When the river flows into the sea, it becomes part of something greater and the sea welcomes its arrival for this is the reunion, where the river sacrifices itself to become part of the infinite. The river disappears into the depths where there is no certainty of a destination, only a journey. As parents, we are connected by our experience of parenting with all its joy, all its mystery, and the times we are fearful and uncertain. Our children are their own beings, with souls that are being colored and carved by their experiences. We are their shepherds; we are their beacons, but they are not us and they do not belong to us. We are charged with being witnesses of their journeys to the sea where they will become part of the greater consciousness of the world soul. However, it seems our teenage children are trying to tell us something about how we are doing in our role as shepherds. The leading cause of death for teenagers and young adults between the ages of fifteen and twenty five is suicide, which should be shaking us awake from any illusions we might wish to maintain.
This age range represents a pivotal time heavy with cultural expectations for maturity juxtaposed against the realities of each individual teenager’s emotional capacity. Teenagers try to match what the culture expects often at the cost of their self-esteem and sense of self-acceptance. Many teens struggle with body image, sexuality, economic disadvantages and learning problems, depression and severe anxiety, and they often cannot imagine talking about such problems in a way that will provide relief or resolution. The ones who cannot withstand the pressure they feel from peers, parents, the schools and the culture often drop out of school, use substances to cope with emotional pain, join gangs or, as we have all witnessed lately both here in Truckee and all over the United States, more and more teens are choosing suicide as the only way of ending their struggle.
During this time in their lives, teenagers balance expectations of the culture, schools, parents and themselves to choose the paths they will take as adults. American boys are required by law to register for the draft when they reach the age of eighteen. With a war going on, registering for the draft and contemplating possible death in a country thousands of miles away has the potential to be terrifying, yet our culture does not address all the implications of this requirement, selecting only to valorize voluntary military service as a means of achieving success or increasing self-esteem or guaranteeing a college education, if a soldier makes it home again. Many arrive home in pieces, their tender psyches reeling to return to the place left far behind on the threshold between childhood and adulthood.
For teens who leave the school system or who drift after graduating high school with no clear plan for the future and few resources, the world can seem overwhelming and inhospitable. There is little time to dream, imagine and to retreat, perhaps cocooning into a chrysalis for a time to let the lessons sink in. There is only the harshness and rigidity of a frenzied pace to know more, be more and do more. Despite the rumbling in their stomachs, their aching heads and emptied hearts, they press on because they are on this speeding conveyor belt with no “off” button within reach. Teenagers in our culture are a silenced population. They are given no clear role or voice during their most critical developmental years in shaping the world they will inherit; we offer them no part in political decisions that will impact them as adults and we do not give them enough voice in forums where decisions that will impact their lives are made.
The fact that bullying has become an epidemic is not surprising considering that children and teenagers embody and express what adults do not. We are a nation of fearful consumers and ravenous competitors, our eyes turned outward for food that never satisfies the deepening starvation for connection with each other. Our children receive the anxiety like radio waves, and they respond to the frenzied pace with the language available to them, usually behavior. We diagnose it rather than paying attention to what it says about the state of our culture. We identify them as the patients rather than examine ourselves and the world we have brought them into.
According to Angela Diaz, M.D. MPD, director of the Mt. Sinai Adolescent health Center in New York, the population of teenagers between sixteen and twenty four is the most underserved in the United States in terms of health care, preventative care, mental health services and dental care. They are legally adults at the age of eighteen, but unless they are in college, the likelihood is that they will get jobs that pay little more than minimum wage which is barely enough to live on and which do not offer medical benefits to employees. The mental health system has coined the term “transitional age youth” to describe the population of young adults who are suspended in the nether-region between college and adequate earning capability. Minimum wage jobs are inadequate in meeting basic needs let alone health care needs. These are just a few of the barriers that millions of teenagers who will inherit our country are up against.
Our educational system has put its resources and focus on preparing students to pass aptitude tests and less on developing imagination, creativity and the ability to navigate the complex problems of living in this competitive culture beyond high school. Most teenagers I come into contact with express significant fear about what happens when they turn eighteen, especially when they are average or below average in terms of academic performance and uncertain as to whether they want to go to college.
For teens with emotional problems stemming from lack of access to stable caregiving, economic stability and medical care and who have experienced trauma as children, the legal system becomes the de facto parent. Children who break school rules or the law due to violent behavior, drug use or truancy are placed either in foster care or juvenile detention. Many cycle through these systems over and over again until they reach the age of eighteen. Without experiences of loving, caring stable homes, or parents with whom they can speak honestly, these children are released from the juvenile justice system at the age of eighteen and are expected to go out in the world and live according to the laws and expectations of a culture they are unfamiliar with. Some will make it into college or vocational programs against all odds, but most do not. These are the young adults this society fails to recognize and offer resources for healthcare, social support and life skills education in a supportive, safe and nurturing environment.
Although none of this information may apply to you and your teenager(s), the possibilities for any teenager to fall through the cracks and land in the juvenile justice system, homeless or drug involved are statistically higher than they ever have been. That is why it is critically important for parents and teenagers to learn how to talk about the fears and challenges of growing up and out of the family and into the world. Statistically, male teenagers complete suicide more than female teenagers and the reasons for suicide remain the same as they were ten years ago. The CDC cites depression as the main cause and the leading mental health websites (www.nami.org, www.nimh.nih.gov) talk about treatment but do not go into the root causes for depression of which there are many. Because suicide is the leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 24, it is important for anyone who comes into contact with teenagers to learn the signs of depression and then to be able to effectively gather the people and resources together to be the shepherds and witnesses they need us to be.
The leading root cause for depression in teens has been called “failure to connect,” by the psychological community. Statistics evaluating depression among teens show that if there is just one person, not necessarily a parent, but a coach or a teacher or an extended family member, with whom they can speak openly and feel safe and who can offer them support and unconditional love and care, it often makes the difference between rebounding from depression or not. Other causes for depression include lack of acceptance by peers which includes bullying and violence, failure in school, substance addiction in the family, and sexual abuse.
