On the Eve of 2015

The earth turns and a new day begins
and tonight it brings a new year
just another orbit around the sun
yet, a symbol of renewal
a chance to start again
resolve to be different, do better
as a person, as a community, as a world.
Let us open our hearts and minds to peace
Let us learn that violence and hate only beget violence and hate
Let us choose our words carefully, and our deeds even more so
Let us start with our our family, friends and coworkers
Let us allow the ripple to expand beyond us.
With love, with laughter, 
with restraint and understanding,
we can change this, the only world we have.

©2014 Noreen Braman

For NYC and all of us, a holiday wish we need to work on all year

All my life I have found music to be a source of comfort, inspiration and communication. Sometimes a melody or a lyric will express an emotion better than anything I can come up with myself. And this Christmas, as I find myself mourning over the horrors that seem to be proliferating everywhere, I am wisely reminded by friends that we cannot give up, we must do what we can, where we are. As a writer, as a woman, as a mother, I seek to find words to make sense of recent events. I cannot. But what I can do is share a holiday song, that — while dedicated to New York City and is particularly poignant this year — it sends a global message recognizing both the longing for "peace within our time" and the need for us to spend more time bringing our compassion and forgiveness into all that we do.

Rob Thomas - Merry New York Christmas

Lyrics:
Call on your Angels, come down to the city
Crowd around the big tree, all you strangers who know me
Bring your compassion, your understanding
Lord, how we need it on this New York City Christmas
Yeah, I'm sending you a Merry New York Christmas
And a prayer for peace on earth within our time
Hear the sidewalk Angels echo, "Halleluja"
We understand them, now more than ever
So call on your angels, you're beaten and broken
It's time that we mended so they don't fade with the season
Let our mercy be the gifts we lay from Brooklyn to Broadway
And celebrate each and every day of this New York City Christmas
Yeah, I'm sending you a Merry New York Christmas
And a prayer for peace on earth within our time
Hear the sidewalk angels echo, "Hallelujah"
We understand them, now more than ever
Merry New York Christmas
Call on your Angels, come down to the city
Let's crowd around the big tree, all you strangers you know me
Bring your compassion, bring your forgiveness
Lord, how we need it on this New York City Christmas
Yeah, I'm sending you a Merry New York Christmas
And a prayer for peace on earth, it's not too late
Yeah, the sidewalk Angels echo, "Hallelujah"
We understand them, we hear them say
Merry Christmas, ah yeah, yes, a New York City Christmas
Merry New York Christmas

Rob Thomas - A New York Christmas Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Senseless Tragedies

A senseless tragedy remains forever tragic, but it is up to us whether it remains forever senseless. ~Robert Brault

Until we, as a species, can put aside the constant focus on, and inflammation of, what separates us, there will never be peace or understanding.

My heart is broken from all the worldwide "senseless tragedies" that occur on a daily basis, and I am unable to comprehend a world where only more "senseless tragedy" is tolerated and even encouraged.

Some have occurred in distant places, others too close to home; but all have made me sick at heart, unsure of the future of civilization, and they shake my own confidence that doing work in the laughter and happiness field is doing any good anywhere.

Oh me, Oh life, oh time slipping into the future

Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future …

             Fly Like An Eagle — The Steve Miller Band

The question, O me! so sad, recurring–What good amid these,
O me, O life?

Oh me! Oh Life! — Walt Whitman

I woke up this morning and realized that suddenly, it was the week before Christmas, 2014. Christmas number 59 for those of you who are counting along with me.

The time between the end of summer and today is a blur, despite my desire to slow down time, analyze life and savor each day for its merits. Life, unfortunately, doesn’t like to be scrutinized that closely, and it wriggles and struggles the tighter you hold it, like a little bird fighting to free itself from your hand. Sometimes I think of life as a boat with a capricious driver, and I am the water skier behind it, just trying to hang onto the rope.

Halloween flew past me, and I am sure there were some costumed grandchildren and candy distribution, even some crocheted candy corn dolls for the little ones. For a brief moment I had time to ruminate on Halloweens past: my own costumed adventures and those of my children as they grew. But mostly I was distracted by the impending move of my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter to Iowa, all on the heels of my son’s knee surgery, my own smashed finger and the usual waves of sniffles, colds and viruses that bloom in the little ones, who are only too eager to share.

