And Another Thing

One thing I know I'm pretty good at is giving support. I do my best to help people who need a hand, or a shove, to get through or get things done. I'll listen and commiserate, give suggestions where needed, just be a sounding board, ask beyond the particular problem how the person's doing, yada yada.

But it seems that when you're one who supports, nobody thinks you need any.

This is a repetitive theme in my life. I often get other people's messes to clean up, or somebody dies and it all ends up in my lap. Everyone comes to me when they're hurting over something, when they're losing, when they can't cope. And I never turn my back. I can't. It makes me happy to help somebody. But it seems I don't get much back-up in life from those I need to give it.

This is all really about my brothers. I have two left. Both older (60 and 58). The 60 year old just had open heart and is recuperating very slowly, at home now. He has COPD and diabetes, so healing is a long process. The 58 yr old just got the news that his docs think he has a blood cancer. Not lymphoma, but leukemia or multiple myeloma. We won't know for sure until the marrow biopsy on the 22nd. But he's pretty convinced it's myeloma, and after looking at the symptoms, I have to say they're all there. Myeloma is a short-term death sentence.

We three are all that's left of "our family". There are cousins but we're not close, there are nephews and nieces and grands. But Billy and Tommy and I are the only ones who have the memories now. And the non-immediate family doesn't seem to care.

At 50, I'm the on the front line in my family, and will probably be the last to go. I really, really, don't like that prospect. I already have too many memories that nobody else living shares. Before my "little brother", Seth, died, we'd counted up the deaths we'd been through. It was 54, then. My count now is 58. I've had enough.

But beyond that, I wish those who can take support would give it.

Late Night with gnana

"i dont know what jingoistic and xenophobic mean (am looking up) i am just common folk. i just think our country has gone back to king and queen crap. taxation without representation. rich gettin richer off backs of serfs. we have no say in what happens in washington nor where and when we go to war. i am not an old lady headed to the hills with her guns and compound, but sure dont feel anyone listens. i am almost happy i willnot live to see the downfall of our county. because younger people do not know what it was like to be so proud to be an america. so they will accept the status quo. i still am proud i am american."
-gnana, iBrattleboro.com

This comment has been haunting me. In the last years, I've remarked that I was glad the old people didn't have to see what's happened. And lately I've begun a serious exit strategy for the possibility should McSame get to be President.

This blog often catches my attention when something that's serious and negative makes some new move in my life. This is sometimes just my rant page. But more often than not, it's not a place you're gonna read something that'll send you on your way whistling "Zippadee doo dah". Over the last 10 years I've watched a lot of bad happen in my country. I'm accustomed, tuned, to look for the lies, the evil actions. Sometimes I get a fact wrong. Sometimes my opinion bleeds into what I'm reporting as a citizen journalist (my greatest achievement? #1 most-read article on iBrattleboro.com, "Naked PETA Girls Attract Crowd in Brattleboro"). I try to stay away from emoting when reporting things. But here, I get to vomit.

To hear such disheartenment from one of my town's most lovely elders makes me puke. To see and know how evil and awful these leaders are makes me puke. I don't know how this will end, or if it will. And I have hopes on a guy who may or may not be the new leader we need. In paranoid moments I half-envision a Totalitarian Amerika, one in which I won't live under any circumstances. I wonder how much of my family will be Good Amerikans and be all right. My brothers are vets and getting up there so they're probably okay. It's the young ones- the 4 nephews and their families- that worry me most. Especially those that are already on the Right wing side. Will they be wearing a uniform under some new Fascist Regime, a new Fuhrer to horrify the world from my own country? And what if I do expatriate in another place, will I be interned there? Will the world hate the US the way it hated Nazi Germany?

Yet, the most bizarre set up has happened that may change my life anyway. It's possible that I may be able to emigrate with an amount of comfort- and birthright I wasn't aware of until 3 years ago. We live in very interesting times. I'm staying afloat thru it, and gods know my lot in life may change rapidly for the better, but part of me is with gnana. This is like watching the death of my country before my eyes. I'm looking at a younger-than-me black doctor to save the patient.

Accepting Things You Can't Change

Ever since my mother hung a tacky aluminum plate with fake "American Indian" symbols and the Serenity Prayer on it, I've followed that advice. It makes life easier. I'm good with easier. There are enough complications, like the tax system. And life in general. Love in particular.

So I try to keep things in perspective, not let the small stuff bug me, take pleasure in little things, all that advice older people give. But somewhere, somehow, something enters my life that brings panic and agita. In this case, being flat broke, applying for Disability, my friend's back problems, my brother's open heart surgery, some members of my family's lack of feelings (unless it's Their Crisis) and continuing interpersonal issues amongst my friends. All going on at once.

For instance- my brother's surgery. I'm not asking anyone to fly out here and hold my sis-in-law's hand . But will one of them respond, even with a "Hope he's okay"? I don''t even get answers to the emails! Fine. It's not the first time. Let it go. But I won't forget this one. Thank the God/desses, he's coming along fine.

Then there's the running lack of gratitude from friends for whom others have done huge favors. Me also, in that group. Some people seem to think they're entitled, and that whatever someone does for them, it's just their right to say how, when, where and what that favor should be. And then to judge the quality of that favor, and even to criticize it. In this case, it's easier for me to forget the bit of anger over what they've done to me. But someone just did them a Real Solid, and they criticized him. It wasn't what they wanted, exactly. No thanks, just disappointment. What a complete lack of manners. That's a hard one for me to accept, but there's no changing their behavior; it's a pattern I've seen. I can, however, ignore their wants in the future, and I will.

