Is This the Party To Whom I AM Speaking . . . ? (12/03/2000)

I complain about today’s technology and where it is taking us. Even though I love it too. How you have to be an electronic engineer to know how to operate a radio, a VCR Remote, Stero, etc. Of answering machines that talk to answering machines. Of the fact that never can I make direct contact with my children via phone. ALWAYS I get their answering machines.

I DO have an answering machine. But ALWAYS answer when it’s a kid calling. If I’m there. So I tease/complain to them about it.

I do not have a cell phone.  I do not WANT a cell phone.  What is an iPod???? (Don’t even answer that!)

One day my daughter and I were discussing this and she said, “when dad calls and gets John’s machine, he says, 'well, what the hell are you mad about' and then John calls him right back.”

Hmmmmmmm.

* * * * * * * * * *

A Few Days Later -- 12/06/2000

Message Left on Son John’s Answering Machine
(Spoken in Deep, Gruff Voice)

So.

John.

This is your dad.

So what the hell are you mad about?

This is your dad. Not your mom.

So.  I called to wish you Happy Birthday.

And I know you’ll call me back in about ten minutes.

Because this is your dad. Not your mom.

And here’s a new number. I know you think it’s a strange number coming from me . . . your dad . . . in Michigan.

But it’s a cell phone. I just got it. (It’s NOT your mom’s phone).

It’s me. Your dad.

So.  Call me. At this number. 228-3714.

Me.

Your dad.

Bye.

A Hole of a Dream . . . (04/03/1999)

I am getting ready to go to Jackson to visit my folks and just woke from a nightmare-like dream. So vivid. Called CJ (daugher Caryn Jo) to tell her. She agreed I should write it down. Maybe some day I will understand it.

This is what I remember.  The ages of the kids puts the time-frame of the dream about 1974.

I don’t know what went before. This is where I became “aware” of the story. My current real life next door neighbors’ yard was next door in the dream. Our family dog, Brandy, had been missing. Where I remember the dream beginning (although I had the sense of it being in progress prior to this) is me looking out the window and seeing the neighbor’s yard with a hole in the back yard. At first it wasn’t that big but during the dream it kept getting bigger.

At first it was about two feet wide. Somehow I knew it was deep -- 10-15 feet.

I look out the window. It is almost evening but still light. I see Brandy. He is in the hole but nearly to the top. He is covered in dirt and mud and struggling to reach the top of the hole. And get out. Somehow I know he has done this many times. And is doing it once again. He struggles and almost makes it. But finally falls back.

I am relieved to know where he’s been. But concerned. It seems natural to think we’ll go over there tomorrow morning and get a ladder or something and help get him out.

Now it is the next day. Tom and John are about 10-12 years old. They seem to be running around the neighborhood trying to find a ladder.

My first thought when I realize Brandy is trapped down in this hole is that we could put a rope down and if we could somehow get him to grab it with his teeth, we could pull and he could claw (like he had been doing for how long?) his way to the top. But I figured we wouldn’t be able to make him understand to grab the rope with his teeth. So that’s when I decided we needed a ladder.

Why we can’t find a ladder, I don’t know. As part of the dream it seems I am aware that we make many unsuccessful attempts to do so.

The hole is getting bigger. Now it is about the size of three cars in width at the top and I can easily see down in it. The bottom is narrower than the top. Meaning the sides are slanted.

Now Jerry is down there. I don’t know his age but his hair is not grey. He is stocky, though.

Suddenly he leans back against one side of the hole. As though he is in pain or having some kind of physical problem. As part of the dream, I wonder if he’s having a heart attack.

I am the observer in all this. Although I sense that I have been directing efforts to get Brandy out.

Now there are filing cabinets along some of the sides of the hole. And Tom and John are down there now too. They and their dad seem to think pulling some of the drawers open helter-skelter would make stair-step like levels and Brandy (and they?) could climb out that way.

I “think” this is not a good idea. I am concerned that the open drawers will make the filing cabinets topple over.

I don’t know if I convey this to them or just think it in my observer mode.

Sure enough, one of the cabinets falls over. It lands on Lisa. Suddenly, she is down there too. Where she has been till now, I don’t know but now she is there. She is about 4-5 years old.

Jerry doesn’t seem to realize the cabinet has fallen on top of her. I try to tell him. He almost doesn’t believe me. But moves it enough to realize she is under there.

I can see her face. Her eyes tell me she is in pain and frightened. Her lower lip is trembling and her arms and legs are shaking also.

