life – Page 6 – Nomadic Noesis

What’s With My Brain in the Middle of the Night?

That feeling when you wake up at 2 a.m. with the urgent need to remember the name of the Greek god of the forge, and you’re panicked because you can’t conjure it up. You remember the Romans called him Vulcan but to save your life you can’t latch your mind onto the Greek designation. Then, as you wake up enough to realize there can’t possibly be an emergency in your life involving Greek mythology and wonder why you would wake up wanting to know, you segue from panic to irritation. Irritation at having interrupted your own sleep somehow and also because you still can’t remember the name and you really should know, with all the time you spent reading those myths in your teen years. But you need to go back to sleep so you can function at work tomorrow, so you don’t want to try looking it up. But you can’t go back to sleep until you remember it. Does it start with an H maybe? So you get up and open your laptop and discovered you were right about that much – Hephaestus. Then you feel satisfied and lie back down, close your eyes and…wait, wasn’t there something weird about his feet? What was that about?

I can’t be the only one this happens to. Right?

Poem for Kathrine Switzer

For National Poetry Month, I’ve been writing a poem a day and keeping them hidden on my computer. But I finally feel like sharing one.

Yesterday, Kathrine Switzer ran the Boston Marathon again, fifty years after becoming the first woman to finish it officially. Bobbi Gibb had run it unofficially the year before. This inspired my poetic efforts yesterday.

Poem for Kathrine Switzer, April 17, 2017

What did they think would happen,
fifty years ago, if a woman ran?
Would we all be deprived of the cake
she should have been baking instead?
Would the race be sullied,
the stain forever ringing its collar?
Or worst of all –
the boys would have to share,
not only that day but all the days to come?
Well, worse came to worst
and she ran again in Boston today
with thousands of women on the course
while somewhere, surely,
some man baked a cake,
the downfall of civilization complete.

**
— Someone asked, so I’m adding this. You can share this. Feel free to copy and paste, even, but I would like a credit. Ida Bettis Fogle, author. Thanks.

4655282517_3a9c99932a_b — Credit: Kinchan1

Ironing Day – Poem in Honor of My Mom

My mother passed away a little over a year ago. Today would be her birthday. I wrote this poem a few years back and am sharing it now in memory of her.

Ironing Day – Age Four

On the dining room table, stiff and wrinkled: my father’s shirt
In the chair, standing: me
Under my arms, tied tight: my mother’s apron
In my hand, upside down: a glass Coke bottle
In the mouth of the bottle, sealed securely: a cork
Punched in the cork, round and regular: holes
Through the holes, irregular as my attention: sprinkles of water

At the far end of the living room, legs criss-crossed: an ironing board
On the board, steaming: my father’s shirt
Next to the board, standing: my mother
In her hand, sizzling: an iron
On her face, trickling: beads of sweat
On the floor, receptive: a laundry basket
In the basket, folded: the product of our morning’s labor

Moving between the rooms: my industrious mother
Moving from table to board to basket: freshly cleaned clothes
Staying put in the dining room, important in my work: me
Staying put in the living room, at the far end: the hot iron

Inauguration 2017 -The Bad Beginning

On this unpresidented day in American history, we need to take a lesson from literature, specifically A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Today we are all orphans in the charge of Count Olaf. But many of us are inventors and many of us are well-read, while others have sharp, useful teeth that can chew through the ropes. We only need to stick together and not give up.

That is all.

The Right Princess at the Right Time

Here’s one more among the thousands of tributes being paid to Carrie Fisher. It is possible that there can’t be too many.

I know there was much more to her and her career than the role of Leia Organa. But it’s the character of Leia, first princess and then general, that spoke most to me. She entered my life as I hit adolescence and needed role models. I was raised in a church that wanted females silent and submissive, attributes that were not in my nature. I chafed.Whenever I heard that wives should obey their husbands in all things, my go to thought was “I guess marriage is not for me.”

As a child, my fantasy play never involved being rescued. In my daydreams of adventure, I had agency; I was the rescuer, the hero. And I was just starting to notice women didn’t get those roles in movies or TV. Disney princesses were a whole different breed from what they are today, let me tell you. But then. Then. I found myself climbing into a car full of siblings to go see Star Wars at the drive-in.

