About gretchenwing

A high school English and History teacher for 20 years, Gretchen now lives, writes, and bakes on Lopez Island, Washington.

Christmas With a Hole In It

Posted on December 22, 2013 by gretchenwing

A good friend of mine lost her husband the other day. He was 93, and failing, and everyone, my friend included, saw his gentle departure as a release. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard. And now, here comes Christmas.

I have been incredibly, ridiculously, blessed thus far in my life to be practically untouched by tragedy. When I was fifteen I lost my grandmother who lived next door to us (actually, in a little house in our pasture–my sisters and I used to have to escort her visiting friends past our vicious geese), my Oma. But Oma died suddenly, in a car accident during a vacation back to her native Germany. My father had her buried there. My grief was shocked by suddenness and muffled by distance, and took decades to work itself out. But to date, that has been my only experience with family tragedy, and it was never immediate in the way of someone dying at home.

But even when I wasn’t fully attuned to my grief, I missed Oma most at Christmas.

(courtesy yamahahometheatre.org)

There are so many reasons why it’s hardest to lose someone at this time of year, or why earlier losses become sharper in December. It’s dark. It’s cold. Everyone else is so damn cheery. Happy music plays everywhere. Lights twinkle. And someone is missing.

Maybe the hole is a place at the table. Maybe it’s a dish they used to make. (Oma, super-German, baked herself silly at Weihnachten: Lebkuchen, Pfeffernusse, Stollen. Even though I love to bake, I never make her special treats–they were too much hers.)

Maybe it’s a dish your loved one used to adore, like mashed potatoes, or perhaps an ornament they made that catches at your heart as you hang it on the tree. Christmas brings up the past so beautifully, and so relentlessly.

So I wonder, now that Solstice is past and we begin our slow move back toward the lighter days that still seem so far away: who are you thinking of this holiday? What holes do you wish you could fill? How do you honor your grief in such a happy season? How do you help others honor theirs?

Healthy Wealthy–Yes, and Wise Too: My Kind of Philanthropy

Posted on December 19, 2013 by gretchenwing

In these days of the 99%, it is fashionable to hate on the rich. I’ve done my share of wealth-bashing, even though by most people’s standards I’m way richer than I am poor. But today I want to give some kudos to a kind of wealth-sharing that I’ve been recently exposed to, the heartening kind that reminds one that “philanthropy” doesn’t only work at the grand, Gates Foundation level.

This week I was privileged to attend not one but TWO retreats at the homes of wealthy fellow islanders. Neither of these families was home; both offered their gorgeous, spacious, well-appointed homes freely to our groups (Quakers in the first instance, my writing group in the second). All they asked in return was that we be judicious in our use of water, and clean up after ourselves.

I noticed other similarities:
Neither home is gated. Of course, we live on a practically crime-free island. But plenty of folks here do have gates protecting their homes. Not these folks.

Both homes are full of local art…one of them, eye-poppingly so. Every wall, every piece of furniture is an example of some local person’s craft. Now I’m sure this family appreciates the beauty they’ve filled their home with, but I strongly suspect that their art purchases actually reflect a deliberate embracing of their role as art patrons. “We want to live in a world where artists can make a living,” their home seems to say, “so we’re doing our part to make sure this happens.” Hey, somebody has to support artists, right? And since artists make up about a third of our island’s community, this patronage becomes one more aspect of community membership– on a scale most of us can’t afford, true, but that makes it no less valuable.

I feel safe in this assumption because I’ve watched this family exemplify a way to live with wealth that I’ve never observed before. These folks are more fully integrated into the community than I am: their kids have attended the local school, they’re members of just about every board and organization on our island, and their involvement extends to the kind of physical, hands-on service that puts life and limb at risk. We’re talking way more than writing checks or hosting galas, although they do their share of that too.

This family also happens to be wonderful friends of the environment, setting aside large chunks of their land for preservation, and working tirelessly on legislation to protect our sensitive island habitats (time that I myself could be spending instead of, say, blogging).

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in progressive taxation. I happen to think that Good King Wenceslas could have been Great King Wenceslas if he’d set up dignified employment for the poor in his kingdom instead of just feeding that one guy. But I find it heartening to step away from the Us vs. Them thinking that tends to permeate our media (whoever Us and Them may be).

Not asking for political diatribes here–in fact, please don’t!–but just wondering: what examples have you seen in your life of generosity? Have you observed it more in “haves” or “have-nots”? What’s your definition of philanthropy?

Shutting Up Now: How Long Can You Be Quiet?

Posted on December 16, 2013 by gretchenwing

When’s the last time you spent a quiet day?

I don’t mean a day of rest, drinking coffee and reading in your favorite armchair. I mean a day of NOT SPEAKING.

