Category: Commentary

“Rest!” they told me so I only did half of what I usually do in a day. I ended up unable to walk without being bent over. “REST!” They said so I spent most of one day following orders but then worked as usual the following day. That night I ended up in an emergency room writhing in pain.

I’m good with words but the definition of resting seemed to elude me. Finally my doctor defined it clearly by insisting that I do no gardening, no house cleaning, no lifting or bending over to pick things up. I was supposed to just read or watch a few movies and leave the hard chores for someone else. 

I suppose that I was never born to be a little princess waiting for someone to cook and clean and do all the chores around the house. I actually enjoy all the tasks that people often hire someone else to do. I get joy out of dipping my hands into the dirt, hauling bags of soil or mulch to a flowerbed. I like the feeling of having a dust free, spic and span house that looks as though no human has ever lived there. Sadly my body turned on me and I had to learn a new way of having fun that did not entail physical labor at all. Even standing or sitting for hours to teach math to my students left me bent over in pain so I had to give in to a temporary way of life that is so unlike me. Suddenly I was free to read all day long or binge watch every series or movie that I ever wanted to see.

My doctor told me that most people my age have some kind of trouble with their backs. I’ve heard quite a few stories from friends and relatives. Up until now I had no idea what it was like to be crippled by a herniated disc. I could not imagine having pamper myself in order to get well and yet here I was, groaning in pain, never getting far away from my heating pad, worried that I might hurt myself just by walking up and down the stairs. 

Once again I have learned to have way more compassion for anyone who is having trouble with bad knees, or spasms in the back or even feet that hurt after a short walk. It seems that we humans begin to wear out our parts as we age just as old cars or appliances might do. Now and again we have to get some repairs done or we come to a screeching halt. So it has been with me. 

I am surrounded by far wiser people than I am. They have sent me baskets of tea and biscuits to enjoy while I read from the many books that I purchase but never give myself time to read. They brought me books of puzzles to ponder and artwork to color. They remind me daily not to get too whoopee before I heal enough to do some physical therapy. They sweetly laugh when I tell them that I am embarrassed for seeming to be weak. They insist that I am being too hard on myself and even as I know they are right. I am itching to get back to my industrious self. I am not accustomed to sitting around. I measure my days by how much I get done. Now I am confined to being far more contemplative and zen. 

I’m quite bad at taking the advice that I lovingly give to others. I’d rather be the caretaker than the person receiving the care. It is a quirk of my personality that if analyzed is not particularly good. I tell people all the time to pamper themselves, to stop to smell the roses. I insist that we should all pause to listen to the quiet, hear the whispers in the wind, be thankful when others want to help. Then I turn around and become the kind of hard headed person who drives me insane. It’s funny how that works. 

So I have been good for many days now. I don’t want to backslide so I have decided to become the world’s greatest patient. I’m competitive like that. I have challenged myself to do what I know is best for a full recovery. I am determined to finally give in to the pain and just enjoy the glorious times of forgetting about dust on the furniture or toilets that need to be scrubbed. I relinquish those tasks to sweet individuals who earnestly want to help me. Also I don’t want people to think that I am so proud that I would work myself into another visit to the ER just to prove that I am not as weak as I feel I am right now. 

I have a lovely view of my neighborhood from my upstairs bedroom. I have piles of books and lots of fun things to occupy my mind. I write and do those puzzles and discover shows that I have never before watched. I’m even considering actually taking the time to sit and relearn calculus more almost sixty eight years after the last such class that I took. I’ve been doing enough pre-Calculus to take the plunge. The command that I avoid heavy activities provides me with a very valid excuse to finally do something that I have skirted around for years. 

I might finish that Christmas runner that I was quilting before my father-in-law came to our home two years ago and I became distracted with taking care of him. I can certainly write to my heart’s content without feeling the least bit of guilt now that I know that doing so is therapeutic. I can meditate and pray and call friends or at least send them greetings with cards. There is more than one way to feel useful without moving furniture or working myself into a spasm. I’ve got this. In fact, I’m beginning to see how it might even be fun. So here’s to the all new me. Wish me luck. I’m an old dog but surely it’s not too late to learn some new tricks.   

