Day 59 - Lessons from Gloria Steinem

Image by Queen of Planning, via Flickr

Yesterday I heard part of an interview with Gloria Steinem.  Her interviewer seemed surprised by her answers and kept rephrasing them, hoping for the answer he expected. He didn't get it. What the interviewer assumed, and he kept trying to get Ms. Steinem to say, is that the issues facing women in western countries these days are much less serious than they were in the days when she and other feminists were coming into their stride. But Ms. Steinem consistently countered that the issues for women in western countries are in fact more serious today than in the 60's and 70's.

Her main point is that the issues facing women now are more elemental than issues of equal pay for equal work. Now we know that how a culture treats the women in the home illustrates how a culture treats everyone else. When violence against women is tolerated in the home, it normalizes violence against enemies, strangers, and the person down the street someone doesn't like. But when violence against women is no longer tolerated, then violence anywhere is less likely to be accepted.

Tonight I am watching a movie from 1951, The Man in the White Suit, starring Alec Guinness, that illustrates Ms. Steinem's point, but from a slightly different viewpoint. Not surprisingly, there are very few women in this film about an inventor of an indestructible fabric that the industrialists in the mills around him are desperate to suppress. One of the two women with any lines beyond "Yes, Mr. Birnley," is the daughter of one of those industrialists who recognizes the value of the invention for the world at large. Everyone else, capitalists and workers alike, except for a seven-year-old child, views the situation from their selfish, personal viewpoints and tries to stop the inventor from publicizing his accomplishment.

The crisis is averted when the crowd discovers the fiber isn't stable so the suit the inventor is wearing made from the fabric for the press conference that never happened comes apart in the hands of his pursuers. The only three who weren't laughing at him then were the industrialist's daughter, the seven-year-old girl, and the woman who worked with him in the shipping area who also lived in the same rooming house as the inventor. The latter opposed the manufacture of the fabric and joined in the pursuit, but she also saw the defeat in the inventor's eyes and showed compassion.

There was no violence in the movie, but there was a threat of it as well as ridicule. Back in the 1950's, ridicule, like bullying, was expected and the objects of both were encouraged to suck it up, get over it, grow up. Even worse, the victims often adopted the same tactics against others. Ms. Steinem is right. And we still have some work to do.

Day 56 - More Flying

Image by mauren veras, via Flickr

I spent most of yesterday in airplanes or in airports waiting for my next airplane. So I saw a lot of people, inspiring stories of what brought these particular people together at that particular time and place. Lots of fodder for future 365 Project pieces.

But the person who left the biggest impression on me is someone with whom I spent the shortest length of time: the flight attendant on the 20-minute flight from Los Angeles to San Diego. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about her just rubbed me the wrong way.

The first event that drew my attention to her was when the woman across the aisle asked for an extender. Now I will admit that I had no idea what she meant by the word, but then, I don't work for an airline. The flight attendant also looked at the woman as if she had just spoken to her in Greek, so the woman clarified that she wanted an extender to the seat belt so that she could hold her child on her lap during take-off. Now that the attendant seemed to understand. Her response: "Oh, no, we don't have such a thing. That is not allowed. That just isn't possible. The child will have to sit in his own seat." And she hurried away down the aisle.

That seemed funny. If there is no such thing as a seat belt extender, why would the woman ask for one? Maybe other airlines provide them? Or maybe they are available on larger model planes? The attendant's response didn't ring true.

Then we moved into that portion of the flight when the attendant rattles off what to do in the unlikely event of a water landing and so on. Usually I can sleep through those speeches, or recite along with the speaker. They are so predictable and boring, except on Southwest Airlines when they are stand-up comedian-worthy. But this attendant had a tone to her voice that came across condescending. I wanted to get up and punch her. I am not sure I could replicate her intonation pattern. It was a little sing-songy, with her intonation rising and falling in an exaggerated pattern, like a kindergarten teacher reading a fairy tale to her class. Really, really annoying,

The flight was so short, that we barely got off the ground before she was back on the public address system telling us to shut down all electronic appliances, bring our seat backs into the full and upright position and return the tray tables to their locked positions. And that is where she irritated me yet again. Apparently not everyone paid close enough attention. She was back on the system again in a few seconds to repeat herself after first stating that apparently not everyone had heard her the first time. This time the sing-songiness came with a slight giggle that she seemed to think softened the edge. It didn't.

I closed my eyes as the plane began its descent so I didn't see her when she came up behind me. I just heard her say to bring the seat back up. I turned around and told her I had never lowered my seat. She laughed, OK maybe it was a nervous giggle, as she pointed to the man in the seat next to me to say he was the one who hadn't returned his seat to the upright position. Now I hadn't talked over my impressions of Ms. Attendant with my seat mate; he seemed quite comfortable in his own bubble. His reaction to her appeared consistent with mine however. He said nothing. But his eyes did. Ms. Attendant did all the seat adjusting while reaching over me, giving me a more up-close look than I wanted.

