Eulogy

I’ve been asked by Betty, Kim’s mom, to express how deeply grateful she, and we are, that you came here today to share all of our love, and our sorrow.

I’d like to open with an invocation from my tradition which generates love and compassion: “May all beings have happiness May they be free from suffering May they find the joy that has never known suffering May they be freed from attachment and hatred”

*******

Kim and I used to giggle about people who got ordained out of the back of Rolling Stone magazine. I would always joke that “oh yeah, they’re a minister from that Church of the Brighter Light”. When I got ordained it was totally different. Well for one thing, it now happens over the internet. For another I fancied myself to be this really cool someone, who really should be officiating marriages. Cuz how much fun is that? I’m guessing that had I thought a little more seriously about it, or actually gone to a Divinity School it might have occurred to me that the not fun, flip side, would be potentially officiating at funerals, memorials and wakes. And it certainly never, ever, crossed my mind that the first one of such occasions would be the memorial for one of my oldest, dearest, friends.

*******

Kimberly - She had so many brilliant, jewel-like qualities.

Her mind was quirky, creative, quixotic. She could handle herself in almost any conversation - from the best way to get a really moist carrot cake, to the fine points of metaphysical philosophy, to teaching a kid some vital life skill like reading, shoe tying, or just the right spots to hang the decorations on the christmas tree. Had she had a meaner spirit, her sardonic wit and sly, charismatic laugh, could have earned her a spot at the Algonquin’s Round-table.

Highly intuitive, Kim could read other people, and their situations, piercing through facades and bringing to light underlying realities. And like so many of us, it was always easier to see for others, than to see oneself.

She was extra-ordinarily empathic. The worlds suffering was her suffering. She was always taking in strays. Of every race, creed, and breed.

Kim was generous to a fault. She used to literally give me the clothes off her back, by the armload. She was basically what we now would call my stylist when I was 18. Although I learned later that perhaps it was more Betty who was technically behind that, whether she was aware of it or not...

She deeply enjoyed the rituals around food, whether it be gourmet at The Earle, exotic like her favourite Indian food or just plain good cookin’ like a Manikas omelet or her Nana’s chicken and dumplings. Making and sharing it, trying new foods and recipes, going to restaurants to socialize with good food and beverages at the center, as well as all the traditional holiday feasts, even when she couldn’t fully participate, warmed her, cheered her, and nourished her soul to simply be around and involved in such activities.

She passionately loved art, and music, and books.

Theatre and movies.

Saints and sinners

Because most of all, Kim loved.

She constantly surprised me when she would offhandedly comment “well but of course I do love him - her - them” whomever. I thought that maybe this capacity she had, to love “sinners” just “not their sins”, was kind of foolish, and possibly, probably, dangerous. In reality? It was daunting. I was a little shamed by her ability to generate genuine love for people I considered useless, a waste of time or too big of a problem. She always ended our phone conversations with “I love you” or “I love you Laurie”. I, having grown up in a family that was never expressive in that way, initially would always awkwardly say “yaloveyatoobye”. It really took me a long time to learn to say, sincerely, with real feeling, “I love you too Kim”.

*******

Nowadays we’ve all been exposed to some Jungian psychology, often under the guise of new age philosophy, as Jung wrote compellingly of learning to live with one’s own shadow side. The ideas of having compassion for oneself, learning to understand and accept one’s shadow in order to become a fully integrated human is now a common and accepted methodology for becoming humane, forgiving oneself, and moving into balance.
What has not been quite so humanely articulated, written about, and subsequently served to us, the questing friends and families, is how to deal with the shadow in others.

We’ve been bombarded with some very popular theories of how to conduct our relationship to people who seem to want, need or to be under some compulsion to, live primarily from their shadow. We are told, and our own experiences frequently appears to reflect that, trying to help people who seem to be becoming lost there, is pretty much like shouting down a well.

We’ve seen talk shows, read books, and been immersed up to our eyebrows with the advices of mass psychology instructing us in methods of “tough love”, “codependent no more”, “dealing with toxic people” and other, sort of, one size fits all, approaches to these relationships. Realistically, these are likely to be some of the most complex and painful, intimate relationships we will experience in our lifetimes. These are the relationships that have asked us, and potentially will continue to ask, throughout the years, What if...? Why didn’t I..? And, if only...?

