As most of you know I was raised in a very conservative Christian household. And as most of you know I chose to leave the church when I was 18 and didn't look back. I've talked a little here and there about my reasons for leaving. How the church's view on homosexuality figured large in that decision. How the stories in the Bible, though great moral tales, really didn't ring true to me as "this actually happened this way!" stories. Basically I didn't take the Gospel as gospel. And once I started questioning the religious leaders in my faith and the only answer they had for me was that I just needed more faith I was on my way out the door. But for the majority of my childhood I had the faith of a child. That blind belief that the adults in their life were telling them nothing but the truth. That our God was the true and only God. That our book, our rules, our beliefs were the only right ones. This story takes place during that time...
When I was a freshman I was part of the youth group of a different church than my family attended on Sunday mornings. We had been members of RCC off and on for years, but as we moved around town we would attend sister congregations, FCC, VCC and the like. There was at the time I was growing up 5 congregations in the Albuquerque area that were part of the same "Restoration Movement Non-Denominational Church". We all shared the same belief system, sermons were the same in each church, we all attended the same summer camps along with a group of churches throughout New Mexico, Colorado and Texas.
Restoration Movement in churches is pretty much the same as the Constitutional Party in politics. Basically, the only beliefs are the ones written in the Bible, the extra bells and whistles added by say, oh I don't know, the Catholics aren't believed. In fact the Catholic church is treated as a "not real" church led by the Pope instead of by Christ. Don't get me started on what my church thought about the LDS church. Non-denominational means we weren't Presbyterian or Episcopalian or Baptist we were just Christian. Really super judgmental Christian, but just Christian.
Different churches have different beliefs and it took me well in to my 20s to be able to understand that not all Christian churches were like the one I was raised in. That not all people who called themselves Christians lived a life professing Love while harboring what seemed to me like a lot of Hate. There are even churches out there that are able to see the biblical passages that supposedly condemn homosexuality could be interpreted in other ways. So when I speak of churches and the church please understand that I am speaking of the church I was in at the time and don't believe that everyone that attends church is horrible. My family still believes this way and they have received great comfort from the church in horrible times and their faith calms and strengthens them. It's just not my faith, my belief or my choice anymore.
Okay, back to freshman year. I attended a different youth group than what my main church was. This meant that on Wednesday and Sunday nights I went to a church across town from where we lived. I wanted to to be part of the performing group that RCC had that VCC did not. The youth minister/music minister and his wife handled the program for the teens. We sang, danced (show choir type dancing), did puppet shows and my freshman year put on a musical play. My sister's years through the program they just sang and did puppet work. But the real deal was every summer you got to go on tour and perform at churches across the country. You got to go away. For weeks at a shot. I was not missing this so even though my family moved to the south valley the end of my 8th grade year I stayed with the youth group at RCC.
This was not something that normally would have been allowed but my family was part of the fabric of RCC. My parents were part of the first congregation that set up RCC. And my family also had a special relationship with the youth minister. He was a big part of my sister's recovery from drug abuse. He counseled her and helped her kick the habit. He and his wife spent hours and hours working with her and helped her when no one thought that there was help. So he was a hero to our family and we were very close with him, his wife and their adopted son.
So one Saturday my Uncle (not really blood relation, his wife and he are my parent's best friends so they are family) called and said that we needed to come to RCC for services Sunday morning instead of VCC and to plan on having dinner with them before his younger son and I went to youth group that night. This was a church family and family family meeting. So we went to RCC and at the end of the service one of the elders of the church stood up and thanked everyone for attending but asked that anyone who wasn't a member of the church leave as there was some private church business that needed to be attended to. This was NEVER done. The end of a church service everyone would leave and shake hands with the minister as they were leaving and stand around and talk but to ask some people to leave while others stayed? My family got up to leave as we were members of VCC at the time but my Uncle told us to sit back down as this had to deal with us as well.
Then the elder stood in front of the church and read a resignation letter from our youth minister. He was resigning effective immediately because he had committed the sin of homosexuality. And the bottom fell out of the world. Now you all know me and you know my reaction to this now, but when you are 13 and you really and truly believe that being gay is a sin and your MINISTER is gay? What in the heck are you supposed to do with that? That day passed in a blur. My Uncle filled us in on the details at lunch. The YM's wife had been up at a women's retreat at camp and had come home early. When she and another member of our congregation got to their house they surprised him while he was entertaining a young man, and as my uncle put it, They weren't playing Parcheesi. Because it wasn't just his wife there but his wife and another member of our church there was no way for them to hush this up, though it seems as though this wasn't the first time this sort of thing had happened.
The minister had been called, the elders convened and he was fired and forced out of the church. Now my church didn't do excommunications like the Catholics or the Mormons, but he was to never ever step foot in our church or any of our sister churches again, so it was pretty much the same thing. God might forgive him but the church wasn't going to. Seems as though he had a history of this back in college. Our minister went to school with him and knew about it, but believed him when he said that he had been "cured" and no longer had these unnatural urges. Our minister came very close to losing his job as well since he had failed to mention this to the elders when recommending the youth minister for the job. But the elders were faced with a very real dilemma on that one, if the YM says God has healed him do you not believe that or do you take it on faith that it is possible? So the minister got to keep his job.
My sister, my aunt and uncle's two boys and I headed over to the my oldest "cousin's" apartment where we proceeded to get wasted. The two boys and my sister passed around a joint or two while I had a rum and coke and got a contact high from the smoke as well. I believe this is the first time my sister used since she had gotten clean the previous year. Three things stick out from that afternoon. One is my sister telling me how proud she was of me and how amazed she was at my strength for saying no to the joint when it was passed to me, two is sitting in youth group that night and Caryn saying over and over again...what is that smell? Do you guys smell something? Knowing full well it was the pot and booze coming off of Todd and I. And three coming down off of the high in the middle of that meeting and bursting out into tears that I could not stop.
It was decided that the show would go on! We were only a few weeks out from touring at that point and we would still do it. A new youth minister was brought in (a seminary student between his junior and senior years who had no idea what he was walking into)and the process of healing was to begin.