By this time, I thought there was little more she could do to add to my impression of her. But I was wrong. The plane was on the ground. The captain had reminded us to keep our seat belts fastened until he had turned off the sign. Most of us were following directions well, just like well-behaved kindergarten children. But then I heard her voice once more over the loud speaker. "Keep that child in his seat." It wasn't a suggestion.

Day 54 - Dad

Today is my last day in my hometown where I have been spending time with Dad each day. Tomorrow I fly home.

It has been good to spend time with Dad, to watch him, to see his face while I talk to him. I still answered the same questions again and again. But over the course of the week, occasionally he seemed to know the answers before told him. For instance, instead of asking me how old he is, he would ask me if he was 88. A very specific age, not just a guess. And yesterday he didn't ask my brother and me if he still had a car; he asked Wayne who he gave his car to. This morning, my brother Roger told him that I had been in town this week and Dad responded that he knew that. I had been to see him the day before.

So it has been good to see those glimpses of his memory functioning.

But there have always been tough times, too. One late afternoon, three of us - Wayne, his wife Julie, and I - had left him alone for an hour while we took care of some business and when we returned to his room about an hour before he was scheduled to have supper, Dad responded to Wayne's knock on the door with a loud shout that it was about time we came in. He had been sleeping when we left him and when he woke up, he was confused about where he was and why he was there. It was easy to empathize with his confusion because I am also confused about where I am when I wake up from a nap in the middle of the day, but the vehemence in his voice was a surprise to us all. He was not happy about being all alone, about not knowing who was going to take care of him, about not knowing why he wasn't at home in his house.

Today, Dad had lots of visitors. Wayne and Julie were in town again. Roger was also in town. My sister-in-law Lori and her daughter Megan came in with Max, the 12-year-old Maltese poodle. And Dad's sister Myrt and her son Randy and his wife Lisa also came in. So the room was a bit crowded for part of the day. Dad dozed off now and then during the afternoon.  So when most of the crowd had left and there were just three of us in his room, he started getting more agitated again. He seemed to think he was outside, or that he was going to be put outside, and that wasn't right. He wasn't happy about the situation at all. It just wasn't right, he kept repeating.

When we left, I gave him a hug and told him that I would be back again in a few weeks. He smiled. I told him I loved him and kissed him on his forehead. He said he loved me, too.

Day 51 - Bingo

image by Catherine V, via Flickr

We played Bingo today at Dad's nursing home. Wednesday is Bingo day every week, so it was no surprise. But since I am only in town occasionally, I always enjoy Bingo day because it is an objective way to measure Dad's involvement with the environment.
The last time I was in town was shortly after Dad's short-term memory took a trip without him. When we started playing Bingo that day, Dad just ignored his card. I kept my eye on both his and mine and pulled the red windows over the numbers as they were called. About half way through the first game, he started looking at his card, eventually pulling it over to be closer to him and shifting his glasses at an odd angle to get a better view of the numbers on the card. Then he started reaching forward to pull the red windows himself, but his hand-eye coordination wasn't quite under control. His hand was either too high or too far to the right to pull the window.  After a few tries, he pushed the card away and said it was too hard. So I took over for him until his interest was piqued again and he began paying closer attention and trying again.

The following week his vision interfered a little less. His fingers aimed a little high, but not over to the right. He didn't push the card away or stop paying attention. I only had to direct his eyes to one of the numbers infrequently.

It has been six weeks since that Wednesday. And Dad's memory hasn't gotten better. So that means each conversation will reoccur a minute or so later. I answer each of Dad's questions as if it were the first time I have heard it. So I was looking forward to Bingo even more today. It would be a break from the repeated questions.

I watched Dad, of course, but I also watched the others at the table. Alice was sitting next to Dad and she was paying very close attention to the numbers being called. She nearly always pulled a red window over a number, but rarely because it was the right number. Occasionally she would reverse the action and lift the window to expose the number again. It didn't matter to Alice whether she was playing according to the rules or even if she Bingo'ed. She was enjoying the time, she was engaged, and she was smiling.

Next to Alice was her daughter-in-law who visits Alice every day. She doesn't obsess about whether Alice is following the rules or paying attention. She just smiles at Alice and Alice smiles back and that is as good as it gets, and probably better than many other mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationships.

Next to Alice's daughter-in-law was another resident I'll call Mary. Mary had two Bingo cards, but she seemed to have difficulty hearing. She would look up at me and shake her head with a question in her eyes after about every other number. I repeated the number and she turned back to her cards to cover the number with the red window. And the final person at the table was another resident I'll call Betty. Betty had only one card, but she preferred to use it in reverse: instead of pulling the red windows over the numbers when called, she started out with all the windows covering the numbers and she uncovered them when a number was called. At least that's how she started out the game. About half way through, she got confused and started looking at the uncovered numbers instead of the covered ones.

