Let There Be Peace

Yesterday was my dad's annual patriotic concert.  He conducts the Winston-Salem Community Band and has for a thousand years.  I go to his annual "tribute to our veterans" specifically to hear John Phillip Sousa's "Stars and Stripes Forever."  I can't help it.  A love of Sousa is imprinted in my DNA.

One of the more moving moments at this annual event occurs when the band plays a medley of all the military branches' anthems.  My father invites all members of the audience to stand during the anthem which represents the branch of military which they served.  People whose bodies are compromised by age, people who look as if they will teeter over when vertical, pull themselves upright and stand during their anthem.  I saw a woman who must have been one hundred years old stand to "Anchors Away." Her face was twisted as if she'd suffered a stroke.  And from where I was sitting, it appeared she had only one eye.

My father inserted "Let There Be Peace On Earth" near the end of his program.  This song contains potent words which the melody alone conjured in my mind: 

Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now.
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment
And live each moment
With peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.

It's been a rough week at Planet Care.  A new acting manager in my department has a tyrannical approach to the people who get shit done.  As a result, all of my co-workers are angry and hate-filled.  Additionally, a local LBGTQ community staged a protest, coming into the store yelling and setting everyone on edge.  The week building up to the protest was tense.  They are planning to stage another.  This is because two weeks ago, one customer said, "That's disgusting," when he passed two same sex customers kissing in the store.

I walk into work trying to keep all the hatred and anger from penetrating my psyche, which proves in the end to be unsuccessful.  And once all the hatred and anger gets into me, it is difficult for it to get out.  So sometimes simple things like acknowledging the years a person has lived on the planet, the years that person spent in service to others - in whatever capacity - makes me feel better.  It makes them feel better to be recognized.  My father is a great man and does a great service to the veterans by honoring them in his small and simple way.  And to insert the hope of Peace on Earth into his program is probably the best way to honor people who have been subjected to all manner of atrocities.

Let there be peace on earth.  And let it begin with me.

Happy Monday!

People In Cars

It's funny how being in a car emboldens us to do things that we would not necessarily do outside of a car.  I pick my nose in my car.  I engage in primal screams in my car.  I make up songs and sing them into my portable recording device in my car.

People in cars are funny.

Today, I was driving in my car, my Great-Aunt-Minnie-Lee-Mobile, when I approached a long line of other cars waiting to get through a left turn lane at a traffic light.  I thought for a moment, "Oh no!" but then I remembered that there was no rush: my destination would be open for a couple more hours.  So I slowed my car to a halt, allowing enough room for some cars waiting at a connecting street to turn left in front of me, and for others to get in front of me in line.  This made the man in the car behind me furious.  

He blew his horn.  I looked into my rear view mirror and saw him gesturing at me.  He put his hands on top of his head and jerked his hair in an upward motion as if he were plumb pulling his hair out.  He shook his head violently as if this gesture would suggest to me what an absolute idiot I was by being polite.  

The light was red.  Traffic was not moving.  Yet I had stalled this man's progress too much.  

Eventually, of course, the light turned green.  And the first stream of waiting cars made it through before it turned red again.  The man in the car behind me continued to make gestures and blow his horn as if that would make all the cars ahead of him move.  He pulled out a portable phone unit and began to make his most exasperated facial expressions as I'm sure he used his most exasperated tone of voice to the person on the other end.  

I listened to happy music and watched the people walking in the warmth of the bright sunshine.  It was a lovely scene, most pleasant to observe while waiting for a green light.  One man walking down the sidewalk wore a brilliantly colored shirt.  I wanted to call out of my window to him.  I wanted to tell him how much I appreciated his shirt.  But I did not want to break the sacred in car, out of car barrier.  It is sort of intrusive when people in cars yell at people outside of cars.  I didn't want to be that person.  If I were outside of a car, I would do this. I let it go.

