Saturday in a Pandemic

Yesterday, we tried to enjoy a Saturday as usual. We actually did a pretty good job of it! We hiked in the nearby state park and got drinks at the local drive through afterward. We lazed around the house otherwise and my soon-to-be-stepson took a 6 foot apart walk with a friend.

On our 6 mile hike, we took pains to step out of the trail to let others hike through. We saw a boy with blue latex gloves and a few people with bandanas on their faces. We packed hand sanitizer with our snacks, water, and sunscreen. We wondered if we should have taken more precautions.

As we nursed our aching muscles, beginning of sunburns, and dehydration (I will pack more water for the next hike), my son's dad called. This was to be his weekend with our son. He called wanting to know when he would see him. My answer was I don't know. I don't think my son should leave our city (his dad lives in another city) at this time. We are all doing our best to contain any potential contamination. My son begged to see his dad, and I felt awful depriving him of that normalcy. We all crave normalcy right now.

After telling my son he couldn't see his dad, I felt guilty that we let my soon-to-be-stepson go on a walk with his new friend even if they had promised to stay 6 feet away and not touch. He is only 15 and I only see my mom through our glass storm door. We called him and asked him to come back. We all miss socializing in all forms. I had a Facebook Messenger happy hour with my girlfriends just last week.

I know that these types of interactions and reminders of the strange times we live in are happening all over the world right now. My household is unique in some ways (as we all are), but not unique in many more ways. I've read so many suggestions to have the kids journal through this experience. They could be another Anne Frank, they say. I am no Anne Frank. I do not claim this will last any longer than the moment in which I write it. But I do know writing about my experiences always helps me process them; maybe it can help you, too.

GoFundMe: Middle-Class Virtual Panhandling or Community at its Finest?

I have seen all the GoFundMe posts on Facebook. One friend just was having a hard time paying bills, another had a friend who needed help paying funeral expenses, still another had a pet who needed medical care. I've rolled my eyes and internally thought that I have to pay my bills why don't they have to pay theirs? Or I haven't had money to contribute. For whatever reason, I've seldom helped, but I have a few times. I feel similarly when I see someone panhandling on the street. But I honestly feel more compassion for the panhandler...until now anyway. I can't imagine being in a situation so dire that I had no option but to stand on a corner and beg strangers for spare change. That has to hurt to be there. I'm there.

Two years ago I got divorced. I've mostly done really well, and I'm no longer emotionally grieving the death of that marriage. However, doing the parenting and bills thing alone is really, really tough. I made decent money at my last job, but it was just barely not enough. I have amazing parents who have helped me more times than I can count. I got a new job about a year and a half ago. A great job, really. It was demanding, though, and at a time that I didn't have enough to give to my child and a demanding job. I lapsed on my antidepressant pills, and before I knew it, I was in quite a spiral. I began to emerge from that spiral in January....but it was too late. Coupled with some other factors, it led to my being unemployed.

My son turned 10 this last October. I had been managing my mortgage pretty well up to that point...and all my other bills. I would slip behind a bit on the mortgage but catch up. I took my son out of town to celebrate his bday and spent waaaaay too much money on him. I knew it was stupid, but I needed to celebrate him in a big way. I figured I could catch up. Only I had gone one month too far-the mortgage company would no longer let me pay a month's worth. I had to pay 2-3 month's worth or not at all. Anyone who has lived paycheck to paycheck knows this is a profound struggle. I didn't have it...so the money got spent elsewhere. I kept thinking I would catch up. And I was still depressed on top of that.

Late December/early January, I decided it was time to drag myself out of this hole. I began trying to take my medicine more regularly. I began taking care of bills I had been neglecting. I was making plans at work to bring more and more A game. And then I found myself with no income. I was crushed.

I have a part time temporary job that I got 2 days after I lost my job. I had one more check from my last job. This weekend marked the first missing paycheck...or lower one, I guess. And my mortgage company finally set some dates that they are taking my house back. I contacted them and asked what I could do. They gave me an amount I have top pay very very soon to get my house out of foreclosure. It is far more than I can scrounge together. It is more than my generous parents can give me or even loan me.

So I stuffed my pride way down low and made a GoFundMe page. It feels like asking strangers (though it's really friends and families) to give me spare change even though they have to work to pay their bills. I have received a few donations. I am so unbelievably grateful for my friends that have donated the little bit they can....it means so much to me and my son. To those offering sympathy, thank you. To those who think their 5 or 10 dollars wouldn't help, it would. To those judging me, I get it.

