On salamanders – part one. (The heat is on.)

Posted on August 12, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I have a tattoo of a salamander on my right shoulder. I got it probably five years ago. It is specifically a Yonahlassee salamander. They only are found on Grandfather Mountain, which is in North Carolina. There are bluets surrounding it, and they grow on Grandfather Mountain in May. That is where my husband and I spent our honeymoon, and when we got married. It is a reminder, and a promise. It is a marker of the past and of the future. But there is even more to it.

I’ve loved the idea of salamander for many years. I was in a medieval re-enactment group and used the salamander as the animal on my device. I guess you could say it is my totem. The salamander may not look scary or fierce, but there are hidden strengths to it. The salamander was a medieval Christian symbol of “strength through adversity” because they thought it walked through fire. They would notice that salamanders would come out of a forest that was on fire, and they would often come out very late after the fire started. They wouldn’t come running out at the beginning of the fire like the rest of the animals did. They also would notice salamanders coming out of a log that had been set on fire in a fireplace, so they also thought that salamanders were born from fire.

Now, science wasn’t a strong suit for medieval Christians. In reality, salamanders sleep a lot of time in rotting logs. They love the moisture and the quiet, and how safe they are. They use the logs to hide from enemies because they can’t be seen in there. So when there is a forest fire, they are often the last to know. They are curled up all snug in that log and they get warm when the fire is going full force. They escape the fire late because they are aware of it late. They can’t exactly run because they have really short legs. I’m sure that a lot of salamanders die trying to escape the forest fire. But, they do have really moist skin so they have a small level of protection from heat.

But the symbolism remains.

I like the idea of them because they are very small but they survive. They make it through the storm. They endure. In the midst of something bad, they don’t run away. I’m reminded of the Hindu image of God called Ganesh. Ganesh has the attributes of an elephant. Instead of walking around obstacles, he walks through them.

Somewhere in the middle of last night I was up again because I was too hot. Middle age will do that to you if you are female. The heat wakes me up. I’ve learned to just get up for a little bit and cool down. These days I write during this time. It is a quiet enough activity that doesn’t wake my husband up or get me so engaged that I can’t go back to sleep. Plus, writing helps get the words out of my head.

In the middle of writing last night I realized that the salamander is a good symbol for this time too. It walks through fire. This fire of perimenopause is pretty annoying, but instead of seeing it as a bad thing, I can use it as a chance to transform myself. I can see it as a sign that I am changing, and becoming a wise woman. This time is a time of growth, of shedding my old self and growing into my new self. Or maybe I need to think of it as the self that was always there, just hidden beneath layers of stuff that was put on me. It is an opportunity to strip down and make a leaner, faster, better me.

I’m thinking of it as if I was going on a journey, and I keep finding out that the more I carry, the shorter the distance I can go. The more I get rid of, the faster I am. The stuff to get rid of isn’t just stuff – it is ideas and old ways of thinking. It is relationships that aren’t healthy. It is anything that doesn’t serve, isn’t useful, and doesn’t work anymore.

In fact, some bits never worked in the first place. Some of it is stuff that was given to me – either real, tangible things, or instead they are ways of thinking – that never worked at all but I didn’t know any better. I didn’t know that there were other choices, and that the person giving them to me wasn’t healthy or healing for me. Not all people who say they are teachers or leaders really are. And everything should be tested. Is it true? Is it helpful? Does it work? Does it fit with other things that I know to be true and helpful?

Sometimes the best teacher is to be found in that still small voice, that quiet moment when you have that “ah-ha!” in the middle of the storm, where it all comes together and makes sense.

I’m becoming grateful for the fire inside, the heat that I’m feeling these days. It is waking me up.

Fishing/Gardening

Posted on August 11, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’ve decided to think of gardening as like fishing. Instead of the end result being the goal, the goal is just to do it. This way I don’t get upset when the plants die.

My Mom had a huge garden. She was the kind of Mom who asked for power tools for Mother’s Day rather than flowers. She needed the tools to work on her garden so she could grow her own flowers. It was common to find her outside moving rocks or planting something. There were daylilies and rose bushes and lily of the valley. She planted very few vegetables. Her garden was mostly about pretty flowers. Something different was blooming all the time.

