Rebellious Thoughts of a Woman

Where's My Coffee?

It seems that break-time has descended upon me. As in take a break from writing the blog. Although it seems more that writing has taken a break from me because I have become writingless. In the past few weeks no thoughts or ideas have germinated, and certainly none have grown. I am simply striding along. Yes, I have become a strider. A friend told me that she thinks it has to do with my father’s recent death, and she is probably right. But beyond that, or because of that, of late life has come to feel depthless. Or is it that peaks of happiness seem so remote? Yes, I am to make my own happiness. Yes, I am to make my own adventures and successes and joys. But how do you go about doing that when you have no vitality except in a corner of your mind that is more a reminder of the kernel of self gone by than a piece of current passion?

There are no excuses and no places to hide. There are no battles to be had and survived. There is the ebb and flow. There is just me.

Lately I stay up way past my 9 o’clock bedtime because too often I regret the passage of another day that is simply a notch on a wall and not an experience.

Now I am tired because the end of the day, the end of the weekend, has come and with it no anticipation of relief through sleep. No relief. Just more of the same monotony of experience and thought, and that is so trying and tiring. But how can I make myself push past who I am in order to be someone who bursts forth with excitement? A slump. Perhaps. Or is it a new place? In the happy, happy way we are supposed to think I am supposed to think that this is some plateau before I reach up, up, up to a higher level of fulfillment and satisfaction. But it doesn’t feel that way. It feels that I have reached a treadmill quality of life with no buttons to push to change pace or direction.

I didn’t think I had it in me to get this far. I thought that I would only get a sentence or two out, like a “Back in Five Minutes” sign. Does that mean that I am not as blank as I thought? Or does it mean that I am always self aware, even as I seep down, depleted? I don’t want to fight this quietness that is calling for control; I will respect it.

Back when…

It’s Still Snowing in Northern Virginia

I just finished the one bag of potato chips that I bought yesterday in my harrowing journey to the supermarket, where the supermarket parking lot was the most harrowing aspect since it does not seem to have been plowed except by the tires of cabin-fever suffering adults in need of milk, bread, butter, yogurt and Cheese Puffs, and am about to embark on my first cup of hot chocolate since I forgot to buy coffee beans and am getting anxious that I will not have enough for my morning cup until I can next exit the cabin. It’s a blizzard outside, as it’s been for hours, and I’m now on my fourth day of school closure (not counting last Wednesday for a mere three inches of snow). For a week, until Monday, my older daughter was here, as was my younger daughter and my dog. Now I am home alone. No one is watching me snack, and watching junk tv, and napping, and reading the weather report over and over, and looking to see it the moment it is posted: the announcement that school will be closed tomorrow. (They just made the announcement: school will be closed on Thursday and Friday.)

In the midst of all the busy-ness, I have had some time to reflect on a number of things. One of the things that kept me most occupied (other than Sarah Palin and the fact that this is a woman who garners an incredible amount of attention as opposed to the countless intelligent, caring women who are not heard from because our media and far too many people are incredibly stupid and selfish—sorry) is hearing that some Republican senators say that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell should stay in place because otherwise unit cohesion will be at stake. Mind you, I have never been in the military and I am not a lesbian, so my response comes from who I am: a woman who lives in this country, and in this world. A country and a world still dominated by far too much violence, especially against women. So tell me, how is it that lying about your sexual orientation will rip at the effectiveness of our military while the unprecedented number of suicides, and attacks and harassment of females in the military don’t do that? I don’t get it.

I know, putting suicide and rape in the same sentence is a bit of a stretch, but seriously, if they really cared about each and every soldier and not some inane pandering to people who have stored their compassion in toe nail clippings boxes, wouldn’t they get up and cry for change that will help soldiers deal with their internal and external wounds? (Never mind stopping the wars and every drum call for war—including the latest Palin inanity of suggesting that going to war with Iran would be a way for Obama to definitely get re-elected. Why is anyone listening to this incredibly mean and stupid woman? Is it because she is a woman? I really don’t get it.) And wouldn’t they call for doing something—I know, this is a tall-order societal thing—to stop men’s abuse of women as some sort of ritual for proving masculinity the world over.

