You may never know what someone has been through

You may never know what someone has been through. No matter how long you know them, how close you are, how romantic or non-romantic you are, no matter how closely or tightly they hold you, or how intimate you’ve been. You may never know what they’ve experienced or what effect that has had upon their soul, and spirit, and psyche.

You may see them at events, or at church, or in the media, on the bus, but you may never know some of the unspeakable joys, or horrors, they have seen or felt. They may not want you to know and that is their right, not yours to know. In fact, it is the responsibility of the rest of us to tread lightly, if at all, when interacting with friends, family and strangers to always be supportive of their happiness and mental health. Anything else is unacceptable.

I’ve known a friend of mine 50+ years. I may never know what he experienced before he moved to the same neighborhood my parents did when I was 10. He may never know what I experienced up to that point in our lives. You may never know what your partner, friend, spouse, neighbor, boss, co-worker, etc. has experienced. My friend and I may never know what we experienced in the years we were in different schools, or even in the same school but in different areas. The torture and bullying we endured, some of us for years, leave wounds ripe for re-opening. Life can be a parade and it should be a sort of parade for all of us. It is the responsibility of the rest of to not rain on those parades, but perhaps bring an umbrella (or a blanket) to wrap around those who were only able to bring a chair.

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Hugging: A reflexion

When people hug, it’s usually more of a clasp or clutch. Can I put my arms around you and clasp you for a second or two, like a clamp such as a binder clip, after you permit me to give you a “hug?” That’s not a hug! A hug is when you wrap your uninhibited arms around the yearning body of someone you hold dear, and you smush your face into a cleft, like that of their neck and shoulder, and rock them back and forth, once, twice, three times or more, inhaling them, often both swaying back and forth by each hugger at the same time, losing your balance, bumping into furniture, perhaps knocking some over, stepping on each other’s feet, unchained and entangled, bumping knees and falling in slow motion onto a dirty floor unfettered by form or fashion.

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‘Overwhelm’

I wonder: If Facebook didn’t exist, would I even know what “overwhelm” is? This only comes up for me because FB seems to be the engine block for the motor that is overwhelm. FB seems to be a sort of industry built with memes around not only talking people out of mental health issues but also convincing them they have issues in the first place.

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Looking back on my life

3-5-2025

I just noticed where this falls in the order of blog posts days after I posted one. It falls just before my last post a few years ago about learning to mourn your actions without blame or guilt. Ironic? Coincidence?

I don’t mean to complain, but I’m going to anyway. I’ve been treated really shitty by work supervisors. First, I was let go so someone else — let’s just say it IS who you know — could replace me at a rate of 30% more than I was making. And they weren’t even qualified to do as much as I was in that communications position. For instance, they didn’t even know how to cut and paste in a Word document.

Secondly, I was let go from one of the best jobs I ever had after only a month or two because my supervisor lied to the executive director that I had forgotten my business cards when going to a news conference, That was when, in fact, SHE had forgotten HAR cards and I SAVED HER ASS CUZ I HAD HERS (both of ours) IN MY CAR. Funny, she didn’t know how to cut and paste either.I never told that executive director, and I used to see her in church after that happened. Just real crappy.

Then, I had a part-time job where the supervisor had everyone sign in on a sheet that had been Xeroxed a million times. When I asked about my two months of pay, she showed me “time sheets” on which my name had been whited out before they were copied. She was probably collecting everyone’s pay. She probably didn’t know how to cut and paste either, except with scissors and glue.

When I think back on the last 15-20 years of my life and how far I have come or not come — mostly not come — I realize there have been some really mean people who have just treated me very badly. Boohoo right? Yeah, boohoo. I’m writing a song about ruminating, and I’m pretty experienced, if not downright skilled, at “moving forward,” so don’t worry about me.

I’m just complaining because my life has been a lesson that has taught me there have been many times I should have done things differently. Jobs. Volunteering. Speaking out for one cause or another. Relationships. Sometimes, life deals us a bad hand. I was dealt a few because I made some decisions that had poor results. To anyone I have mistreated along the way, I apologize. To those who have mistreated me, Fuck You.

Did I mention, I never really deserved to be treated like shit in the first place? I’ve only ever tried to do good and be a good person. And by the way, just so you know, the shit keeps coming.

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Can art change the world? God, I hope so.

“Constructive ideas (not wars) mark the forward progress of mankind. Art can change the world. Art is a communication that is more powerful and more real to any human being than any gun or war. It changes people’s opinions, style, ideas, and even sometimes people’s way of living. We should concentrate on art and peace, not hate and war. The day we can truly trust each other, there will be peace on Earth.” ~ Anonymous

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Just when you think you had it all …

“We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

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Do you let yourself be enslaved by tyrants?

“The fundamental political question is why do people obey a government. The answer is that they tend to enslave themselves, to let themselves be governed by tyrants. Freedom from servitude comes not from violent action, but from the refusal to serve. Tyrants fall when the people withdraw their support.” ~ Étienne De La Boétie, The Politics Of Obedience

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La clairvoyance “clear vision” is Camus’ word for lucidity

“On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.” (sans toute la clairvoyance possible) ~ Albert Camus from one of the more memorable passages of The Plague, in which he addresses the volunteer sanitary groups put together by citizens to clean the town’s overloaded hospitals.

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Land of Plenty Leonard Cohen quotation

“For the millions in a prison
That wealth has set apart—
For the Christ who has not risen,
From the caverns of the heart

For the innermost decision
That we cannot but obey
For what’s left of our religion,
I lift my voice and pray;
May the lights in the land of Plenty
Shine on the truth someday.”

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The masks we wear, inside and out

I started writing something about the masks we wear and this quotation from James Baldwin popped up in my email today:

“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” ~ James Baldwin

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Are the your dragons really princes and princesses?

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

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