Goodbye, Junk. Hello, Joy!

Yesterday, June 7, my husband and I had two people, a man and a woman, do several hours of garden clean-up for us, mainly dealing with the big, longstanding mess behind the two giant evergreens that are at the far end of our back yard. They raked up two truckloads of pine needles and pine cones and carried away lots of junk: old boards, an old hose, some broken concrete, scrap metal, and more. The man got only $9 for the scrap metal, but at least it will be recycled, not junked.

This is a mess that has plagued us for years, and it's stuff that we really can't deal with, meaning that the work would be too much for us physically. So we are thrilled to have the help. They each charge $25 per hour -- not bad at all for such hard work. And we would have had no idea how to get rid of the pine needles. I don’t know what the man did with them, but they are gone, as is the other stuff. 

There are still three piles of pine needles and branches to be carted off, as well as the broken-up concrete. Once that job is totally done, plus some major bush-trimming elsewhere in the yard, the woman of the pair will also do some weeding and flower-planting for us. So we expect our whole yard to look way, way better in another week or two. Looking at the impressive results so far and pondering what is to come, I feel a wonderful combination of relief and joy.

Last night, I wrote notes about all this to various family members and friends. One person commented, “Decluttering has such lovely mental benefits.” Indeed it does. Whenever I manage to collect even a single paper bag of things to give away to a nearby thrift shop, I feel relief and satisfaction when the truck driver comes and picks up the stuff. Thereafter, both the house and I feel lighter, happier.

I hope that our lovely big trees feel lighter and happier, too. I hope that having all that junk and all those pine needles gone will let them breathe more easily and let more of our too-scarce rain get to their roots. I imagine that if they could say “Thank you,” they would. I can hardly say it enough to these two energetic helpers.

“David Liberation Day” #10–May 19, 2019

It's hard to believe that 10 whole years have passed since the fateful morning of May 19, 2009. I was in the college library where I tutored languages when my husband called to say that he and almost all the others in his largish group of tech writers had been laid off with no warning. What a shock!

It was not the first time David had been laid off, but he was 65 years old at the time, and it was the height of the Great Recession, so he had little hope of finding another full-time job. Nor was he able to do so. Thus, before too long, he gave up looking for another job and simply started taking Social Security. He had hoped to work until age 70, but the economy had other ideas.

At the time, we had no idea that 10 years later, we would have such a thriving business: DLD Books Editing and Self-Publishing Services, with over 70 books by other authors put out so far, and with half a dozen or so new ones in the pipeline right now. Our website is here: https://www.dldbooks.com/ 

Just to clarify for everyone: While our total present income does not equal what David earned by himself back then as a Senior Tech Writer for a large company, we are doing pretty well here in our mid-70s. We have the editing business, Social Security for both of us, and my modest but steady income from teaching weight training classes (which I’ve done since 1976) and from teaching several languages (which I’ve done since 1988). Every bit of all that work is done here at home.

We have two paid-off cars and a paid-off house, which we bought in 1971. We have no debts and no dependents. We both enjoy pretty good health. So we are much better off than many in our age group, and we're very happy with our present lifestyle.

We've been married for 51 years, since April 9, 1968. We LOVE being together almost all the time and working here at home. I especially like sharing the editing business with David, given that our working lives were so entirely separate before 2009. Yes, as David noted in his humorous Facebook post today, various joints hurt, and we do have a few other health problems, but overall, we are way better off than many others in their 70s.

The bottom line is: Never assume that your working life is over or that you will remain mired in  misery and worry because you got laid off.  You can never know just what the future will hold. And hurray for self-employment. No one can lay you off from that!

In Praise of Good Men

On 3/8/19 at Costco, the nice 40-ish man at the door when we were exiting wished me Happy International Women's Day. I smiled, pointed to David, and said that every day is a good day married to him, and that we have been married for almost 51 years (as of April 9). He said, "Wow, that's longer than I've been alive!" He and another, somewhat older man who overheard me seemed delighted with what I’d said.

But I take every chance I can to boost good men. Men get put down by women way too much and way too often these days, and so I wish to defend them as much as I can. The vast majority of men I have known have been good, kind, responsible, hardworking people, and all my current female students have been married for decades to good, loving men as well.

Three-fold Progress in the House

(This is from a letter I sent to friends on January 8, 2019.)

Clutter-clearing progress:  Today we gave away three more boxes of old VCR tapes, a bag of clothes plus a couple of books, and an old bathroom scale that we no longer use. I hope they’ll find good new homes. Two of the items of clothing are very pretty, velour, long-sleeved tops, barely worn. One is bright red and one is black. They simply didn’t fit me quite right. Some lucky woman should be delighted with them if they fit her better. 

