I am thankful for all my hard teachers.
All the mean people
all the hard times
all the disappointments
all the loss
all the grief.
I’m thankful for all that I did not get
and when I got something
unexpected,
unwanted.
I am thankful,
for these are trials,
tests,
especially tailored
to teach me,
to strengthen me.
I know that I am being called
to learn how to
hear
what cannot be heard
see
what cannot be seen.
Know what cannot be known.
I am thankful.
I notice trends while at work. After you’ve seen the same thing over and over, you have enough data to formulate a theory. This applies to big things and little things.
Where it applies to the everyday is mood. I can read the emotional temperature after about twenty patrons. The mood will go on for the whole day. If people are easy to deal with in the morning, they will be easy to deal with in the afternoon and at night. If they are cranky and difficult, they will be that way all day too.
I mentioned this to a new coworker and he and I have started asking each other “How’s the weather?” when we are changing shifts at the front desk.
Some days the answer is “Sunny with a few clouds.” Sometimes the answer is “Overcast with a chance of hail.”
On Monday, it was “sharks”. People were very needy and difficult.
Now, people who are able to take care of themselves don’t come up to us. We have several self-check machines, so the average person with the average library transaction does not have to come up to us. This means we get problems all the time, by the very nature of why we are there.
The issue is the nature of the problem compounded by the temperament of the person.
Seeing so many different people with so many similar temperaments is really useful. It lets me know that my bad or good mood isn’t just mine, but it is something bigger. Perhaps it is something “in the air”.
I’ve not tried to figure out the whys and wherefores of it yet. I’m just glad to notice a trend and realize that it is not just me. There is something else affecting our moods.
Tuesday, it wasn’t “shark” so much as “goldfish”, except for the children. They were extra wound up and cranky. Really young children are usually cranky around 3:30 every afternoon. They also are cranky right before a thunderstorm.
Yes, I know sharks and goldfish have nothing to do with the weather. But the idea still works. Perhaps “How’s the water?” also works. The metaphor isn’t the issue, but the idea is.
To pray without ceasing does not mean you have to quit your job and become a nun or a monk. It does not mean that you have to sit in a quiet room contemplating and in communion with God all the time. It does not mean that you have to read a prayer book out loud all day long.
It means to constantly seek to know and then act according to the will of God.
It means to ask God before you do anything, to see if it is something you should do.
Nonbelievers have come up with a term for themselves. It is “freethinker”. They think that believers are zoned out zombies who never follow their own thoughts. And my clarification of “pray without ceasing” sure sounds like that.
But why would I want to plug into a 110 outlet when my tool works better on a 220? Why would I want to use a 20 watt light bulb when I can use a spotlight?
When we pray without ceasing – when we are in constant communion with God, we are tapping into a huge power source.
We are also less likely to resist or freak out when something unusual happens, because we know it is from God.
So yes, pray without ceasing. Pray when you wake up. Pray while you are making breakfast. Pray before you start your car. Pray while you drive.
Don’t pray mindlessly – pray about what you are doing right then. Talk with God. Not to God, but with God. It is a two-way communication. That is the heart of what Communion means.
Sure, you won’t have the words to start off with, and you will feel awkward. Keep doing it anyway. It will start to feel natural the more you do it.
God loves to hear from us and to talk with us. God understands all about us, better than we know about ourselves. Just open up and be yourself, and that will be perfect.
Say your dog is barking at night. All you want to do is go to sleep, yet the dog keeps barking and keeps you awake. You want to go outside and yell at the dog “Hey! Shut up!”
But then you forget this is why you bought the dog to start off with.
The dog is letting you know that there is an intruder around. The dog is letting you know that there is something wrong happening and you need to attend to it.
Our feelings are the same way. They are the barking dog. But we silence them and we ignore them.
We tell them to shut up when we stop paying attention to them. Now of course we didn’t buy the internal dog – that is part of the standard package that comes with being human. We were given it for free when we were born. It is a gift to us from God. These thoughts and feelings are there to keep us safe.
Remember how they say you should always trust your gut? Your gut is where your dog lives. Always pay attention to it if you feel like something is wrong. Follow that feeling.
Now this doesn’t mean to let your fears rule you. It doesn’t mean to always hide and run away from problems.
