Category: Uncategorized

Unexpected Moments In Time


Think about your life. Try to pinpoint a moment that perhaps changed the direction in your life. One that you didn’t chose, but would be responsible for a turn of events. It doesn’t have to be just one, but a decisive change in your direction.

For me, my first unchosen life event would be rheumatic fever. That illness turned me from a confident, popular young girl into a shy, insecure adolescent who through high school would hide behind her books and writing skills, dreaming of a better life away from my hometown.  

The second event that would definitely shape my career and life was being hired to host the children’s television program, Romper Room. That entry into television postponed my career path toward acting and provided me the ability to work while raising my children.

Such a life moment happened to Sharbat Gula who was 12 when photographer Steve McCurry captured his iconic image of her living in a refugee camp for Afghan nationals in Peshawar, Pakistan. Now in her 40s, Sharbat Gula — also known as Sharbat Bibi — was arrested in Peshawar for falsifying documents and staying illegally in Pakistan. She since has been asked by the President of Afghanistan to return and has been treated as a national hero. Because of that iconic photo, instead of being punished, she is being embraced by her country.

“In China, before cranking up the techno music at his 80th birthday party, the man known as “China’s hottest grandpa” paused from his D.J. duties to poke fun at the country’s staid traditional celebrations for the elderly.” according The New York Times. He is 80 years old and is as buff as a 40 year old. 

Mr. Wang was born in the northeastern city of Shenyang in 1936, one of nine children of a cook and a stay-at-home mother. At 14, a year after the Communist Party came to power in 1949, he began working as a streetcar conductor.  

By 49, Mr. Wang was eager to move to Beijing, China’s cultural capital. He wanted to be a “living sculpture.” He also needed money, so he began working out, determined to have a lithe body that would allow him to interact, almost naked and covered in metallic paint, with copies of Auguste Rodin’s and Camille Claudel’s sculptures of women. The idea, he said, came from his wife of 48 years, Zhao Aijuan. The rest is history.   

https://youtu.be/mJyu67Hwm4g

One thing we can learn from these stories is that we must embrace moments of change no matter how early or late in life they come. 

Copyright ©Sandra Hart 2016. All Rights Reserved.

Who Are You, Really?

I recently have started vlogging in conjunction with my weekly blog here on WordPress. Easy for you, you might think. With all of my television background and time spent in front of the camera it should be natural. Yes? No. 

For me, it has been an extreme learning curve. 
Previously, I have been in front of the camera as an interviewer or newscaster. On television and film, I have always assumed my character and perhaps only small parts within that make believe I have found myself. All of this technique and experience is so much different than being just old me. Even on Romper Room I was a teacher and not really myself. 

Time and again I have heard famous actors reveal how shy they really are, or how difficult it is for them to expose themselves as ‘real persons’. I kind of understood them, but now I really know what they mean. It takes a lot of ‘unlearning’ to expose the ‘real me’ in my vlogging efforts.  

All of this brings me to wondering if any of us even in our sixties and beyond know who we really are. Are we defined by our careers, our race or sex, beliefs, age, our talents or our roles as parents, breadwinners, or whatever face or hat we put on in front of the mirror? Is that a reflection of what others see in us as to who we are?

These past few election weeks have been a real eye opener to me. A few Facebook friends that I thought I knew have shown such an ugly side of who they really are that they have shattered the mirror. I have been quite taken back at times. Hiding within the darkness of social media has enabled the worst in some people. Do they honestly see themselves and realize what image they are projecting?  Do they know who they really are?

Previously, I always had confidence in knowing who I am, but vlogging has made me aware that maybe, after all these years I’m not so sure yet.    

I do hope that some of you are further along with that than I am and are willing to help me along my way. Or maybe it is as Shakespeare has said, 

So I am off on this new adventure and learning vlog by vlog. One advantage of talking to myself in front of the camera in an empty room is that at least I know somebody’s listening.

Copyright©Sandra Hart 2016. All Rights Reserved.

Let’s Give Peace A Chance

This last week has been a hard one. With all of the anticipation of the election here in the United States and the result causing a frenzy the likes of which I have never seen before in my lifetime was hard on all of us. 

I hate to admit it but I was born during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Presidency. So you do the math. I have lived through many presidential races and elections. When I was old enough to vote, my choice was not always the people’s choice. but I excepted it. I supported whomever was in office and I moved on. 

This past week was radically different-something that really was a revelation to me. I think to all of us. Social media has given rise to hate filled rhetoric. 

