I have come to realize that writing a weekly column is like priming a pump. Once you get going, the topics you want to write about gush at unstoppable rates.
Take ants for example. On the April 22nd edition of NPR's Science Friday, or Sci Fri as it is affectionately called, one of the topics was ants. Did you know that they make up nearly two-thirds of the world's population of insects. I had no idea.
In the ant kingdom, males are anatomically incompetent, rendering an order completely run by females, who are superior in every sense of the word. Queen Nor of Jordan once said that women hold up half the world. In ant-ville, the females literally control everything.
The other day while I was on my powerwalk, I found a five dollar bill on the ground. A few years ago, I found $20 in a parking lot of a major bookstore. But have you noticed that you rarely find coins anymore?
When was the last time you found pennies, nickles, dimes or quarters on the ground, under the couch cushion or heard people jingling change in their pockets? I think it's a thing of the past in this age of debit and gift cards.
It seems that people don't want to be bothered with it. When I am in the checkout lane, I seem to be the only one who still picks through my wallet for the exact change.
A few weeks ago, I gave away my 38-year-old wedding dress. For years, I thought someone in the family would definitely want it. But I came to realize that it held little meaning to others. Besides, the once white tafeta had turned yellow and the sparkling sequins had become dingy.
I never imagined giving it away to hang alone on some unknown rack in a thrift store. I finally snapped out of that dreamlike state, folded it in half, loaded it into the trunk of my car where I had a half-dozen bags of clothing and then dropped it off at a church collection center.
I am hoping that maybe someone, somewhere can use it, but that's probably not the case either. I feel a tinge of sadness now, but I am glad I finally gave it away.
Last week, I put clear nail polish on my stockings to stop a run. While I tucked the sticky patch down under my foot where no one could see it, I chuckled over how tacky I can be.
Fear comes over me when I see young children walking to school alone early in the morning. Worrying about these youngsters who look to be barely six years old, I say a prayer for their safety.
My passport photo is so bad that I'm convinced I will be unrecognizable to the customs agents when I travel abroad.
I'm really expecting the agent to look at my passport and say, "This can't be you. You look much younger than the person in this photo?" Yes, that's what they will say (wink, wink).
2010 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Damon is a national and state award-winning columnist. Her columns have won first-place in National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women Communications Contests. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took first-place statewide. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at www.my-story-your-story.blogspot.com and find her on Facebook.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Somewhere Over the Rainbow Snowbirds Fly
"I want to write a story about snowbirds," I announced.
"Isn't it the wrong time of year?" my husband replied, bewildered.
"No, it's the perfect time of year. Now is when they are returning," I said.
"Oh, you mean snow geese," he responded, convinced he knew what I meant.
"No, I mean snowbirds - the kind that go south every winter and return north in May," I answered.
"Oh, the human kind," he said, enlightened.
This is a story about snowbirds.
I must admit, I'm a little envious of snowbirds, no, make that very envious.
It really gets me the way they kick up their heels at the first hint of cold air and head south with their fifth wheels in tow.
To me, it's not fair that anyone can go ahead and skip winter and then come back and brag about it in May.
Is it my imagination or do snowbirds pretend that winter really doesn't exist? The closest they get to cold weather is when they have to listen to the rest of us moan and groan about how winter takes us hostage for nearly six months.
I don't know about you, but I think snowbirds have a way of rubbing it in. "Snow. What's that?" one says with a sarcastic glance. "I don't own a winter coat," one brags with a swagger. "Gave them all away since I began wintering on South Padre Island."
In my book, snowbirds have it made. For heaven's sake, they live in summer-like climates year-round, they don't have an arthritic bone in their bodies and they wrap themselves in the security of knowing that they've left behind slipping and sliding, shoveling, scooping and scraping.
Ah, snowbirds...When I observe their perpetual tans and see them head south from Manitoba, Minnesota, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and other places, my heart sends out a perennial appeal, "Take me, take me, I beg of you. Please don't leave me behind to sojourn through another frigid winter." But to no avail, my pleas go unanswered.
