Author: Bev

Leaps and bounds or a snail’s pace?  We’ve each got a style for getting there.

Where’s there?  It’s probably everywhere.

Individual goals are set daily, weekly, annually.  Maybe you have or had a five-year plan.  At any rate, you’re getting there.

A bunny or a turtle, different styles but sometimes the same peril, crossing the road.  Because someone is in a hurry to get there.

Creeping or crawling; running or jogging; different ways but getting there.

Some people are there already.  Others will always be getting there.

Up and at em or lallygagging, both are strategies of getting there. 

Wide awake or half asleep, sooner or later we’ll get there.

The sun rises and the sun sets, reassurance that we’ll get there.

With a little help, a lot of help, invisible help, or no help at all, we get there.

Is there, here, or is it out there?  Is it over there or nowhere?  Nevertheless, we live and strive to get there.  And we’re always, almost getting there.

The question is, what kind of expectations do we have for getting there?  Realistic expectations are based on experience, logic and reality.  So, I guess unrealistic ones are based on hope, fantasy, and idealism.

You’re not foolish nor wrong if you’ve been duped by your own unrealistic expectations.  You’re a genuine, optimistic, and real human person.

If you’ve beaten yourself up because of some of your unrealistic expectations, just stop it right now and join the club.  Even if you’re usually logical, super realistic and wise with age, you’ve surely been disappointed sometime because you expected one thing and got another.

Most of us have excitedly bought something from a catalog or on the internet, and when we received it, looked at it in utter disbelief.  It was in reality nothing like it looked in the picture.

Don’t even get me started on home repairs or remodeling projects.  Oh, dear Lord, I must be the queen of disappointed expectations of home repairs.

I think I can truly advise you not to expect any repair to cost what you had hoped.  It will cost more.  Also, don’t expect it to be quick, because it will seem like it’s taken forever.

Now, I’m not a pessimistic person.  In fact, I’m quite optimistic, but this is my problem.  I expect things to go okay most of the time.

Experience has, however, told me many times over that this situation or that one is likely to go badly.  Hope takes a hold of me and sucks me right into expecting it to be different this time.

I mean, something that seems like all it will take is just a tweak or two, in reality takes massive reconstruction of all the plumbing in your ancient house.  This is crushing to your optimism.

After all, you thought your house was quaintly vintage.  In reality and sadly, your cute little abode is deemed by the plumber to be, just plain old.

In the end, whether we have realistic or unrealistic expectations about anything, we’ll get there.  Maybe we should rely more on our knowledge and experience with the journey.  Since we’ve been on many a trip in our lifetime, I solidly recommend that we keep the faith that we’ll get there.

When contemplating this column, I found myself researching what seems like a simple word, “difference.”  As it turns out, “difference” is what is known as a polysemous word, not a homonym.

“What’s the difference,” one might ask?  Or, maybe most of us don’t care, since when we were youngsters, we automatically learned the differences in the usage of words.  All we did was exist, and listen.

The word, “difference” can mean, unlikeness, as in “we have differences of opinion.”  Or, it can mean, distinctions have been made such as, “it is my opinion that generics have important differences from name brands.”  Also, it can mean, a significant change in a situation, such as “idealists really want to make a difference in the world.”

There are many different meanings for the word “difference,” depending upon context.  A homonym, on the other hand is really two or more words spelled and pronounced the same.  For example, “bark” is a homonym, because it can mean the outer jacket of a tree or the sound most dogs make.

I’m rather certain that at least a few of you are thinking, “wow, she’s really different that she thinks about this kind of stuff.”  In contrast, because I write about such random tidbits, perhaps I made a difference to just one person who is distracted for a moment from their everyday problems, concerns, or hullabaloo, by my writing.

The fact that you are a reader, makes you more powerful than me as a writer.  You can “beg to differ” with anything or everything that writer’s write.  Considering the fact that the “begging” in that phrase is usually intended not as an act of contrition or humility, or asking permission to disagree with a writer’s stance, but a sarcastic comment regarding a difference of opinion.

There are certain powers in this world that make “all the difference” in the lives of others.  Prayer is one of them.  Even if you are an unbeliever, the fact that someone, or many people have prayed for you, makes all the difference in a difficult situation.  Prayer is the ultimate act of human caring, not to mention faith.

