The Real-Life Adventures of A Former Glamour Girl

Is this a life? I'm just asking.

“Yup!  It’s official!  I have no life!”  This is a quote made on Facebook by my gorgeous, fifteen year old granddaughter.   Underneath her status update were comments from another couple of gorgeous, talented granddaughters who indicated that they too relate to the “no-life-status.” One of them even stated that she is “president of that club.”  What is up with that?  What is it exactly that constitutes a life?  I need to know, to see if I have one!

Is it a full calendar?  A dozen calls or texts each day?  Filler-people who need or want me?  Or is it being in the moment, humming along with my music, marveling at nature and being present enough in the day to notice what and who is around me?  I think it’s the latter.  I have had, and sometimes still have, the former.  Yet there are days when I too, think I have no life.

This feeling usually comes over me after a flurry of activity.  When I have just waved goodbye to my family or friends.  Any of them.  Sometimes it is the whole big noisy, hungry crowd, who from time to time inhabit our home for meals, holidays or pampering.  The truth is that I live for those times.  Every house we have ever owned has been purchased with my mental picture of nineteen to twenty-five of my nearest and dearest seated elbow to elbow around the dining table or crammed into the cushions of the various sofas and chairs.  I’ve been accused of having a living room that looks like a chair museum or a furniture showroom, because I want to own exactly enough comfortable chairs and beds to accommodate everyone I love if they all happened to drop in at the same time.  Does that make a life?  I’m not sure.

When the door closes behind the people I love and all that remains are dirty dishes, dust balls, Tom, the dog and me, I question my purpose in life.  I can sink within minutes to the depths of despair and a true belief that I am a loser.  A lazy, purposeless slacker who has no business being on the planet.  I become convinced that I have no friends and I have wasted my life!  In these moments (of self-pity,) I’ve been known to consider adopting children from Ethiopia or the Ukraine or to actually go out and buy a puppy.  I mean puppies.  Plural.  Maybe I believe that chaos makes a life.

My daughter Shelley once said to me, “Mother, you’ve had your day!”  She’s right, I have.  I’ve had several in fact, where I was a woman on a mission with things to do and places to go and people who were counting on me. I’ve been the temporary center of my universe, dance card all filled up and pretty dresses to wear to any occasion. I was needed and wanted and busy.  Does she really mean, "Mother you’ve had your LIFE ?  It's over now?"  

My grand children are just approaching “their day.”  Two are in High School, three are in college and seven are in elementary school.  They each have a blank canvas on which to paint their lives.  Sometimes a blank canvas or a blank page can be an intimidating thing to encounter.  What if we make a mistake, or a mess, or worse still, a masterpiece? 

As far as we know, we only get one life at a time to play with, and create. (Although, truthfully, I’ve had more than one.)  It is better when I'm  paying attention!  This is where being young can trip you up.  Not knowing how short and how fragile life can be. Not realizing the opposite is also true; as life offers up enormous gifts, opportunities and strengths.  It all counts, even the bad days.  There are no rehearsals and no re-takes in having a life.  That does not mean anything about doing or being perfect. I don’t think it means having or not having a social life either. It means, at least to me that it’s important to be present.  To feel it, to taste, to smell to notice every sensation that life has to offer at any time.   Even what it feels like to be lonely and have “no life!”  Then there is the being grateful part.  It's harder when things are not as I wish they were, but saying thank you is good, even for that.

I remember being a teenager and waiting for life to start.  The good news and the bad news is that it already had.  The choices I made so early, directed the course of my life and brought me right here, right now.  Maybe if I had known some of the paths I would take I would have made different choices but ultimately I believe I am becoming the person I was meant to be.  Every experience, every heartbreaking disappointment, every triumph, every kindness shown in even a small way, every moment of gratitude, is a part of the makings of a life.  My life!  None of it is wasted.  I believe that! 

So to my beautiful granddaughters I pass along this little secret; take notes, take pictures, look around and say “thank-you,” admire your beauty, your flat tummys and the beauty of what surrounds you. Commit it all to the memory of your heart.  These are the “good old days” you will tell your children about later and maybe share with someone else who one day thinks she has no life when really it is just the beginning.  We still have yet to see the end of the story.  I'm betting it is a good one.

My life is so glamorous!  It’s just not fair, lucky for me!! 

 

 

Just what it takes.

I used to think that “happiness” was a destination.  It’s not.  “Happiness,” at least for me, is a series of moments, little rest- stops, on the road to destiny.  “Contentment” however, is a longer stay.  One can reside in “contentment” indefinitely, with many visits to “happiness” along the way.  I know.  I live most days in the land of “contentment.”  Not a bad place to live.

