Drumming

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help Baby Boomers, seniors, retirees, and those soon to retire find joy, excitement, and satisfaction in life after retirement. Her public lecture on this subject is titled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement.” Her memoir, Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class, is available by clicking here Amazon.com. Click here for her website: http://AdventuresWithDadTheBook.com

Now, on to my blog:

I spotted this guy on a subway train with this huge drum. I guess he subscribes to the old adage: you never know when you might need a drum.

Drums, those wonderful creations by humans, are of the percussion persuasion.  They can be played using sticks, palms, elbows, whatever. They can be professionally made, or cheaply crafted out of materials at hand.

I’ve seen street drummers banging out wonderful rhythms on an assemblage of pots, pans, plastic pails, and other assorted items that make a resonating noise when  struck. Some of those drummers have even turned to the curb of the sidewalk to continue tapping out their message. The wonderful steel drums played in the Caribbean were originally made from 55-gallon oil barrels.

Drums let us beat out the rhythms in our heads. Drums are cathartic, enabling us to pour out not only our joy, but our rage, anger, upset, disappointment, and all other sorts of negative emotions. The drumming member of the band is the guy/gal who gets to flail, gyrate, posture, and genuflect as he pounds those skins.  What a workout, and what a release, physical and emotional.

A popular pastime in recent years is the advent of drumming circles. They are a grass-roots endeavor, and promote community camaraderie among its members. Groups get together with each participant bringing his/her own drum. The particular type or style is unimportant. All that is required is a drum of some sort to receive the pounding of each player as they belt out their collective message to the world.

Drumming is a form of amplification of the body’s expression of rhythm: finger tapping/snapping, dancing, singing, scatting, body twisting, etc.  Humans today and down through the ages all the way from sophisticated societies to the simplest of tribal people have felt the need for bodily expression through sound and movement. Drums are enablers to that end. And best of all, they are portable and attract others in an upbeat (pun intended) gathering. So, acquire your own drum and get to it; bang away your woes.

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Bailing Out at the Last Minute

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help Baby Boomers, seniors, retirees, and those soon to retire find joy, excitement, and satisfaction in life after retirement. Her public lecture on this subject is titled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement.” Her memoir, Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class, is available by clicking here Amazon.com. Click here for her website: http://AdventuresWithDadTheBook.com

CHITCHAT:  My above memoir was just included in the Pretty Progressive website as part of a list under the title, “Women’s Book Club Made Awesome Thanks to These 28 Discussion-Worthy Books.”  To view mine, scroll down to #19 at this link:  https://prettyprogressive.com/womens-book-club-made-awesome-thanks-to-these-28-discussion-worthy-books/

Now, on to my blog:

How important is it to stick to your word? I mean, what’s the big deal if you back out of a promise or commitment?  I’ve addressed this subject before (see blog of May 14, 2018: “Keep Your Promises”), but this is a different slant.

To most people, it can be irritating, upsetting, or even painful when someone reneges on plans with very little notice.  The one depending upon your acting toward a specific end may have staked a lot on that promise.  They may have switched around other obligations, refused new invitations, or generally rearranged things in their life with your agreement as the catalyst.

We all have to change our arrangements from time to time; we’re human. However, try to give lots of advance notice. Backing out of a commitment at the last minute is fraught with all types of fallout.

The practitioners of short notice bailing-out may do so for acceptable reasons.  Something seriously urgent may have come up, they may legitimately have been delayed, or they may have had an accident. But often, it’s something as simple as: they don’t feel like it, they expended their energy on other activities that day, or they got a better deal.  I’ve been at the receiving end of such behavior from time to time.  What I’d like to ask those actors is, “How do you feel when someone backs out on you late-term?”

I remember once a friend who was divorced telling me that her young son had waited for hours in front of the house for his father to pick him up for their planned excursion, but the father never arrived. The son was devastated. The father’s subsequent excuse was lame and selfish.

I have been involved in relationships where the other party became angry and spontaneously backed out of a promise or commitment as a means of control or to inflict hurt. Of course, I learned never to trust their promises, and I proceeded accordingly.

Here’s a variation on a theme:  Years ago, I had a friend who, when I’d suggest a particular date to meet, would check her calendar and tell me, “I don’t have any plans for that day, yet.” I couldn’t figure out if that was a yes or a no. What exactly does “yet” mean in that context? It became clear that her pattern was to hold me off to see if she got a more exciting opportunity.  She probably practiced that technique with most in her sphere, placing herself in a position to wiggle out if she desired.  Needless to say, she is now a former friend.

