A hard day with the old man

I lost it again today. I totally lost it at the movies. Why should a 57 year old woman get so angry at a 94 year old man? Why should what he does affect me? Why can't I get over thinking some day he will change and be the loving soul he was created to be? Why do I give a damn? When will I finally learn that he is a fatally flawed human who cannot change.

I got a fortune in a cookie that said I look for the good in people. Oh God, I really do look for the good. I want to believe that my own father is a good person. And I have seen the reality of that but every time I start to believe it, he does some stupid shit that makes me ballistic. I can't breathe.

I went to see the movie "UP" the other day and really enjoyed it. It has had nothing but good reviews. I took them today and the old man laughed and seemed to enjoy it. The old lady was entranced. But as soon as it ended he told me how horrible my choice was and that he wasn't coming with me again and what a shitty movie it was.

He cannot be gracious. He has to be mean spirited. That is all there is to it. If he doesn't enjoy something, he cannot allow someone else to enjoy it. What kills me, what absolutely pushes all my buttons is to be abused for trying to provide entertainment for him. I had the opportunity to go up to a lake cabin in Walker this weekend but I said I couldn't go because I take my parents out every Saturday. I wanted them to have a good time, but he wouldn't allow it. I dropped him off at home and took the old lady out to eat, but not before I had a good cry. I am frustrated. Nothing is ever good enough, and nothing is ever appreciated.

Whether I bring him to Ernesto and Clara's for July 4th is up to me. If I can forgive and forget enough to be be in the same car with him is a question. But if I leave him home the old lady will fret. So either way I lose.

Steely Dan sings they have a name for the winners in the world and I want a name when I lose. Call me Deacon Blues.

Not your run of the mill mother-of-the-bride dress

Yesterday my friend and I went into Herbergers looking for clearance bargains. I moseyed over to the dress section because I like wearing dresses. They are so easy. Put on underwear, throw one over your head, add pantyhose in winter, sandals in summer, and presto! A pulled together look without having to coordinate more than earrings and shoes. Formal dresses were on sale, dowdy, champagne, beige, or pastel with jackets and beads; real mother-of-the bride dresses. I looked at them and realized anew how pleased I am with the dress I wore to Eri and John's wedding. No dowdy look for me! I wore this dress to a New Year's Eve party and look forward to having many more enjoyable outings in style.

Speaking of weddings and dresses...Connie and I saw "The Hangover" before going shopping. It got such "laugh a minute" reviews but we didn't think it was that funny. It was totally cringe making. There were a few gut busting laughs, but not many. The bride in that movie wore a very elegant strapless gown that had a black ribbon sash. The flowers were white hydrangeas and they had more in front of the alter than we had in the whole room. I look at pictures of Eri in her pretty dress with the blue sash and think, just as so often happens, we were ahead of the fashion, style makers we. (We done good!)

I miss

I sometimes am oblivious, but oftentimes quite observant. Today, while walking I saw many interesting plants and flowers. What intrigued me most was a driveway blocked off with hay bales. On top of the bales was brown dirt and in the dirt was an assortment of vegetable plants. I will be keeping an eye on this alternative garden.

The title of this blog is "I miss". Although I have memories of the experiences, I still miss the reality of these things in my life.

I miss being married to my best friend and having his eyes light up when he saw me.
I miss being able to talk to him about everything.
I miss the happy parts of my marriage.
I miss working together for common goals.
I miss the physical union.
I miss being needed.

I miss my baby girls and my growing girls and my teenagers.
I miss going on school trips and driving to swimming.
I miss taking them to Excelsior Beach.
I miss talking to them and lying in bed reading together.
I miss planning surprises and parties for them.
I miss being needed.

I miss having friends who love me and live near.
I miss having a job that I was good at and did good there.
I miss having a purpose driven life.
I miss having something to wake up and look forward to each day.
I miss people calling me for help.
I miss solving problems.
I miss being needed.

I miss my enthusiasm and creativity.
I miss my energy and deep sleep.
I miss looking forward to new books.
I miss my thinner face.
I missed years of my fifties lost in depression.

I can feel depression closing in on me.
What saves me is knowing it will pass.
Being busy, if I can, will help.
But oh! I miss being needed.

Oprah and impossible weight expectations

This is copied from a blog I wrote last night on Blogher. Why it is coming out white, I do not know, nor do I know how to fix it. Hmmm?

