Navy Shoes

Realizing that I was an equal partner in the Navy and not just on the outside looking into someone else’s organization.

I am walking an a warm September evening in the pitch black, I have my runner’s “glow in the dark” vest on to prevent an unintentional mishap on a curb as I plow through the streets. It’s not that late, just dark, there is no moon tonight. It’s become a ritual in the past couple of weeks after 9/11, Rose and I take an evening walk and absorb the situation around us and contemplate how we “are” and at the same time “are not” involved in the events flashing before us on the television, radio, and newspapers. Rose suddenly says with passion, “What do you mean you have to wear the same shoes?” With shock, Rose is astonished that when I wear my Navy uniform I have to wear the same shoes as everyone else, and a purse too – for that manner if you are female!

As simple as it may sound, that statement made me realize how far we have become separated from those that have served in the military and those that have not had the military touch any part of their lives. I am a 22 year veteran, plus four years in Navy (Reserve Officers Training Corps) ROTC at the University of Illinois. 26 years of wearing those black oxfords, though the style has changed, and even the color – sometimes white and even brown depending on the uniform.

Rose had known that I was in the military. We discussed some matters slightly, but the fact that Rose could not even fathom that I had to wear the same shoes as everyone else was a shock to me. Why do we wear the same shoes? Uniformity of purpose, so they fit on the peddles of the cockpit, on the decks of a ship, tradition…

Top Ten Things You Love The Most in This World and One Reason Why

1. Popcorn at the movies – because you can only get it at the movies and it tastes good. This is tied with going to the movies– because you get popcorn.
   
2. My Brian – because he’s my best friend.
   
3. My boys – because there are part of me.
   
4. My independence – because I can do it alone if I have to, but luckily I don’t.
   
5. The smell and feel of school – because you always get a new start at the beginning of the year, plus new fall school clothes.
   
6. The last 20 pages of a really good book – because I felt like I accomplished something worthwhile – reading a good book.
   
7. The first 20 miles of a marathon – because the last 6 are so tough.
   
8. My parents - because they love me so much and gave me such a good foundation – both physical and emotional. They are always strong and steady, enabling me to take risks and reach.
   
9. Gummy Bears – because they are chewy and sweet.
   
10. Getting a goods night sleep after staying up all night – especially if you were doing something important – caring for a sick child, standing watch or duty, writing a paper for class, or studying for a test.

Top Ten Most Significant Conversations in Your Life

1. The discussion with my future husband at our mandatory Catholic pre-marriage retreat – which we missed the lectures, but stayed up all night talking at a bar across the street!
   
2. With my Mom the night I fell through a screen window and cut my wrist.
   
3. With my Mom the night weekend I came home to pick out a wedding dress and broke off my engagement.
   
4. One night at a bar with Tommy and Brian and much legal banter.
   
5. My last night with my roommate Dawn before I got married.
   
6. The first and last night’s conversations with my cousin Allison when we both got to spend a week at my Grandma’s – especially after Grandpa told us to be quiet and go to sleep.
   
7. With my brother Blair on politics, war, and current events.
   
8. My ongoing dialog with God.
   
9. Any conversation with my best friend and husband Brian.
   
10. Telling my mom that I was pregnant over the phone with twins while she was sitting on her dryer as the basement flooded.

Top Ten List of Significant Moments (big or small, life-changing, epiphany, or slight shifts in the way you see the world) in your Life

1. Spending a year abroad in Germany between high school and college and becoming as “German” as possible.
   
2. Realizing what it really meant to be married at about year 13 and still learning.
   
3. Having twins and an instantly becoming a family of four.
   
4. Realizing that I was an equal partner in the Navy and not just on the outside looking into someone else’s organization.
   
5. That all of politics comes down to an individual looking out for his or her personal interests in a structure that we call government, and that government is supposed to be a societal structure for the benefit of the group and not the individual.
   
6. That there are extremely intelligent, passionate, and articulate individuals that can have the exact opposite opinion of mine, even when my opinion seems like the only possible solution.
   
7. The moment when my parents looked up to me for advice and leaned on me for the first time.
   
8. That I learn more from my failures than my successes.
   
9. That history matters and I need to learn more, plus it’s not boring.
10. The thing that truly motivates me is a challenge.

Top Ten List of meals you've made with love for someone or were made with love, for you.

1. The pasta dinner – tortellini and white sauce for my future, unknown at the time, husband after the Patriots beat the Bears in the 1986 Superbowl.
   
2. Clam chowder on Christmas eve as an alternative to my families tradition of oyster stew and specifically, the year I made it in Chicago with $75 worth of clams I had to shuck myself.
   
3. The last two breakfasts that my husband and I made for my son Chris before we left for college – both days poached eggs on toast – one of the days he ate 7 poached eggs and would have made more, but we ran out of eggs.
   
4. The 17 tacos my college boyfriend ate at my mom’s house on one of his first visits to my house.
   
5. The boiled dinner that my future, unknown at the time, husband made me where he tricked me into eating a turnip by telling me it was a potato, which made me cry.
   
6. The “blood sausage” that my Mutti made me eat because she thought it was good for me even though I really didn’t want to try it or like it.
   
7. The special sauce on Christmas Eve served with the venison my Vati had hunted.
   
8. Reindeer in Norway – cooked by Wenke and John Erik followed by aquavit.
   
9. Grilled cheese and tomato soup that I would cook for my two boys, when my limit was one loaf of bread worth of grilled cheese sandwiches’ – sometimes as many as 18!
   
10. My first anniversary wedding cake that I served on my fancy china with all the bells and whistled.
    
11. Opps – I came up with 11 – the murder mystery dinner I prepared with my husband for 3 other couples – veal marsala and bananas foster all embedded in a gangster theme including playing dress up in my flapper dress.

top ten topics, moments, subjects to write

1. My life, an autobiography.
2. A generational piece - grandmothers, mother, and me.
3. An International Security Strategy.
4. How the expectation of privacy has changed with respect to our current legal framework.
5. How technology has changed the transparency of our communications with people, families, communities, and a nation.
6. A modern love story.
7. A historical fiction – probably the turn of the century.
8. A humorous look at motherhood and family life.
9. A novel around a University campus.
10. A murder mystery.

hands

The fingers are pale, long and slender, with thick wrinkled knuckles and nails dipped in a pinkish orange; painted the color of freshly boiled shrimp. Three rings garnish these hands; two on the left, one on the right with a composition to include a heart, a crown, two hands, three rubies, and three diamonds. Slight age spots illuminate the right hand, while the left has none. The top knuckles of the middle fingers have worn scars, as if something had closed on these hands. While the left pointer finger has a new cut, a small crater of missing skin, alluding to a new abrasion. Below, the palms are a mess – skin is missing and healing at the same time. Small scrapes and puncture wounds pierce the meaty part of the palm, as if they were pressed too hard while doing pushups. The skin is clean and healing. The right scar looks like the state of Texas with three small islands to the north and one lost island in the direction of Hawaii. These are all new fresh intrusions, but looking down the right edge of the palm there is an older healed wound. It is completely integrated in color so that you hardly notice it, except that it is a raised ridge of flesh. A rigid strip, like a thin line of paint stroked toward the base of the hand, leading the observer to the root cause.