Every time I turn on the news lately what I see makes me choke back tears. Week after week, there is tragedy we must mourn. I feel anxiety and confusion. I struggle to wrap my head around the events, time after time. I get an overwhelming feeling of doom. This morning, I imagined what someone in the future might write about these tumultuous times:

We all thought the “end of days” would look like Mad Max or Terminator or something. We thought it would come all at once, with fire and brimstone raining from the sky in an unquestionable act of divine vengeance and with a single human embodiment of evil at the helm of the destruction. But it didn’t. It was a slow build, like a pot coming to a boil on the stove. No one really noticed, until it was a full rolling boil being poured down squarely upon us. It started innocently enough. It was just us humans running around exercising our “free will.” Then the will of one obstructed the will of another, and so on and so forth, until conflict filled the Earth. The moral fiber of society began to wear away bit by bit; until we were so far gone we could no longer find our way back to our humanity. A muddy mixture of moral relativism and hardline religion made us unable to discern between right and wrong. Somewhere along the way our collective need to advance our own desires and our insistence on being “right” started to supersede our instinct to survive as a species. So we said, “Hey, no thanks, Creator. We don’t need your stinking Revelation, Hollywood-special-effects-style ending. Nope! We have our OWN plans for self-destruction…and they are glorious!”

“Would you believe we’re just gonna start killing each other more and more and more, until finally, POOF, no more people? First, we’re gonna kill people that live in different parts of the world…just because they live in a different part of the world and they’re different than us. Yup! Then we’re gonna start killing people that live in the same part of the world as us, but they’re different. You know, they have skin like us, but it’s a different color. Oh, and we’re also gonna kill people who want to date/marry/have sex with people that are the same sex. Why? Because of that book you wrote…the Bible, the Koran, something like that…well, okay, the one you had us write for you, but you get it. We’re also gonna make it so that people who have psychological and emotional problems can’t get the help they need, so some of them, the ones who are in the most pain, will just start killing random people. Sounds pretty great so far, huh? Oh, but that’s just the beginning! Yeah, we’re also gonna poison the water, the soil, and the air, so that our planet’s climate and weather patterns create destruction, too. Yeah, and that’ll totally be a ‘kill two birds with one big-ass stone’ situation, because the poisons will also be in our food, and that’ll kill even more people by making them sick! I know, right? This is SO epic!”

This sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But this is what it would look like to a visitor from another world. I cannot believe that we have taken so many steps forward only to find ourselves twice as many steps back. Black lives matter. Yes, gay lives matter. Yes, Latin lives matter. Yes, Asian lives matter. Christian lives matter, and Muslim lives matter. Even law enforcement lives matter. Lives matter. Why do we even have to say that? God, himself, would tell us as much. But right now it is black and brown lives that are being disproportionately devalued.

What do we have to do to find our way back to preserving our species and our planet? We can start by rejecting the values of modern society – that of self over others, personal gain over public good, monetary wealth over spiritual growth, and suspicion of “others” over acceptance and embrace of them. I’m a pretty old human, and I feel like I’m an even older soul, but I’m becoming a very weary human and an even wearier soul. Please, for the sake of our children, leave the destruction of the human race for the fantasies of Hollywood filmmakers. Let’s watch the pot, my fellow human beings, because, after all, they say, “A watched pot never boils.”

Earlier this week, our cat of fifteen years, Jules, died. My husband wrote a beautiful Facebook post expressing his personal sentiments about the loss. I haven’t been ready to talk about it, until now.

Last fall, I attended a writer’s conference. During one of the sessions, we viewed a series of photos and were then asked to write a single word for each one – whatever leapt to mind. One of the photos showed little girls playing with a black and white kitten. I jotted the name “Jules,” the name of my senior cat, for it. Later in the session, we were instructed to choose one of the words about which to write a narrative. I chose “Jules.” The exercise only lasted a few minutes, and it really wasn’t intended to generate a complete piece. This is what I wrote:

“Isn’t she cute?” Sarah squealed as she ran up to the open driver’s side window of my car when I arrived to pick her up from her friend Kylie’s house. Her hands were cupped around a tiny black & white, green-eyed kitten. “Can we keep her? Can we, pleeeese?” Sarah pleaded. I looked at the pathetic little thing. I knew it had probably spent the entirety of its short life, up to that point, in the clutter and filth that Kylie’s family called their yard and home, with at least a dozen other cats and half a dozen dogs. I felt sorry for it, and it was pretty cute. It’d been a long time since we’d had a pet. It had been since the house on Avondale, before my divorce from the girls’ father. Three years had passed since we had to sell the house and give the girls’ pet cat, Butterscotch, to my aunt. They’d lost their home, lost having their dad around full-time, and even lost their cat. How could I say no? Besides, I kinda wanted another cat too, and, now that we had a house again, we could. “Okay,” I sighed, to Sarah’s delight. Now all we had to do was get Mike on board.

There really wasn’t much to “getting Mike on board.” He came home to find me holding what looked like a drowned rat. Jules had been completely riddled with fleas, so I immediately had to give her a flea bath and then tediously pick through her fur to make sure they were all gone. When I was done, I tucked her into the bib of my overalls. She curled up and fell asleep, purring contentedly. What else could Mike have done when confronted with such an adorable sight? Yes, he was “on board” right from the get-go. He even suggested a name for her. He said we should name her Jules after Jools Holland, my favorite BBC music show host. I decided, however, to spell it J-U-L-E-S after Jules Vern, instead. J-O-O-L-S just looked too much like “fools” to me.

