French Flag Overlay

All over Facebook I see people like myself that have temporarily changed their profile picture with an overlay of the French flag.  The way I see it, it's an acknowledgement of those that have suffered and continue to suffer from the terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday.  It's a visual communication expressing sympathy and solidarity to the French.  It says, "I am as you are." 

As predicable as night following day, the cynics have arrived; those people so much more savvy with their more advanced point of view to publicly school me and others on Facebook on what they consider The French Flag Social Media Faux Pas.  They tell me that my gesture is meaningless.  That it doesn't "do" anything.  They say that unless I'm giving cash or blood or guns or something tangible, it's just a bunch of worthless posturing.

I disagree with these people.  And I think that theirs is a short-sighted, ignorant point of view. 

After 9/11, citizens of the free world took it upon themselves to express the same sort of visual communications of emotional support to Americans.  2001 was was long before Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr and yet these strangers half a world away waved American flags.  They made posters expressing sympathy for America.  They gathered together to send America a message: "We're with you."  And all of this "public gesturing" was done with little hope of being seen by actual Americans. 

But they did it anyway.  

After 9/11 France said, "We are all Americans."  I suppose I could have pointed out that legally, they were in error what with them being citizens of France.  And I could have suggested that unless they were sending cash, blood, guns, or were willing to adopt my personal thoughts of retribution for the 9/11 attacks that they could just shut up and stay home.

But doing that would make me a first class a-hole, don'tcha think?

You have to be able to understand the implied meaning of, "We are all Americans;" the one beyond the literal interpretation to grasp the tender thought.

That tender thought is the purpose.

I hope it isn't lost on you. 

Purge

It's been a while.  

I have so much that's been rattling in my head.  Here goes:

1) You can't own a cake business and decide that you aren't selling your cakes to someone because they sin (your definition) differently than you.  Sorry, no.   Selling something to someone isn't ever some sort of personal spiritual validation on your part.  And why on earth would you think that it is?

"Well, this is America and I should be able to sell or not sell to whomever I wish."

Again, no.  The freedom to buy cakes from whomever is selling them trumps whatever discriminatory stick you've created and would like to use in measuring the "worthiness" of your customers.  Why?  Because Black people.  Because Native American people.  Because Jewish people.  Because physically challenged people.  Because female people.  Because mentally challenged people.  Because Asian people.  Because Italian people.  Because divorced people.  Because single people.  Because Muslim people.  Because Irish people.  Because Buddhist people.  Because Christian people.  Because Mexican people.  Because mixed-race/religion people.  Because married people.  Because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory, baby.  Or didn't they teach that to you in Vacation Bible School? 

Isn't forcing me to sell my cakes to specific "sinners" that I don't approve of fly in the face of my Freedom of Religion?

Again, no.  Your freedom to believe as you wish (that's what's guaranteed) isn't diminished by selling a cake to anyone.  No one is requiring you to renounce Christ during the creation or the selling of the cake.  You remain free to believe in (or not) whatever you want.  Just mix up some flour, sugar, eggs...you may feel free to sing your favorite hymns or say a prayer at any time while you're doing it.  See?  You get to believe as you like and make a cake (and a living) without having to bother yourself about anyone else's personal life.

Really.  It's that simple.  

2) My washing machine is dead.  It was the only survivor in the virtual appliance Jonestown of last year and it gave up the ghost mid-cycle the other day.   I've had to work a lot of hours lately so I'm thankful that God's timing on the cash front remains impeccable.  

3) Last year, I had the opportunity to help someone find their birth family using autosomal DNA (genetic genealogy).  As a newborn, Kayla had been left behind an Alpha Beta supermarket in Anaheim back in 1987.  I remember discussing the story about her with my parents; I was 23 at the time and still living at home.  It was a story a lot of people talked about because it was so unusual.  When my friend CeCe asked if I wanted to help, I was in the fog of grief having lost my mom a few months earlier.  My dad passed away as well during the time I was working on the case.  Focusing on finding Kayla's birth family was a welcome distraction.  I thought a lot about my own mom while working on Kayla's case; how imperfect but yet how amazing she was and how blessed I was to have her.  All moms have their baggage, you know.  Some baggage less publicized than others but all moms have mistakes and regrets just the same; myself, of course, included.  Kayla met her birth mom, arms wide open and with a heart full of love and forgiveness on the first anniversary of my mom's death.  I didn't expect to feel such complete joy on the very day I was dreading.  But I did.  

