Another Rant

My sister posted on Facebook that she hopes to grow old gracefully.  I wasn't sure what she meant because most of the time I hear this it's referring to the physical side effects of aging. But she wasn't talking about that. She meant that she didn't want to be grouchy, intolerant and just plain miserable.  I hadn't really thought about it like that before.  And now I'm thinking about it.


I see something happening in me.  It's not good.  What is good is that I have the power to change my thoughts; but I have to want to change.  Before I start on changing myself I want to  get this out of my system.  So, here's the deal. I'm becoming intolerant.  Intolerant of things I never thought I would become intolerant with. Now, as you're reading this, keep in mind that I'm an educator and I just finished up the last day of school. I think educators become pretty intolerant of everything about this time of year.



I spend a lot of time on Facebook.  Too much time in my opinion. But that's beside the point.  I'm becoming intolerant of people, mostly my age, who are turning into intolerant, opinionated assholes.  See?    It's probably just a reflection of me.

 I'm married to an ex pat Brit.  I love him with all my heart and soul and feel sorry for him because he's married to me. The problem is, I'm becoming intolerant with a few his British peers who think they know the United States. Or, who live here and clutch pitifully to their British roots.  I had a former work associate tell me, when she was upset about another co worker,  that she was "so done with spoiled, sensitive little American women".  Hello?  Did she not even think about who she was saying that to?

 I find that attitude a lot.  I find that some Brits have this superior attitude and cling to traditions. The United States isn't really old enough to have those types of traditions. And the United States is more about change and not holding on to old values and ideas. Because of that, we make a lot of mistakes.  We say a lot of things that probably make no sense, but they do to a lot of us.  They do because for the most part, we believe that true success is opening one's mind and thinking about every option, every idea, and every contemporary concept.







We mull over them, we argue about them and then we decide.




People from other countries who don't live here  have no idea what they're talking about when they judge things that happen in our country.


 I am totally for stricter gun control laws.  I think the deaths and injuries in this country caused by guns are horrific. However, I am not against gun ownership.  My beloved grandfather was 40th sharp shooter in the world in the 1940's, but he did not believe in hunting or killing.  He used to make bullets in his basement when I was a little girl.  I would go down the steep, rickety basement steps and it seemed almost like a mysterious cavern.  Books, boxes, tools and all sorts of treasures were there.  Tools for making bullets were also there.  I wouldn't dare touch them of course because I was taught boundaries and respect for others.(He even had a gun named after him.)

So, I said all that to say this: most people who haven't lived here don't understand what this country is about. They don't understand what the mindset and attitude is like here.





 It's wild, crazy and people value their individual and corporate freedoms.  I voted for Obama, both times.  However, having lived in Arizona for four years now it is becoming even more clear that the conservatives who live here are all about not wanting the government to tell them what they can or can't have, and what they can or can't do in their private lives. 




 It's not a moral issue so much, like in the Midwest.  The conservative values of the Midwest are a whole nother ranting blog that I'll not touch right now.

I'm married to a bleeding heart British liberal.  And I must say that viewing political issues through his eyes has opened my eyes.  As a Christian, I totally believe that Jesus, the one I call God, taught many liberal things that the conservative Christians sadly fail to see. But on the other hand, I HATE dealing with the government.  It's a lot like dealing with a huge corporation. And I certainly don't want the government telling me what I can and can't do with my personal life. Whether it's owning guns or having an abortion. Anyway, I'm beating totally around the bush.  What I want to say to a few non-Americans is,  keep your opinions to yourselves because if you haven't lived here, you don't get it.   You have your heads up your derriere...big time.






 I'm not sure how this is going to go over.    It's just those few who, in the very appropriate words from Anne Lamott express what I feel and think of them.

“I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.”

This is a rant.  This is a huge rant and I feel better for writing about it.  This is my problem.  Not anyone else's.  And I'll be working on it.  I too want to grow old gracefully.

A Word About Fathers on Mother's Day

"When you're a father in a marriage, you sort of become the mother's assistant.  And you sort of get a list from her every day and you run down the list and it feels very much like a chore."  Louis C.K.

When my husband used to go to church with me on a regular basis, I always felt sort of weird for him on Father's Day.  He used to complain that the father's would always get a lecture on how to be a better father, but on Mother's Day there was all this praise and adoration for dear mother..... yada yada yada.  And, he was right.




