The One Where I Defend Millennials

I really don’t like hearing people say that baby boomers ruined the world. I think we’re pretty fabulous. We are, after all, the generation that brought you free love, flower power, the Beatles, Woodstock, women’s lib, and the end of the Vietnam War. While it is true that not everything we touched turned to gold, it is also true that we are not responsible for everything wrong in the world.

A look at our last four Presidents, all boomers, illustrates the point that we’re a diverse group. Clinton was a good President and a bad man. W was a good man, but a bad President. Obama was both a good President and a good man, while 45 is a terrible President and an even worse human being.

So I joined a Facebook group for elder orphans, people like me who face our final years with no nearby family, thinking I’d have something in common with them and might learn how others handle the situation. I get some good advice and see different perspectives on how we live our lives. Unfortunately, I also hear quite a bit of whining.

Take today, for instance. Someone posted that they just didn’t understand millennials. They refuse to grow up, start every sentence with “so,” have their phones in their faces all the time, and expect everything to be handed to them. Etcetera.

I said that the millennials I know work hard and raise their families while trying their best to make the world a better place. A few people agreed with me, but more sounded like a bunch of grumpy old farts.

It must have started to get a little contentious because somebody deleted the post.

I have to admit that sometimes I feel a little jealous of young people, not because of their youth because I sure wouldn’t want to go through that again, although I’d love to be able to move without pain. I envy them computers, the Internet, even cell phones.

Mostly, though, I’m happy that we had the 60s and low-cost college tuition and drive-in movies.

And nobody can dispute that we had the best music. Luckily for millennials, that’s one thing that’s still around for them to enjoy.

Hot Enough to Fry Brains

As you may have heard because I’m pretty vocal about it, I hate summer. Hate the heat. Even when I am inside in the air conditioning, just knowing that it is 90+ outside seems to pickle my brain. I feel lethargic, can’t get anything done, and can’t seem to think straight.

I have many friends and family members who live in Phoenix, don’t ask me why, and when I inevitably tell them, “I don’t know how you stand it,” they always say, “We stay inside for six months, just like you do in the winter.” Since they all seem to parrot the same words, I have concluded that this is part of an Arizona brainwashing campaign. I think they have to believe that to justify living there.

It certainly isn’t true.

It would be true if a typical winter day here was 20º and snowing. That does happen maybe 10-12 days a year. But, as anyone who has spent a full year here could tell you, a winter day is more likely 50º and sunny. That hardly requires hunkering down inside under a blanket. Instead, you will find people here walking, running (in shorts!), having lunch on the patio, riding bikes, and playing golf all year round.

So imagine my surprise at hearing my brother, who has always been highly intelligent if not exactly a free thinker, echo those words to me. He’s moving to Tucson this fall, and I can only conclude that the Arizona Thought Police got to him early.

What’s Your Story?

Going to a restaurant is quite a production for me. As soon as I’m seated in my booth, I set up my Kindle or a book on a bookstand. Then I retrieve my reading glasses, journal, pen case, wet wipes, Kleenex, and Carmex from my bag and I’m ready to order. Yesterday, the server had just brought my breakfast amid my personal “setup” when I glanced around the restaurant and spotted two friends across the room.

As I made my way to their booth to say, “Hi,” I thought about their story. It’s one that most people in the Denver area would remember and would cause them to treat my friends with extra kindness if only they knew.

I returned to my meal and books taking some time to look around and wonder about the other people having breakfast. What’s their story?

The white-haired gentleman was bent over from osteoporosis and probably in pain, but he still got up to help his wife to stand as they walked to the counter to pay, stopping along the way to thank their server for taking care of them. In my imagination, they have been married for sixty years and shared many hardships and joys along the way.

The server with the gap in her teeth and friendly attitude may be raising her grandchildren while her daughter tries to kick a drug habit.

The couple at another table could be immigrants who came to this country for a better life.

I don’t know.

We’re all just ordinary Americans trying to get through the good times and the bad with a little grace, a little courage.

If I knew their stories and they knew mine, would we treat one another better?

Maybe we can practice showing more patience and empathy anyway. Just in case.

You’ve Got to Have Friends

Yesterday, I went to the 90^th birthday party for a dear friend. Just inside the door, I met two other friends and we all remarked on the number of people there, about 100 was my guess. In fact, the party was held at a local golf course to contain us all.

Who has 100 friends at age 90? The birthday girl explained that after nine decades, you accumulate a lot of friends.

Her family was there as well as her church family. Some people attended whom she knew from her late husband’s band and from Eastern Star, where she remains active, as did neighbors from the North Denver neighborhood where she’s lived all her life.

Some people have the gift of friendship, and she makes friends wherever she goes. Even more remarkably, she nurtures those friends. Everybody loves her and not just because she still likes to bake and brings goodies to share wherever she goes. Clearly, she loves all of us, too, and that is probably her secret to making and keeping friends.

At the table where I sat, we calculated how long we each had until our own 90^th birthday (19 years and four months for me) and we agreed that we’d be fine living that long if we could be like her, active, loving, and joyous.