I am trying to make Jerry understand that she is hurt but he doesn’t seem to realize it. He seems to be carelessly pulling her from under the cabinet. Her constant eye contact with me makes me know how distressed she is.

All I want to do is grab her and hold her and comfort her.

Where Caryn has been in all this I don’t know.

That’s when I wake up.

An Ending . . . Of Sorts (11/20/1999)

It has been quite a day.

I’d been nervous driving to the lawyer’s office this morning. Anticipation coupled with a niggling sense of anxiety that, even at this late moment when everything was supposedly in order, some thing, unplanned or unaccounted for, would prevent my mortgage closing. Buying a house on my own at sixty-one was a sobering undertaking; after three months of paper processing, it was hard for me to believe it was actually happening.

The process had been unnecessarily complicated because David’s lawyer had insisted he be free and clear of the house before she would allow him to sign the divorce papers. She allow him??? It was His business and My business.

I wouldn’t have involved lawyers in the first place but once he hired one, I had no choice. As it was, my lawyer recapitulated by saying I could not sign the divorce papers until the house was in MY name.

We didn’t need any lawyers. Couldn’t AFFORD any lawyers. We both understood the marriage was over; he wanted to leave, I wanted to stay. No conflict. Just a matter of me buying him out.

And therein lay the glitch. He bought the house before our marriage so the mortgage was in his name only. We had to get him free and clear of his loan and then I had to get my own. The easy thing, the simple thing, would have been to get the divorce, have him quit claim the deed over to me, and then I would get a mortgage in my name only.

Thanks to legal expertise, however, he now had to be present for my closing; first to sign the mortgage and then to sign a waiver relinquishing any claim on the property in question. All because we are still technically married. After signing, he will take a copy of the appropriate papers back to his lawyer, who will then allow him to sign the divorce papers, who will then send them to my lawyer, who will then send them to me for my signature. Ya-da ya-da ya-da.

Thanks to his lawyer’s “conditions”, his name ended up being on MY mortgage. Albeit momentarily. Which was exactly what neither of us wanted. And he had to drive all the way from Missouri to do it!

But I didn’t know any of this before the closing.

* * * * *

I check my watch as I pull into the parking lot of the lawyer’s office. The closing is set for 11:30 a.m. and I am a few minutes early. The lawyer’s assistant ushers me in to an office where David is already waiting. “I didn’t think you were here yet,” I remarked as I sat down. “I didn’t see your car.” “I drove a friend’s van; it will hold more of my stuff than my El Camino,” David replied. “That makes sense,” I said. “Where’s your friend?” “She’s waiting in the van." “Ah," I replied, comprehending at last.

Moments later, the lawyer arrives. I sign a myriad of papers; David signs a few. It takes about 45 minutes. As the lawyer explains what we are doing, I realize why David is here and what he is signing.

I mention this as we leave but I don’t think he gets it. I resent the fact his name is, after all, on my mortgage, but trust the waiver does, in fact, absolve him from any obligation as well as any claim to my property. I head for the tire store to get two new front tires and a front-end alignment and David takes his copies of the papers to his lawyer’s office. He has offered to stop back at the tire store to pick me up since it will take an hour or so for them to fix my car.

We drive back to the house. I knew he had planned to stop by to get more of his stuff. I just didn’t know a woman would be with him. But it’s her van, after all. I didn’t even know he had a woman friend. But that doesn’t surprise me, either.

He introduces us as I get in the back seat. It could be awkward but isn’t. We’re grown-ups, after all. She didn’t meet him till he moved to Missouri, after all.

David pulls up to the side of the house to make it easier to load the van. I go around to the front door and once inside come around to unlock the side door. They come in, David exclaims over how big the cat has gotten, and heads for the basement.

Sally is small in stature. A little pudgy like me but in different places. Tight jeans and turtleneck reveal little bulges here and there. Salt and pepper hair and dark eyes. Attractive.

David comes back upstairs. As I direct them to the piles and boxes I have accumulated for him, we talk. Ironically, I realize this is a woman I could like; someone I could be friends with. Under different circumstances. She is friendly and speaks intelligently.

I learn she is self-employed; sells real estate and is a tax accountant. She goes on to say she is a Pentecostal Christian and has been a minister for 20 years. But recently left the ministry. Because she can’t be a minister and drink and dance and she has recently discovered both. I am dumbfounded! David the Atheist coupled with a Fundamentalist! Unbelievable.

She also is newly divorced--six months ago. As she speaks of the details of the marriage and divorce I hear remnants of pain in her voice although she says it is behind her now. That sisterhood of woman bonding thing rises up in me and I blurt out, “but you’re so needy right now. You need time to heal.”

