To Have a Friend, Be One

Since my sister Felicia keeps insisting that all my friends are “damaged” people (she sometimes uses the word “losers”) perhaps I need to explore this topic. My first instinct (once I’m able to quell my fury) is to insist that all humans are, to some degree, “damaged.” We’ve all been children, we’ve all had disappointments and punishments, unfairnesses and handicaps. It’s just a matter of degree. The experience of living wears on a human. Habits of response and coping develop. At times these habits look like maladaptation. But “adaptation” to some norms can itself be damaging. Those are my initial thoughts. Now I’ll review my personal history of friendships.

The extra-curricular social world of kindergarten and early grade school is directed by adults, usually mothers. Dressing up and attending classmates’ birthday parties was a ritual that occurred more often than enough for me. I went along with the rigamarole uncomfortably, sensing the existence of some sort of unspoken hierarchy amongst both mothers and children. I don’t remember any actual “friends” except for Billy Duke, who stands next to me in a group photograph of the Laurel Springs School kindergarten class of 1956. Without knowing what it meant, he and I had agreed that we’d be married someday. Billy was not the smartest kid, and had a goofy demeanor. I suppose my taste in friends began there.
    Even early on, I was encouraged by my mother to become aware of, and to befriend, individuals who might be “different” or neglected; that is, to be an extension of my mother’s charitable impulses. She’d been on the receiving end of charity herself as a child. But isn’t “charity” simply a form of human kindness? A personal extension of warmth and understanding? It doesn’t start out necessarily as marking the recipient a “loser,” not in this giver’s mind.

From first through sixth grades, I attended St. Lawrence parochial school. The playground was divided: boys on the east side, girls on the west (adjacent to the convent where the nuns lived). Boys spent lunchtime recess fighting; girls organized activities and invented rules. There was plenty of social drama on the girls’ side. Older girls (7th and 8th grades) hung around in clumps rather than jumping rope or playing circle games. The sounds of transistor radios could sometimes be heard. Songs like “Lipstick on Your Collar” and “Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb” puzzled me. I was busy running and jumping. I had a new best friend every day, it seemed. My diary records the breakups and makeups between me and a series of other little girls: Carol, Nancy, Maureen, Cassie, Deborah. I also took a younger girl, Christine, “under my wing,” and yes, it was because I thought she needed someone to pay attention to her. But perhaps I also wanted someone to look up to me.
    If any one of these youngsters were “damaged” I wouldn’t have known. I did feel, however, that it wouldn’t be right to pursue a friendship with a girl who was prettier than I was, or smarter. According to my report cards, I was close to the top of the crowded (50-plus) class, but not at the top. And by fourth grade I was wearing glasses, so my looks were compromised. In that sense, I was “damaged,” or thought I was. I had a crush on a very handsome classmate, Edward, for two years; after the glasses, I turned my attention to a squirrelly blonde boy named Thomas.

Outside of school and during the summers, there was another set of friends—neighborhood kids. This was a more diverse, all-ages group including boys, particularly my brother Michael, and of necessity, non-Catholics. Some of these kids I liked, some I thought were yucky, but we were all swarming in the same swarm.
    Meanwhile, my mother kept pressing the issue of helping others. She wanted me and my brother to start a lending library on the front porch (which we did, but we didn’t get many takers). She wanted us to be aware of the O’Briens down the street, who were poor and lived in someone’s attic. We gave them clothes, and my mother washed the lice from their heads. At Halloween, like many other children, we collected money for UNICEF.

When we moved to Massachusetts, I was sent to the Academy of the Assumption, a private girls’ school. I gravitated toward the two most odd-looking girls in my class, Veronica and Linda. Was this because I knew it was unlikely I’d be rejected? I don’t know. I became fond of them, however, and their looks (Veronica, a redhead, was covered with freckles; Linda was heavy and slightly hirsute) had no effect on their interests or abilities. They were as interesting and amusing as I could have wished. Veronica was the one who first told me the “facts of life.” (The Catholic booklet my mother handed me was frustratingly vague). Linda’s big Italian family invited me to gatherings during which we stood around a piano (who played? I don’t remember) and sang. My favorite was “Yellow Bird.”

Shortly after my first menstrual period (hormones kicking in) I involuntarily became an ardent Beatles fan, and joined another group of girls who were on the same adolescent wavelength. I became especially close to Connie, who had a streak of pure white in her black hair, which she wore in braids. Her face was long; her limbs were skinny. Connie exhibited an extreme case of confidence, almost an “attitude.” We had many fun times pursuing Beatles-related magazines and trinkets. I began writing stories about our “adventures” to make her laugh. Graduation from 8th grade ended all that, because my mother decided to put me in the public school system. I suppose the money was not available for me to continue at the Academy’s high school. It was just as well. I was losing my faith, which I think is a natural outcome of reaching the age of “reason,” if a girl has an inquiring mind.