She never taught me how to garden. She didn’t teach me how to cook or take care of a house either. She had a strange idea that because I was “gifted” and I “picked up ideas fast” that she didn’t have to teach me. Maybe I do understand some concepts quickly, but I still have to be taught them. By never showing me at all, she unknowingly shortchanged me.

I remember one time she saw me cleaning up a plant by taking out all the dead leaves and she was surprised. She wondered out loud how I learned how to do that.

I get a little angry when I think about this.

I’m pretty sure she was intentionally trying to make my life harder by not teaching me these basic things, but the end result is the same.

I’ve tried to learn how to garden from reading books, in the same way I’ve tried to learn how to cook. I understand a little bit of both but I think I’m missing something. That is fairly common for me. I’ll get the big picture but miss something really essential that is small and easy. I have a lot of “duh!” moments with myself.

My big concern is that I’ll spend a lot of money on plants and then kill them in short order because I don’t know what I’m doing. Either I water them too much or feed them too little or I don’t know how to prune them. I forget to look at them sometimes. I’ve taken to putting plants in areas I have to walk by so I have no excuse to forget about them.

I’ve decided to be patient with myself and with the process. Just pick an area and a plant or two. Go outside and enjoy being outside. Admire the bugs and butterflies. Commune with the Creator. Just try.

Because like fishing, the point isn’t about catching fish. The point is to be outside, in nature, enjoying the day.

Family secrets

Posted on August 8, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I realized that it was very freeing to let go of family secrets in a recent post. I’m not sure why they were given to me to hold on to. When I told the story about my brother’s fake military service credentials I felt a weight come off of me that has been there too long.

There was a lot of lying that I was encouraged to do as a child, and that habit went on too long. I was strong-armed into not telling. Something about “family name” and “honor” and “pride” got mixed into there. After I was about 5, the only trips my family went on were of the guilt variety.

There’s nothing healthy about this, but I went along, because that is what you do as a child. I didn’t know better. Here was my family, teaching me something harmful. I was the youngest member, so I didn’t have any perspective. I didn’t know that what they were teaching me was wrong.

There is a lot of shame tied up in lying. It takes a lot of energy to pretend that you are something you are not. It weighs you down, like the proverbial millstone, like the metaphorical concrete shoes. I was drowning in someone else’s stories. I inherited bags of lies and half-truths.

I was told by my brother to not tell anybody the truth for the sake of our family name. The funny thing is that he changed his name. What name? He modified his last name some time when he was in the Air Force for that one year. Did the lies start then? Or was it when he was having “naps” with his girlfriend in the family home and got her pregnant? Did it bloom into full fruition when he somehow forgot to tell wife number four that she was in fact wife number four, and not number two as he’d told her and the county clerk when they got married? Everything started to crumble when the child from the first marriage showed up on their doorstep, 16, and running away from home. Wife number four didn’t know about any other children. Somehow it seems that the person who needs to be concerned about “honor” and “family name” is him, not me. I don’t have anything to hide. Everybody knows my business.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

He threatened me to never tell his girlfriends about him. He realized after our parents died that I was the only person who knew the truth about him. I was the only person who could kick down that house of lies he had built around himself.

He blamed me for marriage number four falling apart, saying I told her something. I never talked to her. The problem was, neither did he. It isn’t my fault that he forgot to tell her really important facts about himself. But his habit of blaming me for his failure is very common.

And I took this for years. I’m now seeing the lies that I was fed. This may not be pretty to read, but it is very healing for me to write this. I’ve held this in for a very long time. It is like I finally noticed that there was a festering boil, and I’ve lanced it open. A lot of gross stuff is coming out, but better to get it out than keep it in.

He stole money from me on a regular basis when I was a child. I started to notice something was wrong and I started to keep a tally of money in and out in a separate place. When I saw what was happening, I told our Mom. She confronted him and it stopped – but he never apologized and never paid me back.

So he started stealing from me in other ways.

There was a time in my childhood that I remember intentionally forgetting about things. There was something so bad that happened that I made a point of not remembering it. Apparently I was successful, because all I can remember is that I chose to forget. It is like having a spraypaint outline of a stencil. You can see that something happened there, but you don’t have the full picture.

