Broken Record

Have you ever found yourself repeating the same story over and over again? If you say no, think again, because I think this tendency is part of the human condition. I’ve caught myself doing this with my closest family members and best friends—people who patiently listen to my stories and vents and are too courteous to tell me that I am repeating myself, again.

So I have a theory on why I (and other people) do this. I believe that in telling and retelling and retelling the story again and again, I am seeking resolution—some way to explain the sorrow or injustice or fear or pain at the center of the story, so that I can move on. But it’s like a broken record—it skips at the very same place and will keep repeating over and over again until I am able to take action by lifting up the needle and setting it down in another groove. (for those of you from generation whatever, see this link for the mechanics of phonograph records and needles.)

How, oh how, do you get to the next groove? That is the question.

You (and others if they get too tired of your repetition) can scream, “Stifle yourself!” at the first sign of broken record syndrome. But this does little or nothing to fix the problem...just as yelling at a skipping record album will not reset it to a new groove.

You have to finish the story. Explain it to yourself in a positive “I can move on now,” sort of way. Cognitive therapy is about this to some degree—hear the distorted thinking in your story (the catastrophic fear, the all-encompassing assumption, the unfounded guilt) and then offer yourself an counter-argument to keep it in perspective.

Suppose one of the repeating stories is about being a mother and making a mistake. Great mothers do make mistakes, because we are talking about on-the-job training here for one of the hardest jobs in the world, and nobody is perfect. Instead of going over and over the mistake you made, think of the ten things you did well as a mother recently—and write them down. Oh yes, you will come up with them once you get started. Because in all likelihood you are a good person, a good mother. Not perfect, but doing the best you can. This is what you would tell yourself if you could step outside and look back in.

And when someone else is being a broken record, help divert that person too—help him or her remember all the good things and finish the story in a positive way. As my Dad would have said, “I’d do it for a dog.”

Hearts on a Swing

On Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall is a life-size sculpture by George Lundeen called “Hearts on a Swing.” The young girl sits on a swing with a row of hearts carved on the backrest, with a small smile on her face. The girl on the swing looks a little like my younger sister Nell, and always reminds me of the summer more than 25 years ago when she came to live in Boulder for awhile. We lived down on the 600 block of Marine Street then and had a great front porch, with a swing. We would sit on the porch, play guitars, sing folk songs.

We were younger and freer, very carefree it seemed back then, before my children were born and while our family was still intact. One evening Nell and I strolled in the warm summer air down the street to a little grocery store to get some cherries and ate them on the way back to the house.

As we walked back, eating the cherries on the way, a porch full of young men called out, “Hey, ladies, will you share your cherries?”

“Gentlemen, please,” I replied in my driest voice. We walked on, laughing. I confess it felt good to be admired, even in so crude a way. I remember it as a good summer.

Mother's Day 2007

A Boulder Camera editorial by Juliana Forbes, co-founder of a group called “Mothers Acting Up” (MAU), has reminded me of the origins of Mother’s Day.

It was Julia Ward Howe’s idea, right at the end of the devastating American Civil War in 1870. Why couldn’t mothers band together to “interfere” in matters such as war, when it is mothers who understand best the terrible waste of human life represented by these conflicts?

It is true – Mother’s Day was not invented by Hallmark Card, but by a mother who wanted to make a difference. MAU urges all mothers (and others) to “reclaim Mother’s Day.”

My own Mom acted up in her own way from time to time. She was a 5th grade teacher in rural Indiana at a school with mostly female teachers, a male supervisor and a school board run by men (surprise) in the 50s, 60s and 70s. And guess what, sometimes she had to argue for the right thing for teachers, kids and the school, risking her job. Sometimes there were kids living on the back country roads in dire circumstances, without the basics of cleanliness or food. Classes were overcrowded, and there were few services to help kids at risk with mental illness or family challenges. Once we took in a little girl for a few weeks while her own mom was in jail. The little girl slept in my room each night, and I would get up and get Mom who would come in to give hugs and comfort.

