Honoring the All

As a young girl I grew up with parents who came of age so to speak during World War II. My mom graduated high school in 1945 and four of her brothers served. My father had three brothers who served as well. When I was a kid I never heard anything positive about the women who served this country. All I ever heard was silence from my mother and the most horrible, misogynistic, hateful and degrading comments you could ever want to hear from my father. He knew every horrible doggerel regarding the different branches of service that women were allowed to enter and he repeated them quite frequently. They were sluts and prostitutes and whores. It was demeaning and disheartening for a young girl to hear over and over again. Sadly my dad was not alone in his campaign to demonize these brave women. It was a cultural and societal disgrace. 

Approximately 400,000 women served in different roles in different branches of the military during World War II. 543 died in war related circumstances and 16 died from enemy fire. Several women spent time in both German and Japanese prison camps. I recently watched a show that highlighted the WASPS. The Women Air Force Service Pilots. These women flew planes to air bases and wherever they were needed, when they were needed, so that male pilots could be freed up for combat duty. They often flew them straight off the assembly lines and they had to be able to fly a number of different air craft. During the war 38 of these brave women died serving their country. The woman in the photo above is Gertrude "Tommy" Tompkins. She is the only WASP still unaccounted for and has been missing for almost 75 years now. I was very impressed by these women and very touched by their losses.

A good friend of mine calls me the "keeper of lost souls" and I take my duties to the dead and especially on Memorial Day Weekend I take it very seriously. All the way down in the very depths of my soul I believe that all souls should be respected and honored. No one should be forgotten. All of those lonely stones in the older parts of cemeteries with no one to tend to them makes me very melancholy. I know they are not there and I know the stones are just markers but think about what that says about us as human beings. We live our lives, we touch thousands of other lives by our very existence in the this world, we laugh, we love and eventually we die and we are placed in the ground with a stone to mark the spot and we only continue to live in the memories of those who knew and loved us and one day they will be gone and all that's left is a piece of marble and a name. 

Where I am going with all this rambling you ask? I am not discounting the thousands upon thousands of brave men who died fighting for this country. They should be honored with every fiber of our beings but so too should women like Gertrude Tompkins. She and all female patriots should be honored in death as strongly as they were maligned in life. We should put this right and tell the stories of ALL the brave human beings who have died in service to something greater than themselves. Here's to the men looking to find Gertrude Tompkins. I hope you do so soon and she can be laid to rest with the honor she deserves. So on this Memorial Day let us salute all the souls out there who have passed into our memories but still live in our hearts, both the military and the civilian. Namaste Gertrude. I honor your memory and your sacrifice. 

Sometimes It's Okay

This my friend Mr. Llama. I just go with the fact that he is a he. I am not really sure since I have never gotten up close and personal with said llama. I just randomly picked a gender because I am afraid to go up to the house and ask the people about him because I am afraid I will in turn wind up on the ward. Because, you see, I intentionally seek him out to make sure he's okay and I talk to him He does not really talk back which I am thinking is a good thing, but we chat. I ask him how he is doing. He stares at me like I am crazy and chews grass. It's a nice relationship. I tell everyone how cool he is and so he's sort of a celebrity amongst the people who tolerate my weirdness on a daily basis. Now lest you think I discriminate I also talk to the cows, goats, sheep, possums, vultures, birds and whatever else I might encounter out in the country. 

I think one of the reasons I like Mr. Llama is that he just seems so Zen all the time. He is so calm and serene and still. The reason I am waxing poetic about my llama friend today is that this has been one of those rare, weird, days where I am very calm and very still. They do not happen often as my anxiety is usually a 24/7 drama fest. I may seem calm on the outside but I guarantee you things are going nuts on the inside. Every once in awhile, though, my brain, or the universe, or whoever, cuts me some slack and gives me a day of calmness and stillness that I never take for granted. 

Normally being quiet and still and restful does not work for me. I get easily bored and restless and like to beat myself up for not doing anything productive. I am slowly realizing that I need to knock that shit off. It's okay to not constantly be progressing somewhere. Enough Karen! It is okay to be lazy and nappish and just hang out around the house and chill. Once it warmed up some the boys and Kitten Face and I have been enjoying the open windows and the fresh air, even if it is laden with so much pollen it makes my head feel like it wants to explode. That's okay...that's what Nasacort is for anyway. 

