Things are ever increasingly dire, it seems, but we must not lose heart. As they say, “Joy is resistance.” And in a cosmic way of thinking, the focus of our energy is important. If we are despairing, we are energetically fueling the fireball from hell currently circling the globe.
Some say things have always been screwed up on our planet. But I say: the planet was never melting before. For one thing. And US democracy? Come on. This is unprecedented.
Yes, dire: it’s been absolutely boiling at the French tennis open and elsewhere. Less dire: what’s with Americans wearing their jammies all over the place? While getting your mail on Saturday, okay. But mowing the lawn? Flying commercial? Come on, people, let’s pull it together. There’s no need to attend a sporting event in your onesie. Tighten it up.
But I curb my grumbling, dear Reader. It’s been proven that bad moods are contagious. One glum person can bring down several others who were actually in a fine mood. So if you have to unload, unload on someone who is just as down as you? I know exactly whom to call when I want to grouse, and whom to call when I want to laugh. Let us now strive now for the latter.
Thoughts to uplift (and separate):
They now make better underwear for all sexes. Bras, too (the Bro/Mansiere).
It’s the time when mulching still looks fresh and pretty across the Land.
Farmers markets have begun! Music, neighborly merriment, delicacies.
Renewed interest remains in ukes, accordions, and tubas. Next up: Sousaphones. (A girl can dream, can’t she?)
Tech still has merits. If you go to the ocean, you don’t have to call your friends with the beach hours and amusingly peculiar, if tedious, list of what is not allowed — you just text a photo of the sign with that info. And Shazam the infectious song heard in a shop. Boom.
They make better makeup now, just in the years when some of us need same, all “cruelty-free” – not that we want to know just what this means. Try the “liquid matte” lipsticks. Brilliant!
During Covid, little kids seemed generally wary (due to … masked humans? … an atmosphere of doom and paranoia?). If you smiled at them, they scowled. Now I encounter kiddies being downright friendly. Do you?
Those terrible colognes that turned teenagers into human air fresheners are on the decline.
At present, there is no pandemic here. We need not “follow protocols” around masks, distancing, OCD-caliber handwashing, or donating money and time here. Let our energies shift instead to Ebola in Africa (and Hantavirus worldwide; stay tuned), with the insane dissolution of USAID and bizarre governance of the CDC likely leading to predicted 9 million+ avoidable deaths by 2030. Geez, Americans were doing so much good, and we didn’t even know it, most of us. In what other ways are we still doing good that we don’t know about, I wonder? Let’s spread that news.
‘Tis spring! We must not devolve willingly. Put up a fight, people. Let us endeavor together to think pleasant thoughts, early and often. Contact someone who might get us out of the hole with outstretched arms and a bucket of laffs. Be that person for someone else.
Let’s pray for the scientists solving contagion threats, shall we? And for nations to change behaviors around global warming. And for humanity in general to evolve and be less grabby and mean, using religion as an excuse to torture and kill. And to allow all people equal freedoms.
Consider this: today’s Modern Tymes becomes tomorrow’s Olden Tymes – let us create something now for us all to become (eventually) nostalgic about, shall we? Good day.
Ann Aikens’ comical, uplifting book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, is available online and in Vermont shops, the audiobook on Amazon. She has written her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Find more of her writing at uppervalleygirl.com; speaking events/radio show info at annaikens.com.
Sometimes you stumble on something pleasing. Here we find: fresh masonry.
It’s interesting to consider how many artful efforts sit unheralded in homes and yards across the Land … indeed, the Universe. Hopefully admired by at least a lucky few.
Green Up Day is the classic annual event in Vermont in which the People of the Land tidy the Land ~ especially roadside and riverside ~ of all manner of detritus. Something interesting always, always appears.
This year it was this hoard of acorns, laid bare by retreating snow, that a squirrel somehow lost or forgot. I wish some of our “leaders” would find or remember their nuts.
Here is a replay of a local Writerly radio show I guested on ~ expires at either midnight tomorrow or Tuesday. You’d think I know. Or posted this sooner.
Holy Moly, that was one punishing winter. Shoveling, scraping, bitter cold, biting winds, falls on ice, moods swinging like a metronome, fuel costs rising like an intercontinental ballistic missile … crazy-making. Mother Nature – and other unnamed powers – dealt us a one-way ticket to Nutterville.
