Stress

Lots of stress in our lives of late. This does not make us special or unique in any way. But you all know what it’s like when you seem to have a perfect storm of ^&(*&&%^$! hit you from various directions. And it’s particularly stressful when bad things happen to people you love.

Okay, not to dwell on my troubles. Except to offer this as a smarmy excuse for the paucity of blogging I’ve done of late. Sorry about that. It’s just that the current emotional climate makes it difficult to come up with ideas for this little tete a tete. And when I have the brain and the energy to write, as happened this weekend just past, I have to direct my resources to the completion of the book manuscript.

I’d promise to do better but that would conflict with the promise to myself not to lie. So instead, I’ll just say that I will provide content when I have ideas I feel are worthy of sharing. And meanwhile, continue with the book.

Deal?

Point of view

Recently I have been schooled a bit regarding point of view.

For as long as I can recall, I’ve wondered what it’s like to be someone else, with that person’s knowledge and learning and culture and Center of Universe. I suppose that’s a natural thing to wonder about if like me you’re a person who enjoys writing fiction. I further suppose that curiosity regarding another’s point of view is a necessary component of empathy, without a dollop of which individually we are surely lost collectively.

Some selves I simply cannot imagine inhabiting. Others seem sufficiently tied to my own experience and preferences and prejudices that I can well imagine what that person is thinking or feeling. Of course, I could well be wrong.

I don’t understand the internal world of my cousin Larry, a Roman Catholic priest. I like him and I love him but I can’t imagine living his life. The same is true for most of the people with whom I’m acquainted.

I’ll never understand someone who wants to be a cop but I’m thankful beyond measure for the officer who took care of my daughter the night she was assaulted.

The people in this world whose lives and outlooks I value are too numerous to count, even if we limited the enumeration to those I have actually met. I am willing to go a step further in saying that the good vastly outnumber the bad in this world. At least, that’s what I hope and believe.

But there are in fact bad people and one of them touched my daughter’s life and through her, the lives of all the people who know and love her, of whom there are many.

I don’t understand this bad person’s point of view. And I don’t want to. I hope he is brought to heel at some point, preferably before he assaults any more young women. But I don’t want to dwell on him because to do so takes me to a dark place that I prefer not to visit.

I choose instead to focus on my daughter’s point of view. She is quite a remarkable person and not because she’s my daughter. She cares about people, including people she will likely never meet. She is focused on charting a path forward that leaves her attacker behind. And she will go far down that path because she is a strong and intelligent and smart and caring person.

I don’t have a good ending for this one, if only because this sort of horror requires time above all. For healing, for absorbing, for finding the courage to peer around that next corner. But I will offer one last note – I have long doubted the statistic that one in five young women will face sexual assault. Based on my own experience and my knowledge of other men I knew, I just could not believe that so many men were predators.

Turns out, I was an idiot.

I have recently come to know that within what I consider my immediate family – my daughters and nieces and first cousins alone – are at least six women who have been subjected to this evil. Each one of them a smart, lovely person who adds to my world and yours by her presence.

I need to do a better job in future of being supportive in a way that is valued by the people in my life. I hope and believe I can.

Because, you see, recently I have been schooled a bit regarding point of view.

What will we do?

The situation as I see it from my vantage point thirty-some thousand feet over Wyoming is not encouraging. We have a treasure trove of candidates vying for the top job. Wait, did I say treasure trove? Silly me, make that refuse bin; it’s more accurately descriptive.

I’m not going to get into personalities here. Suffice to say that judging by the current candidates, we would do better by bringing in the Ringling Brothers Klown Kar and choosing at random from among the occupants.

I have an idea! Big surprise, right? Let’s start over! Yeah, just toss the whole bunch in a deep hole and start accepting new applications. Now this might seem like a bold departure from the norm but then Ol’ Norm just ain’t doin’ us so good, now is he?

Here’s what I propose:

·       Allow anyone who would qualify under current constitutional rules to apply. We’ll need a complete resume / CV along with a candidate’s personal statement as to why they should be considered for the position. Upon receipt, each application will be assigned a code number.

·       No party affiliation will be considered

·       No primaries will be conducted

·       The voting populace will be encouraged to provide questions to be addressed by each of the candidates – one question per registered voter, 25 words or less.

