There's this bridge in Nanjing, China. The Yangtze River Bridge. 4-miles long. And, it is famous for the number of people who jump off of it each year to commit suicide.
There's also this man in Nanjing, China. His name is Chen Sah. This family man chooses to spend his weekends on Yangtze River Bridge, after a full work-week, because he once heard a story about how many people die on the bridge each year. With the help of his faltering moped, he scouts amidst the multitudes of visitors along the bridge for the individuals who will make that fateful choice to take his or her own life. And then, Chen Sah tries to rescue them. Sometimes he meets with success and learns the story and needs of the person; other times he is too late and can only try, try again. He keeps a simple blog (click here for translated excerpts) of what happens each day in a 'hobby' some would find macabre. His reasons for taking on this enormous chore do not include having someone close to him kill themselves. Many of the desperate are from poor farming regions where life is hardscrabble and existence itself is depressing. Coming from this background, he understands the inner struggles which result. From this simple wellspring of commonality evolved a need within Chen Sah to expose himself to tremendous emotional and mental stress on a weekly basis, and to spend a portion of his valuable family time, pooling his limited resources together for the sake of total strangers.
I heard about Chen Sah on "This American Life", a podcast of an NPR radio show out of Chicago. Though it is in Chinese, his blog is now one I follow, even if only to view the pictures he takes of the rescued. I understand the origin of his drive.
Compassion. Empathy. Concern for matters outside of one's self, one's life sphere, one's personal universe of people, places, and things. Personally, I believe these are elements which should make the world go 'round. Personally, I believe there are a great many others who feels the same and live out those feelings with actions grounded in purpose. Personally, I believe some folks give voice to such feelings but are immediately distracted by the immediacy of their own wants and needs. Personally, I believe a larger pool of people don't think it's any of their concern if someone outside of their immediate family is suffering, for any number of reasons, including, 1) they brought it on themselves; 2) they are the concern of someone else; and, 3) "I don't have enough time/resources/energy to help others."
Anyone who knows me well knows that I care for my husband and my children with as much energy, time, and resources as I can muster in a day and beyond. I'm a stay-at-home parent which means though there are countless duties at my rather dry and pruned fingertips to be had, I'm often not at home to do them. Cooking, cleaning, laundering, gardening, shopping, organizing, paperwork-ing, and errand-running, Listening, learning, lecturing, and lamenting. Everything is not a glittering success. I still make mistakes. I must confess to forgetting the kids a time or two at school for pick-up. My husband could always use more 'wifely minstrations' than he gets on a good week . . . but from what I hear, what husband couldn't?! Every now and again, when the moon is full and my hormones are fluctuating, I have been known to lose my cool with any -- all right, ALL! -- of the residents within our household. Still, my reason-for-being is them. The good, bad, and the downright u-u-gly.
But there is another purpose-driven side of me which springs from a concern for others in this human condition who are hurting, who have unmet needs, who are not as blessed as am I. While I am unable to venture out into the wide world on my own and bring care to these countless, my heart and mind often travel to them and with them. I think and pray for, and sometimes fight worry over, the many who are cut off from the world at large and have no one to fight for them in their tiny corner of this existence. I grew up watching our mother reach out, often with mixed results but the best of intentions, to the homeless, the wartorn, the depressed, the lonely, and the sick. At different times in my childhood, I was one of the homeless, the depressed, the lonely, and the fearful. There really is nothing quite like living a thing, or directly witnessing a thing, to pound it firmly home.
What I lived and what I saw has never left me. The residue is a film on my heart. The memories are a stain in my mind. My beliefs and my perceptions are permanently colored by these recollections. And, in a bittersweet way, I am glad for it. I never want to forget how good I have it in relation to roughly 98% of the entire world's population. It would be unwise to fool myself into believing that within the borders of our very own wonderful country there are not those who go without shelter, food, employment, clothing, and love on a daily basis. People are sick in body and spirit and mind without benefit of insurance or a neighborhood or a family or a church. When I look at the excess just within the confines of my own life, from home to family and friends to health, I wish there was a way to balance the inequalities.
Because I am intimately acquainted with that inequality.
(To Be Continued . . . )
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Eating Fear
It’s 2AM. I’m sitting up in my bed, laptop perched on my – what else – lap, racing against my own mind. A four-hundred calorie lump of vanilla yogurt, whole grain pretzels, a Clementine, and two smoked chicken wings sits in my belly. This lump, a mass with yet recognizable parts in this early stage of digestion if I were to chuck it all up (I have experience in these things, so trust me on this), holds me hostage. It’s rather pitiful. I’m afraid of food. Ironically, the chicken had more to fear at one time in its sacrificial life than I ever will if comparisons are to be drawn.
But it’s not the food. We all know that. Eating disorders are about control. Or, truthfully, the lack thereof. Yes, I said ‘eating disorder.’ Because my fear of this post-midnight snack has very little to do with believing it might come alive inside me and rip me open, spilling bile and stomach acid mixed with the blood of my wounds. (Though, now that I put it that way, it is rather gruesome to imagine.) My fear is all about my perceived inability to turn down food at the appropriate times of day or night; my fear is about whether or not that snack I just wolfed down was nutritionally dense and calorically balanced; my fear is whether or not I will manufacture enough time in the following day to exercise it off before I feel the need to eat again. Those are only a few points on a very long list that I try to downplay each and every day. The list began when I was roughly 10 years-old. I quite adding to it a few years back but I have not ceased to run ragged circles around myself in a vain attempt to achieve the unrealistic goals set forth in my very own Declaration of Dependence.
You see, us grown-ups out there living in the real world with its real problems and that real baggage that we often tote around from our real childhoods, we can’t always make sense of it all. Even with our family. Even with our friendships. Even with our hobbies and pleasures. Most assuredly even with our faith. We still struggle. We yet waver though we stand.
For some folks, that baggage is just a light carry-on and it remains so through the course of marriage, kids, school, career, and the myriad milestones which pepper the winding route of this life. For others, however, the baggage begins as an oversized piece with pockets inside and out, bulging at the seams even with the extra-space zipper in the unzipped position. Through marriage and children and the endless stream of challenges they encounter, these bearers of said large baggage tend to add other pieces to the ensemble of varying shapes and sizes and storage capacities. Sometimes, the baggage isn’t even theirs to carry but they can’t bear to see it left on the side of the road as they come upon it.
As the weight of this burden increases, the need for a crutch also increases. At first glance, the crutch appears to be useful, even helpful, but a second look reveals otherwise. The crutch props up the burden and imparts a false sense of ‘you-can-handle-all-of-this-indeterminately.’ Why? Because the crutch allows the illusion of control in a situation where there is absolutely no control.
I’m a 40 year-old woman. I have a 20 year-old daughter; a daughter of 17 years in high school; and a perpetually-in-motion son who hits 15 in August. My dog is a well-kept healthy 14 enjoying her senior status. Our feline, the unexpected Thanksgiving guest of 2007 who never left, has yet to waste one of his nine lives in the roughly 3 years of his prowling and purring. For the past 21 years, I’ve been married to man who has stood beside me through all manner of baggage-building episodes, many of which had nothing to do with our relationship as husband and wife. My septuagenarian mother resides in a neighboring hamlet just a mere half-hour drive away. My prized collection of loved ones, including siblings, relatives, friends, and neighbors, from the past and the present, situated both near and far on the map, sustains me on the best and the worst of days. It’s a two-truck, nice home, treed-and-flowered-yard of a comfortable existence for me these days.
