And So I'm 60

Do you feel 60?

Friends ask, both those who know 60 well and those who fear its approach.

And I laugh and tell them it’s just about the same as 59.

And 59 felt good.

Not “climb Mt. Everest” or “swim the English Channel” good (how I admire those women!)

But also not too bad. 

Not drive an electric buggy through Walmart and ask people to reach things from the shelves for me bad.

Not arthritis or COPD or cancer or replaced hips and knees bad.  
So that’s good.

60 feels special. 

More special than driver's-license 16.

More special than go-away-to-college 18.

More special than drunken 21.

And much more special than 31, when I realized that I was now “thirtysomething” and was afraid I’d start whining and sleeping around and questioning all my decisions, just like the characters on the TV show that we watched when we were 25 and couldn’t even imagine turning 31.

60 feels monumental.

My mother died when she was 60.

I’ve been without her for 22 years, and with each and every birthday as I grew closer to 60 I could almost hear the death knell.  Then 50 passed me without cancer, and 55 and now 60.

So I think I should do something special with this 60^th year, which feels like a gift from my mom. 

I have yet to figure out what that special something is.  I’ve done a lot of good things in my life.  Raised three very kind and loving children.  Served on boards and worked at soup kitchens.  Rescued cats and recycled tons of newspapers.  Stayed married for 37 years. Knit afghans for immigrants and tiny hats for NICU babies.  Got stamps on my passport and my name engraved on long-forgotten plaques that probably ended up in a landfill.

I also did three bad things.  But we won’t talk about those.

There are things I want to do in my 60^th year.  Improve my Spanish.  Learn to play the guitar that Clay bought for me when I was 30.  Finish my novel.  Paint.  Read the books in my to-be-read pile and finish the projects in my to-be-finished pile.  Stick to a skin care regime. Re-align my chakras.  Make an authentic paella and master the yeast roll.  

Walk more, sit less.  More water, less coffee.  Fear less, love more.  Think less, feel more. (You know – you’ve seen those self-improvement memes on Pinterest, too, right?)  

But to honor my mom, I’d have to improve my habits.

Eat oatmeal every morning.  

Walk every day.  

Stop cursing.  

Read the Bible and the Guidepost Daily Devotional.  Daily.

Lead a 4-H Club.  

Save money.  

Garden and can 100 quarts of green beans every summer. 
Become just a little bit prudish.  

Go to nursing school and care for the people at the Lutheran Home.  

Cover my mouth and pretend not to be tickled when hearing a joke that’s just a little off-color.

Instead of laughing out loud and asking the joke teller to tell it again, slowly, so I can write it down and tell everyone I know.

I’m not sure if I’ll hit upon the special something before I turn 61, although I think it has something to do with asking more questions and listening more closely. 

Asking the questions I’m sorry I never thought to ask my mom.  

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Peace.

Pants on Fire

I was a liar.

When I was in junior high, signet initial rings were a big deal.  A boy would give his to a girl he liked.  The girl would wrap fuzzy yarn around the ring to make it fit, then show it off to all her friends and enemies on the bus and at school.

Oh how I wanted one. Both boyfriend and ring.

My mom had an signet initial ring in her jewelry box.  I don't know who she got it from, when or why.  We only talked about it once - when she told me to take it off of my finger after I'd swiped it from her jewelry box, worn it to school for three days and told kids that it was from my boyfriend who lived in Elwood, Indiana (home of my cousins, and far enough away that no one in our little town would be the wiser).  Sigh.  Because of my short, stubby sausage-like fingers, the ring fit snugly without the addition of fuzzy yarn, and after three days of wearing it at school, I forgot to take it off when I got off the bus that third afternoon; I pried it off my finger and handed it to my mom as she reminded me, "Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive." 

We never spoke of it again. 

When I went to college, I lied and told my new friends about my imaginary travels, my many fake accomplishments and my hometown boyfriend who didn’t exist.

When I came back home for Thanksgiving break my freshman year, I lied and told my old friends about my new college boyfriend who didn’t exist.

I quit lying when I finally realized that I was interesting and smart enough not to lie about things I had done. I quit lying about boyfriends when I finally had one. 

Oh, I’ve lied since college.  My driver’s license weight has always been a big lie.  I’ve lied about Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.  I’ve lied about how much things cost and about who ate the last of the Oreos. 

And I've been caught in the tangled web more than once. 