He blamed me for going into debt. A few years ago he was a quarter of a million dollars in debt. The real estate business he was in had taken a nose dive, and he’d borrowed money to start up some get-rich-quick plan. It failed, and he borrowed more money, for another stupid plan. He had to declare bankruptcy and moved into a friend’s green house.

He actually said that he thought that the reason he was a quarter of a million dollars in debt was that I had “prayed for his downfall.”

How’s that for a guilt trip? That’s an express trip to crazytown. If my prayers are that powerful, I’m pretty connected.

He didn’t want to admit that it was the fact that he kept borrowing money for yet another hare-brained idea that got him in the hole he was. Once again he wasn’t taking responsibility for his own actions.

Then his new girlfriend asked to be my friend on Facebook, and he freaked out. I got numerous messages from him begging me to not tell her anything. I said that was his responsibility. I didn’t contact her, but just watched what was going to happen. Then she posted a picture of her engagement ring. So she was going to be wife number 5. I asked him if she knew about the others. He fudged on the answer. I suggested they go to premarital counseling. He got very angry and said how dare I not wish them happiness together. My point was that with counseling there would be a chance of happiness.

You won’t get good fruit from a rotten tree.

And he’s pretty rotten. Time to dig out the root of it all, the reasons for the lies and the deceit. Time to dig down deep and clean things up and out.

Things got pretty ugly there, right after they got engaged and we were still communicating. I was reading a lot of self-help books and ones on better dialogue in difficult situations, but unfortunately he wasn’t. I tried to tell him how I felt, and like always he twisted what I said.

My brother is the kind of person who you can say “It is a pretty day outside.” to and he will reply “What do you mean – are you telling me it is time to mow the yard again!?”

When you are raised with crazy as your normal, it is kind of hard to know what normal is.

I know crazy. I admit that I’ve hospitalized myself twice. Bipolar disorder runs in my family. Both times I knew something was wrong and I asked for help. Both times I needed to get my medications adjusted. I’ve heard it is very rare to realize that you aren’t well mentally and ask for help.

When Ian went crazy, he certainly didn’t know that he needed help. At the time was living just 45 minutes away from where I lived with our Mom. She was dying, and he’d been in denial of it. He’d ignored the fact that we were living on Social Security and disability for one. I’d quit my job so I could take care of her and drive her to her appointments. Dad sent money to us when he could. He was living in Birmingham with his Mom, who had Alzheimer’s. Our parents had separated a few years earlier.

Instead of being a help, he’d send letters to us with clippings from the paper showing how much money he had made off a commission. He’d send a copy of his planner, showing how busy he was, to “prove” why he couldn’t come and help or visit. During the year she was sick, he visited twice. He sent only $100. Most of his energy was devoted to harassing me on the phone, telling me that I “could do more” to help her. I was 24, had quit my job, was buying food with food stamps, and doing all the cooking and cleaning and caregiving. He was 30, and was being a jerk.

When it finally became clear that she was dying, he lost his mind.

He called once and was talking very excitedly. He went away for a little bit and I could hear coughing in the background. He said “Mom is going to feel a lot better now!” When I asked what he meant, he said that he had just coughed up some of her cancer.

This was not helping. This is insane.

A few days later he trapped his girlfriend in their house and took the distributor cap off her car so she couldn’t leave. He painted crosses on the windows with wine. He said that “she was pregnant with the next Christ” and that “demons were going to come to take the baby away.” Now that is off the charts crazy. That is certifiable. That is a danger to others crazy. And so he got committed against his will. A judge got involved. He spent two weeks in. He simply learned what not to say to appear normal, but he didn’t ever admit that he was sick.

Six weeks after Mom died, Dad died suddenly. I had to handle both estates. Ian’s name wasn’t on the will. Turns out Dad created the will after Ian threatened to kill him, and the situation never improved.

Ian insisted on getting the Rembrandt etching that had always hung over the mantelpiece. It was entitled “The Return of the Prodigal Son.” He said that Dad had always wanted him to have it, because it symbolized their relationship. I think I’d have heard about something as earth-shaking as reconciliation between them. I let him have it, because it wasn’t worth arguing about. But in reality, he was just propping up his house of lies. The son had not returned to the father. The son was adrift in a sea of deceit.

