Plates

We only ever went to one of Grandpa’s family reunions. It was at the park. After the whole extended family had gathered for their thansgiving prayer, the kids lined up to eat first. The old patriarch shook his head. “That’s not how things were done in my day. Hardworking men used to get first dibs. When I was a kid, there was nothing good left by the time it was my turn. I remember looking forward to growing up so I could get the good food! Look at me now! Waiting for the kids to gobble it all up!”

It seems a common patriarchal thread, men get first dibs of the best portions of the freshest, hottest / coolest foods, women and children share what’s left over. It never occurred to my grandpa that his mom probably never ate a piping hot meal as she was always making sure his father, and the children got to eat their share before nibbling on what she could.

Looking up the tradition, it was also shared in India. If mom had laid out the table and pop unexpectedly invited in a neighbor, mom’s portion would go to the neighbor – not pop’s – and then she’d have to figure out something for herself. That’s because he’s technically the host and in serving his guest, it was better for a lesser member of the household to be inconvenienced than make the guest feel bad for missing out or be the reason his host was going without.

My mom is more of a “first come, first serve” type hostess. There’s no standing on ceremony, right order to line up in, waiting for someone to show up. The food is hot and ready, you’re all here, have at it.

I like the concept of the whole family at the table, but I’m not sure it works with a non-traditional schedule, so I need a non-traditional system that balances fueling hungry family members nutritional needs with the utmost flexibility. Making extra and making ahead will be big wins. Sticking to natural feeding windows for the kiddo – he eats six small meals a day – is a must. The rest of us have flipped schedules, as different as night and day. Maybe there is no middle ground for three different schedules.

Mostly, I think, it’ll come down to trial and error to find what works for us.

Preserving history

Every time I’m in town, I pass by the old building and wonder when it’ll be the last time I see it.

The big, old, white square building is haunted by many ghosts. It’s basement is a little bigger than the main floor, and the corner has a sealed up tunnel entrance that dates back to prohibition as evidenced by a bourbon bottle once found nearby. Though the area has underground railroad connections and it’s possible it’s older than the building above.

The bathroom tucked down there looks like the 1940s happens to still exist. A contractor once told me the sink alone was worth a lot of money.

The basement housed a museum of retail odds and ends. A hall-mark card display, folding tables, smaller than average shopping carts, a broken conveyer belt, and quite a pile of things that got thrown down there and forgotten about.

The main floor had lived many lives. The old timers told me it had once been a sporting goods type store, or more of a fashion type store, or even a garage for car repair and parts sales. They remembered fishing rods and McCall’s fashion books from their youth. They’d bring their grandchildren and tell them, “my grandma brought me here to shop when I was your age.” When a car ran into the front of the building, the mason hired to repair the damaged wall noted that nobody makes bricks that matched the facade anymore, so it was easy to tell the difference between the old and the new.

The attic was also sealed away. There was a door floating about the middle of the store which was hidden by the tile ceiling below. With some careful maneuvering, a smallish person could crawl up into another time capsule to discover an office that was never fully vacated. There is the start of a stairway down that’s sealed off. The other door leads to an open floor where dust abounds with straw from birds’ nests everywhere.

This building could very well be over a hundred years old. It’s historic in many senses, but I’m relieved to see it’ll soon go. The newspaper said that after the asbestos remediation, the demolition will begin. So many old things just aren’t safe.

The only way to truly preserve history is in our stories. I hope that long after the dust settles, the stories of our past live on.

Woman thou art …

Now that I’m a home-maker, it’s honestly dizzying how many resources out there are Christian-based. As if God looked down at men and said, “you steer the boat.” And then at women and said, “you swab the decks, cook the grub, wash the dishes, clean the laundry, and mind the children.”

Looking further back, Aristotle wrote in politics that it was right that men, as the natural leader over women, was the head of the household because women weren’t natural leaders. Despite having the same genetic nucleotides that women inherited from our fathers, and even though men inherited their mother’s genetic nucleotides, women just lacked the whatever it was that men have that makes them the leaders.

Paul, when answering the question about how to run Christian households, decided that God designed men to lead and women to submit. Virtuous women were told to look to proverbs 31 for inspiration but warned to never usurp Adam’s role as Eve had when she broke God’s only rule.

