Hello All, I wanted to share with you my porch decision and how I came to it and how freeing that has been, but today is a Meniere's day--headache, wooziness, imbalance, dizziness--and so using the computer for even a few minutes (like now) demands a concentration that is very tiring.
This week I will be working on my novel that I hope to publish in September, but I do hope to post next Sunday. Take care. Be gracious to yourselves. And know that you are thought of fondly by this cat-loving, elderly woman who is grateful for the gift of your presence in her life. Peace.
Today I’m sharing with you the
background for three recent decisions I made, beginning on Sunday July 1. In this posting I’ll set the
scene. Next Sunday, I hope to share the decisions.
I lived in a lovely 1870 lumberjack home in Stillwater,
Minnesota, for 32 of the 39 years I lived in that northern state with its
blizzards and wind chill. The home had a screened-in, side porch, off the
kitchen, that had been built in 1910. Nothing had been done to it since then.
That porch became my favorite part of the house. The
cats with whom I lived loved it too. They’d bask in the sun while lying on the
ledge where the single-pane glass windows met the non-insulated three-foot-high wall, which sat atop a concrete slab that let in rain water and melting snow. Of course, during the winter, the porch
became a deep freeze. No sitting or basking then.
I’d spend my time on the porch, reading, writing,
visiting with friends and neighbors, holding a cat or two, or simply looking
out the screened windows to the perennial gardens beyond. It was a place of
conversation and also of retreat.
The 1910 screened-in porch with the side perennial garden, the driveway, and the garage.
In 2001, I was finally able—financially—to hire a
contractor to turn the porch into a four-season one. Within a short time, it
boasted modern windows that kept out the heat in summer but retained the inner
heat in winter; a heating-and-air-conditioning unit; a new concrete slab that
wasn’t cracked and on which the insulated walls fitted snugly; and a lovely color of paint called "Bee's Honey."
That porch simply delighted me. It was as if it had arms
it could put around me—to comfort when I was in the throes of Meniere’s
Disease. To listen attentively when I visited with friends there. To inspire my
writing. To calm my soul when the vicissitudes of life threatened my inner
peace and left me feeling adrift.
I lived in that home—with that welcoming four-season
porch—for eight more years after the contractor completed the work: from
September 2001 to June 2009. At that point I moved here to Missouri. I now live
in a one-story home that pleases me in every way but one.
That one thing that needs change is the southern-facing patio
that is attached to the living room. I go out onto it from glass sliding doors.
It has a concrete slab and a roof held up by three pillars. My porch furniture
from Stillwater fits there.
However, the weather is so hot and humid here and the
bugs so plentiful that I spend little time there during the summer. And, of
course, I cannot use it during the winter. Spring and fall are the patio’s
seasons but with climate change even those times tend to be problematic
temperature- and weather-wise.
When I first moved here, I thought of turning that patio
into a four-season porch similar to the space I’d enjoyed in Stillwater.
However, money was tight and rather soon after moving I began to have a series
of physical problems that sapped my energy and preoccupied my thoughts.
Necessarily, I let go of my yearning for a porch on which I might sit with the
cats and enjoy the morning bird song and the apricot sunsets of Missouri.
Then in 2013, my health improved; a friend and I visited
seven showrooms to get an idea of what a four-season porch would cost here in
Missouri. Rather soon after that, however, my health declined again. I had to deal
with cancer, Glaucoma and near loss of vision, and a serious back operation.
That brings me to July 1, 2018. Next week I'll share what happened then.
I learned ballroom dancing in the seventh grade. Sister
Mary McCauley—a nun of the Sisters of Mercy order—hired someone to teach our
class of 26. That same year we also learned how to square dance, which I
greatly enjoyed. My problem with ballroom dancing was that I always wanted to
take over the lead.
Given that and the bad case of acne I mentioned last
week, I wasn’t popular at mixers when the ban played a waltz or foxtrot. I did have
partners for the polka as I could throw myself into that dance with abandon,
and the boys went along for the ride.
In college, I met a fellow freshman who’d had her own
dance studio in high school. When I asked her to teach me to rock'n roll, she
took on the challenge. With rock'n roll, I became a little more popular on the
dancefloor. Of course, in the college I attended—a small library arts college
for young women—we young women also danced together in the evening between
study hall and lights out.
Our dorms were on the top floor of the ad building. A
long hall—probably a couple of football fields long—extended down the center of
the fourth floor, separating the various dorms. At night, we’d play music—loudly—and
dance down that hall. Or, we’d push the beds and dressers in our dorms aside
and have our own mixers. I slept in St. Lucy’s Dorm in which there were 48 beds—an
enormous room. There we were, dressed in pajamas and robes just rockin’ and rollin’!
