The Weather and My Moods

Ugh, it’s so gray looking out my window. It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve seen the sun shining and it was only yesterday that it shone so bright outside my dining room window that I had to close the curtains because it was warming the room so much. Crazy, right?

I think because this year we’ve had so much off and on raining day after day, it tends to bother me more.

Once upon a time when I was young, the weather really wasn’t of any consequence to my brothers and sisters and I, especially in the spring and summer. If we wanted to go outdoors and play, we didn’t let a little rain stop us unless it was thundering and lightning.

We used to love running around outside, splashing at one another in puddles, trying to out-do one another, getting the water being splashed higher and higher on one another until we were bored with that particular activity. There were even days when it had rained so much, we put on our raincoats and rubber boots and stood in front of the puddles in the street daring the passing cars to splash us as they passed by and believe me, plenty of drivers were more than willing to accept the challenge put to them.

There were even days when it rained so hard and so fast that the street sewers couldn’t drain fast enough, and the water would back up and fill an entire section of the street near where we lived. After the rain finished, many of the neighborhood kids as well as us would go wading in the water. And yes, this was at the time when there was no polio vaccine, and many people were afraid that the street water would give their children that dreaded disease. Personally, I never heard of anyone getting polio from our little romps into the water but I’m sure it must have happened to someone at some time in order for there to be the scare of it.

The more I think about it, the more I seem to remember how different weather used to be years ago. I can remember being at family picnics on the 4th of July and by sundown and later evening, we had to put on a sweater because it was getting so chilly.

Also, when I was in my early teens and worked in the summer on tobacco farms, there were times at six o’clock in the morning we had to put on a heavier jacket because there was practically a frost in the air. August used to be the hottest and muggiest month for us in the northeast and by September the chill was back in the air again by the time we went back to school.

The way the weather is now is much different than what I remember it being when I was a kid. We don’t seem to have much of a winter with snow and cold temperatures and by the end of March and April, we’re feeling temperatures rise into the low 50’s and upward. The spring season is short lived around here, that’s for sure, and by summer it’s so freaking hot and humid I feel like I’m going to spontaneously combust if I spend too much time outdoors not in the shade.

My son’s answer to what I say about the weather is that I’m old. As a matter of fact, that’s his answer for everything I tell him that bothers me. He enjoys busting my fanny and tries to lighten my mood if he can.

Rationally I know that I shouldn’t allow outside things to determine how I feel but none the less, I do allow it to happen for whatever reason. I think many people do. Sunshine is much easier to live with than constant or consistent grayness in my opinion for what it’s worth.

Nevertheless, the planet is getting warmer. Scientists have proven and shown us this so it makes sense that we’re going to have many days that are wet, humid and gray and I should just get used to it and not let it affect how I feel.

Today I have a choice, look at the weather and feel down or find something to occupy my time so that I’m not concerning myself with something I have no control over.

Thank you for reading.

Bedroom in the Attic

In 1964 or 65, somewhere around there, probably February or March, our family moved from the bigger apartment that we had only a few months before moved into. My grandfather had passed away in January, I think, and we were now moving into his house. Up until that time we had always lived in veteran’s housing, projects they were called, public housing where the rent was determined by your income and now, we were living in an actual, single-family house. Because of the move, we had to change schools and it was here at this new school that we met Jeanette and Suzy.

Jeanette and Suzy were sisters, like me and my sister Christine and they were our age. Our backyards met but their house was on the main drag whereas our house was on the side street, off the main drag. I cannot remember for sure whether we actually met in school or at the back fence, which ever it was, we became friends, walked to school together and hung out together all the time.

Christine and I always went over their house to hang out up in their bedroom. It was the attic of the house, and it was huge. They had the entire space of the width of the house. Jeanette’s bed was on one side and Suzy’s bed was on the other side. I remember along the walls there were smaller rooms that were more the size of low-ceilinged closets that the family used for storage and in the middle of the floor there was a large, red brick chimney reaching through the roof from the furnace in the cellar.

The four of us spent so much time up in that room doing what young teen-aged junior high and later, high school girls do, like playing rock and roll records on the phonograph, some in French language because Jeanette and Suzy were French Canadian, and they brought back records from their visits to Canada. First time I heard the song “Do Wa Diddy” in French was so cool. It really had never occurred to me that records I listened to all the time could be sung in anything but English. How naive I was back then, funny to think about now.

In Jeanette and Suzy’s attic room we spent many hours making up our faces with the latest eyeliners, eyes shadows, mascaras, blushes and the like. Christine and I certainly couldn’t do all this at home. At a time when miniskirts and go go boots were the rage, make-up, short skirts, and pierced ears, etc. were not allowed by my father. I think he was afraid of what was coming with his kids growing up, especially his daughters but it never stopped us from wanting to know about all of this stuff just the same, so we did it out of his sight.

