Joan Golden

They kept coming for almost a month.

They came in waves the first three weeks – huge V’s in the sky, big slow-moving, graceful birds in massive formations. When they met another V, they would break apart and wheel and swirl and greet each other in what looked from the ground like the joy of old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years. Then they re-formed into a W and continued north.

They are the cranes. I am told they come every year, but this is the first time I have seen it.

I heard their cry first – a “Br-r-rak, br-r-rak, br-r-rak” above me as I stood in the back yard. I scanned the sky and then saw them, the first big V I took notice of, just as it flew overhead (and I realized I should not be looking up at such big birds with my mouth open). Then another wave came, and another, and another, for the whole day. And for weeks after. I got the feeling I was witnessing something ancient, something primal (maybe because it IS ancient and primal). A symbol of yet another trip around the sun.

Every spring triggers something in us hidden deep in our lizard brain. For me, it is when the year truly begins and I open the drapes and welcome in the sun. A chance to start over. A chance to grow something, a chance for travel that was denied by the winter, a chance that this year will be better than ever. And then the panic sets in – the gut-wrenching obsession that every minute counts between now and December, and I’d better get busy.

Busy, that is, starting seedlings and thinking about my garden; inviting guests for March Madness games; planning a trip to see my sister, in North Carolina; getting the taxes ready; and seeing the friends I myself haven’t seen in years, and whirling and dancing with them the way the cranes do.

But not spring cleaning.

I don’t do spring cleaning; I’ve never seen the point in it. Why should I bust my backside getting every square inch of the house spotless when – if I have my way and everything goes right – my countless guests, pesky dogs and handyman/farmer husband will mean tracked-in mud, extra cooking spills, grass stains on the ottoman, sawdust and bent nails on the hall table, and sand in the shower. Yeah, I’ll keep it livable, but fall is when I really do my scrubbing – before I close the house up for the winter. Then winter is so much more pleasant, in a clean house.

That kind of cleaning – right down to the baseboards – takes me almost a month and I’m only gonna do it once a year. There’s too much other glorious living to do, and it’s much more important to me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tombstone inscription that read “I wish I’d spent more time cleaning.”

Is housework important to you? Why or why not?

Do you do spring cleaning?

Are you currently getting rid of stuff – a topic I will cover in the next blog?

So there was this musical tribute show on earlier this month. They called it The Night That Changed America – “They” being the people who give out awards in the music/recording industry – and the night being February 9, 1964 – the night The Beatles first appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. The show this month had lots of young musicians covering old Beatles songs, and the two remaining Beatles – Paul and Ringo – singing up some old musical memories.

Yeah, I watched it. As I watched 50 years ago. And yeah, I followed The Beatles for many years until they went on to other things, and so did I.

And in addition to going separate ways from John, Paul, George and Ringo, life has changed dramatically for those of us who were around then (about 100 million people have been added to the population of the US since 1964; not all are births that have happened since then, but most are; these are people who have no recollection of The Night That Changed America, or who The Beatles were, or why they had such an impact on music, and culture, and a generation in general).

What we have seen in that time! And what we have done! The immensity of it all is stunning. But almost as gob-smacking is the ability we have shown to maneuver through those changes and challenges, and come out the other side. One of my favorite writing themes is how people do (or do not) manage to endure through even cataclysmic change.

So I’m re-starting this blog to talk about how life has changed for those of us who were around back then, and how to celebrate this changing life or change it or cope with it. I’ll comment and critique. This is not a blog to say “remember when” or re-live the past, though; I want to help us all live an excellent life right now, today. I’ll share the problems we’ve encountered, and the “life hacks” I find.

And I invite yours.

There are probably a bunch of fairy tales – not to mention a plethora of jokes – about some soul who finds a lamp in the sand (in a cave, on the golf course), buffs it with a shirt sleeve and presto! A genie appears. Said genie has been cooped up inside this lamp like an airline passenger stuck in a plane on a runway, and like the airline passenger, is overcome with gratitude at liberation. He (it’s generally referred to as ‘he,’ although experts would tell you that the genie genus is of indeterminate sex) offers the liberator three wishes.

What would you wish for? I’ve often mused on the three things I’d like the most. And I’ll bet that if you asked fifty people what three things they’d wish for, the first two answers will come up: Love and Money. But the third wish, ah, that’s the kicker. That’s what gives you the insight into the life of the person doing the wishing.

There are those, I’m sure, who would wish for the cosmetics. I want to lose fifty pounds, I want bigger breasts and a smaller butt, I want to be beautiful. But then you realize that if you have the love, you don’t need the cosmetics, and if you have the money, you can buy them and not waste the wish. Wish for something else.

So then, it might be aptitude or ability. I want to play scratch golf, I want to have a 165 IQ, I want to make love like my partner will never forget. Okay, we’re getting somewhere now. Less shallow, but still pretty self-centered.

There are things that would give us comfort and ease. One man I know wishes for a peaceful death for his ailing father; it pains him to see his dad in agony. Still another wishes her younger brother would get back into rehab. I wish my Los Angeles friend could walk without feeling like there’s an ice pick in her left hip. Even when the remedy is for another, knowing the other is at peace gives us relief. We feel guilty, but there it is.

Or how about peace of mind? I wish my daughter would settle down, I hope my doctor knows what he’s doing with this operation, I wish there weren’t a war.

Should one wish for something huge, like world peace? How long would it last: an instant, a generation, forever? It’s not worth much if there are still injustices like slavery, corrupt governments and human rights violations. Still, the person who wishes for peace says something about themselves: I know that there are other nations out there and I want to live in a world where we value each other.

Then there are the God wishes. I wish there were a cure for cancer. I wish there weren’t a famine in Somalia. I wish my mother would get well.

And how do we reconcile what we’re wishing for on the one hand with what the Universe wants on the other? When we pray, are we wishing to God? Please let me find a job, I wish you could convince my husband not to leave me, I wish you would please send me the mortgage payment. Here, let me light another candle so You know I really want this. We are told that God wants to hear our hopes and desires – and wishes but we are also told that we must say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’. Then it becomes His wish and not ours. Can you live with that?

What would you wish for?

It’s been a while now, but many of the scenes from The King’s Speech still play vividly in my head. I loved this movie and was glad to see it did so well in spite of the fact that it had no sex (well almost), no car chases, no mayhem. And I find many guys like it as well as women.
This fabulous film is also being hailed by people with speech defects as shedding light on their difficulties in a new and positive way. And while I say hooray for that, I quickly add that The King’s Speech doesn’t just speak (pun intended) to stutterers. It touches deep into the heart of anyone who has something to say but can’t (for whatever reason) get it out.
Arists – writers in particular – will identify with this. We all struggle, every day, with creating work that we hope will be heard, pray will be seen, but often is neither. I’ve been there; I know. I know the searing frustration when the work stagnates on a shelf unseen, or languishes in my brain because I can’t get to the computer. But then something wonderful happens and the work is pushed out far beyond my expectations.
We all cheer when that happens. When anyone speaks clearly, for the first or the thousandth time, we cheer them – and the hope it instills in us that we may be heard too.

Some things are just wonderful to comprehend. Some things just seem like magic when they involve creative technologies. Somethings are just a pain until they come to the surface.  Behold.. this is all of this things.