That little green-eyed kitten grew into an enormous, albeit beloved, family pet. I swear, you could easily have mistaken that animal for a large beaver or a possum! She patiently put up with the hijinks of three little girls. She tolerated the intrusion of us bringing an ill-behaved, hundred-pound Labrador into her house – one that had a nasty habit of slobbering around in her litter box. Mind you, it took us a forever to figure out that that was why she kept shitting on the floor. Once we did, though, and once we’d installed enough baby-gates (barring the dog’s access to litter box snacking) to make it look like our house was a daycare, she finally stopped (until very recently). Thank God!

Jules resisted her natural instincts, in spite of the parade of guinea pigs, rats, and fish we brought to live with us, never so much as batting a paw in their general direction. She even, eventually, adjusted to the presence of another cat, Peanut. I guess all that was a lot to deal with, so I can’t really fault her for ending up becoming such a crotchety bitch over time.

The circumstances surrounding Peanut joining our family were unique. Losing Sarah in a horrendous car accident just a few months after she’d adopted her, somehow made me feel particularly close to Peanut. Peanut was also unusually affectionate and vocal, too. These traits made her a source of comfort to me during that incredibly painful time. So, I guess you might say that Jules had been displaced, to a degree, in my heart. As a result, Mike became the focus of Jules’ attention and affection. As cute as it might sound, this could be incredibly irritating. She often insisted on sleeping between the two of us, cuddled against his tummy or chest, with her feet jabbing into my back or side. It got progressively intrusive this past year. There were nights when I would rouse, roll over, and then, bleary-eyed, find myself staring directly into those piercing green eyes. That’s right! Bitch had her head on my man’s pillow! Yes, many were the mornings that I left my bed, with Mike still in it, and came back to the bedroom to dress, only to find Jules sleeping in my spot! I often joked that Jules considered herself my “sister-wife”.

Truly, there were times that Jules irritated the shit out me, but I loved her. A part of me will always see her as that little green-eyed kitten cupped in the hands of my Sarah. Jules’ had a place in my heart that was her own. Would you believe she loved coffee with cream? Yup, whenever I’d pour a cup, she’d appear. She’d sniff the air and try to get as close as possible to my cup. If, God forbid, I ever left a cup unattended, I would inevitably come back to find her dipping her paw into it and enjoying. She also loved my freshly lotioned hands and feet, as well as freshly washed hair. “Stop it! Knock it off, Jules!” I would shout as she tried, nonchalantly, to lick my hands, feet, or hair. Bleck! Today, as I was pouring my coffee, I looked up, expecting to see her come lumbering around the corner at the scent. I realized, in that moment, how much I would miss her.

When we went to bed Wednesday night, Jules didn’t make her typical appearance for wet food. I realized that I hadn’t seen her all day, and Peanut had been acting strange – unusually clingy and even more vocal. We looked, but had no luck finding her. It wasn’t unusual, though. Jules had always done as she pleases. We went to bed anyway, thinking that she’d eventually come out to eat. But I couldn’t sleep. I sensed something was wrong. I got up and looked for Jules again. This time, I found her. She had crawled into a closet in the basement. It looked as though she’d just wanted to rest on the coolness of the concrete. I said her name and reached out to touch her. She was cold and stiff. I went to tell Mike. He was still in bed, half-asleep. “Jules is dead,” I told him. “What? What do you mean?” Needless to say, he was stunned. “What do we do?” I asked, “Should I just cover her up and leave her until the morning? Do you think she’d be okay out in the shed until the morning? What should we do?” “I’m gonna go dig a hole back in the woods,” he replied. “Now?” I questioned. “Yes!” he said. Mike has a well-established phobia of handling dead animals of any kind, even our pets. I knew that it was up to me to get Jules out to the woods. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I gently pulled the trash bag over her lifeless body, tied it, and pulled the bag up off the floor. I walked out into the yard and toward the glow of light in the woods. I found Mike sweaty and out of breath, with a blank expression. He dug and dug and dug, as a cloud of bugs swarmed around us in the light of the lantern. “Surely our neighbors are gonna think we’re getting rid of some kind of ‘evidence’,” I thought. Nah, they already know we’re a couple of weirdoes. Once the hole was deep enough to keep the coyotes from getting at her, Mike motioned for me to place Jules in her final resting place. He then sank to his knees, exhausted. “She was a good cat,” I said, placing my hand on his shoulder. Then we walked back to the house. As we stepped onto the deck, Mike sat down and, in the moonlight, began to weep. “You said she was immortal,” he told me, with his head in his hands. I had. But, of course, I’d been joking. There were times when it did, indeed, seem she’d live forever. She had outlasted every pet so far.

Jules lived a good, long life – fifteen years. The quality and length of her life made it a little easier for me to accept her passing. Mike, however, has had a much harder time. When an animal chooses you as his/her preferred human, your connection is more than that of pet and owner. It is friendship. It is companionship. It is love. And love is love. When we love, anyone or anything, its loss is significant. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals, “A cat purring on your lap is more healing than any drug in the world, as the vibrations you are receiving are of pure love and contentment.” Thank you, Jules, for helping to heal our human hearts. Rest in peace, sister-wife.

 

As teachers begin their well-deserved summer break, I want to post this as a tribute to the teaching profession, in general, and to the memory of one teacher, in particular.

