One Last Time

(Written for the last session of my writing circle for this semester.)

So many first times. 

A first kiss, a first dog who is all your responsibility, a first tequila shot.  The first quilt you make without help from your mom and grandma.  The first time you vote for a President, the first time you have sex, your first child.  Your first grandchild.

Why, if you work hard enough at it, you could have a “first” every day – the first Tolstoy novel you actually finish, the first time you walk a 5K, the first time you bake yeast bread, the first time you go to a restaurant and sit all by yourself, the first time you put oat milk in your coffee instead of half and half. 

But what about last times?  Last times are on my mind lately, maybe because I’ve passed the 60 mark and think often of my mom, who wasn't given as many years as I have.  How many things were her last and she never knew? 

When will be the last time I sit at the piano and play?  When will be the last time I have sex?  When will be the last time I drive a car?  Plant a garden? Read a novel?  Kiss a baby?  Sit at the computer and type out words and feelings and intense narratives and wacky scenarios? 

I know I’ve probably already passed a lot of last times.  I’ve probably had the last time I’ll be in the basement of a fraternity house, drinking directly from the keg.  I’ll probably never play on a teeter totter again (at the advice of my orthopedic surgeon).  I’ll probably never work another 40-hour week full-time job. I’ll probably never perm my hair again.

And after today, I’ll probably never participate in a Women Writing For a Change Zoom circle, facilitated by Rebekah  (another worldwide pandemic notwithstanding.)  I remember my first circle well – walking into the schoolhouse, nervous about what was going to happen in there.  Should I sit on a chair or on the floor?  What should I write?  What should I read?  Why am I here?  Rebekah made it more comfortable.  Over the weeks, months, years that I have been in Rebekah’s circles, I’ve added so many books (and favorite poets) to my poetry collection, added Iona to my travel bucket list, added oracle cards to my daily routine, added profanity to my writing without shame.  I’ve been encouraged and motivated by Rebekah, moved beyond explanation by the words shared in the circles, by the love that has emanated from that sharing, by the amazing friendships forged with the brightest, most thoughtful women.   I know I am a different woman since I started sitting in these circles – I’ve actually been told that, and know it in my heart and gut to be true – and I am a thankful woman, having taken a circuitous route into the circle that has brought me to a place I now know that I always belonged. 

So even though I know this is my last semester Zoom circle with Rebekah, I know there will never be an end to the influence she has had and joy she has brought not only to my writing, but to my life.  Hopefully, this is not my last circle – I’m ready to make that weekly drive to Bloomington again – and I’m thankful for new firsts, because this first was one of the best.

Thanks, Rebekah, and all my WWFaC sisters.

Georgiann Coons     5/2/2022

Be Happy

 In March, my friend, Blake, the Ag teacher and FFA Advisor at Brownstown High School, asked if I would speak at their FFA Convocation for the student body.  My 5-minute speech was to be on the topic "Be Happy."  And since I haven't blogged since February, I thought I'd share what I had to say about that:

When Mr. Hackman asked me to come speak on "Be Happy", I immediately said “Yes! I’d be happy to” for two reasons.  1) Mr. Hackman has been my dear friend since high school, and 2)  I was flattered that someone would think I was enough of a happy person to have something to say about being a happy person.  

And then the reality set in.  Because happiness is actually a pretty complex topic.  I started reading books and articles on happiness, listening to podcasts on happiness and asking my friends how they would define happiness.   

Still complex.  I considered emailing Abby and Amy (the other two speakers, whose topics were "Be Grateful" and "Be Confident") and asking if they would like to trade topics.  I figured I could muster up enough confidence to speak on confidence, and I would just bring some of my gratefulness journals with me and read from them to you, if they would trade. 

I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to say that we all want to be happy.  I want my children and grandchildren to be happy.  I want all of you to be happy, and I don’t even know most of you.    It starts when we’re babies, and the people holding and cuddling us say, “don’t cry, don’t cry!”  We go to preschool and kindergarten, and what song to we sing?  If you’re happy and you know it…..  From the very beginning, it's as if we've been given a mandate to be happy.  (Listen to Glennon Doyle's podcast from January 20, 2022 - We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle, How to Live a Little Happier with Dr. Laurie Santos.)

