Category: Musing (Page 24 of 31)

Sigh. I had a lot on my plate Tuesday. My WIP. The seemingly catastrophic failure of my Quicken program, locking me out of all my financial data. Finishing up Blue, i.e., critiquing, for today. And yet. Without hesitation, in what felt like bad weather about to get worse, off Tom and I went to play tennis at Rock Barn Golf and Spa.  We brought iPods, just in case. There were only two clay courts [the others were flooded] so it was a mix of clay and hardtru. Not bad. So. sometimes I have to think, what draws me there every Tuesday and Thursday. Well. Yes. It is the tennis. I have a good time. I make some great shots. That’s good. I always make some not so good shots, others downright bad. That’s okay. Truth is,  no one’s life is on the line. No money is involved. I’m not holding the fate of the world in my hands.

Sometimes it’s nice to just play. To not have to worry. When we lived in Medfield and life took some wicked turns, a two hour game of tennis with tennis friends who had no clue as to my life, willing to stand on either side of the net and just play the game was a mini-vacation. It took me out of myself. Out of my life. Gave me the chance to breathe and then come back. Not always refreshed, but somehow open to getting back to it, regardless.

From the time I was in college to now, a span of some forty-five years, tennis has always been my go to relief valve. Even when the people I played with were playing a more political and manipulative game than me, I still loved it. Do love it. And I have to thank that wonderful professor at San Fernando Valley State College, whose name I can not remember, but who thought tennis was the gift God gave to us to enjoy.

And. It is.

… are a wonderful invention. Much younger I was heavily involved in the study of history, except for the Colonial period and the Civil War, I loved all history and the history of all things. And, as we, my family and I, took vacations to Carpinteria, CA [shore of the world’s safest beach] or to Carmel [where I was horribly sick on marzipans] or to Scottsdale AZ [where I learned the word macaroni] I never found references to vacations in the medieval or English history I so loved. Not that the Royals didn’t move from home to home, or, more appropriately, from castle to castle, but it wasn’t considered, as I recall it, a vacation. vacation |vāˈkā sh ən; və-|noun  an extended period of recreation, esp. one spent away from home or in traveling. Yes, they were traveling, but extended period of recreation? [recreation 1 |ˌrekrēˈā sh ən|nounactivity done for enjoyment when one is not working] so, like retirement, is this a new thing?  Most times, it was more like shoring up their political position or inserting themselves into a better position. LOL, for some, I guess that would be recreating.

Author Cindy Aron, (Cindy Aron’s book, by the way, is called “Working at Play: A History of Vacations in the United States.” She is professor of history emeriti at the University of Virginia) in an NPR article, said Until the middle of the 19th century, Americans used the word vacation the way the English do, the time when teachers and students vacate the school premises and go off on their own. In those days, a vacation was also a mark of privilege. Which makes sense. Think of the ‘cottages’ of Newport, Rhode Island. Or, the the beaches of New Jersey. Or, the compounds of Martha’s Vineyard.  Certainly not for the hoi polloi!

But, sometime in the 19th century, churches began to see the value of the vacation for the human spirit and as transportation options increased so did vacations, in availability, in choices, in attitude.

I do remember our vacations. They were not fabulous exotic spots, nor were they probably expensive locations, although I don’t know that I would have gotten that. But there were different! And, that’s how I think of a vacation. Different! A change. Life moved aside. Reading time. Exploring time. Contrasting with what I have now.

So. I just had a great vacation. Transforming in some ways. But certainly a new view.

yep! Monday. Here’s a huge secret. I LOVE  Mondays…I think they are the greatest day in the world. New. Bright. Shiny. With all kinds of possibilities. The Monday morning of my memory. It would be a cool California morning; dew on the lawn, a nip in the air. Crisp blue sky. No clouds.  Me wearing polished Buster Brown oxfords, white socks, a baby blue uniform with white collars and cuffs and two pleats down the front on either side of the zipper, a matching belt with a silver buckle.  Glossy brushed hair. A barrette holding back my recalcitrant bangs. Coming off a weekend of laughing and talking and playing and visiting. Monday. A whole new start. Never mind what the week would bring. Monday was the beginning. Time to anticipate. To relish the start. To find joy in the possibilities.

