Basis for Comparison

One Week:  

Given some trepidation that I've highlighted before, I am somewhat worried that this is a post that I should keep to myself.

I was shocked the other day to notice that I was feeling pretty good.  Shocked, I say, as in stopping mid-step and casting an odd look at the floor as I ran a systems check to be sure.  I could not identify a lingering pain or any symptoms of outstanding side-issues.  I felt good, as in good being the absence of bad.  

And it was weird.

I don't ever get to stop thinking about my body, measuring out my energy and preparing for another eventual meltdown.  But I had for a couple hours that morning gone about my life less inhibited than I've gotten used to.  And perhaps inhibited isn't the right word--maybe I mean guarded.  

Weird how the body fades away when it doesn't make itself known, that I'm a vessel for my thoughts instead of a manikin to command, occupying those thoughts with the mechanics.  I find myself moving with more confidence, more energy, and a broader smile all around.

Another Week:

I hate everything again.  In a two day span, I've felt the beginnings of an abscess crop back up.  After I contacted my doctor hoping to preempt the problem before it got worse, I received a request for bloodwork and then radio silence for the next day and a half while everything was getting worse and worse.  And when it gets to the point that I cannot sleep because it hurts that badly, it's too much.  We're to a week now of continued blah.

Slowly, things are starting to turn around again.  My energy levels are starting to return again, but in the meanwhile, I'm still frustrated and pissed off.

Where that Leaves Me:

I'm so confused.  When things turn bad, I don't understand how I got back to this point.  When things are going well, I've hit this phenomena where I keep surpassing what I thought was the best mark--yes, a good problem, but still something I'm having a terrible time wrapping my head around.  It has been years since I've felt consistently good that I really cannot remember what it's like.  

At least I'm bouncing back more quickly than I used to.  I've seen progress between my meds, diet, and increased exercise in that.  I've been in a similar pattern before when I'm not sure how much I can push toward getting better and how much I should mentally prepare for this being the best it can be.  My basis for comparison has been so skewed that I don't even know how to measure anymore.

Yes, we DO want to Build a Snowman

So, Andy and I were part of the probably small population in town that was excited about the snowstorm a couple weeks or so ago.  Big, fat flakes that you could hear falling, if the wind wasn't too much anyway.  And it was beautiful packing snow!  Naturally, Andy started throwing snowballs as we were leaving work...until the second one I threw hit him square in the face.  

Still, when we got home, we texted a couple of friends and put on our boots and cuddleduds--it was time to build a snowman.  I'm not sure what it is we made, but it was made out of snow.  

HAAAAAAAAI.

In the end, we figured he looked more like a muppet than anything else.  A sad, drunken, mangled muppet.  The red dye from Krystal's gloves really made the eyes, with the cherry tomato pupils, properly terrifying.  And we made him tall.  Here's another shot for size comparison.  

With a demon little brother next to him.

Because why not?  Andy and I are the kind of people to still build a blanket fort in the living room.  We'll flip back and forth from a reasonable discussion to songs that are narrating our current actions, filling in the word "waffle" or its variant "wafflecone" when we need more syllables.  Who says we have to grow out of playing?  Whenever I made my imaginary list of things desired in a future partner, "someone I can play with" was definitely up there.  It's a trait I look for in my friends, too.  The type of play can vary--board games vs verbal jousts vs frisbee--but my friends tend to know how to play.  Different kinds of play are met with different social opinions:  people can look down on D&D for being "weird" or building a snowman as "childish."  On top of that, everyone has different scales for "childish" just as everyone has different opinions on what is funny.  There will be elements that we can all agree on, but personal preferences are going to vary along the way. Laughter and play tend to go hand in hand, that laughter seems to be a side effect of play.  I'm not sure I would go as far to say that laughter cannot happen without play (in that maybe play can happen in an instant, if given a broader definition) but there is decidedly a connection.

So bearing that in mind, some kind of play is important (vital!) to our household, but it is also healthy in our relationship with each other and in our relationships with other people.  I do not understand how someone can keep up with the pressure of taking themselves seriously all the time.  We're ridiculous creatures.  So many times in my life I have been at that precipice where I was either going to laugh or cry--I tend to choose laughter.  Both have a kind of catharsis to them.  

As a result, Andy and I don't take ourselves seriously, but we definitely take our play seriously.  I won't even make the claim that this is the secret to life or true happiness, but it certainly seems to make the rest easier to swallow.  

Conversations with Strangers

So if you have missed all of the different posts from myself and especially Andy, we're pro-Bernie Sanders, enough so that we have been involved in making phone calls and canvasing and whatever other volunteer work we could do for his campaign.  

Now, I'm perfectly fine with striking up a conversation with a complete stranger--I get that from my dad and I've had plenty of practice in retail.  What makes this situation different is the subject matter.  Weather is always a safe topic, I could always talk about lotion and candles when I worked at Bath & Body Works, but it's a social rule that when you're meeting someone you do not discuss politics.  And here we were going door to door specifically to talk politics.  

Even given that confidence, it was a bit nerve-wracking.  I had resigned myself to messing up the first two interactions before I found a groove, which seemed to help.  Once I had settled into my own script, it started being fun.

Andy and I talked to quite a few people that day and a handful of people on another day.  We had productive conversations, whether or not we agreed with each other or were backing the same candidate.  We respected each other and talked about the state of things--everyone could agree that our political climate is a bit of a circus at the moment.  For a few hours, we could remember that people with differing opinions aren't necessarily represented by YouTube/Facebook comments.  

When someone does not have to face the person that they are bad-mouthing, they're much more free to be nasty about it.  There is freedom in that distance and especially in anonymity.  I've seen people post some ridiculous things on Facebook because they seem to have forgotten that everyone they know can see it--there's been more than one story of cheaters getting caught or other people charged with crimes because of evidence they put on Facebook.  I've also seen people post very hurtful things, inconsiderate of a person's feelings because they seem to have forgotten there is a person on the other side.  Arguments stop attacking ideas and start attacking people when they have run out of intelligent things to add, dissolving into worthless name-calling.  I haven't been blocking many people, but I have started avoiding Facebook.  

However, Trump is a YouTube comment come to life.  Yes, he says anything he wants to, but that doesn't mean it's an opinion worth hearing or worth repeating.  People blame him for inciting violence and racism--I would argue that he's released something that was already there.  

Ever been in a group and people are talking against something?  A movie or a show or something innocuous, maybe.  Inside, you might be thinking that you actually quite enjoyed the subject in question, but many people will not voice that opinion until someone else speaks up.  Once someone else has spoken your opinion aloud, it's easy and relieving to have someone that agrees with you, then the two of you might carry the conversation forward.  I think that racism and other prejudices have functioned in a similar way.  People have harbored these opinions, but now there's a loud voice out there that has started saying what they have been thinking all along--now it's okay to say it, too.  If someone else agrees with that opinion, then perhaps there is some validity to it and it can be said more confidently.  This has exploded into a sickening showing of racism, Islamophobia, sexism, and other displays of hatred and intolerance.

All in all, I want to think that people are shocked at how much bigotry their neighbors have been harboring.  


So two thoughts on that.  
1.  In order for a society to get along, we have to be able to put aside differences to work together.  The idea that the United States is going to strong-arm everyone into doing what we want is not a solid social policy, just like demanding that your group of friends always do what you want to do is not going to keep many of those friends.  There is give and take.  There needs to be compromise.  There needs to be respect.  At the end of the day, you can disagree with me or someone else all you want, but that does not give you the right to threaten, injure, harass, etc.  Freedom of speech goes both ways.  Freedom of speech does not protect you from hearing opinions you don't like; freedom of speech protects you from the government or other forces choosing what you can say.  Even if I cannot convince you that prejudices against a certain group are wrong, you still will probably have to coexist with fellow citizens that are part of that group and they are entitled to the same set of rights that you are.

2.  What has further manifested these prejudices and grown them over time is that we can't seem to actually talk about them.  No, I mean really talk about them.  Not a shouting match on the news, not a series of memes with Facebook comments, I mean an actual discussion, where diverse opinions and backgrounds are part of the group, instead of re-hashing the same in a homogeneous echo chamber.  

When I was working in retail, I remember telling Andy a story from work where myself and the other ladies working felt threatened by a man's actions.  Andy didn't understand why we felt threatened and was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.  My husband is wonderfully empathetic, but he does not fully understand what it is to be a woman.  I know that I don't understand what it's like to be a man just like I know I don't understand what it's like being black.  And so we had a discussion.  Andy did not know what my perspective of the event was until I told him.  I don't think that Andy now understands what it's like to be a woman, but I know that he trusts me well enough to believe me when I say I felt threatened and that whether this was the intent or not from the man in question it was still the result.  One person does not get to dictate the correct way for someone else to respond--if someone says that you hurt their feelings, you say "sorry" not "no, I didn't."  


So what I'm getting to, then, is this:  we need more conversations with strangers.  And I mean actual conversations.  Going in with an open mind and not just the intent on brow-beating someone over to your opinion.  Considering that people are coming in with a perspective and history that you may know nothing about.  Having actual face-to-face conversations to remove the anonymity of the internet.  And talking about the big things, things really needing discussion instead of shying away from uncomfortable topics.  And once we've figured out how to talk about the hard things with people we don't know, then we can start talking about them with the people that we do, which might be harder still.  

A Short Piece on Hospitality

When we went to pick up Andy's accordion last Saturday, we were invited into the home of a man named Amir and his family.  

We were welcomed inside and beckoned up the stairs.  There were at least six accordions in immediate view and another twenty or so in the adjoining room.  And yet, he still managed to pull Andy's new one out from another part of the building, implying to me that there was another small warehouse of them elsewhere.  

Amir has a day job, but this is his passion.  Accordion music is a slice of home to him* and something he has played for 30+ years.  And he is so eager to share it with you.  In fact, he not only repairs accordions, but he intends to set up a museum one day.  Some of these instruments are absolutely beautiful in their design, others have long stories, some have been neglected, and others have been played to pieces.  

That passion eked off of him, but so, too, did the warmth of his smile.  Not only was he giving Andy plenty of time to play the instrument beforehand and get a feel for it, but he also indulged me many questions on how these instruments actually worked--I understand it well enough to give a reasonable explanation.  And he insisted on feeding us, a dish from Croatia where his family came from.  

His wife and daughter joined us after a while, his wife being equally friendly and welcoming.  Little Norah, though, she was a shy five-year-old.  Her parents apologized more than once for her shyness, but we assured back that we were not at all upset and that she could interact with us as much as she was comfortable.  Shy as Norah was, she really wanted us to take some of her favorite candy with us before we left, never reaching far from her parents.  

Being truly hospitable is a gift, and this family had it.  It's something that Andy and I really value and certain want people to feel when they come into our home.  There are degrees of hospitality, sure, but this home was overflowing.  And not in that uncomfortable kind of way, where instead the welcoming becomes smothering.  

That's all I really wanted to share with you, passing on that small piece of warmth to you.

*Truly, accordion music is like soccer in that it is popular everywhere else in the world except the US.