Prayer is people’s effort on your behalf to reach a higher power, beyond themselves.  Maybe it’s a recognition that they can’t help you in their own steam so they are going the extra step to seek better help for you.

Prayer is not a last resort, but the first act of faith toward the best outcome.  Prayer is the first step of counsel, as it confers with “The Mighty Counselor.”  Second steps of counsel might be a doctor, a chiropractor, a surgeon, medicines, a therapist, herbal or alternative remedies or treatments.

So, when someone offers prayer, whether you are or they are believers or not, it is the ultimate compliment of care for you.  Accept it, it can make “all the difference.”

Having a supportive partner, makes “all the difference” in life.  I can’t personally speak to the opposite, but I’ve seen the struggles of those who lack a partner who has their back.

Pets can make “all the difference” between a bad day and a better one.  Just the simple act of petting your fur-baby lowers one’s blood pressure, offers us a bit of peace, and redirects one’s attention toward your pet and away from yourself.

Knowing origins and history makes “all the difference” in understanding customs, mores, traditions, and cultural ways.  Our lives are so very informed by the historical past.  I think we should know from whence it all comes.  Knowledge of origins and history can make “all the difference” in how we perceive various customs, songs, stories, or ways.

Simple conversational gestures such as “thank you” or “I’m sorry,” make “all the difference” to someone who is challenged by their day.  Genuine compliments, like “where did you get those wonderful shoes?” or “I like your necklace,” can remarkably brighten someone’s day.

Have you ever noticed that the kindness of appreciation, a helping hand, even a gentle touch on the arm or shoulder makes “all the difference” in how someone feels about themselves?  Even, that you notice them is a powerful acknowledgement that a person is not invisible, but seen.  These things make “all the difference.”

That someone tells you that they are in the same boat as you, can make “all the difference” in how you feel about a difficult situation.  Feeling alone in a negative circumstance doubles the pain.  But, when someone tells you, “I’m going through the same thing.  I know how you feel,” it truly makes “all the difference.” 

So don’t hold everything close to your chest and bear the burden alone.  It might help someone else if you discreetly share your frustrations with someone else now and again.  I’m not suggesting that you overshare your most intimate dealings, or go around broadcasting all of your dirty laundry – I said discreetly!

As it turns out, sharing your vulnerability with another person really just reveals your humanity.  People may have been under the mistaken impression that since you don’t share your struggles, that you are superwoman or superman, but in reality, you are just another one of us.

You’re no better than me or worse than me, or just like me.  But we all have “things” …. and it makes “all the difference” that people know that.

Neighbors, whether we’re next door, in the same block, across the road, down the street, upstairs or downstairs, will most likely not share the same perspective on every matter.  In fact, couples, co-workers, committee members, let’s just say, none of us, will always see things the same way.

It’s my opinion that most neighbors experience either literal or figurative boundary issues from time to time.  However, most of us do not escalate to a real nineteenth century Hatfield and McCoy situation.

It might just be human nature to mark your territory, defend and protect it.  Your “place” may be a humble piece of the earth or maybe it’s grand as grand can be.  But it’s yours and you want the people around you to know it’s yours.

I’ve offended my neighbors and my neighbors have offended me.  The awesome thing about “neighborliness” is that in time, we all chose to drop the offense and get on with life.

Because most tiffs just don’t matter that much in the scheme of things, we agreed to disagree on this issue or that, where we don’t see eye to eye.   We still don’t see some things through the same lens, but we’ve agreed to overlook the offense of it and adopt an “it is what it is,” stance toward some things.

Speaking of not seeing eye to eye, there are terms in local ordinances, such as “annoys,” “offends decency,” or “offends senses,” which would seem difficult to legislate to a 21^st century general population, in my estimation.  I mean, something that annoys you, I may be able to overlook in favor of a personally more important sensibility.  Something that I see as “common decency,” may be a cultural quirk of your subculture, and considered normal for you and yours.

I don’t speak lawyer-ese, nor am I trained to interpret the law but I am a half-decent cultural observer.  It seems to me that the “common good,” of democracy where the majority rules, has been truly supplanted in this century by our republic’s concept of neighborliness.