Princess Leia appeared, beseeching Obi-Wan Kenobi for help. But it wasn’t simply “Please rescue me and keep me safe.” No, it was more like “Help me break out of this joint; I’ve got an empire to overthrow.” She had smarts, courage and swagger. Carry Fisher gave her swagger. I liked it. I needed it. WWLD? What would Leia do? Not a bad question to ask as you’re trying to figure out how to grow up. She was there for me throughout my teens, in one Star Wars movie after another.

Which sustained me right up to the brink of menopause, at which time General Leia showed up for me when I needed her most. There she was, leading things, smart, tough, still swaggering. Heartbroken, but confident in herself and her cause. Not disappearing, as society (and especially Hollywood) often expects women to do once they have a laugh line and a gray hair or two.

Thank you Carrie Fisher. Nobody else could have done it the way you did.

“Into the garbage chute, fly boy.”

I Have Felt Like This Before

Last night, I lay awake for hours trying to will my heart to stop thumping scarily and erratically. Trying to tame my breath into regularity. Recalling every relaxation technique I’ve ever learned. None of it worked. My body shook.

The unthinkable was happening. My children, ages eighteen and twenty-one, who had been so excited about voting, were both dismayed. I didn’t know what to say to them. I’m sorry your adult lives are beginning this way. It’s not what I wanted for you. My husband and I watched the markets plunged, seeing a future without retirement and without safety nets. We kept asking how this could be. How could so many Americans vote for someone endorsed by the KKK?

An existential fear suffused my being. It felt like the end of everything. I tried to remember when I had ever felt so terrified, so horrible. And the memories surfaced. A handful of times, events in my life had evoked this kind of emotional response for me:

The Oklahoma City bombing
9-11
Sitting in a hospital while an ultrasound technician ran a wand over the bump on my son’s head and said “I want to check with the radiologist about getting a CT scan of this.”
The day my mother died.

I suppose I went on after all of those happenings. I suppose I will go on now. I’m already making plans about how I personally can counteract some of the negatives I expect.

But my feelings have not caught up with my head. This morning I argued with the weather forecaster when he said Today will be sunny. NO IT WON’T I yelled.

For today, this is my soundtrack:

Guy Talk

With the current brouhaha over recordings from a certain candidate, I’m flashing back to memories from my own life, as I’m sure most women are. Here’s a flash memoir.

When I was twenty, I got an office job where I was the only female in the department. Some of the guys engaged in pretty rough talk (though actually not speaking of assault — not to the Donald’s level), but fairly sexist, fairly objectifying. Either they forgot I was there, or didn’t realize I was close enough to overhear sometimes, or they didn’t care. They’d talk about the women in the front office, comparing physical attributes. They’d look out the window and “rate” women passing by on the street.

Not all of the guys, though. One of the younger ones, near my age, didn’t engage in this behavior, ever, and that was easy to notice. If he ever talked about a woman, it was just as a human. I ended up dating him. I met his mom and sister, who were big influences in his life, both of whom he treated with respect. Reader, I married him.

What I Love About Living in the U.S.

Here I am on July 4th, Independence Day here in the U.S. No big plans today except to go watch the city’s fireworks tonight.

I’m a sucker for all the holiday accoutrements, though, on any holiday. So I’m wearing red capris and a blue t-shirt with some white print on it. It’s only a matter of time until I own a Christmas sweater, I suppose.

I had some actual paper letters to mail and the temperature was pleasant, so I walked to the post office this morning. Here’s the part where I say what I love about this country, and more specifically the location of my home. On my 2-mile round-trip to the post office from my house, I passed a public library, a public school, a Baptist Church, an antiquarian book seller, an auto mechanic, a bicycle store, a School of Metaphysics, a Vietnamese restaurant, a Mediterranean restaurant, an Indian restaurant/grocery and an old-fashioned diner where the menu is heavy on biscuits-n-gravy type fair.

Here are a few places I didn’t pass this morning, but are within a mile of my house: a Mosque, a Unity Church, a Christian Science Church and a community center that has programs for residents who live in public housing, and a brew-pub.

I don’t always think about it, what a richness of experience and culture is all around me. But I noticed this morning. I thought about it, walking along in my red, white and blue. This is what the United States is about. This is the kind of thing that stirs my feelings of loyalty and love for my country. So many people from so many different backgrounds, and here we are together, making a city, a community, supporting our public libraries and public schools.

