Comments (0) Just got sucked into an online ‘debate’ with a crazy person. Wow. disappointed in myself for letting that happen.
Reminder to self:
Life is too short. You have too much to do. Let crazy people keep their crazy delusions and keep working to be sure they don’t run the show.
Mommy, I love you.
Even when I am angry, I still love you….
…Even when something is broken and I am really angry,
I know you are here.
And that is beautiful.
Last night, a friend who I met almost five years ago through our local MOMS club had her birthday at Akbar, a local and unpretentious gay bar/club where the 7 foot (with platforms) DJ in neon pink was spinning 90s techno to her hearts content. The music was fairly awful, the beats irresistible, and the vodka effective.
We danced until well after midnight, and I had a great time.
Almost all of her guests are also parents, friends found through their preschool and others who work in ‘the industry.’ Almost everyone else at the club was gay.
And then there was me. Not gay, not coupled, not a writer/producer/actor. Not the same.
This happens all the time. I end up being the single parent in the group of coupled friends. Most of the time this is fine. Sometimes, the wives in these groups get weird and territorial when their husbands talk to me. Occasionally, people have been unintentionally mean (like when one of the MOMS members made a comment about not choosing a charity that serves teen moms because, “…most of them are single and the MOMS Club is here to support families…“). Here in liberal Hollywood, I am a wild card, a threat to the order of things.
Even in the single parent scene, I’m a bit of an oddity. In my experience (which I admit is pretty limited) ‘single parent’ groups are mostly divorced people, dealing with the issues of coordinating with an ex (I wish my son’s dad would coordinate more but, given that he lives on another continent, every other weekend and shared school responsibilities are not a part of my reality) and wanting to smush their broken family with someone else’s (twice the dysfunction = twice the fun!). Now, I would like to date more, have more grown-up fun, and be open to connecting with someone and seeing where that goes but I feel no urgency to cobble together a family. AJ and I are a family, with a rich network of extended relations and friends and love.
I attended a group called Single Mothers By Choice for a bit and even had the honor of helping a friend get started on the whole sperm donor choosing process. Wow. Who knew? But, ultimately, I didn’t relate there, either – I didn’t ‘choose’ this situation, really. I mean, I did make a choice to have my son…but these ladies are choosing to go to all kinds of lengths to be moms. I kind of fell into this world by accident, unprepared, and don’t know much about hormones and insemination and IVF.
So, in many situations, I find myself an outsider – observed observer in worlds I half inhabit. Still, I am not really interested in socializing with people based on their partnered/parental status. My friends are amazing, talented, wonderful people…and I want to spend time with them.
On the other hand, I am not likely to meet someone for me while dancing the night away at a gay bar with a bunch of couples. Just sayin’.
Dating, Fun and Funny
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custody, Dating, fun
I posted last night’s essay, rather impulsively, without waiting, at 12:30am. The first thought I had on waking this morning was this:
Redemption isn’t about receiving love, it’s about giving love.
What? The other half of my brain responded. But that’s backwards.
As I pondered it more, this idea began to make more sense to me. I reflected again on the piece I read last night about the “penal-substitution theory of atonement.” The author proposes that Jesus didn’t die to balance some kind of cosmic account. He didn’t “pay our price” because that would mean God didn’t really forgive but just transferred our balance to someone else who paid. He died because he lived out his practice. Gently, relentlessly, he spoke over and over of God’s unbelievable love and forgiveness. This was so threatening to the powers that be that he was killed. He lived his practice of love even though it killed him.
Whether you believe that accounts of Jesus are literally true or not (for the record, I don’t really know and this doesn’t bother me), the Jesus of Biblical stories was indeed the perfect role model of love. He redeemed through his love. I consider myself a Christian (though others won’t because of that last parenthetical comment) because I endeavor to follow that example of living from love. (And am supported in this by Buddhist and Taoist teaching and meditation, especially, as they give practical direction on reigning in the ‘ego’ that so often gets in the way of that radical kind of love.)