Normally I feel a nostalgic sorrow at the passing of both summer and winter, for some reason. It’s as if, “I’ve become accustomed to her face.” And it will be a long while before she rolls around again.
This time I feel nothing but anticipation. Here comes spring, baby. Bulbs emerging. Skunks resurfacing. Birds romping. We’re still in a wacked-out limbo as temps vacillate as the sap runs, and we gradually adjust to the next drastically different season. That’s why a friend said she lives in New England. For the “drastic changes of season.”
Being bounced around inspires fear: is spring really coming, or is this some elaborate ruse by forces outside our control designed to drive us insane with sheer wanting? There certainly seem to be many forces outside our control right now, and I for one don’t like it a bit. I’m taking to the streets, by the Jesus (an old Vermonty expression, that).
Speaking of whom, my pagan inclinations aside, Lent became something oddly sacred when I moved back to Vermont 20 years ago and found a great church. (I realize Dear Reader may find the latter an oxymoronic pairing of words, but I proceed.) I learned that Lent is not supposed to be about self-flagellation or self-denial, but self-reflection and a putting away, perhaps, of thoughts or behaviors that no longer serve us or others. A self-freeing. I super enjoy quiet contemplation as the last snows fly during this odd period of waiting.Importantly, the Filet-O-Fish always goes on sale now. Because of St. Pat’s (O’Fish!) or Lent (fish!), who knows, but the thing is six bucks ordinarily, so have it.
I make lists at summer’s end, the new year, and now. This March I invented a new list, good for the older set: make a list of the high points in your life. It puts things in perspective, and keeps your bean from lingering on topics dreary, which currently abound. Try it?
Please don’t think your High Points need to be formulaic. You know, “my (1st, 2nd or 3rd…) wedding; the birth of my children; my bat mitzvah.” I had none of those, so ran with:
Being zipped into a snowsuit as a child; Grandmas teaching me things; Troop mothers panicking on the beach as we girl scouts rocketed gleefully upwards in giant surf on Fire Island; Childhood friends playing flashlight tag; high school friends administering “treatments” to each other (this when you put high-quality headphones on your friend and play them an incredible song, with no advance spoiler, e.g., “Tom Sawyer”; “Won’t Get Fooled Again; “Comfortably Numb”); flying dreams; NYC at night with various boyfriends, the city our oyster; smoking horses through the woods in Woodstock; achieving the Pacific Ocean, having driven solo across the US; blow drying my hair in a convertible on the PCH; my friend onstage winning an Oscar, mouthing thanks to his deceased mother; skinny dipping while kayaking in Vermont; my first New World Festival (Randolph); laughing so hard with nieces, nephew, or friends that we couldn’t stop, to the annoyance of All; a high school reunion that went on and on until 3 am; a college reunion that went on and on until 3 am; plunging into a fjord; pounding beezers on the porch with Mommy in all weather; being bedside when Fathah left this earth; post-funeral dancing to Fathha’s favorite, “Eagle’s Greatest Hits,” with nieces; the Eclipse (you forgot about that, right?).
Suddenly your whole life story seems like one of richness, rather than of trials. Send me your list if your like. (It will be graded, but technically this is open book.) The patterns will remind you of, say, “Right. I like water. Need water.” Or: “Music. Play more music.” Crack the code.
Tips to launch your keister into SPRING, Hell-bent for leather:
Play Royalton Free Radio WFVR ~ 96.5. Too many good shows to suggest just one (stream or replay).
Maple, maple, maple.
Do what feels good besides a handle of bourbon, though the industry could certainly use your “support” with Canada shutting down consumption due to tariff insanity. Try a Brocklebank stout? Killer.
Read a book as the last snow falls to Gabriel Fauret’s “Requiem.”
Go to Dandelion Acres, movies at the Playhouse, dance in your skivvies under the moon.
Good launch and day.
Ann Aikens is an author, columnist, speaker, and blogger. Her darkly comical book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, was published in 2023, her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Find events and bookshops at annaikens.com; her blog at uppervalleygirl.com.
The original Frankentree is a fruit tree with grafted limbs that produces multiple varieties within a species of fruit — say, pears, apples, plums, or cherries. It is colorful, comme resultat. It can be gorgeous.
The not-gorgeous Frankentree is the cell-phone-tower-disguised-as-a-tree tree. Few people have access to this creepy monster.
