Tag: Gillian

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Gifts from Afar, by Gillian

All through school it was the four of us. We took classes together, sat together on the bus to and from school and on field trips, ate lunch and played tennis together. Then, in our teens, circumstances began to separate us. Molly’s family needed her to go to work, so she left school at sixteen – perfectly legal in Britain then and now, and not looked on as something completely negative as it is here. The other three of us stayed on till eighteen, when Rose started working and Sarah and I went off to different universities. So in one sense there ended our togetherness; in another sense it did not. The four of us always got together for a picnic, or drinks at the pub, whenever Sarah and I were home for Xmas or summer vacation. Then, after we graduated, Sarah married and she and her husband emigrated to Australia. Shortly after that, I came to the U.S.

Now we were well and truly separated.

But we were not. Each of us continued faithfully to write nice long letters. It was always with great delight that I spotted a gift from afar in the form of an envelope with a Brit or Aussie stamp on it, lying in the basket beneath the mail slot, just as it now delights me to see one of their names languishing in my e-mail inbox. We remembered each other’s birthdays and faithfully sent Xmas cards, as we still do, although I have to admit they have become somewhat predictable. The two from Britain are almost always of those cute little English robins. The one from Australia is inevitably some summer-Santa scene, perhaps a surfing or sailing Santa, to remind those of us in the Northern Hemisphere that an Australian Xmas comes along at the height of summer. I saw Rose and Molly relatively often over the years as we got together whenever I returned home, but have only managed to see Sarah twice in the fifty years since we both left. Once in the seventies we managed to coordinate our trips home to see our parents, and in the eighties I visited her in Sydney.

The four of us have always been there, albeit long-distance, for each other through triumph and tragedy. I know I can rely on those gifts from afar, the heartfelt congratulations or sympathy, whatever happens, and they feel the same. It began when Rose, at eighteen, became pregnant. She was unmarried and her father threw her out of the house. The other three of us immediately rallied round. Pretty soon her father relented and welcomed her back, and although we liked to think our support for Rose made him relent, I doubt that it really carried any weight with him at all. Very few weeks later, as it was done in those days, Rose and the father of her baby married and have lived happily together, as far as the other three of us know, for over 50 years. They operate their farm in such an environmentally-friendly way that environmentalists from all over the world visit them. Recently they were honored for their efforts at a tea-party at Buckingham Palace. More cards and letters!

Molly married, but found that she could never have children. Cards and caring letters flew across the miles. Two years ago she had a mastectomy, and although she made light of it we sent the sympathy cards and encouraging letters.

I came out to my distant friends and was rewarded with loving, supportive, replies by return of mail. I had debated the importance of telling them, we shared so little, in fact nothing, of each other’s daily lives by then, but I felt that our close friendship deserved better; I was right. They have not had the chance to meet Betsy, but always include a cheery love to Betsy as they end their correspondence, and upon receipt of our wedding movie in 2013 the loving congratulations were immediate and sincere.

Poor Sarah and her husband have had the saddest stories to tell. They had two children, both boys. One fell down some steps in his teens and broke his neck. There was apparently a suspicion of substance abuse; he had always been a troubled kid. Then, a year ago, the older son died, in his forties, after a long struggle with leukemia. The cards and letters flew across the miles once more. I was dumbfounded by the strength of my grief. How could I feel so much for someone I had seen twice in the last fifty years? Fortunately for Sarah and Noel, their beloved son left them with two grandchildren and a daughter-in-law with whom they are very close. Life goes on.

I am invariably proud of my friends. Not proud of myself for choosing so wisely. The four of us were friends less from choice than as a result of geography. No, I am proud of them for who they are. In their strength and wisdom and caring, they never disappoint.

We have little in common, the four of us. You don’t have to have anything in common with people you’ve known all your life; you’ve got your whole life in common. Lionel Blue says,

“Old friends die on you, and they’re irreplaceable. You become dependent,” and I do so dread the day the first one of the four of us dies.

On being told that Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with old friends, Betty White quipped,

“.. At my age, if I wanted to keep in touch with old friends, I’d need a Ouija board”

Both Rose and Sarah have mothers still in good health well into their nineties, so I doubt, thankfully, that I will be the one left holding the board.

© May 2015

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Here and There, by Gillian

Here and There 

(Or, as my mum would have said, hither and thither!)

The American doughboys marched off cheerily to World War One singing, over there, over there, the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming, and we won’t come back till it’s over, over there.

By the time it was over over there, 120,000 of them could not come back. Before long the Yanks were coming once more, for the second Big One, and by the time that one was over over there, almost half a million Americans could not come back. Over there can be deadly.

There was a saying in Britain at the end of World War Two. The only problem with the Yanks is, they’re over sexed, over paid, and over here. That seems almost incredibly unappreciative of men who, almost certainly, saved Britain from being invaded by Hitler and his Nazi thugs. It is understandable, though, that returning British men felt considerable resentment. Many returned to wives raising G.I. babies, or wives wanting a divorce because this poor embattled war weary Brit. could never measure up to that beautiful boy from Biloxi with his easy charm and an apparently endless supply of chocolate, American cigarets, and ready cash. They returned to girlfriends and fiancées who had their bags packed ready for an immediate escape to join that friendly fruit farmer in Florida, or some rugged Wyoming cowboy. There and here is not always an easy mix.

I, born in Britain in 1942, sometimes have to wonder what my life would have been, had the U.S. not joined the Allies in World War Two: different, for sure. Much shorter, perhaps. Having said that, it’s difficult for me to take the stand of an isolationist. But let’s face it, since World War Two, our military forays in foreign fields have not …. well, let’s be kind and simply say, not been all that we’d hoped for. Though exactly what we had hoped for, from Viet Nam to Iraq and Afghanistan, seems pitifully unclear. Over there can be confusing.

