Are You Sure That Was Me?

Sitting in Atlanta at an Italian restaurant last night I was well reminded of why I adore my family.

Family has many aspects, but ultimately we are all connected.  This family consisted of my two brothers, their wives and my youngest daughter.

Having not grown up with sisters I do not have the memories of some of my friends.  Our fights, when we did fight, were hard core.  Often ended with me being hurt and probably tattling to our mother in some form.

We sat over bottles of wine, and food my daughter has not seen (being a true Texan that she is).  The Jersey in me came out.

Tales were told that more often than not ended with one of us saying, "Oh my God I did do that!"
It was almost a race of who did the worst thing.  My eldest brother held back, being the most reserved of the three of us, so my other brother and I took up the slack and told his stories for him.  I looked over and saw him laughing behind his antipasto.

Yeah, we were all young once, we were all kids.  We are held together by memories of old girlfriends and boyfriends, a few car crashes, a lot of parties, and general good times.  In our small town we grew up in our family was known.  I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is fact.

I looked at my brother and his grey hair and he is still the lady killer he once was.  My other brother with no grey hair and his wife are the picture of suburban living and health.

They in turn made me take a look at myself.  I was grilled on the way home why I do not, to this day, like to go out to eat.  When the reason turned out to be a bad mushroom trip from 30 years ago  my daughter piped up, "That is why you don't like to go out to eat?!"

We punish ourselves  more than anyone else will ever punish us.  Some of it remains, and lingers into our personality and just becomes part of us that we navigate.  When my brother showed light on it, I had to laugh because it does seem rather silly, but I am so used to it now, it is just part of who I am.

I love it when I find out my own children get together and go out, or stay in.  I do not have to be therm just knowing about it makes me happy.  Now I know why.

They are family.  They belong to a certain group, raised by me, and have shared experiences that I may or may not know about. And that is the way it should be.

Someday I may not recall all these memories that were tossed around last night like the buttery rolls.  I hope my youngest was listening so she can retell them.  I have the fortune of once being very close to our mother and hearing her stories that she did not want "the boys", my brothers to know.  They are old enough to handle them now, and I am old enough that I better tell them to someone before I forget.

My mom would have loved to have been there at dinner with us.  But would we have been so open and honest if she was there?  Absolutely.  That was how we were raised.  Very few secrets existed in our family, and if they did they were huge secrets worthy of being kept.

Last night I sat at the table and took it all in.  How we have all survived our adventures, and misadventures.

Last night I confessed to my daughter a few things, without a lot of choice.  Every parent must decide to let their children know more than just the parental side of them or not.  I have never really been one to abide by the strict parental role.  I love my children and want them to know me, and yes this comes with a past.

I also want my children to take some risks and create their own pasts.

One day I hope all five of my babies are sitting around a table sharing, wine, or margaritas and laughing over the shit they did when they were younger.

For now, they are younger.

For now, I get to enjoy the feeling of being with my family, my family of siblings.  It is one of the greatest feelings in the world to sit and laugh and know you are loved because of and in spite of my history.

Because with my family, we share the same history.  Only the view points change.

Pour the wine, tell the stories, embrace the family, close and extended.

You may regret some of your actions of your youth, but one day it may just end up a funny story that is part of a bond.

Oh Captain, my Captain

There are times when I have idea in my head that are bursting to make it to print.
Sometimes I ponder them, edit them, worry about reactions of my readers, and discard them before they even come to fruition.

I thought of this as a kind of abortion, until I realized it is more of a suicide.  I kill characters that reside in my head either because they no longer served a function, or to make room for new ones.

This line of thought lead me to want to talk about the actual act of suicide.  You can imagine the self editing, and multiple abortions of that idea.

It is time now, with humility that I want to talk about it.

Maybe because I am watching a movie with a famous actor who killed himself not too long ago.  I read people's posts of heartache, disbelief, and many who called him a coward.