Sometimes the problem isn’t the person or the situation in front of you. Sometimes the problem is what you think about the person or the situation in front of you. You may be having a reaction or a memory to some bad thing that happened to you in the past. You may not remember what the problem was to start off with. You are having a reaction or a reflex.
You should always heed your feelings because your feelings will let you know that there is a problem that needs to be dealt with.
This is called projection and it is important to deal with. It is important to understand and face. Now, instead of running away from the situation, sometimes what you need to do is lean into it.
Sometimes you may need to look at it sort of sideways and not necessarily face it head on. Sometimes facing it head on is very scary. But more importantly, don’t run away from it. If you’re running away from it then you’re telling the dog to shut up.
Ignoring the problem and running away from it are both dangerous they seem opposite but really they both involve not dealing with the intruder. You have to deal with the intruder because otherwise if you ignore it then it is simply going to come in and steal everything in your house. Your house represents your safety and your sanity. If you run away from it or tell it to shut up, then you’re not using this as a valuable lesson to strengthen up your defenses.
I’ve noticed a trend with romance novels. The man’s economic or social position is always higher than the woman’s. He’s a duke, or a CEO, or something similar. He’s never an average guy.
Now, of course, this is fantasy – but notice that women are being told in these books that they are supposed to go up in status. They are never supposed to “settle”. Equal or lesser than them isn’t OK.
She’s a secretary, and he is the boss.
She’s a nurse, and he is a doctor.
It plays out, over and over.
Meanwhile, guys don’t read these books. They aren’t getting the script.
Perhaps they don’t need to read it. Perhaps they just know, based on our society’s expectations, that they are supposed to marry “beneath” them.
Men are supposed to be the breadwinners.
She’s the artist, and he is the neuroscientist. She’s the amateur writer, and he’s the professor. It is never the other way around.
She has the “fluff” job, the one that doesn’t pay the bills. Her income is extra. He’s the one in charge, and his way goes.
When one person controls the income, they have all the control.
So this is “fantasy”? This is ideal? Why would anybody want to dream about a passive life, where they have no control, no authority? Where things are done to and for them, instead of with?
You know the difference between in-laws and outlaws? Outlaws are wanted.
In-laws are like an arranged marriage. You didn’t pick them – they were picked for you. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. It is great when it does, but it is horrible when it doesn’t.
You can’t drop them like you can drop a new friend.
With a new friend, one you are trying out, things might not work out the way you both hoped. You can just stop calling and making dates with each other.
Family is different. You are stuck with them. All the major holidays, all the big celebrations, you are expected to spend with your family. Thanksgiving. Christmas. Weddings. Funerals.
The most important days of your life, and you are stuck with people you didn’t pick.
This makes no sense.
The only thing that will make bad in-laws go away is divorce. Either you leave, or they do.
Or, better yet – re-invent the idea of holidays. Don’t make it mandatory to spend time with people you don’t like. Create new traditions. Invent your own ideas.
Being stuck with people you didn’t pick doesn’t make sense.
Perhaps this is why people hate holidays so much. They are expected to spend time with people they think, by society’s rules, that they have to get along with.
Why fake it anymore?
I read a story of a lady who was applying for jobs online. She thought that she had a pretty good résumé and skill set. But she wasn’t getting any hits. She thought that it might be because she had a noticeably African American name. She created a fake profile, with all the same information – schooling, work experience, and skills. But this time, she used a name that sounded white.
Her inbox was flooded with requests for interviews.
She thinks it is racist, and it is, but it isn’t for why she thinks it is.
I’m not going to win any friends with this post. I’m pretty sure someone is going to say I’m being racist. But if we don’t start talking about this problem, it will continue. And good people will keep getting shafted because of the actions of bad people.
We’ve created our own monster.
Affirmative action prevents someone from being fired because of their race. This means that someone who is African American cannot lose their job solely because they are African American.
But here’s the reality of it.
It also means that someone who is African American cannot be fired, or even censured, or even get a bad review AT ALL, because of the fear that they will pull the race card.
Thus, employers are afraid to hire someone who is African American, because they cannot treat and train them the same as every other employee. They are above the rules.
The intent of Affirmative Action was to help them, but sadly, some people are using it as a way to get away with bad work. This is affecting everybody else.
