Sassistas! Our dish on the social soup.

Angels Among Us

Meet Lillie.

Lillie is the receptionist at the Fitness Center and, for more than a decade, has greeted Flannista every time Flann walks through the front door.

"Hi, honey!  How you doin'?" Lillie asks enthusiastically.  Or seeing the state of my hair (never combed), Lillie might exclaim, "Girl, the wind done blown your hair right up!" 

I don't know a whole lot about Lillie's private life.  A widow (I think), she has six children, 11 grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.  Her life hero/icon appears to be Tweety Bird. I've lost count of the number of t-shirts she has featuring Tweety, "The Brightest Bird to Out-smart a Puddy-Tat!" as the t-shirt she's wearing in the photo declares.

I do know a bit about Lillie's spiritual life.  Always open in front of her at the desk is a Bible. When I asked her once about her life philosophy, she replied simply, "Trust God."

More than nine years ago, after I reconnected with my sister, Karen, I asked Lillie to pray for Karen and me.  When Karen's condition took a sad and inevitable downturn, Lillie would hand me a small piece of paper inscribed with a Bible verse or Bible verse reference every time I entered the Fitness Center.  She continued this for several months after Karen died.  I saved every slip of paper and taped them in several pages of my journal back then, always referring to them as my "Bible Verse Quilt."  Below are just two of those pages.

These pages are, for me, the evidence of angels among us. 

Look. 

What angels have been or are among you?

The Cat Who Naps

If winter is a house then summer is a window
in the bedroom of that house. Sorrow is a river
behind the house and happiness is the name

of a fish who swims downstream. The unborn child
who plays the fragrant garden is named Mavis:
her red hair is made of future and her sleek feet

are wet with dreams. The cat who naps
in the bedroom has his paws in the sun of summer
and his tail in the moonlight of change. You and I

spend years walking up and down the dusty stairs
of the house. Sometimes we stand in the bedroom
and the cat walks towards us like a message.

Sometimes we pick dandelions from the garden
and watch the white heads blow open
in our hands. We are learning to fish in the river

of sorrow; we are undressing for a swim.

-- "The Name of a Fish," Faith Shearin, from The Owl Question

Pearls

On Saturday, Flannista shared with the sassosphere that she had surprisingly begun to receive emails from her parents.  I confessed that this development had "thrown me in a kind of quandary," especially in light of a post I published last October 29, in which I revealed my intention to "divorce" my parents. Chrysosistah, in fact, responded to my quandary by reminding me of that October 29 post.  She later posted: 

. . . this is your decision, your relationship with them, and only you can really know what it's like. Just worried for you...I would love to see you happy and not pre-occupied with how anyone else is thinking or feeling or acting (except, perhaps, for your chosen beloveds).

half-a-sista contributed several comments, sharing how hard he worked to resolve issues with his mother before she died, even when "she didn't always listen."  He also wrote:

My concern for you around your parents is to resolve as much as you can BEFORE they die. It is a whole lot easier than trying to resolve it after. I know. I've tried both ways. BEFORE worked better for me.

If you decide to work with your parents, you are doing it NOT to change the way they think about you or act toward you or to confront them about their abuse (or turning a blind eye to it), you are doing it to tell the truth of your memories and to know that you told them. What happens after that is that you know whether or not further communication is possible or even desirable. No, it's not easy.

babysis, among other salient points in a comment, asked this question about my relationship with my parents:

The better question is how do you want to make yourself known to them?  It has been a risky proposition thus far in life.

Jerseysista then responded to a comment I posted:

"I don't believe it is even possible to make myself known to them." That is the the crux of it, isn't it? By "known" you mean "listen, hear, understand, accept". That kind of knowing has never been there. I would caution drawing close. They want you close; they reach out; they send you things and mementos but they do not want to know.

half-a then wrote:

 . . . I want to understand more about your withholding the truth of who you are with your parents. What are you saving them from? What are you saving yourself from?

What could they possibly do to you if you told them about as much of you as you could? Like you less? Treat you worse? Not communicate with you more? Hurt your feelings more? Make you listen to their abuse? Be less manipulative?

Chrysosistah then confessed (and wanted to write more as she was turning blue):

 . . . the bit about hiding pieces of who you are is a HUGE stumbling block between Planta [a beloved] & I. I'm sure it led to much of our miscommunication over the years.

Each of these perspectives meant much to me as does this one from PEACEsista in response to "Looking Down," a post I wrote in memory of my sister, Karen, who died nine years ago:

You describe simply and powerfully your brutal childhood. Then you wrote of over 20 years of estrangement from your younger sister. At the end of Karen's life, instead of abandoning her, you chose to remain in relationship ... forever. You started your relationship over again at the end of her life. It was a brave and compassionate choice and it opened the door between horror and beauty. You stepped through that door ... and so did Karen ... only she moved to the other side of the veil.

Forgive me if I have not equitably represented any of your views.

Pondering these perspectives along with my own, I see the challenge with my parents as this: how do I reconcile and forgive them without exposing myself to more abuse . . . abuse (now) in the form of not being heard, understood and accepted?

