Pools

     One aunt and uncle had a couple of kids and a pool. It was a large above-the-ground in a square shape with a deck. The pool itself was surrounded by long timbers on the outside. I've never seen one like it before or since but I suppose other folks probably had one like it.

     They also had beds of flowers surrounded the house. I liked the pansies especially. "They seemed to be such happy flowers"-- a phrase I must have heard somewhere. I didn't think that then but it's what comes to mind now.

     Their downstairs bathroom also had fish wallpaper and a couple of fish figures on the walls.

     Later, the pool was traded out for an in-ground of the same size, shape, and depth. I preferred the old pool but never said so. Aunt and uncle seemed rather proud of the new one so I said nothing.

     I learned how to swim in a big army pool in the southern part of North Carolina. We'd gone visiting and a day at the base was a treat! I was never afraid of the water that I remember. I always could float well and swimming involved adding arm and leg movements to what I could already do.

     I was exposed to a pool at a Y during gym class in elementary school. We were bused there. I hated that. The locker rooms were not private enough. The kids were too loud. The instructor decided that I needed to learn how to breathe after every stroke of the front crawl rather than after every five or six stroked when I needed to. Because of that, I was put into the "beginner" swimmer class instead of into the more advanced class where my other classmates went and where I truly belonged. I was overly quiet and didn't advocate for myself then. Loud tears at the least, or a screaming tantrum may have gotten my message across better than my whispered short protest. My swimming did not improve during that class. I already knew how to do all sorts of things in the water contrary to what the Y staff thought. 

     Dad preferred apartment living to renting part or all of a house. [Later, he preferred owning a condo]. One of the apartments had a pool in the back. We had lots of fun there in the summer. Once my mother refused to let me take a bathing suit along. I don't know why. Dad allowed me to swim in my clothing [blue laws meant that swimsuits could not be purchased on Sundays] which was then washed and dried before I went back to my mother's. 

     At the apartment pool, I swam, floated, jumped or dove off the board, swam underwater, and perfected my side strokes. [I can swim on either side equally well]. I also learned to do headstands in the water. When not in the pool, we played Rummy 500. 

     Dad saved a little boy from drowning in the shallow section of the pool once. Even the lifeguard did not see that the toddler was in trouble. I learned that choking can be very quiet.

     Dad's days enjoying pools, lakes, and the ocean are over. His card-playing is over now too. When asked if he wanted to play Rummy 500, he shook his head and in a rare act of vulnerability acknowledged that the game would be too difficult for him now.

     Dad admitted recently to no longer being able to "keep up." 

     Dementia sucks.

                    sapphoq on life

Silk Flowers

     Dad had to go on a business trip or something, I don't quite remember now. He had a layover in Atlanta and found some silk flowers in one of the gift shops at the airport. 

     They were shades of blue and pink. I loved them and treasured them.

sapphoq on life

No More

Valentine's Day was always special with Dad. He would buy us each a card, a box of chocolates and a tiny whimsical stuffed animal.

We visited Dad on Friday at his adult living home. He was sitting on the couch next to a woman who used to be his sworn enemy just months ago. The two of them were talking and laughing. 

"He's having an off day," the house manager indicated to us as we sat down. I noted that Dad had paired a fancy dress shirt with his flannel pajama bottoms. The socks matched, I will say that. Dad had a glass of wine in one hand. He asked us how the drive was from Florida!

The medication woman came around. "No," Dad said. "I'm not taking that." She tried her best to talk him into it. But Dad was steadfast. After she went away, Dad turned to me and said softly, "They're not helping. I'm not taking them anymore." 


sapphoq on life

Loss

     In his younger days, back before I was thought of, Dad was into motorcycles and motocross. He liked riding around with some buddies. He liked racing and he was good at it. I don't remember him ever riding a motorcycle. I knew he had no problems on the little mopeds in Bermuda. And I knew that he had gotten an International Driver's License. So I was surprised to find out [when watching motocross on television together one day] that he was into motocross. He was also in an organization of motorcyclists. The club had its own tracks to ride around on [in preparation for motocross races? I don't really know]. And the guys did go ramming around together on weekends to various dances and things. 

