Fragments & Freewrites

Friday Fragments at Half-Past Kissin' Time

Friday Freewrites at Ordinary and Awesome

Fragmented... the way my brain has been feeling for a while now. Many ideas for posts, but not enough ooomph to get much written... and nothing's free... right?

Well, here goes...

There's so much wrong with our culture. Oh... where to begin? How 'bout... the music?? Listening to my kids' favorite station in the car... wait... what are they saying? and two and two and undress you and three and three and undress me and four and four let's freak some more meet me at the hotel motel holiday inn bring your boyfriends and girlfriends... what?? are they singing about orgies??? Even Ty was like eeeww that's gross...Where's Karen Carpenter rainy days and mondays and white lace and promises? Where's Bob Denver filling up my senses like a night in the forest? Where's the innocent sap keeping us innocent?

It took the entire summer, but I finally finished The Poisonwood Bible. I'd taken it out of the library on other occasions, but couldn't bring myself to read about a white missionary family in the Congo. sorry ladies. And Oprah's endorsement was the nail in the coffin as far as I was concerned. Well, my apologies to Ms Kingsolver for underestimating her talent. I loved her essay collection Small Wonders. And when Ms. Moon mentioned The Poisonwood Bible was one of her favorites, I went to the library and checked it out again. Amazing storytelling. I finished and immediately wanted to reread from the beginning, but I had already renewed it twice, and it was overdue by 5 days. I'll have to buy it. If by some miracle you haven't read it yet, you should. It's not a difficult read. It just took me so long because the only chance I get to read is... umm... 15 minutes... umm... every morning... in the bathroom... you know how it is.

On second thought, The Poisonwood Bible is an extremely difficult read. Especially if you're depressed. The funny ha fuckin ha thing about depression is that it completely colors every bit of information that enters your brain. Everything takes on a negative, overwhelming, disastrous, hopeless quality. Everything is futile, every act, no matter how innocent, becomes destructive. So my take home message after finishing this book is that we are all accomplices. We are all guilty. We are all responsible. No one is innocent and ignorance is not an excuse. A prescription for antibiotics for some kid's ear infection? I'm in bed with pharmaceutical thieves. Checking the air pressure in the minivan tires? I think of all the Congolese who had a hand chopped off because they didn't work fast enough on the Firestone Tire rubber plantations. McDonald's because it's just to overwhelming to think about cooking? Oh, don't get me started. All I can think of is the rampant destruction caused just because we want what we want. It's more than a little paralyzing. The more you read, the more you know...

Jack: Mom, it seems like your happy pill is starting to work

Me:  Maybe... I don't know if it's the pill or it's just time or maybe it's both

Jack: Maybe you just think it's the pill, and you let yourself think happier thoughts instead             of shoving them away and you feel... better

I raise an eyebrow at him

Jack:   Yeah, I'm smart that way

And why is it that so many of us are overwhelmed, sad, anxious? What the fucking fuck is up with brain chemistry? Is that really it? I can't NOT think about it cause that's just the way MY brain works. I like answers. I like explanations. If I have to live with that's just the way it is, take the pill and shut up, I will. But it's not easy for me to leave it at that. Is it culture? Is it our environment? Is it genetic? Is it merely that we collectively create our reality and now we have named certain feelings as *dysthymic* *bipolar* *premenstrual dysphoric disorder* *clinical depression* *rapid cycling* *anxiety disorder* *post traumatic stress disorder* *panic attacks*. And prozac paxil lexapro celexa remeron zyban effexor cymbalta luvox zoloft wellbutrin sarafem abilify risperdal zyprexa. Do we conjure them by our belief in their existence? Do the names bestow previously nonexistent POWER? It's hard to imagine it's always been like this, yet it's hard to believe this is a contemporary phenomenon. And it's NOT cross cultural. So what's up with that? 

WHERE'S MY FUCKING RED TENT? 

Well, on a lighter note...

A profound and heartfelt thank you for the comments and love from Ms. Moon, Kori, JAM, Unknown Mami, Nola, BJ Mama, Alicia, Anouk, and my sister Adrienne whose cheeks are softer than the cheeks of my own children. Solidarity is an awesome thing. And the relationships we form in this bloggy universe, assumedly strange and anonymous, are so intimate that we dream of each other and tell each other our dark and honest secret fears and feelings with the press of a button, and get back love and support and laughter and the knowledge that we are not alone. It's an amazing thing.

