Mid-winter gallop

OK, everyone off the couch. Catch that virtual winter hoss & find a bridle. I don't care if that pony's face is buried in the hay pile. Buckle your helmet & hop on. Yes, you can mount from the fence if you have to. Even if you have two legs.

In honor of our surviving the damn Polar Vortex this week, we're going for a ride on  the horses of our individual imaginations. Bareback, of course. Climb aboard & fire up the music link below.

This comes to you courtesy of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, my best find of 2013 just under the wire a few weeks ago. 

To me this is a piano narrative of a January thaw excursion on a shaggy, barefoot critter with lots of mane to hang on to. You intend to just take a little sane cruise around the field, but the horse wants to trot, and then run, and what the heck. The snow is soft if any sudden gusts of gravity kick up. 

And it feels great to gallop.

Have at it.

"Harry Piers" Penguin Cafe Orchestra
T

Frightening the faithful

I follow various amputee groups on facebook. Sometimes the posts drift into territory that can be taken religiously, or that causes people to proclaim their faith. The other day  I saw this: 

Well, I've found my brain functions better since I stopped believing the more bizarre out-of-control events of my life (or ALL the events of my life) are Meant to Be and more Wtf-Random, like the bone infection I got at age thirteen which was treated with only prayer and led eventually to my becoming an amputee. 

And while people on the amputee facebook page commented things like "God leads those who love Him and do His will," I thought I'd stick up for the secular folks and mention that His business of being unwilling to heal amputees (or even take care of kids forced to pray for their lives) really sucks. No, not even that strong.

I said this:

"Since religious "treatment" in childhood led to my amputation, I'm happier with Chance instead of fate. The odds are actually in our favor." (Smiley face.)

A friend made a supportive comment.

Other than that, the conversation stepped over my smiley-faced, wrecked-by-religion body and walked on. Amen!

Well, speaking for myself, my sanity started to return twenty years ago when I grasped the idea that my family's blind faith put my brain and body in this predicament, and that Nature/Chance/human grit and will were what got me through. Yes, it's true: I started thumbing my nose at the idea of "God." And guess what? I haven't been struck by lightning. 

But I thought about this. I realized the effect I have on people sometimes. I understand that I am scary.

I don't mean this in my usual fear-inducing way. Yes, I made "happy" faces at a baby in a diner a few years ago and frightened her into a screaming, crying lather which brought my daughters to tears as well. That was probably my 'do-rag, the thousand-yard stare I come by honestly, and all the wear & tear on my face from too many years of clean living when I drove tractors in the sun. I have to watch it when I try to charm babies now. My charisma is often mistaken for fiendish, diabolical plans. (Sad face.)

I scare faithful people in a different way. Here I am, an amputee: Someone MISSING A LIMB FOR GOD'S SAKE!!! What can POSSIBLY BE WORSE in this life??? NOTHING!!!

Right? An amputee...and I don't believe in god. Don't believe there is a Plan. Don't believe in an afterlife when I could get my leg back and frolic with the other faithful...

It makes me like a horse with no fear of the whip. (I don't subscribe to training horses based on that standard anymore, but it's a good analogy.) I've seen everything religion has to offer. I staked my life on it as a young teenager. I survived because humans are tough. So there.

Now I strip my emotional life naked in my talks. I walk audiences with me through that pain, despair and excruciating growth to this place of fearlessness. I claim it. What have you got, religion? God? Hell? Damnation?

I understand why they step over me in those conversations, talk to each other, don't break eye contact. I would too if I were still religious. If I lived by the Rules.

Alas. Screw that. I'm not afraid anymore. 

What else you got?  (Smiley face.)

Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, Joyous Festivus. Thank Zeus the days are getting longer, my YA novel is almost done, and I've discovered the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. If you're curious, try the sample below. Tell them Liz sent you. (Winky face.)

Penguin Cafe Orchestra: Organum 

Revisiting rebellion

The more I change, the more I stay the same. I still have dreams some nights that I'm back in high school (sometimes a teenager, sometimes an adult) arguing that I cannot jump through the hoops necessary to graduate. Back then, the hoops were represented by gym credits. (I didn't even take gym at the time because of my fused knee.)