My faith empowers me. I am generally grateful. I am handily helpful.
But I am also falteringly fearful.
I’m no longer sure who I am. I am no longer sure who I once was. I no longer believe it is important to know these things about myself in order to move forward. What I know is this: I need to kick the crutch away from me. I need to trust what my two legs say about the proper load-bearing weight upon my back. I need to open my bags and lighten the contents and give back what was never mine to bear from the beginning.
As for the food? It will digest. I extend my thanks to the chicken. It is ungrateful to regret partaking of it when I’m alive and it died to sustain my life.
But it’s not the food. We all know that. Eating disorders are about control. Or, truthfully, the lack thereof. Yes, I said ‘eating disorder.’ Because my fear of this post-midnight snack has very little to do with believing it might come alive inside me and rip me open, spilling bile and stomach acid mixed with the blood of my wounds. (Though, now that I put it that way, it is rather gruesome to imagine.) My fear is all about my perceived inability to turn down food at the appropriate times of day or night; my fear is about whether or not that snack I just wolfed down was nutritionally dense and calorically balanced; my fear is whether or not I will manufacture enough time in the following day to exercise it off before I feel the need to eat again. Those are only a few points on a very long list that I try to downplay each and every day. The list began when I was roughly 10 years-old. I quite adding to it a few years back but I have not ceased to run ragged circles around myself in a vain attempt to achieve the unrealistic goals set forth in my very own Declaration of Dependence.
You see, us grown-ups out there living in the real world with its real problems and that real baggage that we often tote around from our real childhoods, we can’t always make sense of it all. Even with our family. Even with our friendships. Even with our hobbies and pleasures. Most assuredly even with our faith. We still struggle. We yet waver though we stand.
For some folks, that baggage is just a light carry-on and it remains so through the course of marriage, kids, school, career, and the myriad milestones which pepper the winding route of this life. For others, however, the baggage begins as an oversized piece with pockets inside and out, bulging at the seams even with the extra-space zipper in the unzipped position. Through marriage and children and the endless stream of challenges they encounter, these bearers of said large baggage tend to add other pieces to the ensemble of varying shapes and sizes and storage capacities. Sometimes, the baggage isn’t even theirs to carry but they can’t bear to see it left on the side of the road as they come upon it.
As the weight of this burden increases, the need for a crutch also increases. At first glance, the crutch appears to be useful, even helpful, but a second look reveals otherwise. The crutch props up the burden and imparts a false sense of ‘you-can-handle-all-of-this-indeterminately.’ Why? Because the crutch allows the illusion of control in a situation where there is absolutely no control.
I’m a 40 year-old woman. I have a 20 year-old daughter; a daughter of 17 years in high school; and a perpetually-in-motion son who hits 15 in August. My dog is a well-kept healthy 14 enjoying her senior status. Our feline, the unexpected Thanksgiving guest of 2007 who never left, has yet to waste one of his nine lives in the roughly 3 years of his prowling and purring. For the past 21 years, I’ve been married to man who has stood beside me through all manner of baggage-building episodes, many of which had nothing to do with our relationship as husband and wife. My septuagenarian mother resides in a neighboring hamlet just a mere half-hour drive away. My prized collection of loved ones, including siblings, relatives, friends, and neighbors, from the past and the present, situated both near and far on the map, sustains me on the best and the worst of days. It’s a two-truck, nice home, treed-and-flowered-yard of a comfortable existence for me these days.
My faith empowers me. I am generally grateful. I am handily helpful.
But I am also falteringly fearful.
I’m no longer sure who I am. I am no longer sure who I once was. I no longer believe it is important to know these things about myself in order to move forward. What I know is this: I need to kick the crutch away from me. I need to trust what my two legs say about the proper load-bearing weight upon my back. I need to open my bags and lighten the contents and give back what was never mine to bear from the beginning.
As for the food? It will digest. I extend my thanks to the chicken. It is ungrateful to regret partaking of it when I’m alive and it died to sustain my life.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Turquoise Trust
A patient in a mental hospital has a team. Some combination of psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, and nurse. Together they make decisions for the patient based on what they see and hear and their cumulative training and work experiences. The ideal situation calls for a willing patient in the treatment process. But I imagine that if one is entering a mental health state institution under duress, initial trust and cooperation are hard to come by.
Actually, I don't have to imagine. For wildly divergent reasons, I have two close siblings in separate state hospitals. Neither experienced a smooth initial induction. Their specific issues required a necessary medication protocol. One is practically a graduate in her treatment and is working toward release; the other is yet an unruly infant unable to latch on. Under the best of circumstances, concocting the perfect drug cocktail for a given medical condition is tough. It takes time and patience and an understanding that there will be at least a few failures before the success hits. Often, the side effects which affect the body right out of the gate break down the will and endurance necessary to wait them out until the real work of the drug or drugs takes hold.
It is in this foggy area that my brother, Gary, has wandered in a rapidly decompressing state for a good ten days or so. Consequently, those of us in close daily contact with him are also feeling our way around, hands waving in front of our faces, trying to make out the shadowy figures in the haze of his mind. Though we all recognize the benefits of the hospital over prison, life in a mental institution is still highly stressful. In fact, the shock of leaving a rigid system and its combative social structure after roughly 18 years and being totally immersed in a less structured system with radically different social behaviors adds an entirely new dimension to the experience.
Besides the Bipolar II and PTSD diagnosis Gary was given back in late 2008, early 2009, there are behaviors he adopted that come with living in the streets and surviving in a jail and prison setting for more than half of his life. Doctors who treated him in spurts in prison considered adult ADHD; his psychiatrist at Napa has broached the subject with him this past week. There is a considerable amount of physical pain on his docket, too, and medications he was allowed in prison and jail are not used in the hospital setting; those were instantly removed from his treatment plan. Since he was a boy, Gary has struggled to sleep with any kind of regularity. Most likely this is connected to his bipolar disorder. Insomnia over long periods of time further affects brain chemistry. Three full days of lack of sleep is said to put people into full-blown psychosis.
Taking all of that into consideration, Gary and his doctor are locked in a back and forth discussion, often heated and frustrated on Gary's side, over what he should take and what it may or may not accomplish in the face of his multiple issues. His mounting anxiety coupled with his fear that they may drug him into a slobbering idiot have led to several behavioral stand-offs on his part. Head-bangings against the wall; aggressive door kickings; yelling and screaming; refusing to listen or respect other parties. He wanted a different doctor, a brand new team, thinking they might lift the restrictions he felt were being levied against him because he was only a scumbag, drug-using ex-convict not worthy of rehabilitation. Their chess move involved calling in the police to let Gary know if he couldn't settle down he would have to cool his heels in a jail cell for awhile until he was prepared to be cooperative. This only served to piss him off further and deepen his mistrust of those in authority.
