All It Takes Is A Little Love

I’ve found myself thinking more and more about those expiration dates on food than I once did. It’s not so much that I’m worried about whether or not an item is safe to eat, but rather my concern is about the very idea that each of us have an expiration date that is not listed anywhere. We simply do not know when our time on this earth will be over. 

Growing older has reminded me that nobody lives forever and neither will I. While I feel quite healthy at the moment I realize that my status might change in a heartbeat. My social life these days is sadly punctuated with funerals and memorial services for once active friends. I now know more people who have left this earth than those still around to live to their lives. It can be a rather depressing state of affairs if I too often think about how uncertain my future has become as has that of the other two people who reside in my home. Instead I mentally force myself to live in the moment, enjoying small pleasures while I am still able to do so while also attempting to be logical about the future. I want to make my transitions in live as pleasant as possible for both me and my children.

There has been a great deal of focus on people getting too old to be leaders during this year’s political campaigns. We began with two old men who are older than I am running for President of the United States. I noticed right away that both of them were struggling to be as sharp as they once were. I know from my own experience that I’m not the fireball of energy that I once was. I can be ready to take on the world in one moment and sent to my bed with spasms in my back the next. The fact is that there comes a time when we might all do well to gracefully turn over the hard work of living to the younger generation rather than grasping to maintain our dominance. 

I’ve watched my father-in-law slowly lose his sharp wit in the two and a half years that he has been living with us. It’s taken time for him to admit that he is incapable of doing some of the things that were once second nature to him. He understandably attempts to be in charge of his own destiny and it is difficult for him to allow others to handle the tasks that he has always completed so well. Nonetheless, he and all of us would do well to have the wisdom and humility to know when it is time to step back and allow others who are more fit to help us through however many months or years we have before our individual expiration dates come due. 

Hubris is a human flaw that is the stuff of legends. We all want to be the kind of person who lives with meaning and vitality but sometimes the best sign that we are doing well is in knowing when to step back and admit to needing help. When we set aside our pride and demonstrate trust for those who are younger we are demonstrating more wisdom that when we keep insisting on doing things that might be dangerous to ourselves and others. 

I’m a fan of the television program Slow Horses. The latest season features the deterioration of one of the character’s grandfather who had at one time been a powerful man. It is a sad but common story of our human tendencies to weaken as we grow older and older. I cried watching the younger man attempting to help the older man who had always been his role model. Nobody enjoys seeing anyone grow weak and unable to be independent. It is nonetheless easier when the person who needs our help is willing to accept it.

My own grandfather was rather amazing all the way through his nineties but he very wisely changed his habits on his own. He found a safe place to live where he might be watched in case he became ill. He gave up driving when he celebrated his ninetieth birthday. Nobody had to beg him to do those things. He simply understood the dangers in lying to himself about his waning abilities. He was logical about when and how to surrender many of the tasks that he once did on his own. He kept us informed of his state of health and mind and told us how he was adjusting to his changing situation. He was a delight to watch as he grew old with grace. 

I am already discussing how my own future may change with my daughters. I have promised to hand them the keys to my car at whatever point in time that it is no longer safe for me to be driving. I discuss possible living scenarios with them knowing that whether I prefer it or not ,the time may come when I need constant care, I don’t want to ask them to accept that role when I there are other resources. As someone who spent years taking care of my mother and now my father-in-law I can attest to the reality that it is an incredibly difficult task especially when the person needing the care insists on doing everything his or her way. My grandfather showed me that it can be a pleasant experience by honoring and respecting us in helping him make the best decisions. It was only in the last months of his life that his mind clouded over and he became difficult. Before that he had been a brilliant example of how to grow old.

There are a very large number of us who are rapidly aging and trying to remain as young as possible. Sometimes we forget that we worked hard to raise our children so that that would be capable of taking over as we became less and less able to be totally independent. We would all do well to let the young folk know that we believe in them. It’s time that we hear how they would like to see the world progress. It’s time that we let them be partners in making each of our lives more serene. It’s time to trust that we taught them well enough that they will do what is best for all of us. It does not have to be a battle up to the moment when our expiration dates arrive. We can instead be like my grandfather who so wisely understood how to change and adapt and allow us to take the helm.

