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It started as a week, now it’s a whole month. A month to draw attention to accomplishments and achievements of African-Americans in the United States. Carter G. Woodson successfully established Negro History Week in 1926 to celebrate the figures, successes, and culture of Black America. It was expanded to a month-long memorial in 1970. 

Black History Month now meets with more resistance then ever from non-Blacks in the U.S., with questions about why there’s no white history month, why don’t other ethnic groups get a month, why is there differentiation of the American experience between the races. As many counter, every month is white history month. American history has been misappropriated for centuries as white history, and it has taken the intentional effort of scholars to point out the presence and contributions of African-Americans from the earliest recorded history of this nation. In spite of that effort, some people refuse to hear it. We’re now facing the banning of books that orate the factual and truthful history of America, as Africans and Blacks have experienced it from the Middle Passage to now, in school libraries. Teachers are prohibited from teaching actual historical references that include slavery or the dreaded and misunderstood critical race theory. The absurd justification for this is that the subject matter will be traumatic for young students, and it be biased and sensationalized. Hmmm. I must add that since critical race theory is part of advanced academic pursuits, it’s not even vaguely plausible that it would be taught at the elementary or high school levels.

It is nearly impossible to comprehend how much more sensationalized and biased stories of events like Paul Revere’s famously gritty ride through the streets of Boston, or George Washington’s patriotic army starving at Valley Forge during the first winter of the revolutionary war, or righteous mobs bringing criminally guilty Negroes to justice on any given day. What was not depicted in those stories, however, were the true details – Paul Revere’s ride likely did not take place as the romanticized version we all heard as children. It was more likely a relay of citizens throughout the colonial landscape. Washington’s army was definitely lacking resources, because the British had established a supply chain blockade. To survive, they began eating their horses. Lynchings were sometimes scheduled and publicized as community events; bring the wife, bring the children, bring fried chicken and potato salad and let’s have the pubic execution of a likely innocent person. Further, lynchings were often simple vigilante violence events with no due process of law, and they were not limited to men.  Mobs would accost Blacks rumored to have committed some crime, including such transgressions as not addressing a white man as “sir”, whistling at a white woman, or talking back to whites. 

In spite of the oppression and the injustice, African Americans not only survived but thrived in this country. To do so, however, was a constant struggle to move forward with a weight tied around your ankles. If progress was to made, it was because you had begun the race 10 steps behind the starting blocks and ran twice as fast as your competitors. In some cases, your race was uphill and you did not have the proper running shoes to wear. In other cases, the final tape at the end of the course was moved as you approached. If you dared to maintain success, an arbitrary mob could visit you and burn down your home, your business, or the entire town. And that is the nature of systemic oppression.

Because of the common experience of this kind of oppression in the Black community, Black History Month became more and more necessary. The oppressor has the luxury of defining the narrative, so Blacks learned American history that excluded them and exalted white supremacy the same way as everyone else. Decades ago, failure to do that could be life threatening; one always needs to know the rules of engagement. Today, promoting historical perspective that more closely aligns with actual historical evidence still meets with consequences that remain life defining. The so-called MAGA Americans seem determined to claim their comfort zone as entitlement, and they are willing to lie, cheat, steal, and kill for that privilege. They are willing to destroy the country they claim to love in order to edit the past and relive the lie.

This is 2024, and in November we’ll elect a President. We’ll either re-elect the incumbent President Biden to a second 4-year term, or we’ll choose someone new. As of today, the choice looks to be the former 45th President, and the games have already begun. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments regarding his appearance on the primary ballot in multiple states. He is doing all he can to crush his competition in case the Court rules in his favor. His cohorts in the House of Representatives are killing their own bills at his urging in order to provide a strategic advantage for his return to the White House. One of those bills involves humanitarian aid for Gaza, and military assistance for the Ukraine. People will die because the United States withheld that money, but nobody seems to care about that. The MAGA ideology says itis more important to return the 45th President to office than to be concerned with casualty counts. 

This ideology is the same mindset that said packing bewildered Africans into the cargo holds of ocean going vessels was more important than doing the morally correct thing. It was for the good of the country, i.e. the good of the capitalist regime, the good of the economy, and consequently the good of the wealthy. This arrangement continues to exclude black- and brown-skinned people, as it has for now hundreds of years. Exposing the sheer toxicity of it would be the result of educating all of us to what really happened in the Middle Passage, what really happened in the British colonization effort, what really happened in the Jim Crow Era. And that is why such effort is blocked at all levels, because that is where the fear lives. If everyone knows the whole truth, the house of cards will fall and there will be a symbolic prison break; the overseers will be thrown from their guard towers and power dynamics among people will shift dramatically . Life as we know it would be over, and for many of us that would not be a bad thing.

So, Black History Month is dangerous. Showing people that Blacks in particular are not less intelligent, less innovative, less creative than whites is a revolutionary concept and would upset the status quo. It might eventually topple the economy, thrust the wealthy into the a new world that is based on equity and fairness. They are terrified of that, and the ultra-rich are pulling out all the stops to prevent it from happening. I predict that will only work in the short-term, and I think many of the upper class believe that as well. That’s why they are trying to leave the planet, go to Mars, the Moon or anywhere they can start over. Start colonizing, start a capitalist economy, and establish themselves at the apex of privilege. God help us all.

Most alcoholics/addicts have a healthy streak of perfectionism In my case, it was enhanced by survivalism, feeling the need to stay at least one step ahead of the game, and know what’s coming before it gets there. Be ready, all the time. They call it hypervigilance in mental health circles, but it really doesn’t matter what you call it. It’s a coping mechanism that helps you to roll through your days without being caught off guard, stunned into inaction by something you didn’t see coming. You spend your life running from everything, not of your own creation. Spontaneity be damned, you’re a slave to predictability and ultimately, to the illusion of control.