Because no community is exempt from this epidemic, with smaller communities often being more at risk due to fewer resources or lack of awareness, For Goodness Sake in Truckee is collaborating with me and with teenage representatives from the community to develop a group forum where their voices will predominate. They will be the visionaries and creators of a forum where they can discuss and develop their ideas about where change is needed and how to effectuate it. This proposed group for teens and young adults be created by them and will be guided by their voices. In this forum, our adult voices will not prevail, but by invitation, we will be a witnesses and servants to the imaginations and creativity of our children.
For more information, please email either Andy Hill at For Goodness Sake at Andy@goodnesssake.org, or myself at kcpier@sierraagape.org.
Or call For Goodness Sake at 550-8981
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Dog Girl- A Story About Bullying
Before I entered the main hallway of Ellison Middle School in 1971 as an eighth grader, I thought my shag haircut was cool. I wanted to look like Shirley Jones, the mom in The Partridge Family television show. And I wasn't terribly concerned about the speed at which my breasts were developing; I hurried them along as quickly as I could with the aid of training bras. My mother asked me what I was training when I ask her for one. Mostly, they served as containers for the Kleenex I filled them with. I loved my mother and spent a lot of time with her, not because she made me, I wanted to. She'd spent much of my childhood very ill and in the hospital, so I wanted to redeem every second that was lost. I smoked cigarettes, but only the ones with pretty decorations on the filters. They were called "Eve" and I preferred menthol. I thought smoking automatically made me a part of the cool kids so when I lit up in the girl's bathroom with all the other girls, I expected acceptance.
I did not look like any of the other girls, but I didn't think it would invite rage and contempt. My hair wasn't long and parted in the middle, I didn't wear dungarees that dragged on the ground, I wasn't ready for make-out parties and drinking Boone's Farm Apple Wine until I puked on the front lawn.
The first time I hit the concrete floor because a locker door was opened suddenly in my face was surely an accident. The kid said he was sorry, even though he was laughing. And the first time I walked onto the school bus and the entire bus began to bark and howl like dogs, I looked behind me to see if a dog followed me onto the bus. And then I realized they were barking at me. A foot shot out into the aisle and I fell, spilling the contents of the pretty new purse I got from the five and dime onto the floor. As I gathered my books and my makeup and the piece of toast I was saving for a morning snack, I felt the wet splatter of someone's spit on the back of my neck.
"SIDDOWN!!" the driver yelled at me. "We can't move until you siddown!" I tried to find an empty seat, blinded by tears and finally located one next to a fat girl. I was so skinny that I fit next to her even though she almost took up the whole seat. I held onto the side of the seat for dear life so I wouldn't slide off.
Of course I cried. I thought crying would let the kids know that they were causing me great pain and humiliation and that they would then stop. But it seemed they enjoyed watching me fall apart so they turned up the volume on the barking and howling. Each time I entered a classroom or got on the bus, the herd of bullies mobilized and descended on me to tear me to pieces. "Ugly dog! You SUCK!" shouted the boys. "Fucking ugly flat-chested DOG! You're so ugly you should kill yourself so we wouldn't have to look at you!!!"
How I wished I could die. I thought of how sorry they would be if I died. I imagined them all standing around my coffin as it was lowered into the ground. And sometimes, in the tiny moments I felt angry instead of sad and desperately lonely, I imagined all of them lined up in a row as I walked down the line slapping each of their faces as hard as I could while they were made to stand there and take their due punishment.
I went to the school counselor's office to tell her what was happening. None of the teachers stopped it other than to say something like, "Settle down and let's open our textbooks to page 197." The counselor gave me very helpful advice which was to ignore them. "Remember...sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." If only I could have understood how not to be hurt not just by mass rejection, but by being someone so deserving of hatred. How did I become so easy to hate? Was it my hair? My pants? The shape of my nose or the fact that I loved my mommy and it wasn't cool to love your parents back in 1971?
I began to throw up in the morning. My mother rose up against the principal and the school truant officers who began to call and come to the house when I couldn't bear to go to school anymore, threatening to put me in juvenile detention. "She's not going to your school because it's a horrible place and I intend to sue you for every cent you've got," she would shout from behind the kitchen door. She was weakened by years of illness, depressed over being left for a younger woman by my father, and addicted to narcotics. She was still strong enough to be my most ardent and fierce protector, but didn't always handle these kinds of situations with the acuity and effectiveness she once would have. But she was all I had. She sheltered me and told me we would just sneak away to a place where I would never have to face those kids again.
I knew we couldn't just sneak away. And I knew they would be back the next day if I didn't go to school. So I just threw up and then got on the bus hoping I wouldn't throw up again before we got there. So I stopped eating breakfast. And I stopped eating lunch in the cafeteria, because the whole cafeteria barked at me, so I found a rarely used bathroom next to the gym in which to eat my lunch and smoke one of the pretty cigarettes I brought in my skirt pocket.
One day, I was bracing myself to enter math class and endure yet another round of barking and being told how pathetic my breasts were and how my face was so ugly that it made a dog's asshole look beautiful and one of the worst offenders came out to the hall where he saw me hyperventilating and leaning against the wall.
"We just wanted you to know how sorry we are for the way we have been treating you," he said smiling. "And we have a gift for you." Silly me. I thought maybe they were going to give me some flowers or maybe a box of candy. He took me by the hand and I blushed as if I'd just been asked to dance. And we entered the classroom where I was presented with a large box of Milk Bone dog biscuits. I looked desperately to the teacher to protect me as the eruption of barking became deafening, but he too was laughing, unable to contain himself. I wasn't one of his favorites because I was always behind, confused, dazed and drowning, afraid to ask for help.
