seven grandchildren were born in those months. My own birthday is in November and I was married in October. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas are all celebratory times for me when I have the pleasure of being with family and friends. It’s difficult to dull my joy at this time of year, and yet I have also lost some of the most significant people in my life in the midst of all of my merrymaking. Those moments have been brutally difficult, causing me to just go through the motions of events that normally would have made me ecstatic.

Back in 2001, not long after the collapse of the Twin Towers I was already feeling quite distraught when my husband’s best friend, Egon, died suddenly from a heart attack. He had come into our lives when we were all quite young, and over time he was more like a brother than a friend. He had come from Germany to study at the University of Houston  where he eventually met the woman who would become his wife. His journeys back to his homeland would be only to visit his parents. Houston would become his new home, and he enjoyed bragging that he was not born in Texas, but had come as soon as it was possible.

Egon was a brilliant man with an astounding memory and an uncanny  ability to spin a story with vivid detail. His conversations were filled with information and insights. We often listened to him for hours on end, marveling at his ability to recall facts and describe ideas with such clarity. He would have been a remarkable college professor, but went into a career in sales instead where his skills in noting small details made him a super star. His death hit us quite hard and created a kind of emptiness in our lives that still lingers even seventeen years later.

Around the same time only a few years later my mother-in-law had a stroke that left her in a coma from which she never emerged. It was a major blow to all of us, and for me it represented losing perhaps the major source of wisdom upon which I had relied as an adult. I still long for the chats that she and I had on Sunday afternoons over a warm pot of tea. Perhaps that is why to this day drinking a cup of the brew brings me such comfort.

My mother-in-law was the kind of intellectual and confident woman who might have held court with the cafe society of Paris that included some of the world’s greatest thinkers, writers and artists. She was not just well read, but someone who was analytical and able to advance her opinions and thoughts with a persuasiveness and encyclopedic knowledge that few possess. She was the person who was able to provide me with solutions and serenity whenever I faced problems. She left a huge hole in our family that has never been properly filled.

A few years back my cousin, Jack, died from heart failure. He was a year younger than I am and it seemed rather unfair to lose him so soon. He and I were quite close when we were growing up. So many of my fondest memories of childhood were spent at his side. When I think of fun, his image almost always comes to my mind. He loved a good joke and always had the most delightfully impish smile, even in his final days when his health was failing him.

Jack was such a good man that my cousins and I joke that he is surely a saint, someone to whom we might send our prayers and petitions. He was kind and generous and loved. He was most certainly the best of us with his faithfulness and quiet ways of making us all laugh even when we were feeling down.

Last year, again at around this time, our dear friend, Bill, died. I had always said that Bill should have had his own talk show. He was incredibly entertaining as he spoke of books that he had read, trips that he had taken, or just expounded his political views. He had led a quite interesting life that took him from Detroit, Michigan all the way to NASA in Houston, Texas. He was a pioneer in the computer industry, and one of the bright young men chosen to help send humans into space.

After his wife died Bill liked to come by our house unannounced. He’d ring the doorbell in the middle of the day and then regale us for hours  with tales of his current adventures. I liked nothing better than to set aside my routines and just enjoy his visits. He is yet another person who was not just quite interesting, but also terrifically wise. There was something about him that made the world seem a bit more steady than it otherwise might have been.

I think of these remarkable people with a bit of sorrow, but I also celebrate the memories that I made with them. Those will never go away. They are tucked away so close to my heart that I am able to retrieve them anytime that I need a smile. I choose to celebrate my good fortune in having known them rather than focusing on the sadness of no longer expecting to spend a glorious afternoon or evening with them. I am one of the lucky ones who was close to them. I rejoice in my good fortune, even as I celebrate the season.

Finally Learning Who I Am

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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If you’ve followed my blogs even  intermittently you know that I have researched my paternal grandfather for many years all to no avail. I literally cannot find records of him until 1930, even though he was born in 1879. I’ve looked for his father and again there is no sign of him ever providing data for  a census or a document certifying his death certifying his death. Grandpa’s mother is even more of a phantom because she died in childbirth when she was evidently quite young.  My grandfather was supposedly raised by a grandmother, and I have found women with the same name as hers but none of them fit the profile that Grandpa gave me. I’ve had the best luck learning about the man who eventually became my grandfather’s guardian, but I cannot find a familial connection between him and my Grandpa. I once wrote to some of John Little’s descendants and none of them had ever heard about him being a guardian for a young orphan. So there it has stood and my frustrations just grow and grow, but I think that I may have contrived a plan that will unlock the mystery of my heritage. I’m convinced that I will receive a treasure trove of information if I have the courage to set the idea in motion.

