The Summer of My Contentment

I've spent the majority of my summer this year in my hometown of Pittsburgh. Since the transition of my father in March, 2008, I've been seriously considering moving from my home of 26 years in San Antonio back to my real home – Pittsburgh. Though there are numerous reasons for my desire to move back home, paramount among them is this simple fact: I've never stop missing Pittsburgh. I often tell friends, "I cry when I come home and cry when I leave." The reactions to my decision to move home have been mixed. It seems that a lot of the people who never left Pittsburgh feel that "there's nothing here in Pittsburgh, why would you ever want to come back?" Others ask, "why would you want to come back to the cold winters?" Others who moved away decades ago would never consider returning because "the city isn't what it used to be."

I've been gone from Pittsburgh for 26 years. During that 26 years, I've changed. I've remarried, had another son and divorced. I've had jobs where I had a prestigious title and made very good money. I've gained experience, education and training and have progressed through my career. I've gained much insight on my character and integrity and thankfully, have made progress on this journey called life. Many things have changed in the 26 years I've been gone. I say that to say that many things have changed in 26 years, Pittsburgh among them. When I left Pittsburgh in 1984, bus fare was $1.00. Gas was about that price. Gangs were practically non-existent. Violent crime was not as prevalent. The crack epidemic was just beginning. Housing prices were lower, as were wages. Groceries, of course, were cheaper. Many of the old neighborhoods were dramatically different from what they are today.

Change occurs to us all, both organic and non-organic. It is the way of the world, of humanity. Those who realize they have changed but are disappointed, even disgusted that the city has changed puzzle me. Do they really readily accept the change in themselves but somehow expect Pittsburgh to be stuck in some time warp? Pittsburgh has consistently been rated as one of the top cities in the U.S. in which to live. Pittsburgh has one of the lowest crime rates for cities of comparable size. And, Pittsburgh is one of the few cities which has been able to successfully reinvent itself following the collapse of the U.S. steel industry.

Each year when I come home, I go on a "nostalgia" trip through the neighborhoods of my youth, East Liberty and the far East End. It saddens me that the old neighborhoods have changed. It saddens me that I can't drive through the neighborhood where my grandmother spent the majority of her adult life. It saddens me that Isaly's, Alexander's, Sun Drug Store, Poli's and many other businesses that existed during my youth no longer exist. However, there are new businesses that offer both the same goods and new goods.

Yet, the new Pittsburgh invites and embraces me as did the Pittsburgh of my youth and young adulthood. The people are still some of the friendliest people I've encountered. There still exists a strong sense of community in Pittsburgh. Housing is still affordable. There's no price that can be attached to being in the grocery store and encountering a childhood friend not seen in years, or a friend of my parents, or a classmate from high school. I can still buy a hot sausage at Frankie's Hot Sausage, though it's now on Butler Street. I can still go to Kennywood and ride the Racers and get food from the Potato Patch. I can ask for chipped ham and Jumbo in Giant Eagle and not be given a questioning look. I can go to the Carnegie Library and spend hours, just browsing. I can visit the Aviary and marvel at the beauty of the birds. I can go to the Strip District to buy fresh vegetables, spices and of course, seafood at Robert Wholey's. And, though Three River's Stadium no longer exists, I can still attend a Steeler, a Pirate or a Penguin game. And, what can one say about the new Soutside, a neighborhood where I worked for nearly 10 years!

This summer, I've also been acquainting myself with the new elements and revitalized neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. East Liberty is in the midst of another revitalization and I'm confident this one will succeed. I'm a city girl and have no wish to live in the suburbs. I want to catch a bus downtown. I want to walk to a park. I want to stroll along the streets. I want to ride a bike through a neighborhood. I miss the smell of the old NBC bakery that permeates my childhood memories, but I'm looking forward to the condos being built there and hope to be one of the first residents.

Though I've done most of these things this summer, the most important thing I've been able to do is spend time with family and close friends. There is no substitute for family and close friends. I have friends in Pittsburgh who, though we've not seen each other in years, can pick up right where we left off years ago. I've also spent time just sitting and absorbing the beautiful greenery and nature that is Pittsburgh. I sit in the mornings and listen to the conversations of the birds. In the evenings, I listen to the conversations of the crickets and cicadas. I watch deer cross backyards in the early mornings.

No matter what occurs in the months ahead as I return to San Antonio, I've had this summer of contentment, this summer of peace. For those who've left Pittsburgh and deride it because the neighborhoods as they knew them in their youth no longer exist, I say yes, that is true, but the Pittsburgh of today is a different yet same Pittsburgh. The city has changed but so have you. For those who never left Pittsburgh and feel that there's nothing in Pittsburgh, I remind them of what Dorothy said in The Wizard of Oz, "there's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no ………"

Blessings,

T

When Your Grown “Kids” Don’t Need You Anymore

I admit that for the last few years, I've been going through Empty Nest Syndrome. My chicks have flown the coop and are doing what I raised them to do – stand on their own two feet and go out and be men, forging their own road, following their own journey. For the first time in 28 years, I'm living alone and trying to decide who I will be on the next leg of this journey called life. One of the first things I did was to decide to make a career change and I am happily in the midst of doing that. Yet…….