So I disappeared into a dark place inside myself. We did move away and I never bothered to enroll in ninth grade. I crossed the street whenever I saw teenagers and carried that fear with me into adulthood. I returned to school halfway through my tenth grade year but dropped out again at the age of sixteen, unable to tolerate my chronic anxiety. By that time, I had developed a strong phobia of schools in general and was so far behind that I felt I would never catch up anyway.
My mother died two weeks after I turned sixteen and I found myself on my own shortly thereafter. My father chose his girlfriend when she gave him the ultimatum, "It's her or me." If not for a few people only a few years older than me who helped me grow comfortable in my battered and thin skin, I might never have survived adolescence. And when I learned to see beauty in my uniqueness as I once had before Ellison Middle School, I decided I could return to school and make up for what was lost. I discovered that my peers celebrated differences much more than they did in middle school and high school. Gradually, I was able to enter a classroom without acute nausea and a racing heart.
When my children went to school and were subjected to bullying and teasing, it was difficult for me not to react with all the pain and rage I once felt as a newly minted adolescent. But I did not half-consciously say stupid shit like, "Oh just ignore them...remember...sticks and stones..." I went to the school and sat down with my children and the principals and teacher and the bullies if I could manage to get them in the same room with me, and with the warrior bursting in my heart, I refused to tolerate it. Not for one second.
When adults create a hostile work environment by harassing other employees, it is grounds for termination. It should be no different in a school, where learning was once considered almost a sacred privilege. Adults in this culture do not do the best job of modeling celebration of diversity particularly in the corporate, military and educational systems. The archetype of Destroyer is invading our most fragile population and we cannot afford to be passive in bringing the Destroyer to peace. This is the responsibility of every child, every parent and every teacher who sees predatory behavior being perpetrated on another child.
I did not look like any of the other girls, but I didn't think it would invite rage and contempt. My hair wasn't long and parted in the middle, I didn't wear dungarees that dragged on the ground, I wasn't ready for make-out parties and drinking Boone's Farm Apple Wine until I puked on the front lawn.
The first time I hit the concrete floor because a locker door was opened suddenly in my face was surely an accident. The kid said he was sorry, even though he was laughing. And the first time I walked onto the school bus and the entire bus began to bark and howl like dogs, I looked behind me to see if a dog followed me onto the bus. And then I realized they were barking at me. A foot shot out into the aisle and I fell, spilling the contents of the pretty new purse I got from the five and dime onto the floor. As I gathered my books and my makeup and the piece of toast I was saving for a morning snack, I felt the wet splatter of someone's spit on the back of my neck.
"SIDDOWN!!" the driver yelled at me. "We can't move until you siddown!" I tried to find an empty seat, blinded by tears and finally located one next to a fat girl. I was so skinny that I fit next to her even though she almost took up the whole seat. I held onto the side of the seat for dear life so I wouldn't slide off.
Of course I cried. I thought crying would let the kids know that they were causing me great pain and humiliation and that they would then stop. But it seemed they enjoyed watching me fall apart so they turned up the volume on the barking and howling. Each time I entered a classroom or got on the bus, the herd of bullies mobilized and descended on me to tear me to pieces. "Ugly dog! You SUCK!" shouted the boys. "Fucking ugly flat-chested DOG! You're so ugly you should kill yourself so we wouldn't have to look at you!!!"
How I wished I could die. I thought of how sorry they would be if I died. I imagined them all standing around my coffin as it was lowered into the ground. And sometimes, in the tiny moments I felt angry instead of sad and desperately lonely, I imagined all of them lined up in a row as I walked down the line slapping each of their faces as hard as I could while they were made to stand there and take their due punishment.
I went to the school counselor's office to tell her what was happening. None of the teachers stopped it other than to say something like, "Settle down and let's open our textbooks to page 197." The counselor gave me very helpful advice which was to ignore them. "Remember...sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me." If only I could have understood how not to be hurt not just by mass rejection, but by being someone so deserving of hatred. How did I become so easy to hate? Was it my hair? My pants? The shape of my nose or the fact that I loved my mommy and it wasn't cool to love your parents back in 1971?
I began to throw up in the morning. My mother rose up against the principal and the school truant officers who began to call and come to the house when I couldn't bear to go to school anymore, threatening to put me in juvenile detention. "She's not going to your school because it's a horrible place and I intend to sue you for every cent you've got," she would shout from behind the kitchen door. She was weakened by years of illness, depressed over being left for a younger woman by my father, and addicted to narcotics. She was still strong enough to be my most ardent and fierce protector, but didn't always handle these kinds of situations with the acuity and effectiveness she once would have. But she was all I had. She sheltered me and told me we would just sneak away to a place where I would never have to face those kids again.
I knew we couldn't just sneak away. And I knew they would be back the next day if I didn't go to school. So I just threw up and then got on the bus hoping I wouldn't throw up again before we got there. So I stopped eating breakfast. And I stopped eating lunch in the cafeteria, because the whole cafeteria barked at me, so I found a rarely used bathroom next to the gym in which to eat my lunch and smoke one of the pretty cigarettes I brought in my skirt pocket.
One day, I was bracing myself to enter math class and endure yet another round of barking and being told how pathetic my breasts were and how my face was so ugly that it made a dog's asshole look beautiful and one of the worst offenders came out to the hall where he saw me hyperventilating and leaning against the wall.
"We just wanted you to know how sorry we are for the way we have been treating you," he said smiling. "And we have a gift for you." Silly me. I thought maybe they were going to give me some flowers or maybe a box of candy. He took me by the hand and I blushed as if I'd just been asked to dance. And we entered the classroom where I was presented with a large box of Milk Bone dog biscuits. I looked desperately to the teacher to protect me as the eruption of barking became deafening, but he too was laughing, unable to contain himself. I wasn't one of his favorites because I was always behind, confused, dazed and drowning, afraid to ask for help.
So I disappeared into a dark place inside myself. We did move away and I never bothered to enroll in ninth grade. I crossed the street whenever I saw teenagers and carried that fear with me into adulthood. I returned to school halfway through my tenth grade year but dropped out again at the age of sixteen, unable to tolerate my chronic anxiety. By that time, I had developed a strong phobia of schools in general and was so far behind that I felt I would never catch up anyway.
