Inside/Outside

My desk has all the symbolic elements for the contentment of a little old lady like me. It has light, (a good lamp,) a computer, (key to the vast outside world,) and a mirror, (the reflection of a home full of memories and present day living.) The mirror is one of those vanity table affairs, three-way. I got it at a Salvation Army thrift shop, caught up in the whimsy of it, and then didn’t know where to put it. Some time ago I almost took it out to the dumpster where it could catch someone else’s whimsy but then I thought of my computer desk. Sitting to one side of the computer's monitor it could provide me with more than a wall to glance at. I’d see the room, my Inside.

The lamp that sits by the mirror is a tall white ceramic fellow. He’s been in the family perhaps longer than any other household object. Got him at the Post Exchange on the Marine Air Base in Cherry Point, N.C. He occupied the first of our many homes, a brand new pre-fab set among tall skinny pine trees in a place called Havelock Park. That lamp has survived countless trips on huge moving vans across the country as we moved from pillar to post with the Marines.

The computer, an Apple, is my buddy. It has on its monitor a big blue Earth as seen from outer space, sailing along in the vast black sea of space. It symbolizes answers to questions, far away places, wonder, magic, the reaching of our human hearts into the vast unknown, and yet the glorious glimpse of our magnificent earthly Home.

Inside my world, outside my world, and a bright lamp for the early morning and late night hours when I consult Apple. This kind of observation is what gives my heart solace as I sit eating breakfast in the early morning hours during the dawn of a new day. My home comforts me with all its furnishings. The newest thing is the bicycle clock hanging over the sofa. Its front wheel is a round clock. The rest of it is slender black wrought iron. A gift certificate, “We haven’t seen you in quite a while; this $10.00 gift certificate is yours if you come back and spend at least $40.00.” The thing had been burning a hole in my pocket so I bit. Not that I minded shopping at Pier One. I love that store! Well, when I saw this charming bicycle clock priced at nearly the required amount at first I resisted and walked out. It haunted me the rest of the day and night. I went back the next day and got it. An object of art that speaks of past travels and present moments. It’s right at home with the old-timers now.

As much as I treasure the objects in my home they don’t hold a candle to the living, breathing ones who occupy this dear place. There’s Katie, my granddaughter of 23 who is waiting for her husband to get out of jail. (Yes, you’ve heard about that.) She’s asleep with her little Chihuahua in the next room. (Nobody gets up at five like I do.) And there’s a beautiful red canary sitting in the kitchen window who reluctantly un-fluffs his feathers when I come in to make coffee. Later on he’ll earn his keep with melodious song that thrills my heart. 

I’ve spoken before of my “fireplace,” the assortment of candles that rest on the secretary-desk by the patio door. They remind me of the candles I saw in the cathedrals I visited on my travels abroad. Each one represented prayers for a loved one.  These could too.

The Insides and Outsides of life are ever with us. A little old lady sitting at home on a cloudy dark morning knows this and takes comfort.

Right in the Palm of the Hand

Did you ever get your fortune told? Have your palm read? Have someone interpret the tea leaves in your cup? I can only say that, living with my grandmother when I was 17 - 19, I used to enjoy having her read the tea leaves in my cup. Grandmother was able to see many things there. “A man will be coming to your door sometime in the next two weeks. It could be the man you will marry,” she’d say with a sly look in her eye. Often she would see packages coming for me, or letters, even telegrams. 

Neither of us took these things seriously, but Grandmother Darling did tell me of the time when she was a young woman and went to see a fortune teller, “just for fun,” on a dare from her friends. I can remember most of what the fortune teller told her. First, she would marry a man of Scottish descent, tall with florid complexion, and a cavalry man. They would have four children, the youngest would die in infancy. (How terrible!) The woman also predicted that Grandmother would travel abroad before she died.

The first prediction came true. At the boarding house where she lived while she was a young milliner  Daniel Darling came to stay and sat beside her at the dinner table. He was an attorney who dealt primarily with properties, land deeds etc. He was tall, Scottish and had a ruddy look about him.“Did you recognize him as the man the fortune teller had predicted you would marry?” I asked.

