There's No Place Like Home

The first reference to the title of this post comes from a song called “Home! Sweet Home!”  The lyrics were written by John Howard Payne and the tune was by Sir Henry Bishop in 1823.  Another more recent and popular reference would be from L. Frank Baum’s 1900 fantasy “The wonderful Wizard of Oz” and Judy Garland clicking those ruby red slippers repeating the phrase over and over

Enough of this…it’s true that there is no place like home but it includes the good, the bad, the ugly, and the wonderful. This is about the wonderful.

Gracie enters the city via serpentine roads just above the speed limit, though not too much. A hair-raising to the airport with her passenger repeatedly screaming “SLOW DOWN TO EIGHTY!!!” cured her of speeding.

Gracie so enjoys seeing the trees and flowers.  She calls this “smelling the green” and absorbs the sights and smells into her heart and mind.  When those two witnesses agree she feels at peace. Every year in May, she makes a pilgrimage here just to get a double whiff of lilac bushes in bloom. 

But this visit is to launch her road trip because it is always good to touch base with your roots before you branch out. What a pun! And true too!

She pulls up in the early evening, in time to go to the Quemahoning Dam and join her grade school friend to kayak and watch the rise of the super moon technically called the perigee-syzygy. Her friend’s husband is happy she is there because this gets him off the hook.  He went on the same expedition the month before. 

Gracie and her friend scurry about loading her car with one kayak rather than the usual two, so that they can communicate in whispers. Once on the water, they reminisce and then are dazzled as the moon rises, so bright and splendid that even the stars disappear.  Gracie softly sings “Fly Me to the Moon” as she has a song for every occasion. 

Gracie has been warned by a very experienced traveler that it's really hard to keep in shape when you're on the road.  So she jumps at the chance to work out and then get a picture of the local university's mascot.  What a great way to start the day! 

Jigsaw Puzzzling

And the day goes on as they will visit her girlfriend’s Mom. Gracie watches, delighted as her friend makes her energetic entrance into the meeting room at the nursing home. Loretta Young never did it so well.  True that Loretta never wore sandals and capris, nor carried a large bag containing the tools for daily workouts: foreign language vocabulary, word find puzzles, jigsaw puzzles and the exercise band and ball, but still.... Often the entire room is involved with her friend, who gives everyone a chance to hit the ball back to her a few times. Once, she brought in Styrofoam balls and they had a snowball fight with her friend dodging as many as possible and she throws them back as well.
Her Mom is required to do 100 ball returns and continues to do more exercises, including arm and leg stretches with the band.  Her friend's Mom’s native language is Croatian, and so the daughter takes Croatian lessons to make communicating with her easier. Her Mom is so very animated when saying her prayers or bursting into song. 

When Gracie and her friend were children, she made cinnamon buns the size of quarters which the children popped into their mouths like candy. It is one of Gracie’s cherished recipes. They were sent to the woods and hills to picking berries to add to other tasty delights for baking made in the little kitchen.  Not all forms of food gathering were that fun. Sometimes the hunters of the family brought in rabbits which would need cleaning. They hung them on nails in the basement and then taught us children how to cut them open, carefully avoiding the bladder.

Breathing Exercises

Her friend and the Mom are amazing women; the b because she keeps on keepin’ on.  Some think older people should be left without medical care or be extinguished after their usefulness has passed. But older people provide invaluable opportunities for others to be compassionate, magnify their talents, and serve in many capacities.  Gracie thinks:  “She fed us, why shouldn’t we feed her?”As Gracie and her friend leave the nursing home, they realize that if they are fortunate enough to live as long as her friend's mom, they have another 35 years to go.

Their conversation takes a more serious turn as her friend asks, “We will die someday and I wonder if God is pleased with me or if I will go to heaven.” Gracie laughs out loud with tears of joy in her eyes and assures her “How could He not be? Not only is God pleased with you, He is proud to have you as His daughter. So is your Heavenly Mother.  Just look at how you uplifted those around you!”

P.S.  Today is her mom's 98th birthday!

Copyright © 2014 Martina Sabo

ROMANCE

Dear One,

Mourn not the quick passing of our summers, least one precious moment be lost. If fate has decreed that for this time we meet only in warm green, it is not ours to curse or to despair, but rather to catch and hold each moment granted, to care for these as the priceless things they are, pressing them between the folds of our minds where they can be savored and contemplated whenever we wish. 

