Author: Danita W.

One, two buckle my shoe…. I loved them, the black patent leather Mary Jane shoes I had in second grade. I shined them up with just a tiny dab of Vaseline and lots of buffing. The pure white anklets I wore with them were just perfect. Of course I also had my school shoes,   serviceable but boring black oxfords. My Mom insisted that I save my patent leather shoes for church and special occasions, the oxfords were for school. My boots were red rubber ones with the single side button closure. My genius and somewhat devious plot was to wear my patent leather shoes under my boots and waltz out to school. It worked a few times, but on good weather days I had a hard time justifying the boots and besides my Mom had found my ugly shoes hidden in the back of the closet. So began my shoe obsession.

Shoe wise, elementary and high school were a bit boring, except for platform shoes and go-go boots. I had the best platform shoes, at least 2 inches of platform and they were cool. I still miss them and wish I had held on to them. Go-go boots, were not in my shoe wardrobe, but I do remember a couple of the popular girls had them.  I also had “gym” shoes for PE, which were like Keds with a bit of attitude and we could wear them all day-if it was gym day.  This was long before running shoes, cross trainers, and a  $200.00 price tag. I am so embarrassed to admit I used white shoe polish on the canvas to keep them pristine white. Flip flops “came out”of the shower and could be worn as sandals. Nail polish on toe nails?  Of course!

As a single young woman, I was willing to sacrifice comfort for high heels that showed off my legs. High heels were sexy and being sexy was good. To hell with the pinched toes and blisters, I looked pretty damn good in high heels. Often the heels tapered to less than a dime in size and I cringe to think of my wobbly ankles. Very pointy toes were also the norm, my foot was  wider than the shoe but somehow I got my foot in my glass slippers. When the toes of shoes got rounder I joined other women in a collective sigh of relief. For every day you might have caught me in Earth shoes, the heel of the shoe was lower than the toe because this was better for the foot.  Gym shoes had graduated to a casual shoe for everyday wear, think Converse for guys and classic Reebok’s for aerobic classes.

And then it happened. I came down to earth. I started to run every day and running shoes were my obsession. One shelf of athletic shoes exploded to shelves and shelves and even whole departments, and that was in my closet! I was on my feet all day at the bookstore and decided down with the heels, and up with the flats. Tired of suffering, my new mantra was comfort. My pregnant shoes were more the size of snowshoes, but my swollen feet needed lots of room .When I met Roger my one concern was he was just my height. Flats were important so I did not tower over him, which I considered a fate worse than death. Soon I grew to love how I could look into his eyes without craning my neck. 

These days I have shoes and boots for every possibility. Running shoes, hiking shoes, walking shoes, sandals, boots for looks and boots for snow, dressy flats, casual shoes for hanging out, black shoes, brown shoes , lace ups, slipons and many cool sneakers/athletic shoes I never use for athletics. I even have slippers which Roscoe chews on and runs around the house with to taunt me.  I challenge you to walk a mile in my shoes!

When Roger was in rehab after a hospitalization I realized he would not be coming home after his “rehabilitation”, and in fact would never be coming home again. It was the deepest loneliness and sadness I have ever felt. I would go home after my nightly visits and search for videos of dog rescues on You Tube. You know the ones where a poor dog is on its own, starving, dirty and afraid of humans. I  knew that no matter how bleak things looked the dog would be rescued, cared for, cleaned up and adopted by a loving owner. I was obsessed with the happy ending. I watched countless rescues because I needed to know that happy endings were possible.  But not for me….

Movies, books and lives should not have sad endings. If I ask about a book or movie and I hear the ending was sad I am very reluctant to read or watch it, sad endings are silly when the human creator can control the story.  Sad endings are the tornado from the Wizard of Oz, I don’t want to be carried away by sadness. Sticking my head in the sand, whistling Dixie or just plain old denial haven’t  stoped sadness and sad stories from infiltrating my awareness.   What was the point I asked my college friends, if everyone was going to die? Isn’t death the ultimate sad ending?  No human can edit death out of the human story.  Roger died and none of us will escape death.