Formerly our news came from television, newspapers and radio and we relied on those outlets for unbiased reporting. We could make up our own minds in the privacy of our immediate friends and families. Today with existing platforms, we can spew hate behind a post. 

The infighting got so bad on my Facebook page that it was not fun to log on anymore. My daughters and some of their friends felt the same way. Their solution? Unfriend those who were going over the top with hate- filled speech. So two nights ago, with a click, I culled my friends and kept those who may have had other persuasions than I do, but were reasonable in their objections. Now I am free at last to return to Facebook. 

In this democracy there are winners. The winning candidate and those who voted for him. But in a way, we all should feel we are winners, because if the President-Elect does a terrible job, we have the power of our vote to change the POTUS. The people do have the ballot box power and the privilege to decide who speaks and governs on our behalf.  

I have never picked my friends by political persuasion, race or religion and I’m not going to ever go down that road. So, please, let us all move forward and enjoy life and the things that bring us together. Accentuate the positives in our lives and know we do have the power to rise above and accept our differences. 

Let’s give peace a chance.

Copyright©Sandra Hart 2016. All Rights Reserved

It’s An Oscar Peterson Kind Of Day

The skies are dark and the tropical winds are blowing much stronger than usual, it’s that kind of day here on the beach. Anywhere else up north the winds and dark skies would be rather depressing, but here, for me, it’s an Oscar Peterson/Cole Porter kind of day. When I woke up to grey skies I welcomed the change in the sameness tropical living sometimes brings. 

After my early morning walk with Sophie, nothing better than starting my day with a cup of tea, biscotti, Oscar and sharing my thoughts out into the digital universe. 

For me, music has always been a barometer of our culture. Growing up in the forties and fifties, music was happy, soulful, lyrics clear and smooth, the beat consistent. Songs were about love, the good life and moving on. Listeners could tap their feet, shake their heads and groove to the beat in ‘slo-mo’ or shoulder shaking heat. Music felt good.

As a teen I would lie across my bed and dream to The Four Aces, Tony Bennet, Frank Sinatra and Cole Porter’s lyrics. The future and the world was out there for me, just waiting. Of that I was sure. It was a positive world I would be walking into. The music that surrounded me told me so.

My husband, having celebrated his ninth decade on this earth yesterday has taken me back into his reality of WWII evolving into peacetime prosperity and a more civil and dare I say simple, moral times.  

What has happened to us as a society? Up until the music of the nineties and from there what has happened to lyrics with decency and morality in some popular music tastes? I can still close my eyes and dream to some, but I feel I’m in a dying generation as far as music goes.  

As the music becomes corrupt and dies, so goes the culture, so goes the nation. I never thought life in 2016 would evolve into what it appears to be today. I don’t think I have to spell it out for you, you must see it, too. 

©Sandra Hart 2016. All Rights Reserved

Cole Porter: His numerous hit songs include “Night and Day”, “Begin the Beguine”, “I Get a Kick Out of You”, “Well, Did You Evah!”, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”, “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” and “You’re the Top”. He also composed scores for films from the 1930s to the 1950s, including Born to Dance (1936), which featured the song “You’d Be So Easy to Love”; Rosalie (1937), which featured “In the Still of the Night”; High Society (1956), which included “True Love”; and Les Girls (1957).

Scorpio Fire

I can’t believe I am married to a ninety-year old man! Next week my husband will have reached the magic number with birthday candles that would singe eyebrows and burn the house down. 

I can’t believe life and so many years have flown by so fast for us. Seems just yesterday he was this older-life-committed bachelor with prematurely white hair who was pursuing me. We met in New York through a friend. I wasn’t at all interested. A week later unannounced he was knocking on my door in New Jersey. Six years later, I said ‘yes’ and two years later we walked down the aisle. His friends couldn’t believe that at fifty-seven he finally made the plunge into married life. I couldn’t believe I was marrying this white-hired guy. 

My father was 10 years older than my mother, my late husband 10 years older than me, so age difference in partners never made me think twice about my marriage choices. Not that ten years today is considered a big gap in age, but when I remarried 32 years ago, there was a 13 year age difference between my new husband and myself. 

Let’s look at it like this, when I was ten years old and probably in the fourth grade my husband was twenty-three, had already finished his service in WWII and was making his way in the world of singles while I was learning to double-jump rope.  

Somehow I kept falling in love, stretching the age difference boundaries. There might be something psychological in my love/comfort choices, or maybe because of my parents successful marriage and healthy aging – who knows – but I never considered to think beyond anything more than that.  

