Innocence, Lost

Lately, I feel that the world is a very scary place. I KNOW you can’t live your life with utter fear, every second, but it feels overwhelming at times. Actually, you probably could live your life that way but I’m sure it

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would be a miserable life with no joy at all. Sometimes, it feels like you just want to stay home in bed, huddled under your blankets, safe and warm. However, you can’t appreciate joy and happiness if you don’t know what fear or sadness feels like.


I have to talk myself out of thinking about worrying and taking chances every once in a while, sometimes I have to force myself to brave the world but I do it.  I go out into the world, at first tentatively, treading carefully, trying to be cautious of mine fields.

Now, it feels like there are mine fields everywhere. I’m sure there are millions of people who are more scared than I am that don’t even have the ability to leave their homes or rooms or beds to put one foot on the ground after another. I feel bad for them but I also can relate.

I am not joking, believe me. I think it takes a lot of courage and strength to live in today’s society.. I can only judge what I know. I know that in the beginning “baby boomer” years I felt peaceful, it was all about “love and peace and songs filled with that message.”

Now? I can’t /won’t watch the news or read the newspaper, it’s all too overwhelming especially when my daughter was traveling abroad. I felt happier when she landed and I could see her face than the entire two weeks before.

There seemed to be a bit more control way back then when I was growing up but maybe it was because I was a child instead of an adult? Maybe my parents protected me, but of course there was violence. The killings of JFK and MLK were terrible acts of violence but they weren’t so often and unpredictable like the school shootings that have happened here multiple times, or the killings of police officers etc. Why?

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I miss those days in the seventies, the days of simplicity. I am grateful to have grown up in those days where peace was the motivation and simple music was mainstream, in concerts with regular guitars not high-tech with sound effects. Where people actually talked to each other instead of texting, where the phone was attached to the wall and not in our children’s hands.

The one thing I insisted on when my kids were growing up was that we all ate dinner together, no phones, no television, every single night. It gave us a chance to talk about our days.We played the “What was the high, low, funny of your day?” and everyone had to take part. I learned from my asking “How was school, what did you do” to which they both answered: “Good, Nothin.”

I knew parents who were never home to see their children, parents whose children were more attached to their nannies and had so much more money than we did. We had very little money but our family ate dinner together every single night and we talked about our days.

I knew a mom who sat her children in front of the television with”tv” trays and that was dinner, every single night, the children’s father worked very late hours and didn’t see his children much at all. Our kids once complained that they were not allowed to watch television during dinner and I drew the line right then and there.

It was less complicated back then where the gourmet ice cream was just Hagen Daas not thirty other brands where choices were unlimited and not wildly scattered like

dandelions in the wind.

Sometimes having too many choices is harder than having limited choices, it’s more anxiety provoking for some people, more frustrating.

When I go shopping, I stand in front of the toothpaste or the shampoo aisle and just stare. How many choices can there be? Apparently too many as I stare with glazed over eyes not even focusing on which one I want. Does it really make a difference? Aren’t they all pretty much alike? Of course they are but today there seems to be a need for more and more and big, bigger, biggest and 50 varieties on one product.

I would love to go back to easier times, nicer times when the theme was Random Acts Of Kindness, how about we get that started again? Some have never stopped but many have stopped because of no income or just focusing on their busy lives. Let’s try to get on track, again. If nothing else, it will take away the fear and replace it with appreciation, it also doesn’t need to cost one cent.

 The sandwich generation, we are taking care of both our parents and our children, say “Peace Out” and “Keep On Trucking.” After all we need to keep our boomer sense of humor. It’s pretty much all we have left.

Picture of John Lennon’s Strawberry Fields Forever Memorial (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Haiku Heights: Sugar

A photo of a jelly doughnut (aka Berliner) topped with powdered sugar. This doughnut has been sliced into two to show the jelly filling. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Coca-Cola (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Hostess Twinkies. Yellow snack cake with cream filling. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

HAVING A LITTLE FUN WITH THE PROMPT, SUGAR

Your lips plump, like dough

rising, anticipation

jelly doughnut, please.

*****

Granulate me now

Sprinkle sweet loving, baby

Your husband is HOME!

*****

I miss you Twinkie

They took you away from me

They severed a limb.

*****

I will rage anew

My fury will be unleashed

Just cut back on Coke?

Not Everyone Is Happy On Mother’s Day

Yellow tulips Deutsch: Gelbe Tulpen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Mother’s Day, like Father’s Day is not necessarily a happy holiday. Either holiday is miserable and sad for MANY people. My dad passed away nine years ago and I still head to the card section in June every single year. I miss him, it’s hard not to have a living or nice parent or a child on either of these holidays and people are often insensitive. So when I say Happy Mother’s Day, I include pet owners, aunts and uncles and women who love others.

For my Mother’s Day my daughter gave me a bunch of yellow tulips, a very sweet card and the stomach flu. I know she didn’t give me the flu on purpose but yesterday as I kept running for paper towels and bringing her buckets I figured I had a good shot at getting something. So far, my husband is safe. Our son is still in college and will be back this week, he sent a very loving card.

I took my mother to brunch this morning even though I felt horrible and could barely eat a bite. It’s not in me to cancel and I wasn’t feeling that bad in the morning. Mothers know, of course, and she asked me what was wrong, I just wasn’t hungry as I excused myself to the bathroom a couple of times. I didn’t want my mother to be alone on Mother’s day and the setting we had picked was beautiful. The food? So-so. The scrambled eggs were stone cold, (I admit it, I complained) and there were various breads, muffins, slices of turkey, pasta salad, fruit and chocolate and vanilla cake. I could eat none of it.

I dragged myself home in my car, not wasting time to get gas, which I sorely needed, headed quickly for the highway. I longed to put on my soft green v-neck  tee-shirt and crawl into bed. I e-mailed my husband to cancel the reservations (that I had made) at a local restaurant for my own Mother’s Day celebration. The truth of the matter was I felt so sick I didn’t want to go, my son was not yet home from college and there was no reason to force ourselves to go out because of the name of a day.

I’ve been in bed all day, my dinner consisted of an American cheese sandwich and a can of Diet Vanilla Coke. Mother’s Day can wait until I feel better and together. That’s the thing about Mother’s Day, it is a commercial holiday that I buy into every year for my mom because I want to acknowledge her, she deserves it and I don’t know how many more years we will have together.

Apparently, after I left, she was home alone when a mutual friend called her and she was sobbing and feeling “very sorry for herself.” You can’t make people happy all the time, no matter what; Mom missed my dad, she felt very alone and she is getting older. She made a remark about “how many more years would she still be my mother?” which concerned me but it’s natural too; she’s a young 85. For that reason alone, I wanted to be with her today.

I can’t solve all her problems, like she can’t solve all of mine. I could just attempt to make her morning a bit nicer, a little less lonely, even when I wanted to stay in bed. I’m saying good-night to Mother’s Day by sitting on the couch with my hubby, sipping on flat Coke with crushed ice and munching quite happily on ginger snaps watching the Survivor Finale.