Think Piece Based on a Letter that Applies to Everyone

You all know that I love to write. But did you know I write almost 4 times as much as I post on 5 blogs put together? Yes, I do. I spent a few hours composing a letter to a friend today. It was impressed upon me that there was an urgent need for the letter. And that perhaps it might be already too late. In the end, I shared the important bits with facebook because the impetus for the missive was circulating through my feed again. Among my friends there are always cycles based on "Oh my gosh I totally forgot how much I loved that book." So this weekend The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman is circulating again. I post my note here for you all:

This piece assumes the reader has familiarity with the subject and perhaps has a copy in hand. It comes from a personal letter to a friend. The problems with the 5 languages are usually within us and less within the theories and observations of Mr. Chapman. The glaring pitfall is that there are not 5. There are 6.

I noticed that you took that off the shelf last time I was there. We didn't get the chance to discuss your overall direction of study. Something made you curious about it again. Perhaps it was something I said about dishes? Or perhaps you were trying to figure out in a book what someone else was about in life? 

 

The best success you will achieve in any relationship, in any status, is through direct communication. That does not change no matter which love language either of you speaks.

 

To reiterate something I said about doing dishes with you: If that is how you feel loved, to have help or have something done for you, then you must accept it as it is given without attempting to control how that gift is performed. "Is it too much to ask that it gets done the right way?" 

No. 

However the "right way" is not always going to be synonymous with "My way." Believe it or not everyone was taught dishes in slightly different ways and with varying tolerances in the quality control department. So when you demonstrate or flat out say, "You can show me love by helping me with the dishes." then you have come to the end of your input. From that point, you will be given that kind of love based on the kind of training they were given by people who loved them or whom accepted that demonstration of love in the past. Parents will be the source of most examples of love giving in any of Chapman’s 5 languages. 

When you critique, do over, or use your body to move someone out of the dish doing zone you are rejecting the love that you asked for. This is called body blocking. It is a method employed by manipulative people to control others. As ranchers use dogs, horses and gates to body block herds and funnel them into a location they desire which the animal does not, so too the manipulative person uses body blocking to control another person. This is not a situation which needs that level of control. These things erode your friend’s confidence in their perception of the quality of and level of acceptance of the quality of that love that was given. These levels are learned primarily from parents. When you reject the love you asked for, you manipulate the other person into questioning what they know of love at that level, then all levels. The resulting doubt sets them in pursuit of the perfect love you seek. Which is never fulfilled. Chapman cites a case study describing this more effectively, refer back to the book for the detailed description of the corrosive effects of control in relations. 

 

In the long run, what your behavior communicates is stronger than you words. And the long term effect of controlling how you are loved in the minutest of details is this "I want love but no one is going to love me exactly the way that I want to be loved." And since you will not give what you can not guarantee in return your relationships erode. This either happens because one is manipulative of others as I hinted above or because of a profound lack of self acceptance. With most of my friends who are less successful in relationships, as with myself, the case is definitely one of feeling unworthy of the love we seek.

 

Your issues are not with people they are still with you. They are still with your ability to accept love, they are still with your own thoughts/feelings/beliefs about your worthiness. This is usually the case with people living with frustration for multiple decades on a specific issue. Bearing this in mind it is important to realize:

• No amount of self help will be effective until you have dealt with that.
• Also, the exemptions you ask for yourself you must be prepared to offer to others.
• Most importantly, in order for you to be able to use the 5 love languages to enhance your relationships you will have to relinquish the stranglehold of control you exert in your relationships:
• you do not get to dictate in minute details how the gifts you are given are to be presented
• you do not get to dictate how the gifts you give are received
• there must be concessions for infirmity, mental or physical. A person with a broken leg can not be expected to mow the lawn when they are in a cast any more than a person with sexual assault issues should be poked, prodded, pinched, spanked to produce a squeal for your humor when it induces terror inside of them.
• you must be certain of what is and what is not acceptable within each of the languages. Again, hugs and hand holding for a physical touch person with sexual assault issues is pretty safe, poking, prodding, pinching, slapping is not. IT ONLY TAKES ONE PERSON TO RUIN IT FOR EVERYONE. Don't be THAT person. And if you aren't THAT person, don't remind her of THAT person.

I know that Gary Chapman says the following in the introduction and again in the end of the book. In my personal involvement with people I have learned that people ignore everything outside of the bullet points. So here are a few things to remember about dealing with people in general, dealing with yourself specifically:

• Actions back up words. They do not speak louder than; they support.
• Actions that do not support words are seen as YOU calling bullshit on YOURSELF!
• What you place importance on you make time for.
• If someone or something is truly valuable then it is attended to even when inconvenient.
• When evaluating relationships one must realize that when one can not or will not make time for someone or something then it is of no value and must be eliminated.
• If you don’t really love some one set them free too. There is no judgement or accusation in an honest acknowledging that someone does not belong in your life or that you do not belong in another’s.

There is no scientific research to back up Chapman’s claims, therefor, there is room for refutation. The only thing I would like to refute is the 6th Language. Treasuring the Box. Treasuring the box is a working title as much as the concept still needs some work. In essence it is related to having your friend’s back.

 

 I don’t mean hate who they hate and dress how they dress. I do not mean to say that you encourage poor judgement, false beliefs, or worship at the altar of your friend’s insecurities in a kind of gang mentality to preserve prejudices or egoistic statuary your friend’s mind palace. I mean, have your friend’s back, watch their 6, no one gets left behind in the face of danger have your friend’s back.

 

Treasuring the box deals with security issues. You can speak all kinds of words of love, so soft and tender. You can give the best gifts, throw the best parties. You can perform the most mundane or heroic acts of service, provide the most fun and enjoyable quality time or have the most exquisite physical touch, but if you do not provide security and protection none of that matters.

 

Perhaps I should call this one, Guard the Treasure Box instead. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I said, this is a working title. And I am still working on fleshing out the whole concept. As I said, this was part of a letter and something that had started with inspiration. Not sure how long before I get to the whole post so stay tuned.

This Weather is For the Birds

Now that the stray kittens are taken care of the birds want attention too. The first real day I felt certain that Spring had sprung I hung out the feeders as I mentioned in that other post. Filled it a second time before the snow started flying and it hasn't stopped. The Upper Peninsula got hit way worse than us. Our last Winter Storm Advisory was cancelled while the UP should have had theirs extended.

The snow that we did get was enough to panic all the early returning Spring birds. I tell you, this weather has everyone screwed up. Even the Killdeer are back early. And freezing their tail feathers off. It has to suck being a ground nesting bird in Michigan. The only really nice thing about the snow is that since I am the first feeders full in the trailer park this is where they all came to roost. And I am working on getting some good picks of our fine feathered friends. More importantly though, I am getting the best variety in attendance.

I am using the Royal Wing brand sold in a variety of places across the country. Currently Tractor Supply has their bags at 2.00 off and will do so until the end of April. As advertised on the packages, I am getting all the birds that the seed mixes promise. The early birds on the roster are:

Paridae
      chickadee ~parus atricapillus, poecile atricapillus
updated 5/12/16
      tufted titmouse ~parus bicolor

Bombycillidae
      cedar waxwing ~bombycilla cedrorum

Charadriidae
      killdeer ~charadrius vociferus

Sittidae
      white-breasted nuthatch ~sitta carolenensis

Columbidae
      mourning dove ~zenaida macroura

Turdidae
      American Robin ~ turdus migratorius

Corvidae
      blue jays ~cyanocitta cristata

and from the largest collection in the family
Fringillidae
      slated colored junco ~ junco hymealis
      chipping sparrow ~spizella passerina
      pine siskin ~carduelis pinus
      american goldfinch  ~carduelis tristis 
      northern cardinal ~cardinalis cardinalis
updated 5/12/10
      rose-breasted grosbeak ~pheucticus ludovicianua
      white-crowned sparrow ~zonotrichia albicollis

A few of our feathered friends have trouble distinguishing themselves from other of their kind. There is a sparrow that looks like a siskin but fatter. And that sparrow looks like another thrush or a wren. So that one I am having trouble identifying. For the others that seem to be one thing but left me more than a reasonable doubt I went by the birdsong that I heard while the Winter Wind was blasting everyone in the face. The website http://www.enature.com/birding/audio.asp is a great resource to help identify the copycats. They may look alike but they don't sound alike.