I worked some out in the yard and discovered a cute birds nest. I listened to all the birds singing their happy spring songs. I listened to the mourning doves trying to get frisky. They are making a nest under the awning, over my front door, again this year. I watched one of my boys (turkey vulture...it's a long story) sailing on the air currents overhead and informed him I was not dead yet so he moved on. I watched the carpenter bees hovering around the tulip tree in the back. It's finished blooming but they still hover anyway and when they get close enough you can hear the hum of their wings. I wondered at the amount of traffic that comes down my alley...it's weird. It's not a street people. 

I sat in my patio chair with my bare feet on the concrete and was just quiet and still for the longest time...just taking it all in. At one point I noticed I was rocking in my chair and that was okay too. For one brief, shining moment I was actually living in the moment today. Being mindful and living in the moment seems like it should be such an easy thing to do but it's really not. There are so many distractions. My brain being the primary culprit. But today has been gloriously calm and centered and awesome and for that I am so very, very grateful. Maybe my brain and I can build on this day and make our lives better because today, even if it's just for today, I have felt calm and centered and alive. I have actually felt unabashedly happy and I am not going to over analyze. I am just going to let it be. Well done me! Namaste Karen...you have earned it.

Results of My Non-Scientifc Study and Some Other Related Neuroses

The results of my non-scientific survey are in and for the week I was called "sir" a sum total of 5 times. I think that's probably a little more than normal because I just got my hair cut but I think 2-3, depending on my interactions with the public, is about average.

Let's ponder this shall we. Yes, I keep my hair really short. No, not because I want to look like your brother Bob. (Someone actually told me that in a casino once) I keep it short because it's easier to manage and if you have ever seen my bad hair videos you will know what I am talking about with the bad hair. 

Do I try to look manly? No...this is just my face. A combination of genetics and hormonal dysfunction have caused me to look more like your brother Bob than your sister. My mother was not overly feminine and she did not wear a lot of makeup, none most of the time. Thus, I have never, ever had makeup on this mug unless it was acne cover up. That is a whole different tale of woe. If you look closely at this picture you can see the subtle changes beginning that were to come from years of too much androgen in my system and my cousin will tell you that even at this young age I HATED dresses and wanted them off me as soon as possible. I was what they euphemistically called a "tom boy".

Why don't you wear more feminine clothing? Ah...here we get to the heart of the dysfunction. From a very early age...actually probably pretty close to the photo's age...around 3 or 4...I learned about predators. And no, my dad for all his faults was not responsible for this. He would have blamed me and called me a slut and that would be why he never knew what happened to me. So from a very early age I discovered that to be feminine meant you were an easy mark for predators so I tried to camouflage myself. It was not safe to be pretty. It was not safe to wear pretty dresses. It was not safe to be vulnerable. It was not safe to be a girl. Sad...but true. 

As I got older I wore boys clothes for a couple of reasons. One reason was well understood by me and that was that boys clothes fit me better because I was a big girl. I have never been delicate boned and have been heavy most of my life. That's a whole different blog of trauma right there. The other reason was not so well understood by me until just recently. I knew that other than the gender appropriate undergarments I wanted nothing to do with women's clothing. That section of the store still makes me fell awkward and creeped out. It borders on a phobia that's how bad it is.

Recently I read a story by another survivor of sexual abuse and she talked about the years she spent trying to hide herself away and it suddenly dawned on me. I don't wear two t-shirts because I am self-conscious of my neck. It's to bury my cleavage even further in the dark so no one will notice it. I am creeped out by women's clothes because the whole idea of being feminine to me translates into making myself easy prey. That being said I am not transgender either. I have never had a desire to be a man. I have spent my whole life just trying to stay off their radar. This may seem silly to you because to see me now you would not think I was attractive to men or an easy mark. I often joke that I have a head start on a mugger because first he has to figure out my gender and then he has to decide if he really wants to tackle me. It's all a façade to protect the little girl you see in this photo. 