“No, not at all. It wasn’t until long after we’d had our four children that I remembered the fortune teller’s predictions. She’d told me I’d marry a man of Scottish descent and a cavalry man. Both true. Daniel had served for a while in the United States Cavalry after graduating from Macalester College and his father had, indeed, come from Scotland. Your mother, Faith, was our fourth child and she nearly died at birth. She weighed only four pounds but she soon got to be a plump and healthy little baby. So that part didn’t come true, thank goodness! If it had, you wouldn’t be here.” 

“But Grandmother, you’ve never traveled abroad, have you?” 

At that Grandmother smiled and nodded her head no. She never did either and I have wondered if that was a thing she denied herself because of the “before you die,” part of her fortune. Grandmother lived to be nearly 90.

Once when I was going to college and living with Grandmother she suggested I might give a little party for some of my friends. I agreed to do it and planned a small dinner party but then worried about what to do for entertainment afterward. So I borrowed a book of party games from the library. It had a chapter on palm reading and I studied it in case things got dull. One of the boys at my party had been a sailor on the battleship Arizona when it was struck by the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. He’d suffered a concussion that put him in a coma for some time and when he awoke he was unable to remember his name or anything at all about himself. While still in the hospital two or three months later he slipped and fell in the corridor striking his head again. Suddenly his memory returned.

I knew his story but when I read his palm it wasn’t until I saw that his line of the head had a short blank space about a fourth of the way along that I saw the connection. That perfectly blank break in his head line sent a chill up my spine. I let go of his hand and said, “Let’s play another game, shall we?” I wasn’t ready to really believe that stuff and what had started out as entertainment suddenly scared me.

When I later told Grandmother about it she assured me that such things were purely incidental and meaningless. She was an ardent student of the Bible and she said, "I never again had my fortune told." Then she quoted that passage in the Bible where it says we should not “seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter,” but rather look to God for answers to questions we might have about our lives.

Because of Grandmother’s experience with the palm reader though, and the fact that she seemed to leave her mental door cracked open ever so slightly to the mystique, I’ve sometimes wondered if I might take a closer look at palm reading. I could look into it, I suppose, but the same thought always follows those moments of curiosity: “Not now. I have other things to think about.”

   

One Way to Wait

The year was 1958 as I recall and Wally’s orders were to the West. We’d bought a house in Norfolk, Virginia two years prior and had enjoyed living there. Lovely newish, yet traditional, brick houses built amidst a wooded park. Our house would easily sell, we thought. There was little to do but start packing. 

Of course, the Marine Corps would keep Wally on the job right up to moving day. Then we would have 30 days to move out, drive across the country with three kids and a dog and get settled in a place we'd need to find before Wally would be reporting for duty. There were about six weeks before departure date but that would give us plenty of time to sell the house we figured. No need to list it with an agent. Surely people would rush to our door when they saw the FOR SALE BY OWNER sign on the front lawn. Not a good idea, I thought, to mess up the house with packing stuff until the buyers had signed on the dotted line.

Time went by quickly but hardly anyone stopped to look at the house, much less buy it. When we were down to two weeks before leaving I was worried. We might never be stationed in the East again so leaving it was not an option.  Besides we’d need the money to put down on another house in California. 

I’d finished sweeping the screened-in porch and fixed myself a sandwich for lunch. Hot tea with it would taste good. I sat down and my silent grace was not in thanks for food. It went something like this: “Dear Father, please send us a buyer soon!”

I pulled the tea bag out of the cup and read the fortune on the tag. It said, “Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.” Could that be God’s answer? I wondered. Did it mean I should get busy and start packing, not worry about the mess? I took it that way and after lunch I got out all the boxes and packing materials, then started working. Neither the house nor I were fit to be seen when the doorbell rang but the couple were charmed. We went to the escrow department of our bank, and the house was sold that very afternoon.

Have you ever noticed your reactions to the need to wait for someone else? I have, and then I remember the tea bag tag and find something to work on while I wait. It must be wrong to let another’s delay waste our own moments.

Katie has been getting ready to leave on our shopping trip for nearly an hour while I was ready to go. What did I do to fill the time? Did I fret, did I prod? Did I fiddle my thumbs? No, I "hustled" and wrote this piece. It brought back a host of good memories of just one of the many tours of duty with the United States Marine Corps. A pleasant hour it gave me. A good idea shared. And best of all, the wait was spared of any sense of irritability or anxiety. When Katie came out, looking like a million dollars, she said, “Ready to go, Grandma?” Yup, and we were out the door in seconds! 

