Shabbat New Moon in Virgo Shalom

what do I even have to say anymore?  that I can't stand most people?  I think it's pretty apparent if you know me at all, or read this blog, though I'm not sure I've addressed it here.  so let's address it now!

1.  I'm tired of people who don't work, don't try to work, or contribute to their community in any way.  when I was raising my child as a single parent, I definitely needed help making ends meet, so I had to rely on social services (and child support payments) to keep a roof over our heads, and food on our table.  that said, I still worked, tried to work, and/or contributed to my community in various ways.  I didn't have family to rely on, though while my mom was still alive I could usually count on her to put a $50 bill in my annual birthday card, which I usually spent on myself because it was the only boost I would get for the year, and if we can't take care of ourselves, even if only in some tiny way, we can't take care of others.

2.  I'm done in with all the various 'diagnoses' and mental health challenges that people claim are preventing them from working, trying to work, or contributing to their communities in any way.  there are plenty of 'neurodivergent' folks out there who are making a living doing one thing or another without making their issues their whole personality.  I firmly believe that I exist somewhere on that 'spectrum' as well, but I've never been tested/poked/prodded to find out where, and at closer-to-60-than-50 at this point, I really don't care.  I manage to get along as best as I can, and that's good enough for me.  do I find it frustrating at times to not really seem to be able to 'get ahead' in this world for one reason or another?  you bet your bippy - but I've also learned that having a label to attach to my issues doesn't really offer any benefits that matter, or further my goals, so why bother?

3.  I don't care for people who use alcohol as their main source of 'fun' or release.  there's nothing wrong with a glass of wine/beer/liquor or two (or even three), but if it's all night every night - or worse, during the day - I think it's a problem for you, which makes it a problem for me.  by all means, drink your meals, boo boo - just don't expect me to join in, hang out, or want to be around you at all when you do, and probably not when you don't, either.  I have been a chronic pot smoker for much of my adult life with the exception of the times I couldn't afford to buy any (like now), and I don't feel the same way about people who indulge in that habit as I do about people who drink.  prejudice?  maybe.  but there's a certain kind of overindulgent pot smoker that I don't like, either.  again, if it's your whole personality rather than just one aspect of who you are, it gets a bit...much.  but like with alcohol, if you can indulge responsibly, we're probably good.

4.  I CANNOT STAND liars!  I don't appreciate being lied to, for any reason.  I would much prefer to hear a hard truth than to catch someone out in telling me something they think I want to hear.  and I will find out the truth, one way or another.  history has shown me that I can easily find out on my own if I dig just a little bit, or simply wait it out for the Universe to reveal, eventually the lie will be brought to the light, and I will distance myself from the source of that dishonesty.  

5.  I like people who are smarter and more well-adjusted than I am, though they don't usually care for the uncompromising mess that is me.  I can play along for awhile, but not for long, and eventually they will get bored of my issues, just like I'm bored of the issues of the people I no longer have patience for, so it all evens out in the end.  I used to know this guy who said the standards I hold people to are so ridiculously high, that no one can expect to tick all the boxes, and I should just get used to being alone and/or lonely.  I said that was fine, and it mostly is, because I do enjoy solitude/my own company, though it would be nice to be able to make friends a bit more easily, and keep them longer.  but the reason my standards are so high is because I'm tired of being hurt by people who lie, cheat, choose a party lifestyle over one of substance, live inside their own personal issues, or live off of others without making any attempt to contribute to their community.  

having recently moved to another country, I've been a bit fed up with only having the opportunity to interact with other recent immigrants with the exception of the folks who work in the stores I shop at, drive the buses I ride, or run the agencies I've been to in order to find work.  there are those who say I need to go to synagogue on Shabbat to meet people, but the synagogue most of the people I've met attend is for 'Anglos' who are inherently more religious than I am, and are probably not 'my people' anyway.  but you have to start somewhere, right?  the High Holidays are coming up, and while I don't think I'll be able to attend services ($$$), it might be nice to find myself invited to someone's Shabbat table sometime.  so, I keep 'meaning' to go to temple of a Saturday, but have yet to get there.  it's hard to make myself walk somewhere I don't really care to go during the the hottest part of one the days I get to enjoy the solitude of my apartment in the relative quiet and calm of an otherwise busy and loud corner of my city.

what brought this bitch on is the folks I find myself connected to on social media.  used to be, my fakebook feed was populated by people I knew and hung out with on a regular basis, or met during my travels.  or at least folks I was acquainted with through shared interests or academic connections.  but due to the rising antisemitism in the world, or perhaps the antisemitism that's always been lingering just beneath the surface of all my relationships, that online circle got much, much, smaller very quickly after October 7th, 2023.  so I tried to repopulate my feed with 'connections'...people who seemed cool in my other friends feeds, folks who left comments that made me laugh, or in some cases, people who reshared my posts without even knowing who I was.  problem with that is, we don't really have anything in common other than our Jewishness, and a shared love for Israel.  not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just that I seem to have ended up with a feed full of people whining about their disabilities, and where they are in their transitions, and I'm kind of over it.  uh oh...did I say that out loud?  well, I'm sorry, but it's true.  I am honest to god missing cis/het people in my life who have jobs that they go to on a regular basis, and simply vent about their issues and move on, not make it their whole story all the damn time.

there are people I've been connected to on there for years that have played the part of being my friend, with no actual commitment to the role, or follow-through on their part.  I did recently meet up with a few folks I met on there, and it was lovely - those folks I have no issue with.  there's one person who did invite me around, and I believe they meant it.  but then I had (yet another) bad day that I bitched about, and this one particular person sent me a message in an attempt to connect, which was kind of them, but they were someone I had been considering disconnecting from because their posts were not anything I found interesting, and didn't necessarily want to be confronted with constantly in my feed.  dude wants to be female?  go for it.  I don't need pictures.  chick wants to be a man?  go for it.  I don't need pictures.  I'm willing to accept people for who they are, whoever they tell me that is, but enough already.  at this point I'd prefer to connect with cis/het people like myself, and not have to hear about every damn flavor of human out there.  just be who you are, boo, and stop shoving it down my throat.  I mean, I'm not out here posting about being cis/het every damn day of my life - it's just not all that important.  

and I don't want to hear about how your anxiety is preventing you from getting a damn job, and forces you to live off of your generous family members.  pull up your panties and do something other than be a parasite.  if I can do it, so can lots of other people who are leaning too hard into their 'disabilities'.  or that you did sex work that you hated to earn a living once upon a time.  guess what?  I didn't like working at the video store, or the overnight shift at the 24 hour store, or as a janitor, but I Had To Pay My Rent, so I did the damn thing until I found something better, and it wasn't a husband/wife that paid all my bills for me so I could sit around and write poetry about the angle of the light hitting my designer furniture.  where's the accountability?  there are people in the homeless shelters I worked in trying harder than that, with less education and opportunity, and doing ok for themselves.  I knew a woman who had her hand chopped off and sewed back on who worked her ass off at every opportunity to keep herself off the streets.  respect, girlfriend.  it was tough out there for her.  it was tough out there for me too, with both my hands, and I've been out there enough to know I don't want to be out there again.  I guess some people haven't had to live on the streets for long enough to learn that lesson...or at all.  lucky them.

