Aime Alley Card's Blog

Gen Z, iGen, Boomlets, whatever you want to call them you know who they are, and they know exactly who they are. In this house, they’re my children. Eighteen and fifteen, older girl, younger boy, and at this point in our lives, they’re teaching me far more than I teach them. Because what they’re good at, I mean, essentially expert, is technology.

Whenever I come across something that I learn in terms of social media, I ask them about and the inevitable answer is, “Oh, yeah, I’ve been doing that.” Or, “Yeah, I can see how that would be helpful for older people.”

They are fluent in the language of the future, and I often need them as my interpreter. I’ve turned into my parents who relied on me to set the clock on our family VCR. But now the kids live and breathe in a virtual world that just layers into our physical one.

As a parent, of course, this concerns me. But if I ever needed a real-life example of why this would be important to their futures, the past twelve months have been it. Their school has been operating on a hybrid model, in school two days a week with very limited interaction with their peers.

So being the highly adaptable creatures they are, the kids naturally turned to the social connections they have through media. Caroline Knorr on NationalGeographic.com last December 20th said that Minecraft, a game that both of my children spend time on, saw a 90% increase in players joining groups as opposed to playing solo between February and July of 2020.

I had thought Minecraft was a game they were outgrowing, but apparently the social and collaborative nature of the game was particularly soothing and engaging to the kids in an otherwise isolating time. They could come together building and sharing worlds that they have control over, clearly something they were missing in their day to day lives.

Even the American Academy of Pediatricians advises using media “for social connection: Social distancing can be isolating. If kids are missing their school friends or other family, try video chats or social media to stay in touch.”

As the days lingered on while we were all inside, I could hear my son yelling and laughing with his friends, and when I looked over my daughter’s shoulder I saw an elaborate structure she had meticulously decorated right next door to other buildings made by her friends in a collaborative virtual village.

I don’t have to go on about the worries of too much screen time most parents have always had, or even in this moment think about the impact being shut in for so long is having on our collective social skills. Right now, I can be grateful that my kids have command of and are using effectively some pretty incredible tools that are helping them to weather these challenging times.

I haven't done book reviews on this blog yet, but I think I'll start now. I came across Catherine Meyrick in the #historicalfiction #writingcommunity on twitter and saw her post for her current book. It fell right into my sweet spot, so I thought I would check it out. Since I'm relatively new in the twitter world, it was a fun concept to just anonymously check out a twitter friend's work and see how it read. It was revolutionary to me - it was wonderful! Hit every mark and kept me thoroughly entertained! This is a concept I should have remembered from my childhood in Nashville where it was so obvious that talent- jaw dropping, make you cry kind of talent doesn't always get recognized and rewarded by the industry.

This is not a knock on Catherine's book, it has gotten some good and well deserved accolades. It's just that discovering this book through my community on twitter made me realize how many wonderful things are out there that I might not otherwise discover. So look here to find some new reads!

Here is the review posted on goodreads and soon to follow on Amazon:

I haven’t read an Elizabethan era story in awhile, and this felt like pulling on a favorite sweater. The heroine, Alyce Bradley, was everything I look for; kind hearted, intellectually curious and dreaming of more than her society allowed young women. But that is only how the story begins and things get more interesting from there. The love story is compelling, and the fight for justice propels the story so forcefully that I stayed up way too late to see what would happen.

What I felt was unique to this story compared to others from the same era was the focus away from the aristocracy and politics, and more into the lives of the merchant class. In a small community rumors and misunderstandings threatening lives and livelihoods rings as true today as in 16th century England.

Well researched and crafted, Catherine’s work is thoughtful and thoroughly enjoyable, and I highly recommend!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

“I’ll have them set an appointment up for the injection. Don’t worry, it’s tolerated very well.” The words came out of the mouth of the handsome young doctor with the confidence achieved in the apex of his career. Knowledge gained from enough years, but not too many to diminish his energy or arrogance.

His words echoed through my head as I walked into the infusion center. My body remembered this place and the dormant anxiety awoke. The nurses and administrators guided me with excessive kindness and solicitation to sit in the wide, comfortable reclining chair surrounded by hospital equipment.

