A Secret about a Secret

  Being in an abusive relationship is like being in a secret cell, invisible constraints around you all the time; as you smile at the cashier, as you drive to work, sing in church, talk on the phone.  No one can see it, but once in a while, a sensitive individual can sense it in other ways.  They don't believe the ever present smile.  They can see the circles around the cheery eyes.  The hunched shoulders seem more than just weary.  The wounds are revealing themselves, even without showing bruises. 
  From the time I was 21 until I was almost 28 I was in an abusive relationship.  My ex husband never beat me severely.  His methods were far more subtle.  It began while we were dating.  He made suggestions that I needed to dress differently, wear a different purse, accessorize with more "class."  These suggestions were met with gifts.  Then there were other suggestions. Different haircut, hair color, tan.  Then a big red flag:  "You're practically my ideal girl!  If only you were as into working out as I am.  I know you must feel self-conscious next to me, with my obvious commitment to my health."  I told myself the saddest lies.  He cares about your health.  He wants you to be your best self.  He's only thinking about your overall happiness.  He deserves someone better, but you can BE better.  So I went from being a free spirit, in love with music and books and dancing and singing, to a very starchy, contained, ashamed individual with less fat, more muscle, darker skin, shorter/darker hair, more sensible handbag and shoes, smallish diamond earrings, large diamond ring; his wife. 
  Interestingly, no matter how much I changed it was never enough.  My forehead, the sheer enormity of it, offended him.  No one, not even my hypercritical teenage self, had ever noticed any abnormality about my face or any other part of my physical body.  Suddenly my legs were "chicken legs" and my nose was "a beak" and my ankles were "thick."  He wanted me to keep a certain look upon my face at all times.  He didn't like my thinking face.  It looked "ugly."  He wanted me to hold my neck a certain way, my head, my jaw.  My laugh wasn't feminine.  My smile was too toothy.  I started to rebel. 
  After I'd gained at least forty pounds, not consciously on purpose but I think using food as a drug, it was obvious my ex-husband was pretty unhappy.  He had frequent spells of rage, throwing things, calling names, making threats.  When I reacted in kind, destroying the Christmas tree I had put up by myself in response to his claim that he didn't have the money to buy me any presents that year after he had just spent over $1,000 on new sweaters and jeans for himself, he was really scared.  What was this?  She isn't rolling over and crying?  She's  actually getting mad.  Really angry.  Ripping off the ornaments like that and throwing them on the floor?  This is different.
  I wasn't sure how to feel when I discovered he was sleeping with a baseball bat at an arm's reach.  On one hand it was amusing.  He perceived ME as a threat?  A little empowering.  But on the other hand, I felt disgusted.  Either he was prepared to beat me unconscious out of fear or out of rage.  I'm literally stunned I wasn't more eager to get out of there.  But that's that invisible cell.  You're captive.  And the bars aren't made of iron.  They're made of more sinister things like ideas, thoughts about the dark and dreary future ALONE and unloved and unlovable; the narrative the abuser has gone over and over with you in subtle and then not so subtle ways.  It's a systematic disassembly of a person.  It starts pretty superficial; clothing, hair.  Then it moves  on to other things; skin, thighs, ankles; onto more meaningful things; the face, your thinking.  