Spin Cycle: Happy Holidays to Synchronicity and Sassy

Jen over at Sprite's Keeper, who is our hostess with the mostess of the Spin Cycle, runs a holiday spin each year where we spin up a favorite blogger. I think I might have first joined the Spin Cycle on this very one a few years back (have I been blogging that long...well, not if you count the days, weeks, months... that I go MIA)...

The blogging world has given back so much more to me than I ever imagined. I cannot put into words the camaraderie and connection that is made out here and how it has helped me through some very difficult times.

For this special spin, we pitch to Jen five favorite bloggers and she gives a holiday assignment, usually one of our five, to feature. This year I struck gold and got two! Jen did not know that formerlyonlyamovie at Synchronicity and Distraction and tulpen at Bad Words were sisters. With this information, she said I could weave a spin of them both.

Movie, now known as formerlyonlyamovie, was one of the first bloggers I connected with out here. She was one of the two regular commenters on my blog in its beginnings and gave me something to look forward to each time I posted. She is thoughtful, insightful, kind, and compassionate. Anyone who has Movie for a reader knows what I am talking about. She always gets me and leaves a comment that touches my heart.

Movie and I have many parallels in our lives - we are both teachers, have similar unbloggable distractions, and personal histories that make us wonder how we have not crossed paths in real time.

Movie's blog, Of Synchronicity and Distraction, is a wonderful read. She notices the little things in life and the connectiveness of them all. Her positive approach to life in all its messiness inspires me. Her love for her students and dedication to the teaching profession is beyond limits. Best of all, she has a wicked sense of humor that stays intact through it all.

Tulpen, over at Bad Words, is Movie's sister and oh what fun it must be to hang out with the two of them! Tulpen is one of the best writers I have come across and I look forward to every post she puts out there. She also has a wicked sense of humor and her full force honesty in her writing, combined with her creative use of bad words, makes each post a work of artistry.

Tulpen is a nurse in a hospice and she weaves tales of death and dying that can make one laugh out loud and choke up with a wall of tears, sometimes in the very same post.

She has two adorable kids and writes posts about parenting that are real and raw. I wish I had been blogging back when my kids were young and had written down their stories with half as much talent as Tulpen.

Some of my very favorite posts at Bad Words are when some stupid soul has pissed off Tulpen and she writes them a letter telling them off. She has creatively combined profanity and added to my cursing vocabulary more than anyone on the planet, and for that I am very thankful.

Please go visit these two talented bloggers! You will laugh and cry and be forever grateful. For more Holiday Spins and a chance to meet more wonderful bloggers, visit Jen over at Sprite's Keeper!

Spin Cycle: Halloween Past and Present

This is a repost, but Jen said "Halloween then and now" and this fits the bill to the tee.


Circa 1960’s
When I was young and growing up in the San Fernando Valley with my two sisters, Halloween was a huge deal. We COULDN’T WAIT for dinner to be over and dark to descend so we could go trick or treating. My dad had this horrid awful mask that he would drag out, not only for Halloween but also for slumber parties. It came from a movie set and beat the shit out of anything they sell today. It was SO REAL. Not at all rubbery. It was the scariest, creepiest, wrinkled, evil face ever. At least that’s the way I remember and I’m sticking to it. He’d wait until our guard was down, which means sitting on the floor, sorting our candies, and with mask, trench coat, and big ol’ boots, he’d slam open the back screen door and come tearing at us. Clenching hands and BRUUUUUHAHAHA. I’m surprised we never pissed our pants. That’s how much we fell for it every year.

Halloween 1991
Daughter was just over two and we had mostly managed to keep her from chocolate and sweets. Instead of taking her trick or treating, we dressed up and took her to a restaurant/club. You see, my husband and I met working at Bobby McGee’s. I was cocktailing to pay my way through college and my husband was a waiter. EVERYONE wore a costume at this crazy place to work. Even though we had both moved on, we still had a lot of friends there and they did a happy hour thingy on Halloween. So we dressed as the Flintstones. Cave clothes- mine and Daughter’s hair twisted around big, fake bones. It’s a great picture of back in the day when my husband and I used to both work out. Daughter was two and was the most precious Pebbles ever. Not that I’m prejudiced or anything. We went at, like 5 PM, and even after a shitload of fun and frivolity, we were back home by 8. Within 5 minutes of sitting down some kids came trick or treating. There was no hiding from the two year old the fact that I was giving stuff away and that was the end of her not getting candy for Halloween.

Halloween 1993
We had just bought our home that summer and it was Son’s first Halloween. He was 16 months old. He had the CUTEST fucking tiger costume. He toddled along and I swear our block looked like that scene in ET, where swarms of kids come out right at dusk. Being a new neighborhood, it was a beehive of toddler hood. I was holding his hand and waited on the sidewalk as Daughter and our friend’s kids went up to the first house. Son could barely talk, but he sure let it be known that he had observed what went on at the front door. He grunted and grumbled to see inside the kids pumpkin buckets. When he figured out that they were partaking of give-away stuff, he pulled and pulled on my arm until I walked him up to the next door. That was the beginning of his professional status at trick or treating. Everyone thought the baby tiger was too too cute and gave him twice as much as the other kids. But half way around the block he figured out how to unwrap a piece of candy and that was the end. Afterwards, he wanted to sit in the middle of the sidewalk and eat his whole loot. My friend had to take all the kids around so I could haul his little butt home and check his candy before he scarfed down a razor blade or an LSD tab.

