Category: #Confessions

Posted in #Confessions, Mothers

Not My Usual Mother’s Day Post

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

            I’ve always had to share my birthday month with some pretty well-known festivities:  the end of school, graduations, and Mother’s Day.  Usually at this time of year I become melancholy  at the thought of Mother’s Day and not having my mother to honor.

            I have spent years dreading Mother’s Day.  I’ve slighted my own celebration of being a mother in lieu of loathing all the reminders of what I don’t have and all I have missed.

            I have spent hours smirking at Hallmark commercials and sneering at florist bouquets that I have never gotten to send.

            I have spent an endless amount of time missing my mother and feeling the huge depth of loneliness from having to grow up without her.

            But, what I meant to say is that I still miss her sixty-six years later.

            I still wish I had known her for myself, and not just through my brother and fathers’ memories.

            I still dread the Hallmark commercials and influx of florist bouquets to buy or nightgowns to gift.

            I still wish my daughters could have had a grandmother.

            I still look at her pictures and marvel at her forever youth and beauty.  She never grew old, and as I age, I wonder…do I look like she would have?

            Lately, I have been thinking of all the ways my daddy tried to be a mother to my brother and me.  I’ve spent lots of time being angry at what he didn’t do or say.  I have written volumes about his temper and harsh ways he disciplined us.  But, lately, ever so softly, I have felt the call to see the good.

            Every Saturday night was bath night when I was a little girl.  My daddy would try to curl my hair on pink spongy rollers so I would look presentable for church the next day.

            He bought me an Easter dress and patent leather shoes every spring, complete with a hat and purse.

            In elementary school he planned and executed backyard birthday parties for me and my friends.  We played games, had cake and punch, opened gifts and he always took pictures.

            Daddy made sure I joined Girl Scouts and got to go to camp during the summer.  He let me borrow his Brownie Camera and made sure I had a fresh roll of film for my scouting escapades.

            In 8th grade he paid for me to join Cotillion so I could learn manners, how to dance, and the social rules about dating boys.

            He took us to church and made sure we were baptized.  As I got older, he encouraged me to go to MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) and took me every Sunday evening. (even though my friends and I sometimes left to smoke cigarettes in the park behind the Church!)

            After I got my driver’s license he let me take the family car, a ’63 Chevy Impala, to high school, complete with bench seating, no power steering, and a secret cigarette burn on the floor board I never confessed to.

            Even though my father was a frugal man and pinched every penny he ever had, I always had a winter coat, a formal dress when I needed it, and new school shoes every year.

            He instilled in my brother and me a strong work ethic and a knowledge and appreciation for saving money.  He worked as an electrical engineer for forty years at the same company.  Being a company man, with a pension, was especially important to him.

            Daddy paid for me to attend four years at Baylor University and my brother to go to The University of Texas.  He used the money my mother inherited from her father and saved it all those years, just for our college education.

            My father did a lot of things for my brother and me in the name of: ‘Your mother would have wanted you to…’

            ‘Your mother would have made sure you…’

            Daddy was strict in a lot of ways and had rules he wanted us to follow come hell or high water.  He was practical and pragmatic, and sometimes critical to a fault, but his love and devotion to our mother guided many things he tried to do for us.  Nurturing didn’t come easy for him, nor did saying ‘I love you,’ or ‘I’m proud of you.’ But sometimes we knew it, just by the way he would look at us with tender eyes.

            I was four and my brother was eight when our mother died.  I don’t know if Daddy made a death bed promise to our mother that he would take care of us the way she would have wanted, but he did take care of us and loved us the best he knew how.  I think she both smiled and cringed as she watched us from above.  As a parent, I can imagine how hard it must have been for him, and how much dedication it took to get up every day with a determination to do his best. I appreciate all he did for us and the many ways he showed up as our only parent.

Recently, my brother and I were talking about Daddy and lamenting about something he did when we were kids.  In a moment of compassion, my brother said, “He really did do the best he knew how.  Remember, he was young.  He was only thirty-three years old and had two small children without a mother.”  I was struck by that loving thought.  What thirty-year-old is prepared to go through a spouse’s long illness and subsequent death, much less be left with two young kids?  It is something no one can be prepared for.

Because of my brother’s words, I have more grace toward Daddy, and a deeper understanding of his situation, not just ours.

And, if I could just say one last thing to my father, one thing that might bring a smile to his face and a warmth to his heart, I think it would be this…

Happy Mother’s Day, Daddy.

Posted in #Confessions, Aging, Gratitude

The Sadness of Getting Older

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

There’s a sadness to getting older. An underlying cloud of hazy gray covers the days and at night there is worry or maybe remorse at misspent opportunities.  Not every day is seen through this heaviness, of course, but there is a realization that hits, and I begin to know, really know that my days are numbered.

            Time is whizzing by at an alarming rate. I recall the birth of my children as if it were yesterday, yet my baby will be forty-six this year.  It is April and I feel as though I was just putting out my fall decorations and enjoying pumpkin spice coffee creamer.  Fourteen years ago, my first grandchild was born and soon he will be a sophomore in high school.  It all seems to go so fast now, and yet some things never change, like the need to be loved and accepted, the awe of watching a sunset, or the joy of warm chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven. 

Sometimes I forget that I am older until I pass the mirror and look into the droopy eyes of someone I don’t recognize at first.  “Oh, hi love,” I say to myself. “I see you. It’s ok.  You’re doing ok.”  As reluctant as I am to share my self-talk, I appreciate the encouragement and realize that in most situations my own support and nurturing is much more important than the words of others. (A realization that has taken me years to learn.)

            I’m feeling sad lately at the adversities and misfortunes that are befalling my dearest friends.  All of us, if we live long enough, will pass through the valley of the shadow of death.  All of us will have hard times, and I have had my share of these seasons, but seeing my sweetest friends go through sorrow and suffering puts a heavy pit in my stomach.  I want to help. I want to change the inevitable outcome of diseases and grief.  I want to do anything other than accept the unacceptable.  But, as my Sittin’ Ugly Sistah Ginger says, sometimes all you can do is just show up.

