Category Archives: psychology

Watch Out.

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My mother was always warning me.
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But, she was gullible by nature.
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And, I inherited the tendency.
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“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive..” – Ephesians 4: 14 KJV.
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Christians at Ephesus were being warned, in this letter from the Apostle Paul, to be aware of what he called false doctrine – the early Church’s version of “fake news.”
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But, the key subject of this exhortation, I think, is the term “children”.
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Immaturity brings with it a tendency to place trust hastily. Children are so very dependent. Their minds are developing rapidly but their judgment plays catch up, never quite on par with whatever reason their innate intelligence may offer them.
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Being “tossed to and fro” paints a vivid image of high surf, and its capacity to seize and sway a fragile human being powerless to fight its overcoming momentum. A child is, in short, easily led.
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As adults, we – unless we put on the armor of caution and discernment – can also be led by those who seek power over our reasoning. Such ones look for our weaknesses, and prey upon these. Perhaps we have a goal, and covet it transparently; just such desires can be used against us, by the very ones in whom we place our allegiance. By contrast, those of strong mind have an immunity against such predators.
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So, be careful. There are those who literally do lie in wait to deceive. This is not paranoia. This is earnest advice.
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I am a creative. Several of my beloved friends are, as well. Creatives by our nature are easily charmed; it comes with the territory to have our fancy tickled. But, treasure, and protect, both those you love and the ideas which fuel your efforts. Those who seek to steal what you produce to serve their own aggrandizement will eat your soul for dinner. And, those who purvey your ideas in the alleged interests of the greater good may be positioning themselves to gobble you up whole.
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Know your own mind. Listen to your own spirit. Guard your own heart.
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And, watch out.
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© 2/6/19 Ruth Ann Scanzillo.    All rights those of the author, whose ideas these are, and whose name appears above this line. Thank you for your respect.
littlebarefeetblog.com

The Sweet Nature.

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Some people are born to it.

There are all kinds of traits which, science is now disclosing, are expressed rather automatically because, well, they appear as genes along the strands of our DNA helix. We are so proud, we humans; we’d like to think that we never intended to be the person we actually are.

But, in large part, we get dealt a hand and then the game plays itself out.

Or, does it?

My mother was one of four daughters. Her father’s name was Henry Thomas Sweet. He said his parents were from Cornwall, on the English coastline. Ancestry.com lists:

“This Anglo-Saxon last name has three origin theories. First, it is a baptismal surname meaning “the son of Sweet”…. Second, it derived from the nickname “the sweet”, a good, pleasant, or agreeable person, from the Middle English word swete. The old English personal (first) names Sweta and Swete also derive from this word and may by the source of the surname. Third, as asserted by William Arthur in his book An Etymological Dictionary of Family and Christian Names, the name refers to a Swede, a person from Sweden or who was native to that country. Fourth, it can be an Anglicized version of the German/Jewish surname Suess ….. The given names Suet and Suot were documented in the Domesday Book of 1086 AD, which was a survey of England and Wales ordered by William the Conqueror. Fifth, the book English Surnames by Mark Antony Lower claims it’s a nickname for a person “who has either a vinegar face or a foxy complexion”.

Hah.

One wonders if “agreeable and pleasant” married “a vinegar face or foxy complexion” to form the genetic expression handed down to me by my mother’s father.

“Sweetness”.

Sort of a vague reference to guileless, I guess. Gentleness comes to mind, in tandem, along with pleasant countenance. Ain’t no bitch face in the sweet one.

I can say that “The Sweet Girls”, as they became known – Dora Mae; Lydia Elisabeth “Betty”; Frances Magdalene, and Martha Louise, if ever they bore common “sweetness” would have largely been due to the nature of their mother, Mae. Rather, each had an immediate feistiness, manifest more readily by the first, third, and fourth born. Mum’s was demonstrated on her own turf, where she ruled the roost with a formidable tone, but hidden in public behind a radiant grin and a gullibility born of her Aquarian dreams.

So, what’s in a name? Any number of ultimate aspects, all of them inherited.