Halloween 2006
My children are 17 and 14 and they have made plans to go out with some friends. Son is actually trick or treating in a friendly neighborhood that lets the teens keep up the good work. His professional status is still intact. Daughter is in a play and after rehearsals they are having a party. My husband has to work. I have the night to myself, but I’m being a Halloween Homebody and have decided I don’t want to answer the door and give away candy by myself. So I turn the porch light off and all the downstairs lights too. I go upstairs and treat myself to an aromatherapy bath with candles. As leave the bath I pause to look at myself in the candlelit mirror and contemplate the effects of the last few months. I’m still officially bald, but the first soft down of baby soft fuzz can be felt more than seen. My radiation treatments, finished just two weeks before, have left a thickening of red welts under my left arm. But it’s not as bad as they said it would be. The aloe must have really helped. My scars are still fairly new and jagged and my skin still has the sallowness of all that chemo. But I made it. I’m done with the treatments and have returned to work. I walk to the upstairs window and peek through the blinds to see the families on the sidewalks with their ballerinas and spidermen. I don’t feel the least bit sad to be by myself. I had insisted my kids not stay home for me; I want to make up for all those days and nights they had hung out with me in my room the previous summer. I curl up in bed with a book, grateful that the worst is over. Happy that life is moving forward and back to normal.

Update 2011
In March of this year I made my five year mark as a survivor. Yea. This is huge and I am so grateful to be here.

Looking back at this older post I cannot but help notice how it ended, "happy that life is moving forward and back to normal."

Hm...

After nearly two unbloggable years, with life events I found much more challenging than even cancer itself, I am flabbergasted at my naivete.

I have no idea what I will be doing this year for Halloween. I do know I will dress up as something so my homeroom students get the extra spirit point. Other than that, I am still grateful to be here, more so with each passing day. Taking the good with the bad and one day at a time.

For more spins on Halloween, head on over to Jen at Sprite's Keeper. She puts the list up on Friday.

Spin Cycle: There is no Black or White, Just Shades of Grey

There are all kinds of ghosts and it seems that lately I have been more inclined to deal with the ghosts and hauntings of my childhood, of my young adulthood, and even of times not so long ago.

Everyone says all families are dysfunctional.

Maybe.

Go ahead and play the music video. You'll figure out why soon.



If you read yesterday’s post or have been reading my blog for any amount of time, you know I grew up in a home with a mentally ill mom with an addiction problem and suicidal behavior. So yeah. A bit dysfunctional.

My first day back in LA last week I arrived at the airport in the morning on a red-eye. By 10 AM I had my rental car and was tearing up the 405 headed north. I was on my way to the cemetery to deliver leis to the ancestors.

The feelings aroused by hitting the road on a glorious sunny Southern California day overwhelmed me to say the least. I had not been on my own on the roads of what felt like a past life in a couple of decades. I got off in Granada Hills to find the house where we had lived until I was 10, before we moved to the beach. While I was prowling the streets, looking for my first home ever, I was listening to a country music station and Miranda Lambert’s song, “The House that Built Me” came on.

Seriously. Sometimes the Universe has a perverse sense of timing.

My friend’s death (at 47 years old) the week before combined with the nostalgia for my past, and the remnants of my memories came flooding in like a hurricane. How can one describe the layers of all one’s former selves drifting in and out, together and yet separate from this person I’d become?

It was difficult to tell whether all the old me’s were the ghosts or if I had become a ghost just drifting through my past.

And there were still the ancestors to deal with.

My father’s death eight years ago was a difficult time for my sisters and me. It turned out that while we had all painted my mom out as the bad guy for so many years (a concept encouraged by both my father and his family), in the end, dad was no innocent. A much better liar than my mom by far and just as manipulative. For anyone harboring a life of lies, here's a warning. Death and dying sometimes have a way of bringing everything to the surface.

It took me a long time to truly forgive him. I wish I could say I was a better person, but the truth is I was mad at him for a couple of years, and those were his last years.

Even worse, I was left with a gaping hole in my long secure feelings for my Uncle, my grandmother, and all the rest. These loved ones had been my force of resilience through my childhood and teen years and I credited them for my coming out of it all somewhat OK. But I found myself upset with them for not protecting us from him. For encouraging us to believe that everything wrong was my mom’s fault. For their trusting dad to take care of us and do right by us when he was not capable of any such thing. He was their son, their brother, they should have known better....

I had spent my life putting these beloved ones on a pedestal and it was painful to feel abandoned by them, even though none of them were around to explain.

Does it make me sound like a horrible person to say this aloud? To write it, even anonymously?

Maybe.

Probably.

As a 53 year old woman I see what a narcissistic perspective I had at the time.

But it was more the 13 year old inside of me that was hurt than the middle aged woman.



The Eternal Valley Memorial Park is the resting place for my father, my Uncle (dad’s older brother and my grandfather figure), my paternal grandmother, my Aunt, and my Aunt’s husband (uncle by marriage).

I had not been back since my father’s funeral in 2003.

As I laid the leis on their resting places and said my prayers for them, all the love in the world came flooding back in. I knew I was loved, their love was what carried me through some crazy times. All the rest did not matter anymore.

Of course they had to trust dad back then, to give him a chance to do the right thing. It did not matter that he was not able to live up to their hopes for him. Giving him a shot was a generous and noble choice.

I felt a peace I had not felt the last time I was there.

Later, I thought as I headed back towards Santa Monica, later I may go by my Uncle and grandmother’s house.

The refuge.

Perhaps I might even stop and walk to the side of the garage to see if my three year old footprints are still in the cement there. If the owner of the house comes out, I'll explain I just need a reminder of a favorite memory.

For more ghost stories,head on over to Jen at Sprite's Keeper.

Spin Cycle: Home and Heart

Well, I certainly found a hidden perk to having a second job.

Road trips.

I had not hit my home turf sans family, in..... like....

EVER.

It was one of those events where everything fell into place, everything went smoothly, good times were had by all.

Since this was my first time to travel the roads of the girl I used to be on my own since I married and had children, I will count this as my Spin on Firsts.

Since I traveled, worked my business, and visited with friends and family my entire week of break, I am playing catch up on lesson planning. I hope to capture in words the feelings the trip brought up, but for now, I will link you to a post on the beach where I grew up, the beach where I had a lovely reunion with my mom and younger sister last week.