The United States, being an immigrant country, is peopled by those who, themselves or their not too distant ancestors, came from there to here – ‘there’ being just about anywhere in the world.

Some, tragically, came involuntarily, and experienced nothing good here. But for most of us who chose to come from over there to over here, it was a good move and we found the good life here, the life we wanted. People occasionally ask me if I would ever want to move back to England, and I surprise myself by thinking, not unless I can go back to the time of my youth there. I know that’s not an honest response, even silently in my own head. That was, after all, the Britain that I chose not to remain in. Nostalgia has been so aptly described as the longing for a place and time that never was. In my heart I know that if some magical time travel were possible, and I could return to the Britain of my youth, I would return happily to the here and now, saying, with that smugness we sometimes feel on returning home from vacation,

“Great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there!”

No, my life is here and now. I’m here to stay.

© May 2015

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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A Magic Carpet Ride, by Gillian

Humankind does not, for the most part, create in order to promote and honor spirituality. We make killing machines and WMD’s. We compete to see who can build the tallest sky-scraper, the biggest and fastest anything and everything, and the securest vault to store our precious gold bars.

So, it was with great surprise that I received a serious spiritual kickstart from a creation weighing an estimated 54 tons; the largest piece of community folk art in the world, honoring almost 100,000 people.

Yes, of course, the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

I first saw it, or part of it, in Denver. I don’t recall where exactly it was displayed, Betsy thinks somewhere at DU, or when this would have been. Probably around 1990. What I do remember vividly is the effect it had on me.

Each quilt is 3 feet by 6, roughly the size of a human grave. At the time it was started, in 1987, many people who died of AIDS-related causes did not receive funerals, due to both the social stigma of AIDS felt by surviving family members and the outright refusal by many funeral homes and cemeteries to handle the deceased’s remains. Lacking a memorial service or grave site, The Quilt was often the only opportunity survivors had to remember and celebrate their loved ones’ lives. Each quilt is completely unique. They vary from no more than a name written in marker pen, to an embroidered name with a photograph, or many photographs. Some are covered in messages to the deceased. Many have belongings carefully attached, sometimes covered with carefully hoarded childhood toys and clothes; baby booties wailing out a mother’s heartbreak.

I couldn’t stand it. These young men – yes, others died, and are still dying in that terrible epidemic, but it was primarily stalking young gay men – these young men, so frequently reviled and feared by society, dying horrible and very premature deaths; and what do they and those who love them do? They sew a quilt, those terrible, frightening men! The pain of each individual represented there, and my anger at an ignorant bigoted society were too much. I didn’t think I could bear it. I couldn’t contemplate one more lost life. I was about to tell Betsy I would have to wait for her outside, when something strange, something wonderful, happened.

I felt the overwhelming love that had gone into those quilts flowing back out and engulfing me. It enveloped me in it’s warmth, like that of a cozy fire on a cold night, and with it came a sense of great peace, culminating in a flash of what I can only call pure joy, such as I have felt rarely in my life. It was strange, that jolt of joy in a time and place surrounded by death. But there it was. It came and it went so fast I felt almost dizzy. But the strong sense of love and peace remained, to banish the previous pain and sorrow and rage. You understand that I am looking back at it now from a place at least slightly further along the path of spirituality than at the time, so this is how I see it from a current perspective. I doubt I would have described it in quite the same way at the time. But then, with every memory we rewrite history. But it is my history, so I guess I’m allowed.

In any event, it was The Quilt which initially precipitated my journey along the spiritual path.

I wanted that jolt of joy again. And again. And again. It had been like a momentary high, and with one shot I was addicted. I wanted to live cocooned in love; to find that everlasting peace.

Easy to say! Not so easy to do. The spiritual path is a difficult one. You don’t simply decide, I’m going this way now, and go. It takes work, and, like so many things, eternal vigilance. I frequently lose my way, stumbling off the spiritual path into those nearby dark places where all the bad things lurk – those negative thoughts and emotions, always waiting to pounce. But at least I have reached a stage where, I cannot claim always, but often, I can stop myself, wherever I am at that moment. I stop. I relax. I do some deep breathing. I rest right there, lost as I may be among the good, bad, and ugly. I gather that spiritual quilt of love and peace, and wrap myself in it’s warmth. And usually it works it’s miracle and sooner or later I find myself back in the welcoming light of my spiritual being, back once again on the right path. Rescued, again, from the dark scary places, It’s a magic carpet ride. As I continue along my path, I am treated, very occasionally, to those starbursts of pure joy. But more importantly, I am, for the most part, completely at peace: with myself, with my world, and with everything in it. So I think it very appropriate that the Quilt, or technically The Names Project which began it, was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, but disappointing that it did not receive the award. It seems to me the perfect candidate. If others would treat adversity in the same way, the world would be a very different place. Sadly, even trying to imagine the Nazis or those currently flocking to join ISIS, deciding instead to sew a quilt, is so impossible it’s just laughable.

Why is that? I ask myself, sadly. I hear no answering reply.

I saw a part of The Quilt once again when Betsy and I took part in the March on Washington in 1993. The last time it was displayed in it’s entirety was on the Washington Mall in 1996 – something I would love to have seen but didn’t, and I will probably never get another chance. The Quilt is now too large to be viewed all together. It is stored in twelve feet square sections, housed in Atlanta. These section, placed end to end, would run for over eight miles. If you have never seen any part of it, you might want to add it to your Bucket List; things to do before you die. I’m sure it would do just as much for your soul as gazing at the Taj Mahal in the moonlight. And the trip would be a whole lot cheaper!