Still, somewhere in my rational, Western mind, redemption has been sort of separate from love. Love is great and all but people need to be accountable.
This has been a major barrier in sorting things out with the-one-I-am-having-such-a-hard-time-loving. I realized that have demanded in a number of ways that he be accountable for his actions as a precondition for my continuing to show loving-kindess towards him. I can pray for his happiness and well being but I still, somewhere deep down, want him to pay.
I have been looking at the other person as being the one in need of redemption and forgiveness. He’s the one who did wrong, right?
Right?
I get heaps of support for this. Righteous anger and disappointment are reflected by all who care for my son and I. And, indeed, I want justice, I want consequences, I want him to know that he has wronged us and suffer for it.
Of course that’s right.
Except for this. As I realized this morning, all evidence to the contrary, I am actually not in a position to judge him–his motivations, intentions, or worthiness. My practice is acting and living out of love and equanimity. It’s what I aim for, continually move toward and back to.
The situation, as it stands, where I stand, is that I am the one in need of redemption. I have stepped off of my path of love and into the murky, dangerous realm of the cosmic balance sheet. I am mired in the muck, tangled up in the twining roots of trees that choke out the sun and hide all manner of creepy crawly things that bite.
I have felt stuck here for a long time.
What struck me this morning is that release from this stuckness – a practical and spiritual redemption – is readily available.
All I am required to do is to return to the path of kindness, gentleness, compassion, equanimity, and love regardless of the other’s actions.
Because, truly, that’s what Jesus did. He showed the way, loving even those who couldn’t see their worth and worthiness. Holding to the truth of the-Love-greater-than-we-can-imagine-or-understand even when it meant his execution and still not being held down by this – which is why we have Easter, right? – somehow rising up from destruction to live on eternally as The Inspiration to love.
Today, a friend (and writer in her own right) posted a piece from Huffington Post entitled “Is God Angry at You?” In it, the author challenges the dominant Christian interpretation of Easter – what is referred to as the ”penal-substitution theory of atonement” – which I won’t go into here other than to say that I really enjoyed the writer’s critique of this taken-for-granted-in-many-circles understanding of God.
And it got me thinking about forgiveness.
Years ago, I wrote about saying prayers with my son. He was a tiny baby then, but this act had taken on some significance for me. Each night, as a part of our ritual, I would say “Please be with Addison’s daddy, wherever he is, keep him safe, and give him everything he needs to be happy.” You see, (and to save you the trouble of reading back for that bit of our story), this guy had dropped off the face of the earth about half-way through my pregnancy and we hadn’t heard from him since.
About three months after baby-daddy went AWOL, I was reading an Anne Lamott book in which the protagonist was facing betrayal and decided that she didn’t want bitterness to consume her – so she started praying for the betrayer. This resonated so strongly with me that I started doing the same. Every time he came to mind, every time someone else made a disparaging comment about his character or intentions, every time I thought of the pain my son would likely experience in his dad’s absence, I repeated this mantra. Well, maybe not every time, but many times, as I caught myself falling into bitterness – mine or another’s – this little prayer pulled me back from the edge.
After a while, it got to be less hard. With the baby, it was easy, because I could imagine that his dad being happy would likely create the most possibilities for him. When the guy finally called, around the time AJ was two, there was space in my mind and heart to not turn him away from knowing his son.
But then it got real. He hadn’t become a different person. He was still dishonest and manipulative. And now he’s done it again. After a year and a half of regular correspondence, calls, and some visits, he’s dropped off the face of the earth.
And I am pissed.
It’s one thing to mess with me…and another to mess with your child. It’s heartbreaking to be told, several times a day, “I need my daddy” or “I want my daddy” and know it’s so true and know there is nothing you can do about it.
I am pissed and I am becoming bitter. I want to punish like the God of the penal-substitution theory only I don’t want a substitute. I want retribution because it must be, or maybe it is about substitution…I want him to feel the pain that our son is feeling and going to feel in the future.
Fucker.
And, at the same time, I feel the pull of my heart – the truer, better part of myself that knows what I really want – back to that place of that simple yet profound prayer.