Beware. Life is full of hidden gym credits.

I was laid off my part-time office job at a local small business a couple months ago. This was no surprise, as the friends I worked for had told me about upcoming changes. They knew I was doing more traveling & writing, a time-investment in future paid work. Plus I'd be eligible for unemployment benefits.

However.

I drove to Workforce first thing Ithaca Friday morning as part of The Deal to keep receiving my $91/week.  The similarities to certain trips to guidance counselors when the ship of my high school education was sinking were not lost on me. But I felt much more able to handle it. 

I was supposed to bring a resume. Ahem. I've never had a resume. I almost made one for the sheer entertainment value of listing my jobs: movie theatre ticket & candy sales, McDonalds fryer, boarding stable manager, riding camp counselor, cleaner-of-barns-full of cows, horses, goats, sheep, & all types of poultry. Exercise rider at a small time track. Standardbred groom at ditto. Barista, nursery worker (potting plants), bookkeeper at a feed mill. Owner-operator of a riding lesson/horse training stable. 

There's more, but enough time wasted. Which was my point: I've wanted to be a published writer since I was approximately six years old, and thanks to life's little curiosities, a mere forty-something years later I'm closer than I've ever been--as well as closing in on a career as a speaker. I have something of a "platform" online, which is critical as well as being the equivalent of a writer's & speaker's resume. All I was hoping for was a few months of my ninety-one dollars a week benefits to go with the rest of my scrimping & saving & child support.

Alas. The hoops are still with me. And I jump through them no better than back in Lexington High in 1979. These took the form of faithfully-kept job search records and applications for full-time minimum wage ($7.25/hr) jobs I  1) didn't want  2) couldn't keep due to my brain's resistance & claustrophobia  3) probably couldn't do physically for an 8-hr shift without falling down a time or two (I did clean a dozen stalls this weekend, but in a couple hours, and not without falling, though softly)  and 4) couldn't make a real living at.

And in the case of the aspiring entrepreneur hoping to soon be self-employed, who declines to job- and/or tail-chase in favor of full-time self-investment?

Forget it. Working on a career of self-employment that doesn't include a certain list of programs, education, courses and boxes-checked is a no-no. Rack up those hours looking for work, or forget unemployment.

Hello attitude, my old friend. You've come to save me once again.

I was polite. I expressed civil dismay (and my counselor privately agreed with me, which was more support than I ever found back in school) and took my leave.

Lately, I've felt that my inner teenager is disgusted with who I've become in middle age:  hesitant to ride, slower, weaker, OLDER...  But driving home on Friday, she was fist-bumping me and cheering me on. It's good to know I'm still living up to her expectations. 

Onwards. And may the hoops be ever in your favor, which is to say, bypassed altogether.

Have voice, will travel

I am tempted to always wear my SANE name tag

in case there is doubt regarding my sanity.

I'm not a seasoned traveler yet. But I'm not bland anymore.

In the last four weeks I've been to Connecticut, Texas and Massachusetts to share my story and speak out against religious medical neglect of children. It's been a trip not only in terms of flying & driving, but in the amazing variety of wonderful people I've met every single place I've been.

October 19 was the Secular Assembly for the North East's first annual conference (SANE) at the University of New Haven, CT.  Speakers included Jessica Alquist, David Silverman, Sikivu Hutchinson, Dennis Himes, Barry Kosmin, David Niose...and (ahem) me. It was the first time I've launched into a solo speaking gig, printing out directions (yes I got lost, but it wasn't Map quest's fault) & heading out in my Nissan pickup fondly known as the Final Frontier.

I was excited and optimistic even before the bald eagle flew across the highway in front of me. I love coincidences that look like Signs. 


November 8 was the Child-Friendly Faith Project's first annual conference CFF in Austin, Texas. I was part of a  survivors panel discussion which included Bethany Brittain, Jaime Romo  and Joel Engelman, moderated by Steve Hassan.

