Dorian Dorey Rhodes: Grandma

I was your little shadow

Before reaching equity with Momma
Or recognizing my soul in Grandma
There was you

What could’ve been treated as tagging along
Used instead as a chance for me to belong
There with you

Anything done had fun to be found within
Nothing was mundane, especially when
There were two

You were my first best friend

Tasks as games, errands became adventures
Logic as puzzles, bedtime stories offered cures
Walks as archaeology, flies were fishing lures

I was your little brown eyes

Leaving me no doubt I was exceptional
While ensuring everyone felt special
That was you

Peacemaker who took everything in stride
Supportive, and confident without pride
That is you

Finding hope with a quiet determination
Knowing letting go may be the solution
That’s me too

You were my universal constant

© Dorian Dorey Rhodes 31 July 2014

The sign outside my grandparents’ mountain home displayed my family name

Being able to say “me too” when it comes to my grandparents reassures me that I’m part and parcel of their living legacy.* Those two simple words keep me connected to them, and specifically remind me that Granddad loved “me too.” That deceptively simple phrase was how he responded to “I love you” when one of his girls called him at work. Although he was clearly just keeping things professional, there was a sense that he felt too deeply to risk getting personal. He warned me any time I cried that, if I continued, he’d join me. Seeing me cry was enough to make him cry, and not saying “love” at the office hinted at the real possibility his voice might crack if he let himself say it. He laid the foundation for the most important lesson Grandma taught me, that our choices also affect those who love us. My Granddad was the first father I ever knew, and the best man I could ever hope to know. He exemplified what it was to be a good man yet not by being a man’s man – veteran, engineer, and mountaineer that he was – but by being unabashedly accepting, caring, and creative. Don Dorey proved that real strength comes from within.

As a tomboy and his namesake, my connection to Granddad was strong. When talking to himself (which the best people do), he called himself Dorey and my nickname was Dori so those private dialogs always seemed to include me. We’d take on challenges together and “Get it right, Dorey” or answer the tough questions like “What’re you doing, Dorey?” Grandma was concerned I’d take it personally when he was frustrated too but I’d seen him sign his name, “GD Dorey,” often enough that it was clear who he meant when he swore to himself: “Goddamn Dorey.” Rather than teach me conceptual lessons of right and wrong, Granddad shared more relatable truths; cussing is a privilege earned with age, lying is only for Liar’s Dice, gambling is reserved for Solitaire, drinking is intended for meals or Sock It To Me Time and, like most things, is more enjoyable in moderation. With him, I learned a deeper appreciation for those around me. While Momma inspired me and Grandma reflected me, Granddad gave me a sense of place. As a Dorey, his Dori, I not only belonged but could share that feeling through the ready acceptance of others he personified. Without him, I’m disconnected from a universe he gave meaning to.

In memory of G[eorge]D[onald] Dorey, my G[od]D[amn] Granddad:
Don Dorey, you are missed and we are better for knowing you.
October 1919 – July 2014

*Dan Fogelberg embodied what it was to be a “living legacy” and the phrase always reminds me of him. (post to come)

The hurrier you go, the behinder you get.* Whether it’s mistakes made when rushing that then need to be fixed, things forgotten while hurried that need to be found, rash decisions that lead to delays, or unrealistic goals that leave us scrambling; going too fast slows us down. We have an optimum speed, like any machinery. As biological machines, we need to honor the time it takes to function well and balance the speed of our motor skills against the rate of our mental processes. We each operate differently so the worst thing we can do is compare ourselves to others. I’m hindered by chronic pain, for example, and it doesn’t just slow me down physically but mentally as well. Spoonies often get stuck in a cycle of all or nothing since it takes so much to do so little and the harder we push, the more we crash. I became the embodiment of “the hurrier, the behinder” when years of pushing through the pain left me bedridden. It’s human nature to push through and it often seems like the only alternative is to give up but we don’t just have an on/off switch.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” — John Lennon, as quoted in Beautiful Boy
~ image via Two Places at Once ~

In a world with so much to do, and too much to be done, we default to a setting of ‘busy bee’ and can end up too busy to just be. I found myself rebelling against that busyness this month. I couldn’t keep putting in so much effort for so little return and staged a slowdown. Now I’ve confirmed the more obvious but equally problematic truth that the slower you go, the behinder you stay. The extra reading, bonus TV marathons, and addictive puzzle-solving were good for my brain but became another form of busyness. Whatever we fill our time with will leave us with no time to spare if we don’t pace ourselves. Finding an optimal speed of life gets even trickier when any uptime requires increasingly more downtime and energy is being borrowed against a deficit. The need to prioritize is universal, as are conflicting concerns, and I may be dealing with more than my share of opposing interests but we’re all dealing with something. What we prioritize and how we spend our free time not only decides our days, it affects our happiness and can impact who we are.

“It is not enough to be industrious; so are the ants.
What are you industrious about?”
— Henry David Thoreau

The more we try to do, especially in any given day, the less we’re likely to accomplish. It’s not necessarily our goals that set us up for frustration, if we’re willing to let go of certain ones or postpone things as needed, yet our expectations are often unrealistic. We seldom allow for interruptions or downtime, both of which can provide some of the best moments of our day. Switching up the kind of busyness I focused on for a month proved what I, of course, suspected; all those ongoing endeavors I was avoiding, as important as they are to me, just aren’t that urgent and don’t need daily attention. Better yet, I was reminded how important it is to include a steady supply of escapism – or I’ll need to escape again. It’s time to pick the pace back up, so long as I don’t get in a hurry and I remember happiness is only possible one day at a time. Our days are finite and each one matters so let’s quit measuring them by what we’ve accomplished but instead by whether we enjoyed ourselves in the process: Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.**