Update from my Afghan friend Samira

I have kept in touch with Shakofa (I used the name Samira in my posts for her protection) for four years. I recently asked her to create a summary of what has happened in the last four years. Here is her letter. (The fonts are irregular because of the transfer of her letter from a pdf format)

 Dreams Never Die )inside every challenge, there is an opportunity 

Dear friends,

I am writing this story so you can see what your support became.

On the night of 3 October 2021, after nearly two months of living in hiding, I made the hardest decision of my life: to leave my country. I was a mother of three, standing at the edge of an unknown path, with fear in my heart and responsibility on my shoulders.

On 6 February 2022, I arrived in Italy and was placed in temporary accommodation. Life began again from zero. I started working with the University of Turin. I worked constantly, learning, adapting, surviving, because stopping was never an option. While working in Turin, I witnessed the harsh realities of refugees and migrants. 

That experience led me, in 2023, to establish the Afghan Solidarity Association, so I could support others while rebuilding my own life. At the same time, I continued working in academia and supporting my family. During this period, I also managed to bring my sister out of Afghanistan, and later my mother. Today, they live safely in Germany. These achievements came through exhaustion, paperwork, fear, and endless persistence, but family has always been my first responsibility.

Italy gave me safety, but not enough space to grow. The Italian language limited my academic future, and I refused to let migration become a barrier to my dreams. 

In 2024, I applied for visas to Canada and the United Kingdom. I received both and chose the UK, because from here I could finally see my mother and continue my education.

I spent almost one year in Scotland. After six months, my asylum application was approved. Once again, I applied for a PhD. When I nearly gave up because I could not afford the tuition fees, I spoke honestly to my supervisor. The University of Glasgow later waived my PhD fees, and today I am officially a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow.

I later moved to London, where there are more opportunities for work and stability. We are planning to rent a home in central London in January, finally creating a sense of permanence after years of movement.

I want to be honest: there are days when I am deeply tired. Sometimes I feel I have no strength left. But then I look at my children.

My son was born on 12 August 2021. At just two months old, he began the dangerous migration journey with us. More than once, along the way, he came close to losing his life. Today, when he speaks with his innocent words about his dreams, Yusuf wants to become a police officer. I find my strength again. My seven-year-old daughter says she wants to be the CEO of a company. She grows in front of my eyes every day. Unlike girls in my country, she is not denied education because of her gender. My ten-year-old son dreams of becoming a brain surgeon.Their dreams and their future push me forward when I feel empty. The road I walk is not only
mine it is theirs.

Alongside my family, I carry a larger responsibility. In 2023, I co-founded the Mother International
Institute of Education (MIIED) https://miied.com.au/. Our mission is simple but powerful: to support girls who are deprived of education. Today, we educate more than 300 Afghan girls from grades 7 to 12. Every year, one girl is supported to come to Italy to continue higher education. When I feel exhausted, the big dreams of these girls stop me from giving up. Thousands of girls are losing hope, and I cannot turn away.

Just as I supported my sister and brought my mother to safety, I have also supported many other girls on their educational paths. I know that my academic growth and personal success are not only for me. They are tools, so I can become a bridge for the deprived. Recently, when I saw the girls, whose education was supported with the help of Linda, I felt deep happiness. Even if I cannot always help directly, being a link, a connection, a reason for hope, still matters. But my goal is clear: to grow strong enough academically and financially so that I can support people directly and sustainably.

Over the past four years, I have changed my address around 16 times. Not because I was lost, but because I was moving forward, step by step, toward regaining my independence. There were moments when our bank accounts were frozen, and survival seemed impossible. I will never forget Linda and her friends, who supported us financially during those darkest days. Wherever I am, I carry your kindness with me.

Now, alongside my full-time PhD, I am working toward starting a small family business. My husband does not speak English, but he is strong and hardworking. If we can open a small juice shop, he can work, I can manage, and we can slowly build stability with our own hands.

I wrote this story so you would know this:
You did not help just one person.
You helped a mother, children, students, and the future.
You helped a journey that is still unfolding.
If you wish to follow my life, it is not because it is easy—but because it is real. A life built on effort, responsibility, and hope.

Please keep me in your prayers.

And if you ever come to London, I will welcome you with gratitude and pride.

With deep respect and endless thanks

SHAKOFA,

London, United Kingdom

I wrote several blog posts when I first met Shakofa.

https://bagladyinwaiting.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-bag-lady-has-afghan-friend.html

https://bagladyinwaiting.blogspot.com/2021/11/update-on-my-afghan-friend-samira.html

https://bagladyinwaiting.blogspot.com/2022/01/good-news-from-my-afghan-friend-samira.html

https://bagladyinwaiting.blogspot.com/2022/02/journeys-end-for-my-afghan-friend.html

Christmas 2025

The simplest way for me to get back on track with sometimes blogging is to have this post be our Christmas letter. It feels a little bit like cheating, though.

December 2025

Hello, Family and Friends!

Art and I are in Tucson, our winter residence for the last 13 years. We got here a little early this year – on October 18 – because we’re planning to go on a barge cruise in France in late April and we’d like to get home to Seattle a couple of weeks before we leave. All because we want our cat, Dutchy, to be resettled first. Four years ago we remodeled the daylight basement in our Brier house to create an ADA-compliant apartment. With knees and hips needing special care as we’ve gotten older, we wanted to live on only one level. So our downstairs apartment is just right for us. Upstairs we have a tenant – son James and his dog Augi. When we’re in Tucson, they are in Brier, watching out for the house and yard as they experience the gloomy Washington winter. Once we get home, Dutchy will resume her quasi-friendly relationship with Augi, and James will be there to watch out for her while we’re in France.