Pandora, technically, didn’t fare much better with her one rule. Why the divines decided humanity needed more rules to obey beyond the one we’d already proven was too much is beyond me.

The sciences tell another story, our prehistoric ancestors didn’t rely on gender roles. Everyone hunted and everyone gathered. There’s no way to prove men did this and women did that. I guess leading wasn’t much of a consideration when all that mattered was following the migration patterns of your prey which either and both genders could do as well as the other.

Who were the divines to them anyway? Zeus was a god of thunder. Poseidon, the sea. God caused the odd earthquake. With each barely understood natural disaster, did they choose to say a force greater than themselves was responsible? Someone not to be trifled with lest another storm, wave, quake strike again to take more human lives away?

So these posts all about how God has given women the role of chef, maid, laundress, seamstress, home school teacher, nurse, dish washer, gardener, etc as they submit to their husband’s loving, gentle headship really seem to divide up a modern household into an unequally yoked endeavor.

Households these days are nothing like Paul’s or Aristotle’s. And there’s a world full of cultures where men take on more domestic duties than others and where women are the leaders in every which way. Househusbands and Mr. Moms are sometimes the result of the wife being the chief breadwinner.

I get looking to the past is comfortable in our scary world, but I have a lot of ancestresses who fought long and hard for the changes that we take for granted. Having our own bank accounts and money, having our own vote, not being treated as inferior.

We’ll always have a need for family, but teamwork isn’t always gendered. When Covid forces half the family to quarantine from the other, it’s nonsense to be unable to do basic cleaning, cooking, and childcare. Like it’s not a badge of honor for a dad to brag that he’s never changed his kid’s diaper because it’s beneath his God-given authoritative role to stoop to his wife’s level and do women’s work. Yet in 1980, that was normal. Today dads do change diapers. So there may be hope that housework is getting degendered and more equitable – but it won’t be because of the divines.

Survival – housework, it takes all of us doing everything together at any opportunity that presents itself in a way that works for each of us. There are no one size fits all rules to govern all of us. It’s never been as simple as obeying rules, not from the start.

Memory

Like permanently lost pieces of a puzzle, I can’t help the unsettling feeling of incompleteness as I know it happened, but I don’t remember it.

That day was as hectic as any other. I’d been busy from the start, and it never slowed down after that. I think I never got around to eating as I was preoccupied with my little one. We’d gotten some subway and walked around the park.

It’s odd seeing pictures from that day, knowing in a few short hours the emergency would happen. By then, I was out of it. I’d fallen asleep in my bed, woke up out of a haze in the hospital, but didn’t wake up fully until after they sent me home for some more rest.

Over the next few days, I was told I had a seizure. I was in the midst of a fit, curled up, making some kind of sound. I was told I was taken by ambulance to a hospital the next town over. I was checked over at the ER. All of those pieces … gone.

Then, the doctor had me get an EEG and a MRI test. Everything came back normal. Their best guess was that whatever it was that caused it had to do with me running on fumes. Missing meals. Not getting enough sleep.

One seizure is pretty much halfway to an epilepsy diagnosis. I truly do worry. I’m getting better at learning how to put an emergency airplane mask on me first so that I can aid my loved ones next, but it runs contrary to my nature to sacrificially put others welfare ahead of my own. It feels hard to do.

Gladiolus × gandavensis ‘Priscilla’

Television was called books …

I’ve been wanting to read a book lately. I find myself carefully perusing what offerings I can find at the store … but nothing sounds right. I’m not talking about a massive tome, a time commitment of weeks, months … I’m thinking about something quicker. Sure, I could download a book from amazon. Yet I miss the feel of turning a page. Or shoving a random receipt as a bookmark and then trying to figure out where I left off at.

I remember the used bookshops that dotted the city when I was a kid. The kind that crammed an impossible number of books into the shelves by any means necessary. Wall to wall paperbacks and dust. I never did take to reading much. Not like my sister. So, I find it odd now that I’d want to read. I have a few odd books – but like trying to figure out what sounds good is as daunting as trying to choose something from Netflix.

Do I need more information to decide? Or less? Is that a spoiler? A red herring? What if I get bored and stop wanting to read? Or just don’t have the time for it.

