Who Teaches Us Not to Cry?

When we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house, there was to be no crying.  I was a highly sensitive child (now I am a highly sensitive adult), and cried when I felt insecure or angry, which was much of the time.

When I was four or five, we went on a family vacation together to the beach: my mom, brother, grandparents. We stayed in their camper. For reasons I don't remember, I was crying one night. Grandma towered over me and said in an almost-growl, "Now stop crying!"

You, reader, understand how, as a human, this approach is bound to backfire, and instead of quieting and assuring the child's soul, it will only ruffle it further. My mother was wisely unwilling to get in the way of my grandmother. Later, though, I asked my mother what had happened. Why had my grandmother told me not to cry when I was feeling upset? And why had she, my mom, not rescued me?

My mom's response was a brief history: my grandmother had told her own children all their lives not to cry. This had wounded my mother, who is also quite sensitive, but she had learned to bear the pain more quietly, or at least not in the presence of my grandmother. From my grandmother, I later learned that her mother had always told her own children not to cry. "And she never said, 'I love you,' your Great Grandmother Mae," explained Mom, "You just had to know it." And so my grandmother had also lived her life, not saying, "I love you." You just had to know it somehow.

-----

I visited my grandmother today. A few minutes into our visit, I said, "I have news to tell you." Her face lightened. I know she was expecting me to tell her that I had found a wonderful boyfriend, that I thought he was the one, and that we'd be getting married in six months, would she be free on October the 10th to play "Here Comes the Bride"?

Instead, I told her the actual news, "I'm going back into teaching this year. I'm moving to Morocco at the end of this July, and I'm staying there for two years."

She stared for just a moment, her face fallen, "I could just cry right now."

But she didn't cry right then.

We talked about Morocco for a little while. Then we spent all afternoon avoiding the subjects of the heart. She is often somewhat belligerent about my opinions and annoyed when I make jokes. And it was all completely worse because I knew she was despondent over my pending departure in July, though she didn't say so. It wears on a person not to speak out their fears and hopes. I felt totally spent when 2 o'clock came.

I began to gather my things, make my way to the door. She hugged me, and with tears in her eyes she held me close to her, "I know you have to go [to Morocco], and I won't stand in your way. But I love you."

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When we're born, our very first thing to do is to cry. It means we're alive.

Serial for Breakfast

I sometimes ask friends if they are fans of the "Serial" podcast. It's a risk, let me tell you, because I usually end up saying it like this, "Do you listen to 'Serial'?" And of course, if they don't know the show, they're hearing, "Do you listen to cereal?" So far no one has inadvertently confessed to listening to the breakfast food, but to the uninitiated conversation partner, it can make for a tense 30 seconds in which I try to explain that, no, in fact, I understand that breakfast cereal doesn't talk. You know?

If you know, then...

Can I just talk a little about my perception of Bowe Bergdahl right now?

He breaks my heart. He's the trapped idealist. He wants to protect people. And the military had (has?) this idea of counter insurgency that can sometimes come close to peacemaking. And how great would it be if we were making peace? So great! But what could possibly go wrong is that if you're using soldiers as peacemakers, the soldiers aren't being soldiers, and they may resent you for it. The soldiers are ill-trained and ill-suited to the job of humanitarian. They are trained to follow orders, not be adaptable. They are trained to kill a person, not to smile politely on the street, not to hand out watercolors to children. Mixed messages.

So, I'm listening to Bergdahl pose intense questions that eventually move him to action. (Arguably the dumbest action, desertion, but whatever.) At one point, he asks how a person could lead a platoon when he appeared to be more concerned about the army's equipment than the lives of his soldiers. Bergdahl was shocked that a soldier's life was not prioritized over equipment. (It's a calculation... it costs between half a million and $1 million to get a soldier to Afghanistan. It costs roughly that to buy a counter-IED vehicle.)

He is trying to learn the language and customs of the people, trying to win them over in small ways, as a thinking person might who is attempting to be counter-insurgent the way he understands it, which comes off as someone trying to be creatively likable.

I'm just thinking about how this guy trained with the wrong people. Join the Peace Corps, dude. Better yet, stop trying to find the ones to blame and kill; leave that to those in your platoon who could. You, Bergdahl, you become a creative peacemaker. You learn history, territory, hierarchy of the new place, and explain their fears to us, explain our fears to them. Help nations decide on a best course of action. Even after listening to the last episode on this, I wonder what he'll become.

Groundhog Mother

Groundhog mother
I'm sorry about your baby
I'm ashamed and sorry
You fled at the sound of the engine;
I remember my relief.
But your baby was stuck in a crevice above the wheel well.

Minutes later, a thud under my tire, and a baby animal
striping a parking space and dying.

I'm so sorry.

