Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I saw my tiniest grandson this morning.  I was bringing over baby rings from my babyhood, and a a charm bracelet my mother often wore that her grandkids adored, as it had a treasure chest that opened, a dog whose eyes and mouth moved, spinning lovebirds, and other trinkets.  I like giving something from my parents or my husband's grandparents for these momentous occasions like weddings, graduations and births.  The little guy looked adorable in a zebra striped sleeper, and he was ready for his parents to take him to the pediatrician to check that he'd gained back his birth weight.  When I held him it sure felt like he has.  He's a little chunk.  I'm grateful they share their joy with us and we can participate in these small but special markers of baby's development.  This afternoon we're seeing our middle grandson after he gets home from preschool.  We have a water toy to give him for his back yard.  Fun!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went to our safe deposit box yesterday to get some baby rings out for the new grandson.  I'm slowly giving away all my valuable jewelry, given to me by my mother, aunt or my husband's grandmother, so that they can have something historical in the family.  I also found my mother's charm bracelet, which I remember so well, and am giving it to my daughter-in-law.  I like the idea of doing this myself now, so that no choices will need to be made after I'm gone.  I'd like to downsize in the next few years, to do the same with the furniture and paintings and mementos I have.  It's the decade to be giving away, and generally, as I age, I part easily with books and clothes and such.  The majority of what I have they won't want, any more than I desired my parents' valuables.  I immediately gave my mother's fur coats away, took no furniture, and just selected things to remember them by, and allowed my kids to pick out things as well.  I needed to see signs of them for the first year after they died, but gradually most of it has been given to the kids or packed away.  I'm sentimental, but I don't really need any triggers to jog my memories.  They are safe in my heart.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Last night we saw an old movie, that I had seen but my husband hadn't:  "I'll Be Seeing You".  It's set in the midwest during World War II.  Joseph Cotten plays a soldier on leave because of shell shock.  He meets a woman on a train, played by Ginger Rogers, who is visiting her aunt and uncle for the holidays.  He pretends he has a sister in the same town, and because it is Cotten, you are afraid he's a stalker.  (He always had an edge, see Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt)  Gradually her family invites him into their circle, and he spends Christmas and New Year's with them.  He confesses why he's home on leave:  he has been in a psychiatric hospital, and has no family, as he was raised in an orphanage.  She has her own secret, which she doesn't reveal:  she's out of prison for a ten day leave.  She has served half her sentence for manslaughter, three years, and has three more to go.  Her story is as raw as today's Me, too headlines.  Her niece, played by Shirley Temple, is a thoughtless teenager, and it is through her that we face our own prejudices and biases.  She carries this burden very well, and since it IS Shirley Temple, we are forced to identify at least somewhat with her.  Important issues are handled delicately and empathetically, and after the film is over, the viewer is haunted by them.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday we attended a wedding of our friend's daughter.  It was joyful and poignant, as these things are.  My friend has been a widow for decades, and raised her two daughters by herself after her husband suddenly died, when the girls were 10 and 13.  She's a champ.  I know she would have liked to have found a new partner, but it hasn't happened yet.  But she lives a full, meaningful life, and has two amazing daughters to prove it.  Her husband's brother gave the speech the proud father would have given, and did a great job.  Her speech was touching and wise.  She can laugh at herself, a quality I find almost more important than any other.  She is the definition of courage, and she has given back so much to others.  First to her mother, disabled with polio, then memory loss, then to her clients when she was a social worker helping families with special needs kids.  Now she is working with another friend of ours to talk about gun violence in the schools and do trainings that up the awareness of what guns do in our culture.  She's Bodhisatva, and she was beautiful and calm and gracious and everywhere checking in with people throughout the event.  I hope someone is taking care of her today. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We went on a walk with our grandson yesterday and he was fine until he wasn't.  We attempted to wait him out, as he fiddled with a found bottlecap and ran up an down a driveway.  We talked to the owner of the driveway and she said he was adorable.  We talked to the neighbor and she was a bit more clear eyed and remembered the age.  Finally, we held his hands and he let himself be dragged like a dead weight the rest of the way home.  It felt like he weighed 100 pounds.  It was the sixties again, he being the Free Behavior protestor and us cast as the mean police.  When we got to our stairs he walked himself up with one hand attached to me.  He appeared to be mighty satisfied.  I asked him if he was angry, and he said yes, but wouldn't say why.  I believe he's discovered the world is unfair, and people can just disrupt an innocent victim's cosy world, by taking away one's nanny and forcing him to go to preschool.  Sigh. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday I walked all over town.  I was exhausted by late afternoon, but revived when my husband and I met our friends at the neighborhood theater and saw "Amazing Grace".  Talk about being energized!  The film is of the two nights Aretha Franklin sang gospel with her childhood friend, a Baptist minister and his choir.  The film is poorly done.  Warner Brothers had hired Sydney Pollack to do the filming, because they wanted to release the film with the album, but I'm guessing Pollack was high or otherwise engaged.  But it doesn't matter.  The music lifts and carries you.  You see this legendary force give every cell in her body and mind with every song.  She is witnessing.  Her father is there and gives a little speech.  The Rolling Stones are there.  Everybody who made it to the two performances has been grateful ever since, I'm certain.  But you come away knowing you've witnessed a gift so profound and sublime that your cells tingle.  She didn't want this film released, and her family released it only after her death last year.  But she does it proud, and when you see it, you are never going to forget it.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went with a friend to see Norman Fisher read from his new book last night.  I seldom go out at night, since I can't drive, but I walked to the bookstore and we had tea, then after the reading she gave me a ride home.  The book seems interesting, and I will read it soon.  It is about the imagination, and the parts of the book he read and the discussion after were lively.  He had us speak to the person next to us and I met a woman who's grandmother and mother were Theosophists.  We somehow talked of Walt Whitman, and both agreed his poems were brimming with love.  How great a voice he seems now, and Thoreau as well. 
My friend had told me while we were having tea that many years ago, I wished for four grandchildren.  This was way before my oldest grandchild was born.  I hadn't remembered.  Now I have four, and what an incredible blessing!  My wish came true.  And how wonderful to have a long time friend who can remind me of words I spoke so long ago.  And trigger gratitude both for the grandchildren and my friend.