mamma-land or lack thereof

Everyone who knows me knows that I’m not big on holidays. That doesn’t mean I don’t acknowledge them; it means I don’t want others to feel obligated to participate on any set day. As my daughter Tara says, “I love you all the days, Mamma.” Yes she does, and she shows it, too.

My mamma has been dead for 17 years. I’m an orphan and regardless of how many years I acquire on my life journey—many many moons now—I miss my mamma’s living presence. Especially momentous happenings, “positive or negative”: my first published article, first essay, when I placed poems into magazines she would have read. Received my MFA. When I published Decomposition. Rant-ology!

She missed Tara’s wedding, her transformation into a fabulous, bright, kind woman (when last seen by Liliana, Tara was a tortured teen, and Dario, the son-eth, was eight), Dario’s smooth teen years, his college graduation, a creative talent in visual and musical arts, the birth of Lucas, her great-grand-baby, who just turned two.

I also miss her when my soul suffers. The poet in me, the writer—it’s what she could always understand even if she didn’t get my neuro-diversity. I was her only daughter and our skirmishes were sometimes textbook; our love, Italian epic.

The last few years of her life, my mamma and I would talk on the phone every Sunday. I lived in Washington state and she in Alabama. The night before she died, this is what I’d put into my journal:

17 November 1996  Sunday evening

I talked to my mother tonight. She’s not doing well. She’d like to die as she feels she has nothing left to do but suffer. She doesn’t understand why she must still be here. I cry with her and feel empathy yet feel helpless to soothe her in any way…The end of our conversation was telling for us both. I said to her that we might be in a better place next week. She said, “I hope I won’t be here next week.” I assured her that it would be fine with me if she is not, and that I will pray for that for her.

The next evening as I’m getting ready for my server shift, Kelly comes up having answered the phone and tells me that my mamma has died of a heart attack; I didn’t go to work. That evening’s journal entry:

18 November 1996  Monday evening

…I say, “Oh that must be what’s wrong with me.” I’d been acting unkindly all day. I was still moved by the conversation with her the night before. Kelly and I went out for Thai food because I wanted to get out of the house. Upon returning, I opened the door and I could smell my mother. I said to Kelly, “Do you smell that?” He said, “Yes, it smells like my grandmother’s house.” “No,” I said, “that’s my mother’s smell. I guess she was here.”

My sweet mother is dead…I will have to be my own mamma now. Can I do this?…

I did and I could. Mothering my own kids helped heal the “hole” of her. But my heart is never completely whole without her.

Happy Mamma’s Day, Mamma.

if men had to do it…it wouldn’t be being done

Lately this photo has been circling around social networks. As nice looking as these men are, it could be assumed they’re holding these postures only because they’re comedians; the photo’s amusing and something comedians would do for laughs. But because Carell, Stewart and Colbert are politically minded, they’re illuminating and mocking how women are arranged, twisted and bent to sell things. This photo’s entitled: If Men Had to Do It.

What’s “IT”?

IT is this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

And even more disturbing, this:

In most ads, women pose in half-naked, stilted and misshapened positions for others—i.e. men—to eyeball while the male models are usually accomplishing something, are mostly clothed, engaged in an activity, “taking charge” (maybe like the dick above) or working.

Women instead, introspectively gaze off in the distance with almost exposed breasts, maybe unzipped jeans and are often dreamily reclined and arched about on a bed, divan or floor like throw pillows waiting for someone to use them. Or turned into items like the ‘woman-as-beer’ pic above. Urgent alert: women are actually human (see: women aren’t food); we do things, too.

Secondly, females are dismembered components: lips, legs, breasts, butts or headless trunks in a delusional torso type only representative of 3-5% of the female population: non-existent  hips, ample and often artificial breasts, long computer enhanced legs and hairless bodies (see: i like a woman who takes “care” of herself) measured in ounces instead of pounds. Barely joking on that last one.