What then, is neighborliness?  Let me start with the biblical suggestion that one should “love your neighbor as yourself.”  Even the disciples to whom Jesus directed this precept, asked “who is my neighbor?”

Basically, our neighbor is everybody.  And, how do we love them as we love ourselves?

Well, you see, the Bible’s wisdom literature, which is loosely pretty much all of it, has an understanding of human nature well beyond most of our understanding.  To love others as we love ourselves places us right where the rubber meets the road; at our own doorstep.

We fundamentally, base all of our understandings of others on how we think, feel, live and love.  So, if you and I aren’t much alike, we’ll probably disagree with each other commensurate with how different we are.  Therefore, the Golden Rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is the best arbiter of how to treat others, and it demonstrates neighborliness.

Are you kind?  Do you go out of your way to do something for someone else, unasked?  Do you automatically help people?  Can you respect someone else’s differences?  Must your neighbor do things the way you do them, in order for you to consider them acceptable human beings?

“Your dog…no your dog…no your dog…”.  Must little aggravations escalate?  Do you really have room in your life to argue, fuss, and feud over this and that offense?  Are your sensibilities so piqued that you can’t take a breath and concentrate on something else in your life for five minutes?

Is it necessary to take every offense to a lawyer or cite the ordinances that defend your offense, rather than move on and take care of your own life.  Do you really have time to fight everything that doesn’t go your way?

If there isn’t a “grandfather clause” built into the ordinance by which you wish to defend your sensibilities, let’s pretend there is.  Some of us lived with a bit looser interpretation of “what’s right,” way before the new ordinances came into existence. 

We were freer.  We were more casual.  Fewer people cared about every jot and tittle.  We left our neighbors be.  We respected their right to live how they saw fit, keeping themselves to themselves.  People were left to care for their “place” to the best of their ability, given the complications of their lives, which the rest of us may have known nothing about.

So, in the 1940s there was a Looney Tunes cartoon featuring the line, “that’s mighty neighborly of you.”  I don’t know from whence I heard the saying, but apparently it stuck with me.  I’m not that old.   However, it is my sincere hope that we didn’t abandon neighborliness to history and instead, pick up the tone of it in the 2020s and beyond.

In between then and now, there was a pretty heinous cultural tone which may have been intended to defend one’s individual rights, but it served instead to promote selfishness, and the self-centered assertion of self above others.  It was, “look out for number one.”

That assertion seems just plain icky to me, just reading it.  Neighborliness, on the other hand is a much more genial show of friendly, kind, considerate, gracious and cordial character, worth emulating into the 21^st century, don’t you think?

What is peace of mind?  I think it might be the absence of agitation, or fear or worry.  We don’t walk around pondering if we have peace of mind, or do we?

This may seem silly to some people.  But there are moments, usually in the middle of the night, when I get a fleeting feeling of what I sense as happiness.  It’s not ha-ha happiness, but more a sense of contentment, well-being, peace, wholeness or “all is well.”

For example, while I was playing a game on my phone late one night, I startled myself by thinking, “I’m full of joy.”  Have you ever noticed that you can be thinking something, and working on something else, all with the same mind?  I wonder sometimes if one of those functions is one’s spirit, and the other one is one’s mind or brain.

In this instance, I wasn’t thinking about anything, I was just challenged by the game.  I wasn’t particularly happy or joyful nor unhappy or melancholy.  I wondered if maybe it was my spirit reminding me what peace of mind is, and I’m full of it.

Some folks are ha-ha happy.  You can hear or see them laughing all the time, it seems.  They wear happiness on their sleeves and are laugh-out-loud poster children.  Why am I skeptical?

These guys are foreigners to those of us who are happy inside.  We giggle once in a while but rarely roar with laughter, or laugh until we cry.

My mom and my father-in-law were models of this sort of silent happiness that creeps up on you privately.  Although we can be the subtly sarcastic life of the party usually with a self-deprecating amusing story, we’re more likely standing outside of the center of attention, observing others.

I’ve come to treasure those sorts of rare nocturnal confessions of “I’m happy.”  There is no discernible physical pain to speak of.  The weather isn’t expected to be extreme.  No decisions must be made, right now.  I have no impending hassles to think about.  I might have accomplished a thing or two, the previous day.  There’s no immediate due date unhandled.  All of my relationships are in peaceful pause.  I’ve got creative thoughts, if not sleep.  I’m happy.

