Upon hearing someone being interviewed on the radio state that allowing gays to marry will destroy legitimate marriage, she asks "Do you think gay marriage is a threat to your marriage?  Our marriage?"

He responds "Of all the possible threats to our marriage, gay marriage isn't even in the Top Ten."

A Different Kind of Commencement

It's Commencement season and yesterday I had the honor to be present at a very special ceremony.

Most graduations fall into the same standard format.  Processional, prayers (depending on location), speeches, names read, diplomas presented, recessional.  And this one fell into that format...sort of.  

Photo Courtesy of CardinalSeansBlog.org

The Cardinal Cushing Centers in Hanover, Massachusetts "provides individuals with intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disabilities of all ages opportunities to discover the benefits of a supportive and vibrant community."  I have passed the campus hundreds of times, located as it is on Route 53, a major north/south route through the South Shore of Massachusetts.  Always noting as I passed the small, sweet chapel near the entrance to the grounds.

I have known of a few people who have attended Cardinal Cushing, in particular the young man who died suddenly last week.  (See previous post.) Yesterday was the first time, though, that I had been invited to participate in the activities at the Center.  It was a profoundly moving experience for me.

My graduate, the one I had come to support, is the daughter of a cousin.  Both mother and daughter have worked very hard to reach yesterday's milestone and I am overwhelmed by the strength each of them display.  That strength of character, of will, of determination was apparent in many of the graduates and family members in attendance.  

A ceremony marking the end of a period of education, a commencement, usually means a beginning.  The commencing of "real life" for most of us is a time of anticipation and joy.  As I sat in the auditorium I was thinking about the variety of these ceremonies I had attended and the kind of happiness that other graduates feel as they say goodbye to their educational institutions.  Most of us cannot wait for the rest of our lives to begin.  And some of the Cardinal Cushing graduates were feeling that way, too.  Here, I editorialize.  I don't know what most of them were feeling but I know what I was feeling on their behalf...trepidation.  Most of these students are graduating, not because they have achieved a measured standard goal, although some of them have, having passed the MCAS standardized test.  They must matriculate because they are reaching a different standard, that of chronological age.  

Photo: Gary Higgins-Patriot/Ledger

In Massachusetts, the Commonwealth provides educational services to all its residents up to the age of 18, up to 22 if there is an assessment of disability.  So this most lively, happy group have reached the age where they must move into adult services.  A few of this group will be able to live in a group situation and many have received job skills training so will be somewhat self-supporting.  But all of them will need some level of care and support throughout their lives.  This is not to say that the members of this group are not functional.  One or two are born politicians and will probably have higher profile jobs.  Several are gifted with humor and have the ability to intentionally make others laugh.  One young man introduced himself with a self-assurance, firm handshake and genuine smile that I sometimes lack.  Making the acquaintance of these new graduates changes my perspective on personal growth and social development.

There was one young woman whose response to the entire ceremony broke my heart.  She wept aloud, her face contorted in a psychic pain that I can only imagine, her sobs diminished only she hid her face in her partner's shoulder.  She embodied the kind of fear that I had been feeling for all these graduates.  The world can be a harsh, dangerous, insensitive environment for all of us.  These graduates have been taught and been shielded and now they face more daunting challenges than most people I know.   There was a moment when I recognized that Kimmy was expressing what I, too, probably felt inside when I graduated from high school.  Much as I wanted to get away from home and from that place, I had a feeling that it might be safer to just stay where I was.  "Better the Devil you know."  It's a caption for living, though, that we accomplish very little that doesn't involve some level of fear.

I have as much hope as I do fear, for there are wonderful, intelligent and supportive people who devote their lives to helping guide others along the treacherous path.  I witnessed incredible sensitivity yesterday among the teachers, aides, partners and staff at the Center.  The program was altered a few times because of the uniqueness of the participants, some of whom had their own private goals and ideals for the day.   Perfectly illustrating the diversity of the graduates was the  commencement address by Tony Clarkson, Hanover Town Manager, who skillfully encouraged all of us who might be "different" to reach beyond our perceived, socially preconceived boundaries, to be exactly who we are and to use our unique abilities to touch the sky.    

http://cushingcenters.com/

http://www.patriotledger.com/videos/x1213258569/Proud-Milton-mom-at-Cardinal-Cushing-graduation#axzz2WOo7op18

http://www.patriotledger.com/mobile/x1213258552/Cardinal-Cushing-Centers-Graduation-2013#axzz2WOo7op18

Last week.  A young friend with cancer that should have been curable was moved into hospice care.  An old family friend was having vision problems that have turned out to be a brain tumor.  A sweet young man, the son of former neighbors, died suddenly of leukemia.