4/8/2016
Icteridae
      red winged blackbird ~agelaius phoeniceus
updated 5/12/16
      common grackle ~quiscalus major

4/9/2016
Picidae
      downy woodpecker ~picoides pubescens
updated 5/12/16
      hairy woodpecker ~picoides villocus
      red-headed woodpecker ~melanerpes erythrocephalus

Ankara, Brussels....

Why can't we all get along? 

It is a stupid question in light of everything that is happening in the world. It might even be an ignorant question born of facile wishing. It certainly is a question that ignores some very basic things about being human. 

We can not control what others do. 

We can not all be made to be the same, having another's will imposed on us.

And we all think we are right. And righteous.

The imposition of a Will to subjugate others always goes badly. To function as a society we have to agree to some very basic rights and privileges  of being human. Food, water, air, clean housing, clothing, and to an extent the right to self determination. It doesn't get more basic than that. But it does get a hell of a lot more complicated.

Enter Personality. 

We can not all be made to sit in silence. Some of us need visual stimulation and others need music. The type of art, the type of music is going to be as subjective as a choice of favorite color, book, star in the heavens. We all are internally soothed and motivated in accord with a Personality. That personality chooses our hair color, clothing, furnishings for the home, job we would prefer to have and the way which we perform the jobs we actually have. There are rules of conduct that are basic to function in society, but there is much diversity within those structures as well. 

When it comes to the governance of society, where lines have to be drawn to separate the public from the private life each one of us gets a bit self righteous. As human beings we are more comfortable in the thought that every other person out there is just like us. Imagine the culture shock of the first photos in National Geographic as the colorful subsaharan region became known among the staid colonialists. Opening trade routes and colonizing another land is all well and good until the kids come home with tattoos. Now suddenly God has an opinion on body art that is defensible by the sword. The minute we come into contact with another there is a battle of wills to assert one personality over another.

Look at the minor conflicts and the struggles to remain true to the self that you know to be authentic in your personal life. Beginning with your siblings and parents. Now magnify that on the world stage where so much more than your Legos are at stake. We are all siblings. But that sibling relationship didn't matter much when you were fighting over toys. The parent child relationship doesn't matter much when you Only Children are fighting for autonomy over sneakers and dresses or clashing patterns. When you want what you want and you are the kind of person who has to have their own way ALL THE TIME no relationship matters. Magnify this. Move the conflict onto a remote stage, in a land you don't know, with people who aren't your color and who believe different things, who still appreciate their past and believe in their own right and worth as strongly as you do.

We can not get along because we chose not to.
We chose to look at the foreign ideas and differing values as a battleground.
We chose to exclude rather than include because we are so afraid of diminishing ourselves that we can't add to ourselves. Our nature as spoiled brats, no matter what country we live in, has been exploited for generations and generations in the name of resource control. All of this fighting is pointless. None of it will keep us alive any longer than the natural span of a human life. None of it improves the quality of anyone's life. In fact, all we are doing is shortening the life span of every sigle person on the planet.

That serves no one's God.

The God of Moses, the God of Abraham, the God of Muhamed, the Father of Christ is a creator before he is anything else. And when we destroy his creation we destroy him. The first job we had was to shepard his creation. All of the things that come after as a result of the actions that humans took in relationship to each other and him. We are living the consequences of forgetting that nothing came from our own hands. The struggle to place one God above another is an excuse and a gross absolution of our behavior.

The result of being irresponsible for our own actions is the mayhem we see around the world today.

I am an altruist.
I am a Humanist.
I the tapestry that we weave by mingling our cultures and think that we have one of the most beautiful experiences a person can have. Then I see things like this in Ankara and Brussels, the blemishes on the tapestry, the holes and frayed edges and I see that we are not going to last for very long. I know whey we all can't get along. And I think that makes us the most stupid, ignorant and useless things that God has ever made. We are perfectly capable of being so much better than we are and we chose not too.

I am sad for everyone. 

A Ranting We Will Go

The political season is making me angry. And frustrated as I have said before. While I was about to give up hope of ever seeing rational dialog again, I found David Gerrold. Most Geek know him as the guy who wrote the Tribble episode of the Original Star Trek series. David Gerrold has a fine mind. And we think a like. In the last week my Facebook rants have taken on the same pithy quality as my essays in school. Not only that, my brain is starting to ask questions and make connections that, quite frankly, have slipped in the course of the last year. That may be due to the overwhelming need to hide from the chaos of the world at large or to shut down to avoid the ravings of a mad man too close to be healthy. At any rate, I shut down. But the brain is on fire now. And the rants have been flowing. 

I am back to my old self. And I am very much aware of the fact that these are the kinds of things that I thought in high school. These are the things that I was interested in exploring while everyone else was having a party. These are the kinds of things that assured I would always be single. 

I give you a reprint of a rant today that I am actually quite proud of. For you, I leave links to the information. 

In reading through arguments for defunding welfare programs and increasing taxes on middle and lower income households while avoiding infrastructure upgrade issues and boosting war coffers made by people who swear by their Christian faith that all life is sacred, I often wonder: do anti abortion politicians see each fetus as a life full of gifts and talents to be explored or a life with a tax contribution value of 764K (Lifetime average), or 1.4 mil adjusted for inflation? Let's see, that's 327K (# of PP abortions in 2014) votes not placed 18 years from now, 327K non existent tax payers and a projected net loss for those lifetimes of 458 hundred billion dollars. -458 hundred billion dollars times all the years this number of abortions is performed...Do you people follow the money?
Do you think any of those politicians playing on your genuine Christian sympathy haven't found an actuary to crunch those numbers better than my art addled brain?
They won't help feed or educate those kids. As it is they are trying to cut aid to the ones who managed to be born while they are hamstringing the parents who's pensions were stolen, CDs have been devalued, farms have been stolen, wages have been decreased and who will have to work far longer than any other generation before us save our early immigrant ancestors who worked in sweat shops prior to our own industrial revolution. 

• Those are also 327K + potential soldiers they won't be able to underpay to use as IED fodder.

•  Those 327K+ lives won't be around to do jobs they don't want to do and couldn't do anyway because there are still jobs being shipped overseas.

• That is 327k+ who won't take out student loans at (x)% interest, 

• won't buy homes at (Y)% interest. 

• That is 327K+ potential car customers at (z)% interest.

Those aborted lives that you call precious your government, bought and paid for by corporations,calls lost revenue streams. I am just cynical enough to think that gay marriage is opposed because it doesn't yield children (revenue streams).
All we are, when it comes right down to it, is a revenue stream. And quite frankly, I am not liking the theme of people only wanting me for my money.

Memory Stones

Sometimes when we are bored and seeking a small adventure my best friend, or her daughter, and I will go to a cemetery and look around for interesting bits of sculpture, inscriptions, spirits and whatnot. It is normally in the fall that the Oak Park Cemetery is most vibrant and beautiful. In Summer the canopy is so thick and green that getting good shots with my amateur camera is almost impossible. Not only that, the bright fake flowers adorning the grave sites is always unnerving for me. Nothing screams insincerity like fake flowers. But rules are rules and most cemeteries these days don't let you plant real flowers.  So there is that. I've always liked Oak Park because of the variety of sculpture, mostly Victorian Era. Oak Park is also home to most of the Founding Fathers of Traverse City and was always the "Catholic Cemetery".

I grew up Catholic and went to a lot of funerals with my dad, though not very often to attend a graveside service. Death and I are not strangers, but we aren't buds either. Death is just another thing; like too many relatives in the house at Christmas, and ignored birthdays.  It comes at the end of Life, requires a shindig, public lamenting and then...

The "And then" always bothers me. And then often is a few years of dedicated visitation that tapers off as grief gives way to a life resumed. Following the lack of visitation there is, for some, a period of guilt that is oft overcome with the thought that "Well, he's dead. What does he care if I don't go?" The "And then" for the dead is a physical decay. But how many of those dead stay with the body, limited in spirit to the confines of the cemetery? And for how long?

