The story of Rose

Rose has been my massage therapist for several years now. Usually I don't talk much during my massage—just lie there and enjoy. But yesterday, I was in the mood to ask her questions about her and her life. I knew so little about her.

Now in her mid-fifties, she has been in this country about sixteen years. Originally she and her family are from Croatia, a country east of Italy and north of Greece.

Rose has a rather strong accent and sometimes still struggles with her English. She will pause in talking to me and say almost to herself, “How to say . . .” She told me that when she first came to the United States, she talked a lot with her hands to make herself understood. Now as a massage therapist, she talks with her strong, caring hands to make others feel better.

She was already married with two children when her homeland of Croatia began a bitter, harsh civil war. Money and food became scarce, and Rose and her family had begun to sell the things in their house to buy food, but the things of value were getting to be fewer and fewer. Many were illegally leaving the country.

Rose's only sibling, a beloved brother had been killed before the war in an automobile accident. His girlfriend whom he was going to marry was pregnant with their son at the time of his death. Her brother's girlfriend had already fled to Germany with her young son, Rose's only nephew.

With her two children, a nine-year-old son and a toddler daughter, Rose went to “visit” her young nephew in Germany. The young family was actually fleeing to the safety that was Hanover in Northern Germany. Her husband came many months later. Rose and her family lived in Germany for five years.

In the meantime her husband's brother and his family had relocated to Minnesota. Rose and her husband moved there when their children were 14 and 8 years old. A year or so after that move, they came to the warmer climate of Nashville.

Of course, the family spoke the Croatia language. Rose's children were learning English in their respective schools, though her teenaged son in particular was shy about speaking English for fear of making a mistake and being ridiculed. Rose herself had not been exposed to much English. 

Her husband became a truck driver, and she began to work at Target on White Bridge Road, near where they first lived. Working the 11pm til 7am night shift to stock shelves, again Rose was not exposed to many English-people speaking. Because she could not speak English and communicate with customers, she wasn't allowed to work at Target in the daytime. The night crew was encouraged to work faster and faster, thus sometimes when the work was done, they would be sent home at 4 or 5 or 6 am. Of course, they lost income. While there she met another woman from Croatia, and they became fast friends. Her new friend Lucy had two young sons.

Rose did not like the job at Target nor the hours. In her home country she had worked in a hospital. So she began to work at an assisted living center in Bellevue, taking care of the residents. For her, it was a job filled with sadness because the people would sicken and be moved to another facility or die in their sleep. She would miss them too much after they had left. By now her family was living in Bellevue.

Her son mentioned that a friend of his had become a massage therapist and really liked her job. He said that perhaps Rose would like that kind of work. But first to get into massage school, she had to pass a test. It was, of course, written in English. The first time she took the test, having to read each question several times to understand it, she only got about half way through the test, and she failed it. Ten days later, she went back to take the test again; she was praying to God to help her. About two-thirds the way through the test, the time was called for “five more minutes!” She prayed again, and without time to read, just went through the remainder of the test, marking answers at random!

As she sat in the lobby, waiting for her results, she just knew that she had failed again. But soon the proctor came out and told her that she had passed, and that's how she got into massage school, where she found everyone so helpful to her! She continued to work at the assisted living center and went to school in the evenings. School was challenging, but she worked hard and graduated.

Once she got her massage license, she worked a while for a chiropractor in Cool Springs—a long drive. Then she heard about her present job here in Bellevue and has been there for six years. Recently her 24-year-old daughter, who is in law school, married one of Lucy's son; and now her 30-year-old son will marry next May, a young woman from Lavern, TN.

Rose's story is unique, yet it is probably representative of many people who immigrate to the United States. Most of them leave their homelands because of strife, face the unknown with enormous courage, and work hard against untold odds to make a home in this country. We who have never been forced to leave our homelands are fortunate, and I, for one, am pleased that so many people have found a sanctuary for themselves in the USA, as did most of our forefathers and mothers.