Being Mom has been a HUGE part of who I've been for the majority of my adult life. While, intellectually, I realize that my sons won't need me in the same way they needed me as they were growing up, I admit that I wasn't quite ready for the lack of being needed, at least needed as much. Neither of my sons are mama's boys, so I didn't expect the phone to be ringing constantly asking for advice nor did I expect daily visits or even phone calls. What is surprising to me is that I don't exactly have a place in their lives as men, or to put it more succinctly, an easily-defined place in their lives as men. Sometimes, it seems that I'm this ghost of a person, waiting in the wings, overseeing things from a distance, ready to advance forward and assist, IF needed or asked. Weekend plans don't seem to factor in Mom. If I suggest an activity that includes me, they already have plans that somehow won't accommodate me. It seems that when I am included in an activity, it's for a short window of time, not the entire day or several hours, because they have other plans that don't include me. On some level I understand this. On another level, this kind of hurts. I remember being in my 20's and 30's and spending time with my parents was not a part of my regular weekend activities. Yet, I also remember many times that my social calendar included activities with my parents.

As I was contemplating writing this blog post, I realized that I owed my mother an apology. In an odd segue, I recalled an incident that occurred earlier this year while I was home visiting my family. Now, I should preface this segment with the fact that though (like everyone) I have my insecurities, my cooking ability is not one of them. I am a very good cook and I absolutely love cooking. One evening, I was pan-frying some fish. My mother (whose age I won't mention here, but suffice it to say is several decades older than I) was seated in the kitchen at the time. As I was frying the fish, she commented, "you know, fish doesn't take a long time to cook. It only takes a few minutes on each side. Most people overcook fish." I admit the comment irritated me and I said, "Mom, I know how to cook fish. I've been cooking fish a long time and in fact, I prepare and eat fish and seafood almost exclusively." (I am pretty much a pescetarian [someone who primarily eats seafood and vegetables.]) My response irritated and somewhat hurt my mother and she said, "T nobody knows everything and everybody can learn something from somebody." At the time, I didn't understand her reaction and in fact, thought she over-reacted. Upon retrospection, I understand that my mother, even acknowledging that I am a long-grown woman, needed to be needed, needed to feel that she could contribute something to her grown daughter. I'm sorry for my reaction, Mom. I didn't understand that at the time. I do now.

Several years ago, when my older son was dating a young woman, he remarked to me that "everyone knows the girlfriend comes first." I wondered at the time who in the world had told him this. Everyone has seen the big-time sports star on the field who says, "Hi, Mom" when the camera is on him. I felt small and unimportant when my son told me this. As he has continued on in his journey of manhood, there have been numerous times when I felt that I was unimportant in his life. Not that I sat on the pity pot feeling sorry for myself all the time, but nobody had prepared me for the way my role as mother would change once my sons became men. Don't get me wrong. I know my sons love me, would defend me to the death and would be devastated should anything happen to me. Yet …..

What is the definition, the role, the place, for a mother of grown "kids?" Yes, I know all the intellectual responses to the question. We reforge our own lives. We reshape our lives so, while remaining available should our children need us, we pursue other interests and use our talents and passions in other areas. We take those spontaneous trips out of town that we couldn't take when our children were little. We take a class. We find a hobby. We make new friends and schedule activities with them. We write blogs. J We fill up our time with other things. Yet ….

I miss being needed the way I once was. I miss the filling of the space I once filled in my children's lives. I miss being a participant in their planned social calendar. I guess I just miss being Mom.

Blessings,

T

Conversations

Today, I sat in a chair in front of my family's home in Pittsburgh and attempted to read a book on my Kindle. It was a beautiful, somewhat overcast, summer day. Though the book was very interesting, I found myself continually being distracted by the conversations around me. Usually, when we think of conversations, we think of the conversations of people – conversations between people around us, conversations in the immediate area, conversations on the television, conversations on the radio or even the conversations in cars that pass by on the road. I'm talking about different kinds of conversations. Because of the absence of people and their conversations, what I heard was the conversations of nature, of God's creations. I heard the conversation of the wind rustling through the many trees. I heard the conversations of different species of birds as they chirped, tweeted and sang back and forth. I heard the conversations of the leaves as they brushed against each other in the trees. I heard the conversations of the insects as they flew around me. I even heard the conversation of the wind as it caused the blades of grass to brush against each other. All of these conversations caused me to stop and give pause. So often we (humans) see ourselves as the largest and perhaps most beautiful and important of God's creations. We get so got up in our own world, our troubles, our challenges, our goals and our plans that we forget all about the other creations of our Creator.