My mom believed so firmly in truth - and staying out of the web - that it never would have occurred to her that even doctors would lie.  

In the mid-90's, my mom's breast cancer came back with a fucking vengeance.  She had beat it once, but after 6 years of tamoxifen-induced cancer-free life, it came back.  Mom and dad didn't talk to their kids about it too much - I know they didn't want to worry us. Go home.  Don't worry.  Take care of your family, they insisted.  But dad was searching, searching, searching for cures.  He found one through oncologists in Indianapolis, fought with their insurance company to get them to pay for this new treatment, and was ready to sell the farm to make it happen for mom.  It was all so promising.  Except that the treatment was a big lie.  

Here is the blurb from Amazon about the book written about this big lie, False Hope:  Bone Marrow Transplantation for Breast Cancer (Rettig, Jacobson, Farquhar and Aubry):

In the late 1980s, a promising new treatment for breast cancer emerged: high-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplantation or HDC/ABMT. By the 1990s, it had burst upon the oncology scene and disseminated rapidly before having been carefully evaluated. By the time published studies showed that the procedure was ineffective, more than 30,000 women had received the treatment, shortening their lives and adding to their suffering. This book tells of the rise and demise of HDC/ABMT for metastatic and early stage breast cancer, and fully explores the story's implications, which go well beyond the immediate procedure, and beyond breast cancer, to how we in the United States evaluate other medical procedures, especially life-saving ones. 

It details how the factors that drove clinical use ... converged to propel the procedure forward despite a lack of proven clinical effectiveness. *

Dad and I sat in uncomfortable plastic chairs in her hospital room at Methodist in Indianapolis where she was zipped into a plastic bubble.  She had had her bone marrow extracted and "cleaned" and had undergone the most horrendous doses of chemotherapy meant to bring her sweet little body near to the point of death before they replaced her marrow cells.  There were long plastic "gloves" through which we could put our hands and arms and hold mom's hand, but they were too small for dad's huge hands.  He cried about those stupid gloves on our walk to the car, where he said, "What the hell are we doing?  What have we done to her?  Almost killed her to make her better?"  And he cried some more. 

The doctors had lied.  Mom died.  Probably sooner than she would have died without that treatment.  There was a class action suit; dad declined to participate.  What the hell good would it do now? he asked.

And we never spoke of it again. 

I think those doctors really believed that the best treatment for breast cancer in the late 80's/early 90's was the bone marrow transplant; they fudged, then published, their results so more women could be helped more quickly.  And they were wrong.  Is lying OK when you think it might save someone's life?

People lie when they've found themselves in a tight spot.  "The dog ate my homework."  "The check is in the mail."  "I would never say/do a thing like that!"  "I'm on my way!"  "Of course this signet ring is from my out-of-town boyfriend."

People involved in politics, on governing boards, in service and civic organizations lie to get things done.  They inflate statistics, deflate costs, exaggerate stories of woe.  They believe their lies are for the greater good.  Is it really lying when one has been voted in/appointed/charged by God to make a difference, if one truly believes it's all for the betterment of our fellow humans? 

Or they lie to save their own asses.  If I have to lie to save my job, my career, my income, my benefits and my standing in the community - keep food in my children's mouths, for God's sake -  isn't that OK?   

I'm writing fiction based on a very big thing that really happened to me and my family.  I have embellished our story.  A lot.  In my book, I have killed off my parents and don't have any siblings.  Almost every time I read part of my story to my writing circle, I preface it with "this really isn't the way it happened." 

I was a liar.  Maybe I still am.  Maybe a wild imagination and a lying demeanor are two sides of the same coin.  

Maybe lying is who we, as humans, are -  who we have become.  We need to be seen as a little more popular, smarter, richer, cooler,righteous than we really are. If we can get away with it.  If we're not called out on our BS.  

And sometimes, even if our lies are exposed, we still get our projects approved.  Get our pictures on the front of the paper.  Advance in our careers. Get to sit in the Oval Office.

And sometimes we just have to give the ring back. 
And never talk about it again.

Peace.

*I have that book, if you need a reason to be sad and would like to read it. 

Something has to Change. It just Has to.

