He has spoken

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This would be a good caricature of the face that glowers at me when I've "misbehaved" and questioned authority.

Add the pointing finger of an earlier post, and you've pretty much got the dominating, male authority figure that drives me up the wall and brings out my rebellious nature. Story of my life.

And here's my rebellious wildebeest side. I was once nicknamed "Wilda" by my co-workers. Now you know why.

One angry woman

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This is how I felt yesterday. I was angry, and it festered all day long.

Being angry usually hurts me more than it hurts the object of my rage: in this case, my husband. It gives me a headache, makes me feel sick to my stomach. It's not healthy when it's kept inside. It sucks up what little energy I have.

But here's the thing: Letting it out can be destructive if it's not handled right. It erupts like a volcano. It turns into a stampede that runs away with your better nature. It gets ugly.

Anger is normal. It can be a signal, like pain, that something needs to be taken care of. It's an inner voice that demands to be heard. But most of us don't know how to rein it in, and, like wild horses, it can run away, dragging us behind.

And I don't know about you, but when I get really, really angry and defensive at the same time, it often means that I'm confronting something in myself that I don't like very much. That's what happened to me yesterday. Oh, it simmered all day long and erupted at bedtime when I was too tired and defenseless to contain it, leaving a mess this morning that I have to clean up.

So when I sat down to write and looked for a picture that would illustrate an angry nannygoat, I found the elephant, trumpeting, "You've gone too far! Back off or you'll be sorry!" There I was, perfectly illustrated.

But then something funny happened. I saw the way I must really look when I'm mad, and it's not nearly so righteous and majestic as that elephant standing her ground. I think it looks more like this. That's probably how I look this morning.

I still feel misunderstood, taken for granted, put upon and disregarded, but which one us doesn't feel that way from time to time? I just realized that harmony is important to me, that being angry takes too much energy, that sometimes we look in the mirror for reassurance that we're right, and this is what is staring back at us.

Will the circle be unbroken

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Lyrics from one of my all-time favorite songs. It's been going through my head all day long.
I was standing by the window On a cold and cloudy day When I saw the hearse come rolling To carry my mother away Will the circle be unbroken Bye and bye Lord bye and bye There's a better home a waiting In the sky Lord in the sky I said to the undertaker Undertaker please drive slow For that body you are carrying Lord I hate to see her go Well I followed close behind her Tried to hold up and be brave But I could not hide my sorrow When they laid her in that grave I went back home Lord that home was lonesome Since my mother, she was gone All my brothers and sisters crying What a home so sad and alone

DADDY

the great and misterious Mitch, my father. We have no phone at the moment, my mom forgot to pay the bill, and i need to get ahold of my daddy NOW. like right this moment. because there is money that needs to go to ireland soon. as in tomorrow. do any of you have his email address? please??? it would be nice.

Spring cleaning

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The birdbath is full of debris. There's not a clean surface anywhere in the house, and I can see from here the remains of the poinsettia from Mom's funeral, piles of winter coats and mittens and stacks of paper everywhere. Even the big garbage can of winter bird seed is almost empty. It can only mean one thing: Spring is here, and it's time to clean.

The long lethargy of winter -- the winter of my own discontent and grief over losing Momma and Dadddy -- is over. My daffodils have been blooming for weeks, the trees are in flower, the birds are nesting, and I know that it's time to move on. I can feel Mom nudging me to get things in order. I can hear Dad telling me that if I don't keep moving, the rocking chair will get me. I need to come out of my hibernation and shake out the cobwebs.

Where to start? Usually I'm a neat-freak, but it seems I've become a slob. So I'll pick a spot -- any spot -- and start there. No, maybe I'd better go room by room. Should the garage be first or last?

Someone give me a swift kick in the behind. Ah, here's inspiration: I can start with the windows!

Down home and proud

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One of the things I will miss the most about my dad is the way he talked, not just the inflection in his voice but his turns of phrase, his pronunciation, the particular vernacular of his time and place. He also had a way of lifting his eyebrows and tilting his head up or down to challenge what you said or to drive home his point.

