The children, the babies, are not yet buried and the “Mommy Wars” have started over blog post responses to viral posts. I have many other pressing tasks to do, including traffic court today for forgetting to register my car, and I don’t want to spend the day researching. I probably should because I am a damn good researcher, actually trained in both library and social science methodologies and could probably expound with amazing clarity about the main players in the drama over “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother,” a post that went viral (just Google the phrase and you will see what I mean) from a mother with a very troubled child. Now bloggers are saying that the writer of this piece is the one with mental illness, not her son. I didn’t help. I forwarded the link and the original blog address after I read a republication of the post. I should have done research before forwarding, but really now, does anyone really do research on the info every single time before re-tweeting something? I don’t know what the truth is. And neither do any of us outside of the situation, and from what I can tell there are several truths (perspectives) inside the situation.
And you know what? I don’t care what the truth is. Truth is a personally constructed value. There are facts. There are data. I cannot be the judge of others. I wrote another piece last year, A Cautionary Tale :: Blogs, Lies, and Screen Captures, on a different blog that discusses a different tragedy and the intense emotions that come into play when mothers attack via social media. (Wasn’t When Mothers Attack a B-grade Fifties Monster Movie? Sorry, but I need some levity in these sad, sad days in which the whole country is regrouping.) Everyone who can text is a writer these days. Folks skilled at the art of deception tweet, post and blog. Mothers who are at their wit’s end tweet, post and blog. People who hurt and want to find the reason for their pain also tweet, post and blog.
There are sessions at blogging conferences on the experience of having your posts go viral. Sometimes it is because you did your research, sometimes it is because you let your son and his best friend dress alike for Halloween just like they wanted to do, sometimes it is because you were “shot in the ass.” Memes happen. You cannot know your post, or blog, will go viral. You cannot know when you will become a celebrity.
Geesh girl friend(s), just lighten up. I know, I know, we can’t lighten up about the situation that broke the heart of a nation. But there is civility. Remember civility? Remember Tucson and our call for civility after January 8th, 2011? There is a fund for civility that grew out of that. The desire for a civil society, for people acting civilly, for build a true civilization is real.
I can be snarky, too quick to offer up my sharp tongue, but please, please know that I try to never be intentionally critical of an individual. I haven’t always been successful. My political posts can get very heated at times, less so than they used to be, but let’s just say I learned my lesson. After having lobbied and protested in my congresswoman’s office, met and talked to her at fund-raisers, written scathingly about her being propped up by big money and political machines and specific influence groups, and after seeing her chief of staff’s jaw drop when she saw and recognized me from DC at a local Tucson even, to have her, my Congresswoman fall victim to an attempted assassination that injured and took the lives of many others — well — let’s just say that I can now vehemently disagree with someone while still loving them for being who they are. I learned that even politicos with whom I disagree can be inspirational and have good motives.
I hope the Mommy Wars component of this hoopla fades away quickly. Nothing is more fierce than a woman protecting children. Yes, there are terribly disturbed children in our society. Yes, there are mothers who are mentally ill in our society. Yes, we have too long allowed politics fueled by profit to compromise the well-being of our citizenry. The lives of our children depend on actions, not our words. So let’s work to protect our children and not attack each other.
We Are All Guilty When Any Child Is Shot Dead
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting is ugly, heinous, heart wrenching, wrong and totally unforgivable. Babies shot dead in their classrooms. There are no words to describe the wash of emotion surging through me at this moment. We as adults, parents, citizens tolerate this violence or we would end it, contain it, and prevent it.
Young white children in the Connecticut suburbs killed en masse rightly creates outrage. But the first report found in a quick search whose numbers I trust, one by the Children’s Defense Fund, shows that thousands upon thousands of children are shot dead in America every year.
In 2008, 2,947 children and teens died from guns in the United States and 2,793 died in 2009 for a total of 5,740—one child or teen every three hours, eight every day, 55 every week for two years.