Sometime around then I also insisted that we communicate only in written form, because he had that habit of twisting what I said. I’d write letters to him and save a copy for myself. That way when he said “you said this (insert hateful comment)” I could point out that I didn’t.

It is tiring to communicate with someone like this. I wonder how tiring it is to be him, to have to constantly be checking up to see how his lie-house is doing. Nobody is perfect, and nobody is awesome. It is far healthier to admit your mistakes and move on. When you have to lie to cover up a lie, then you are getting into really deep trouble. Maybe one day he’ll figure that out. I’ve had to admit that I’m not the one to help him. I tried, and it only got worse. For my own mental health and for his, I left.

Our last conversation was a message on Facebook. He told me to read Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. He told me that I had to read that before I talked to him again. That seemed to make it easy on me – I chose to not read that book. Ever.

I unfriended and blocked him and everyone directly associated with him. I can’t take the lies anymore. I can’t take him or any of his drama. I don’t know what is real about him, and I don’t think even he knows anymore.

So I’ve honored his request. I’ve not told his girlfriend (possibly now wife) about him.

I’ve told everyone.

Identity thief

Posted on August 7, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I have realized have a problem with people who use their military ID instead of their driver’s license when I ask for it at work. I have thought about this with my new technique of digging down to the root of the feeling and discovered something interesting.

I’d felt that people who were using their military ID were showing off. I’d felt that they wanted to point out that they had been in the military, like I should be impressed. This is a library. You don’t get a military discount. There is no advantage for using your military ID.

So I dug down. I rooted out the source of it. Where have I felt that someone was using a military ID to get something he wasn’t entitled to?

Then it came to me. My brother. My brother left home to join the Air Force. He tried to leave in the middle of the night but made sure to tell me. He was running away from home and his problems. But I’m not a priest. Confessions don’t stick with me when you are about to do something stupid.

I woke up our parents and they stopped him.

He was talked into waiting until the morning, and when he still wanted to go after a night’s sleep, they drove him to the bus station.

He lasted a year.

He got drug tested after Christmas leave and failed. He had only made it up one rank from when he’d enlisted by then. He was offered two choices. Be demoted back to the beginning, or leave.

He chose to leave.

Yet every Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day he posted a picture of himself on his Facebook page in his dress blues. He also had his Air Force training certificates hanging in his office. He was so proud.

He isn’t a veteran, not really. He didn’t serve his full term. He never was sent into combat. He made a mistake and left rather than making it right.

So that is where that resentment comes from.

Serve honorably, and you deserve honor.

Expect honor when you haven’t earned it? Busted.

Pink. (better to look stupid than be dead)

Posted on August 5, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m reading a book called “Drunk Tank Pink”. It talks about the many things that influence human behavior, many of which we are unaware of.

One of the chapters talked about a number of studies that tried to determine what makes people act when something bad is going on. Some of the events were real and some were staged. The book cited the story when a woman was stabbed to death in 1964 in full view of many onlookers, as well as another case were a homeless man was attacked and died, also in view of a number of onlookers. Then there was a study where a student thought that he was talking to another student (in another room, unseen) who acted as if he was having a seizure. In another study, a student was waiting in a room with other students (who were in on the study) and smoke started to appear under the door.

What caused people to act or not? The determining factor was the number of other people. The more people, the more everyone thought that someone else would take care of it. The more people, the less happened.

People don’t want to cause a fuss. They don’t want to be out of place. They look to others to act.

Problem is, what if we all do that, and we all burn to death in that room? People die when nobody acts, or acts too slowly.

I had a thought when I was reading this – instead of doing a study to find out what makes people act or not, why not have a class that teaches people how to act in such a circumstance? Who to call, what to do? That kind of stuff. Teach everybody how to be a first responder. Teach everybody to be able to handle it on their own, rather than expecting someone else to take care of it.

Because if you wait for someone else to take care of it, someone is going to get hurt.

I was in a tiny restaurant that had big glass windows. A big storm came up. My husband and I were sitting by one of the windows. I asked to move, and we took everything over to a corner, as far away as we could get from the windows. The bathrooms were nearby as an escape route.

