Grandmother Problems

My granddaughter tells me stories about when she used to be a grandmother. I am torn between believing she remembers past lives or she's a liar. She also tells me I will always be a grandmother and she will always be a kid, making me wonder if the grandmother in her is watching over the child in her.

Girls Gone a Little Wild - Day 1

We were too old, flat-chested, and boring to be real Girls Gone Wild, even if we had wanted. Besides, this happened in the days when college students, not under-chaperoned high schoolers, comprised the spring break crowd, and the future infamous videos were still male fantasies. We were four exhausted, mid-twenties, friends since childhood, working women looking for a sunny beach on which we could leave our real lives behind for a few days. 

Well, I was looking forward to sun and fun; I discovered later that my vacation mates were more interested in catching up on soaps. Since my air-conditioned car still smelled moldy following an unfortunate dip in the river and an insufficient supply of air circulation during the drying process we decided to take the second-newest car on vacation - Friend 1's (to become F1 for the duration of this post) un-air-conditioned Nova with black interior. It seemed reasonable enough as long as we scheduled driving time to exclude the hottest parts of the day. Seriously, though, there are no NOT SCORCHING times on a drive from Kentucky to Florida in August.

The two hour detour AAA had mapped on our long-cut triptik made the total driving time fifteen hours; we could work around those nine sunny ones. Friday evening, after work and school, we crammed the trunk with a week's worth of clothing and food, and headed out (not south, because of the detour), deciding to stop for dinner somewhere along the way. We giggled and planned the first hour. I wanted to see the two-story nightclub with the clear floor between levels. F2 had her heart set on the dog races, which interested none of the rest of us, and F1 and F3 coordinated their television schedule. 

The Nova blew a rear tire about an hour before we reached the state line, where we had also planned to find the closest restaurant and stop. White-knuckled and screaming, F1 handled the bucking car like a pro. She dodged traffic and cruised to a halt in the emergency lane without killing anyone or losing her voice. When able to breathe again, we poured out of the car to unload the trunk and retrieve the jack and spare. 

After each of us had pounded and jumped on the lug wrench multiple times with F1 screeching about stripping nuts, and we stood on the side of the road and recited every cuss word we knew, we admitted defeat. The lug nuts were apparently satisfied in their current positions and did not intend to let us disrupt them. In concert with F2's first tear, help arrived. Two guys on motorcycles broke away from their pack and pulled in behind us. 

With smiles and bravado, they promised to have us back on the road in no time. I am sure they meant that promise, but the lug nuts wanted no part of it. Our embarrassed rescuers came to an agreement through a series of eyebrow raises, head jerks, and twitches and made an offer. If we stayed in the emergency lane, drove as slowly as possible to the service station at the bottom of the next exit ramp, they would follow to make sure we made it to a service station. 

They helped us load everything back into the trunk and wished us luck, again communicating a silent message to one another with their eyes, this one a bit unsettling from my perspective. F1 followed their instructions. Soon, we thumped across the service station parking lot and stopped on the side of the building, out of the way of other customers. We thanked our friends for seeing us to safety, but they were with us for the duration. One helped unload the trunk again while the other went inside with F1 and returned with a special tool, guaranteed to work on belligerent lug nuts. 

The bigger of the two squatted to remove the flat while the other supervised and flirted with F2. When big guy announced he was ready for the spare, the scrawny one took the special tool from his hand and placed it in the well of the opened back door while his friend pulled the tire out. Two service station employees charged from the building, trampled our bags and groceries, and accused the motorcycle guys of trying to steal their special tool. 

Within seconds, what seemed to be the entire male population of the small town came to help the service station employees protect the tool that one had already used to do a special job on big motorcycle guy's face. F2 and F3 ran across the road to use a pay phone. F1 stood behind the car and screamed. I had no fist-fighting experience and no real death wish but could not watch this town of fools kill two nice guys without at least putting forth my best effort to stop them. 

I mostly got in the way of the men who would not hit a skinny, hysterical female, but did throw a couple of good punches before jumping on the a service station employee's back and pummeling his ears until the police arrived. Our trampled luggage and groceries saved us a trip to jail. After much pleading and explaining on our part, and blood from Big Guy, one officer persuaded the others to believe we had not planned to leave our things behind and drive away on three tires with their special tool. Two police officers stayed behind to watch us replace the tire and reload the trunk. 

When we had finished, he wasted good breath telling us to get out of town and stay out, as if we had not each remapped the return trip in our heads to avoid ever passing that place again. Since we had not eaten, we followed our motorcycle heroes to the Renfro Valley Bluegrass Festival and spent the next three hours eating corn and various animals the event coordinators had cooked in pits and on spits, apparently for days. Bleeding guy tended his face, my friends had a few beers, we strolled through acres of fiddlers, banjo pickers, and singers, and I did my best to follow a couple of patient partners through simple square dances. 

Four hours behind schedule, we returned to the car. My sober status made me the designated driver. F2 volunteered to ride shotgun, talk non-stop so I wouldn't doze off, and to keep me supplied with fresh Dr. Peppers. F1 and F3 slept in the back seat. As we crossed into Georgia, F2 remembered another construction area and detour and fumbled unsuccessfully through the glove compartment in search of directions. 

We woke F1 and F3, searched the car, and then unloaded the trunk, finally deciding the missing triptik must be on the ground at the service station. With no desire to return, even if they hadn't run us out of town, we found another service station in another small town that felt far too familiar, and bought a new map while exercising our most gracious characters. This map did not come with documented detours and prose directions for avoiding them. 

By morning rush hour, I had driven into a construction area that added the sixth extra hour to our drive. Someone else got our reserved suite with the kitchen. We ended up in a single room at the low end of the strip. Lucky for my friends, the room came with a television. With the easy part of the trip behind us we fell across the beds for a much needed rest . . .

Let Me Speak English

I teased him about his English but the truth is I adored his accent. I found his little mix-ups charming, and couldn't resist a man who said, Turn down your window, Jaime fell feet over hair for some girl, your mom made turnpikes (turnips) for dinner, and will you fix me a pair of toast? 

He laughed with me, worked on pronunciation, carried his dictionary and used new words, and attacked language with the same enthusiasm and curiosity he gave all other challenges of living in a new country. In no time, he stopped tasting the fruit in the grocery aisle, started matching his clothes, accepted traffic rules, and grew his hair long, same as the American guys in the early seventies. 

The tables turned when his parents decided to come visit. I bought a dictionary and crammed day and night, hoping to improve my Spanish enough to say something more to them than I love you and the dozen or so cuss words I had mastered. My accent was horrendous but he didn't laugh. Verb conjugation frustrated me. Too many words sounded alike. I couldn't tell where one word ended and another began when I heard others speak, and I thought it was ridiculous that nouns had genders. 

Overwhelmed, I finally focused on a short list of the most important words and phrases. I practiced for days on 'pleased to meet you' and what I thought I might need most if left alone with them: are you hungry, I am tired, the bathroom is over there. 

I prepared on the plane as we flew to meet them in Washington, building confidence when he didn't laugh at me the way I had him, and went over everything one last time at the airport while we waited for their plane to arrive. "You'll do fine," he promised. 

Fifteen minutes after their plane was due to arrive, he left me sitting at the gate to go investigate the delay. I relaxed, silently rehearsing my lines one last time while I watched a group of passengers exit the next gate down. When the crowd had scattered in the corridor, I recognized the lone couple standing to the side holding hands and looking forgotten, as the people I had seen in pictures and kept in mind while I practiced my Spanish. He was nowhere in sight. I kept an eye on the couple and scrolled through my mental list, hoping something would seem appropriate. Pleased to meet you felt right, so I walked toward them with a smile and those words on the tip of my tongue. 

His father recognized me and pointed me out to his mother. She smiled. I rushed forward and hugged them both. 

"I like long hair," I said, in Spanish, because at that moment, pleased to meet you and I like long hair sounded the same to me. They smiled and nodded. 