Taking a 30-year snapshot when child gun death and injury data collection began,116,385 children and teens were killed by firearms between 1979 and 2009—enough to fill 4,655 public school classrooms of 25 students each. Since 1979, America has lost nearly three times as many children and teens to gunfire as the number of U.S. military personnel killed in action during the Vietnam War, and over 23 times the number of U.S. military personnel killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan (5,013).
We are all to blame. Each and every one of us allows this to go on when we do not promote discussions about violence, when we teach – often by inaction and silence – that “the other” exists. We are all guilty when we allow reality tv that promotes stupidity, personal celebrity, and snarky disregard of others to blast out in our homes. We are all guilty when overlook the violent video games are played by our older kids, and we allow or overlook our significant others to view exploitation porn. We are all guilty if we allow our churches to promote any attitude that differentiates ourselves as chosen and better or apart from others. We are guilty if we isolate ourselves and our families rather than to embrace everyone and build community.
We are all guilty of killing these children and the adults who did all they could to protect them.
The Ides of Aquarius
A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to visit the land of the Maya. It was a very short trip, I traveled with my husband to a conference he attended at Xcaret. I was able to visit a place of myth and mortality, Chichen Itza, and I managed to speak to a couple local residents about history, mystery and the ending of a Baktun, a cycle of time, referenced by the Mayan Calendar. I discuss these conversations throughout writings I will publish between now and the turning of the baktun this month, December 2012.
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Time beyond this baktun, more properly b'ak'tun, is noted in the writings on the wall in a room of a recently found workshop for scribes, priests, and other high society Mayan types who apparently calculated cycles and dates for calendars, including ones beyond December 21, 2012. In fact, the date marks the ending of the 13th baktun that will be followed by the 14th baktun,, and that by the 15th, ad infinitum. There is an excellent summary of the archeological research which has been detailed in the journal Science and the June 2012 issue of National Geographic that includes excellent photographs of this recently found “house” at Xultún in the Cosmic Log news site.
I have taken to calling this transition the Ides of Aquarius because the confluence of New Age thought with the traditional Mayan calendar all stirred into a fine contemporary mythic batter is liberally sprinkled with ideations from songs from late 1960s musical theater, recognition of catastrophism, and the galactic alignment. People love apocalyptic claptrap especially in times of change where we do not know what the the hell is going on. If there ever was such a time, it is now. The very nature of the rate of information flow has changed per what some people are calling an information singularity and what I have heard others describe as an information event horizon. No matter how you conceptualize it, the global instantaneous linkage of human thought changes everything no matter whether you frame it in negative prophetic terms or positive awakening terms, we are entering a new age and I refuse to partake in the fear mongering that I have taken to calling The Ides of Aquarius.
You know “ides” as in the Ides of March, the day and not the musical group, which happened to be the 15th day of March, and a bad day for Julius Caesar, but was the 13th day of the month during most months. Ides, a singular word, not a plural, basically was a mid-month recognition for the God of the Month, or something like that (I'm not Roman you know.) There is now an association of Ides with a time of bad luck. That is where the word “ides” comes in in my phrase. “Aquarius” encapsulates the other worldly but well known contemporary mythology that surrounds History Channel hysteria induced by the layering of doomsday prophesies that are largely built on supposed simultaneity of many, many predictions through time and space.
The commercial aspect of the creation of the Ides of Aquarious did not really hit me until I went to Xcaret on coastal Quintana Roo, and saw the signs of huge expenditures on four lane divided highways between Cancun and the coastland south of it that is being called the Mayan Riviera where luxury tourist digs are defying environmental logic with their very presence on the continually hurricane re-shaped coastline. And this is on a fragile land whose ecosystem collapsed from over-building and over-population a thousand years ago. Resorts pepper the coast, and inland ruins have been made into park like attractions. At Chichen Itza “restorative” work for a mega-buhzillionaire, invitation only, jet set apocalypse party was evident. Hotel and resort prices have doubled, tripled, and risen to the very top prices that can be afforded to small, elite subset of the international global market for the period surrounding the end of this baktun.
