Both

I decided to post this on #wordpress because....this is where Andrew Baggerly posts and he writes about the Giants.  In my head, if I post where he posts, I am somehow more connected to Giants baseball.  Look.  Most of life is about what we believe to be true, reality optional, so just go with it.  I will also be posting on #Blogger and #Tumblr, just in case you prefer that and because I am still hoping I am one hashtag away from fame, book deals, book tours and world travel/domination.

What I have been thinking about a lot the last few days is something my Clinical Supervisor and mentor, Coach Tosh, has been trying to teach me for four years now.  The idea of the Middle Path.  The idea that two, seemingly opposite, ideas or beliefs can exist in the same mind and heart at the same time.  That our tendency to scurry to one side or another is fraught with a false sense of Black and White or Right and Wrong.  And by "our" I mean "my", because let's face it, I am probably guiltiest than most of having such strong opinions that I can not for the life of me see the other side, let alone entertain that it is has any possible value.

I have been thinking about this on a bigger-world level since #Ferguson happened and then when I watched the Eric Garner, #icantbreathe video.  Followed by the video of 12-year old Tamir Rice being killed.  I have been thinking about this on a my-world level as I recently accepted a "supervisory" position that inevitably will put me into positions where I make a decision that staff thinks is lame or that other supervisors thinks is lame or that is just lame.  I have been thinking about this on a life-and-death level as I am trying to celebrate the holiday season, which regardless of what you believe is a lot about birth and hope, while facing some other realities about death and grief.  I have been thinking about it a lot.

#JonStewart, who I unabashedly love, said this on his show last week and it has become the impetus for this post and what I hope to be a new era of #civility and middle-path-taking in my life.  In response to criticism he received, he said:

 "Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive". That's the crux of the crux of the all-of-it.  I can support law enforcement, appreciate the police, be white and still wonder about brutality, wonder about racism, wonder if we might not be able to do things differently. I can support the right to bear arms and not understand why an every-day citizen needs to go to WalMart with a loaded weapon on their hip. I can be law-abiding and still believe the justice system in this country is in need of some over-haul.  I can celebrate the holidays and still wonder if it is really the best idea to have a Clark Griswald house when we are living in a time where we need to reduce consumption.  I can be both leader and line staff.  These ideas, these roles, are not mutually exclusive.  You can laugh and grieve at the same time because all of us, sick or not, are most certainly living and dying at the same time.  You can pick both.

On every level of my life politically, professionally and personally, I am noticing my reactivity and a certain pressure to be on one side or another.  To feel one way or another, to support choice A  or choice Z.  And it seems like an entire alphabet is what people want you to believe the two choices are separated by. But most things in life are not really that simple.  Often times, the two sides of something are a lot like two sides of the same coin. Totally opposite, but, you can't have one without the other.  So you have to figure out a way to have both, to allow both to exist.

So, besides not eating sugar, giving up soda, AND fitting into the clothes Stacey Marie gave me by Valentines day (!), my New Year's resolution is to pick choice M.  M is the middle point of the alphabet.  The middle-path.  It is also the first letter of my first name so it is going to be SUPER easy to remember.  Unless I forget my name, which is not totally impossible (the other day, I forgot my address).

The extreme always makes an impression but it is suffocating there. And obvious.  And  frankly, not really an answer because it always silences another side of something which continues the fight.  And I am not sure about much, but I think the goal of any battle, of any conflict, of any argument is to stop fighting and make peace. Find common ground.  Find. Both. Take the middle-road, because what is considered the "high" and the "low" roads exist only in context and perspective.  Neither of which lend themselves to righteousness or absolutes.

Good luck out there! Loving you.....

Celebrate Me Home

Hi.  Just checking in.  A few things about my #buyin2Christmas experiment that is officially 14 (or 15, but I think I have been counting wrong) days old today! The first is to answer a question I got and then change the answer.  To a better answer.  Because that's what Megan-brains do.

Why is #buyin2Christmas 42 days long?

#buyin2Chrsitmas was originally 42 days long because I decided to start it the Sunday before Thanksgiving and I was going to end it the Saturday after New Years.  But then once I started saying 42 in my head, it triggered the TOOL song 46 & 2 to begin playing on an endless basis, also in my head and I realized that this was I.T. trying to get my attention.  See, if you know the song at all, it is about growth and change and Maynard (lead-singer of TOOL), is a total badass who writes songs about evolution and Jungian theories of the "shadow" and I relate to all of this as I move through life things like getting married, and trying to have a baby, and getting sober and watching my Dad transition and learning how to celebrate tradition.  So, that said, since 46 & 2= 48 and I realize the importance of the symbolism, #buyin2Christmas is now 48 days long.  The other reason for it being longer now is that I realized I would need some time to transition out of this time of year, just as I have needed some time to transition in to it.  Plus, did you know that the 12 days of Christmas actually refer to the 12 days AFTER Christmas? It's the period that goes from Christmas Day to January 6th, which is referred to as Little Christmas or Epiphany.  Now, I did not pay attention enough when I became Catholic to remember what Epiphany is exactly, but I think it has something to do with the Magi and Jesus's baptism and the whole god/man idea.  And I am not much of a believer in things religious, but I have become a deep believer in the idea that the veil between the physical and the celestial is only as thick or thin as you need it to be.  I want mine to be as transparent as all get out these days.  I also want to believe that you and I are reflections of God....which to me is whatever is best about being human.  The Good Stuff.  The kindness, the graciousness, the struggle to do what is right, all of the time, especially when it is hard, the light.  So, with that all being said, #buyin2Christmas now ends on Saturday, January 10th.  That is 48 days after November 23rd when I started this gig, it includes Epiphany and it ends at the end of the week, which fits nicely into my little OCD kingdom.  Also, you should at least read the words to the TOOL song I am talking about.  Or listen to it.  But probably mostly read the words.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tool/fortysix2.html

Phew.....after all of that, I am kind of winded.  And I haven't even began to describe what I have observed about myself and the world during this, the season-o-the-holiday.

I think the first thing is that celebrating Christmas, or whatever it is you celebrate, takes a lot of effort.  Turns out I never really hated the lights and the trees and the parties, I am just lazy-as-fuck.  No, really,  I am.  I am quite possibly the laziest person on the planet.  Getting anything out of Life? Takes.  Effort.  It is actually a deep, running theme in my life that really needs addressing except that I am too lazy to address it.  It is the primary reason why I don't cook, celebrate anything, or have a hair style.  In my defense, and hand to I.T. this is not an excuse, but frankly, just existing, in some semblance of a reasonable way has been overwhelming enough for me; without adding in trees and lights and blow-dryers.  And while I think this is slowly beginning to change, #buyin2Christmas does not begin to happen, as well as it is going, without the help of my Heather, the one in this partnership who knows how to give a shit about things and then put effort behind it.  So, thanks babe.

The second thing I have noticed is that the money thing about the season still bugs me.  But not because of my past arguments about excess and consumerism and environmental destruction....although all of that is still really true.  It bugs me because it makes me sad that I cannot buy all of the people I love lots of things.  And while everyone says it doesn't matter to them, it matters to me and makes me feel incredibly guilty and since I don't want to feel guilt or sadness, I go with anger and outrage at the masses because that is a safer feeling for me than the others.  Thing is, if I had planned better, if I wasn't so selfish, if I was willing to put in more effort, I probably could have done better at gift buying and giving this year.  But I didn't.  I spent all  the money on baseball and I am too tired to put together gift jars of cookie ingredients and I also still don't really think anyone NEEDS anything.  But at least this year I am willing to admit that yes, I know this isn't the point; but since I am still ore selfish than not, the gift in there is that I am working on it.

Lastly, the thing I have noticed the MOST is about the music.  I have a few questions, like: What makes the song "My Favorite Things", a holiday song? and "Celebrate Me Home" by Kenny Loggins?  Seems more like a song about last call than the holidays.....but whatever.  I like Kenny Loggins as much as the next guy. I have to say, the music, for me, has been the best part of this experiment.  I have been listening to 24-hour a day Christmas music in my car and on my phone and at home for DAYS now, and it really is magical.  When Bing Crosby starts to sing "White Christmas" I get transported to my Grandma's house and I can see her Family Room decorations in vivid detail, like I was there yesterday.  And Oh, Holy Night....well it has the greatest quote about the season and the meaning of everything of any song ever written, no matter the time of year:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/celinedion/oholynight.html

The most important part being: The thrill of HOPE. A WEARY world REJOICES.  For yonder breaks, a new and GLORIOUS morn.....

I need those words more than ever this year.  The reminder that life, in its inevitable way will go on and light will come to dark places. That  the tired will be allowed to rest and that there will be Joy again, as long as there is Hope.

So, I'd say we are off to a grand start.  Me and Christmas.  I hope you are too.