By Thanksgiving the engine on the stress train was belching huge clouds of steam, tempered only by a lovely Ladies day out at a local tea room for a 7 course after-Thanksgiving family gathering. Then it was back to packing, hauling and flying to the Midwest with my knee-braced son and his daughter, while his wife and mother-in-law drove the car. It was a whirlwind of activity, punctuated by tears I tried to hide and I returned to New Jersey weary and sick. Not much time to reflect on life, philosophize on the meaning of it, compose poetry about it or write blogs to document the passage of it. No, instead I was living it.

Now, I race to catch up on holiday rituals, chores and preparations. Another offspring’s family is moving to a new house as I write this – closer to me. The Yin and Yang of this is not lost on me, even as I burn the candle of my brain on both ends dealing with financial mayhem and health issues of my own. Anticipated surgery has been canceled because this would have added a level of disability, intense organization and expense too chaotic for even an experienced juggler like me.

So, the sentimental, nostalgic, end of year writing I expected to do, during this, the last Christmas of my 50s isn’t popping up on my computer screen. I cannot wax wise and whimsical, nor create quotable quips to be repeated by family and friends.

Only this: there is nothing more wonderful than being fully engaged in life; balancing a plate that is impossibly full; ears filled with a cacophony of family voices; and a heart full of emotions too plentiful to count.
LIVE.

Press 1 For Nothing — The New Zen of Customer Assistance

Once upon a time, I took a second job at a call center. Located in a chilly, dark warehouse in New Jersey, the call center consisted of cubicles, each with their own computer screen and phone.  Headphones, with removable ear covers for sanitary reasons hung on a rack and you grabbed a pair on your way in. From 7 -11 each evening I answered calls to several numbers that callers were responding to because of ads that they had seen somewhere.  My job was to read the script I was given, take their information (if they would give it!) and move on to the next caller. My calls were timed and could be monitored. No chitchat allowed, no off-script conversations, no wasting time. Mostly, I took contact information so that people could be sent “more information” about a certain product or service.

Our biggest “client” was a cruise line, and there was a limited amount of information we could give out. Basically, a travel agent located close to the caller was going to contact them by phone or mail to try and sell them a cruise based on information we got from them. People were calling us, so the job was relatively simple, low-key and uneventful. 

All that changed when a ship belonging to the cruise line had an onboard fire. Photos from helicopters showing the smoke and the passengers on deck were all over the news. Cell phones were rare at that time, so unlike cruise ship incidents that would happen later, most people could not speak to their loved ones to check on them. The cruise line wasn’t doing a good job with communicating with families either, because pretty soon the phones at the call center were lighting up with desperate people, frantic to get through to a live person on any number they could find. Unfortunately, the call center wasn’t even owned by the cruise line, wasn’t located in their building, and had no real connection to it. Crying people could not understand why this 800 number that was so prominently advertised could not help them, or transfer them to another department that could help them. We were so far out of the cruise line’s thoughts that they hadn’t even considered sending us information on what to do if we got calls about the emergency. 

Since that time, there have been many more cruise ship problems, and I hope that communications have improved and no clueless person in an offsite, contracted call center has to take a call from a weeping family member again. I don’t work there anymore, so I don’t know. Unfortunately, I do have my doubts – because customer service, crisis communications and general consumer responsiveness remains, in many industries, a murky, pothole-ridden road that often leads to a dead end. 

It is almost a mathematical certainty that the larger the corporation, the more distant “customer service” is from actually assisting customers. Calls are still going to offsite and offshore call centers where responsiveness ranging from nothing more than a person taking “someone will get back to you” messages, to impossible phone trees that never get you to a live person. And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of help lines and assistance lines for all the electronic mayhem we deal with such as cable television, computer repair, cell phone activation, etc.

While business and current events seem like they are rushing past us at the speed of light, other things have slowed to a crawl. Consumer phone messages and emails go unanswered, stacked up like the letters to Santa in the movie “Miracle on 34^th Street.”  It is happening with doctors’ offices, government services and financial institutions. Just ask anyone who has been the victim of identity theft how difficult it can be to actually interact with anyone who can actually do something for you, “now.” And yet, some of those very same institutions have no trouble find YOU if they want something from you. It reminds me of the newest commercials for online services that point out how different your “upload” and “download” speeds can be.

