Lessons on the Tens

I was born on March 27, 1945. This year I will be 72! Following is an essay, in a different form, which was first published in 1995 when I was 50 years old and has been added to a number of times as each new “ten-year insight” arrived.

Every decade I seem to come up with a realization of life ... at least life as it appears and applies to me. While the realization itself may not be a new concept, suddenly it “makes sense” to me in a way that the mere words might not have in the past. 

As one ages, there does seem to be an unspoken age restriction. As I have gotten older, I have had to work harder to stay in the flow of life and of society, so to speak, and to believe that I can accomplish whatever I put my mind to.

Change becomes more difficult because one has more to lose (potentially) and with greater risk. One feels less resilient, less flexible, more attached to routine and habit. I watched this in my parents, thought them the fools, but have gradually seen the same in me, the bigger fool!

I have also calmed down, discovered, and like who I am, have belief systems, have faith in my abilities to deal with the ups and downs of being alive. I have had my failures and poor health. I have had my successes and excellent health. 

I have accomplished a lot, been good to others, and live a good life. I try to always be compassionate, generous, and kind to others. I am grateful to those in my life and to those who have passed through and on, beyond my life.

I have added the 10s, 20s, and 30s in retrospect.  During my 10th (1955) and 20th (1965) year, I was too young to do much introspection. During my 30th (1975,) like most young adults, I did not think much about the future as in my mind I was immortal, never would die, didn’t even need to think about life insurance!

The ’40s (1985) shared its message but I did not write about it until I turned 50, realizing that there would be a continuing, growing chain, if I was fortunate, of awareness and that I should set them down.

The '50s, ’60s, and '70s lessons happened and were essayed in real-time. The "life lessons" just seemed to dictate themselves to me as I wrote.

So read on to discover my "Lessons on the Tens".

1955-Retrospective lesson at 10: I hate! 

I hate school. I hate my classmates. I hate my parents. I hate my life. Men turn me on but I do not understand this (and there are no role models to help.)

1965-Retrospective lesson at 20: Who am I anyway?

When will puberty hit? I am still waiting. Who am I anyway? I do not know what I think, I do not know what I believe, I do not know who I am. I love college but hate studying and tests. I am still attracted to Men, there are very few role models, but I know how to hook up!

1975-Retrospective lesson at 30: I do NOT hate and I am who I am!

Finally graduated from college, love teaching, love my life as an adult. My "growing up late or mid-life crisis early" expressed itself as I quit teaching and ran away to Mexico. I have worked at discovering myself. 

I am comfortable with my sexuality. Understand now that I am a homosexual, better known as “Gay.” I have found Men! I had my first love relationship with a man named Robert, which lasted for 13 years followed by meeting my soul mate and best friend and husband, Gregory, for a relationship that would last for 41 years!

Real-time lesson at 40 in 1985 but not committed to writing until 1995:   Life is linear. Some choices have to be left behind and there is no going back to those intersections. Your entire life is still ahead of you. Use it well!

After a birthday party, my teaching colleagues gave me at lunchtime, I looked more closely than usual at a group photograph of teachers taken many years earlier before I began teaching.

In that photograph there were people I was teaching with now, older than I, who had just begun their career many years ago as a young man or woman, there were pictures of people I used to teach with who now were dead. 

There were some pictures of colleagues who, like me, were forty or forty-something. Of course there were no “twenty-something” new teachers included in these photos because they were still at their studies at university. I realized that as life goes on, one cannot go back. Life is linear and it usually goes forward

1995-Real time lesson at 50:  Life has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Most of your life is still ahead of you. Use it well! 

With this realization came the idea that life had choices left behind. I still was a person with strong ideals. I still had great wishes, hopes, and aspirations. I still believed that I could accomplish anything I put my mind to. But I realized that having come forward (in a linear fashion) I had left behind some choices on the road of life.

I could not “go back” and take those roads anymore. They were too far behind. For example, at 50 I would no longer be able to run away to New York to become a young ingénue actor or dancer (although certainly, I could still be an actor and maybe a dancer.) I would no longer be able to experience my early days in college and make choices regarding my future (although certainly, I could still make many decisions regarding what I wanted to do with my life.) I would no longer be able to share stories with my Gramma Lindenbaum who had died many years before (although certainly I  could still hold her in my heart and talk to her in my memory.)

2005-Real time lesson at 60: In life, there is here and there is the here-after. So live for the here and try not to worry too much about the here-after. A lot of life is still ahead of you. Use it well!

