They finally buried the Holy Father. Thank you, Lord. The relentless reverence with which the whole Papal death has been handled is the smarmiest attempt at political correctness I've seen lately. God forbid that we have a discussion regarding the direction the Church has taken in John Paul II's stewardship. Once again, it's emotion over intellect. I understand not wanting to offend. I understand not wanting to kick the Holy Father while he's waiting to be buried. I don't think any of that is necessary. Let's just have a dialog about important issues facing the Church and how we might best approach them, with God's help.
The Holy Father's death was politicized here by people who want to use his strongly held moral and ethical positions to pat themselves on the back. Maybe get a vote or two from people who are impressed with phrases such as "culture of life." This from people who have absolutely no qualms whatsoever about the death penalty. We support the culture of life when it suits us, thank you very much. We're politicians. Worse yet, we're Republican politicians.
The truly wonderful thing about the relentless television coverage of the Holy Father's death and funeral is that it reminds us that these rituals have been with us for centuries now. For me, one of the best things about the Church is that it is like joining hands with our ancestors. It's an opportunity for all of us to pause for a little while and think about the "ground of all being."
I'll be glad when we can get this all settled, get the new guy in and get on with things. I don't mean to be disrespectful...I'm just weary of all of the people who want to cash in on John Paul II's death.
Here's the quote of the day:
"...when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings." ~ Sogyal Rinpoche
America held hostage day 1913
Bushism of the day:
"If I'm the president, we're going to have emergency-room care, we're going to have gag orders."
Website of the day: Origami Plans and Instructions
http://www.freepapertoys.com/pt-origami.html
Bonus Website of the day: Vatican: The Holy See
http://www.vatican.va/
08 April 2005
06 April 2005
Looking Back Again
My grandfather was conveniently missing for some period of time, but resurfaced just long enough to propagate another 3 or 4 kids. I think my dad had 11 kids in his family. But guess what my grandfather did then! He left! Good God, why would you possibly go back to having sex with this guy? Apparently my grandmother was overly optimistic.
Some time in there, though, my grandfather was busy sexually abusing his kids. I'm pretty sure he did something sexual to my father. I know for a fact that he had a sexual relationship with at least one of his daughters. My grandmother held that against her. Needless to say, her mental health was badly compromised. She made several visits to a psychiatric hospital when she became an adult. Much like most of the other siblings, she had a real fondness for alcohol and any drugs she could wheedle a doctor into providing to her. I was always surprised that she didn't attempt suicide. Maybe she did and I just never found out about it.
So that's kind of how it went for my dad. Is it any wonder he was such a complete mess? He was estranged from his father for about 20 years. I remember that he came for a visit when I was home from college one year. I'm sure my dad made me talk to him, but I know I didn't have much to say because I'd heard so many bad things about him. Plus, he just seemed like a complete asshole. I don't understand how anyone could meet him and not see that he was an asshole. Have kids with him? Oh my god, no!
My mom's childhood is shrouded in mystery to this day. She grew up in South Carolina in a little tiny town that had a post office and a general store. She had six siblings. She went to live with her grandmother when she was a young child and continued to live with her until her grandmother's death. My mom was 14 when she finally went to live with her parents. Her oldest sister lived with another relative for some period of time. I'm not sure if or when her sister moved back in with the family.
My mom's family didn't have any money. Both she and my dad were depression-era babies who endured additional shortages during World War II. My mom told me that when she was in junior high school, she was taking home economics (I'm sure that was the only thing girls were allowed to take) and they had a home decorating project. My mom didn't have a dresser or vanity table, so she ended up covering some crates with fabric. The class all came over to see the project and my mom was embarassed by her lack of real furniture. That story always makes me sad. But then I remember that, from the time I was 12 until I got some furniture when I was 18, we had no living room furniture. I think we had one of those dinette set things long before they became kitschy and cool.
