Making the World a Better Place One Bridge at a Time

I hate bridges! Imagine my delight when I discovered that there is a word for that fear--gephyrophobia--and that I am not alone with this fear, which cripples, debilitates, and makes one's world small.

One time in 1988, Gordon was driving us across the Columbia River, and I panicked. I huddled on the floor under the glove compartment, barely breathing. My young children were frightened for their mommy, but I could not be brave for them. I was terrified, pure and simple. An earlier time in 1982, I was driving from the East Bay to San Francisco, when I realized (it was my first time driving that direction) that I was on a bridge. I completely freaked out and stopped the car. Fortunately, it was during rush hour, so the traffic was quite slow. Gordon was taking a nap, woke up, and very kindly changed places with me, while I sat hyperventilating on the floor of the passenger side of the car.

After Gordon developed dementia, and I had to take over the driving, I realized that I had to conquer my terror at driving over bridges, or my world would physically be a very small place. My first bridge was the Golden Gate Bridge. It was January 2002, and I was taking the kids to Inverness. I played a Peter, Paul, and Mary CD very loudly in the car, and sang along to the songs the whole way across the bridge. I was so proud of myself, but the kids were just ho-hum. They did not realize what a HUGE thing I had just accomplished in my fifty-first year of life.

I still do not enjoy driving (or walking, for that matter) over bridges, but now I will cross them because I want to continue making my world larger.

And bridges are what we need in this country after our contentious election. We need to build  bridges and walk across them to heal our country and to make it ideologically larger and more inclusive. Building bridges may be a perilous endeavor, but it is a necessary one, and we need to build them together and cross them together--Democrats and Republicans, gays and straights, all ethnicities, military men and women and Greenpeace activists, all religious people, agnostics, and atheists, men and women, the young and the elderly, and the rich, the poor, and everyone inbetween. Our country is fractured with huge chasms between the various factions, and these chasms can only be crossed by building bridges of understanding, tolerance, and acceptance. 

We can only build these bridges when we quit looking at each other as enemies, as right or wrong, and we see, instead, our similarities, the things we have in common, and embrace them. This world of newly built bridges will make all of our worlds larger, fuller, and more harmonious.

But how do we do this? First, we have to genuinely want to build bridges. We have to leave our preconceptions and assumptions behind. We have to seek truth. A good first step might be to get rid of Fox News and MSNBC and go back to straight news. Has there ever been a finer moment than when Edward R. Murrow exposed Joseph McCarthy? I think not!

We also have to quit casting blame. We will never agree on who is responsible for any particular problem. Instead, we need to acknowledge the problem and go forward from there. Simple when you are no longer looking for blame.

And gloating? Completely forbidden. Gloating is not gracious, and bridges can only be built in a state of grace.

Building bridges is not easy work, and traveling across them is sometimes almost impossible, as I can personally attest to, but building bridges and traveling across them is what we must do in order to make our country and our world a better place to live for everyone.

So, all you people who voted, go up to that family member, co-worker, or neighbor who voted differently from you, sit down over a cup of coffee, and commiserate with the Republican voters who feels angry, lost, and scared; congratulate Democratic voters who mostly feel an immense relief that their man won; and discuss third party viability with everyone. Then, start building bridges.

Take care,

Kate

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A Tale of Two Grandmas

When I was a little girl, I loved both of my grandmas, but I only liked one. I called them my nice grandma and my mean grandma, and I still refer to them that way today, though I now know it's not really that simple.

My grandmas got married about the time that the depression began. They had their babies, my parents, a month apart. Both families were poor, but that is where the similarities ended. My grandmas' reactions to raising children during the depression were vastly different. My nice grandma lived in the world with an open heart and an open hand. To her, the world was brimming with possibility as long as she was with the family she loved so much and could worship God whom she loved dearly. She went to church every Sunday. My mean grandma, on the other hand, closed her heart and her hand. Her world shrank to her husband, her son, and herself with only a smidgen of room for her mother, her sister, and her brother. If she had faith in God, it died or became irrelevant.

When I was a little girl, my nice grandma sewed us cute outfits, played with us, read to us, told us stories about her childhood, drank a glass of milk with us when Engineer Bill did his "red light, green light" milk drinking on his program, and hugged and kissed us hello, good-bye, and for no reason at all, just because she loved us. In contrast, my mean grandma gave my sister and me lots of lovely gifts. We had dolls and clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue. She would give us a dollar every time she visited. But we were sent to our room for the duration of the visit, except for dinner, and were never played with or talked to, and were told how good a grandma we had to give us so many nice things. We got a formal kiss good-bye.