How is it that knowing that someone in your unit is gay and dealing with that is worse than thinking that maybe someone in your unit is gay and having to be overly cautious because you don’t want to offend him? I, of course, am going on the assumption that people who need to work together can actually work together, and do their utmost to make for a positive environment where everyone can work and be valued. Oops, not talking about the Senate. Rather, I'm talking about everyone else who has learned to act grown-up at work, because that’s the only way to potentially keep a job and a paycheck coming.

I don’t have the statistics at hand and I’m not going to get side-tracked by Googling it or asking my friend who is writing about violence against women in the military, but it is unprecedented. Shouldn’t this have an enormous effect on unit cohesion or military might? And not just for the women who are scared and degraded and hurt, and not just for the men who are the perpetrators. But what of the men who find it offensive, wouldn’t their unit cohesion be demoralized knowing that they are living with rapists and abusers?

Can’t the hypocrisy ever end? What kind of world could we possibly be trying to create if the “enforcers” of that philosophy are not able to be free? Free to express their sexuality. Free to go to the bathroom at night without fearing of being raped. Free to express their nightmares without worrying about appearing weak.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. How about working to create a society that values an open dialogue of non-ideologues? How about limiting the number of times stupid ideas and stupid people are quoted in a day? Yes, I know, who is to decide? How about this: If what you say hurts people for no reason other than self-aggrandizement, then what you said is stupid and you might be as well. Is that hypocrisy? I’m not sure. For goodness’s sake, isn’t there a way to treat everyone with respect? You would think it’s a basic human right: Be respected and valued. Does that really infringe on someone else’s right to be respected and valued? I would say only if your values infringe on other people; in that case I would say that your values are the ones that need to be clipped.

I think the snow needs to stop and I need to get out of here for a while.

A Day, This Day

Today it has been snowing since morning. All is white, except now it is an eerie white, lit by streetlamps.

Today I finished writing the first draft of my novel.

Today I listened to “Beloved Wife” by Natalie Merchant so often that the tears have finally stopped pouring.

Today is? was? my parent’s 55th wedding anniversary.

Today I didn’t blame anyone for anything.

Today I took three walks in the snow, one whose purpose was simply to walk in the snow and not an opportunity for Poops to poop.

Today I left exman a voice message about getting a Get (Jewish divorce decree) next week.

Today I baked a cake and cooked fish; one was very good and the other was not.

Today I came up with a few writing assignments for my students.

Today I was here to hear the thoughts and frustrations of my mother and a few friends.

Today I was the disappointing mother to a 14-year-old who had hoped for a snowstorm-event-planner mother.

Today still has two more hours. But it is time to go to sleep. What more can a day bring, except tomorrow.

More Thoughts on People

I’m still mulling people’s reactions to each other, or perhaps I am still mulling how people live their lives so separate from each other. Or maybe I’m mulling how I’m still disappointed in people, but I'm coming out of that into a disappointed acceptance.

The other day I received in the mail a condolence card from my colleagues. I cried as I read through their comments, touched that were sending out their thoughts to me and that they had made this gesture. But then I caught myself: so, they all knew that my father had passed away and yet they hadn’t said anything to me face-to-face. At first they got a sort of pass because it was possible that they hadn’t known that he had died, but now I know that they had known and yet they thought that “I’m sorry for your loss” on a card was sentiment enough. Maybe it is—in their worlds—but not in mine.

Yes, I know. My father died and your life goes on unaffected. Well, if my father hadn’t led by example never to curse I would say “f%#* you” to all those who are so callous. I’m in an angry mood, maybe it’s a stage of reacting to people’s reactions when called to rise to the occasion. First, disappointment, then anger. What comes next? Maybe, as a few of you suggested, cut the dead wood. Forget about those people who don’t want their lives to intersect with mine or who don’t know how to intersect with other people.

Yes, I should focus on my one colleague who gave to me a bottle of wine with a smiley face on it—Happy Wine—because she knew I’d “been having a tough time.”

I am going to resist retreating again from people. And I am going to try not to absorb the lesson “not to expect anything from people.” I am going to try to continue living my life according to the rule “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man,” because I prefer some tears of disappointment in others over tears of disappointment in myself.

Life lessons. Is that what life is all about? Is life like a billboard on a busy road? We keep passing the signs displaying the lessons, but only after we’ve driven by them countless times do we finally understand what they’re saying. Unfortunately, there are lots of drivers who are so focused or distracted or inept that they never look around, and so they never see the signs.

The latest sign: I’m going to stay focused (and not feel bad about it) of comprehending the signs and not letting the sign-less distract me.

Strength and Love

Strength and thoughts and prayers of love and healing and comfort to my father who is battling cancer--and to all those and their loved ones who are sick.

Mi Sheberakh (The Jewish Prayer for Healing)
May the One who blessed our ancestors--Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah--bless and heal those who are ill. May God overflow with compassion upon them, to restore them, to heal them, to strengthen them, to enliven them. That God will send them, speedily, a complete healing--healing of the soul and healing of the body--along with all the ill, among the people of Israel and all humankind, soon, speedily, without delay, and let us all say: Amen!

PMS, who needs it

I’d like to know why when I am PMSing I have to have doubts of self-worth? Why can’t I get annoyed at everyone else and curse at the bad drivers on the road who cut me off and who don’t know how to signal? Why, why can’t I satisfy the hormones within by looking at the unsavory behaviors of others? Why can’t I rage at them instead of turning on myself? This surely can’t be some kind of self-preservation instinct because it just tears at my self.

In my younger years I don’t remember feeling this way once a month. In my much younger years there was the agony of one-day cramps. In my young motherhood years there were barely any reactions. In the past few years there has been a pre-headache, but now, now there is far too much self-dissection that I could surely do without that accompanies the headaches. It’s lovely that my body is still functioning as a woman’s should even though I have no intention of becoming a mumsey again and surely no man seems to find my womanly curves of any interest, so why do I have to succumb to a monthly session with the toughest therapist around—my own inner angst unleashed? It’s an agony to be consumed with so much doubt; have I lived 48 years, building to a generally confident woman, only to be most efficiently mocked at by myself? I don’t really need the monthly readjustment phase because it doesn’t readjust so efficiently, there’s always a lingering to that uncomfortable, unknowing teen that I was when I first started PMSing. Could there be any reason for this? Do I need to think about how bad I am as a person on such a harsh schedule?

Why can’t I be unsettlingly satisfied with myself once a month? Would that be a bad thing—to glow and gloat? Wouldn’t that serve a better purpose than to think about my uselessness? Do we get the PMS we deserve? Is this an eternal voice that I need to battle, constantly, so that I will not let myself subtly be submerged but will, instead, ultimately emerge chrysalis-like to the mindset that I have been growing into? Is this the last vestige of the self-doubt that I have harbored within for so very long? Will I finally conquer self-doubt when I don’t let myself be waylaid by a monthly hormonal imbalance? Can that be done? Can I be stronger than myself?

I guess I have another month to see. Maybe I should mark my calendar so that I won’t be blindsided but will be prepared to fight back and conquer those doubts that I don’t need invading my confidence.

Feminism, Still Alive and Pertinent to Me. WooHoo!

I think I will be perceived as just another bitter woman, but so be it. If I can’t change perceptions, I might as well go with them.

• I’m sick of the male/female ratio of songs played on the radio with so many more boys than girls you would think that men are the vast majority of the population.

• I’m sick of the male/female ratio of DJs on the radio. Except for a couple of afternoon shows and the ubiquitous side-kick, it’s rare to hear a woman’s voice. 

• I’m sick of the male/female ratio on the news. Is that why I have stopped watching the news? Or is it the news itself? Or is there some connection between the two?

• I’m sick of the male/female ratio in government. I know, I know, nothing new about old white guys, but for goodness’ sakes, can’t they just stop thinking that they should decide everything for the rest of us and people agreeing by voting for them.

• I’m tired of everyone I know having a “big boss” who is a man.

I know none of this is groundbreaking or insightful, but so be it. Sometimes the tried and true just really can get you down.

• And I’m tired that people think it’s tiring that this needs to be continually revisited.

• And, as noted at She Writes about Publishers Weekly’s compendium of the ten best books of 2009: I'm tired that so often those who are acknowledged in certain fields, writing, are men. All of the top ten books are by men talking about sort-of men-things. Really? No women wrote great books in 2009? Oops. Maybe they wrote them but didn’t get them published?  Just another bitter thought with no basis in any research—just life.

• And I’m annoyed that my younger daughter thinks I’m a crazy woman for thinking these things. Wait. Maybe I shouldn’t be annoyed at that. Perhaps it’s a sign that the next generation has truly changed and things will change. Or. Or that generation just doesn’t care and will take society as it is.

• And I’m pissed that the healthcare bill lets men continue to receive Viagra so they can control themselves, but us women are being denied the same thing—to have control over our own bodies.

 I guess the time for being tired, annoyed and pissed is far from being over, unfortunately.

Friday Night, Alone

When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, there was no fourteen-year-old who greeted me by closing the door to her bedroom but then popping out a few minutes later to ask what’s to eat, nor was there a Maltese named Poops who jumped up and danced on his hind legs when he saw me. There was only the dining room table with its self-created collection of piles to greet me. It's his weekend with them both.

I unpacked the bag of groceries that I bought for my evening at home, trying to ignore the silence by turning on the radio. I put away the frozen pizza and the two bottles of beer. After I responded to some emails, I went into my daughter’s room, piled her clothes on a chair as I had done when I was her age instead of the floor mounds that she prefers, arranged her five pillows on her bed, lay down, and lifted up the remote for what would be hours of unending numbness. It’s not that my job is so hard that I need to unwind so intensely, perhaps it’s because I don’t watch tv other than those Friday nights (okay, the occasional Saturday night if I’ve been grading or on the computer for too long—I think I need a “life”) but it is time that enables me to detach from my mind. Perhaps this is how I meditate. Sometimes it gets hard to think and be aware.

So there I was, on a hot pink sheet for hours watching Say Yes to the Dress and House Hunters International. The thought of why it is always those two programs that I return to kept trying to break into my mindlessness. Is it because I like to see people so happy, so ready to step into another phase of their lives, that I want to become a voyeur? Is it that I wish that for myself and so I live vicariously through them? Maybe it’s a bit of both; maybe I’m anticipating more change. But it’s also that there is nothing else that I can settle my mind onto. I cannot watch the news or opinion shows because I’m tired of listening to people open and close their mouths repeatedly without saying anything. (I don’t ignore the news, I still read mine.) I know, I know, I’m sure some of my students say that about me [especially the ones who wrote “I hate this class” on my “What I Want to Do This Year” sign on the backboard before I ripped it off in a moment that combined hurt and bitchiness (no one was there to witness this act)]. And I can’t watch scripted programs because everything is so fake and contrived that I don’t see how I could ever have been compelled to watch so much falsity in writing and acting.

How bare can I make my life? Is that why I need to watch tv every once in a while? How much can my life, a life, revolve around one’s actions and thoughts and the people one encounters? Is that why we read and watch? Is that how we expand our circle if we need it to be larger than it is in reality? Or do we need to incorporate ideas and people and images that don’t always challenge us and demand attention from us on a personal level? Do I need the numbness because there are so many people I need to care about everyday that I need to just stop sometimes? In a week I have about 185 students, each is an individual who I need—want—to understand and reach, and who I care about. Maybe it is about the job. Maybe it’s more draining than I realized. I get up in front of my classes three times a day and on religious school days, four or six times a day. And each time I’m on stage; I need to sense the audience and project, and thrust my personality out so that it meshes with the instruction. Is that why I don’t watch dramas? Not because of the corny stories and plasticine acting, but because I have too many lives to care about that I cannot expand my heart anymore?

Is this about self-preservation? Do I need to return my thoughts and cares to myself instead of always extending them and sharing them? Do I need to come back to myself at the end of the week because if I didn’t there wouldn’t be anything to share the next week? When I walk, I think. When I read, I think. When I watch, I detach. Maybe it’s not as much of a time-waster as I thought.

Where’s the remote?

Random Thoughts on a Sunny Sunday

 • How is it that we are supposed to help a country, Iraq, if so many people there find that killing each other is better than learning to live with each other? Yes, it’s only a few who are terrorists. Yes, the terrorists might not even be from there. Yes, maybe the terrorists became terrorists after the US-invasion and occupation. But still, it’s hard to keep caring about people who keep blowing themselves up. Blowing each other up at weddings, while shopping, while looking for a job, while working, and worst of all, while mourning a loss at a funeral. Isn’t there a purpose to life other than another person’s death?

• Why do wealthy people register for gifts when they get married? Really? People need to buy gifts for Ivanka Trump and her new husband, who are both from real estate empire families. Can’t a person ever say enough? Why not a gift registry of organizations to donate to if they feel that they always deserve something? They should be ashamed of themselves.