Sundays in My City

The Dutchess County Fair

a real county fair

Americana at its best

rides

food 

4H livestock

think Charlotte's Web

this was voted Favorite Ride

I voted it Most Likely to Make You Vomit

Food issues? Bah

eat this

continuing the vomit theme

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Every year Mia pets and nuzzles

each and every cow

rows upon rows of them

she loves the cows

moo

Sundays in My City

courtesy of the wise and funny Unknown Mami

let's go visit

 

Hope in a pill

All right... I'm back... maybe... I think. Slogging through what feels like a forever three weeks of depression and anxiety so intolerable enough already and the decision to take a fucking pill how do people live like this for months or years? And the daily pill the color of 

a summer sky will hopefully 

twotothreeweekstwotothreeweekstwotothreeweeks lift the heaviness and calm the shaking hands and deepen the breath. Hopefully it will all stop. You know the feeling. Wanting to stay in bed and stare at the wall because you can't imagine getting through the day carrying this heaviness in your chest. Wanting to sleep because it's the only thing that brings relief.  Knowing that if you weren't a MOTHER that's exactly where you'd be... in bed, checked out.  But since you are a mother, you get up and get them fed and entertained and bathed maybe and keep some semblance of a clean house barely and you clench your jaw till your teeth and head ache and take a deep breath and put one foot in front of the other and make it through TWO boy birthday parties in 6 days aloneonyourown and try to bring a day's worth of happiness to two beautiful boys who deserve SO MUCH BETTER than what they've received this year.  And you go to work because you have to and usually this place brings relief or at least a distraction. A place where personal worries can be left in the parking lot with the minivan and you can spend 12 hours focusing on other mamas and their children and maybe even be moved to smile at the goofy toddler or marvel at the 4 day old or feel thankful when you receive a look of gratitude from the worried mother of an ill child because even if you try to leave your own worries out with the minivan, today you're not able to leave the heaviness behind. You wear it like the clothes on your back for all to see Michelle you look so sad and you wait for the pills to kick in.

FEED THEM

To all my bloggy friends...

There's a food drive going on at 

Welcome To My Planet.

Please, please, please, go visit Alicia and leave a comment.

Shoprite will donate one box of cereal to a food bank for every comment up to 30.

30 boxes of cereal for

30 families with hungry children

I feel good now... so can you

Thank-you

I love you

Sundays In My City

       

I love this idea courtesy of Unknown Mami

Old fashioned "commin to call" on a Sunday

This is our diner. 

It's on Main St.

The Yankee Clipper

our town has strong ties to the Revolutionary War 

When Ty was 4, he would call it Yank y Nipples

 

It's shiny and retro

a classic Greek American diner

owned by two sisters and their husbands

everyone knows us by name

the waitresses know what drinks the kids like

and who wants honey mustard or thousand island 

on the side

it's the only place where Mia is allowed to eat 

Fruit Loops

mainly 'cause I like the way the colors match the decor

or I'm just too tired to argue

We've had many a Sunday "brunch" here at the Clipper

I usually leave with a bellyache and indigestion

full of gustatory regret

but we still go back

it's The Clipper

forgiveness

OK it's summer. Lately my posts have consisted of BIG picts, and few words. See that crab button over there. Yup. Summer's taking up my blog time.

Well. This morning I visited Ms. Moon.  And, as she frequently does, she got me thinking.

 

think

think

think

Dammit.

Forgiveness. Compassion. Unconditional love

So today, as I mowed the lawn and clipped the hedges and baked banana bread and macky cheese and tossed a steak salad...

I thought...

Events over the past year have caused me to spend a lot of time thinking about forgiveness. So... OK. I don't GET forgiveness. Not that I haven't been forgiven for my transgressions. I think I have, for the most part. Maybe. I know I try to be mindful and considerate of others. I try to check myself and not hurt others or step on their toes. I think, at least during my adult years, any hurtful acts I have committed have been largely due to my own insensitivity. And when I become aware of a transgression, I apologize.  

But what about deliberate hurtfulness? Damage that's purposeful. That's when I start having trouble. I've been very fortunate. I have been spared. So far. There have been very few times in my life when I have been hurt by another to the point that I wrestled with forgiveness.

Yes. Wrestled. I'm not vindictive, and I'm not stubborn. But, like I said, I don't get it. Is forgiveness the absence of anger? After the hurt, after the sadness, after the anger or rage, is that when forgiveness occurs? 

My first husband was emotionally abusive. The marriage was short lived... a mistake from the beginning. And I knew it. At the end, my hurt and anger was not due to the nasty names, or the meanness, or the manipulation. I was hurt because he was supposed to love me. He was supposed to care for me. And although I understood that he was damaged, and insecure, and all that blah blah blah, what hurt the most and subsequently made me the most angry was the deliberateness of his actions.  I didn't actually feel the anger until I was ready to fight back. Once I decided to open my mouth and say no, he being the cowardly bully he was went high tailing it outta there. Never said sorry, never took responsibility.  Like so many abusers, the pretense was paramount.  I never got the chance to confront him. I walked around seething for quite a while. It was really hard to let go of the anger. I wasn't interested in holding on to it, but I wasn't quite sure how to unload it. Forgiveness. Forgive him. That's what I thought. I thought if I could just forgive him, the anger would disappear.  I walked away from that marriage stronger, smarter, and understanding myself much better than when I walked down the aisle. But still...

The problem was, forgiving him felt like I was condoning his behavior. It still feels that way. I didn't care what kind of screwed up childhood he had.  Somehow, to forgive him feels like I'm saying come on in and do it again. His abusiveness was not OK.  

It. was. not. OK.

