"Almost all creativity involves purposeful play."
--American psychologist Abraham Maslow
I. Typewriter.
BELOW: Photos of a Remington Rand typewriter (1940s, I think) and its red case that I took for the thrift store's IG. I can imagine collecting typewriters, if I were a collecting type.
I don't use my IG account. The
Orphan Reds were my main subject, and I don't photograph them much
anymore. They're still very much in my life though:
I can hear Penny
Cooper's little girl voice in the background right now. I'm on the front
porch and she's on my bedside stand with a couple others. I don't know what they're talking about, but she's doing most of it. She's a good listener though, too! All the other girlettes like her.
II. Adaptation
Overall in life, I would love to be more flexible.
I am not easy going, but could I become more so, now that I am an Old Person?
I like being an OP: I do feel the possibility of dropping some old habits of thought.
The other day I asked HM if she could stop telling me how to do things. She said she would try. I appreciate that, but the habit is so threaded through her speech (or "baked in" as people say now, have you noticed?), she doesn't seem to notice it.
Ah, well.
Here's a chance to practice another of John XXIII's steps:
"Only for today, I will adapt to circumstances, without requiring all circumstances to be adapted to my own wishes."
There's always some unwished-for circumstance.
I've seen it working in nursing homes--old people still raging against circumstances.
Some don't.
My favorite: Harvey, an old Jewish guy. He was a former janitor, had no money, no family, yet he had more visitors than the other residents. They used to bring him treats, which he loved but wasn't supposed to have because of diabetes.
Harvey used to say,
"The messiah is coming! But don't hold your breath."LOL, I love that so much.
That pov is so helpful to me. It's like how Marz finds comfort in the fact that in a billion-whatever years, the Sun is going to die.
Lighten up! and grab your shovel.
I looked up Harvey's quote and got no results, so maybe it was original to him.
I did find this from Ask the Rabbis "Are Jews Still Expecting a Messiah?":
"Truth be told, the Messiah has probably been here a few hundred times but got spat at on the way to school, or told he wasn’t Jewish enough and had to re-convert, or got ousted from a temple board meeting because he couldn’t pay dues. Who knows? "If that's the case, Harvey was a/the Messiah.
Not that Jesus (another one, perhaps) was exactly easy-going...
III. Journey On
Speaking of Marz, I'm going to go ahead and say what she's planning, because it affects me a lot. I wasn't going to say till the date was set: due to paperwork processing speeds, she doesn't yet know if she'll go in July, as she hopes, or if she'll have to wait till September.
BUT...
She is accepted into the merchant marine training program!
It's like an apprenticeship to work on civilian ships like cargo ships, ferries, tug boats, research vessels. It's free, but besides classroom training, you work--scraping and painting ship decks and the like.
She had to get seven innoculations, for yellow fever (ships go through the Panama Canal!) etc. to qualify for her mariner's credential.
She's been lifting weights too--still working to build more heft--she'll be throwing coils of rope! She can easily beat me at arm wrestling now, which she couldn't before.
Anyway, the program is less than a year.
It sounds semi-military, and I keep telling her she can come home if she hates it.
The culture change from the hipsterish food co-op where she's worked through her twenties will be something to witness. I can't wait to hear about it.
Example of co-op culture:
Someone tells Marz that banana pudding is an expression of colonialism.
Job hazard: being misgendered: someone who identifies as a woman is called "sir" or vice versa--"ma'am" for someone who identifies as a man
Merchant mariners talk about the pain of handling large, heavy objects.
Job hazard: being killed by falling cargo (possibly bananas?)
Gotta go! Love ya'll!