• I wonder what happens in a teen’s mind that enables him to transition from writing essays that are merely lists in paragraph form to writing essays that analyze? Now I know why I’m happy to be teaching 12th graders and not just 9th graders: there are the occasional thoughts swirling around.

• Helicopter parents are not the only helicopters around, this morning I observed a helicopter wife. Really? He can’t put his own food into the microwave and spread the butter on his own bagel? He can hold the door for you but he can’t carry his cup of coffee? Are thoughts like these a reason why I am unattached?

• There is a man out there with whom I will find comfort, but I don’t know if we will find each other.

• Being a three-quarter empty-nester is better than being a complete empty-nester, but my, how I miss being on-duty all of the time. I’m pleased that both of my daughters are independent, and that I am independent of them, but it’s still hard to have a few dishes that reflects my eating and snacking habits.

• It’s beautiful outside. It’s time to put a bra on and go pick up my daughter from her weekend. She will probably say “okay” and turn away when I ask her how her weekend was. But we will be together on this beautifully sunny afternoon for at least a little while and I will be relieved from the pressure of thinking about myself and the world we live in. Enjoy the day.

The Symbolism of the Garbage

The other morning when I threw the garbage out in the little enclosed area that contains the garbage bins, there were two empty boxes. The boxes were for two different kinds of nerf weaponry. Both of them seemed to be of machine guns. From the picture they both looked big, they both were supposed to simulate the real thing, although the brown and orange colors were probably a give-away. The weapon in the bigger box included an ammunition belt that could be slung over the shoulder.

A few days before there was another empty box in the garbage area that caught my attention. It was for a beer pong table. I didn’t know that there was such a thing. I had heard of beer pong (and do not laugh and say I’m lying when I say I have never played the game) but I didn’t know that there was equipment to purchase.

Unlike my very annoying and nosy downstairs neighbor, I don’t know all of the people who live in my new neighborhood. But I have my suspicions as to who goes with which box. There are two quite buff and attractive young twenty-something men (one is a slightly smaller version of the romance novel cover guy, Fabio; my daughter looked shocked at me when I told her he was handsome) who I suspect have called dibs on the beer pong table. And either they, too, can claim ownership to the guns, or the two red-headed brothers who my daughter might babysit for if she is ever here long enough, what with visiting my parents, going to camp, going to the beach with a friend, having sleepovers with other hair-straightening friends, oh, and being at her father’s house, she hasn’t had the time. But I could be wrong, the hunks might also own the machine guns.

While I am not in the habit of checking out people’s garbage, I was startled/annoyed/upset by those boxes. I even did a double-take, reading that the beer pong table was in accordance with an organization (I think it was the Beer Pong Federation). Seriously, official equipment for a drinking game? And the guns. I just stared (putting my head at a sideways angle) at the picture of the cute boy who could just as easily be in an ad for milk holding this huge gun imitating some macho gunslinger movie hero. What? It’s not enough to feel masculine with a little revolver, they need body-size machine guns? 

For weeks now I have been reading about the health care debate and how it’s so heated. I even went to a town hall meeting the other night and was witness to the screeching and shouting and rudeness (post to come; note, on top of an official sign I wrote “Healthcare Not Warfare” on my proudly-raised sign). Is it no wonder that our society is so loud and unhearing when our foundation seems to be non-existent? I know it’s a leap, but seriously, guns as toys and mindless drinking games are not new, but they seem to have become so cornerstone or so emblematic that it’s no wonder that there is no problem with throwing money at the military but none to drop in a bucket for the sick.

Is it silly or simplistic for me to tie those boxes into the healthcare reform debate or even the health of the country? No. As the English teacher I will resume being next week, they are symbols—standing for themselves and something else. Guns. Well, the worth of a life is surely one thing. So, too, is the ability to think that your life and beliefs are more important than someone else’s. And drinking. Becoming numb—casting off thoughts or doubts or concerns or questions for blankness. Every time I hear people (even the wonderfully gentlemanly director of the writing program class I took this summer) talk about getting drunk to celebrate something it makes me wonder why people want to deaden their minds? Is that why people can believe untruths so easily, because not only are they not used to thinking for themselves, but even thinking itself is disparaged? I can imagine that the thoughts one has might be so painful that haze is better, but at some point, the haze must be cleared.

This debate is surely about more than healthcare. It is about the mental health of our nation as a collective whole. Behind the chants “Yes We Can” and “No You Won’t” there is a pushing and a pulling to and against what it means to be an American, about what America stands for.