Maybe I’m not using the right word to elucidate that feeling of wholeness, nothing broken, nothing missing, or “discernibly and eerily okay.”  In fact, one definition of Shalom, is complete peace, including all aspects of wholeness. 

The Hebrew greeting, Shalom Aleichem, in English means, “Peace to you.”  To continue the polite greeting chain of events, you may respond, Aleichem Shalom, “to you, be Peace.”

When I hold my grand-baby while he naps, I usually pray that when he awakens, he will do so in peace.  I’ve experienced the opposite with him, and it’s heartbreaking.

I relate the disoriented, panicky or unhappy awakening from a nap to my own occasional experience.  Have you ever taken an afternoon nap, having been worn to a frazzle?  I have, and sometimes when I awaken after sound slumber, I have no idea what day or time of day it is.  I look for signs to help myself orient, like is it daylight or dark, what are the sounds in the house, and so on.  It’s really quite freaky.

As recorded in the book of Mark, Jesus once commanded a storm to settle down, with three words, “peace be still.”  Settle down, “peace out.”

The phrase, “peace out” was used by hippies, anti-war, or anti-establishment folks in the sixties.  “Peace” meant to get out of the war in Vietnam; combined with “out” which was the radio communication for signaling “the end.”

To re-appropriate a word is to use it again after it has been relegated to disrepute by certain groups.  I’d like to re-appropriate the phrase, “peace out.”  Why couldn’t the phrase become an everyday greeting, or wish for wholeness, completion, and every good and perfect thing, offered to another along your path.

Since I’m not Hebrew, I feel a little funny saying Shalom, to others; maybe even misappropriating the Hebrew culture.  But I’m of an age that I can probably get away with saying, “peace out,” and get away with it.

Mind you, not every time that I’m awake in the wee hours of the night, am I getting those messages of peace, along with Bob Marley singing to me, “every little thing is gonna be alright.”  More often than not, I’m thinking a thousand thoughts about what and how I’m going to do this that and the other thing tomorrow rather than, engaging in “peace be still,” tonight.  That’s why it’s startling when peace so clearly announces itself.

So, please have yourself some peace of mind, even if it comes around when you’re busy thinking of other things.  Apparently, we are capable of entertaining all kinds of thoughts all at the same time.  I hope that one of those thoughts is “I’m at peace, or full of joy, or happy or ….”

What’s wrong?  What doesn’t belong?

When I was a child at school, we were presented with pictures, say of a nest, a ball, and a bird.  What doesn’t go? 

Am I a hypochondriac if I notice something ‘s not quite right with my body?  Something’s wrong.

Maybe I’m not right about what’s wrong, but I’m not wrong that something doesn’t belong.  In this case, hindsight is not all that helpful.

I’m pretty sure that I learned sometime along the line that I should trust my instincts.  I should recognize signals and listen beyond the obvious.

It’s always on a weekend, usually a Sunday.  Or, it’s late at night, when you can’t call your doctor’s office to get a last-minute appointment.

This wasn’t an accident.  There was no blood gushing from any wound or orifice.  I didn’t arrive with lights flashing or sirens blaring.

I was kind of sure by the time I arrived, all the symptoms would have disappeared.  That’s how it goes.  Even though I looked a bit worse for the wear, I didn’t look bad for going to Walmart late at night, or to the ER.

Almost everybody who has a need to visit an ER for yourself or to accompany a loved one, knows you’re in for a long wait the moment you step through the hospital’s automatic doors.  The question is, will I feel a fool for having done this.

If I tend to blow something out of proportion, my husband has been known to say, “it’s not a crisis.”  Well, I’m of the mind that “crisis” is relative to the beholder.  Maybe it’s not a crisis to you, but it’s my body that’s not quite right.

However, whether something is a crisis, or ER-worthy, is best known only in hindsight.  In other words, you never know.

This story is a composite of the experiences of several folks from whom I’ve heard or seen, regarding their ER sagas.  So, the pronouns “I” and “me” are used not as personal pronouns but as an “anybody.”

I had been startled a couple of hours prior, with a sudden, toothache-like pain on the left side of my torso.  Added to degenerative disc pain on my left lower back that had been troubling that week, it was scary but it subsided.  I took a shower and chilled out in front of the television.

