Intersection

Out the front, toward the intersection. A one way coming this way, so that it's important to watch for the left turning traffic, as they tend to angulate too fast.


Dale mentions being a bit unstuck in time, a sensation I have also felt, but I am finding comfort in it. Time has been slinkying around, crawling down into my shoes, bunching up at my waist, rolling up in my armpits, as I patiently pull up my socks, tuck in my shirt, and try to hold on to my sleeves as I put on my coat. Drove me crazy as a kid, but it feels oddly reassuring now, a familiar task, nothing to get fussed about, even as a metaphor.

Joan's comment on a previous post proved to be a tiny silver key to unlock a door holding a vital piece of my life's puzzle. It's all about roles and scripts. I never wanted to live according to the Rules of Family, unspoken and assumed and absolute. Nothing fit me in them, I have always wanted to be seen for who I actually am, and that doesn't work in that dynamic. An authentic life, in it's painful naked truth, does not look right beside the standard facade. My father hated me, certainly - but not for myself - since he never even wanted to know me for myself. My mother loved me, but not for who I really became - she never tried to know the person I was becoming. I kept bracing myself for pointed questions, which I would have asked, but they will not. My brothers assumed I would be the kid sis, never bothering to check, not really interested in my contribution to my own character. It boggles that they could see us as siblings, when we were never children together, or I wasn't with them.

All the heartache and fear seems to be crumbling away. I can't even resent them, since they never saw me as real. They are all quite unreal to me, as well. The sharpness is gone, the dull ache receding much more quickly than ever before. I'm just fighting off some virus this week, residuals of the excess hormones of last week, being a bit emotional. And I had to go in for a damn meeting this morning at 0730 on my day off. When I got home, D was still here, a crown had popped off, and he had to get in to see the dentist. Which he did, all fixed up now.

A day of ill omen, rain and a clinging cat. April can be like this.

Bit

Question over at mentalfloss about earliest memories. I suspect they are only interested in happy ones. I have a clear, confirmed memory, from when I was 10 moths old. Documentable, because it was Aunt Madeline*'s wedding. My mother only spoke about it in a negative, I knew something had happened, but had no idea when the wedding happened. It was Not To Be Spoken Of. She never connected this memory with that event, for me, or perhaps in her own mind.

I remember being wrapped up, the air very cold, put in a crib-like contraption between my brothers, who seemed to be acting strangely. Something was wrong with my father, and my mother was very upset. My brother was able to confirm these images, when we were both adults. He and the other brother had been draining unsupervised glasses at the reception, and our father was smashed. Father insisted on driving, as usual if he were drunk - which thankfully didn't happen often. And our mother came unhinged when he did.

Today, I had a happy moment. A rep introduced himself, I took in his name, then realized it was the ex's name. And I did not react inside. It was like an old sore spot, then someone pokes it, and you realize, it does not hurt anymore. Better than the first time this year when I bit into an apple, and my teeth felt fine, all healed and well.

*Our father's sister, one year younger. He was held back starting school, so she wouldn't be alone. THAT kind of fucked up family. He insisted on a birthday cake for her birthday the next day, at his wedding. Mom told me about that story. Aunt Madeline was damaged in different ways.

Dead

My mother had a disturbance in the freckles on her arm, from falling against a wood burning stove as a child. She told me of cold water apartments, no tub, but water heated pail by pail to fill a galvanized tub. Just a toilet down the hall. Of moving a lot, having to do with paying less rent - never fully explained. Her father was on the pokey, or was the on the dole? during the depression, and the Canadian government had him spreading ashes on streets in the winter, hauling trash in the summer. Aunt Evelyn told me of how he drank, a pleasant enough sot. Evelyn hired out as a nanny and housekeeper, glad to get away.

For granny, of her ten children born, five survived to adulthood. Michael, the oldest, drowned at 17, caught in the undertow so the story goes. Granny outlived all but two, Walt died the day I started college, his wife Peggy lives on. Evelyn of pancreatic cancer, after a decade caring for Ernest who fell off a roof and survived brain injured. Grace of breast cancer after clearing her house of the hoarding after her husband Elmer died. Only the youngest, Jerry (without his wife) and Mary (with her bastard of a husband) live on. Well, I think Uncle Jerry is still going, I'm not sure. He and mom were not close. And I'm not close to any of them. And this was the side of the family I liked.

