Autumn Is New This Year

Image via WikipediaFall is my favorite season of the year, and it is becomming my favorite season of life.  It's funny how personal experience changes your perspective.  I always thought that retirement and getting older meant slowing down and entertaining grandchildren, but there is more to it than that.  All these elements I've mentioned may be there, but my life and my needs and my interests don't follow those rules.

Now in the Autumn of my years, I see all the books I wanted to read and all trips I wanted to take still waiting to be experienced.  Well, guess what?  I can do some of those things I didn't have time or money for before.  No, I'll never swim the English Channel or climb Mt. Everest, but I never wanted to anyway.  I wanted to write and walk in the woods. I do those things now.  I wanted to tell my grandchildren about their ancestors and I have.  I still do. 

I have celebrated weddings and births and grieved at deaths and failures, but mostly in my Autumn Years, I am learning there is much to accomplish and I am crowding all the experiences in, and it enriches my days and my life.  I write to people I love.  I walk in the rain, well, not much; but I do stand on the porch and inhale the fragrance.

I find I'm doing things for people--no reason, just 'cause I can.  I take out the neighbor's garbage and do errands for her.  I take a friend to church because she can no longer drive.  I take my daughter to Bible study because I want her to have the joy of learning the deeper things.

There is a negative side to this:  I become impatient with younger people who don't see the benefits of Autumn.  They see it as an end rather than a season of fruit-bearing.  They even cut short the harvest and fail to follow through with planning for the next season.  There is Winter and rest and a new Spring coming.

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Things I Learned from Stories

Image via Wikipedia My mother loved stories, fiction, romance, and adventure.  She read a lot, and she and my father read to each other in the evenings.  Remember, this was a long time ago and there was no TV.  She passed that love of stories on to me.

I learned most of my morals from the heroes and heroines I read about in stories.  I learned about history from stories.  I enjoyed romance and adventure from stories.  And I learned that real life is the best story.  The memories and the way I remember and reclaim them provide endless entertainment.  The older I get the more urgent it is that I understand the things that have happened to me. 

To shape them into fictional stories is fun.  I get to analyze the characters and reshape the events to suit my fancy.  Sometimes I get to put a different end to a story or a different beginning. 

Some of the stories stay in my file cabinet as history.  They become part of the family legacy I enjoy writing or telling, and grandchildren benefit from them, too.  Some of those stories are guesswork--I may put my own interpretation on the reason for a move or why a couple got married.  Sometimes what was happening in politics or medicine or weather is significant.  Was there an epidemic?  Did a new frontier become available for the pioneer?  Was there a drought?

Stories are everywhere.  Some are true and some are fiction, but they all carry an element of experience and mystery.  Try out your stories.  Tell them, and write them, and enjoy them.  Enrich your life with stories from your life.

George Vaillant Corrects My Memories

Image by ~~Tone~~ via Flickr I enjoy remembering my mother and father and the other members of my extended family.  I have stories I want to write about them.  I do have a problem though.  The stories seem to get better as I age.  Reading George Vaillant's book has given me a reason why and alerted me to a truth I didn't want to believe. 

We tend to reinvent out lives and memories to make them easier to accept and live with.  The studies Vaillant based his research on prove that.  The studies that took data at the time of the event may reveal a very painful and deprived childhood, but when the subject is interviewed at 50 or 60, he may tell of a loving and supportive family.  The subject is not lying or even confabulating; he has made the story tolerable.  He may pick details that conform to his view of his life. 

So it is with me.  I remember many events with a sort of a lovely, misty haze and the aroma of spring flowers or autumn leaves burning.  I associate great romance with my parents, partly because of the difference in their ages.  When I was old enough to understand that fifteen years is a considerable time, I thought both of them made a sacrifice for the sake of love.  When she died at 38, I was confronted with the tradgedy. 

Now I have shaped my memories to bless my life in ways I could not have anticipated when they were happening.  My mother was a pretty strict disciplinarian, but I remember her loving me without
cause or excuse.  I was not precocious, smart, or beautiful, but she thought I was.  My father was far more wise and wonderful that I thought at the time.  He was a romantic and clever with words, but I was too dense to know it.  Now I remember.

I don't really care whether my memories are accurate.  I care that they bless me.  I won't analyze them or find fault with them, even though sometimes they aren't pleasant.  Sadness deserves to be rememered to, and hard times, and bitter words, and spankings.  Even with these realities, the misty haze is still hanging in the air and my childhood is still charmed.