Can we talk about Death?  It seems to me it is easier to talk about wars, murders and  yucky bodily functions, or almost anything,  than it is to have a conversation about death. The philosophy or psychology supporting hospice care is the concept of a “good death”.  Do we lose our “battle” with cancer when death occurs? How long do we “fight” to defeat death?

I think surrendering to death may be the best path to a good life. Staying alive at all costs is not cheating death, it could be cheating life.  Acceptance, peace, reconciliation, freedom and surrender are pillars of a good death. I was honored to be with Roger when died; I felt like I was witnessing the birth of his soul. A happy ending.

Almost everyone has played the child’s game Hide and Seek: the “It” person tries to find all the other players who have hidden from “It”. The game is not rocket science or brain surgery. Don’t you wonder what actual rocket scientists and brain surgeons say to each other? It’s not sentence diagraming or soil analysis? Back to Hide and Seek! The seeker has to count to an agreed upon # with their eyes closed, and everyone runs and hides. When the counting is done the seeker begins to seek. Child size bodies fit in much smaller hiding places than adults do and children can run faster too, so there is a measure of difficulty.  Quick thinking was also important as the time frame for hiding was only minutes long.

We, meaning my brothers, sisters and a Roman Legion of cousins, took Hide and Seek up a notch and played it outside in the dark. We called it No Bears Out Tonight!  Don’t think about bears! Our farm had a HUGE lawn, trees, bushes and out buildings so there were lots of places to hide. In the dark, alone and fearing lions and tigers and bears and bugs. I can still remember laying on my belly in the grass hoping and not hoping that I would be found before a monster got me. Living on the edge of fear and excitement was what was so much fun…

Smart phones and lap tops have put technology front and center in the adult version of Hide and Seek. There’s ghosting where a party hides from the other party by going silent on their phone: texts and phone calls are not returned. This is the easy way out of a relationship and very hurtful to the party being ghosted.  The seeker seeks and does not find the hidden who has decided not to play anymore. On the opposite spectrum, cyber stalking is relentless negative contact seeking to frighten the other party. The threat is “You cannot hide from me!”. Of course we all know about hiding in plain sight: phubbing is eyes focused on the tiny screen of a phone hiding from personal contact with the person in front of you. 

Flipping back and forth between being the seeker or the hidden is the normal state of affairs. When I close my front door and I am alone I usually sigh with relief . I want to be hidden for awhile, hidden from the demands of the day and the people who expect me to play my role. After my fill of peace and solitude I seek relationship with family and friends. I call my friend to see if she is up for taking the dogs for a walk, or call another friend to meet for coffee. I just did a mental zigzag and realized that “friend” and “fiend” are just 1 letter away from each other. My mind does work in odd ways. 

“The Diary of Anne Frank” was one of my favorite books as a teenager.  I was fascinated by how her family hid from the Nazis in the attic of a building and how Anne still wrote in her diary knowing that they could be found and killed at any moment. The confines of her hiding place did not stop her from seeking the best life had to offer her. I think I would call that courage.

I am 65 years old, just a number right? 6+5=11, 6×5= 30, 6-5= 1 and 6 divided by 5
= 1.2; just playing around with numbers. I know my years add up to 65, but nothing else seems to add up except wrinkles! If I could, I would multiply all my good times and subtract the bad, but dividing the good from the bad is not as easy as it sounds. Hindsight sometimes reveals what I once viewed as bad ends up being the catalyst, the “learning experience” propeling my life forward in a positive direction. Doing the math fails to quantify the mysteries of life.

When I was a child we said: 5 takeaway 2 is 3. I like that old-fashioned way of explaining subtraction, takeaway, not minus or subtracted. People pass away, they are not subtracted from our world. The world minus Roger is not the reality of death and grief for me. 5 minutes waiting for Santa does not equal 5 minutes waiting for biopsy results. So this relationship between numbers, time and life and death is a conundrum. Einstein proved that energy equals MC squared but even he did not find a formula for what equals a “good” life or for that matter a “good” death. What really counts in our lives?

