Short post for a long thought

What is respect?

What is self-respect?

© 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All Rights Reserved

Humming

Why didn’t I think of this before? Oh. I did. I just have never found time enough to do that, mostly because I’m always doing things that others think I should be doing instead of what I think I should be doing.

I want to plant a hummingbird garden. 

Those tiny birds are a wonder. I wonder how they beat those tiny wings so fast and if their hearts ever skip a beat the way they dart around. I wonder if they see colors since they don’t care for yellow or white, but like bold colors like orange and red. Ah, but they like pink, too. They don’t care all that much for roses or geraniums but gravitate to wildflowers and native flowers like columbine, coral bells, gladiolas, lilac, Mexican sunflower, red hot poker, scarlet runner beans and trumpet vine; those flowers that produce more nectar on which they feed. They apparently prefer jewelweed and cardinal lobella, which are wetland plants. 

For nesting, provide fuzzy plants like cinnamon fern, pussy willow, thistle and dandelion or other materials they may use for nesting. Pruning plants to promote flower growth rather than wood growth will encourage the hummingbirds to come back to your house. Planting patches of flowers, and flowers that don’t all bloom at the same time also will enhance a hummingbird garden. No insecticides should be used.

Hummingbirds eat spiders and insects. They bathe in shallow water, even if it’s just a few drops of water in a leaf. How economically and environmentally-minded they are!

Indigenous to Ohio, the ruby-throated hummingbird is found only in the Western Hemisphere, advises the ODNR (Ohio Department of Natural Resources). It is the smallest bird, weighing less than an ounce. Males are about the weight of a penny, females a little more. They summer as northerly as Canada and Nova Scotia, as easterly as the Atlantic Coast, as westerly as the central plains of the Great Plains and southerly to the Gulf Coast and the east coast of Texas. They are more of a tropical bird, arriving in Ohio between mid-April and mid-May and are gone, mostly, by mid- to late-August. They are the only hummingbird that nests east of the Mississippi River.

No wonder I like hummingbirds. They are solitary creatures. But they also are aggressive and challenge the other birds at the feeder. They nest near woods and/or water. Their feeding times are early morning, late evening and just before a major thunderstorm.

Some facts about ruby-throated hummingbirds:

·         * Males and females are together only for mating.

·         * Female rears the two offspring alone.

·         * Females are on nests by mid-June.

·         * Two broods may be produced each year.

·         * Two white eggs are the size of sweet peas.

·         * The nest is half the size of an English walnut shell.

·         * Life expectancy is 2-3 years.

The recipe for making food for hummingbirds:

1 part sugar to 4 parts water.

Boil mixture for 2-3 minutes. Let cool before filling feeder. Store unused portion in the freezer for later use. You may add a little red food coloring if you like, but it is not necessary. Do not use honey because of potential issues of fungus.

When the food in the feeder becomes cloudy or dirty, get rid of it, clean the feeder and provide fresh nectar for them. 

As I read this information about hummingbirds, a plan is formulating in my mind. A pool of water surrounded by wetland plants…Already I have honeysuckle twining on our fence. There is plenty of dandelion around. Where did they come from, seemingly overnight? But the issue is the dogs…who think they can tramp on anything within that fenced in backyard.

(c) 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield

Finding Myself

I’ve decided it’s time to “find myself.”

Back in the 1960s, when Women’s Liberation was a big news item on a regular basis, women burned their bras in protest. (Nuf said. You can draw your own mental pictures and conclusions.) Women abandoned their husbands saying, “I have to go find myself,” leaving their mates scratching their heads trying to figure out what that meant. 

I was just a kid. I didn’t understand it, either. Didn’t grownups get to do whatever they wanted? They didn’t have a boss telling them when to peel potatoes for supper, wash the supper dishes, clean their rooms, take a bath, wash behind your ears. They got to make all the decisions and everyone else had to live with those choices. Right?

NOW I understand.

As a young wife I considered the lives of the older women who influenced me. One of the things I noticed was that they, for the most part, sacrificed so much for their husbands and families. Someone had to make the final decisions about everything. Some women “wore the pants in the family” because their husbands wouldn’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t. Some were partners with their husbands, discussing things and deciding together, and still others were martyrs, believing they were earning Purple Hearts because they never took off their wedding rings from the day they were slipped onto their fingers and the vows were taken, as if their peers would admire them for their commitment to a bad relationship. Or perhaps that thought never occurred to them. Maybe it is something that happened when they were struggling just to survive, to raise their children, to just make do…

“When I was growing up,” he said, “we learned about making do.” He sounded like he believed she knew not one thing about ‘making do.’

“I thought ‘making do’ was a temporary, not permanent, state,” she replied. “And when I can’t use the washer, do you expect me to take the laundry down to the creek and beat it clean with rocks?”

He didn’t appreciate her wit and sense of humor at all. Maybe it takes one to know one.