Still deeper; your ideas, intentions, desires, abilities, talents, friendships, family, all your connections must be properly dealt with and distanced if not severed.  He criticizes each of your friends, trying to get you to see how they are either hopelessly flawed or don't actually care for you.  Can't you see how jealous she is?  He is SO annoying!  They don't really seem smart enough for you.  There were all those lies and more.  It's hard to lord over someone with allies.  Best to brush them away as soon as possible.  And if words didn't work, maybe actions would.  So he starts being downright insufferable when friends are around.  Complaining, being negative and rude, dismissive and unseemly in numerous ways.  So the friends go.  Why wouldn't they?  And those who stay are confused.  Why is she so tired all the time?  She' become rather boring as a married lady.  She's no fun anymore.  And you wish you could explain but the words don't come out.
  The dismantle continues.  You had the gall to graduate with honors.  He says  It's because you chose such an easy major.  Any dummy could make straight A's in education!  Everyone knows that.  You were offered an ideal job in an ideal school.  We'll see how long it lasts.  Besides, when I get into law  school we'll have to move anyway.  And so that's what you did.  You had to move to Chicago because that's where he got into law school.  So you've got to go, too.  You go to career fairs, about 25 random schools in neighborhoods that scare you silly, and network with people you don't even know until you find a job.  Someone's gatta pay the bills, you see.  And that's been you since day one.  Whenever money runs out, which is all the time, hubby calls his mama.  All's right in a world where everything comes easy. 
  Uprooting is very very telling.  When all you know is no where you can see, when everything familiar is removed, other things are easier to see.  So, as you throw yourself into a new job at a new school in a new city where EVERYTHING is NOTHING like ANYTHING you've ever known, things get interesting.  Just as the weather is harsh and nasty, so is the realization that you're whole life is a fallacy. 
  That Christmas he tells you about the girl he's accidentally fallen in love with at law school.  Relief sweeps over you because you have a clear OUT and it isn't even your fault!  In the eyes of God and your parents and  the church and the neighbors and the friends, it is finally okay to leave!  Finally! 
  It would take years to overcome and try and undo all the damage.  There were bouts of incredible sorrow and deep regret; remorse even.  You felt so deeply sorry for allowing such abuse to take place to begin with and felt confused at how and why it all happened without you're adamant protests.  But that's the way it goes.  Abuse is not always obvious and before you know what to do you're in the thick of it and it's swallowing you. 
 So, it took years to sort it all out.  And I did eventually express all of this to my abuser.  He had tried to patch things up a few times after the divorce.  I finally told him all I really thought, and it felt good.  If I could save one person from living with abuse I'd do all I could.  Maybe that's why I'm writing this.  I'd say, "Don't buy into his/her version of you!  Don't forget who you are!  Hold on to your friends!  Listen to your family!  Get out!  Don't tell yourself you can't!  Run!!  Now!!!"
 Today I'm as happy as I've ever been.  I'm married to my best friend, someone who thinks I'm the bee's knees.  We have a daughter who's as pretty as the morning and twice as bright.  For the first time in my life I feel like life is just right.  I wish I'd known a little sooner that life doesn't have to hurt all the time.    

