"I Am Crying So Hard I Can't Stop."

This entry was written on my Facebook the second day of Joan Rivers' hospitalization and not long after Robin Williams suicide:

"I am crying so hard I can't stop."

This tweet in regards to Robin William's death received a scathing response on OutQ/SiriusXM. I laughed at the time. There is a lot of criticism out there in Netland to attaching ourselves to a celebrity tragedy or death. A "Look at me, I care!" "I was there first!" A marking of territory.

I am looking at this in another light. We are all human on this Earth together. We are now communicating with each other in a whole new way.

What do we mean to each other? What does a celebrity, whom I have never met, yet their essence has been in my home my entire life mean to me?

I have read music critics who were affected by the death of Phil Everly. My dad loved the Everly Brothers and they were a constant on the ol' turntable or (get this) reel-to-reel every weekend. My reaction was, "Oh, neat."

Stay with me here. "I am crying so hard I can't stop." So there is a presence in our homes. These people mean something. They shape our lives.

Joan Rivers had to hack and forge her way through the male dominated comedy circuit when it was unheard of for women to do so. Through sheer moxie, charm, perseverance, and a scathing wit, she broke the ground that female comics today are merely fortunate to tread on. From a young age, her comedy spoke to me. I understood who she was and what she was doing. Joan Rivers lost the Tonight Show and her husband committed suicide. Old school in every sense of the word, Joan Rivers is a trooper. When we had thought she had faded away, she came back strong on the E! channel to make us all laugh in this mean/notmean, we should all laugh at ourselves style that is hers, and hers alone now days.

And it feels like a bit of a gut punch to the solar plexus. I will not hide my feelings here. I do not know Joan Rivers. I have never met her. Yet her essence was in my home my entire life. These people...these musicians, writers, artists, actors, celebrities, they are in our homes. They make us laugh, cry, think, and join together.

"I am crying so hard I can't stop."

I am thinking that each and every one of us has a writer, musician, actor, poet, artist, celebrity...that one...we didn't even know we cared so much about.

-

+-++-++++ Ref: New York Daily News

Joan Rivers on life support as daughter Melissa remains ‘in denial’ about mother’s condition: sources

No decisions will be made about the comedienne’s future for the next few days, according to a report.

Elle Smith: I will add an addendum here. I do not mean to say I was crying over Joan Rivers. But I will not judge the tweeter of "I am crying so hard I can't stop." Robin Wiliam's death was truly horrible for so many reasons and sad beyond comprehension. I am very surprised at the strength of my feelings in regards to Joan Rivers.

[Note:  This was written upon learning of Joan Rivers hospitalization. She has now left this mortal coil.]

Hope for Ladybugs

The last week of September, a video circulated on the net of a black man who was shot by a young and inexperienced trooper over a routine traffic stop. When told to get his driver's license, the black man turned and reached into his car. The young trooper completely panicked and started shooting away.

I cannot help and I cannot change this thing.

The voice of the young trooper cracks. We hear his dawning realization, as he tries to justify his own actions by saying, "You dove head first into the car," knowing his own, and this man's life before him, have been irrevocably changed forever.

Who is to blame here? Certainly not the young black man. If I turned to reach in my car for my driver's license, would I be shot? Not in a million years.

What about the young trooper? Whose voice we can hear cracking in the video?

Why is someone with such inexperience out there? What happened to the buddy system?

The thought demon. I so want to help. I so desperately want to change these things.

I had given some thought to taking up my somewhat specialized tutoring here and decided to give it a pass.  I just want to live simply for the time being.

I applied at the preschool/daycare center. It's right here in town! I could walk in the snow there! Since I got here, I realized that this was the first time in decades I've had to interview for any job.

Rocked it! After 40 minutes of interviewing, they offered me a position.