I recently got up close to one. It gave me the willies. The “needles” on a “branch” that had fallen off had a revolting texture, like that of a fake Christmas tree made out of recycled toxins. Plus, I was probably getting irradiated by the cell tower itself. I fled.
Last year I had some lucky breaks, despite seemingly increasing Earthly mayhem. So every day, more or less, I thought of one thing that had made me feel lucky — or just happy — that day. I wrote it down on a scrap of paper and put it in this vase.
Now I get to read them all, have my mind blown, burn them, and start anew. Won’t you join me?
Some years back, a wise Vermont friend told me, “When both of your parents are gone, it’s as if a roof over your head has suddenly disappeared that you never even knew existed.” I wondered what that would feel like.
When my old Fathah recently died (he loved being called “Fathah” with a Boston accent), I found out. Even though we had been taking care of him, not he of us, he’d remained always somehow … in charge. Now I’m adrift. Untethered. When my mother died six years ago, I became an easy crier. So when people offer me condolences with those pained eyes, I lose it. Which makes me want to avoid people. No roof. I feel for people whose parents died young. Their roof was more evident, and necessary.
I was fortunate to be in the room when he went. It was painful, and beautiful, and profound. And painful. I had raced to be there in a rental car in the dark and somehow made it. Maybe he’d waited.
Just as I got there, 21 members of his choir arrived to him in his bed. I’ll never forget it. They did parts of “Peace like a River” and “Amazing Grace,” a song I never cared for untilI learned its history just this year. He opened his eyes and smiled. Someone made a crack about football and he smiled wider. My father was nearly deaf. Yet he heard them.
He couldn’t speak, so I “watered” him with straw-fuls of water, and said a lot, which flooded out of me as I wept. I sang into his “good” ear a gospel song he loved, “Down To The River.” And a bit of the Eagles. I was lucky because so many people camp out for days or weeks and the second they go for coffee, their parent takes off. I am certain that at one point he could see me. My father was blind.
He stopped breathing. Then his heart slowed. The nurse got a stethoscope. She said softly, “He’s going.” Pause. “He’s going.” And then my Fathah left the earth.
I had an awful time leaving his body behind. What if he was still in the room? My sister said by phone, “No way he’s still there. He hated it there. He’s back at the house!” I drove to his house, rolled in my luggage, turned on all the lights inside and out, cranked his beloved Eagles, surrounded by 1,000 photos my parents had framed, and keened.
I’m not a fan of the simple “Sorry for your loss,” or (to vets), “Thank you for your service.” Each feels a little pat. I’ll say instead, “I’m just so sorry,” or “Thank you for what you’ve done for our country.” I know vets who have given so damned much. I liked it when one person wrote me, “I’m sorry for the loss,” and another: “Well, that sucks.”
The Gifts of the People When someone I haven’t seen in a while asks, “How’s it going?”, I sometimes exclaim, “My father died!” It’s all I need to say. Now their expectations of me are lowered, and the window opens for their wisdoms, which have been legion. A sampling:
A brilliant comedy writer friend who’s lost many people texted, “You never get over it. But you get used to not getting over it.”
A tennis pal wrote, “Death is such a part of life … natural, normal, and PAINFUL. We are all holding you up!” Later: “Think about jotting down some favorite memories. Stuff that doesn’t make the obit. It might be an ongoing list you can reflect on just for you. It’s a giant swing of emotions when it’s a parent.”
A library friend emailed, “I think of my parents as the wings that keep me going. I’m made of their DNA, so they’re always with me.”
Someone else said: “I never realized what a big deal it is when your parents die. Then mine did.”
A cashier said, “When you don’t have a good relationship with a parent and they die, you never get a chance to repair it.” A few people said this. My internal reaction was, “Well, it’s really the parent’s job to repair it.” But a healer I know recounted how he, as a young child, initiated the repairing. His father even mentioned it to him upon his deathbed.
The officiant at Fathah’s service has been a minister for decades. I asked how he keeps doing it. He said, “I do it. Then, I move onto the next person to help.” I have found that, indeed, helping others is a massive balm. Traumatized people agree.
A lovely local minister I’ve never met offered a phone call. He said many things that helped. “Everyone is surprised at their emotions when someone dies … it is a matrix of circumstances and personalities. You’re not in control of their death, or your feelings or thoughts. It is beyond your ability. Unless the feelings are intrusive, ongoing, embrace them.”
