How Dare You

Let me just start out by saying I'm not a man-hating baby-despising old shriveled up shrew.

I love men- I've been married three times. And I adore babies- I grew three of 'em right inside me. I've felt the kicking, seen the little footie outline on my tummy, pushed 'em out and held them close.

So I'm not anti-baby and I sure as hell am not pro-abortion. Actually, as I've stated before (loudly and often) NO ONE Is pro-abortion. I don't know of a single person anywhere who looks at abortion in a positive light. But most of us are pro-CHOICE.

Yes, there is too a difference. Sorta like the FACT that we are NOT a Christian nation; we are a nation peopled by a Christian majority. The Christian religion? NOT A NATIONAL RELIGION. Ergo there should be NO laws written specifically to conform to the Christian bible. Just like there should be no laws written to fit the Koran (SHARIA LAW, ya'll! RUN!!!). Get it?

But here in the Land of Individual Freedom and Responsibility, some people think that it's A-OK to determine what certain humans (like female ones) may and may not do with their own bodies.

I know, I know, I know-

"But it's a BABY! How can you KILL a BABY???"

I never had to consider it.

I've been damn lucky, and I know it.

My babies were conceived when I had family support, friend support, financial support. I was mentally ready and physically healthy.

But I've also had times in my life when I was married to an alcoholic abusive criminal. When I was newly in a different state and living in a trailer park. When I seriously considered living in my car. When the only health care I could afford was Planned Parenthood (and it was damn good health care, too. And not ONCE did they tell me all about their super-fun abortion services.)

Many women are stuck in these dismal situations. Stuck financially and mentally for many reasons.

I'm no better than any of them and I absolutely cannot sit in judgment. I will not sit in judgment.

But it's so fucking easy.

"They're just being selfish- if they didn't want to have a child, they shouldn't have had sex".


Yep. That 13 year old being raped on a regular basis by her step-father is being SO selfish. That young woman married to an abusive asshole and threatened with death if she leaves is being SO irresponsible. How dare you sit in judgment of them.

"The adult thing to do is to woman up to the consequences of your actions, have the baby and put it up for adoption- there are LOTS of couples who would LOVE to adopt!"


Here's a little personal fact-filled story for you.

Years ago before Ward got sick, we looked into adoption. We were told there are 2 categories of babies available for domestic adoption.

Category A babies are white. They have full family health histories. They cost about $35,000 to adopt after a 3-5 year wait. We couldn't even get on that list because we were over 40, already had a natural child and we weren't CHRISTIAN.

Ahh, but the Category B babies.

Those are mixed heritage or all-minority. There may or may not be a history of substance abuse on the part of the mother. There may or may not be a health history depending on if the mother knew who the father is. They cost $5,000 to adopt and the counselor told me "Paint your nursery- when can you come get him?" because they're in FOSTER CARE. We could have as many of those as we like because all those 'LOTS of couples who would LOVE to adopt' don't want them. They want white and perfect. Like themselves.

If Ward hadn't gotten sick, our house would be full. And they would be loved. If you personally are not willing to step up and embrace into your home and family at least half a dozen of these Category B babies, how dare you blithely assume someone else will.

How dare you dismiss the agony of a woman who knows damn well that she cannot take care of her child AND that if she does in fact give birth and give them up 'for adoption' she is sending them straight into an already-overloaded and under-supervised foster care system.

"As a Christian I cannot condone the killing of babies- that's against my beliefs because I just love little humans so much- they're all made in God's image, ya'll"


Ab fab. Then you're also going to fight just as hard for things like medicaid, aid to families with dependent children, school lunch programs, FREE health care, MORE funds for public schools- all those social safety nets (you usually refer to them as 'the welfare') that those little humans will need once they are post-born, right? Because if you take away the option of abortion with one hand because it's killing babies and then take away every social safety net that WILL be needed by that mother and child once he/she is born with the other hand I cannot adequately express my complete and utter contempt for you.

And I'm generally pretty gifted at that.

I'm not a man-hating baby-despising old shriveled up shrew, and I'm not pro-abortion. But I know that 99% of the women who choose this LEGAL option do not do so lightly and for NOW it's as it should be- a decision reached between a woman, her health care provider and her god if she claims one.

These women do not need politicians to be their obstetricians.

