What Does Our Flag Mean Today?

Posted on July 2, 2020 by Allison Keeton

I have always loved our U.S. flag,

I have it as a jacket, shoes, scarf, and many shirts.  The colors red, white, and blue have always been special to me.

I’ve made our flag into a cake—with berries or food coloring—and as a sugar cookie with red, white, and blue frosting.

As a child, I cherished an old flag from my grandfather which only had 48 stars.

My dad was a World War II vet. We’d put the flag out in front of our house on Memorial Day, the 4th of July, and whenever he felt we needed to band together as a nation. He taught me the flag should never touch the ground or be left out overnight.

Now a flag adorns his grave.

At the young age of seven, I knew I was lucky to be born in the U.S. Perhaps I saw how hard it was to live elsewhere on the CBS newsreels that ran in between my Saturday morning cartoons. I’m not sure exactly how I knew I was lucky, but I definitely knew.  I still know it.

I grew up in an era when women were expected to be a nurse, a secretary, or a teacher. I became something else. Not that I don’t honor nurses, secretaries, and teachers. My passions were simply elsewhere, and my interests continue to change and expand. I’ve always believed the world is my oyster. It’s what I make of it.

I didn’t grow up in suburbia. We didn’t have the American Dream of a swimming pool or a garage or a trip to Disney. We had one car, one phone, and one bathroom. We gave away our female cat because we couldn’t afford to spay her, but I had every book I ever wanted. My parents prioritized their limited funds. They sacrificed for me.  I hope I have lived up to what they dreamed I would be.

My love of reading continues today. Lately, I’ve read about fears and disappointments but also about hope. My heart breaks for everyone in pain. Everyone.

I hear the words, “Why can’t we all get along?”

I think of my father in World War II, giving up many years in the prime of his life, not knowing if he’d return alive to my mother. I think of my mother who often didn’t know where in the world my father was, if he was even safe. They sacrificed for all of us to have the America we have today. For all of its ills and hiccups, it’s still a gosh darn good place to live if we support each other, and listen, and seek to understand.  I believe most people are naturally good. I believe we can do this.

I don’t want the U.S. flag to be a political statement. Or a divider. My love for the flag and the nation doesn’t put me in one political party or ideology over another. I’m just being me. I’m just being an American. 

We are all Americans.  It is everybody’s country.  Everybody’s. It truly is.

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My Mother Thought I Was a Tumor

Posted on May 31, 2020 by Allison Keeton

My mother thought I was a tumor.

She waited until I was thirty-five to tell me this. Over a pizza lunch. She waited until my father had passed away. Perhaps he had told her never to tell me. My father was a sensitive man.

For the first five months of her pregnancy with me, she truly did think her growing belly was a tumor. I guess at her age of forty in the 1960s, she didn’t think she could be pregnant. It was uncommon, at least in our neck of the woods.  She also hadn’t had a child in almost fourteen years, when my sister Kathy was born.

Besides being surprised to find out I was almost a tumor, I was curious as to why she waited five months to see a doctor. No news is good news? Was it then happy news to learn she was pregnant instead of having cancer? I didn’t ask any of these questions at that lunch. Too stunned. And now it is too late. My mom has since joined my dad.

I still wonder, have I lived up to the expectations she had? When you start as a tumor, there’s really no place to go but up. Since learning of my early beginnings, it’s affected the way I think about myself. I always knew I was a “surprise.” I just never realized the depth of its origin.

If I pretend I was a real tumor, I can have my own twisted version of George Bailey’s It’s a Wonderful Life. I can image the world without me ever being in it.

My parents, if my mother had survived the tumor, would have had more money and more time for themselves.  They could have traveled. Maybe my father would have bought the RV he always talked about, and they would have driven out to see Mt. Rushmore.  If he had finally convinced my mother to do so. She always had an excuse to not travel far.

There would have been an even number of people at our annual holiday dinners since I was always the odd number both in number and in age.

Unlike George Bailey, I never saved anyone’s life. There can be no ripple effect of me saving someone who saved five hundred other people.  