It was easier when he wasn’t real, when I knew nothing about him. When I could imagine he’d never actually come back.
It was easier before I had spent four plus years trying to sort out some reasonable child support situation without going to court, going further and further into debt in an effort to preserve my son’s connection only to come to this place where I can accidentally notice that he is getting along quite well, thank you, with a new life and lots of partying that somehow keeps him from bothering to call or even text his four-year-old kid who remembers that the last time they talked was his birthday two months ago.
It was easier then.
It’s more important now.
For my son, for this guy I have to fight not to despise and wish ill on. For me. I have to do it. I have to keep forgiving and wishing well and holding his safety and happiness in my heart and mind. I have to forgive myself for letting him in and exposing my child to this heartache. I have to let this forgiveness and well wishing peel back my grip on the need for justice and retribution so that I can take steps forward without entirely justifiable malice.
I have to, as someone in the Twittersphere so eloquently put it today, speak for my anger, but not from my anger. I must speak from love.
Fuck.
Perhaps those who pray can pray for me on that one…”Give her everything she needs to be loving.”
It’s a feeling I know well, the weekend creeping to a close. So many things undone – laundry, housework, my son’s lunch for the morning. The week looms large.
And I just don’t have it in me.
It’s something I have been noticing for a while. This spent-ness. This fatigue that doesn’t seem to be abated by the self-care I fit in between the child and the paid work and the (very dominant) unpaid work and the halfhearted attempts to get out there and meet someone to share this crazy, wonderful life with.
I have been trying to figure out how I can live with more balance, more enjoyment, and build up some kind of reserve.
And I can’t figure it out. Time and again, my well is dry and I stare into its depths, parched and longing.
I have failed.
At least for tonight. Tonight, I am going to end the effort, head to bed, and let tomorrow come without trying to figure it all out.
Maybe it will rain.
There has been quite an online bruhaha today about a police surveillance video of George Zimmerman who indisputably shot and killed an unarmed 17-year-old Treyvon Martin that does not show visible signs of injury. Zimmerman has claimed through his lawyer that Treyvon “slammed” his head into the pavement before he shot the boy.
One news report I read said that the on-site police report noted injuries that are not apparent in the video. I am sure there will be much debate by armchair forensics peeps in the tweet/blog/FaceBook-osphere over this, with people taking polarized and immovable positions and abusing those who have come to differing conclusions.
And I don’t care.
This is the deal, people. If someone is following me, and comes at me, I am going to slam their head into the pavement. Actually, I am more likely to knee-them-in-the-groin-then-the-head-as-they-make-their-way-down-to-the-pavement. The likelihood that I will be arrested or they will be able to say I “attacked” them is very, very low.
Let me put this another way.
I am a woman. Walking home from a local business, I notice someone following me. I check it out–are they following me or just also walking in the area? Nope. Following. I turn and face the person, asking them why they are following me. They come at me.
What should I do?
I’ll tell you what I should do, as a woman.
Fight for my freaking life,
hopefully efficient enough in using the knee-them-in-the-groin-then-the-head-as-they-make-their-way-down-to-the-pavement sequence that I won’t need the kick-them-in-the-face-until-they-are-out follow-up. I have trained to do this, through IMPACT Personal Safety, which teaches women to use the tools available to us (read, brain and body) to defend our lives.
I propose that, for a young black man in Treyvon’s shoes that night, the reality is quite similar. This is backed up by this ABC report of his girlfriend’s account of what happened.
Martin’s girlfriend, who was on the phone with him in his final moments, told ABC News in an exclusive interview that she has not been interviewed by police, despite Martin telling her he was being followed.
The 16-year-old girl, who is only being identified as DeeDee, recounted the final moments of her conversation with Martin before the line went dead.
“When he saw the man behind him again he said this man is going to do something to him. And then he said this man is still behind him and I said run,” she said.
Phone records obtained by ABC News show that the girl called Martin at 7:12 p.m., five minutes before police arrived, and remained on the phone with Martin until moments before he was shot.
