Lillie Berry Chenault
March 2, 1908 - May 31, 2003

Thank you to everyone who has prayed and been there for me over these past weeks.  Grandma Lillie passed away peacefully this afternoon.  Her three children and her younger sister were at her side. 

Farm Life

He stood at the kitchen sink and watched her start back toward the house from the barn.  Her halting steps and the way she held her side had him out the back door and off the porch before the screen could slam against the wooden frame.  She stopped and waited for him to reach her, but turned her face away from his gaze. 

"What happened?"

"It was stupid.  I can't believe it."

He reached up and brushed the tear from her cheek.  "It'll be  okay.  Tell me what happened."

"The cow," she shook her head and took a deep breath.  "She kicked the bucket."

"Just the bucket?"

"No."

He had to lean in to hear the whisper.  There in the backyard with her face turning red and in spite of her attempts to push his arms away, he unbuttoned her soft cotton feed-sack dress and pushed it from her shoulders.  The ugly bruise forming on her hip answered his question.  He pulled her into his arms and stroked her hair.

As she felt his gentle touch, she lost her fragile control and began to sob on the front of his faded overalls. 

"Its all right.  Don't worry, it's all right.  We'll take care of you."

"But, I still have to milk that cow.  I'm not getting enough and the baby needs -"

"Sssssh.  The baby will be fine.   In fact, I want you to take the kids and go to your mother's for the day.  She has milk, and you need to rest."

"But I have to can."

"Nothin'.  You are cannin' nothin' today.  You're going to your mother and that's the last I have to say."

She shuddered but nodded her agreement.  He got the truck and pulled it up to the front of the house.  She carried the baby, and held a sleepy toddler by the hand.  A slightly older child followed her with a basket.

He shook his head at the sight.  She didn't need her sewing basket, that wasn't rest.  But when he opened his mouth to tell his daughter to put it back, he realized that if he sent her without something to occupy her hands, she was as likely to spend the day in her mother's garden as on the porch.

When he picked them up that evening, she looked less tired, and the worry lines were eased around her eyes.  "How did it go?"

"Mamma told me that the baby is growing and looking good.  I guess she's getting enough to eat in spite of my drying up."  The infection that interrupted her nursing when the baby was barely three months old frightened her more than she wanted to admit.  She nursed the older children until they were over a year old. But this precious baby, so much smaller than she remembered the others being had been so weak to start with and then deprived of her mother's milk just when she should have been getting a good growth spurt.  Making the switch to a bottle had been difficult for them both.  If she couldn't find a way to control the cow so that the milk supply was steady, well, she couldn't bear to think what might happen. 

The next morning she woke when he slipped from their bed.  "Where are you going?  It's still too early."

"Hush, go back to sleep.  I'm going to milk today."

"What?  You can't."

"I believe I know how to milk a cow.  Now go back to sleep."

She couldn't lie in their bed knowing that he was doing her chores.  A hot flush of shame filled her, what kind of farm wife lay in bed while her man milked?  Then she thought she could at least have a hot breakfast waiting for him when he was done.  So it was that she stood at the kitchen sink and saw him come out of the barn with what appeared to be a full bucket.  But that wasn't what made her mouth drop open.  He was wearing her dress.  Oh, he couldn't button it all the way, but it was pulled over his long johns and she couldn't drag her eyes away from the sight of his legs sticking out from beneath the fluttering hem. 

He walked in the back door and set the bucket on the counter.  She couldn't think of anthing to say.  He laughed at the open mouthed expression of shock and leaned over to kiss her, "My, that sausage smells good.  You sure know how to treat a man right." 

She stood and watched him peel off the dress on his way back to their room.  Then realized that her breakfast was about to burn.  She never learned exactly what had taken place in the barn that morning, but the cow never tried to kick her again.

*************

She may not have known, but I do.  Forty years after that cow learned how not to treat a woman, I sat on his knee and heard from my Grandfather how he'd taken a bucket and a 2x4 to the barn that morning.  He figured that cows aren't really bright, so when she saw Grandma's dress, and smelled Grandma's scent, she thought it was Grandma.  But when she raised her hoof to kick, Grandpa hit her between the eyes.  He said it only took about four good whacks to convince her to change her ways. 

Learning About Death

It's an old saying that in life, the only certainty is death.  Many of you who read my blog know that over the past few months my Grandmother has been approaching death.  It's been a difficult time for my family.  Grandma Lillie has never been an easy personality and the stress of these final days and weeks have intensified the extremes. 

We just went through the process of caring for my other Grandmother as she approached death.  That was a wrenching four months as she gradually diminished following a massive stroke.  We had long to ponder the ethical and practical implications of modern health care.  Is it a mercy to use all possible life-reserving measures when a patient is in pain? or suffering with massive debilitation?  Should we use maintenance procedures such as feeding tubes and respirators which could keep a body living for years? These questions are much better contemplated before the decision has to be made.  We thought as a family that we had the plan worked out.  We knew the wishes of the women themselves, and we thought we were comfortable with the answers.  Until we had to give them.