What I perceive as garbage (I would have preferred the boxes and their contents in the garbage) is someone else’s gift that was saved for and anticipated. Maybe the most that can be hoped for is that one person can’t deny another person her gift. Yes, that seems right. And perhaps the person carrying the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag should look at how her pronouncements would deny someone else what she sorely wants—and needs.

601 Posts on the Blog, 601 Posts on the Blog

Yes, there are 601 posts on the blog. And unlike bottles of beer on the wall, these stay, and are even added to. I started blogging in April 2008; the need to express myself was so great then that there were days when I made two or even three posts. Now, here it is four days since my last post. The anguish and frustration which fueled me in the beginning are still there, but transformed into a more manageable self-awareness and understanding. Perhaps, too, I have been transformed from writing the pain, to being a writer of pain--and happiness (occasionally).

I cannot express how thankful I am for those of you who have come by and read my posts, whether you have left comments or not, because it is what makes me realize that I am communicating, that what has seared me is being heard and contemplated, and, perhaps, has helped someone else.

As always, welcome and thank you.  

I can't resist

I can't help but laugh when I see the blustering Dick Armey in the news lately. He comes off as a man of no morals, and for whom money and strong arm tactics are central--to hell with people. He talks of tyranny as a man who knows--does anyone seem more tyrannical than him? Is it any wonder that exman, when he was still on his way up, found a friend and mentor in Dick Armey? They were buds for a while.

Arrogant men, can't they just bother each other and leave the rest of us alone?   

Where I'd Like to Live

Sometimes I see the name of a street and I say to myself, "I would like to live there." But today I really found the street on which I would like to live. The street is on the side of a mountain in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia.

Yes, I would like to live on "Glimpse of Heaven Lane."

Of course, a few miles down the road was a street on which I would not like to live. That would be on "Gun Barrel Lane."

On the "street of what name" would you like, or not like, to live? 

I Wish I Knew More about How the World Works

The camp my daughter is going to has a two-year old policy that I am required to abide by this year, and that is that luggage cannot go with them on the camp bus, but must be shipped separately. I was given the okay to not ship with their very expensive shipper and to use another shipper.

Last week I went to a FedEx office where I was told that it would take from four to five days to ship a duffle bag from Northern Virginia to her camp in Pennsylvania. I asked approximately how much it would cost. They asked me the approximate weight and size of the bag. I told them and got an estimate. I did the same thing with UPS, and while the price was pretty much the same, they told me two business days. Okay, we’ll use UPS.

Camp starts on Tuesday and she was with her father until Friday afternoon, so we really had to hustle with the packing. When I went in to ship the stuff on Saturday morning, the price came out to be higher than I expected. I looked at the breakdown of the cost and there was an $11.75 charge for each bag. Oh, said the attendant, that’s because you’re not shipping in boxes but in bags. Everything was already packed and I was all tense about it not getting there on time anyway, so I paid the bill and left, annoyed, of course. Why hadn’t anyone told me: “If you send your things in a box it will be cheaper”? Yes, I know, they get to make money on me that way. But I don’t think that is the issue here, nor is it that they don’t care about customer satisfaction. I think the problem is that people don’t look behind the questions that are asked of them or the step in the process that they are currently doing. They are the form, not people.

Friday, in the mad dash to get all the things she needs for camp, we were in a store about to buy a tank top when the cashier asked if my daughter had tried on jeans. No, we responded. To which she said that if she just tries on a pair of jeans, we get a $10 discount on any purchase. So off darling went to try on a pair of jeans (they were too short on her). I certainly would not have known about that deal if the cashier hadn’t said something to me. I wonder how many other deals I’m missing out because I don’t know to ask for them because I don’t know of their existence. 

If they have the deal, why not let us all in on it? Maybe this is a real instance of discrimination, not white, black, male or female, but those on the inside versus those on the outside. Why can’t we all be on the inside? If the deal is too expensive, then cut it out altogether. If you want to get some business, then tell everyone. How annoying.

Swallow away my fears

If I swallow deeply, maybe I can swallow away my fears.

If I sigh fully, maybe I can sigh away my anxieties.

If I stare intently, maybe I can stare away the things I don't want to see.

If I scream loudly, maybe I can scream away my hatreds.

If I shudder strongly, maybe I can shudder away my discontents.

