Author Archives: alexandradane2014

#crushtour, Begin anew, Choices, Golf Fights Cancer, Kindness, Suzanne Wedel XOXOUT

Cowgirl boots. Attitude. Onwards.

Forget gentile resolutions. This is the day I am kicking stuff to the curb. There’s that word again. Time for my red pointy cowgirl boots and a big attitude.

Going:

People who can’t be fair or open minded about politics or gluten or sexual preferences.  Anger, prejudice, hatred is life-sucking, mean and tiring. If we were all the same life would be a big snore. I love you all. Thank you for loving me.

Sugar: Used to be just salt. Now I am going to scrutinize sugar. Turns out that is a sneaky unhealthy additive, too. Still researching the chocolate.

Bad humor: From me or others. A new barista has ruined my morning ritual with unfriendliness. I am killing her with kindness. We had enough animosity in the elections. Try the opposite effect.

Ignorance:  Fact. The divide will be greater under the next President. My cousin Nicole, on seeing a homeless family this week, asked them what they needed, drove to the store, purchased the items, and returned to place them at their feet. I intend to practice kindness with double intensity, especially to strangers. Do it more. Thank you, Nicole.

Wasted time: My dog is getting old. My 50’s winding down. I want to measure 2017 with all the good times. We have to make that happen for ourselves. I wasted a huge portion of 2016 addicted to the news. And we know how reliable that was — don’t cheat and waste time on people or places that do not make your heart soar.

Cancer. I may need help with this one, it is heavy. My son’s very best BFF is battling Gliobastoma. Ovarian cancer took a friend in March. Let’s #CRUSHTOUR every single day: Help crush cancer with your heart, feet, hands and your wallet. Suzanne Wedel XOXOUT Fund, Golf Fights Cancer, wherever people are putting science and money into understanding how to crush cancer they need you. Please. Your kick will make a difference.

And finally:

Looking down has got to stop. Look up. We are part of a vast, complicated, beautiful world. Be part of it. Look where staying in our own little reality got us in 2016. Open yourself to everything and everyone.

While Olive snoozes off her breakfast and the birds kick  seed into the air I write this short list. Write one of your own now. Let’s make a mountain on the curb. Let’s start something good tonight, like a New Year.

Kick hard today. The very best news about tomorrow, January 1st, 2017, is that the crazy horrible that was 2016 is out with the trash.

I’m taking the best bits forward with some serious attitude.

Adios, 2016.

Let us step outside for a moment
As the sun breaks through clouds
And shines on wet new fallen snow,
And breathe the new air.
So much has died that had to die this year.

2016

May Sarton, New Year Poem, first stanza.

Bainbridge Island, November 2016.

 

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Feminism, Women, writing

Kick Butt.

I remember the day my grandmother taught me how to curtsey. She was somehow in charge of me on bridge day and I was dressed to be shown off, squeezed into an uncomfortable wool jumper, the white blouse underneath bunching up around my middle. I knew I fell short on many levels, but determined, she gave me a quick how-to before her guests arrived. Holding my plump hands in hers she positioned me in front of her and demonstrated: slide one foot behind the other, dip my knees together, look her in the eye.

I remember feeling a little sick to my stomach. At home I ran barefoot in the wheat fields. Why am I learning this I wondered. The year was 1965 and I had personally witnessed my mother throwing away her bra. “You can do EVERYTHING I couldn’t” my mother told me as she dropped it in the bin with a flourish. But I also knew, like my grandmother’s even, back-slanted handwriting, that today’s lesson held the key to being a lady, a term my mother scorned but the little fat girl secretly worshipped. I stood by the front door with my grandmother that day and executed a perfect curtsey to each guest. They cooed in admiration. This felt just fine.

So began my conflicted relationship with being a woman that frankly has not abated fifty-two years later. Does it ever abate with any woman my age? I write my essays on being white, middle aged and full of words. I question retiring from life when the kids leave for theirs. My essays and blog posts are sprinkled on the internet weekly and after publication I am full of heavy dread each time I turn on my laptop. Who will be offended? Can I live what I say and say what I mean?

But then we have the elections of 2016 and I face that I have been coasting along, letting other women do the heavy lifting. How to hone feminism and fifty and language to shape the next generation now keeps me awake at night.

