Memorial Day Weekend 2013

Ever notice how even the teensiest thing can throw you off your game? Yesterday when it was cold and raining and not at all the kind of Memorial Day weekend I have come to expect, I wasn't a happy camper. It just wasn't right that this weekend, always important to me, was shaping up to be a colossal disappointment filled with wind and rain.

I couldn't find anything I was looking for. And when I did get information I sought, it was not what I wanted to hear. I knew I had packed my jewelry. I remember standing in my bedroom spending way too much time pondering which necklace to wear to a picnic tomorrow. It had to be here somewhere. Same with the knee brace I brought to shore up a tender tendon injured recently in a fight with a bag of potting soil. Same with the sports water bottle I had left here last time I was at Peter's house. It was here. I just had to open my eyes.

Couldn't find ANY of them yesterday. I tore through all the too-many clothes, shoes, coloring books (aka my activities cache), knitting, etc. to no avail. I was pretty sure I was going bonkers right then and there. AND I felt chilled and it seemed far too dark outside during the day.


I fully blame the missing-in-action sunshine that was supposed to highlight this opening-of-summer weekend. I spent a lot of energy being really annoyed about its absence, remembering Memorial Days with more heat and sun when our family set up the screened porch for summer. My dad listened to the Indy 500 on the radio while he painted and scrubbed and put the screens in place. My mom would put little pin-up lamps next to wicker chairs so we could read after dark. When a neighbor drove his boat past the house on his way to the river, my dad would joke, "Look at that fool! He's going boating and he could be painting his porch!"

School was over, in effect, even though the teachers had to put up with us for another ten days or so. The Memorial Day marker meant we could start wearing our white clothes and shoes, a standard of sartorial propriety that has long since vanished. Parks and beaches opened for "the season" and stayed open until Labor Day. Mom made her patented potato salad to celebrate. The days were still getting longer. My birthday was coming.

Earlier in my life, when the holiday was also known as Decoration Day, I accompanied my grandparents to Aunt Nellie's grave for the spring clean-up and flower-planting. They lost her at age 27, pregnant with her first baby, decades earlier and were never the same. During the heat of summer they visited that grave every week, cut the grass, tended to the geraniums they had planted at Memorial Day. I remember seeing other families plant fresh new flags on the graves of veterans, not yet realizing just how lucky I was that my dad came home from war in one piece to help me grow up and give me my sister and brother.

Vermont this year could not have been much farther from those warm memories. Snow topped Killington Peak and Mt. Mansfield and yet another frost hit the fledgling gardens of those of us so eager for summer that we jumped the gun and planted before Memorial Day. No wonder I was discombobulated, cranky, unseeing, and more than a little bit resentful of my friends in the mid-Atlantic and the midwest who were actually enjoying a sunny warm holiday weekend.

At times like this, old-time Vermonters are quick to tell flatlanders like me tales of snow in June and other anomalies. They are never surprised or even disappointed by the weather. Only in our minds is sunshine something to count on. We get attached to an idea, maybe a slender hope, and hang on for all our might.

How scary it seems to let go, to have a Plan B, simply to be wholly present with whatever is. And yet, it is only in that letting go and letting be that we receive the gifts of sight (for finding those lost objects) and insight. That we find the gifts of treasured memories and gratitude for those who shaped us and those who served. For a chance to make one last fire and hope that tomorrow's forecast for sun comes true.

Wanted: Meaningful Work

When I stopped working last summer, the word "retirement" was bandied about, albeit with a necklace of caveats that dressed it up a bit and made it feel more presentable. Before I could cross the border into the land of "OMG--What have I done?" I left the country on my sister's shirttails to enjoy and find a way to feel useful in Armenia for most of three months (see DiploMom71.blogspot.com). When I returned just before Thanksgiving it seemed a given that no serious matters were going to be addressed until after the new year.

But now, a full five months on, I can tell I am definitely approaching the borders of "OMG--What have I done?" -- and without even a tourist visa good for 90 days, no questions asked. Maybe it was just the long winter here in Vermont this year, but I am feeling something has got to change here.

After the garden prospects, and landscaping changes, there was fun travel to consider. Researching the Western and Southern Cape of South Africa kept me busy and intrigued, but while it offers many and varied experiences and tons of natural beauty, it did not seem to meet all the criteria for "worth spending my own money on at this time." This is a high bar for me. If you have seen my 12 year old Subaru you already know this.

So I Googled "places to live cheaply overseas." Up came Cuenca, Ecuador, among other locales that appear to be charming American Boomers trying to live on their Social Security. Aha! This might do AND I could get back to that elusive goal of feeling minimally competent to travel in Spanish. With the enthusiasm of a Gold Rusher, I found language schools, apartments, restarted my Spanish with the aim of conquering indirect objects, located places I could do yoga, tried to find the symphony schedule for the fall, even found places I could volunteer.

While I was still in the rush of imagining Ecuador in the fall, along came a brief flirtation with going to Uganda to teach social work for a semester. Talk about whiplash! As flirtations go, it was wild. I went from facing up to my inordinate and lifelong fear of snakes to pondering life with intermittent electricity (i.e., reading by kerosene lamp) to thinking I could actually add value where it is needed. Turns out it is not going to work out for this year (see issue about spending own money above) but I am working on next year.

The piece Uganda has that other options haven't so far is the chance to do meaningful work again. That's what has to change. If not Uganda, then where? If Ecuador, then what? In the meantime, surely there is something that needs doing in Vermont.

The great thing thing about being a generalist in any field is that you enjoy a broad scope and have a wide-ranging portfolio of skills and eventually knowledge. After 40 years, you just know stuff. And hopefully you know how to integrate and synthesize. There is a bit of gravitas. So I know I have a lot to offer if I find the right niche. I don't have to be nor do I want to be "the boss." What I need is to be useful to others in a way that means something to them and to me.

So I am resting open, but there is a little sign around my neck that says: Wanted--meaningful work.