When a woman is kept busy running a household, raising children, and full time employment outside the home in addition to being the family supervisor, there is little time for her tend to her own needs. Then work in some elderly parents with health issues requiring dependence on their children. If her life partner doesn’t step up to help her, she becomes lost, but she’s too busy to notice…until Empty Nest occurs. After 20 or 30 years of being family supervisor—aka Mom—everyone expects her to suddenly flip a switch to turn off Mom mode and go on her merry way.

“You don’t have children to take care of now,” he says. “You can go get a job.”

Will he never understand? Her parents passed away. He had just expected her to pick up and keep going without taking healing time. But maybe she was taking too much time to heal…or maybe she was healing from a lifetime of being too busy to think about her own needs, and now she needs the time to get back on her emotional feet, no thanks to him.

The Glass Menagerie. I want to read that again. I read it in college for the freshman English series. I think I have a story idea from that play and the class.

And I have decided…I am on a journey of self-discovery, to find me. What is fact? What is fiction? About this blog entry, I mean. Only the author can say. And it’s time to write that story.

© 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the flag

Of the United States of America

And to the republic for which it stands

One nation

Under God

Indivisible

With liberty and justice for all.

                There are too many people saying our nation is falling. When the people still can say what they think without being detained, incarcerated, imprisoned or put to death—disappearing forever…When we still reach out with compassion to help our brothers and sisters, our friends and neighbors and, yes, strangers who have less than we have, I have a hard time believing the American Spirit has been strangled and mangled to death.

                For a lot of my years people have underestimated me. What I learned from that is that I have the element of surprise on my side. Who thought I would ever go to college? I wasn’t from higher society, the daughter of a doctor or a lawyer. I wasn’t an athlete. My high school guidance counselor didn’t pay attention to anything I was doing until my senior year. THEN he said I couldn’t graduate with my class because I had too many majors and not enough minors. Really? Yes. Really. I did graduate with my class. I got a minor in science and I worked a job half-days through the Cooperative Office Education curriculum. Not too shabby for the daughter of a laborer who only went to the eighth grade.

                Who knew, with a high school diploma and the freshman English series at Kent State Salem, I would build a journalism career beginning in radio news (WSOM-AM600), a weekly newspaper (Lisbon Lantern), the Morning Journal (seven days a week), a weekly called Canfield News, community/social editor at Salem News and even publisher of my own weekly (Lisbon Messenger which didn’t fail. I suspended pressing because of family priorities.)

                Who knew I would go back to Kent State and complete a BA in two years (requiring 18 credit hours per semester for four semesters) as I raced against the clock to graduate before Dad died so he could see one of his children graduate from college. (He died six weeks before I graduated.) Even I did not know I would graduate with distinction and honors. And while I worked on that degree I never missed writing one weekly article for Family Recovery Center. Yes. Not too shabby at all, this Yankee woman.

                I remember walking into one of my college classes. The discussion was about patriotism and patriarchy. I said I was a patriot—I love my homeland. I am so grateful for the life I have here.

                The professor said, “Perhaps by the end of the semester we can make you a human again.” This same professor who verbally ran down the America I love spoke with his heavy accent. He came to America, an Arab from Morocco, for what reason? (Go ahead…speculate.) One of the remarks he made spoke of “sleeper cells” throughout the United States who wait to be instructed to activate. They live here, enjoying our good life, and wait for instruction to kill us.

                I don’t know what is ahead for our nation—or our world. I remember a song…”Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire.

I know the American Spirit is alive and well. I know when the time to stand together arises our people will stand shoulder to shoulder.

                The world beyond our borders wants what we have. They envy us. They hate us. But they will do anything to come here. They will do anything to take what we have. And if we let them take what is ours, maybe we deserve whatever happens. I don’t believe our people, true Americans, will let them. They underestimate us. We have the element of surprise on our side, should we decide to use it.

Changes and other things

We aren't accustomed to old-fashioned winters. It seems like this has been one of them. There was a snow day for school children last week. And tomorrow and into next week we have a forecast for the 50s and 60s. Hopefully from now on. It's time to think about flower and vegetable gardens.

I can remember when Dad thought if you planted flowers, that was a terrible waste of money. But Mom planted her roses, begonias, petunias--whatever she wanted to look at for that summer. When the new garage went up, the elderberry bush and the lilac bush, a couple of the symbols of my very young years--those kinds of things that trigger memories--were disposed of.

We moved to Spruce Street when I was 4 years old. Mom grew up in that neighborhood. The backyard overflowed with flowers. I don't know what happened to them. Perhaps Dad mowed them down when he cut the grass.

Seasons change. Years pass. Even if we can't see the subtle changes, we age a tiny bit each day. We slowly adapt to the events that pass through our lives, adjust to the empty places that are impossible to fill yet we become involved with distractions that help us to heal from our losses and grow a little wiser, Sometimes, not so wise.