“Look what we did for you!” was my mother’s favorite line when she pushed me to college, graduate school, begged me to get a PHD. This year I assure my oldest daughter as she plans her wedding, “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” and I know my mother would be proud. Then I order my daughter monogrammed stationary. Because, honestly, I am still doing a little curtsey with a pen in my hand, bridging the worlds that raised me.

If I want my daughter to keep the path for equality and feminism open despite the elections of 2016, for her to be the next female president (why not?) or know her, I need to trample the have to’s and remind myself and other women daily that women can do anything. So here goes another blog, and some more words, and the choice of honesty.

You will still be a lady if you kick butt. Even more of one now in 2016. And you need to.

Thanks for cutting the path, Mom. Stomping on it right now for you and all of us.

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Gathering lilacs at Moose Hill. Alexandra Dane, 1965

 

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LGBTQ, New Vocabulary, writing

I do not remember ever before feeling such extreme emotions. When I come in contact with the news, or politics, or domestic issues I fight the impulse to hide — behind the shelter of my white skin and safe homes. From all the anger. From the television.

Two nights ago we found a bird’s nest tucked into our Christmas tree. I thought to myself, this is an auspicious sign for the new year ahead. I need that word in my vocabulary right now. I will definitely use auspicious again. We carefully gathered the loose sticks and rested the small wild bundle on the mantle.

The next morning I woke to read that my niece was “safe in lockdown during violent episode at Ohio State.” I had to turn on CNN for the first time since November 11 and try to understand. My heart broke that day for the victims of the knifing and that lovely ambitious first-year college girl I know who will now have to look over her shoulder.

I read the New York Times daily, hoping they can stay the course of censorship. But at the same time when I read today’s news I now doubt the authenticity, question the thoroughness, wonder about the pressures I cannot see as the articles go to print. My writing groups have heavy, hesitant fingers as we wrestle with the effectiveness, racial tones, language and impact of our words. We are reluctant. We are recalcitrant. We are striving to mitigate anger, make sense and at the same time empathize in order to understand the picture before us.

I find I am becoming silent. Until I came face to face with ignorance. As I walked through my town on the coast of Massachusetts the other day, two acquaintances stopped me and laughed.

“Did you lose a button?” they asked, scrutinizing the safety pin on my jacket. I was actually struck silent. After a few words of greeting, I walked away full of anger. It was then I knew I needed a new vocabulary. And I needed to start using it.

I wear a safety pin to indicate I am a safe person, aware that people are sufficiently unsafe in their sexual preferences and appearance everywhere, even here. The incoming administration has made no secret that they believe all equality mandates should be withdrawn. I am purchasing larger safety pins but am I saying what needs to be said to educate, inform and create a safe place? No. I became angry and judgmental. Who does that remind you of?

In two days my world has swung from auspicious to violent, from recalcitrant to empathy, from speechless to this blog. This is a beginning. These will be the words:

Safe. Understand. Listen. Question. Don’t assume. Facts. Tell me. Next time, I will explain LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,Trans and Queer) to my friends when they laugh at the dime store pin on my chest, not go silent in anger. I will chose actions important to humanity, even if it makes  others uncomfortable.

The bird’s nest rests on my mantle to remind me that all worlds collide. To be a humanitarian —  for all creatures, great and small, of any color, in any place — I cannot hide. I am a white middle-aged woman full of words. I will select the ones that count for others. In my mind there is really no other option.

What words will you use?

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New Vocabulary.

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election

Whew. Caution, controversial content.

So. Whew.

I don’t want to add to the noise this week post-election but responses have been so visceral — I am in Seattle this month, holding sobbing sales girls and defeated baristas who refuse to believe that the sun will rise again. I myself have not read the paper. I am media-ed out if that is a word, after having followed everything, everywhere every waking minute for the last year and a half. I have even written and published desperate, amateur prose poetry at three in the morning.

On November 9th I sent my Aunt an email asking, “How will we survive this?” Her father Thomas Minor Pelly represented the First Congressional District of Washington State as a Republican from 1953-1973. She has met a few Presidents in her time. Good ones and bad ones.

She responded, “My father always said the American people always seem to elect the person needed at the time.”