The call of place

There's a place that I love. Before my granddaughters were born here in Nashville, when I retired, I was going to move to this place to live out the rest of my life.

Now, of course, I choose people over places and stay here in Kingston Springs, so that my granddaughters can visit with me weekly, so that I can see them and touch them and love them. 

A river runs through it.

In stark contrast to the Rockies, these mountains are older and look softer, worn down by time and weather.

But this place still calls my name from time to time, and I still occasionally dream of moving there. But as year leads to year, I doubt I'll ever live there.

Truly, the mountains look smoky or misty at times.

It's Bryson City in Southwestern North Carolina. The little town is surrounded by the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains or the Appalachians.

It's cold white water rivers for kayaking and smoky mountains for hiking. I first went there when I was nearly forty and had just begun white water kayaking. And I fell in love with the place.

Blue grey and hazy from many perspectives, the colors are magnificient.

I was there again this past weekend, kayaking two white water rivers with friends--the Tuckaseegee (Cherokee for turtle place) and the Natahala (Cherokee for river of the noon day sun).

The mountains in all their glorious textures.

To honor my age, I have quit camping, which is what I did for the last 25 years when I went white water kayaking. And by the way, that was the first time that I had ever camped! We would usually camp at Lost Mine Campground, back in the mountains.

I have fond memories of one campsite, in particular, I named it the waterfall campsite. It was a quiet, private site behind a huge natural-made rock wall; it had a tumbling creek on two sides and a waterfall streaming down into that creek. The water sang us to sleep each night.

Now I stay in a sweet little 1950's hotel in Bryson City called the Rosewood Inn. It's right on the Tuckaseegee river, and I always get one of their "river rooms." As a matter of fact, here was the view as I drank my morning coffee on my little balcony this past weekend.

This is the Tuckaseegee River as it winds its way through Bryson City. It is white water further up the mountains and up stream, where we put in at Dillsboro.

Here is my little friend that comes back year after year. It is a rather large gold fish (that someone must have released into the river long ago), and her grey buddy (can you see him?). that swim right below the balcony.

I want to go back to this place more often and explore all of its ins and outs. My plan is to return for a couple or three weeks at a time in every season (but in the off-seasons)--winter, spring, summer, and fall. Instead of taking one big trip in 2017, I would like to return to this place several times next year.

Because the place calls me back year after year. And this next year, I want to listen to her and fully heed her call.

The good old days--not so good: five reasons why today is better than yesterday

Sometimes we like to look back nostalgically on the "good old days." Especially the 50s. Having been born in 1949, the 50s were my childhood. And all things considered, I had a pretty good childhood, which I have already written about on a few other posts. Looking back now, I think that I lived in a kind of bubble, where the things I was taught to value were detrimental to many in our society.

Like most chidren, I was oblivious to what was going on around me--out in the world. Even into the 60s, I was slow to grow up and remained oblivious to all the conflicts in world around me. Isn't that it! That for most of us--like children--we were oblivious to--or deliberately turned a blind eye to--all the injustices in the world of the 50s, which the 60s tried to right.

For example, most women stayed home and kept house, and most men went off to work each day. But what if you were a woman who didn't want to stay home and run a house and have chidlren? What if you wanted to work outside the home and use your talents in other places and make an income. Well, mostly those doors were closed to you because you were a female. What if you came to believe that women and men deserved equal rights? Well, equality was a long way off.

Because I was single, I remember my father having to sign for the first car I bought. I had already been on my own and working as a teacher for several years. By the way, most all of the principals or administrators were men. The schools reflected a society where males were thought to be the rightful leaders. It was a time when it was not so unusual for male teachers to date and then marry their female students, soon after her graduation from high school. But woe be unto a female teacher who dated a male student! Our society was build on notions of male superiority and female inferiority.

