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Open Pumpkin

It's still Open Mic, sistas and mistas.

But heck, it's also HALLOWEEN!

TRICK OR SASS!

October 2009 Open Mic

The sassosphere microphone is open, sistas and mistas.  

Please step up and dish whatever you like.  We're listening.

The Sassistas! sponsor Open Mic the last Friday of every month.

Toxic Parents

Ten days ago, about a dozen beloveds (DCsistah was the first) forwarded to Flannista a New York Times article called, "When Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate" by Dr. Richard A. Friedman, professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. (Click here to read the article.) Flann would not have seen the article otherwise. She was stunned that so many friends wanted her to read it . . . until she read it.

If you don't have time to read the article, here's a synopsis:  If you can divorce an abusive spouse or call it quits if a lover mistreats you, why can't you divorce abusive parents? Friedman writes that this topic gets little attention in psychiatric literature, "perhaps reflecting the common and mistaken notion that adults, unlike children and the elderly, are not vulnerable to such emotional abuse."  He suggests that in some cases, active hostility from parents or in my case, consistent abandonment, may mean forgoing a relationship with one's parents.  He calls it "a drastic measure, akin to amputating a gangrenous limb to save a patient's life."

About a month ago, I shared that I had come to a decision to forgo a relationship with my parents. As my therapist said, it was "better to grieve a reality than suffer a hope" (though some of you preferred the term, "fantasy").  With thanks to Jerseysista, who helped me to think this out-- in fact, many of the words that follow are hers -- here is why I am divorcing my parents:

• All my life I have been grieving the stupid hope of acceptance from my parents. That acceptance was contingent on fitting their mold.  From a very early age I individuated in ways that were not acceptable to them.  My family's terms of acceptance require disavowing myself.  This was proven most recently in a stunning and emotionally violent family gathering on August 1, 2008 during which I was again scapegoated to maintain a fake civility at the cost of my integrity.
• I was actively abused by my mother and passively abused by my father.
• I am outraged by this abuse and refuse to sacrifice myself for my family's dysfunction.
• If I knew of a beloved with the same family history as mine, I would advise them to cut all ties with his or her family.  Further, I would never be in a relationship with someone who abuses and abandons me the way my family has.
• My parents have never, since I left their home 38 years ago, made an effort to come and see me in my home, even after I have offered to pay all of their expenses.  They should not be the ones to sever this relationship which is what will happen when they die.
• If they die and I never actively stood up for myself, I will be locked in a permanent state of having acquiesced to their terms.
• I must actively stand up for myself and allow the relationship to die on my terms.
• This is my moment to say: "Your terms for a relationship are wrong. I am deciding not to be victimized by your terms before that decision is taken away from me.  I am no longer a victim.  I am not longer your daughter.  I am Flannista."

I am making no dramatic announcement to them because if I did, my parents and some members of my family would turn it against me.  And, of course, if my parents become ill, I will offer whatever assistance I can. I will not stop loving them.  

By the way, I forwarded this New York Times article to my therapist.  Here is her response:

Thanks so much for sending this.  It sounds like a perfect article for you to be reading at this time.  I think you know that I agree fully with the points made in the article.  You have tried for a long time to maintain a bond that has been continually hurtful to you in the name of family, loyalty and love.  However, you must protect yourself, your future and your truly loving relationships from further harm. I am with you in what I know will be a difficult separation.  Be good to yourself.

Exercising Faith

A little over a week ago, while at the local Fitness Center, Flannista (F) and Jerseysista (J) had a spontaneous conversation about religion that was so intense and interesting a man in the weight room stopped his exercise routine to listen. A soon as Flann got home, she began to write down what she remembered about it.  She then forwarded the draft to Jersey for her input.  Following is our best recollection of what transpired:

F:         F: I finished the book, Losing My Religion, over the weekend and it seemed to pack quite a wallop.  For a while I honestly didn’t believe in God.  I just sat there on the toilet of all places and thought, “This is it.  It’s over.  I no longer believe.”  Tears welled up.  About an hour later, that just didn’t seem right. 

