The Circle Closes

I grew up in a culture that was formed by Dutch immigrants who were members of the Christian Reformed Church.  As soon as I could I fled from that culture.  Despite what you hear about Holland today and all the free spirits in Amsterdam the dutchmen I knew as a kid were stifling and self-righteous.  I was never attracted to blond men and found my childhood acquaintances cloistered and insular.
I escaped to the big city, the whirlwind of the fashion business and the arms of men who were invariably mediterranean.
Fast forward a few years.  I find myself involved with a man I would never have looked at when I was 20.  He, like me, is dutch descent and grew up in a Christian Reformed community.  I could not be with him if he were still involved in that community.  But it's a comfort to have common touch points, common experiences although we grew up on different coasts. 
Curiously, my ex, an italian immigrant, is now involved with an italian american.
Maybe we both wanted to come "home" to roost?

Cross Cultural

Yesterday I sat on the carpeted stairs of an empty condo for lease waiting for 3 prospective applicants who never showed up.  I turn all the lights on, open windows and get my game face on.  While I wait I play scramble with my sister until I run out of tokens.  Too cheap to buy any. 
Can't quite leave yet.  Have to give the applicants the benefit of the doubt.  Traffic was horrible, couldn't find parking, etc.  I check my phone several times.  Is the ringer on?  Yes.  Any texts?  Any calls?  No.
I weigh when I should leave.  As I sit on the steps on a lazy Sunday afternoon I listen to the sounds from the surrounding units coming in through the open door.
Across the way come 2 female voices speaking in a foreign language that I think is Armenian.  I don't understand what they're saying but there is something so familiar about the time of day and the conversation.  I remember Sunday afternoons from my childhood.  My Mom served a big lunch, usually pot roast cooked to gray, green beans boiled to a pulp with seeds the size of horse pills, mashed potatoes and rice pudding for dessert.  After lunch, the males of the family disappeared.  To couches, to basement workshops, to bathrooms, to bedrooms.  Anywhere but in the kitchen. 
The women put away the food, using a recycled mayonnaise jar for the gravy and a recycled bread bag for the meat.  Wiping off the table, washing the dishes by hand in the kitchen too small for our family.
I don't know what the Armenian family across the way ate for lunch but I know the men have disappeared and the women are cleaning up.

Archeological Digging

Crime investigators talk about following a paper trail.  Hansel and Gretel had a bread crumb trail.  Garbologists parse your life together from your garbage trail.
We all have trails that yield clues and I have a hair trail.  As I look back through my History of Coiffure I see short, long, up, down, curly, straight, coppery red, bleached blond, pink and purple.  Some were for the mom years, the restaurant owner years, the mother of the bride year, and the newly single time to be me again years.
I used to say I keep the husband and change the hair.  Now I do both.

Makes Sense to Me

I heard someone say recently that you can turn off all of your senses except smell.  You can close your eyes, close your mouth, not touch, stop listening but you can't turn off your nose.  Scents supposedly travel straight to your brain's memory center.  I don't find that as true for me.  I know I'm not a "super taster", someone who has extra taste buds and that probably correlates to olfactory prowess as well.  What evokes the most emotion and memory in me is sound, especially music.  A melody, with or without lyrics, can instantly bring me to tears.  A song can immediately conjure up a person or a remembrance.
I've often been envious of people who have synesthesia, a condition where sensory perceptions are crossed.  Some synesthetes see colors while listening to music.  What a trip that would be!

To Friend or Not to Friend

Facebook is the new litnus test for friendships, relationships and acquaintances of all kinds.  I no longer wonder if a date du jour is worthy of introducing to the family but rather do I want to friend him on facebook.  Today I might be inclined to do so but in a month I may want to rescind that and it's easier not to invite him to the party than to ask him to leave once he's arrived.
I have unfriended one person and her feelings were hurt to the point we no longer speak.  Wish I hadn't been so hasty to click her into my facebook life in the first place.
Other people I keep but block them from my news feed.  They're usually connected somehow to my kids and I want to see the photos of my family but not hear the details of their friends' wild and crazy lives.
My kids tell me they would never have friended me on facebook when they were single.  Tmi works both ways.

Looks are Deceptive

Recently I was sitting in the waiting room of a rental car agency.  The two employees behind the counter kept scanning the waiting area, looking at their computer screens and muttering to each other.  Finally one voiced my name, his voice rising at the end into a question as he looked in my direction.  I acknowledged my identity and laughingly told him, "You're having trouble because my appearance doesn't match my name".  Yes he admitted he was looking for someone latina or hispanic and I look more like a Jane Smith.