this isn't a rant about ALL disabled people, or gay or trans people, or single parents, or what have you.  it's about people who I've interacted with enough to know that I don't have an awful lot of respect for the ways they appear to be living in the world, and that's my prerogative.  I don't have to like everyone, I don't even have to like every Jewish person, or even every Israeli, but I do have to like myself, and in order to do that, I have to be honest about who I want to connect with, and how.  if you don't want to be my friend after reading this, then so be it.  is it my loss?  maybe.  depends on who doesn't want to be friends anymore after reading it.  there are plenty of gay people I love and respect.  there are plenty of folks with disabilities that I admire - some I've even worked with.  I'll bet there are trans people out there that I could get along with, too.  some cis/het people suck (lots of them do).  I'm just in a place where I need more women who understand the particular issues of having been women our whole lives.  or men who are feminists while still being manly men who aren't misogynist pieces of garbage.  folks who know what an endocrine disruptor is, and did their best to avoid them, along with other environmental dangers.

it is part of my soul's purpose here to make sure each and every one of us on this planet together is cared for, and gets everything they need, to the extent of my abilities, and I'm aware that in this 'window' of setting intentions, it is important to choose my focus wisely.  as we enter the 'wormhole' of eclipse season, we should expect chaos and transformation - and the ability to get back up from whatever happens to knock us down.  so maybe this is just my way of clearing the decks so I can tap into the hope and optimism I want so badly to connect with in the world that is also on offer just now.  while we may be headed into a complex maze of rising emotions, we are also being given an opportunity for healing, integration, and repair.  an astrologer whose work I admire speaks of planting seeds with faith, which is something I love to do, and do often.  the one picture I'm sharing in this post is of my latest sprouts, which are from a seed pod I picked up off the sidewalk, and planted, with only the vaguest idea of what they are (I think they're the seeds of the trees that made the gorgeous flowers whose petals would stop me in my tracks with a desire to paint their likeness, even though I'm not a painter).  alpha and omega, my friends.  selah ~

 

not a great picture - there appear to be seven little sprouts poking their heads through the soil, and I wish them the best of luck.  I will replant them as soon as I have more containers for them.

💙

National Indigenous People's Day of Mourning vs. American Thanksgiving vs. Something Else Entirely

what an eye-opening visit I had with an old 'friend' recently - probably someone I'll be crossing off my list of people to visit when I have free time to play with in town!  as we've had more than enough Universal signs pointing to this being an important year for all of us to sever ties that don't serve us as we journey ever more fully into ourselves, it also comes as a staunch reminder of how the community I live near is decidedly toxic for me, and how I need to really and truly let go of any remaining connections I had to a small circle of people I used to know who also migrated to this area from other locales.  here's the set-up:  I tend to stop in uninvited to this particular person's house every few months, and just this week, I ended up having about 2.5 hours unaccounted for in my schedule as my commitments took less time than I thought, so I took the opportunity to do a little visiting.  was that my first mistake?  leaving unaccounted time in my schedule?  or stopping by someone's house uninvited?  here's what I puzzled out about it when considering how I would feel if that person (or any person I considered a friend or closer acquaintance) showed up at my door uninvited at 5:30pm; it might be a bit weird, initially, as it's dark this time of year, and everyone is so up into their electronic devices (and who even goes visiting anymore other than me), but I would invite them in, and into whatever activity I was involved in at the time.  the people I had dropped in on appeared to be watching a program or video that they shut off when I showed up, and when I asked what they were watching, they said it was something about whether or not the national November holiday - which many people still refer to as "Thanksgiving", and I call "National Indigenous People's Day of Mourning" - is racist.  "Ah!"  I said, "that's a hot issue, now, isn't it?"  and asked them what they do during the 'holiday', and why.

"you guys mind if I chill here for a few hours?"

for them, like for many people, it's a day of the year when families have traditionally gotten together for generations, to eat particular foods, and enjoy each other's company - an innocuous harvest festival, for the most part, celebrated by many people for both secular and religious reasons, across a range of dates.  so how and when did it become so politicized?  turns out, the American holiday is rooted in English Christian tradition, dating back to religious rifts in the church during the 16th century, mostly as a way to replace the ever-increasing number of 'holy days' on their calendar (and probably limit the amount of time servants had to be allowed to attend services).  these early 'feasts of thanksgiving' were usually celebratory responses to a victory in battle, or some other event where folks just felt like being thankful to whatever god/s they worshiped, and the colonizers of the United States brought this tradition along with them in their bag of tricks when they violently took over the Native Americans' land.  there is still much debate over where and when the first thanksgiving feast was held in America, with claims of a Spanish religious service being held in what is now Florida as early as 1565, and the ones in Virginia (1619) and Massachusetts (1621) being the famous misrepresentations for our current narrative, which had their respective histories whitewashed for generations, leaving out the parts that showed the settlers to be brutal murderers, and promoting the nonsense that has been taught in American schools ever since (that the Pilgrims and Natives shared a lovely meal, and everyone lived happily ever after - except not).  there was a feast of thanksgiving held after the Continental Congress enacted the Constitution in 1787, and the 'first national thanksgiving' was proclaimed by George Washington in November of 1789.  it makes me wonder about that supposed separation between church & state that was written into our Constitution just two years earlier, and even though it was considered a secular event, the name of 'god' was invoked in order to further push the agenda that all success was due to 'outside forces', which must surely indicate the spiritual superiority of the 'victors', and so must be acknowledged by showing gratitude to said 'higher power'.  apparently, some politicians from back in the day agreed with me about that particular hypocrisy, and some even saw it as an unwelcome declaration from 'the North', indicative of the long history of regional tensions between those above and below the Mason-Dixon line (the demarcation line between Maryland and Pennsylvania, showing the boundary between states that allowed slavery, and states that didn't, in 1767) .

depiction of the Pequot Massacre, 1637

all that said, "Thanksgiving" in its current iteration was midwifed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863 (in the midst of the Civil War), after decades of Ms. Sarah Josepha Buell Hale hounding everyone in government to do so via letters, and publishing poems, stories, and recipes that supported her vision for a national holiday in the popular 'ladies magazine' she edited.  it was only in 1941 when FDR - in a bid to extend the holiday shopping season - signed the resolution to establish the current date (the fourth Thursday in November) as a federal holiday across the entire US that we eventually arrived at the modern 'celebration' we know and love/loathe today, depending on your perspective.  for the above-mentioned 'friend' I dropped in on, it has been a day for them, as a parent to several children with different partners, to have all their kids (and sometimes one or more of the partners) together in one place, for a hearty meal.  and there's nothing wrong with that, is there?  for me, being 'cut off' from my family of origin the way I am, there are NO holidays that I celebrate with any blood relatives other than my own child, so I don't really care about That particular aspect of the traditional feast...also, being Jewish, I have no connection to any English or Christian feast or fast days, and the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot happened back in mid-October, and is celebrated with foods and rituals indigenous to the Middle-East (though living in America, we do include indigenous American foods in our practices).  my people emigrated to the US from Europe in order to escape religious persecution in the same way the early settlers and colonists claimed to, the difference being that we didn't rape and murder millions of indigenous people, or force our religion onto them, in order to do it.  we were running from our own genocide, to be sure, yet I am well aware of how assimilated Jews have contributed to the racist and oppressive systems that continue to pervade our institutions, systems, and relationships - it's hard to be well-educated, and not accept that reality, however hard it may be to recognize our complicity.  in any case, this "American Thanksgiving" wasn't something my Romanian/Romani/Israeli father was overly familiar with, and I think that's why it hardly registers to me as anything other than a break in the school year, or a day off of work (if you're lucky enough to work at a job that doesn't require your presence for the gross display of mass consumption everything in America has become).