At times I have added up all the things that were wrong with the world and with me, and the total was: it’s all wrong! It never occurred to me that reality is more like a balance sheet with some days in the red and some days in the black. What counts is that I am blessed to add entries every day because I am blessed to be alive! The running total is what life is all about.

The universe is infinite and numbers are infinite; I can never reach the biggest number there is. When I was a child I found the concept of infinity to be unfathomable. There has to be an end somewhere doesn’t there? Inside, outside, beginning and end contained and limited my childhood world. Infinity and forever were scary concepts for me. I thought about counting my entire life and still not reaching the end, or traveling through space and never being able to stop at a final destination.

“How much do you love your Momma?” or “How much does Momma love you?” Tyler would spread his arms wide and say “This much!” As if the space between his left arm and right arm could contain Love. I have learned a few things and I am positive Love is infinite and forever and is the only thing that counts.

We all know that actions speak louder than words and most New Year’s resolutions are forgotten by February. I make promises to myself and others, and I am ashamed that I have a trail of broken promises behind me: “I will never have another cigarette.” or “”I promise not to tell.” I meant them when I said them. When I don’t act with integrity, guilt and shame are my emotional costs. We all want to believe that we are people of integrity even though we may not always act with integrity.

“Talk is cheap. Put your money where your mouth is.” Money is one of my most precious resources. Recently Colorado Public Radio had their fund drive, and even though I listen to them a lot and “thought” it would be a good idea to contribute, I didn’t put my money where my mouth is and actually contribute. It’s easy to talk about saving money and budgeting, but I often just give it lip service instead of really saving money. I can talk, and talk …and never get around to “Just do it!”

12 step programs and fellowships are full of wonderful axioms regarding actions and words. You can “talk the talk” or you can “walk the talk”; basically are you doing the work of the 12 steps or just talking about it. Question: How do you know when an alcoholic is lying?” Answer: If their lips are moving, they are lying. Matching words and actions is difficult and not only for the alcoholic. What parent hasn’t wanted to say to their child “Do what I say, and not what I do!” Kids are great bullshit detectors. I cringe to think of what kind of example I was to my son Tyler in my crazy moments. Fortunately, he turned out pretty good in spite of me.

When I find myself trying to rationalize my choices or behaviors I know I am on a slippery slope and may slide right past my self respect. Freud was on target when he defined the ways we humans attempt to evade responsibility for our choices and behaviors. We blame, deny, project and rationalize and then double down on our excuses. The longer my excuses the more likely I am fibbing, stretching the truth or just plain lying.

Saying just one word can be the closest we come to saying what we mean and meaning what we say. “Help” is very direct and transparent. “No” really is a complete sentence and doesn’t need further explanation. Sometimes our “yes” is compromised, it’s more I am afraid to say no or I want to manipulate your opinion of me. The most honest yes is the “Yes” punctuated by arms raised in the air in victory. Yes!

In the meantime I will be learning to do the right thing so I can love the face I see in the mirror.

Have you seen me? Where am I? My compass is broken. My GPS is playing tricks on me, my navigator is asleep on the job and the blips on my radar are all illusions. I am lost in space. There is a tiny dot in the infinite universe that is planet Earth, and I am a tiny dot on Earth. I am small and I feel even smaller. There are phases of the moon and I am in a dark, small and dry phase. For the last two weeks I have tried to write a blog post, but my words have been a mirage in the desert, disappearing the closer I get to them. To be without words scares me to death! How can I call out for help?