My mother died two weeks after I turned sixteen and I found myself on my own shortly thereafter. My father chose his girlfriend when she gave him the ultimatum, "It's her or me." If not for a few people only a few years older than me who helped me grow comfortable in my battered and thin skin, I might never have survived adolescence. And when I learned to see beauty in my uniqueness as I once had before Ellison Middle School, I decided I could return to school and make up for what was lost. I discovered that my peers celebrated differences much more than they did in middle school and high school. Gradually, I was able to enter a classroom without acute nausea and a racing heart.
When my children went to school and were subjected to bullying and teasing, it was difficult for me not to react with all the pain and rage I once felt as a newly minted adolescent. But I did not half-consciously say stupid shit like, "Oh just ignore them...remember...sticks and stones..." I went to the school and sat down with my children and the principals and teacher and the bullies if I could manage to get them in the same room with me, and with the warrior bursting in my heart, I refused to tolerate it. Not for one second.
When adults create a hostile work environment by harassing other employees, it is grounds for termination. It should be no different in a school, where learning was once considered almost a sacred privilege. Adults in this culture do not do the best job of modeling celebration of diversity particularly in the corporate, military and educational systems. The archetype of Destroyer is invading our most fragile population and we cannot afford to be passive in bringing the Destroyer to peace. This is the responsibility of every child, every parent and every teacher who sees predatory behavior being perpetrated on another child.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
In lieu of truth... we choose to hide. In Memory of Austin Roberts
A local Truckee boy just barely into his seventeenth year throws himself off a bridge in a location where he is unlikely to survive. He knows he will hit pavement because he has probably thought about where and how so many times. Maybe he imagined it over and over again because he wanted to be certain there was no chance he would live. Those of us who have had suicidal thoughts as our occasional or steady companion in the darkest of dark times consider the finer details of carrying it out. "Will I live if I do it this way? And if so, who will bear the burden of my survival? I may be a quadriplegic who must be looked after twenty four hours a day if I live. No...that will never do. I must be sure I die."
I attended his memorial service today which was called a "celebration of life." A celebration of life seems far more appropriate when the deceased is 95 years old and life has been lived to its fullest potential, or when a disease has chosen the time of death. When death by suicide remains the only choice for ending suffering, a celebration of life seems a denial of what was true. This young man screamed for a message to be heard. Did anyone hear him? What was it that haunted him day and night? What made life so brutally painful that he chose to jump off a bridge in broad daylight on a Friday just a few days after his seventeenth birthday? And why is it that the topic of conversation at his memorial service was his preference for pasta without any sauce and the kind of socks he wore? When a teenager dies by a choice he makes after years of suffering shouldn't we be holding his suffering and at least making it a primary topic of discussion at his memorial service? Should we not embrace and tenderly hold his suffering as part of our own? Shouldn't we be talking about the bullying in schools that we close our eyes to and simply write off as 'stuff teenagers do'? What about the pressure he might have felt from our culture's relentless infatuation with academic test scores and grades? Shouldn't we be asking his friends what really happened and did we do them a terrible disservice by asking them to keep it light at his memorial service?
From where I stood, it seemed his church wanted memorial attendees to remember his smile and his wit and his love for video games. Maybe his parents preferred to keep the rest of the story private and I honor their need for privacy in this time of great pain. Yet his story and his pain is also ours. While I want to remember this young man for his wit and his quirks and his choice of socks, I also wanted us to talk about the wounding caused by cruelty perpetrated by teenagers toward their peers, and the real harm it causes, especially to those more fragile than others. There was no mention of the darkness and struggle he must have awakened to each day, no mention of the tension he held in his heart that found no relief, even in the love his family had for him. I wonder what this young man really wanted us to know about what it was like to live in his skin. Maybe he couldn't bear the thought of growing up and being out in this world where the competition leaves little room for those who cannot toe the line when the clock turns eighteen. And there is no medicine to change who one really is, gay or straight, addict or straight edge, black, white and every color in between, Christian, atheist, Jew or Muslim. And when there is no soft place to be who one is, no embracing of difference and diversity, the softest place to land is death. Even when the landing is solid pavement.
I attended his memorial service today which was called a "celebration of life." A celebration of life seems far more appropriate when the deceased is 95 years old and life has been lived to its fullest potential, or when a disease has chosen the time of death. When death by suicide remains the only choice for ending suffering, a celebration of life seems a denial of what was true. This young man screamed for a message to be heard. Did anyone hear him? What was it that haunted him day and night? What made life so brutally painful that he chose to jump off a bridge in broad daylight on a Friday just a few days after his seventeenth birthday? And why is it that the topic of conversation at his memorial service was his preference for pasta without any sauce and the kind of socks he wore? When a teenager dies by a choice he makes after years of suffering shouldn't we be holding his suffering and at least making it a primary topic of discussion at his memorial service? Should we not embrace and tenderly hold his suffering as part of our own? Shouldn't we be talking about the bullying in schools that we close our eyes to and simply write off as 'stuff teenagers do'? What about the pressure he might have felt from our culture's relentless infatuation with academic test scores and grades? Shouldn't we be asking his friends what really happened and did we do them a terrible disservice by asking them to keep it light at his memorial service?