They do not need the Christian charity version of hatred and punishment.

I've only had my toe in the waters of despair most of these women swim in with their head pushed under over and over again- no money, no support, no family, no options.

No way out.

And right now in history? With unemployment so high while all the social programs are being cut to balance state and federal budgets? Families are stretched to breaking more and more and NOW you want to take this option away as well?

How dare you.

Right here are the moccasins those women wear- try 'em on. Don't even have to walk a mile... just try 'em on.

Do you feel scared? Helpless? Desperate? Worthless? Overwhelmed?

I was damn lucky. I was never so cornered that I'dve considered abortion if faced with an unexpected pregnancy.

But I absolutely will not sit in judgment of another (that's God's job, remember?), and I aim to fight to keep abortion a SAFE and LEGAL viable option for women who have precious few of those.

Because 'just' making it illegal or difficult to obtain will not magically make it go away.

See "War on Drugs" for reference.

See? That Book-Learnin' is Nuthin' But Trouble

So one of my college course assignments was to look up actual job listings in my chosen field.

*One of the fun things about being an elderly student is that even though I've been managing this clinic for a dozen years, the courses are written for people who have yet to enter the job market. You know- kids. At the end of each chapter in the 'Principles of Management' textbook ($180 USED and stinks of cigarettes) is a page that says "Practice being a manager" with little exercises and shit. It's awesome.

Anyhoo. We were to look up three actual positions that are open and rate them using certain criteria. So I did. And the one is something that I could qualify for NOW. Of course they prefer the letters-behind-the-name that I'm working towards, but it doesn't say 'required'; just 'prefer'.

It's a third more than what I'm currently making.

It's in Oregon.

That's a helluva commute from Texas.

And yet...

...We considered the PNW away back when we were first together, Ward and I.

In the end we stayed in East Texas and have been happy here.

We ARE happy here.

Mostly.

Oh, it's not the heat in the summer or the drought in the summer or the myriad things that are waiting to bite, sting or otherwise inject or smear toxins all over and into the unsuspecting human body.

It's toxins of another sort.

When I moved here nigh unto 20 years ago this December, Texas was still pretty blue.

I know. Hard to believe.

But just that recently and before, Texas was staunchly Big D in more ways than one.

Well, we see how it is now.

Fucking toxic.

And we worry. We worry about our boy growing up in such a socially ass-backwards backwater of the US where all we as Texan non-fundamental conservatives can do is whisper "Thank heavens for Michele Bachmann and Rand Paul" and as far as our public school ratings whisper "Thank heavens for Mississippi" and when any of our batshit crazy pols open their mouths to do anything but insert bbq all we can do is try to stand tall and say, "We're not ALL this way".

But we're damn near surrounded and overwhelmed.

Don't get me wrong- we have friends here who are loved and true. As time goes by, however, more and more of them are in the progressive pockets of Denton and Austin, and even those are looking to the PNW for relief from the sheer weight of oppressive fundamentalism.

I had dinner the other night with a dear friend who had a falling out with her church family. Won't go into details but at the end of the night I said something about thinking of moving to the PNW before the fundamentals burn me at the stake. I said it as a joke but she didn't laugh. We hugged and she looked troubled.

That ain't the America I live in.

And if it were just me? It wouldn't matter.

In fact, it looks like coming up right quick, we'll be looking at a brand new Texas- turning blue again. Not because of education or enlightenment or anything crazy like that but just because of numbers. As of now the white population in Texas is 49%. They're gonna be outnumbered for the first time in a long time. And that makes me smile.

It's not just the random job opening. The friend I had dinner with? Moving to Washington state...tomorrow.

We're house-sitting for friends this weekend. They're going to Portland with half an eye on moving there.

We already have friends up yonder, and more who are thinking about it- thinking about getting their families out of places intent on rolling back to the good old days...when white men were kings and everyone else chattel.

I don't think they'll win...nationwide anyway.

On the one hand it's exciting to me to be right in the thick of it while it's churning and roiling; this fetid red tide being overtaken once again by blue.

The other hand isn't so sure. Because these soon-to-be outvoted old white conservative bible-thumping geezers and their followers will never go down without a fight- that ain't the Texas Way. The Texas Way is to defend Honor and the shit you believe in by fighting dirty and underhanded if necessary.