For the extra bedroom, we recently purchased two white bedside tables, the kind with a drawer and a lower shelf. David got them set up the other day. They look great, and were a real bargain for about $35 each. It’s nice to have a matched set, and they harmonize well with the chest of drawers, the two bookcases, the blinds, and the two lampshades, which are all white. Now to attack the mess in the closet! Step by step…

I read an interesting tip. It said to use the last 15 minutes of every working day – which would be from 9:45 to 10:00 p.m. in my case – for tidying up. I’ve been trying to do that, and am currently using the time to deal with the paper chaos on my large, office-style desk. At this point, still, only a few square inches of the surface are visible, but it’s improving. The stacks of paper are losing height. I anticipate at least another two hours of work on just this task. Wish me luck!    

My Thanksgiving Day Teacup Disaster

Darn. After a pretty good day, albeit one with too much food, I just had a stupid accident. David was collecting the trash for pickup tomorrow, and when I was handing him my desk wastebasket, I knocked a large cup of tea off the side of my desk. The tile floor here in my study is the hardest in the house, so it shattered all over, plus spilled tea over a wide area. What a mess! I'm not sure I got it all with paper towels and the broom, but I sure hope I got most of it. I don't ever walk around with bare feet, so that's something, at least.

Well, some good may come of it. It has been quite a while since I've really cleaned this floor, other than sweeping or vacuuming it. That's partly because the room, while large, is so crowded. Besides my office-size desk, a file cabinet, seven large bookcases, and a folding table, there are several big cardboard boxes on the floor. Those are filled with books and papers that need sorting. All those boxes, over a dozen in all and most of them heavy, will have to be moved out for a while if I am to do a good cleaning with a mop. But it needs to be done, and this is motivation. The floor tiles have a recessed pattern in them, and I'm sure that some of the tea is in there, so even using a scrub brush on my hands and knees may be required.

This is clearly a case that calls for an attitude adjustment. I need to look at this coming task not as something to dread, but as something necessary and ultimately beneficial. My back and knees will no doubt take a while to recover after I'm done, but I'm sure I'll be pleased with my much cleaner floor. And from now on, no more putting my teacup in that vulnerable spot. There are much safer places for it here on my desk. So there's a good lesson learned.

Wish me luck, and good housekeeping to you!

Self-Care is the Opposite of Selfish

I am writing this post one day after my husband’s 75th birthday. As I’ve said to many people, it’s a little hard for us to fathom that David has reached this landmark birthday, given that he was only 21 when we met and 24 when we married on April 9, 1968. How time flies!

Yesterday, I reported on Facebook that David does not eat or want sweets, so there was no birthday cake or any other kind of pastry for him on his big day. Every morning, he prepares a very healthy breakfast for the two of us; it includes a variety of fresh fruits and raw vegetables. So yesterday, I stuck a single little birthday candle in one-half of a strawberry, lit it, and sang “Happy Birthday” to him. He thought that was fun and funny.

A few hours after that, we went to a good, local café that offers senior discounts. The waitress told David that he could have a free birthday sundae after his meal, but he refused it. She laughingly offered it to me instead, but I refused it, too. She seemed more than a bit surprised by that.

After  lunch, as a present to himself, David took the day off from working on jobs for editing clients of ours and worked on his own writing; that’s his 29th book. He also worked out in the basement for a couple of hours, as he does at least nine or ten hours a week. He mainly lifts weights, but he also stretches and uses our Schwinn exercise bike. I am filled with admiration for him and his amazing self-discipline.

It occurred to me yesterday, more strongly than ever before, that taking care of one's own health, as David does so well and consistently, is also the best gift that one can give one's spouse and other loved ones.

Here is my reasoning behind that statement.

Self-indulgence in things that are bad for us, like sweets, alcohol, and smoking, while pleasurable for a few minutes at a time, can actually be very selfish.  That is, those things are harmful not just to us and our own bodies, but also to the health of our closest social units, given that they contribute to long-term illness (such as diabetes or liver disease or lung cancer), often saddling us and others with long-term financial burdens and shortening our lives.

David has remarked more than once that he cares for his body not just for himself, but also for me. Perhaps if more people started thinking the way he does, pondering the fact that self-care is also care of one's loved ones, we would have much better health in our society as a whole.

Manage

Clutter-Clearing Equals Satisfaction

(This post was originally composed as a letter to a friend, Patty Fletcher. She liked it so much that she suggested I  re-work it as a blog post, then send it back to her so she could re-blog it. Thanks again for your interest, Patty.)

Yesterday, October 6, I took the day off from editing and taught Spanish, did the dishes, did some laundry, mopped the kitchen floor, and then packed up a sizable box of old VCR tapes for a second-hand store. I also cleaned off all the shelves of the bookcase they were on and organized the VCR tapes we are keeping (for now) and many DVDs of movies.

That last task alone, all the work with the VCR tapes and DVDs, took me at least two hours and was very tiring, as I have a VERY hard time getting down on the floor and then back up. It is quite literally painful for me. But I figure that I need to practice. We do get down on the floor and then up again in the exercise classes that I teach, a few times per class, but there, I have a nice foam exercise mat and a weight lifting bench to push myself up on, using my arms. I'm sure it would be easier if I could lose the 20 or so pounds that I need to.

