Christmas, and bottled up feelings.

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I hate Christmas. I don’t hate the idea of it. I hate the execution of it. So painful. So hard. So tedious. Many Christmases I’ve washed down with a bucket of tears and a side of regret.

One was with my boyfriend, now husband. We met with his brother and then wife at a Mexican restaurant. Jeff gave him presents. Scott gave both of them presents, some of which were from me. I got nothing. Not even a token something. I wanted to go sit in the car and cry. I wanted to remove myself from all of it. I wanted to just leave, because it was obvious that I didn’t matter, I didn’t count.

I didn’t leave. I sat there, being ignored. I ate my chicken enchilada and chalupa in silence. I drank my sweet tea. I held in my hurt and my anger and my sadness.

I cried all the way home, wee wee wee, just like a little pig.

Sadness and anger are the same thing. They are signs that expectations aren’t being met. They are a sign that what you think should happen isn’t happening.

Perhaps I need to lower my expectations. Perhaps I need to not care so much.

Life was a lot easier when I was stoned. Things didn’t hurt as much. Feelings were further down. Pain didn’t last as long.

Last year was another painful Christmas with that family. I’m married now, and I’ve known them for ten years. The years previous were awkward. I kept feeling like nobody knew what to get for me, and that I didn’t know what to get for them. Since there was a new member added to the family I decided to go to the effort of getting each person to fill out a gift list. I asked each person what they liked and didn’t like. What is a good present, and what is a terrible present? I figured it would make it easier. I gathered the lists from each person and made sure each one got a copy of all the others. There. Done. Everybody knows what everybody likes.

When Christmas Day came, I made sure that each person had at least two presents from me. Some were handmade by me. All were picked with that person’s wants and personality in mind. Somewhere in the middle of the opening of presents I realized that I had gotten two presents. Two. For me. That is all. And one of them was a blanket. My sister in law got a similar blanket, but hers was in the color I liked.

Why did I go to the bother of that list?

Why do I go to the bother of caring?

Why do I keep allowing myself to be hurt by these people that I did not choose?

When I commented on my Facebook page how hurtful that Christmas was, my sister in law insisted that I take it down. She’s a therapist. You’d think she’d know something about pain and hurt, and how dangerous it is to suppress it. She cared more about her husband’s feelings than mine. That is her right. I should have taken it as a sign of who she really is.

Once again, I don’t count. I don’t matter. I’m ignored, and forgotten, and left out. I’ve asked my husband to tell his family that it would be easier if nobody bought presents for each other this year. That way, everybody would save money. That way, no feelings would be hurt. He hasn’t taken the time to do this. It would be really embarrassing to show up at that house with no presents and they actually, for once, got me something.

Perhaps I shouldn’t go. Perhaps I shouldn’t care. His mom has had cancer all this year. She should be dead by now, according to the doctors. It is a big deal that she is even still alive. Perhaps I’m just not caring. We are all dying, and it doesn’t make anybody special. She announced that she had cancer before Christmas of last year and it was super difficult – people pretended like everything was fine.

I’m sick of pretending.

Being emotional and getting upset is embarrassing. It is right up there with vomiting or defecating in public. People can’t handle it when your insides come outside. They want you to take it to a private place and do it all by yourself and clean up the mess. Don’t show. Don’t let anybody see that things aren’t fine.

But sometimes you’ve bottled it up for so long that it doesn’t come out in a clean way. Sometimes it doesn’t come out when you want it to. Sometimes it bubbles up and out and over and it leaves a big mess right there, all over you, standing there, right in the middle of the room.

Sick of being hurt.

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I keep getting hurt. I keep getting left out, ignored, forgotten. Christmas just reminds me of this. But it happens all the time.

There are friends who say “How come we never see you?” And then they post about the great time they had with friends at their house, at the pub, at a class that they know I would like. How can I be seen if I’m not invited? How can I be a part of the group if I’m not included?

It hurts, sure, when people I thought were my friends exclude me. They have that choice. They can invite whoever they want. If they had to invite me it would take away the meaning of the invitation. But when they then say that they miss me, and it is their fault, then I’m confused. How could I know there was something to attend if I’m not told?

It hurts to find out that I’ve missed out on a gathering.

Social media is great for pulling people together. It is also great for breaking them apart. It is proof that you are missing out. Look at all those pictures of people having fun without you.

Nobody thinks about feelings anymore.

We all know more about the goings on of the Kardashian’s and the Duck Commander than we do about our own friends and family.