That adorable, vulnerable, sweet little girl is still buried somewhere in me. She is still fearful. She still tries to hide herself behind her size and her jokes and the rest of her camouflage. She still keeps most men at a good distance. She still puts a barrier up out in public and if there are men around she will become more closed off and more wary and will put up her wall and make herself even more masculine. Like a sort of gender chameleon. Because to be noticed is to be vulnerable. To become prey. It's a feeling I just cannot tolerate. 

So. Here I am. You can call me "sir" if you want. It bothers me more than it should but it's okay. You can look at me weird in the women's bathroom and you can yell at me that I am going into the "wrong" bathroom. It bothers me but that's okay. Because I am protecting that little girl in the photo from more harm. She has been through enough. 

Putting a Little Punt in for Reality

A good friend and I were discussing the world in general yesterday and because we are reasonably old and vaguely wise we came to some conclusions that will not really be a surprise to anyone. They are not earth-shattering but I think some things need to be said and a plea needs to be made.

Okay...here goes...PUT DOWN THE PHONE...okay I feel better now. It's not just phones though and I am including this device, my kindle, my TV, my phone, any and everything that disconnects me from what is real. 

Now, lest you think I am one of THOSE people who pontificate about how they have read 12 million books and would never own a TV because they are just so not cool. I have a big ass, HD, smart TV that I spend way too much time in front of watching some stuff that is entertaining and informative, some stuff that is just sport...a lot of sport, some stuff that is just mindless and some stuff that is way too dark and I need to leave it alone. I have a long history with TV. 

My first babysitter thought the secret to babysitting was to prop my up in front of the TV all day and go about her business. I mean she literally had to prop me upright with pillows because I was less than a year old and could not sit up on my own. So I have been staring at those images all my life. And as my friends will tell you...if I am really engrossed in something I will not only not hear what you just said but I will not even have heard the sound of your voice. 

The problem with this and our fascination will all things media related...especially social media related is that we create these weird illusions that this stuff is "reality". All media, including print media, delights in convincing us that there is this perfect world with these perfect people who look perfect and act perfect and it's all a lie. When we were little we were fed these images of what a family should look and act like and then blamed our parents when our reality did not match "Father Knows Best" or "Leave it to Beaver" etc....
It strips the humanity away from all of us by not showing our human habit of messing stuff up. We make mistakes. We are not perfect. We are human beings and we judge ourselves and others by the misdirection of the media.

Now do I think the media are all liars and out to get us and spreading "fake news" everywhere?  No people...I am not getting into politics or even religion. I am simply talking about the day to day bombardment of our brains with imagery not of our own making. The little things, the subtle things...the things we do not even notice. 

What worries me is that we are becoming more and more tribal and less and less connected to the world at large. My personal struggle is that I am an introvert by nature and all these distractions simply enable me to become more and more introverted and less and less connected to my family and friends. I have noted a few times lately that people I only vaguely know are more knowledgeable about my cousins than I am. That was a wake-up call. What am I doing? Am I just too lazy to make the effort to be more in touch with their lives? I have often said that I would ditch social media if not for that fact that I would lose all touch with my cousins? Is that really true? Am I really that lazy that I can't be bothered to just call and check on them? 

I don't think I am alone here. I think a lot of us are becoming more and more introverted and withdrawn into our own tiny tribes. The media, both left and right have done a lot of damage in polarizing us into these camps. Into these tribes. We don't trust one another if we are not in the same tribe. We are more judgmental and more cruel to those who don't think or believe the way we do. We have lost a lot of openness. Our brains are constantly bombarded with all this information and all these images and we are all on overload and in danger of shutting down.

So this is a plea for everyone to try just a little bit to accept our imperfect reality and embrace what is actually real. Put down the devices and go outside. Touch a tree. Look at the sky. Really LOOK at the world around you. Meet a friend for lunch. Talk to one another. Embrace the fact that we will never be perfect and give your brain some room to accept other images of real things and of real people and real emotions. Free up some space in your brain for things much more simple. The sun streaming through the window on a winters' day. The little poodle farting on your lap. Try to be more present in the moment. We need to shut down and re-boot people. We need to breathe.

Arboreal Worship

There are many things in nature that I love. All the little critters, of course, except the big spiders, I am not fond of them at all. I love rock formations and the sunrise and the sunset and the quality of light and how it changes through the seasons. I love water in all its many guises. I love leaves and grasses and stumps and vines and fence posts and all the many varieties of acorns. I love it all really but most of all I love the trees!!