I wish I had an answer, a shortcut, a secret way for all of us stuck in customer service purgatory to get the help, the answers, the ATTENTION we need. Burt all we can do is sit on hold and wait. Your call is important to … only you.

Dylan Thomas - Do not go gentle into that good night

I have quoted from it often, this poem from Dylan Thomas. Written for his father, its message is deeper than its surface reading that talks about what "men" do at the end of life. It speaks to all of us, old and young, male and female, about the fragility of our existence, the importance of what we do while we are here, and the legacies we leave behind. Recently, a commercial for a wrestling video game invokes this poem. Rather than being offended by this commercialization of the poem, I am hoping it inspires people to go look it up, in the same way that the Apple commercial inspired so many to go discover Whitman.

What will my verse be, indeed.

Dylan Thomas - Do not go gentle into that good night
Walt Whitman - Oh Me! Oh Life!

Slip Sliding Away

October steamrolled right through Halloween into November, and suddenly, it is mid-November. Less than 5 months to go and my pile of "before 60" things has not shrunk. Not much anyway. I applied to be a speaker at a TEDx conference. Check. I applied for a scholarship for the AATH conference. Check. I won't hear the decisions about those items for a while, but the checklist is to do things I can control. Applying was under my control. After that, whatever happens is up to the universe. Or at least the Selection Committees.

Life is winding up in the bullpen to come out and pitch me some curve balls soon. I know they are coming, I cannot control their arrival or their repercussions. All I can do is put on my batting helmet and step up to the plate.

And yes, a good baseball metaphor helps get me through some of the roughest things life can throw at me. Batter Up!

Tracker Panic, or, The Case of the Missing Memory

 This morning I left my electronic fitness tracker on my wrist, in the nighttime writstband, while I cleaned the bathroom, and put away laundry. 

 I was suddenly distracted by a medical emergency with Dewey, my cockatiel, who was covered with blood. I whisked her to the sink to clean her up, and found no active bleeding, just a lot of feathers coming in. I guess she pulled on one or got it caught somehow. I bathed her, cuddled her in a towel, then returned her to her cage under a warm light bulb to help her dry and feel better. I gave a sigh of relief as she began preening herself, chirping, and eating. Whew, that was scary.

It was then I realized that I was no longer wearing my electronic fitness tracker. I assumed I had taken it off before bathing my bird, but it wasn't near the sink. Not near the towels, not near Dewey's cage. Then I thought, maybe I took it off while cleaning the bathroom. It wasn't in there either. I started to feel annoyed and upset with myself. Lately I've been forgetting where I put down my cell phone, and have had to go back to my bathroom in the morning to make sure the curling iron was turned off.

Short term memory loss, I thought. Now it begins. My concern turned into panic. No, no, this can't be happening. I have way too much left to do in my life. My grandchildren are only babies. It took me 50 years to find the LOML. I left the house to run an errand and drive through the nearby park, taking in the brilliant fall colors just to calm myself down.

When I got home, the LOML braved both the kitchen and bathroom garbage cans. No tracker. The darn thing was still synching to my phone, so we knew it was in the house. But where in the world did I put it? The freezer? Isn't that a typical hiding place for those with memory problems to put things? Not there. Not in the laundry, or the dog's dish or my shoes. Not pushed under the couch or the dresser by the vacuum today.

Finally, I looked up some helpful hints for finding a lost electronic fitness tracker. Yes, the manufacturer actually has such a webpage. Most of the usual places I had already checked. And yes, it was still synching, so it had to be in the house.

The final hint was to download a Bluetooth device locator onto my phone. Well, not an actual locator, but a meter that tells you which Bluetooth devices are communicating with your phone, and their signal strength. I loaded the software and turned on my laptop. It showed up right away, with a strong signal. Then, there was my tracker, a weak signal, but there!

As I walked away from the computer, the signal weakened, but the tracker's got stronger. As I walked further away from the computer the tracker got stronger and stronger, until I was standing in front of my closet. The closet in which I had placed freshly laundered clothes a few hours earlier. AH HA!