This faux female image has become the ridiculous ideal for adolescent girls whose brains are just emerging out of the chief childhood Theta brainwave state and aren’t yet capable of decent discernment. That “womanly” depiction lingers long into adulthood primarily because 97% of all media we see is male driven creating this kind of dysfunction: 75% of normal-weight women feel they are overweight, while 80% of 4th graders have done fad diets. See: ‘weighty’ women & “little petty places.”

If we want female reality displayed, we’ll need more gender balance in all aspects and channels of media.

Sometimes, in order to see what’s so ubiquitous and so obvious that IT becomes invisible, we’ll need to reverse IT, like the comics above did.

Next time you leaf through a magazine, watch a beer commercial, view a mannequin, check out a movie, see a billboard, play a video game, and the image of a woman is shown—in whatever distorted or partially clothed state—mentally replace that woman with a male figure.

Go ahead, take your time. What do you see? Sophomoric male fantasies exposed? Women as busty perfumed chattel? Absurdly embarrassing isn’t IT?

For more detailed information see The Gender Ads Project.

UPDATE: Just found this Canadian school project. A short illuminating film. At 2:50, you get to see role reversal played out extremely well.

 

april fool’s is not foolish…yet

Little Luca Lucas came to Nonna’s house for his first Easter hunt of naturally colored-eggs from my “girls,” plastic eggs bestowed with foiled chocolates, pecans and kumquats and a red collection basket. It took a bit for him to get the gist and then…surprise, joy, challenge, satisfaction. Brunch followed: buckwheat waffles a la Kelly, sausagees (vegan sausages) a la Nonna, stewed fruit. To the park for slack line jollity and playground. A lovely personal time.

At the park, a church was setting up for a large hunt by helter-skeltering 8000!! plastic eggs over the ground. Apparently the idea is to greedily grab as many as possible. No hiding, no challenge, no merriment. Lucas and I walked through this mine-field for the visual but I believe that even this almost two-year-old could feel the lack of inspiration that he’d just experienced. Contrary to U.S. belief, children don’t like ‘easy.’ They LOVE an authentic challenge. They LIKE to surmise; they’re into meaningfulness (not mindless “entertainment”) until they’re trained not to be.

Almost every popular holiday has been defaced and decayed by marketers, stores, bakeries, restaurants and/or anyone who believes that money is the true—maybe only—motivator of humans. The truer reason money has been a mover is to acquire what we need: housing, food, etc. and what we fancy: everything else that we believe will make us “happy” or fulfill us in some way. In other words, what gives meaning. Twisting meaning into insincere sentimentality or materialism is just wrong.

I recoiled from holidays starting around the age of 10, growing exponentially each year as I felt pressured and obligated—not by my family—but by the culture to be “happy,” to believe in something I didn’t, from: St. Patty’s Day (drinking and wearing green), New Year’s (drinking), Thanksgiving (indulgence and football with little sustainable thanks), 4th of July (beer, let’s blow shit up & pollute the air), Labor Day (almost no connection left to it’s inception), Easter & X-mas (stolen from Pagan holidays), Valentine’s Day (see: love, sad, love, sad, love, sad, sad love), Halloween (Persona day! Yes! Boo—now it’s usurped by adults, it’s competitive, and female “sexy” rules), Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Flag day, ad nauseum.

Not to mention: International Panic Day (18 June), Rubber Eraser Day (15 April) or National Punch Day (20 September). Maybe the latter is to celebrate the punching of people who create hollow holidays.

I have two children, I taught writing in schools and now I have a grandson so I’m not a complete curmudgeon. I participated! Ask them. But I aspired to create inspiration not stimulation in whichever we engaged in. Valentines were homespun, Solstice replaced X-mas with our distinctive ritual (see: the reason for the season is jesus and other lies), handmade cards, honeyed orange peels, champagne, minimal gifts.

Today is the only familiar holiday that hasn’t been assassinated and still has fun attached. As long as you don’t do unkind practical jokes, become a wholehearted trickster. Especially with little ones who love to be good-naturedly hoodwinked but never deceived. Just like us adults.

they say it’s my birthday-ish

Well even the Rant-ress has her birthdays. Frolicking in Nelson BC and north.