maybe give a little bit of yourself - take time to play a game with your family at home during the 'gift-giving' season.  bake cookies, make art together, sing songs, make memories by engaging in enriching activities together...

as a young adult living on my own, I never bothered with the national Thanksgiving holiday - I hardly had an oven to cook a meal in, let alone all that 'traditional' nonsense.  I usually had to work, or was happy to have a day off to catch up on some sleep!  during the years that I had a 'home' to go to, it became the horrible emotional roller-coaster for me that it is for many who are less than welcome at family gatherings for myriad reasons.  in my case, one of those reasons was my growing moral imperative to address the feast as the impetus for the genocide it became for the people whose stolen land I feel duty-bound to acknowledge we live on, even though my mother's people came here to avoid similar fates in their own lands (my dad's people went to Israel, and later to Canada - another nation with much the same issues as the US in regards to the indigenous people who live there).  social media can also make it harder, serving up a stream of pictures of people gathering together with loved ones, while I'm home alone with my kid, trying not to internalize the feeling of there being something inherently 'wrong' with us because no one wants us at their table - not that I'd feel good about going anywhere other than a memorial service for the murdered...  once I became aware of the true story of the colonial-settler-genocide this day commemorates, I couldn't in good conscience 'celebrate' anything about it, and in lieu of any local non-colonial-settler-genocide commemorations to attend (that I am aware of), my tradition with my son has become to light a yahrtzeit candle (Jewish memorial candle) in honor of National Indigenous People's Day of Mourning, wherein we eat whatever we feel like eating, and watch Native American centered movies.  when the rest of the national consciousness catches up with my understanding of how horribly the marginalized original people of this land feel about the 'celebrations' of their attempted murder, maybe I'll celebrate that.  I know change takes time, and I look forward to when it comes for this holiday (and many others like it).  it has nothing to do with me, and I don't need it.

this is where I got the name 'National Indigenous People's Day of Mourning'.  they've been trying to get us to notice these issues since the beginning of my life - I think it's time more of us listened to them.

so what does any of that have to do with my dropping in on someone who has to ask whether or not the day of feasting is racist?  well, I have a little bit of a problem with people who can't see past their own desires to continue to whitewash history, especially when they're the kind of people I expect to know better, because of their self-proclaimed 'advanced spiritual mindset' (remember that point from earlier in this essay?  how the colonizers saw themselves as being favored by their 'god' because they mostly succeeded in their murderous endeavors?).  I mean, how can you claim to be more 'spiritually-advanced' than the next guy, when the next guy is a Native American telling you how they feel on the third Thursday of every year while watching white people continue to eat the traditional foods they themselves have been disconnected from, while inventing narratives about what good friends we all were back in the day, before the colonizers tried to kill them all?  sure thing, man - take some more ayahuasca, and appropriate some more cultural ceremonies that aren't yours to claim (hint:  if the cops and paramedics get called out to your 'ceremony', perhaps you're doing it wrong).  for sure - I get having a day when you get to have all your kids together at once, but think about why you get that, why you need that, and what information you're passing on, given the opportunity to have a family discussion around sensitive, yet ultimately important, issues.  look into where your own family traditions come from, and decide whether or not they're worth carrying on.  look into your own ancestral history, and see if there isn't a celebration that makes more sense for you to connect with.  make up your own holiday, and share that with your family!  or take a moment to honor the people who died so you could have a place to spread your whiteness around.  yeah, I know...I'm white too, but I do my part to call out my fellow Jews and Roma on these points as well.  and there's plenty of stuff I get wrong and need to correct for - this just doesn't happen to be one of them.  aside:  also, I'm pretty sure people who are ever so spiritually enlightened ought, in my opinion, be more actively involved in promoting inclusivity through building community, rather than practicing exclusivity based on jealousy and petty rivalries, or socioeconomic status.

quote from a great article I read in Bitch media's Travel issue last summer - read the full piece here.

as to me turning up unannounced, etiquette begs several questions, and the mixed signals I got from the person in question wouldn't help me answer them, though I'm smart enough to figure it out on my own.  first off, I have known this person for 30 odd years, through two of their relationships (one with another former friend), and all through most of their children's lives.  I am often received with a hug, and a "come on in", though this last time I got the feeling I wasn't welcome.  if that was the case, I would have expected this person to know me well enough and/or feel comfortable enough to tell me it wasn't a good time, that they simply weren't in the mood to receive guests, or that they would prefer if I called before dropping in (or even that they would prefer I didn't drop in at all).  none of those responses would have hurt my feelings, and I would have found some other way to amuse myself for the 2 hours I had left to wait to pick up my son from his rehearsal.  the bottom line is that the mood in the room began to feel awkward at the first conversational lull, and their body language made it obvious that they wanted to be doing other things.  I asked if it was ok for me to just stay while they 'did their thing', as it was cold out, and I didn't have anywhere else to go, to which they responded in the affirmative, but again, I felt weirdly unwelcome, so I chose to leave after a bit anyway.  there are plenty of reasons for me to recognize that this is a relationship better left in the past, and virtually none to support continuing it, hence it is ended.  again, moving forward, I'm only going where I'm celebrated, not where I'm barely tolerated.  of my labeling the town as toxic to me, I'm referencing the few people I know who live there, and make overtures of friendship, yet act in ways that are the opposite of what I consider friendly behavior, regularly.  not only that, one of them recently got angry when I mentioned that I had stopped trying with them, because they always find a last-minute excuse not to meet up, then don't make an attempt to reschedule...if that doesn't say "I don't want to hang out with you", I don't know what does!  so the onus is on me to do a better job of scheduling my time there fully, or making sure I have somewhere to be if I happen to have an hour here or there between scheduled plans because something didn't take as long as I thought it might.  I'd take it personally, but since the advent of cell phones and laptops, people just don't seem as interested in spending time with each other as they used to, which I think is a shame, because I like to visit with my friends, and take inspiration from the conversations we have, and appreciate the ways in which live interaction deepens our connections.  guess I'm just weird like that ~




sources:

https://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/thanksgiving

https://time.com/4577082/thanksgiving-holiday-history-origins/

https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-thanksgiving-2017-11

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Thanksgiving-Day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving

the words dance gaily
             away from me
finding their ways
   to the mouths of
         younger women
           forming and reforming
         combinations
       for which I don't know
            the meanings
       inflating with pride
inventing new definitions

