musings | Change Is Hard

November 12, 2015
by dawnkinster 14 Comments

Not trucks

It’s a grey day mama.

I want to write about something that doesn’t have anything to do with trucks. I feel like I’ve been immersed in truck issues for such a long time that there’s no way out. And in reality that’s true, there is no way out, I know I’m in that fight for the long haul. But sometimes I need to think about, do something, different. To let that truck stuff go for a little bit.

Trouble is today, when I came up for air, the weather outside was frightful. We’ve had a wind advisory all day with gusts up to 50 miles per hour. And rain. Plus it’s cold, and I don’t really like being cold. So Katie-girl and I have spent an entire day inside thinking about things we could be doing but not doing many of them.

It’s not as though I don’t have a long list of things I should do. Starting with cleaning. And organizing. And cooking. Not to mention practicing; the next community band concert is December 1, only a few very short weeks away. But I have only managed to nap today.

We weren’t raised in my family to be nappers so I’m struggling with the thought that I could spend an entire day in a chair watching the rain hit the windows, the light, what little of it there is, move across the yard, checking Facebook and email, reading blog entries. Falling asleep reading a book.

Morning light before the storm.

I want to write about something that doesn’t have anything to do with trucks. Something colorful and vibrant. Happy. But I seem to be in some sort of grey funk that matches the weather. Even Katie-girl seems to understand and gives up asking me to play after a little while. She’s asleep at my feet at the moment.

Tomorrow. Well tomorrow I will get myself up and go for a walk. After that perhaps I’ll write something that doesn’t have anything to do with trucks.

October 14, 2015
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Night lights and hope

Arlington lights

I’m here in the hotel room while my husband is walking to the grocery store. I should be working on the speeches I will be giving over the weekend, but I don’t want to. So I went out on the balcony and photographed the buildings all lit up around us.

That was pretty fun.

We haven’t gone into DC yet, we’re still out in Arlington at The Truck Safety Coalition office, checking awards, printing data sheets, stuffing folders, making calls, verifying participants, making appointments, rewriting speeches and discussing session outlines. There’s a lot to do.

This will be our biggest conference ever, the most participants and the most confirmed appointments with Members and agencies on the Hill. The very important bill we’re worried about (Transportation Reauthorization Bill) is being “marked up” (worked on) this Thursday in committee, so our timing turns out to be perfect. We will be talking to Congressional staff and committee members on Monday and Tuesday; our views should be up front and center in the minds of committee members as they work on the bill Thursday.

We’ll do the best we can to convince everyone that federal law allowing 33 foot double trailers should not overrun more than 20 states that currently prohibit the longer trailers. Everywhere I go here in DC Congressional staff tell me that issues I want resolved should be decided ‘at the state level.’ And now the American Trucking Association wants the federal government to grant them permission to run their longer trailers right over state laws. And worse, many members of Congress are quite willing to do that!

So. Tonight I am tired but optimistic. And to take a break from all this truck stuff I stand on my dark balcony pointing the camera at a dazzling quilt of light. My fervent hope is that the light will finally come on in Congressional and Agency heads and hearts and that they will make decisions based on safety rather than industry profits or campaign contributions.

This time please let safety win.

Daddy

October 8, 2015
by dawnkinster 7 Comments

Shopping thoughts

I used to like to shop. When I was younger. Thinner. Now the whole thing just seems unnecessarily stressful. But I have a few things I need to pick up in preparation for a trip out of town. Not a lot of things, but still, I need to go inside a store. And try stuff on. In front of a mirror.

Truly I don’t need the overly attentive chipper female in the size zero painted on pants asking if I need a different size. I just don’t. And the older woman at the shoe store that has no other customer and wants to find me every size 7.5 black shoe she has when I haven’t even decided if I’m seriously going to look at shoes.

But most of all when I finally pick out the couple of things I need, most of which is underwear, and patiently stand in a long line of people waiting to pay for their merchandise, why do I get the only young male cashier, standing among a line of 7 older females ringing up sales? Why is it my luck to get the obviously new young male cashier who can’t get the scanner to read the tag on the underwear and is turning all shades of red. Who has to get an elderly coworker to help him. And who calls me “Miss” throughout the long excruciating (for him) transaction.