I can not imagine a fate worse than to be trapped with a useless body and watching parade after parade of histrionics when grief is most poignantly felt then great swaths of time when no one comes to visit anymore. Then, when the traffic slows to the slightest tickle the gawkers and ghost hunters arrive to coax ghoulish cries. Of course, on occasion, one can watch the malicious destruction of property as grave stones are smashed by normally idle hands. I don't know what is worse. The immediate shock and grief or the "and then"... being ignored.

As one of the troupe of curiosity seekers, hoping to encounter and not encounter entities in the cemetery, drooling over the artistry in the markers, marveling at the age of my city and lost in the solitude the quietness of a cemetery in daylight engenders, I try to keep the murmur to a dull roar. I can neither see nor hear the dead. It is rare that I can feel the presence of those who have passed and got stuck here. And, I try not to disturb a site that is clearly visited by family and friends. I will right a potted plant that has toppled and been ignored by the grounds keeping staff. And I avoid freshly turned soil, giving it a wider berth than is likely necessary. Sometimes though, I can not help but get up close and personal.

Normally, I do not delve deep into this cemetery. Most of the truly interesting sculptural pieces are near the front on the 8th street side. I'd been told it is the oldest part of the cemetery. I had also been told it was the "Catholic" cemetery. So this time, with the younger friend, we went deeper. Much to my surprise, I found a Jewish section. Traverse City has always had a very small Jewish population. At one point large enough for it's own temple but which has waned in recent decades. The Jewish synagogue is now part of the courthouse complex. There are still Jewish families in town, worshiping alongside other faiths, and tending the graves of family members.

Most of the stones in the Hebrew section were covered in any number of small pebbly stones such as the picture above. It is uniquely Jewish. A good explanation is here. Depending on the traditions one grew up with it is either to keep golems at bay, to bind the soul to the earth or to mark a connection between visitor and the visited.  My gut tells me that this is a marker to mean, "I thought of you". Flowers die, stones are more permanent. And it seems like one of those long term things that Jewish a good at when it comes to zakor , which means "remember". Leaving the stone is like leaving a bit of yourself to stay with the decedent.  Somehow, being there helped me feel a bit better about Shayne, even though he is buried in Chicago. It also made me miss him so much more as we come upon the anniversary of his passing, and leaving the marker of his birthday last month.

Plan C or is it D?

Life is a constantly changing bit of scenery. Keeping up with the changes is hard. Sometimes you feel like your four steps forward are the start of a hundred yard dash, sometimes the start of a 100k marathon. And then sometimes that four steps forward ends up sending you countless steps back.

We like to think that one forward step begets the next forward step and that there will always be forward steps. And I think that is where we end up in a bit of a pickle when things get rough. And I'll tell you what,,, being able to see the slide coming doesn't guarantee that you can stop the slide, avoid the slide or even shorten it. I see a slide coming. At least it looks like a slide. The scenery is changing for sure.

My inner landscape is not looking right. There is a lot of dissatisfaction, frustration and futility. Most of it is feeling. Some of it stems from pressure that I put on myself for things to be different. Some of it is because I keep comparing have to have not; the past me v, future me version of the have and have nots.

I compromised my principles, my sense of self in an act of appeasement so many years ago and the ramifications are still being felt. When you know who you are and you act outside of that parameter to make others happy you end up damning yourself to a life you will not be able to recognize in 20 years. I knew that 25 years ago. I knew it when I was just 14. But I caved into some outside pressures because I wanted to belong. I wanted people who were close to me to quit calling me weird and eccentric like it was a bad thing. I didn't want to be set apart as a freak. I wanted to be set apart as someone special.

Let's face it. I was a freak. Nineteen and running my own business. Nineteen and comfortably secure in what I wanted, what I was doing and with the insulation that I needed to be able to exist. But I still couldn't be part of my family. I still had a hard time feeling like I belonged to my people. Now here we are 2 years later and those who were like me, ahead of our time, classmates, most learning curves, are all doing miraculously wonderful things with their passions. They have the security that years of self reliance gave them because they remained true to what they were. And I am mired in this instability and insecurity trying to get my feet back under me and failing.

You see, I can go it alone for a long time. I can forgo the comfort of praise be it faint, damning or glowing for a time. But not forever. Living without a support system filled with mentally healthy people just doesn't allow a person to thrive. When a person is surrounded by people who tear each other down their immunity to the affects of the negativity erodes and leaves them vulnerable.

I have been vulnerable for a few months. There is a growing sense of panic, frustration, futility and for the first time in my life.... indifference. I've lost something. I don't know when or how and I am not sure I realize yet what the full extent of the loss is.

Relationally, I just don't care if I ever have a boyfriend, LTR or even a fuck buddy. I knew when I was 14 I would be single. And any time that I have chosen to abandon that for any reason there have been more complications and more walls put up. I seek an uncomplicated life. In general, Menopause has given me a great gift of not caring about the people to whom I normally destroy myself to save. I do not give them the power of my thought. I don't even acknowledge their existence any more. I don't care if people think I am weird any more. I am apologetically me, There are a good many mental health professionals who have waited for this day so that they can rejoice. But it is starting to become more than making firm boundaries and sticking with it.

Very little moves me.
I am becoming static.
I am distant from my passions.

The last time it happened it was because I was giving all of my free time to a boyfriend who didn't know what he was asking. Or did and didn't care. This time it is happening for another reason. And I am not certain I know what it is. I only know that the next plan is coming. C or D, I forget where I left off, is around the corner.

I am not prepared.

The Nebulous Brain

It's that time of the year again, a change in season, where one has to start to change paces. Summer with its bounty of Sunshine is a high energy season. I spent all that energy and then some on work. Winter is very low energy and it can be hard to find the motivation to do the things that need to be done. Knowing that Winter is coming means that Autumn is the time to reset.

I'm in a bizarre transitional period right now anyway and the onset of seasonal influenced moods isn't helping me to discern things anyway. Two parts of my past have surfaced. One I was hoping for and the other is a surprise that I do not know how to take. Additionally there is a new job with its foibles and the constant struggle of behaving around people and blowing up the whole planet to find some peace.

It is official, I'm in full on menopausal mode. My sense of self preservation is the only reason that I don't blow things up. it is the only reason that I don't let my temper blow up. I need my job. I need to not lose friends. But I need some goddamned time to myself. I need to have some solid chunks of time where I can just be me. My life is one big contraction.

In order to make work work for me I have to cut part of myself off to be part of that team.
In order to make home work I have to cut part of me off to fit into the plan for co-existence.
In order to make anything work, I cut myself off to fit behind the apostrophe in what ever space remains.

Notice in most contractions (can+not=can't) the whole of the first remains and a third of the last remains. That is how I feel at work. I barely function when I get done. Too much pain. Too much thinking for other people and too much drama from other departments. And it is much the same at home. Everyone else's big personality is right there with mine but mine is getting squished.

I have pending kidney issues again. And my brain needs to be reset. I can not do that in the company of others. I am the person who needs alone time to recharge. ALONE. Alone means Alone. It doesn't mean with one or two people. It means alone. Alone doesn't mean absentmindedly watching TV with friends. It means isolated and either not thinking (meditation which blends into naps) or just being without boundaries.

We all get the meditation into naps thing. It is a sign that our bodies are worn out and need replenishment. It's the being without boundaries thing that most people don't understand. I could write a book on what that means if only the thoughts were not so nebulous in my own brain. And that is the problem. Right now everything is Nebulous.

I am so stuck with my work identity and the home team with all of the energy that constantly buffets my defenses that the definition that I have for myself is no longer as clear as it once was. Holding onto solid thoughts is harder and harder each day. I am losing myself in everything. I get lost while chasing threads of ideas so much so that I can rarely find my starting point. My memory can easily be influenced and manipulated in such circumstances. I am easily manipulated in such circumstances. Goals and dreams for myself are set aside to get through each work day and then I come home to deal with the needs of the many.