I think it is best that you remain afraid of me and all my kind.
We - I - won't slow down. I'm not even sure I could, now, if I wished to.

You are a soft-bellied earth citizen - I am a war machine.
I will tell you your son died doing his service.
But I know it is because I would only make myself bigger, better, bigger, better, endlessly marching on.

You will do well to stay simple,
digging holes, not speaking the language of death - knowing by heart the language of suffering.
I am the war machine.

Best Texts of the Week, January 2016

Week of January 29
K.L.: Pizza and beer and movies?

Week of January 22
Me: Good morning, mom! Thanks for getting me vaccinated. :)
Mom: You are welcome.

Week of January 15
A.S.: Ok, ladies today's goal is fewer tears and less sadness. We won't say no tears and no sadness because that's unrealistic. Just fewer and less. Deal?

Week of January 8
B.R.: Ok, on my way with 2 pieces of leftover shoo fly.

Week of January 1
Jacob: Random question: Where in Lancaster is a great place to get tacos? I feel like this is a thing you'd have an opinion on.

Dear Keats

You say touch has a memory.
How to exorcise it?
You think on a good many things.
Sit and think. Sit and think.
How, do tell me, do I move on on on
On on on
And still think myself capable of loving ever?

Love was not a game to me,
Or was it? Of course not, my mouth tells me:
nothing tastes sweet.
Only the bitter things draw me,
and people not at all.

Beer, and shoveling this unbelievable mass of
snow that has graciously transported me
from my home planet to one resembling Hoth.
And all its beasts are in my head
as I shovel on on on on on
the pile topples.

I miss you, dear. And the idea of you, and
your hand on my back, your shoulders
such a sweet place to rest my head.
Your slow kiss on top of my hair, the
kind of kiss reserved for babies,
whose heads need kissing, you know.

Colds in the Winter's Springtime

The cold came in a few stages.

First, it was merely encroaching, a friend cancelled because she was sick. 

Then, I visited my Adriane and her three sons, all of whom had suffered the wrath for a week at that point. It was part of life already. Runny noses, and every surface just given up for lost. That was when I knew it wouldn't be long.

Then it became part of my surroundings: both roommates were coughing, sneezing, and looking as though they'd been through a pepper spray incident. Tissues filled the trash cans. I briefly considered buying and using some kind of disinfectant spray on the couch pillows... before falling asleep on said pillows, blissfully reliant upon my own immune system. 

Precisely when everyone else is turning the corner, and my sympathetic, "how are you feeling today?" has become entirely too trite, and replaced with nothing but a sympathetic nod -- precisely then, I began to sneeze. And cough. Then my body, too, produced and immediately expelled nasally, more mucus than is ladylike to even speak of. (Alright, where are my censors? "Mucus" shouldn't make the cut.)

Second box of tissues: gone. 

Eyes: watering. 

Lips: outlined in dry red.

I don't say this for pity. No. Wait. Yes, I do. I desperately wanted someone to tell me to go home and sleep for hours on end. I wish I had told you that, when you were sick.

The Best Dating Advice You'll Ever Get

I promise you, I get a few messages daily on a free dating website which shall not be named, which read, "Hey, how are you?" Ask. Good. Questions.

I can think of several reasons why a  person might be on a dating website: everything from looking for a spouse, to networking, to... other things. I get it. But the point is to nurture a deeper relationship. So ask good questions.

That's why I'm past anger and on to puzzling: why would someone's first contact with you or me be simply, "Hey, how are you?"? In my culture, I walk down the street and get that question, and I'm justified in ignoring it. I may not even look at the asker, depending on the time of day. I mean, we're passing each other and you ask, "How's it goin'?" and I'm still walking in the opposite direction. I may nod. I may not nod. This is not a conversation. You don't know me, and aren't asking to. Ask good questions. Really wonder, and then ask.

When you're on a dating website, you have the chance to look at a lot of information about a person that would usually take an entire first date or more to find out. You get a serious advantage this way! It's like eliminating the risk of a terrible first date! Ask good questions. Read the whole profile, then ask good questions.

I hope we all know how lovely it is to be asked a sincere, open, specific question, then to be listened to. The same guy who messages me, "Hey, how are you?" has a profile that consists of the following Self Summary:

I hate writing these things. Anything you want to know, just ask.

No. NO. No and no. Your readers know intuitively that you're not being fair: you want the reader to do all the work of relationship, based on, what, your profile picture? Your reader doesn't owe you anything. This isn't the space for your nonchalance, even if you are James Dean.

With a summary like that, you've just set yourself apart from people who think at least occasionally, who are respecting their reader, and who have an idea of what their lives are about, or at least a candid self-awareness that they haven't got a clue, but are still willing to put in the time to say so.

Ask good questions. And if you really want to set yourself apart, be ready to listen for the answer.