Turning 75

                Recently I won re-election to the County Board for another two-year term and I turned 75.  Lots of celebrating and many thoughts about what’s next have occurred. Maybe the thoughts will resonate with you in your transitions.

                I’m someone who likes to celebrate many times with small groups of friends rather than one big bash. So, I’ve brunched, lunched and supped with friends. One party with friends who live in assisted living even included an art activity. Of course, there were cards and calls, including one from a nephew who suggested in the “what’s next?” area that I consider looking for a boyfriend.  I’m still pondering that one.

                My birthday falls on the same day as “national beer day” and “no housework day”, so I tried to celebrate both.  

                As a person who has everything, I decided to give myself contributions to the community: a lecture on birding by ear for the visually-impaired support group in town, a gift to the Meals on Wheels fund, a contribution to a Braille publisher to sponsor a poetry book being put into Braille, etc. Friends also contributed treats like 75 home-made cookies to share and a box of snacks including several chocolate items. Yes!

                As for what’s next, on my bucket list are: reading more, dabbling in poetry writing and writing a psalm. On the maybe list are a singing lesson to see if I can get beyond sounding like a bullfrog and a comedy class. As Dame Judi Dench  says: “Age is an opportunity for reinvention.”

All in all,  a T shirt I was given sums up my thoughts on 75 so far:  “Life is good.”    Forward!

Poetry Workshop

                Ever wondered what a poetry workshop was like? I’ve always wanted to attend one, so gave myself an early birthday present and signed up for one. It involved four ninety-minute phone sessions with ten participants and a leader from California, who is a published poet. Members in the group were all females and ranged from amateurs like me to published poets.

                Our classes usually included the poet reading us one or more of her poems, pointing out a poetic device or giving some other resources and then us writing for a few minutes on a prompt she gave us and then sharing our fragment if we wanted to.

For example, the first prompt was:  “what word are you holding” and I wrote:

                                                February 3

The male cardinal repeats his song

announcing his territory a month early.

Will he hear one word from a lady

to give him hope?           

Then “homework” is assigned. The first weeks was “If Sidewalks Had Ears” and my poem was:

                                If Sidewalks Had Ears:     401 Water Street

I’m just a sidewalk; I bar none but hear all.

 In the morning, I hear  a hose cleaning me  up for another day.

Many young feet tramp over me  to class and hustle back home to get on with life.

In the evening, groups chatter over me  as they hurry to  enter the building.

Later some stagger home alone or in pairs.

A few disgorge their sorrows and leave me

waiting for the sound of the morning hosing down.

I’m just the humble patch of concrete in front of the Pioneer Bar.

                The poem for the second week was about tall ships, but contained the line “The wind is now”. Based on an encounter with a friend with aphasia, I wrote:

“The Wind Is Now”

It’s a cruel wind that blows her words away.

She used to teach; now she struggles to state basic needs.

It’s a warm wind that blows friends in to embrace and remember out loud the good times.

It’s a soft wind that says: “I will carry you toward a new now

Where the spirit reminds us all that we are each a breath from God.”

                The amazingly wonderful part of the workshop for me was to hear all the different directions people took for their writing from the same poem or fragment.

                Just for fun for the next homework prompt, “If the Rain Knew My Secrets”, I wrote a haiku and then asked CHATGPT to do so.

                I like his better.

                                                                “If the Rain Knew My Secrets”

Mine:

Sorrow poured from  sky

Dumping big and small secrets

Cleansing  memory.

ChatGPT’s:

Rain whispers softly,

 Echoes secrets in its fall,

 Nature’s confidant.

                At the third workshop, to the prompt “If you lose a memory, embroider a new one to take its place”, I wrote:

What did we talk about the last time I visited you?

The memory may be gone from both our minds.

 but the warmth of the greeting and the joy of being together

Embroider a picture of a black Lab lying on his back in a patch of sun.

                For the last week’s in-class  exercise, our leader talked about using metaphors and then had us write as many metaphors as we could in five minutes for a common object. I did

What is a cup?

A holder of morning energy and evening comfort

A paper weight

A maker of statements

A dust catcher

A hand-warmer.

                Others in the group waxed much more poetic on this exercise. I left the workshop emboldened to find a critique group or another workshop. Of course I’ll read more poetry, starting with Dogku by Andrew Clements.