Crazy house – work, weight, and wasting your life.

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When you are in the crazy house, all the crazy people know when you are one of them. When you start to get normal again, they leave you alone.

I’ve noticed that dysfunctional people tend to hang out with each other. Birds of a feather, you know. They don’t want to hang out with people who have gotten better. They don’t want to get better. Misery loves company, you know.

People say that they want to get healthy, they want to get well, but they don’t really. They want to talk about it and complain about it and whine about it, but they don’t want to do anything about it. And people who have been in that pit don’t want to listen to them whine and complain. They want them to walk with them or write or eat the same things they are eating.

They don’t want to get dragged back into that pit.

I spent so much time trying to come up with workarounds for the people at work. They would notice that I’d lost weight and they’d say that they wish they could. They can. They won’t.

Come walk at lunch, I said. “But I like to read at lunch” they said.
Get an audiobook, I said. “I can’t do that” they said.

It is only 20 minutes for walking, that isn’t a lot of time to miss the book. “It is too much.”

Round and round it goes.

Their choice.

I wish they would just be honest and say that they want to be healthy, but they don’t want to do the work. Who does, really? It isn’t easy. It isn’t fun. But nothing worth having is easily obtained.

I have a coworker who says that she needs to get exercise, but everything makes her hot and her knees hurt.

Go to water aerobics, I said. That is the perfect answer. Her responses started with “I can’t find a swimsuit my size” (I found a website that has all ranges of sizes). Then “I would be embarrassed to wear a swimsuit” “Everybody at the gym is in shape, I’ll stick out.”

None of that is true. People go to the gym to get healthy. They aren’t in shape. There are plenty of people who are huge who are there.

Then she came up with the “fact” that she has to cover for us at work. She doesn’t. We’ve got it. The schedule is fine. And ultimately, what is more important, work or life? If you have to sacrifice your health for your work, you are giving up the wrong thing. The job doesn’t care if you kill yourself at it. We aren’t saving the world here. We are running a library.

Use the recumbent bike at home, I said. It doesn’t need special clothes, it is easy on the knees. Her husband bought it for himself. She doesn’t have to worry about other people seeing her. It can be used any time.

Finally she admitted that she just doesn’t want to. That would have been so much easier if she had started with that.

I don’t have time for them anymore. I don’t cheer them on. If they want to come walk with me, great. If they want to see how I eat, great. But I’m not coaching, I’m not cheering, I don’t care. Not anymore.

Nobody holds me accountable. Nobody found workarounds for me. Nobody cheers me on to exercise every day.

I can’t be the reason they take care of themselves. They have to want to. They have to care about themselves.

This has to be a lot like what it is to be part of a relationship with an alcoholic. They have to want to get better. You can’t do it for them. You just have to make sure their madness doesn’t get you down.

My first mini-triathlon.

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I participated in a mini triathlon in spring of 2011. It was at the Y and the entrance fee went for a program so disadvantaged people could go to the Y. I’m not really sure about entrance fees for exercise events. You have to pay to work really hard. This seems backwards.

But there were a lot of perks. Not only was there a t-shirt, they had snacks and drinks and giveaways. There was a huge travel bag filled with stuff from companies they had gotten to sponsor the event. I gave some of it away as gifts. We more than got our money back.

The event was not as long as a regular triathlon, but it was plenty long enough for me. I had just started to work out maybe 6 months previously, so it was daunting to even think about it. The event consisted of 50 minutes of water aerobics, 50 minutes of spin class, and then a three mile walk afterwards. There was only 15 minutes in between each event.

My goal was to at least do all three things in the day. I didn’t know if I’d be able to complete the event in the allotted time. I wasn’t sure about my energy level. I wasn’t sure about much of anything, but I knew that I wanted to try.

I’m one of those people that will create a goal so that I will get there. I’ve signed myself up to teach classes on stuff that I wanted to learn about. I didn’t have a class ready. I used the fact that I was going to have to teach the class as a reason to learn.

I knew I could do the water aerobics part – The class I was already taking was 75 minutes long. I knew I could walk. Three miles seemed like a lot at the time but I thought I could do it. Spin class was another thing entirely. I had never taken a spin class and I hadn’t ridden a bicycle much in twenty years. I figured my legs could handle it if I went slowly, but I knew deep down that my butt wasn’t going to be happy.

