Don’t you hate it when you’re going through a rough patch and someone says something clichè and trite but also…true? That happened to me today when one of our short term rental guests was chatting with me about his philosophies. It was completely harmless. He didn’t realize that when he used the phrase, “right where we’re supposed to be,” that he was talking about me. In fact, it didn’t really sink in with me right away. But soon after the conversation ended I started to put two and two together. Two days ago–much to my vexation–I found myself “right where I was supposed to be” and I wasn’t a bit happy about it.

Two days ago I went to the local farmer’s market with my daughter and her mom-in-law. I had thought it would be fun. I hadn’t been to our market in literally months. As I ruminated on why I realized it was because when my daughter lived on our property I had a ready ride to the market. But once they moved I was reluctant to even think of asking her to drive north to pick me up so we could drive back closer to her house to go to the market. I don’t like putting people out. Since I don’t drive any more I am dependent on others to get me where I need to go so I feel like a burden when I ask them to get me where I want to go. I was able to hitch a ride to her house from my hubby so that was fine but I was already starting my pity party by the time we reached the market.I don’t like being reminded that physically I’m handicapped and so dependent on others. I prefer to ignore it as much as is possible.

As we entered the market my pity party got into full swing. At this time of year there are fewer vendors but several who were selling plant starts. In my heart I wanted so to buy up several plants in anticipation of getting our produce garden going. But I’ve been in full-blown fibromyalgia hell for 3 weeks now and know that I can barely walk out to the garden area, let alone work in the soil. Which reminded me that I had intended that this would be the spring that I would get back into the greenhouse to try my hand at my own vegetable starts again. But that hasn’t happened has it? I’ve been mostly sick with respiratory issues since the last day of last year and whatever energy I did have left has wained. So no veggie starts and here it is the end of March. Too late again.

I started really piling on the depression. In my head I began adding up all my incapacities and as the list grew I became more morose and feeling more and more like my life was ebbing away. What was the point of living anyway if I just become an “invalid”? Have you ever noticed that when you put the emphasis on the second syllable that word becomes inVAlid, as in “this sale is invalid,” or “this page is invalid.” So in English we basically convey the way we think of invalids by using that word. They are not valid as human beings. Do you see how dark this party was getting?

I was also having trouble getting around the market–my fibromyalgia was affecting my breath capacity and my already lame leg–so as my daughter and her mom-in-law flitted back and forth to vendors they wanted to purchase from, I just stopped pretty much in the center where the “streets” of the market form a “t,” the virtual “crossroads.” I didn’t plan it that way but later my hubby pointed out that that was where I was, both physically and emotionally. Near that spot there was a single musician, a guitarist playing. He finished his song and launched into another that I didn’t recognize and so surmise it was his own composition.

Do you remember the 70’s folk song made popular by Roberta Flack, “Killing Me Softly”? Yeah. That’s what this guitarist did to me. He started singing the refrain of his song, “I choose life…” I couldn’t believe my ears at first. I had to strain to really catch all the lyrics. But sure enough. He was singing my life. He was singing my words. He was killing me softly. It was as if he had waited for that moment when in my dark pity party I came to that place to just be alone in my mind and feel sorry for myself. Damn! The nerve! I was so frustrated. It felt so banal, like he knew and was singing that little ditty just for me and I wasn’t having it. Except that I had to have it. The dark clouds lifted a bit and I had to confess that I really didn’t want this life to end.

I reflected on the experience this morning in the hot tub with my hubby. It seemed so surreal and almost hokey–the symbolism in the “crossroads” and the song and my mood. And then our guest wrapped it all together with his unknowlingly timely comment: “We’re right where we’re supposed to be.”

I recently…let’s see, how does one say this, “started back into therapy?” Is that correct English? I guess when you are receiving mental health care you are “in therapy” so if you have been “out of therapy” and start up again you are going back in or into.

Anyway, I digress. The point is that I sought out a new therapist because I felt like I needed someone, who (in the words of my son who is in therapy) “is a disinterested third party who will hold me accountable for my own mental health goals.” Or something like that. I needed to talk to someone and not someone I know who would just placate me with platitudes or worse yet try to assuage me with unhelpful advice. And I needed to talk to someone because I’m having what I term to be “anger issues.” I “fly off the handle” at the slightest provocation. “Fly off the handle is an American phrase that comes from the way an axe-head which has come loose will fly off of its handle in an unpredictable manner and strike any innocent person or object in its way.” (Grammarist.com) Yup. that pretty much sums it up. I’m a loose axe-head. Not someone you’d want to bring to an axe-throwing social.

Within the first two visits with my therapist I began to theorize that I might be losing my axe-head because I’ve been stuffing a lot of frustration and anxiety over the years. I used to kind of pride myself on the fact that I take things pretty much in stride and when people around me are losing their shit I’m the steady one. In fact, people who are anxious by nature tend to gravitate toward me because I can be a calming presence, unruffled and reasonable. So I started back into therapy because I’m not always the calm one these days and I’m trying to figure out why. Although the more I think about life in America in the 21st century there are plenty of anxiety-inducing options to choose from. Is it that simple?

Anger is considered by most to be a secondary emotion, in that it generally is a symptom rather than the disease itself. Anger is the mask that a variety of hurts hide behind, perhaps because anger is perceived–at least subconsciously–as the stronger emotion and who wants to turn up one’s delicate underbelly of weak emotions for everyone to see. According to Leon F. Seltzer Ph.D. in Psychology Today, “A good deal of our anger is motivated by a desire not to experience guilt—and beyond this, the distressing emotions of hurt and fear.” He also goes on to say that feeling disregarded, unimportant, and powerless are among some of the emotions that can manifest themselves as anger–and certainly those are biggies for me. Interesting that he uses the qualifier of “distressing” when describing these emotions. So we perceive that anger is less distressing perchance?

My therapist shared another visual about how anger works. It’s called the “Anger Iceberg,” implying that there could be so much more beneath the anger that shows on the surface. As I look at the image I can see that some of my anger could be triggered by several of the emotions represented there. But for sure one of the reasons that I often feel anger is because I feel powerless–I have little or no control over a situation that I feel like I should have some modicum of control over. I realized one day in a therapy session that I frequently don’t have–or can’t find–my voice.

Power–the positive kind–comes with being heard. Being heard means being listened to and acknowledged as having something to say, something that can express what one is thinking and feeling, something that says “I’m a valuable person and I deserve to have a say.” Sometimes my voice is just not “heard,” literally. My words fall like arrows that never made it to the target. Sometimes I’m simply not “allowed” to have a voice, in other words, I’m not allowed to have the feelings I have and certainly not allowed to share those feelings. And powerlessness leads to a feeling of helplessness.

A quick search on the internet reveals that experts differ on whether powerless and helpless are truly synonymous (as a thesaurus would assert) or if they are two different feelings. Some would argue that powerlessness is, in fact, not an emotion. Whether they are synonymous or not, I believe they walk hand-in-hand. To be stripped of your personal power creates a feeling of helplessness, and if it happens often enough it can lead to hopelessness. And anger is the “acceptable” way to express all of those things. Except, its not. Anger gets hushed up in polite society, especially among women and girls.

In her classic book, Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, Mary Pipher writes about the pressures that society places on girls and women to be “nice,” “beautiful,” “submissive” and that she encourages young women to work hard at taking back their feelings. She writes, “Authenticity is an “owning” of all experience, including emotions and thoughts that are not socially acceptable.” And I would add, taking back our voices so that we can speak our truth. It’s scary. It means that we might offend and for people like me who thrive on others “liking me” offending the other is taboo. Having a voice means taking back some of the power. And learning to use it constructively. It also means being prepared for the other to not listen, to not accept, to allow those arrows to hit the ground. We do not have any control over whether–or how–the other hears us. But we do have control over what we speak. That is true power.

Every now and then I feel a bit poetic. Not that I claim to be a poet nor do I claim to always understand poetry. On the contrary, I am in total awe of anyone who truly is a poet. I’m with “Arthur Bach,” when he acknowledged, “Not everyone who drinks is a poet; some of us drink because we’re not poets.”

That said, I do, ill-advisedly, pen the occasional poem and share a few here now with you.

