Nostalgia Runs Sweet

Today my big sister turns 71.  

Yesterday I reconnected with my best friend from college with whom I haven't talked in over 25 years.  I recently had lunch with my former neighbors and boss of 30 years ago.  Over the past few years I have been hanging with some of my high school friends with whom I had not seen in 50 years.

Last year my sister and my husband turned 70.  I had forgotten that they would be another year older when their birthdays came around and had to ask my partner how old he was now so I could remember how old my sister would be. My elder son will be 50 in the new year; my younger son 48.  My grandboy was 16 last July, driving cars and taking college classes.  

Sesame Street began 50 years ago.  The Simpsons began 30 years ago.  Episodes of I love Lucy have never been off the air since the program started in 1951.

And today my big sister turns 71.

My family used to go camping and boating all year round.  I remember on some of the hottest days in the world we were camping on the Colorado River.  Temps were in the 120s by day and chilled down to the high 90s at night.  And the river was right there for us to dip into and cool off.  My sister and I each would take a friend with us many times.  One time Marcy came along.  One time Cindy.  One time Steve.  Swimming and skiing and riding.  And vacations on the San Joaquin River, with ice cold lemonade while sitting on the dock at New Hope Landing.  Taking the boat out to the levee along the sloughs to play all day on the beaches, exploring the old houses along levee in the evenings behind the Landing.

High school dances, poster parties, football games.  Gosh I loved going to football games, yelling and cheering the team on. And then going to Ozzie's or Shakey's after the game.  It was a badge of honor to return to school on Monday still hoarse from screaming the Friday night before.  Cruising along Central Blvd when there wasn't a game, scoping out the boys.  Picnics and heart breaks and trying new things.  Smoking pot out in the desert with strange new friends.  Driving my '56 VW up and down the hills along the vineyards, the quarter glass or valence window turned in so Cindy and I would get the full wind in our face, pretending we were race drivers.

Seeing old friends for the first time from Internet #41plus as I drove across the states every summer.  Meeting new loves who broke my heart.  Meeting my fella who has been with me for 23 years.  

Working every day of the year while going to college. End-of-Term parties three times a year where, at times, up to 50 people would stop by to help empty that pony keg. Working at two colleges, on four campuses, for six years including fulltime at the university for three, and then a full-time career 26 years at the college. 

And today my big sister turns 71.

Where did time go?  Where did energy go?  Where did those grunts and wheezes come from as I get out of the chair or plop down after a long-standing quilting time?  When did I start going to bed at 11:00 and sleeping in until 8?  

I recently read that nostalgia is the file that smooths out the rough edges of time.  I know there were hurts and arguments and loneliness on the past--many hurts and arguments and loneliness--but I smile as I remember all the times I have lived.  

And I really lived.  Am really living.  Tasting the moments, entering the adventures with open-arms along the journey of my life.

And you know what?  My big sister turns 71 today, this last day of 2019.

And so it goes
peace~~~

Monday: How the Hell Did It Come Around Again?

Seems like it was just Friday night and TaDa!  It's Monday again.  I might be retired but Mondays are still Mondays.  I woke up early and am watching the sun rise under the Portland cloudy skies.

It seems silly to love weekends just as much as when I was working, but there you have it.  My fella has weekends off and I like him being home.  We both had adventures this weekend.  He had Drum Circle.  In winters, they have the circle in different participant's homes.  There were about eight or nine people here in our living room.  I don't participate, but the sounds of the circle were wonderful and energizing.

I had a few things to do this weekend, also.  Quilting out in the studio--need to finish those Christmas quilts.  The Christmas Bazaar--needed to walk every mile of the event to the point of not walking again for a couple days :)  And then the pièces de résistance--dinner with my wonderful old friends from my Southeast Portland days and Minit Mart/Candy's Kwik Shop.  We've known each other for maybe 40 years.  Lots of chatter.  Lots of memories.  Lots of hugs.  We do this every year and it is always a great event.  Even as the group gets smaller, this year did not disappoint.


But today is Monday.  Can't trust that day.  So instead of babbling on about nothing, I will wander off and find something to do with my day before it hits me I am actually awake.

And so it goes
peace~~~

Thursday Throwback--Getting a Job in 1975

When I first became a single mom in 1975, I knew I needed some type of training so I could learn skills to get jobs.  I had two young sons and could therefore have stayed on welfare until they went to school.  But I didn't want to.  Sometimes looking back, I wonder if I should have instead of leaving my kids with my neighbor.  But I digress.

Looking for that job...trying to find the thing I was good at doing and makes me happy and pays me enough to feed the kids.  Not an easy process.  All the jobs listed in the paper seemed to be asking for someone who wasn't me.  I didn't want to go door-to-door selling things on commission.  I had tried selling Avon and Tupperware in the past and knew I wasn't cut out to do that type of thing.  

But I was determined.  Luckily I found a goverment-funded program that could help me move forward: The Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, or CEDA.  CEDA was a law enacted in 1973 created to train workers and provide them with jobs in the public service. The program offered work to those with low incomes and the long term unemployed as well as summer jobs to low income high school students. Full-time jobs were provided for a period of 12 to 24 months in public agencies or private not for profit organizations. The intent was to impart a marketable skill that would allow participants to move to an unsubsidized job. It was an extension of the Works Progress Administration, or WPA, program from the 1930s. I was offered a one-year position  as a teacher's aide in Special Education at Portland Public Schools.  I was then hired by PPS as a full-time teacher aide. 

I loved the work.  For the first two years I worked with kids with Language Disorders at Creston School with the wonderful Dorris Pooley.  The third year I moved to Boise School where I helped create a Special Education Resource Center with the incredible Reba Parker.  I had the fun of driving to all the schools to deliver resources.  I also created meetings for the aides so we could share resources and information. By the end of that year, a new job was created for me to be coordinator of the teacher aides. 