I trained for spin class on a trainer in the basement. My husband got me a device where I could turn my own bike into a stationary bike. He’d gotten me a bike a few months earlier hoping that I’d go riding with him. This wasn’t the best idea. Gravity and I are such good friends that we have to get really close to each other. A lot. My fear of falling off the bike keeps me from riding the bike. Yeah, I know, it is all in my head. If I stop worrying about it, it will all be fine. That is easy to say, but hard to do, especially when you are hurtling down a hill and you forget where the brakes are. But I digress.

So I trained on the bike in the basement. I sat on it, pedaling with different resistances. I pedaled, reading a book because I was bored, for 50 minutes at a time. I built up my legs. My butt got used to the idea.

I didn’t really train for the walking part. I walked as usual at lunch, and a little around the neighborhood, but I didn’t go for three miles. I’m not sure where I thought that extra bit of energy was going to come from on the day of the triathlon after doing two other events. Again, my idea was that I’d pace myself. It wasn’t about winning anything. It wasn’t about getting a good time. It was about trying, and hopefully finishing.

When the day came I was a little nervous. Strangely, I wasn’t nervous about doing the event. I was nervous about the fact that I hadn’t pooped yet. There is something about staying regular that really helps the day go well. I didn’t want any surprises. I certainly didn’t want to have to stop what I was doing and go to the bathroom at the Y. I don’t like sitting on public toilets, and the ones at the Y are the very definition of public. They aren’t that awesome. They aren’t anywhere near as bad as the toilet in “Trainspotting”, but they aren’t pristine either. And pooping is something that shouldn’t be rushed. Strangely, it just didn’t matter as the day went on.

When I got there I saw that they had a spread of food for us. Bananas, apples, bagels, cream cheese, nuts – good things to help us refuel. There was lots of water too – and no sports drinks. I’m glad for that. It is better to eat real food. They also had all of our “swag.” Lots of stuff, just for participating. We also got our t-shirts then. I took all of this too my car, and briefly thought that I could leave right now – I’ve got the proof that I did it. Nobody would be any the wiser.

But I would be. I would know that I hadn’t earned it. I could never wear that shirt, not really.

They gave us a choice of water aerobics or spin class first. We all were going to go on the walk together. I chose water aerobics based on the suggestion of the staff member who signed me up. It seems best now – I didn’t have to go from dry to wet to dry.

I paced myself in water aerobics. I didn’t do anything at full speed. I did all the moves, but I didn’t do them very hard. I wasn’t sure how much energy I needed. I still had the idea that I was going to have to just take the day to do the event. When that part was over I had just enough time to shower the chorine off of me, change quickly, and get a bite to eat from the spread set out for us. I think they had a guard set up to keep the regular Y members from our table. I was really grateful they had that for us. I’d brought some “gorp” but this was much better. I left my “gorp” in my bag.

Spin class wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great either. I don’t think I’ll ever do it for real. The teacher was very enthusiastic and encouraging. She was the only fun part of it. The bikes were stiff – much harder to use than my 21 speed at home. The seat was too high. There was a very nice seat cushion they provided me. Early on I figured out that I should just pedal along. I wasn’t standing up on the pedals to “go up the hill”. I wasn’t “racing past the person just ahead of me.” I was there for a simple country backroads ride.

Once that was over I had a little more time than before because I didn’t have to change. I took the time to rest a little, but I found I still had energy. I guess those bagels and bananas were doing the trick. So I went on the walk along with everybody else.

It was there I realized that I needed to be wearing some other shoes. They were kind of like Keds. They weren’t broken in. I didn’t have any inserts in them. My feet started to hurt. Then they started to blister. By then I’m already through half of the walk and the only way back was to walk. By then I wanted to pee. I was looking at the trees and thinking quite a bit about holding back from the group and just taking care of business right there. I’d already peed while I was inside, waiting, but something about being on a walk, far away from a readily accessible bathroom, makes me want to go.

I decided I could hold it. I’ve held it before. I decided it was my body trying to get me to quit. It does that sometimes. I’ll commit to some healthy course of action – no fried foods, and then I’ll see some fried fish and then I can think of nothing else. Half the job of getting healthy is ignoring your body when it is trying to distract you.

Then I got bored. I didn’t have anybody to talk to. Talking to other people helps to pass the time and take your mind off of unpleasant things. I wasn’t a very fast walker at the time, and I certainly wasn’t very fast with those darn shoes. I was drifting more and more towards the end.

The group was walking on the greenway. There were several different paths on it, and I’d never walked on it before. I was starting to get a little worried. What if I got left behind? How would I know how to get back? What if I took the wrong turn? All his worrying made the path seem even longer.

