Mary Beth Writes

3/20/2022

...

Thanks for asking. I still don’t know the results from my 48 hours wearing a stickum heart monitor. I assume that not hearing promptly indicates that nothing is too alarming. If I don’t hear soon, I’ll contact them. Again.

Last week I had an ophthalmologist appointment. Good news is that nothing has changed and in fact my vision is slightly better.

But here is what I realized that I’d never thought too much about before. If one is going to have a procedure that could easily take hours to “recover” from and if one can choose appointment times – make the appointment late in the day. That way, you recover while you sleep. I’m talking about the easy stuff we all do such as vaccinations, dental work, eye dilation, donating blood. etc.

I had a 9AM eye appointment and then proceeded to lose the day waiting for my blurry and very light sensitive owl eyes to go away.

If I had done the check-up late afternoon, it would have been gone by the time I woke the next day and I could have accomplished things besides wandering and napping.

That’s all.

Our daughter who is aunt to our 5-year-old granddaughter received this important phone call as she was driving to her sister’s home to visit a few hours. “Could you drive Miss Five to Walgreen’s and help her buy her first gum? She wants some and we think she’s old enough now.”

So that happened and sounded extremely cute. She helped Miss Five find the best gum – pink Bubblicious. Then she gave Miss Five her own money and held her up so she could hand it to the cashier and everyone had a pretty good time with that moment.

Back home, Miss Five and two of her tiny neighbor GFs were given gum and then they were told, very carefully and clearly, that one chews gum, one doesn’t swallow it. For the next 15 minutes the three little girls walked silently up and down the sidewalk practicing chewing gum while not swallowing it.

From this moment onwards I’m going to think about this every time someone says, “That person couldn’t walk and chew gum at the same time.” Because yes, sometimes this is hard.

Mr. Two wanted gum, too. He was given a small piece and also told and to not swallow it.

He swallowed it.

We watched this last week and I’ve been thinking about it since. https://www.womenoutwardbound.com/  DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT: MAXINE W. DAVIS We each had our reasons for signing on, but none of us knew how those weeks would change our lives. Fifty years ago, we boarded a bus that took us to the edge of a wilderness backcountry covering 2 million acres of lakes, rivers, granite outcroppings, bogs, rivers, and waterfalls.  We didn’t realize back then that we were changing history. 

 We soon learned that we’d get dirty and wet – but could also clean up and dry out. We paddled white water. We climbed rocks and ropes and plunged into very cold water. We gained the physical strength and mental tenacity to travel safely in "brigades" through the wilderness for the next 16 days. 

 We came to Outward Bound with such different backgrounds, abilities, and weaknesses. And when we left, many of us took something with us that we didn't realize we'd found – what I call “grit.” 

 It was 1965 and 24 teenage girls…including me…were having an experience that would change our lives forever.

 “Women Outward Bound,” is a documentary about those girls, what happened to them, and how 30 days in the wilderness taught us that we could do more than we ever thought possible.

I didn’t expect to be moved by an undramatic documentary about what some teenage girls did 57 summers ago, but there you go. This film moved me deeply.

Many of us are older women and men who have come through complicated lives. We had to go against what the “norms” were all those years ago. Sometimes we forget just how narrow our options really were. How did we get from that into the lives we lived? Not many of us were invited into structured self-esteem building programs, yet we more or less did it on our own.

Those kids helped each other. They weren’t “girlfriends” in the ordinary way of considering that. They didn’t choose each other; they didn’t know each other from previous experiences. They were thrown together and quickly learned to move beyond likes and dislikes into the work and adventure of supporting the person next to them. Sharing strengths. Helping each other. Figuring out who is best for what task.

They became adult women who often did hard things. They figured out who they wanted to be and what they wanted to do. They started programs and helped others and raised families and lived fun and worthy lives.

It’s powerful to watch what happens when kids learn how to work together.

It’s powerful to watch people sort themselves into effective teams.

It’s inspiring to watch how, sometimes, hardship empowers women into lives beyond what they could have imagine.

 

Comments

Loved the 3 small stories. Especially the gum buying and chewing. Adorable. Makes me remember the time we were coming home from Indy with the 3 grands. I taught them how to blow bubbles!

The Wi. Dept. of Natural Resources runs a program called BOW; Becoming an Outdoor Woman, for those of us who grew up missing our chance. For 3 days in the summer, groups of women get a chance to try out fly fishing , backpacking, and shooting. I know, not the same, but it was still wonderful for a girl from Wheaton. I will watch the documentary, too. Thanks.
Mary Beth's picture

Oh wow! https://www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/bowWI/Pages/default.aspx I had never heard of it. I'm going to look into this more. Thanks!

To wander and nap ...

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Y is for Yellowstone

9/27/2023

Back in February I asked you to give me topics to write about that would correspond to the alphabet. Sometimes several of you sent ideas for one letter and sometimes I wrote about all of them (I’s and S’s) Here we are at letter Y for which your suggestions are Yummy Food and Yawns. The word yawn absolutely makes me yawn; no way I could write about that - I would yawn for hours. I worked on Yummy Food but could only find a scolding voice about Americans eating too much sugar. Bah. True but not interesting.

So, I gave Y a go again. Y is for?

"I was Scott Simon's teller."

