Long Roads

Like everyone else I know, I've had plenty of adverse, embarrassing, shameful or distressing situations arise. You don't get to hang out on the planet for very long without that experience. Whether it's getting an F for standing in front of my whole fifth grade class and not being able connect the wires from the battery to the light bulb, or finding out that my husband is in love with my best friend, I have painful stories that make up part of the tapestry of my life. Everyone does.

One story thread for me is alcoholism and sobriety. I did my lifetime's worth of drinking and drugging by the time I was 30 and had to trade my drinking card for a folding chair in a church basement with a bunch of other people who had been through the wringer. We all had our own stories, or unique journeys, but we shared what was most important --- we needed help to quit and the help that worked for me was in those rooms.  31 years ago, on January 5, 1981, I tentatively took my seat, the one that was waiting for me. I didn't think I belonged there and I wasn't at all sure I was through. But I decided to listen. I found a lot of other people who felt like they were on the sidelines, baffled by how their good intentions didn't work out, how they couldn't get any traction in life, couldn't like themselves or get along with other people.

I know that everyone has things they feel self-conscious about. There is probably not a person alive who is entirely content all the time. The human condition seems to bend to the breeze of  want and desire. Whatever it is that makes one person able to laugh off what another holds as a deep wound, keeps us from ever truly understanding another person's afflictions. That they exist, yes. How they feel, we'll never know.

That being so, it would seem to follow that we would treat each other gently, acknowledging that we don't know what another person suffers, and don't presume to judge. But the opposite is more often the case. Since other people can't understand why in the world you're so scared of spiders, or can't stand the smell of gum, or writhe over having to speak to a stranger, they will more likely laugh it off or tease or become irritated. Isn't that what happens?

I've had a bug phobia as long as I can remember. I was teased and taunted by siblings, boyfriends, cousins, even the adults around me. It was shaming and did nothing to help me get over the fear. It wasn't until I finally fell into the care of a trained therapist ---- by that time so paralyzed that I would hardly leave the house ----- that I was able to get relief and begin to take control over that part of my life. They still scare me. I'll never be a friend of the insect. But I'm no longer immobilized by fear. And it started with someone acknowledging the fear and offering to help.

What is it that makes people prey on someone they perceive as having a weakness, rather than offering strength and understanding? There is a lot of play in the media about bullying these days. I'm glad it is being taken seriously. I know there is a backlash as well. There are the minimizers who say that everybody gets teased and bullied, it's part of growing up. And there are the bully-apologists, who seem to take some pleasure in hierarchical terrorism, with statements like: "I was bullied and I turned out all right. It made me stronger."

I happen to believe that the first bullying experience many people encounter is from parents. The message is clear --- I'm bigger and stronger than you are, so I can make you do whatever I want. And if you don't, I'll hurt you.

We are a society built on competition, testing, and strength. Those are all attributes that can be positive, can contribute to meeting personal goals and bringing personal commitment to the community. But very often they are glorified and exploited for their own sake, as in sports, business, and military power. Within the framework of Win-Lose, Top Down, Winner take All, and Might is Right, care and nurture are seen as weak, disability =worthlessness, and arts and intellect are extracurricular fluff.

I know that is simplistic. Any kind of blanket categorization is indefensible. That is why, when I find instances that call those assumptions into question, I pounce on them, eager to be proven wrong. Unfortunately, too often I simply see further confirmation of my previously formed categorical thinking.

Maybe I should get new glasses. Or maybe I already have.

Clear Vision

This morning I dropped Mom off at her day care, and while I was driving home, a lens fell out of my glasses. This happens with alarming frequency, so I didn't panic. I simply removed my glasses and drove home, curiously fuzzy. I could have donned my prescription sunglasses, even though it was quite foggy, but since I can see without glasses, I just can't see clearly, I thought I would see how it felt.

I was able to fix them, with the help of strong light, a magnifying glass, and my sunglasses, so I'm back in business now, but the whole experience was a whisper from the universe. You see, I count on my glasses for everything. I can't read a lick without them. I can't see to dial my phone, or read a text. I had to disarm the house alarm by finger memory, not numbers. If I were to break or lose my glasses, I would be in a real fix. And my whole perspective would change, quite literally.

Whenever I am suddenly in the fuzzy world, it reminds me of Heidi's blind grandmother. I assumed, even as a child, that she was blind because that's what happens to old people. And it did, it does. Many people, as they age, lose eyesight, not necessarily become entirely blind, but vision seems to start changing pretty early. There are plenty of jokes about people in their forties needing longer arms or bigger print.

I imagine Heidi's grandmother's time, when people didn't have as much access to corrective lenses. As eyesight failed, it was no longer possible to thread a needle, weave a basket, bead or embroider. Large tasks like milking cows or picking fruit could still be done, but what about picking worms off the cabbage or building a stool, turning a spindle or  planting tiny seeds? One's usefulness would decline as eyesight waned and arthritic fingers became too stiff to bend.