I’ve seen this over and over again. I was born and raised in the South. In my nearly thirty years of working, I’ve seen this play out over and over. When I lived in the North, I saw an entirely different thing. It was better there. So this is why I’m writing about this. Perhaps people don’t see this because it doesn’t happen where they are. But it happens plenty here, and it is terrible.
African American employees are allowed to do substandard work, and they still get to not only keep their jobs, they will get raises. Sometimes they last long enough to become supervisors. They still can’t do the work, but they get paid thousands more than those who actually do the work.
They can come in late and leave work early, and nothing happens.
They can be surly or indifferent to their fellow coworkers and customers and nothing will happen.
Is this true for all African Americans? No, certainly not. I’ve had the privilege of working with many fine people of all races who were great employees.
But I’ve also had the sad misfortune of working with too many people who were African American who were terrible employees. If they were challenged about their bad work habits, they threatened to sue for discrimination.
I can understand why employers are not wanting to take the risk.
So yes, we need Affirmative Action – we need members of the African American community to affirmatively decide to act – to self-police, and to hold each other up to a higher standard.
Sure, you shouldn’t be fired because of your race, but likewise it shouldn’t be that because of your race you can’t be fired. Ability should matter, right?
Today I’m getting in touch with my inner skunk.
They don’t attack. They just hold their ground. People tend to leave them alone and not cross them, because their bold coloring warns who they are.
I’m getting tired of people thinking I’m a pushover. I’m getting tired of feeling like I’m doing it all and everybody else is slacking.
Today I told the annoying page to pull her cart out of the walkway. I didn’t even care if she got mad. She gets mad all the time. She can say “Excuse me?” in a way that sounds like she is saying “Screw off!” She says “Excuse me?” when she wants you to repeat what you have said. She says it in just such a way that you never want to ask her anything ever again.
But today was it. I’d patiently waited for her to pull the cart out of the way on her own before, and thanked her for it, and explained how it is totally in my way when she puts her cart there. I did it that way because otherwise there would have been a confrontation. It went well for a while, but today it was halfway into the walkway again. There is at least ten feet of space she can work in, and she chooses the worst possible section that is totally in the way of traffic flow.
I am desperately trying to not say what I’m thinking too. This has been going on all day.
I don’t have any patience for people who only get movies. I’m jealous of all that time that they have. Then I wonder why they waste it the way they do. Then I wonder at the people who are there all day, who are my age. Don’t they have jobs? If not, why not? I’m jealous.
I’m angry that I’m angry. I’m in a bad mood about the fact that I’m in a bad mood.
I think about the teachers and counselors who have told me that I’m angry, when I didn’t feel like I was. The fact that they said that I’m angry when I don’t feel like I’m angry makes me angry.
Maybe “angry” is my normal, and I need to get used to it. I need to learn that this is who I am, or at least who I am right now. I spent so long letting people (especially my brother and boyfriends) walk all over me and push me around. I’m waking up from that stupor.
Skunks are seen as antisocial creatures, but they aren’t, really. They just don’t want to put up with anybody’s nonsense. They don’t start fights, but they don’t walk away from them either.
So I started an art project. Some people would call it redecoration. It was an intentional plan to distract myself, and to give myself something that I could focus on and see progress. I can’t fix what is going on with my parents-in-law, so I wanted something that I could fix.
It started off as a need to fix a problem. We had some ugly grout-tape in the bathroom. Instead of caulk to bridge the area between the shower surround and the tub, we had this stuff that was in a long strip and it stuck to both things. It kind of worked, until it didn’t. It was peeling apart from the shower surround, and mold was developing.
I was a little afraid to deal with it. I was concerned that it meant that there was water damage behind it, and this was going to result in a really expensive remodeling project. Water is as destructive as fire, but slower. I kept trying to stick it back on the wall, and it kind of worked. I asked my spouse to fix it and as usual it got put on the back burner. And as usual, I slowly worried about it more.
So I did what I do when I worry. I got books. Knowledge is power. I got every book on bathroom remodeling that my library branch had. I decided that this was now a Project. We’d save up our money and then we could do this right.
Fortunately, when my spouse got around to pulling the weird tape off, there was no evidence of water damage. There was a lot of mold, though, so I’m glad that it came down. He put caulk in there instead. It looks a lot better.