No, I thought. I wanted to remind them that I’m not still a patient. It’s been years since my treatment for cancer, nearly seven to be exact. I don’t belong here anymore.

But the information sheet they gave me was labeled: Chemotherapy. It was an injection to help build back the bone density the prior treatment had stripped away. Just a shot. Labeled with the dreaded word that had upended my life. Chemotherapy.

The shot that had been sold to me as “easily tolerated” knocked me out for three days. Like chemo. My children, now teenagers, dealt with their own memories as they visited my bed in the evenings where I had hidden to escape. The fatigue they could see clearly on my face echoed a full year of their childhoods where the status of my health was unstable. Now they ask more questions, want more details, seek to understand and therefore grab hold of the process that in their more tender ages had seemed haphazard and elusive.

Now, as then, I speak to their level, and we ultimately agree that the cost of treatment is worth the benefit. Four days pass and I’m back on my feet, with bones that will become stronger and with the intention of carrying me more easily into my twilight years. Yes, the treatment is worth it, and yes, there is always a cost.

#breastcancer #breastcancersurvivor #cancertreatment #lifeaftercancer #breastcancerawareness

My son started high school this year and somehow ended up playing with the varsity football team. He’s fifteen, tall, but a little lanky still, and now playing with these fully grown men with facial hair and muscles everywhere.

In my head are all the worries about concussion and permanent injury. He’s been playing lacrosse for years, but even though it’s a helmet sport, it’s not nearly the same level of contact. He also played flag football, which he says, basically isn’t like playing at all.

My reservations calmed slightly when I picked him up after practice. He got in the car, ripped off his mask, sweaty and grinning from ear to ear, and talked my ear off the whole way home about each play he made and the tips the older guys on the team gave him about working out and practicing to help his game.

My fears had to give way to his obvious happiness.

So I asked my dad, who prays for all the grandchildren every morning, to add Wesley to his prayer list. I’m just worried about his safety, I told him.

My dad, an avid sports fan who played in high school and college himself, responded.

“I’ll pray for his safety. But if you don’t mind, I’ll also pray for his toughness and success. I think the reason so many football players are successful in life is that it makes you tough. You learn how to win and to lose. You learn to never give up, even with things are unbearable and discouraging. And you learn teamwork; how to depend on others and to be dependable. I think he will be good and enjoy it, but he shouldn’t think about getting hurt, just doing his best.”

So Dad took me to school again. He’s right. Thanks, Dad. I love you.

The Christmas decorations are coming down, and as I move through the house I take stock of the things that I’ve left in various states-- a closet that is overstuffed with out of season clothes, piles of sports equipment I am unsure if anyone still uses or needs, old sheets and towels that I have no reason for hanging on to, and that one junk drawer in the kitchen where I tend to toss things that have lingered too long on the counter and have no perceivable other home. It is time for a serious declutter, something that tends to happen this time of year.

So I start in my office. I turn on some music, take a look around, and immediately am reminded about what I love about this room. It is mine. In the whole house that I share with others, this is one small place that I have been able to claim as entirely my own. There have been times when others have coveted my cherished space, but I have outlasted their intrusions and built a quiet sanctuary to work.

I start with the paperwork that has piled up, needing to be sorted and trashed or filed. Invariably in these piles I find treasures—the odd photograph, a postcard that arrived at just the right moment, a hand made gift from one of the kids. Once the piles of paper have been sorted, I rearrange the corkboard that spans most of the wall behind my desk with my new finds so that it is filled with things that make my heart smile. Now as I sit to work and pause to linger on some thought, my sight line rests on something or other that touched my heart instead of something or other that needs to be done.

I’ve tackled my office. It is reaping rewards. Now can I do the same for the mud room? Challenge accepted.

Pop the champagne, celebrate all the hard work that it took for her to get here. I am bursting with pride at how much she has grown. I am proud that she knew her mind, I am proud of her steadfast and consistent approach to this search and her own personal growth.

She put in the time, saw the school, understood that it was a fit, crafted her stellar essay, and put her best foot forward in a way that the school was able to see her true self and potential, and it worked. She got in.

After the donning of the obligatory sweatshirt and reveling in the news it took me about a week before it completely registered that in the fall she will be leaving me.