  - sweeping roots across the floor -

   weaving me back into being
emptying my closet
   dis-collecting personae
      naming them as I
                      let them go

now I am
 nothing
as I was
 always
meant to be

 - scent of myrrh -

Framing Ford's Fiasco

content warning:  description of non-consensual sexual contact and related issues

when we were around 19 years old, a friend and I met two guys at a street fair where we were vending, and made plans to catch up with them later that evening at a local arcade.  at some point that night, while killing a game of Black Knight, I started to feel sick and began to slump over the pinball machine, but I was racking up the high score, and didn't want to give up the game.  eventually, I asked my friend to take over so I could go outside and get some air, yelling at her over my shoulder on my way to the door not to lose my ball, because I'd be Right Back to finish the game myself.  after walking around the parking lot a bit to clear my head, I decided to go sit in my car and relax for a few more minutes before heading back in.  the guy I had been hanging out with suddenly got in next to me, started touching and kissing me, making out with me, and I know I told him I came outside to breathe because I wasn't feeling well, and I'm sure there was a "No" or a "Stop" in there somewhere.  he started to climb on top of me, and managed to lower my seat back to a reclining position (I was in the driver's seat).  he started rubbing himself on me - took his penis out of his pants, and with his full weight on me, thrust himself between my breasts until he came all over my chest, at which point, he jumped out of the car, and was gone.  I remember laying there in my car, thinking "what the hell just happened?"  I don't remember finding something to clean myself off with, but I must have, because I Do remember walking back into the arcade, finding my friend, and telling her that we were leaving - Now.  she was confused, and made some half-assed attempt at arguing, but the guy she was hanging out with wasn't all that interesting, and I was her ride, so off we went.

and that might have been the end of it, however inappropriate it was.  I would have gone home, taken a shower, and moved on with my life without giving the incident too much conscious thought, though obviously, the experience has never left me.  I hadn't been hit, bruised, beaten, threatened, held down, or hurt.  I hadn't tried to scream or fight - mostly I remember being dizzy and confused, and wondering what was happening, what he was doing to my body, wondering why he was doing it.  it was over just as quickly as it had started, and he took off like a shot, leaving me lying there, covered in his mess, not understanding why I let it happen in the first place.  sure, I wasn't feeling well, I was dizzy and nauseous, and having to fend off an overzealous date wasn't something I thought was in the game plan for the evening, but I'm not a 'lay there and let it happen' kind of girl, so...why?

about 5 years or so later, I was living with a boyfriend, and in the cottage next door lived another couple we were friends with.  one afternoon, my neighbor and I were hanging out and she was gushing about this new friend she'd made, telling me how awesome he was, how she had invited him over that evening, and that my boyfriend and I should come over, too, and we'd make a night of it.  Sure, sure, no problem, we'd be there, can't wait to meet him.  so the four of us (the two couples) are sitting in the living room of the cabin when the new guy arrives.  the moment he stepped through the door, my blood turned to ice.  yeah, it was That Guy...I stared him down while our friend made the introductions.  The look of sheer terror on his face when she introduced us turned to shock as I smiled and reached my hand out to him.  "Nice to meet you," I said, as we all settled in for a night of board games, adult refreshments, and camaraderie.  my skin was on fire, or icy cold.  my head was pounding.  I found it hard to follow the conversation, speak, or make eye contact with anyone.  I excused myself, and went back to my own apartment, shut off the lights, and lay in bed with my eyes burning holes in the bedroom wall, fists wrapped tight in the blankets, while my boyfriend, our neighbors, and their new friend, all had a grand old time together.

this asshole now became a part of our group.  he was invited to all the parties.  he came on all the hikes.  he was brought to our special swimming spot (where he forged an inappropriate friendship with another one of our friend's girlfriends, go figure).  he 'was in the neighborhood, so he just dropped by'.  he came to my house, and expected to be let in to hang out with the rest of us.  I think that must have been the point at which I finally said something to my boyfriend.  I remember telling him that I didn't want that prick in my house, and I resented the fact that saying so would make me look like the asshole, because everyone just liked him so much.  I don't remember how my boyfriend reacted, but I do remember words like 'long time ago', and 'different person now' floating around my brain, trying to connect with words like 'it would be weird if we suddenly stopped letting him come around, especially if we're all hanging out'...

here it is more than 25 years later, and I no longer know those neighbors.  the old boyfriend is still around, less a friend of mine than a friend of a friend.  I have no idea what happened to 'the asshole', but I wouldn't be surprised to hear he ran for congress or something, because that's where these fuckers seem to end up.  I don't even remember his name (ok...wait, yeah I do.), but I can still recall the look on his face every time he spoke to me - it was like he was pretending to be sorry for doing something he knew was wrong, but also like he didn't get caught or called out for it, so he was smug about having 'gotten away with it'.  I should have knocked his teeth out, or pushed him down my stairs, or told my girlfriends, or...Something.  I shouldn't have just let him off the hook.  especially after he and that chick at the swimming hole cheated together on her boyfriend - a good friend of mine to this day - and effectively ended their relationship (it's ok, my buddy married someone way better than that bitch).  hell, my so-called boyfriend should have done All those things on my behalf as soon as I told him what happened!  I don't recall whether or not I told anyone else.

while it certainly wasn't the worst thing to ever happen to anyone, if he did it to me, he may well have done it to others.  others who aren't tough-as-nails like me, women who may have been devastated by less...or seriously damaged by more.  how might he treat his wife, if he ever got married?  his daughters, if he has any?  and to be fair, my beef is not specifically with this one person, it's with All the people who use others as if they have some special privilege (there's that word, again) to walk through this world without the consequences of their poor behavior to hinder them in any way.  he was neither the first, nor the last person who treated my body like it belonged to his personal desires rather than to me:  there was the inappropriate babysitter I just learned about recently; there were incidents with my brother's friends who spent the night at our house; there was the 21 year old college basketball player I gave my virginity to when I was 15; the high school footballer who took me into the bathroom at a keg party and made me give him head for what felt like hours; the 'boyfriends' who only ever wanted to have sex and wouldn't hang out with me if I refused; the high school hockey dude who got me drunk at the drive-in, had sex with me, and took my underpants so he could bring them to school and yell down the hallway, "you left these in the backseat of my car the other night!".  there was the random dude at some party where I must have been drugged because I still can't explain how I woke up in a strange bed, my neck black with hickeys.

do you want to know what I was wearing when these events took place?  do you want to know why I chose to give up my virginity to a college dude who was 'home on break' that I hoped never to see again when I was so young?  do you want to know what I was doing at keg parties while I was still in high school?  do you want to know why I went out with guys who were only after what was in my pants?  why I went to the drive-in and got drunk with that loser who stole my undies?  why I was at a party where I didn't know who I was partying with?  who cares?  I was a teenager - a kid.  and yeah, a pretty stupid one, at that.  I hitchhiked around in mini-skirts and three inch heels (and mostly got picked up by little old ladies who were Very concerned about my welfare).  it's called life.  it's called learning.  did I learn how alcohol works in my body, and decide that drinking wasn't really for me?  yes I did.  did I learn the mechanics and politics of sex?  yes I did - and after many years (and several kind and patient lovers), I eventually learned how to enjoy it.  did I learn that dating meat-head jocks was best left to some other chick?  abso-fucking-lutely.  did I learn to party responsibly, and only with people I know and trust?  definitely.  did I learn to recognize a dangerous situation and how to extricate myself from it?  yup.  did I spend years training in the martial arts?  you betcha.