Wow, all of that was so long ago and I have no idea whatever happened to Jeanette and Suzy after they left high school. I know Christine used to run into Jeanette every once in a while, on her way to work in the morning after her divorce but after that, nothing.

Funny how when I was fourteen, fifteen years old these things seemed so important for me to do. I wanted to fit in and be the same as everyone else but in the here and now, it was just another part of my growing up and becoming the person that I am today, and it ended up being so insignificant I nearly forgot about the bedroom in the attic altogether.

Thank you for reading.

World Suicide Prevention Awareness Day

September 10, this is the day that my daughter Katie took her own life nineteen years ago.

I have often wondered if at the time she knew the significance of the date when she did it. It was only after her death in 2003 that I learned that World Suicide Prevention Awareness Day was established the same day that she died.

Every year since Katie’s passing, I can not let the day pass without writing something about her or suicide. I know first hand the devastation and heartbreak that goes along with the death of a loved one by suicide. The feeling of emptiness in the place in your heart that their presence used to fill is always there. Nobody and nothing can ever replace them and for years afterwards one goes over and over the events of the day, trying to figure out if there is something they could have said or done to prevent that person from taking their own life.

Katie was a delightful person to know. I was very lucky and blessed to have her in my life as my daughter for the short twenty-eight years that she was here on this planet.

RIP Katherine Sherwood 5/15/75 – 9/10/03

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts or actions call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 1-800-273-TALK (8255). suicidepreventionlifeline.org

My Sister’s Black Underwear

For anyone who’s never read my blog before, I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s. It was customary for girls to wear dresses everywhere except outside to play. There was no such thing as wearing pants, shorts or midriff showing shirts to school, church or even shopping. You were expected to be dressed appropriately. My parents, I should say, my father at least made sure that we were dressed appropriately before we left the house. He would always have us line up and inspect us to make sure that the hems on our dresses were at what he thought was a decent length below our knees. With him, our skirts were always too short, showed too much knee.

We were a rowdy bunch for sure, my brothers, sisters and me. We would slide down the stairs on pieces of cardboard or a square of linoleum like it was a hillside covered with snow, turn over chairs in the living room, throwing a blanket over the top to make a fort and sometimes would run around in circles from living room to hall to kitchen to dining room and back. I know we made our mom plenty crazy at times.

One day after school we were all horsing around in the living room. I think my sister and I had started Jr. high that September but we didn’t think of ourselves as too old yet to play a little rough house with all the younger kids, so here we all are, rolling around on the floor, arms and legs flailing each and every which way and my sister stops what she is doing and gives me such an angry face, demanding to know why I was wearing her black underwear. I told her that I was not wearing her black underwear and did not know what she was talking about. She then told me that she had seen them when I was flailing about on the floor. At that point I became really embarrassed because it was then I remembered that that morning, I had put on a pair of underwear with a small hole in it. I told her about the hole, and we were now both embarrassed. We then both looked at one another and burst out laughing.

That story turned out to be one of the funniest memories that my sister and I ever shared with one another.

Thinking of you Christine.

Thank you for reading.

What to Eat or Not to Eat

Food is not just for nourishment anymore. Everyone wants to be the most creative with their flavors to outdo everyone else.

Food, it’s become something of a superstar, hasn’t it? Every time you turn around there’s some kind of new cooking show or competition on television. Personally, I love watching them. I love to see the creativeness of the competitors. I especially enjoy the baking shows and competitions, seeing what great ideas they have come up with.

I have such a horrible relationship with food. I love it and I hate it. I know that food is something I need to live but everything that I eat tastes so good to me that I do not want to settle for eating just a little bit of it. And why for the life of me would I not want to eat the foods that taste the best to me? Even the people who only eat for the nourishment that their body needs want their food to taste good.

Someone once told me that to lose the weight that I wanted to lose, I had to switch to food that I really didn’t like the taste of. I couldn’t do it. When it comes to good eating habits, I’m a failure.

Honestly, I believe myself to be a food addict. That’s right, a food addict. I say this because I’ve thought about my eating habits and realized that it’s not so much of what I’m eating and when but a question of how I’m feeling when I’m eating. I feel good when I’m eating. Content, if you will. Satisfied even.

This revelation on my part is not something that just came to me in a dream overnight. I’ve given quite a bit of thought to why I’ve gotten as heavy as I have. I certainly didn’t ever intend on gaining so much weight but there it is facing me every time I see myself reflected back to me in a mirror or a storefront window. I hate myself seeing what I look like and feel quite disgusted.

