being seen and heard
gifts to those we meet in life
gifts of wings and joy
JSmith 11/19/2016
Be not afraid…
18 Nov 2016 4 Comments
First you cry, that’s what they say…unless you’re stunned into silent disbelief, in which case you walk around still living and breathing in a world that turned strange in an all too familiar direction overnight while you were sleeping…and you keep doing this – living while dead…and then ten days in, you’re spending possibly the last warm evening of the season outside with your husband…and he starts telling you things he’s never told you before about how life changing it was for him to love and care for your former mother-in-law for the last six years of her life, and how important it became to him that she not be afraid…and like that, you find yourself back with your dad in the nursing home while he slides deeper into dementia and can’t find the handholds, and he knows what’s happening, sometimes, and he’s afraid…and you’re there to reassure him and encourage him back to peace…and when he’s dying, and he knows it, and he’s afraid…you’re there to warm his chest with your hands and remind him about love and forgiveness, and to let him go…and to stay right there until the fear of the unknown leaves his eyes and his agonized lungs call it a life and end the struggle.
That might be when you finally cry, because maybe the enormity of what has transpired has funneled down to this one fact: you can’t BE THERE for everyone you love when it’s their turn in the barrel and shit gets real, and they are justifiably afraid. But you’re going to wish you could be…so much.
Now that you’ve kicked DENIAL’s ass, you can slope right on down the road into ANGER, wherein you make it clear to one and all that their opinion is not your reality. In addition, it’s where you figure out who really loves you, because they so have their work cut out for them, by which we mean how long can you watch somebody implode, and still maintain radio silence?
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” ~Gloria Steinem
There’s no point in BARGAINING, what’s done is done, and you hope to skip the DEPRESSION stage because you have to wonder if you’d come back.
So what about ACCEPTANCE, then, the accepted final stage of grief and loss? Not happening. You can accept that it happened, but not that it’s normal, and you know that means you’ll be at odds with about half your family and acquaintances for the duration, whatever it turns out to be. Your friends will be right where they’ve always been – in your corner and ready to defend you from pain and harm – but some of the relationships in your life will be and already are fraught with tension and division.
Borrowing generously from Amanda Diebert’s moving blog piece called “Dear Trump Supporter who says they love me” …
“A man actively promised to dismantle and harm my family. To destabilize the security of my child. To harm relatives and friends and you still voted for him.
“Those other reasons matter more to you than my life and my family. It was on the line and you chose. That is the reality.
“And I know, I know that makes you really angry that I actually said it. That I won’t let you off the hook. We have a long history and you’ve made it clear I’m supposed to apologize for making you feel guilty with all my social media posts about my sadness and my anger. I should get over it already. Your guy won and you are such a nice person and how dare I…
“First of all, you love me? Stop telling me how to grieve.
“Yeah, I know that’s not WHY you voted for him {his racism, misogyny, homophobia, et.al.}, but again, it didn’t stop you. Actively applauding someone who is doing wrong does make you culpable.
“I’m tired. ……. I do not have to apologize for you hurting me.
“You hurt me and now you are telling me I am not allowed to be sad or scared or angry.
“At the very least you allowed me to be hurt by someone else while you condoned that abuse with a ‘yes’ vote. You gave it your stamp of approval and now you are telling me my pain doesn’t exist.
“That is not love.
“I keep being told (by the people who harmed me) that I need to be a model example of ‘we go high.’
“…this is a long road. It’ll take a while, but you said you love me and you didn’t mean to hurt me.
“So let me heal while you do the work to show that you recognize the pain you caused and are working to minimize its impact.
“If you don’t want to do that work: okay.
“By ‘okay’ I do not mean I forgive you or that we are cool. I mean, you have made a decision and I will react to it accordingly. Notice I didn’t say respect it. A blatant disregard for the well being of others is not worthy of respect. But I will acknowledge this is a choice you made and I will walk away.
“Also, yeah, I do judge you for this. I’m being super honest about that, just in case you thought I might try to gaslight you too.”
