It’s an inspiring hang with Sandra Hart, former Romper Room teacher, touching on a number of subjects. Heart-felt and funny and often whimsical Sandra shares her personal, profound thoughts that will make you chuckle or give you thought about your own life. A thoughtful collection of essays that is a perfect read by your bedside or in daily doses. Available in Kindle or printed copy at amazon.com
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Not Yet
I wrapped my sweater more closely around my body as I stood and looked out at the familiar horizon before me. I thought how strange it is that the familiar can change day by day, but yet somehow those familiar changes do give a comfortable feeling of knowing. Of consistency. I really love that.
How quickly summer has passed, I thought. My husband and I have been loyal to this annual ritual of saying goodbye to one familiar and journeying to another warmer familiar. Moving from one nest to another never gets easier. At least for me. It seems that just as quickly as we get into a comfortable routine at one place, we have to shut the door and start again somewhere else. This year, it has happened too quickly.
“Oh look the leaves are beginning to curl and turn,” I said to my husband this morning, “September just arrived …. it shouldn’t be this cold yet.” The loud cicadas have been signaling the beginning of the end and now the leaves turning. I am not ready. So not ready, I said to myself looking out over the ocean.
Not just yet. No hurry here. I’m not ready for summer’s last breath to blow in the winds that chill me to the bone.
I hesitated. What am thinking? To be honest with myself, the truth is, Life is going by too, too quickly for me. I am not ready for much more than just changing my seasonal nest. That’s just a small part of it.
I’m not ready to grow old. Period. I’m not ready for my seasons to change. I’m not ready for my white hair to define me. I’m not ready to have to stand on my tiptoes to kiss my grandson on the cheek. I’m not ready to have people help me with my groceries. I’m not ready to have the young ‘texters’ give up their seats for me. I am not ready to be irrelevant.
I am…..just…..not……ready for that yet….but…….
I am so ready to keep dancing in front of the mirror. I am so ready to splash in the waves along the beach. I am so ready for gelled nails. I am so ready to daydream to love songs and wave my arms at rock concerts. I am so ready to eat a whole cheesecake and not feel guilty about it. I am so ready for the young girl inside of me to stay around for a long time.
Copyright Sandra Hart 2014. All rights reserved.
Let’s face it. I am just…..well…..so not…..ready to act my age!
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A DAY ETCHED IN HISTORY
The Magnificent Maidens who guarded our city of
cities at the point where the ocean and rivers bleed
into one another are gone.
The phone rang. Why so early, I mumbled to myself. My daughter was on the other end. “Mother, an airplane slammed into the World Trade Center!”
Her words were incredible. Did I hear her right?
“What”, I said as I turned toward the ocean, my eyes searching to prove her wrong.
I looked out onto the familiar horizon and billows of dark smoke were erasing the color from the blue sky that stretched along the rest of the city skyline and beyond.
My husband and I watched in disbelief, hardly grasping what we were seeing, when another large billow of smoke erupted like a white silk parachute
exploding at full force and lifting vertically into the air.
Our neighbors started coming one by one and we
gathered shoulder to shoulder on the deck, each
silenced by the enormous spectacle.
Then one by one they dispersed just at quietly as they came and Arthur and I went into the house to watch with the rest of the world the unfolding of the
tragic events we had just witnessed.
Six hours later I was back on the deck, still somewhat in shock and starring at unending clouds of death blowing with the afternoon winds northward,
trailing high into the sky. The Magnificent Maidens who guarded our city of cities at the point where the ocean and rivers bleed into one another are gone.
Here I was in America, standing on the ocean’s edge among the green trees and songbirds. In this bucolic setting, I was watching a war 14 miles away.
It was more surreal than anything I could have even imagined I would ever witness. It was unthinkable. It was unbelievable.
Only the steady groan of the large ferries traveling back and forth executing rescue missions between our two shores kept me in reality. This was not just a bad dream. Who would have thought that this could happen here?
Now and forever I will remember that day in September. I will remember how we here in America died as a result of unspeakable acts of violence against innocent people. Those who have lost their lives in these tragic terrorist attacks are gone forever. Those of us that have been left behind had lost
something that next to life is the most precious thing we possess.
We have lost our ability to take an airplane or go into a building or to walk the streets with out fear of harm. We have lost our ability to feel safe from
terrorism in any corner of America and the world. We have lost an important part of our freedom.
I will never forget where I was on September 11, 2001. I will never forget where I was on this horrendous day when deeds of man against man were applauded in the name of religion.
© Sandra Hart published in Asbury Park Press 2001
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FAST FORWARD
“One is the loneliest number that you will ever do.” John Farnham
Several years ago I wrote a piece on “one is the loneliest number,” adding various reasons why that didn’t necessarily have to be true:
“So many songs including the one with the famous line in the above title ‘one’ means heart ache, single, lonely, by myself and all of the other negative images they want us to conjure up about poor little ‘one’.