It was the kind of week that is sent as a reminder to stop and smell the roses, that each day might be your last, to tell the people that you love just that, you love them.  All those trite, cliched ideas.  But just like stereotypes that have an essence of truth, there exists inside each platitude the element of veracity.  So I have stopped to smell the roses, quite literally, along my path to my train station.  And I stop before I sniff to let the bees find their way out of the blossom,  an effort to pay homage to that most useful of chestnuts, when probing unseen places use protection.  I inhale the rich, ripe scents of subtle and not so subtle roses.  I remember a field of lavender in the south of France.  I let the umbrella close so the rain falls directly on me.  I sense.

It happens that a wandering through Facebook posts of friends has lead me to a YouTube video of Pema Chodron talking about tonglen.  It's a practice that I'm not terribly familiar with.  There are no accidents and as I watch her brief videos and read a passage on the Shambala website it is clear to me that this is a practice I need to cultivate.

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/tonglen1.php
http://youtu.be/312oBat6MXs
http://youtu.be/PIyt4G4s2zc

There are so many people in my life who are suffering and I am grateful for the opportunity to be present for them.  I am grateful for my awareness.   I am grateful to be.  

Digital Fingerprints, Junk Mail and a Long Dead Spouse.

I picked up the snail mail earlier today.  It included a few items that we see every other day or so: a 20% off coupon from Bed, Bath & Beyond,  a postcard from the local Ace Hardware,  the monthly bill from Target informing me just how much I really spend as soon as I walk through the door which is always more than I intend.  I've developed a formula for spending at places like Target.  Also included in this calculation is my local Fruit Center Marketplace, a grocery store/fish market/butcherie with wine.

I spend $50 for every ten minutes I am inside, therefore, if I wish to spend only $20 I may only permit myself to be inside the Red Dot for four minutes.  No cart, one canvas bag, shopping list with less than five items.  Go!

I made this particular Casual Observation after shopping in the Fruit Center with my mother, who had left her wallet on my kitchen counter.  Mom is a slow mover, slower with each passing year, and she loves to shop for groceries.  Once she had the cart to lean on, my bank account was doomed.  Fresh mozzarella and locally sourced goat cheese, PEI mussels, imported olives, in-store baked goods, New Jersey blueberries.  Even at my gentle prompting, which was pushing her ever-closer to a temper tantrum,  it took us an hour and ten minutes to complete the circuit of the 14000 sf store.

Let's do the math.  If 10 = 50, then 70 = 350.  Yes, when grocery shopping with my mother in a store where I normally only buy fish and vegetables, I was able to spend my entire month's food budget in just over one hour.  Note to Self: do not shop with your mother if she isn't picking up the tab.

Back to the mail.  There was another item in the mail which surprised me.  It was an invitation from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.  And it was addressed to my husband's very long dead first wife.  When my husband first moved back to this part of the world, it was from the home he had shared with Pam, so we were not initially unnerved to receive mail for her, after our first move, especially from the very persistent folks in the Alumni Affairs office at her Alma Mater who seemed very unwilling to admit defeat.  And then we moved again.  As I have learned, when one moves correspondents are sometimes left behind.  Hopefully, these are of the advertising variety but sometimes they are old friends who never got the Change of Address Notice.  And then there is the other variety.  The scarier folks.  The ones that find you no matter how well you think you have covered your tracks.  It's the people who send elder housing information packets to my mother at my address, even though she has never lived here, because somehow they know I have an elderly mother, and the mortgage lenders anxious to convince me it would be a good idea to use my home as an ATM, and the Columbia House Record Club.  Now we add to that list the fine people at the Rock Hall who, in their efforts to reel Pam into a visit to the Rock Hall included a personalized (for her) web address on the outside of the packet.

Really.

Several points.  #1  Pam has been dead for more than 20 years.  #2 and 3 She never lived here, nor was her mail ever forwarded here.   #4  She died about a minute after Sir Tim Berhners-Lee posted a summary of the World Wide Web at alt.hypertext newsgroup.  Consequently,  #5 she never had an email address or a website.  #6  She died before there was a Rock Hall.  

Which makes the Ted Talk I heard yesterday that much more prescient.

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_how_to_think_about_digital_tattoos.html?qsha=1&utm_expid=166907-23&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks

I might visit the address that the Rock Hall printed on the package out of curiosity except that I'm afraid my own beloved Mac might think I had suddenly morphed into her and begin to address invites to me as her.  Nor do I feel I can contact whoever sold them the list with her name on it because then they would know the mailing reached an actual person.  And how did her name get on that list?  At our address?  How long can we reasonably expect that our loved ones will be receiving our mail after we have moved on?  Is 22 years too long?

St. Patrick's Day Poem by Frank Delaney

March 17, 2012

Ireland has launched some of the greatest writers in English literature, from William Butler Yeats to Oscar Wilde to George Bernard Shaw.