This was a hard decade. My friend Marla was sick and dying of cancer. My father had been ill and died a few weeks before my birthday. I had problems of my own at home including Lymphoma and a year lost to Chemo Therapy. A few years later and we would receive Gregory's diagnosis of Dementia, most likely Alzheimer's Disease.

While I still considered myself young, my body did not always cooperate. Once I could push a table until it moved, now I would push it until my arm or back gave out. While I still considered myself young, I wondered what 70 would feel like, and 80? And those 20 years certainly would feel different than 20 to 40 or even 30 to 50. Death certainly became a bigger player in my life, that of others and the impending one of my own.

Meanwhile, life is good. I consider myself fortunate in my friends, my family, and in Gregory (now 30 years together and counting.) I am fortunate in the choices I have made in the past, will be fortunate in the choices I still have to make in the future.

And now as I approach my 70th birthday on March 27, 2015, here is my Life Lesson on the Tens for turning Seventy! I could be humorous and say the lesson is looking in the mirror and saying, "How in the FUCK did this happen? Who is this old man?” but last night I did get an insight into my lesson for the 70'S.

2015-Real time lesson at 70: If there are things you want to accomplish in life, it is now or never. No more "When I get to it." or "When other things are in place." or "Maybe someday." It is NOW or NEVER! There is still life to be lived ahead of you. Use it well!

I am closer to the hereafter than I am to the here. While the lesson may seem negative, the unstated part of the message is, "Live and love, for today because it is all you really have!” 

Many things have occurred to which I hadn’t given much thought between my 60’s and 70’s. My mother died on my birthday, March 27, 2005, when I was 60. I consider it a blessing that she began her next journey on the day she helped me begin mine! My beloved kitty, Mariah, also died when I was 65 and she joins my other kitties, Broadway and Hoover, and countless dogs in the hereafter. 

Gregory’s descent into dementia slowly took its toll through my 60’s and he died October 4, 2015, when I was 70 plus 7 months, 12 years after his diagnosis with dementia, most likely Alzheimer’s Disease. 

With great love, there is great grief. So it is with my grief at Gregory’s passing and the 12 years grieving the losses we experienced during his 12 years living with dementia. While I miss him so, I have had to question the meaning of life and death, and have been able to create a new physicality with which to relate to Gregory … I came out the other side a better person so aware of the many gifts I have and have been given during my life by the people around me, especially Gregory!

Throughout his decline, we developed new ways of communicating and relating and our love continued to grow even greater and was more pure for being totally unqualified. We both did the best we could, for the most part, did it gracefully, and we were definitely NOT victims of Alzheimer’s but rather heros!

The legacy (Gregory and) I have been able to establish as a way of “giving back” include: Michael’s Museum: A Curious Collection of Tiny Treasures, a permanent exhibit at Chicago Children’s Museum on Navy Pier; the MORE THAN EVER EDUCATION FUND providing educational opportunities and scholarships to greater Chicago area youth confronting homelessness and administered by the primer not-for-profit organization La Casa Norte; “Alzheimer’s: A Love Story,” a documentary following Gregory and me during the last few weeks of his life, done by the son of Gregory’s best college friend, Gabe Schimmel which has gone on to be accepted by over 75 film festivals across the U.S. and around the world, and winner of over 35 audience and jury awards, including two best of show awards from the Cannes Film Festival! 

Yet to come during my 70’s are desires to get my memoirs published: GYROSCOPE: An Alzheimer’s Love Story.

I also hope to  create “Alzheimer’s: The Musical,” (you may laugh at the title. Many have.) This Broadway musical would cover Gregory and my love story, our journey with Alzheimer’s, as well as the milestones in the history of Gay Liberation. 

I have written a dozen manuscripts of children’s picture books which I would love to get published, want to add a number of collections to Michael’s Museum working with Chicago Children’s Museum, would love to study the volumes of Gregory’s fiction writing and get some of that published posthumously, and would love to document his life and work as an architect. I also hope to continue traveling the world, being with family and friends, enjoying my kitties, loving my condo in Evanston, and wondering what else might come up! 

Today is all you really have and I intend to live well until I die!

Destiny

I quote from a recent DailyOM: There are those of us who believe that our lives are predestined and that we should resign ourselves to our lots in life. Yet the truth is that it is up to each one of us to decide what that destiny will be. While each of us is born with a life purpose, it is up to us whether or not we will say yes to fulfilling it. And just like when we choose what to eat, who to keep company with, and whether to turn right or left when we leave our home everyday, choosing to say yes to your destiny is a decision that can only be realized when you take action to make that choice a reality. 