Funny how that worked.  

4)  Because people unfamiliar with genetic genealogy ask the same questions over and over on these message boards I'm reading, I've thought of making a super simple instructional video for total beginners...maybe using shiskabobs as a visual aid.  Hmmmmm.....

5)  Summer is flying by and I desperately need a beach day.  I haven't been at all and it's right down the street.  My days off insure that I will miss most of the crowds which is a huge plus in my book.  I don't want to see "the beach" turn into yet another southern California place I don't regularly visit, like The Observatory at Griffith Park or the LA County Art Museum.  

6)  I've never been to Catalina.  I've been to The Emerald Isle but not the isle 26 miles across the sea that I can easily see from the shore.  I should go.

7)  I don't ever need to go to Disneyland again, thanks.  

8)  I'm planning another trip to Ireland.  If all goes as planned, I'll spend my 51st birthday there and at some point, will be getting drunk and acquiring a new tattoo in Dublin with my friend, Sue.  This is our plan.  I'm not sure what design I'll choose.  I could go with Irish knots or something authentically Celtic, or something Book of Kells, but I'm leaning toward the cheesy, predictable shamrock for the loveable kitsch factor alone.   Because I bet that's what drunk Americans do: get shamrock tats in Dublin.  

9) I'm not sure where I'm putting that tat...

10) I've got this current fascination with Antarctica.  It started with reading everything I could get my hands on about Ernest Shackelton and has progressed to watching documentaries about Antarctica on Netflix.  The Werner Herzog documentary is good but, "Antarctica - A Year on Ice" is better.  The cinematography is just breathtaking.  I fall asleep watching it every night.  It's just so beautiful.  Today, it was 70 below zero at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Center.  Being July, it's still winter there.  And dark.  But the sky is slowly lightening.  The sun will return, as it always does.  

11) If I had 10K to blow, I'd totally go to Antarctica. 

12)  It's a shame I only get one life to live on this planet. 



 

Run It

I'm wearing a half-marathon tee shirt and I feel like a fraud.  I earned this one; I completed the thing, but you know, it's been a while and I'm pretty sure that the statute of limitations has kind of run out on the bragging rights.  Now, I just look like a middle-age lady that borrowed a shirt out of her kid's dresser.  I'm walking around today ready to reply to the smirkers and accusers in my head, "No, really, I did it.  Me.  A half.  Thirteen-point-one.  Poorly, yes, but I earned the right to wear this shirt (whispering)... a few years ago." 

(Cue: Shame)

I'm not wearing the half marathon tee because I don't have any other clean shirts in my dresser, although looking around my bedroom that would be a damn good guess.  I'm wearing it to remind myself to get to the gym today.  Because in a haze of a copious amounts of alcohol and feelings of camaraderie directly following the completion of a silly 5K back in March, I signed up for a(nother) half.  Seriously though, what the hell was I thinking? 

I'm not really a runner, per se.  That title is reserved for people that train consistently and keep track of their stats; dedicated people with regiments, and sinewy thighs, and those tool belts thingys that hold energy packs in silver foil and, I don't know...knives and bungee cords, and other emergency MacGuyver stuff in case some bad running shit goes down during the race.  Individuals that are ever pushing themselves forward.  Actual athletes.  I'm just an intermittent participant in running events.  A hack.  A mere collector of race swag.  A whole lot of time can go by in my world without so much as an attempt a light jog to the mailbox.  Then, someone at work mentions that they've set a month long, 100 mile personal running goal and I feel the tug to get back in.  

Sucka!

In effort to get up from my chair right now and actually drive to the gym and get on the treadmill, I'm trying to keep in mind that I don't have a spectacular personal record to beat.  I think I finished the last one in just under 3 days so it's not like pride has a thing to do with my present feeling of resistance.  I'm quite open with the fact I perform terribly at these events.  I post about it freely on social media as a sort of public service announcement to other lazy, unmotivated people.  After all, if someone like me can do it...how hard can it be?  Misery does love company, doesn't it?   

