On Leaving it All

                A bit more than twenty years ago, my children, my husband and I moved out to a profoundly rural area.  When we arrived, there were no restaurants, no pizza, no Chinese food, no internet, and often no police.  We traded suburban life with all of its woes and temporary advantages to one with almost limitless space, where our kids could raise livestock, chase their chickens, truly explore hobbies, hike, and grow up with fewer distractions.

              Our experiment worked.  Our homeschooled kids were academically quite successful, and went on to college, and universities and were successful in the careers they chose. One of our children passed away, the result of a cardiac arrhythmic syndrome which had not been identified, and took his life one morning, this time of year, about eleven years ago.

               In a sense as a tribute to the son who passed, we continued to live here. We needed to provide an excellent home to the animals our son had known.  As if keeping a promise to him, we kept the homestead fairly similar to how it had been during his time here.

               I can't help but notice that in the past few months, four families who were decidedly cornerstones to this area, have placed their homes or farms for sale.  I tell myself that this is natural. Not everyone wishes to age in place. Some return to towns and cities in old age for ease of getting to the doctor or the pharmacy, at least.  And yet, I am saddened to see these families leave. Some of them have been in the area longer than we have. Their departure will make our family the old timers in the area. This means we cannot avoid the realization that we all age, and that eventually, we will either depart from this area, or die here.

              If I were to be honest, I would say that although I dislike the idea of dying in this place, I like the idea of leaving it all by choice even less.  



 

A Moment for Tears

I was doing some internet research early this week for a book project on which I am working, and I accidentally came across an obituary with a familiar name. It took me a moment to think of why I remembered the name, and exactly who the person had been. She had been a classmate of mine in high school. Although I don’t think we were ever really friends, we shared a seat in almost all the most challenging classes in our school, when they were still divided into classrooms of high performers, average students, and those benefiting from some remediation. I suppose in the lingo of today, she would have been within my academic cohort.

I graduated from high school one year early to attend college in an era where this was considered sacrilege, but I had my father’s approval. Although I continued contact with about four classmates over the years from my high school class, I didn’t really keep in touch with the others, and I didn’t return to the area. I did hear when several of our class died in separate car crashes and one in a fire, and I grieved them.

I graduated from two colleges and started a career as a registered nurse. The closest I came to hearing from anyone at the high school was during the time I had the school psychologist as a patient. He was a dear man who saw the school quite differently than I had. As my twenties progressed, I married, became the mother of two babies in rapid succession, and moved out of state as I balanced career, parenthood, and a new house.

Over the years, the several careers I have enjoyed had to mesh with the lives of the five children I eventually had. During a more bullish economy, we sold our homes and moved about every five years, being careful to put more money down on each home. I rarely gave thought to high school, although I did stay in touch with close friends from there, and from college. As time progressed, more and more of my friends from high school and college were spread over the country. Many of my college friends became college professors. One became a physician after having been a registered nurse. Some became entrepreneurs. I learned that from my high school class five had become engineers, two had become physicians, one had become a nurse practitioner. One had become an artist. Four became teachers. Eventually, my own high school class blurred a little bit with the students a year older or a year younger who were there at the same time.

This week, when I saw my classmate’s obituary, I remembered that she was a lovely girl. She was bright, always happy, and was very attractive and had thick blonde hair. She was never negative about anything we had to do there. She always tried her best, and she was good at sports, academics, and anything social. I remembered that she was really good in tennis, and that she had the distinction of being an academic standout as well as a varsity cheerleader. I remembered that one of her brothers was in school with us, and that they were always glad to see one another. I remember once thinking while watching her laugh as we played soccer, that blondes must really have more fun.She had flourished in high school where I had scrambled to get away.

While I had been raising children, developing careers, and enjoying friends in another state, my classmate had attended three universities and graduated as an artist. She returned to our home

state, married and had two children. She became a part of the challenging and highly political art world which will chew you up and spit you out faster than any high school will.

Today, my classmate is gone from Earth. She left two children who are doing well. She was divorced before she died, and the obituary gives no clue as to how she passed. I can hardly imagine the young smiling woman I knew divorcing anyone. As I recall, we weren’t really friends and yet I knew her middle name when I saw her obituary. I remembered where she lived, how she looked, her brother and what he planned to study in college. She had been resilient, in a place where I hadn’t been. Perhaps I had not yet been worthy of being her friend. I grieve her life cut short. I grieve the time she will not be spending with her young adult children. She will miss living long enough to see her grandchildren here on Earth.

I think she left something important to me that she doesn’t even know about. She left me the example of always smiling, of doing your level best wherever you are. She always bloomed where she was planted, where I might have whined about the soil. I think she might also have taught me that the people you might see every day, and who might not seem important in your life, might actually be important to you later. I took a moment away from the book I was writing to cry for her. I think you probably lived a pretty good life if a classmate from many years ago thinks of you kindly, and cries at the thought of your passing.