As you might imagine, I did not like the clothes from Saks Fifth Avenue, but I wore the outfits my nice grandma made me until I outgrew them or they were rags.

When I was four years old, my parents went on a trip. They left my sister with my nice grandma, and me with my mean grandma. My grandma sat me alone in front of the black and white TV to watch Peter Pan with Mary Martin. She didn't watch it with me, nor did she want to hear what I thought about it when it was over.  Even as a young child, I was a sharer, like I am today, so it was agony to watch the show and not have anyone to talk about it with. She didn't read to me, and my only happy moments were when my grandpa was home. He was loving and fun. Faced with another night alone with grandma because my grandpa worked nights, I rebelled. With all my four year old might, I demanded to be taken to my nice grandma's house. After a lengthy phone call, they agreed. Of course, my nice grandma punished me for being a naughty girl, but punishment from my nice grandma was MUCH nicer than spending any more time with my mean grandma.

The next year, when I was five years old and halfway through kindergarten, I developed pneumonia and was sick for months. My mom had to work, so my nice grandma came to stay with me during the week. My maternal grandpa, also a true sweetheart of a human, dropped his wife off on Monday and picked her up on Friday. Grandma was so fun. She would get into my mist tent with me and read me stories, so I wouldn't be scared. She played stuffed animals with me. She watched TV with me. She made me laugh. She made me goodies to eat, and she hugged and kissed me. I felt very loved.

As time went by, and I grew older, I realized that while my nice grandma was, indeed, nice, my mean grandma wasn't really mean, she was just cold and distant. She didn't like my mom, hadn't wanted her son to marry my mom, and wasn't thrilled about us kids. She loved us in her way, but her way wasn't very child friendly. What I didn't realize yet was that she was harming herself with her coldness even more than she was harming her grandchildren.

In my mean grandma's desperate attempt to make her world safe and comfortable, a behavior that stemmed, I've come to believe, from her reaction to being poor for so many years in the depression, she kept her world immaculately clean, ordered, and small. Bars were on her heart. Self-protection was paramount. She kept her mom, my great-grandma Nani, in a tiny room an hour away. I was heartbroken when I saw my beloved Nani's room, which was only big enough for a bed and a dresser, because I knew my grandma had plenty of room for her mom to stay with her, but she only let her mom visit once a year. My Nani never complained, but I complained on her behalf, making my grandma frequently angry with me because I wouldn't mind my own business. No matter how often I asked, my grandma never let escape one hint or whisper as to why she was so mean and stingy to her mom.

My mean grandma also kept a ledger, which she showed to me one day in my early twenties. It was filled with what she gave people as gifts and what they gave her as gifts. She listed loans and when they were paid back. She put notes beside the names, and these were not flattering. My mean grandma had a balance sheet life, and she always felt she was on the wrong side of the balance.

My nice grandma, on the other hand, gave and gave and gave with never a thought about what she got back. I have truly never known a nicer human being. She had a joie de vivre that was inspirational. She would take the bus across the country to visit her sister in Florida and come home with a list of new friends. When I was getting married in 1975, she went with me to the bookstore, and when we couldn't find The Joy of Sex, she walked right up to the cashier and asked where it was, explaining that her granddaughter was getting married and was a virgin, so she needed the book. I almost died of humiliation, but I also loved her for it. Nothing daunted my nice grandma.

When it came time for my grandmas to die, they died as they lived. My mean grandma slipped into a coma, shut off from us who loved her, while my nice grandma beamed with joy when she learned that she would be seeing her beloved husband and her beloved Jesus soon.

However, before my mean grandma slipped into a coma, she did something that made me very proud of her, and gave me a glimpse into the woman she might have been if she had been willing to risk uncertainty. She was feeling poorly on Christmas. She had cancer and knew this was probably her last holiday with us. She was so weak that she could barely sit up, but she somehow got up, wrapped her dressing gown around herself, and made her way into the living room to spend the evening with us. It was the only unselfish, loving act I can remember her making, and in that moment, I saw what a strong woman she was, and I respected her and loved her very much.

Who knows why we respond to life the way we do? Do we have a choice about how we respond? I've always puzzled about why one grandma came out of the depression with an open heart and hand, and the other with a closed heart and hand. Perhaps that's how they were before the depression. I shall never know. What I find fascinating, though, is how children are so perceptive about the people around them. From my earliest memories, I knew who was the nice grandma and who wasn't, and the distinction became clearer and clearer as I grew up. The big difference from childhood to adulthood was that I developed sympathy for the one who wasn't because her life, while safe, was so very small.