This is the second draft of a blog post I wrote in October of 2017, right after the horrific shooting in Las Vegas.  If you want to read that one, it's here.  It's rambly, because when I'm mad I get rambly.  It's from back when Joe Donnelly was my US Senator.  When I thought I might have to step up and run against the Indiana House Representative from our District - thank goodness someone else did, because you know I don't have the heart or constitution for such a doomed, soul-scarring  endeavor.  This morning, after reading the news from El Paso, Dayton and even my own little town, where there was a shooting right outside the frozen yogurt store last night, I am a mess.  My stomach hurts.  My thoughts are a tangle.  My prayers are all dried up.  I know, I should probably take a shower and go to Mass, but I decided to write/re-write instead.  

Listen.  

I am really sorry for all of you who love to trap shoot or shoot cans off of 

fence posts at your neighbor's farm.  I've done that -- it's fun.  

But you're going to have to find something else fun to do. 

I am really sorry for those of you who hunt to eat.  

But you're going to have to start buying 

your meat at the grocery store like the rest of us.  

Better yet, think about becoming a vegetarian.  

I am sorry for those of you who feel safer carrying
a handgun at your side on in your purse. 

But you're going to have to take some classes in Jackie Chan-style martial arts or even better, 

take a yoga class, meditate and get right with the universe.

I am really sorry for all of you who get a huge hard-on from owning and 

shooting semi-automatic (or illegally-modified automatic) weapons.  

No scratch that.  

I don't really feel sorry for you at all. 

Something has to change.  Something has to change.  Something has to change.

I wish in my little Pollyanna-shaped heart that the change could be that the Second Amendment is lovingly, peacefully and humanely rescinded* and we go door-to-door in every neighborhood, apartment complex and hotel room in the country and collect guns in canvas bags and smash them to bits with big hammers and then bury them deep, deep in the ground in the middle of the Grand Canyon where no one is allowed to go ever again. I know in my regular old slightly-cynical heart that that is not going to happen.  But I ask you, call your Senators and Representatives  ask them to please, please, please for the love of children, the country's future, children, all that is holy and children, to please just say "no" to NRA money and pass some reasonable, rational, life-affirming (let's just say it, because isn't it just this? Pro-Life?) legislation and will keep people (let's just say it - angry white guys) from killing children and other humans with guns that no one really needs to ever-in-a-million-years own.  

Dear Senators/Congresspeople/Friends/Enemies, let's just say this all together: 

LIVES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GUNS

It is more important that children are not killed in their classrooms than it is for me to own a gun.

It is more important that people can attend a concert, go to a movie or dance their asses off at a club without fear of being killed by a gun than it is for me to own a gun. 

It is more important that people can go shop at WalMart and come home alive than it is for me to own a gun. 

It is more important that synagogues, churches, and mosques remain places of peace and not of carnage than it is for me to own a gun. 

It is more important that young people in troubled neighborhoods can walk safely home than it is for me to own a gun.  

It is more important that women in difficult or violent relationships are not killed by guns than it is for me to own a gun. 

It is more important that police officers not be shot, or even fear being shot, in the course of a routine traffic stop than it is for me to own a gun. 

It is more important that people can go to work in a factory, shop or office and be safe and come home to supper every night and be safe and gripe about their work and then sleep with their partner and be safe and get up and do it all again the next day than it is for me to own a gun.  

It is more important that children are not killed in their classrooms than it is for me to own a gun.

It is more important that children are not killed in their classrooms than it is for me to own a gun.

It is more important that children are not killed in their classrooms than it is for me to own a gun.

If you cannot speak (loudly) and believe these words -- 
LIVES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GUNS 
 -- then I just don't know about you.  
You make me furious.  
And I hate to be furious, because I work really hard at being a woman of peace.  

Peace dammit. Peacepeacepeacepeacepeacepeacepeacepeacepeace

 *and if you want to get all pissy with me about the Constitution, I understand the complex and nearly impossible chance that the Second Amendment will be rescinded.  I'm not a Constitutional expert; I just read a lot (and vote and drink - thanks, 19th and 21st Amendments to the Constitution.)  But I dream a lot, too, and in my dreams, James Madison is shaking his head at us and saying, "That's not what I meant at all, you doofuses." Or maybe he would have said "stupid fuckers." Because if we continue to let innocent people - children, moms, grandpas, teachers, children, politicians, artists, children, babies - be killed by white men and boys with anger issues and easy access to guns, that's exactly what we are.  

NaPoWriMo Failure

Here is it, May 7, and I have failed NaPoWriMo, just like I failed NaNoWriMo last November.  But I keep going anyway - my novel is progressing, I promise, and I wrote this poem for Circle today.  