I have numerous favorite trees around the area. Some I have to worship from afar because I will not trespass on another person's land. Some I can walk right up to and some require more of a trek. Many of them are sycamores with their beautiful white bark. A few are gnarly, giant oaks with massive branches and I passionately adore the dance of Osage Orange (aka Hedge Apple) trees. 

I visit my trees and I talk to them. I mourn with them when they lose big branches. I feel an incredible sadness when they fall down or are cut down. I tell them how much I admire their resiliency and their ability to grow and spread their roots in impossible places. I admire the intricacies of their roots as they try to hang on to a rock face or an eroding river bank. 

This past Saturday I got to re-visit some of my favorite friends on a trail near Stockton Lake Dam. On this one trail are 3 massive, old, sycamore trees. One of them is particularly old and just huge. I am in awe of its size and majesty. It has a very strong presence. My favorite is another huge sycamore holding up a fallen tree that has died and now lies balanced in the sycamore's haunch. This dead tree is one of my all-time favorites. It has a beautiful, smooth texture and I know this sounds silly but bear with me, it has a kind of draw to it or a siren call if you will. I have to touch it and embrace it and it has this grounding spirit about it. I feel as if it is a friend that I have not seen in a long time and now we are reconnecting.

If you ever encounter my friend and I in the woods you will notice that we are touching the trees gently, or patting them, or resting our foreheads against their trunks. We are honoring their presence in this world and it feels like church to us. It's a very spiritual experience. Just try it sometime. Go out and about and find a tree that kind of speaks to you with its beauty or its presence. Say hello and quietly rest your forehead against it and feel the power of its quiet essence. Just stand there for a minute and listen. It will do your heart and your soul a world of good. 

A Tribute for my Aunt Wanda

My Aunt Wanda passed away this past Sunday morning. I could not find a portrait of her in my collection but I did find this one which is from such a happy and yet melancholy time. That sort of sums up Aunt Wanda's life. It was happy because the whole family is here. My beloved cousins Connie B. and Donny and you can't see him but Wanda is about four months pregnant with Tommy. It's melancholy because my uncle was suffering from the colon cancer that would take his life in just a few months. Resilient.

My Aunt Wanda was a wonderful human being. She was resilient, she was kind, she was loving and she was one of those rare things in this world...a true Christian. Life was not easy for her. She married my Uncle Harlan and I believe that he loved her and his family very much but he was a lot like my dad and did not know how to express it very well. He was gone off with my grandfather and my dad all the time and my grandmother Clayton dominated her kids lives in very unhealthy ways. Yet despite the often unkind treatment of my grandmother Aunt Wanda forgave her and even helped grandma when she needed it. Forgiving.

Aunt Wanda was devoted to my precious cousin Connie B. who was born with a developmental disability and she spent her life making sure Connie had the best life possible. She nursed my uncle through his illness. She dealt with my grandmother with grace and kindness even though grandma did not make that easy. She raised Connie and Donnie and Tommy on her own until she met Jim and later had James Jr.. She suffered more unbearable heartbreak when Donny was killed in car accident in 1969. Yet she carried on and she held her head high and she trusted in God to get her through the darkness. Kind.

Aunt Wanda was a loving woman who loved her children and her grandchildren and her great grandchildren very much. She even had room in her heart for me. And despite the fact that I am not sure she understood me she still loved me and never showed me anything but love and kindness. She was very important to me and very loved by me and everyone she came in contact with throughout her life. Loving.

I am not the worlds most religious person anymore. I have become a wee tad jaded about those who claim to be Christians but do not have the first clue on how to be one. My Aunt Wanda was the exception to the rule. She was everything I think a Christian and a spectacular human being should be. She was resilient, forgiving, kind and most important loving. I loved her very much and I will miss her forever but I know she is in heaven and I can hear her and Connie B. singing "Jesus Loves Me" and this image I will hold in my heart and I will try not to cry because I know they would not want me to be sad. They are all together and at peace and that's all we can really hope for in this life. 