    I knew that Dad was good at dancing. He had been a dance studio instructor [before I was born I think] at one time for Arthur Murray Studios. Dad taught me how to dance some waltzes and swings in a large room in a club. I don't remember the name of the place now-- just that it was on the second floor of a very large building with big windows overlooking some water. Dad kept telling me that the guy was supposed to lead. That was something that I finally learned with difficulty. But dancing with Dad was great fun. I had and have a natural rhythm at it and am good enough for someone who is not a professional. I pick up dances easily. One of my most treasured memories was dancing with my father at my wedding.

     Dad and his wives entered and won dance contests at various clubs and cruises. He was that good. I was proud of that. I would have liked to have known Dad in his motorcycle days but I didn't. He did take me to some car races as a kid. I prefer things like tractor pulls and cars smashing into each other on a track to a straight race.

      Shortly after arriving at assisted living, Dad did teach a few of the old folks living with him some dance steps. His most successful pupil was a woman who had a bum leg. With his encouragement, she was soon dancing in spite of her leg.

     All of those things are gone now. Dad cannot drive. And the Lewey Body Dementia has now progressed to the point where ambulation is difficult and dancing is impossible.

sapphoq on life says: Appreciate what you and others can do today. None of us know when those abilities will be gone.

Jenny

Dad had a housekeeper who I will call "Jenny."  Jenny was old when I met her.  She must surely be dead by now.

Whatever magic Jenny was able to infuse into a household with cleaning products was long gone by time Dad hired her.  She was an old woman on a limited income.  I don't know how Dad met her but it was evident to me that he felt sorry for her.

Jenny came twice a week.  She used to leave the picture frames slightly tipped to one side.  That was supposed to be a sign that she had dusted them.  That was the only way I could tell that Jenny had visited us on the days that she came to clean the house.

sapphoq on life

Thirty Three Years of Freedom (and some change)

I started writing this one quite awhile back and then I forgot about it.  I don't know if I ever published it or not.  So here it is.  Or here it is again.  If it is a repeat, mea culpa y soy listo.

It was the summer. I was on the beach in Lavallette reading the book "Go Ask Alice" written by "Anonymous." It was an anti-get high book. [My mother took this book away from me!!! She forbid me to read it.  I managed to finish reading it anyway.] This was in my pre-druggie era -- the time when I was waiting to get high and the local head shop-- The Last Straw-- was one of my fave hang-outs. Hippies were in.

Fast-forward: It is several decades later. Day after Thanksgiving 2005. I'm bemoaning the facts that not enough provocative material, comments on the news, or recovery stuff is in my blog. I drift around the internet, finally landing at http://www.snopes.com. Drifting through the categories, I discover the truth about "Go Ask Alice" under language sub literary. Oh woe is me.

It wasn't written by a teenager at all.

Worse than that, the book featured characters from divorced families who dropped out and turned on to street drugs. An anti-divorce diatribe. Something I missed in my initial reading of the book. Oh me. Oh my.
***


I have to forgive myself. I was a child after all. A precocious child but a child nonetheless. A child being brought up in a household not famed for its' knowledge of the difference between the truth and a lie.

I don't blame my mother and step-father today. They had their own sicknesses to deal with.
My parents divorced when I was very young.
***


Those days were the days when drug addiction was equated with divorce. Can I gain comfort in seeing "Go Ask Alice" as a product of its' times?
***


Are we a product of our times? The old nature versus nurture trap. Maybe, just maybe, things are not as clear-cut as they seem. What to do?
***


One of my ex-helping professionals said to me once, "But don't you think everyone is in recovery from something?"

This was after I had categorically rejected the idea of 'teaching [her] how to work the twelve steps'.

Short answer: NO. to both.
***


Now I am grown. Scarred people exist. I used to be one of those people scarred by years of addiction. I hope I never forget that scars can B L O O M. Something twisted and binding has become the touchstone of healing, strength, and freedom in my life.


~sapphoq

Solemn Memorial Day

Dad was in a parade today.  He got to ride around in a car and wave at the piles of people on the sidewalks spilling out into the streets.  He was very excited about getting to be in the parade today and the smile on his face as I snapped a picture showed it.