            My dear friend of fifty years has Alzheimer’s.  It has been a slow dissent for her, but things are speeding up. I show up but it rarely seems enough.  I send prayers and good thoughts, but it hasn’t changed the course of this barreling freight train.  My tears have done nothing to soften the harsh reality for her children and yet the tears keep coming and somewhere in there is my own self-pity at being left behind, without my friend.  Aptly named the long goodbye, Alzheimer’s is a cruel and heartless disease that robs the very life from its victims and tortures the family and friends left to watch.

            That is part of the sadness of getting older.  We are either leaving behind or getting left behind.  It’s a constant hello and goodbye.  Things are ever changing and mostly when you least expect it.  Like our bodies, and their predictable, but often unwanted revisions. Our hair, skin, and nails become shapeshifters, morphing into entities that do not resemble their former selves.  Our limbs betray us, and our inner organs are like an old pair of tennis shoes, scuffed, tattered, and worn completely out.

            There is a nursing home with memory care near our neighborhood.  I used to find it humorous that its name was Autumn Leaves.  But it is no coincidence that many homes are named according to this time in life and what that brings.  Serene Meadows, Tranquil Oaks, Sunrise Senior Care all names meant to bring peace to this time in life.  A rose by any other name…

            When my dear friend Randy passed away two years ago, I became mute with sadness.  What I wanted to say to her children and sister, I somehow couldn’t.  I was overcome with this feeling of disbelief and such a deep sense of permanence.  If the unimaginable could happen to her, a vibrant, loving, generous spirit, what could become of us lesser beings? 

There is a sadness to getting older.  The time for do-overs has passed us by.  There will be no more children to try and get it right with.  Our best hope are the grandchildren who we can love with abandon and try not to interfere with their lives.

This year Boo and I bought a new car.  “We need to hurry and buy one before they all become electric.  I’m too old to learn about electric cars,” he said. 

“You know this will probably be your last car, babe,” he added.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we kept the last one for eight years.  Do the math.  Do you really see yourself car shopping at seventy-eight or seventy-nine?”

“I suppose you may be right, but I’d like to keep my options open, just in case.”

Last new car.  Last colonoscopy.  Last driver’s license. And I probably will not start a rock band or learn to snow ski.  However, even with the sadness of lasts, nevers, and goodbyes, there is an open opportunity for gratitude and appreciation that somehow makes everything more palatable, if I can let it. 

Gratitude for having one day at a time, so the sadness and frailties of life don’t overwhelm me.  Thankfulness for the health and wealth I do have, not what I wish I had.  And compassion for this old body who has served me well all these years.  Aging is not for the faint of heart.  It takes courage to walk through this life with all of its highs and lows, and even though there is sadness around every corner, I will choose to keep walking toward the light.

Posted in #Confessions, Contemplations, Fears and Worries

Singing in the Shower by Ginger Keller Gannaway

Posted on by gingerkellergannaway

Even though Momma once told me, “You can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” there’s one place I feel comfortable belting out a song – the shower. Since I prefer free-form singing – making up the lyrics I can’t remember (like “I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain/ I’m a crazy old fool/ Ain’t followin’ no rules”/ Just laughin’ and washin’ the blues away”) My shower is a judgement-free zone, and the hot water soothes my soul as well as eases my mind and sends my troubles circling down the drain with any funk my body has accumulated. 

A year into the pandemic I confessed to my sister that I’d sometimes go two or three days without a shower or bath. Gayle was flabbergasted. “What’s wrong with you?!”

I think I didn’t like getting undressed when the weather was cold and I probably thought, “What’s the use of cleaning up?” I wasn’t going anywhere or getting cozy with anyone other than my dog or cat or husband, none of whom cared how I looked or smelled.

But I soon realized I was depriving myself of a calming, stimulating, and satisfying form of creativity. When I re-imagined the lyrics to “Singing in the Rain,” steamy water became my psychotherapist, and I always felt stronger after my shower. The singing was as necessary as the body-washing. I’d become Gene Kelly swinging on a lamp post and feeling in sync with the pouring rain.

I used to cry in the shower after my dad moved in with us. Living with an 87-year-old widower, who was part hypochondriac/part Pout-Pout Fish, was a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from! Caring for a 6’4” man in adult diapers who had more doctor appointments than a New Orleans native has Mardi Gras beads was not part of my retirement plan. My shower sobs helped me release my stress and wash away the day’s unpleasantness.

However, singing in a shower is worlds better than crying in one! Even if hearty sobs create endorphins that lie and tell me “every little thing is gonna be alright,” singing transports me into movie magic. 

“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” is another shower favorite for me. I conjure up Katherine Ross riding on the handlebars of Paul Newman’s bicycle in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and my world is sunshine through the trees and Newman’s mischievous grin.

(“Raindrops are falling on my head/ And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed/ Nothing seems to fit/ Those raindrops are falling on my head/ They keep fallin’”).

Even if the afterglow of a hot shower with my rousing renditions of movie soundtrack hits lasts only until I remember my list of chores and responsibilities, I’ve washed away some fifty layers of worry. I forget my awkward limp and crooked left arm, my grown sons’ personal struggles, and the world’s most annoying cat who refuses to ever die who shares a 900-square-foot apartment with us.

These day’s my shower’s finale is “Don’t Rain on my Parade” and I become the greatest star – Barbra Streisand – on that tugboat on her way to surprise Omar Sharif in Funny Girl.  “Don’t tell me not to live / Just sit and putter/ Life’s candy and the sun a ball of butter/ Don’t bring around a cloud to rain on my parade!” Music has power over reality at times, and we need moments of escape as much as we need a good washing. So I’ll choose confidence and joy over fear and worry every time.

Posted in #Confessions, Whispers

Whisper #1 Stop Smoking

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

            I heard it years ago, that faint whisper of suggestion, “Stop smoking.”   I had never wanted to quit my closet smoking habit and never thought about it until the whisper.  If no one knew I smoked, did it really matter?  If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?  If I didn’t smoke in front of people, was I really a smoker?

