5. January 2012 by Gennyfer.

People used to have tiny closets to hold their clothing. Washing machines and industrial manufacturing of clothing came along and we grew to need more space for our clothes. Television arrived and we could no longer just see what our neighbors had, but, we could see how people lived in far flung places. Television set design became more elaborate. Compare an old sitcom like “I Love Lucy” to sets of modern shows seen here. Then DIY shows showed us how to make our own spaces look like what we see on TV. Our brains get cluttered with all these images and we start to want what we see and finally expect what we see.

We started buying. New clothes every season. Shoes by the bagful. New, perfectly placed but, unmeaningful and uncherished decorations. We’ve ended up building so many houses with walk-in closets and huge garages, big enough to hold all of our stuff and we fill them anyway. Then we go out and by books on simplifying, organizing, decluttering. We hire organizers. We watch shows like Hoarder and secretly fear that we are only a few steps away from that kind of crazy. But, we still keep on buying.

When we die, we leave our loved ones with the horrible process of figuring out what to do with all the things we couldn’t let go. They pick up each piece and wonder if it was special, if they should keep it for their children. If it will somehow bring back what they really want… our love… our presence… more of what they didn’t have because we were so busy accumulating, cleaning, decluttering our stuff… our attention.

Posted in Thoughts | 1 Comment »

2. January 2012 by Gennyfer.

We have a society built on dreams. “The American Dream.” Dreams of the future. Dreams are our hopes for a better future.

The arrival of the year 2012 has me reflecting on what happens when people believe an end-of-the-world prediction.

I was somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12 when my mother first told me when the world would end. It was to be 10 years in the future according to some source she trusted. During the same conversation she said something about humans originally being spirits that had offended God by inhabiting animals, so, we were forced to become flesh. I think her point was the end-of-the-world would be a good thing. I just felt hopeless and scared.

Her world’s end beliefs changed over the years depending on which “guru” she was following at the time and I don’t believe she even remembered all of them or marked their passing. I recall one prediction, not occurring, being explained away by 9/11. That was the predicted event and the psychics were picking up on the strong energy from that event.

It’s hard not to believe your parent when their belief’s are the basis for your own belief system. We didn’t talk about careers or how to support yourself. There was no future I should expect or plan. Many years later, I do wonder what my life would have looked like if I’d had the opportunity to dream about what I wanted to be when I grew up.

As we get further in to 2012 the news will be full of speculation about the Mayan calendar. I predict we’ll see many stories about how various people are imagining what will happen in December. These people being interviewed will be certain of their beliefs. Our children will watch these stories.  How can we help them maintain hope and perspective?

Keep talking about the future. Your plans for yourself, your hopes for your children, what they need to do to get from here to the fulfillment of their dreams, these are important discussions to have with your children or other children in your life.

No one knows when the end of the world will come. The ultimate glass-half-empty thinking is the idea that any of us could die tomorrow so why bother doing anything. Teach your children to seize the day and plan for the wonder of tomorrow. Teach them how to live not how to die.

Posted in Thoughts | 1 Comment »

20. December 2011 by Gennyfer.

Here’s the thing. It’s hard for me to talk about how I feel physically. With anyone. Including medical professionals.

When I was tiny, probably 3 months old, I’ve been told, I broke out in multiple skin rashes. This was second, after I had failed to save her marriage, on a list of things my mother used to explain how or why she was indifferent to me.

While I was a child, whenever we saw a child in a wheelchair or with obvious developmental problems, my mother would say they must have done something awful in a past life. Illness of any kind was your own fault in our house. When I was about 10 I started limping. It was not OK for my mother to have a child show signs of being defective. I was told not to limp. I remember being queried by an adult in our town about why I was limping. I wonder what he thought of my look of terror and stammered denial. “I’m not limping.” Eventually my grandparents and aunt and uncle stepped in and I went to a doctor. A lot of doctors. I had a tumor in my bone that I’d grow out of by young adulthood. It hurt. A lot. I got used to pain.

It was pain in that leg that sent me to a specialist 19 years ago. The tumor was gone but, the pain kept coming back and it hurt in other parts of my leg. I was told to take OTC painkillers as needed. Looking back, this was the first time I went to a doctor for a symptom of Fibromyalgia. It took me until this month to be diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I was trained not to show pain or talk about it. I didn’t talk enough to my doctors over the years. I mentioned a symptom here and there but never gave enough information.

I did the same thing with my husband. The thing is, the pain has increased to the point that I couldn’t keep ignoring it. Well, it’s me… I could have kept ignoring it but, I realized how much it effects my quality of life and, finally, decided something needed to be done. I was hoping for an operation to cut whatever was making me hurt out and then I’d be done. I decided to keep a pain journal to show my doctor how and when and where I hurt. I sent a copy to my husband in an email for back-up. He was really upset. He called my doctor and freaked her out a bit too.

This upset me. It kind of shoved me out of my comfort zone. Can someone in chronic pain have one of those? Once the cat was out of the bag I had to follow through with getting help. With my long list of aches and pains in hand I finally talked to someone who could help. And I have only had one mild headache, rather than daily, in 2 weeks. The leg that had the tumor has only hurt a few times this week. I still have a lot of pain but any lessening is a gift I cherish. And thanks to my pushy husband, I am on the road to making myself feel better.