It’s no wonder that we’ll eagerly try out all these various techniques. When nothing else seems to work, when we find ourselves baffled, desperate, and really, very terribly, afraid, solutions that assure us that they are almost surefire are very appealing. Not to mention that if we don’t have some recognized theory or technique that we can claim to be utilizing, we ourselves run the risk of being socially and psychologically bullied, belittled, and labeled with some catchy buzzword which infers that as we are clearly not being part of a trendy solution we therefore must be part of the problem.

I don’t have any one solution to offer here. The problems are too complex, the circumstances too individual. But I have come to feel that the usual approaches of becoming insular, preserving our self above others, trying to remain in, or restore ourselves to, a pain free state are potentially not as helpful or as safe as some would claim.

We are come to this life to learn, and these terribly painful moments are some of our most defining, learning, moments. These teaching moments have the potential to become like fruits of the vine, with precious juices that blend together, and processed thoughtfully, carefully, with love and compassion for self and others can become a rather heady wine of a profound, personal, understanding of life, living, and death. Mark that it must processed carefully though, as any wine that is not lovingly handled can turn and become vinegar. Just as our love can turn bitter without that large dose of compassion for self and others.

I have learned maybe two basic things so far from my work with the dying, the living, and those balanced there, trembling, with only one breath separating the one from the other:

One is simply that no one can, or should, micromanage anyone else’s life or death. People need to make their own choices about their living and dying even if those choices bewilder us. All we can do is offer our very best and truest information to them and let them proceed to work it out from there.

Another is that - people do the best they can at the time, or they would have done better, period.

This is true of others, this is true of ourselves. Everyone here did the best they could in each moment. If there is something in your heart of hearts that whispers to you “I could have made a bigger effort, I could have tried harder, if only, if only.... well I’m not going to give you the easy task and tell you to just let it go, instead I will ask you to take on the harder but much more rewarding job of holding and remembering that feeling, in order to learn from it, so that another time you’ll be able to let it be the spark that ignites greater effort, inspires you to greater compassion, and subsequently creates one billion better moments, for yourself and for others.

Potty Mouth

I am become more and more convinced that the driving force in all societies pretty much boils down to who cleans the toilets and why. And as far as I can see most of modern culture has been a concerted effort by white men to yell “not it!” I used to think social order was pretty much driven by access to pussy but this theory has a correlation in that prime pussy is rarely found in the company of janitors.

Since it has been increasingly difficult to force minorities, women and subjugated cultures to do the deed I’ve noticed a new trend, which is to train “the mentally deficient” into this position. While on the one hand I think it’s great to provide job training for the developmentally disabled or persons with severe mental illnesses, I have issues with assuming that the scut work of society is the perfect niche from which they can can contribute. It’s a bit too “Brave New World” to feel really comfortable.

No one wants to be the “it” in this situation. So in the vein of “if they can put a man on the moon...”
If they can invent a self cleaning oven, why can’t they invent a self cleaning toilet?

Occupy Meals-On-Wheels! Re-post

So I have this dream... And it is not just that I would sell or give away breads and such. My dream is to start-up an independent meals-on-wheels program. With, you know, edible, actually nutritious, food. I don't know how it is in your community but here in A2, despite having some real money, a lot of really great and dedicated volunteers, and a partnering with U-M, they are sending out thousands of pounds of inedible, visually unappealing, patently institutionalized, and wastefully packaged, food. Every person that I have worked for that got meals-on-wheels usually threw away something like 10 lbs. (or more) of food a week PER PERSON! Styrafoam, plastics, and all of that sort of thing as well. It was dreadful to watch. But people who are food insecure, or unable to cook, will not leave the program as they are fearful that they might eventually need it enough to eat some parts. So I have watched it pile up in refrigerators and then get thrown out when the pile took over.

Anyway, it seems to me that a way to help solve this is to have a privately run program. So that someone would have the authority to say "we're not sending out any gross, institutional food". Have it be heavily soup/stew based, as nutritionally soup is a god-food. As well as that many of these potential clients (the elderly, the sick, the disabled) have various health issues that make chewing, swallowing, digesting, etc. problematic anyway.

The current program is so committed to meats as the primary protein source that they absolutely sacrifice quality to quantity and end up serving huge quantities of very disturbing, mostly inedible, meats from extremely dubious sources, what a waste! This could be managed much differently and still appeal to most folks who want some meat.

I am not completely opposed to some tinned foods. I have seen tinned peaches prolong life and the desire to live! I am not opposed to meat, I am an omnivore. I just think that with the dietary knowledge we now have that there has to be a better way to do a protein delivery system. That with the technologies available there should be less waste in packaging. That people who are struggling with food insecurity should have a resource that is viable, edible, nutritious, enjoyable, a source of pleasure, something to look forward to instead of being burdensome and guilt inducing because one wants some security but simply cannot physically or emotionally partake of most of what is given.

