Tag: family

On the Road

I awoke this morning enveloped in dead silence. Aaaah. So lovely.

I am in a hotel miles away from home in Osprey, Florida. At home, I realize, electronics run perpetually about me. The ceiling fan. The bathroom fan. The outdoor heater. The air purifier.

In this here hotel, there is none of that. My ears awoke this morning to nothing and I was struck by how different that is from my normal.

I am abed and luxuriating in this simple and peaceful environment. I am headed for a Christmas weekend adventure to stay in a houseboat overnight. Florida is unquestionably an odd state in the union.

Known for its weirdness and tackiness and Disney World. But Florida affords travelers unique water-based experiences that you would be unlikely to find, say, in Nebraska.

No doubt Nebraska has its own unique charms and surprises to discover. Houseboats on the ocean is definitely not one of them.

Isn’t odd how we end up living where we live? The possibilities are endless but eventually we must all decide on somewhere. Maybe we were born where we live. Most unusual these days but still, possible.

Or we transferred jobs or got a promotion. That planted us somewhere across the country to a place we have become deeply attached to and now call home. Or we retired, and deliberately sought out sun, sea and sand and zero personal income tax. Maybe John and Susan moved here first, talked it up, had you visit and now you live here, too.

I know people whose whole extended family has pulled up stakes and moved several thousand miles across the country to live around each other in retirement. I consider them lucky to have family relationships strong enough to merit that move.

So my intent this weekend is to see a little more of the surrounding countryside in the place I temporarily call home. Gathering me rosebuds while I may and all that.

There is something mentally refreshing about simply seeing different signage along the road or as you pass through small towns. Meandering down highways that are bordered by different landscapes than you are used to is visually interesting snd stimulating.

Last night, I ordered take-out from a Mexican food chain called Tomatillo’s that I had never heard of before. Mighty tasty steak tacos.

So soon I shall rise, eat a hearty breakfast and get back on the road. My chosen route is through a backcountry route where I hear alligators laze up on the side of the road. You can’t get a more extreme than that for a change of scenery.

What I like about travel is what awaits me when I go back home. I always see my home with fresh eyes after an outing, regardless if it is long or short.

We never travel any distance in reality in the long run. Wherever we go, there we are. But travel does stretch and educate us, if we’re lucky. I used to regard people with disdain who travelled in developing countries and spent little time outside their hotel and constantly complained and made disparaging comparisons to their living conditions at home. So why did they bother to leave home at all, I often wondered?

I have only another day of wandering around before I head back to my “permanent address” and pay my respects to the biggest day of the Christian calendar. Meanwhile, I am going to milk this day and tomorrow for all they are worth.

I hope to return home with a new perspective. And if I’m lucky, pictures and tales of alligators I encountered lying along the road.

Eventually we all come home again. To a physical one here on Earth or to our spiritual home. It’s just a matter of time. My responsibility on this planet is to suck as much of the marrow out of this earthly experience before I light off for a purely spiritual one.

At that point, I will live each timeless moment in all the silence I ever longed for.

Unfussy Christmas

Christmas doesn’t fuss me much. Not these days at least.

What a production it was earlier in my life though. The tree and its trimming and laying in special Christmas goodies like mincemeat tarts and shortbread cookies and cranberry/orange relish and fruitcake if it was good enough. It was quite the process.

I get that mincemeat is not to everyone’s taste and that there is no meat involved. Still, to me, it was a delicious annual treat, if one with a confusing name.

Obviously Christmas intensified when children arrived on the planet. Not in their early years, of course. But by about four or five years old, they were beside themselves in the weeks leading up to Christ’s so-called birthday, to say nothing of Christmas morning.

Such memories I have. I took the kids to a ski hill one Christmas and we rented a cabin for the weekend. Truth was that by early evening, I was bushed. I couldn’t haul myself back to the car in the parking lot to grab the wrapped presents from “Santa Claus.”

No worries, I thought, I’ll get out and get them before the kids wake up. Every right-thinking parent knows – and prepares for – kids being up before the sun cracks the horizon.

I was confronted by two teary-eyed children, bleating: “Santa didn’t find us!!!” My heart sank into my boots. I’m still not sure how I managed to retrieve the gifts and get them back into the cabin. Maybe I said Santa left them in the car? I expect the kids treated all of their Christmas gifts and Santa Claus with well-deserved skepticism after that.

