Living My Dreams

Published on Gather, March 24, 2008 11:33 AM EDT

I am a dreamer in every sense of the word. I dream when asleep and when awake, literally and metaphorically. I observe some dreams, experience others, and occasionally receive messages through dreams.

Everything is possible for the metaphorical dreamer. I know I can do it, you can do it, and the world can be it. Cynicism will not embarrass, discourage, or stop me, because I know all things are possible and I will not give up. Playing a role in helping you realize your dreams excites me as much as my own accomplishments please me, sometimes more since I take pleasure in watching you enjoy your success. (If you don't want me to push you, it's probably best not to let me know your dreams.)

I was the strange child who looked forward to nap and bed times, and welcomed heads-down breaks in school because they gave me a chance to dream. Daydreams made my walks and drives to and from school and work bearable, often entertaining. I solved world problems, married a few movie stars, tried on new professions, and imagined many what-ifs. I am the even stranger mother and grandmother now that I insist everyone announce the wish aloud before blowing out the candles, because others will help your dreams come true if you let them know what you want.

My sleeping dreams are colorful, vivid, and detailed. Most of my dreams are pleasant; sleeping is like watching a movie. I've had nightmares and recurring dreams, with obvious (maybe not immediately) lessons. Most memorable is the recurring scenes in which I was unable to remove an article of clothing or, if I did get it off, it was covering another just like it. That dream arrived with my realization that most of what people had taught me about religion was a burden, not a truth. When I relieved myself of guilt by clearing up the messages that I had repeated to others, I was able to remove the clothing and the dreams stopped.

My dreams often remain in my subconscious upon waking, but I always have the ability to call them forward if I want. I can return to a dream if something wakes me before I am ready to give it up and, at times, I have kept a dream going for weeks, picking up where I left off as soon as my head hit the pillow the next time. I think those might have been my early writing exercises since I stopped continuing dreams when I started writing.

More significant than visual acuity is the remarkable clarity of emotions that accompany my sleeping visions. At times, those emotions linger after I wake and change my life. The same way the emotional impact of giving birth or losing someone I love alters my being, emotions generated while sleeping remain with me. For me, the origin of those emotions matters more than trying to assign meaning in the physical symbols of my dreams.

Dreams - sleeping, waking, good, bad, literal, and figurative - are an important part of my life. People shake their heads and call me a dreamer, using the same insulting tone others use to call me a liberal. I pity them for not having dreams.

Bet You Can't Beat This

Published to Gather, December 15, 2006 09:29 AM EST (Updated: December 15, 2006 09:58 AM EST)

Our quarrel began the night before I was born and ended the morning she died unless, as I suspect, her spirit lingers to resent the funeral. A rational person would assume that if she knows about the arrangements, she should also know that I voiced her final wishes, defended her outlandish choice, and disputed their veto, but lucidity seldom entered our relationship. If experience and idioms are to be trusted, she is most likely flailing in her grave, blaming me.

Just in case, I will spend today resenting her back. (Lest you think I am disrespectful, I assure you she would appreciate this.) Today is not my birthday. However, it is the day she would deliver a birthday card laced with the only lottery ticket I would touch this year since I am not a gambler.

They all wanted me to enter this life on my grandmother's birthday. I teased them by sending my mother into labor and drawing everyone to the hospital on the correct day. But I waited until after midnight to make my appearance, setting the stage for a lifetime of drama. Mom and Grammy forgave me, I assume immediately since I recall no early problems with them. Struggles with Aunt Jackie, on the other hand, haunt some of my youngest memories and stuck around the balance of the years we shared.

My penchant for never sleeping started with the long nights of vice-grip determination to keep her from taking my pillow. Sharing my room and my bed were enough - the pillow was not included in the deal. I tired of calling heads or tails, picking a hand, guessing a number, drawing a card, or rolling a die, and learned to feign sleep. Eyes tight, knuckles white, I listened for her to come in and then forced the weight of my entire body into my head. By morning, she ended up with two pillows, and I was left with my head resting flat on the mattress.

Insomnia, lottery tickets, and birthday celebrations on the wrong date were not the only or the most significant gifts I received from this aunt, though. True to her eccentric nature, she delivered excessive gifts, twisted in resentment, and adorned in life lessons. It took half a lifetime to understand that she was not purposely torturing me with the marathon dinners in lavish restaurants when I would rather have been at home, eating pizza with my friends, and that giving me extravagant clothes and jewelry that I thought were gorgeous but not me allowed her to play the mother sometimes.

