A bientot

I began this current incarnation of my blog as a means of expressing myself.  I am a very small voice in an extremely wide world.  I have been told that writing and composition are among my strengths, so I thought why not give it a shot.

I have published 32 times, putting my heart and soul into my endeavor.  To the best of my recollection, only one blog entry received more than 3 views on average.  Now I know I'm not famous and I know there's nobody out there pining away for my next work, but I guess I expected just a few more readers.

Therefore, this site is on hiatus until further notice.  Call me what you will, but I am not exposing myself to being ignored by lack of readership any more.

I wish you peace, joy and love along with the intelligence to open your eyes and see something other than the narrow confines of the average person's tunnel vision.

Chip, chip, just chipping away..........

It's 2:00 am and I'm only about 3/4 awake, but my brain has developed a new mantra in the last six hours or so and I need to get it on paper.

"Public schools must permit transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms consistent with their chosen gender identity, according to an Obama administration directive issued amid a court fight between the federal government and North Carolina," reports the Wall Street Journal on May 13, 2016.  

A wide cry of foul rose in the country after 9/11 when the Patriot Act imposed rules some found oppressive to the American citizen's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  The  debate still rages on to what extent the federal government can and should control the minutiae of our daily freedoms.  The act was seen as stifling and a lock step into something right out of the Third Reich.

But I think back over the last 40 years or so of my life:  remember Marlo Thomas (Danny's daughter and Phil Donahue's wife) with her "Free to be, you and me," campaign of the 70's?  I don't recollect the entire thrust of the movement, but what I do recall encouraged children to feel free to play with non-gender specific toys, not to be restricted by conventional thinking.

Last time I looked, I was a girl.  When I was a kid in the big brick house I still think of as home, I had Barbies, books, a Fighting Lady battleship toy, and every cool Tonka truck that came down the pike.  I remember some sideways glances from aunties when I'd open my earth mover under the Christmas tree, but I dug holes and climbed trees and rode bikes with the boys as  much as my mother would allow.  

So I guess you can say I was grateful for Ms Thomas' opening of that window; although by then no longer applicable to me as a child, I felt I had been a trend-setter in striking a blow for gender equality.

I have seen gender rights come a long way in the workplace and in what is considered acceptable for our children to use as toys, but I have to admit I draw the line at public schools being required to provide transgender toileting facilities.  USA Today reports, 

"The guidance doesn't have the force of law, but tells schools how the Department of Education intends to enforce Title IX in the future. And because Title IX is directly tied to federal education funding, the guidance carries an implied threat: Follow the federal guidelines or risk losing those funds."

So there's the rub:  comply or lose the money.  For those people in this country, me among them, who value my rights to make my own decisions, this smacks of coercion.  

I'm not even going to attempt to explain my feelings on transgenderism, that's for another discussion at another time.  let's just look at the implications here for my personal freedoms.

We are endowed by our Creator with these inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, wrote Thomas Jefferson in  1776.  As long as I don't bother you, you have no right to bother me.

The Ten Commandments are, like it or not, the foundation of many of the laws of man:  Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not take any gods before me, honour thy father and thy mother, thou shalt remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.  And to me, here's the kicker in the quagmire our government has created for itself:  

                                     Thou shalt not steal.

Yet the rights and freedoms of American citizenry are being gobbled up by Big Brother daily.  Please show me, and perhaps the reader finds this a stretch, where God says with whom I may and not relieve my bodily functions based on their gender?  And don't forget the ransom note to the public schools:  or we can mess with your funding you need to keep your head above water.

I don't recall that tactic being used in the implementation of Brown v. Board of Education regarding racial integration.  I need to study up on it, for sure, but I'd bet you the farm the Eisenhower Administration did not decree that if you don't racially balance the population of your student body you won't get federal education funds.

So let's take a fanciful turn of phrase and say that it's like the gangsters holding the control over the people who just want to do what they're intended to do, to get along and provide a service.  But no, there are those kickbacks of whatever shape and form that railroad any potentially unwilling participant.