So we’ve been in Tucson for just about exactly two months. The days have gotten shorter, of course, but the sun shines nearly every day and we have glorious sunsets. The roads here are quite potholed and the drivers are oblivious to speed limit signs and red lights. But we know how to get to just about anywhere in the city. And we have wonderful friendships here. It feels like home. So does Brier, but mostly because that’s where our family home is and close to many of our kids.

Our activities have slowed down some this year.

Linda is still playing handbells – her 12th year – but the Nurse Practitioner she volunteered with for eight years has retired. The asylum seekers’ shelter where she and Art volunteered for six years has closed. And she no longer plays cards on Fridays because the rest of the card players decided they wanted to play mahjong and she doesn’t! She is now facilitating two support groups for people doing caregiving for partners with mild to moderate memory loss. She’s lucky to be doing this with that same Nurse Practitioner as teacher and expert.

Art is learning how to let go of projects like climbing ladders, cutting down tree branches, sliding under cars and golf cards to fix whatever ails them, hauling uprooted barrel cacti to the trash bin, installing holiday lights on palm trees, and changing out over-the-stove microwaves. He’s decided he’d rather travel than spend time recovering from falls or straining his back. Last summer in Brier, though, he planted and nurtured a splendid garden of fruits and vegetables. At the end of the summer he gave most of the produce away. A garden is his man cave, I think.

Here’s a brief summary of how our eight offspring are doing:

Melissa (and Scott) Flaherty own a dive shop in West Seattle and they’ve built the business into one that takes clients to multiple international dive destinations. Last week they were in the Philippines. Melissa is a manager in some level of hospital pharmacy. (My mother used to say, when people asked what I did, “She works with computers.” That’s how I describe Mel’s work. She’s pretty impressive in my book.)

Jason Myers lives in Lynnwood, Washington, where he continues to grow his business, Jason S. Myers Concrete. He’s a construction contractor specializing in concrete work such as flatwork, driveways, paving, foundations, and other concrete services. Jason’s son Kyle, our grandson, is 25 and works with his dad. His son Kaleb is 16 and in high school. I can’t remember what his current job is, but I know he is saving for a car!

Karl Myers lives in Loveland, Colorado. We haven’t seen him a while but we keep in touch. He has extensive experience as a roustabout working in the oil fields.

Russell Granholm lives in Cottage Grove, Oregon. He’s a charge nurse for the PeaceHealth Cottage Grove Emergency Medical Center. He loves working nights! His twins Ethan and Ky are 25, live in Spokane and work for Amazon.

Laura Myers lives in Pilesgrove, New Jersey. She works as a Senior Reactor Operator at PSEG (Public Service Enterprise Group), the company that operates the Salem and Hope Creek nuclear power plants in New Jersey. She’s responsible for operating and monitoring the nuclear reactor systems to ensure safe, efficient power generation. Her success seems remarkable to me.

James Granholm lives in Brier, Washington. He is our upstairs tenant and concierge for the elderly people who live downstairs. He owns Evan James Remodeling. All of his customers have found him by word of mouth. 

Peter Myers lives in Mill Creek, Washington. He’s a nurse at Pacific Medical Oncology Infusion, which is part of the Pacific Medical Centers healthcare organization.

Greg Myers lives in Georgetown (Seattle) and is a sous-chef at RockCreek Seafood & Spirits in Kirkland, Washington.

It has been nine years since I’ve written a holiday letter. I thought it was behind me, but Art asked this week if would do one. I think his reason for asking is that family members told him he never let them know what was going on. I said I would do it if he would make his famous, fabulous biscotti this year for the first time in several years. I am expecting him to spend the day tomorrow in the grocery store in the kitchen!

We wish you all the best and most loving of holidays.

Linda and Art

 

Falling, Falling

As I've gotten older, one of my goals is not to fall. Most of the time I'm successful because I pay attention to how I'm standing and walking. I fell only once this summer, when I tripped over a curb at Starbucks.

My husband Art has a harder time. When he worked he was a line crew foreman for the electric company, which required lots of physical activity. And he has always been a fixer of things at home. Now he's older (82), and his reflexes are slower, and his balance isn't what it used to be. He's had three falls in the last month.

• About a month ago, we'd gone for a walk using our trekking poles. I took a longer walk than he did. When I got home he was sitting on the deck. He told me he'd fallen on the first of two steps to our deck. I said, "How did that happen?" and he said, "Well, in my right hand I had my trekking poles and a bunch of grapes I picked from the arbor in the garden. In my left hand I had the mail and the newspaper." So he couldn't use the railings. He bumped his head, but it was nothing serious. We talked about the fall, and he agreed to carry a lightweight daypack when going for the mail, plus he agreed to wear a lanyard connected to Bay Alarm, our emergency help company. That has worked so far.

• Three weeks ago - the day before we flew to Tucson to our winter residence - he was working in the yard. He decided to trim some errant blackberry branches on the easement. Our easement is on a 45-degree downhill slope. Art stood at the top of the slope to cut the branches and gravity had its way with him. He tumbled down the slope and was stopped by a piece of wood, which cut his head. He takes blood thinners, so there was a bunch of blood on his face.  Struggling to get himself upright, he rolled onto a wasp nest and was stung multiple times. No damage to his head except the cut. But he itched from those stings for a week - including the next day on the plane.

• Late last Sunday night, Art took the trash bin to the curb. The bin caught on some gravel in the driveway. He pulled hard on the bin and it fell over onto him. He fell into the street, landing on his hip and hitting his head again. He didn't tell me about the incident until the next morning. He was feeling stiff and sore and having a little bit of trouble walking. We agreed to wait until evening to see if he should go to the ER. We went. CT scans on his head and pelvis showed no damage, but his recovery from this fall was slower, and he decided to use a walker.

