Get Your Business Done

I lost a family member about two days ago.

A part of me inside is saying, "I can't believe you are writing about this again".
It feels that I'm always mentioning someone who died recently in this blog.

Lately it seems that I am losing all 'my people'. The people who I care about, who are in my memories, the folks that ultimately made me...me.

I put it down to becoming middle-aged. And I admit, I've been sad and wallowing in it.
Mourning the person, their life, their loss, but in the end it comes down to being selfish. In the final analysis, it seems that most of us, no one more than myself, are mourning what their loss 'does to me'.

More than any other, this death has shaken me. A few weeks ago, I didn't know how sick she was, how ill she'd become in the last year or so. And worst of all, I hadn't really asked.

I feel guilty and stricken. In this, my own blog, I preached about the importance of making time for family, but I felt that meant just attending the family dinners when asked and picking up occasion specific cards at the right time. I realized that I had taken the lazy way out, letting all of the invitations come to me second-hand through my parents and not taking the initiative as an adult and calling to see how they were, maybe emailing, driving over, etc.

In short, I  haven't grown up. I'm still acting like a 13 year old adolescent, worrying endlessly what 'people will think of me'.  It's hamstrung me in every way.  For fear of what people would think, I've stifled my sense of humor. I've put on a professional sort of mask to cover my personality so that I would be taken seriously because I've never been able to handle criticism, always fearing the ultimate judgment that I would be found out as a fallible human being. Excessive pride + vulnerability of any kind= crushing humiliation.

And it is this that caused me to always take the conventional path, to never make waves, to never step outside of the bounds and really do the things that show people what you mean to them. It's not what we say, it's what we do that people remember.

And this lady, what she did for me, for my sisters, for all of us kids was pretty remarkable. Acting only out of kindness, she spent her time, what little money she had and her energy to provide us with unforgettable memories. She took us to movies, for ice cream, to the zoo for the annual Easter egg hunt, to the fair for cotton candy and hotdogs, she set up weekend trips to the beach, backyard Double-Dare-esque obstacle courses, stuffed Christmas stockings, always had the time to play games, to listen to our childish chatter. As I sit here typing, the blanket she gave me in 1992 is still draped over the foot of my bed. In short she gave sacrificially, she never held anything back. She didn't spend time agonizing over what everyone thought, she was too busy doing...

I remember feeling bad that she had never become a mother herself, imposing a little of my own regret on to her, and it was just yesterday that I realized, she had actually been so much more than that. Instead of concentrating on one or two of her own kids, she'd been a sort of den mother to so many. Me, my sisters, their kids, the children she taught Sunday school to. There is not one of us, whose life wasn't impacted by her. This zany lady who taught us that it was okay to let our hair down, have fun and to be silly from time to time.

I guess I, in my devout struggle to become an accomplished adult, to by God be taken seriously, I forgot this.

A few years ago, on a popular sitcom, was an episode with the premise that a visiting African-American minister to their church turns the whole congregation on its ear, exhorting them that life is short and that the meaning of one's life, is to "Get your business done!" The family around whom the show centers is gripped as one by one the family members strive to follow the injunction and get their business done.

I know it's TV and maybe a little silly. But I took something profound from it and it's stayed with me.
No more so than this week...Am I getting my business done?
Maybe my career wouldn't have suffered such setbacks if people knew there was a real live human being inside. If they knew that when I'm alone, I sing...a lot. And that I can't hear salsa or flamenco music without moving my hips, that I bust a move frequently when really into music. That I can do the Cupid Shuffle at any moment completely from memory...even without the music. That I have to read my favorite poetry out loud, usually to my long-suffering cats.  If I talked at all, they'd find I'm actually pretty funny...that I have a really well developed sense of the absurd. They'd know that some mornings I wake up laughing because that Monty Python line, "No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition" is frequently in my head. That there are certain moments in movies where I laugh so hard, stuff comes out of my nose.

I quit showing all that; I reasoned that I was an adult, that it was time to start living my life in tailored black trousers with serious heels, and a serious expression, and to seriously work hard.