Now this is where it got really complicated. This was the early 80s and the AIDS scare was at its height. And there were a large group of Christians who truly believed that it was God's judgment on the gay male community. Being gay was equal to being a child molester, in other words all gay men were interested in having sex with young boys. Being gay was just about the worst thing you could be. Because it was a conscience choice you were making. A choice to sin against God in the most unnatural of ways. And our YM had made this choice, all the while telling us how to be good Christians and lead exemplary lives. And for some of us it was even more complicated than that. My family still loved him very much. He had literally saved my sister's life. What do you do with those feelings? And with the conflict of forgiveness? And he who is without sin? And judge not?
And we were encouraged to either not speak of him anymore or to only speak poorly of him. When one of my friends and her boyfriend refused to play that part they were brought into the new YM office with him and the minister and told of some really horrible things that had happened. These were teenagers. They shouldn't have been put in that position. And they didn't believe the stories they were told so all it did was drive a wedge between them and the church and the new youth minister that took a lot of time to heal.
My mother took a very pragmatic approach that reconciled her faith and her feelings. You hear it a lot among the religious. Hate the sin, love the sinner. My family owed a lot to him and his wife and we would continue to love them, but we would hate the sin he committed. Hate that he was too weak to overcome his unnatural urges. And we would pray for him. My sister chose to not be married in the church for her first wedding so his wife and he could attend and play at the service, though he played the piano from behind a screen so no one would see him.
I wrote a lot of really bad poetry during that time and I found it years after I had healed and reconciled my feelings. The main theme was of loss. Loss of faith in someone and something for the first time. It was like a death. And so when I hear about a minister that is found to be performing an act that he preaches against I feel anger towards them. Anger because I know that behind that preacher is a congregation that is struggling with having their faith shattered. Now the church will tell you that is what happens when you put your faith in men instead of in God. Men are weak, God is strong, men are ever changing, God is a rock. But I will tell you that none of that matters when your heart is breaking and you feel as though everything you have been taught is a lie.
A few years later when I had turned the corner on my beliefs about homosexuality I forgave him. I realized that it was the church that was asking him to live a life that he could not reasonably be asked to live. Imagine for just a second if the tables were turned, if you as a heterosexual to gain acceptance among your peer group were asked to live a homosexual life? To take a same sex partner and live with them. To never ever touch or be touched by an opposite sex partner? Could you do it? Would you? Probably not. But that is what the church demands of it's gay parishioners.
And then came the second blow. It seems as though his sin wasn't homosexuality it was pedophilia. The young man he was caught with by his wife was a teenage boy. He had used the church as his hunting grounds for years abusing numerous teen boys in a variety of ways. I know the stories of three of these boys, now men who had to grow up and deal with so much more than just a loss of faith. Not only were they abused but then the church chose to protect itself instead of them. He should not have been kicked out of the church for having sexual urges for men, he should have been prosecuted and jailed for abusing boys. I confronted my mother about it (I learned the truth as an adult) and asked her if she knew the real truth not the story that was given out and she and my father both had known. But they did not separate out homosexuality from pedophilia. It was one and the same. Now years later still, she knows there is a difference, but the church taught that all gay men were predators and so they believed it to be true.
There are still churches out there teaching this. There are still people who insist on believing that lie, even though studies show there is a higher incidence of pedophilia among straight males than gay males, but they are sure being a gay man means wanting to sleep with young boys. So when stories break in the news about abusive Priests being moved from parish to parish to protect the church instead of the children it makes me angry. It makes me angry because they are hurting children and hurting their congregations. Destroying lives and tearing faith from the faithful. And though I choose not to believe, I know what it means to believe and what it feels like have that taken from you.
So the next time you are tempted to be a little joyful at some hypocrite taking a fall remember there are people who believed in him or her that are now hurting, questioning, doubting. And know that those that have lived it are reliving it each time something like that happens. So have a little compassion, maybe not for the person taking the fall but for those that can't catch them anymore.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
It's all just the opening....
In writing yesterday's blog in my head, as is my way, I started another blog at the same time. Similar theme, different time in my life, different outcome. So I thought I would share it as well.
I am having a hard time starting this one, there is a specific story I want to tell, but it ties in with a cultural phenomenon that I have noticed that I don't particularly enjoy, though I understand the drive behind it. So forgive me for the rambling opening.
Do you remember Ted Haggard? He was the minister with Focus on the Family who had a very active and vociferous anti-gay campaign with the church backing him....up until the gay male prostitute he was seeing in Denver on his time off ratted him out to the media. How about Larry Craig who voted against gay rights over and over again and then was arrested for a lewd act (his infamous wide stance) in an airport bathroom? When their double lives hit the news there was a lot of eye rolling and it figures and feelings of schadenfreude while reading the stories of their downfall.
For me the response is always a little different. I am angry. I am angry with people who know who and what they are and have such a high level of self loathing that they want to deny other people who are like them their rights. I am angry with people like Reverend Ted especially because he spent his life (and is at it again, now that he's "Cured") teaching people that God doesn't like gay people to act like gay people. While KNOWING that he was born that way, knowing that he could not deny who he was but expecting others to live a life he couldn't. So tell me Ted, did God make the mistake when he made you gay or did man make the mistake when they wrote in your book that God said you couldn't be gay? Because you are telling me through your actions that a mistake was made on one of these levels, so choose. If I believed in your version of God I know which one I would choose. Oh wait...I did.
But this story is to back up to why it makes me angry. Why I have such a strong reaction to these particular stories. Especially the Evangelical Preacher is Busted Have Gay Sex scandals. Behind each of those preachers is a congregation. A congregation that believes, wait scratch that, BELIEVES in what is being preached to them. They believe the Bible is a divine written book. They believe that God speaks to them and sets out rules and ways they have to live their lives. They believe that those that choose the path to lead are aspirational figures. It's the way the system works. And when they screw up. When they break one of the most basic of rules it shatters the faith of those around them. And to take someone else's faith from them, even for a little bit, is a horrible thing to do.