An indelible Christmas memory was getting together at my sister’s house to make Indian food as the celebratory dinner. We had travelled in Asia back in the day and had fallen in love with Indian food. Masala dosas became my favorite breakfast food for a time.

I am convinced we discovered butter chicken long before the North American marketplace did. Butter chicken everything – sauce, frozen dinner, “ready to cook” kits – is now ubiquitous in grocery stores everywhere. But we found it first! (That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.)

The Indian feast had as many elements we could replicate of the fabulous dishes we discovered in India. Butter chicken (of course). Saag paneer (spinach and Indian cheese.) Chickpea curry. Vegetable curry (for my vegetarian sister.) Pappadum. My own handmade puri.

That simple fried bread is a miracle of cookery. Three ingredients. Throw them together. Roll the dough into hand sized rounds, flatten them and throw them into heated oil. And voila! The puri puff up and look like mini-footballs to sop up butter chicken and all the assorted dishes and pickles and chutneys. Delicious mini-footballs, I might add.

Over the years, we experimented by trying on many different Christmas traditions. I bought a book called the $100 Christmas and tried to pull off the demands of the season on a strict budget. Another time, it was a baking-focussed Christmas.

One year, I made shortbread cookies – my absolute favorite – and boxed them up to send to my father. I was so proud to have actually finished the project, packed them up and got them in the mail well before Christmas Day.

When they finally arrived, Dad expressed his appreciation for my thoughtful gift. He said he was going to really enjoy the box of shortbread crumbs I had sent him.

As the years rolled on, Christmas traditions fluctuated based on a number of things. Who of our friends or family was around for Christmas. Cost of travel. Our ability to meet those travel costs. Work deadlines or school deadlines. Romantic interests who preferred we spend Christmas on our own. Whether the kids were expected to spend that Christmas with me or with their Eastern family.

These days, Christmas is pared down to the basics. A two foot rosemary tree is the Christmas tree now and sits on the coffee table. The heat of short candles powers traditional metal angel chimes which adds some festive ambience. There is a fresh evergreen wreath on the front door. That’s about it.

Adult children make their holiday plans now with friends and family. I’ve even stopped giving them the traditional fine chocolate-filled Advent calendars that I gave them every year since they were little.

We make Christmas. Individually and collectively. Ours will be a little toned down from years past but no matter. It works perfectly well for me and mine.

That seems the best way to honor the meaning of the season in this house. Hope JC and his family approve.

Sayin’ Ain’t Doin’

I heard “I love you” a lot when I was growing up. I wasn’t one of those who could complain their parents never told them they loved them. Quite the opposite. I heard those three words repeatedly.

As a consequence, I had a hard time knowing or showing love when I grew up. I guess I believed it was enough to say those three magic words to cement and support a relationship.

In spite of this conviction, my relationships kept falling apart. Friendships foundered. Romantic relationships sizzled for about three months and then fizzled out. I was a great sprinter but a poor marathoner. My education was just beginning.

I had no idea how to back up professions of love with action. It never occurred to me that three square meals on the table every day was love. Or that clean clothes washed, dried, folded and put away in my chest of drawers meant love.

That someone would stand up for you or step in for you when you were flailing and out of your depth was a show of caring. And protection. Which is a form of love.

I am not sure when the disconnect between “sayin’” and “doin’” started to become obvious. My family lauded my early accomplishments and were happy to associate and claim me as their own. Every scholarship I earned, every public show of support was backed up by my family 100%.

It all seemed to fall apart when I foundered. There wasn’t an iota of support from my family when I was hurt or vulnerable or – God forfend – if I failed.

In generous moments, I like to think that my family was “training” me to be successful. A sort of weird Pavlovian positive reinforcement thing. I came to realize it wasn’t that at all.

When friends would tell me my family was jealous of me, I couldn’t wrap my head around that. “Jealous of what?” I would wonder. I could never really put my finger on the source of the disconnect between how they said they felt and how they made me feel.

If I didn’t “feel” the love they clearly had for me, I was deficient. Not them. Then, one day, everything became clear. The learnings came hard and fast once I had a baby. Whatever else a woman may be and however strong and confident she is in life, a baby will make her vulnerable. Physically and emotionally.