Maybe it's time I took a page from her book, maybe it's time for me to stop taking myself so seriously, to remember the lessons she taught me, to give more than I get, to stop worrying about what people think, to get busy having fun.

To get my business done.

I'll miss you Auntie G.....and I hope that in heaven you are baking, playing games and singing with the angels.

The 1st of May- A Homecoming

Sometimes there is a sense that some of these posts seem to come from a manic depressive.
It's really just me and there are good days and bad...

I guess I thought that I could bluff my way through life so much more easily. When I was in High School, I thought, "okay, first graduate, somehow get through college, you'll meet someone probably around your 3rd year, date, get engaged in your twenties while making headway at the perfect job, get married and then have children in your mid to late twenties."

It all seemed so do-able and normal. I had no doubts....
Then life really began to happen...it never goes the way that you plan. If you are reading this and really love your children, you'll tell them that. Take their face in your hands, look them in the eye and make sure that they 'get it'.

I had a really watershed day today. It was such a beautiful and perfect day. The ones where the azure sky seems to go on forever in limitless splendor. It was warm with cool breezes and zero humidity, which means a lot in a place like Florida.

I couldn't have stayed inside if my life depended on it. So I grabbed a sandwich and a drink and I made my way to my special spot at a nearby lake. I lunched with egret and heron, mallard and Muscovy ducks for companions. I watched in wonder as an osprey flew low over the tree island in the center of the pond, laughed at the quacking mallards all swimming in formation behind one that appeared to be the line leader, shuddered a bit at the Muscovy who don't quack but hiss instead to announce their presence. One seemed particularly put out that I didn't share my sandwich and stalked away hissing epithets that probably didn't put me in all that good a light. Dragonflies skimmed the surface of the swamp as I edged closer trying to see if I could spot the crabby old alligator who inhabits this small pond. It always amuses me that the HOA in their wisdom have erected a red painted sign that reads 'WARNING- ALLIGATOR IN POND'. I think they do it for the Northerners that move here and then wonder why their dogs that they let off the leashes suddenly disappear. Any Floridian knows that if you have a body of water, be it a swimming pool, retention pond, or full-fledged spring fed lake, at some time or other an alligator is probably going to take up residence as its God-given right.

Grasping the nettle still further, I moved out onto a concrete slab that juts out onto the edge of land that leads to the marshy beach in front of the lake. It's set in just such a way that you can sit on one part that's higher up and then spread your legs out comfortably over the end. Picture a pool side lounge made of concrete and you'd just about have it.

You see, this really is my favorite place in the world; I cannot even recount all of the times that I have gone to this lakeside retreat to plan, celebrate, ruminate, mourn, cry and marvel. There have been times when I wandered down in the early hours of morning to watch the sunrise and times when I have gone there to try and catch the sight of shooting stars, moonlight eclipses...it's the wonder and romance of the place that captures me.

I've shared this spot with only one other person and seven years ago he and I sat on that concrete slab and planned the rest of our lives together. We sat curled up, one leaning against the other, arms entwined, desperate for the touch, the scent, the feel of the other. I remember being so happy that my heart ached. I was so certain that this was the way it would always be.

After the break-up, when my dreams were shattered, I would occasionally go back to the lake but never in the same way. I shunned the concrete slab, choosing to sit on a bench or a picnic table.

Then today, the allure of the lake called, the perfection of the day...I realized that I didn't want to hide in the shade on the bench, I wanted to be out on that slab, basking in the sun, reveling in the wildness of the wind.  So I took tentative steps, then faster and faster and I reached it stretching out in the sun. For the first time in so many years.  I felt whole again, restored, renewed.
Even the clothes I wore seemed part of it, not dressing to please anyone but myself, my favorite faded blue jeans, blue and white striped tee, black leather sandals, my Seiko watch with the blue dial that my father gave me for Christmas, the aquamarine and silver ring my mother and I found in a junk shop, restored and gleaming on my finger, all of this, all of it will live in my memory as the day that I came back home.

I sit here now with a slightly sunburned nose and face, but I can still feel the warmth on my skin and the wind in my hair as I rejoiced in my homecoming on the most perfect of days.

