The Visible Woman...August 28, 2003

We say 'I meant to' and we say 'meant to be.' Do we really have intention? Does the world (the universe, God, the gods) have intention for us?

I have plans. 'To do' lists that have some earnest and urgent items and some less so. Some long term dreams are written down, over and over.

But what is one 'meant to do?' The propreitor, creator, owner of The Museum of Jurassic Technology believes, according to the book I'm reading, that this museum is his mission in life. It must feel weird to feel you have a mission. I'm not sure that I ever have felt that.

My mom spent her later years making things and acquiring collections and traveling. She had scores of miniature displays around the house when she died. She had looms and spinning wheels and had made everything from clothing to tiny bedspreads at a one inch to one foot scale. When we were young, she made butter and bottled fresh milk and sold it. She cooked and cleaned for us. When I went to school, she went to college and studied. Got a BA and an MA and wrote a thesis and learned Spanish so that she could get and keep a low-paying teaching job. (Although we thought the pay was handsome. I guess you had to try to survive on milk and butter money and farming and my dad's job as a hospital attendant to understand that.) I think Mom always did things as if she was meant to do it. When she was retired and traveling, she and dad made sure they visited all fifty states. She did it with a vengeance. Like she was meant to see all the states. She cajoled me and Dad to make a trip to Hawaii happen to complete the series. I joked that I hoped they didn't branch out to other countries. But they did. On a trip to the UK, Mom paid attention to everything. Home again, she wanted more information about places they visited, hotels where they stayed and cricket. She read stuff I printed off the Internet, including some cricket rules (although I warned her that they were surely unfathomable.

Mom did everything like she was meant to do it. Like she was on a mission. Her youngest daughter, however, lives a much more accidental life. I seem to have some goals, but I'm not as committed as my mom. She studied to be a teacher. She taught with a vengeance and a mission. She knew what she wanted to teach. She took up hobbies and stuck to them and set goals of things she wanted to acquire and make. I graduated from college when my courses accidentally added up to a degree program. I took the only job offered and worked as a computer programmer for over thirty years, bouncing around many jobs, because I couldn't figure out what to really do. I retired because I could, because I was tired and my goals were vague. And even these vague goals seem unfulfilled.

I am nothing like my mom was. Her life was all intention. She did what she meant to, maybe even what she was meant to do. My life has been all serendipity. I have done things to just keep moving until intention set in. I've meant to do things, but they were probably never done. I've done things, but they were probably never my intentions.

Thursday, August 28, 2003

A Journal from Austin, Texas. A Project of LBFFP Stealth Publishing.
food	reading	writing	time	exercise	health and mood

Dixie Louselle DeArmond Ball September 19, 1921 - August 28, 2002	meant to We say 'I meant to' and we say 'meant to be.' Do we really have intention? Does the world (the universe, God, the gods) have intention for us? I have plans. 'To do' lists that have some earnest and urgent items and some less so. Some long term dreams are written down, over and over. But what is one 'meant to do?' The propreitor, creator, owner of The Museum of Jurassic Technology believes, according to the book I'm reading, that this museum is his mission in life. It must feel weird to feel you have a mission. I'm not sure that I ever have felt that. My mom spent her later years making things and acquiring collections and traveling. She had scores of miniature displays around the house when she died. She had looms and spinning wheels and had made everything from clothing to tiny bedspreads at a one inch to one foot scale. When we were young, she made butter and bottled fresh milk and sold it. She cooked and cleaned for us. When I went to school, she went to college and studied. Got a BA and an MA and wrote a thesis and learned Spanish so that she could get and keep a low-paying teaching job. (Although we thought the pay was handsome. I guess you had to try to survive on milk and butter money and farming and my dad's job as a hospital attendant to understand that.) I think Mom always did things as if she was meant to do it. When she was retired and traveling, she and dad made sure they visited all fifty states. She did it with a vengeance. Like she was meant to see all the states. She cajoled me and Dad to make a trip to Hawaii happen to complete the series. I joked that I hoped they didn't branch out to other countries. But they did. On a trip to the UK, Mom paid attention to everything. Home again, she wanted more information about places they visited, hotels where they stayed and cricket. She read stuff I printed off the Internet, including some cricket rules (although I warned her that they were surely unfathomable. Mom did everything like she was meant to do it. Like she was on a mission. Her youngest daughter, however, lives a much more accidental life. I seem to have some goals, but I'm not as committed as my mom. She studied to be a teacher. She taught with a vengeance and a mission. She knew what she wanted to teach. She took up hobbies and stuck to them and set goals of things she wanted to acquire and make. I graduated from college when my courses accidentally added up to a degree program. I took the only job offered and worked as a computer programmer for over thirty years, bouncing around many jobs, because I couldn't figure out what to really do. I retired because I could, because I was tired and my goals were vague. And even these vague goals seem unfulfilled. I am nothing like my mom was. Her life was all intention. She did what she meant to, maybe even what she was meant to do. My life has been all serendipity. I have done things to just keep moving until intention set in. I've meant to do things, but they were probably never done. I've done things, but they were probably never my intentions.
JUST TYPING "It was meant to be," she said. And others wondered. What they meant to do, What they meant to be, What to have for dinner.
		Food Diary. *About 12:30pm* Baked potato (medium to large) with nonfat yogurt, broccoli, green onions, grated cheese. About 6pm [Hill's Cafe] Shiner bock (about ten ounces). Mega chopeed beef sandwich on cheese/jalapeno bun with French Fries. [Mega is their description. It was pretty big. The good news? I didn't finish the fries, the beef (I did eat all the bun) or the beer. My theory is 'you are what you don't eat!'] I've noticed that I'm drinking more and more water and less and less coffee. For some reason. Maybe it's the exercise. I know when I worked and sat in front of a computer all the time that I would go to the coffee machine for something to do. Black coffee was, I theorized, better than soda, regular or diet. So I drank a ton. And I didn't think about water and since I didn't exercise near enough my body didn't beg for it as it does now.
		Time flies.... I was slow to move out of bed today. It was nearly eight when I got up and dressed, and nearly nine before I could deal with a few simple e-mails.

		Reading. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Weschler. By the way, to those following along, the Museum of Jurassic Technology has a WEB site. This book has such copious notes that, though it's a slim volume, it requires two bookmarks.
		Reading the book (above) gives me some insight into fiction. Reality has this way of provoking wonder and eluding researchers. Why should fiction have to be so 'true.' That's the idea of fiction...to be 'made up,' right?
		Exercise Thirty minutes on recumbent bike. Lower body and arm exercises. Twenty minutes bike.
		Felt fine physically, digestion good. Couldn't keep myself from thinking about Mom and last year at this time.