I know many towns and communities are a lot more homogeneous, but my midwestern metropolis has a population of only about 120,000. So it doesn’t take a huge urban area to live the dream. This is the American dream I want for myself and my kids — one that includes a place for all of us.

RIP Glenn Frey, Hotel California Alt Lyrics

I’m increasingly concerned for performing artists in their sixties. First Lemmy, then Natalie Cole, followed by David Bowie and Alan Rickman. And today’s announcement of the passing of the Eagles’ Glenn Frey.

Frey holds a special place in my life, having composed “Hotel California.” Way back in the mists of prehistory, when Mr. Nomadic Noesis and I were only dating and not yet married, I often found myself driving home from his house late at night with my car radio blasting to keep me awake. It tended to be around the same time and, not saying whoever programmed the radio station was lazy or anything, but I could pretty much count on hearing the same songs. Almost without fail, “Hotel California” finished up shortly before I pulled into my driveway.

A few years ago on our wedding anniversary, I wrote a poem about this. Here it is:

Driving to the Hotel California

On a dark urban highway, Eagles on the radio.
I thought the lyricist smelled the lieges, since I’d
never heard of colitas and the story made no sense
anyway. The heavy head, though – that part
I understood, for the evening
was not young when I left his doorway.
I had a long drive home
and I was thinking to myself,
“They play this same old song every night
while my headlights light up the orange barrels
lining this construction corridor.”
And I knew the next day I would still hear them sing

“Welcome to the Hotel California”
Every single place
I went all day long
in my head — the Hotel California.
No matter what I did, it’d be there.

My mind was definitely stuck on the song again again
but every time I thought of it I thought too of the man I’d seen –
how we danced and we courted on those hot summer nights.
The song makes me remember; I’ll never forget.

So I called up the station
“Please play me my song,”
They said “We haven’t had that request since I don’t know when.”
Still I can hear those voices sing to this day,
wake up in the middle of the night,
next to me he breathes.

The rhythm is Hotel California
I look at his sleeping face
recall driving from his place
to the strains of Hotel California.
What a nice surprise, our love’s still alive.

Water stains on the ceiling
Legos strewn underfoot.
Sometimes feel like a prisoner to home repair and clutter
and in the middle of it all
I cook the evening feast,
try to find something everyone will like
something they all will eat.
Then I stop and remember
those times leaving his door
how I never wanted to go back
to the place I lived alone.
Legos will get picked up
and ceiling fixed eventually.
This is the life I’ve chosen
and I don’t want to leave.

Politically Correct: Musings and a Poem

Several years ago I wrote a poem about a phrase I kept hearing: politically correct. Or political correctness. Or PC. It was used to shut people up, like duct tape over the mouth. Espouse a position that makes someone else feel guilty or uncomfortable? You were likely to hear that you were “just being PC.”

For a while, the term faded away, at least in discourse to which I was privy. Now it’s come roaring back. All over the place, I hear people proudly proclaim “I’m not politically correct.” The implication being, I suppose, that anyone who has a different opinion on the issue at hand can’t really be sincere. The implication being: “Deep down, you know I’m right. It’s simply inconvenient for you to admit it.”

To me, answering someone’s challenge or question or opinion with a dismissive charge of political correctness is the laziest kind of ad hominem attack. Instead of considering the issue, you call them a name and are done with it. Uttering the phrase “politically correct” absolves you of the need to listen or reason or self-examine. It’s right up there with the antiquated practice of calling women hysterical every time they challenged the status quo.

Since the term is back in vogue, my poem seems timely once again. I had fun playing around with it. I hope you have fun reading it.

Parity Considerations

Politically correct?
Is the accusation a
pertinent criticism
or just a
peevish complaint?
Does it matter whether my actions
are a result of
passive compromise
or of a truly
principled cause?
Could it be that
persistent charges
of PC are no more than
panicked counterattacks
against anyone refusing to fit a
particular conformity?
Should I lay aside my
personal convictions
out of fear that some
piously corrupt
person might
possibly call
me names?
If someone else can
purchase compliance
from me with
pretentiously contrived
allegations of PC
does that make me
politically correct
or
politically incorrect?
Pardon my confusion,
but if you are
preoccupied constantly
with whether I’m “just being PC,”
whom does this say more about,
you or me?
Please clarify.