The needs of the many. I wonder how Spock would advise in such a manner. The continuous use of resources leads to depletion when stocks are not properly filled. There is no logic in depleting resources. But then one also can not show compassion for others if one is not taking care of ones self. There is no logic in neglecting self care.

My writing suffers now as much as my art ever has.
So much in my brain and none of it makes any sense.

What did you do on your Summer Vacation?

My sister was home for the first time in 10 years. She and her family stayed in a cabin on a local lake and planned a week of high adventure. The oldest kid is 11 going on 12 and the youngest is barely two years old. I, being newly interned in my position, had one day to join them. I chose the Dune Climb.

The Dune Climb is the main attraction of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a National Forestry Service park that stretches many miles along the Lake Michigan Coast on the Leelanau Peninsula and encompasses both North and South Manitou Islands. The stretch of water between the islands and the peninsula is known as the Manitou Passage and sports several shipwrecks which periodically have bits lurched to shore by the Winter's ice floes. This Winter with the reappearance of ice caves was especially bountiful for beach wrecked bits of ships.

To get to the passage from the parking lot you simply climb this dune. It looks like a sand pit for a quarry doesn't it? Just a big sand hill, no problem. Right?

Wrong. The degree of slope on this thing is deceptively steep. Even the well muscled have trouble getting up here. But if you think that there is water on the other side of this hill... think again. Another smaller hill rests in a bowl behind this then continues, as the sign says, for "Another 1.3 hilly miles" before you get to water.

My sister and her crew were quite obviously the first up the hill. I had the camera and wanted to get this shot.

These are the Glen Lakes with the narrows cutting across them. If you wonder why anyone would climb this pile of sand, this view is one of the reasons.

The other reason is the stunning view once you get to the top of the second dune. I would love to tell you that we made it to the water. But I did not. And my camera didn't even make it to the top of the second dune. Apparently my rechargeable batteries don't hold the same charge that they did two years ago. So you will have to go here for the virtual tour. I was so mad.

Once my little cousin and I got up the hill,our fair skin got the best of us and we sat in the shade for close to two hours. Our one bit of shade was inside the bowl of a shallow canyon of sand. It would have been a perfect place to play with the fish eye lens. It was gorgeous and close. I could have played with the panorama setting as well. But we had a good chat about life and everything. Then as things go, our paranoia got the best of us. We hiked up the second dune rise.

And from there we saw the face of the Manitou cliff that everyone sees in stylized representations of the dune area, But that is all we saw. Even though we left early enough to get there before the sand was Lawrence of Arabia hot going up, we weren't that smart or lucky on the way down. We sought shelter again, pulled out the art supplies in my pack and waited for the entourage to return from the sea. It wasn't a long wait.

The trek back down the slopes were horrific. We almost lost one cousin to heat stroke but she muddled through and had my brother drive her car. We almost lost me to heat stroke but I was in the shade most of the time. Once we got to base camp and water life was so much better. We did the Pierce Stocking Drive. Fortunately I have photos from last year's day tripwith last year's boyfriend. Unfortunately these are not the best photos you will ever get of the area. Last year was hazy because of the drastic contrast of air and water temps. This year... the camera had no juice. This is just how stunning the views are.

From the overlook you can both islands on a clear day. On a day like this,not so much. Even this close up panorama didn't do any justice at all to the majesty of the view. On a clear day you can see how the legend was born. On a hot July day like the one we ventured up the dune on it is hard to see what possessed anyone to climb this thing as see the resemblance to the story. Honestly, I wondered for the millionth time what possesses anyone to climb the dunes,,, even for the spectacular view. I suppose it is the age old answer...

Because it is there.

that deep green shadow in the mid ground is where the lake is. Since our youth
it has become green with plant life since the National Park Service forbids
"restoring" the beaches for recreational use. They hope it will revert to its
natural wild condition. In the mean time... swim if you like. 

From another overlook further along the drive you can see one of the Bar Lakes. Two kettle lakes were formed as the glaciers that deposited the dunes receded. I don't know if I believe that this lake, North Bar, has not been completely measured because it is so deep. But I do believe there are big ass fish here.

When we were in high school and community college age, my friends and I would come out here and make the trek in from the unpaved parking lot to the lake to perch atop a dune between the kettle and the big lake. We would play on the Michigan shore, traverse the dune for a splash in water warmer than a bath and then dowse oursleves in the cold waters of lake Michigan. It is a Trolls Shake and Bake Sauna. Yooper's will know what I mean. In this picture you can see the Empire Bluffs in the background. The village of Empire lies on the other side of that point along with the smaller kettle, South Bar Lake. South Bar is completely cut off from Lake Michigan.

Here is the best shot I could manage of North Bar's inlet to Lake Michigan. The greened over dune just to its right is where we had bonfires and I was introduced to the life long love that is a Dr.Pepper obsession. Thank you D. Scaer!

The best way to describe a kettle lake is to have you envision the edge of a kettle. It has a thin lip, a slight slope then goes straight down and into the belly of the pot. And, when you take a running leap off of the dune that is about the experience you have. Needless to say I would have bee a dish known as chicken a la king. I'd heard enough stories about man eating trout that I wasn't about to just "jump in with both feet". And I sure as hell wasn't going to be the first sucker in line. Living in a region ripe with legend and lore, I also didn't want to be the first person to discover our own Champy or Nessy. Especially since, in the belly of the beast, I'd get no credit for the discovery.

When we were kids there was definitely a lot more to see on this drive. It is growing well, erosion seems to be under control and the land is returning to its natural state. Though, I dare point out here that the Indian population indigenous to the region had been tramping through here and wearing down the dune grass since before the white man came and skunked them on trades. The dune buggies that tore the place up in the 40s and 50s were a bit much but there is really only so much a few hundred kids in the summer can do.

If you would like to get to North Bar to see this geologic treat yourself you can take the main road out of Empire up a county road instead of taking 22 to 109. Or, if you are on Pierce Stocking and don't mind a two track, you can take Schauger Hill road. If you do be warned, it is dangerous at high speeds. It;s like driving through Jurassic Park, If it rains a little there are deep wash outs. More than one axel has been severed on this road. But if you have a sense of adventure and a cheap car that will meet ORV standards by all means enjoy Schauger Hill safely. It is my preferred entrance into North Bar's rec area.

Mostly Pierce Stocking Drive is a botanical feast of soft and hard woods, and conifers that make you wonder how any thing can grow out here to any great height. The winds off the Dunes are brutal. M-109 can be closed for days due to drifts of either snow or sand. When the rest of Leelanau County is clear in Winter the passage between the Dune Climb and Glen lake can be dangerous with gusting winds that will move your car off the road if you aren't paying attention. In the 8 years of my paper route out here there was not a Winter day in which both hands were not on the wheel. And very often my stomach was up in my throat.

You have to be  tough to survive these conditions. And no where is that more evident than in the gnarled and exposed roots of the Cottonwood grove. This is what it looks like to hold on for dear life.

Once we left Pierce Stocking we headed into the Village of Empire. South Bar lake for all the sun drenched, ready to pass out people in the car. The water was nice and full of people. The sun was still hot. It was a short cool off before heading back into Traverse City for a scoop of Moomer;s Ice Cream. Tell you what, that mint felt good on my insides. Even having sat in the shade and wearing sunscreen, and taking an umbrella (yes I did.) I was about done in when we got to my sister's place.

Quick nap. Dinner of brats and another nap while the kids colored or slept & I wandered home.

To come down with Strep two days later.

Sister met me at the Doctor to say good bye. She thinks she broke me. Honestly, with the hours I have been putting in it was a matter of time before something felled me. And here we are on Tuesday, 3 days since she headed for home, and I am still sick. Doc says strep. My throat says things that I can not repeat in any language which essentially amounts to "I hate you."

It was good to do this with new people. I mean my sister and I have done this a few times, for school, with neighborhood kids and then with our friends in high school. I went last year with the boyfriend. And everything is different when you do it with kids. It's always fun for them. Sometimes not so much when they realize how big this adventure is going to be. But the coming down always makes up for it. I met a new cousin. Hung out with a cousin I knew. And even if I couldn't make it to the shore and my camera died 6 pictures in  it was still a good time.