My parents bought their first house in a quiet, working class neighborhood that had a sweet, little K-3 elementary school. I attended that school from my first day of kindergarten until my last day of 3^rd grade. Then, much to the chagrin of my very white working-class parents, the school district I attended decided they needed to “better integrate” their elementary schools. To do this, they bussed the children in my neighborhood across town, for their later elementary years, to an urban school that was fairly diverse compared to our little neighborhood K-3 school. I wasn’t at all bothered by the move. I loved my new school. I loved how, unlike at my nearly all-white K-3 primary school, I could look around there and see all kinds of interesting people – children and adults alike. One such “interesting” individual was my sixth grade teacher.

When I was in school, sixth grade was still an elementary grade, and middle school was called “junior high” – grades 7-9. Being in sixth grade meant you were at the top of the heap for one last year before junior high knocked you all the way back to the bottom. I was looking forward to being “on top” in my last year of elementary school, but I was apprehensive about this important milestone. Looking back now, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my teacher, an amazing woman by the name of Betty Fatzinger. It was she who saw, in me, something that took nearly half a century for me to discover. She saw a spark…a slight glimmer… the raw makings of a writer.

I openly admit that I didn’t want any part of it at the time. In fact, initially, I didn’t even want Mrs. Fatzinger as a teacher. There were two 6th grade teachers – Mrs. Fatzinger and Mr. McNulty. Everyone wanted to have the “man teacher.” He was the only male teacher in the school, apart from the P.E. teacher. He was cool and fun and funny. My best friend Penny had gotten him, and I was super bummed that I had not. Mrs. Fatzinger was…well…just like any other teacher. It wasn’t until a few weeks into the school year that I realized how incredible she really was. Like many teachers of the era, she was a middle-aged lady. Her hair reminded me of the 101 Dalmatians character Cruella Deville’s hair – jet black with a big streak of silver in the middle, but hers was curly and meticulously coifed. And, let me tell you, that woman totally rocked the blue eye shadow thing! She wore stylish (for the times) pantsuits, always with matching shoes and jewelry, and she was NEVER without her jewelry (albeit of the costume variety – but hey, she WAS a public schoolteacher, for God’s sake). Ultimately, I came to love this woman, with all her eccentricities.

I was a painfully shy, insecure, awkward, and overweight girl who, with a late December birthday, had started school later than many of my classmates. So, I was older than most of the students in my class. Having already experienced the bodily changes of puberty, I felt incredibly uncomfortable in my own skin. Mrs. Fatzinger recognized my plight. Who knows why, but she just seemed to understand. Perhaps she’d had a similar experience growing up. Perhaps she just had a loving and compassionate heart (as so many teachers do), but she truly seemed to “get it.” Bless her! She even tried, on my behalf, to intercede with my parents, telling them at conferences how I, “seemed so unsure” of myself and how I “seemed to lack confidence.” How do I know this? Because my mother promptly came home and told me, adding that I, “just needed to start believing in myself”. In reality, I was, most likely, clinically depressed. My lack of confidence was just the tip of an entire iceberg of emotional and psychological issues. Unfortunately, my family believed, at the time, that professional mental health services were “only for rich people.” So, sadly, Mrs. Fatzinger’s words had fallen upon deaf ears.

I continued to suffer in silence…until I found a conduit for my pain – writing. I began to write poetry, mimicking the verse form I had heard in music. Music was an art form I loved dearly, from a very young age, and, at the time, I dreamt of a career in it. My parents made their thoughts about my aspirations clear; it was utter nonsense. I begged for music lessons – guitar, voice, flute – anything. They relented when the prospect of free instruction at school presented itself. I played the flute for a few months but got discouraged when I couldn’t pick it up instantly. After that, I asked for a guitar for Christmas and was elated to find it under the tree on that Christmas morning. With only books to guide me, though, I struggled to teach myself to play. My parents finally broke down and got me a few lessons with an elderly gentleman in our neighborhood. The lessons were cheap, which appealed to my dad, but the guy was pushing seventy and his musical repertoire reflected his age (yup, think Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue). I was, again, disillusioned and quit. Labeling me a “quitter,” my parents refused to allow any further “waste of time and money.” My pursuit of instrumental music instruction was over. Later, however, in Junior High, I had the chance to take choir, as a class. I embraced the opportunity with gusto, and I implored my choir teacher to give me voice lessons. She tried to deflect my interest by tossing me a guide to reading music and assigning me homework from it. My enthusiasm was quickly deflated. In hindsight, it was my teacher’s way to “let me down gently,” because, truth be told, I simply didn’t have the talent to pursue a career in music. I laugh when I think about it now. All this time, however, I continued to write. I wrote poetry. I wrote stories. I wrote “song lyrics.” I created comics. Still, it never once dawned on me that that might be my true calling. My parents never discouraged my writing, but any mention of doing it as a career was dismissed with comments like, “That’s not a real job,” and “You can’t make a living doing that!”

In the spring of 6^th grade, we were working on a poetry unit. Mrs. Fatzinger told me she was particularly impressed with one of my poems, and she suggested that I submit it to a local poetry contest called “Poetry on the Busses.” Winning poems would be displayed on city busses for a period of time, for riders to read and enjoy, and the authors would be invited to do a public reading of their work. To my amazement, I won! I’ll never forget the nervous excitement I felt as I read my poem aloud in public, at the winners’ ceremony. All summer I found reasons to ride the bus, just so I could see my work on display. I never would’ve attempted such a thing were it not for the encouragement of Mrs. Fatzinger and her belief in me. The feeling of accomplishment winning that contest gave me has stayed with me all my life, and it was all thanks to her. What’s more, that experience was like the planting of tiny seeds – the seeds of a writing career. It has taken many, many years, but the seeds have finally begun to grow.