Basking in a bubble of mild temperatures through November, December, January, February, March and April, snowbirds don't seem to possess the slightest tinge of guilt over their escape. Is it my imagination or do they look healthier, maybe even younger than the rest of us?
Now, as snowbirds return from a "tough hard winter" in the Sunbelt, they are making me crazy with comments like "Fifty-three degrees? Brrrrr!" [Oh, ple-e-ease.]
2010 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Damon is a national and state award-winning columnist. Her columns have won first-place in National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women Communications Contests. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took first-place statewide. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at www.my-story-your-story.blogspot.com and find her on Facebook.
"Isn't it the wrong time of year?" my husband replied, bewildered.
"No, it's the perfect time of year. Now is when they are returning," I said.
"Oh, you mean snow geese," he responded, convinced he knew what I meant.
"No, I mean snowbirds - the kind that go south every winter and return north in May," I answered.
"Oh, the human kind," he said, enlightened.
This is a story about snowbirds.
I must admit, I'm a little envious of snowbirds, no, make that very envious.
It really gets me the way they kick up their heels at the first hint of cold air and head south with their fifth wheels in tow.
To me, it's not fair that anyone can go ahead and skip winter and then come back and brag about it in May.
Is it my imagination or do snowbirds pretend that winter really doesn't exist? The closest they get to cold weather is when they have to listen to the rest of us moan and groan about how winter takes us hostage for nearly six months.
I don't know about you, but I think snowbirds have a way of rubbing it in. "Snow. What's that?" one says with a sarcastic glance. "I don't own a winter coat," one brags with a swagger. "Gave them all away since I began wintering on South Padre Island."
In my book, snowbirds have it made. For heaven's sake, they live in summer-like climates year-round, they don't have an arthritic bone in their bodies and they wrap themselves in the security of knowing that they've left behind slipping and sliding, shoveling, scooping and scraping.
Ah, snowbirds...When I observe their perpetual tans and see them head south from Manitoba, Minnesota, North Dakota, Saskatchewan and other places, my heart sends out a perennial appeal, "Take me, take me, I beg of you. Please don't leave me behind to sojourn through another frigid winter." But to no avail, my pleas go unanswered.
Basking in a bubble of mild temperatures through November, December, January, February, March and April, snowbirds don't seem to possess the slightest tinge of guilt over their escape. Is it my imagination or do they look healthier, maybe even younger than the rest of us?
Now, as snowbirds return from a "tough hard winter" in the Sunbelt, they are making me crazy with comments like "Fifty-three degrees? Brrrrr!" [Oh, ple-e-ease.]
2010 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Damon is a national and state award-winning columnist. Her columns have won first-place in National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women Communications Contests. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took first-place statewide. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at www.my-story-your-story.blogspot.com and find her on Facebook.
Speechless places of the soul
It’s Mother’s Day 2010 and my husband, Brian, trying to make conversation, asks me, "Do you ever look at our kids in amazement and say, 'Wow, they started inside me'?"
I slowly turn toward him and reply, "Yes, but it’s very hard to put into words. I mean, how can anyone describe the connectedness a mother feels toward her children?" It is impossible.
"As a fertilized egg moves slowly down the uterus, it is already dividing rapidly into many cells."
We carry, feed, clothe, diaper, bathe, nurture, chase, catch, hug, and then at some point we have to let go.
"At this stage, the embryo is called a morula. About one week after fertilization, the morula starts to implant in the endometrium of the uterus..."
I always thought that letting go would be the easiest part of having children. But I was wrong. It’s the hardest by far.
"...establishing an intimate link between the mother and embryo that lasts throughout pregnancy."
It’s one of those things that mothers can only express accurately in the murmurs and moans of the heart. When I think of my children, I get a lump in my throat caused by unintended feelings of remorse over how fast they grew from a tiny twinkle in our eyes to grown adults with lives of their own.