I’ve always been reasonably intuitive, and generally have a good sense about people and their motives. The problem is that I don’t listen to my intuition, and don’t heed the internal alerts because my need to be liked and included outweighs the risk of betrayal. I’ve been burned almost beyond recognition on many occasions while caught in that cycle, but only now do I seem to have some break in the pattern. I walk through the world in the looming shadow of rejection, and I would do almost anything to be free of it.

Life has not always been unkind me. People, on the other hand, have been anyssmal more times than not. Maybe I have been abyssmal to them, although I would have to say arbitrarily, not usually when in direct relationship. No matter, though, because hurt is hurt, trauma is trauma, and hurt people hurt people. We’re all hurt, betrayed by one thing or another, sometimes our own expectations. It is what it is, but now what? What are we going to do with all that hurt?

I was contemplating what happens when dreams die. They don’t die with a shrug of the shoulders and quiet resignation, they die with howls of rage and gunfire, violence, fists to flesh. We are a nation of dying dreams right now, realizing that what we learned to expect is not likely to manifest in many of our human lifetimes. We’re enraged, and heartbroken but we have no effective coping skills for dealing with that primal level of pain. The only tool we can find is the least effective one in the toolbox – cast blame. It’s like having a few drinks to dull an emergent pain, and will do the job only temporarily. The anesthetic will not last, and unless we learn how to find and remedy the root cause of the pain, we’ll become quickly addicted to the anesthetic. Blaming who or what is least likely to be responsible for the pain is our quick fix, and it’s now engrained. It’s also futile.

Lately, when I navigate the world, I feel largely untethered. That feeling has been annoyingly persistent over the past couple of years, but it has now come to a head as I am letting go of childhood things, family mooring, youthful health and resilience. It’s not that I’m no longer resilient, but it’s a slightly more intentional and measured experience as I grow older. I’m living my life alone, aging alone, learning alone but in many ways I have consciously chosen that. Some days I wish I’d made a different choice, but most days I’m content with it. We all make choices about how we live, but often do not realize we feel obligated to live according to expectations that are not ours. If anything disappoints me about the choices I’ve made, it’s usually that I have not met the expectations of others, and that’s not a good feeling.

One of these days I’m going to be able to lay down baggage that is not mine, unpack and discard what is no longer of any use. It’s difficult to let go of much of the old burdens, even though intellectually I understand that it does me no good and is not healthy to retain. There’s some kind of incomprehensible magnetic attraction to a lot of that, however, and I am having trouble breaking those bonds. I realized the other day, though, that memories are the only things I truly own. The rest is relative to my proximity to other entities, financial or physical. Still, I get to choose; I often wonder if I could survive totally off the grid. Food for thought, I suppose.

Perhaps some of my work right now is to dream. I’m not sure I’ve had any real dreams for quite some time, because I have been so busy surviving. For so many years I was a human doing rather than a human being, so maybe it’s time to be. Maybe it’s time to dream, and dreams don’t have to make sense. They can be fantastic and nonsense, so I am going to differentiate between dreams and goals. The gate is closed to goals, only dreams may pass. 

I just experienced a talk, a sermon to be precise, that offered an interesting and somewhat refreshing definition of salvation. I am not a religious person; I belong to a Unitarian Universalist congregation precisely because of the dearth of religiosity there. That in and of itself raises other issues but that’s not related to salvation. The sermon I referenced discussed the meaning and value of community. Those of us who come together in this congregation are frequently at odds concerning various topics, including politics, environmentalism, social justice, race, and food (we have a cadre of increasingly militant vegans on board). 

The speaker, an ordained minister of the faith, brought up that salvation is community, while sin is separation. Pluralists like myself often don’t believe in the concept of sin, although we do concede there are moral wrongs. The speaker reframed the concept of sin as separation – separation from each other, separation from everything outside of ourselves. That includes the planet, recognized divinity (if any), and the great mysterious unknown. Oppression is sin because it separates us from each other. That is more comprehensible and less judgmental to me, and I can take that to heart.

Community is generally what most of us search for on some level. If we are musicians, we typically want to find other musicians. If we are athletes, we seek out other athletes. Whether bibliophiles, audiophiles, artists, dog lovers, cat lovers, or carpenters we often feel more completely understood by others who share our interests and expertise. That’s not a bad thing, and we are generally better together.

The only issue becomes, wait for it…conformity. Assent or agreement is not requisite for a community. In fact, the real work may be to remain in community while in conflict. Not in spite of conflict, but because of conflict. Humans are going to conflict. It’s our nature, I think, but we don’t have to go to war simply because we disagree. Actual wars are frequently fought over finite resources, but when there is not a scarcity we’re only fighting over power. We’re fighting over the power to have our way. 

Before the speaker this morning, I participated in a discussion concerning “safety and security” in our congregation. As older women of my home town would say, “Lawd, haf mussy!”. A bunch of over privileged white guys with credentials prattled on and on about FEMA grants and security cameras and buying a golf cart with a flashing yellow light to patrol the grounds. You can’t make this shit up. How incredibly pompous and self-important this sounded to me. They explained that risk for non-mainstream Christian communities of faith has increased over the past few years, which is true. Our risk in this town, however, is not equivalent to that of the Jewish synagogue or the Muslin mosque. We’re in a good part of town and this is not a high crime town. Yeah, let’s get a golf cart like the typical country club estate community and then convince ourselves how welcoming to all we are.