And my nice grandma? Well, if she were alive, she would by 99 years old today. I wish she were still alive. I miss her everyday, and I honor her memory by trying to have an open heart and hand like she did, but she's an impossible act to follow.

Take care,

Kate

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Our Grand Education Adventure

Once upon a time, almost thirty years ago, I had a baby; in fact, over time, I had four babies. When my first child was born, my daughter Amy, I was elated and terrified all at once. I had never been fond of children, and now here I was spending twenty-four hours a day with one. However, I was very fond of Amy; in fact, I loved and adored her. I just didn't know what to do with her. I hadn't a clue.

To fill up our days in between baby activities, like bathing and diaper changing and feeding, I played music for her, sang to her, and danced with her. We strollered around the neighborhood. But while all of that held a certain fascination, I was bored, and I figured Amy must be bored too. What to do? I am not a crafts person. I do not cook. I do not garden. In fact, I am not very good at most child geared activities. Finally, it came to me. I would just be myself and share with Amy my joy of learning and critical thinking.  In addition to all my love, joyful learning and critical thinking, I believed, were the best gifts I could give to my daughter, along with the skill of knowing how to learn--that is, knowing how to research when you have a question and where to find the answer.

I had been reading to Amy since she was in my womb, mostly nursery rhymes and Greek myths and fairy tales, things I thought a baby would enjoy. Now, I started reading her the newspaper, and I discussed it with her. Granted, it was a little lopsided at first, but over time, as she began to talk, the discussions became scintillating. 

 

We also explored our walking distance and driving distance worlds, and I would explain everything I could about whatever we were exploring, and when I didn't know something, I took her to the library to search for the answer. Amy loved the library. We learned to use the card catalogue, and I let her pick out her own books as soon as she could crawl, which meant that we finished the bottom shelf of the children's section in the library first. I never talked to Amy in baby language; I always taught her synonyms and antonyms; and I always asked her questions, especially the question: "why?"

 

A truly delightful moment occurred when Amy was being fussy in the middle of the night, and I read to her Howard's End by E.M. Forster, and she loved it. She became quiet and listened. When I stopped reading, she whimpered and then grinned when I started reading again. I began asking her what she thought about one passage or another. Of course, she couldn't answer as she was only four months old, but she would look intently at me, and I knew that was the right thing to do, ask her questions, even when they seemed to be over her head because it gave her something to reach for.

When Amy's brothers--Gavin, Hugh, and Grant--joined the family, I did the same thing with them--read to them, asked questions, analyzed and searched for answers. When Hugh was born, I read Narnia and poetry to Amy, age five, and Gavin, age three, while I nursed Hugh. Amy and Gavin were especially partial to T.S Eliot, Robert Frost, and Emily Dickinson then, which delighted my heart.

When it came time for school, I faced a quandary. Amy flat out refused to leave our mountain idyll and her brothers for any amount of time. She told me that she would run away from school, and I'd never find her, and my heart would break, but it would be all my fault for sending her to school. She said she could learn more at home. Lol, this is what all that early critical thinking unleashed.

Gordon came home from work one day with the solution--homeschooling. One of his patients was doing that with her children, and she loved it. Hmm, my good friend, Kristy, was doing that with her five children, and she encouraged me to do it too. But I was unsure. What did I know about teaching reading and math? What did I know about teaching young children? I had taught college, for heaven's sake! But with Amy adamant about not going to school, I was left with no choice, so I did what I always do when faced with a new situation--bought lots of books about homeschooling and learned how to do it!

I must say, for me, at least, I can't speak for my children, the twenty-four years we spent homeschooling were the most delightful years of my life. I enjoyed every day of being my children's mom and teacher. When you think about it, everything can be a learning experience. For instance, one day the children saw a commercial with a huge, tasty looking hamburger at a local fast food restaurant. Instead of telling them my negative opinions about junk food,  I popped them all in the car, and we went to buy lunch there. The look on each of their faces, when the food was delivered, was priceless, especially Gavin's. He felt cheated. The burger was tiny, and it tasted terrible. So we discussed why the hamburger looked so good on TV--to get you to buy it. This led to a discussion about commercials and being manipulated by companies that want you to buy their products. I like to think that this early lesson has helped my children become wise consumers. :)

Our days were filled with math, science, reading, writing, languages, history, films, and many electives, which I let each child choose for her/himself so that there would be one class that each child definitely looked forward to. Year after year rolled by with me learning as much as my children. I had to learn how to teach my two dyslexic children to read, and I had to get four different math books for the early years because each child learned math differently from the other three. It was fascinating and illuminating, and, most of all, it was humbling. I taught my children from kindergarten through high school, but had I done a good job? I didn't know for sure, and a few close friends confided their doubts over the years, but I somehow knew, when talking with my children, each of whom thinks deeply, broadly, and outside the box, that they would shine when they went to college and out into the world because they were consummate learners.