Above Average

Life is a sea of statistics and I was interested to learn yesterday that among American women I have passed the average age of death. I think I know why. It’s because I’ve kept my childhood without being too childish. There is a difference, you know. Besides that, put simply, I’ve been lucky. I was born rich. Not in worldly wealth but in familial love and decency and in gratitude for daily supply and the joy of living. Above all, I am grateful to have had early instruction in the Christian way of life that does not get bogged down in dogma or blind faith. 

My daughter-in-law told my son, “I think I know why your mother always looks on the positive side. It’s because she’s good at letting go.” I was happy to hear that because I think it’s true. You’ve probably heard the story of how certain natives captured monkeys. They took empty gourds, tied them to trees and put grain inside them. When the monkey found one he’d reach in easily but with a fist full of grain he could not pull his hand out of the gourd. Being stubborn, he’d hang onto the grain until he was captured. My philosophy is to see good everywhere and in everything. Then I can let go of the good that traps me. 

Another reason I think I’m living this long is that I’m not afraid of what is called “death.” I’m not even afraid of the problem that might precede my demise. Why? Because I take life one day at a time and am so busy gleaning the good out of it I can't be bothered too much by what goes wrong. If the wrong can be righted, I’ll address it in practical ways. If not, I’ll let go of it and turn my thought to better paths. 

I know of a man who became totally paralyzed from his neck down. He was a Christian Scientist and asked not to be treated by the medical faculty. His wife hired a person to come in daytimes while she went to work to support them but before she left for work she would feed him and get him ready for the day. To occupy his mind he asked to have the textbook of his denomination, Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, set before him. His wife propped it up on a book stand in front of him and opened to page one. Each day he’d study one page and memorize it. His physical condition continued for ten years but he kept mentally alert by the book. He never gave up. Then, after all that time, he began to see physical improvement. Soon he was able to move, and before long he was up, walking, and in full use of his faculties. This has been documented and you can look up his name, Peter J. Henniker-Heaton, on Goggle to see his testimony. 

No, I don’t believe in blind faith but I do believe that faith can see beyond the limits of what appears real to the five physical senses. I believe there’s a spiritual universe all around us, even a heavenly kingdom that we see and understand faintly at this stage of our development. We’re like infants, aware enough of heaven to recognize the difference between good and evil, but not comprehending the full scope of it. When we get it wrong or misinterpret, we cry. We stumble and fall, but we pick ourselves up and go on. We let go and we find new discoveries. We learn, sometimes through science, other times through suffering, to be obedient to the law of Love and we live because of it. In the end we find there is no end. No beginning either. Just the Infinite, the Only, the All.

As for today, a little poem my mother gave me when I was a child has served me well as a morning prayer. I don’t know the author but here it is:

Now I rise at the dawn of day

Knowing God is my only guide.

In thought or deed, in work or play,

I know that He is at my side.

He is my help in everything.

He goes with me and rules my day,

No matter what the day may bring

Since I reflect my God alway.

I cannot claim great achievements in life or brag about anything, for that matter. I’ve been lucky, (fortunate is a better word.) I’ve focused on the good and let go of what seems bad, and I’ve treated each day as a little child would, with joy, gratitude and a mind full of wonder. Tragedy, war, fear, may spook me at times, I may fret and cry over both the trivial and serious, but this child in me just gets up, dusts herself off and marches on. That’s why I can say I’m a little above average in longevity. In other things I'm not so sure, but I do keep attending this school of life. I'm not ready to drop out quite yet, let alone graduate. I regret not striving more for perfection in all things, but at least I can claim to be above average in age. That's something! 

Occupation: Retired?

The first few months of Wally Ginder Wethe’s retirement from the U.S. Marine Corps were painful. He’d sleep in mornings, move to the sofa in his pajamas to sit and read, fall asleep there, and eventually wander around the house like a lost soul. If I tried to help by suggesting some task around the house or yard he’d say, “I didn’t get out of the Marines just to make you my commanding officer!”