I have to admit to being curious about some of the click bait that pops up on my computer. I saw prompt the other day that purported to describe the differing ways that millennials see the world as compared to their Boomer grandparents. I had to laugh when I scrolled through the predictions of how the world will change drastically within the next twenty years because my Boomer husband has already been proclaiming the glories of many of the new ways of doing things that millennials are supposedly embracing. Evidently he is way ahead of most of his peers in trending toward a new kind of world. 

My husband is totally convinced that the future is calling and everyone will go there. He is chomping at the bit to own an electric car but he is taking his time studying them to determine how to get the most value for the least amount of money. He is convinced that one day our roads will be filled with safe autonomous electric vehicles that will revolutionize travel the way the gas engine cars once did. He sees a time when nobody will have to fight with an elderly person to wrench the car keys from his/her unwilling hands because the cars themselves will do the driving to and fro. He is utterly convinced that the revolution is already in process and will only escalate in the coming years. 

My guy has already turned our home into a smart home that he can operate from thousands of miles away. Even on vacations we have little robotic vacuum cleaners whirring about the rooms keeping things tidy and dust free. Our sprinklers know when and how to water our plants. The lights go on and off at his command or according to a preplanned schedule. Cameras alert him to movement and live photos tell him if he needs to call the local police to report a break-in. Sometimes the automation is annoying and other times it demonstrates the possibilities of a future in which people will be able to keep things running smoothly with only the swoosh of a finger. 

The world is quickly changing and those who don’t adapt will be left behind according to my spouse. He duly noted around the time that he was retiring from the banking business that fewer and fewer people and buildings will be needed to transact business in the future. In fact, most banking needs can be met from anywhere in the world without ever contacting a human. The millennials know and embrace this but some of the older crowd are struggling with the idea of paperless and people less financial trails. Banks still have lobbies but most of them are now echoing caverns were few customers ever come. 

Malls are suffering the same fate. Younger people no longer converge on them for entertainment. They’d rather order whatever they need online to be delivered to their homes. The pandemic actually changed our family’s shopping ways as well. Now we simply order most of what we need with a few clicks of the keyboard on our laptops or phones. Delivery trucks drive up and down the streets of our neighborhood like milkmen once did in the days of old telling us that commerce has already changed from what it used to be. 

Ubers are so popular and easy to order that there is literally very little reason for the elderly to need a car even in cities like Houston, Texas where mass transit is only minimally available. I often think of how wonderful this service would have been for my mother when she reached a point of becoming a bit dangerous behind the wheel of an automobile. She would have been free to go wherever she wished without worrying us that she might be endangering herself and others with a car.

The world is evolving and progressing just as it should be and always has. Sometimes we like to cling to the familiar even when it becomes apparent that the old ways no longer work as well as they once did. The comical dreams of a Jetson’s kind of world are moving quickly into place and the young people are embracing the utility of such scenarios. They are eating differently, entertaining themselves differently, purchasing differently and investing differently. They are challenging the old ways and pushing for the new. Ironically my husband is right there with them, if not maybe just a bit ahead of them. 

We Boomers pushed the envelope of progress just as our grandparents and parents did when they were young. Now we should be looking to a new generation and encouraging them to be as innovative as they possibly can be. Many of the things that they advocate will make life easier for all of us. 

I imagine a time when the elderly and infirm will be able to live independently in their homes rather than requiring residence in assisted living facilities. They will be transported and serviced by technologies that are being developed even as I type these words. Smart homes, smartphones and smart cars will assist them in ways that make it possible for them to enjoy the comfort and familiarity of home while still being monitored by family members and friends and neighbors. They will have their freedoms for many more years than is now possible. It’s an exciting thing to consider and my husband has me dreaming away about a wonderful future.

We sometimes have a tendency to want to cling to the memories of our youth rather than celebrating the trends of tomorrow. We memorialize the old days as though they were the high point of history. The millennials are moving forward just as young people have always done. We would do well to watch and learn from them. They have some very good ideas.    

I don’t like being political. I prefer writing about good people, vacations, funny situations. I know that my readers feel more comfortable with happy optimistic thoughts. I would do myself a favor if I stuck to such topics, but there come times in life when ignoring truths can be lethal, not only to oneself, but also to others. 

I believe that most people do indeed want a peaceful world in which everyone has an opportunity to feel and be successful. We all prefer living with a feeling of security. In truth on most days we find ourselves hovering near the foundational values of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. We save our aspirational desires for days when all seems well with the world. For some people such days seem never to come as they fight for food, water and safety.