Now, I've been calming him as best I can for years through letters and monthly 15-minute phone calls. The precious but rare in-person visits. His new life status allows us freedom of phone contact at just about any time of day. I listen. I talk. All without that precise female mechanized voice informing us of the time we don't have left to wrap up our brief discourse. I'm hearing him out and balancing his skewed perspective with a possible interpretation of why his team did what they did or why others do what they do. But even with thrice daily sessions and no time restrictions on 'Girlfriend,' my trusty iPhone, I could not break through to his common sense. It appeared to be lost in the thick fog of his overwhelmed brain. His ramblings were worse with every call. So much anger. So much distrust. So much fear. With each passing day, I surrendered myself to the reality of a suicide attempt or attack on a particular patient whose been pushing his buttons. I had done everything I could do to get him to this point, to this place. There was, and is, work that is simply his to fulfill.
On Thursday or Friday of this past week, he called me, asking if I would assist him in writing a positive incentive contract. It seems his psychiatrist caught on to the importance of drawing in Gary's life and the calming effect it could potentially have on his behavior while we all await the steadying of his psyche via lithium and other elements in his drug arsenal. (Perhaps the entire team pow-wowed over what they knew of him and came up with this plan.) She purchased art supplies through Office Depot and proposed a deal: if he would adhere to the points set out in his contract, he could have full access to the art supplies. Act up, and those items will be gathered up and out of there.
Since that day, there has been a marked improvement in his mood. He is trying to be patient with the long process of adapting to his medicinal protocol, realizing every body and brain is different and will react in varying ways to the same prescriptions. During our two phone calls today, he waxed poetic over the high quality of the Prismacolor Turquoise Pencils of various hardnesses which allow outstanding shading and outlining for his collage-like creations. I Googled Prismacolor as he described the Premier Illustrating Markers and woodless graphite pencils; I felt close to him, picturing him in his room, hunched over his manila envelope palette, as my eyes wandered over the various items on the website.
He was moved, and regretfully apologetic about his previous actions, because he realized that his doctor bought him the good stuff. That one action, insightful and astute in my book, bridged the roiling river of mistrust which has been coursing between Gary and the lifeline being offered to him for the past two weeks plus. In this case, the value of the purchase directly correlated to the value of his humanity in the eyes of this person who holds his life almost literally in her hands.
It is a significant step. Really, a giant first step. I'm hip to the fact that there will continue to be backtracking, but at least an inroad has been made. If I could mark it in the brightest Prismacolor Premier Illustrating Marker color available, I would do it, thus ensuring that Gary could make out its outline in those moments when the fog parts and visibility is possible.
At least I know where it is.
Actually, I don't have to imagine. For wildly divergent reasons, I have two close siblings in separate state hospitals. Neither experienced a smooth initial induction. Their specific issues required a necessary medication protocol. One is practically a graduate in her treatment and is working toward release; the other is yet an unruly infant unable to latch on. Under the best of circumstances, concocting the perfect drug cocktail for a given medical condition is tough. It takes time and patience and an understanding that there will be at least a few failures before the success hits. Often, the side effects which affect the body right out of the gate break down the will and endurance necessary to wait them out until the real work of the drug or drugs takes hold.
It is in this foggy area that my brother, Gary, has wandered in a rapidly decompressing state for a good ten days or so. Consequently, those of us in close daily contact with him are also feeling our way around, hands waving in front of our faces, trying to make out the shadowy figures in the haze of his mind. Though we all recognize the benefits of the hospital over prison, life in a mental institution is still highly stressful. In fact, the shock of leaving a rigid system and its combative social structure after roughly 18 years and being totally immersed in a less structured system with radically different social behaviors adds an entirely new dimension to the experience.
Besides the Bipolar II and PTSD diagnosis Gary was given back in late 2008, early 2009, there are behaviors he adopted that come with living in the streets and surviving in a jail and prison setting for more than half of his life. Doctors who treated him in spurts in prison considered adult ADHD; his psychiatrist at Napa has broached the subject with him this past week. There is a considerable amount of physical pain on his docket, too, and medications he was allowed in prison and jail are not used in the hospital setting; those were instantly removed from his treatment plan. Since he was a boy, Gary has struggled to sleep with any kind of regularity. Most likely this is connected to his bipolar disorder. Insomnia over long periods of time further affects brain chemistry. Three full days of lack of sleep is said to put people into full-blown psychosis.
Taking all of that into consideration, Gary and his doctor are locked in a back and forth discussion, often heated and frustrated on Gary's side, over what he should take and what it may or may not accomplish in the face of his multiple issues. His mounting anxiety coupled with his fear that they may drug him into a slobbering idiot have led to several behavioral stand-offs on his part. Head-bangings against the wall; aggressive door kickings; yelling and screaming; refusing to listen or respect other parties. He wanted a different doctor, a brand new team, thinking they might lift the restrictions he felt were being levied against him because he was only a scumbag, drug-using ex-convict not worthy of rehabilitation. Their chess move involved calling in the police to let Gary know if he couldn't settle down he would have to cool his heels in a jail cell for awhile until he was prepared to be cooperative. This only served to piss him off further and deepen his mistrust of those in authority.
Now, I've been calming him as best I can for years through letters and monthly 15-minute phone calls. The precious but rare in-person visits. His new life status allows us freedom of phone contact at just about any time of day. I listen. I talk. All without that precise female mechanized voice informing us of the time we don't have left to wrap up our brief discourse. I'm hearing him out and balancing his skewed perspective with a possible interpretation of why his team did what they did or why others do what they do. But even with thrice daily sessions and no time restrictions on 'Girlfriend,' my trusty iPhone, I could not break through to his common sense. It appeared to be lost in the thick fog of his overwhelmed brain. His ramblings were worse with every call. So much anger. So much distrust. So much fear. With each passing day, I surrendered myself to the reality of a suicide attempt or attack on a particular patient whose been pushing his buttons. I had done everything I could do to get him to this point, to this place. There was, and is, work that is simply his to fulfill.
On Thursday or Friday of this past week, he called me, asking if I would assist him in writing a positive incentive contract. It seems his psychiatrist caught on to the importance of drawing in Gary's life and the calming effect it could potentially have on his behavior while we all await the steadying of his psyche via lithium and other elements in his drug arsenal. (Perhaps the entire team pow-wowed over what they knew of him and came up with this plan.) She purchased art supplies through Office Depot and proposed a deal: if he would adhere to the points set out in his contract, he could have full access to the art supplies. Act up, and those items will be gathered up and out of there.
Since that day, there has been a marked improvement in his mood. He is trying to be patient with the long process of adapting to his medicinal protocol, realizing every body and brain is different and will react in varying ways to the same prescriptions. During our two phone calls today, he waxed poetic over the high quality of the Prismacolor Turquoise Pencils of various hardnesses which allow outstanding shading and outlining for his collage-like creations. I Googled Prismacolor as he described the Premier Illustrating Markers and woodless graphite pencils; I felt close to him, picturing him in his room, hunched over his manila envelope palette, as my eyes wandered over the various items on the website.
He was moved, and regretfully apologetic about his previous actions, because he realized that his doctor bought him the good stuff. That one action, insightful and astute in my book, bridged the roiling river of mistrust which has been coursing between Gary and the lifeline being offered to him for the past two weeks plus. In this case, the value of the purchase directly correlated to the value of his humanity in the eyes of this person who holds his life almost literally in her hands.