I kept my mouth shut, at least in the public forum.

If you have read this far then here is my disclaimer: These opinions are mine.  I do not expect to change anyone's views or beliefs, I merely have to get these thoughts out there so that I might forget about it for a while.

The actor is best when he/she is so convincing you can not see them any other way than you do at the very moment you are watching them.  If they convince you something is funny and you laugh, then the actor has done his job.

When this actor decided his time here was done, I was very affected.  I was going through a dark night of the soul and was not strong in thought or faith of ever escaping it.  He made me feel weak.  Yes weak.

He had the strength to decide it was time to end his pain, whatever that pain may have been.  I don't know.  I was not friends with him, never met him, never would.

But I know he was in pain.

A pain I swear I could wish no one would ever feel.  A pain so terrible that some people take razor blades and make small cuts to feel something other than what is bouncing around in their heads.

St. John of the Cross writes of his Dark night of the soul.  A carrying of spirit from this realm to (what he believed) the place with God.

People write poetry, songs, symphonies, plays, and a plethora of books on depression, or alcoholism, or just unhappiness.

For every person who takes a risk to put their heart out in the public, I am inspired.  I grow strength from people,  perfect strangers.

But this actor made me feel weak.  He did the one thing that no matter how low I have been I know I could not do.  Instead I reached out for someone.  I cried, I slept, I cried.  My days followed like this for almost six months.

I cried when I woke up simply because I did wake up.

I rarely showered, and even more rarely did I leave the house.  I stayed in my nest with my love taking care of me and letting me feel the horrible feelings I had.  She wished she could take them from me.

She couldn't.  I was the one who had to take the first steps.  I had done it before and chose to do it again.  I chose life.

The actor chose death.  I respect him for that. Yes he will be missed and loved, but he was in no way a coward.  We will all be missed and loved one day, that is what matters more.

I am not saying all people who are depressed, bullied, sick, or sick of being sick should choose to end their life.  No.  Exhaust everything you can, call on every person.  You will pleasantly surprised at who will come to your aid and sadly disappointed at those who you thought would and didn't.

Try.  Try everything you can think of first.

Do I know if this actor tried everything he could think of?  Obviously not.  No one does.  But he knew when it was too much.  I can not call that being a coward.  It was probably the most desperate and scary and ultimately brave thing he could do for himself and those he loved.


I leave you with St. John of the Cross:

"I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares forgotten among the
lilies."

Come on People Now Love one Another

Yesterday my partner was on her way home from work, taking her usual route which leads directly through the most crime ridden area of Austin.  She was driving and saw a man lying on the sidewalk, as she passed the man feebly reached one arm up, as if to call for help in the only way he could.

Without hesitation my partner turned around and parked next to the man, leaned over and said, "Hey buddy, you okay?"  The man's reply was mostly incoherent but he did mention something about smoking something.

"I will get you help"

She called 911 and waited with him, reassuring him, until the ambulance arrived.

Then she came home.

My son and his girlfriend once helped a man who appeared to be on drugs struggling to get on a motorcycle.  They went over and tried to help him, stop him from riding and find out what was going on.  As it turned out my son and his girlfriend deduced he was a diabetic, and being right near a bakery went in and got him some cookies and orange juice.  Within minutes the previous slurring man was perfectly normal and thanked the kids.  They said it was no problem, anyone would have done the same.

That is the problem, not everyone does the same.

My partner is looking for meaning in what happened with her and the man lying in the street.  She seems blind to the fact that SHE was the one who brought meaning to the incident.  No one else stopped.  It is a busy road and every other person turned a blind eye, didn't see, or did not want to stop in such a neighborhood for what appeared to be just another crack head..

She confessed that she wants to change the world, but can not see that she already did.  Maybe another car passing by took stock of their own life and vowed to stop to help his fellow man.  Maybe a woman driving her children pointed out what was happening and taught her children it is a good thing to stop and help the strangers who need it.