A good teacher knows that when our students look into our eyes, they must see our unwavering belief in all they are capable of and all they can be. I became a teacher, because of the many wonderful teachers in whose eyes I saw that. I found my heart’s desire, however, because of one. Betty Fatzinger passed away two years ago. I learned of her passing when I came across her obituary in the local paper. I wept. I never got a chance to tell her what she did for me. I never got a chance to thank her. Thank her? How on earth can you thank someone for such a gift? I know what Mrs. Fatzinger would say. “Don’t thank me. Just write.”

Disclaimer: The following post is decidedly “uncensored.” It is not my intention to offend anyone, so please take it for what it is – my opinion.

Dogma: The Oxford Dictionary defines it as, “A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.” In my personal experience (fifty plus years of living on planet Earth and some truly heinous human experiences of my own), anything laid down by an authority tends to serve the best interests of said “authority.” As a Catholic, I have a love/hate relationship with it, and as a societal misfit, I have minimal tolerance for it at all…especially when it invades the daily lives of innocents…and devastates the lives of their parents, siblings, family, and friends. In light of the recent tragedy in Orlando, I feel compelled to express some of my thoughts about the role religious dogma plays in our society.

I am the proud parent of a member of the LBGT community. I tried to raise my child with the understanding that she was loved, unconditionally, well before she came to terms with her sexuality. In opposition to the dictates of my Catholic faith, I also raised her outside the church, believing that spirituality and faith are only meaningful when one finds them of their own accord. The Church, and most of my fellow Catholics, would consider this a grave sin and an act of terrible parental negligence. While I do not consider myself devout in any way, the fact that anyone could think that I might be negligent in my role as a parent wounds me deeply. My role as a parent means more to me than any other. In my heart, though, I know I did the right thing. I cannot even imagine the pain my daughter might’ve endured, had I raised her in the Church, with a two thousand year-old institution telling her that her sexual preference is a “choice” and that it is “sinful” and “wrong.” Dealing with it, in light of society’s views, was a difficult enough process for her. She certainly didn’t need to contend with the dogma of a religion.

Back in days of early Christianity, it served the Church’s best interest for people to marry and procreate. It created more Christians. So, it stands to reason that a lifestyle that didn’t advance that cause might be discouraged – perhaps quite strongly so. In fact, it’s in the best interest of most organized religions for us to marry and mate. Hell, it used to be in the best interest of humans as a part of the natural world! But, that was back when the continuation of our species depended on it. For Christ’s sake, there are 7.4 billion of us now! Barring some apocalyptic event (which, of course, could happen), we’re NOT going to go extinct, and we’ve simply outgrown that biological directive. Unfortunately, our society and our social institutions have yet to catch up with this fact. They are still operating with beliefs rooted in another time in human history. This is no big deal, right? We can say, “To each his own,” right? Well it’s no big deal…until it is. It’s no big deal until someone is motivated by these beliefs to harm others. It’s no big deal until our children, our brothers, our sisters, our partners, our family members, and our friends are murdered…because of the social construct that is religious dogma. Don’t try to tell me that the founders of any of the world’s major religions would condone this – not Muhammad, not Abraham, not Jesus – NONE of them. This is the result of man’s misinterpretation of a faith’s teachings.

Okay, so, with all that being said, I still consider myself a “believer,” a Christian, and a Catholic. So, I guess that means I, too, have “bought in,” to a degree, to some of that dogma. Look, all I know is that I love my kid. So does God, and I just happen to think a loving God probably places more importance on how we treat each other rather than with whom we choose to share our bed.

I was having lunch with a friend recently when we began having a discussion about using the services of a “cleaning lady.” She mentioned that her daughter, who has a well-paying job, employs one, and the daughter had offered, as a Christmas gift, to provide one for my friend. My friend surmised that the offer was precipitated by the fact that her daughter felt guilty for having a cleaning lady, herself, while my friend did not. She declined the offer and suggested other, more practical ideas for gifts. As our discussion continued, my friend confessed that, when her children were very young and she was married to her first husband, she had had a cleaning lady. Apparently, her first husband made a very good living so she could afford this luxury at the time. I remarked that I grew up believing such amenities were only for the wealthy – doctors and lawyers and such – and that I had a hard time wrapping my mind around “normal folk” having one. I have colleagues (fellow teachers) that do, but I’ve always chalked it up to the fact that they’d “married well.” Alas, and alack, I fell in love with a retail manager, one who makes a decent but decidedly NOT lucrative living. In addition, my first husband was an immigrant with a degree in Anglo-Saxon Literature and an equally limited earning capacity. What can I say? Charm and swagger have always trumped a bank balance for me…ALWAYS. Yes, for some reason, I’ve always found paupers DEAD SEXY! In fact, historically, I’ve had a difficult time falling in love with men that even have a job at all. Unfortunately, that means I am destined to clean my own toilets and mop my own floors…indefinitely. See, here’s the thing, though: I’ve worked hard not to need the income of another person. So, I’ll take having to clean my own house, if it means my partner and I stand on equal ground.