Well, I didn’t like that answer. Then I thought about that. Maybe we did need to wake up to what the middle of the country really thought. Maybe they thought we needed to wake up on both coasts: finally pay attention to the sheer numbers of dissatisfied people. Hello. Here we are. We are the red squares.

Nothing makes me sit up and fight more than seeing the impending loss of what I hold dear. Did I make assumptions that laws in place would stay that way, that same-sex marriage laws were solid, that women had begun to finally regain control of our bodies, that birth control was our right and that all the gains for the environment could not be reversed?

Yes. Guilty.

Thanks to the Republicans in a matter of days — not my party any longer I am happy to say — an entire generation or two or three have been affected for the rest of their voting lifetime. Did we need to be so challenged by this Republican President? Maybe. From here on in, those same generations will never, ever assume their candidate will win or cast their vote without making sure it counted. They will never be complacent. They will have healthy and realistic skepticism about polls and news reports. They will fight earlier and harder. They will say remember when. They will say go vote it is vitally important.

Afraid has evolved to pissed off for me. I wear a safety pin, my white girl way of communicating I am paying attention and I don’t care who thinks this is weak. There is work to be done; to repair the tears in our country and make safe all those rights I hold dear for myself and others.

“The wound is the place where the light enters,” says Rumi. Very definitely this is the hard way to become aware and active, to see politics for what it can be. But as the cabinet is being chosen this week, we are under siege — our rights to love, breathe clean air, make decisions about our health and remain equal. I have a pocket full of safety pins now. I hand them out to strangers.

See you January 21st. My sign will read, “Too Old For This Shit? Change it.”

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Changes, Choices, Friendship, Women

What We Need We Do Not Know.

 

What we need we do not know but find on the street corners, women in soft t-shirts walking dogs, mothers, the milk, just strangers who pause to savor that day of freedom November 8 the talk of children and leaves not small circles pressed deep with pens and pencils or choices all the ones we have made over and over for everyone but ourselves for today is our day.

What we need we do not know November 9 we push our fingers frantically, beating against our streaming words and screaming soundless fury, scrolling and scrolling and hoping the next line will make us better, so many words to find one answer the rainbow bleeds to white at the unfathomable red fury.

What we need we do not know but find anyways when we push off the noise, once the rain falls relentless and the paper stays unopened we float curled on the couch seek with coffee and friends anchor at our kitchen tables the tired in our bones rising, the tired that comes just before the fight and the starting gun.

What we need we do not know but it’s been buried deep and anyways will take four years to recognize, to age into the imperfect terroir clinging to our tongues staining our breath the taste of loss and resurrection of sweetbitterlove.

What we need we do not know but we discover in a humble safety pin. We push the sharp end through our ragged skins, catch the torn edges, secure the clasp. Begin in pain anyways bleeding and mending,my skin fusing with your skin my children scarring together with your children my vote cast with your vote. Again.

What we need we do not know until we find ourselves at the corner with the women holding each other, laughing at the joy of ourselves.

Alexandra Dane, November 11, 2016

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Vote

Today Is The Day

Be part of history today. Vote. And when you are in line take the time to meet the person  next to you because, like you, tomorrow you will both be going back to work to make this country whole again.

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Community, Friendship

Moving on.

The dog threw up at five this morning. Then again at seven. She won’t have a name until the three loads of laundry are finished. And I swear she can’t reach the Halloween candy.

My Seattle pied-à-terre entrance is in back of a house and up thirty five steps. I have had all of three trick-or-treater’s in the last three years. But for 364 days of the year I store a purple plastic pumpkin, bloody hand decal and illuminated spider web for just this one night.

Why? I continue to claim this is my least favorite holiday. But consider the one or two faces that struggle up the steps clutching wands, gowns, masks, bags of candy, oversized pants, dogs. Then the rifling hands. Then the “Thank you!” and thundering feet descending back down the stairs, dashing off to the next house, fast, as my back yard might be a little bit SCARY.

All Hallow’s Eve is heartwarming. And brings back memories of Disney princesses, Robin Hoods and Ninja Turtles of days gone past, of borrowing bits of costume from across the street, contriving swords out of boxes, spraying glitter on a line-up of star wands, of trailing the neighborhood pack of kids with other parents, keeping a respectable distance sometimes with warming libations tucked in our pockets. It’s good memory of friendship, taking care of one another, of October leaves and the harvest moon.

