What If There Were a Few Fairy Godfathers?

When I say fairy godmother, I immediately conjure up the image of Glinda, the good witch from the “Wizard of Oz.” I don’t know why. Maybe it is because she is the only good witch I have ever seen besides the cartoon character friend of Casper, Wendy. Glinda looks mystical and like she should have lots of powers with that sparkling crown and big magical wand. Which she apparently does have, but depending on your point of view she may not be so altruistic in her use of her magical powers(Check out this blog post for a very different POV on Glinda.)

The other day, I was working on a mixed media project, which in the end turned out to be a card. The day I created this mixed media base, it was a sort of freestyle event. I was not aiming for anything but instead, I was layering and working my way through scraps and ephemera to see what would happen. I ended up with a Fairy Godman. I really liked how he turned out. He was fun and whimsical.

This project got me thinking why is it we make wishes to godmothers, but not fairy godfathers? I know that there are Godfathers, but I don’t think they are of the fairy wish-granting type. Why were the fairies who granted wishes female generally and not men?

If you think about it men have generally been equated with power in our society. Up until these last few generations, men were the primary economic providers for many families and the ones most likely to have the money to grant wishes. Even today, men wield the most power, look at who runs and controls most businesses and politics. If someone was going to make things happen odds are it is a man.

Wishes are not things you just go out and buy, work to achieve, or otherwise make it happen. If wishes are defined as things that are a bit of a stretch, possibly seeming impossible, then the use of fairies seems a likely person to turn to for help with your wishes. Is this image of a fairy godmother because women have been portrayed and largely served the nurturing role in society? Are women the people who made us believe in the possibilities and encourage us in moments when we need it most? Have women had to historically work around barriers to make things happen? Having seen women in all these roles did that cause us to imagine a fairy godmother could help us with things that seem impossible?

It is a lot of strange reflections all based on what came out of an afternoon with some scraps of paper.

Mental Illness – my thoughts

After what happened in Uvalde, I was listening to a Senate committee hearing about possible changes in gun management in this country. I was angered by many things I heard but one I repeatedly heard was we need more mental health care. If they had had mental health care this would not have happened. What I heard in my mind over and over is that people who have mental health issues are one step away from being a criminal. The senators I heard speak have clearly shown the world they know nothing about mental health.

First and foremost I am not a mental health professional. I am a person who survived things that I would not wish on my worst enemy. I have sought and received mental health help. I had a very successful career and am blessed with a marriage of 42 years. Most of the time I have the skills I need to function well in the world. Occasionally, I am thrown seriously off. When this happens, I suddenly find that my skills for managing my anxiety aren’t working. Once in a while, I need what RangerSir calls a tuneup. It is then I go back and seek some professional help to help me get the boxes in my mind back in order so anxiety does not take over. I suspect that most of the people I have known and worked with had no idea of my struggles. I never shared this because of the stigma of mental illness. At no time did I become a criminal.

Mental health issues have a wide spectrum of causes, from situational, to chemical or how a person’s biology is wired. Every time we have a mass shooting I hear the statement we need more mental health access. Like mental illness and it alone if treated would have prevented the killings. This is a very narrow and singular view of the world. Nothing is that simple.

We need to develop a more robust system to treat mental health conditions regardless of a mass killing. We need access to treatment when we cannot afford to pay or our insurance leaves so much copay behind that we need to choose between housing, food, or health care. We need more trained mental health providers. We need affordable pharmaceutical options. This is an everyday struggle for millions. We need to talk about this daily until it is fixed not just each time there is a mass killing.

There are millions and millions of people in this country with little to no access to mental health care and support that somehow figure out how to manage their mental health situations and none of them would even consider shooting up a school or being harmful to others. There are people who live productive amazing lives every day and go home at night and pull out all their coping mechanisms to do it again tomorrow. No one knows of their struggles. There are people who live lives, most of us would never choose, living on the streets and under bridges. They do this because they often don’t have access to the short supply of mental health providers or the medications they need. Yet as destitute as their lives appear to us on the outside, they are managing their mental health somehow. Maybe it isn’t managed well, but it is managed on some level. There are an untold number of people functioning somewhere between these two extremes with mental health issues. We never know about it because there is such a terrible stigma associated with mental health. It is reinforced every time another mass shooting occurs and access is once again connected to a horrific crime.

It seems like those people with the power to help people get access to the services they need, always tie mental health to mass killings. Mass killers are given a mental illness diagnosis from an armchair by members of Congress. This connection continues to stigmatize mental health. It takes it from an illness to a criminal element. It is an insult to the millions of people who have mental health conditions.

Lack of mental health care access is criminal, but lack of mental health care does not make us criminals.