With Sam Brower

Other speakers included Sam Brower (who sat next to me at supper & described his investigative work that led to Warren Jeffs' capture and conviction) and Rita Swan: my hero, mentor and friend who has led me into this world where my voice is increasingly heard as one of the ones who got away. 


With Rita Swan of CHILD Inc. My hero!




I also met Linda Martin the night her story broke on surviving the horrors of the Followers of Christ church.   KATU  This woman's strength and determination are amazing. Keep an eye on this reporter & KATU's coverage. This will be as big as the Warren Jeffs case.


With Steve Hassan, survivor of the
Moonies. (At the start of our
survivor panel discussion, I think
 he should have raised his hand
and said, "For immunity! Survivors
ready? GO!" ...like the TV show...)



I love my Sean Faircloth Fist of Emphasis


I admit I was a little...braced...about the Child-Friendly Faith conference: this is a mix of religious and secular activists seeking to protect children above all religious traditions. The conference's title was "Can Faith Be Made Child-friendly?"  (Before-hand, I honestly had my doubts as to whether we could even find common ground at the conference, let alone elsewhere.) I was wrong. This was another dynamic mix of the last group I'd have bet would inspire me, including a rabbi and a Baptist minister among others.

I did my part



With Austin Dacey in Austin Texas

Yes, there's a joke there somewhere. I think it was on me. Having been raised in an impractical and passively religious family, it was powerful to hear women and--especially--men form a verbal front line to protect kids. I was honored and humbled to be surprised.


Thirty-odd hours after I drove home from the airport (in the middle of the night) I was off to Massachusetts and the Greater Worcester Humanists. (It's pronounced Wuss-ta.) Worcester Another terrific group, a lot of great questions, and dinner with a childhood friend I hadn't seen since eighth grade when I stopped going to school because my leg was so painful. 

With a new friend in Worcester...and a childhood friend

I hadn't seen since before my bone disease. Love ya,

Laurie! 

It's been a bungee-jump of faith in myself and human beings, something like those South Pacific islanders who tie vines to their ankles & throw themselves off towers.  Telling my story is like stripping down to raw emotion and showing scars more graphic than the one from 31 staples where my left leg was. But my story isn't any more important than anyone's. And when I tell it, we can recognize this common history aand connect with each other.  


And this week? I'm speaking Thursday night, November 21, 2013 to the New York City Atheists. It happens to be the eve of the day that I call the last (possibly best) day of my childhood.  NYC Atheists I can't wait.

So remember: The lint roller is your friend. The grande margarita you order in Austin will be the size of a goldfish bowl. And only agree to let a flight attendant check your carry-on when they pry it from your cold dead fingers.


Greater Worcester Humanists, Massachusetts. (They are greater!)



Abby Normal

OK, kids. A Halloween story of sorts. I'm a skeptic of the atheist variety, right? Well, listen up. (Yeah, I know I've missed Halloween by x minutes. Just shut up & listen.)

When I was a kid, I loved ghost stories even though they were verboten.  Hey, I was a Christian Scientist. We believed real spiritual Life was eternal. But it was fun for me to believe in ghosts. I read stories, screamed at slumber-party tales, and imagined the "haunted" house down the road had sent a soul between-the-worlds to my own attic.

Flash-forward forty-odd years. (Believe me, those years were odd.) I became a skeptic of the atheist persuasion. I had (have) two daughters, the elder of whom was sixteen or seventeen when this series of incidents happened. We (my two daughters & I) lived in a new (= non-spooky) log cabin.

My elder daughter had always had a somewhat tumultuous relationship with her father. One afternoon when I was home alone, I heard a huge, deafening crash from my daughter's (empty) room. I thought Shit! her shelves collapsed!... because that was what it sounded like. I assumed her glass dolls & all were gone. I sighed & went to look.

Nothing. Her room was empty. Shelves intact.

Some time later (again when I was home alone) I heard another deafening crash--this time from the stairs that led to the basement.  Instinct said The shelves with all the canners & canned jars collapsed! Again I groaned & went to look.

