Tag: Still Learning

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Still Learning, by Betsy

I recently learned that I
am not good at doing things at the last minute. 
That is why I am writing this piece now–after the date that the topic
was to be shared.  We got home Saturday
from a trip to California where among other things, Gill and I were married. I
could not get a piece on “Still
Learning”
together in a short two days.
A couple of things I
learned on this recent trip come to mind now that I have had time to process
the experiences for a week or so. Here are a few items of note.
On the subject of
personal relationships: After 26 years together with my partner a marriage
ceremony and a license do not make a big difference in our lives, but I have
noticed that since making my vows I feel a deeper level of commitment to my
partner.  Perhaps commitment is not the
right word, rather more of a reminder to love and to cherish.  Speaking aloud and hearing these words in a
ceremony gives more true meaning to the words and reminds me of their
importance and the value of the commitment.
I am reminded of the
topic “Straight Friends Who Love Me?” 
These friends of whom I wrote back in 2012 really do love me.  My cycling buddies with whom we had the
reunion were truly excited about our marriage. 
They were so excited they wanted to be there for the ceremony.  They wanted to be there so badly that we had
an extra ceremony–albeit unofficial–in their presence. 
The straight women on my
tennis team from the Denver Tennis Club were so excited about our marriage that
they are giving a party for Gill and me. 
Every one of them is coming. Every one of them is straight.  They have shown extraordinary support and
acceptance and are going out of their way to do so.
On the subject of
geology: In our travels to Southern California we came across many geologic
phenomena. When traveling west on the ground, one always does.   We spend a couple of days in a place neither
of us had every visited before; namely, Death Valley.  I have never thought much about Death
Valley.  Considered it to be a “dead”
place in the desert–a small valley between mountain ranges.  First, I learned that it is not small, it is
not dead, and it is surrounded by mountains on all sides.  The towering peaks surrounding it are
responsible for its extraordinary and unique geologic characteristics. The fact
that it is surrounded by mountains is the reason it is the hottest place on
earth and the driest place in the U.S. Death Valley is huge–140 miles long and
15 miles at its widest point.  Death
Valley is also the lowest place in the US. 
Furthermore, it is sinking faster than it is filling up.  The valley once was a lake, only 2000 years
ago.
On the subject of
spirituality: In the last few days I have also learned that we create our own
misery.  How and why?  Because we have egos which want to be fed
constantly.  Our egos are not our true
selves.  If we identify with our egos, we
are looking at a false image of ourselves. The image is a reflection of how
others see us.  This is a false image of
who we really are–our true selves.  Once
we understand this we are on the road to identifying with our true selves.  Our true selves–our souls, if you will,
cannot be controlled and manipulated by others or by society as our egos can
be.  The next time I have a negative
feeling because of the way someone has treated me or something someone has said
or not said to me–the next time that happens I am going to watch my ego, not
feed it, not deny it, just watch.  Then I
can tell myself that I am creating my own misery by having a needy ego.
A young brain may absorb
information faster, but I believe some things are learned only after, and as a
result of, decades of experience in living. 
I’m glad I’m still learning every day. It’s never too late for an “aha”
moment and we can never have too many.
© November 2013 
About
the Author 
 Betsy has been active in
the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old
Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been
retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major
activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a
volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading,
writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage.
She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren.
Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her
life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.
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Still Learning after All These Years, by Phillip Hoyle

My artist and poet friend Sue keeps learning. She has studied art with teachers and has produced art in several mediums for years. She has managed co-op art galleries, displayed her works in solo and group shows, and taught art to youngsters. But now Sue has extremely limited money resources. For awhile she kept up her learning about art processes by watching arts and crafts shows on TV. When she got a PC, she switched to following art blogs and watching tutorials. Still she is learning. Still she keeps experimenting. Still.

I likewise keep learning bolstered in my resolve to do so by watching Sue’s creative efforts and by recalling the concept of lifelong learning I promoted during my long career as a minister. I try to practice what I preached. For instance, I have long participated in a writers group that, although it does not critique pieces, affords me a constant source of response and learning. When I read something to that group of writers, I hear my words differently and pick up problems I’ve missed in my own reading and editing. I also get positive feedback.

When possible I have attended art workshops. One of the most helpful processes I learned in a week-long event with Houston artist Polly Hammett in 1998 was a process of self-criticism. She recommended the process that continues to teach me about my work and its direction. Her SELF-CRITIQUE is this:

Select from your current work several of the pieces. Set them up as a gallery. Decide three things you like about each piece.

1. See them. As you look at each piece see what you like.

2. Say them. Aloud say what it is that you like. Say aloud all three things.

3. Write them. Write down those things you have decided. If you are working on paper, write them on the back of the piece itself. If not, write them in a notebook. Write them.

Then choose your favorite piece. Decide, say, and write why it is your favorite, how it is related to the other pieces, and how it is different. “Do this,” she said, “so you keep affirming what you like. You will do again such things if you repeat them verbally.” She also stressed not to spend any time on the things you don’t like or you’ll end up doing them again and again! I have applied her advice to my work over the past fifteen years.