I only wish that I could call this a Summer vacation instead of Summer Sick leave. Vacations are always much more fun and, for me, involve far less vomit.

Rent Free Living

Most of the time I can pinpoint what went wrong in a relationship and find the source of whatever angst there is. Finding the source and repairing the damage are two different things. Knowing what it is and that I can't really do anything about it helps to get through the rough patches. But sometimes there is no knowing.

With some people you can go about your business and then have things go to shit without you ever knowing the why. In those cases, people just aren't mature enough to articulate a complaint, a problem or a frustration. They just lash out. And they keep lashing.

I have no idea what started the issue I am currently experiencing. It seems to have some parallels to the last dating relationship. Every time this person sees me there is nothing but snotty derision, snorting and condescending diatribes. I barely even know this person. And I barely see them. But clearly I have done something totally offensive and the tantrum of a 9 year old is what I am getting.

What is clear is that whatever I have done that has bothered the individual is so heinous that the effect is immediate, without thought, without preparation. This is a clear indication that I am currently living rent free in someone's head. I sit there at all times and agitate the little grey cells of the brain matter so that there is never going to be the slightest bit of polite interaction. How do I know?

Because I have had free-loaders in my head a time or two in my life and that is what they are able to do to me. It isn't their fault when it happens it is mine. I am either being a softy and giving in when I do not want to or I am erring on the side of caution and avoiding conflict resolution. It was not the fault of any individual who got close enough to the inner parts of my brain to take of residence. It was mine. Mine for not being honest or vigilant, which ever the case may be. Mine because rather than address an issue head on I pretended things didn't bother me until they did and then they boiled over. It wasn't their fault that they were in my head any more than it is my fault that I am in this person's.

This is the kind of thing that could bother me a lot. But it doesn't. Some things have changed the last few years. One of those things is my level of not caring who likes me. I never cared when I was a kid. I only wanted to know why people picked on me. And it turns out they picked on my because I paid no attention to them. Well, this could very well be one of those instances. I am simply not impressed with anything this person does and this person needs constant validation. The problem is that the method of asking for validation is to talk to people like they don't know anything. I never have responded well to grandiose bragging. And you simply can not assume that I don't know a thing about baking or cooking and talk to me like I wouldn't know fondant from fondue.

Why is my validation necessary? All that could be desired comes from so many other sources that my opinion can scarcely matter. But it does. Since my mental landlord seems so intent on being rude there seems to be no end to this situation in sight. I don't have the time or the inclination to deal with people who can not be self controlled or honest with themselves. Nor do I have the time and inclination to throw gold stars at people who merely show up to life. So the landlord seethes.

And I enjoy every minute of it. The attacks are unwarranted and childish. It serves no purpose. Since the behavior is senseless and pointless I have decided to enjoy the fact that my existence unnerves someone to their marrow. It is similar to the detente that I reached with my mother. And I am just German enough for this to be fun.

To Schadenfreude!

Love Latin

This is not a Cottonwood. No one mentioned that
trees age with wrinkles in the identification part
of the descriptions. The smooth bark is at the top
of the tree, about 6 years of growth. The fissures
are at the base. I will make a new botanical later
when I am less mad at the internet. 

I'm not sure why I love Latin so much. It isn't the conjugating and the pronunciation because that stuff just kills me. What I love about Latin is that it makes things clear from an identification perspective. All of the world's organic bits are ordered and cataloged with Latin names to make sense of how things beget, or are related to, other things. When I started working in the rubber stamp industry, I fell in love with Personal Stamp Exchange's images. They incorporated Latin identification in the portraits of flowers and animals. And I think that is where I fell in love with the aesthetic. They took that aesthetic from Victorian botanical prints and illustrations such as this  that I found on Pintrest. I also found this gem which shares a similar aesthetic in my stamp collection.

I don't really stamp anymore. Not in the last few years because of all the things that we have already covered in the blog. But my collection is calling me. I miss the weight of the wood printing blocks in my hand, the squishy tap of the ink as it lands on the rubber and the smell of hot embossing powder. But I digress. I wanted to talk about the Latin. I am a language geek. I am a glyph geek. I love to see how people communicate and I like to play with what we know.  So it is little wonder to me that I am beginning to incorporate what I loved about my work in the past with the work that I am doing now. Part of me wonders why it is taking so long to incorporate the elements... but that is for another post.

One of my goals is to build a library of stock images that I have taken. It will give me a purpose for the images I collect while I am improving my photography skills. And it will give us something interesting to look at while perusing this little ole blog. That is what I am doing today while the sun is still not cooperating. I want to make botanical cards with the pictures that I am taking. But to do that, I need to know the common names of the things that I am taking pictures of. That should be easy. But it isn't.

For a long time now, I thought that the tree that was outside of the house was an Aspen. That is what the homeowner said. But it isn't. Aspens and Birches have smooth papery bark. The tree that is outside of the house has fissures in it, like a maple. So it can not be an aspen. How do you confuse the two? Turns out is is pretty easy. Thank you Latin ID! But no thanks to everyone who's opinions on the subject differ. It would seem that taxonomy is not the exacting science that we would wish it was.

Aspens, Birches and Cottonwoods are very similar. They all have catkins, rhomboid leaves and belong to the same sub-kingdom of angiosperms (flowering plants). It gets a little messy for me in the phylum and class because no one speaks the language of botany that I grew up with. And no one agrees what the distinctions are. Aspens and birches look a lot alike in the bark department. Silvery white, smooth and papery with similar leaves. But they are of different orders. Aspens are Malpighiales and Birches are Fagales. I don't know why the two should look so much alike if they belong to two different orders. It is weird and makes me question if Rivinus knew what he was talking about since they aren't even in the same Family! But the main difference that I can see is that the Malpighiale needs a male and a female tree to reproduce and the Fagale has both sexes on the same tree.

Aspens and Cottonwoods belong to the order of Malpighiales and the Family of Salicaceae. They are dioecious, meaning that the male and female reproductive organs are on two different trees. The catkins (flower clusters) are red for males and green for females. The cottonwood differs from the Aspen in that it has a shallowly fissured bark like maples and oaks and not the smooth papery bark of the Aspen. The leaves are nearly identical which I think is what throws everyone off. Our park is mixed with smooth barked Aspen leaves and rough barked Aspen leaves. Which if I weren't looking so intently at the birds I wouldn't have noticed the trees that they were living in.

There are a lot of details to consider in deciding a plant's taxonomy. And I am glad it is not my job. It is hard enough trying to figure these things out with a field guide and clear pictures. I am fairly confident I know what this tree is. It leaks nectar which is also another trait of the Malpighiales; they require bees to pollinate.This also explains why there are so many wasps that like to nest on the house. And why does all of this even matter?

Because I love the aesthetic of old botanical prints and I want to make a bunch of digital versions now that I am getting used to how my camera really works. All of this research and agony for art that started with an observation. Ugh.... life was so much simpler when I was distracting myself with fishing and outdoor pursuits with the BF. Now that I am outdoors on my own I do not really want to venture too far afield.

It's Always too Early to Quit~ Norman Peale

Well, let me make it official here at Blogger.... I have been promoted. Sometime in the near future I will be moving to another hotel to be the Executive Housekeeper. I've known for a week month and the first two people I told were the Housemate and the Pen Pal. With this change coming, I am in a mind to be a bit reflective.

On Friendship
If you ever have any doubts as to who your best friend is, or whom you want your best friend to be, take a look at all of your impulses regarding the best news in your life. When the BF and I split a couple of weeks ago the first two people who knew were the Housemate and the Pen Pal. They are the first to know everything. Clearly, the proximity issue with the housemate is an advantage. But lets face it... we wouldn't be housemates if we were not already good friends. They were the first to know about the BF when he was new. They are the first two people that I tell anything to. Then you guys. But this time Facebook got the announcement first.