When I was a young woman I wanted to be petite, girly, tiny and beautiful and what I got instead was 5’6”of “big-boned” Iowa farm girl, like my aunts on my Dad’s side. Women like me were far from petite and I was recruited to throw the shot put my senior year. I went to practice a few times, smoked some cigarettes after practice and decided that being strong was not nearly as lucrative as being pretty and flirty. Young men were not attracted to big women. It was several years before I whittled my body down to “size” and men began to notice me. I was smaller, but I was more powerful in the arena of dating and romance. Small was good, big was bad, but vice versa for a man! I remember those ads in the back of magazines from long ago for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course. The “before”picture was a skinny guy who got sand kicked in his face, the “after” was the guy on Brawny paper towels. Big is better, a lot better.

“How far along are you? The standard question put to pregnant women everywhere. When I said I was 6 months I heard, “You look too small to be six months along.” I thought I was Moby Danita and I was “small”! Being pregnant is filling a tiny uterus until it feels so big it will burst. After giving birth the uterus becomes small again and what is left to hold is a tiny baby. Of course baby grows bigger and bigger…. while Momma shrinks as she ages. On the other hand, noses and ears seem bigger with age.

Big bucks is good and so is a small waist. A big head and a small mind is pretty common these days. It’s all relative: big, bigger, biggest and small, smaller, smallest. I keep waiting for the “just right”designation from Goldilocks. My current state of feeling small might mean that I recognize that I am not the center of the universe and have acquired some measure of humility. I am a tiny dot on planet Earth but I can still use big words.

I stumble out of bed, (too old for bouncing), and start the day with mine and Mia doggies’ daily doses of pills, powders and liquids. Once a week I carefully load up my pill caddy, checking and double-checking, knowing it is a necessary chore because morning and night, every day, I take my medications. Some I have to hold my nose to drink, some I just pop in my mouth and swallow without water; with food, without food, one in the morning and one at night or as needed. I have the dosing and directions down pat because my medications are for chronic conditions that I have had for at least several years. If a new medication is added or one is taken away I get twitterpated because I have to adjust my routine. I don’t like taking my numerous medications, but I don’t like the results if I don’t take them even more.

Mary Poppins sang “ A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down….” and I don’t think she was referring to the sugar in alcohol or candy, although I have tried these sugars and others to help lifes’ medicines go down. Take your medicine, it will make you feel better, but it won’t taste good and may cause side effects. Oh, those side effects!! Lots of things we know are good for us, don’t necessarily feel good right away. No pain, no gain.

Some pills can make us high and some pills can kill, we can take too many and overdose. We may try to end pain and in the process kill ourselves. Lives are saved everyday by medications we have created. There’s the good and the bad, the use and abuse, and the therapeutic dose and overdose. We hope the pills we take on a daily basis maintain our health. If our pill bottle has a skull and crossbones on it that’s not a good sign, but sometimes poison tastes really good and psyche poison may be especially sweet. What am I putting in my body and in my mind?

It’s best if we are an informed consumer and question the physician about what medications we are on, why we are on them and what to look out for. So I ask myself: “A daily dose of what?” A horse pill of anger and resentment is a big pill but I can get it down. It makes me nauseous and self -righteous and the most common side effect is continued victimhood. All too often I prescribe this nasty pill to myself, it’s been in my medicine cabinet for years and I am afraid to just stop taking it for fear of withdrawal. Who would I be without resentment? If I am “popping” pills I need to consider what results I am aiming for. A daily dose of gratitude will do more to promote happiness than a daily dose of negativity. A daily dose of self-compassion will give me a chance at loving myself, while a daily dose of “I am not good enough.” is not likely to help me feel better. What else am I dosing myself with?

Crazy quilts are usually made with rich, shimmering pieces of fabric, cut in odd shapes and sizes and joined together with contrasting thread and various embroidery stitches. It doesn’t bore the eye with order, it is beautiful in a haphazard sort of way. Memory quilts are made from pieces of fabric from the makers clothing which were worn at special events or were every day favorites. Put them together and you have a crazy, memory quilt that depicts a lifetime and a timeline. I want to start gathering my quilt pieces, arrange them in a pleasing way and begin to sew them together and embroider with the threads of my life. There is more to come but inventorying what I have now shows me the colors and textures I have collected.

