Borrowed Ancestors

Cautionary Tale

2009-07-27T09:49:00.006-04:00

I have long been an advocate for adoption, but I have also long been a supporter of a woman's right to choose not to have a baby. This blog on Open Salon illustrates the pitfalls of adoption and one of the many possible outcomes.

http://open.salon.com/blog/aspasia411/2009/07/25/stressful_life

It is an even stronger case for adequate access to birth control, especially for those women most vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy: the abused, the addicted, the mentally ill.

Adoption is not always the best option for women who become pregnant. Even the most dedicated and courageous of adoptive families sometimes find themselves walking into the nightmare of raising children who are so damaged by the lack of healthcare for the birth mother that they will never be functional and may even be dangers to society.

This is yet another reason that it is so important for healthcare reform. Access to adequate healthcare should be available for everyone, especially the most vulnerable women.

Into Another Dimension

2009-06-29T17:40:00.016-04:00

I feel like I just came back from another dimension. I traveled to France in the middle part of June to attend a workshop with poet Marilyn Kallet at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts satellite site in Auvillar, France. It was a surreal experience on several levels.

First, I traveled there alone. I've never traveled alone to a foreign country before. Flying 40,000 feet up over a big ocean without your spouse can give you the willies, especially in light of the last few weeks of plane crashes and pilot deaths. I kept thinking about what my husband would do if something happened to me and what he would do with my stuff. Visions of him sitting forlornly in the middle of my huge closet made me tear up at one point. Fortunately, the guy next to me was asleep. He was a really nice man traveling with his wife and daughter. They couldn't get seats together. Unfortunately, he worked for the airline industry and was glad to explain what he thought happened to Air France 447 over the Atlantic. Catastrophic failure. No time to signal distress. I was wide awake most of the crossing.

When I got to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, I had to make my way by train to Orly airport on the other side of Paris for a connecting flight to Toulouse. It took a bit of tentative French to make all the right connections. I haven't spoken French in France for over 20 years. I reviewed for a couple of months before I left, but when a little stressed, my mind tends to hit the pause button too much. After a while, I got pretty good at it, though. Give me a month there, and I'd start thinking in French, which is what one really needs to do in order to function well. Yes, quite a few people speak English there, especially in the big cities, but when I travel, I like to not be such a tourist. It served me well one night at dinner when I was seated with a French couple. The wife did not speak much English, and she was gracious enough to speak French slowly. Another table mate had studied French intensively before he came, so listening to him converse with the husband in French meant that I was surrounded by this beautiful language. It tilts one's world a bit when this happens.

I was really in rarified company during the workshop. I've been writing for a long time, and I was an English professor, but the talent pool was very deep, so I was a bit uneasy about being out of my comfortable depth. I needn't have worried. Everyone was supportive and encouraging. So not only were we surrounded by French, we were deep in our own language, our private language, our inner language. We were synchronous swimmers. That doesn't always happen in writing workshops. Sometimes there are sharks. I don't think that ever happens at VCCA.

The light is different in France. The air is so clear that everything is bathed in clarity. My photos don't quite get the light, but they come close. My picture of St. Catherine's Church near the river is exquisite, and it was the first thing I saw as I walked out the door of my little rental house, or "gite" as they are called in France. I think the reason the air is so clear is because the French have dedicated themselves to alternative power sources. I saw wind turbines everywhere. One of the strangest juxtapositions was when I was driving on the interstate to Carcassonne and saw several wind farms, but one was particularly striking. It was just behind a large cathedral on a hilltop so that this ancient structure's backdrop was this modern sculptural form. Another strange pairing was the Golfech nuclear plant just down the road from Auvillar as seen from the 13th Century walls of the town. It's disconcerting to be that close to something so potentially lethal, but the French seem to be very proficient at safety. They have to be. They derive nearly 90% of their electric power from nuclear and are Europe's leading exporter of electric power.

While I was there, I did not have the allergy symptoms I have here in East Tennessee. I'm not allergic to pollen. I'm allergic to pollutants, small particulates, dust and mold, and I take two strong allergy medicines for my allergies, but while I was in France, I felt healthier. I felt like I was in one of those Clariten commercials, the one where a film is peeled away, and the world is suddenly, well, clearer: "Clariten clear." Our coal fired power plants don't allow for that kind of clear.

So I am back from my sojourn to France, back to my good and loving husband, suitcase unpacked, poems to be polished, needy cat in my lap, Kleenex box nearby. And Chilhowee Mountain stands shrouded in haze to the Southeast.

Alcohol Was Involved

2009-05-10T13:29:00.001-04:00

I have a new post on Open Salon about our idiotic bill allowing handguns in bars. You can find it here.

http://open.salon.com/blog/bardgirl55/2009/05/10/alcohol_was_involved

New Post on Open Salon

2009-04-17T09:42:00.003-04:00

I have a new post on Open Salon about my experience with a ghost. Here's the link:

http://open.salon.com/blog/bardgirl55/2009/04/13/locked_in_the_attic_by_a_ghost

I'm on Salon.com

2009-03-28T13:55:00.002-04:00

I am currently posting on Salon.com's Open Salon. The link is

http://open.salon.com/blog/bardgirl55

2009-03-23T08:36:00.006-04:00

We lost a good man and a good friend last week. He was brilliant, funny, caring and loving and only 57 years old. One of the most painful parts of losing him was seeing the agony on the faces of everyone else who loved him and knowing that we'll never again see his sweet face or hear his rumbling laugh. He was a big man, and his passing leaves a big hole in our lives. The very worst part of his dying, however, was that it was so preventable.

I said he was a big man. He was big physically as well as figuratively, and Type II diabetes had insinuated itself into his life and ultimately led to his death. It's the familiar story of not enough exercise, too much food and loads of stress. Walking once a week is not enough. That's all he would attempt, and even that became difficult in the last couple of years. Ironically, he never did drugs, not even alcohol. He thought it made him lose control of his intellect. Food was always his comfort drug of choice, but food can be just as addictive and dangerous.