When others rely on your word, and it soon becomes clear that said word is unreliable or of a waffling nature, the blow back to you will be a loss of trust and a rift in the relationship. Go ahead, take the plunge–commit. Then, do your utmost to follow through, even if you’re pissed off or get a better, last-minute offer.  If you can’t seem to do that, don’t be surprised as one friendship after another melts away

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Please forward my blog to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at:  gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.

Photo credit: chez_sugi on Visualhunt / CC BY-SA

Fixations

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help Baby Boomers, seniors, retirees, and those soon to retire find joy, excitement, and satisfaction in life after retirement. Her public lecture on this subject is titled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement.” Her memoir, Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class, is available by clicking here Amazon.com. Click here for her website: http://AdventuresWithDadTheBook.com

Now, on to my blog:

I have written often on this subject, yet it keeps calling me back.  I hear chatter, see ads, discover new offerings in this field.  Yes, we humans fixate on our bodies. We find the parts that are not considered attractive in the time, age, and location in which we live, and we obsess about them. I’m too tall/short/scrawny/corpulent, my nose is too big, my hair is too limp, my eyelids are slanted, my ears stick out, my biceps aren’t muscular, my breasts are too small/large, and on and on.

Of course, styles in beauty and attractiveness change with the times.  Peter Paul Rubens, late 16th century artist, painted very full figured women as that was considered beautiful when he lived. Today we call them fat. Ancient statues from Rome sport large Roman noses as it was considered good-looking at that time. Today, we seek rhinoplasty for such a protuberance.

Even though I am of average height now, I matured very quickly, and was the second tallest kid in my sixth grade class. The tallest was also a girl. I hated it and wished I could be little, cute and popular like Bunnie. I remember that we had ballroom dancing classes in school every week, and they would line us up by height, the boys in one line and the girls in another side by side. I was always second to the last in the girl’s line, or last if the aforementioned tallest was absent. Chances are, I would get one particular boy as my partner who was wimpy and had an underbite.  I’m sure he wasn’t any happier drawing me to dance with during the “ordeal,” either.  I hated the whole thing.

We run to our idols: doctors, surgeons, hairstylists, personal trainers, fashionistas, anyone who can disguise or change that horrible feature about ourselves that we hate. Once we do away with one, we find another to fixate on.  Okay, the bump in my nose was removed, but how about my big hips? Okay, I got rid of my wrinkles, but I hate my receding hairline. Let me run to the gym and work out, let me get liposuction, let me stuff myself into girdles, slimming pants, A-shaped skirts, Hawaiian shirts, let me starve myself–anything to hide my awfulness from the eyes of others.

How sad we humans are. How funny we would seem to alien beings arriving on our planet. How strange we must seem to the animals of the world.

Does a horse fixate on its mane being shorter than another’s–darker, lighter, thicker, thinner?  Yes, certain traits in the animal world attract a mate: longer tusks, larger chests, more colorful feathers, etc. However, we humans have taken it to an extreme as we are wont to do. If it doesn’t come naturally, we spend our time, energy, and money scurrying to the fixers of our fixations.

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Please forward my blog to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at:  gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.

Photo credit: Son of Groucho on Visualhunt / CC BY

Watson

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help Baby Boomers, seniors, retirees, and those soon to retire find joy, excitement, and satisfaction in life after retirement. Her public lecture on this subject is titled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement.” Her memoir, Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class, is available by clicking here Amazon.com. Click here for her website: http://AdventuresWithDadTheBook.com

Now, on to my blog:

Life can be such an adventure.  Simple day-to-day activities can yield gold–unexpected finds and excitement.

I went to Home Depot a few weeks ago for the usual reasons people go there; it was just one of my chores for the day.  I was ambling around pushing my larger-than-I-am shopping cart they provide for customers when I turned down a random aisle.  In front of me was Watson, this beautiful English Setter as his owner informed me.  I had never met an English Setter before.

Watson was as sweet and gentle as he was beautiful.  He was also like flypaper, attracting practically every shopper who was lucky enough to turn down that enchanted aisle where he was holding court.  Watson brought strangers together as they oohed and awed over him, petted him, asked questions about him, and interacted with each other over their shared experience.