I know that I have just witnessed something too amazing to even describe when I find myself filling with so much emotion that tears suddenly drop from my eyes. So it was when I viewed the movie version of the musical Wicked. I had seen a live performance years before and the story and music had remained among my favorites. I was quite excited when I learned that it had been remastered into a film. 

On the week of Thanksgiving I joined my daughters and some of my grandchildren at the local cinema for an evening viewing. A few of us wore pink or green or even both colors as a kind of fun tribute to the characters Glinda and Elphaba. We grabbed our popcorn and sodas and settled into our reserved lounger seats anxious to get through the trivia, advertisements and previews that seemed to last even longer than usual. The mechanism on my seat was not working so I had to sit upright just as I always had went I went to movies in the past. In spite of the little annoyances here and there I was excited and happy when the first scenes appeared on the screen. I knew instantly that I was in for something quite special. 

Wicked, the movie, has everything that I enjoy, beautiful music, enchanting cinematography, a clever story and incredible performances from every actor, most particularly Cynthia Evie  as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda. I was mesmerized from start to finish and felt that I was watching a film that will certainly become an instant epic classic to delight audiences for as long as The Wizard of Oz has done. It somehow seemed to be the inevitable epilogue to that favorite from the nineteen forties that launched the career of Judy Garland. Surely we had all wondered what forces had created the Wicked Witch of the West with her flying monkeys. Had she always been so evil?

As a political junkie and observant educator I am a fan of history. I have found that most of us are influenced and shaped by a lifetime of events beginning with birth and how we are treated in life. The stories of Elphaba and Glinda are as old as the beginning of time when circumstances beyond anyone’s control metes out punishments and rewards based on little more than the ways in which society views certain groups or kinds of people. The politics of who we are and who we become may be a result our good fortune or derive from brutal prejudices over which we have little control. 

As we grow and mature we each invent ways to survive with as little hardships as possible. For some growing up takes place in an atmosphere of love and plenty. For others it is a lifetime of unfounded prejudice and misunderstanding. The politics of where we were born and how we appear to the world all too often determines the trajectory of our lives even when we try diligently to overcome the difficulties that make us less than in the eyes of others. Somehow the history of the world continues to categorize people as winners and losers based on many superficial characteristics over which they have little or no control. 

Wicked asks us to look beyond the obvious and superficial, to realize that we all too often overlook greatness only because it does not look the way we think it should be. It makes us wonder how often we have followed the superficialities of a crowd rather than learning about the truth of people or situations that are not exactly what they seem to be. It challenges us to ask questions and ferret out truths before making assumptions. it demonstrates how human it is to passively fall for lies and propaganda aimed at controlling us and how sometimes the very person who seems to be the villain is really the one who is doing what is right and just. 

I was swept away by the timeliness of the story in Wicked. It is as meaningful today as it would have been hundreds even thousands of years ago. It captures the good, the bad and the ugly of our humanity in an enchanting tale. If we watch it properly we may see ourselves and realize that we have to ferret out the truth on our own or surely we will be mislead. It tells us how we should beware of false promises and patriotism that asks us to turn on segments of the population who are different from ourselves. It demonstrates how powerful it is to make us afraid of others to the point of no longer seeing them as human.

Wicked is not just a fluffy feel good movie. It asks us to think and consider how we ourselves might be creating hate by hating. It is a stunning production that will certainly win many kudos when awards season begins. Everyone will be touched by the great care taken with every aspect of creating this incredible movie. If you have not yet seen it, I recommend that you do so soon. Make it a family affair. Go with people that you love and then ask yourself who the Elphabas are in your life. Think about what you might do to hear what they have to say before shunning them. We each have so many wrongs to right.  

I love Christmas. It has always been my favorite day of the year. While I love to decorate the tree with twinkling lights and tinsel, but my favorites are the nativity sets that I place in virtually every room of my home. I’ve been collecting them for years and each of them has a special story associated with them. 

