Lock-down or Dream Vacation?

 The beautiful blue, gold, red and orange parrot tilted his head at me and smiled.  Then I realized he wasn’t behind the bars of his cage.  He was in front of his bars!  The bars were spaced surrealistically wider than usual and he had just slipped through them.  Now he was making his way across the front of the big, white cage that somehow didn’t seem to take up as much space as they really do, and he was headed sideways toward the white flat screen television that was mounted on the wall next to the cage.  (Who puts a bird cage that close to electronics?  Not too smart.) 

The picture disappeared from the television screen and I, lying closely opposite that wall and snuggled under a snow-white duvet, reached to the right for the remote.  The fawn colored pug stretched on my right and my arm reached beyond her again for the remote.

I spoke to the bird: “You are not supposed to be out of your cage.  Go back.”  He smiled and kept heading for the television screen.  I had a picture of the show for a minute, and then it disappeared again.  My right arm was trying to keep the baby from falling off the side of the bed next to me.  I looked to the wall next to my left shoulder and knew that beyond the sliding glass door set in this soft, all-white condominium my beloved ocean waited.

There was an awareness that my responsibility to hold the baby, or was it the pug, on the side of the bed despite its propensity to crawl forward and to the side, was tied to an obligation to someone.  And that someone was not in the condo. 

The phone rang.  My brain came up from a consciousness that I did not really want to leave just yet.  The two cocker spaniels on my blue and gold duvet popped up from a supine position, ready to start the day.  I made it to the phone in my nightgown and sock-clad feet just as she was speaking to the answering machine.  I intercepted her, mid-message.  It was a woman I spoke to yesterday about a doctor’s appointment for her.  She saw my “missed call” number on her home phone and dialed back.  She thought I was the post office and apologized to me.  I hung up, and was sorry it was not someone else who actually wanted to talk to me because my dream had been just a fanciful journey of a brain that did not want to wake up to the stark reality of a rainy day of Social Distancing.

And that person in the dream who was not there, but there.  Who was he?  He was someone that I

was supposed to be living with through this sad time.  I hope it was Russell Peters, the comedian/actor from “The Indian Detective,” because if you are stuck in lock-down you should at least be stuck with someone funny.  (that’s marriage criteria as well).

 The sun conure calls to me from the Bird Room in the house where I really do live and he just wants to see my face…. Well, yes, and get a Pepperidge farm goldfish cracker from me.  He is gloriously orange and gold and emerald and a few shades of burnt siena.  He is not like the mischievous parrot in the dream.  Nor am I Mrs. Anyone in real life, much less Mrs. Russell Peters.

The parrot gave me an important lesson in the dream:  attitude can free you from the cage, even if you can’t go far.  I know people who are rebels-to-the-core and can barely stand speed limit signs.  This requested, soft-quarantine I will call it, is killing them because they have not learned how to work with (instead of against) legitimate authority.  They are the ones who will argue a justifiable traffic ticket or push the limits of any rules and regulations and then wail like spoiled children when held to the same standard as the rest of the community.  This spot that we are ALL in is tougher for them because they are like un-broken horses:  it isn’t going to get fixed or liked in a day. 

I am thinking of the other extreme.  There used to be a convent of cloistered nuns on Court Street in Syracuse.  There they lived, I believe five of them, locked-down for life by choice for the rest of the world.  How for the rest of us?  It’s because they gave up the lives we live of zooming around to soccer practice, proms, restaurants, conferences, and the like, in order to pray for us.  They accepted being  confined so that we could somehow find true freedom.

Apparently, their prayers were not enough.  We didn’t even realize it but all our activities of “living” were actually spinning us and wrapping us into a spider’s web of “busy-ness.”  We liked it initially, but it kept wrapping us tighter.  It was getting hard for us to breathe.  We (America, particularly) would live at hell’s speed for 358 days and expect a 7-day vacation to fix us.  By all accounts of mathematics, logic, and physics, that couldn’t have worked for us.  God even built in a Day-7 rest for us every week and we refused to take it.  We continued our running, and acquiring, and doing, so relentlessly we could not have found the “stop” button unless we got fired or divorced or had a break-down.  Even then, we’d be too tired to sort out how to fix what we had become.

Decades ago, Father John in Pastoral Guidance class told us that sometimes break-downs were really break-throughs.  The thought of that made me kind of queasy in my stomach.  But now I’m wondering if it is true.  When some experience is so harsh that it actually “breaks” a part of the way we think and feel, perhaps some good can come from that.  Instead of letting the sad part of us tell our soul:  “This is the end of you,” maybe we can find the little piece of life in us that will croak out:  “This is a new beginning for you.”  I saw a commercial the other day where a woman went to break an egg to cook, and a little bird (digitized, for sure, because he wasn’t even damp-looking) peeped back at her when she separated the shell, and flew away.  Life is full of surprises that can turn out better than we hoped.

I live next door to a horse farm and have, more than once in the past eight years, lamented that I don’t visit the horses often enough.  It took me ten years of house-hunting to find this perfect house in a perfect neighborhood with beautiful horses.  But I was so busy going, doing, seeing, teaching, working, etc., that I rarely stopped to visit them.  I’ve got adult goats next door and I missed their entire “childhood” except for watching them through my back window occasionally.  I am told that little goats can be funny.  Well, with this round, I won’t know that.  Maybe next time there are baby goats I can visit and be present to the gentler side of life that has been here all along waiting for me to fully enjoy it.