You can read Amanda’s blog piece here: You Say You Love Me
I relate to everything she wrote – she’s a woman and she describes the pain of people who are my world. Nothing in the days, weeks, and months ahead will be easy, and much of it won’t be pretty. But I vow never to accept those things as “the new normal.” That kind of acceptance is a bridge too far.
Missing my bestie…
08 Aug 2016 5 Comments
My 24/7 buddy, who doesn’t have headaches or backaches or insomnia, and is seldom waylaid by a bug, has been down for two weeks with all of the above plus a cough that won’t give up. Stepped-up inhaler hits and a steroid are improving his color and infusing a skosh of energy, but he isn’t much fun right now, go figure.
And it’s all about moi, of course, you knew that, right? So bless the Rio Olympics!! Two gray days running – making it feel like an early fall here – and we’re snuggled in with the TV coverage, reading, writing, snacking, talking – whenever The KIMN8R isn’t napping. After two lifetimes of experience with it, we got married to spend all our time together, so it’s good that options exist for making sure that happens. The Big Guy scares me just a little when he turns into a skinny ghost, but his wicked humor is peeking through again and I’m detecting a hint of Guido Mode in his voice. Gonna live – that’s good enough for an overcast Monday in August.
Enjoy yours, boys & girls. ❤️
Kicking over the traces…
23 Jul 2016 5 Comments
Do you ever want out of your skin? You know, because you’re worn out from thinking all the thoughts that pile up in your brain like kindling, splinters poking and needling. Because the stuff held in by your skin hurts all day every day. Because someone you love is stressed and unhappy and you can’t fix it. Because the world isn’t kind and the slings & arrows extract their pound of flesh and energy every freaking day and you’re tired of the ugly. Because all the relentless hurt hurts so relentlessly. And you finally drop your guard and share some of the pain to make it feel less potent and you’re hit with the ice-bucket challenge – dispiriting to the max. Meanwhile, your heart flutters like a bird in your chest and you fully grasp why people drink and do drugs.
Yeah, me too, bubbie, getting out of this skin is Job 1 today; however, that’s apparently not happening, which leaves humor for toughing it out. What’s your antivenin of choice – deadpan, dark, ironic, satirical, blue, highbrow, slapstick, something else… what helps you get through the night? It would be a kindness to come share some of it with us – we’re dyin’ heah. Life is so simple most of the time that when it turns crunchy it’s really noticeable. The world is full of crazy-ass people who make me want to cry, mean-ass people who do make me cry, willfully-ignorant people who make me want to leave the planet – I don’t feel like seeing ANY of it today, boo-hoo.
So come share what makes you laugh. Robin Williams knows how to make the hurt better by sharing it, so he’s my go-to guy.
Known only to me…
12 Jul 2016 4 Comments
When I am old I shall wear purple and every damn color I want, probably all at once. I’ll be just like every other dried up old malcontent you’ve encountered, but different in ways known only to me, thus this brief Manifesto of Independence is for whoever ends up having to deal with me, most likely husband and then son, not that life ever follows a script.
IN CASE OF FUTURE FULL-ON FOSSILIZATION, BREAK GLASS TO READ:
- If I’m hungry, all efforts are futile until food happens – I more and more don’t have the capacity to maintain sanity during hangry spells. Good news: the devil within is easily placated, provided we like what we’re being bought off with.
- I still hear non-stop music inside my skull from the ice fall last winter and it can get overwhelming in a way that loosens my hinges a little. It may never go dormant, so please factor that in when trying to reason with me.
- If I’m certifiably demented, don’t try to reason with me at all. Too much like arguing with the proverbial porker – only serves to frustrate you and irritate the pig. I’ll probably be fine in whatever world is current for me, so don’t waste precious resources trying to talk me out of it.
- Likewise, if intractable pain can’t someday be addressed with legal medical-grade cannabis – the thing that stops it – then pain awareness will have to be a fixture in the equation, too. I hate that, it sucks, I’ll be doing my best to stay sweet and not cause anybody trouble, but there it is, the big whiny elephant in the room.
- It will be in everyone’s best interest to keep #’s 1, 2, and 4 from happening simultaneously. Good luck to ya’.