Yep. Shopping is just too hard. I think I have enough clothes and shoes and underwear now. I shouldn’t have to do this again for a few years. And if I loose a little weight there’s a whole closet full of clothes from back in the day just waiting for me.

No sales person required.

October 4, 2015
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Sunday Morning memories

Few of you know that my favorite TV show is ‘Sunday Morning’ which airs every Sunday on CBS at 9 a.m. I usually work my Sundays around watching the show which includes pieces on art, music, sports, and politics along with bits of news and weather. They take a longer and more in depth look at many topics that I enjoy. I almost always learn about something new, or catch up on something I used to know about but had forgotten over the years. And if nothing else I love those nature minutes at the end.

So you can imagine my disappointment as 9 a.m. was approaching today, and I clicked over to my CBS station only to find football scheduled. Football? I started thinking back…was today really Sunday? I get confused now that I’m retired. Maybe today is Saturday. I checked a calendar and confirmed that I was not crazy. I flipped through the stations again, maybe I had forgotten what station my show was on? (Notice how I assume there’s something wrong with me rather than the world!) No ‘Sunday Morning.’

So I did what any typical middle aged person does in situations like this. I googled it. And I found out there’s some silly football game in London that has upstaged my show! But amazingly, CBS had not forgotten about all of us art lovers. They have available online, from their archives, the very first show that aired with Charles Kuralt back on January 28, 1979.

Sadly I am old enough to remember 1979 quite clearly, though I didn’t see the inaugural show back then, so of course I had to watch it today. Are you curious to know the contents of that first show?

Well, here you go:

There was a piece showing President Carter speaking on the Iran controversy, though they didn’t call it that back then. This was 10 months before the American hostages were taken, but the piece showed the growing tensions and the affect it was having on American politics. There was a short interview with Detroit Mayor Colman Young about the Republican National convention which was to be held in Detroit. I felt transported back in time.

There was a sports report done by Richard Threlkeld about big ten basketball. He was a regular on the show and I always enjoyed his work. Mr. Threlkeld was killed January of 2012 in a crash with an oil tankard in New York state. Knowing that as I watched him today in the 1979 piece made me sad. Sometimes it’s not good to know the future.

There was a story about Nelson Rockefeller who had died just two days prior. In the piece was a short interview with Mr. Rockefeller showcasing his modern and abstract art collection. He said he liked abstract art because, depending on your mood, you could see something different each time you looked at it, unlike a classical piece. Once you looked at those, he said, you knew what was there and you didn’t need to look again. Interesting perspective.

And there was a piece about the American bald eagle and how close it was to extinction. The focus was a fight over an oil refinery that was proposed for Eastport Maine, which is the furthest eastern town in the United States, and made entirely of islands. It also happened to be a sanctuary for bald eagles. In January of 1979 the eagles had won the fight and the refinery was not being built, even though it would mean jobs to a town on the brink of extinction itself. The story said that the town had a population of just over 2,000 which apparently was down from previous years. I looked Eastport up just now. The last census data is from 2010 and shows 1300 residents. The photos I could find don’t show any refinery. Which is good news for the bald eagles.

The cover story was about Pope John Paul on his first foreign trip. It looked very much like the recent Pope visit to the United states. The story talked about the struggle in the church over who would lead and toward what. I wonder if much has changed in the thirty-six years since.

So on a Sunday morning when my routine was disrupted I found a bit of ‘Sunday Morning’ to appease myself. And I got a trip back through time; short as it was it was long enough for me to realize life seems pretty much the same as it was back then. Similar issues. Similar struggles. Similar reactions. Though 1979 feels like a different life, a different world, really it wasn’t so very different than the life and world I see today.

And that’s oddly comforting.

August 31, 2015
by dawnkinster 22 Comments

Gift of water

Last summer days.

My dad was always a water person. He played, as a boy, on the banks of a river and he and my mother went on a canoe trip down that river for their very first date. During his entire life he wanted to live on water, and he accomplished that when I was a kid, and then again later in life.

Reflective.

The love of water is one of the gifts my parents gave us. And another is their home. Tucked away on a big lake in a warm state it’s a place their kids gather to relax and spend time together.

Water that goes on forever.

I was thinking about what a wonderful gift the love of water is as we were out on their lake today. Big puffy white clouds interspersed with ominous dark streaks floated above us as my brother skied, as we floated near our favorite island, as we visited the mountain near where their ashes were spread eleven years ago.