Four days later Art and I went into town for his annual appointment with his PCP. She looked at his hip and said it was just bruised, but that it could take a few weeks to heal. After the appointment Art said we needed to go to the grocery store. He was pretty insistent, so I went in with him. He leaned against the cart as he walked every aisle of the store. By the next day he could barely move without pain. I did some research and found out he had overdone it too soon after his injury. He is supposed to rest for three to five days. So far, he is doing that. 

We've had a conversation. I know being able to do the manly things is important. I said, "You get to decide what quality of life looks like to you. You can either continue to take risks and fall and have a long recovery time, or you can do things differently and, instead, spend your energy walking to increase your strength and stamina so we can travel. It is up to you."

In the last three days he has let me hire a man to replace the battery in our golf cart, call another man about removing the large barrel cactus that fell in our back yard during the summer, and let a friend move our old recliner into the driveway so the new one could be set up by the delivery people. He also let me water the plants on the deck.

I believe he may be ready to take fewer risks. Time will tell.

A Tale of Dutchy the Diva

Our Dutchy is a Siberian Forest cat, six years old. We bought her when she retired in 2023 as a queen in a cattery in Kingman, Arizona. My husband Art is allergic to cats, and some Siberians - including Dutchy - are hypoallergenic. So I get to have a cat, as I have for the last 50 years, and Art doesn't suffer from runny eyes and sneezing.

A couple of months ago, in late August, we noticed that Dutchy sometimes hesitated when jumping up onto the arm of Art's recliner or onto her own multilevel cat perch. She'd pull herself up onto the recliner and sleep in the second tier of the perch rather than one on top. And one day, I watched as she ran around a corner and noticed that her left hind leg was a little draggy.

We took Dutchy to our vet on September 10 for a physical exam. The vet noticed the gait issue and ordered x-rays, lab work and urinalysis, and provided five syringes of meloxicam, an anti-inflammatory medication. After $900 and a wait of several days, we got the results: everything was normal. The vet suggested we make an appointment with a feline neurologist (!). There was such a place near Brier, the Seattle suburb where we live. The place was also a 24-hour emergency clinic, so we knew it would be expensive. We made an appointment for the following week. As it turned out, the meloxicam worked and Dutchy returned to her higher jumps.

This was just two weeks before we were scheduled to leave for Tucson for our annual six-month winter stay. It occurred to me that if Dutchy needed follow-up care, it might be complicated and inefficient to transfer her records for a Tucson neurologist to pick up her case. So I did some research and found a Tucson vet with an excellent reputation. I made an appointment there and canceled the one in Washington. 

Last week, four days after stopping the meloxicam, we made the 45-minute trek to the other side of Tucson to visit the feline neurologist. Dutchy's medical records had been transferred, so he could see all the results. He did some testing that the Washington vet hadn't done - tested her hind legs, probed and poked. Then he said, "This cat is fine today." He showed us what he saw on the x-rays and said that what he was looking for in part of her spine wasn't present. He told us that if the hesitation started again, to bring her in the same day and he would check her again.

We'd expected a CAT scan or an MRI or maybe even surgery would be necessary.  We were very relieved and gladly paid his $180 bill. We wondered if Dutchy could have early arthritis that showed up in the more humid Washington climate than in the Arizona desert. Or if a flea infestation in August of the cat and the resident dog, Augi, could have been the source of her problem.

Here in Tucson, Art has a recliner with narrow arms. His recliner in Brier has wider arms. That means Dutchy can't sit on the recliner arm here while Art brushes her. It's thrown her off in her routine. So last week we spent an hour in the Ashley furniture showroom, and then in their outlet, looking for a recliner. I told the salesman at the beginning, "We want a rocking recliner, no heater, no massage, no power lift, no cup holder, no USB port. It just has to have wide arms." Art sat in eight chairs and we decided on one that is normally $799 but on sale for $399. A good price! It will be delivered the day after tomorrow.

I know Dutchy - and Art - will be happy to renew the ritual brushing on the wide arms of the new recliner.

What I didn't do this summer

When we got back from Tucson (our winter place) on May 1 of this year, I had two goals in mind. They were at the top of my to-do list. 

First, I planned to study Spanish most days, continuing to learn from the textbook we'd used in the 12-week class I attended each Wednesday from January to March. I wanted to start back at the beginning of the book, review it, do all the exercises and be ready for next year's advanced class. 

And I wanted to practice on my electric keyboard most days. I bought one back in January on New Year's Day in Tucson. I played it sometimes as I figured out how to use my iPad software to start from the beginning of piano lessons, as I had when I was six. But it was high season in Tucson then, and I was too busy. When we got home in May, I bought another keyboard, exactly like the one in Tucson. I promised my husband Art I would play during the summer, since it was one of my two goals.

It's been five months now. I studied Spanish half a dozen times, and played the piano on maybe three occasions.

Because life got in the way. This is what I actually did this summer:

• Spent weeks shopping online for shoes, underwear and a bathing suit, and days driving to UPS to return almost all of it.

• Prepared for a 10-day trip to Spain and Portugal, took the trip, and spent 10 days recovering from the trip.

• Ordered new glasses and went to the optical shop three times to complain that none of my eyeglass frames had the right prescription for my computer glasses. Finally realized I had ordered a different frame, with the right prescription, but I took that pair to Spain and Portugal and lost them somewhere - at the airport in Seattle, Dallas, Madrid, Lisbon, Porto, or Newark. Or maybe in the the seat pocket of one of the planes. Or in a hotel in Madrid or Lisbon. Or on a boat on the Duoro River. The resolution was to replace them exactly as they'd been ordered. The three opticians I'd talked to were so relieved when I confessed my forgetfulness.

• Had a conversation most days with my adult son James who rents our upstairs and watches out for us older people living downstairs. He has a residential remodeling business, and in the evening we talk about his day and mine, and, carefully and compassionately, about our differing political views. I am a bit left and he is somewhat right and we inch over and meet pretty close to the middle on most issues. 

