Mary Beth Writes

1/5/2022

I can still hear my mom saying, “I don’t know whether I’m coming or going today.” I thought of this, one of her favorite sayings, when I wrote this letter to the Third Graders yesterday.

Dear Kids!

I hope you had a fine winter holiday. Now it is January 2022. Do you know where the word January comes from?

In ancient Roman culture, Jānus was a god of doorways, beginnings, and of the rising and setting of the sun. The Latin word jānus, means doorway. Janus is where you enter or leave a space.

Janus is where we get the word Janitor. In ancient Roman times a Janitor was the person at the door of important buildings who guarded the door and also the people inside. Kind of like a bouncer at a bar now! Eventually that doorman word Janus turned into janitor, meaning the person who takes care of the building.

The Romans were a world power about 2000 years ago. (Like the US or China are now.) The center of Roman power was the city of Rome. Rome is still a big and important city in modern Italy. We call ancient Rome and all the countries they invaded and then ruled over in those old times - the Roman Empire. It is all the red countries. Many of them are modern day countries like Great Britain and France and nations of North Africa.

I don’t know why, but the language they spoke is not called Roman. It was called Latin and it’s still the official language of the Catholic church! Priests and the Pope know Latin!

Back to Janus. People in Roman times believed there were many gods and goddesses. One of their gods was Janus, a god who watched over armies leaving to go to wars and then watched when they came back.

Janus was the deity to help people safely and bravely start and end things.

This is why we have the month of January. It’s when we leave the old year and start a new one. We are still using names and words that came to people thousands of years ago.

This is a picture of an ancient statue of the god Janus. See how he is looking backwards and forwards at the same time?

If someone asks you if you are coming and going – tell them you are Janus and you are doing both! Have a good week. Be careful when you come and go!

That was the letter to the 8-year-olds. Let’s add a bit more to the Janus story. Janus, like I told the kids, is the Roman deity of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings – and he is usually depicted as having two faces.

Janus also - and this was super important to the Romans - Janus presided over the beginning and ending of military conflicts. The gates of an open enclosure in ancient Rome were opened when soldiers were about to leave town to go to war. Those gates were closed when the soldiers come home and battles were over for a while.

Here is an interesting thing: Most Roman gods and goddesses were carried over from Greek myths because that’s how Romans built their system of how the world and afterlife works. They stole the Greek system and just gave everyone new, Roman names.

But curiously, Greeks didn’t have a Janus. Janus was invented by Romans.

What’s going on when your culture invents a new way of talking about the past as it leads into the future?

Was this about understanding past failures so that the future could be arranged in ways that were smarter and stronger?

Or was this retelling old stories in such a way that soldiers felt empowered and emboldened to go out of the gates to fight and kill people they didn’t know in order to win wars for the rulers of their nation?

Yes, we need to understand where we have been before we can begin a new adventure. We also, i think, need to be honest, deep, and very careful with what we think about who we used to be.

Tomorrow is Jan 6th.  A Janus moment. What happened in our past and how will it affect our future?

Comments

Those last few paragraphs really got me… how people, especially young men, are motivated. Plus I learned all about Janus! Thank you!
Mary Beth's picture

Me, too. Took a while to think about it - but how we tell the story of the past is how we can manipulate some people to do what we want them to. This is where Critical Race theory (and lot of other critical thinking skills) help clarify the difference between what we want to say happened - and what happened.

Interesting!!!!

We woke up this morning the 5th looking forward to getting to the airport so that Roger could return home after being here with me for the past two holidays… I was looking forward to some alone time and at the same time regretting that he would miss my Puerto Rican Xmas on the 6th of January (Three Kings Day or The Epiphany for those in the know)… well his plane like so many others lately never got off the ground (long story) so after many hours at my sisters I went back the airport and brought him back, so he’ll be with me to share my holiday with me after all…
Mary Beth's picture

Funny how life happens - and in the winter and in a pandemic, it "happens" even more... Glad you could keep him around a bit more.

I found this very thought-provoking, especially the last paragraph. You're good at that.
Mary Beth's picture

Thank you very much.

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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."

9/22/2023

First of all - Thank you to those of you who came to the Wisconsin Writers Association zoom gala last night. I HAD received an email a week ago which said I would be reading my whole story. Cutting it in half while I was reading was awkward! It was still a happy event for me and the other writers. Thanks for being there! 

X is for Xeriscape

9/20/2023

Xeriscape is pronounced ‘zeer-eh-scape’ and it means landscaping with little to no irrigated water. Readers in the west already know about this. Those of us who don’t live in arid or desert places need to wake up to the incredible resource that water is - then begin to accommodate ourselves to “water all around and beneath us all the time” is no longer our reality. Nor is it our right. We’ve got to get smarter and do better.

W is for Wonder

9/13/202

To whomever suggested Wonder - Thank You!  ‘Wonder’ has been bobbing in my mind like a frog in a pond.

However, I have FOUR suggestions from you guys for X - but I do not want to write four X essays. These are the suggestions:

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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