My first friend at Wellesley Junior High School (9th grade) was Janice. Another odd-looker, with crooked teeth and nose. She came from a huge family that lived on one of the more “working-class” streets, close to Route 128. We bonded over music and formed a folk duo, “Clyde and Percival,” modeling ourselves after Peter & Gordon. We also talked about boys. Though we privately dissed other girls' looks, we were not conventionally desirable ourselves. I now wore braces in addition to glasses. Skewed, superficial values were on the ascent.
    My friend Caroline, on the other hand, was a cutie with dimples. Her family had been missionaries in Japan, so she was slightly worldly. Caroline and I had common academic interests: we wanted good grades. When we all moved on to the main high school, I sloughed off Janice and began spending more time with Caroline. However, Caroline still wore ankle socks. Despite the exhortations of Janet, a new friend recently come to town from New York, Caroline persisted in her child-like mode of fashion. Janet was an aristocratic-looking, overly-animated person. I was very attracted, and she became the closest I’d ever had to a “best friend” since early grade school. Her “damage” began to come into view months later, when she spoke of her drunk father regularly crawling upstairs to bed. He happened to be Editor-in-Chief of the Boston Herald newspaper at the time; I’d known of his prestige. Janet’s mother was the typical long-suffering alcoholic’s wife, quiet and gentle. Their house was perfect.

My own “damage” was not yet evident, but it lurked in the background. I was well taken-care-of, but lack of directly-expressed parental affection and attention tore at me. Good grades were highly valued in my family, but I was losing the will to achieve that. My mother, overwhelmed with child care, suspected me of sexual activities long before I engaged in any. I wrote poetry, trying to create a world of words within which I had influence and could make decisions.
    I was becoming prettier, and used that to get attention from boys. I cultivated brief friendships with Robin, a Jewish girl who claimed to have an adult male lover in Boston; and with Erica, a serious music student (cello) whose progressive agnostic family lived near mine. Parents (mine) forbade me to see Erica after she lent me “Tropic of Capricorn” by Henry Miller. Parents (hers) discouraged Robin from seeing me, probably because I approved of her erotic adventures. Parents were the ones wreaking “damage” here, it seems.

Janet had taught me how to smoke cigarettes, which led to being caught puffing outside the designated “smokers corner” at school. Thus I met seniors Lynda and Sally in after-school detention. I never discovered if they were “damaged” or not, but Sally, who was beautiful, reportedly worked as an artists’ model, and came and went as she pleased. Eventually I was invited to a private party with college “men,” one of whom I allowed to deflower me after knowing him for 45 minutes. My thinking was that I would then not experience pain when I finally “did it” with my 19-year-old working-class boyfriend Ralph whom I’d also met through Lynda and Sally just two months before that party. That never happened, because I told Ralph all about the party and, dismayed, he quit me.

I never once looked around my high school social environment with objectivity or breadth of assessment or awareness of “status.” I never decided who would or would not be my friends. Friends simply happened, mostly amongst the members of my small “advanced” English class. I’m sure there were girls whose influence would have been better for my development, but I never thought of my development or future, and ceased to ponder the possibility of college. I wasn’t liking what I saw about the world, the war in Vietnam, or the pressure to conform. I did see that there was an escape: Hippiedom. One needed minimal credentials to be absorbed into that group.

You could say that the hippies, at least in Boston, were self-discarded individuals who could not follow the proper paths to “success,” having been “turned off” by various aspects of the American enterprise. Articulation of their reasons, or of any “damage” inflicted by their respective families was not forthcoming, merely understood. Occasionally the “damage” was visible, as with my cross-eyed friend Merlin, whose Christian-Science parents would not allow him to wear corrective lenses. But Merlin played lovely guitar, and his presence calmed me.
    Some of the older hippie-adjacent folks were entrepreneurs. I made some “psychedelic” drawings in turquoise fountain pen for The Avatar, an alternative newspaper whose office was near the Cambridge crash pad where I resided for a time. I pushed oily bubbles around under an overhead projector for a professional light show producer at the Boston Tea Party, but these occupations were transient. Additionally, any sexual involvements I might have capitulated to were one-time-only propositions, and I never did the proposing.