At first, when he found out he had diabetes, he lost weight and tried to exercise, but I think the stress of his job finally got to him. He didn't want to be where he was. He was a thinker, a philosopher. He wanted to teach, but his father's death threw him into a world of chaos: spreadsheets, employee relations, projections and the bottom line. So he gave up. He didn't watch what he ate and tested his blood sugar just enough to see if he could eat that piece of cake or ice cream sundae after all. He gained weight and began the slow spiral downward that led to kidney problems and finally congestive heart failure and cardiac arrest. Our big hearted friend's big heart stopped, and our hearts are broken.

Our sweet philosopher became a statistic, a cautionary tale, one we see too often here in Tennessee. It didn't have to end like this.

Broken Arrows

2009-03-14T11:54:00.005-04:00

I have just read a really disturbing article on Salon.com about the Quiverfull movement in the evangelical community. The premise behind the movement is that good Christians need to have as many children as possible as weapons in the fight to make Christianity the world religion. The women in this movement are essentially thought of as baby makers and subservient to God and their husbands. It is anti-feminist, patriarchal, and just damn nuts. Here's the link: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/3/14/joyce_quiverfull/?source=newsletter. Please read it. It's an eye opener. The article illustrates my growing concern that the human race is going to birth its way right out of existence if we don't choose to limit population growth. I don't believe in government involvement in family planning. We're not China, but it may come to the point where someone needs to be sure the children in these families are well taken care of and take appropriate measures if they aren't.

The gist of the article is this: the movement itself is growing exponentially, but the toll it is taking on women is growing as well. Many are opting out after realizing the hardship it drops on the older children when the mother either breaks down or suffers illness and injury from so much childbirth and caregiver stress. If they drop out, they are, of course, shunned, made to feel like failures and sinners against God, and many lose their children in custody battles with the fathers. The few who don't lose their children then have the hardship of bringing them up as single mothers. It's a no win situation unless they can get help. Let's hope they find it.

A Texas Travesty

2009-02-28T10:21:00.002-05:00

I subscribe to Salon.com's newsletter. An article titled, "Texas: The State of (Mis) education" caught my eye. I read it and was absolutely appalled. Apparently, the big message provided by the abstinence only sex ed literature given to students there is that if they have premarital sex, they will die. They will get an STD, commit suicide out of shame or die outright from a disease. No info on how to prevent that (condoms can fail, you know) or realistic advice about what really happens when you choose to have sex. No, just attempt to scare 'em to death. The article goes on to say that Texas has the third highest rate of teen pregnancy in the nation. Imagine that.

One can only hope that with this new, enlightened administration coming in, we will see sex education improved for teens, all education really. One thing President Obama said in his speech Tuesday night that gave me real hope for our children was that he wanted to see parents more involved in their children's education. Let's hope they have the good sense to realize that abstinence only misinformation does a disservice to their children. A frank talk with teenagers about their options goes a lot farther in preventing teen pregnancy than any threat or scare tactic ever could.

Spook Stories and Poetry

2009-02-09T20:39:00.000-05:00

I gave a talk a couple of weeks ago for one of our local writer's organizations. I had precise notes, samples of my writing, and samples of other people's work. It was all nice and organized and should have been easy to present. As usual, I got out of sync with my notes, read a few of my poems (not the best ones), read a short short story (more about that later), and completely forgot to read the works of others that I like. Try as I might, if one thing throws me off the least little bit, I cannot find my way back.

I was initially put into a bit of a panic because I forgot my reading glasses and had to go to the car and get my bifocal sunglasses. This would have been okay but for the fact that a transformer had blown in the area and plunged the venue where I was speaking into utter darkness save for an emergency light near the door. A standing podium was found so that I could read under the light. Fortunately, the lights came back on just as I was getting ready to read at the podium. I moved back to the lectern at the table where I could spread out and began reading my short story, a fictionalized piece about the ghost we had at our house in Fountain City. The actual word, "ghost," comes a few paragraphs into the story. Just as the word left my mouth, the lights went out again. We had a good laugh, and I moved back to the podium near the door. The story ends with the words, "And then the lights went out." That's when the lights came back on. More laughter. The lights finally stayed on, and I muddled through the rest of the presentation. The folks were gracious and warm, but I felt totally bumfuzzled and off my stride. I wanted to end with a wonderful poem in honor of John Updike, who died recently, but I forgot.

All this angst is really about the fact that I am terrified when speaking in front of my peers. I was a college English professor for many years and had no trouble at all teaching in front of a bunch of students. Even the first day of class was no biggie. I even managed to impress them by memorizing their names the first day. It's an easy trick really. My secret. At any rate, all my confidence and organization goes out the window in front of an audience of other writers and readers. I seem to go to "anutha zone" as Dr. John says. I think the problem is that I forget to actually follow my notes. I look up and see those expectant faces and just start to get flustered. I think the trick will be to do more speaking. Of course, I have to do more writing first.

Sigh.

Make-Up as a Lie

2009-02-04T20:23:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine commented recently that women who put on make-up are liars. It was in response to a photo I had sent with a warning that I didn't have even blush on. I didn't say anything in response at the time, but it started to work on me later. I'd never thought of cosmetics in that way. To me, make-up is just like jewelry. It's ornamentation. It's the oldest form, perhaps, of human art. When aboriginal people put on colored daubs of clay, or tattooed their faces, or even ritually scarred them (something that has always given me the heebee jeebies), they are exhibiting a most personal form of art. I would imagine that personal art preceded even the cave paintings of France or Australia.

My favorite example of this art comes from the Wodaabe people of Niger. Interestingly, it is the men who wear the elaborate make-up in order to impress the women. They take great care in applying it and smile as widely as they can to show their teeth. Healthy teeth, healthy man. They also jump into the air as high as they can. They remind me of beautiful male birds trying to impress their mates. Good call. These guys probably imitated the behavior they saw thousands of years ago. If it works for birds....

If you look at a woman's magazine these days, a great number of the ads are for cosmetics and perfume. The models wearing the make-up, unless they are of a certain age (I hate that term. What does it mean really?), are wildly colored, but the colors are artfully done, for the most part. I can hear one friend of mine howling at this now. She mostly likely thinks they look like clowns, but I like the face as canvas (someone else's, not mine. I'm of that certain age).

Cosmetics serve a dual purpose, of course. It's also meant as a seduction tool, just like the Wodaabe men. All good students of anthropology know that primates are attracted to the color red. Red lips. Red butts in the case of some species. Which is where I draw the line when it comes to human lips. It seems these days that women think that the plumper the lips, the better. Men love plump lips. Or is it that they have that primitive response to something big and red, like butts. Just a thought.