·       Each candidate will answer each of the questions – 100 words or less

·       All qualified voters will be allowed to vote but neither inducements nor encouragements will be offered. Accommodations will be provided for those who would otherwise be unable to participate due to location, disability, etc.

·       No PACs, lobbyists, ‘experts,’ party hacks, etc. will be provided access to candidates over and above that available to every voter.

·       Rather than a debate, have each candidate prepare a final statement summarizing their previous statement plus answers to submitted questions.

·       Voting will be double blind, with no photos, videos or vocal audio provided. Voters will not know if a given candidate is male, female, black, brown, etc. They will be identified by numbers alone.

·       Tallying of the vote will be by a simple count.

Okay, so my plan might have a few minor flaws. But tell me, do you really believe the current system works better?

Paradigm shifting

Okay, so I wasn’t planning to really blog much during this road trip, in part because I intend to spend the vast majority of my writing time and energy on finishing Da Book and in part because I figured my absence would make your hearts grow fonder. Wow, that was a long sentence, wasn’t it?

Back to the point, assuming I have one – your opinion regarding which will develop as we continue, so let’s move on, shall we – wait… Where was I going with that?

Oh, yeah… So, I wasn’t planning a blogitious missive for this weekend but then things happened. Things like spending four days in the car with Daughter Two and contemplating four more days driving in the opposite direction with Daughter One. Like listening to Two explain her injection molding project and One explain her glass blowing projects and sort of understanding because I’ve run a molding plant before but not entirely because it wasn’t precisely this type of molding and the closest I’ve come to glass blowing is watching it demonstrated at the glass museum in Tacoma. Things like the Panel Light of Death coming on when the car and I are 2300 miles from home and my internet research of the meaning of said alarm boiling down to “yeah, that’s a bad’un!”

And of course things like worrying about Two moving to the Big City where Al Capone once did business and worrying about her fate at the hands of Chicagoans only to find the neighborhood around her apartment charming and lively and (it seems) relatively safe and homey. And reacquainting myself with One who has lived across a continent from us for several years and whose intelligence and wit and down to earth logic I’d forgotten I so cherish (I will never again allow my relationships with One and Two to be reduced to texts and sound bites).

And observing Mary in the role of Mom-helping-daughter-get-settled and being reminded (although I insist this reminder was not at all necessary) just what a great Mom she has been to our children. Watching her in action helps me to understand the unseen void experienced by the motherless central character in the book I’m writing. Where would I have been without this woman; never mind, don’t even want to go there.

This trip has been unexpectedly about noticing and learning anew. My views of key concepts and characters in my life are shifting. I’m discovering that while I am still loved and respected and considered, I am no longer entirely necessary. They are ready.

And I’m okay with that.

A woman I know...

…is dealing with the brutal fact of her own decline. Our lives may be shaped by hopes and fears and dreams but it’s the facts that establish the boundaries. And this fact is one we will all face, sooner or later. But of course, that doesn’t make it any easier to accept. Not for her. And not for the people who love her.

She has trouble remembering things. Things like turning off burners and taking her pills and what someone said a moment ago. And what and when to eat and drink and not to set the microwave timer for two hours.

What she does remember is raising six children and a frequently childish husband. She remembers doing for and doing without and the struggles and the triumphs. But painfully, too frequently of late she remembers what she should be able to remember but just can’t, quite, remember.

And it hurts. It hurts her so deeply to know that she can’t be the person she once was. And to know that more and more, day by day, her loss is so apparent to those who once came to her for answers to the questions in their lives. She is beyond being able to hide the hurt and that hurts, too.

Her children try to understand how to be both kids and caretakers. How does one strike the balance between being a daughter and a supervisor? Between being a son and an enforcer of the little rules that keep her safe when she’s alone? Rules that she taught you so many years ago.

Her children, each and all, would give anything to have back the mother who raised them. And that mother is there, for her and for them, in memories. Theirs and hers. But she can’t be in the moment. In the anymore. And therein lies the rub.

For her it is frustrating and maddening and hurtful and inexplicable. And for her children it is frustrating and maddening and hurtful and inexplicable.

The love in this family is palpable.

Sometimes, that has to be enough because that’s all there is.