More Than 1000 Words

Upon seeing this picture, my first thought (after I'd wiped away the tears that immediately sprang forth and blurred my vision) was, I want to post that picture.

My second thought was, I can't do that. It's too personal and there's too much sorrow wrapped up in it and it's not a pretty picture really.

My third thought was, screw that. Why are we so quick to brush away sadness? Why are we so quick to cover up what might not be beautiful? We do it all the time, especially on social media. We post pictures of delicious food, cute animals, adorable children, ourselves - all made up and ready to party, and gorgeous nature scenes. We post pictures that make reality seem miles better than it often is. Even in speech, it's "Doing well. Life is good. Here's a joke; now laugh."

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. I'm all about positive thought and affirmation. I do it all the time, partly because it feels better to be upbeat than to dwell on harsh stuff I can't change, but mostly because I love to make people smile. If I can make 'em laugh... so much the better. But, there are times when reality is right there, front and center, and there's no way to tap dance around it - which brings me back to the picture.

To me, this picture, as difficult as it is for me to look at, is beautiful. The man in the middle is my baby brother, John. He is two and a half years my junior. He's the guy who is responsible for about 80% of the fun in my childhood. He's always been there for me, always loved me, always had a way to pull me up out of a mood. He is a man who has been battling a brain tumor for over two years and is now in hospice care, nearly at the end of that fight. Hence, the sorrow. Hence the unfathomable reason for what feels like a load of bricks sitting on my heart.

Oh, but the beauty in this picture - the sheer love of his wife, Linda, seated at his side, the devotion in the eyes of our big sister, Nancy, peering up from the top, the spirited youth of his eldest son, Garrett. I see so much strength in this picture. I see great love. I see the tremendous spirit of my family, generations of my family, a family that has never backed down when things were tough or taken no for an answer. I see a man who, all his life, gave everything to make sure everyone around him was comfortable and happy, being given back those things in return. Where some might see weakness and (let's just say it) death, I see power.

You see, this is what happens when we're not so quick to brush aside what first appears... oh... less than. If we take time to look, we see beauty. If we bother to listen, we hear the music in the discordant thrum. If we sit for a moment and let all of it wash over us, we find that we are soaked with the whole truth of it.

I cherish this picture because it reminds me how much I love the moments, each of the moments. All of them. All of the moments together, that's who I am. I hope - some very distant day, may it please the gods - when loved ones are sitting at my side as I wander off to some loftier plane... I hope they will see the beauty in that moment and in all the rest of the moments that brought me there.

Suicide Is Not Painless

Please note: I am posting the following as a favor to a friend. I am at once heart-sore for her and proud of her for fighting and writing her way through her reality. She wishes to remain anonymous, but would love feedback and input, so please, feel free to leave a kind word or two. Thank you.

********************

If there is one thing you should know about me, it is that I am a fighter who was raised by fighters. With a birthright like that, I've faced each round that came my way in 59 years with drive, determination, and spunk. Until yesterday.

Once again, sleep was eluding me for the umpteenth night in a row. Remembering that there was a brand new bottle of OxyContin in the drawer in the bathroom, I sat up in bed and began to count my steps to the drawer. Those little gems were a gift from my sister, the hypochondriac and attention whore who claimed that she didn’t need them, but perhaps I could use them for my chronic pain. The day she gave them to me I remember thinking, the real pain in my body or the pain in my heart and in my head?

My fight, remember I'm a fighter, was gone. Vanished. Vamoose. Fin. And with it, my desire to allow the gravity in the universe, to keep me sitting on the edge of my once comfortable bed. Sadly, thoughts of taking myself out were not foreign to me. Been there...3 times...done that. So, the bottle of pills, now sitting on the table in front of me, only made sense.

Opening the bottle, I laid them out on the table and attempted to arrange them the same way I do M&M’s. Orange here. Red here. They were all blue. Just one more thing that I couldn’t control or coordinate. I put them into groups of 4. Easier to consume that way and swallowed with a big gulp of vodka - my numbing, "I love you, man" drug of choice.

Everything set and four little life changers in my hand, I heard Joe get up and it broke my concentration. Listening to his travel path across the bedroom carpet, I knew those steps like they were my own. In that split second, I could only think of Joe. What would happen to my husband? Where would he go? How would he survive this? He’d come home after a long day of playing ‘fetch and go’ to find me like Madame Bovary. Would his heart be broken? Where would he live? $11.00 an hour wouldn’t allow him the luxury of keeping the house. And the life insurance that I’ve been paying on for years wouldn’t generate the cash he’d need to get by for at least 2 years. Fucking suicide clause!