It turns out that having friends helps us live longer, and at least one study suggests that friends are more important than family as we age. Unfortunately, as an introvert and a loner, making friends does not come naturally to me. Maybe I can learn to get better at it because one thing I know for sure is this:

When I grow up I want to be like Elly.

Ch ch ch changes

 

 

“When you come to church this Sunday, I want you to sit in a different place.” This from Pastor Brad, who it should be noted never changes where he sits during our worship service. We’re changing from one service to two, and he wants us to meet new people. My first thought was, “I don’t like it when anybody tells me what to do.” Also, I do meet new people. In fact, the pastor has complimented me in the past on being friendly to new folks, quite an accomplishment for someone as introverted as I. So I wonder, what if I don’t change seats? I’m not emotionally attached to my particular place in the pews–it’s just a habit. Still, I do have reasons. My seat is toward the front of the church where I can hear and see better and feel more like part of the action instead of a mere observer. It’s next to a wheelchair space so my friend Katherine can sit next to me when she’s able to come to church. We have several people in wheelchairs now and when they need that space, I happily move. My seat is near the windows and a fan because the sanctuary can get very hot in the summer. The hymnal there is one of the few with ribbon markers, and I like to mark the hymns we’ll be singing when I first see the bulletin. If I’m starting to sound a little like Sheldon Cooper, my favorite thing about my seat is that my friends know where to find me. Sunday morning is the only time I see most of my church friends, and I’m pouty enough to think the pastor wants to take that away from me. We sit together enough that someone labeled us and other similar groups, “tribes.” Someone else, however, used the term church cliques, and I cringed at that because it implies exclusivity. We are not some in crowd, we’re just happy to see one another. If I do change seats, I won’t move far, and I will take my ribboned hymnal with me. However, I won’t move to the other side of the sanctuary—that would be crazy. Maybe I’m overthinking this.

Artist Date

 

 

 

 

 

As I walked with my friend through the dazzling Jeffrey Gibson exhibit at the Denver Art Museum last week, she kept saying, “I’m getting lots of ideas for things to make.” She’s a painter, seamstress, writer, minister, and grandmother among other things, so she uses creative ideas in many forms and formats. This exhibit fed all of her thirsts.
Gibson is one of those people from whom creativity seems to flow in an unending stream from who knows where. Stevie Wonder also springs to mind, and he is one of the musicians whose songs Gibson chose to play in the background of this exhibit and whose words appeared in one of the pieces on display. The opening verse of Sir Duke reflects how Gibson’s artwork made me feel:

“Music is a world within itself
With a language we all understand
With an equal opportunity
For all to sing, dance and clap their hands”

Yes, Gibson’s pieces made me want to sing and dance and clap my hands. In a word, his work embodies joy even while it explores themes of depression, isolation, rejection
The first thing I noticed was his use of so many different materials: beads, paint, cloth, ribbon, ceramics, animal hides, punching bags, video, sinew, which also displays his wide variety of roles—contemporary artist, Native American, gay man, professor, dancer, world traveler.
Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way and many other books, recommends that anyone engaged in a creative activity should take a weekly Artist Date, an expedition to explore something that interests you, a way to “fill the well” with new ideas, images, sounds. Some of my favorite Artist Dates are to Meininger’s art supply store, museums, gardens, galleries. “Artist Dates fire up the
imagination. They spark whimsy. They encourage play,” she explains.
I don’t take them often enough. This one will stick with me for a while.

Remote Travel

Last night I went to Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific. Well, I didn’t take a two-hour flight to Los Angeles followed by an eight-hour flight to Tahiti and passage on a freighter to the most remote populated island in the world. I left that to Jad Davenport, a photographer and writer for National Geographic and other publications and a member of my church.
His gorgeous photos showed us the Island inhabited by descendants of the famous mutineers of the Bounty of Captain Bligh and Fletcher Christian. Jad told the tale of what has happened to the island in the 200 plus years since, but his story of traveling there brought the pictures to life. He also shared information about why and how he made some of the photos. “In the tropics, you see a lot of green and blue,” he said, “and have to seek out other colors for contrast.”
The island, only two-square miles with steep cliffs and no harbor has little wildlife except one big old turtle abandoned by a passing ship and a dozen or two species of birds. The islanders raise pigs and goats. With no harbor, they must send longboats out to freighters that deliver supplies once a quarter. As a territory of the United Kingdom, the islanders share rotating government jobs.
After the original insurrection, mutineers set fire to the ship to keep anyone from finding them and every year they celebrate by burning a replica of the Bounty.
Imagine living in a world with only 50 inhabitants, half of whom don’t speak to the other half. Well, actually, that last part sounds kind of familiar. I’ll let you look up the horrific criminal charges that caused the rift.
Earlier this year Jad treated us to a presentation about polar bears and black wolves in northern Canada. Next up, probably this fall, he’ll give us a glimpse into the land of the Garden of Eden. I’ll keep you posted in case you want to join us. Meanwhile, you can visit his website at jaddavenport.com and marvel that he has truly been all over the world and brought back photos so armchair (or in this case, folding chair) travelers like me can enjoy the adventure, too.