- A great set of Beats headphones and Elton & Leon’s “The Union”will keep me out of your face for days – use it. Joshua Radin, Jennifer Warnes, Jason Mraz, the soundtrack of Catch & Release, The Lone Bellow, The Milk Carton Kids… Merely a sampling – I’ll try to keep the playlist updated* until check-out – it will always be eclectic.
- I don’t require much for survival, but two must-haves beyond music are books and a way to communicate. Even if you think I’m past reading, leave a book or two around because…you never know. No fluff, no bodice-rippers, best no serials. Poetry – that’s what I want – Krista’s, please. Give me an inactivated iPhone if it seems to provide a sense of being in touch with somebody, but if we’re all fortunate I’ll simply slip into a world where none of it matters to me anymore except the good times and die with a smile on my face. Or get hit by a bus. We never know.
- Apparently women past 40 are programmed to grow an increasingly disgusting amount of first dark then white extraneous hair on our faces. If you leave that shit intact I promise I will come back after I die and sleep between you and your significant other until the end of your days. I mean this.
- If I need to live in a care facility for the good of all concerned, please try to find one that operates like a highly tolerant family – one where eating and sleeping are managed individually rather than institutionally – that would be huge. Also, of course, where no one will hurt me, whether on staff or in residence – that’s pretty huge, too.
- The baseline changes imperceptibly with the decades, but I will never not want to look and smell as good as reality allows. Please don’t subject me to the pitying faces of strangers without helping me look as much like this still-me person as anyone could expect. And while I’m here – please universe, no diapers, ‘K?
- After I’ve made my presence felt in my immediate world for as long as I can and something takes me out of here, give me a smokin’ hot body one last time and pack my ashes to the coast – pick one – for a sweetly drunken campfire and whatever you want to say about me. Talking to you of course, Kim and John.
- In the past few years since I let myself start writing again, I’ve put a body of words out there in the cloud that may or may not survive in one jot or iota. As long as the synapses fire I’m sure I’ll keep contributing to that pile of thought-turned-words that will, odds-on, prove to have been solely for my own rescue. That’s another thing we never know about – where it all goes when we do. Kind of pisses me off that I won’t be around to see if any of my sentences end up on Google Search. What I’m saying is, you two guys can do what you want with what I won’t be taking with me. Big Kev knows how to get to my passwords – that’s for the wording, the bits and pieces of ME. The rest of it…you know what to do.
- Anyway, thirteen points being my style, that’s about it. Keep it simple, keep it all about love, keep Karma in our corner. Plus all the things I’ve ever said, ever meant to say, never thought to say – take that with you. And did I mention the love – you know all about the love.
I have no thought that anybody might need this vital information any time soon. But if you don’t write it down when it’s now, a day comes when you can’t say it anymore – you’re no longer your own advocate. And everybody needs one.
*Also Tracy Chapman. Keb Mo. Frank Sinatra’s “In The Wee Small Hours,” the album.
The Art of Humaning
08 Jul 2016 2 Comments
Like the world outside our doors the place I call home is endlessly quirky. Our daily lives are first off influenced and impacted by the commercial entities under us and the wheels of commerce send a hum upward through the girders that assures us the world is on track, a nap would be good. Above the hum, on floors three through five, independent thought rules. We’re a collection of young to old, friendly to cold, liberal to conservative, social butterfly to I-vant-to-be-alone, moneyed to who knows/cares – the quintessential microcosm in so many directions. A neighbor-sighting is rare for me, possibly because I vant to be alone.
Consensus is often hard to come by in the governance of the building, inside and out, concerning the simplest of matters. Many tears can be spilled over a paint color while the landscaping dies clean away. We are know-it-alls and trust-me-I-know-nothings. A lawsuit is for some the quickest route to satisfaction, while for others patient thoughtful communication is the only way to go. Some are quick to take offense, some know how to deflect it, and some truly do not give a shit.
We’re a civil bunch – in the hallways, the mailroom, on the street, we’re nice AF, voluntarily forgetting what he said about…what she told her…where they stand on… Life requires it because humaning in close quarters is deadly after all the civility leaks out.