Tonight, when I dream, I won’t need the parrot to visit me again.  I’ve lived today outside of the cage.  I will enjoy what is mine to enjoy for however long – and someday, I will go back to work.  But I will be a different person.  I just know it.

"Free bird"

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A Rock and a Laptop

A rock, shaped like a turtle, sits on my kitchen table waiting for me to finish painting it.

My dvd player is set up downstairs to Eirobics.  That’s a car-crash of Aerobics to Irish dance music.  And, as I was once told by a momentary dance partner, “It’s amazing you can play guitar because you have absolutely no rhythm.”  So much for putting a woman at ease.  I dance because no one IS watching.

My dogs get taken out every hour and a half now.  I just open the door and say, “I’m kicking you out!”  And they go to the dog yard, bark at squirrels, load the lawn up, and come back and sit on the step to come in for a treat.

Those are some of the basic things that are breaking up the boredom of the Social Distancing.  That, and, as of March 31, Netflix will discontinue carrying the Father Brown Murder Mystery series so I have to watch as many episodes at night as I can squeeze in between now and then.  Six days to go.

I wish that I could say that about the soft lock-down we are all in:  six days to go.  It would be a bit easier if we all knew how long we have to tough this out.  But we don’t.  And people can’t seem to restrain themselves from using words like “months” when we should really use words like “weeks.”  The latter seems like it might be shorter.  Let’s be honest, 8 weeks is the same as 2 months.  But weeks always seem like an emotionally shorter duration.

The initial emails from Headquarters indicated that while the Governor said “non-essential” state workers should work from home; we, in hospital land, were all considered, at that point “Essential.”  Well, when all is said and done, on the other side of this health crisis, I hope I can still be essential enough to be retained on staff …. Because within 2 days I was sent home to work.  Not because I am special.  I am aware of that much. 

So I wanted to offer a few thoughts on how I plan to survive this work-from-home phenomenon.  I still want to feel like I am a productive member of staff.  I still want to keep up with my team at work that I support.  I also don’t want to swirl the drain of depression in this extended period of uncertainty.  This is my plan.  Feel free to pirate some ideas from it, if it will help you.

•  I still set my alarm clock.  Keeping a normal routine and normal hours of a work week will be as important in getting through this as it will be when I transition back to driving into the office.  Mindset:  this is NOT a vacation in any shape, matter or form.

• I get showered and dressed.  I jokingly said to my mother a few weeks ago that if I got sent home to work the first place I would go to is Kohl’s to buy a couple of pair of new pajamas.  The truth is, I get dressed and show up for work every morning; wherever that is. 

•  I put my make up on even though my dogs love me just as I am, like the Lord does.  That is because without my make up on, in a word, I look like crap.  This happens with age.  I look pale and blotchy and have circles under my eyes.  You’d think I was seriously ill, instead of just run o ver by the train called “Midlife.”  When I look at myself at the mirror in the washroom as the day goes on, I want to see someone who looks fine, not otherwise.

•   I start the morning with normal tasks BEFORE clock-in time.  I feed my birds, the cat, my dogs.  I eat a basic breakfast and wash up the dishes.  I can’t work well in an environment that is cluttered.  The table is then set up to do my work.  My laptop, telephones (land line and cell), some worksheets are in front of me and my bag of work supplies on the chair next to me.

• I am targeting drinking a full water bottle every day so that’s with me too.  When you get an illness they tell you, basically, “rest and fluids.”  I’m not sick; but I’m taking preventive action, starting with the fluids.  I broke down and made a latte at 2pm today because I was losing steam.

• I log in the amount of times that I check my office voice mail.  I am keeping a work log so that all the tasks get done.  I’ve carved in some afternoon time of professional development.  I am finishing the EQ (Emotional Intelligence) book that I got a few months ago at the work seminar I attended.  I will be up to date on my online training for work.

• I actually stop for lunch.  I haven’t been doing that at work lately because the lunch groups I have eaten with have retired or disbanded over the past couple of years.  It is good to get my mind onto something else during the work day other than the news and reports of illness.

• I touch base with colleagues who have to go into work to bolster their morale and offer support.

• At the end of the work day, I check my voice mail one final time and then put all work related stuff away. 

• I make myself some sort of decent supper and then plan to do a bit of up & down stairs to do laundry, or the eirobics enterprise.

• I pray to center myself in God’s strength.  I do not pretend to know how or why this is all happening.  But I will walk every day I am given with peace if it is up to me.  In the morning at breakfast I read 5 pages of Sr. Faustyna’s “Divine Mercy in My Soul” diary.  In the evening I do some meditation prayers to make sure God still remembers my voice.

• Then, I turn on my TV for distraction.  I don’t want information.  I want entertainment.  Keeping a sense of humor through crisis is very important.  When I shut it off at the designated “bed-time,” I am subtly aware that none of what I watched exists in the world we know the way it did four weeks ago.  I feel that reality has shifted.  It unsettles me for a moment, I must admit.  Then I put it back in God’s hands and turn in for the night.  He’s up all night anyway.

·      Years ago, I used to joke among my friends, “Pray now: avoid the rush.” Now, we are living it.  Know that whoever you are, my readers, we are not alone.  Never have been, never will be.  When we are on the other side of it, it will not be because we are Republicans, Democrats or Independents.  It will not be because we were smart or funny or talented.  It will be because it was given as one more gift to us beyond Life itself…  An undeserved, gracious gift… the gift of health.