• Went on evening walks with James and his Aussie Augi and, most recently, with our Siberian Forest cat Dutchy! 

• Made and kept medical appointments - nearly a dozen in all, counting eye exams and hearing tests - and was pronounced healthy by the medical people, but - get this - "These things happen as we get older!"

• Tended to my husband Art as he experienced back pain and, after over a week, took him to urgent care where he was diagnosed with double pneumonia. The antibiotics are done but the fatigue lingers, as it typically does.

• Observed Dutchy favoring her left hind leg, took her to the vet to the tune of $1,100 as the examination, x-rays, blood work and urine analysis showed nothing wrong. When we get back to Tucson she has an appointment with a feline neurologist. Fortunately, meloxicam helps, but getting liquid down a cat's throat is a major life challenge. I'm grateful I can afford the vet's bill and that hypoallergenic cats exist so I can have one, because Art is allergic to most felines.

• Continued meeting friends for coffee or lunch - and walking every week with my friend Gail. These women feed my spirit.

• Bought Trustworthy software so I can have all our information in one place for when one or both of us passes. Just about everything is in my head or a safe or a file cabinet or on a spreadsheet. I want to be kind to the offspring who will be responsible for it all after we're gone.

• Appreciated Art's garden, which he planted and tended and watered all summer. It looks like a jungle out there, and we have been the beneficiaries of peas, beans, cauliflower, broccoli, radishes, potatoes, squash, and cucumbers - and one renegade sunflower from a seed that a squirrel dropped into the garden while it was raiding the bird feeder. Plus our usual perennial strawberries, raspberries and grapes.

We leave for Tucson in about three weeks. The rains are beginning here and the temperatures are dropping there, and it's just about the right time.

It's been a good summer. When I get back to Tucson two of my goals are Spanish and the keyboard!

On returning from my latest trip

As usual, I learned a lot:

1. The weather may be reasonable when you check for temperatures in Madrid, Lisbon, and Porto - but inland Portugal, where your riverboat travels, is hotter than you can tolerate with anything approaching good sportsmanship. Bright sun, dry climate, hilly with cobblestones. You sweat all day long, and the cooling device you brought breaks on the second day.

2. You hope you will never see another cathedral or another winery. For a person of faith, a church of any religion is a comfort. For you, not so much. You'd rather be out in the world, doing, than sitting in a church praying (that's a UU speaking)! And if you haven't had a drink for many years, the wineries, even with their interesting origins and modern aesthetics, are a place you have no interest in.

3. If you pay attention to your feet, you won't fall, even on cobblestones or stairways.

4. You get stronger when you walk every day and get on and off tour buses. When you get home, your massage therapist says, "you've got a toned butt!" 

5. Traveling is harder work than it was when you were younger. It takes you over a week to reclaim yourself at home. Not just the jet lag, but the energy required for a day in your life. 

6. When you can't imagine having the stamina or strength to fly to Australia for the two-week cruise there and in New Zealand - which you've booked for three months from now - you tell your husband you don't have it in you. You suspect he doesn't have it in him either, but you don't tell him that. Instead, you cancel the trip on the last day you are eligible for a full refund. You are relieved, but your husband is disappointed.

7. When you go on two river cruises in three years with a friend and without your husband, he is disappointed and a little ticked off. He would like you to find another river cruise for the two of you to go on. But another river cruise doesn't sound appealing when you're still recovering from the last trip. 

8. Being a loyal partner, you find an alternative that meets your husband's needs and yours. You sign up with Road Scholar for a 22-passenger canal barge cruise in France next April. Business class flights. Much more doable than Australia and New Zealand, on an ocean ship with 960 passengers. You hope. 

9. You are continuously grateful that you have the resources and the health to travel in your 70s.

10. Farmers grow sunflowers in Portugal.

The first four days - what I've learned so far

I've done a lot of traveling in the last 20 years, and some things are pretty similar. But now, as I'm the oldest I've ever been as a journeyer, there are some differences.

1. My travel companion Shelley and I decided to use wheelchair assist in the big airports of Seattle, Dallas and Madrid. The Seattle people did a perfect job. In Dallas, there was a gate change we didn't know about, and we waited for 20 minutes for a ride to pick us up. Apparently American Airlines forgot to let us know - as well as the assist program. And in Madrid, the wheelchair people forgot about us completely, so we walked a LONG WAY to customs and baggage. I may write a critical but pleasant letter. 

2. I packed two regular canes and two "seat canes" in case Shelley wanted to use one, or my first one broke. So far, I haven't used the seat cane. I usually need it if I've been standing still for 15 minutes or more, but the only time that happened was at the Prada museum. I didn't use the seat cane, though, because if I'd sat down I wouldn't have been able to see the art over the heads of the people in front of me. 

3. At the museum, our guide Claudia explained a dozen or so paintings to us. I completely understood everything she said. As for the paintings she didn't talk about, I have no idea! That was my experience years ago in Florence as well.

4. The more I walk, the easier it is. Duh. When I get home I'm going to do it every day.

5. My poor-so-far Spanish is adequate, thanks to patient Spaniards. Many people we've met so far speak little English, even in the tourist districts. They seem appreciative of my attempts at their language. I recall my Spanish instructor warning us about how to say I'm hot. "Caliente" means I'm, you know, a hot (sexy) person. "Calor" means I'm hot, as in sweaty. In the hotel elevator yesterday, I used caliente and the woman washing the walls of the elevator corrected me with a smile. I thanked her. I may or may not tell my Spanish instructor about that one!

6. I'm communicating with family and friends at home. There's a nine-hour time difference, so I need to be careful what time I send texts or make a call. I am waking up in Madrid when my husband Art is going to bed in Seattle. Before text and internet we were pretty much out of touch with everyone when we were traveling.