I pick up the pink nubby fabric that was my Easter dress when I was 12, I wore it with a white brimmed hat and black shoes with a bow and a tiny heel. Yes, Easter was really all about new Easter outfits and not some silly resurrection from the dead. I remember looking around the church and comparing my pink empire dress with others’ dresses and thinking “Not too bad Danita, but Pam’s outfit is better.” I made my senior graduation dress, a royal blue polyester knit A-line with puffy sleeves and Nehru collar. I spilled a cup of whiskey and 7-Up down the front of it partying on graduation night. I was such a sophisticated senior.

Denim is scattered through out my quilt: blue jean bell bottoms with legs so wide small animals could have nested in them and the Jean Jacket that was part of my tough Danita wardrobe. I was with the wrong crowd for awhile and I loved it until the wrong didn’t feel right anymore. A bit of karma, the jacket was stolen from me! All these different shades of denim through the years, bleached out, dark, striped and black. Oh, the styles! Bell-bottoms, skinny jeans, boot cuts, straight legs and zipped up. And I can’t forget the historic stars and stripes jeans from my freshman year in college. Let’s call them my hippie protest jeans. Somewhere in this style history were hip hugger jeans with zippers about 3 inches long and my “skinny” jeans and my “fat” jeans.

T-shirt’s and more T-shirts. Roger and I had a communal pile which we grabbed from in the early morning heading out for our walks. Mostly grays and greens(CSU) and whites. I picked up T-shirt’s by the bundle at the thrift store and we laughed when people asked us if we liked Hawaii or whatever race the T-shirt advertised! After Roger died I asked my son to donate all the T-shirt’s he had in his closet at the care facility. I knew I would smell Roger in them and I would never wear them. Lots of soft t-shirt fabric in my quilt and in my memory.

My purple velvet skirt and vest was one of my favorite outfits from high school. This fabric is perfect for crazy quilts. My bright yellow windbreaker, which covered my butt would be a punch of bright shiny fabric too. Corduroy, lots of corduroy in rich colors and textures that made a swishing sound when I walked. Lace tops, lacy mantillas for church and lacy underwear will add the girlie touch.

So how to stitch all the quilt pieces together? There has to be red thread for the blood I shed each month and giving birth to my son. Red for heart and love. A cross-stitch embroidery stitch would be nice in red. Blue, lots of blue thread for my blue eyed family, my son Tyler, Roger and me and my parents and 12 siblings. A blue running stitch flowing through my quilt like a winding river sounds just right. Gotta be lots of green thread for all the hikes and walks taken. Gold thread for bling and all the treasures in my life….

Everyone wants to be happy. “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands!” “Don’t worry, be happy!” “Happy”, the song that made me unhappy after hearing it 1 million times. I have read through entire sections of Self-Improvement at several bookstores. I have been therapized for most of my adult life and been on anti depressant drugs I don’t remember the names of. Caveat: Anti-depressants can be life savers, as they were and are for me, but they do not make you happy, they bring you to a level of health and the getting happy is still up to me and you. I have ran, meditated, danced, walked and wrote and although each are wonderful they did not make me happy. I am loved and have been loved but even this does not make me happy. Alcohol and illegal drugs for sure did not make me happy and that’s not for lack of trying.

Should I give up on being happy? I never give up, but lately I have been seriously questioning how well “never giving up” has worked for me. Try and try harder, that’s how things get done, right? Getting happy must require a lot of work and attention, otherwise everybody would be happy. My favorite dead politician, Abe Lincoln, said: “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” So I just need to make up my mind to be happy—-no problem! My mind got me into this place of dissatisfaction and my mind can get me out. What about if reality sucks, how can I think differently if reality does not change. Another of my favorite fellas, Shakespeare wrote these words for Hamlet, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Seems like both Abe and Hamlet were on the same track: the mind is a horrible thing to waste if you are aiming for happiness. Turns out that choosing our thoughts and focus, and making a commitment to seeing the positives may indeed be the road to take to happiness. Is the glass half full or half empty? If we see the glass as half full we have the advantage in the pursuit of happiness.