Lots of cousins, Jerry had eight, Grace had two, Walt, two, Evelyn one. And they pretty much all reproduced. Liked my cousins, met them at funerals, mostly. The great aunts and uncles, then... well. I did go to a lot of funerals, said a lot of rosaries at funeral homes. Might be part of why I don't mind heavy, ornate furniture, but don't want to live with it. Funerals are good, because no one expects anything but sadness and solemnity, and usually people start telling stories and having a laugh. Weddings are just the opposite - everyone expects them to be so much fun, and they have always disappointed me. Strained, fraught, and dismal.

Not all the cousins survive, either. Brian and Larry are gone, probably more of Jerry's offspring. More will come.

Not that I'm feeling morbid, I just remembered stoking the coal furnace as a kid, and mom's stove injury, and the rest just unraveled.

Evelyn

I am reminded of my time caring for demented patients. I always simply met them wherever, and whenever they were, not worrying about trying to "orient them to time, place, person." I just played whatever part they assigned me, daughter, mother, friend, whatever, which seemed to be the right choice. I talked with the, often at cross purposes, but who cared. I had my head petted many times, as I adjusted brakes on wheelchairs, put feet in place, settled them onto the toilet or into bed. Took it as a kindly, parental gesture, a blessing. However tiring, it never upset me.

When Aunt Evelyn had her stroke, I, perhaps 13 or so, patiently answered her repeated questions, for as long as I was present. Long before good treatment, she had the best care available, in a hospital in Windsor, family around her. What time is it? Where am I? What happened? Every few minutes, the cycle began again, and I gave her an answer as though it was the first time she had asked. (Sometimes at that age, we have that kind of patience.) She eventually recovered with no apparent residual. I'm convinced it is because she is naturally left handed, and left handers tend to do better. They'd forced her in school to write right handed. I attribute her many health problems to this, and the scarlet fever. But she lived far into her 80s, felled by a cholangiocarcinoma. She always did everything up right. Tough old broad. I learned so much from her, that I have used in my job.

Dementia, Alzheimer's, both diseases so much harder on families than on the primary patient. Death of personality, but incomplete. Lost relationships, but without a proper burial. Incomplete grief. Partial amputation. A process of anguish, with elements of farce.

Sorting

Moby always remembers where the warm, uneven spot is.

When we met up with D's parents at their hotel in preparation for their son's wedding, D's dad commented on my packing. Made a point of explaining his own utter inability to be organized. We were in someone else's temporary lodgings, I had to keep our stuff contained just not to lose something essential. Since we pack so lightly, everything is essential, or I wouldn't have brought it. I made myself a cup of tea, my own immersion heater, mug and tea bag.

But getting everything organized is not a natural skill for me, I have to work very hard at it. Over fifteen years as an RN, especially in the OR, has honed these skills to a fine edge. I still struggle with verbal instructions if I can't write them down. So I double check and check again. For all his distractibility, D picks up where I leave off. Even he has learned to make lists and use them. And we know we will forget something, like the photo downloading device for the trip. Ahem.

On a car trip to the Grand Canyon with my parents when I was nine, I lost a lovely pair of real leather sandals. Left under the edge of the bed in the motel, noticed a few hundred miles away. No way to go back, no thought of writing to them to see if they were found. Much missed ever after.

I always broke toys, lost treasures, ruined clothes. I still have several favorite t-shirts with horrible little bleach spots that mean I don't wear them out. I can't keep a telephone number in my head long enough to call, I have to have it in front of me while I dial. Names regularly leak out of my brain, even people I've known for years, like the spouses of my brothers-in-law. I have no recollection of the full names of almost all of my friends from college or army, although I remember their faces and stories quite clearly. I remember how it felt to carry the cat around on my shoulders with it's front paws on my head, the yellow and brown pattern of the linoleum, from when I was perhaps five years old.

Why do some experiences, some details, stick, and others slide away, evaporate completely? How can I pack a bag with complete precision, but not be able to recall the number on the license plate on the car we've had over three years without checking? I'm sure I could still shelve a truck full of books, correctly, in about an hour, but not how to add a sig file to my email without D prompting me. Again.

Actually, it's less of a mystery than I imply. I remember what I understand, when I really get why. If there is no why, as in phone numbers or most people's names, I have no slot in my brain for it. When I do get why, or at least when the question is pertinent, a puzzle I'm still mulling, I can't seem to forget. Likewise the methods and groupings of tasks that all serve an end, then all the bits are all steps in the proof, and I know why I do the chores in that order.