When I worked at a spa clients would sometimes ask, “How long have you been doing massage?”

I told them, “I’ve given massages professionally for eight years.”

“What did you do before that?” they almost always responded.

“I was a minister,” I said. That stopped the conversation almost as effectively as being introduced as a minister to a group of people drinking heavily in a bar.

“That’s really different,” many of them would eventually respond.

“No,” I answered with a chuckle. “My clients still tell me their problems.”

We’d laugh together. Then I’d clarify. “Actually it is different. In the massage context they edit their stories much less.”

Even in this last year of massage I have been learning new processes, new applications of things I learned in school, and sometimes a realization of what my teachers were trying to communicate about the work all those years ago.

In 2013 I am still learning not only about my art and massage, but also about personal relationships, things I never before could have imagined. The things people have told me about their lives probably were just details I couldn’t imagine about folk in churches when they told me their troubles. I have learned about life and about people, including many things about the varieties of GLBT folk!

Enough of these stories. Here’s my elder advice:

* In learning and work, both go it alone and collaborate with others.

* Adopt a rookie attitude about your life, skills, and learning even if you are ancient.

* Like Sue, find novel ways to learn.

* Keep your eyes open, your ideas transportable, and your attitudes creatively engaged.

And let me tell you; I hope to keep learning right up to my last breath.

Denver, © 2013

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Still Learning by Ricky

Part 1


My brother Bill runs a still on the hill
Where he turns out a gallon or two.
The birds in the sky get so drunk they can’t fly
From that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]
They call it that good ol’ mountain dew, mountain dew,
And them that refuse it are few, mighty few.
Well I’ll hush up my mug if you’ll fill up my jug
With that good ol’ mountain dew.

My aunt Lucille had an automobile,
It ran on a gallon or two.
It needed no gas and it needed no oil,
It just ran on that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

My uncle Mort, he is sawed off and short,
He stands ’bout four foot two,
But he thinks he’s a giant when you give him a pie-ant
Of that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

Old Auntie June had a brand new perfume,
It had such a wonderful “pew”.
But to her surprise, when she had it analyzed,
It was nothing but good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

The preacher-he walked by, with a tear in his eye
Said his wife came down with the flu.
And hadn’t I ought just to give him a quar-art
Of that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

There’s an old holler tree, just a little way from me
Where you lay down a dollar or two.
You go ‘round the bend and come back again
And pickup a jug of that good ol’ mountain dew.

[Chorus]

Part 2

When I was born, I began to learn how to control my body and to understand the sensory input I was receiving. Rather quickly, I learned to control my environment to obtain things for myself by communicating with the moving objects within my field of view. My method of communication was not all that sophisticated as I was still trying to control my vocal cords and mouth, but the moving objects seemed to understand and brought me food and warmth. I felt cared for and the master of my “world”.

As I grew, I realized that those moving objects did not always respond to gentle requests and I had to raise the volume of my slowly improving speech. They were rather slow in understanding my attempts to learn their sounds. But eventually we learned to communicate reliably.

At last I had learned enough to be safely around other people and I was sent to school to learn more skills and information about the world I live in. This learning process continued for 12-years until I graduated high school. My first year in college taught me that I would never be a high school chemistry teacher. Shortly after I learned that particular lesson, I joined the Air Force and serious education began.

The first military lesson I learned was self-discipline. This was achieved by forced discipline based upon fear of what would be the consequences to me if I did not do what I was told – consequences far worse than my parents had inflicted upon me. I learned that not all friendly people were “true friends”; not all good looking people were in fact, good; not all “ugly” people were dumb; and most importantly, don’t judge people by skin color. I also learned to differentiate between people worth knowing and those whose personalities were so distasteful as to be avoided.

During those years and the ones that followed, I continued to learn about people, places, and things worth knowing. Unfortunately, I also learned that the world is not a particularly safe place and that tragedy and injustice abound. I learned the world of people is constantly changing, sometimes for the better and sometimes not. I also learned that when the wicked rule, the people mourn.

Now, some 65-years after my birth, I am still learning. Only the lessons are more about me than the world around me. I am learning about my orientation and what it means. I am learning to integrate my 12-year old adolescent personality with my 65-year old adult body. It is not happening very smoothly and probably has to do with a left-brain, right-brain conflict. Or perhaps I am just doomed to have a child-like outlook my whole life.

As the time draws ever closer to the occasion of my passing, I will still be looking to learn what is beyond this life. To paraphrase the attitude of my close friend, Peter, I declare, “To die will be a great adventure — in learning.”

© 18
November 2013  



About the Author  



I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.

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Still Learning – Just One Nugget by Nicholas

When I feel I need a little break and need to see a little craziness, I hop onto an express bus to Boulder to spend a day in a place just different enough to be interesting. Boulder reminds me of a mini-San Francisco. Good restaurants, intriguing food shops—like the well-scented spice shop—a really good bookstore, and street people who don’t seem so desperate as they do in Denver.