7. Shelley wanted to see a flamenco dance performance. I didn't think I'd be much interested, but she was persistent, so we took a taxi to a venue last night. The performance was quite something. Shelley got some great pictures, and if you can get to my Facebook page you can take a look.

8. The BBC in our hotel room provides much less frantic news than anything we watch at home. 

9. I suspect this will be my last international trip unless I have a travel companion who's willing to have me take their arm very lightly when we're going down stairs without railings. And that, unfortunately, wouldn't be my husband, who is six years older than me and not much stronger or better balanced than I am.

This afternoon we fly from Madrid to Lisbon to join the rest of our Viking tour group.

10. I am, as always, grateful for the opportunity be here. 

Getting ready for my trip to Spain and Portugal

My friend Shelley and I are flying to Madrid in two days to join our Viking cruise adventure. We'll be exploring there for three days, then in Lisbon for two days, before boarding the 89-passenger Viking riverboat in Porto for a week on the Duoro River.

I've taken many trips - about 93 of three days or longer since I retired 15 years ago - but it's been three years since I've been out of the country. In that time I've aged physically - of course - and I need to be more careful about how I get around. I used to take long flights in stride. Now I have a newly complaining knee. I bought two seat canes for the times I'll need to sit while listening to a tour guide or standing in line. I may pack my trekking poles as well. I'll take my regular cane with me onboard.

I've been buying stuff! Pants and shirts and cooling towels and fans and sun hats and really good sandals and supportive shoes and a crossbody bag. Amazon has been my friend, and so has the nearby UPS where I have returned probably 30 of the 50 things I bought and tried on.  

I'm using ChatGPT a lot to help me prepare. I love this new tool, in spite of my suspicions about artificial intelligence overall. I have a thorough packing list specifically for where we'll be traveling, and tomorrow I'll fill the two suitcases. I wish I could take just a few items of clothing and have laundry facilities close at hand, but we're moving around. 

My biggest challenge for this evening is finding our adapter for European electrical outlets. I know we have one, but I'm not exactly sure where it is.

Forty-eight hours from now we'll be a couple of hours from landing in Madrid.

I am really grateful to be going on this trip - that I have a good friend in Shelley, that my husband Art is supportive of my going without him, that I can afford it. 

Mostly, life is good!

Slowing down, maybe?

It's been nearly a year since I last posted. I felt mildly guilty, but not enough to sit down at my laptop.

Our lives have continued in their usual way. Art and I spent November to April in Tucson in our little place at Voyager RV Resort, a retirement community. I played handbells, took two Spanish classes, went to plays and dinners, did my live volunteer things in Tucson and my virtual volunteer ones in Brier.

I have also observed that, in spite of my determination, my mobility and stamina are decreasing, as is the case with many people my age. We don't go to Friday night dances any more. We don't hike. I got on my e-bike once this spring, but it had been so long that I forgot I need to start off from the curb - so I fell off the bike right in front of my house! But I consoled myself by noting that I was still in my right mind - mentally sharp, but not as quick as I used to be.

Then we came home in May. I had two goals for the summer: to continue to study Spanish and to practice the electronic keyboard I bought to bring myself back up to the level of skill on the piano I had when I gave up taking lessons at nine, when I no longer wanted to practice. So far, so good. 

But I'm not sure I'm still in my right mind! I had so many stressors last week - mostly other people not behaving the way I thought they ought to - that I went to a meeting at my church on Friday and left my car running in the parking lot for an hour and 15 minutes. Eye rolls all around, but a little scary for me. I realized I am too busy for my own good now. So, also last week, I dropped two volunteer church activities. And another one this week. 

I also noted that, in the interest of expediency and convenience, I spent a lot of time ordering shoes, underwear and bathing suits online. And a lot of time returning them. I have now realized that to know what size I wear, I need to go try stuff on in a real store. Duh. For example, I found out that I don't wear a size 9 wide shoe. I wear an 8 double wide. When I put on the correct size my feet sighed into them. I now know what size bra I should buy, and next week I'll get the bathing suit taken care of. Facebook and Amazon are convenient, but they are time sinks, plus they encourage a sedentary life, which isn't good for anyone. I need to be walking around in stores.

So I'm cultivating a moderated life. I don't book myself from morning until night. There is no shame in free time to read, or nap, or sit on my deck looking at the garden.

When I retired 15 years ago our financial planner said, "Most people travel for five years, and then they come home." We traveled for 15 years, and we have almost come home. I do have two trips planned for this year - both cruises where I only have to pack and unpack once. But even they look a little intimidating with the amount of walking I'll be doing. I bought a Ta Da cane which converts into a seat for the times the tour guide is talking in front of a cathedral or something.  

Guess I'm slowing down! Still grateful, though.

Fan Mail

I've been subscribing to The Sun for many years. It's an independent, no-advertising magazine with poems, photography, fiction and nonfiction. There's also a section each month called "Readers Write". Each issue has a theme, and readers submit short pieces to be considered for publication.

For the July issue the theme was "taste". I happened to have written something years ago that was worth submitting:

My mother was something of a snob. She'd made good by marrying a career military officer, and from her position of security, she freely cast judgment on others and taught her daughters to do likewise. Anything she didn't care for -- art that differed from what she liked, wardrobe choices she found unattractive, home decor she wouldn't have chosen -- she dismissed as in "bad taste".

She was particularly scornful of plastic flamingos on lawns. All of us pointed and laughed when we saw one. It was almost a game. "Oh, look! Six flamingos over there," someone would say, and heads would swivel to take in this worst of all offenses. 