The person or persons that you instinctively tell anything to, the first people that come to mind when anything happens, or you want to plan an adventure.... those are the people who should know what is going on at all times. They have to be safe, supportive and trustworthy. They can not be dream killers. They can not have an agenda that undermines your efforts. You have to have a good history with them. They should always want what is best for you and they should be the kind of people who are telling you when you are being self harmful and not rush to hand you the tools of your own destruction. Those are the kind of people that you want to be your best friend.

On Resilience
We all have rough patches. We all have areas of our lives that take a nose dive, hopefully one area at a time. Some times work will suck. Some times it will be home. Some times your family will bring you down and other times it will be your life partner. Some times your frustrations will land in the house of your hobbies, some times in finances and some times the car or health. Each area of our lives is prone to catastrophic failure. In most cases it is just the natural progression of having or doing something for a very long time. In other cases it is because you missed a key diagnostic element, signs of wear and tear or because you just were not paying attention to the warning klaxons blaring at you from every direction. And there are times when they rough patch seems to never end.

I've been with the same company for a little over 8 years now. And I have had rough patches here too. Sometimes the rough patch is the end of a cascade failure from other areas that spills, inevitably, into work. And sometimes the rough patch has been because of the elements involved in the job. One rough patch occurred fairly early into the venture. It resulted in the constant barrage of "advice" to quit. The advice came from my brother. This is the same guy, who when he found out that I loved the new job and the new work family decided to throw his support for art into the mix as an emotional monkey wrench. He advocated moving on. Always moving on. And when I told him that I would stay and see things to the end told me what an idiot I was.

Long story short:

I survived the rough patches. I was promoted last year within in this company and now, exactly a year later have another promotion. Why? Resilience. It is nothing to quit a job in which you are unhappy or feel misunderstood. But being unhappy is no reason to quit. Unhappy is a feeling. It is a tempting lure to those ever greener pastures we seek. But those pastures, when we reach them are just as patchy as the place we left. Unhappiness is an illusion as much as happiness is. It is nothing to quit. But it is everything to stay. To stay, to work, in this case literally, through the rough patches is something that defines your character, it is a layer of resilience that you need when life decides to use you for target practice.
I'm not talking about quitting harmful relationships or smoking. I am talking about the way we easily give up when things get difficult. Suddenly, when life throws a few cast off chunks of brick at us, we shrivel up and turn into 5 year old demanding someone fix it for us. When it doesn't get fixed, we pick up our toys and leave. But what good is that? We don't learn to stand for ourselves. We don't learn endurance. We don't learn strength. And we do not learn reason. We don't learn skills.

The only thing we learn is how to run. And that bit only is helpful in an episode of Dr. Who. When was the last time you saw Captain Picard turn tail and hit warp 9? Only when safety is a factor. You leave a job, a sport or a hobby when you are in danger. Ego bruises are not dangerous.

Which brings me to my next bit of musing...

On Relationships
On the whole, I think we give up on those too easily. Our egos get confused as to what is more important at any given moment until we are so twisted around that we think a missed birthday is a reason to dump someone. Or, that a few choice words flung like witch fire will make someone worship us and our egos. Somehow those of us who are rather self sustaining seem to feel that a relationship with a significant other means totalitarianism. Forgiveness gets lost when the ego gets in the way and we quit.

No judgement from me though. I do it too. I've done it in the past and I will do it again. I will do it when I remember something essential about myself that I forgot... I don't belong in one on one relationships. Never have. Probably never will. I am a live alone until a community to which I know I heartily belong too emerges. And then I am only around for as long as we need each other. I am very good of letting healthy things go. I am not good at letting go of damaging people. At least I didn't used to be.

I got dumped. And I am going to make sure that I stay dumped. I could fall into that you have to forgive, you have to leave the door open mentality. But while there was a lot of fun and it showed here and in facebook there were some things that weren't. Some things that we downright emotionally dangerous. It happens. I over estimate my ability to cope with other people's crazy. I under estimate the nature of other people's beasts. But once I get the crap scared out of me there is no letting the defenses down. So there is no choice but to let the one who dumped me stay gone. And not chose a similar path next time. I'm taking heat for being a "quitter" on that one. But I am chosing to be around healthy people. I know... unhealthy people need others and deserve to be supported with love and kindness. Without a doubt I believe that. I just don't think that it has to be me all the time.

And it is the same with leaving my brother out of my life. Far more dangerous than any boyfriend I have ever had, that was a relationship that I spent 39 years trying to get out of and always guilted into remaining on the grounds that we were family. I saw that quote today on Google+. It's always to early to quit. But it is never too early to save yourself.

Family ties and romantic bonds get used to trap us in places with people who can sap our strength. And we are always expected because of those ties to forgive and stay in whatever behavioral cycles we are in. So I wonder.... why doesn't that bond mean we have to be treated better than we are? Why is my brother allowed to undermine me, emotionally twist things to make me dependent on his approval to live, physically intimidate me? If family ties mean that much he should behave better. When he hurts me and I tell him to stop he should stop. That is what he wants of me. But his response has always been "Make me." Taking the "high road" is great. We should always take the high road...

But do we still keep on the high road when we notice the signs have been switched? I say no. When it comes to protecting yourself it is ok to quit. But when you aren't in danger, when it is only an ego that is bruised and there is no real and lasting harm, I say stick with it. Keep at it. Work through that hard time and learn from it. If it makes you stronger, it is always too early to quit.

Found Coral

So after I post this I joined a mushroom identification forum. My post mortem ID was wrong. This is actually a dead Hen of the Woods. NOT a Coral. Every thing else written here is correct.

It's not like TV... not all the time.

The first weekend on my own as a supervisor would, quite logically, have had to fall on a full moon weekend. Granted the fullness of the moon was a day or so away. But as always, the weekends preceding or immediately following the full moon are always interesting. This is an excerpt from a letter I wrote a friend regarding my adventure.

But;  the computer was down for a while, there was a heart attack, a beating after a night of heavy cocaine use, which of course lead to an irate next door customer who's room was compt, a missing Wedding party and four toilets with leaks. And that was just Saturday between 9 and one.

The heart attack was off property. A relative of an employee had a heart attack, so that employee called in for a shift which meant that the GM was a bit frantic trying to find people to replace him.

 

The beating and cocaine use was interesting. Apparently the first clue that we had that anything was going on was an irate guest. It would seem the dude was up all night tapping out his lines loud enough to for her to hear. And when he was done snorting he was yelling. This pattern repeated for hours on end. And of course she said nothing until the morning so she could get herself really worked up and scream her head off. Then a cop showed up with a young woman in tow. Her boyfriend beat the living hell out of her in the parking lot where several passersby saw & reported it. Just before the cops got there he threw her out of the moving car before leaving the parking lot.

 

 We had to put the room out of order. She stunk so badly form her meth habit we had to run the ozonator. She stunk so badly while she was sitting in the lobby giving her statement that several employees wondered why maintenance was painting on a weekend. The lobby resumed its normal smell about an hour after she was gone. Don't do meth kids.

 

Things settled down for about an hour when the GM, the front desk manager and a shuttle driver frantically paced the hotel. Apparently someone booked a bus to take 6 rooms worth of guests, the bride and her entourage to the wedding venue. The dude arrived at his 3:15 booking. Waited a half an hour before coming in to ask where the bloody hell everyone was because he had another drop to make and was now running late. As there were no people draped in frills an furbelows in the lobby, calls were placed. None of the rooms answered. By the time they looked up a contact number to directly dial the bride, the shuttle driver was annoyed enough to leave. I was just coming around the corner near the front desk to hear the part of the frantic discussion that went "How do you lose a whole wedding party?!"

 

No. I did not say Alien abduction. Yes. I thought it. :D Had anyone bothered to ask I could have told them that the entire party had left at 2:30 for the venue, one half hour before the bus arrived. They told me that they were leaving at 2:30 so we could come and clean their rooms for stay over service. It was the only thing no one called me about that day.

 

Toilet leaks were odd.