As human beings, we really don’t like it when people are sad. We know that sadness, like happiness, is an inherent part of living, but we don’t need a lecture or a TedTalk on how to be sad – we can easily do that by watching world events unfold, thinking about a friend, family member or pet that we have loved and lost, not doing as well as we had hoped on a test or in a sports try-out.  It’s only through moments of sadness that we can fully appreciate what it is to be happy.  

And how do we get to that happy?

Dr. Laurie Santos of Yale University has researched and defined the three main factors toward being a happy person:  social connection, a heart for service for others and a mindset of gratefulness.  (She has a great newsletter you can subscribe to called The Science of Wellbeing, plus a free online course.  From Yale.  Free.)

Happy people report that they have people in their lives that they can talk to and be with.  Happy people prioritize their time with family and friends – they make a habit of connecting with other people.  I think that’s why so many of us felt so unhappy during the pandemic shutdown – we missed and longed for the social connection with others.  Zoom is great, facetime is great, and I was genuinely happy to see the faces of friends and colleagues on my laptop screen, but it doesn’t make me near as happy as seeing those same faces in the grocery store or across the table at Starbucks. 

Happy people “do” for others, making the world a little better place.  Putting a loose shopping cart back in the corral.  Helping someone with a difficult math problem.  Taking a box of cereal to the Shed for You pantry.  Visiting someone at a nursing home.  Doing for others makes them happy, and acts of kindness raise your serotonin levels and can make you happy, as well.

But sometimes when we’re not sad, we forget to acknowledge that we are, indeed, happy.  That’s why I would encourage you to have that mindset of gratefulness.  Keep a journal of your gratefulness – maybe in a little notebook from CVS or in the Notes on your phone.  Try to write in it every day – maybe just a quick few words about something that you are grateful for, like a sunrise or sunset, a car that starts, a sports victory or an especially delicious cookie or sandwich.  Maybe you’ll want to write a few more words about your friends and family – that social connection - or someone you love overcoming a setback or illness.   (And read Ross Gay's Book of 
Delights.)

Kurt Vonnegut, an Indiana native and one of my favorite writers said, “And I urge you to please notiuce when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'Iif this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.'” 

I wish you all to be happy.  I wish I was a fairy grandmother/godmother and could take out my wand and with some sparks and glitter, make you all happy.  Sometimes, being happy is easy, and sometimes it   takes a little work, as all good things do, but if you stay connected with even one other person, do something for just one other person, and take a moment every day to appreciate even the littlest things with a word of thanks, I think you’ll find being happy becomes a habit. 

If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

In Praise of February 1st

 It is far superior to January first, which brings with it glittering expectations of resolutions to be fulfilled -- smaller butts, greener diets, completed novels, extended exercise and well-knitted sweaters.  

Hopes are smaller of February 1.  Still there, still sparkly, but smaller.  Reality is bigger on February 1 - the reality that lives don't magically change with a new calendar on your kitchen wall.  The reality that smaller butts and greener diets and more exercise and completed novels take work.  Habit.  Ugh.  

The best thing February first is bringing this year is my return to the Tuesday morning Women Writing for a Change circle.  (I missed last semester due to the fabulous Las Vegas wedding.)  I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, brewed some tea, lit a stick of palo santo and straightened behind me so that my sisters in the Zoom circle won't see the mess that is currently my workroom.  

My laptop is charged, a candle and matches are nearby.  Two new composition books from the Dollar Zone (one for free writes, one for feedback) are on my table, along with 2 new Zebra pens and my planter full of colorful gel pens for colorful edits, colorful comments, colorful underlines and colorful doodles.  My daughter gave me a clacky new pink keyboard for Christmas - typing on it feels and sounds - like accomplishment.  

I am ready.  I am ready to write, and ready to be thrilled at listening to the writing of other women - my friends. 

Peace 

NaNoWriMo Day 4 Burning Questions I Think About When I Should be Writing

 ?

1) Why do the things on the top of my cabinets get greasy?  Does grease float? Is grease lighter than air?  

2)  What toxic magic ingredients make instant pudding thicken so quickly when it takes me a good 7 minutes of stirring boiling hot lava to get the creme patissiere (read: homemade vanilla pudding) for the inside of my cream puffs to thicken?

3)  Why does my heart melt when my grandchildren or my dog tilt their heads when I ask them a question? 

4) When will we trample the patriarchy? (I'm talking to you, Mitch McConnell)

5) Despite my veterinarian's assurances, does it piss my cats off that they are declawed?  