This afternoon in the pouring rain I will carve a pumpkin, light it with a Glassybaby (of course) and wait. Even for one smiling princess. And remember Robin Hood in his green tights filched from his sister’s dresser. Of Princess Jasmine. And remember community is the backbone of who we are, regardless of political party or race or sexual identification. We are the people who will make tomorrow happen, together, raucously, maybe with a wand, hopefully with a ballot. We will move on and make it work. We always have.

Then Olive and I will turn off all the lights, the universal signal that this eve is over and go to bed at eight due to our early day, full of good thoughts and hopefully a memory of that knock, knock, knock at the door and a chance to meet a new neighbor.

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Olive, Halloween 2015. She wants to be Newt Gingrich this year. I suggested we reuse the same costume.

 

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Hillary Clinton, Not Okay, Vote, Women

Not Okay. Again.

Last week I was making a return at a Nordstrom’s store situated in the northern suburbs of Seattle. All was very quiet on Thursday afternoon at 4:30 PM on the third floor. I was the only customer in sight. My back was to the escalators and while exchanging information with a very young saleswoman I heard it. Right behind me.

“In my day we didn’t stack women’s underwear on tables for everyone to see,” he growled. I could feel him a few feet away. Those little hairs on our neck? They really do prickle when adrenalin flows.

I smiled at the gal, got very still then heard closer behind me,

“Seriously, you bitches need to do something about this.”

I looked her in the eye, did not turn around and said, “Does he come here often?”

She continued to smile and said without missing a beat,

“Oh, thanks goodness, I thought he was with you. No. Never seen him before.”

I laughed too loudly and said “Ah. No.”

And that’s when I felt a very new feeling. I wasn’t scared. I was completely enraged. Expansively enraged.

He moved next to me, fiddled with some pamphlets, commented on our vaginas. I folded my hands around my bag and turned to face him. I was seriously sweating and ready to deck him. This was not ok. Again. The language, the attitude, coming into our space — ladies lingerie for god’s sake. Like a bad movie rerun after all the news, the endless pussy jokes, the locker room talk from Donald Trump. Not. Okay. At. All.

Then he swiveled, circled the sales counter, got very close to another saleswoman and started to talk in a low voice. Not breaking her smile, my saleswoman asked for my signature, then answered a phone call.

“Yes, I did. White male, pony tail, white shirt, back of the lingerie department. Thank you.”

I looked at her in total respect.

“What did you do? I asked, keeping an eye on him.

“No need for phone calls,” she smiled. “We just have to press a button.”

I was flooded for love for this young woman, her professionalism, her smile, her calm. And deeply saddened that standing in our women’s sanctuary we had to protect ourselves. Again.

I looked her in the eye and said,

“You are awesome.”

As I headed to the escalator two men took got off and split to either side of me and headed to the back.

Not ok. Again. But here’s what is happening since Donald Trump opened his mouth: Women are not scared, we are really, really angry. We are people, not objects of filth, voyeurism, sexual predatory behavior and let me emphasize, this behavior is not acceptable anywhere. Not in a bus, not in a house, not in the street, not at my feet.

Know the difference between OKAY and NOT OKAY. Or you might get smacked by a sweating writer with a bag full of books and bras. And I guarantee it will hurt.

pussy

 

 

 

 

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Changes, Mini Cooper, Vote

Pie?

 

Funny how stress works: it wasn’t the Mini dealer that rendered my car unusable after the yearly check up yesterday with massive brake failure last night. Nor the rental car run, torrential rain or chest cold. No — it was the raisin smushed in my slipper sole that finally caused me to lean against the sink and wail this morning.

Is it just me or are we all a little touchy right now?

I feel a collective traumatic response in everimg_0221one — the stores, the street, the coffee shops. Distraction and sharpness. I have begun to turn away from the television, the radio, the newspaper. My faith in people is being tested as we head to the elections. Maybe the mechanic was listening to Fox News when he replaced my brake fluid.

As I sit and wait for the tow truck ordered by the Seattle Mini dealership I am having difficulty focusing on my work. My chair has been empty for a few days now, trying to beckon me back.