He came running back, hair brushing his shoulders, and rattled off long streams of Spanish, none of which I understood. His father was laughing too hard to hear him. He thought my mistake was an intentional warning. 

 The parents stayed for three months, in which time his father did not go for a haircut. Several months after returning home, he sent me a picture of himself with even longer hair.

My thoughts on Abortion/Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy

 

 

I'll start with science and terminology, since working in a facility that provided voluntary interruption of pregnancy is where my pre-programmed religious misinformation first fell apart. Abortion is the medical term for miscarriage (spontaneous abortion, incomplete abortion, missed abortion) in the medical record. And the elective procedure that everyone calls abo
rtion is voluntary interruption of pregnancy (usually VIP in the record). As part of my job, I reviewed pathology reports of all normal tissue removal and presented/discussed with surgeons and pathologists in monthly meetings. So, I saw the reports and was SHOCKED (at the time) to discover that there were no arms and legs, or screams and crying as the Catholics who had misled me had claimed. The products of conception were seldom bigger than or different from a heavy period clot - IF that big. About 10% of all potential pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion (miscarriage). Learning this changed my perception drastically.

·         ICD-10-CM Code for Complete or unspecified spontaneous abortion without complication O03. 9.

·         An incomplete abortion is the partial loss of the products of conception within the first 20 weeks. Incomplete abortion usually presents with moderate to severe vaginal bleeding, which may be associated with lower abdominal and/or pelvic pain.

·         A missed abortion is a nonviable intrauterine pregnancy that has been retained within the uterus without spontaneous abortion. Typically, no symptoms exist besides amenorrhea, and the patient finds out that the pregnancy stopped developing earlier when a fetal heartbeat is not observed or heard at the appropriate time.

·         What is elective termination of pregnancy? The term elective abortion or voluntary abortion describes the interruption of pregnancy before viability at the request of the woman, but not for medical reasons. Most abortions done today are elective, and thus, it is one of the most frequently performed medical procedures.

·         Early pregnancy loss is common. It happens in about 10 of 100 known pregnancies.

·         Bleeding during miscarriage can appear brown and resemble coffee grounds. Or it can be pink to bright red. It can alternate between light and heavy or even stop temporarily before starting up again. If you miscarry before you're eight weeks pregnant, it might look the same as a heavy period.

AMA Journal of Ethics - Why We Should Stop Using the Term “Elective Abortion”

From a religious perspective:

·         The word "abortion" does not appear in any translation of the bible.

·         It shouldn't matter what the Bible says about abortion. The United States is not a theocracy.

·         You cannot claim an unborn pregnancy as a dependent on tax forms, so it is not a person by law.

In my opinion, anyone who believes they are judging this procedure based on religious tenet must either think their god is a heartless jerk or not believe there is a spirit/soul that simply takes up residence in a human body for a time, which defies the commonly espoused ideas of heaven and hell. To qualify further discussion of this topic with me, a person must tell me their personal belief of when the soul enters the body. If it is at conception, I want to know what in their study negated an argument that jumping from one host body to another isn’t a version of heaven or being forced to stay unwelcomed in a host that will only mistreat that spirt isn’t hell. If, at this point, a person literally visualizes hell as eternal flames and heaven as gold-lined streets and can’t continue this discussion, I don’t think this person’s intelligence provides what is necessary to continue this discussion.

In alliance with my personal principles: the decision to continue or terminate an unwanted pregnancy for any reason should be the choice of the mother whose body will be obligated to carry the pregnancy. If she is in a relationship with the father, I believe he should be included in the decision making but, ultimately, if they disagree, the final decision belongs only to her. I believe this decision should be made as soon as possible in the case of voluntary interruption of pregnancy. In the case of life and death for the mother or baby, it should be as soon as possible after life-and-death is determined by the physician. Contrary to often repeated lies, there are very few late-term terminations, and physicians only perform them in life-and-death situations.