I am still processing all I saw and the conversations I had but I am completely convinced that there is as much hope as devastation in the Mayan, Hopi, and other prophecies that have been much promoted these past few years in anticipation of the turning of the Mayan calendar. I do not dismiss the beliefs of the people's to whom the prophecies belong, but the cultural property of a people extends to beliefs and how they order their world and I vehemently disagree with those who would commercialize or play at recreation and adoption of the sacred ways of others.
The world will not end on the 21st of December. The 12-12-12 of today's date is just as worthy of superstitious behavior and the passing of such calendrical milestones from our lives unless we live on into the 22nd Century, which is not likely, as December 21st. What can happen though is what ever we want to have happen. Change is upon us now, we need not wait even a few more days for it to happen. We live in the midst of it now. We can shape and nudge the direction of that change. And because the pace at which we travel and live is so rapid, our minor efforts can amplify and we can have dramatic impact with just a bit of coordination of efforts. There is no need to fear coming change, and we are at a point where, metaphorically, peace can guide the planet, and love can steer the stars, if we choose to create that world.
Transition Happens
Though I do not ride horses, I’m back in the saddle again. Sayings such as this just seem to be appropriate for Tucson dwellers. This time of year re-emphasizes my sense of place on the globe. I’m quite conscious of living in the South Western United States. As I raked the decadently well-watered grassy patch in our backyard yesterday, I wore shorts and a sleeveless top. Sunny and mild late fall here in Southern Arizona is strikingly different from the cold, snowy lead up to Christmas that was usual in my childhood in Northern Indiana.
My fall fog has lifted and though I’ve received disappointing news about the Holidays, my outlook is better than it has been in quite a few weeks. My s-daughter and son-in-law and their twin girls will not be coming to Arizona for Christmas. Living 2500 miles from grandchildren is difficult. My b-daughter cannot come from just this side of the great white north for Christmas because she is the most recent hire where she works and cannot take additional time off at Christmas. I’m hoping to see her in January for her birthday, but this is not a sure thing by any means.
As a Later Born Baby Boomer who is done nesting this year has been an extended rite of passage for me. It has been wonderful and horrible all at the same time. Moving my daughter to her first home across the country with her significant other after her college graduation was a fun adventure. And I reconnected with old friends that I decided to look up as I was passing through Chicago. That was wonderful. A quick trip through Northern Indiana, where I grew up, to visit family was not so fun. The declining health of my two remaining siblings, who are 9 and 18 years older than me was apparent. A 40 year old nephew of mine passed away. Our dogs who were like family were swarmed by Africanized bees. One survived.
Hubby and I began the next, not at all well planned, phase of our lives that included a road trip to his old family farm in Tennessee. That stop was followed by a horrible experience with old friends and a previous spouse’s current spouse who threatened me with violence and later became violent with Hubby while we were visiting Hubby’s old home town (not in TN.) That experience limited out ability to visit our grandchildren which was heart-breaking, and for me that sad shock it was also coupled with my finding out, when attempting to track down my brother who is closest in age to me, that he had been in a VA hospital for the last 6 months. A visit with my eldest brother who recognized me but was not really able to carry on a conversation capped off my understanding the family of my birth no longer existed.
Thank heavens our visit with our daughter in Minnesota was wonderful as was the trip to and from NY that I took by myself to attend a blogging conference when Hubby and I parted vacation ways in MN. He continued the last leg of road trip solo and I traveled by train to a blogging conference on the East Coast with a quick trip back through Indiana to follow up with my brother in the V.A. hospital.
A new puppy and a trip to “Mexican Riviera” filled the fall with activity that kept me from falling too far into the depression that decided to visit me this auturm after several years without it showing up rounded out a year filled with travel and learning. This has not been the year I had planned it to be. My book isn’t finished and my sites are not where I had planned for them to be.
There is a lesson to be learned in all of this. I just haven’t distilled it all down into a single bit of truth I can carry forward with me as yet unless it is: Transition happens.
November Wrap Up
November has not been a good month for me emotionally. My Done Nesting site has stalled, like everything in my life seems to do sooner or later, due to a lack of funds. October is usually the difficult month for me, but this year it expanded into November. I will not let this be a trend.
