A mother and her three week old daughter sat in the same row with me. The mom guessed, accurately, that no one would take the empty seat between us because many people fear babies will cry on airplanes.
This angel, Austin, and her mother were in the awesome love vortex that parents and new babies enter. The young woman talked with me a lot at first but she kept being drawn back in the cocoon new nursing moms and babies live in.
Both mother and daughter were perfection, radiating life at its finest.
And I got to share it. To my right as our plane approached the freakishly hot and sunny Seattle, Mt. Rainier dazzled as it has never dazzled before. It was all glistening which, undulating its supersensible power to the indigenous of its land and the interlopers, most us white folks who still setal land from Indians.
In one direction, I felt reverence for the sacred looking at that blissful and perfect mom and child. In the other direction, I felt reverence, as I do increasingly, for this planet, this universe, atoms, black holes, dinosaur skeletons, shamans, drumming, dancing on that mountain to remind the dancers the are alive in this gobsmcking glory.
One of the better plane rides I have taken. The young mother patiently listened to me tell her about the first plane ride Rosie and I took, to have her Christianed in my hometown. Any plane ride with
Rosie, even a short car ride, was bliss.
I had a horrible, awul, very bad day and yet my day kept insisting on shimmering, dazzling me with life and this cosmos.
Thank you goddess for most this amazing day.
Thursday, July 30, 2015
a cool black angel gave me goddess' wisdom for me
Last night, I rode BART to Oakland, to hang out with a friend. Then he drove me to the airport for my 6:30 a.m. flight.
When I sat down on BART, dressed nicely, wearing a new Eileen Fisher sweater, my crystal necklace and earrings and just having blown my hair dry, so I don't think this angel thought I was homeless.
He was very handsome, well dressed and young, fortyish or lower.
As soon as I sat down, he noticed me and gestured to his heart, mouthing the words "I have message for you, you are loved, you are lovable" and as he said these things and more, he kept tapping the spot on his chest where his heart would be. He really did seem to have a message for me.
He got off before I did. He stood in the doors, a major no-no on BART, to tell me his full loving message that he said a spirit had told him to share with me. And I am finding myself believing him.
He said "I know you want to be doing your work. You will. I promise" tap tap on his heart again and then "You will meet someoe very soon who will help you. I promise." Tap tap.
I felt like he saw my entire being, inner and outer and supersensible.
I think he was an angel.
When I sat down on BART, dressed nicely, wearing a new Eileen Fisher sweater, my crystal necklace and earrings and just having blown my hair dry, so I don't think this angel thought I was homeless.
He was very handsome, well dressed and young, fortyish or lower.
As soon as I sat down, he noticed me and gestured to his heart, mouthing the words "I have message for you, you are loved, you are lovable" and as he said these things and more, he kept tapping the spot on his chest where his heart would be. He really did seem to have a message for me.
He got off before I did. He stood in the doors, a major no-no on BART, to tell me his full loving message that he said a spirit had told him to share with me. And I am finding myself believing him.
He said "I know you want to be doing your work. You will. I promise" tap tap on his heart again and then "You will meet someoe very soon who will help you. I promise." Tap tap.
I felt like he saw my entire being, inner and outer and supersensible.
I think he was an angel.
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
the fall of spirit & soul: materialistic medicine enables this
The time will come, and it may not be far off, that people will say: It is pathological for people to even think in terms of spirit and soul. ‘Sound’ people will speak of nothing but the body. It will be considered a sign of illness for anyone to arrive at the idea of any such thing as a spirit or a soul. People who think like that will be considered to be sick and — you can be quite sure of it — a medicine will be found for this. At Constantinople the spirit was made non-existent. The soul will be made non-existent with the aid of a drug. Taking a ‘sound point of view’, people will invent a vaccine to influence the organism as early as possible, preferably as soon as it is born, so that this human body never even gets the idea that there is a soul and a spirit.The two philosophies of life will be in complete opposition. One movement will need to reflect how concepts and ideas may be developed to meet the reality of soul and spirit. The others, the heirs of modern materialism, will look for the vaccine to make the body ‘healthy’, that is, makes its constitution such that this body no longer talks of such rubbish as soul and spirit, but takes a ‘sound’ view of the forces which live in engines and in chemistry and let planets and suns arise from nebulae in the cosmos. Materialistic physicians will be asked to drive the souls out of humanity.Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 177 – Fall of the Spirits of Darkness – Lecture 5 – Dornach, 7th October 1917
my mom loved yellow roses
My mom loved yellow roses and spoke of this love for them often. In my childhood, she reminisced about the many dozens of yellow roses dad had given her over the years. She traced her preference for yellow roses to her mother's preference for yellow roses. I came to love yellow roses as a way to love my mother and my grandmother. Mom's fondness for yellow roses did not seem connected to my dad, who always sent her a dozen for her birthday, their anniversary and Mother's Day. She had also liked them as a little girl. She thought they were special, which is probably why my dad took to sending her yellow roses whenever he bought her flowers.
I grew up also believing yellow roses were special. I wanted to be like my mom. I wanted men to send me flowers some day and I began to hope, at a young age, that men would give me yellow roses.
My ex-husband, while we were still dating, knew all about my thing for yellow roses. I had told him about the time I sent my mother a dozen yellow roses for Mother's Day, the first Mother's Day after my parents had divorced, mom had moved out of state in secret and I had not known where she, or my baby brother and sister, who I had raised as much as mom had, were. When he and I had a bad fight, I suggested we break up. He did what was probably the only thing that got me to talk to him again. He sent me a dozen yellow roses, between Christmas and New Year's, in the frozen tundra of the Upper Midwest. The first dozen didn't open so he made the florist, the best one in town, send a second. When the second dozen did not open, the florist refunded his money. He had belittled me, abusively, because my apartment was furnished with used furniture and home made bookshelves. I was a grad student, and so was he. He rented a room in a house owned by a little older lady, he had no furniture but he ridiculed me for not having a middle class, well appointed apartment. I broke off from him. Then he sent those yellow roses.
I should have known we were supposed to break up when those roses didn't open. Live and learn.
Just before that my mother's first post-divorce Mother's Day, and my first post-parents'-divorce Mother's Day, I learned where mom and the kids were living. I came up with the idea, which does not seem entirely reasonable to me now, that I would send my mom a dozen yellow roses for my first Mother's Day apart from her. I was thrilled to know where the kids were, hoping I might get to see them during my summer college break.
I had to save all that spring trimester to have the money to pay a local florist in Wisconsin. The florist had said if I ordered the flowers far in advance, he would not have to charge me for a long distant call, he could just mail the check for my flowers to a florist in my mother's new town. I was that frugal that I saved myself a few minutes long distance phoning.
My months' long plan, saving for the yellow roses, consulting with the florist to do it as cheaply as possible, and anticipating mom's happiness when she received her long stem yellow roses from me on Mother's Day took on a life of its own. All my college pals knew about my yellow roses plan, just like they knew I had been shattered when my mom, baby brother and baby sister had disappeared.
In my tender, naive and grieving eighteen year old heart, I imbued my surprise, long distance, order of a dozen long stemmed yellow roses with magic. I imagined mom would get the roses, rush to the phone, tell me she was sorry she had left me and three of her other children and just disappeared with our baby brother and baby sister. I fantasized that my mom was actually going to act like a mother who actually cared about me when she could no longer use me to raise her kids, feed her family and do the family's laundry. I was the only girl until I was fourteen. When I would ask why my brother's didn't have to help with all the household chores, and all of them fell on me, Mom and Dad both said housework and childcare was girl work, that my brothers couldn't do girl work.
Neither of my parents told me, or any of their kids, about the divorce. Mom filed. Dad didn't think she'd go through with it. We only found out the day of the divorce hearing. It wasn't until I was in my fifties that I realied that mom had kept the divorce a secret because she wanted me to be her servant until the very end. And I also realized, long after the fact, that my mom had made sure she finished college, with my babysitting her babies, grocery shopping with two babies and a stroller for our family of eight and cooking dinner for eight every weekday of high school because mom was determined to graduate from college before I graduated from high school. I thought she was just being cute when she said that, even though she said it hundreds of times. Duh. She wanted to graduate from college before her slave, the daughter who made it possible for her to go to college, left home for college. She used me. And then she took my babies away.
At their divorce hearing, mom swore to the judge, under oath of course, that she would not remove the kids from Illinois. A few hours after the hearing, an interstate moving truck pulled up to the house, removed most of the furniture, including my bed, to furnish mom's new life in another state. She had lied to that judge. She lied to my father and all her children by refusing to tell us where she had moved to.