Wanna join me?

On race day, I'll tuck myself in the last corral with the elderly, the people recently injured, and the heart patients.  The ragtag bunch of misfits that don't give a fuck about your PR, bitch.  These are my people.  Amongst them I'll find my friend Shayna, who runs, walks, and talks with me through it all.  Last time around mile 11, Shayna watched me pick up and eat a piece of red licorice I'd dropped on Pacific Coast Highway.  From the middle of the filthy street to my starving mouth and she didn't even blink.  You don't get that kind of woman to woman acceptance every day.  That's the Real Deal Sister Love right there.  At the number 10 mile marker, we'll take our customary photo.  Smiling.  Because it's almost done.

But here, today, now, it begins. 

The Reason

I wanted to leave work early on Tuesday.  My daughter had gone to Urgent Care the night before and she still wasn't feeling well.  If you think the guilt of not being there for your children is something you don't have to worry about once your kids are adults, I'm here to tell you that there's no expiration date on it.  2 weeks old, 22 years old...it's still the same. 

I couldn't leave early on Tuesday because someone else beat me to the punch.  Her child is an actual child and the child had a fever.  And she got to the boss before I did.  I was stuck.  And I was having a difficult time working through the "stuck" feeling.  I don't like feeling negative things so I try to find some way around them.  I search for a better, logical, and more positive perspective.  It was good that my coworker was home with her child.  After all, my child can operate a phone and can call someone else to help her if she needs it.

Huh.  Well, that thought didn't make me feel any better.  

I figured that the positive outlook would show up once I figured out the reason why I had to stay at work.  I believe people are exactly where they are for a reason.  I don't apply this to just big things like, "career," or "home address."  It applies to everything, even minor details like having to stay at work when I want to be home with my sick adult-child.  There's always a reason for things.  That's the way God works in my world.  Situation/Reason.  I hoped The Reason wasn't, Sometimes-Sucky-Things-Just-Happen-So-Get-Over-It-And-Yourself.  I get that reason from time to time.  Because I need it.  

It was about at this point: searching for a reason, not finding a reason, that a flight full of passengers, some making connections to far away destinations, cancelled. 

I work for an airline.  My job is to supervise customer service to passengers.  Not only was I not going where I wanted to be, neither were they.  They weren't happy about this.  I totally understand this feeling, probably more so on a day I wasn't going where I wanted to be either.  Things like cancellations can bring out the worst in people.  People sometimes say such incredibly mean and ignorant things in these situations.  And a few did so on Tuesday, too.  I've had this job a long time so I can take it.  But a couple of hours of it is exhausting.  

Most of the passengers were taken care of at the gate, only a handful remained when I got a call that I had to come to the ticket counter.  One of the passengers had strayed over there and was upset she wasn't getting where she was going when she expected to go and wanted to talk about it.  With a supervisor.  Experience told me this was going to be challenging with a good potential of awful. I really, reeeeaaalllly didn't want to go talk to this person. 

She was sitting on a bench.  I introduced myself and sat down next to her.  She looked to be about 70 years old.  She told me she needed to get to Oakland.  She wanted me to put her on the next flight, which by now, was already full.   I told her that I was sorry but I couldn't get her on the next flight to Oakland.  I can't arbitrarily remove someone to give a seat on a plane to someone else.  I could only offer her what I did to the other passengers.  A later flight.  I asked if she'd had lunch.  I was trying to find a more pleasant way for her to spend the next few hours waiting.

She then looked at me and said, "Two of my children have died and I now get panic attacks."  

We sat there looking in each others eyes for maybe the count of two, but in those two seconds there was an exchange.  A communication.  A something said, but not said with words, between us.  

I said, "I understand."

She whispered, "I know you do."