It is Memorial Day.  I would be amiss if I did not pause here to remember those who gave their all for us:

Dad loves parades.  He always has.  When I was younger, he took me to my first parade in New York City.  I remember the people and I remember Dad lifting me up and putting me on his shoulders so I could see the marchers.  We went to other parades after that one.  But there is no parade as grand as the first one in my memory.  Dad used to take me to parades.  Now I take him.  [But this parade, I didn't take him.  I took pictures of him in the car with the flag waving to the crowds].

sapphoq on life  

The Overalls

I was living with my dad.  I had gone to the army navy store but I don't remember with who now.  I found a pair of overalls.  They were fairly typical blue jean overalls with the big pockets and the bib.  The straps were blue and white stripes and might have said the name of the company on them.  At any rate I was thrilled.

Dad didn't like them.  There was something in his face that said, "don't mess with this one."  So I didn't.  We agreed that I would wear the overalls when he wasn't home to see them.  This was something that he could live with.  So that is what I did.  I wore them only when Dad wasn't around.

Years later, Dad told me with pride in his voice that he had never owned a pair of jeans.  To him, jeans and overalls reminded him of the Depression.  That association was one that he never broke.

I don't know much about what Dad had to live through during the depression.  I know that the family had chickens [in the small village that they lived in!] and when things got really really bad, the whole family moved to a truck farm.  The chickens and what they grew on the truck farm kept my dad and all of his brothers and sisters from starving.  After the worst was over, the family moved back into the village.

Dad's oldest brother had to quit school to help out with the family grounds-keeping business.  In return for doing that, he was given a car by his dad [my grandfather].  A few years later, he went into the military.  All of the boys followed him when it was their turn.  Two of Dad's brothers became landscapers after their stints in the military were over with.

There are no pictures that I know about still in existence today.  I've got Dad's high school graduation picture.  

sapphoq on life    

Dear Maria

Dear Maria,

I've thought about you very little throughout the years.  You gave off the air of being pristine.  You played basketball.  You knew how to be social.  You were an A student.  Your family was perfect.

My family wasn't.  And I was none of those things that you were.

Remember that trip we took to the ocean in Advanced Biology class?  We all slept in small beds in one large dorm.  We cooked out, fed the sea gulls on the beach, did something or other for biology class although I've forgotten what now.  I swam across the bay.  "Like a fish," is what the teacher said.  I can still swim like that.  Long distances with deliberate strokes.  Built for distance but not speed.

I remember your nightgown.  It was white and lacy.  We were all talking before bed one night.  I said I was glad to be away from my mother that weekend.  I was.  "I miss my mother," you said firmly and loudly.  "Well, I don't," I said.  "It's nice to be away."  We were only gone for three and a half days.  I'd already been traveling on my own.  I took buses to visit relatives for a week or two at a time.  I took trains to places that to this day I've never told my mother about.  I was and still am a traveler.  I was forced to be independent, to entertain myself, at times to provide for myself.

You hadn't been forced to do any of those things.  My mother drank rather well.  She married her drinking buddy the second time around.  You had a perfect family.  You had a mother that you were able to miss.  I didn't.  

Did it occur to you to ask why I didn't miss my mother?  Did it occur to you that by your upbringing you were privileged?  You were.  You stank with privilege.

It's years later now.  I am envious.  Yes.  My imagination tells me that yours was the easier softer life.  I don't want to be you.  Don't misunderstand me.  I think I could have gotten used to a life that wasn't so full of abuse.  I could have gotten used to your life.

We were young then.  I was a long distance swimmer.  You were the future.  You were somebody even then.  You could not fail.  You did not fail.  You excelled.  You succeeded.  You memorized the script and you delivered.  I was only a long distance swimmer with a mother that I was not able to miss.

If you ever read this, please don't bother trying to find me.  I am not interested.  What kind of conversation could we have now anyway? I would want to talk about class-ism.  You would want to talk about your wonderful mother aging.

This is not a pity party.  This is reality.  Anger is my truest friend.  The isms keep society sick.  I am rising above and beyond.  I am a long distance swimmer.  I am sister and brother to the flotsam in the bay.

See ya,

sapphoq on life

Telephones, Televisions, a Computer, and the Airplane

Dad has had a "good" [for him] week and a half or so.  A couple of days ago, he swung back into mixing things up and insisting that the things he has mixed up are accurate.

Example:

Dad:  I'm going to cancel the television [he means cable] because it was seventy five dollars and I can't afford that.

sapphoq:  That is your cell phone that costs seventy five dollars, Dad.  Your cable television costs less than five dollars a month.