Books have always been escapism though, and maybe that’s better than the news – the war – the pandemic. What better way to get away from it all than read Lord of the Rings as Middle-Earth is invaded? Or The Stand to distract you from a global pandemic? Well, not so much getting away from the news. It’s all still there – even in fiction. But it generally has happier endings. And as for the ones that don’t, well, it’s not real anyway, so no loss.

I still don’t know what to read though.

Modesty and Me

For the first time in a long time, I’m wearing clothes that fit me – and that’s what makes them immodest. My jeans are not two sizes two big – but just right. My shirt embraces my curves and doesn’t shame me for having them in the first place. I look great … I feel great. So I’ve discovered fashion and I have a “rectangle” body shape. What looks most flattering on me are things that basically break the rules of modesty. Fortunately, I’m at that age where modesty has reached it’s expiration date and nobody really calls out a 30-something on the way she dresses.

A lot of my wardrobe had to go, jeans two sizes too big, shirts in styles that really don’t make me look good, and shirts in colors that I just don’t wear. Now I have room for new pieces as I learn more about fashion. I just wish that I could as easily undo the teachings about modesty. Take these two dresses I picked up a little while back. They’re perfectly nice, they cover everything that needs to be covered … but my mind screams at me that either they’re too short or I’m too tall because I can see my knees when I wear them.

Wearing modest clothes makes me look frumpy and eats away at my self-confidence. It was always about flying under the radar or better yet, being invisible entirely. I could never wear my favorite clothes because they’d reveal that I was a lady and not a shapeless generic human form. Yet I always thought that I was doing o.k. After all, I wasn’t like those ladies who belonged to the ultra-conservative churches who always wore long-sleeves under their t-shirts, jean skirts that covered their ankles, were forbidden from wearing make-up and jewelry, and had their long hair done up just so. I could choose what I could wear.

Not that I’m a fan of the fashion industry in general, I’ve read stories about places that are both factories and prisons where people are chained to work stations to churn out apparel in long grueling work-shifts without any decent breaks. I saw the news report about the unsafe working conditions in that apparel factory fire in Bangladesh, and I know that wearing what looks good has a high price. I’ve decided that since there’s no way I can be 100% sure that everything I buy is ethically sourced and workers are fairly compensated, then the best thing I can do is to be really choosy about what fashion pieces I do fall for and try not to support the industry by being a fashionista. I don’t need the latest and the greatest … just simply clothes that make me confident in who I am. If that’s what makes them immodest, then so be it.

I was born to …

I found an old essay of mine written in this beautiful Harlow Solid Italic font. Probably some school or church assignment. Something that was supposed to make me think about my future, my hopes, my dreams. It’s not long at all – well, not long for me, anyway. I know if I really wanted to I could say a lot. Here’s what it says:

I was born to …

Live my life like there’s today and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow …

Fight for what’s right, and for the good of others.

Be different, be me, be somebody.

Show the truth. Guide others, light the path that they can’t remember. Complete my purpose my function, my job, my work, and my life to the fullest.

Find my purpose, myself, my path, my way, my place, my roots, my home

Find what I lost and remember what I can.

And yet, I don’t know, or do I?

Like the old Army commercial, be all that you can be, that’s what I was born to do, be all that I can be and have life to the fullest, as it is written (one of the most common and best sayings), “for you are to find life, and have life to the fullest,”, and there are other things that are written, everybody should be a disciple, everybody should give, help, do, I don’t think that the list ends, but on the other hand, there are things that I want to do, work at Mammoth for example, I’ve taken one tour, and it was alright, but there’s still so much to explore. There are places to go, things to do, people to see, and apparently not enough hours in the day. I was born to go. I think that’s it. I left from Ok, I wound up here, and I’ll go. I can’t walk slowly, I’ve got to go and get there fast. Like that one song, “I’m in a hurry to get things done, I’m rushing rushing ’til life’s no fun, all I really got to do is live and die, but I’m in a hurry and don’t know why…” Where am I going? I know that, but how do I get there, that’s the part I don’t know. I’ll find out on the way though.

Time and perspective have changed me in more ways than I can count. For one, the run-on sentences irk me. But I wonder to what degree these were things I really believed or opted to write because I was supposed to. Could I really truly know what I was born to do as a teenager?