© June 2015

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Sports, by Gillian

In my youth, I
understood sports to be for fun, fitness, and friendly competition. Now, in my
curmudgeonly old age, I know sports to be about money, winning at all costs,
and very unfriendly competition.
Even amateur sports
have gone completely out of whack. Have you been to a school ball game lately?
Even pee-wee baseball is all about winning. At that age, should it not be about having fun, getting some healthy fresh air exercise, and learning the basics of
the game? Oh no! Fathers scream abuse not only at other children but at their
own. God forbid that poor little Joey should strike out or fail to catch a
ball. He’ll pay for that when he gets home. The pressure on so many
children these days is immense. Everything has become so serious.
Professional sports,
of course, have paved the way. Back in the 1970s I had friends with Broncos
season tickets. The husband frequently had better things to do, and my husband
was rarely interested, so off to the game the girls went! It was fun. Having
had the same seats for several seasons, my friend knew all the people around
us. We all bought each other beers and chatted and cheered. After my divorce I
lost touch with those friends, and I did not go to a live game for a long time.
Then one day another friend had a spare ticket and I went to Mile High Stadium
again, for the first time in probably twenty years. My, how it had changed.
Everyone seemed to be angry rather than enjoying themselves. There was a
constant stream of verbal abuse hurled at the players on both teams, and of
course the officiating crew. I was so sick of the constant “F” word. By the time
I left I felt as if it had been burned into my ears and my brain and my psyche.
(Or, as Betsy commented when I read this to her, I felt completely fucked! And
not in a good way!) I have not been offered a ticket to a football game since
then; if I were, I seriously doubt that I would accept it.
I have to admit I
still follow the NFL pretty devotedly on TV. I can’t explain why I like it.
Many lesbians are ardent football fans, which seems strange as the game
consists of what most of us abhor; sanctioned violence, perpetrated by huge
sweaty men. I have to close my mind to two things, though. The violence to
women committed by an unfortunately large number of players, and the huge
salaries now offered to these people, would put me off the entire sport if I
thought about them too much, so mostly I don’t. 
After all, I don’t refuse to see a movie because of the shenanigans of
those acting in it.
I do abhor the lack
of humanity which seems to have taken over. If a player has an injury, the
opposing team members will do their best to attack that part of his body. Has
it really gotten to the stage where the intent is to do permanent bodily
injury?
“Be great for the Broncos if they could take him out for
the rest of the season,” laughs the commentator happily.
“Well if anybody can eliminate him, Foster can. Man! He
plays so angry,” rejoins his co-commentator in admiration.
“He’s
just looking to rip someone’s head off every play!”
This isn’t war.
It’s supposed to be a game. Was it always so merciless? Maybe so and I didn’t
get it. After all I have never played football.
OK. Fair enough.
Football is a violent game. If you don’t like it don’t watch it.
But it’s not just
football.
I have played
tennis, though far from the Pro level. But, at that Pro level, how it has
changed. Once considered a sport of Gentlemen and Ladies, it is now as
cut-throat as any other professional sport.
“Now Farmer’s
injured that right ankle, Varenova will keep her going to that side, see if she
can’t break her down,” a happy commentator reports.
“Exactly,”
replies another, “It’s time to take advantage of that injury and finish
her off. Go in for the kill right now.”
So this verbiage of
violence seems to have penetrated even the sport of Ladies and Gentlemen.  It is so pervasive, and I cannot believe it
has a positive effect on our society.
All this, and the
seriousness with which we take sports, players and spectators alike, of course
has come with the advent of huge financial rewards. These in turn came with the
universal obsession with sports by so many people. In the days before huge
lights dominated the playing fields, games were played in the daylight hours,
thus eliminating most of the potential fans who were, of necessity, at work.
Even if it were broadcast live on the radio, or later the old black-and-white
TV, few were available to enjoy it. Most were played at weekends, to attract
more followers, but time off work was limited and people had many things to
cram into a weekend.
Then came the huge
brightly-lit stadium where people could gather after work and watch, or watch
at home on the TV in the evening, relaxing from that hard day at the factory.  The fan base kept growing. Sports were becoming
big business. Compensation for players and coaches, support staff and owners,
kept rising.
Then came mass
media, complete with ever-improved recording devises and exponentially
increasing choices of what to watch when. No need to miss anything. Ever.
Grandma turns up unexpectedly right at the kickoff or the first serve; no
matter. Press the little red button and welcome Granny with open arms. In
addition, the fan base for all sports is expanding horizontally, across the
globe. Want to watch the Australian Open Tennis here in the U.S.? Can’t even
figure out what day it is in Australia, never mind what time? No worries. Look
it up on the TV Guide, on the TV of course, not that little book we once bought
at the grocery store, hit that little red button and go to bed. Watch it
tomorrow. Sometime. Whenever.
So, given
professional sport’s universal, world wide appeal, I suppose the money involved
is only to be expected. I’m not sure what Neil Armstrong earned by being the
first human ever to walk on the moon, but I doubt it was anything like what
many many sports heroes earn. But why not? The moon walk was reportedly watched
by 530 million people. The 2011 Cricket World Cup between India and Pakistan
was supposedly watched by about one billion.
I miss the days
with less hype, less money, less drama, involved in sports. But what I really
really miss is the gentler language, before it all became so infused with
violence. But it seems to be what most people want. After all, you get what you
pay for.
© 3 Nov 2014 
About
the Author 
I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25
years.
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The Big Bang, by Gillian