Twelve Moments of Christmas

Christmas Is:

1. Writing and sending out my card (twenty in hard copy and about double that by email). It’s fun to think of each person and to hear back from most.
2. Receiving a box of snacks from a friend in Iowa who is adjusting to not driving. She mentioned picking them out quickly in addition to her other shopping when she did get a ride, just like I do.  So good to see her adjusting and grumbling.
3. A gathering with friends who live in assisted living and memory care. One asked a poignant question: How can I be joyful when all I can write on Christmas cards is my name?  But at the end of the party, they were busy planning the next one.
4. Most friends need nothing so most of my giving is to charities and a toy for the person’s pet. A few folks got limericks written for them.
5. Worship, music, crafts, fellowship, bells, stamping supplies, cooks, table leaders, the Shepherd and Card designer extraordinaire,  cleanup crew, all of my team  worked together to produce a wonderful December Inclusive Ministry  church service.  48 Christmas cards were crafted for residents of Lake Halley Memory Care.  
6.  On a day dominated by a five-hour County Board meeting, a lady I call every week and her granddaughter stopped by for tea. She brought lefse and I gave her fruitcake.  Friendly chatter reminded me the real world was there in addition to the political world of voting about welcoming refugees or not.
7. Irritated about not knowing what was in a package and who it was from until I  remembered that that’s kind of like waiting to open presents until a particular day, just a blind version.
8. A friend of forty years called with a Christmas joke: Why does Santa have three gardens? A: To “hoe, hoe, hoe” in. 

I found and shared a Mary Oliver poem:

“MAKING THE HOUSE READY FOR THE LORD,” BY MARY OLIVER

Dear Lord, I have swept and I have washed but
still nothing is as shining as it should be
for you. Under the sink, for example, is an
uproar of mice — it is the season of their
many children. What shall I do? And under the eaves
and through the walls the squirrels
have gnawed their ragged entrances — but it is the season
when they need shelter, so what shall I do? And
the raccoon limps into the kitchen and opens the cupboard
while the dog snores, the cat hugs the pillow;
what shall I do? Beautiful is the new snow falling
in the yard and the fox who is staring boldly
up the path, to the door. And still I believe you will
come, Lord: you will, when I speak to the fox,
the sparrow, the lost dog, the shivering sea-goose, know
that really I am speaking to you whenever I say,
as I do all morning and afternoon: Come in, Come in.

• Went to the memory care party with the sister/caregiver of a friend who is having a hard time adjusting to being in care. Calvin tolerated wearing reindeer antlers nobly and was rewarded afterwards. Although we had a sing-along with jolly Christmas carols, it felt sad to me because I know how hard it is on care partners and residents. I delivered the cards we made at Inclusive Ministry and the activity director seemed grateful. Hot chocolate bar seemed to be Swiss Miss not chocolate bombs, so I demurred. I made sure the caregiver had as much company as she wanted over the holiday and took a long winter nap, since it was the first day of winter (45 degrees notwithstanding).

1. Had pizza with a friend and enjoyed her long-term friendship as well as her Christmas baking (most cookies were covered in chocolate)! Calvin was thrilled with a homemade dog treat and a bite of banana.

1. Listened to a Christmas story written by the pastor at Lake Street UMC. Each year he writes one centering the outliers in today’s society. What a gift.

1. Read several Christmas books, but none really resonated. This blessing by Kate Bowler did:

A Christmas Blessing

Kate Bowler

The tree, the friends, the family, the fullness.

The groaning world, the ache, the incompleteness.

We need to sit here for a minute.

Sit here in our cherishing-what-we-have.

Sit here in our missing-what-we’ve-lost.

Sit here in our almost-ness.

Then a baby will be wrapped in a blanket and laid down before us.

We will sit there for a minute.

We will cherish the Savior we have.

We will yearn for the “Peace on Earth, goodwill to all.”

And in our almost-ness, we will breathe:

Emmanuel. Emmanuel. Emmanuel. 

God with us.

I wish for you and for me many Christmas moments, when, as Joan Chittister put it: “to start over: aware of what has gone before, conscious that nothing can last, but full of hope that this time, finally, we can learn what it takes to live well, grow to full stature of soul and spirit, get it right.”

Running for County Board Again

To run for County Board, even if you’re an incumbent as I am, you have to get fifty signatures from voters in your district to get on the ballot. One can start on December 1 and must be done by the end of December. For me as a blind person, I need to enlist friends to walk door to door with me.  Here’s a log of our week of street walking:

December 1:      I  started gathering signatures; got 13 in an hour and a half. The friend who was helping pointed out that helpers had better bring a flashlight, because it’s dark by five and should bring two pens because they freeze. Keeping the pens in an inner pocket helps too. 

