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. 

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

Guns, Guns Everywhere, and not a Life to Save

I’ve been thinking of the 2^nd 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.

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.

I believe I don't know

With age comes wisdom, so they say. I just celebrated the 64th anniversary of my birth. I told my mother, as she sat in her wheelchair staring blankly, that 64 years ago she had her first baby, and it was me. I didn't take it personally that she had no idea what I was talking about. She did smile at me before the visit ended, though.

I've been considering the difference between what I know and what I believe. I'm not the first person ever to do that ----- that much I know. I do wonder what the relationship is between my beliefs and what I perceive as reality, though. 

In my Qigong class yesterday, we had a guided meditation followed by movement and postures designed to optimize letting go of blockages, opening the way for chi to flow. I do this three times a week, and have done for more than a year. During that time, I've experienced changes in myself, mainly of the invisible sort. My sense of well-being has expanded considerably.

But yesterday, I felt newly challenged to look at the beliefs that carve me out of everything else. If I take up space ---- and I take up a lot more space than I used to ----- that means there's an Out There and an In Here. At least, that's how it seems to me. But what if it's not as simple as that? What if my configuration of molecules and cells and blood and guts is an outpicturing of my tightly held beliefs? It gets slippery here.

There was a time, about 50 years ago, when I believed strongly that any grade below a B meant that I was hopelessly stupid and not just a failure, but a total loser. When I worked as hard as I knew how and still got a D in Algebra, I fell apart. I felt doomed, embarrassed, stained with an indelible mark. I couldn't conceive of any other interpretation of that grade on a report card. I was a failure at math. Forever. That belief, from a single class, had long term repercussions --- I could not risk taking a math class in college. I scoured the catalog and chose a major that didn't involve any more than "Kiddie Math" ---- a math methods class for elementary teachers.

There have been many, many instances like that, beliefs that shaped who I experience myself to be based on nothing more substantial than other people's judgments. The most enduring has been circumference. To this day, deep inside, I can't argue myself out of the belief that somehow I have failed in life because I'm not a size 5. 

The meditation on Friday opened a little window on that, though. If it is a long-ingrained, universally reinforced belief, isn't it possible, in theory at least, to unbelieve it? In fact, isn't that the only relief there is? A never-ending thought loop is the tightest prison I know. It feeds itself perpetually and is ultimately connected to nothing in "real" life because it all happens inside my head. 

It's been about 3 weeks since I had a long talk with my dear friend Sharon about coming into our own as Crones ---- claiming our wisdom and growth without false modesty and self-deprecation. There is a great deal to be said for living long enough to learn some things, and that's what we've done and are still doing. We can reap the rewards of increased serenity, peace of mind, acceptance and yes, a slower pace. Things are not so urgent anymore. Thank Goodness!

It is not inconceivable that one day I will be in my mother's position. I don't expect it. I no longer spend much time worrying about it. But I'm not in la-la land, either. Both of my parents had Alzheimer's Disease, which may well increase my odds.

Therefore, in my mid-sixties, the time I have left is more precious than ever. Each day is fresh. There are no throw-away days. That doesn't mean I have to live in some sort of pressure cooker attempt to By God Enjoy Every Minute. That would be the exact opposite of what's called for. It actually means that I have the awareness and wisdom to focus on the present. I'm not out to save the world. I'm happy sweeping my own piece of the planet.

I've decided to engage in some thought experiments, letting those life and happiness denying beliefs slide away. Through recognition, challenges, and continuing the meditative and movement practices I already have, I can shape my thoughts and beliefs. Nobody else can. I'll be like Bill Cosby with his old joke about his kids: "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."

Shelter in the chaos

I'm in one of my writing spaces. I have the comfort of dogs and cats. Jill is a few feet away in her studio. Coffee cup at my elbow, hummingbirds outside the window, jazz playing in my ears. It's my shelter, my refuge, my safe space, my home. Not everybody has that.

Over the past week, as I've been checking in on the news sporadically, the trouble in Ferguson MO has punctured my serenity. It runs parallel to a book I'm reading at the moment, Jason Sokol's There Goes My Everything. On social media, I've seen memes and pictures and outraged comparisons to the Civil Rights movement half a century ago. (Half a century? Damn, I'm old.)

This book is subtitled: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975. It reads like a dissertation, which I suppose was its basis, and was published in 2006. At this moment, it is helpful for me, because it provides a historical perspective.

It's not news to anybody that race is a fraught subject in the US. I don't think I have much to offer that hasn't already been said and re-said a gazillion times before. All I have to go on is my own limited experience. That's where having been on the planet for awhile comes in handy.

My own experiences with civil unrest are defined by only a couple of times in the distant past. I'm lucky that way. My neighborhood was only marginally involved. My sense of personal security was not completely destroyed, though it was definitely rattled. Neither involved overt racism. Both involved "otherness" and authoritarianism.