Life Continues to March Forward

Life just doesn’t move forward at a steady pace or in the way that you wish or plan for it to do so. I had imagined that by now I would be writing about being in my new home and unpacking. Finding things I missed. Rediscovering things I had forgotten about and a few things that I would wonder why I moved it. None of that is true. We have closed and moved into our new home, but are still living the “Craig’s List/Dorm” style.

We closed on our house here in NC at the end of October. It was a bit of a challenge because in all of our other moves and selling of homes once you left closing you were done. Here in North Carolina, you may have signed the contracts and exchanged money, but nothing is real until your deed is filed. So you leave closing and wait for the word your deed is filed to get your keys. For us, it was about 5 minutes to 5pm on a Friday. You can imagine how crazy it was for a person who likes things neat and tidy when it comes to finances to hand away money and not have what she paid for.

We initially elected to continue to stay at the apartment after closing since we were all set up there. The date our refrigerator, washer, and drier we had ordered six weeks ago was due to arrive the Wednesday after closing seemed like a good date to move to the house. That was two days before our furniture was due to arrive.

It did not work out that way. It was not long before the utilities and contractors wanting to complete punch list items were asking us to be at the house for them to complete their jobs. We in the end moved into the house three days before the appliance arrival date. We figured a few days of carryout and cooler lifestyle would be ok.

RangerSir looking at refrigerator #2. All is well. The delivery crew working was A1.

Our appliances arrived on schedule only to discover when they took off a perfectly good box my refrigerator had been thrown down a set of stairs. It was dented and broken in ways the box did not foretell. It went back and fortunately of the 11 refrigerators of that model that arrived the day before my delivery only 10 of them had been sold. I got the replacement a couple of days later. Once again it was a day full of disappointment but also so much thankfulness that I did not have to go six more weeks waiting for a refrigerator to arrive.

I love that look. It was really nice that there are only two people living on our street. He could park that big old van out there and unload all our jazz. The construction crews had to work around him, but honestly they jam the street some days with trades to I figured this one day they could work around me.

Our furniture did not follow the schedule either. It left Montana four days late. The truck broke down for several days and things were at a standstill in SD. Then the driver choose to sit out a day when there were high crosswinds on one leg of the route where semis were being blown over. Our belongings arrived completely intact. The driver and the local unloading crew were professionals and kind. They told us over and over how much they loved the one floor of our home. Our house was completely unloaded in four hours and now we are left with boxes upon boxes to open and clean and put away.

None of this is on the schedule I planned but honestly, we are moving forward and so all is good.

Picture A Day

I have been working on taking a picture everyday with my phone. I am not looking to take photos that will end up in National Geographic or get printed and hang on the wall. They are all about documenting the moments of this life I am living. I don’t know what I expected when I decided to do this in 2021. It is turned out to almost be a visual gratitude journal. It is also a memory box of little moments I have forgotten were it not for picture. When I look at the pictures I have taken I can see so many moments that are good. Some are simply photos of the food that I have made, others are of art or craft projects, some are of my family, there are weather and the landscape photos, and some are just plain nonsensical. It isn’t easy to find something to photograph each day, but with time and practice it has gotten easier. I worry less and shoot more.

Night time walk using regular mode

One of the other benefits of capturing a moment each day with my camera is that I have learned to use some of the more advanced features of my phone. I was doing an evening walk the other night and I learned how to use the night mode to capture my home and see the differences it makes.

Same shot using night mode on my phone’s camera.

It has been fun once I got over the worry about shooting good and relevant pictures. I encourage you to do the same. Let me know how it goes for you.

The snow itself is lonely, or if you prefer, self sufficient. There is no other time when the world seems composed of one thing and only one thing! Joseph Wood Krutch

Moving Forward in a New Year

Before COVID began running unchecked in 2020 some creative friends and I had asked ourselves, “if you could go to one major class who was your dream instructor?” When you live in a sparsely populated place like Montana it almost always involves travel. Any creative class is a big dollar and time commitment. The group of had identified a couple of classes that crossed over all our varied interest that might have made a group road trip possible. The front runner was in October for four days and had two instructors, one from Arizona and one from the UK. Each of us was looking at how we might make it work in our personal circumstances. Instead in 2020 we stayed home. I had no idea what 2021 would bring, but travel did not seem like something on a plannable horizon. I knew I wanted a chance to expose myself to things that would challenge my creative bent. I choose to enroll in an online year long 28 instructor, 50 week journey with a focus on mixed media and art journaling.

I signed up in November for my 2021 online class. Immediately I got a series of bonus lessons that were there to help ramp up my creativity and tide me over until the class formally started January 1st. I did manage to complete all but three of the preview bonus lessons. I also took this time to look at my personal art supplies and tried to figure out what I had, what I did not have, and what substitutions I could make. I researched and compared finally buying a new art journal for the year.