For some reason I wasn't able to read this horoscope and delete it. I got to thinking, "What is my destiny?" I am not sure if I believe in predestination but I guess I do believe, as the quote presents, that we either arrive in this life with a purpose and choose to accept it or as we live our lives, we decide what we want to accomplish in this life, what we want to be remembered for. Some people probably just live their lives and don't think about such things, but I do. Is that at blessing or a curse? I do not know.

On reading the above DailyOM post, my first thought was, "I have already met my destiny." I thought of that in terms of my role with Gregory dealing with Alzheimer's, I thought of the successful Michael's Museum: A Curious Collection of Tiny Treasures at Chicago Children's Museum on Navy Pier. I thought of my two self-published books of poetry. I thought of all the young people I hopefully influenced during my teaching career although one never knows the details of those successes unless you are lucky enough for students to let you know many years later. I have had maybe a dozen positive feedbacks and one negative feedback out of some several thousand students over my career.

Then I got to thinking about the possible future accomplishments like the path the Alzheimer's Documentary may take, having my Alzheimer's manuscript published, the "currently on the shelf" concept for a second museum of small things, my Flea Circus, more traveling when Gregory has left, and who knows what else might come my way.

After thinking about "destiny," both past, present, and possibly future, I have decided that I can more easily select one word that would address my destiny and which defines it. I am a Nurturer. It gives me great joy.

This is what the dictionary says about nurture - noun -

1. the act or process of promoting the development, etc, of a child

2. something that nourishes

3. (Biology) biology the environmental factors that partly determine the structure of an organism

4. to feed or support

5. to educate or help others train themselves. to 

So I am a nurturer by way of being an educator. Hopefully I am a nurturer by sharing my positive outlook on life, my even temperament, my easy smile, my willingness to be open and honest with people, my willingness to take the time to stop and help someone or to listen to them and empathize with their need, to just sit with someone and hold their hand.

I am amazed at what JOY being a nurturer brings, at basically no cost to me in the giving of myself. And it only took seventy (70) years to figure all this out. 

Passages

I walked down the street being intimately and painfully aware of what was going on around me. Tree leaves were dying, pavement wearing out, stop signs rusting. It was all about impermanence.

As quickly as I noticed something changing, it was changed. As soon as I was aware of being in the moment, the moment was passed and I was living in the next moment.

No the next moment, the next moment, oops, there it goes again, a new moment.

Who was I in relation to the tree, the street, the sign? Also impermanent. I am here, I will be gone. But what will I be in-between? I have been marking the decades that seem to fly faster, 40 - 50 - 60 - and now 70.

Each decade I seem to have a realization that I am able to neatly package into a sound bite. 40 - 50 - 60 - and now 70.

At 40 I realized that intersections passed could no longer be taken. Forward, yes. New decisions, yes. But once the many intersections along the path are passed, they cannot be taken because ...

Life is linear.

At 50 the realization was that in life; there is a beginning, a middle, and an end much like a well written story. Hopefully mine will be a well lived life with a beginning, a middle, an end. And now ...

Life is linear with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

At 60 it struck me that there is a "here" and a "here-after." When young one does not think about let alone believe in mortality. When in middle age one still thinks he will live forever. Now I can see that I am here now but ...

Life is linear with a beginning, a middle, and an end and while I am still here, I am closer to the here-after!

Recently impermanence has begun to seep in as a reality, not just a Buddhist concept. At 70, perhaps that is my message for the decade. Nothing lasts, let alone forever. Nothing stays the same. Everything is always moving. Everything is always changing including ...

Life is linear with a beginning, a middle, and an end and while I am still here, I am closer to the here-after and sooner rather than later, I will have been.

Our Kitty is Old Now

(This story is written for a child's point of view.)

Our kitty is old now. Not sure how he got that way but before we knew it, he was old. It is a good thing that you and I are not getting any older! Hoover is 19 years old. For a cat, that is pretty old, although sometimes cats can live to be 25 years old.

One day, many years ago, while out on a walk in the neighborhood, we passed a pet shop where we saw him in the window. We went back to the pet shop two more times and played with him to make sure he was the kitty we wanted. We paid fifty dollars and took our kitty home.