The hunt wasn't as easy as I expected. The tracker and its wristband were not just lying on the closet floor. In fact, the signal at the floor was weaker. Above the closet pole it was also weaker. Apparently the tracker was somewhere in the clothes. Eventually, I had to go through a bunch of items where the signal was the strongest, and there it was, my black wristband, securely fastened to the sleeve of a black shirt by the famous hook and loop fastener that was supposed to keep it around my wrist. Apparently my tracker had jumped ship and attached itself to the nearest arm and hung there, like a bat, snoozing.

My relief was twofold. First I was happy to find this expensive electronic gadget. Second, I realized that this was just "one of those things" on "one of those days" that had nothing to do with memory loss, short term or otherwise. In fact, I think I burned some new neural pathways playing detective and utilizing some new software. But perhaps the most important thing I learned today is that someone loves me enough to dump out two cans of smelly garbage to look for something we both thought I had mindlessly misplaced. And you can't complain about that.

Marking Time

Let's face it. From the day we are born, we are marking time. First, in the calendar way, by checking off the milestones brought to us by the passing of days. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. I absolutely love the calendar and its dependable way of rotating around to bring me again and again to those familiar dates and events. There is the life plan way of marking time, laying out all the stages of life we expect to experience — education, career, family life— and a myriad of touchstones along the way.

Then there is marking time in the marching band/military way. Standing in place, feet moving in regimented step, knees up, eyes ahead. "Mark Time, MARCH!" And you stay there until further orders tell you to halt, or move forward. I was great at marching in a group, whether it was with the Rifle-ettes (doing a mean Queen Anne's salute with our wooden mock rifles) or with my high school band, forming letters and shapes on the football field (all the while playing clarinet.)

As a parent, I have marked time with the developmental milestones of my children, their stages of life and now, repeating that with grandchildren. I've become good at it, except, perhaps in my working life. Many times I have found myself out of step, doing an About Face, or watching the squad move on without me. Career-wise, the concept of marking time by soldiering on in place didn't boost me up many rungs of the ladder; perhaps, as the saying goes; when it came to career, I really just wanted to march to the beat of my own drummer.

I am trying to find out how to do that and still pay the rent, especially now, as I stare down another milestone; one that is moving at me steadily as the calendar days pass by. Its approach is signaling a time of assessing where all this marching has led me, both personally and professionally.

The band is playing, the sergeant is shouting, and the parade ground is waiting.

Déjà vu All Over Again

Thomas Edison is quoted as saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same results. It is a pretty good thing to remember in science and in life, but it doesn’t go far enough. At first read, one may be lead to believe that there is never any sense in doing something over and over again. That there is no difference in GETTING the same result and EXPECTING the same result. I think of this as I find myself entertaining thoughts of once again reinventing myself. Something I have done over and over again; something I’ve repeated despite not always getting the results I expected.
 

My first reinvention was probably when I left home at age 18. I reinvented myself from being the Hero Child of a dysfunctional family, and recreated myself as an Independent Person. The road I put myself on was rocky. I made what I have felt for years was a regrettable decision, not going to college. I struck out with virtually no family support system, no money, no job and nowhere to live. Eventually, most of those things fell in line. My second reinvention involved allowing myself to be absorbed by the interests, activities and friends of the person who would become my husband. I willingly buried my own interests and distanced myself from personal friends. It was a life that went along quite well for a while. When it ended there was another reinvention into Single Mom and the emotional roller coaster that entails. And that reinvention lasted through the teenage years of my children and stayed with me as they went off to college. 

Then came the reinvention of 2009. Being laid off from a career that I had been pursuing with intensity was like having my legs knocked out from under me.  I lost my self-identification, my passion and my self-confidence. It happened exactly at the same time as I was going through the proverbial Empty Nest Syndrome. Basically, I felt like no one needed me anymore. Never mind the financial upheaval from which I am still recovering.  Trying to reinvent myself back into a sane, solvent, and independent person took a long time. I haven’t recovered all the way, and I now accept that some of the changes to me are permanent. There is no going back to the person I was prior to 2009. 