Mountain balances lake.

Water. The basis of life. Magical, ever changing. Beautiful.

Evening falls.

Aren’t we lucky that our folks passed on their love of water and then made sure we were able to enjoy it for years to come.

They are always near.

And aren’t we lucky we get to spend time on a beautiful lake while thinking about them, telling stories about them, appreciating them.

Remembering them.

Island stands tall.

July 16, 2015
by dawnkinster 15 Comments

Walking through debate theory

Thinking about stuff

When you feel passionately about something it’s only natural that you’ll come across others that feel differently, people who are just as passionate about their own views. And with social media we often see up close and personal all the different opinions of the people we call friends. Where a political opinion or a religious comment might be left silent in our face to face dealings, the misplaced feeling of anonymity causes many of us to open right up about what we feel strongly about when we’re online.

I’ve never been a great debater. I don’t even like watching debates because I can see both sides of most arguments, and I don’t like to see anyone lose. But these days with politics continually running on 24/7 news stations there’s lots of fodder for posts. And people take sides loudly and regularly. Sometimes it’s made me uncomfortable…and a few times I’ve thought about unfriending folks who have vastly different opinions about religion and politics than my own.

But I’ve never unfriended anyone. Because if I unfriend someone because they think different than me how will I get to hear the other side of the argument? How can there be any expansion of my mind, any reconsideration of other points of view if I don’t even see their comments?

I thought about all of this yesterday during a morning walk. I was having a Facebook debate about a truck safety issue with a friend. We don’t agree on some things because we come from different life experiences. We base our opinions on the things we know. That’s what everyone does. Some things we will have to agree to disagree about. Other things will be resolved on common ground.

In the end what I came to realize on my walk is that friends don’t have to like the same things, think the same things, support the same things. Friends just have to be open to new ideas, respectful of different points of view. Debate, as uncomfortable as it is, is how change happens.

And change can be good, even when it’s hard.

July 5, 2015
by dawnkinster 16 Comments

Yard treasures

Mr. Oriole comes for grape jelly.

One of the joys of being retired is time spent in my own back yard. There’s time to sit on the deck out back, watch the clouds scoot by, the light change on the birch trees, the birds coming in shifts to feed, even the grass growing. What a treat.

Ripening black raspberries.

I remember the days when, while backing out of the driveway on my way to work, I noticed the early morning sun on the front of the house and felt a pang that another beautiful day at home was going to slide by without me. Now I have to keep reminding myself that I get to stay and enjoy the peace.

Gift from blue jay.

I constantly catch myself feeling sad that a day is ending, a weekend finished, a week gone by. It’s as if my body is automatically gearing up to go back to work after a vacation, sad that it’s ending. And then I remember that it’s not.

Roses bloom.

So if you see me smiling quietly to myself you’ll know I’m just mentally pinching myself.

And enjoying the treasures in my own yard.

Mrs. Oriole visits for a snack.

June 30, 2015
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Elasticity of time

Fields of summer

I’ve been retired a month now. My hope before I left work was that time would unfold in the slow dreamy way summer days did when I was a kid.

You remember those days don’t you? Warm summer days when you got up with the morning light and lingered over breakfast, wandered outside later in the day, climbed a few trees, goofed off with neighborhood kids, stayed out late into the evening chasing fireflies.

Each day stretched out indefinitely.

Retirement started out that way. The first few days, perhaps the first week, seemed to last forever. Even now most of the day I don’t know what time it is, and that’s fine with me. And I’ve long since lost track of what day of the week it might be.

But time is speeding up now, just as my grandmother told me, years ago, it would.

Suddenly it’s Tuesday, another weekend ended, another week already moving along, a whole month gone since I last commuted to work. Midsummer and the 4th of July are right around the corner. Somehow a quick after lunch nap stretches into early evening, a few minutes reading on the deck out back and the morning is gone, check Facebook and the sun drops below the horizon without warning.

Time seems to be an elastic band snapping back at me with intensity, a pendulum swinging toward the future at increasing speed. The world seems to be screaming past, daring me to catch a ride, to fling myself up into the speeding vehicle moving toward something unknown. But I’m dragging my feet, hanging on to the golden sun, the misty mornings, the glowing fireflies.

I’m hanging on, trying to slow time down. Just for a little bit longer.

Golden summer marches on.