For this, I need to rely on the advice of friends and family that have already been through this. One cherished friend readily admitted that for at least a couple of weeks it might feel as if an arm is missing.

Will it be an arm for me? Or will it be a shoulder that feels cold, or a foot that refuses to move?

These past few months of remote learning, scaled back activities and daily onslaught of bad news have only been tempered by my gratefulness of having more time with her. She wasn’t always running off to see a friend, or bogged down with homework, there was time for everything. There was time to bake together, work in the garden, and just sit and talk and laugh at our ridiculous puppy.

In a few months, as we adapt to a new normal and new level of activity, my life will be smaller and probably more lonely. But as I get used to the quieter house, I will do my best to remember that I’ve done my job well when she learns to fly, and she can’t fly from the nest.

Raise high, my wild child. Go live, and love, and write your own story.

As the days grow darker and the solstice nears there is so much waiting.

Waiting for news, waiting for the chance to see family, and children waiting for Christmas.

The season of cheer and merriment has shifted to a quieter reflection. Tucked in away from the storm I am grateful for the warmth, for the peace, and also for the stillness.

A favorite tradition in our little town is putting the white candle lights in the windows. In this holiday season of curfews and greeting friends outside in the cold, if at all, the old tradition of the candle in the window as a welcome home is poignant and especially endearing this year.

I dearly miss my friends. I’m heartbroken to give up time with my father, and falling asleep in my childhood bed, with my children camped out in forts with their cousins downstairs. But still, I am grateful for these days that I have here on earth. Maybe not with all of the people that I love, but with the three closest ones.

May peace and love be with us all.

Photo Credit: CANDLE IN THE WINDOW - FENNO HOUSE c 1725 - Old Sturbridge Village. Ray Boas

Now that the weather is cooling, can we talk about sourdough bread again? In my house, we never quit talking about it. It’s an ongoing project, and on days when everyone is doing work and school from home a fresh loaf of bread barely makes it to dinner time.

We have a routine. My daughter prepares the dough at night. She’s a night owl and I turn into a pumpkin at 9pm. The dough rises overnight, and when I am up in the morning I do the final folding, chilling, scoring and baking. By the time everyone lumbers downstairs mid-morning, a golden brown loaf is cooling on the cutting board for lunch. Someone (he knows who he is) usually cuts off a heal before anyone else even gets to it.

When and if my daughter is able to go to college next year, I will dearly miss this routine. So this winter, however much we are required to stay home, extra pounds be damned, I’ll be baking sourdough with my girl.

Writing is solitary and sedentary. When I’ve been sitting too long, my spaniel, never far from my side, will get up, stretch, then rest her chin on my knee, wagging her entire bottom half while her head is still, eyes gazing straight into mine imploring me to rise. Sometimes I wave her away, lost in a good paragraph. But sometimes she wins. Lifting myself out of the mist that cocoons me, I am rewarded by her gleeful whimpers as she wiggles her way towards the door. I follow, joints softly creaking from the hours of repose, grabbing her leash and walk into the open air. She bounds ahead, running circles in the yard celebrating her victory. I breathe in the pine and fallen leaves grateful that the open sky expands my mind and her victory is also mine.

In 2016 I brought my daughter to the polls with me, I thought she might be able to witness my vote for the first female president. You know how that turned out. In 2020, with hope in our hearts, we went to the polls together again, this time she was able to vote too, and we both cast our ballots for the first female vice president.

Watching the results come in over the past few days, each day getting closer to the result that we wanted, and each day feeling a little lighter, a little more free, and cautiously, carefully, possibly joyful.

Finally, the call was made and we became witness to and participants in history. Together.

Gen X wasn’t a particularly inspired generation, but we sure saw the problems and weren’t afraid to point them out. And now, I see the new generation coming behind us, growing up in a world where the issues are clear and so many of them aren’t the least bit conflicted about their power to make a difference.

We had so many excuses, the baby boomers sucking up all of the air (and the jobs, and the influence, and the real estate) while we didn’t have a lot of major events to coalesce around. But we did what we did, and quietly raised our children to be better than we were. And now they are. They have grown to see each other as equals no matter their station, and understand without question the moral imperative to clean up our politics and our planet.

You go, Gen Z. I’m proud of you. I’ll join my voice with yours and together we are an unbeatable force.