My thoughts on trying to preserve products of conception that have not fully developed to exist without life-support and a guarantee of a thriving human in the end are not solid. I believe there are many variables that must be considered. The length of time that the mother has to safely make that decision and the advice of qualified pediatricians, as well as available social services to provide medical care, housing, proper nutrition, and a life worth living should all be considered. THIS is the discussion that an intelligent, caring society would be having instead of the one we’ve been having.

Outlawing voluntary interruption of pregnancy, blurring the lines between science and religion, taking rights away from women, destroying a democracy to bring in a theocracy – none of this will make this a better world. And no god worth the *idea* that desperate believers have created of him/it would waste another second without smiting the people who are trying to make women their livestock.

Smite is the key word. It’s all about smite – who gets to smite, who gets smote, do we smite real live women or potential pregnancies.  

Nightmares in my Heart

Any time my eyes close for longer than a blink, I dream. Cat naps, Rip-Van-Winkle marathons, and everything between produce action-packed, Netflix™-worthy, private, subconscious drama. I remember most of my dreams, often in great, although confusing, detail.

            People I have known forever trade names and faces in my dreams. Dead people come to life; sometimes, healthy friends or family members do not survive my imagination. My dream weaver ignores time, placing a young and an old me in different scenes of the same dream, while other cast members maintain a consistent age. In a non-kinky sense, couples switch partners in my dreams.

            Most of the time, I understand which of my recent thoughts or events caused a dream, and I know the moral of the story. Usually, I enjoy and/or appreciate my dreams.

            I worked out a deal with the impish part of my psyche. During early stages of loss, when it can’t resist reconnecting emotions if I drop my guard, I will stay awake until I am too exhausted to dream. Never again will I cry myself to sleep, allow the imp to convince me that my father is still alive, or that I’ll roll over to face a man who is long gone, only to open my eyes and face the truth anew. Never.

Despite what the psyche might think, a heart should not break multiple times for the same loss.

 

 

 

 

           

 

My Vicarious Life

 

            There are several aspects to my vicarious life that I will address throughout my life story (current WIP, some of which I might blog). I am focusing on the trapped singer inside my body here. If I could do anything just once, I would choose to sing all my emotions out in one killer song. I’m not sure which song I would choose but I am certain I would want to sing it exactly the way Beth Hart sings “I’d Rather Be Blind”. I am attaching links to a video of her singing the song straight through, because the vocals and guitar are perfection - and to a vocal coach reviewing that video. 

ALSO - Joe Bonamassa’s guitar solo in this is as close as it gets to hearing my second husband play again - the tone and style are much like his. 

Beth’s delivery of this song exemplifies my core - my soul, my dreams, my pain, my life, the best and worst of me and my life, my deepest emotions, my path and my past, my addiction to emotion, my passion, my talent (both realized and unrequited), my childhood and my adulthood, my innate knowledge of what I need to do but haven’t managed to accomplish – so my biggest failure. If you listen to the video with the vocal coach reviewing, you’ll know exactly how I listen to music.

Even though I sang at home, probably enough to drive my parents crazy during my fascination with opera, once I got to school and was made a ‘listening bird’ in singing class, I kept it only at home and tried first to release this need through playing the accordion. I wanted piano but when I first started (age 7) we lived in a small house and didn’t have room for a piano. I settled for accordion and was grateful later when I realized that back then it wouldn’t have been possible to carry my own piano around.

I enjoyed making music, alone or with others, at a young age.

On weekends when we gathered with the families of my parents’ friends, I was happier inside with the men who were playing music than I was outside playing with the kids, so I took my accordion and they allowed me to sit it. I learned “Carnival of Venus” for Bill Lynch, the first guitar player whose music I fell in love with, and “Harbor Lights” for my Uncle Charlie because he insisted it was the only song worth listening to. I also played solo, group, and band in American Guild of Music competition, and in local bars (yes, boomer kids got to go in bars) and concerts. So, carting around an instrument was part of my life.

My dad’s best friend played guitar and sang, alone and with other musicians. I spent many hours listening to him.