I put the pills back in the bottle, poured out the vodka, and walked back into the bedroom. The pills went into the nightstand drawer and I climbed into our bed. Right next to me was the man who drives me crazier than I already am and yet, has loved me in spite of myself. Shit! How could I do this to him even though I want so desperately to do this to myself?

In the middle of this dark night, the voices in my head were telling me no one would be willing to listen to what just happened. “You’re crying wolf and they’ll be angry that you woke them up.” Since the chatter never, ever stops in my head unless I write, and sometimes not even then, I reached in the drawer for a piece of paper and a pen and tried to focus on the 5 words battling to be heard underneath all the other declarations, “You have to find help”. There had to be someone outside my mess who doesn’t know any part of this horror story, this volatile place I’m in. It was time to tell it to someone outside the circle who would hear it with fresh ears and a current course of treatment. Someone who hasn’t been through my suicidal episodes, the mania, the rage, and the depression. Someone who will listen and who will care about me, because I can’t.

Listen. Look. Feel.

Part I

Listen.
The sound of hearts breaking -
not just surface cracks,
like ice at the first breath of Spring,
but the shudder and boom
of a fault line
reaching its limits.

Look.
The raised fists,
the open palms.
the middle finger -
even our hands are unsure.
Fight, question, or give up?

Feel.
When you kill them,
you kill us all -
black, white, kaleidoscope.
Create a world of distrust
and blame,
hatred and arrogance,
nobody wins
and we are all your victims.

If I was a wizard -
had a magic wand to wave,
or a word to make it all
*poof*
go away, but no.
I don't understand my role
or know my lines,
so I say,
Listen. Look. Feel.

Part II

I'm sorry -
such feeble words
are barely a spark
against the
great dark injustice
that thickens the air you live in.
But I am.

I know
you know
we are not all
like that -
indifferent,
judgmental,
fearfully hateful.
We have love.
We want to help.
We are trying.

I am crying -
my heart split from another
ka-boom!
My hands are unsure -
wanting to keep
friends and their children
safe, but who am I
and how do I?
So, I write,
I beg,
I plead.

Listen. Look. Feel.

by Barb Black
September 21, 2016

Holding Out for a Hero

Something has been bugging me for a few years. Nah, let's make that decades.  Every now and then I start to speak up about it, raise my index finger as if to stop the noise and make a point, and then I shrug it off. Choose your battles wisely, the man once said. But, I've come to realize that it really meant, "Only choose battles you can win." There's been enough of that brand of bullshit in my life - probably why I fell for it so easily.

Anyway. Back to the thing that's chronically, nay, serially bugged me.

Here's the thing. I have had it up to here (*points at eyebrows*) with people referring to athletes as heroes. Today was the last straw. I heard someone referred to as an Olympic hero and another referred to as a football hero. They are not  heroes; they are athletes, or if you want to be specific, gymnasts, runners, quarterbacks, etc. So, let's begin by breaking it down by definitions.

A hero is defined as someone who is admired for extraordinary acts of courage or nobility.

An athlete is defined as someone who is proficient in sports.

In no way does that proficiency make an athlete a hero. It doesn't matter how many trophies, how many medals, how many broken world records, or which team(s) signed the athlete... still not a hero. Now, I will acquiesce that an athlete can be a hero, but only if said athlete actually performs an act of heroism beyond the scope of their athletic job. Yes, it is just a job. They train to be proficient at what they're doing the way a doctor trains to be proficient at surgery, the way a chef trains to be proficient at cooking, the way a forklift operator trains to be proficient at forklifting stuff.

A hero doesn't think about personal gain. A hero doesn't look at a situation as a photo opp or viral story. A hero does what needs to be done in the moment for the greater good of someone other than himself or herself, with no thought to any glory that lies ahead. In fact, heroes are, more often than not, humble to the point of not wanting to be called heroes. I know, because I have many heroes in my life and none of them want the credit.

This is not a slam on athletes, not in any way. I admire athletes for what they are able to do, for their passion and dedication and spirit. I wish I could find some of that fierce determination in areas of my own life. No, I'm not slamming athletes.

What I am suggesting is a call to awareness. Let's stop glorifying people who run fast, or throw a ball, or do an impossible looking flip. Let's stop putting them on pedestals as icons of moral virtue (because they are flawed humans like the rest of us, and moral virtue has about as much to do with sports proficiency as it does with artistic talent). Instead, let's place them on a pedestal as someone who is really great at the sport that they do, which still leaves us plenty of room to admire them.