I assume most families get that and support women through the process of pregnancy, birth and early infancy. Mine didn’t. It wasn’t built into our family mantra of external success and worldly accomplishments.

Having a baby was, after all, a common accomplishment almost any woman could achieve. (Fully knowing as I write that how heretical a statement that may be to women who have struggled to conceive.)

I don’t know if anyone is adequately prepared for the unrelenting and challenging needs of an infant. It is one of those “fine in theory” moments in life that becomes a stark, 24/7, non-stop arena of incessant demands that you ignore at your (and your infant’s) peril.

I remember the mantra I devised when my son was crying. “Is he hungry? Is he tired? Is he wet?” If I was pretty sure all those boxes had been checked, I too rarely made the obvious conclusion that the infant just needed to be cuddled, hugged, rocked and reassured that he was safe and not alone on the planet. That there would always be someone there for him to rely on.

I did not learn that at home. Dr. Benjamin Spock, the controversial baby doctor from the 50s, was no help either. Let them cry themselves to sleep,” he exhorted. “It builds self-sufficiency.”
I don’t agree.

It was another lightbulb moment when I realized my children needed little else from me BUT love. My presence and listening to them and my implicit support was pretty much the whole package. Plus the occasional twenty bucks now and then.

Sure, they needed constant material support when they were little. But I honestly believe, as I have read about some families, that if there was enough joy and love in their upbringing, their material situation didn’t matter all that much.

So I am wary now when I hear the words, “I love you” and more cautious when and to who I say them. The ones I say those words to frequently have earned them. The friends who hear those words have been there with and for me. There are friends who literally lived through thick and thin with me. There are some about whom I truly believe I would not still be here without them.

“Sayin’ ain’t doin’.” This rule has served me well in later life. Where I used to easily trust, I am now inclined to wait until people prove what I mean to them before I grant them access to my inner world. It was pretty junky in there for a while when I was awash in confusion, regrets and unmet promises – given or received.

Because life is a marathon and not a sprint. Once I recognized that, I was more inclined to rely on others who consistently showed up in the race with me than those who sat far away on the sidelines – cheering me on.

Rent A Relative

This is my brand new, billion dollar business idea. “Rent A Relative, Inc.” Who’s with me?

I mean, there are already “rent a girlfriend” agencies. They offer an attractive and agreeable companion who can accompany you to any one of a number of events to show that you are socially viable.

I wonder how often those transactional “dates” turn into “actual” relationships. I mean it is a lot more honest and upfront than a lot of our culture’s haphazard dating rituals.

If you already have the quid pro quo worked out, then arguably it would be much easier to set up the working parameters of an actual relationship.

Actual “homegrown” relationships are messy and often unpredictable. Interpersonal relationships are dependent on a myriad of factors that act on our loved ones over which we have no control. Teachers. Bosses. Traffic and road rage driven drivers. Difficult colleagues. Difficult clerks and pushy salesclerk. Banks. And increasingly, airlines.

If a sexual dalliance is your desire, there are countless other agencies that offer those services. Once and done. Or two or three times if you are testosterone heavy. That’s the man side. I admittedly don’t know much about the woman side of the equation. My “experience” is restricted to Richard Gere’s bold performance in the movie, American Gigolo, back in the day.

Men selling love and sex is not as popular a notion in our culture as the idea of women dispersing themselves sexually for fun and profit. But that is kind of a running theme in our society. Women usually bear the brunt of responsibility for sexual “deviation” regardless of the circumstances or perpetrators.

The exchange of sexual favors for money is a whole other well-established business idea than I have. And it has been around a lot longer than my business idea.

What I hate about real relations is history. It is hard if not impossible to escape. So just as you are trekking along on some happy afternoon outing, you find out that that thing you just said reminded them of something you did or didn’t do when they were 11 years old.

Apparently you never acknowledged that slight. Or you didn’t take it seriously enough. Or you never made up for it. Sufficiently. Or you don’t understand what it did to them.

In the face of such “feedback,” I am often rendered moot. Not only do I not necessarily remember the offending incident, but have to take my “relatives” word for it that I did what I did and I didn’t do what I was supposed to do to atone for the injury.

