I would like to start by saying that I am writing this post from a Starbucks. I went along with Tyrus to work because I get so bored at home. He made me some fancy drink like an egg nog chai or something. It was yum. So, I’m feelin kinda artsy and creative sitting here. Thus I shall begin.

I like to create some sort of link between my posts, just so there’s a sense of continuity. And I wanted to branch off a little bit from owning, I think an appropriate topic would be: bullies. Everyone knows of one, whether you were bullied or not. Perhaps you were the bully. Grammar school – stealing lunch money and pudding… those were the days.

Apparently, bullying is a huge problem nowadays, especially in schools. They actually made a game centered around bullying. It is creatively titled:
Bully.

The game is created by Rockstar Games (same guys who made Grand Theft Auto). Basically in this Bully game you play Jimmy who, at the beginning of the game, is dropped off at a boarding school. Everyone there wants to beat him up, so he has no choice but to fight back. And the purpose of the game is to become the head honcho of the school by bullying. Interesting. He even gets to use weapons like itching powder, a slingshot, and eventually a bottle rocket launcher. Nice.

Yeah, I wouldn’t mind trying this game out sometime, just to see what it’s like. It has been pretty controversial, and it’s banned in some countries. But I think, if kids can channel their aggression into a game rather than other children, then its a win. BUT, then again, this game is rated Teen – meaning that the teens who are channeling their aggression into this game have probably already beat up/bullied dozens of kids already and maybe this game is just giving them more ideas. Maybe. I think I read somewhere that Jimmy is also supposed to kiss other guys in the game as well…

SO in conclusion, it really seems like a quality quality game for children.

My Glory Days

Some of you may know this already, but as a young me, I was a bully. No joke. There were several people I beat up during my childhood. The victims of the beatings were always boys. But I’m pretty sure I was mean to girls too. For example, my family tells me that when I was a youngin (prob about 3), I always hit my cousin Kai (who is a year older than me). Along with hitting him with my hands on a regular basis: one time I pushed him down and he hit his head on the corner of a coffee table. Another time, I hit him hard over the head with a telephone.

One word: hardcore. He still lives in fear to this day.

I also used to hang out with some family friends from the neighborhood. One day, when I was probably about 4 or 5, a couple of my guy buddies came over for a play date, while the parents chatted in the other room. I didn’t like how one of them pet my cat, so naturally, I proceeded to throw him to the ground. lol. [I remember this clearly in my mind.] I felt completely justified in my actions.

Then the two boys proceeded to threaten me, explaining that they would tell on me. Then I, in order to escape this event, said “sorry”. Then one of them said to me “sorry is not good enough”. Now I don’t know where he learned that line, but I know in my head I was thinking “This is ridiculous. WTH? Sorry isn’t enough??” Well it was not those words exactly, but it was something like that.

That was the closest I ever got to being an MMA fighter.

Now these are just a few stories (I also used to take toys from other kids in preschool and I would also scare my cousin Jenny, every chance I got. We also actually have a home video of my other cousin, Nick, saying “MARI, DON’T HIT ME”). My parents were pretty embarrassed with my actions. I’m sure they thought that my actions reflected the quality of their parenting.

Those were my glory days. Luckily, for my parents, this phase was temporary. Since then, I have calmed down quite a bit. I think all of my aggression was utilized that time. Now, I very rarely get into verbal arguments with others, let alone physical fights. [But I have always wondered how well I would do if I got into a fight. Perhaps the inner beast would awaken and I would own.]

If YOUR child is the bully:

One thing I find interesting is that all of the special ABC and PBS programs on bullying describe how to protect your own child from a bully. And I understand there is a need for that information. But what are you supposed to do if your child is a bully? Like my parents situation. They weren’t terrible parents. They definitely did everything they could. But my pwn-like nature was just too overwhelming.

My theory is that I lost my desire to own everyone because… my parents had my brother. He was born when I was almost 4. It took a little time for me to be completely subdued. But I did stop bullying eventually. I believe my bulliness peaked before he was born, then slowly declined. I no longer had to prove my dominance over my peers, but now I actually have legitimate authority over at least one person forever: my brother.

I don’t even need to bully him to prove it. I just know it deep down within.

I’ll always be higher on the ‘food chain’:  the straight flush to his high card, the Friday night to his Monday morning, the flash drive to his floppy disk, the Charizard to his Bulbasaur, put plainly – I will always have him in a hierarchy headlock. And you can take that to the bank.

So my advice to people with children that are bullies: have more kids. (and hope that those children are not bullies as well)

p.s. Please don’t take my advice seriously. That might be a disaster. Thanks.

This blog has been “in my head” since November 11 when I first recalled my grandmother who was born on that day.    But it’s coming “out of my head” now because I was in a store today and – being a compulsive reader of everything in front of my face – I noticed some magazine cover that asked in bold letters:  “Are We Overparenting Our Children?”     I don’t ever buy that magazine and I already know the answer, but the question  gave me some interesting comparisons with my own childhood.

When I traveled to the far north as a child to visit my Swedish grandmother,  this is where she lived.   Her house was on the narrow peninsula on the upper right of that photo that jutted out into the river.    It would be just off the photo to the right.   The hills to the left was the location of my other grandmother’s,  Hilda’s,   farm house, as well as a huge open-pit iron ore mine.

It was an absolutely wonderful place for a city kid to explore and play! 

Her house was an old, old house  right on the river shore.  Her back yard sloped down gently to the water, where there was an old rowboat tied up, an old shed, and miscellaneous rusty metal things that a child could pick up and wonder about without knowing the names of them.  The rusty metal objects were all sizes, some very heavy, some probably associated with the little boat or with fishing….But all great for a kid’s imagination!