From where I stood, it seemed his church wanted memorial attendees to remember his smile and his wit and his love for video games. Maybe his parents preferred to keep the rest of the story private and I honor their need for privacy in this time of great pain. Yet his story and his pain is also ours. While I want to remember this young man for his wit and his quirks and his choice of socks, I also wanted us to talk about the wounding caused by cruelty perpetrated by teenagers toward their peers, and the real harm it causes, especially to those more fragile than others. There was no mention of the darkness and struggle he must have awakened to each day, no mention of the tension he held in his heart that found no relief, even in the love his family had for him. I wonder what this young man really wanted us to know about what it was like to live in his skin. Maybe he couldn't bear the thought of growing up and being out in this world where the competition leaves little room for those who cannot toe the line when the clock turns eighteen. And there is no medicine to change who one really is, gay or straight, addict or straight edge, black, white and every color in between, Christian, atheist, Jew or Muslim. And when there is no soft place to be who one is, no embracing of difference and diversity, the softest place to land is death. Even when the landing is solid pavement.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Really? You're going to F**k with me about this? More from "The Good Enough Mother"
She gets up at 4:30 to have her half hour on the treadmill in her living room. The house is still asleep, thank the good Lord (if there is such a thing). Then she has to get in the shower, get dressed and start making breakfast before her daycare kids arrive at 6AM. She took on more because they need the money. Some weeks they only have fifty bucks to feed a family of four and it just won't do at all.
In her sacred half hour, she dreams. Step by step, her shoes hit the strip of rubber on the treadmill and she breathes in a predictable rhythm. Her boy is a few months shy of eighteen and she knows she's in for a fight to get him placed in a group home. He is part of her, flailing arms, limbs that won't behave and big geen eyes fringed with thick black lashes. Seizures grip him in the night and she wakes up to make sure he hasn't bitten through his tongue. She tenderly changes the sweaty pajamas, cleans up the pee and slobber and tucks him back in. His clothes hang off a body misshapen by scoliosis and he struggles to stand up straight. When he's excited, he shakes his hands as if he might be ready to reach for the controls of his favorite video game. Sometimes, she wonders whether she wants her freedom from being a 24/7 caregiver or whether she feels she must give him up because her husband has threatened to leave her if she doesn't find placement for him the second he turns eighteen.
"Maybe I'll just take him and we'll leave. I handled him just fine before I married my husband. Seems like now I'm dealing with trying to make things okay for him and trying to take care of my son too. But I really am so tired..."
She fantasizes about leaving him on the doorstep of the government agency whose mission statement is to serve families with disabled children but whose actions fall far short.
"Here is is," she imagines saying. "You won't place him. Well fuck you. He's yours now. He's homeless cuz I got nothin' left." She says this to me while we sit on her sofa as all the babies nap to the sound of Sugarland on the radio. It's our little secret that she wants to run far, far away.
"He wet the bed three times over the last two days," she says. Her eyes fill. Then the phone rings and she picks up. It's the orthodontist's office calling about what they can't or won't do for her son who has a snaggle tooth that needs to be pulled or it will abcess.
"He is disabled, THAT'S why he's on Medicaid," she says rolling her eyes. She is used to fighting this fight day in and day out to get medical services, supportive services and other kinds of assistance for her boy. "We have really good insurance through my husband's work. But his secondary is medicaid. You don't bill them? Well then refer me to someone who will...You don't do that? Well who can...I have to call Medicaid to find a preferred provider? I already did and nobody...You're sorry? Really? Well why is this so difficult to bill the primary and then bill Medicaid for the difference? No I am not going to pay out of pocket...Can't you tell me who will just pull the goddamn tooth and bill the insurance? Yeah...okay. Fine. I will do it myself."
She hangs up and looks at me. "This is what I do eevery day every time he needs medical attention. You would think in this country that a child would not have to go without medical care. But it's always a struggle."
She dreams of days on a lake. She dreams of starting a business. She dreams of dressing up in leather and riding her Harley. "I have lots of ideas," she says. "But they die when my treadmill stops."
She has that frantic look again. "I am eating too much again," she says. "I once spent my days in the gym. I worked there and I worked out. I was so ripped. A guy with some big bodybuilding competition even offered to sponsor me and I said no. Can you believe I said no? How different would MY life have been."
I look at her and remind her that she is the most astonishing example of strength and patience I have ever witnessed. I could no more do what she does in one day than I could fly to the moon. We talk about hunger and how to feed it. Right now it's with food. So what...when her time comes, food will be the last thing she will feed that hungry soul with. But once in a while, she can feed that hunger by standing up and maybe issuing a definitive statement to her husband when he complains that the furniture is dusty or that there is a ring around the tub. That's when she rises up and puts her hands on her hips. She looks down at him while he sits on the sofa in judgment of her mothering, in judgment of how she won't have sex with him on account of her being tired all the time and how the tub needs a scrubbing. And she silently walks into the kitchen. And then the sponge flies across the room past his face followed by a plastic bottle of Soft Scrub. She breathes out and shakes that honey blond hair out of her face and moves like a panther through the living room and into her bedroom to her closet. She digs around way in the back and something rattles. It's the buckles, all ten of them. She puts on those leather pants and the matching jacket without a word. And when all ten buckles are buckled, she walks past him out to the garage where her motorcycle waits. And she mounts it like an Amazon and rides into the night.
In her sacred half hour, she dreams. Step by step, her shoes hit the strip of rubber on the treadmill and she breathes in a predictable rhythm. Her boy is a few months shy of eighteen and she knows she's in for a fight to get him placed in a group home. He is part of her, flailing arms, limbs that won't behave and big geen eyes fringed with thick black lashes. Seizures grip him in the night and she wakes up to make sure he hasn't bitten through his tongue. She tenderly changes the sweaty pajamas, cleans up the pee and slobber and tucks him back in. His clothes hang off a body misshapen by scoliosis and he struggles to stand up straight. When he's excited, he shakes his hands as if he might be ready to reach for the controls of his favorite video game. Sometimes, she wonders whether she wants her freedom from being a 24/7 caregiver or whether she feels she must give him up because her husband has threatened to leave her if she doesn't find placement for him the second he turns eighteen.
"Maybe I'll just take him and we'll leave. I handled him just fine before I married my husband. Seems like now I'm dealing with trying to make things okay for him and trying to take care of my son too. But I really am so tired..."
She fantasizes about leaving him on the doorstep of the government agency whose mission statement is to serve families with disabled children but whose actions fall far short.