Dad:  No, it was seventy five dollars the television.  The phone company is collecting money for the television company too.

sapphoq:  The phone company is separate from the television company.  The phone is seventy five dollars.  The television is less than five dollars.

Dad:  Yes I know that.  The phone company collects its own money.  The cable company charges for the television.

sapphoq:  That's right.

Dad:  The phone company also is collecting money for the television.  It is seventy five dollars for the television.  I can't afford that.  I'll only get three channels up here.  So I will have to hang out more in the living room downstairs to watch the other channels.  And I have to get a job.  I'm doing better now.

sapphoq refrains from banging her head into the wall. 



Then there was the conversation with a relative over his cell phone.  Dad was explaining that he was having difficulty working the cell phone now.  Only, he kept calling it a "computer" because of his aphasia.  Dad has been declining mentally and physically.  Any remnants of skills that he had a couple of years ago with the computer are gone now.  He is having difficulty with finding the contact list on the cell phone.  Housemate and I are not financially affluent and  would have difficulty buying Dad a simple black and white e-reader, never mind a computer of any sort.  

Relative:  Oh, you got your dad a computer.

sapphoq:  No, Dad is referring to his cell phone as a computer.

Relative:  Oh.  I thought maybe you got him a computer.

My relatives can afford to be in denial over my dad's failing brain.  For his safety, I cannot be.  Some days, I feel the burden of that knowledge like a weight on my chest.  

 

Today there was quite a bit of talk about "Obama is really wrecking the country," repeated several times at random.  [The news was talking about the Inauguration ].  And some chatter about the "new company" [he thinks his assisted living home has been sold-- it hasn't] "is fixing things up and painting.  They painted the kitchen the other day.  The staff is screaming about it."  [This is a ploy to get out of the assisted living home and into an apartment, a job, a car...].  "We'll have to see how it goes, Dad," I said.  


Something came on the news about airplanes.


sapphoq:  Dad, do you remember when you took me up in that little airplane in Hiserville?

Dad:  Yes I do.  We had to wait a long time at the airport that day.

sapphoq:  I don't remember the wait.  I do remember getting into the plane, the take off, and flying over the countryside.  I remember looking out of the window and everything was getting smaller.

Dad:  I wanted you to see what it was like to be flying.

sapphoq:  That was so cool!

Dad:  I didn't know that you liked it.  You said very little that day.

[I didn't talk much as a kid.  I was unusually quiet].

sapphoq:  I really liked it!


As difficult as it is for me at times to bear witness to what is happening to my dad because of the dementia, my dad is the one who has the dementia.  He has lost so much because of it.

As difficult as it is for me at times to acknowledge my dad's impending death [whenever that does occur], I am losing one person.  My dad is losing everyone.

sapphoq on life

 

Christmas Memories

My mother married her drinking partner second time around.  She was very much a functional-- but angry-- alcoholic.  Step-dad was also a functional alcoholic.  My mother dominated him though.  She told him what to do and he did it.  I went to live with my dad in my late teens because of physical abuse.

I was raised Roman Catholic but in my early teens I got curious about the other churches in the neighborhood.  On Sundays, I started secretly [I didn't tell my mother] attending their services.  On any given Sunday, it was anyone's bet whether I would show up where I was supposed to be or somewheres else.  Sometimes I skipped church altogether, stopping at an Italian bakery and then just walking clear into the next town.  Other times, I would go to the plain little Episcopalian church or to the Spanish Pentecostal one that shared space with the Presbyterians.  Eventually, I got converted and found Jesus in a very fundamentalist way.

All of this searching started in high school.  On the last day of our ninth grade religion class, we were asked what we had learned.  I said, "I learned that I didn't want to be Catholic anymore."  I had been exposed to the craziest of arguments against abortion, feminism, and why women shouldn't be priests.  So I knew what I didn't want.  I even knew a little bit of what I wanted.  I wanted a church that made sense and wasn't boring.  I also wanted one that didn't consider the life of a woman to be secondary to the life of a fetus.  Thus started the trek in and out of various churches I had mentioned earlier interspersed with periods of avid pot smoking and drinking.