J:         J: Doesn’t seem right to me, either . . . that you wouldn’t believe in God.  I don’t think your belief in God is in danger.

F:         F: I know.  So I still believe in God, but wonder what difference Christianity really makes.  I mean 95% of evangelical Christians don’t tithe.  Christians like to talk about the poor, but they sure don’t like to smell the poor.

            TRM’s company, for example, gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to the community “across the tracks” from his company, but he’s never shown up there.

J:         He just wants to see him name on a wall?

F:         Oh, God, yes.  As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him with a black person outside of a photo op.  He only attends fund-raisers where he can mix it up with the literati and politicians . . . people who look like him.  He can’t be seen with the little folk.  I’m so tired of evangelicals who base faith on what you do or who you’re seen with.  Atheists can be prejudiced the same way.

J:         How so?

F:         They want to bomb the hell out of Muslim countries, for example.  The Neo-cons love atheist fundamentalists.  I started another book after Losing My Religion called When Atheism Becomes Religion by Chris Hedges.  Atheist fundamentalists, like Christian ones, want to drop nuclear bombs on Muslims.  They are warmongers.  “Bomb them all!” they scream.

J:         Yes, there are atheists who want to wipe out all religions because they think they’re dangerous; that they endanger all of humanity.  Christian fundamentalists.  Atheist fundamentalists.  Both are so dogmatic.  It’s the dogmatism that gets to me.

F:         Hedges also says that not believing in God is harmless.  Not believing you sin is dangerous.

J:         Yes!  That’s so true.

F:         Hedges brought me back from not believing in God at all.  I’m just so confused about Christianity.

J:         Well, you’re different from the evangelical Christians you know.  You’ve always seen Christianity as something that proves itself in practice. You see Christianity as following Christ’s example and teachings.  In fact, that seems to be part of how you define spirituality – a spiritual person is one who feeds the hungry or takes care of the poor; someone who does as Jesus would do. Period.  Doesn’t matter if that person has had some inner mystical experience or not, and it doesn’t matter if the person is following a certain denomination or believing a certain dogma.

F:         I can’t give up on God because I need reverence in my life.  I need some sense of the sacred. To express the sacred, for me, is part of the human desire to preserve and honor that which cannot be quantified.  Ritual and liturgy and art make the sacred real and powerful despite the corruption of the institutions behind them. 

Doesn’t your faith in a purely rational existence begin from believing that all human beings have fixed and determined selves by reason and knowledge?  Isn’t this an act of faith?

J:         Yes, but my faith isn’t in rationality.  My faith is in materiality. 

F:         What the hell does that mean?

J:         Well, maybe I should say that I have faith that everything is material, that there is no supernatural.  Sense and emotion and thought and sense of self come from the movement of atoms, electrons, particles and quarks.  I don’t see any evidence of the supernatural.

F:         Where did those atoms come from?

J:         At least we have evidence that they exist.  We don’t have evidence that God exists.

F:         Well, look around you.  Look at creation.

J:         So?  Look at creation.  You start with this assumption:  “There is a God.  Look at creation, that proves it.” I start with this assumption: “There is no God. Look at creation, isn’t it wonderful?”  Just think of it -- if there is no God, all of this is something that has just come up from matter, including my sense of self.  What is more amazing?  That there is actually some being who made it or that it actually happened that way without intervention?

F:         What about sin?  Evil?

J:         Isn’t that a bigger problem for a theist than an atheist?  I have as much faith in my beliefs of no God as others who believe in God.  My faith in the material does not mean that I am not drawn to the things that are bigger than myself.  I am.  I am in awe of how things emerge as greater than the sum of the parts.  I just give credit to nature rather than to God for what I see.

F:         I can’t account for creation.  I am in awe of creation; how much there is to creation.  Or the creative act.  I need stories.  I need faith to get up in the morning.  What is it precisely that you believe in?

J:         I believe I experience the same things others do when they describe the spiritual – those things that seem transcendental or beyond us. It is a human experience and that is the important thing.  Not the dogma and the rules that particular churches require.  That common experience is why I’m still drawn to a church because there’s a community that’s centered on an experience that is recognized as being beyond us.