With Granny the issue was the feeding tube.  She had told us that she didn't want one, that if she ever got in "that shape" we should prevent medical staff from beginning that process.  Then she had her stroke.  The stroke impaired her speech and ability to swallow.  But she was still there.  Granny recognized her family, nodded and shook her head as much as possible to let us know that she still had preferences about her care.  She held on to our hands when she couldn't nod, and gave the slightest squeeze to communicate.  Finally, she was reduced to blinking her eyes.  One blink for yes, two for no.  If we had refused the feeding tube, her death would certainly have occurred months before it did.  But, none of us were willing to deny her sustenance, because she was there in that bed.

No such measures are being taken with Grandma Lillie as she has entered the dying process.  We discussed and debated starting the feeding tube.  It seems unfair, as though we must have loved Granny more to fight and keep her with us for so long while we allow Grandma Lillie to pass from this world on the schedule her body sets.  Of course there are differences in their medical condition.  Grandma Lillie is weaker, less able to tolerate medical procedures which might save her for a few more days, or end her life immediately.  (Engaging a feeding tube is a minor surgical procedure, but becomes a major ordeal for a patient on the edge of death.)  Granny was mentally alert with us right up until the very end.  Grandma Lillie has been lapsing more and more frequently into sleep and coma.  But it's very difficult not to feel as though we have somehow cheated her, robbed her in these final days by caring for her differently than we cared for Granny. 

Death has a way of accentuating individuality.  The single question at the fore of all our thoughts has been When?  Doctors are notorious for being wrong in their predictions.  We all know of cases where people who were given six months to live are still walking around years later.   Other patients who just had a physical last week and got a clean bill of health, drop dead of a heart attack while out in a fishing boat.  Every single individual person has a death experience that is in someway different from the experience of any other person on the planet. 

The people in our culture who understand the death and dying process better than any other group are those involved in Hospice Care.  We learned about Hospice when caring for Granny.  This program exists in some form in every state and community of the country, and is dedicated to pain management, dignity, and gentle nurturing through the inevitable process.  The hospice group supporting my family provides all medication and medical equipment.  They visit the home every day monitoring the health of the patient and those who are providing care.   

Just over two weeks ago, Grandma Lillie's condition deteriorated markedly.  She entered what is known in hospice care as the "pre-active phase of dying."  This phase lasts on average about two weeks.  Of course, individual patients are often exceptions to the rule.  Some may stay in the "pre-active" phase for as little as three days, others may take a month or more.  The final stage of life before death is the "active phase" which on average lasts three days.  Grandma Lillie began this phase three days ago.  She's never been average so it's no surprise that she seems to be pushing the statistical envelope because as of this morning, she continues to labor for breath. 

The hospice people are there.  As my parents, my aunts, and others gather to care for Grandma Lillie, the hospice workers care for them.  They take a turn sitting with Grandma Lillie so the others can catch a nap, go to the grocery store, or maybe even just walk outside on the deck and breathe air that doesn't have an antiseptic odor. 

Keeping vigil may be the most important thing that anyone could ever do for someone.  Doctors tell us that dying people hear up until the very end.  They may not be able to physically respond, but they are more peaceful, less stressed when they have loved voices speaking to them.  But watching a person you love die is the hardest thing I can imagine ever doing.

I've talked to my boys about going to my Grandmother's side.  They are young, Michael will be 9 in three weeks, Tucker is 6.  But they were there 18 months ago for Granny's passing.  Tucker said, "Mommy, I know had to take care of Grandma in bed.  I tell her stories, Michael reads her favorite book, and we talk to her.  But Mommy, I don't like it when they start making that sound [and here he demonstrates with a gasping wheeze] right before Grandmas become dead humans."  Well, he knows what he's talking about.

Waiting is hard.  Not only am I from a generation that expects life to conclude with all the ends tidily wrapped up within two hours of the start of the film; I'm from a culture and a generation that hasn't dealt much with death.  We haven't had a major war with tens of thousands of dead.  We have seen such breakthroughs in medical science that death has lost much of it's frightening immediacy.  When I do genealogical research, it's always brought home to me that death used to be a familiar visitor to families who lost children to scarlet fever, brothers and sisters to pneumonia, and young parents to diptheria.  I had the impression for a long while that the blended family was a post-modern phenomenon brought about by the rising rate of divorce.  Genealogy teaches me that there have always been a significant number of people in blended families.  The difference is that a hundred years ago, they blended after the death of a spouse.

Grandma Lillie has seemed at times to be harsh and unsympathetic in discussing deaths of those she has known.  I wonder if it seemed to her that I didn't take it seriously?  How could I know what it was like to see a baby brother die?  Or to lose a parent before I graduated high school?  How do you live with the certain knowledge that death is always waiting around the corner?  I'll be forty years old next month.  And for my whole life death has been an event two generations removed.   People of my grandparent's generation are gone.  But I still have my parents, aunts and uncles.  Not one cousin from either side of the family is lost, I even have cousins who've survived illnesses like leukemia which were 100% fatal 50 years ago.  Death has not seemed real to me.  I know it's out there.  But I know it in an academic way.  Grandma Lillie has known it in her life and heart.  Now one more time, she's teaching us lessons we still have to learn.

