Monday, October 23, 2017

Microblog Monday - It's getting to me.

At the end of West Side Story a woman kneels at the side of her dead lover who has been shot. Two rival gangs stand and approach each other with violence on their minds.

"Stay back!" The woman says. She goes to the boy with the gun and takes it from him.

"How do I use this? By pulling this little trigger? You all killed him... not with guns but with hate. Now I can kill too because I have hate."

I'm finding myself hating.
Hating the occupant of the White House.
Hating the people who thought it would be a good idea to get him elected.
Hating the haters.

I'm finding myself in rages.
Rages at the political climate.
I have to stop shouting and yet I can't keep myself from shouting.

I want to de-personalize people. I want to say if they think THAT, then they aren't deserving of the moniker human being.

I want to.

And then I can't. I can't let my body fill up with hate. I can't let myself give into the fear.

How do you not give into the hate? How do you avoid cocooning in your home because you don't think you can handle somebody discriminating against you? How do you avoid it?

It's getting to me.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Tell me your story - Biographies on Audiobook

I've been listening to a lot of books. Right now I'm in the middle of Grant. This book, written by Ron Chernow, the author of Alexander Hamilton, is an in-depth look at the man, the soldier, and the president.  I'm only about eight hours into this 48 hour behemoth of an audiobook but I'm finding time to do things so I can listen.

It is fascinating.

After I finish the book I'll do an in-depth review of it. However I was musing about how some of the audiobooks I have liked the best have been biographies. I've listened to four biographies that I had not read previously and sometimes it is like listening to someone wise tell me about how someone I looked up to (Steve Jobs) might have been a bit of an asshole. Sometimes it is showing me history (Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin) and teaching me that the founding fathers weren't gods. They were just as human as you or I.

The art of listening to biographies is different than listening to fiction. One, you listen and think, oh, this famous and accomplished person did thus and so, and I do thus and so. My best example of this was when I listened to the book of John Adams and I heard how he would pack books first before any trip and often kept a book in his pocket--just in case. I do that as well and miss the abundance of mass market books that I often kept in my purse.

Sometimes I hear parts of a person's life thinking "I don't know how they're going to get out of this one!" This was prevalent when I listened to the Steve Jobs biography. I knew he became successful, but it was the how of the journey that took me by surprise.

But most important about listening to these biographies is the sense that I'm not alone. It is a voice, quite literally, reaching out from my computer or smartphone telling me that even though I am struggling through difficult times, I'm not alone. These people struggled too. They survived. They thrived, and it gives me the strength to go on.


Monday, October 16, 2017

A little more about that me too - Microblog Monday

I had to ask my husband if what I thought was sexual harassment was--before I wrote my Me Too tweet and Facebook page.

And yet the one huge sexual harassment incident in my life, I didn't ask about. I try not to think about it. Yet, yeah I have been thinking about it off and on for the last few months. I'm writing out most of it here, but I'm trying to keep some of the details to myself. Mainly because---well, because.

On my seventeenth birthday my crush and his best friend gave me a novelty item. It was sexual in nature. They gave it to me in front of an assembled group of kids at my locker. It was in a wrapped box, like you'd imagine long-stemmed roses come in. I opened that box to find another wrapped box. When I opened the second wrapped box I heard a giggle. My first real clue that whatever this box contained, was not something I wanted.  Then, when I peeled the wrapping paper back on the second box I saw what it was. Everyone around me--my girlfriends too--started to laugh. I tried to meet my crush's eyes. I was so naive at this point I didn't know what this was, much less what it was for. When some of the assembled people made crude gestures, I got the idea. When I think of my 17th birthday I think of people I barely spoke to coming up to me and making crude gestures.

So, if this happened today it would be all over youtube. The kids in question might get arrested or something. Every time someone did a google search it would come up. I really don't know. But that would be the wrong thing to happen. 

You see, I still consider the crush one of my oldest and dearest friends. 

"You forgave him?" I can almost hear the horror. 

Yes. I did. I do. 

Understand that by the end of that day, he realized what he had done was not just wrong, it was heinous. He sent me yellow roses--two dozen of them. For those who don't know the language of flowers, those mean "forgive me." The next day when someone made a crude gesture, he shut it down and shut it down hard. By the end of that week, maybe even that month,  I would say that he became someone who could never do that again. 

That's the difference between him and say a Harvey Weinstein. He learned from his mistake. He felt horrible remorse. When I allude to this, he cringes as much, if not more, than I do. He hates the 17 year old boy that he was that did that to me. I see that and I forgive that 17 year old boy because the man he became is a good and kind one.  He is not entitled. He is respectful of everyone, women, men, everyone. 

He had to learn by making that horrible mistake in judgement. 

People can change. They have to want to. They have to have empathy enough to realize that what they were doing was wrong. My crush did. The current occupant of the White House doesn't. Now the big problem is when do we stop giving people a chance to change? 




 



Monday, October 9, 2017

Parenting by Peopling - Microblog Monday

I asked my father a question this weekend. I asked him about the times I saw him send checks back--even when they were in his favor.

I asked him if he did it because it was right or because he knew I was watching. He looked at me as if trying to see if I was kidding or not and then he sighed. "Both." He said. "I did the right thing because it was right and because I knew you were watching. You're our third kid and by the time we got to you we knew that if we do something, good or bad, you'd see it and think about it. I wanted to try to be the person I wanted you to be."

I remember little things about my mom. I remembered a Valentine's day when I was in 9th grade. I had done my duty and given my valentines out and I didn't receive a one. Not one. I remember slamming in the house. I remember not telling my mom anything about the day. I remember slamming into my bedroom to be alone  because that's all I would be. I sat sulking and probably crying on my bed. My mom knocked twice and then came into my room--it had been the devil to get her to knock at all! She told me she had to make brownies for something or other and asked if I wanted to help. I did the typical teenage shrug but I remembered eventually going down and making brownies with her. I didn't tell her about my day. She asked and I was monosyllabic. But it is hard to sulk when you're sharing just-baked brownies and milk.

Mom was gone when I thought about this and realized that she probably didn't need to bake brownies that day. I never thanked her for the gift of simple companionship.

Today Belle had no school and I had been scrambling to find out what to do with her. We went grocery shopping. We bought more halloween candy than we should have. But Belle read me things off the list--words like Banana and Milk. Other words she found when I made the sounds for it. We tasted yummy things and had a good time. I get what my father said now. I want to be the kind of person I want my daughter to turn into.


Monday, October 2, 2017

Who shall attain the measure of mans days and who shall not attain it -- Microblog Monday

Today, once more, The United States is reeling from another mass shooting.
Only the places change.

I'm sick about it.

But I was reeling for long before I heard of it.

Social Media, you see. It got me back in touch with people I thought passed out of my life long ago. Years ago I got back in touch with my very first crush. I'll call him E.  I still remember the day we held hands and climbed the monkey bars together. He was always good to me. In second grade I decided I wanted to marry him. I didn't, but we became kind of friends. He never bullied me and often put a stop to bullying when he saw it happening to me. When I finally got onto Facebook he welcomed me and we corresponded when we saw each other.

He was a good, kind, funny, fun, man.

He was.

Yesterday I saw people leaving memorials for E on social media. This must be a joke. I thought.  He's my age. He wasn't sick. He can't be dead.

Of course it was true. That smiling boy who took my hand in second grade,  went to sleep last night and never woke up. He had (that we know at this time) no underlying health problems. He had no drug problems. He did not die of pancreatic cancer like the valedictorian of my high school class. No one knows why or what happened. We only know that the people who knew him have a darkness in their lives where his light was.

I'm now asking the same questions the family and friends of those killed in Las Vegas are asking. I'm grieving. I always meant to send a text to him that maybe we could meet and hang out. I always thought that there was time. I always thought that there would still be time. Why wasn't there time?

On one of the memorials someone quoted the title quote. It is from the Yom Kippur liturgy. I wondered if E sat in a synagogue on Yom Kippur and listened to it on his last day.

There are times where this whole life thing doesn't make sense. It is up to us to try to make some degree of sense. The week before I went out to see my high school crush/best friend for the first time in years. Both our families had a great time and I plan to see more of each other. I don't know how much time we have.

What would you do if you knew that you didn't have much time? What is stopping you?