“Actually it’s been two years since we split up. It’s just that the divorce became final six months ago.”

She talks about a husband who was undemonstrative, who didn’t show her any affection. The more she talks, the more I feel drawn to her and the more I feel the need to warn her. Warn her of what? It’s none of my business. Recognizing this does not subdue the feeling.

She says she and David met about six months ago and haven’t stopped talking since. How familiar this sounds.

I tell her, “Well, David will tell you he wants an independent woman. Beware! He only wants you to be independent as long as you agree with his point of view.” David is standing nearby and I say it in a joking manner--I hope. They both grin so I guess it’s okay that I said it.

I continue by saying, “Which I have decided must just be a male thing.”

“I think you’re right,” she replies and smiles also. “We’ve had some of those kinds of conversations already.”

“Well, don’t back down,” I say.

“Oh, I won’t; I’m good at defending myself. He knows that already.”

Sounds more and more like this is a potentially serious relationship. I feel concern for what I perceive this woman’s needs to be because I have no doubt they will remain unfulfilled. What is this pain I’m beginning to feel? Why do I feel so protective of her? She says she has dated quite a few men during the past two years. I sense that she is looking for someone to love. And to be loved. I know the feeling. I was there. Fourteen years ago. It didn’t happen.

We are alone for a few minutes when David goes back to the basement.

As we stand emptying clothes from what once was his closet, I decide to speak what’s in my heart. “Please don’t misunderstand but I feel the need to talk to you woman-to-woman. I don’t wish David any harm. I just feel the need to warn you. If you just want a friend, a sexual buddy, then you probably won’t be disappointed. But if you’re looking for something more, please be careful. David himself told me in the early months of our relationship that a woman he once dated for nine months told him, ‛David, you’re a taker.’ I learned she was right.”

“Whatever it is that did or didn’t happen to David as a child has made him the way he is. It’s why we all are the way we are, of course, but with David, what this amounts to is, I don’t think he knows how to love. It’s not that he’s intentionally selfish or unkind. But he is the most self-absorbed person I have ever known. And hasn’t a clue as to how to be a father or a husband. Clueless is what he is.”

Then I tell her about his daughter’s wedding and how he failed to show up at almost the last minute. He was driving over the road at the time and called me to say he would have to cut his run short and it might jeopardize his job and he thought he would probably just be in the way anyway and what did I think he should do? (His ex-wife and daughter had rented a hotel room for us, bought flowers for me and him, rented him a tux. They were expecting him to walk her down the aisle, for god’s sake!)

I told her by this point in the marriage I was tired of being the manager, the mother, of making his decisions for him, so I told him he had to do what he thought best. What he thought best was not to go. It broke his daughter’s heart and she called in tears two days before the wedding. David was still out on the road and I had to talk to her. I felt horrible. And wished for her sake I had talked him into doing the right thing--at least one more time.

Just then I heard David’s footsteps on the stairs and tried once again to assure Sally I wasn’t trying to be vindictive. “I just have the feeling you may be looking for something that isn’t going to be there.”

“No, no, I’ve wondered about some of this myself. I’m glad to know.”

* * * * *

By the time the tire shop called to say my car was ready, Sally and David were just about finished loading up the things they planned to take. David has to return in November for the court date for the divorce and will get the rest of his things then.

We all piled into the van one more time and they dropped me off at the tire store.

As I prepared to exit the van, Sally said, “I was a little nervous about meeting you but hoped it would be okay. And it was.”

“Me, too,” I said. “But there’s no reason for me to have bad feelings toward you. What happened between David and me happened before he ever knew you. You had nothing to do with it.”

“Well, that’s how I hoped you’d feel. My best friend had an affair with my husband so that’s the last thing I would ever do to another woman,” Sally replied.

“Have a safe trip; I wish you well,” I said as I exited the van and headed to the tire store. I wrote my check, left the store, and drove home with a little knot of pain and sadness rumbling around deep inside my guts. I didn’t exactly know why.

Then I figured it out.

David is looking for a connection. Of sorts. He was looking for it when he ran into me. Who was looking and hoping and praying. To be needed. To be loved.

He found the real thing. He didn’t know it. He didn’t take care of it. And then he lost it.

Me, I’m not looking anymore.

David still is.

He’s run into someone who’s looking and hoping and praying . . .

I have to stop now. There is a pain behind my eyes and it is spreading to my throat and moving down to squeeze around my heart.

-- end --

So THAT'S It!!!!! (01/05/2011)

WHOO-HAAA!!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/conservatives-fear-center-brain/

I have a LARGE Amygdalas and a SMALL Anterior Cingulate!!!