I'll miss the lilting language of that part of Appalachia, captured in old-time songs and still spoken in certain valleys and "hollers" in the region. They may be ridiculed for their speech, but it's colorful and evocative of the old ways they all respect and value. I can still hear it in the language of some of the people here in West Virginia, and it goes straight to my heart as something rare and true in a world full of pretensions and falsehoods.

Yep, Dad would sometimes take Lois and me to get his "minnies" before a fishing trip. He would tell us stories about how he and Dale played along the "crick" to catch "pollywogs" and "crawdads." And I recall his little lift of his eyebrows and knowing look when he told me I probably needed to give up the "baccy" one of these days before it damaged my lungs. I particularly loved the nicknames people were given in his times. "Old Fats" would, indeed, be fat. "Peck" came from the book and radio series, "Peck's Bad Boy." There was his friend "Ossie," and Mom was briefly called "Shake," short for Shafer. "Slim" was no doubt tall and skinny: They called it like it was.

Sometimes he used the word "ain't," and Momma would correct him, but I know it wasn't a sign of ignorance any more than when he'd say "them" rather than "they" or somebody "done it" rather than "did it." He just liked the way it sounded, the way it brought back the old days he treasured. And he never called Momma's walker a "walker." To him it was her "wagon," and why not? It was red and shiny, wasn't it? Mom's long, detailed phone conversations were her "recitations." Perfect.

Yes, I loved the way Dad expressed himself, except when he was yelling at me. Even then, he made his point. And, as we all know, he always had a point to make.

This isn't a story about the Edsel

If on your 16th birthday, you were handed the keys to an Edsel, it would be very important to have good parents. The story of the failure of the Edsel in the marketplace is a legendary cliche. The story of this "bomb" in the hands of a 16 yr. old me is the story of how much difference it makes how parents handle a bomb exploding in a young girl's hands.

The first day I got my license, Mom asked me to take the Edsel and go get something at the store. Ice cream, I think. Nan of course went with me. We didn't "mind her" and come directly home as she said, but decided a quick buzz of Court St. was barely out of the way. The Edsel was wide. Real wide. The brick streets of Athens are narrow, even to my grown-up eyes today. Trying to stay to the right of center as I pulled out of the parking space, well, an old car parked in front of me became the victim of my attempt to keep from driving the Edsel into the oncoming car. Scrunch!!! =0 Attached like Siamese twins to this old junker!

Hmm. I didn't remember Mr. Bowen, our driver's training teacher, covering this particular
situation. We discussed it and decided that I needed to back up to disengage the Edsel from the victim car. We also took a look around. A SAE was standing in front of his fraternity house. Surely SAE's don't call the cops on young ladies so off we went, a criminal on wheels the first day I had my license.

Dad was sitting on the front porch when I pulled in at the curb. Oh, I was ready to puke. Did he yell? No. Did he shake his head, sorely disappointed to see the front door caved in? You bet! Did he ground me or whip me? Nope. My shame was punishment. But 5 days later, with Mom as my passenger, I rounded the corner at May and Morris and drove directly into the rear bumper of an old black "perfect" collector's car owned and driven by the richest man in town. Mom asked him to permit her to pay for the damage and not report me to the police. Who could refuse Mother? Saved again. I was carrying on and said I would not drive again, but she told me, "Oh, yes you will! You get right back in the car or years from now you'll still not be driving!"

The next week Dad traded the Edsel for a brand-new Rambler American, and I never had another accident. Dad and I were both a little embarrassed to own an American Motors car, but it was a cute little red and white number with red interior and bucket seats, and the year that I drove it I learned to be a good driver.

You can't take it with you

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This wonderful photo is the proverbial picture that speaks 1,000 words, so if you don't have time to read my diatribe, then just study this photograph, aptly titled, "You can't take it with you."

Snow.

So, I keep getting the questions, how much snow do you have? Do you still have snow? and just to put it in perspective I just found a picture from about two or three weeks ago outside my house of the snowbank. This is ultra short but I wanted to share the picture with you. The person is Elliot and he is about three feet tall.

The beginning of the madness

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This is going to be a diatribe: I can feel it bubbling up inside.