The Crackpots and These Women

Thanksgiving gave me the opportunity to think about women quite a bit.  I was home with my dad's family for the holiday and was lucky enough to enjoy the holiday with three generations of women, including my brand new niece, Keaghan.  It also included Keaghan's mom, Kendra, Keaghan's great-Aunts, Ingrid and Miggie and Keaghan's Grandma, Sandi. Unavailable for participation was Keaghan's grandma-like person, my Momma, Judy, who is in the process of becoming bionic. The men were there too, but this blog isn't focusing on them.  And not because I don't think that men are important or equal of wonderful.  This is not meant to open a debate on gender roles and traditional gender assignments.  I am not man hating or man-excluding.  I understand with absolute clarity ideas of gender, sex and sexuality spectrum's.  Men are wonderful.  I love the men in my life, I used to be married to a man.  One of my dogs is a man-dog.  My favorite being that ever existed was male. But, for me, the holidays are about the power of "these women".

 The first woman I thought about was my Momma because I had my first taste of what she pulls off almost annually, offering people a Thanksgiving feast that is nothing short of totally fucking amazing.   She couldn't participate in the Turkey-Day madness this year, but she was with me in spirit.  In fact, I was so inspired by the taste of throwing a Thanksgiving, that I am proclaiming here, that next year, I am going to try my hand at doing the whole thing myself. It's funny, I had always thought of it as this chore that I wanted nothing to do with, but I realized this year that it is a Rite of Passage for me to accept the responsibility for these traditions from my momma, especially because she is still here to call in a panic when I mess it all up. 

I thought even more about mommas and women as I watched my sister who is breast-feeding Miss Keaghan, who is two weeks old.  Actually, I watched her simultaneously chase after two 17-month olds (my twin nieces), carve turkey and breast-feed all at once because that is what women do, especially at the holidays; 100 things at once without blinking.  In one night I watched her: finish making a dinner for 9 adults & three children, take pictures with said children in not one but two different holiday dresses, breast feed, try and eat dinner, change diapers, breast feed, participate in conversations, dry tears, breast feed....she was so beautiful, so graceful in the total overwhelm of a life that is what life is for young families.  It wasn't anything exceptional, yet it was absolutely the most magnificent choreography I have ever borne witness to.  

Then there was my aunt Miggie, my Dad's sister.  She has begun coming down more often, to be with Sandi and my Dad during my Dad's illness.  I think that is what women instinctively do, they pull the circle together, around the family, when hard times come.  She spent almost the entire time rubbing my Dads feet, trying to control the swelling.  She is a master at this having done it for my grandpa and grandma during their transitions and also, most recently, her sister-in law who passed last month.  I listened to her tell story after story about family members.  The whole time she sat in the same spot rubbing my Dad's feet.  Letting him know he is loved and sharing her healing energy with him.  She promised me that if it does come time for my Dad to leave us, my Grandma Harris will come for him and even though I am usually not a believer in things like that, after watching these women during Thanksgiving, I am sure that is true.

I think that woman are the greater point of the season, after all.  These women. Your women.  All women. They aren't mentioned much in the songs or in the symbolism.  We are told Jesus is the reason for the season and we look for Santa Claus, but I would like to offer that they are not the entire point.  Jesus does not get here at all without his Mom and Santa would not be able to find the keys to the sleigh, let alone get around the world delivering the presents, without Mrs. Claus. When I called down two days before Thanksgiving it was my Sandi-Mom, out of breath trying to care for my Dad, clean house and get the Christmas tree out, so that pictures could be taken.  That's what first provoked me to consider the ever present amazingness of these women. She sounded tired, but determined.  In fact, I think that should be the catch phrase for all of them....tired, but determined to do this....to create and sustain life.  Because that is what women do.   

This poem says it better than I can.  So I stole it.

Thank you, to all of my women.  I love you. Happy Thanksgiving & Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am kind of an asshole about Christmas.  Probably not even kind of.  For most of my adult life, I have been a complete asshole about Christmas.  If it is possible to have arguments "against" Christmas, I have had them and have spent the last 20 plus years insisting on making them to anyone within range.  In my defense, my arguments are all valid and totally well thought out.  They even vary and range from environmental: the holiday season is a huge drain on already drained resources.....the lights, the paper, the fuel-related travel and package shipping....it is a ridiculously wasteful time of year; to financial: that the mass-market feeding frenzy of consumerism and stuff-buying is everything that is wrong with Western culture; to philosophical: the tiny issue of patriarchal religions basically stealing ideas from Goddess-cultures and flat-out making up holidays based on zero factual evidence. I have had my hands full with reasons not to buy in to this season. Throw in the years I spent on drugs and I have probably managed to dismiss, if not totally miss the holidays my entire adult life.  Even when I was around for Christmas, it was not without some self-righteous caveat about drowning polar bears or starving Hondurans or gifts wrapped in newspaper.

I know.  Total asshole.

But not this year.  This year I am selling out or buying in or whatever.  This year, I am Celebrating.  I am watching every movie, listening to Christmas radio, decorating the house, my office, the car, the dogs.  I am going to every cookie/holiday/work/neighborhood/tree-lighting/parade I can find.  I am having at least one of every holiday concoction Starbucks and Peets can come up with.  I am building a ginger-bread house.  I am tree-trimming and light-lighting and snow-finding.  I am wrapping presents and buying things people absolutely do not need in any way.  I am making Jenner wear antlers and taking ridiculous selfies with him and Rain and Birdy in front of our massive tree.  I am baking cookies for Santa and staying up till the wee hours of the night on 12/24 looking for Rudolph.  And most important of all, I am going to believe.  Whatever anyone is selling, this year I am going to Believe. In. It.  Elves, Oil-Buning Miracles, Virgin Births, Flying Reindeer, Angels named Clarence, Ringing Bells, Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, Tiny Tim's New Legs, 34th Street, all of it.  I'm in. I am totally in.

Here's why.  Here is the why of all whys.  When given the choice of picking either joy and fluff and miracles or joyless, harsh, reality.  I say, pick Joy.  Life is going to give you enough times when you don't get a choice.  When your only option is joyless, harsh, reality.  Situations that just do not have any light; so, when there is a choice in the matter, pick the fucking light.  Even if it is light you have to make up and string up.  Even if it is light that you think should be turned off to save energy, just go with it. Go with the Joy behind door number one.  The light at the end of the tunnel.  Give yourself some time to be soft and gooey and full of too much hot chocolate.

See, the holiday season in this country is the agreed upon time for all of us to be less of an asshole. I think maybe that is why we have tried to start celebrating it earlier and earlier. We make things pretty.  We engage, kindly, with people we normally wouldn't.  We care about other people having enough, we donate time, we buy into and tell stories with one common thread and that thread is the greatest gift anyone can ever give anyone: Hope.  The Earth makes us slow down with colder weather and less light.  We admire trees and ache for snow.  Frankly, we become better versions of ourselves.....or we have the opportunity too.  And we get the chance to make memories and to use our time wisely.

And time.  Oh my goodness, the importance of time.  While, I try not to regret too many things, because it is a useless way to spend energy, every once in a while I get a cold blast of a reminder of all of the time I missed either in my addiction, or even worse, so caught up in my own world that I just assumed I would always have next year.  Here's the thing about next year.....it doesn't always happen, and even if it does, it is going to be vastly different than this year, the one happening right now.  Kids will be older, loved ones may be in different places, wars could start, people you think will always be there will die.  You may lose your job or win the lottery or get a dog, or get a tattoo, or get sick; the point is you will not be the same next year.  You are not the same as you were last year....nothing is really the same as it was last year, it can't be. And I can tell you the worst sadness in the world is to reflect upon years past and think: "I wish I'd bothered."

So.  This year, I am bothering.  From now on, I am bothering.  I am checking out of all intellectual reasoning for the next six weeks.  42 days of Jingling Bells, Cookies, Yelling out Happy Holidays to EVERYONE, and hopefully, with enough belief, a miracle or two. I hope you will do the same.  Don't miss stuff.  As brilliant as your arguments may be, they don't stand a chance against the need to create a time of Hope, so when the sleigh comes by, just get in and enjoy the ride.

And they heard her exclaim as she wrote out of sight:

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
AND TO ALL A GOOD LIFE.  xoxoxoxoxo

Unspoken Word Three

On Cancer

I am not going to hate you, Cancer
I was going to, but then I remembered
This guy I know
And how he is always telling me:

Child, "hate" is far to strong of an emotion to waste on.....
(insert whatever it was I was hating here)

Sure, you are probably a worthy thing to hate, Cancer
But Hate takes energy and you have taken enough of that
Hating you is like hating the Ocean
When someone drowns

I think I would rather respect you, Cancer
Like the other powerful things I have met
Along this journey
Like Great White Sharks and Winter Storms and Bald Tires

I think I will save my energy, Cancer
And eat an apple
And pet my dogs
And take a walk

And live.