I spend the afternoons there with the 4 year olds. Although a sometimes rowdy bunch,  I have noticed that kids here are generally more behaved. They are very physical and by six, the boys often look ten to me.  They are not as calculated as the kids I worked with back in the Bay Area.  I do not see the culture of entitled hissy fits, children throwing themselves to the ground screaming when things do not go their way. That was in Silicon Valley. If I sound in anyway harsh, call my people. The last preschool I was at as a therapist for one of the children, had valet parking. Oh. they'd wash your car too.

One day,  there were wonderful ladybugs decending onto the slide. Children ran to see them. A few boys came up and began to smash them. I said, "That makes me sad." (and I believe the real distress I felt showed in my face) "Do you know ladybugs are alive?" "You're Alive!" "And you know what? Even the smallest bug? Everything has a job in this world."

The "lead" boy in this turned to me and said, "I just hit one. I won't do anymore."

At that point things things changed.

The children put down the rocks and got leaves to gently pick up the ladybugs. They talked about ladybug families and ladybug children.

I want to help. I want to change things.
Sometimes, just sometimes I can.. Just a little..

The Things We Could Have Done, or Should Have Done

A theme that will pop up in this Midwest Diary is the haunting reminder to myself of the things I cannot help and I cannot change.
But what is a heavier burden are the things we know we could have done, or should have done. Or the better person we know ourselves to be, but only deep inside.

This entry was spurred in thought by a blog of John Mendelssohn's Mendel Illness. http://johnmendelssohn.blogspot.com/2014/12/my-day-of-atonement.html
At least John's sucker punch to a classmate for a past childish offense had root in some wayward reasoning of a young boy. My transgression had none.

Around the same age, about 9, I became best friends with the toughest girl in school, Jade Mansfield. Small for her age, she had a mouth like a sailor and divorced parents. A new thing among my contemporaries. We played basketball, baseball, and football with the boys, establishing our own club of two. TBA. Tomboys of America.

One day, in the outdoor halls of our California school, maybe after school when kids just roamed free, we encountered a boy smaller than ourselves. Jade began to berate him, teasing and bullying him. She hit him.
I hit and kicked him too.
I do not remember what happened or what he did after that point. What I remember is the remorse I felt that evening. What I remember is, from that point on, for years, I prayed in my childish way that he would have a better life than me. That life would be perfect for him.

I never saw him again. I don't know his name. That one event affected me so profoundly that I vowed to be a better person.

Jade and I never discussed it, but at some point when we were 10, I realized how vehemently Jade stood up for the underdog, the bullied child in any given situation on the playground.
Jade went on to join the air force. Jade went on to become a lawyer.

When my mother passed away in the 90's, I was surprised that Jade's mother reached out to me and contacted me through my business. I was touched. It had been years, but she told me Jade thought about me as much as I thought about her.

About a year later, Jade died in what I believe was a white-river rafting expedition.
I meant to reach out to her mom.
I never got around to it.
I was "too busy" in my Silicon Valley business.

Jade's mom is gone now too. I cannot change this.
I tell this little story of bullying a boy in a hallway, who I had never met, who I will never know, to children I tutor. I mostly cannot do it without crying.

*http://johnmendelssohn.blogspot.com/2014/12/my-day-of-atonement.html

The Christmas Carol

It's only 6:45 am.  I usually don't wake up this early, and just to add insult to injury, it's Sunday.

This is my first "official" Iowa based blog.  I was hoping to be all upbeat and farmy or something.  You can judge for yourself.

After a lifetime in the SF Bay Area, I have moved to America's Great Midwest, Iowa.  I thought it would be easy.  I thought it would be a cake walk, but at some point each day I wonder what the hell I was thinking.  I moved to get away from the stress, and the values of acquisition.  I have come here to live a more authentic life.  This blog reflects my journey and thoughts of the things I've left behind.  It reflects my feelings.  I will also be writing about the people and things I discover here.

My mind was under siege last night.  At first I am in Italy at a beautiful resort with lots of people.  An elephant stampede is coming our way and we are doing odd things like moving lawn furniture to fix the situation. 

In the next scenario, DJ's are being shot outside their homes for the crime of spinning music.  I am witness to each of these murders.

In the last scene, I am hiding in a bathroom myself, while women are being shot around me.

