One eighteen in Portland. What?

 

I can't believe what I'm reading. One hundred eighteen degrees in Washington this week--in a state where summer means 85 degrees at the most?

Ever since I can remember, summer has been my favorite season. I was born in August and while every other season has it's moments, summer has always been perfect to me. The thought of tank tops, ice cream, walking on the beach, light skies until 9:30 at night and swimming lift my spirits like nothing else can.

But the idea of sweltering, unending humidity and heat? Not so much. Yet I read this morning it's supposed to be 118 degrees in Portland Oregon this week, while Seattle temperatures are supposed to be in the hundreds, too.

There's an old Twilight Zone episode about a time when the sun is getting hotter and hotter and baking the streets of New York. I remember seeing it and thinking, yes, it's scary but it's science fiction. Now that fiction appears to be much too real.

Every year, we hear more and more about fires, hurricanes, tornados and even blizzards causing terrible destruction. I know there are big changes needed through regulations and such, but what about on the ground level? There are things we can do every day that can have an impact on our environment.

I am making conscious decisions to drive less and have been recycling more for a long time. Is it enough? No, but is it something? I hope so, especially if more and more of us start doing it.
I don't know what more I can say at this point, except to say I really want summer to remain my favorite season. I'm pasting a few ideas here, so our kids can enjoy their summers too.

50 Simple Ways to Make Your Life Greener 
How to be More Eco-Friendly in Everyday Life
Ten Easy Ways to Live a More Eco-Friendly Lifestyle

Hot Sun photo: jetsandzeppelins

And the Winner is Luck: The Great Recession

Someone asked me the other day if my life had ever changed completely and I laughed, because I think it's changed more than once. 


But no, they said, did your life ever really change completely?

Three times.

The first time happened when I was a newly divorced single mom with a five-year-old child.

The second time was when my father's health declined and he had to move here from New Jersey. (He kept wanting to go back, by the way, and for quite a while he thought we were in Alaska.)

The third time happened in 2008 when I was laid off during the Great Recession. I'm thinking about it because I'm working on a musical with a wonderful composer about a couple who is laid off in 2008. It's a comedy because we wanted it to be, but it wasn't funny when it was happening in real time.

The economy started slowing in summer and the first sign of it was that my husband was laid off from his food delivery job. He decided to go to trucking school as it seemed the workforce market was starting to dry up.

I worked part-time at a nonprofit where the executive director was leaving and a new one being hired. As a playwright, I needed the extra time to write my own work, and fortunately the part-time job paid almost as much as a full-time one. But in the fall, the turmoil in the banks and stock market began to take its toll on donations our nonprofit received; and one day in November, at least seven employees were laid off and from what I heard, a lot more followed in our footsteps.

I remember crying in the car as I drove home, knowing my husband's new job was going to keep him on the road at least five days a week, but usually even more. He wasn't going to make much money that first year, and now I had none; yet our bills weren't going to magically shrivel just because our old jobs were gone.

My unemployment office actually sent me to another office for counseling and there was also training available for how to interview. I cried so much during both sessions the people leading them were seriously worried about me. But it was easy to see what no one would say; that investment banks had preyed on a lot of unfortunate people, and caused what we now call the Great Recession.

It was, as Charles Dickens would say, the worst of times. If you were anywhere over 35, no one wanted to hire you when they could hire someone in their 20s and pay them barely anything. I sent out resume after resume after resume after resume. I had a couple of interviews and nothing more. And pretty soon, my savings began to run out.

I had one option left, which was to try and make a go of freelancing. The good news is that would give me a lot of time for writing. The bad news is that when you get up every day and try to find work, you don't have much time for your own writing.

I tried to let as many people as I could know that I was in the market, and somehow, very, very luckily, a former boss called me to work on some writing  projects for her early in 2009. In spring, a friend told me to call a local theater company to see if they needed help with grant writing, and luckily they did.

These two clients became a lifeline to me, plus a few other one-off clients who hired me here and there. But in 2009 I made $9,000 after making $44,000 a year at my part-time job. My husband made about $30,000 and we had to live on that, plus whatever I got in unemployment insurance -- which wasn't much on the weeks I was freelancing.

With a son in college, I had to call the school to ask for help, and luckily there too, the school adjusted their billing. If they hadn't, who knows if our son could have finished college at all? What was scary and sad was that too many millennials had to leave school during that time--and have never caught up since.

Luckily our son's school worked with us to help him get his education. Luckily my freelance clients liked what I was doing and gave me more and more work. Luckily I had some LUCK that kept me afloat, and I will always be grateful for that. In the next couple of years I was able to do better financially until I was making close to $47,000 on my own.