He is a “tabby.” His coat is gray and streaked with dark stripes. His fur is thick, luxurious, and feels like velvet. His tail is ringed with circles of black fur from his hind end to his tail end. His eyes are dark, circled with white and then ringed with a black line. His nose is outlined with white, as is his muzzle. He has a dark “M” on his gray forehead.

They say that cats have three names. The one you give them, the one they pick, and the one you’ll never know.

His face is beautiful. That is one of his names, Sheyna Punim, which means Beautiful Face in Yiddish. Hoover. That is his second name, the one we usually call him. He wasn’t named after the president or after the vacuum cleaner. He was named after the school nurse I worked with. Her name was Kitty Hoover. No fooling! Probably her first name was Kathleen but we all called her Kitty. So now I had a Kitty Hoover of my own! His third name, well…

When Hoover was a little baby, he would sleep at the top of the bed between the two pillows. Sometimes when we would take a nap together, he would put his paw in mine and we would both doze off holding hands.

He could chase his tail for hours, loved running after a ball with a bell in it, and would stalk a toy mouse lurking under the sofa forever.

We had a toy fish that was connected by a string to the end of a fishing pole. Hoover loved to jump up and try to catch the fish. He could jump really high into the air. He was really good at catching the fish.

As he grew older, he decided that he wanted to be an outdoor cat. While he loved being indoors with us, he preferred being outdoors with nature. He slept under the bushes, strolled around the neighborhood, basked in the sun, and chased birds, squirrels, and rabbits.

Sometimes he caught a small animal and ate it for dinner. While that might sound yucky or sad, it is what cats do when allowed. In fact, animals in the wild usually eat smaller animals when they are hungry. That is just the way it is.

During good weather, he would spend all day and all night outside. He would come home when we whistled his special whistle. Sometimes he came home to stay for the night, other times he came home just to eat some of his cat food and then would go out again.

During bad weather, he liked to go outside anyway. He would stay out for a while then come to the door and announce in his loudest meow voice, “Let me in!” And one of us would.

He loved to hang out while you were working in the garden. He would lie in the sun and watch you dig holes, fill the holes with plant food, put the flowers in place. Sometimes he would help you dig!

When you were sitting on a lawn chair eating your lunch or reading a book, he would jump up and sit in your lap to keep you company.

Then one day before we knew it, so it seemed, he was old. Now he spends most of his time sleeping on the towel on the sofa in the living room. He doesn’t run as fast anymore and walks up and down the stairs more slowly. We think his hips hurt him.

He started having eye problems and eventually became blind. This is also known as “visually challenged.” We think he can see shadows and light or dark, but either way, he has trouble seeing. He knew his way around the house before, so he can still get around from memory and by feeling and smelling his way.

His hearing got worse so he can’t hear us whistle his special whistle. When it is time for him to come in, we have to go out to find and bring him into the house. He meows to let us know he wants something but in a much louder voice, because he cannot not hear himself. He is now almost totally deaf. This is also known as “hearing impared.”

Unable to see or hear, he has become an indoor cat. We have decided that it is not a good idea to let him outside anymore. We think he is slowly getting used to the change but he still goes to the door and announces that he wants to go out. He meows really loudly, we are patient, and he eventually gives up.

Sometimes, because he cannot hear or see, he sits in the middle of the room and yowls. We think it is because he is not sure where he is or if anyone else is around. When you go up to pet him he gets startled because you took him by surprise. He doesn’t hear or see you coming.

When you touch him, he jumps but he isn’t nervous for long. He loves when you pet him and when he realizes that is why you are there, he is one happy cat and begins to purr. He lies there while you pet him, and pet him, and pet him. In fact you will get tired out from petting him long before he will ever gives up being petted.

Besides the problems he has, he seems pretty happy. He enjoys eating, sleeping, roaming around the house, and having you pet him.

The interesting thing about animals is that they do not spend most of their life worrying about the future. Hoover never wasted a moment thinking he might become blind or deaf. It just happened slowly over time and he got used to it. He doesn’t sit around the house all day thinking “Poor me, poor me, oh woe is poor me.” He just does the best he can and has adjusted pretty well to his new life.

My guess is that he does not sit around and worry about dying some day. We worry about it a little and will miss him when he is gone but have learned many lessons from him and he will live on in our memory.

We have learned not to worry about those things that your cannot change. We have learned not to feel sorry for ourselves when we are having difficulties in life or problems with health. We have learned that our life can change and we can still enjoy ourselves. Most of all, we have learned that love is the best thing to have and to give and that nothing can take that away. We love our kitty and he loves us.