That continued throughout my freshman and sophomore
years when we lived on the 4th floor. In my junior and senior years,
we lived in private rooms for two or three in the various college houses.
Sometimes all of us in one house would rock ‘n roll in the basement, but mostly
that got left behind as we became more serious about studying. I didn’t go to
the twin-college mixers because I was, quite simply, a wallflower.
In June 1958, I graduated and entered the convent. There
was no dancing there and no phonographs on which to play dance records. Nor
could we listen to the radio or television. The only music we heard was that of
the liturgy. Of course, there was the melody of our chanting of the Divine
Office several times a day.
At Mass, we sang a number of prayers. For Sunday Mass,
the choir would sing a specially arranged song. The one I most remember was “Ubi
Caritas,” which came to everyone’s attention in the early 1960s after a
Benedictine priest—Father Paul Benoit—composed his melody for this ancient
Latin antiphon. (Since then, many composers have set the words to their own
melodies.)
Those of you who have had the opportunity to read my
convent memoir, Prayer Wasn’t Enough,
know that I daily disobeyed the convent traditions and rules by singing songs
from the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s while I did my obediences—especially sorting
the laundry. I was never reprimanded for this even though I’m quite sure the
novice mistress knew I sang. Benedictines have always sung, and I don’t think
she minded that my song wasn’t chant.
This video from YouTube shows that rock'n roll is still popular today!
Did you get a chance to rock ‘n roll? What was your
favorite song to dance to?
Last week, I posted mostly about the
songs and dance of my childhood. From 7th grade through 12th,
I went to school mixers, sock hops, and parties, but I remember only one dance
with one boy.
My high school was small—just
twenty-six in my senior graduating class. While girls had “gym” class, there
were no teams. The boys played basketball and baseball. The job of girls was to
cheer the boys on when they took to the court or the diamond.
Throughout the four years of high
school, I was enamored of one boy—let’s call him Martin. He was tall, thin,
handsome, and aloof, seldom deigning to talk with girls. I’m not sure why. Was
he simply shy or did he feel superior because he was a star basketball player?
He seemed often to have an expression
of contempt on his face. I, of course, found this intriguing. Many years later,
“The Impossible Dream” became my favorite song, and my attraction to this young
man hinted at my always wanting the impossible.
Nearly everyone in my class had gone
through grade and high school together, so we knew one another well. In seventh
and eighth grade, we began having parties at one another’s homes. We’d dance in
the basement, we girls wearing our twin sweater sets, poodle skirts, bobby
socks, and saddle shoes. The “guys” dressed in jeans and casual shirts.
At one of these gatherings, when I was
sixteen, Martin danced with me to the music of “Blue Velvet,” sung by Tony
Bennett.
I can remember his arms around me and
my thinking that if I died right then, I’d have known heaven. He didn’t talk;
he simply stared into the distance, looking over my head—I was 5’ 4”; he was 6
feet. The expression on his face was one of supreme boredom. That face, smooth,
with no five o’clock shadow, always reminded me—in its angularity—of El Greco’s
paintings. (I studied art.)
I was so tongue-tied from the sheer joy
of dancing with this Adonis that I could only stammer a word or two. Let’s be
honest—stammer really doesn’t do justice to my conversation. I babbled. When
Tony sang “bluer than velvet were her eyes,” I can remember hoping that Martin
would glance down and notice that my eyes were blue. Surely, bluer than velvet!
He didn’t.
During my teen-age years, my eyes were
the one good feature of my face. I had an extremely bad case of acne. My figure
was 36-24-36. My legs attractive. My hair curly. But my face was a disaster.
Because of that, I became shy with boys, thinking that if they did dance with
me they were just being kind.
So there we were in that basement:
Martin superior; me, unattractive and obsequiously grateful that he’d asked me
to dance. With my other male classmates, I could talk sports. Cars. Movies.
Classes. But it was always Martin whose standoffishness attracted me.
We danced; I mumbled a few words. The
song ended; he joined the other boys at the end of the room; I rejoined the
girls. They all knew about the crush I had on Martin, so Barb, Cecilia, Patsy,
and Joyce swooned and asked, “How was it?” “What’d he say?” “Isn’t he dreamy!”
I was mute.
Was this just me, or were you ever
attracted to someone who didn’t have the time of day for you?