There was a time when I went with a friend of mine to Overeaters Anonymous meetings, but I couldn’t continue with it. I just could not keep calling myself a compulsive overeater without feeling like I was being false. I knew that I did not overeat compulsively. If I overate, it was at mealtimes mostly.

When I pictured someone overeating compulsively, I pictured seeing someone’s large back as they were hunched over a table, stuffing food in their mouth and not being able to stop. I did not eat like that. I ate a normal three times a day, sometimes snacks in between but I was not constantly shoving food into my mouth. So, after a while I had a very hard time relating to the other people at the meetings and stopped going.

Actually, I’m addicted to the taste of foods. I get cravings for certain tastes at times. For instance, the taste of fried fish and chips, onion rings, french fries, etc. and that’s what I eat a lot of for a short period of time. Then maybe I’ll get cravings for something sweet, so I’ll make a cake or a quick bread, etc. Then at other times I crave something salty. What I eat and how much is determined by what my cravings are at the moment. Maybe that makes me a binge eater, I don’t know. Whatever kind of eater I am, it’s helped me to pack on the pounds and frankly, I really don’t see a big change anytime soon. Maybe Dr. Wayne Dyer is correct about me and people who are overweight, “We are just not willing to do what is necessary to lose the weight.”

The most I can do for myself and my addiction to food is live in the moment, one day at a time and try not to beat myself up so much about it. Like Popeye says, “I am what I am”.

Thank you for reading.

Eighteen Years and Counting

Today marks the eighteenth anniversary of my daughter Katie’s death by suicide. She was twenty eight years old.

Nothing in the world prepares you for the death of your child. It breaks my heart to think that Katie was in so much pain and the only way she could think to end the pain was to end her life.

It takes a very long time to get through the grief of having your child die but getting over their death is something that never happens. Living with their loss is something that you have to teach yourself how to do. It’s a personal process and what works for some may not work for others.

Katie

Katie was a delightful human being and a joy to be around. Everyone who knew her loved her so much. I wish she could have valued herself as much as others valued her. The world is a much darker place without her in it.

I believe that people who die by suicide do not wish to die. I believe that they are in so much mental pain and they just want it to stop.

If you are having thoughts of suicide tell someone. Call 1-800-273-TALK(8255) or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Thank you for reading.

“I’m Free, White and Over 21”

Are you shocked? Good! It’s a shocking statement. It’s nothing to do with politics in case anyone is thinking about my not being politically correct. It is all to do with being a white person, me, living in a country that still treats people of color like they do not deserve to be treated like human beings. Like they are “less than”, valueless and that their lives do not matter simply because of the color of their skin.

When I was growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, I heard this expression quite a bit. It was common to hear it said in movies made in the era of the first “talkies”, right up through the early 60’s. It was even written on the screen in dialog in silent pictures. Hell, I may have even said these words myself at some point. These words are about being able to do exactly as you want, whenever you want and to hell with what anyone else thinks. Providing of course, that your skin is white.

It has been my experience that many white folks that I have tried talking to about the “Black Lives Matter” demonstrations, do not want to talk to me about it. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard, “It should be all lives matter”, and when I try to speak about why we should consider what is happening in black communities all over this country, I am told that they can see that I am not the person that they should be talking to about this subject.

Try to imagine for a few minutes what it might be like being a person of color in this country. Have you ever heard the expression, “walk a mile in my shoes”?

I’m not saying try to imagine what it is to have a different color skin or anything like that but imagine that your teenaged kid gets stopped by the police. If you are white skinned, have you ever had to tell your kid, if you get stopped by the cops, don’t run! If you’re driving and get pulled over, tell the police, before you move, that you’re only reaching for your wallet. As a white person in America, I have never had to even think about having to tell my kid these things.

My son Adam had gotten himself into trouble quite a few times when he was in his teen years and even into his early 20’s. He told me about a time, he was 19, driving around with some of his friends and one kid who was a friend of a friend started waving around a toy gun. Someone, outside the car or in another vehicle called the police and said they saw a gun. My son told me they were stopped by a full-on SWAT team, several guns pointed at him and his passengers. He was instructed to put both hands on the top of the windshield, (he was driving a convertible, top down), and open his door by using the outside handle, and very slowly get out of the car.