And that's where the whole stake burning thing comes in.

"Pshaw!" you say and "Fiddlesticks!" This is modern-day America. We don't do that sort of thing anymore.

Please keep in mind that within the last several years (not decades or centuries) Texas has produced horrible atrocities against women, minorities, and anyone else the bible can be twisted to say is unclean or unnatural.

I never in my life thought I'd be apprehensive about living anywhere in America unless air-dropped into East LA or Detroit or Beverly Hills- places not fit for human habitation.

And yet in the last decade I've started to feel it. It's not me. I haven't changed.

It's them.

They're cornered and frightened and desperate.

And fucking armed to the teeth and twitchy.

I have my home here- my almost newly built home here on the piece of the planet that is more dear to me than anywhere I've ever been.

But I feel the electricity in the air, dangerous with fear and frustration and anger.

And everything in me screams to get my loved ones out of here before it erupts.

Oregon.

I never saw that coming.

Moment of "Awwww..."

Yesterday was our anniversary.

As always, we went to the zoo. The zoo was our first date on a June 10th and we married on a June 10th, and every June 10th we go to the zoo. It was 95+ freaking degrees yesterday afternoon; all the zoo animals were passed out in the shade and only briefly opened their eyes to acknowledge the idiot humans standing in the sun looking at them. I swear I could hear them snickering.

It was our 18th June 10th trip to the zoo.

We've been as a couple, as expectant parents, and with an ever-larger boy with us.

Only once we've missed it completely, and only once have we missed it by a day.

The complete miss was pre-surgery and we were in Houston, and the miss by a day was 2 months after Ward almost died in that self-same hospital. There were several surgeries between the two and there has been one since. We missed by a day not because Ward was so weak, so emaciated and so ravaged (although he was all three), but because it was raining like hell. We went the next day and he refused the wheelchair I'd brought and walked (slowly) around the zoo; always and forever the most courageous person I know.

So we walked through the zoo and held hands like we do every year. We took our picture kissing in front of the King Vulture like we do every year.

We went to dinner.

Then I changed it up a little.

Away back when we first started dating, we were both newly divorced. I was living with friends and he was living with his mom and so even though we were both full grown grownups with real grownup jobs and cars and everything, we had nowhere to be...alone.

The first Valentine's Day after we started dating, I left work on my lunch hour, drove to the little motel on the lake, reserved a room, picked up a key and stashed all our stuff there- I'd conspired with his mom and she'd packed an overnight bag for him. I had told her my nefarious loose-woman intentions, and she looked at me with her beautiful little old lady eyes and said, "Well, it's about TIME!"

I loved his mom.

During our Valentine's dinner out, we exchanged little gifts. He gave me a pair of beautiful earrings and I handed him a box containing the hotel key.

"I don't have any clothes or my pills or anything".

"No problem. They're all already in the room".

"What will my mother think?"

"She said 'It's about TIME!' Who do you think packed your bag?"

He knew at that point his fate was sealed.

So last night I was driving since Ward twisted his foot a few days ago and it's sore and swollen (and he still walked through the zoo even though I told him he didn't have to- see? A man of courage and strength the likes of which the world rarely sees.)

I turned one stop light earlier than normal.

"Where are we going?"

"Just a different way".

We passed the Justice of the Peace's office where we were married and talked about how Spooj the Flowerdog growled thru the entire ceremony. He figured that was the Memory Lane Detour.

We blew past the turn towards our little town.

"Honey? Where are we going?"

"Not home!" (Evil grin)

"I don't have my clothes or my pills or anything".

"No problem. They're already in the back seat."

And my mother-in-law smiled down from Heaven.

I Like to Write Things Down to Get Them Straight In My Head.

Sometimes information is coming at us so quickly that it's difficult to keep it all straight.

Sometimes so quickly that it's easy to think, "Yanno- that doesn't make a damn bit of sense and is actually counter to all the other stuff I've been hearing from this source".

Fer instance, I pride myself on always listening to both sides of a debated issue. I'm only marginally adept at not snickering or rolling my eyeballs, but I listen. I listen to my friends and family who inhabit the far right spectrum of politics and social thinking, then I scamper back to beyond the far left where the sun shines and the birds sing and people take care of each other without judgment or stipulation. A place where people really do mind their own damn business regarding other folks' private lives and work with respect and compromise for the good of all people, not just bogusly arbitrarily 'chosen' ones dependent on money or power or whether or not they're just like themselves.

