The Portal to Boomeranger World

I'm No Madonna, but I Am An Older Adoptive Mom

What I find fascinating about the original Material Girl is her blunt out there larger than life self. I've been a Madonna fan since she acted in John Sayles movie, "Lianna." Well, she certainly did it again with her role as "Mama Madonna"--hey isn't that a duplicate--mama=madonna?Anyway, now she's been making waves with her efforts to adopt from Malawi. I can't comment on the pros and cons of this effort or whether or not she is a guinea pig for others to emulate, or whether you or I approve her actions or not. But Sister Mama, you are reFIRING! 

Mama Madonna

What I find fascinating is her coming to this difficult wonderful, demanding, enriching role around 50. I was 50 when I adopted. Now my daughter is 13 and  I am 63. There are thousands of us older adoptive moms (and Dads) out there. What being an older parent does for you is age you in particular ways. It is very demanding mentally and physically.

Your aging project/ trajectory is now two-fold while you are thinking ahead to your own reFIREMENT/retirement you are thinking down for the well-being of your child. (Of course all parents of conscience do this, but the contrast is a sharp one when there is such a big numbers difference.) It is a challenge to think down in age. What I mean is that over the course of those 50 years--a half century, you do develop a store house of wisdom (hopefully) and history. You have references and touch points and suddenly many of those have to be rethought in the light of the young life who is growing up in a world 50 years removed from your own!

Few of the children growing up nowadays know that seeds produce food. Or that digital and virtual are only a few years old. They live in an expanded and frightened world. Take for instance, the asbestos issue at my daughter's school. When it was found the whole school was evacuated and closed for two days during cleaning. My brother reminded me that our new state of the art high school in N.C. which opened in the late fifties was proud of the asbestos insulation on all the ducts and pipes delivering  heat to every classroom. So it is likely even probable that most of us boomers have contaminated lungs.

Because our childhood worlds are so different (similar to the distance between my mother and me--she remembering the first telephone, her first airplane [cloth and wood that landed in a cow pasture], her first paved road, her first automobile), I have to come up to speed on a daily basis. I resisted the cell phone for my daughter until I could understand that the virtual community was as important as the face face community and is was/is as REAL to her. And since she is the one who will most probably live to 100 or more, given the increasing numbers of centenarians, she needs to be fluent in her world. I am running to catch up.

So, Sister Mama (Madonna) when you get your complications worked out, get set to enter a new world. Maybe we'll be seeing you soon in a new music Youtube as "Virtual Mama Girl!" And, Madonna, I love it that you are letting your 50 year old neck and hands be natural. That is a good thing.

 

CHINA QUAKE: A Little Humor Amidst Rising Gas Prices, School Asbestos Contamination and Other Yucky News

Well what is the good news today??? China earthquake numbers are rising. That disaster is of extra poignancy to me, because of my scholarly, friend, kin and longtime research interests there. I do have friends, professors,  who live in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. There is no way to check if they are safe.

Sending our hopes for them and the thousands who are suffering or who have lost their lives. If you feel so called, make a donation to the Greater NYC Families with Children from China fund that will go especially for the Children's Homes in Sichuan Province. Donations can be made directly to www.fccny.org or by check to FCC Orphanage Assistance, PO Bos 237065 Ansonia Station, New York, NY 10023. If these homes are undamaged, which is not clear at the moment, there will be more children orphaned by virtue of the quake, in addition to children currently in care.

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After 2 very intense days, building up after months of meetings, emails, calls, and other actions, my daughter's middle school will reopen. It was closed last Friday due to asbestos contamination. It's a long story and one that can't be reiterated here, but I felt in need today of some funnies to lighten the (my!) mood. So below are some links to various funny sites and good news. And you are going to be treated to some family stories.

Log onto Walt Anderson's pokes at us boomers for some good yucks at our expense.

http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/opinion/walthandelsman/blog/2007/11/animation_baby_boomers.html 

See this article in the New york Times that shows that our "senior" moments are really a longer brain processing time, because we have more memory to sort through when searching for a name or word. In other words, this processing is not just looking for a specific word, but is looking for that word in the context of associative memory and making corellations. One scientist concludes that is what we call wisdom. So be happy if you take a bit longer. That just means your brain is stuffed with LOTs of info! And as Martha would say---"That's a Good Thing!"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/health/research/20brai.html?em&ex=1211428800&en=c4ac9065a0b095ec&ei=5087%0A

ig>Or go to Pittisburgh Boomer Ron Chichowicz article about reality shows in which he says the ultimate reality show would be to hang mirrors from the ceiling and watch ourselves!! Now there's a thought http://www.pittsburghboomers.com/July0406humor.htm

Or go to http://boomerbardo.com/ and contemplate whether we will be like Mick J. grooving to Rock and Roll while we are tooling around in our walkers?