We citizens of the United States like to boast that we are the good guys ready to rescue the rest of the world. We claim to be the best at almost everything and often we are. Our citizens are mostly good honest people who only want to live their lives with a sense of freedom and purpose. We are a diverse bunch because of many factors. 

Our country is large and filled with those who were here before the first European sailed across the Atlantic as well as descendants of those early colonists. Over time people came to our shores from all over the world looking for the same kind of good fortune that we all wish to have. They brought their cultures and religions and beliefs with them because we did not have a national religion or a single way of doing things. We may come across asa country with a raucous rabble of ideas but that is all part of our lives, liberties and pursuits of happiness. We hold elections to choose individuals to represent us and to guide our nation. No one person has ever been able to speak for all but with patience and compromise we have overcome the challenges of governing our incredibly diverse population. 

With effort we have slowly but surely provided more justice and equality to more and more people, but in the present moment all of that progress seems to be moving in the wrong direction. Instead of being more welcoming to differences there are groups attempting to force everyone to embrace a national religion, a national morality, a national belief that only certain kinds of people belong here, a national belief that anyone who questions or challenges a particular group is a traitor. Surely this is not what we want for our country. 

We are a nation that is on a precipice. We may not like either of the candidates for President of the United States in the current election cycle but one of them has publicly stated some horrific ideas. To be clear, Donald J. Trump is a threat to our very democracy. Our choice in this election is between a man whose only goal is to regain power and one who has attempted to keep our democracy intact in very difficult times. 

Trump was unwilling to accept the results of the 2020 election and has spent the last four years reeking havoc in Congress and throughout the nation. He has made it clear that if he is reelected he will punish those that he views as his enemies including every member of the January 6th investigatory commission. He speaks of rounding up immigrants and putting them in camps. He tells us that only those who will be one hundred percent loyal to him will be members of his cabinet. He wants to rid us of important legislation and programs that protect our environment. He is an open fan of Putin and a dangerous security risk for our nation. He has been found liable for sexually assaulting a woman and is on record as saying that if he loses a second election he will not accept the results. He predicts blood in the streets if he loses. He is unhinged and unfit for the office and everyone who loves this country should be working to defeat him. Instead his following grows because people have to pay a bit more for the things they buy or because people think that Joe Biden is too old, or because people fear the immigrants coming to our country. While these may be valid issues, none of them are as important as protecting the very foundations of our democracy. We should all be able to agree on that.

This is not a time to be timid about telling the truth which is that electing Donald Trump might result in the death knell of our country as we know it. He is anti-science, anti-women, and racist. We have all heard his ramblings. We all know how dangerous he is and yet a sizable percentage of the population is willing to look the other way or even to defend his egregious behavior. It boggles my mind to see how low we will have fallen if this man wins. It is heartbreaking to think that he has not been totally shunned by society. I find myself thinking that the Founding Fathers are rolling in their graves at the mere thought of Donald Trump leading this nation that they fought so hard to create.

The world is a very dangerous place right now. If Ukraine falls there is no telling what will happen in Europe. Someone has shot the Prime Minister of Slovakia. The situation in Israel and Gaza is dangerously complex. Joe Biden may not be the strongest person to meet such urgent situations but he is a good man who will protect our democracy and at this moment in our history there is no other issue as important. This is what we must all understand. If we make the mistake of encouraging a vindictive despot by allowing him to win in spite of his invective and assurances that he will totally change the way we have always done things then surely our very way of life is in danger. 

I don’t enjoy sounding an alarm but somebody has to begin doing this. Our silence will be the ruination of our beautiful United States of America. We must turn our backs on Donald J. Trump who is purposely dividing us into warring groups. We must not allow Trump to achieve his goal to exercise a vendetta against those who have had the temerity to question him. We may not believe that we have a perfect choice or even the best of choices but how we vote should nonetheless be clear. Donald J. Trump must never again be allowed in the Oval office. Surely this is clear to enough of us to insure the safety of our nation. Silence and ignoring the truth will lead us to disaster.