Finding a soul mate since then has done much for me, and I hope as much for him. Now having the kind of partnering relationship that I never had before has not changed the bumps in the road, but has made me realize how much easier it is to face those bumps with another person in your corner. It helped me find the courage and determination to reinvent myself yet again in 2010, when laughter and humor became for me a focus of study, practice and professional development. Suddenly, that college degree I never finished became less important as I embraced learning for the sake of learning, not for a piece of paper. I have expanded my knowledge, my mind, my experiences and my outlook in the past 5 years. I have gone from worrying about if people need me, to knowing that they love me; and therein lies the real purpose of life.

So now, to paraphrase Yogi Berra, it is déjà vu all over again. Stalking age 60 gives me the “I have done this before” feeling. And I realize that doing the same thing over and over again can be a wonderful, life affirming experience. And that is because you never really do the exact same thing again — your life, like a river, is never the same, even if you step into at the same place again and again. The water, and the river, keep flowing.  And this time, as I get ready to dive back into that river of reinvention, I can’t wait to see what I become.

Blog Action Day 2014 - "Inequality"

Please see my post from October 15, 2014; my reflections about "Unfinished Business," including thoughts about equality and other global issues that remain "Unfinished."

Unfinished Business

Unfinished microwave installation

If my life has a recurring theme, it has to be “unfinished business.” I am a great project starter, but not such a great project finisher. At least outside of work. (Don’t want any past, current, or future employer getting the wrong idea).  Craft projects, writing projects, house improvement projects, gardening projects and even self-improvement projects. Sometimes I am like the hunting dog that starts off down the trail and then gets distracted by a rabbit or a squirrel and forgets what she is doing.

Only lately have I come to think that this may not just be something I have a problem with, but may be symptomatic of the baby boom generation. Surely on an individual basis, we fill out an entire spectrum for “unfinished business,” but as far as finishing some of the “projects” I thought we were going to tackle, the baby boomers still have work to do.

There is a list of things that still need work — equality, justice, violence, poverty, the environment — and those are just a few of the high level things we thought we were going to fix.  Back in 1970, on the first Earth Day, it seemed that if we could only clean up pollution and recycle stuff,  that would save the day. Although scientists had been mentioning it since the 1800s, we were unaware of  “climate change” or the disappearing ozone layer, or oxygen deserts in the ocean.

Those of us who were young women in the 70s, were fierce about our rights to be in the workplace, earn equal pay for equal work, and not tolerating male colleagues who thought it was OK to pat us on the behind if we stooped at the water fountain in the hallway. Our vision of racial harmony was a world of diverse neighborhoods, schools and workplaces, where people were valued for the “content of their character.” And we never imagined that a day would come when people would fly airplanes into skyscrapers, gun down children in classrooms, or proclaim that their religion supported reviving slavery.

And yet, we are the generation who “lost their innocence” when Kennedy was killed. Seeing the adults in my life break down and cry, combined with all the nuclear bomb drills at school made me feel as if the end of the world was at hand. Yet, somehow this faded to the back of our collective consciousness.  I realize of course, that I may have been more sheltered than others, or possibly too busy dealing with the dysfunction in my own family to really grasp what was going on the world. However, as I look back on what I perceived as the things my generation was going to cure, there is no getting around it, there is “unfinished business.”  And perhaps this has been the legacy of every generation, to just pick up where the last one left off, and carry the idea as far as they can.

4 AM - the Moon and Me

The only shot I could get earlier in the evening

Thank you to the LOML (love of my life) for bringing to my attention the huge, gorgeous, full moon that was hovering over the yard at 4 am this morning. Not a cloud in the sky, mild temperatures- perfect for dashing outside in PJs to snap a couple of pictures. And, the LOML has the dog, Zelda, to thank for waking him up at that ridiculously early hour so she could go outside and bark at rodents.

4 AM - Time to howl at the moon

Sunrise, Moonset

Lunar Eclipse, in the clouds 10-8-14

Getting up at 5 AM is normally a difficult process, especially when it is dark and chilly. However, knowing that there was a lunar eclipse about to happen made me practically jump out of bed, get dressed, and go out to the kitchen to put on coffee. Instead of my usual slow motion, stiff-in-the-hips-and-back morning self, I was suddenly an energetic photographer, racing to an assignment. The power of motivation, self-expression and creativity should never be underestimated.