Wherever two or three are gathered, there will be the basic building blocks of personality among us and those elements have to continuously mesh in order to prevent societal meltdown, whether on a grand or intimate scale. A spinning globe scabbed over with layers of bloodied inhabitants has no alternative but to stop being stupidly selfish and help each other. It really is that simple.
Nothing about our particular living experience is new, different, or unique to the world – this is who humans are and we will never align perfectly with each other. But forget perfect, we have to collectively make the whole thing work or let it all go down the sewer – we’re out of options. Will we figure it out? Will we keep ourselves from erasing all life from the earth? Or will we hold out for what we want, damn the consequences forever?
Summer Love as always…
24 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
the hubby of me
saves my life by riveting
the little heart holes
JSmith 6/24/2016
Memory of a dream…
23 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
I move to your warmth
but you aren’t there
tears deliver me to unhinged
dreaming
and morning shows up rude
careless
awful
.
you won’t be there
ever again
nor there
nor there
and mornings will arrive
rude careless awful
forever
.
death of hope snuffs out life
a morning has to come
not rude careless awful
breathing beings cease with
only rude careless awful
but hope is pliant
she offers herself endlessly to true believers
.
JSmith 6/23/2016
Memorial Weekend…again
30 May 2016 2 Comments
Went back to my 2014 remembrance post this morning, knowing that for too many people every weekend is memorial weekend.
It’s a typically perfect Memorial Day morning here, like so many from my childhood, when every year we could count on it to be raining or blistering hot and windstill, or freezing cold, or all of the above, in gusts, or maybe cool and clear after one of those rains. In Lawrence this morning it’s 79º headed for 82, sunny, blue skies, humidity has dropped from 89% when I went out at 7am to 60% five hours later, and it’s exquisitely beautiful out.
But life holds more than beauty – especially for those who will never see any of it again – and cloudy skies take over sometimes. By 2pm we’re supposed to be mostly under cloud cover here, which seems altogether fitting for the day.
In 2016 I reshare my family’s story out of gratefulness, and out of reverence for, and abhorrence of, unspeakable loss on all sides throughout the generations.
.
First posted Memorial Weekend 2014 (with edits 5/30/2016 – a personalized haiku for anyone who’s bored enough to find them all – link provided below.)
My grandpa enlisted in the Army at the age of 17 and served at the front as an infantryman during WWI. His six sons were all military men, Army, Navy, and Marines. The three Marines, 18, 19, and 21 were in the Korean Conflict at the same time, in the same general location, under miserable conditions. All seven Reese military personnel returned home intact in body and went on to raise thriving families of their own. Many of my cousins have also served with honor in the military. The only family member I’m aware of, without digging into the archives, who was directly lost to war, was my Aunt Bette’s husband, making her a teenage widow with a baby. The baby, my cousin Vickie, is standing in front of her mother and between our grandparents in the family portrait. My mama is top right in both the portrait and the thumbnail pics, somehow descriptive of her position in my life for all time. And kudos today to my Baby Aunt Barbara, lower right in both, who put this collage together.
So thankful to have four of the original Reese Dynasty kids – Vic, Jerry, Barbara, and Roger – present and accounted for, on this Memorial Remembrance in the year 2016. Hugs and kisses all around, beloved.
Ongoing family is priceless. Feeling deeply thankful right about now.
Okay, Constant Reader, the edits took on a life of their own, so don’t even try. If, however, you’d originally thought you might, for the haiku, throw me a subject and I’ll do it anyway!
Yasss! Weekend!
02 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but weekends even in retirement have their own aura – the barely-discernible pace slows, and the party mood amplifies. There are nights when we stay up past midnight and have not two vodka tonics but three, possibly more – are there no fences anymore whatsoever? Makes me a little wistful …
I’m currently without adult supervision as Kimmers is out walking, taking advantage of the cool, crisp morning air while he stretches his legs and thinks his own thoughts. I’m doing things, too, of course. I made the bed and…I made the bed. Because weekends are different in that they contain no residual guilt over the perks of voluntary unemployment. I’m happy as a big sunflower, sitting here in my own company, bedhead extraordinaire, coffee on endless spigot, playing my music, IM-ing my insolently profane girlfriends, and eating goldfish. It’s a high all its own that rarely gets better. I didn’t say never, I’m neither stupid nor a fossil.
