$1.45 a Gallon - Hold Me Back!

No...really...hold me back.

Take my car keys away. Help me remember how committed I was to driving slower, consolidating trips, and working from home when gas was $4.00 a gallon. And while you're at it, don't let me buy ice cream.

I feel a little like a child who insists on playing with a sharp knife. I cut my finger, just a little; it hurt and it bled and it scared me. But then the bleeding stopped and I didn't need stitches and it healed and now the knife is looking all shiny and pretty again. If I ignore the painful but relatively gentle warning and play with the knife again, will I cut my finger off next time, or fall on the blade and impale myself on my own stubborn refusal to behave?

When gas went to $4.00 a gallon, I heard the warning and put the shiny toy down. We drove so much less and so much slower. I didn't run to the store every time I had a creative urge to cook something and needed just one more ingredient. My employer was gracious enough to let me start working from home part of the time, cutting another 45 mile round trip out of every day. Not only did we save money, but I could almost feel the trees on our hilltop property breathing easier, saying, "Thanks!"

Ah, but as soon as gas went down again, I saw the shiny and started reaching for it. Filling my tank for $30 instead of $80 made me feel all healed up. With giddy, guilty glee, I pointed my full to the brim mechanical chariot toward unnecessary destinations at unduly high speeds because it only cost me $30 and it was shiny and pretty and fun.

I'm getting the same warnings about my hard-earned weight loss. I've put back just a few pounds of it and I can feel the effects. Not good. Not good at all. I lost all that weight and got to feeling good and in control and smart enough to know I could splurge a little now and then...and then again...and now...and now and again. Now I'm struggling to get back into a healthy eating pattern again before I have to go wrestle my friends for all the too-big clothes I gave away. That would not be pretty.

Everything about my life right now feels like I'm at the, "Ok, I warned you!" stage, that split second of decision time just before your common sense takes over and pulls you back or you go for it anyway and the tale, should you live to tell it, starts with, "See, what had happened was..."

The gas spike had a domino effect at our house. At nearly $80 a tankful at peak prices, our budget took a hit. Prices on some items we buy regularly, like diet soda, went up and have stayed up. We made adjustments, switched to store brands, bought less. We didn't suffer, mind you...just shifted to a more conservative spending pattern. Same with the weight loss. We didn't suffer. I cooked more at home, made healthier meals, smarter snack choices, exercised more. Because we went out less, we spent more time at home getting stuff done and being together.

It probably comes as no surprise that we actually enjoyed ourselves. Driving slower is less stressful; driving less is bliss. Spending less wasn't painful; it was kind of fun to see how creative we could be. Healthy food is delicious, fresh and light and tasty. I looked forward to my daily walks. So why oh why would we go back to the old ways?

For that matter, why would any of us? Did you make adjustments when gas was so pricey? Have you kept them up? At $4.00 a gallon or $1.45, driving is no bargain. You could make gasoline free and it wouldn't reduce the damage we do every time we fire up Bessie in the driveway. And just because I have the money back in my budget now that gas has gone back down doesn't mean I have to spend it. If we were happy and healthy on less, why spend more? I have plenty of bills and debt that would benefit from the application of a little more cash each month. And before you raise the, "We need to spend to stimulate the economy!" flag, I'm not talking about hording money under my mattress (though I really wish my 401K had been under my mattress); I'm talking about spending wisely and paying down debt. Reducing debt is good for any economy, and environmental and health concerns don't experience recession.

This is my public commitment to not going back to my pre-warning ways. I'm going to drive less, spend less, eat better, and exercise more. I'm going to start right now by walking away from the computer and getting in a light workout before I start work. I'm working from home, keeping one vehicle off the road today.

We've all been given plenty of warning and now the warnings are getting dire. I challenge you to look at where you are now. Are you playing with the shiny knife again? Put it down! Walk away! There are lots of fun things to do without impaling ourselves on our bad habits.

The Perfect Family

What is the perfect family unit? Western culture has firmly embraced the notion of the one-man-one-woman-plus-children as the ideal family, the one to which we should all aspire. Is it? Is that the family you grew up in, the family you live in now? Is it the family of your friends, neighbors, relations?

In "The Perfect Family is a Myth", Cornell University anthropologist Meredeth F. Small suggests that our narrow definition of family is not universal nor is it historically true. She makes the point that, even in a Western culture that idealizes one family model, families that actually conform to the model are rare.

How do you define "family?" Is there an ideal family unit? Does your family fit that ideal?

Among my own family and our circle of friends...my husband and I have children from previous marriages, one of whom lives with us, the other two with their mother. Among our friends and relatives are single parents, childless single women and men, married and unmarried committed couples of various gender pairings, with and without children, and a triad or two. Each of their families are filled with love, laughter, conflict, challenges, sadness, support, and every other aspect of family life. We also refer to our spiritual group as family and share enormous love and support within that group. My husband and I have had many conversations about the concept of line and group marriages. We both embrace, at least on a philosophical level, an idea of family beyond the limited Western definition, yet even we struggle at times with long-held beliefs and norms.