"Here is is," she imagines saying. "You won't place him. Well fuck you. He's yours now. He's homeless cuz I got nothin' left." She says this to me while we sit on her sofa as all the babies nap to the sound of Sugarland on the radio. It's our little secret that she wants to run far, far away.
"He wet the bed three times over the last two days," she says. Her eyes fill. Then the phone rings and she picks up. It's the orthodontist's office calling about what they can't or won't do for her son who has a snaggle tooth that needs to be pulled or it will abcess.
"He is disabled, THAT'S why he's on Medicaid," she says rolling her eyes. She is used to fighting this fight day in and day out to get medical services, supportive services and other kinds of assistance for her boy. "We have really good insurance through my husband's work. But his secondary is medicaid. You don't bill them? Well then refer me to someone who will...You don't do that? Well who can...I have to call Medicaid to find a preferred provider? I already did and nobody...You're sorry? Really? Well why is this so difficult to bill the primary and then bill Medicaid for the difference? No I am not going to pay out of pocket...Can't you tell me who will just pull the goddamn tooth and bill the insurance? Yeah...okay. Fine. I will do it myself."
She hangs up and looks at me. "This is what I do eevery day every time he needs medical attention. You would think in this country that a child would not have to go without medical care. But it's always a struggle."
She dreams of days on a lake. She dreams of starting a business. She dreams of dressing up in leather and riding her Harley. "I have lots of ideas," she says. "But they die when my treadmill stops."
She has that frantic look again. "I am eating too much again," she says. "I once spent my days in the gym. I worked there and I worked out. I was so ripped. A guy with some big bodybuilding competition even offered to sponsor me and I said no. Can you believe I said no? How different would MY life have been."
I look at her and remind her that she is the most astonishing example of strength and patience I have ever witnessed. I could no more do what she does in one day than I could fly to the moon. We talk about hunger and how to feed it. Right now it's with food. So what...when her time comes, food will be the last thing she will feed that hungry soul with. But once in a while, she can feed that hunger by standing up and maybe issuing a definitive statement to her husband when he complains that the furniture is dusty or that there is a ring around the tub. That's when she rises up and puts her hands on her hips. She looks down at him while he sits on the sofa in judgment of her mothering, in judgment of how she won't have sex with him on account of her being tired all the time and how the tub needs a scrubbing. And she silently walks into the kitchen. And then the sponge flies across the room past his face followed by a plastic bottle of Soft Scrub. She breathes out and shakes that honey blond hair out of her face and moves like a panther through the living room and into her bedroom to her closet. She digs around way in the back and something rattles. It's the buckles, all ten of them. She puts on those leather pants and the matching jacket without a word. And when all ten buckles are buckled, she walks past him out to the garage where her motorcycle waits. And she mounts it like an Amazon and rides into the night.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Hanging On
I hang on
when I really need to uncurl my fingers
and let my self fall
like a red scarf in the desert wind
floating fearlessly against the sandstone canyon walls
I hang on the hook like an old pink coat
with a frayed neckline
where you put me
when you have something better to wear
I sway slightly when you walk by
hoping you might choose me this time
I lean against the wall
brushing my threadbare hemline
against the tops of your boots
Just noticing the rough leather
against the softness of cashmere
and remembering the smell
of your skin on my pillow
One day you will take me off the hook
and wear me as if it was our first dance
and for the moment I forget
that you will hang me up again
It's just the perfect dance
round and round like a red scarf
floating upon the trustworthy wind
toward the sun and the moon
Until you decide it is time to stop
and I dance on alone
upon those waves of desert wind
against the sandstone canyon walls
when I really need to uncurl my fingers
and let my self fall
like a red scarf in the desert wind
floating fearlessly against the sandstone canyon walls
I hang on the hook like an old pink coat
with a frayed neckline
where you put me
when you have something better to wear
I sway slightly when you walk by
hoping you might choose me this time
I lean against the wall
brushing my threadbare hemline
against the tops of your boots
Just noticing the rough leather
against the softness of cashmere
and remembering the smell
of your skin on my pillow
One day you will take me off the hook
and wear me as if it was our first dance
and for the moment I forget
that you will hang me up again
It's just the perfect dance
round and round like a red scarf
floating upon the trustworthy wind
toward the sun and the moon
Until you decide it is time to stop
and I dance on alone
upon those waves of desert wind
against the sandstone canyon walls
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Garmin ForeRunner 405 Causes Woman to Fly Into Murderous Rage
Lurch gave me a Garmin Forerunner 405 sometime in the spring of 2009. I should never have agreed to be Lurch's girlfriend, we were better off as friends. But I was out of my mind with heartache when I decided to try. I thought maybe I needed a man who wasn't interesting and exciting. Lurch was neither. Predictable and mechanical, he works like one of those oil drilling machines near Bakersfield. Up, down, up down, get the oil, up, down, here is my oil, in a rhythmic fashion with a very predictable yield. Sex was similar which is why we only had it once, and even that single episode lasting eight minutes and thirty two point five seconds brought my dinner up to my throat.
Lurch likes to measure everything, a pastime that makes him delightfully happy and which I hate with a screaming passion. The ForeRunner 405 he gave me with such high expectation that I would love it, was like wearing Big Ben on my wrist. It was supposedly genious enough to tell me how far, how fast, where, when, what and how I was doing every single second of whatever physical activity I was engaged in. I didn't even take it out of the box for two months because I knew I would hate it. I just want a watch with maybe two buttons at most. A start/stop button and a button to reset it is plenty for me to manage.
Lurch also gave me a hanging toiletry bag because he had one made my the Swiss Army people and I coveted it because the bottles all stood up straight inside of it and you could tell which was the shampoo and which was your lotion and it had lovely little toothbrush holders. But he gave me a cheap one he found at a sidewalk sale which was just a lousy excuse for a toiletry bag and I just resented him for it. And he gave me a car cover because he had one and his main priority aside from measuring every inch and every detail of his daily runs was keeping his car clean at all times. I hated this thing he paid $500.00 for because it took forever to unfold and secure onto my car which didn't mind being dirty. I didn't mind either and I always had better things to do than wrestle a car cover over my car at 6PM when I got home from work and was ravenously hungry and annoyed with pretty much everything including Lurch.
