Observations from the Invisibility Cloak

When I was 28 and writing poetry, I wrote a poem lamenting the feeling that I was invisible because I was no longer the youngest, cutest thing on the block --- and I had become a mother. Now I'm in my sixties and really invisible. And I like it!

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Getting up the Gumption

                                                             

Yesterday, Jill and I went to North Carolina Pride for the first time in several years. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy looking at all the color and soaking up the festive atmosphere. Usually, when Pride day rolls around, it seems like too far to go, too much effort to drive all the way to Durham ---- twenty-some miles ---- and anyway, if you've seen one pride, you've seen them all.
Home Sweet Home

But that's the way life seems to be these days.

I was never much of a homebody. Just ask my kids, who claim that they had to go to their friends' houses to get a good meal. That's only partially true --- I did work a lot of dinner hour shifts when I was waiting tables back in the day, but I cooked, really I did. 

Right from the get-go, I was a busy, busy girl. I liked to be out and about. I wasn't a sulky teenager, sitting in my bedroom with the music playing and the curtains closed. I wanted to hang with my friends, ride the bus out to the Staging Area for movies or bowling or horsing around in the snack bar. By the time I was 14, I gleefully added going down to the strip to drink beer at Gertie's Hole in the Wall. My Bremerhaven peeps know what I'm talking about.

After I got sober at 30, I had a whole new world of social activities ---- meetings, coffee with friends, the meeting before the meeting, the meeting after the meeting, sobriety dances and gatherings of all sorts. And lots of time on the phone. I've got a long history of being a social creature.


So why, now that I've got plenty of time to do what I want, am I sticking so close to home? Part of it is that I really like it here. I get to be with Jill, which I definitely enjoy. The critters I live with are entertaining and sweet, and I don't like to leave them alone for too long. My books and computer and movies are home-based. I pretty much have everything I like to do right here at home. And, for some reason, it gets harder and harder to be among people. 

Age? Fatigue? Developmental Stage? (Yes, adults do have developmental stages, too.) I hover over that deep, black pool of depression, but I haven't dived in lately. And maybe that's the deal. It takes effort not just to stay afloat, but to avoid being sucked to the depths. And I carry that effort all the time.

The voice in my head ---- you know the one ----- says "Just get out and DO something. Commit. Don't be lazy. Show some gumption."

It doesn't feel that simple. I wish it were. I never meant my "golden years" to be haunted by clouding darkness. I couldn't have predicted it. I do what I can to regulate this part of myself that feels so foreign and, at the same time, enticingly familiar. And I keep on walking.

If you, invisible reader, have wrestled with depression, or know someone who does, please be kind. It takes more than gumption to tame this beast, which can attack without warning and leave a teary puddle in its wake. Bootstraps and will-power are not the best defense, though they may play a part. Just don't rely on gumption. Acceptance and love will work better, I believe. 

Sunday, September 14, 2014

It's not a Bandwagon


Ever since the Ray Rice story broke and people discovered intimate partner abuse, I have been troubled. Not because it shouldn't be talked about. I welcome the conversation. It's long overdue. What troubles me is my friend, Joanna.

Some of my avid readers (!) may remember this post about Joanna's arrest. Her husband was found murdered and she was arrested the next day. Everyone who knew her was shocked; it seemed like a terrible nightmare. She has been in Wake County Jail ever since, awaiting trial. The trial date is set for January 19, 2015.

As her friend and mentor, I have been in continuous communication since she was incarcerated. Over the past fifteen months, we have corresponded by mail, by weekly phone calls, and a few video visits. Most of her very limited visitation time is reserved for her children.

During the course of this ongoing conversation, we have explored ---- without going into details of the events of June 15 ----- what brought her to this place in life. Domestic abuse and dependence play heavily into her life story.

When we see the video of Ray Rice hitting and dragging his partner out the elevator, it is shocking in a visceral way. There is no avoiding how violent it is, how wrong. But as horrible as physical violence is ---- and no one disputes that ---- it is not the only form of abuse which occurs in "private" situations. The ramifications of verbal and sexual abuse, mental cruelty, isolation and threat of violence reach far into families and relationships. They don't leave visible marks. They are easy to dismiss as lapses of temper or judgment, isolated instances rather than a systematic pattern of control and terrorization. They can have terrible consequences.

I am fortunate not to be among the 1 in 3 American women to suffer intimate partner abuse. It crosses all lines of wealth, age, social position, race, religion, and education. Sociologists, psychologists, law enforcement, medical providers and clergy have probed and debated the causes and response to domestic violence for many years. I have no idea, even after doing some of my own research over the past year, whether we're any closer to understanding and finding effective prevention or treatments for people whose lives are shattered by the many faces of this problem. I do know that it will never be "one size fits all."

Joanna has told me she was ashamed for anyone to know what was happening behind closed doors.  She felt unworthy and embarrassed, as though she'd been taken in and made a fool of. Who ever wants to admit they've been conned, right? But that shame, combined with fear of consequences, provided fertile ground for tragedy.

Her story will come out. It will be hashed in the media, as situations like this always are. Everyone who watches or reads the news will have opinions and beliefs about the case. It will be adjudicated and whatever comes of that will be the new condition for her and for all the people touched by those terrible events. Two families and countless friends were devastated by Jose's death and Joanna's incarceration. None of them will ever be quite the same.

It happens every day in this country. How many more? 