We all do it, look at magazines that tout the secret of losing baby weight in weeks and how Heidi Klum will do it after her fourth child. And we say to ourselves that if all we had to do was have someone cook for us and work out with a personal trainer, we would look great, too. Then we read about Oprah Winfrey, one of the most successful women on earth and her struggle to keep the weight she loses off permanently. She has a personal cook. She has a personal trainer. She works out and has even run a marathon. If she can't do it, how can we?

I read a heartfelt essay by Oprah in O magazine in a waiting room. This time she would really make the connection. This time it was a spiritual quest and she would succeed. No she won't. I do not wish her ill, not at all. She won't succeed in creating the body image she is looking for because she is not built that way. She has tried and tried to live in a body that she manipulates into looking a certain way and time after time her body reverts to what is right and natural for her body type.

Mma Ramotswe, the heroine of Alexander McCall Smith's Number One Ladies Detective AgencySeries is a "traditionally built" woman from Botswana. She is much, much heavier than Oprah will ever be, but Oprah is traditionally built, too. She has a bosom and a booty and is all curvy. I think she is beautiful. Her ancestors aren't from Northern Europe, or tall rangy African stock. I am nearly five foot four inches tall with a twenty eight inch inseam. I cannot be long legged. I can have shapely, muscular legs and appreciate them. I can be in the best shape for my shape. I can be healthy, and you know what? I can be happy, too.

Oprah! Please listen to me. You are a wonderful woman who has done so much for yourself and others. Being heavy is not a spiritual failing. Being mean and selfish is a spiritual problem and everyone knows how generous you are. You strive everyday to live a life with intent and you inspire others to do so. You eat healthy foods and exercise. You try to have balance in your life. It is time for you to accept yourself as the beautiful, healthy woman that you are. Don't make yourself miserable trying to maintain an artificially thin body. Enjoy this life, curves and all.

Picture of Carol, June 1964

Facebook has shown me some real surprises. I have found out a lot of people want to be friends with me and I have reconnected with some old schoolmates. It has been fun finding myself in old school pictures. Today someone posted this picture from sixth grade. I am the very pretty girl in blue seated between the two girls in yellow. I see the boy, the most popular boy in my class, who used to call me Smelly Smoller and I see he really was trying to get my attention. It sure as hell was not the way to get it, though.

Scott came home and I asked him to pick me out. He pointed to the girl in the headband standing behind me. He pointed out a happy, but fat face, Shelly Berger. He doesn't remember me as the thin girl he married. Why should he? I have been overweight since Eri was born it seems. And it seems that thin pretty girl is a lifetime away. And when I see just how lovely I was, in this picture and the one from ninth grade, I want to slap my father.

He could not tolerate fat people. He disliked my best friend because she was chubby. As I developed my hips got bigger and he would call me a big ass bird or fat fat the water rat. What a stupid asshole. If he had any kind of memory he would have remembered that his first wife had large hips and a flat chest. It is his second wife that has slim hips and a big chest. Idiot. But he is not the first or last man to mess up his daughter's self esteem. I had a boss who told his daughter all kinds of things he thought were joking about how she shouldn't eat this or that or she would get fat. Here was the kid, on vacation, worrying about every bite she took, and she was perfectly beautiful.

Should I be thinner? You bet. My health would improve. But does my self worth balance on the scale showing a particular weight? No, it doesn't. Either I will lose weight or I won't. Who I am, and the kind of person I want to be are separate from what I weigh. And as Maharaji said, all those years ago, there has never been a fat skeleton after you are dead. Everyone loses weight eventually.

Prayer

Sometimes I will read stories of great mystics, or people who want to be great mystics. They spend hours and hours in prayer. I have never been able to do that myself. My prayer is more like short sharp bursts of Morse Code; S-O-S, mayday, thank you, oh help, disregard, and I love you. I believe in two things, Grace and effort. I believe Grace is always there but I need to be putting forth effort to recognize it. So my prayers are a jumble of thank you and help me put forth effort and resignation and supplication.

Years ago, when we lived in Flagstaff, I wanted the job as a Community Center Director. I wanted it with a hunger. I was in a torment of wanting and trying to surrender. One day I was able to surrender. I was able to pray with a very clear intent. My prayer was that if I was supposed to get the job, that I get it. And if I was meant to stay a waitress, let me do it with joy. I remember the feeling of peace that engulfed me; it really didn't matter whether I got the job or not. (I did.) So I remember what that is like, but achieving it again is not easy.