Changing the world is not running for office, or standing on a pulpit every Sunday. Changing the world is taking the lessons you have learned out into your family and community.  It is actions, not words.

I am no more changing the world by writing this, I was not the one who stopped to help.  I am only pointing out the meaning of it.

She did not talk to me about her feelings of this event until today.  Until with some irony, we left the voting polls having cast our ballots.  I was feeling fairly self righteous about voting, even if it is my civic duty.

What difference did I make by pressing buttons?  Does that equal up to helping one man get help?

Somehow I don't think so.

I have asked myself how I have changed the world and I came to the conclusion that I am a listener, I take people's stories as they seem to always want to tell me.  I am one of those people that can not run into a store for a quick diet coke.  I almost always come out with a story, a piece of someones life that they wanted to tell, and wanted me to hear.

My partner heard the only story she needed to.  Help.  And she did.

 You do not need a cape or a weapon, you just need a heart and possibly a cell phone to change the world.

Whatever Will Be Will Be

I am sitting here watching my cursor blink at me and I want to curse right back at it.  I know what  issue I want to address, and I am finding it so difficult to actually do it.

I very recently watched a documentary that smacked me in the face in so many ways, I need an Advil or two.

This documentary focused primarily on the objectification of women.  I am fully aware this is not a new topic, and my readers may sigh and think, "Heard all this before."

By now my readers know I have five children.  Four girls and one boy.  What you do not know is that when I found out I had a boy (Upon his delivery and contrary to what the ultrasound told us), I was terrified.

I was 25 and believed men were the root of all evil.  I was so hyper focused on raising my son to appreciate and value women, that I think I ignored teaching my daughters the same lesson. I did not care when at age two my son wanted to wear a tutu of his sisters.  I applaud even today the way he shows respect to his amazing girlfriend.  They are equals.

But did I teach this to my daughters?

No.

My daughters were raised to be the free little spirits they were, but in retrospect I did encourage the stereotyped female role.  Whose tutu did my son borrow?  His sisters.  I bought matching dresses for them, every Disney Princess, and American Doll that looked like them.

On their own they discovered where they wanted to fall among the title of being a woman.  I have one daughter who never liked the girly things, I have one who never knew how to put on makeup, I have one who loves makeup, and one who obsesses over fashion.

I have always had body issues with being too heavy, and in the last ten years I overcompensate for my weight by wearing a lot of dresses and skirts.  Yet I have tattoos on my arms of skeletons and daggers.  I look back to my "thin" days and how I dressed.  Overalls, shorts I bought in the men's section so they could hang on my hips, and always tank tops.  I still wear tank tops but that could be a climate dictation.

What was my chosen career?  Fashion.  I can not help now but to feel as if I am part of the problem.

"If you wear this shade it will really make your eyes pop"  because lord knows if our eyes are not as big and round as a Disney Princess no one will think we are pretty.

I have worked fashion show after fashion show, more photo shoots than I can count.  I have watched male photographers make models pose in ridiculous ways that they think is sexy.

Yet, I myself only wear makeup if I am working.  I usually apply it on my way to work at each red light.  I can not wait to get home and take it off.

I am captivated by makeup, I retail it, I collect it, but I do not use it on me.  My tiny personal makeup bag has a few things and I always wear the same things.

As I get older I am just now learning to love my body.  This is not easy on a Grand Canyon scale.  In youth I loved my breasts, small, always a B cup and as perky as a Grande Cup of Pumpkin spiced latte.  Of late my breasts have reached National Geographic proportion.  Still, I wont wear a bra on most days, and it comes off before the makeup does.

I do not abide by the rules of my profession.  Yes I want to look pretty, yes I miss the days of turning heads of both males and females, but I lump that with youth.  I will never be that again. I am coming to terms with what being a woman really means, while simultaneously guilty of supporting the gender bias.