If you want to get involved: enoughnc.org

Monday, September 8, 2014

Guns, Guns Everywhere, and not a Life to Save


I’ve been thinking of the 2nd Amendment enthusiasts and the notion of protection. It is a maxim, raised to the level of Divine Truth, that firearms are necessary for protection of home and family, self and others. What rarely enters the conversation is more than a vague allusion to what we're protecting ourselves from.

 “Bad guys with guns.”
 “The Government.”
 “THEM.”

But the trouble is, guns cannot protect anyone from the real dangers in life, the ones faced by every single person on the planet ---- sickness, heartbreak, natural disasters, death. We all face unknown dangers every single day and no amount of firepower can protect us.

That, I think, is what baffles me about the entire conversation. Yes, guns have had their uses. I like venison as well as the next person. There are even instances in which a gun does provide personal protection in extreme circumstances. But I have to say, I have yet to come across one of those instances in real life, and the odds are I never will.

The odds. What are the chances? That's some math, there ----- probability.

In this societal discussion, I'm drawn to the disconnect between reality and fantasy. When I was a little kid, like many others I was afraid there was somebody under my bed or in my closet when the lights went out. It didn’t matter how many times my parents flung open the closet door, or got down on the floor with a flashlight and showed me nobody was there, as soon as the lights went out, I was scared.

That sort of fantasy-world fear is what seems to propel the proliferation of guns, aided and goaded on by the arms industry, of course. Guns are like mouthwash ---- they prey upon our fears and offer a solution for purchase. Easy! And look, it comes in pink for the ladies!

But no matter how much deodorant you apply, it’s not going to make it any easier to talk to that cutie who makes your heart go pitter-patter. And no matter how many guns you pile into your arsenal, you can’t stop a tornado from taking everything you own.

Ultimately, we have to learn to live with uncertainty and ambiguity. I have a doctor’s appointment today. She could tell me I’m seriously ill. Most likely, she’ll tell me it will get better and send me on my merry way. Or maybe I’ll get in a car wreck on the drive to her office and never even get to my appointment. All of those possibilities are infinitely more likely than anything that carrying a gun in my purse would help. Yet there are people who are convinced that carrying a firearm will provide protection from . . . what? Life?

Humans are generally not prone to think things out and behave logically in everyday situations. We’re much more likely to run on unexamined emotion and excitability, or simply habit.  If I considered the statistical odds of being killed in a car wreck every day, I’d never get in an automobile again. If I were to logically, stoically consider the longterm effects of everything that I put in my mouth, I’d probably never enjoy another luscious dish of smooth, cold ice cream. But we live each day as though we’ll live forever and, with practice, learn to ignore or accommodate the perilous ambiguities we face.

A gun will not keep you happy, healthy or loved. And, I truly believe, it is far more likely to multiply fear than diminish it. You can shoot at the Grim Reaper all you want, but there’s no protection there. And he’s not even carrying a gun.



Saturday, September 6, 2014

I Know Everything!


Okay, not really. Not yet. But I’m working on it.

I think it started early, this curiosity about the world. See, my father was a schoolteacher and didn’t get paid in the summer. That meant he had to find a summer job every year. They varied from hard physical labor in the gypsum mill to being a Fuller Brush salesman. The summer I was nine, he sold World Book Encyclopedias door-to-door. I don’t know how the pay was, but I know I was the beneficiary in more ways than food on the table. That’s the year we got our very own encyclopedias.

I was a bookworm. I read everything I could get my hands on. We lived just outside a town of 750, surrounded by Iowa cornfields. I was old enough to walk the mile from our house into town to the library by myself, so I was systematically working my way through the children’s section of novels and biographies.

Our set of World Book came with its own stand. The stiff, new books stood enshrined under the window, near the piano, along with Childcraft and Children’s Classics. I memorized the rough texture of the covers, the new book smell. Some volumes were fat ---- B, S ---- some were so thin they combined with other letters. Our family suddenly had the world at our fingertips.

I had plenty of questions. How do caterpillars turn into butterflies? There it was in the B volume, with illustrations. How big around is the earth? Who was Clara Barton? How many presidents were there? Where was China? I could satisfy my curiosity any time I wanted. It came with workbooks, too, which had questions I hadn’t even thought of. I was, as they say, in hog heaven.

Fast forward. I spent a lot of years, as we all do, very busy with family and job responsibilities. I had bills to pay and divorces to negotiate. My curiosity shrank and became more focused. How do you make your own baby food? (circa 1974) What was rural life in Illinois like in 1845? (working as a first-person interpreter at Lincoln Log Cabin Historic Site) How do you register with the state to become a home daycare? (circa 1982) Where the hell is North Carolina? (circa 1987 --- I found it!)

Now, in retirement, I might as well be that nine-year-old once more. Only this time, instead of cumbersome, outdated books, I have the internet. Amazing!

Well, I had the internet. Due to technical difficulties beyond my control, I’ve been without internet access at home for four days. What do I miss the most? Not Facebook, not email ----- Answers! I don’t know how many times I’ve wondered or thought about something and not been able to look it up.  Nothing earth-shattering, just everyday curiosity. And that makes me realize how much I love having the world at my fingertips again.

What is the ‘morning star’? I saw it this morning while I was on the deck doing Qigong. Who was that familiar actor in the tv show from last night? What year were the schools in Raleigh integrated? Does Jamaica tea have any nutritional value? (as I’m enjoying a cold glass in yesterday’s heat) Could Alzheimer’s be classified an autoimmune disease?

I’ll probably never run out of questions. I hope I don’t. And I’ll never have all the answers. But I sure will be glad to get my internet back. I’m going to have quite a backlog at this rate.