does my working through my issues excuse any one of those boys from treating me like an object to be used for my parts then tossed aside?  No It Does Not.  every one of the above experiences (barring the babysitter) happened when I was a teenager.  less than 20 years old.  by the time I was 21, I took no more shit from anyone, for any reason.  and I'm in no way attempting to diminish my own irresponsibility in these instances, because I was most certainly irresponsible, but that doesn't in Any Way mean that a series of belligerent, entitled, white boys under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol had the right to use me like a sexual doormat.  the weird thing is, given all I've written above, I am also guilty of not having believed one of my college roommates when she claimed she was raped.  in the room next to ours...by one of the nicest, and most gentle human beings I have ever met.  to this day, I believe she slept with my friend of her own free will, regretted it, and made up the rape story to pre-empt and redirect her boyfriend's anger from focusing on her, to the guy who supposedly violated her.  I don't think he bought her story, either.  my friend, on the other hand, locked himself in his room, stopped coming to meals and going to classes, lost a ton of weight, got sick, and eventually moved to another dorm.  you'd think if the allegations against him were true, the school would have kicked him out rather than simply move him across the quad...

in retrospect, the other three of us roommates were kind of shitty to have looked at her askance, and thrown all the rote, misogynistic questions at her, making her go over it and over it for us so we could pick her apart, and still not believe her.  the thing was (still is, I guess), I knew a girl who made up a rape story to cover a lie she told her boyfriend.  I also knew a girl who made up a pregnancy story as a way to exact 'revenge money' from her ex, ostensibly for an abortion, with which she bought herself a pair of rather stylish and expensive boots.  so learning that there were women with the same poor judgement skills as the idiots I had the misfortune to cut my sexual teeth on definitely contributed to my general skepticism, but knowing a person's character gives you a really good idea about who a person is, and how they may behave.  in the case of my college roommate and my buddy, our neighbor, the differences in their characters told the story:  she was a social climbing, party-girl who came to college to find herself an athletic husband, and a career that offered a flattering uniform; he was a shy, sensitive soul, an art major with a low, quiet voice, and a bit of a dark edge due to a certain depth of knowledge.  who knows what happened?  maybe, for all I know, he did it, and they gave my roommate that line about how it wasn't fair to ruin a young man's life, blah blah blah, and they moved him away from us, but nowhere she didn't have to still see him most days.

we have to be sure about these things.  for instance, I can get behind the death penalty, but only in cases where the evidence proves beyond the shadow of any doubt, and all that.  there are few upstanding and righteous individuals - most of whom are not students of the law - I would trust to judge delicate issues, such as the one I've mentioned above, and others of a similar, or even darker nature, because of their understanding of 'truth & justice'.  what I've seen recently, in relation to current events, is one particular person looking to be appointed to the national committee we have in this country that oversees that sort of thing, but he's kind of just like that arcade-parking-lot-molester-type dude, and doesn't belong in that position.  was it a long time ago?  yes.  could he be a different person now?  yes.  are his buddies asking me to be silent in my own house so they can have their little boys club that benefits them, and harms pretty much everyone else?  YES.  am I going to?  NO.  why?

because they're going down in flames, these assholes, and they know it.  and they're grasping at every last straw of power they can get their mitts on before they go.  and that means it's going to get a bit worse before it gets better.  and that means a few more bodies on the fire before we manage to see this thing through.  but we will see it through, we're closer than we've ever been.  we have to build on the work that's been done before us, and smash all this nonsense that been going on around us with the words we've been holding in for too long.  and (white) guys, I get it...so many of you who are good and decent people are getting a raw deal because of these assholes, but the truth is, you all have had the benefit of the doubt for way too long, now, and it's time to share the sandbox.  that is all.  and stop touching women in ways you wouldn't touch other men.  or your mother.  maybe this is a good place to talk about sex work, even, who knows?  or a jumping-off point for that discussion, anyway.  it's all related.

we shouldn't even need to be having this discussion.  from what I saw on national television, the general consensus is that a certain party does not appear to be a model of impartiality, or an arbiter of justice, and we can do so much better.

Tuesday Afternoon

I didn't write a blog post this week, as in, I didn't have a running theme that I engaged with on the page for several days in a row, that I polished up and edited to post on Monday.  I have a big event coming up, and most of my time and energy has been taken up by planning and prepping for that One Thing, and the weather has been hot and humid, which exhausts me, so I've been pretty wrapped up inside myself and my daily to-do's to get everything done on time, or at least demonstrably close.  one thing I DID do this week was write a letter to a local person who is the administrator for a facebook group that I was blocked from for standing up for my people, my family, and myself.  so, I decided I would post that letter here, and call it a day (night).  feel free to contact me if you want your name added to the signature line, or if you find any typos or anything.  thanks, and enjoy ~

Letter to: Jim Dougherty

Email: jdoughertybroker@aol.com

website: http://www.lenderassetsolutions.com

and: Ulster Publishing – Woodstock Times

PO Box 3329
322 Wall Street
Kingston, NY 12402
845-334-8200
(Fax) 845-334-8202

Brian Hollander, Editor: wtedit@gmail.com

Daily Freeman

79 Hurley Ave.,
Kingston, NY 12401
845-331-5000
fax: 845-331-3557

Tony Adamis: Managing Editor, ext. 01095

Chronogram

Brian K. Mahoney, Editorial Director
(845) 334-8600 ext. 103
bmahoney@chronogram.com

Lower Hudson Valley Chapter - NYCLU

297 Knollwood Road, Suite 217
White Plains, NY 10607

Telephone: 914-997-7479
Fax: 914-997-2936
E-mail: lowerhudsonvalley@nyclu.org

Following is a letter to Mr. Jim Dougherty, the administrator for the online Facebook group 'Woodstock Bulletin Board'.

Mr. Dougherty -

I was distressed to learn that I was blocked from the Woodstock Bulletin Board facebook group because as an educated Romani woman, I chose to bring attention to the fact that a White woman was appropriating my culture, and using an ethnic slur for my people as the name of her business. I learned of this 'blocking' on August 2 - the 74th anniversary of the liquidation of the 'Gypsy Camp' at Auschwitz-Birkenau, adding further insult to injury. There were two businesses in the town of Woodstock who also used this slur in their names, both closed, now, and while I didn't patronize either establishment, I did make it clear to others how it made me feel to see those hurtful words every day, and used them as examples to explain the ignorance of others to my young son. While there are many businesses who use the word “Gypsy” as their name, as we evolve as a society and culture, there are quite a few business owners who have realized that this is an inappropriate practice, and have changed their business names out of respect for who we are, and what we have faced, as a people. We have a right to live with the same dignity that is afforded to every individual in this country, this state, this county, and this community, and by blocking me from a community group, it is made it clear that there are those who don't think my family is entitled to the same rights as others, that my son doesn't deserve to be treated with the same respect as other students in our schools, and that we don't have the right to know when events are happening in and around the community in which my family makes its home. This thoughtless act clearly states that I either agree to being demeaned, degraded, and silenced, or I can’t be in the group, so I feel I need to speak up for both my family, and my people, before this misinformation disseminates any further, and is allowed to spread its hateful poison throughout the beautiful Hudson Valley, which has long been home to many cultures and religions, as well as minorities and refugees.