I’ve been thinking for the past couple of weeks about those moments when all of the stars align, and I can feel the presence of a higher power, a divine energy of love.  The moments when I can get a chill that comes from knowing that everything is going to be okay.  “Happiness!”  My favorite vacation spot!   Here are a few of my momentary visits to “happiness” from the past few days.

It rained.  Soft sheets of rain fell all around for the past several days.  An enormous orange and black garden spider has taken up residence in a web she has suspended from the market umbrella just off the dining room.  This is where I greet the morning.  I witness the sky going from black to gray while trying to remember not to be the spider’s breakfast or wear her web as a hairnet.  It looks and feels like Fall.  A couple of nights back, there were a spectacular thunder and lightening display.  I always appreciate a good show!  It reminds me there is a God.

I love the changing of the seasons.  It inspires me to be creative.  Usually this means pulling out the soup pot, chopping, dicing and simmering something fragrant while lounging curled under a fuzzy throw watching birds jockey for position at the bird feeder. Yesterday I made two big pots of chili.  Today I will make cornbread.  More evidence of order in the universe.

Often in fall, I can be found rearranging the furniture, pulling out the fall décor and thinking ahead to Christmas.  Problem is there is only one way to arrange the furniture in my living room/dining room/kitchen.  My go-to-solution to this disappointment is that we will have to move!  This always happens.  The seasons change and I want a change too.   It’s a nesting thing, or a restless thing; I’m not sure which.  I just know that when the light changes, I want/need to see a different view.  (The difference between want and need is fodder for a whole different essay.  To me, they are the same thing.  If I “want” it, then I “need” it.  My husband does not see the connection.  Oh well.)

I satisfied my desire for change by putting away the summer’s, flowery pillows on the sofas and replacing them with brown pillows.   It’s okay.  It is fall.  I can light candles and the fireplace and warm up the chili. 

Another of my “moments” was on Sunday night when, with my husbands help, I sewed on a button!  Yes!  A button!! I purchased a darling brown and white dotted raincoat back in May at a TJ Maxx store in Alabama. I found it at a very reduced price, but the button nearest the waist was hanging by a thread.  When I put it on to wear to dinner over my leggings and sweater Sunday night, it was clear the button was on its way to being lost.  I took it off and hung it back in my closet.  I thought about taking it to the dry cleaners where they mostly take care of all my sewing needs but then decided that would be pathetic, even for me.  I considered taking it to my daughter Stacy but realized I was still pathetic.  Then I remembered my sewing kit!  Yes!  I have a sewing kit!  I bought it a couple of years ago to sew the neck or the ear on my grandson Alex’s Webkins but never got a round to it.  Sorry Alex!

It took fifteen minutes and two grown people to thread the needle.  It also involved a needle-threader–thingy, but ultimately the needle had brown thread with a knot in it and I went to work.  I remembered from my brief but brilliant stint with The Future Homemakers of America, something about putting a pin under the button so it would not be too stiff, but I could not find a pin so another needle had to stand in.  I succeeded in sticking myself a couple of times, but ultimately was able to wear the coat to dinner, all buttoned up.  (Don’t ask how it looked on the inside when I UNBUTTONED the coat.  It had a button, and even my husband knew this was noteworthy because he announced to the hostess that I had ”just sewn on the button!” when she seated us.  She seemed genuinely impressed, as were we.  It seems a lot of old people dine at Piatti.)

Yesterday I heard two of my grand kids in Alabama say in the background while I was on the phone with their mother, “grandma Kitty!  You’re the best!”  When they opened a package I’d sent them with little trinkets I’d carried home from my travels in Italy.  Just hearing those voices gave my tummy a little jump and I was so happy I’d made the effort to schlep the stuff in my hundred pound bag and then go to the UPS store and pay forty dollars to ship it.  It all seems like a pain–in-the-butt when I’m doing it but then, it makes me so happy when they seem so happy!

It doesn’t take much these days to fill my heart.   On Tuesday I got to pick up my grandson Aidan and his cousin Claire from school.  Just being in the car when these seven year olds utter their little truths, is priceless!  I find myself saying thank-you prayers every few minutes.  Just to be present, to be a witness, to see their minds at work and their expressions, is a gift of happiness I am so grateful to not have missed.  Claire was telling me all about the recession and how her daddy and her neighbor have been “laid-down” (I’m pretty sure she meant laid-off,) as a result of the economic down turn, and how her baby sitter needs more money so she can’t work for them any more.  These are true moments of intimacy and love.  Happiness in a raincoat and toe head.

Today is Friday.  I just returned from a walk with my daughter Stacy along Butterfly Beach.  The rain is gone and has left us a pristine day with fresh air and sunshine.  I’m getting ready today to drive to Sacramento to see our Brittany play volleyball against Sacramento State tomorrow night.  A long drive with my son-in-law and my grandson, to sit in the stands and see our girl.  These are the moments when gratitude seeps in and I know what a good deal I have just to be alive.  Sappy, I know.  I used to want to be  happy and cool, but now I know that all it takes is rain, a button, some pillows and some love. 