She met my father when she was in high school and got pregnant. That's why I'm here. My dad had been in the army by then. I believe he was drafted, but I'm not certain. Anyway, he went AWOL at some point. Of course, they tracked his sorry butt down and took him directly back to the brig. My dad pitied himself about this his entire life. It's one of those things that used to drive me nuts. What else were they supposed to do? Say, "Oh poor baby, you don't like being in the military? Well that's okay. You just go ahead and go home." Duh, Dad. He had some other run in with the military guys when his first wife gave birth to his first child, a son. She gave the baby my father's name--Prentiss--which my dad thought was reasonable justification to beat the shit out of her. The military guys came right on over and took him to the military version of the psych ward. My dad also pitied himself over that and would tell me, as if it made complete sense, "I told her not to name him Prentiss."
Here's the quote of the day:
"Don't hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them." ~ Evelyn Waugh
America held hostage day 1911
Bushism of the day:
"A surplus means there'll be money left over. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called a surplus." -- Kalamazoo, MI 10/27/2000
Website of the day: Integral World: Exploring Theories of Everything
http://www.integralworld.net/
Some time in there, though, my grandfather was busy sexually abusing his kids. I'm pretty sure he did something sexual to my father. I know for a fact that he had a sexual relationship with at least one of his daughters. My grandmother held that against her. Needless to say, her mental health was badly compromised. She made several visits to a psychiatric hospital when she became an adult. Much like most of the other siblings, she had a real fondness for alcohol and any drugs she could wheedle a doctor into providing to her. I was always surprised that she didn't attempt suicide. Maybe she did and I just never found out about it.
So that's kind of how it went for my dad. Is it any wonder he was such a complete mess? He was estranged from his father for about 20 years. I remember that he came for a visit when I was home from college one year. I'm sure my dad made me talk to him, but I know I didn't have much to say because I'd heard so many bad things about him. Plus, he just seemed like a complete asshole. I don't understand how anyone could meet him and not see that he was an asshole. Have kids with him? Oh my god, no!
My mom's childhood is shrouded in mystery to this day. She grew up in South Carolina in a little tiny town that had a post office and a general store. She had six siblings. She went to live with her grandmother when she was a young child and continued to live with her until her grandmother's death. My mom was 14 when she finally went to live with her parents. Her oldest sister lived with another relative for some period of time. I'm not sure if or when her sister moved back in with the family.
My mom's family didn't have any money. Both she and my dad were depression-era babies who endured additional shortages during World War II. My mom told me that when she was in junior high school, she was taking home economics (I'm sure that was the only thing girls were allowed to take) and they had a home decorating project. My mom didn't have a dresser or vanity table, so she ended up covering some crates with fabric. The class all came over to see the project and my mom was embarassed by her lack of real furniture. That story always makes me sad. But then I remember that, from the time I was 12 until I got some furniture when I was 18, we had no living room furniture. I think we had one of those dinette set things long before they became kitschy and cool.
She met my father when she was in high school and got pregnant. That's why I'm here. My dad had been in the army by then. I believe he was drafted, but I'm not certain. Anyway, he went AWOL at some point. Of course, they tracked his sorry butt down and took him directly back to the brig. My dad pitied himself about this his entire life. It's one of those things that used to drive me nuts. What else were they supposed to do? Say, "Oh poor baby, you don't like being in the military? Well that's okay. You just go ahead and go home." Duh, Dad. He had some other run in with the military guys when his first wife gave birth to his first child, a son. She gave the baby my father's name--Prentiss--which my dad thought was reasonable justification to beat the shit out of her. The military guys came right on over and took him to the military version of the psych ward. My dad also pitied himself over that and would tell me, as if it made complete sense, "I told her not to name him Prentiss."
Here's the quote of the day:
"Don't hold your parents up to contempt. After all, you are their son, and it is just possible that you may take after them." ~ Evelyn Waugh
America held hostage day 1911
Bushism of the day:
"A surplus means there'll be money left over. Otherwise, it wouldn't be called a surplus." -- Kalamazoo, MI 10/27/2000
Website of the day: Integral World: Exploring Theories of Everything
http://www.integralworld.net/
05 April 2005
Looking Back to Find the Past
I was born in the early 1950's in a city in the deep south. Over the years I've tried to get at least a few facts about my parents' lives in the hope that their personal issues might be more understandable. I've always believed, to some extent, that if I could just understand how my parents got so crazy, my own history might be more bearable. It's been a difficult process. The answers are few and far between and, as time passes, those facts become mythic in nature. Stories get repeated, frequently by people who have a vested interest in how they're interpreted. I'm not always certain whether they're true...or if it even matters.