Watson’s owner, or should I say the fortunate person allowed to accompany him on the other end of the leash, told the gathering crowd that Watson was a therapy dog, visiting inhabitants at places such as senior homes and hospitals to bestow his calm and magnificence upon them.

Watson accepted the adoration of all of us gathered around him in the Home Depot aisle that day without changing his demeanor in the slightest. He inhabited his purpose in life: bringing joy to those he encountered. He didn’t become puffed up with his own importance, demanding of rewards or social position, manipulative, or any of the other things humans in such a position might have done. No, Watson simply remained Watson–a uniter, not a divider.

We need more human Watsons in the world who will bring people together and unite them. We need less division and derision.  We need more calm, gentleness—more Watson-ness. Are we humans fated to encounter that only in other animal forms?

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Please forward my blog to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at:  gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.

Fragile

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help Baby Boomers, seniors, retirees, and those soon to retire find joy, excitement, and satisfaction in life after retirement. Her public lecture on this subject is titled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement.” Her memoir, Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class, is available by clicking here Amazon.com. Click here for her website: http://AdventuresWithDadTheBook.com

Now, onto my blog:

Throughout my life, I’ve encountered people who are described as “fragile” both by themselves and by others.  These people have been co-workers, family members, friends, acquaintances, and more.  Fragile seems to mean that they can’t tolerate too much pressure, stress, responsibility, expectations, etc., or they “fall apart.”

I’m not the fragile type.  I come across as responsible, capable, reliable, tough.  Therefore, others have high expectations of me, and are upset if I fail to live up to them.  I am expected to show up on time, not complain, do the job assigned to me, and produce results, not excuses.  However, fragile people are not held to this standard.  They are given a pass because, after all, they are fragile.

I’ve never been sure if fragility is actual or a successful protective shield which is carefully honed during a lifetime.  Certainly, it yields high payoffs to some practitioners.  A co-worker years ago earned the same salary as I and had the same job description, but expectations for her were far less than for me.  When extra work needed to be done, it was usually me who was tapped.  And my reward?  More work, of course.  When I was lamenting the situation to another co-worker, his response was, “Well, she’s fragile.”  That was my introduction to that descriptor of ineptitude, a very manipulative behavior in this case.

I’ve pondered over the years how to jump on the fragile train.  I’m not a natural at it, and it doesn’t fit my personality.  However, I’ve tried to acquire the skill.  Usually,  however, my true nature shows through, and others don’t let me get away with it.

So, I’m putting it out to the world.  I want to be fragile.  If you encounter me or deal with me, take your expectations elsewhere and let me screw up over and over with minimal consequences, at the same salary, of course.

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Please forward my blog to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at:  gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.

Photo on Visualhunt

Hiding

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help Baby Boomers, seniors, retirees, and those soon to retire find joy, excitement, and satisfaction in life after retirement. Her public lecture on this subject is titled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement.” Her memoir, Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class, is available by clicking here Amazon.com. Click here for her website: http://AdventuresWithDadTheBook.com

Now, on to my blog:

We all hide in one way or another.  It can be deliberately or subconsciously.  We hide the traits, aspects, details of ourselves that we think are undesirable or a turnoff to others.

Hiding can take the form of outright lying or simply omission.  Hiding can involve deception from small, socially acceptable behavior to a major ruse.

Commerce encourages us to hide our appearance and age by hawking products such as hair dye, wigs, cosmetics, plastic surgery, etc.  They couple that with propaganda which convinces us that our altered presentation to the world is okay, appropriate, no big deal, “everyone does it.”  Entertainment idols help sell that lie by partaking and flaunting it to the public.  Seventy-something actresses look forty, parading their deception and bragging about it.  Ordinary folks seeing this in the media comment on “how wonderful she looked on TV the other night.”

There was a time when women who wore makeup were considered “painted ladies,” and scorned by polite society.  Now, it’s just the opposite.  Both sexes spend multi-billions of dollars worldwide on cosmetics, procedures, and the like to alter their appearances to something they think will be more pleasing to others.  They put their health and even their life in danger with elective surgical procedures, again to try to present a different self to the world than what they consider the ugly one they wear naturally.

Behaviors such as anorexia and bulimia have to do with poor body image.  Where does that come from?  Why are we telling people that “you can never be too rich or too thin.” Why don’t fashion models look like the majority of people?