I'll continue to add the small bit of rouge, eye make-up and lipstick occasionally, mostly because I love a bit of color on my now pale (no sun for me!) canvas.

A Wonderful Day

2009-01-29T15:33:00.004-05:00

It is truly a wondrous day today. President Obama signed his first piece of legislation today, and it was the Lily Ledbetter Law. (He has signed official documents and Executive Orders, but not legislation passed by Congress.) Lily worked for Goodyear for two decades and found out through an anonymous tip that she had been making less than her male counterparts doing the same job. She filed a lawsuit and won, but her suit was overturned by a higher court, so she went to the Supreme Court. She lost. By one vote. That one vote was Justice Alito, newly appointed by Bush. That grave wrong was righted today. She won't see a penny of the $2oo,ooo she was owed, but she will have the satisfaction of knowing that all women in America, all people looking for fairness, no matter their race, gender or religion, will be able to have salaries in keeping with the real American Way.

A change has come. A change has come. Oh, happy day.

The Dance

2009-01-21T09:04:00.003-05:00

I don't know how many of you saw "The Dance" last night at the Inaugural Neighborhood Ball, but it was one of the sweetest moments of a very sweet day. It was a good indicator of what kind of a man we have as President now. If you didn't see it, President Obama and First Lady, Michelle, danced to Beyonce's wonderful version of "At Last" from her movie, Cadillac Records. She was hard pressed to keep from crying during the song. A lot of that had to do with the look of utter happiness and love on the faces of the two dancers. They're warm, loving, real.

We cannot know how our country will fare under this new leader by the experience of one day or one dance, but after seeing the love returned to this brilliant, articulate and genuinely loving man, I really do have that previously elusive feeling of Hope.

At Last

2009-01-20T14:33:00.003-05:00

For those who marched, sat in, fought and died to see this day may we give our gratitude and honor. Etta James sang it best: At Last.

Congratulations and many thoughts and prayers go out to our new President of the Truly United States of America, Barak Obama.

A House in Disarray

2009-01-13T20:49:00.006-05:00

My mother would be appalled. I have started the arduous process of dismantling her house, dismantling her very ordered life. I feel like I'm violating her memory as I violate her closets, her dresser drawers, her bedside table. There was very little out of place until I came pawing through her things looking for the bits of her I want to keep, sorting out the everyday from the buried treasures of her life.

Her house was always clean, with everything put away out of sight. She hated anyone taking anything out and not putting it right back where it belonged. Right now, the contents of her bedroom closet are scattered on her bed to be sorted out. The contents of the kitchen drawers and cabinets are in boxes on the floor, and the china cabinet contains only those things with no sentimental value. Her beloved Christmas decorations, many of them I gave her, lie on the dining room table or on the couch in the living room waiting to be boxed or sold. When I left this afternoon, I could almost hear her admonishing me to put it all back when I was done.

The walls are becoming bare, bereft of the paintings I did for her or a friend had done for her. The antique clock I bought her is in the back seat of my car. So is the fern stand I got at an auction down the street. Boxes of seashells we gathered when I was little wait by the door to be loaded later. A box of kitchen gadgets, six pairs of scissors, and better knives than mine is in the very back of the car. Vintage mixing bowls and old silver pieces wait on the counter to be boxed. The quilts my grandmothers made and that kept me warm when I was a child are waiting on the "big" bed in the guest room.

She was a very private person, really, even with me, especially with me. As she got older and more dependent, she seemed to want to withhold some of herself in order to feel there was something remaining over which she had some control. Her finances were of particular concern. Now, here I am finding bags and boxes full of old receipts, bank books, statements and forms. If I wanted, I could follow her life for the last 15 years or so. She was that thorough. The bags and boxes may be scattered around the house, but the contents of each are all in order from January to December of every year.

Because she was housebound by choice, embarrassed that someone might see her infirmities, she spent a great deal of time watching television. Her favorite station was HSN. She'd order face creams and beauty potions for skin that needed neither. Right up until near her last breath, her skin was porcelain, with a natural blush. Only during the last moments did the color drain away and the bluish cast of cyanosis take over. I've found boxes of the produts hidden away in drawers, in the tops of closets, in the backs of cupboards. She hid them from me because I had stupidly told her she didn't need them when actually she did. She needed the friendly voice on the telephone telling her that these concoctions would bring back the dewy beauty of youth. If she was still beautiful, then she was also still young. Her infirmities would vanish, and she could go on like they never happened. She was always asking, "Who would have ever thought this would happen to me?" I seriously think that she felt she was immune to disease and disability because she was good, beautiful, and determined.

I have collected all that bottled hope, much of it unopened, and put it out for other women to

pick over and buy. My mother would be appalled.

Season of Light

2008-12-27T21:25:00.004-05:00

The house is full of light. Three trees are decorated, and the mantel has greenery and fairy lights and little houses all lit up as though there are warm fires and celebrations going on inside them. The half wall behind my couch has a lighted row of London landmarks. Even the Globe Theatre is shining, something that would not have happened in Shakespeare's day for fear of fire, ironically enough. And the island in my kitchen has a lighted centerpiece, a clear polymer stag surrounded by more fairy lights and greenery. Candles grace nearly every flat surface.

I keep my Christmas decorations up at least until New Year. I would keep them up until Epiphany, but I hate to take them down so badly that I break down and put everything away earlier so that the feeling of dread will be gone sooner. I think it has to do with my Celtic ancestry. The ancient Celts lit bonfires around the time of the winter solstice in order to keep the darkness at bay and invite the sun to return in the great wheel of the seasons. Many cultures have some sort of ritual at this time of year that assures them that the cold and darkness will not last forever.

Those who follow this blog know that this has been a very rough year for me. I need the light now more than any year before. Maybe I'll actually make it to January 6th this year. I need to keep the darkness away. I need to invite the sun back into my life, back into my spirit, back into my soul.