Shocked to hear that from me? Well it's true. Many times people get confused over my stance on religion. I am not a fan of organized religion. I do not believe in an omnipotent God who then needs you to pray a certain way in a certain place to be able to hear you. That makes no sense to me. I do not believe in a perfect being who made us in their own image who then made some of us heterosexual and some homosexual but then came back in later and said the homosexual ones were a mistake. Either God is omnipotent, perfect, all knowing, all being, or God isn't.
I do not have the vision of a man in white robes with the long beard dictating our moves, but I do believe that there is a spark, an energy, a connection that pulls us all together, that brings us all up, that is who we are at the most basic level. That to me is God. But I made that choice. I came to that conclusion over many years, much study of other religions and a lot of self examination. I would no more deny my family their belief (in the robed and bearded guy) then I would deny my friends their belief in the God or Gods that they worship and also in the belief of many of my friends that there is no God or Gods at all. We all make our choices, my choices are just that mine. But this is a story about what happens when you are firmly in one belief system and that shatters around you.
And now I have done so much rambling that the rest of the blog will have to wait for another posting. Don't you just hate it when I do that?
I am having a hard time starting this one, there is a specific story I want to tell, but it ties in with a cultural phenomenon that I have noticed that I don't particularly enjoy, though I understand the drive behind it. So forgive me for the rambling opening.
Do you remember Ted Haggard? He was the minister with Focus on the Family who had a very active and vociferous anti-gay campaign with the church backing him....up until the gay male prostitute he was seeing in Denver on his time off ratted him out to the media. How about Larry Craig who voted against gay rights over and over again and then was arrested for a lewd act (his infamous wide stance) in an airport bathroom? When their double lives hit the news there was a lot of eye rolling and it figures and feelings of schadenfreude while reading the stories of their downfall.
For me the response is always a little different. I am angry. I am angry with people who know who and what they are and have such a high level of self loathing that they want to deny other people who are like them their rights. I am angry with people like Reverend Ted especially because he spent his life (and is at it again, now that he's "Cured") teaching people that God doesn't like gay people to act like gay people. While KNOWING that he was born that way, knowing that he could not deny who he was but expecting others to live a life he couldn't. So tell me Ted, did God make the mistake when he made you gay or did man make the mistake when they wrote in your book that God said you couldn't be gay? Because you are telling me through your actions that a mistake was made on one of these levels, so choose. If I believed in your version of God I know which one I would choose. Oh wait...I did.
But this story is to back up to why it makes me angry. Why I have such a strong reaction to these particular stories. Especially the Evangelical Preacher is Busted Have Gay Sex scandals. Behind each of those preachers is a congregation. A congregation that believes, wait scratch that, BELIEVES in what is being preached to them. They believe the Bible is a divine written book. They believe that God speaks to them and sets out rules and ways they have to live their lives. They believe that those that choose the path to lead are aspirational figures. It's the way the system works. And when they screw up. When they break one of the most basic of rules it shatters the faith of those around them. And to take someone else's faith from them, even for a little bit, is a horrible thing to do.
Shocked to hear that from me? Well it's true. Many times people get confused over my stance on religion. I am not a fan of organized religion. I do not believe in an omnipotent God who then needs you to pray a certain way in a certain place to be able to hear you. That makes no sense to me. I do not believe in a perfect being who made us in their own image who then made some of us heterosexual and some homosexual but then came back in later and said the homosexual ones were a mistake. Either God is omnipotent, perfect, all knowing, all being, or God isn't.
I do not have the vision of a man in white robes with the long beard dictating our moves, but I do believe that there is a spark, an energy, a connection that pulls us all together, that brings us all up, that is who we are at the most basic level. That to me is God. But I made that choice. I came to that conclusion over many years, much study of other religions and a lot of self examination. I would no more deny my family their belief (in the robed and bearded guy) then I would deny my friends their belief in the God or Gods that they worship and also in the belief of many of my friends that there is no God or Gods at all. We all make our choices, my choices are just that mine. But this is a story about what happens when you are firmly in one belief system and that shatters around you.
And now I have done so much rambling that the rest of the blog will have to wait for another posting. Don't you just hate it when I do that?
Saturday, January 1, 2011
New Year, New Blog, Same Message
I had a friend ask me the other day why I hadn't written a celebration blog about the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, so I figured it was time to write. And time to write about why I am not celebrating...yet.
Part of why I am not celebrating yet is just due to timing. C and I watched Milk the day that DADT was repealed by the President. All the time I was watching I was struck by just how far we haven't come yet. How many things are still the same. How many still need changed. C thought the opposite. That we had made great strides. That in today's day and age you couldn't get someone like Anita Byrant leading a campaign of intolerance based solely on her religious beliefs. Then I reminded him of Prop 8 in California and how the Mormon Church had come in and waged a strong political campaign couched in "American Values" to keep basic rights out of the hands of people that disagreed with their religious beliefs.
He and I had a great discussion after watching the movie on rights and beliefs and what happens when those things conflict. He and his friends give me hope that we will continue down the path of equal rights for everyone, not just equal rights for those that think the same way we think.
The other is that nothing has changed yet...really. Robert Gates had to warn our troops that they couldn't come out yet. The UCMJ has not been changed so it is still not okay to be openly gay. Signing the repeal was just the first step in what will prove to be a lengthy process. It's a good first step. It's an important first step. But I want them to make leaps now. Because even though our men and women who choose to serve our country and are homosexual will soon be able to do so openly they will still not be able to marry the person that they love. They will still not be able to get the military benefits for their partners that I was able to get when Brent was in the service. They will still face years of open and hidden hostility by people who have been raised to believe that being gay is a choice and a wrong choice.
One of my hopes for 2011 is that somewhere the light is going on in a lot of different minds that rights aren't a limited resource. That by allowing others to have their full share doesn't mean you have to give up yours. My right to be married isn't going to go away if that same right is given to my gay friends. My right to not be discriminated against because of the sexual organs of the person I love will not be lessened if that same right is afforded to others. Rights aren't like pie, I don't have to give up my piece to give you yours. We all deserve the same treatment, remember it's not about special rights, it's about equal rights.