I know why I would dream these things.  The events in France were so horrifying and sad that it mentally hurts.  This is in the realm of, "I cannot help and I cannot change these things."  This is a refrain that has come up in my writing regularly.  I spent part of yesterday reading 12 different viewpoints about the events surrounding Charlie Hebdo.  I actively avoid watching the news now.  The relentless onslaught of violence around the world is more than I can take.  On some level, I know I need to mentally protect myself.

So what am I doing now?  Can I help or change anything?  I am writing about how I feel.  I have learned that when we tell our truths about ourselves, it allows others to do also and let go.  I am teaching at a local preschool/childcare.  Early in the afternoons, I am with the preschoolers.  In the afternoons, I hang with the older crowd.  Kids up to age 12 are there and it is crazy, but all I really need to be is present and fun.  It is something I do well anyway.  I don't have to produce results, but that by-product happens in unexpected ways.  Just being encouraging and listening can do it.  I have taken to bringing my guitar with a small amp to play music and break up some of the afternoons.  The kids are stuck indoors as it is constantly freezing cold.  I play stuff that is easy to sing and play, like Taylor Swift, which all the kids know.  Even then, I have to change the occasional lyric to keep it kid-friendly.

This all started at Christmas, while leading preschoolers in rousing choruses of Jingle Bells, it was suggested by a teacher that couldn't I do this for the whole school?  So Christmas eve, I brought my acoustic guitar.  I played for the group of younger kids, then the big room with the older ones.  Usually these kids are running around and jumping on each other.  These Iowa kids are a very physical bunch compared to the stressed out version of kids I had in Silicon Valley.

They sat absolutely silently, with rapt attention.  I couldn't believe that they really cared that much about Christmas carols.   It was just because I was doing it and I have a feeling, except for possibly church, some of them had never seen live music before.  At the end of it, kids were saying things like, "We're so glad you came from California."  One boy blurted out, "You're a gift from God and Jesus!"  They came up and asked how I learned, so I showed them simple chords.  I told them that they could play all sorts of things with just 4 chords. 

The kids talk about music now.  We play CD's and dance in the afternoons.

So maybe what I am to learn here is, in a small way, I can change things and make them better.

Just maybe.

A LIfe in Progress Story

I have a friend here in Iowa whom I met when I was 15. It's one of those things easily done when you are a teen. You can just start talking to another and become the best of friends. Laura. She just came up to me on Main Street, asked where I was from, and then we did what all girls did at that time. "Lying out." We baked on the dock from 11:00am until 4:00pm in our bikinis. Pretty much every day.

She is a voracious reader and she was very happy to find that I was the same. She commented to me upon my moving here that my vocabulary may "put people off" as the words I use are "too big." But she appreciates it. 

Laura modeled for a short time in the Minneapolis area in the early 80's, her best friend Lance was the only out gay boy in her high school. He went onto a career as a jewelry designer with pieces sold in Chicago's Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom. I have a couple pair of his very early earrings.

She has gone through what I see as a life that reflects many women's stories, although not mine. Her sweetheart in high school was a bit older, but an ok guy. By the time Laura was 24 ready to move on, she found herself pregnant. They married and it lasted a few more years. The split, although not completely cordial, was not horrible. I was very impressed by what a great mom Laura was. There was no animosity when it came to the welfare of their daughter.

A few years later, Laura met a man with a strong personality. He persuaded her to move away from her town and family and she was increasingly isolated. Over a couple years this relationship turned abusive, until one day at home alone, Laura watched The Burning Bed with Farrah Fawcett. She suddenly knew. She threw a few things in a bag, drove to her daughter's school and took her out. She then drove to her parent's home and told them everything. She and her daughter started over from there.

Laura now lives with her husband of 13 years, Verne, in one of the most beautiful and photographed homes in Clear Lake. Her daughter is a strong and amazing young woman, and Laura has two granddaughters, 11 and 1 yrs old.

This is not an Iowa story, nor a Midwest story. This is a life in progress story.