Repost with Revision ~

Dream Chasing

*Through the woodland, through the valley
Comes a horseman wild and free
Tilting at the windmills passing
Who can the brave young horseman be . . .

My kids have a new game.  If you know of some tv show or video game they might have seen advertised that led them to this play - DON'T TELL ME.  They play Superhero.  Michael wears my fuschia satin robe for a cape and does brave deeds.  He's ... da da da .... DreamMan. 

He rides through the night alert for signs of trouble and I hear him say things like, "Great Scot!  This dream is overheating, quickly Sidekick!  Bring ice cream!"  This morning it was, "Holy Monsters and Shadows, Sidekick!  This dream is almost too scary for me!"  My personal favorite is a line from Tucker, "In my dream, I'm NOT the sidekick."

He is wild but he is mellow,
He is strong but he is weak
He is cruel but he is gentle,
He is wise but he is meek.

I went through a time when I didn't dream.  I have a sleep disorder that prevents me from entering REM sleep and therefore prevents me from dreaming.  For several years I didn't know why there were no dreams, but I missed them.  It was like knowing that I stood in the center of a great cave of wonders, with no light to see the treasure.  When I was first began to dream again, I was like a neophyte experiencing hallucinogenics for the first time.  (Not that I have ever personally experienced such things, but I imagine . . . )

Reaching for his saddlebag
he takes a battered book into his hand
Standing like a prophet of old,
he shouts across the ocean to the shore
Til he can shout no more.

If you've never had a disruption in your dreaming life, or if you've never taken hallucinogens, you may not fully appreciate the consciousness altering experience of being "taken" by a dream.  Without regular dreams, people can become psychotic, literally unable to distinguish between reality and thought.  This never happened to me in spite of what you may have heard from certain of my friends and family.

I have come o'er moor and mountain
Like a hawk upon the wing
I was once a shining knight
Who was the guardian of a King.

The journey between reality and imagination can be one of unremarkable transition between fairly similar terrain.  You go through waking hours fantasizing about the weekend plan or the upcoming vacation.  Then you go to sleep and spend the night doing work you can't claim on the clock.  How many times has the accountant balanced books, or the programmer reviewed line after line of code in a dream?

Some people practice lucid dreaming.  Lucid dreaming is that state of consciousness in which you dream while knowing that you are dreaming.  This consciousness enables you to guide your dreams.  For someone like me, the idea of retaining conscious control even in an unconscious state is an irresistible enticement.  I can't remember when I first began to practice lucid dreaming, but I know that even as a small child I was able to direct my dreams so that I chose whether I would be terrified by the monster or he would be terrified by me.  Some day, it would be fun to sit down with an analyst and talk about what happened on the nights I chose terror.

I have searched the whole world over
Looking for a place to sleep
I have seen the strong survive
And I have seen the lean grow weak.

As far as I have been able to determine, no one knows the answer to why our dreams are so important for our mental health.  There are all kinds of theories about the effects of dreaming and REM sleep on seritonin production or vice versa.  But, Nobel prize winning researchers in this area admit they can do no more than speculate. 

I wonder if anyone is researching the psychological affects of conscious dreams?  Not the dreams that come at night, but the dreams we construct in our quiet moments lying on the grass.  What effect do our hopes, goals, and plans for the future have on our psyche?  What is it like to live without ideas of future possibility or pleasure?

See the children of the earth
To weak to find the table there
See the gentry in the country
Riding off to take the air.

It's hard for me to think about dreams without being reminded of the song from "The Man from La Mancha" The Impossible Dream.  Don Quixote fascinates me.  He gave himself entirely over to a dream, you might even say to a psychosis.  He based his actions not on the world as it was, but on the world as he envisioned it to be.  In some ways his world was better, the lowly and coarse Dulcinea became a pure and gentle lady.  The broken-down donkey, Rosinante,  became a noble steed.  But in some ways his vision was terrifying.  We may laugh at him galloping across the plain to fight with a windmill.  But in his mind, that windmill was a monster of terrifying proportion and it took all his courage to perform that deed.

Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a rusty sword into his hand
Striking up a knightly pose
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Til he can shout no more.

I have a theory that people need extremes in their lives.  There isn't anything wrong with living inside a comfortable "happy" medium.  But there isn't anything in the comfort zone that raises the bloodpressure either.

When I was younger, I found the stereotypical midlife crisis behavior equally fascinating and repulsive.  I couldn't imagine why perfectly reasonable people would do such unreasonable things as seek outside their marriages for excitement, trade in their volvos for sports cars, or leave lucrative careers to start driving a camper around the country doing odd jobs.  I'm not talking about people who were inclined to do these things anyway, I'm talking about the phenomena of men and women suddenly reaching the point of rejecting all they had previously held as core values and goals in favor of values and goals that appeared to be less solid, less meaningful in terms of building a worthwhile life.  But as I'm on the end of the diving board ready to spring into my forties, this crisis of need for younger, faster, more beautiful, less stable has begun to hum like a siren in my ear. 