Dad got Bingo once. But he didn't notice it so I raised his card for the Bingo caller to see. I'm a little competitive. I admit it. But as the games continued, I realized that the examples of Alice and her daughter-in-law were pretty significant, so I decided that continuing to play was more important than calling out Bingo to win. Luck seemed to be with me and my card on the next game. I think I had the first five numbers called, putting me in a good position to Bingo quickly. But I decided to keep playing my card regardless of the pattern of the red windows. It was the final game of the afternoon, the one where three Bingo winners get their dime prizes but the game continues as a blackout round. By this time, Dad was getting more involved. Now, when he saw five red windows in a row, he shouted "Bingo" not once but twice. I reminded him it was blackout Bingo now, but inside I celebrated a little bit because he was alert and attentive to something outside of himself.

I've never enjoyed playing Bingo more.

Day 33 - Conspiracy Anyone?

Charger for HP Photosmart R727 camera

It's spooky how well Amazon knows me. Recently, I found my digital camera. It had been packed away since long before we moved to California, and I was sure there are some photos on it that I haven't downloaded yet. So yesterday evening which was "clear the surface of the desk" night, I pulled it out of its case and opened the battery compartment to see what I needed to do to get the camera working.

The camera is powered by a rechargeable battery, not a couple of AA's, so I went looking for the charger. After checking the most likely places, I failed to find it, so I got online and checked out where I could find a charger. I tried Best Buy first because that's where I got the camera. But their search engine sucks - the more precise I made the search criteria, the more irrelevant results I got. After scaling back the search criteria to the bare minimum, camera chargers, I concluded that Best Buy no longer carried anything having to do with my several year old camera.

I used Google's search instead and found lots of sources for appropriate chargers. Since the prices were all around the same amount, I chose Amazon since I have lots of experience with them. After adding the charger to my shopping cart, Amazon suggested that I might want a spare battery, too. And I agreed that was a good suggestion, so I added the battery to the shopping cart. And then, Amazon suggested a few videos I might want to consider.

Paper Clips, the
video, image from
Amazon.com

The first video in that list was "Paper Clips," the 2-disc special edition. And this is why I think Amazon is just spooky. I already own that video, but how my decision to purchase a Lithium Ion rechargeable battery and a charger could connect with videos (yes, plural; there was another one about the making of the film "Paper Clips" in the list of recommended items) about a Middle School project in Whitwell, TN, is beyond my comprehension. I didn't get my copy from Amazon. I didn't even go out in search of it as I had never heard of it. Several years ago I was in f.y.e. in Ballston Mall in Arlington, Virginia, just looking around when I saw the video in a rack of discounted items. The cover of the video announces, "It began as a lesson about prejudice. . .What happened next was a MIRACLE" which was enough to grab my attention. I flipped it over and read the back and made the decision to buy the video.

But that's not the really spooky part. The really spooky part is that on Monday this week, I gave a speech at my Toastmasters club, the title of which was "Paper Clips." I chose my speech topic because the day before, Sunday, January 27, was Holocaust Remembrance Day which is what inspired me to give that speech on Monday.

Sandvika Norway paper clip via

Wikipedia

For those who don't know (and who obviously haven't read Day 14), the movie is about a Middle School class project to collect six million objects as part of their unit on the Holocaust in order to understand how big that number is. They chose paper clips because of a story one of the students had read about the Norwegians during World War II wearing paper clips on their lapels as a sign of opposition to the Nazis after the Nazis banned the wearing of any flag or lapel pins.  The Norwegians had erected a sculpture of a giant paper clip at the end of World War II as a commemoration.

I admit that I buy a pretty wide range of things through Amazon, sometimes they are for my dad, sometimes for a niece or nephew, sometimes for a friend, and even occasionally for myself. So I can't figure out what kind of algorithm Amazon uses that would take all those very different book and video titles and mash them up to present the top suggested items yesterday. If the Paper Clips video had been at the bottom of the list of suggestions, I wouldn't have been surprised. But it was the first one in the list.

Does anyone out there believe in conspiracies? Is Amazon stalking my Project 365 blog?

Day 27 - My Guardian Angel

Mom

When Mom died, I knew I had lost more than my mother. I had lost the one person I knew prayed for me every day, whether I needed it or not. I had spent a lot of time poo pooing Mom's advice that the solution to any problem was prayer. I remembered, because she reminded me of it often, that I had stopped biting my nails when I was about six after I prayed to God for his help. I don't think I would have remembered those prayers if Mom hadn't reminded me. But she was right. With her encouragement, I had prayed that God would help me stop biting my nails, and I stopped.

But I also thought that with Mom's death, my guardian angel may also be gone. I was more comfortable thinking that I had a guardian angel than thinking Mom's prayers were what kept me safe. And I had a very large number of experiences that I attributed to my guardian angel.