So, the juxtaposition between that and the presentation on community was stark for me, and I came away from the latter angry and jangling. This congregation still does the same things and expects different results – they have a few non-representative but “qualified” people of the dominant culture make decisions for everyone, and claim that’s demonstrative of community. That, my friends, is truly sinful because it separates quite a lot of us from the sanctuary we are promised there. I am there rather than most other places because it promised to be different from the alternatives. This is not different. This is the same dominant culture bullshit it always has been, and it’s not welcome in my little corner of the sky. 

What to do, what to do? For myself – the only audience for that query – I will speak my piece and then withdraw. They will do what they are going to do, no matter what I say. I will care a little less, speak a little less, participate a little less but I will not love a little less. There are individuals I can quickly do without, but the faith itself is very strong for me. Unfortunately, we are still merely human and not always equivalent to the promises of the faith. Some of us have clearly missed the point, but them’s the breaks. I’m going to go and forage for food in the kitchen and know that reality just sucks on some days more than others, and oh bla dee oh bla dah…life goes on.

Posted this on Facebook earlier…

I like cold weather. This year and last have robbed me of snow, which always gives me such joy. I feel alive when it’s cold, like I would be ready to fight if necessary. I’ve always felt as though I needed to be ready to fight, and when I’m too hot I feel sluggish. I rarely feel warm and safe with the heat up high when it’s cold outside, because I’ve rarely felt warm and safe anywhere. That’s just part of a story with no particular point except that it’s my story.

I’m at a particular point in my chronology where material things are becoming less and less valuable to me, and I understand that memories are the only things I truly own. Hopefully, I have kept the memories true, and not edited the details because it’s been one hell of a trip. Sometimes I feel as though I have gone nowhere, and other times I feel a million miles away from where I started. The human brain is a strange and wonderful thing – it lies while speaking the truth and it sees when you are asleep.

Being awake is the price we pay for another day in which to dream of tomorrow, but of course, time is a human construct. When a dream dies, it’s not because a timer expired. It’s not a subtle exhale or an unobtrusive sigh. It’s a tortured howl and a guttural wail from the depths of a being that signals the amputation of hope from the spirit. It’s the sound of a gaping hole opening in the soul.

Losing hope is not a silent affair, but it is that inconsolable grief that is an awakening. That’s what it means to be woke, in case anyone wondered. It means to be in constant grief about what has been lost, and what could have been. Woke means you have chosen to let everyone in on the joke – we are not OK, and you are not OK – and that you need to tell the story.

Black History Month doesn’t mean Black people aren’t Black for the remainder of the calendar year. It certainly doesn’t mean that we are living in a post-racial society anywhere in the world. It means we all acknowledge history and that we take a look at how we got here. I believe it means we formally reject the old rationalizations for racism and bias – that Black people have smaller brains, no incentive, no ability to succeed academically or in business.

Hopefully, attention to Black History Month simply means we look around at today’s reality and realize how absurd those paradigms were. We’ll look at the truth of history, no matter how painful, and reframe our definitions of success. Ideally, it means that we begin to dream again how we can live differently and never repeat the absurdity of the social hierarchies we’ve relied on for capitalist profit. We all deserve that.

So. I am to write a page on my interpretation of purpose. Well, if I knew what it was I wouldn’t be taking courses and reading books about it. I’m reading a book now that appears to reframe “purpose” as “vocation”, and that seems to make a little more sense to me. Vocation is what feeds my spirit when I do it, what feels right to be doing, and what is of benefit I to someone else. That last part is a little sketchy because I don’t want to presume that what I do is what benefits someone else. I suppose I hope that it does, and doesn’t cause harm, but I’m not sure of what benefit I might add to anyone’s experience.

So, for all that being said, purpose gets me reflecting on why I am here, why I came here. That all sounds a bit lofty, but I guess it points to what gifts we have. That’s really hard for me because I don’t generally conceive of myself as having “gifts”, but that’s more than likely just a self-esteem issue. I get hung up on whether I’m the best at anything, exemplary, stellar, award-winning calibre. I suppose I do feel that I’m a pretty good writer, and must note that even writing that sentence was a hilarious endeavor in word choice – I went from good, to guess I’m good, to decent, and toyed around with “OK”. When I was in high school, I placed 3rd in a state-wide competition, and up until that point I really thought I was “educably retarded” in the literal sense of the term used at that time (so yes, I did really mean to use that term).

My purpose seems to be about what keeps coming back to me, or what I rotate around throughout my life. I believe I’ve always been a truth teller, a keeper of history, a repository of memories and I usually need to write about that. I need to write about what’s bouncing around inside my head, how I feel about things, how I react to things, and what I think about them. Writing and story telling have always been a part of that, although I have resisted that over the years. When I went to college, I wanted to be a geneticist, a scientist. I was not very good at that, and in order to graduate I had to change my major to English. I didn’t need to think about that work. It came naturally to me, even without much advance preparation. One of my professors said there reallly wasn’t anything he could actually teach me. That stroked my ego but I didn’t understand the implications.

So yes, I think at least part of my purpose is to tell the truth, and communicate that to other people in a way they can understand and be prompted to reflect or think further on the content. I’m not all that interested in writing content specifically to sell products or even ideology, but more to stimulate the “what if” discussions. It would never occur to me that I could actually convince or influence someone to change their conviction about something, but I guess I sometimes hope for that. Ultimately, though, it’s about postulating and expressing my bizarre thoughts so other folks can either relate or just contemplate to whatever I have expressed.

So. Here I am, poor little me, all by myself and trying to do…something. Actually, I’m setting a few goals, keeping this place reasonably clean, moving along with doing things I said I would do whenever I had some money. In the middle of that, here comes the curve ball from the cosmos – your liver enymes are high. We need to address this, sooner rather than later. Who the heck is “we”???