If Treyvon Martin responded to Zimmerman’s following and threats by defending himself in a non-lethal manner, he should be the one protected by the “Stand Your Ground” law. The creepy older guy who was following him and pulled a gun for some unknown reason (What was it that Zimmerman wanted him to do? Magically teleport away?) should be brought up on charges. Period.
And then we need to have a serious conversation about why it is that black boys and women in this country can’t walk to the corner store without looking over our shoulders and considering whether our attackers will be able to use “self-defense” to get off as they attack our character.
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As anyone online or watching the news knows, the recent killing of Treyvon Martin has sparked all kinds of conversation. I have been a part of that conversation, in other fora. As I explained in my MLK Day post, I strongly believe that our failure, as a country, to acknowledge the very real legacies of slavery costs each and every one of us dearly. In the TED video I shared with my last post post, Brené Brown makes a connection between our fear of vulnerability and avoidance of Shame. I write Shame-with-a-capital-S because the Shame of our history is more than an idea or an emotion. It is an entity that acts in our lives, to keep us from the kind of accountability that could allow trust and connection. It is an entity that convinces a man he was defending himself and a police department that they are acting correctly and without prejudice even as the world looks on in horror and disbelief. Ironically, Shame is what keeps us standing naked and shamed even as we (and by ‘we’ I mean us White folks) pretend – like the Emperor in the fable – that we are wearing the finest clothes.
But, as I have said before, I digress. This blog is about me as a person/mom. It’s about that part of my person that is so tied up in my mom-ness that you can’t separate it out. Like chocolate syrup in milk, it sweetens and colors and permanently changes every bit of who I am.
And as a mom, Treyvon has me broken. If you’ve read my blog over the past few years, you will know of Jonathan – dear friend from High School – and Tim – courageous colleague, both of whose mothers I have connected with in a special way following their deaths and pray for on Mondays and Tuesdays, respectively. You will know how I added Troy Davis‘ mother to this ritual of prayer. She got Wednesdays, the day her son was executed.
I have come to have a special sensitivity for mothers who have lost sons – had them taken too soon by the cruelty and injustice of the world.
And now, sadly, Thursdays have their mother. Unlike the other moms in my prayers, Treyvon Martin’s mother Sybrina Fulton should not have had to see this coming. Jonathan and Tim both traveled the world, witnessed horrible atrocities, courted death as they tried to help others. Troy Davis had, justly or not, been sentenced to death years before. Their mothers had to have prepared themselves, steeled for the possible phone call, let go bit-by-bit as we do when our children grow up and go out in the world.
Sybrina didn’t get to to that preparation, that incremental letting go. Her son was still (apologies to all of the teenage boys who believe they are almost men) a baby. He had gone out for candy. It is inconceivable, really, that such an errand could end up with multiple 911 calls and a shot to the chest.
At the same time, as I write this, I am fully aware that this is not inconceivable. It is to me because I am the white mother of a white boy. While I can imagine the gut-wrenching loss of my child, I cannot understand the particular steeling and letting go that mothers ‘of color’ in this country must do each day. For our streets are not safe for brown boys, and not even mostly because of gangs and thuggery but because brown boys are seen as inherently dangerous. It is considered reasonable for a police officer or self-appointed keeper of the ‘peace’ or shop owner or neighbor to feel threatened by the mere presence of a male person with brown skin who is more than 5 feet tall.
I am talking about mothers because I am a mother. This week, I was also touched when a former schoolmate, who recently adopted an African-American boy, shared his budding worry for his son in the future…that the racism in this country could take his child, too.
This reality has me very, very angry.
We can’t let this continue. In the same week that Treyvon was stolen from his family, a photo of a “Don’t re-nig in 2012″ bumper sticker made the rounds. Racism is alive and strong in America and it is killing our children. Those under its spell don’t even see the problem – what’s one less youth on the streets? Those not under its spell are too often controlled by Shame that lets us say “Wow, that guy is racist” without owning our own complicity in a system that lets an adult man shoot an unarmed kid and claim self-defense.