Memorial Day Musings

So another Memorial Day weekend is winding down. I completed the cemetery tour Saturday. Some folks are considerate and have themselves all buried in the same general vicinity but not my folks. We are migratory even when picking a spot for eternal slumber. I visit 5 cemeteries on average and it can be eight if I can summon up the emotional energy. These are also spread out over Jasper, Lawrence, Newton and Barry counties. I called my Troll mother on the way this year to update her on my health saga and she asked if I would take her with me out to Park Cemetery as she had not made it there yet. I was most happy to pick her up and off we went. This year I enlisted the help of Beth because I am not so bendy anymore. She graciously agreed but now that she knows the routine I might be on my own again next year. You see...it doesn't just involved flopping some flowers down. There is walking, there is bending, there is pulling grass and weeds and cleaning off grass and dirt and whatever else has accumulated on the stones. There is dealing with my sadness and frustration. This is how the above picture happened. Beth can not be trusted.

My initial reaction was OMG!! Crop me out!! Then it was OMG!! I am HUGE!! You see I never see myself from behind. And WHY are my shorts ALWAYS crawling up my butt?? When I look in the mirror I never see myself as big as I really am. I think it's a lot of denial. The truth is I am a LARGE human being. Even if I were a more normal weight I would still be a large human being and you know what...that's okay. And the more I look at this picture the more I like it. Because I am walking with someone that I love and we are honoring those who should never be forgotten. I loved spending time with Neva and Beth taking care of those we care about and miss. She even said to me "look at all the pretty flowers Ermanelle." Don't worry if you don't understand...family story. It was lovely talking with her and driving her around to all our various spots. We checked on folks and talked about others who are now gone and it was all in all a wonderful time. As a side note...SHAME on whoever was supposed to mow the old pauper's cemetery this year. It is ridiculous that the grass should be waist high again. People have relatives there whom we take care of every year and we should not have to bring our own bush hog to get to the graves.

I am digressing again. Beth calls me a "keeper of lost souls". I like that. I believe with every fiber of my being that people should not be forgotten. All souls matter. If I was a millionaire every grave I saw that did not have a flower on it would have one at least once a year. It makes me said to see neglected graves. 

I love taking care of my folks but it is a bit of a melancholy task. I miss them. Grave tending reminds me of all the drama of human existence. I faithfully take care of my great-aunt Glady's grave although she died 27 years before I was born. Why you ask? Well...it was a tragic death (long story for another time) and so she wound up in the pauper's cemetery. Grandpa Clayton decided he would tend to his sister-in-law's grave because the county and her "no good husband"would not. Dad carried on the tradition and now it is left to me. I am not sure what will happen to Gladys when I am gone but I cannot dwell on the inevitable. 

I also find placing flowers on "the babies" graves very melancholy. My grandmother Barchak...God rest her soul...had 4 daughters that only lived a few minutes to an hour after birth. One is buried in one cemetery and the other 3 are at another. My mother was the only little girl that lived. It's a tragedy I cannot imagine living through but Grandma Annie was a resilient woman. I wish I had spent more time with her growing up. She died when I was 10 and I don't remember a lot about her but what I do remember feels happy. 

Visiting the babies this year made me stop to think about her life even more than I do normally. She married my grandfather in 1912. He was 38 and she was 21. She had her first child, Albert, the next year. From 1913 to 1930 she had 6 living children and lost four others. Can you imagine? And then in 1932 Grandpa Barchak died...it wasn't really his fault...but his timing was horrible. Smack dab in the middle of the depression Grandma is left in the country with no money and 6 kids to feed. Uncle Steve was not 10 yet. Mom was 5 and Uncle Mike was 2. The older boys were still teenagers. It was NOT fun for any of them but they survived. These stories and these emotions are an important part of who I am. 

I think what I am trying to articulate is that taking time out of our lives to tend the graves of our loved ones is so very important to the well-being of everyone's souls. By honoring the spots where their physical existence stopped we keep their memories alive. We honor both the beauty and the flawed nature of their souls. It connects the living with the dead.  We share memories, we spend time with those we love who are still with us and those that have moved on, we recognize the important roles they all play in our lives. I am a better person for having known each and every one of them. I am a more complete person by honoring their influence and recognizing how each of them affected my journey to becoming who I am right now. May they all rest in peace.