I had been in a similar situation once when I was a child. My family had gone out to eat and an equally bad storm came up. The storm broke the window at the table we were sitting at, and my brother’s head got sliced open by the glass. The rest of the evening was a blur as my parents drove us to the doctor’s office to get stitched up. I’m not sure why we didn’t go to the emergency room – but I suspect it was because we didn’t have health insurance.

But this time, at this restaurant, it caused a little bit of a fuss to move everything, and the other patrons decided to speak up. They started making fun of me.

I’m still angry thinking about this.

I’m moving to safety. I wasn’t telling them to move, nor was I preventing them from moving. There was no reason to mock me.

I’m glad I stood my ground and moved. Funny to say it that way, but that is how it is. I would have taken care of them if they had gotten hurt, but the only way to be able to take care of others is to be safe yourself. I saw no reason to take a chance with that storm and that window. It was a bad combination. Ideally, I wouldn’t have even gone out that night if I’d realized how intense that storm was going to get.

So maybe that is also part of why people don’t get involved. Not only do they not know what to do, not only do they think someone else will do something, but they have previously been chastised for doing or saying something.

Eh. I’m going to speak up. And I’m going to move. And if it means I’m going to look stupid doing it, so be it. Better stupid than dead.

Playlist

Posted on August 5, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

Remember this? This was popular as a meme on Facebook in early 2009. It is still amusing. It is like using your iPod as a crystal ball. I’ve put in my answers to this – feel free to copy and edit to produce your own list.

RULES:
1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.

IF SOMEONE SAYS ‘ARE YOU OKAY’ YOU SAY?
“Rolling” – Soul Coughing

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
“I Know” – Barenaked Ladies

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
“Walk On” – U2

HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
“Sugar Free Jazz” – Soul Coughing

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?
(Came up as “Unknown” – it is a recording that I took of the sound of chipmunks at Grandfather Mountain) I find this hysterical – it is like God saying “It isn’t that easy!”

WHAT’S YOUR MOTTO?
“When Love Comes to Town” – U2 with B.B. King

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
“Buddha Rhubarb Butter” -Soul Coughing

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
“Ansari” – Tartit (From Mali, the name of the band means “Union”. Ansari might mean “supporters” It is the name of the tribe to which Tartit belong.)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
“Eha Ehenia” – Tartit (According to a description of this album on “Crammed Discs” – “this is a song about a woman who is a disgrace to her family – she’s a bad host to strangers and even to her inlaws”)

WHAT IS 2 + 2?
“Leather” – Tori Amos

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
“Freaky Hijiki” – Beastie Boys

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
“Scale Down” – Rising Appalachia

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
(another voice memo) I’d titled it “Flip’s Theme Song, it sounds like a superhero song. Cheery, a bit cheesy, like a 70’s TV sitcom theme song.

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
“When I Fall” – Barenaked Ladies

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
“So Thankful” – Nahko Bear and Medicine for the People

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
“Dramastically Different” – Beastie Boys

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST??
“Everybody” – Paper Tongues

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
“Same Thing” – Barenaked Ladies

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
“Collapse” – Soul Coughing

WHAT DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW?

“Beautiful” – Moby

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
“Casiotone Nation” (live) – Soul Coughing

Shame

Posted on August 1, 2013 by betsybeadhead | 3 Comments

Why is it that the person who has been attacked feels shame? The person who was abused by a parent wasn’t the person to blame. The person who was raped was the recipient, not the aggressor. The person who is the recipient of violence is most often female, but is sometimes male. Abuse isn’t exclusive. And the abuser or rapist isn’t always male. Physically, emotionally, sexually, abuse is abuse.

For the sake of simplicity I will say “she” for the person who is abused or raped and “he” for the abuser or rapist. I’m concerned I’m perpetuating a stereotype, so I want to be sure that it is understood that anybody can be attacked, and anybody can be the attacker. But our language has no appropriate third person singular, and saying “his or her” all the time is tedious, so I’m doing it this way.

I’m also making a point of not using the term “victim”. That is part of this. I believe that if she identifies herself as “victim” then she is perpetuating the violence that was done against her. More often though, the person who was attacked feels shame. They act as if they did something to deserve this. They feel shame so they don’t go to the police. They feel shame so they don’t go to the hospital or to a counselor.