A fun thing I like to do on weekends is rummage through old photos, either in boxes or my online files. Some could embarrass friends or family, but is that not what social media is all about? I’m sayin’! I love this one…my cousin Bruce and me in our grubby training pants…he’s ready for a nap and I’m pretty sure I just tried eating a bug, the other two choices, of course, being Milk Dud or turd. See more about my cousin here: So Healthy It Makes Me Sick
Enjoy your weekend to the max, boys and girls! And if you have to work … gah, sucks to be you.
So healthy it makes me sick …
29 Mar 2016 7 Comments
We live, we learn – mostly we live. So as it turns out, “twice-weekly PT sessions for six weeks” merely covered Phase 1. Six weeks ended Friday morning and now we try another month. And then we “see.” Not a problem – once I graduate, there goes 90% of my outside social life, so what would be the rush?
Health, though – such a ginormous issue in every direction. Do we possess it? Do we value it? What value are other people placing on our health? Do we take it entirely for granted, or do everything we can to maintain it? Or realistically, somewhere between? And if we lose it, can we get it back?
The past few months have shown us that my bones are in far better health than we knew. And I’ve lost some pounds so my numbers are starting to improve — the dread NUMBERS that cause your extremely caring GP to make sad-panda eyes and counsel you to drop even more pounds and take scary-sounding drugs. I’m just stumbling along for now, thanks, and trying to beat those numbers into submission by means of personal discipline and other words I avoid.
My preoccupation with health at the moment stems from learning that a cousin is going through a hellish experience. He’s six weeks older than I am and we grew up more like siblings than cousins, our other siblings nicely stair-stepped or matched up in age, which made extended-family vacations oh so simple. And now the skinny little boy in the photo is all grown up and overrun by adulthood, and he’s ill and in pain. That hurts my heart. He’s a kind man who’s “been there” for everyone else. And life couldn’t possibly get away this fast and our bodies metamorphose so quickly into whatever stage this is that feels suspiciously like a cocoon, while our 60’s-addled brains go right on scheming and dreaming and making plans like a boss. Wow, whiplash!
Here, in their natural habitat, are my cousin Bruce, his big sister Vickie on the left, our Aunt Bonnie, who was probably still a teenager, and wide-eyed me, wondering what it was all about, Alfie. This was just the other day, I’m pretty sure — I remember the shingles on that house — they were a reddish-brown and felt funny under my fingertips.
Bruce will get well I think, and we’ll all go on. But the knowledge that he’s dependent for now on a wheelchair and round-the-clock help from an only slightly younger brother brings it all home in kind of an in-your-face way.
I mean, today Patty Duke has left the building. In recent days it’s been Natalie Cole, David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Glenn Frey, Pat Conroy, Garry Shandling, and a litany of others in my generation. This isn’t going to stop, and I’m not ready for it. Happen it will, though, that’s how this goes.
We are ALL most definitely playing for time, boys and girls. Make it count.
We laughed until we cried …
23 Nov 2015 4 Comments
I lost a valuable friendship this week and have been blocked for good measure, so finding out what happened might not … happen. And that’s regrettable because I could have learned something important from the experience.
So, then, here’s how this works (after we slide into our big-ass panties):
“Cry it out if you must
Bleed a little if you must
But once you’re done, suck it
all up and move on and
never, ever look back.”
–Ali B. Moe
I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date!!!
25 Jul 2015 4 Comments
First post on my Facebook feed this morning was a Happy Anniversary wish from our son John. It’s our 11th … and both of us spaced it off completely, a first in that number of years. We are, joyfully and officially, The Old Married Couple. We’ve been cutting Hallmark short since about year five, our favorite flowers ever were the ones at our wedding, and neither of us needs chocolates, so nothing lost — it rained a bit ago and cooled off the oven that’s been raging outside our door, so we’ll probably walk the half-block to Cielito’s, our home away from home, and celebrate on their big patio with the best margaritas in town.
