Huh, What an Epiphany

When I was about ten years old I would often sleep in my Mom's room.  I liked being close to her and feeling the safety of her presence.

She had a poster tacked to the wall, (this was long before she became a photographer and then owned an art gallery.)  The poster read "IF you love something set it free, if it comes back to you, it is yours, if it doesn't it never was."

Even at ten, I thought, "Well that's a bunch of crap."

But this was the 1970's with free love, no boundaries, and the beginning of the self help movement.

I too have been guilty of being a self help junkie.  I have read books, shook hands with Tony Robbins,  learned to dance with my anger, love my body thru meditation, masturbation, and mastication (slowly of course).

My chakras have been put back in balance, my room has been feng shui-ed, I have breathed the breath of fire, walked barefoot to gain energy from the ground, and made an image board.

I am still just as screwed up as I have always been.  In my own adorable laughable way I accept myself and my flaws.

Why is it I wonder do I get so irritated when someone else feels the need to point out my flaws and offer to "help"?  If I ask, that is one thing, but usually I do not go seeking negative feedback.

Every generation is supposed to improve upon itself, while making the former generation obsolete.  They take what we have created, and add to, destroy, or fix it.

I realize that I am aging when I have little tolerance for the younger generations proclamations of their version of the truth.

The only truth I can clearly see is that life is in a constant state of Koyaanisqatsi.

I have tried to raise my children to seek out their own truths, and yes to experiment.  Try on personalities while you are young.  Do new things, but do it with the knowledge that it may end up being full of shit.  There are gurus on every street corner.  Teachers are among us always.  Every person we let into our lives should teach us something.

All lessons are not monumental, all things we take away from our actions may not have lasting effects.  We may walk away from something, or someone and say ,"Huh, well that happened."

A friend of mine since high school once told me that she always thinks of me when she hears the word "epiphany".  This surprised me to some degree, and I admit it was an epiphany in and of itself that I tend to have many epiphanies.

Recently stranger reached out to me on a photography site and said that I am brave, and compared herself to me by saying she is afraid. The epiphany I gained from this was that I was afraid to respond to her and offer words of encouragement.  I wanted to tell her, I am afraid too, all the time.  I am even afraid of fear.  Yet I like to snuggle up and make myself afraid by watching scary movies.

I am not qualified to advise people on their fears, or the choices they need to make in life.  I can only say that I do understand, and that I know it can be scary.  I can also be blunt and say it may really suck, or it may not.  Either way you wont know until you have done the thing that fears you.

In my house I have created an atmosphere of protection, my nest.  It is a safe zone, where my children are free to tell me the things they wish to share.  I have been told of the drugs they have taken, the times when they got drunk, lost their virginity, questioned God, questioned their own body images, and questioned their friendships.  I listen, and usually I will ask what they have learned from it all.  Sometimes I say nothing at all and just listen.

I may throw a note of caution in, I am their mother, and that is part of the job.  Protect the nest and all who reside in it.

On the poster that hung in my mothers room along side the words of letting something free, was a picture of a bird.  A Jonathan Livingston Seagull kind of bird.  I also pondered this as a child, "Well who would expect a bird to come back to you, that's just stupid."

Eventually I stopped sleeping my mother's room and I hung up my own inspirational posters.  I do believe they consisted of John Travolta, Scott Baio, and Carol King.

One of my children has written quotes all over her walls in her bedroom.

Eventually posters come down, and rooms get painted as we let go of the things that once served a purpose.  We let go of the ideas we loved, but they still belong to us, even of they never return.

If I never in my life have another poster of John Travolta it does not mean he was not mine.  If my children find fault in me and feel the need to point it out, I will call upon my plethora of resources to calmly listen to their concerns, their truths, and listen.

Or with all the knowledge and self help I have stuffed into my brain over the years I may forget it all and tell them to shut up.

Look how far I've flown.

Do you take you for better or worse?

Twenty-one years ago today I set sail on a honeymoon of a lifetime.  I was twenty-two years old, married, and in love.  Before  250 witnesses I pledged my life to this man.  I had dreams of us growing old together.

Seven years later we parted as friends.

Two years after that I again pledged my life to a man.  Only this time my witnesses were our children we brought from our individual previous marriages and the one we created that at the time of our vows was gestating happily. I had dreams of us growing old together.

Four years later he died, and I am the keeper of his ghost and our family.

Thirty-one years ago my own father passed away.

One might think I have bad luck in choosing men.  I disagree.  I have been blessed.

I have always been fortunate in my relationships.  A serial monogamist.  A good friend said that I am the kind of person who is meant to be with someone else.  She said, "You couple well".

She also predicted I would be married within five years of Eric's death, and a guru at an ashram also said he saw me married within a year.

That was three years ago.

I have not taken many lovers over the last eight years, but the few I did take on did not work out.  I remain friends with most.

If a friendship is maintained the relationship was successful.  It does not matter if you are no longer in love, or in bed, or on the same schedule anymore.  As long as there was something real, than it was successful.

I turned to John for advice the other night about a recent relationship that ended before it ever began.

John went in to a long discussion about me, not about me and my partner, or me and my past, just me.  He asked me hard rhetorical questions.

