Now Is Not The Time

I was maybe 8 or 9 years old. My father was in yet another drunken rage. This was easily discernible by the fact that he was loudly reciting his favorite alcohol-fueled litany to one of my older brothers. The litany was, "You're no damned good." There were other epithets and insults thrown in, but that was the catch phrase and it was repeated often. I whispered to my mother, "I want to tell him to shut up and stop being a jerk." She shut me down, saying, "Now is not the time. You can't argue with a drunk. And we don't say shut up."

I wanted to confront him the next day, tell him that I didn't like the way he had talked to my brother. I wanted to tell him that it hurt to hear him talk to anyone in our family like that. He sat, slumped forward at the kitchen table, cup of coffee cooling in front of him, the ever-present cigarette dangling between the index and middle fingers of his right hand. My mother whispered as I walked into the kitchen, "Daddy's not feeling very well." Now is not the time.

Now is not the time took up residence in my mind right next to you're no damned good. Those two phrases together were a vitriolic cocktail that taught me not to speak up for myself.

Years later when I was the teenage subject of a similar drunken rant by my father, I wanted to say, "Shut up! You're being a jerk." But I heard my mother's voice in my head, "Now is not the time." Instead, I ran out the door and spent the night at my boyfriend's house. When I returned the next morning, Dad was in the same slumped position he'd been in so many years ago. This time he was crying. He looked up when I walked into the kitchen, and with breath that still stank of alcohol, blurted out, "Oh, Punkin, I'm so sorry!"

I wanted to tell him that his apology didn't mean anything, but that action would. I wanted to tell him that the hurt I felt wasn't hurt that would go away with a simple "I'm sorry." I wanted to tell him that I'd graduated from thinking of him as a jerk to thinking of him as a fucking drunk asshole, and I wanted to tell him that no daughter should ever want to call her father that. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, that I'd do whatever I could to help him change. But I stood, silent. Now is not the time.

I wanted to tell my school friends about my home life. They thought we were a good, happy, Catholic family. I wanted to tell them what it was really like. I wanted to say that although I was never beaten, some of the things that were said left scars that hurt so badly that it was painful to be alive. I wanted to, but I didn't. I was the friend who went along with whatever the rest of the group wanted to do. I was the friend who knew all the words to all the songs and all the good jokes. Now is not the time.

Shortly before my father died of cancer in 1982, I spent an afternoon at the hospital with him. We held hands, all the unsaid hovering between us. Now is not the time.

I never told my father how I felt. It's only been in the past decade that I feel I've really found my voice. It took a lot of hard work and courage to wave that figurative banner that reads: Now IS the time.

My circle of friends will tell you that I'm fond of saying that I wouldn't change a thing in my life because it's all made me who I am today. And I really like who I am today. Still, I can't help but wonder what would have come of that girl if she'd been allowed to say what she had to say, to take a stand. How much more of a dynamic force would I be? I don't know and it's impossible to speculate. Silly even.

At the very least it has all led me to this moment. Yes, this very moment as I am typing this and hoping someone who needs to read it is reading it. That will make every second of my life worthwhile. You see, bullies aren't always kids on playgrounds or snotty teens writing insults on Facebook. Bullies can be found anywhere and everywhere, no matter what age we are. Bullies can be found at our jobs, in our homes, in our churches, in the parking lot. Everywhere. Sometimes the bullies are even our own parents.

Please. If someone is hurting you, don't listen to the voices saying, "Now is not the time." Speak up. Keep speaking up until someone hears you. Please. Now IS the time.

***************************************

For the Scriptic prompt exchange this week, Grace O'Malley gave me this prompt: Now is not the time.
I gave SAM this prompt: I had forgotten all about it, but that fragrance/scent/smell brought it all back.

All the Difference

Six years ago I woke up to a very different kind of day than today. Six years ago, I was busy saying goodbye to my beloved mate, John who lost his life to cancer.

I've spent this past week being somewhat pensive, reflecting on the myriad changes in my life since then. I am in awe of how changed, changed for the better, my life is.