Iguana

Got a postcard of the Red Iguana with our gift certificate from D's parents. It's actually pretty nice for a restaurant card. But I keep thinking of the postcards of The Alamo, that make it look like it's in the middle of a Texas desert. And it is crowded into a narrow street with buildings right up against both sides. The Red Iguana is in a rough part of town, with its parking lot separating it from a Wonder Bread depot, the other side is an old, cheap motel with a truly Roadside America worthy sculpture garden in concrete. It's right down the road from the plasma center, where the poor can sell their bodily fluid for cash. Across the six lanes of traffic, a shabby Frontier Pies hunkers.

The whole neighborhood, such as it is, will soon change into a construction zone as the train tracks are laid out to the airport. Possibly it will improve. Possibly it will simply be a sterile, national-chain-warehouse-store ridden, stretch of nothing much. But the Red Iguana has opened a second restaurant, not far from the current location, but out of harms way. Obviously well thought out, well executed, not a copy but keeping much of the same tone, and all of the same food. With room to develop the catering they've not been able to at the old kitchens. A wonder to behold, people being very smart, planning ahead, making good, long term decisions.

I know much of this because I was unabashedly eavesdropping as the "husband of the owner" (as he described himself) chatted with friends sitting at the counter of the RI2 next to us.

One feature of the new venue, the Union Pacific tracks run right in front, and I got to watch trains as we ate the best empanadas anywhere.

Ornaments

My history is in my ornaments. The penguin we got for each other one year. The lantern was still a working light when my mother was small. Some came though the elderly neighbors I enjoyed visiting when I was little, after they stopped putting up their trees. They've survived so many moves and upheavals, so fragile it's a wonder they've endured.

My in-laws do genealogy. Part of their religion, partly that they are descendants of a family that has lived and intermittently prospered on this continent. My married last name is all over monuments and graves in Boston, for instance, including an early governor. Part of history, so sort of interesting. More particular information than that, and I honestly don't give a ratsass. Especially following the male line, and going so far back, the name passed on, but did the genes? And even if they did, what's the difference? None to me, certainly. I'm not even going to try to check my genetic family, since I don't even consider myself part of that family now. Mutual disownment leaves one a bit cynical about the value of genes as a source of affection or relevance. I would love to do my DNA/mitochondria mapping, but as a sense of my place in the flow of history, not a connection to any individual.

Long ago I worked at the Burton Historical Collection for history and genealogy, and learned to disdain genealogists. I retrieved and shelved materials. As a group, pretty obnoxious and cranky bunch, with occasional decent exceptions. I often wanted to shout at them "THEY ARE ALL DEAD!" If I didn't look up my ancestors then, with that resource available to me, and grandmothers still alive, I'm not about to start now. I don't even know one grandfather's name. My mother's father was an orphan from Ireland, probably with an acquired name, long estranged from Granny, and was "found in a flophouse" days after he died of drink. I don't much feel like there is anything more to know, really. If I don't like the living ones, why would I give a shit about the dead ones?

And D is right there with me. Looking into history through one particular family is a tool, a method, but not personally important. He wants to find a really juicy embarrassing ancestor to add, if his dad pushes too hard. One of his old professors did a lot of research on prostitutes, so could be a good resource, if necessary.

Careful what you wish for, when you demand others in your family share your interests.

Needed

I'd been asked what six things I couldn't do without. (One of those forum lists, nevermind.) A very difficult question for someone who knows how little she needs. Of course, I took it literally, "things" not being people. Stuff, in short. And what I've considered to be a Good Day.

When I was going to basic, October, November and into December, in New Jersey, I had very clear criteria for a Good Day, and what I needed. Warm, fed, out of the wind. Having a plastic, covered cup to keep water in (as advised) was very helpful. To have a bit of water in my locker at night, so that in the dry heated air I didn't have to walk down the hall to the water cooler. And, although I learned to down Motrin (800 mg) with just two swallows from the spout, it was easier with a gulp from a cup. KP was a long, hard day, but then they all were. Still, starting at 0330, it was longer than most. The compensation was that I was warm all day, ate well, and pretty much when I wanted to, and got to the toilet whenever I felt the need. Those three conditions made for a version of easy, compared to most other days out in the cold wind, often hungry, and holding it in until allowed.

I lived out of my locker, very little of it my own. Clothes not adequate to the weather. Although I did have boots that fit, thanks to my Drill telling us to make sure they fit when they were issued. So, I took the sizing of the boots with all the seriousness I did if I were buying them. And I have had to be careful of my shoes since before I remember being fitted for shoes. I know I was irritating the woman at the boot station, but my Drill allowed it, and I stayed politely insistent. They weren't warm, and the green wool socks itched, but neither did they pinch or rub.