I knew the river had a “drop-off” about ten or fifteen feet out from the shore…It was daring to walk on the sharp pieces of hematite rock which made up the river bottom,  walking out away from shore, finding the really huge pieces of hematite that you could stand up on and stick out of the water a little further.   But then you’d find the drop-off.  You found it when your feet began sliding downwards, pulling you deeper into water over your head and out in the river current.   You could swim, sort of, but people never really did swim way out into the river.  There were fish and bloodsuckers swimming around in the river near your legs too.

I wish I had photos to share, photos that would give substance to the images in my head.   Just one such, I remember being put into a large antique baby buggy by some “big kids”  in the back yard…and then they let go while the baby buggy and I rolled down towards the river….I think it fell over in the grass, but,  funny, I  don’t really remember getting out of there.

One of my “jobs” was to make sure the gate in the front fence was locked closed in the evening.  Grandma said it was to keep out the cows from drifting in.   But I never saw any cows on the dirt road in front of her house.  It was one of those lapses of logic that kids don’t really ask about.  

The dirt road in front of her house went slightly downhill and then after a sharp curve, it went all around the peninsula.  It was a great place for sledding in the winter. This is  the kind of sled I used.   Great for steering precisely where you want to go – and best if lying down flat on your stomach, sledding head first, of course, into anything you steered into!   I remember being vaguely aware of trying to sled on the side of the road so an unexpected car wouldn’t get you, but the sledding was best right down the center of that road….

The old house itself had lots of places for exloring indoors.  I had free run of the strange closet mazes upstairs and the wonderful credenza with my Grandma’s Swedish catechsim books and Bibles from when she was a girl.   I could never read the handwriting on the letters she had saved.   The whole upstairs was full of the presence of  family members who had occupied those rooms before.   My own mother slept upstairs there, but that was too exotic for me to think much about.   I learned to read upstairs from all the delightful old children’s books.  I took them out of their box, sat  inside the box, and then picked up whatever was my favorite that day.   I was four years old.

This looks just like the coal bin in my Grandma’s basement.   If I was lucky I could shovel around piles of coal, and if I was really lucky, I was allowed to put a few shovels of coal into the coal furnace.   There is a distinctive sound made by scraping the black metal shovel across the cement floor of the coal bin as you gather up lumps of coal for the furnace.   

I could play down in that basement as long as I ever wanted to, much to the amusement of my Grandma.

Here is  a small diagram of my favorite thing in the basement.   You sat on the seat and worked it like a bicycle pedal, and then that big circular thing went around and around.     It was a very heavy stone and it took a lot of little-girl leg power to get it turning and keep it turning.   And then this is what you did with it:   you got an axe and you held it just right against the wheel as it was turning and with a wonderful loud screeching, grinding noise, it was supposed to make the axe very, very sharp.    Rusty old knives, rusty old pieces of metal, sticks, big stones - it worked on everything!

So, in addition to that big wood stove that I remember, Grandma’s basement, upstairs, and back yard were my favorite places to explore.

I was curiously unsupervised.   Overparented?    I was fortunately, happily, wonderfully under-parented!  

I wonder…would I have let my own kids play with the old equipment near the boat at the shoreline?    Would I have let them test themselves near the drop-off, near the river current?   Would I have wondered where they disappeared for “hours,” quietly, somewhere upstairs in the closets and attic rooms?   Would I have let them play with axes and axe grinders – all by themselves, as their imaginations took them away to other places, other times – and they felt so amazingly “adult”?   

All I know is I am grateful for the “benign neglect” which accompanied my childhood.    As I said in my O’Hare Airbase posting, I never gave them cause to doubt me….as long as I obeyed every “rule” and never talked back, I had all the freedom in the world!

This time of year takes me back to when I was a child. Very nieve, very sweet, totally vulnerable, unprepared for the world. I think back to those times because it was all pretty much smashed to bits a few years later.

My favorite Christmas piece that came out of a box was a wind-up nativity scene. It played music, and the 3 wise men went around in a circle, in and out of the stable. I used to sit and play with that thing and watch it, for a long time.

Another favorite thing were the bubble-ornaments, that heated up from the lights on the tree and started a bubbling fountain inside the ornament. They were quite something. As I remember, we had a snowman that also held some in his hands. They would light up and do the same thing. We had some ornaments that would spin around with the heat of the lights, as well.

For me, seeing the tree lit up with all the other lights turned off was a true joy. Almost better than presents.

I am thinking of getting a small Xmas tree with beautiful lights of all colors to put in my office this year, just because it is “my space” and I can do it if I want to. May even get a tiny little Nativity scene to sit on my desk. These are parts of my past, connections to the sparks of spirituality that carried me in faith into my future, when I became a Baha’i.

There was a night when I was in the kitchen drying dishes, next to my mom who was washing them. Without thinking, I found myself arranging all the dishes and cups on the table. My mother turned around suddenly and shouted, “What on EARTH are you DOING??” I looked at her, shocked, and then said, “This is Jesus here in the middle. All the cups and silverware are all the people listening to Him.”

My mind has always been imaginative, creative, trusting, nieve. Kind of always “out there” dreaming. I am all grown up now. But I like thinking of myself as that innocent little kid. My child spirit.

When I think of junior high I think of ugly PE clothes,  fresh donuts  in the cafeteria, learning about feminine hygiene outside my science teacher’s classroom and being told by her that tampons are “EVIL!” I recall rainy afternoons at lunchtime watching our cheerleaders perform in our spot on campus called Liberty Square.  I remember having to lug around all my textbooks since our lockers were forbidden due to some kids trying to use drugs.  I recall having to jog the mile all the way down the street that the school was on and jogging by the mall wishing I could just go across the street and go shopping.  I loved and yet I hated junior high.  It was a time of figuring out who I was, making some awesome friends and dealing with being a teenager: being moody.