It is infuriating for us when non-Roma choose to impersonate our culture with their swirly-skirts and tinkly-bell jewelry to be seen as mysterious and exotic, while we suffer the slings and arrows of “dirty gyppo, go back where you came from thief/beggar/liar – Hitler should have finished the job!” We have been accused of kidnapping little White children while it is our youths who are systematically removed from their families/culture/language, as with the recent case of 'Maria', a blond girl 'found' among darker people, and taken from her foster family, later found to be of Roma decent. The news story prompted a rash of officials across several countries to go out and conduct a witch-hunt against dark-skinned people with light-skinned children...of which I am one. Given the recent horrific events endured by immigrant families that have been savagely ripped apart by Draconian government policies, it seems we are slipping farther and farther into allowing the kinds of hate-speech and prejudicial attitudes that brought about the Holocaust, and there are a great many people who are willing to stand up and demand that it Not be allow to happen Ever again.

Would the town of Woodstock, the all-inclusive hippie-love-fest, peace and understanding art colony of years past not gasp openly if a shop using an ethnic slur for Jews, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, or Native Americans opened its doors for business? Or would it be tolerated? What if it was insulting the Whites? The slur to which I am referring is one you may not even know is a slur. The word is Gypsy (please note the capital 'G' – a lower case 'g' perpetuates disrespect for the exonym). The word is highly controversial, and some of us use it among ourselves with pride, though the preferred term – for those of us who grew up having epithets hurled at us – is Roma, or the more specific names of our subgroups (known as vitsas), some of which include Kale, Manoush, Romanichal, Dom, Lovari, Kalderash, and Sinti.

In all fairness, I'm sure the owner of said business is probably a lovely individual, and my intent is not to cause them any harm or embarrassment, but to give them the chance to openly acknowledge their mistake, make the proper apologies, and perhaps even do their small part to make sure their customers are informed as to the truth about our people, rather than just taking our name and using it for the benefit of their own finances. Another business owner in a similar situation some time back agreed to keep books about Roma and some printed materials with information in the store, and on their website – would these local folks perhaps agree to sell products or disseminate information in the same manner? Would they consider sponsoring an essay contest, donating books about the Romani people to the library, or sponsoring a forum? They are creative people, and I'm sure they can come up with a way to use their success to open a dialogue and engage positively with those who find offense with the slur under which they chose to do business.

The term 'Gypsy' comes from the erroneous belief that our ancestors originated from Egypt. Our language, customs, and DNA kits tell the true story – we originated in India, before being spread in a Diaspora across Europe and the Americas as slaves and servants, without rights, who have been systematically oppressed and slaughtered to this very day. In many countries we are still barred from schools, ensuring that our children will not be educated, and therefore perpetuating the cycle of poverty we have been held in for centuries. On the other hand, many of us have managed to overcome great odds to become educators, doctors, lawyers, artists, musicians, and bastions of cultural literacy. We bristle at the Halloween costumes cultural appropriators don every year. Our children are confused and shamed by those who dress up as caricatures of our grandmothers, while we ourselves fear to don our own cultural dress as it gives us away to a society that has made it clear they only want us as models for their own romanticized version of what being Gypsy means, which is usually so far from the truth, it hurts.

Several Roma recently wrote in to Hudson Valley One about an article written about a performance of Macbeth performed at Opus 40 in which the director of the Dzieci Theater Group misrepresented our culture, and we were treated to dignified response stating that they were 'misquoted', and would be changing the way they presented the performance in the future out of respect for us, and our cultural heritage. That is how to “be a good neighbor, and work to make things better daily”, a quote taken directly from Mr. Dougherty's facebook page – not by blocking community members from community groups. We call upon the business owners, the town, the community, and activists of all stripe to choose to do the same, and be on the right side of history with this issue. Racism, xenophobia, antiziganism, and any kind of racial intolerance is on its way to oblivion – let us use this as an opportunity to advance together, and move into a more inclusive future where the town of Woodstock can reengage with the statement made on the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce and Arts website, “...where the individual is always welcome and new and creative beginnings are always possible.”

Sincerely,

(several people whose names I removed to protect identities)

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people

http://www.romarising.com/

http://golden-zephyr.com/

http://romaniarts.co.uk/

http://romani.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/virtuallibrary/index.html

http://artists-for-roma-net.ning.com/

http://domresearchcenter.com/

http://www.baxtfilms.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/World-Of-Gypsies/504889382957306?sk=timeline

http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/about/programs/roma-initiatives-office

https://www.facebook.com/Junioryouthgroupagiassofias/timeline

http://romani.hu/

www.apeopleuncounted.com

http://www.searchingforthe4thnail.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Positive-Romani-Stories/390354817677859?sk=timeline

www.lolodiklo.blogspot.com

RomaTransitions.org

www.RomaReact.org

http://www.romanimusic.org/

http://therumpus.net/2017/05/on-making-wishes/

https://medium.com/@ninaszarka/when-you-are-ready-i-will-tell-you-bc92ac12e0b8

https://now.org/blog/the-g-word-isnt-for-you-how-gypsy-erases-romani-women/

https://www.thedailybeast.com/american-gypsies-are-a-persecuted-minority-that-is-starting-to-fight-back

https://kopachi.com/

https://thenorwichradical.com/2017/12/29/a-beginners-guide-to-antigypsyism/

https://onmilwaukee.com/dining/articles/gypsy-taco-new-name.html

http://www.playbill.com/article/actors-equitys-gypsy-robe-will-get-a-new-name

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/retail/2018/02/22/retailer-decided-time-change-name-store

https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/gypsy-slur-netlflix

https://femmagazine.com/the-g-slur-whats-in-a-word/

https://maineethics.com/mainemusings/whyyoucantsaygypsy

https://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=128696&page=1

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836/why-being-gypped-hurts-the-roma-more-than-it-hurts-you

http://www.jimchines.com/2016/11/racism-and-the-romani-people/

https://www.newsarama.com/32801-reconsidering-dc-s-gypsy-name-as-a-racial-slur-in-light-of-her-upcoming-debut-on-cw-s-the-flash.html

Fail

I don't even know where to begin this week.  I'm really disappointed, let's start there.  it's been 24 days since I finished my Whole30, and I've been feeling a bit crappy for the past week or so...my digestion is kind of out of whack, I've been pimply and sore, and limping...my sleep schedule is off, and I feel bloated and thick.  I was at my mom's last Friday, and I thought I might have lost some more weight, so I got on her scale to find out that I Actually Gained Back 20 Pounds!  I mean, is that even possible?  I guess it is...if I can lose 30 pounds in 30 days, why not gain 20 pounds in 20 days?  I'm really frustrated and angry with myself.  all that hard work for nothing, and now I not only have to do it again, I have to do it better, and Keep doing it, forever.  even the teen is surprised - as he so blithely pointed out, I did a detox Last summer, and kept the weight off for over a year, so why didn't this Whole30 thing work out at least as well as that?  so I went from 245 to 215, and back to 235 all in 8 weeks.  that Can't be healthy...and here I was, walking around like I felt good about myself for accomplishing something.

frankly, I'm tired of blogging about my food, what I'm eating or not, how I'm affording it, what I'm doing when I can't afford it, how I'm coping...it's all getting rather old.  and I'm angry that I have to spend so much time thinking about it.  am I a victim of my own conscious conflict?  am I somehow simultaneously succeeding, and sabotaging myself?  how can I best deactivate/strip away my negative innermost limiting beliefs in order to not contradict my own desires? 