...& again: nothing.

There were more incidents. My daughter had a party, and a bunch of her high school friends spent the night in our semi-finished basement. In the middle of the night there was a crash that shook the house and woke everyone. My daughter & her friends discussed it, then recreated the noise by lifting and dropping a heavy futon on which several kids had been sleeping. Yup: that was the sound.

Keep in mind that my daughter's relationship (and mine) with her dad was...uneasy...throughout this time.

Fast-forward to that summer. My daughter went to live with her dad for several months. There were upsetting developments.  Very upsetting. She moved home under less than happy circumstances. And then the noises started in earnest.

For several nights in a row, there was a terrific crashing and banging from the (empty) basement. I heard this. It stopped after I turned on all the lights on the first floor & prepared to go downstairs. Except no one was there. (I was not asleep or sleep-walking at the time. This happened.)

As a skeptic (which I've become very consciously in the half-dozen years since this took place) I would doubt someone heard those noises, had I not been the one (among others)who heard them. I have no explanation. I am not claiming a paranormal defense. But I heard them. So did my daughter. And so did close to a dozen of her friends.

Everything I've recounted here is true. I am willing to believe there is a logical explanation. But I have yet to hear one.

Sleep well, campers. Dammit! I don't care if it isn't Halloween anymore. Close enough.

The Garden-variety Survivor

Before you get your knickers in a twist, let me be clear: I mean myself. And anyone. Or everyone. I've written about this before, but here I go again.

I'm a little too fond of sweeping generalizations. A recent conversation made that plain and made me think hard. I referred to a stereotype this way and got a well-deserved earful, or eyeful, online.

Afterward, my daughter was appalled: "Mom! No one wants to be called garden-variety!"

Good point. I turned it around onto myself to see where it took me. Along the way, I accidentally found a piece I'd been looking for to describe the universal nature of trauma, yours, mine & ours.

Mine is glaringly visible in the form of the prosthetic leg I cinch onto the stump of my left thigh every morning. It's a shocking enough sight to stop traffic (and catch a cab in New York City!). Before my amputation, I limped on a bent leg that fused itself when I was a teen. These are my souvenirs of having been treated with prayer and faith-healing instead of medicine when I was a child. 

Emotional damage is a-whole-nother dimension. I was going to say it's always worse, or usually worse, since psychological pain doesn't hinge on bodily harm. But trauma is its own separate layer even when it's connected to a physical event. I define the event as being the realization of our human vulnerability, i.e. No one gets out of this life alive.

Being told at thirteen I could pray my way out of pain and disease through Christian Science prayer amounted to torture: You have the power to end this condition if you say/do/understand these words. I was wracked with shame that I was incapable or undeserving of healing. My limp was the proof of my failure. I staggered on that weird limb without physical pain for years--but when anyone asked about it, I mumbled about infections and stiffness. Sometimes I literally wanted to die. My gait shrieked SOMETHING HAPPENED TO ME! But emotionally I hurt too much to talk about it.

There is no official standard of emotional pain. Trauma can't be quantified. Any situation that bends consciousness beyond the breaking point leaves scars. They can't be dissected like bone fractures. Trauma morphs humans from predators to prey animals, turns us into terrified rabbits left to react in panicked zigzags rather than reasoned discussions. It can be a different number on a personal Richter scale from time to time, a faint tremor instead of a chasm opening underfoot, but even that comparison bothers me. I hate those pain charts on hospital walls with smiley faces frowning into weeping and agony. It's near impossible for me to choose a number.

I've worn my Trauma/Leg Outfit (or Silly Walk, if you don't mind) most of my life. Now I'm finally able to explain about it. And yet because I can speak about it--because I had a leg severed above the knee--because my body, my stride, my mechanical limb and my voice all agree that SOMETHING HAPPENED TO ME, people feel the need to begin their own stories of survival with, It's not as bad as what happened to you, but---

And I say STOP!  It can't be compared that way. Too much is when your trust in normal life is breached.This leg-story of mine is only my piece in our narrative as humans.