One of which was, "Do you want to be here?"

I was really hoping he meant my bed where we were sitting.  I always want to be in my bed.  No, he meant "here" the literal.  Alive.  Do I want to be alive.  Do I want to stop existing and start living again?

For a brief moment I felt as tho I was in a tent revival and some strong guys were going to pop out from my bathroom to catch me as John pressed the spirit of Jesus into my head.

It's not that easy.

I started to ask a question and no sooner did the words form that I had the answer.

The question was, "Why do I keep choosing the wrong people?  The emotionally unavailable or geographically impossible or too young for me?"

The answer is; it is not that I am choosing the wrong partners.  I am the wrong one.  As long as I continue on this course that I have made very comfortable I will never find a person who fits me.  The fault lies within.

Today someone said to me they thought life sucks and that it kicks the shit out of you, but he is prepared to kick the shit out of life instead.

Although I admire his fortitude that is not the approach I want to take.  I want to find me again.

Yes, I want to be here.  Fully here.  It may mean I end up fully here alone, and it may not.  But either way I want this life I was given.

I will for now, take myself off the shelf and out of the market.

Until I find out who I am now, I will always be the wrong partner.   I will never be able to fully give to my partner my heart when I am not yet in love with who I am.

Now, I must work on waking up, coming out of a long comfortable fog and learn to love myself again, so that I can be here.

When I am finally here, the world will know it.

Has Anyone Seen My Hat?

There is a time in the early Texas summer that makes me feel life is good.  The time is brief and you'd best put a hitch in yer giddyup or you mighten miss it.

The time is early morning.  Before the heat has decided to fully descend and settle.  If you are lucky, as I am right now, there will be a breeze.

My children and the cicadas are still sleeping.  The neighbor's rooster is not, but like me he never sleeps.

The wind mixed with the dull hum of everyone's AC unit is all I have for company.

My favorite coffee  cup is next to me and my feet are up.  The heat is just barely touching my toes.

In a few short hours I wont be able to walk on my deck barefoot because it would be walking on a stovetop.

In a few hours I will be inside with my blackout curtains drawn and doing all I can to pretend it is not so hot.

I have often lamented the heat of Texas and its original settlers.  They must have arrived in March clueless to what was coming.

I often question why anyone would stay here.  Texans love their Texas and I have met more people from here that would never leave than I have the opposite.

I have asked myself why I stay here.

The answer is simple.  Because I have to.  I have roots.  Not the familial kind, the kind that come in the form of a mortgage, a bad economy, a job that requires a clientele.

Roots that dictate garbage is to be put out on Wednesday night and recycling is every other Thursday.

I planted five little trees here and my roots are by proxy to them.  This is their state, their home.

Texas  does fascinate me.  The small towns with the ornate courthouses.  The barns with state flag painted on them. The ghost towns hidden away at the end of dirt roads.  The sprawling cities that don't seem like cities at all to me. The secret water holes that people actually call "water holes" and they are not much of a secret.  A town that is all German smack dab in the middle of the state where you can buy hand forged iron door knockers and have german potato salad served hot.

I once met a man named Bob who tipped his ten gallon hat and said, "Call me 'Cowboy Bob' most everyone does round here"  and yes he had a mustache that did the most amazing curl.  I can not imagine Cowboy Bob walking along the third street promenade in Santa Monica, or ordering a pie in New Jersey and not knowing it was pizza he was ordering not apple.

Cowboy Bob would not sit well at a table covered in brown paper and have beer battered crabs unceremoniously dumped in front of him.

Cowboy Bob is exactly where he needs to be.  He is as much a part of his surroundings as they are him.

I envy Cowboy Bob.  He knows his place. He loves his place.

Me, I was born a southerner, raised a Jersey girl, and settled in Texas.

Wherever I lay my hat is home, I just have so many hats to choose from.

Sermon on the Mount

In The Sermon on the Mount Jesus asks of us at one point to turn the other cheek to our enemies.  I am taking here from a website to further elaborate.


'In everyday speech, the phrase "turn the other cheek" is often used to mean something like "turn away from aggression and ignore it rather than retaliate." Morality lessons that teach turning the other cheek as a good or Christian value would typically emphasize nonviolence and non-confrontation.
The most straightforward reading of the passages in Matthew and Luke, however, suggests that the phrase has a more radical meaning: a command to respond to aggression by willingly exposing oneself to a further act of aggression rather than retaliating, retreating, or ignoring it."- Wikipedia

To turn away from aggression seems like such an easy thing to do.  To offer up the other cheek so that it too may be inflicted upon is not so easy.

I have learned something new and quite frankly something I am not very proud of in the last few weeks. I have learned that I can let my anger get the better of me.

When I told a friend of mine that I got into an all out argument with another friend, she was shocked.  I gave no details, but did confess that I said things I could not even believe I was saying.  My friend was stunned and replied, "But you are one of the most peaceful patient people I know."

I thought so too.

How do I reconcile what I thought to be true about myself as being the peacekeeper with the blatant fact that I can lower my own dignity to the point where I am hurling insults with as much gusto as spitting out watermelon seeds?