6) Why do I continue to stick my hand in this bag of candy corn when I don't even like candy corn?

7) What does that Prince symbol mean?

8) Why does vanilla smell so good but taste so nasty?  

9) Why am I still in my nightgown at 4:57 PM on the day after the 2020 election?

Oh.  I know the answer to that one.  It's the same answer I have for why I haven't taken a shower today, why I keep sticking my hand in this bag of candy corn, why I binge watched Flesh and Blood on PBS, and why I made instant pistachio pudding and ate half the servings this afternoon and plan to eat the other half after supper.

I am sad.  Hopeful for the future of our democracy and planet, but still sad that there are apparently a lot of people who don't think either of those things is important.  

Back to my novel.  I am almost at 3000 words.

I should be at 8000 by tomorrow.  

Stop laughing and go eat some pudding. 

Peace.

Matchbooks and Emery Boards - Election Day 2020

My dad loved Christmas, but I think May and November Election Days were his favorite holidays of the year.  He was our Jackson 6 precinct committeeman for around 20 years, and of all the things I was proud of him for, that was at the top of my list, as he constantly reminded us of our responsibility as Americans to vote -- it was a gift of democracy.  

Helping others exercise that right was his gift. 

He prepped for election days early, making sure that every adult in Jackson 6 was registered to vote.  I remember riding along with him on those days, and he’d point out each house, telling me if the occupants were Democrats or Republicans.    “Now these people, here,” he’d say, pointing to a neat white house on Meadowbrook Drive, “cancel each other out – she’s a Republican and he’s a Democrat.” 

In those days - the late 60’s, early 70’s - he was a firm believer in the straight ticket.  He was always the first to vote each election morning - it took him less than 30 seconds.  Clarence Wichman, the poll sheriff, would check to make sure the machine was in proper order, then waved dad in with a flourish.  Dad stepped into the machine, pulled the curtain closed, popped a straight ticket lever and opened the curtain.  In later years, I remember he agonized a bit over crossing party lines to vote for a friend running for county commissioner.  “He’s a good man, even if he’s a Democrat,” dad said.  

Most of Jackson 6 was rural.  It stretched from our farm on the near east side of Seymour, east on US 50 to the fancy new Mutton Creek subdivision, then down US 31 South to where 31 crossed I-65, just past our "bottom ground" that's now a part of the refuge.  Dad knew everyone in Jackson 6, knew their politics, and greeted everyone who came to the polls at the Union Hall on South 31 by name.  He made them happy to be there, happy to be doing their duty.  It was his gift, I tell you. 

Election days started early.  Well before 5:00 AM, dad would drive to the Cake Box Bakery in town and pick up donuts for his poll workers.  Each party precinct committeeman had to supply an inspector, a clerk, a judge and a sheriff.  These were always the same people – local women (and Mr. Wichman) who took their responsibility very seriously.  I don’t remember who did what (except Mr. Wichman), but I can still see those women bending over the Jackson 6 precinct rolls, finding names and checking addresses, watching carefully as signatures were written onto cards.  There would be no such thing as voter fraud in Jackson 6.

Dad would be in and out of the Union Hall all day, greeting voters, picking up lunch for the poll workers, driving elderly voters to the hall to vote.  When the polls closed at 6, he made sure supper was there for the workers.  He watched as they completed their jobs – signing off on the poll books,  mysteriously taking the vote count from the machine and closing up the machines until the next election, the judge (I think) taking the count down to the courthouse in Brownstown. 

Dad would head to Brownstown as well, when all the ladies were safely on their way home and the Union Hall was put back in order.  I went with him once, and immediately understood the thrill of watching vote counts posted in the lobby of the courthouse, candidates, party officials and excited onlookers of both parties all around us.  

When I was 12, I stood outside the polls as dad asked me, and handed out matchbooks and emery boards for Republican candidates.

When I was 16, dad put me to work driving people to the polls.

When I was 18, he was there with me when I voted for the first time.

When I was in college, I came home and worked as a real poll worker for him.  I think I was the clerk. I got a paycheck. 