I had some lab work done earlier in the week as a follow up on a doctor’s appointment I had a couple of months ago. The results showed that my liver enzymes are “extremely” high. The erstwhile PA who ordered the lab work left me a message on the patient portal to let me know that, and said she is re-referring me to a gastro specialist. We had agreed to do that before the lab work came back since it was time for my scheduled colonoscopy. The clinic to which I was referred snottily said that they are “out of network” for my insurance, which is now Medicaid. Be gone, peasant. So, I found another clinic which is in the provider network for my insurance and asked the PA to let me know if she needed to do a second referral. She did, but let me know again that liver enzymes were very high. She even had not one, but two, nurses call me to personally relay the message. Just to make sure I understood that my liver enzymes were very high. Extremely. And that I need to have the colonoscopy “sooner rather than later”. 

My joy is indescribably. My panic level is immeasurable. WTF? Of course my only recourse is to have a consultation with Mr. Google and his consort YouTube to see what’s what. Apparently, the liver enzymes can be elevated by a variety of things, from no clue why to cancer. Pancreatic cancer, colon cancer, liver cancer. There’s also something called fatty liver that can elevate those enzymes, as well as diet and obesity. I am voting for the latter, but of course my anxiety is pointing me toward one of the c-words as the answer.

So, I will wait for them to contact me next week to schedule with the gastro clinic. News like this only comes on Fridays, when you have to sit and spin on it for the entire weekend, not being able to do a damned thing about it. Ugh. 

I did morning pages this morning, and discussed this unfortunate state of affairs, and one of my questions was: have I run out of time for getting my act together and taking my life back, if I ever had it. Did I cause this somehow by chronically offering myself such poor self-care and dietary habits. What if I’m really dying? Then what? I have lost two friends about my age to cancer recently. One was a high school classmate, and I don’t know what type of cancer she had. The other was someone here that I was exceptionally close to but who disavowed me for some unknown reason, out of the blue. Whatever. She was kind of kooky, but still it hurt. Nobody expects that kind of news, though.

The whole health speed bump has caused me to ask myself what the hell I’m doing, literally. Have I worked for change, as I preach so often? Have I done as much as I can do? I think not. Have I done what I came here to do? Not a clue. What resources do I have, and have I used my powers for good? To a certain point, I believe that’s true, but again I don’t think I’ve done as much as I can do.

Somebody posted on FB earlier a parable about a hummingbird. There was a great fire in the forest, and all the animals were leaving to escape the smoke and the flames. A jaguar was plodding along, and saw a humming bird flying over head. Jaguar found that to be curious, because the hummingbird was flying toward the fire. That didn’t seem right, and while the jaguar was contemplating that, the hummingbird flew overhead once again but this time in the direction jaguar was walking – away from the fire. This was repeated several more times, and finally jaguar called out to the hummingbird. Hummingbird paused for a second, and looked won questioningly. Jaguar asked what it was that hummingbird was doing flying back and forth from the fire. Hummingbird said, “I take up a single drop of water into my beak, and fly into the fire to drop it on the flames.” Jaguar said, ”That makes no sense! Everyone has tried putting out the fire, and it is still burning. How can your single drops of water do anything?” Hummingbird said, “I know it’s only a tiny drop of water, but that is what my beak will hold. That is what I can do, and that is me doing my part to save the forest.” And then jaguar understood, and so did I.

So, what is my part. I can write some things, I can discuss and strategize, analyze some things. My fear is that mostly I can be outraged and righteously indignant, but cannot effectively organize or DO anything that changes ANYTHING. I can talk a good game, but can I take a good action? I suppose I see what I’ve done as incredibly inconsequential, changing nothing. I’ve gotten a few letters to the editor published, made some phone calls, participated in many discussions. What has that done for the “movement”?

To drill down further, for which movement do I allegedly work? Is it the GLBT movement, or the racial equity movement, or the women’s equality movement? Is it the immigrant movement, the disability front, or the class effort? It’s all necessary justice agitation, but I’m wondering if my personal effort should be more focused in order to be effective. Where am I a stakeholder? As they say – to whom do I belong?

There’s a particular spot that’s coming more into focus for me lately, and it’s a truly frightening one: should I come out of the closet about my disability? I am certainly not ashamed of it, but have never wanted people to see that first when they deal with me. The same is true for my sexual orientation, my race and ethnicity, my socioeconomic class, or anything else about me that is immutable. I don’t quite know why this one factor is so intimidating for me. What do I care what people thing about it?

Maybe I’m not at peace with being disabled. Maybe I’m still not really accepting of it, still afraid of accepting that status. I’m on Medicaid now, and truthfully I have no idea how that happened, but there’s a small piece of me that looks down a bit on that circumstance. I don’t look down on it for anyone else, just for myself. I should have been able to dodge that bullet, and not been in need of government subsidy. Had I sucked it up and maintained employment with the dark overlords of Wells Fargo, I certainly could have. How ridiculous of me, because after working all these years I will take away next to nothing financially. 

And there it is. I have mishandled my life. I should not have to go to the halls of injustice with my tin cup asking for help. Why is it perfectly acceptable for others to do that and not me? I would fight to the death for anyone else to get that help when they needed it, but cannot accept it for me. Why am I so special?

Asking for help, accepting help. No, that’s ok – I’ve got it. I can do it. Maybe I fear that I’ll be seen as weak if I need help, ask for help. Do I think that of anyone else? Maybe. I suppose I do make judgements about certain people who make odd decisions about their lives based on pride or mental health issues, or both. A friend of mine, well at least she’s on my FB friends list, got cut off by her ex-husband financially and is literally broke. She claims to have a couple of college degrees and is a public policy expert, but I have never known her to have a job or generate income. She decided to move to Michigan after her financial status changed and she got evicted from her apartment, but she doesn’t have a job or any source of income in Michigan, either. She is living in a women’s shelter but claims she is sending out her resume’ and composing cover letters. Hm. I suppose I do judge that, because she appears to have resources but depends on – or maybe expects – others to provide for her. I know there’s a mental health issue at play, but am I any better?