It is a significant step. Really, a giant first step. I'm hip to the fact that there will continue to be backtracking, but at least an inroad has been made. If I could mark it in the brightest Prismacolor Premier Illustrating Marker color available, I would do it, thus ensuring that Gary could make out its outline in those moments when the fog parts and visibility is possible.
At least I know where it is.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Crazy Is . . .
Crazy. There's a word we throw around with casual abandon. Not really thinking too deeply into it's meaning or the real connotation behind it. "She's cra-a-zy as hell!" or "That's some crazy stuff goin' on there!" and "Crazy is as crazy does."
But what, pray tell, is crazy?
This far into history it can mean a lot of things. It is both an adjective and a noun. Meaning ranges from senseless to intensely enthusiastic to bizarre and unusual; there's also the nonconformist, having the jitters, performing an action with great speed or recklessness.
However, with a word origin dating back to between 1570 and 1580, crazy has its roots in the descriptive form concerning mentally deranged, demented, insane. Those are big words. Those are darkly powerful words. They are words denoting a range of brain chemistry which a great many people never fully understand or never have need to investigate.
I am not one of a great many people. What I am is one of eight siblings. My youngest sister is in a state mental hospital in Colorado after drowning her children in the grips of a post-partum psychotic state. My youngest brother was recently admitted to the Napa branch of the California State Hospital system after spending most of his adult life -- 18 out of 35 years -- in either jail or prison for drug-related offenses which stemmed from a long undiagnosed personality disorder.
This is not the time for discussion of my sister. I love her. I miss the kids and miss the innocent days for all of us that were ours before their deaths. This is all about my brother who could aptly be described by any of the above definitions of crazy. And, yet they would define only the hull of who he is.
Being the 'bridge' sibling, and the eldest of the second round of four in my mother's two sets of children, I am emotionally close to both of them. Though not always in the best of form, I've stuck it all out with each of them, even when I, myself, felt as if I might 'go crazy' and join them at some point. Besides the obvious family connection, I look at them in their situations and think I would never want to be abandoned and forgotten. To an extent, our childhood left me knowing what it is to be on the outside, the fringe, existing as apart from the whole and afraid the black inky void would swallow me up and no one would ever remember I existed.
For the last two nights, I've listened as my brother decompressed. Though I try to convince him otherwise, he feels he exists in that inky darkness where all is isolation and invisibility and the forgotten. My words are meaningless from my vantage point. They might uplift a girlfriend or encourage a child or amuse a neighbor, they are impotent to a man of his station. We are joined by love and bound by duty, as trite as that sounds, but our circumstances are not shared. I can only listen and allow his painful words to march in one ear, across my brain where they burn an afterimage, and fall out the other side as they make way for the torrent of more and more. The tide can not be stemmed.
He rails over the Godly people who seem to be so busy "goin' to church and praisin' God but they ain't got time for me [or people like me]." He misses the whole life he never had. Never even been on one date. Never attended a concert. Never had roots and ties to one place and a passel of people. There's the brother whose bed he shared as children who now forgets all about him. "I would never leave him rotting up in some cell forever the way he left me. I can't change it but it hurts. I don't have a brother now." He wants to shore up inner walls and trim some of the shit out of his life, "I can't be lettin' people a little bit in and gettin' hopeful." Just accept it and let it go -- marriage, family, feeling settled and safe, loved ones. The rantings of a man fully enveloped in the depressing mantle of fear over a future he cannot yet see.
These calls are an exercise in extreme patience and faith for me. I don't say this lightly. I fight my own darkness in these moments. Anger wells up and threatens to spill over. Helplessness knocks me flat. Despair over the improbability of his ever actually gaining his equilibrium and self-confidence washes over me in a hurricane gale. But, eventually that very small, very still voice pierces the heaviness and speaks to me of prayer. It reminds me of the miracle of years which has brought my brother, Gary, and me, to this point. It asks me to believe for him. It challenges me to pray for the very things neither of us has the present ability to see. And then I do as the Spirit moves me. No mean feat as my journey with Christ yet extends in an endless vista before me.
I believe Gary's second life is just getting started. I believe he will jettison bitterness, self-pity, and anxiety for the better side of that coin. I believe he does yet have a brother and their relationship will be restored once both men have gained enough self-healing to close the gap between their hearts and their minds. I believe there is a good woman out there who will see into the depths of my brother's soul and pull out the goodness at his core and help it into the light of day. I believe his future has been written in the Book of Life, and when he lets it all go, it will return to him in the same generous measure by which Job was restored to his own existence.
In the meantime, we hold on by fingertips and count down the 60 days Gary must spend in the intake ward. And, the 30 days in the next ward before he is finally placed and begins his program of counseling, work, exercise, and acclimation.
I'm right there with him. As I have been since day one. That's a crazy story.
But what, pray tell, is crazy?
This far into history it can mean a lot of things. It is both an adjective and a noun. Meaning ranges from senseless to intensely enthusiastic to bizarre and unusual; there's also the nonconformist, having the jitters, performing an action with great speed or recklessness.
However, with a word origin dating back to between 1570 and 1580, crazy has its roots in the descriptive form concerning mentally deranged, demented, insane. Those are big words. Those are darkly powerful words. They are words denoting a range of brain chemistry which a great many people never fully understand or never have need to investigate.
I am not one of a great many people. What I am is one of eight siblings. My youngest sister is in a state mental hospital in Colorado after drowning her children in the grips of a post-partum psychotic state. My youngest brother was recently admitted to the Napa branch of the California State Hospital system after spending most of his adult life -- 18 out of 35 years -- in either jail or prison for drug-related offenses which stemmed from a long undiagnosed personality disorder.
This is not the time for discussion of my sister. I love her. I miss the kids and miss the innocent days for all of us that were ours before their deaths. This is all about my brother who could aptly be described by any of the above definitions of crazy. And, yet they would define only the hull of who he is.
Being the 'bridge' sibling, and the eldest of the second round of four in my mother's two sets of children, I am emotionally close to both of them. Though not always in the best of form, I've stuck it all out with each of them, even when I, myself, felt as if I might 'go crazy' and join them at some point. Besides the obvious family connection, I look at them in their situations and think I would never want to be abandoned and forgotten. To an extent, our childhood left me knowing what it is to be on the outside, the fringe, existing as apart from the whole and afraid the black inky void would swallow me up and no one would ever remember I existed.
For the last two nights, I've listened as my brother decompressed. Though I try to convince him otherwise, he feels he exists in that inky darkness where all is isolation and invisibility and the forgotten. My words are meaningless from my vantage point. They might uplift a girlfriend or encourage a child or amuse a neighbor, they are impotent to a man of his station. We are joined by love and bound by duty, as trite as that sounds, but our circumstances are not shared. I can only listen and allow his painful words to march in one ear, across my brain where they burn an afterimage, and fall out the other side as they make way for the torrent of more and more. The tide can not be stemmed.
He rails over the Godly people who seem to be so busy "goin' to church and praisin' God but they ain't got time for me [or people like me]." He misses the whole life he never had. Never even been on one date. Never attended a concert. Never had roots and ties to one place and a passel of people. There's the brother whose bed he shared as children who now forgets all about him. "I would never leave him rotting up in some cell forever the way he left me. I can't change it but it hurts. I don't have a brother now." He wants to shore up inner walls and trim some of the shit out of his life, "I can't be lettin' people a little bit in and gettin' hopeful." Just accept it and let it go -- marriage, family, feeling settled and safe, loved ones. The rantings of a man fully enveloped in the depressing mantle of fear over a future he cannot yet see.