That Kim Richey Song

I was talking to my Dad about Oregon today and it made me think about the idea of "home".  I think there is a grand difference between living somewhere and being home.  I think it is possible to live in a lot of places and not feel like you ever come home to them.  I also think it's possible to feel a connection to a place you have barely lived, or maybe even just stayed and feel like you are home.  I feel like that about Cazadero for example.  I have never "lived" in Cazadero, as far as living goes. I have never received my mail there or gone to school there.  I don't know any of the pressing political issues of Sonoma County, don't have a favorite Mexican restaurant there where they know I always would rather have the green sauce.  But Cazadero is more home to me than this house I am sitting in now in Jackson, CA.  Don't get me wrong, it is a nice house.  We love our house.....but this just isn't home.

Home gets even weirder for me when I go "home" to the bay area where I actually have had many homes.  There is the house on Rialto Dr. in Clayton.  Number 39.  That will always be my home, not just my house.  I remember every detail of that house, at least how it existed when I lived there.  I remember that the tile in the kitchen behind the stove had vegetables inlaid on it.  I remember the garden beds in the back yard and the circular brick planter that my Dad built.  I remember the apricot tree in the backyard and the bushes underneath the bedroom window where the Orb Spider lived one Summer.  I see occasional glimpses of this house sometimes and no matter how old I am or where I am sitting, my heart swells up like a balloon and I can hear my Dad calling for me to come in for dinner.  I can see my Mom laying on the deck in the Summer sun.  It's weird, too, that as far as everything surrounding that house, the areas of Clayton and Concord where I grew up?  I don't even recognize them.  The aren't home at all for me anymore.  But that house and that street, always mine.  Always home.

The there is Oregon.  I lived in Oregon for 13 months, 11 years ago.  I lived in two different houses there, each for about half the time I was there.  Not very long by any standard, yet it is the one place out of all the places I have ever lived where I actually felt like I had come home.  A lot of that had to do with the time in my life and the war I was returning from**, I know that.  But regardless of the circumstance and despite the relatively little time I lived there, my heart beats for the Oregon Coast as if I had lived there for generations, and no matter how long I stay away, I still remember everything. I think someday I will likely return there.  And I suspect it will be as it once was, a place called Home.

Kim Richey: "A Place Called Home"

http://youtu.be/s_ZCK7bDM4w


**On this, the day of my 11th birthday in remission from the pesky and stunning methamphetamine, with a shiny chip in my pocket that shows 18 months in remission from the devious and outrageous alcohol, I want to say something about getting into remission from the bigger thing, the biggest thing. The easily handed out, the subtly implied, the hardest part of all of it....the shame. The shame of addiction. On this day at this time, I am in remission from the shame. See, there is nothing morally wrong with any addict. There is simply unmanaged disease. I willingly accept the responsibility to manage my disease. BUT I reject ENTIRELY the societal burden of shame. I didn't get better. I was already good enough. I got well. There should be No shame in having sickness, illness, dis-ease. 

So, if you or someone you know is struggling with this or any illness, It's ok. You are ok. You need to get well and it is possible. Recover. Get found Kid. Find your way home Xoxo

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

I just got home from seeing my Dad.  Just walked in and am bursting at the seams about how the world is ending.  And I will get to that, but first a Keith update because I know everyone's first question is "how's your Dad?" To be honest, I have been struggling lately when asked this.  Not because I am unappreciative of how much you care about him and me and us, but because I don't know of any words to answer in a way that is honest but concise and/or appropriate for social situations.  Usually when people ask how others are we say "fine" or "well" or "doing o.k." and I could say that about my Dad but we would both know that it isn't really true or at least complete.

Sometimes I resort to saying things like "he's hanging in there" or "today is an o.k. day", but that doesn't seem right either, because it minimizes how amazing he is despite the fact that his health is not-amazing.  Today when I was driving home, I was looking at the Fall colors in the vineyards and I realized that I have found the perfect term for how my dad is....he's brilliant. He is transitioning through this like a tree who, given the choice of doing nothing or putting on a beautiful show come the Fall of its life, has chosen the latter.  Despite the hand he has been dealt, he is still generous and kind.  He is still really, really funny and witty.  He is thoughtful and patient and honest.  If he were a tree, he would be the one you would want to stop the car for.  The one in the grove that really is going all out, with reds and oranges and golds; full of fire and life, taking its time to be present through this experience.  He eats ice cream every day.  He voted.  He is a badass and he is brilliant.  So that is how I intend to answer from now on.  My Dad is brilliant.

That said, despite my Dad's brilliance and my wonderful visit....the world is still ending and I am bereft.  Here is why.  There was smog.  I went home to the Northern California, San Francisico Bay Area suburb, where I have existed in some form for 40 plus years now and there was so much SMOG, I could not see my mountain (Mt. Diablo).  What.  The.  Fuck. I grew up at the base of that mountain! There was never any smog! Fog...there was fog sometimes.....and snow.....snow was always a treat.  But dirty air that affected visibility? First time in 40 years.  I mean, I am not an idiot so I am aware that climate change exists and is affecting things, (because, despite the notions of some recently elected congress-people, IT IS NOT A DEBATABLE TOPIC), but to see it first hand, AROUND MY MOUNTAIN.  I am really devastated.  And scared.  Smog is what separates us from the Los Angelians.  Smog exists in industrial areas.  Smog is dirty air.  Dirty air exists where there is no rain.  Where there are too many people.  Where there are too many cars.....where there is not enough cool ocean air to pass over and clean out pollution......Oh My God.  That's the new reality of my home-base.  The environment has changed, so it has changed.  This is really happening.  I mean probably not at the "I should probably buy an oxygen mask and stock up on a supply of tanks" rate that I have gone to in my head, but enough to spur some thought and a blog and a question:

What are you doing in your every day practice to slow down the end of the world?  Do you have any tips? And? Can you help me fix my mountain?

Cue REM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY

Out Of Words

I have a bad case of the jumbles.  Yes, the jumbles.  It is so a word.  It is when you have too many thoughts in your head and at first they seemingly have nothing to do with each other, but then, after thinking them all at once for days, you start to see they have a common thread that seems important.  Only the common thread is caught somewhere in a tangled mess which makes you think even more thoughts, which leads to more tangles, and on, and on.....It's the Jumbles.

I missed a week of writing so I think that probably has everything to do with it.  I am also struggling to find things to talk about.  I know hardly anyone is going to believe that but it's true.  I am out of words.  My Dad used to say that a lot.  He's not known for being much of a talker and occasionally, when prompted to contribute something to the conversation, he will simply say, "I am out of words".   The explanation for this is great.  He believes you get a certain amount of words in a lifetime.  So, because we all spend an unbelievable amount of time talking (even more now with the advent of social media and text and e-mail and sky-writing), at some point you have to ration and make conscious choices....is this conversation, this debate, this issue, this e-mail, this text.....is it worth using my words on?  Like I said.  He doesn't talk much and in my old age, I am beginning to understand why.

For example, the election on Tuesday.  I used to have lots of words about politics and elections and issues.  Oh man, the words I used to have.  Not just spoken words, either.  I used to have t-shirts with words, bumper-stickers, buttons....I knew facts.  I could quote experts on issues and debate.  Good lord in St. Petersburgh could I debate.  And argue.  And say words.  This year, however, I am out of words about the election results.  I voted, of course.  I would never not vote.  But I am even out of words about people who don't vote.  Because their reasons can not possibly be based on anything resembling logic.  So there is no point to speak words.  Nothing I can say in this blog is going to change the mind of a person who has consciously decided not to vote. How could it?  There is no legitimate reason not to vote if you have the right to do so.   Now, that's not to say that people don't have their reasons and that their reasons aren't based on some notion or feeling that makes perfect sense to them. But that doesn't make it legitimate.   People can give you reasons for lots of things that are not based on anything resembling logic or legitimate facts. Maybe it's a religious preference (not logical), maybe they didn't have time (not legitimate), maybe they think by not voting they are voting (really not logical or legitimate), but whatever, they have themselves convinced and I am out of words.  Same thing with the results of the election.

What I've read says that the swing in congress was basically a vote against Obama (who wasn't running for anything, but o.k.). And I just have absolutely nothing to say to states and people who vote against their own economic and social interests. What do you say? To an economically disadvantaged person who just voted for a Senator who wants to repeal the ACA which is the only thing allowing said voter to get health care? What is the point? People hate this president.  They hate the ACA.  Whether it works or not, whether it is good idea or not, it came from the wrong person, who is from the wrong party, so they HATE IT.  Even though it helps them.  Here's the thing....I know first hand that the ACA is working.  In the microcosm of the country where I work in the health care field, we are seeing the results of people having access to health care.  Our revenue is increasing.  We are fully staffed.  People, who otherwise would not have had access to care are getting care.  It works.  However, if given the opportunity to go back in time to 2012, the massive majority of voters in the county where I work, where Obama overwhelmingly lost, could vote again, with that knowledge?  Nothing would change. Obama would lose again.  Maybe by even more.  Why? Because facts don't matter.  Not in this county and not in this country and thus, I am out of words.  I simply cannot have a conversation and use my words if we get to use anything we want as reasons for things.  It's not a fair fight.  You get to use gorilla warfare and I have to play by the rules. You get God and I get Science.  You get feelings and I get facts and on all of those battlefields, I am outmatched. So I quit.  I am out of words.  Not all words.  But pretty much any words that have to do with politics and power-struggles and personal attacks or agendas based on feelings or beliefs that don't have to adhere to anything factual.  Globally, nationally, vocationally, etc.  Out. Of. Words.

