The rule of thumb

                                      Have you ever had your eyes opened to a blindness you have carried and cherished nurtured and reveled in your whole life. This happened to me in the instance I am willing to talk about when I was first married 18 years ago it was march and I wanted to share a huge family tradition in my house with my husband. We watched the Quiet man every year faithfully loved it quoted from it, well my Dad my Sister and I did. My Mother was not a fan and "joked" with my Dad about John Wane being an alcoholic wife beater, but we will get back to that later. SO with joy at sharing the treasure I sat down with most of my family and my hubby to watch the greenness of Ireland and the listen to the melody and wit of the people. As the movie went on I noticed my husband getting more and more uncomfortable. when the part came when the town was marching across the field with John and the woman came up to give him a stick "to beat the lovey lady with" That was it he was done he left the room and went to talk to my Mom. Later I asked him why he had left, his response was that John Wayne had not been very good to the wife in the movie and he just did not care for it. That sat with me for a long time made me think of the role of Men and Women.

My Mom

                                    Growing up in my house was interesting in my teen years my Mom worked at an abuse agency. My parents "debated" about politics my mom being Dem my Dad Rep. One of the impressions I did at age 5 was Jimmy Carter, it was in total me drying off my teeth and putting my lip up on top of the throwing up 2 peace signs and saying "Hi, I'm Jimmy Carter" my Nixon was worse. SO I grew up in a house that talked regularly about issues not so much personal issues but issues. My mom talked about women's rights but made sure to clarify she was not off the deep end about it. Meaning she shaved her legs and arm pits and being married meant everything to her. I always kind of saw her as a hippy want to be she wanted the things they did but the norm was not so bad. She had always been popular, never with out a date since Jr. high, she had grown up kind of privileged with a Dad who was a respected Business man in Madison. She was the dream of her area of time happy wife with 2 daughters she dressed well and loved her family very much by day. Her job had always taken her to places of compassion and hard to look at places of our society. She had become a nurse because her mom was a nurse. the Jobs I remember her having were starting the head start in Beaver Dam writing the grants for them then working for the WIC program weighing babies and doing quick checks for them, the one that left a lasting  impression on me was when she worked for the abuse shelter. I remember all the radical friends and their talks of women's rights and thinking it was over stated to think women were not valued to same  as men. When my mom died I was lost I did not know what to do she was my rock the one I could always count on, the one I could be real with. Who was I now with out her? I drifted for years holding on to the only thing keeping me floating, my faith but that was so new I had no idea how to manage it. I lost so much of who I was and those around me suffered, in that time became hard and unsure of my self. It was this time in my life this rebel part of me my Mom loved and hated with intensity started to rise up in me. It started questioning things and making me think through things I had not. along this way I found friends that challenged me to do the same and loved me while I worked it out, And I found my self again. I am not as proper a women as my Mom would have liked but I do think as she always did she would admire me for being me.

                                      The idea of equality for women has come back up in my life that seed firmly planted by my Mom and I have been spending time thinking about Her and the influence she had on me in this part of my life what a revolutionary she was fighting in the courts and If my mind remembers right working to pass laws or get them enforced anyway. Yesterday I saw a picture talking about traditional Marriage and what that actually looked like. Women property until 1768, Monogamy since 1899, wife own property 1900, contraception 1965, interracial couples 1967, credit in her name 1975 (I was one), Husband owns all property by default done 1981 (I was 7), and Legal marital Rape ended 1993 (I was one year out of high school).  First off I would be one illegal women in the 60's, married to a Mexican and owning credit and all. But it got me thinking the right not to be raped was won in my life time when I was an adult. How crazy is that? As I looked into this not so fun fact I learned was that the saying "rule of thumb" comes from the rule you could beat your wife with a stick as long as it was  no thinker than your thumb. really how does that work. sorry "Timmy Dad got to into beating your Mom with the stick and beat her to death but it was with in the rule of thumb so wink wink it's ok, pass the ovaltein Daddy worked up an appetite." Come on I am tired of the whole we are still fighting for this. it is 2013 we should be so past this by now we all should be equal. everyone! It just seems like there is more hate more subjugation of people or it is a growing trend anyway. the generations of women starting in the 1700 have been on this since than and we still have people like Rush Limbaugh saying things have gone down hill since we let women vote, and he is still on the air. REALLY are you kidding me? Some is paying him to be on there saying this. NO really they are even Radio aint free.

                                    Women we have a heritage of strong compassionate women a sisterhood we have an obligation them, our selves, our daughters and sons to speak up, stand up and do not except less. Men do not think you gain by this idea when one of us loose our power we all are weaker for it. I am not generalizing Men, I know many that understand and revel in this encouraging the women in their lives to be who they are and be free. I have been luck enough to be married to one. It is time this stopped being an issue and started being history.

