Tag Archives: Albert Lea Tribune

Perception or Reality?

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perceptionMy latest column from the Albert Lea Tribune on October 3, 2016

I found my summer clothes. The problem with finding my summer clothes is that I was looking for my winter clothes. Do I have you confused yet?

At some point in the last year I organized my closet and my clothes, and instead of leaving summer and winter clothes together in my drawers and my closet, I decided to change them out so I would have more room. I function very well when I am not organized. I forget where I put things when I organize. Remember the place for everything and everything in its place? When things are in place I forget where that place is.

This summer I was sure I had more summer clothes the year before. But, I did remember I gave some of my summer clothes away. Last fall I weeded out those clothes that did not fit and got rid of those I wasn’t in love with. When spring and summer came this year I had four pairs of jeans, a couple dresses, seven summer shirts and a pair of shorts and capris. I washed more than usual. And I must say I got along with those few pieces of clothing choices. I berated myself for giving away some of my favorite items of clothing. I didn’t think I would have done that, but, I could not find them.

Cool weather is settling in. The other day I had to dress up a bit and I shoved and pushed my meager assortment of clothes in my closet to find my fall and winter dress pants. I knew I had some because I just bought them last year. Again, I seem to remember in the spring I decided to organize. But I can’t remember where I put my winter clothes. And, that is how I found my summer clothes. Actually it was Natasha, my beautiful, furry kitty, that helped me find my clothes. She hid under the bed, and as I tried to get her out, low and behold there was a flat storage container slid far enough under the bed to the middle that you couldn’t see it. Maybe I should dust under the bed once in a while.

Excitement filled my veins when I saw the container. I knew I must have put my winter clothes in it. I am not an under-the-bed storage person but I think I recall listening to an organizer guru that said it was the perfect place for clothes. I pulled off the lid and there they were — my summer clothes. My feelings held a mixture of excitement that I found my favorite summer blouse, and a mixture of disappointment because I couldn’t wear my dress pants to church.

Though we welcome the change of seasons in nature, it is perhaps harder to welcome the change of seasons in our lives as we age. One of the things that happens with age besides our bodies changing, is the fact we have history to fall back on. With that history comes knowledge. It is that knowledge of what we have lived through that shapes the choices we make today and the viewpoints we have that affect what we do going forward into the future.

There is a quote about reality by Robert Bolono that states: “People see what they want to see and what people want to see never has anything to do with the truth.” Watching the presidential debate and seeing the comments afterward, I think that statement rings true. Each and every one of us has something we wish to happen for the future, and we back the candidate that we feel matches what we need, no matter what is proved to be false or wrong. We believe unscrupulous websites because they are telling us what we want to hear. And there is something in us at each season in our lives that tells us we can’t be wrong. We don’t want to admit our views could be skewed because what does that say about us?

After the debate there was one statement that people asked of their friends time and time again and that is, “Did we watch the same debate?”

Everyone has a different stake in this election. The younger generation is afraid for their future and the future of their children. They are worried about crime and terrorism and the economy. They want their children to be able to afford college and health care and to own their own home. This is their future. It is the season of their life where they want to grow and flourish.

As a senior citizen, we want to ensure our retirement and our health care. We want to ensure we will be able to afford to live, and one of the differences of us being in the autumn and winter of our lives, is the fact we remember what was, and we are having a hard time reconciling it with what is.

As I hunt for the past season’s change of clothes I hunt for the past seasons of my life and remember the race riots in the ’60s and ’70s. I remember my parents talking about Hitler and the war. I remember waiting for someone I love to come home from Vietnam. I remember the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. But I also remember neighbors helping neighbors and people standing up against hate. I remember the kindness of strangers and the wisdom of many leaders from both parties. I remember the good and the bad.

It is no different today. We believe what we perceive to be our reality. It is neither right nor wrong because we live the seasons of our lives. Our perception will influence our votes and therein lies what kind of truth we see.

My truth: I am better in creative chaos in my house than organized neatness. That is my perception of my reality.

Bedtime is Party Time for My Cats!