So, I am officially throwing my hat in the ring for the presidency in 2020. I’ll be running as an independent because I don’t think either party will have me, and I’m not so sure that I would have them. I disagree with both on far too many issues, so mine will be a lone wolf attempt at winning the highest office in the land. I’ll begin by being open about who I know that I am, and then I’ll let the journalists and politicians do the work of uncovering my past to provide a more complete picture. I suspect that I will learn a great deal that I have never known, and since it really doesn’t matter whether I win the office or not, I’ll at least get the information that has so far eluded me.

I like to think of myself as being like honest Abe. In fact in one of those little quizzes that show up on Facebook I learned that I am most like Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. I don’t have anything that I want to hide, so I will provide an outline of what I know to be true.

I joined the Students for a Democratic Society when I was at the University of Houston. There is a photo of me front and center in one of the school yearbooks. It was some time later that I learned what a radical organization SDS actually was. My sole purpose back then was to speak out against a war that I felt was steadily going in the wrong direction. Of course, nobody is going to believe in my innocence when I run for office but it will be worth the brouhaha just to find out about Grandpa. I’ll be branded as a radical, but that’s okay since I know that I’m a rather boring sort and always have been.

Both my maternal grandmother and my mother suffered from mental illnesses so I suppose that someone will decide that my quirks make me appear to be a bit flaky in my own right. I’ll own the fact that I can sometimes be a bit cray cray, but so far I’ve made it without an official diagnosis. I probably could have done a better job of finding help for my mom, but in the long run I feel comfortable in asserting that I did my best.

With all of my years in education there is surely someone who disliked me who will step forward with assertions that may shock me. If I wronged anyone I am greatly sorry. Forty years of working with children can be quite stressful, and I suppose that I may have uttered my frustrations a time or two. I know that when I was in charge of the educational program at one of my churches I, along with my co-director, was accused of being an agent of the devil because I was not a nun. That may eliminate a few potential voters along the way, but surely my own story is so mundane that someone will decide to reach far back into my history to find some obnoxious ancestor to darken my reputation. I’m in the hopes that when they do they will finally solve the mystery of my grandfather. I am tired of wondering if he simply sprang up in a cabbage patch.

He admitted that his father was a n’er do well, so I won’t be too surprised about what will turn up in that regard. I know that my great grandfather was a heavy drinker who preferred good old Virginia moonshine, according the Grandpa’s recollection. My grandfather himself even went through a period of inordinate imbibing until he became disgusted and decided to become a tee totaler. I’ve never cared much for anything more than a glass of wine or a Margarita, so my reputation should remain intact in that regard.

The funny thing is that I have more records about my grandparents who travelled to the United States from the Austro-Hungarian Empire than I do about my Grandpa Little. I know what boats they came on, what port they arrive in, and even who their parents were and when they were baptized as infants. It’s always seemed strange to me that somehow my paternal grandfather should remain such a mystery. So I can’t wait to use my campaign as a way to launch an investigation. If the FBI can’t vet me, then surely some hungry journalist will do the job. Maybe I’ll even get a spot on that program on PBS that find the formerly unknown ancestors of celebrities.

I’ve got a thick skin, so it won’t matter if they find some embarrassing facts, I just want to be certain that nobody makes things up. I’m looking for accuracy here so I can finally tell my siblings and our children and grandchildren from whence we came. Who knows I might even shake up the race a bit with my really strange amalgam of ideas about how our country should be governed. That alone will probably bring out more information that I actually need.

I think I may be on to something. I’m looking forward to finally knowing who I am.

A Good Night’s Sleep

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment
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I used to have rather vivid dreams with tons of details that I was able to remember. Of late I know that I dream because I have memories of some kind of story playing out in my brain just before I awake, but I literally can’t recall a thing about what was happening. I began to worry that perhaps there was something wrong with my inability to relive my nocturnal adventures in the light of day, so I did a bit of research. I surprisingly found that we humans are more likely to have recollections of our dreams when we are feeling generally anxious or stressed. The fact that I am less able to outline the details of what has occupied my mind during my slumbers is actually an indication that I’m feeling rather relaxed about my life these days.