The whole issue of declaring a disability is complicated. Medicaid says that I can’t have more than $2,000 but how can I live? I have more than $2,000 and I’m going to have to figure that out – I have bills to pay, and I am paying them without asking for any kind of subsidy for that. The whole situation makes my brain hurt. This is why I went a long as I did working for the corporate fascist pigs, so that I could maintain as much of my autonomy and independence as possible, for as long as it’s possible. 

We don’t do this aging thing well unless you’re in a nuclear family, although even then people run into difficulties. Once again, aging is not for cissies. It’s also very scary – lawmakers are trying to eliminate Social Security, which I suppose many people my age presume will be there when we need it. Maybe not. As with many issues that define our lives, it all boils down to money – if you can pay for it, you’ll be fine. If not, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

So, yeah, I’ve been musing over visionaries, prophets, leaders who propel others toward their vision of how things should be. Some people say it’s an agenda, but it seems to be the active sight of a different way. I suppose the problem comes in when one must rely on others to change their walk in order to align with your vision. That’s where leadership comes in, but that’s tricky as well. Some who have no true leadership abilities seem to rely on authoritarianism, fascism, anything that removes the individual right to choose. That’s why UUs are so bloody annoying – their vision is sound but their insistence on individualism at the expense of it can drive a pacifist to homicide. But, I digress.

I believe there are limits to vision, though. Was Charles Manson a visionary? In his own demented way, I think so. He believed that a race war between Blacks and whites would do something more in line with how he thought things ought to be. I’m not quite sure what that looked like, but pursuit of his vision seems toxic, malevolent, evil. It induced suffering for the sake of suffering, pain for the sake of pain, negative consequences for no reason other than the high of the kill.

There have been malevolent dictators and commanders across the globe who resemble Manson’s malignancy – Nero, Chairman Mao, and others. Their vision seemed to be limited to their supreme and unbridled personal authority over the political state, not whether life improved for their citizens. The vision seems to be only to deify themselves, eliminate resistance to that, and thereby achieve the vision. I find that malignant and malevolent as well, but I suppose that’s my opinion.

When it comes to leaders closer to home, what can we make of the domestic terrorist crowd, the anti-government militias, the radical right? They have a vision, and in their minds it supersedes all others. In their minds, their vision more closely aligns with the founding principles of the nation, and if they can, they’re willing to do anything necessary to implement that. The only thing stopping them is numbers, money, and the fact that government has sophisticated means and opportunity to resist them. These are the reprise of the same people who took over Wilmington in 1898, the same people who engineered massacres in Tulsa and other places, the same people who showed up on the shores of Africa and packed human beings like sardines in the cargo holds of ships to farm their land thousands of miles away. Malevolence, selfishness, greed, malignancy. No appreciable difference between that and Manson, Chairman Mao, Putin, Kim Jong Un, and on and on and on.

So, how do these malevolent visionaries differ from the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, or even further back to the Founding Fathers? While I don’t agree with every single aspect of the visions of the aforementioned, I don’t see any of them as intentionally malevolent. Particularly in the cases of civil rights leaders, their vision had little to do with the state, but with the citizenry. The Founding Fathers envisioned a strong state, but that was a different state of affairs – there wasn’t a state to begin with. They were creating one, but even within that effort there was attention paid to the quality of life for the citizenry.

Allowing the 45th President to once again rise to the White House again would give credence to those amongst us who have the same malevolent visions that he proclaims, where certain people are devalued and persecuted, and others elevated because of a preconceived notion of their value. That vision would more than likely eliminate people like me, and people I care about. It would bring a return to a rigid caste, where second-class citizens had no real hope of vacating the assigned caste. He wants a civil war as part of the way to etch that vision into stone, and I cannot see how that’s not malevolent. It’s also not a particularly hopeful outlook for our nation.

What I want to tell you about are things I know, but never learned. What I want to tell you is that some things cannot be learned, only experienced. Some things are not supposed to make any sense, or be entirely acceptable but they remain a part of our reality. I want to tell you what I know how mean people can be, and how mean I can be. I want to tell you that sometimes I make no sense, but I know who I am and that’s ultimately all that matters. There was a time when I didn’t know who I was, but thought I did. I could see myself only through the expectations of other people, of systems and institutions. I thought I knew who I was but I only knew who I thought I was supposed to be. In that picture frame I was never centered, never focused, the light always judged me harshly and highlighted my flaws and imperfections. I thought I knew who I was but ultimately gave up on myself because I never fit inside the frame. 

There was a time when I could not bear to see a reflection of myself in a mirror or any reflective surface, and I am not sure that is not now still happening. Now is still a time when I’m not entirely sure I’m good at anything, when I know that I have screwed up so many things, when I still grade myself on each step I take and wonder how I am seen by others. Now is still a time when I want my mommy to be proud of me but hate that I have disappointed her so deeply. I want to say I’m sorry but I don’t really mean that. The feeling is sincere regret that she felt badly, but to accept blame for that I would have to regret that I was ever born…although sometimes I feel that way.

I am the prodigal daughter, but I cannot go home. I just sold the house where everything fell apart – was that really home? What is home? I am not sure I know anymore. Home is supposed to be a base of operations, a familiar place, a place that is yours. I have no such place. I live in an apartment where they pride themselves on calling this home, but it belongs to them. If I bought property, a house of my own, unless I am off the grid entirely I am still answerable to someone for the space – the municipality, the state, the power company. Home usually means where my material possessions are kept. When I die, someone will dispose of it alol and I will be an ever fading mark on the landscape. What is it all for?