    

On Climate Change Shaming

               

          If I were to be honest, I would tell you that I am sick to death of hearing about climate change. I was raised to conserve everything, pollute as little as possible, to avoid packaging, and to coexist with the animals and the planet, and so when others, particularly from other nations who know nothing about me or how I live, tell me I must change, it's all I can do not to laugh at the wasteful misguided souls who lecture me.

                 I live on a large acreage farm surrounded by woods. I grow a great deal of our own food, our own eggs and our own chickens. We coexist with the animals here which include turkeys, bears, fox, raccoons, poisonous and non-poisonous snakes, coyotes, squirrels, and opossum. We leave the farm about once weekly and lump all our trips into one to conserve resources, and because we don't wish to be away too long from our rescue horses, sheep, alpacas, dogs, cats, and all manner of poultry. We are essentially organic here. There is one intervention we allow, and that's rabies immunizations for all the animals who are mammals, because rabies in such rural places in the US is endemic.  I own other farms, and they are managed organically as well.

               I haven't boarded a plane in about seven years. I drive proficiently, but as little as possible. I work hard to impact the planet as little as possible, basically because a lot of the American Indian values made sense to me, and because one of my parents hailed from post war Europe, and the other went to college there for an extended period. They weren't known to waste much either.

                 The fact is that if you build a home below sea level, as in New Orleans or in Bangladesh, that cataclysmic flooding will occur.   If your government steals the aid freely given by other nations and misappropriates a small fraction of the remainder, then starvation will result.  There will be periodic glacial melting, and then reforming of Antarctic glaciers. There will be some degree of climate change as the Earth ages and moves on. There will be cataclysmic disasters. Why? Because there have been before.

                  More than seventy percent of the Earth consists of oceans. Does it really make sense to you that actions of people who reside on less than 30% of the planet are changing the environment ?  I lean more toward the idea that the planet will gradually change. It will heat and it will cool whether we stop driving cars or manufacturing anything at all.   Before you tell me that I am hopelessly out of touch, let me tell you that I hold a degree in Environmental Studies, and I am not yet convinced that anything we do to change the gradual progressions of our planet can do anything at all.

              So I will continue with my low impact activities here on Earth. You continue with your obsession with electronics, addiction to Starbucks, letting social media think for you, and shaming those who don't look, speak or think exactly as you do.  Chances are, we will both live until we both die, and we will do so, on the planet's time.

Westward: The Novel is Released for Sale

                  I

          Although I have written fact based or true books in the past, I also occasionally write novels.  This is my second novel which was released for sale this week.  It is available in soft cover versions and in varietal electronic versions.




          For those who are interested in learning about it, or purchasing it, it is available at this link:

   https://booklocker.com/books/9981.html



https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07J4VK99P

It is also up at the other stores:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/westward-jane-alexandra-krehbiel/1129481765

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/westward-the-novel/id1438371156

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/westward-the-novel




About the Book Larissa (Lara) Crowell is a registered nurse with four young children.Now that her husband has made the transition from police officer to attorney, she hopes to be able to remain at home with their four young children. The sudden death of her husband causes her to have to return to work. This is the story of her adjustment and triumphs as she learns to combine both the world of being a breadwinner and a parent. It also traces her eventual meeting of the second great love of her life, and of her learning to trust him enough to blend him into her close family with her children. Sometimes the challenges you anticipate are not the ones that actually occur. 

      Thank you for considering reading it also.




  If I were to be honest, I would tell you that making a living as an author is nearly impossible.  Despite this, I have friends who are successful authors. One of them told me that recently she spent a million dollars promoting her last book, and it worked.

        

My Parents are Long Overdue an Apology

                 If I were to be honest, I would have to say that I owe both of my parents an apology. When I was in high school, in the Northeast, my parents were often at the school complaining about one choice or another. At the time, this was embarrassing.  So the school was giving three extra points on your final English grade for attending all of the sporting events that semester, and my parents found this objectionable.  They also found some of the progressive mumbo jumbo we were being taught, a waste of our time when there were so many other things we needed to be taught that would be useful in college.  "What do you care what the masses are being taught as long as your own kids know which end it up ?"    "It's bigger than that", said my parents. "When history is diluted and the masses no longer now it then they are sitting ducks for whatever propaganda a particular group wishes to perpetrate."   As a teen I did not see my parents efforts as a positive thing. I did not see that they were taking time off from their jobs to help to suggest a course correction on the high school level.