Amy was the first to go to our local community college, and while she finally looked forward to going to school, and she was no longer threatening, as she did in middle school, to be homeless and push a shopping cart rather than learn math, she had the jitters. She was afraid that she might fail. I told her that if she failed, it was ok because it would be a learning experience. We would examine what the problems were, and we would figure out a strategy to correct whatever needed fixing. She was nervous, and so was I, but I didn't let her know it at the time. Both of our lives seemed like they were on the line--Amy's academic future and the measure of my life's work. Wow, what pressure!

Well, it's been eleven years since Amy set off for her first class away from home. During that time, Amy, Gavin, and Grant have graduated with BA's, earning mostly A's, a couple of B's, but nothing lower. They are thrilled (perhaps mightily relieved is more accurate) that our homeschooling turned out so well, and I am immensely proud of my children. Amy has her MA in English and is working at a local community college. Gavin manages a towing company and finishes his MA in Sociology this coming May. And Grant works as a security guard, interns at a non-profit that finds housing for the developmentally challenged, and is taking graduate classes in Urban Planning. He will earn his MUP (Masters in Urban Planning) in May 2014.

Our grand educational adventure that began when Amy refused to go to school has ended with Amy getting a tenure track position as an instructor in a community college. Now, that is amusing!

Take care,

Kate

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An End Girl's Broken Dream

My mother dreamed of becoming a dancer from the time she was a little girl. Somehow my grandma and grandpa found enough money to get her lessons, even though it was the middle of the 1930's depression.

My mother practiced all the time, even when she was tired and in pain. Her dance teachers said she had great promise. During World War II, my mother danced with a troupe that performed for our soldiers in the States. She was the youngest in the troupe and barely in high school, but she loved dancing with all her heart. Her dream was to dance with the Radio City Rockettes, and after high school, she signed a contract with the overseas troupe of the Rockettes to be an end girl.

What is an end girl? She's one of the two shortest girls in the troupe. So, my mother and the other shortest girl would be on either end of the line of dancers. Naturally, every dancer wants to be the center dancer, who is the tallest dancer, because every eye in the audience goes to her first, but my mother consoled herself that the end girls would stand out as the next most noticed girls because they were easily distinguished from the long chorus line of dancers. My mother's dream had come true. All her hard work had paid off, and she was on her way to the life she always dreamed of and wanted. My mother was over the moon with happiness.

But her boyfriend was not. Her boyfriend ripped up the contract and tore the blouse off of my mother so that she could not go back into the office to get another contract. Her boyfriend said he couldn't risk losing her to another man overseas, so he whisked her away to Arizona where they eloped. My mom thought it was SO romantic at the time.

Alas, she soon learned that it was not so romantic after all. The newly married, very young couple lived with the groom's parents, who were not pleased about their son marrying a dancer, who, in their minds, was a "loose woman," and they were even less pleased when she became pregnant, unplanned, five months later with me.

My mother told me that when I was born, she knew what real love was for the first time. She went on to have my sister sixteen months later. But my mom was not happy. She desperately missed dancing. Although she loved us, my mother was not cut out to be a mom. She just did not enjoy it. Years later I learned that, deeply unhappy in her marriage, my mom had fallen in love with another man when I was about four years old. My grandma talked her out of leaving my dad, and many years later, my grandma deeply regretted doing that.

My mom taught dancing on weekends to little girls. She even taught my brownie troop to do the can-can for a mother-daughter event, but some of the other mothers criticized her for having us flip our lacy, fancy slips up, just as you are supposed to do in the can-can. My mom did not like those small minded women.

Later, when I asked my mom to teach me how to dance, she told me "no." She told me that she couldn't have one of her daughters live the dream that she had given up; it would hurt too much. We had to find other talents, which turned out to be ok because my sister had little to no rhythm, and my legs are way too short to be a dancer.

When I was seven, my mom had another child. My dad told her that she had to try to give him a son out of gratitude that he hadn't kicked her out when she fell in love with another man. The new child was, indeed, a son, but it did not make things better between them. My mother had a horrible, what we now know, postpartum depression. A year later, when she was just coming out of it, my grandpa died. My mom was a daddy's girl, and she never recovered from this loss.