There were some cheery people along the way. That helped a lot. A patron from the library was a regular walker of the greenway and she was with some other people that day. She wasn’t doing the triathlon, but she was cheering us on anyway. They had made signs to encourage us. That was very nice. She gave me an extra big smile because she recognized me. She didn’t know that I exercised. I certainly didn’t look like it at the time. I was glad to see her, and heartened by her enthusiasm.

By the end I was alone. Everybody else had gone ahead. To entertain myself I started reciting the Nicene Creed …”We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, creator of heaven and earth…” It is pretty long. I was meditating on each part, each word, each section. What do all these words mean? I’d memorized it years ago when I got confirmed, but by now I wanted to really study it. No better time than the present, and it kept me company, and kept me sane.

I was the last person off the course. But I made it. I made it through the whole thing, in the time allotted. I’m glad that mental experiment worked, because it has helped me with other things. Now I know it is better to try, even if I don’t think I can do it. Just try. Just get started. I might surprise myself.

That t-shirt is one of my prize possessions now.

(more) Thoughts on mental health.

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Let us not confuse mentally ill with homicidal.

I think we can agree that all people who are homicidal are mentally ill. The fact that some people feel it is necessary to express their frustrations with life by killing others is most certainly proof that they are not well adjusted. Being well adjusted is a hallmark of mental health. How much do you fit in? How well can you take care of yourself? If you can get along with others, you are well adjusted.

I’ve never understood the idea of trying to determine if a murderer is sane or not. If you kill anyone for any reason other than self-defense, you aren’t sane, it would seem to me.

Now, let’s shift gears for a moment. This is important. All people who are mentally ill are not homicidal. To have a mental health diagnosis does not mean that you are a murderer. It does not mean that you have to live in a group home. It does not mean that you are a danger to anybody.

It is the same as having a diagnosis of diabetes or of high cholesterol. It is something you live with and deal with.

The media must stop bandying about the phrase “mentally ill” every time someone does something horrific enough to warrant being on the news. They might be mentally ill. One in four people are. But the media is the media – not trained mental health professionals. They are not qualified to make an assessment on the mental state of anyone.

How much of the bad press that mentally ill people are getting is why there are so many mentally ill people who are not well adjusted? Who would want to go get help with their mental health problems if they are going to immediately tagged as being homicidal? There is a huge stigma to being mentally ill, already. It is often seen as a lack of willpower or a character flaw. Add the mistaken idea of homicidal in the mix and no wonder people won’t take care of this problem.

Mental health is treatable. You can live a long and productive and happy life and have a mental illness. Exercise helps. Eating well helps. Actually, I can’t think of anything that isn’t helped by exercise and eating well, but mental health is high on the list. If you want to start feeling bad, lay around all day eating junk food. Multiply that by a month and you’ll really be in a funk. Start taking care of yourself and you’ll see a difference not only in your body but in your mood.

How much of our mental health issues in this country are from people not being taught that it is OK for them to speak up for themselves? And if one in four people really are mentally ill, as the saying goes, then it really isn’t that unusual at all. Perhaps “mentally ill” is the new normal.

Beach reading

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Many people like to take a book to read when they go to the beach. Some people take library books. Some people take library books onto the beach itself. If the books have plastic laminate covers, they often get sand inside them. It feels a little weird when you pick up the book afterwards. I’m not really sure how sand gets inside the cover since the whole point of the cover is that it keeps the cover clean.

This is what it looks like.
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Another view. If the sand is in there long enough it dents the plastic cover so it feels like braille. This hasn’t gotten to that point yet.
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Now, most of the books that are taken to the beach are fluffy romance novels.

Not this one. This is a real surprise for a beach read.
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Generally people who read Lovecraft aren’t into going to the beach. Too much sunlight. Too many people.

Here’s a final shot, of the sand collected in the bottom.
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Kindergarten 12-4-13

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There was no school last Wednesday. It was Thanksgiving break.

Today there was a substitute teacher. Fortunately the regular teacher had left the supplies I needed and instructions. I’d managed to get there a little earlier so I had time to figure out what the game plan was before rather than during the session. Sometimes I get there and I have to figure it out as I go. Sometimes it doesn’t matter even if I get there early and study the plan, because the students have their own agendas.

Today I had S, V, and J on the list, in that order. I’ve asked the teacher to put them in the order I need to work with them, and usually I go with that. I still don’t know why she puts S on my list because he does fabulously. Today was no exception.