Written: May 19, 2007

Post Script June 1, 2007 – Hoover passed away peacefully today. Announcements of his death went out to family and friends who responded with an outpouring of sympathy and fond memories. Doctor Fox (yes, a fox takes care of our cats) made a contribution in Hoover’s name to the research department of the University of Illinois Veterinary School. Hoover will be missed.

On the Approach of My Birthday

Every decade I seem to come up with a realization of life ... at least my life. While the realization itself may not be a new concept, suddenly it “makes sense” to me in a way that the mere words might not. 

Even though I am not celebrating the next decade, as I approach my 62nd birthday I want to review these realizations here so I can share them with you and so I will have them in writing for future reference.

When I was 40 I realized that “life is linear.”

After a birthday party my teaching colleagues gave me at lunchtime, I looked more closely than usual at a group photograph of teachers taken many years earlier before I began teaching.

In that photograph there were people I was teaching with now, older than I, who had just begun their career many years ago as a young man or woman, there were pictures of people I used to teach with who were now dead. There were some pictures of colleagues who, like me, were forty or forty something. Of course there were no “twenty something” new teachers included in these photos. I realized that as life goes on, one cannot go back. Life is linear and it usually goes forward

When I was 50 I realized that “life has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”

With this realization came the idea that life had choices left behind. I still was a person with strong ideals. I still had great wishes, hopes, and aspirations. I still believed that I could accomplish anything I put my mind to. But I realized that having come forward (in a linear fashion) I had left behind some choices on the road of life.

I could not “go back” and take those roads any more. They were too far behind. For example, at 50 I would no longer be able to run away to New York to become a young ingénue actor or dancer (although certainly I could still be an actor and maybe a dancer.) I would no longer be able to experience my early days in college and make choices regarding my future (although certainly I could still make many decisons regarding what I wanted to do with my life.) I would no longer be able to share stories with my Gramma Lindenbaum who had died many years before (although certainly I  could still hold her in my heart and talk to her in my memory.)

When I was 60 I realized that “life has a here and a here-after.” 

This was a hard one. Marla was  sick and dying of cancer. My father had been ill and died a few weeks before my birthday. I had problems of my own at home.

While I still considered myself young, my body does not always cooperate. Once I could push a table until it moved, now I would push it until my arm or back gave out. While I still considered myself young, I wondered what 70 would feel like, and 80? And those 20 years certainly would feel different then 20 to 40 or even 30 to 50. Death certainly became a bigger player in my life, that of others and the impending one of my own.

Meanwhile, life is good. I consider myself fortunate in my friends, my family, and in Gregory (now 37 years together and counting.) I am fortunate in the choices I have made in the past, will be fortunate in the choices I still have to make in the future.

In summary: (40’s) I continue my life in a linear usually forward direction, (50’s) I still have the last part of the middle and the long and healthy end to look forward to, and (60’s) while there is a "here" and a "here-after" I am still here.

I AM POSTING THIS SOME FIVE YEARS AFTER IT WAS WRITTEN AS I APPROACH MY 67th BIRTHDAY. IT STILL HOLDS TRUE SO I AM SHARING IT WITH YOU. 

SINCE IT WAS WRITTEN MY MOTHER DIED, OUR PET CAT MARIAH DIED, AND GREGORY CONTINUES TO DECLINE WITH DEMENTIA/ALZHEIMER'S. WE NOW LIVE IN A WONDERFUL CONDO IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN EVANSTON, "MICHAEL'S MUSEUM: A CURIOUS COLLECTION OF TINY TREASURES" OPENED ON MAY 13, 2011 AS A PERMANENT EXHIBT IN THE CHICAGO CHILDREN'S MUSEUM ON NAVY PIER IN CHICAGO. STILL NOT SURE WHAT MY "LESSON AT 70" WILL BE BUT IT MIGHT BE SOMETHING LIKE "I AM STILL HERE."

Our Impact on Others

This post was motivated by my friend Jan's post at this link: Jan's Blog: Nexus

The other day I was driving down Davis Street in Evanston. At approximately the same point in the block but on opposite sides of the street, one man was very slowly pulling into a parking space while another was about to pull out. To complicate matters there was a car that was double parked just a little ahead. I gave what I considered a good natured, gentle beep to warn the pulling out guy not to pull into me. The pulling in guy, whose window happened to be open on the street side, began haranguing me with how impatient I was and that I shouldn't be driving if I was in such a hurry. Obviously he took the "beep" personally even though it wasn't meant for him. I was, as Jan was, amazed at the impact I inadvertently had on him.