So though I am very glad that this backwards law is in the process of going away, though I am thrilled that this will give young people who are gay hope for a better future, though I am optimistic that this will help start the ball rolling towards a more inclusive America, I am still not ready to celebrate. But I hope to be able to soon. And trust me on that day I will write a huge celebratory blog!
Part of why I am not celebrating yet is just due to timing. C and I watched Milk the day that DADT was repealed by the President. All the time I was watching I was struck by just how far we haven't come yet. How many things are still the same. How many still need changed. C thought the opposite. That we had made great strides. That in today's day and age you couldn't get someone like Anita Byrant leading a campaign of intolerance based solely on her religious beliefs. Then I reminded him of Prop 8 in California and how the Mormon Church had come in and waged a strong political campaign couched in "American Values" to keep basic rights out of the hands of people that disagreed with their religious beliefs.
He and I had a great discussion after watching the movie on rights and beliefs and what happens when those things conflict. He and his friends give me hope that we will continue down the path of equal rights for everyone, not just equal rights for those that think the same way we think.
The other is that nothing has changed yet...really. Robert Gates had to warn our troops that they couldn't come out yet. The UCMJ has not been changed so it is still not okay to be openly gay. Signing the repeal was just the first step in what will prove to be a lengthy process. It's a good first step. It's an important first step. But I want them to make leaps now. Because even though our men and women who choose to serve our country and are homosexual will soon be able to do so openly they will still not be able to marry the person that they love. They will still not be able to get the military benefits for their partners that I was able to get when Brent was in the service. They will still face years of open and hidden hostility by people who have been raised to believe that being gay is a choice and a wrong choice.
One of my hopes for 2011 is that somewhere the light is going on in a lot of different minds that rights aren't a limited resource. That by allowing others to have their full share doesn't mean you have to give up yours. My right to be married isn't going to go away if that same right is given to my gay friends. My right to not be discriminated against because of the sexual organs of the person I love will not be lessened if that same right is afforded to others. Rights aren't like pie, I don't have to give up my piece to give you yours. We all deserve the same treatment, remember it's not about special rights, it's about equal rights.
So though I am very glad that this backwards law is in the process of going away, though I am thrilled that this will give young people who are gay hope for a better future, though I am optimistic that this will help start the ball rolling towards a more inclusive America, I am still not ready to celebrate. But I hope to be able to soon. And trust me on that day I will write a huge celebratory blog!
Friday, December 31, 2010
Redecorating
So as I mentioned in my Self Delusional blog there was a point in time where I thought I wanted to be more Martha Stewart like but soon realized that's just not me. One of the main areas that I wanted to be that chic, that put together, that fabulous was Christmas decorations.
Growing up my family sort of had (and they still do) a Griswold Family Christmas theme going. If some is good then more is better! If clear twinkle lights were pretty than multi-color multi-function lights were awesome! Don't get me wrong, I loved all of our Christmas things and my childhood Christmas memories are full of color and lights because of them, but when I headed out on my own I wanted to do something different. I had dreams of trees with all white decorations, or all red. Ribbons cascading gently down the tree. Natural centerpieces that I made by hand and would change depending on where we lived...ah...it was going to be beautiful! So I traded in my folk's colored lights for strands of clear bulbs, I made a vow that less was more and set out to make the perfect Christmas house!
So as you can imagine at Christmas time when you walk in to my house it looks...well...it looks like the elves threw up in here. All of my good intentions just never came to fruition. I have tried a few times to change the course of things, but what would I give away? The gift that Chad gave to Brent and I the Christmas two days before we were married? He was so excited for us to get this present, he said it was PERFECT for us and he just couldn't wait...then we opened it and 24 years later we are still not sure why he thought it was so us...but now it is.
Or would we pack away the ornaments that my mother passed along to me? Like the angel that was on my stocking as a child? With her dirty face, torn dress, missing wings and missing halo she's pretty much perfect.
Or would I have to give up the ornaments that mark milestones in C's life? Or the ones he made for us?
What exactly would I have to give up to make it a perfect Christmas like I had imagined? The extra large Santa and Snowman collection? The random Christmas themed stuffed animals that we have somehow accumulated through the years? Anything that glitters? What would it take to have the Christmas I imagined I wanted? And would I even want that now? I have to say there is still a part of me that gets a little ping of envy when I see a house that is just perfectly decorated. Understated and classy...and I do tend to apologize to people about the clutter when they come to my place at Christmas. But then when I was packing up the huge amounts of decorations yesterday I was able to see that sometimes...just sometimes by keeping everything whether it was classy, crass, brassy, understated or over the top you get to run into things that you forgot you had, but never want to lose.
I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday filled with memories, family, friends, love and laughter. Classy and understated or sparkly and over the top.
Happy New Year and I will see you again in 2011!
Growing up my family sort of had (and they still do) a Griswold Family Christmas theme going. If some is good then more is better! If clear twinkle lights were pretty than multi-color multi-function lights were awesome! Don't get me wrong, I loved all of our Christmas things and my childhood Christmas memories are full of color and lights because of them, but when I headed out on my own I wanted to do something different. I had dreams of trees with all white decorations, or all red. Ribbons cascading gently down the tree. Natural centerpieces that I made by hand and would change depending on where we lived...ah...it was going to be beautiful! So I traded in my folk's colored lights for strands of clear bulbs, I made a vow that less was more and set out to make the perfect Christmas house!
So as you can imagine at Christmas time when you walk in to my house it looks...well...it looks like the elves threw up in here. All of my good intentions just never came to fruition. I have tried a few times to change the course of things, but what would I give away? The gift that Chad gave to Brent and I the Christmas two days before we were married? He was so excited for us to get this present, he said it was PERFECT for us and he just couldn't wait...then we opened it and 24 years later we are still not sure why he thought it was so us...but now it is.