These calls are an exercise in extreme patience and faith for me. I don't say this lightly. I fight my own darkness in these moments. Anger wells up and threatens to spill over. Helplessness knocks me flat. Despair over the improbability of his ever actually gaining his equilibrium and self-confidence washes over me in a hurricane gale. But, eventually that very small, very still voice pierces the heaviness and speaks to me of prayer. It reminds me of the miracle of years which has brought my brother, Gary, and me, to this point. It asks me to believe for him. It challenges me to pray for the very things neither of us has the present ability to see. And then I do as the Spirit moves me. No mean feat as my journey with Christ yet extends in an endless vista before me.
I believe Gary's second life is just getting started. I believe he will jettison bitterness, self-pity, and anxiety for the better side of that coin. I believe he does yet have a brother and their relationship will be restored once both men have gained enough self-healing to close the gap between their hearts and their minds. I believe there is a good woman out there who will see into the depths of my brother's soul and pull out the goodness at his core and help it into the light of day. I believe his future has been written in the Book of Life, and when he lets it all go, it will return to him in the same generous measure by which Job was restored to his own existence.
In the meantime, we hold on by fingertips and count down the 60 days Gary must spend in the intake ward. And, the 30 days in the next ward before he is finally placed and begins his program of counseling, work, exercise, and acclimation.
I'm right there with him. As I have been since day one. That's a crazy story.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Mr. S
The retired man next door, Mr. S (rhymes with 'slinky' which cracks-up my kids), he does this thing for us. Or, more specifically, he does this thing for our dog. You see, Mr. S is a warm-season griller of thick delectable cuts of meat. Pork and beef are his top performers. The heralding of this heart-clogging habit is known not by the scent of seasoned slabs of seared perfection wafting over the fence from his yard but by the ringing of our doorbell. And there he is. Tanned. Stocky with a rounded but solid belly. Neat goatee and short hair white as Santa's self same. A few tasteful pieces of real gold jewelry in place. Oft times, the subtle (okay maybe not always so subtle) odor of a whiskey sour or two emanating from his pores. Always a smile in place as he proffers the plastic baggie or foil-wrapped package of sizeable bones still warm, red and brown ragged pieces of flesh yet clinging to the inner curve and outside edges.
"For your dog! Tell her to enjoy!" he booms in his deep resonant tone of neighborly friendliness. We always accept with many a thank-you for his thoughtfulness. He's a huge fan of our masculine orange kitty, Fabio, and it's not unusual for him to launch into a short soliloquy on the subject. I listen and smile. Amused at his interpretation of our cat's name -- FLAVIO. Besides the fact that Mr. S's heart has been the topic, either directly or indirectly, of a surgery or two, he's losing his hearing but is not ready to surrender to the fact. So, one day he thought he heard Flavio instead of Fabio. No amount of convincing by his wife could change his stance on that. Thus, my feline is the recipient of two names. I'm certain that when said cat enters Mr. S's house at his behest, a tasty tidbit if set before him, too.
I drink herbal tea and don't golf; he's got a standing weekly tee-time. I rarely have an opening to swim in the pool which has been put at our disposal by Mr. S and his very kind wife. He drives a big shiny gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade; I bemoan the fact that I must mug around town behind the wheel of that GMC Yukon mentioned in a previous blog entry. But for whatever reason, this sixty-something robust retiree next door to me has engaged in the act of neighboring via my pets. We don't rub elbows anywhere except where our side yards reluctantly converge: his lawn is weed-free and professionally serviced with an impressive array of chemicals while my mixed-green expanse is busy hosting a national dandelion convention this Spring.
We aren't very close.
I'm great friends with the neighbors to the north of us. My kids babysit their kids. I walk with the wife, and we play Bunco on a monthly basis. There are dinners for the couples and BBQ's and parties in the summer. A sack of sugar, an extra egg or dozen, a bit of basil -- dried and straight from the garden . . . yeah, that idyllic back-and-forth happens ALL the time. And, I dig it.
But what about my southside giver of gristle, fat, and marrow? I don't question it. I like it. He worries when my familiar presence is missing from the yard for too long. He once told me that I reminded him of his wife's older daughter. An educated professional woman of high standards and spotless work ethic. A psychiatrist who adopted several troubled children from Guatemala. Probably the longest conversation we've held save for the time he related how he lost his cat and later found him in the upstairs closet. He bolsters the security I feel in my neighborhood. He is typecast as the generally strong and silent type with a heart of gold. Or, at least a chunky pinky ring of gold
In fact, he was here tonight. He told my son to let our dog know the season was upon us. Our carnivorous harbinger of Spring. The bone still held a substantial amount of nibble meat. I confess to being THIS CLOSE to sampling just a wee bit -- my mouth actually watered as I handed it off to our eager canine. Our Mr. S.
You really ought to get you one. But not ours . . . back off . . . he's taken!
"For your dog! Tell her to enjoy!" he booms in his deep resonant tone of neighborly friendliness. We always accept with many a thank-you for his thoughtfulness. He's a huge fan of our masculine orange kitty, Fabio, and it's not unusual for him to launch into a short soliloquy on the subject. I listen and smile. Amused at his interpretation of our cat's name -- FLAVIO. Besides the fact that Mr. S's heart has been the topic, either directly or indirectly, of a surgery or two, he's losing his hearing but is not ready to surrender to the fact. So, one day he thought he heard Flavio instead of Fabio. No amount of convincing by his wife could change his stance on that. Thus, my feline is the recipient of two names. I'm certain that when said cat enters Mr. S's house at his behest, a tasty tidbit if set before him, too.
I drink herbal tea and don't golf; he's got a standing weekly tee-time. I rarely have an opening to swim in the pool which has been put at our disposal by Mr. S and his very kind wife. He drives a big shiny gas-guzzling Cadillac Escalade; I bemoan the fact that I must mug around town behind the wheel of that GMC Yukon mentioned in a previous blog entry. But for whatever reason, this sixty-something robust retiree next door to me has engaged in the act of neighboring via my pets. We don't rub elbows anywhere except where our side yards reluctantly converge: his lawn is weed-free and professionally serviced with an impressive array of chemicals while my mixed-green expanse is busy hosting a national dandelion convention this Spring.
We aren't very close.
I'm great friends with the neighbors to the north of us. My kids babysit their kids. I walk with the wife, and we play Bunco on a monthly basis. There are dinners for the couples and BBQ's and parties in the summer. A sack of sugar, an extra egg or dozen, a bit of basil -- dried and straight from the garden . . . yeah, that idyllic back-and-forth happens ALL the time. And, I dig it.
But what about my southside giver of gristle, fat, and marrow? I don't question it. I like it. He worries when my familiar presence is missing from the yard for too long. He once told me that I reminded him of his wife's older daughter. An educated professional woman of high standards and spotless work ethic. A psychiatrist who adopted several troubled children from Guatemala. Probably the longest conversation we've held save for the time he related how he lost his cat and later found him in the upstairs closet. He bolsters the security I feel in my neighborhood. He is typecast as the generally strong and silent type with a heart of gold. Or, at least a chunky pinky ring of gold
In fact, he was here tonight. He told my son to let our dog know the season was upon us. Our carnivorous harbinger of Spring. The bone still held a substantial amount of nibble meat. I confess to being THIS CLOSE to sampling just a wee bit -- my mouth actually watered as I handed it off to our eager canine. Our Mr. S.