Shame is another word for guilt. When a person feels shame, she feels as if she caused the problem. She feels that she brought it on herself. She feels responsible.

This is so totally backwards. The abuser, the rapist is the guilty party. The one he attacked is passive.

You do not cause someone to attack you. It has nothing to do with what you wear or what you said. Now, yes, I’ve recently written a post saying that women should dress modestly to protect themselves. I also think it is a good idea to get a handgun carry permit and take self-defense classes. Prevention, you know. But sometimes you can’t get out of the way of a problem, and there are a lot of damaged people out there who are ready to cause a problem with you.

One thing to notice is that the attacker is giving control of his emotions and actions to everyone else. The attacker blames other people for his losing control.

When Dad gets home from one of his many business trips, he has no right to beat his child for breaking something. His child is a child, and it was an accident. He has no right to yell at his child. His short temper is his fault, his failing.

Eleanor Roosevelt said that no one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

The same is true of anger.

But how is it that the person who is attacked feels shame, feels guilt? Do we teach that in our society? Is that normal? Is it something that is part of being attacked?

It certainly isn’t helpful. It renders the person who was attacked open to more attacks. It opens her up to abuse from not just the original abuser, but new ones. Bullies can spot weakness.

Again – that is not the fault of the person who is bullied. The bullies need to be responsible for their actions. It is not the “weak” kid’s fault that she gets her lunch money stolen from her – that is the fault of the bully. It is important to remember where the blame goes.

The odd part is that bullies themselves were often abused. Instead of feeling shame however, the bully learns that abusing others is normal. The bully patterns his actions on this warped lesson. The way to feel bigger is go make another feel smaller.

Stop bullying. Easy to say. Tell us how to do it.

Stop feeling shame for being abused. Stop thinking you are a victim. Again, easy to say. Hard to do.

I think there is something to teaching everyone that it is important to say no, to establish boundaries. That this is what you are willing to take, and this isn’t. Perhaps there is something to learning how to dialogue, versus debate. It helps if people can express their opinions without having to be “right” or “wrong” – but just be different.

I used to feel guilty for saying no, for telling someone that I wasn’t OK with what I was being asked to do. I’ve spent too much of my life feeling resentful that my life wasn’t my own. Even reading books about how to find my own voice, how to establish boundaries, I felt awkward. How dare I stand up for myself.

It was painful to read those books. It was like having to re-break a badly-healed leg. Emotionally, it was as if my family had broken my legs and because I’d not been allowed to get treatment, they’d healed badly. I was walking with an emotional limp. I just got used to it. It became my “normal”. Reading those books made me have to look at that wound again, and realize how it was affecting my life, and every relationship I had. I had to re-break those bones and let them heal again.

Emotional wounds hurt just as much as physical ones. And they are harder to spot. A broken leg – that sticks out. A broken spirit? That is much harder to spot. The damage runs deep there, and affects every part of your life.

But somewhere in the middle of reading those books, I was standing up for myself, and realizing that I wasn’t a victim, and I wasn’t to blame. By reading those books I was taking control of what had happened.

There is no shame in being abused. There is shame in being an abuser. You aren’t to blame for what happened to you. You are, however, responsible for what you do afterwards. You are responsible for your own actions, not the actions of others.

Like

Posted on July 31, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

I’m really trying to resist telling the lady in the waiting room at the car dealership that the reason people think she is so young is because she acts young. Young as in immature.

She says “like” way too much. “And I was like…” “And she was like…” “And they were like…”

How did we get to the point that we can no longer conjugate verbs?

“Like” should be used as a comparative. The Mini is like the VW bug. The Ford F150 is not like a Honda Civic. “Like” can be used to say that you are in favor of something. I like Italian ice, but I don’t like hot fudge sundaes.

“Like” should not be used as a substitute for “said” or as a prelude to a description of someone’s behavior.

She’s telling her story very loudly to another stranger in the waiting room. She says that everybody assumes she dropped out of high school. That everybody assumes she is in her teens. From her story it sounds like she is 24. She acts like she is 16. She also dresses young. Converse. Jeans. T-shirt. She wears no makeup so her acne is openly visible.