After four decades, there are few extremes in my life.  Somehow the process of lumbering through life has meant that rough edges get worn smooth and life is moving at a steady flowing pace.  It's easy, it's predictable, it's safe.  And it's boring.  It's much harder to find the pulse raising, finger trembling, breath catching thrill of the new, the different, the strange.  The dreams that sparked fires of imagination at an earlier stage of life have faded to the mature acceptance of limitations that keep me in the channel of security and responsbility. 

See the jailor with his key
Who locks away all trace of sin
See the judge upon his bench
Who tries the case as best he can.

An old proverb says that "Ships in a harbor are safe, but that's not what ships are built for."  As we settle in the lane of least resistance, we dig ruts that make it possible for us to get from points a to b without much thought.  We find ourselves on automatic pilot drifting along comfortably.  It takes a dream to pull us up and out.

Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a tarnished cross into his hand
Standing like a preacher now
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Til he can shout no more.

Our dreams force us to stand where the wind blows hard and we have to brace our feet.  Dreams refuse to settle for the comfortable and in fact gallop hard toward the monster even as we cling, terrified, to the reins unable to control our mount.  In order to deny our dreams we must constantly push against them, forcing our conscious lucid direction upon them.  We ratchet them further and further out past our peripheral vision so they won't distract us.  But when we finally release that rubber band . . .

Then in a blaze of tangled hooves
He gallops off across the dusty plain
In vain to search again
For no one will hear. . .

*Don Quixote lyrics by Gordon Lightfoot.

Memorial Monday

Summer begins today.  Oh, I know, it's not summer by the cosmological calendar until solstice on June 21, but for those of us who live by the seasons of beaurocracy, today's the day.  American's observe Memorial Day by firing upthe grill, getting outside for our first summer weekend and with speeches in cemeteries honoring the soldiers who fought and died in service to our nation.

Interesting to me is that the holiday began after the Civil War and the first observances made a point of honoring both the Federal and the Rebel fallen.  When I began to read accounts of the Civil War, one of the most striking aspects of the story viewed through the letters, journals and reports of the men and women who lived through it is the way that each side regarded the other.  In the climate of 2003 where the leaders of our nation use language to paint a picture of evil personified when speaking of our enemies, it is disconcerting to read the words of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and Ulysses Grant.  They describe each other in terms that make it clear they each had a high regard for their opposing counterpart.  They almost sound like friends.

At the first public occasion of celebration after the end of the Civil War, Lincoln requested that the band play Dixie in honor of the men who fought to a bitter end for the other side.  I can't imagine our current President requesting that our current enemies be honored in this climate.  I'm ashamed when I hear people villified for expressing their opposition to administration policies.  The Great Liberator, Lincoln, invited his critics to the White House and heard them out, sometimes even moderating his policies and plans based on their arguments.  Today I hear people saying that those who speak out against war are commiting treasonous acts of aiding and comforting our enemies. 

Maybe we need to stop and consider who and what our enemies are.  Lincoln said that the struggle of the Civil War was a test of the proposition that Liberty and Equality could provide a stable and enduring foundation.  When I see our lawmakers reducing liberty with their so-called Patriot Act, or using draconian measures which they euphemistically title Homeland Security, I wonder what Lincoln would think about their decisions.  

For almost two years we have imprisoned without trial, legal representation or POW status hundreds of men captured in the war we waged against Al Quaida in Afghanistan.  In the recent attempt to persuade the Supreme Court to hear arguments that these men should at least be given access to attorney's for representation to the courts, the key argument offered by our government in defense of the continued denial of this Constitutional right was that these men were captured in civilian clothes.  Since they didn't have uniforms they aren't officially soldiers, they aren't officially prisoners of war.  When I heard that the Supreme Court Justices accepted this and refused to hear the case, I was ashamed. 

If those men aren't "soldiers" what are they?  As soldiers the Geneva Conventions would establish their rights to due process and representation.  As civilians, our own Constitution demands that they be given due process and representation.  Legally, they must be one or the other.  How can we claim to be upholding Liberty, and the proposition that "all men are created equal" while we treat even one man as less than a man?

On this Memorial Day, I hope that we will remember.  I hope that we will all stop and think about what it means to practice liberty and justice for all.  I hope that we will not dishonor the spilled blood Lincoln spoke of.  He challenged us to rise and consecrate ourselves in the task of advancing the cause for which they died... "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from the earth."  

Forgiveness and Restoration-

Grioghair left this comment earlier:  If there is a way to forgive people like this [abusers/killers of children], then I would like to hear your advice - because in all of my 48 years on Earth, I have never felt it in my heart to forgive people who destroy the light in others.

I've been pondering it this afternoon and decided I'd take the somewhat unusual step of posting a second blog in the same day because I felt this topic deserves more than a quick answer in the comments section.  I have a short answer and a long answer for this one.  The short answer is that forgiveness does not originate with the offender and therefore is not dependent upon or even related to the degree of offense. 