Each month there is a topic or theme for the next four weeks. This month it was “Reflections.” The first lesson was taught by a mixed media artist from the UK. Her suggested theme was reflection on the previous year. Her techniques was a combination of things I had done before and was very comfortable with and a couple of things that I had to say hold on a minute, before I tried it. In the end I worked my way through all the techniques.

In the end I chose not not look back and reflect but capture my mantra for looking forward into 2021: “This Moment. This Life.” I wanted to focus on the moments and not allow myself to get hung up on big things such that I lost a connection to the amazing moment I was in. I wanted to focus on mu life and what I could do to make it better and let go of things that I can’t impact. This image does not show or capture all the layers that went into this journal page. Mixed media and art journaling tend to have layers of creativity that contribute the the end project, but are not obvious to the viewer. I had been exposed to this in other classes I had taken and often use some of the early layers as an opportunity to get my creative juices going and build on ideas.

One of the pre-class instructions was to find a black and white image that you felt captured how you felt about 2020. I found this in a magazine and fell in love with it. It is a man who appears to be moving very deliberately forward. He is carrying a satchel that looks heavy and for me he is carrying his history, good and bad. It spoke to me and I felt it was perfect not knowing exactly what it was going to be used for when the supply list came out the week before the class. In the end it was just what I needed on my journal page.

Another of the instructions was to add journaling to your page. Usually I write it freehand in a flowing cursive. Sometimes I use asemic writing leaving it up the the reader what they see an what it means. In this case I chose to add words that I had printed. They captured works I am hoping for as we move forward. A keyword journal if you like.

I enjoyed the first class. I learn some things and was encouraged in my art. There was focus on the process but always leaving the door open for you to find your own way. There are several places and ways for the students to share their work. I really like this because it is amazing to see how so many people see and hear the same lesson and yet their work looks nothing like another’s, but you can see things that let you know that they were in the same class as you. It will never be as good as being there in person, but it is better than doing nothing at all.

I finished this before the attack on the capitol. I worried that some folks would read things into this. I debated about going ahead and publishing this post, but decided that I would. I decided that I can not control what others think, nor can I let myself be silenced by worry about things out of my control. It is one of the many times I will chant to myself my 2021 mantra, “this moment. this life.”

Connecting – New Ways, Old Ways, Always

Letters and written are my oldest form of communication that I can remember, outside of talking-. I have reflected on how my favorite way of connecting continues to be relevant today, postal mail.

My first memory of writing something that would be sent via the US mail was thank you cards. My mother was a stickler for them. We were not allowed to enjoy any gift until we wrote a thank you. It made for prompt writing of those notes. My grandparents could all expect written thank you cards for Christmas and birthday gifts. I remember it had to be at least three sentences. That meant you could not say thank you for the gift and call it quits. You had to tell them something about how you planned to use the gift, school or ask them a question. Grammatically those must have been some very strangely composed paragraphs.

When I was in primary school I had pen pals. Some of my pen pals were people I had met at Girl Scout camp. Others were strangers I picked out of the back of children’s magazines that had “pen pals wanted” (can you believe that in today’s world that was acceptable?) I may have had one pen pal as a school project. It was there I learned to love the written word. I loved to communicate with serious thought about composition and actually came to understand sentence structure and how to compose conversational prose.

I spent summers with my grandparents at the cabin. It was there I was introduced to the postcard. The cabin was a vacation destination and there were tons of picture postcards to pick from. I would pick out cards for my parents and my two sets of grandparents at home. It was on those cards every summer where I learned to tell as much about life as possible in that little spot for writing. I suspect that the recipients looked at my disjointed little notes several times before they made sense.

When I graduated from high school and moved away from home to Minneapolis, I continued to use mail as my main mode of communication. Money was tight and phone calls were expensive. I wrote letters to my grandparents on a regular basis telling them about my new life and adventures. My grandparents had been a significant influences on my life and I continued to include them as I found myself as an adult. Letters were a way that worked for both of us

Like may others I moved more to the phone as I grew older, but I never gave up the love of letter writing. The art of letter writing came back to me in full force when RangerSir started his transition into a new career. To get a job with a federal agency at the time required years of seasonal work. I continued to work my corporate job and he started to spend months away from home working at distances half way across the country. I ferreted out things to make my writing special. I found books of postcards, fancy stationary and cards to send to him. His assignments were in guard stations that had power, but no telephone. His home was a sort of bunkhouse that made use of repurposed guard stations and old trailers. To say they were minimalist is being kind. They were out in the woods. He came into town once a week to pick up mail, do laundry and shop for the week. Mail call was a big deal. We both have those letters in our stash of stuff we have moved from place to place. These letters allow us to look back and remember details of our lives long forgotten

Things sent via mail have the chance to last long past a life. One of the things I that was given to me when my Granny had passed away and her house was being cleaned out was a book of post cards. My great grandad, George Clyde, had worked for the railroad and the stories about him were few and generally not flattering. In this book there were postcards he sent home to his children. They were an amazing slice of life of man encouraging his children and providing guidance. They were sent from towns all along the Santa Fe railroad line where his job took him. I love to see his hand and read what he wrote. In spite of his flaws, he seemed to really love his kids. I never knew him, but when I read those I imagine his voice. This is a piece of history that was not lost. It was a piece of history I shared when I gave some of the postcards George Clyde sent to his daughter, to her daughter, his granddaughter. I hope that some of the letters that folks who have to leave their children as part of their job in today’s world will last and give view into people years later in ways that others can’t.