            My husband (my accomplice) and I vowed never to smoke inside the house, so we relegated our habit to the garage and backyard deck.  He, of course, smoked when and wherever he pleased, but I hid, out of shame.  When my daughters were young they never saw me smoke. I pretended to be very self-righteous about my hidden vices.  In fact, my daughters still laugh, “Mom of course we knew you smoked!  We also knew you hid your cigarettes in the kitchen cabinet above the coffee pot.”

            “You did?”  I genuinely asked.  “How did you know?”

            “M o t h e r  please, we might have been young, but we knew you were being shady.”

All those years of slinking around trying to hide my habit, spraying cologne, and chewing gum were all for naught.

    When Boo and I decided we would not smoke in the new house, I was really ok with it.  We set up two chairs in the garage with a table and ashtray.  I was comfortable until I wasn’t.

   I became increasingly irritated by the garage surroundings:  dust, clutter, and bugs.  Once, while having an early morning puff out in the garage, a raccoon wandered in through the half-opened garage door and scared me half to death.  We had a stare-off while I debated how I could defend myself if he were to get closer.  Still in my bathrobe before work, I envisioned the raccoon attacking me and me being found hours later near death, in the garage.  I gradually reached over to put my cigarette out, and in my fear, I knocked over my last bit of coffee. “Sh!*”  I stood up, preparing to bolt toward the door into the house, when the raccoon slowly turned and sauntered out into the dawn.  He was probably bored with my commotion or more likely, repelled by the smoke.

            “Stop smoking.” whispered to me at surprising times.  I would be mid-drag, huddled in the garage on a cold night or a one-hundred-degree summer day, wiping the sweat from my face, and I would hear, “Stop smoking.”  And then, two life-changing events altered my universe:  my father passed away and my first grandchild was born.

            Nursing homes usually don’t have a smoking section for a reason.  In 2009, as my father’s heart disease was progressing, I noticed that very few eighty-five-year-olds still smoked.  And the ones who hadn’t stopped in time were battling oxygen masks and horrible rattling coughs.  Already I was lying on my doctor’s questionnaires where it asked, ‘Have you ever smoked?’  I was lying, sneaking, and in total denial.  My father’s life was ending, and I was still smoking, although it was becoming increasingly more difficult to hide.

            I frequently drove to Amarillo to visit my dad in the nursing home, and when I did, I stayed in their senior living apartment with my stepmother.  Christine, God rest her soul, had a nose like a bloodhound so I had to be extremely cautious about covering up any smoke smell.  Plus, I was never alone, so I was definitely not smoking as much as I thought I wanted to. 

            “Stop Smoking.”

            I began to pray, “God, help me to stop smoking.”  I prayed for months, all the while continuing my secret habit, sucking on breath mints, and spraying Febreze on my clothing.

   Allen Carr wrote a book entitled “The Easy Way To Quit Smoking,” and in it, he refers to nicotine as The Green-eyed Monster.  This monster lies to you and tells you he is your best friend.  He makes you believe you are cool, social, and in control like you could quit any time you wanted, except the truth is that each time you smoke, you want to smoke more.  The Green-eyed Monster has his own whisper, “Just smoke one more.”

            The Green-eyed Monster says, “You’re so cool!” But, how often have you seen smokers hiding in back alleyways or standing alone on a corner?  Not cool.

            I read the book.  I prayed and I smoked until June 2009, two months before my father died.  I was traveling to visit my dad, maybe for the last time and I wanted to go without my ‘friend.’  I was exhausted by hiding and isolating myself from the scrutiny of the non-smokers.  I felt disgusted with myself.  I was ready to lay it down, yet I wanted to make sure I had a fresh pack and lighter handy.  I was balancing between two worlds.

            But, on June 13, 2009, in Amarillo, Texas, without fanfare or even a plan, I suddenly stopped smoking.  One day turned into another and another, all smoke-free.  I thought I would be shouting it from the rooftops, but as a closet smoker, I really didn’t have that many people to tell.  When I got home, back to Austin, I had to change my habits.  For a while, I couldn’t go out on the patio with Boo because it was so triggering, but eventually his smoking did not bother me.  I was not going back to The Green-eyed Monster.

August 22, two months later, my father passed away, and then on September 21, almost one month to the day,  my grandson was born.  I knew I never wanted to be a smoking granny, stopping to cough up a lung on the playground.  I wanted to be the fun grandma, able to participate in hikes, trips, and parties.  I never wanted him to smell smoke on me, only Jergens lotion or freshly baked cookies.  With his birth, I saw my future, and it was monster-free.

    Days turned into weeks and weeks into years until I realized I had been fourteen years as a non-smoker.  Fourteen years, the same age as my grandson.  My whisper probably saved my life; I know it has improved my life and brought me peace.   My whisper finally drowned out those empty promises from The Green-eyed Monster who skulked away like a wounded animal and will never come back.  Never.  

    Often in life, we do hear a whisper that is trying to tell us something important.  It’s our job to be quiet enough to listen, and perhaps heed a warning.  I like to think we can whisper back, and it will be heard.

    I am grateful, I whisper, I am so incredibly grateful.

Posted in #Confessions, Boo

I Don’t Have To Stay At The Ritz

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

            I didn’t grow up fancy.  I wasn’t spoiled with extravagant gifts and toys, in fact my father was always saying, “Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know.  If you want something you have to earn it.” And I would.

            I landed my first job at fifteen working at the YMCA as a lifeguard.  Luckily, this did not turn out to be my life’s vocation, but it was enough to make me realize I needed to find a better job and one that didn’t require me getting my hair wet every day.

            Soon I progressed to my part-time job at Montgomery Wards working in the TV, Stereo, and Record Department, and there I stayed until college.  I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I wanted one.  And when I got to Baylor University on a sunny August day in 1971, I was quickly struck by the differences in those with money and those without.  I wasn’t smart enough to be on a scholarship, but I needed one.  I was somewhere South of high falootin’ and North of broke.