If you don’t lead a George Bailey-like life, is it a life worth living, a life well-lived?

The lesson in this exercise is not to analyze your past. You will certainly disappoint yourself. 

The lesson is to appreciate your own existence, and not worry if you’ve done enough or too much.  And don’t worry how you started out. 

It’s now that counts. 

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Strength Training – A Lesson in Connecting

Posted on April 28, 2020 by Allison Keeton

I’ve never seen so much use of sidewalk chalk. The large pastel kind sold around Easter in drugstores. During this odd time, I’ve seen messages written on slate walks, mountain peaks, and bike paths. “Keep the Faith” and “We Love You, Healthcare Workers.” I’ve seen households sending well wishes to those passing by with a “Happy Birthday, Virginia.” What a great way to make a friend’s day while still socially distancing.  As with any giving, the chalk author is receiving as much as the recipient. Even me as the reader felt the love as I walked over it.

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Let me add, all the writings have been in an adult’s script. We over the age of 21 are taking up whatever means necessary to keep in touch. Personally, I’ve downloaded every video app available—since everyone seems to use a different one—for writing group critiques, to play online cards, to wish my family a happy Easter, and to learn how to make whipped coffee (Thank you, Emily! I now feel hip).

I’ve taught FaceTime to an 80-year-old iPad newbie. I cut up old cotton curtains to sew into masks, mailing them by request around the U.S.

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We strive to connect however we can.

We also lose our patience more easily in our connecting. 

We’re taking our own stances. Defending our governors. Defending our own choices (rule following or not). Defending our judgments of others. Some are limiting their exposure to news (which has the danger of making one less empathetic and ill informed). Some are listening to too much news and getting more anxious than possibly necessary and only getting part of the story. 

Some simply want to be heard, as Servant Leader Parker Palmer said after the 9-11 tragedy.  In New York City, he held circles and realized that people didn’t want a solution given to them. They just wanted to tell their stories. To be heard. To be acknowledged.

I could listen better. I could acknowledge more. I could have more patience.

We are all going through something. Oddly, as a world, we’re going through it together. Friends in Spain, Germany, and Switzerland share their tales. Across our country, friends text me photos of empty San Francisco streets and vacant Florida ports.  I pray for friends and family who have taken ill during these times—a disease spreading or dementia worsening.  Some are hospitalized alone and confused.  A friend has to separate her feverish daughter from her cancer-ridden husband in the same house while keeping herself healthy as the caregiver to both.

What this isn’t is the end. It’s not the end of social distancing. But it’s also not the end of celebrating and living and connecting. It’s not the end of the world.

My greatest centering is found in staying outside, not in. In watching our dogs, like clueless toddlers, appreciate the extra time with us and the new outdoor adventures. They’re doing their own strength training, preparing for the next hike, the next swim, the next log to jump over.

Let’s all take one giant jump forward. Stronger. Together. 

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The Choices Series

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Allison Keeton

Recently, highly regarded quarterback Tom Brady was hailed as taking the high road in his departure from the New England Patriots.  When prodded at a press conference, he said, “I don’t want to talk about the past because that’s not relevant to what’s important to my future.” 

Professionally, I have relied on one’s past to predict his or her future.  Behavioral interviewing’s philosophies are just that—past performance predicts future behavior.  If a worker handled situation A in a certain way and then came along a similar situation B, it’s assumed a similar outcome will occur.

I’ll also wager the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are betting on Tom Brady’s past as well.

But I know what Tom means.  This past year and a half, as I look back at some mistakes I made in my life, some over and over, I’ve come up with my own saying, “I can’t change the past.  I can only go forward.”

Whether taking the high road or not looking back, all of this comes down to Choice.  Our lives are a series of choices.  Where to work, where to go to college or not, how to support ourselves, whether to get married, to have children, to travel, to save, to spend. There are also choices in less tangible options—to be patient, to be kind, to forgive, to believe, to trust.

Each moment of our lives is a crossroad—do we act out of love and kindness and patience, or do we act out of fear and anger and jealousy?  Every second we are given a choice.  Choose wisely.