I like to call that place "America".

But I digress.

These are the things I hear from the Right on an almost daily basis:

We MUST drug test ALL welfare recipients, to save the billions of dollars now wasted by slackers cheating the system

We MUST have strict voter ID laws- right now you can vote more easily than rent a movie at Blockbuster!

Get the government OUT of our life! NO prying into our lives! This is AMERICA for god's sake!

*Wait*

First of all, there's no such thing as 'welfare'. You can't just saunter into the social security office and say, "Sign me up for some of that Welfare, on accounta I don't feel like working". You can't. What you're quaintly referring to as 'welfare' is about a gabazillion different programs all aimed at helping different demographics. So what you're saying is that all recipients of any social program need to be drug tested- every injured veteran, every aged grandmother, every tiny child, every single mother. Awesome. THAT'LL save some money.

Voter ID laws. Interesting. Interesting that you want to make it more difficult to vote than walk into Walmart and purchase a firearm. Because you'll NEED that gun to overthrow the government says you. Because nothing else will accomplish changing the government says you. Except maybe VOTING says me.

Also interesting (and not in a "wow- that's so interesting, I'm glad I now know that" way but a "holy shit- you actually believe this bullshit!" way) is that the vision of the far Right is of a land of personal responsibility which apparently translates into

"NO free rides for anyone who wants 'the welfare' or to vote, but step back off of MY (perceived) right to own any damn gun I want to with basically NO restrictions because SECOND AMENDMENT!

NO government interference with MY (perceived) right to shove my religion all into (our specifically non-theocratic) government laws with no regard for the beliefs of anyone else (especially those goddamn MUSLIMS!)(Oh- the Jews, too- bastards!)(except those who live in Israel- we LOVE those...)

or MY (perceived) right to be able to tell women what they can and cannot do with their own bodies and lives and if they disobey it's punishable by death by stoning or burning at the stake a stiff prison sentence.

Because only MY group knows what's right for America and only MY group has the absolute blessing and of both god and the founding fathers and we'll fight to the death to protect OUR (perceived) rights and anyone else will be met with the wrath of our bibles and our weapons.

Amen."

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

"All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others"

I know that I'm only one little old person, and that not everyone agrees with me. But I'd like to think that most of our society feels the way I do-

-that the 1st Amendment guarantees people the freedom OF religion and also FROM religion- worship the way you choose or not, but it's completely separate from our government and its laws. Because we can absolutely have a moral nation without being a religious nation.

-that the 2nd Amendment and the supreme court both say that you may in fact bear arms. But not any damn arm you choose and absolutely not without regulation or a lick of common sense.

-that telling women what they can and can't do with their bodies and life decisions and telling people who they can and can't marry is not the damn job of the government because it's none of anyone else's business. Because freedom and personal responsibility, remember?

*Just exactly why is it OK to prohibit women from getting a LEGAL abortion, justifying it by saying, "Abortion is murdering a fetus" but NOT OK to prohibit ANYONE from obtaining a firearm without showing proof of proficiency and then justifying the predictable bloodshed of innocent children that comes of that by saying, "Well- that's the price of freedom- personal responsibility"? Does no one else see the absolute idiocy of that? Can't kill a fetus no matter how early or how un-viable because PROTECT THE CHILDREN but just accept the accidental death of thousands of already-born children because FREEDOM? What the hell???

-that our nation needs to return to the days of 'one citizen/one vote' and that a great number of our problems have been caused by 'one dollar/one vote' and that THAT shit needs changed. Quick.

-that TAXES and UNIONS, managed in a fair and just manner by those directly involved (the taxpayers and the workers) guarantee a civil society, not everyone carrying around loaded weapons (for those lucky enough to never have heard it, the old saw goes "An armed society is a civil society". Which is bullshit). Things like schools, roads, social services, medical care, fair and safe working practices and compensation all come from the people as a whole coming together and deciding what direction they want their society to take to remain civil and safe and a Land of Opportunity for everyone.