Ahhhh = Ainsworth, hotsprings, hiking, hotel date, happy birthday to the rant-ress who will be back next week with a “real” post.

Smooches!

wheat, wheat eat your wheat: foods, fads, allergies

My Tuscana mamma was occasionally irritated by United Statesians because “they’re allergic to everything.” Ironically she herself couldn’t do dairy and my body, meat. Yet, I understood her point as there are “fad” allergies/diseases, and people in the U.S. often lead the way in trendy disorders.

I think my mamma’s impatience emerged because, besides the patently obvious difference between Tuscan food and “American” food in: flavor, quality, wholesomeness and beauty, the way North Americans approach food is completely different. Many to most are afraid of it. Not really an Italian problem, that one.

I’m not talking about pesticides, hormones, additives, GMOs or any other adulterations; those should be feared by the majority but they’re not. Instead, untold North Americans are phobic about fat, calories, gluten, carbs, salt, ad nauseum. Many worry over their lack of control with food itself. In other words, unlike most cultures around the world, they aren’t friends with their foods.

Meals are meant to nourish, to be enjoyed, not really to be used for loneliness, anger, boredom, “scienced-out” to trick our taste buds into overeating or to be given in the form of supplements for “health.”

But back to food allergies. And food fads. Eggs good/bad/good. Oat bran good! Carbs bad. Fruit yes/no. Salt destructive. Omega 3! Probiotics! Protein! Coffee stunts growth, green tea: lose weight. Cupcakes! Bacon!!

Ten years ago I knew one person with celiac disease, no one was “gluten intolerant.” Today, a plethora of the developed world claims to be gluten sensitive and it’s not because medical detection is better. Faddish? Could be. 25% of people think they’re allergic to certain foods but only 2% of adults actually are. Or just maybe it’s the type of wheat. These days it’s a VERY different animal.

Unless you’re eating organic heritage varieties of flour as I do—I’m lucky enough to live with a man who loves to bake bread—you’re probably getting a crossbred, hybridized dwarf wheat that has much higher levels of amylopectin A, a “super starch” that raises blood sugar substantially, along with a “super gluten” that contains twice as many chromosomes as Einkorn, a natural flour that many gluten sensitive people can eat.

That dwarf “super wheat” produces a large variety of gluten proteins causing inflammation, obesity and diabetes and it contains polypeptides called gluteomorphins which trigger an opiate-like response in the brain. And like any addiction, you’ll not feel satisfied and want more and more. Guess what wheat you’re eating when you ingest most restaurant or store-bought bread, pizza, pies, tortillas, pasta, cereal, crackers, etc. no matter how “gourmet?”

I know we’re a communal species and want a communal experience. Trends in health are probably better shared than celebrity gossip, diet crazes or society-anxiety but maybe if we loved our food, participated in producing it, bought from local growers/providers, preserved it, regularly sat down to family meals and actually cooked food instead of frequently dining out or pouring “cuisine” out of a box or bag, we might discover that sustainable nourishment is not out to get us.

love, sad, love, sad, love, sad, sad love

Valentines Day is such a pain.

Not because I don’t have a sweetheart (I do), not because I dislike marketing holidays (gawd, I do) and not because I have an aversion to the pudgy winged moppet with a weapon as it’s mascot (yup). It’s because this holiday causes such angst, agony and loneliness—maybe more than being homeless on Thanksgiving and Christmas combined. During those holidays, others compassionately invite the forsaken in, churches & charities prepare turkey dinners and gift giving trees for the indigent and the lonely. Everyone—if they want it—has somewhere to go.

On Valentine’s day? Niente, nada, nothing. No Valentine’s philanthropy for the loveless, no support groups for the lost-to-love crowd. Maybe a therapist?

In middle or high school, this lack of a lover creates such distress. The days leading up to Valentine’s, it’s what most girls are discussing and there’s a covert, schizoid scramble to get coupled before the dreaded day hits so you’re not shamefully solo. But it doesn’t end there. Afterwards, the competition is fierce as to who’s boyfriend was better, what he gave, said, sacrificed.