When I speak of forgiveness I'm talking about a very specific action that *I* take.  Forgiveness is not excusing the offender for wrongdoing.  Forgiveness is not forgetting that I have been wronged.  Forgiveness is not license.  Forgiveness is not restoration.

Forgiveness is nothing more or less than release of my hostility toward an offender.  That's all.  It's saying that I refuse to allow another person's wrong act to control me by imprisoning me in hate and anger.  When I choose to forgive a person, I'm saying that I know full well that a wrong has been committed but I am not going to compound the wrong by harboring rage or pain, nursing it until it warps my perspective.  That may seem an extreme characterization but I fully believe that unless I forgive, I suffer spiritual consequences, a wounding contortion far beyond and far greater than the wound dealt me by the offender.  Unless I forgive, I become bent.

If I choose to offer forgiveness to one who has offended, it may or may not be appropriate to communicate that to the person.  I believe that while I may genuinely forgive, unless that person is receptive and desiring forgiveness, it is of no value to offer it.  In fact the offer of forgiveness to one who does not acknowledge his wrongdoing gets ahead of a relationship process that must be followed even if unconsciously, in order to move forward in the relationship.  I can forgive an offender and move on with my life even if the relationship is never restored. 

I'd like to switch perspective now and retell the process from the view of the offender.  In all relationships there are hurts and pains that are inflicted whether by intent or lack of awareness.  When I make a mistake that hurts another person, I say "I'm sorry."  I'm acknowledging that what I did caused harm and I'm saying that though it was untintentional, I am responsible for my action. 

When I deliberately set out to harm another person through an act of anger, malice, or cold-hearted evil (oh, yeah, I can do that), it's not enough to say, "I'm sorry."  At that point I have opened a chasm in the relationship that cannot be bridged by my effort.  I may feel genuine sorrow for my action, and sincerely regret it.  (Not merely regret that it had negative consequences for me, that's not sorrow, it's rebellion against authority, resentment of the relationship, or denial of responsibility.)  My genuine sorrow for my wrongdoing does not restore my relationship with the person I've harmed.  The extent of my ability to reach across the chasm is that I may with humility ASK for forgiveness. 

From the moment that I broke trust in the relationship, I have to understand that I am entirely at the mercy of the other person in terms of my desire to see that relationship restored.  No matter how great my sorrow, the person I've offended is never under any obligation to offer me forgiveness.  Forgiveness is objective - there is no middle ground, either it is offered or it is not. 

Some wrongs require restitution.  The principle of restitution was very much a part of American culture 30 years ago.  When I was a child, if I through a rock and broke my neighbor's window, my dad replaced it.  Whenever financial loss occurs as a result of either mistake or unintentional wrongdoing, restitution should be part of the process.  Restitution is the outward sign of genuine acceptance of responsibility for wrongdoing.  Restitution is part of the legal codes of the Bible.  When the wrong was unintentional, the person wronged is compensated for his loss.  When the wrong is intentional, (my cow didn't accidentally trample your garden, I herded him there and helped him), restitution isn't one to one, it's either 2, 3, or 4 times the value of your loss.  This compensates you for your loss, plus acknowledges the wrong of my heart in causing it. 

At this point in the process there has been

a wrong act
genuine sorrow on my part - coupled with a confession if needed
compensation for your loss if appropriate

Now, you must decide whether to offer forgiveness.  There are some people who cannot bring themselves to take this step.  No matter how much I regret my action, no matter how fairly I've made restitution, they simply cannot let go of their anger over having been wronged.  At that point, I've done what I can to make it right, and I have to accept that there is nothing more I can do.  If I have done my part, and you choose to offer me forgiveness, then the relationship can be restored. 

Grioghair's question pertained to vile and horrible crimes.  What role does forgiveness play in the lives of those touched by such evil?  Some actions are of a nature that there is no amount of restitution that can ever compensate the loss.  Wrongful death, rape, kidnapping, and the abuse of a child come to mind as examples of such acts.  When a person has committed one of these, it's no longer a matter confined to interpersonal relationships.  At this point the action is so grave that it constitutes an offense against the larger community. 

As an individual who may have been harmed in this way, (my personal experience with violent crime is from having been raped when I was in my early 20's), I still have the choice to forgive or to be wounded again and again in my spirit by the weight of anger and rage.  However, there is no chance that I'm ever going to have a restored relationship with my rapist.  I long ago lost track of him, I don't know where he lives or anything about his present circumstances.  I don't want to know.  I can never be that man's neighbor again, because what he did to me can never be undone, there is no restitution. 

Hear me very carefully for the next couple of lines.  In Principle, I believe in the death penalty.  I believe that there are some crimes so horrible that the perpetrator has renounced any right or expectation of mercy and that in fairness his life is forfeit.  In Practice, I oppose the death penalty because I know of no way it can be fairly and blindly (impartially) imposed.  There are too many cases where evidence is handled improperly or is simply unavailable.  Eyewitnesses become confused and have been known to id the wrong person.  Minorities receive death penalty sentences in disproportionate degree.  These and many other imperfections in the judicial system cause me to oppose the death penalty in practice.  But I strongly support the life sentence as the only viable alternative.  Some people can never be restored to society.