For more Spins, head on over to Sprite's Keeper.

Spin Cycle: Rules

Ah Jen, rules...

As a teacher, a mother, a citizen...

That's a lot of rules.

I'm going to borrow the conclusion of a paper my son wrote last year in one of his college classes. It's simpler than all the rules in my life, and yet so much more profound.

Do Unto Others...

According to Karen Armstrong in the article, The Golden Rule, “All major religions preach it, we’re all taught it, but how many of us live it?” (54). Good question. Maybe it should start with the religious leaders recognizing this connection, this similarity, and pointing it out to their followers instead of pointing out the differences. The article goes on to say that Confucius was the first to come up with the Golden Rule. “You look into your own heart, discover what gives you pain, and then refuse under any circumstances to inflict that pain on anyone else. Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you” (56). A more entertaining version of it is in the story from the Jewish tradition told in the article:

The great Rabbi Hillel, an older contemporary of Jesus, was approached by a pagan who promised to convert to Judaism on the condition that Hillel recite the whole of Jewish teaching while standing on one leg. Hillel stood on one leg and said, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah, everything else is only commentary. Go and study it. (56)

Imagine a world where people actually lived by the Golden Rule. There are those who are trying to get people to see a world where this is possible. If you go to the Charter for Compassion, http://charterforcompassion.org/share/the-charter/, you will find an actual charter for a compassionate world, a world where people put compassion before greed, before war, before having to be right.

We urgently need to make compassion a clear, luminous and dynamic force in our polarized world. Rooted in a principled determination to transcend selfishness, compassion can break down political, dogmatic, ideological and religious boundaries. Born of our deep interdependence, compassion is essential to human relationships and to a fulfilled humanity. It is the path to enlightenment, and indispensible to the creation of a just economy and a peaceful global community.

Living by the Golden Rule, to do unto others… I don’t think it has happened yet on a large scale in human history, but anything is possible.

It's Pseudo again! Head on over to Jen's at Sprite's Keeper for more spins on rules.

Sandy Beach on a Tuesday Afternoon

We had some impressive waves on the South Shore last week.

On Tuesday afternoon, Hubs picked me up from work, swung me by the house for my camera, and scooted me off to take photos of the swell..









It was awesome.

Stay tuned for more photos from the "Tahiti Swell."

For more photo essays, head on over to Jen at Sprite's Keeper.

SC + TTT + Late = Too busy to Blog

When Jen said the spin topic this week was language, possible spins wove through my head all week.

Should I write about my love for foul language, (more so in writing than speech) and how newly invented words like Jan's Fuck-ton make my day and inspire me to write?

How about the doctoral student in my graduate rhetoric class, with her salt and pepper bob and grannie glasses, thrilling me to no end when she dryly gave a filibuster in class one day on the origin of the word fuck and how the upper-class British back in the day relegated the word into something bad and dirty to keep the classes distinct?

Should I write about how much I loved the book Bee Season and the whole idea of a mystical experience coming from the sounds that syllables make?

And, then. There is the enormous topic of home language versus Standard English and the place (or not) of home dialects in a classroom. This is a huge conversation in Hawaii, where pidgin English is the home language for most of its children.

It is inappropriate to tell children that their home language is "low" or "stupid," as in doing so it is equivalent to telling them that their parents and grandparents, their aunties and uncles - that all the people they love are stupid.

However.

If Standard English is not taught to these same kids, if they do not learn how to become bi-dialectical, how to code switch, how to discern where and when each language is appropriate; if pidgin is allowed to be the only language in the classroom, then the teacher is allowing a gate to be shut. Teaching them Standard English while respecting their home language allows them to pass through this gate into other worlds. It would not be fair to send these kids off to college and life thinking they will never need Standard English.

I could go on and on with this subject. It's a huge deal here. I could give examples of both ends of this debate or argue for my middle ground philosophy.

But I found this on YouTube and this girl says it so much better.



I hope you watched it all the way to the end, but if you did not, take this line with you today:

"Isn't that the meaning of life (or language) to understand one another

'mo bettah?"

For more spins, head on over to Jen at Sprite's Keeper.

If you wanted to link a travel post yesterday and noticed I wasn't around, go ahead and link up today!

Spin Cycle: Nature or Nurture?

When I saw Jen's Spin Cycle topic this week, I thought, "Oh, that's a fuck-ton (thank-you Jan's son for my new word) to deal with."

As a parent, I've thought about and discussed this topic endlessly with friends as we watched our children grow; we were baffled at the differences in personalities of the siblings we were rearing in our homes.

As an educator I have seen the gamut. I worked several years in a high risk youth program in the most poverty stricken part of the island and seen resilient youth rise above the most horrid of environments, while the majority succumbed to the same.

I worked many years in a middle class community with teens who had many advantages and parents who had the types of expectations and boundaries that should have sent these kids off into the right direction. Many of them chugged on down the channel while others were hell bent to swim against the current and make a mess of their lives.

I've shaken my head at fellow educators (usually the childless ones) who barked platitudes about apples and trees. Sometimes kids are on a path that has nothing to do with what they learned at home.

During the unbloggable, a friend of mine who has a graduate degree in psychology recommended a book to me. The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling by James Hillman. From Amazon review:


Hillman's work on soul has fed the public imagination with the nourishing idea that we are vastly deeper and more permeable to the influences around us than we may think. Here, Hillman discusses character and calling, introducing an "acorn theory" that claims that "each life is formed by its unique image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny." Borrowing the language of Plato's Myth of Ur, Hillman suggests that this imaginary sense of our lives or callings drives each of us like a personal daimon or force. Drawing on extraordinary lives from Judy Garland to Coco Chanel to Hitler, he describes the movements of the daimon, showing how it can use everything in our environment, from lucky accidents to bad movies, to allow the acorn to "grow down" and express itself in the real material of our lives. Without succumbing to oversimplification or wishful thinking, Hillman challenges the reductive "parental fallacy," the contention that our early experience with our parents determines our selves and our futures.

