Doesn't Need a Man in Her Life

‘Need’ is the operative word here. I’m talking about the kind of woman who makes some men very uncomfortable. The last thing you’d dare call her is the ‘little woman,’ ‘wife of’ or ‘other half.’ She is herself; totally herself without apology. Most men get it; some poor souls don’t.

As a novelist, playwright and screen writer, it’s my job to create, imagine and paint colorful picture-stories of women that readers want to read about. They should be real, provocative, mysterious, and honest to the real thing.

For example, I’ve tried to do this with my ‘Debris’ trilogy. There’s Natalie, a semi-butch lesbian, Juliet, who turns out to be bi-sexual, Millie, an aging Hollywood star, Miranda, a victim of incest and a host of other (I believe) real world women. Yet, as often as I try to paint an honest portrayal of a real woman, I find myself falling back into my most comfortable, familiar refrain.

It’s like in Greek mythology where sirens, half-bird, half-woman creatures, lure sailors to their death with their enchanting, irresistible songs. Their beautiful, yet deceptive, melodies play in my head as well and cause me, along with those mariners, to lose our minds and sail the ships into the rocky shores of the Sirens' island, causing us to drown.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I find myself almost always gravitating toward a singular profile for my female protagonist. What can I say; I’m prejudice in the best kind of way. Through my writings, I’ve made no secret of my admiration of and attraction to independent, strong-willed women who are confident enough in themselves and their own abilities that they don’t need a man for any kind of affirmation.

I have absolutely no idea where my fascination with strong women came from? My mother was a strong-willed woman but never in a demonstrative way; German Catholics seldom are. It wasn’t the other woman in my life; aunts, nuns, female classmates, someone in the church pew ahead of me.

In my younger years, the women I’d been involved with all fit that criteria in one manner or another. Until the day, one came along who wore that crown like it was custom-tailored for her. Fifty-three years later, it still fits despite two personalities that couldn’t be more different in so many ways.

One of the Seven Wonders of the World is how an ISTJ (off the charts) married and learned to live with an ENFJ (off the charts) for fifty-three blissful years. An introvert and an Alpha Female navigating the ups and downs of communal living with all the baggage of kids, mortgages, careers, etc.

My own experience living with an Alpha Female means that most of the time she gets her way, mainly because I don’t care!  So, it’s eighty percent of the time (she’d argue it should be 125%) that her way dictates our lifestyle. Surprisingly (or not), this unplanned arrangement fits our opposite personalities and causes no problem. Seriously! It’s the other twenty percent that gets interesting.

The other ten percent where we can’t agree means that nothing gets done until some kind of compromise is reached. That stalemate can last days or months. Some have never been resolved and we’ve managed to survive as a happy couple. The final ten percent is the most important ingredient to our marriage success.

Without any preplanning, real discussion, or analysis before we got married, Sharon and I have (most fortunately) found ourselves in complete agreement on several core issues paramount to our lives. This includes little interest in material goods, current status symbols and any other cha-chas that announce ‘we have arrived.’ Neither one of us is afraid of hard work, monetary sacrifices, and common-sense dictates in raising our children.

Of all those things, large and small, that are important to both of us, education is at the top of that list. As mentioned in a past blog ‘Origins of Birth,’ education is the gift that keeps giving for us, our children and grandchildren. I hope it continues to be the standard of excellence of all of us long into our future.

As far a living with an alpha female goes, a lot of folks don’t understand that someone like that has to see her partner as equal not less. So, while she doesn’t need a man in her life, Sharon isn’t one to let a good thing go…not after fifty-three years. Lucky me.

Pastures Gone Barren

It was an experiment born out of a crisis, enriched by isolation and then crippled by life’s return to normal. As the cliché goes, all good things must end sometime. It’s just too bad it had to be this because I think we all needed it back then and still do today.

At the height of the COVID-19 crisis, I was stumbling around trying to figure out how to stay connected with past friends and acquaintances. Turns out that at about the same time, there were rumblings among the mental health community about a relatively new phenomena called: male loneliness. Google said it best:

The "male loneliness crisis" refers to the increasing number of men, particularly young men in the U.S., who report feeling profoundly lonely and isolated, often due to a lack of close friends and deep social connections. This crisis has serious health consequences, including increased risks for heart disease, stroke, dementia, depression, and premature death. The problem is linked to rigid societal expectations of masculinity that discourage vulnerability and help-seeking behavior, a decline in the number of men with close friends, and the lasting impacts of social media and pandemic lockdowns.

My idea was simple enough. There was a pandemic and people couldn’t gather together. Even as a certified in good standing introvert, I missed those unplanned, casual encounters with friends that always brought me some great writing ideas, insight into their lives, and the feeling that we were all sharing something between us. It was safe, secure, and honest.

Sharon and I were in Palm Springs that Spring. Fear of contact with others prevented us from flying home so we rented a mini-truck (SUV) and began our trek back home. It was during that long journey across miles of nothingness that I thought about reconnecting with friends back home. Truth be told, I’m not a group-kind of person. I’m much more comfortable with a one-on-one situation. I find those conversations deeper and more enriching rather than group chats.

So, my idea was a pretty simple one. We would meet outdoors where distance was assured. It could be park shelters, coffee shop patios, lake front property and/or my own porch. Anyplace convenient for the other party. The goal was just as simple. A chance to connect or reconnect with friends, on a one-on-one basis, safely distanced apart and share our lives. Simple in concept, hard in reality.

At first everyone was all in.  Almost ten folks, male and female, who seemed to embrace the idea and were willing to give it a shot. The conversations flourished in the absence of communal gatherings and friends apart. It was safe, convenient, different and richly rewarding for most of us. Older adults just being themselves. Sharing and caring and openness seemed to be the order of the day. At least that’s what I thought. But just as quickly as the idea was accepted, its duration began to grow tired and slow down after a couple of years.

Calm placid waters in the early morning stillness weren’t enough to hold some people’s interest and attention. Life began to creep back into their lives. Even as I felt our intimate conversations grow and evolve, some of my salon compatriots began to show their cracks as their respective lives began to regain some kind of normalcy. Nothing ever remains as it is. So, too it was with my coffee and chat encounters.

Like ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream,’ it was there and then it wasn’t. The reasons were many and varied and each carried with them a glance into lives returned, lives changed and lives moving on. Dementia, cancer, elder care, work (didn’t have to) and work (had to) were just some of the variables that began to scratch away at this good idea. I don’t blame anyone for dropping out. Life just got in the way.

Fortunately, a few old stalwarts remain; still willing to challenge the early morning chill and quiet of dawn for a chance to connect, reconnect and solidify their bond with fellow life travelers. I intend to ride this pony for as long as I can and my friends are willing. There’s still nothing like the early morning stillness to open up one’s mind to a kaleidoscope of possible topics and verbal banters to exchange.

Origin of Birth

My roots come from the fertile farm fields of Sterns County, Minnesota. They go back for generations when my ancestors, unnamed and long since forgotten, arrived from Germany in the early 1800s. It was a strict German Catholic culture with time-honored rules and regimentation that hadn’t changed for centuries. It was what my mother, grandparents and their grandparents understood and accepted without question.

To be very clear, I’m not talking about the class of white Americans covered so thoroughly in Nancy Isenberg’s new book ‘White Trash.’ My roots were poor white working class; an agrarian society that lived for and off the land. Skilled artisans in the arts of land cultivation, animal husbandry, soil management, raising livestock, veterinary basics, dairy and meat processing and so much more. Only the hard-working survived.

Growing up in the one church town of Saint Marin, my mother, as the youngest of eight, had her chores and responsibilities chosen for her. Education was seldom a part of that equation. That meant stenography school for her three sisters and cleaning out the chicken coop for my mother. So, although Hildegarde’s education ended in the sixth grade, her lineage was about to experience profound changes; even if she didn’t know it at the time.

My mother’s early years were documented in a hand-written sixteen-page, rambling oration of her youth, early years on the farm and frequent travels to the Twin Cities for work. She had often lamented to my sister and I that she stopped going to school after sixth grade because someone had to stay home and care for her aging parents.

I have no idea what kind of education my father had although I doubt it went past the eighth grade if even that far. His ancestry, lineage and time spent on earth have long since been shrouded in mystery. There were rumors that he was an itinerant musician and laborer but that has never been confirmed. His name was never mentioned in our home when I was growing up and he’s remained an enigma all of my life.

Sharon’s parents were in pretty much the same situation in terms of their education. Sharon’s father went as far as the eighth grade and her mother had two years of high school. Pretty normal for that generation at the time. For that social-economic agrarian class of people, education wasn’t as important as hard work and feeding the family. It truly was another time and place.

Fast forward another generation and things were very different for Sharon and I. Because of a lucky break in eighth-grade, I was able to attend Cretin High School and then St. Thomas College; on my own dime. In both my family and Sharon’s family, it was understood that our parents had neither the means nor the inclination to fund any advanced education beyond high school.

Sharon’s lucky break came when a nun at St. Felix High School in Wabasha, Minnesota told her she should attend college, more specifically, St. Catherine’s College in St. Paul. That was a radical departure from the pathway most of her classmates intended to follow. In small town Wabasha, it put her in league with the banker’s daughter and the lawyer’s son. You know; those folks in town.

I have a BA in Journalism and Sharon has one in Education along with some credits towards her master’s degree. Our kids have done even better.

The rule for our kids in high school was that they couldn’t work during the school year and had to have either classes, camp or jobs during the summer months. It taught them both a lot of good lessons in life. Brian went on to graduate from the University of Notre Dame and has a master’s degree in business/computer technology from the University of Colorado. Melanie excelled in Speech and Debate in high school, winning a number of awards on a local, regional and national level. She went on to the College of Saint Benedict and was awarded a full scholarship to attend law school. Their spouses also have advanced degrees.

Not surprisingly, this fourth generation is doing even better. There is an unspoken understanding among our grandchildren, prompted more by example than lecture, that education is more important than ever before. They’ve seen through their daily lives what hard work and a solid base of knowledge can do for a person’s career. It hasn’t escaped their little pea brains that much is expected of each of them.

Maya, the eldest, is a sophomore at the University of Colorado at Greeley. She’s a psychology major and understands the next steps will most likely include a master’s degree and perhaps a PhD.

The other four grandchildren are all in high school now. The Colorado twins as well as Brennan and Charlotte in Minnesota are actively engaged in extra-curricular activities. Three of the four are in NHS (National Honor Society) and are taking AP (advanced placement-college) courses. The youngest, Charlotte, just entered high school as a straight-A student all through grade school.

So, from a rural agrarian society to post-collegiate studies in four generations has become our mantra. Each generation propelled by an accumulation of knowledge that proved critical to their success in the real world. Fortunately, for Sharon and I, education was the key to our own success and that of our children. We believe it will be the foundation upon which our grand-children will grow as well-informed and involved citizens of the world.