growing up

I have found that the longer I live in this tranquil little canyon, the edgier I am becoming when I have to go to town and be around people. I can feel it as soon as I hit the stoplight at the mouth of the canyon and turn north towards civilization.

I immediately begin to calculate how long it will be before I will return home. I begin to move things off the day’s to-do list so I can head back west sooner.

Part of the resistance to joining the world stems from what is here, at my home. I have peace and solitude and beauty and quiet and dark nights and calm and birds. Why would I want to leave here, ever?

And part of the resistance is due to what’s out there, in civilization.

Noise, lights, exhaust smoke, crabby people in masks, angry people without them, a virus.

The Saturday morning Trump Parade that I always forget about until I get stuck in between confederate flags on 666. That really fucks up my day.

And then another thing that I don’t see coming that happens all too frequently, like this morning…

I’m on my way to a meeting and I stop at the coffee shop. Park. Open door. Walk 10 steps and,

“Hi HDD. How are you? I heard that (MXB)…”

2 1/2 seconds later, someone else asks me about him also.

It’s been three years. I am totally in love with an incredible man. I have a new job. A new home. A new life. Three kids. A dog.

ASK ME ABOUT SOMETHING THAT I MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN DISCUSSING.

For Fuck’s sake. I don’t want to talk about him, Why would you even bring it up?

There’s the fact that it’s been three years and we’ve both moved on. There is also the fact that his name doesn’t bring up fond memories. It’s quite painful, actually.

I spend the rest of the day irritated that people felt the need to bring up his name to me. I’m completely baffled about why anyone would think it’s a welcome topic. And, I’m totally on edge because I’m all triggered and reliving shitty times.

In the midst of this I realize that I was suffocating in town. When I told myself that It was so far in the past that no one was even thinking about it anymore, I was wrong. People still connect us – obviously.

I don’t want to continue being “HDD that used to go out with MXB.” And I think I knew instinctively that I’d never be able to shed that identity if I were to continue leading the life that I was leading when our lives were intertwined.

I had to unravel all of it.

As I drive west, back towards my refuge, the pissiness begins to wear off. I shed the angst and take in lungfuls of air. I’m thrilled to be distancing myself. Overjoyed that I made the choice to fly the coop.

 

 

Peaches anyone?

Weird experience today and I could use some help understanding.

Often, when I am finished at the grocery store, I will share my bounty with one of the homeless (I am assuming) folks sitting at the parking lot exit with signs saying “anything helps”, or something along those lines.

I’m even more likely to do it if there is a yummy treat in my bags; a cold bottle of lemonade or a doughnut, even a roasted chicken once.

Today I had fresh, juicy, Colorado peaches.

I was loading my groceries into my truck and I looked over at the woman with a sign and looked at the bag of peaches in my hand and thought, “Wow, I bet she’d enjoy these more than I would.”

So I walked over with the bag and as I approached her,  before I even got very close,  she began to shake her head and said, “Nope. No. No.”

I said, “Are you sure? They’re…”

“No.”

She was adamant.

Then she softened and said, “No thank you.”

I walked away and got in my car, looking at the rejected fruit and wondered…

Did I unwittingly do something offensive?

I didn’t get a look at her entire sign but I did see the word “cash.”

I’ve never run into this before and the last thing I want to do is piss someone off because I’ve mishandled the situation.

Are people more unwilling to take food because of the pandemic?

Is it insulting to hand someone food when all they want is cash?

Does anyone have any insight?

On the way home I pulled a dead fox out of the road and tossed it to the turkey vultures…

I had to feed someone today.

 

side effects may include…

Mood swings, irritability, anxiety, insomnia

I had steroid injections in my spine yesterday for sciatica. Not a big thing.

I’ve had one once before – when my kids were really small.

I remember afterward wanting to claw my (ex) husband’s eyeballs out.

I often had that desire but this was different; this time I considered acting on it.

I eventually put two and two together and realized that the added Oomph was because I had just been loaded up on “Roids”.