            Fast forward to spring break 2006 when Boo and I were thinking of a little trip to the beach.  With a nostalgic look on his face, he said, “I know the perfect place.”

            “Florida?” I asked.

            “No, The Flagship Hotel in Galveston.  It’s iconic.  It’s one of a kind.  Magical. It’s the only hotel built right over the water.”

            “Sounds divine,” I said, and by Friday we were driving to Galveston. 

            I was looking for a large, seven-story type mansion hotel, and when we pulled into the parking lot, I said, “This can’t be it.”

            There was a huge FEMA sign strung across the Flagship sign and the parking lot was full of cars and campers.  I’m not going to lie, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, but Boo, ever the optimist, said, “Isn’t that cool that The Flagship is helping FEMA and the poor people displaced after Hurricane Katrina?  It looks a little run down, but it used to be the place to stay in Galveston.  I bet it’s still nice inside.”

            Turns out we had one of the few rooms still available for hotel reservations.  The hotel was mainly full of families from the hurricane.  As we cautiously got into the elevator, there in the corner, was a dirty diaper and three chicken bones with a KFC wrapper.

            “Don’t worry, our room will be nice,” Boo whispered.

            But, as we turned the corner from the elevator, I could hear loud music as three doors were wide open, and people were wandering from room to room with beer, babies, and biscuits (from KFC).

            “It’s only for two nights,” Boo said, “We’ll hit the beach in the morning.”

            As we were getting ready for bed that night, the musty smell of bay water, cigarettes, fast food, and marijuana wafted in and out of our room, and as I went to turn out the light, I saw a roach walking across the top of the dresser.

            “I can’t do it,” I told Boo, but it was late and by the next morning before 10:00 a.m., we were checking out.

            I don’t have to stay at the Ritz Carlton, but this was the Ritz Cracker, an old Ritz cracker that was found under a couch cushion.

            Later, in July of 2006, Boo’s mother, Jean, God rest her soul, paid for a trip to Yosemite National Park for our anniversary.  Although Boo and I are not poor, we are educators, which puts us in a certain bracket, if you know what I mean.  Anyway, Jean also got us first-class tickets to California on United.  Boo and I were surprised and yes, neither one of us had ever been in first class before this glorious trip.

            Once upon a time, before my Nikon 3500 digital camera, I sported a disposable camera everywhere I went, and first-class was no exception.  As Dorothy Parker once said, “I’ve never been a millionaire, but I know I’d be just darling at it.” I knew I was meant for first-class the minute we sat down.

            “Get your camera!”  Boo whispered.

            “Let me wait until we take off.  I don’t want to look like we don’t know how to act in first class,” I whispered back.

            Even before all the other passengers were on the plane, the stewardess asked if we would care for a glass of champagne, and we, as casually as possible, said yes!  Then she came back by with a silver tray filled with rolled up, hot, moistened hand towels for us to wipe our hands free of the dredges of travel.  “Ahhhh,” we sighed.

            Since we had no cell phone and our disposable camera had no selfie function, we took turns taking each other’s pictures at various stages of our first-class experience.  Wiping our hands, toasting the air with our glass of champagne, savoring each bite of our hot cashew nuts, and our lunch tray with a choice of red or white wine. We enjoyed every second of our flight!

            Looking back now, I’m sure our first-class neighbors thought we were the Beverly Hillbillies coming home from the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, but at the time we were living the high life.  Fancy to the max.

            The only other time Boo and I surpassed our fanciness was one weekend in New Orleans.  As luck would have it, rain pelted our car as we drove from Houston to New Orleans.  It was raining so hard we could barely see the road.  About twenty minutes outside of New Orleans, a car in the lane to our right hydroplaned in front of us, missing our car by barely an inch, and went across the line into the oncoming lane of traffic.  The only sound in our car was us sucking in our breath for what seemed like an eternity. Boo glanced into the rearview mirror as we slowed and saw that the car missed all traffic and spun around to be back in the right lane.  We were shaken.  It was like a dream.  “Shouldn’t we stop?” I asked.  But we couldn’t and neither could anyone else.  We all slowed down and tried to recover. “Thank you, Jesus,” was all we could say. 

            Still shaken up, we pulled into the Marriott parking lot an hour and a half later than check-in.  When we walked inside and gave them our names, the desk clerk said, “Malcolm?  We weren’t able to keep your reservation due to the weather.”

            “Are you sure?  What are we supposed to do now?”

            The clerk excused himself and returned a few moments later.

            “We’re sorry for the inconvenience.  Although we do not have your room tonight, our sister hotel, right next door does have a room.  Are you interested?”

            “Sure.” We said.

            We drove our car 300 feet to the hotel next door and when we pulled up a doorman greeted us.  “Welcome to the Ritz Carlton,” he said.

            Boo and I just looked at him and then at each other.  It really didn’t sink in until we arrived at our king-bed room and turned on the lights. 

            “Wow,” we said collectively.

            “Hurry and unpack,” Boo said, “So they can’t make us leave.”

            After our stressful drive to NOLA, we showered, donned the fabulous white, fluffy Ritz Carlton robes and slippers, and ordered room service.

            “We’re really fancy, now,”  I said, and with a mouth full of delicious club sandwich Boo nodded a resounding yes.

            Oh sure, I could go into the philosophy of fancy.  The definition, the descriptions, but maybe fancy is in the eye of the beholder.  Maybe fancy is a glittery term I have held in the highest esteem for too long.

            The hummingbirds in my backyard, fancy.  The gorgeous butterflies flitting from flower to flower, fancy.  Huge fluffy snowflakes falling from the sky, while your grandchild tries to catch them on his tongue. Beyond fancy.  And while I value this kind of ‘fanciness’ over the things money can buy, I still like a good hotel.

            I don’t have to stay at the Ritz Carlton, but I know I’d be darling at it.