A couple of weeks ago I was part of two different conversations where "negative" emotions were being discussed. Among those emotions were sorrow, fear, anger, and guilt. Talk centered around getting rid of those emotions. I said, and I believe, that we need those emotions. They are necessary.

Somewhere along the way, we lost our reason. We decided that the only things we should be allowed to feel are positive things. We often refer to unpleasant emotion as baggage, as if it's detritus we stuff in a shopping cart and haul around from place to place, occasionally bumping into others with it. We are quick to try to numb the so-called bad feelings with drugs. We do everything we can to make "bad" go away. We work harder, we play harder, we party harder, all in an attempt to banish what we falsely perceive as "bad."

I'll let you in on a secret. The people I love best are people who are in touch with all that "bad", who don't try too hard to mask it. Seeing that frailty in them, and seeing them rise above it, is what makes me love them so much more. The open, raw, naked honesty with which they present themselves - that unashamed "here I am in all my ugliness" - is what makes them so beautiful to me. They don't wallow. That wouldn't do for either of us. But they don't hide either.

So, if I have one wish for people, it is that they allow themselves to feel everything - and not just to feel it, but dive into it, look at it long and hard, find some kind of understanding or at least an acknowledgment. As a very astute artist said, we need those dark spaces because they enhance the light spaces.

That I lost someone I loved so much makes me that much more aware of how very sweet and precious is the love that I have now. That pain, that sorrow, that anger, that fear - that just makes me acutely aware of how extraordinary and wonderful my happiness is now. I believe the reason for this is that I allowed myself to fully experience those darker emotions. Rather than try to out run them, I ran to them. I faced them and found that they were only emotions. They couldn't really hurt me unless I let them hurt me.

That's the key here. Yes, let yourself experience and feel everything - you can't make any of it go away no matter how much you want to - just don't let feeling everything rule anything.

That last, precious kiss on the cheek six years ago was bitter and salty. By comparison, this morning's kiss on the cheek was a sun-ripened strawberry. The part of me that allowed beauty to grow from the shit-strewn fields is glad that I know just how sweet both of those kisses are.

And A Night Bird Trills

oh, the stars
the electric blue pulse
of your lips
pulling my skin
oh, this lifetime
in your hands -
wandering an ageless path,
swimming an ancient sea, then
wrapped in
all the arms and legs
of a thousand gods,
my bones shatter
as a universe
streams within

and a night bird trills

D is for Dance

When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way.
~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

I don't understand people who refuse to dance, who say they can't dance. What they really mean is, "I can't dance like Baryshnikov, so I won't even try." What they're really saying is, "Because it's not perfect, I won't do it at all. Where's the joy in doing something imperfectly?" They fear looking stupid, but really, we all do something that looks stupid every day. So why not make it intentional? Laugh at yourself first and others will join in laughing at themselves.

Even if all you're doing is tapping a foot to the beat of the music, that's dancing. Even if all you're doing is shimmying your shoulders, or swaying, or playing air-guitar, or conducting an invisible symphony... guess what? You're dancing.

I could easily tell you that I can't dance. I've got a gimpy leg. I pretty much have to stand in one spot and sway or pull some funky style with my arms and shoulders. My leaping and cavorting days are long over. Still, I won't say that I can't dance, because I can. Because I do. I let the music take over and work its magic.

Dr. Dyer is right. When I dance I'm not thinking about the next thing. All I'm thinking is, "This feels fine." I'm telling you, dancing is right up there with meditating. It's a very Zen activity. It shuts out everything but the movement and the joy, and therein leaves the dancer rejuvenated.

A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.
~ V for Vendetta

So, dance. Let the revolution begin.

C is for Chaos

Amid the chaos just be.

We humans are a silly lot. We try so hard to control things that we have no control over. We try to control things that aren't even important for us to control. We like to be in charge. Then we get anxious and aggravated.

Life comes flying at us from all different directions and we try to organize it. We plan; we schedule; we make agendas. We build houses and garages to keep all our orderliness in one place only to reorganize and clean them on a regular basis. We even try to force nature to conform to our obsessive need for control with our well manicured lawns and geometrically skewed gardens.