I don’t know how to stop it other than to speak up, to say I will face the Shame, to commit to look at and dismantle and learn how to shoulder that legacy.
And I will pray for this mother who has lost so much, and yet maintains such composure and empathy in this video for the father of her son’s killer, that she will see justice served and see her son’s death the catalyst for change that makes other boys, other mothers’ sons, safer when they head out for some snacks on a late Winter’s night.
“Vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.” –Brené Brown
The past few weeks, I have had several opportunities to shine and stand up and get-it-done. And I’ve felt shitty about each and every one. I can so relate to her ‘vulnerability hangover.’
Vulnerability feels, well, vulnerable and Shame loves to step in at those moments…showing me where I’m not the best or the brightest. Yet, something keeps me going, putting myself out there, setting myself up for yet another not-quite, almost, could-have-been-awesome.
I am so glad that I’m not the only one who faces Shame and stays in the arena.
I am a girl with one or three too many things on her plate. Nah, that’s not the right metaphor. It’s really more like I am a girl making her way across a sea of responsibilities, hopes and dreams, projects, parenting, dilemmas, and opportunities.
Some days, like today, the swells are high and threaten to swamp my little ship.
Because I have been working way to much and way too hard lately, have been struggling health-wise–never quite getting over that cold, and because my one resolution for 2012 was to have more down time, I had planned to take the day off, with my son whose preschool was closed for President’s Day, and putter around. His little room has been needing some attention and it seemed like a good time to do a little shopping, a little organizing, and a lot of playing.
You can tell, of course, that I don’t shop often. I had no idea that IKEA would be a mob scene at 9:30 on a Monday morning. I had thought that we would go, have a little breakfast and AJ would gleefully play in their ‘ball pit’ (his term) while I picked up a couple of things and we’d be home before noon, having done the week’s grocery shopping as well. I’d get his room organized and then do some work while he napped.
I had no idea that they serve breakfast for free on Monday mornings and, given the holiday, entire families would be lined up to snag this deal. But we hadn’t eaten and had nothing else to do so we stood in line and got our complimentary 99 cent portion of eggs and potatoes. Seriously. Several hundred people spent about a half hour in line waiting for what they likely wouldn’t choose to pay under a dollar for the rest of the time.
But I digress. Suffice it to say, we didn’t get home until 2 in the afternoon and were both fried from the over-stimulation of the crowds and florescent lighting. By this time, I was pretty stressed.
Among the extra bits on my plate this week is a photo book that was meant to be done by someone else but that needs to be final by the end of this week (to be printed for events in March) so, if it’s going to happen, I am going to do it. I am actually excited about doing it but it will require a certain amount of focus and today was meant to be a day I could do that. As our day wore on, about fifteen other things that I really need to do tomorrow also cropped up in my mind.
The swell built, each wave of anxiety topping the one before. How should I lay the book out? What if I can’t get the fonts right? When will I go through my rolodex and personally invite people to that event? When will I make sure my health insurance went through? Can’t forget to sort out the emergency contact card and extra booster seat for AJ’s new babysitter. How am I going to double my practice as I need to? I couldn’t think of what to do next or how to do it. I became short with AJ. I realized that this day off was feeling pretty out of control.
So, I changed tactics.
Shutting out the fear inspired by storm in my head, I focused on one thing. I put together the small IKEA shelf/bin thingy I had picked up for AJ’s room (only having to take apart and re-do it in two places), sorted through his toys, and put it all back together. This took the rest of the day and evening, with AJ watching that penguin surfing movie yet another time while I soldiered on. But, rather than becoming more anxious about everything else I wasn’t doing, I became more calm. Like meditation, the focus of sorting and cleaning and purging and organizing allowed the rest of my mind to clear.
After a while, I noticed little breezes of ideas flitting through here and there. By the time AJ finally went to bed, my plan of action (and there will be action!) for tomorrow was clear and in place.
And, while I can’t say that all of it will get done, what is done will be done with more grace and clarity than it would have had I not taken the afternoon to ride out my storm.
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