My accomplishments for the month of November 2012 include all of the following, even though I have not been able to write posts or chat on Facebook, even though I have wanted to write posts and chat:
- I traveled somewhere I had not yet gone. I visited Xcatel, Quintana Roo, Mexico. And I visited Chichen Itza.
- I have accomplished some good and powerful things this month. I have also come to some powerful and not so pleasant realizations, most of which I will not talk about here. If you want to know the inner me and the complex story that created me, you will just have to buy my book. No, it isn’t out or even finished. But I’m seriously working on it again. I’m preparing a proposal for Green Leaf Book Group, a publishing “house” for the 21st Century that fits my needs, and I theirs, or that is the fact of which I must convince them.
- I have also started up a boomer blog again, or at least I have started working on the infrastructure. It is BoomHer.net.
- I have also set up a Meet Up group for Tucson Women Bloggers. The first MeetUp will be on December 2nd.
- And on a far less important, but fun note, I’m in the process of opening up my store in Second Life again.
- And I am checking out Amazon Prime.
Months have meaning for me. November has been a month about which I have mixed feelings for a decade or so. I wrote a poem once about my death called “November Comes for Me.” No I don’t believe I am destined to die some day in a November. It is about my perception of death and how that perception controls me when I am in a depressive episode. But I picked it as a metaphor, so at some level it discloses how I feel about the month of November. In my overly analytic mind November is preparation for a post-Holiday let down. That is a joke. Sort of. Not a very good one I am afraid. But that is sort of what framing something during a depressive episode is like. I am very glad that I found a medication that allows me to function and not tunnel all the way into black despair. Living with depression isn’t ever easy. Now if I could just get my husband to stop framing all of my actions as those of a depressive. Ah, there is always more to be done. That is life. And that is good. I got stuff done, it just wasn’t writing or what others wanted me to do.
Personal Challenges, Problems, and Sucky Situations
I am frustrated enough to spit nails, as my Mom used to say, although what she would actually say was “mad enough to spit nails.” But only dogs become mad as my husband, in his role as the semantic cop, is wont to say. The vile corruption of our elections by evil blubbery little men like Karl Rove does not help my overall dissatisfaction with much of my life. But the slow pace of getting my empty nester site up is driving me crazy. It is nothing that an infusion of funds or even a few positive, supportive statements wouldn't help mitigate. But neither are likely to appear in my life any time soon. So I have to buck up and find a way to succeed. I almost wrote “keep on trying,” but I have to stop trying and start accomplishing.
Even though I have found my tribe, online, in women my age who write, I read about the lives of women who are my age, who write blogs, who are amazing and I can't help it, I compare my life to what they choose to share about themselves. This is always a bit difficult for me. I have issues. Most of them are as resolved as they can be for the moment. I have found that there is always another level of understanding to develop. I also know that people paint a far more rosy picture of their personal lives in public depictions than is probably the case. I am in the process of turning the envy I feel into motivation to change things. But my attitude is teetering on the edge of slipping into badness.
Old issues are not the problem right now. A new configuration is the problem. I am trying so hard to be what I want to be. Visualization has been extremely useful for me in my life. Practice before the real thing is now a positive experience for me, mostly. Firsts have been extremely difficult for me in the past, but I have finally developed confidence. What I'm dealing with now is finding the resolve and creating a structure that will support me while I build a business on my own. All the elements within the process are familiar so I am not having any problem visualizing what I do next . I am letting personal problems get in the way of business. If I had money to throw at the problem, it wouldn't be a problem, so I must simply work harder and do more myself since I cannot hire anything else done.
It is difficult to build a business with no money and no one to run ideas past or even someone around for moral support. My hubby is a great person and a brilliant scientist, but he has his own set of personal challenges that make it difficult for him to do the moral support thing, just as I do. I am not at liberty to discuss his challenges in life, but there are things that neither one of us learned in the socialization process that hold us back in personal relaionships.
When I start feeling like this I always end up wondering if I really do have to work three times as hard as everyone else because of lacking resources, healthy experiences to draw upon, and friends to bounce ideas off, or whether I am just a whiner looking for excuses.