These Days Aren’t So Bad After All

September 9, 2025 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

I have finally taken upon myself to watch the turn-of-he-century series “The Gilded Age.”

For those who are unfamiliar with this Julian Fellowes creation, The Gilded Age is about new money vs old money in 1880’s New York City.

Like its predecessor, Downton Abbey, the series is glorious in its sets, fashions, and elegance.

Now I realize this is a fictional creation for mass viewers, but it does touch on the morals and habits of people who lived 143-ish years ago.

It has all the raised prickles of a porcupine — upper class snobbery, racial bigotry, struggles of power and wealth and forbidden love and all that world entangles. And I know these fictional plights are separate from the true tragedies that still plague the world today — war, famine, poverty, bigotry.

But that’s not the angle I take this morning. I’m more moved by the social laws and desires and struggles those of the upper class back in the 1880s. It was a world today’s women can’t imagine

Of course there were exceptions. But that’s not what today’s blog is about.

A woman of “class” couldn’t go out unsupervised. Women were discouraged from talking to men or women not of their social rank. Women could not have visitors unless her parents approved first. Could not have friends out of their class or color. Women didn’t bother learning household skills and were never party to the ways of money, bills, or financial security. You weren’t allowed to question those who provided for you. You couldn’t play with your children without a nanny or governess around.

And those corsets! Eeek!

Today I am reflecting on the freedom of women to be women. And to have that definition be whatever we choose it to be.

Equality is virtue that is rarely achieved. It is talked about, suggested, hinted at, and even achieved in some arenas. The opulence of the Gilded Age was a barrier in a class status that should not have had any barriers. After all, you had money. You had a beautiful house. You ate in the most opulent restaurants and danced in ballrooms. Other people did your laundry and cooked your food and made your clothes. You did nothing but study social protocols and keep your opinions to yourself.

You were more restricted than Imotep’s mummy.

I’m happy that I was born a hundred years later. I’ve had poor days and rich days. I’ve worked and vacationed and drank out of crystal wine glasses. I took care of my children 24/7 and changed my own sheets. I have friends of color and friends who are well off and friends who are struggling to make ends meet.

I am free to live my life the way that I want.

I think my enjoyment of The Gilded Age boils down to crystal chandelier envy.

Which is fine with me…..

Faerie Paths — Mysticism

July 9, 2025 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 3 Comments

Mysticism is not about escaping reality, but about diving deeper into it and discovering its true essence.

~ Eckhart Tolle

Faerie Paths — Saturday Morning

May 10, 2025May 8, 2025 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 9 Comments

On a lazy Saturday morning when you’re lying in bed, drifting in and out of sleep, there is a space where fantasy and reality become one.

~ Lynn Johnston

Getting Older Changes Your Reality

November 18, 2024November 18, 2024 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 13 Comments

How many times have you said “I wish I knew then what I know now”?

Makes getting older sound much more appealing, doesn’t it?

It is a basic fact that older people have a larger pool of information to pull from when it comes to shaping their reality. Many years worth of pooling.

And not all that’s drawn from the pool is useful.

Would middle schoolers benefit from the knowledge that other kids can be bullies and things brighten up once they get to high school? Would college kids be more successful if they knew the intricacies of moving up in the working world? Would millennials be better off if they realized how important health care and savings plans will be thirty years in their future?

Unfortunately, human beings learn from personal experience. Not that all personal experiences are soul building and world awakening. I have never smoked in my life but I knew then and know now how bad a habit it is. I’ve never had a broken bone nor had an emotional trauma experience before I was 25.

Does that mean I should have experienced all of the above to be a more well rounded senior adult?

When I chose the topic Getting Older Changes Your Reality I was thinking about reality from a senior point of view. My body has changed, my energy level has changed, my hormones definitely have changed, forcing me to adapt in ways I never imagined when I was 30.

These kinds of changes cannot be planned for. You can be fit all of your life and still lack energy to hike to the furthest soccer field. You could watch your sugar intake all your life and still turn into a diabetic. You could go to college and major in Anthropology just to work on computers in a bank 10 years later. (I knew someone that happened to…)

What you can Do and what you can Be changes as your reality changes. You may have wanted one child and would up with three. You may have wanted to move to Paris when you were young and still find yourself in suburbia. Often your youthful reality is not your future reality.

One pleasant surprise of my senior reality is that I’m finally getting to do some the things I wanted to do in my youthful reality. I’ve touched the Eiffel Tower and walked through Roman ruins. I’ve had wonderful grandkids who have made me feel young again (mentally, at least), and have the time to continue art art projects I started in my 20s.

I still worry about money and my health and if I’ll wake up tomorrow to enjoy another day. But those are things I have minimum control over, so I do what I can and let time take the wheel.

As you get older you find that the things you worry about today won’t matter much tomorrow. You have no say about political candidates, company policies, and illness such as cancer. You have no control over who lives and who passes on. You don’t even really know if there’s an afterlife.

Getting older changes your reality, and you finally get that you have less control over you life than you thought. What will be will be and all that.

All you can do is choose the swirly bumpy road instead of the straight one, and see what happens.

You will wind up at the same place anyway.

Monday Again?

November 16, 2020November 16, 2020 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

Here it is — it’s Monday again.

The typical drag-your-derriere out of bed, increase your coffee intake, turn-the-sound-down-on-the-news kinda morning.