Yesterday was my birthday, and many people wished me glad tidings on social media, which I truly appreciated. Some I have never met in person, but in today’s world that really doesn’t matter. Today on social media I saw that one of my high school classmates died. She was not one of my best friends, but she was never particularly mean to me. She was a professional photographer, very talented, very complicated. I remember with fondness that she was bow legged. We are all now of that age where the bright and expectant young faces in our graduation picture begin to disappear one by one. We are of that age where our mortality seems real and is getting very close. We are of that age where we’re called on to cut the nonsense and discern what is truly important.

I never wanted to be old, but then again I never thought I would be here long enough for that to become a reality. In many ways, I still move through the world like a much younger person, shaking my fist at authority and cursing the rules. I still eat cake for breakfast, have no lunch, and order pasta with heavy cream sauce for dinner. Then I have more dessert. Unfortunately, my aging body no longer tolerates a regime that is only manageable with a higher level of activity and joints that work as they did 30 years ago. Living as though I’m 30 when my body is 63 isn’t working. 

When I purged a lot of the junk in my apartment recently, I was struck by how easy it was to part with some of the items that, even 5 years ago, I would have fought to keep. Somethings were momentous of events I couldn’t remember attending, or that had unpleasant memories. Other things, like clothes that I couldn’t wear now if my life depended on it (too small, too dated, tattered) caused me to just shake my head. What in the world could I ever have gotten from kleeping any of that? It was an exercise in letting go, in realizing that I cannot return to that reality, when I weighed much less and had knees that worked.

Something tells me I don’t need to fear my aging body as much as I should fear letting my spirit wither. I thought fighting meant that I cared, but I think all it meant was that I wasn’t in the right place, that I needed to hammer myself into someplace that did not fit me. That did not work, and was very painful. There is still pain, but I’m no longer forcing myself into small places that are wrong for me. I am no longer something to be hammered. It seems I always thought fighting proved that my spirit was alive, but I don’t believe that any longer. I know that my spirit is alive when I am living in a way that affirms it, that says I feed it rather than starving it. Every time I choose to allow others to walk on me, and don’t assuage my own wants and needs, I am starving the spirit within. Let’s not do that any more.

I see the world differently from most people do. I see words and hear music. Sound is healing, vibration, words are highways from head to heart. When I sold the house I grew up in, I had never felt so lost and untethered before. I stood outside my father’s tomb and sobbed out loud, asking him what the FUCK I was supposed to do after this. I got an answer – a breeze blew into the mausoleum, and it said to look for the open door. So I will do that, although I don’t believe I should be in search. I should, however, recognize when a door is closed and not continue to bang my head against it. Have faith that I will happen upon a door that is open, and that’s the one I should choose.

There are so many questions, and so many answers. Some of the answers I cannot comprehend with a human mind, or at least with MY human mind. I don’t know if the answers are important any longer, maybe only the questions are meaningful at this point. Perhaps it is up to me to explore the questions and provide the answers I want to have. I understand that I cannot revise the past, but I can change the energy with which I remember it, accept it for what it is and create new ways to answer. Without the past I would not be here, so it behooves me to make peace with it. If I can reframe my past, maybe I will see myself more inside my own picture frame.

Mortality is a clear and present danger at this point in my life, and I fully admit that I am afraid to die. Afraid that when I do, all of my secrets will be revealed, and I will be summarily dismissed as a fraud. Afraid of what judgement may await – the small Catholic girl inside me lives on! Afraid of the unknown. Even in realtime, there is always the fear that I will be discovered to be not what I present, that I only talk a good game. I suppose when I am dead I won’t care what anybody thinks, but I’m alive currently and my ego is still impaled on that point. I’m trying to live a better life, and if that means I live completely alone for what is left of it then so be it. If that keeps me from causing damage to other people, causing pain, then it’s a small price to pay. Fighting reality isn’t passion, or faith, or even desire. It’s just fighting, and I don’t have that much energy any longer. I’m just looking for the open doors.

So, today is my birthday. 63 years ago I crash landed here…well, actually about 1100 miles south and west of here, but that’s irrelevant. I imagine they thought I’d come before Christmas, but I didn’t. They might have thought I’d come around New Year’s, but I didn’t. I split the gap, right down the middle, and came 4 days after Christmas and 3 days before the the New Year. My cycle is definitely winter. I have always enjoyed the cold weather, and in these parts snow usually makes a showing around this time, but last year we got nothing. This year could be the same, but it’s not quite January, so we’ll see. If I really want to see it, I can drive a little north, into Virginia, and I’m sure I can find it. Right now, though, I’m sitting here in the Piedmont of NC, trying to muddle through what I imagine is a mid-life crisis? 

This doesn’t feel as though it’s the middle of my life. Both my mother and her sister, and my grandmother’s sisters, died between the years of 82 and 83, so I’m figuring I’ve got a solid 20 years before things head south for me. In truth, nobody knows. While I’m here, though, I would really like to do what I am “supposed” to do, fulfill my purposed on the level of spirit. Tell my story, I guess. 

I still wrestle with the notion that I have nothing to say that anyone wants, or needs, to hear. When I tell my story in the AA rooms, which is not all that often, it is generally well received. Most people say I have done a good job at maintaining a sense of humor about things, but that’s not always a given. I don’t have a script or anything, I just let whatever wants to come out come out. I think that’s how it’s supposed to go; you channel what is needed and let it rip. I’m not sure if you can do exactly that in writing for an unknown audience.