You really ought to get you one. But not ours . . . back off . . . he's taken!
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Blown Away and Back Again
Yesterday was April 10th of 2010. Unless you were in the vicinity of Murfreesboro, Tennessee last year on the same date, it most likely means nothing to you. It was around noon on Good Friday. Rough weather had set in. Warnings of rotational conditions were promising a stressful afternoon of radio and TV monitoring for my eldest daughter, Ashley, who was a few miles away at work. My son and I had walked to the Great Harvest bakery around 10AM to bypass the inclement conditions; on our way back, I allowed him to stay behind at a friend's house just a few blocks away.
Once home, I clicked on the news and commenced to emptying our small pantry on the off chance we were forced to hide ourselves and our pets in its confined space. My middle daughter arrived home with a friend of hers; we joked about cramming his 6 foot+ frame in there with the rest of us. Channel 4 was broadcasting a good bit of red areas onscreen but for whatever reason, my attention was directed in other areas. The back door opened to reveal Zachary who had been dropped off by the neighbor because the weather had intensified. What he neglected to tell me until much after the fact was the sound of sirens serenading him in the distance directly before he popped in on us.
"Uh, mom? A tornado was spotted at the airport," there was the faintest hint of anxiety in Sarah's voice.
I replied, "Our airport? Here in Murfreesboro?" She nodded her head. I looked at the TV and found nothing to directly alarm me, "I think you saw wrong!" But, I did decide to rearrange the cars to downplay any possible hail damage. I pulled the Silverado into the garage and tried to squeeze past the full lawn-waste bags along its side. "What's that noise? Is your car . . . " My words froze in my throat as I stared at Sarah's friend who had parked his car along the edge of our garage. I'd heard descriptions of the sound. How very accurate -- the freight train was a-comin'!
I screamed at everyone to get in the pantry. NOW! The power had gone out in an instant. The garage door was stuck in the open position. I had visions of me being sucked out and up into the unseen vortex on the other side of the wall. This stupid huge truck! These stupid bags! Breaking free, I lunged for the open door, slamming it shut on the other side. By now, a palsy of fear shook me from head to toe. After making sure the kids were properly stowed away, I felt compelled to grab the camcorder I'd set on the dining room table to return to our neighbors after borrowing it for my anniversary trip to New York City. The window in front of me displayed an unbelievable scene. I was rooted to the spot. I could not look away. An undulating wall of air and, and, confused blackbirds? moved in and out and up and down over and to the right of my view. The dark objects appeared to dance in the pulsating grip of air currents. My God! My God!
I tore my gaze away and hightailed it for the pantry with its canned goods, pillows, flashlights, three frightened children, and one terrified Husky-mix dog. Fabio the cat, in his feline arrogance, refused to join us. The mingled sounds of our breathing mixed with the quick words of my pleading prayer to the Lord as we waited for the mighty noise to overpower our sounds and tear our world to pieces. I'd seen the falling hail and witnessed my carefully planted trees whipping in the abusive winds right before the pantry doorknob clicked into place. Even my imaginative brain could not conjure up images of something infinitely more powerful leaving us whole and safe in the next few minutes. I berated myself for paying such lax attention. How could I put that kid into harm's way over a car!? But, I really hadn't known. From Omaha, Nebraska to Lamar, Colorado to right here and right now, we'd experienced multiple episodes of such weather and always emerged on the other side, unscathed, and without the beneit of an actual sighting.
*************
We did survive to emerge from hiding. Unscathed. A miracle as I recall what I saw through our dining room window. What I witnessed as my kids and I followed the path of debris with camcorder in hand. Roof tiles, first individual, then in sections, giving way to entire rooms-worth of carpet from homes unknown. An Eeyore stuffed animal on a neighbor's lawn. Twisted pieces of metal siding in the middle of the roads. 2x4's treated like jagged spears as they jutted from trees, homes, lawns. Nails tossed about by a giant's careless hand. Power lines downed. Fences demolished. Substantial brick homes scattered like the pieces of a child's building set. Once magnificent trees sheared clean off; their stumps resembling broken teeth against the skyline and the earth.
Lost animals, wide-eyed homeowners, road-clogging cars -- everywhere. The telltale scent which signaled a broken gas line somewhere close. The scream of emergency vehicles. Static-filled voices calling out to all trucks and cars in the area of here and there, hither and yon! The frantic hustle of men and women, uniformed and civilian, searching with desperate energy through piles of rubble for a mother and her baby said to have been sucked from their house located kitty-corner to the yard they were now thought to be in. My borrowed video equipment became the record keeper of that moving rescue though Kori, 30, and Olivia, 9-weeks old, would become the only deaths of this immense tragedy.
The days and weeks to follow held far more power for me than the EF4 tornado and its partners which ripped through our fair city. By the time state and national officials arrived to survey the damage, huge portions of the clean-up efforts had already been completed by neighbors and locals who simply stepped in as needed. Power tools, trucks, food and water -- all seemed to appear as if on cue at all points mired by the devastation. The efforts of Murfreesboro and its peoples in the face of this unexpected challenge only reinforced the beliefs which led me to move to this area. Regular everyday people giving of their time and themselves for the sake of others.
Emotionally, the damage would linger, healing arriving in measured increments, for me, for John Bryant, who was left behind in the wake of his wife's and child's death, and the many others who were directly hit, losing their homes and cherished belongings. Physically, the scars created by the paths of the tornadoes are still evident but they have been softened by nature's restorative properties and man's ability to get things done. But yesterday, as I stood near the Stones River across from the Riverview neighborhood which was hit quite hard, leaning forward to hear every word spoken in a commemorative ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the Good Friday Tornadoes, I felt the loop close. It was a full-circle moment. We really were getting better. Moving forward.
There at the Thompson Lane Greenway Trailhead, with seedlings and saplings of replacement trees soaking up the perfect Springtime sunshine, I experienced that most elusive of goals in the face of life-changing events: closure. Our mayor gave a brief but touching speech. I listened to the jogging pastor who'd clung to a tall oak near the water as the eye of the storm passed over him. I finally saw, in person, up close and personal, the man whose wife and baby I had seen through the lens of that camcorder during those awful moments when hope and desperation stood hand-in-hand. The storm took from him, violently and without permission. The storm tossed him like a rag doll as he hunched over his family, protecting them to the best of his ability. The storm literally broke his back. But, it did not break him. John Bryant's spirit was intact. Everyone in the small crowd gathered at the edge of the path sensed it.
And, I felt at peace.
Once home, I clicked on the news and commenced to emptying our small pantry on the off chance we were forced to hide ourselves and our pets in its confined space. My middle daughter arrived home with a friend of hers; we joked about cramming his 6 foot+ frame in there with the rest of us. Channel 4 was broadcasting a good bit of red areas onscreen but for whatever reason, my attention was directed in other areas. The back door opened to reveal Zachary who had been dropped off by the neighbor because the weather had intensified. What he neglected to tell me until much after the fact was the sound of sirens serenading him in the distance directly before he popped in on us.