Occupy Meals-on-Wheels! That is my goal.

More J. MacD; all apropos 'n stuff

“Illness is an ego trip, especially after you have started to feel a little better. You turn inward. How do I feel right now compared to five minutes ago, an hour ago, yesterday? Is this pain in my hip connected to the infection? Is it something new? Why can’t they come when I ring? All intensely personal. Petulant. To each one of us the self is the most enchanting object in all creation. Sickness intensifies the preoccupation with the self. And, of course, the true bore, the classic bore, is the person who is as totally preoccupied with himself all the time as the rest of us are when we are unwell.”
John D. MacDonald

On not going tharn

Decisions have been made and plans are being enacted. The great year long experiment of trying psych meds is over. I quit.

Well, to be scrupulously honest, I am quitting the systemic Buproprion and keeping the as needed Ativan. I have designed my step down program (and was told I was being too meticulous and to hasten) to get it out of my system. I will be done in fourteen days or less. (As opposed to the twenty-one days or more I had proposed).

So in future, while I still may be snotty, I will have the opportunity to experience other emotions as well. Which is all “hurrah for me”, as having a totally flat affect except for anger and anxiety was really, really, harshing my mellow, cramping my style, and all those other, turd in the punchbowl, type euphemisms, analogies and metaphors.

Now to be again, perfectly honest, I am being encouraged to try a different approach once my system has cleared out and normalized. Cymbalta was suggested. I have to admit that those commercials give me the green envies. All that “depression hurts” (yes, yes it does,) “Cymbalta can help” (Oh really? Ya promise?) does tweak my “I wish this was just fixed already, deep down, Stepford is bliss, can’t this be simplified so I can just do my bills like a normal person” jones.

I am however, taking a wait and see approach. Because as much as I am terrified of withdrawal from this fairly innocuous script, I am really terrified of SSRI’s. There are few things worse than coming down and/or withdrawal. It just takes all the fun out of drugs.

Tis the season

For an awful lot of family friendly television. While I know this is a day late and a dollar short, as they rerun a bunch of “family classics”, here are my thoughts on one.
As much as I adore you Johnny Depp (and that is fairly embarrassing, as I don’t generally play the celebrity game), this time you fail. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory completely bites. Because I may love you, but you know who I love more? Both Roald Dahl and Gene Wilder.
And by the way,
There is no need to edit out the drug references from Willy Wonka, (Family Channel). I saw this, in the theater, at age 7 and did not jump from the mast of any tre jolie boats into a chocolate river and die because I thought I could fly.

“and after all, we’re all just ordinary men”

I am normally a person who is very much caught up in an “us and them” struggle. I come quite easily to hate and “despision”. Even when I was much, much, younger and really committed to changing my paradigms I was only able to sublimate my fear and hatred, not cut it by much, and certainly not eliminate or to use the more fitting terminology, cure, it. I am so, still, not cured. However, this new job, has provided me with an un-looked for, surprising, opportunity, at a time when us and them rhetoric is so bitter and pervasive, to get a better understanding of where that dichotomy falls flat in my own psyche.

You see, the gentleman that I work for is a dyed-in-the-wool, old school, white, southern, (possibly Baptist), racist. He’s a Mason and a misogynist. In short, a possessor of oh, so many, of the qualities that exemplifies “them” to me. He barely reads, he’s crabby, picky, demanding, and so very all knowing, with no hesitation in saying whatever shitty, peckerwood thing pops into his head.

But here’s the weird, crazy, and I guess I have to think, great, teaching to me. Not only do I find him lovable but I want to make sure he feels loved and cared for. He is old, he is sick, and life is slipping away from him, while he is simultaneously watching his wife of about sixty five years disappear as she keeps wandering farther and farther down dementia highway.

I now have the perspective that most of “them” is just a whole bunch more of these folks. Life is hard, and they are scared, tired, and baffled that they did just what they were told to, yet things just didn’t turn out at all peachy, or rosy. They did, and do, the best they are/were able, or else they would do/have done better.

I suppose that feeling so threatened by the “thems” is a feeling of looming, oppression by the weight of their historical dominance. The childhood hurt of always being the other. The anger at being churched against my will. Being stared at, talked about, ostracized, it all builds up like keloids. I will keep (at least) trying to calm and cut that hatred.