Thank you for your voices...

I recently wrote a little play for my seventh grade drama class to perform for the school at the end of the year.  It's a great little play, I think, made greater by those budding actors bringing their souls into it.  It was an interesting day, the day I revealed their long awaited script to them, the students.  It took me a little longer than expected to present them the final product and, in all honesty, I wasn't sure they'd like it.  I read it to them at first, scene by scene.  Some approved, some disapproved.  We changed a word here and there, making it more appropriate for their generation.  Then I gave them their parts.  As I passed out their individual scripts and they began reading with their partners I experienced something unexpected and almost magical.  Can you imagine being surrounded all at once with your own words?  Things you thought up one rainy night, another collection of ideas that blazing afternoon last week, sentences labored over and then smoothed into something sweet, suddenly surrounding you in a room full of actors then making the words their own.  It was one of those climactic moments for me.  My voice in their minds and mouths, changing into something more beautiful because of the nuances each person brings to their individual performance.  It was something.  I can't wait to see what it turns into.  It's really inspiring to give something up to someone else so that they can make it theirs. 

 

Art Spoiled Culture

In our country we are rich in many things.  We like our luxuries from our big shiny cars to our couples massages to the Italian leather boots we scored for Christmas.  And it's wonderful!  The access so many of us have to so many bright and shiny things.  We love our sexy devices, our imported cheeses, and our bath salts, sugar scrubs, and mud masks.  And as I write to you, dear reader of mine, on my lovely new black, shiny laptop complete with 17 inch touchscreen and all, I feel spoiled.  Very, very spoiled.  But this piece isn't about guilt but rather awareness.  I don't want to talk about money or technology so much as ART.  Art. That short word that beckons more than a million images to mind.  That inexplicable EVERYTHING word!  Tonight I don't want to talk about Picasso or Michael Angelo or Di Vinci.  No.  Tonight I want to talk about whomever it was that designed the embroidered flowers on my IKEA pillow.  Yes.  The one that nearly all of us have, you know?  The one that is sold by the millions?  I want to celebrate THAT artist!  And the ones who paint the greeting cards, too!  The ones with or without glitter.  I am just so ART SPOILED that I sometimes fail to notice that my yoga mat and my sheets and my cups and waste baskets and screen savers and all my adorable printed shirts are someone else's brainchildren!  What a world, huh?!  Everywhere we go!  Everything is dripping with gorgeous ART and here we are acting like that's less than glorious!!  I'm blissing out over here!  No drugs needed and I'm on a total trip!

Life for our ancestors was not so ART SPOILED.  That said, art was one of the first things that distinguished man from other animals.  Cave walls depicting battles, famine, feast, ceremony, hunts...this was the first visual art we know about.  Then came animal hides and the papyrus scroll, hieroglyphs, pyramids, temples, mosaics, immense statues, tiny tea cups.  As a species we've created some truly gorgeous stuff! 

Clothing.  It's a big deal.  It's something we use daily, not just for warmth and comfort, but also for self expression.  The patterns on our scarves and ties and shirts were someone's baby, someone's precious, sacred idea, an idea that "made it."  Old Navy bought it or Dior or whomever.  Point is, it made it OUTSIDE the studio and INTO the great, wide world.  And I, for one, think that's worth more reverence, more appreciation, more NOTICE.  SO!  The next time you're perusing the wine aisle, pretend you're at the museum because, in a sense, you really are.  I don't drink wine but even I love looking at wine bottles.  Not because I have any particular obsession with glass bottles but only because I love the art on wine labels.  Let's notice our wonderful world and celebrate the ARTISTS.  They make our world such an interesting and awe inspiring place. 

 

   

A Day in the Life of a Free Spirit

 

I've often day dreamed about what I would do if I didn't have many obligations.  It's fun to imagine, so fun in fact that I'd like to venture to write about it now.  If I could structure my days myself and do only the things that I deem the most beneficial, the most interesting, the most important, or just the most fun, my day would look something like this:

8:00- Rise and Shine!  Tai Chi then Yoga in the garden
8:30- Breakfast, Tea, Tidy the kitchen
9:00- Get Ready
10:00- Study Scripture
10:30-  Write!
12:00- Lunch with Ely and Aria
1:00- Play with Aria

• soft blocks
• musical instruments
• dance
• sing
• tickle
• splash!
• nature walk
• draw
• color
• read

3:00-  Meditate/Nap
4:00-  Sing
5:00-  Lift heavy objects
5:45-  Swim
6:15-  Brain Exercises
7:00- Dinner with Family and Friends
8:00-  See a show
10:00-  Massage
10:30-  Lights out

What a wonderful day, eh?  Maybe I'll try to live it out one of these days.  Of course, if I could create a make believe week it might include other pleasures like a picnic, painting al fresco, a poetry reading, canoeing, spa day, walking, speaking Spanish, or day tripping to visit museums.  Life just doesn't give me much time for all of these wonderful wanderings and musings.  I work 9-6 if not more.  Life calls for cleaning and shopping and phone calls and paying bills.  Maybe the trick is to incorporate as many of one's delights into a week that one possibly can.  If not the whole day, maybe I might try to get the rising and shining part in, along with the yoga and maybe write for 15 minutes each morning, if not the full hour and a half the dream schedule articulates.

   

Thinking in Circles

 
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  I'm staying at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Antonio tonight.  I'm meeting up with a friend tomorrow.  We're meeting at a museum in the morning and we may also go to the zoo.  Her baby is a little older than mine.  My baby is asleep in the oversized chaise chair by the plush, draped window.    