Just Me

2008-12-17T15:17:00.004-05:00

Rain is pelting my window as I write this. It's been raining off and on all week, a good thing for our part of Tennessee because of a two-year drought. It's a bad thing, however, for me. I have been so depressed about the loss of my mother that I have written nothing for a good while. This blog has been silent. My phone has been silent, except for those friends and my sister who realize that Mom used to call me at least once a day and mostly three or four times. When I go all day without the phone ringing, I get really depressed. The worst part of that is leaving home and coming home to check for messages. I almost always had one from Mom. I didn't save any of her messages. They were mostly, "It's just me. Call me." Just "me," like she was of no consequence.

Our elderly parents begin to think that they don't matter anymore to us because they are frail, or sick, or homebound. We do tend to go on with our busy lives while they knock around empty homes or lonely eldercare facilities. We spend a great deal of our time with them, however, driving them to doctor's appointments, to the store, or the drugstore, sitting with them, feeding them when they are unable to do it for themselves, like my mother. She had benign essential hereditary tremor and the beginnings of Parkinson's. The word "benign" in her primary condition is a misnomer. It is not benign when the sufferer reaches the point that picking up objects like pills or glasses or forks becomes an exercise in frustration and embarrassment. Mother always worried that I was embarrassed to take her out to eat. I was embarrassed for her but never by her. It got to the point that I had to feed her, so we didn't go out much. Her choice. Her handwriting, a real thing of grace and beauty common to those her age who were taught that good penmanship was important, became more and more an illegible scrawl. Every now and then an elegant "A" or "W" returned for a brief appearance, something I wish could happen with her corporeal self. I'd settle for a message on my answering machine.

Finding Myself

2008-11-16T19:36:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine commented after Mother died that I'm an adult now and a member of the Orphans Club. We're both at that age where, all around us, our friends are losing parents. I went to yet another funeral just today. It was very hard because it's so close after my own mother died to have to see someone else going through this hell. It occurs to me, however, that I really AM an adult now. I don't have to "mind" anyone anymore. I don't have to be available at a moment's command. I don't have to plan anything around a parent's schedule or need. I can take off at Christmas now without feeling guilty. I can do pretty much anything now without feeling guilty about it because of displeasing a parent.

There's a big catch to all this, of course. Now I have to figure out again what I want to be now that I've grown up.

Losing Mother

2008-11-01T20:30:00.003-04:00

The worst day of my life finally happened and went nothing like I thought it would. I had been anticipating a phone call from the healthcare facility where my mother lived telling me that she had slipped quietly away in the night because her weak heart stopped. What I got was a message from the local ER telling me that my mother was there because she had turned yellow and a scan showed a lesion on her pancreas. Fortunately, one of her guardian angels happened to be visiting at the center and went with her in the ER. I had been hiking in the mountains where cell phone service doesn't work and only found the message later in the day when I got home. That was the first misfire in a long series of nightmarish events.

I got to the ER and was told that mother probably had pancreatic cancer and could not have surgery because of her fragile health and advanced age. She was admitted to the hospital for more tests and to be watched because it was a weekend and her doctors would not be in until Monday. Mom's luck always ran that she got sick or fell on weekends. When her GI doc showed up, he told her her options. None were realistic. Her bile duct was blocked, and her liver was filling with bilirubin. Her blood sugar was also through the roof. This meant that she would soon fall into a coma and then die a painful death. The pain started almost immediately after she got the diagnosis from the doctor.

Pancreatic cancer is insidious in that it is found mostly by accident, or the person turns yellow, or the blood sugar spikes astronomically. By that time, the prognosis is grim. All her bloodwork had been normal in July when she last saw her GP. He came to see her on Tuesday and cried with me. He knew she soon would be gone in a week, maybe less. It was less. She died the following Monday. Considering what most people go through over a long period, it was a blessing for her that she went so quickly. For me to watch it play out was a true nightmare.

I decided to take her home. I hadn't put her house up for sale yet, thank heavens. She had wanted to go home, but I doubt she meant this way. This was a week after her diagnosis. Mom was barely cognizant of her surroundings when we got there, but she did mouth the word "home" to two visitors later on the next evening. When we started the heavy pain meds, she really began to slip away, not in the quiet way I hoped, but in the gurgly, frightening way of those with pancreatic cancer. Her last breaths were those of someone drowning. My mom. My sweet, frail mother who should have had a peaceful death at her age and weakness died that kind of death.

I'm angry. It's not fair. She had suffered so much pain already with a broken shoulder, two broken hips, and a deteriorating spine. She survived two bouts of sepsis, uterine cancer, pneumonia. We called her The Energizer Bunny. Then this. At whom, at what do I scream? Please don't tell me platitudes about being given no more than we can bear. She deserved better.

I Need A Vacation

2008-10-05T10:21:00.004-04:00

I've been absent from my blog for very good reasons. The first is that my blood pressure can't stand another viewing or sound bite from McCain/Palin. Their personal attack mode of campaigning is giving me at least 20 points on systolic AND diastolic. I can't talk about it. Kittens, I need to talk about kittens, or maybe bunnies or birdies.

The second reason is that I need to be writing other things: short stories, poems, essays, something that might make a buck. Well, that's stretching it. They make, at most, a few cents a word these days. Besides, everyone's watching TV instead. Or texting. Or arguing about politics.

The third is that I need to be outside more. I'm getting a permanent slump from hanging over the keyboard. It can't be from looming osteoporosis. I take calcium and D for that.

And the last reason is that I'm obsessed with genealogy. I spend hours chasing dead people on Ancestry.com. When I found my birth family, that hideous switch was turned on in my brain that dictates I MUST know my roots. I've gotten all the way back to 1637 with one branch. It leads to Barbados. That's it! I need to go to Barbados.

Somebody get me an absentee ballot and book me a flight!

No Palin Left Behind

2008-09-12T11:03:00.006-04:00

Sarah Palin did okay on her standardized test of Republican dogma last night. There were only a few missed answers. Let's see if she can retain the info she does know through the election and beyond. Her vocabulary needs work, however.

hubris: noun, (Greek); excessive pride or self-confidence, haughtiness, self-importance, egotism, cockiness. Usually used in referring to tragic heroes. Biblical translation: "Pride goeth before a fall."

doctrine: noun, a set of beliefs taught by a church or political party; a stated principle of government policy.

Critical thinking skills have been neglected, a possible casualty of rote memorization in order to pass a test.