I will though, reserve the right to feel completely alienated from, angry with, and diametrically opposed to the other them. That cabal of black magicians whose God is the actual mammon, and who have clearly shown that they will throw anyone or anything into the pit to remain our owners.

Fuck you guys. You are the aliens. And I will always fight you in some form, as someone very much wiser than me says, “just because you’re a Buddhist doesn’t mean you have to be a doormat”.

Bleu Moonday, how I hate bleu Moonday

I want to propose a new national holiday. Something to the effect of “whoopee for space day”. I’m thinking July 29th, as that was the day that Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act which established NASA. There are many other notable days related to space stuff. Lots of things occurred in various Aprils. As well as that on May 5 1961 Alan Shepard became the first American in space. But we already have bunches of holidays around that time of year and not nearly enough in July/August. So, maybe set it up for the last Friday in July. Then it could also be linked to July 20th, when in 1969 we landed on the moon. As well as July of 1975 when the Apollo-Soyuz test project was launched, and July 25, when in 1984 Svetlana Savitskaya was the first woman to perform an EVA (Extravehicular Activity or space walk).

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not at all one of those let’s fuck over this planet and then escape to space people. In fact I’m generally a bit pissed about the whole let’s shove a big metal machine into the inviting, dark, folds of space and/or shoot for the moon weird, hard to ignore, phallic symbolism of it all. Especially the idea of taking and plopping that energy onto the belly of my girl Luna, who I prefer as a thing of mystery and some kind of cool, yin, purity.

So then why would I encourage them in those activities at all you ask? Well, because I have to admit it is pretty awe-inspiring these things they do. And really, if we were to pull back a little, out of our business as usual in the 21st century modality, what is going on out there is nigh unto miraculous. If only we were to view this from any other perspective removed from the jade of the last 50 years. Say it’s 1908 instead of 2008. It would be terrifying, miraculous, or possibly an affront to God. Think about it now. Something we almost never even stop to think of, in going about the course of our everyday living is that, so are 10 or 20 or so people out there way beyond our perception and normal range of thought. Living in space. That is just, so, weird.

Additionally, I have this hope that much like every other stupid holiday, the marketers would freak out and start bombarding us with space stuff beginning a couple months ahead of it, that most TV stations would dig out all kinds of squidly sci-fi stuff to run all month long and that we could get away with dressing up all futuristic and/or space retro that whole week.

So this is how it’s just gonna be...

So tired, the store job kicks my ass. When I first started it kicked my ass also. Then I started getting stronger and stronger. I got some decent shoes. I started getting some muscles and stamina. I did better and better as the years went by. Then I had a couple surgeries the first of of which went kinda wrong, the next of which went really wrong. The horribly expensive shoes wore out. Now if I do a four hour shift I have to sleep 3 hours.

On Mondays, cuz I’m a homework slacker, I get off work then play drums until I’m really, really tired and usually quite frustrated. Then go to drum class. Then I can crash for awhile. While I tell myself its for just a quick, rejuvenating nap it invariably turns into a long stupefying nap, then I spend the rest of the day being a schlub.

This last month adds to the stultifying mix, extreme tension in my home life. The result is the house is dirty, the energy levels are all fucked up, and it doesn’t seem worth it to get up and do a damn thing. However something has to change the energy, I can no longer sit and stew. (I am so good at stewing, I meant what I said about grudge holding.)

So while I didn’t go about solving the problem the super high road way, I also didn’t take the lowliest low road. I, at least, addressed an individual face to face for the 15 seconds requisite and decided to skip the “preserve the friendship” part. I got some support for that approach from a few people who said if I didn’t want the friendship to just go ahead and remove the pain source.
Done.
Its not like I had zero interest in the friendship, but when alcoholism is the factor, what’s the point?
This is something like the 10th friendship of some significance that has terminated in the last 10 years or so, where I trace the real source of the problem to addiction. Not mine, someone else's. If we went back farther in time, the numbers would grow exponentially.

It’s just getting so very old. But when there is little or no return for your energy, so little actual dialogue, just boozy, stale monologues repeated over and over while someone breathes alcohol in your face what's left anyway? It won’t change until it changes and that's nothing you can control at all, so rather be done.

This whole giving your whole life to a THING is freaking me out. You just hand over everything you are, could be and will do, to an inanimate object. What the hell is that? I’m not saying I haven’t had my skirmishes with such slavery, but I seem to have a finely tuned sense of personal freedom. When a stupid thing starts requiring my very core self and values, I turn and run. I don’t care how much fun it’s promising. I don’t care if its a substance or a job or a relationship.