I occasionally glanced at the man behind me playing an angry cartoon character in his car.  I had an impulse to get out of my car, walk back to this man's car, lean over and say, "Do you really think that by letting a few people out in front of me, you will be any more delayed than you already are?  Why did you not take a different route when you noticed the line of cars ahead?  Are all these melodramatic gesticulations necessary?  What is so all fired important that makes you miss the beauty of the day?" I decided this was a very bad idea.  

Still, I wondered about him.  It must be some sort of survival mechanism for him to behave in this manner, I thought.  He apparently needs to feel inconvenienced by the world around him.  And this is more important to him than pausing to enjoy a moment of stillness.  How tragic.  But his anger is his anger and doesn't need to permeate my psyche.  My ability to transcend his negativity was a personal victory.  In a way, I am celebrating that by writing this blog entry.  Anyway...

The light once again turned green and the few cars ahead of me crawled through the intersection.  The light turned yellow as I approached it and the man behind me blew his horn much longer than he needed to in order to make his point.  I proceeded through the intersection and he raced through a red light.  Once through the intersection, he passed me of course.  My car's bumper was too contemptible for him to bear another second.  It was only after he was down the road a way that it occurred to me, I should have flashed him a peace sign.

Traffic was heavy going into downtown.  Many people in many cars - some patient, others less so -observed the rules of the road, stopping at lights, allowing pedestrians to cross if they were nice, pulling out in front of others if they weren't.  

A boy in a car in front of me was furiously playing the drums on his steering wheel and dashboard.  He was bouncing up and down in his seat and swinging his arms wildly about.  I wanted to know what music he was listening to.  What was causing him to move with such wild abandon in the driver's seat of his car?  I was supremely curious about this.  

I moved into another lane with the notion that I would pull up along side of him and yell out of my window to ask who he was listening to.  Because there was no sacred barrier here. We were both in cars.  But my row of cars moved at a quicker pace than his row of cars and before I could call out to him, I was already past him.  But until I lost sight of him, he continued to play drums on his steering wheel and dash board while bouncing up and down.  

Yep.  People in cars are funny.

My Victory

The worst thing that ever happened to me - worse than breast cancer, worse than ITP - happened to me on a late afternoon in West Virginia.  It was early autumn.  The sun was making ready to disappear for the night.  The now ex-husband and I had uprooted ourselves and our children earlier that summer in order to be a part of an "intentional community."  It is with a great sense of irony that I use the term "intentional" to describe my life at that time.

On this particular early autumn afternoon, the ex-husband and I were arguing.  I don't remember what we were arguing about.  (I don't remember the content of any of the arguments that ended in violence.)  I only remember the last words that left my mouth: "I'm not your mother."

At that point, the ex-husband flew into a rage, pushing me down a staircase, dragging me out into the yard, throwing me down on the ground.  I was laying on my back.  He got down on his knees and straddled my chest. He wrapped his hands around my neck, squeezing it tightly, using it to repeatedly lift my head and bang it on the ground. Over and over he did this, snarling unintelligible words in time with the banging.  So what I heard was a word or two interrupted by my own gasps and grunts as my neck was forcefully pulled upward and as my head hit the ground. I could not breathe. The only thought in my brain was Oh God. This is it. I'm going to die now. 

I vaguely remember my children standing nearby.  I often wonder if they fully took in what was happening.  I wonder how they felt as they observed their father assaulting their mother.  I remember ex-husband guy ushering them inside as I laid on the cold ground with the colors of sunset hovering over me.

Dark orange. Brilliant pink. Deep blue. Midnight blue.

I felt as if I were becoming part of the ground - cold and hard like a rock. I was heavy. Frozen. The vibrancy of my life slowly seeped out of my body as the colors faded from the sky.  I do not know how long I remained on the ground.  I felt the chill and the damp of the autumn night falling onto and into me.  I might have laid there all night under the silent stillness of the crystalline stars. I remember a tear rising to the surface of my eye but not fully manifesting. It never rolled down my cheek.