I’m the first person in my family to graduate from college. My daughter is the second. Currently, I’m the only one with a post bachelor’s degree, but my daughter will, most likely, exceed this accomplishment by obtaining her Ph.D. Yup, my family consists of a long line of dirt-poor, minimally educated people. Once upon a time, I went by the online moniker “hillbillysdaughter” for this very reason. Seriously! I’m talking about abject poverty. My people are folks who had to put on a coat and walk a hundred yards to use the toilet, whose house had a dirt floor until the late 1950’s, and for whom shoes were considered part of one’s “church clothes”…and that was just on my father’s side of the family. My mom’s mom finished high school but, after my abusive drunk of a granddad died in a car crash, she ended up having to raise four kids by herself on a nurse aid’s salary. Creamed chipped beef on white bread toast was considered a right-proper Sunday supper for them, and my grandmother saved the “drippings” from frying bacon to use as cooking oil right up until she went into the nursing home. My dad worked as a tool & die maker seven days a week to make as good a life as he could for his kids. My mom, who was once able to stay home with us kids, ended up getting a job in retail just to make ends meet once Mom and Dad finally achieved the “American Dream” and moved us to the suburbs. The thing is, you can take the working class out of the working class neighborhood, but you can’t take the working class out of the working class. I really DID NOT fit into my new surroundings.

God bless my hillbilly father for all he did to make a better life for his kids. I know he meant well. With that being said, it just wasn’t all it cracked up to be. We had the suburban two-story colonial, but my parents just couldn’t afford the trappings that were needed to accompany it. I remember arguing with my mother about brand name jeans. There was “no way in hell” that she was gonna pay “that kind of money” for jeans. I totally get it now, Bonnie, but, at the time, you were ruining my life. The fact that my family simply could not “keep up with the Joneses” made life in the burbs miserable for the children of people living beyond their means.

It’s funny, but, in spite of my disdain for this “lineage of poverty,” I ultimately found myself mired in that same quicksand. I quit college the first time around to “live off love” with a nefarious, unemployed lothario. Okay, okay. Maybe he wasn’t actually “nefarious,” but he was my first “real love,” and, as we all know, love can make even the smartest person act dumb as a box of rocks. He ended up dumping me, and I ended up marrying an immigrant. Without any thought about if we should or shouldn’t, we ended up having kids. Although I will never, ever regret having my daughters, the financial strain of raising a family was too much for a relationship that was, from the beginning, precarious at best. When we divorced I went from being “working-class poor” and married to genuinely unable to make it on my own without assistance. So, as you can imagine, I have some pretty choice thoughts for those assholes that like to bitch and pass judgment on those who receive public assistance. I’d love for them to know how it feels. I’d like for them to know the humiliation and shame you feel when the cashier says, “Sorry, ma’am, but this brand of peanut butter isn’t on the list for WIC,” or when she hits total and you have to go through your already bagged groceries to decide what you can possibly do without. I’d like them to experience having to find a secluded spot in the women’s wear department where you can add up the things in your cart to see if you have enough money…and then try to decide between hot dogs and Tuna Helper (based on which one will give you more meals) when you don’t. Don’t get me wrong. I knew lots of people that were way poorer than me. My kids never had to have water on their breakfast cereal instead of milk, and I never had to use a kitchen towel on my baby when I ran out of diapers before my check came. I will say, however, that I got really good at stuffing as many pieces of clothing as I could into a paper grocery bag at the community center clothing bar when it was 25 cents a bag. Honestly, though, none of that shit should happen, for anyone, in a country that considers itself a “world leader.”

My old self would scoff at my current self’s jealousy over another’s ability to afford a cleaning lady. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she would say, “You swipe that damn debit card at the grocery store like you’re some kinda boss now! You don’t even use the calculator on your phone while you shop…and you have a CELL PHONE! What the HELL is up with THAT SHIT? And you want a CLEANING LADY, too?” No, old me, I’m well aware of the elevation in my station, and I’m grateful. I’ve worked my ass off to get here, and I hope my daughter’s life will be even better. Once upon a time, a hillbilly’s daughter sat on a porch drinking forties with a bunch of able-bodied, public-assistance abusing idiots and thought, “How the hell did I get here?” I felt like my genes drew me, like a magnet, to that place. Years later, the lyrics “We were meant to live for so much more, when we lost ourselves.” (from Meant to Live by Switchfoot) still resonant so deeply with me. Yes, my life is better now. No, I don’t have to make those ridiculous survival-based decisions anymore. Why, then, do I find still find myself seeking purpose and meaning? “Ah! It’s just Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” my old self says, “because now you CAN.”

 

Aaahhh! The unofficial start of summer is finally here, and THAT, of course, means
“shorts weather.” Don’t worry all you fat “haters” and “body-shamers.” I wear only tasteful, Bermuda-length shorts, so as not to subject your vision to trauma. Yes, society’s unspoken rule against people like me exposing too much skin has been permanently etched into my psyche, even in spite of the fact that I am now significantly smaller than I’ve been in long time. So, it’s cool. I swear, you little bitches act like fat people wearing swimsuits, shorts, or tank tops is some kind of intentional physical assault on your eyeballs. Really, you don’t have to belabor that point for us on the Internet. I feel I use an appropriate degree of discretion. For instance, I don’t wear shorts when I run (yes, judgie-pants, I run). Nope, it’s black Capri-length running tights and being on the verge of heat stroke every summer for me.