Hidden in my locker from the last private, a copy of a Tarzan novel. I longed to read, but I never could choke that one down.

When I left the ex, I left with a suitcase and my Army issue, knowing I escaped with my life in hand. That I would be able to salvage one carload later was not in my mind at the time. I could live with a few clothes, and the items that weren't mine to keep. Funny, the stuff I missed later were some of the photos, recipes, and a record that wasn't mine, (but only I listened to it) that I could never find again. A Carmina Burana on period instruments, played as it probably was during the Crusades, from a French group. Not the Orf version. Very raucous and genuine.

When D and I spent a christmas unable to get to a meal, the necessity of a meal on holidays became very important.

When I worked in a trauma hospital OR, a Good Day was when everyone got out alive. A death in surgery is unexpected, and bitterly unwelcome. A patient with a traumatic injury requiring immediate transport up to the OR is not a good bet. OR nurses are usually not trained in hospice, and get very irrational about death in their department. The cardiac team got a few a year. The transplant team lost one every time we had a procurement, but that got rationalized as happening, technically, before they got to us. Still, the moment when the heart is taken, and the anesthesiologist turns off his machine and leaves, is jolting. I always wanted to ask them to just stay there to make us feel better. There isn't anything else for them to do, but it always felt wrong. Two of mine were lost to septic shock, also not unexpected. I cried a little for each one, and those were bad days.

These days, a Good Day means enough time with D, little pain, and some periods without pain at all, getting lunch relief, a few moments of quiet.

So, this is the list I came to.


Good solid shoes.
Clean, working toilet and some privacy.
A good meal and time to eat it.
A hot shower.
Something to read.
Hot tea.

Murmurs

I hadn't thought about the divorce in a long, long time. On the legal day itself, I existed in a strange calm. A dear friend accompanied me, witnessed for me, bless her. I hope it didn't bring up bad memories of the dissolution of her own first marriage, if so, she didn't let it show.

I remember sitting in the Judge's office, although not the sitting down. He asked me why I wanted the divorce.

"He's been drinking heavily."

A vague sound from the Judge.

"He's stolen money from me."

Another murmur.

"He's been hitting me."

The scratching of his pen on the document. I'm sure there was more, but I have no recollection. The next memory is of being outside in the sunshine with my friend, numb and shocked and not sure what I'd just done with the past seven years of my life, or what I would do the next day.

I know I sobbed in grief and loss and a kind of stunned pain, like after the amputation of a large tumor. All off balance and raw, I acutely felt the failure from beginning to end. I distrusted every impulse, every sensation, my trust in everything lay shattered around me.

D did not come that day, nor did I want him to. He could not be any part of that. I'm not sure when I saw him next. Our approaches stayed tentative for a while, despite having forged our relationship for six months away from this Real Life. I doubted we would survive the return to Normality.

Never so glad to have been so wrong. We keep amazing ourselves, realizing we have known one another over twenty years, remembering the connections, the changes, the joys. D has my complete trust, he earned it millimeter by millimeter, every one, every time, often repeatedly, over the years. Over those first difficult days back.

Long ago, before I knew his name, he'd put a sign up in the CQ's office. I'd walked in and asked who'd done it, and Collin pointed to D. I was hooked, though I had no idea how deeply. The sign read,

Do Not Read This Sign.





.

Treasure

Working on the fiction, may post what I have tonight, and then edit it or add to it later. It just keeps begging for more details, connections, wanting to go further.

I will start with Dale's assignment (Will you do the same on your site, or do you want a different question from me?) It turned out to be more difficult than it sounds, Tell me about something lovely and unexpected -- something that you found, or something someone brought to you.

First thought was the KJ doll brought back from Thailand by my brother in 1969/70, a Thai dancer in green brocade with silver threads, golden temple shaped headdress, in classic pose, maybe 6" high. Despite being "only to look at" she was a doll I treasured, so graceful and colorful. Eventually lost in a move, or abandoned, honestly. An unexpected gift, since we were not a family for souvenirs.

When we were in Gulf War I, on my birthday, I got a little To Any Soldier letter, full of paper cranes, from "Bill" which is my other brother's name. I still have a couple of them. Brother Bill was the one who gave me my treasure chest, years ago.

One very cold winter, I found a lovely black wool hat in the grocery store parking lot, mushed into the muddy ice. I took it home, rinsed it out, and used it for a week. Until Dave lost his good wool stocking hat, and I passed on my gift to him. Seemed the only right way.

I think I will be able to add to the list of these blessings, over time. Thanks for the reminder, Dale.