As an adult I obtained a professional degree and worked for a company that developed software for educational institutions. From time to time I would be sent into the field to train customers to use the software. One day I drove to a school-district office to teach their accounts payable clerk how to use a system called WISE. The computer was slow that day, and the program's logo, a "wise" owl, displayd for an unusually long time as we logged on. To break the silence, I asked the clerk what she thought of the owl. 

"It's all right," she said.

Lowering my voice conspiratorially, I said, "I think it's in bad taste myself. You know: like flamingos on someone's lawn."

"I have flamingos on my lawn," she replied.

I excused myself and slunk to the restroom.

I try to learn from my mistakes. So when I redid my yard several years alger, I put out a pink flamingo in it to remind me of that lesson. I wonder if people laugh at it when they drive by.

My submission was accepted! In the July 2024 issue of The Sun, you can see it, along with a dozen or so others: Linda Myers, Brier, Washington.

Last week I got a letter from an inmate in Joliet, Illinois, praising my little essay and commenting on what he most appreciated about it. I knew that The Sun sometimes sends free copies to prisoners, so I wasn't surprised.

I Googled the prison and found the inmate. His name is Dedric T. Moore. been in prison since 1999 and is scheduled to get out in 2039. He was 19 when he was convicted of murder and other offenses. Now he is 45. He is going to college through the Northwestern Prison Education program. 

My first fan mail.

 

 

 

End of the snowbird season

Two days ago we flew home from Tucson, where we’ve spent the last six months, to Seattle, our home airport. We’ll spend the summer in Brier at our family home. This is a twice-a-year ritual for Art and me and our Siberian forest cat, Dutchy.

I’m looking back at the last weeks of our snowbird season with nostalgic and a bit of sadness. Our life in Tucson is busy with activities and friends, mostly in sunny weather. 

This year I was too busy; I had so much going on that I had to drop two discussion groups. One was current events on Wednesday afternoon; the other was Great Decisions (foreign policy topics) on Thursday afternoon. Both of these groups were interesting, but they cover issues too large for me to make a difference. I read emails from the Washington Post and the New York Times and Atlantic each day, plus CNN and NPR online. So I’m pretty well informed. Sometimes I think of solutions to the big issues of the world, but most of them required egoless leadership, which we don’t have much of these day. 

Instead, I played handbells on Mondays, plus once a month at the “nondenominational” church service. I volunteered at the resort clinic on Tuesdays. This year I took two Spanish classes on Wednesday mornings. I’m a volunteer and a Board member of the Inn of Southern Arizona, which serves asylum seekers coming across the border from Mexico. Many of our guests are from Central and South America, but these days they’re also from Haiti and Senegal, Ukraine and Russia, China and India. For those arrivals we have Google Translate. My goal is to be able to speak Spanish to make a connection with some of our guests. Thursdays were open once I dropped Great Decisions. That was my paperwork day. And Fridays a group of friends went to dinner somewhere in Tucson. We left the resort at 4 and were home by 7. Big night on the town!

Back in the Pacific Northwest, I’m hoping to take it easy. To sleep more, read more, relax more. I’m going to try to limit myself to one out-of-the-house activity each day. And how much time I spend online. I’m hoping the summer will be a respite for me.

I guess that’s up to me, though, isn’t it?

Girls' trip to San Diego

I had some timeshare points needing to be used this year, and The Inn at the Park in San Diego looked like a practical way to spend them. I have three good friends at the Tucson RV park where we spend the winter. Everyone thought four days away sounded like a good idea. I asked at the start of planning who would be willing to share a bed, and who would be okay with a sleeper sofa. Since we're all older, everyone said no to both options! So I reserved a suite for our "together" events and a studio for the extra beds. That worked out very well.

We're all retired. Shelley was a nurse, Pam a marketing professional, JoAnne a small business owner, and me an IT person. We brought our skills of coordination to the planning. All in all, it was easy.

We laughed a lot of the time on the six-hour drive. Almost ran out of gas because we forgot to check the fuel gauge, so we ended up paying $6.97 a gallon in an out-of-the-way place in the middle of the desert. We had three drivers so no one got too tired. 

We found the Inn at the Park with no difficulty. We parked for free in front of the hotel for three days, using Uber to get around the city on our explorations. We got through the timeshare presentation in about 15 minutes. We ate Mexican, Thai and American comfort food, plus the bounty of snacks we'd brought along. 

On our first sightseeing day we took a Hop-on, Hop-off trolley around San Diego. Got off first at Little Italy to enjoy the Wednesday farmers' market there. Thought about getting off at the USS Midway museum along the waterfront, but decided against it because we were getting a little hungry. Crossed the Coronado Bridge.

Got off the trolley at the Coronado Hotel across the long and beautiful Coronado Bridge and had a leisurely lunch.

We walked over two miles for the day. Nice and slow, for the two of us who used canes.

On our second day we explored two museums in Balboa Park. The first was Museum of Us. Pretty interesting place! Here's how the webpage describes it: "Located in Balboa Park, on the unceded ancestral homelands of the Kumeyaay people, the Museum of Us presents exhibitions and programs that address a vast range of histories and cultures, fostering conversation, self-reflection, and interpersonal connections."  

The Mayan exhibit was curated by museum experts and Mayan scholars, with sections on colonialism and its impact on the Mayan culture. The history I learned as a kid has been transformed into the reality of European exploration. That is a good thing.

For over a decade, millions of people from all over the world have been anonymously sharing their secrets with Frank Warren, founder of the community art project, PostSecret. Each postcard submission is a unique work of art handmade by people who needed to share and release their secret into the world. I loved this exhibit.

In a side room, a young girl was writing a secret of her own to contribute to the collection.

A third exhibit was about immigration at the US southern border. A map of Arizona showed where bodies had been recovered, and the toe tags for those bodies hung from the map.

A side museum across the street discussed and displayed stories of cannibalism, which allows observers to consider whether they would be able to participate in such an activity if the circumstances were dire. 