 

This is not how our hotel functions normally. It really was quite an odd weekend. Calamity strikes maybe once a month, normally does not involve police and usually is a result of age of moving parts. Or a problem with online bookings.... sometimes those get tricky and result in some last minute scrambling. But that is something to do with the ghosts in the machinery than no one has any control over because of satellites and the interwebs. Overall, life in the hotel business is pretty well predictable and routine. Covering shifts in the event of illness and injury is the most juggling that we have to deal with in my department. Seldom does anything so bizarre spread throughout multiple departments. It was a weekend straight out of the Hotel TV series.

 

For those of you too young to remember... I can not explain it other than to say that Connie Selecca and James Brolin became household names.

 

 

Reflecting Today... my cousin Michelle

My Pintrest boards have been filing up with lots of inspiration for the Boho/Shabby Chic lifestyle. I have to say, honestly, if I win the lottery the first thing that I am going to do is commission a Vardo. I don't know how I will use it, but I want it. While all of these images are flooding onto my board, I keep thinking of my cousin Michelle.

I love all of my cousins for a variety of reasons. I think Michelle stands out because she was always different and didn't really care what anyone thought of her choices, her style or opinions. She went with the flow.

Michelle babysat us for a few Summers. We were always barefoot. It was the early 70s so there weren't laws about having to wear your shoes in the car, or stores, or anywhere. And I remember the Summer that I learned the hard way why shoes are important: I split my big toe open on the running board of the Galaxy 500 while we were clamoring to get into the car so Michelle could take us to the beach. She didn't freak. She didn't call me names. She stuck my feet in the sink, hosed me down with Bactine and put a bandaid on it.

Mom, on the other hand, freaked. And forbade me to be barefoot ever because I could get ringworm, or some other thing. And she freaked out on Michelle for not paying attention. So Michelle and I conspired to more antics that would potentially damage either of us... but not permanently. Michelle was one of those people who challenged the rules, not because she was an anarchists at heart. But because some rules are far too limiting and keep us too safe, too comforable and don't challenge us to creativity or strength. When we are coddled overmuch we do not grow in any productive manner. We only grow in fearfulness.

And that is one of the things that I liked best about Michelle. She was fearless. At least she was to me. I was 4, 5, and 6 when she stayed with us for the Summers. She was exotic in her hippie maxi's with the long hair and big sunglasses. The staid housewives in polyester Carol Brady housewife attire looked at her askance. The uptight men in suits seemed in equal parts curious and appalled by her flamboyancy. We just didn't have many hippies in Traverse City. I guess. We certainly didn't have a lot of people who made alternative choices. And by alternative I mean there might have been 4 shades of nail polish that were acceptable back then, peach, pink, rose and red. And given the choice, Michelle always chose something other than those. Or no polish at all. Which unless you were a farm wife that was unacceptable as well. Ooooh...... danger on the rise!

But truly, I don't know much really about her life and choices back then. I just knew everyone worried about her until she was about 35. Much the same way that everyone worried about me. All I needed to know about Michelle was that she was encouraging, sympathetic, convivial and patient in explaining things to a child. Other than my grandparents, Michelle was the only one who ever explained anything.

She explained why she said no on the rare occasion that she did say no. She explained to me why the things that I was afraid of in my dreams needn't be scary. She explained how things were made (foodwise). She explained how nature cycles worked. And she explained adults to me. Nothing is more valuable to a kid than understanding how the adult mind works in the face of an adult episode of kid rage.

She explained that sometimes adults get mad because the things that we do scare them and they are too busy being scared to know that they are scaring us in turn. Sometimes adults get mad because they forget what it is like to be curious kids and they are too busy being addled adults. And yes, she explained what addled meant. Sometimes, she said, adults get angry because they don't have time to stop and pay attention to the things that kids want explained or to share. And sometimes adults get mad because they don't know the answers to our questions, because it makes them feel dumb. Most of which are silly reasons to get mad at a kid. But with an explanation life was a little easier to understand and navigate.

photo from C'est si Bon! La Joie de Vivre 

Michelle also had interesting friends. She had interesting ideas. And she liked to get out and do stuff instead of stay in the house. As I've been absorbing all the boho-design goodness and thinking about Michelle, I've come to realize that the friends that I have share one quality with her that I treasure the most. They are safe, or make me feel safe by fostering an understanding of the things that I don't know or reminding me of the things that I have forgotten. Not all of my friends share the gypsy aesthetic. But they foster understanding. In some sense all of my friends are teachers; though I doubt all of them would see themselves that way. In a safe environment I feel like I can do anything. I do not see my limitations as a stop sign. I see them as an inspiration to sneak around a roadblock or a fence.

Michelle was sneaky like that. Sometimes evading the rules, bending them and breaking them got her into trouble enough to warrant worry. But sometimes, more often than not I suspect, evading the rules gave her greater strength of character and a whole lot of perseverance. Rebellion is not without its problems. Rebellion is also not the problem that authority would make it out to be. Certainly it makes the figures of authority uneasy, fearing they will be toppled by a pitchfork wielding mob. But for the most part rebellion is how we learn who we are as individuals. Michelle took a lot of chances. She made a lot of bolder choices. Some of them worked. Some of them did not. As a result of the ones that did not work, her life was a bit harder than it had to be.

Similarly, as a result of some of my choices, my life is more difficult than it need be at the moment. But I am stronger than otherwise I would be. I have a mental and emotional strength that I had not thought possible. I might have a few edges that were not there before. But I am stronger. I know that nothing bad that happens is the end of my world. I might not like what happens. But I know that I can survive it. And.... getting back to those friends, I know who will be with me through everything in spirit if not in person.

Perhaps that is the best thing that Michelle taught me. How to really know who your friends are. They are the ones who caution you but encourage you to make your own choices; who cry with you when you make a wrong choice and will hand you the shovel so you can dig yourself out instead of playing keep away with it. It's the playing keep away that annoys me. It is not a friendly thing to do to dangle the tools of self help in front of someone. Real friends also do not defile your personal limits. If you are deathly afraid of spiders they will not dangle one in front of you. If you despise practical jokes they will not play one on you. Friends understand that your fears and limits trump their joy. Really, what kind of friend enjoys humor at your expense (except when of course it is a natural consequence of reality)? Friends don't take pleasure in your suffering. And those who derive the greatest joy from your discomfort can not be called friends.

Somehow, slowly through the years, I have regressed into the people pleasing mode and forgotten a large part of who I am. As I indulge in these Pintrest boards, a little voice says, "You might like this, but others will think it weird." In greater leaps than I imagined possible, the boldness returns, I see Michelle's smile and recall the fabulous patterns of her maxi dressed dappled in the shade of our large maples and I remember more and more what she inspired in me. Coupled with my Gramma's assertion that we are all made differently to make the world more interesting, I grow increasingly confident in my own direction. And I grow increasingly indifferent to other people's opinions.

I am told that there are many colorful characters in my cousin's branch of the family tree. I have found a few colorful characters in the Gerbstadt branch. The part of the tree from which I stem is rather dull by comparison with only Gramma and Michelle there. It would appear I am to be another colorful leaf in the tree.

Another Chicken and Egg Problem

Have seen a bunch of articles on feminism and why it hurts men lately. I have also seen a spate of memes in which it is suggested that if girls would act like ladies men would be gentlemen. My favorite image is this one which was attached to some Dr. Laura pages. On the surface this is a little kitschy, a bit clever and thought provoking. The thought that it provoked in me was this:

 

What comes first the gentleman or the lady? Is a woman a lady because a man is a gent? Is a man a gent because a woman is a lady? It really is a bit of a chicken and an egg question. But then something else was provoked.... anger.

 

 

How very 50s. How very Stepford. How very typical to make a Woman's behavior the crux of the issue. At least that seems to be what this picture and its text are saying. Why not the reverse? Why not wonder if men would be willing to be gentlemen, more women would feel challenged to be ladies?

 

Feminism exits as a backlash against centuries of oppression and repression. You can be a lady and have an education. Unless you live in most Middle Eastern countries today, Asian and Pacific Rim countries a few decades back, Victorian England and Industrial America. South America and Africa have not been forgotten. I know little about my southern neighbors and all I know about Africa is too grizzly to think about beyond Oprah opening a few schools so girls can have an education.

