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