The Second (Un)Civil War

2008-09-08T15:56:00.006-04:00

There is another uncivil war coming to America. I won't call it the United States because we haven't been very united about anything recently, and the divide is getting wider every day. New voter polls are out after the political party conventions, and they seem to indicate quite clearly where we stand on either side of the chasm. Roughly 50 percent favor McCain/Palin and 50 percent favor Obama/Biden. It's more complicated than that, of course, but it shows just how close we are to a war within the country. Never mind that we're already at war with another country. The two sides seem unwilling or unable to see the other's point of view.

It's a cultural war. The educated trumpet their disdain for the undereducated who snipe and snarl back at them. Urban dwellers look to the left, and rural dwellers look to the right. Second Amendment literalists grip their guns and ammo, and anti-gun folks fear blood in the streets. Bellicose proponents of the Iraq war roar, "Defeat the Terrorists!" and anti-war pacifists shout, "Bring 'em Home Now!"

It's a religious war. The evangelical faithful cry, "Onward Christian Soldiers!" and the scoffing unbelievers sharpen the tips of their protest signs. Right to Lifers see only one issue in this election, and those for choice see other issues.

It's a class war. The upper levels of society keep on getting richer, and those at the bottom of the barrel keep on scraping it.

But what about those moderates in the middle of the chasm? They keep floating quietly down the river that carves and widens the divide. I don't hear many moderates appealing to the left or right for detente and compromise. Reaching across the aisle is getting harder and harder, no matter what the candidates say. This is one of the most divisive of campaigns and one of the most important. I know where my loyalties lie, fairly left of center, and I'm adamant about certain issues. I don't know what will happen in November, but I worry about what comes after.

The High Road

2008-09-01T19:48:00.005-04:00

Bristol Palin's pregnancy should really be only a blip on the radar for Obama supporters, and I'm one of them. Barack himself has said this should be a non-issue. His own mother was pregnant with him when she got married. The decision to keep her child and to marry the father is the business of Bristol and her family, not ours. It is not a political issue but a cautionary tale.

I have said before in this blog that abstinence only sex education doesn't work. Teenagers are not really equipped to adequately stifle a basic human urge. They also use sex as a form of rebellion, a recreational drug, a form of communication, etc. It's not smart, but neither were most of us at that age either. My own birth mother had four children out of wedlock. She had few options. (Please read the April 29th, 2008 entry.)Yes, I'm "lucky" to be here. The fact of the matter is that I AM here and writing my views and am free to do so.

What I'm really saying here is that we all should take the high road on this one. No one, conservative or liberal or moderate, is immune to family issues of this kind. It's how we handle the ramifications for all of America that counts.

Ya Gotta Work For It

2008-08-29T09:38:00.003-04:00

I was absolutely galvanized by last night's speech by Barak Obama. He is everything this nation could hope for in a leader: brilliant, articulate, dedicated, inspired and inspiring. He has gotten things done about the issues he feels are so important to our nation. He wants to get so much more done: healthcare for all, justice for women, the end to unfair pay practices, jobs right here in America, energy independence, an end to global warming, an exit strategy that gets our troops home asap, and so much more that has been neglected, trampled and destroyed by George Bush and his minions. He called Bush to account and questioned McCain's loyalty to Bush's backward and destructive polices, but he did not question McCain's loyalty to America. He did all this without the vitriol and rancor we see in so many politicians' speeches. He was forceful but respectful of the other side.

One of the best things I saw in that speech was a willingness to work with Republicans to mend this battered nation. He does not want to widen the dangerous rift that has formed over the past 20 years and more in America. It's not about liberals and conservatives. It's about America. As he so eloquently stated, it's not about him. It's about lifting America up from the gutter we've fallen into in the eyes of other nations. It's about lifting up the middle class for so long used and abused. It's about getting involved in communities. It's about being an American in the best sense of the word. God, we need him now so badly, which is where the work come in.

Folks, if you want change, justice, fairness, peace, ya gotta do some work for it. Get out there and get involved in trying to get this wonderful leader elected so that he can do what he does best, which is help people, which is fight for what he believes in, which is what is best for America.

1. Find out where folks are registering voters and volunteer.

2. Help with sending out informational literature down at the local Democratic headquarters.

3. E-mail, text, phone, talk face to face with anyone you know who is sitting on the fence.

4. Help distribute absentee ballots to shut ins and nursing homes.

5. Volunteer to take voters who don't have transportation to the polls.

6. And most importantly, GO VOTE! It's never been more important.

If you happen to be thinking of voting for McCain and are reading this, please find a transcript of Obama's speech and really read it with an open mind. Then ask yourself who will take America forward and who will take America down the same dark path we've been following for the last eight years?

Refusing Women Contraception

2008-08-08T18:51:00.003-04:00

You have GOT to be kidding! Except it isn't funny. Some pharmacies are refusing to fill women's birth control products! No birth control pills, no condoms, and certainly no Plan B or morning after pills. This right wing push to dictate what women can and cannot do with their own bodies has gotten way out of hand. I'm so appalled that I can hardly write this without fuming, which is not the way to try and make a point. However, I feel compelled to get my point across, which is this. What part of THIS PREVENTS ABORTION don't you understand? These measures, with the exception of RU486, prevent the egg from being fertilized; hence, there is no need for a woman to have an abortion or terminate even a barely underway pregnancy. No fertilization, no abortion. Get it?

But this is not just about being anti-abortion, is it? It's about forcing women back into the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, over and over again. Oh, yeah, I forget. Abstinence is the preferred form of birth control for the right. But people have sex and people enjoy it. They don't enjoy having unplanned pregnancies, for the most part. Yeah, yeah, there are "happy" accidents, but I believe that most of these happy accidents are actually a choice. The rest of these unplanned pregnancies result from carelessness, ignorance, immaturity or a combination of these, especially with teenagers. The most heinous of these unplanned pregnancies are the result of rape and incest. And, no, I don't think any woman should be forced to carry a child conceived in violence. It's her choice to do so or not. I wouldn't. I would get myself to a doctor asap to prevent the pregnancy or stop it all together if egg actually does meet sperm. The topic of genetic predisposition or genetic problems caused by incest is for another blog.

The upshot of this abomination is that the right hates sex. They prefer tap dancing in men's rooms.

Election Day for Some

2008-08-07T16:21:00.002-04:00

If today is election day where you live, please go VOTE! If you haven't done your homework about the candidates first, please DON'T go vote! Parties don't matter. Issues matter.