I had the old standbys and some new items today. I had the foam alphabet board, the letter tracing cards, and some books. I also had these colorful laminated folders with old fashioned library check out envelopes inside. I had quickly flipped through them but not really studied what was inside. I figured that I’d learn it along with them.

S chose the foam alphabet board and quickly was able to find every letter that I asked for. It is so amazing to watch them grow! He did well the last time I worked with him but this was remarkable. I realized we could move on and quickly switched to the stack of folders and had him pick one. He chose the red one. I looked inside and it looked a little hard.

There were the standard library book card pockets, but instead of letters inside them there were pictures of items. The student needed to name the item ( works on vocabulary) and then figure out what letter the word started with and match it to the letter on the library pocket. That is a huge step. That is going from a sound to a letter. Last time we were working with matching capital letters to lower case letters. Even that was hard. This seemed impossible.

Never say never. S did fabulously. This is even more amazing since he was tired. He told me that he had stayed up late playing with toys. We read two books together afterwards.

When I say “books” I mean these little paperbacks that have maybe eight pages at most, and each page has less than ten words. They are the very essence of a quick read. They are easy and they give the children a sense of accomplishment and keep their attention.

I sent him back and went to get V. She too did very well with the foam alphabet board so we switched to the red folder.

J was sent by the teacher to take a note to another teacher, so he passed V and I in the hall as we were working on the red folder. He stopped, looked at what we were doing, and said “Her doesn’t know how to do that so good.”

I wasn’t sure what to respond to first. A) it is grammatically incorrect. B) it is rude. C) it isn’t true.

She was doing very well, and I said so. I wanted to make sure I defended her and set the record straight. I decided that was the most important thing. I didn’t say what I was thinking. I bet that she could do that exercise far better than he could.

He asked me if he was on my list and I said yes, but it depended on whether I had time or not. He looked at V and said “Hurry up!” There is no hurrying this – I’ll keep them as long as they will work with me. Well, or until the class goes out to recess. I didn’t get to work with J today because we ran out of time. In a way I’m glad. I don’t like to reward rude behavior.

I try to space them out and make sure that I can get to all of them, but I’m also interested in quality over quantity. I find it amazing when I remember that when I started tutoring three years ago I’d have five or six on my list. I was there for the same amount of time. I don’t know how I did it. Perhaps these really need more work and attention. I do know that there is another tutor so the teacher can spread out the students. I also know I get the lowest performers.

There are two little girls who look at me with longing eyes every time on Wednesdays. They ask me if I’m going to work with them. They will most likely never be on my list – they don’t need me. I try to get across the idea that I don’t make the list, but I don’t want to get across the fact that they should be grateful they aren’t on my list. The ones on my list are the ones who are the lowest of the low when it comes to performance. The teacher hypes up the fact that the ones on the list are lucky that they get to work with me, so these girls want to get in on this. The teacher hypes it up because she wants the kids I work with to get excited rather than think it is a remedial action.

It is exciting to learn, and I am grateful that I somehow have the ability to get inside their heads and help them get the missing parts. I’m grateful I get to see them grow and develop. While I wish that I’d get to work with a larger variety of students like I have done in years past, I also realize that I’d probably get frustrated going from one who works at a second grade level back to one who works at a pre-K level.

I got a letter from my brother.

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My brother wrote me a letter for my birthday. I got it on Tuesday. What is it about Tuesday right now? Last Tuesday is when I got another upsetting letter from a family member. I’m not happy about this chaos all at once. I’d like it to take a number and stand in line.

This is the same person who never remembered my birthday (45 years) and never remembered my address. He was constantly asking for it. I’m his sister. He should know these things. But I was an afterthought. I was always an afterthought.

This is the same person that I stopped talking to two and a half years ago. It was spring of 2011. I’d finally had enough, for the second time in my life, of dealing with him. He was constantly twisting my words, and constantly paranoid. He was constantly pushing me around, and treating me as a thing instead of a person. He called me “Sister” rather than by my name. He isn’t getting treatment for his psychopathic behavior, and he isn’t saying he is sorry now.

This is the same person who has abused me throughout my life. He wants to build a bridge, he says. I don’t trust him. I’ve learned that to trust him is like letting a thief in my house. Against my better judgment I’ve let him back into my life before, only to be hurt worse each time. Every time he steals something. Sometimes it is just material possessions. Sometimes it is my peace of mind.