I had passive agressive responses to these gifts that Lurch so proudly gave me. He called every night at exactly 8:00PM and his first question was, "Have you learned how to use your Garmin yet?" And I took a fiendish sort of delight in replying, "No...I couldn't carve out the four and a half hours it would take to learn how to use it today and I've used up all my vacation time. Maybe in a couple of years when I'm done with life as I now know it, I will take it out of the box and read the manual which requires a degree in computer science."
Besides, I was not sure I liked him enough to accept a gift worth over $300.00 especially if I wasn't planning on sleeping with him, and spent a lot of time dreaming up reasons why I could not sleep with him. In fact, that is where most of my vacation time was spent, and I came up with brilliant reasons for why I could not have sex with him. But I digress...
When he asked if I was using the car cover, I told him my car preferred a heavy coating of grit and mud since she was a tough girl and not a sissy who was afraid of a little dirt.
So anyway, I finally took the ForeRunner out of the box after about two months as I said. It was so complicated to understand that I cried and had a tantrum right in front of an elementary school trying to use it for the first time. I had only about 40 minutes to go for a run and I spent about 32 minutes trying to pull up all the right menus using the watch's bezel. I think I dropped to the sidewalk in tears and cast a spell upon Lurch in that moment.
When the ForeRunner did work, it often gave me information I did not want. If I ran for two and half hours on hilly terrain, I wanted it to tell me I burned 6,000 calories because it sure felt like I burned enough to justify three martinis and half a chocolate cake. Instead, it would tell me I only ran ten miles and burned 600 calories. Again, on the sidewalk on my back sobbing and cursing Lurch for giving me this horrid device.
On long bike rides, it would go blank in the midst of what was intended to be an 80 mile ride. I was then left to my imagination which is not particularly concerned with being precise; it prefers to embellish based upon perceived effort. The ForeRunner was supposed to measure distance and time, but would decide it did not want to measure these elements on a particular day and would decide instead to beep every time I turned left or right and would tell me how far away I was from San Bernardino. In century rides, it would quit for no apparent reason, or freeze which made me furious. When I couldn't have the most essential data, I became very anxious and realized in these moments that it was all Lurch's fault that I was becoming like him.
I decided to call Garmin and lobby hard for a replacement or a simpler device which would not require an advanced degree in computer science. It turns out that the wait time was at least 45 minutes for customer service so I emailed instead. A representative named Aaron wrote me a two page email describing what he thought the problem was and how I could troubleshoot by plugging in the USB wireless transmitter and then making sure the watch was set to ANT+ settings. And then there was a long list of things I had to do to update the software and then go through the troubleshooting procedure. I became fatigued and felt my bloodsugar drop to dangerous levels when I read Aaron's list of procedures, so I emailed him and told him I would prefer to pay the $79.95 to have Garmin do all this stuff. He was resistant to this idea and encouraged me to take a week off from work to learn these procedures for updating the software and testing the device using my heartrate monitor and engaging in activities I would normally use the watch for. This would have required a prescription for a benzodiazapene and additional medical insurance in case a had a stroke while cursing my way through this procedure so I emailed him again begging him for the address to the repair department. He emailed back and told me this was a complicated procedure because of the distance between the repair department and the financial department. The repair department is apparently in Kansas and the financial department is in Norway, and the two don't communicate other than by steamship. So my check for the repair would have to be sent to Norway via Iceland and when received, they would send an albatross to Kansas with verification that my check had been processed. Then the Kansas repair team would immediately fly into action to repair the device and would ship it back to me via Volkswagen to California since devices shipped by air tend to mess with the settings. I also told Aaron that the watchband had broken and would need a new pin. He informed me that this would be a simple matter of sending away for a new pin to Thailand for an addition $19.95 shipping not included. I should receive my device back by Christmas of 2012 at which point, I would need to send it back to Kansas to update the software again.
Lurch spends his life doing stuff like this which is why I grew more and more intolerant of him. It was simply a match made in Hell, that's all. His job, for which is highly overpaid, is to measure race courses and order Porta-Potties and he has it down to a science. He never tires of running his same route day in and day out with his Garmin measuring each and every step and he delights in knowing that he shaved off .00045 seconds off his time from last Wednesday.
I left Lurch and took the ForeRunner with me, but I wish I hadn't. I returned the toiletry bag and the car cover though.
Lurch likes to measure everything, a pastime that makes him delightfully happy and which I hate with a screaming passion. The ForeRunner 405 he gave me with such high expectation that I would love it, was like wearing Big Ben on my wrist. It was supposedly genious enough to tell me how far, how fast, where, when, what and how I was doing every single second of whatever physical activity I was engaged in. I didn't even take it out of the box for two months because I knew I would hate it. I just want a watch with maybe two buttons at most. A start/stop button and a button to reset it is plenty for me to manage.
Lurch also gave me a hanging toiletry bag because he had one made my the Swiss Army people and I coveted it because the bottles all stood up straight inside of it and you could tell which was the shampoo and which was your lotion and it had lovely little toothbrush holders. But he gave me a cheap one he found at a sidewalk sale which was just a lousy excuse for a toiletry bag and I just resented him for it. And he gave me a car cover because he had one and his main priority aside from measuring every inch and every detail of his daily runs was keeping his car clean at all times. I hated this thing he paid $500.00 for because it took forever to unfold and secure onto my car which didn't mind being dirty. I didn't mind either and I always had better things to do than wrestle a car cover over my car at 6PM when I got home from work and was ravenously hungry and annoyed with pretty much everything including Lurch.