 

You an be a lady and cast a vote based on either an educated or uneducated opinion, the same as every man. It is foolish to think that because a man could vote, he was smarter. There are idiots of each gender and those idiots have valid voter IDs. Until the early 1900s, the only idiots who were allowed to vote were men.

 

You can be lady-like and study religion. Throughout most of recorded history after Roman conquest the only religious authority given  woman was what she could get away with and not be called a witch.... until a man got mad. Hildegard of Bingen, Joan of Arc to name but two.

 

You can be a lady and be a scientist.



You can be a lady and be in business for yourself or in the upper echelons of major corporations.
You can be a lady and a lawyer, barrister for our friends in the UK.
You can be a lady and be anything you want to be....
... if a man gives you permission.

And that is oppression. The idea that a man can do what he will because he is a man is idiotic, as we have proven over an over again. The contribution of women in the economic sector during WWII is evidence of that. Was every woman who entered the workforce perfect at it? No. But then not every man who worked was perfect at his job either. Hence the Quality Control departments. Was every woman who worked through the war cut out to keep it up when her man got home? Of course not. But there are a lot of men who seem to think they don't have to perform to the same standards as their counterparts. And they kept their jobs. To this day many a man is rewarded for slacking off, under producing and is allowed to keep his job because... well it's his. Not saying chicks don't get away with it. I experience that first hand.

The problem isn't men versus women.
The problem is a systematic rewarding of mediocrity in both genders. The problem is that we give lip service to feminism when we give it service at all. Girls can do whatever they want, whatever they imagine... just like boys. But when the kids of either gender won't step up to the work load either in education or work, and cry until they are rewarded for the weakest of contributions instead of being encouraged first to dig in and find the wherewithal to compete, or find the field in which their ability and interests match to inspire participation and competition, the whole fabric of society is weakened.

Your top level producers, unless motivated by greed or intense gain, cease to strive as hard. If everyone is rewarded equally and does not produce equally there is no incentive. Communism failed in Cold War Russian on this leg of its principles. Mediocre producers who struggle to keep up either due to disinterest or poorly matched skills set to job stop producing all together. Teachers see this in classrooms. I see this in the work force. Instead of getting rid of the weakest link, we dumb down entire production systems to appease the poorer producers.

Why be a gentlemen if you don't have to?
Why be a lady if you don't have to?

If you can be a rowdy jackass, a douche frat boy, a lazy bit of white trash, as ghetto as ghetto gets and still get everything you want, why would you do more? It is the rarest of human beings for which self improvement is a motivating factor. Very few people look at what they have done in one day and said, "I will strive until I can do more everyday." For those who's motivation is to compete with themselves it matters very little what reward the rest of the world gets. And you can imagine how many of those people there are out there.

Competition for resource is the largest motivating factor in humanity with rare exception. So when the standards are lowered the entire system slowly grinds to a halt.


From my perspective I ask a few questions:

• Why should I invest in over priced make-up and expensive and mildly affective hair products if men aren't going to do the same?
• Why should I invest in it at all? I am pretty enough without the extra garbage. Why isn't that good enough?
• Why should I wear high heels, and impractical clothing to do my job when a man is allowed to be as comfortable as safety allows to do his?
• Why must I wear a dress around the house when a. I find them uncomfortable most of the time, b. they get in the way, c. they lack a certain practicality for most household chores if a man is going to wear jeans & tees all the time?
• Why must I be demure and polite and ask for something four billion times before I get it but a man can make a single demand before he starts swinging his fists at my face?
• Why must I keep my opinions to myself when a man is allowed to spout off whatever he feels?
• Why must I be lady-like when a man is pig-like?
• Why must I hide my assets (physical attributes) while a man is allowed to strut his?
• Why is my property communal while a man may horde what he likes?

I ask those questions in part from past experience, in part from a survey regarding ones' status as privileges and found myself lacking. Severely lacking. And in part because of the classic arguments between respect and repression. I have lived my entire life, all 44 years of it, listening to men claim supremacy by virtue of gender. One would think that I live in the deep, deep, deep south. But I don't. When the gender card lacks sufficient trump, the religion card is played.

I rather resent that. Christian men, read your Bible more closely. Better yet, study your apologetics more closely. It was only a select group of gossiping women in Corinth who were told to keep their trap shut. Paul didn't mean the entire gender. If he did then the letter he wrote to Timothy explaining what the value and character of a deaconis (Greek for priestess) would not exist. After all, if a woman is not allowed to speak in a church, she can't very well lead a mass. And for all of you men who want a Proverbs 31 woman to keep your house, read exactly what proverbs 31 says. It commands a woman to work in and out of the home, to run a business, to educate the children.... TO LEAD while all you guys have to do is sit on your haunches while your girth spreads.

The Bible entreats us all to treat each other with respect. Husbands are to value their wives in the same way we read how women are to worship their husbands in a Christian ceremony. It's just that we almost never hear that part. Read all of the Love Chapter.... the whole thing.

The problem with every argument for male supremacy and against feminine equality is the tendency for males to abuse the power that they claim and the false belief that a wife is property. A demure lady makes a good punching bag. A woman with the spitfire to fight back makes a guy think twice about hitting her. a demure lady is easily cowed into thinking that she is deficient in every way that counts and is easily emotionally abused. Emotional abuse leaves no scares on her, but in many cases puts a bullet in him. She is the one who gets into legal trouble. But no one does anything about the man in those situations until he is a corpse. A demure lady may be enticed into giving up her assets because the world is a big scary place. That kind of financial abuse leaves no physical marks until ruin throws them out onto the streets (worst case scenario of course). Financial abuse lets a man have as much freedom as can be debauched when he lacks solid moral character while a woman is left defenseless at home. You might think that I speak of Victorian era issues. But it still happens today. The newest gadgets come into the home to entertain the man while the basics leave a woman without a phone for emergencies, trash piling up in the house because the garbage service was cut off or with no utilities until he decides he is cold enough to pay the heat. I lived it. Don't tell me it doesn't still happen.

Beyond that, men who act like asshats make it 1000 times more difficult for those who don't. I have a wonderful new boyfriend who wants to hold open doors, who wants to open the car door for me. I'd love to wear dresses more often. And when we get to live together perhaps I will. He is the kind of guy who likes to get things done and will help do them. So I won't be in jeans doing all the work all the time. But I grew up with two gentlemen who were mocked for being gentlemen. They were mocked by asshats. And I see where men of a lesser constitution would cease to be gentlemen under that kind of bullying. I've lived with and dated men who could not be bothered to be helpful, men who liked to get in the way and demean other people's accomplishments. The effect on my life is that I hardly am able to imagine my boyfriend is for real. The effect on society is that there are fewer men like my boyfriend.

And that is your biggest problem. It isn't girls who wear what they like, it isn't the girls who throw themselves at men from the TV screen or in person. The biggest problem that men have are the asshats who dominate everyone else. Men who run the music industry tell men what they want; tell women what men want and collect the money from all those dumb enough to believe that the scantily clad, boozy, stupid hot messes are what they are supposed to want. Men who tell other men that being a gentlemen makes them a sap are the problem. Men who tell women that they can do whatever demeaning things they want to do and then use fists, cash, status to back up that statement are the problem. The men who mock the British Gents slowly taking over the hearts and minds of American women are the problem.

Men who mock kindness, generosity, peace are the problem.
Men who mock the quiet, strong silent types are the problem.
Men who solve problems with theirs fists, a gun or any other weapon are the problem.
Men who mock hard work, dedication and devotion as weakness or stupidity are the problem.
Men who can not stand up for what they know is right are the problem.

In a world where these men are in control it is little wonder that the tools most used to survive by women and weak spirited men are capitulation and submission. The will to survive will always trump logic and reason until we are all a little more enlightened.

For myself, I have no doubts that I have a boyfriend of strong character who will value me as he was meant to, who will care about me as a person and not as a possession. It is still a strange enough experience for me to find it a miracle. I have a boyfriend of estimable merit whose behavior as a gentleman is not dependent upon my behavior as a lady. That said, the more he treats me like a human being, a precious part of his life an himself, the less defensive I am and the more willing I am to go beyond myself for him.

That is the way it should be.