The other part that's bugging me, is the age of these people. I can see how in your twenties you haven’t figured it out yet, but the people involved are in their thirties, forties and fifties. One of them had already done over 20 years in prison as payment and just took another twenty to pay for just a couple months of getting high. Yet it’s his primary relationship and he’ll apparently never, ever, put anyone or anything ahead of it. It, an inanimate object, a thing.

I can’t think of a goofy, cheery, twist to end this on, everything about this is so annoying. I suppose the the best I can do is mention that at least I’m mostly over the furious and into the sad.

On laziness and creativity

Yummy, porch sitting whilst a thunderstorm carouses. Here is why I wanted this laptop, so I could hang out on the porch in the all too brief summer of Michigan and play.
One of my most favoured and all too decadent activities is to lay on the couch out here, play solitaire or psuedo-intellectual blog lurker, and just lean over to flip the burgers.

So, I was reading someone's latest entry and they were questioning the ”how to” of song writing.
I thought that rather than respond in their comments thus taking up a ton of their personal space and time, that I would discourse here, as it was something I would’ve addressed eventually anyway.

It’s been really exciting to have found someone that I can write well with. It took a long time as I never thought to define what I was actually seeking when I first started out. I was then mostly, just viewing myself as a singer. I didn't actually believe I could be a "real" songwriter. It turns out that that was stupid, because I’m not that great of a singer, and have really only vastly improved over the last 5-6 years. In spite of having been born with a decent voice, singing, for me, has become a means to an end. The end being able to put my writing to music. Which, it seems, is one of the only ways to get heard if you are not fond of, or suited to, the new word salad, poetry slam type of performance art. I am vastly unsuited to that, by writing style, temperament and probably, sadly, age.

When I first started writing with “real musicians” I was overawed and naive about what a singer/lyricist means. I thus believed what people thrust upon me, that as the two former, in addition to being a female, I was on the bottom on the pyramid. The mere canary. Throw fat girl into that mix, and I emerged with a fairly serious inferiority complex. I think this is potentially why I sometimes preen just a tiny bit too much when I’m cranking out some decent stuff.

During my years with Skinflower I put out a few good songs, I did a lot of vocal arrangement. I wrote a few songs with a few other folks, writing to their music. Sometimes sizing something I had already written to fit. It seemed OK but it really wasn’t.
I realized later that I was constantly having to try to fit preconceptions of what was cool. And not surprisingly I couldn't seem to get the juices flowing at any constant rate for any length of time. I feel I was viewed in a patronizing, owner/ master fashion and was severely critiqued constantly.

I started writing with Oliver, everything was different. He handed me about 200 hundred songs and lyric ideas, then left it primarily up to me. So over the years I’ve been able to just listen to a bunch of different music he’s written and work on whichever tune grabs me at that very moment. Sometimes he’s been taken aback at my completely changing the idea and meaning of something. Sometimes we’ve had to argue for several days about whether he’s going to write me a hook or not. We’ve had creative differences, absolutely. The real difference though, has been that if there is an issue, it’s actually about what’s best for the song itself. Not whether the words are creepy and/or sarcastic enough for the misanthropic guitar player. Or whether the wannabe hipster gets it or not.

I also feel that maturity has really redefined what I think is important enough to write about. Not that we don’t write some goofy stuff. I’d just like to think that the humour is broader and more subtle. Now, since I've had the opportunity to find my very own voice, I can write fairly easily to other peoples music as well. I had also recently worked with another composer and we had written some positively stunning pieces. Unfortunately Junk reared its ugly head and he’s no longer in my life. Very sad, I hate that shit with a passion.

Which brings us to another facet of the creative process that I’ve been debating with some of my much younger musician friends recently. Drugs and creativity. My stance is that the whole “it’s a really necessary part”, is pure bunk, hogwash and myth. Probably perpetuated by Junkies and drunks who seem to love nothing more than taking people down with them.
My view is that time spent pursuing drugs is time lost to creativity, time spent attempting to reach “just the right buzz” is time that could be spent practicing scales while you wait for the muse to show up. I feel that the Kurt Cobains, Billie Holidays and such would have been able to bless our existence at least equally and probably far better without. I don’t believe drugs illuminated them, other than for an evanescent moment or two. And those few moments are swallowed whole by the years of misery.
And I say this from the perspective of someone who is pretty sure they know of what they speak.

Wow, sure like the feel of my favourite soapboxes, I might get mighty comfortable up there, I could probably just go right ahead and take a nap.