So number one on my list of why today is better than yesteryear is that women have so many more opportunities--they can be leaders today--they can be principals and administrators and presidents of companies and even the President of a country! Wow, we have come a long way! Yes, there is so much less discrimination against women today than yesterday. It still isn't perfect. There are still some men around--and unfortunately some women--who think that men are superior to women, but they are fewer and farther apart.

Speaking of discrimination, along with less sexism, there is less racism in our country. Oh, it's still there, and at times directed toward different races than perhaps in the 50s, but again, we've come a long way! In the 50s and 60s as I was growing up, albeit illegally, the school were still segregated. In 1954, in a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court declared that separate schools are "inherently unequal," but it tooks years and years and lots of courageous people before schools, especially in the South, were integrated. Though both black and white citizens had to pay taxes, the government provided public schools for whites only in the 50s and 60s.

Whites only. In my childhood, that was it. In schools, in restaurants, bathrooms, public swimming pools, at water fountains, etc, Everywhere it was "whites only." Again our whole society was build on notions of white supremacy and black inferiority. But again, I was oblivious to racial discrimination. For me, a middle class white child, that was just life as normal. In the 1950s' society, it was believed that whites were superior to blacks.

So that's number two on my list of why today is better than the 50s and 60s. And speaking of less discrimination, today that includes less prejudice against the handicapped, the Asian, the LGBTQ community, Mexicans, different religions, etc. Our consciousness has been raised. Our capacity to Love is greatly and deeply increasing.

Another plus is that we have much more cultural diversity in our country. If we choose, we can get to know people from all sorts of cultures, places, religions, etc. We don't have to stay in our own little cultural clique; we can choose to expand our minds, our hearts, and our souls by knowing, understanding, and loving others from other backgrounds.We don't even have to travel far to find this diversity--we may be able to find people of different backgrounds in our schools and work places. If we choose to be open-minded, we can reach out to them and get to know them and their cultures and their beliefs. How cool is that! So cultural diversity is my number three reason why it's a better time period in which to be alive.

Medical advances are number four on my list. And they are too numerous to name. Suffice it to say that we are beginning to win the war on cancer. From acquaintances to friends to family, we have people living today that would have died in the 50s and 60s. There are so many advances in the medical field in diagnosing, treating, and curing diseases and so many perscriptions that help us to live healthier lives. There is a definite increase in life expectancy in the US from 68 in 1950 to 79 today. Had they lived today my own parents would not have suffered so much nor died so early in their lives.

And number five on my list will go to technology. I am aware of the negatives of technology (the taking away of jobs and the taking away of human contact), but wow, I surely do appreciate many aspects of technology (the creating of jobs and the creating of human contact!) One of the reasons I was going to put down about today being better than yesteryear is improved living standards. Haven't living conditions in our world improved since the 50s? Oh, let me research that on the internet! 12,000,000 results came up in .78 seconds! The answer is Yes! How's that for quick researching! Two of my favorite articles that came up are 10 specific reasons "Why Today Is Better Than the Past" and  "50 Reasons We Are Living Through the Greatest period in World History." Check them out if you like--at http://www.nextavenue.org/why-today-better past and / www.fool.com/.../50-reasons-were-living-through-the-greatest-perio.

So yes, the 50s were certainly a simpler time, just like my childhood. And like in my childhood, we were more innocent but also more ignorant. I, for one, am pleased that, like me, the world is growing up and growing wiser with each passing decade.

Part 6: the last part of my dream trip, then back to civilization in Salt Lake City

The raft trip on the Snake River was nice, but because it was still spring chilly, I chose not to go on the white water section. As you can see from the rafts pictured above, we didn't even paddle ourselves; our guide used oars to paddle us down a short section of the river.

Next time I'll go on the white water part or else rent a kayak! Or do both!! I did notice that Western water is more powerful and swifter than Eastern. Probably from all of the snow and ice melting up in the mountains and gushing downward.

I sat at the end of the raft. The cottonwoods are those light green, airy-looking trees that you see behind me.

