That Time I...

 I time traveled on my three and a half mile walk this morning – reacquainted with a few people from my past.  I met a young girl at the University of Dayton, scared and homesick for the first few weeks.  She listened to the newest Bruce album at the time and played Dry Lightning over and over until her neighbors in the apartment next door knew every word.

I felt the fever burning in my soul when the Further on Up the Road was released, and I thought its album was one of Bruce’s yet; and  I walked down Randolph Street with my best friend as he recalled some childhood memories from his time on Broadway.

I saw my childhood home from the back seat of a Lincoln as we crested a hill on Milestrip Road while My Hometown played in the background, returning home after three months in California, and four days of driving across the country.

I was at Jeff’s wedding again, softly singing along to My Wish as he danced with my mother and her rustling skirt.

The trail broke and I walked on This Hard Land and was hoping I could make it, but if I couldn’t, I would stay hungry and stay alive.

I felt my cheeks hurt again as I thought of the laughter my roommate Heather and I shared during that first year of college, where I made her listen to Human Touch until she could sing it along with me – wishing both Jon Bon Jovi (in my mind) and Bruce goodnight.  The Waltons were never a part of my life, so who could blame me?

It was a Long Walk Home until I recalled the memory of Jeff walking toward me with an armful of Styrofoam cups filled with Bud Light at a concert in Buffalo.  The limit was two per customer, and I never asked how he got away with six because I already knew the answer – he just had a way.  American Land played that night, the first time I had ever heard it and I recall being so enamored by the lyrics as they played on the big screen while Bruce belted the lyrics.  It is Jeff’s favorite, and it’s one of those that I never turn off when I hear it because for a moment I’m back in that concert hall, and his arm is around my shoulder, the biggest smiles on our faces.

But alas, my walk had to end, and I entered the Land of Hope and Dreams and opened this computer.

The sun that shined on me this morning through the scattering clouds shadowed the path back to home. In as little as forty-five minutes, I found my center again.  Thanks Bruce.

The Wind

Maybe I am like a cloud – heavy and saturated, waiting to let go and rain upon something.  A cloud that meets other clouds, pushed by the wind to grow bigger until the weight pulls it down to land on everything it hovers.  

I am not like the wind anymore - sure and strong for the beauty it possesses, everything and nothing all at once.

I never want to disappoint you.  I spend time inside myself, pushing back the bad and growing heavier with each passing year.  Holding in all the good for fear of it not being enough for anyone. Tense and worn, tight muscles and active cells fighting to survive, to get over some random fear of ill health or disease, frightening but real.

I can’t do it anymore. I can’t hide inside myself, waiting for the day when the winds will blow it all away, waiting for the day when I will collide with hope or faith and my fear of disappointing anyone will be abated, obliterated, non-existent.

I take deep breaths to calm my heartbeat – to empty my lungs so I can hear if it’s irregular, if I am going to die of a heart attack or a stroke, or if my demise is simply suffering  like this until my physical body just gives up, like an old horse.  Take care of your wellness before your illness forces you to do it.  Something like that keeps going through my head.  Take care of yourself.

The mind does strange things. It confuses things and makes you think that laying on the sofa, drinking or eating, and mindlessly playing games is comforting.  It makes you feel as though the less ambitious your body is, the safer you are.  But it’s essentially killing the you that you’re trying to keep safe.  So, what is the choice?  Exert the effort despite the fear of disappointing anyone.  I see that as the solution.

What have I been doing lately?  Holding back on my intuition, my wants, my desires, the truth that taking care of myself physically will allow me to take care of myself mentally.  It’s not the other way around! 

Or maybe it is.  

I don’t know.

I do know. 

Sleeping well helps, eating healthy foods helps, walking helps, lifting weights and sweating helps, painting the walls of every fucking room helps, listening to music and dancing helps, laughing helps – all these beautiful things help.  How is sitting on the sofa, growing larger a benefit in any way?  What am I trying to protect by doing it?  Protect the predictability of status quo? Protect the little voice that says, “but this time you might do something that isn’t good enough; you might not get the approval of every important person in your life; you might lose their love, and wouldn’t that be a shame?”

That voice that plays at being my best friend when it’s simply scared.  I thought I banished the negative insults that came with it – I screamed and yelled and told that voice never to return.  It's been hidden, only coming out at night when I’m asleep, or lurking in my head when it comes to decide what I should do with my evening… “just relax, you deserve it, so what you’re getting bigger, you can take care of it tomorrow… and tomorrow… and tomorrow…”. Every day I look forward until tomorrow. Another day without disappointing anyone passes and I’m happy. 

But I’m not. 

I’m just growing heavier and heavier until one day my entirety will fall freely into the ruts, the mud, the puddles, the unknown and all I'll be left with is the wind to push what’s left of me into something else.