Was
there only, ever, just one? The Big Bang, I read, created a new reality. So it
must follow that for something to be considered another Big Bang, or at least
analogous with it, it must change reality. Completely.
My
mind roves backwards over the history of our planet. Little blobs of floating
rock became continents which joined together and split asunder, and floated
from pole to equator. Talk about creating change! It was completely covered in
ice. It spewed out lava from deep fissures in it’s surface for millions of
years. It was bombarded by missiles from space, including the one which
created, literally, the big bang which is held responsible for the demise of
the dinosaurs. Surely no-one could deny that those events created new
realities?
It
seems to me that history is peppered with Big Bangs. Take just the short space
of human history. Invasions. Whether your little village on the Asian Steppes
was slashed and burned by Genghis Khan or your little village in the Andes was
hand-delivered deadly diseases by Cortez and his cronies, I bet it changed your
reality. Revolutions, from French to American to Communist to Industrial,
change realities. That child working twelve hours a day down the coal mine
surely had a very different reality from his parents who had slaved away their
childhoods in the fields. Every country invaded by another, from the Roman
Empire to British India to the U.S. occupation of Iraq, suffers an inevitable
change in reality. The World Wars altered huge swathes of the world, never to
be the same again. Yet so often, in fact, I suppose, always, there is some
previous contributing factor to these humanoid Big Bangs. So perhaps, they are
in fact the Big Bangs. 9/11 was a Big Bang all it’s own, but it became the
excuse for the next one, the invasion of Iraq. The justification for WW1 was
the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. If Princip had failed, perhaps there
would never have been that terrible war (though I suspect they would have found
some other excuse) so was the assassination the real Big Bang? Or does it go
further back? Probably it’s somewhere in that miasma of territorial, ethnic,
and religious struggles which seem to have plagued the Balkans for ever.
It’s
all too complex. I think I’ll stick, in blissful egocentricity, to my own
history, which seems to me equally liberally peppered with alternate realities.
I have already written about them; moving at a young age to to remote
countryside, leaving there to go to college. Emigrating to The United States,
most certainly a new reality. Marriage. Divorce. Coming out. Meeting my
beautiful Betsy.
Now
that was a real change of my reality. I had only come out, to myself and the
world, a few years before. Although chronologically in my forties, in lesbian
years I was a wacky teenager all set to sow that brand new bushel of oats. I
had NO intention of settling down with one woman for the rest of my life. In a
nanosecond Betsy burned through that reality, and, Big Bang, I settled down to
happiness ever after. Not that I’m too sure Betsy would care for being referred
to as my Big Bang. It does have a certain sexual slant to it. In fact, on
further reflection, it sounds like soothing you’d find on the bathroom wall.
I
guess you could think of death as the final Big Bang. If it doesn’t change
reality, your own, at least, I don’t know what does. But change it to what, is
of course the big question. In my new reality, will I be reincarnated as a
squealing newborn in Borneo, or one of those Amazon butterflies which change
realities around the globe with a flutter of their gossamer wings? Or will I be
….. nothing. Gone. No reality. Or a reality so changed it is way beyond my
imagination?
What
is reality, after all? For us humanoids it is what we must do to live; we must
have oxygen, food and water, and shelter. Down at the nitty gritty, that is
reality. Being invaded by the Mongol hordes or sold in slavery does not change
that. So perhaps there is only one Big Bang after all.
I
don’t even understand my own Big Bang theory. My head, which was beginning to
throb in the second paragraph, feels about to have a Big Bang of its own.
I
wish I’d never started this.
I
think I’ll just have a nice cup of tea.
© 20 Oct 2014
About the Author 

I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25
years.
Posted on

Death in Utopia by Gillian

When I rule the world, we will all have a sane, legal, choice of death’s time and place. Not everyone will make their own choice, but for those who wish to, it will be available.

Why must people be faced with detestable choices when they find themselves, for whatever reason, at the end of their rope? Blow your brains out and leave them all over the wall for loved ones to clean up. Die in a dirty stinking ally from a purposeful O.D. of drugs and/or alcohol. Drive your car off a cliff and leave others to identify the charred remains. Get in the bathtub and slit your wrists; only perhaps you don’t do it just right, or perhaps some well-meaning friend comes along and finds you too soon, so you’re left to struggle on with your disastrous life or try it again.

Why must those who chose the time of their passing, and those who love them, be forced into such indignity?

What do so many old people worry about?

Outliving their money. Outliving the effectiveness of their minds or bodies or both.

So why not remove those worries? If we outlive anything, and chose to go, we can. With dignity and serenity.

When I rule the world, there will be The Utopia Center available to you. It will be very much along the lines of Hospice, but with certain key differences. You check in to a pleasant, quiet room, and nothing can happen for 24 hours. It seems to me that a certain time to reconsider should be mandatory. At the appointed time, if you have had no change of heart, the end process is put in motion. If you wish to have loved ones with you, they can be there. If you prefer to be alone, it’s OK. They have a choice of CDs with music for you to play if you wish, or perhaps you choose to bring a favorite of your own. You lie peacefully on the bed and are gently administered some drug cocktail which will carry you painlessly away. I know Switzerland has something similar, but you have to have two doctors determine that you are terminal with some awful disease, or something like that. Why? Why can’t I simply say, I’ve had enough. For whatever reason. I’m ready to go. I shouldn’t have to explain or apologize. It’s my life; now I’m ready for my death.