Following

I'm not sure how I feel about this Blooger feature, having "Followers?" Not sure I want anyone following me. Makes my back itch.

But, for those of you who are new, a sampling that may explain where the hell I'm coming from.

I come from the Army. Sort of. D and I got to know each other in the context of our activation to Gulf War I

Wow, not as much there as I thought.

Dale once asked about the courtship, and I've been looking through the old posts. It's there, in hints and bits, but not all together. Not up to it today, but soon. A story worth the telling.

Ago

Thirty years ago, I was 16, and my brother had joined The Children of God a few years before. We heard only rarely from Bill, with long gaps, and the media frenzy over cults saturated the news. So when the footage appeared of Jim Jones and the Jonestown massacre, I saw it in a very personal way. Even then, the story seemed wrong, missing bits and contradictory. I had no way to look deeper. It ripped apart the nightmarish situation at home, already my father's scapegoat for my older brother's failings, I became the embodiment of all that was wrong with the world. I retreated into school and books. When I thought of writing a novel, that event served as the germ of the story.

Today, Boing-boing lists links all about Jonestown, one about the likelihood that Jim Jones was involved with the CIA. Certainly that the story as originally reported had numerous gaps and misrepresentations. I'm riveted, a sense of "I knew something was wrong." My brother had no idea the effect that story had on me or our parents at the time. His experience of the Children of God in Europe and Japan was of a series of loosely affiliated communes without a charismatic leader of any kind, a christian life without dogma. Where does the truth lie?


Eighteen years ago today, both D and I were activated to join our National Guard Unit to visit Saudi Arabia for six months for Gulf War I. This is how we got to know each other. We have always considered it the beginning of our relationship - though we'd known each other, chatting intermittently at Drills at least a year before.


Strange how the big events touch lives in such personal ways.

Public

Listening to the NPR on the way home, a series of letters between Gregor Samsa, aka Kafka as a Roach, and Doctor to the bugs - Seuss. There exists an unofficial podcast, since the CBC hasn't seen fit to provide this wonderful bit of mash-up. (Don't want to link directly, in case someone decides to make them take it down. It's a simple search, though.)

Grateful as I am to KCPW for broadcasting news and stories, there is a mixed blessing to only having a radio in the car. I hear stories part way in, or miss endings - all the time. We tend to listen to D's extensive music files at home, our own radio station. Often, or alone, silence is fine. The podcasts have been wonderful, for those other times. When in Boston, with no decent radio reception, we listened online to this local Utah station, and kept up our membership.

It's all the stuff of science fiction, how a technology changes everything by changing a few pervasive habits across a population. Telegraphy changed the world, and our sense of time and weather. Radio connected the world, and probably started a few wars in the process. And the internet is in the process of transforming us again. Into what? is always the question, perhaps putting stars upon ours, or thars.

We were talking last night about the end of the cycle of public outcry over streetwalkers, with the concomitant drug trade and general seediness of areas they frequent. Because Craigslist, cell phones and other web based methods have shifted the risk/benefit ratio from sidewalks to a more private space. And because it's no longer so in-your-face, there are no doubt fewer loud complaints. Just as XXX movie theaters have largely disappeared in the flood of home video availability.

There are forces trying to stop it all, vainly attempting to thwart the oceanic change. Blocking-software that errs on the 'safe' side, and censors out anything near the line. The Seuss estate is trying to stop all the parodies, meaning Dylan Hears A Who is no longer available, as other legal forms of creative expression are being intimidated away, by the threat of litigation, under the banner of copywrite protection. Public Domain is shrinking away from the public. It's all too complicated for any silly government to deal with, but that ain't stopping 'em from tryin'.

Kafka would understand. I suspect Theodore would as well.

Mailman

Another one from the Smithsonian. A mail route.

Have I mentioned that while we were in Saudi during Gulf War I, D was the unit mail-man? One of a team of admin folks, but he certainly did most of the shifts sorting and handing out mail. I would, on my 24 off (after the hospital set-up was done), spend the day with him, helping sort, doing the crossword in the Army Times, getting to know each other, surreptitiously holding hands, or slyly hugging his shoulder with my chin from behind. One of those intimacies that can be quickly withdrawn from without being definitely PDA, on duty, in uniform. Not like we were trying to fool anyone, nor did we, just kept it all circumspect, and deniable.

For all that D had no polished people skills, and could be rather clixby*, he also knew everyones name in the unit of over 400, and would stay of his own volition to give people their mail, when the busses back from the site were late. With mild ill-grace, sure, but not because he was made to by his boss, the aforementioned, mild mannered, Mark. (That's Sergeant Mark to you.) Mark, in return, gave him a day off when D's dad sent him The Secret Pilgrim, so that he could spend the day reading. Everyone called D, the Mailman, and came to rely on him.