What about you? I'd love to hear your thoughts on what makes a family. The definition of family in our society is changing whether we talk about it or not. Dialog gives us an opportunity to participate in the change, not sit dazed and confused on the sidelines watching the landscape shift. This kind of social evolution can be a long, bumpy ride. I don't know about you, but on a trip like that, I like to drive.

The color returns...

My mom and I took an afternoon drive today to check out the fall colors. What an amazing sight! We drove up Lookout Mountain to Cloudland Canyon, part of Georgia's excellent state park system. It was a beautiful day with the setting sun playing golden light games all over the canyon.

All the way up the mountain, Mom was squealing...yes, literally squealing...with delight. Mom hasn't had a lot of delight in her life since my dad died almost six years ago. When my oldest brother crossed the veil early this year, the small recovery she had made was yanked out from under her and she fell hard into the dark again. She also suffers from memory loss and has a lot of difficulty with word recall. There are times when loneliness and frustration over her mental confusion combine forces to all but paralyze her.

But today she was happy. She loved the trip up the mountain and enjoyed walking along the canyon rim. For all of her mental struggles, she's strong and moves well for eighty-one. She clambored up and down steps like a pro! She also had company - friends from her church - earlier this weekend, and we dropped in on old friends today before we drove to the park. I don't know if it was the company or the drive or both, but Mom had a good day today. She even wanted to sing together on the way home..."Red River Valley," "Birmingham Jail,", "Summertime,"...she even added a nice harmony to "You Are My Sunshine."

The colors of the seasons are beautiful gifts. Fall leaves always make me smile, but seeing a little color return to my mom's life may just be the best gift yet.

The death of the Perfect Parent Plan

Watching my friend help her daughter with her homework takes me back to my own days as a young parent. What an eye-opener that was! I found that my knowledge of parenting was far greater before I had a child. Something about childbirth shook the Etch-a-Sketch on which I had drawn my Perfect Parent Plan.

Yes, I had a Perfect Parent Plan. Doesn’t everyone? I didn’t take it lightly, either. I spent much of my young life observing – no, experiencing – my own parents and making copious mental notes about what I would and wouldn’t do to my children. I conferred with my friends and swapped horror stories of parenting gone awry, adding to my list of pitfalls to avoid. We all agreed that if we could just manage to not do the stupid, mean, insensitive, clueless things our parents did to us, we should be in great shape, raising perfect, happy kids, and sailing into the sunset of parental bliss.

Of course, what we didn’t know at that point is that while we may avoid the major mistakes of our parents (and they really did make some lulus), we would counter with our own original blunders. We could not predict in our teens that in our 20’s or 30’s we would be blindsided by moments of incomprehensible thickheadedness which we would stubbornly insist were the result of our progeny’s shortcomings. We would confer with the same friends we consulted a decade before and reach the same conclusions – it’s not our fault.

My daughter, now 27, is constantly editing and revising her own Perfect Parent Plan. She’s been working on it for at least as long as she could speak. I know this because she’s been telling me about it all along. Unlike some children, my beautiful girlchild was never one to suffer in silence. She made sure I knew what I was doing wrong at every turn. One of her favorite pretend games was the one about having been mysteriously separated from her real parents, the good ones, from upstate New York, and adopted by these misfits from Tennessee. On particularly bad days, she would dramatically rock back and forth, her arms folded protectively (almost psychotically) around her, chanting, “My real parents will come…my real parents will come.” Her friends’ parents fell under her scrutiny, too, and it affords me some small comfort that I was, in general, considered by herself to be somewhat less clueless than most....but not enough to brag about.

Nowadays, she’s in a serious relationship and the noises she makes about having children of her own have taken slightly more serious tones. And as I anticipate becoming a grandparent, I am resisting the urge to create a Perfect Grandparent Plan. It’s liberating to realize that there’s no such thing as a perfect parent or grandparent.. My daughter hasn’t come to that conclusion yet, and the entertainment value of the days ahead is promising. It still stings a bit when she tells me, “If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother!” but not so much that I can’t smile and bide my time, sure in the knowledge that her children will eventually sting her with their own clever catch phrases. When they do, I’ll have the tea ready, speak a comforting word or two, and try hard not to gloat.

Those Visa commercials...

...the ones that show busy retail and service establishments humming along nicely until someone starts to pay with cash, causing everything to grind to a halt...shocking customers and employees into stunned, then irritated silence as the poor, out-of-touch cash-user sheepishly forks over the coin of the realm...yeah, those commercials.