To answer the title question, I think the answer is yes. It is a bit like panhandling. I screwed up. I'm asking you to help me fix the problem I made. But it's also an opportunity for my family and friends to show me compassion and come together to help me better myself...to learn from my mistake. I know my viewpoint will be so different next time I see someone asking for help through a social funding site.

My GoFundMe Campaign: Save Our Family Home

The "F" word

Feminism. It's become such a trigger word in our society. My girlfriends, my daughter, my sister, and I wear it as a proud badge. To us, it means something important. It truly is about equality. I wrote what I hoped would be the beginning of a book (maybe it still will be) a year or two ago. I think it's even more important now.

I sat with a group of friends a few nights ago. The three of us chatted over adult beverages and 
appetizers. We talked about motherhood, jobs, husbands, fitness, money, the gamut! It struck me more 
than once the manner in which we would rail against the injustice of some condition of the modern 
woman in one breath and dismiss it as something we must just bear in the other.

My friend, the fitness instructor, complains nearly every time we talk about her job that the women talk 
badly about her. And worse, that every person who enters the gym where she works is so unhappy. 
No matter the level of fitness, they all are unhappy with their bodies. She wants to help them feel better
mentally and physically through exercise, but she feels she is only helping them and herself feel more
miserable. Then she sighs, sips her margarita, and moves to the next topic. I’ll confess I wanted to hear
her excitedly tell me about how she has thought of some new techniques to help them love themselves
more. She did not. I don’t know if this is because she fears it won’t be accepted, she does not want to
put in the effort, or that the disappointments and many practical responsibilities of life have rendered her
unable to catch that spark of idealism. I fear it’s the latter. Or maybe I’m just too idealistic. Maybe she's
tried and got stopped short by the trappings of bureaucracy.

These two same friends live feminism in a way that I find both intriguing and inspirational. They choose 
whether they work outside the home or not, and financial considerations are not their only motivations. 
They are both great moms that don’t parent by the rule book. And, though they’re great friends, they 
aren’t afraid to disagree or criticize each other.  In a few weeks, they will embark on a 5 week camping 
trip with their respective children. Their husbands will join them for portions of the adventure, but they will 
do most of it without them. We are not talking campers and hotel back-up plans, either. They have 
reserved campsites, sealed tents (I don’t even know how one seam seals a tent!), and even planned 
sleeping arrangements within their vehicles for the long drives. Accompanying these moms are SIX 
children ages ranging from 5 to 10!

Once they were on a smaller camping trip and had a flat tire. They fixed it themselves (I think AAA might 
have been involved), but were asked many questions along the way about how they were able to do so. Not just 
questions about the tire; questions about how they were camping without their men! This is one of the 
most poignant and personal expressions of feminism I’ve ever encountered.

Shouldn’t feminism be personal? Few people would suggest that everyone should have the exact same 
job for exactly the same pay, wear exactly the same clothes, or otherwise live cloned lives. Yet too many 
times, that’s what feminism becomes. We must all work outside the home and become executives. We 
must all dress modestly or dress immodestly (depending on which message we’re sending this month). 
I am not suggesting that these are not noble efforts to gain awareness and equality. I am instead 
suggesting that we personalize feminism.

Feminism and the fight for women’s rights has been compared to and linked with the civil rights struggle 
of people of color in this nation. What is the story most told about the civil rights movement? What really 
grabbed the attention of the nation and our history books? Rosa Parks on the bus. Or a random person 
being denied a seat at a lunch counter. Were these the greatest issues facing people of color in the 
South in the 1960s? I dare say not! Of course we are aware of voting rights, lynchings, disappearances, 
and other travesties, but it is so often boiled down to the very personal experiences of eating, drinking, 
sitting on a bus, and using a toilet. 

How can we apply that to feminism? Let’s start talking about what feminism means to each one of us. 
Not in a pedantic way that suggests what works for one woman works for all women. Let’s share our 
experiences and how we overcame our internal fears. Let’s share the times that we have felt 
persecuted and how we moved past it.