Though the conversations I observed today were in a language different than my own, the conversations were beautiful and awe-inspiring. For a while, these conversations caused me to cease concerning myself with problems that had been occupying my mind. I was reminded of Mathew 10:24-31 in which Jesus says that if God takes care of the sparrow, He will certainly take care of us. As we get caught up in the worries and concerns of our daily lives, we often forget this.

Take time out of your busy day sometime and just sit and listen to the conversations around you and be reminded that we are His creation and He will provide for us just as He does the sparrow.

Blessings,

T

And the greatest of these is Love

It's been a long time since I've regularly written on this blog. A lot of things have transpired in my personal life that had, somehow, stalled my creativity, including writing. I don't usually blog about things of a very personal nature on this blog because of the nature of the Internet itself, and because I am, by nature, an extremely private person – a person who bottles up her true emotions deep inside, hidden from the world including close friends and family. By nature, I am a person who loves people and someone who is always there for others, especially emotionally. Yet, at least as an adult, I have always kept my innermost feelings locked away deep within me, far from the eyes and ears of those who might judge me. A therapist once asked me if I thought I was unworthy of being loved and suggested that though I made myself available to others in their times of need, that somehow, I felt I didn't deserve the same in return. Of course I rebelled at the suggestion. "Of course not," I remember replying, "it's just that everyone has their own problems and issues and I don't want to bother them with mine." I think a part of me knew at the time that it was a copout, another way of bottling up what I truly felt.

A little over two years ago, I lost my father. Dad was 82 and had been in poor health for a few years. Though I had lost other loved ones during my life, Dad was the closest person in my life to pass. To say I grieved him deeply would be an understatement. For the longest time, I couldn't bear to think of him or hear his name mentioned without feeling a pain deep in my gut and tears forming in my eyes. I have always struggled with the concept of death. I was raised in the church which preached about a heaven where "all God's children will dance around in golden shoes." In my young adulthood, I studied with the Jehovah's Witnesses who taught that the soul dies at death and the spirit returns to God and that certain dead will be resurrected after Armageddon. The combination of the two teachings left me really confused about death – and other biblical teachings. Sure, I read a lot of books and the bible, but really, nobody has ever come back and told us what death is truly like. And sure, many people have given me their version of what they "think" happens after death, but again, where's the proof? After I lost my father, I became even more confused. I couldn't believe that the wonderful, baritone-voiced man I had loved all my life simply didn't exist anymore. How could he have simply closed his eyes and POOF, was gone? Forever? Of course, being who I am emotionally, I rallied around my mother, siblings and other family members, supported them and for the most part, locked my feelings away. My father's sister told me that I was questioning my faith in being so uncertain about death and where my father was now. I disagreed with her, telling her that I had a very strong belief in God but that didn't answer the questions I had about death and what happens when someone dies. When I returned home to San Antonio, I pulled out the Ouija Board and attempted to contact my Dad. (I seriously considered not including that information here – fear of being judged, but more on that later in this post.) I communicated with someone who appeared to be my father and the first thing he told me was not to cry; he was fine. I guess this was comforting on some level, but the doubt in me remained. Where is he? What is he? What is that place where he now resides? DOES he still exist somewhere? The intellectual side of me knows that it's the selfish side of humans that still wants our loved one here despite how ill they may have been. Yes, I know that, intellectually, but the emotional side of me still wants my Dad here, here with me, with the family. So, I guess I was, as my aunt said, struggling with my faith – not my faith in God, but my faith that any one interpretation of the bible was correct about death and the hereafter.

That has now changed for me. This week, I had an epiphany. Merriam-Webster™ defines epiphany as: (1) a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; (2) an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking; and (3) an illuminating discovery, realization or disclosure. The definition that applies most to me is the first one: …"sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something." What caused this epiphany for me? Reading The Shack. Reading this book was for me life-changing. As one friend described it, it was "riveting." For me, it filled in many of the gaps I had been missing in my faith. Yes, the book is fiction, but it is a book that explains God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in a way I had never before considered. As I read it, tears continuously flowed. I sobbed. The book moved me so much that at one point, I had to put the book down and go do something else. I couldn't take any more. I don't want to give the storyline away or give any spoilers, but it put our relationship with God in a way that will help me not only to deal with my father's passing, but also will help me to develop my relationship with God in a way He desires. The book is not "preachy" or one that beats you over the head with religion, scripture or holy commandments. It will make you think, consider, cry and probably sob.

My signature line in my e-mail for a while has been "And the greatest of these is love" The Shack really helped me to understand the meaning of those words. If we approach things and people with love, we will not judge, attempt to change others, attempt to make others fit into our ideals or even judge ourselves or fear being judged. At the base of everything, and I mean everything - our relationships, our attitudes, our ethics, our morality – is love. If we strive to approach others from a base of love and live our lives with love, the rest is gravy.

Blessings,

T