Eldercare Blues

2008-08-06T13:32:00.004-04:00

Just got Mom out of the hospital again yesterday. It took an entire week at the "skilled" care facility for the nurse practitioner (apologies to those NP's who are wonderful) to believe me and several others of the staff that Mom needed to go to the hospital for breathing problems. I think she would have died if it were not for the fact that she is the Energizer Bunny in disguise. The facility is understaffed, so Mom stays in a wet diaper sometimes. She has another UTI because of it. The staff they do have are wonderful caregivers and try to keep up, but because of the great increase in the elderly population in the US, they just can't manage all the time to get to everyone. Mom knows this and hates to "bother" them.

Something has got to give with the state of elder care in this country. It's starting to improve as far as assisted living facilities are concerned, but they are prohibitively expensive. Also, once you get past being able to hobble out on your own with a walker, you can't be in assisted living. You then have to go to a skilled care facility. From the one assisted living facility I've seen (that Mom got herself kicked out of because she wanted to go home, which was not good but done anyway), they had skilled nurses and CNA's there. The surroundings were much nicer there. Long-term care facilities are drab for the most part, with a few very expensive exceptions.

In other words, healthcare for the elderly in this country sucks. I think my generation of late boomers will do things differently. I am not going to one of facilities like my mother lives in without a fight. Fortunately, I don't have children who will have to worry about it. My husband and I will take care of each other. If one of us dies, the other will find a way around the eldercare mess. More on that plan later. Right now, I'm supposed to be working on my fiction and poetry.

What it Really Means

2008-07-04T10:14:00.003-04:00

Happy July 4th! Now go read, really read, The United States Constitution.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.overview.html

We say we want to change this or that amendment, challenge this or that ruling concerning it, but how many of us can say we have really read and understood its importance, its nuances, its ramifications if we change it or abuse it. I'm not going to debate it here. I have my thoughts on its meanings, its original intent, but it is not for me to tell anyone else how to interpret it. That's the prerogative of the courts and our legislators. It is for me to say to readers that you need to think carefully how you vote this November, but first you need to read and understand how our government is meant to function. It's a bit more than that rallying cry of "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Go pursue that happiness today, but then get down to the business of understanding why you celebrate this day.

Note: I have been on vacation, ill, and having eldercare issues (that's another whole blog later), so I have been lax in my posts. That will improve.

When the Levee Breaks

2008-06-19T10:52:00.010-04:00

This morning I was playing a compilation cd I'd made several weeks ago, and Led Zepplin's version of "When the Levee Breaks" rolled around. It's an obvious connection, but I thought about the catastrophes in the Midwest. The song was written by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929. It was two years after the horrific floods of 1927, and more flooding was inundating the Midwest in 1929. Cedar Rapids was under water then as it is today. I think the '27 flood was more on the songwriters' minds, however. Google "The Great Flood of 1927" and read any article. Wikipedia has a fairly accurate one. It sounds eerily familiar. A levee above New Orleans was blown in order to save the city from the flooding which had ravaged the entire Mississippi basin. Turns out it wasn't necessary. Levee breaks farther up the river had abated the flooding, just as they are doing now. Funny how the planned break then inundated the poorer areas of St. Bernard and Plaquemine Parishes instead of the richer sections of New Orleans. What happened next was analyzed again after the disaster with Katrina.

After the Great Flood, more than 330,00 displaced African Americans were rounded up and forced onto the levees in deplorable refugee camps. Some were forced at gunpoint to shore up the levees. It was one of the many reasons for the Second Diaspora, the movement from the South to cities in the North, like Chicago and New York.

It will be interesting to see how "Shrub" (St. Molly's name for Bush) will handle this disaster.

My heart goes out to all those who have lost so much.

Fun in the ER

2008-06-14T11:33:00.005-04:00

I just love having to be in the ER. It's so productive to sit for five hours while you think you're in painfully dire straits (appendicitis) and may rupture your appendix while you wait. Then you finally get to go back to the ER exam room and wait some more for the doc, the blood work, the icky stuff you have to drink before a CT scan to do its thing (two hours), get the results of the CT scan (not appendicitis but its benign cousin, epiploic appendagitis, which is a rare condition), and then wait for someone to take the IV out of your arm so that you can go home. Total time - 10 1/2 hours. I will say one thing, the wait was bad, but the doc and nurses were first rate, harried and tired, but first rate.

Every time I have to go to the ER (recently a lot because of my elderly mother), I am appalled at the backup situation in hospitals. I'm sure its not just the one where we go. I know because of the appalling state of health care in America. Most of the people in the waiting room appeared to be poor or immigrants. I'm assuming they don't have insurance because most of their ailments seemed to be of the kind that a trip to a doctor's office the next day could handle. At least our hospital has a system of triage that routes less serious patients to expedited care rooms and serious patients to critical care rooms. Even at that, it was obvious that they were undermanned. The ER wing itself is inadequate, but that will be rectified when the hospital builds its new central city hospital. I just hope they find the doctors and nurses they need to run it expeditiously.

As for the makeup of the waiting room, that's the central problem facing America's healthcare system. We HAVE to get some sort of universal healthcare in order to serve the uninsured and underinsured of this nation. Knoxville is lucky in that it has two volunteer health clinics: one is for the uninsured and is free; the other is for the underinsured, and patients are charged on a sliding scale according to income. There aren't enough of these good facilities, however. There shouldn't have to be any. I hope America votes for the presidential candidate who will help develop a good universal program. I think we all know that's Obama.

A Kennedy Legacy

2008-05-21T15:29:00.002-04:00

Yesterday brought sad news about the cause of Senator Ted Kennedy's seizure. Gliomas are horrid tumors. My uncle died within four months of experiencing symptoms of his glioblastoma. I hope the outcome is better for Senator Kennedy. His family has a long history of giving so much for social causes. Senator Kennedy was going to be at a fundraiser for a charity close to his heart, Best Buddies. It is a wonderful organization dedicated to improving the lives of those with intellectual disabilities. It's also close to my heart. My brother Stevie was born with Cerebral Palsy. He is very high functioning, but he has some limitations. He is not limited in love, however.