This is what I know for certain: I do not feel safe sharing with my parents the parts of my life that mean the most to me right now: Matissta, my chosen family, the sassophere, my relationship with God, my writing and losing Isaac.  To specifically answer half-a's question, if I told my parents as much as I could about me, I would be throwing my pearls before swine; exposing myself to continued abuse.

That being said, I feel a very profound and strong commitment to repair the breach between us, like I did with my sister, Karen.  Was it easier to reconcile with Karen because she was physically -- and toward the end of her life -- profoundly mentally challenged?  For example, Karen could not walk out of the room and later, could not talk.  Is it difficult for me to confront and reconcile with my parents because I want to protect my oldest sister who left a spouse to move in with them?  These are very painful questions.

What is my responsibility to make the peace?  How do I make it?  Do my parents even recognize the need to make it?

At the time of this writing, I do not know.  What I do know is that I am responsible to make whatever peace I can without forsaking who God created me to be; without abandoning me. How that will be accomplished is a complete mystery to me.  I take solace in these words sent to me by PEACEsista that I posted about on January 9, 2010:

We stand at a new doorway,

Awaiting that which comes . . .

Daring to be human creatures.

Vulnerable to the beauty of existence.

Learning to love.

Waiting

On the outskirts of Jerusalem
the donkey waited.
Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,
he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,
leap with delight!
How doves, released from their cages,
clatter away, splashed with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.
Then he let himself be led away.
Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!
And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.
Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.
I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,
as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

-- "The Poet Thinks About the Donkey" by Mary Oliver

March 2010 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.

Slashing Dora

Welcome to the jungle; the branding jungle that is.

Seems like our beloved Dora the Explorer is journeying to some bizarre places these days.  Yep, Dora is getting a rock 'n' roll makeover in one of the oddest co-branding schemes in recent memory.

Former Guns-n-Roses lead guitarist Slash has teamed up with the cartoon brand's parent company, the Nickelodeon network, to design a limited edition Dora the Explorer backpack.  The rock star and his iconic black hat will help design a bag featuring Dora the Explorer that will be auctioned this year to raise money for the Children's Defense Fund.

While Slash, an admitted former drug user, may not be the idol of debauchery he once was (he once signed on to advertise "Black Death" vodka), he's not exactly someone the Sassistas! think is a good role model or good influence or even a good babysitter.

But heck, what do we know?  Macy's recently announced that Madonna and her 13-year-old daughter are designing a line called "Material Girl" that will appear exclusively at the retailer during the next back-to-school season.

Seems like rockers never die.  They just have kids.

If Dora and Slash AND Macy's and Madonna can co-brand -- anyone and anything can co-brand . . . for example: Philip Morris and Bazooka Bubble Gum.

Today, let's create some other bizarre co-brands!  We could make millions for a worthy cause.  If you can't think of any, suggest some places Dora could only journey to with her exclusive Slash back pack!

No Free Lunch

"Why do so many keep seeing health care reform

as society paying for individual freeloaders?"

-- question posed by Jerseysista in a 9:39 pm comment to Monday's post, "Yes, We Did"

DISCUSS.

Poof!

Ever want to disappear?  Like that time you stuck your foot in your mouth and inadvertently wrecked someone's day?  Or ever want to be invisible just to listen in on an interesting conversation?   Step aside, Harry Potter, because apparently -- for the first time -- German scientists have found a way to make an object vanish in three dimensions, according to a study published in the journal Science.

Here's the abstract for the report:

A three-dimensional invisibility-cloaking structure operating at optical wavelengths based on transformation optics has been designed and realized. Our blueprint uses a woodpile photonic crystal with tailored polymer filling fraction to hide a bump in a gold reflector. Structures and controls are fabricated by direct laser writing and characterized by simultaneous high-numerical-aperture far-field optical microscopy and spectroscopy. Cloaking operation with large bandwidth of unpolarized light from 1.4- to 2.7-µm wavelength is demonstrated for viewing angles up to 60 degrees.

"Woodpile photonic crystal with tailored polymer filling fraction." Of course!  We knew it all along.  Click here to watch a video of the process.  There's an English language translation of the above abstract in that link, too.

Pretend you had the power to activate an invisibility cloak on at least three separate occasions. What are the occasions?  Why would you want to be invisible?  You can don it more than three times if you like, but take your time.  Think about it.  Why would you wear the thing?

Yes, We Did

The front page of the Washington Post:

"The House of  Representatives gave final approval to a sweeping healthcare overhaul on Sunday, expanding insurance coverage to nearly all Americans and handing President Barack Obama a landmark victory."

The front page of the New York Times:

"House Democrats approved a far-reaching overhaul of the nation's health system on Sunday, voting over unanimous Republican opposition to provide medical coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans after an epic political battle that could define the differences between the parties for years."

The front page of the Wall Street Journal:

"The biggest transformation of the U.S. health system in decades won approval on Capitol Hill late Sunday, the culmination of efforts by generations of Democrats to achieve near-universal health coverage."

The front page of Foxnews.com:

"A bloc of pro-life Democrats turned out to be the linchpin to passage of the Senate's massive health insurance overhaul Sunday night, as President Obama cemented a 219-212 victory with a pledge to issue an executive order 'clarifying' abortion language in the Senate bill."

Now what?  The Sassistas! honestly want to hear your opinion.

 

Daffodils

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

-- "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth