Alone

Yesterday was not an easy day. I don't want to say it was a bad day. I am employed, my kids are safe and healthy. The basics are good. Despite continuously tweaking our morning schedule, though, I got the boys to school a few minutes late, which has been a frequent problem for us since the middle of last year (ok, and off and on since they started school, to be honest). I had an email from school that I was wanted to come in to discuss the latenesses (to which my internal response was that they can bite me). I later had a phone call from my son's teacher, to tell me he had run off from the class twice during the day. This would be the child with Asperger's Syndrome, and he didn't run off into the woods, thank God, but had to be tracked down and coaxed back into the group, which is behavior not popular with teachers. I get that.

With the various factors I am juggling, I still feel like I have, or should have, "BAD MOM" tattooed across my forehead. I felt that at the very least, some of the school staff probably think so. Does it count that I really am trying? That yes, life has been much too chaotic and unpredictable for my kids but I'm working on it? It just doesn't change overnight. Honestly, the fact that I've been working and getting the kids to school without interruption for the past few years is the best I can do. It will keep getting better. That is the plan.

I came home feeling pretty low. After dinner, while I sat outside with a couple of different neighbors and a friend of theirs, the guys started joking about porn. Ok, whatever. But one of them began to joke about some website having, or about the idea of one having features like "Blonde, Busty and Bruised," or "Latina and Low Self-Esteem." My internal response to that is WTF? I said nothing, but came in after a moment.

On the one hand, I would hate to have every stupid thing I've said while drinking held against me. I would have no friends left, especially after college. On the other hand, ignoring comments like that, for the sake of not making waves and of being liked by people I considered friends, is just one of the ways that I have compromised myself for years. And for any woman who has ever been in a relationship that was abusive in some way, comments like that put the speaker into the camp with Them. Worse, I felt in that moment all the shame of every past abuse, like recovery is one more delusion.

a few soft words have sent many a woman to her back with her
thighs flung open & eager / a few more / will find us standin up &
speakin in our own tongue to whomever we goddamn please.
--Ntozake Shange, "wow yr just like a man"

Honestly, I don't know if the intent had been to make a joke about the people to whom internet porn is targeted, or what. I was just stunned. Also I was surprised by how low it brought me. I cried, and tried to reason out why I felt so lost. I am barely functional at work, failing to do enough for the kids and I came home wanting to regroup with friends, and that too was a failure. I tried thinking of the expression that when you come to the point where all you've got is God, you have everything you need. I'm not feeling it. I'm not saying it isn't true but so far I am not feeling it.

The worst part is that this man has, I am certain, no idea how insulted I was that he made the comment in front of me, or how much it hurt. I don't think I could successfully explain it to him either. If there can be such a gap between a woman's perception and a man's, can we (women) ever be in relationship with them (men)? I am not even thinking about romantic relationships, but simple coexistence. For the moment, it seems hopeless to me. As I process the experience, though, I hope that changes. I know I am hypersensitive right now to just about everything, but I am also resolved not to tell myself that abuse and disrespect don't matter, not anymore. I am not sure how to be true to that without becoming strident or hysterical, but I will work it out.

Music and Latte, and Nicole Zell

Last month, Jenn and I met some other friends at the Steel City Coffee House in Phoenixville, PA (the Steel City and the town are fantastic). We went to see the Dave Spencer Trio, which we enjoyed though I found it confusing that the Trio appears to be a duo, Dave and Eli. Eli is a very creative percussionist, and fun to watch.

I don’t write more about music because I am so aware of my own ignorance. I would like to write more about getting out to hear music and about the way it affects people. It’s new to me, the getting out for live music, and I love it, I mean really love it. In the earliest years with my kids, I forgot almost everything that I loved except them. It’s a fairly common mommy syndrome. Following that, there was the insanity of my ex-husband’s illness and the difficulties that had always been involved in my marriage.

Then, a few years ago, some new friends asked, “Well, what kind of music do you like?” And I couldn’t remember. It was awful, suddenly confronting how far I had gotten from myself. So, I found my old CD’s and tapes. I went out to see the friends’ bands play. I was singing with the choir at my church. I listen to music differently, now. I challenge the kids to name the instruments we hear when we’re listening to the radio, and I listen more carefully myself.

At that Steel City Coffee House show, the opener was a young woman named Nicole Zell, who is all of fourteen years old. She is amazing. Nicole sang some of her own songs, as well as covering songs by well-known artists including Tracy Chapman. Her fingers looked thin and frail but play guitar with agility. The passion in her performance was surprising, though maybe it shouldn't have been. In our teens we lack experience, not passion.

I was only one of several women who were struck by this young woman who knows her gifts and is encouraged in them. Only one of several women who envied that, not with a bitter envy but one that wants to see young women like Nicole flourish and even encourage more young women, only wishing we had dared so much, so young. At one point Nicole's dad accompanied her on bass guitar, and I wondered if she realized how fortunate she is to have that in her life.

See, I don’t really know how to write about music. There would be more about the music itself, if I had written right after the show but I was kind of struck dumb. At the end of the night, I’d met Nicole’s eyes a couple times and wanted to tell her “Hey, you are amazing,” but I just couldn’t do it.

Later, I was sipping my excellent latte and was annoyed by one talkative show-goer who was a distraction. It was mortifying to realize that a few months back at a different venue, I had been that guy, only worse. I am a much better listener drinking latte than wine, I’ve realized. Plus I am getting out a little more often, so it doesn’t feel so much like an escape, like I will never get out again. It is easier to relax, to just listen, taking it all in.

Meaning?

A dream is an unopened letter to yourself. -- the Talmud

I am feeling a little off today, that kind of off that usually means I've got a touch of some virus, but I'm not really sick. But I had a really hard time getting up this morning. I kept falling back to sleep until finally I started having wacky dreams about trying to wake up. One dream was that our friend Howie had somehow let himself in and was sleeping on the bedroom floor 'cuz he'd had too much to drink to get home, as if this would be perfectly acceptable.

What finally got me out of bed, though, was that I dreamt about waking up hearing what sounded like the Avett Brothers themselves singing in my house, variations on a line from one of their songs, "I'll never be the same again." It was only a dream, though. How disappointing. I've never met the Avett Brothers, but their music creates this sense of knowing them, and I am sure it would be very cool, at any rate, to have them visit. I would have cooked breakfast and everything. The kids would have flipped with joy, as they, too, are fans.

Instead I am at work, getting ready to review the health insurance rosters. Sigh. And I'm wondering what frightening subconsious reality presents itself in dreams about itinerant musicians and drunk friends.

No Surrendering

Sometimes you have one of those days that you are just glad, finally glad to have end. Unfortunately, sometimes the next day goes pretty much the same. There have been several like that in a row. This morning my new fridge, which had finally arrived on Tuesday, wasn't cold. Out went 2 more containers of ice cream, waffles... the few other things that had gone in (I'm thankful I hadn't yet done a real grocery trip).

Having gone a week and a half without a real fridge, I've already outspent the budget on takeout & convenience items, and I don't get paid till tomorrow. What the hell else is going to go wrong? I've wondered. I tried to have gratitude for other things. I'm really glad I'm not that guy that was out on a roof for the second morning in a row, using a blowtorch on a hot August morning (I got to go to my nice air conditioned office instead). While I am over budget, I do keep "emergency" money in the checking account, so none of us will starve.

Then I was almost hit on the way to work because a guy was texting while he was driving. Jerk. Yes, you with the North Carolina plate XXE 5295. I was pissed off enough to take note.

Still, I have these great friends who listen to me grumble (definitely more grumbling than whining today). I try to keep it light, even entertaining, but it was still grumbling.

As always, I am bearable one moment, unbearable the next. -- Goethe

Work itself was worth grumbling about. I'm in one of those slumps where I can sit and look at the stuff that's late and almost cannot force myself to work through it. Then I had a little prodding from our Controller. That helped. I kept thinking that I have made some progress in working toward what I really want to be when I grow up, but real change still seems so far away.
Taking the small steps eventually leads somewhere, though. Back in February, just for fun, I bought a pendant that has the antique illustration of Alice putting on her crown (you can see it at http://www.goreydetails.com/. Also got a fabulous t-shirt with the Gorey drawing of a girl, which reads "So many books, so little time). I'll just keep going till I get to be a Queen.

Now our Mr. Softee guy insisted on giving me a mango melon ice, when I bought some for the kids. That was the nicest thing to happen to me all day.

A Ramble

I'm just in from a Girls' Nite/ Happy Hour. It's a pretty good happy hour, these days, to keep me out till ten (not like the old days, when that would be nothing). Fun, too, to bring together women friends from different corners of life - work, church, family - to mark a milestone of a new beginning. It was fun; I think the friends were surprised that I could sing along to a couple of the songs played by the Irish music band at the first bar. How often do I get to exercise that dubious talent?

Still, I was beginning to look forward to getting home, to write a bit and put on my own music, which right now is Shemekia Copeland's Never Going Back CD. "There's nothing like staying at home for real comfort," as Jane Austen wrote, however facetiously, in Emma. Best of all is a balance: getting out for a while, but being glad to get home and finding that once again home is a place of peace, because for a long time it just wasn't.

I don't find that "I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself" (Samuel Johnson), in fact I enjoy my own company at least as much as most other people's. It was a good crew tonight, though, and good laughs.

I will be glad to pick up my boys from camp tomorrow, to hear about all their fun week and to bring them home for their own peace. The balance is that I've also enjoyed having the house to myself, getting some work done and some rest, too. It's a different world when I get up in the morning and am responsible for no one but myself, but even that reminds me that it is good to have children who steady me with a sense of purpose. There are times when no other purpose is as clear as the need to be there for the kids. My life has creative purpose; I'm just not always sure what it is or how to get to the next point. The kids keep me from stalling out while I'm figuring out what to do next beyond surviving.

It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it.
-- Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Thanks, friends, all of you. Sometimes it is good just to be puzzled together.

Rollercoasting

Your love is like a roller coaster, baby, baby...

I almost attributed that line to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That's not who did the song originally but I am so tired, I just can't think of the name of the original artist. Maybe if I keep typing it will come to me.

The song, anyway, was on the radio the other morning; yes, you guessed it, Michaela Majoun played it on WXPN as part of a 9 am select-a-set. It reminded me of Cindy Kephart,a woman I'd worked with in Wilmington, DE. Cindy had a very polished look and could work a scarf like nobody's business. She told me two things that I still remember, no three things: First, this was actually the lastest bit: Epidurals are our friends. Very good so far (I discovered that was true later). Second, she had told me that there will be days when all we can do is show up at work and that's just got to be accepted. Third, she said that you find out by the time you're thirty that life is like a roller coaster. When all else fails throw your arms in the air and yell "wheee!"

It was interesting to hear that from her, as she always seemed to have things pretty much under control. Of course, that may have had a lot to do with my perspective at the time - younger (early to mid-twenties) trying to figure out and keep up with the corporate world, identifying and exorcising some of my personal demons and still wondering what I was going to do with my life.

Things are certainly rolling up and down. Good news today was that my mom's visit to the oncologist did not lead to a schedule of chemotherapy. Mom has had two bouts with uterine cancer and now has nodules on a lung. Not so good. The onc said, though, that they are small (we knew that) and that they are not fast-growing, so he'd like to wait 6 weeks for some additional test results. So, not out of the water but not in crisis mode yet, either.

Whew. Relief. But a letdown, all that tension of bracing for the news. I'm thankful. We've all expressed our appreciation, too, that being so many siblings means we are an instant network of support. My brother the pharmaceutical rep specializes in oncology meds, so he went with mom to the appointment, understanding more of the disease and the treatments than the rest of us. Thanks, Mike.

I realized today that waiting for your official divorce decree to arrive in the mail is a lot like looking in the paper every day for an obituary for someone that you already know has died. Fait accompli, but you're just hanging on for it. Still, there's the stuff that's done and the stuff I still have to do - literally stuff - to pack up and to throw out (I'm working on all that while the kids are away at camp), and my friend Sue tells me I need to take time to heal, to just EXHALE. Hmm.

And then? Well, that's on the other side of this climb up the hill, the part where I can throw my hands in the air and yell, "whee..."

The fear of freedom is strong within us.
-- Germaine Greer

A Bad Day and Small Mercies

I could argue that the worst kind of bad day is one when you are not only hurting, not only wanting to kick yourself for being an idiot, but you have in the process made yourself a burden to your friends. Sometimes it takes a friend to give you the proverbial kick in the pants, and the good ones will probably feel as bad for the kick as you do for having needed one.

And say my glory was, that I had such friends. - W.B. Yeats

Having that kind of day Saturday, I had the good fortune to have the kids out of the house for the night. Instead of wallowing in despair, I was strangely goded into action. I finally cleaned out and packed up the things left in the bedroom and bathroom by my exhusband. As I worked, I thought I would see what was on TV (I don't watch as much TV as recent posts might suggest). Just as I turned it on, TCM was about to broadcast Notorious.

This is the 1946 Notorious, with Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, and the first film that Hitchcock both directed and produced. Movies don't get any better. You have to see Bergman telling Grant, "you can't beat a love song for a good laugh." The movie coming on at just the right moment, for me, is what I call a small mercy. It doesn't solve any problems, but it is like the universe (what I call God, but you may not) puts a hand on your shoulder and says you're ok, you're not alone. Even if you have been far from perfect.