I know, right? Here’s an embarrassing truth about me: even when I’m alone, I talk. Aloud. A lot. I’d like to pretend I’m holding a conversation with my dog, but…my dog is not present when I ride my bike or go on a long drive. And I’m still ~~yakking~~ producing fascinating monologues.

So it was both a relief and a challenge to attend, this past weekend, the silent retreat held by my Quaker Meeting. It wasn’t even an entire DAY–just 6 1/2 hours of silence, the last hour of which was allowed to be punctuated by people who wished to share the insights that the previous 5 1/2 hours had delivered.

(Courtesy Matisse)

I spent my time alternately walking out to the rocky nature preserve near the retreat house, staring out the window, sitting on a giant lichen-covered rock, and writing, writing, writing in my journal.

Oh, and eating. Quakers are master potluckers. But even lunch was silent, broken only by the occasional crunch of chips.

To say the day was refreshing would be a massive understatement. It was an ENORMOUS gift (as I know, in my old teaching life, I would never have used up an entire weekend day for something like that, much as I needed to). It was weird–especially walking while keeping all my “air-journaling” conversations inside my head for once. It was wonderfully social, all communication held to smiles and nods.

And it was too short. At the end of the 6 1/2 hours, I didn’t feel the need to break the silence. I almost wished we could have finished up, including all the dish-washing and vacuuming and figuring out whose coats were whose, in quiet communication, like the rest of the day.

I’m Word Woman, OK? So for me to wish to step away from words for so long…well, that tells you something.

So I’ll come back to my first question: when’s the last time you were quiet for a long period of time? What does silence do for you? Especially those of you with children still in the house, do you have a way to find any silence in your day? What do you do with it? We’d love to hear.

Hug Your Kids, Hug Your Parents, and Leave Newtown Alone

Posted on December 13, 2013 by gretchenwing

I remember exactly where I was when the news reports started coming in one year ago: driving the Senior Center van, delivering lunches. I was doing the exact same thing today, and that horrible Friday, December 14 of 2012, came back to me.

The disbelief. The helpless grief. The fury, searching hopelessly for a valid target…only to turn back into grief.

I only think of the Newtown massacre periodically, because I have no real connections to it. I know how lucky I am. And that is why I hope fervently that the news media heed the pleas that Newtown community leaders have been issuing for the past couple of weeks, to please, please, please leave them alone for this horrible first anniversary of their tragedy.

One year later, I don’t want to talk about gun control or mental health. I don’t want to argue. All I want to do is send healing love to those poor, torn-up families, and to stay out of their way. And, since I’ve re-opened this well of emotion which is now overflowing again, I plan to “hug” as many virtual kids as I can this weekend.

My own grown sons I have recently seen (and hugged) and will (inshallah) see and hug again soon. So tonight I’m going to call and email my two “goddaughters,” and send some hugs via email to all my former students.

(courtesy elephantjournal.com)

What should we do to remember the Newtown families? Hug our own. If your own family is not available to hug, hug someone else’s kid, or mom, or dad. Call someone. Email someone. Tell them how much you love them.

Hugs can’t heal everything. But they can keep us going even in the face of that knowledge.

If you have your own words of remembrance or comfort, please share them. Then go and hug.

The Sanctity of Human Perseverance: Why Nelson Mandela Should Not Be Beatified

Posted on December 10, 2013 by gretchenwing

I realize that no one’s going to make me Pope anytime soon. (My not being Catholic is only one of the many reasons.) But WERE that ever to happen, down the road, and were I ever to come under pressure, as I am sure a future pope will, to declare Nelson Mandela a saint, my answer would be a thoughtful No.

Not because he doesn’t qualify. Sacrificing his entire life to the cause of justice, including 27 years suffered in prison; knitting together a country on the verge of bloody explosion; living as a constant symbol of hope, love, and reconciliation–those are indeed saintly qualities. Performing a miracle? How about getting Black South Africans to cheer for the all-White Springbok rugby team? That beats walking on water any day.

I would also not beatify President Mandela merely because he himself protested that people should not call him a saint. Humility is, of course, one of those saintly qualities.

I would not declare Saint Nelson because to do so would be to distance him from the rest of us, to make his example, for future generations, less “relatable”*…and less effective.

*one of those words with which this former English teacher maintains a hate-love relationship: can’t stand its overuse, but haven’t found an equally effective synonym

(orig. image courtesy blackpast.org)

Saints suffer, of course. But the word “saint” implies–to this non-Catholic, at least–a certain inherent holiness, a kind of built-in insurance against ultimate suffering. “Well, jeez, he’s a saint,” my brain says. “Of course he sacrificed; he knew he was going to end up at God’s right hand, didn’t he?” And I don’t think my brain is all that different from other people’s brains.