  The American flag flutters feverishly outside my window.  A classic movie featuring Betty Davis, Humphrey Bogart, and Ronald Reagan graces the sleek flat screen which looks a little ironic on top of the Spanish antique armoire with little brass feet, artistic embellishments in wood inlay, creamy marble surface on the top, a lively little green plant slanting toward a window on the bottom shelf.  The theme of the room is decidedly nautical.  I do like it.  The wall wears a monumental painting of a stormy sea, two ships slanting in the violent wind, framed in gold.  I look at the flag outside again.  Very windy out but no rain.

   Across the street people are watching a movie in the park.  I'm still listening to this movie in my room.  The other classic movie just ended.  Another one with Betty Davis just started:  The Man Who Came to Dinner.  The actress who played Glenda the Good is in it.  Makes me think of the summer I was in the play The Wizard of Oz.  I was in the chorus.  That summer marked the first time I fell for a gay guy.  It wouldn't be the last.  One of the hazards of growing up in theater.  

  That makes me think about myself as a child, and all the things I wanted to be one day.  I was always trying to get at something, something I knew not what.  Something instinctual wanted me to get at it by drawing, painting, telling, and writing stories.  I loved my stories, stories about cacti coming to life, girls turning into trees, princes and princesses playing with witches and warlocks, and a little boy who knew how to grow and shrink at will.  I often pretended to be him when I was at church and I imagined myself being able to shrink so small I could fit inside the pocket where the hymnals went so I could take a little nap.  Telling stories was something I did all the time.  I wasn't "practicing".  I was being.  I was living.  And I resented interruptions like dinner, bath time, and worst of all, homework.  

  I never liked school as much as a smart kid should've.  I found it unnecessarily laborious, boring, and too full of danger.  I was afraid of mean kids and often pretended to be one so as not to be mistaken for an easy target.  Growing up with blond hair in El Paso, Texas was a treacherous business.  Which makes me think about being a minority.  I was definitely a minority in El Paso, a city with a Latin American population of at least 95%.  It was interesting and wonderful in many ways, too many to mention for this little entry.  

  Which makes me crave my favorite Mexican food.  I should try and find something good tomorrow.  I'm in San Antonio after all.  I seem to remember a place called Mi Tierra; an impressive, orotund Mexican restaurant, quite authentic fare, multiple vast rooms, each one decorated as a different holiday, dripping with lights of all colors year round.  As you walk toward the exit you find an enormous case of Mexican baked goods.  Oh, my.  Now I'm really craving Mexican food.  Thinking in circles.  

  But what I meant to write about was this room.  Impressive!  Full of antiques.  A miniature boat atop a white cement sconce of some sort "sails" above the crackled, blue desk.  A helm wheel, polished wood, adorns the plush bed drapery, all stripped cream, gold and navy blue.  Makes me think about my father.  He was in the navy way before I was born.  I used to wear his sailor pants and jacket in high school.  They barely fit.  My dad was a real stick back then.  I was pretty slender when I was a teenager, too.  

  One time my Dad read us the love letters he wrote to mom, the ones he wrote while on the Enterprise in the Far East during the Vietnam War.  They were just kids and they were married.  And they are married still.  What a phenomenon.  Makes me think about my failed marriage and my second, my happy marriage.  How can I even use the same word?  The first was fraught with confusion, darkness, and the deepest loneliness.  The second is so sweet, and full, and innocent somehow.  

  Sometimes Ely likes to talk about what ifs.  "What if we had kept in touch all those years ago?  What if we had gotten married younger?  To each other, instead of suffering through our failed relationships and respective divorces."  I don't know.  But something tells me I had to suffer some, to somehow deserve the goodness I now call life.  I think about the arduous nature of my first marriage.  I think about how awful and slow it was to recover after such a long, terror of a marriage to a very unhealthy person.  Maybe it wasn't necessary for me to suffer so.  But it happened all the same.  No sense in regret.  But in all honesty, sensible or not, I do have regrets; more than a few.  I regret not doing my homework.  I regret smoking.  I regret being awful toward my parents.  I regret being mean to my siblings.  I regret punching that sassy girl in the face in high school.  I regret all my meanness, and it was considerable.  I regret never playing sports.  I regret not riding a bicycle more.  I regret never learning to dive.  I regret not taking piano lesson seriously.  I regret not paying enough attention to my inclinations, the artistic ones especially.  I regret indulging my doubts.  I regret doing it still.    