Aging has always had its indignities. I see them daily with my mother, who was a beautiful, well-spoken, spirited woman who now suffers bathroom accidents, wears her clothes inside out, doesn't know where she is. The remnants of her former self are still there, but my heart weeps when I have to perform the tasks for her that she once did for me, when I was a tiny child.

The problems of aging are often hidden now, when families live far apart and old people are tended in special facilities. The conditions still exist, but we have been able to ameliorate them to a large degree today. Many people remain vital and productive well into their sixth, seventh or even eighth decade. One of the "fixes" for Social Security is to push up the retirement age, effectively demanding extended production from today's healthier seniors.

But IS 60 really the new 40? Maybe, for people who can afford it. Today I was reminded that if I could not afford to have glasses, no matter how defective they've turned out to be, I would be far less functional than I am. Every morning and evening I take a handful of medications and supplements, which I hope are buying me time as a healthy older adult. But if I had no health insurance, that would certainly not be the case. I would not be able to afford the preventive or emergent healthcare that I am privileged to have.

There are millions of Heidi's grandmothers in the world, and no small number of them in the United States. In my younger days, I lived hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, with no stability and no savings. I was haunted for years by visions of myself as an old, withered lady living in a third-floor walk up with no heat or air conditioning, eating saltines and cat food. It amazes me still that, small as it is, I managed to work a "real" job long enough to earn a pension and health insurance. People coming up behind me will probably not be so lucky.

With my glasses intact, I can still thread a needle, still type a blog, still see clearly the people I love. I am grateful for that. But I fret for the elderly poor and lonely. Who will care for Heidi's grandmother now?

Simple words

I am trying to simplify the things I touch directly. I want to be able to be very clear about  my own motives, my words and actions. In order to communicate effectively with Mom, I have to slow down my speech and enunciate. I also use plenty of gestures, especially pointing her in the direction she needs to go. I edit my speech, take out most of the explanation and description and get down to the meat of it. I also find myself being very directive, not unlike when I was teaching. Sit here. Put this on. Set it down. Wait.

As someone who trades in words, this has a peculiar effect on me. I am reading a lot of fiction these days, and I relish the language with a new ardor. I want to highlight or read aloud words, phrases, whole paragraphs, simply because they delight me. I hope that spills over into  my writing, once I get cranked up again.

I have also been reading for a class called "The South in Black and White". There is a great deal of reading for this class, but it's the kind I love, reading that expands my thinking, gives me new windows through which to gaze on familiar sights.

When my father had Alzheimers, he lost his speech fairly early. AD progresses differently in each person. Mom has kept her ability to speak and read, though they are halting. She often surprises me with her intact vocabulary. She can't remember my name, or the names of common objects, but she will use verbs like justify or revert, or she'll describe Buddy as looking pathetic, exhausted, or clever. I wonder how some words escape while others are trapped in the black hole that is eating up her brain.

I fear losing words. More than becoming physically disabled, I am afraid of losing expression and communication. I hope I will avoid her fate, though there is no way to know and no way to stave it off, if it's coming. For now, I can only savor the delicious morsels that come my way, work like fury to produce as many stories and ideas as I can, and be grateful for each day that I still know for certain that a dog is a dog, an orange is sweet and juicy, and my wife's name is Jill. Today I have that.

Writing fun

Here's how writing and exercise are alike: I love how they feel when I do them, but procrastinate like the devil before I get to it. What is that about?

During the month of November, I wrote nearly every day. I had the challenge of doing NaNoWriMo and wanted to succeed at writing 50,000 words on a new novel during the 30 days of November. I did it, as I have done for several years now. The unfinished novels are beginning to pile up, but they've also been the seed for publishing the books I have now on Amazon.

This past November I returned to my favorite genre, historical lesbian fiction.  It weds my favorite subjects and gives me the chance to stretch by doing research and NOT falling into the trap of formulaic writing. (At least I hope I don't fall down that hole!) So I was a happy little clam getting ready to write and having the story take shape day by day. I only missed one or two days of writing in November. When I reached the 50,000 mark, the book wasn't finished, but it was maybe 2/3 done. And I haven't looked at it since.

When I'm under the time crunch of Nano, I am just piling up words, not looking for deathless prose. The point is to put so many words into it that I won't just abandon the effort later. There are predictable stages, including the 30,000 word slump when the whole thing seems not just impossible but a stupid idea in the first place. By then, I'm usually floundering around with too many characters running off in all directions, too many storylines to keep track of, and no clear idea how to bring it all together. And really, that's the way it stays all the way till 50,000. What keeps me going is the word-o-meter.

So this week, I pull up the file for the first time since Nov. 30, convinced that I'm going to be reading a pile of jumbled up trash that may not even be salvageable. And what do I find? It's a story I want to read. I can't remember what all I've written, since I've never read it over. It's like a new book, and it keeps pulling me forward. The story is better than I thought it would be, the characters are developing well, and there are some really good individual sentences ----- I love a good sentence!