One of the most dramatic set of examples all came from the same summer, a summer when I am certain Mom spent a lot of her praying on me. It was the summer of 1973, a year after I had made several significant decisions. First, it was the year after I decided to get divorced. Or at least I thought that was my decision. Second, I decided to go to graduate school. I didn't know how I was going to pay for it, but I made the decision, and I was accepted.  I think I left it up to my guardian angel to figure out the details.

Image by tyfn, via Flickr

The summer of 1972, I had travelled by bus from Berkeley, California, to Moorhead, Minnesota, in order to attend my sister's graduation from high school. My husband at the time, Don, couldn't leave as early as I needed to. I wasn't confident enough to consider driving by myself, and the cost of flying was entirely out of the question. A train ticket was twice the cost of a bus ticket, and I wouldn't have arrived any sooner. So I traveled that time by bus.

I didn't consider that trip to be the beginning of the end of my marriage, but that is what it turned out to be. As I entered the bus in Oakland, I tried to convey as sophisticated an image as possible. I thought I was so worldly. But as I walked toward the back of the bus, the strap of my purse caught on the armrest of one of the seats, pulling me backwards as I made my way. I caught myself before falling down, and dusted off my slightly bruised ego, untangled my purse strap, and continued toward the back where I had spotted an empty row. I managed to get my bag stowed above the seat and then I stepped up to sit down. I hadn't noticed that the elevation of the step where the seats were woudn't permit me to stand up. So I bumped my head pretty hard on the overhead ledge which made my landing on the seat quick, and without grace. So much for my sophisticated start on this, my first solo traveling experience.

A gentleman dressed in western clothes, complete with a cowboy hat, asked if he could have the seat next to me. We talked most of the way from Oakland to Reno, our dinner stop. He was a rodeo competitor, on his way to Montana. He invited me to join him for dinner in Reno, a pleasant option to what otherwise would have been a solitary event. After dinner, he excused himself because he wanted to try his luck with the slot machines. I made my way to a bookstore where I bought the book The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer.

Image by Globalism Pictures, via Flickr

The bus traveled though Nevada overnight with Salt Lake City as our breakfast stop. I don't recall if the cowboy was on the same bus, but I know he wasn't next to me on the next leg, from Salt Lake City to Missoula. Instead, my seat mate was a high school boy who was on his way to a dude ranch in Montana where his dad worked. He spent every summer with his dad, but he spent the school years with his mom. He said his mom had been married five times, so he was used to being around lots of step fathers. I suppose it wasn't all that surprising that he asked me if I liked being married. No one had ever asked me that before. And I'm not sure I had even asked it of myself. I am sure the pause between his asking the question and my answering it was longer than he expected. I think my answer was an equivocal sometimes I liked it and sometimes I didn't. I had already read some of my book before he and I started talking, so I guess I had begun to wonder whether I was happy with all my choices.

By the time I reached Moorhead, I knew the answer to that young boy's question was that I wasn't happy. But that didn't mean I was ready to give up. I called Don and tried to tell him that I wasn't happy, but since I was in my parents' house, I couldn't get the words out. I went upstairs and sat at the desk that had been mine while I was in high school and college, and I decided to write him a letter. When I opened the first desk drawer, I found a paper with my sister's handwriting. It was a copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, Self Reliance, one of my favorites. And that cinched it. I wrote Don a letter telling him that I was not happy and that when I got back to Berkeley, we had to make some changes. A few days later, after he had received the letter, Don called me at my parents' house and reassured me that we would do something when I got back.

I returned to Berkeley by bus with no memorable traveling companions. When Don picked me up at the bus station, he announced that he had already moved out of our apartment. He proposed that I keep the car and he would take the bicycle. Since I would have the apartment, he would take our tent. And that was the extent of our discussion. He had bought a do-it-yourself divorce book and said he thought that since he had no job, he should file for a no-contest divorce. It was final in February of 1973, the year I am convinced Mom spent a lot of her prayer time on me.

Image by Will Carter Photography, via Flickr

I entered San Francisco State University's masters program in January of 1973. At the end of that semester, I packed up everything I owned into my VW bug and drove from San Francisco to Moorhead, to spend the summer with my family. I had already made one round-trip between California and Minnesota since that bus trip. This time, I drove 2,198 miles across country without a problem. But when I was two miles from home, at the off ramp of I-94 and 8th Street South in Moorhead, my car blew a piston and stopped dead at the stop sign. It was bad news, but delivered with the softest possible blow. How else could I explain my car not breaking down earlier but to attribute it to a guardian angel?

I took my bike off the rack at the back of my car, reinflated the tires, rode down 8th street to the first gas station I could find and arranged to have the car towed to my parents. Eventually, I got my VW to a shop that specialized in repairs to foreign cars. The estimate for the repair: $120. I knew I needed $60 to get back to San Francisco at the end of the summer. I had $180 in my pocket when I arrived in Moorhead. It seemed like another act on the part of my guardian angel.