My mom was a pleasant woman with a dry sense of humor who rarely engaged in open conflict, and yet she had a way of getting you to do what she wanted a lot of the time. As a grandmother when I had my first baby, she was there with Mark and me all through labor and childbirth, offering no advice unless asked first, just adding her quiet strength and comfort.

Here she is in the hospital room holding Shannon right after he was born--if she looks a little tired it is probably because it was around 1 in the afternoon, and she had been up since 3 am the night before. Mom's been gone for nearly 9 years now, but to this day she is an inspiration to me.

Happy Mother's Day.

Rain

It's been raining more than usual here in Colorado, a very welcome event. The rain, and the time of year, remind me of a song by Adam Duritz of the Counting Crows called Omaha. It's from their 1993 album “August and Everything After” that always makes me think of my brother Paul, who told me once that it was one of his very favorite tunes. As usual, it is the lyrics that draw me most to a song I love.

It starts out with a verse about an old man—tearing him down, rolling a new leaf over. “The old man treading around in the gathering rain,” is perhaps somebody who thinks he is so right that he walks on water. This makes me think about my brother's relationship with my dad. They loved each other, and each could never be what the other needed.

Then the chorus comes in for the first time.

“Omaha, somewhere in middle America

Get right to the heart of matters

It's the heart that matters more

I think you better turn your ticket in

And get your money back at the door”

My brother and I grew up with our family in middle America – southern Indiana to be exact. The song makes me think of Indiana’s best seasons--the rain, the earth, the green fields.

The next verse is about life change or the hope for change —“rolling a new life over.” In this verse the old man is “threading his toes through a bucket of rain.” My father was a master gardener. Dad would often garden in the rain, or simply stand outside during a rainfall to revel in the water coming for the garden or to admire the lightning show. We all tried to help him with the garden, although his standards were so high that it was hard to please him. Even weeding and watering have a right way and a wrong way, could be judged insufficient, you see. It could feel like he was walking all over you. He didn’t mean to, but he did.

For Paul, I can imagine there was always the hope of ultimately pleasing him, somehow or another. But Dad was walking on water, and Paul was underwater.

In the third verse, there is a “young man rolling around in the earth and rain” in order to “turn a new girl over.” Paul had a hard time with relationships, in his own family and with girls. In the end, he was never really able to find a long term relationship for many reasons, mostly due to his own choices and because he struggled with mental illness and addictions. He was very lonely, I think. (To “get right to the heart of the matter – it’s the heart that matters most.”)

In the end, perhaps we all want to turn our tickets in and get our money back at the door. We all have our hearts broken. This song has heart – listen to it when you get a chance. You'll be glad you did.

At the Farmer's Market

Boulder’s Farmer’s Market is in full swing each Saturday now, and jam packed with people looking for fresh organic vegetables, flowers, seeds, jellies and jams. People of all ages crowd into the market, including babies in backpacks, children and teenagers in tie-died t-shirts, musicians, and older people of the gray-haired variety like us. After our morning walk we stroll through to find the fresh asparagus we have in mind for dinner. “Just picked this morning,” says the cheery lady behind the counter.

Mark points out that usually when he buys organic vegetables they are more expensive and don’t taste as good. Bah, humbug. We pay 5 solid dollars for the bunch of thick asparagus spears in the spirit of sustainability, and hope they will not be too tough.

We get points for low food miles when we buy the locally grown asparagus. I heard this concept on NPR this week in their new series on sustainability, although I think it is not completely new to me. The concept of food miles is the number of miles a food must be transported to get to you. The assumption is that buying locally produced food is more sustainable because less energy is used. Of course, transportation is not the only measure of energy used to produce food. So if the tomatoes or asparagus at the Farmer’s Market today were grown in a hot house requiring electricity produced from a non-sustainable source, all bets are off on feeling noble about the food miles.

I would imagine bananas a very bad, since they don’t grow in the United States. My strawberries-in-the-dead-of-winter habit is also an issue.

Is there even the smallest sacrifice we are all willing to make for the Earth?

Mark and I are faithful recyclers at least. The Farmer’s Market had several Zero Waste Stations set up. Some of us are trying, but we need to try a lot harder

Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone -
Paved paradise and put up a parking lot. - Joni Mitchell