What worries a place, a process, like that would relieve us of, would it not? Oh I know I am portraying a very simplified version. There would of course need to be controls re: coercion, undue influence, minors and third parties, to name but a few. But we could do it. But we never will. Religion, alas stands firmly between us and my sincerely held vision of Utopia, or at least one aspect of it. I fear it always will.

October 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Posted on

Death Genes, by Gillian

Our very own favorite
quote-maker, Benjamin Franklin, held that death and taxes were the only
certainties ……. in …… well …… life. Sorry Ben, but that’s not quite
right. Many many people escape taxes by fair means and foul; legal and illegal.
I have never yet known, nor even heard of, anyone escaping death.
It comes, inevitably, to us
all.
When we are young it’s
something, though inevitable for sure, that happens to other people; the old,
the sick, the careless, the unfortunate. But not to us. Oh, sure, some day. But
not now.
As we age, that
inevitability looms larger. It no longer peeps over a distant horizon but leaps
up on the front porch, like some Halloween specter, yelling,
“Booooo!” It hides, ready to jump out at us, in our TV, mailbox, newspaper
and telephone. It lurks around every corner. With the death of every loved one,
friend, casual acquaintance, or even that celebrity who seems always to have
been there, it comes closer.
They say that the death of
your second parent is one of the most traumatic events in life: loss squared. I
have no argument with that. Suddenly bereft; orphaned. Oh yes, that must be
dreadful when you’re six. But it’s not a whole lot better when you’re
sixty-six. It hurts like hell. You are left with no-one who knew you that well
or for that long. It’s like someone cut off your leg, and you had to start all
over again learning how to walk. You have to start all over again learning how
to live, cut adrift in reality. That’s how it felt to me, anyway.
And then, suddenly, it
seems, it’s almost time for your turn.
And, after all, death
doesn’t seem so bad. Even if you have no religion, or perhaps because you do,
death remains a mystery; but not such a very scary one. Unless, perhaps, you
truly believe in Hell Fire and Damnation, in which case it must be just
terrifying. But for me, anyway, simply facing the Great Unknown is really no
scarier than getting on a plane headed for some place I’ve never been before
and have no idea what to expect.
A shrug. A nap.
“Oh, well. We’ll find
out when we get there.”
At this stage, I think, most
of us do not really fear death itself, but rather the manner of our dying. Please,
we scream inside our heads to a God we may or not believe in, don’t let me
get something like Lou Gehrig’s Disease, fully cognizant, feeling death come
piece by agonizing piece. On the other hand, please don’t let me have
alzheimer’s and lose that very cognizance.
In their eighties, my
parents became the worst possible combination. My father was physically fit as
a fiddle, but had dementia. My mother was smart as a tack but had, after a
broken hip, been confined to a wheelchair. They were rendered totally incapable
of looking out for each other, and ended up in separate wings of the same
nursing home.
But, in the end, I have damn
good death genes.
My dad died first;
peacefully, in his sleep, as the phrase goes, but in his case it was true, or
so they assured me. He had suffered little, physically, and somewhere in the
night his heart had simply stopped.
My mother, a couple of years
later, was awoken as she was every day, by an assistant serving her morning cup
of tea in bed. (Do I need to remind you that this is a Nursing Home in
England?)
When they returned to get
the cup, it was empty and Mum was dead. What a way to go!
She looked so at peace, the
undertaker told me. Of course, he was a lifelong friend, so he might have been
saying what I wanted to hear, but I choose not to think so.
My very best hope is that I
might emulate my mother’s death, though I have a longtime recovering-alcoholic
friend who says it’s more likely that in my case I will swig a pint and then
fall off my barstool.
Whatever!  As long as it’s swift and sudden.  And for that I have very good genes!
© 13 October 2014 
About
the Author 
 I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25
years.
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Once upon a Time by Gillian

Progressive Dinner parties were the in thing, at least with my social group, once upon a way back when. I guess they’re still around, but I haven’t been involved in one in decades. It must have been the 1970’s when I was, because I was still married to my husband and living in Jamestown in Boulder County. Did you ever get caught up in those things?

Between about ten and twenty people gather, say, at our house. We have a drink or two to kick off the evening. Cocktails were popular then, though beer was always my drug of choice; or becoming a wino held a certain appeal, but I never cared for mixed drinks. Most of us, of course, puffed cigarettes as we chugged our drinks in those carefree days. After all, you’re already wrecking your liver so what’s the point in worrying about your lungs? From Jamestown we convoy to, say, South Boulder. There we gather at another home for hors d’oevres and another drink. Then on to Longmont and another home for what I think we called, back then, the main course, or simply dinner, the term entree not coming along until later. And, needless to say, more drinks. And off to Lafayette, then still a small town out in the sticks, for desert and after-dinner drinks, then to one of those new things called condos for a night cap. Finally off home in different directions, not a designated driver in sight. By some miracle no-one ever had an accident amongst all this. Nobody even got a drunk driving ticket. But of course in those days, even if you were spotted weaving your way along the center line, it usually earned you little more than an urge to be more careful next time, which you knew you could translate freely as, be more careful not to get caught next time.

In the here and now, Betsy and I might go to East Denver in the morning, to take an old friend who can no longer drive, out for lunch. On the way home perhaps we’ll make a detour to deliver a favorite candy bar to another old friend in a nursing home. Not so very different from a Progressive Dinner, is it? OK, maybe, but at least we’re sober. There is nothing good about the headline, “Great-grandmother arrested for drunk driving.”