But by then I’d gotten the bug. Thankfully it wasn’t an expensive project, but it could still be a Project. We didn’t have to rip out the entire bathtub and shower and re-frame and put new tile. That would involve hiring professionals. There are things we can do, and that kind of stuff isn’t on the list.
But I saw a picture while I was looking through the books.
It was beautiful Tromp l’oeil. It is a koi’s eye-view of a pond. I went running with it. But I like goldfish and aquariums. So that is what I’m doing instead. But you can’t do that to start off with. Remember – paint the background first.
So then there had to be a trip to Lowe’s hardware. I went on my lunch break and picked up a few paint samples that were in the neighborhood of what I wanted. I brought them home and gave the spouse a choice.
It isn’t really a choice. I had already decided on what to let him look at. So no matter what he picked, I would be happy with it. This is straight out of working with kindergartners. Too many choices is a sure way to stop any work from going forward.
Then came time to paint. The room is too small for two people to work, and he doesn’t really “get” painting. He more than makes up for it in being able to fix minor plumbing and electrical problems, so I was OK with that. But it took three hours.
I’d forgotten that we had a dinner date with friends on Saturday night, so that meant I had to get this done on Friday to give it time to dry so we could take showers. That meant I got started on actually painting this project around nine, because we had to have supper first and there is always the prep work to do for painting.
I decided to do this without any music. I figured that it would disturb him. I don’t play my music around him, nor do I sing around him. That is something to write about for another day.
So I was stuck, painting, by myself, in a small room, for three hours, in silence. It was a new kind of hell.
Instead of getting away from my problems, I was right up in them. Everything I was trying to not think about was right there with me in that tiny room that smelled of latex paint.
I meditated on Jonah, one of my favorite characters who teaches me how to deal with problems. And I remembered that he was stuck in that whale for three days. So was Jesus – he was dead for three days. You can praise God all you want, but you are still going to have to wait until it is time for it to be over.
That helped. I was still in a foul mood, but at least I knew there was going to be an end to it. It reminds me of the person who had a ring made that said “This too shall pass” as a reminder for the bad times as well as the good times.
The next day I painted the leaves on the walls, because that had to be done before the fixtures could be put back. Scott was out of the house, so I put on music and sang along. It helped my mood a lot. It was also good that I started with something simple like long twisty leaves.
The next day I painted some fish. I didn’t think I could. I was planning on drawing them on watercolor paper and then gluing them on, or printing some out on inkjet paper and doing the same. I’m glad I gave painting them a try, because I surprised myself.
I had gone online for some reference pictures and printed them out on my printer. The resolution wasn’t that great, but it was a good start. I transferred the outline of the fish to the wall by holding the paper to the wall and tracing the lines Really Hard with a pencil, so it made a dent in the wall. Ideally, I’d have used carbon paper. I didn’t have any, and I didn’t feel like slowing down by going and getting some. Inspiration shouldn’t be messed with. If I slow down, the whole thing could have come to a complete stop.
The transfer of the lines worked. I mixed up some paint in a small plastic dish and went at it. I learned as I went. I used a dry brush technique for the fins. I painted seven goldfish. I plan to paint a castle, an old-time deep sea diver, a treasure chest, and a sunken galleon too. Later.
Today’s the third day, and I feel better. The room looks brighter. I’m still not finished with the fish (they need eyes) but I’m OK with that. The problems with the parents-in-law continue, but I’ve realized that isn’t my project. I’m sticking with the stuff that is my responsibility and leaving that to their sons.
Do you want to know how to be an artist? I can tell you in one easy step. Make art. That’s it.
It doesn’t have to be pretty. It doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have a plan. Just create something. Follow your heart.
Paint by numbers doesn’t count. Copying something doesn’t count. Both are training, sure. Both teach you how to use the materials. That alone is half of learning how to be an artist.
But to create art, you have to create. You have to make it up and make it happen.
What is in your head won’t be what happens at first. Just like learning how to do any skill, creating art isn’t easy at the start. You’ll stumble and wobble.
Just keep making art anyway.
Every day, make a date with yourself to make something. After a few weeks, you’ll start seeing real progress. After a few months, you’ll start getting really good. You still won’t be an expert, and you’ll probably try some new technique you aren’t good at or suited for.
That is fine too. Keep making art. That is all there is to it.
If you want to be an artist, just make art.
betsybeadhead 
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