Or would we pack away the ornaments that my mother passed along to me? Like the angel that was on my stocking as a child? With her dirty face, torn dress, missing wings and missing halo she's pretty much perfect.
Or would I have to give up the ornaments that mark milestones in C's life? Or the ones he made for us?
What exactly would I have to give up to make it a perfect Christmas like I had imagined? The extra large Santa and Snowman collection? The random Christmas themed stuffed animals that we have somehow accumulated through the years? Anything that glitters? What would it take to have the Christmas I imagined I wanted? And would I even want that now? I have to say there is still a part of me that gets a little ping of envy when I see a house that is just perfectly decorated. Understated and classy...and I do tend to apologize to people about the clutter when they come to my place at Christmas. But then when I was packing up the huge amounts of decorations yesterday I was able to see that sometimes...just sometimes by keeping everything whether it was classy, crass, brassy, understated or over the top you get to run into things that you forgot you had, but never want to lose.
I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday filled with memories, family, friends, love and laughter. Classy and understated or sparkly and over the top.
Happy New Year and I will see you again in 2011!
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Touchy touchy.
I am a very touchy person. I don't mean fly off the handle emotional touchy (though if I hit a really bad stretch with no sleep at the right time of the month I can sure act like one!) I mean touchy feely. Enough so that I feel like I should warn people. If you are sitting next to me expect me to touch your arm while we talk, expect me to rub your shoulder, expect me to pat your leg. I just am a touchy person.
When I met the friends I made online for the first time I warned them all that I would be greeting them with a hug. I knew them and they were my friends after all...we just hadn't met face to face yet. And to be fully truthful I don't hug, I HUG. I don't hold back. The first time I go drinking with a group of friends I warn them as well, because as touchy as I am sober I am much worse after a few drinks. Most people are fine with it but you never know how comfortable other people are going to be with being touched. I try to keep that in mind, but most often I will still hug someone or at least pat them on the arm.
I think part of it is brain chemistry. Because it's not just people that I touch, it's everything. In a store I am the person that walks by the clothes and reaches out to feel them even if I have no intention of buying them. Right now as I proof read this blog I am running my hands over the edge of the desk because there is a rough edge there that feels different than the rest of the desk. I don't eat certain foods because I don't like the way they feel in my mouth. I would honestly eat everything with my hands if I could get away with it so when food comes to the table I have to hold my hands in my lap to keep from touching the food, just to see what it feels like. And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Brent and C both are very understanding about a random finger in their plates. And not only do I want to touch everything but then I want you to as well. All of my friends know that if I am wearing a particularly soft article of clothing they all must feel it. If I find a very smooth rock at the beach everyone must marvel at the smoothness. I want to share what I feel, so if you are close to me you get touched and must touch as well.
I have passed this compulsion along to C as well. He will pick his entire wardrobe based on how the clothes feel not how they look. I spent his childhood washing walls because he couldn't walk down a hallway without trailing a hand along the wall and kids seem to just be sticky by nature. Though he isn't as touchy feely with people as I am. It was a sad day for me when he reached the age where he stopped cuddling up on the couch with me to read a book or watch a movie. But I have for the most part respected that boundary. When he hit around 11 and got a little more embarrassed by public displays of affection we turned the hug into the fist pound fist bump routine that we did for years. Hit the top, hit the bottom, bump.
I noticed that when he left for college the one thing I really missed was being able to touch him. I talked to him once a week by phone and a few times a week by IM or Facebook. We never really stopped communicating (he is a very good college boy and humors his mother) but I missed being able to touch him. When we went up for Parent's Weekend I gave him a hug when we first saw him, of course, and then spent the weekend fidgeting with him. Straightening a collar, brushing his hair off his forehead, punching his arm...softly...but still just something to register that he was really there. And then spent the rest of the time holding my own hands so that I didn't bug him too much.
Right after Brent and I got home I was out driving one day and got stuck behind a school bus bringing kids home from elementary school. As I watched the kids get off the bus and meet with waiting parents I was struck by the amount of touch. For the little ones, it was usually a hug that was eagerly reciprocated by the child. Then you hit around 2nd grade level and the mom or dad would reach out and pat the top of a head, or put an arm around a shoulder but for the most part the kid would just stand there. Then you got to the older kids, if there was a parent waiting for them at all the greeting was a high five or a fist bump. Setting up those boundaries but still a little bit of touch. Just to make sure they were okay and really there.
I wonder if we are all hard wired for that touch and just some of us have stopped listening to that need. I told you earlier that I believe part of it is brain chemistry for me. I also believe part is the way I was raised. My parents were both brought up in houses that were pretty closed off. They decided that they would do things differently, so we were touched a lot as kids. Hugs, hands held, heads patted and they also touched each other in front of us. My father still can't resist patting my mother's butt as she walks by and he is 80 years old! No matter how embarrassing it was when I was a teenager, it stuck with me. I am not embarrassed by public displays of affection (within reason, there are things nobody needs to see at the mall!) and think it's sweet when you see a couple walking down the street holding hands. Or an entire family for that matter.
As a massage therapist I can tell you that you need touch. You have all read about or heard about studies done with children who were not touched enough as babies and the problems they have. But it happens with adults as well. Some people are just touch starved. We would get clients in to clinic at the school who had not been touched by anyone in weeks. Just the act of laying a hand on them would help them begin to relax. Touch is important. But it doesn't have to be structured touch, you don't need to visit a massage therapist to get that benefit, just hold hands with your kids, with your spouse, with your best friend. Put a hand on someone's arm when they are telling you a story. Connect, touch.
There is a corny Miss America joke that used to go around when I was a kid about her answer to how to end war..."I believe the whole world should hold hands, because if you are holding a hand you can't hold a gun." Something to think about...
When I met the friends I made online for the first time I warned them all that I would be greeting them with a hug. I knew them and they were my friends after all...we just hadn't met face to face yet. And to be fully truthful I don't hug, I HUG. I don't hold back. The first time I go drinking with a group of friends I warn them as well, because as touchy as I am sober I am much worse after a few drinks. Most people are fine with it but you never know how comfortable other people are going to be with being touched. I try to keep that in mind, but most often I will still hug someone or at least pat them on the arm.