Now you would think that, since being retired for a year, I’d be over that kind of gut-kick reaction to just another day of the week.

I’m not.

Maybe my first reaction is a form of habit. After all, I worked for fifty years, all on the day shift, always having to get up at 6 a.m. five days a week. I don’t think you can just “turn off” that kind of Pavlov’s dog reaction.

Maybe it’s because there’s always something that needs to be done. No matter your country, state, town, marital status, or pant’s size, there’s always something you need to do on a Monday morning. Laundry. Call the plumber. Send your kids off to school. Go to a doctor’s appointment.

There’s always something waiting for you Monday Morning.

I do admit that days here tend to blur into one another. I find myself asking myself (or others) what day it is. Isn’t today Tuesday? Don’t we have to drop something off at the post office today? Did we talk to the kids about Saturday yesterday? Or three days ago?

I think with being home every day with the fear of Covid 19 striking you or those you love tends to blur your thoughts and memories after a while. I never thought I was going to be a jet setter once I retired, but there were things I was going to finally be able to do.

UhHuh. Not yet. No way. Sit down.

I think we all take a major sigh Monday mornings because it gives us a sense of routine. Of beginning again. Even if we don’t do the things we used to do, it gets us in the mind set that there are daily responsibilities we need to take care of every day.

Acknowledging Monday makes retirees blend in better with those who still have to work five days a week. Gets us into a fixed rhythm like doing homework five days a week. Gives us a sense of routine. Of setting goals and finishing them all within a specific time frame.

For most of us, weekends are still the time we set aside to do things we don’t normally do during the “work” week. Vacation. Visit family. Mow the lawn. Change the oil in the car. Stay up late. Go to the Farmer’s Market.

We need to keep our special time special. We can’t allow one day to melt into the next into the next. It gets too easy to let go and have life become one melted puddle day after day, week after week. No differentiation to remind us that we are always growing, always learning, and always making order out of chaos every single day.

Today is Monday. I’ve already had a slice of cheesecake for breakfast, thrown in a load of laundry, brushed the cat, and made a to-do list for the week. I may not be punching a time clock like days of old, but I feel that I still fit in the rhythm of the day and of the week. That I fit in with the buzzing world around me. At least for four more days.

Can’t wait till Saturday!

A Friend’s Trip Through Alternate Reality

May 17, 2016May 17, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ Leave a comment

Reflections of altered states, altered lives, is what writing — and life — is all about. It’s how I feel when I read, how I feel when I write. And there are times when I wish I could stay in those altered states a bit longer…

Enjoy this post from fellow blogger Tom Rains..

We long for altered states in life. Is this a bad thing? Is sobriety, the unaltered state, more virtuous? Is it more rational? Is it more real? Or should we aim to exist in altered states as much as possible? It seems like everything we love in life is similar to a drug-induced experience. Sometimes, […]

via Magic in Mundanity — A Blog for Humans

Went Gif Shopping Today!

April 5, 2016January 12, 2024 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

I went gif shopping last night.

I feel like a weirdo…or a geek. What in the world I’m going to do with this ever-growing collection only heaven knows. Gifs are all over the Internet — they are free, they are cool — and I haven’t a clue what I’m going to do with them all.

I suppose I like the simple movements a small bit of animation holds. I’m sure they are fairly simple to make, but like a magical act, I don’t want to know how it’s done. I am content watching water flow or objects spinning. They don’t take up much room — not like a salt and pepper shaker collection — and when you bore of them there’s not a lot of guilt disposing of them with a “click”.

I suppose when you are creative (as opposed to logical), the how isn’t as important as the happening. I once had a friend who told me why pretend, when Science was so much more fascinating. This came from a very logical person, an electrical engineer, who also happened to dabble in astronomy and physics. And this opinion twisted my own when it came to letting my imagination fly.

There is truth in what my friend told me. Science, physics, astronomy, engineering, all are fascinating truths that continue to evolve into more fantastical truths. This is the foundation of all we hold dear. The physics of balance and weight built us shelter. The simple mathematics of 0’s and 1’s is what powers computers, Iphones, and automobiles. I can’t imagine a world without these fascinating sciences, these powerful tools.

Yet I am simple in a lot of ways. Mathematics, Pi, integers, all that stuff means nothing to me because I don’t have any idea how it works. It’s like part of my brain refuses to function. I am fascinated by quantum physics, by quarks and black holes, but I haven’t a fig what they really are or how they are really formed. Like watching computer graphics. If technology can create dragons and Transformers and hobbits, all from what started as binary code, who am I to judge the validity of such?

But as I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that it’s okay to be imaginative as well as factual. Being a writer, an artist, and a grandmother, it’s important to always have a storytale ready. Whether created by me or J.K. Rowling, there is a need to dazzle an audience. To make eyes widen with just a sentence. To paint a landscape that doesn’t exist on this plane of existence. To call fireflies faeries and coyote howls werewolf songs.

There is a need for both fantasy and reality in this life. Most linear folks have little to do with the imagination side, unless it’s computers or cars or airplanes. And truthfully, many imaginations don’t care how something works. In their world, it just does. The crazier the better.

Which brings me back to my being a gif hog. I try and use them on blogs now and then. But more often I sit with my little grandbaby and show them the magic that someone else made. Like believing in unicorns and astrology and thanking God for the free throw you made to win the game. Just because you can’t prove it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

So for you giffys out there, here are a few that have caught my fancy….