My husband and I were married in early October so our first Christmas together came only two months after our wedding. We were both students at the time, still doing our best to gather enough hours to graduate. I had a job as a teachers’ aide at Elliot Elementary and earned just enough to pay our rent and buy gasoline and a few groceries. To say that we lived on a shoestring would be an understatement but somehow we believed that we would make it on a wing and a prayer. 

The first Christmas we managed to cut back just enough on our grocery bills to purchase gifts for our parents, my brothers and each other. It was almost a magical feat to pull it off, but we did it. We also managed to purchase a tiny live Christmas tree and a couple of boxes of ornaments and a string of lights. It wasn’t exactly a Charlie Brown tree but it was rather close. Somehow we did not even notice how meager our efforts must have appeared to everyone else. We were proud that we had managed to stretch our budget just enough to have a bit of Christmas cheer. 

The only thing that seemed to be missing was a nativity scene. Somehow it did not feel right without one and yet we were measuring every single penny. That’s when I found one that was only five dollars. It was small and rather plain but it had all the major characters in the story of Jesus’ birth and somehow we loved it. Still, we did some serious soul searching to determine if we would make it until my next paycheck if we splurged any more than we already had. 

We must have walked away from that little creche five or six times until finally deciding to throw caution to the wind. We still have it fifty six years later and it remains my favorite because of what it meant to us when we shared our first Christmas together. 

Since that time we have purchased many other Nativity sets that are much grander. We have one that takes up the space of an entire table. It is perfectly styled in porcelain. The figures are almost a foot high and the colors so true to life. There is even a lovely background for the scene. It is the most elegant of our collection and while I truly love it, there is another set that takes my heart. It is a set of little figurines from A Charlie Brown Christmas. All of the familiar characters are decked out in costumes that appear to be made from sheets. They wear paper crowns and veils. Baby Jesus is portrayed by Woodstock and Snoopy is a stunning shepherd. It brings back memories of watching those characters celebrate the birth of Jesus each year on television when we watched with our little girls who still tune in to the Christmas classic to this very day. 

There is also another very special set that has a story similar to the one from our first Christmas. It centers around one of the first Christmases after my father died. My mother, brothers and I had settled into a new house and wondered if anything would ever again be as magical as it had been when my father was still alive. Mama soldiered on through her grief and did her very best to deck the rooms of our home with tinsel and a lovely tree. She played Christmas music and laughed at our antics.

Later Mama and I made cookies and stored them in tins in case anyone came to visit. We had packages under the tree and my brothers and I had visited Santa and shyly told him what we wanted. We hung our stockings  and felt quite proud of how everything looked so lovely. Then Mama suggested that we take a trip to the neighborhood TG&Y to look for presents for our neighbors. 

As we walked up and down the aisles perusing the offerings we suddenly noticed a magnificent Nativity set with gloriously crafted figurines. It came with a lovely wooden structure that seemed to be almost real. We could not take our eyes from it. We were frozen in admiration and without saying anything it became apparent that each of us was wishing that it could be in our house for Christmas. Sadly the price seemed to be more than we dared spend so we left the store without even suggesting that we purchase it. 

On the way home Mama quietly spoke about how lovely the Nativity set was. Sensing that she was waiting for encouragement we bravely admitted how much we would like to have it in our home. Mama became quite pensive and began to list the pros and cons of spending so much money. We were already home before the debate had even ended. We silently went into the house believing that it was a pipe dream to think that we might be able to buy the beautiful Christmas scene. 

Being children we were soon distracted by silly games when Mama suddenly appeared and announced that she believed that we would never forgive ourselves if we did not go back to get the set. She grabbed her purse and told us to follow her to the car. It only took a few minutes to get back to the store and to our delight the Nativity scene was still there. We were overjoyed as the clerk carefully wrapped each piece and placed everything in a lovely box. 

We set up the the three kings, the shepherds, Mary, Joseph and Jesus as soon as we got home. It would be part of our Mama’s Christmas decorations for the rest of her life. That set is now about sixty eight years old and lately it has sat in my home. The pieces are worn with age and some of them are missing. The wooden building fell apart years ago but what is left is still so wonderful that I cry a few joyful tears as I set it up each year. 