Lots of cottnwoods lined the river banks, and I saw my first lovely lupine when we stopped for lunch. The guide said that if we came back in autumn (late August/early September in Wyoming!) that we would get to see the cottonwoods turn that bright beautiful yellow. Later in a meadow at Jenny Lake in the Grand Tetons National Park (GTNP), I got to see even more lupine.

Me--taking my first selfie--at Jenny Lake!

Just found these images on the net--apparently, cottonwoods in contrast to aspen have these dark trunks and branches. Like the birches up in New England, the apen have the white branches. Both are rather dramatic shows of autumn color. By the way, I love trees and mountains and rivers and autumn! Just saying!

After my voyage down the Snake River and some more hiking at Jenny Lake in the GTNP, the next day I headed to Salt Lake City to catch my plane home. The drive, mostly through Wyoming, some a bit west into Idaho, and then into Utah, was even prettier than my first-day drive through Idaho into Montana.

Primarily, I drove through several national forests with mountains and many creeks and rivers and lakes but occasionally, there would pop up these "little" towns--like Etna, WY, population 163, or Thayne, WY, population 147. I also could see evidence that many of these roads that I was on in late May would be closed in the winter when the snows came, which I figured was prety much from September through April here in Wyoming. I'm betting these people really love their springs and summers.

One of the best surprises awaiting me in Salt Lake City was my hotel--the Little American Hotel. After staying at the Best Western in West Yellowstone, Montana, and the very modern but very small and somewhat expensive Motel 6 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I was in for quite a treat!

It was there in the hotel dining room that I also had the best dinner of my whole trip--fresh river trout, sweet potato cassarole, fresh green beans and salad, and yeast rolls. Yum, yum, I can still taste it all!

Like many of the bigger cities in Utah and Wyoming and Idaho, Salt Lake City is surrounded by mountains,which I could see from my hotel. The next morning before heading to the airport, I went to see the Mormon Temple at Mormon Square, quite close to my hotel. Wish I had had a few more hours to explore that area, which is an amazing man-made sacred shrine to God.

But lovely as it was, the Mormon Temple does not compare to God's creation on this earth--the grandest Grand Teton Mountains! Don't miss seeing them with your own eyes!

Part 5: the best part of a dream journey

Mark Twain said, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindededness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, whole, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one's little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Traveling is important to me, and it is life-changing and life-expanding. Besides my frequent warm weather jaunts to East Tennessee or Western North Carolina or Northern Georgia to kayak with friends, I like to have a "big" trip in the saving's and planning stage.

Right now I'm saving, but I haven't quite decided where I'll go next. I'm considering the following places in no particular order: Charleston, SC; Highway 1 in Northern California; Mammoth Cave, KY; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; Outter Banks, NC, Glacier National Park, MT, and Greece and Ireland. Just day-dreaming and listening to intuition for now.

The Pacific North West (Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia), the Grand Canyon, Alaska, Yosemite, and New England (Vermont and Acadia, Maine, especially) have been some of my favorite places that I've visited, And now I can add the Grand Tetons to that list!

As I exited Yellowstone and traveled along US 26/89/191 on the sixth day of my 12-day journey, I wasn't quite prepared for what was to greet me. I turned a curve in the road, and suddenly, there they were--bigger than life--the Grand Tetons--one of the prettiest parts of the Rocky Mountains. My mouth literally dropped open. There they stood in their granite majesty with their sharp, craggy, icy, rocky beauty. There they stood against the bluest skies and reflected in the waters of Jackson Lake.

In contrast to their largeness bloomed the sweetest, little yellow spring flowers with brown centers.

Oh my, the Grand Tetons are indeed the loveliest mountain range I have ever seen! I will have to paint them one day soon.

Like any other place, of course, I'm sure you know that mere pictures don't do those mountains justice because pictures are simply one dimensional and visual. If one is not there, s/he misses out on the sounds, the fragrances, the tastes, and feel of the place. But the pictures take me back momentarily to my experience of the place.