My paternal grandmother apparently grew up in Mississippi. When she was a young woman, her parents were killed in a fire. She may have lost one or more siblings, too. She did have one remaining brother, whose name was Ernest. People tell me they were very close, I don't know whether that's because everyone else was dead or there was just some natural affinity between them.
After the death of her parents, she and her brother were placed in an orphanage. I can only imagine what that must have been like. It must have been profoundly damaging. She and the other orphans were required to work--presumably to earn their keep--in conditions that were probably very harsh. She met my grandfather while she was working on the farm of a local, somewhat well-to-do couple. I gather she was very young when they married. There are also vague stories about my grandfather being disinherited. If I had to guess, I'd say that's where the trouble started within my family. Though I have absolutely no proof, experience leads me to believe that my grandfather probably selected her precisely because she was so young. Later on, he sexually abused several of his children. My grandmother must have just gotten too old to be of interest to him.
I asked my grandmother many times to tell me about her life. She was the most stoic person I've ever known, bar none. My own mother is the second most stoic person I know and, according to people who know me, I may be a close third. To say she wasn't forthcoming is an understatement. Whatever stories I came to hear about her all came from her children. Since a fair number of her children were just crazy as loons, I can't always count on their veracity.
My grandmother started having babies at a breathtaking pace. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth child, my grandfather struck out for greener pastures. He disappeared. It wasn't all that unusual in the Depression for men to go off in search of work. People in the family believe that he had a job or a series of jobs, but he never sent money back to his family. My grandmother and her children were forced to do whatever they could to survive. I think they were sharecroppers, but they may have only been employees of wealthy farmers. It was a hungry life and a life of great hardship. My father and his brothers and sisters picked cotton for a living. I heard many times about how the stickers on the cotton would just rip through flesh. Even though they worked, they frequently didn't have food.
None of this did much for my grandmother's disposition. According to my father, she was very abusive. His ears were deformed his entire life because of her habit of grabbing an ear and twisting hard when she wanted to make a point. She was also known to hit kids with whatever was readily available at any given moment...a cast iron frying pan, a stick of stove wood. From my own experience with her, her vocabulary of profanity was extensive. She was also known to drink. I believe vodka was the drug of choice, but I think any alcohol would do in a pinch.
My father told me he'd gone into his mom's house one day when he was young and overheard her plotting with her daughter to kill my grandfather. True? Beats me. He also said that he walked in on his mother having sex with someone other than her husband. He told my mom about that and she told me. Here again, I'm not sure it even matters whether those apocryphal tales have any truth to them. The important thing was that it colored everything my father did as an adult. I guess that's how it always is with parents; you spend your entire life trying to avoid living your parents' lives. Unfortunately, that generally means you're still having a crappy life, you're just having a different crappy life than your parents.
Here's the quote of the day:
"History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth." ~ E. L. Doctorow
America Held Hostage Day 1910
Bushism of the day:
"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." —LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000
Website of the day: Jain History
http://jainhistory.faithweb.com/
My paternal grandmother apparently grew up in Mississippi. When she was a young woman, her parents were killed in a fire. She may have lost one or more siblings, too. She did have one remaining brother, whose name was Ernest. People tell me they were very close, I don't know whether that's because everyone else was dead or there was just some natural affinity between them.
After the death of her parents, she and her brother were placed in an orphanage. I can only imagine what that must have been like. It must have been profoundly damaging. She and the other orphans were required to work--presumably to earn their keep--in conditions that were probably very harsh. She met my grandfather while she was working on the farm of a local, somewhat well-to-do couple. I gather she was very young when they married. There are also vague stories about my grandfather being disinherited. If I had to guess, I'd say that's where the trouble started within my family. Though I have absolutely no proof, experience leads me to believe that my grandfather probably selected her precisely because she was so young. Later on, he sexually abused several of his children. My grandmother must have just gotten too old to be of interest to him.
I asked my grandmother many times to tell me about her life. She was the most stoic person I've ever known, bar none. My own mother is the second most stoic person I know and, according to people who know me, I may be a close third. To say she wasn't forthcoming is an understatement. Whatever stories I came to hear about her all came from her children. Since a fair number of her children were just crazy as loons, I can't always count on their veracity.
