Smeared Type

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by Nancy Werking    Poling,

author of Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman

and Out of the Pumpkin Shell

I daresay that politicians making decisions about Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are unfamiliar with the lives of those who daily provide them with services necessary for their comfortable life: the stock man at the grocery story, the woman who cleans their home, the Mexican dishwasher at their favorite restaurant, the Korean couple who washes and irons their shirts, the single mother who delivers The Washington Post to their door before she gets the children off to school and goes to a second job.

Maybe it’s living in the South where folks seem freer to tell you their story. Maybe in retirement I take more time to notice those whose work makes my life easier. It could be I’m more aware because small-town living doesn’t separate the classes the way urban living does.

Last winter a neighbor borrowed our snow shovel. She planned to buy one the next time she got paid. Tears welled in the eyes of the young man installing our kitchen cabinets, as he told me he had thirty-five dollars to his name when he got a refund on the double-wide trailer home that made his son sick. With the help of a neighbor out of work and the generosity of others, who gave him plumbing fixtures and kitchen cabinets, he was able to build a three-bedroom house for $25,000.

A few weeks ago two veterans in their late fifties, who have temporary housing at the nearby Veterans facility, were grateful for the work when we hired them to build a stairway up the steep bank behind our house. Our neighbor’s decision to build a wooden fence employed two men whose construction business had gone bust. All around our community men and women will perform any odd job for meager pay.

And there are the immigrants. The young Vietnamese couple who run the local nail spa work six and a half days a week. The young Mexican man who keeps his tiny store open every day gets up at 3:00 a.m. three mornings a week to drive to Atlanta for fresh fruits and vegetables.

My financial future, as a retiree, feels uncertain right now, yet I can’t help but worry about these people who have not had extra money to put into a retirement plan, whose employers provide no benefits, who cannot afford health insurance. (Imagine the people I’ve described paying $680 a month for Medicare and supplemental health insurance, as my husband and I do.) I see sixty-year-old waitresses, sixty-year-old men doing strenuous manual labor. How will they survive when their bodies can no longer maintain this effort?

Entitlement programs, we call Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, often inferring that people who have worked hard feel unduly entitled to money they have not earned. Those who stand all day, carry heavy loads, and in other ways physically tax their bodies deserve no less than I the right to adequate housing, food, and medical care in their later years.

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

By Nancy Werking Poling

Author of Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman

And Out of the Pumpkin Shell

I predict the world will NOT end this coming weekend. When it doesn’t, Reader, please remember to praise my prognostication skills.

As I was waiting in the grocery line (where we all get the news that really matters), The Sun reminded me that Harold Camping has figured out when God’s going to end it all: this Saturday. It’s there in the Bible if you do the math. In my mind I mocked the absurdity of it all, until I got in the car, and they were discussing Camping’s prediction on “Talk of the Nation,” on NPR.

While living in northern New York State, in what once was called the “burned over district,” I became familiar with the Millerites, a religious group convinced the world would end—hmm, within twenty-one years of 1822; no, make that between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844 (interestingly Harold Camping’s prediction also falls on a 21st); no, it really was going to happen on October 22, 1844. Now, we’re not talking about a small group of weirdoes. We’re talking about an international movement.

Obviously, October 22, 1844, didn’t mark the end of the world. Reactions varied among the Millerites: confusion, reinterpretation, disillusionment.

What will happen Sunday morning when Camping’s followers wake up to discover the planet Earth is still spinning in its orbit; that sure enough “wars and rumor of wars” continue; that their electric bill still has to be paid; and that their kids are Tweeting about their parents being fools? Some believers will, no doubt, change the date. “No, we meant May 21, 2014.” A few will be disillusioned. My guess is that most will find comfort in holding onto a conviction that the end is still imminent.

Seriously though, for many the world will indeed end on Saturday. Parents will cry because their child has been killed—in war, an accidental shooting, a car accident. A woman will tell a man she doesn’t love him anymore. A child will witness his father shooting his mother. All over the planet women and men, girls and boys, will experience a tragedy that will forever end the world they’ve known.

I cannot believe their trauma is God’s plan.

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By Nancy Werking Poling, author of

Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman; and Out of the Pumpkin Shell

Bones. Dogs gnaw on them. Archeologists study fossilized ones. Fishermen’s knives remove them. I put meat bones in the freezer so bears who roam our mountain town won’t be attracted to our trash can.