Drinking for the first time when I started college, I would get drunk and cry into my beer about my lost babies. Learning that my babies now lived, permanently, 500 miles away, was very hard on me. I wouldn't see them grow up. I wouldn't see my mom very much. I'd get drunk and cry for my David and my Margaret.
All my heartache related to my parents' divorce, the trauma of losing my babies for nearly a year, leaving home for the first time for college and seeing my dad's deep grief over the sudden loss of his life and some of his kids had made for a tough year got wrapped up in those Mother's Day roses for my mom.
In my eighteen year old naivete, I thought sending mom a dozen yellow roses would signal that I was ready to put my past family heartaches behind me. I also imagined mom would be thrilled to receive her favorite flowers, a dozen long stemmed yellow roses. Perhaps I had unintentionally blundered, sending my mother a symbol of my father but, oh lord, my intentions were good.
Looking back, I feel a bit sheepish as I recall the fantasies I had wrapped up with those roses. Mom would want, in my fantasies, to have better connection with me when she saw my love represented in those roses. Mom would realize she had been wrong to take away my babies, to have disappeared for almost a year and she would suggest I visit right away. Mostly, I fantasized as I gave up treat after treat to save up to buy those roses, I believed Mom would love it that I had sent her a dozen yellow roses, an expensive indulgence for a college student. I believed all mothers would be pleased if their children remembered them on Mother's Day.
I saved my money, handed it over to a florist. Then I eagerly awaited Mother's Day. I didn't call my mom on Mother's Day, not at first, because I assumed she would call me when she got the flowers to thank me. As that day turned into evening, I finally called my mom. When she answered, she did not mention any yellow roses. I said Happy Mother's Day and then I asked if she had gotten my roses.
I feel so tenderly towards my vulnerable, wounded eighteen year old self as I remember that Mother's Day gift, given with so much longing to feel my mother's love. My hopes were wrapped up in each unfurled yellow rose. And my mind also saw my babies, my baby brother and my baby sister, in the background of that phone call. I had imagined they would be pleased to see I had sent the flowers, too, a connection with their much loved big sister.
When I asked mom if she had gotten my flowers, her voice became whiny. "Oh, yes, I got the yellow roses, but it was awful to see that they were from you. When I saw the florist truck pull into the driveway, I thought Ron was acknowledging me as a stepmother to her daughter's, that he had sent me the flowers. I was so happy that Ron was recognizing me on our first married Mother's Day. Everyone knows I love yellow roses and I thought they were from Ron. I was so happy. Then I read the card, saw they were from you and, well, I nearly threw them out. I was so disappointed."
My mother had, at that point, been the stepmother to her second husband's daughters for a year. The girls lived with their mother, despised my mother and my mother had not done much parenting of her own kids, let alone someone else's. Her fantasy that her new husband, who shared no kids with her, would send her long stemmed roses on mother's day was a bit childish. Additionally, her second husband, an odd choice for my brilliant, college graduate (ahem) artist mother, was brusque, insensitive and not inclined to send her flowers once in the twenty years of their marriage, which ended with his death. Ron had never gone to college. He was crude. He once told me my mother was a really good fuck. I wish I had made up that last sentence.
As I listened to mom complain about her disappointment that the roses were for me, I sat in the phone room of my college dorm, in the dark, on the single chair and cried silently. Our dorm rooms did not have phones. Each floor of our old dormitories had two rooms with phones where students could receive calls and make calls. It was private. I always liked talking in those wood-paneled phone rooms, usually in the dark. I listened to mom until she was done complaining, grateful I was in that private phone room, glad no one passing by could see me cry. She didn't tell me about the kids, my babies. She didn't ask me how I was doing, how college was going. It was the first time we had talked since that moving van pulled up and hauled away my bed. All she did was whine on and on about how the flowers had upset her since they were from me, not from her husband.
His 'girls' were sixteen and eighteen. They were not pleased their parents had gotten divorced so Ron could marry my mom. Mom was delusional to think she had done any mothering of those teenagers. The Ron I knew never came to see my mom as his daughters' stepmother. He barely had a relationship with his own daughters. He would never have been able to recognize my mother as mothering his girls. It was just whackadoodle crazy for mom to have imagined, when she saw the florist truck pull up, that her husband would send her flowers on Mother's Day. And, maybe, it was a little crazy that it did not occur to her than one of her own six children might have sent her flowers.
I let her run down with her selfish, petulant words, crying silently the whole time, then ended the call. I don't think she had any awareness of how unkindly she had spoken to me. All she was aware of was her fantasy that when her oldest daughter, me, had ruined her absurd Mother's Day fantasies. Her disappointment was my fault. She came close to suggesting I should not have sent her a Mother's Day bouquet and that, I see now, is probably the right interpretation of her ungracious, even churlish, receipt of those roses.
Then there was the time, years later, when my mom had a hysterectomy. I was raising a newborn in Nebraska while she had that surgery in Ohio. Since I could not be with her, I sent a care package. Her favorite cookies, a new novel and some other things. I don't remember what all I sent.
During a call to see how my mother was recovering from her hysterectomy she said "Oh, listen to this, your sister did such a marvelous thing. She sent me a care package at the hospital. She even knew my favorite cookies. Your sister is so thoughtful."
Again, I listened to my mom say things that broke my heart, cried silently and did not point out that I had sent that care package. Obviously she did not value my gifts. Clearly she did not see me as any kind of a gift in her life.I think I cooed to my own little daughter, in my arms as I talked to my mother, whispering to her that she should never treat me the way my mother did. Always naive and a romantic about all the people I have ever loved, I believed I would have a loving, happy relationship with my daughter forever. No fool like me, eh?
My mom died two years ago. She had dementia and could not recognize me when I visited her in Chicago. Demented, dead or back when she still her her full faculties, my mom never really saw me, never knew me. She didn't want to. Now I know that for true narcissists, other people are not real to them. Narcissists see other people as extensions of their own ego, see people as things to be used. Narcissists love narcissistcally, by only loving themselves. I know that now. I did not know it when I blamed myself for my mother's treatment of me, her use and abuse of me. And I didn't know it when I poured every ounce of love I had in me to give into my daughter. I can still get down on myself for never having won my mother's love or my daughter's, even though most days I know I am perfectly good and perfectly loving just the way I am.
When I visited mom soon after that awful Mother's Day, to see the kids, at one point, I tried to talk to my mom about the divorce, to tell her how hard it had been when she disappeared with babies I had help her raise. She didn't seem to understand a word I said. I wanted to get through to my mom, to feel like she saw me, like she heard me, just once, I said "Mom, you don't know anything about me. Aren't you curious?" I was hoping she would respond by saying "Yes, I would like to know you better." Again, I had fantasies that we would finally have real conversations about our real lives, that we would be friends and my mother would not just see me but love and admire me. I saw myself as an adult, after a year of college and much recognition by both peers and professors. I thought "I am finally an adult, she'll see me now!".
She sneered, imbuing her voice with a venomous tone "You don't know anything about me."She spoke harshly, angrily. I was taken aback by that venom.
"But you are the mom and I am the kid and you have never known me. Aren't parents supposed to want to know their kids?" Again, I was crying, unable to articulate much. I think she said I was selfish and had always been selfish. My father, who incested me when I was seven, once said the same thing. When my daughter was about five years old, during a visit with my dad, he suddenly reupted with one of his unpredictable rages. Instead of quarreling with him, and trying to reason away his anger, as our whole family had always done, I spoke quietly to Rosie, telling her to be sure she had all her things and to wait for me in the car. Then I turned to my father and I said "I had to let you treat me this way when I was a child but I don't have to allow it now. Rosie and I are leaving." We had planned to visit for two more days. My dad was disabled at the end of his life, isolated and lonely. He loves kids, in spite of his tendency to molest them, and he adored his first grandchild, my Rosie.
I rushed home to tell my therapist about that fight with my dad. I knew as the fight was happening that I had healed from my father's abuse of me. I knew because I remain calm and I focussed on maintaining a calm atmosphere for Rosie. Later, when I described the scene to Jane, I told her that at once point, I almost brought Rosie into the fight, only by analogy. She and I never quarreled. She had never heard any of her relatives shout and speak meanly to one another, at least none of my relatives. I didn't know what she heard when with her father. For one second as my dad was screaming at me, I very nearly said "I would never talk to my Rosie the way you are" but my healthy, healing self instintively knew it was wrong to draw my daughter into the quarrel, even by such indirection.
Jane, my long time therapist, agreed with me. We both concluded that since I had kept my cool, instead of sliding into emotional panic and relapsing into childish emotions, I had kept her out of it.