So, I will post this, and link it to my FB page, and hope no one reads it, because it is hard for me to admit that I hurt. But, in case my dear friends run across this, I want you to know that this is why I’m not great a reciprocating invitations. This is why I bail on being seen in public, too often for my own good. This is why I’m often too tired to bother showing up despite knowing I’d have the best time out with you. I don’t mean to be this way. And I don’t, ever, want to miss out on enjoying time with you. Lest you all feel sorry for me, though, I do have a bunch of really wonderful people, in house, I get to see all the time. I am blessed to have them in my life.

Posted in Thoughts | 2 Comments »

9. July 2009 by Gennyfer.

I love the idea of supporting local businesses, thereby more directly filling the pockets of my friends and neighbors. Portland, Maine has an impressive group that encourages this kind of shopping Portland Independent Business & Community Alliance. It’s hard to miss one of their Buy Local signs around this small city. The benefit your community receives from your local purchases is impossible to deny. Whenever I can I purchase locally.

What I’d like to see happen is a spin-off of this idea. Many artists are starving. It’s sad, really. There is so much freely obtained art available to us these days even if you’re following the law you could probably keep yourself completely educated and entertained without spending any money. Is it right to read your favorite writer, listen to “the best” band, or view countless pictures from your favorite artists without ever spending our hard earned cash, to show them, that we value their creative work?

Before the Internet, back even before motion pictures, art was much more directly supported by individuals. Traveling minstrels, street buskers, live theater: without technology we had to pay to be entertained. Now we spend our entertainment dollars in a less thoughtful way. I can’t count how many times I’ve wasted time and money on a movie I figured would not be good just because I thought I needed to do something and that was the venue with the least effort. Hollywood puts out so much pointless drivel and mindless fluff. Movies like Transformers II garner the worst reviews imaginable yet rake in ticket prices hand over fist. I’m as guilty as the next person of feeding this orgy of bad taste, but I wish I wasn’t.

What can we do to change this? Buy local for entertainment and if you can’t find local performances that  fit your personality let’s at least start to Buy Creative online. So many creative types are promoting and marketing their work all on their own. This is not because they aren’t worthy of wider distribution. So many of them are. Publishing companies, and other traditional venues for creative types to make a living from their artistic endeavors, are hard to break in to and once an artist does become attached to a large company they often have to compromise their work.

One particular niche that has many gifted artists entertaining us, gifting us with their time and the fruit of their imaginations are cartoonists.  Becoming a syndicated cartoonist is nearly impossible. Staying syndicated and making a living as a cartoonist is not easy. Newspapers are closing and cutting back. The dream of making it big like Snoopy is farther out of reach than ever before. Yet go online, on any day, and you will find amazing comics. Some are so well written readers are drawn back over and over, even if the drawings are only stick figures. Some are masterpieces worthy of the Sunday pages whose writers struggle to fulfill their dreams while honoring their muse that calls them to draw whether they are starving or not. One such comic artist is Corey Pandolph, the Fake Rock Star genius behind Green with Envy , Toby Robot Satan , and the more widely known, Barkeater Lake.

If you read these, or any other comic strips, all the time then why not Buy Creative and order a copy of a book, or a T-shirt (or socks even) and tell your friends. If your favorite artist disappears because they had to get a cubicle job, don’t let it be because you didn’t care enough to keep them around. Let’s all make where we choose to spend our money mean something about what we’d really like to see stick around. Buy Local. Buy Creative.

Posted in Thoughts | 2 Comments »

17. May 2009 by Gennyfer.

My music taste is varied. I think I can find something I’d be willing to listen to in almost any genre. I’m not refined or cool when it comes to what I like but I am enthusiastic. My early memories are filled with musicians jamming in our house. While there were many things that were off in my childhood this is one of the happier memories. The creation of music, whether it evolves in to something good or never quite gets there is fascinating to me. Beyond a few childhood attempts at learning to play I haven’t followed this fascination in to making music of my own but I love listening.

I’m not much in to funk really. There are funk songs I like but I can’t name many. It would be strange for me to have had this long standing wish to see George Clinton & the Parliament-Funkadelic or to even know who they are. Unless you know the connection to one of my earliest music obsessions. One of the things I loved about the concert I saw last night reminded me of why I ended up there. George Clinton is a giving artist. He lifts up young artists and gives them a start in what can be such a cut throat industry. The whole group takes turn stepping back and allowing each other to shine. Years ago they did this for Prince. Whatever he learned from them musically, it seems,  Prince also learned how to share the stage and promote other artists. Listening to Prince when I was in high school and beyond has broadened my musical tastes. He’s turned me on to many other musicians and he created this longstanding wish to see George Clinton & the Parliament Funkadelic in me.

I loved the show. I loved knowing I had made it there after years of wishful thinking. Most of all I loved these two artists:

Kendra Foster who sang lead vocals on Bounce to This

Sativa, the granddaughter of the great George Clinton himself. She really smoked it in the song Otherside

They are both artists worth watching.

Posted in Thoughts | 1 Comment »