The book made sense to me and filled in a bit of the gap between nature and nurture and added that something else. For more spins on this topic, head on over to Sprite's Keeper.

Spin Cycle: Shut Me UP!

Sometimes I think we are here just to overcome our bad habits. The obstacles, the challenges, the suffering. It's all just a way to point us towards what we need to work on.

But that just might be me.

At any rate, Jen's spin topic this week is bad habits and I have such a wealth to choose from it's taken me a day or two to narrow it down.

I'll go with a bad habit that I actually have been working on for over 25 years.

Bad habit: interrupting others.

Goal: be a better listener.

When I first moved to Hawaii I did not realize the conversational habits that I grew up with were not the best. I come from a loud family where people interrupt each other constantly. Finishing each others' thoughts.

People in Hawaii are quieter as a rule, better listeners, more humble than the native LA crowd I grew up with...

The first time someone straight up told me I had interrupted him and it was not so much appreciated, I have to admit I was a little taken aback. Slightly offended. Did he not realize what a compliment it was that I was so excited about what he was saying, so excited that I knew where he was going, so happy to be able to not only finish his thought but add my own to it...

Yeah. I was THAT person.

When I realized it I decided I did not want to be that person.

However, it's not been easy. Bad habits are hard to work out of oneself.

So I have been working on being a better, more compassionate, listener for 25 years now.

Ironically, it irritates me to be around interrupters or conversation hoggers these days.

That's why I had to add in the compassion component.

For more Spins on bad habits, head on over to Sprite's Keeper!

Spin Cycle: Back to School

As much as I love summer, once the students walk in the door, I realize how blessed I am to be able to do what I do. and not think of politics and pay cuts

I usually start off by having the students write me a letter telling me about themselves. That way I can get a writing sample and get to know them both. Win win.

So I'll share some randoms from their letters. Jen gave us a free spin this week on the old cycle.

My favorite subject in school is language arts...

My goal is to be smart in school, but I need to warn you Ms Pseudo, I'm not perfect...

My dream is to be a professional violinist...

I want to be a doctor to help sick people and save lives, but I also want to be a singer, and I am hoping I can do both...

My favorite thing is to go to the beach with my family because we are happy and my parents forget their worries...

Since my dad passed away I have been doing bad in school...

My favorite subject is math and my least favorite is language arts. In language arts you don't have any formulas.

My favorite thing to do this summer was to play with my cousins and roll down the hell...

As a student I guess I am alright. I have my good days, but if I am acting like a punk, just warn me on the side and I will behave...

For more free spins, head on over to Jen at Sprite's Keeper!

Spin Cycle: Food, Whole and Raw and Healthy

Well, Jen asked us to spin about food this week, and although I do love to cook and my family enjoys my cooking, I am not one to follow a recipe and that makes posting a recipe difficult.

Plus, I cannot compare with my blogger friends like Michele or Jan (Jan is even writing a cookbook).

My sister is a talented photographer and cook and after guest posting a recipe or two on Weyume, they asked her to be the Saturday and Sunday recipe blogger. Check her out!

So, I am going to do something a little different with this post and do a little advertising. I took down my blogher ads awhile ago and I have stayed away from marketers asking me to do reviews or provide a link.

But today’s post is advertising something I do (and eat) for ME.

Mila...

This is what a bag looks like.... this large bag lasts one month.

My story goes like this: a friend passed a bag of Mila to me last December. Mila is a whole, raw food. It is made from the chia seed, and is the absolute highest quality, proprietary blend of chia seeds. My friend had in mind my son, who had recently been diagnosed with depression and was going through a very difficult time. She thought it might help him as she knew several people who felt strongly that Mila helped them with depression and other mood disorders.

Breakfast: nonfat plain Greek yogurt with honey and a coop of Mila

Mila is ground up and appears a lot like ground up flax seed. It is odorless and tasteless and can be put into just about anything.

My husband and I began eating a scoop a day right away. The teen boy is a fussy eater and it was more difficult to get the Mila regularly into his diet; however, my husband and I felt the difference within two weeks.

My story. I was four years past chemo, but had never been regular since. Without sounding like an old lady who is obsessed with her bowel movements, suffice it to say that when one does not poop for days at a time, it becomes a focus. Along with irregularity also came fatigue and more migraines than ever before.

Days after incorporating Mila into my diet I was as regular as a clock. Soon I also noticed an increase in energy. I dropped weight (I had gained weight with the irregularity years). I am now down to not only my pre-chemo weight, but down to my pre-forties weight. I went from 158 pounds to 138 pounds in the last six months.

See, the Mila looks like this...

After two months of eating Mila daily, my migraines and accompanying neck pain started decreasing in frequency. My Imitrex prescription now lasts three times as long.

My cholesterol was borderline high and I would go in for blood tests every six months. My last blood test, my cholesterol had fallen into the normal range.

My husband’s Mila story. He stopped with the energy drinks since he began eating Mila; instead of a Red Bull or Monster, he drinks a scoop of Mila mixed with juice or water before he goes to work.

I mix the Mila, honey and yogurt together before I add my toppings.

This summer I have been home and able to prepare my son’s food. I sprinkle the Mila into his hash browns and rice and anything else I prepare. Instead of a scoop at a time (unless I make him a protein shake), I sprinkle his scoop in various foods throughout the day. I combine it in meatballs, stews, curries, just about everything. I believe the Mila combined with surfing daily has been making a huge difference in my son’s health.

A few months ago I decided to become a distributor. At first, I just wanted to be able to buy the Mila at a distributor’s discount. However, I like the business model of the Lifemax Company and have been working the business end this summer. My cost was in the amount of bags of Mila I purchased to share with others. I pass a bag on to those who I ask and who show interest. If they like the product, they can buy more from my website. If they want to join me and become a distributor, that’s great too. I get to work with friends and people I like.