I could have been in the popular crowd (slight possibility) and then I could have hung out with the ‘under dogs’.  Rather than sitting on the fence, I chose the ‘under dogs’.  They’re not under achievers mind you, but they’re not caught up in the whole clothing/shoe addiction.  Being on the other side of the fence was interesting.  I got to observe  from a distance.

I got to have some classes with the popular kids ( PE, School Newspaper, etc).  I almost made it for cutest in braces in 8th grade.  I tried my hardest to fit in.   Sometimes I think I tried too hard.

It’s crazy how with the internet we can find people we went to junior high with.  What’s even more amazing is to hear what they viewed/thought of you back then.  There are people who I knew in junior high who I wouldn’t consider friends exactly.  They were more in the acquaintance category.  There were the girls who were in the popular crowd, who were cheerleaders or in drama.  They were the pretty ones you just hoped to be like one day.  And then you grow up and discover them via a social networking site. They go from their popular/unknowable status to someone you actually have something in common with.  It’s sad how the whole popularity contest kills potential friendships by being this huge dividing line between the haves and the have-nots.  To think of all the great friends I could have had, but I chickened out all because of the popularity factor.

I’m relieved I’m in my 30’s and am past the whole shallowness of junior high.  Hello & thank you for adulthood and maturity.  It’s going to be great to get to re-know some of my past classmates.

Memories of Thanksgiving

My hair in curls I thought were cute,

Large dining room table and formality,

China we never use any other time of year,

Both my grandmas and my mom in the kitchen,

More food than anyone could ever eat,

my Grandpa saying the Lord’s prayer,

My dad carving the turkey, mountains of mashed potatoes,

3 kinds of pie,

everyone taking a nap,

and football games on tv.

“But while he was a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”  -Jesus Christ, “The Parable of the Prodigal Son,” The Gospel of Luke 15:20

There must be some spiritual substance that we cannot comprehend. Maybe it is biological and just runs through our blood and that is why we cannot control it. The sins of the father are visited upon the children to the third and fourth generations (Numbers 14:18). This is even the case, it seems, when the father is nowhere to be found. How can this be? How is a man’s seed laid so deep in just one moment of climax, when we spend nine months incubating in our mother’s womb? Shouldn’t we be more like our mothers than our fathers? For me, I have my mother’s personality; it is true. However, I cannot escape my father. Somehow in my blatant rebellion against him when I was trying to prove my manhood to the world, I did pick up a bit of wisdom from the man; for instance, I have his solid and strong work ethic. Just the same, ask any woman I’ve ever been with and she will tell you: I also possess all of his faults to some degree. I think of my own children, my two sons, and when I consider the mountain of faults that I have possessed while raising them, I shudder with fear and shame.

My first experience with fatherhood came when I was only nineteen years old. I had befriended a woman who was pregnant at the young age of eighteen. She had no interest in marrying the father. When her son was four months old we were married, and by the time he could talk, he was calling me dad. I did not steal him from his biological father. That man just disappeared. He was a man in his mid-twenties who preyed on girls still in high school with the enchanting ability to purchase alcohol. A real winner. When this man stopped showing up for visits, everyone agreed it was better for the boy I began to call my son.

I was a good step-father; one of the best, but it wasn’t until three and a half years later that I truly became a father. That is when son number two was born. I am not saying that we can only truly be fathers to our biological children. On the contrary, I did my very best to love and cherish and provide for the first boy. As I made the decision to love, I did love, and delight in my child. However, something deep inside me changed the day my second son was born. There was a spiritual shift in my heart. It did not happen when he was conceived; it did not happen when my wife grew large and I could feel him kicking against my back at night; it did not happen until he came out of the womb and I saw him for the first time. It was at that moment I discovered the meaning of life. I held this tiny human being in my arms, all bloody and gooey, and I knew that I would fight off dragons and swim across oceans to protect him if need be. I knew I would clean his poop and throw up. I would listen to endless stories, answer endless questions, and laugh at pointless jokes. I would learn to play sports and read books that I hated because he loved them. I would take a bullet for him, and more importantly, I would sacrifice all my hopes and dreams, everything that I did not get to accomplish in my very short life, to ensure that he was able to succeed in his. I looked into eternity that day; I understood what my most important purpose in life was. And when I carried this frail human being out and placed him into his big brother’s arms, I looked into my oldest son’s eyes, and for the first time I saw the eternity in him. For the first time I understood the difference between adoption and sonship. All the love, all the hope, all the wonder so newly discovered in my heart for the son of my flesh, was poured out for and transferred onto this child I had so long taken care of. Where physics and logic might tell you that there would not be room enough for both, it was like the size of my heart exponentially doubled and then quadrupled in size to make the room. Truly looking into this child’s eyes for the first time, I knew instantly that I would sacrifice my life for both of my boys.

Our Heavenly Father is like that with us. Ever since our very first parents, Adam and Eve, sinned, we have been spiritual orphans. By submitting to the snake’s authority, we chose to remove ourselves from the Father of all things, we stole his parental rights and claimed freedom, but we lost the blessing of inheritance in the process. With no place to call home, we wander a harsh and lonely wasteland. Unwilling to trust anyone around us, our first instinct is murder and survival of the fittest. But ever since Jesus was born, that pure and perfect Son who only did what he saw the Father doing, he began to forge the path to help us find the way back home again. In his perfection, he took the place of our punishment. He gave his life for ours, and he became the way. When the Father looks in our eyes, he does not see our sin and rebellion; he only sees the pure and positive possibilities: He sees all our hopes and dreams and his love freely pours out to us. We are not just adopted sons and daughters; rather, we are co-heirs and siblings with Jesus. Through Jesus, we have found our way to true sonship, and we finally have a father who will truly guide us into goodness and righteousness. In Jesus, all our sins are forgiven; even the ones passed down from generation to generation. However, to receive the blessing, we must make the choice to accept his authority once again. We must learn to walk in his ways.