Posted in #Confessions, Contemplations

Home on The Range or My Life As A Rolling Stone

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

Boo and I have lived in our home for almost nineteen years.  This is the longest I have ever lived in the same house.  I mean ever.  We have seen our aging neighbor through the death of his wife.  We’ve seen the young couples on our street have babies and now I see those babies waiting for the school bus in front of our house.  We share our over-the-top holiday decorations with the thousands of twinkling lights, and life-size blowups of Olaf, dancing penguins, Santa, and his reindeer. We invite young mothers with fussy toddlers in strollers to pet our black cat, Emmy.  It feels like home.  I don’t think God will ever ask me if I lived in a good neighborhood, but He might ask me if I was a good neighbor, and I hope to answer a resounding yes!   I feel a part of life, here.  I feel safe.

When I was born, my parents, brother, and I lived on Crockett Street in Amarillo, Texas.  It was a small, stucco starter home, with a detached garage that my dad and grandpa built.   My brother had a gang of boys to play with and luckily there was a little girl next door for me.  However, when I was four, as my mother’s illness progressed, it became necessary to sell our home to help with medical bills. Thus, we moved to a rent house across from Amarillo Junior College.  My mother died shortly after that, and we moved again because my father could not bear to live where my mother had died.  Luckily, a Methodist preacher and his family were moving to Chicago, so we rented their modest home right down the street and there we stayed for about five years.

When I was ten we moved across town to an upgraded neighborhood, and I started sixth grade as the ‘new girl.’  We did live there for nine years and after that, I went to college.  Even at Baylor, I bounced around to two different dorms my freshman year.  My sophomore and Junior years were stable, and then I got married and moved to an apartment in Waco, and the next year we moved to  Killeen, Texas to start a new life and teaching career.

I will not bore you with the gory details of each one of my moves, but within that marriage we did move twice.  Then there was a devastating divorce and that’s really when my moves escalated.  As a single mom on a schoolteacher’s salary, I had exactly $525 to spend on housing.  No more.  I was constantly on the lookout for a newer, bigger rent house for the same amount of money in the same school zone.  There were two moves before I remarried, then a huge uprooting to North Carolina.  To simplify matters, let’s just say within the next ten years there were four moves, another unsightly divorce, and a plan to move to Austin.

Obviously, one could argue that I am unstable, a rolling stone, or an excitement junkie.  But I plead irreconcilable circumstances and bouts of insanity.  I became the queen of creativity. I could unpack boxes, set up beds and hang all the pictures in two days flat. I would use my rent deposit refund to pay my next rent deposit, and I always left each house a little better than I found it.  I was resourceful, frugal, and as Blanche DuBois said in A Streetcar Named Desire, “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

Now, all this to say there have been downsides to my gypsy ways.  My family has never written my address in anything but pencil.  My youngest daughter blames me for her trust issues, the U.S. Postal Service still sends me change of address cards each summer, and it is hard for me to pass up a “good moving box.”

Perhaps I have been a wanderer.  It wasn’t my objective; I just fell into it.  Each move, each house meant something special to me, and I pinky swear that I never meant to harm my children or anyone else by moving.  I know I did the best I could.

With every new house, my intentions were pure.  I made it a home because by my definition, home is where the heart is and as long as I was there, my children would be safe and could be happy.  My modest meals like baked chicken in Italian salad dressing with a plain iceberg salad and lots of Ranch were the alternative to fish sticks and mac n’ cheese.  I wouldn’t say boring, but I might say dependable.  There was nothing fancy about our lifestyle, yet the girls were afforded new curtains and bedspreads to spruce up even the dreariest of shag carpets.  We survived and more.  We’re strong women, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound and make a home from the barest of frames.

But now… Now that I have this home with Boo, and we have made it ours, I have roots.  Settled in ways I never knew I needed.  Anchored with a firm foundation of faith and family.  Grounded with grandchildren that each consider our guest room as ‘their room,’ and brick by brick we have built beautiful memories with years of love and laughter.  I feel so lucky.

When my time here on earth has ended, I fully believe God will not ask the square footage of my home or the brand of hardwood floors or granite counters, but He may ask how many people I welcomed in with open arms.  He may ask me if I offered those without some of what I had, and He will probably ask if I loved others well.  I hope my answers will be satisfactory, as that has always been my aim. 

For you know what I say is true, a house is not a home unless it’s full of the good stuff, like love, laughter, and respect, and that is all anyone could ever want.

Posted in #Confessions, Boo, technology

The High Cost of Low-Tech Living

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

            About ten years ago we accidentally let it slip that we were paying for AOL service.

It just came out in conversation when one of our daughters asked, “Why don’t you have a Gmail account?”

            “I do.”

            “Why don’t you use it?”

            “We’re happy with AOL.  We pay them every month, so why change?”

            “WHAT?  MOM!!  You can get AOL for free, Mom.  You didn’t know that?  How long have you been paying?

            “Since dial-up?”  I sheepishly answered.

            “M O T H E R!!!”

            “Are you sure it’s free?”  Boo asked.  “Cause I don’t think so.” 

            That was just the beginning of our walk of shame through life. 

            “What else are you paying for that’s free?”

            “How should we know?”  I said.

            When we have guests or our grandkids come over, there is always the dreaded question:

“Nannie, what’s your Wi-Fi password?  Is it still in the..”

“It’s in the drawer of the little…”

“We know.”

“Bring it here and I’ll read it to you.  Ready?  X?2php54%7*79Ux3Pr8!2xG.”

“Nannie, why don’t you change this so you can remember it?”

“I don’t know how, and besides, this way no one can steal the password.”

“Who wants to?” they asked.

I admit, I don’t know who would want to steal our Wi-Fi password, but you never know.

Boo and I are intelligent people.  We have master’s degrees and we both worked at large high schools, so we like to think that we still have a certain amount of street cred.  Or at least we used to.  But it’s one thing to know gang signs and another to deposit a check from your phone.  It’s one thing to catch kids smoking in the bathrooms, and another to connect a phone to your car.  We have slipped into the uncool category.