My favorite toppings for breakfast are granola and blueberries.

The worst thing that can happen is I turned on someone for free to a whole raw food for a month. That’s not a bad thing at all. Like planting seeds of goodness both literally and metaphorically.

So, Mila is the biggest food change in my life at this juncture. I’m loving it.

If you would like nutritional information, click here.

If you would like to read testimonials, click here.

To see my website, click here.

If you are interested in trying some Mila, let me know in the comment thread and make sure your email is linked and not “no reply”

For more food spins, head on over to Sprite’s Keeper (Jen puts the links up on Friday).

Spin Cycle: Puppies and Unicorns and Sunrises, Oh MY

The Spin Cycle this week is, literally, "puppies and unicorns." Jen helped us out by this explanation, "What makes you smile? What brings up your spirits?"

Here's the puppy (who turned four this year) who makes me happy and brings up my spirits. He is the sweetest, happiest, most fun companion. His job is not just my spirits, but the entire family's. And he is good at his job. He's had a lot of practice at it these last 18 months, and is sometimes responsible for keeping us grounded through the unbloggable.

click on any photo to see it enlarged...

For a little extra boost, the Border Collie and I take hikes with views. You folks have seen this one before.

I'm sharing my favorite rest stop with you. Half-way up (OK, actually about every 20 stairs or so), I stop and rest. My favorite cactus and the sunrise.


There are extra visual treats, like watching these giant birds descend from the hill and fly up and out to the ocean for their day. If you look close behind the cloud, you can see the moon.



When we get to the top, this is our view. Imagine doing your morning sunrise yoga to this. On a clear day, you can see Molokai and Maui on the horizon.


There's my puppy again, sniffing the wind while I sit down to take some deep breaths. I put on my I-shuffle and listen to this while I set my mind on the horizon...........




For more spins, head on over to Jen at Sprite's Keeper.

Spin Cycle: A Story of Forgiveness

I was not raised in a home that modeled forgiveness. Grudge holding, name calling, and judgment were more the norm. Before my parents divorced, during the years leading up to their divorce, many nights were a litany of wrongs and recriminations.

In such an atmosphere, one might be inclined to blame others when something goes to the shit can.

Or to deny, to feign ignorance, to rationalize rightness for a wrong doing.

Because when they weren’t all over each other’s ass, my parents need to criticize, to judge, to condemn, could be focused elsewhere.

And, why admit to fucking up when it only meant a tirade of verbal malevolence? Not just at that time, but ammunition that would be brought up over and over again. Not just when you made a similar mistake, but also, sometimes, just for family fun – which in our home often meant teasing gone wild.

So, no, I did not learn the way of forgiveness from my family.

But this story is not of my own learning the value of forgiveness…

To understand the degree of my parents’ hostility and unforgiveness of each other, let me mention the following.

For years and years after their divorce, I avoided any and all trigger words which I had learned would lead to either of them going off on a tangent about the other. I knew by heart every story of every misdeed and had also learned (sometimes the hard way) what I might say that would trigger one of these stories.

When I married it was a small wedding in Tahoe and my sisters asked me which of our parents I was planning on inviting. This was 14 years after their divorce and the last time they had seen each other had been in court….

Did I mention that they took each other to court, back and forth and forth and back, until they reached the California Supreme Court about one detail they would not compromise on….and that through this process, every dime and every bit of equity they had acquired in their 22 years together was gobbled up in attorney fees….

So. When my sisters asked me this question I said, “I’m inviting them both.”

Gasp. Shock. Horror. Disbelief.

“Oh. My. God.”

“They’ll make a scene.”

“They’ll ruin your wedding.”

“Mom won’t come if Dad is there.”

“Dad won’t come if Mom is there….”

“Well, then. They can both fuck off. It’s my wedding and if they cannot be civil, if they cannot realize it is about me and my soon to be hubs and not them, if either of them has a problem with that, then they shouldn’t come at all.”

They both came.

The never said a word to each other, but they came and did not make a scene.

Over the years, they became more OK with each other.

This still did not stop them from making the occasional verbal jab, of reverting to the old war wounds even decades later.

My dad died in 2003.

In 2007 I went to a psychic reading with a group of women friends. It was a circle of eight and I was quiet and observant. The psychic had her eyes closed and went about her business, giving messages to the women in a random order. I was last and figured since I wasn’t saying anything I might not be noticed. I was fearful and wished I hadn't come. I was one year away from cancer and not sure if I wanted to know what lay ahead.

“You, the quiet one, I want you to know you are going to be fine. You have a relative here, and she says she is with you and loves you.”

“My grandmother?”

“She calls herself BeKing…???”

“Bahquine?” What my sisters and I called our paternal grandmother…

“She’s smiling. Yes. Bahquine. Do you have any questions for her?”

“How’s my dad doing up there? Has she seen him?”

Psychic frowning.

“Your Bahquine says not to worry. Your dad is…. In Between. When he died, he had a lot of anger, fear, and unforgiveness, it made it difficult for him. But your loved ones are surrounding him and will continue to until he lets go of his anger and is ready to move on."

That really tripped me out big time.

Last year I went to another psychic reading, a different one, a friend of a friend. I went with a friend. This time I did have a question. It was about moving. Or not moving.

But the psychic was of little help on that one and gave it a shrug.

Then.

“Someone is here. It’s your dad and he has a message for you.”

“Uh…” Do I have to?

“He says he’s trying to help you and your sisters by helping your mom. He is trying to reach her in her dreams and tell her he’s sorry, to ask her forgiveness and let her know that if she lets go of her anger (at the time my mom was being quite a handful as we moved her towards assisted living) she will be fine.”

At the time, all I could think was, “Good luck with that Dad. Mom sees you coming in her dreams, she will high tail it out of there faster than a rabbit glimpsing a wolf.”