  Looking out my window I seem to notice the wind has died down to scarcely a breeze.  I better say my prayers and read my scriptures and fall asleep so I won't be a bore tomorrow, but before I sign off I just want to say I love this nautical room and I love America and her flag and my sweet, sleeping baby, Betty Davis, Spanish antiques, room service, and Macintosh.  But most especially, I love Ely and Aria.  Good night,

Moon.                               

Becoming a Mommy

   I'm due to give birth on April 25.  You might say I'm a little nervous.  But I've got to admit, I'm SO excited.  It's a girl.  Her name is Aria Marie Allington.  I loved the name as soon as I thought of it.  Aria, Italian musical term for solo, such a lovely name for my sweet baby.  I am so eager to see her little face and hold her and play with her. 
  Ely is the most excited Daddy ever.  He is always buying things for her, getting her room ready, doing research on babies and on fatherhood.  He is also really busy taking care of the Momma, cooking, cleaning, talking to the belly, shopping, and all the while working 70 hour weeks.  Ely is amazing.  I am so proud he is the father of my little baby.  I feel so blessed.
  So, pregnancy.  Yeah.  Wow.  What a world!  Initially it was really really awful.  I was nauseous all the time, throwing up every afternoon and evening, dizzy, cranky, and uber-emotional.  That lasted for four months.  The cruelty of it was how hungry I was.  Imagine!  Crazy hungry and a complete lack of appetite!  Awful!!  I had to force feed soup and watermelon.  I was more tired than I had ever thought possible and virtually incapacitated after 4pm.  I had heartburn that could fuel a rocket, feet so sore they felt like they were full of jagged little rocks, and acne to rival any teenager.  My face started to change colors as huge splotches of tan and brown showed up along my jawline and cheeks, even my nose got a swirl of new color on its bridge.  Hormones.  I've read these splotches will fade after I give birth.  We shall see. 
  So by the middle of the second trimester the nausea eventually subsided.  The feet got a little better with stretching and icing and soaking and wearing orthopedics.  I got the AOK from my doctor to take heartburn medication.  My abhorrence for food subsided.  I started to have fun with my maternity wardrobe.  My growing belly started to thump and tumble inside.  It started getting fun.  We began gathering baby stuff and setting up a nursery.  I still felt tired, emotional, and occasionally queasy but I felt a little more normal and a little more excited and optimistic.
Third trimester is just a few weeks in.  My tummy is growing, my baby is dancing in there, and I'm eating healthy doses of each food group.  My skin has cleared up, no more pimples but the tan blotches remain.  My feet still hurt but I'm still pretty mobile.  I still cry during cute and/or funny commercials.  I laugh a lot and cry a lot.  I'm feeling better than I have in a long time.  My ankles and feet are super swollen.  So are my hands.  Sometimes my face is bulbous.  There is a list of other ailments I'm too shy to list here but let's just say making a little human makes you more human than you ever were before.  That is to say, the wonders and woes of being human are never so apparent as they are when one is making a whole new human.  It is a thrill and a challenge I accept with great reverence.  I often feel inferior but I am eager to develop in all the ways I need to in order to do this thing well. 
  Becoming a mommy is my dearest dream come true.  Aria, I am so excited to meet you, little baby.  Thank you for coming to us and helping us become better people.  We can't wait!                   

Some days....