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Denial - No Longer Just a River in Egypt

Denial – No Longer Just a River in Egypt

It has been almost 3 weeks since I heard the word “Impeachment.”  Not that I’m missing it, to be sure.  The media fed us a steady, no – unyielding and relentless – diet of impeachment:  threats, promises, alleged new facts, unearthed (not) new developments.  It made me sick to my stomach that an entire group of people demonized another and pursued his demise like vicious dogs.  Things got to the point that when I would turn on the radio looking for entertainment or perhaps distraction and I heard the I-word I would switch the station to elevator muzak.  Now, you KNOW it’s bad when you prefer elevator muzak to the other.

Then came a new word:  COVID19.  It sounds like a top secret government project, and years from now we may find out that it was, in fact, a laboratory project that escaped to contaminate the world.  They initially called it “corona” because the virus itself had a shape like a crown.  But I guess as a favor to the beer industry they changed it to the scientific-sounding name so that when the epidemic is over, the beer manufacturer wouldn’t be.  Imagine the problem their marketing team is going to have as it is – the name of their beer made so many people around the world dreadfully ill and in some cases killed them.  Even Dilbert can’t make humor out of that marketing disaster.

One of my favorite bloggers is using this as an opportunity to keep a Blog Diary.  He is a priest.  I know he will use it to inspire and encourage.  But what if it gets to a point like Robin Williams’ character in the movie “Jacob the Liar” where he can’t say anything good that is true?  Or maybe, just maybe, we have collectively lost sight of what is ALWAYS TRUE…. because we are in a form of collective denial.

                It is ALWAYS TRUE that God loves humanity and walks through this valley of tears WITH US.

                We live in a fallen world where things like viruses exist and they hurt us or people we care
                about.

But the fact that we DO care about someone, about something, shows that there is an underlying LOVE inside us – the evidence of God’s presence among us.

There are brave and brilliant people who go to work to address the issue directly.  They feed, heal, clothe those in need.  They work tireless hours in laboratories and manufacturing plants to find answers, cures, and testing procedures to support the end goal of LIFE.

There are ordinary people who may not fall into that category but can do their part in behind-the-scenes ways.  We can encourage.  We can tell a joke.  We can pray.  We can listen.  We can walk through this together. 

We can seek for a larger perspective together, so it is not as frightening.  That is an important task.

We can do things that support our front liners.  We can write a check or send take out or lend dvd’s for down-time.

The list goes on.  Maybe you need to think of your list of what is ALWAYS TRUE.  I started clearing my mind by washing my floor and doing some laundry.  These are tasks I usually have to “squeeze” into my schedule, but under the circumstances, I’m doing a lot less driving, running around, and useless galivanting.  Having my wings clipped, as it seems, is not bad but I have a reasonable doubt in my mind that I am going to be so at peace with it if it stretches on for too long.   My floors will be immaculate though. 

When it was suggested that I should work at home I kind of went into a little bit of denial.  This can’t be happening.  I will wear a mask, aren’t we over-reacting?  (ideas of a person who did certainly see the worldwide pictures on the news.)  In my brain, it felt like being labeled “non-essential” personnel was shameful.  That’s not how it was said.  But that is how it felt.  Until I pondered that I would actually be more out of harm’s way and that I do, in fact, enjoy spending extended periods with my dogs.  It may feel like retirement a little bit.

Except it is NOT like retirement.  It is not happy circumstances to be home when people you care very much about are in another state, or across town, or at your place of work… without you.  You want to be with them.  The very word “compassion” comes from two words meaning “to suffer-with.”  So there you have it:  my desire to be with people I care about vs. my need to not get ill.

And lest I fail to mention it, not being able to go to Walmart any time that I’d like is killing me quicker than a virus would.  Heaven help us.  I have used Walmart as a place to wander around and see things, and shop, and observe people, and just basically walk around.  It has served as my excuse behind the delusion that when I’m asked, “Do you exercise?” I say: “Yeah.  I walk around.”  Leaving the word “Walmart” out of the sentence being a detail.

The lost cast member from Duck Dynasty works at my landfill.  And I find him … fun.  I guess I’d say, “fun” would be the word for now.  I don’t know him.  I don’t know his name.  He had on blue nitrile gloves today and looked somewhat like Papa Smurf with a beard.  Until he called across the room, “HEY, BEAUTIFUL!”  Well THAT took me by surprise.  His co-worker had a look on his face like:  You did NOT just say that.  Buddy, you could get in trouble.”  Well, he won’t get in trouble for saying it.  Not to me.  Because when you’ve been home with the dogs for 3 days, crunching numbers for work, checking voice mails, cleaning house, shoveling dog poop, anything to get your brain to not worry – really TRYING to put your faith in God that this too shall pass – the man that calls you “beautiful” has just given you a gift. I will pray for him in the weeks to come.  Who would have guessed that working at a landfill could be the frontlines of being able to MINISTER to people at a time like this?!

To back-track a bit – three weeks ago I thought I’d give up watching television on worknights for Lent.  I did fine on week one.  Then, things got a little more intense with the virus information and I realized I was going to actually NEED television to distract my emotional system from what is going on.  This is no time for heroic gestures.  I lived for the better part of 30 YEARS without owning a television so I know that I can DO IT if I need to, that’s not the issue.  It’s just a tool I would like to now make use of for my own balance. 