A rented relative could be counted on to never bring up past unpleasantness. They would have no knowledge of what you did or didn’t do in the past. You may miss the fact that they don’t remember the good things you shared in the past.

But this arrangement does hold the inherent guarantee that all present “relations” (to coin a phrase) would be smooth and easy.

When you are “done” with the hired relation, you could just stamp their time card and send them home. No commitment to the weeklong stay . No awkward silences after Uncle Freddy got too drunk (again). And “mistakenly” bumped into niece Sally’s chest.

No senseless revisitation (as happens way too often) in arguments when the sins of a lifetime are drug up and hurled at married partners with vicious precision. None of this resolves anything. It creates new wounds. It perpetuates the old wounds. Nothing is resolved.

The relationship doesn’t grow or move forward. The dynamic simply gets stuck in the sand. Tension is the predominant tone as the injuries lurk under the surface ready to rise up instantly in the face of renewed triggers that revive them.

So it makes perfect sense to me that hiring a relative for important family celebrations and visits makes infinitely more sense. No senseless anxiety about whether we are measuring up to Aunt Mary’s unflinching hosting standards. No wonder about what Christmas gifts to send to your grandparents when they are already millionaires and own everything imaginable.

That estranged son that causes so much unrelenting pain? Switch him out. Invite a “rent a relation” to make the rounds of Christmas parties with you. Or a husband even. The possibilities are endless.

Now I’m the first to admit the idea is pretty fresh and unformed at the moment. It will need work to bring to fruition.

But scoff if you will, in this age of AI and robots and technological advances, I honestly don’t think we are too far off. I want to get in on the ground floor.

There are relations I love dearly and wish to keep in my life forever. Still there are no guarantees. But since I have fairly light relationships with several existing family members, if pressed, I would love to have an agency to call up and have them send over a sister or two for Christmas dinner to jazz up the celebration.

I think it is a brilliant idea. And what worries me, is that in this day and age of disconnected and fragmented human relations, there is a ripe and ready business opportunity right in front of our noses.

So again I say, scoff if you will and I ask, who’s with me?

Holding the Line

Soldiers likely understand this concept inherently better than many civilians do, I figure. When it is your job to work with your mates to hold the one spot that keeps the enemy at bay, they will (and many have) lay down their lives to “hold” it.

To push back hostile forces. To protect their homeland. To keep their loved ones and themselves out of harm’s way.

Single parents often know this dynamic intimately. They keep the proverbial wolf from the door every day. They protect their children while caring and nurturing them. All under the sometimes withering gaze of society who doesn’t get that keeping your family safe meant getting out.

Parents, generally, are like the plate spinners at the circus. Job, daycare, car, house, health all up in the air and kept up there by the skillful ministrations of the acrobats below. It ain’t work for sissies.

As a traumatized child, frequently abused in various ways, holding the line became a revelation in adulthood at various points in my healing. “I have the right to say no? Really?” “Other people protest or refuse when they are asked to do this?” “I am not a bad person for standing up for myself?”

These were real questions that I frequently asked. When I recently made a return visit to property I had entrusted to someone else, I felt the old familiar stirrings of: “Am I okay with this?” “If not, why not?” “Do I have the right to express my distress and concern?”

The answer in my rational mind is yes. Someone entrusted to take care of something for you who lets you down does not deserve praise and accolades. They deserve a strong talking to.

“What were you thinking?” (I learned she was thinking only of herself and her own needs.) “Why did you make those choices?” (Because I needed the space/comfort/independence to do things my own way.) “Do you have any idea how much you have cost me in time, wasted effort, upheaval and money?” (No idea whatsoever. She’s never owned a house or been there so it is a blank slate to her. And it shows.)

I quickly started making decisions to shut down her purview and influence in my private sphere. I started hearing every possible excuse from her for why what was done was done the way it was – all gauzy and whiny and self-interested.

I am all about celebrating the independence of the individual. But here is what I’ve learned that means. Being an adult and acting accordingly means recognition that you are part of a larger whole – a relationship, a family, a religious tradition, a community, a country and so on.

All of those social constructs have their own inherent contracts. You accept and act in mutually beneficial and cooperative ways if you wish to keep moving forward.