My mom spiraled down, down, down, and my dad responded by becoming more and more verbally and physically abusive. Our home life was a nightmare. My mom took valium; my mom drank; my mom hid in the bathroom and slipped notes to me under the door. Sometimes, when no one was home but the two of us, she would come out of the bathroom and pour her heart out to me. I tried to help, but I was a kid and then a teenager. What could I do? I listened to her, and I read the horrible romance novels that she had developed a liking for as a retreat from her miserable marriage so that we could discuss them, but, really, what is there to discuss in the average romance novel? Every, single one had some handsome, misunderstood, dark haired, romantic, rich man swooping in and saving the young woman from some brute of a guy. I could almost see the appeal to my mom, but I thought the stories were dumb.

Once when I was sixteen, I asked my mom to leave my dad, but she said, and these words still haunt me to this day, "If I leave your dad, then I gave up my dream for nothing." I responded that she could find another dream, but she told me that I didn't understand.

And to this day, I still do not understand. My mom ended her life two years later, and for forty-two years I've tried to understand why she didn't just tell my dad to "Go to hell." My mom died at age 39, a young woman. She never knew her children as adults, never knew her children's spouses, never knew her grandchildren.

My mom had so much to offer the world. She was smart, funny, talented, and, when I was a young child, full of life. She should not have been a mother, though I am grateful to have been born. In a perfect world, my mom would have seen my dad's ripping her contract and tearing her blouse for what they were, the actions of a bully, not a lover, and she would have gone back into the Rockette's office, head held high, in her bra, and signed another contract!

But this is not a perfect world, and my mom didn't sign another contract. My mom has been gone a long time. In my mind's eye I always see her dancing, and I am writing this so that she will never be forgotten.

Take care,

Kate

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We Have Something Special

Yesterday, a lovely group of individuals gathered together to share a meal and several hours of lively conversation. It was the 4th annual reunion of SJSU English professors and students, who became friends during the 1970's and 1980's, and then followed various paths until re-connecting in 2009.

Thirty-five years ago, I was an undergraduate student in English at San Jose State University. I was new to the bay area and a returning college student in my late 20's and knew no one. One day, a professor I liked a lot asked me to join him and some friends for coffee before class. My shyness almost kept me from going, but curiosity beat back my shyness, and I went. Consequently, I found a group of friends who made me feel "at home" for the first time in my life.

These like-minded individuals shared my interests. Everyone read AND talked about what they had read. Everyone had strong opinions and stated them. We all watched PBS and went to art house films, so we had people to talk with about what we watched. We talked politics, and sometimes we even gossiped. It was a heady time; it was invigorating; it was comfortable; it was pure joy! 

But even better, our egalitarian group of people was open-hearted. Everyone and anyone who wanted to be part of the group was welcome and made to feel so. We celebrated Fridays together, graduations together, holidays together, major birthdays and anniversaries together, weddings together, and new babies together. In fact, the last time I met with all of them as a group before our reunions began was in 1990 at Lisa's baby shower.

In our group, Lisa and I were particular friends. She had been my doula for Gavin's birth. We saw each other through marriage, divorce, and remarriage. Her son and my youngest child are the same age. Though our lives went in markedly different directions for awhile, we kept in touch, and we kept each other up-to-date on whatever we learned about our group of friends.

Though my children knew only a few of the members of our group, this group of friends loomed large in my children's lives. They grew up hearing numerous stories about everyone in the group, and this group gained an almost mythic stature in my children's eyes. They expected to have the same experience when they went to college. Alas, that has not been the case. While they have formed some friendships, they have not found a group like the one I found so long ago. 

I talked with one of the Scotts in our group, and he said around the 1990's, something changed. Individuals still made friendships, but a lovely, lively group like we had so enjoyed didn't seem to happen very often anymore. Theories abound as to why not, but it mostly remains a mystery.

Our group was and is special. Though we had our occasional ups and downs and intrigues, mostly we had an abiding fondness for each other. So, when Nancy and Lisa ran into each other in 2009, they thought it would be fun to hunt everybody up and get together again to catch up on our lives Those who could make the reunion in 2009 had so much fun, picking up where we left off, that we decided to meet up on a yearly basis; thus, our annual reunion was born.

We are mostly gray haired now, and we range in age from fifty-three to eighty-seven. Our children, if we chose to have them, are grown, and some of us have grandchildren. Some of us are still working, and some of us are retired. But despite the differences and all the years apart, our fondness for each other and delight in each other is as sure and true now as it was way back when.

I can't speak for the others in our group, but these people are, in some way I cannot explain, part of my core being. With them, I found my first "home," and that sense of home is one that stays in my heart always. 

I am grateful and blessed to know these people, and I can't wait until next year's reunion!

Take care,

Kate

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