An Open Letter to My Granddaughters (or any other young girl)

Dear Granddaughters,

I know that I can’t do anything to stop you from being hurt.  I know that life is going to be a series of ups and downs for you, that your hearts will be broken more than once.  It is what it is.  If I could guarantee that every relationship will make you happy, I would.  But I can’t.  And I know I am not the relationship expert.  But out of all the women in your life I am the one who has probably had the most experience with unhealthy relationships.  So let me give you some pointers.  Take them or leave them.  I just know the following to be true for me and maybe, someday when you are crying your eyes out over some man who did something stupid, you will remember that your grandma told you that this was a possibility and only because she had experienced something similar.

So here are my little words of wisdom.  And, no, these do not all pertain to your grandfather.  Believe me.  That’s why you need to listen to me.  I have had more experience than just being married to that one man.

1.       If a man doesn’t treat you with respect while you are dating, it only gets worse if you marry him.  That includes lying to you, hitting you, cheating on you, calling you names, making you feel bad about yourself, and so on.  

2.       If he cheats on you once, he will probably do it again. 

3.       If he cheats with you on someone else, he will cheat on you, too. 

4.       If he cheats on you, the woman he cheated with is also to blame.  Don’t go getting all mad at her and not at him.  That makes no sense.  Neither of them deserves your time. 

5.       Forgiveness is healthy.  Forgetting is not healthy.  Just because you forgive someone doesn’t mean you allow them to hurt you again. 

6.       If you have to edit what you say around him because you are afraid he might leave, give you the cold shoulder, get mad, not like you, criticize you, talk bad about you, etc., then he isn’t for you.  Find the person with whom you can be yourself, not someone for whom you have to change or for whom you need to pretend to be someone else.  If you are a completely different person around him than you are around your friends, then something isn’t right.  

7.       You can’t make someone love you. 

8.       Just because you think he is the only one in the world for you, it doesn’t mean it’s true. 

9.       If you don’t know what kind of day you are going to have until you find out what mood he is in, then run for the hills.  You should be able to dictate what kind of day you are going to have.  His attitude is his, not yours. 

10.   In most arguments, there is no right or wrong, just a difference of opinion.  You can choose to make it a war or a respectful discussion followed by compromise.  Winning an argument means that someone loses.  No one should be a loser in a relationship. 

11.   If you find yourself worrying and wondering who he is with and what he is doing, then you need to find something interesting and exciting to do on your own.  If he doesn’t like that you have an interesting and exciting life when he isn’t around, he needs to get over it and you may need to find someone who thinks it is great that you have a life. 

12.   A partner should be the topping on an already well baked, delicious cake.  He shouldn’t be the whole meal.  

13.   Sometimes, when you don’t get the person you want, it is a very, very good thing.  

14.   Short, chubby guys can actually be quite fun. 

15.   If he doesn’t make you laugh he isn’t worth your time. 

16.   If he isn’t there when you need him to be, he had better have a good reason – like maybe he is dead or in the hospital with a broken neck. 

17.   If your friends or family don’t like him, then take another look.  There may seem something they see that you don’t. 

18.   There is a song that says “don’t advertise your man.”  It means that you shouldn’t let other woman know all the good stuff about your guy because then they will want him.  Well, it works the other way, too.  If you tell your friends all the bad stuff and complain about him, then they won’t want you to have him because they always want the best for you.  So don’t be surprised if they are upset with you when you take him back after he has done something disrespectful.  It’s also not respectful to talk bad about someone you care about.  That works for both you and your guy. 

19.   Don’t put your future on hold because you are waiting on someone to make a commitment.  All you are doing is wasting time. 

20.   If he doesn’t call when he says he is going to or doesn’t show up, that is disrespectful.  See number 1.

I made this list because I love you.  I am looking forward to watching all sorts of wonderful things happen in your life, but I also dread the broken hearts and the tears.  Know I am always here for you, through the good and the bad. 

Lots of love,

Grandma

New Mexico Musings

I have just come back from spending a week in New Mexico.   I have been there four times and each time has been an adventure.  I have covered some of the Albuquerque area, a good part of the Turquoise Trail east of the Sandia Mountains, Santa Fe, the Los Alamos area and Bandolier National Monument, and the Taos area including Taos Mountain and Arroyo Seco.  The New Mexican landscape is expansive and truly breathtaking.  While I was there I wrote some prose poems.  Not only do they reflect the mood and landscape of the Land of Enchantment, the poems also carry an undercurrent of emotion that still runs through me.  There has been a rash of deaths by homicide in New Hampshire over the past month that have profoundly affected many of the people I know.  Being away was only that, being geographically removed. 

Saturday Morning Santa Fe One

It’s not easy to change one’s pace

from here to there to the moment.

Time spent looking at sky and trees

seems like living in slow motion

away from all that causes me to question,

to take stock of what I do.

Expectations of great revelations

become time just be-ing,

reduced to simple self,

no need to question.

The answer is as still as the stones,

as fleeting as the breeze.

Saturday Morning Santa Fe Two

Is there hope when a small child is

witness to death in its harshest from,

a bullet that stops the heart of the woman

Who held him, the vessel where he began?

There will never be anything that can touch that pain.

A path of retreat will be sought

at the sight of other children with their own,

nothing to fill the hole greater than measure allows.

Sunday A.M. Santa Fe

Winds cross desert to mountains,

sweeping dust from the cracks of my mind,

leaving behind wanton lust for the landscape,

Ever changing, colors move from brown to orange,

Green and blue.

Whatever darkness or hideous deeds

perpetrated in nature are swallowed by the

sun’s gaze.  Wide open spaces grant  

room to breathe, to expand, to forgive

human belief in his own dominance.

Nature smiles at our foolishness and

Sends the rain.

Sunday a.m. Two

Painted red start crosses my view,

red on white and black startles me,

delights me.  A gift, a greeting from bird

I will never see north of these mountains,

my personal greeter into the land of enchantment.

The Gem Store in Taos

“Welcome.  Where are you from?”

Gentle soul with arthritic hands and weathered face

tells of his time in Boston, how the fast pace of the East

almost ruined his interview in slow talkin’, slow movin’ Texas.

He smiles, wraps my purchases carefully,

two obsidian, a sand cast from the Four Corners region,

bracelets and carvings for grandchildren.

Then he asks, “Have you had any green chile yet?”

“Why, no.  What do you recommend?”

He gives directions to the best green chile on

Shrimp enchilada I have had the pleasure to know. 

Rio Grande Gorge

I walk across the bridge spanning the Rio Grande,

imagining my mother’s ashes in a flurry.

Grasping the rail, looking down, I know she would

have rather napped in the trunk than view such a height. 

I turn a full circle, knowing this is the most land I will ever see

In one gaze, and the most blue sky.