That disconnect between my name and my apparent ethnicity has happened to me more than once but I've also done it myself.  I had a painter come to my house who I had not met before, just spoken to by phone.  He had a german name, blond hair and blue eyes but spoke with a spanish accent.  I kept staring at him trying to reconcile the appearance with the accent and finally had to ask where he was from.  He confirmed that he was of german extraction but born and raised in South America.  A few years ago I was in the Netherlands and always did a double take when I heard someone with dark hair, eyes and skin speaking dutch and then realized they were indonesian.

So we all need to expand our horizons.  Jane Smith could be any color. 

With time you'll laugh

Time heals all wounds.  Or wounds all heels.  You know you're really healing when you can find the humor.  When you can laugh you know you have some scar tissue.
I was purchasing a car shortly after my ex left.  Extremely sympathetic Armenian salesman at Carmax in Burbank.  He had an odd emblem on his necklace and when I asked him about it he said it represented the three facets of Zoroastrianism.  He seemed shocked that I had heard of it so we bonded over obscure religions.
As I was telling him my sob story of why I was purchasing a vehicle he listened attentively with great empathy.  He leaned forward and said, "You know what is the first thing you have to do?"  "What?"  I replied with anticipation.  Here it comes--an attorney referral, sage financial advice, a job referral.  "First", he said, "you have to change your perfume".

Making Lemonade

No matter what lemons life is currently lobbing at you you can handle it by asking yourself: "What's the worst that could happen?" and then reminding yourself that in 5 years this will turn into a hilarious story.
Ask yourself what the worst case scenario is.  Are you going to die?  Are you going to get cancer?  Are you going to sacrifice your first born?  Is the world going to end?  Probably not so stop stressing so much.
You can make anything sound funny with the right perspective and enough time.  Think of your junior high social bloopers, your mangling of the native language on your first trip to a foreign country, your ignorance as a first time parent.  All fodder for humor now with enough perspective and enough time.

Ye of Little Faith

As I troll the internet dating sites I see a frequent self-classification:  Spiritual but not religious.  What does that mean?  I believe in God but don't attend church?  I believe in a higher power but keep it at a distance?  Men who claim this label often state that they have no preference regarding their partner's faith.  So apparently the spirituality they claim is either very private or very tepid.
I think I should clarify my own status.
How 'bout Christian but not like Jerry Falwell?
Or Christian but occasionally promote the Democrats?

Dissing the Mouse

When a handyman or contractor comes to your home to give you an estimate, your cringe if you hear them say these words,"This is so Mickey Mouse".  You know they're referring to shoddy workmanship and dollar signs start floating before your eyes as they tell you the extensive corrective measures necessary.
When did the mouse become associated with sub standard materials and labor?  Disney must be turning over in his grave.

Youth Rx

I find myself firmly planted in middle age, not ready yet to embrace "senior" despite the evidence of my AARP card, and pondering age and ageing.  Ageing is more than the passage of time and the sagging of skin and weakening of muscle. 
One benefit of the years I've lived is the development of filters.  From experience and sometimes painful experience I screen and filter many more people and things than I did when I was 20.  I choose whom to associate with and how to spend my time.  I decide who will be invited to my hearth and heart.  I even have a Christmas filter.  I choose what will fill my soul during the holidays and turn away from the shoulds and the musts.
My mom lived to 93 and I wonder if I will reach or surpass that milestone.  I seek to nurture curiosity.  Remaining curious and questioning maintains mental flexibility and staves off ageing. 
My filters protect me and my curiosity stretches me.

We All Can

Ask a 5 yr. old to paint you a picture and he will.  With enthusiasm.  Fast forward a few years and ask that now 12 yr old to paint you a picture and he'll shrug you off and say he's not an artist.  What has happened in the intervening years to dampen his enthusiasm and change his perception?  Maybe he was given a coloring book and praised for staying in the lines.  Maybe his schedule was so full with more important pursuits there was no time to doodle or draw.  Maybe his artistic expressions were criticized and not encouraged.
We are all creative although we will not all be great artists.  Creativity needs freedom to flourish.  Fear kills it.  Give yourself permission to play.  Sit down with a pad of paper and a fresh box of crayons.  Don't worry that you can't draw.  Stop the inner critic.  Embrace the 5 yr old you once were and recapture that earlier joy.