The Face of Poverty

I've had some amazing opportunities lately. I was able to go to a poverty simulation in February. I learned so much about poverty! I've recently been able to speak to several groups about this experience and what I learned. I want to share with more people so I asked a friend of mine (Jody Holland with Jody Holland Training and Speaking) to film it so I could share it on the interwebs! For your viewing, sharing, and learning pleasure:

My heart just hurts. All the violence. The shootings in Orlando, a local hostage situation in my hometown, more unwarranted shootings of black men, more officers killed. It's too much-all this senseless violence.

A few days ago, I told my son that the police are our friends. Even as I said it, I wondered if my black friends tell their children the same. I asked my co-worker what she will tell her daughter. She told me she isn't sure yet. She said she knows it's different because the child is a girl, though. My black male friend posted on Facebook that he is thinking about how he and his peers have to fear this same fate. These were the thoughts that enveloped my day.

As I drove home from work this afternoon, I passed a bank with flags at half-mast (or whatever the correct terminology). I usually pay attention to that and even sometimes google to see the reason. I assume today that the flags were because of the police officers killed and wounded not so far from my hometown. Not a whole block away was parked a pickup truck with an American flag, a "Come and Take It" flag, and a confederate flag.

 This sight is all too typical here, but it created so much anger and hurt for me today. I normally get angry at the sight anyway, but today with the recent violence, it was just too much. Thankfully, I'm a nonviolent person and try to channel my anger into productive exercises. So I wrote a poem (and then a blog post).

Confederate Flag in Amarillo

I drive down the road

And see the flag half down

Further still and I see

What makes me frown

No. More than frown.

How dare you?

How dare you fly that?

While people lay dying?

People are dead.

People are crying.

While on your truck bed

That flag you are flying.

That emblem of hate.

Of war against a people.

You proudly display it

As heritage and history.

I say it hurts hearts

It drives violence.

You say it is harmless

But you’re speaking into silence.

Speaking over the bodies of those

Gone before.

Speaking of dangerous

Lies and harmful lore.

Take it down.

Take down the rhetoric and hate.

While we mourn the dead.

Take down what has hurt so many.

What has started and ended wars.

Leave our community to heal.

Hate has no place here.

In the yellow city.

Wall of Freedom

My husband and I bought my grandparents' house about a year and a half ago. My grandparents lived here for 35 years. These two people have brought such joy and nourishment into my life that I couldn't bear to let their house go to strangers. So when Grandpa passed and Grandma had to move to an assisted living facility, we moved in. It was decorated like an octogenarian couple lived here. When our shower flooded, we had laminate wood floor put in the living room and two walls were re-textured and painted the color of our choice. The other wall was left with my grandmother's wallpaper.

About a month ago, I read something (I can't even remember what!) that inspired me to think outside the box on my art. I have a HUGE wall in my living room that is going to be textured and painted before we move...what's stopping me from having fun on it now? I first checked with the husband to make sure he could live with this. He said he didn't care.

One day a few years ago, I got off work a bit early. I piddled around some of my favorite spots for creative inspiration-a few stores on Route 66. When I came home, I still had time before picking up my boy. I turned the corner into my living room and there was that wall in all its crazy-flowered-wallpaper-glory! I tore a little piece off...then another little piece. Before I knew it, I had a big white spot on the wall. I hesitated as I thought of my husband coming home from work to see the wall torn apart but no art. I looked at the wall again and decided it was too late to turn back now.

I threw on some grungy clothes, cranked up my Pandora Pink station, spread out an old sheet and started in earnest. As I pulled off layers of the wallpaper, symbolism overcame me. This shiny, colorful, traditional wallpaper began to take the form of conventionalism, and fear, and being who everybody else wants you to be. Underneath, I found my grandfather had left the previous layer of wallpaper. This one was a tiny pink (my grandma's favorite color) pattern that instantly took me to my childhood. I was back in the days of innocence, the days when I was still whoever I wanted to be, as yet unmolded and as yet unscarred. There are places I went a little deeper taking the wallpaper off than I intended to just the blank yellowed color of the wall underneath; I thought of places where my life stripped away even the good I started with. There are places my grandpa had plastered over some hole or otherwise covered a blemish; places where I needed to fix where I had started with or fix where life gouged a bit too deeply.

I had an unfinished wall in my living room-as unfinished as my life. But now I face a wall  on which to paint whatever I want. It's so much better than the blank white slate of a canvas. It's as though I can start with the little girl of unfettered potential and add the self I long to be. And because I hope to raise a child who always feels like he can do anything, my son helps when he wants.