Please take a moment to read about Best Buddies at their website: www.kintera.org. Make a donation and remember the good works of Senator Kennedy and his family.

Peace for today.

The Vulture

2008-05-16T13:59:00.003-04:00

It was not a good sign. A vulture perched on our chimney cap yesterday and scratched around for about 10 minutes. I was sitting in the living room reading when I heard the odd sounds coming from the fireplace. I listened at the vent and decided the sound was coming from the flue, so I went out to investigate. There it was. It looked down at me. I looked up at it, but it didn't fly away, so I went back in and got the camera. It stayed just long enough more for me to get several pictures of it. The one I have posted today is the creepiest.

After what has happened around here over the last few days, I was not comforted by the presence of such a symbolic bird. I wonder what drew it to the chimney. I've never seen one sitting on a house before. Is there a bird casualty from the storm lying up there or some leavings of the chicken hawk who sometimes raids our bird feeders? I can't see that particular space on the roof from the ground, so I don't know what's up there. Maybe it's just a convenient perch for scanning the ground. At any rate, I don't want it hanging about and giving me the heebie jeebies. Ain't nobody dead here. And the roses are recovering and blooming like mad.

After the Storm

2008-05-10T11:19:00.002-04:00

My husband and I had the merest taste last night of what some unfortunate folks have experienced over the last few days of storms. Our house shook and hail pounded the windows and roof as a vicious storm blew around us at 8:3o. The constant lightning illuminated trees which were swirling in the wind as we hunkered down on the first level in the center of the house. There was a constant rumble, but it did not sound like a screaming train. That was some relief, but it was still horrifying. It ended just 10 minutes after it began. We stepped outside to see how bad the hail had been and were greeted with the heavy scent of cedar. There was at least an inch of hail on the ground. I knew it would be bad when we got a good look at daylight.

When we went out to survey the damage this morning, it was apparent just how powerful the storm had been. All our hard work in the yard was for nothing. The hail and wind tore everything to pieces. There are bits of leaves plastered to the house from the vegetation. Even the cedar apple rust fungi were torn from the cedar trees. All but a few of the 132 heirloom tomato plants my husband has babied and had just gotten into the ground are gone. But we're still here. Our house is still here.

I absolutely mourn for those who lost everything in the storms earlier in the week around the Midwest and South. If you magnify our fear by a hundred times, you have theirs. Then I think of what has happened to the people of Burma, and my mind cannot even begin to wrap itself around that catastrophe. If all this suffering is because of altered weather patterns because of global warming, then we are all in a world of hurt. The time for debate is long over. The time for all of us to take action is now.