Son number one is now seventeen years old. He is a man, so he tells me, and he does not need to follow any of my foolish rules anymore. I would probably agree with him, were it not that his rebellion started while he was still very young, and I fear he may have missed some of the most important lessons I offered him. What can I do? He will be a legal adult soon, and he will truly be responsible for all his own choices. He has made it clear to me that I am only step-dad at best in his eyes; he wants nothing from me, either good or bad, so I need to just keep my advice to myself. He will find his own way without me. Some of what he speaks is justified. His mother and I split up a long time ago, and he has had trouble trusting me ever since. In the wake of that title wave of destruction we call divorce, I have made many mistakes. I often chose the heritage of my earthly fathers over the heritage of my Heavenly One. But that, too, was long ago, and my redemption and restoration has been solid and true. My heart still glows with love for him, but it is also broken at his rebellion and rejection, but what can I do? He will be a man soon; he will be cast out into the wilderness to wander without the guidance of the compass of lessons he could have chosen to receive from me. What can I do? I will choose to do what I see the Father doing with all of us: “He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:45. I will continue to provide for him and be there when he needs me, whether he acknowledges my existence or not. “The LORD is slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression.” Numbers 14:18. I will wait, and I will pray. I will look everyday for signs of his return, and when he comes home (for I have to believe that he will), no matter how long he has been gone, I will welcome him with open arms, and perhaps we will have a party in his honor, and I will even prepare the fattened calf.

“For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”  Romans 8:14-17.

Peter L Richardson
9/28/09

Last night was one of those bad sleeps that I have to endure every now and then, and as a consequence I didn’t feel too good this morning. It took me at least an hour to get out of bed. Almost before I knew it was time to go to work, and the old dread instantly filled me, and I desperately didn’t want to go in. I’ve been given new tasks at work to fill the extra hours that I’ve taken on this week, and yesterday could hardly be described as a success when it came to me learning how to perform my new tasks. I wasn’t looking forward to arriving today, to finding out that I’d be left to get on with the extra work alone as if I had already mastered it. I’m fast learning that my superiors don’t really want to be bothered at the moment, with it being the run up to Christmas and the mass of extra work that this necessarily entails for everyone. I felt time slow to a snail’s pace this morning as I waited desperately for the hours to pass just so I could get to work and get it over with. Time goes strange when I am under pressure – the way it always drags when I need it to pass the most is hateful. I know I’m making it drag by thinking about it so much. The anxiety makes me analyze the passing of time more than I would normally. I’m so anxious for it to be the weekend that I can’t just let the days pass without hindrance. I watch the clock constantly. I can’t help it.

When I finally got to work at noon I was unexpectedly told to go downstairs to man the helpdesk for a couple of hours, so I could get a feel for the kind of enquiries coming in over the phone at the moment. From now on part of my role will be to respond to e-mail enquiries from customers – the idea was to see if I could hack it on the phone first. Since I received the official helpdesk training when I started three weeks ago, I should have been able to handle it today without breaking a sweat. I have no idea if it looked like I was handling the job: inside I was panicking horribly the whole time. I have had a phone phobia all my life – I never use the phone if I can avoid it (and I really mean never) -  taking calls from angry customers wanting to know why their retail discounts aren’t working was just about the last way I wanted to spend today. I can understand why they thought it would be a good idea for me to do this. It would give me a more rounded feel for the business, a perspective on the bigger picture from the other side of things, the customers’ side, rather than the retailers’ side that I have been exclusively working from so far. Even though I did the helpdesk training three weeks ago I in no way felt prepared to answer the telephone today. Around me ten other operators took calls constantly, smoothly directing customers to the answers that they needed, while I sat there staring at the handset in front of me, praying for it not to ring. Some of the people who I trained with were in the room with me this afternoon. They’re lucky: they’ve had three weeks of helpline experience now. Since I started I haven’t answered a single phone call. I’ve got quite comfortable at my computer upstairs, where I can perform a multitude of tasks without ever having to speak to anyone.

I don’t know why I am so terrified of telephones. Is it the threat of hearing someone’s actual voice? The possibility that if I can’t answer a question I will have to deal with verbal abuse? In the world of retail the customer is always right, even if they’re hurling insults at you. At least on the computer I can take time to think about what I want to say, and the abuse, if there is any, doesn’t have the emotional punch that it does when you hear it coming from someone’s mouth.

Anyway, when my two hours of hell were up I was allowed to return to the slightly comforting familiarity of my usual home upstairs, after the person who had been semi-supervising me at the helpdesk told me I’d done well. I refused to believe him: for a start I’d only answered the phone once, after much persuasion and guidance and badly disguised looks of contempt from the other helpdesk operators who all had their hands full.

Upstairs, being allowed to get on with my normal job was something of a relief, just because I now find it very easy, if slightly boring at times. I remain haunted by the possibility that I may be asked to return to the helpdesk from time to time, when they are short of staff for instance. They seem to think that because I did the training I will be as good at it as everybody else. I don’t know, maybe I am good at it, I just happen to feel as if I’m being plunged into the deep end of a very deep pool every time I’m in that room.