It was hard on me too. That old saying, “I married him for better or for worse, but NOT for lunch!” rang true after the first few days. I was reminded of how pleasant it had been to see him all clean-shaven, breakfasted, and looking snappy in his bright-buttoned uniform and polished shoes as he left the house for a day of flying a fighter plane or "flying a desk." Then I could do my own thing at my own pace and happily be my own boss. I had no more college homework, no outside job where I had to please someone else, and if I got bored studying recipe books or shopping for groceries or house-cleaning I could go over to visit Liz, a friend and another officer’s wife, and play with her baby. A year and a half later I had my own baby, two years later another, and six years after that our third and last child. I had plenty to do. Later I kept busy in my own ways, but with my husband at home all day? That changed the picture.

Not long after his retirement Wally G. got another job working for his church in various capacities. That was satisfying to him and he kept at it until the day he died. Proving, I’d say, that there’s little in the word “retirement” to recommend it as a satisfying state of living. I looked up the word in my dictionary and found most of the definitions to be negative, like "loneliness, reclusiveness, aloofness, apartness, separateness, solitariness, isolation, inactivity." Sandwiched in with these were a few words that spoke positively such as privacy, tranquility, serenity, and inactivity. I included that last word in the positive sense too because it turns me off to read about seniors who attempt to counter their age by doing things like sky-diving, long-distance running, motorcycling, bicycling through traffic, playing strenuous tennis games, mountain-climbing and other youthful pursuits. Why can’t they just do normal things, leave youth to the young and grow old gracefully?

Inactivity, I’m finding, can be an art. When I sit and look around my little creekside patio, listen to the waterfall, the birds, watch the sunlight glint amidst the trees and send dancing reflections of the creek up the neighborhood walls, I find a kind of bliss that silences the old work ethic nags. I say to them, “Enough! Been there. Done that.”

Sometimes I wonder what I could have done with my life to make more of a mark in the world. I haven’t been too self-indulgent and I’ve spent ample time looking for real answers to life, occasionally sharing my “finds” with a listening ear. I’ve pursued some talents and intend to do more of that in the near future. I’ve been helpful to my friends and family whenever I can, and I treat life as an open school, myself a willing student if not an over-achiever.

When I need to fill out a form and they ask my occupation I always have to think about that a minute before I answer “retired.” That word seems deceptive to me. Now if I could re-define “retired” to mean the state of working and playing on my own terms at my own pace, in other words a kind of do-what-I-want-when-I-want-at-the-pace-I-choose, then that’s my idea of an honest "retired" answer. Could there be another term for it? How about this; 

Occupation: optional 

I wonder when I’ll get my next chance to write that on some form. It might make someone smile. It works for me.

My Fireplace

I’ve had quite a few fire-places in my life. The first was the kerosene kitchen stove in the little Minneapolis house on Russell Ave. N. It had white porcelain handles to turn on the gas. My first four years were lived in that house and I learned well the meaning of the word “No!” which was spoken whenever I’d try to play with those pretty handles. We had a coal burning furnace there too, but it was in the basement and I don’t remember getting acquainted with it.

The next fire place I knew was in my country grandma’s kitchen. You’ve seen, no doubt, replicas of those black wrought iron creatures in second hand and collectible stores. But you haven’t really known that kind of fireplace unless you’ve seen the real thing in use. I didn’t need the cautionary word “No” with this stove. It was hot and scary to look into, but when I was held in someone’s arms I could feel it enough to understand I must keep my distance. Still, it was exciting to look at the glowing contents when Grandma lifted the lid with her right hand and held me with her left arm.

In the early 1930‘s before rural electricity came to her home Grandma’s house was lit by candles in any room that was occupied. Candles were no-touch-by-children objects too but Grandma would carry a candle up the stairs with me at bedtime. When more light was needed a kerosene lamp on the kitchen table did the trick. I didn’t like the glare or smell of that thing. Besides it hissed!

I heard about real fireplaces at Christmastime when I saw pictures of them on Christmas cards and in children's books and wished that we had one in our own country home. I worried that Santa wouldn’t come to our house since we had no fireplace but Mother assured me that Santa would be glad to find a house where he wouldn’t be obliged to jump into a sooty chimney. We’d leave the door unlocked that one night of the year and put a plate of cookies and a glass of milk on the table for him.