December 2:  I had a one-hour signature gathering at Democratic HQ and got one signature. The  coffee was excellent and I got some good advice from a state representative and party honchos.  Calvin was his noble self after cleaning all crumbs from the floor that he could reach. Only 36  more signatures to go.

Dec. 3: Mid-afternoon on a Sunday, fewer people were home (or didn’t want to get up from watching football) so I got nine signatures in an hour and a half. The gal who helped me said it was like trick or treat, but you don’t get any candy.  Again, pleasant people to talk with and Calvin makes friends with all critters.

December 5: Another example of the kindnesses that surround me: after a day of substituting in a kindergarten, a retired teacher friend walked the walk with me to get more signatures; we’re up to almost two thirds. A neighbor shoveled my walk and another friend babysat Calvin while I spent two hours at the dentist. By the time the three-hour County Board meeting was done at ten PM, Calvin and I fell into bed.

December 6: Another fine walk with a gal who had grown up in the neighborhood so could tell me who lived there thirty years ago; fun walk down memory lane for her, too.

Dec. 7: A retired friend brought me 29 signatures from two apartment buildings and a longtime resident of the neighborhood helped me get ten more.  I’m done and another friend will take me to the County building tomorrow to turn them in. It took a village, but we did it within a week. 

December 8: I turned in 79 signatures and 77 were approved. I’ll be on the ballot, thanks to a team of friends! The seven friends who walked with me and the seventy-seven who signed remind me of the sacred duty of serving so that “government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish,” as Lincoln said.

Learnings from a Ride Along

                While you were watching television or curled up with a good book on a recent Tuesday evening, I was doing a ride along with a sergeant from the Eau Claire County sheriff’s office. This opportunity  is offered to county board members and I jumped at the chance. I love police procedurals and a real ride along is a dream come true.

                One of my major learnings was that even on a quiet evening, there’s a lot going on. I got to observe:

Driving around looking for a stolen car

A traffic stop that ended in a verbal warning

A fight involving several teens and a young adult (Calvin and I sat in the squad car and played Trivia Crack)

Searching for a runaway juvenile who stole a car (DO NOT LEAVE YOUR KEYS IN THE CAR).

Paperwork filed on the computer after all events.

                We also had three hours to discuss subjects from how we got into our professions, dogs, we both enjoy Labs, and crime, rehab and punishment. Our views seemed pretty similar, his based on a dozen years in law enforcement and mine based on thirty years as a psychologist. I’m so glad this sergeant does training for new officers of which there are a lot lately.

                Eau Claire can be proud to have officers like this sergeant who love the community and protect and serve it 24/7. It’s not like a crime show where it’s all wrapped up in an  hour including commercials, but it is important work

 As he let me off to feed Calvin and go to bed, he was just beginning his night. He thanked me for riding along. I am so grateful that I could learn about his work, which involves technology, (computer, radio, body cam, guns, etc.), a lot of psychology and a good bit of compassion for flawed human beings.

                I’m praying that the runaway gets found unharmed and for safety for those who serve us in law enforcement.

That Was a Poetry Reading to Remember!

A friend invited me to this reading at the library  to help make a crowd scene for a friend’s mom.

                                                                                POETRY READING

OCTOBER 28

2:00 P.M.

WITH PEGGY TROJAN

Peggy Trojan, a former Eau Claire Resident for 20 years, began writing poetry at age 77. She is now 90 years old and lives in the Northwoods of Wisconsin next to a trout stream. Peggy is the author of two full-length poetry books and six Chapbooks.

                As so often happens when I go to do a good deed, it turns out that I get much more out of the good deed than the person I was “helping”.  I got to see friends from all over the community, average age about eighty, who despite disabilities (“can’t drive anymore” “need to sit in the front row because of a hearing disability”, etc.) came and enjoyed poetry and memories.

                The outside temperature never got over 35, but the warmth of the forty or so  audience members was palpable. Her subject matter was ordinary life events like a dog dying, a soldier  pen pal during World War II, and a first kiss. She even had a poem about Siri.  Peggy’s style reminds me of a bonsai tree, spare, small and perfect. One of her (and my) favorite poets is Ted Kooser. If you like his poetry, you’ll like hers, I think.

                She delivered her reading in a unique way. Because macular degeneration makes it difficult for her to read, one of her daughters would prompt her with the first line of the next poem she wanted, and she recited the poem from memory. The reading, interspersed with a few stories, lasted an hour and a half.