I have not offered the other cheek.  In either meaning.  I have not offered it as a means of walking away from aggression, nor have I offered it up for more pain from my accuser .

This shames me.

I can make excuses that I did not start with the immaturity level to which I sank, but it does not deflect that I sank there.

Knowing now that I am capable of being so cruel to a person, deserving or not, is frightening to me.  I did not know I had this within me.

I am used to be the hurt one, the martyr, the one who will cry out "Woe is me."  yet I shed that skeleton a  long time back.  I am no longer the victim in my life.

Bad shit happens.  So make a bumper sticker out of it and call it a day.

People are resilient, and bounce back.  I always have.  I have travelled around the economic scale more than willy Loman travelled and peddled his wares.  And what have I gained from it?  An appreciation of a good job, the blessings of having been loved by a good husband, and apparently an untapped anger just beneath the surface.

Willy Loman was an optimist to the end.  He turned the other cheek, time and time again.  For both punishment and to avoid aggression.  But we think of our friend Willy as a tragic hero.

Now I am in possession of an anger that can manifests in words used to hurt.  To hurt someone to the core.

I have accused good friends of being bad friends, I have replied to angry words with even more vicious ones.  For a time I actually enjoyed it.  I enjoyed saying the words I knew would cause pain. I made things up just to add more salt to an open wound.

Then I stopped.

Who am I?  I am not this person.  Surely I know the better path to take.  Surely I know the way of peace and love to offer.  Surely I know how to turn my cheek in submission to more pain on the other side.

That was not my reaction though.  It was not the path I chose.  When I should have been enjoying the company of my children on a rare night out I stewed.  I tried to deflect.  I tried to think of love, and peace, and be in the moment surrounded by the people I cherish the most.  I was successful for the duration of our time together.

I have heard the phrase "toxic people" so many times I think the phrase itself is toxic.  I was allowing myself to be toxic. I allowed myself to be treated unfairly and respond in the same manner.

The calm and peaceful me which is represented almost most of the time does not scare me.

What scares me is now I know I am capable of being the one demanding the other cheek.  I am capable of inflicting the pain. I am scared at how quickly I can retaliate instead of retreating.

It is easy to learn lessons about ourselves that match the image we create.  It is much harder to recognize the demon within.

I Gotta Talk You Something

Every family has certain expressions that are used on a regular basis.

My step father is fond of saying, "I got news for you."

My sister in law will say, "At the end of the day..."

My mother has always freely given the advice, "When you do what's right you never go wrong."

I am sitting in my brother's backyard in Atlanta as I write.  A weekend with the family.  I came here to surprise the family for my eldest brother's fiftieth birthday.

It is hard to imagine that just a few months ago I was ready to cut both of my brothers out of my life completely.  In fact for a time I did.  I told them both never to contact me again.

We had the mother of all fights and we all said things to each other that should not have been said, but in the confines of "family" you are safe to say because you know eventually all will be forgiven and eventually the words will be brought back up.  Not as a means of rehashing the past, but rather fodder for laughter.

That is how my family is.  We can argue, and on occasion do, but in the end (my personal saying) we are family.

I have raised my children to be the same way.  We are close.  There are few secrets in my own household and that is the way I prefer it.  At my own dinner table there are few topics that are off limit.  One thing I tend to do a lot when I am with my children is laugh.

I have noticed in these few short days that one thing I tend to do when with my own siblings and parents we tend to laugh.  A lot.

We laugh at each other, we laugh at ourselves.  We laugh at the past.  We laugh that my mom will play ignorant to the stories of her children's teenage antics, as she pretends she had no idea any of that was going on under her 14 thousand square foot house.

She knew.

In the same way I know when one of mine has snuck out of the house, or snuck someone in.

There are times when I am back at home and I make a comment about missing my family and on of my kids will say, "We are your family Mom."  This is true, but family extends beyond our own tiny tribe.  Not that my personal tribe is tiny mind you.

Should I have moved when Eric died?  He wanted me to.  He made me promise I would.  I chose not to.

I have spent my adult life raising children in a state that never really felt like home.  Only until now do I realize why it has never felt like home.  Because it is so far away from the rest of the family.

I have three sisters in law.  I never had sisters when growing up.  The concept of sisters is foreign to me, and ironically all of my sisters in law themselves did not grow up with sisters.  Four women joined together in marriage and family made a new by choices of husbands.

I love them all.  They are all so different and all eccentric in their own way.

I yearn for a different time when we would be close.  Years that my children have missed because I did not have any of my family near me.  Cousins that barely speak, or have little in common other than a shared bloodline.

A time is coming very soon where I will be able to move, where I can, if I choose be closer to my family.  I think about it, I talk about it.  Yes, I would be closer to my brothers and sisters in law and my mother, but I would also be leaving some of my children behind in the only state they know as home.

Bittersweet are some of life's choices and we may not know what is the right choice or wrong choice.  It is useless to think, "What if".  There is no answer to what if.

For now, and at the end of the day, let me tell you something, I got news for you, enjoy what you have, wherever it may be. Because in the end your family (born into or created) is all you have.