Heed no season but the seasons of your mind and one summer can last a life time. I, l like you, fear and dread the winter sky and can offer no answer but this: Walk straight with your head held high and your long hair flowing, full knowing, that, though I am not at you side, it is there that I long to be. And although the road be winding and elusive, I am always walking toward you.

So rejoice that we have had this season together and someday, soon perhaps, we may forsake the howling wind for an eternal summer.

Copyright © 2014 Martina Sabo

Gracie Learns of Romance Novels

Gracie's daughter encourages her to write a romance novel. Gracie demurs -- since she's never read one, how could she write one? She decides to do some research, egged on by the astonishment and teasing of some of her friends. "What do you mean, you have never read a romance novel!?" They say, amazed.  Gracie is taken aback by these women's reactions.    They are bright and intelligent, some with multiple degrees....  Gracie, though she is a bit stunned by her friends' comments, thinks, "Maybe I'm missing something in my life."  If her friends' disbelief hadn't been tempered by amused affection, she might almost have felt rebuked.  Gracie decides to use this as an opportunity to learn something new.  

To the internet:  Search: Romance Novel Genre. She considers "The Bride" by Julie Garwood, but after two traumatic ventures into matrimony, Gracie isn’t about to open that title. Abandoning the Internet, she tries the local thrift shop where she learns that they don’t sell books.  However, the proprietor is enthusiastically willing to help and calls her mother on the phone to get some ideas.  Gracie is fascinated that the clerk drops everything, finds her cell phone and calls her mother all before Gracie can say  "I really don't want to impose..." which wouldn't have been actually true as she does want the information.  She departs with a list of titles and authors. 

Returning home she canvases her four female neighbors; she asks a) do you read romance novels? b) if so, could  you recommend a title  or lend me  a book? House 1 loads her up with four books; house 2 gives an additional five to her and house three tells her that house four won't have any as that neighbor would never read a romance novel even if it was printed on environmentally friendly paper. One neighbor gives a book to her explaining that while she hasn't read it, she's heard it's quite popular. 

Gracie resolves to read that one first but not until after her lunch date.  Lunch is interesting. She thanks Heaven that she's done raising her children, as the group of mothers discuss their concerns about autoerotic asphyxiation, bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism which is ravaging the high schools.  Really?  Sure, she is a generation older than the women at the table, but she is truly perplexed. What happened to "make love not war"? Surely in a mere 40 years society couldn't have gone from free love to the idea that abuse is lovemaking? That’s a stretch by any standard. The women of the '60s early '70's wanted nothing to do with bondage, abuse or dominance. They were able to stand on their own two feet.  They burned their bras and didn't wear underpants, well, until the first time they caught their pubic hair in the zipper.  What happened to flowers, love letters, caresses, laughter and kindness? So it is easily understandable that Gracie is shocked when she learns that some women willingly subject themselves to cruelty instead of insisting on loving passion and tenderness.  

She pays her part of the check and heads home to the couch to embark upon her first romance novel.  This should be an escape from the discomfiture of lunch. She deposits herself in a supine position on the small green leather sofa draping her legs over the arm. She opens the book and reads: “I scowl with frustration at myself in the mirror damn my hair - it just won't behave.”(1)  She carries on in growing disappointment. She tries not to let the poor writing deter her from her goal of reading a romance novel by week's end. Around page 48 is when the "hero" goes to a hardware store for ropes and chains. A light bulb suddenly goes off in Gracie's head as she realizes that the lessons from lunch are right before her eyes.

She grabs the cell phone and calls one of her lunch mates for some clarity.  To her dismay, she learns that the lunch conversation was not only the topic of the book but that it was this very friend's child's favorite book.  What?!  How can such bright, intelligent kids be into this? The writing is dismal, the content appalling.

It is sad. Downright sad and wrong that so many are being deceived into believing that enduring or inflicting physical pain can be an expression of love. Gracie knows what abuse is as well as the joys love making. These young adults may never know joy, tenderness, kindness, laughter or wrestling passion freely given and received in an intimate loving relationship.  They are trading real love for abuse, degradation, and slavery. Gracie weeps for womanhood, her friends and their daughters.  

Foot note one. Page One, Chapter One, Fifty Shades, E. L. James

Copyright © 2014 Martina Sabo