Not long ago we had a business transaction with one of our daughters.

“I’ll VENMO you the money, Dad.”

“I don’t VEN-MAIL.” Boo answered.

“VENMO.  OK, how about ZELLE?”

“Nope.”

“Never mind, I’ll VENMO Mom and she can write you a check.”

“That’s better,” he said.

Is it even bragging if I say I am more high-tech than Boo just because I have a VENMO account?  It sort of feels lowish on the tech scale.  For heaven’s sake, I just now ordered my groceries online.  I know I’m late to the party, but I love it.  However, I have no idea what Instacart is or how it works, but if TARGET can come to my house, then it might be worth exploring.

When I told one of our other daughters how much I had to pay for my XM Radio, she said, “I never pay full price.”

“What do you mean?  I get an annual renewal fee,” I said.

“I just call and tell them I can’t pay that amount and I want to cancel.  Then we haggle back and forth for a minute, and they end up telling me I qualify for a special deal.  It usually saves me $100.  I do it every year.”

How do our kids know all of these ins and outs?  And when did EVERYTHING become technical?  Our doctors are on ‘my chart,’ which means we can make appointments and see our test results online, at least some of us.  Boo still does not know how to access his chart.  He always ends up somewhere on the site he doesn’t want to be or with an appointment in some obscure clinic across town.  I usually schedule his doctor’s appointments, but when he asks me to send them a message or question, I take the liberty to ask what I want to and then sign his name.

By the way, is it considered low-tech if you still print out driving instructions from map-quest?  I’m asking for a friend.

I recently bought a new car.   I thought I was all Bluetoothed and ready to go.

“I can’t hear you,” my callers say.

I have disconnected, reconnected, sync’d, read the manual, googled, and asked a friend.  I cannot for the life of me get my phone properly connected through my car.  I can hear callers, but they can’t hear me, and to make matters worse, I now have an obnoxious buzzer ringtone that plays when someone calls, and I cannot change it.

My blood pressure is going up just mentioning our technical difficulties.  I wish I could brag about some other things we are really great at in spite of our low-tech ways, but nothing is coming to mind.  We do have a Keurig coffeemaker, does that count?

Even saying that makes me cringe.  Perhaps we’re ‘cutting edge’ in ways the world does not promote.  We could use words like digital, cyber, and state-of-the-art, but being flashy is just not our style.  We prefer to fly under the radar and keep our techie-ness to ourselves.

Let’s face it, Boo and I will never be truly high-tech.  The best we can hope for is somewhere in the middle and not paying for internet mail services.  It’s the high cost of our low-tech living. 

Posted in #Confessions, Aging

On Becoming Seventy or How I Thought I Would Be Grown-up By Now

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

            I cried the year I turned twenty-nine.  I boohooed and made such a big deal out of the last year of my twenties.  “I’ll have to be grown up now and learn about mortgages.  I’ll have to stop wearing short shorts and start acting more mature.  Should I cut my hair?”  These are the thoughts that swam through my mind as a young mother of two and looking back now, I wonder why I wasted the last year of my twenties on such foolishness.  Turning thirty did not end my short shorts days.

Daughter Lee in middle, little Amy K. daughter of a sweet friend, and me in short shorts…Rockport, Texas

            Ten years later, remembering my silly response, I stated that thirty-nine would definitely, absolutely be the year I became a real adult. I had one year to prepare myself for the forties, which everyone knows is the hallmark of maturity, the pinnacle of wisdom and sophistication.  My forties were filled with my children growing up, me finishing graduate school, and having a mortgage.  I felt mature beyond my years, but my shorts were getting a little longer, and I started buying readers at Walgreens.

            Thankfully, there was no angst the year I turned forty-nine: only a peaceful resignation that time marches on if you’re lucky.  Silently I marched into my fiftieth birthday with wonder and awe, and in true Boo fashion, my husband surprised me with a special gift. 

We celebrated quietly at home with a home-cooked meal and a delicious strawberry cake made lovingly by Boo. We were sitting at the table having just finished cake when a phone started to ring.  It wasn’t my landline phone, the ring was coming from one of my yet-to-be-opened birthday gifts. 
“Where is that coming from?  Why is my gift ringing?” I questioned.  “Boo!  What did you do?”

            And with that, I ripped the paper off of my gift, which was a beautiful UT Texas orange, flip phone.  My first, very own cell phone. “Hello?”  I said.

            “Surprise!” my daughter yelled. “You got a cell phone!  Happy Fiftieth!”

            Not only did turning fifty bring me a cell phone and other wonderful gifts, but it also brought me a huge red zit on the side of my cheek.  The location made it unable for me to disguise, plus it hurt like heck.

Welcome to your fifties, it said!  You thought you were over teenage acne, but alas, you’re not grown up yet!

Not long after my birthday zit, I had to have a hysterectomy and began hormone replacement therapy.  What is happening?  I’m not old enough to be over zits but too old to have children.  Fifty-one brought me a nice reprieve.

            Turning fifty-five or The Double Nickel, as Boo calls it, was like getting a bonus.  At fifty-five you are considered a Senior, at least AARP says you are.  IHOP, Chili’s, and McDonald’s want to give you freebies or discounted menus and even car rentals want to give you 10% off.  There’s quite a list of establishments that want to help you save money.  So, I ended my fifties on a high note by retiring and starting what some might refer to as living my best life. (in capris, not short shorts)

            When I heard that sixty was the new forty, I held onto that as I slid perilously into the big six zero.  But sixty-five brought with it all kinds of stuff that was hard to ignore.  For one thing, those dang Medicare phone calls started, and the commercials.  “Call this number NOW!”  All of a sudden my mailbox was flooded with advertisements for walk-in bathtubs, electric stair chairs, and even more discounts for seniors.  Was I now a true senior?  A senior-senior?  As the fliers for Medical Alert Systems and adult diapers kept flooding in, I realized that I’d made it.  I was NOW a mature adult.  Grown-up to the max.  The day I signed up for Medicare I felt as if I were in a barrel about to go over Niagara Falls.  No turning back.