If You Give a Woman a Power Washer

(with apologies to Lara Numeroff, brilliant author of If you Give a Mouse a Cookie)

If you give a woman a power washer,

She’s going to want to power wash the front porch.

And if she power washes the front porch to sparkling,

She’ll notice that the rocking chairs now look dingy

So she’ll power wash the rocking chairs.

And if she power washes the rocking chairs,

She’ll probably have the pressure too high,

And if the pressure is too high,

She’ll knock the paint right off the chairs.

And if she knocks the paint off the chairs,

She’ll have to go to the garage

To get a can of paint and a brush. 

But to find the paint and brush

She’ll have to straighten the garage,

And if she straightens the garage,

She’ll know it’s time to take in the recycling,

And if she takes the bins to recycling,

She’ll have to pass the Walmart,

And if she passes the Walmart, she’ll want to

Stop in for pots and plants to decorate the nice clean porch.

And if she shops for pots and plants,

She’s going to see the fountains and patio furniture

And if she sees the fountains and patio furniture,

She’ll be tossed into the dilemma of wants versus needs

And if she thinks about wants versus needs too long

She’ll stop in the middle of the aisle at the Walmart to ponder them,

And if she stops in the aisle at the Walmart,

She’ll look around and soon wish she too, had worn her pajamas.

And if she wishes she was in her pajamas,

She’ll think of how nice it would be to be on her couch with a cup of tea

And if she goes home and makes a cup of tea,

She’s going to want a cookie to go with it.  

And if she wants a cookie,

She’s going to have to go back to the Walmart for ingredients

And if she starts to go back to Walmart for ingredients,

She’ll have to stop on her way out to lock her front door

And if she locks her front door,

She’ll notice how nice her front porch looks, all power-washed.

And if she notices how nice her front porch looks,

She’s going to want to get that cup of tea

And a book

And sit in a power-washed rocker

And enjoy the afternoon. 

Until she looks around and thinks how nice the

Front sidewalk would look

Power-washed. 

Georgiann Coons

Women Writing for (a) Change

May 7, 2019

Peace

Abby and Olive, Four Years Old - NaPoWriMo Day 19

Prompt:  Write an abecedarian poem – a poem in which the word choice follows the words/order of the alphabet.

Abby and Olive, Four Years Old

Abby 
Blowing bubbles
Crying 
Doctor tools on the coffee table
Energy
Fighting
Grandpa's gum
Hide and seek 
I spy with my little eye
Jelly sandwiches
Kitties 
Laughing 
Mimi's house 
No 
Olive 
Play-doh
"Quiet, the baby's sleeping!"
Running, running, running
Swings
Training wheels
Under the dining room table
Vanilla ice cream cones
Washing dishes
Xtra 
Yellow crayon
Zipping it myself.

Second try:

Abby and Olive, Four Years Old

Abby is
Blowing bubbles, then before you know it, 
Crying over the 
Doctor tools on the coffee table.  So much
Energy, and sometimes 
Fighting, ended by an offering of 
Grandpa's gum.  Playing games of 
Hide and seek and
I spy with my little eye.  For lunch, 
Jelly sandwiches;  grape, please.
Kitties lounging on the stairs scare us, but then we
Laugh and fill their food dishes.  Not scary. 
Mimi's house is where we seldom hear
No.  
Olive is careful with her
Play-doh.
"Quiet, the baby's sleeping!"
Running, running, running, then to the
Swings.  Pink bikes with 
Training wheels.  Camping
Under the dining room table.  Time for a treat of 
Vanilla ice cream cones.  Making a puddle in the kitchen
Washing dishes.  More
Xtra gum.  We both want to color with a
Yellow crayon.  Now.  Can you
Zip it yourself?

Under the Bus - NaPoWriMo day 17

Prompt:  Write a poem that presents a scene from an unusual point of view. Perhaps you could write a poem that presents Sir Isaac Newton’s discovery from the perspective of the apple. Or the shootout at the OK Corral from the viewpoint of a passing vulture. Or maybe it could be something as everyday as a rainstorm, as experienced by a raindrop.

Under the Bus

(With thanks to Clark Brown for the idea...)

Here I lie. 
The pavement is cold
Thick dark oil drips on my shin
Leaking from somewhere important
I would guess,
Not actually knowing anything
About engines.
Or chassis.
Someone, it seems
Had to 
Stomp down the aisle
As they searched out a seat.