There was a few kids in our high school that were Children of God, a.k.a. the Family nowadays.  I went to the commune in New York City with them at least once.  There was a gym teacher who was Christian Missionary Alliance only she spoke in tongues at the Charismatic Catholic prayer meetings on Wednesday nights down the block.  She was at odds with the Children of God kids.  The administration of the Catholic High School was at odds with her.I had another friend who was Pentecostal with a Jewish twist.  We shared an illegal bottle of Moyen David in a local park on several Saturday afternoons.  She was a lot of fun.  We poured through a Jewish catalog for young people and freely co-opted whatever we wanted to out of that.  I wound up in an Assemblies of God church and there I stayed on and off for a few years.  For several years, including after my exit from my mother's house, it was either Jesus or drugs.  I could not conceive of a life without either one.

My mother, being herself an addict of the alcoholic variety, got along with me fairly well when I was [unbeknownst to her, or at least unacknowledged by her] getting high and drunk.  She was enraged whenever I was into one of my Jesus freak [that is what it was called in those days-- we were young and turned on and joyfully proclaiming the Word of the Lord to anyone who was around, whether they wanted to listen or not-- not as a slur, but just what we young people were known as] periods.

The second to last straw was a boyfriend who was also an Aggie [Assemblies of God member].  He was twenty eight years old.  But he was very respectful of me and my age and did not so much as French kiss me.  There was no pressure to have sex.  He didn't want that.  We held hands and dated in a group.  That is to say, we attended church functions together with a group of other young Jesus Freaks who were also Pentecostal.  Sometimes after a service, a group of us went out for pizza.  There were no clandestine visits to his bedroom [he lived with his mother], no motel rooms, no getting naked in the woods, no discussions about birth control.  There was none of that.  I was probably safer with him than I would have been with boys of my own age.  My mother found out that he was twenty eight and she beat me.

Several months later, she showed up with my step-father at the Aggie church.  They were both drunk.  She dragged me out of the pew on my knees.  I had rug burns on them for several years after.  She then threw me down the church stairs.  There was no choice.  I left with them.  I was afraid that I was going to be shot.  There was a gun in the linen closet.  She was that drunk.  The church people prayed as I was being physically mauled and hauled out of there.

Once home, a long period of beating me with an umbrella started.  My mother would take her turns at it, yelling her head off while doing it.  Then she would sigh as if she was tired and instructed my step-father to take over.  "Hit her, ______", she would say wearily.  "Hit her."  Thus he earned a nickname from me for the next several years.  Jellyfish is what I called him privately.  He was spineless.  After several hours, I was allowed to retreat to my bedroom.  I was sore, beat up, and the tears were flowing.

The next morning, my dad called.  He called immediately after my mother had left for work.  [My step-father left earlier].  "Are you okay?" he said.  "I don't know."  He insisted that I come live with him.  One of the church elders had called my dad after I was yanked out of the church the night before.  No one else in that church did anything meaningful to protect me.  The pastor got his friend the police chief to type up a letter banning my mother and step-father from the town that the church was in.  But that was after I had moved and was safe at my dad's.  I'm pretty sure now that the letter with its threat of arrest was legally uninforceable.

So I went to live with my dad.  I wasn't ready to contact my mother by that Christmas, being only three months later.  But Dad insisted that I buy my mother a present.  I left the presents on the radiator in the hallway when I was sure she wasn't home.

My mother had always been funny around Christmas.  I would see my dad on Christmas day.  He would give me some really nice presents.  I would take them "home" [to my mother's house].  She would throw them out.  After a few years, my dad caught on that she was doing this.  He began asking me to leave the presents with him.  But I couldn't do that.  If I didn't bring the presents home for her to throw out, there would be hell to pay.  Christmas became a mixed holiday experience for me.  I loved my dad fiercely.  But anything that my dad did for me, my mother trampled on.  The gifts at Christmas were just one glaring example.  I learned much later that my mother's actions were indicative of a classic double blind.  Dammed if you do it, dammed if you don't.   