Now I’ve been made aware of my bones. “Like Swiss cheese,” is how the rheumatologist describes them after looking at the results of my bone density scan. “Your femoral neck score is   -2.8. Osteoporosis.” I keep telling her of my virtuous lifestyle—as if that might change her diagnosis. I’ve never smoked. I’ve exercised since I was thirty. My diet is a healthy one: whole grain rice, whole wheat bread, plenty of fresh fruits and green vegetables. Calcium supplements, vitamin D, and bisphosphonates have been part of my daily routine for years.

Still, she frowns as she studies the printout. “This also shows you have a fracture in your back,” she says. “Do you experience pain?”

What woman my age doesn’t have occasional back pain? “Not very often.”

“A spine fracture indicates 5X risk for subsequent fractures,” a note at the bottom of the printout states.

Her treatment recommendation is aggressive, a drug I haven’t seen any celebrity endorse: Forteo. I gasp when I learn the specifics. It’s administered through a daily injection. For two years. At a cost to me of $9,000. I lean toward trusting her judgment. She’s petite like me, in her mid-forties, I’m guessing, so she’s probably been thinking about her bones too. A pilot’s certificate and pictures of airplanes hang on the walls, which somehow add to her credibility.

She advises me to think about it, come back and see her in six-weeks. Before I leave, though, she orders an x-ray of my back.

I can’t help but consider what $9,000 will buy. A good amount toward replacing our eleven-year-old car. Two trips to Europe for my husband and me, with money left over. (Yes, we’re thrifty travelers.) New furniture. An art piece to hang over the mantel (not that we’d spend that much, but a lot of people do).

Meanwhile, I begin to notice our town is full of little old ladies. I talk with everyone about the decision I have to make. In the grocery line behind a gray-haired woman, I ask, “What are you doing about your bones?” I ask naked women in the locker room of the gym where I work out, “What are you doing about your bones?” In the church vestibule I collar older women. “What are you doing about your bones?” Some say they take Fosamax. Others Boniva. A few steer away from drugs and rely on special diets or vitamin supplements.

By the time I return to the doctor, I’ve spoken with at least thirty women and lost several nights’ sleep worrying. But the doctor says that because the x-ray shows no fracture, she’s changed her recommendation. She suggests three possibilities: Evista, Prolea, or Reclast (which I’ve taken for two years). Needless to say, I’m relieved. All my angst over a daily shot, spending $9,000, and taking a drug that has been around less than ten years has been wasted.

But maybe not. “What are you doing for your bones?” I’ve discovered, is a great conversation starter.

by Nancy Werking Poling

author of Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman

and Out of the Pumpkin Shell

She’s in tears. She’s just learned that her child has been kidnapped by a psychopath; her parents have been in a serious automobile accident and are in an intensive care unit in Ethiopia; her best friend has died in an avalanche while skiing. In sympathy he pulls her close. The next scene shows them in bed, the sheet pulled up to hide all but their bare shoulders.

I’ve long suspected such scenes in movies and on TV are men’s fantasies. Do they really think that sex helps a woman deal with her grief? Why haven’t actresses, tears running down their cheeks as they played these roles, not put their hand in front of the camera lens and advised the director, “Sex is not what a woman needs in this situation.” But then, their economic survival depends on compliance.

Reading yesterday’s New York Times (“In Women’s Tears, a Chemical That Says, ‘Not Tonight, Dear,’” Jan. 7, 2011) I discovered I may be on to something. “In several experiments, researchers found that men who sniffed drops of women’s emotional tears became less sexually aroused than when they sniffed a neutral saline solution that had been dribbled down women’s cheeks.” In the experiments male subjects didn’t know the women whose tears they were sniffing, so it wasn’t empathy that caused their testosterone to drop.

Leaving me to wonder why script writers, presumably men, would prescribe sex as a salve for a woman’s grief. (I want to believe, perhaps mistakenly, that women writers wouldn’t do this.) There are, of course, many explanations, sociological and psychological in nature, which I’m not qualified to expound on, but I’m pretty sure of this: men who truly care do not take advantage of a woman dealing with tragedy. Neither do I believe that a woman who’s just learned that her son committed suicide would at that moment crave sex.

But, hey, writing a movie/TV script is entertaining a fantasy. A male fantasy, obviously, in which a vulnerable woman needs a man’s body more than anything.

by Nancy Werking Poling

author of Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman and Out of the Pumpkin Shell

I’m not an expert on beauty. When it comes to aesthetics, I have no definitions to contribute, no profound knowledge of the arts. But I recognize beauty when I see it. Right now I see it out my study window: leafless trees against a brilliant blue sky; snow clinging to the drooping leaves of rhododendron; tall pine trees across the street swaying in the wind.