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X is for Xeriscape

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W is for Wonder

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1.) X signature substitution

2.) xylophone on a string pulled by a toddler

3.) xenophobia

4.) Xmas. 

If you have an opinion respond with the one you would like me to attempt. I will choose whichever X gets the most comments.

There will be no gerrymandering in this election.

GNTL - NAMI

9/7/2023

Grownups Noticing Their Lives

NAMI

Most of you know about my former weird and lovely job of coordinating an employability skills program for Huber-qualified inmates in the Racine County Jail (that’s a mouthful). Early on I realized that most of the people I would work with were people with 1.) huge addiction problems, and 2.) underlying and over-the-top and to-the-side just lying around mental health issues.

V is for Vocabulary

9/6/2023 

For those who are new here - This year I am writing about topics, in alphabetical order, that were suggested to me by readers. Sometimes this is hard! 

IRTNOG

My cousin-in-law Dave has some powerfully thorough avocations (for fun and profit he earned a PhD in biochemistry; you will notice this in his list). This year, among other pursuits, he has been collecting words which have appeared in our culture since 1945, which was the year he also appeared in our culture.

Tag Cloud

9/11 17 minutes 500 Words A-Z AARPtaxes AAUW abortion Acadia accident Accountable Advent aging Alaska anniversary antibiotics antlers apples appointments Arrows art Ashland August Augustine aunts baby Badlands balance Baldwin Barbara Barkskins Beauty Becky Becoming Esther Berry birthday bistro BLM Blue BookReport books boy scout Bread BrokenDays BuyAngry Cabeza de Vaca Cahokia calendars Canada canoe cat romance cats cello Chicago China Choosing Christmas cilantro Cinnabuns circus climate change clouds Clowns clutter Colonialism comet ComfortZone CommonSense community consumerism Cops Corvid-19 Courage Covid-19 Crazy creditreport creosote CrimeShows danger DarkRiver death Debate December DecisionFatigue decluttering democracy dentist depression Destination Today Detroit Didion disasterprep dogs dollhouse Dreams Duty Easter eBay Echoes Eclipse election EmilyDickinson eschatology Esquipulas exit polls eyes Fable FairTrade family farmer Fata Morgana ferns firealarm Fitness Five Flatbread Flexible flu Food Pantry Fort de Chartres frame Franc FrancGarcia friends frugal FrugalHacks Frugality frustration Ft.Ticonderoga fungi fusion Galena Gannets Garden GarfieldParkConservatory Gaspe genius geode GeorgeFloyd gerrymandering ghosts gifts girls GNTL gorgons goulash GovernorThompsonStatePark Graduation grandkids granola groceries Guatemala gum guns Hair happiness HaveYouEver? hawks healthcare Healthinsurance hearings heart heaven HelleKBerry heroes hike History home HomeRepair Honduras Hope HowCrowGotOutofJail humor hurricane Ice Cream idiosyncrasy igloos impeachment Innkeeper Instincts integrity InternetPrivacy Interview InviteMe2Speak James Baldwin Jan 6 Janus jewelry JoyceAndrews Judy JulianofNorwich Jump justice Karen kites ladder Lady Lamb LangstonHuges LaphamPeak laundry LeeLeeMcKnight lemming Len Light Lincoln Little Women LockedOut Loki loneliness LouisArmstrong Love Ludington Macaw macho Manitoulin MargaretFuller Maria Hamilton Marquette marriage Marsden Hartley masks Mayan MayaWorks meme Memories men Middlemarch MilesWallyDiego MindfulChickens Mistakes MLK moon Mother MothersDay mounds mouser movies museums must-haves Mustapha NAMI Nancy Drew Newfoundland New Mexico New York City Nomadland nope observation OBUUC Ocotillo OnaJudge ordinary OscarRomero osprey Outside oximeter Parade mayhem PastorBettyRendon Paul Hessert PDQ Penny persimmon photos Pi Pies pineapples poetry Preaching privacy procrastination Protest QE2 Quern quest Questions Rabbit holes racism reading recipe recipes recommendations Remember RepresentationMatters Reruns responsetoKapenga Retirement rhubarb Ricky rime RitesofPassage romance Rosemary Ruether Roses Roti Ruth SamaritanWoman Sanctuary Sandhillcranes Santuario de Chimayo SaraKurtz SaraRodriguez satellites ScottSimon sculpture Seasons Sermon ServantsoftheQuest sewing Shepherd Shontay ShortStory shoulder sick sickness Slower snow Social Security SofritoBandito solstice South Dakota SpaceShuttle spirituality spring square feet staining stars stele Stereotypes stories StoryStarts stream monitoring stress Survival swim Talent taxes teenager thankgsgiving Thanksgiving TheBridge TheMaid ThePerpetualYou therapy ThreeBillBoards Three Thing ThreeThings Three Things TidalBore TimeBeing toddler Tom tortillas Trains travel Traveler Tubing turtle Twilight Bark Tyrone Ukraine Ulysses Grant Umbrella UnrelatedObservations Up North urgency vacation vaccine Valentines vanilla Vietnam vision VivianWokeUpDrowning Vocabulary vole volunteer WalkingAndSeeing Wampanaog war WarsanShire weather weaving Webs wedding whines WhyAttendChurch Wiley Willa WillaCather Wisteria Won! Wonder words Xeriscape Yellowstone
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