He included a picture of him and his son, all gangly at 17 and sticking out his tongue, standing with a cousin of ours. From the picture it looks like they were in England. I had a brief moment of terror – he’s gotten to that side of the family and is telling them his version of the truth. I could go for damage control and write them, but it would just be my word against his. This is an echo of last Tuesday’s drama all over again. It is sad to see how people can be swayed to believe the words of someone who has ulterior motives. If people don’t get both sides, it shows they don’t really care about the relationship. Or the truth.

This is the same person who had to declare bankruptcy because he was a quarter of a million dollars in debt. I haven’t had to declare bankruptcy, yet I don’t have the money to afford a trip to England. It just doesn’t seem fair. His son looks cheeky in this shot, with his tongue sticking out. I’m thinking if this is the best picture Ian could have sent, then that is saying something about the attitude of his child. At least he is letting his attitude show on his face. With Ian you had to get really close to see how crazy he was.

The psychopaths are hard to spot sometimes. Sometimes they look like normal people. That’s the problem. You get lulled into a false sense of safety and then BAM! You are hurt, badly. Blindsided. I’m getting tired of being blindsided. There are too many people recently that I thought I could trust that have suddenly gone batshit crazy on me.

I don’t want him back in my life. I don’t want to deal with him. I feel that there is a slice of guilt cake I’m being served. He’s offering to “build a bridge” and I’m refusing to walk across it. That way I look like the bad guy. I don’t trust my brother’s bridge. I have played this game before and I always fall into the river, and I always drown. The stones get thrown at me. I always get hurt.

I gave him up the same way I gave up fried foods and pot. I gave them up because I needed to get healthy. I needed to be strong. I knew those things were pulling me down. But every now and then I feel like I want to try those things again. I forget how bad they really make me feel. It has been so long that I’ve felt well that I forget what it feels like to feel bad. I forget that once I start down that path again it takes a lot of energy to get off of it again. I’m reminding myself of this now to steel myself. I don’t want to get hurt again.

We have no good memories together, he and I. I look askance at people when they talk about how lovely their brothers are to them. It seems like a Disney story, a fairy tale. I can’t match it up with my reality. I think he wants a relationship with me only because I’m the only sister he’ll ever have. I think that he is in love with the IDEA of a sister, while he is not even “in like” with his actual sister. He doesn’t know anything about me. He never has cared enough to see me as a person. I was always a pawn in his games, and he was always winning.

He hasn’t come to realize that “family” isn’t just a word or an idea. It requires both people working together. It requires kindness and compassion. It isn’t about one person manipulating another person. It isn’t about debate but dialogue. He hasn’t come to realize that “family” means nothing – it is artificial. You don’t choose your family. It is all an accident. And like most accidents, it is very messy and there is a lot of pain. Worse, sometimes you don’t heal right and you walk with a limp for the rest of your life.

Wallpaper

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Here is an early Christmas gift for you. Wallpaper for your desktop or phone! These are pictures I’ve taken that are interesting but not too busy, so they go well behind other things.

The plastic cup of water at a local Mexican restaurant, with light shining through it.
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Sunlight through slush on the windshield.
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A different shot of the same thing.
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Sunlight patterns on a wall in my bathroom – I fingerpainted the wall, and there is a picture I painted in the top right.
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One of the floor in the Frist. See “A Trip to the Frist” for the backstory.
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Another one.
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A blurry accident. I think this was taken on the day I went to get an MRI.
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Digital manipulation from me – I’d taken a picture of some spirally art paper, then used two different photo manipulation applications to get to this point.
wall2

The Formica countertop at the same Mexican restaurant in the first picture.
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A guy’s shirt at a “Compassionate Nashville” event. He is from India, and has no idea what the shirt says.
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Sunlight through a sheet of seaweed paper. Part of my breakfast.
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Please let me know if you use these and what you think about them.

The hackberry that wouldn’t stop.

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I went to eat at a tiny Persian restaurant in Nashville about two years ago. There was a chain-link fence that surrounded the parking lot. The restaurant was in a former house, so I suspect this was the original fence that marked the back yard. There were three hackberry trees that had grown up around the fence.

Nobody notices hackberry trees. They are weeds. They aren’t that pretty. The bark is bumpy and scratchy and terrible for climbing. The leaves are tiny and don’t turn any color other than brown when fall comes. The berries aren’t for eating unless you are a bird.

But hackberry trees have a lot to teach us about perseverance. They quietly grew. They get taller. These three trees grew closer to the fence. And then they grew around the fence. They didn’t push it aside. They just enveloped it. Year by year, millimeter by millimeter, they wrapped around the fence, becoming part of the fence.

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