I knew that giving up chocolate was out of the question.  I also knew that I gave up Dunkin’ Donuts drive through last year and that left me feeling a little, shall we say, belligerent?  There may have been days where I was, um, perhaps a little edgy.  Let’s skip that.  So last week I took out the Divine Office, which is a Catholic prayer book composed mainly of the Psalms.  I decided if I prayed that once a day, it would be a good practice.  Indeed.  Most of the Lenten readings were about praying for God to deliver us from bad things.  The timeliness of the prayers of every single day were not lost on me.

I am coming to rely on at least one good word from The Good Book a day to help me navigate the new normal.  I think that denial has to yield way to a transition period.  Things are not the way they were.  But going forward we have to make a path.  In some cases, we are going to return to what we used to do.  I may go back to my office.  I may start teaching Bible study again.  I hope to be able to travel in the future.  But we are unlikely to go back to tolerating the speed at which we were all functioning (or dys-functioning).  This can be a great opportunity to put things in proper perspective and focus on what matters most.  That’s what I think is possible.  We just have to choose it.

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The Great American Lent 2020

The Great American Lent 2020

“Everything is gone,” the old woman leaning on the grocery cart said to me.  I searched her weathered face for a shred of something I could comprehend.  She was walking out of the grocery store with, I presume, her adult son as I was walking in.  The definitive tone of her statement made me re-consider putting my own cart back in the corral, popping the quarter out and going home to weep.  But then I remembered that old people are tricky and that I do not place my full trust in the word of man, so to speak.

Yes, the bread was wiped out.  But I’ve got flour and a bread machine at home.  Yes the cookies were somewhat depleted, as sure as the macaroni and cheese and soup and canned goods.  BUT, and I think this is a very telling “but,” there were full GALLONS of milk both 2% and whole, tons of eggs, yogurt, and fruits and vegetables all readily available.  I grabbed a beautiful slab of salmon because all the red meat was pretty much gone.  Do you see how the things people had chosen, were the very things that were not the healthiest foods to eat anyways?  (according to the Mediterranean diet, et. al.)  The paper goods were gone but I am vaguely aware that when we buy stuff every week, it “magically” appears on the shelf the next day for the guy behind us to purchase.  That is because we live in America.  And also because of living in America, we have the toilet paper shortage.  Permit my explanation.  (long and drawn-out, as usual)

I work in a hospital.  I do not in any way make light of the current health event we are going through.  While I do not have direct patient contact, I do go into the building a few times a day to run around with mail, paperwork, and the like.  Interestingly, a few years ago I found out that the Flu Shot MAKES ME SICK.  So I had to stop getting it.  I’ve had educated adults look me in the face and say, “Well, you’re just getting a lesser version of the flu if you get sick from the shot, so you should still get it.”  Really?  I should still put toxins in my body that have the wrong effect on me, and They don’t even match the strain accurately every year due to their faulty crystal balls, and I should STILL get the shot?  (Derisive profanity removed from text here by my Guardian Angel so I won’t spend additional time in Purgatory). 

The New York State Dept. of Health or the Center for Disease Control has mandated that I, and other non-flu-shot-getters who work in hospitals, wear the mask during flu season.  So I do.  And you know what?  I haven’t had the flu since then.  Make of that what you will.

Consequently, being of relatively sound mind and body, and washing my hands well and often (although not as long as the Happy Birthday song that They suggest) I am planning to ward off the virus.  And this Quarantine is kind of like my dating life.  When everyone else is out with their families at sporting events, or going to dinner and dancing, I am home with the dogs.  It has been that way for years.  Somehow I have survived.  And yet the rest of America, having to live like this for a few weeks is in an uproar.  That is because in America, we have a very misplaced sense of entitlement.  I will itemize my observations:

Ø  We think that because we are a nation that has the ability to be free, we can use that freedom any time when and how we choose.  Limitations on our freedom are noxious to us, even when they have our best interest in mind.

Ø  We don’t like any Official telling us to stay home for our own good – and we are not necessarily putting the needs of others first.  It smacks of monarchy and we gave that system the heave-ho before crossing the Pond to come here.

Ø  We do not necessarily have a grasp on the difference between “enough” and “over-kill.”  The cashier at Walmart last week thanked me for buying only one package of 12 rolls of toilet paper.  I chuckle.  It’s not like that was virtue on my part …. There were only one or two packages LEFT (the brand and quality which my elderly friend Dot referred to as “the same as sandpaper”) and other women were shopping with beefy-looking men that I did not want to arm wrestle for another package. Even the paper towels were wiped-out except for a few rolls of Great Value – let the marketing department re-consider the quality of their product because of this.

Ø  We are not prepared for catastrophe or natural disaster as individuals, despite the number of pamphlets various Offices put out to tell us what to have on hand “just in case,” because we don’t THINK that it could happen to us.  We are America, after all.  We only “accept” pockets of natural disasters as possible, and we re-build our houses next to the same levies that broke ten years ago.

Ø  Combine the concept that we don’t think the rules apply to ALL of us with the idea that we LIKE our sporting events, shopping, and dinners out; there are more than a few people that need to be told by the rest of the herd:  STAY HOME.  THIS MEANS YOU.