 It bothered me of course, and I felt like fathers were getting the raw end of the deal and maybe that Mother's Day was just thought up by a bunch of women.  Then I read the above Louis C.K. quote and everything fell into perspective.



I'm an observer.  Even when I was little, people would be talking to me, or lecturing to me or something, and I would sort of be focused on them, not their words.  You know, how their mouth moved, the little bit of hair that was attached to their head but flying out like it was trying to free itself .  I was a watcher, and I'd then think and analyze what I would see when I was supposed to be listening.



I said all that to say Louis C.K. is right.  Mothers carry the major burden, heart ache, joy, and everything in between, of birthing, raising and loving a child.  Now, I'm sure I'll have a lot of people just tune me out right here or become defensive and totally disagree. Honestly, I don't care.  But being the watcher that I am, I see that for the most part, in humanity, it's the woman that spends the most time with a child, it's the mother that carries that human in her body for months on end, it's the woman that, well,....that is with that child more than the man.  As a teacher, a daughter, a wife,  a mother, a grandmother, an aunt, I see this as a fact. When there is a divorce, I see more men disappear from the kids than I do women.  Look up the statistics; in first world countries anyway.
So why shouldn't a woman get more praise than the father?  There is no reason.  So, with that, I will be at ease when Father's Day comes around.

Here's to us all you mothers.





We never stop being a mother even when our children are not children anymore.  They are still in our hearts and minds just as much as they were when they were tiny.  To this day I would grab the sun and give it  to my children if I could.

Spurred Memories

I've been content lately.



 Feeling good about life, no pain here, almost cruising.






Sitting on my couch  tonight listening to Dave playing his songs when a couple of them brought back extremely painful memories; hard times. It was the kind of pain  so intense that when I hear those songs, they take me back to that exact moment. The feelings become as real as an alarm clock waking you from a sweet dream.




 So, I told myself, " just don't listen to those, skip 'em".  But they are probably two of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. To let something keep me from that richness would be so very sad!,



Pain is beautiful too. It causes the soul to go deeper into it's own identity. So I embraced it and let the memories return in all their tragic glory.







 If the pain doesn't kill you, or destroy you, or steal your heart,  it has the potential to carve you into something beautiful, meaningful and compassionate. Pain is like an ocean.



I realize how pain is a necessary part of life.  Necessary not because we live in an imperfect world, but necessary for us to live fully, totally and have a real story.  When the pain returned tonight by just hearing the song I wanted to turn and go on to something different, sort of run away.  But instead I accepted it, relived it, and realized it was just a paragraph in the story of my life.

Standing here 
The old man said to me 
Long before these crowded streets 
Here stood my dreaming tree 
Below it he would sit 
For hours at a time 
Now progress takes away 
What forever took to find 
Now he's falling hard 
He feels the falling dark 
How he longs to be 
Beneath his dreaming tree 
Conquered fear to climb 
A moment froze in time 
When the girl who first he kissed 
Promised him she'd be his 
Remembered mother's words 
There beneath the tree 
No matter what the world 
You'll always be my baby 
Mommy come quick 
The dreaming tree has died 
The air is growing thick 
A fear he cannot hide 
The dreaming tree has died 
Oh have you no pity 
This thing I do 
I do not deny it 
All through this smile 
As crooked as danger 
I do not deny 
I know in my mind 
I would leave you now 
If I had the strength to 
I would leave you up 
To your own devices 
Will you not talk 
Can you take pity 
I don't ask much 
But won't you speak 
Please 
From the start 
She knew she had it made 
Easy up 'til then 
For sure she'd make the grade 
Adorers came in hordes 
To lay down in her wake 
She gave it all she had 
But treasures slowly fade 
Now she's falling hard 
She feels the fall of dark 
How did this fall apart 
She drinks to fill it up 
A smile of sweetest flowers 
Wilted so and soured 
Black tears stain the cheeks 
That once were so admired 
She thinks when she was small 
There on her father's knee 
How he had promised her 
You'll always be my baby 
Daddy come quick 
The dreaming tree has died 
I can't find my way home 
There is no place to hide 
The dreaming tree has died 
Oh if I had the strength 
Take me back 
Save me please

Spoon in spoon 
Stirring my coffee 
I thought of you 
And turned to the gate 
On my way came up with the answers 
I scratched my head 
And the answers were gone 
From hand to hand 
Wrist to the elbow 
Red blood sand 
Could Dad be God 
Crosses cross hung out like a wet rag 
Forgive you why 
You hung me out to dry 
Maybe I'm crazy 
But laughing out loud 
Makes the pain pass by 
And maybe you're a little crazy 
But laughing out loud makes it all subside 
Holding I'm holding 
I'm still falling 
Spoon in spoon 
Stirring my coffee 
I thought of this 
And turned to the gate 
But on my way 
Crack 
Lightning and thunder 
I hid my head 
And the storm slipped away 
Well maybe I'm crazy 
And laughing out loud 
Makes it all pass by 
And maybe you're a little crazy 
And laughing out loud 
Makes it all alright 
Laughing out loud 
From time to time 
Minutes and hours 
Some move ahead while 
Some lag behind 
It's like the balloon that 
Rise and then vanish 
This drop of hope 
That falls from his eyes 
Spoon in spoon 
Stirring my coffee 
I think of this 
And turn to go away 
But as I walk 
There're voices behind me saying 
Sinners sin 
Come now and play

Illusions Or Not

I was leaving church today after a very fun and interesting group that talked about the previous sermon. But that has nothing to do with why I'm writing.  As I was leaving, walking through the main lobby, I saw a man, he looked like my father. I'm not talking about the, "Oh wow, that looks like my dad.  How nice."  But the thing where you wonder...wonder.  The same grey hair, but just this weird feeling of "dad"...I saw my dad.  I know...we don't believe that stuff do we?  Or at the least we're skeptical.  I always have related to Thomas, the doubter...and I still do. As much as I 'believe', sometimes I wonder about everything. And then something smacks me..totally smacks me when I'm not prepared and ...wham....I'm at the very least, a believer.



So my father was not actually the most intimate man. He didn't really know how to express his feelings well and actually ran from them. I think they seemed too big for him to control so he just ran...left....and ...well...had  a drink.  I saw him five days before he died.  He said some things to me that I will never forget; some things that were timely, some things that made me know he loved me.  I mean I knew he did...and he even respected me....but he was not so great sometimes at being there when I needed him the most.  I think he's really, really sorry for not being there.  I think now, he sees the big picture. That I desperately needed him.  



Even now, that he has been dead for a long time, I want to reach out to him, knowing that he's sorry. But because he never really was that open with his feelings, I don't know how to express my need for him..my love for him...my sort of, dependence on him .  It's sad, but it's also like another chance.  I had this weird dream the other night.  I honestly don't remember the details..but the thing that stands out like a champion athlete that stands out from their peers..is that I said, "I wish I had the chance to do it over."  This was all inferring to relationships...my relationships.

I think my dad is with me.  I think he is trying to talk to me, to be close to me.  I really do.



 Crazy as it seems. And yes, the skeptics ( it would be me if I weren't the one writing and experiencing this story) might have all the theories of scientific reasoning of why I still hold on and want to have closure yada yada yada...but this is MY story. It feels real. And when you're IN the story, when you're living the story it is real.



I love you dad.  I really do.

Play Music

"Oh"

The world is blowing up 
The world is caving in 
The world has lost her way again 
But you are here with me 
But you are here with me 
Makes it ok 

I hear you still talk to me 
As if you're sitting in that dusty chair 
Makes the hours easier to bare 
I know despite the years alone 
I'll always listen to you sing your sweet song 
And if it's all the same to you 

I love you oh so well 
Like a kid loves candy and fresh snow 
I love you oh so well 
Enough to fill up heaven overflow and fill hell 
Love you oh so well 

And it's cold and darkness falls 
It's as if you're in the next room so alive 
I could swear I hear you singing to me 

I love you oh so well 
Like a kid loves candy and fresh snow 
I love you oh so well 
Enough to fill up heaven overflow and fill hell 
Love you oh so well 

The world is blowing up 
The world is caving in 
The world has lost her way again 
But you are here with me 
But you are here with me 
Makes it ok 
Oh girl you are singing to me still 
Like a kid loves candy and fresh snow 
I love you oh so well 
Enough to fill up heaven overflow and fill hell 
Love you oh so well 

The Problem With Love

The next time I decide to rescue another pet, please remind me of the pain there is at the end of the story.  It seems my Lexy has decided not to eat anymore.  It feels like hell for me.  I know she's probably suffering.  The only reason I'm writing now is so that I won't just sit staring while her head is in my lap. The weird thing is that I feel sort of numb, melancholy, not really wanting to move.



As always, it brings me to death. That's where all living things wind up, in the hands of death.  I have no idea where it will take my Lexy, where it will take me.  The most unbearable part is  the question do we, does she, just not exist anymore? It kills me to think about her breathing her last breath and going to......going to...nowhere



I've chosen to believe in heaven, and from the pain there is on earth, it would be difficult not to believe in hell.  But there is always that doubt.  There are some who say they are sure they will go to heaven, that there is an afterlife.  Maybe.  Still, I have my doubts. Not so many years ago I was one of those people who claimed to be sure.  I'm not though, not now, and I probably really wasn't sure then.
 

Lexy came to me about 15 years ago, almost 16.  She was abandoned with her brother at the church I used to go to.  Her brother was black, she was white.  She had been abused and neglected, it was obvious.  One of my students took her home as I already had two dogs.  But not too long later his mother angrily brought her back.  She said Lexy had ripped through her bathroom window, (trying to get out.) where she stayed eight hours a day.  Dear God!  I'd rip through a bathroom window as well.  My husband said that if I brought another dog home, it was either him or the dog  I chose the dog.  He stayed anyway.

When I took Lexy in to be spayed, the vet called me and told me he opened her up and there were puppies.  Basically she had an abortion.  I KNOW she grieved over those puppies!!  Lexy suffered severe anxiety and depression. She was on doggy depressants for about a year or so and they helped.  When she realized we were not going to abandon her, she started to mellow.

She would run like a gazelle and jump four foot fences like she was superwoman.  My husband and I would take her to fields and watch her run back and forth from him to me.  I could see the smile on her face. She loved that!  She did terrorize the neighbors though. They probably deserved it!



When I was going through the most difficult time of my life, she wouldn't leave my side. And when I would cry, she would land her sloppy kisses all over my face and wouldn't give up until I laughed.


Today I got home from work and saw vomit on the floor.  It was hers. She didn't keep her breakfast down. When I gave her a bowl of her favorite food, she turned her nose up at it and refused to take it from me.



Now, she is lying here, head on my lap, just lying here. I like it that way.  When her time comes, I really hope she will go in her sleep.  We had a dog who I prayed and prayed that he would be pain free and his death would be tolerable.  But it wasn't.  It was hell, He went through hell right up to the last minute.  I pray that Lexy has an easy death but honestly, that last experience is enough to get a little pissed at God.  Just a little; not a lot. I guess a better word would be disappointed, very,very disappointed.


I would really like to think Lexy haz a few more years; good years. But I don't think so.  Probably more like months, weeks, days, or even hours.  It kills me to know this.



This will probably not be my last blog about my friend.  However one of my most favorite authors ever, Anne Lamott, talks about death as if she read my mind:

"Death; wow. So f-ing hard to bear, when the few people you cannot live without die. You will never get over these losses, and are not supposed to. We Christians like to think death is a major change of address, but in any case, the person will live fully again in your heart, at some point, and make you smile at the MOST inappropriate times. But their absence will also be a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you. All truth is a paradox. Grief, friends, time and tears will heal you. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate you and the ground on which you walk. The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know."

Thoughts On True Friends

Friend:  one attached to another by affection or esteem.  That's the Merriam Webster definition. I love my friends, and I believe I know my friends well.   But there comes a time when something happens between two people, (or more) and you realize you were, or that particular person wasn't, a friend at all. Just an illusion of friendship. 



Acquaintance:  :  a person whom one knows but who is not a particularly close friend . That's what you find out instead. That's what I found out instead.  

It's never easy for me to realize someone just doesn't like me. A huge blow to the 'ole ego.  Yet one thing in life is true: "Understand that friends come and go, but a precious few, who you should hold on."  Baz Luhrmann

I have come to accept the fact that I'm not the easiest person to hang with. There are certain conditions I have that will define my close relationships. Trust is pretty huge.   You can trust me.







 I expect the same back. 


 Be real.  






I am, and if we're friends, I'm assuming you're being real too. 





 When we disagree, we do it with love and each of us, in the end, will say to one another, "You could be right."  If those four words are said, nothing can break us up. 




So I'm going to awkwardly, carefully, and probably not successfully write about what is "tugging on the sleeves of my heart."  I had some friends, now I don't.  Now I see it's not such a big deal as I hadn't shared anything truly close in my life with them. 






We had fun together, chatted and laughed together, and then, parted...went our separate ways. Sad...but now I'm getting used to the fact that it's true, really true, that a precious few you should hold to. 