Hummingbird

Hummingbird stopped by tonight
Settled on the railing wire
Dental-floss tongue testing the air for bugs

Breathed in and out
Red neck pulsing
Sentinel and guardian.
What did he see?

Large eyes peering back at him in awe
Did he know what he inspired?

Memories woven through tender moments.

And then he flew away.

Little Ghosts

Little Ghosts occupy the corners

Corners of the room
        Corners of my mind
                  Corners of my heart

Wisps of memory
           Perched on window sills
                 Sprawled across my computer keyboard
Meowing at the door

Bags, Lucy, Inky, Cindy, Chloe, Violet

Memories of how they lived,
Memories of how they died…

Taking small bits of me with them.

Meditation

I lit your stick this morning and as I watched the smoke curl upwards and the flame slowly burn out I said a prayer of thanks that the thought of a small boy’s emotional well-being kept you from doing that most final of acts.

It has been a tough few years for most of us emotionally. Tensions run high like a rampant fever and many of us respond with knee-jerk fragility. We have forgotten how to breathe, how to take a moment, how to craft a response that doesn’t flatten the other. We are, after all, animals and at our core are compelled by adrenaline, flight or fight. Every day someone I know declares independence from social media and the news media out of a need to unplug, i.e. flee or else he/she gets caught up in a fruitless war of words with a friend of a friend over opposing views on a hot topic. Adrenaline–our mind fever–drives our reactions, not common sense or civility.

I am, like many writers, driven to write by strong emotions of the moment. These are the emotions that persuade us to “say” something because those feelings are too strong to keep inside. Our minds race, our stomachs churn, our whole bodies tense and our blood truly feels like it could boil out of our arteries like soup overflowing the pot. The opportunities to stir strong emotions these days are abundant for sure but what finally made my pot boil was–I know this is a shock!–a good friend’s post about a meme making the rounds on Facebook. It wasn’t so much that I disagreed with her opinion it was the feelings that she stirred up in her approach. And looking back I’m not even sure that her particular approach was so terribly wrong its just that, for me, it struck a tender nerve and first I winced and then I got mad.

Perhaps my response is deeply rooted in my childhood. Often when my older sister got mad at me she would accuse me of thinking I was God’s gift to mankind and imply that I thought I was better than anyone else. The accusation pierced me through like a knife because nothing could have been farther from the truth and yet I didn’t feel like I had any defense against it. In a word, I HATE being accused of being haughty or holier-than-thou. Let’s face it, like most people, I hate being falsely accused of ANYTHING.

So when my friend wrote her “sermon” denouncing this meme, one which I had considered re-posting–even though I could see that the points she was making made good, honest sense–I felt attacked by the implications of her words.  And the more I stewed on the words the more I felt like she was creating two groups: those who “got it” and those who didn’t and clearly those who didn’t were all bad. There were no gray areas, no room for those of us who are trying to learn and grow and take things to heart.

The meme in question is posted here. I really waffled on using it as the picture identified with my post but it is important to see it in the context of this writing. My friend’s argument seems reasonable on the surface. She made the case that using this method was in fact co-opting an established method of protest that belongs to those who started using it in the first place, the black community, in an effort to bring attention to the travesties of justice directed toward black people in general. She argued eloquently that co-opting this form of protest was in fact a form of “colonialism” in and of itself–the idea that whatever little the maligned, marginalized black community has can be taken away by the white community and used for its own purposes. And then she went on to question the motives of anyone who would even consider doing this and to chastise those who don’t get out in the street and protest on behalf of the maligned and marginalized. I began to feel like I was in the sentencing phase of the trial without the prosecution even having to prove my guilt. And as a physically handicapped person I felt marginalized myself. I don’t have the capacity or ability to get out into the streets in protest.

But I don’t have any right to feel marginalized, do I? I am a white, cis gender woman, born into middle class family and married into a upper class one. Even though I am a woman I have the white thing going for me. And even though I come from a family of recent immigrants (just coming from Scandinavia in the early part of the 20th century) I am daily reaping the benefits of those white colonial, slave-owning settlers who came before me. I am living the high life on what was once very clearly home to indigenous peoples who were unfairly robbed of their land and their livelihood. I know this. I see this. I feel this. I grieve this. Even though as a woman I have suffered sexual assault, molestation, harassment, and prejudice I’m still better off than all people of color, indigenous people, LGBTQ people, and poor people. There is this somewhat invisible hierarchy and I’m still nearer the top than most. I get it. I own it. I try to carry my weight, the weight that my “race” has inflicted on others.

But here’s the thing: within this pool of people “like me” there are shades. In my early days of being a project manager I learned that when it comes to change and managing change within an organization the rule of thumb on how people will react/respond is this: about 4% will NEVER accept the change no matter how eloquent your argument or well-crafted your persuasion. They just will NOT “enter the race” and that’s the way it is, so best not to beat your head against that wall. Another 4% will have dashed off down the track before you get a chance to finish telling them there’s a race. They GET it and they are off and running to MAKE it happen. That leaves the rest of the 96% of people who are somewhere in the middle. And those are the folks you focus your message on. Those of the ones you have a chance of convincing but they don’t even know there is a race yet. So you have to make them aware and then educate them.

We see this metaphor played out in multiple settings. In my field of passion, environmental concerns, I have seen this same breakdown in responses. Some people will NEVER believe that climate change is real. They are the conspiracy theorists who believe that environmentalists are pure evil and trying to pull something over on the rest. And there are those who bought Prius’–and would have bought electric cars if they had been available–before it was fashionable to do so. And then there are the rest. And what I have learned about that other 96% is that carrots work better than sticks. And guilt isn’t a great motivator. In fact, guilt more often flips the shut-down switch and then you’ve lost your chance to reach them. It’s true that some near the upper limits of the 96% might just need a quick, brutal, wake-up call but most need coaxing rather than prodding. The last thing you want to do is come out fighting, accusing all 96% of being as un-green as can be and discounting any potential changes any of them might have attempted.

And this is what I see happening with the fight for freedom among the marginalized. Sometimes, yes, you have to get mad and call people out, especially people in positions of real power who have the real ability to make changes. But for most of us who are in the middle we are in some stage of growth and bashing us over the head for not being better–or perfect–has the effect of at best causing us to retreat and give up and at worst causing us to move closer to that hated 4% who will never change and most likely make up the bulk of the neo-nazi groups.

My friend is a Christian, active in her faith which is to say that she “walks the talk.” She is truly a faithful, dedicated servant leader. But there are plenty of agnostics, atheists, polytheists, Jews and Muslims who could accuse her of being a part of the history of Christians who co-opted Easter and Christmas from the pagans to use for their own purposes–often maligning the pagans in doing so. In other words, couldn’t we all be accused of things like this? And what about all of the horrible actions and events that have been perpetrated over the millennia–and even still today– in the name of Christianity? Many now would place all Christians–unfairly–into this same box, ignoring all of the good that has been done by people of faith in the name of their faith. And the same could be argued about Muslims. Is this be fair to my loving, self-less friend who claims to be Christian or to loving, selfless people who practice Islam?

My point in all of this rambling is that we need to do a better job of breathing, listening, attempting to understand, and then crafting a response that does not immediately put the other on the defensive. That is if we hope to have any civil communication and effect any meaningful change in the world. My other point is that I–like many others–are at least trying to come to the center, trying to understand, listen, absorb, make corrections in how I behave towards and treat others. As the Method company puts it, “Progress, not perfection.” Could we at least get some credit for that? Do we not at least deserve some benefit of the doubt, the chance to be innocent before being deemed guilty? I think this is truly our only hope as human beings. To try to understand the other.

I know that Facebook is challenging to many. It can be a place where anger, bigotry, cruelty, judgement, and rejection abide. It often is home base to posts that challenge our religious beliefs, politics, philosophies, and even sense of self. It requires diligence and a frequent use of filters that some find just too daunting to deal with. I know it can be all of those things and worse. But for me, Facebook is a repository of connectivity, a jukebox of family and friends–old, new, and completely digital–that I can access with a few clicks, a few keyboard strokes. I can keep in touch with friends far and near, many of whom I have known for the better part of my last 60+ years, who otherwise would be relinquished to the dusty corners of the past in my mind alone. I can keep current with family members with whom I otherwise would only exchange Christmas cards. I can meet and learn about new friends with new ideas, experiences, and interesting histories. And I can somehow make amends for the friends I never knew.

I never really knew Lincoln. I remember him only from the annual family photo Christmas card that his parents, my aunt and uncle, sent each year. I’m not even sure that we ever met face-to-face. He belonged to a part of my family tethered ever so delicately through the waning memory of a father deceased before his time. I knew he had two brothers. I knew he went to college and got married and had a family. I can conjure up a somewhat round faced, smiling, blond young man in my mind from an amalgam of photos through the years. But that is really all I ever knew about my cousin. Until he died.

I had kept in touch with my father’s family through Christmas cards, dutifully exchanged every year with his two brother’s and their families. The cards would come in the form of family photos and letters chronicling the past year’s activities–this cousin graduated, this cousin married, this cousin moved abroad. In 2015 I got the chance to actually visit with my father’s next oldest brother and his wife. The trip was scheduled for October. Excitement was running high. And then I got the word from my aunt: Lincoln had died suddenly in September at the tender age of 53, leaving a wife and two high-school-aged daughters. I felt gut-punched.

It could have been because he was actually 4 years younger than me and the age of his demise hit too close to home. It could have been that it happened in the context of planning a happy reunion with family members and the sadness caused a ripple in the familial pond. It could have been many reasons but it was not. I felt gut-punched because I lost my cousin twice.

My birth father, whose name I carried until the date of my marriage, died when I was only 2 years old. Much too soon for me to remember him, except from photos. Certainly much too soon for his death to carry much angst for me, as I was only tenuously attached to this human being having only known him in my newest experiences of life and had hardly figured out who or what a “daddy” was. The connection with his family–grandparents, father, mother, brothers and their wives and children–was already fraying from the strain of his moving across country to a place called California. I know that my grandparents dutifully traveled from Minnesota to be present for my birth and that my mother traveled alone in return, carrying his remains back to the place he grew up. Through my growing up years, Grandma and Grandpa sent birthday, Easter, and Christmas cards and letters. My mother exchanged Christmas cards with the whole family (when she remembered to do so). Mom, my sister and I took the obligatory plane ride (one of only a couple of trips) to the Midwest for my great-grandfather’s funeral and I visited my grandmother one more time when my sister was attending college close by. But my mother had remarried when I was 5, to a man who really became my daddy, and the branch of the family tree that connected me to my father’s people ceased to bear much fruit. We moved on. And any relationship with cousins that might have been nurtured by summer family trips and such withered with my father’s death.

I must confess I didn’t think much about his death nor about my cousins until I got older and life slowed down and I could really reflect on life and family and people who were gone. And then Lincoln died. And the “loss” of those familial ties, the chance to get to know my cousins and aunts and uncles and even grandparents and spend some of the times that they had together left an aching in my chest. Lincoln died before I ever got to know him. Lincoln was lost to me but even more importantly, that whole life–years of family connection–was lost to me. I grieved his passing–too young, too soon–and I grieved that he would never know that I grieved for him. He would never know what loss I felt that I never really knew him and now never would. Except through the eyes of his widow.

I felt compelled to send a sympathy card to Renée. But I also felt awkward. I suddenly desperately wanted to feel some close connection with the family, that distant family with whom I merely shared genes and a last name. I had never met her. Perhaps she never even knew I existed. Had Lincoln ever spoken of me? I surely had not spoken of him to my family. Would it seem insincere to send words of condolence to the wife of a friend I never really knew? I did so. But not so much for Renée and her family. It was for me. To help me assuage my grief by ever so gently propping up that withered limb. Thankfully she was graciously receptive and we finally became “friends.” On Facebook.

Through Facebook I felt a twinge of loss again. Reading through the posts on Renée’s page made by friends and family remembering Lincoln I realized again what I had lost from not knowing this man, this stranger, who forever in my mind was a fresh-faced preteen. He was one of those rare people who was truly “larger-than-life.” Not larger. HUGE. He positively, joyfully, lovingly, inspiring-ly touched so many lives. I wonder if he knew. But also through Facebook I got to meet my cousin again. And see him through the eyes of his family and friends who absolutely adored him. And I have made two new friends: Renée…and Lincoln.