F:        F: I agree that few believers care much for dogma.  Again, I believe those who turn to religion seek an expression of the transcendent and the sacred.  I read the Bible, for example, because I need a template.  A map.  My imagination isn’t big enough.  Neither is my compassion deep enough to know what to do in certain situations.  The human experience that you see as the important thing is full of sin.  Neither Christian fundamentalists nor atheist fundamentalists question the rape and pillaging of the country by corporations and the dismantling of our democracy.  I participate in it wittingly and unwittingly.  I need an instruction manual.

            I’m reminded of a scene in Woody Allen’s movie, “Manhattan” where his character named Isaac confronts his best friend, Yale, who is married, for having an affair with his girlfriend.  Isaac appeals to Yale’s integrity:  “You lied to me.  You said the affair was over,” he says. Yale replies, “But I saw her first!”  Isaac says, “How old are you, two? What kind of lame argument is that?  How could you lie?”  Yale accuses him of being sanctimonious.  “Who do you think you are . . . God?” Yale asks Isaac.  Isaac replies, “Well, I’ve got to model myself after somebody.”

            That’s how I feel about God: I have to model myself after somebody.  But what really pisses me off are attempts by atheists to reduce sacred texts to simply these instruction manuals.  That is not part of the reality of faith.  Faith arises out of practice.  We find our faith not in what we read, but in how we live.  Plus, there’s got to be something more to life what we have here.  There’s got to be a heaven.  There’s got to be a better ending to this story than the brokenness inside me and the brokenness I see in other people.

J:         I don’t think there is.  This is it.  We have to make the most of what we have now.

F:         That’s so terrifying to me.  There’s just got to be more.

Where do you stand in this conversation?  Let's continue the dialogue.

We Fell, Too

BEFORE

Last weekend, the Sassistas!, Jerseysista and barista rented a cabin in Berkeley Springs, Virginia.  It was stocked with everything we needed except food and drink.  Jerseysista generously offered to bring the food and drink we needed for breakfast and lunch.  The above image was taken Friday evening shortly after Jersey unpacked her food supplies.  The image below is what was left of those supplies Sunday morning. 

 

AFTER

What's the story behind these two images?

Fall Fell Again

Hey, beloveds. Here are Matissta's photographs from our walk in the Fall yesterday afternoon.

Fall Fell

Yesterday, the Sassistas! captured this image while on a Studio Tour in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia with Jerseysista and barista. As this image attests, the colors were gorgeous.  Overnight, a wind from a cold front seemed to take most of the leaves from the trees.  The image below was snapped on the deck of our rental cabin.  As much as we missed our internet connection, we will miss images such as these much more.

Belly Bag

On Wednesday, we posted about Anvil, the "Rocky Balboa" of heavy metal bands.  

In the ensuing sass feed, several of you wondered why Robb Reiner, the drummer (pictured right) is never seen without his belly bag.  

What could be in that bag?

Sassquiring minds want to know!

O Opla Tilapia!

As a way to be with our beloveds in the Taos writing intensive this week, the Sassistas! are publishing one of the writing exercise's Flannista did while in the intensive two years ago.  The assignment was to pretend that you were a food critic and to write a review of a meal.  Flann chose to review her very next meal at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House where the retreat was being held.

The subtle waft of today’s luncheon offerings at the venerated Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico provides little clue to what actually awaits this anxious diner.  There, mysterious smells always greet anyone stepping into the dining room, and it is only by stealing a glance at a diner’s plate that I see something flat, with a sandpaper-like coating.  Is it chicken?  Is it pork?  Is it tofu?  Do I really want to know?

A reading of today’s posted menu then solves the mystery: Baja Asian Tilapia Tacos –- a name obviously inspired by the song, “Opla-De-Opla-Da . . . Hunger-Goes-On-Ra.”  Upon looking at its presentation, I discover that it apparently took longer to write out the name of this dish than it did to actually prepare this dish.  I cautiously scoop up a piece of the Baja Asian Tilapia, pleasantly surrounded by parsley sprigs, and note the distinct crusty, dog-biscuit-like sound when the tilapia hits my plate.  Yes, I can report that the tilapia is indeed dead, laying there rather forlornly, like a piece of charcoal in a bathroom sink.  O sweet tilapia, my Baja-Asian-Opla-Tilapia, how can I put you out of your tasteless misery?