I’m trying to be good. I’m trying to be kind. I’m not doing very well, but I’ve not said anything to her yet.

I remember one time I was in water aerobics class. I’d been going for over two years. This new lady starts showing up, 10 years older, fake tan, scratchy, twangy voice. Barbara had obviously spent a lot of time working out. She had no fat on her. She wasn’t muscular though. She worked out very hard in the class.

But I can’t stand her. She’s uncouth. She’s grating. She’s loud. She thinks it is funny to dunk people. I hate being dunked. She hasn’t done it to me, but I’m wary. I’ve got my eye on her just in case she gets too close.

One day she was near me when we were doing a move we’ve done many times before. And when I say we, I mean me and everybody else. She is an interloper. I’ve never seen her do this move. Maybe she has been in other water aerobics classes. I don’t know, and I don’t care.

Because she felt that it was her place to tell me how to do the move.

I ignored her. And I started disliking her more. And I kept on doing the move the same way I’ve always done it. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe her way is right. But I don’t care.

Right now, I’m trying not to be Barbara.

I want to tell this girl that at a minimum she must stop saying “Like” all the time. But she doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know that I have a degree in English. She doesn’t know that I’ve tutored students from kindergarten to college for over ten years.

She doesn’t know that I too have had a problem with people assuming I’m a lot younger than I am.

I want to fix her.

Really, I want her to stop yammering.

Really, she reminds me of me when I was that age.

So I sit here, and write, and pray, and hope for redemption and healing, for myself and for her. I wasn’t planning on having this kind of emotional turmoil while sitting in the waiting room getting my car fixed, but when you are stuck some place for 7 hours, anything can happen.

Tuesday Buffet

Posted on July 29, 2013 by betsybeadhead | Leave a comment

There is a difference between seeing and noticing. We see all the time. We rarely notice. We rarely take the time to slow down and really look at what is going on. We are often in such a hurry that we take a glance and then go on, missing most of everything.

It helps to look at stop-motion animation or to take pictures of things as they are growing. I had a project once. I took a picture of the same tree, from the same spot, at the same time every Tuesday for a year. I saw the tree change and evolve, grow and decay from one season to the next. I stood in rain and snow. I changed a little when I did that project. I’d wanted to do it for a long time, and then I finally decided that it was time to start. Then I was committed to it. I posted the weekly picture on my personal Facebook page, and it turned out that my friends looked forward to it.

There was something personally transforming about that project. I don’t know whether it was because I finally got over my inertia (a common malady) or I finally actually noticed that tree, or both, but I changed. I started to look at everything this way, and wonder what else I was missing, and wonder when I was going to start other projects I’d thought about for a long time.

I almost missed being able to complete that project. The tree, a Bradford Pear, was on the lot of a Chinese buffet that I went to. I’d gone there for at least a decade. It was a fixture of the community. It was just something that was always there. Until it wasn’t. I was three-quarters through my project and they closed. They had bought the competition and moved. Now, I could no longer go to lunch there and just walk out afterwards at 12:45 on a Tuesday and take the picture. I had to go eat quickly elsewhere, and then drive over there to get that shot.

I was committed to that time, and that place, and that day. The project depended on being consistent.

I contemplated cancelling the project. I was almost done. It was good enough. My friends changed my mind – they’d come to look forward to that tree, in the same way that I had. I redoubled my efforts and completed the project.

If I’d waited a few months longer to start the project, it would have been that much more difficult to finish. There could have been a bad storm and the tree could have been damaged, or it could have succumbed to rot and been taken out. I could have missed the whole thing before I even began.

Other things happened as well, to me. I’d suddenly had to buy a different car, and I’d had to have surgery to remove a precancerous spot. I started going to the Y. I started journaling again. Perhaps it was all linked – I started paying attention.

Here is a selection of the pictures for you. (I’ve made another change – I’ve edited this to have ALL the pictures. This is a meditation on how we can always go back and fix things. Our work doesn’t have to be “perfect” at the start.)

The first picture, 7-27-10

8-3-10

8-10-10

8-17-10

8-24-10

8-31-10

9-14-10. Missed a week because we were on vacation in North Carolina, before my surgery.

9-21-10. The day before my surgery.

