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*