Rosie and I left the house with dad shouting after us to come back, he was sorry. We left in silence. I buckled her into the back seat. As I began to pull away from the curb in front of dad's place, Rosie said, also in a calm voice, in her usually happy chirping voice, "Wow. I never saw anything like that before. Do you think we will ever see grandpa again?" She spoke calmly and seemed of good cheer. I found comfort in that, believing she had not taken on any of my dad's anger as being related to her. She was wiser at five, or better able to not take on other people's emotions.
Neither of my parents were fit to parent but I was and I am.
Now I know projection when I hear it. My mom projected her unhappiness onto me. My dad projected his unhappiness onto me. My ex husband project his damage onto me. Every man I have ever been attracted to tends to not see me. The men I am drawn to see their own boogeymen, just as my folks did. And, just like my folks did, the men I have been attracted to blame me for their own unworked shit. At the time, I internalized my mom's dysfunction as being my own. I thought it was my fault my mother didn't know me. I believed that if my mom thought I wasn't worth knowing, that I wasn't worth knowing.
If I never see another yellow rose again, it will be too soon. Don't get me started on mom's favorite cookies. And own your own shit.
I have sometimes, usually at vulnerable times in my life, done my own projecting, offloaded my own junk onto others. I don't think I have ever been as damaged as my parents were. And I know I am perfectly good, perfectly lovable. I know I deserved to be loved by everyone lucky enough to know me.
I give good love. I am kind. I am joyful. I am unusually thoughtful because I remember everything people tell me and I make thoughtful choices based on things they have said. If someone I love loves yellow roses, I send them yellow roses. If someone I loves complains about being forced out of San francisco and tells me hum is sad to move to Oakland, I make a welcome-to-oakland care package with gift cards for local shops near their new home. I actually did that for someone I thought was my friend and he was angry about it. He said I had invaded his new neighborhood and he hadn't actually grasped that it was a 'welcome to your new neighborhood' care package.
So far, no one has ever sent me a care package. I don't think there is anyone in the world who would know enough about me to put together a care package.
Fuck yellow roses. Fuck Pepperidge Farm Brussel Cookies, my mom's favorite.
Oh, I am supposed to honor social norms and not say fuck. Well, fuck that.
I grew up also believing yellow roses were special. I wanted to be like my mom. I wanted men to send me flowers some day and I began to hope, at a young age, that men would give me yellow roses.
My ex-husband, while we were still dating, knew all about my thing for yellow roses. I had told him about the time I sent my mother a dozen yellow roses for Mother's Day, the first Mother's Day after my parents had divorced, mom had moved out of state in secret and I had not known where she, or my baby brother and sister, who I had raised as much as mom had, were. When he and I had a bad fight, I suggested we break up. He did what was probably the only thing that got me to talk to him again. He sent me a dozen yellow roses, between Christmas and New Year's, in the frozen tundra of the Upper Midwest. The first dozen didn't open so he made the florist, the best one in town, send a second. When the second dozen did not open, the florist refunded his money. He had belittled me, abusively, because my apartment was furnished with used furniture and home made bookshelves. I was a grad student, and so was he. He rented a room in a house owned by a little older lady, he had no furniture but he ridiculed me for not having a middle class, well appointed apartment. I broke off from him. Then he sent those yellow roses.
I should have known we were supposed to break up when those roses didn't open. Live and learn.
Just before that my mother's first post-divorce Mother's Day, and my first post-parents'-divorce Mother's Day, I learned where mom and the kids were living. I came up with the idea, which does not seem entirely reasonable to me now, that I would send my mom a dozen yellow roses for my first Mother's Day apart from her. I was thrilled to know where the kids were, hoping I might get to see them during my summer college break.
I had to save all that spring trimester to have the money to pay a local florist in Wisconsin. The florist had said if I ordered the flowers far in advance, he would not have to charge me for a long distant call, he could just mail the check for my flowers to a florist in my mother's new town. I was that frugal that I saved myself a few minutes long distance phoning.
My months' long plan, saving for the yellow roses, consulting with the florist to do it as cheaply as possible, and anticipating mom's happiness when she received her long stem yellow roses from me on Mother's Day took on a life of its own. All my college pals knew about my yellow roses plan, just like they knew I had been shattered when my mom, baby brother and baby sister had disappeared.
In my tender, naive and grieving eighteen year old heart, I imbued my surprise, long distance, order of a dozen long stemmed yellow roses with magic. I imagined mom would get the roses, rush to the phone, tell me she was sorry she had left me and three of her other children and just disappeared with our baby brother and baby sister. I fantasized that my mom was actually going to act like a mother who actually cared about me when she could no longer use me to raise her kids, feed her family and do the family's laundry. I was the only girl until I was fourteen. When I would ask why my brother's didn't have to help with all the household chores, and all of them fell on me, Mom and Dad both said housework and childcare was girl work, that my brothers couldn't do girl work.
Neither of my parents told me, or any of their kids, about the divorce. Mom filed. Dad didn't think she'd go through with it. We only found out the day of the divorce hearing. It wasn't until I was in my fifties that I realied that mom had kept the divorce a secret because she wanted me to be her servant until the very end. And I also realized, long after the fact, that my mom had made sure she finished college, with my babysitting her babies, grocery shopping with two babies and a stroller for our family of eight and cooking dinner for eight every weekday of high school because mom was determined to graduate from college before I graduated from high school. I thought she was just being cute when she said that, even though she said it hundreds of times. Duh. She wanted to graduate from college before her slave, the daughter who made it possible for her to go to college, left home for college. She used me. And then she took my babies away.
At their divorce hearing, mom swore to the judge, under oath of course, that she would not remove the kids from Illinois. A few hours after the hearing, an interstate moving truck pulled up to the house, removed most of the furniture, including my bed, to furnish mom's new life in another state. She had lied to that judge. She lied to my father and all her children by refusing to tell us where she had moved to.
Drinking for the first time when I started college, I would get drunk and cry into my beer about my lost babies. Learning that my babies now lived, permanently, 500 miles away, was very hard on me. I wouldn't see them grow up. I wouldn't see my mom very much. I'd get drunk and cry for my David and my Margaret.
All my heartache related to my parents' divorce, the trauma of losing my babies for nearly a year, leaving home for the first time for college and seeing my dad's deep grief over the sudden loss of his life and some of his kids had made for a tough year got wrapped up in those Mother's Day roses for my mom.
In my eighteen year old naivete, I thought sending mom a dozen yellow roses would signal that I was ready to put my past family heartaches behind me. I also imagined mom would be thrilled to receive her favorite flowers, a dozen long stemmed yellow roses. Perhaps I had unintentionally blundered, sending my mother a symbol of my father but, oh lord, my intentions were good.
Looking back, I feel a bit sheepish as I recall the fantasies I had wrapped up with those roses. Mom would want, in my fantasies, to have better connection with me when she saw my love represented in those roses. Mom would realize she had been wrong to take away my babies, to have disappeared for almost a year and she would suggest I visit right away. Mostly, I fantasized as I gave up treat after treat to save up to buy those roses, I believed Mom would love it that I had sent her a dozen yellow roses, an expensive indulgence for a college student. I believed all mothers would be pleased if their children remembered them on Mother's Day.
I saved my money, handed it over to a florist. Then I eagerly awaited Mother's Day. I didn't call my mom on Mother's Day, not at first, because I assumed she would call me when she got the flowers to thank me. As that day turned into evening, I finally called my mom. When she answered, she did not mention any yellow roses. I said Happy Mother's Day and then I asked if she had gotten my roses.
I feel so tenderly towards my vulnerable, wounded eighteen year old self as I remember that Mother's Day gift, given with so much longing to feel my mother's love. My hopes were wrapped up in each unfurled yellow rose. And my mind also saw my babies, my baby brother and my baby sister, in the background of that phone call. I had imagined they would be pleased to see I had sent the flowers, too, a connection with their much loved big sister.
When I asked mom if she had gotten my flowers, her voice became whiny. "Oh, yes, I got the yellow roses, but it was awful to see that they were from you. When I saw the florist truck pull into the driveway, I thought Ron was acknowledging me as a stepmother to her daughter's, that he had sent me the flowers. I was so happy that Ron was recognizing me on our first married Mother's Day. Everyone knows I love yellow roses and I thought they were from Ron. I was so happy. Then I read the card, saw they were from you and, well, I nearly threw them out. I was so disappointed."
My mother had, at that point, been the stepmother to her second husband's daughters for a year. The girls lived with their mother, despised my mother and my mother had not done much parenting of her own kids, let alone someone else's. Her fantasy that her new husband, who shared no kids with her, would send her long stemmed roses on mother's day was a bit childish. Additionally, her second husband, an odd choice for my brilliant, college graduate (ahem) artist mother, was brusque, insensitive and not inclined to send her flowers once in the twenty years of their marriage, which ended with his death. Ron had never gone to college. He was crude. He once told me my mother was a really good fuck. I wish I had made up that last sentence.