I do not remember getting up, going into the house and interacting with the ex-husband and the children, which I'm sure I must have done.  Because I'm not lying on the ground now.  I must have gotten up.  I must have pushed myself away from the safety of the cold ground and back into the continued motion of family life.

On that night, I ended.  I died.  Checked out.  I put the requisite time and attention into being the primary monetary provider for the family, into preparing meals for the children, making sure they were dressed for school and the like. But part of my attention remained there on that cold hard ground, staring at the sky, trying to feel alive.

There is absolutely nothing worse than feeling dead inside and trying to pretend like you are living.

Eventually, my awareness returned.  I have memories of events that occurred after that one, including more episodes of violence. A beer bottle nearly hitting me in the head as it was hurled across a room. One of the children's favorite bowls filled with cream of wheat smashed against a wall. Being whipped across the back by a denim dress with brass buttons again and again as I curled up in an attempt to shield myself from attack.

It took a while, but I left the husband, who is now the ex-husband.  I knew that if I didn't, I would end up dead.  Not that he would have murdered me.  I probably would have killed myself.  Thoughts of driving my car at high speed into a tree planted themselves firmly in my brain.  So much so, that I had to actively fight the urge to do this on my way home from work every night.

It occurred to me that I must choose to live or die.  And I must fully commit to whatever choice I made.  For example, if I chose to die, I must stop beating about the bush and off myself.  And if I chose to live, I must really start living.

I chose to live.  At the time, I made this choice for the sake of my children.  I did not want to impose a lifetime of psychological suffering upon them by taking my own life.  Additionally, I wanted to send a very distinct message to them both - but especially to my daughter - that the type of abuse to which I subjected myself was unacceptable.  No one ever needs to be reduced to that degree of humiliation and shame.  I come from a long line of women who married abusive drunks.  It was time to break the chain for future generations.

I am constantly amazed by the number of beautiful, smart and talented women who are or have been physically abused by a man.  Having come out of it, I understand how difficult it is to extract yourself from that scenario.  I stayed with my husband much longer than I needed to. I had to reach a point at which I felt courageous enough to leave.  And I needed the safety of a support network.  This was absolutely crucial.

It is important to note that I did not feel completely empowered to leave the ex-husband until we moved back to North Carolina and I lived in close proximity to my family.  I found a job and began to establish a network of friends again.  I opened my own bank account.  I needed to have a safety net in place.  My family and friends provided a great source of strength to me.  And through their love, I began to realize I needed to take better care of myself and my children.

Initially, I blamed ex-husband guy for the violence perpetrated against me.  Then, I went through a phase in which I owned my share of the responsibility for the dynamics of our relationship.  Now, I have come full circle and realize that no matter what I did to contribute to the fucked up dynamic of our relationship, I never physically assaulted the man to whom I was married, the man whom I professed to love and who professed to love me.

Anger is a volatile emotion.  But there are any number of things one can do with it.  Anger does not need to result in assault.  Period.

Assault is against the law.  This simple frame of reference could have helped me so much had it been present in my psyche back in the day.  But I accepted assault as the norm - as part of the dynamic of my relationship with the ex-husband.  I suppose I accepted assault as the norm because I grew up seeing it in my immediate and extended family.  A certain degree of violence, it seemed, was simply a part of life.

I now reject that attitude. Violence is not a part of my everyday life.  I have no tolerance for it in whatever form it manifests: verbal or physical.  I am quick to call bullshit on any type of bullying.  I walk with growing strength and confidence.  I am grateful for my life.

Not every woman makes it out of a violent relationship alive.  I nearly didn't.  But I accepted the challenge of rescuing myself and making my life count.  This is my Victory.

I wish for all people to believe that they have value. I wish for all people to understand that violence is not an acceptable form of communication. I wish for all people to free themselves from the traps established long ago by a patriarchal belief system - a system that is outdated and destructive in nature. I wish for all women to acknowledge their strength, their power, their absolute wildness and to never, ever, become domesticated.