I played out my teenage angst and mourned my first divorce on that accordion. I also got seated in the supply closet in typing class because the teacher insisted that I had to be cheating to get 120 wpm on a standard typewriter when the truth was, my fingers were practiced and limber e enough to do that.

But no matter how much I played or what level of success I reached on the accordion it never satisfied my need to sing. So, I started living vicariously through other musicians and singers, particularly one singer.  The first time I heard her sing, she probably hadn’t reached her teens yet. I was in a mall with my parents and siblings when her amazing voice silenced us (not an easy task with my family) and drew us, along with hundreds of shoppers, some coming out of stores, to the area where she was performing. She was amazing even before we saw it was a child but more so then. Years later, when she was twenty, our paths would cross again when she hired the man I was dating as her band leader and lead guitarist. I spent the next twenty years listening to her sing and doing everything I could to make her famous.

The making her famous part was because I thought she was good enough to be famous but also because I carried a tiny bit of responsibility/guilt for making her lose that opportunity. When I met her, she was twenty years old. Her father had controlled her career since she was six and now, she had a backer with deep pockets and many conditions. He wanted (as did her father) to keep her innocent little girl image so her mother had to be with her on the road, overseeing every move she made. Eventually, they allowed me (I was twenty-seven) to be her chaperone if her mother couldn’t be present. She fell in love with her bass player and kept it secret for a while but grew tired of that arrangement. When he asked her to marry him and get out from under the controlling hands that held her, she talked to me about it and I encouraged her to follow her heart. She did and the backer dropped her – after investing a couple of million dollars in her. Part of me believes he was a bit perverted to want to own her private life and the other part wonders what if. Maybe she should have waited for him to release the first album and make herself known before following her heart. It was ultimately her decision and I supported it.

I sat in bars, hotel lounges, concert halls, night clubs, television audiences . . .  for years, listening and encouraging, across the country, before during and after my marriage to her guitarist. I was always *there* when she was down, when she had candle and Tupperware parties, when she needed batteries for her mic, when she needed someone to walk her in because there were motorcycles in the parking lot, when she wanted someone to ride home with so she didn’t have to stay for equipment breakdown and truck packing, when she had a meeting in Nashville and didn’t want to go alone . . .  My friends said she used me. I said they didn’t know it was the opposite. As with my kids, if she accomplished what I wanted, I knew I would be as happy for her as I would have been for myself.

And, no matter how badly my life was falling apart around me and it did while I knew her – my father was diagnosed with cancer and died, I went through a horrendous divorce, a major corporation sued me, I bought the money-pit house and lost what little money I had left after the divorce judge gave half of everything I owned before the marriage as well as everything we bought during the marriage to the husband who made much less, I was assaulted, I was determined to be totally and permanently disabled . . .  No matter what was happening, I knew if I sat somewhere listening to her sing the rest of the world disappeared for that length of time. We used each other.

She gave me many memories to use. My favorite was riding with her to a competition. She drove a van that apparently had great acoustics and wanted me to critique as she practiced. Her song was “Down on My Knees” recorded by Trisha Yearwood, who is tough to beat. My friend out-sang Trisha on that one. Listening to her sing that song repeatedly as she drove was overwhelmingly satisfying – the uniqueness of having so much soul and pain without grit impacted me, believing that no one could possibly beat her (she took first in the regional, third in the national) was exciting, and her ownership of “love is not a matter of pride” made me love her as much as I loved her voice.

In the end, she didn’t deliver. She was more content to be a big fish in a small pond. If I had had her talent or she had had my drive and courage, one of us would have realized our dream.

As a young adult my brother and his friends played a lot of music in the basement and in bars. I was always there. Both of my husbands played guitar and sang, one professionally, as did another man in my life after them, and had a number of friends who were musicians and singers. My daughters both took vocal lessons – the older didn’t let me listen and the younger sang nonstop in my home for years. When any of my friends or family were successful, it eased the pain of my inability to do it myself.

In the end, though, nothing short of singing like Beth Hart, Haley Reinhart, and Karise Eden combined will satisfy this need. I’m putting it on my agenda for next life.