When I heard this story my heart skipped a beat with all that I imagined could have happened to my son. At the time, he thought it was funny, even singing the song “Bad Boys, Bad Boys” when he was sitting in the back of the cruiser. All I could think was, what if the policeman’s gun went off and I said that to him. And being the young and foolish person that he was at the time, it didn’t concern him and the only thing that happened to them was they got a severe dressing down and warning from the police officers. What I think now is, what if my son had been a young man of color, would he even still be here to tell the tale? When I talked to him about it earlier today, I asked him, how did he think it would have ended if he had been a young man of color. His face changed dramatically and he pursed his lips and said, “given the way things are going these days, I’m sure it would have ended a whole lot different”.

Being a white person in America isn’t anything I ever really think about, ever. Why would I? I simply take it for granted, it’s no big deal to me. I have been discriminated against because I am a woman and now sometimes because I have grey hair and well past the age of consent but not because of the color of my skin. I have never been stopped by the police or anyone else for walking down the street in a neighborhood that is inhabited predominantly by people of color and I have never been pulled over in my car simply because of the color of my skin and accused because I fit a certain profile.

I think it is well beyond high time that we, white people of America started having the conversation that is long overdue. Racism in America is a real thing. Yes, it’s true ALL lives do matter but how about just this once you get over your white self and stop being resentful because you think someone is getting something that is supposed to be yours. Ask yourself why is it I think I’m supposed to have it all anyway? Who the hell am I? Try to admit that right now in America a lot of bad things are happening to people just because they were not born with white skin. Perhaps once we can admit to the problem we can find a solution to the problem. One can only hope.

Thank you for reading.

Elderly: Emergency Pullcords in the Bathroom or Bedroom? Useless Unless Someone Listens!

This morning I went out for my usual morning walk. I went to the mailbox, checked my mail, no mail, proceeded down the street to finish my walk.

I came upon a gentleman about my same age, (I’m soon to be 69), who was walking his dog. He asked, “Do you hear that?” I said, “yes, do you know which building it is?” and he said, “yes, it’s down by my apartment.” and proceeded to bitch out everyone else within hearing distance of the emergency call for help signal we were both listening to. He acted totally disgusted that no one else was trying to find out if anyone who might have pulled the emergency call button in either their bathroom or bedroom might need some help.

I slowly shook my head back and forth and told him how I used to react every time I heard those emergency sounds but I no longer do because for one, most are accidentally set off and two, because no one else makes any attempt to find out if the person actually needs help. I have found my self too many times to count the only idiot banging on someone’s door or quickly entering into their apartments only to find them oblivious to the sound with a startled look on their faces from my barging into their apartment.

One time, a guy was actually in his shower and here I am knocking on his bathroom door asking him if he’s ok. After a few knocks on the door, he finally heard me, grabbed a towel, put it in front of his private parts and reluctantly opened the door a crack. I felt like a total idiot that day and decided from then on out I was not going to be any kind of a first responder.

So this morning that is exactly what I decided about the emergency signal I was hearing. As I continued on my walk, the sound kept on. I kept watching the surrounding buildings to see if anyone was going to at least stick their heads out to see if anyone else was doing anything about it. No one! Not one single freaking person gave a shit enough to even be curious.

In spite of how anxious I was beginning to feel because no one was responding, including myself, I kept on walking, determined to not have to be the one who cared enough to actually respond to someone’s call for help. As I walked I kept listening to hear if the signal stopped but it didn’t.

Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore and I headed back the way I came. I found the building where the light outside was flashing and pounded on all four doorbells in the building. I could hear people talking inside and finally someone came to the secure outer door. I told the guy that someone in his building had pulled an emergency cord and maybe needed help. He said, “I thought it was the other building” and I said “no, the light is flashing on your building”. Then his wife came out of their apartment and said, “but she’s not home”, meaning their next door neighbor and I said, “well someone in this building pulled the cord either accidentally or intentionally because the light is flashing and I hear it. Don’t you hear that?” They looked at me stupidly and I said, “well, will you at least check their doors?” and I walked away. I figured I did my part and walked back home.

After I got back home I opened my bedroom window and kept listening to hear if the emergency signal stopped. It didn’t. It kept on going for at least another fifteen minutes. Finally I called the police. Not 911, just the police. When I told the operator where I lived and what was going on he told me that the police and fire department had been notified and were there. I finally relaxed.

If you’re elderly and you think you’re going to be ok if you need help because you have the emergency pull cords in your bathroom or bedroom, you may want to invest in one of those emergency necklaces because most people who hear your signal will ignore it, hoping that someone else will come along and do something about it.

You know, I get it. Nobody wants to be the guy who steps up and does what needs to be done. All I know is that I am going to try my damnedest to stay as fit as I can for as long as I can because I know that I’m really fucked if I try and depend on the goodness of strangers to help save my life.