I think part of it is brain chemistry. Because it's not just people that I touch, it's everything. In a store I am the person that walks by the clothes and reaches out to feel them even if I have no intention of buying them. Right now as I proof read this blog I am running my hands over the edge of the desk because there is a rough edge there that feels different than the rest of the desk. I don't eat certain foods because I don't like the way they feel in my mouth. I would honestly eat everything with my hands if I could get away with it so when food comes to the table I have to hold my hands in my lap to keep from touching the food, just to see what it feels like. And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn't. Brent and C both are very understanding about a random finger in their plates. And not only do I want to touch everything but then I want you to as well. All of my friends know that if I am wearing a particularly soft article of clothing they all must feel it. If I find a very smooth rock at the beach everyone must marvel at the smoothness. I want to share what I feel, so if you are close to me you get touched and must touch as well.
I have passed this compulsion along to C as well. He will pick his entire wardrobe based on how the clothes feel not how they look. I spent his childhood washing walls because he couldn't walk down a hallway without trailing a hand along the wall and kids seem to just be sticky by nature. Though he isn't as touchy feely with people as I am. It was a sad day for me when he reached the age where he stopped cuddling up on the couch with me to read a book or watch a movie. But I have for the most part respected that boundary. When he hit around 11 and got a little more embarrassed by public displays of affection we turned the hug into the fist pound fist bump routine that we did for years. Hit the top, hit the bottom, bump.
I noticed that when he left for college the one thing I really missed was being able to touch him. I talked to him once a week by phone and a few times a week by IM or Facebook. We never really stopped communicating (he is a very good college boy and humors his mother) but I missed being able to touch him. When we went up for Parent's Weekend I gave him a hug when we first saw him, of course, and then spent the weekend fidgeting with him. Straightening a collar, brushing his hair off his forehead, punching his arm...softly...but still just something to register that he was really there. And then spent the rest of the time holding my own hands so that I didn't bug him too much.
Right after Brent and I got home I was out driving one day and got stuck behind a school bus bringing kids home from elementary school. As I watched the kids get off the bus and meet with waiting parents I was struck by the amount of touch. For the little ones, it was usually a hug that was eagerly reciprocated by the child. Then you hit around 2nd grade level and the mom or dad would reach out and pat the top of a head, or put an arm around a shoulder but for the most part the kid would just stand there. Then you got to the older kids, if there was a parent waiting for them at all the greeting was a high five or a fist bump. Setting up those boundaries but still a little bit of touch. Just to make sure they were okay and really there.
I wonder if we are all hard wired for that touch and just some of us have stopped listening to that need. I told you earlier that I believe part of it is brain chemistry for me. I also believe part is the way I was raised. My parents were both brought up in houses that were pretty closed off. They decided that they would do things differently, so we were touched a lot as kids. Hugs, hands held, heads patted and they also touched each other in front of us. My father still can't resist patting my mother's butt as she walks by and he is 80 years old! No matter how embarrassing it was when I was a teenager, it stuck with me. I am not embarrassed by public displays of affection (within reason, there are things nobody needs to see at the mall!) and think it's sweet when you see a couple walking down the street holding hands. Or an entire family for that matter.
As a massage therapist I can tell you that you need touch. You have all read about or heard about studies done with children who were not touched enough as babies and the problems they have. But it happens with adults as well. Some people are just touch starved. We would get clients in to clinic at the school who had not been touched by anyone in weeks. Just the act of laying a hand on them would help them begin to relax. Touch is important. But it doesn't have to be structured touch, you don't need to visit a massage therapist to get that benefit, just hold hands with your kids, with your spouse, with your best friend. Put a hand on someone's arm when they are telling you a story. Connect, touch.
There is a corny Miss America joke that used to go around when I was a kid about her answer to how to end war..."I believe the whole world should hold hands, because if you are holding a hand you can't hold a gun." Something to think about...
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Daily?
So I have been thinking back to last February where I made sure to post something in my blog every day for a month. I am considering doing that again, but with one change. It can either be something new or a re-post from earlier. What do you all think? I know I have some new readers out there now (thank you!) so would people be interested in me pulling up some of the older blogs and re-posting? How about my faithful readers, would that just annoy you?
As far as the writing to be published part goes, I am still undecided where that will lead. As I read more and more about the process I am not sure it's for me. But then again, as I read more and more about the process I am not sure it isn't either. So much like everything in my life I will decide when it happens. If it feels like it's right to submit something to a publisher then I will, but if it feels like this is just enough, then I won't. And fiction versus what I do here, the stories of day to day life. Which should I focus on? Or should I keep to my way which is never to focus on anything for too long? (I am still adding metaphors to my collection for ways to call myself flighty, can you tell?)
Here is part of my fear with the writing. I like to write right now. I enjoy putting the words down and having people read them and then engaging in discussion about what I wrote. I like the idea of writing a fictional story and having people experience a world that I created. But I am afraid if I make it too much of a job the shine will wear off. I will lose some of the joyful spark I get from writing. But on the other hand if I don't focus and treat it like a job and get some real things accomplished with the writing will I regret the choice later?
So I guess here are the things I am putting out to the world today. Would you be interested in reading older blog posts again? Would a daily post just be too much? Or if there is a daily post should it be new material only? And the rest is for you to continue to be my sounding boards as I brain dump everything in to this space as usual.
And can I get a cape if I start calling myself Multifocus Girl?
As far as the writing to be published part goes, I am still undecided where that will lead. As I read more and more about the process I am not sure it's for me. But then again, as I read more and more about the process I am not sure it isn't either. So much like everything in my life I will decide when it happens. If it feels like it's right to submit something to a publisher then I will, but if it feels like this is just enough, then I won't. And fiction versus what I do here, the stories of day to day life. Which should I focus on? Or should I keep to my way which is never to focus on anything for too long? (I am still adding metaphors to my collection for ways to call myself flighty, can you tell?)