So.  Here we are.  I am out of words and trying to write a blog and you are reading the blog and expecting words.....and it just got weird.  So I am going to say this is a good place to stop blogging.  Not forever, but certainly for today.  I still have words left in me but I am going to save them and use them on things that require the due diligence of all parties to show up on equal footing.

Good luck out there.  Try and be thoughtful.  Try and be just.  Try to think beyond you. Try and be conscious of your words.....they aren't infinite.

*kiss*

Good For Government Work

I guess it's a thing not to think much of "government workers".  We're wasting your tax dollars and stuff.  And I use "and stuff" here purposefully, not because I don't have the vocabulary to further explain all of the lame notions people have about the effort, pay and ability of government workers, but because I don't think better descriptors are worth wasting time on.  Especially after Friday.  Friday my partner and I, both government employees, happened to be off at home together when a really bad man started off a series of events that began and ended with the slaughter of a deputy sheriff. Two total. Also government employees. I say slaughter because that's what it was.  From their wounds it is clear, at least to me that: 1. He figured they'd be wearing vests.  2. He shot around that fact to escape being in trouble for whatever he was doing in the Motel 6 parking lot with a gun that looks to me like it should only be used in combat missions against robot-super-warriors.  But that's not my point.

My partner and I aren't usually the type to watch news coverage of police chases, but for whatever reason we were captivated by this.  I think probably because it was so close to home on so many levels.  I watched her watching the coverage with the massive man-hunt, choppers in the air; the multi-agency response.  I watched her wince when they confirmed the first deputy had been killed.  Then the second. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for the dispatcher somewhere in Sacramento to have received the call from the surviving deputy that shots had been fired; that an officer was down and that the suspects had fled. I tried to imagine what it must have been like for the surviving deputy to watch his partner and friend be shot in the forehead, recoiling back to die in a pool of blood in the parking lot of a Motel 6.  To feel what he must have felt all at once; the instinct to return fire and pursue, conflicting with the instinct to save his partner and get help, coupled with at least a touch of fear for his own life.  I watched as probation officers showed up at the various scenes to lend a hand during the search.  Watched the SWAT teams show up.  Watched the ambulance at the end, load up the suspect to transport him to the hospital for medical clearance.

We know these people.  Not these specific individuals mind you, but this cast of characters in the county where we work.  We know they have wives and children and finances and dogs at home.  We know the arresting officers, the SWAT guy. My parents were the teachers who kept all of those kids safe in classrooms across two counties where schools were on lock-down. I live with the dispatcher, often work with the EMT's. I have spent time and laughed with the DA's who will be assigned this case and I've had lunch with the PD who will be assigned to uphold the rights of the defendant.  I AM the mental health worker that will be asked to visit the alleged assailant in jail. Or I have been. I am not in this case by a county.  One county. I think maybe that is why we watched so closely yesterday.  Because it could have just as easily been us and we felt like we owed it to our brothers and sisters, one county away, to stay vigilant, to stay present, to stay faithful.

Last week the supervisors at my agency bought the line staff pizza.  Out of their own personal monies.  They bought us pizza to thank us for the hard work we do.  It's probably the nicest thing that has happened to me as a county worker (a government worker) in all of my years working for a county which is closing in on a decade, come 2016.  Not that I expect nice things to happen or to be done for me.  Despite popular opinion most of us don't go into public service for the perks and the glory.  Yes, I have retirement and yes, I have medical benefits. I earn those things.  I also have the luxury of working with the people no one else wants to, because somewhere along the line, in the history of humanity, we decided we can't just kill the people who don't behave the way we want them too.  In fact, if you notice, despite everything he did yesterday, the suspect was brought in alive.  Thanks to those pesky government workers. Thanks to your tax dollars.  We will also now continue to deal with him because he is still a human and still has rights and even though we may have moments where we think otherwise, we agree that it is not OK to start killing people who don't behave.  At least not outright.

It' so easy to have scapegoats.  Government workers. Cops. Social workers.  It's so easy to stomp our feet about tax dollars and to point fingers at waste and bureaucracy. It's so easy to complain about the roles we don't ever have to be in.  Until we need to call 911.  Until our car is taken at gun point.  Until our kid is in a classroom on a high school campus where an armed and dangerous subject may be trying to hide.  Until it's us.  I know there is corruption and I know that sometimes the cops and social workers themselves don't behave.  But I still think we matter.  I think the work we do is valuable and worth having some fucking gratitude for.

So I am dedicating this blog to all of the government workers who got paid the same wage during Friday's event, while their lives were on the line, as they do on a typical Friday.  The two deputies that will never come home.  The other two who bore witness to their comrades being slaughtered.  The rest of the first responders who responded.  The dispatchers who worried themselves sick while remaining calm.  The teachers who said reassuring things to their students while they sat in locked classrooms in the dark. The EMT's who responded with the same level of care and responsibility to the fallen officers as they did to the suspect.  The social workers who are busy counseling the families of the victims and the perpetrators.  The DA who gets assigned this case on Monday and the PD, god help you, who owes the alleged assailant his day in court.  You did good.  Quite good for government work. Thank you.

Nothverything

I don't believe in Karma anymore.  Or fairness or just retribution.  Or God's Will. Which all sounds probably more hopeless than it is intended.  Because it doesn't feel hopeless.  It feels real.  I believe in nothing and everything.  Nothverything if you will, because all words should be able to be combined in a shippy way like you do with couples on TV shows.

People are funny about Karma and God's Will.  A lot of Karma believers will go full-hackle-up if you suggest something is God's Will but think Karma makes perfect sense.  Then, when you try and suggest that it is not possible for a child to have done anything to deserve to be horribly abused or starved to death, they pull the prior life card.  They are paying for something in a past life.  Really?  That's as ridiculous as it being God's Will.  What you are doing is implementing a belief system to try and help you solve unsolvable math.  Eventually you are going to have to face the fact that the answer isn't in the back of the book.

If Karma does exist, it sure isn't fair, which I think is the principle tenant of something being Karmic.  Some people are asked to pay a whole hell of a lot for doing the same things that other people pay nothing for.  Really good amazing people die too soon and they don't just die, they die in horrible ways.  Like what the hell did you do, over however many lifetimes, to deserve to be beheaded on international TV?  I am sure someone has an answer.  And I am glad for you that you do, but whatever it is, I don't buy it.  To be clear, I don't believe that was God's Will either.  And if it was God's Will.....? Well then God is an Asshole.

Don't get me wrong.  I am a believer.  I have to be because my sobriety depends on it. Plus the math of belief finally made sense. I have struggled my whole life with drugs and alcohol.  I have also spent my whole life rejecting the idea of something bigger than me that I can depend on.  Yet, as soon as I decided I had no idea what I was doing, gave up, and decided to believe that as long as I stayed clean and sober I would be taken care of for the rest of my life? Boom! It's better here.  But not because I have paid back my Karmic debt or God likes me better or I said enough Hail Mary's. It is better because, for the most part, I have stopped struggling......even though the struggles are all still there. In fact, every once in a while I jump head first into the struggle, just to see if by some chance something has changed, but it never does.

It is better simply by believing that it is not up to me to figure anything out.  That the reason is nothverything.  That there is no rhyme or reason to anything. But I am going to be ok, anyways.  Bad things happen to really amazing people through no fault of their own or God's.  Nothing equals out, not a lot makes sense, somedays are diamonds and some days are stones and I have no idea what factors go into making either kind of day get that result. My Dad still got Cancer even though he is the most wonderful man on the planet.  My Mom still has horrible, degenerative arthritis and has to have all of her parts replaced, despite being kind and loving and more generous than almost anyone I have ever known.  There are innocent people on Death Row. Michael Vick still gets to play football. None of it is fair.  None of it is justified.  It is just happening. Nothing and Everything.  All mattering at the same time.

It is the belief that saves you.  Not what you believe in.  When you start trying to describe it, it stops making sense.  It is the belief that saves you.  Nothverything.

Have a good week.