Robert Frost’s blessed poem, The Road Not Taken, reminds us of our constant options.  When I was younger, I thought it referred to obvious choices—which high school to attend, which college, which partner, which job? As I’ve aged, I realize it’s simpler but also more complicated than that—which thought, which stance, which emotion do you want to present to others, and more importantly, to yourself.  Only you truly have to live with yourself.

When you study quantum physics, you learn that energy follows thoughts. What you place your focus on becomes your reality. Wayne Dyer said “Change your thoughts and change your life,” and Mike Dooley reminds us that “thoughts become things.”  These thoughts work in attracting the bad as well as attracting the good.

Fresh out of college, many years ago, I attended a business seminar that said “You have no control over change, but you have control over how you allow change to affect you.”  In Tom Brady’s case, he is embracing the opportunity to continue to work as a quarterback and to be wanted for his skills and his leadership. He is focusing on his future self.

All of these lessons are the same.  We are taught them over and over and over because we choose to not adhere to them.  We project.  We worry. We speculate.  Instead, we need to change our thoughts to how we want our lives to be, not to what we’re afraid our lives will be or could be.

Our thoughts. Something we have power over.  Something that is free.  Something that we can do in the quiet of our minds. Even today, safely six feet apart. 

The world remains our oyster. And always will be if you want it to be so.  Forward. Onward. Happiness abounds.  

What choice will you make today?

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Perspective

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Allison Keeton

Every morning my dogs and I walk in the woods.

When you go to the same place every day, you know each turn and hill.  After storms, I’ve seen fallen trees and large branches blocking major paths and entrances into the park. I joked once to a fellow dog walker that Spirits lived in the woods and threw the trees down to keep us out.  

However, one morning a couple of weeks ago, on a day without a breeze, the dogs and I hustled along our normal route and heard a large crack.  A huge branch, something that would have killed us had it been overhead, broke off a large red pine and crashed to the ground. The Earth shook, and we jumped although we weren’t in any danger. Thankfully, the branch broke off  in the woods far enough from the path. 

The echoing thud, while a safe distance from us, caused me to ponder—perhaps all this time, the Spirits in the woods were protecting us, not trying to scare us away. The trees and large branches across the paths consistently came down in the night when no one was walking in the woods.  No one had ever been hurt. I saw the situation in a new light. I had changed my perspective.

What a difference perspective makes. It truly can turn your world around. What’s the different between seeing a glass half full or a glass half empty? Absolutely everything. Whether we’re aware of it or not, we struggle daily with our choices of how we look at every action and reaction in our lives. To paraphrase influencer Wayne Dyer, if you don’t like the way things look, change the way you look at things.  In other words, adopt a different perspective.

Perspective is needed now more than ever. You may be annoyed or anxious about the current event we’re living through. For some, it is deadly. For some, it is financially devastating. If you face neither, be grateful. View this pause in our world as an opportunity to slow down, to catch our breaths, to reconnect. Get out in nature. Call your family members.  Keep your perspective.

 

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The People We Leave Behind

Posted on February 8, 2020 by Allison Keeton

I moved last year. Out of state. Not far from my last home—only forty minutes without traffic—but far enough to change how I operate in my life. There are people, and the services they provided, whom I’ll never know again.

I lived twenty-one years in my last home. I knew my neighbors. I had plumbers and electricians on speed dial.  (Does anyone really have speed dial anymore?) In a minute flat, I could recommend someone who had any skill you’d need as a homeowner.

The house finally sold last month, and I paid the last snowplowing bill. My neighbor whom I had hired about ten years ago sent a handwritten note to my new address with the bill.  He wrote “Have a wonderful life.”

He and I have no reason to continue to know each other.  We have our own lives, and we never socialized locally when we had the chance. I don’t even know if we had anything in common except for the neighborhood.