What really draws me to Boulder is the labyrinth in a downtown church. I love walking labyrinths. This one is a copy of the Chartres cathedral labyrinth in France dating from the middle ages when labyrinth walking was used as a substitute for making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. This is an 11 circuit labyrinth, meaning you walk 11 circles in fragments, winding up eventually at a center.

A labyrinth is not a maze. You don’t have to find your way or figure out anything or make any decisions. You just follow the path as it winds its way around and through the quadrants to the center. It’s a walking meditation. In the Christian sense, the path, which is laid out for you, leads to God at the center. You only have to follow. I’ve never met God at the center and I don’t know what I would do if I did. Probably ask him to move so I could get on with my walk. Labyrinths pre-date Christianity, having been used in many forms by pagan religions for eons. The Christians just glommed onto a good thing when they saw it.

And as I’m slowly walking, I’m wondering why am I doing this, what can I get from it. Just one crumb of understanding, I say, give me just a little nugget of wisdom in this calm place where all I have to do is follow the path to the center and back out again. The slower the better. I’m not looking to understand everything, the whole enchilada, just a bit here and now. And the answer came: I’m doing this because walking the labyrinth is comforting. Its stillness, its calm, its reassurance give me a stillness, a calm, and a reassurance. Just follow the path, you don’t have to find it, it’s there at your feet. Keep your eyes open and follow. One step at a time.

So, I’m still learning. Still trying to figure it out though that’s something I don’t really expect ever to do. I suppose, maybe I even hope, my last words will be “What’s going on here?” It’s not the answer but the question that truly counts. Not the accomplishment but the wondering.

Yes, still learning. I just learned a whole lot about the writer William Faulkner, enough to realize that I knew nothing about an author I thought I did know something about. And I learn more yoga every week and sometimes everyday. And I’m always learning about loving and being loved. And I just got a new I-phone which offers me more to learn than I ever knew I needed to know. It’s not a phone or a device; it’s an extension of my brain. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. My brain could use an extension but I’m not sure I want it to be in an Apple computer.

I heard a saying recently that I think everybody in this room will like and feel free to adopt as your own. It goes: It’s not how old you’re getting; it’s how you’re getting old.

I hope I am getting old with wonder and openness and a desire to learn more because there is so much more out there to learn and experience. Like walking the labyrinth to discover that I need to walk the labyrinth. And maybe I’ll learn a little something, just a crumb, just a nugget. Not God.

Keep your eyes open and follow your path.

© 25 November 2013 

About
the Author 

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

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Still Learning by Lewis

After over six decades of thinking of death’s impact on me as being akin to getting a bad haircut–ugly for a few days but quickly grown out of–it now seems that I am constantly reminded not only of how bald I am but also how closely death looms, as if I am being followed.

Perhaps, it is the numbness that occasionally settles into the tip of my big toe. Or the odd, sudden tingling bursts of heat that explode down my calves and feet. Or the ever-increasing level of concentration it takes to relieve my ever-less-frequent sexual urges. More likely, it is the feeling that death has taken residence on my street and is dropping in on some of my closest friends, one-by-one, as it makes its way toward my particular residence.

I spend more time reading the obituaries than the comics. I divide the recently-departed into two classifications: those born before me and those born after. Why do I not take comfort in the observation that there are usually four-to-five times more of the former? Is it because I don’t think I’ll ever make it to 90, as so many others have?

A better question to ask myself would be, “Do I even want to live that long? What is the upside? What haven’t I learned that I want to learn? What sight haven’t I seen that I want to see?”

Every time I read of a child or youth dying, I think how much I have seen that they will never see, how much life I have experienced that they will never know and I ask myself, “What is it that makes me enjoy living?” I’ve already ruled out wealth, status, and driving a Porsche around the streets of Capitol Hill. Still on my short list are making everyone’s quality of life better, staying relatively healthy through exercise, seeing every ‘Best Picture” Oscar-nominee before the end of February, making new friends, and dying before I run out of money.

All of these have something in common for me: they are about LOVING–love for life, love for justice, love for my others, and love for my family. Of all the things that I have learned throughout my life, the one that stands out is this: no stock or commodity ever yields as high a return as love well-invested. It is my truth that, though the brain can learn, only the heart can teach.

November 16, 2013 (Laurin’s and my 10th Anniversary)

About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

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Still Learning by Ray S

Concerning today’s topic here are some words of wisdom from a wise old elder of the tribe.

The saying goes “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks (depending on the trick)” but here’s a selection of learned gems to remind us what we may have already learned or can still work on for our own enlightenment.

1. Compromise is what you do when you think you have to.

2. Seems like it is never too late to try something new and learn from it.

3. Did you parents know what they did with you and where did they learn it?

4. Life is learning. A lot like a pin ball game. You bounce from one pin to the next and ultimately end up in a hole.

5. Learning’s most beautiful aspect is the acquiring of the ability to love one another and the defeat of learned guilt.

6. Still, learning is knowing oneself and how to love yourself and knowing that in the end everything’s OK. If it’s not OK, it’s not the end.

The End.

© 18 November 2013

About the Author