Fight

I am haunted by photos of doctors and nurses sobbing with scars from the plastic masks digging into their skin.  I am haunted by mass graves and wooden boxes filled with bodies of the victims.  I am haunted by images of death and destruction across our cities, by protestors fighting for their freedom with guns and pride, by protestors fighting for racial equity and recognition after witnessing a viral video of man take his last breath beneath the knee of a police officer. 

I awake in the night, my heart hammering in my chest, worried, angry, scared and so filled with love for my family, for humanity, for this world that I am overtaken by my inability to fix things.   I seek sleep, alcohol, food, writing, shopping online and social media to take me away from it all.

The enemy isn’t politics here.  The enemy isn’t racism.  The enemy isn’t the disease.  The enemy is fear. The news tells a story.  What we believe is all on us – we see the truth we want to see, triggered by the beliefs we choose – how the fear steers us. 

That police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck because he was afraid.  It wasn’t fear from the black man, it was a fear instilled at the age of 2 or 4 or 17, something triggered by something else – an abusive parent, a broken friendship, a brokenness of the soul.

We witness that fear in our leader.  He isn’t driven by compassion or love for humanity.  He doesn’t know the meaning of it.  He is driven by fear – fear they won’t like me, fear I won’t get re-elected, fear that I am the failure I saw reflected from my mother or father’s eyes.

Why do people hate him?  Why do people support him? 

Fear. 

The republicans don’t want to lose power.  The democrats don’t want to lose power.  All these beliefs come from fear.

Is the Corona Virus hyped so that the liberals can sabotage Donald Trump’s re-election?  Ask anyone who couldn’t be by their loved one’s side as they took their last breath.  Ask the person looking into the eyes of a nurse with a visceral fear before he is intubated. Ask the mother who lost her child due to the child’s overactive immune system.  Ask the Navajo and Hopi Nation in America and the remote Amazonian tribe members in Brazil who are suffering from it. They don’t care about Donald Trump.  To give him that much power is ignorant, and it portends a greater demise for our country, for this world.

It takes bravery to recognize the fear and turn it around.

It takes bravery to step outside and look up – to notice the blue sky, the awakening horizon, the sleepy night sky.  It takes bravery to fight for something greater than the fear.

Fight for Humanity

Fight for Health

Fight for Freedom

Fight for Beauty

Fight for Truth

Fight for Equality

Fight for Love

Do this in defiance of the fear.

Never a Dull Moment

Creative Non-Fiction - a story written by Paige Peterson for her Uncle Jeff and his best friend, Popple.  :-)

Never a Dull Moment

Jeff grew up in the small town of North Collins, New York. He was the second youngest in a family of eight. His mom, Lynda, and his dad, John - whom everybody referred to as Fuzzy – built their home on a blank strip of road at the top of Shirley Hill. 

In a huge family, life was never boring. Jeff shared a room with his brother Jim, just as John and Cliff, and Carrie and Corinne had to. Their four-bed, three-bath home was teeming with love and life.

When Jeff was forced to read, The Great Gatsby his junior year, he refused to write his essay on dreams. He simply didn’t like the book. The only loving character was Gatsby, and Gatsby’s dreams led to his downfall. Jeff refused to believe that would happen in real life. 

Therefore, he asked Carrie to write the essay for him, even though she was two years younger. 

“Carrie, you gotta do it for me, dad will get pissed if I fail. You don’t want to see me fail, do you?” he said.

“Well, no… but why can’t you just do it?” she asked. Carrie was always the sweet one in the family, the goodie-two-shoes. Jeff hated taking advantage of her kindness, but he also hated getting yelled at by his parents.

“You’re the nerd. I mean, your name’s a verb. But if you help me out, I’ll sneak dad's wine and we can drink it with Popple this weekend. Deal?” He knew she’d say yes. 

“Fine.” Carrie agreed, sitting at the kitchen table and getting started.

Popple was Jeff’s best friend. He was born deaf because his mom had the measles when she was pregnant with him. Popple learned to speak and read people’s lips, which Jeff thought of as a superpower. He was bullied though, and Jeff hated it. He just wished Popple would always laugh because he had the best laugh you’d ever hear. Carrie was close friends with Popple too, but the two boys usually didn’t let her hang out when they were drinking dad’s wine. 

Fuzzy’s wine was homemade, and as potent as vodka. He grew the grapes in their backyard, and it was so strong that one glass would make someone quite inebriated. It was the most fun to get drunk from and the least fun to be hungover from.

That weekend, Carrie, Popple, and Jeff had a chugging contest. They were outside blaring Bruce Springsteen (who Jeff thought was the perfect dreamer), and taking turns gulping down the jar. Time began to speed up, and they got tipsy, then drunk, then drunker. 

