No Regrets?

This past summer, I read a book called No Regrets. A somewhat autobiographical semi-historical narrative, unexpectedly interrupted at times with poetry-related bits, it wasn’t exactly my cuppa.

Perhaps I’m not used to such a rambling, mish-mash of prose, and poetry that didn’t always appear to be poetry.

Personally, I felt it could have used editing, particularly for grammar, punctuation errors, and run-on sentences that interrupted the flow. I’ll leave the poetry to those more gifted in that art form.

But the theme of the book started me wondering: Can you live a life with no regrets?

I suppose, if you have a Pollyanna outlook, or you’re lucky enough not to commit any egregious mistakes along the way, it’s possible.

But I’m not that person.

Yes, there are aspects of my life for which I’m satisfied or even duly proud.

But I do have regrets.

True, mistakes are meant to be a learning experience. But when the same situation occurs over and over, what is the lesson to be learned?

For example, you meet someone who seems pretty nice, but after dating for a while – or sometimes only once – you discover what a jerk the person really is. It wasn’t something you could tell without a few dates. Sometimes the relationship might be very hurtful.

Okay, one such relationship would be a lesson to be more careful and discerning about people. Probably shouldn’t have dated that one.

But when it happens multiple times, you have to wonder why life is beating you up this way. How are you supposed to know nice-seeming people are really creeps when they give no sign?

This is particularly distressing when you meet nice people in-between, who actually are nice people, but simply aren’t for you.

I’ve often heard others say, “If I could live my life over…” This is usually followed by, “knowing what I know now.”

But no.

Realistically, some of the things I know now were not knowable when I was a child.

I wish I could re-do my entire school life, from first through 12^th grades. Not knowing what I know now, but being encouraged to work harder and do better. Since my grades were usually fine, I didn’t get much encouragement. Besides, I was just a girl.

It would have been nice to have been given reasons to do well, a bigger picture – like winning the medal in a particular subject, or preparing the way for an academic scholarship later.

Expecting me to do my best just because I should, when I didn’t see it getting me anywhere, didn’t work.

A word of encouragement, a smile, an expression of my parents being pleased when I did well would have gone a long way. Never mind the present-day habit of paying children for good grades.

Instead, when I earned a B, I was asked why it wasn’t an A. Or when the next grade was an A, I was asked, “Why didn’t you do that last time?”

I’ve been told this negative reinforcement is a particularly Irish attitude. I don’t know if there’s a rule among people of Irish heritage that it is wrong to ever praise a child for good work, but that was my parents’ philosophy.

While it’s true that my ADD and mild dyslexia got in the way of some things, “knowing what I know now” probably would have kept me from developing my own unique compensations. I might never have learned to think outside the box.

I suppose it would have been nice to have extra time to complete standardized tests. But most of the time, I didn’t need it. I did better on those tests than the ones my teachers dreamed up.

Social life was always more difficult for me than academics.

If I had it to do over, I would wish my mother hadn’t been so focused on instilling empathy – “How would you feel if someone said that to you?” (ignoring that someone had) – and had, instead, instilled a sense of justice and standing up for myself, something I’ve never been good at doing.

I wish someone had clued me in on what people didn’t like about me so I could fix it, instead of still having no clue how to make friends. It would have saved me from hanging around people I didn’t particularly like simply because they let me.

I wish I’d worked harder in school and gone to a better university. Maybe then I wouldn’t have spent 30+ years in a profession I didn’t like and wasn’t suited for.

I wish I were kinder. I try, but it gets difficult when people are pushing my buttons.

I wish I knew how to be more loving – or at least how to be more comfortable expressing it, other than on paper.

I wish my feelings didn’t get hurt as easily as they do.

I wish I had more patience. Some people think I’m very patient; I know better.

I wish I didn’t talk so much. I know people don’t want to hear what I have to say most of the time. Sometimes it feels like an alien has taken over and controls my mouth.

I wish I didn’t have so much anger inside me. People easily say, “Just let it go,” but can never offer a way to do that.

No regrets? I don’t think regrets are a bad thing. They show you where you need improvement.

Life isn’t about perfection. It’s about becoming your best possible self.

If you regret nothing, you never see the potential for improvement.

Yes, I wish I hadn’t had certain experiences and relationships or made certain decisions. Would that have made me a different person? Possibly. But I’m not convinced that would be a bad thing.

Things They Did Not Teach Us in School

I love to watch the expression on the faces of the students I work with when I tell them that I was never taught to print.

When they hear that I learned cursive in first grade, they generally want to know, “What about kindergarten?”

Then I tell them that my school didn’t have kindergarten, and my mother saw no reason to send me to public school to play dress-up, play in the playground and the sandbox, and take naps. I had all of those things at home; no reason to catch other people’s germs.

Nowadays, kindergarten has replaced first grade in the learning department, and what my peers did in kindergarten, children now do in pre-school.

I only missed out on the socialization part, and I’m not sure I ever quite caught up.

But those are not the only differences in schools of today versus “in my day.”

I still think I had the advantage, learning cursive and never having been formally taught to print. Our teachers assumed we were all intelligent enough to figure out how to print. It isn’t that hard.

I did.  Well, with the exception of the letters that I reversed until mid-high school. Even those, I figured out ways to fix.

 Z, for example. I reversed that. But I discovered that if I wrote Zorro (a popular TV show of my childhood) on the bottom line of the letter, if all of the letters came before the Z when I tried to read it, it was backwards.

Now teachers teach the children who reverse b and d to make two fists with their thumbs up. The one that comes first (the left) is the b, while the one on the right is the d.

I had my own way. Make the bed.

Huh?

Well, you need a headboard and a foot board. Then put the pillows (the half circles that make up the rest of the two letters letters) in the middle. Then let e jump on it (since monkeys aren’t allowed to jump on the bed.)

Okay, it’s a bit out there. There I go, thinking outside the box again.

But having learned to write, there were other subjects to master. While I know when to use fewer and when to use less – something many do not – and which to/two/too to use, as well as when and how to use lie and lay, there were other things I did not learn in school.

For example, when my husband, Blue Scream of Jeff, told me he learned about the Vietnam War in school, I thought he was joking. Yes, he’s younger than I am by about a decade, but still! We did not learn that in school.

We lived through it.

When I was a senior in high school, they had finally finished arguing about what shape the table should be – I thought at the time round was a no-brainer – and had started the Paris Peace Talks. We sometimes watched that on television in Social Studies class.

Years later, after failing to get a job in my field of study from college, I fell into teaching fifth grade quite by accident. While the school was still as white as mine had been, some color had been introduced to the history books.

“In my day,” African Americans – who were called, by the nun who taught me, Negroes and Nigresses – were not introduced into American culture until we studied slavery. Yes, it was mentioned in passing that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson owned plantations, and therefore slaves – although Sally Hemmings was never mentioned in Catholic school! – the idea that there were free blacks in any of the northern states was something we were not told.

Imagine my surprise as a teacher when, preparing my class notes on the Boston Massacre, I discovered that the first person killed in the skirmish was a man of color, one Crispus Attucks! And he wasn’t the only black man who fought against the British! It was a revelation.

While I learned all sorts of things about Russia, India and China in World Cultures I and II, I never learned word one about the French Revolution. The first time I ever heard of Trafalgar was when I bought a Bee Gees album of that name (With Barry Gibb dressed as Lord Nelson after his having been shot).

We were taught about the French and Indian War – a war not between the French and the Indians – but no one ever mentioned that was a portion of the 7-Year’s War in Europe.

Likewise, we were taught nothing of Spanish, Italian or Scandinavian history, other than where history had to do with the popes or Christopher Columbus.

Moving on to Geography, we were taught countries of modern Europe, Asia and Africa – well the African countries with the names they had back “in my day.” But while Egypt has remained Egypt throughout history, I was never able to locate places like Persia, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian empire in relation to places we have now, like Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, etc.

I only know Zimbabwe in Africa used to be what I knew as Rhodesia because it became Zimbabwe-Rhodesia while I was studying in the UK, and their news was full of that fact.

And what ever happened to Sparta? That was my favorite place in ancient Greece! I loved the story about the Spartan boy who stole the fox. You still have Athens, Thermopile and lots of other places, but just try to book a vacation to Sparta (or for that matter, Troy, to see the Trojan Horse.)

I suppose some years had too much jammed into them. Fourth grade was almost entirely the Middle Ages – which is probably why fourth grade was my favorite. Sixth grade had Greek, Roman and Ancient Egyptian history – which is probably why I absolutely hated sixth grade.

Seventh grade had Westward expansion and the Civil War, and Eighth grade covered the Reconstruction era, World War I (for about 5 minutes one afternoon), the great Depression (for a depressingly long time), World War II (forever, but without mentioning much of importance like the D-Day invasion or Iwo Jima), and the Korean War (which was only mentioned as having been a war).

While I believe in general I received an excellent education in my first 12 years of school, much of history was sketchy at best.

We learned about the wave of Irish immigration, followed by the Italian immigration, and then war and things, but we were never taught any reasons why those immigrants left their homes to come to our shores.

Even our shameful treatment of Native Americans was well hidden with excuses such as the idea that they were savages, most of whom refused to accept Catholic Christianity. No mention was ever made of small-pox-infected blankets being given to these people, or the fact that the US government violated every treaty it ever made with the Native Americans.

What I learned of the Potato Famine or Native American history came from my love of reading, well after I had finished my schooling.

All I know about the French Revolution came from reading Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.

I suppose I could have been a history major in college, although I can’t see that as a good route to a career, especially since most of the history I did learn didn’t much interest me.

I loved the Middle Ages, but my parents refused my request to stay two extra terms at Penn State to earn a minor in Medieval History on top of my dual bachelor’s degrees.

Who knows where it could have led? I could have really been something at the Renaissance Faires!

Writing

To those who don’t write, writing is a mysterious process – at least, that’s what people have said to me; I’ve had stories floating around in my head all my life.

“It must be really hard to write a novel,” they say. But it’s not.

In general, characters comes knocking, and I hope they will go away. When they  don’t, I sit down and write about them.

My earliest creation happened when I was three or four years old. My favorite bedtime story was one my mother hated. Truly, the story was boring. But the pictures were great.

So, when my mother started reading, I told her that’s not how the story went. She told me to read it, then.

Not knowing my alphabet as anything but a song, I couldn’t read. But I proceeded to tell her my version of what was going on in the pictures. I even had characters with names, which the book did not.

My mother was startled by my creativity and ability to tell a coherent story. She told me I’d be a writer when I grew up – not an exciting idea to a three-year-old.

However, my elementary school essays gave no indication of writing talent.

Since my family never took summer vacations because my father didn’t like the beach, my, “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” was less than a stellar exercise.

My grades were good, since the grammar and spelling were appropriate, but there was little room for creativity. (The nuns would have had a fit if I’d written about traveling to another planet for the summer.)

Not until seventh grade, when the English – Language Arts  – nun believed 13-year-olds should take responsibility for creating two pages a week of whatever they had to say, did I find my voice.

All we had to do was fill two pages. She wouldn’t even read it unless we requested that she do so.

And I did.

Every week.

My condolences to her for the hours she spent deciphering my handwriting and suffering through my attempts – always more than two pages – at poems, plays and essays.

And endless thanks for the words of encouragement she gave me in response.

That exercise taught me to just write and see what happened.

It informed my first university experience, which resulted in dual Bachelor of Arts degrees, one in creative writing.

I tried all sorts of writing, some successful, some not.

My poetry teacher gave me an A, not for talent, but for sheer volume of attempts handed in. He made me promise not to try to become a professional poet because I wasn’t any good at it.

Because he hated Hallmark cards, I would occasionally tease that I was considering applying for a job writing for Hallmark. I’d still like to see a line of humorous sympathy cards, since that’s the time you most need cheering up.

Similarly, biography writing turned out not to be my forte. When I interviewed a friend and wrote a piece based on what he told me, my instructor accused me of making the whole thing up, and gave it a very low grade.

If he was going to assume fiction, that’s what I’d give him.

For my final biographical piece, I invented a character, and wrote his biography. My instructor loved it, having no idea it was complete fiction. For that, he gave me an A.

And so my biographical fiction was born, no research required.

While most of the time characters come to me, I have, on occasion, written a story on request.

Dark Faery was created because a young friend was enamored of Twilight. She suggested that I could write a vampire novel.

 I told her my vampires would not sparkle, and the story would have to be something unlike anything I’d read before. No witches or werewolves to muddy the waters.

Hence, Vampyre Faeries.

Ironically, despite all the telltale hints, as well as Irish and Welsh names of the characters and references to druids, one reviewer wondered where all of this took place, since I never named a country.

Hello.

Faeries know no country.

But here’s a clue for you all: Wales and Ireland, folks.  Wales and Ireland.

I guess I should have drawn a map.

I’ve also created series on request. Both Dark Faery and my Unicorn series were supposed to be one-off ventures. But at the request of readers who wanted more, I turned them into series.

But how to get people to notice?

Write blogs, they said.

It’ll get you an audience, they said.

Well, that hasn’t happened, really. I haven’t had an increase in book sales because of my blogs.

In fact, my blogs are often only read by two or three people. And rarely do I even get comments on the blogs to know what suggestions others might have.

Blog writing is very different from novel or short story writing.

I thought it would be difficult.

I hoped it wouldn’t be as uninspired as my elementary school essays.

It has turned out to be as much of a creative venture as my stories. Ideas come unbidden in the middle of the night when I’m trying to sleep. Whether or not they’re inspired is not for me to say.

The main difference is that my stories are fiction, whereas the blogs are my thoughts and opinions on a particular topic, no characters required.

How’s that for how I spent my summer vacation?

Privilege

While on a recent vacation in Europe, I found that there are, generally, two types of Americans who travel abroad.

The first type tends to be polite, use their indoor voices, and are keen to discover new places, cultures, and people, and learn about foreign countries from a different perspective to what they’ve learned stateside.

They may try to learn at least a little of a foreign language when possible, and they willingly acknowledge that the whole world is not English-speaking.

The second type tends to believe money talks. Regardless of their economic status, these people have reached the point of being able to afford a European vacation, whether they’re company CEOs or they’ve saved for the vacation of a lifetime.

Having reached this status, they often exhibit a sense of entitlement. I call them The Privileged, “knock this chip off my shoulder” type. They are American in all caps.

This second group is often loud, quick to take offense when things don’t go their way, and appear to think they already know everything about the places they’re visiting and the people who live there. They are looking to have their opinions reinforced.

They also are likely to have the attitude that everyone in the world speaks English; foreigners simply pretend they don’t to make things difficult.

I know what you’re thinking: these are stereotypes. No one is exactly like either of these descriptions. But stereotypes are based in reality, even if they take it to the extreme.

I have met people who fit very neatly into each of those categories.

Most people are a combination of the two, and depending on how the day is going for them, show more of one or the other.

Those who exhibit more characteristics of the second type are the ones who embarrass the rest of us. They also tend to be the ones Europeans remember as Americans.

We’ve all had an “ugly American” moment when weather, disappointment or the hassle of packing and moving from place to place just gets to us.

The problem is that many Americans look on this not as rude but as “just having a bad day,” with no explanation or apology necessary. Some people act as if it is our right as Americans to expect the best, and insist that we get it.

I have seen this so much when traveling that it is refreshing to find Americans who are empathetic, polite and considerate of those from different cultures.

Yes, we’re considerate – usually – with other Americans, but we can often be more abrupt than those of other cultures are used to.

The “This is who I am; get over it” attitude is precisely what Europeans find distasteful.

The attitude doesn’t end when Americans come home, either.

Those who cater to the tourist industry welcome having their guests leave comments on sites such as Trip Advisor.

I use this site to help decide where to book when I’m planning a vacation. And I leave comments about the places I’ve stayed, as well.

I admit, I have few requirements: clean sheets and towels, a working shower and a bed with no bedbugs. While a television is a nice touch, and these days expected, unless I’m traveling alone, I probably won’t turn it on, especially in a non-English-speaking country.

While a dripping faucet or a drafty window can be irritating enough to disturb sleep, other things people complain about (drab curtains, tired carpets or even a creaky floor) make me shake my head.

I once traveled in a group where one woman complained that the walls in her room were dirty! This was in a new hotel, and no one else had that experience.

Sure, mentioning that the rooms could use an update might be a valid suggestion. But some people seem to have nothing to say except whether or not they liked the color of the room, the carpet or the lighting fixtures, and then give a low rating as if they worked for Queer Eye for the B&B. They say nothing of comfort, security or the quiet factor of the room.

I once stayed in a B&B where I’d read the complaints about the layout of the bathroom. (It had one; I was good with that.) The main issue was that there was only about 2 feet between the sink and the door. It was a single room. I found the distance adequate to get from the toilet on one side to the shower on the other. When I reviewed it, I suggested that people who found it too narrow a space simply leave the door open. It was a single room, after all.

I’ve also read reviews from Americans who ripped a B&B to shreds because the batteries in the remote for the TV were dead.

Really? Did you ask for new ones?

The management doesn’t generally know about these issues unless a guest mentions it. Maids are there to clean, not check TV remotes.

My experience, whether with a B&B or a hotel, is that management is more than willing, with great apology, to quickly remedy issues like batteries, towels and assorted other problems. They will work with guests to make accommodations on things that can’t immediately be fixed, like Wi-Fi dead spots. But the guest needs to speak up.

I find it odd that the Americans who are willing to loudly complain about cultural differences will wait until they get home and put issues like batteries in their complaints about their accommodations.

It’s true that Europeans can also be critical of places to stay. But on the whole, they tend not to be as harsh in their ratings over minor inconveniences.

My attitude when traveling is that, like it or not, I am representing my country when I travel abroad. My behavior will affect how others view Americans.

Do I always behave like the model tourist? Admittedly, no. But I do try, and when I fail, I try to make amends.

A European vacation is an opportunity to learn new things, and I try to learn as much as possible.

Americans who can afford to vacation in Europe should not use that as an opportunity for arrogance.

An American tourist should not expect better treatment simply because of national origin.  Because of some tourists, the reverse might end up being the case in some places.

You are not just a guest in another country. You are an advertisement for whether or not others should come to visit America.

The only privilege should be the chance to see new places and learn new things. It should not be a guest’s expectation of entitlement simply for having been born in a land of opportunity.

Gadgets

I have been accused of having to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21^st century. This, I believe, is not only untrue, but also an unfair assessment of who I am.

People assume that, because I don’t have the latest model of something, I’m somehow not modern.

Not so.

I like gadgets as much as the next person. But frequently I find myself saying, “That’s really cool. What do I do with it?”

Despite having a laptop and a Surface, I wanted an iPad – or I thought I did.

When I got my smartphone, my phone company was running a special deal on iPads, so I got one.

Cool.

Except the only keyboard is on-screen.

I’m a tactile kind of person who prefers the feel of a real keyboard. But I can deal, except that I tend to make a lot more mistakes with an on-screen keyboard. Like the phone keyboard, it tends not to be whole hand, much less two-hand friendly.

And then there’s the fact that the iPad has no thumb drive compatibility, so anything on the iPad is non-transferrable to any other device unless I send my work via email. What a hassle!

So, my iPad is basically only used for an Irish language app that I use because the iPad screen is better for that than a phone screen.

Oh, but you can take pictures with it!

Yeah. There’s nothing dorkier, in my humble opinion, than using something that cumbersome to take pictures.  That’s what seniors do to try to prove they’ve come into the digital age to so they don’t have to use their reading glasses.

Oh, but games!

Do I look like I’m 10? I have no desire to get roped into Fortnite.

I spent several months once playing Diablo in my free time instead of doing something useful. I couldn’t get past a certain level in that, and realized, eventually, that all I was doing was raising my cortisol level for no very good reason. I can do that driving to work every day.

And most of the game apps seem to be the same game in different colors.

Having to wait through commercials is annoying, and I don’t like any of the games enough to pay a monthly fee for them just to skip the commercials.

Of course, I can use it for answering emails or social media. But I prefer my laptop for that, since it has that nice clicky keyboard that has room for two hands typing.

The only thing I hate about my laptop is the more modern thing on it: the touchpad. No matter how I try, I can’t get the cursor to cooperate, so I have to use a mouse, instead. I’m good with a mouse. I just wish the mouse disabled the touchpad the way it did on my previous laptop.

“Why don’t you just use the touch screen?”

I don’t mainly because I usually forget it has one. I find the mouse faster, anyway. And, since it’s already connected –

So I get called a Luddite.

The first time someone called me that I had never heard the word before. Someone had to explain it to me.

But that’s not who I am.

I also have a Surface, for no better reason than I thought it was cool.

What I like about the Surface is that it’s lightweight, dual voltage, and has a detachable keyboard for those of us who prefer tactile keyboards. And, I can attach a mouse and use it just like a laptop. I mainly use it for travel.

What I don’t like about it is it’s slow on the internet. I don’t spend much time answering emails or going on social media when I’m using it because the slowness is so frustrating.

Of course, that’s a good thing on vacations. I’m not distracted by the internet. The main reason I bring it with me is to download my pictures and title them daily so I don’t forget which castle or cathedral I have a picture of.

Yes, I can feel your eye roll. Yes, I use a digital camera. A DSLR. One of those big things.

Why?

It was an upgrade from my 35 mm camera that I still have but seldom use. It takes much better pictures than the phone or a point-and-shoot, and I can do a lot more creatively with it. I don’t have to limit my photos because of the expense of film, and I don’t have to worry that an entire vacation’s worth of pictures didn’t come out. On my honeymoon, I lost an entire roll of film somewhere between England and Ireland.

I still prefer the ease and the feel of the 35mm over any other camera I’ve ever used.

But you have an iPhone, you say.

Yes, I do. It’s a phone. I use it as a phone and to send texts. 

True, it has a camera, which, in my opinion, takes so-so pictures. It’s good for that in a pinch, but not for real photos.

As for the keyboard, it’s slightly better than the one on my old flip phone, but hardly something I could comfortably type emails, much less a blog on.

And as for reading, in a pinch, for brief periods, I can use it in place of my Kindle.

Yes, I have a Kindle. I got it for reading when I travel. It’s probably 10 years old by now, ancient by tech standards. But it works. And it’s smaller than the Surface, so even though I have the Kindle app on all of my tech appliances, it’s more convenient on a plane than pulling out the Surface, and easier to read than using the phone. And it still works, so I don’t need an upgrade. And I can read it outside, which I can't with other devices.

But I do prefer real books.

Even my iPhone is now two years old. It’s a 6s that I got a few days before the iPhone X was released. Why didn’t I get the X? Who would spend over $1,000 on a phone in the first place, much less one that will be considered obsolete in two years? And then, there are “improvements” that I don’t want or like. My 6s works, and is a convenient size. It will meet my needs until it no longer works.

I’m not opposed to new things. I was raised to take care of my things. When I was a child, if I broke something, I didn’t get another one. Now, if I have something that works and meets my needs, I see no reason to get another one. It rankles to have to replace something that works because the internet companies have rendered it redundant.

I will say that I like the GPS on my phone much better than the independent GPS that I had. That was difficult to program and didn’t work in other countries.

But I will never be attached at the hip to a phone.

I originally got a mobile phone because the powers that be had done away with pay phones. Because I travel long distances for work, my husband thought it was necessary in case of emergency.

Even Superman had to make adjustments.

So, although I have a variety of gadgets, they’re not necessarily the most up-to-date ones. And that doesn’t bother me. Call me what you will, but I’ve never been one to cave in to peer pressure, whether it was to smoke cigarettes or buy an iPhone X.

And as for my blogs, I write them by hand in cursive before they ever make it to the computer. Call me old-fashioned if you wish, but I do what works best for me.