                        And so it is as I approach my seventieth year of life.

            My mother was only thirty-three when she died.  I am immensely aware of my good fortune and blessings to have lived such a life as I have.  Her early death is not lost on me as I reflect on all she missed and the fact that she did not have the opportunity to grow old. It is a privilege denied to many.

            I know the true meaning of when you’ve got your health, you’ve got everything.  I used to lament about my hands, saying, “I’ve got my grandma’s hands!  Arthritic, wrinkled, and veiny.”  But, these hands have held my children and grandchildren and they’ve reached for Boo to steady me in life.  They’ve made meals, graded papers, planted flowers, and held the hands of loved ones who have passed from this earth.  I’m proud of them and all the ways they’ve shown up for me.  My hands tell the story of a life well lived.

My grandma was crowned Valentine Queen of her nursing home. (1980’s)

            So, on May 1, 2023, I will quietly arrive at my seventieth year of life, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.   Gladly, I have not squandered this year worrying or plotting.  I’m neither afraid nor embarrassed. I am simply humbled and very grateful. 

And as for the short shorts, well I had a good run.  It doesn’t seem to matter so much anymore, and if seventy doesn’t say “mature” I don’t know what will because eighty is the new sixty and twice as fun as forty.

Posted in #Confessions, writing

Author’s Stepping Stone by Ginger Keller Gannaway

Posted on by gingerkellergannaway

Nancy and I are gathering and polishing our favorite posts for a publishable book of essays. Research tells us we need to create an author’s platform before we reach out to literary agents. Most editors advise boosting our social media presence. Some say using WordPress sites (like sittinuglysistahs.com) are worthless unless you have at least 20,000 followers. Our blog has 269 subscribers, and it takes longer for me to “publish” an essay than it takes me to write and revise it. 

On comic Hasan Minhaj’s The King’s Jester special, he asked an audience member, “What are the most likes you ever got on a photo?” When the guy hesitantly answered, “86,” Minhaj exclaimed, “If I only got 86 likes on a photo, I’d kill myself!”
 
Should I start stockpiling sleeping pills because I’ve never had more than 32 likes on a photo?

Yosemite’s Half Dome in January (by Gary McClain Gannaway)

For Nancy and me, building a decent author’s platform is as scary as scaling Yosemite’s Half Dome at midnight in winter without a harness, safety cables, or climbing rope. I have no interest in Pinterest; I’ve never been on Instagram on purpose; I don’t know how to get on TikTok, and I joined Twitter ten years ago because a tweet was limited to 140 characters and I could read actual quotes from my idols Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler. Also, I didn’t join Facebook until all the cool kids got off of it.

Create a platform?! I’ll never create more than an author’s stepping stone in a Texas creek during the August drought with nothing but snakes and grackles as my audience. Or considering my Cajun side, I’ll try balancing on a cypress stump in Bayou Fou-Fou where mosquitos attack so fast I can only remain on that wooden platform for three minutes before I’m weak from blood loss.

I yearn to, like Walt Whitman,’“sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world,” yet I cannot get used to not being heard. Our Sittin’ Ugly Sistahs  posts may get twelve likes and seven comments on our blog. Facebook may get over fifty likes and twenty comments. I treasure our regular readers, and I keep on writing because I love to write. However, we lack the skill to boost our numbers.

Last week Nancy and I got advice from a social media expert – someone under thirty-five who knows his way around technology. We weren’t sure what plug-ins were and didn’t know how to delete info. on our blog that was just taking up space. For a large cup of coffee, our guru convinced us to expand our outreach with Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. When I suggested trying TikTok, both he and Nancy gave me “you got to be kidding” stares. 

Therefore, I’ll balance on my stepping stone in the rushing, murky waters of social media and post more content, and I’ll hope for new followers and settle for not embarrassing myself worse than the time I asked my high school students to explain hash tags. “But why smash all the words together? What do hashtags accomplish and why include a list of them?” The freshmen had tried giving me examples, modeling how to create them, and even retaught me how to use them on a blog post. In a teacher-becomes-the student moment, I blinked at their excellent teaching methods but lied when I said, “Thanks. Now I understand.”

Today I will boldly step onto my next social media stepping stone. I may not ever get across the bayou because I’ll likely splash into the murky water; however, I will not drown. I’ll float on my back and let the Instagram pictures and YouTube videos carry me to new places. Maybe I’ll pick up friends and followers along the way. And against all odds, Nancy and I may write something that gets a three digit number of likes! #ItsWorthAShot #WeBelieveInMiracles 

Posted in #Confessions, #Teaching

Rock Paper Scissors

Posted on by Nancy Malcolm

          “Repite, por favor.”

            “Senorita?”

            “Senorita?”

            I heard my professor tap into the headset asking me to repeat the phrase that was just spoken on the tape we were listening to.

            “Senorita, verme despues de clase.”

            See me after class.

            For some unknown reason, I advanced placed out of two Spanish classes from high school and landed in a second year Novella class in which I did not belong. Because I had sailed through high school with little studying, I was ill-prepared to keep up with this high-level Spanish class at Baylor University.

            I slithered into the Professor’s office after class, and he wasted no time:

            “Senorita?  I will let you withdraw passing if you will just get out of my class.  You simply cannot continue.”

            His chair-side manner would never win a compassion award.  He offered no remediation or helpful guidance, as I was evidently slowing him down.

            “But my major. What about my major?  I wanted to be a Spanish interpreter and travel the world.”

            “Oh, Dios mio!  No Miss.  You must not continue.”

            “Ok.”  I said, “But, what do I need to do now?”

            “Just go.  I’ll take care of the withdrawal.”

And so, I went back to my dorm room to pour over the curriculum courses trying to find a new major.  Becoming a Spanish interpreter and traveling the world was no longer an option.  How do you say, ‘end of the line,’ in Spanish?