Ten years ago, I knew that there was always tomorrow – so I put off living. I didn’t pursue the typical life experiences a young person should. Ah, the arrogance to think that I knew the “right” way for others to live and that I could light that path especially when I didn’t know what to make of my own life. I was, after all, a fledgling avoidant. Much of my time would be spent being afraid of interacting with people to any meaningful extent and hiding away from anyone, anything, and everything that threatened to interrupt my self-imposed isolation. I didn’t have as much self-confidence back then, I didn’t work, I didn’t have my license. All I had was an awesome family, a blog to write to, and a tendency to pursue spirituality. Some things just don’t change.

Suffice it to say, nothing has turned out as I thought it would. Things have really gotten interesting in the last few months. I met my first boyfriend – and this one’s definitely a keeper. I managed to finally get my license. I got a promotion to assistant manager. I’ve done an awful lot of growing up in a short amount of time. Perhaps that’s why I’m finally ready to put my childhood behind and go through boxes and boxes of my old stuff.

Back then, I knew that I wasn’t going to stay where I was. I’d always moved around and never really bothered to establish connections in a place I’d ultimately leave. I saw myself as something of a tumbleweed – not rooted to any one place. These days though, I’m not planning on going anywhere so I have a lot of learning to do about how to connect and belong to a place. That’s why I foresaw myself going from one place to another so much.

One thing that has changed – my philosophy of doing is now one of being. I used to think I had to do something or else I wasn’t good for anything. I never learned how to simply be. Now I am. You see, there’s always something to do – and you can do things until the point of exhaustion. But you can only be yourself and that’s a far trickier thing to find after spending so much time avoiding just that. I’ve discovered small delights about being me that I never gave a second thought about when I was focused on doing things to earn my keep.

I can’t say that I know what I was born to do anymore. I was born, and so I’m here – I might as well be me, after all, everyone else is taken.

The Other Side

Wait for me, my dearest friend. I know for you it will only be a moment … the blink of an eye. But for me, it’ll be much, much longer. You don’t know what it means that you have cancer just as you don’t know that you have seizures. To you, your human is acting weird, just crying and you have to come and fix it. You could do that yesterday – and you did. But that was then and right now you’re not here. Why do I feel this so deeply?

You have had a good life, you and I are inseparable – always at my side but now you’re somewhere I can’t go and I miss you already.  Do you remember that day when you were waiting for the rest of us to come home? You laid down there in the yard and stared at the driveway, waiting and waiting – I think, that’s what I’m going to picture. You’re already at home, looking towards the driveway and waiting for me to return. For you, it’ll only be a moment and we’re both reunited and everything will be alright forever.

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“Many times, I’ve had friends guiltily confide to me that they grieved more over the loss of a dog than over the loss of friends or relatives. Research has confirmed that for most people, the loss of a dog is, in almost every way, comparable to the loss of a human loved one. Unfortunately, there’s little in our cultural playbook – no grief rituals, no obituary in the local newspaper, no religious service – to help us get through the loss of a pet, which can make us feel more than a bit embarrassed to show too much public grief over our dead dogs.

Perhaps if people realized just how strong and intense the bond is between people and their dogs, such grief would become more widely accepted. This would greatly help dog owners to integrate the death into their lives and help them move forward.” (Source: Why losing a dog can be harder than losing a relative or friend)

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“While we all respond to loss differently, the level of grief you experience will often depend on factors such as your age and personality, the age of your pet, and the circumstances of their death. Generally, the more significant your pet was to you, the more intense the emotional pain you’ll feel. The role the animal played in your life can also have an impact. For example, if your pet was a working dog, service animal, or therapy animal, then you’ll not only be grieving the loss of a companion but also the loss of a coworker, the loss of your independence, or the loss of emotional support. If you lived alone and the pet was your only companion, coming to terms with their loss can be even harder. And if you were unable to afford expensive veterinary treatment to prolong your pet’s life, you may even feel a profound sense of guilt.”

(Source: Coping with Losing a Pet)

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Things to Remember

The experience of loss is different for everyone and can present unique challenges.