The Grand Guignol at the moment is my financial picture. I have roughly 10 bucks to my name. This came about over a mistake that an Aide made, which took the bucks I had earmarked for the phone bill and some incidentals away, when she spent my cash on food that could've waited the 3 days until my Food Stamp allotment came. My oldest and dearest friend is stepping in once again, with a loan to help me stay afloat til something gives. But it's been a week and I've not heard from her. On the 5th, I'm officially 3 months behind in rent, which coincides with the signing of a new lease offer. I'm really afraid that my landlord won't re-up my lease, and that'll be another battle that I just don't think I can wage right now. I'm pretty beaten down. On the sunny side, Social Security has finally given me an evaluation appointment with a doctor. That's on the 10th. I'm praying I don't get the "first application is always denied" treatment. My US Senator has stepped in unbidden (I love you, Bernie and Gretchen) so maybe that will help my case. But I gotta tell you, all this has me dissociating and not able to sleep all that well. I'm doing all the pro-active things I dream up. I'll just have to accept that there's a limit to what I can do. And accept that there are things about my condition that can't be changed. And accept that my Nana's old saying is true; "What can't be cured must be endured".

And so, patient reader, be kinder to yourself, because some bitch or bastard is ready at any moment to be rotten to you. Be able to take joy in the smallest things, because sometimes that's all you have. Be grateful for what you have and all you're given, because life doesn't owe you a thing. Be wise in whom you trust and keep close, and when you find even one who'll fit the bill, cherish them.

How White I Am

While reading a typical summer read, 'Coming Home' (family saga set in Britain), I realized just how white I am. I'm damn white. Not really WASP, because I'm not British, but I'm Scot-Swedish enough to have grown up that way. And we went to a liberal-but-nonetheless Episcopal church when I was little. I think the Episcopalian bit accounts for a lot of this. And my mom's fosterdad lived with us, and he was Veddy British. But let me explain.

If what we are comfortable with defines us, I'm British. Though born and raised in Brooklyn, much of my childhood reading consisted of thrift bookstore British children's lit. That was my mom's fosterdad's gifting. A stream of Brit Lit ran thru our house, and my brothers, also, are very white people. We ate what my mom could call cooking (tasteless British food she'd learned from her fostermom) and what my dad concocted (scary Scottish from his mom and "healthy" early 20th century trends-influenced). We dressed as most of White Americans did in those days, gloves and hats on women, hats and suits on men. Our furniture was large, dark wood, a china closet and buffet in the dining room. Upholstery was either floral or bland. Flowers were important. There was always tea around. If we had nothing at all else, there was tea. Eggs were boiled or fried in bacon fat, no omelets. No garlic, no peppers, no olive oil, rarely a spice. Salt, yes, but black pepper was never in cooking. Mayonnaise was for salads. Gravy was required. And all foods went into the oven/on the stove to boil, at the same time, and served when the meat was leather. Canned peas cooked as long as the beef roast. One's shoes were always shined. Everything was done by rules that had existed time immemorial and would exist beyond our petty lives. One showed no real emotion. If you dared, punishment was swift. Ignore all disruption and carry on was the code. Even church was controlled and dignified. 3 hymns, you're out. And you'd better sing.

I find myself liking and identifying best with British fiction and BBC broadcasting even now. The settings, the clothing, the customs, all so familiar and comforting to me. Much of this I recognize as my grandparents and parents' influence. Both of my parents were WW2 veterans, and the British influence- even programming, really- on that generation was enormous. It's been said by Gore Vidal that it was a systematic campaign of the media at that time to re-British Americans so they'd jump into the war to save Britain. Along with that identifying went a certain brand of racial prejudice, as well. A caste system, if you will, that we bought into as a family. And we weren't British, but close enough. The British were #1, then anyone Episcopalian, and on down the scale from there. Of course it was never discussed, but it was the order of things. It was a disruption when one of my brothers married an Italian Catholic, even though they'd been like family to us for years.

So it is, but shouldn't be, a revelation to me to see this, blankly, now. I'm oh-so-very-very-white. Despite my Mohawk blood, despite the bit of French, though I married a Jew and am a practicing Pagan, I'm white to the core. Looking around my living room now, I see how white I am. Floral couch, dark wooden furniture, wing chair, right down to the arranged framed art and photos and vase waiting for flowers, I'm a white girl.

Questions and Theories

What if a ghost is sometimes simply a time distortion? What if there's some kind of an unknown wavelength that snaps a photo, or briefly bodily transports someone, which/who is witnessed in another time? What if what we call "dissociation" isn't always a psychological state, but sometimes a spontaneous and uncontrolled movement into another dimension? I often find myself reminding people that what we thought we knew 500 years ago is laughable now. And logically, what we think is truth and science now will be primitive in the future.

The problem inherent here is that this can't (yet) be reproduced in empirical tests, so can't be proven by our current standards. We are limited by the constraints of proving what we don't have the capabilities to prove. So this is just a theory.

Just as colors can't ever be satisfactorily explained to one who's never had sight, we are also blind. There is much we look at, attach emotions to, and cannot control, therefore it remains the unknown. I do hope that the race survives long enough to discover some of these mysteries, even harness them. It certainly won't happen in this fearful superstitious phase we're in. But I do hope.