More About Baseball

The title of this blog is totally on purpose.  I have seen some backlash recently about too much baseball talk and it doesn't sit well with me.  In fact, it never sits well with me when people on social media or in real life critique other people for being who they are.  None of us really care about all of the things people we are following or are friends with care about.  I mean, sure, I care in a general I know you or have known you and hope you are enjoying your time here kind of way.  But I give less than zero fucks about your football teams, your dinner, your beer, where you are at any given moment, what your kids look like on the first day of school, or what genius thing you have to say about Ebola or Obamacare.  I certainly don't care enough to want to take the time to encourage you to stop posting the 17th picture of the bird you saw on your camping trip.  Good for you for being into your life.  And good for me for knowing how to scroll. I feel the same way about the language police.  I say "fuck" a lot. Whether or not it offends you is not my problem when you choose to be friends with me on Facebook.  Or read my blog.  Or when you come to my house.  Or pretty much anytime I am not being paid to have some semblance of appropriate and professional language.

Wondering about how people could be bothered by baseball did prompt me to reflect on just how and why baseball has become so important to me. I haven't always cared about baseball.  In fact, I could have cared less up until a couple of years ago. My Dad tried for years to encourage some interest in his beloved Giants, to no avail.  Years.  My dad is a lifer when it comes to the Giants.  He remembers when they came from New York; remembers cutting school to sit outside of Candlestick (made sense at the time); remembers players and coaches; he knows when AT&T opened, knew he was part of history when he saw Bonds play.  I, on the other hand, was pretty baseball resistant for almost my entire life.  There is a neat story about my Dad and Sandi trying to foster some enthusiasm and father-daughter bonding by taking me to a Giants vs. Dodgers double-header for our birthday one August. Based on my color choices at the time I would guess I was about 13 or 14 because I went to said double-header in ALL black.  That's right.  All black for eight hours of baseball at Candlestick.  In August.  My memories of that game are not of father-daughter bonding at all.  In fact, my memories are almost entirely of the passageway underneath the stands because that is where I sat.  For the entirety of both games.

I couldn't stand baseball.  Thought is was boring.  Sort of cared about the Giants because it was important to my Dad, but not really.  Not enough to know who was pitching when we went to AT&T annually, (or for that matter who we were playing), but enough to understand that it was a cool way to spend the day with my Dad. Plus, the garlic fries were good.  I didn't even jump on the bandwagon when they won the series for the first time in 2010. In fact, I wasn't bit by the bug until 2012, during the actual World Series against Detroit.  I don't know how or why it happened, all I know is that all of a sudden whether or not Sergio Romo got the save, and whether or not we swept in Motor City, became the number one most important thing in my life.  My dad wasn't even home, I don't think.  He's funny in that he manages to be out of town just about every time they are in a World Series, this year being no exception.  But once I was bit....it was all over.

Sometimes I think my obsession with baseball has come with my recovery from alcohol.  The timing is about right and it certainly gives me something to think about that can serve as a distraction from being sober all of the time, or from anything else that actually matters.  That's right, I just said that baseball doesn't really matter.  And it doesn't.  Not compared to Ebola or the drought or sobriety or other real life things.  I haven't lost my sense of what is really important simply because I have developed a baseball obsession.  But I do think it is my obsession with baseball that gives me the ability to cope with the things that do really matter because it gives me an out (no pun intended).  If I can focus my attention on whether or not Matt Cain will return to form in the 2015 season I can take a break from a job that is difficult and filled with pain.  If I can zone out and watch the World Series I can think about something other than the fact that my Dad is really sick.  If I am able to look foreword to Spring Training I can give myself the gift of hope, no matter how deep, dark and cold my Winter may be. If I can talk to my Dad about baseball we can share something eternal.  Something that will live beyond him and beyond me and that helps me feel like death doesn't really have to be the end of anything.

What is so funny about my baseball obsession is that it has gone even beyond my Dad at this point. Now I keep him abreast of trade rumors.  I let him know what is going on in the American League because he could care less.  I will be the one inviting him to games at Raley Field because I am the one who will have RiverCats season tickets.  I have a life that is inspired by his and a life that has also grown beyond his. Baseball may not matter.  But life does. My Dad does. So just in case you missed it the 1001 times I have posted it, here are some things really important to me and about me:

Go Giants!

Even Year Magic!

I Bleed Orange and Black!

W4K! (Win for Keith)

Don't (ever) Stop Believing!!!

and the best....

"Travis Ishikawa hits one to right.  THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT"

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/10/17/6992939/travis-ishikawa-walk-off-home-run-giants-cardinals-nlcs-world-series

Finding the Field

My friend Julie's favorite quote is by Rumi.  At least I think it's her favorite.  I've never asked her.  And my phone is miles away in the kitchen so I am not about to get up and go ask her now.  So for the purposes of this blog, it's her favorite. Just like for the purposes of this blog I am going to pretend that I know who Rumi is.  In reality, I don't know who Rumi is but I like him.  Or her.  Is Rumi a him or a her?  It doesn't matter.  The point is my friend Julie's favorite quote (maybe) is by Rumi (whoever Rumi is).  It says this:

Out beyond ideas of wrong doing 

and right doing there is a field.

I will meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass

the world is too full to talk about.

I found this quote on Julie's door at work and have held it in my heart ever since.

Lately my world has been too full to talk about.  And I can't talk about most of it anyway.  That's the secret agent part of being a social worker.  You get to know all of these things, hear all of these things, see all of these things and it fills you up. Yet, there is no real way to let it out, so you twist and turn your own inside things trying to make other people's inside things fit.  Like a suitcase, because you are bound and determined to take only one (!), so you rearrange and smash, and twist two souls full of experiences into one and then use all of your weight to make everything fit and zip up.  It used to be worth it to me.  All of that rearranging and smashing and holding was worth it, just to be a social worker.  But it is becoming less and less easy to fit anything in this suitcase and at this point, I am not even sure I want to keep traveling this road. And I don't know how to fix that, except to say it out loud.

My world is too full and I am not sure I can tell the difference between right doing and wrong doing anymore.  I half-expect it doesn't much matter, either.  I think the world is a lot harsher than I was ever ready for.  People can be angry and unkind and unnecessarily petty and loud.  Phones ring shrilly, lights are too bright....intensity is like a drug and the entire world is cracked out.  It isn't quiet or soft anywhere.  Yet, I am.  In  my deepest places I am quiet and soft and easily broken. It is hard to admit this out loud because I pride myself on being such a badass.  But lately I feel more like Willow trying to grow new skin.  I need Buffy's strength.  I need directions to that field.

I can't find it right now but I believe in that field.  I know it exists because I have had moments there.  Moments where you realize that you are so much more than this human being in this seemingly impossible situation.  Moments where you see your place amongst the stars and feel the ocean move within your veins.  Moments when my soul has rested in soft sweet grass and nothing was hard and there were no sharp edges.  And it was too quiet to talk because words were meaningless and there was nothing left to say.

I am going to look closer for that field in the next few weeks.  And when I find it.....I will meet you there.

Crazy

Last week was weird. It was one of those weeks where you have encounters with other humans who theoretically speak English, (or whatever your primary language is), yet you say to yourself: "Dude.  I don't even think we are speaking the same language.  How can that possibly be your response to this situation?" The kind of interactions where you can't even really speak words out loud because you would say 'fuck"way  too many times, to way too many people, who probably won't find it way too endearing.  So you watch baseball and become a Royals fan.  Crazy as that sounds.

I read an article about reclaiming the word "Crazy".  I personally love the word crazy, use it all of the time and have no shame in using it to describe the behavior of my clients, my friends, public figures, situations, reactions, family members or myself at times.  If the adjective fits.  Also? There is only shame in a word if you accept it. There is only shame in anything if you take it on as your burden.  I know this because I have carried shame and allowed myself to be shamed for a lot of things for a lot of days and have just recently realized it was time to lay that shame down.  And that the only person who could lay it down was me.  And that all of the forgiveness and all of the redemption I had looked for externally; from you, from my bosses, from my friends, from my parents, from sponsors and boards, and GOD, could only come.....from me.  Crazy as that sounds.

We are all crazy.  All illnesses, all of them, are spectrum's.  Trust me.  I could diagnose all of you if the BBS would let me.  None of you are excused from Crazy. Whether it is in moments or life-long struggles. Whether it is your obsession with order, your destroyed body-image, the Mommy issues you've never worked out, your hidden crying jags, inability to feel anger, gambling problem, sort-of "dependence" on "as needed" anxiety medication, fear of bridges....whatever.  None of us are perfect.  None of us get the win for being sane.  Plus, what word should I use instead?  Nuts?  Manic? Ill? Tangentially Confused with Thought-Blocking and Delusions? Hysterical? Depressed? Weird? None of those speak to me like Crazy does.  Crazy is one part beautiful, one part struggle, totally human.  Crazy is brave and scared, yet filled with opportunity. Crazy is the opposite of At Peace and just like you can't have Joy without Sadness, Pain without Relief, Life without Death, you won't know Real Peace until you have experienced some Crazy.  The word police will just have to arrest me, I guess.  Crazy as that sounds.