Once upon a time, my calendar was covered in scrawled names, places, and times. But only around the edges. Essentially everything was crammed into evening and weekends. The big black hole in the middle was all WORK, leaving little opportunity for personal life. The other little squares were crowded with ferrying kids to endless varieties of activities, and adult celebrations.The future was looking wide and bright on a limitless horizon, and we were ready! We celebrated friends’ new jobs, new cars, new babies, new homes, new marriages, new lovers, and new divorces: promotions, graduations, undreamed of vacations.

In the here and now, the calendar on the fridge looks very similar. Except that it’s reversed. All the crowded-in names and places and times are in the middle, in that space once occupied solely by WORK. The outer squares are largely empty. We, like many older people, really do not like to drive after dark unless absolutely necessary. So we, and our friends and those accommodating family members, plan most things so that we can get home before dark. Somewhat in the same way, if not to the same extent, we tend to schedule activities on weekdays. Weekends are all crowded out with those wild young working folks who have to be accommodated so that they can keep on paying our Social Security.

If we are among the really fortunate, our children’s calendars are now covered in times and places they are ferrying us. The very fact that we’re still here means we are still having birthdays.

We probably still go on great vacations, but although many of us continue our education in one form or another, we don’t bother much about promotions and graduations – our own, that is. Our celebrations have taken on a different view. They tend to be celebrations of the past rather than future.Our calendars have a few too many memorials scheduled on them, our friends number among them too many now living alone, and if someone is moving it is usually to somewhere smaller, and sometimes to a place where they really do not want to be.

So the once upon a way back whenever was a much better place than the here and now? I’d go back in an instant given the chance?

NO WAY!!

For one thing, there’s one mighty steep learning curve I had to struggle my way up between there and here. I never want to have to do that again. And anyway, I sincerely love life, here and now.

Yes, the calendar has a few too many memorials and hospital visits, but it still denotes many other wonderful things – like Monday afternoons. The dates I now keep with friends seem so much more meaningful somehow than the endless get-togethers of my youth. The people mean more to me. In reviewing the memories of those Progressive Dinners, I realized that, other than my ex-husband, I couldn’t recall who any of the people were. Back then, anything that happened was just another excuse for a party rather than a true celebration of the event, or even the people involved. A “Celebration of Life” as we like to call memorials these days, has a whole lot more sincerity about it, and in some ways more true joy, than all that meaningless round of long ago parties.

No, of course they were wonderful times. My life has been great, I have terrific memories. But, from my current viewpoint, I have to say it seems almost as ridiculous to wish I were in my twenties as it would for someone twenty-five to yearn to be seventy-five.

© May 2015

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Piece of Cake by Gillian

It isn’t just my age that makes it seem like many things that surely should be are not a piece of cake these days. Oh yes, I forget where I put things and logic occasionally skips a beat, but I’m talking about things made more complicated than they need to be by others, not myself.

Betsy and I regretfully sold our old camper van a few months ago. It was eating money and parts were becoming too hard to find. The man who bought it apparently drove it home on a toll road because a few weeks later we got a bill from the toll company for $3.20. Now even I am not going to quibble over three bucks, so I mailed the check and forgot all about it. Piece of cake! A few weeks later we received another bill for the same vehicle, time, and date, from a differently named company. It seems the toll collection passed to a different company without, surprise surprise, much communication. Other than the fact that this bill was mysteriously thirty cents higher, the bills were identical so we printed off a copy of the processed check, mailed it and forgot about it. Just last week we got a second bill from the toll company for sixty unexplained cents. Honestly! Can’t someone program their computer not to generate bills for amounts below a dollar? I am tempted to tape sixty pennies to a sheet of paper, but I know the computer wouldn’t know what to do with that. The next thing we’d receive would be a bill for $20.60 after they added a twenty dollar late charge. So I guess I’ll just write a check. I can honestly say I have never written a check for less than a dollar, but then, a woman in her seventies should probably be grateful for any new experience!

Have you noticed how people these days have developed the skill of completely ignoring evidence right in front of their eyes? Betsy’s granddaughter Lisi owed us some money and was paying it back via automated monthly checks mailed to us from her bank. Piece of cake! When she later closed out that account, the checks kept right on coming. After three monthly checks we should not have had, we visited a local branch of the bank and explained the situation. Yes, the young man agreed, that account was indeed closed and contained no money, therefore we would receive no checks. I pounded my poor pinkie on the paper until it pained me. There were the checks. Three of them. Keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the computer screen he continued to nod his agreement that the account was closed and empty and no checks could be issued. He simply refused to see the evidence before him. Really! What kind of bank continues to send out checks from a closed account with no money in it??

In fact, closing accounts just seems to cause problems. I closed out a savings account, withdrawing all the money. The next month I got a statement claiming I had thirty-nine cents in that account. I called the branch, but neither they nor I had any explanation for the thirty-nine cents.

“Oh well,” I said, “Just cut a check for the amount and toss it in the trash, then close the account.”

She explained that she could not do that, as the computer would not create checks for less than a dollar.

“Can I just pop in and you give me the cash then?”

Cash, all thirty-nine cents of it, was apparently, for some incomprehensible reason, not an option. I gave up.

After a couple of months my thirty-nine cent statement was accompanied by a letter expounding upon the joys of paperless banking. Yes! I thought, hastily completing the authorization. At least I would no longer be irritated every month by this three-page documentation of my thirty-nine
cents. I would never have to go on-line to look at it; it would be forgotten. Piece of cake! After the second month of continuing to receive the mailed statement, I phoned the 24 hour customer service number. Definitely, I was told, since I had signed up for paperless banking I no longer received hard-copy statements. I assured her that I was holding one in my hand at that very moment, and she continued to affirm that I no longer received statements by mail. I gave up, but the following month I took my apparently imaginary paper statement to the local branch and explained my problem. Eyes glued to the screen, the young woman agreed wholeheartedly with me. Yes, I had signed up for paperless accounts and no longer received hard copy. No amount of waving pages at her could distract her attention from that screen. I gave up. Now, each month as I watch my three-page proof of thirty-nine cents die an ignominious death in the shredder, I remind myself that I no longer receive hard copy.