I have many other Nativity sets each of which have wonderful stories as well but the ones I have told about you are sure the best. Christmas is about love and I remember it as I set the figures out each year. 

It always saddens me whenever people say that they are not good and math and never will be. I have learned that most of the time individuals feel that way because of a bad experience in school. I know that I had many of those moments, especially in the eighth grade when nothing related to math seemed to make sense. I remember feeling so much frustration that I actually cried and insisted that it was impossible to master anything that was so confusing. 

My mother did her best to help me, but I was in such a state of agitation that I ended up yelling at her for her good deeds. I had created a mental block that was immovable and made me feel quite stupid. After pitching several immature fits I felt determined to figure out a way to be fleetingly successful in math. Mostly I worked multiple kinds of problems and memorized how to tackle each type. While my method worked to keep my grades high, I was still feeling dazed and confused about why and how the processes led me to correct answers. Somehow in spite of my difficulties I literally faked my way through course after course through sheer determination and an uncanny ability to memorize. 

It was not until I was in college that things began to make sense. I studied under a professor who had a tremendous talent for demonstrating the reasons why different formulae and processes worked. Suddenly it all made so much sense and I fell in love with idea of spreading the gospel of mathematics for a living. Over time, lots of practice and attending multiple workshops to hone my teaching skills I became quite adept in the art of making math come alive even for those struggling mightily. 

I’ll never forget the moment when I took the GRE exam and made an almost perfect score on the math section of the test. It was a feat that had seemed impossible when I was in high school and my SAT scores were incredibly lopsided. I then had a great number for all things related to language and only an average mark for math. The GRE numbers were one of the proud achievements of my lifetime and they resulted from top of the line instruction from incredible teachers as well as daily practice conveying mathematical skills to students. Somehow what had once confounded me had all fallen in place and made so much sense. 

I now know that there has to be a connection between the visual and the abstract aspects of math. There is beautiful meaning in those numbers that explain so much about the world in which we live. Without an understanding of how the processes actually apply to reality all of those calculations are meaningless and therefore difficult to maneuver. It was good teaching that opened my eyes and in turn showed me how to convey my knowledge to my students. 

I did reach a point at which I did not continue my journey with mathematics. I have grandchildren whose engineering degrees took them much farther than I ever went. Nonetheless I now feel confident in an ability to visualize and truly understand the subjects of high school mathematics. I have the capacity to explain how and why things work and what it takes to solve a problem. I am admittedly slow and steady in my work but I also know that it is not speed in reaching a level of understanding that determines our abilities.

Sometimes I am actually frustrated and saddened when I hear of people who gave up on themselves when it came to learning math. They avoided courses and jobs that might have required them to work with numbers. From my on experience I know that nobody is hopeless and I get so much joy whenever I am able to turn on the lights of comprehension. I know how much joy there is in finally becoming competent at a skill that once alluded me. 

I’ll never be an Einstein or even as mathematically advanced as my brother who was literally a rocket scientist. There are people so much better than I am but I have learned that there are enormous resources for learning more in the world today. There are numbers of how to lessons for unravelling almost any concept. You and I have the tools to continue our educations with a computer and a search engine that leads us to brilliant educators just waiting for us to take the time to watch their presentations. Fantastically most of their lessons are absolutely free. All you have to do is find the teacher and the teaching style that works best for your learning needs. 

I wish that we did not imply to our young that everyone should be able to master mathematics at some pre-described time. The truth is that each of us learns at a different pace. It is also true that just because it may take some of us a bit longer to find success does not mean that we are any less intelligent than those who catch on right away. For that reason I’d like to challenge everyone to rethink the way he or she thinks about math. I suspect that with a bit of guidance I would be able to open your eyes to just how wonderful it is and guide you to a point of confidence and even enjoyment. 

Don’t be hard on yourself. If you feel lacking in mathematical skills it is no doubt not totally your fault. The world abounds with fantastic educators who should be able to change your mind about how you feel about mathematics and yourself. Everyone really can learn as long as you remember that it is not a race but a steady process of learning that leads to understand bit by bit. 