But. Let's stop calling athletes heroes by virtue of the fact that they are athletes. Perhaps if we do, we can allow them the space to take human form again. Maybe then we won't be so disappointed when they do turn out to be mere humans after all. Maybe then we'll see the human who lives within the athlete - the one with dark thoughts, the one with emotional issues, the one who loves his wife and children, the one who makes the wrong choices, the mother who feels guilty for training instead of being there for the kids, the one who doesn't treat his animals well, the one who thinks signing autographs is beneath her, the one who gets drunk, the one who doesn't ever feel like he's enough, the one who gets caught with drugs, the one who has his or her own ideas of who and what to stand for and when.

Humans, that they most certainly are, but not heroes.

In A Stew

It's a coolish, cloudy day here in the NW. I'm jumping one ahead of Mother Nature and am cooking up some beef stew. It would be better if the weather was about 10 degrees cooler, but I'm tired of variations on hot weather food - sandwiches, salads, and oh-hell-let's-just-have-cereal-I'm-too-hot-to-give-a-shit. We've even had ice cream for dinner in pursuit of eating anything not hot. And ice cream for dinner is great until you wake up the next morning, starving, and with your self-respect having taken refuge in some far away protective custody.

So, this evening it's stew - real food, real cooking. As I was assembling and cooking various ingredients, I played one of my favorite words in my head - my stew-cooking mantra, if you will. That word is gallimaufry.

gallimaufry: (gal-uh-maw-free) -noun
1. a hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley
2. a ragout or stew
[Fr] A combination of galer - to amuse oneself, and mafrer - to gorge oneself.

Now, I don't know if you've ever had any real, curl your toes stew. I promise, it doesn't come out of a can or a microwave box. I'm talking about the kind of stew your grandma's grandma made. I'm talking about the kind where the cook has taken the time to dredge some sinewy, tough meat in flour, salt and pepper, and slowly browned it, leaving bits of luscious, meat-flavored flour in the bottom of the pan, only to be lifted and infused by the addition of chopped onion, garlic and celery, a hearty splash of good wine and water. The stew then simmers on very low heat for a good couple of hours, graced by a floating bouquet garni of fresh rosemary, thyme and bay leaf. The sinew renders down, and the meat becomes as tender as a first kiss. But, it's not ready yet. It requires the addition of carrots and potatoes and another good 45 minutes of slow cooking.

It's served up to you in a big bowl with some good crusty bread. The fragrant steam caresses your olfactory senses like a lover's perfume. You dip a spoon in - and it's a big table spoon, because a little spoon would never do - trying to get a bit of meat, carrot and potato all at once. Lift to the mouth, and then, and then, oh... and then. It's like coming home. Your tongue and mouth are hit by the feel of it. Your palate explodes with overwhelming sensation. You can taste each distinct flavor, that piquant hint of wine, the deep dark meat and broth, the savory onion and garlic and spices, the sweet carrot and earthy potato - all of it coming together in one huge sigh-inducing melange of wonderful.

Heady stuff, that.

It's got me thinking about friendships. And how like a stew are my various friendships - each friendship as unique and different as the individuals themselves, yet each adding a necessary flavor to the overall deliciousness. I know at least one friend who is going to read this and message me something like, "Oh, so you think I'm just a lumpy old potato, huh?" And we'll laugh about that. However, we both know that the truth is, she's one of the rich, meaty bits. (She's going to give me hell about that too.)

Yesterday I had a conversation with another of those "meaty bits" friends. He asked me what's been rising to the surface in my life lately, what salient point of where and who I am right now has broken through. I had a hard time answering - he's good at tripping me up like that, the bastard. Now that I've had 24 hours to think about it, I'd have to say it's love. So much else has been stripped away, or maybe rendered down like the sinewy bits of meat. What remains is what I was born with: love. In particular, love of friends. There are friends, some unaware, some still close, some long gone, who have made such a tremendous difference in my life. They have, by turns, amused me, frustrated me, saddened me, humored me, inspired me, challenged me, and loved me just as I love them.

We are that gallimaufry - the hodgepodge, the jumble, the (perhaps to others, if not to each other) confused medley. Each of us are different, each of us brings our own flavor and contribution to something blow-your-hair-back beautiful. Not a day goes by that I don't crave that friendship. I hunger for it, just as I hunger for that stew burbling away on the stove.