The thing is, the thing we seem to forget, is that the axis of life is chaos. It's a messy business we've got going here - some of that is our fault, some of it isn't. Regardless, it just is.

Somewhere along the way we've forgotten how to separate ourselves from the chaos. We've forgotten how to just be.

A couple of weeks ago I was scrambling to get things done. Construction workers across the field were making tremendous noise. I wanted to scream. Then I had this vision of my life being sort of like a hidden objects game. I can drive myself nearly insane looking for objects buried in a picture. Sometimes I have to remind myself that if I just stop searching so hard, sit back and take in the picture as a whole, sometimes the things I'm looking for jump out to be recognized. Even if they don't, at the very least, I'm not letting the game control me.

Chaos. It's there and you're there, but you don't have to be part of it. Take time to sit back and just be. After all, the only thing we can control is ourselves. Sometimes.

B is for Brazen

I don't much like the way my thesaurus treats one of my favorite words, and that word is brazen. It is compared to the following list of words and that makes it sound like it's a bad way to behave: brash, audacious, barefaced, blatant, bold, brassy, cheeky, cocky, contumelious, defiant, flashy, flip, forward, gritty, gutsy, hotshot, immodest, impertinent, impudent, indecent, insolent, loud, meretricious, nervy, overbold, pert, saucy, shameless, smart-alecky, smart-ass, spunky, tawdry, unabashed, unblushing.

When, I ask you, did anybody accomplish anything by being otherwise? Are great strides made by the timid, the shameful, the weak? No. No. And no.

Long ago, a dear friend and I were discussing the possibilities of seducing the men each of us was seeing. I suggested she just plant one on her intended seductee's lips, grab him by the cojones and say, "How about it then?" She replied, "Sure, why not? If you're gonna be a hussy, you might just as well be a brazen hussy."

Considering that so much in this life is about seduction - not in a sexual way, but in the spirit of cajoling, of trying to get your own way - ought we not be brazen about what we want and what we need? I submit, "Yes!" By all means, own what you want out of life. Be proud. Be loud. Be brazen. How else is any one else going to know, much less understand, what you're all about and what you're after?

If you consider it in sexual terms (because, let's face it, that's such an easy analogy), it would be like me sitting on the sofa and expecting my mate to know I really want sex. It doesn't work that way. But if I brazenly tear my shirt off, start walking up the stairs, and say, "I'm going to see if I can knock all the sheets off the bed without using my hands." Well. Brazen wins the day every time.

Be brazen. Approach your life like you mean business.

Live intentionally.

A is for Art

I am joining the folks at Blogging from A to Z for the third year in a row. The challenge is to blog six days of the week, using consecutive letters of the alphabet for each post.

Sure, Art is an obvious choice for me. I thought about  writing (ranting) about apathy. I've done that topic in the past and the only people who enjoy those posts are others who like to rant about apathy. The apathetic just don't care. I pondered agapanthus and Achilles. I thought, "You can't write about art, you silly self-serving wench!" Oh, but I can.

I want to write about art, not because I want to tell people to learn to do it, or find a passion for it or... blah blah blah. I just want folks to appreciate art for what it is. Art is nothing at all but self-expression. That makes every cognitive creature on earth an artist. It doesn't matter whether you're baking cupcakes, writing stories, doing open heart surgery, painting, being a mother, singing, gardening, or what. It just doesn't matter. If you think - if you create anything, you're an artist.

What you do might be appreciated by others or it might not be. As a writer and an artist, I've learned that what others see doesn't really matter. Yes, it's nice if they connect on some level, nicer still if they actually like what you've done. However, ultimately, it's about how you felt doing whatever it is you did. It's about the soul-stirring that occurs when you indulge yourself in that thing. It is that, and nothing more.

"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can."
~Neil Gaiman

Your voice, however that voice is made manifest, is your art. Nobody else can say what you have to say. So, please... say it in whatever way you choose. Be an artist.