As I listened to mom complain about her disappointment that the roses were for me, I sat in the phone room of my college dorm, in the dark, on the single chair and cried silently. Our dorm rooms did not have phones. Each floor of our old dormitories had two rooms with phones where students could receive calls and make calls. It was private. I always liked talking in those wood-paneled phone rooms, usually in the dark. I listened to mom until she was done complaining, grateful I was in that private phone room, glad no one passing by could see me cry. She didn't tell me about the kids, my babies. She didn't ask me how I was doing, how college was going. It was the first time we had talked since that moving van pulled up and hauled away my bed. All she did was whine on and on about how the flowers had upset her since they were from me, not from her husband.
His 'girls' were sixteen and eighteen. They were not pleased their parents had gotten divorced so Ron could marry my mom. Mom was delusional to think she had done any mothering of those teenagers. The Ron I knew never came to see my mom as his daughters' stepmother. He barely had a relationship with his own daughters. He would never have been able to recognize my mother as mothering his girls. It was just whackadoodle crazy for mom to have imagined, when she saw the florist truck pull up, that her husband would send her flowers on Mother's Day. And, maybe, it was a little crazy that it did not occur to her than one of her own six children might have sent her flowers.
I let her run down with her selfish, petulant words, crying silently the whole time, then ended the call. I don't think she had any awareness of how unkindly she had spoken to me. All she was aware of was her fantasy that when her oldest daughter, me, had ruined her absurd Mother's Day fantasies. Her disappointment was my fault. She came close to suggesting I should not have sent her a Mother's Day bouquet and that, I see now, is probably the right interpretation of her ungracious, even churlish, receipt of those roses.
Then there was the time, years later, when my mom had a hysterectomy. I was raising a newborn in Nebraska while she had that surgery in Ohio. Since I could not be with her, I sent a care package. Her favorite cookies, a new novel and some other things. I don't remember what all I sent.
During a call to see how my mother was recovering from her hysterectomy she said "Oh, listen to this, your sister did such a marvelous thing. She sent me a care package at the hospital. She even knew my favorite cookies. Your sister is so thoughtful."
Again, I listened to my mom say things that broke my heart, cried silently and did not point out that I had sent that care package. Obviously she did not value my gifts. Clearly she did not see me as any kind of a gift in her life.I think I cooed to my own little daughter, in my arms as I talked to my mother, whispering to her that she should never treat me the way my mother did. Always naive and a romantic about all the people I have ever loved, I believed I would have a loving, happy relationship with my daughter forever. No fool like me, eh?
My mom died two years ago. She had dementia and could not recognize me when I visited her in Chicago. Demented, dead or back when she still her her full faculties, my mom never really saw me, never knew me. She didn't want to. Now I know that for true narcissists, other people are not real to them. Narcissists see other people as extensions of their own ego, see people as things to be used. Narcissists love narcissistcally, by only loving themselves. I know that now. I did not know it when I blamed myself for my mother's treatment of me, her use and abuse of me. And I didn't know it when I poured every ounce of love I had in me to give into my daughter. I can still get down on myself for never having won my mother's love or my daughter's, even though most days I know I am perfectly good and perfectly loving just the way I am.
When I visited mom soon after that awful Mother's Day, to see the kids, at one point, I tried to talk to my mom about the divorce, to tell her how hard it had been when she disappeared with babies I had help her raise. She didn't seem to understand a word I said. I wanted to get through to my mom, to feel like she saw me, like she heard me, just once, I said "Mom, you don't know anything about me. Aren't you curious?" I was hoping she would respond by saying "Yes, I would like to know you better." Again, I had fantasies that we would finally have real conversations about our real lives, that we would be friends and my mother would not just see me but love and admire me. I saw myself as an adult, after a year of college and much recognition by both peers and professors. I thought "I am finally an adult, she'll see me now!".
She sneered, imbuing her voice with a venomous tone "You don't know anything about me."She spoke harshly, angrily. I was taken aback by that venom.
"But you are the mom and I am the kid and you have never known me. Aren't parents supposed to want to know their kids?" Again, I was crying, unable to articulate much. I think she said I was selfish and had always been selfish. My father, who incested me when I was seven, once said the same thing. When my daughter was about five years old, during a visit with my dad, he suddenly reupted with one of his unpredictable rages. Instead of quarreling with him, and trying to reason away his anger, as our whole family had always done, I spoke quietly to Rosie, telling her to be sure she had all her things and to wait for me in the car. Then I turned to my father and I said "I had to let you treat me this way when I was a child but I don't have to allow it now. Rosie and I are leaving." We had planned to visit for two more days. My dad was disabled at the end of his life, isolated and lonely. He loves kids, in spite of his tendency to molest them, and he adored his first grandchild, my Rosie.
I rushed home to tell my therapist about that fight with my dad. I knew as the fight was happening that I had healed from my father's abuse of me. I knew because I remain calm and I focussed on maintaining a calm atmosphere for Rosie. Later, when I described the scene to Jane, I told her that at once point, I almost brought Rosie into the fight, only by analogy. She and I never quarreled. She had never heard any of her relatives shout and speak meanly to one another, at least none of my relatives. I didn't know what she heard when with her father. For one second as my dad was screaming at me, I very nearly said "I would never talk to my Rosie the way you are" but my healthy, healing self instintively knew it was wrong to draw my daughter into the quarrel, even by such indirection.
Jane, my long time therapist, agreed with me. We both concluded that since I had kept my cool, instead of sliding into emotional panic and relapsing into childish emotions, I had kept her out of it.
Rosie and I left the house with dad shouting after us to come back, he was sorry. We left in silence. I buckled her into the back seat. As I began to pull away from the curb in front of dad's place, Rosie said, also in a calm voice, in her usually happy chirping voice, "Wow. I never saw anything like that before. Do you think we will ever see grandpa again?" She spoke calmly and seemed of good cheer. I found comfort in that, believing she had not taken on any of my dad's anger as being related to her. She was wiser at five, or better able to not take on other people's emotions.
Neither of my parents were fit to parent but I was and I am.
Now I know projection when I hear it. My mom projected her unhappiness onto me. My dad projected his unhappiness onto me. My ex husband project his damage onto me. Every man I have ever been attracted to tends to not see me. The men I am drawn to see their own boogeymen, just as my folks did. And, just like my folks did, the men I have been attracted to blame me for their own unworked shit. At the time, I internalized my mom's dysfunction as being my own. I thought it was my fault my mother didn't know me. I believed that if my mom thought I wasn't worth knowing, that I wasn't worth knowing.
If I never see another yellow rose again, it will be too soon. Don't get me started on mom's favorite cookies. And own your own shit.
I have sometimes, usually at vulnerable times in my life, done my own projecting, offloaded my own junk onto others. I don't think I have ever been as damaged as my parents were. And I know I am perfectly good, perfectly lovable. I know I deserved to be loved by everyone lucky enough to know me.
I give good love. I am kind. I am joyful. I am unusually thoughtful because I remember everything people tell me and I make thoughtful choices based on things they have said. If someone I love loves yellow roses, I send them yellow roses. If someone I loves complains about being forced out of San francisco and tells me hum is sad to move to Oakland, I make a welcome-to-oakland care package with gift cards for local shops near their new home. I actually did that for someone I thought was my friend and he was angry about it. He said I had invaded his new neighborhood and he hadn't actually grasped that it was a 'welcome to your new neighborhood' care package.
So far, no one has ever sent me a care package. I don't think there is anyone in the world who would know enough about me to put together a care package.
Fuck yellow roses. Fuck Pepperidge Farm Brussel Cookies, my mom's favorite.
Oh, I am supposed to honor social norms and not say fuck. Well, fuck that.
how real men shoot wild animals
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
be random be weird
"Be weird. Be random. Be who you are. Because you never know who would love the person you hide."
Don't change so people will like you, be yourself and the right people will love you. #AuthenticityIsMagnetic
for once in my life . . and low carb crap
For once in my life, I am going to pack a suitcase properly. Instead of throwing clothes and toiletries into my suitcase, helter skelter, as I think of the things I want to bring, I am going to lay everything out, fold all the clothing and pack tidily. When I get to my destination and open my suitcase, the contents won't be a jumbled, wrinkled mess.
Wisdom comes with aging?
P.s. I tucked some atkins candy in my suitcase. I have no illusions. Atkins low carb candy is full of pure crap and chemicals. There is nothing healthy but it doesn't mess much with my blood sugar and I can revisit the olden days when I could occasionally eat a candy.
Atkins is evil. They no longer limit themselves to power bar thingies. Now they sell bags of flat-out candy, packed in bite sized pieces. They are delicious. Delicious chemicals and preservatives.