How do we get back to some sense of pride in our country and ourselves? I have no sense that whoever ends up less bloodied at the end of the November 8th Presidential elections will make me supremely happy. I just need this to be over. Having been raised in politics you will not see me make predictions, either. So what brings sunlight to this crappy run of media trolling and endless Facebook shots of Trumpkins?

You tell me. But I suspect a walk to the pie guy on Phinney and another espresso, some soothing yoga, a good movie or book reading may be the way. Self-preservation before destruction. Peace instead of danger. I am going to try removing myself from the chaos and not clicking on the updates all day long — limit reading the paper, the online sites, the running horrors under the newscasters. There doesn’t seem to be anything new.  How can any more revelations, debates or exposed tapes change who those candidates are?

You know who you are voting for– just please vote.

In the meantime, I recommend the holiday pumpkin pie with candied walnuts.  Or the bourbon butterscotch if you need more. And a scrubber brush for removing slipper raisins.

Meanwhile, my chair awaits.
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Friendship, Kansas, ovarian cancer, Suzanne Wedel

Lesson From A Friend.

Last weekend I traveled to North Newton, Kansas to attend a memorial service for my friend, Dr Suzanne Wedel, who died seven months ago from ovarian cancer. Her Kansas family and their mennonite kindness was astonishing; everyone hugged me, everyone I met — and there were so many! — was a cousin, schoolmate, teacher, or friend of Suzanne. I ate my weight in family Swiss chocolates, Zwieback rolls slathered in jam and cream cheese, sweet, swirly poppy seed cakes, dense orange and white cheese curds, drank gallons of iced tea. And the endless beauty of Kansas; black birds diving through indigenous grasses, soybean planted as far as my eyes could squint, traces of the ancient indian tribes in art and markers and the clouds.

I had anticipated this rich historic land. I had not anticipated that I would feel her standing next to me. In North Newton, Kansas, I had found the heart of her heart.

I saw her in her father’s smile, her brother’s laugh, her sister’s voice, her mother’s eyes.   I cried and laughed as friends and family reminisced about her antics from four-years old and beyond. They embodied her and she embodied them in every story. I see you, my friend.

I had goosebumps when I walked into her childhood home. After climbing the narrow staircase and ducking my head into her bedroom I swear she tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey, let’s go rake those leaves!”I could hear her scamper out the house full of purpose. We know what she went on to do with that purpose — that little Kansas girl grew up to make a monumental impact on emergency medicine around the world. Just a year ago, she launched a fund to support research for ovarian cancer early detection , initiating steps to prevent ovarian cancer in her daughter, grandchildren and generations of women to come. She was beloved and respected from coast to coast. Her dedication to family, work and friends was tireless.

Suzanne raised the bar on living life from early on but especially during her illness. She demonstrated that every, single second we breathe we need to love and love and love. Each other and ourselves. And her essence, her care, her calm focused center formed right here under the eaves of this solid little white house. I saw her in the big sky, the massive oak trees, the sheltered porch, the family who loved her so. I missed her all over again in North Newton, Kansas. Hard.

When Suzanne was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she called me and said, “You know. I don’t even have to tell you.” And I did know. The thirty-five years between her call and my mother’s same call had not changed the statistics for ovarian cancer survival, or even the drugs all that much. Our friendship was intense, loving and too short.

You know.

Grief is a strange and wondrous emotion that takes possession of us in so many different ways. Do not believe anyone who says there are time limits or any sort of statue of limitations on sadness after the loss of someone or something you hold dear. I will never forget her and know that sharp moments of grief will overwhelm me for years to come — seeing her children grow to adulthood, walk down the aisle, have their own babies, when our friends gather for chili during the holidays, when her teams win, when we sing Christmas carols.

There is a childhood story that circulates about Suzanne. Once when she was very young she announced that she would go to heaven first, then come back down and tell everyone how to get there. As I sat under the sparkling stained glass and soaring wood ceiling of the Bethel College chapel I knew one thing for certain: Every day of her life she had shown us how to get there.

This lesson from my friend will shape me forever.

Now I know where she is, here in the heartland of Kansas, skipping stones and running along the wide, warm sidewalk. And someday I will return to North Newton and tell her what’s happening, pat her favorite tree and thank her for reminding me what I do counts, each and every day.

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Wedel House, North Newton, Kansas.

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