I find, more and more, that I fail to understand what people are telling me. And no, it’s not because I can’t hear, or that English is their second language. No, English, as far as I know, is their first language. Yet they somehow speak it in a way I cannot follow. I understand the words, but the way they put them together makes no sense to me. Betsy recently e-mailed a very simple question to our insurance company. The reply, and I promise you this is a direct quote, read, “Yes your property is currently covered (but not now).” How in God’s name is a person to interpret that? How can something be currently but not now?

I think hell on earth must be struggling, from half way around the world, to deal helpfully and politely in a relatively unfamiliar language, with an angry American trying to set up his Smart TV. A few years ago, Betsy and I bought a new flat-screen TV, and, for the first time, splurged on Cable. The Comcast techie rushed off after a very speedy installation, leaving me no chance to ask questions. I could not figure out where to attach the DVD player, so in desperation I called the HELP number. After many minuets on hold and many more in conversation with a very frustrated young man, both he and I had had just about enough. His voice had risen an octave over the time we had spent together, and I was beginning to doubt his chances of reaching his twenty-first birthday without a heart attack.

“No no no! You are not listening to me. How then can I help if you do not listen?”

“I’m sorry. I am listening. Really.”

Like a recalcitrant three year old.

“Now.” He sighed; at the end of his tether.

“We are at the very top, on the left side of the television. This TV is not a person. It is not the left side of it of which we speak. No! It is your left. You are facing the screen. Yes?”

Without waiting for confirmation he plunged on.

“You are reaching out your left hand and placing it on the top of the side of the television that is there, closest to your exact left hand. Very good! Now, the first connection on top of all the connections on that very side. You see it. It is being very red and you do not use it.”

I replied that actually it was yellow, but no I did not use it.

“It is red!” he said, dismissively. “Now you move down your exact left hand and the next one is yellow and you do not use it.”

I saw little point in saying that it was white, and we moved rapidly on to the next which was supposedly white but was in fact red. Why wasn’t my TV like his picture of it? We had confirmed the model number.

“Now,” he said with an air of accomplishment, “in the next one below under your exact left hand is the unused white into which you place the white of your DVD cable.

I willed the thick cable already plugged into the dirty-mustard yellow connection to disappear, but it remained.

“Something’s already in that one. The cable box. Or maybe the DVR …” I said doubtfully, peering into the dark corner behind the TV and the tanglement of wires and cables nesting there.

“No no no! You are indeed not following me!”

I thanked him for his time and hung up.

And you know, among the endless frustrations of modern life, occasionally someone appears who reinvigorates your faith in people and even technology. Forgetting the DVD player, I worked on getting the DVR to work. Having failed on that score too, I called Comcast where the phone techie agreed that it was not working correctly and scheduled a real person techie visit in two days. She strode into the living room, an obvious lesbian wearing her overstuffed tool belt with pride. After a cursory glance, she began ripping out cables and wires and dumping them in a tangled mangled heap on the carpet. She scooped up the messy bundle and retreated to her van, returning with new, neatly coiled and labeled, cables and wires and connectors. In what seemed like no time she was demonstrating to me that the TV worked, the DVD player worked, the cable box worked, and the DVR worked. She gathered up her tools and waved a cheery goodbye.

Piece of cake!

© March 2015

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Posted on

Aw Shucks! by Gillian

I really want to thank whoever came up with this topic because it made me dig way down in my memory and dredge up a story I have not thought about for fifty years. I wasn’t sure I had ever actually heard anyone use the expression aw shucks, except possibly Andy Griffith in 1950s Mayberry, but then slowly it bubbled up in my brain; an old black man in Houston in early 1965, and the story that goes with him.

His name was Noah. His age was indeterminate but my best guess would be mid-seventies. He worked as the gardener at the apartment complex where I was living with my friend Lucie. We had only arrived in this country from England three months before and were not quite familiar with all of the U.S. mores, especially those of the South. Houston of the early 1960’s was apparently unaware of such things as a minimum wage and equal rights. As far as we could tell, we were the only people among the apartment complex’s all-whites residents who ever spoke to Noah. He was apparently invisible to all our neighbors. Lucie and I managed to converse with him on most days, complimenting him most sincerely on the crisply trimmed bushes and the gorgeously colorful arrays of flowers, and his reply was always more or less the same.

“Shucks, Ma’am, just doin’ mah job.”

I would love to report here that he said aw shucks but I honestly remember it being, more simply, shucks. He had offered that his name was Noah, but although we had told him our names, he invariably addressed us, whether singly or collectively, as Ma’am.

And clearly it was more than just doing his job. He loved those plants. He coaxed and gentled them along, and they responded to him in all their glory.

I was in awe of him. He always looked so pristine. His gray hair was neatly barbered, the white tee-shirts he wore were unfailingly spotless, at least at the start of his day, and his bib overhauls always clean and crisp with a sharply ironed crease.

He had such a quiet dignity about him, giving off an air of a soul at peace, that I found myself envying him. Yet he puzzled me. I wondered about his life, the details of which he firmly shied away from if we tried to question him. Born …. when? Late in the previous century, perhaps. The things he must have seen and heard and experienced were unlikely to be the kind that would, in most people, engender this aura of dignified tranquility.