"Uh, mom? A tornado was spotted at the airport," there was the faintest hint of anxiety in Sarah's voice.
I replied, "Our airport? Here in Murfreesboro?" She nodded her head. I looked at the TV and found nothing to directly alarm me, "I think you saw wrong!" But, I did decide to rearrange the cars to downplay any possible hail damage. I pulled the Silverado into the garage and tried to squeeze past the full lawn-waste bags along its side. "What's that noise? Is your car . . . " My words froze in my throat as I stared at Sarah's friend who had parked his car along the edge of our garage. I'd heard descriptions of the sound. How very accurate -- the freight train was a-comin'!
I screamed at everyone to get in the pantry. NOW! The power had gone out in an instant. The garage door was stuck in the open position. I had visions of me being sucked out and up into the unseen vortex on the other side of the wall. This stupid huge truck! These stupid bags! Breaking free, I lunged for the open door, slamming it shut on the other side. By now, a palsy of fear shook me from head to toe. After making sure the kids were properly stowed away, I felt compelled to grab the camcorder I'd set on the dining room table to return to our neighbors after borrowing it for my anniversary trip to New York City. The window in front of me displayed an unbelievable scene. I was rooted to the spot. I could not look away. An undulating wall of air and, and, confused blackbirds? moved in and out and up and down over and to the right of my view. The dark objects appeared to dance in the pulsating grip of air currents. My God! My God!
I tore my gaze away and hightailed it for the pantry with its canned goods, pillows, flashlights, three frightened children, and one terrified Husky-mix dog. Fabio the cat, in his feline arrogance, refused to join us. The mingled sounds of our breathing mixed with the quick words of my pleading prayer to the Lord as we waited for the mighty noise to overpower our sounds and tear our world to pieces. I'd seen the falling hail and witnessed my carefully planted trees whipping in the abusive winds right before the pantry doorknob clicked into place. Even my imaginative brain could not conjure up images of something infinitely more powerful leaving us whole and safe in the next few minutes. I berated myself for paying such lax attention. How could I put that kid into harm's way over a car!? But, I really hadn't known. From Omaha, Nebraska to Lamar, Colorado to right here and right now, we'd experienced multiple episodes of such weather and always emerged on the other side, unscathed, and without the beneit of an actual sighting.
*************
We did survive to emerge from hiding. Unscathed. A miracle as I recall what I saw through our dining room window. What I witnessed as my kids and I followed the path of debris with camcorder in hand. Roof tiles, first individual, then in sections, giving way to entire rooms-worth of carpet from homes unknown. An Eeyore stuffed animal on a neighbor's lawn. Twisted pieces of metal siding in the middle of the roads. 2x4's treated like jagged spears as they jutted from trees, homes, lawns. Nails tossed about by a giant's careless hand. Power lines downed. Fences demolished. Substantial brick homes scattered like the pieces of a child's building set. Once magnificent trees sheared clean off; their stumps resembling broken teeth against the skyline and the earth.
Lost animals, wide-eyed homeowners, road-clogging cars -- everywhere. The telltale scent which signaled a broken gas line somewhere close. The scream of emergency vehicles. Static-filled voices calling out to all trucks and cars in the area of here and there, hither and yon! The frantic hustle of men and women, uniformed and civilian, searching with desperate energy through piles of rubble for a mother and her baby said to have been sucked from their house located kitty-corner to the yard they were now thought to be in. My borrowed video equipment became the record keeper of that moving rescue though Kori, 30, and Olivia, 9-weeks old, would become the only deaths of this immense tragedy.
The days and weeks to follow held far more power for me than the EF4 tornado and its partners which ripped through our fair city. By the time state and national officials arrived to survey the damage, huge portions of the clean-up efforts had already been completed by neighbors and locals who simply stepped in as needed. Power tools, trucks, food and water -- all seemed to appear as if on cue at all points mired by the devastation. The efforts of Murfreesboro and its peoples in the face of this unexpected challenge only reinforced the beliefs which led me to move to this area. Regular everyday people giving of their time and themselves for the sake of others.
Emotionally, the damage would linger, healing arriving in measured increments, for me, for John Bryant, who was left behind in the wake of his wife's and child's death, and the many others who were directly hit, losing their homes and cherished belongings. Physically, the scars created by the paths of the tornadoes are still evident but they have been softened by nature's restorative properties and man's ability to get things done. But yesterday, as I stood near the Stones River across from the Riverview neighborhood which was hit quite hard, leaning forward to hear every word spoken in a commemorative ceremony to mark the first anniversary of the Good Friday Tornadoes, I felt the loop close. It was a full-circle moment. We really were getting better. Moving forward.
There at the Thompson Lane Greenway Trailhead, with seedlings and saplings of replacement trees soaking up the perfect Springtime sunshine, I experienced that most elusive of goals in the face of life-changing events: closure. Our mayor gave a brief but touching speech. I listened to the jogging pastor who'd clung to a tall oak near the water as the eye of the storm passed over him. I finally saw, in person, up close and personal, the man whose wife and baby I had seen through the lens of that camcorder during those awful moments when hope and desperation stood hand-in-hand. The storm took from him, violently and without permission. The storm tossed him like a rag doll as he hunched over his family, protecting them to the best of his ability. The storm literally broke his back. But, it did not break him. John Bryant's spirit was intact. Everyone in the small crowd gathered at the edge of the path sensed it.
And, I felt at peace.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Pod Schooled
I'm continuing my education. I've got the podcast list to prove it. The professor for the course is 'Girlfriend' -- she looks and acts suspiciously like a well-kept iPhone. She dresses in Otterbox white, and dirt refuses to cling to her shell. Shhh. My reputation is shot if people catch on that I've gone high-tech iTech. Aww, who am I trying to fool? Everyone worth a darn in my life KNOWS that is the pit into which I've fallen since my 40th birthday hit hard and generously just last winter.
I should probably come clean and admit to surfing the net, blogging, and checking e-mail on my pretty-in-pink Dell laptop while updating my status ('stati' for multiple tweakings?) on Facebook using Girlfriend, all simultaneously. With that revelation, I either instantly jumped ahead on both your popularity list AND your friend list or sank to the bottom of the ocean floor, never to be admired or revered in your gray matter again. Should I mention I text and Facebook my daughters, son, and husband when the mood hits even when we are PRESENT at the SAME time in the SAME house? Nawww.
So, back to podcasts. The term has existed on the peripheral of my awareness for some time now. NPR (National Public Radio for those of you not in the know) reminds its listeners to check their prodigious offerings in between music and shows. My iTunes menu has a podcast selection in the list to the left of the main screen -- I just never knew what to do with it. It all sounded a bit outer spacey to me. Remember those enormous stone pods covered in oceanic plantlife in the classic movie, "Cocoon?" They end up in the swimming pool of an abandoned mansion, lending their life force to the old folks who discover their age-related ailments clear up after a dip with the dino eggs? THAT'S what came to my mind.