Hopefully now that I’ve done the helpdesk once I will be able to answer the online enquiries that I am to be given in my extra hours from now on with some ease. It kind of seems like another string that I’m adding to the bow, another test to be passed. As long as I don’t have to answer the phone again for a long time, I’ll be fine. I’m learning little things in my job every day; I’ve survived two weeks of it now and when I’m doing what I’m good at, i.e. working at the computer, I would say I feel quite comfortable. There will probably never be a day when there isn’t at least one challenge to be faced. I already know what tomorrow’s challenge is going to be: a big after-work trip to the pub has been arranged and everyone is expected to go. Melanie, the American boss, is cooking turkey for everyone to celebrate thanksgiving and we are going to sit down in the pub together and eat it. Part of me is quite looking forward to the occasion. I don’t quite know what’s going to happen. Maybe it will be my long-awaited opportunity to meet the other people in the team, get to know them in a setting that isn’t entirely work-related. Since we’ll be in the pub it’s bound to emerge at some point that I don’t drink. I know the question will come up and I know what I’ll say: ‘I don’t like alcohol’. I certainly don’t owe anyone any more explanation than that. In my experience, 9 out of 10 people are perfectly happy with that answer. It’s the 1 in 10 who are the interesting ones.

Sparkle the Now

Happy holidays! a common comment
May oft trigger memories of times spent.

Bittersweet feelings emerge and touch us
While we ponder loved ones, losses, pluses…

Various childhood thoughts dance in and out
As we experience those seasonal bouts.

May we savor the past, live in the now!
Use the future as a canvas and WOW!

Create a life of kindness and sharing.
Confront fear; embrace change; keep on daring!

Enjoy seasonal sparkles, on life’s way
As we take time out to love, laugh and pray.

May you nurture precious peace in your heart
And know I think of you when we’re apart.

Shirley Scott
2009

1.  One Grey Night

2.  Frolics In The Autumn Mist

3.  Along The Cherry Lane

I have read all the books, so of course I didn’t dwell on the bed-wetting. But last night I couldn’t resist: “You have to try and have another wee because if you wet the Big Bed again I will never let you sleep there again.”  Oops. It slipped out. I woke up at 4am and  there was no Son 1 aged 5y 2m.  And I hated it. My little warm cuddly adoring teddy wasn’t there.  All kinds of things flashed round my head. One Grey Night It Happened. Jackie Paper Came No More. Son 1, lying awake in his bed downstairs, too scared to come up.  “They won’t be doing it when they’re twenty…”  I wanted to go down and get him and bring him up.  I didn’t, because I thought The Man would kill me.  And more annoyingly, he’d get off for my Contributory Negligence, with this blog providing the evidence for the defence.

I went down at 0615 and Son 1 was instantly in the kitchen doorway.  “Well done, Son 1, for staying in your bed all night.”  He chose a gold star sticker and I lifted him up to the chart on the fridge.  He has 10 squares in each line.  His gold star was his third for Staying In His Bed.  He has 6 stickers on his Eating Up  All His Breakfast line.  “Can I have a Gormiti Egg when I’ve collected all my stickers?” “Yes of course you can.”  He stared at the chart. “Can I have four breakfasts?” “If you eat your first breakfast, you can have another one.”  Son 2 aged 2y 2m came down, gorgeous, smiling, wanting to be fed Coco Pops. ”Can you watch the Wizard Of Oz with me because I’m only five and I need someone to tell me what’s happening.” asked Son 1. “I can’t watch it because I have too many jobs to do. But you can if you eat your breakfast.”  “Ow,” said Son 2. “I don’ wan’ wot Wiz Ov.  I don’ like i’”  They settled on the Aristocats.

i couldn’t let it lie.  In the car, on the way to School, I had to ask: “Did you stay in your bed last night because you were fast asleep, or did you wake up and decide you weren’t going to come and see Mummy?” “I was fast asleep,” he said.  It was dark when I picked him up, and I’d remembered the torch he’d been pestering me for.  He loved it, holding it carefully and pointing at his feet in the pitch black all the way up the Muddy Path. He slept in the car on the way back, and back in the House, Son 2 chortled as he came down the stairs. After we’d put Son 2 to bed, I read to Son 1. “I’ll just go and have another wee,” he said. “To make sure.”

The Second Innocence is an experimental project drawing on nearly five years of thought and work.  

It draws on literature, philosophy, social research, educational theory, music, film and a massive amount of very self indulgent imaginings.   It is effectively, a book which will grow in readable chunks on this blog as long as anyone is interested to read it.  It aims to be a narrative, moving from fictional allegory to philosophical enquiry and back again; until a final point is reached and the entirety of the story becomes apparent, though along the way it will pick up on a lot of topics of interest and creative experiments.  It will be published in a fairly draft form however; and I would be fascinated and and greatly appreciative of any feedback, questions or additions; though I should probably warn the unwary – I will make no apologies for not making it too obvious, or keeping some of meanings hidden for a time.

This blog will tell a story of a trail of thinking around the subject of childhood innocence… and hopefully it will, if not prove interesting to you, then at least open your mind to a way of thinking that never seems to reveal its depths to me.

I sincerely hope you enjoy it.

At first glance, the world does not appear to be such a scary place. Through the eyes of adolescence, it almost seems easy. It’s like playing house…no big deal, right? Only when that blindfold of naivety is removed does the truth become apparent. Then, everything changes because, once lost, the playfully blind innocence of childhood can never be rekindled. It dies with unexpected abruptness and is then gone forever. This is the beginning of life as the rest of us know it. This is the bullet on the Grand Timeline marked as “Trial and Error”. Lessons are learned, hearts are broken and mended again, guidelines are set for future  reference, and one discovers the true meaning of self-love. For me, this was quite literally the most difficult portion of my life thus far. To be only 20 years of age, I have seen and done and experienced more already than most people will in their entire lifetime. This is my story, with nothing added nor taken away. This is who I am, and how I came to be the person sitting in this quiet room, typing away the tears and fears. I do not know what inspired me to write this today, nor do I question it. All I know…is to obey it. Here goes.