What we did have in the way of a fireplace in our own country house was a genuine pot-bellied stove with chrome bumpers and foot rests. I was not allowed to touch it but I could watch Daddy feed it and enjoy the comforts it offered, especially when I bathed in the laundry tub set next to it on winter Saturday nights.

When I was seventeen I went to live with my other grandmother in a little adobe tile-roofed California house in Riverside, California. It had a real fireplace. We had to buy firewood at the corner grocery and carry it home so we used the fireplace sparingly, but it was fun to tend the fire, using a long poker to move the logs, then sit and watch the flames leap and sputter until they turned into golden shimmering cities of coals. 

After I was married we moved frequently and had other fireplaces in houses too numerous to mention but the fireplace experience never grew old. It was always special. On camping trips we had many a fire outside our tent at night to cook on and roast marshmallows. When we lived on the ranch in southern Oregon our fireplace was a Franklin stove, a free-standing fireplace invented by Benjamin himself. 

In my present home I do not have a fireplace but early mornings before dawn I often light up the collection of candles spread over my secretary-desk. Candlelight, like firelight, moves unpredictably like something alive and autonomous. I often have a hard time concentrating on what I’m reading because of the fascination of dreamy dancing little flames. I call that corner “my fireplace.” (Don’t worry, dear reader, I never leave it unattended.) This morning I nearly drifted back to sleep sitting across from my "fireplace." Then Katie woke up and we went shopping. 

I’m done transferring this blog to my computer now and I feel a nap coming on. I’ll wait until morning to re-light my fire-place. I’ll tell it about the blog I wrote and it will give me, no doubt, a happy little light show in honor of its going public.

My Kingdom for a Pen!

Here I sit waiting in the car in a parking lot beside a jail.   I may be here for a while and I’ve brought plenty to read but I want a pen! Any paper will do. Purse? No. The car’s glove compartment? No. Ah, here’s one. Not like my good pen but it will have to do.

Now, a few days later I must transfer what I wrote that sunny cool day. Here goes:

Such a pretty place to park. Such a tall and formidable building next to it! This grandma never knew what kind of drama her youngest grandchild would bring. Katie is 23 going on 24 and I’ve brought her to visit the young man of 26 she has promised herself to, one Jeffrey Allen Smith. 

The others in our family, aside from Katie’s parents and me, do not know Jeff. All they know is that he’s behind bars. They don’t know the history, the story of why, the reasons. Too complicated to explain even here, but we who know the story are not blinded by obvious mistakes to the confidence of these two young people in love. We have seen the pain of wrong choices our children have suffered and now we see the hope and the way circumstances have separated these two physically but are uniting them in spirit and soul. Letters and phone calls and weekend visits behind glass through telephone are the only tangible connections for six more months. The intangibles, the “getting to know you, getting to know all about you...” part, is coming in a way that most courtships cannot know or benefit by.

As Grandma, sitting on the sidelines, making a home for Katie until Jeff can do it, I support them both. I believe in their love and commitment, in their hopes and plans for the future and in their present preparation for a good life together. The past, having served its purpose to show wrong choices and harsh consequences, will be, (I pray!), left in the dusty road behind. 

Plans are being made now to seal their love with a jailhouse wedding. It will be simple, without any one of the families there. (That's the way they do it here.) A formal wedding with friends and family where they will renew their vows will come later. It will be lovely too. 

Marriage may not be easy. It seldom is. But it will be a testing time, a new path of sharing the good, overcoming the bad, and loving each other every step of the way. Marriage is, I believe, a chance to demonstrate the oneness of two people in love as a preparation for our oneness with God, divine Love. Where else but on this exquisite blue planet can we better prepare ourselves to launch out into Heaven and explore the Infinite? 

Well, I’m glad I found a pen. Now, a bit of editing. Maybe others will think me foolish, addled by old age. They may look more coldly on the scant view of Katie and Jeff's youth years. They may say, “Prove yourselves first, like we did.” But I say, No, when you get to be my age you can’t let go of hope in the good we see only through faith. By the way, Faith was my mother’s name. Katie bears her name second, Kathryn Faith. It seems appropriate for us all to have faith now. There’s really no other choice. I'm asking you skeptics out there to join me in supporting these two children. After all, we're all children in one form or another and in the schoolroom of life we'll all graduate soon or late. And then we celebrate!