Well, I really like TAM and have no interest in clawing his eyes out, so when I didn’t feel any anger or aggression towards him I thought I was in the clear.

I left his house this morning to run an errand and in a matter of 15 minutes, I:

Got miffed enough at the front door covid tester to say something snarky under my breath and then stew about it until I finished shopping and moved on to saying something snarky directly to people who had blocked the parking lot. In my out-loud voice.

I didn’t have too long to fester about that one though because I rapidly advanced to sobbing through the drive-through phone, pleading with the pharmacist to save me from my agony.

I apparently really needed her to save me from myself.

 

 

Privilege. Power. Hypocrisy.

Each morning I drink my coffee and read the news, scroll through facebook, catch up with Heather Cox Richardson. Then I go for a walk in the canyon and process what I have read. More often than not, I end up riled up.

Note to self: stop reading the news before the walk

2nd note to self: stop reading the fucking news

What’s got me going this morning is white hypocrisy.

Locally, state-wide, and on a national level – it’s everywhere in the BLM movement.

Disclaimer: I am white, from a very privileged background, with an excellent, expensive, private school education. I knew very few people of color growing up. I do not, in any way, share in the experience of the discrimination and hatred that BIPOC have lived.

I am ignorant as fuck.

But I hope that I am not a hypocrite.

Anyway, what I am observing is white people taking the lead on racial issues – from their position of comfort and privilege.

ALL of us need to jump on the racial injustice bandwagon. It’s time, and it’s our responsibility. Especially for those of us whose privilege has led to where we are in this moment in history. But shouldn’t the drivers of the bandwagon be the people whose experiences we are addressing?

For example, many of my closest friends are queer. I can stand up for their rights, I can protest against discrimination and hatred and ignorance. I can educate myself. I can offer support. I can try to educate others.

But can I speak for the Queer Community?

Uh, no.

And what I see these days is some white people, often those considered leaders in the BLM movement, speaking for BIPOC. It’s one thing, in my humble opinion, to speak with the oppressed, but for??????

And in so many of these conversations, the speakers are angry, self-righteous, condescending, arrogant, and utterly lacking in compassion for those who are just trying to figure this all out.

I often feel like I am being schooled, not educated.

Many of the folks to whom I am referring are doing really good work in their communities or across the country towards equality and for that I am grateful. But you can’t deny who you are. Because one’s partner or best friend is brown or black or asian (currently receiving a rash of racist shit during this pandemic) – this does not make one an expert.

And this certainly does not magically make one a Person of Color.

I read amazing articles written from positions of relative ease – big houses, good educations, white-collar jobs, a full refrigerator, health care. I pour over them, trying to learn, but when that (white) writer speaks with a tone of superiority, I shut right down.

We can’t deny who we are. Just like it would be gross of me to pretend that didn’t belong to a fancy country club, I hate to see others pretend that they haven’t participated in a world made available to them because of their skin color.

Once I was old enough to make my own choices, I chose to no longer participate in the elite world in which I was raised. But I once did. For many years – mainly the formative ones. I enjoyed my privilege. I benefitted from it. Turning my back on that world doesn’t erase it from my history.

For me to speak on racial issues I must first come from the place of admitting to coming from the place from which I came.

I must own, not deny, the advantages that I have had, and continue to have.

I must own my lack of knowledge, lack of first-hand experience, lack of understanding.

I hear “community, equality, love,” and those words are not muffled by a mask in the age of a pandemic. How can one care so much about the experience of others and yet be selfish enough to not protect those around us?

Is the decision to put your neighbors at risk possible for you because you know that you can see a doctor if you get sick? You have family and friends who will help care for you? You know you won’t starve if you miss work?

Me vs We

Entitlement?

We can’t erase who we are, who we’ve been.

But we can change, and change we must.

But change isn’t possible unless we start with the truth of who we are.

Honesty or hypocrisy?

 

 

 

 

 

 

a sad state of affairs

I don’t know what’s worse;

the fact that I don’t own a mop

or

the fact that I’ve lived here for two months and just realized that today.