This sends those poor boys who are ofttimes are out of practice when it comes to gifts and shopping running a deranged, commonly last minute dash to get the “perfect” present, do the ideal over the top thing.

Doesn’t differ that much in adults. If I had a nickel for the times I’ve heard men and women feel satisfied about how this holiday panned out—I’m in my 50s—I’d have about $1.70.

Before this was a marketing holiday, its power to seriously wound was small. Indeed, it was fun, especially as a child. Even if Mary got seven valentines and I got three, it wasn’t sheer devastation though we all knew who the class cootie was. Most of us constructed simple hearts adorned with doilies, glitter and a glued-on dessicated candy heart professing, “Be Mine” and bestowed them to best friends, family, teachers.

Now, it’s a contest of size, swank, hip, yuppie-mom-made, dollar store duds or Disney given equally to all. Merchandised “love” is force fed to us continuously from every conceivable outlet weeks ahead. Adults steal every holiday and ruin it. Sigh.

When my kids were little, we’d all make valentine’s for each other—some with poems, some not—all customized. As a kid, my parents did small things, if any, for each other but my mamma would compose a personalized poem for each of my brothers and me, paste them onto red hearts she’d cut out of construction paper and place them on our plates at the breakfast table before school.

That felt like real love…because it was.

There’s more to loving than just the smitten sort. See help me, I think I’m falling…in “distraction” again for further discussion of the disruption that romantic love causes when elevated above the other three.

Maybe cherishing yourself, along with honoring all manner of intimacy might be a better way to venerate love than filling a “slot” with just any person, or turning affection into a competition.

happy anniversary, you tumors you!

Five years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and “given” two to five years to live.

I sure hope the biatch who condescendingly uttered her pronouncement when I said I’d try to cure it myself and wouldn’t engage in any of the three allopathic options she presented:

• cut        (surgery)
• burn     (radiation)
• poison (chemotherapy)

reads rant-ology! because it’s just about the five year mark and I’m still lifting weights, doing yoga, writing, hiking, snowshoeing, cooking, kissing, eating, crying, arguing…..breathing…..reading, playing guitar, playing cards, brushing cats, feeding chickens, laughing, ranting and smiling. In other words: living.

Hanging with the aliens—as I fondly call them—is a bit like living with tiny time bombs just under my skin and, yes, one day they could decide to take me out. But not today or most likely any other day in the near—or maybe even far—future. At some point, they may multiply and I may choose differently than I’ve chosen so far. Who knows? But one thing’s for sure: if I had used any of their “therapies” I’d definitely be dead.

I know my own body, thanks, and I listen when she speaks, now and forever. Amen.

Something will kill me, someday, and something will kill you as well. But I don’t make decisions from fear and I don’t make them from my head either, so I’m not going to begin regardless of medical pressure.

Here’s my poem to honor the upcoming anniversary:

Landscape of an Alien Disease

1.

I live with three solid stones

in my left breast throbbing along to my heartbeat.

Some say they’re out

to compose a corpse in my shape.

 

Dwelling with them

is a bit like winning

the lottery. Others hunger

to confer, consult,

nurture. In infirmity

they only want a good look

at what they don’t want.

 

It’s safer to rubberneck the rubble

this life has become. The more I open

my chest, my heart to accommodate

their view, I see their breath

 

flutter shallowly and a quaking develops

as if they spot that toothy crack

of terrain snaking

randomly away from my rock-steady feet,

suddenly eyeing theirs.

 

2.

Cancer can be

like TV: a cop chase and the perp is pressed

by G-forces back to a time where

he felt his free will like dense cool air

just before being delivered

to the ground & hog-tied with hand cuffs.

 

Click channels: a muddy flood snatches homes

from their foundations, snorts trees,

starts a rowdy party of festering cars

sadistically sailing past, some red, some blue.

 

3.

Either way, everyone but me is secure

in their home, snapping off

their sets, rising from easy chairs,

shutting down lamps and heading up to bed.