I despair for our nation.  I weep for our freedoms lost, never to be regained; the changes demanded by Big Brother are smoothly packaged and easy to swallow if one doesn't think critically.  Baa-baa, black sheep, have you any wool?  Yes, sir, yes, sir, and Uncle Sam will give me whatever I want if I stand in line like the sheep to the slaughterhouse.  I get pablum and he steals what generations of brave Americans have fought to protect:  our rights and freedoms.

The beat goes on.........

I know I sound like a broken record, but there are just certain things that eat at my soul until I erupt.  One of these, probably because it's so very personal to me, is the treatment by society of individuals with disabilities.  I know this was my last blog's general aim, but something new has stepped on my toes and I'm really fired up about it.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I drove to a steakhouse in a town about 15 miles away for a special treat dinner.  We used to just love this establishment, and I was often the diner doing the happy dance in my chair as I ate my luscious food.

Things went fine on this visit until the server turned to my husband for his dinner order.  He is partially hearing-impaired, wears hearing aids, and lip reads beautifully if one will just face him and speak at a normal pace and volume.  He ordered his meat, and then the farce began as she commenced listing the choices and upselling items that were listed as side items.

I have learned in the 36 years I have spent with this lovely man not to intercede unless critical mass is reached.  He looked at the server that evening, explained his hearing difficulty and asked her to please repeat herself, facing him, etc.  He's come a long way to admit this to people he doesn't know, and doesn't tolerate just anyone piping up with, "He can't hear you!"

This young woman had the ill manners and the audacity to roll her eyes when asked to repeat herself.  I was barely under control as I repeated my husband's order to her.  She wasn't a happy person as she left the table side, and she made that apparent in the rest of the service.

Now let me put my question out there:  should we have pursued her lack of manners and customer service on the spot?  We decided not to, for the sake of our evening out.  However, I did mention her behavior in an online review of the restaurant, hoping management would read and take some training action, but what I got was an onslaught of negativity from other people using the review site.

My sin was that I referred to intolerance of individuals with disabilities as a social injustice.  I was shocked and stunned.  My response was that we now live in the 21st century.  Minority groups, and individuals with disabilities certainly come under that heading, have worked long and hard to rid themselves of social stigma and achieve acceptance for who and what they are.  What if her behavior had been prompted by race, gender, sexuality, etc?  I don't think I would be chastised by others for bringing it to public attention.

As a disabled individual as well as a long-time advocate for persons who just happen to have a disability, I am horrified by public response.  Perhaps it's because he's just a man who wears hearing-assistive devices and isn't in a wheelchair or using a walker.  If we had been a same-sex couple sitting there and a server had rolled her eyes because something was disagreeable, chances are the media would have been involved and the establishment charged with discrimination.

As I pound this onto the keyboard, I ponder contacting my congressional representatives, as I continually find other soft spots or loopholes in the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, revised 2008.  But human kindness, courtesy and respect for others cannot be legislated.  No media outlet is going to be interested in my tale of a young woman who behaved ignorantly when confronted with a hearing impaired customer.

My husband and I recently took a cross-country rail trip and promised ground/station assistance was not provided for the most part.  I contacted Amtrak and they soothed me with $50 credit for each of us to use their services for the next year.  In the meantime, our trip was made extremely uncomfortable because of the long distances we had to walk - we are both mobility impaired and have severe spinal problems - and tote our luggage.  Here's some money, be happy and spread good cheer about our company, was my interpretation of their response.  I would much prefer they would contact me by phone and ask what they could do better, rather than hit the "make 'em smile fund" and buy me off.

I grew up through the times of the civil rights movement, women's liberation (I hate that word), and now gay and religious freedom activity.  Don't publicly offend these groups or all hell will rain down on your head; they've worked very long and very hard for what they've achieved.

But so have we, the people with disabilities.  We don't get rights, we get pity-pats and looks that sometimes question if we're legitimate because we're not bound by our bodies into grotesque shapes in wheelchairs.

The day we were beginning our return trip home on the train, we were told to go find the special section in the waiting room.  A sign along the chair-rail tiling stated that if you needed special assistance sit here.  At first I was bemused, but then began to seethe.  Universal signage is available to indicate any and everything in the world today; why not mark the section with the appropriate sign for use by disabled persons?  Others joined us in the section as we each waited for trains:  a quadriplegic young man in an awesome power chair, his friend who is hearing impaired and had just undergone major arm surgery, a woman working with a support animal, and others.