Anyway, David (my husband) praised me for what I accomplished yesterday, and that made me feel good. Sure, it's fine when you can figuratively pat yourself on the back for a hard job well done, but it's even better when you can get praise from another person.

This was just one small step toward my gigantic total job of clutter-clearing, but it was a significant one, and getting it done made me feel good. Also, it's a bookcase right next to the front door, thus highly visible, so it's good to have it a lot neater.

Tonight we go out for a nice dinner with our son and his girlfriend. David's 75th birthday is tomorrow, the 8th. We will go out again next Sunday with two friends. They are old friends with whom we almost always celebrate our various birthdays: in January, May (two of us have May birthdays), and October.

It’s hard for us to believe that David is about to turn 75. That’s because we met when he was just 21 and I was 19, and we married when he was 24 and I was 21, close to 22. We were married on April 9, 1968, 50 years ago this April. How time flies!

My two-part birthday gift to David is a vow to take better care of my own health (with him as my inspiration) and to keep working steadily on clutter-clearing. Here’s to many more years of good health and happiness, plus a cleaner, neater house for the two of us! 

A Tribute to My Dear Stepmother

(1937–2018)

On September 18 of this year, my beloved stepmother, Willene Schaefer Hardy, died in Kansas City, Missouri, after less than 24 hours in a hospice facility. Prior to that, she had resided for several years in two very good assisted care facilities: first in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she lived with my father for 41 years (until he died of heart failure and Alzheimer’s), and then in Kansas City, where four of my five sisters and most of their family members live.

Willene had polio at the age of six. While she could still walk with the aid of leg braces and crutches when she married my father in 1969, it was not long before it became necessary for her to use a wheelchair. After my father’s death, her health steadily declined. She died with severe, whole–body disability and a long list of serious illnesses, including mid–stage kidney failure and the beginnings of leukemia.

My sisters and I loved Willene deeply, and we will all miss her very, very much. Besides being a loving stepmother, she was intelligent, witty, highly educated (with a PhD in English), a faithful correspondent, generous, liberal, tolerant, patient, and amazingly stoical. She was always ready to put the interests of others before her own, and she gave generously to many charities.

Thinking a lot about her and her sterling character, I am newly inspired to try as hard as I can to be more like her.

David and I wish to mention here that Willene was, among all our family members and friends, uniquely supportive of our writing and our book editing work. I could always count on her for thoughtful and honest opinions of our writing and that of others, as well as her opinions of the many book covers that we designed. I will miss such thoughtful judgment and commentary from her more than I can say. In addition, she kindly purchased many of the books by us and by our editing clients.

Thanks to all for reading this. While none of you knew Willene, of course all of you have suffered your own losses of beloved family members and friends. Thus you know that the death of a person who was so significant to you leaves a hole that can never be filled. All we can do is try to remember the good times, be glad that such wonderful people were in our lives, and make the very best of the years that we ourselves have left to us, however many those may be.

Also, please remember that you can never know how many years are left for those you love. Never miss a chance to tell them, whether they are young, old, or in between, how you feel about them. My sisters and I are glad that Willene knew very well how all of us felt about her.

Email: leonore@leonoredvorkin.com

Website: http://www.leonoredvorkin.com/

A Good Meal at IHOP

We had an outstanding meal out yesterday afternoon, 9/10/18. We had a 20% off coupon for a fairly nearby IHOP restaurant, and so thought we would give it a try. It was our first time there. We both had the sirloin tips dinner, with chicken noodle soup (the best I have ever had), plus steak tips with onions and mushrooms, perfect mashed potatoes, corn, and garlic toast. YUM! We were happy to be able to get dinner at 3:00 PM. The whole place was super clean, too.

We like the large tables and the high backs of the booths in this restaurant. It gives one plenty of room to spread out and gives a nice feeling of privacy in each booth. We have heard that nationally, IHOP is having trouble, but we hope it will survive. We will be back to this location for sure! The manager must be superb. All the employees looked both happy and efficient.

The address for this location is 389 S. Wadsworth Blvd., Lakewood, Colorado 80226, in the Lakewood City Commons shopping center.

A Study in Courage

Yesterday, at our local Costco store, I stopped to talk with an older lady whom I have seen there quite often, handing out samples of food. I've always rather admired her, as she radiates a sort of calm confidence as well as friendliness. All the food demonstrators wear large name tags, so I always greet her by name.

I learned that she is in her mid-80s, a widow, and a survivor of three bouts of breast cancer! I told her that I am a 20-year breast cancer survivor, and we talked a bit about our contrasting treatments.

She said that she loves her job, as she likes people and getting out in public. I imagine that the money is not great, but obviously there are many other benefits. Of course I congratulated her on her cancer victories and wished her well. I hope to see her often again in the future.