That was the year of the musical greeting card, christmas cards in particular. Those got to us, eventually, for months, still playing tinny carols, much to the annoyance of D and the whole admin section. Especially when the recipient delayed picking up their mail further.

Whenever we get mail, one of us will ask, "Did we win?" He started that. Sometimes we do. Like, when the Fortean Times arrives.


*Clixby, from The Meaning of Liff by Douglas Adams, Politely rude. Briskly vague.

Greenfield

Nearly every year, one school outing was to Greenfield Village. Living history, a time machine that worked as well as those things probably can. This year, our history teacher managed to get us the school house, where we had class that day. Dressing up wasn't mandatory, but was encouraged, not that it took much for me to go old timey. It was a cool, damp day, and I would love to have been able to stoke the wood burning stove, I knew what to do with a coal furnace after all. Mr. Esper laughed off the idea, as real children at that time would only have done that in winter, not just a tepid spring day. Probably right, too. I often fantasized about going back in time, wanting to be any otherwhere or otherwhen.

Such a geeky girl. Still am, come to that.

Talking

Throughout my childhood, I walked with a child, the pregnancy lost the year before I was born, a sister I assumed. I talked to her, told her stories, helped her cross the street, reassured her. I had various names for her, none consistent, none that I can remember. She stayed a little girl always, finally leaving for good when I got into my twenties.

Sitting in class, all through school, I fantasized that my brothers would show up at school and take me out for the day. We'd go to the park, or for a drive, nothing big, just away. Dave was in the Air Force, joined when I was seven, posted far away until I was out of high school. Bill was gone the next year, to college then joined a commune, tramped across the states, then Europe and Asia. I missed the idea of them, wanted them to be more to me, had no other potential rescuers. No one to listen or care.

In college, I had a woman transported through time from when the Old Main building at the university was new, pre turn of the century. I explained the world to her, allayed her shock and disorientation, admired her courage for being a woman in college at that time. She slowly became less appalled at my brazenness.

I talk with Moira in the car on the way home quite often. I miss her daily friendship, but I never put words in her head, only know that she will listen, and understand.

I am still that child alone, craving both privacy and companionship, in equal measure.

Who

I have these conversations in my head. Inhabiting the lives of people I have read about. Entering their world as a kind of time traveler, Dr. Who, Angel of Death. Given this, I would have the real facts, not just the informed speculation of historians, in this imagining.

I talk with Abraham Lincoln the morning of his death. I tell him he would have died shortly of the illness that has plagued him so long, and it will be painful and prolonged. Instead, he will be assassinated that night, at the theater. This will grant him an immortality, as he inspires those who strive for freedom all over the world, for generations to come. Assure him that he succeeded, as much as anyone at this time, in this place, ever could have, and be at peace. Say his goodbyes, kiss his family, enjoy every moment of his last day. (Which, apparently, he did in fact do.)

I would talk with Jane Austin, tell her that her works would be wildly popular two hundred years after they were written, and she would be credited. That her illness isn't treatable for nearly that long, and if she had married, she would almost certainly have left an orphan and widower. Instead, her wit and insight would inspire women, and men, far more.

If this were real, I would of course ask more questions of them, but my imagination does not stretch far enough to consider what they would answer, so I go with just a message, comfort, hope.

~




There are witty wire critters and scenes at Bent Objects that made me smile all morning. I had to look through all his posts before leaving.

Give

The envelope went into the long handled basket during mass every Sunday, and I was given it to put in. The story of the Widow's Mite was repeated at least every year, to encourage the income. To be fair, mine was not a rich parish, but a declining inner city church with roof and heating shortfalls. Neither was my family wealthy, and that extra bit would have improved essential nourishment significantly for myself and my brothers as young growing bodies. But that was the point, really. Our contributions came from our need, not our want, and was therefore most worthy. I felt quite virtuous at the time. The current problems of the Catholic hierarchy leave me smugly cynical, and satisfied with my choice to shed my religious carapace. I also discarded the Victorian ideal of Charity as a Virtue, knowing it to be cold and manipulative.