Image by Eva Luedin, via Flickr

That summer, I spent most of my time driving a man from Bolivia, Ruben, from farm to farm in the Red River Valley. He had been brought to the area by his brother to serve as a Lutheran missionary to the migrant workers. But he spoke no English and he couldn't drive. I was his driver and translator for the summer. I had received no salary, but the organization sponsoring Ruben agreed to pay for my gas. That meant I would still have the $60 I needed to get back to California.

At one point that summer, as I was driving along a gravel country road, Ruben saw some workers in the field and he asked me to pull over so he could talk with them. It looked like there a shoulder, so I pulled over -- onto tall grass. I felt my car beginning to roll, but instead of continuing down the ditch, it came to a gentle rest against a sign that warned of an upcoming curve in the road. Once I realized what had happened, I looked up and down that country road and could not see another sign. How else could I explain that I chose that spot to pull over but to consider it the work of my guardian angel?

Image by jimforest, via Flickr

There are many more examples of bad things happening in my life, but in the least possible harmful way. I have continued to give my guardian angel credit for these events, though I have also always thought Mom and her prayers were that guardian angel. I still think she is.

Day 26 - Katherine Anne Porter

We are going to a play tonight, so I need to settle for something that meets my 500 word minimum instead of a finished product. So I have decided to write my observations about Katherine Anne Porter's work. I have been reading a book of her collected stories and it feels as though I am reading what I have always wanted to write. I don't think I had ever read any of her writing before. Nothing seems familiar, or at least nothing seems like anything I have read before, except that everything seems familiar in an eerie sort of way.

The first stories were set in Mexico, written in 1922 in New York. All the qualities that I thought I wanted in my writing - a foreign location but written while living in New York.

But later in the collected stories was one about an American poet living in Mexico who fell in love with a woman who joined him in Mexico. And she was from Minnesota. I had a hard time feeling any sympathy for the poet. I was apparently identifying with the Minnesota gal.

Every story, even though they were written around the time my mother was a toddler, every story felt like the words were the ones I had been waiting to write.

And then I got to the short novel Old Mortality. There shouldn't be anything in it that seems familiar. It begins in 1885. It is set in Kentucky on a horse ranch. The main characters so far are two sisters, 8 and 12, whose mother died when they were much younger. But there is something about it that feels like it is my story. Maybe it is because much of the action so far centers around the contents of a trunk that the girls' grandmother goes through twice a year and the girls get to sit nearby and watch, if they are quiet enough. It reminds me a bit of the wooden chest that was in the basement of my parents' first house, the one that had all sorts of mysterious items in it that we were not allowed to open the trunk to look at, but we could watch when Mom or Dad opened it.

In it were the silk kimono and the silk fan from Japan, the silk "grass" skirt from Hawaii, and the real grass skirt from the Phillipines that Dad brought back from his years with the Merchant Marines. And the cewpie doll that Dad won for Mom at some fair. Also there were comic books. Comic books that we couldn't take out to read on our own; we had to wait for Dad to give them to us.

While I am not certain just where Katherine Anne Porter grew up, I choose at this point to believe it was in Kentucky, or at least in the south. If that is true, then Old Mortality has something in common with what I have learned about my own writing from this project: that the subject of one's childhood is a rich source for material, even it if lacks the exotic qualities of a foreign location and the experience of living and writing in New York.

Day 21 - Writer's Block, Day 2

Image by Incessant Flux via Flickr

Last night we watched Cinderella. And for the first time, I spent time observing the bit players instead of the usual ones. I paid attention to the king, his duke, even the prince, instead of Cinderella, her step-mother and step-sisters, even her fairy godmother.

I didn't recall, for example, that the king was so unhappy with his son's frittering away his time instead of looking for an appropriate wife. I didn't recall that the king gave his duke only one day to arrange the ball. And I didn't recall that Cinderella wasn't aware that the handsome man she danced with all night was the prince.

Watching the king reminded me of some ambassadors whose expectations of what can be done run right up against the boundary of the impossible. The duke reminded me of management officers who are usually the ones expected to pull off the near impossible.

The night before we watched Arthur, not the 1980's version with Dudley Moore, the later version with Russell Brand. Arthur's mother's disappointment in her son's activities and choices resonated in the king of Cinderella's statements about the prince's frittering away his time.

So it got me thinking about a play I saw in New York in 1968 by Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, a play written from the perspective of two minor characters in Hamlet. And I also started wondering just how the prince frittered away his time. In the Disney version, it is hard to imagine what he did - or didn't do - between becoming an adult and the ball. Those are ideas I'll explore later.

Day 20 - Writer's Block

Image by Tony Dowler via Flickr

I am having a lot of trouble getting started today. I turned to the Writers Exercise Generator for ideas and tried several of them, looking for inspiration. But none of them worked. So I'm going to have to try just writing for the sake of writing, without great hopes for the results.