Of course, for women, a distinct down side of wearing shorts, regardless of the kind of shape you’re in, is the cultural expectation that said shorts wearing is contingent upon shaving one’s legs fairly regularly. With that being said, the lovely warm holiday weekend weather, combined with my desire to wear shorts, necessitated addressing this issue posthaste. My thoughts while shaving my legs this morning:  “This is such a pain in the ass. Damn those prostitutes for starting this whole thing. It would be so awesome if I could get laser hair removal. I’d never have to do this again. Ugh! But that’s so expensive. I bet women that work in the porn industry get to write that shit off as a business expense.” Then I began to wonder how much hair I’ve shaved since I first started doing it. Would it measure in inches, feet, miles? I’ve been at it since I was nine. Yes, I was THAT young, and it was thanks to a humiliating interaction with my best friend at the time. “Eeew! You don’t shave your legs?” she squealed in disgust at the sight of my beastly legs. Thanks a lot, Penny. What I should’ve done was say, “No, I don’t. I’m NINE…and so are YOU!” What I actually did was race home and lock myself in the bathroom with a can of Barbasol and my dad’s razor. As you can imagine, these things were no bueno in the hands of a nine year-old girl. And razors were no fucking joke back in those days! You had to take an actual, little 2×1 razor blade and put in a tiny metal box on a stick! My mother ended up employing the, “I’m coming in there, whether you like it or not, so you better unlock the damn door!” strategy and found me covered, nearly head-to-toe, in shaving cream and my own blood. The bathroom looked like some kind of weird murder scene. All Mom had to say was, “Oh, Christ! Congratulations! Now you’re gonna have to be doing it for the rest of your life.” Sigh! Oh, hindsight!

So here I sit, cool and comfy on this warm day, in my tasteful Bermuda shorts – with my legs freshly shaven and smooth. I’m thinking of those poor prostitutes in their heavy turn-of-the-century woolen, albeit provocative, clothing. I’m sure they’d have given anything to run around all barelegged on a hot summer day.

 

 

“I’m a lucky man, to count on both hands, the ones that I love. Some folks just have one. Yeah, others, they got none.” (from Pearl Jam’s Just Breathe)

I truly feel that way. And I’m amazed by that fact, given that I am a fairly guarded person whom most people find difficult to get to know. In my defense, my cautiousness is the result of a past littered with too many violations of my trust…and in some of the worst ways you can imagine. There have been those, with beautiful and caring hearts, who’ve breached my force field and, in so doing, been invited to traverse the rocky landscape of my heart. I have loved many and lost a few. I have met some of these individuals in the most unlikely of places. Barbara, “Bobby” to most, was one such person. To this day, I consider her one of my dearest and most cherished of friends.

The first time I saw Bobby, she was getting off a Care-a-Van bus on her way into the day program for developmentally disabled adults at which I’d just begun working. I guess I didn’t really see her so much as hear her. Her voice was loud, but cheerful, singing, “You are my sen sen (sunshine), my only sen sen!” She was an oddly shaped woman. A severe curvature in her spine folded her body into an “S” shaped posture and caused her gait to be a kind of permanent gallop. Her body was pleasantly plump and round looking, as were her chubby, baby-like cheeks. Her poor vision forced her eyes into a squint, most of the time, in spite of the fact she wore glasses. The woman who ran the adult foster care home where Bobby lived was well meaning. She made a point of providing, for the three ladies in her care, a semblance of personal grooming in the form of a “perm” every few weeks. Consequently, all three women had “matching” poodle-style coifs, which, in turn, matched that of the care provider. Being a “salt and pepper” color, Bobby’s “poodle-do” reminded me of the ill-tempered French poodle my grandmother had when I was a young child. Bobby had a much better disposition, though. Unfortunately, attention to facial hair was not part of the aforementioned grooming. As do many women “of a certain age,” Barb had a bit of an issue with “unwanted hair” in the form of a dark but faint mustachio. Hey, man! It happens to the best of us! Personally, I found it endearing! It would be another year before my friendship with Bobby truly bloomed.

I moved to the “senior” (as in senior citizen) part of the day program about a year after I first met Bobby. I’d interacted with her in passing the whole year prior. She was a bit of a flirt…with EVERYONE! I found her sociability enchanting, compared to the non-verbal folks for whom I’d been providing programming. I looked forward to the times I’d run into her during arrival and at dismissal. When the opportunity to work in the senior program presented itself, I leapt at the chance, for a multitude of reasons. How I loved working in that program. I loved my co-workers. I loved the seniors. In hindsight, I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun and laughed so much as I did when I worked there. Staff and consumers alike, it just seemed like we were all kindred spirits. Eventually, the “senior,” site-based program morphed into a community integration program. Our task was to find meaningful connections/relationships for the consumers in the community as a way of enriching their lives. I wanted that for Bobby. I wanted to find someone in the community who would appreciate Bobby for the funny, charming, and deeply caring person she was.

