GAMES MATTER

Summer in Maine.
Family visit time.
I revert to my childhood games to entertain grandchildren.

Games were serious business on my street growing up.
There were 40 kids on my block. One block!
There was no adult supervision or intervention ever.
If there was a problem we retreated to the house for a quick cry or complaint and out we went again.

We were experts in self-organizing and decision making and selling an idea.
Games would come and go. There would be a lull and the visioning and selling would begin.  
--Let's play scientist (which meant pouring water from tin can to tin can which we got from the alley)
No takers?
How about -Kick the Can-
No--better at dusk.
Spud?
Yeah Spud.
And the game would begin.
We would argue about rules.
Pick teams. 
And, at last, play.
Until interest lagged and we would begin the discussion again. 
-What to Play?-
There would be splinter groups that would wander off and start their own game. -Captain May I?-  And it might become the magnet for others too.
There were apprenticeships in the more complex games. We younger kids were so happy to be given a totally irrelevant, unneeded role just to participate.
I, myself, played out out out field.  I got to trash talk but never saw a baseball come my way.

There was one game we only rarely played. Everyone had to be in the mood.
It was called, -I'm Going Away to Smoke My Pipe and I Won't Be Back til Saturday Night AND If You Dare Let the Wicked Witch in I'll Spank You With My Rubber Shoe-  I think I may have made it up. Let's just say it involved a good mom, a magic bakery, chasing and spanking with an old huge Converse sneaker, a shape shifting witch, lots of scarves for costumes and a passel of 
naughty kids who DID let the witch in.  

I hope you had one magical crazy neighborhood game.
I hope you had play with no adults around.
I hope you learned all the lessons of good play:
Fun, collaboration, getting over hurt, leading, following, creating, happy exhaustion. 

ONE PERSON CHANGES, EVERYONE CHANGES

Allowing someone to change (and being nice about it) is trickier than it seems
Especially for the better.
We can nag,cajole,beg and threaten a loved one to change
A behavior
An attitude
A habit.
Sometimes for years.
Then when he or she does begin to shift in the very direction wanted, there can be backlash:
Like--why didn't you do this sooner when it really counted?
(The too little to late syndrome)
Like--whoa, I kind of liked being one up-superior
(Now the playing field is more level)
Like--why is this person getting so many kudos? 
(I've been "good" all along)

One person's change triggers change for everyone
That's the power of an individual

MY BLOG GAVE ME INDIGESTION. BIGGER BURP NEEDED.

I won't retract my last blog/aricle/column/too many words for today's world.
BUT
I didn't like it when I re-read it.
Not because it wasn't "good".
But because it wasn't truth--est.

Here's the deal.
I want to write about my dad.
He was a big hearted blue collar union guy angry at the world's pain and injustice.
Boy could he rant and clear a Thanksgiving table.

He was a sturdy feminist.
He stood up against all my uncles sending me to a fine Liberal Arts college and raged when they said it was to get an expensive MRS degree.
He jumped out a window in 8th grade and left school when his honesty was questioned.  He rode the rails for a year.  

His dad walked away from my dad and his sister and his mom
She ran a boarding house to survive.
My dad was sexually abused by one of the boarders, who would not pass any butter to my dad at the common table in a weird power play. (We always had stock piles of real butter in my childhood home.  No oleo-margarine for my dad)  Later in his life a gay gentleman asked my dad to be his lover and in return, he would send my dad to Brown.  My dad regretted saying, "no".

He loved learning and could win any Double Jeopardy game with odd facts.
His favorite possession was a collection of the Harvard Classics which I now treasure.  

He was an extrovert and a willing adventurer. It always took twice as long to go anywhere with him because he would make a friend and find some odd connection which he would marvel at while we rolled our eyes.  He became a hugger late in life. Through very odd circumstances, he attended a workshop with me (an adventure)  and revealed his sexual abuse.  Well, it was so touching that he got a standing hug from all the participants and became everyone's dad. He was touchingly released from his wound. AND SO he became a hugging wild man. My mom, timid and reserved by nature, would complain, "He needs to ask people if they want a hug."  And so he did.  And did. And did.

I'll end here after having given you a flavor of my dad.
His name was Withington Robert Dixon.
No wonder he was called "Bud"

Now I feel better. Truer.

TELL ME IF I'M GETTING TOO CURMUDGEONLY

I am going to say a wonderful sentence.
"I am proud (and relieved) to be totally proud of my grand kids' fathers."
They are engaged, nurturing, teaching, laughing, stalwart under duress dads.
And my husband is a loving dad including to two kids that are not his blood.
(Doesn't that sound dramatic?)

And I like any excuse for a celebration.
My mom was a card sending machine.
I think she once sent a new car card!!

So feeling proud of all the Fathers in my life, I looked up how Father's Day got started. First of all it was in reaction to Mother's Day. But it has a sincere beginning by a woman, Sonora Smart Dodd,  whose mom died birthing her and so her father raised six kids on his own. She wanted to create a Father's Day on his birthday June 5th but it got pushed to the third Sunday by busy legislature guys in Spokane Washington.  Anyway, she worked away at it and it came into being primarily  through persuasion on retailers. Yes, it is a commercial holiday at its inception. And it irks me. (For the record, Father's Day sales are much less than for mothers. Need some work there--on the dads or on the ads)

And still, I can't not buy a gift. I used to go deep into meaning for this gift.  This year- a toss away. not sentimental, not even liked, a token. And neither my husband or I  cared. We will do a picnic with one of our families and maybe we wouldn't without the spur of a formal "day".  But, I balk at obligatory celebrations and so do some of my kids as I wait for a Mother's Day card and they give me the same schpiel I'm giving you.

So honor the dads if you need the reminder. It's nice. 
I jump over my natural rebellion about the commercial/obligatory celebrations.
It is too curmudgeonly. 

But give me birthdays. Pure, easy, natural, joy filled celebrations.  

HERE COMES ANOTHER TRANSITION!

Really?  Can't I just coast for a while.
Do I really have to develop and grow?
How about a little stagnation?

Not my karma this time around.
I am always having to re-balance to stay on the surf board. (Totally goofy analogy for me) Still you get the idea.  Adjust or tumble.

I should know that any decade birthday brings new letting go work.
But I had to laugh at the lesson that plopped in my lap from a 17th Century nun.

---from Light the Flame by Andrew Harvey

"I am
growing older and will someday be old. Keep me
from
the fatal habit of thinking I must say something on 
every 
subject and on every occasion. Release me from the
craving
to straighten out everybody's affairs. Make me 
thoughtful
But not moody, helpful but not bossy. With my vast
store of
wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all but,
Lord knows
I want a few friends in the end. 

Keep my mind free of recital of endless details: give
me
wings to get to the point
seal my lips on my aches 
and pains.  
They are increasing and my love of rehearsing
them is becoming sweeter

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally I may be mistaken
I dare not ask for improved memory, but for 
growing 
humility and a lessening cocksureness when my 
memory clashes with others

Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be 
Saint--
some of them are so hard to live with--but a sour
old person is one of the crowning works of the devil

Give me the ability to see good thinks in unexpected
places, and talents in unexpected people. And give
me,
Lord, the grace to tell them so."


My new manifesto!!

OH MY MAYA

Oh my Maya
You've been with me so long
With a click of my heels
And a sing of my song

Learning who I am
Practicing my way
Asserting and dancing
Saying yes, nothing at bay

Phenomenal woman, women
Aren't we all?
You taught us true
We stand tall

Betrayed, invisible, rape of all kinds
We fight our fight, loosenng our ties
Pain may win for a while
But we are women and still, we will rise.