  

“A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you.” 
― Elbert Hubbard

That sort of sums it up in a nutshell.  I'm so thankful for the friends who still love me despite knowing me to my very core, and yep, still loving me.

Sunday Evening Ponderings

Not many people read my blog and I'm really okay with that.  I started this blog to vent, to write, to put my thoughts and my heart into words.  Like relief.  My husband has been gone now for four days.  He'll be back in about a week. But these last few days have been reflective and slow.  Slow in a good way.  Sometimes I need to take my mind off of all the beauty around me and look deep inside.  It's like the deep is calling me . So here I am.  Trying to find the words to tell you about "my deep".





It's great timing and extremely helpful that I found a book that speaks volumes to me; that makes me think about life.  About where I am and if I'm just doing the motions of life or am I really living.  St. Irenaeous said "The glory of God is man (humans) fully alive."  Fully alive.  Do you even know what that means???? I'm not sure I do.





I've just finished a book by Donald Miller called, A Million Miles In A Thousand Years.  It's a book about story. About life framed as a story outside of life.






 I think that's how it is supposed to be. Anyway,it  made me stop and think about my life from the third person's point of view; me being the third person looking at my own life. At times when I was reading,  I would stop , put the book down, stare out at the mountains and red tile roofs and wonder why I like to stay home and not take risks.  I used to take risks.




 I hitchhiked across the country once.  I traveled to other countries....alone. I risked other stuff that I'm not so proud to talk about now. But I ventured out looking for meaning. Once, when I was nineteen, I took the money my father had saved for my wedding, packed a some clothes, dog food and and a few 8 track cassettes, got in the car with my beagle companion and headed west, to the mountains, alone.  I took risks. After I became a Christian I was still willing to take risks.  I traveled with some young peers in a yellow school bus with no air conditioning from the protected arms of the Midwest into Mexico and the barrio.  That only prompted me a few years later to pack my things, give up all that I know, and travel to my father's ancestor's homeland, Israel. That was a trip I like to call "The Magical Mystery Tour".



My experiences weren't always fun, and they were, for the most part, totally out of my comfort zone, but I felt alive. Totally, wonderfully, alive with wonder. I didn't think a whole lot about the future. I didn't have time.


I met someone there, and married him.




 The plan, my plan, was to get married, return, and live an exciting, meaningful life forever by the Mediterranean Sea, in a home that the British designed years before.  That didn't happen. What happened was that my future husband, from England, came to middle America, and married a Midwestern girl, me, from a smallish city that really was/is in the middle of nowhere.

Life sometimes, most times, doesn't go as planned.  I got pregnant three months after we were married and the rest is history.



I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here other than if our lives are stories, mine was pretty interesting until I was married.  No, I'm not knocking that, but now, thirty eight years later, I'm wondering.  I'm wondering why risk is so foreign to me.  I wonder why my biggest goal is to pay my house off.  (Which in itself is a great goal!!)  But when the house is paid off, what then?  Something deep inside of me wants to sell all, go to that beautiful city by the sea (Haifa) and have a youth hostel, as planned 38 years ago.  And then there are other things....just other things I think about too.   I really have to know if that is what I want, what I really want.



I think half the time the problem that people have, if they will be ruthlessly honest and admit it to themselves,is that they don't  know what they really want.  I want story; I want to be remembered for a meaningful life.  Not just by my sweet family, but by so many others.  Maybe that's egotistical of me.  Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I want a life worth living, not a life spent in front of the tv watching other people's lives.



In his book Miller talks about our lives as stories. Framed in a type of script for a movie.  This quote really made me think, not just because owning a Volvo was always a goal for me, but because I want my life to be a story lived with meaning:

"If you watched a movie about a guy who wanted a Volvo and worked for years to get it, you wouldn't cry at the end when he drove off the lot, testing the windshield wipers  You wouldn't tell your friends you saw a beautiful movie or go home and put a record on to think about the story you'd seen.  The truth is, you wouldn't remember that movie a week later, except you'd feel robbed and want your money back.  Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo. 

But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful.  The truth is if what we choose to do with our lives won't make a story meaningful, it won't make life meaningful either." (donald miller...form "a million miles in a thousand years".)

Now trust me, I'm not saying that if you don't sell everything and go out and do something outrageous that life isn't meaningful. I'm just saying the book made me think of meaning, something I haven't really thought of for a long time. Or at least I've tucked it away in the envelope of another time, another place.



There ya have it. Words to think by, right? Good night moon.