I don't go to Costco every week, but David does. He does almost all the food preparation and all the grocery shopping, at Costco and elsewhere, and I just kind of tag along from time to time.  :-) I like having the time to stop and chat with the nice, mainly older folks at Costco who hand out samples of the yummy food products. I'm happy that those jobs are available to them.

What I Learned from Something Lost and Found

A little over a year ago, I had my study and the adjoining guest bathroom painted. It was a huge job for both the painters and us, as we had to remove from my study the contents of 11 large bookcases and then the bookcases themselves before the ceiling and walls could be painted and the hard tile floor thoroughly cleaned. The furniture, which consisted of two big desks, two chairs, and two filing cabinets, just got shoved around as the men worked. In the bathroom, I emptied the cabinets, as they were being painted as well.

After several days of meticulous work, everything came out looking great. The resulting effect was well worth the time and money spent and the tremendous amount of effort on everyone's part.  

However, sometime later, to my great distress, I discovered that my two favorite decorative greeting cards were missing from the bathroom. Now, let me explain where and why I have greeting cards and postcards in a bathroom!

Above the toilet, we have a cabinet called a Johnny boy. It has two shelves behind its swing-out doors and an open, lower shelf about 18 inches above the top of the toilet. Thus it provides ample space for things like an extra roll of toilet paper, some decorative items, small paper cups for our guests, and much more.

On the lower shelf, I have four small decorative items: all black and white, to match the room's color scheme. In addition, something that I regularly do is prop a pretty greeting card or postcard up on the shelf, changing the cards according to the season or just on a whim, on no particular schedule. Two of them are perfect for the monthly Spanish conversation group meetings that I host. One of them depicts two smiling Mayan girls in very colorful clothing; one girl is welcoming the other to her home. The other is a lovely handmade card, featuring the words, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine." The latter card was a gift from a longtime Spanish student of mine. Both of them are wonderful things to put out as an extra little welcome to my guests.  

When I discovered that precisely those two favorite cards were missing, I was horrified. My assumption was that someone—a guest, or maybe even a student—had at some point rummaged through the cabinet, had picked out those two cards, and had slipped them into his or her pocket or purse. (Another card had been on display for quite a while, so I did not notice the loss right away.) I searched everywhere for them; they were nowhere to be found.

Worst of all, what was then lost, in addition to the cards, was my trust in my own students and guests. I was filled with anger and suspicion, fearful that the same thief, or perhaps another, could at any time take something of much more value from my home. There are many pretty little items all over the house, things that could very quickly and easily be slipped into a pocket or purse, and I would never know which of the many people who are in my home on a regular basis had taken one or more of them.

In short, I was angry, disappointed, disillusioned, and very worried. Gradually, and especially after nothing else disappeared, those feelings faded, but it took a long, sad time for me to stop worrying about a possible additional theft.

Well, you can probably guess what eventually happened. Recently, I was doing some long overdue clutter-clearing, rummaging through one of many cardboard boxes whose jumbled contents I need to investigate and sort. And there, to my immense surprise and happiness, were the two precious cards, along with several others that I like. Obviously, at some point before the painting project, I myself had gathered up the cards and had placed them in that box. Why I had ever separated them from the others that I still had in the bathroom, I have no idea. Nor do I have any memory of having placed the cards in the box. But I must have; no one else would have done that. So now I have them again, and my suspicions have all been laid to rest. What a wonderful relief!

Beyond that, though, there are some very good lessons to be taken from this combination of happenings. Here they are, as I see them:

1. Don't be suspicious of family members or friends unless you have proof, or something very close to it, that they have done you wrong in some way.

2. What was lost may yet be found again. Sometimes you know that the search is utterly hopeless, but most of the time, you do not. Try to keep hope alive, and keep searching!

3. You can never know what happy event a given day will bring. Sometimes it's something  monumental, fantastic, even life-altering. But sometimes the event is small, perhaps quite trivial in the eyes of others, yet deeply meaningful—such as when you find a misplaced object that you really cared about.

Now I can go back to trusting all those who enter my home, as well as to displaying my two favorite cards. May the affection and joy that shine out from those images and words fill all of our hearts for a long time to come.         

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A very nice mention of one of David's books in an online article

Wow, check this out! It's an online article for Inverse, written by a woman named Lauren Sarner. It appeared yesterday, Oct. 27, 2015.

Here is the link to the article: https://www.inverse.com/article/7473-send-sherlock-to-the-future 

She talks about the BBC's Sherlock series and an upcoming special. She also very favorably mentions one of my husband's older books, Time for Sherlock Holmes. It was first published by Dodd, Mead in 1983, but the latest, updated versions (e-book and paperback) are from 2010 and 2011.

Both are for sale on Amazon. Look for the edition with the black background and the photo of Mars.