To honor St. Patrick's Day, Irish expatriate Frank Delaney, has penned a poem especially for NPR's Weekend Edition called "Drowning the Shamrock." Delaney is the author of the novelIreland; his career has lasted more than three decades and includes more than 3,500 interviews with some of the world's most significant writers. His previous literary project, "Re: Joyce," is an ambitious podcast that deconstructs each sentence in Ulysses.

"Drowning the Shamrock" is Delaney's irreverent "James Joyce-ian" take on St. Patrick's Day, filled with Irish pride.

Drowning the Shamrock

by FRANK DELANEY

Listen To Frank Delaney Read His Poem

 

 "Hail glorious Saint Patrick dear saint of our isle
On us thy poor children look down with a smile —"
But I'm not singing hymns and I'm not saying prayers
No, I'm gritting my teeth as I walk down the stairs
And into the street with these louts fiercely drinking
And screeching and lurching, and here's what I'm thinking —
They're using a stereotype, a narrow example,
A fraction, not even a marketing sample
To imitate Ireland, from which they don't come!
So unless that's just stupid, unless it's plain dumb,
All these kids from New Jersey and the five boroughs
And hundreds of cities, all drowning their sorrows,
With bottles and glasses and heads getting broken
(Believe me, just ask the mayor of Hoboken)
All that mindlessness, shouting and getting plain stocious —
That isn't Irish, that's simply atrocious.
I've another word too for it, this one's more stinging
I call it "racism." See, just 'cause you're singing
Some drunken old ballad on Saint Patrick's Day
Does that make you Irish? Oh, no — no way.
Nor does a tee-shirt that asks you to kiss them —
If they never come back I surely won't miss them
Or their beer cans and badges and wild maudlin bawling
And hammered and out of it, bodies all sprawling.

They're not of Joyce or of Yeats, Wilde, or Shaw.
How many Nobel Laureates does Dublin have? Four!
Think of this as you wince through Saint Patrick's guano —
Not every Italian is Tony Soprano.

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/17/148752482/a-st-patricks-poem-on-shamrocks-and-stereotypes

 

 

Skinny.

Originally Posted:
by Mary Alice Holmes on Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 10:55pm

Yes, I really am baking an apple crisp right now and I have high hopes of shoveling the entire fat laden thing into the mouth of Mr. Twenty Year Old who looks like a street urchin. He took off his jacket and I nearly passed out. His ribs are visible and, when he turns sideways, he all but disappears. Every woman I know wants this diet. The drawback is that it apparently involves Physics and Macroeconomics and concentration on a level I have yet to experience. Strange how some of us eat when stressed....my boss called me one day in the middle of a huge project and I couldn't answer the phone because my mouth was full of cereal. When I finished chewing I walked down to her office to find her mouth and fist completely full of chips....because we are women, and women stress-eat. But young men starve instead. They just eat enough, in the words of the college student, to keep the hunger pangs at bay. Wow. What a concept. Anyway, it's ten minutes to apple crisp. Did someone get the ice cream?

2012 Postscript:

Said 20 y.o. is now almost 24.  He lives across the country now, away from my watchful eyes and healthful meals.  A steady diet of fast food has caused him to gain so many pounds in a year that he now has a belly that is rounding over his belt.  Oh, Happy Medium, where are thou?

All I Want For Christmas

Originally Posted:
by Mary Alice Holmes on Monday, December 15, 2008 at 10:37pm
I am appalled. We as a nation are swimming in debt, banks failing, celebrity fund managers are bilking rich and famous clients of billions, major industries are crashing to the ground, and just like in 2001, we are being told that shopping will somehow cure all society's ills. No, it won't. Really. 

Please don't shop for me this holiday season. I don't need it, whatever it is. My house and the houses of my friends and my family are overwhelmed by stuff we don't need. Please help me cull my stash of unnecessary items by not giving me anything. I'm not kidding.

If you were considering buying anything for me, please donate to your favorite charity. Or mine. I have a few...my public radio stations (or yours), Rosie's Place in Boston, the Los Angeles Mission, the Women's Bean Project in Denver, my special favorite (the gift tht keeps on giving) The Heifer Project. Just the other day, the Boston Globe ran an article about how The Home for Little Wanderers, an organization that houses homeless and runaway children, has had the least amount of donations this year that they have had in many, many years.

A five or ten dollar donation to any of these charities will mean so much to a child who has nothing. (Well, except the public radio stations but you don't really need me to lecture on the joy that they bring to everyone who has a radio. I'll do that in March for the spring fundraiser.)

I have complex feelings about Christmas. I can really relate to Linus Van Pelt at Christmastime. I don't think the way we "celebrate" Christmas was what Jesus had in mind with his gift. It's not about scented candles or bath beads or socks or iPods. It's about a gift from your heart for someone who is truly in need. In this case, I am talking about cash and I am talking about kids. Please give to your local children's charity. Remember how great it was to be six and to believe in Santa Claus. Think about helping to provide a needy child with that special kind of magic. That's what I want for Christmas. 


2012 Postscript:  I'm still appalled.