There is a story in "Tales of the Hasidim" about a woman who goes to a holy rabbi and asks for help in conceiving a child. The rabbi tells the woman about his mother who went to the Bal Shem Tov for the same reason. She brought him her finest possession, a shawl. The Bal Shem Tov told her to go home and soon after she was with child. The woman being told this story says she has a shawl that she can bring him, and the rabbi basically replies that it won't work because she knows the story. His mother, you see, didn't know the story.

In much the same way, it is hard to pray for work. I already know the story. I cannot repeat the experience I had back then. I can't use the surrender I had then, now. I need a new prayer, a new surrender, a new openness in my heart. So what I ask for now is to keep on keeping on, not getting distracted by the weather, or my parents, or my own busy mind. Apply effort and keep applying effort and opening my eyes and heart to Grace.

I have always felt beloved of God. And as a child I have pushed that parent to see my boundaries. Can I go this far and will you still be there? Can I go farther and farther and will you still be there? I know I have had many opportunities that I just didn't see because I was focused on how sad I was. I am trying to open my eyes, and as a young heroine, Tiffany Aching, often says, "Open my eyes again." It is through my efforts and Grace that I will see what is really there.

A short look at obliviousness

Robert Benchley has a piece where he talks about photographs of historic happenings. He notes that there is usually someone in the corner going about his business not having a clue of the significance of the moment. He says that would be him, the little guy looking in the wrong direction. I think it might be me. I can be pretty oblivious myself.

Several years ago I met a man who grew up in the same housing development where I lived. He lived down the block in 5995 and in some ways it could have been anywhere for all the attention I paid. I was pretty localized to 5935 and rarely went down the block. He told me that his father and grandfather were pastors in a black church and that Martin Luther King Jr. used to come talk to them. He remembers them all sitting on the terrace at 5995. I wish someone had taped their conversations; I wish I had been a moth on the wall. History was taking place down the block and I was probably trading Beatles cards with my friends.

Friends

Cassie Garberg, Monica Oakes, Carol Smoller, catching snowflakes a long, long time ago

My dearest oldest friend called me last night. An hour went by in a minute and I am left hoping she will come to visit me soon. We met when we were four years old in the elevator of the building where we both lived. She lived on seven and I lived on eight. She remembers that I was sitting in the stroller. My sister must have been born but I can't imagine where she was if I was riding. We were friends, we weren't friends, we were friends again. On and off, but mostly on as we both grew up. I married and had children first. She married and had two more children than I have. We both love our kids. Our lives have taken very different paths. She is now a semi-retired teacher with children still at home. My friend is well educated and an educator. She is a woman of distinction, honored by many. She has traveled the world as a teacher. I admire her immensely.

Why do people become and stay friends? It is not absolute acceptance of the other, no matter what. I came closest to abandoning my friend when I found out she voted for W. It was incomprehensible to me. Of course, I got over it. We love people in spite of themselves and in spite of our own selves, too. One wise woman I once heard said that friendship needs proximity, and shared interests to grow. But I think about my closest friends, one in Jersey, one in Colorado, and one in California. We have no proximity, and our interests are varied. But heart to heart, we are always there. We can pick up ten or twenty years from our last meeting and, bingo! no separation, no awkward moments. We are there. Just like I can with my sister. We are sisters of the heart.

When people meet me they are sometimes taken aback. I don't hold back. I am who I am and you don't need to sift through many filters to get to who I am. What you see is what you get. This is not an act, I yam who I yam and that's who I yam. Sometimes, if someone has hurt me, I will remove my personality. There was a man on a committee who hurt and humiliated me several years ago. At our next meeting I did not contribute to the discussion. He went to my boss to complain about my behavior. I turned it around by making him apologize for his actions, though. My friendship is a gift I freely give. I will forgive and forget, giving many chances to heal rifts and become friends again. And then, there will be a last time, and for my own protection, I withdraw. I have not done it often, and it is always as last resort. I am a peacemaker (when I am not actively fomenting dissent, that is) and really don't understand why we can't all get along.

I am envious of those women I see walking together, having coffee, shopping. I don't have very many people to do those things with. I am not an easy friend to have. I demand, by my very presence, that the people I am with be real. I can't do superficial well. It is so very boring. I expect a lot from my friends; big hearts, generosity, compassion towards others and towards me. I will give my friends anything in my power. Sometimes that is overwhelming and I have to be told "Don't fix me- just listen and be there for me."

Life is not a popularity contest. The one with the most friends does not win. The one with a few real friends of the heart is luckiest. I am a winner.

(But I do miss being the best friend of someone I loved. Ah, well...)