TheBanyanTree: Free at Last!

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Dr. King’s “Free at Last” isn’t appropriate for my situation, but I will
take a moment and honor him.  He was an extraordinary man in an
extraordinary time.  It is difficult to believe that within my lifetime,
blacks and whites had to use separate bathrooms, restaurants, hotels, and
blacks had to sit in the back of the bus.  No one thought it was unusual for
a black man to be hunted down and hung from a tree for no particular reason.
Blacks and whites weren’t allowed to marry.  The list goes on and on.  And
it’s difficult to believe our country’s humanity hasn’t grown enough yet to
eliminate racism from our culture.

I know there are people who sigh and groan about having a day in January, so
close to Christmas, so why do we need another day off anyway? to honor Dr.
King.  I mean, let’s get real, who meant more to our country, Dr. King or
Christopher Columbus?  And Martin Luther King Day is not just an empty
federal holiday on the calendar.  It’s been wonderful to watch over the
years how this day has evolved into a time for reflection and has developed
traditions that are unique to it.

But my freedom is not as meaningful as what Dr. King was describing.  My
freedom is having a Saturday of my own again after weeks of frantic holiday
preparations.  From the first week in December, when I was decorating my
house for Christmas because I was going to lose a week of my life by having
a business trip to Raleigh, NC in mid-December, to last weekend, when we had
the boys spend the night after taking in the Minnesota Zoo, it’s been a
mind-blowing, constantly on the go series of Saturdays.

Actually, yesterday wasn’t really my own, because I committed to going to a
Creative Memories thing.  Creative Memories is a scrapbooking company, kind
of like Avon, except it deals in paper, not perfume.  A consultant does a
presentation, and in our case, we made a card from a few pictures we brought
along, and peer pressure is used to sell the Creative Memories products.  I
usually avoid these types of things like the plague, but I do like
scrapbooking and I like the Creative Memories products, and my best friend
coworker asked me to come.

I brought along Susan, since she likes to scrapbook, too.  She thought it
was neat that I actually have work friends, since I do have so few friends,
and she has never met anyone that I work with before.  Yes, I like most of
my fellow co-workers, and over the course of the past year, I’ve actually
made friends with some of them.  It’s good to have friends again, female
friends, I mean.  I miss the warm camaraderie women can provide.

There were seven of us and we cropped our pictures and taped them into our
little cards.  Then Kim provided some goodies, and we chatted for a bit.  I
ordered a bunch of stuff which I should get in a week.  It was a pleasant
way to spend a Saturday morning.

After I got back home and Susan left, the Saturday was MINE!  I didn’t have
to decorate, bake cookies, or go to a concert.  I did my usual Saturday
chores of laundry and plant watering.  I balanced the checkbook and paid the
bills.  I updated a website and wrote a newsletter.  I took Axel for a walk.
I did end up baking some chocolate chip cookies, but I baked because I
wanted to, not because I HAD to.  I read magazines while watching the US
Figure Skating Championships and the football game.  I went to bed and
dreamed about scrapbooks.  And being free at last.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net

http://www.bpwmn.org
Business and Professional Women of Minnesota

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a
list of work to be done, cracks to be patched.  Maybe this year, to balance
the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for
flaws, but for potential.
~Ellen Goodman