Day after day, we searched for Bobby’s special place. We put miles and miles on my little red, manual transmission Toyota Tercel (that’s right, y’all, I’m one of those rare chicks that CAN drive a stick-shift), in every kind of weather imaginable. Funding and staffing ratios meant that it couldn’t be just Bobby and me. We usually had a third consumer with us, but it was always someone with whom Bobby got along and had things in common. Bobby loved coffee, which she called “cawky,” and egg sandwiches. She loved music and getting her hair and nails “prettied”. She liked children, too…unless or until they became loud and overly boisterous or started crying. When that happened, Bobby had a proclivity for expressing her displeasure with a long string of the harshest obscenities – a problematic situation, needless to say. Bobby especially, however, liked men, and she wasn’t shy about expressing her appreciation for them. “Oh honey! I just loke (like/love) YOU!” she was apt to shout to a guy as far away as the opposite end of a Wal-Mart parking lot. As you can imagine, many a male community member/potential friend found Barbara’s physical appearance, combined with her lack of inhibition, a little off-putting. Try as I might, I never did find a deep, meaningful connection for her…unless you count the one she made with me. I certainly do. It was one of the best of my life. I like to think she felt that way about me, too.

During my time as Bobby’s “community integration” worker, I was experiencing some major personal difficulties. I was raising two young daughters while working full-time and going to school full-time, trying to finish my college degree. I was an economic prisoner in a loveless marriage that had long since run its course. Outside of my job, my life was a mess. I found solace in the time I spent “driving Miss Bobby.” It felt easy, being with her. There were times, when my life outside work was just too much, and, while driving around looking for potential community connections, I simply couldn’t contain my sorrow. The tears would well and then flow and flow. I’d turn up the radio to disguise my soft sobs. Bobby would start singing along to whatever song was on the radio, in that loud cheerful voice, whether she knew the words or not. She’d gently place her hand over mine on the gearshift, to comfort me. “Oh honey,” she’d say, “I juuust loke you.” She did, I’m certain. She saw me for who I am, and she loved me unconditionally. I think she knew I felt the same about her.

Unfortunately, my numerous personal problems eventually took their toll on my ability to function at work. I found myself in a situation where I was given the choice of a demotion or quitting. Although it broke my heart, I chose the later. Of the co-workers that remained after my departure, only one or two had been there with me at the beginning of the community program. They didn’t know…or particularly like…me very well, so they felt no need to keep me up-to-date on Bobby and her life. A little more than a year after I left, I found out, through a friend, that Bobby had cancer and was being cared for at a local nursing home. I went to see her, and it was like no time had passed at all.

She was the same old Bobby, asking to have her hair and nails “prettied.” I was only able to visit every couple of weeks during that time. School was taking up a lot of my time, since I was nearing the end of my undergraduate studies and getting ready to start my internship. One bright spring day, I arrived at the nursing home to visit. I rounded the corner and stepped into Bobby’s room only to find her bed empty and her things gone. I didn’t have to ask. I knew. She was gone. It was all I could do to make it to my car, choking back tears. Once inside my vehicle, the dam broke. I cried and cried all the way home…in that same red, manual transmission Toyota she and I had spent so much time in. No one contacted me about the funeral. I never had a chance to say goodbye. I don’t even know where she’s buried. You can imagine my surprise, however, years later, when I buried my daughter and found Bobby’s foster care provider in the plot right next to hers. So, it seems our lives will be forever entwined, Bobby’s and mine. I hope that I was as good a friend to her as she was to me.

I will never forget the beautiful soul who, without even trying, charmed her way past the barbed wire around my heart. No, you were MY “sen, sen,” Barbara, and ain’t no sunshine now that you’re gone.

 

 

This is a post is in praise of all the weirdoes out there. No, I’m not talking about the criminals and miscreants that harm other human beings. I’m talking about the freaks, the quirky folks, and the misfits – the ones who can’t help but go against the flow. It is a group to which I proudly belong. I admit that fact freely, and I’ll add that I’ve always been drawn to people even stranger than me. In turn, I also seem to attract those souls, as well. I admit to my own quirkiness, but I admire those rare individuals who seem to take uniqueness to another level in the most glorious, spectacular way. Most of these people wind up in the entertainment industry, of course. Their light is so bright, how could they not? There are, however, a few schlepping about amongst us. For instance, any trip to your local Earthfare, Whole Foods, or any health food store will undoubtedly bring you into contact with at least one. I’m a regular shopper at my local Earthfare, and it was at this store that I happen to strike up a conversation with such an individual. He was a guy about my age, wearing a kilt and a Dr. Who tee, sporting multiple facial piercings and tattoos, and having a beard long enough to get caught in a zipper – a PANTS zipper, mind you –which was neatly pulled into two braids. He initiated the conversation by commenting on the Red Hot Chili Peppers tee I was wearing. I, in turn, commented on his Dr. Who shirt. I then proudly produced my Dr. Who Tardis key chain, and it was an instant nerd connection. The really strange part was when the fact came up that we’d BOTH had a crush on Dr. Who numero cuatro at one point in our lives. Unfortunately, things got a little too weird for me when it began to seem like he was coming on to me and implying the prospect of wanting me and mine to “join” him and his in a less than casual way. I ended the interaction in my normal, awkward, misfit way – “Uh, well, gotta go.” Being a weirdo/social retard (WINCE! please forgive the slur) himself, he understood the subtext. I still see him when I shop there, and it’s not weird. That’s the nice thing about people like us. We’re all, like, “Namaste, yo.” – no judgment.