-that the above REQUIRES compromise. Just for reference-
"com·pro·mise
noun \ˈkäm-prə-ˌmīz\
Definition of COMPROMISE
1
a : settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions
b : something intermediate between or blending qualities of two different things"

-since lately in the political arena it seems like compromise means "I get my way, screw you".

Please tell me that most folks on 'the Right' also agree with me. Because otherwise we're in for a longer slog back into the light than even this country can survive.

Oh. And PS?

Blockbuster? Seriously? Way to keep up with the times, ya'll.

Yes. I am snickering and rolling my eyeballs.

In the Meantime, Here's a Tiny Excerpt

So I'm taking a few classes at the junior college.

I need 18 college hours of business management type classes in order for me to then study and sit for a test that will put letters after my name and allow me the freedom of doing some consulting work in addition to my regular job. That means security, and a type of insurance. So I'm doing it.

Signed up for college where I've never been and have 2 classes this summer and will attempt 4 in the fall to be done and over with it. I'm 53 years old and terrified. Well, maybe not terrified; more like befuddled.

Anyway. I'll try to keep up with my blogging and my social networking for my books, but have already fallen behind in less than a week so no promises.

I'm assuming I'll also be setting aside the very new story I'm working on but I'm really going to try to keep my hand in that because I've started it and now I want to know where it's going to go.

So here's a tiny preview of it- I'm hoping if I put it here, it'll spur me to keep going even in the face of 'Principles of Management' and 'Principles of Marketing' which are apparently going to be my summer companions.

Like all my other stories, there's no military man armed to the teeth as the protagonist. Our hero this time is a 35 year old single mother with a 5 year old daughter. The working title is

"Unimpressive- the Inelegant Art of Just Getting By"

(Part of) CHAPTER TWO

The leaves rustled imperceptibly. There was no wind to speak of, and the air was heavy with heat.

Fireflies flickered on and off, on and off in a never-ending cacophony of complex communication that only looked like the worlds’ tee-tiniest fireworks.

Suddenly, as if on cue, they stopped and the night was black velvet pierced by static stars, the back drop awaiting the actors’ next scene.

For years people had said, half-jokingly, that Mother Earth would one day just shake us off like so many fleas; shake off the parasites that had pestered her and prodded her and drained her and sullied her.

For years there had been warnings- more storms, more droughts, more fires and more floods. More tornadoes in alleys that weren’t tornado alley, more hurricanes that weren’t following the usual hurricane routes. The weather was shifting and the planet couldn’t adapt quickly enough.

Thunder rumbled in the distance in menace or warning. Or both.

Shayla sat on her porch, rocking and watching the fireflies.

The house was quiet; Athalie had gone to bed and through the open window Shayla heard the air quietly entering and exiting her daughter’s lungs. She saw in her mind’s eye the rise and fall of the light summer quilt, golden brown hair streaming haphazardly across the pillow, one set of pink-painted toes peeking out from the bottom of the covers, the other foot firmly resting on Olive, who snored in rhythm with Athalie’s breathing.

Olive had been dumped by the side of the road. Athalie had been playing outside and heard the car stop up on the bridge, heard the pitiful ‘yipe’ followed by the squeal of tires as they easily outpaced the puppy running after them; so sure there had been a mistake- any minute now they’d realize it and come back.

Running to the road, visions of what would happen if another car came along or if the pup lost its footing on the bridge blocked out any punishment she’d be given for venturing outside their gate. With a radar reserved for mothers and other youngsters, Athalie picked out the tiny ball of dirt-colored fur huddled miserably in the weeds, scooped her up against her chest and high-tailed it back to the house.

Her hope was that there was some rule (like the rule about food dropped on the floor) that lightened the punishment if you were up on the road for less than five seconds. And she hoped for extra points for saving a life.

Shayla just sighed and shook her head. She didn’t have to pretend to be angry about Athalie being on the road by herself; that made her very angry and anxious, and she told Athalie so. But she understood why she did it. She would’ve done it herself today at age 35, or thirty years ago at age 5.

Olive turned out to be a dog of many heritages- part spaniel, part terrier, part hound, part retriever, all heart; and 100% of that heart belonged to Athalie.

“Olive? Why would you name a dog ‘Olive’? You don’t even like olives”.

“Why not?”

There was no arguing with this reasoning because “why not?” was the primary driver of their lives.