                           

even if you shake

Ugh I fell like I write this all the time. I get so down on my self when I can't find anything interesting to write about. I feel like I have nothing to say, nothing to offer when the world rears up an gut checks me I loose all perspective. I for get each of us has a view that is like no other my view is my own and sharing it helps me sort it but also allows others to share their views and perspective widening my own giving me a better view than my navel I have been pondering with the limited view life gives. I may not shatter the earth with my brilliance/ quirky voice but I will at least speak.

I was listening to a poet today called Sarah Kay her ted talk, at the end she recited her poem and in it she was talking about Hiroshima and the blast burning the rocks and evaporating the people in the blast and the rocks being burnt except where the people had shielded it with there bodies leaving a white mark of their out line, a positive image. I want that, not to be vaporized but to leave a positive mark. it does not have to be big it can just be an out line but I want when the world finally vaporizes me for the mark that is left is of where I blocked the darkness. for some part to remain where the darkness of life can not take over that because I was here because I spoke because I had the courage to be who I was made to be.

God that sounds good, right? Sounds like someone so full of optimism you would think the world never touched them with darkness that light just free flows from their eyes and finger tips rather than the anxiety laden person who doesn't have the patience to wait for the page to load so she plays a game while she does everything person actually writing this. But is the truth of how I feel inside, no matter how much soul crushing radiative ash making crap life brings this is all I have. Don't get me wrong I have some very good things in my life I would not give up the relationships experiences and things that have formed me into this neurotic women I am, but all I own in my life is that. I can own my voice I can own the time I place into loving well. I may not be the most brilliant my words may be spoken better by others but the uniqueness that is me can not. SO I am going to stand on the words of a person I forgot who they were but not what they said that said speak even if your voice shakes in the hopes that someday even if they can not name me my words will bring that kind of courage to someone else.

The trench

                               Why is change so friggin hard you think in a world full of flux we would all be so used to it it would seem weird without it. Sigh but it is not that way. I had a friend describe changing habits this way the other day. "we all have ruts in our brains deep ways we do everything in our lives. as we try to change those we are digging new ones it is easy to slip back into the old ones." I like a loath that idea: it describes how uncomfortable we feel while making the changes but also leaves us in a pit once in a while. this oddly has given me new motivation. As the idea of being confined in a trench in my mind is not appealing to me. not many pleasant things happen in a pit or trenches for that matter.

                               Change is a part of who we are or should be. I love the commercial with the grown man with the bike helmet on on one of those push scooters saying these streets are all I have ever known.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnCSY8YHDEA
It cracks me up because what if we all had chosen to stay there? With every new thing we do there is risk but the risk of being a 40 year old living like that guy is so much greater. We would miss out on so much of life if we let it.

Paradox

I am still so distracted about the trip next year I put pictures every where on the computer it is my cover picture my screen saver my wall paper. I have gone southern mad. I am not sure what it is about the south I loved visiting there as a child the glossed over history and the dark underbelly, beautiful flowers plants air plants that add mystique, old plantations beautiful and sad with history of oppression, The beaches and wildlife, the iron work and just how different it feels from here. I love it! I am so excited to get to go there and see a house that belonged to an 3 or 4 time great grandfather of mine. Tom has been wanting to take me there since we found out the place existed. I was not sure I wanted to be do really want to see it see where they walked see where they lived what they were like.

                    It is weird to think of them being slave owners and doing horrible things that went with that. Finding my family history has been both very fun and not so much all at the same time because of finding people like that in my past where their lives were fascinating yet they were not people of great moral values. May be more a product of their times but it still feels wrong to a person who believes in freedom and honoring and respecting others so much. This will be the first time I have been back down south since I have known about this I wonder if it will change my view. AS a child the drama of gone with the wind filled my head with the dreams of a different time. I did a hell of Scarlet impression, my mom loved it got me out of a lot of tuff spots. But as I grew older and learned the history I was so embarrassed of how much I loved it. There is so much good about the south not just the food but that is high on the list. the music and richness lives there Alligators and dolphins. so much history and so much new that is good too. I don't know if I will ever get over my love of the south but I am in good company so many artists and musicians never have either. There was a part of the book I was reading with my book club that talked about paradox and how that is where interest lives spark of life, I think the south is that for me. So much beauty so much darkness so much life so many ghost tours. (Hee hee hee ) I am excited to see how I see this word as an adult and see it for the first time in my husbands eyes.

wonderlust engage.