I made a statement in the comments section of my earlier blog that anger and fear prevent forgiveness and that it takes perfect love to cast out fear.  Perfect love can and will do this for you.  Perfect love cannot change another person into a harmless one, a loving one, a compassionate, merciful, or just one.  Perfect love enables *me* to let go of crippling emotion.

Good Taste or Tastes Good

The realization that I'm a very sensual person came as a surprise.  I'm not sure when I first noticed.  Maybe it was the time I was embarrassed when the salesclerk caught me running my fingers along the various bolts of fabric just for the enjoyment of the texture.  Maybe it was when I realized that not everyone cries at symphonies.  Maybe it was when my friend told me that I cook "weird."  Doesn't everyone cook by smell, taste and appearance?  No, I was informed, normal people use something called a recipe. 

When I learned the "rule of three" that is supposed to be employed in making a purchase, it was intuitive to me in a way it was never meant to be.  Before buying a couch for instance, you are supposed to consider functionality, design/attractiveness, and value.  If it fills three different needs, it's a good purchase.  I have always asked my belongings to meet multiple needs. 

Does the dishsoap smell good?  When I walk in these shoes do they make a pleasing sound?  Is the grain of wood in the desk interesting?  Does the stone feel smooth?  A glance around my reading corner is an invitation to indulge the senses.  Sticks of incense perfume the air.  The laughter of the water fountain tickles the ear.  Smooth stones meant to be touched, stroked and arranged are within easy reach of your fingers.  The sand of the tiny zen garden responds to the tiny rake with undulating waves of symmetry that imply time and timelessness.  The chair I sit in has multiple choices for built in massage and two different settings for heat.

This afternoon I have a weighty tome of analytical data I'll be reading through.  But, at the same time I exercise my mind, I'll be indulging my body with the delights that I've gathered for my little corner.   I don't have to think about it to know that I'm happier reading in my corner than I am if I try to read sitting at the kitchen table.  Knowing how much I like it, I'm presently working through the options for creating a reading corner especially for the kids.  I know it would have been far easier for my teachers to get my mind on my lessons if my body hadn't been offended by the sensual deprivation of the school building with it's grayish cement walls and the hard stone feel of the floor.  (Although I do remember sneaking my feet out of my shoes to cool my toes on that floor on hot September days.)

I enjoy efficiency.  I like for my pantry to be neatly arranged with the vegetables in careful alphabetical order, but it doesn't hurt that the various sizes of the packaging make for interesting displays of line, form, and color.  Not that I often stand and admire the wonder of the pantry, but I could.  Because it is, wonder-full.  I've recently assigned the task of dusting to Tucker, but I kind of miss the smell of the polish and the glide of the cloth through the swirl of dust that gathers on the shelves.  Vacuuming the floor means making patterns in the carpet and then walking carefully for the next hour so that the floor becomes a living sculpture. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I see a lovely sunbeam warming the floor next to Michael's desk.  If I go quickly, I can scrunch my toes in the warmth while we practice his spelling words.

The Most Reckless Thing

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away ... I had a dead end job and a couple of great friends.  Fresh out of college and on my own, trying my wings for the first time in my life out from under the protection, authority, and control of my parents I had no goals, no ambitions, and no thought for tomorrow.

You have to know a couple things about me in order to appreciate that time in my life.  You've seen those photos of guys in the muscle magazines.  The ones who have developed particular muscle groups to the point that they no longer resemble the human form.  Now imagine that "sense of responsibility" is a muscle group.  Mine was a bit out of proportion in the same sense that the triceps of Mr. Universe are slightly beyond normal parameters.  I didn't drink, smoke, do drugs, or experiment with sex.  (The wildest thing I did all the way through college was stay up all night playing Dungeons and Dragons while listening to Gordon Lightfoot albums.)

At the age of 22, I met other young idealists who agreed that we could change the world if we just had time and access to people we could help.  Hanging around with them, I was introduced to partying as a lifestyle.  We worked hard, but we played harder.  I'm not sure looking back, why they included me in the group.  But, I quickly became den mother to the lot of them.  If I had been working that night, but they were out partying, they would come to my apartment after the bar closed, and I would cook for them.  We'd sit up the rest of the night talking and often I'd have two or three people sleeping on my couch or floor the next afternoon when I left for work again.

On my nights off, I partied with them.  I learned to drink, but just said no to drugs (except once when I'd been up all night and got called into work at 6 AM, I knew I couldn't stay awake and Gary offered me a little blue pill - he said "It's kind of like caffeine."  Three days later when I finally came down enough to sleep I felt like I'd been run over by a Peterbilt.  And that ended my one and only experiment with drugs.)  I learned to smoke, and I used the cigarette as a prop, a barrier behind which I was safe.  Don't come too close, I'll blow smoke in your eyes.