Monday’s at Villa Cabrini Academy, gone now, but vivid in my memory. We’d line up, by class, in rows of two, by height, smallest in the front, tallest in the back. I was always near or at the front. Then the martial music of John Phillips Sousa, the March King, would begin. Piped into the quadrangle over the loud speaker. We’d begin marching in place, then the two in the front would peel off, reversing, and we’d come back down in fours, then back up again, coming down in two, marching in place, then class, by class, by class, we’d move to our rooms. This was California, after all, the classrooms opened into the quadrangle, the Angeles bell tower half way between fourth grade with Mother Rosario and eighth grade with Mother Bartholomew. The school administration door just under the bell tower, the dark black of the screens as imposing as the small metal netting of the confessional,  the dark pink brown bricks cool to the touch, double wooden doors at the library. Windows in the upper portion of the classroom doors, hazy, opaque. The nuns in their black on black habits, the sliver cross large in the front.

There are those who would disparage the fervor of those nuns today. There are those who would find them passé. But they had ready laughs, pockets of candy, and the sense to know when to discipline and when to love. They gave me a life of possibilities, and gazillion Mondays…

yes, what else would you talk about on Friday the 13th? Superstition, as a kid, was always more about the excitement of or the potential, like watching a scary movie. But as an adult I find superstition much harder to understand. Paraskevidekatriaphobia: [good word, no?] the fear of Friday the 13th. Wow! How fun. It’s got it’s own word. And it’s stupid. Fun, if you think it’s a lark and use the day to have harmless fun. But stupid if it rules your life and makes you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily.

To me, superstition has more to do with how much control you have in your own life. How much you think you can manage.If you think you have little control, if you are having problems managing, then yeah! it’s someone else’s fault, be it from a curse, or you stepped on a crack or you forgot to wear you lucky underwear. Superstition. A widely held but unjustified belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action or event. So. It’s not you fault. It’s out of your control. Pooh!

So where did this come from? According to Wikipedia, Friday has been considered an unlucky day since the 14th Century. LOL, in modern times I would have put the unlucky much earlier in the week.  But of course, we have Black Friday from the stock market crash and Black Friday for the violence and mayhem at the malls. So. Okay, we’ve woven that into our consciousness.  The next is that thirteen is an unholy number. See. I would have thought nine, or even eleven. But again, we parse a lot of our history into  twelve. Twelve months of the year. Twelve apostles. Twelve tribes of Israel. Twelve gods of Olympus. So that next number, Thirteen, has to portend bad things. Okay. I get that.

Friday the 13th can happen up to three times in a single year; either in February, March and November in an ordinary year, or January, April and July in leap years.  So this year, April. Then July. Okey, dokey. Two of these this year. But truthfully, knock on wood :-)….

I’m a wonk, of sorts. No, I don’t spend time reading policy statements, so not a policy wonk. I think policies should be clear, limiting and individual. No policy should be longer than a sentence or two. The consequence of breaking the policy should be clear and concise, and the effect immediate.

I’m not a science wonk, because I’ve never spent much time with the x’s and the y’s of the math and the terminology that makes up science today is almost incomprehensible to me.

I’m not a political wonk, not tracking polls and delegate counts, almost numb to negative as well as positive ads. Although, here, I must add that I think all of these words, policy, science and politics, are neutral, neither good nor evil, they just are.  

I’m just a wonk, i.e., a studious or hardworking person. When we use wonk in terms of policy, science, politics,  we fail to mention those of us with an interest in life and all it holds can be wonks too. I like to know. Just know. Stuff.  I’ve always liked to know. And not to know a certain thing or fact. I remember my dad asking why I majored in history in college. I told him it was because then I could, with great legitimacy study just anything. Everything.  

I love the trivia of a historical moment, or a scientific breakthrough, or a policy footnote, and a biographical  notation. And I think, in all the written and verbal noise we are surrounded with today, we’ve forgotten what it means to know. Because we don’t just give facts anymore, we insert adverbs and adjectives that add portent and weight to one side or the other. Since when did knowledge have a side? Since when did knowing something denote superiority over another? Isn’t that the definition of a bully? Isn’t it just enough to continue to grow, to explore, to understand? I am thrilled by each new tidbit of knowing, excited to fill brain cells with information, information maybe never shared, but added, studied, turned over and studied again. So. Just call me a little wonky.