Ø  The Media has become the epitomized example of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”  They have inflated so many other stories beyond reason, that we don’t know if they are telling the whole truth now or not.  Some people are ignoring them (and going out without limitations into public places).  Some people are taking them with a grain of salt.  (me, sometimes)  Some people are being overwhelmed by them and are scared out of their brains.  (The elderly have typically been prone to anxiety driven from Media hype).

Ø  Every single event in the past few years has become hyped and politicized by the Media.  And, consequently, we have become a nation with a high cache of armchair critics.  The President is not respected as an Office holder because other lesser office-holders have picked him apart so badly (with the keen help of the Media) that people don’t know how to even LISTEN in a non-partisan human way.  We have stopped listening for The Truth in what someone says because we are convinced we know what that person is going to say even before it comes out of their mouths.  Watch the Talking Heads on television how they consistently interrupt each other before they finish sentences and ideas.  Gone are the days of the Philosophers in the common square who actually heard-out their opponent’s platform on a topic, repeated it back to them so it was clear they were responding to the right thing, and THEN made a rebuttal.  Nope.  We just talk-OVER people.  It appears that self-absorption has become a virtue in our culture.

Ø   Due to the political climate, there is a new tendency to assign the worst of intentions to the actions and statements of others.  We have lost the concept St. Francis told us:  “Seek first to understand.”  When the President comes out and gives an address that is initially bearing the objective of stopping outright panic, the critics say, “he wasn’t being honest.”  As the situation developed, he needed to move to a new, heightened-awareness-approach and issue some common sense precautions (which his critics didn’t want to hear either) guided and informed by the medical community. Not surprisingly, he was accused of not acting quickly enough.  The reality is:  the situation is unfolding before us.  Neither the President, nor the Medical Community had a complete grasp on what they were watching as this illness moved through China and Italy, etc.  But the specialists were watching, and the scientists were getting geared up as the thing did not peter-out across the Pond.  This is the best part of America – behind the scenes there are people who do this stuff daily and we are unaware of them in their laboratories, etc.  We are not all privy to the same amount of information on the back-side of decisions made to guide the public in containing this or any illness.  But it might be time to consider that they are giving it their best effort to address this. 

Ø  We have yet to fully proclaim the uselessness of the Blaming/Shaming activity that continues through our society.  It is amazing that in a country where we can be misguided enough to waive bail for criminals, and even give high level politicians “passes” for drowning a campaign supporter off the East coast, we will still engage in useless blaming in the middle of a potential health epidemic.  Until we cut some slack and all work together to do our part as “We the People” this American experiment is going to struggle mightily.  Let the scientists do their science, and the doctors do their medicine, and the politicians seek the best interest of the whole society instead of tearing at leadership while it is trying to manage this.

Ø  Has anyone else noted the hypocrisy that some of the people who want our children to not bully others in school seem to be the same adults that do bully others in their political and work arenas.  Hmm.  Not good.

My observations are certainly generic and biased by my world view.  I accept that.  I think we need to consider a new state of mind in how we accept the valid direction of leadership.  I won’t spell it out in my own words.  I will leave you with some Bible passages to ponder:

                “The fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God.’”  (Psalms 14:1)

                “I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me.  He freed me from all my fears.” (Psalms 34:4)

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters.  But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature.  Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.”  (Galatians 5:13)

“If you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out!  You will end in mutual destruction.” (Galatians 5:15)

“I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people.  Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf, and give thanks for them.  Pray this way for kings and all who are in authority so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives marked by godliness and dignity.”  (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

“What good is fasting when you keep on fighting and quarreling? …. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless…” (Isaiah 58:  4, 7)

Regardless of how all this quarantine and epidemic and national struggle works out,

For now, I leave you with this:

“This is the message you have heard from the beginning:  We should love one another.”       (1 John 3:11)

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"No Boys Allowed"

“No Boys Allowed!”

I don’t think I used my outside voice when I said it, but I wasn’t that subtle either as I leaned forward and said to the woman in front of me, “What the HELL is a Man doing in the women’s dressing room?!”  The woman in front of me was with her teen daughter getting ready to try on prom dresses.  And, as for me, I had an armload of unmentionables to try on…. That’s the department we were in.  And yet plain as day there was a man in the dressing room.  He was late 20’s to early 30’s, standing in front of the shuttered door where his woman was trying on formal dresses as well.  He was, it appeared, reading his cell phone … but who knows. 

Now I like men.  Honestly, I do.  I’d like to have one of my own some day; I hear they are handy to have around the house for plumbing emergencies and occupying the couch on Sundays during football season.  BUT there are three places – in fact, three SACRED SPACES, where I do not want to see a man (ever):

Ø  The Women’s Dressing Room where I’m trying on things that make me look fat (everything)

Ø  The Hair Dresser’s when I am looking like a drowned rat with foils wrapped around strands of my hair

Ø  The stall next to me when I am, well, you know…. Passing the time ….

Well, maybe a fourth – I was getting a pedicure once and the guy in the chair next to me behind a screen, was yacking it up on his cell phone.  I wanted to say:  SHUT THE HECK UP – I’m here to de-stress and I don’t want to hear your whole drama unfolding while I’m trying to pick my nail color.  (By the time I, the Original Cheapskate, decides to spend money on a pedicure, I am typically so stressed I am in an altered state of consciousness.  Anyone who ruins the mood of relaxation is running a risk… I can be a little testy.)

Point:  there are some places where we need to just be able to “be” without distraction and unwind. 