One of the outstanding lessons in the Daily Om course I’m taking now asked me to list 5 most significant life experiences, then pick one to expound upon. I’ve been more or less stuck on that for a while now, and not sure why. Most of the events I listed were not joyous, or happy celebrations. I think I included graduating from college, which for me remained bittersweet for a number of reasons. One of the other ones that I am confident is life-changing was the last time I spent time alone with my aunt, before my mother went into the nursing home and before dementia began making its way into my aunt’s brain. I look on that as a rescue, and feel as though she saved my life. 

That day, we were supposed to meet my mother for lunch at a familiar restaurant; my mother and I had been there many times. I picked up my aunt, and my mother was going to meet us there. At the designated gathering time, and beyond, there was no sign of my mother. This was not in the least unusual. My mother was late for literally everything my entire life, so my aunt and I just chatted. I’ve always really liked her, not just as my aunt but as a person I had fun with. We had the same sense of humor, and I think she liked me as well. We had fun together.

Our conversation erupted into silliness over events of the past, family stories, crazy stuff our relatives had done. It didn’t really occur to me what a treat it was to be having an adult conversation with her, just the two of us, without my mother around to editorialize or lend tension to something from 50 years before that was festering between the two of them. Somehow, the conversation turned to my parents, and when they were married. I asked her about a time I remembered from my childhood, where she had moved to Detroit but then needed to return home. My father went up there to help her drive back to Louisiana, and I remembered feeling like there was more to the story. I asked her about that.

My aunt said, well you know I went up there for a man, and that didn’t work out. She gave me that eye-rolling look that said yeah, what an idiot I was, and we both exploded in giggles. I was still troubled, though, and I asked her flat out if my father had been in appropriate in any way with her, had something gone on during that trip that wasn’t right. She looked at me directly, and said, “Ann, your father was a perfect gentleman. He never did anything he shouldn’t have done, and he did what he came up there to do – he helped me get back home. It was a long drive, and I couldn’t have done it by myself. But he was a PERFECT gentleman.” 

I believed her, and still don’t quite get what tension there could have been about that, but I immediately answered my own question about that – my mother saw things very differently than the rest of us, and my father was undeniably a dog while they were married. But, whatever the case, I was able to lay that question to rest for myself. But there was more, and I had to ask her – why did my father stay in that marriage as long as he did. He was miserable, I was miserable, my mother was out of her mind. They stayed married for 16 years, so why in the hell did he stay there all that time, prolonging a torturous scenario that was inevitably doomed to failure?

She locked eyes with me again, with the kindest and most benevolent, loving expression on her face, and said very quietly, “That was because of YOU.” I had to sit back and take a deep breath. I felt as though a train was roaring through my blood vessels, the din echoing in my eardrums. It had never occurred to me that I played into any part of his decision about anything. I said to her that I didn’t even think he liked me very much, and saw me as more or less a pain in the ass to deal with. She probably said some other things, but all I could hear was that he stayed because of me, that I had mattered on some level to him.

Those few minutes of conversation with my aunt changed EVERYTHING for me. EVERYTHING. I cannot say I forgave him on the spot, but I had clarity for the first time about the real dynamics of their marriage, and what had been going on there. I remember he would frequently say that my mother had “warped the child’s mind against me”. I sided with her a lot, because it was always just me and her and yeah, she did more or less mold my thinking to match her off-kilter way of looking at the world, and her completely dysfunctional concept of adult relationships. I didn’t know any better, and he gave me no better alternative. I was on my own, and I had to survive. It was hell on so many levels that even Dante had not conceived of that kind of misery.

My mother never made it to the restaurant, and on some cosmic level that was the way it was supposed to be. She had been trying to call my cell phone while I was at the restaurant, but I had turned the volume down and then got into a serious conversation and wasn’t paying attention…she had locked the steering when somehow and had to call AAA and then got disoriented but made it home and that was the end of that. She was safe, and so was I.

I will never forget that conversation with my aunt, and I do believe it saved my life. I did not have all that much of a life at that point, at least not my own. That clarity let me believe in my father on a different level, a level that said he did not abandon me. He believed I was already lost, so he fled. I wish he had done that a little differently, fought for me, made sure I was safe but he didn’t. He didn’t know how. It doesn’t sound all that much better, and the outcome was still the same, but there was a little shred of hope now. Hope that I didn’t cause the whole thing. Hope that I wasn’t so deformed and aberrant that he fled THAT. Still a coward, but I didn’t cause that. 

Things were different for me after that. My mother continued to go downhill, I continued to find disastrous narcissists who used me until I ran dry, my job became increasingly less satisfying and cognitively disconnected from who I am. But there was some base level in me that was no longer a wavy line on the shoreline. I was far more solid, and I needed that for what was coming. 

My aunt is gone now, but I will always remember that she gave me back a chunk of my soul that I didn’t realize was missing.

So, here we are again (and yes, that I the royal we). A day before my birthday, many days after I involuntarily began the latest phase of adulting. Adulting is highly overrate, exhausting, and often non-productive. In my irrational and oppositionally defiant mind, it’s an exercise in doing what everyone else wants, playing by everyone else’s rules, and getting minimal personal return. But alas, this is what is required to get through the day, keep a roof over one’s head, and stay out of most negative consequence. Bleh, is all I can muster for the concept.

I seem to have turned a corner in life, in spite of all my best childhood intentions. There is no longer a choice but to function in society as an adult, and I cannot say that I am all that happy about it. For me, being an adult reiterates the circumstance that I am alone, and living life on my own. That being said, I have a veritable support system here, people I would trust with my life, trust to make decisions for me if I cannot speak for myself. I have received help, when I most needed it, from random strangers whose kindness was staggeringly unconditional. I have gotten what I need, but not always what I want, but I hear that is how life proceeds for us all. My jury us out on that, but I won’t get stuck on that for now.