Next to his three Star Trek novels, this one sold the most copies in the past. It's nice to see it coming back to life. Thanks a lot, Lauren!    

David's website, with details about all of his 27 published books (fiction and nonfiction): www.dvorkin.com
 

Book #27 by my husband, David Dvorkin

David is trying something that he has never tried before. He has just published a 90-page excerpt from the far longer book on atheism in general and on our atheism in particular that we have been writing for at least two years. This shorter book is called Once a Jew, Always a Jew? His basic contention is that if you are no longer a practicing Jew, then you are no longer a Jew -- any more than I am still a Catholic, given that I left the church when I was 19. But there is much more to the short book than just that.

As some of you know, as the son of an Orthodox rabbi, David is certainly familiar with what it was like to grow up Jewish. However, he became an atheist at the age of 12. He simply never told his parents that until much later. He thinks that they never did fully accept that about him, and they were certainly never happy that he had married a shiksa, a non-Jewish girl. 

Like so much of David’s nonfiction material, this book is very eloquent, very well-researched and documented (there are several pages of footnotes, many of them historical), and deliciously larded with humor. 

Here is a link to his new Web page about the book. It is available in e-book for only 99 cents and as a paperback for $5.95 from Amazon and a few other sellers.  http://www.dvorkin.com/oajew/

Please feel free to send this URL to anyone you think might be interested in the book. We plan to have the long one out sometime in 2016.

Happy Days!

Wow, what a pair of days. Obamacare subsidies stand, and now gay
marriage is legal in the whole USA. Way to go, SCOTUS!

Of Clutter-Clearing and Clarity

Copyright June 22, 2015, by Leonore H. Dvorkin

All Rights Reserved

To start, I need to explain that my husband and I have lived in this same house in Denver for close to 44 years, so you can only imagine how things have accumulated. Now, at the ages of 71 and 69,  David and I are feeling ever more strongly that we need to divest ourselves of as much of our clutter as possible. We don't want to leave all this stuff for our only child, Daniel, to have to deal with after we die. We also want to take back our house. That is, we want to feel, once again, that the house belongs to us, not to the many, many things that crowd our rooms and one-car garage.      

I don't want to give a false impression. We are not hoarders. We can easily navigate every room, and even though it's a rather tight fit, I can park my Subaru wagon in the garage. I have received numerous compliments on the overall appearance and cleanliness of our home. I tutor Spanish and German and teach exercise classes here at home, so we have other people in our house almost every day of the week. Thus the place has to look reasonably neat and clean. 

When it comes to having excessive stuff, our biggest problem is that we have a total of 29 bookcases in the house and garage. Most of them are quite large, and most are filled end to end with books--plus notebooks, office supplies of all sorts, hundreds of records (vinyl LPs, I mean), CDs, VCR tapes, photos in envelopes, some decorative items, and thousands of old letters in three-ring binders and envelopes, mainly letters sent to me over many decades and copies of letters I have sent to others. Then there are the countless papers, even numerous manuscripts of books, connected with my teaching and with David's and my work as authors and editors. (We are the authors of a total of 30 books thus far, and we've edited and produced 21 books by other authors. Several more books will be published in the near future.) That number of bookcases does not include the two large storage cabinets in the kitchen, which are separate from the built-in cabinets, and our four large filing cabinets, two in David's study and two in mine, which are also stuffed full. I don't actually know how many thousands of books we have. So you can only imagine the huge job it is to do any kind of clutter-clearing or rearranging.

When we were preparing to have some extensive electrical work done in the house in the fall of 2014, we had to uncover every single outlet in the house, and we found that many of them were behind heavy, filled bookcases. So all that stuff had to come out of the bookcases before we could move them. The way we did it was to unload the books from one bookcase at a time, put the books on a large folding table and on the floor, carry the bookcase out to the garage, and then reload the books into that particular bookcase. Once the 10 bookcases that were in my study and the smaller adjoining room were out in the garage, we had those two rooms painted. Then everything had to go back. In the process, we did some changing of where certain bookcases went. Now I am in the long, hard process of deciding on new placement for many of the items, as well as trying to get rid of as many objects as possible.

The fact that we have way too many books is obvious to others, as well as to us. We are trying to get rid of at least some of them. So far, about 200 have gone. That felt good, but many more need to go. Given how little money one can expect to receive for a book that one sells to a used book store, we're content to simply give most of our unwanted books away: to friends, to the public library, or to secondhand stores such as Goodwill.

In the process of moving all those books, I greatly aggravated an old elbow injury that I sustained about three years ago. The new damage makes it much harder for me to grip anything at all heavy with my left hand. So, while David and I are glad about the electrical work, happy with the new paint job, and glad to be getting at least some stuff in better order, I am not in the best shape right now, and we still have a long, long way to go to conquer all the (mainly) paper clutter in the house. But we will do it! And I assume that my elbow will get better in time.