We finished off the day with a Gaslamp District crime walking tour. On this second day of exploration, we walked another two miles. There was a time when it would have seemed like a short distance, but as we get older it's more of an effort, influenced by individual aches and pains.

On our drive home, nearly six hours in intermittent rain, I thought about the value of friendships. Growing up as a military brat, I moved a lot and never had the opportunity to be part of a "group of girls". That's what this trip felt like. We have new things to remember and laugh about. Always a good thing!

A Matter of Perspective

When I was 23, near the beginning of my first marriage, my husband John got inducted into the Army. After boot camp in South Carolina (when I lived in California) and Officer Candidate School in Georgia (where I went with him and lived in a trailer with another couple) he was transferred to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas). We spent three years there - in the high desert, with its arid climate and wind. From time to time we'd make the two-day drive to California, where our families lived. That trip was mostly through desert. I remember being depressed during that time, and I hated the brown vegetation of the desert. It was like death and dying was all around me.

When I was 53, near the beginning of my second marriage, my husband Art and I were taking a road trip from Washington State, where we live, to somewhere across the desert. I don't even remember what our destination was. But I remember commenting, "I hate the desert. Everything is dead."

And Art said, "No, the desert isn't dead. It's just land held in reserve. All it needs is water." By that time, I hadn't been depressed for years. I heard him. And when I looked out the car window I could imagine spring, when the desert sprouts green after the rains. 

And now that I am 75, I spend half the year in the desert, at our little home in Tucson. I notice the many varieties of native plants which have evolved to survive and thrive in places where the rain falls only rarely.

Last week I went with friends to a local art gallery. I had no plans to buy anything, but I found a photograph I could not resist:

It's called "Blue Spigot".We put it up in the living room of our Tucson place. 

My perspective has changed in the last 50 years. Now, I'm grateful for the desert.

The Duty Kid

In my family of origin, the "duty kid" was a person who represented the family at an event. The event was usually hosted by someone in the generation before mine. 

My husband Art and I just returned from the celebration of life of my cousin Bob McNeal. His family lives in San Clemente, California. Bob was the oldest cousin on my mother's side of the family, and I was the second oldest. Now I am the senior member of that generation of McNeal offspring. 

My sister Alyx was pretty close with Bob, as she spent many years as a resident of California, and Bob was the power of attorney and executor of my mother's estate. Alyx and her husband Virgil had planned to meet us for the California weekend, but Virgil was undergoing chemo for stage 2 bladder cancer. Alyx didn't want to create a risk for Virgil's compromised immune system, so she decided not to go. I offered to read any tribute she might write.

I'm not a shy person, but I am quite uncomfortable walking into a room where I only know one or two people. There were over 100 at Bob's celebration of life. Fortunately, the first person I saw was Bob's wife Judy. I asked her if there was anything I could do to help. She said, "I've been walking around with my camera all afternoon but I haven't taken a single picture. Could you do that?" "Sure," I said. So I spent 20 minutes meeting people at every table in the room. It was much easier than random small talk.

Bob McNeal had a younger sister, Patti, who's four months younger than me. So she'll be 75 in January. I haven't seen Patti in 50 years, and I'd heard that she was really looking forward to having a conversation with me. And that did come to pass. She and her daughter Christy wanted to meet up with Art and me for dinner the night before the celebration of Bob's life. We spent 15 minutes on the phone trying to decide where to eat. It was hard because we live in Tucson and they live near Dallas and Patti is a picky eater and we didn't know local restaurants or how to get around in San Clemente. Eventually Patti decided on IHOP! I have never been to IHOP for dinner, but I was game. I had fruit crepes - quite excellent, actually. Patti and Christy and Art and I sat together at the celebration the next day and then went to IHOP again for dinner. 

Most families have an interesting dynamic, especially when there are multiple generations present. Patti told me all about them from her perspective. It seemed important to her to tell me, and I'm a good listener. From time to time Christy modified what Patti said so I understood a little better. What was most interesting to me is that I would never have recognized Patti if I'd seen her on the street, but Christy looked just like her mom. I'm glad she came along!

Bob's oldest son hosted the tribute session. Patti spoke first and then he called on me - probably because we were the same generation as Bob. I read Alyx's tribute and then added a story of my own. Then the grandkids, childhood friends, Navy buddies, FBI associates, and neighbors. It was a fun and heartwarming gathering.

Sitting in the airport this morning waiting for our flight home, I sent copies of the 50 photos I took to Judy. 

I'm very glad to have seen so many of my relatives though, as I said, it's been a lot of years for most of them. I've decided there are advantages to being the duty kid.

Still here and still grateful

Thanksgiving.

Like other blogging friends, I found myself taking a break even though that wasn't my intention. It wasn't that nothing was happening, either. I have been way too busy in my body and in my head. But I am grateful for almost everything.

• We spent our summer in Washington at our family home. My younger son James lives upstairs. He has been our concierge, handyman, trash bin taker-outer, and friend. 

• James has met the woman of his dreams and Ashley has become part of our family. Every time she visited James this summer, she came downstairs to our apartment and gave Art and me a hug. She cooked for us half a dozen times. She has a wonderful laugh, and James laughs with with her, and so do we.

• I decided that, nine years after joining my UU congregation, it was time to start giving back. I have taken on three service activities; I'm now on the finance committee for the church, and I'm the "calendar person" who keeps track of requests for rooms from multiple groups within the congregation, and recently I've become the lead for the web redesign team. Not the tech part, but the coordination. I'm content to be "part of" in this community, so the time I'm spending is more than worthwhile.