I have justified my unwise Atkins purchase by just saying what the heck, eh? I'll be on a trip. I deserve some candy, low carb candy.
Wisdom comes with aging?
P.s. I tucked some atkins candy in my suitcase. I have no illusions. Atkins low carb candy is full of pure crap and chemicals. There is nothing healthy but it doesn't mess much with my blood sugar and I can revisit the olden days when I could occasionally eat a candy.
Atkins is evil. They no longer limit themselves to power bar thingies. Now they sell bags of flat-out candy, packed in bite sized pieces. They are delicious. Delicious chemicals and preservatives.
I have justified my unwise Atkins purchase by just saying what the heck, eh? I'll be on a trip. I deserve some candy, low carb candy.
Monday, July 27, 2015
maturity is tied to forgiveness
This question of maturity, so intimately tied to forgiveness, is the subject of another of David Whyte’s short essays. He writes:
MATURITY is the ability to live fully and equally in multiple contexts; most especially, the ability, despite our grief and losses, to courageously inhabit the past the present and the future all at once. The wisdom that comes from maturity is recognized through a disciplined refusal to choose between or isolate three powerful dynamics that form human identity: what has happened, what is happening now and what is about to occur.
Immaturity is shown by making false choices: living only in the past, or only in the present, or only in the future, or even, living only two out of the three.
Maturity is not a static arrived platform, where life is viewed from a calm, untouched oasis of wisdom, but a living elemental frontier between what has happened, what is happening now and the consequences of that past and present; first imagined and then lived into the waiting future.
Maturity calls us to risk ourselves as much as immaturity, but for a bigger picture, a larger horizon; for a powerfully generous outward incarnation of our inward qualities and not for gains that make us smaller, even in the winning.Maturity beckons also, asking us to be larger, more fluid, more elemental, less cornered, less unilateral, a living conversational intuition between the inherited story, the one we are privileged to inhabit and the one, if we are large enough and broad enough, moveable enough and even, here enough, just, astonishingly, about to occur.excerpted from Consolations, a book by David Whyte
true source of forgiveness
David Whyte — who has also asserted that “all friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness” — explores the true source of forgiveness:
excerpt from David Whyte's book, Consolations
Strangely, forgiveness never arises from the part of us that was actually wounded. The wounded self may be the part of us incapable of forgetting, and perhaps, not actually meant to forget, as if, like the foundational dynamics of the physiological immune system our psychological defenses must remember and organize against any future attacks — after all, the identity of the one who must forgive is actually founded on the very fact of having been wounded.
Stranger still, it is that wounded, branded, un-forgetting part of us that eventually makes forgiveness an act of compassion rather than one of simple forgetting. To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt, to mature and bring to fruition an identity that can put its arm, not only around the afflicted one within but also around the memories seared within us by the original blow and through a kind of psychological virtuosity, extend our understanding to one who first delivered it. Forgiveness is a skill, a way of preserving clarity, sanity and generosity in an individual life, a beautiful way of shaping the mind to a future we want for ourselves; an admittance that if forgiveness comes through understanding, and if understanding is just a matter of time and application then we might as well begin forgiving right at the beginning of any drama rather than put ourselves through the full cycle of festering, incapacitation, reluctant healing and eventual blessing.
To forgive is to put oneself in a larger gravitational field of experience than the one that first seemed to hurt us. We reimagine ourselves in the light of our maturity and we reimagine the past in the light of our new identity, we allow ourselves to be gifted by a story larger than the story that first hurt us and left us bereft.
excerpt from David Whyte's book, Consolations
Sunday, July 26, 2015
peach perfection with Rosie
Not sure how it happened but I feel weird, tested and my glucose was down to 64. The low glucose explained how I felt and the solution was easy. I had just been sitting her thinking about eating one of the two fat, perfectly ripe organic peaches I had bought yesterday. I have a thing for the Sno-Isle peach. I try to buy small ones but this week, they were all giganatic.
So when could I eat one, I had wondered, when I limited myself to buying only two gigantic peaches? When would I be able to eat a whole, juicy peach at its peak of perfect juiciness?
And along came my low blood sugar. I ate one, so juicy my face was covered in the juice.
And I think I'll eat the other one, in sacrifice.Gotta keep the glucose up.
I am reminded of the time, in the mid-nineties when I went to the home of a Waldorf teacher who had asked for folks in our school community to help her family unpack as they settled into their new home. Dinner was promised. I had bought a half dozen perfeclty ripened peaches from Michigan at the farmers market that Sunday. The work party was not billed as a potluck but, on my way out the door, I had grabbed my bag of perfect peaches. Perfect peaches don't keep and sharing makes perfect anything more fun.
Buzz, the male host, grilled some manly meat. The wifey teacher made a salad and there was dessert.
My preaches were a big hit, those who missed one happily groused. My daughter had gobbled one and was just about to inhale a secone one when another teacher sighed and said "Oh dear, I didn't get that last peach!" Rosie, always my perfect child, graciously gave that teacher her peach.
I still remember that woman, who I did not really know, gasp over her pleasure over that peach.
"This is perfectly ripe. Another hour and they would be past perfection."
"Thank you Rosie for giving me the last one."
"This peach is perfection. Why are perfectly ripe peaches such gifts from the gods?"
"Oh my gosh, this is delicious."
Mixed up in the happiness my six peaches has imparted to six lucky winners, with me taking a pass to be kind, I was happy in a simple, mellow way.
It is awesome to score peaches at their moment of perfect perfection. And it is awesome to share six perfectly ripe peaches with six wonderful humans. In my Midwest, peaches are usually shipped from somewhere else, so they are picked hard and do not typically ripen while shipped. Scoring perfectly juicy peaches, with juice delightfully dripping down your chin, is not nearly as common as it is here in Northern Cali. During peach season, I can eat juicily dripping peaches daily.
I spent my fruit carbs most often on strawberries. One strawberry growers sells strawberries that are vastly superior to any other organic berries at my market. And there are many strawberry vendors. I usually go for the 3 baskets for ten bucks deal but this week, I only bought one basket cause I'm leaving soon on a jet plane.
For no particular reason, I still remember that the peaches had been grown in Michigan. It was the first inkling I had ever had that anything in Michigan might appeal to me. Later I lived there for two years and those six perfect peaches still stand out as my best Michigan-related experience. And I didn't even eat one!
Rosie was my favorite peach eater that day.
I wonder what perfect summer bounty awaits me in Seattle and then Orcas Island?
So when could I eat one, I had wondered, when I limited myself to buying only two gigantic peaches? When would I be able to eat a whole, juicy peach at its peak of perfect juiciness?
And along came my low blood sugar. I ate one, so juicy my face was covered in the juice.
And I think I'll eat the other one, in sacrifice.Gotta keep the glucose up.
I am reminded of the time, in the mid-nineties when I went to the home of a Waldorf teacher who had asked for folks in our school community to help her family unpack as they settled into their new home. Dinner was promised. I had bought a half dozen perfeclty ripened peaches from Michigan at the farmers market that Sunday. The work party was not billed as a potluck but, on my way out the door, I had grabbed my bag of perfect peaches. Perfect peaches don't keep and sharing makes perfect anything more fun.
Buzz, the male host, grilled some manly meat. The wifey teacher made a salad and there was dessert.
My preaches were a big hit, those who missed one happily groused. My daughter had gobbled one and was just about to inhale a secone one when another teacher sighed and said "Oh dear, I didn't get that last peach!" Rosie, always my perfect child, graciously gave that teacher her peach.
I still remember that woman, who I did not really know, gasp over her pleasure over that peach.
"This is perfectly ripe. Another hour and they would be past perfection."
"Thank you Rosie for giving me the last one."
"This peach is perfection. Why are perfectly ripe peaches such gifts from the gods?"
"Oh my gosh, this is delicious."
Mixed up in the happiness my six peaches has imparted to six lucky winners, with me taking a pass to be kind, I was happy in a simple, mellow way.
It is awesome to score peaches at their moment of perfect perfection. And it is awesome to share six perfectly ripe peaches with six wonderful humans. In my Midwest, peaches are usually shipped from somewhere else, so they are picked hard and do not typically ripen while shipped. Scoring perfectly juicy peaches, with juice delightfully dripping down your chin, is not nearly as common as it is here in Northern Cali. During peach season, I can eat juicily dripping peaches daily.
I spent my fruit carbs most often on strawberries. One strawberry growers sells strawberries that are vastly superior to any other organic berries at my market. And there are many strawberry vendors. I usually go for the 3 baskets for ten bucks deal but this week, I only bought one basket cause I'm leaving soon on a jet plane.