When I was in college, there were so many dealers, pickpockets and panhandlers on and around campus, a strip of classroom buildings surrounded by notorious urban streets, I purposefully kept no change in my pocket. In part so that I could honestly say I had no cash on me. Had I given to every beggar, it would have been true anyway by the time I got to the other end of the University. They angered me. They had no more right to my thin scrim of cash than I did, and rather less, since I had worked for mine. I did feel bad for the homeless and suffering, but I had not harmed them, had not stolen their job nor wrecked their lives. I didn't exactly blame them, for the most part. I just didn't think it was within my power to fix them, nor mine to feel guilty for their plight.

Studying history, I came to believe that most charitable intentions went badly awry. The farm subsidies during FDR wound up benefitting large industrial farming conglomerates, and putting small family farms out of business. Used clothing and cash handouts to third world areas create dependence and sap local market initiative. Giving directly to panhandlers benefits the few aggressive ones, who are often users and alcoholics. We are told it's better to give directly to shelters and food banks.


Why, though, when D and I were downtown late one evening, a deserted well lit street, and a young person collapsed in front of us, did I reflexively look away? And D stopped us and went back to help. I felt ashamed, and we called 911, stayed with her, checked her vitals. Drugs, or alcohol, native, very young. The EMTs came and took her to the hospital. What was the threat? Why did I so readily turn my eyes? I say it was old street smarts overreacting. I tell myself that.

I want to be kind, and would never intentionally harm anyone. My instincts are to make myself secure, so that I can help. First Rule of Water Safety, make sure you are safe, or you just get two stiffs in the water. Very professional. Triage. And I believe this is the best I can do, over my long haul. That obvious generosity is self serving, gosh what a good girl am I. When I was in Saudi Arabia, walking around the streets of Riyadh, why then did I always slip a rial or two to the outstretched, black gloved hands of the shrouded women crouched on the curb?


My friend whose childhood poverty was severe, compared to mine, volunteers and gives to charities. Says she valued the given food and clothes when she was small and hungry and cold. I was grateful to have been given much of my clothing, a bed, a bicycle, though never obvious food. There is a balance between being good and being nice, between meddlesome undermining of motivation, and giving essential care. Where do I cross the line between defending my own safety and withholding necessary help for another in crisis?

I do keep asking the question of myself.

Crack

I was born between the generations. Not part of my parents' Depression fears, nor my older brothers '60's rebellion, I fell between the cracks of the Named generations. I was too young to remember the day Kennedy was shot, too old to have had computer access in my school. Too young for Howdy Doody, too old for Sesame Street, or even the Electric Company. I had leftovers, my brother's Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs- or the remains of them.

I was not the object of hope, but the salvage from despair. All the anti-drug anti-sex messages were aimed at me, warning me of the excesses of my half generation older brothers. I had missed the boat, and I had escaped the worst of the dangers. I saw from the car window the scars from the Detroit riots of '67, boarded up storefronts, and the death of the older neighborhoods. I remember vaguely the gas wars, and the prices dropping to 30¢ a gallon. My oldest brother was in Thailand during the Vietnam War, it was simply the underlying horror of my early childhood.

What I came into consciously in the popular mind was the fear of nuclear war, and pollution infecting my world. I supped feminism as a right, an inevitability, to grow into as the society would. I assumed that all the old small minded men would die out, and the boys my age would assume the obvious- that women were due equal rights. Assumed to be a goody-goodie- I was not offered drugs in school. Shy and depressed, I was not offered sexual experimentation either.

I remember not being able to find clothes that were not hideous polyester knit, and skirts too short, and jeans not allowed. My mother bemoaned the difficulty of finding slips, and I longed to never wear a dress again. Popular music was a constant, consumed with no more thought than Wonder Bread or canned corn. I was given no choice, so I did not evaluate. Having no money myself, I was not invested in the material culture of my time.

When I went to college, a year after high school, I was 19. I caught up on the mass culture, but not just the current one. I had film classes, and the University Film Society and the Detroit Institute of Arts Film Theater, and the Punch & Judy, and dollar night at the Ren Cen, seeing everything foreign and domestic. I most enjoyed going folk dancing- never shared by my friends. I had friends ten years older, and two or three years younger- when the world seemed to have changed when I wasn't looking. I learned from them, but I was never a part of their soap operas of rotating roommates, loves and dramas, existential angst or nostalgia. I was quietly blundering along my own path, in my own timeline, hiding my experiences as unworthy and uninteresting, not part of the movement of the lives around me.

I am still hopelessly out of step with any group of folks around me. If I have a drummer it is Steward Copeland. I was on my spouse's friend's BBS before there was a www. I love music from all over the world, since before it was called World Music, and I sing Sacred Harp which is a very old form of folk music. Neither truly Buddhist nor ever evangelical, I do try to live in a christian manner and grow the serenity treasured in Eastern philosophies. I have this outlet for my writing that strains the definition of blog. I don't follow the rules unless I think there is a point to them. I don't dress like anyone I know, I never wanted a diamond ring, pregnancy or children, a house or a dog.