It's not perfect, of course. It's a first draft of a Nano book. I'm excising, rearranging, editing, expanding. But that's fun, too. What is so exciting for me is that, contrary to what I've been telling myself for the last 6 weeks, I actually DO have a viable book here. I'll be able to finish it and send it on it's way to join its sisters in the wider world. I'll watch it bob around in that big sea of books and know from experience that it's going to wash up on shores farther away than I'll ever see.

And then I'll go back and finish Nano 2010, a baby I've been shaping and polishing for a year and a half and still haven't found the ending.

Why in the world would I procrastinate about doing something that is this much fun?

Silly Writer.

Contradictions

This week I made certain that I got to UU. I find that I am enjoying our interim minister's style of expression so much that I don't want to miss any of it. Besides the fact that he can construct some pretty amazing sentences, I find myself relating to his forthright, no-nonsense manner and down-to-earth sensibility. I devour the message, then think about it long afterward, just what I hope for in a Sunday morning outing to the church-house.

On Sunday, music, rhythm and words combined for a powerful treatment of class and tribe. I've been gnawing on it  ever since. I have very often, over the course of my lifetime, felt marginalized and isolated, either by my own choice or by others. It was no secret that we had to move every year or two, even though my father was a teacher and worked steadily, because he (and by extension, the family) failed to live up to the moralistic expectations for educators in the 1950s. We moved from one small Iowa town to another, as his contract failed to be renewed. In his off hours, evenings and weekends, he played in jazz bands, a highly suspect activity. It was never possible to sink down roots. Not until he was hired to teach overseas in military dependent schools, did we have the stability of continuous employment. Jazz and drinking were not a problem in a military environment. We became the stable ones since we didn't have to rotate, with everyone else coming and going around us. Still no roots.

I continued to move, long after I left home when I was just turning 18. Every few months I would get the itch to make a change. Often it was only a new apartment, sometimes a new town or state, once it was another continent. I was not in the habit of staying put. I wouldn't want someone to know me that well. In terms of tribe, I was nomadic.

I am more settled now than ever before. On good days, I'm sure that I've found my tribe(s), but there is still within me the girl behind the curtain of dark, falling hair who is certain that I don't have a place in this world.

Excuse me, do you have the time?

You know all those folks who are so worried about "one world government" and the US losing primacy and all?  It occurred to me that we're already under the thumb of something far more insidious and binding than some kind of unitary world gummint.

How did the entire globe ever come into agreement about years and months and days and hours? Really. Think about it. The world went along for a long time with everybody pretty much doing their own thing simply in response to nature ---- light and dark, growing seasons, lunar cycles, weather events. There weren't any trains to catch. The work was sufficient for the day at hand, and one day melted into another. I'm sure there are still people who live like that, more or less, but the world as a whole has embraced one calendar, one set of time zones. And it has to be that way because of the interconnectedness of travel and communication.

Who won? I guess Europeans/Western societies. And Americans. The universal language for all this coordinated timing, for airports especially, is English. There were, and are, alternate calendars, but if you want to deal with other people in other places, you're going to have to use the One World calendar. And if the planes aren't all using the same times, there are going to be some terrible tie-ups and crashes.

We had a New Year's Day program at UU on Sunday about the Japanese celebration of the new year. That's what got me started thinking. You can be pretty sure that it wasn't always called "January First" in Japan. I don't know what kind of calendar developed before this one was adopted, but I doubt that this Roman-based Christian-descended calendar was it.

And how is it that the naming of years that has been adopted around the world is based on the Christian religion? There are a ton more people who are not Christian, than are. And there were people in Asia keeping track of the days and years long before Europeans were counting up from the birth of Jesus.

So here we all are, slaves to the clock. The New Year advances around the world, one zone at a time, as if it were something real and immutable, instead of an arbitrary division. Don't you think it's weird when you're driving across country and one minute you're in one time zone and then you're in another? Doesn't that kind of blow your mind?

And this stuff matters. We're bound to it. Your birth certificate has a time on it, to the minute. That's always baffled me. Birth seems a bit more of a process than can be recorded in a definite minute. Deaths are to the minute as well, but really? Isn't that a process, too?

If you come into school a minute after the bell rings, you're tardy. If you clock in at work late, they'll dock your pay. Arriving at the theater five minutes late can leave you cooling your heels in the lobby till the end of the first scene. But all of these things are arbitrary. I'm not saying it's bad. It's actually pretty slick. How else do you get a bunch of individuals, each with their own concerns and priorities, to show up at the same time for something. It would be hard to have a symphony concert when the musicians come sidling in whenever they finished that last cup of coffee over dinner.

So, like it or not, we've already got the blueprint for One World Government. We're already being governed by the tyranny of the clock and calendar, at least if we want to play with others.