This pandemic has brought back an excuse for me to connect to folks via mail. Sending a letter via mail is a connection that can last long after the moment they open the envelope. It is a smile you can hold on to. This summer I made and sent cards reminding friends were not alone. Most recently I made cards for the eldering in nursing homes. I had worked in a nursing home when I was in high school. I knew the feelings of isolation they suffered in the best of times. I could not imagine the isolation they were suffering now. I made and sent cards to the activity director that could be used to give to a resident who needed the pick up, for a resident to send to another resident, or a resident would have a card mail to a family member that have not been able to connect with on the outside of the facility. I like to think that they made a difference for at least one person.

The holidays brought my annual holiday card making effort. I made cards, with RangerSir composed a letter and used software to create photo collage. It will be last major effort for the year. I am getting the same and am enjoying thinking about all the folks we have met and touched along our lives.

I haven’t yet thought about what 2021 will bring, but I am sure that for the near future it will be much like 2020 has been. I suspect it will include more cards and letters just to say hi and stay connected. It is really all about staying connected new ways, old way….always.

Everything Is Very Much The Same

I have been struggling with what to write about on my blog. I had great plans for what to write about as RangerSir and I explored life as full-time retirees. The places we would go. The decisions we would make. Things that turned out well and things that turned out completely wrong. Times we got more than we planned and times we got a good slap in the face from reality. Instead we got COVID and half the country “hating” those who don’t agree with them. It has made me hesitant to write about my ordinary life for a whole host of reasons. I know I am lucky compared to many other folks, so I did not want to flaunt my lot when so many others are struggling in so many ways. I did not want to say things that would start a firestorm of haters and trolls because I don’t need or want that. Days seemed the same to me and I could not imagine that my ordinary life would be something that someone else would want to read about. I could list many more reasons for why I haven’t been blogging. I have decided that is all about others and how they might negatively view what I write. I have missed writing, but have allowed myself to be talked out of writing. Today I am going to stop all that and start writing again. If I lose subscribers and my numbers go down I don’t care. All I want to do is share things that happen and maybe make you smile or feel like you can when you thought you could not. I want someone to think occasionally I could be in her shoes and that would be worse. I want to prompt someone remember something they forgot and relish the memory. So here goes a jumpstart on an old blog, by an old gal who just likes to write even if it is the ordinary.

In my last post I wrote about my half turkey that I was fixing for Thanksgiving. It is exactly what I did. Turkey dinner for two. I started the prep at the same time RangerSir’s family started the Zoom meeting. It was the first time we had spent the holidays with his side of the family in over 25 years. Family and friends were in all phases of celebrating the holiday. We had some folks who were in the late afternoon celebrating across the pond and we were the furthest west so I was just starting our half turkey. It was different, maybe even a little strange since some of the family were folks we had never met as there had been a couple of marriages that we had not gotten to be there to celebrate. The most interesting part is we were just putting our turkey in when we started and we were taking our turkey out as we finished. It was perfect timing and we really enjoyed the time spent with the family

Our zoom group for Thanksgiving of family.

We made the perfect dinner for two folks who have lived many places and not been home with family for years. We made Minnesota wild rice as a side. It is an old Minnesota family favorite that we had not had as part of Thanksgiving for a long time. I halved or quartered every recipe I made to allow us to have all the sides we thought necessary, but not so many leftovers it would create waste. I revised some recipes making them have a comfort food taste, while making it a healthier alternative. It was a grand adventure in cooking and planning to pull it off.

When RangerSir worked we ate dinner at the table most nights. Since he has retired we have gotten sloppy and started to use the dining room table for puzzles and other things. For Thanksgiving dinner we treated it like a proper meal and set the table. We used Granny’s good silverware and the bank giveaway crystal we collected when we first got married and only get out for special occasions. I dug out the table cloth that we only use when we put a leaf in the table. We spared no extravagance for the special day.

Dinner for two.

I must say we missed folks that we are usually with for Thanksgiving but we did enjoy our dinner together. We talked about many things and it was perfect in its own way. We were thankful for one another and our bounty that was both present and absent.

So I am back blogging. I will share with you thoughts I have as we plug through the adventures of life even when they are quite ordinary. I appreciate your time and support.