Weathering

My habit most mornings, as I'm letting the first cup of coffee work its magic and turn me into something resembling a human being, is to turn on The Weather Channel. I do this in the Summer in hopes of some freak cold front invading and magically turning the temperature to 60 degrees. I do it in the Winter in hopes of seeing snow in the forecast - hence, knowing when to do the Gimme Snow Crazy Ass Dance. The rest of the time, I tune in just to see that regular old 50-60 degree, damp NW weather on board. Because that's the stuff I like. Watching that forecast is like tuning in to a news station (if only it could be thus), that offers nothing but good news.

The past few mornings that I've tuned in, as The Weather Channel breaks to go to local weather, a little slogan has appeared on the screen. "It doesn't end with the storm." That's been sticking with me; tapping on windows; sitting in the corner and clearing its throat when things get quiet. It doesn't end with the storm.

And it doesn't.

I think of that campy movie, Twister - mostly ridiculous, but worth the price of admission just to see the cow fly by. Twister ended just after the storm. The two main characters came out of the pile of rubble with a couple of scrapes and bruises. The sun was shining. They kissed. The implication was that the storm had passed and everything was glorious. And it probably was, until it wasn't again. Maybe that kiss was the one that said, "This is it. We've found the long sought after Us." Or maybe it was a holy-fucking-cranberries-we're-still-alive kiss. Maybe they went on loving each other for years. Maybe they decided the kiss was kind of the big moment and it was best left at that. Maybe one of them got hit by a truck and died an hour later. Maybe they lived together long into their eighties and that moment was simply a snapshot in a box packed with hundreds of other snapshots.

It doesn't end with the storm.

My mother used to coin one of my most loathed phrases. "This, too, shall pass." Meaning, the bad time you're having won't last. Well, duh. But even knowing that doesn't help at all in the moment. Hearing it helps even less. And, you notice? Nobody ever says that when good things are happening. "Hey! Congratulations on winning the lottery. You know, this, too, shall pass." Nobody says that on an average Tuesday as you're eating a bowl of chicken noodle soup for lunch and mindlessly flipping through a catalog. "You know, this tiny moment of ordinary? This, too, shall pass." So, do the world a favor and don't say it when someone is going through a tough time. Because it's bullshit and it doesn't help and we all know that all the moments pass. M'kay?

I digress. Where were we? Ah.

It doesn't end with the storm.

Life is a series of storms and good weather, and seasons, and stuff dying, and other stuff coming to life, and dark and light, and things being ripped apart and things being rebuilt, and average ordinary days of bringing a light jacket "just in case". It has always been so.

It's hopeful to think that it doesn't end with the storm. In fact, it's a sign of the ever resilient human spirit. Even if we also know that it doesn't end with the perfect 75 degree, sunny day either. The truth is, it ends wherever and whenever the fuck it feels like ending. It's up to us to prepare and adjust accordingly. Don't wear a raincoat to a pool party; don't bring golf clubs to a lightning storm; take extra care with cows when you see funnel clouds.

It doesn't end with the storm. Sure. Notice that nobody ever said it would end without the storm.

Believe Me When I Tell You

The other day, as someone was (uninvited) spouting her version of God at me, I stopped her, saying, "Hold on a minute. You're assuming that I not only share your vision of who or what God is, but that I believe at all. While I enjoy some Judeo-Christian traditions, I do not believe in the Judeo-Christian version of God."

Her response was snide, and one I've experienced often - the eye rolling scoff followed by, "Well, then what do you believe?"

My response is one that I've honed over the years. "Why is it so important for you to know what I believe? What I believe is very personal to me and has no impact on what you believe."

Right on cue, she became defensive. "Well. Like. What if I wanted to pray for you or something?"

"Then pray for me."

"Yeah, but you don't believe it. So why even bother?"

"But you do. Isn't that what's important? As it so  happens, I think any positive energy is a good thing, and prayer is positive energy."

"No, it's talking to God."

"Um. Talking to God isn't positive energy?"

Out came The Incredulous Look. "How can you say that when you don't even believe in...aggh!"

But this isn't a post about spirituality, or we'd all be here for the next five years. I like typing, but not that much.

Here's what I believe:

I believe we all have the right to believe whatever we want to believe, so long as it isn't causing harm to anyone else. This isn't an American right (our forefathers mostly just wanted the King off their backs - they never thought in terms of Buddhism, or Islam, or The Flying Spaghetti Monster), it's a human right. We also have the right to keep those beliefs to ourselves, if we so choose, discretion being the better part of valor and all that. That's why we won't be discussing my version of God - which is really just a big universal conglomerate of stuff that feels right to me. I don't even like using that name because it confuses the shit out of people who think only their version of God exists.