I have vivid memories of the armed, organized, National Guard marching on my campus, the University of Illinois at Urbana. We lived on Green Street only a couple of blocks from campus, and it was a main drag. In the morning, we would see the Guard close it to citizens and make their presence known, ostentatiously marching to the campus. They swept down the quad, gathering up students for arrest. While my sympathies did lie with the protesters, and I attended rallies and prepared to be tear-gassed, according to the steps on my "Kill The Pigs" flyer, I was still concerned with getting to class and finals. The semester was almost over. I needed those credits. But students at Kent State and Jackson State were being killed on their college campuses. People were marching and running and shouting and throwing things right there where I lived and went to school. Once, I got caught in a canyon between buildings with the Guard coming at me and thought I was in deep shit ---- I turned and ran, hoping I would not be shot.

The Revolution was upon us.

My only other brush with rioting in the streets came in San Francisco following the murders of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone. I worked an 8pm - 4am shift in the Federal Building, back when computers took up entire rooms and had to be backed up on tape every night. That was my lonely job, in a towering building with only a front door security guard in the building, at least as far as I knew. I was too close to City Hall for comfort. Cars got turned over and ignited. People massed in the streets. There was shouting. I was afraid to come or go. I stayed put. It didn't feel like my war to fight, but harking back to my college years, my sympathies always landed with the people, not the armed authorities.

I don't know what sparks any individual riot. They may occur spontaneously, but they are not out of the blue. Unrest and rioting in the streets come from a cause, from many causes, but it seems to me it boils down to desperation. No other voice will be heard. It's the voice of people who have been ignored and shunted aside too long. 

Have you ever tried to explain yourself to someone who won't let you get a word in, who won't listen to anything you have to say, who is completely uninterested in your point of view? Don't you want to slap him (or her)? Not that it would do any good. It wouldn't change anything and would likely make it all worse and you'd wind up hurting more than you started. But still.... SMACK! "Listen to me, you righteous mother-fucker! I'm here in front of you!"

Ferguson slapped America. Selma, Detroit, Los Angeles. So many others. 

Wake up! We're here! We matter!

All of us others ----- All of us humans.

Just listen, please, with heart, not fear.

Behind those eyeballs

A facebook friend recently posed the question "If you could be anyone else for a day, who would it be?"  My rather flippant answer was "You?" That's started a chain reaction in my mind that has me up at 4 AM.

I tried to explain, but quickly found myself sounding like a creepy stalker. The thing is, the whole idea of being inside of another person's head is pretty creepy and stalker-like. Before long, I realized that while other folks on the thread wanted to be be Mother Teresa or Eleanor Roosevelt, I pretty much want to find out what it's like inside everybody. 

This hits on one of my most persistent mental constructs. Maybe this should be just between me and my therapist, but I frequently think about people I'm talking to, people I see in the store, other drivers, all looking out from behind their own eyeballs, not experiencing the same thing I am, even if we're in the same place. 

I am emphatically not a person who consumes horror media. I never watch graphically violent movies. I even close my eyes to keep from watching your run-of-the-mill shootouts and car chases. But when I think about getting inside somebody else's head, I'm drawn like a shark to the Jefferey Dahmers and Bernie Madoffs. What makes someone do things like that? What is it like in there?

Would I want to be them for a day? Hell no. But maybe for an hour or two. Eleanor Roosevelt or James Baldwin? Sure, them too. The heavily tatooed cashier at Food Lion? Yup, count me in. I'm curious about pretty much everyone --- the pre-school teacher and the plumber, the retirement-age guy who comes around to check our termite traps, even the plunderers and murderers waging holy war across Iraq right now. What is it like inside that mind?

Writing books is the closest I can get to being inside someone else's head. You often hear writers say that the characters take on a life of their own. They take off in unforeseen directions and hijack the story. I always wonder where the characters who populate my books come from. I think it's from my insatiable curiosity about what makes people tick.

I've known my wife Jill for 12 years. We've spent hours and days and weeks talking, going to couple's counselling, sharing secrets, spilling guts. Do I know her? Yes, . . . and no. We often say the same thing at the same time. I can predict with some certainty what she will say or think about many things, though she still surprises me. But I don't know what it's like to be her. I can't swim in her thoughts and look out from her unique perspective.

If I had to choose one person in the world to be for a day, I couldn't do it. The closest would be my mother, but not for a day, oh, heavens no. End stage Alzheimer's would be scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. But yes, I wish I could know what goes on in my Mama's mind. What does she see from behind those eyeballs? How much does she know? Is she still in there ----- trapped and unable to communicate? Does she know who I am? Does she know who she is?

So what do you think, is it a writer thing, this wanting to worm my way into other people's heads? Or maybe I should just call my therapist.

I wonder what goes on behind her eyeballs.