I wrote a letter. Detailing his behavior. And sent it to his mother. And then I felt better.

So many years have passed. No anger. No nothing. Have I forgiven him? Can't say that I have.

Would I let him back into my life in any capacity? Absolutely not. Do I have ill feelings toward him? No. Would I accept an apology? Yes...

An apology. Maybe that's the key to forgiveness. Does the perpetrator need to be penitent? What if that first husband was not at all abusive, but a great guy, and an awesome husband? What if he was someone who would never, ever, deliberately hurt me.  And what if he, due to depression, stress, and substance abuse, spiraled into his own hell and threatened to drag me down, too. What if things got really insane. Unbelievably fucked up. 

But what if that husband clawed himself out of his hell, and busted his ass to repair things. What if I could see true recovery. And true remorse, and true responsibility for his actions. And true healing. What if I could see the man I married, before the depression and alcohol? 

I might just give that husband another chance. With a zero tolerance policy. Not unconditional love. Unconditional love is for one's children. So, is this forgiveness?

Is the purpose of forgiveness healing for the victim, or the perpetrator? Bestowing forgiveness. Begging for forgiveness. What if the perpetrator doesn't give a shit? We've all heard stories that arguably require unbelievable forgiveness. Check out this one. For me, forgiveness of this magnitude would be impossible. If those were your kids, or your husband, son, or father, could you forgive? And how do you forgive a dead person? How do you forgive those around her who allowed her behavior? 

there but for the grace of god go i

And those who abuse children? How does the adult child forgive? I wish that all those children who have experienced violence be able to live, at some point, without fear and sadness and hurt and anger. I wish for those children, and the adults they become, to be free. But forgive? For the life of me, I can't imagine.  How can violence against a child ever be forgiven? It still seems to me like it's condoning the behavior. Saying it's OK?... I forgive you?... well, some things are just not forgivable. Ever. Especially if the abuser refuses to take responsibility. Not many words on this, as I don't think I could ever forgive this kind of violation.

So, yeah. I don't get it. To err is human. We know that. We do it all the time. To forgive, divine. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe it's impossible to truly, fully forgive. Because we are not truly, fully divine.

A hot and cold day

NYC here we come!!!

Grand Central Station 

Not the Grand Central of my childhood 

or adolescence or young adulthood for that matter.

It's beautiful. 

Clean. 

Light. 

Constellations painted on the ceiling. 

Chandeliers. 

And the entire lower level is now FOOD. Fancy food. Specialty foods. Prepared foods to take home after a long day in the office. All sorts of seafood. All sorts of sausages, cheeses, salads and sides. Chocolates, baked confections, breads...

Sorry... I digress...

beautiful architecture

find your zodiac sign

metro card so fancy

6 train uptown

hold onto the pole

hot dogs with ketchup and relish

cold drinks

lunch on a bench in midtown

soooo NYC

on to our ultimate destination

Central Park Zoo

goofy kids with happy bellies full of hot dogs

So it was really hot today. 

86 & humid with thunderstorms forecast.

Between the humidity and the NYC heat index it felt like... I don't know... 210 degrees?

New exhibit!!

***snow*** leopards

NOT!!

It was so NOT zero degrees...

since it was 210 fahrenheit, there was not a snow leopard in sight

next stop...

Japanese macaques

***snow*** monkeys

OK, so see that white plastic looking thing on the ground?

Well, it's plastic.

And see that circle-hole thing on the front?

That's a hole cut out of the plastic thing.

A ***snow*** monkey is sitting in that white plastic thing, poking his head out

and EATING the plastic

taking bites and chewing and swallowing

WHY???

Because he's a SNOW MONKEY from Japan

sitting in the middle of 210 degree NYC

and his poor monkey brain is so fried from the heat

he's eating plastic

I feel sick

Polar Bears

oh boy.... the rant continues

sub-zero weather???

so what if it's 210 degrees???

by this point, the kids have caught on...

Ty says...

this is the Arctic section... it's supposed to be cold

there are no polar bears here

Mia says...

there's the polar bear

see his feet sticking out??

Jack says...

I see him breathing... a little...

but he looks like a throw rug

Ty says...

I'm hot

Kiss my cold wet arctic ass

OK enough of this arctic bullshit... lets try tropical rainforest 

Aaahd laaak meeea paira boots made outta heeyim

aye aye aye

I gotta feelin

I feel like a child

Despite what I do for a living

Despite the hard mature decisions I've had to make

Despite the fact that I was 8 days old when JFK was assasinated...

I still feel like I'm a kid

I kinda look like a kid mostly just good genes

So when I hear this song...

                                             

It makes me happy

OK, so it's POP

It's trendy

I sing it at work and the young med techs laugh... Michelle, we didn't know you listen to the 

Black Eyed Peas

I blame it on my kids

This song makes me feel like I'm 17 again

with a driver's license, a carful of girlfriends, and a tan

Only now it's my minivan full of kids

we're singing loud and smiling huge

and we all have savage tans

Tonight's gonna be a good night