It came as a relief to learn that I have not lost my creativity or otherwise become forgetful simply because I wake up unable to devoid of knowledge about my dreams. Based on my research it seems as though I must have been under a great deal of pressure at various times in the past because I am still able to tell about nighttime visions from other times that were quite remarkable in their clarity. There are even a couple of them that recurred so often that I have sometimes wondered if they contain some element of reality that I have as yet been able to piece together. At the very least there may be some symbolism related to the worries that I must have had whenever they haunted me while I slept.

Two of my most frequent dreams were so real that to this day I find myself wondering if the events in them may have actually occurred in some form. I have spent a great deal of time trying to relate them to something that I once did. So far I have been unable to view them as anything other than a kind of nightmarish tendency of the brain to work out my daytime concerns with a nighttime rerun.

In one dream I drive up to an unnamed school that looks familiar and yet I don’t actually know where it is. I immediately go to a large theater where an expert is conducting a seminar. I listen intently to the lecture which is rather dry, but for some strange reason I feel uneasy about it. Each time I arise in the morning after having this dream I feel drained and uncomfortable as though there is some hidden message inside its content that I need to uncover, but that revelation never comes to me. I haven’t even been able to tie its symbolism to anything concrete other than a kind of vague feeling that I have somehow left something undone in my life. Perhaps I will never figure it out, and maybe I don’t even need to do so.

In the other dream I am walking through a beautifully landscaped area when I see a lovely little bungalow that seems to invite me inside even though I don’t know whose home it is. There are roses growing near the entryway and lights glow in the windows. The first room that I see is warm and cozy with big overstuffed chairs, a Persian rug and a fireplace with a warm and aromatic fire. I feel happy there and want to sit down and stay for a time, but I see a staircase and my curiosity gets the best of me. I climb eagerly at first but the area is narrow and grows darker and more foreboding as I near the top. My heart begins to beat inside my throat and while I want to run away I keep inching slowly forward. When I finally arrive at the upstairs landing I see a large single room that runs the entire length of the house. The crazy thing is that the area even exists, because when I first approached the place it appeared to be a single story home, so I am confused about how this room came to be. Inside are many twin beds that seem to indicate that it is a kind of dormitory, or the sleeping quarters of a very large family. Each bed is neatly made and there is no sign of any kind of decoration. The inviting aspect of the downstairs is missing from the sterile environment of the upper room. It feels as though something terrible is going to happen there.

While I am gazing at the scene in confusion and disbelief I see the shadowy figure of a person in the far corner. I become intensely fearful and yet I am unable to flee. I stand frozen in place watching like a caged little bird. It is so dark that I cannot make out the features of the individual to determine if it is a man or a woman, someone young or old. Just as I think my vision has adjusted enough for me to finally draw some conclusions I always wake up feeling exhausted and shaken for reason unknown to me.

This dream has come to me decade after decade and has so many details that I always believe that if I were just once able to finally view the face of the figure in corner everything might become clear to me. For some reason it feels all too terribly real and yet I know for certain that I have never seen such a house before. My mind is playing a trick on me just as dreams often do.

There are psychologists who believe that dreams hold keys to our personalities and individuals who specialize in interpreting them. I sometimes think it would be fun to find out what these sorts think might be the reasons for the repetitions that have come to me again and again. Most of my dreams are easy to understand. I run from some danger in many of them. I am in a cave surrounded by snakes in another. I am perched on a trapeze high above the world wondering how I am going to get down. In some I am back in school as a student and I learn that I have forgotten to turn in a critical assignment and my degrees are stripped from me. These are garden variety nightmares that speak to my past stresses. I have never thought of them as being real as I do with the ones that I described above.

I suppose that I’ll just accept that at least for now I am so relaxed that my nights are uneventful. It’s nice to arise feeling refreshed rather than as though I have been on a battlefield all night long. Nonetheless, I wonder if those dreams actually hold the keys to better  understanding ourselves. Perhaps in unlocking their secrets I might actually become a better version of myself. It’s a fun idea but for now I’m content with a good night’s sleep.