For no particular reason, I still remember that the peaches had been grown in Michigan. It was the first inkling I had ever had that anything in Michigan might appeal to me. Later I lived there for two years and those six perfect peaches still stand out as my best Michigan-related experience. And I didn't even eat one!
Rosie was my favorite peach eater that day.
I wonder what perfect summer bounty awaits me in Seattle and then Orcas Island?
ours is not a caravan of despair
"Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken
your vows a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come."
~Rumi
Saturday, July 25, 2015
Friday, July 24, 2015
About interest, memory and willpower
Only by working through the force of habit and custom in man can you give order to his will and therewith also to his memory. In other words, you must understand how everything that awakens an intense interest in the child also contributes to a very great extent towards making his memory strong and efficient. For the power of the memory must be derived from the feeling and will and not from mere intellectual memory exercises.Source: Rudolf Steiner – GA 293 – The Study of Man: Lecture VIII – Stuttgart, 29 August 1919
YES! Intellectual memory is just not adequate. We need to have our memory derived from our feeling and will capacities. I think this might explain my extraordinary memory. I've worked hard for thirty years developing my will force. I remain a work in progress, a work in need of much work.This is life.
I am a goddess
Please address me as goddess, love goddess or all hail the love goddess.
You get the idea.
You get the idea.
wishing hoping planning and praying
I'm happy. wishing hoping planning and praying I'll be happy tomorrow, too.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
ghosting
- Ghosting is the worst possible way to dump someone, it also ranks highly among the most cowardly and dastardly ways to dump someone. Ghosting is when you dump someone simply by never communicating with them again. Ghosting is immature, cruel, and denotes that the dumper is not emotionally mature enough to be in an adult relationship. So, for the ghosted, or the dump-ee, it's a good thing. Your ghoster can't handle adult friendship; if they could, they wouldn't have ghosted you so they did you a favor?
A ghoster could be someone you’ve known since you were 2 years old, or someone you met at a bar. Ghosters come in all shapes and sizes. They have one thing in common, and that is immaturity. Ghosting is rude no matter how long you’ve known the person.
So why does it still hurt? I was ghosted, without any conversation, and I felt devalued, worthless and I let the ghosting allow me to doubt that I had any value at all.
where troubles melt like lemon drops
Where dreams come true and troubles melt like lemon drops, that's where you'll find me.
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
truthtellers often villified, even in fake liberal Berkeley!
I just read about a 65 year old distinguished, career Chicago cop who, in recent years, worked as an investigator of cop shootings. Recently he refused to amend his conclusions that six shootings were unjustified so he was fired for 'not being a team player'.
This man is a hero, exactly the kind of person society needs for investigations of cop behavior. After a 40+ year career of awards, praise and positive evaluations, he was fired for not being willing to lie which the Chicago Police Department considers not being a team player'.
Fuck such attitudes. And thank goddess good cops are out there, altho far too few.
A lot of local Berkeley folks are angry with me just now because I revealed an elitist, all-white group of activists who accepted a suggestion to abandon any advocacy for affordable housing for the poor. This clown group, all white, as I mentioned, accepted a suggestion that t
As a brand new lawyer*, while I job hunted after passing the bar, I taught business law at an under grad university. I had taught the course while still in law school, actually. So a veteran rightly using his VA benefits to get a college degree had a straight A record. He scored a C on his final, a simple, multiple choice test the school made me use. It was scored based on how many answers he got wrong, not on my judgment. I refused to give him the A he demanded. Head of college called me in and demanded I change the A, explaining to me the school wanted that guy's tuition so give him the A, what harm was there in it. He said I would lose my job if I didn't change that grade. I said "You must think this job means more to me than it does if you think I will cheat. Let the guy live with one C and let him work harder instead of letting him coast. You cheat him when you give him phony grades." I was overruled, the veteran got the A he demanded and my contract not renewed. My only regret was I had to complete my contract for one more semester.
A mostly unrelated story except to point out that truthtellers are often suppressed. Our system does not serve good, it serves money.
I grew up in Chicago, half my family still works for the city, I've known many cops and they were ALL on the take. a cop would buy a house and magically pay off the whole thing in six months. That went on in the sixties and seventies, no reason to think it has stopped.
I admire this investigator for his integrity. And I am ashamed of Chicago and the Chicago police department for valuing dirty cops over integrity.
A tale as old as time: villify the truthtellers and reward the crooks, cover the elites' wrongdoing by throwing truthtellers under the bus.
A gang of Berkeley activists have thrown me under the bus for revealing their racist, classist discussions. They are spitting nickels because they declared their meeting was not a secret. Because of my legal experience, if someone asks me to maintain confidentiality, I take it to my grave. The invitation to this all white group, explicitly declared the group was not secret. They convened to pull together all community groups in Berkeley, and of course they want the poor and nonwhite to support their efforts -- just don't ask them to treat the poor and nonwhite as equals, nothing too liberal, eh?! -- are trying to undermine my truthtelling, sending out emails saying I have given misinformation. The invitation, which lists the all white invitation only invitees and explicitly says 'this is not secret' is the truth. Not my truth, their truth.
Throwing me under the bus will not win them any followers. I did the right thing. I am proud of my actions and painfully disappointed that this group, people I have worked long hours with over the past eight months, has rejected me because I spoke the truth. I thought some of them were friends but learned, painfully, that no friends of mine were at that meeting.
This gang is appalled by our mayor's majority voting block, which does lots of secret deals outside of public scrutiny. Was it Einstein who said you can't solve problems by using the same level of thinking that created the problem? Folks, you can't fight Bates' bullying majority, which completely disregards public input, by being secretive yourselves. I did you a favor. If you are smart, you will get your act together and go truthful.
One member of this group has sent out emails suggesting I gave them misinformation.All I gave them was the invitation to an all white gathering of people who hope to form a citywide coalition. AT the meeting, when I suggested a couple names of nonwhite community leaders, each leader was criticized as 'not seasoned enough'. I was shocked to find myself at the table. I literally got up and sat in a chair in the corner, away from the table, waiting for my ride home, disengaged from the classism and racism going on.
You can't solve a problem with thinking at the same level that created the problem. And you can't suppress the truth by throwing me under the bus.
*I am not licensed to practice law, by my choice, in CA so I am not technically a lawyer. I don't want anyone accusing me of claiming to be a lawyer. I could move back to the Midwest, take a few CLE classes and be fully licensed. And my license in the Midwest allows me to practice law for myself and relatives. I could sit for the CA bar. I don't want to be a lawyer but my fine mind can still think like one. Here in CA I am not a lawyer.
This man is a hero, exactly the kind of person society needs for investigations of cop behavior. After a 40+ year career of awards, praise and positive evaluations, he was fired for not being willing to lie which the Chicago Police Department considers not being a team player'.
Fuck such attitudes. And thank goddess good cops are out there, altho far too few.
A lot of local Berkeley folks are angry with me just now because I revealed an elitist, all-white group of activists who accepted a suggestion to abandon any advocacy for affordable housing for the poor. This clown group, all white, as I mentioned, accepted a suggestion that t
As a brand new lawyer*, while I job hunted after passing the bar, I taught business law at an under grad university. I had taught the course while still in law school, actually. So a veteran rightly using his VA benefits to get a college degree had a straight A record. He scored a C on his final, a simple, multiple choice test the school made me use. It was scored based on how many answers he got wrong, not on my judgment. I refused to give him the A he demanded. Head of college called me in and demanded I change the A, explaining to me the school wanted that guy's tuition so give him the A, what harm was there in it. He said I would lose my job if I didn't change that grade. I said "You must think this job means more to me than it does if you think I will cheat. Let the guy live with one C and let him work harder instead of letting him coast. You cheat him when you give him phony grades." I was overruled, the veteran got the A he demanded and my contract not renewed. My only regret was I had to complete my contract for one more semester.
A mostly unrelated story except to point out that truthtellers are often suppressed. Our system does not serve good, it serves money.
I grew up in Chicago, half my family still works for the city, I've known many cops and they were ALL on the take. a cop would buy a house and magically pay off the whole thing in six months. That went on in the sixties and seventies, no reason to think it has stopped.
I admire this investigator for his integrity. And I am ashamed of Chicago and the Chicago police department for valuing dirty cops over integrity.
A tale as old as time: villify the truthtellers and reward the crooks, cover the elites' wrongdoing by throwing truthtellers under the bus.
A gang of Berkeley activists have thrown me under the bus for revealing their racist, classist discussions. They are spitting nickels because they declared their meeting was not a secret. Because of my legal experience, if someone asks me to maintain confidentiality, I take it to my grave. The invitation to this all white group, explicitly declared the group was not secret. They convened to pull together all community groups in Berkeley, and of course they want the poor and nonwhite to support their efforts -- just don't ask them to treat the poor and nonwhite as equals, nothing too liberal, eh?! -- are trying to undermine my truthtelling, sending out emails saying I have given misinformation. The invitation, which lists the all white invitation only invitees and explicitly says 'this is not secret' is the truth. Not my truth, their truth.