We laughed and chatted and got to know one another, sometimes using the dark humor that has developed among those pushed into our niche in society.  At one point I overheard a nearby waiting passenger comment that our conversation was rowdy and we shouldn't be behaving like that.  I wanted to go clock her just once, but knew my hubby wouldn't let me do it.

We, the disabled, we the human beings with a special touch in whatever form our Creator saw to add to us, we are human too.  We live lives and we love and cry and work and play and are just plain old people.  Each of God's creatures has its own special needs.  Ours just limit us in a way that society hasn't learned to get over.  In other ways, we shine above and beyond folks with what are considered "normal" abilities.  It's all a game of balance, directed by God.

Don't pity me.  Don't roll your eyes at me because I might slow down your agenda for getting things done.  Behave in the way we are asked to do towards all mankind, loving one another as we love ourselves and forgiving our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

If social media is not the place for activism and advocacy, then perhaps social media is not the wonderful phenomenon it is hyped up to be.  If an honest word from another person on a forum site bothers you, perhaps you need to do some self-examination to see why it does so.  I do my best to avoid bigots - but we have bumper crowds of them in our world today.  God help us all.

I'm late, I'm late..........

Okay, I'm always late - unless I'm unfashionably early.  This blog should have been published in March, but I had a few other things on my plate at that time.

March of every year is designated Disabilities Awareness Month.  When I worked with disabled children, we made a big deal of ordering outdoor banners for the building and giving out literature to not parents, but citizens on the street.  Public cognizance of special needs people has changed to an extent, but I've been campaigning at this for almost 30 years and don't see what I'd like to see.  In fact, there's a backslide.

I would hope that those reading this would know the cruelty and repugnance of the word "retarded" when used to describe an individual.  I was blown away just now when I looked up the word in Merriam-Webster and it defined it as "slow or limited in intellectual or emotional development or in academic progress."  Dictionary.com's primary definition is all too chillingly similar:  "characterized by a slowness or limitation in intellectual understanding and awareness, emotional development, academic progress, etc."  Cambridge Dictionaries Online defines the word as, "having a slower mental development than other people of the same age," but then, to their extreme credit, they add a footnote stating that because the word has sometimes been used as an insult, the term is now less often used to describe people with slow mental development.  It ain't headline news retraction, but it's a start.

Then there are the other forms of disabilities:  physical, for one.  Physical disabilities can take as many shapes and sizes as there are individuals on this earth.  I myself am physically disabled; I have severe narrowing of my lower spinal column, osteoarthritis in one knee (the other has been replaced), a lymphatic chronic illness, asthma, and my vision has been compromised in ways that defy most ophthalmologists for as long as I can recall.  But if you see me walking along the street on most days (when I don't have my cane), I look fine.  I'm the one who gets the sideways stares at the store because I use an electronic cart they provide for people like me.  I know folks are thinking that I need to get my fat butt off of there and leave it for someone in need, but damn it, who is anyone to judge what the needs of another person are?

I have learned over the years to hate the words crippled, handicapped, gimp, mongoloid and spastic (among others) as much as I do the word retarded.  I'm not talking political correctness here; I'm speaking of human dignity.  How many of you know that the word "handicapped" came from those with disabilities holding their hats out asking for money in the streets?  Tell me that someone is mongoloid and I will eat you for lunch.  They have a chromosomal difference that makes them unique in their way.  Spastic isn't even used professionally any more to my knowledge; one refers to increased muscle tone.  

Recently, I was using government transportation (Amtrak) on a trip.  There's a lot to be said, but let's cut to the best part:  we were very early for our departure and had to wait in the lobby of the massive station.  I finally noticed a tiny banner stretched against the wall behind seats near the door that stated something to the effect that those requiring special assistance should sit here.  Seriously?  This is the 21st century, and there is universal signage for just about everything, including what would have covered the designation of this seating area.  I joked with my husband that it was time for the animals to go to the cage, and we took our seats.