Thank you for reading.

What Is a Friend?

Last night I was selfish. I was deliberately being selfish but I felt justified.

At 9:30 pm, I was contentedly sitting there watching a television program and my phone rang. It was a woman who had told me not even a month ago that we were not friends. That’s right, the last time we talked on the phone she was complaining about how she didn’t have any friends and I asked her, “well what was I?“

I remember feeling like she had slapped me in the face when she told me this but I was calm and I listened as she continued to explain how she had come to that conclusion. “After all” she said, “we don’t go out to eat or go anywhere together, do we?”

I guess she doesn’t think that knowing someone for thirty five years, and speaking at times quite intimately about our daughters and their deaths and sharing intimate information about relationships does not constitute a friendship.

Stupid me! To think that all this time I have made time for her to talk to me when she would call, later than what I considered to be a decent hour, because she had something troubling her. After all, good friends listen when their friends need them to, don’t they?

When this woman told me that she didn’t think that we were friends, I remember giving it quite a bit of thought. I thought, ok, what exactly can I say that we are? I suddenly felt the need to give it a label so that I could make sense of it in my mind. We had shared personal information about one another so I constituted that as more than an acquaintance. Hmmm, so what is the next step up from acquaintanceship I wonder? Is it me who is wrong in thinking it is friendship?

I have decided that no, it is not me who is wrong thinking our relationship was a friendship. I know what it is to be a friend to someone, she obviously does not. At the very least, we have what I am going to call “a fair-weathered friendship”. When it is she who needs something from me, she calls, no matter the time, day or night.

Last night I decided to put myself and my needs before hers. After tolerating the conversation for twenty minutes that sounded to me like it was just getting started, feeling put upon and irritated, I told her that it was getting late and that I really had to go to the bathroom. She said, “ok” laughed, “sorry, goodbye” and hung up.

On the one hand, I sleep at night and wake up early in the morning. I consider 9:30 pm to be on the late side and would never call anyone at that time unless it was an emergency. She, on the other hand is awake most of the night and sleeps during the day so I do understand how she might think 9:30 pm is still early.

I have to say though, it is not entirely all her fault. She has called late in the past and I have allowed it so it is me who taught her that it is ok for her to do that according to Dr. Wayne Dyer in his self help books, (“We teach people how to treat us”) However, NO MORE! Next time, I won’t even answer if I don’t feel like talking at that time.

To tell the truth, I really don’t think about how good or bad to me my friends are. My friends are simply, my friends.

It is only after someone who I think is my friend actually comes out and does or says something to the contrary that I realize where I stand with them. After that, it doesn’t take a hammer on my head for me to know that someone isn’t my friend. From then on it’s fine with me……their loss.

Thank you for reading.

September 10, 2020

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day.  It’s also been known as World Suicide Awareness Day.  It was started on September 10, 2003.

September 10, 2003 is also the day that my daughter Katie died by suicide.   After getting out of work at 9 P.M., I came home to what at first looked like a dark, empty apartment.  Katie should have been there but I didn’t see her anywhere at first.  It was only after a brief, anxious search that I found her dead in her bedroom.

Katie was a delightful young woman of 28.  She was loved by so many people.  I do not know for sure why my daughter took her own life.  I can only guess what her true reason might have been.

When I think back now on that time seventeen years ago, I see that I missed a lot, and, that my daughter was very good at appearing to be her normal self.

I knew Katie was feeling more and more aggravated with things going on at home and at work.  Her car broke down and we couldn’t get it fixed.  She felt she had to beg for whatever she got from her father.  She was listening to sad music and it did not do anything to lift her spirits.

As much as I knew that Katie was not feeling as happy and carefree as she once had, suicide is not what I thought would ever happen with my daughter.  It never even entered my mind.  I thought, ok, a bad time yes, she would get over it eventually as we all usually do but that is not what happened.

If I could live that day over, would I do anything different?  Being the person I was then, probably not.  Being who I am now as a result of Katie’s suicide, I would definitely do something different.

I would have stayed home from work with Katie and taken her to the emergency room after she hugged me before I left for work.  It was much more than a normal hug.  She held me tighter and longer than she ever did.  I know now she was saying good bye to me.

People who are having suicidal thoughts do not always tell anyone they are having these thoughts.

People who are having suicidal thoughts do not want to die, they are in pain and want the pain to stop.

People who attempt suicide are not doing it for the attention.

People who say they will kill themselves may very well do it.

If you know someone who is having suicidal thoughts or showing suicidal actions or if you are having suicidal thoughts call

1-800-273-TALK (8255) Suicide Prevention Lifeline