The woman at the cashier counter said, “It’s a tricky situation….” When I told her I asked a man to leave the dressing room.  I responded to her:  “No, it’s not.  There are some places women just NEED to be alone without men.”

Caveat:  YES if he had a minor child in the dressing room and was the sole guardian available to help her and make sure SHE was SAFE in the dressing room, I might stretch the rule.  But let me tell you about the Sanctuary of the dressing room.  Women see themselves in a full-length mirror only a few times a year and that is one of them.  It could involve swearing.  But typically outside the dressing stalls there is 3-sided, mirrored cove where you can spin and see if whatever fits you correctly.  If you have a teenage daughter, that’s the place where you say:  “Too low.”  “Too high.”  “Your father won’t let you out of the house in that.”  These are bonding conversations – and fighting words sometimes – that need a certain amount of privacy.  How do you know he’s not a pervert snapping pictures of your kid as he is standing there?  Maybe he is.  Maybe he isn’t.  The fact is:  You just don’t know.  And once men are involved in a ladies-only zone, how can Security “police” the area and make sure thugs aren’t attacking women in the dressing room and stealing their purses, etc.?  Do you know how many times women walk OUT of the dressing room really quickly to grab “the next size up” and leave their jackets, purses, packages unattended?  It’s dumb.  But it happens.  No, of course men aren’t the only ones who steal and a comrade in the next stall could take your stuff too.  But gender inclusion in the dressing room is just a really complicated mess.  That’s probably why at the Sporting stores, they have the changing rooms in the center of the store with doors running from floor to ceiling.  There is no inner hallway; you are either in the room, or you are not.

Back to the original story – the mom in the dressing room said, “Well I think he’s from another country.”  And I may have mumbled, “well he’s in AMERICA now…. And he needs to tow the line.”

So you are wondering what I said to him.  First I stepped out of the area to breathe something other than fire for a moment.  Then I looked around for my friend the clerk that I had been chatting with earlier.  She had evaporated.  I really wanted Her to be the bad guy, not me.  But she was not around.

I mumbled something grim like, “Yay.  I get to be the adult today.”  I stepped back in and took a breath.  “Excuse me sir.  It is not customary for men to be inside of the women’s dressing room.”

Is it really important what I said?  I did say it politely.  I think, though, it is MORE important what HE said:

“I didn’t see a sign either way when I came in,” and he smirked. 

Escalation of blood pressure, not tone of voice:  “It IS the WOMEN’s Dressing Room” – (He had to walk through an ocean of bra’s to get to the dressing room so I am pretty sure we didn’t NEED a sign.)

What happened?  I jumped him and jammed his cell phone down his throat.

PSYCH.  Just kidding.  What really happened is his girlfriend opened the door and he said, “It seems I am not wanted here.”  And she took his arm and pulled him inside the dressing room.  No.  I’m not kidding.

And I still felt weird going into the room next to them and trying stuff on. 

I did not come over on the Mayflower, I can assure you.  But I think that our culture is changing so fast and tearing down so many social customs that it is forgetting to ask, what’s the purpose for this or that rule or custom?  Maintaining a certain amount of decorum in society actually lifts us above the animals.  It is truly in the small ways that we establish a respect for life.  Manners and privacy are important.  If you don’t think so, then ask yourself how you felt the last time some jerk cut you off in traffic and gave you a hand signal not listed in the DMV manual.  Ask yourself if you are comfortable that we are rapidly becoming a voyeuristic society – where we watch things on tv that are highly personal behaviors and then expect everyone around us to NOT be having babies out of wedlock. 

We have to establish the water mark for social behavior.  If we continue to tear it down on television and subsequently in real life, we will find that we have opened a Pandora’s box of barbarianism that degrades us completely. 

One more example before I leave you to chew on all this.  I think we should find a way to “fine” parents who put vulnerable or embarrassing videos of their kids on social media online.  The one that went around last week was painful to behold.  Even though it was supposed to be positive it almost made ME cry FOR the kid.  She was about 9 years old coming home to her room with her school backpack on and sees a Rubbermaid bin in the corner.  She goes over to it and it is an adorable black kitten.  She picks it up and as the little kitten is meowing, the girl is so moved that she is crying hysterically holding it saying:  “Mom, can we keep her?”  “Mom, I want her.”  And stuff like that.  The kid is genuinely hysterical.  (well, in short order so was I because my Empathy button is stuck.)  This was such a raw, personal moment, WHY would you put it online so a million of your closest friends could see that your kid fell apart and your magnanimous gift of …. A cat? 

Wait for my new book coming out next fall called:  What the Hell is the Matter With People?  It’ll rock your world.

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Enigmas of 2019

There are things I looked at every single day on the way to work that made me ask:  “Really?!?”

Yesterday, January 2, 2020, the day after New Year’s I was zooming along to work on Route 5 in Fayetteville heading towards the intersection.  I looked to the right and saw a dark colored bike sprawled on the lawn on the right side of the road.  I glanced to see if there was a person anywhere nearby.  Like Colonel Klink on Hogan’s Heroes:  I saw nothing.  I know nothing.  But it does make me wonder.  I feel like I’ve seen a bike there before and I’ve written this paragraph before.  What is it with abandoned bikes that unnerves me?