Seeing as how we had uber shit going on with my mom at the time, I never mentioned the psychic’s message to her.

July 4th, 2011. I am talking to my mom (this is huge, she wasn’t talking to any of us for months). But now, she pretends last year never happened. She is happy in her assisted living home. She tells me she has great friends, she sits at the fun table (translation: popular)at meals, goes to movie night every night, and loves just sitting in her apartment and reading by the hour.

I’m happy for her.

I accidentally say something that triggers her into a rant about my evil father and his wayward ways.

I become brave and say to her that I try and stay away from negativity these days, that I forgave my father any and all wrong doings many years ago, and perhaps maybe she should too.

I tell her I would rather talk about something else.

Then she says the strangest thing.

She tells me she has had dreams about my father often the last year. That it “scares the shit out of her.”

She tells me he is reaching out his hand to her, but she never takes hold and turns away instead.

She asks me if I think if she forgives him, will the dreams stop…

I tell her maybe she should take his hand in the dream and see what happens.

For more forgiveness spins, head on over to Jen at Sprite's Keeper.

Spin Cycle: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes....

HOWEVER....

If wishes were horses,

beggars would ride....

The Spin Cycle this week is "wishes."

I believe in dreams, in hopes, in prayer...

But, sometimes bad shit just happens. Perhaps, in the bigger picture we will understand why.

So far in this life, I have had to work exhaustively and still never seem to get ahead.

However, I can also be content for the little moments of grace, of beauty, of joy, and of love.

I can be thankful for my health, my family, my home, my freedom, the fact that I live in paradise.

But Jen asked us to make a wish so here we go......

If I could wish for something I would wish that the teaching profession stopped being a punching bag for negative commentary in this country.

That parents talked about the good teachers that their children have had as much as the shitty ones.

That those who send their children to private school would realize that the state of public education and those kids in it will still effect their lives and their children's lives.

I would wish that along with this, the colleges of education would make it more difficult to become an educator.

That it would be less difficult to get rid of shitty teachers (however, I have had my share of shitty doctors, so it is NOT just the teaching profession where it is difficult to get rid of the riff raff).

I would wish that teachers were paid enough so we could stop defending our choice to be a teacher (even to our families) and not have to work second jobs just to make ends meet.

I would wish that the educational political pendulum would stop swinging back and forth and find the middle ground.

I would wish that some parents would see the benefit in parenting their children instead of fighting to be enablers of their kids' worst habits.

That those same parents were old school and understood that sometimes the hard lessons are the best.

I would wish that friends knew it is not cool to say things like,

OMG Pseudo! Don't ever tally up how many hours you work and divide it by your salary. You'll get too depressed.

Or...

Well, YOU are an exception, you have to admit, MOST teachers don't work that hard...

I will end this by saying that most teachers work very, very hard. That for every hour we spend in front of our students we spend at least another hour prepping that lesson and another hour assessing that lesson. We go to endless meetings and make endless phone calls. We read to keep up with our profession.

I work an average of 55-70 hours during the school year. During the breaks I catch up on my grading and prepping.

During the summer I take classes and workshops. I read young adult literature and I prepare lessons for the next SY.

K. I'll get off the soapbox now. Don't blame me, Jen said we could make a wish.

For more spins, head on over to Sprite's Keeper.

Spin Cycle: Summer Reads

Jen asked us to spin book recommendations this week. I so have this one, which is nice as I failed last week's alien assignment.

I LOVE reading, especially during the summer.

For book club two months ago, we read Under the Banner of Heaven, A Story of Violent Faith.
Fascinating nonfiction book by the author who wrote Into the Wild, which I also enjoyed. Under the Banner of Heaven weaves together the history of the Mormon religion and the fundamentalist Mormon movement, as well as showing why these two groups have problems with each other, despite their shared history. Incorporated into this is the story of the murder of a young woman and her 15 month old baby girl who were killed by the woman's brother-in-laws, Ron and Dan Lafferty. Although disturbing, it is well written, extremely well researched, and I'd highly recommend this book.




When my daughter saw that book lying around she stole it out from under me for several days and then recommended I read a book she bought, The 19th Wife. This book also incorporates the history of the Mormon religion but does so through fiction. I fell in love with Ann Eliza, the actual 19th wife of Brigham Young, who escaped the confines of early Salt Lake City and polygamy and spoke out against polygamy in lectures and in her memoirs. Her story is intertwined with a 21st century murder in a fundamentalist compound.

These books are a whole lot better than watching Sister Wives on TLC.

For more spins, head on over to Sprite's Keeper.

Spin Cycle: Renovating and Redoing One's Life

When we bought our home in 1993, we had no fuckin’ idea what we were in for. Becoming homeowners in Hawaii was a huge, huge blessing; but blessings come with challenges. We worked in Honolulu, but the new homes, the “affordable homes,” were being built on the West Side, the Second City.

After ten years of commuting, of working two jobs, of working two jobs while going to grad school, of working two jobs while going to grad school and raising two children, of getting by on 5-6 hours of sleep a night for years – after ten years we were able to refinance and renovate.

The beige, track-house curtains which were frayed were replaced with blinds.

The beige carpet that our children and all the neighborhood kids had trampled for years was replaced – downstairs with a dark laminate flooring, kitchen and bathrooms with stone like tile, upstairs and stairs with carpet.

Our garage sale, mismatched living room furniture moved out and our first couch set was purchased.

We painted every single room and left the world of white behind.

We put in crown molding downstairs. So pretty.

We relandscaped our yard and put in automatic sprinklers, providing us with an extra hour a day we no longer had to hand water. The West Side is dry and hot and nothing like what most people imagine when they think of Hawaii.

It took months. Our marriage had not been given previous opportunities to explore our differences in tastes. It was vast, like a great desert separating two foreign lands.

We set out across that desert to find our oasis somewhere in the middle.