The thing is, we need to believe in something bigger than ourselves, not to sidestep reality but to improve it and the quality of life. Quality of life isn't measured in possessions. It is how we react to the events that impact us, how we process them and cope.

I just read something. Let me share it with you...

"A trust in God, the Creator, tends to alleviate stress, because it implies that he who is the Creator can handle any and all problems that may be leading to a stressful situation upon both the body and the mind...studies...show that people who have a faith in God, or even religious faith in general do better in situations of sickness and disease, and that overall improvement is associated with their faith and with prayer." 

The Biblical Foundations of Wellness

by Keith M. Henry ND 
See here

In my most challenging moments my mind automatically goes into conversation with God. Sometimes I consciously think, "I cannot find the words to say what I am feeling. Please understand without my words." 

My thoughts are brought forward from memories of the wisdoms of my mother and grandmothers and great aunts, for I was raised matrilinially. Yet patriarchy ruled. As long as I remember the women who raised me and the lessons they taught me, they will be alive for me, speak to me. And I will speak for them, stand for them, because society, their societies, would not allow them to speak unless they were willing to put in peril their good breeding, their social position.

Times have changed, but that has always been the case since the first humans settled in one place and began to collect possessions. 

(c) 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All Rights Reserved. Permission to use this or any other article in this blog is required and may be requested from the author. THIS MEANS YOU because I know there are unscrupulous people who believe that anything that appears on the Internet is free use for all. A link to this blog also is required when it IS used. 

I'm Thinking

It's raining. Such a different day than we experienced four years ago, the day Dad left this world. On the hillside behind Mary's house the evergreens and sleeping deciduous trees of various kinds wave to me. It is cold enough to chill me so I have plugged in the little electric heater to warm my feet. This is likely the warmest room in the house.

I'm thinking about changes that need to be made. Changes already made. Change that occurs constantly in our lives.

I'm thinking about life and death, living and dying—and simply floating along.

I'm thinking about what I read about the stages of a woman's life...Virgin, Mother, Crone. At the crone stage, women make a huge choice: will they accept or change the way they are living at this moment?

I'm thinking about the lives of my ancestors and the lives of my children and grandchildren from this sandwich position I am in. And I'm pondering about how our lives, our generations overlap, how we influence each others lives.

I'm thinking about how different everything is four years after my father's passing and 19 months after Mom's passing.

© 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this blog or blog entry may be used without the written consent of the author.

Evolving

Evolution: 1.) A set of prescribed movements (as in a dance.) 2.) a process of change in a particular direction. 3.) ...plants and animals descended from others with the differences due to inherited changes that occurred over many generations. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary.)

She always did the best she knew how. She encouraged her children to do the same. The horrors of Mom's Alzheimered mind have left faded memories now. Mostly I recall the good moments we shared, her hugs, her encouragement, things like, "You have done so much with your life." She was my #1 fan. And it's unlikely that I would have achieved as much as I have (and there is so much more for me to do!) if it weren't for her pushing me, urging me to try: "What's the worst that can happen?"

Did she see things I couldn't see? I recall her stories from her feminine perspective. Was she a feminist? 

 Feminism: 1.) theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes. 2.) organized activity on behalf of women's rights and interests.

"You can do anything you want to do if you are willing to do the work it requires to get there." I believe she was telling me that my biology did not restrict me. How I perceive myself is what will restrict me.

She also understood that no matter how far society has come in recognizing the true value of women, this is still a man's world and there is a lot of work still to be done.

Her father told her, "You don't need a career. You're going to marry a man who will take care of you for the rest of your life." He died when Mom was 17 and her mother was 49. My grandmother lived to the age of 84.

Patriarch(y): 1.) a man revered as father or founder; a venerable old man; an eccleisiastical dignitary (clergyman.) 

Matriarch(y): 1.) a woman who rules or dominates the family, group or state.

I was raised in a matriarchy under patriarchy. Where were the male role models in my life? I was influenced by my mother, my grandmothers, a great grandmother and great aunts. Only one man in the family stepped forward when I was 14 and he realized my need, my mother's cousin, "Sonny." He came to our house nearly every evening. He always took time to talk to me, to encourage me, to joke and laugh with me, God bless him!

Why am I speaking of these things? Because now, with all of my foremothers gone from this world I am the role model for the generations that follow me. I am seeking to know who I am and why I am. How can I go forward if I have any doubts at all about those two things? I don't have Alzheimer's, as far as I know. Please, God, I pray that never happens. I only hope I can be an encourager to my children and grandchildren as my mother was to all of us.

Thank you, Mom. I'm going to try my best not to let you down, not to drop the ball. There is work to be done. 

(c) 2013 Cathy Thomas Brownfield ~ All Rights Reserved. This means no use of any of my material without my expressed consent. That means, ask before you borrow.