The greatest freedom I have ever found came when I stopped caring about what other people thought.  I don't know how it happened, either.  Middle-age, maybe.  Sobriety, definitely.  Hard lessons in the lack of significance that any of this has.  And a lot of watching.  I watch people all of the time.  Not, like, in a weird creepy, stalky way; more like a I-am-a-visitor-here-what-a-weird-planet-way.  None of you know what you are doing.  And since I am one of you, I guess I finally figured out that as long as I was doing my best, how could any of you question me?  That coupled with my divorce from hierarchy, which simply put is believing that people in power know what they are doing and blindly following their lead, and BOOM! Freedom. Janis was right when she said that Freedom was just another word for Nothing Left to Lose. Because the only thing you ever can really lose is yourself.  Crazy as that sounds.

We are out of coffee here.  And I have to buy a shirt.  So I am going to leave you with some of the music that has popped up in my head this week.  As I have thought these thoughts, the running dialogue in my head is mostly music.  I literally have to translate what I write here from the lyrics streaming through my head.  Crazy as THAT sounds.

We will talk soon.  Good luck out there.  Be safe.  You Crazy Fools.

REM "Crazy"

http://youtu.be/axVC8bLo-jo

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rem/crazy.html

Janis Joplin "Me and Bobby McGee"

http://youtu.be/WXV_QjenbDw

http://www.metrolyrics.com/me-and-bobby-mcgee-lyrics-janis-joplin.html

Lorde 'Royals"

http://youtu.be/nlcIKh6sBtc

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lorde/royals.html

What's the Plan, Stan?

I was going to use this blog to talk about the last week.  I was going to tell you all about my Dad and the stupid-fucking Cancer that insists on staying here even though it was not invited and nobody wants it.  I have been thinking about Cancer a lot actually and I have come to a lot of conclusions about Cancer that someday I will go into detail about.  Cancer, my friends, is a sociopath and like all sociopaths it is equal parts fascinating and horrifying.  But I am not going to talk about Cancer right now because, and I think I can speak for all of us involved, we are tired of talking about fucking Cancer. And all of the things that come with it.  The medicines and the decisions, the hopes and the fears and my Dad caught in all of it.  It's ugly and it is unfair and in the words of the great Keith Redden Harris, greatest human of all time, best Dad on the planet, "Who needs it?".

I thought I would use this blog to talk about something else.  Because please, let's talk about anything else.  Like baseball.  Let's talk about baseball.  Today is the last day of the regular season and despite the fact that all 30 teams were given 162 chances to decisively win?  In at least two games it has come down to today's final game to decide some things.  And even then the only decision that may be made today is that another game has to be played tomorrow to make an actual decision.  And despite the fact that the MLB has made plans for Wild Card games on Tuesday and Wednesday if the A's and the Mariners tie and/or the Bucs and the Redbirds tie?  They have to play first before the WC game can be played, and I love it.  Because it is basically the baseball universe saying to all of the planners: Fuck you.  And your plans.  And that makes me laugh because that in fact, is true in all of life.

I was raised by planners.  If it is possible for four distinct people to have one exact thing in common and all end up being someone's parent, either directly or indirectly, my four parents are plantastic.  I can hear my Mom now saying: "Megan, you have to have a plan." Not only was I raised by planners, my job entails helping other people figure out a plan.  Case managers are life-coordinators and that involves A LOT of planning.  I spend all day helping people plan, helping people with their plan, re-planning, updating the plan, getting people so we can fulfill the plan.  Planning certainly has its place and I have gotten pretty good at it, in my own life and the lives of others.

What I am discovering in the second half of my life is that I am also getting pretty good at the 163 game.  The one I did not plan for at all.  I have learned through sobriety and honesty and asking for help that when the bottom drops out, and it is only a matter of time before it does, I will land on my feet and I will know what to do. I have learned that, other than death, there is nothing that I cannot survive.  That I can trust my own judgement.  That a lot of times there are simply no "right" answers. That all I can do is do my best, and that the only person my best has to be good enough for, is me.  I have learned that I am a good person and that even though I fuck up, and I do all of the time, my intentions are good and that is what matters.  I have learned that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I can survive this, and the next thing.  With or without a plan.

So I am going to go about my plans for the day.  I wish you good luck with your plans for the day.  I wish you joy and peace and a reprieve from any of the hard stuff you may be dealing with.  If you survive your plans and I do too and everything goes as planned?  Maybe I will see you tomorrow. 

xoxoxox

This Is Not A Love Song

I have been confused about love for most of my life.  I thought love was Richard Gere pulling up to your apartment with roses.  Or Ross and Rachel.  I thought love was the way I felt about the first boy I loved.  That crazy-making-high feeling that made time stop; Tom Cruise walking in and telling Rene Zellweger that she completed him.  Overwhelming passion; a la the banks of some lake in a rainstorm circa The Notebook. And don't get me wrong, all of that is great.  Passion is great, overwhelming giddiness is great.  Top of the Empire State Building scenes are great for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  Those are lovely moments.  I am just not interested in that kind of love anymore.  Maybe because I am older, maybe because I have had my share of exciting moments.....maybe a lot of things.  I don't really know what has changed.  I just know that at this point in my life, I wouldn't trade the kind of love I have found in the last few years for a million Buffy-and-Angel-have-sex-for-the-first-time-moments.

I think I got confused because real love looks a lot different than on TV.  Real love, at least the kind of love I have come to know, is of a darker, messier sort.  Real love happens not just between two people, two lovers if you will, but between two friends, between people you work with, between parents and children, between people and their pets.  In fact the two beings involved in the love equation don't really matter from what I can tell.  What matters is the depth of the commitment.  The no-matter-how-hard-this-gets-commitment that exists in the sacred space between the lives of two energy forces who have chosen each other. We don't often share pictures of this type of love.  It isn't really pretty or sweet.  It's not the type of thing we share on Facebook or Instagram with a cute hashtag or caption.  It's the hard shit.  

Real love is listening to your partners labored breathing and waking him up to give him morphine.  Real love is emptying the bedside commode while your partner recovers from surgery.  Real love is holding someones hand through their first AA meeting.  Then their second first AA meeting.  Real love sits at the jail and listens, without judgement, to the one hundredth relapse story; real love makes the heartbreaking decision to hospitalize or conserve, real love stands by while you make really bad life decisions because it is, after all, your life and real love does not give up on you ever.  Even when real love wants to.

Real love says with a smile: "It's ok Mommy, they had fun", when two mud and slime covered dogs jump into the back of the car, turning it into a scene from a landslide.  Real love looks like this:

As you try desperately to monitor an old dogs blood sugar.  And real love then sits with you on the floor of the vet's office when there just isn't anything left to do.  Real love lets go, and real love says Goodbye. Even when real love doesn't want to.

Real love looks at pictures of loves past and hopes for them every day joy.  Real love takes an entire day off to sit with you at a stupid board hearing in Sacramento.  Real love doesn't get mad when, for the third date night in a row, you go to bed at 7:30 because the day was fucking long and hard and you are tired.  Real love says it is enough to just wake up next to you because you don't feel like being touched.  The words of real love can not be found on a Hallmark card. It may not even end happily ever after.  It may be hard the whole time.  Hard and tiring and exceptionally painful.  They probably won't make movies about it, especially the kind that come out on Valentines Day. Because it isn't cute and it isn't soft.  

But. It. Is. Worth. It.

Because real love is the only real currency in life.  The rest of it?  The rest of the stuff we think about and get caught up in.  The money-things and the job-things, the petty upsets and the things we gossip about over coffee? Those things have no value what-so-ever.  They are distractions from the real stuff.  The hard stuff.  The love stuff.  Those are the things that disappear as soon as we are reminded that something or someone we really love may be lost. Or in need.  The things we set aside when the phone rings and we hear someone on the other end of the phone asking us to be there.  To come home.  To find bail money. To say something so we can get out of bed.  To help, because things got  fucked up.  Again.  Real love costs us the most BUT it is the only thing in the universe that gives us infinity more on its return.  It is, quite frankly, the only thing worthy of your time.  And mine.  

I hope you spend the rest of your time today and every day in the realm of real love.  I am.  The picture of it would look pretty ordinary. Two women, with one day off between them, cleaning out the filthy, muddy truck, together.  But it is the most exceptional thing.  In the world.

The 3 R's

I spend way too much time on Facebook.  Way. Too. Much. Time.  I am not sure when it started that Facebook became a routine rather than a sometime distraction, but I have decided that if it is my intention to write a blog that is one part love letter to humanity, one part 4th step work, and 8 parts social observation and commentary;  Facebook is the greatest research tool I could have asked for.