The important thing is that both of us have broken free of our old lethargy regarding all this, and we are finally moving forward with our separate and shared clutter-clearing tasks. I cannot adequately express to others what that means to me emotionally, given how down on myself I was about all the clutter and how angry I was with myself for not being able to change my ways. But the electrical work and the painting job forced my hand, as it were, and so on I go, toward a much better organized future!

In the clearing of paper clutter, we are uncovering some interesting and amusing old things from our past, things that we had forgotten all about--such as my very first temporary driver's license, from August 2, 1972. I got that when I was 26 years old; I did not drive before then. David taught me to drive. My first car was a Volkswagen. I had to learn to drive in order to drive Daniel to and from preschool, as David was working full-time away from home back then. The temporary license is a small, thin slip of paper, measuring a mere 3.5" x 4.5".  I assume that not even the most ruthless of professional organizers would begrudge me a souvenir that takes up so very little space, and so I intend to keep it.
At this point, I'd like to tell you about a man I used to know. He was about my age, but he had habits quite different from my own. Although M. is not his real first initial, I'll call him that.

M. had never married or had children. When I met him over 10 years ago, he owned a large house that was among the cleanest dwellings I had ever seen in my life. Without a doubt, it was the least cluttered. Most surfaces in the house had nothing or next to nothing on them, and as far as I could see, there were no decorations or photos anywhere. I remember seeing only a single abstract painting on one wall of the living room. While I had to admire and even envy the simplicity of it all, and I could well imagine how quick and easy it would be to dust the various tables and other surfaces, the overall effect was both very odd and slightly creepy. 

When the opportunity presented itself, I had a private conversation with M. about his most unusual lifestyle. I asked him whether he had always been like that, such an extreme minimalist. No, he said. He went on to explain that over several years, he had conducted three major "purges," as he termed them, of the unwanted and unneeded objects in his home. When I inquired as to his motivations for those purges, he told me something I have never forgotten, something that I am now trying hard to put into effect in my own life.

He said that when you're clearing out the clutter, it's pretty obvious that you need to rid yourself of papers, letters, and other things that are connected with past jobs or past relationships, especially any that went badly or ended badly. But beyond that, he said, he had realized at some point years before that he needed to get rid of things that were connected with dreams that he had once had, dreams that he had finally realized would never be fulfilled.   

A very poignant and personal example he gave was connected with the fact that he had always hoped to marry and have children. With that dream in mind for decades, he had saved a lot of his own childhood books and toys, hoping to pass them on to his own child or children. Eventually, at some point past the age of 55, he had come to the conclusion that he was rather unlikely to ever marry, and that even if he did, fathering a child or children at his age would probably not be advisable. Thus it was time to let the books and toys go, to give them to some secondhand store that would, in turn, sell them to the parents of some unknown but appreciative children. He added that that particular act of purging had caused him considerable sadness right at first. But soon thereafter, the sadness had been replaced by a tremendous lightness and sense of freedom.

As so many of the rest of us need and want to do, M. had succeeded in crawling out from beneath the rubble of his crumbled dreams.   

I know something of that sense of freedom, as I have felt it every time I have succeeded in getting rid of anything that felt more like a chain around my neck than a link to the past: anything that I knew to be truly useless to me (even if it was still in very good condition), anything that reminded me of old hurts and disappointments, anything that made me feel angry that I had ever been so foolish as to buy it. Any good book on clutter-clearing contains lists of things that one should learn to let go of: all that I have named and much more. Some additional examples are unneeded tools, cookware, and dishes; clothes that don't fit, are badly out of style, are worn out, or merely excessive; most old holiday and birthday cards; and even the majority of your personal correspondence and dairies. The best book on this theme that I have read is Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, by Karen Kingston; you can find it on Amazon. I have no use for what I consider the more woo-woo parts of the book, but the author's practical advice and her many insights regarding the psychology of both hoarding and purging are terrific.

Books on clutter-clearing, including the aforementioned one, typically also contain inspiring anecdotes about how good clutter-clearing has made other people feel and how it has brought about very positive changes in their lives, sometimes even helping them to lose weight. I'm still a long way from seeing the radical changes in my home and body that I would like to see, but I am most certainly motivated to try to make more progress.

It's proving to be difficult indeed to throw out things having to do with certain major parts of my past, both past occupations and past dreams or expectations of myself. Those objects include the piles of paper that are reminders of past work in high school and college and more personal, private things like old letters and diaries. But do I truly need those things? No, I don't, and I have to admit that I haven't looked at most of them in years or even decades. Will they ever be of any real interest to any of my descendants? Almost surely not. And if I leave them here in the house, they will almost surely be relegated to a dumpster at some point in the not-too-distant future. We see that happen all the time here in our suburban neighborhood. The old folks die or go to a nursing home, and the kids just roll up a dumpster, then start pitching the furniture (which is not always worn out), the appliances, the papers, and much more. Do they have the time or desire to sort through every box and cabinet? No way! So do I want to put that burden on my husband (should he outlive me) or on our son, who has his own numerous boxes and piles of stuff to deal with? No, I do not.