My grandmother started having babies at a breathtaking pace. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth child, my grandfather struck out for greener pastures. He disappeared. It wasn't all that unusual in the Depression for men to go off in search of work. People in the family believe that he had a job or a series of jobs, but he never sent money back to his family. My grandmother and her children were forced to do whatever they could to survive. I think they were sharecroppers, but they may have only been employees of wealthy farmers. It was a hungry life and a life of great hardship. My father and his brothers and sisters picked cotton for a living. I heard many times about how the stickers on the cotton would just rip through flesh. Even though they worked, they frequently didn't have food.
None of this did much for my grandmother's disposition. According to my father, she was very abusive. His ears were deformed his entire life because of her habit of grabbing an ear and twisting hard when she wanted to make a point. She was also known to hit kids with whatever was readily available at any given moment...a cast iron frying pan, a stick of stove wood. From my own experience with her, her vocabulary of profanity was extensive. She was also known to drink. I believe vodka was the drug of choice, but I think any alcohol would do in a pinch.
My father told me he'd gone into his mom's house one day when he was young and overheard her plotting with her daughter to kill my grandfather. True? Beats me. He also said that he walked in on his mother having sex with someone other than her husband. He told my mom about that and she told me. Here again, I'm not sure it even matters whether those apocryphal tales have any truth to them. The important thing was that it colored everything my father did as an adult. I guess that's how it always is with parents; you spend your entire life trying to avoid living your parents' lives. Unfortunately, that generally means you're still having a crappy life, you're just having a different crappy life than your parents.
Here's the quote of the day:
"History is the present. That's why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth." ~ E. L. Doctorow
America Held Hostage Day 1910
Bushism of the day:
"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream." —LaCrosse, Wis., Oct. 18, 2000
Website of the day: Jain History
http://jainhistory.faithweb.com/
04 April 2005
My Summer with Sigmund Freud
It was the summer of 1966 and I had a cousin visiting from out of state. It had been just a bang-up great summer vacation to Jackson, Mississippi with my mom, my dad, and my dad's 15 year old wife. Prior to the visit, my dad had bought his wife a number of new outfits. Unfortunately for her, that would be the last windfall she'd ever see while they were together. Photos were taken along the way, his wife (in her new clothes) and me standing in front of various unidentifiable landmarks. Once we arrived, we must have visited several of his relatives. I never knew what story he offered up to explain the 15 year old wife. I was mainly concerned with being left alone. I was profoundly humiliated by the whole situation, so I just tried to escape into solitude whenever possible. We visited one of my aunts who had four children, but I maintained my distance from them unless compelled to interact. Though all but one of them was younger than I, I firmly believed that they knew how fucked up my family was and laughed at me when I wasn't around. The other aunt that I remember visiting was the mother of my summer guest.
I'm not sure why I decided to hang out with my cousin Theresa. On the face of it, it seems a highly uncharacteristic congeniality on my part. Nonetheless, we must have had a good time and my dad issued the invitation for her to come for the summer. I wonder now why it was that her parents thought sending any female child home with my dad was a good idea. I was 12 and his wife was 15. I don't know...I just don't think I would have felt comfortable sending my daughter home with him.
Theresa, in addition to being my age, was about my size. She had a better complexion than I, which my father used as a cudgel to beat me with. As usual, whenever my dad was around other female kids my age, he always liked to point out the many ways those kids were more appealing than I. My dad also pointed out that Theresa seemed smarter than I. That fact was probably at the heart of my eventual change of heart towards her. I have no idea why Theresa didn't like me, but I'm sure it wasn't without cause.
Sometime that summer I discovered Sigmund Freud. I have no idea how I found out about him, but reading was my escape of choice and trips to the library were frequent. At that point in my life, I was searching for challenging intellectual books. I had abandoned any literature that seemed to be directed at people my age. I read adult books and began thinking about weighty and complex ideas. I lived in a frighteningly adult world and I knew books directed at 12 year olds wasn't going to help me one tiny bit.