Then it happened again while I was laying on a heating pad on the sofa.  It was so acute that I shot up to a seated position and hobbled to the bathroom.  A wave of nausea hovered over me and I spit up salty clear liquid, and dry heaved for a few seconds.  I took my temperature and it was a low-grade fever.

A couple of weeks prior, I had been experiencing some abdominal symptoms for which I had been prescribed a course of two antibiotics.  I was unimaginable that another infection could have crossed that antibiotic barrier.

Could it be a “silent heart attack,” that women can experience as back pain and fatigue.  I had been working for weeks on a cleaning project that required lifting, climbing stairs up and down dozens of times, and exertion beyond the usual daily walks that I take for my heart-health.  Fatigue was a normal reaction, I thought.  But, what if?

So many symptoms can be nothing or they can be something, either simple and routine, or sadly age-related typical, or they can be serious.  How do you know? 

One weighs, if it’s not absolutely acute, if you should just “ride it out.”  Or, when it’s after doctor’s office hours, in these parts, you go to the ER, or you don’t.  I did.

There were people in the waiting room but it was very quiet.  I headed to the intake window and was handed a clipboard and asked to fill out a form.  So off to the waiting room, and here we go.

Along with three or four other pairs of folks who were in varying degrees of misery, I waited to be seen.  I coveted that little boy’s blanket, covering his head.

A woman came in and asked me quite publicly, with absolutely no gesture of privacy, for my name and date of birth.  I would have objected to the blatant lack of patient confidentiality had I not felt so utterly out of sorts.  But I obliged and she put a wristband on my pale, clammy arm.  My husband then joined me in the club of people trying to be polite with one another but not really wanting to socialize.

At a rate of about one patient admitted through the double automatic doors to treatment rooms per half hour on what was a relatively silent week-night ER, we began to hear feel uncomfortable with the cell-phone over-sharing of our compatriots.

Not having additional acute pain since our arrival, I began questioning why we came.  We took a walk and I visited the rest room and settled in another, more isolated waiting area.

Upon hearing another trope from some other people about intimate health conundrums, my less pained body and more alert mind, got irritated and I decided to go home.  I was willing to risk that I had overreacted.

We went to the window and interrupted a nurse munching on party mix, talking with the intake woman.  It felt like an intrusion on their evening plans.  But I said, “I’m leaving.”

She took my name and declined to remove my wristband saying I could have it.  It was public information anyway at this point.

Emergency care, this was not.  This hospital emergency department seemed reminiscent of the television shows I’ve seen of underfunded, overworked NHS A&E departments in the U.K.; not what I expected from “our ER” in rural Pennsylvania.

Urgency to help hurting and or scared people was nowhere to be found.  When people are more willing to leave and risk life and limb rather than wait for hours to be seen on what appeared to be a slow night in the department, something’s wrong.

It occurred to me that staff shouldn’t be seen to be snacking with their mates instead of attending to patients, it’s off-putting and unprofessional to say the least.  This atmosphere announces that this hospital doesn’t care about patients.

I realize that this was not a trauma requiring the word, “stat.”  And it probably wasn’t a crisis, with the operative word being “probably.”  But you never know and I’m just saying, “what’s wrong with this picture?

I began this column thinking about Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan from the Bible’s book of Luke.  Pretty much everybody knows the gist of this moral story about loving your neighbor.

There is no question that the Samaritan demonstrated kindness toward a person not of his or her own group.  The two were strangers, truly “others,” from groups historically hostile toward one another.

One might think of these two individuals as symbolic of left versus right political groups, for instance.  The story doesn’t say much about the thieves who attacked the one needing help.

Sociologically, when a culture has a clear outside enemy such as in times of war, their petty squabbling amongst themselves becomes diminished.  They have someone or something to band together against.

I want to consider the thieves as well as the one who was helped.  Let’s, for a moment forget about the Good Samaritan, the Jewish priest who crossed the street, and the Levite from yet another tribe who also crossed the road to avoid the nearly dead man who needed someone’s help.

Why aren’t we mad at the thieves who created the whole mess of the beaten-up man?  We’re a little angry at the Jewish priest and the Levite because they walked away without helping.