I love making people look good.  I love when they feel their hair after I have cut it or styled it and they smile with happiness.  I love that I can take a 15 year old girl look sexy and vulnerable at the same time.

I sit here and reflect on that last sentence and feel sick about it.

Is it wrong to want to feel hot, sexy, and desirable?

Is it wrong that I have spent my professional life disseminating this myth that if you feel you look good on the outside it will reflect how you feel on the inside?

Have I neglected my daughters by focusing so much on my son?

Is it too late for them to learn?

I am faced now with a question I do not know how to answer, how do I go about my career in a balanced way?

I have not been working all that much in the last year, a photo shoot here or there, a wedding or two, and maybe a few zombies.  Even some of my zombies required that they still appear sexy.  Not a problem, I can do that.

I know women who are authors, judges, athletes, doctors, actors,  professors.  At some point these women have ended up in my chair asking for help.  Help to tame curls, what makeup is best, should they color their hair or let it go grey.  All of them not knowing they are all asking the same thing of me.

To make them look better then they perceive themselves.

If I could go back over my career I might change a few things, I might not.  I do know I would change what I said and how I encouraged my daughters.

I know now that if I could go back in time to a point where I sang "Hush Little Baby" I would change it to Que Sera Sera.

Daughters: Don't hush, cry if you need to, scream if you feel it, take a stand, be you, with or without a bra or makeup.  Always know there is at least one person on this earth who loves you just the way you are, it may have taken me 46 years to say it, but you are perfect, and you are loved.

Have You Heard…?

I broke my golden rule of summer and looked at the news.  Normally I stay away from it and instead watch Tremors two times in a row.  Kevin Bacon, tight jeans, cowboy boots, always seems like a good idea to me.

Alas, I awoke early and did not turn on the TV, I did not want to wake Meredith.  I am not in a book reading mood, as I am in the middle of three at the moment and could not pick one without feeling I am hurting the other two book's feelings.  Yes I anthropamorphize my literature.

I picked up my tablet and immediately went to the news folder.  Here is what I learned:

The Juggalos are a misunderstood group.  Go ahead and google it, I had to.

Cam girls are asked to do some crazy ass shit, but they get paid for it.

Another idiot tried getting high trying to smoke his wife's ashes.

People apparently care what James Franco thinks about.

part two, people also care about what Justin Bieber and whats his face are fighting about.

NYPD killed another man, and I will see the Law and Order SVU version of it sometime in September.

A new site where teens can make each other even more miserable and insecure than they already are.  Owner of site doesn't give a shit.

George Bush doesn't know much about his own father, which will not stop him from hiring a ghost writer to write a tell all.

Now, on to the more disturbing news, which on every site comes after the aforementioned "news"

No rest in the middle east

Ebola outbreak at an all time high and one infected woman is being flown to Atlanta for a treatment that does not exist.  This I became fixated on.

Yes I am more likely to set my ex on fire (kidding) than I am to get ebola, that does not matter to a person who takes their book's feelings into consideration.  I now go off the beaten path of news and begin to research all I can about ebola.

After I have thoroughly convinced myself that I have ebola and will surely be dead in a matter of minutes I take a deep breath, a xanax, and go back to the lighter side of news.

Cosmopolitan thinks Lesbians have sex like a bizarre cirque de solei act.  We don't.

According to a quiz I am the iceberg in the movie Titanic.

Parental Awards Go To: the couple that hired a surrogate, who had twins, only take the healthy one and leave the one with downs syndrome in another country.
The mom who lit her husband on fire for molesting her daughter.
The mom teaching her three year old how to twerk.
The dad who left his children in the car while he went to work.
And the winner goes to an 80 year old woman who refuses to sell her house for a new development , sits on front porch with a shot gun, hey she is a Texan, what did they think would happen?

Today I will not think about ebola, I will not think about wars, I will not think about how a lake can mysteriously appear in the middle of the desert, nor will I send the link to that article to my mother in law in Arizona.