To be continued.

Today I felt a bit nostalgic of home, to be more precise of my life back home… but of when I was little.

When I was unpacking few days ago I found these!

grandma Rosa (& me)

me in the middle (Gubbio, Umbria)

I guess memories of your childhood always bring back sweet memories, nostalgic thoughts of how lovely it was to enjoy life with innocence, no matter where you are or where you were…

Still, every once and a while, although I am happy of who I am, where I am and my life as it is, I do wonder about the ‘what ifs’ (what if I stayed in Italy, what if I did a different degree, what if I took another profession etc etc)… dangerous game I know, sometime I can’t help it though, I just find myself thinking, pondering.

Anyway, thankfully it only lasts a brief moment, I soon come to my senses that memories of childhood are meant to be nostalgic… and conveniently make you forget the heartaches of  growing up!

Nothing that a cup of tea can’t sort out anyway! Onwards and upwards…

+++

Ogni tanto mi viene nostalgia di casa, come oggi. Ogni tanto… qualche giorno fa ho scoperto nello spacchettare gli scatoloni delle foto di bambina che mi ero portata via da casa di papa` come ricordo, pero` me ne ero completamente dimenticata. Come a volte capita.

Ogni tanto penso a cosa sarebbe stata la mia vita se fossi rimasta in Italia. Sono una persona molto indipendente, libera da radici troppo ancorate e non sono un tipo da stare in famiglia tutti i giorni o tutte le domeniche; mi piace il mio spazio, i momenti tutti miei, le mie battaglie, i miei traguardi. Pero` essere cosi` lontana da tutti quelli che mi conoscono da piccina mi manca, quella conoscenza totale di tutti i passaggi della vita.

Quelle persone che mi conoscono sin dalla nascita, non mi conoscono piu` dopo i 16 anni, e chi mi conosce come il palmo della mano dai 16, non sa e non puo` condividere le memorie degli anni precedenti…

…parlo a vanvera mi sa eh?! Per fortuna che comunque questa ‘nostalgia’ da gozzo in gola mi dura poco… mi do` una sgrullatina, una tazza di the e via! si riparte con un sorriso e a tutta birra!

Get Mortified is an amazing teenage angst project that curates the teenage journals, song lyrics and poetry of adults, culminating in a live show in which said adults read their material on stage. The videos on the website looked very promising, so I stopped by the show when it was running this weekend. It was sold out with a line around the block. Waiting in line makes me hate humans, so I didn’t stick around. But I’m very remiss that I wasn’t able to enjoy this humiliating celebration of creative nascence.

My parents’ house is home to stacks of my teenage journals and bad poetry, and I imagine there is some good material in there. Only some, mind you, most of it is tripe. But one gem stood out in mind, a piece I typed on my 1991 Brother Word Processor called “Why drugs are bad”. It was a short piece, detailing the “this is your brain on drugs…” theory, but with the wisdom only an 8 year old can capture. There was even an excellent conclusion about how things like assprin [sic] are ok if you don’t take too much and don’t use it to get high.  Upon remembering this gem, which was still hanging on my wall, I called my mother right away. “Scan that thing” I told her “It’s worth a million dollars”.

“Oh honey…I threw that away just a few weeks ago” she told me “when we took over your room”. My parents recently took over my room to expand their office space. I just about spit into the phone. How could she?? 18 years later and this piece still clearly has societal relevance.

There are other childhood gems, no doubt, but one unique piece of literature has been lost. Who knows what other nostalgia is being chipped away as my childhood room is disassembled and tossed off to the birds. Paula Abdul tapes? “Probably worthless”. Talking Teddy Ruxpen bear? “ah, throw it away”. What they don’t understand is Paula Abdul is an icon and the Teddy Ruxpen bear still talks. Which means, of course, that it is one of many things that are still worth keeping.

It’s interesting to try to think back to childhood and remember your favorite movies.  It’s pretty easy to remember a lot of them, because many are the animated features from the Disney canon.  But what about live-action films?  What comes to my mind first (in no particular order) are:  The Sound of Music, The Goonies, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Witches, The Indiana Jones series, Mary Poppins, The Swiss Family Robinson and Christmas Vacation to name a few.

One of my all time favorites however was/is Bedknobs and Broomsticks.  This movie has is it all–magic, adventure, love, life lessons, etc.  The basic plot is similar to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, in that it centers around a group Londoner children sent to the countryside during WWII to escape the Blitzkrieg and end up having wild, magical adventures.  A younger Angela Lansbury stars as Miss Price, a correspondence-course apprentice witch, which she is studying to be to help out in the war effort.  Much to her dismay she is given three children to look after.  At first there is friction between Miss Price and the children, but it is easily resolved once some trust is established.

The best parts of the story revolve around Miss Price’s search for a spell that will allow her to animate inanimate objects (substitutiary locomotion).  She bewitches an old bedknob, and she and the children take off on adventures to London, underneath the sea, and to a land of talking, soccer-playing animals.  At the climax the protagonists must face the Nazi army, which is trying to invade England through this quiet, seaside town.