 

I’m on the run, the head waters still

rising, the cops on my tail,

slippered feet straddling that crevasse

of twisted scenery

as each second spills

into the next and the next

and no one

can predict a thing.

 

do you like me? do you? huh? huh?

Remember *Sally Field’s Oscar acceptance speech? and what many found treacly enough to cringe at? I suspect it could’ve been her gigantically eager need to be liked.

I don’t find the moniker “likeable” a compliment. Passionate, fun, kind, dramatic, upbeat, creative, serious…those have meaning. Likable?? What does that say; that anyone can like you? Is that something to aspire to?

Here are two of the few axioms I gave my kids: Don’t throw a rock and hide your hand and If everyone likes you, you’re doing something wrong. Not that I was suggesting they deliberately rankle others but people-pleasing/brown-nosing wouldn’t have been honoring their Selves.

Needing to be liked thwarts us from showing our whole selves to others. That dysfunctionally emotional unfulfillable hole drives us to abandon or exile the “unacceptable” parts. The distorted, rearranged version we present to the world may fool others into thinking we’ve got it all together for awhile but, honestly, I think the only one fooled is us.

If you can’t see your Self except in the reflection of others, your mirror is not your own. You won’t even recognize your face. Toddlers are better at being true to themselves than most adults and at their tender ages their brains are designed to surrender authority to others in order to learn. Isn’t it possible that the bible verse, Become as little children, might mean transparently inhabiting our unabridged self while simultaneously owning our adult power?

Refusing to be the main character in your own life renders you ineffectual for genuine change or authentic connection. If you unmindfully take cues from others to determine your next move, thought, “feeling,” that means that your self-worth will be elusively and eternally out of your control and will be tied to what someone else ignorantly decides about you. You’ll adjust your behavior to be likable and as a result you’ll consciously or subconsciously feel like a sham, robbing yourself of the opportunity to bring your unique power to the world. That leads to failed relationships, addiction, depression, rage, narcissism, victimhood (in yourself or in others)…and a myriad of other social ills.

The truth is that we don’t need everyone to like us, but we do need a select few people to love us, to actually see us, to truly know us. If we won’t reveal our unmitigated self to others, then how can they truly receive us?

Ultimately though, the only person you really need to like you is YOU and that only happens when you’re authentically YOURSELF not some knock-off designed to be “likeable.”

*no criticism of Ms. Field or her exuberance intended

how to deal with pass-agg aggro

I write about passive aggressiveness fairly often because in the USA that’s considered the “reasonable” way to convey one’s dissatisfaction. It’s the safer method of disapproval because its expression is more obfuscated than anyone who displays how they really feel when they feel it.

O, the negative judgments that are levied upon those brave souls. Are they trouble makers? angry? hysterical? verbally abusive? too emotional? Yes, sometimes they are. But one thing leads to another. Meaning, those yellers, those huffing-puffing persons, those tantruming children don’t always materialize through parthenogenesis; they’re forged.

Don’t get pissy here. I’m not suggesting that any of the above actions are acceptable, or superior to a stiff upper snoot but they are more frank and visible which makes them possible to address and—hopefully—resolve.

Pass-Aggs thwart their mate/boss/kid by regularly doing that which they deny they’re doing but so indirectly they can circumvent accountability when confronted. They’re as oppressive and controlling as the most hostile, angry person only they do it insidiously and dishonestly.

My mother spouted this Italian proverb when one of us kids would attempt to tell on another: Giovanni, toccarmi! Come on—you afraid? Do it! You baby! Touch me, come on! until the goaded sibling finally touches him…and: Mamma! Mamma! Giovanni touched me! My wise mother would rarely interfere with me and my brothers’ squabbles because she realized that for every pinch, unkind word, foolish action there was a not-as-easily-seen one that probably proceeded it.