There was a lot of banging around our house today as Henry and his plumbing crew began their work to replace the sewer pipes below our house. Not surprising, given the age of our house, the task is not entirely straightforward or a simple as it looked yesterday. The fact that our house was built in stages explains why the plumbing is really three segments joined together in an expedient, but not necessarily the most efficient manner.

The pipes under the main house have all been replaced. So we have water and drains for the kitchen, laundry and two of the bathrooms. But sewers leading from the master bath to the main house go under the garage and all our efforts to find a hatch failed. And in the course of replacing the pipes that could be replaced, Henry found there are roots in the pipes outside the house. So that means those pipes need to be replaced as well, and that will require trenching through out yard.

Henry did solve one mystery that has nothing to do with plumbing. He noticed clumps of dirt in our yard and explained that we have a gopher - or two. Our yard is very lumpy, not nice an level like I am used to.  He also pointed out one area of our lawn that appears to be in so much better shape than the rest. The shape of the particularly green patch suggested to Henry that there may be a a break in the underground irrigation system pipes. That system was put in place by the investors who bought the house and then renovated it, so it is not at all old. Unless we see our water bills growing unreasonably, we'll probably just accept that some of the lawn looks in better shape than the rest. The direction that the trench for the sewer line will have to go won't give us any clues to the status of the irrigation system.

We did find one mystery that I'll have to explore further another time. Henry noticed the floor in the closet in the laundry room was wooden and there was a hinged hatch with two holes in it that looked just right for opening it. After we moved all the items out of the closet and Henry lifted the hatch, all we found was an underground cavity, a little like a safe built into a wall, without the security of a metal door and lock. But more curious was that the portion of the floor next to the hatch had holes in it, holes that appeared to be air holes for whatever living thing might be put into the cavity. Each one of us when we saw the holes had the same reaction - what are they for?

Day 9 - Yemen

Image by james_gordon_losangeles via Flickr

The house smells like curry. I made a variation of curried carrot and apple soup last night, to use up some leftover pumpkin (the variation), and that's where the aroma is from. I love curry and the aroma of the mixture of all those spices brings memories of Yemen flooding over me.

I spent one year - 13 months - in Yemen, one of the most exciting places I have lived.

Yemen. Living there is like living in a museum with exhibits from every century in history. In Sanaa, there are 21st century modern businesses in high rise buildings with websites catering to customers who have high speed Internet. And in the countryside, there are villages without any electricity or indoor running water where people get around on donkeys or by foot that look like they did in the 1st century. Even in Sanaa, there are glimpses of many different centuries, visible from the same spot just by turning to face a different direction.

Image by judaluz via Flickr

The best place to see the contrasts is in the Old City, a UNESCO Heritage site. If the gingerbread buildings there were to be found in the United States, they would have to be in Disneyland. But in Sanaa, people live in the buildings; they are not just curiosities for the tourists' entertainment. 

Western women, especially women in the diplomatic corps, have special status in Yemen. We are neither feared nor desired, a truly alien gender. And that means women in the diplomatic corps are invited to both women's events and men's events. It is a misperception that events in theMiddle East are limited to men only, although it is most accurate that many events are for women only. I attended both the women's and men's gatherings forweddings, for example. A western man will never been invited to join a women's event.

Image by eesti via Flickr

I never felt in danger when I went to the souk in the Old City, even when I went by myself. One evening during Ramadhan, I foolishly drove to the souk after work, just after sundown, and I found my car completely surrounded by pedestrians making their way out of doors after having broken the fast. I had a two-door Rav 4, a truly infant-sized vehicle among all the Toyota pickups and Landcruisers, but it was still too small to get through the narrow lanes without the risk of bumping into something or someone. An older man walked leisurely next to the passenger side and when he reached the level of my side mirror, he looked over at me, smiled, and pushed the hinged mirror against the body of the car to reduce its width by a few inches. So I rolled down my window and pulled the side mirror there against the car as well and then made slow progress to the end of that lane.

Most western men had a difficult time adjusting to driving patterns in Yemen. In contrast, I loved to drive there. Western men had a hard time giving up their sense of responsibility for keeping eyes open in all directions – ahead, behind, to the left, and to the right. The unpredictable traffic patterns, the non-functioning traffic lights, and the disregard for white lane markings on the road defeated any conscientious attempts to keep all the activity in mind. I chose to adapt to the local pattern which required that I only pay attention to what was in front of me. It was the other drivers’responsibility to keep track of me if they were behind me– even just a little bit behind me on either the right or the left. The first question the traffic police asked at the scene of an accident was “Who was in front?” The driver in front is never at fault.