I remember a time when my single parent mother was a dynamo of energy, working as a teacher, attending classes at a local college, keeping our home in perfect order, getting me and my brothers to our many practices and events, caring for her aging mother and sometimes finding time for herself with friends on Saturday evenings. Somehow she seemed to need less sleep than the rest of us as she balanced a thousand different tasks while on her tiptoes. It was not until I was in my twenties and that she first showed frightening signs of mental illness that manifested as extreme depression and fear. Somehow she adjusted to a new attitude about life after that, often allowing dust to settle noticeably on her furniture or dishes to languish in her sink overnight while she slumbered longer than she had ever before done. She accepted her doctor’s advice to spend more time smelling the roses and less obsessing over how much she had to accomplished in a single day. 

I remember being stunned at her ability to focus on the things that made her feel happy and comfortable rather than attempting to be all and do all with perfection. With a big grin on her face she would boast about a typical day born of her new way of viewing life. She retired from working outside her home as soon as it was possible. Then she became the master of her days, often sleeping into the later hours of the morning. She would arise and linger over her first cup of coffee while reading her Bible, a daily ritual that brought her joy and focus. There was no hurry in her schedule, no task so dire that she had to tackle it immediately. She had learned that everything gets done sooner or later and that a few crumbs on the floor do not constitute an emergency. 

With retirement came freedom to design her days serendipitously. She might decide to take an unplanned trip to Galveston just to sit on the seawall and breathe the salty air of the Gulf of Mexico. On other days she would set out in search of sales where she might discover gifts for the many occasions that she celebrated with her children and grandchildren. She would talk to her sisters every day and often visited the one who lived in a nursing home armed with Snickers bars or barbecue sandwiches that they both would share. She tended her garden or lay on her bed listening to an Astros game on the radio. She found great joy in each moment even if nothing much was actually happening. 

As a child under my mother’s tutelage I had adopted a work ethic worthy of a perfectionist. Her lackadaisical ways did not appear until after I was gone from home. Sometimes it baffled me to see her messy house when she had instructed me in the proper ways of maintaining order and design. I still recall our spring and fall deep cleaning rallies when every slat on the blinds were carefully washed and all of the baseboards gleamed from our deep cleaning efforts. I remember the days before dishwashers when she and I took turns at the sink making our dishes and pots and pans spotless as soon as the meal was over. I often think of the nightly ritual of the four of us scanning the rooms for our personal items which we returned to proper places before going to bed. I still do those things as a matter of habit without really thinking that taking care of such tasks is inconvenient. I won’t even leave for an outing without making certain that everything is tidy. Such compulsions feel as though they are baked into my DNA when they are actually learned traits that I perfected in the before times when my mother was a neat freak. 

I suppose that I might benefit from relaxing a bit more now that I am older but I have yet to feel the urge to do so. It is only in the early morning hours that I linger as I sip on tea and listen to my neighborhood coming alive. I enjoy the changing cadence of the different seasons and find something quite special about each of them. The sound of children chatting at the bus stop is perhaps my favorite, but the arrival of the doves that coo on my roof is a wonderful rival for my affection. Every task waits for me while I revel in the joy of not having to rush around in the dark preparing to drive in heavy traffic to work. The mornings are my mini rebellion against the to do lists and routines that instruct me the rest of my day. 

I am still responsible for the mathematical education of ten students. My lessons vary from beginner multiplication and division to functions and matrices. I time the classes so that I never have to leave home until almost nine in the morning and my drive is a leisurely one of less than fifteen minutes. I can arrive in my jeans and t-shirts without a drop of makeup on my face. I suppose that this is the extent of allowing myself to fudge a bit on perfectionist goals. 

Once in awhile nonetheless the wind whispers to me and I know that I am longing to go on adventures without worrying about what I may leave behind. The mountains whisper to me and I must go. I hear the siren call of New Orleans or the Texas Hill Country and nothing stops me from filling a bag with changes of clothing and heading out my door without even noticing laundry bins spilling over or dishes sitting in the sink. It is as though the natural me, the person I would be if devoid of training, comes out to play. I feel the freedom from my own demands and it is glorious. 

I suppose that I am still evolving even as I stick with most of the routines that I learned long ago. People tell me to hire someone to perform the tasks that rotate through my calendar but I still enjoy doing them and so far I am still able to do them. My leisurely mornings grow longer, leaving me with less and less time for the mundane jobs that I once accomplished with regularity. Perhaps I am beginning to more and more realize what is most important like my mother finally did. Little by little I am letting go and just following my heart. I’m listening to the call of the doves and thinking that maybe today I don’t have to follow the dictates that I have scheduled on my calendar. Perhaps the time has come to just do nothing at all. .  