• My knee replacement on May 29 was successful. The biggest challenge was not the PT, but the walking in my neighborhood. It's hilly there, and my post-surgical sedentary time meant I was out of aerobic shape. I used to be a big walker and that's still my goal, though most likely on a smaller scale. Now that we're in Arizona where it's much flatter, the walking is easier. I rarely use my cane, and haven't used my trekking poles at all yet this season.  

• When Art and I started volunteering at Inn 2 (a shelter for asylum seekers in Tucson) six years ago, we would usually have 25 guests in three classrooms of a Methodist church. Then we became a nonprofit, The Inn of Southern Arizona. Then I became a board member, and then vice president. At present we have 80 rooms in a hotel with up to 300 guests a night. We have had growing pains! Meeting the needs of staff, volunteers and guests can be time consuming. I'm grateful I have the time and I know how to listen.

• I continue to take online classes a couple of days a week through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (Olli). This activity started during covid, and now that there are in-person classes I can attend, I still prefer the online ones. If I miss one, I can usually watch a recording later. Really glad to have an opportunity to learn new things.

• My goal as been to age with grace. Now that I'm actually getting old - I was 75 in September - I'm not always graceful. I keep expecting my body to return to a place similar to where it was ten years ago. I am beginning to believe that probably won't happen. On this one, I'm grateful I'm still healthy, and usually in my right mind. That may be as good as it gets.

These days I am busier that I'd like to be, but when I consider what I could drop, I'm not ready to let go of any of them yet. Time will tell.

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you've got lots to be grateful for as well.

Curling up like a sow bug

We're leaving for Tucson in a few weeks. The Seattle rains have started, and the Tucson temperatures have dropped below 100 degrees, so it's time.

Last spring I told my Tucson friend JoAnne (actually, she's from St. Louis but she and her husband spend the winter in the same retirement community as we do) that I would take a beginning drawing class this year. JoAnne is a fearless kind of person and she tries all kinds of things, and she said I should try it. I promised her I would.

Ten years ago or so I was in a writers' group here in Seattle. We'd taken a certificate program in nonfiction writing at the University of Washington, and after the program ended we decided to meet up regularly to continue writing together. Mostly it was conversation, with a little bit of writing. I called it the "apologetic writers' group" because we often apologized to each other for not having written anything since our last meeting.

Then we started doing "20 minute writes" during our meetings. We'd pick a topic and then write for 20 minutes, and then read what we'd written to each other.

Here's what I wrote on April 28, 2014:

**********

Well, I don't know about you, but in the family I was raised in we all had our roles. Me and my sister, we was kind of labeled by our folks from a young age. I was the smart one, but they also thought I was lazy and selfish and disagreeable. My sister Moo Moo was the creative one. She was younger than me and my Mama liked her best. It wasn't just me that thought that. Even Mama's friends thought so. They told me that right at Mama's wake. "You sure did get the short end of your Mama's kind thoughts," they said. I knew that already, but Mama was dead by now so it didn't matter so much. Just a little.

Didn't much matter that I toed the straight and narrow most of my life and Moo Moo was a wild and crazy one. I was quieter and just did my life in kind of a rule-following way, not doing chancy kinds of things. Nothing too spectacular about me except I got good grades. That's easy for a smart and quiet person. Moo Moo just barely passed high school, always carrying on.

Anyway, I did the school plays and the singing shows and the choruses, because I loved music and liked the other kids who did those things. But I never took art. That was Moo Moo's area, my Mama said. "You're the smart one and Moo Moo is the artist." And you know, Mama was always right. Everyone thought that, especially her and our Daddy. Daddy told us once, "Your Mama has only been wrong one time, and that was when she thought she was wrong and she was really right." He was kind of smiling when he said it, but it was pretty true.

So I never did learn how to do art, except for paint-by-number sets and coloring books. In the coloring books, sometimes I outlined and sometimes I didn't. I didn't like coloring the big spaces like sky and whole bodies. I liked the littler things like flowers.  And Moo Moo did drawings from chalk and then painted from watercolors in a box. I remember one of her paintings in the hall of Mama's house. Every time I walked down that hall I seen it. You can't put glee clubs on a wall, so I always remembered that Moo Moo was the artist.

Now I'm pretty old, and Mama has been dead for a while, and I want to see if I can do some art. I don't exactly know why. Maybe because I don't want to be scared of it. So I would take a class called "Art for the Terrified."

I have a friend Barbara who is an art teacher. I was down at the community center last week and we got to talking and I admitted that when I just think about drawing or painting a picture I want to curl up in a little ball like a sow bug. Just scares me. I'd be pretty bad. I'm not the artist, you know. And Barbara said she would teach a class at the center next year for people like me who are scared of art. "You know, all art is is a bunch of shapes," she said. "You start with shapes like circles and rectangles and cubes and pretty soon you have done some art." I was just amazed to hear that. I wondered how I got to be so old and not know that. I read a lot and I know a bunch, but not that.

And then I found out that when an artist is working, and they's looking at a model or something, they don't try to make their art look like an exact copy of what they're seeing, like a photograph. They make it like they feel it. I never knowed that. That's a sow bug kind of thing, for sure.

So anyway, I told Barbara if she teaches a class called "Art for the Terrified" I will take the class, at least for the first day. If I find out all the other people in the class aren't as scared as me, I will most likely not go back. I don't want to be the only sow bug in the room.

I told Moo Moo about the class and she thought it would be a fun class. Maybe for her. 

But I got to try it. I never got the chance for Mama to say I was an artist.

**********

It's been over nine years since I wrote this. I'd forgotten about this piece until I started moving all my old writing from my old MacBook Air to my new one. I'm still afraid of taking the class, but I promised JoAnne. These days, though, it's not about wanting my mother to approve of anything. I've succeeded in my life in ways beyond anything she would have imagined. But I am a lifelong learner, and I want to continue to grow.

I will try very hard not to curl up like a sow bug!