Moral: Stay Home ... or ... Expect the Unexpected ... or ... Don't Take Things Personally ... or Be Kind to Others?

Mariah

My kitten is 13 or so years old. I still call her my kitten. She is the happiest creature I know. She purrs so easily and so loud. When she opens her eyes in the morning, she purrs just to be awake. While she waits until you fill her dish with food, she purrs just to know she will eat soon. She rubs up against my leg and purrs. She curls up in bed for a nap and purrs. When she looks up at you she purrs and when you look down at her, she purrs. If you are feeling particularly sad, she seems to know and comes to be with you and she purrs. Sometimes when she purrs, it makes her so happy she purrs more. I use my kitty as an example. I try to live my life so simply and with such patience and compassion. I do not always succeed but at least I try.

Writing Less

I seem to be writing less about general things as I write more about Alzheimer's Disease and Michael's Museum. Both of these are taking a lot of time and effort from me, both a labor of love but also a drain. Carmen, the current opera in which I am appearing at The Lyric Opera of Chicago, makes me sound like a prima donna doesn't it, is also taking time and love but that will end by my birthday on March 27th. This just in time to celebrate not only my 66th birthday (which I think I would prefer to let quietly slip by) but also the first anniversary of my mother's death. And this will take time and effort. I yearn for some empty time away from what I know I would end up carrying with me anyway. No escape. Will need to do some work on this.

Thoughts of Elaine and Buttons

Elaine, my creative accomplished friend. Ears burning? I have been thinking about you with an intense focus as I sit here at the counter that divides the kitchen from the main room of our condo, mending a shirt which has miraculously lost all eight of its buttons at the same time.


I am not complaining. At least I found all the buttons. One hour later, the shirt has all if its white, four holed buttons firmly reattached, at least for the time being. I guess it would have been worse to witness the buttons undo themselves one at a time, over time.


Next to me sits the completed shirt and an open basket with my scant sewing tools: a red tomato of a pin cushion with its green calix and attached red bud that I seem to remember is for sharpening needles, a yellow handled scissors which is probably too large for the job, a zip top bag full of miscellaneous buttons that somehow seem to collect me when I am not looking, and a wooden darning egg.


There is another zip top bag with assorted spools of various colored threads (mostly useless and matching some long forgotten piece of clothing) each end of which is wound and slotted where it belongs. There is a small box of various sized safety pins one of which is HUGE and a souvenir of one of my Lyric Opera costume temporary mends.


There are other assorted items like a tape measure, thimble, crochet needle, wooden box filled with extra needles, pencil, cardboard of straight pins, and a "thing-a-majig" that is used to take out seams and other erroneously left over bits of thread.


As I was sewing on the multitude of buttons I was trying to remember how I learned how these basic techniques of sewing, who taught me the skills? It may have been my mother but I do not remember any tender moments with me sitting by her side as she taught me. In elementary school, seventh or eighth grade I believe, I did take a class which in those days was called Home Economics and probably made an apron or some simple item. 


Gregory's mother, Helen, taught me how to thread a needle by licking it, pinching it between my fingers, and pushing the eye of the needle into the pinch as the thread like magic seemed to know what to do without my help. She also taught me to roll the end of the thread around a spit moistened finger as a way of tying an end knot in the thread.


Gregory taught me how to sew a coat button around a wooden match stick and then to wind the thread around the button a number of times, so there would be enough give in the button to get through the woolen thickness of the coat. 


So Elaine, my dear friend, to you who can run a sewing machine (and several other machines the names of which I am sure I do not know) I say, "Amazing." To you who can buy the right amount of material to make a blouse or a skirt or a jacket and have the blouse, skirt, or jacket actually look like a blouse, skirt, or jacket ... I salute you. 


To someone who can create unique looking items, be they clothes, quilts, or whatever; that have unique buttons in unexpected places and exciting unexpected lines and folds, I say "Hurrah!" To you who attends workshops and seminars to learn more and to share the creativity of other masters, I say, "KUDOS!"


With fond memories of your wonderful, huge sewing studio (organized, waiting to be organized, or just messy) with your private space to contemplate the nature and activity of creativity (I so yearn for a "Room of My Own") I say, "Here's to you!"


As for me, I have to go put some antiseptic on the many holes I have poked in my fingers. Maybe next time I will attempt to hem a cuff!