What an odd turn of phrase. Not that that is unusual in English or American English. No wonder it’s so hard to learn our language. Grip: to grasp. to seize and hold fast. But how does one “come to grips?” As if one is going out to meet someone or something. And perhaps that is really what it is to grasp something directly or firmly. Going out as if to battle. Marching out in all one’s combat gear to grasp something…but to grasp something that is intangible. A concept rather than a person. Which may be why “coming to grips” is such a difficult thing to do. Like pinning gelatin to the wall or holding a wave to the sand.

I haven’t written in this blog for more than 6 months. I mean, I’ve written plenty. In my mind, that is. But I just haven’t been able to bring myself to write what I write down, albeit on digital media rather than paper. Paper, I have found, is reserved for writing grocery lists (which reminds me…I need to add toilet paper and facial tissue to the list. But I digress.). There is a reason this blog in entitled thus. I truly am just a writer in my mind. When it comes to “putting pen to paper,” (an antiquated phrase that someday will truly be meaningless), I’m a complete and utter failure. And I am “coming to grips” with that. I am “coming to grips” with the idea that I am more “thought” than “action.” If fact, I was driven to write today solely because I read a post by a Facebook friend (which is to say we are not “friends” in real life but connected through the internet only because we share multiple “friends” through Facebook but the more I ready by and about him the more I wish we could hang out.). This “friend” is a writer (among other things) by trade. That means he actually makes a living by writing. He is the real thing. And he wrote a post about how writing for him is even difficult but that he has a regimen. And it begins with “Just Show Up and Start Something.” I read his post and I started to feel guilty. Supposedly I write. Supposedly. But apparently not. Since it has been more than 6 months since I even wrote anything here at my “writer’s blog.” And I have no excuses. Well, I have plenty of excuses but that is what they really are. Someone wrote/said once that “what you do is proof of what you believe.” And someone named Simon Sinek, who writes and speaks on business and motivation said it and added a word: “What you do is simply proof of what you believe.” Simple? Really? Speaking of odd phrases.

And so, I find myself trying to come to grips with the sad fact that maybe I really am not a writer–or a seamstress, or a musician or a gardener any of a number of other things I tell my physician that I do in my “spare time” or with my time. Because if I were ever arrested for being a writer, would there be enough evidence to convict me?

The photo to the left represents freedom. Freedom for me. It might not look like much, just three little pieces of varnished hard wood. Nothing fancy. And it’s not very large. At it’s highest point it is a mere 30″. It is 14″ long and 10″ wide. And it weighs a whopping 7 pounds. It’s not much to look at and probably would garner a second look from most folks. But it offers a little bit of independence–ever so much–that makes my heart sing.

It doesn’t take much these days. I have had to learn to adjust to limitations. They define much of my life now. I cannot stand on tip toe, climb a ladder, kneel on the floor, sit cross-legged…so many things I can no longer do with my foot and my leg that I took for granted. Retrieving any sense of autonomy takes thought and ingenuity. I can reach many things–up or down–with the help of my hand-held grabbing tool. I can step up onto and down off of curbs if I take my time and concentrate all my energy on balancing on my cane. I have learned to sit on my butt and scoot around into the hot tub or onto our boat. I can sew if I use my left (less dominate) foot to run the pedal. Incremental steps from semi-paralysis to resuming many of the activities I could do before. If I could just reach up a little higher…

And so, I found my new little wooden friend. It was sitting brightly in a driveway at a yard sale. Normally I would have hardly given it a second thought. But I had recently been to the orthopedist where they had taken x-rays of my foot. In order to get to the level needed I was proffered a metal stool with a handle that I could use to leverage myself up onto and down from it. I had done this before but never thought of how useful such a gadget could be in my life. Until I found my little stool. Sitting there, waiting for me, as if it had been created just for me.

Now it sits at the ready just steps from the kitchen. My little stool has helped me reach those bowls and platters that I previously had to ask someone else to help with. We don’t need them so much any more, my stool and I. It has liberated me. Baby steps…