Break the rules and pay the price. Cheat and you threaten a marriage. Treat parents with neglect and disdain and you may find yourself disinherited. Break society’s biggest rule by murdering someone, the price you pay may be your own life.

To move forward individually, we need to cooperate with and acknowledge the wider forces and context in which we operate.

“No man is an island,” said John Donne. Not in a functioning society at any rate. I observe huge slippage in the rules of the social contract these days. Teenagers are alienated and confused.

The YM/YWCA, and similar institutions, has gone the way of the Dodo bird as a meeting place for young people to physically develop and learn healthy ways of working and competing with each other.

Individuals such as celebrities are elevated to such dizzying heights that the ground they sprung from – just like all the rest of us – is disregarded. Until they hit a brick wall, of course.

But no worries, life’ll learn ya. It always does. If there is one consistent rule in life, it is inevitable ups and downs and reversals of fortune, whether health, wealth or love, that rise up and often define us.

When the chips are down along with your luck, hope to be in the company of good others who will walk the steep and rocky parts of the path with you and not just the open grasslands.

A person requires the company and support of others and society as a whole in order to thrive. The line is from John Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, published in 1624. “Look, I know you’re very proud man, but you need to let other people help you if you’re in trouble. No man is an island, Dan. It’s when our communities rally around us in times of tragedy that we truly appreciate that no man is an island, entire of itself.

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/no+man+is+an+island

Proviso

I write about overcoming a difficult childhood and healing from it. I credit many self-help books I encountered along the way. They often had the right message for me at the right time.

I have also written that I write – I believe – from a place of privilege. Healing is a luxury not everyone can afford.

Let me explain. Most who are drawn to the healing path have come to it because life, as they are living it, has become unbearable. Most important, they believe there is a better way of doing things. That there is a better way out there for them to be.

I don’t shy away from the source of my perspective on healing and dysfunctional families. I was raised in a classic. And like most dysfunctional families, they didn’t get that they were doing anything “wrong.” In fact, they would have been horrified to learn that they had.

That awareness kept me plugged into a family I should have walked away from with love much, much earlier. They meant well.

So in the backdrop of people’s lives are a host of agendas and subtexts. Their belief in the vows of marriage keeps them in an abusive or unsatisfying marriage. Many continue to preen and seek approval from parents who are not worthy of the label, regardless of their biological role in your birth. We are also loaded with a host of other beliefs and constraints that are loaded on us from birth onward.

“Daddy doesn’t mean to hurt me.” “My husband really loves me but he has an anger problem. It’s not his fault.” “I’ll become a doctor even though I want to be a pilot to keep the parents and extended family happy.”

Self-negation is insidious like that. Whenever we deny what really matters to us to “go along” “fit in” or “be loved,” a microscopic portion of us erodes. Sometimes whole chunks fly out of our being. Some people live their whole lives like this. Bland and colorless and safe.

As a result, they never get a clear picture of who they are or what matters to them. They roll along in life – neither satisfied nor dissatisfied – until their lives are over.

So-called seekers know better and want better. It is the wife who – in spite of her low self-esteem – knows she shouldn’t be beaten and called down. It is the adult child who painfully realizes that though Daddy might not have meant to hurt them, his continued toxic behavior is doing just that. If he will not acknowledge this behavior and take steps to change, you must walk away to protect yourself.

The lucky ones who seek a healing path do not have an easier life. In fact, pursuing the healing path can lead to a whole host of upheavals and painful estrangements, and changes you didn’t expect.

And a commitment to healing and self-growth can only come about in an environment of safety where basic needs are met. In spite of the stereotypes about the writers and artists living in poverty while cranking out great works of fiction and philosophy, at minimum, they must have shelter, clothing, and enough food to keep them reasonably healthy.

My proviso is that. Attempting to heal while you are in the middle of something can be futile. You may have to accept that whatever you are doing today just to survive is the best you can do. In fact, it is mandatory.

With luck and time and the right environment, you may wake up one day in a place where you can commit to living life to its fullest. As with most things, it is a process. One day you may finally feel the urge to jot down and share the learning you picked up along the path of your healing journey.

Basically, you get to unpack and settle in. Speaking personally, it is an outcome that almost makes all of the pain and struggle worth it. Almost.