Yellow is her favorite color

My ‘almost’ 3 year old granddaughter wouldn’t nap today.  That’s okay. Usually she conks out and sleeps for a couple of hours, but today she just rested, read a block-book a few hundred times and talked to her dolly and herself. I have her one day a week, and that day is as special and as sweet as a bowl of peach swirl in July or cocoa and whipped cream in January.

Because she was awake I brought her downstairs, “to rest” in the hopes that couch and snuggles might do the trick. I closed my eyes, she settled against me, and quietly her little voice began to sing, “We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine...,” over and over like a whispering mantra. So sweet, it was everything I could do to hold back tears.

When Yellow Submarine was released by the Beatles in 1969 I had just returned home from living for a year in South Africa. As a young women (and Beatles fan) back in The States, after experiencing an unforgettable opportunity, it never occurred to me to think forward. At that age we’re so engrossed in the ‘now’ of life that imagining the road ahead beyond the next class, or job, or relationship is simply unthinkable.

So today I thought back to the 1960’s young woman who sang a hardy rendition of Yellow Submarine in the car whenever it came on the radio. Never did I ever imagine that my ‘almost’ three year old granddaughter would love and sing the very same song while snuggling against me, a woman in my 60s years later.

At my age generational things like that are eye opening. Whether it’s spurred by the actual music, or cartoons on TV, realizing the connection that hops a generation I find interesting. I didn’t play Beatles music when my kids were growing up but my daughters loved John, Paul, George and Ringo. My youngest was a real posters-hanging-on-college-room-walls fan. Maybe liking what I liked was a given. But, it was never as heart moving as this little-one whispering a song that years ago played over and over in my head when the idea of being married, having children and grandchildren was as far from thought as being an adult orphan.

I think being a writer of essays, a memoirist and op-ed writer, has something to do with this. We inner-brain writers, we self-examiners, we emotional-unloaders, have to dig deep and splay ourselves in order to be heard and read and understood. Because we search inside our psyches often, Yellow Submarine incidents take on self-historical importance.

I’ve often told my kids to sometimes think forward so that they may understand just how lucky they are to be young. But they don’t. And I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I never did and though it took half a century to realize how lucky I was back then, I get it now. Because while an ‘almost’ three year old leaned against my heart today, I realized that no matter the years which separate us…“We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine...

Yellow is her favorite color

My ‘almost’ 3 year old granddaughter wouldn’t nap today.  That’s okay. Usually she conks out and sleeps for a couple of hours, but today she just rested, read a block-book a few hundred times and talked to her dolly and herself. I have her one day a week, and that day is as special and as sweet as a bowl of peach swirl in July or cocoa and whipped cream in January.

Because she was awake I brought her downstairs, “to rest” in the hopes that couch and snuggles might do the trick. I closed my eyes, she settled against me, and quietly her little voice began to sing, “We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine...,” over and over like a whispering mantra. So sweet, it was everything I could do to hold back tears.

When Yellow Submarine was released by the Beatles in 1969 I had just returned home from living for a year in South Africa. As a young women (and Beatles fan) back in The States, after experiencing an unforgettable opportunity, it never occurred to me to think forward. At that age we’re so engrossed in the ‘now’ of life that imagining the road ahead beyond the next class, or job, or relationship is simply unthinkable.

So today I thought back to the 1960’s young woman who sang a hardy rendition of Yellow Submarine in the car whenever it came on the radio. Never did I ever imagine that my ‘almost’ three year old granddaughter would love and sing the very same song while snuggling against me, a woman in my 60s years later.

At my age generational things like that are eye opening. Whether it’s spurred by the actual music, or cartoons on TV, realizing the connection that hops a generation I find interesting. I didn’t play Beatles music when my kids were growing up but my daughters loved John, Paul, George and Ringo. My youngest was a real posters-hanging-on-college-room-walls fan. Maybe liking what I liked was a given. But, it was never as heart moving as this little-one whispering a song that years ago played over and over in my head when the idea of being married, having children and grandchildren was as far from thought as being an adult orphan.

I think being a writer of essays, a memoirist and op-ed writer, has something to do with this. We inner-brain writers, we self-examiners, we emotional-unloaders, have to dig deep and splay ourselves in order to be heard and read and understood. Because we search inside our psyches often, Yellow Submarine incidents take on self-historical importance.

I’ve often told my kids to sometimes think forward so that they may understand just how lucky they are to be young. But they don’t. And I guess that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I never did and though it took half a century to realize how lucky I was back then, I get it now. Because while an ‘almost’ three year old leaned against my heart today, I realized that no matter the years which separate us…“We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine...

Catch and release

Over the course of my lifetime I have owned three businesses: two retail, one manufacturing. I loved being in the position of where the buck stopped, started, was made and sometimes lost. I loved that I loved to go to work, couldn’t wait, went in early, stayed late and took work home. That my life’s passion of being a success in business ruled every waking moment, and some when not awake, made me feel like the luckiest person in the world. I mean really, who loves to go to work, and delays going home, because work is more satisfying.

Home back then, empty.

I still have that love of work feeling, but it is not related to business ownership or my 9 to 5, which isn’t really a 9 to 5, but an all over the clock schedule of mundane, (unimportant to anyone but stockholders) tasks. My day job requires a physical prowess which is getting harder and harder to provide. I am pushed to the edge each day and just when I can’t take any more, my 8 hours is up and I go home.

 

Home isn’t empty anymore.

Many things wait for me there: among them are two passions, two loves, one obsession. Sorry honey, I do love you but as you already know you’re not my obsession, writing is.

Writing is my plate, my path, my vessel full of that which I cannot live without. It is my feast, my famine, my steady rock, my teetering tower. I am full when I write and I starve. My thirst for just the right word and phrase and paragraph is like my drive to work so long ago, my key in the lock of the door to open, to make, to create, to succeed. I love what I do. I mean really, I love what I do, here, in this place when I write. And to get paid to do this, even the miniscule amount I do, is riches beyond belief.

Yup, over the course of my lifetime I have owned not only three businesses but four, two retail, one manufacturing and one word-mongering.  I love being in the position of where the words start, stop, are made or caught and released. I am in control. (Or does it control me?)

Does word-mongering control you?

Catch and release

Over the course of my lifetime I have owned three businesses: two retail, one manufacturing. I loved being in the position of where the buck stopped, started, was made and sometimes lost. I loved that I loved to go to work, couldn’t wait, went in early, stayed late and took work home. That my life’s passion of being a success in business ruled every waking moment, and some when not awake, made me feel like the luckiest person in the world. I mean really, who loves to go to work, and delays going home, because work is more satisfying.

Home back then, empty.

I still have that love of work feeling, but it is not related to business ownership or my 9 to 5, which isn’t really a 9 to 5, but an all over the clock schedule of mundane, (unimportant to anyone but stockholders) tasks. My day job requires a physical prowess which is getting harder and harder to provide. I am pushed to the edge each day and just when I can’t take any more, my 8 hours is up and I go home.

 

Home isn’t empty anymore.

Many things wait for me there: among them are two passions, two loves, one obsession. Sorry honey, I do love you but as you already know you’re not my obsession, writing is.

Writing is my plate, my path, my vessel full of that which I cannot live without. It is my feast, my famine, my steady rock, my teetering tower. I am full when I write and never so empty. My thirst for just the right word and phrase and paragraph is like my drive to work so long ago, my key in the lock to open, to make, to create, to succeed. I love what I do. I mean really, I love what I do, here, in this place when I write. And to get paid to do this, even the miniscule amount I do, is riches beyond belief.

Yup, over the course of my lifetime I have owned not only three businesses but four, two retail, one manufacturing and one word-mongering.  I love being in the position of where the words start, stop, are made or caught and released. I am in control. (Or does it control me?)

Does word-mongering control you?