In 2012, I ended up being able to become part of the staff at the nonprofit where my former boss was hiring me for freelance. But I still remember the recession years, waking up every day feeling scared and anxious and wondering if there would be enough work that week. I remember seeing a lot of people falling through the cracks during that recession, and it wasn't for lack of trying.

We think life is solid, but in fact it's really not. At any time we could lose our jobs or get sick or have to take care of older parents. No one wants to think about it, but any one of us could lose everything we have and never be able to get it back again.

So when people ask now about whether my life ever changed completely, I can only tell them yes, and say that chances are good their lives will change too. Someone reading this right now may have to start over just like I did. If that happens, there are two things you need more than anything else--belief in yourself and luck. 

Belief in yourself is important, but it's not just a matter of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. The Great Recession taught me I was pretty much at the mercy of high seas--and that all of us are. (I also think it would help to have a government that understands this, and I hope we get one soon.)

Because it wasn't just grit or determination or talent or stubbornness that got me out of it (though it's good to have all those things).

It was that here and there, on my journey, I was lucky enough for the wind to blow my way.


***

To learn more about the Great Recession, visit these sites:

Great Recession History
The Great Recession: Federal Reserve History
What Really Caused the Great Recession?




Recession key photo: Mike Lawrence


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Waiting for Whales

Last week, I talked about place names and how mostly, they don't tend to live up to their actual names. This week, I'm thinking about how the same thing can happen with experiences, too.

Adventures. Travel. Summer camp. Dates. Weddings. Even theater and movies. We have something in our minds about the way we want it to be... and then it's different.

I remember going to a place because I had heard that whales congregated there and by the time my husband and I got there, no whales were in sight. Then we went to another beach and were told we just missed the whales.

I got up super early the next day - completely shocking my husband - and insisted we go back to the first place - and we did, waiting over an hour. No whales.

I still haven't seen any, except on one boat trip in Alaska, we saw the fin and partial side of one, adolescent whale. It looked almost like a dolphin to me, and didn't seem like a whale at all.

But the expectations and anticipation were huge, so much so that I almost think they were more than what I'd have felt seeing the entire whale. I don't know, but sometimes it feels that way. In The Beat on Ruby's Street, the Ruby character spends most of book one trying to meet Jack Kerouac, not realizing she's already met him. Her longing, for want of a better word, fuels and propel her (and us)? Yet, I'm not sure it fulfills her in any real way, though it does have a profound effect on her.

I guess that's what I mean by wanting. We want, and we try to get what we want. Whether we do get it or not matters a whole lot less than the journey we take in pursuit of it, which is, I guess, what every story is about.

In book two of the Beat Street series, Ruby spends much of the story in search of her best friend Sophie, who has disappeared. The obstacles Ruby runs into, and how she deals with them, are part of what makes her stronger as a character.

I'm thinking of this having moved into a new house, and remembering the day I moved into my first one. "This is what I wanted, and I need to stop and enjoy the first few moments of being here," I thought. I tried to do that moving into our new house, too. And if I forget to look outside in the morning, really stop and look at the world outside, I want to kick myself.

Because there's no substitute for really seeing whatever it is you came to see.

Whale photo: Rich Ellison

Children and Art

In the early years of my first marriage, I was introduced to a friend of the Rabbi's wife where my (first) husband worked. The friend was apparently an artist, or at least, that's how the Rabbi's wife introduced her. She asked me what I did and I started talking about writing plays and acting. I got a few sentences in when she interrupted me.

"Wow," she said, "it sounds like you're doing a lot! You must not have children."

Huh?

I stopped talking and tried not to let my mouth hang open. I literally couldn't even believe what I was hearing. 

Set aside the obvious snarkiness of the phrase. Why does having children preclude being creative or having time to create? Yes, it takes time to care for young children. But so does a full time job or multiple jobs) which many artists need to have.

This woman was obviously feeling upset that her children were holding her back from whatever she wanted to do as an artist. So much so, that she needed to tell me that the only reason I was accomplishing anything was because I was not a mom.

It was an ugly moment, and I think ultimately I decided not to answer her and walked away from the conversation. But I remembered this woman recently when I saw a post on Instagram. The writer was lamenting the fact that people were always asking him when he was going to have kids.

Why do people feel it's any of their business? Whether you have one, two, seven kids or none should have no bearing on anything (except for you and your family, of course). But people somehow feel they have the right to share their pronouncements on this subject all the time. When I was pregnant another family friend had to tell me that being a mom of a very young child means you can't do anything else but be a mom. Ever.

Again. Huh?

Yes, I was tired (OK, exhausted), by caring for an infant and during much of my son's first year. But I was still able to do a little writing and more importantly, find a good support system of paid help so I could carve out more time as my son got older. 