Isn’t ‘one’ the primary, the very first number in our numeric system? Without ‘one’ there would be no starting and with all of the other infinite numbers trailing behind it certainly is not lonely.
For me being by myself gives me the opportunity to do as I please. So when you are alone and feeling sorry for yourself embrace your ‘oneness’.
Always remember tomorrow is another day and a chance to be number ‘one’ again, head of the pack and at the top of the heap. If you learn to love yourself, you will be your own best company.”*
Fast forward to the present. Right now, I am waiting in the orthopedics office, alone, filled with a room full of injured people to varying degrees of injury and loneliness. Old, young, broken arms and legs, wheelchairs. Surveying the large waiting room, I am feeling quite vulnerable, witnessing how a trip, slip or other catastrophe can change one’s life. The human body is an amazing machine. But a human machine that is quite fragile and vulnerable to all sorts of damage.
My husband is in the city, my children are spread throughout the south and Midwest and here I am, ‘one’ and not so cocky about my ‘oneness.’
Right now, I am realizing that all of the prior feelings I had about the number 1, changes as I get older and more aware of how important 2 or more can be.
On my way home today, a quick stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for número uno, and then calls to my husband and children to tell them that they are ‘one’ in my life, head of the pack and top of the heap!
* Excerpts from Read Between My Lines: What Was I Thinking. Sandra Hart Copyright.
Copyright 2014 Sandra Hart
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LAST DAY OF SUMMER
(In the last few days during a late spring cleaning and efforts to eliminate “stuff” I have collected in my adulthood, I came across some of my stories I wrote as a young teenager that my mother lovingly kept because she always believed in me and what I could be. I hadn’t read them since I wrote them when I was 13.)
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Last Day of Summer
Arising at dawn I ran outside, the cool mist of early morning causing me a slight chill, I briskly paced myself on the ruff dewy clumps of grass that had found life here and there in the sand leading to the water’s edge. It was my last day on the island and I didn’t want to miss watching the golden halo arise from the sea. I could see the seagulls, a chorus of sharp squeals, snowy bodies and vibrant flapping of wings swooping and diving over my head.
The quickening pace of the deep blue waves splashing, splashing against the dark wet sand seemed to invite me to join them in their early morning frolic.
I quickened my pace toward the beckoning waves feeling the moist sand coming between my bare toes giving me a feeling of being one with it. Giving in to it.
The strong waves broke against my body as I hurled myself into the sea. I swam to almost where the waves beyond were wearing their white caps. Ha! Just to entertain me on this, my final swim I thought. Just for me.
In the late afternoon with only an apple in my pocket I traveled barefoot one more time along the seaweed clad shore watching a sailboat now and then skim along on the horizon.
Placing myself, after retracing my footprints back up the beach, on an weathered old great piece of driftwood, I sat to dine on the contents of my pocket while quietly watching the waves come and go, come and go, kissing the shore and then disappearing over and over again.
Eventually the waves took on a scarlet hue as the flame in the sky flickered, flickered and as slowly as it arose from the sea at dawn, it slowly ebbed. I watched. I watched and remembered my wonderful summer by the sea until God blew out the candle that lights the day and all was dark and still.
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My Wild GM Pony
The other day, while browsing the internet for a new/old mustang to replace the wheels he bought last year the (“grandma chevy”- his words not mine), I casually mentioned that I had owned a Chevy Camaro when I was on Romper Room.
“Really?”
“Yes, my friend Don said it was on the cover of Car and Driver that year.”
Marshell immediately Googled and there it was, the cover I had never seen in all these years, my hugger orange beauty right there on the cover of the magazine.
In 2001, I came as close as I was to seeing my old flame. While I was leisurely reading the New York Times and getting ready to hand the Automotive Section (which I never read) over to my husband, my heart flipped when my eyes scanned the first section page.
An old love of mine that I hadn’t seen in years was staring me in the face. The aristocratic and sporty nose; the classic look that has aged so well. There in beautiful Hugger Orange was a picture of my old 1970 Chevrolet Camaro. According to The Times, that year Chevrolet built a short run of Camaros with aluminum-block 427 engines. Only 69 were built and I just happened to have the one designed and fitted with special spoiler by my friend, Don Yenko, the famous NASCAR driver.
Don’s father owned a Chevrolet dealership in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, and when I saw this Hugger Orange beauty in his showroom, I had to have it. My husband had a fit, but I bought the car, anyway.
In retrospect, I wish I had put that old beau up on cinderblocks and well-covered. But I didn’t. I sold it to one of my daughters friends who, within a week wrapped it around a tree. No injuries, but the death of my old love was hard to take.
If I had kept that Camero, I hate to think of what it would be worth today, but I know when my son, Emerson, got to be of driving age I would have given it to him anyway. So evaporate those dreams of having a car worth six figures. It never was to be.
©Sandra Hart 2012
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56,940 More Or Less
The first thing my husband says when opening the door after a long, lazy day at the beach is, “What’s for dinner?”
And even though I prefer an evening walk along the beach, my husband ‘s favorite ‘fun thing’ is to walk the dogs past all of the packed restaurants here in our neighborhood to see if they are still in business. Heaven forbid, with patrons like us they ALL would have to shutter their doors.
In a moment of desperation, with my calculator at hand, 56,940, more or less, are the number of meals I have cooked since being a wife. Let’s face it. I am tired. Just plain culinary worn out. I am tired of cooking. Cooking day in and day out with all the shopping and planning that goes along with feeding loved ones.
Now I do realize there are lucky women out there born with the ‘love-to-cook’ gene. And I really wish I were one of them. My life would be so much easier both in and out of the kitchen.
For awhile now I have realized ( and envied) that most of my friends and his friends’ wives no longer cook – either on a regular basis or even at all. More than likely it is not at all. Call in or take out.
So you naysayers might respond, “Let him do it, for heavens sake. Quit complaining!”
Well I have thought of that. Here is why that doesn’t quite work in our small kitchen here on the beach. When he makes an omelette, for instance, each egg has to be cracked into a separate bowl of its own. Then all of the ingredients have to have their separate small containers as well. Then the cooking utensils add to the prep clutter. Our counters are granite, so the liquids have no where to go except roll down the lower cabinets onto the floor, with a slippery layer remaining on the top. And then, when the chef is finished, he just walks away, pleased with himself and his fluffy omelette and leaves the cleanup to the assistant. Me. The bottom line and picture proof, unfortunately for me, is that I am not married to Mario Batali, so I have to maintain our household chef duties in order to keep my sanity.
So if there should be anyone out there with good ‘two-fer’ coupons or events involving food we can crash…please let this ‘been- there, well- over- done- that’ woman know. Please?
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SWISH….SWISH
My uncontrollable memory tail has lashed me about recently, taking me to places I would rather not go.
First, the mixed circumstances of joy in reconnecting with a cousin and of sorrow whipping me backward in dealing with the memory of her mother, my famous cousin Carolyn and her illness-which in turn, re stimulated memories of my late husband, Jennings, and his struggles with schizophrenia.
Then this morning on CBS’s Sunday Morning, out of the blue, I was again swished back to a painful time in my young life. Michael Rockefeller.
New York……..1959
I met Michael through my classmate and eventual apartment roommate, Patricia White. She, Michael, Mimi Kellogg and a few others and I would get together the next few years on occasions at parties, either at our apartment or other social events. We were young and all full of life and youthful expectations. All except me, were raised in a social bubble of great material comfort and equally great expectations. I was the anomaly in the group with my Midwestern middle class upbringing. Yet we were all alike in that few of us had experienced great personal losses beyond our grandparents or older relatives. We were invincible with miles of living ahead of us. That is, until Michael.
Michael Rockefeller, just a year or two older than I, disappeared and was presumed to have died November 17, 1961. He was the youngest son of New York Governor (later Vice President) Nelson Rockefeller and a fourth generation member of the Rockefeller family. Our friend disappeared during an expedition in the Asmat region of southwestern Netherlands New Guinea.
At the time we were told that he was believed to have drowned and they never were able to find his body. That was all we knew then. We were shocked and it took so long to accept we would never see him again. It was hard to accept that our intelligent, enthusiastic and sometimes funny friend was gone.
In 2014, Carl Hoffman published a book that went into detail about the inquest into his killing, in which villagers and tribal elders admit to Rockefeller being killed after he swam to shore in 1961.
So once again that memory tail has swooshed, given me a whack and knocked the air from me. As my son’s ‘To Be Young’ lyrics from his album Beauty In Disrepair explains….”As I look back…years of memories so neatly stacked..I forgot about you.”
Copyright Sandra Hart 2014. All rights reserved.
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Who Knew?
Break dancing? Who knew? In 1984 my then almost 15 year old son and I traveled through Egypt and Israel. We were fortunate to have been invited onto to a secret underground air base in the Israeli desert. The pilots and their families gave my son a birthday party while there and he was the hit of the party break dancing for all of them. They had never seen anything like that in person before and were taken with my young sons moves. (Ahhh…the days before everyone was on the internet and social media).
Little did we all know that my son, Emerson Hart, would grow up to be a twice Grammy nominee, Billboard awarded for the most played radio rock song, ASCAP award for the best television theme song, movie theme song writer (including hit film “American Pie” multi platinum artist, lead singer/ songwriter for the band Tonic.
It is against this remarkable backdrop of self-achievements that my son will release his second solo album, “Beauty in Disrepair” on April 15, 2014, “Beauty In Disrepair”, a follow up to his last “Cigarettes and Gasoline” solo effort that garnered two top 20 singles.
emersonhart.com. .
Sandra's Hart My Over 60 Lifestyle Journey 