What made Mandela great is the same thing that made Jesus great. But it’s also the same thing that makes cancer patients great, or anyone who gets up each day to face enormous burdens of pain or responsibility but does so with the pure energy of love and generosity toward others.

Human perseverance. Not the grit-your-teeth-and-suffer-through-it kind. The kind which makes it seem as though your burdens weigh nothing at all, because you’re constantly offering to carry the burdens of others.

I know some of those people personally. I might think of them, briefly, as saints, or even call them that, jokingly. But inside I know that what I love and admire them for is the fact that they are very, very, very human–they are flawed just like me!–and yet they STILL act so nobly.

Nelson Mandela was flawed. Nelson Mandela still managed to be an icon for all of us. It helps me to think of humans as having that potential even in the face of other humans’ evil. His very human-ness is what we need to hang onto, as we look for ways to apply his approach to other ugly parts of the world.

How about you? Do you know any human “saints”? Do you think the title of “saint” distances a person from the rest of us? Or does it bring him/her closer as a role model?

Spotlight on Seniors, a.k.a., EVERYONE Has a Story

Posted on December 7, 2013 by gretchenwing

I have a small dilemma. I’m charged with writing our local paper’s monthly column, “Spotlight on Seniors,” and it’s time to find a new ~~victim~~ interviewee.

Here’s the problem: the name. Some of our community’s most interesting over-65 year-olds don’t relish being labeled “Senior.”

Maybe that attitude explains their lives. In the past two years since I’ve taken on this gig (unpaid, unfortunately, but I decided that the workout of regularly muscling entire lives into 800 words was payment enough) I have interviewed 19 men and women. 17 of them, when asked, protested, “Oh, but I’m really not that interesting,” or words to that effect. But all 19 turned out to be equally, if differently, fascinating.

Some stories are dramatic: the woman who decided to ditch her family and climb a Himalayan peak when she turned 50. The man whose equations helped the Apollo 13 astronauts make their way safely back to Earth. The woman who sailed around the world with her husband and wrote a book about it.

Some are poignant: the man whose wife died in her sleep, next to him. The woman who brings our local EMTs cookies twice a month ever since they helped her dying husband, two years ago. The man whose wife left him with two young kids, who told me, simply, “The church helped me.”

But all the stories provide me, and thus my readers, a glimpse of a life never seen. For some, that glimpse entails real information never before shared publicly, like the man who related how he deserted his first wife and baby, 56 years ago. For others, it provides a softer side to someone the community has pigeonholed as gruff and grumpy, like my interviewee who explained, in heart-rending monosyllables, why he chooses to care for his wife with dementia. Such glimpses both assume and strengthen a trust in me, and in fellow community members, that I find completely humbling. My writing gig has turned out to be a real honor.

(orig. image courtesy Sam Pryor, Pinterest)

These folks aren’t just “Seniors,” any more than I am just “middle-aged.” (For the record: I’ve tried to come up with a less “baggagey” way to describe someone who’s at least halfway through her life…no luck. Let me know if you have a better term!) They are People With Stories.

Too bad the column isn’t called People With Stories. Unless…can anyone think of a snappy, alliterative way to say that? Have you had a similar experience talking to someone you thought at first might be mundane? Please share!

Christmas Shopping. Shopping, Period. Is it Really an X-chromosome Thing, and If So, Am I a Guy?

Posted on December 4, 2013 by gretchenwing

I’ve said this before: You know those license-plate frames, “I’d Rather Be Shopping At Nordstrom’s?” If I owned one of those, it would have a big red slash through it.

In other words, I’d rather be doing almost ANYTHING than shopping at Nordstrom’s. Or any place attached to a mall.

(orig. image courtesy lenenaevdal.com)

But still, I entered the gaping maw of the Beast this past Monday in order to “allow” my husband to buy me my (late) birthday gift, a gold chain to replace the one I lost this summer.

I’m still feeling guilty about going to a chain store (HA! pun SO not intended!) to buy that chain. Somewhere out there is a lil’ mom ‘n’ pop jewelry store, and I’m positive that my missing $$$ in their till is probably what will make the difference in sliding them into bankruptcy this year. Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Pop.

But you see, husband & I were in Eugene…we weren’t expected at our friends’ house for another hour…we had some time to kill…and my birthday was six weeks ago…and there are NO jewelry stores that sell plain old jewelry on our island. (Adorable earrings made from shells and crystals–yes. Gold chains–no.)

And…chain stores are way cheaper. And gold is expensive already. Dang it–still feeling guilty. ANYWAY.

As soon as I walked into the mall, I remember why I rarely walk into malls, and my husband felt it even worse. At Christmastime, yet! At least it was Monday–“Cyber Monday,” in fact–so it wasn’t all that crowded. But the music and the displays were still overwhelming. I picked out my chain, tried it on, watched husband pay for it, and we got out of there. I swear he was shuddering.