Here I lie.
Through no fault of my own,
I don't think,
Not actually knowing anything
About scandal.
Or rumors.
Yet thick accusations dripped on my head.
Someone, it seemed,
Had to take the blame.
Be stomped on.
Lose their seat.

Tax Day - NaPoWriMO Day 15

Prompt:  write your own dramatic monologue. It doesn’t have to be quite as serious as Browning or Shakespeare, of course, but try to create a sort of specific voice or character that can act as the “speaker” of your poem, and that could be acted by someone reciting the poem.

Tax Day

Forsooth, forshame; I hate this game
Thou plays with the IRS.
Tell'st me why, Tho' thou always comply
Thou waitest 'til the 15th to confess
The income and wages from W-2 pages
Of both your career and mine?
(Although mine quite meager) Thou'st never too eager
To complete them and then to sign
Our names, jointly filing, ere hours compiling
And cursing percentages taken;
'Tis true, 'tis inflated, and perchance unjustly weighted
'Gainst those who bring home middle class bacon;
Though hardly ever we owe, it just goes to show
Thine stubborn streak wide, yet not appalling; 
Be thou up in arms, I am "mistress of your charms"*
And love thee in spite of thine tax stalling. 

*from Hecate's monologue in Macbeth, Act 3, Scene 5
"Hark! I am called. My little spirit, see,
Sits in a foggy cloud and stays for me."

Eye No Nothing about Sailing - NaPoWriMo Day 14

Prompt: Write a poem that incorporates homophones, homographs, and homonyms, or otherwise makes productive use of English’s ridiculously complex spelling rules and opportunities for mis-hearings and mis-readings.

Eye No Nothing About Sailing


"It's just not right!"
Said the frustrated wright
As he tied the knot on his sail;
"I was taught to keep it taut!"
And then shouted "I see a whale!"

But he heard his wife wail weakly 
And he spied her through the mist;
She had missed the spectacle completely,
She'd had six pints - on sale at the pub!
And their weekly sail was soon dismissed

As he dropped the riggings and flew to her side
"I think I have the flu!" she cried
And just as he wondered,
"What the heck?"
The wretch retched onto the deck

He stood on the bow 
And held on to her braid
His eyes wandered to see the mess she had made;
Puke on the bow tied in her hair;
In the sea, the tide carried her vomit everywhere. 

Plantively she brayed,
"This, of course, will sound quite coarse, 
But I thought just as I was yaking,
Although I ate eight puddings at lunch,
You jibed but should have been tacking!"

And with her groan, sigh and complaining
His disgust had grown without explaining!
Her heaving now through -  but awful -
He considered that if he threw her over the side - 
For the whale she'd be nothing but offal.

And yet he knew that in the morning 
He would be mourning her demise!

This sweet maid he had made his wife -
Why, he'd be a heel to drown her!
He needed to heal her every ail!
"I will never desert you," he cried
"But pass up the ale and desserts next sail!"

Dull Little Knife - NaPoWriMo Day 12

Prompt:  Write a poem about a dull thing that you own, and why (and how) you love it. 

Dull Little Knife

I have a little knife
I keep in the knife drawer
It used to cut a lot of things
But doesn't any more.

Oh, I could slide it down a steel
Or draw it over a stone;
I was taught to sharpen knives
To cut through meat and bone

Or a hundred chicken livers
Hiding connective tissue strands;
Berta taught me to find and detach them
Despite how cold my hands

Were searching for livers in ice cold water
In the Temple kitchen sink.
She was pleased with my knife skills
And liver cleaning, I think

For each week when I got to work
I was grossed out to see
That while others iced cakes and stuffed dumplings
The livers were left for me.

"You do it so well! We hope you don't mind."
And I'd smile and do it despite
How offensive the task
Because I knew at the end of the night

We'd feast on leftover brisket and kugel,
Thick slices of challah with honey,
Apple cake and even chopped liver with schmaltz - 
You see, this job was more than just money

For the poor English graduate students
Who worked on this catering crew;
Berta taught history, theology, cookery -
She was so proud of being a Jew

That we left Temple Israel each night - 
Feasting and cleaning complete - 
Wishing that we were Jewish, too,
Not just for the good things to eat.

And what of that dull little knife
That remains in the back of the drawer?
It led to this chicken liver remembering poem -
Maybe not so dull any more.