And if I smile purely, maybe I can smile in happiness.

Blogging Thought Bubble

It finally came to me the other day why I have not wanted to blog lately, neither read nor write. It’s that blogging is a conversation, an on-going conversation at that, and since I am still at my core an introvert, a writer, this constant discussion is counter to what I usually do, or have done. It’s an illusion, this blogging, you think you’re writing, but you’re really conversing. The burnt-out feeling that I had was from too much interaction, not keeping things in to stir and settle, and not giving myself time to observe without formulating reflections. Sure, I’m writing but at a certain point, especially lately, posts have taken on a more conversational tone than a reflective one, and that is what I think has triggered my discomfort.

Perhaps I started writing for an audience and not myself. No, that’s not quite what I mean. Maybe I have been writing to write as opposed to writing to develop thoughts—in myself and the reader. Yes, I think that is what I am thinking. I have not been giving myself time to not write, to have writer’s block (I cannot believe that I am saying this), which perhaps is what I need every once in a while to do some assessing, or at least to let my thoughts catch up to my keyboard. Not that I have any intention of stopping to write, it is, after all, what I have wanted to do since I was 18 when I realized that I don’t have to just read books, I can write them too, but maybe I need to regain that distance from the writing to the reading that enables more intensity—for both the writer and the reader.

Of late I have read too many posts that really are like phone conversations with one’s friends about the kids and the spouse and the in-laws and work and trip plans and diets and and and. But that is not what I want to do—or read (I am setting myself up for desertion here), I really want to write from my depths as I have done for most of the past year (yes, yesterday was my blogiversary) and so I need to release this blogging-discussion bug that seems to have invaded me. I need to get back to writing as an expression of self and understanding of the world, and not just because it's my turn to talk.   

Life's Layers

The other day I started thinking of a different way to think of life, that life is not a series of steps that an individual takes in his or her life where each step leads one away from one’s previous steps. Instead, each series of steps is layered over those series of steps that came before it. Because, really, we do not walk away from our actions and our words, rather we build on them.  We are not going forward, because that would make the past as if non-existent, rather each experience is added onto those that came before it to create a layered life—a deeper life with more dimensions (layers). You may not remember previous layers, but that does not mean that they are not there.

Sights around DC

On Friday afternoon, on my way to drop off my case files to my new lawyer, I had to take a big detour to my previous lawyer’s office because he forgot to give me all of the files when I went there the day before, I realized that I forgot my cell phone at school. I had to go back, since it’s my only phone, as in I don’t have a landline.

On my way back out again I spoke to both of my daughters since both of them wanted me—in similar but conflicting ways. Older daughter wanted me for my car so she could hang out with a friend. Younger daughter wanted me as a driver to pick up her and her friend from their Friday night movie and hanging out. I managed to reconcile both of their demands, satisfying both of them, but not enough to make them feel that it was a win-win situation (which they probably didn’t want anyway), and not enough for me to feel successful and skillful.

On my way from old lawyer’s office I discovered that the directions that I printed off from Google Map were very precise, except the name of a street seemed to have been changed from the minute I printed out the directions two hours before to then. But I managed to figure out THEIR mistake and find my way to the road I needed, a feat I was very proud of. Just as I realized that I had made it and it was smooth sailing to new lawyer’s office, I looked to my right and saw the Iwo Jima Memorial looming very, very large. Through the trees I could make out the huge statue and I even managed a bit of rubber-necking to look at it from different angles.

As I drove along the George Washington Parkway I also passed and saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Jefferson Monument. I even saw some cherry blossom trees already blossoming in preparation for the Cherry Blossom Festival that starts next weekend. There’s something special about living near important sites or monuments that makes you feel a sense of pride for nothing other than having that thing or place in your life. Its proximity somehow embraces you and raises you up ever so slightly from the doldrums of your life and puts you, even momentarily, into an historical perspective. 

Are there places where you live that make you feel a part of history?

Voices

Inside voice. Is that what you use when you talk to yourself?
Outside voice. Is that what you use when you want your inside voice to be heard by others?

Life as a Ruffly Dress

Life is like a dress with lovely ruffles. Sometimes the ruffles get flattened, and sometimes they are too poufy. It's never quite right. But it's stunning with the imperfections and in those fleeting moments of exactitude. Even with a wilted ruffle that just won't stand, it can be fun, funny and joyous.

What is your metaphor for life?