              I hope I’m going strong like she is at age ninety.  As Lucille Clifton said of poetry, “But a poem, it’s about a whole human and speaks to the whole human and it has to come from a whole human, so you involve all of yourself in it”.  Peggy Trojan does, and those of us who heard her are the better for it.

                To give you a sample, here’s the title poem from one of her books:

                                                                                All that Matters

In her nineties

My mother’s memory

Got stuck on the present.

“Where did pa go?”

She would ask sweetly.

I could tell her

But minutes later

She asked again.

Once I tried to get her

To recall Paris when Jerry

Was doing graduate work.

She couldn’t remember.

Finally she asked,

“Did I have a good time?”

“Yes! You and Dad

Had a wonderful trip!”

“Well,” she said,

Looking me in the eye,

“That’s all that matters.”

Joy Bits

            Feeling a bit flat, I challenged myself to log little joys for a month and see what brought me joy.  I averaged over two a day, but skipped some days when I had a cold and felt crummy. The top category of joys was volunteer activities, closely followed by reading and other hobbies. Human friends, Calvin and eating joys along with joys from the natural world like sunshine rounded out the joy bits.

My reading and this vaguely scientific (single subject design)  experiment lead me to the following conclusions:

Want more joy? Consider the following:

1. Notice it. Use a formal journal like Barbara Johnson’s or just log a few every day on your own.
2. Savor it when you’re in the moment; slow down and revel in it.
3. Say thanks to the person who caused it or to the universe; the thank you creates more joy.
4. Notice how much of your joy comes from other people, as Ross Gay points out in Inciting Joy essays.
5. Get tips from experts: Book of Joy by the Dali Lama, and Women’s Book of Joy by Eileen Campbell.

Wishing you much joy!

A Weekend Staycation

The Discipline of Doing Nothing from Chicken Soup for the Soul: Your 10 Keys to Happiness by James C. Magruder, points out that you cannot pour from an empty cup.

When my cup gets empty, I get cranky.   Noticing my resentment of fellow committee members turning down work because of vacations, I decided I needed a staycation. The rules were that I could do household chores like cooking and picking up after Calvin, but I had to do them mindfully and other work had to be put off until the staycation was done.  Funny thing, as soon as I decided this, all sorts of ideas for work projects jumped into my brain.

I only cheated once and justified it to myself that it was quicker to just deal with the piece of work now. I enjoyed usual weekend activities like going to the farmers’ market, napping and reading, but did them a little slower and with more focus on enjoyment because I was on STAYCATION!

            When Monday rolled around, it became clear a staycation was not enough; I was still cranky and on edge. Then God gave me some more signs (be careful what you ask for…). Several committee projects ended up in dead ends. Then a book jumped out at me by an author forty years younger but at a similar pivot point in her life.

            Tired as Fuck by Caroline Dooner      describes a woman who needed to give herself radical permission to rest, physically, mentally and emotionally. First, she had to convince herself that she deserved to rest. She was addicted to busyness and needed a significant buffer period to sort things out. She decided what activities to continue (in addition to the basics) by asking “does it spark joy?”. After her two years of resting more, she realized that she’d never arrive at a finish line of perfect balance but she was much more at peace with setting her own boundaries and not nagging herself to do more.

            I felt convicted that I need to do something similar and need to start withdrawing from things that don’t spark joy, even if I don’t know what will fill the spaces.

I turn 75 next year and it seems like now is the time to pivot to more fun and joy. Stay tuned!

ADA 33 activities

            The anniversary of the ADA rolls around every year and I try to celebrate it to focus on highlighting access issues to the public that are everyday realities to those of us with disabilities. Here’s this year’s activities:

• Demonstrated digital access to university committee representatives; once they experience good and not-so-good websites with a screen reader, it all makes sense.
• Recommended book for library’s history offerings (because they had nothing in the area):

A Disability History of the United States (REVISIONING HISTORY #2)

by Kim E. Nielsen

• Led a workshop for RCU bank employees  on being an access-able person
• Organized and chaired panel on “Writing the Disability Experience” We had writers who live with ADHD, autism, brain injury, hearing loss and blindness. Over a hundred people attended.  
• Calvin and I taped a segment on the ADA panel for the  channel 13 morning show. https://www.weau.com/2023/07/24/panelists-step-up-mic-celebrate-adas-anniversary/ Ellie, the interviewer, was  a friendly, bouncy gal who told  me  such things as: “Oh girlfriend, you’re doing great” after knowing me  five minutes. One of her amazing questions was: “How has being blind affected your life?” Another interviewee was one of the poets with a brain injury on the panel.  She got a similar question and she and I rolled our eyes together afterwards.  Now Ellie was smitten with Calvin, so he got some good video.  He didn’t have to worry about the quotes. After the panel, I went out to dinner with a couple friends to celebrate the event being DONE.
• Advocated for public input for county budget to include a remote method for making  input via  an online survey.  We’ve done it before but it vanishes from people’s minds  to do this unless I remind them every year.
• Complimented others doing Disability Pride kinds of things, like a great book reviewer on a list for users of the National Library Service    