            Because I had learned to sew with my grandma growing up, I thought I could be a fashion designer, which sounded as exotic as a Spanish interpreter.  I did love fashion and as far as I knew I would not have to take any foreign language, so it seemed the perfect fit.  I called my daddy that next weekend to tell him my news and shockingly it did not go the way I predicted.  I explained the Spanish class situation and that I withdrew with a passing and not a failure.  Then I told him my grand plan to become a fashion designer and see the world.

            “No, you will absolutely not become a fashion designer,”  he said.

            “But Daddy…” I interrupted.

            “No buts.  The only acceptable majors are teaching, or nursing.  That way, if your husband dies later in life, you will have a career to fall back on.”

            “But, Daddy, a fashion designer is a career.”

“Nancy Lynn, you need to become a teacher or a nurse, marry a nice, educated man when you graduate, be a stay-at-home mom and live happily ever after.  That’s what you need to do unless you want to start paying your own tuition and then you can waste your own money on fashion designing.  Comprende’?”

            “Yes, Daddy.”

            “O.K. honey, get this taken care of as soon as possible.  Love you.”

            “Love you, too, Daddy.”

            My exciting idea about fashion designing morphed into a Bachelor of Science degree in Home Economics.  My certificate would allow me to teach grades 8-12 Home Economics and Science: and also, Kindergarten.  And although I had never ever, even once thought about being a teacher, it seemed that was my best option. 

            In my junior year at Baylor I met and fell in love with a law school student who was also a widower, ten years my senior and had a six-year-old daughter. We fell for each other in lightning speed and got married six months after our first date. “We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout!” as Johnny Cash would have said.

            His mother had been a teacher, so he was as happy about my teaching certificate as Daddy was.  We got married before my senior year, and Daddy even agreed to finish paying my tuition as long as I graduated at the end of the year, and that is exactly what I did.

             After my graduation, my ‘then’ husband still had two more semesters of law school, so we decided that our daughter, Lee, and I would move back to his hometown of Killeen, Texas and I would apply for teaching jobs.  My interview with the Killeen Independent School District happened to be the same day we drove from Waco pulling a U-Haul trailer.  Sixty-one miles of pulling a trailer and entertaining a six-year-old left me a little less than fresh as I pulled up to the Human Resources building,(trailer and all) and after a short introduction, I was told to head straight over to the junior high school.

            “Go on over to the junior high and I’ll call the Principal to expect you.  This could be your lucky day,” the Human Resource Director said.

            When we arrived at the junior high, Lee and I went into the front office, and I introduced myself to the secretary.

            “Mr. Lawson is expecting you.  Your daughter can wait out here with me if you like,” she said.

            The school was old and definitely across the railroad tracks.  I just didn’t know if it was on the right or wrong side of those tracks.  And since Killeen, Texas was near Fort Hood army base, I knew there would be a large population of military children attending the school.

            Before I knew it, Mr. Lawson came out and introduced himself to me and Lee. 

            “Be good, sweetie, and I will be back soon,” I said to Lee and sat her in a chair by the counter in the front office.

            Mr. Lawson and I had polite chit chat and he asked questions about my teaching philosophy.  I had no philosophy about teaching or anything else, really.  I was barely twenty-two years old and well, quite frankly, I thought this teaching gig would be a breeze.

Five minutes into our interview we heard ‘click click, likity tickity, click, click.’  We continued talking but when the clicking sound kept on he said, “Maybe we better check on your little one.”  Opening his office door we saw Lee, singing softly to herself and tap dancing on the freshly waxed office floor.  The secretary clapped and cheered, “Bravo!” and Mr. Lawson turned to me saying, “Well, I have to offer you the job now after a performance like that!  School starts in two weeks, what do you say?”

            “Yes,” I said hugging Lee.  And just like that I moved to a new city, with a new family and a new career.

            I became a teacher, something I never aspired to be or dreamed of being.  It was by default from a Spanish Professor who wanted me out of his class as much as I wanted to be out.  It was a life decision I fell into by sheer chance and because my daddy had a vision of what a woman should and should not do. Was it luck?  Would you call it fate?  Both sound too romantic for what it really was, happenstance.

            I became a teacher, averaging way more than the “forty hours a week and summers off,” that a few foolish people believe is true.  My heart was captivated by the sometimes hopeful, sometimes hopeless faces I would meet each year.   Come August, I planned to do better than the year before and create an atmosphere of learning and respect, and each May I looked forward to time away from the constant responsibility and work, which is teaching.  It was a rhythm I would repeat for thirty-six years.

            In 1990-91 I taught Kindergarten at Clear Creek Elementary School on Fort Hood army base in Killeen, Texas.  The Gulf War had just started when we began school that year and what I remember most are the children and mothers crying each morning as they separated for the day.  In my classroom, our main windows faced the highway, and right next to the highway were the railroad tracks.  The trains ran all day and all-night loading and unloading equipment, tanks, and personnel and often my twenty-five little charges would be gathered three deep looking out the window hoping to see their mothers or daddies.

            “Come away from the window now,” I would say.  “Let’s read a book.”

            “But I think I see my daddy,” one child would say, and the rest would press close, hoping for a glimpse.

            Our school was on high alert and the MP’s (Military Police) were positioned by the doors while nearly every day a young mother would come to check out her children in hopes of moving back home where they could be near family.  It was a chaotic year, yet one I felt most honored to be a part of.  I felt my calling to not only teach these children but also to love and nurture them, providing a safe, calm oasis during their otherwise stressful days.

            As time went on, I became the kind of teacher I could be proud of.  I became a teacher with a heart.  A heart for students from all walks of life, backgrounds, and nationalities.  A heart for loving the hard to love and a heart to bring discipline to a troubled spirit.  I enjoyed each grade level, each school, and each role I played from Kindergarten teacher to Assistant Principal of a large high school.  The job requirements might change but the essence of a teacher stays the same.  Connection.

This connection changed my life in a million different ways, all better than I could have ever imagined.  My heart learned when to be tough and when to be tender.  My patience grew by leaps and bounds as eventually, I became exactly what I was always meant to be.

 A teacher.