Well, they're true. Totally accurate. I'm traveling with my 81-year-old mother. She likes to pay her own way and she insists on using cash. She never learned to use a debit card, refuses to use her credit card, and doesn't believe for one moment that anyone outside her immediate home area would ever accept her check (she may be right about that one)...AND she always...ALWAYS wants to use correct change. I work hard to not display irritation or impatience, and most service personnel are genuinely polite and patient with her, but it's a marked interruption in the usual flow. Customers behind us are usually polite, but I have occasionally heard loud, long-suffering sighs and an occasional young person with no home training says something out loud. Fortunately, Mom is usually too engrossed in counting out the 47 cents for her purchase to notice, though her hearing is sharp enough.

The Visa commercials probably don't help the situation much. They paint the cash user as out of touch and the root of all evil in the race to get-and-go. Maybe a commercial that shows an old person frustrated by technology they don't understand just trying to buy some milk and bread, one that zooms in on trembling fingers and a mind that doesn't always click like it used to, would be better.

Patience, people...patience.

The most intimate story I've ever read...

...can be found here. "Days With My Father" is published by a brilliant photographer named Phillip Toledano. Mr. Toledano's father is 98 (at the time of writing...not sure how current that is) and while he doesn't have Alzheimer's, he has no short term memory. The picture he paints with his word and his lens is sweet, sad, loving, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and achingly intimate.

The elder Mr. Toledano wants to die. He's tired and frustrated and achingly alone, imprisoned in a mind that no longer works correctly and a body too strong to die. My mother feels the same way. Her short term memory isn't as far gone as Mr. Toledano's, but it's going. She isn't as old; at 81 she's physically strong and nowhere near death. People she loves have died. She's lonely. She's frustrated. She's immeasurably sad.

I was moved to tears when I read "Days With My Father". Some were from sadness for an old man's pain and a son's grief. Some were from joy at being allowed such an intimate peek into so much love. Most were from knowing that a woman I have always struggled to know and understand and to have understand and love me, and still loved with all my heart is living in her own hell and I can't fix it.

Please...let me be patient...kind...loving...compassionate...for whatever days are left...days with my mother.

Through my Mother's eyes...

We had a big Solstice party at our place this weekend. About 40 people brought chairs, food, drums, guitars, and kids. It was great! It was also the first time my mother has been around that many pagans at one time.

I was a little worried that she might be upset by bits of conversation she overheard or see something that unnerved her. I don't hide my path from her; I don't put it in her face, either. She's a Jehovah's Witness and 81 years old, neither of which makes her a prime candidate for an open-minded acceptance of paganism.

As it turns out, she had a great time! A friend from work, not a pagan exactly but definitely a new-age sort, spent a lot of time talking with her and that helped. I checked on her as frequently as I could between hosting duties, but she was largely on her own. I touched base with her the morning after the party:

Me: "Mom, did you have a good time?"

Mom: "Yes, I did. I had a great time! Those were really nice people."

Me: "They are nice people; we're really blessed with good friends."

Mom: "You sure are. I couldn't find anything wrong!"

And there you have it - insight into the way my mother views the world. "I couldn't find anything wrong!" was a telling statement. She enters every situation looking for the wrongness in it. It's as if she lives her life in a minefield of wrong and the least little pause in her vigilence could land her right in the middle of some heinous activity that she would then be on the moral hook for.

I'm glad she couldn't find anything wrong. I'd be gladder still if she didn't always feel like she had to be on the lookout for it.

Don't blog when you're exhausted...

...because you'll fall asleep at the keyboard and wipe out your entire post just before you hit the "publish" button. $*#@!

Prior to the falling asleep incident, I was celebrating the current success of my herb garden and how I have my husband to thank for it. He didn't plant the bed; I did. What he did was share his bountiful Green Man energy with me.



You see, before Three Crows came into my life, I had managed to kill house plants, tomatoes, flowers...in short, anything I tried to grow. I used to joke that I could eradicate crab grass (a common scorge of southern lawns)if I just tried to grow it.

Nowadays, however, I'm having a lot more success. The herb bed is beautiful! I love stepping off the porch and clipping handsful of fresh flavor and fragrance. Rosemary, basil, thyme, parsley, sage, cilantro, lavender, chamomile, chives, and now stevia and apple mint...they're my babies and I love them. And I just planted more...spearmint, peppermint, tarragon, tomatoes, and peppers...along with lots of flowers for the porch and deck rail boxes. Three Crows is still recovering from surgery, but he was there, guiding the efforts and sharing his energy. Amybeth (eldest of our combined girl-children) helped, too, and I think she enjoyed her first gardening efforts.





So...keep a good, green thought for continued success, and I'll share more photos with you as the babies grow. And try growing some of your own. You'll love it!

Three beauties

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