Later, we compared notes with our friends, who have two middle school-aged daughters…who adore shopping. Their mom, who’s more like me, sighed, saying she forces herself to go to the mall with her girls from time to time because they enjoy it so much. Didn’t I do that with my kids?

Nope. I have BOYS. They “love” the mall as much as their dad does.

That led to a spirited discussion of whether and why boys are less into malls than girls. Is it because boys are less into clothing, and malls are more about clothes shopping than, say, Legos, or electronics?

(orig. image courtesy publicdomainpictures.net)

We decided we needed more “data.” Not the kind where you do actual research. I mean the kind where I ask,

What do y’all think? In your experience, are girls truly more into shopping than boys, or is this just a stereotype? IF this happens, what, in your opinion, is driving it?

And then I sit back and wait to hear what you have to say.

Oh, Life Crossroads, Why Are You Such a Terrifying Blessing?

Posted on December 1, 2013 by gretchenwing

Does this look familiar?

(orig. image courtesy Shutterstock.com)

Been there. More than a few times. You?

Having just spent a Thanksgiving holiday with Son #1, aged 23 and working in his first full-time, post-college job, while Son #2, aged 21, spent the same holiday 3,000 miles away with cousins since he’s studying on the east coast this semester...let’s just say I’ve been thinking a good deal about those delightful life crossroads.

Son #1 is happy. Loves his job. But people are already asking him, “What’s next? Gonna stick with that? Thinking about grad school? What do you want to BE when you grow up?”

Son #2 has it worse. About to graduate in spring of next year, he’ll soon face that dreaded question, “So…?” (I’ll let you fill in the blanks.)

Thing is, even though I’m the same age as a pack of cards (without the jokers, thank you very much), I can totally relate to the whole transition thing. Walking away from my teaching job was the most terrifying and exhilarating thing I’ve ever done.

It wasn’t even because of finances. I’m lucky enough to be married to someone with a superb retirement plan, so we knew we could afford for me to take a huge, ginormous pay cut. It was the IDENTITY.

If I’m not a teacher anymore…what AM I?

Watching my kids begin that first, gradual accumulation of job-related identity, I wonder: which is the greater blessing: to be able to define ourselves through our work, or to be able to shake off those identities and see what’s underneath?

I sure know which one is scarier. But I think, given what we find beneath those layers accrued from years of work, it may also be the greater blessing, in the end.

What do you think? How many major job changes have you been through? Do you think the rewards are worth the terror? Let me hear!

Happy Thanksgiving From Wing’s World

Posted on November 28, 2013 by gretchenwing

From my world to yours…here are some wishes for all y’all:

That you are with someone you love right now
That you had enough to eat today…and hopefully not TOO much
That any pain you or loved ones might be suffering is outweighed by the love and hope you provide for each other
That you are able to feel thankful regardless of burdens
That you are able to help someone else
That you feel some hope for the world
That you feel you are making the world a better place–locally, globally, however you think about it
That you have a good book to read
That, when you take a shower, you feel thankful for hot running water
That you are taking care of your body that works so hard to keep you moving
That you aren’t spending too much of your Thanksgiving reading blogs like this

Happy Thanksgiving!!

And now, my all-time favorite question: WHAT ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR???

“That’s Enough, Now, I Mean It!” “Anybody Got a…” Different Favorite “Princess Bride” Quote?

Posted on November 25, 2013 by gretchenwing

“Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”

Ever had this conversation with a complete stranger? You: “What is…”

Stranger: “…your favorite color? Blue! No, yellow!!!! Auggghhhh!!!! Hahahahaha. Man–LOVED that Holy Grail movie.”

Yeah, me neither. OK, sure, I’ve had my share of Monty Python moments, bonding in the Cultural Literacy of the Self-Consciously Weird. But for REAL satisfaction, give me The Princess Bride every time.

“I…am not left-handed.” Say no more.

I won’t go into analytical detail of WHY this movie, now 26 years old, is so culturally sticky. Is it the hyperbolic campiness–“The Cliffs of Insanity!!!”? The goofy dialogue–“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”? The sweetness of the actors–Carey Elwes’s baby face, Robin Wright’s adorable accent, Mandy Patinkin’s (sweet!) legs in leather? Oh yeah–I said no detail.

I will say this. I’ve had more Princess Bride moments with my students, friends, my own family, and with complete strangers over the years than I ever had with Monty Python and Star Wars combined–and yes, I am that kind of nerd.

I know that movie by heart, ok? And I have my own favorite sweet line, at the end, when Fezzik the Giant says to the princess he’s just helped to rescue, “Hello, Lady.” But I wasn’t prepared for hearing what the actor Mandy Patinkin had to say about HIS favorite line, when I stumbled upon this interview from CBS: