Create a voting plan

Vote planning is a technique to ensure voters turnout to the polls. The goal of a vote plan is to encourage an individual to envision themselves voting and identify any potential barriers they might have or encounter. You can make a vote plan for yourself or with someone when phone banking, canvassing, or in normal conversation. Develop a vote plan by asking questions such as:

• What time will you be voting?
• Where are you voting?
• Do you have a mail-in ballot or are you going to the polls?
• How are you getting there?
• Do you need a ride?
• Who else can you bring with you?
• Do you need to take off work or secure childcare?
• In states with voter I.D. laws: Do you have all the necessary documents to vote?

Answering these questions will help you plan how to vote and ensure you and your community members are able to cast your ballots.

When my son Charlie and his wife Lily told me they would like to make ravioli for Christmas dinner my mood brightened considerably. One of the things I like the best about holidays is cooking traditional dishes that I grew up with. Besides reminding me of my mom and grandmother and aunts, all of whom I did lots of holiday cooking with, it brings family together to join in the preparation. Many holiday dishes are complicated and work-intensive, so cooking together is the only way to go. Jim, Charlie, Lily and I spent last Saturday making ravioli to put in the freezer for Christmas dinner.

NELL’S RAVIOLI RECIPE

Filling (Enough for two recipes of dough)

Sauté separately in butter then chop finely in a Cuisinart:
1 pound lean ground turkey (do not brown)
1 pound fresh spinach
I c. celery heart and leaves
½ medium onion
½ c. Italian parsley
1 ½ pound white mushrooms

Mix all together in large bowl. Add:
1 c. Parmesan cheese- freshly grated (not shredded)
½ cup plain bread crumbs
3 eggs
Add to taste:salt, pepper, nutmeg

Dough
Place in a Cuisinart bowl
3 ½ cups flour
5 eggs

Pulse until it begins to make a ball. If it’s too dry, add a little water, enough to have the dough hold together, but not sticky.The dough should be quite firm and smooth. Knead a few times on a floured board and then put in a plastic bag to rest for several minutes.

The dough should be quite firm and smooth. Knead a few times on a floured board and then put in a plastic bag to rest for several minutes.

Use a hand crank pasta maker or the attachment for a Kitchen Aid mixer and roll the dough through from the first setting to number 6. The dough strips should be wide enough for two to three ravioli across.

Space teaspoons of filling on the strips of dough. Cover with another strip of dough, and using a ravioli cutter cut into squares. Crimp the edges with a fork so the filling doesn’t fall out when you are cooking them. Let them dry on a floured pan or freeze to eat later.

They cook very quickly. Boil in a large pan of water.

– a Christmas story in How to Be a Widow

Once upon a time there was a lady whose husband of many years had died. She had a sister, two brothers, two sons and a grandson. During the many years she was married, she and her husband always got a pretty Christmas tree that came from the mountains nearby. The trees were usually big and while not always perfectly shaped they were perfectly beautiful.

Her son and her grandson usually went with her to pick out the tree, and they did that this year. She picked out a big tree with two main branches. Because it had two main branches, it wasn’t perfectly straight. After her son and grandson put the tree up for her, it began to lean over. One day, after the beautiful tree was up and decorated, it started to fall over. What could she do? She was home by herself. She wished her sons could help her but they were busy and they lived far away. The lady called her neighbor and they propped the tree up with chairs so it wouldn’t fall over. Other people tried to help get it to stand up straight. Finally, she put two popsicle sticks in the stand next to the trunk and the tree stood up straight. It was like magic.

When she told her sons about the tree they said maybe she shouldn’t get a big Christmas tree any more. Her husband had died, she was alone, and she was getting old. Her sons worried that when she got a big tree she couldn’t take care of it. When she thought about not ever getting a big Christmas tree again, she felt very sad. It made her feel like her life was almost over.

She felt a little better after she went to a party and saw a pretty, little tree. It was small, and it was on a little table so it looked tall. It was about one fourth as big as her big tree. She saw how easy it was to make the little tree stand up straight.

However, the old lady wasn’t convinced. She didn’t know what she would do next year, because she loved her big trees, and still hoped she could get one next year.

What do you think she did?

I polished my fingernails with glitter and put on some blue lipstick to go with my first ever Halloween costume. My Mom and Dad were great in so many ways, but we never bought or made Halloween costumes. It wasn’t that we didn’t have fun, but parties were all about holidays and food traditions. So I was already laughing when I went online to find a Halloween costume. Because the party was going to be outdoors, I decided on a costume that was a coat – I became the Mother of Dragons from Game of Thrones, never mind that I didn’t watch the series.The coat with its chain across the front was fun to wear, but the most fun was the wig. I had always wanted to have long blonde hair. My costume brought a lot of laughs from my children and looks of surprise from my neighbors. And I laughed a lot. I became the kind of person who has and wears a Halloween costume.

How to Be a Widow

After I became a widow, I was surprised at my reaction to changing my status on Facebook. I was not yet comfortable referring to myself as widowed. That was one of the dilemmas I faced as a widow that seemed to be minor but was not. Another one was what should my new pair of shoes look like? Should I buy those orange patent leather wedges?

The difficult questions beneath these superficial ones included who was I now that I wasn’t a wife and a caregiver? What was my purpose in life now that my husband of fifty years had died twenty years after receiving a life-giving liver transplant? Did I want another relationship? Did I want to live alone? Why didn’t other widows tell me how devastating the pain of loss would be? How could I express my feelings of loneliness and confusion, and did I even want to?

My pain and loss were followed by new insights, new experiences and new interests, including playing bluegrass music and finding new friends, and fulfillment at being able to fashion the life I now wanted for myself. While every woman’s journey is different, certain experiences are common. Read these essays to discover what I discovered about my new life—that there was life after my husband’s death, and after the pain came comfort and fulfillment.
How to Be a Widow can be purchased where I will be reading: at Spirit Bound Bookstore, Organic Books, Treasure House Books & Gifts, and Bookworks, and also at Amazon.com How to Be a Widow.

UPCOMING READINGS AND BOOK SIGNINGS
Find the venue closest to you and please come!

Sunday, August 4, 2019 – 1:00 p.m., The Rio Grande Center for Spiritual Living, 4374 Alexander Blvd. NE, Suite T, Albuquerque, NM

Sunday, August 25, 2019 — 1:00 – 3:00, Treasure House Books & Gifts, 2012 South Plaza NW, Albuquerque, NM (across the street from Old Town Plaza)

Sunday, September 1, 2019 — 3:00 p.m., Organic Books, 111 Carlisle NE, Albuquerque, NM

Sunday, September 8, 1:00 p.m., private home, Santa Fe, NM. With Mary Kirschner. Call 505-238-6213 for information.

Sunday, September 29, 2019, 3:00 p.m. Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande Blvd. NW, Albuquerque, NM

Dear Readers,

I am excited to be able to say my new book, How To Be A Widow, is in its final stages of completion!

How To Be A Widow is about the surprising and not so surprising things that change after a spouse dies, and how I coped with both the terrible and the encouraging situations I found myself in. Some experiences were sad, but some were humorous, including becoming a bluegrass fiddle player.

Watch this space for details coming soon.

What can I see ahead of me for the next five years of my life? I can’t just drift. I never have. Barring the unexpected, and knowing when I visualize what I want to be may not happen, there are choices to make. What do I choose?
Faith and confidence or fear?
Beauty or drabness?
Color or grey-scale?
Health and well-being or dis-ease?
Curiosity or boredom?
Service or self-centeredness?
Expansion or contraction?
Gratitude or dissatisfaction?
Motion or stasis?
Love and connection or loneliness?
Abundance and prosperity or poverty of spirit?
Generosity or holding on?
Being in the flow or being stuck?
Love or fear?
We face these choices on a daily basis. I want to remember to choose wisely. Our choices make our life.

Dear Friend,
You have got to start taking care of yourself. We, your friends, are starting to notice. We wish we could help more.

A lot of us of a certain age think that taking care of ourselves means being selfish. Couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s the common saying these days to put your own oxygen mask on first. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t be a model for healthy living for those who are taking our time and energy, and more important, we can’t really help them. In the short term, maybe. In the long term, no. And even though our long term is not as long as it used to be, we still have some time left to enjoy life.

Some of you are taking care of ill spouses. Some of you are helping your children. A number of you are doing both! You know who you are. If the people you are helping don’t care if you are taking care of yourself, that is, don’t care if you are eating well, sleeping, relaxing a bit, in short, having a life, then I say you shouldn’t be giving your life to them.

If there’s something inside of you that won’t let you say no, that makes you believe you are not worthy of your own good life, then please get some counseling. You, your best self, is needed by the world. Not you as an exhausted shade of yourself.

I know about this. I use to be one of the biggest martyrs in my family. I could be a martyr about anything, like feeling put upon after inviting family over for a big holiday gathering, or volunteering again and again for one of our homeowners committees because I thought no one else could or would do it and it was all up to me. Or even saying yes to an invitation/obligation when I wasn’t feeling well. I’ve pretty much climbed down from that cross. Nobody really appreciates it anyway.

Of course, like anything else, we make choices. One of my choices during most of the 20 years of taking care of my husband was to try to stay healthy and have a little life of my own. Even though I developed hypertension and got headaches (!) I did take some time for myself. Thank God! I wonder what shape I would have been in if I hadn’t.
If you do not take care of yourself and have the life you know is right for you now, you never will. We don’t have that much time left. Don’t you think you deserve some time to yourself, just to be, just to muse on what has been your life up to this point, just to plan what you want to do until you leave this planet?

Yet, I believe that service is one of our important activities in this lifetime. I also know that most of the women I know have raised their children to the best of their ability, taken care of a spouse or two, and have paid their dues as a member of the human race. Plenty of service there.

I hate seeing you tired and running yourself ragged. You’re not the only person who can do whatever it is you’re doing. Really. If you weren’t there, someone else would take care of things.

We, your friends, love you. We hate to stand by and watch you drift farther away in health and help. Please do what only you can do. Take care of yourself.
Your friend,
A Wise Widow.

While getting ready for houseguests, I found myself scrubbing the tile in the shower. My sister, who lives with me and is six years younger, a fact relevant to this post, went to her yoga class and then was off to practice guitar with her bluegrass group. I was scrubbing the shower.
That prompted me to write this list of things I could be doing that would be more fun. For all of you who need some ideas of how to have fun (like you oldest children out there) feel free to share this list or use the ideas.
Things to do for fun
• read a book
• watch a movie
• go to a movie
• walk
• hike
• cook something interesting
• bake a cake for someone
• go to the gym
• swim
• do water aerobics
• dance
• listen to your favorite music from when you were a teen
• listen to beautiful classical music
• play music
• sing
• do a crossword puzzle
• do a jigsaw puzzle
• watch a funny tv program
• go to a museum
• go to an art gallery
• write a poem
• paint a painting
• invite friends for a potluck and let them help clean up
• play a game
• go to a yoga class
• do an exercise class on tv
• take a walk with a friend
• play with your dog
• play with your cat
• watch a Nature program on PBS
• knit a hat
• ski
• walk in the snow
• make a bucket list, then make plans to do one
• plant an herb garden—inside if it’s cold, outside if it’s warm
• call an old friend just to say hi
• color a mandala or in an adult coloring book
• do some origami
• paint your toenails
• take some pictures with your phone
• do some work with clay
• browse a craft shop for ideas
• write a country western song

Some of these ideas will require you to go out to get supplies. That is part of the fun, and will mean that you must stop doing some boring work like scrubbing shower tiles. Life is more than a clean house (although, if you never clean your house, that can be a good project. More on that later, maybe.).

This post consists of a chapbook of five poems.The first two are about two different dogs we had. The second two are about being with Jim, and the last one is a contemplation on ironing.

FIVE POEMS

by
Marilyn C. O’Leary
copyright 2018
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE OLD DOG
LULU
ANNIVERSARY
50 YEARS OF MARRIAGE: COFFEE
IRONING

THE OLD DOG

The old blind dog
picks up one foot at a time
like a trained horse
before reaching the stairs
up, up, up until he finds
a step and climbs to me.
The sweetness of it,
the faith, break my heart.

 
LULU

They had such faith in the world . . . Mary Oliver

Today I’m going to have faith
in the world
the universe
love
yes, faith in love.
Such faith as to be able to be me
–to go about my business
–to live life and be happy.

I remember the stages
my rescue dog went through.
I knew
I should have known
she was going to be trouble –
not trouble like bad
but trouble like a handful.
She was afraid–barking, startling
could she see? could she hear?
Stitches on her head
most teeth removed.
But no matter what–
those dark eyes, perfect round nose
curly white fur
the way she jumped through doorways
as if knowing
that the next thing
would be wonderful.

 
ANNIVERSARY

There is not one thing to say about it —
it’s been long
but we can’t think of it ending.
There were the times in Taos with the students,
picking apples, making pies.
There were the kayaks, the bikes, the skis
and the Volkswagen buses.
The dogs, the books, the candles in the patio
with dinners, friends and wine.
Mexico, Italy, Hawaii.
Babies, teenagers, grandparents.
Laughing, eating, being afraid, retreating.
And a time for everything—
the biggest surprise of all—
all that time.

50 YEARS OF MARRIAGE: COFFEE

What if you never died
and every morning
every morning
every morning
you got up and I put on the coffee or sometimes you did
and we each got our coffee cups
and sat in the living room to watch the sun rise,
read, write.
What if we did this every day,
every day.

When the boys were in high school
and I worried about them leaving home
I comforted myself by saying
What if they never left home,
like the brilliant cousin of mine.
Never left home. Never left home.
Died in his bedroom in his mother’s house in his forties.
Then I think – it’s the nature of things.
They have to go –
I don’t really want them to stay.
Not forever.

But would it be so bad
to have coffee with you every day
for all eternity? It was heaven,
those daily rituals, the luxury of it
the extravagance –
coffee with cream, with you,
every day.
 

IRONING

In the midst of an economic downturn and
an upcoming presidential election when
things are unsettled and life feels
askew I have a yen to iron
a white broadcloth shirt to smell the clean
fabric, starch, and steam.

My mother had a mangle in our basement
and used to iron sheets, tablecloths, flour
sack dishtowels. She was skilled
on the big roller with the heavy metal plate,
even ironing shirts on it,
first the back, then each side, then each sleeve
and cuff and finally the collar.
The stacks of folded clothes
gave respite to a life that included
an alcoholic father, a miscarriage,
the ups and down of business,
a social system that didn’t fully
admit her despite her clean,
well-decorated home, ability to play golf,
excellent martinis, and elegant
dinner parties.

I set up the ironing board,
heat the iron, and take out
the white, wrinkled shirt.