My mother had a fake green tree with fake snow on it.  We would decorate it and she would make cookies.  In my teens, I was allowed to have her version of a Brandy Alexander-- brandy and chocolate ice cream mixed in a very large round goblet.  My dad had an aluminum tree.  He loved Christmas and he would sing all of the Christmas carols and traditional songs.  Once I was living with him full-time, Christmas became a thing of joy.  I continued my mixture of Jesus or drugs cycles.  I did go to midnight Mass with Dad at the Roman Catholic church up the street from him.  He allowed me to do as I wish regarding what church I attended or didn't attend.  He expressed his opinion but allowed me the dignity as a late teen to make up my own mind.

People get older and the years passed.  I tried on several more religions, got clean, discarded all religions once I found that I could stay clean without a Jesus, got honest with myself about what I didn't believe in.  I came out as bisexual.  Had lovers.  Had break ups.  Fell in love.  Got married to someone who is also clean and a non-theist.  Dad got married two more times.  He came down with what we now know is Lewey Body Dementia.  His third marriage failed.  It was my turn to give him a safe place to live.

Dad is now showing signs of Alzheimers' as well as the Lewey Body Dementia which two neurodocs independently diagnosed him with.  He is in group living in a supervised adult residence.  [Not a nursing home].  Dad continues with his determination to do as much as he can for as long as he can.  His brain scan shows literal holes.  The neurodocs don't know how it is that he can still dress and shower and eat on his own.  I do know why.  It's sheer will.  Although he does not always know that his brain is failing, he continues to grapple with some really tough stuff.

The last couple of years, I took Dad to Mass at a church near his home for Christmas twice and for Easter once.  He has a harder time in crowds now but he does want to go to church for Christmas.  This year, we are going to a late afternoon Christmas Eve Mass.  The Catholic church I found for him in his community is small and intimate and friendly.  They have a choir.  [Dad and I both love music].   Tomorrow, my partner and I plan to eat Christmas dinner at Dad's house.  We've done this for several holidays now.  The tables are pushed together family-style.  The other old folks and Dad and a few other family members all sit together.  Staff take pictures and keep the food and good times flowing.  I am grateful that Dad lives in such a homey place.  It is clean and comfortable and safe and he is thriving there.

Being atheist, I celebrate whatever I want to.  Yes, we do celebrate Christmas.  I am lousy at picking out presents for people.  And horrible at wrapping them.  As we do every year, I take my partner to the mall.  Partner picks out what partner wishes for gifts.  I buy them and have them wrapped or buy prewrapped boxes.  So while there aren't any surprizes for partner, at least partner is assured of getting stuff that partner wants.  We've tried several other ways through the years and they just didn't work.  We also buy presents for our extended families.  We don't have much money and we are very careful not to overspend.  We don't do much of the charge now, pay later stuff either.  Cash is king.  We have been blessed with some little grand-nieces and grand-nephews.  I really enjoy seeing them.  Partner is in charge of their presents, because I am so abysmal at these sorts of things.  As for me, I am now equipped with an e-reader.  The e-reader enables me to read for a long period of time.  Before the e-reader, because of the traumatic brain injury eye problems and perception problems, I could not read for more than a half-hour at a time, and frequently for a lot less than that.  So my major gift this year is a gift card for the e-reader.  I love reading, and getting the e-reader last year gave me back the joy of reading that the t.b.i. had stolen.

I also celebrate the Winter Solstice.  The solstices and the equinoxes are astronomical events.  Which makes them practical, not woo-woo or new agey.  [I dislike New Age stuff].  I celebrated this weekend with the dog in the woods.  We go to the woods almost daily.  The dog is older now but she is happy there.  Both of us are.

I celebrate the festival of Lights.  My Christian friends celebrate the festival of the Light that has come into the world.  A Jehovah's Witness friend doesn't celebrate any holidays.  Some folks celebrate Chanaukah.  Some celebrate Kwanzaa.  Some celebrate various combinations of the wintertime holidays.  Some celebrate none.  Christmas started as a co-opt of the Roman holiday Saturnalia.  It was [and is] a common practice for the Holy Roman Church to co-opt pagan holidays, add some Christian, stir, and pour out a new holy day.  Thus, although folks have been celebrating various festivals of Light for centuries before what we now know as Christmas, Christmas was derived from the very pagan Saturnalia and grew into its own.