Image by Roobee via Flickr

Most of us lived at least 20 minutes away from the Embassy, and since there were ring roads throughout the city, I could leave my compound and take off in any direction to get to work. It just took a little longer along some routes. We were advised to be unpredictable, to avoid being targeted and followed so I left the house at a different time every day and I made my decision whether to turn left or right at the intersection based on what color the first car I saw was – if it was white, I turned left; if any other color, I turned right. Along each route I picked out key intersections where I could follow that same pattern so that even I didn’t know exactly what route I would take to work. Sometimes I ran into obstructions that would have riled up others; I just put my Toyota into low gear and drove over or around.

After a few weeks of driving in Yemen I decided driving according to western patterns was boring – a little like marching through a ballroom instead of dancing. I mentioned this comparison of driving as dancing in Yemen to a friend and I later learned several of the shop owners in the souk called me the lady who danced with her car.

By the way, the soup wasn't anything to write home about. The carrots needed more cooking than the recipe called for. And adding the leftover pumpkin may have compromised the blend of flavors.

Curried Carrot and Apple Soup

Serves 4

2 tsp sunflower oil

1 tbsp mild curry powder

1 1/2 lb carrots, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 tart baking apple, chopped

3 1/2 cups chicken broth

Salt and black pepper

Plain low fat yogurt and carrot curls, to garnish

Heat the oil and gently fry the curry powder for 2-3 minutes.

Add the carrots, onions, and apple, stir well, then cover the pan.

Cook over very low heat for about 15 minutes, shaking the pan occasionally, until softened. Spoon the vegetable mixture into a food processor or blender, then add half the broth and process until smooth.

Return to the pan and pour in the remaining broth. Bring the soup to a boil and adjust the seasoning before serving in bowls, garnished with a swirl of yogurt and a few carrot curls.

From Low Fat Low Cholesterol Cooking, edited by Anne Sheasby

Day 7 - The Project

Image from Michael Holden on Flickr

This evening I attended a Toastmasters meeting where the theme for the meeting was New Beginnings. It seemed appropriate. We are in a new year. The club is meeting in a new location. And on Saturday I got myself a new hairstyle.

The Table Topics question assigned to me was to tell about one of my goals for the new year, an opportunity to describe my 365 Project.  I find that telling someone else about a goal is one of the best ways to ensure that I follow through. Another member responded to her Table Topics question by describing a writers' group she joined that will be meeting through the next month. And a third member described a writing course she is teaching later this month.

Those coincidences made me decide to expand further on my goals for this project. The primary goal is for me to establish the habit of writing every day, but I also hope that others will consider writing more, too. So in addition to writing pieces that may lead up to writing whole stories, I will be sharing the lessons I learn along the way. After less than a week of my Project 365, I already have some to share.

Image from courosa on Flickr

The first lesson is that I am surprised that the experiences I have chosen are related more to my childhood growing up in Minnesota than from the many foreign places I couldn’t wait to travel to when I was still in Minnesota growing up. The experiences easiest to draw from are those I thought were too common, too ordinary, too boring while I was living them. And that made me realize that I should have started writing much, much earlier.

The second lesson is that I have to be willing to be vulnerable when writing about the experiences I know best – my own. It is possible that someone – family member, friend, acquaintance – may recognize something of me or of themselves in what I write. So long as I am unwilling to put onto paper – even this electronic version of paper – something that others may recognize, I will never be able to write believably. It has been harder for me to write fictional pieces than stories I have clearly identified as my own experiences, such as many of the warming up exercises I prepared.

Image from urbanworkbench on Flickr

The third lesson is that I need to let go of thinking that everything I write for this project needs to be a finished, final piece. I know – intellectually at least – that writing includes lots of rewriting and editing and then rewriting again. So if I am unable to write a complete story or even a complete character description each day, I still need to write something – in order to develop the habit.

I have added a widget that includes links to several of the online writing exercises. I added them for myself, but also in the hope that others may be inspired to undertake their own writing project.  I chose 500 words as my target length and every day as the frequency. If you choose some other target length or frequency for your own writing project, and if you are willing to be vulnerable enough to share your goals with me, I’d love to know.

Day 5 - Dad

Dad in 1940s

       Not long ago, I presented a speech dealing with my Dad's experiences living in a nursing home. It was a speech to meet one of the requirements for the Humorously Speaking manual, although the topic was serious and I hoped I would be able to convey the serious message within a humorous context. He had been in the transitional care unit for more than four months when he moved into a long-term-care room where he could get skilled nursing care all the time. The move from the first floor TCU room to his new permanent home was stressful for Dad and therefore for us. While he remained within the same facility, even on the same wing of the same building, the routines on the two floor are quite different, to match their different purposes and resident population. Those in TCU rooms are expected to leave the floor and return to their homes. And that had been Dad's expectation. Those on the second floor have transitioned from home to more permanent care. And the differences were much greater than we had expected.