A whole year's worth of memories are clouded with smoke, exhaustion, adrenaline highs, the taste of herbal tea and the breeze that blows through a weeping willow at 4 AM.  Some of the stuff that happened that year is just silly.  One night, we had the idea that if we took hammers and tapped on radio towers, we could send secret messages to any aliens who might be monitoring earth radio transmissions.  (As I recall, that was the same night I was introduced to slammers.)  So, we all piled into my car - I wasn't sober but I was the most sober one in the bunch.  And we drove up to the hill outside town where all the radio towers gathered and looked down on us with their blinking red eyes.  We climbed the fence.  Then we realized that we didn't know morse code.  (I don't remember why we thought aliens would know morse code.)  So we sat down and made up our own alphabet code.  (I don't remember why we thought the aliens would know the alphabet either.)  And eventually, but before the tequila wore off, we tapped out messages of love, peace and "please pick us to beam up the next time you're in the neighborhood."

I'm not sure what would have happened or where that year would have led if I had continued to drift along, playing with my friends and generally living from sensation to sensation.  But, the problem with having a large number of people who know that your door is always open is that sometimes the wrong person knows that your door is always open.  One night I went to bed with a guy sleeping on my sofa.  I woke up when he attacked me.

I don't remember all the details of that night.  I remember very vividly the next day when one of my friends came over about noon to find out why I didn't show up at work.  I remember seeing the painting on the wall of doctor's office as he carried me through the waiting room.  I remember being afraid that since I wasn't on birth control that I could have been impregnated.  I remember thinking "I can never tell my parents about this, because this just proves that they are right about me.  I'm not mature enough to handle being out here on my own."  As I look back on it, I'm ashamed that I didn't file a police report or press charges.  Now, I know that a person who will do this to one woman will do it to another and another and another.  Then, I felt like it was my fault because I'd been stupid enough to invite him in.

No cautious lifestyle is a guarantee that it won't happen to you.  But for a long time when I looked back on the year I was 22, it hardened my resolve to be strong and safe.  I determined that I would never be vulnerable again.

I learned that refusing to be vulnerable to other people was the most reckless (marked by lack of proper caution, careless of consequences) thing I could do.  Refusing vulnerability meant refusing trust, refusing intimacy, and refusing my own nature.  Invulnerability didn't make me safe, it shut me away from all hope of being human.  But, that's getting ahead of my story.

Ironically, I was so good at recovery, I made a career out of it.  I became a counsellor to teenaged girls who had been raped or sexually abused.  I was good at my work, a real crusader.  I was repeatedly congratulated on my creative group therapy sessions and ideas.  I probed emotional wounds with surgical skill to discover pockets of infection that could be cured with a few tearful hours of breakthrough on the issues. 

I played with the fire.  I juggled the fire.  I danced so close to the fire to prove to myself that my experience hadn't weakened me, it had made me stronger.  I became brittle.  The harder I worked to save other people the more I lost myself.  Finally, I reached the point that I couldn't sleep because when I closed my eyes I lived the abuse I heard described every day. 

I had become reckless, determined to follow my course despite the ever more obvious consequences.  Proper caution warns that you should stop when you begin to harm yourself.  But, I was so determined to be safe from all others, that I was blind to the damage I was doing to myself.  Tim and I were newly married, but I couldn't stand for him to touch me.

I've been sitting here staring at that last sentence for over half an hour, thinking, "where do you go from that?!"  You don't get out of that place quickly.  To my surprise, it took more than a couple hours of tearful breakthrough to deal with my issues.  In one way or another, I'll be "dealing" with emotional echoes for the rest of my life, it's part of who I am.  But, for the most part, it's such a distant part of the past that it's as though it were long ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

  

Dream Chasing

*Through the woodland, through the valley
Comes a horseman wild and free
Tilting at the windmills passing
Who can the brave young horseman be . . .

My kids have a new game.  If you know of some tv show or video game they might have seen advertised that led them to this play - DON'T TELL ME.  They play Superhero.  Michael wears my fuschia satin robe for a cape and does brave deeds.  He's ... da da da .... DreamMan. 

He rides through the night alert for signs of trouble and I hear him say things like, "Great Scot!  This dream is overheating, quickly sidekick!  Bring ice cream!"  This morning it was, "Holy Monsters and Shadows, Sidekick!  This dream is almost too scary for me!"  And my personal favorite line from Tucker, "In my dream, I'm NOT the sidekick."

He is wild but he is mellow,
He is strong but he is weak
He is cruel but he is gentle,
He is wise but he is meek.

I went through a time when I didn't dream.  Untreated, my sleep disorder prevents me from entering REM sleep and therefore prevents me from dreaming.  When I was first began to dream again, I was like a neophyte experiencing hallucinogenics for the first time.  (Not that I have ever personally experienced such things, but I imagine . . . )

Reaching for his saddlebag
he takes a battered book into his hand
Standing like a prophet of old,
he shouts across the ocean to the shore
Til he can shout no more.

If you've never had a disruption in your dreaming life, or if you've never taken hallucinogens, you may not fully appreciate the consciousness altering experience of being "taken" by a dream.  Without regular dreams, people can become psychotic, literally unable to distinguish between reality and thought.  (This never happened to me in spite of what you may have heard from certain of my friends and family.)

I have come o'er moor and mountain
Like a hawk upon the wing
I was once a shining knight
Who was the guardian of a King.

The journey between reality and imagination can be one of unremarkable transition between fairly similar terrain.  You go through waking hours fantasizing about the weekend plan or the upcoming vacation.  Then you go to sleep and spend the night doing work you can't claim on the clock.  How many times as the accountant balanced books, or the programmer reviewed line after line of code in a dream?

I have searched the whole world over
Looking for a place to sleep
I have seen the strong survive
And I have seen the lean grow weak.

As far as I can tell no one has any real answer why our dreams are so important to our mental health.  There are all kinds of theories about the effect of dreaming and REM sleep on seritonin production or vice versa.  But, Nobel prize winning researchers in this area admit they can do no more than speculate.  I wonder if anyone is researching the psychological affects of conscious dreams?  Not the dreams that come at night, but the dreams we construct in our quiet moments lying on the grass.  What is it like to live without an idea of future possibility or pleasure?

See the children of the earth
To weak to find the table there
See the gentry in the country
Riding off to take the air.

It's hard for me to think about dreams without being reminded of the song from "The Man from La Mancha" The Impossible Dream.  Don Quixote fascinates me.  He gave himself entirely over to a dream, you might even say to a psychosis.  He based his actions not on the world as it was, but on the world as he envisioned it to be.  In some ways his world was better, the lowly and coarse Dulcinea became a pure and gentle lady.  The broken-down donkey, Rosinante,  became a noble steed.  But in some ways his vision was terrifying.  We may laugh at him galloping across the plain to fight with a windmill.  But in his mind, that windmill was a monster of terrifying proportion and it took all his courage to perform that deed.

Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a rusty sword into his hand
Striking up a knightly pose
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Til he can shout no more.

I have a theory that people need extremes in their lives.  There isn't anything wrong with living inside a comfortable "happy" medium.  But there isn't anything in the comfort zone that raises the bloodpressure either.

See the jailor with his key
Who locks away all trace of sin
See the judge upon his bench
Who tries the case as best he can.

An old proverb says that "Ships in a harbor are safe, but that's not what ships are built for."  All of us tend to settle in the lane of least resistance.  We dig ruts that make it possible for us to get from points a to b without much thought.  We find ourselves on automatic pilot drifting along comfortably.  Our dreams pull us up and out.

Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a tarnished cross into his hand
Standing like a preacher now
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Til he can shout no more.

Our dreams force us to stand where the wind blows hard and we have to brace our feet.  Dreams refuse to settle for the comfortable and in fact gallop hard toward the monster even as we cling terrified to the reins unable to control our mount.  In order to deny our dreams we must constantly push against them, ratcheting them further and further out past our peripheral vision so they won't distract us.  But when we finally release that rubber band . . .

Then in a blaze of tangled hooves
He gallops off across the dusty plain
In vain to search again
For no one will hear. . .

 

*Lyrics are from Gordon Lightfoot's Don Quixote.

Bubba's Coming Home

My baby brother is all grown up and Armified.  He's been over seas for a little over two years now, and I've hated every stinking second of it.  But he's coming home.  It looks like his plane is going to land just in time for him to hitchhike along for the big trip to Florida.  He's known for that kind of good luck.  Just to give you an example, here's a photo of Dave taken AFTER his unit hiked along this short-cut dirt road.  They climbed over the fence at the end to discover that they'd just taken a 10 mile stroll through a mine field.

Please feel free to follow one of the subtle links to his Xanga site that I've worked into this blog and tell him Welcome Back!

We'll be celebrating non-stop.  Between two birthdays (did I mention that *I'm* having a birthday?) and Uncle David's return to the fold, there may be some confusion about just who are the adults and who are the children in the party.  I'm thinking that we should put Kate in charge.

I can't wait to see Kate.  For several years Kate spent as much time with me as she did with her parents.  The year Tucker was born, she was over at my house every single day helping with the baby, helping with the house, helping me stay sane.  Oh, there was some talk that the reason she was there was so I could oversee her homeschool while Maureen was at work, but the truth was that she did far more to help me than I did for her.  I haven't seen her in almost five years!  That's too long.  While we've been apart she's been slipping steadily into the ranks of the respectable conservative crowd, and even became President of the Young Republicans on her college campus this past year.  (You try to raise 'em right and then just look what they go and do!)

So yes, with Dave on board and Kate in Charge ~ Whoooo Hooooo, look out Florida, here we come.

I hope you all have a Marvelous Memorial Day Weekend.  Lovingmy40s and I will be in ATLANTA at the home of the lovely and notorious, Daffodilous.  We'll be thinking about you guys, talking about you guys, and if our last get-together is anything to go by, we'll be up late at night sneaking onto the Internet to check and see if you guys have posted anything new.  We're also meeting Fugitive and KSgal who wil be in Atlanta on entirely different business.  Can it get any better?  Oh, yes it could.  We need Luckystars, SisterCTR, Melsworld, Tina, Rache, Craktpot, oh, my, I can think of at least 50 of you we'd like to have along for the ride.  So next time, someone with a really big house ...