As I have grown older, I’ve become very interested in history, and how we can view current issues in light of what has already happened.  I sometimes wonder how I became interested in this and not more in art or marine biology, which were two of my childhood dream careers.  But then when I look back at some of these movies that take place in a time that is not my own, I begin to see where my wonder for the past may have begun.  Finally, it’s interesting to me that for as long as I can remember I’ve always known that the word “Nazi” and “Nazis” were bad.  When I was very young I didn’t know why.  All I knew was that Nazis were trying to steal the Holy Grail, invade England, and forcing the Von Trapps out of Austria.  It wouldn’t be until years later that I really understood the impact of the Nazi regime on world history and the history of the groups its hate targeted.  Nevertheless, it’s fun to go back and see where the seeds were planted.

P.S. I brought this up, because I just got it in the mail from Netflix, of course.

“It’s surprising how many persons go through life without ever recognizing that their feelings toward other people are largely determined by their feelings toward themselves, and if you’re not comfortable within yourself, you can’t be comfortable with others.” Sydney J. Harris

I have been thinking about empathy alot lately. Mainly how I lack it. The quote above struck a cord with me because it is true and is forcing me to take a good hard look at myself and see that the empathy I lack, the chip on my shoulder I carry and the anger that I allow myself to drown in is all a reflection of how I really feel about myself. This is an incredibly sad thing to realize.

I tend to be very loud, rash, blunt and to the point. I don’t spare people’s feelings as often as I should and I tend to let people get under my skin and live there for all eternity. Nightrider on the other  hand is diplomatic about honesty, cares about people’s feelings, always does everything she can to be understanding of situations and to always be a safe place and a good friend for anyone in need. This is where our relationship gets tricky.Nightrider and I don’t find much to disagree over or argue about but our difference in how we handle situations and the amount of empathy we have for other people is a large problem for us. I think alot of this stems from how we were brought up, and our life experiences. Nightrider had a very difficult  childhood, she was brought up with a drifter for a mother, and was frequently subjected to harmful situations involving drugs, men, homelessness and the worst things one could possibly imagine. Nightrider knows what it’s like to not know where you are going to sleep, to have no one to turn to and to not feel welcome in the place you are forced to inhabit. This makes Nightrider who she is and that person is someone who would never let anyone she cares about in even the smallest form fall into similar situations. Nightrider is also a hippie at heart and the combination of her extreme sense of peace and love and empathy is the reason why in the last 2 years we have been together we have never lived alone together (by alone I mean just us and our kids). We have had roomates forever. Sometimes they are the kind that hold down jobs, and pay rent, other times they are people who are in hard times and need to do absolutely nothing but play couch commando for months at a time on our dime. (See I’m sure with that last statement you can feel the tension, and lack of empathy in my words).

So you see the problem, no? I don’t understand why people can’t just figure their shit out. I compare other people to myself alot and can justify my lack of empathy with the thought that if I have to be a grown up and deal with the things life throws at us why don’t they? If I were to lose my job today I would be looking for a job tomorrow, if I couldnt find one within a week of unemployment I would park my happy ass in a Mc*Donalds kitchen and find a way to make ends meet on minimum wage. If I get my heartbroken and know I need to move out of my girlfriends place I don’t expect anyone else to figure that out for me. I deal with the uncomfortable situation until I can get into a new place, because its not anyone else’s problem but my own. It’s just the way I think.  Now even though I think this way I do love Nightrider so I open up our home and let people stay, I stretch the dollar for another person and I suck it up, but unfortunately I don’t let my irritation go unnoticed and this is the problem. I become very cold when I feel someone is taking advantage of us and I can’t empathize for them. Everything that person does begins to bother me, I have no love for them anymore, and can see nothing good in them while this is going on and this is so fucked up.

I was brought up moderately privledged. I always had everything I needed and most of the things I wanted. My parents sacrificed for me and never let it show. Apparently we were close to Bankruptcy once when I was little and I didn’t even know about it until a couple years ago. My mother lacks empathy the same way I do. When its something someone really can’t help, like illness or injury we understand but when its problems someone has inflicted on themselves we don’t have a lot of room for pity. I’m guessing my mom has the same stem of this problem that I do, being to way she feels towards herself.  I know this is my problem, i put alot of pressure on myself, can be a perfectionist and demand that I keep everything together all the time. This is why I am so hard on other people. This goes along with how critical I am of myself in every way shape and form. The perfect example is how I am about the way I look. I can see myself in the mirror and pick apart every imperfection I have, in turn this allows me to pick apart everyone else flaws as well. It makes me judgemental and critical and that is all just on the surface.  I have anger managment problems and they come out primarily when I am so clouded with criticism that I can’t feel any compassion for the people in my life. This is not ok and is not the kind of person I want to be or the life I want to live.

I think part of fixing this problem is admiting it which is the point of this post. I am not as kind and loving of a person that I would like to be. I wan’t to be able to see  the best in people, to be iving and understanding. I know I want to be a better person, and now that I have found the root of the problem I am going to do everything in my power to be the kind of person that not only will be loved by other people but that can be loved by herself.  Its time for me to put a little love in my heart to not be so hard on myself or other people, to love people for who they are and to learn to let go of everything that I carry that weighs on my heart.

  Adult Children of Alcoholism / Addiction in the Workplace

ACOA’s often transfer behaviour learned in childhood into other adult spheres of life. In true co-dependency style these often confuse and confound us.