The kids started out thrilled and excited with visiting furniture stores, flooring stores, home depot stores; running through and laying claim to whole rooms at a time.

Hubs and I sat on couches by the hours. Comfortability, design, and a couch that we both approved of became the Holy Grail of quests.

The children started opting to stay home with rolling eyeballs when we went out on renovating excursions.

However.

It happened.

We both loved the final outcome.

And then life throws one a curve ball.

One adjusts.

One rents out the renovated home, which looks like a track home on a zero lot line on the outside and looks like a custom – this is our house and yes we did put in crown molding – on the inside.

One moves to the other side of the island, where one rents a home because one cannot afford to buy over here.

A family takes a leap of faith.

The old home had a postage stamp size of a backyard.

The rental has a humongous yard.

This summer, I want to do some yard renovating.

But. Money is tight and it is not practical to spend money on a yard we do not own.

I’m taking suggestions….


This box was in the yard and I got rid of the piles of trash and leaves, put in some soil and started growing arugula. Planning to put other lettuces in those blank spots.


There is a river that runs behind the house that was made into a cement river decades ago. My daughter bought this plant (which I don't remember the name) and it is supposed to grow and climb all over the fence to provide some privacy from the neighbors yard behind us.


That big tall one in the middle is okra. There is also lavendar on the far right. Some of these plants need to get in the ground, put the ground is so hard and dense, with kiawe roots and rocks, that it takes two hours to dig one hole.


A baby papaya tree we planted last week. We still need to weed the ground around it.


The side yard is huge. The renters before us used it to keep a big boat. This planter is overgrown and a mess but on our to do list this summer.


BC loves having a yard. But when asked to help, he sticks tongue at me. Really.

For more Spins head on over to Sprite's Keeper. The list of Spins go up on Saturday, but checkout last week's spins as well, "Waiting."

Thanksgiving Travels

BC is hoping. He's a hoping and a drooling.

But heck, that's what dogs do.

We did not do any travels today. We stayed home and had Thanksgiving dinner just the four of us. It was nice. We have a lot to be thankful for and we know it.

For the last few years we celebrated Thanksgiving with several other families on the North Shore camping. Amazing times that you can read about here or here (mostly photos but a little bit of reading in the posts).

This year it was not in the cards for us to go and although I miss the camaraderie and fun (not to mention having a surf spot all to ourselves and long beach walks twice a day); we felt it was more important to stay together as a family than to have the one or two of us off work go and leave the others alone.

I've been thinking a lot this year on what I am grateful for; remembering to notice the little bits of grace scattered about, even among what can seem like a world collapsing on itself.

Because when I notice those little bits, they build on each other, and slowly but surely, lives get rebuilt.

I'm thankful for being blessed with the courage and strength that I prayed for often this last year.

I'm thankful that my mom is safe and happy and that my sisters, our families, and me all survived the mom crisis intact.

I'm thankful that we pulled off a move to the opposite side of the island and that it seems to have been the right choice. That I found a job closer to where we moved and that I like it even better than my last job, which I liked just fine.

I'm thankful for all my friends, especially those who supported me during the difficult times. That means you....

The blogging community is amazingly supportive and I am grateful for this support and friendship...

I'd like to give a shout out to Jen over at Sprite's Keeper. She has run the Spin Cycle the last couple of years and is going to take a break. I can't lie - I'm sure going to miss it. Even if I haven't been the most dependable Spinner the last few months.


While the turkey was doing its thing in the oven, BC and I (plus my new camera) went for a hike not to far from our house. This is the view from the top of the trail.

I'm saving the rest of the hike for next week's Travel Tip.

Feel free to link on up with your travel tips, travel posts, Thanksgiving posts....

Scary is as Scary Does

This is a repost, those of you who have been reading here for the whole two plus years might have read it before. But the Spin Cycle this week is Halloween. And I've been wanting to get something up this month, October, for breast cancer awareness month. And this post gives me the opportunity to double dip.

Circa 1960’s
When I was young and growing up in the San Fernando Valley with my two sisters, Halloween was a huge deal. We COULDN’T WAIT for dinner to be over and dark to descend so we could go trick or treating. My dad had this horrid awful mask that he would drag out, not only for Halloween but also for slumber parties. It beat the shit out of anything they sell today. It was MORE REAL. Not so rubbery. It was the scariest, creepiest, wrinkled, evil face ever. My sister has told me it came off a movie set (my Uncle was a cameraman). My dad would wait until our guard was down, which means sitting on the floor, sorting our candies; and with mask, trench coat, and big ol’ boots, he’d slam open the back screen door and come tearing at us. Clenching hands and BRUUUUUHAHAHA. I’m surprised we never pissed our pants. That’s how much we fell for it every year.

Halloween 1991
Daughter was just over two and we had mostly managed to keep her from chocolate and sweets. Instead of taking her trick or treating, we all dressed up and took her to a restaurant/club. You see, my husband and I met working at Bobby McGee’s. I was cocktailing to pay my way through college and my husband was a waiter. EVERYONE wore a costume at this crazy place to work. Even though we had both moved on, we still had a lot of friends there and they did a happy hour thingy on Halloween. So we dressed as the Flintstones. Cave clothes- mine and Daughter’s hair twisted around big, fake bones. It’s a great picture of back in the day when my husband and I had our youthful bodies. Daughter was the most precious Pebbles ever. Not that I’m prejudiced or anything. We went at about 5 PM, and even after a shitload of fun and frivolity, we were back home by 8. Within 5 minutes of sitting down some kids came trick or treating. There was no hiding from the two year old child the fact that I was giving stuff away and that was the end of her not getting candy for Halloween.