At that time, I was making about $7000/year.  Even given it was in the mid-seventies, it was low pay.  The top salary for an aide was about $10,000/year.  I noticed that teacher starting salary was $10,000...I did the math...I looked at our future and saw college was needed.  So I jumped into Portland State University with both feet.  My goal was to become a Special Ed teacher.   Meanwhile, I started working part time at the little store across the street from our house.  These were two of the best decisions I ever made--attending PSU and working for Bill and Candy.

My second term in college, I taughta lab class for the Speech Communication department.  The idea of teaching college was planted in the back of my brain.  But when I graduated, I wanted to be a writer, a journalist, a PR writer....  

Jobs were hard to find in 1982.  The economy was down and the joke was "How many Oregonians does it take to change a lightbulb?  Only one but 400 applied for the job."  So I continued to work at the little store across the street and took any part-time work that came my way, from sweeping the parking lot to gathering up and turning in newspapers for recycle, to tending to an elderly neighbor, to taking care of my boyfriend who was a quadriplegic.  We managed the best we could.

When I was called to apply as a grad assistant in the Department of Speech Communication at PSU, I jumped at the chance.  The rest is Educational History.  Well, at least my educational history.

After graduation, I went on to teach college part-time for maybe five or six years.  I would take any teaching job available (I called myself "an educational prostitute;" I have always been a classy gal), would drive 50, 60 or so miles a week between schools and campuses (thus became "roadbabe").  I built up experience and networks.  I continued to teach part-time at Portland Community College when I was offered a full-time grant-funded teaching position at Portland State.  And when I was offered a one-year temp position at PCC, I was told that PSU would hold my full-time job for me in case I didn't get the full-time position at PCC.  I did get the job.

It sounds like I magically got the jobs throughout my career.  But it wasn't magic.  I worked hard in each area to build up experience, networking, and trust.  I loved all my jobs (well except that one Christmas when I worked for UPS...oh gawd I hated that driving/delivery job!) and if I wasn't making enough to keep my family fed and clothed, I took on another job.  I applied for positions just like everyone else.  I was turned down for many a job.  I just barely eked into the full-time position at PCC because the committee really liked this one man a great deal and almost went with him instead.  But I did persevere.  And I got lucky.  And I was good at what I did (well..except that UPS job :/), loved the customers and students and colleagues wherever I worked. 

Getting jobs, starting careers in the 1970s, 1980s was a whole different animal than it is today.  It was personal with walking into stores and meeting the owners or asking and returning job applications.  It was having friends or colleagues telling you about jobs and helping you figure out the ropes.  It was no easier but it was different than today.

And so it goes.
peace~~~

What the Hell?

We don't get it.  A person is born.  Genitals are checked.  Sex is determined.  End of discussion.  We wrap that little one in the appropriate colored blanket and off we go.  Chemicals and hormones and DNA in the baby are different, which changes brain and muscle and "bornthatway" responses if they have male or female genitals.  And the sex of that baby tells us how to interact with them.  Those interactions are how we engender a child.

• We pick up, comfort, and hold pink-blanketed babies more than blue-blanketed babies
• We use different voice inflections when we talk to pink-blanketed babies than blue-blanketed babies
• We use different words when we speak such as, "Oh isn't she sweet?" and "What a big boy." 
• As they grow, we hold closer and encourage less wandering to pink-blanketed babies, allowing blue-blanketed babies to wander and explore more.
• Media images show kids how to use space between pink-blanked children and between blue-blanketed children

In other words one's gender, a complicated process which is severely simplified here, is shaped by what we believe to be that child's sex: the interactions, media images, educational experiences, peer interactions.

Sex: genitals and DNA and internal stuff

Gender: how we teach a kid to be male or female

Gender identity: how a person feels inside and how they express those feelings.  Clothing, appearance, and behaviors can all be ways to express one's gender identity.

Most people feel that they’re either male or female.  Some people feel like a masculine female, or a feminine male.  Some people feel neither male nor female.  Some people’s assigned sex and gender identity are pretty much the same, or in line with each other.  Other people feel that their assigned sex is of the other gender from their gender identity (i.e., assigned sex is female, but gender identity is male).  (Sex, Gender, and Gender Identity)

 

According to Transgender Children and Youth, most children and teens go through “phases”--like only wearing all black, dying their hair, being obsessed with a certain band or asking to go by a nickname--but being transgender is not a phase, and trying to dismiss it as such can be harmful during a time when your child most needs support and validation. 

You think this is easy for them?  That kid often goes through hell--mixed up feelings, people telling them how they should feel, frightened to talk about it with friends and parents.  Many transgender young people experience family rejection, bullying and harassment, or feel unsafe for simply being who they are.  More than half of transgender male teens (who participated in a survey through American Academy of Pediatrics) reported attempting suicide in their lifetime, while 29.9 percent of transgender female teens said they attempted suicide.  MORE THAN FIFTY PERCENT!  That's frightening and horrible.  We must protect our kids.

Protection means supporting the kid.  Reach out to the trans kids in your life.  Educate yourself on the biggest issues facing the trans community.  Listen and give asked-for advice.  Help them learn to stand up for themself when it is safe to do so, as well as teaching them when it is safe.  Help schools realize they need to create a safe environment for all students to learn by creating non-discriminating policy.  Reach out.

And know what?  We don't have to "get it."  There's a whole lot of life out there that we just don't get but we accept and move on.  Sure, it would be easier for us if we understood that gender identity thing.  If it's easier for us, we make it easier for them.  But we don't have to "get it" in order to love, protect, and respect that kid.  

Reach out.  Protect.  Listen.  Love.

peace~~~