And then there is the Berm from Hell down the street from me.  A berm is supposed to be a mound of dirt, usually made to look like the lawn rolled up all by itself, so that water will not flow in a certain direction.  A good berm is a good thing and should make your heart want to sing “These Thousand Hills Roll Ever On” at the top of your lungs.  Not this berm.  This berm runs the full length of a property between two multi-family houses.  It has not been seeded with grass.  Giant rocks and debris are visible.  There is a messed-up looking animal cage thrown on it.  On the right side are scattered toys – that are quite obviously unused and unloved.  There are two chairs tilted on the right side of the berm and one of those metal enclosed firepits sitting there…. As if people would actually sit there for some odd reason.  It looks like the collision of backyard stuff and a dump heap all rolled into one.  It has been that way for more than a couple of years.  It seems to get worse with attrition.  I am wondering why the Town Zoning Board doesn’t “lean” on whomever is responsible to clean that crap up. 

Then there is what I call “the Limeade fence.”  Same road.  Similar situation.  A big house on either side and a limeade and orange Tang-colored fence separates the two properties.  One neighbor put up arborvitae trees to block – or shield – the view of the fence-from-Hell.  Again, the Zoning Board should be all over these jokers and get them to paint that fence a more “suburbial” color than limeade green and Tang orange. 

(As of this edit to the article, the neighbor on the west side of the Limeade fence has added yet another fence in front of it.  Apparently the arborvitae trees aren’t growing fast enough?  Again, Zoning Board:  I’d fire you in a New York City minute.  Get cracking with some code enforcement.)

The other day when there was no snow on the ground all of a sudden I remembered that I should rake leaves out of the drainage ditch that runs along the front of my property near the road.  So I got down into that ditch and raked like heck and transported the leaves to a composting location in the back yard, and went in the house feeling pretty accomplished… and pretty tired for a mid-lifer doing manual labor.  A few days later as I was waking up to start my day my eyes shot open with the thought:  I didn’t dig out the drain pipe that was not visible due to mud and rocks on it.  That matters because when the whatever source of water from my house – be it sump pump or perhaps eves troughs, or whatever – drains out it needs a place to go.  If that small 6 inch pipe is blocked very bad things could happen.  So on New Year’s Day I jumped down in the ditch again with my muddy boots and work gloves and shovel and searched for the pipe.  I found it quickly enough but had to throw a lot of heavy muck over my shoulder to free the front of the pipe.  Packed inside the front of the pipe was a good four inches of mud and dirt, so I leaned over with a trowel and scooped that disaster out.  Within seconds, a thin trickle of water came streaming out …. And continued for as long as I stood there.  Consequently, in the words of my immortal Real Estate friend Judy, I had to “invite the water and then give it a place to go.” 

So I continued to dig in the trench to give the water a place to move.  I do not know how it got blocked, by man or beast, but now I am aware of the need to keep tabs on the condition of that drain at all times.  So aggravating.  I wish I was the type of woman that men would love to take out dining and dancing late into the night.  But by virtue of where I live, I am the type of woman who is standing in muddy boots in a trench looking at blocked pipes and muttering soft profanities to herself.  I think of my former neighbor from Bridgeport, in his 80’s who said to me, “Naw, some people move here frum the city and think they kin make it in the country and they just aint cut for it.”  Glen would be proud of me.  I just know it.

Yet another enigma.  I want to acknowledge the personal pain that causes people to set up roadside shrines.  I know that every time they pass the place where their loved one died in a car crash or bicycle accident or the like, it is painful for them.  So they erect memorials.  But I am sure we should revisit the meaning of the Original Symbol before we go altering it as a seasonal decoration.  I am referencing the most popular memorial:  the wooden cross – a symbol of where the Savior of the World died – that has been put up as a memorial for someone … and now at Christmas has silver-blue garland wrapped around it (yes THAT kind of garland) and a Santa hat on top.  All of those symbols on the cross do not work for the rest of us.  They are kind of disrespectful.  Nonetheless, your grief is duly noted and we are sorry.  But, really.

Lastly, and it pains me to write this, the Dead Piano.  No philosophy teacher has ever asked the important question:  Where do Old Pianos go to die?  And yet, down the street is a piano on someone’s front yard.  Yep.  They just apparently had their fill of it and shot it out on the grass next to the driveway.  It fell over.  It has been there for six months now.  It is all bashed up in pieces.  I am wondering if her ex-husband played piano when he was cheating on her with a music teacher or WHAT?!?  But it is mid-winter and the piano lies in a heap right there for all the world to see.

Huh.  All these suburban travesties.  And I thought we were harsh on my friend Joe when we gave him the business for keeping a dead, rusty pick up truck on his front lawn.  Go figure.

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 one side of The Berm from Hell:

Forgiveness in a Season of Hope

Forgiveness in a Season of Hope

“What actually DOES it mean to forgive?” I asked my friend.  She looked at me, as if waiting for a disclaimer on the question, or that it would be a rhetorical one, with an answer neatly packaged following the question mark.  But really I just needed to double check with another sane adult that I was on the right track with my mid-life assessment.  With some concepts, your insight changes with your life experience.

Forgiveness really comes after the long pause when the Christmas carols stop.  By that I mean, we all sing “Joy to the World, the Lord is come,” and yet God in His heaven was aware even at that moment that the Divine baby had a rough road ahead.  Years later, the Gospel writer makes it awkwardly clear that the adult Christ riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, as an ancient king would, being greeted by palm fronds laid at his feet knew these people’s hearts.  He knew that one minute they were hailing him, and the next minute they’d be turning him over for execution.  Such is the distressing nature of humanity:  we don’t always stay in the right frame.  God Himself learned to live in the moment when things were going great, while being painfully aware that “great” is not a permanent human condition.