I always KNEW there was a reason.

WHOO-HAAA!!

Home Is Always The Best Place . . . Isn't It? (09/09/2010)

So what is it that brings this pain?

I am home. It’s where I want to be. Home is, aferall, always, the best place to be. After.

After visiting kids.
After going to a concert.
After a trip.

I have things to do, things I LIKE to do, things I LOVE to do.

Working in my yard; mowing my lawn, planting flowers, watering them afterward.
Researching genealogy.
Writing my books.
My puppy.

So what is missing? What is the pain in my heart that produces tears. Tears . . . for what I don’t know. For something . . . what? . . . that is not.

I have “been there, done that”. I’m grateful it is not “eleven o’clock and I don’t know where my kids are.” I am grateful for “peace” and orderliness and Easy Listening on the radio, no TV blarring cartoons or MTV music.

It doesn’t make sense to say home doesn’t feel like home. But that’s how it feels sometimes.

I’m home but something is missing. And I don't know what it is. I don’t get it.

I was online looking up a location for my genealogy – the county someone lived in. For some reason, I typed in Huntington Woods, a suburb of Detroit, and the city we lived in from 1963-1979; the place my kids were raised, mostly.

According to the website, Huntington Woods is still considered one of the best places to live. How about that. Then I looked at a map – apparently they are doing some construction this summer, fixing roads, mostly. So I thought the map would show where the construction was going to be.

The map was just a bunch of lines intersecting with names on them. And then I saw it – our street – Vernon. And the pain hit. And the tear ducts began to spout.

For what we lived, what we did, for how fast it all happened. Like in the blink of an eye . . .

It’s now been thirty years since we left . . .

and up comes the pain . . .

For My Daughter, Lisa (06/25/1996)

The Story of Pie

Lisa Danielle Coyle. Youngest of four.

At first she was Dani. From the time she was born till she started school. Because Jerry and I thought Dani was a cute nickname for Danielle. We liked the idea of having a little girl who was kind of a tomboy so that was another reason we liked the nickname. And she was. Independent too. Jerry called her his little terror and said she bossed him and everyone else around.

She became Lisa when she started school because the teachers called her by her first name and we gradually got into the habit also.

Being the youngest, she always wanted to do whatever the older ones were doing. Often, too often as far as Caryn was concerned, I made her take Lisa along when she played with her neighbor friend, Mary Ann McGowan. They got even, of course, by teasing her and putting her up to stunts (like the Bea Olmstead affair recounted below). And they made up their own nickname -- Lisa-Piece-A-Possum-Pooh. Except when they said it around the family, they changed it to Lisa Pizza Pie. Then the boys picked up on that and for a variation called her Izza Pizza Pie. When she was little, this made her mad and she would cry from their teasing.

Eventually, her brothers and sister outgrew their need to tease her this way and she became Pie, The Pie, and most lately, Her Pieness. It had, finally, become our affectionate nickname for her and eventually she understood and accepted it that way too.

****************

But before that she was . . .

The Delinquent of Huntington Woods

Too frequently, I suppose, it fell upon Caryn to watch and/or play with her little sister. Much to her chagrin. But she and Mary Ann devised ways of getting even. As previously referenced in the Lisa-Piece-A-Possum Pooh story.

This is a story about the time they got her to go over to Bea Olmstead’s house, knock on the door, and say, "I Hate You."

Bea Olmstead lived directly across the street from us. She was a retired school administrator. She and her husband had been teachers early in their careers. Mr. Olmstead had been dead for years. Bea still perceived herself to be an important part of her community. She had teas and entertained often. Always had Open House at Christmas and other holidays.

One Sunday afternoon when she was having company, she came over and asked the kids to move their toys out of our front yard and lawn because she thought it looked unsightly for her company. (!) (?) When the kids told their dad, he promptly had them drag every toy they owned (as well as those from the neighbors) out to the front yard, of course!

This particular incident occurred when Caryn and Mary Ann told Lisa, who was just past two, to go over to Mrs. Olmstead, who was working in her yard, and say, "I Hate You."

Naturally Lisa did it. Twice! Because the first time, Mrs. Olmstead ignored her. So they sent her back. The second time Bea grabbed her up, shook her, and yelled at her.

Mickey McGowan, Mary Ann’s father, just happened to be outside in his yard and saw the incident. He lived two houses down from Bea. Although he surely couldn’t have heard what Bea said to Lisa, he saw Bea grab her and shake her and yell something. He was probably amazed that an adult would take offense at something a baby would say. He called or came over and told Bea to stop. They exchanged some heated words. Later Mickey came over and told Jerry what had happened.