There is a lot of political commentary on Facebook and it is very clear by which shares we all chose to re-share or like where our politics may lean.  For example, it is highly unlikely you will ever see me re-post anything from George W. Bush's page (we aren't friends in real life, let alone on Facebook and I didn't want to follow him when he was the President).  And very similarly, I am sure that when I re-post things from Rachel Maddow or Ready For Hillary, a good portion of my friends roll their eyes.  Some may even get mad.  I used to get mad about certain political posts.  The drug-testing welfare recipients posts have sent me over the edge;  and any post which describes another human being as an "illegal", can still ruffle my feathers.  But for the most part, I have chosen to stop paying attention to either side because I have realized that being a raging lunatic, on one side or the other, in most of these debates, is entirely the problem.

I have also realized that most people don't even really think their thoughts all of the way through.  Frankly, people don't think much of anything all of the way through.  They look at one or two sides of something, but never the entire implication of their thought.  They were indoctrinated by their parents or families or spouses and none of us have really probably ever sat down and thought most of the things we believe all of the way through; all of the way around.  Nor have we bothered to come up with any answers to the problems.  We get as far as saying something is either wrong or right, very self-righteously I might add, and then leave the "how to fix it" to someone else. Even the fixes some people have usually only serve to to be fixes for half of the problem.  For example, building better walls to keep people out of the country only serves to keep people out of the country.  It does nothing to help the people who are coming here because they are living in violent, untenable, situations that you and I could not survive for a nanosecond.  But I guess that's not our problem as long as they aren't here.

The other thing related to politics I see a lot of on Facebook are posts about "rights".  We are crack-whores about our rights.  We have the right to bear arms, the right to marry, the right to an abortion.  We have a 24-hour news cycle with the right to say what ever we want, truth optional. We have the right to believe in any God or Goddess we choose.  Or none at all.  We are rights-mongers.  Seriously.  We may not know anything else about how this country works, but we sure as Hell know what our rights are.  Unfortunately, what I see less of on Facebook and in this country are the other R's that come with rights.  You probably didn't even know that your rights came with blood-brothers. Because they are the forgotten siblings.  The other kids that pale in the shadow of the strong and perfect child that everyone likes and fawns over.  Yet, they are perhaps epically more important than your rights: Responsibility and Reason.

We forget in our zeal to declare our rights that with any given "right" comes the responsibility to manage that right in a reasonable way. For example, as a women in the state of California, I have the right to make reproductive choices.  I have the right to seek out an abortion.  And with that right comes the responsibility to try and avoid having to consider that as an option.  To only exercise that right if and when it is, for me, the only reasonable option.  It does not give me the right to carelessly behave however I want, or to disregard my responsibilities which, if I am sexually active, are to prevent unwanted pregnancy to the best of my ability. Another example would be the right to bear arms.  You have the right to bear arms in a reasonable and responsible way.  So, just because you can own a gun, and in your community carry it openly, is it reasonable and/or responsible to go to your local Target fully armed?  Are you expecting a revolution at Target or are you just trying to shove your "rights" down other people's throats? Interestingly, most of us have the "right" to vote, the single most important aspect of the democracy which gives us the rest of our rights and yet I have never seen anyone walk around with their voter's registration form tattooed on their body.  I guess that right isn't as titillating....voting isn't sexy or controversial.

I learn a lot from Facebook.  About this country and the people in it.  We are a young country and it would seem that the populace of the country is a reflection of that youth.  Not necessarily in age, but in demeanor.  Our behavior is juvenile when it comes to our politics and our rights.  We are uninformed but passionate.  Licensed to drive but unsafe.  We know everything despite limited education and experience.  And we react without thinking.  A lot. But like young people we have a lot of potential.  We have the amazing opportunity to not make the same mistakes our parents did.  We have the ability to do things differently, to pay attention to what worked and didn't work in the past.  To come into our own as reasonable, responsible adults.  To grow up.  We have the ability in this country to grow up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTjMqda19wk

Unspoken Word Two

"Powerful Stuff"

God damn it is hard here.  And I am trying not to complain. And I know that it is just September and that I am just having an allergic reaction to dusty grapevines and the lack of rain.  And I am trying to count my blessings.  But depression isn't reasonable and the entire world feels like a tangled mess of covers that I can't stay in or get out of.

I will punch you if you tell me all of the things I have to be grateful for.  I know that.  I know that better than you.  This is not about knowledge or intellectual ability.  Or facts.  God knows this is not about facts.

It is just so relentless.  This battle.  Every day.  Every fucking day.  And I wish I could be distracted by like a hobby or a club.  But I can't even wash my hair with any regularity so that level of commitment escapes me.

Just keep swimming.  Get up off of the operating room floor, Christina.  Look for a moment.  Look harder.  Lower your moment expectations.  Text Julie and Diana.  Call your Mom.  Wait for Heather to get home and have five minutes over coffee tomorrow.  Keith is still alive.  That is more than enough.  That is everything.

Maybe you don't have to wage a war against caffeine in this life time?  Maybe just five minutes on the treadmill?  Maybe you aren't supposed to have kids because you aren't ready.  And you aren't ever going to be ready.  And that's o.k.  Because you are not a failure, Megan.  Maybe your beauty lies in not being a pretty girl.  I don't know.  I don't know anything.

Schedule joy.  I will punch you harder if you tell me to schedule fucking joy.  The ability to feel joy is exactly the thing I have no ability to control.  Let alone schedule.  And I am quite sure if I put "feel joy" in my iPhone, the first time it alerts me to it, the only thing that will happen is an iPhone sized hole in my wall.  No one wins in that situation.  Especially the wall.

It has to rain soon.  It just has too.  There will come soft rains, red rain falling down, my prayers for rain.  Did things work out for the Joads ever?  Don't tell my high school English teachers....but I don't remember.  I think maybe eventually it rained.  Or they all died.  Whatever.

One. Foot. Then. The. Other.  Don't Jump.  Don't jump ever.  Keep walking by the open window.  Pet Jenner.  Pet Rain.  Eat an apple.  Consider the magnitude of how this very simple apple got to your fruit bowl.  In your kitchen.  In your house.  In Jackson, CA.  Powerful stuff apples. Seeds.  Life.

Powerful, powerful, stuff.

Crush, Kill, Destroy!

Ray Rice should be destroyed right?  That is what I am hearing form the masses.  And the destruction has begun, his career is over, we have successfully humiliated him and his wife, (and boy did she need more humiliation).  And now the new case with the child abuse guy.  Yes, please let's put that on a 24 hour news cycle.  Let's feast on it.  He's a terrible person.  Destroy him too. And his family. Because it sounds like they don't have enough problems without every person in America adding their commentary.

In fact?  every person who has ever made a horrible mistake?  Let's put it on social media and media-media (I know! I guess we will have to take a break from watching the beheadings, which we had to see for ourselves), and watch it and criticize it and exploit them! Because we are all so perfect.  Let's not look at any root causes of anything either.  Domestic violence, child abuse, sexual-offenses?  Let's never mind that these are ALL cyclical and that we rarely, if ever, do anything about the root causes of anything in this country because we are just not that into prevention, of anything, ever.  Let's just continue to "catch people"doing horrible things and then demonize them. Crush! Kill! Destroy!

Then?  Let's make laws.  Pass laws where people are identified, FOREVER, by their offense.  Let's let people out of jails and prisons but forever make them list their horrible choices on job applications   and rental applications; let's lead off news stories about how 20 years ago they did this horrible thing and even though they paid the price for it? And have never done it again?  Let's highlight it.  Shit! Let's show old footage of it.  Let us feast some more on people failing. Let's never really forgive and forget.  Because people don't deserve a chance at rehabilitation.  Or redemption.  In fact,  instead of prisons and programs, maybe let's just shoot people?  Because even when people pay their prices or complete their programs we don't really believe they can change.

Let us then BLAME.  Let us blame and point fingers and be self-righteous.  Let. Us. Even. Blame. The Victim.  Just not ever ourselves.  Because we are not to blame.  Other people should know better.  They should spend their entire lives living in violence and training to be violent and then use their off switch.  They are trained to have off switches, right?  Well they should. Because we do.  Because we are so much better than the people we are destroying. Aren't we?  Hey! This isn't about us, right?! We are all FINE.

Then let's wait. Let's do nothing more than condemn and REACT and shake our heads.  Nothing to actually fix what is broken, which is always bigger than one individual.  And then let's wait for it to happen again.  "See", we will say.  "I told you so", we will think. "I guess we will have to destroy them too." Because let's never, ever be really deeply honest about how much we like the violence.  As long as we are on the right side of the violence.  As long as the violence is sport or entertainment.  As long as we can watch it on YouTube.  As long as drones are causing it and "they" are dying.  As long as we have a righteous reason to commit the violence....then?  It's justified.  Right?  Us vs. Them.  Me vs. You.  Black vs. White. Right vs. Wrong. It's easy.

I mean, we know better.  We have this all figured out.  We know the kid is being tortured under the streets of Omelas but it is o.k. to sacrifice one or two or three of them for all of us?  We are perfect here.  In our Utopian society.  So be careful.  Or else we are coming for you.


http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/dunnweb/rprnts.omelas.pdf

Unspoken Word One

"For Heather"

Last night I came home full
Drunk on human input
Worn down by the restless nagging
of working in human service systems
That can be anything but humane

And we went to WalMart
to buy diapers
Because that is what social workers do
And that is what you do for me
On date night

I could barely speak words and
just wandered the aisles
Trying to make thoughtful food choices
in the belly of the beast
I bought almonds and freaked out over Turkey Jerky

Then I came home and complained about being tired
Complained myself into being awake
Then was restless and inconsiderate in the good bed
Trying to calculate the impact on all of the planet
of eating a banana

Now you are gone
Back on days on and we go back to
seeing each other awake for 100 minutes a day
I told you I loved you and kissed you goodbye
But we always do that

Its not easy here
I am like a fish out of water
On a good day
And you love me which is an act of heroism
And I meant to say more than I love you.

I meant to be better
I meant to be better all of the time
And I love you isn't
nearly as important as I am grateful for you
You are my sustenance even in WalMart

Have a good day.

Food For Thought

I am impossible in a lot of ways but none more than my relationship with food.  My Heather. My dear sweet Heather, who is the only cook in the family, is forever coming home to cupboards being cleaned out or receiving texts from me filled with declarations of what I am or am not eating.  Or drinking.  We have been through Vegetarian and Vegan fazes, we have eaten gluten-free, we have attempted Paleo.  We have even attempted Vegan-Paleo.  Which is fucking nuts literally because that's all you can eat.  Oh--and vegetables.

And because I have been trying to lose weight for all of eternity these food relationships have influenced me destructively at times.  I have counted calories, I have counted carbs, I have weighed, I have not weighed but measured, I have juiced, I have fasted, I have given up all grain, I have given up all dairy, I have given up beef and pork and eaten an ungodly amount of chicken; I have had cheat days, then cheat meals. I have switched dinner for breakfast, I have eaten soup for volume, I have put ginger in my water... And it has made me crazy.  Simply put: Food and Diets make me fucking crazy and I am not doing them anymore.  Well, food I am still doing food, because I have to eat.  But I am not being crazy anymore.  For the simple reason that I think if someone were to show me on a diagram how much of my life I have wasted obsessing about diets and weight it would crush my soul and I am pretty much over self-induced soul-crushing.

Since I am realizing that food is as much if not more of an addiction (and that is saying something), than any of my other addictions, and since total abstinence won't work, I have had to figure out a new approach.  I call this approach: Eating Responsibly.  So let's dissect that for a bit.  What does that mean?  Responsible to whom? For what? Huh? Is that anything like drinking responsibly?  Yes.  Absolutely.  In fact, that is a great analogy because it helps us see that 1. What "responsibly" means is going to change from person to person and 2. It means to be responsible on several levels.  For example, for me, drinking responsibly means not at all.  I am not able to drink in a responsible way and since drinking can effect my health, personal life, professional life, community, etc., the only responsible thing for me to do is not drink at all.  For other people drinking responsibly may mean drinking 1-2 glasses of wine a night.  For others drinking responsibly may mean drinking as much as they want, but not driving.  That's the thing. I  can't figure out what works for you.  You have to take a look at alcohol, how you drink it and how it affects you and the rest of us (if it does at all) and then do your own math.

The same goes with food.  I find it incredibly invasive and unfair that people take what food regimen works for them and then insists that it will work for the rest of us.  Demand it even.  I have been taunted and manipulated by all of the different factions of food-craziness enough to know that while people may mean well, (or not, some just mean to make money), specific diets are all destructive on some level and thus, irresponsible.  For example, eating a meat-heavy diet.   While I am certain that there are some benefits to this diet (which has gone from being known as Atkins to being known as Paleo), eating as much meat as you want without concern for the impact raising meat for mass consumption has on the planet, is irresponsible.  As is implicating that during an entire pre-historic era everyone on the planet was eating the same things, and that those things were wrapped in bacon. I would be interested to know how many people eating this diet actually know anything about the Paleolithic Era it was named after? But don't freak out Paleovores....yours is not the only "way" I fear.

Vegan and Vegetarian diets can be just as destructive and irresponsible.  In fact, animal free eaters are probably the champions of shaming people into not eating things and I cannot think of anything more destructive than shame. Plus, have you ever read the ingredients in faux-meat or faux-dairy?  Chemicals and salt.  Asking me to put chemicals in my body seems just as irresponsible as telling me it is ok to eat my cereal with heavy whipping cream and a side of sausage. Also, high-carbohydrate diets, which many Vegan and Vegetarian diets turn out to be, can be superbad for folks with glycemic-issues.  So while I think it is great that certain diets work for certain people, food should not be a religion.

So, what does eating responsibly mean?  For me, first and foremost I am responsible to me.  Then I am responsible to my family and community. Finally, I am responsible to the planet (see how this is underlined?  It is on purpose, for emphasis, because it probably really should be first and I really want you to pay attention to it).  What that means for me and food is that first and foremost I have to eat.  I have to eat pretty often because I have blood sugar issues and I get light-headed and shaky if I don't eat every 2 hours or so, which can effect my mood and ability to be a good human. Thus, diets that suggest I have fast days periodically, may as well be selling me on a nervous breakdown. Same with low-cal, high-carb cereals and organic-unpressed-full-of-sugar-super-juice. I have seen the insides of psychiatric hospitals enough to know that I like capacity, so--no thanks. That said, fasting may work for you.  It may be the basis of a spiritual practice that is part of your culture.  Carrot-grape-Kale-juice may help you feel your strongest, be your best.  That's awesome.  Do it.  Just don't mass market it and insist it is good for the rest of us.

 I also have to consider what my intention is when I am eating.  Using food as a reward or an escape is the same thinking that gets me regular dates at an AA fellowship. In order to eat responsibly, I have to be sure I am eating for sustenance rather than comfort. I have to then consider how food impacts my relationship with my community and my family.  Food effects weight and I am overweight and being overweight affects my health, both emotional and physical.  My being overweight affects my health care costs which affects other people's health care costs and my consumption effects other people's consumption.  None of us eat or weigh what we weigh in a vacuum. Thus diets that give me permission to eat as much of certain foods as I want are license to binge.  The recent New York Times article that studied people on low-carb vs. low-fat diets (low-carb won) and allowed them to eat as many calories as they wanted?  Sign me up.  Un-restricted eating?  Of cheese? Yes-fucking-please.  Or Pasta?  A-fucking-men.  My point being, this type of philosophy is just probably not a great idea for someone whose entire life is a quest to learn ideas of moderation.

Which brings us to my responsibility to the planet; my ultimate responsibility (and yours too).  Food choices affect the planet.  Eating responsibly means eating as an act of earth-stewardship and while I don't think that means I can never eat a cheese-burger again, I do think I have to consider the implications of eating them on a regular basis, as well as where I am eating them from and what type of husbandry I am supporting.  Same with cereal made from genetically modified, mass produced, grain.  Same with eating Summer produce in Winter.  Or salad that comes in a plastic container.  Everything you and I do, everything we consume, has an effect on the sustainability and future of the planet. That goes for Vegetarians who eat a lot of unsustainable, cruelly-garnered dairy; to Atkins-faithful who buy mass-produced meat from industrial farms; to eating organic fruits and vegetables shipped here from New Zealand.  You are responsible for the cost to the planet, regardless of how well your diet works for you.   Something far more important in the long-run, than the size of your jeans.

So, as we move into a new season, I too am moving into a new season.  A new season of relationship with food.  I am officially breaking up with particular diets and extreme sacrifices.  Instead I am setting my intention to eat sustainably and responsibly.  Thoughtfully even, and without shame. I am going to try and eat foods that are whole and as close to their basic form as possible.  Food where I know where it came from.  Food without chemicals and food that makes sense for the season and location in which I live in.  It will mean giving food a lot of thought so I know it will likely be a hard sell in a culture where everything is easy. It will also mean not being a zealot about this new relationship with food, if you make me an Apricot Tart in December--I am eating it, at least a small piece.  I will not be writing a book with meal plans that you can follow for seven days.  There will be no cleanses, no food purges.  Nothing will cost 19.95 for the first month with a life-time membership reward of all-you-can-drink smoothie powder.  I am going to exercise too which, frankly, gets lost in all of this.  Every time I have weighed what I want to it has been because I was moving on a regular basis--regardless of what I was eating or drinking.

If what I am doing was a picture? It may be something like this:

Heather and I found this in Jenner on our last trip to the Sonoma Coast.  We had Kind Burgers on buns that were home-made.  The fries that were from sustainably raised and harvested potatoes came with a side of homemade ketchup.  MADE WITH REAL TOMATOES FROM SOMONE'S GARDEN.  I practically licked the ketchup container clean--and I am not a ketchup fan.....it was real, and made in small batches.  It was a decadent.  Ketchup.  So I think I am on to something here. Food for and with thought.

Wish me luck.