As I listened to every song that played, it was like I was doing hard therapy...working on my inner self as I worked on that wall. As I ripped off layers of old lady wallpaper to the soundtrack Pandora provided, I swore I smelled vanilla pipe tobacco just like my dad smoked.

When I picked up my son, we covered that wall with rainbows and blobs and whatever else! Months later, I added a huge ocean patch with a bubble in which a rose is suspended. My son helped me again with (a little) more sophisticated art than the previous time.

Every time I look at that wall, I smile. When people come to my house for the first time, they are surprised. If they know me well enough, they are not too surprised. But everyone is delighted (well, maybe with the exception of my mother-it was her parents' house) and I think a little bit jealous that they don't have a wall like this in their living room. I have had friends express a desire to paint on it themselves-they are welcome! So far, time or inhibitions have kept them from it....but I'm sure it will happen soon.

I love that we have this wall. It is a part of my life that is exactly as I want it. And it is made all the better for the memory of how it came to be!

Why Should We Talk About It?

I was browsing my Facebook newsfeed today and I came across an interesting interview with Mike Wallace and Morgan Freeman. In it, Morgan Freeman (an actor I greatly admire) says we should stop talking about race. Of course, this got me thinking. Why should we talk about race? Or why should we talk about gender?

There has recently been a definite uptick in the amount of chatter about race and gender recently. Between Ferguson, MO and GamerGate, or even the Kim Kardashian photo "scandal" (a two-for-the-price-of-one: race AND gender), discussions about racism (particularly in a white vs. black context) and feminism are not only being discussed in the serious circles in which they've long been discussed; they're now permeating even the most benign pop culture. Unless you've been living under that proverbial rock, you've heard about at least one of these issues recently.

But does talking about it just perpetuate the problem? If, as Mr. Freeman seems to suggest, we are contributing to the problem of people with brown or "black" skin being treated differently than those of us with beige ("white") skin just by talking about that difference, then the easiest solution is to stop talking about it. I have a former professor who is terribly brilliant and successful. She lives and works in an all men, very powerful world. She has told me that her approach to making career opportunities more equal for women is to simply live it. And kudos to my former professor and Mr. Freeman for their abilities to live beyond the everyday discriminations facing the majority of women and people of color in this country. But will stopping the conversation make it better for the rest of us?

I must at this point in our conversation offer a clarification. I am white. And I am a woman. I absolutely benefit from white privilege so my observations about race are fully subject to scrutiny from those people who may speak from a place of personal knowledge (i.e. people of color). I am not saying I know better than Mr. Freeman or any other person who has been the victim of racial discrimination on a firsthand basis. However, I live in this world and desperately want to see it become a better place where people of all color and gender live in harmony. From that perspective, and my perspective as a woman, I offer a reason not to stop talking about these issues.

If we stop talking about it, hate becomes the only voice in the room. 

By not talking about these important issues, we amplify the messages of those who want our differences to hurt, diminish, stunt, restrict, constrict, limit, or incapacitate us. Many of those who are perpetuating these messages do so because it gives them an advantage. Many others continue these ideas because they don't know better: it's how they've always done things. Why is it so bad to have a majority of men in the media, or the CEO office, or the White House? The world has been running just fine that way-we even finally put a man of color in the latter. Why is it so bad that black mothers teach black boys how to avoid looking suspicious to police while white mothers teach white sons that police are our friends? The black boys are probably up to no good anyway, right? Why else would a police man target them? Their ignorance may be bliss for them, but it is hell for those on the receiving end.

We cannot allow people to continue in their outdated, harmful, ignorant ways. It would be lovely if, by not talking about these issues, we could erase them. If by not pointing out that Morgan Freeman is one of only a handful of award-winning, black leading men (and even fewer leading ladies) we could just even the playing field in Hollywood, I would recommend we just shut up. But not pointing out the issue, not speaking up, has gotten us even further into the mire of discriminatory practices. We must point out all the ways girls and women are disadvantaged from infancy so that people will begin giving them not an advantage, but an equal footing. We must point out that people of color are hindered at many points in their lives so that we can begin to remove those hindrances-not so that people of color have more opportunities, but the same ones as the "white majority."

Please, please, until things are much, much better (and maybe not even then), don't ever stop talking about it.