I chose this photograph because it reminded me of that wonderful movie, "The Gods Must Be Crazy," about the Coke bottle that fell from the sky into the midst of the Kalahari Desert, where it wreaked havoc on the tribe of Xi, the Bushman. Never having seen such a wonderful object, the tribe began to quarrel over it and to feel possessiveness and other emotions unheard of among simple, peaceful people. Xi took it upon himself, as the tribal leader, to carry that bottle to "the end of the earth" and throw it back where it came from.

Yes, I am a product of our material society. I don't yet live in a cave and hunt my own food nor run naked through the jungle. But I just want some breathing room, some time in our culture when someone isn't selling us something. The most obvious offender is television, which saturates us with advertisements and creates desires we never knew we had, but all media is now loaded with these ads, and the pharmaceutical companies are actually creating diseases and "conditions" just so that they can sell us the latest panacea for things that are no more than hazards of living on this planet. I'm just waiting for them to create an "ad anxiety" so that they can market a pill that will cure us of it.

So-called "non-commercial" sites like public television and radio are now loaded with their commercials called "sponsorships." Redskins park was renamed "FedEx Field," and there's not an event that isn't brought to you by some company that wants to get you to feel cozy and comfortable about sharing your life with them.

In the "good old days," there were no ads for "feminine hygiene protection," no ED ads with erupting volcanos or other poorly masked images for sexual prowess. We had the decency not to discuss our bodily functions in public. And advertisements used to actually have something to do with the products they were selling. Now it's all just a blur of people who are more active, more attractive and more appealing than you are because they have something you need. Even the clothing we wear advertises its brand, telling the world who buys upscale and who buys at WalMart.

Basta! Enough! For those who sing the virtues of capitalism, I have this to say: It is not a religion. Owning things just gives you more things to take care of, to dust or clean or service or own you in one way or another. Our country is an example of capitalism run amok, an embarrassing example of the power of consumption rather than compassion, of owning rather than giving.

Of course this is not news. But it is consuming our waking hours unless we set aside time to shield our minds and our desires. Many years ago, Dad saw it coming, and he taught me to be aware of what was being force-fed into my subconscious mind. He taught me to talk back to the television, to be on high-alert for the inane messages being pummeled into my brain.

When my kids were small and watching television as the pre-Christmas toy hype reached a crescendo, they began to want all of that stuff from Santa, when I knew very well that Santa was not going to deliver that junk to our house. I recall asking them to name their very favorite toys and possessions. Their answers fell into three major categories: books, balls and blocks. Then I asked them to let me know when they saw ads for those things. Not a one. So I told them that when companies made things that kids naturally enjoyed, they didn't have to work hard to sell them. People would buy them because they liked them, because they got enjoyment from them. Ads for books? Have you ever seen even one on TV?

Okay, I am probably part of the problem. I buy clothes from L.L. Bean but not because I've seen their ads: I buy them because I've never had a problem with their products, and if I do, I know they'll take whatever it is back, no matter what. Do I sometimes succumb to the games that advertisers play? Of course. But I try to remember Daddy's advice and talk back to the stupid, endless petitions to improve my life by buying something new. Just this morning, I bought a new hair product because I wanted my hair to look better. I let my guard down.

And now, my most radical thought of all: Do you suppose that huge swaths of the world may "hate us" because we are swimming in the sea of plenty, wanting a new and improved product when all they want is to feed their children and drink clean water for another day? To fend off another terrorist attack, are we really just supposed to shop and dine and show the terrorists that our big financial institutions and multi-national companies will not go under because we didn't consume enough? That was the message after 9/11: Go out to dinner. Keep buying. Keep flying. Not the most inspirational moment in our nation's history. I wanted to plant a victory garden like people did during WWII. I wanted to write poetry, send cookies to our troops, do anything that showed I love my country. What I most patently did not want to do was shop.

Capitalism looks good on paper, but so does communism: "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." Neither can go unchallenged, unfettered. We need to take back our common sense, buy what we really need and practice the discipline of leaving that product on the shelf or refusing to purchase it because the ads are relentless and offensive. Will it save us? Probably not, but I'm willing to bet we gain a sense of control and brief self-empowerment from just saying "no."