As we waited, I caught sight of a young man in a power wheelchair who appeared to be a quadriplegic.  I found his shirt amusing, so I waved at him and called him over and we got to chatting.  We were eventually joined by his lovely young lady friend who just happens to be severely hearing impaired.  Turns out that she and I, on opposite sides of the nation, are both advocates for individuals with disabilities.  We chatted like old friends, and as the station filled up, were joined by other folks with varying special needs.  We all commented on the demeaning signage used in the station, and the time of our wait flew by as we shared stories and experiences.  Some other waiting passengers stole looks at us or even stared, but who cares?  We're God's creatures just as they are, and if we got a tad noisy, nobody from the staff said a word.

The lovely Irish lass and I are still in communication, and I treasure my new friendship.  As we chatted that day in the station, I made allowances for her need to lip-read as I spoke, and she tolerated my somewhat bombastic personality and frequent coughing spells from the asthma.  I have found over the last 30 years or so that sometimes it is the persons seen as imperfect by the world who make the best friends and companions.  

The point of this whole harangue is an encouragement to not just be politically correct, but kind.  What's the old hymn:  "Open my eyes that I may see, glimpses of truth you have for me, open my eyes illumine me, Spirit divine"?  We are each fearfully and wonderfully made in His own design and all He asks of us is to love one another as we love ourselves.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, goes the old adage.  What better gift could we ask for than our Heavenly Father to grant us loving eyes without any prejudice.  Disabilities awareness doesn't get the media play that racial, sexual, and other forms of discrimination do, but it should. It's just easier to overlook because sometimes it's not pretty.  Pray to see as our Creator sees us; brothers and sisters in His image, each made special to His order, defined before the beginning of time.

I wish you peace, I wish you love, and I wish you open eyes and an accepting heart.

You still can't roller skate in a buffalo herd

My husband and I recently fulfilled a lifelong dream for both of us:  we rode the train from Chicago to Seattle, Washington.

Having done LA to Chicago in coach alone one dismal time, I knew we needed a sleeping compartment, so I set about researching.  Both of us have physical limitations that don't exactly encourage climbing Amtrak stairways to the dining car or trying to board on our own without assistance, so I ended up purchasing tickets for 2 disabled individuals in what Amtrak refers to as a "Family Bedroom".  Per the available literature, it comfortably holds 2 adults and 2 children, with berths for each.  Size looked great, as the compartment is as wide as the rail car itself, and had more leg room than we thought we'd encounter in a roomette.

We were aboard, and the room on #7 westbound was nice.  Blankets were immediately provided as were a bunch of pillows for those of us who like to kick back.  My hubby sat on the side of the car with an optional seat facing  him so he could stretch out his legs; I opted for the adult lower berth being made up at night and having my feet on the long seat between us during the day.  Because of our disabilities, our meals were served in our compartment; we had only to consult the menu and let the attendant know our choices and it appeared.  The ride was smooth and scenery from North Dakota westward breathtaking.

However, if you are a person of size:  do NOT attempt to make a last-second run to the restroom down the hall.  You get in, you lock the door, then dance the dance of the damned as you try to assume the position in a lavatory smaller than my linen closet.  Mission accomplished, one must then decide which way is up:  flush first facing that ferocious commode, or wriggle around the other way to rearrange one's clothing before making the 180 again to flush.  We are still finding new bruises to our bodies from lavatory use.

There is a shower available in each sleeper car.  Prudently, we had pre-determined not to shower on the train but tough it out for the 46 hours to Seattle or Chicago.  Flighty and compulsive as I am, I decided to have a shower our first night out of Seattle on #8 headed home.

Lawdy, lawdy!  The seat for use while disrobing, etc., was stacked to my shoulder height with bundles of towels in plastic.  They slide, by the way, when you touch them or the train moves jerkily.  There was one clothing hook for my sweats; I think I dropped my dirty undies into the trash inadvertently no less than 3 times, and there was no real shelf space for one's toiletries like deodorant, hairbrush, etc.

So I carefully tiptoe into the generously-sized shower stall (that's true!) and attempt to adjust the water.  One is blasted in water you feel has come off the glacier outside the train in one second to the chef's boiling kettle in the next.  Washing up, holding on, and watching the rising water level in the stall at my feet is a skill set that I never learned before, but I don't choose to learn now.  