Throwing me under the bus will not win them any followers. I did the right thing. I am proud of my actions and painfully disappointed that this group, people I have worked long hours with over the past eight months, has rejected me because I spoke the truth. I thought some of them were friends but learned, painfully, that no friends of mine were at that meeting.
This gang is appalled by our mayor's majority voting block, which does lots of secret deals outside of public scrutiny. Was it Einstein who said you can't solve problems by using the same level of thinking that created the problem? Folks, you can't fight Bates' bullying majority, which completely disregards public input, by being secretive yourselves. I did you a favor. If you are smart, you will get your act together and go truthful.
One member of this group has sent out emails suggesting I gave them misinformation.All I gave them was the invitation to an all white gathering of people who hope to form a citywide coalition. AT the meeting, when I suggested a couple names of nonwhite community leaders, each leader was criticized as 'not seasoned enough'. I was shocked to find myself at the table. I literally got up and sat in a chair in the corner, away from the table, waiting for my ride home, disengaged from the classism and racism going on.
You can't solve a problem with thinking at the same level that created the problem. And you can't suppress the truth by throwing me under the bus.
*I am not licensed to practice law, by my choice, in CA so I am not technically a lawyer. I don't want anyone accusing me of claiming to be a lawyer. I could move back to the Midwest, take a few CLE classes and be fully licensed. And my license in the Midwest allows me to practice law for myself and relatives. I could sit for the CA bar. I don't want to be a lawyer but my fine mind can still think like one. Here in CA I am not a lawyer.
my gratitude
In 2006, I had a deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE), which is life-threatening and landed me in an intensive care unit (ICU) for several days while doctors worked to save my life.
Afterwards, I was told I had to be on coumadin, which is rat poison, the rest of my life. I chafed taking rat poison for the rest of my life. My former primary care doc referred me, at my request, to a hematologist. The hematologist ran lots of blood tests, after I had been off coumadin for one month. The tests indicated I should remain on coumadin. I really liked my hematologist. She said my blood test results were right on the line, just barely suggesting I had to stay on coumadin. She suggested whether or not I kept taking coumadin depended on my level of tolerance for risk. She pointed out that I now knew what a DVT felt like and, should I have another one, I would probably -- probably -- identify it and avoid a PE. So I went off coumadin, although I was skittish. Every time I felt a twinge in my left leg, I thought "oh now, another DVT".
Still, I kept off coumadin for a couple years.
This winter, my left leg developed severe pain. I got to the point where I could barely walk from the pain. I reported my symptoms to my primary care doc and she shrugged off the symptoms I reported as fatigue from the flu. I like that primary care doc and trusted her so I shrugged off my fear of another DVT.
A couple weeks later, limping in the dark to an activist organizing meeting near my home, my inner voice whispered "you have another DVT, that's why your leg hurts so much."
I should have gone to an ER righ then but I waited until the next morning, March 17, 2015.
I was hospitalized for my 2006 DVT/Pe on Cinco de Mayo.
My nurse on St. Patrick's Day, an Irishman with a lovely broque (how I love the Irish broque!) said "you are special, you only have DVT's on national holidays". I pointed out that St. Patrick's day is not a national holiday but I also acknowledged that as I grew up in a very Irish community St. Patrick's day was a major holiday in my clan. It was a nice moment.
Nurses are usually so kind. I much admire people called to work that helps people. I much admire the typical kindness and attentiveness nurses ahve given me. I feel much gratitude for all the nurses who have been kindly attentive to my health needs.
The ER doc, back in March, put me on coumadin and told me to contact my primary care doc within 48 hours. I called to make an appointment on my way home from the hospital. On March 17, 2015, my now-former health care provider told me I could not see a doctor until late April. I cried. I said "Coumadin is an unstable drug, I can't take it without medical supervision unti late April. I need blood tests and dosage adjustments." But the customer service reps ahve no power, only calendars.
So I went to the clinic's lobby and begged for an appointment. At first they told me they could not help me, I just had to wait. I sat down and cried. As i cried, a patient came in to tell the clinic she ad been scheduled to see a nurse practitioner the next day and she didn't want the appointment. Bingo. I got the appointment.
I went on to see that nitwit nurse practitioner a few times. She was clueless about how to monitor coumadin. And weird. She'd come in, talk to me without any advice or resolution of my needs and never return to the exam room. She would order blood tests but never give me the results.
And I continued to have problems getting to see my actual doctor, who also seemed to have no idea how to monitor coumadin. Having been on coumadin for many years, I knew what I needed but I can't order the blood tests, I can't titrate my coumadin dosage.
I fought this negligent system for months.
Then at a routine appointment of my new, Oakland-based endocrinologist, who works under the banner of Stanford Medical Practice. I reasoned taht if Stanford Medical accepted my insruance to see an endocrinologist, I could probably see an internist, a primary care doc, with the same practice. So I asked my endocrinoilogist, she made a referral. I had to wait awhile, six weeks, to see my new primary care doc.
The quality of my health care has, overnight, dramatically improve. This internist actually monitored my coumadin personally, calling me personally once a week. She put in a standing order for my coumadin testing so I could go to a blood lab whenever she asked me to without needing to get a new order.
My coumadin remained unstable.
People had alluded to new meds on the market that replace coumadin and do not require regular blood test monitoring but my old doc never suggested I try this new meds. The nurse practitioner assigned to use her witless skills to monitor my coumadin was useless and certainly did not resarch options for my very real health care needs. That nurse practitioner committed negligent malprctice, imho.
And the clinic was negligent. They ignored my repeated please that my health care needs be properly.
I have not bonded yet with my new doctors. Two visits don't make for the lovely bond I have with my former primary care doc. I really liked her but she failed to see that I am a type one daibetic. I finally figured out the treatment she offered for my diabetes was not meeting my needs and I asked to see an endocrinologist. Otherwise, I'd still be failing to receive proper care.
I used to see an internist at Stanford Medical, but in Palo Alto when I lived in Mountain View. Once I saw that my new endocrinologist worked for Stanford Medical, I knew that clinic would take my insurance. I knew I could switch to a different primary care doc.
I am so grateful that I have been able to make this change, that I now receive, timely, responsive medical supervisioin for my multiple chronic health issues.
When I last saw my former primary care doc, I told her I had a new patient appointment with a new doctor and if she didn't see me again, I wanted her to know I did not leave because of her. I told her I was leaving because of the dysfunctional system offered by her clinic. She said "If you do switch, we'll have to get together for lunch some time." That was touching and meaningful, altho I don't expect her to call and invite me to lunch. She's too overworked to think of me.
After I last saw her, however, I couldn't help but reflect on the few very serious failures of this doctor to recognize my health needs, which lead to her neglecting them. I shouldn't have been the one to figure out I had a new DVT. I shouldn't have been the one to figure out I needed an endocrinologist. And I sure as shit shouldn't have been the one to suspect I am Type One instead of Type Two. I received the wrong care for my diabetes for years, including wrong treatment by my long ago Stanford internist in Palo Alto. Now I know that my type one should be obvious to any doctor that understands diabetes in a cmpetent way. Now I know many primary care docs don't really understand it which is why all diabetics need an endocrinologist, eh?
When I moved from Seattle and saw my primary care doc in Settle for the last time, she cried as she hugged me. She said that in every isit, I had brought something special: a clever insight, my good humor, my patience. She said she didn't think she had ever cried before when a patient moved away.
You see? I am not hard to get along with if people treat me with respect and don't abuse me.
I am full of gratitude today for my new doctors, my newly competent health care and the professionalism of the Stanford Medical Practice.
I have fleeting fantasies of standing outside my old clinic with flyers informing patients better health care is available to them. I don't do it because I suspect it would be seen as disruptive. I don't want to rock any boats.
All I wanted was competent, very much need, health care.
And now I have it.
Gratitude gratitude gratitude.
I don't like having multiple chronic health challenges but I am grateful that I am now receiving competent treatment once again.
Afterwards, I was told I had to be on coumadin, which is rat poison, the rest of my life. I chafed taking rat poison for the rest of my life. My former primary care doc referred me, at my request, to a hematologist. The hematologist ran lots of blood tests, after I had been off coumadin for one month. The tests indicated I should remain on coumadin. I really liked my hematologist. She said my blood test results were right on the line, just barely suggesting I had to stay on coumadin. She suggested whether or not I kept taking coumadin depended on my level of tolerance for risk. She pointed out that I now knew what a DVT felt like and, should I have another one, I would probably -- probably -- identify it and avoid a PE. So I went off coumadin, although I was skittish. Every time I felt a twinge in my left leg, I thought "oh now, another DVT".