Most of these thousands of objects here in our home are bound up with my own past, my own memories. I don't need to burden David, Daniel, or anyone else with the vast majority of my tangible reminders of those memories. In fact, to my considerable consternation, I'm finding that many of the objects are bound up with memories that have either faded or totally disappeared!

Here is just one example of what I mean. Sorting through pile after pile of old notebooks from my studies at Indiana University in the 1960s, I found that not only had I forgotten virtually all the details of what I had once worked so hard to learn, but I could not even remember taking some of those courses! My first reaction to that discovery was sadness and some embarrassment. But once I got past all that, I found that chucking most of the notebooks and papers gave me great satisfaction. That is, I felt myself freed from the old, deeply buried sense that somehow I should have been able to remember all that history, philosophy, pre-20th-century literature, Latin, biology, geology, psychology, and math. But I could not remember what I had studied in those courses because I had never used that information after graduation.

Ever since the mid-1970s, most of my working life has had to do with the study and teaching of weight training, which I've taught since 1976; with the study and teaching of German, French, Spanish, and ESL (English as a Second Language); and with writing and editing. Because I continue to use that knowledge, I have retained most of what I learned in my many, many courses in modern languages at two different universities. But  virtually all the rest of what I studied in the process of earning two B.A. degrees has fallen by the wayside.          

Ah, memories! May we always hold and treasure the good ones and the useful ones, and may we find the strength to liberate ourselves from the bad ones and then move beyond them. And may we always manage to be deeply engaged with our present. In short, may we always strive to live for the moment-- because that is all we ever really have.
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I invite you to visit my website: www.leonoredvorkin.com

Becoming Who You Want to Be

Tonight, in the very strange but good TV show Penny Dreadful, a character (the transvestite male prostitute) said, "Let us be who we want to be, not who we are." He may have meant merely that it's okay to play dress-up, to pretend, but I interpret this to mean that if we act the part of the person we wish to be, perhaps that bit of play-acting will eventually actually make us into what we want to be: braver, more competent, more successful, more virtuous, more efficient, fitter, or whatever we most desire to be.

I think there's a lot to that idea. It echoes the business-world idea of dressing for the job you want, not the one you have, or the proven effect of smiling when you feel down; that has been shown to truly cheer you up.

In any case, I intend to remember that line and try doing that a whole lot more. There are many good qualities that I would like to have more of, and some bad qualities that I would like to have less of. So I'll get to working on that: acting the part until the acting becomes the reality. Wish me luck!

Update on “Seeing Things in a New Way”

I am happy to report that my friend with the serious eye problems had a cornea transplant and is doing well thus far. In addition, she has a new job. Here’s hoping that her recovery will be a full one and that she will continue to enjoy and do well at the new job.  (Posted Jan. 5, 2015)

Paint Me Disgusted

(This story first appeared on CNN Online on Dec. 31, 2014, but I am reading and commenting on it this morning, Jan. 5, 2015.)

I am totally disgusted by the story of the Tennessee woman who trashed her expensive wedding dress after her fiancé dumped her. She had the bridesmaids throw paint all over it--and they trashed their dresses, too. She claims that it was a cathartic experience.

Okay, lady, I get that you were hurt. But those dresses could have gone to a secondhand bridal gown place, a place where low-income women can get dresses that they could not otherwise afford. Why not turn hurt into some good? Why not make it like giving away any other useful, pretty thing that you no longer want?

Or perhaps all of you could have sold the dresses to a consignment shop and then have gone on vacation. Wouldn’t getting away for a while be just as helpful psychologically? 

Instead, you have done something that I consider very stupid. What a waste of money—as well as a waste and denigration of the effort of the people who made the dresses!

I have seen other stories of brides, women who did actually get married, who also trashed their dresses by throwing paint on them, rolling around in the mud in them, tearing them, etc. What is wrong with these people?

Seeing Things in a New Way

I am writing this today because a friend of mine and her serious eye problems have been much on my mind of late. Also, most of my current editing clients are blind, so I think a lot more about eyes and eye health and blindness these days than I used to in years past.

My friend has to have surgery soon on her left eye for very extreme glaucoma; if she does not, she will lose her sight in that eye. The glaucoma came many years after an injury to that eye; some kid threw a rock and hit her in the eye.  She has suffered from that injury ever since, and she’s now middle-aged.

When I was in 5th or 6th grade, a kid named Kevin threw a rock that hit me in my left eye, too. But it did not affect my vision. I do remember, though, that it hurt, frightened, and angered me. The eye bothered me for some time after that, but it eventually got well.