Burrito

Whenever the subject of our big move from Maine to California came up, my dad would mention that he had a previous job offer with Wonder Bread.  Had he not listened to my mother and instead took the job at Wonder Bread, he wouldn't have been laid off from the job he actually took and thus, we wouldn't have ever moved at all. "I had a job offer with Wonder Bread," he'd begin, "but your mother didn't want me to take it."  His words written in a sentence lack the wistful tone of voice my father used when he'd say it.  But the message is clear: there was a fork in the road and he chose B instead of A.  Choice B lead to California.  Choice A would have lead to me writing this blog in Maine, I suppose.

I say, "I suppose," because who knows what on earth my life or his would have looked like had we never moved to California.  Perhaps, had we stayed living in Maine I would have ended up living in Lewiston.  Or maybe his choice would have lead me to a life in Istanbul.  Or Peoria.  I might have grown up to be a waitress.  Or an archeologist.  Or a person that wears a costume and waves a sign on street corners.  Who knows?  It's all speculation.  Clearly, my dad was speculating a positive something had we never left.  A curious conclusion coming from a man that hated shoveling snow and tossed around the word, "Bitchen" kind of a lot in the 1970's.

People berate themselves all the time with this maneuver of imagination: comparing the choice they made with the choice they didn't; the final score being heavily weighted in the positive for those choices never made.  "Had I finished college..." "If I had followed my dream instead of just settling..." "If only I hadn't done XYZ,"....everything would be so much better now."

I can say with total assurance that you don't know shit about what that other choice would have brought you.   So why are you endlessly cutting yourself with imaginary knives?

True, you could have been happier at work had you chose to finish college.  Or not.  But choices aren't events that happen in a vacuum, independent of everything else.  "Happier at work" isn't the only conclusion you missed when you chose differently.  There's a whole other life of different regrets, failures, and disappointments you missed out on having made the choice you did.  It's not as if a single choice would have lead you into the life of being the Oracle of Delphi with the ability to foresee every other "better choice" ahead in your imaginary life.  And it isn't as if you were offered a carefree life of happiness or a pile of shit and you, being a stupid person, chose the pile of shit.

That's not how life works.  Everyone's got a problem.  Continuously.  Most of the time the solution to one problem requires the acceptance of another problem.  And so it goes.  For everyone.

To lead the life of your imaginary conclusions, you must forfeit everything else you have been given in life from the point of the choice until now.  Everything.  Because while your choices might have lead to some problems, they also lead you to some wonderful people, things, and experiences that you would have missed had you made the choice you didn't.

You don't get to select rice from the burrito of life and make yourself a bowl of it.

Everyone's got to eat the whole burrito, baby.









 

Hook

The week my mother was dying, I pushed my bed against the wall so that there would be only one way out of it - the left side.  I then placed my numerous pillows in such a way to insure I would be encompassed by them from head to foot.  Protected.  Womblike.  This wasn't an unconscious physical metaphor on my part; something that I'm now looking back on and having an "ah-ha" realization.  This was an on-purpose, physical metaphor I was consciously creating.  I was cocooning myself and I knew damn well why.


My mother was dying.  And I was alone.

I admit I was jealous of my brothers at the time.  We all took turns at the hospital.  The four of us were there with her 24 for hours a day until she passed.  We cried together, we worried together.  Once, words between us got heated out in the waiting room when the weight of the anticipation of losing our mother got the better of us.  That was just us, four opinionated siblings trying our best to find our way through hell without a map.  But I knew when my brothers went home they had wives or girlfriends that were waiting to comfort them.  People who would sit up in the night with them.  People that would make them their favorite soup.  Hand them tissues.  Hold them.  People that would leave them notes of encouragement and love in their shoes.  Stuff like that.  Stuff like you might see in a movie.  At least this is what I imagined.

I didn't have that.  That would be stuff my mom would have done for me.  Does that sound emotionally immature?  Maybe it is.  But it's the truth.  I've had two husbands and a ton of close friends but if I ever had a soulmate, a lone someone that would stop, drop, and roll with me for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, it was that lady.  No one in my life has ever come close.  When the funeral celebrant asked us to tell him what we would miss most about our mom I said, "No one is ever going to love me as much as she did."  Because no one ever has.

We didn't have a perfect relationship.  We had arguments and disappointments.  We had heated words and regrets.  Slammed doors and days of silence between us.  And she left this world with important things she should have told me, but she didn't.  And I don't have her anymore. 