Here is part of my fear with the writing. I like to write right now. I enjoy putting the words down and having people read them and then engaging in discussion about what I wrote. I like the idea of writing a fictional story and having people experience a world that I created. But I am afraid if I make it too much of a job the shine will wear off. I will lose some of the joyful spark I get from writing. But on the other hand if I don't focus and treat it like a job and get some real things accomplished with the writing will I regret the choice later?
So I guess here are the things I am putting out to the world today. Would you be interested in reading older blog posts again? Would a daily post just be too much? Or if there is a daily post should it be new material only? And the rest is for you to continue to be my sounding boards as I brain dump everything in to this space as usual.
And can I get a cape if I start calling myself Multifocus Girl?
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
So you want to be a writer?
As you all know back in August I set up a new challenge for myself. Before my 43 birthday I wanted to be a published author. It didn't matter what it was, just something I wrote had to be published. My definition added that I had to be paid for it, not just some free publication. The money is what was going to make it real.
So here we are five months into the challenge and what have I done so far? Not much. I am going to break it down for you. I have done hours and hours of online research on writing and how people go about getting things started. I wrote a fairly detailed outline of a book idea I had bouncing around in my head, which I then lost. Poof gone. Like it never existed. But I haven't gotten around to rewriting it so I am guessing that means I wasn't that in love with the idea after all. I wrote the starts to a half a dozen short stories that I was planning to weave together into a somewhat cohesive narrative then two weeks ago in a fit of frustration I deleted those. I regret that now...but exhaustion, frustration and self doubt can make you do a lot of rash things. Next time I will just put them in a "work on it later" file instead of a "YUCK!" delete mode.
I wrote one children's story that I like, but now have to decide what to do with it. I have a second children's story forming in my head that I need to get down on paper. Or up on screen as the case may be. And that's where I am with most everything else. I am still constantly "writing" stories in my head and not taking that next step to put them down on paper so others can read them as well. The narratives are going on all the time, but the line from brain to hand to keyboard is still not happening.
And the decisions, what do I want to write exactly? I just got an idea for what would be a teen series yesterday, but do I have enough there to actually turn it into a book? And is it too derivative of other work that is out there to actually stand on its own? But I have the idea...so what now?
And that's my biggest challenge right now. What now? So I have this idea (still) that I think I can be a writer. That I have ideas that would make good stories. That I have things to say that people want to read. But do I? In a way with this blog I already have an outlet for my writing. It's not the fictional stories, but it's still my writing. And I know at least one person faithfully reads them (hello, C!) but is that all I want to do? And if not then why do I want to do more?
I used to write a lot when I was younger. Poems, stories, song lyrics. I wrote all the time. And when I wasn't writing I would tell stories. I spent a lot of time on a bus when I was in my teenage years, on tour during the summer with my youth group and then later traveling to competitions when we switched to Bible Bowl. Back then there were no hand held video games to keep you amused, you either read or slept or talked. Reading in a car makes me sick so I either slept or talked. And those of you that know me know sleeping is not my strong suit but talking...now talking I can handle. And in the course of talking I would make up stories. Ghost stories were my favorite.
In fact when I was around 11 or 12 I told a particularity good one on the way up to Camp for the week that I wove El Porvenier into and ended up scaring the heck out of the entire new dorm full of girls. It was a brilliant day (or night as the case was) even though the next morning I had to fess up to my camp leader that it was all my fault that the girls were all screaming at the window of an empty cabin. To be able to tell a story to two girls in the back seat of my parent's car that ended up being retold to a dorm full of girls that ended up taking on enough weight that it actually made them see the face in the window that I described? Yeah, that was good stuff.
I also wrote a short story when I was in 8th grade that I thought for awhile was going to get me kicked out of school. And if someone were to write it in this day and age, it probably would. It was HEAVILY influenced by a book called The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids that I had read a few years before. Now my story and that book would never fly in today's world. In both stories the kids revolt against the teachers and actually kill them. In mine, my classmates took over the school and set up a sort of commune living there together. One student got pregnant, all adults were banished, killed or locked up. It was a revenge fantasy played out on the pages of a notebook. And it was a hit among my classmates. Until Tanya let her mother read it.
I can remember her coming to school the Monday after she took the story home for the weekend, it was passed around like that, different kids took it at different times to read it, and telling me, "My mother says you have a sick mind." My reaction? "You let your MOTHER read it??" And then she let me know that her mother had confiscated my story and would be considering turning it into Mrs. Robertson (the principal and one of the first killed in my book). I moved pretty quickly from appalled that she let her mother read what was OBVIOUSLY just for us kids to terrified I was going to get kicked out of school.
Now of course I would love to have the story back. Just to have it in my possession, though I am sure it was horrible, it would be fun to read it again. And as far as Tanya was concerned? My biggest regret is that I didn't include the storyline of Tanya and Kerry being lesbians that I had originally thought about. Because then she would have NEVER let her mother read it, and I would still have my story.
I took one journalism class in high school but like everything else in high school I didn't take it seriously. When I was in college I thought about taking creative writing but when I looked at the course description and saw that the instructor would be telling me what to write I realized that it didn't sound very creative to me at all. I bought my first book on writing books when I was in my early 20s. My father-in-law heavily discouraged me from pursuing that path, though now I know he was always interested in being a writer himself and even started a book before he died. I have to believe he discouraged me because he knew it wasn't as easy to write as it is to read.
When I was in my mid 20s I wrote away to one of those "Be a Children's Book Writer" things where they supposedly judge your writing sample to see if you have talent and then hire you if you do. Well of course I had talent! Of course they wanted to hire me! Of course it would only cost me the low low price of.... Yeah, maybe not. I also wrote an outline for a story that has been bouncing around in my head ever since about an abusive man, a talk show host and a scared former wife. So through everything else there was always this thought of, "I wonder if I could."