Systemic, consistent passive-aggressive actions like these:

• says one thing, does another
• talks in ambiguities and generalities
• agrees to something, then “forgets”
• procrastinates/ “waits”
• sulky, surly, sullen
• dismissive, minimizing, lying
• defensive in the face of requests
• “designed” incompetence
• pessimistic
• gathers excuses, blames others for their own inabilities/unhappiness
• poor decision making
• stubborn
• usually late

bring forth an inferno of frustration and helplessness due to the futility of finding sincere solutions. One can’t even get the pass-agg to admit they feel what they feel let alone move towards rectification. They didn’t learn to respond appropriately to conflict and scarcely look internally to examine their role in a relationship problem. They externalize and blame others. They deny their self-destructive behaviors, the consequences of those behaviors and the choices that cause others suffering.

What can you do? Kids/teens are commonly powerless—given our child rearing practices. Empower them with choice and a voice. Make it safe for them to speak, and then listen. They usually become more direct in relatively short order. And let their brains develop. Have patience.

With adults…honestly? Not favorable prospects. Two reasons: 1) pass-agg behavior is a deep-seated childhood coping strategy 2) They’d have to want to change their pattern of avoiding their pain.

• Help them attain insight into the negative ramifications of their behaviors by persistently calling them out but speak from your needs, your feelings instead of what they do or don’t do.
• State your boundaries clearly and refuse to budge if they don’t follow through; let them experience consequences.
• Don’t allow “soft” bullying, contemptuousness or victim-hood.
• Lastly, leave the “relationship.”

chin-up my ass

I live in a country (U.S.A.) of mostly muted emotions. Or the opposite: Jerry Springer. We’re a bi-polar nation addicted to the cerebral flip-flop between indulge/restrict, wanton/celibate, carnal/piety, sloth/extreme actions…  Not much middle ground, not much consistency, not much reality. It’s head living.

We’re often expected to be positive, smiling (especially if female) and eschew “politics or religion” in talk. In other words, stash any potential discussion that could evoke turbulent emotions. See pollyanna is passive aggressive.

Worse, keep “negative” feelings private or be done with them pronto. Lose your dog-familiar of 10 years? Get a new puppy! Break from an unhappy relationship? Hop back in that saddle! Your book of stories is rejected for the 17th time? Recirculate it! Make it happen! Serious inner work? Use affirmations! You have breast cancer and go through medical torture? Keep your chin up!

I loathe chin-upping!

As do kids, animals, plants, trees, stars, stones, rivers…  Okay, I don’t know for sure that all those things feel as I do but I do know that we ridicule and control children, teenagers and dogs when they display “brawny” passions, especially ones that make us feel something we’ve spent our lifetime stuffing down. They poke ours by innocently remaining with theirs and we hate on them for waking our sleeping giant.

The chin-up is a disguised critical voice and no matter how serene and sweet it sounds it still doesn’t permit “unfavorable” emotions to exist. Chin-upping is always in a hurry with its “sensitivity.” The sole way to dispel sad, angry, hateful, anxious feelings is to be with them in deliberate compassion…However. Long. It. Takes. Chin-upping doesn’t allow for that. People who insist you smile and make nice, people who label whatever emotion that scares them as “negative” don’t allow for that either.

Let’s take anger, a most despised emotion. Not rage—which is born when anger is unresolved—but anger which is a rational response to injustice; something’s wrong. It’s a motivating force. The issue isn’t anger itself, it’s finding relevant ways to rectify it. I suspect that only by appropriately expressing it can we truly let it go.

Maybe the “story” your anger attached to has inaccuracies but the emotion is unconditionally valid. Don’t throw out the feeling with that flawed narrative. It’s your job to use nuts & bolts thinking to view the anger with sincere interest—like a kindhearted parent—and hear why it exists instead of wishing it away. If you’re trying to extinguish it, you’re not listening.

Be with, without trying to fix. Encourage Self by accepting all emotions without good or bad labels. Embrace them instead of evicting them. Enable them to choose to get up and go organically instead of “chin-upping” them, which never works long-term.

Augusten Burroughs accurately observed that even with eager determination and a handful of maps you won’t get to California unless you know where you’re starting from. Ground yourself in your emotions, in your body. Your “truth” lives there.

p.s. Here I am, hanging with my “negative” emotion!