 

 On days like today, when I come home after a hard week's work, I just want to revert to a childlike state and spend gobs of time playing in the mud, digging for interesting little rocks, examining leaves or something like that.  My soul wants to take me to some stream somewhere, to put my feet in the water a while, to hum little songs that have never existed before. 
  In college I sometimes had days like these.  I wondered what it would be like to study one thing, one very specific thing, and make it your life's work.  Like leaves.  What if you were a leaf expert?  A leaf scientist!  I guess that is a botanist or something.  But I used to day dream about that, like, what if my job was to study leaf sample after leaf sample and catalog leaves and document their similarities and differences?  Wow!  That would be a pretty awesome job.  A peaceful job. 
  Instead I chose a career where peace really isn't the landscape.  There are sweet moments, to be sure, but peace is rare at a public school teaching kindergarten.  There's lots to prepare, lots to execute, lots to assess, lots of fires to put out, band aids to apply, tears to wipe, opinions to ignore, people to tolerate, district initiatives to refuse to adhere to.  There are so many things that happen in a day, every single day.  So much stimuli, it's sometimes maddening. 
  Teachers develop keen filters.  You learn to hone in only on the things that matter most.  So much has to go by the wayside, because it's impossible to do everything everyone expects you to do.  The Federal Government has expectations.  So does the state.  The district has expectations.  The administrators on campus do, too, of course.  So do the parents.  So do the other teachers.  So do the kids.  So do you.  Me.  Guess what?  Sometimes, quite often in fact, these expectations clash.  So what do you do?  Who do you seek to please first?  My default is always the kids.  The kids and me.  We seem to have goals that don't clash that often.  I want them to learn a lot, have a lot of fun doing it, be kind to each other, read, write, talk, play, discover. 
  A lot of what the government says is good for kids just isn't.  Almost everything congress pressures us to do in schools flies in the face of scientific research.  It's so common for elected officials to ignore science.  It's just funny at this point.  But at whose expense are we laughing?
  District "experts" are just as ill-informed as elected officials, if not just out right defiant.  Making decisions based on research is just something these people DO NOT DO.  I really can't say why, though I ask myself why all the time.  Most people in leadership seem to have a real aversion to reality.  It's really so annoying.  Are they just lazy?  Stupid?  Both?
  What would the world be like if we let science make the rules?  What if we honored the hard facts?  What kind of programs could we develop if we designed our academic activities based on what science has shown to be effective?  The truth is, everything you learn in college goes right down a dark drain when you enter a public school setting.  All the things your professors told you were "best practice" are just shunned by schools and even entire districts.  It's too time consuming, they say, or too expensive, or too hard so let's just say arbitrary things like let's "increase rigor" and "differentiate" and see what happens!  Or let's get rid of things like painting, recess, rest time, pleasure reading, singing time, problem solving, and journal writing.  Let's replace those with worksheets, small group chaotic rotations, and arduous phonics activities.  Let's increase rigor.  Let's increase rigor so much that we teach kids how hard learning can be.  Yeah!  Let's teach kids that learning is really, really difficult.  Let's teach them that hard work is the only thing that counts, that if you're enjoying yourself you may not be doing something right, that suffering is "good for you".  Let's make kindergarteners take standardized tests that take 45 minutes at a stretch.  Let's fill the school day with so much developmentally innappropriate stuff that we convince kids, sooner rather than later, that school is a terrible, heartless, uncomfortable place and that the ONLY demographic that can thrive here are the most type A, non-creative, rule following sorts of people; the people who naturally and habitually think as close to the middle of the inside of the box as possible.  I just can't be a part of that kind of goal.  So I don't do it.  Sometimes I get in trouble.  I don't follow the rules so well.  I'm one of those people who left the box a long, long time ago.  That's a whole different planet to me now, a memory, a relic of a reality.  It's risky but, hey, who doesn't crave a little risk now and again.  Besides, it's the right thing to do.  That makes being a rebel easier.
  But some days, instead of breaking rules, ignoring ill advised initiatives, rolling my eyes at the next new idea to rejuvenate our classrooms, I wish I could just examine leaves, for hour after blessed hour.  Let the masses do what they will!  My job is to study leaves.  Ahhh, what a life!