I had passive agressive responses to these gifts that Lurch so proudly gave me. He called every night at exactly 8:00PM and his first question was, "Have you learned how to use your Garmin yet?" And I took a fiendish sort of delight in replying, "No...I couldn't carve out the four and a half hours it would take to learn how to use it today and I've used up all my vacation time. Maybe in a couple of years when I'm done with life as I now know it, I will take it out of the box and read the manual which requires a degree in computer science."
Besides, I was not sure I liked him enough to accept a gift worth over $300.00 especially if I wasn't planning on sleeping with him, and spent a lot of time dreaming up reasons why I could not sleep with him. In fact, that is where most of my vacation time was spent, and I came up with brilliant reasons for why I could not have sex with him. But I digress...
When he asked if I was using the car cover, I told him my car preferred a heavy coating of grit and mud since she was a tough girl and not a sissy who was afraid of a little dirt.
So anyway, I finally took the ForeRunner out of the box after about two months as I said. It was so complicated to understand that I cried and had a tantrum right in front of an elementary school trying to use it for the first time. I had only about 40 minutes to go for a run and I spent about 32 minutes trying to pull up all the right menus using the watch's bezel. I think I dropped to the sidewalk in tears and cast a spell upon Lurch in that moment.
When the ForeRunner did work, it often gave me information I did not want. If I ran for two and half hours on hilly terrain, I wanted it to tell me I burned 6,000 calories because it sure felt like I burned enough to justify three martinis and half a chocolate cake. Instead, it would tell me I only ran ten miles and burned 600 calories. Again, on the sidewalk on my back sobbing and cursing Lurch for giving me this horrid device.
On long bike rides, it would go blank in the midst of what was intended to be an 80 mile ride. I was then left to my imagination which is not particularly concerned with being precise; it prefers to embellish based upon perceived effort. The ForeRunner was supposed to measure distance and time, but would decide it did not want to measure these elements on a particular day and would decide instead to beep every time I turned left or right and would tell me how far away I was from San Bernardino. In century rides, it would quit for no apparent reason, or freeze which made me furious. When I couldn't have the most essential data, I became very anxious and realized in these moments that it was all Lurch's fault that I was becoming like him.
I decided to call Garmin and lobby hard for a replacement or a simpler device which would not require an advanced degree in computer science. It turns out that the wait time was at least 45 minutes for customer service so I emailed instead. A representative named Aaron wrote me a two page email describing what he thought the problem was and how I could troubleshoot by plugging in the USB wireless transmitter and then making sure the watch was set to ANT+ settings. And then there was a long list of things I had to do to update the software and then go through the troubleshooting procedure. I became fatigued and felt my bloodsugar drop to dangerous levels when I read Aaron's list of procedures, so I emailed him and told him I would prefer to pay the $79.95 to have Garmin do all this stuff. He was resistant to this idea and encouraged me to take a week off from work to learn these procedures for updating the software and testing the device using my heartrate monitor and engaging in activities I would normally use the watch for. This would have required a prescription for a benzodiazapene and additional medical insurance in case a had a stroke while cursing my way through this procedure so I emailed him again begging him for the address to the repair department. He emailed back and told me this was a complicated procedure because of the distance between the repair department and the financial department. The repair department is apparently in Kansas and the financial department is in Norway, and the two don't communicate other than by steamship. So my check for the repair would have to be sent to Norway via Iceland and when received, they would send an albatross to Kansas with verification that my check had been processed. Then the Kansas repair team would immediately fly into action to repair the device and would ship it back to me via Volkswagen to California since devices shipped by air tend to mess with the settings. I also told Aaron that the watchband had broken and would need a new pin. He informed me that this would be a simple matter of sending away for a new pin to Thailand for an addition $19.95 shipping not included. I should receive my device back by Christmas of 2012 at which point, I would need to send it back to Kansas to update the software again.
Lurch spends his life doing stuff like this which is why I grew more and more intolerant of him. It was simply a match made in Hell, that's all. His job, for which is highly overpaid, is to measure race courses and order Porta-Potties and he has it down to a science. He never tires of running his same route day in and day out with his Garmin measuring each and every step and he delights in knowing that he shaved off .00045 seconds off his time from last Wednesday.
I left Lurch and took the ForeRunner with me, but I wish I hadn't. I returned the toiletry bag and the car cover though.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
What Love Isn't
Love is not closed
When the arms fold in and the shoulders enclose the heart like wings protecting a wet bird against a bitter wind,
Love will fly itself above the clouds where it hovers like a hummingbird near the sun,
parting the clouds for you if only you will just look up and offer your heart to its warmth
Love isn't here
or there...
It isn't sitting in a cage waiting to be tossed a bone
It doesn't pace the floor waiting for you to come home
It does not rage or scream its disappointment
It weeps softly looking up at you from its place near the sofa
where you left it right next to your suitcase full of fear.
It does not care whether you missed a spot or colored outside the lines
It only notices the colors
Love pours itself into every empty space
even the ones you thought you hid so well
It does not worry that you're leaving and may never return
And it does not disappear without a trace
It goes with you and dances all around you
lapping at your feet and running on ahead a bit so you'll know the way
It stays right beside you even when you're too busy to notice
When the arms fold in and the shoulders enclose the heart like wings protecting a wet bird against a bitter wind,
Love will fly itself above the clouds where it hovers like a hummingbird near the sun,
parting the clouds for you if only you will just look up and offer your heart to its warmth
Love isn't here
or there...
It isn't sitting in a cage waiting to be tossed a bone
It doesn't pace the floor waiting for you to come home
It does not rage or scream its disappointment
It weeps softly looking up at you from its place near the sofa
where you left it right next to your suitcase full of fear.
It does not care whether you missed a spot or colored outside the lines
It only notices the colors
Love pours itself into every empty space
even the ones you thought you hid so well
It does not worry that you're leaving and may never return
And it does not disappear without a trace
It goes with you and dances all around you
lapping at your feet and running on ahead a bit so you'll know the way
It stays right beside you even when you're too busy to notice
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