Breaking Down

A couple of months ago, I departed a Walgreens parking lot that was the anchor of a larger strip mall. As I reversed the car out of the parking lot; I halted suddenly hearing a spate of loud yelling. A woman's yell... more of a frenzied shriek actually. My first thought, was

"Oh my God, I've hit her!"

But as I checked the views (again) in the rearview mirror and the side windows, with a deep sigh of relief that came from the depths of my being, I realized that she was actually about 6 cars away, she had also begun reversing her car, when from around the corner, a Jimmy Johns delivery driver who thinking he had enough time and space to continue the turn without harming her, had driven around the corner. The woman in the car just went beserk, she actually jerked the car out horizontally and deliberately blocked the driver, basically trapping him where he couldn't move his truck at all, and when I say she unloaded on him, she unloaded on him, screaming, cursing and flailing her arms about. The driver repeatedly tried to apologize, tried to explain, but she was having none of it. The thing I remember her saying most often, when she wasn't dropping the f-bomb, is, 'Why, why couldn't you JUST HAVE WAITED'  'COULDN'T YOU JUST HAVE (insert curse with ing) WAITED' 'WHY ARE YOU SO (insert curse with ing) IN A HURRY'.

For me, it was obvious, he was trying to get food out to customers and was racing the clock. And I suspect once the woman simmered down, she would have realized it too. But it also occurred to me that her diatribe wasn't necessarily aimed at THAT delivery driver at THAT particular time, it could have been anyone at any time. He just happened to be there, a convenient scapegoat.  She'd just had enough. A tiny part of me sympathized, countless times I've felt the same way inside, but just never reached the point where my anger overcame my inherent shyness, my extreme dislike of 'scenes', the horror of confrontation.

I've thought of this scene again and again in my mind over the last few months since I witnessed it. For me, it seems to be sort of a visual metaphor for our society of late.

You can say all you want about how tragedies on the order of the Sandy Hook School Shooting, the Colorado Movie Theatre Massacre, etc. have been happening all throughout the whole scope of human history. You can conveniently explain it away, that it's just recently that we've had 24-hour news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, FOX News, etc., but I'm sensing something deeper, more malevolent lately. Just watching people break down more and more every day.

I didn't say a great deal about the New Town tragedy when it happened because it occurred at the same time as the deaths of my uncle and grandmother. There comes a point when it's just more than the human heart can bear.

The faces of the children... I remember standing in the breakroom at Noncompany watching a few moments of a memorial for the slain schoolchildren. I had taken my customary 5 mins away from my desk to dash in for hot water to prepare my morning chamomile and just happened to be there as it began. With me at that moment was an immigrant woman who takes care of the janitorial needs at the company and while there is enough of a language barrier that mostly I smile at her and nod a lot, and we say "Hi" because she knows that word, there came a moment when I learned more about her character than words can ever say. There as we stood looking up at the TV monitor and I was biting the inside of my lip to keep myself from tearing up, she simply leaned her arms onto the yellow cart she pushes, bowed her head, closed her eyes and I watched her lips moving in words of silent prayer. Perhaps for the children who lost their lives, perhaps for their parents who lost their legacy, their immortality...perhaps for me because I was too full of pride to cry the tears that overflowed inside me.

It happened again yesterday...another senseless tragedy. A road of marathon runners, suddenly strewn with limbs, the stench of blood, the anguished cries of victims, the shriek of ambulances. Another 8 year old boy who was there to watch his father fulfill a dream, cut down before he can play the piano, become a football star, go to his high school prom, fall in love, marry. Gone. Gone at 8.  There were others of course, but it's this young boy that I can't get out of my head.

I am weary of hearing the debates over what constitutes an act of terrorism, is it domestic, is it foreign? How did they do it? Who did it?  Tired of the politics...the speculation, the endless talking...

All I know tonight is that an eight year old and 2 adults died and scores of others were wounded and maimed.

And that our society just broke down a little further.

Where Have I Been....

Some of you reading this title will think it a statement, some a question. And you'd be right on both accounts.

Where...have...I...been. The simple answer is of course, right here. My writer's voice though, has not been translated through this medium for several months. It's been dormant, elusive...hiding, depressed, ill and exhausted. Many times I called up this site and sat staring at a blank page, a blinking cursor a tiny island in a sea of white.