The roads were dark as I traveled to my favorite spot for photographing sunsets in the western sky. The moon, now a crescent, was peeking in and out of clouds leftover from last night’s storms. By the time I reached my photo spot, the moon had descended further toward the horizon, and was completely hidden behind a low bank of clouds. I sat in my car and waited for the clouds to clear, if only for a brief peek.

In the meantime, I became aware of the increasing traffic on the cornfield-lined road. Sets of headlights whizzed past me, people hurrying to jobs. I wondered how many of the drivers had noticed the slowly disappearing full moon, or were even aware of the lunar eclipse that was going on. Their speed was mostly too high for the two-lane road, and I was reminded of how many times I had been tailgated and illegally passed on that same road by speeding, impatient drivers. Drivers who were not seeing the progress of the growing corn, were unaware of the horses that sometimes were rolling or jumping behind their paddock fences, and drivers that didn’t look enough above the roadway to observe the sun, the moon, or the stars. Sure, you can’t be staring out your window like a tourist while you are driving, but I can’t help but think that these same people might not notice these things even if they were just standing on the side of the road.

My musing was interrupted by the sound of a police car pulling up behind me,then slowly rolling up next to me. The young officer just wanted to ask me to pull up a bit, so he could park in the optimum spot to catch speeders. When I told him I was there to photograph the lunar eclipse, he smiled and said, yes, he had caught some glimpses of it between the clouds. He wanted to know if I got any good pictures. “One,” I said, and nodded toward the clouds. He wished me good luck.

We sat there in our cars for a while, as the light of pre-dawn rose around us. The moon, now in full eclipse, was somewhere behind the clouds, very low on the horizon. Lower, perhaps than the stalks of corn would let me see. Eventually, I realized that if I left this spot, and traveled to the other side of town, I might be able to catch the sunrise over the lake in the park.

As I started my car, a speeder flew past us, and the young officer turned his car in pursuit. I turned also, and followed him. He stopped the speeder, and I passed him, hoping that after he finished his work he would stop to glance at the sky turning crimson over him.

A sky that reflects my life at this exact moment—a moment where both sunrise and moonset are visible to me, a moment I can look in either direction and see beauty, wonder, and love.

I headed east, toward sunrise, and morning.

Additional note 10-8-2014, 12:30 PM - For those who know me and my apparent affinity (some say obsession) with the moon, the fact that this 6 month countdown for me takes place almost exactly between two "Blood Moons" (October 8, 2014 and April 5, 2015) will not be a surprise.

Sunrise reflected in the clouds 10-8-14

One Hundred and Eighty One Days

Today begins the countdown, 181 days until the decade counter of my life turns over into another set of 10.  At age 50 I looked ahead to 60 and figured that I would be pretty much the same after 10 years. But, life is like a river, you can step into at the same place, but the river is never the same, it is always moving on. So, today, I step into that same river as I did at 50, and know the water is completely different. And at 70 – wow, I can’t even contemplate it. So, I will deal with only the next 6 months.  October 2014 through April 2015. I think there is enough happening in that time period to keep me busy.

Fall will glide into winter, and the winter holidays will rush at me, full of twinkling lights, tinsel, family gatherings and rich food. A number of family birthdays will turn the counting clock for relatives and friends. New Year’s resolutions and tax returns will compete for attention, and the yearly health insurance enrollment period will raise its complicated and ugly head. And those are only the standard yearly occurring events. What else will squeeze itself into the calendar? The only certainty of it is uncertainty — the way that life likes to twist and turn without warning signals, and sometimes without brakes.

October, I face you first. You, the month of falling leaves, frost and Halloween.  The month that signals the coming end of the year, yet fills me with a sense of purpose and renewal. During this time I make more future plans and crave more changes and improvements than at any other time of the year. And this year, October, you hold more than your usual inspiration. You hold a lifetime of ambition, hopes and dreams in your short 31 days. Your days bring optimism in still-warm sunshine, and warn of lethargy in your darkening afternoons. To you, I assign the task of gatekeeper, swinging open to embrace my torrent of thoughts, plans and impossibilities. I expect you to swing the gate closed as the last Jack O’Lantern goes dark. Then, to November goes the task of sweeping up behind that gate, making neat piles of my scattered thoughts, placing them carefully along the path that leads to spring in April.

The countdown begins today.

Starting October 7, 2014

Stalking 60 by Noreen Braman