Rough Beauty

Rough Beauty—40 Seasons of Mountain Living by Karen Auvinen came along just when I started trying to make my way back to writing fiction, specifically a murder mystery set in Clear Creek County that I started about three years ago and haven’t touched for most of two years.
Since I’ve lived in the city my whole life, I thought it would help to immerse myself in the mountain lifestyle. Although I count the mountains as the main reason to live in Colorado, I’m embarrassed to admit that I rarely venture into them. When I was a kid, we had loads of relatives visiting, mostly from Iowa, and we always took them to Central City (before gambling) and Estes Park to give them a taste of mountain life. More recently, my friend Joan would visit every summer from St. Louis to get her “mountain fix” and I’d go with her to Idaho Springs and Georgetown and once over Trail Ridge Road. Since she died three years ago, I keep forgetting to head west.
Rough Beauty gave me a real, close up look at what it means to live in a tiny former mining town. Located in Boulder County, Jamestown’s population hovers around 300 hardy souls. Auvinen cobbled together a living delivering mail, cooking in a local restaurant, writing, and teaching college part-time.
The book starts with a devastating fire that destroys her rented cabin, all of her possessions, and a lifetime’s worth of writing contained on her computer. Only she and her dog, Elvis, remained.
Most of the book describes the haunting beauty of the mountains in all four seasons, the challenge of creating a solitary life with the help of the other singular town residents.
This was one of those books that made me sad when it ended. I wanted to stay in the mountains, live in a rustic cabin, and take long, rambling hikes around the canyon. Auvinen’s knowledge of local vegetation and her encounters with wildlife will come in very handy if I do get back to writing that novel. If not, well, I may at least go visit more often.
As an urban dweller, I tend to view the mountains only as a spectacular backdrop for the city. It’s good to realize they are much more than that.

Off Balance

Earlier this week I woke up to find my bedroom spinning. I stumbled around my apartment balancing myself against my walls or furniture to keep from falling. At my age, falling can be especially dangerous. I lay back down, but the dizziness seemed to get worse. I ate whatever I could reach while hanging onto the kitchen counter and carried a barf bucket wherever I went because I was never sure I could get to the bathroom when nausea overcame me.
I did what people do when they live alone and need help: I asked my Facebook friends. Someone suggested I check my blood pressure and glucose level, both of which can cause dizziness when they drop too low. That wasn’t it. I know only too well what those conditions feel like. This wasn’t the wooziness that precedes fainting. This was full-on room spinning whenever I moved my head.

Vertigo.

I had had a mild version of it once many years ago and I knew that the culprit was dislodged crystals in the inner ear. Specific movements of the head could move the crystals back where they belonged. I found several versions online and tried one. No luck.
A physical therapist friend recommended a half-somersault movement that he assured me worked for his clients. I tried it and thought I would die from the intense dizziness and nausea it brought on. I rested and found that eventually, I felt maybe the tiniest bit better. It took awhile to screw up my courage to try it again. The directions said I may have to repeat it up to five times to see results. I made it twice, barely, and went to bed vowing to repeat the procedure the next day.
Luckily, I woke up feeling much better and by the next afternoon, it was mostly gone.
Episodes like this make me grateful for my normal mostly robust health, which allows me to conduct my life without worrying too much about regular activities. I’m also thankful for friends and the internet. When I’m off-kilter and teetering on the brink, they pull me through.

Try it. You’ll Like it.

I asked you for suggestions of new hobbies or activities to add into my life and you responded. Nothing has quite clicked yet, although I have tried a few things.
I suppose it isn’t entirely accurate to say I tried quilting. What I did was visit a friend who has taken it up. She showed me the quilting room in her basement complete with stacks of cutout stars and triangles ready for her first quilt. She has acquired all the necessary equipment including a sort of felt board (remember those from Sunday school?) used to work out the colors and patterns. She thought I would be great at that.
All I could see were the hundreds of little pieces that would need to be carefully sewn back together, and the thought of first cutting out the small shapes and then recombining them made me want to run out of the room screaming.
I am not a detail-oriented person. Here’s my other problem with quilting or making any physical artifact. Once you make one or two for yourself and then one for each of your friends or family, then what? Start selling them? I’m not interested in that.
My next foray didn’t involve making anything. I joined a friend from high school and her family in a trivia game, Geeks Who Drink, at a local bar. I may qualify as a geek, but I don’t drink, and that is a definite liability in this game. Anyway, I have an abundance of useless knowledge, so maybe this would click.
The noise level bothered me right away and only got worse as the night went on. That said, I learned quite a bit. First, I learned how to play the game, I learned that kepi is a kind of hat (I looked it up when I got home), and I learned that I suck at this game. I’m glad we had someone there who knew most of the answers. It sure wasn’t me.
Pop culture? I have no clue although I’m pretty sure that I’d have been great at it thirty years ago. Sports? Nope. History? Geography? Not my strong suits.
On the bright side, playing trivia doesn’t produce anything that will take up space in my condo. It also gets me out of the house (at night!) and among people, both good things. While I think I will definitely do this again (would it be rude to wear earplugs?) I don’t think it will become a regular thing for me.
Keep sending those recommendations.