At the end of the day each of us is simply human regardless of our status in life. We all bleed when cut. We all need air to breathe. We all eventually grow old and die in spite of our efforts to cling to life just a bit longer. People that you have never met and never will meet have dreams just like you do. While we have always had a tendency to rank people based on wealth, intelligence, power, beauty and other superficial aspects when all is said and done we humans are more alike than different. 

We are born with incredible potential to become the best versions of ourselves. Whether or not that happens is often related to circumstance. In some places it is easier to become self actualized than in others where simply satisfying most basic needs can be a lifelong struggle. Those of us who live in highly advanced countries are more likely to enjoy perks than many fellow humans in the world will never see. The most fortunate and privileged among us were often simply in the right place at the right time to demonstrate their talents and enrich themselves. We too often take our way of life for granted and judge people from other countries and cultures to be somehow lesser than ourselves. 

From the beginning of human time people roamed the earth hunting and gathering in order to survive. Over time they learned how to cultivate the land and build communities but of course all did not always go well. The history of humanity is replete with struggles for land and well being. The tendencies to create communities and pecking orders often resulted in friction between differing groups. All the while civilizations attempted to find ways of living with one another that have never been perfect. As the earth itself changed so too did the needs of humankind and along with that change came a kind of survival of the fittest mentality that exists to this very day in one way or another. 

In today’s world entire countries compete with one another and within those countries different factions war with one another over how best to live. Such seems to be the nature of the human experience. Still I find myself wondering if we have yet to discover what might work best. So far all attempts to create a more perfect union of cooperation among millions of people simply trying to live together peacefully and happily have been wrought with problems. Somehow no matter how hard we try to equalize our situations we end up with winners and losers often due to little more than the luck where they are born and who their parents are. Even with our myriad problems in the United States it would be a mistake not to realize how much better our individual situations are than those in countries beset by poverty and endless wars or violence. 

I often think back to the conversations that I shared with my mother-in-law on Sunday afternoons over cups of tea. We would talk about history, philosophy, religion and politics as they related to how we should behave toward our fellow humans. My mother-in-law was a very spiritual woman and deep thinker who challenged herself to think critically about the world. She once told me that she believed that the suffering of most of the people on earth was so great that if we did not voluntarily share our bounty with them, they would one day unite and force us to see them and to understand their suffering. She believed that we were not doing enough to consider that our way of life was not the only way to do things. She felt that we would have to learn how to evolve in our thinking if we were to survive as citizens of the world. 

When I look at the problems that we face today I think of those Sunday chats with my mother-in-law. I try to imagine what she would think of building walls and creating barriers with concertina wire along our borders. I try to imagine her reaction to the murder and taking of hostages in Israel overlayed with the genocidal decimation of the population in Gaza. I would like to hear her thoughts on Putin’s murderous invasion of Ukraine and the feeble excuses he uses for making war. Somehow I know that she would remind me of her warning that we cannot look away when people are suffering and not expect them to lose patience with the way things have always been. Unfairness and dominance lead to desperation which leads to breaking the law and sometimes to making war. 

My mother-in-law taught me that we cannot see people in stereotyped groups. Instead we must think of them as individuals. We have to ask ourselves why someone is willing to risk his or her life to cross our borders and invoke our ire. What is so terrible in their lives that embracing uncertainty is their only hope? These are real people who may seem different from each of us, but in reality they only want an opportunity to change the direction of their lives. Why are we so hateful about them? Why are we so unwilling to hear what they have to say and to treat them with respect rather than reducing them to preconceived notions of who they are?

It is doubtful that we will solve all of the world’s problems but we can begin by at least admitting that but for the luck of the draw we might be the people struggling for dignity and freedom. Once we begin to think differently about our place in the world maybe we will be able to craft plans that limit our tribal instincts to close the gates and bring out the weapons to keep those who appear different from ourselves at bay. We would do well to remember that unless we have descended from Native Americans  many of us have ancestors who came across the ocean in search of hope and some sadly came in bondage. Who are we to judge those who want the same opportunities that we now take for granted? It’s time we all learned to really see our fellow humans as our equals who are more like us than we may think.