Still, I kept off coumadin for a couple years.
This winter, my left leg developed severe pain. I got to the point where I could barely walk from the pain. I reported my symptoms to my primary care doc and she shrugged off the symptoms I reported as fatigue from the flu. I like that primary care doc and trusted her so I shrugged off my fear of another DVT.
A couple weeks later, limping in the dark to an activist organizing meeting near my home, my inner voice whispered "you have another DVT, that's why your leg hurts so much."
I should have gone to an ER righ then but I waited until the next morning, March 17, 2015.
I was hospitalized for my 2006 DVT/Pe on Cinco de Mayo.
My nurse on St. Patrick's Day, an Irishman with a lovely broque (how I love the Irish broque!) said "you are special, you only have DVT's on national holidays". I pointed out that St. Patrick's day is not a national holiday but I also acknowledged that as I grew up in a very Irish community St. Patrick's day was a major holiday in my clan. It was a nice moment.
Nurses are usually so kind. I much admire people called to work that helps people. I much admire the typical kindness and attentiveness nurses ahve given me. I feel much gratitude for all the nurses who have been kindly attentive to my health needs.
The ER doc, back in March, put me on coumadin and told me to contact my primary care doc within 48 hours. I called to make an appointment on my way home from the hospital. On March 17, 2015, my now-former health care provider told me I could not see a doctor until late April. I cried. I said "Coumadin is an unstable drug, I can't take it without medical supervision unti late April. I need blood tests and dosage adjustments." But the customer service reps ahve no power, only calendars.
So I went to the clinic's lobby and begged for an appointment. At first they told me they could not help me, I just had to wait. I sat down and cried. As i cried, a patient came in to tell the clinic she ad been scheduled to see a nurse practitioner the next day and she didn't want the appointment. Bingo. I got the appointment.
I went on to see that nitwit nurse practitioner a few times. She was clueless about how to monitor coumadin. And weird. She'd come in, talk to me without any advice or resolution of my needs and never return to the exam room. She would order blood tests but never give me the results.
And I continued to have problems getting to see my actual doctor, who also seemed to have no idea how to monitor coumadin. Having been on coumadin for many years, I knew what I needed but I can't order the blood tests, I can't titrate my coumadin dosage.
I fought this negligent system for months.
Then at a routine appointment of my new, Oakland-based endocrinologist, who works under the banner of Stanford Medical Practice. I reasoned taht if Stanford Medical accepted my insruance to see an endocrinologist, I could probably see an internist, a primary care doc, with the same practice. So I asked my endocrinoilogist, she made a referral. I had to wait awhile, six weeks, to see my new primary care doc.
The quality of my health care has, overnight, dramatically improve. This internist actually monitored my coumadin personally, calling me personally once a week. She put in a standing order for my coumadin testing so I could go to a blood lab whenever she asked me to without needing to get a new order.
My coumadin remained unstable.
People had alluded to new meds on the market that replace coumadin and do not require regular blood test monitoring but my old doc never suggested I try this new meds. The nurse practitioner assigned to use her witless skills to monitor my coumadin was useless and certainly did not resarch options for my very real health care needs. That nurse practitioner committed negligent malprctice, imho.
And the clinic was negligent. They ignored my repeated please that my health care needs be properly.
I have not bonded yet with my new doctors. Two visits don't make for the lovely bond I have with my former primary care doc. I really liked her but she failed to see that I am a type one daibetic. I finally figured out the treatment she offered for my diabetes was not meeting my needs and I asked to see an endocrinologist. Otherwise, I'd still be failing to receive proper care.
I used to see an internist at Stanford Medical, but in Palo Alto when I lived in Mountain View. Once I saw that my new endocrinologist worked for Stanford Medical, I knew that clinic would take my insurance. I knew I could switch to a different primary care doc.
I am so grateful that I have been able to make this change, that I now receive, timely, responsive medical supervisioin for my multiple chronic health issues.
When I last saw my former primary care doc, I told her I had a new patient appointment with a new doctor and if she didn't see me again, I wanted her to know I did not leave because of her. I told her I was leaving because of the dysfunctional system offered by her clinic. She said "If you do switch, we'll have to get together for lunch some time." That was touching and meaningful, altho I don't expect her to call and invite me to lunch. She's too overworked to think of me.
After I last saw her, however, I couldn't help but reflect on the few very serious failures of this doctor to recognize my health needs, which lead to her neglecting them. I shouldn't have been the one to figure out I had a new DVT. I shouldn't have been the one to figure out I needed an endocrinologist. And I sure as shit shouldn't have been the one to suspect I am Type One instead of Type Two. I received the wrong care for my diabetes for years, including wrong treatment by my long ago Stanford internist in Palo Alto. Now I know that my type one should be obvious to any doctor that understands diabetes in a cmpetent way. Now I know many primary care docs don't really understand it which is why all diabetics need an endocrinologist, eh?
When I moved from Seattle and saw my primary care doc in Settle for the last time, she cried as she hugged me. She said that in every isit, I had brought something special: a clever insight, my good humor, my patience. She said she didn't think she had ever cried before when a patient moved away.
You see? I am not hard to get along with if people treat me with respect and don't abuse me.
I am full of gratitude today for my new doctors, my newly competent health care and the professionalism of the Stanford Medical Practice.
I have fleeting fantasies of standing outside my old clinic with flyers informing patients better health care is available to them. I don't do it because I suspect it would be seen as disruptive. I don't want to rock any boats.
All I wanted was competent, very much need, health care.
And now I have it.
Gratitude gratitude gratitude.
I don't like having multiple chronic health challenges but I am grateful that I am now receiving competent treatment once again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair
"Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It
doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have
broken
your vows a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come."
~Rumi
the eternity of the stars
When you listen to your inner world you hear
the silent whisperings of the stars, and the
eternity beyond the stars.
.
.
Words~ Dana Lynne Andersen
Image~ Seung-Hwan Chung
This is my experience. When I listen to my inner world,
I not only hear the stars, I know that I am of them.
~Tree
Image~ Seung-Hwan Chung
This is my experience. When I listen to my inner world,
I not only hear the stars, I know that I am of them.
~Tree
Monday, July 20, 2015
how to get a better world
Listen to me, of course. Not Lucy.
First order I would give: return taxation of the rich to the rates we had in the ninteen forties, eliminate corporate welfare, overturn Citizen United, stipend income for all, guaranteed housing for all, no more off shore bank accounts to avoid taxes and raise corporate income taxes very very high with no credits.
It is a travesty that some companies make millions, and a few billions, yet pay little or no federal income taxes.
Stop letting the rich steal our country.
Improve schools.
Universal single-payer health care for all.
I'm just getting started. Key: raise taxes steeply and immediate on rich and on corporations, eliminatea corporate welfare and stop giving away indigenous land to foreign coprporations. And recognize Native American tribes so the feds can't go on stealing their land. And slavery reparation.
Trust me. You'll be glad if the whole world started doing as I say.
change is gonna come
I posted this beautifully rendered song, that change is gonna come, recently. I needed to hear it again so I decided to share it again.
Change is gonna come, yes it will.
Maybe hurry up?!
hard to plan my day. . .
“I awaken each morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” ( E.B. White )
the encouragement of light
How did the rose
ever open its heart
and give to this world all of its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light
against its being,
otherwise we all remain
too frightened.
-- Hafiz
Sunday, July 19, 2015
turn sideways into the light
TURN SIDEWAYS INTO THE LIGHT
Turn sideways into the light as they say
the old ones did and disappear
into the originality of it all.
Be impatient with easy explanations
and teach that part of the mind
that wants to know everything
not to begin questions it cannot answer.
Walk the green road above the bay
and the low glinting fields
toward the evening sun, let that Atlantic
gleam be ahead of you and the gray light
of the bay below you, until you catch,
down on your left, the break in the wall,
for just above in the shadows
you’ll find it hidden, a curved arm
of rock holding the water close to the mountain,
a just-lit surface smoothing a scattering of coins,
and in the niche above, notes to the dead
and supplications for those who still live
.
But for now, you are alone with the transfiguration
and ask no healing for your own
but look down as if looking through time,
as if through a rent veil from the other
side of the question you’ve refused to ask.
.
And you remember now, that clear stream
of generosity from which you drank,
how as a child your arms could rise and your palms
turn out to take the blessing of the world.
TOBAR PHADRAIC
In RIVER FLOW: New and Selected Poems
© David Whyte and Many Rivers Press
Lough Corrib Light
Connemara Nov 2014
Photo © David Whyte