So, it’s clear, I am a huge proponent of letting your freak flag fly. In my opinion, embracing our uniqueness demonstrates gratitude to the creator that made each of us one of a kind. Conforming and fitting in was never my cup of tea, mostly because it simply didn’t work for me, even when I tried. I was the proverbial “square peg” trying to fit into a “round hole.” Getting over that was difficult, especially in my adolescence. I was a nerdy, overweight sixteen year-old girl that had an all-consuming love of “everything British” and was convinced that one day I’d be Tony Geary’s (Luke on General Hospital – who didn’t look much different than he does today) or Tom Baker’s (Dr. Who number four – the one with the shock of unruly curls and an enormous mouthful of teeth) wife. Yeah, there was NO “fitting in” with all that going on. It reminds me of some song lyrics (as usual) by Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), “Justine never knew the rules – hung down with the freaks and ghouls.” That was me.

I’m not sure if I passed on my weirdness to my children inadvertently or on purpose. If I did it on purpose, it certainly was never planned. It just happened. I remember my youngest daughter’s first little girl crush. It was on Big Boy. Yes, you heard right. She had a crush on a chain restaurant’s cartoon mascot. Later, the object of her admiration was a little more main stream. At about the age of seven, she had a crush on Steve Martin. Yes, my little girl was in love with a gray-haired, middle-aged actor. I swear to you, we watched Father of the Bride about a million times during that phase. It was then that I knew my child was, like me, the rare and special kind who finds beauty in places and things that go unnoticed by most others.

Every year, in my first grade classroom, one or two of those rare little birds come to me, and I welcome them with open arms. I work hard to make my classroom say, “This is a safe place – a place where you can be uniquely you…and be loved for it.” I have a poster in my room that has a photo of an adorable Chihuahua wearing thick glasses. The phrase, “Acceptance is seeing with your heart instead of your eyes,” appears below the photo. This is not just a trite little “uplifting” sentiment. I strive to create an atmosphere of acceptance for all. Ugh! More song lyrics are haunting me now! “I’m a freak. I’m a weirdo. What the hell am I doin’ here? I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here,” (from Radiohead’s Creep). That’s the way I’ve felt in the majority of circumstances, in the majority of settings in my life. I’ve tried to make a point, of helping those fellow freaks, ghouls, and weirdoes feel accepted and loved and like they belong. Aaah! More song lyrics popping into my head! “See me. Feel me. Touch me. Heal me.” (from The Who’s Feel Me). May God grant us the healing we seek by putting us in the places we need to be to feel accepted for who we are.

Please, settle in for second, gentle readers. Rest your bones for a moment. I want to tell you a story. This is the story of a girl, “who cried a river and drown the whole world.” (from Absolutely by Nine Days). Sorry. My brain OFTEN slips into song lyrics without my intending it to do so. That’s a big part of my story, see, song lyrics have been like a life preserver for me, ever since I can remember. One of my earliest memories is listening to my first LP (that’s a vinyl extended play record, for you Millennials), one by The Monkees, and completely dissociating from the pain of my world by fixating on every word of every song. At the tender age of five, all I knew is that the sweet sound of Davy Jones’ voice (the lead singer) made me feel happy, and I wanted to know him in some way, shape, or form. I wasn’t old enough to understand “crushes” or romantic love, of course. I just knew that this person (whom, I mistakenly assumed, wrote those words) was someone I felt I cared about. “Cheer up, sleepy Jean. Oh what can it mean to a daydream believer and a homecoming queen?” Those words were, in fact, actually written by Neil Diamond, not Davy Jones, and, what’s more, I didn’t really understand most of them. Still, I found comfort in hearing, “Cheer up, sleepy Jean.” I often felt so inconsolably sad in my childhood (yes, even as young as five), for reasons I might expound upon sometime in future posts, but hearing Davy Jones made me feel better for a while.

People who know me well can attest to the fact that I have an encyclopedic knowledge of song lyrics from many genres and over many decades. Hey, everybody’s got his or her thing. That’s mine. My husband has the craziest ability to recall even the smallest detail of football uniforms stretching back to the dawn of the form of the modern sport. It is song lyrics that led to my love of language and, in turn, my love of writing and the written word. What can I say? I’m certain I was born to it. I went to my first writer’s conference last fall. That’s where it became clear to me. I felt like I’d finally found my place in this world. Writers, songwriters, and lyricists – they are my tribe, my people. Incidentally, when I was typing, “my place in this world,” the lyrics of Christian artist Michael W. Smith’s song My Place in this World immediately leapt to mind. Sigh! See, I can’t even control it half the time. People! I’m not joking when I say that this affliction is all-consuming. I even named my first-born child after a song – Hall & Oates’ Sara Smile!

From my earliest experiences with pain and trauma right up until the present time, I’m certain I couldn’t have survived without the lyrical tapestries lovingly sown and then bestowed upon the world by songwriters, poets, and lyricists everywhere. I’ll never forget hearing Chris Martin’s lyrics from Fix You, immediately after my daughter died, “The tears come streaming down your face, when you lose something that you can’t replace. When you love someone, but it goes to waste, could it be worse?” Those lyrics seemed like everything I was feeling distilled into a few simple but powerful words. Even typing them now has me feeling tearful. I know, I know, I know. Eeew! Coldplay? Yeah, I get A LOT of shit for loving Coldplay, but I WON’T apologize. I don’t know what it is about their music. I really don’t. For some reason it turns me into an over-emotional teenage girl, singing along to their songs at the top of my lungs in my car while sobbing violently. So, of course, no matter what the weather is, I have to wear my sunglasses when that’s happening, because I am a really UGLY crier. So, if you see me driving on US 131 with my sunglasses on in mid-February, just keep going, please, and pretend that you didn’t see my Coldplay-lovin’ fool-ass. Okay?