In spite of it all, so-called May-December relationships, in which there’s a big age gap between the partners, can be rewarding — and also challenging if the husband was a bachelor for fifty-seven years. The good news is those issues can be handled, just like any other relationship issue — regardless of age if you are a saint like me. Plus you just have to know how to meditate. 

You know that switch most of us have that allows us to not always say what we are thinking? GOD forgot to give my husband one. Too many embarrassing moments as a result of this Divine mistake in engineering to fit into this blog, but if he has an opinion about you, or anything, he has no qualms sharing it immediately with you.

He is a master at exploding Gorilla glue in the microwave, controlling the tv remote and lovingly breaking most things he handles. I can’t count how many new sets of dishes I’ve gotten throughout the years, or how many clothes of mine that have worn his water, wine or any liquid he has been served at weddings. On the positive side, I always have a reason to buy new things.

My love has slipped and fallen on me in Big Lots dislocating my shoulder, in a Hilton parking lot tearing my rotator cuff and in Honolulu, resulting in a torn leg ligament. Collectively I’ve spent at least two years of my life with him either on crutches or in physical therapy.  

Think of a cross between Larry David and Chevy Chase and you’ve got it. For instance, throughout our lives together he often has walked whatever sweet dog we have had at the time and come into the house without realizing for hours our pet is still waiting faithfully on the other side of the closed door. 

Then there was the time he once drove away with our now-deceased caged bird in top of the car. Now don’t get sad, the bird lived to die of old age and didn’t die as road kill. The Pet Angels intervened once again and the cage landed safely in our neighbor’s yard. 

In the end I’ve had to understand there’s a big difference between being swept off your feet and staying for the long haul. Hard questions about love, aging, permanence, sacrifice, and acceptance have been an important part of our partnership. We are a perfect pair. I have the patience, understanding and independence needed for his personality and he has the Scorpio fire, loyalty and stability I need. 

I have just learned to sit far across the table from him at weddings, check to see if the dog is around after a walk, hide the Gorilla glue, never get another bird and not be offended if he waits a week to notice the Christmas tree is up. And of course, never forget that good night kiss!

 Happy Birthday, Love. Ninety more for you!

Copyright©2016 Sandra Hart. All Rights Reserved

Hurricane Survival

My son, Emerson Hart, says it so well. Oh the joys and curses of being in love can be related to being a water baby! Unfortunately, my leaving the New Jersey shore does not protect me from hurricane threats, it just changes the impact location. So here so am once again, collecting water, freezing ample quantities of ice, candles, loading up on batteries and checking my cabinets for non-perishable foods. 

Since 1972 I have witnessed every hurricane that visited us shore dwellers in Springsteen territory. I have lost trees, once had my roof opened up like a sardine can and have lived without electricity and the modern comforts it brings for weeks. With the exception of sweet Sandy a few years ago, I rode these girls and guys all alone. It seems my family was always elsewhere when these nasty folks came a knocking. 

With my husband up in the Northeast reality again puts me in a position to be saddling this potential storm, Matthew, on my own once again. Right now they forecast winds of up to 130 mph, so this blog post will be shorter than most. By the time you read this I will have changed my flip flops into heavy sneakers and will be activating my well-worn hurricane prep just in case Mathew pays us a visit in a day or two. 

Stay secure my friends along the East Coast, my thoughts for a safe ride will be with you. 

©Sandra Hart 2016. All rights reserved

https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/video/florida-in-the-cross-hairs-of-hurricane-matthew?pl=pl-the-lift&utm_medium=email&utm_source=website&cm_ven=Email&cm_cat=

Again – I Have Nothing

This week’s over-fifty ramblings are more about frustration than anything else. I’m sure you’ve been there at some point this week. 

It’s all about steps. I really am quite fond of steps. Or to clarify that, stairs. Whenever I have had a chance to take an elevator, or steps, the latter are usually what I opt for when I’m not loaded down with stuff. Why? Because I’m crazy? Or because I know it’s good for me? I guess a little bit of both.

 I watched my parents live a very healthy life into their nineties without any mobility problems, so I’ve always attributed that to the fact that they always lived where they had to go up and down steps.

Here in South Beach we live in an attractive six story Mediterranean atrium style building incorporating a group of duplex and triplex penthouse townhouse units accessible by elevator. Having three floors in our unit I have stairs every day and I don’t think anything of running up and down during the day. No problem. But when leaving the house, I always take the elevator to the lobby. Cooler and easier in this tropical climate. 