At first, I had cocoon and denial.  How am I doing?  I'm doing well thank you and how are you?  Friends and acquaintances remarked how strong I was.  I smiled but inside I perpetually felt like a fish pulled clean out from the water; gasping and writhing on a sharp hook, remembering well what being in the lake felt like. 

Following her death, I read countless Internet articles on grief.  I wanted to know how long it would last.  If I could just see some light at the end of the godforsaken tunnel that'd be swell.  I read that if I was still a basketcase after six months, that'd be worrisome.  That's complicated grief.  I learned that if I had complicated grief, I should seek medical/psychological attention.  My mother died on November 1st.  I began ticking off days on the calendar.  I just had to get to May 1st.  May Day.

May Day.

May Day.  

That's fitting.  

Honesty

I decided that I would always be honest with my children.  I had made this decision before I had any children; back when I knew all the right answers to any child raising situation.  Honesty, yes.  No matter how uncomfortable it may be.  Honesty is always the right answer.  

I managed to navigate the first couple of years being utterly, totally, honest.  Of course, I didn't need to question the wisdom of this policy what with children being pretty much unable to form a coherent sentence until about age two.   Two years, scott free.  Boom!  After that, I got nothing but positive reinforcement on my honest policy.

"The moon is turning dark because the earth is blocking the sun. It's called an eclipse.  I'll show you how it works with these oranges and a flashlight."

"Coyotes can't hide in your closet and eat you because they can't get in the house.  Coyotes don't have thumbs to open doors or windows.  They're like dogs.  Ever see our dogs open a door?  They can't.  That's why they bark to be let in and out.  Think about it, if the dogs could open doors, they'd be eating stuff from the refrigerator all day."

"Mufasa isn't really dead because he's a drawing.  It's pretend.  The man who's voice you hear when Mufasa talks is James Earl Jones.  Pretending is his job.  He gets paid money to pretend all day.  Would you like to see a picture of James Earl Jones?"  

"There's no such thing as cooties.  There are germs, but that's why we wash our hands before eating."

It worked brilliantly.  Until the oldest started school. 

For St. Patrick's Day, the teachers thought it would be great fun to pretend that leprechauns were causing havoc in the classroom every time the kids left the room.  Trash cans were upturned, papers were scattered all over the floor, and little bare footprints in watercolor paint were all over the desks.  This terrified of my kid.   She couldn't sleep.  She was afraid that the leprechauns might have followed her home.  I finally told her, "Honey, leprechauns aren't real.  It's pretend."

"But I saw their footprints, mommy!"

I showed her how to make little feet with the palm of her hand and fingers in watercolor paint.  She giggled in relief.

As I was tucking her back into bed she asked, "If leprechauns aren't real...is the tooth fairy real?"

I was now at the crossroads of honesty and sucking the magic out of my 4 year old child's life.  I didn't want to make this decision myself so, in an attempt to weenie out, I cunningly threw it back to her.  "Do you want to have fun or do you want to know the truth?"  I asked this because what kid doesn't want to have fun?  Fun is what kids are all about.  No brainer!

"I want to know the truth."

(Ugh! Dammit!) "Nope.  Not real."

"The Easter Bunny?" she asked.

"Nope," I shook my head.

"What about Santa?"

"Seriously?  Why do you have to ask me this?"

"Because I want to know the truth, Mommy," she offered.

"Ugh!  No,  Santa isn't real.  Grown-ups pretend Santa to make Christmas more magical and fun for kids."

My child, who I expected to be crushed was...thrilled to be let in on the grown-up, insider knowledge.  She smiled.  And then she promised not to tell her baby sister.  "Don't worry.  I'll play along and make it fun for her with you and Daddy." And then she went to sleep.  All the magic of childhood, poof!  Gone.  And she was okay with it.

I've thought about that episode and how many times I've chosen pretend over the truth. Because pretend is easier.  Because pretend is more fun.  Because pretend is comforting.  Because I don't have to face things about myself and others that are difficult when I choose to pretend.  Because sometimes, reality means accepting the hurt.  Or the pain.  Or the loss of magic.   

I wish I always had the bravery of my 4 year old girl.