     One simple difference had to do with meal times. Meals were served earlier on the TCU floor than on the second floor which means Dad followed the previous pattern and often ended up in the dining area too early for meal service. So he had to wait. That just compounded the issue of his limited taste in foods. After waiting longer than he wanted to wait, he would end up being offered a choice between two meals neither of which were to his liking. So food service and options became one of his complaints.

Dad in 2007

      Once Dad learned about the different meal service times, he stopped arriving too early. And since he was able to get himself to and from meals without assistance, he would wait until the last minute to go to the dining room. By that time, it was difficult for him to get his wheelchair up to one of the tables, especially if the open spot was at the far side of the dining area. So food service and options continued as a complaint.

       The biggest difference between the two floors seemed to be the lack of consistent staff providing him assistance. And that is how Dad's loss of independence took the biggest blow. Because the staff changed more often on the second floor, and because many of the residents on that floor had significant needs, Dad didn't feel the staff knew him as well and it seemed to him that the staff sometimes dealt with him and talked past him as if he weren't present. He complained that staff members would come into his room, saying nothing, and then just turn around and go back out. When we asked about it, we learned the staff were just looking to see if Dad needed anything and when it was clear that he didn't, they would go out in order for Dad to have his privacy.

       That issue of giving Dad his privacy led to some other minor issues in his first few months on the second floor. The staff who collected Dad's laundry - both his clothes and the sheets and towels - would come into the room while Dad was at breakfast so that Dad wouldn't be bothered. But that meant that Dad didn't know who had taken his clothes, some of which he wasn't ready to have taken away. And the clothes reappeared while he was out, too. His wallet and checkbook went through the laundry more than once.  Checking the pockets of Dad's pants wasn't part of the staff's routine as everything was loaded into the washing machines together. And small items kept disappearing - his cell phone, a small blanket, a suit, a sweater, and the remote for his TV. Most of them reappeared, but again, while Dad was out of his room so he couldn't ask anyone what had happened. The mystery was finally revealed: anything left on his bed ended up gathered up with the sheets and made their way to the laundry. In the case of the blanket, suit, and sweater, no labels with Dad's name had been affixed to them which delayed their return by weeks. The cell phone never reappeared. Getting Dad to put things into his drawers before going to bed solved the problem.

       The serious purpose for my speech was to emphasize how important we kids learned it was then to be sure we didn't underplay Dad's complaints. He wasn't going crazy, he wasn't forgetting where he put things, and he could still hear plenty, even without his hearing aids. Yet he felt too many around him assumed they knew better than he what was going on and their assumptions were that Dad was just forgetting.

Dolores and Dad

       Well, now things have changed. Dad has been in the same room for more than a year. The staff have gotten to know him pretty well and his independence had grown so that none of the staff had to spend much time helping him. His idiosyncratic food preferences are well-known to everyone. And all the staff members know Dad has a girlfriend, Dolores, who lives in an apartment that is part of the same complex (although she ended up in the hospital during my stay and is now on the TCU floor). But somewhere during the past month, Dad had another stroke. And while previous strokes affected his speech and his balance, offering obvious clues that something had changed, this time only his vision and his short-term memory were affected. These changes are not obvious to the staff members who see him only occasionally during the week. Dad describes his mind as being goofy these days, although because his short-term memory is so poor, each day he thinks this has only been going on for that day. When he understands that his memory has been poor for several days - even now weeks - his eyes tear up as he realizes he is losing memories through the inability to build them. He doesn't know who has visited him in the recent past. He doesn't remember who has called him earlier in the day. And I fear that soon he may feel that no one is calling or visiting him.

       I was able to visit Dad nearly every day for the past two weeks. Each day I would answer his questions about his age, whether he still has a car, who is taking care of his bills, and so on, and I would do so each time he asked me again. After answering about a dozen times that he is 88 years old, I started making a game of it. Instead of telling him his age, I'd ask him when he was born and then tell him it was 2012 and ask that he figure out how old he is. Or I'd ask if he'd believe me if I told him he was 108 (he never would; he knows he isn't that old) or if I told him he was 68 (that never fooled him either; he knows he is older than that) before I told him he was 88.

       I also asked him lots of questions about his childhood and earlier life. Only his short-term memory was affected by the stroke. His long-term memory is in fine shape. He listed the names of his high school graduating class for me one day and then was amazed the next day when I started reciting them to him. How could I know all those names, he would ask. My last day in town was also Dolores' birthday, so I helped Dad pick out a birthday card for her which he signed. Again, he seemed amazed that I knew Dolores' birthdate and he asked me how I knew. I explained that I heard her tell the nurse in the hospital room what her birthdate was. And that meant Dad learned yet again - as if for the first time - that Dolores wasn't well.

       I had to return to California this week, so now I call him each day. Because those conversations are much shorter, I won't likely be faced with his questions about how old he is or what happened to his car. But if he does ask me any questions, I'll answer each as if it were the first time he asked it since I know he'll hear my answer as if it were the first time.