June 22, 2015
by dawnkinster 12 Comments

Retirement Reflections

Reflections

It’s Monday morning, sometime before 7:00 a.m., and I’m up and out the door. Only as I’m backing down the driveway do I remember all the past Monday mornings when I’ve headed out about this same time on my way to work.

Early morning.

But this morning I’m not going to work.

I’m headed out to a hillside I’ve noticed over the years. Yesterday on our way to somewhere else I noticed the grass was a beautiful golden brown and I knew I had to get back with the camera soon before the farmer turned it all into hay.

As I park on the side of the road, pausing to let commuters zoom by, I begin to smile. I smile because it’s a beautiful day, the sun just topping the trees, small puffy clouds in a blue sky, a cool breeze gently tossing the grass.

Field of grass.

And I smile because I’m not on my way to work.

Driving leisurely back toward home after capturing the field I stop at a local park to enjoy the glassy pond.

Swimming hole.

Sigh.

I’ve got to say that even weeding is looking pretty good to me right now.

Summer arrives

June 21, 2015
by dawnkinster 17 Comments

Father’s Day

Dear Dad,

I’m thinking about you today, sifting through pictures, reaching back, oh so far, for the smallest memory. Not that I don’t think about you every day. Both of you.

Remember all the great trips you took us on every summer?

Going on a trip!

I went camping up north a couple weeks ago. I thought of you as I put up my spiffy modern tent alone. Remember the big heavy green canvas tent we all camped in? How it took forever and more than a few hands to get it up? How it smelled like wet tent when it rained and you told us not to touch the walls or it would leak? Remember how we used to fall exhausted into sleeping bags scratchy with sand every night after full days at the beach? How we roasted all those marshmallows over the fire and you ate the our burned ones? Those were the days.

I remember, too, how you could fix anything.

Polishing the fender.

I don’t know how you learned the way everything worked and how to make it work again when it broke. But you did. We’ve been using the tools in your workshop to fix things around the lake house. Seems like you had one of just about everything. And we keep finding little notes like the one written on a stud in the garage about when the driveway was last sealed or the house stained. In fact we found the can of house stain you left for us, labeled by you, so we were able to paint that new fascia board to match.

And did you see I retired this month? I’m not sure how you reacted to that because I’m still pretty young.

Catching some shuteye.

I remember when we were kids how you’d come across us sitting around somewhere and you’d ask us what we were doing. We knew we better come up with something because if we didn’t you’d have some chore waiting. I was thinking about that this week when I spent two whole days doing absolutely nothing. That felt kind of uncomfortable. I guess I was expecting you to show up and ask me what I was doing. Napping never seemed like a good answer in those days, but I’m hoping you understand. I’m thinking you probably do.

And remember how you used to read the Sunday comics to us, even when we were old enough to read them ourselves?

Once upon a time…

You read a lot of stuff to us, guess that’s how I turned into a reader. And a story teller. I wouldn’t mind hearing you tell one of your stories one more time now. We sure laughed around the dinner table a lot growing up didn’t we? Back then I didn’t know all families weren’t like that. I just figured laughing until our sides hurt and the tears ran down our faces was typical at dinner tables across the country. Turns out not to be true, but I’m glad it was that way at our house.

Remember all those family portraits we took? How we’d gather in one spot, get ourselves all arranged, and then you’d set the timer on the camera and rush back to get into position before it went off? How so often it wouldn’t go off at all and you’d go back to figure out why, and then it would flash? How we used to laugh.

Oops!

This is one of my favorite pictures. Not because it was perfect, or we were perfect but because of the laughter. Even though half of us were sick with the flu that day we couldn’t help but laugh because this was just so typical of us.

Anyway, I guess I could go on, turn this into a long eloquent thank you speech, but you were never so much about long speeches. You were more about doing. Judging from the photos and notes on Facebook (do they have Facebook in heaven?) there are an awful lot of very special dads up there with you. I was thinking maybe you could organize a dad’s club of some kind, maybe go around and fix stuff for people. But then again, there’s probably not a lot of stuff that needs fixing there.

So I guess you’ve earned a nap. The best you can do is watch over all of us and give us a sign now and then that you’re around. Maybe point us in the right direction when we’re looking for something in your workshop.

You taught us good Dad and we’re getting by, all of us, day by day. But it sure is hard.

Love,

Your Kids

1990

Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

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