Post-Fun, Revised

I had so much fun in January! I rested up from my trip to Cuba, celebrated the birthdays of two beautiful teenage granddaughters, and joined the Swedish Glee Club (https://swedishgleeclub.org/), which has great singers, beautiful music, and fantastic director. I attended the opera Carmen for the first time and had dinner with friends. Then I also attended the opera Cinderella for the first time and had lunch with friends beforehand.

Then I realized there is a downside to fun, and I’m calling it “post-fun.” After having a fun month in January, life is back to normal and that now seems more boring. I still sing in my church choir and quilt with friends and alone. So I am having plenty of fun in retirement, but the routine aspects of life are not so fun. Cleaning bathrooms and scrubbing floors are not fun. 

Even quilting, reading, and writing can be isolating. Solitude is wonderful, but rarely as fun as almost anything with family or friends. I am grateful for the beautiful memories of January.

It doesn’t take much to meet my needs. In the coming months I have plans to travel, go to concerts, a play, and another opera. They may or may not be fun. But I have goals I wish to achieve before I die. So having too much fun causes a kind of stress. But that’s another story.

The Theme for the Year is Fun

I recently made a trip to Cuba with a family I have grown close to in the U.S. I was treated like a member of the family, and I realized I just don't have enough fun. Now, mind you, fun is relative. Parties can be fun, or not. Relatives can be fun, or not. You get my point? I hope to locate some of the fun in my life that I take for granted and share these with you. You may think they're boring or worse, but I hope to spend more time having fun this year, unless God has other plans. 

First, I must say it is a pleasure for me to dance. As a single living alone, I don't get much chance to do so. The most dancey I have gotten is exercise videos. Still, I danced for hours on New Year's Eve in Cuba and loved every minute of it. My phone thought I had walked for miles.

Grandkids are the most fun family activity I have enjoyed to far. Even teenagers, who can be separating themselves from family know some fun games to play. Have you played Cave Man? It's a riot!

My other fun activities are sewing, reading, waking, writing, and learning about genealogy, so you can see I'm not the wild thing I used to be. What do you do to have fun? Give me some ideas here, people! I'll let you know as I discover the fun I've been missing in life and hope I can laugh through the tough times.

A Writing Room Retreat Fall 2023

I am participating virtually in a writing conference this weekend and it is so encouraging. I have let this blog slide since April. April! I hope to get back on track. When I think about writing, I am overwhelmed with all the things I can write about and stay paralyzed with the inability to choose one and get started. It's a combination of procrastination and perfectionism, (thank you Laura Scala). When I write, I feel better. 

Each speaker has offered ideas I haven't heard before and they all encourage me to write. I have realized that I have a few syndromes that interfere. First, there is the never good enough message I absorbed from my mom, who was very hard on herself. I have never looked at my life as a "hero's journey." I waste my time on my phone and TV, being entertained and distracted from the life that is going on around me. I am terrified of criticism, although I love receiving tips from friends who can suggest ways my writing could be better.

I come from a family of gifted people who expect something to be really good the first time we try it. In addition, we can think of all the other things that might be included. I don't mean to be hard on my family. I am just as guilty as anyone else. 

And then there is Anne Lamott. She has been my favorite author for as long as she has been writing and she uses humor to point out things we might want to know. I got on her mailing list by going to a previous online workshop and I am soooo grateful. I would love to quote her, but you really have to read her work and attend a workshop to get the full picture of how much grace she portrays with her life. Her son Sam has found his way into writing and I have ordered his first book. What a gifted family!

Jacob Nordby spoke on "Your Creative Hero's Journey" and I was too tired to take notes. I went to bed, missing the final event, but I will be able to see it in a few weeks via video.

Tooday, I have heard from Ryan Spear on "Crafting Resilience," Claire Giovino on "The Space Between," Lauren Sapala on "Healing Writing Anxiety," and Laura Mckowen on "Pinning the Butterfly." And that's just until suppertime today. I hope all of you will check out the app "A Writing Room" and it's free.

More tomorrow, if I can make myself sit in a chair long enough.

Economics of Being a Woman

 

April 15, 2023

I decided to post this year on the randomness that goes on in my head. Unfortunately, my head is full of wild and random thoughts and I have trouble focusing. Sounds like an apt description of ADD, although I have only been diagnosed by coworkers.

I have on my desk a book I cannot part with, The Economics of Being a Woman, by Dee Dee Ahern with Betsy Bliss. It’s not because some child of mine has scribbled between the back covers, although that brings back fond memories. It’s because this book opened my eyes to the way women’s role in our society (U.S.) limits our achievement. Most heterogeneous women grow up dreaming of finding that soul mate, marrying, and having a family. At least my generation did, although this changes with every generation, thankfully. In my childhood, women could aspire to three professions: nursing, teaching or secretarial work. I was surprised in 1969 when I married and was told I shouldn’t work at all because it indicated the husband was not a good provider. Luckily, I ignored his wishes and he enjoyed the income. 

From 1956 to 1974, women’s pay went from 63% of men’s pay to 57%. Yeah, I was surprised, too. Even with lots of protesting in the 60s and 70s, women’s share of income went down. Luckily, we weren’t so easily overcome. Women’s rights became an essential part of civil rights. By 1979, our share had gone up to 61.5% of men’s, and by 2021, it rose to 84.3%. The exception was West Virginia, where it was still 36.6%. (1)

What are the reasons women earn less? When I entered the workforce, I had a choice among low-paying professions. There were women chemists, physicians, and plumbers, but they were the exception, rather than the rule. The unions in the 50s made sure men could make enough to support a family, and teacher’s union made sure a job would be there after a child was born. Women’s birth control had undergone a significant change in the 60s with the advent of the birth control pill. Now women could control when and if they had children, but they were still held back by employers that expected them to take time to have a family. Women were also expected to take care of sick family members or elderly ones. They were expected to move if the husband was transferred, and they were entitled to very low retirement benefits because of low earnings during their lifetime. Women who were widowed were just out of luck and often had to move their family into smaller houses or apartments. It is still true that the survivor of a marriage has to choose between the two retirement packages, if there are any. 

The pandemic has showed us that it is still the women who usually have to leave their jobs to care for sick family members, and divorce has certainly shown us it is often the woman who provides for the family. I hope my granddaughters will know equity in the respect (and salaries) paid to women throughout their lives. Maybe pay equity will be up to 90% by the time they are working.

(1) https://www.businessinsider.com/gender-wage-pay-gap-charts-2017-3#major-cities-show-an-even-bigger-discrepancy-3

Gender Wage Pay Gap Charts, accessed 3/29/23.