Regardless, many miles have been traveled on some esoteric highway over the past 6 or so months. My contract for IT work ended, not because of causal factors under my control. I have not found another job, although I readily admit my efforts have been rather half-assed. As I began to panic in slow motion about getting older and being alone and having few resources, I decided it was time to sell my mother’s house. Just about that time, maintenance showed up to do something or other in my apartment, and decided they had to report that I am a slob (my words, not theirs). On some level, I agreed, but the timing really sucked and the upshot of that was the “community manager” (a misnomer if ever there was one) sent one of those legally-approved corporate letters about the report, one that begins with “it has come to my attention”. Those are never good letters. They dud an inspection a week later, but nothing much had changed. They sent in some a-hole from the pest control company, who barely made eye contact and paraded around in here with a spy camera-pen. Since nothing much had changed in a week, the manager (who reminds me of Marjorie Taylor Greene) gave me 90 or so days to get with it, and they would inspect again. Not happy, but again – other people’s rules, other people’s time frames, other people’s standards (most of which are unspoken and vague). Another exercise in compliance for the disempowered.

After all that hoopla over the apartment, I took it all on as a competition. I hauled huge bags of stuff out of here, stuff I had not touched in years, stuff I couldn’t remember acquiring, stuff I couldn’t even identify. I rented a 10×5 storage unit and hauled stuff I need to keep there, because I was just moving it around in here and not clearing any space. Then I hired a housekeeping service to clean the bathroom and kitchen and make things look more habitable. And THEN I hired a junk removal company to haul away the sofa and recliner, both of which were in kind of tattered condition and making the living room seem inordinately heavy. I can’t say I was using either of those items, except as open-air storage pile, so off they went along with broken microwave, broken toaster oven, broken vacuum cleaner, and an ironing board I had not used in the last 20 years. Big relief, although it didn’t feel quite as expansive as I thought, but it’s done.

The complex re-inspected a couple of weeks ago, after a second visit from the housekeepers, the place was ready for anything. The pest-control company sent a different guy, who actually smiled and tossed a couple of words in my direction. After all that, I have not heard a single word from the MTG-look-alike or anyone in the complex about whether my efforts were satisfactory, or more is needed, or you failed the inspection. Nothing. I wonder if they are disappointed – I was told when I re-signed my lease a few months ago they could rent this place for way more than what I’m paying. I’ve been here 22 years, so I guess they feel they are losing money. Whatever, but the crisis was averted and that’s all I wanted.

As I was going through all of this mess (literally) with the apartment, I finally understood that I was still grieving. Grieving my mother, who had lived here with me after Hurricane Katrina, and the horrible job at the horrible bank. This was an external representation and expression of shame, guilt, grief, anger. All of those emotions were filling this space, nearly squeezing me out of here. There was no place to walk, no place to sleep, no place to prepare food. It was one click shy of what I had seen on the Hoarders show, and the only reason it wasn’t that bad was because I knew this was a rented space that didn’t belong tome. I did no structural damage, no holes in the walls, things were not stacked up from floor to ceiling, no piles of junk over a couple of inches…but it was not a livable space, not a rational space, not a space that I wanted to be in. As my mother used to say all the time when I was a kid, all the junk was a reflection of my mind. I didn’t want to be in there, either, so needed to fill it up so I didn’t have to notice what wasn’t there. Or something like that. 

So, now that. I have a reasonable living space, I’m figuring the my mama’s house won’t sell until 2024. WRONG. The realtor, who my cousin recommended and who is like family, moved the place in 3 months. I had to kick in all kinds of repairs and updates, and wound up coming down several thousand dollars after the home inspection, but it’s done. The sale closed earlier this month. Great, No more property tax, no more fretting over insurance, no more sweating through hurricane season with or without flood insurance. I’m free! 

Well not exactly free…more like tied with a spider’s silk thread. I was totally unprepared for the emotions that would spew like a fire hose once I parted with that place. That was the last vestige of my childhood, and every time my life fell apart in my youth it was there. When my grandmother died, when my mother went nuts, when my dad left, when I graduated from college and came home a drunk, when my dad got married and didn’t tell me, when the new step-monster called me and told me to never ask him for money, when my I got bludgeoned out of the closet because my mother read my diary. All of that happened in that house. 

When I realized I would have nothing tying me there any longer, I went into orbit for a little bit. I kept telling everyone that I felt untethered, which is true. The interesting thing about that, however, is that I always resented being tethered. Back in the day, it didn’t feel like a tether, it felt like a chain. A chain that bound me to everyone’s expectations, rules, perspectives. I had to leave there to find even a part of myself, on my own. There was a part of me that really believed I would never live my own life until after my mother dies, but now she’s dead and I still don’t know how to do that. Ain’t that a bitch?

So, here I am, wherever that is. I’m more stable, or at least less emotional, than I was a couple of weeks ago. I was in full-grief mode, grieving my mother, grieving my childhood, grieving my father, grieving what could have been, what I wanted things to have been. But what I thought I wanted back then were the dreams of a child, who didn’t understand how to dream big and who had only the dysfunction and trauma of her own small world to explore. A child who had her few dreams bashed and ridiculed and dismissed because that’s all the adults in her life knew how to do. 

I suppose now it’s up to me to figure out exactly what it is that I want to do. The world is scary but I’ve been scared before, and I’m still here so anything is possible. Anything. I know a couple of things about how to discern next steps, and one of them is to not discern anything. What feels good? What feeds my spirit? What gives me joy? Pay attention is what I’m trying to do now, because it has always been so incredibly easy to ignore my feelings, to ignore red flags and warning signs, to presume that I am incapable of getting what I want, that it’s stupid to want it. Nobody with any sense would want that, is what I was told. That’s more of the junk I need to haul to the dumpster, because it doesn’t make for a livable space. Not at all.