Water off, curtain clipped back, fight for those slippery towels.  I'm sorry, my bare feet weren't going on the floor, so I used 3 towels total - one for the floor, one for my hair, and one to quickly dry my body now quivering with the motion of the train.  Sorry, Amtrak!

Nowhere to sit, as noted earlier, so one has very limited choices when it comes to dressing:  try to get enough clothing on to appear decently in the hallway back to the compartment and finish dressing there, or duke it out with your undies and garments in the humid, tiny space.  A true confession:  I threw my sweats back on and hauled my undies and everything else with me back to my room.  Burst through the door and as my husband looked up, I yelled, "Commando!"

One last thing I didn't mention but must for comedic effect:  there is a luggage storage area between the compartments and the rest rooms.  As I did my best to fly down that hallway half-dressed  in the swaying train, a huge black upright suitcase on 4 wheels sashayed out of the storage area and into my path.  The NHL could use me with the body check I threw into that thing.

None of the above is intended as criticism.  It is pure either-I-laugh-or-I-cry farce.  Trust me, I will never shower on Amtrak again!!

Happy rails to you!

And the music goes round and round

I was a young adult of the 70's.  As I creep closer and closer to that Social Security benefit I can shortly begin to collect, I find my taste in music regresses back to those days rather than progressing.

Oh, don't get me wrong, my 16 year-old granddaughter can still get in my car and turn her whatever-it-is on at top volume, and I am amused at how the circle of life goes on - even though I can't believe what these folks are putting out there through their music these days.  I just hearken back to the days of cruising Broadway, usually in my mom's car - my bestie's mom was not as lenient - and murdering the harmony on "Old Fashioned Love Song" by Three Dog Night.

As I age, and as I reconsider the last 2 years - this one included - as probably among the most hideous of my life, I find I'm becoming quite introspective when I can keep the lid on my emotions.  When I want to escape, totally escape, it's on with the ear buds/listening device and under a blanket to shut it all out for a while.

And so it is today as I sit here on a Monday night - can't be evening any more, it's pushing midnight - except that I've got the urge to sort it all out on paper as I listen to my more mellow musical choices.  I have had the overwhelming drive to write all day today, and am just getting around to it.

Music has been a strong memory of mine since childhood.  I spent the preschool years listening to my mother rattle the windows with recordings of Glenn Miller's Orchestra, the Benny Goodman Quartet, and the Mills Brothers while my father worked each day.  I can weave strands of my past through all kinds of music.  Having an elder sister, I heard a lot of Ricky Nelson and the Everly Brothers wafting down the hallway between bedrooms as I lay in bed playing make-believe rather than going to sleep at night.  Of course I was a huge Beatles' fan - and remain so - but veered back into all-American pop as the 60's ended.  Those Beatles were just a bunch of dope heads, right?

In the darkness of my high school years, I found a silent voice of my own in Simon and Garfunkel; "I am a Rock" and "The Sounds of Silence" played on my stereo every night in my room.  Others clawed for and got my affection, too:  George and Ira Gershwin's standards, varying Broadway show tunes of the time, and a love of Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Debussy that became the foundation of an ever-broadening base of melodies and lyrics to fill my mind and my soul.

I remember at 17 being interviewed for a news article on some students from different high schools.  Hideously private and tightly wound back then, I paced the floor like a lunatic as I listened to my mother in her telephone portion of the interview spew my soul-deep joys in life:  "all kinds of music," the writer summarized because I know I interjected and told my mother to just quit laying me out on a plate.  I was misfit enough at school; I didn't need folks to know my musical tastes or that my father had given me a basic art appreciation education at the Art Institute of Chicago that has perpetuated and is a cherished part of my soul even today.  Leave me and Ludwig alone, please!

All that was so long ago - and yet certain musical pieces can still shake me to the core with the memories they invoke.  I state it that way because I have worked mightily to develop and try to understand who and what I am since those days.  I brushed it off at the time and would amend the statement slightly today, but I was once told that I would always have the ability to pull myself up by my own bootstraps; I am a survivor who has to metamorphose myself to deal with each hammer blow life throws at me.