The real thing, an actual podcast, is a revelation in free, and often enlightened and most definitely entertaining, information. It's all there for the taking on any number of subjects in varying lengths and degrees of professional production. Faith, science, comedy, language, exercise, YOU name it. Brilliant, I tell you. Brilliant! Where have they been all my iPod-inculcated life? Let me interrupt to say I love me a whole slough of audio books downloaded to my iPhone; they are perfect company on my daily walks, house cleaning, gardening. I remain loyal to them and will access the online R.E.A.D.S. program via my local library, scouring for titles to accompany down one street and up another from spring to winter and back again, for as long as they'll have me.
But the day I ventured forth, tapping the iPod icon on my touchscreen menu, and accessing the vast array of podcast titles, and encountered a vista of companions for my constitutional outings, I swear my life changed. (Yet again, courtesy of Girlfriend.) Where else could I hear QuackCast in which an infectious disease doc systematically attacks and debunks the doctrine of quack medicines with tongue-in-cheek humor and barely contained disdain? I'm not quitting probiotics despite his well-researched rant, but I sure will read the labels and check the origins carefully! Oh, and New York Times Book Review where inspiring authors are interviewed and their works compared to established writers, and new titles judged worthy or not so much with intelligence and just the right amount of verve. I imagine myself there one day in the not too distant future.
My favorite podcast of the moment appears once a week on Mondays -- I await each update with baited breath, eager to catch wind of the subject matter -- and comes courtesy of Chicago Public Radio, This American Life. In-depth stories ripped from the broad headlines and brought micro, ranging from the collapse of the housing market as it affected a condo building of desperate owners in the big city desiring to hang on despite being ripped off by the builder who left them with myriad construction crises; to the imminent closing of NUMMI (an auto plant jointly opened by GM and Toyota back in the early 80's which could have saved GM had the spirit of this particular plant caught on industry-wide).
And, how could I forget this week's story on 'Enemy Camp 2010?' One whole segment was dedicated to a guy whose allergies and asthma drove him to research cultures where residents did not commonly suffer such things. His studies led him to West Africa where he toured 38 villages in two weeks to walk barefoot in their communal potty pits, hoping to contract a handy case of hookworm. Upon attaining his goal and experiencing a marked reduction in his seasonal sufferings, he marketed his hiney-hosting denizens to fellow sufferers via an online business before fleeing to Mexico after being shut down by the concerned folks at the FDA. My husband, who is miserable year-in and year-out with sinus headaches and the full-on attack of histamines, is so-o-o-o lucky that guy no longer ships to America! One worm or two, honey? (We Googled him. For $3,900 he can help you conquer wheezing, sniffles, itching, and even alleviate Crohn's Disease and other maladies. There is actual science to back this up though HE is neither a doctor or a scientist. Check it out! http://www.asthmahookworm.com/)
I find myself wondering if I, too, should enter the fray and start my own podcast? Off the top of my head, a short topic list might include a reading of letters from the edge of sanity per my brother's writings; adventures in flax, yogurt, and brooding bowels; what to do when the garden throws you Bermuda grass, blue lizards, and black widows; the profound wisdom of the American teen at the expense of mine own wisdom; and how to create usable topographical maps by connecting the stretch marks and spider veins present on my body and yours. Would YOU listen?
I should probably come clean and admit to surfing the net, blogging, and checking e-mail on my pretty-in-pink Dell laptop while updating my status ('stati' for multiple tweakings?) on Facebook using Girlfriend, all simultaneously. With that revelation, I either instantly jumped ahead on both your popularity list AND your friend list or sank to the bottom of the ocean floor, never to be admired or revered in your gray matter again. Should I mention I text and Facebook my daughters, son, and husband when the mood hits even when we are PRESENT at the SAME time in the SAME house? Nawww.
So, back to podcasts. The term has existed on the peripheral of my awareness for some time now. NPR (National Public Radio for those of you not in the know) reminds its listeners to check their prodigious offerings in between music and shows. My iTunes menu has a podcast selection in the list to the left of the main screen -- I just never knew what to do with it. It all sounded a bit outer spacey to me. Remember those enormous stone pods covered in oceanic plantlife in the classic movie, "Cocoon?" They end up in the swimming pool of an abandoned mansion, lending their life force to the old folks who discover their age-related ailments clear up after a dip with the dino eggs? THAT'S what came to my mind.
The real thing, an actual podcast, is a revelation in free, and often enlightened and most definitely entertaining, information. It's all there for the taking on any number of subjects in varying lengths and degrees of professional production. Faith, science, comedy, language, exercise, YOU name it. Brilliant, I tell you. Brilliant! Where have they been all my iPod-inculcated life? Let me interrupt to say I love me a whole slough of audio books downloaded to my iPhone; they are perfect company on my daily walks, house cleaning, gardening. I remain loyal to them and will access the online R.E.A.D.S. program via my local library, scouring for titles to accompany down one street and up another from spring to winter and back again, for as long as they'll have me.
But the day I ventured forth, tapping the iPod icon on my touchscreen menu, and accessing the vast array of podcast titles, and encountered a vista of companions for my constitutional outings, I swear my life changed. (Yet again, courtesy of Girlfriend.) Where else could I hear QuackCast in which an infectious disease doc systematically attacks and debunks the doctrine of quack medicines with tongue-in-cheek humor and barely contained disdain? I'm not quitting probiotics despite his well-researched rant, but I sure will read the labels and check the origins carefully! Oh, and New York Times Book Review where inspiring authors are interviewed and their works compared to established writers, and new titles judged worthy or not so much with intelligence and just the right amount of verve. I imagine myself there one day in the not too distant future.
My favorite podcast of the moment appears once a week on Mondays -- I await each update with baited breath, eager to catch wind of the subject matter -- and comes courtesy of Chicago Public Radio, This American Life. In-depth stories ripped from the broad headlines and brought micro, ranging from the collapse of the housing market as it affected a condo building of desperate owners in the big city desiring to hang on despite being ripped off by the builder who left them with myriad construction crises; to the imminent closing of NUMMI (an auto plant jointly opened by GM and Toyota back in the early 80's which could have saved GM had the spirit of this particular plant caught on industry-wide).
And, how could I forget this week's story on 'Enemy Camp 2010?' One whole segment was dedicated to a guy whose allergies and asthma drove him to research cultures where residents did not commonly suffer such things. His studies led him to West Africa where he toured 38 villages in two weeks to walk barefoot in their communal potty pits, hoping to contract a handy case of hookworm. Upon attaining his goal and experiencing a marked reduction in his seasonal sufferings, he marketed his hiney-hosting denizens to fellow sufferers via an online business before fleeing to Mexico after being shut down by the concerned folks at the FDA. My husband, who is miserable year-in and year-out with sinus headaches and the full-on attack of histamines, is so-o-o-o lucky that guy no longer ships to America! One worm or two, honey? (We Googled him. For $3,900 he can help you conquer wheezing, sniffles, itching, and even alleviate Crohn's Disease and other maladies. There is actual science to back this up though HE is neither a doctor or a scientist. Check it out! http://www.asthmahookworm.com/)
I find myself wondering if I, too, should enter the fray and start my own podcast? Off the top of my head, a short topic list might include a reading of letters from the edge of sanity per my brother's writings; adventures in flax, yogurt, and brooding bowels; what to do when the garden throws you Bermuda grass, blue lizards, and black widows; the profound wisdom of the American teen at the expense of mine own wisdom; and how to create usable topographical maps by connecting the stretch marks and spider veins present on my body and yours. Would YOU listen?
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