As I look up from where I am sitting at the head of my dining room table I see books instead of place mats.  501 French Verbs, some Dean Koontz book, an the Survival Guide to the Paranormal.

I am fairly certain I hear Kevin Bacon calling me.

As a nod to the news I wont be reading, and to Walter,"And that's the way it is."

Take a Look, it's in a Book...

Generally I like to take an interest in the things my children are interested in.  I will often read the same books.  We used to have a rule that you could not see a  movie made from a book unless you read the book first.

 I believe this started as a result from my then twelve year old boy wanting to see A Clockwork Orange.  I got him the book.

Today I am reading a young adult book where, two pages in, I am quite sure one or both of the main characters is going to die.  Another teen cancer book.  I think I have read at least three teen cancer books.

When I was a teen, in my free time I read about money, drugs, fabulously shallow people and anything else I could get my hands on.

I hid the book Wifey by Judy Bloom in my camp trunk one summer, and late at night I read aloud to my bunkmates as quietly as I could and we giggled at all the sex scenes as we were equally appalled, swearing we would never ever do such things.  Gross me out, gag me with a spoon!

Times have changed and I could probably put Wifey to shame, and now older teens and horny women are reading about S&M.

Not me.  Here I sit reading the pathos of first love and death all mixed into one well-written and sad book.

While reading I came across an interesting word not often used in my daily lingo.

Hamartia.  The fatal flaw.  How I love the Greeks for coming up with such a wonderful word.  Usually it is seen in literature.  Let's face it, how do you work "hamartia" in with, "God damnit, I swear not doing your own laundry is your hamartia!"

No, I think the Greeks had a deeper meaning for it.

I adore the idea that one person can be chock full of hamartias, that one man's hamartia is another man's saving grace.

This book also had a line I relate too, and kudos to the author for putting it in the mind of a teenager.

"The world contains a lot of dead people".

YES!  I feel that all the time, every day, I am always saying I am keeper of the dead.  I see dead people. The whole thing.

A few weeks ago I had a slight cancer scare.  I had a biopsy on a Friday and on Monday morning I recieved a call saying I needed to go see the oncologist that afternoon.  Oh, but not any oncologist, the same one my cancer-dead husband saw for five years.  We lovingly called him Dr. Death.

I know how cancer works and the faster they want you in their office, the worse it is.

Here is the irony; I was half hoping I had it.  I have been in such a pit of depression that the idea of cancer was a good thing.  My husband had always called it a gift.  I wanted that gift.  I wanted to fight for life, rather than just let it be.  I needed to see the reasons to live.

When I was declared cancer-free and just filled with some scar tissue, I was a bit let down.  Back to my shell of depression I go.  Back to the other kinds of doctors who shovel out pills that may or may not make me feel any better.

Is my hamartia that I am alwasy fixated on death?  The feeling that I need to keep the dead alive in some way?  For my children? For myself?

If that is the case then is writing my saving grace?

Could my hamartia also be my saving grace?  The end result in wanting to live and daily looking for the reasons and positives, yet sometimes failing to see it all?

I will finish reading this young adult book and see who dies, who lives, and what the author makes of death and life.

And if nothing else I learned a killer word (no pun intended.)

Sit Where You Like

I did a very scary thing today.  A thing that still holds taboo for many people.  No, not sex, and frankly if sex is a taboo for you, then you need to do what I did today.

I saw a therapist.

This is not my first go-round with psychotherapy.  It has however been a while since I sat in a chair, or on a sofa and talked about myself.

The last time I did my therapist fell asleep.  Snoring and everything. Which would not have been so bad if it wasn't for the fact that I was talking about how my needs are never met.

Psychiatry is altogether different and I consider them as high paid drug dealers.  In fact I refer to my psychiatrist as my dealer.

Today I met a doctor who will hopefully put the pieces of the puzzle together with me.