Read three memoirs Leg, about a gay man with cerebral palsy, Lithium Jesus, a memoir of mania and The Future is Disabled, and a novel, Be Mine, about a son with ALS. The memoirs have way more about sex lives than mine did; that might be a generational thing. The novel was a good road trip novel with disability issues as a part of it that seemed authentic.  Always in search of the latest blindness memoir, I read Country of the Blind by Andrew Leland. He’s going blind and mixes memoir with research into the culture, organizations etc. of the world of blindness—well written!

I’m noticing more celebrations of Disability Pride month, including publishers and libraries having those top ten booklists that feed my addiction.  I’ve added More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech by Meredith Broussard to my TBR list, so far; happily, it’s available from Bookshare. In addition to a lot of reading,  I wonder what I’ll do to celebrate next year. What about you?

Digital Access: a day in the life of a user

                At a recent committee meeting, I was asked: What is the current state of digital access for those of you who use screen readers? Here’s a report about one day’s usage by one heavy user.

                Every day I read and respond to the hundred-plus emails that go to my county and university email boxes. Personal emails are generally quite accessible, even including some emojis, but some of the advertising emails are not very accessible.

I monitor a couple hundred podcast feeds and those are totally accessible.

I skim health, books, religion and science sections of six newspapers on NFBNewsline, created for the blind, so totally accessible. On the other hand, I struggle to read the front-page headlines and the obituaries from the local newspaper which is quite inaccessible and is not interested in becoming more accessible. They  say without even looking into it that they can’t afford it.

I found three books I want to add to my TBR list, none of which are available in accessible format from the Public Library, Libby, The National Library Service or Bookshare. Two are available for purchase on Kindle, which is accessible. The third book which I couldn’t find anywhere in accessible format and which I really, really wanted, triggered my last-ditch approach which is email the author and plead my case for a final draft of the book. I promised not to share it and offered to pay the regular price. The author emailed back the same day and she sent  it, “Consider the Lilies” a book of poetry by Connie Wanek.

                I use Alexa to check the weather forecast and to get a recipe for some bluegills a friend brought me. I also play a few word games every day on Alexa; we seniors have to keep our brains sharp!

                Then of course, I have to do Wordle, which was made accessible by a plug-in developed by a kind volunteer, not the New York Times that now owns Wordle.

                As I review my electronic  packets for upcoming meetings, they are mostly quite accessible. Sometimes spread sheets of numbers being read by a screen reader make no sense, so I arrange for a staff member or another committee member to go over them verbally with me and I take notes on my 65-year-old Braille writer so I can participate knowledgeably in the meeting.

                Participating online in meetings is largely accessible, especially by Zoom. Other platforms are less friendly, but if there’s a phone-in option, it’s still doable. If people give their names when they speak and somebody stops and reads the chat aloud occasionally, they are accessible.

                Then there’s the fun stuff:

• Checking this week’s  New York Times best sellers lists, all three of the new books I want are available from Bookshare—yes!
• Over half of the Facebook posts by “friends” have some description like “peonies” of the picture they post, as opposed to the AI-generated “may be flowers”. My nagging for pithy descriptions and typing out book titles instead of just a picture of the book they recommend, has worked some.

• A recent NPR story about an Ada Limón poem being sent on an upcoming mission to Jupiter caught my fancy. Folks from all over the world can sign on a chip that will be sent on this mission to Europa. Of course, Calvin and I signed on!

                Here’s the last bit of Poet Laureate Limón’s beautiful poem:

“O second moon, we, too, are made

of water, of vast and beckoning seas.

We, too, are made of wonders, of great

and ordinary loves, of small invisible worlds,

of a need to call out through the dark.”

                So, in a word, the current state of digital access is “glass half full”, I’d say. It takes about three times as long because I can’t point and click, and I may have to try several ways to get what I want, but I usually get it done. Partly it’s doable because I persist, but mostly because digital content creators are becoming more aware and responsive to the needs of those of us who use assistive technology. Whether it’s because it’s the law, or because they just plain care and want to share the good stuff, all efforts are appreciated.