The posted menu provides three hopeful solvents, er, salsas:  red, green and yellow, presented in three identical glass bowls in front of the Baja Asian Tilapia serving pan.  Further investigation reveals that the yellow salsa is actually uniformly diced mango pieces combined with a spicy green chili tortilliniminibandanarama that has been delicately mashed into the mango.  I scoop up a tablespoon of the salsa and generously garnish my Opla-Tilapia.  The yellow mixed with the green gives the fish instant life --like Christmas lights on a tree stump -- and I feel the warm possibility that I have something edible in front of me.  I note the accompanying offerings of black beans and corn something-or-other (I do see kernels), but pass them by, suddenly reminded of the diarrhea that has been plaguing me for the past 12 hours. 

I take my seat, determined to make the best of what lies before me.  I inhale deeply, making certain that my tailbone sinks down into my chair and my spine straightens up toward the top of the ceiling.  I then lift my fork, simultaneously raising all the hairs on the back of my neck.  I plunge the fork tines into my Baja-Opla-Tilapia and they sink sumptuously through the mango salsa then stop, barely penetrating the sand-paper coating.  I apply gentle pressure, remembering to keep my spine straight and my chin tucked in so I don’t lose focus.  “Be here in this moment,” I say to myself, noting the sweet and undoubtedly spiritual irony that my fork is stuck into my Opla-Tilapia as straight as my spine.  I hear the distant church bells, telling me not only that it is 12:30 pm, but also that now, now, this is my moment. This is the moment that holds all the truth you need to know.

Flannista, look!  Look in front of you! There it is. The fork is holding the truth.  

O my sweet Baja-Asian-Opla-Tilapia!  Now I see!  I see!  Life isn’t one grand meal after another.  It’s one small chew after another.  Chews.  Chews.  Chews.  Yes, it’s all in the chews-ing.  With the force of truth, I take my sweet, Opla-Tilapia into my hands, lift it to my lips and kiss it gently.  “O thank you,” my heart cries.  “O thank you, Opla, thank you!”   I then delicately set it down.

Inhaling deeply again, I take in the knowledge that humbling myself to realize such great wisdom deserves a reward.  Perhaps my delicate, queasy stomach –- like my spirit –- has also been healed.  Perhaps I can have some dessert.  I look at the posted menu.  Ah, Prune Puffs.  

Ah, no thanks.

Victoria's Secret

We're a little late to report this, sistas and mistas.  Sorry.  But shortly after the first week of September, Queen Victoria's underwear went public after 100 years in a private collection.  Yep, those are the royal bloomers pictured in this post. On the right are the "split drawers" measuring 56 inches in diameter and a matching chemise dating from the 1890s.

What ought we to make of these items?

Well, Matiss opined that as Queen Victoria EXPANDED the British Empire more than any monarch before her, the size of these undergarments made sense.  Plus, QV (Queen Victoria, for heaven's sake) had the longest reign in British history, ruling from June 20, 1837 until her death on January 22, 1901.  But the Sassistas! just had to dig deeper. Did you know (as reported by ABC News) that Queen Victoria:

 . . . started out in the petite section and grew, as the British Empire burgeoned, into the plus-plus department.  When Alexandrina Victoria ascended to the throne at 18 years old she had a twenty-inch waist, less than a size zero today.  During her 63 years and 7 months as Queen Victoria, she gave birth to 9 children [who subsequently gave her 42 grandchildren] and saw the British Empire grow to become the strongest power in the world.  Her physical size grew with the Empire.  By the time of her death her dress size had reached a size 38 today.

Okey-doke.  We get it.  But we're thinking that QV had many, many more secrets.

What were they???!!!  What impact did they have on her undergarments???!!!  

Let us know.