For years, I believed the lifetime of resentment she harbored toward me stemmed from my having placed an inexcusable burden on her calendar. Either waiting for my slow birth had kept her from the most exciting date ever, or the thought of family celebrations on two consecutive days was more than she could handle. My calendar theory faded after years of watching her enjoy poker games, horse races, and bingos, and I decided she must have wagered a small fortune on my delivery date. 

(Aunt Jackie playing bookie at a Derby Party)

Whatever the reason, I had no power to amend my transgression so I the playing field by endorsing her unique characteristics. Eventually, I earned her respect by beating her at her own games. For example, when she decided it was okay to lift a Christmas tree ornament as long as three like it remained, I bought the biggest tree I could find, decorated it in threes, and bet her a dollar she would not find a liftable ornament. She could not resist, or hide how proud she was of me for beating her.

When she announced her final request, I supported her. A game of showdown poker-winner takes all--on her casket seemed much more appropriate than a traditional will for this aunt. Unfortunately, husbands, sisters, attorneys, and funeral directors aren't always as open-minded as I am.

So, in case she is around, resenting me for not insisting on that poker hand, I will assume she is also wishing me a Happy Birthday and resent her having the wrong day. I might play a game of showdown poker and honestly lose everything she owned. For sure, even if she isn't lingering, I will miss her and appreciate the many gifts she has given me.

1968

Published on Gather, January 27, 2008 04:57 PM EST (Updated: January 28, 2008 01:52 PM EST)

Like Duckie, I also had a recent visit from a Ghost.

December 31, 1968.

• Bell-bottomed, black, bolero pants with wide suspender straps over an uncharacteristic,
  
  
  white, ruffled blouse my parents had given me for Christmas, worn only to protect their feelings.
• Black pumps with gold buckles, a poor choice for walking on ice.
• A tight girdle (laughable in retrospect, since I was 110 pounds with a flat stomach, no butt, and toothpick legs), because I needed something to hold my stockings up without having garters show through my pants.
• My favorite peach and brown bikini panties, even though I couldn't wear the matching bra under a white blouse and I didn't plan on letting anyone else see them, included only because they felt stylish
• Blue eye shadow, light pink--almost white--lipstick and copper rouge applied under my cheekbones. Black eyeliner curled up at the outside corners, with a thin line of liquid white above the pupils to create the Sophia Loren look.
• Gold wire earrings with snowflake charms, a gold barrette securing the top layers of side hair to the back of my head.
• Hard contact lenses that still felt like huge chunks of broken glass in my eyes.
• A pea coat, and Daddy's rabbit-lined leather gloves.
• And a smile that would last forty-five days.

Until then, my father had photographed every event in my life and laminated some of his favorites. But the camera didn't come out for my first, first date with the guy with whom I would later share many firsts, many of which I would not have wanted anyone to photograph. For some reason that I won't try to guess, Daddy did not preserve this night on film; the only picture is the one that my memory pulled out on December 31, 2007, when it all came back to me - the clothes, the music, and the emotions.

What caused that night to revisit thirty-nine years later? Forty makes sense as a milestone year. It might seem appropriate if I had been at a house party in the same neighborhood, worn similar clothes, spent the evening with his friends or family, mentioned his name, heard Diana Ross' "Love Child", seen a picture of him, or even thought his name. None of those qualifiers carried me into the time warp.

One minute I was sitting on the couch in my 2007 sweats, listening to a movie on television while I worked on a craft project. In an instant, I landed in the same calendar square thirty-nine years earlier.

Now, nearly a month later, I still feel something akin to the life-altering hangover of a dream that was too real. If he were still alive, I would expect him to call. As it is, I've started 2008 feeling young, and with a wild streak that has nowhere to go.

(I alternately blame and thank Time Heals and Lyndon for drudging up this bad boy, and Duckie for opening the door to let him back in.)

Jerome Corsi Exceeds His Father's Expectations

Posted on Gather, August 16, 2008 12:06 PM EDT (Updated: August 16, 2008 02:38 PM EDT) 

Over the years, I’ve met writers whose work impressed me more than anything I see on the bookstore shelves, yet they pile up rejection letters and never seem to be noticed. This morning, during a C-SPAN appearance, Jerome Corsi shed a little light on the topic when he shared the journalistic advice his father gave him: If you aren’t making people angry, you aren’t doing your job.

I think it is safe to assume that Jerome probably exceeded his father’s expectations with comments like these[1]:

• Corsi on Islam: "a worthless, dangerous Satanic religion"

• Corsi on Catholicism: "Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn't reported by the liberal press"

• Corsi on Muslims: "RAGHEADS are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters -- it all goes together"

• Corsi on "John F*ing Commie Kerry": "After he married TerRAHsa, didn't John Kerry begin practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?"