We teach this self-assessment to our children who want to emulate what they consider “grown-up” behavior.  They quickly learn by their teenage years which of their bodily attributes are unattractive: nose, hair, height, weight, voice, skin color, and on and on.  Too many obsess about it.  Commerce, always on the lookout for new grist for their ever churning mills, panders to this market, too.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to look nice.  However, when it impacts your view of yourself and the world, and tends toward the pathological, dangerous, or even life threatening, it is a major problem.

Fred Rogers of “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” fame used to make his young TV listeners feel special by telling them, “I like you just the way you are.”  Where are the Mr. Rogerses of today?  Who is telling our children now?  Who is telling our grandchildren?  Who is telling us?

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Please forward my blog to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at:  gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.

Outfoxed by a Plant

This blog is written by Lee Gale Gruen to help Baby Boomers, seniors, retirees, and those soon to retire find joy, excitement, and satisfaction in life after retirement. Her public lecture on this subject is titled: “Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement.” Her memoir, Adventures with Dad: A Father and Daughter’s Journey Through a Senior Acting Class, is available by clicking here Amazon.com. Click here for her website: http://AdventuresWithDadTheBook.com

Now, on to my blog:

Ah, the things we do for our loved ones.  We go to great lengths and expend enormous amounts of time, energy, and money when the motivation is right.  What greater impetus than when the object is someone/something we love.  Wouldn’t you do just about anything for your children, parents, spouse, significant other, pet, etc.?

How about our plants?  Well, maybe they don’t have quite the impact on us as the aforementioned categories.  However, I have a plant that is holding me hostage.  It’s my Dieffenbachia, also called in plant tomes: dumb cane.  Believe me, mine is not dumb.

I bought the plant when it was a wee sprout, under a foot tall.  I knew it would grow to have large, glorious leaves to brag about, just like its kith and kin.  When I moved to my current digs almost three years ago, Dieff accompanied me in the back seat, drop-dead gorgeous leaves swaying with the movement of the car.  I’d glance at him/her from time to time in my rear view mirror, feeling his calming influence.

Dieff has grown since he came to live with me, and now stands proudly about four feet tall.  He loves his new location, bright light but not too sunny.

I’ve always watered Dieff and my other plants regularly and carefully, using a water meter to check the soil moisture so as to give them just enough nourishment.  When I travel, a neighbor takes over that chore, dutifully following my detailed, written instructions.  Yes, I nurture my green darlings.

About three months ago, Dieff had an attack of some terrible ailment.  His leaves started curling under like he had been punched in the stomach.  (Do plants have stomachs?)  I called garden stores seeking advice.  I took to Google, reading everything I could.  It seems that the fertilizer-laced water I’d been giving Dieff for five years had become too toxic for him in his dotage, and salts were building up in his soil.  Actually, that doesn’t sound too different from some symptoms I’ve experienced as I’ve aged.

According to Google, I must flush Dieff with a gallon of distilled water.  I rolled Dieff outside on his wheeled platform, struggling to keep the heavy pot upright.  I almost blew out my back, but this was an emergency.

The flushing worked!  Within two days, Dieff was back to his old self.  Things went well for the next few months as I eliminated all fertilizer and fed him only tap water.  His rebellion happened yesterday.  He screamed at me, “I don’t want that tap crap!  I ONLY WANT DISTILLED.”  He emphasized his point by curling his leaves under as only he can.  I may have heard a few coughs, too, but I’m not sure.

I ran to the store and stocked up on ten dollar’s worth of distilled water (I don’t even buy bottled water for myself.)  After another flushing, Dieff perked up and has stopped harassing me, but he definitely has me twisted around his little finger–ah, stem.

Yes, we go through all sorts of machinations for those we love, no matter what their DNA.  (Do plants have DN–oh never mind?)

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Please forward my blog to anyone who might be interested and post it on your Facebook, Twitter and other social media. To reprint any material, contact me for permission at:  gowergulch@yahoo.com. If you want to be automatically notified when I post a new blog, click on the “Follow” button in the upper right corner of this page and fill in the information. To read my other blog posts, scroll down on this page or click on “Recent Posts” or “Archives” under the Follow button. To opt out of receiving this blog, contact me at the aforementioned email address, let me know, and I’ll remove you from the list.