Perhaps because I’m old, out of sync with contemporary practices, I find Christmastime depressing. Toy stores are full of cheap plastic things intended for racing or building or pretending, none of them beautiful. It has become a season of artificiality, from trees to clichéd carols in the malls to commercially baked cookies and candies.

Few manufactured items can compare with what nature offers. The view of a lake from the top of a mountain trail, flowering bulbs in early spring. The silence of snow falling, the song of a bird, the gurgle of a stream, the roar of a waterfall. The taste of fresh strawberries or corn on the cob that’s just been picked.

There’s beauty too in the ornament a child made for the tree, a musical composition, a poem, a coffee table created by a craftsman, a hand-made quilt, cookies fresh from the oven.

A new generation with its Toys-R-Us wish lists, its i-pads and game apps, who spends time looking at screens (even when travelling scenic routes)—what will their idea of beauty be? If they are not exposed to it, if they are programmed to prefer the artificial over the genuine, what is to become of beauty? Who will make sure the forests are preserved, waters kept clean, mountain tops kept intact? Who will protect pandas and tigers and other species?

Beauty is in danger. If our children grow up in a mall world, isolated from the natural beauty beyond the acres-wide parking lot, who will love the planet enough to protect it?

by Nancy Werking Poling

author of  HAD EVE COME FIRST AND JONAH BEEN A WOMAN and OUT OF THE PUMPKIN SHELL

Ah, now I remember why I don’t cook. Or bake. The cold, snowy conditions yesterday inspired me, for the first time in years, to bake holiday cookies. I wasn’t alone. Though few cars were on the road, six of us meandered up and down Bi-Lo’s baking aisle. I left with almonds, almond extract ($5.99!), and coconut.

Seems like every time I cook, I discover I’m missing an ingredient. I either decide to leave it out altogether or find a substitute. A recipe calls for cream; I substitute skim milk. It calls for butter, I use olive oil. (Before you culinary types gag, I’ll admit to a little exaggeration there.) Yesterday I wrongly assumed I had baking soda on hand. Not to be deterred, I took out the box I’d been using as a deodorizer in the refrigerator—probably for six months or so.

I also have a penchant for taking shortcuts. I didn’t do that yesterday; I just plain forgot to review the recipe. Early in the procedure, the baker was to put in a third of the sugar. Which I did. My negligence in later checking again resulted in my forgetting the remaining two-thirds. When I went to clean up, there was all that sugar in the measuring cup. Needless to say, the lemon cookies are on the sour side.

Is there any wonder why fifteen years into our marriage my husband took over the kitchen?

By the way, the coconut macaroons are delicious. A little on the dark side, but delicious.

by Nancy Werking Poling

author of Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman

and Out of the Pumpkin Shell

All around me were bins of fossils—ancient sea creatures, ferns. I was in Dave’s Rock Shop  (Evanston, IL) searching for Christmas gifts for my grandsons.

“We all’d like to go back to a younger age,” the woman beside me said into her cell phone.

I picked up and studied a 350 million-year-old orthoceras from Morocco. Glistening black, smooth to the touch.

“Sure, you’ve made mistakes. We all have,” she said. She too was rummaging through the specimens.

Would this shark’s tooth embedded in rock captivate a grandson’s imagination? I wondered.

“Yes, childhood was an innocent time. I’d like to be ten again too.”

Maybe one of the boys would prefer a 400 million-year-old ammonite. Did this chambered mollusk live at about the time of the dinosaurs?

“Sure, getting older is hard.”

I held a plant fossil from the early Pennsylvanian period. Chalky white fronds on a black background.

“Eric, you’ve got plenty of time to become the man you want to be. For God’s sake, you’re only twenty-five.”

And here I’d been thinking in terms of millions of years.

By Nancy Werking Poling

Author of   HAD EVE COME FIRST AND JONAH BEEN A WOMAN and

OUT OF THE PUMPKIN SHELL

Time spent with young adults seldom fails to inspire me. Last Thursday was such an occasion.

Three seminary students (all of them women) invited me to lunch to discuss a book I edited back in the nineties: Victim to Survivor: Women Recovering from Clergy Sexual Abuse. We spent two hours in a quiet Japanese restaurant talking about the church, gender, and the abuse of power. The seminarians had taken to heart those who contributed to the book. They shared in feelings of betrayal and anger at a church that protected its clergy at the expense of vulnerable members.

It occurs to me that much has changed since the writing project began. Most of the contributors did not yet have email. They sent drafts through the post office, then we’d work our way through the story over the phone. We’d cry, we’d laugh. The issues always were how can we help the reader understand the dynamics of abuse and how can we show that it harms the church as well as individuals. The authors were committed to protecting others from the pain they’d experienced.