Now we have Santa Clauses.  I read that the major company that sells cola products started the American Santa Claus as a way to sell sodas to kids.  I haven't done any research on that claim yet.  So there I have to say, "I don't know."  At any rate, the lawns of houses in the United States seem full of plastic Santas and sleds and snowpeople, wooden reindeer, and flashing lights.  The stores promote Christmas shopping.  Much to my major annoyance this year, the Christmas shopping season began with Gray Thursday-- the day formerly known as Thanksgiving-- instead of Black Friday.  When I look around at all of the commercialism, I figure that Christmas has lost much of its original sacredness.  It is easy for me to celebrate life out in the woods on Solstices, Equinoxes, and pretty near every day.  Not so easy to get in touch with anything remotely holy on what Christmas has become.  This is not entirely the fault of pagans.  There are plenty of Christian households that do the presents and the decor also.  At any rate, Christmas has now become loud and abrasive.  I must prefer the quiet solitude of the woods.

I do not believe there is a war on Christmas.  Or, perhaps if there is one, this war is not solely the makings of the godless masses.  If I am in a store or out in the community, and someone says "Merry Christmas" to me, they are not saying, "You are a no good secular humanist, atheist, non-theistic bum so go to hell."  It's okay for them to say "Merry Christmas" and okay for me to respond in kind.  This is my choice.  I am an atheist.  I get to celebrate everything that I choose to celebrate.  If there is a war, let's have a war on commercialism.  Forget the war on Christmas.  I just don't see it.

[Christmas in public schools is another matter which I will not be addressing in this blog post.  The public schools with their renamed winter concerts and no prayer over the loudspeakers and no preaching and stuff like that is an entirely different situation.  As an atheist, I don't accept the "blame" for that.  There is a law or set of laws that is responsible for secularism in public schools.  I believe they are referred to as the Lemon Test:  http://russellandduenes.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/public-schools-and-the-lemon-test/
and
http://www.ehow.com/about_5285467_lemon-test-used.html
have some preliminary information on the Lemon Test and explains it far better than I can].

People saying "Happy Holidays" to each other [in non-public school settings...that question of what to say in public schools I have left to the Supreme Court at this moment] feels a bit dishonest to me.  I celebrate Christmas and Solstice.  I will wish folks either one generally.  I don't celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus because that is not Christmas for me.  Christmas is a remake of the Festival of Lights and as such is not a threat.

So to those who celebrate Christmas, I say with all sincerity, "Happy Christmas."  To everyone else I say, "I hope you had a splendid Solstice/Chanaukah" or "Happy Kwanzaa."  Or just a simple, "How are you?  I wish you well."

sapphoq on life

To Reynosa

When I was living in Baton Rouge, my friend Irene and I drove down the east coast of Texas to visit her ex-boyfriend Lee's parents.  On the way, we stopped in Freeport to see my friend Madeline's two aunts who owned a wonderful little Mexican restaurant.  We also overnighted at the Holiday Inn in Corpus Christi (in the parking lot, a sort of shelter-in-place if you will, in the car).
After our brief introduction to Corpus Christi, we continued to South Padre Island.  I was astonished to find a collection of cars and campers on the beach.  We did indeed join them, after a brief foray to the bay where we found a guy who basically lived there.
What was notable on the oceanside was a rented Winnebago (no infringement of copyright intended, but it was indeed a Winnebago) full of Minnasotian snowbirds who did not have the sense to remove themselves from the rooftop where they were baking their sunburns into a crisp.
From Lee's parents, Irene and I parked the car-- which was full of sand, pot burns, and remains of marijuana smoking and beer guzzling-- at the shoe store parking lot in McAllen.  This was where all the hippies left their cars in order to walk over the border to Reynosa on the Mexican side.  To our credit, we also had the sense to leave our blue jeans and our shorts in our duffelbags and donned sensible but hot corduroy pants for our stroll.
Once across, the sight of taxi cabs driven much as their counterpart in New York City are reassured me.  The little beggar kids who followed us imploring us to buy a wooden salad fork and spoon for our americanos dolares were a new experience for me.  We stood in the hot sun drinking a Tecate apiece.  Cervesa in Mexico was allowed to have twice the alcohol content that the equivalent in Texas was, so that was a big deal to us.  Then we went off and bought the vegetables from the street stand that Lee's parents had requested us to purchase for dinner.


http://epic.org/foia/epic-v-dhs-media-monitoring/Analyst-Desktop-Binder-REDACTED.pdf