Kevin was quite troubled, I think – although I don’t know if that was the standard term for children with emotional problems back in the 1950s. He was an only child. His mother was poor and single, and she died not long after the rock-throwing incident. Our class had to go to her funeral. I remember the boy crying bitterly, all broken down with grief and probably fear.  He was left an impoverished orphan.

Kevin left our school after his mother's death.  I hope he had relatives to go to, that they treated him well, and that he became happier and better adjusted. I remember him as a skinny, poorly dressed kid who did badly in school and had no friends.

Why he threw the rock at me, I don't know. I was not his friend, but neither was I his enemy. In general, I tried hard to be nice to others if they were nice to me, and I tried to stay out of the way of the others. No one seemed to want to even try to befriend Kevin.

I have often thought of him in the decades since then, and I have often wondered what became of him. I was and am sorry for him. Nonetheless, I am glad, of course, that he did not injure my eye badly. I have glaucoma, but it’s a mild case, well controlled with medication (Combigan drops), and I assume it is unrelated to any past injury. I’m now 68, so some eye problems are to be expected.   

In addition to her physical problems, my friend with the very serious glaucoma is also out of work right now. She lost her last two jobs -- or rather, she lost one and had to quit the other -- due to eye pain and stress. Her eye is in really, really bad shape; that’s plain to any observer. It must hurt a lot. So, after her surgery, she will have the urgent need to try to find another job. What a dual burden to have to try to bear by herself! She is unmarried and has no children.

My husband and I have certainly had our share of problems, some of them physical. I have had nine major operations in my lifetime, and I’m a 16-year breast cancer survivor. David has had a few physical problems of his own, but at 70, he’s in great shape, and he has none of the chronic health problems that so often plague men of his age: high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart trouble, diabetes, etc.

So very often, I have to consider how fortunate we are compared to so very many others -- and I don't mean just miserable, poverty-stricken people in third-world countries. I mean people whom we know personally, middle-class people with good educations who have fallen on hard times of various sorts. It often makes me very sad, because I can usually do nothing to alleviate their problems except be their friend.

I hope that my friendship is of some help to the woman who needs the eye operation, which she will have soon. Then I hope she recovers well and rapidly, and that she can find a new job very soon, as well.

I cared about her and her fate before all this, as I have known her for some time, and I care even more now. Looking back across the decades, I know that my long-distance caring about Kevin cannot help him (if he’s even still alive), and I doubt that I or my family could have done much for him back then, either. But the odd, coincidental connection between him, my eyes, my friend, her eye, and the stories behind the blindness of some of my editing clients has made me think a lot these past several days and weeks. It has made me see several different things in new and different ways.

If you have been so kind as to read this far, please go here to see the website of our latest blind client, Patty L. Fletcher:  www.dvorkin.com/pattyfletcher/

Her book Campbell’s Rambles: How a Seeing Eye Dog Retrieved My Life, will be published by Aug. 1, 2014 or before. Her blindness was partially caused by glaucoma, as well.

Go here to see some recent pictures of my husband and his astonishing physique, the result of almost 50 years of weight training. Click on the photos to see them larger. My favorite is the photo of him in the red shirt.

 http://www.dvorkin.com/photos/davidat70.html

In Celebration of the 5th David’s Liberation Day

Five years ago today, on May 19, 2009, David lost his last full-time job, at the age of 65. At the time, he was a Senior Tech Writer at Quark, Inc. It was the highest-paid job he had ever had.

On 5/19/09, he and several of his colleagues all lost their jobs with no warning and very small severance packages. It was literally “Out the door you go!” right away.

At the time, of course, it was very scary to us. There followed numerous steps and phases, both work-related and psychological. That is, over a period of at least three years, David went from seeking (but failing to find) more full-time work, to looking for (and getting) a few short contract jobs, to deciding that he would do contract work but only if he could fulfill the contract working from home, to deciding that he would do no more tech writing at all. He will still accept short programming (development) contracts, but again, only if he can fulfill them remotely. He hated office work and will never, ever, ever go back to that. Nor would I ever want him to.

Now, five years later, we see that 2009 job loss as one of the best things that ever happened to him and to us as a couple. That’s because it was the first step, albeit a forced one, on his long road to a far better life and much greater happiness than he had ever known before.

Now David is a very healthy 70, with the security of Social Security and Medicare (thank you, Democrats of yore!), the ability to sleep almost every morning until he wakes up naturally, the freedom to write and exercise as often as he likes, and the freedom to publish his own books as soon as he gets them written, thanks to self-publishing.

In addition, he and I have a thriving new career editing the books of other authors and getting them published via Amazon, CreateSpace, and Smashwords. Details: http://www.dvorkin.com/ebookpubhelp.html

Life is good, our 46-year marriage is happier than ever, and retirement from office bondage is WONDERFUL!

I just noticed, looking at David: He looks at LEAST five years younger than he did five years ago. That's what the lack of stress and enough sleep will do for you.

Happy retirement to any readers of this for whom that blissful stage of life is coming soon.