Feeling someone has suffered more or less and is therefore more or less deserving of  compassion only divides us.

I suffered agonies of shame believing I was pitied and pathetic. I believed I deserved my anguish. I thought I was incapable, incompetent and at fault. I felt judged for both not being healed AND not seeking medical attention on my own. Get this: I was furiously jealous of the war vets who were hailed in their hospital beds as champions. I watched them overcoming injuries cheered on by medical teams and family members. And I felt small. What was my story compared to theirs??

No. Any unbearable pain is exactly that. Human trauma is too common an experience for us to allow it to wrench us apart. Emotional damage comes from endless scenarios and it is not for us to judge which is highest on the horror-scale. We're an intelligent and sensitive species. I don't think we're wussier than we were hundreds or thousands of years ago. New dangers appear along with every advance we make.

I'm not going to stop saying this: we're all in this together. No one gets out of this garden unscathed. Compassion, empathy and connection are all we've got.

On "pep"

Up & down summer. Struggling at times. I'll be brief. And offer the pep-talk I found.

My life involves a lot of initials. Acronyms. (Which would be a great name for a racehorse.) Closest to home: PTSD. I haven't heard any pep talks for fifty-year old single-parent amputees with PTSD who struggle with mobility, money, and the Oxford comma. Especially one with a G.E.D.

See, I quit high school twice. (I like to be thorough.) Hey, if it's worth doing, it might be worth doing twice, especially if you don't get it right the first time. I quit in December of my senior year. My high school career was dying a slow, painful death, smothered in depression, frustrated creativity, and despair. (Yes, I debate about those commas. Another difficult decision in the life.) The nail in the coffin was the reaction of my guidance counselor (who knew me only as a name bouncing from course to course trailing incompletes) when I asked whether I could graduate a semester early. This is actually a long story I will abbreviate by just noting that those pesky gym credits are what graduation REALLY depends on--even if you've been excused from gym for years.

The counselor didn't realize I was twirling a combination-lock of courses trying to set myself free in the easiest way possible. I quit that December. Then another guidance counselor who prided himself on Connecting With Teens rode his motorcycle to my house  to Save Me, apparently from myself. (Another long story I will expand on later. Suffice to say I still don't have a clue what the HELL he meant when he said he'd encourage me, push me, and spank me if I needed it. WTF?)

So I went back. Lasted a couple months. Then I quit again. Felt much better for it. Got myself on track: took the G.E.D. that summer & sailed through it. This was in 1980. 

On to England in September, where I battled for my BHSAI. (British Horse Society Assistant  Instructor.) A very happy day, much celebrating that night (December 5) at the pub.

I've been nettled a few times about being a Dropout. But I've worked through it. I look at it as a useful skill: knowing how to Get Out of a Tight Place, as Winnie-the-Pooh might say (if he quit school). Did Aron Ralston "drop out" when he cut his arm off to escape death in that  canyon? No, dammit! I do what I have to. And I'm Still Here. And I pride myself on being a Closet Intellectual, as a friend called me once. (I treasure that!) 

So flash forward to 2013 & the seemingly never-ending struggle. And the ad on my favorite radio station: pep talks for folks who are considering...getting their...G.E.D.'s...

Yeah, I know. I've got one. But pep talks? A dearth. I'm running short. I mean DRY.

So what the hell. Tonight I logged on. I'd heard a tiny clip of the one I knew I needed to hear: "...You can do this. I know you can..."  (The British accent didn't hurt.) Yeah, there was a dearth of parental pep-talk vehemence about human matters when I was growing up. The G.E.D. site has a sliding bar so you can find your level of...intensity. Mine was level 10 (wait for it) "Intense."  =  Alfred Molina.

I wept.

Played it three, four, maybe five times. I can do this. And I am just as deserving of a pep talk as anyone. I put it on my Favorites Bar, in easy reach.

So in this time of endurance and hanging-in-there, I invite you to snag your own pep talk for any task you may face.  GED Pep Talk: Alfred Molina

We're in this together. And we can do this. I know we can. We get by with a little help from our friends.

Cheers.