Even Ceres Needed Rain

Image by origamidon via Flickr My Latin name is now my official nickname, at least to all my blogging buddies.  I must take this seriously.  Ceres was the goddess of agriculture in Ancient Rome who blessed the grain harvest.  I think perhaps in Rome the grain was harvested in the spring.  Maybe it was planted in the spring. Her day is April 19, but since I am facing autumn, I am using Ceres to symbolize the gathering of crops and my reflections of harvest and all things autumnal.

There are a multitude of holidays to consider and plan for.  Cooler weather is re-energizing me, and all the people around me are engaged in various activities.  I walked to church this morning feeling the cooler breeze and noting the shorter days.  There is so much to enjoy and anticipate in autumn.  But this autumn is different. 

The summer was so hot and dry many trees are dead or in shock.  They have lost their leaves without any autumn splash.  Pastures are empty because farmers could not feed stock and sold them instead.  No rolls of hay grace the meadows because no rain fell.  Creeks and rivers are slow flowing and muddy with dry banks and desolate islands.  Lakes have dried up and fishermen can't get a boat in the water at the dock.

I look for autumn rains.  I pray for autumn rains.  I think of the beauty of Robert Frost's "dark days of autumn rain" with nostalgia.  Even people who do not love a rainy day would welcome one now.  The cold splatter on the pavement, the dreary sky, the hunched and hurrying shoppers are sights I value and yearn to see again.

I miss the rain.  I know I am a nicer person when it rains.  I have confidence it will rain again.  I hope it is soon.

Keres or Ceres?

Do you know why you see Keres on my blog URL?  Well, it's a long story.  About four years ago I began my Latin career with a class at the university, and one of the requirements was that each student had to adopt a Latin name.  I couldn't come up with anything I liked so I just took the first one I could remember-Claudia.  In my fourth semester, I decided to change my name to Keres or Ceres. 

Ceres was the goddess of grain.  I make bread, so I thought this was appropriate.  The professor said that I could spell it either way because in Latin the K and the C are pronounced the same. 

Well... now I find that Keres does indeed refer to mythical beings, but spelled with a K, they are goddesses or spirits or violent death in Greek mythology.  In Latin and spelled with a C, Ceres is the benevolent goddess of harvest.  Since I would like to be associated with benevolent behavior, I have tried to change the names associated with my various blogs.  Please forgive me if I have made a mess of it.

My mother had studied mythology, and she often told me stories that included these myths.  I certainly don't worship at their shrines, but I do believe we must understand the myths and meanings that names and places carry.  Now that I have sorted out some of these meanings, I want to enjoy them.  Ceres with a C, and her name is the basis for cereal--good and wholesome--and we celebrate bread!

Blogging --What Can I Say?

Image via Wikipedia Blogging is just too much fun!  I have a new blog.  Everybody is welcome to come over and check it out.  the title is Keres Tells a Story at www.kerestellsastory.blogspot.com .  This is not actually a new story.  I wrote it some time a ago.  It is a little nostalgic--no drug wars, just one bootlegger.

I hope I can discharge this writing demon by using these blogs.  Writing is like a necessity of life for some of us.  We want to record everything and make it all understandable to other people, to find the germ of an idea in the words or the feelings.  We do it in different and unique ways, but we idenify with each other--we have the antennae out searching for others who have a story or an idea.  Some people are readers who connect with writers, but some are writers who reflect it with another story--like sunlight bouncing off mirrors.

If you read my blogs, you may be assured that I appreciate it.  If you hear my stories I hope they touch you, or thrill you, or sadden you.  I hope you are moved or enlightened or challenged.  And if you, too, are a writer, I hope the feelings, and thoughts, and meanings reflect everywhere.

Creativity for Old Folks

I finished reading The Mature Mind by Gene Cohen, and it offers great encouragment to the maturing individual.  I was very excited that older people have great abilities they have yet to tap.  By older, I mean fifty and above.  At least that's what Cohen meant.  People who are sixty five have reached a new stage in development.  Even at eighty the brain and the thinking ability are still sharp and active. 

One problem with our society seems to be a mistaken view of old age.  In our concern for people who suffer with disease or dementia, we have assumed that all of us are destined for the mental wastebasket.  Get over that idea.  There are many people in your circle of acquaintances that are old but still mentally alert.  They will benefit from activities that are challenging and exciting.

Include your older family members in games, discussions, and activities that give them stimulation.  They will benefit from it and you will learn from them.