Mary M. “Peggy” Zeppenfeld, however, was truly sweet. She was a flute player, in the Erie Chamber Orchestra and Erie Philharmonic, and a music teacher. Her students adored her. Her family adored her. Her colleagues did, too. She was “kind”. She was “devoted” to her students, and to music education, an “extraordinary teacher”, generous of spirit. Her maiden name was Munro, Irish to Scotland to fight for William Wallace. Robert Munro served Robert The Bruce; Alice Munro would descend to write sterling short stories, her characters never socially important but always both starkly recognizable and memorable.

Peggy Munro was entirely without ego. Preferring to observe from a distance, watch she did; I can remember more than once looking up, from my seat at the front of the orchestra we shared, to see her gaze directed at me. Peggy was keenly aware; she likely picked up signals from body language that others missed entirely. Perhaps she was just alarmed by any number of reactions which I so irrepressibly demonstrated, but I often wondered if Peggy was the only musician in the room who perceived my needs. Whenever I felt frustrated, or dismissed, or ignored, I could feel Peggy’s eyes on me.

Peggy’s career in the world of professional performance wasn’t so brief – 25 uncelebrated years. Like me, she came to it all by default, receiving an appointment at a time when someone with her qualifications seemed right. And, just as quietly, when the players at the card game increased in power and might, she lay down her hand and bowed out.

This past week, Peggy died. She was only 55 years old, nobody with the power or might to prudently diagnose the disease which took her life having stepped up to save it. And so, another sweet one escaped the earth, to leave behind all those whose hearts hurt because they were so touched.

And, these were innumerable. So many young, eager students. So many colleagues. So many family and friends. And, even one such as I, from the distance between her eyes and mine.

I will miss you, too, Peggy.

Perhaps some are born to live briefly. All are born to die.

It’s the nature of life.

Thank God for those who are born to bring the sweet.

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Mary M. “Peggy” Zeppenfeld

January 1963 – January 2019

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© 1/19/19   Ruth Ann Scanzillo.  All rights those of the author, who can be sour, and whose name appears above this line. Thank you for respecting this tribute.

Disappearing Realities.

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Flip phones.

There are three of us left who use them.

We love their portability. They even fit in the back pocket of a ghetto butt in jeans.

And, they take a spectacular photograph.

The I-Phones are in their, what, sixth or eighth incarnation? They’re supposed to be so “smart”, but somebody keeps making them bigger and better. They talk back. They respond to voice commands, the little robots.

But, take this. You just think you have a telephone.

You don’t. It isn’t.

It’s just a little thief, in a radioactive frame.

And, the thing has the power to take over your very life.

I’m one of those they always called an “artist”. With an old fashioned, hard formed tool, I draw. On paper, no less. In a nearly single gesture of beveled Conte, I plan to keep newsprint from going belly up. See, give me a stylus, with a real core of graphite; mine is a concrete world, using stuff you can actually hold in your hand until you’re ready to put it down.

The last time I tried to send a text on a “smart” phone, there were so many altered parts of speech my thought was rendered unintelligible. I couldn’t even use an expletive for effect; the little beggar had other plans. Insufferable plagiarist.

But, what really sends me screaming for the actual hills is the swipe.

With one casual brush, just one fleeting nudge, everything you think you just said or did can vanish.

And, you won’t even quite know what or how or where it went. The previous window? Check “history”? Even if it is to be finally retrieved, there is no denying: at any moment, you can be staring down utter blankness. This devil device can shut black, with no warning at all.

And, that is the demon.

Because, even when you can get the thing to say what you mean, or make what you put into it, and you even save to print well, let me tell you, from the invisible realm there are no guarantees. If they can let you make it, they can take it. Yah. You think you always knew what an original could be. Trust me; only your smart phone knows, for sure.

So, call me. Text me. Send me a link. I’ll open my little flipper, and accept it. And, worthy of my save file, I’ll keep whatever you send me. Indefinitely. Just like I’ll keep pressing the tiny buttons which represent the alphabet I learned when I was four. I like the kind of reality I can pinch with my own finger and thumb.

Better to touch what’s really there.

And, hold on.

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© 1/6/19  Ruth Ann Scanzillo. All rights those of the author, who lives in real skin, and whose name appears above this line.  Thank you for respecting reality.

littlebarefeetblog.com