I will be the first to say that I have only been able to do this by the grace of God and with the loving support of my husband and special friends.  I can give emphatic testimony to the adage that some people come into your life for a reason and some for a season; I'm still learning to become comfortable with the fact that there are those you love who just stop loving you back, and you don't always get the closure you may want or need.

I don't mean to give the idea that I'm brazen and callous about different relationships or life events.  I know how it feels to be shunned and if I get the right music on the earbuds I'll cry all day.  But then I'm playing the IF game, and that's got to be a non-starter in my world.  I also am totally capable of standing up and accepting responsibility for something I've done wrong, but dammit, tell me what it is, don't just punish me with no explanation.

This last sentence sets my mind whirling like a top.  I have been blessed with a bright mind and good organizational skills; I am not a member of the pack but rather a leader.  Yet a couple of the most hurtful things that I've ever encountered had to do with something I obviously am doing wrong when I begin to spread my wings and fly in a leadership position.  The deep wounds eventually heal and scab over and I venture out of my cocoon softly, tentatively, knowing I have a lot to give to make things better for others.  But then the responses come that although I am tremendously qualified for the volunteer position I am seeking - let alone employment - the earth has shifted on it's fifth axis because of global warming and they'll call me back sometime after the apocalypse.  Scab is now ripped open again and blood needs to be staunched from the fresh tear.

So I sit here at midnight when I should turn off the Christmas tree and go to bed.  Toni Braxton sings "Unbreak My Heart," and although my story is not the same unrequited love as what she vocalizes, it still evocative of my raw emotions. 

Psalm 139 says we were woven in our mothers' wombs by God's hands (paraphrase).  He knows our every thought, every deed, before we do.  I marvel more each day at His Omniscience and Omnipresence.  I'm curious as to what the Holy Spirit is molding me to be, moreso as I age.  I know it sounds flip, but if I get an opportunity to ask a question of God face-to-face someday it will be along the lines of can You please explain all this?  Can You show me why things have been the way they were, why they are the way they are and what this lifespan bound together in my ears and heart by lyrics and instruments was all about?

Just asking..............   

Author, author?

A long time ago, there was a pop song that wafts into my brain now and again.  See if you remember:

"I wonder, wonder who ooh, who who wrote the book of love?"  Way back in the 1950's, The Monotones were asking the age-old question:  why do some folks love us and others turn away?

Everyone has those moments, I believe, those moments of introspection when we long for the affections of someone.  But what determines any reciprocity of feeling?  The scientific answer might be pheromones, our own lovely little scent.  But I, right or wrong, alight pheromones more with sexual attraction more than just "let's be friends."

Some people go through life gathering up displaced souls.  Is that a conscious or unconscious need for love or truly a great and noble heart?  Jury's out on that in my mind; I want to believe the latter, but have seen way too much of the former.

There are what I call the convenient relationships, where one party's phone and email burn up constantly, only to leave the other person wondering what in the world happened when the seemingly needy other has moved on to a new pigeon to pick up the kids, tidy the house, and stand constant call duty.

Jealousy can rear its head in more than just romantic episodes of our life.  You find a potential talent in another, and you want to train up that person.  But sometimes the protege ends up out shining the mentor.  Where once the mentor was the star, the protege has surpassed their achievements and is still rising, causing a need to knock down the rising star sometimes in the hurt mentor's ego.  Both parties are wounded when what was perceived as a close friendship devolves into a destructive game of one-upsmanship.

Blended families are a minefield of emotional pitfalls.  No matter the age of the families involved, it's never going to be The Brady Bunch.  There's always that long-buried blasting cap that's going to go off somewhere.  Love and trust are not always easily given or accepted.  Each person on earth has baggage they carry.  Heartbreak and loneliness are often the by-product.

This is not a piece about romantic love, so leave it as such.  It's an essay about the guy always left holding the emotional bag and wondering who did write that book of love.  Take it as introspection, self-searching, whatever.  Why do A + B not always equal C?  Because each of us have our own shortcomings in our own way, and we all have a perceptive filter.  The guy holding the emotional bag all the time may see it that way, but could it not be his perspective through the veil of his personal experiences as well?

When you find the answer, please let us know.