               It has taken quite a few years for me to understand the actions of my parents.  My college days are complete, my career is established and my own children, born in my twenties, have now completed college. Both of my parents have moved on.  When my son told me that his life was threatened by other students when they were unsure as to whether he would vote their way, in an upcoming election for then President Obama, I was stunned. Why couldn't they vote their conscience, and leave my kids to vote their own ?   I decided to come each week and have lunch with each of my kids who were, at the time, attending a large urban university.  I learned a great deal on these visits. I learned that there were professors who were really doing a great job and who were an exceptional educational value. I learned that there were courses in women's studies, some of which were perpetrating myths and lies that in no way approximated any experiences I had ever had in terms of growing up in this country.  I learned what I had already known, which is that although racism may always be the folly of a few, that the young people in this country, by in large, understand that we all have more in common with one another, than we have differences, and that we need the contributions of everyone to solve all of our nations and our world's problems.  I learned that a lot of college students may have borrowed money for university, that many of them are starving during the semester. My kids brought instant oatmeal and brown sugar for their friends, so that during the semesters, they all had a healthy, quick and inexpensive breakfast.

               My parents were right. Don't tell your kids what to think. Don't let your teachers, your professors and your schools do it either. Teach them to read. Expose them to broad ranging books, and let them choose farther afield than you might.  Talk to them. Let them express their views to you, and express yours to them.  Be respectful and polite.  If more people had taken the time my parents had, we might not have the rage and devisiveness we have in our country. True discussion is rare, and when someone makes headway, the other responds with threats or with vulgar language. No one wins.

                  I had a total of five children, and now I have a grandchild. I have a lot of skin in the game. I care as to how tomorrow looks.  Stop insulting one another. Start listening as to why your opponent believes as she does. Explain gently, why you do not. Stop the name calling.  To solve problems, we are going to have to work together.

Fix Your Algorithm

            

The company selling these is SaferingzUSA

             If I were to be honest then I would have to tell you that Google and Facebook are getting on my nerves.  A few weeks ago, I realized that the car seat I have for my young grandson is too small and so I googled some carseats, and went to the Wal-Mart website. The following day I bought one, installed it and now when I take my little grandson out, he'll be more comfortable and safe. Every day since then, on everything I do online I receive information on toddler car seats of every color and design imaginable.

                About five months ago, I was in the throes of writing my fifth book, a second novel. In one of the chapters, there is a wedding scene, and a honeymoon afterward. It's been a while since I've been on a honeymoon, and so I looked up online some of the rooms and what potential packages were available in the specific place that my characters had planned to go.  For five months now I have been deluged with ads for honeymoon packages, not only for the place I researched briefly, but for lots of other places as well. I have also been getting a fair smattering of ads for ethical diamond engagement rings, and even for conflict-free diamonds. Tell me, if your diamond is conflict free, will your marriage be? Is that the unspoken promise here?  I have also been deluged with ads for silicone wedding bands. Silicone wedding bands ? Really?  I am at a loss as to how to tell Google that not only am I not getting married, but no one in my household is either.

                 Recently, because two of my friends have rheumatoid arthritis and I am aware of much better treatment options now, I looked up the current protocols for treatment. I am a registered nurse and a couple of years ago I took a continuing education course on it. It wasn't at all a strange thing for me to be looking up one time only.  Now, I am deluged with coupons and information from drug companies trying to sell me on their drug for rheumatoid arthritis.  I am also receiving offers from major medical centers to be part of a study for experimental treatment.  I am getting so much mail on RA, I am beginning to think they know something I don't.

                I understand that algorithms used by Google, Facebook and other companies help to target the ads and information I receive, but for writers especially, this is excessive.  What happens if I look up thermite and seek a recipe for a book project ?  What happens if I do some research on an AR-15 because my character wants a quality weapon rather than an inferior substitute ?   What happens if I look up gonorrhea ?  Does a public health official arrive with a shot of Rocephin ?

               It might be good business to send information concerning hotel rooms to anyone looking at them, for up to a week.  It might be a good idea to send information on toddler car seats to parents and grandparents for a week after an inquiry has taken place.  There is no way I should be getting some of these ads when the book being researched is now completed, edited, getting its cover, and then is about to be released.  Google and Facebook, fix your algorithm !

Learning As We Grow

      

         If I were to be honest, I would have to admit that there is a lot that we normally don't understand as young people. As our children grow and as we are propelled into knowing of new experiences both as ourselves and vicariously through our children, we get glimpses of some of life's truths and if we are paying attention, we might actually learn from them.

         Some time ago, a couple of my friends married partners that were much younger than they were.  My fundamental belief on this was that many different relationships work for many different people and that as long as the people themselves are happy that it's no one's business but their own.   I held that belief and yet I did not understand.  Wouldn't you wish to have known the same television programs growing up as your mate? Wouldn't you like to know the same songs?  How superficial all of that really is.

          I realized only this week that all of those concerns are superficial things. Sometimes who we love is less about the flesh, and much more about the soul.   I am afraid that some of my friends discovered the concept of loving the soul of another human being long before I understood it.