Today most denominations have clear protocols to follow when abuse is reported. They take preventive measures by requiring clergy to attend workshops about boundaries. Seminaries require students to do the same.

Has the problem gone away? Certainly not. But victims, women and men, who risk speaking the truth have made a tremendous difference. And I am confident that women in ministry, like the ones I had lunch with, are going to make a difference too. They will be compassionate in reaching out to victims, and they are not going to shy away from holding perpetrators and the church accountable.

By Nancy Werking Poling

author of Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman and

Out of the Pumpkin Shell

Now, I don’t want to embarrass a friend. For one thing, she’ll read this. For another, no one will confide in me if they fear ending up the subject of one of my blog postings.

But I can’t resist announcing to the world what I just learned: she still irons!

I’m all the time recalling how people used to treat each other with civility, how we encouraged our children to play outside, ride their bicycles around the neighborhood. All the time forgetting the unpleasantries of the past.

Like ironing. It was my responsibility to iron the items whose appearance didn’t much matter: my father’s workpants, sheets and pillowcases. And a few that did matter: my own skirts, blouses, and dresses. I ironed on the  screened-in porch of our Orlando house, the radio tuned to the top songs of the day.

Something else my friend admitted: until recently (like within the past year) she sprinkled the clothes and put them in the refrigerator. But she has so many projects that sometimes mildew collected on the clothes before she got around to ironing them. Yes, in the refrigerator. That’s what my mother and I did too. A top fitting a Coke bottle had holes that released just the right amount of water. Dampening the clothes and keeping them refrigerated overnight made it easier to get the wrinkles out, made for sharper creases.

Nowadays, every now and then, I take out my table-top ironing board and steam iron. But not often. I doubt that my daughter even owns an iron. Anything needing ironing either goes to the cleaners or gets passed on to the Goodwill Store.

Meanwhile I use my grandmother’s old iron as a doorstop.

by Nancy Werking Poling

author of Had Eve Come First and Jonah Been a Woman

and Out of the Pumpkin Shell

Ah, I have my baby back! Returning from his office yesterday, my husband dropped it on the coffee table. My American Heritage Dictionary.

Three and a half years ago we sold our condo in Evanston, Illinois, listed our furniture on Craigslist, and put the items we were sentimentally attached to in a ten-by-ten commercial storage unit. We then traveled for a year. Not until this past spring did we move into what we intend to be our permanent home in North Carolina. As we settled in, I unpacked every box of books in anticipation of finding my old friend. There was no sign of the dictionary.

Now we’re back in Evanston for the semester, and my husband is clearing out his office. Maybe because I so treasured my dictionary and didn’t want to mistakenly get rid of it, we placed it on one of his shelves.

I know, using a dictionary of paper and ink is out of fashion. I’ve tried to adapt. Really I have. A few clicks and the word pops up, along with its pronunciation and definition. But it’s not the same. This morning my spell check refused bonafide (which strangely it just now accepted). I turned to my American Heritage Dictionary. There was bonafide, right below Bona (Mount), in Alaska, the highest peak in the Wrangell Range. And on the opposite page a picture of a bongo, not the drum, but the animal, an antelope.

It was through checking my dictionary several years ago that I came upon a character in the novel I’m currently working on. I don’t recall what word I was searching for, but on the same page I saw a picture of Mary Surratt, the woman accused of being a co-conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Just as I would rather use a dictionary I can hold in my hands, I also prefer a newspaper over reading about current events online. Each morning my husband and I dismantle the paper, strewing pages all over the table, fumbling to locate the first page of an article we discover continued on page eight or nine. I have to do the Sudoku before I start my day.

Is it age, being stuck in the mud, that draws me to resources that are familiar and tangible? (I just had to find out where that expression originated. In the 1620s, according to the internet, it referred to being in difficult circumstances; in the 18^th century it became a derogatory word, meaning a person who enjoys being there—in difficult circumstances.)

I want to avoid the habit of praising the old ways. From an environmental perspective, on-line resources certainly are better. Using less paper, we destroy fewer trees. Fewer toxins from printing ink end up in our dumps then make their way into our water supply.

Currently my husband, retiring from academia, is sorting through a forty-year collection of books. What does he do with these friends, some comfortable companions from the past, some more recent acquaintances? Students will take a few, as will libraries and fund-raising book sales. Many, he fears, will end up in the recycling bin or trash.

Dictionaries, newspapers, books. Maybe it’s time to order a Kindle.