One day, just as we arrived home from work, a group of rowdy young men, white of course, were running across the lawn, whooping and giving their best rebel yells while tossing a football back and forth and tossing back beer from cans. They shouted derogatory things at two young women, also white of course, who quickly turned away down another path. Noah, trimming bushes at the far side of the lawn, was almost hidden by the thick foliage, and as the men crashed through the bushes they knocked him to the ground. Lucie and I could see him, slowly sitting up, and ran over, rather wondering how to act. We wanted to show concern but knew that offering to help him up would only cause embarrassment.

“Bloody hooligans!” Lucie growled as we reached him.

“Aw shucks, Ma’am, they wasn’t meanin’ no harm. Ma’am, do y’all see my glasses?”

He was fumbling his fingers in the grass about him.

“Huh!” responded Lucie. “Not meaning any harm indeed. They didn’t stop to see you were OK though, did they?”

Noah gazed speculatively at Lucie. and it occurred to me that perhaps concern for his health and safety was the last thing that life had taught him to expect from a group such as that.

“Here,” I handed him the glasses from where I found them still suspended on the branch that had snagged them as he fell. They were small and thick with thin steel frames, and looked more fit for a German scientist than an old black Texas groundsman. Noah curled them behind his ears and got to his feet, but he was favoring one foot.

“Stand still!” commanded Lucie. “Let me look at it.”

She knelt down and pulled up his pant leg, feeling his ankle gently. I could see it was already swollen.

Three white men in business suits just getting out of a car in the parking lot looked askance at the young white woman kneeling before the old black man and caressing his ankle. The N word was tossed back and forth loudly between two of them but the third walked over to us, just as I unthinking put my arm around Noah’s waist so he could lean his bad side on me.

The young man, I had met him briefly at some pool party or something, and thought his name was Howard, pried me gently away from Noah, frowning at me and shaking his head.

“Here, let me he’p you” he said, taking my place. “Can you put weight on that foot?”

“No, he can’t,” snapped Lucie before Noah had time to insist he was OK and they hadn’t meant no harm.

“It’s not broken,” Lucie always said things with supreme confidence, “but it’s badly sprained.” She launched into an indignant account of what had happened, while Howard lowered Noah back down onto the lawn and I trotted off to our apartment to get ice and look for bandages.

We bound up his ankle with a strip I had torn off an old shirt we planned to use for dusters, then tied ice over it, securing it with the rest of the shirt.

Howard helped Noah to his feet, but putting weight on his badly swollen ankle was clearly a problem.

“C’mon,” said the ever-decisive Lucy, “We’ll take you home.”

A look of alarm crossed his face.

“No Ma’am! I come on the bus, I go home on the bus.”

Lucie snorted.

“Don’t be ridiculous! It’s five or six blocks to the bus stop just from this side. You can’t walk. Of course we’ll take you home.”

Noah’s look of alarm became one closer to fear.

He glanced in appeal at Howard, a look that said, these women are foreigners and don’t understand. Help me!

“I live th’other side of Lazy Bayou,” he offered to Howard in a tone of desperation. “Lizard Creek Muddy.”

Howard shook his head at Lucie and me.

“NO!” he said, firmly. “Y’all cannot go there.”

Never tell Lucie she cannot do something. She tossed her hair at both men in disdain.

“Ugh. Men! C’mon.” She headed for the car as I followed behind, fumbling to find the car keys.

Howard and Noah struggled in some kind of three-legged gait behind us, neither apparently able to come up with a reasonable alternative course of action.

“I’ll come with you, then,” said Howard resignedly, helping Noah into the front passenger seat, and I slipped the car into gear as Noah offered grunted, reluctant, directions.

I had no idea where we were by the time we sloshed over a muddy crossing of what must have been Lazy Bayou, and followed the dirt road as it disappeared into thick trees. The road was suddenly lined on either side by wooden shanties in various stages of disrepair, and an occasional tattered trailer. Everyone in sight was black, and every single one of them stopped whatever they were doing to stare at the car, and, perhaps more than the unaccustomed car, the three shiny white faces in it. If any of you have watched that old TV series, Heat of the Night, this place was very like the area that program depicts as The Bottoms.

But this was well before that series existed; Lucie and I, innocents that we were, had no idea places like this existed.

Following a silent wave of Noah’s arm, I pulled the car to a halt in front of rickety steps below a screen door. I heard Howard mutter in the back seat.

“Goddammit!”

I knew he referred to the steps.

“Y’all he’p him. Less antagonism that way. An’ git right back. We need to go!”

An old woman with a deeply wrinkles face was creaking down the steps. She pushed Lucie and me out of the way, turned her back on us, turned Noah’s back on us, and hustled him up the steps and in through the screen door which slammed shut behind them. Despite Howard’s hissed,

“Come on!” we stood there, non-plussed. We hadn’t exactly expected to be invited in for tea, but neither had we expected a look that might have turned lesser mortals to stone. In silence the three white faces in the black car left Lizard Creek Muddy.

Our relationship with Noah, though his courteous dignity remained, was never quite the same after that. His dignity had become cool and distanced, like that of an English butler. We had crossed some invisible line we had not even known existed.

I think of that wonderful old man after all these years, as I read of the recently documented 4000 lynchings of people of color in the South from 1877 to 1950, the racial hatred in certain fraternities, the institutionalized racism in Ferguson ……. sadly I could go on and on.

I need to say something a whole lot stronger than aw, shucks!

© March 2015

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.