I want to know what happened to the one who needed help.  Once he/she was helped, their wounds healed, and back to their usual, everyday routine, what kind of person did they become?

Another related Scripture from the book of Luke, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” might be the enlightened philosophy of “the one helped.”  I say, enlightened, because we tend to really “get it” when it happens to us.

Many years ago, a man, not necessarily considered a good man by some, or many people, anonymously gave something to our family, that we really needed, when we really needed it.  It was anonymous, but we knew who gave the gift.

Not many people knew our need.  We didn’t advertise it.

Not only did that act of generosity and kindness meet a concrete need, it instilled a “pay it forward” attitude and a ripple effect in us, “the ones helped.”  Now, many years hence, I try to do similar acts of kindness, commensurate with my abilities, to others, as unembellished as possible.

The effects of acts of kindness can last forever, throughout generations.  Kindness can be your legacy.

I wonder if people who have never had an unmet need will have the same understanding of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” as “the one helped.”  None of this precludes the existence of thieves (John 10) who are here to “kill, steal, and destroy.”

Given the vagaries of human nature, often a kindness extended won’t be returned like for like, in a direct exchange.  In fact, that same person who met our need so long ago, turned on us with a nasty exchange later on.

However, nothing can erase the original act of kindness.  It’s out there.

Don’t regret a spurned act of kindness.  It will return to you some other time by some other person or circumstance.  There are simply universal laws of return which will be demonstrated sooner or later.  Just wait for it.

My husband is the king of options.  I’m the opposite, queen of quick decisions and quite okay with option number one.

I typically know right off the bat what I like and what I can live with.  My husband, on the other hand, has to explore multiple options, ad infinitum.  He does research (did I mention that he has a PhD.) until I’m literally sickened by the detail circus he’s produced.

This man makes me crazy on a daily basis with his options.  He really should assign that lovable “crazy” emoji to my name in his phone contacts, for exchanging text messages and phone calls.  Instead, he uses the “love blowing a kiss” one; and the chorus said, “Awh.”

I’ve made plenty of wrong choices and hasty decisions in my life, but none of them have been outrageously disastrous.  But my right decisions have far outweighed the wrong ones.  I married the right man, didn’t I?

Is it better to have multiple options?  Or are we better off with limited choices to weigh?

Then there’s second guessing yourself.  “Darn it, I chose option B when I might have been better off with option C.”  Rarely, do I harbor feelings of regret over the choices I’ve made.

How can you know which choice would have been, could have been, better?  Is hindsight the same thing as experience?  And do we learn from both?

Can you learn to live well with your choices?  Decorating or landscaping choices are never a problem in our household.  It’s our philosophy that one can always repaint, move the furniture, or find a new place for a shrub if our first selection doesn’t sit well with us in the long run.

However, I’m sort of famous in my family for not being happy with my menu choices.  I often look longingly and mouthwateringly at my table partner’s food choices and regret what I chose.  But there have also been some winners.

So, what’s on the menu?  I wrestle with options.  I guess that’s why nine out of ten of my dreams are situated in restaurants, where I am a patron.

Choices.  I’m just happier with fewer of them.

With clothing, I consider myself fortunate that most of the time I’m happy with my purchases.  But there were a notable few times when I asked myself, “what were you thinking, woman?”

It’s usually with the most expensive clothing purchases that I’ll get home and question my choice.  More than once an item has gone unworn to the donation bin three months after I was sure I’d love it and it’s too late to return it.  That one pair of black shoes lasted a year.

True story – I once found the cutest animal print dress in a store, forty miles from home.  I debated and debated whether to buy it.  It was a tad on the expensive side so I declined, until I got home.

I called the store and asked them to hold it for me, made a special trip back to the store, and bought it.  It still hangs in my closet unworn, with the tags on it.

I’ve yet to find the occasion to wear that dress.  I think it may have been a bad choice.  Time will tell, I guess.

If you ever see me wearing a rather form fitting animal print dress, you’ll know that it worked out in the end.  Sometimes you just don’t know if your choices were good, until the end.

I couldn’t be happier with my choice of spouse, he with his unending options and me with my quick decisions.  And yet he still drives me to distraction with his options.  I’m certain that we will remain together until the end, the only option worth considering for the both of us.