I do not do drugs, although I may well have tried marijuana on several occasions many years ago (May Have because I told the Army not ever, so well, can't admit anything, can I?) I am against the war going on, but I despair of making any difference in ending it- just as I despair of ending bigotry or sexism or Global Climatological Fuck Up (GCFU) or ugly fashion. All I can do is object and live my life consistent with my conviction. And with kindness toward all I can touch.

Because if WWI didn't end war, any more than WWII, and the activists of the 60's fell down on all their promises, how can I hope to Change the World?

Perhaps by putting just the right amount of pressure in the crack, in my own small way, in my own time, one soul alive to possibility can make a millimeter of difference. I figured out in second grade that I cannot shush the rest of the class when the teacher asks for quiet. I can, however, be silent myself. I can become myself, only that, and it is everything, in any generation, in any culture, in any world.

Accident

I was in the back seat of the Studebaker with my brother Bill when the door popped open. I have an image of the road speeding by beneath me. He grabbed me in and slammed the door. This was before seatbelts were standard. I don't even remember locks on the door, but I was very small at the time. I always figured he'd saved my life.

My father had picked me up from ballet class. When he made a fast left turn, the woman in the other car may have sped through the red light. All I know is she slammed into the back door on my side. My father made me anxious driving before then. He was frantic. I simply wanted to go to the gas station to make a call to mom, but I was wearing leotard and tights, I was only eight, and he wouldn't listen to me. It would be many years until I could open my eyes when a car was approaching from the right. I had nightmares.

When I was ten, he was driving us out to the airport, I was flying out to Arizona to visit my brother Dave for the summer. There was a four way stop. Neither he nor the pick-up seemed to notice this. I wound up on a later flight, the car was totaled. More nightmares, more fears of cars coming from the right. More fear of his mindless driving, and my entrapment in childhood.

My mom had taken me to see a movie, it was raining, we were at a red light. A 15 year old in his mother's car skidded into us. No license, no permission, I was appalled and angry, being myself 14. Calmness prevailed with mom. That night I was having sharp spasming neck pain and was taken to the ER. Given a collar and told to use moist heat, my neck would never be quite the same. Different nightmares followed.

Living up in Kalkaska, rural, small town, at the edge of my pay, I was hit by a sheriff of a nearby town- he ran a red light when I was in the intersection. He was treated with great understanding by the Kalkaska sheriff. My inability to afford to fix the damage were answered with a referral to a local garage and a make-do repair suggestion. More nightmares, another version of a trap.

With the ex, who drove way too fast, never asked for directions, but was otherwise an able driver, a bad crash exploded in front of us. Semi clipped a young woman in a Honda, spun her around. We barely tapped her car in this chain reaction. I had just passed my Army CPR classes, and my terror was knowing I had to act. I ran toward her, and cried with relief that she was breathing. She had a head injury, was not wearing her seatbelt, was a nursing student. She joined my parade of nightmares in a year of very different fears.

I'd just been hired for my first full time RN position, we had been looking for a new car, as the Subaru was falling to bits. I took D to work since it was raining. Car ahead of me stops, I stop, fucking SUV behind us does not stop. Well, not like it was going to take much to total the poor old thing. Still. No one hurt, had to rush to get the already mostly chosen new car.

This week, after being on the wrong side of a resuscitation, I had to go for my first week's orientation to a new job. I had hoped to get some help from the Occupational Health nurse when I had my vaccination records done for my increasingly sore neck. Instead, I was given an Return to Work form that had to be filled out before I could start working. A long wait -in a walk-in clinic, since I hardly had time to find a PCP on my shiny new insurance. The Doc there who was helpful and gave me drugs, also filled out the form in a confusing manner. I was in no shape to properly check. Unhelpful, obstructive bureaucracy followed. I prefer to leave it at that. I sorted it out, after much walking, and talking.

Not breathing for a minute, and being beaten up to correct that, leaves me with much the same side effects as the car accidents. The terror and helplessness in the moment. Knowing who was really important. Fury over stupidity and panic. Abiding gratitude. Fearsome images that play over and over in my mind. A desire to change the systemic flaws that make error more probable. The exhaustion of damage in the gaps of life, stress-points and liminal darkness. Fear. Unexpected calmness, and detachment.


Pain in the neck.