Somehow no one blinks if a mom has to return to work three months after her child is born (let alone the dad having to go to work the very next day). But if an artist is trying to figure out how to find work time with a newborn, everyone thinks she can't/shouldn't?

I don't get it. But if I met the woman I mentioned again, and she said I was only an artist because I didn't have kids, I'd tell her that I know a ton of artists with children and are even inspired by them, artistically and otherwise. I'd also want to tell her I don't think parents should judge nonparents and vice versa.

And then I might ask her to get a life. Politely. 

Or not. :)

Child sign: Todd Huffman

Child: Pedro Ribiero Simões

Older People, Ageism and the Last Frontier

Who are the people we don’t see? This year, I started volunteering in a long-term care center for older adults. If I didn’t volunteer, I would never see the people here or know what is going on in their lives. I see them only at dinner time once a month, and they are all incredible people. 

One woman knows my name and always greets me with a smile. They always thank me for being there and love the fact that I can help bring them to dinner and back. (Who else would praise me for that)?

One couple who sits in the corner met each other in high school where they went out dancing. The woman recalls that she bought a new dress every week for her dancing date. The man likes telling his lady stories, and the fact that she has memory issues is a plus, because he can tell them over and over again and she doesn’t mind.

Another woman thought it was “cute” that I spoke into the wrong ear when trying to talk to a specific gentleman. (I won’t do that again, cute or not). Some people can’t talk or move well and need assistance when eating (which the nurses’ aides do). Still, they smile and communicate a lot about their emotions with their eyes.

Yet, I also get the sense that many wish they had more visitors, whether they were family or friends. I think being older in general is the last frontier. Older generations are isolated, ignored, warehoused and feared. We are all afraid of getting old and being ignored, so we ignore older people.

How’s that working for us?

When I created Ruby for my book, I wanted her to see everyone and everything around her (because writers NEED to do that. She may be the only person in her neighborhood who talks with Yogi, the homeless man. When we stop seeing each other, we lose something of ourselves, I think, too—whatever it is that makes us most human.

At the same time, I know we are all busy and it’s hard to stop and see each other. I just wonder if it isn’t something we should try, though, now and again? What would happen if you noticed someone on your street, in your neighborhood, school, the local long-term care center? Would they notice you back? How many could you notice in a week?

What happens when you talk to someone who most people treat as invisible? Do you think you’ll ever be treated that way—or are you being treated that way now?

If you have any experience with what I’m talking about, I’d love to hear your response. If you’re a writer, I hope you are already seeing the invisible—whether you write about it or not.

Older Man Photo: Acy Varlan

Parents, Kids and the R word: Respect

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” 

--Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

I read this quote years ago, but still remember being struck by how true it is. As a parent, I've seen tons of other parents struggle when their children not only talk back, but talk mean. How do you teach a son or daughter how to be respectful, especially when he/she is furious? 

I started thinking about this topic when my husband showed me a cartoon about Katie Kaboom from Animaniacs. Hugely funny, but true enough to resonate with any mom or dad. Just click on the link to see what I mean. 

I guess I got lucky, because for the most part, my son has really been kind and respectful when talking to me. By no means does this mean he is perfect, but I've been lucky in a lot of ways with this young man. Honestly and truly, though, I have no idea how or why I got that way--or how I escaped getting stuck with Katie Kaboom.

I remember being twelve years old and watching a mother and daughter in my dentist's office. The daughter was being a complete snark to her mom, for no reason I could see, as her mother always replied quietly and carefully. At one point, when her mother opened the door for someone and then sat down before it was closed again, the daughter said, "Close the door! You think you're in a barn?"

It was an extremely painful thing to watch, even for a kid, and sounded to me like the two had switched roles in the worst of all possible ways.  If I was being Freudian, I suppose I could theorize that kids like this are super angry and they feel safe taking it out on their parents. Still, I have to go back to the old Aretha Franklin song and say, you know what? We all deserve RESPECT.

What would I do if I felt disrespected? I would have to let my child, tween or teen know it was NOT OK to talk to me like I was a bug. I would have to draw a line in the sand about that, because I grew up in a house where mental and physical boundaries were not even remotely honored, and I could never go back there again. I guess, like Aretha, I have a no-tolerance rule when it comes to stuff like that.

At the same time, life is complicated, and it's extremely hard to figure out how to deal with family members who disagree with us (even at the best of times). So I found a couple of posts on this topic. And I'M going to read them, too.

 5 Things Not to Do as a Parent by Megan Devine, LCPC
Is Your Child Starting to Push Your Buttons? by Janet Lehman, MSW
In Over Your Head? Sara Bean, M. Ed.


Angry tween: Steven Depolo