I don’t make a good first impression. In fact I tend not to even be noticed in the beginning. I am quiet and unassuming, ordinary looking, someone who blends in with a crowd. I don’t do well in job interviews but after someone risks hiring me I rise to the top. It’s always been that way with me. The charisma gene will not be found in my DNA but I have an overabundance of determination that has helped me to succeed throughout my lifetime. 

I get lost in a crowd. It’s unlikely that anyone would notice me. I laughed recently when my father-in-law wanted to know who the tall beautiful blonde woman was at my brother’s birthday party. I did not know her name but even I could not help but take note of her. Everyone else was mostly like me, just one more face that seemed to be unimportant. The truth is that I like being this way. I don’t enjoy drawing attention to myself. I prefer being the observer rather than the center but there are times when it would be nice just to be a bit more memorable. 

When I entered high school the principal cautioned me and my mother as to my placement in the advanced classes. It was his belief that they would be too much for me and that ultimately he would have to adjust the program of study to match my abilities. He mentioned that my former teachers had been instrumental in having me placed with the Honors students. They spoke of my work ethic and my willingness to tackle difficult situations. They told him not to be fooled by outward appearances. Four years later I was still taking the advanced classes and I graduated at the top of my class.

Admittedly I probably worked harder than most of my classmates, but what is wrong with that? I readily take on challenges and often achieve things that seem to be beyond my natural abilities. I am incredibly shy but I have learned how to take a deep breath and dive into public speaking, debating, advocating for others. I may feel like jelly inside but somehow I find ways to hide my fears when the occasion requires me to reach deeply into my psyche and overcome all of the assumptions that I must surely be a little mouse. 

I have never done particularly well in job interviews because of my low key personality. Unlike the blonde at my brother’s party I just don’t stand out. I often end up accepting jobs that are not particularly attractive to other applicants. I know that I need only get my foot in the door to weave my magic which generally consists of working longer and harder than anybody else. I am that person who is willing to come early, stay late, put in extra hours on the weekend, take work home. My efforts always get noticed and suddenly I become the golden girl, because I am earnestly committed to whatever I am supposed to be doing. 

We all know of someone who seems to have an exceptional glow. When such individuals also work hard they rise to epic status. Almost as soon as former President Barack Obama stepped into the political realm there was something almost otherworldly about him. He was exciting, someone who seemed destined for greatness. He had also worked hard to get to that place and so he assumed the power of one of the most important people in the world. Franklin and Teddy Roosevelt had much the same ability to be instantly noticed and revered. 

There have been other people who came to power quietly and became giants because of their character and strong wills. Abraham Lincoln was such a man. People would hardly have seen him as a future leader with his homely looks and his homespun background, but he had a way with words and a determination to work for the good of our country. A lesser soul might have bowed to the Confederacy and accepted the split in the country as an inevitability. Instead he fought against such a rift with a vigor that seemed to come from nowhere.

Most of us feel as though we are just cogs in a grand machine. Like ants we toil to build mounds and to survive. We are unknown faces, just one of millions. They key to being noticed and appreciated almost always boils down to how much effort we put into the things that we do. If we see ourselves as part of something important and we work to give our very best to the project or the team, we will surely find success and notice. We are ultimately judged by our devotion to a common cause. People value us when we first show how much we value them. We don’t have to be the life of a party to gain the affection of every participant. They will know and love someone who modestly checks on their welfare. The quiet unassuming person can make a difference one person, one task at a time.

I used to hire teachers. There were times when I saw a show pony and grabbed that person immediately. Other times I saw something more in an individual who more closely resembled a work horse. I knew that in the tough times they would join us in ploughing on through difficult times. I understood that we need both kinds of people and each has a purpose that makes him or her wonderful.

They say it takes all kinds. Perhaps that saying would be better if we realized we need all kinds. It is in its variety that the world is beautiful. We each have a twinkle. Some show it on the outside and others know they have it on the inside but just need an opportunity to let is shine through. We might want to get to know people better before we classify them one way or another. I’ve learned to watch for the hidden treasures in our midst.