When Shayla had announced that she was buying up a little piece of land with no more than a deer camp lease shack on it (calling it a ‘cabin’ would’ve been a huge compliment) her friends and family were appalled.

She had a lovely apartment in town, close to work and all the comforts of a civilized life- movie theaters, grocery stores, restaurants, the mall. There was covered parking, they reminded her- reserved covered parking.

“Why would you give all that up to go live in the woods like a hillbilly?”

“Why not?”

She had tried once to explain it in more than those two words to one of her co-workers; to explain how it made her head hurt to not ever be somewhere quiet, made her eyes hurt to not ever be somewhere dark, made her heart hurt to not ever be somewhere surrounded only by nature no matter which window she looked out of.

He had looked at her like she was kidding him, the start of a smile on his face. When there was no punch line, he stammered something along the lines of, “Well, have fun with that” and beat a hasty retreat, making a mental note to check her name off the list of chicks he was planning on asking out.

Most folks didn’t even know about the cabin at the back of their place.

Their closest friends knew about it and assumed that it was a pastime, a hobby, a type of weekend getaway for them…like a treehouse.

No one would’ve dreamed that they lived there full time.

But why not?

When they’d divorced, Shayla had given up the big screen TV without so much as a raised eyebrow- she never watched it anyway.

She and Athalie made up stories and acted out plays and read books either out on the porch or sitting on the high pine needle-cushioned creek bank while dragonflies wove invisible webs in the air.

If company came out, which was a rare occurrence in the winter without the ready comfort of central heat and an absolute non-event in the summer since there wasn’t air conditioning in either structure and most people thought they would die without it, they did whatever entertaining they did from the shack on the front of the property.

The one with the electricity and flush toilet.

And the refrigerator. Shayla stood up and considered whether or not she was thirsty enough for a cold drink to traipse the few hundred feet through the deep woods in the dark for the pitcher of sweet tea that she’d left in the shack.

The thunder rumbled again, closer and more threatening.

No, she decided; perhaps a drink from the pitcher of water on the kitchen counter would be just fine.

She went into the house and the rocking chair eerily kept rocking for a few minutes, first from the momentum of her getting up, and then from the breeze catching it just right. Finally it slowed and then stopped.

Looked like a storm brewing.

Shayla latched the door even though she knew no one was out there.



Remember- two other stories with nontraditional but believable heroes are "Almost Invisible- a Different Kind of Survival Story" and "American Evolution- Adolescence of a Nation". Also "CancerDance- a love story" which stars my own real hero as the main character.

All available from various sources and in various formats
as seen here ---> www.sheri-dixon.com

Just a Matter of Time

The very last baby I'll ever have is taller than I am by almost a head.

I've trained myself to startle only on the inside when he walks tall into a room, when his voice carries deeply through the house, when I'm hanging blue jeans on the line that are longer than mine and every inch as long as his over six foot tall dad's.

And I know it's just a matter of time.

Everything changes. Everyone leaves.

That's neither good nor bad; it's the way of life. And growth. And death. And birth.

I have the luxury of being able to spend time alone every week with those I love, those I consider Family.

The days with my son start with lunch out where the Boy who's less than 6 months beyond "Kid's Menu" age devours enough for a family of four...plus dessert. And there's not a spare ounce of flesh on him. We had a helluva time finding blue jeans that were long enough and slim-waisted enough.

Then we go to his guitar lesson followed by his swim lesson- one 20 miles east of our house and one 20 miles west of our house which makes for a pretty hefty commute.

I love the commute.

The Boy talks constantly about politics, philosophy, science, science and more science. If a football were to come crashing through our windshield, he'd be able to tell how fast it had been going according to the hole and shatter pattern and possibly the height and weight of the person who had thrown it from the angle it hit, but he'd be hard pressed to figure out what the projectile itself was.

He's always been that way. Not a book worm or a nerd- he attained 2nd degree 4th level black belt in Tae Kwon Do before switching to swimming like a dolphin at the community pool, and you can find him outside on his bike, barefooted, shirtless and looking to blow shit up at any given hour of the day or night but spectator sports are not his thing.

He took the TV out of his room in order to have more room on his desk for his computer. He's not a game player- he's an information junkie.

We recently got him his own cell phone since he's now 'running with his herd' a fair amount of the time instead of always being with one of us and that's as it should be.

He's growing up.