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Today I am sharing my column from the Albert Lea Tribune. This blog is in transition and if you are looking for more about Authors and my writing, please visit my website at http://julieseedorf.com to view my blog there. Today I feature Author Jessie Chandler who I interviewed about her book Operation Stop Hate, Operation #1. My website will be where I am sharing my writing adventures. This blog will be about whatever hits my heart. Today it is my cats. I hope you enjoy both blogs. At the bottom of http://julieseedorf.com there is a place to sign up for my newsletter and to be notified when my site has changed.  Enjoy.

Today’s column:

Natasha and Boris

Natasha and Boris

Do you remember the cartoons and movies where the toys came alive at night after their owners shuffled off to bed? Thoughts of the toy cartoons pass through my mind every once in a while when I think about my shysters, Natasha and Boris, who are our cat babies.

Boris entered our lives first. He was a rescue my daughter found for us. He was approximately seven months old and a pretty laid back guy. He loved to snuggle and wasn’t prone to getting into much of anything. As long as he had a warm body and love he was content.

We spend time visiting our children, and I felt bad that Boris had to live by himself while we were gone. I thought he might get lonely, so we adopted Natasha who is part Siamese. She was not the typical noisy Siamese. In fact, she and Boris had the wimpiest meow ever, and they didn’t use it much. But Natasha changed our household.

In a matter of days she showed us she could get our folding doors open. She could jump through the opening between the kitchen and the porch if we locked her out of the porch. She could open cupboard doors. If she wanted to be petted she would flop sideways down on the floor for us to pet her. Boris watched all of this from the sidelines. He was still content to be a laid back and stay-out-of-trouble cat.

We have had them both about three years now. Natasha is a great teacher. Boris now can open doors and climb in closets. He too has become a jumper and can jump on the highest shelf. Doors are not a problem for him either. And after about six months of watching Natasha take a dive on the floor on her side to be petted, he now does the same thing. We never know what the two of them are going to think of next.

In fact, I have an old chair that is toast, so I let them have an entire chair as a scratching post. This chair also has a hole in the bottom, and Natasha loves crawling in the bottom of the chair when she is teasing Boris. Because he is 17 pounds, he usually can’t crawl under the chair. However, one night he managed to get under the chair and into the hole. The problem he had — he couldn’t get out. I might mention if we haven’t seen the two of them for some time we start looking, because we know they are in trouble and got locked in somewhere. Don’t worry, when we go away we barricade all the closet doors, and we also have child locks on the cupboard doors so they can’t get in and get locked up while we are away.

My thoughts of toys in movies waking in the night, and causing havoc, were brought about by my two cats. Boris and Natasha spend most of the day sleeping. Natasha’s favorite place to sleep while I am watching television in the evening is right in front of my computer screen on the Tivo box so she blocks my view. It doesn’t matter how many times we move her, she goes right back, and she isn’t afraid of noise or water spray. She is fearless.

Boris sleeps in my husband’s arms or anywhere he can find a soft spot. He is not fearless and is easily directed.

The minute I and my husband start our journey to bed for the night they wake up. First they meow so I remember to put food in their bowls even if they have food. They can’t stand a hole in their bowl. It is a crime if I let the bowl show. Then they sit at the door to our bedroom waiting for us to leave the room.

The party begins. The chase goes up the stairs, through our upstairs bedrooms and into the living room. You can hear the stampede going on for hours. Occasionally we hear thumps from jumps or mischief. Once in a while Natasha lets out a curdling meow. The first time we heard it we thought she was dying, but it was only her attacking her play mouse.

In the morning I will find drawers opened, socks from one of the drawers strewn around the room. Rugs will be out of place, the food dish will be showing through the food, blankets will be on the floor and once in a while in their foraging they find an old candy wrapper or some of their toys I have not seen in a long time. Did I mention Natasha hides toys and other things?

As a child, I would always dream I had a secret toy room at the end of the hallway in my grandmother’s house, and the toys would come alive at night. Who knew this many years later part of my dream would come true — only it is my cats that come alive at night and make me smile in the morning while surveying their playtime damage. And for some reason my cats missed this tidbit of wisdom.

“Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures and cats like authors for the same reasons.” — Robertson Davies

 

Were The Good Old Days Really That Good?

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From my column in the Albert Lea Tribune, Monday August 29, 2016

bobby vintonNostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations. Nostalgia was what I felt as I spent the day painting my porch this past week.

I like to paint when it has creativity involved, but it doesn’t take much creativity to slap some white paint over worn white paint. Yes, I like to see the change in the appearance, but getting there is a little boring to me. So I turned on the tunes on my Amazon Music and set it to a ‘60s station so I could enjoy the beautiful weather and make my painting sentence a little lighter.

I flashed back to my teenage years. I listened to “Mr. Lonely” by Bobby Vinton and remembered exactly who I had a crush on and danced with to that song. As I was listening, I also flashed back to what was happening in the world. I don’t think back then in my ninth-grade mind, I connected the words to what was happening in the world. “Mr. Lonely” is about a lonely soldier far away, wanting to be back home and feeling forgotten. The Vietnam War was raging, and I imagine many solders felt that way for many reasons, one of which, they were fighting an unpopular war and were not appreciated. I might not have figured that out in my ninth-grade mind, but I got it on this beautiful afternoon in 2016. It could be a song from a soldier today.

One of the lines hit me, in which the soldier laments he gets no letters in the mail. There was no quick internet chats or email, just snail mail during the Vietnam War, and I remember how long it took for letters to get to someone I loved who was serving in the war. It seemed forever to receive word from those special people to know they were fine and safe, yet because of the time, circumstances might have changed by the time the letter arrived.

As I sang to some of the other songs (I hope the neighbors didn’t hear my off key voice) I wondered why my parents let me listen to some of them. Some songs by popular artists were about drugs and the psychedelic experience. I don’t think my parents had a clue because they didn’t think to listen to the music or they must have tuned it out when I had the radio playing, or they didn’t understand it. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so upset about the heavy metal songs a couple of my children listened to in the ‘80s. It was kind of like calling the kettle black.

I remembered a hit of nostalgia a few years ago at my place of work. It was in the same building as my teen center years, and a song came on the radio as I was working at my desk. I had a flashback to being in the same building at the same spot when I heard the song when I was 16 years old. I never thought when I was 16 I would be sitting at the same place, in the same building years later.

As I kept my paintbrush moving, I thought about my best friend, Karen, who I shared many of my days with in the ‘60s. She is no longer living, but I felt she was right there with me when certain songs played. I wanted to call another of my ‘60s friends, Linda, but I didn’t want to put down my brush for fear I wouldn’t pick it back up again. I wanted to share a time we were driving around the countryside on a warm summer night listening to a song from Donovan. Or “Summer in the City” by the Lovin Spoonful.

There are moments when I listen to the music from my youth, and it makes me sad because we can’t go back and relive those times or be with some of the people who were an important part of our lives back then. It reminds me I am getting older. But the painting day wasn’t one of those times. Listening to my music brought back memories of a time when I didn’t know as much as I do today. A time where I hadn’t experienced as much of life, and it felt like the future held so much hope. After all, we were going to change the world because the generation before us caused all the problems that we were being faced with in those tender young years. We were going to solve those problems.

Some things never change. The generation of today blames my generation for the problems they are facing today, and the young ones feel they will be the ones to fix it. My generation should understand their blame because we experienced the same feelings.

I thought of the race riots of the ‘60s and the threat of the Vietnam war. In 2016 we still have race riots, and we still have war.

My day of nostalgia reminded me the more things are different, the more they stay the same. New problems exist, and old problems rear their ugly head. Each generation shares experiences and hopes and dreams as did the previous generation.

Parents will always question the music of the youth. Youth will always question the decisions of the past generation. People will always fight for a better future and will always protest when they feel there is a wrong needed to be made right.

As much as I remember with longing the years of my youth with my music, when I now listen to the lyrics they remind me “the good old days” had their problems too. Time and age make them seem more idyllic. Music always made me feel better when my heart was shattered over some trivial teenage thing. Music now makes me feel better when my heart is shattered over mind-bending life disasters. That is another timeless treasure which has not changed.