I still feel like 'I must have made some sort of mistake' in reading the scale, and meant to stop by the doc's office yesterday to confirm (or deny) those results, but I didn't end up getting to it, so no confirmation as of yet.  as far as my food issues go, my fridge is currently mostly bare (just like old times), and the few things that are in it are rapidly rotting veggies.  and in case you thought I didn't have enough to complain about, the power was out for most of the day, so I'm sure a portion of what is in my freezer isn't much good, either.  good times!

in any case, I think I need to spend more time - in 17 second intervals - working on focusing my desires in order to better manifest my dreams.  it seriously disturbs me that a post entitled "Success" gets half as many views as a post called "Relapse".  why are there more people interested in seeing me fail than people cheering me on to success?  so we're back to that disappointment I spoke of in terms of where I am, who's here with me (or who isn't), and what kind of energy it brings into my life.  seeing as how the people I tend to interact with let me down more than they hold me up, it's definitely time for me to change things around again, and as lonely as I already am, I can manage to endure just a little bit longer in order to give bringing the Right kinds of people into my life another shot. 

more than anything, I find I am once again disgusted at having trusted in people to be good to my son, who have turned out to do just the opposite.  if I had a penny for everyone who ever let us down, well...I'd be able to buy us something decent to eat.

how much Does family matter?

my mom sent me this meme yesterday, and I responded to it with "did you send this to [my brother]?  I don't know why you seem to think the onus of the emotional work is on me - I never kicked him out of my house, or forbid my kid from talking to him or his cousins."  which is what my brother did to me/my teen when the teen was just a little baby in diapers - threw us out of his house.  and later, when the teen was 6, and we moved an hour up the road, bro dismissed us with an 'I'll never come visit you', and forbid his kids to talk to mine, when they had had a close relationship, and caused much anguish, confusion, and tears for my young son.

Mom:  "Of course I did.  Please do not get your knickers in a twist.  I won’t send any more stuff like that. I have given up."  but she hasn't given up, and she won't give up.  she's in her 70's, now, and has decided that she doesn't want the next time my brother and I to see each other to be at her funeral.  she wants to see her remaining family (me, my bro, our kids) all together in one place before she dies.  I don't know why, it hardly matters to me at this point (though it would be nice if the cousins could have a connection), but it Does matter to her, so she will keep trying, though she says she won't.  I think she probably doesn't know how deep the wound goes - nor do I, for that matter - I mean, I know how deep it goes for me, but I don't think my brother particularly cares.  I may be wrong, and he may be deeply wounded, too, but not having spoken to him in the past 7 years (and not much before then, though we used to be good friends), I can't say.  he's changed quite a bit, in my opinion, while I have remained constant to who I've always been (also my opinion).

so, because I am, for better or worse, who I am, I sent a joint message to both my mom and my bro this morning, and now I'm going to share it here, for my readers, because I'm the sick bitch who likes to share my pain with friends and strangers equally:

me to them:  "as per the meme our mother sent to us, I replied 'did you send this to [my bro]?  I don't know why you seem to think the onus of the emotional work is on me - I never kicked him out of my house, or forbid my kid from talking to him or his cousins.'  to you [Bro], I am saying that for a long, loooong time, I have been the bigger person when it comes to the ways I have been treated by my 'family' - no matter how much abuse, prejudice, belittling, and legal action you all have visited upon me, I have risen above, and not treated you with similar hate or arrogance.  I have lived my life, away from you, for most of 30 years, as it has been made clear that I am not good enough, my opinions are not welcome, my intelligence has been insulted, my lifestyle scorned, my parenting called into question, and that is Not, in my opinion, how a family behaves.  as a brother, you used and abused me when you should have been protecting me, and chased me out when you should have been inviting me in.  I have decades of anger stored away that has never been vented to you (though it has been shared with others), and you have much to apologize for.  how would you feel if one of [your son's] friends shoved a stuffed Odie with his tongue out between [either of your daughters'] legs?  what would you do if [your son] held his sisters down so his friend could do that to them rather than punch his friend in the face?  there are countless incidents as such that occurred throughout our lives that I could point to where you treated me like 'less than', when I have never done a goddamned thing to you, and you have perpetuated the lie that there is something fundamentally wrong with me to many family and friends to protect yourself from the truths that I have had to live with my whole life.  it's taken a lot for me to not succumb to the shame and pain you have caused both me and my child, but we are strong, amazing souls, whom you have lost out on knowing for your arrogance and erasure.  so go ahead - I have once again extended my neck for you to chop off with your need to protect yourself from the mess you attempted to leave behind.  Mom wants us to reconcile?  great - it begins with you acknowledging your part in treating me like a pariah, and apologizing for it, sincerely.  and then an ugly conversation in which you apologize for every action that directly followed.  in the rare case that I have anything to apologize for, do please let me know, though as far as I can tell, I've never done or said anything to you, or any member of your family, that can be construed in the same light as the malicious ways in which you have attempted to assassinate my character.  you go on and have yourself a lovely day, though.

"Mom - there.  I took the first step.  I'm sure you will both have quite a bit to say about how I did it wrong, or how I should have done it differently, or whatever it is you two say about me to each other.  even though [Bro] has been the favored child all these years, judging by the shitty things you have said to me about him, I'm sure you say similar things to him about me.  if you want to see reconciliation between us, you need to be responsible for your part in that conversation.  and judging by the times I asked you to be responsible for your part in that conversation with me alone, and you have done everything in your power to deflect so as not to ever have that conversation, I don't see it happening.

"I love you both very much, and have always remembered you in my prayers.  that does not mean that you deserve a place in my life, however.  seeing as how I'll be taking care of Mom after [Bro] moves away (which he absolutely Should do), I have no problem burying all animosity between she and I in order to help her get on with the business of living while she's still doing it.  I am happy to do the same for [Bro], if he deigns to take responsibility for his many cruel behaviors towards me, but I doubt there will ever be any real repair to our family unit that was torn asunder without [Dad] to hold it together.  too many years and too much bad blood - not to mention differing political views and socio-economic statuses - has passed between us, but I believe in Love, and have made it a point to only deal with those who show me love.  that is my opening statement.  Selah ~ "

I mean, you can see how that's an inappropriate thing for a teen-aged boy to do to his best friend's little sister, right?  and for my brother to not only Let him do it, but to Hold Me Down WHILE he did it, well...that's just a red flag for future behavior patterns unbecoming of a what I see as 'proper' big-brotherly conduct.

do you think my message was too harsh, on point, or not harsh enough?  do you think I should even have sent it?  should I have left the relationship to its death regardless of my mother's wishes?  do you have family members you have quarreled with and never spoken to again?  or family members you've reconciled with?  how has that come about, and how are those relationships functioning today?