My life is so glamorous!  It’s just not fair, lucky for me!!!

 

 

 

 

Re-entry to real life.

Here is the thing about being Royalty or a Former Glamour Girl; unless you have a full time staff, (uh, I do not,) which runs along beside you to carry, fluff and clear the way, you are not going to look glamorous most of the time, even though, God knows I try! (I invested in an ultra hep, army green military jacket,new high heeled motorcycle boots and wore them both with a black dress and brown leggings.  It was a "LOOK!")  In fact, there are times when just getting from point A to point B is downright unlovely!  This is because, if you have thought about “your people”, who for me are my husband, daughters, sons-in-law, friends and grand kids, you have brought them little mementos from your travels.

My lone schlepping adventure at the Rome airport, following ten magical days in Rome and a villa in Tuscany, while trying to get home to Santa Barbara, was a vision, but NOT of the post card variety.More of the video game variety.  It involved carrying three, overly stuffed, overly heavy bags and a large purse while walking what seemed like the circumference of Rome in circles, while wearing my new, high heeled boots, (the queen has her standards,) and hoisting my giant suitcase, (Which weighed-in at 30 kilos over the limit,)  up a non functional escalator while carrying three additional bags, in search of the Airport Hilton where I would sleep my last night in Italy.  

Needless to say, I was drenched in sweat and exhausted beyond words when I finally arrived, red-faced, at the Hilton front desk at 9:00 p m.  I was up at 5:00 the next morning and thank goodness, I did not have to walk! Every inch of my body hurt! I think I would have paid any amount of money to have someone drive me.  Fortunately. I got to take a shuttle to the international terminal.

 When I arrived at the terminal and was all checked in and had passed through security including being patted down, I remembered that I needed to take one of the tax-free receipts for my purchases of a briefcase and wallet for Tom and a purse for me to get a refund.  Being the “new” me, I decided to make the effort. (The “old” me would have said, “oh, what’s a hundred Euros!) When I got to the window the lady said we/I had to go downstairs, take a shuttle and go to another terminal, get it stamped by a customs agent and then come back and get the refund. My newly aquired wonderfulness was now in question!  

 There was a sweet young couple at the desk with me and we decided to go together, having been promised that we would NOT have to go through security again. Hah!  We went downstairs, took the shuttle, (remember I am carrying my sparkleish carry-on, my big purse plus the big shopping bag from Florence filled with very heavy crap, (I mean treasures) There, ( big surprise,) we were directed to go through security yet again.

Remember the boots without sox?  They had to come off.  Okay, I thought.  I can do that. Next I was waved over to a special table where the nice officer decided that I should get into my carry on and unwrap everything in it. They were baffled by my alabaster horse-heads sculpture, which I purchased in one of my  “good idea-moments."  The horses, carved from a single piece of alabaster, are the size of a watermelon and HEAVY! The nice couple waited for me while I re-packed my bag and got dressed again and I stood in line to receive the desired stamp from customs and the refund of a hundred Euros. The customs agent was star-struck about Santa Barbara, seems they're all big fans of the 1980's soap of the same name. Back to the shuttle and we were on our way.

 The flight from Rome to Newark was lovely, I read and dozed, it was nice.  When I got to Newark we claimed our bags to go through customs.  That was fine except that the handle on my shopping bag tore and the whole thing fell totally apart, spilling the contents.  I then found it necessary to carry the shopping bag while dragging the 150 lb suitcase and the carry- on- bag with the rocks in it! (Oh, yes!  There were several smaller pieces of alabaster, and a large can of Italian coffee which apparently looked suspicious when being screened.) Let me just say, I was NOT A VISION OF LOVELINESS! The man letting us into the security line said I had too many bags and I should put my large purse into my shredded shopping bag. Okay, fine.  I kept explaining to the people in line that I had shopped for my husband. When I arrived at the next security check point, I had to take my boots off but my feet were so swollen I could not get them off!  Finally I asked the man in front of me if I could hold on to him for leverage, and he graciously consented. The friendly TSA officers then  wanted to inspect my bags, and wand my boots, oh and pat me down for the third time! I was not glamorous but I guess I looked dangerous!   

Before  boarding the plane to Los Angeles, I bought a big canvas “I love New York” bag to carry all of the junk from the torn shopping bag. This caused the nice girl that was helping me to inquire as to whether or not I was "okay!"  The new bag was bright pink to match my face, and in no way went with my "look," but at that point I did not care.

I'm home!!

My life is so glamorous!  It’s just not fair, lucky for me!!!!