I make observations and judgements that are true only to the extent that I believe them to be true. I can focus on gratitude or victimhood. I can use my thoughts to beat myself up or to cultivate self compassion. I never liked my Mother’s lame suggestion: “Count your blessings.” Maybe, just maybe my Mothers suggestion wasn’t so lame. If I am focused on my blessings I don’t have the mental energy to tally all my curses too. Blessings in, blessings out or curses in, curses out, my mind can be programmed either way. I do get to choose what thoughts I entertain so why not entertain thoughts that help me feel better instead of worse.

Sometimes when my focus is on the current moment I can be overcome by beauty. This morning I was laying on my sofa, crocheting and cuddling with my doggies. The sun was shining through the patio door, shadows were playing on the wall and my orchids were reaching for the sun. Now that’s a miracle—-my orchids love me and bloom several times a year and have so many blooms at a time. I am so grateful they offer their beauty to me. The birds were singing and it seemed a happy song. I was thinking about this blog post on happiness and counting my blessings. I suddenly realized that this, this moment in time, was a moment of happiness. Tears filled my eyes and I said aloud “This is happiness. I see it and feel it!” And then the joy I felt broke into a million pieces, too many blessings to count.

I was hacked! “Your password has been changed to your online banking, if you did not do this call immediately” Ping, ping, one message after the other, I watched as the money in my accounts was emptied out. I didn’t even have time to call to stop the invasion, and the
deed was done. Long story short, with the help of a very kind banker and my very kind son, although I am still currently without funds, the claim is in process and money from heaven will be arriving in the next few days. I felt violated and angry that someone was invading my privacy and I was not safe. While on hold waiting to file the claim, the banker shared pictures of his first grandchild, a little fellow with big eyes who was very alert. John, the banker, plays guitar and plays around town, so we talked stringed instruments, as in guitars and banjos. Hard to imagine, but I enjoyed our conversation and was grateful that he was on hold for an hour with the fraud department so we had time to chat. My son came over on his white horse/in his white car and saved the day by helping me change all my passwords on my iPad. I am not happy I was hacked, but I did have some enjoyable time cleaning up the mess. Go figure!

I grumble. I like that word, it’s so perfect for the action. Anyway I grumbled today when it quit snowing and blowing and I got dressed to shovel my driveway and sidewalk. I called my friend across the street and she asked who had shoveled for me! I peeked out the door and lo and behold it was clean and shoveled! I was once again struck by the kindness of others. I don’t know who did it, but I am so grateful. I hate to play the age card, but sometimes I just feel too old to do some of the physical stuff I used to do.

There are moments of grace and kindness sprinkled throughout my days, if ( a big if) I pay attention and get out of the way. To give or receive kindness requires an open mind so there is a channel for goodness. When I am totally self absorbed and obsessed I can’t offer kindness to anyone and may not recognize kindness if it hit me over the head. I know I want to be a kind person, but I also want to pick and choose who I am kind to. If I like them and they are like me, then I will be kind. There is something wrong with this line of reasoning but I resist challenging it. Kindness can build bridges between people who are very different,  but building new infrastructure is much harder than crossing a bridge that is already built and in use. It’s the perceived differences between”them” and “us” that “Trump” our similarities and our desire to be kind.

Kindness is not earned, it is offered. I can choose to be kind to a person I don’t like and even offer kindness to myself when self recrimination is the activity for the day. Accepting kindness from others is not always easy for me, I want to write up an I.O.U. I am sure there is no ledger for kindness and kind acts, but I want the books to balance. Offering, allowing and accepting kindness frees you and me to be the best we can be. Pass it around.