Some of these are;

1. We confuse our boss or supervisor with our alcoholic parents and have similar relationship patterns, behaviors, and reactions that are carryovers from childhood.
2. We confuse our co-workers with our siblings or our alcoholic parents and repeat childhood reactions in those working relationships.
3. We expect lavish praise and acknowledgment from our boss for our efforts on the job.
4. Authority figures scare us and we feel afraid when we need to talk to them.
5. We get a negative gut reaction when dealing with someone who has the physical characteristics or mannerisms of our alcoholic parent.
6. We have felt isolated and different from everyone around us, but we don’t really know why.
7. We lose our temper when things upset us rather than dealing with problems productively.
8. We busy ourselves with our co-workers’ jobs, often telling them how to do their work.
9. We can get hurt feelings when co-workers do things socially together without asking us, even though we have not made an effort to get to know them and join in the social life.
10. We are afraid to make the first move to get to know a co-worker better, thinking they will not like us or approve of us.
11. We usually do not know how to ask for what we want or need on the job, even for little things.
12. We do not know how to speak up for ourselves when someone has said or done something inappropriate. We try desperately to avoid face-to-face confrontations.
13. We are sensitive and can get extremely upset with any form of criticism of our work.
14. We want to be in charge of every project or activity, feeling more comfortable when we are in control of every detail, rather than letting others be responsible.
15. We may be the workplace "clown" to cover up our insecurities or to get attention from others.
16. We are people-pleasers and may take on extra work, or our co-worker’s tasks, in order to be liked and receive approval from others.
17. We do not know how to be assertive in getting our needs met or expressing a concern. We may have to repeatedly rehearse our comments before delivering them.
18. We have felt that we do not deserve a raise, promotion, better workspace, or a better job.
19. We do not know how to set boundaries, and we let others interrupt us. We can accept more work without knowing how to say ‘no’ appropriately.
20. We are perfectionists about our own work and expect others to be the same and have the same work ethics and values.
21. We become workaholics because it gives us a feeling of self-worth we did not get as a child.
22. We may jump from job to job, looking for the perfect position as the substitute for the secure and nurturing home environment we did not have.
23. We get upset when people do things that affect us or our work without asking us first.
24. We have a high tolerance for workplace dysfunction and tend to stick it out in an unhappy job because we lack the self-esteem to leave.

After the ACOA laundry list of characterisation.

See also;

• Adult Children of Alcoholics
• Al-Anon May be able to help
• Alcoholic Family Roles
• Workaholism

Note: Cross posted from Recovery Is Sexy.com.

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It’s been a busy few weeks. We’re in the homestretch at school for semester finals, and so there is much procrastinating to be done here at home. I am in pre-finals nesting mode and taking it very seriously. I am sacrificing personal hygiene even more than usual to gain the extra time to clean and organize. My hair is in a permanent ponytail, and I am living out of my laundry basket, which supplies me with a steady rotation of bleach splattered yoga pants and 1970’s Stadium Rock concert T-shirts. My hair is a few weeks past due for a colour and last week my mascara and eyeliner made a fatal leap into the bathroom garbage can. According to their suicide note, they could “no longer live a neglected existence.”

But I have purged my house of all transient Lego, broken Transformer limbs and a few thousand dried up play dough creations found under the couch. There is now only edible food in my refrigerator, and the floors are clean enough to walk on. I closed the sandbox for the season and reclaimed from its mucky depths my lime reamer, orange juicer and grapefruit corer. Maybe now we have a chance at avoiding scurvy this winter.

But I think I may want to pull back on the house cleaning and perhaps concentrate on the personal grooming again. Soon.  All vestige of my girliness is quickly disappearing.

A phone call I received last week went like this:

Me: Hello?

Clearly insane man on other end: Hey Steve!

Me: Uh, no. I’m not Steve.

Him: Are you sure?

 recovered from that one, and decided to get out for a bit. Dog Lover wants to take guitar lessons, so we headed out to inquire at a few music shops. At one store, the owner went on for a bit about the logistics of the lessons – meeting times, group sizes, etc., and then stopped and asked me, “But are you the decision maker, Gramma?”

 What. Did. You. Just. Say. To. Me.

 My daughter is 10. One then zero TEN. She’s 10. I’m 36. As in an easy 15 years younger than you, Mr. Guitar Man, whose snap-fastened shirt was too tight and the wrong colour for you.

THIRTYFREAKINSIX. 

My daughter is a sharp tack, and saw her guitar playing days disappearing before her very eyes; all aspirations of rock-stardom dashed with the callous words of this sorely uninformed and sorely deranged man. She quickly attempted to assess and rectify the looming catastrophe. 

She started in on him, imploring, “I want you to teach me the entire Led Zeppelin catalogue so I may serenade my poor young mother with the soothing rock of the greatest band ever, who were clearly formed much before her birth which is so obviously less than forty years ago..”

She had to finish her sentence from the sidewalk. Once outside, she turned to me and said, “We’re never coming back here, are we?”

When I told PM, expecting sympathy and reassurances of my youthful vitality and glowing agelessness, he just shrugged.

“Hey,” he said, “It could have been worse. He could have asked if you were her Grandpa.”

This is the second in a set of wagon pictures. I spend so much time photographing this child and the late day was just perfect for pulling him around the yard in this old wagon. It has been quite warm these past few days. And J loves to sit in the wagon holding both sides looking around as he is pulled from one side of the house to the barn and back around to the gate all the while a striped cat follows us.

My sister and I had a wagon when we were kids. As young as I remember, we played in that wagon, pushing and pulling each other on the porch and sidewalk. We loaded it up with our toys setting out on an adventure with everything we owned. The problem though was that we had to get all that stuff put away. We even planned on “running away” and wanted to harness up Dolly the shetland pony, put a tarp over it like a covered wagon and head down the road to somewhere. Running away was only a fantasy for we had a wonderful home life as very young children.

That little wagon got lost during life’s changing of the guard when parents chose different lives and we moved. J now has a little John Deer wagon of his own and there is this family wagon in the photograph. Perhaps you have a story to tell of your little red wagon.