A Borrowed Life

2008-05-02T19:13:00.003-04:00

Until I was 45 years old, I did not have a past. My ancestors were all borrowed from the family who adopted me when I was three months old. If James Agee lived so successfully disguised to himself as a child, then I lived not so successfully disguised to myself as part of a family. From the time I became self aware, I had the feeling that I somehow was not quite connected to the world. Despite all the love and devotion of my sainted mother, the idea that I was adopted made me feel disconnected to her stories and those of my father, my grandmother, and countless other relatives who thought they were passing down the tradition to me to pass on to my children. But I never got the chance. I had no children of my own to pass anything down to, and if I had, they, too, would have had a borrowed history. The idea was reinforced by well meaning relatives who found it necessary to introduce me as the adopted daughter. My grandmother, when counting out her grandchildren, would say, “I have eight grandchildren and two adopted.” My father, after announcing to us at the age of 76 that he had had a daughter out of wedlock before he married my mother, afterward started introducing me as his adopted daughter.
I was officially told that I was adopted when I started grammar school. My mother rightly guessed that someone’s child would let me know it if she didn’t. This fact set me apart from the other children. If there were another child in that school who was adopted, I never knew it. I seemed to be the only one. Having red hair and freckles did nothing to help me fit in either. I also had no siblings to defend me. I longed for a big brother. The fleeting friendships I had with other girls came because they were “lonely onlies” like me.
Another reinforcement of the feeling of otherness came when I had to go to a new doctor’s office and fill out the medical history forms. Large blank spaces where family medical history was supposed to go glared up at me. Doctors who only fleetingly glanced at the chart would ask me if there were a family history of this or that disease. Then I had to say that I didn’t know. The doctor would look puzzled for a second and look at the chart again. “Sorry, “he or she would say.
I also felt the lack of history at parties and family gatherings when the conversation inevitably turned to family illnesses and the aunt with breast cancer, the uncle who is an alcoholic. Someone would say gravely that he or she was always on the lookout for the signs of the family affliction. I felt a little comfort in not knowing those details, and then someone would ask, “I guess you don’t know any of your medical history, do you?” and the conversation would just stop. It is a distinct handicap to grow up in the South without information about your people. I can’t discuss in detail how Great Aunt So and So “is eat up with it” without feeling like a fraud or a merely a gossipy neighbor watching from behind the drapes to see who leaves the house next door feet first.
Then came the question I always dreaded, “Aren’t you curious about your mother?” Not really. I did not look for my birth mother until I was 45, thinking she must be far away in another state, perhaps happy that I never arrived to throw her life into chaos. I subconsciously feared a second rejection, a common feeling among adopted children. Oh, I had romantic notions about her noble sacrifice for my welfare. I was told I had been starving and that she could not support my half brother and me. I always wondered about him, the one she kept. I worried about him, wondering if he had gone to Vietnam, his name carved on that long, black wall. I wanted to find out, but my mother either couldn’t remember or didn’t want to remember his name so that I could check the list of the dead in that horrible war.
Then in 1999, an enlightened legislature opened the adoption records in Tennessee. I decided it was time to find out some information, mostly for medical reasons. My husband and I drove to Nashville from Knoxville with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. He has always been supportive of anything I needed to do, but this trip might mean some painful revelations for me, so he was worried. He had reason to be. The yellowed pages of the records from 1955 told me more than I ever wanted to know. I didn’t have just one half brother. I had three siblings, maybe full siblings, one of whom had cerebral palsy. My oldest brother, Steven, was described in the documents as “spastic,” a term which made me think of the old grammar school taunt directed at less than graceful children. My oldest sister, Carol, was barely mentioned. She would have been 52 at the time I saw the records. The middle brother, Jim, she kept for fear the State would make her take back the “defective” child. I was put up for adoption privately in order to avoid the Department of Human Services entirely.
My birth mother sounded like a classic case of either physical or mental abuse, drinking and wandering from man to man. One in particular was described as the married man with whom she had been having a twelve-year affair. Other boyfriends were mentioned. She, herself, was described as attractive but with bad teeth, which the caseworker said detracted from her looks. My own teeth had all come in rotten and had to be capped when I was five. But that could be attributed to the neglect that lasted for three months before I was adopted. My first doctor’s visit when my adoptive mother took me to him a day after I was adopted merely said one word, “hungry”. The words on the adoption pages did not describe the noble woman that my adoptive mother believed had reluctantly given up her child. The worst news the adoption papers revealed was that she had tried to give me to the nurses the day she gave birth to me, as she had done with the rest of her babies.
I left the Child and Family Services offices stunned and angry. I read the pages to my husband as he drove us home. As we drove, I couldn’t stop talking about it, getting more and more distraught as we went along, so he took a detour to Fall Creek Falls State Park in order to calm me down. We walked to the falls, and the insistent beauty of them helped somewhat, but soon after we got home, I started having nightmares. One dream caused me to cry out in my sleep. A hooded figure in black seemed to loom at my side of the bed. Others had various threatening images attached to them. Many nights my husband had to awaken me to see why I was whimpering. These subsided when I received a call from Tennessee Post Adoption Services to tell me they had located one brother, Steven.
Before I met him, I had visions of him in a wheelchair and severely mentally challenged. The man I met was very much not that person. He was sweet and intelligent, but mildly challenged by emotional and mental delay. His loving parents had adopted him when he was five years old. They took him to doctors who straightened his twisted legs and corrected his strabisimus. He attended regular school through high school, but that was as far as he could go. He lives with his parents now because he can’t live on his own. He’s a delight to have as a brother, though, witty and a character, who often surprises me by what he does know and perplexes me by what he doesn’t.
They found my other brother, Jim, shortly after that. He was the one my birth mother kept and then abandoned cold and hungry in her apartment. Our grandmother took him home and raised him after that. He’s done remarkably well for having such a confusing childhood. Our mother would show up sporadically and stay a day or two, have her picture taken with him and then disappear for months again. Ironically, when he was about 11, he was cast as one of Rufus’ friends in the movie, All the Way Home, the screen adaptation of James Agee’s A Death in the Family. He lived on 11th street with our grandmother. Where was “home” for my brother, really?
Our family history was almost complete when TPAS found my sister a year later. She was very difficult to find. Apparently, an elaborate fairy story had been devised for her by some well meaning social worker so that the right Carol was hard to find. She lived here in Knoxville for most of her life, just as the others had, a fact I still find hard to accept. Carol and I have become very close.
As for our birth mother, when she was contacted about approval for me to contact her, she “accepted” it by not sending in a refusal. Birth mothers have the option of signing the acceptance form or the refusal form, or accepting it by just not sending either form back. That pretty much set the tenor of our later meeting. I talked to her for about two hours in her apartment. She was pretty much in denial about Carol and Stevie but knew she couldn’t deny Jim, so we talked about him a bit. I asked her about who my father was, who Carol’s father was and who the boys’ father was. Oddly, she told me that Carol and I were full sisters and that Stevie and Jim were full brothers even though she denied remembering anything about Carol and Stevie. That was all. I never talked to her again. She died not long afterwards. My adopted mother went with me to the funeral. It was a surreal experience, to say the least. It seems no one in her family knew any other children existed. I thought Jim had told everyone, but the looks on the faces of aunts, uncles, cousins, etc were looks of pure shock. I sat in the service not knowing what to feel and finally just burst out sobbing. My poor adoptive mother didn’t know what to do other than just hold my hand. This has not been easy for her either.
In the final analysis, the experience has taught me the importance of including an adoptive child as one would a birth child. Well meaning as people think they are being, calling attention to the status of adoptive children, even calling them “special” puts invisible barriers around them and makes them feel their sense of otherness.

Many "Choices"

2008-04-29T08:10:00.003-04:00

When I get behind a car with a "Choose Life" tag or bumper sticker, I almost always think about what my birth mother's choices were in the mid '50's when I was born. She was a troubled, depressed alcoholic who had most likely been sexually abused at some point in her childhood. She married an older man at 15, who turned out to be a junkie and drug pusher. She divorced him and began affairs with two older men, both married, by whom she bore four children. The first was a girl. She tried to give her to the nurses, so they took the baby to Children's Services for adoption. The second baby was a boy born with Cerebral Palsy. The State took him as well. The third son she kept for fear of having to take the second one back. Someone must have threatened her with that possibility in order to prevent her from bearing more children out of wedlock. She married after that, but the husband left her. That son ended up being raised by our grandmother because our mother left him cold and hungry in an apartment in Memphis. I came along four years later. She hid me in a back room and almost starved me to death before someone told my adoptive parents about my "availability" and saved me from a painful death from rickets.

What were my birth mother's choices? Abortion was illegal, expensive, and dangerous. Birth control was a dicey option at best for an alcoholic sleeping with alcoholics, obviously. Abstention was hard for a woman whose father had died when she was 11 who must have been looking for attention from a substitute father figure. Sex meant attention, even drunken, sloppy, hopeless attention. Her self esteem must have been nonexistent. Her only choice was adoption.

Today we have more choices. Today there's better birth control; safer, legal abortions; and, most importantly, better intervention for severely troubled women like her. And, yes, there is still adoption. However, it's a great deal more complicated and often more painful than those folks with the bumper stickers realize.

This is the beginning

2008-04-27T07:05:00.000-04:00

This is the beginning of my blogspot. I have never blogged before but feel that it is time to voice my opinions about a range of issues. I was an Associate Professor of English at a small college in Knoxville, Tennessee, until 2004. I quit because I had a new opportunity, and I was getting very burned out with grading papers and teaching students who didn't seem to get the idea they might need what I was trying to teach them. I found they were woefully underprepared for college. More on that in a later post.

What you will find here in the future is a discussion of adoption issues, both for adoptees and those who gave up or who are planning to give up children for adoption. The topic is a minefield, much like the process itself.

Other topics may include education, politics, Iraq, historic travel, bed and breakfasts and organic gardening. These are not in order of importance.