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Eleven years ago today, we got married after the close of the morning church service, and then our pastor and friends served lunch to about 300 people. Simple, beautiful, memorable, sweet, and fun.
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Happy. So happy.
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Our glamour photo shoot — a gift from Kim for my birthday not long after our wedding.
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Yeah. This guy.
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The newlyweds today. A lot of changes can happen in eleven years’ time, but the basics stay the same, and that’s so cool.
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Tuesdays were for what?
11 Mar 2015 4 Comments
The Grand Purge of 2015 is currently underway here at Chez Smith so everything that was on my desk … sticky notes, calendar pages, scribbled-on envelopes, wrinkled business cards, Twix wrappers … is in a heap on the bed and I can’t remember what Tuesdays are supposed to look like here on the blog because my notes are in there somewhere. And who has the energy to scroll back … ? Getting rid of that big stupid pile in the middle of the bedspread was my Tuesday goal. Instead, oh look, it’s WEDNESDAY already! Time to shift the detritus from love seat to bed again and see what happens.
Seems to me Tuesdays have been about thankfulness lately, which rhymes with beauty, which gets us back to Monday’s good intentions. Are you OCD at all? What are the things that hook you in and you can’t get enough of twenty-four hours a day because they engage your brain and ignite your passions? And then a morning dawns, the next week or years down the road, when you wake up and can’t find two fricks to give about any of it. And it feels kind of sad but mostly it feels like the most liberating thing that’s happened in too long.
Facebook and I reached an impasse like that the other day, one of many but this time totally out of left field. We’ve agreed to stay friends, but we’re negotiating a little break from each other for health reasons — it’s an increasingly unhealthy place for me to hang out because my reserves are so pathetically low. I can cite chapter and verse, but for now it seems sufficient to say that I’m out of energy for the general ugliness, and sharing my truth just annoys the crap out of people if it isn’t also theirs. I woke up last Thursday with the settled knowledge that it’s not my job, man, and I have to tell you I feel SO much better now that I no longer care.
So I’m trying to make Facebook about relationship again without selling out. We’ll see how long and how evenly my psyche handles the dichotomy — it’s guaranteed to be fascinating. We should talk more about this tomorrow because I clearly haven’t solved the whole puzzle yet and I have a feeling there’s helpful advice out there that could open some windows. I know it all comes back to beauty and beautiful places — living in them, creating them, facilitating them. God, it’s probably something as cliché as “Be the beauty you wish to see in the world.” Nooooooooooo, that sounds so pathetically passive and ineffective. But bottom line, probably yes. Because the really beautiful people do get trampled in life, but while stuff’s hitting them they’re shedding pollen and sloughing off seed pods that take root like science and make places for change to happen.
It’s obvious that the earth is losing its sparkle and could benefit from a beauty infusion, so I’m going to let myself think about all this for a while because it’s what we here in the office like to refer to as overwhelming. Meanwhile, from the Playing for Time desk, a wonderful Wednesday to you all. Make your corner of it beautiful if you can.
Does this mess with your head like it does mine?
I mean if you could know.
On a sunny Tuesday afternoon in January …
20 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
So tell me you’ve been finding every opportunity to dance since last week — it’s such a good habit to get into! By dance I mean sparks of any sort inside the person that is you. You give your heart permission to feel not just okay, but fabulous, even if it’s only a hit-and-run, and should it leak out your fingers and toes, by all means … make rhythm out of it.
It’s a bits & pieces Tuesday. Here’s a glorious bit that Mary Oliver wrote about her partner of forty years, Molly Malone Cook, that makes my heart dance. “The dance” is often The Blues …
“She was style, and she was an old loneliness that nothing could quite wipe away; she was vastly knowledgeable about people, about books, about the mind’s emotions and the heart’s. She lived sometimes in a black box of memories and unanswerable questions, and then would come out and frolic — be feisty, and bold.”
I love that so much.
And these two pieces made my brain boogie today …
Is it just me or is there a connection in all these jangly bits? Seriously, anything’s possible when your brain dances with your heart.
Playing for Time 
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