~In Memory of Sarah Browder~

The Abortion

Yesterday at work, I saw a man wearing a t-shirt that had obviously been designed to stun people such as myself. In larger-than-life gold letters against an olive green background, the words "Cure Abortion" were emblazoned across his chest. The back of the shirt said, "Abortion: leading cause of death in America. 1,200,000 a year."

This man clearly had an agenda. And his steely eyes and tightly clenched jaw revealed his determination to fight about it. I had never before seen him in Planet Care. And I made a silent plea to the Universe to keep him out of my lane at the check-out.

The Universe wasn't listening.

The man began to unload his goods onto the conveyor belt while being polite but curt and watchful. He was ready, oh so ready, for me to make commentary on his attire. But I did not. I turned my attention towards his daughter, who was wearing a remember 9/11 t-shirt. This girl looked like she might be 10. Which would mean that she had been an infant during 9/11. Clearly, her daddy dresses her.

I tried to make small talk with the girl since talking to the man proved to be excruciating. He would not allow the conversation to be diverted. I learned that he is a sixth grade special ed teacher. The girl offered up the information that her mother is a teacher as well. 8th grade. I said, "Wow. Both your parents are teachers. Do you get enough attention?"

A stunned silence ensued. The girl reflexively gaped at me as if I'd discovered a family secret. She cast her eyes to the ground and murmured "sort of." I could tell by the father's bulging vein that I needed to smooth this over. "I'm only asking because my dad was a teacher and I never got enough attention from him. But I'm the sort of person who always feels like they don't get enough attention. So there you are!"

The father immediately protested. "She gets plenty of attention. When I leave work, I leave it behind. I know how to let things go. I can draw the boundaries between work and home. I don't have a problem with that like some people do." He continued to sing the praises of his strong family life while the girl continued to eye me. I couldn't tell whether she was suspicious or curious.

The man had been ruffled by my stream of consciousness chatter. The vibrational intensity of his emotional disturbance generated a tangible heat. I was glad when he left.

About 15 minutes after the life-loving patriot left, a lovely boy came through my line. He must have been 16 as he wore the uniform of a fast food joint - complete with name tag. No one was with him, so I assumed he drove. But even if he were only 15, he looked like he was 12. His face was freckled, his hair curly-red and very short. The light reflected off the peach-fuzz on his cheek. He was timid and shy, never looking me in the eye. He was buying peanut butter.

As he opened his wallet to pull out a card with which to pay, I noticed a dark pink line, surprisingly thick, tracing the inside of his right forearm. Before it fully registered what this line might be, I automatically checked his other arm for a matching scar.

This precious child had already attempted suicide. At what age? And over what? I wanted to do or say something. All I could think of was to ask whether he had to work all weekend. He nodded with a vague attempt at a smile. I replied with something like, "Ah, retail!" To which he lightened up tremendously, revealing teeth untainted by tobacco, tea and other staining agents. He seemed almost grateful that I had made a poor attempt at humor. Undoubtedly he sensed my realization as it occurred, my momentary confusion, my overwhelming desire to protect this precious being from anyone or anything that could hurt him - from people wearing "Cure Abortion" t-shirts who carry an unnecessary amount of rage in them at all times, for example. So I'm certain he was relieved that I merely attempted humor and camaraderie.

I awoke this morning thinking of the boy with the suicide scars, about how he must endure the curious scrutiny of everyone he encounters as long as he wears short-sleeved shirts, about how his mother may have wanted to abort him but did not because it was immoral, about how his life had been at some point in time, and might possibly still be, unendurable and he had wanted it to end.

For some reason the words kill or be killed continue to circulate around my brain.

None of this makes any sense. The only thing that is clear to me is that I want to visit the fast food establishment indicated in the uniform the boy wore. I want to find this angel baby. And when I do, I want to give him flowers.