Or http://www.c-boom.com/ where you can get funny stuff and other humorous things

Or http://www.humoretc.com/gcontent/geriatric.html for some good laughs and jokes.

OK now for a take on how my family dealt with the tough, sad stuff of life. My mom came from a family of 11 children, 3 child cousins and my aunt's best friend who moved in when she was 12 and left when she got married on the front porch of the house. I thought for years that my mom had 2 sisters. Well anyway..the cousins, three boys came to live there when both their parents died. In addition to the kids (14 in all) there were numerous elders and unmarrieds who lived out their final days with my grandparents. It was a rollicking, noisy, fun household by all accounts.

The two youngest Jack and Don, are the subject of side splitting stories told by my cousin Bob, a GREAT raconteur. I can't do justice to these stories. I hope to record them sometime and post them as Youtubes, but here is the flavor. One story pertains to my mother.

Kate, my mom was fourth from the bottom and the second girl. She was always trying to prove her self and so, being an ambitious dramaturge, set off in her early 20s in the late 1920s on the road, well on the rail, working for the Stewart Theatrical Company. She was the director of a company that traveled all over the south and midwest. They would arrive by rail, she would hold auditions, get the local civic organizations involved, rehearse with the locals (kids and adults in huge choruses) and then the principals would arrive a week or so later having completed the previous engagement in a previous town.

On this occasion, Kate arrived in Chillicothe, MO. where she met my future father, after a grueling several weeks traveling and in very bad weather.

She always arrived in a new town decked out in her best suit, shiny heels, jaunty hat and gloves.  Remember no one had ever seen her before and there she was, as they say a mere slip of a girl, traveling alone with the reputation of the company represented by her in a time, when women traveling alone was suspect at best.

So as she decended from the train, eleganty clad, proud, but warm, kindly greeting the representatives of the major civic organizations who had come to meet her, her heel caught in the bottom step of the train car and down she went. Face down flat out in the mud.

As Mom told it, she lay there, wondering how in the h**l she was going to pull this one out and get up with any shred of dignity and credibility. The civic reps were flummoxed as well and fluttered around her, attempting to help her up from the mud and getting mud on themselves in the process. But she shook them off and  arising by herself (she always used that verb arise), she slushed off some of the mud from her face and said in her best  May West voice, "Well boys, if you were worried that the show would be a flop, don't worry any more, you see I always put on a show that makes a splash!"

So if you've had a bad day and feel that you are in the mud, just think of Kate making a "splash" instead of falling in the mud!

With Retirement Being Postponed by 1/3 Americans and Many Younger Boomers reFIREMENT Is More Important than Ever

reFIREMENT is more important than ever with the current economic downturn, and boomers especially need to begin the process of reFIRING. Lots of people don't know how to begin. What does that entail?

Let me tell you about my friend Ellen, who I have known for about 25 years. Ellen is one of the most heartfull people I have ever known. She is warm, generous, kind, REALLY smart, well-informed. She has been a high level manager in a Fortune 500 company for as long as I have known her. She has traveled the world for her company. She has been married to a great guy for many years. She is in great health--a longtime Pilates practicioner and a gardener. She takes her vitamins and eats really well--lots of veggies, fruits and lean meats and fishes. She has long term social networks--a book club and was in a work support group for many years. She's been a great step-mom. She is a truly beautiful person inside and out.

But something is niggling in her soul. When we talked til 2:30 AM this past weekend, it emerged that she wants to find things that she likes. She wants to explore her own passions but she hasn't known how to start.

I think many people are in that situation. They feel something missing. They feel a dis--ease. They don't feel easy in their beings. And that dis-ease can lead to disease and ill health. Sometimes when that restless feeling comes, people dump their marital partners or get depressed. They feel nervous and afraid. A recent study has shown that some boomers are unhappy and some few are suffering.

This then is the moment to reFIRE! This is the moment to look inward and explore what you like. To look inward and see what is sparking in there.

I told Ellen to do it in easy ways. Don't feel that you have to get special books or set a fixed time for REFLECTION! that makes me nervous with the "job" feeling of that instruction. reFIRING is about collecting thoughts and jotting down random ideas. Make yourself a shopping bag or a folder. Call it "Ideas" or "I Like" or "Secret Dreams." What ever make you feel good as a title.  And then just jot down thoughts on scraps of paper--the edge of a newspaper. A scrap of trash paper in a waste can. A notebook. The edge of a letter. The point is to make it informal and EASY. Do this for some months. Don't look at your random jottings until some date that you have given yourself to collect your thoughts/ideas/wishes/ hopes/bluesky dreams/wild ideas and so forth.