"The membranes joining the embryo to the placenta develop into a cord, the umbilicus, which grows thicker and longer as development proceeds."
Where did the years go? My youngest will be 26 in a couple of months; my oldest is 36. As I look back, I can measure my life by when the children stopped doing things: stopped nursing, stopped wearing diapers, stopped drinking from a bottle, stopped eating baby food, stopped holding my hand to cross the street, stopped calling me "Mommy," stopped coming home before midnight and ultimately stopped living at home.
"The umbilical arteries and vein, within this cord, carry blood from the fetus to the placenta and back."
We mothers become so fluent in the needs of our children that when they finally do leave the nest, we lose our way and continue to cook for the whole brood, grocery shop as if all the kids were still at home. Little League fields, science fairs and school concerts are homing devices to us.
Raising children transforms everything mothers do into a purpose. After children leave home, moms find themselves having to re-purpose everything.
"In the placenta, capillaries of the mother and fetus lie close together and the maternal and fetal bloodstreams exchange substances. Here the fetal blood picks up food and oxygen."
The bonds mothers feel for their children stretch well beyond the physical, leading us down the soundless paths of the heart, to the speechless places of the soul, where only a mother's love can say what we cannot express.
[Source: "Biology A Journey Into Life" Arms & Camp]
2010 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Damon is a national and state award-winning columnist. Her columns have won first-place in National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women Communications Contests. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took first-place statewide. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at www.my-story-your-story.blogspot.com and find her on Facebook.
I slowly turn toward him and reply, "Yes, but it’s very hard to put into words. I mean, how can anyone describe the connectedness a mother feels toward her children?" It is impossible.
"As a fertilized egg moves slowly down the uterus, it is already dividing rapidly into many cells."
We carry, feed, clothe, diaper, bathe, nurture, chase, catch, hug, and then at some point we have to let go.
"At this stage, the embryo is called a morula. About one week after fertilization, the morula starts to implant in the endometrium of the uterus..."
I always thought that letting go would be the easiest part of having children. But I was wrong. It’s the hardest by far.
"...establishing an intimate link between the mother and embryo that lasts throughout pregnancy."
It’s one of those things that mothers can only express accurately in the murmurs and moans of the heart. When I think of my children, I get a lump in my throat caused by unintended feelings of remorse over how fast they grew from a tiny twinkle in our eyes to grown adults with lives of their own.
"The membranes joining the embryo to the placenta develop into a cord, the umbilicus, which grows thicker and longer as development proceeds."
Where did the years go? My youngest will be 26 in a couple of months; my oldest is 36. As I look back, I can measure my life by when the children stopped doing things: stopped nursing, stopped wearing diapers, stopped drinking from a bottle, stopped eating baby food, stopped holding my hand to cross the street, stopped calling me "Mommy," stopped coming home before midnight and ultimately stopped living at home.
"The umbilical arteries and vein, within this cord, carry blood from the fetus to the placenta and back."
We mothers become so fluent in the needs of our children that when they finally do leave the nest, we lose our way and continue to cook for the whole brood, grocery shop as if all the kids were still at home. Little League fields, science fairs and school concerts are homing devices to us.
Raising children transforms everything mothers do into a purpose. After children leave home, moms find themselves having to re-purpose everything.
"In the placenta, capillaries of the mother and fetus lie close together and the maternal and fetal bloodstreams exchange substances. Here the fetal blood picks up food and oxygen."
The bonds mothers feel for their children stretch well beyond the physical, leading us down the soundless paths of the heart, to the speechless places of the soul, where only a mother's love can say what we cannot express.
[Source: "Biology A Journey Into Life" Arms & Camp]
2010 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Damon is a national and state award-winning columnist. Her columns have won first-place in National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women Communications Contests. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took first-place statewide. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at www.my-story-your-story.blogspot.com and find her on Facebook.
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