He went on. If you had a difficult relationship: “Examine in your heart why you are having these feelings. You cannot get to the bottom of it, but it can help to get inside their head. Ask God why they said or did the things they did.” It was odd he said this, because I’d recently had an epiphany where I “got” that my father’s criticisms were sometimes about his concern for me. He thought I was making the wrong decisions or on the wrong side of politics. He feared for me.
A dear contemporary whose husband died a 2 years ago wrote, “I feel like I’m in Stage 15, not that I have numbered them. Lots of examining stuff in a new light, as if I’ve moved onto higher ground and am looking back and down. Still pain, but a softer ache. Regret and acceptance.”
Ah, regret. That has been terrible. Not just the second parent to go, but the one I had a less easy relationship with. Also, he went so quickly. I thought we’d have weeks together, not one hour. When I find the clippings I was to read to him, the earbuds for him to hear my audiobook — or music — a memory of Christmases past, a post-it of cheery news about Barnard and Vermont … I bawl with a burning regret. I never got the chance. People say, “Read it to him now!” Oh friends, it’s so not the same. And much as I grieve for myself, and his wish to live longer, I’m relieved he’s out of pain.
Recently, an old friend and I were talking about the loss of certain houses in our lives. When I brought it up, I thought she’d think me petty, but she was totally on board, regaling me with stories of her grandparent’s magical house (replete with a non-working carousel and working miniature trains big enough to ride). Others agreed.
You can picture every inch of the house. The old appliances and countertops, the cabinets, lighting, the bed you slept in so soundly. If they die, you go through every inch of the place deciding what to keep. Your parents’ entire lives are chronicled in the house. But you’d need a museum to keep it all. Then someone buys it and utterly destroys its character. White cabinetry? A tear-down? When the house goes, all the memories that were inside … vanish. They are now only in your head. And as others pass on, there is ultimately only one Keeper of the Memories. Which is the strangest thing.
What I have mostly found is this: no matter what shape they were in when they died, you always wanted more time with them. Even just five minutes. You don’t want them to suffer, at all, but at least when you had to take care of them, they were still in the room. You could still be loving, even if it was only going in just one direction. You don’t want them to go.
I have heard this sometimes happens even when the parent was declining with memory loss. Initially, they’re on the phone trying to figure out whom they’re speaking with (their own child), or rooting for the wrong team in sports — some of it tragic in the moment and later comical, or vice versa. Then it gets worse. Much worse. But children do not always feel relief when that parent dies. They don’t want them to go.
There is no way I’m going to grieve this time as long as I did for my mother (3 years?). Fathah had a great life and knew it. I’m going to grief counseling, the gym, the woods, acupuncture. I’ll call those who offered to talk. Including Hospice personnel, God love them.
Take Dictation One last piece of advice. As trips to Fathah 1,000 miles away became increasingly undoable, I’d take “dictation” from him by phone about his life. He loved talking — and having a secretary again, I think. All of his gems informed the obit, and gave me things to tell my family and his sister that we never knew. It also explained some things.
I leave you with a laugh. My dad had a great big sense of humor, and would be thrilled I ended with this. It’s the funniest, yet loving, obit:
Goodby, Fathah. I love you so. Thank you for everything. Good night.
Ann Aikens is an author, columnist, speaker, and blogger. Her darkly comical book of advice, A Young Woman’s Guide to Life: A Cautionary Tale, was published in 2023, her Upper Valley Girl column since 1996. Find events and bookshops at annaikens.com; her blog is uppervalleygirl.com. Her father was delighted by her humble scribblings.
Pilgy the Pilgrim awaits the guests, in his dual roles as Sentry and Greeter, as he has on this day for 20 years since I bought him at the then-existent Ben Franklin store (like Woolworth’s).
Where I go, he goes. May he have the pleasure of greeting YOU one day. I have not yet washed his little plastic fanny.
I guess mouse trap is a misnomer. It’s more like mouse electric chair. And you know, much as I love Havahart traps, there’s just way too many mice to keep doing catch and release.
I cannot get a cat. And the poisons are so cruel. Glue traps the worst possible. The old- fashioned mouse traps gave me the willies every time I saw the grimaces on mices’ dead faces ~ seemed an awful way to go, and it didn’t always kill the critter. With this one, it’s pretty much guaranteed, and I don’t have to look at my victims.
So, a great mouse trap? No. But better. Have I put the batteries in yet? No, I have not.
uppervalleygirl 