These spring beauties were captured a few days later at Jenny Lake, along with these lovely aspen trees.

This is the picture that I will paint one day, but I will make the sky blue with those white clouds and the water of Jackson Lake will sparkle from the sun's rays! The Tetons are among the youngest mountains on the continent. Together the mountain range and valley (in which sits the town of Jackson) frame a majestic landscape of eight large lakes, many glaciers, numerous snowfields, and extensive pine, fir, and spruce forests.

After many more stops along the way that afternoon, I arrived in the famous ski town of Jackson or Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jackson Hole sits in a high mountain valley; that's why it's usually called Jackson Hole. The valley is encompassed by the ranges of the Grand Tetons, bordered by the Teton Range on the west and the Gros Ventre Range on the east. Bisected by the Snake River, the valley is 80 miles long and 15 miles wide. It is a recreational utopia.

The town of Jackson has a marvelous old town square, adorned in each corner with four elk horn arches. It is dotted with a mix of historical buildings, upscale eateries, shops, and saloons. It is an art collector's paradise. The side walks appear to be made of old barn boards.

I spent the next four days in Jackson Hole--sight-seeing, hiking, shopping, rafting, and learning some of its history. After moutain men explored the area and trapped animals, the Homestead Act drew pioneers willing to take a chance on improving a free plot of land by the 1890s. The harsh climate sent many packing, but those who stayed and toughed it out used the abandoned parcels of land to their advantage and developed large ranches.

Several days later as I was buying boots for my granddaughters Tessa and Livvy, I actually met some of those ranchers, coming into town on a Saturday night!

Besides getting back to the Grand Tetons National Park every day that I could, I was looking forward to my raft trip on the celebrated Snake River.

The new pixar movie "Inside Out"

The new pixar movie Inside Out intrigued me. Like the main human character Riley, when I was young, I had been moved from a place that I loved to a new, unfamiliar place, and like her, I felt overwhelmed by all of my feelings. But unlike her, this experience happened to me time and again.

I do not think that Inside Out is a movie meant for children younger than, say seven. And even then, for them, discussing the movie with a grown up may be helpful.

On the other hand, I guess the movie could be watched on a purely superficial level. After all my son-in-law Nekos took the granddaughters, ages 5 and 2, to see the movie recently, and they seemed to enjoy it. But did they really have any idea what was going on? I'll have to ask them.

Like the novel Pilgrim's Progress or the drama Everyman, the movie Inside Out is an allegory--where five characters in the film represent abstract ideas. In this case, five of the main characters each personify an emotion. There are also three other characters in the movie who are human beings: 11-year-old Riley and her parents.

The two main characters in the movie are Happiness (Joy) and Sadness. Besides the humans, the other characters are Anger, Fear, and Disgust. These five emotions are supposedly the basic human emotions that we feel and that control the way we act or sometimes "act out." That's one of the aspects of the movie that intrigued me: these basic human emotions.

A short bit of research on basic human emotions revealed that some scientists believe that we have four human emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger. Other believe that we have six basic emotions, adding disgust and surprise to the list. The main writer of Inside Out chose to go with the belief in six emotions, but he also chose to leave out surprise. Other scientists come up with seven emotions, and add contempt (hate) to the list. Still others add trust and anticipation to the list of basic human emotions, so that would make nine. Plus add in all of the "complex" emotions, and we are just one emotional heap!

Interesting to note that five of these nine emotions are negative ones. Or as in the movie four out of five of the emotions are negative. (Wow. That's curious. I'll have to think about that more later.) In the movie, it was Happiness that tried to dominate how the 11-year-old Riley viewed the world and felt about the recent move. Her parents had just moved her from Minnesota to San Francisco.