This is the first process of reFIREMENT. You are beginning to listen to your inner heart, your inner voice, your inner creativity. You are beginning to VALIDATE Your own desires and your own self.

In the coming weeks I will be introducing a new feature. I will be reviewing books, movies, opportunities that I think will help and support this reFIREMENT process. And I am working on a book as well. More on that later.

For now--all you boomers who are feeling afraid. It is time to start listening to your inner voice. When you are keyed inward and fully connected to your authentic self, you will feel much more secure. And you will begin to develop your own inner riches. I can't wait to hear all about them.

Read more:

Can U Make a Difference?

Enroute 365: Enter the Dark Woods

CNN: Workers Postpone Retirement

The New Yorker Profiles Phil Schaaf, Master of Jazz Info--Charlie "The Bird" Parker and Other Greats

I remember a limpid spring day in 1966, when I first heard Charlie "The Bird" Parker--in PERSON. Hundreds of us Chapel Hill undergrads and grad students were sitting on the verdant ground of the Old Quad at UNC-CH . The Cherry trees were blooming and we were a bit high on the delights of lilacs, spring grass, young love and the lilting tones of "The Bird."

1966 was also a year bringing amazing political speakers to Chapel Hill. Some were not allowed on campus, but they spoke through megaphones while perched on step ladders planted on the public sidewalk that paralled the campus.

                         

We were stirred to action on many issues. I marched down the middle of Franklin Street (Chapel Hill's main street that paralleled the old campus) for increased civil rights.

Mine was the first university class that had admitted women and minority students to the university as full-time on-campus students since 1789. 

                                  

Now some 40 plus years later it is really hard to grasp the revolutionary nature of that time. It is hard to apprehend just how ordinary it was to go to your local doctor, one of my hometown secondary school friend's dad, and sit in the White Waiting Room. Yes, indeedie it was clearly labeled such. And the other much smaller waiting room was labeled "Colored Waiting Room."

Sometimes I had a fleeting moment of empathy for the administration--thinking surely they regretted their decision to admit us. But then given that Brown vs. The Board of Ed ending segrated schools, had been ruled in the late 50's, it was certainly time for UNC-CH to get with the 20th century!

We also marched and rallied to end the Vietnam War.

We were a noisy and agitating group.

But that afternoon we were peaceful and drowsy with spring and with Charlie Parker's soaring notes.

It was beautiful.....  Our heart's took flight with The Bird's artistry.

Tune into WKCR, Phil Schaap's weekday morning program that honors Charlie Parker and other jazz musicians who have added such sonorous beauty to American life--liftng our hearts and helping us fly with them even when as a nation we have struggled with our rivening social issues.

Thinking about Charlie Parker, Every Day Author, David Remnick, profiles Phil Schaap in "Bird's Flights."

The current issue of the New Yorker (May 19; p. 58) profiles Phil Schaap, who has hosted the jazz program “Bird Flight,” on Columbia University’s radio station, WKCR, every weekday morning for the past twenty-seven years. “There is no person in America more dedicated to any art form than Phil is to jazz,” Stanley Crouch tells Remnick. A “master of history, hierarchies, personalities, anecdote, relics, dates, and events,” Schaap taught himself about jazz by hanging around with many of the great musicians of the twentieth century, and “has provided an invaluable service to a dwindling art form” through his radio show, compilations, and lectures. While his obsessive attention to the minutiae of jazz blurs “the line between exhaustive and exhausting.”

“Phil is a walking history book about jazz,” Frank Foster, a tenor-sax player for the Basie Orchestra, tells Remnick, and Wynton Marsalis calls him “an American classic.” “Sometimes,” Schaap tells Remnick, “I think I know more about what Dizzy Gillespie was thinking in 1945 than I do what I was thinking in 1967 or last week.”

In addition to keeping jazz alive in his radio show, Schaap has provided aging musicians with performance venues and has restored rare recordings, such as Charlie Parker’s “Benedetti recordings,” which, he tells Remnick, “increased the volume of live improvisations of a great artist by a third.” His goal, Remnick writes, is to develop “knowledgeable and passionate listeners.”

Schaap tells Remnick, “I’m not trying to teach you to play the alto sax. No. I’m trying to get you to learn how to listen to Charlie Parker.”

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/19/080519fa_fact_remnick
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/05/19/080519on_onlineonly_remnick

 

Calling All Boomerangers: Come Visit and Tell Your Story of reFirement

I want to hear from you boomerangers--I know there are millions of you out there who are rethinking their lives, reFiring in new and wonderful directions, and letting your light shine. Come visit and tell us your story--how you are redefining yourself, what kind of life you are creating for yourself, what you are doing with your creativity, your love life, your relationships, your new directions, your challenges. When you share we all benefit.