When we moved back to Indiana after living in Akron for 7 years, dad wasn’t the precinct committeeman any longer.  But since we lived in a house dad gave us on the farm, we lived in Jackson 6, and still voted at the Union Hall.  I shocked the ladies – some who I knew, a few who were unfamiliar - at the desk when I asked for a “D” in the first May primary I voted in.  “That’s Georgie,” they whispered, “Richard’s daughter.  She's voting D.”  They continued to whisper, and I smiled as I pulled the lever for the curtain and made my choices, choices I had decided upon long before entering the voting booth, having studied both the candidates and the issues, just as dad taught me.  And when I left, I told the ladies, “It’s OK, he knows I'm a Democrat.”

Over the years since, I’ve voted as a 
Democrat in most primaries, but took an R once to vote for my brother, an R once to vote for a friend.  Consequently, I get political mailings/recycle bin fodder from both parties. 

Over the years since, I wish I still had my dad to talk to  about candidates, policy and elections.

This year, I miss him more than ever.

This year, I voted early.  I live on the same road, on the same patch of land, but am now in Jackson 7, and vote way across on the west side of town.  No curtains to pull - we vote digitally, or electronically, or whatever you call the method we now use.  I thanked the poll workers there that Friday in October – I know what a long day it is, and they have so many of them now that Indiana residents can vote several weeks before Election day. 

I have no idea of who my precinct committeeperson is.  (I blame myself for this - it would be easy enough to google.)

No one was there to shake our hands and thank us for voting.  

No one comes to our door to check on our registration or to tell us the key reasons we should vote Democrat or Republican. 

Maybe it’s Harry’s happy greetings that have kept candidates and precinct committeepeople  away.  (He is a little intimidating, in his big goofy way.)

Maybe it’s Covid.

Maybe it’s just that no one cares like my dad did. 

Thanks, dad.

NaNoWriMo Day 2

I am going to work on my novel(s) today, I promise.  But somehow I ended up with a poem early this morning.  My dear writer friend, Martha, got me thinking about what we remember on a cellular level, and this happened.  (And just to be clear, this is an analogy, and not about my dad.  Take from it what you would.)

Daddy

 

They were different

She knew it in her cells

She was a blanket

He was a freight train

Into a room

Into a handshake

Into a woman

Confidence, he told her

While she watched him from her corner.

She knew he was different

She longed for him to know her

She was a garden

He was a battle flag

She followed him into the desert

Where he left her

She followed him into the cold

Where he left her

To find her way back

Persistence, he said

While she watched him from the doorway.

She knew he was different

She tried to understand him

She was a chess board

He was a drone

Busy

Very busy

Very busy making

Money

Sex

In the daylight

Charisma, he said

While she watched him from her bed.

She knew he was different

She was Galileo

He was a box

Others filled it

Longing to be a money sex box too

Leadership, he said

While she watched him from her grave.

He was different from her

Though ill

He lived

Though vital

She perished.

Peace.

NaNoWriMo Day 1

 Today I wrote 2000 words of a new novel.

Something completely different.

I don't really know where the idea came from, or where it will go, but it's on its way. 

Yesterday, I probably wrote 2000 words in response to my Indiana State District 69 Representative's writing prompt (read: Facebook post), "Tuesday.... MAGA or magazines?"

I know exactly where that idea came from, and where it lead me -- right down the rabbit hole of arguing with people who:

1)  probably didn't pay attention in either English or History classes in high school; 

2)  throw originalist Constitutional ideas around but who probably haven't read or understand the Constitution (I've read it, but don't understand a lot/most of it); 

3)  didn't read my posts for the thoughtful, insightful, kind and fact-based tidbits of information they truly are; 

4)  really, really like guns and are very offended when you refer to a semi-automatic weapon as an automatic weapon (sheesh, sorry!);

5)  don't understand the concepts of sarcasm and hyperbole;

6)  are super good at calling people uneducated, brain-dead, half-brain, brainless, idiot, stupid idiot, moron, lunatic, flaming liberal, snowflake (I didn't mind that one - snowflakes are soft, lovely, quiet and avalanche-building), and my very least favorite of all time, libtard, which I don't even like to type out.  

When I pointed this out to Pepper, one of my sparring partners in the thread (how the term is offensive to those with intellectual disabilities and the people who love them), Pepper's rebuttal was that I was a stupid liberal libtard. 

Let me add "redundancy" to point #5.

I would like it noted that I didn't call any one a name.  

Not once.  

Because I think bullying is the very worst form of debate.  

But because this is my blog and no one reads it anyway, I'll quote my dear and sassy sister and just say it. 

 

Fuck the kooks. 

Peace.