I'm not sure which of Freud's books I read that summer, but I remember the case studies of his patients. One of them detailed one of his patient's hysterical amnesia. It was the most promising thing I'd heard of since I abandoned the Bible as a means of coping with my crazy life. Obviously God wasn't going to be rescuing me or he'd have done it long before then. It made supreme sense to me thatif I couldn't get God to help me escape, I might be just fine if I could simply forget everything that had happened up to that point. However just to ensure my success at forgetting, I decided to pray for it, too.
Of course, I also encountered penis envy. I gave a lot of thought to that issue. At first it just seemed absolutely preposterous. I searched my heart. Did I really want a penis? No amount of soul searching produced any envy that I could identify. Maybe I envied kids who didn't live with psychotic parents, but none of them had penises. Finally, just as many feminists concluded, I determined that he was incorrect. Grossly incorrect. Unfortunately, it seemed he was incorrect about the possibility of amnesia, too.
The real irony here is that, over the years, I have forgotten. Incidents are truncated or confusing. I guess God did answer my prayers after all. As I struggle to make sense of my life, I reach back to grab onto formative memories. Sadly, the absence of memory doesn't result in the absence of suffering connected to those memories. I'm not so sure I'd want to relive them even if I could. I guess the summer I spent with Dr. Freud was like mining fool's gold.
Quote of the day:
"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute." ~ Rebecca West
America Held Hostage Day 1909
Bushism of the Day:
"The legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law." —Austin, Texas, Nov. 22, 2000
Website of the day: A Krishnamurti Library of Athens
http://www.kathens.org/
I'm not sure why I decided to hang out with my cousin Theresa. On the face of it, it seems a highly uncharacteristic congeniality on my part. Nonetheless, we must have had a good time and my dad issued the invitation for her to come for the summer. I wonder now why it was that her parents thought sending any female child home with my dad was a good idea. I was 12 and his wife was 15. I don't know...I just don't think I would have felt comfortable sending my daughter home with him.
Theresa, in addition to being my age, was about my size. She had a better complexion than I, which my father used as a cudgel to beat me with. As usual, whenever my dad was around other female kids my age, he always liked to point out the many ways those kids were more appealing than I. My dad also pointed out that Theresa seemed smarter than I. That fact was probably at the heart of my eventual change of heart towards her. I have no idea why Theresa didn't like me, but I'm sure it wasn't without cause.
Sometime that summer I discovered Sigmund Freud. I have no idea how I found out about him, but reading was my escape of choice and trips to the library were frequent. At that point in my life, I was searching for challenging intellectual books. I had abandoned any literature that seemed to be directed at people my age. I read adult books and began thinking about weighty and complex ideas. I lived in a frighteningly adult world and I knew books directed at 12 year olds wasn't going to help me one tiny bit.
I'm not sure which of Freud's books I read that summer, but I remember the case studies of his patients. One of them detailed one of his patient's hysterical amnesia. It was the most promising thing I'd heard of since I abandoned the Bible as a means of coping with my crazy life. Obviously God wasn't going to be rescuing me or he'd have done it long before then. It made supreme sense to me thatif I couldn't get God to help me escape, I might be just fine if I could simply forget everything that had happened up to that point. However just to ensure my success at forgetting, I decided to pray for it, too.
Of course, I also encountered penis envy. I gave a lot of thought to that issue. At first it just seemed absolutely preposterous. I searched my heart. Did I really want a penis? No amount of soul searching produced any envy that I could identify. Maybe I envied kids who didn't live with psychotic parents, but none of them had penises. Finally, just as many feminists concluded, I determined that he was incorrect. Grossly incorrect. Unfortunately, it seemed he was incorrect about the possibility of amnesia, too.
The real irony here is that, over the years, I have forgotten. Incidents are truncated or confusing. I guess God did answer my prayers after all. As I struggle to make sense of my life, I reach back to grab onto formative memories. Sadly, the absence of memory doesn't result in the absence of suffering connected to those memories. I'm not so sure I'd want to relive them even if I could. I guess the summer I spent with Dr. Freud was like mining fool's gold.
Quote of the day:
"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute." ~ Rebecca West
America Held Hostage Day 1909
Bushism of the Day:
"The legislature's job is to write law. It's the executive branch's job to interpret law." —Austin, Texas, Nov. 22, 2000
Website of the day: A Krishnamurti Library of Athens
http://www.kathens.org/
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