Forgiveness doesn’t give someone a free pass for bad behavior.  I think of the Presidential scandal involving a young woman, a closet, and a blue dress.  The country asked the question:  “Can we forgive the President?”  But that really was a red herring – a distraction from the true issue.  The question of that forgiveness didn’t belong to us.  It belonged to:  his wife, God, and the young woman he led astray.  I am going to put the burden on his shoulders for that.  The alleged adult in the situation has to own the responsibility.  The leaders of his faith (Baptist) sent in some big name, conference-speaker Baptists to meet with him and get him to repent and pray with them.  And I think they came out bewildered, not realizing going in that he was not going to repent in front of them, lest it hurt a court case.

Years ago, I asked a lawyer how it was that she could represent a client she knew was guilty.  Her answer surprised me, “It is not my job to decide if the person is innocent or guilty.  It is my job to give them the best defense possible.”  In effect, she had to lay aside the issue of innocent or guilty and look at re-defining the situation to a light that looked good.  This perhaps was the reason I could never go into the practice of law.  I just couldn’t do it.

Forgiveness also does not let someone into the place where they can do the same damage again.  That would be just foolish.  Best case I can think of that violated this:

Chappaquidick.  I hear the name of the town and I feel odd in the pit of my stomach.  What actually happened on the night that the now-late Senator Ted Kennedy walked away from the vehicle sinking into the water with MaryJo Kopeckne inside it?  And how was it that he came to sit before television cameras to ask the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts if they would still let him be their senator?  And what the HELL were they thinking when they said stuff to the street corner reporters that had nothing to do with the real issue?  Ie.) “Yeah, I think he deserves another chance.”  WHAT?!  Does someone “need” to be senator that badly, that they can’t just say:  “I’ve been part of a great tragedy.  I’m just going to go home quietly and mourn that I was even part of this.”  Humility and politics never made good bed-fellows apparently.

Forgiveness doesn’t trivialize the nature of the injury.  “No big deal.”  “Nah, we’re all good.”  “It’s okay.”  Nope.  It’s not okay.  In thinking about the things that disrupt the flow of life, and actually hurt people … which tends to flow out in concentric circles …. We need to be better at saying, “how can we make this right?”  and “what do we need to do to right this ship for sailing forward?”  Good communication skills are important for forgiveness.  Do you want to know how deeply you have hurt someone, if you touch them and they pull back like you stabbed them, that’s a pretty good indication. 

When I taught a morality class years ago, I said to the young adults that when we think of preparing for marriage we tend to think too much about sexuality.  That is actually the smallest part of the married life.  Give it a number, say 5% of 7 days a week (if you’re lucky).  And if that is so, then what is the largest part of married life???  95% COMMUNICATION.  When your communication breaks down and you think you hate the other person’s guts, the last thing you are interested in is …. letting them touch you.  So then it will take all those other skills (95%) to point you towards the solid path of reconciliation, if you ever want to see the 5% again.  It’s that simple.  I asked an elderly married couple to identify what enabled the longevity of their marriage.  She smiled and said, “I always let him have the last word.”  He smiled back and said, “Yes.  And the last word is:  Yes, dear.”

Forgiveness is subsequent to an emotional wound.  Like physical wounding, the healing takes time depending on the depth and breadth of the cut.  It may involve the help of a professional – an emotional doctor of sorts – clergy, psychologist, trusted friend.  It may involve a period of silence.  Sometimes you just have to sit with the debris and let the dust settle.  A hasty forgiveness may not be a complete forgiveness or a well-placed forgiveness.

Forgiveness may require new boundaries.  These boundaries say:  “Yes, I can forgive this wounding.  But, no, the person can’t have access again to the same area of my heart or life.”  Out of respect for the injured party, and in a spirit of true reconciliation, that is not an unreasonable request. 

Forgiveness brings a New Normal.  It could be stronger than the Old Normal.  It can and should be WISER than the Old Normal.  It should at least be better than the Old Normal.  And re-calibrating normal, again, always takes time and can’t be rushed for the sake of slapping a label on it that the issue is over and done with. 

Forgiveness may not even mean that both parties agree on an issue going forward – unless the issue is to have respect for the no-fly zones so that there isn’t further injury.  Forgiveness at times is one-sided:  the injured party forgives for the sake of his/her own peace, and that’s that.  Sometimes people walk away from a falling out and one side never really understands what the true issue was.  Have you ever heard someone say, “I don’t know why you are getting so upset?”  That’s what that is.  It does no good for the injured party to continue to churn the toxic feelings inside himself/herself every time the other person comes to mind.  One friend always told me:  “Let go and let God.”  Great advice.  Except she had to take a “nerve pill” to enable her to get to that point.  I’m only taking Benadryl for the hives.

Little baby born in Bethlehem, did you choose a stable to remind us that life is messy?  Did your momma and daddy have sorrow in their hearts as they had traveled from inn to inn so you could be born in a soft bed, and yet were rejected at every turn?  When the star shone overhead to bring strangers from afar to worship you also remind you that your own people would struggle in accepting you?  Did the warm breath of the ox and ass in the stable serve as an example that sometimes the animals are more compassionate and nurturing than neighbors?  All of these injustices against your holy and innocent self when you came among us … teach us, who are imperfect, to better forgive during this holy season.

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