I beg your indulgence, this may meander a bit. After so many dry months, my thoughts are bursting through my typing fingers like a deluge during an August Florida thunderstorm where raindrops strike the scorched asphalt so hard and with such fury, steam rises up like a wraith.

I can claim many excuses for my absence. In the last of weeks of August, a very dear aunt lost her battle with cancer and I've been absolutely heartsick and depressed. It came as quite a shock, until the very last, my mind refused to accept the chance of defeat and I truly believed she would recover. The greatest compliment I could pay her is the fact that she had such a sweetness and gentleness of character that she put me in mind several times of my own grandmother. As the pattern often goes, grief turned to depression and depression turned to a stony and unrelenting anger. The childhood anger of, 'it isn't fair'.

I guess, 'it isn't fair' would be the recurring theme of my thought patterns of late...

I have hesitated so many times over what to write in these blogs, how deeply I would share, fearing that my true nature or inclinations would 'turn off' my readership. And then this morning, as is my wont, I had an epiphany...'do I really even have a readership'? So why the hell am I so afraid of offending 'them', if there is even a 'them'. So here goes...

I was very invested in this election. I am a 38 year old single, childless woman and an ardent conservative. I guess those words in of themselves are a contradiction. Despite all this, I've never supported a candidate to the extent I backed Mitt Romney. In my case, it's personal. If you've ever read this blog, you know about my nearly 4 year employment odyssey. Just the other day, I agreed to another 6 month contract extension of a nearly 2 1/2 year  (if you count my former assignment there in a different department) assignment at my company. So I can honestly say that the four years Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Sotero or whatever the hell his name is, has been the leader of this country have been the four worst of my entire life.

Yes, I know that I am amongst the fortunate who have a job at all. However, I had the audacity to hope that maybe just maybe if we elected different leadership in this country, that I might have the chance of securing a more permanent situation where my salary might be closer to the +25% higher pay rate I earned just 6 years ago! I am frequently told that I 'just have to accept that things are different now' 'companies just aren't going to hire anymore when they can contract out labor and save themselves tax and insurance costs'.

What I have been the most devastated about, is the loss of my hope, my inherent belief in the American Dream.  To get even more personal and uncomfortable, because of my salary losses, and lack of insurance, I've been living with my 65 year old father. And my father, because of the fact that he cannot exist on the small amount social security pays him, is still running after business and trying to work the hours that most 20 year olds would balk at! In the years where I should be looking after him, I can barely afford to keep myself.

I really thought Mitt Romney was the solution to this countries' woes. This is not about party, or sour grapes in anyway. It is about my inherent fears about the defecit we have incurred, the raiding of my father and mother's medicare and social security to fund Obamacare. It is the fact that as a country, we don't seem to mind when our leadership sits back and watches the assasination, and subsequent torture and sodomization of our Libyan Ambassador and the brave men of our armed forces who defied orders to try and come to his aid. When we just stay quiet and accept the status quo.

It is having to sit by and watch as these things happen while most of my fellow countrymen put more time and thought into drafting their fantasy football team and worry more about who is getting kicked off what reality show, than to think the fact that our country is drifting into economic penury, that our children are going to inherit an unsustainable crushing debt, that is if there is even an America left once the Islamic groups in this country one by one become radicalized and overcome our increasingly reduced military.

So many times, everything inside of me, is crying out, 'Why...Why don't you Care? People will say, 'I'm busy', or 'I am just one person, what can I do?' or worse, 'Oh, it's not really that bad...we've survived worse things'.  Then they marginalize you and make you feel that if you really express all of these 'gloomy' thoughts that you are some kind of a weirdo, an alarmist. Just another opininated wacko....now go away, 'the Steelers are about to meet the Patriots' and I've got $50.00 riding on this game.'

I hope that will still be a comfort when your employer pays you in rice noodles and a few paltry yuan, and you get on your bicycle and peddle to your government apartment to watch state sponsored football which by the way...is what you call soccer...

Where I've been...the buses are afraid to run.