At one point, Jeff heard Popple crying. Earlier that week, Popple was riding his bike through the town park, and two potheads smoking in a tree dropped the joint on his head. When he looked up, he saw them laughing and climbing down the tree, so he took off. But they caught up to him, beat him to the ground, and stole his bike.

Jeff remembers looking up at the stars, quoting Springsteen: “This town is full of losers, and we’re pulling outta here to win. Those guys are the losers, Pop.” He patted his friend's back and pointed at the sky. “The two bright ones could be Earth’s nipples.” 

Carrie chuckled and Popple laughed, and Popple’s laugh was so grand that it caused Jeff to start laughing, and then they all sat laughing at each other until Popple was crying tears of joy instead of sadness. 

The next morning, Jeff woke up in the basement with his face covered in ruby red nail polish. Carrie was asleep next to him with her hands painted. Popple was asleep on the stairs with the bottle.

Break Out

I must flee from this quarantine funk. I’ve spent the last three weeks making impressions on my sofa… and the impressions are likely getting bigger.  I wake, turn on the news – cry in sympathy or empathy or fear or pride in others for an hour or so as I sip coffee.  Then I move to browsing Netflix or Prime or HBO or Sling or Hulu trying to find something that will remove me from the funk.  Then I cook.  Then I eat.  Then I sit back down on the sofa and play the rounds, while trying to find or offer sunshine on Facebook.

I did take a couple walks this week – a couple miles at a time.  But then I got sick and stopped walking because I didn’t want to inadvertently cough or sneeze and get my germs on a bench or tree branch or something else that might cause sickness.  Plus, I was out of breath for a couple days, which just made me cough more.

But now I’m better. So tomorrow, I’m breaking out of the quarantine funk.  I’ll stay home or stay six feet from others, but I’m going to do it with my sneakers on and the sun on my face.  And I am going to eat reasonably.  I love to cook, but I’m done cooking for eighteen people when there are only two or three of us spending time together.

I started the year walking 5+ miles a day, and my brain was clearer, my emotions intact and my drive at an all-time high.

So tomorrow, I break out.  I write more, I sleep more at night and less during the day, I eat better, I walk, I whistle, I continue to find the sunshine.

Who’s coming with me?

Abundance

Spent the past 9-10 days fighting sickness.  I couldn't get tested for Covid-19 but I suspect that is what it was - a mild case comparatively.  I didn't get the fever or the chills, just the body aches, coughing and the fatigue.  I've never been so tired in my life.  And that's good.  My body was fighting the virus while I slept.  My body is strong. I am fortunate.

I spent a lot of time on the sofa, scanning channels, scrolling Facebook, laughing a lot.  Even sick, I laughed a lot because I have siblings and cousins and friends that are so funny.  My friendships are lovely.  I am lucky.

The kids and I went for a walk today – just around the pond that sits behind my house.  The weather was nice, the mood light.  Once we finished our walk, we donned our masks and put on gloves and went to the grocery store to get more eggs, produce, chicken and birthday cake mix for Paige. (She’ll be 17 on April 8^th).  While we waited in line, I glanced up at one of the cashiers.  She was about the same age as Paige.  She was wearing a mask.  She was spraying disinfectant around the area.  Our eyes locked and she smiled. I couldn’t see her actual mouth, just her eyes.  Tears came quickly because amid all the stress and anxiety surrounding us, I saw something really beautiful in those smiling eyes.

I haven’t written on this blog all year because I was busy living.  We booked our flight to Italy, we booked our Airbnb for a weekend away, we booked a week at the writing retreat in North Carolina.  I was losing weight, working out, enjoying work and staying busy.  In my free time, I was writing the novel.  The novel that I will publish soon.

Yet, while I was sick all I wanted to do was post to this blog.  And I couldn’t think of where to start, what to say, how I’d feel if I let go of all these feelings inside.  When I saw the cashier’s smile, one word came to me:  ABUNDANCE.  And then I knew what I’d write.

As I sit at my kitchen table and scan the room, there is fruit in a bowl, a loaf of Italian bread still in its whole form, bottles of wine waiting for consumption.  The fridge is full.  The freezer is packed.  The pantry is plentiful.  The kids and I will not perish even if we were not allowed to leave until all of this is over. I am blessed.

The news is scary.  The politics horrendous. The fear and concern for our doctors and nurses, hospital administration, cleaning crews, military, friends, family, the unemployed and the world can be crippling to the psyche.

But when I put it aside for a few moments, I see goodness.  An abundance of laughter, kindness, and love.   I see smiling eyes, and my heart is full of gratitude for all this beauty.