Now I am trying to call myself a writer more often. To stop saying to Brent at the end of the day, "I didn't do anything, just wrote." Change it to, "I wrote today." I am trying to find my voice. To figure out what exactly it is that I want to write. And maybe, this is it. Maybe it's just the blog. The stories that are me. But maybe there is a story in there that will get published. If this sounds to you like I am letting myself off the hook for my challenge this year, I sort of am considering it. I am trying to decide if the published for money part is what would make me a writer or if the more than two people reading what I write is what would make me a writer or if just sitting down every day and putting words on the screen is what would make me a writer.
Or maybe I already am.
So here we are five months into the challenge and what have I done so far? Not much. I am going to break it down for you. I have done hours and hours of online research on writing and how people go about getting things started. I wrote a fairly detailed outline of a book idea I had bouncing around in my head, which I then lost. Poof gone. Like it never existed. But I haven't gotten around to rewriting it so I am guessing that means I wasn't that in love with the idea after all. I wrote the starts to a half a dozen short stories that I was planning to weave together into a somewhat cohesive narrative then two weeks ago in a fit of frustration I deleted those. I regret that now...but exhaustion, frustration and self doubt can make you do a lot of rash things. Next time I will just put them in a "work on it later" file instead of a "YUCK!" delete mode.
I wrote one children's story that I like, but now have to decide what to do with it. I have a second children's story forming in my head that I need to get down on paper. Or up on screen as the case may be. And that's where I am with most everything else. I am still constantly "writing" stories in my head and not taking that next step to put them down on paper so others can read them as well. The narratives are going on all the time, but the line from brain to hand to keyboard is still not happening.
And the decisions, what do I want to write exactly? I just got an idea for what would be a teen series yesterday, but do I have enough there to actually turn it into a book? And is it too derivative of other work that is out there to actually stand on its own? But I have the idea...so what now?
And that's my biggest challenge right now. What now? So I have this idea (still) that I think I can be a writer. That I have ideas that would make good stories. That I have things to say that people want to read. But do I? In a way with this blog I already have an outlet for my writing. It's not the fictional stories, but it's still my writing. And I know at least one person faithfully reads them (hello, C!) but is that all I want to do? And if not then why do I want to do more?
I used to write a lot when I was younger. Poems, stories, song lyrics. I wrote all the time. And when I wasn't writing I would tell stories. I spent a lot of time on a bus when I was in my teenage years, on tour during the summer with my youth group and then later traveling to competitions when we switched to Bible Bowl. Back then there were no hand held video games to keep you amused, you either read or slept or talked. Reading in a car makes me sick so I either slept or talked. And those of you that know me know sleeping is not my strong suit but talking...now talking I can handle. And in the course of talking I would make up stories. Ghost stories were my favorite.
In fact when I was around 11 or 12 I told a particularity good one on the way up to Camp for the week that I wove El Porvenier into and ended up scaring the heck out of the entire new dorm full of girls. It was a brilliant day (or night as the case was) even though the next morning I had to fess up to my camp leader that it was all my fault that the girls were all screaming at the window of an empty cabin. To be able to tell a story to two girls in the back seat of my parent's car that ended up being retold to a dorm full of girls that ended up taking on enough weight that it actually made them see the face in the window that I described? Yeah, that was good stuff.
I also wrote a short story when I was in 8th grade that I thought for awhile was going to get me kicked out of school. And if someone were to write it in this day and age, it probably would. It was HEAVILY influenced by a book called The War Between the Pitiful Teachers and the Splendid Kids that I had read a few years before. Now my story and that book would never fly in today's world. In both stories the kids revolt against the teachers and actually kill them. In mine, my classmates took over the school and set up a sort of commune living there together. One student got pregnant, all adults were banished, killed or locked up. It was a revenge fantasy played out on the pages of a notebook. And it was a hit among my classmates. Until Tanya let her mother read it.
I can remember her coming to school the Monday after she took the story home for the weekend, it was passed around like that, different kids took it at different times to read it, and telling me, "My mother says you have a sick mind." My reaction? "You let your MOTHER read it??" And then she let me know that her mother had confiscated my story and would be considering turning it into Mrs. Robertson (the principal and one of the first killed in my book). I moved pretty quickly from appalled that she let her mother read what was OBVIOUSLY just for us kids to terrified I was going to get kicked out of school.
Now of course I would love to have the story back. Just to have it in my possession, though I am sure it was horrible, it would be fun to read it again. And as far as Tanya was concerned? My biggest regret is that I didn't include the storyline of Tanya and Kerry being lesbians that I had originally thought about. Because then she would have NEVER let her mother read it, and I would still have my story.
I took one journalism class in high school but like everything else in high school I didn't take it seriously. When I was in college I thought about taking creative writing but when I looked at the course description and saw that the instructor would be telling me what to write I realized that it didn't sound very creative to me at all. I bought my first book on writing books when I was in my early 20s. My father-in-law heavily discouraged me from pursuing that path, though now I know he was always interested in being a writer himself and even started a book before he died. I have to believe he discouraged me because he knew it wasn't as easy to write as it is to read.
When I was in my mid 20s I wrote away to one of those "Be a Children's Book Writer" things where they supposedly judge your writing sample to see if you have talent and then hire you if you do. Well of course I had talent! Of course they wanted to hire me! Of course it would only cost me the low low price of.... Yeah, maybe not. I also wrote an outline for a story that has been bouncing around in my head ever since about an abusive man, a talk show host and a scared former wife. So through everything else there was always this thought of, "I wonder if I could."
Now I am trying to call myself a writer more often. To stop saying to Brent at the end of the day, "I didn't do anything, just wrote." Change it to, "I wrote today." I am trying to find my voice. To figure out what exactly it is that I want to write. And maybe, this is it. Maybe it's just the blog. The stories that are me. But maybe there is a story in there that will get published. If this sounds to you like I am letting myself off the hook for my challenge this year, I sort of am considering it. I am trying to decide if the published for money part is what would make me a writer or if the more than two people reading what I write is what would make me a writer or if just sitting down every day and putting words on the screen is what would make me a writer.
Or maybe I already am.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)