The deafening silence – the silence in your home after the death of a pet may seem excruciatingly loud. While your animal companion occupies physical space in your life and your home, many times their presence is felt more with your senses. When that pet is no longer there, the lack of their presence – the silence – becomes piercing. It becomes the reality of the “presence of the absence.” Merely being aware of this stark reality will assist in preparing you for the flood of emotions.

The special bond with your pet—the relationship shared with your pet is a special and unique bond, a tie that some might find difficult to understand. There will be well-meaning friends and family members who will think that you should not mourn for your pet or who will tell you that you should not be grieving as hard as you are because “it’s just a cat” or “just a dog.”  Your grief is normal and the relationship you shared with your special friend needs to be mourned.

Grief can’t be ranked—sometimes our heads get in the way of our heart’s desire to mourn by trying to justify the depth of our emotion. Some people will then want to “rank” their grief, pitting their grief emotions with others who may be “worse.” While this is normal, your grief is your grief and deserves the care and attention of anyone who is experiencing a loss.

Questions of spirituality—during this time in your grief journey, you may find yourself questioning your beliefs regarding pets and the after-life. Many people around you will also have their own opinions. It will be important during this time for you to find the answers right for you and your individual and personal beliefs.

(Source: Coping with the loss of a pet)

God, Guns, Laws, and Social Media

It wasn’t the typical kind of conversation you’d expect in a convenience store. It started with the still raw anger and confusion over the recent school shooting elsewhere in our state. It’s not like we’re one of those states where things like that just happen every so often, so we were still processing what it means to us ordinary everyday folk. The people involved in the conversation were young and old, men and women, believers and unbelievers.

Some just couldn’t understand why anybody would need an AR-15 or bump stock.

“A kid just shouldn’t be able to squeeze a trigger and fire off dozens of rounds in an instant.”

Others felt that …

“It starts at home, you teach your kids from as early on as possible that guns are not toys.”

“You lock up your guns tighter than Fort Knox; a kid just shouldn’t be able to get access to guns.”

A younger guy pointed out:

“I blame social media. These kids are relentless online and there’s just no escape from it. Not like how it was in the old days where you left school at school – it didn’t haunt you day and night when you’re at home.”

But the statement that got the most agreement was:

“People just don’t believe in God anymore.”

God. Guns. Laws. Social Media. How I would have loved to have everyone keep on talking about it – hash something out. Figure out what we’re going to do to make sure it never happens again. But if anything, having eavesdropped on all that – it occurs to me that there’s no shortage of confusion. You can’t make everyone believe in God. you can’t ban all young people off social media. (They’ll just create profiles with fake ages so they can participate on them anyway, just as the older millenials had done before them.) You can’t ensure every household teaches about gun safety to their kids the same way – or the right way. And it seems that laws themselves are not capable of ensuring the best outcome given the impossibility of setting them in motion in the first place because of the efforts of the lobbying groups.

Still, I was proud of my middle of nowhere town. At least for a few minutes we were really listening to each other. I know; in a week it’ll be back to the same old, same old – but for now, it made me thing that if we could do this much – then we just might be able to make a difference … but really, it does start with listening. A grandmother came across her grandson’s journal and foiled a potential school shooting because she was listening – and paying attention. Maybe if we all learned how to listen to others who are crying out for help, and learned how to stand up beside them so that they didn’t feel that they had to stand behind a gun to be heard then we could make some real change that makes a real difference and really saves lives.

 

Water Drops in a Bucket

Some days it doesn’t feel like all the effort you do amounts to anything more than a single drop in an empty bucket. You show up the next day – there’s another drop. Eventually, you have a spoonful. Then enough to fill up a shot glass. you keep at it – day after day. It’s enough to fill up a cup. Then the cup starts running over. Slowly and surely, that bucket starts to get fuller and fuller – a quarter of the way, a third, half-way, two-thirds, three quarters. Eventually you find that you filled up that bucket, a drop at a time. Hard work and persistence won’t always earn an award, you won’t always get a trophy or ribbon. But you do get a sense of personal satisfaction that you did your best. You didn’t quit when others would have thrown in the towel. You made a difference for the better. Maybe it’ll also inspire others to match your effort and contribute to filling up that bucket faster. The problem gets smaller and things get easier on everyone. Some days it doesn’t feel like all the effort you do amounts to anything more than a single drop in an empty bucket – and that’s a challenge worth tackling head-on.