Snoopy, Come Home? *content warning for childhood trauma

while checking the statistics on the differing popularity of my various posts, it becomes clear that you sick bastards that tend to read them prefer the ugly, sordid details to the positive, happy vibes I try to bring to my life, my writing, and the world.  so I'm going to indulge you with another story of personal trauma, because that's what you like - my pain and suffering.

enjoy ~

the summer I was 11 years old, I lived the popular joke at the time that 'our' parents would move away while 'we' were at sleep-away camp.  I'm not sure who started 'the joke', the kids or the parents, but I remember getting the letter from my mom that my parents had bought a new house, and we would be moving.  she drew me a sketch of the floor plan which didn't make any sense, and it occurred to me that I was living the nightmare of not actually knowing where I lived, now.  it was mostly just preteen melodrama, because of course we still lived where I had called home for the past 8 years, but the situation was a bit disconcerting, and I felt somewhat adrift amid the news (which of those rooms in my mom's sketch was 'mine'?).  at the end of the summer, my parents not only came to pick me up, they took me back to my room in our 'old' house, and all was well, though we must have been in 'moving mode', because we began living in the 'new' house sometime in December.

one of the cool things that came along with new house was that we teens got our own phone line, because my dad didn't want to have to compete with us to make and receive calls.  not much trauma so far, right?  I mean, my parents, who loved each other, were married - they not only owned a home, they sold it and bought a new one (it was probably mortgaged to the hilt, and they later lost it).  they also sent us to sleep-away camp, and all kinds of other good stuff.  none of my other friends had their own phone lines, I don't think - it was a long time ago, who remembers?  but we had our own line, and our own phones, in our own rooms, which were right next to each other - talk about luxury (we had our own bathroom, too, with two sinks).  as a teen, I definitely fit the stereotype of yakking away with my friends for hours on my Snoopy phone, so I guess my dad's foresight paid off for him, until...

the summer after 10th grade, I started dating a guy I met at the day camp we both worked at who had graduated from high school, and was going away to college.  after our amazing summer of falling in looove, we said 'goodbye' as he left for school, but decided to stay together as he was only going to be 3 hours away, and planned to come home frequently to visit, which he did.  while he was at school, though, we spent Hours on the phone.  HOURS.  half the time, I don't even think we talked, we just held the handsets to our ears and savored the connection between us.  the other students who lived in his dorm nicknamed him 'Pa Bell' as he could frequently be found tucked into the phone booth, listening to me breathe as I listened to him.  what the hell did we find to say to one another?  I guess that's just how it is when you're in love for the first time - no need to say anything, just being 'together' was enough.  I'm old and jaded, now, but I do remember how I lived to hear his voice, and how it felt to know he was as enamored of me as I was of him.  he did make some of the calls, but since he had to use a pay phone, the majority of them were billed to...my dad.

that first month that my boyfriend was away at school, my dad called me into the kitchen one night to 'discuss' the phone bill.  it was $500.  $500!  what would You do if your teen racked up a $500 phone bill in one month?!  at 16/17, I was busy struggling with chemistry homework, making sure my double-spike-belt went with my parachute pants, having my driver's license suspended for speeding soon after I got it, and had no idea how much a local phone call cost, let alone a long distance one.  my dad was no Ward Cleaver - he was a child of the Holocaust, and an Israeli soldier - he demanded my phone, which I ran to my room to fetch, and placed on the kitchen table in front of him.  as I assume you can see from the pictures (and in case you can't, I'm about to describe it anyway), the Snoopy phone I had had a yellow handset that Snoopy held in his hand at the end of his outstretched arm.  well, my dad picked up that yellow handset, and used it to smash Snoopy's head into oblivion.  poor Snoopy...it wasn't his fault.

I'm sure I must have cried, and eventually managed to explain to my dad that I didn't know anything about local vs. long distance billing, or peak vs. off-peak calling times.  I'm sure he grounded me from phone use, specifically calls to my boyfriend...but I know he didn't make me pay the bill.  in fact, he even took me to the mall, with poor, beheaded Snoopy in a shopping bag, told the salespeople that the phone 'fell off my desk', and that he was looking to replace it.  sadly, Snoopy was a limited edition item, and I ended up getting a plain brown trimline to replace him.  the next month, the phone bill was only half of what it had been, but I was still called into the kitchen (where all family conferences took place) to explain myself.  I hadn't been on the phone because I was grounded, but there were still residual charges for calls that had been made before Snoopy's assassination that hadn't been billed yet, so I was let go without further punishment, but with another stern warning to mind my usage.

my boyfriend and I resorted to writing letters, which wasn't a bad thing, in retrospect, but I did write a good deal of those letters during school, when I should have been taking class notes and paying attention, I suppose.  I had a shoebox filled with his correspondence up on the shelf in my closet, which seems romantic in this age of texts and emojis, and I guess it is, in a sense, though our 'relationship' only lasted two years, as we broke up when I went away to college, in a town too far away from his college to easily visit each other.  in any case, I told this story of my father's violent nature (along with several others) to my teen at some point, as either an anecdote about the late grandfather he never knew, as a cautionary tale to avoid inciting my own rage-like anger, as an illustration of how much less trauma I try to inflict on him as a parent than my parents inflicted on me, or just because the memory struck me.  about a year or so ago, as we were browsing through a newer local shop that sells some vintage items, I was stopped dead in my tracks as I came face-to-face with a Snoopy phone they had on display, for sale at an exorbitant price.  my teen came up beside me, saw the phone, and asked if that was the same one I had had that my dad had smashed.  when the owner instinctively sidled up to me to try and make a sale, I heard my darling offspring volunteer that I used to have that very phone until my dad destroyed it because...I quickly slipped my hand over his mouth and hugged him to me while grinning at the owner that he had a way of not necessarily knowing what information was private, and inquiring after the price (as I said, way too much for my budget, but probably quite affordable for one of the tourists who vacations at the spa near where we live).

later, in the car driving home, the teen asked if I would really buy that phone if it was in my price range, and I said that I probably would.  I really liked that phone - it was cute, and fun, and though I'm not really into Snoopy or the Peanuts cartoon he came from, or 'branded' merchandise on the whole, I would have put that phone on my desk with a smile on my face, remembering the feeling of being in love for the first time, and being an entitled teen with not a thing in the world to worry my pretty, empty head about, and my dad, scary as he could sometimes be.  it would stand there as a testament to my having survived some of the harsher lessons of my youth, and a reminder to transcend the impulse to destroy my son's things when he uses them in ways that I find irresponsible or annoying, because I know how deeply that wound can cut, even though we know 'things' are just impermanent physical objects that are not necessary to our survival.  I'm anthropomorphising here, but it was shocking and brutalizing to watch Snoopy get his head smashed in for something I had done, and it gave me a real sense of my own responsibility towards others, and since then, I have never let another person take the blame for some wrong I had committed, even if it was as simple as accidentally ordering more apple pies from the bakery than we could sell at the farm market that week.

so take my silly little trauma to heart - while I believe there should be consequences for our children's wrong actions, brutality shouldn't be one of them.  neither should violence.  my dad had some serious trauma of his own, and while he tried to keep it in check, he sometimes failed, and often made up for it by buying me things.  I hardly ever wanted the 'things' as much as I just wanted to be 'good enough', and I would have traded all the material objects for a few more hugs, and to be told that I was worthy of his love.  in the end, I understood that I was, and we managed to reconcile our relationship before he died, thank goodness, but it was a long road to get there, and many horrible things in my life could have been avoided as a result, but...selah.  here we are.  I'm a parent now, doing my best (and often failing) at treating my son how I wish I had been treated, but I'm doing it without a partner, and a lot less money, so the rules aren't quite the same.  the truth is, I have threatened to smash my son's (hand-me-down, outdated) iphone for something I can't even remember at this point, and that's not ok - but this blog is my way to work through my issues, so here I am reminding myself why that's not ok, and to find better solutions in the future.

have you passed any of your early traumas on to your children, or perpetuated any needlessly negative familial patterns in their lives?  have you corrected the situation?  how?