My own parents moved us no less than a dozen times before I reached the age of 17. I was born in Charleston, SC, then moved on to Camden, SC, then on to Chattanooga, TN, where I attended kindergarten, then on to Richmond, VA, then to Madison, TN, where I had some pretty idyllic childhood years, then to Old Hickory, TN. From there, we moved on to Louisville, KY, then there was a very short move to Orange, TX, then back to Madsion, TN, where I spend my best high school years, Then to Wilmington, NC, and then to Grifton, NC, where I graduated from high school. Then on we moved to Seaford, DE. From there I went to college in Murfreesboro, TN.

Now to you, I know those sound only like a listing of cities that my family lived in, but for me, each of those cities has memories--memories--as the movie made clear--that became part of my personality and part of my long term memory bank. Each of those moves informed who I became. I've written a blog post about most of those places. (Sadly, I didn't take the time to write about most of those place until I retired in my 60s. Had I been able to write about those places sooner, perhaps I could have had more peace in my life.)

Back to Inside Out, the movie makes a big deal about Riley having to move to San Francisco when she was 11 years old. It nearly tears her apart, and I could really relate to what she was going through. Her strong "islands" or staples of emotions that informed her personality were family, friendship, ice hockey (her main interest), honesty, and goofball island. As each island crumbled because of the damage caused by the move, Riley began to lose herself.

Joy kept trying to keep or put her back together, but she was not giving Sadness her fair access to Riley's psyche. Riley's mother kept telling her that they needed her to be her usual happy-go-lucky self to counteract all the things that kept going wrong with the move. It was all so familiar to me, and it all made so much sense.

My parents too would depend on me to stay happy during our many moves--but I, of course, felt anything but happy. I felt sad for loss of friendships, and angry for loss of interests (in one high school, the next year, my senior year, I was looking forward to being the literary editor of the school paper, but then we moved). I felt fearful going into new classrooms and seeing that sea of new faces looking up at me. Within my family, we did not discuss these feelings or thoughts. With each move so many questions buzzed through my young mind: would I be able to keep up with the new school work? Had I missed something important that I needed to know? Time and again--at least a dozen times--I lost myself.

But in all those soul-stealing moves and in my parents' constant fighting, I did not allow myself to feel sad. Once I left home for college, I had completely lost myself. College, for me, was a terrible experience, so I ended up marrying Tommy Cooper to escape it and to escape my family, and the rest is history (I've written my memoirs in my blog, which I have linked to several times above).

In the movie, once Riley allowed herself to feel her sadness (and once Joy allowed Sadness to take center stage), she and her parents talked about her and their feelings and comforted her, and Riley is on the way to adjusting herself to the move, to rebuilding her islands, and to finding herself again.

My family of origin lacked two important things that Rily's family had: strong family support and goofiness. For some reason, my family was not demostrative of nor verbal about their love for each other or for us daughters, and my family was always sooo serious. There was never any joking around or family fun. (When families constantly move around, they need to be strong families with strong senses of themselves to survive move after move.) Since my family environment had not been conducive to expressing feelings, as the song states, I began to look for love in all the wrong places.

Once I became a teacher, teaching was my island that I practically based my whole personality on! Then as my marriages didn't work out, friendship became an important island. Finally in my late 30s/early 40s, white water kayaking became a major island for me. In my retirement once teaching island crumbled, I had a hard time adjusting. I had lost myself again! Then art/writing island was born. And once my daughter married and my granddaughters were born, family island became significant. It's fun and interesting to take notice of the islands that inform our sense of self and that create our personalities.  

The lesson that the movie Inside Out teaches us so well is that if one is not allowed to feel sadness--to acknowledge so-called "negative" emotions--then her psyche cannot heal and the opposite emotion (happiness in this case) cannot re-surface. It's all so clear to me now. So I ask the Universe, can I go back and relive my teens and college years and twenties, knowing what I know now? Probably not.

An A+ movie. Go see it and have fun! I plan to take Tessa (my five-year-old granddaughter) to see it again! It helped me to understand myself better; perhaps it will help her too.