Halloween 1993
We had just bought our home that summer and it was Son’s first Halloween trick or treating. He was 16 months old. He had the CUTEST fucking tiger costume. He toddled along and I swear our block looked like that scene in ET, where swarms of kids come out right at dusk. Being a new neighborhood, it was a beehive of toddlerhood. I was holding his hand and waited on the sidewalk as Daughter and our friend’s kids went up to the first house. Son could barely talk, but he sure let it be known that he had observed what went on at the front door. He grunted and grumbled to see inside the kids pumpkin buckets. When he figured out that they were partaking of give-away stuff, he pulled and pulled on my arm until I walked him up to the next door. That was the beginning of his professional status at trick or treating. Everyone thought the baby tiger was too too cute and gave him twice as much candy as the other kids. But half way around the block he figured out how to unwrap a piece of candy and that was the end. Afterwards he wanted to sit in the middle of the sidewalk and eat his whole loot. My friend had to take all the kids around so I could haul his little butt home and check his candy before he scarfed down a razor blade or an LSD tab.

Halloween 2006
My children are 17 and 14 and they have made plans to go out with some friends. Son is actually trick or treating in a friendly neighborhood that lets the teens keep up the good work. His professional status is still intact. Daughter is in a play and after rehearsals they are having a party. My husband has to work. I have the night to myself, but I’m being a Halloween Homebody and I have decided I don’t want to answer the door and give away candy by myself. So I turn the porch light off and all the downstairs lights too. I go upstairs and treat myself to an aromatherapy bath with candles. As I leave the bath I look at myself in the candlelit mirror and contemplate the effects of the last few months. I’m still officially bald, but the first soft down of baby soft fuzz can be felt more than seen. My radiation treatments, finished just two weeks before, have left a thickening of red welts under my left arm. But it’s not as bad as they said it would be. The aloe must have really helped. My scars are still fairly new and jagged and my skin still has the sallowness of all that chemo. The dark circles under my eyes could be the center of a zombie mask.... But I made it. I’m done with the treatments and starting my recovery. I walk to the upstairs window and peek through the blinds to see the families on the sidewalks with their ballerinas and spidermen. I don’t feel the least bit sad to be by myself. I had insisted my kids not stay home for me; I want to make up for all those days and nights they had hung out with me in my room the previous summer, fear haunting their faces despite their efforts to hide it. I curl up in bed with a book, grateful that the worst is over. Happy that life is moving forward and getting back to normal.

For more spins on Halloween, head on over to Sprite's Keeper.

On Faith

I don’t think I’ve ever taken on a religion post. I meant to work on one this week, Jen’s Spin challenge kept nipping at the corners of my thoughts on a way too busy work week.

Like Jan, I’m not sure where this might be going, but I’ll just get started and see what happens. I almost feel like I should have done this on a Random Tuesday as my thoughts on religion run the gamut.

I guess I could start by saying I always thought there was more to life than this world we live in. So, in my own way I’ve always had faith and believed.

I did not grow up going to church. My mom wanted us to go, or said she did. She and my dad used to fight about our lack of church going. My dad was agnostic and told my mom she could take us kids to church, but he wasn’t coming. She took us to Sunday school for a time, but not for too much time.

I used to go to church with other families on occasion. Like when you spend the night at a friend’s house on Saturday and they take you along with them to church the next day. I acted all whatevers. But on the inside, I was hoping for a spiritual epiphany that never happened. Mostly, I was only aware of hypocrisy and judgmentalism (apparently made up word I'm keeping).

I found my solace, my center, mostly in nature. I’d go for hikes alone. I liked cliffs and views.

Sometimes I would notice a moment of grace in something random. It was like everything became both clear and surreal at the same time.

There are many things that bother me about organized religions. Uppermost is the narrow mindedness of those who are loudest. The horrible things that are done in the name of religion both past and present. I often wonder if others besides myself notice the similarities in the self-righteous zealots of opposing religions…

I also wonder why these same people do not notice the similarities of what is good about their faiths.

I have been teased (accused) of having a smorgasbord belief system in that I am curious and open to all faiths. I have read several major religious books and there’s a lot of common ground as far as I am concerned.

Love one another. Be kind. Help one another. Be of service.


“The alien living with you must be treated as one of your neighbor born. Love him as yourself.” Leviticus 19:34

For more spins on religion, go on over and visit Jen at Sprite's Keeper.

Spin Cycle: Old Wives' Tales

Jen's assignment this week is "old wives tales."

My hubs and I come from very different backgrounds, so we have an eclectic mixed bags of superstitions from our childhoods.

My dad's family came from Texas and they were practical people and I don't remember dad or his family passing any on to me.

From my mom there were certain "rules" that fit into the "tales" category.

• Never open an umbrella in the house.
• Never use the last match (my mom smoked the whole time I grew up and match books with only one match left could be found all over the house).
• Don't walk under a ladder, it's bad luck.
  
• Knock on wood when you say something that might tempt fate.

Hubs was raised by his maternal grandmother, who was from the Philippines, and she came to live with us when we bought a home. Her rules and superstitions have more clout than my mom's if your asking me.

• Never clip your toenails or fingernails at night (they carry your code and if the night spirits get them they can work the devil on you). When our daughter was a baby I was sitting there with the teeny, tiny nail clippers one evening trimming her cute little toes. Hubs walked in and screamed at me, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING! It's dark out, stop clipping her nails!" I was all like, what the fuck?? Has he been drinking? When he explained to me why, I could not decide whether to laugh or be a little freaked out at what I had gotten into in this marriage. Then I remembered that to this day I do not open an umbrella in the house.
• One should not celebrate birthdays ahead of time. It could cause extreme bad luck and tempt fate to make sure that one does not make it through the next couple of days to said birthday.

As an adult, I kind of get the ladder and the umbrella. Ladders have a little shelf and might have something on that shelf that a kid could knock over and spill, like paint for instance.

Opening an umbrella in close quarters could knock over just about anything.

The nail clippings superstition still kind of creeps me out though. The idea of little spirit trolls lurking around my house for discarded bits of DNA....

For more spins on Old Wives Tales, head on over to Sprite's Keeper. Jen puts the list up on Friday.