                                The art of Whimsy and spontaneity is lost I think in many ways. I find it one of most important things we can hold. It keeps us young it keeps us from being crushed by life. The ability to be dumb and loud and silly is the most important thing we loose as we age. Seriousness of life can drowns it out from our lives. As I planned a trip yesterday with my husband and we wrote our dreams for this time away, we both struggled to actually hope we could do all the things we wanted to do to find something that fit us and was what we wanted not what we thought we needed. I can think of few of our trips that have been just what we wanted out of it we make considerations here and changes there to accommodating both each other and our budgets needs. Some times it is what we wanted some times it is what we settled for. I have never been so excited about a trip in years I can not stop thinking about it I want so badly to be go now all ready and packed.

                       I never had thought about our trip this way before. I think this has relaunched my love of travel that had been sucked dry by the utilitarian ways in witch we have traveled in the last maybe more than 10 years. I feel like a kid excited about Christmas coming the day after it came for the next year. I am going to be working very hard this year to be ready, seams so silly to me that this is going to be be the thing that motivates me to make so many of the changes I want to make. I think it is that finding a piece of us that has been gone too long the couple that woke up one night years ago and just took off for the week not even knowing where we were going. We had so much fun I forgot we were still there. I loved finding them again even if they are a little smarter and planned to have money for gas and food when they go. But I can not wait to travel with them again!

Looking back

                  So I can not divorce my self from the things that I write in my other blog about beauty today, this painting I posted today reminded me so much of my Dad's parents. My grandfather Jim had so much heart, I always remember wanting to be around him. sitting by him while he talked of the south Pacific in the war and how he would go back someday shooting riffles that knocked me on my butt in his back yard. His kind eyes smiling out at everyone. I do not think I went any where with him that everyone in the place did not know him. He smoked so much his voice was low and comforting. He was so short hardly even 5 ft. tall It was a right of passage to be taller than him. But no one could eclipse him any where he went. He was quiet but friendly and such a loving man.

                   My grandmother and him were so funny together I remember when I was 5 watching him mow the lawn he walked over to this flower bed around a tree took down the brinks and mowed the flowers then replaced the bricks. and continued to mow. I found it odd it was not till 3 hours later when my grandmother went out to water her flowers that I heard he yelling about him mowing them and how she could not understand how he could do it she had put the brinks there to stop him and he still gets them with the brinks unmoved.. I laughed but never told. They had such a funny relationship to me they called each other old crab and old crow with such affection. Too hard headed to admit they loved each other you could see it without the words. They made such a funny couple with my grandpa being so short and grandma being so tall seeming to me as child to be almost 6 ft. tall.

            My grandmother was a harder one to know with all her German stubbornness she loved but was not so much with the affection. She was a wild women in many was going to biker rallies and gay bars with her sons, a fire deep with in her. I do remember her coming to take care of us with my Grandpa when my parents went away for vacation. Sitting on the couch with them and her arms wrapped around me talking to me and tickling me. Other times swimming with her in the lake in Arkansas and stopping at any yard sale we could find every where. With all her toughness she put out there was a tender heart underneath. She was a Rosy the Riveter in during the war going to work to support her family and the men fight in the war. She had lots of determination.

                I am not trying to say they did not have their faults just that I loved them and miss them. Parts of them I would like to not know and other parts I long for more of. I miss you love you both. Relationships can be so hard with people living so far apart hell there hard living so close together.  I think it is important to take time to look and remember those that have past and not editing them to suit us ether hard or just good but to remember the whole person. I wish I had known them both better but cherish what I did have.

            I am not sure the blog world will care about this post much but I hope it stirs you to look back at some people in your life you have lost.

Only I could...

So I decided today to write a blog about a practice I have started since some friends of mine and I started doing a book club about this one book Practical Genius, love the book read it if you can. In this book one of the challenges in it is to take in beauty every day really soak it in. like going to a museum and find one piece of art that calls to us and feel it write down your thoughts about it this could also be done with great literature read something beautiful really soak it in not just read and go on. So I started doing this but had not written down my thoughts about it so I figured if I am going to do this I want to share them with people and have them share with me. Kind of a I'll show you mine if you show me your kindda feel to it. so I did I looked up a very famous museum been in movies and everything  and looked through found the piece and wrote down my thought really one by one wrote them out I am figgin odd ball because I came to the conclusion in my head that this beautiful statue was the birth place for sci-fi and the modern block buster alien invasion movie. really I did (shakes head), only I could take a statue of Nike and make it Super 8 movie, or Battle Star Galactica.  here it is if you would like to read it. http://platypus-takes-in-beauty.blogspot.com/