Jerry waited until he saw Bea leave her house. I believe he confronted her in the middle of the street! He grabbed her arm and said, "Don’t ever lay a hand on one of my children again!" She threatened to beat him up. And he threatened to call the police.

Bea didn’t speak to us for over a year. Then one day she came over shortly after Jerry got home from work. He went to the door. She had a box of candy in her hands and said, "I’m sorry. Let’s be friends again." Jerry said, "No thanks. I prefer things just the way they are," and abruptly closed the door in her face!

---Excerpt from Tales From the Woods

　

The First Amendment Says WHAT??? (05/20/2008)

I think a lot of people share my opinion that politics and our elections are a game. A game that turns uglier, it seems, with every election. Although if you research our political history, it would likely prove me wrong; i.e., it’s always been ugly.

But then, democracy, freedom is messy. Diversity is messy. Too bad the politically correct advocates don’t understand this basic concept:

"If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all."
---Noam Chomsky

Sure words can hurt. Words can be disrespectful. Life is tough sometimes. And people say ugly things. Toughen up, consider the source, and get on with your life!

Cyberspace is full of information, much of which is DIS. As in DISinformation. If not total fabrication. Cyberspace has become a garbage dump filled with trash and junk. Even though somewhere in there is fact.

How to sift through takes time and effort we probably should be spending playing with our kids or reading a good book or walking in the sunshine or . . .

But it is what it is.

THIS is what I find disturbing.

Regarding the upcoming election, Obama is not my choice; however, when I have gotten ugly e-mails about his background, his religion, I have tried to research the facts to determine what is true. To the extent of my research, which I admit is limited–because sometimes I AM reading a book or walking in the sunshine–I believe he is what he says; a Christian. Albeit a liberal one. But then so am I.

IF he wins this election, which he may, we will have a president with a Muslim name. I hope for America’s sake, that’s all it is. Time will tell.

If time puts him in the presidency, we shall see what develops. Whether Muslim beliefs and practices become a part of our laws.

Before you jump to conclusions about what I’m saying, let me clarify.

I really don’t care if Obama is a Muslim or not. EXCEPT FOR ONE THING.

Conservatives in this country have been yammering about "putting God BACK into schools and government" so long and so hard that we now have laws and rules on the books in various communities across this nation reflecting their concerns.

We have allowed religion to infiltrate government. Some of us have demanded it.

How short-sighted, how contrary to the founding fathers, how frightening this is.

The time is coming–and is now here–when this appalling misunderstanding and misapplication of the intent of our constitution which embraces the freedoms we claim to cherish, is eroding. Inch by inch, day by day.

So I pose this WHAT IF:

WHAT IF Barack Obama is elected president . . .

WHAT IF Barack Obama later reveals he IS a closet Muslim . . .

WHAT IF Barack Obama selects Muslims to posts in his administration . . .

WHAT IF the Ten Commandments are taken down from public buildings (where I think they shouldn’t be in the first place) and replaced with the Muslamic Rule of Ten . . .

WHAT IF the Pledge of Allegiance is changed to say "under Allah" instead of "under God". (Before 1954 it didn’t say either one.)

Any of these things can happen. Now? Maybe not. In the future? Very possibly.

We have the Conservative Christians to thank for this. Conservative Christians or any others who believe in merging government and religion. A tragic and horrible mistake we will one day pay the consequences for.

Maybe sooner than later.

This is NOT what our founding fathers intended.

I do not hate Muslims. I do not hate conservative Christians. I don’t care whether Barack Obama is a Christian OR a Muslim. Or an Atheist.

I DO care whether his religion or anyone else’s religion infiltrates my government’s policies and procedures. Separation of Church and State. Our wise Founding Fathers understood this.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The First Amendment, folks. It’s not complicated. The first part – "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" – that’s the part that says we don’t enact laws favoring any particular religion. The second part – "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ." that’s the part that says each of us can freely practice our religion.

How simple is that? It’s not rocket science, folks.

And neither is this:

The day is coming when White Christians will be the Minority in this country. I wonder what they’ll think the First Amendment means then?

* * * * *

Since I wrote this, Barack Obama DID, of course, become president. I voted for him, actually. Once I heard him speak I became a supporter. I think he is brilliant, knowlegable in world issues, well-spoken and calm under fire, doing a remarkable job of restoring respect for America among world leaders; all the while having to try and solve the almost unsurmountable problems bequeathed to him by virtue of winning the election.
—dhb, 1/4/201011