And growing away.

Not (yet) a wrenching, gut-lacerating generational severing, this is subtle and silent and gentle but firmly permanent.

On Tuesday the car was filled with silence.

I glanced over at the Boy.

He was staring down at his phone in consternation.

He'd been stuck that way through much of lunch and on the way to guitar.

I know he emails and texts his herd members, and I knew one of the apps on the phone was giving him fits, so I just let it go.

For about the 30 seconds I'm capable of.

"Son? What's wrong?"

*Silence*

"Hey- you OK?"

*More Silence*

"Are you pissed off, depressed about something or distracted?"

"Distracted".

(Interesting immediate answer from someone who's ... distracted).

And distracted he remained (with a few outbursts of pretty impressive profanity which I figured were preferable to him hurling the phone out the window even if he could tell me the velocity of the device as it hit the pavement) all the way to swimming.

Which left me time to think.

My family knows the dangers of that, and yet they continue to allow it. They obviously have very poor survival instincts.

So I thought about the Boy as an infant, like mothers are wont to do. And I thought of him as a toddler, and a little boy and a pre-teen and now as a teenager- how he is so funny and smart and kind just like his dad, how you know you'll have to make an effort to keep a straight face when he starts an explanation of something he did or didn't do with a serious nod of his head and an even more serious, "Look..." and it won't matter how outlandish the words are that follow, there's no being angry at this kid because he almost never does or avoids something out of spite, or anger, or sloth and he's never considered lying to save his face or his ass or any other body part.

As we drove under an overpass on the way home the car was still quiet, except for me when I said, "Hey! Did you see that?"

His gaze came up from his phone imperceptibly. "What?"

"The birds! those barn swallows or cliff swifts or whatever they are! Hundreds of 'em!" His mom gets pretty excited about stuff like that.

No. He hadn't seen 'em.

So I turned the car around and we circled back. His eyes rolled just a wee bit- the boys are used to unscheduled stops to look at weird shit.

I pulled to a stop almost right under the overpass and there they were. Hundreds of 'em.

We watched the birds launch out of their mud nests that were glued impossibly onto the vertical surfaces of the bridge. As soon as they were clear of the nests they were gone and as soon as they returned to the nest they disappeared inside. That fast. That often. Feeding babies is serious work.

"How are the nests staying up there?" asked Mr. Science.

"Bird spit" answered Mom the All-knowing.

After a few more moments of bird-watching, I put the car into gear, figuring the Boy would be wanting to get back to his own thing- his phone and his apps and his thoughts that do not include being a boy anymore since he's not. He's a young man.

"Wait!"

*Sound of car being shifted back into park*

"Lets watch them for a little while longer, OK Mom?"

"Of course. I just figured you had better things to do than watch a bunch of birds flying in and out of bird spit and mud nests under the overpass".

"Look..."

And my mother's heart sang.

And the Sermon Today Is...

I spent an hour in church today.

Oh, don't worry; not THAT kind of church.

My church.

The Church of Eternal Change.

It's down a path that's hidden so well even I can't find it on the first pass. The boys have offered to trim it up some, but I told 'em, "Don't you dare!"

To get to the church proper takes navigating a steep leaf-covered slope, but there's a tree covered in poison ivy on one side and a holly tree covered in spiny leaves on the other side to hang on to, and if you still slip on the leaves, the needle-sharp nuts of the sweet gum tree overhead will slow you down some. Texas. Gotta love it.

And I do.

I love the soft even clearing betwixt the slope and the creek. Most of the creek lines are stark and abrupt; steep slope and then creek with no gentleness in between, the creeks cut directly down about 20 feet from the rest of the property and weave a path seemingly mapped out by drunken lightning.

But this one spot is different.

It's different from the rest of the creek lines and it's different from any other place I've ever been.

It's mine.

Let me rephrase that. I'm its. I belong to the place- the place belongs to no one.

I felt it the first time I set eyes on this place- from the road and peering beyond the locked gate. I knew it was back here.

My church.

The clearing is grasses and leaves and poison ivy but also ferns and mosses and stands of inland sea oats. The clearing is never mowed but never tall and overgrown.

There are pines and sweet gums and dogwoods and hollies. Oaks and cedars and elms. Mimosas and honeysuckles and Virginia creepers. Prickly pear cactus peer over the top of the bank, shy of the water.