I believe that beliefs have the capacity to change and evolve as we change and evolve. They don't have to be the static stuff that was crammed down our throats just in case we'd reach the age of reason without having a proper brain to figure it out for ourselves. When I was 8 years old, I had a huge stuffed doggy that brought me comfort: at 54 years old, artwork brings me comfort. Things change. Why cannot beliefs be one of those things?

Why do I celebrate Christmas? I celebrate because although I can't believe in the virgin birth of a savior king, I can believe that the spirit of Santa Claus lives in some people. I believe in peace and goodwill.

I believe that patriotism is not about chanting the name of your country and boasting about how great it is. I believe that patriotism is in how you conduct yourself. Every day. It's in the respect you show others and the kindnesses you do. It's in the way you support your fellow countrymen, even if all that means is that you brought an elderly neighbor a fresh batch of muffins. That's patriotism. That's saying, "Let's do this together. We've got this." A great country isn't about sports superiority, or actors, or food, or music or, egads, religious beliefs... it's about its people, people who are willing to stand up and be authentic.

So, be authentic. I believe that every person has a right to be exactly who they need to be and to surround themselves with whatever makes that person. Get a full-body tattoo, pierce your hoo-hoo, dance to music only you hear, eat the hotdogs, sip the kale smoothie, color your hair or don't color your hair, wear a tiara or a baseball cap, be fat, be fit, be glamorous, be plain, dig rock-n-roll or rap or classical or jazz, drink coffee or tea, wine or beer, sing, oh please do sing.... You get the idea. Make your life your life. I believe we get to do that. No, wait. I believe it is our responsibility and an imperative that we do that. The happier you are, the better off the world around you will be.

I believe that we have absolutely no right to judge any other person. I also believe that all of us do judge others all the time. It's in our nature - we constantly compare stuff and we have a mental bar to which we hold our fellow humans. Like it or not. So, stop saying, "I'm not judging." Because you are. Just be aware of it and counter it. Quietly. Within yourself.

Under the auspices of judging others comes shaming. I believe this is one of the single worst things we can do to another human. If you're fortunate enough to never have been on the receiving end of shaming, trust me on this one. It sucks and it hurts and it sticks. Long after the "fuck them, what do they fucking know" attitude kicks in, it's still there, like a cancer. Oh, and shaming rarely ever comes out as, "Shame on you." Most of the time it's as subtle as a look, but it's spoken in all kinds of passive-agressive ways. It's the overheard whisper of, "Oh my god... did you see how short her skirt is?" It's the parent saying, "Do you really need that second scoop of potatoes?" It's the coach saying, "Stop acting like a girl. Man up." It's even the friend saying, "There you go again with your big words." Shaming runs a whole range of flavors and sizes, but it's wrong every time.

When you start a sentence with, "I'm sorry, but..." I believe you've misunderstood the meaning of "I'm sorry." You can't quantify an apology. And you can't put conditions on love. The most difficult people to love are those who have the most to teach us about ourselves. Yeah, it's not fun. In those instances, I'd rather be getting a root canal while cleaning a toilet, but not everyone on this earth is here to give us warm fuzzies and blow hot air up our skirts. Doesn't mean they're any less deserving of our love. You don't have to respect them. You don't have to hang with them, watch a movie and have pizza. But you've got to love them. I believe that. I believe that, but I suffer from no illusion that it's easy.

I believe that time does not heal all wounds. Some stuff just hurts forfuckingever and all you can do is try to distance yourself from it a little bit. That doesn't mean you don't confront the hurt; it just means that "getting over it" isn't always an option. Living around it, and maybe even in spite of it, is.

I believe we are here to love and to be loved. And until someone proves our reason for existence otherwise, that is what I will continue to believe. I believe we're here to do good things for the humans in our lives, be it those we love and hold dearest or those we barely know. Yes, cook your beloved his or her favorite dinner, but while you're out shopping for it, smile at the cashier, ask how her day is, and maybe slip her a gift card for a latté. Do little kindnesses until they become a habit.

I believe we should live as though we're constantly writing our own eulogies. What's going to be said of us when we're gone? I know what I'd want to hear, and I try to live my life in a way that will make that happen. Do I fail? Sure. All the time. I'm just one of your fellow humans, you know - full of love and my own brand of bullshit. I'm reminded here of the old paradigm: All I can do is all I can do.

And I will. I believe that.