Well, here I go fast forwarding again. Our new management company was not happy with our current elevator service  so they canceled the contract without reading the ‘no cancel’ clause. The result? When the elevator broke down shortly thereafter there was no one to fix it and now the attorneys are fighting over who can do it. In the meantime, we have been without elevator service for almost six weeks now and I have lost my idiot love of stairs. 

These days I can be found at least six round trip times a day climbing three fights of dastardly cement stairs stripped in yellow in the hot stairwell just carrying on with my life. I’m not building cardio vascular strength, but instead building dread every time my intercom rings summoning me to the lobby to fetch something I have to drag up three floors.  

My contribution to the world economy has definitely stopped and if I ever see the woman who canceled our contract without reading it I just might give her a swift kick in the derrière, or sentence her to walk up and down our hot stairwell steps in perpetuity. 

©Sandra Hart 2016 All rights reserved.

Celebrate Freedom

Today is a day we should never allow the world to forget. On 9/11 America forever lost her innocent sense of safety from terrorism within our shores. 

Personally, my husband and I not only lost neighbors and friends that day, but we were eye witnesses to the horrible event 14 miles across the water from our cliff side deck.  

Local ferries and fisherman crossed the sea from our side to give aid to those who needed to leave the island for care or rescue. The constant drone of the motors lasted into the night as the dark smoke enveloped the sky and drew a curtain over the horizon. If that was not hard enough to witness, we were also personally affected by the third hijacked plane, Flight 93, that crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It was next to a farm owned by longtime personal friends. 

Never again.

 ©Sandra Hart 2016

 

My South Beach Hat

My friends, I have finally finished my sojourn visiting my three children before hanging my South Beach hat at the end of the New Jersey chapter in my life.  

Driving from coastal New Jersey to Chicago, then to Lexington and finally Nashville where my car will rest for awhile has been a slow easing from, and closing of a life that was. Letting go and looking forward to reinventing myself from a ‘snow bird’ to a ‘homesteader’ will be an interesting challenge for this nomad.  

Each of us, if we are lucky to live long enough, will experience many changes and challenges in our lives and who we are. Going through old photographs in New Jersey while cleaning up I found pictures of this somewhat attractive young woman and I looked at her and her life as though she was someone else. A stranger. Who is this woman? The connection to my old self and what I see when I look in the mirror now is very difficult to absorb. Oh, how I wish we could attain the rich knowledge of living while still keeping our young shell. All right. It’s not going to happen in my lifetime, but it doesn’t keep me from wishing it so.


If there would be such a thing as a Time Machine and I could go back and revisit the various chapters in my life I’m really not too sure if I would change anything because youth didn’t equip me with the knowledge that I have now. I probably would’ve made the same mistakes and bypassed the same opportunities that came my way, because I was young and didn’t have the wisdom and the knowledge that living life has afforded me. What is it they say, ‘youth is wasted on the young’. Unfortunately, few of us understand the meaning of that until we are well beyond our prime. 

So, I will march forward, with this new unencumbered future of mine, free to create in all the genetic genres I was given. So what if my hair is not as ‘lionlike’ as it used to be and the veins pop out in my freckled hands a little more than I’d like and the millennials zip by me in their running shoes as this senior patiently waits for Sofi to find the ever illusive right spot do her business. Everyday I wake up grateful that this old brain is still filled with words and the ability to share a treasure trove of thoughts about living the best of life the other side of fifty.  

Once we learn to be our own best friend it’s a smooth cruise into the sunset. 

©Copyright Sandra Hart 2016. All Rights Reserved

Why Read To Your Child?

  
As early as I can remember reading and books have always been a part of my life. Growing up on a farm far away from all of my neighbors when I was young provided me time to use my imagination through the stories in the books that I read.  The complete tales of Charles Dickens,  the Bible, and Bible stories that were brought to the farm by the Jehovah’s Witnesses traveling the  backcountry roads delivering their message. Any of the books that I could find on the dusty bookshelves on my grandfather’s farm – I read them all.  Each of these stories within the pages of the books made me feel less lonely and took me on adventures that I could live and gave me friends that I didn’t have. 

I credit those early days of reading with developing  both tools that I’ve used my entire life; the ability to use my imagination and the ability to express myself.   Together these skills have allowed me to live a more creative and successful life. 

I do hope parents won’t be caught up with today’s technology  that makes it too easy to bother to stop and spend quality time with their children  with a real book with words weaving stories that will help them express themselves throughout their lives. Words and how to use them will prove to be one of the strongest platforms in their lives.  Ever.

* Please click on the link attached to ‘Ever.’ To watch a short video that fortifies my thoughts.

Copyright Sandra Hart©. All rights reserved.