The creek itself is shallow and narrow, but spring fed and ice cold all year round, no matter how tiny drought may render it. During violent storms it rises to about 2 ft deep and widens to about 6 ft across, whirling and twirling whitecaps and detritus in a brief episode of channeling the Mighty Colorado that lasts all of about 24 hours before it magically returns to normal.

It's not really a creek at all. It's a 'branch'.

When we bought the place, I was telling the man at the feed store about it and he knew right where our new place was. Said that there used to be a natural swimming hole (where my clearing is now?) back years ago that all the area kids knew about since it stayed freezing cold even in a Texas August when everything including giant Lake Palestine is peed-in bathwater warm.

I asked what the name of the creek was.

He told me it was Deadman's Branch.

I thought 6 year old Alec was going to faint straight away.

All the way home, he wanted to know why. "Why is it named 'DEADman's Branch??? Is there a hanging tree there? Who died there? Will there be ghosts? I don't want to move there. Give it back. I'm not moving there!"

I called Billy at the feed store and thanked him for scaring the bejeebus out of my son.

I asked him why the creek is called Deadman's Branch.

Billy laughed solid for seemingly an hour before he could catch his breath enough to explain, "It's not DEADman's Branch, it's Dedmon's Branch- it starts one road over in a spring on old Mr. Dedmon's place".

And there's a tree. It's a pine like hundreds of other pines on our place and millions of other pines in East Texas. Not the biggest pine or in any way distinctive. But it's where I sit. I sit on the ground with my bare toes rooted in the pine needles and leaves on the soil and my back straight up against my tree. When the wind blows I can feel her creaking and swaying behind me.

The church is ever changing. Depending on the season, the weather, the time of day, the recent rainfall, whatever life is ebbing or flowing, winging, hopping, climbing or swimming at that particular moment I'm never alone. The congregation is ever-present and ever-celebrating.

Always I can pull energy out of the air, up from the earth, through my ears and eyes and nose and always I can release all the pent-up shit that accumulates in an artificial society beating to a mechanical clock and I can see it waft into the air, float on down the creek, terminate in the ground like electricity.

I ask and I promise.

I ask for patience and strength and I promise to care for this planet and those people who cross my path.

It's a prayer but not a prayer.

I'm not visualizing 'anyone' to pray to because I don't have to.

I'm part of the cycle; the everlasting change. I'm here for but a moment and I'm no better than any other tiny speck on this earth.

Mother Nature is benevolently cruel, filled with disinterested drama and indifferent passion. All of us are born, live, die and are recycled over and over and over again (whether or not you believe in souls, our physical beings are only organic matter after all) and that's not depressing to me, it's a comfort.

There's nothing evil about it and nothing dismal. We may be insignificant but we're none of us pointless.

I can access the energy around me because we ARE energy- everything we do, every person we meet, every word we say has meaning and makes a difference.

I will make a difference because we all make a difference and the only question is will my tiny spark help others or hold them back?

The congregation today consisted of about half a dozen dragonflies darting over the water, dancing and landing and messaging each other with their wings. We were serenaded by frogs and birds and thunder in the distance.

I spend a fair amount of time in church letting go of worry, of fear. All the 'what ifs' normal American adults have plus our own family's personalized list that includes cancer and the many losses that come with that large and small, life-changing and trivial.

I hadn't been to church in a few weeks- we've been too often to Houston and the rest of the time I spent trying to catch up at home and at work and I had a huge shoulder-load of left-over fear and worry that I couldn't completely shake off even after breathing deeply and watching the dragonflies and listening to the water splashing over the rocks, the birds and frogs calling from the trees, feeling the soil under my feet and my tree strong and warm against my back.

Today's sermon was brought to me by a jumping spider who insisted on crawling on me. I'd shoo him off my left leg and he'd appear on my right leg. I gently knocked him off my right leg and he was there on my left arm. I set my right hand down on the rock next to my tree and he had beaten me to it, glaring at me with multiple eyes through bushy multiple eyebrows.

"Sure, you're huge next to me but I'm not afraid of you. The worst you can do is squish me. You'll have to do better than THAT to scare me".

Amen.

(Welcome to church- press "HD" and "full screen" for the best view of the dragonflies...)