But I knew his character.  One Halloween, after the rush of trick or treaters had stopped, I walked my dog for his evening constitution and came across a broken down car with a young couple and two small kids.  They had driven into my neighborhood for the safe, old fashioned experience of ringing doorbell after doorbell. Their car wasn’t starting, and I called my road service to jump start them.  

The snowplow man was also out walking, on his way to pick up his kids at a party.  I was already on the opposite side of the street—so he didn’t notice me—when he saw the young family and asked if he could help. I heard them say that someone had already called a service.  He responded, “Well, if you’re still here on my way back, I’ll go get my jumper cables.”

Kindness and a generous heart are never forgotten even if the face is no longer seen.  Jeremy, I wish you too a wonderful life.

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WHATEVER THE AGE

Posted on November 18, 2019 by Allison Keeton

On a September’s walk in a town I don’t live in, I came across a group of young students waiting for their morning school bus. They asked if they could pet my two dogs.  Of course.  Animals, especially dogs, allow children to relax and open up.  Besides wanting to know the dogs’ names and, surprisingly, their breeds, they told me about themselves without my asking.

One tall boy with glasses and eyes going in two different directions told me he likes to throw sticks because “that’s what he does.”  He threw a stick the other day into a pond, and a nearby dog ran after it.  “The dog thought I was playing with him,” he said with a grin.

I asked if they were six graders.

“No,” a girl with glasses said. “Fifth grade. I was supposed to be in sixth though.” Her smile vanished.  

“That’s ok,” I said.  “It’s better to learn more now so you can go forward.”

She nodded, and her smile returned.

Another girl, wearing a bright pink sweatshirt with hair color to match, told me she too was supposed to be in sixth grade but she started kindergarten late.  “I almost got a detention yesterday,” she bragged.

“Already?” I said.  School had just started three days ago.

She grinned and nodded.

Another girl sat in tears in the middle of the apartment complex driveway, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth.  She had a large rip in her leotards.

“Come pet the dogs,” one of the kids called to her. She shook her head “no.”

“Bus!” someone yelled.

The dozen kids scrambled into a line, waving at me and the dogs. I looked up at the bus driver who also smiled and waved.

The dogs and I continued our walk, and the bus grinded off to school. 

I haven’t been back to that town. Part of me would like to time it one morning to see these children again at their bus stop—to learn how their school year has been going, how many detentions have been earned, see what hair color is now in vogue, and maybe soften whatever pain they’re carrying that day.

That September morning was a good reminder of how caring conversation coupled with furry paws and wet kisses can make for a better day.  Lucky me to have those four legged loves with me every day.

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Kennedy, Jack Ruby, Charlie & Me: A One Minute Memoir

Posted on November 18, 2018 by Allison Keeton

My family idolized President Kennedy because he was Catholic. My father recalled his exact movements when Kennedy was shot.  My aunt placed a painting of Kennedy over her fireplace.  Even though Kennedy died before I was born, I had his plastic bust in my bedroom. 

Charlie, my neighbor and childhood friend, collected clippings from the assassination period. As kids, in my backyard, we reenacted Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. Charlie always played Oswald, squishing up his face and grabbing his side as I pretended to shoot him with my sister’s cap gun.

Forty-five years later, I still have the plastic bust, and Charlie and I are still friends. If I point my finger at him like a gun, he still winces. And we both still wonder why Ruby shot Oswald, why Oswald shot Kennedy, and what the world would be like had Kennedy lived.

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First Witch

Posted on November 13, 2017 by Allison Keeton

The first person hanged for being a witch in the United States lived in Connecticut in 1647, forty-five years before the famous Salem witch trials and a year before the first documented hanging in neighboring Massachusetts. She was hanged in my city, Hartford, about two miles from where I’m typing this. We don’t know much about her except her name—Alse. Or Alice or Aliss. We know more about her husband, a carpenter, John. They arrived from England as the Youngs, and soon dropped their “S.”

John had some sort of illness…a disease where he shed his skin, nails, and hair. Sounds terribly painful and annoying for a man who had to shave and saw wood and bend and crawl to measure. Documents tell that this illness came and went. Perhaps Alice’s home herbal remedies kept the disease at bay for periods of time.

I visualize her in her garden, tending to herbs she brought with her from her native England. Maybe varieties unknown to those living in the colonies for decades. Maybe she prayed over her garden, asking for guidance and assistance in helping her husband regain his health. Were her words misinterpreted as partnering with the Devil? Or was his occasional recovery considered a miracle, and hence witchcraft. Or was his illness itself perceived as a spell?

In other communities around the globe, those sacrificed were often considered special. If Alice had healing powers, she might have been the Chosen One, given up to ward off future Indian attacks or the spreading epidemics, both common in the 1640s. Her execution might have been a sacrifice for much needed rain.

Or was her death connected to a much simpler reason? Was she exceptionally pretty? Did the women in town protect their own interests? We’ll never know.

Killing our own has never ceased. We see it in the news and in our communities every day.

Sometimes we kill out of fear of difference, really to hide our own inadequacies. Are we willing to make sacrifices today to please a god, or do we no longer believe in God? Or rather, do we believe God is now powerless and immaterial?

This year, the town of Windsor, where Alice Young resided until her arrest for witchcraft, absolved her through an official resolution. It took 370 years for her death—this one death—to be recognized as a mistake. We’ll never fix all of the wrongful deaths we humans have caused over the centuries, but we can go forward learning how to pause before judging.

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We’re Never Too Old

Posted on October 28, 2017 by Allison Keeton

My bones are definitely creaking. I can’t deny it. Somehow along the aging process, I mistakenly took these creaks and small pains as a need to limit myself. Once I started thinking I couldn’t do a certain thing anymore, I’d add it to the list of “The Forbidden.” Before I knew it, I’d shrunk my life. In essence, I started living in fear.

A couple of years ago, a playing card in a board game asked me and my friends what we feared. One friend said vermin, another said failure, another said eating seafood. I honestly couldn’t come up with anything. I hadn’t realized I didn’t fear anything.

That was then. Fast forward almost ten years and well over ten pounds. A calendar says I’m older. I’ve even changed age brackets. I have a different job and work more hours. Perhaps that is partly why I stopped doing morning yoga. Which caused me to I stop skiing. And then I stopped watching what I ate. I stopped following all of my routines, especially the good ones. And in return, I stopped believing I could do anything.

If asked now what I feared, I’d say blowing out a knee, hurting my back, breaking an appendage, and ripping the seams of my pants in public. I’ve even started to go to bed hours earlier. No more reading or binging watching TV until the stillness of the early morning. That would make me irresponsible. I’ve started to limit myself.

I’m reminded I started my limitations twenty years ago when I announced there would be books I’d never read and recipes I’d never make. Time was running out for me then. In my mind. Imagine all the additional books and recipes I could have accomplished in those twenties years if instead I had pushed myself.

I’m not quite sure how I figured out this year I was holding myself back. I believe it was witnessing a friend my age picking up an exercise we used to do. I had actually been thinking of it myself—running—but wondered if I was “too old” and my knees “too vulnerable.” But if he could do it, why couldn’t I? So I am.

I was asked by teens if I wanted to play laser tag. Like running around and shooting a laser gun? Ok, let’s give it a try. I loved it!

Free tickets to an amusement park? I hadn’t been in years. I initially figured I’d be satisfied just walking around but soon found myself joyfully screaming on roller coasters. Now I’m looking forward to going back next year!

And this past weekend, I rode my first horse. The owner was surprised to learn my age. I guess there are others like the “old me” who wouldn’t have started a new physical activity. I’m already planning a return trip next spring for a sunset ride and overnight stay in a tepee.

So, here’s my new (renewed) philosophy. There’s nothing I can’t do. I can read all the books I want. I can make all the recipes I want. I can climb any mountain, ski any slope, walk any distance, wear (almost) any outfit. I’ve ripped up “The Forbidden” list.

I also have my dreams back. I can create any life I want. Including that as a professional, successful writer. It’s never too late. As long as I believe in myself and shun fear once again. What’s holding you back?

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