9-29-10. A Wednesday. Not allowed to drive for a week after surgery, this was the first time I went out.

10-5-10

10-12-10, a touch of fall

10-19-10

10-26-10. Raining hard.

11-2-10

11-9-10

11-16-10

11-23-10

11-30-10. My birthday. My husband drove. The restaurant owner bought my lunch.

12-7-10

12-14-12, a tiny bit of snow. There was a Christmas luncheon at work, so I ate quickly and then drove here to take this picture and do the recycling chore.

12-21-10

12-29-10. A Wednesday. I was off for the Christmas holidays and forgot that yesterday was Tuesday.

1-4-11. This would have been my Mom’s 70th birthday. She died at 53 from smoking cigarettes.

1-11-11, dreary day, with snow

1-18-11. Just found out that Peter, the owner of the buffet, has bought the competition that is a block away. This location will be closing. How will I continue this project?

1-25-11

2-1-11. The Tuesday buffet special price has been discontinued, now that there is no competition.

2-8-11

2-15-11

2-22-11

3-1-11

3-8-11 The buffet has closed. I ate quickly somewhere else and then made a special trip here.

3-15-11. The Bradford pear is just beginning to blossom. I parked out of frame to reference the fact that the buffet is closed now and things are different.

3-22-11 If I’d stopped going I would have missed this glorious display of beauty.

3-29-11

4-5-11. While here, I saw another car in the lot. A lady went into the building. A new owner?

4-12-11

4-19-11

4-26-11. There was a bad storm recently and the Bradford pear has lost a branch.

5-3-11 The place isn’t being taken care of – a branch that had fallen is still there and the grass needs cutting.

5-10-11

5-17-11. A “cartoon” version from last week. I was home sick, and next week we plan on going on vacation to NC. I didn’t want my friends to miss that much so I created this.

6-7-11. Three whole weeks missed. Sick, vacation, and then a going-away party for someone at work. I was starting to think about cancelling the project. The place was sold and it was hard to get here on time every week now.

6-14-11. Back on track. Recommitted.

6-21-11

6-28-11

7-5-11

7-26-11 -and we are back around to the beginning. Not a lot looks different, but a lot has happened.

———–
Edit to add – This is the most recent picture, taken at the same spot, or as close as I can determine.

The lot is now a Zaxby’s. I’m standing in the drive-through lane. The entire building was torn down and the foo-dogs were removed, much to the chagrin of the the former owner, who wanted them back. They cost $10K each. This picture was not taken on a Tuesday at 1 pm as all the others were, because I can’t get here at that time anymore because of where I work now. This was around three on a Friday. Yet another change. My father always said “You just adjust and adjust and adjust, and then you die.”

Here are more pictures of that area, taken after the buffet had closed.

The building

Through the windows

The foo-dog guardians under the Bradford pear, in bloom.

Sleep (vs. alcoholism)

Posted on July 24, 2013 by betsybeadhead | 2 Comments

I know a lady who says she can’t get to sleep unless her husband is lying next to her in bed. He is retired from a third shift job and simply will not come to bed before 2. She often has to be up for work at 6. The math just doesn’t work out.

He says he is not tired. She’s repeatedly asked him to come to bed so she can sleep and he repeatedly says he will be there “in a minute.” An hour or two later he is still up, mindlessly surfing the web.

She spends the day dragging. She has almost fallen asleep at work because of lack of sleep. She has a heart problem that is exacerbated by not getting enough sleep.

I’ve started thinking about this in terms of alcoholism. Say she is the sober spouse, and his drinking is affecting her. If he listens to her needs and comes to bed, then it is OK. If he doesn’t and she suffers, then there is a problem.

So, what to do? Should she take sleeping pills? Should they get marriage counseling?

Or would a divorce be better?

Sometimes you have to separate yourself from people and situations that are harmful to you. You may want to be part of a “happy family” but if it is a family that is just for show, then the only person being fooled is you. The same works with friends. Better to have just one real friend than a bunch of people who aren’t really very loving to you, who don’t really care about your well-being.

Or, what about this? Perhaps her need to have him there is psychosomatic. Perhaps she needs to think back to before she met him and remember how she got to sleep then. If you can’t sleep because someone else isn’t present, is that their problem, or yours?