• Corsi on Senator "FAT HOG" Clinton: "Anybody ask why HELLary couldn't keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?"

And accolades like these:

• He plagiarizes[2] and can’t write a book on his own[3].
• He’s embarrassing[4].
• He’s a white supremacist[5].

Not only have the good people of the Midwest[6] called his work “classic gutter politics,” others have written that he is ugly, inside and out[7]. Millions of people are outraged by the deceptive garbage he writes and it’s rumored there are plans for a million man and woman march planned on Simon and Schuster for publishing it, probably in honor of the close relationship Corsi’s father has with Louis Farrakhan[8]. (Please research this footnote and observe that this is not merely an insinuation that the father is as gay as the son is[9])

The books probably just earned brownie points, extra hugs, and seconds on dessert.

Then, I remember that some of my writing friends anger people daily. The Chive™ sent a few people into flaggot rages, Devin Barber draws hatred from all fifty states and a few foreign countries, and others manage to have someone remove their comments or tattle to Gather almost hourly. But, as far as I know, those writers haven’t been picked up by their local newspapers or Mother Jones, much less Simon & Schuster. There had to be something more to this than something as simple as Jerome Corsi hanging out in the men’s room for a little between-stalls footsie at Simon & Schuster.

Mr. Corsi cleared this up for me as well. When questioned about the trash he has written, he referred the questioners to the footnotes in his books (for the parts he either couldn’t remember or didn’t want to admit in public) and said he supports freedom of speech. Therefore, I am exercising his version of free speech with this article to see how it feels to write from the perspective of a best selling, plagiarizing[10], lying, hen-pecked by a wife[11] who doesn’t speak English[12], winner of the biggest loser award[13] who blew his lid[14] and attacked George Bush[15] but somehow managed to avoid prison.

I hope my use of footnotes is impressive enough to earn me a column somewhere.

Unfit for Publication

[1]Media Matters

[2] He Plagiarizes

[3] Can’t Write on his own

[4] Embarrassing

[5] White Supremacist

[6] Midwest hates him

[7] Ugly, inside and out – extremely credible source

[8] Name connections another great source

[9] Is Jerome Corsi gay- this source better than Ann Coulter

[10] Plagiarized

[11] Henpecked

[12] Does his wife speak English? Could she be an illegal alien?

[13] Winner of the biggest loser award

[14] Blew his lid

[15] Attacked Bush

Love or Leave

(published to Gather on March 27, 2008 09:08 AM ED)

When my child falls to the floor in the aisle between cereal and pop tarts and throws a temper tantrum, I am not proud. I might walk away with the Quaker Oatmeal Squares and pretend I don't hear her screaming for Reeses Puffs, but I don't desert her and look for a perfect child.

I don't excuse her because she needs a nap, or because she saw Reeses Puffs ads on television, or because I have seen other children demonstrate the same behavior, or even because most three-year-olds behave that way. And I don't blame the grocer for stocking the unhealthy choice or the network for running the ad.

I don't excuse her inappropriate behavior because her father doesn't contribute emotionally or financially, or because she is female and therefore expected to be emotional. I don't decide she deserves a treat because she is female and will always get the short end of the stick in life. I don't reinforce any of the excuses she might hear from anyone, anywhere, any time in her life.

Did I already say I am not proud of her behavior? I want to say that again. I love her and I forgive her, but am not proud of my daughter's inappropriate behavior.

I will tell my daughter I am sorry she is disappointed. I will understand her need to cry. But, I will tell her that she chose the wrong time, place, and method of expressing that disappointment. I will explain that her inappropriate behavior disrupted others, and why repeating that behavior will not benefit her.

I will tell her screaming in public is not appropriate. I will tell her she has choices, and the power to choose behaviors that will benefit her in life. I will tell her how many friends, ads, movies, magazines, and grocery shelves she will meet in life, and how many times people will offer her excuses and scapegoats. I will make sure she knows I believe she has the strength to resist what will hurt her.

She might not hear me the first fifty times I tell her about her about power and choices, but that won't stop me; I will repeat myself until she finds her strength. As her mother, it is my job to believe in her, arm her with knowledge, and give her strength, and I take my job seriously.

I love and respect my child enough to help her when she is out of sorts.

When my government pitches an eight-year temper tantrum, I am not proud. I know it can do better. I will not excuse poor behavior because others have done the same, or put it down for a nap and hope that will solve the problems. I will address the problems and repeat myself until it finds the strength to make healthy choices.

It is not a matter of love it or leave it (I can't believe people are still saying that). For me, this is about loving enough to do the work, even when it isn't popular or easy.


As a citizen, it is my job to believe in my government, arm it with strength and knowledge, and I take my job seriously.