My first reaction upon meeting him was that he looked like the cowardly lion from the Wizard of Oz, only younger and thinner.

I followed him up the staircase of yellow brick (metaphorically) to his office where I faced my first test.  Where do I sit?

Standard non Freudian room, two comfortable chairs side by side (making it awkward to see him over the things on the coffee table should he choose the other chair).

"Sit where ever you like"

"HA!" I thought, I know this game, where I sit will say something deep and important about my psyche and it would be a phone call away from the flying monkeys.

I chose the sofa, giving him the chair across from me.  I wanted that chair but I saw his cup next to it silently claiming that chair is his.

Had I passed my first test of where to sit?  Was he taking notes?  I can't recall.

Dr. Lion (as I will call him) is a very affable man. A quality one would want when handing over the oozing dark cobwebbed parts of your brain.

"So, tell me about yourself."  Or maybe it was, "So, what brings you here today?"  Either way that was how it began.  I expected a lot of "And how does that make you feel?"

Happily that was not uttered once.

I began to ramble on, trying to be light hearted and ended up with a tissue box in my lap along the way.  The yellow brick road is a tricky road to maneuver.  You need to stop the inner dialogue of stupid things like "Does Dr. Lion realize I am looking to the left when he asks me questions?  Because looking to the left means I am telling the truth."

My brain said "Shut up!"to the other frolicking of my mind, "is that a real fish"  "Why are there toys downstairs?" My brain said be strong and look in control.  Of course if I was in control I would not be on this sofa.

There was a time when my family went on vacation.  A time when we were all still living the charade of being the perfect family, mother and father together, me and my two older brothers.  We went on some boat that the guide would ominously tell us was haunted.  Caretakers heard noises, things moved in the night, the usual ghost tour sort of thing.

One of my brothers was afraid.  I was too young to grasp it all and the idea of seeing a ghost meant nothing to me.  But it was all real for my brother.  He cried, he did not want to go.  I can not recall if he did go on the boat or not, but there is a picture of us, the happy family, with one sad boy who was crying.

Why did my parents want to immortalize that in a photo?  Had my father been harsh with him and tell him to buck up, or whatever fathers said back then?  Did my mother hold him close to her for comfort constantly whispering it is not real, it is just a story.

Or was he left alone to deal with his phantoms?

I have looked at that picture a lot.  We make fun of it still today, and I still don't know if it stings him when we do.  He takes it in good humor, but is it real humor?

I often wonder if the things I worry about are real.  My phantoms that make me want to cling to my fathers leg, or have him scoop me up in his arms (Which I have no actual memory of him doing tho I am sure he did).

Dr, Lion wants me to breathe.  I felt a little disheartened at this,  I am always breathing.  I have been a self help junkie since my teens, I have claimed my power though Betty Friedan,

"No woman gets an orgasm through shinning the kitchen floor."

I have had lunch with Tony Robbins.

"The path to success is to take massive, determined action" I always want to "OOH RAH" after that one.

NLP, EDMR, Hypnosis, meditation, masturbation (just threw that in to see if you were paying attention),yoga, chakra healing, labyrinth walking, opiates, Hellen Reddy I am Woman.

Name it, I've done it.

So why the stigma still on getting therapy?  Didn't Woody Allen make it cool?  Until he married his daughter of course.

Isn't this a society where everyone is on something to help them get through the day?  We even drug our children.

One for him, one for me, and "Have a nice day dear!"

The hour was up and Dr. Lion had an infectious enthusiasm about our relationship.

Next appointment made, and back down the yellow brick road I went.  I am guessing each time I will take a step or two more in the right direction down the road until Dr. Lion tells me I had it in me all along.

The drive home was beautiful, sun setting, a slight chill in the air and all I wanted to do was call my brother and tell him I am sorry I was too young to tell him he didn't have to go on the boat.  He could stay on the yellow brick path with me.