Having been “invited” by my parents to commit myself to a stay at McLean Hospital in order to “get out of that environment” (that is, the people with whom I was indulging in drug-taking), I was suddenly catapulted into different surroundings, full of adolescent girls like me. Perhaps it could be blithely assumed that every "patient" (these days it would be "client") there was "damaged," but I'd point out that rapid cultural changes in women's roles were confusing for vulnerable teen girls, and drug-taking behaviors encouraged by peers were not unusual or necessarily signs of deeper "damage.") It was inevitable that I’d bond with one or two of these girls. Pat was the first; we giggled and talked about sex and astrology. After she went home we exchanged letters. I was surprised to find a high-school contemporary at McLean’s—Marci. We’d not been friends in high school, merely knew of each other. But when we were assigned to share a room, we became inseparable. We both were skeptical of the powers that be; we both had a sense of mischief. We filled our room with furniture and objects collected from other rooms. It was cozy and companionable. Marci dismissed her situation by explaining that she’d been doing some “cutting.” She was somehow “damaged,” some would thus suppose. Marci’s mother later committed suicide; her wealthy father seemed cold when I met him. During the next few years Marci married, and her husband Larry and I, and Larry’s bass player friend, formed a folk band. We opened for other performers a few times at a Boston coffeehouse. One of those musicians was Drew, my first live-in boyfriend, who I’d also met at McLean. “Damaged” wouldn’t have applied to him, you might have thought, but even while I was with him he showed tendencies to alcoholism. The Cambridge neighborhood where we lived was full of McLean alumni.

When Drew moved back in with his parents to recover from a motorcycle accident, I sought a cheap place to live, and met the crew that became “The Marsh Folk.” For two years, nine of us shared the expenses of a contemporary house by the sea in Marshfield, Mass. Eventually I invited a friend from Cambridge, Susan, to move in. We were close, but not without difficulties and disagreements. We drove to and from Boston in her Dodge Dart to attend art school; I majored in filmmaking, she in printmaking. I could never untangle what “loyalty” meant to her. I was too free with her secrets, and she was too critical of my choices in life. I was obsessed with her for a while, wondering what I’d done wrong. She introduced me to Anais Nin, and to free-form cooking. I had married a Marshfield roommate, Bob, and she did the same (Mike) a year later. I would say now that Susan was a bit wacky, but very creative, and I don’t know what sort of “damage” she suffered, unless her family (in Maryland) had been too indulgent.

I will admit that “friendships” for me were mostly dictated by my environment. I have kept up with Marci and eventually re-contacted Susan, but other friendships depended on shared workplaces or classrooms. Subsequent exchanges after the shared experiences would fade to occasional phone calls and then nothing. Even Janet has disappeared by now (although we exchanged letters for years).

A big landslide of life changes for me came in 1978. Divorce, being fired from my job, moving several times, having an abortion and breaking up with another boyfriend, and seeing my hired “feminist counselor” be taken to McLean’s and put in a high-security residence (for physically attacking her brother-in-law) were destabilizing events. Again, I had lots of roommates, but none I considered close friends except for Erica, who was a LUG (Lesbian Until Graduation). When we first met she was studying violin at New England Conservatory and seeing a woman named Peggy. She advised me regarding the abortion, for which I later angrily blamed her (in a fit of regret that was not repeated). I met Erica’s parents in Memphis once, and did not detect any “damage” sources. Erica became a psychiatrist, married a man, moved to NYC, had children and made money. Evidently there was a “path to success” that she’d been intending to get back to all along. I never detected this, and never understood it, and we no longer communicate.

It begins to seem that I am the “damaged” one, since I am still repelled by conventional ambitions, disdain a focus on money, and reject the idea of having children. I remain quite “counter-culture,” except for lapses such as when I worked for the staid Huntsville Museum of Art and tried to fit in with the ladies of the Women’s Guild there. I wrote publicity for the museum, and had to twist my brain around to praise exhibitions that I didn’t like. That was my job. Trying to get along with everyone was also my job. I did not succeed entirely. Still, it was one of my longest-lasting jobs up to that point.

But we’re talking about friendships here. I met Joy because I’d been singing with an “acoustic eclectic” cover band in town, and she’d been playing bass in a rock’n’roll band, and she wanted to talk with me about dealing with an egomaniac band leader. We had coffee. I suppose it started there. It was the seed of a sometimes-close friendship that still exists, although it’s been very much pruned down since the early 2000s. If someone seeks me out, and they appear interesting to me, I’m going to pursue it as far as it goes. Their social status or job or appearance has nothing to do with it. A friendship has its own life, and I will nourish that life to the best of my ability (though I don’t go overboard and give what I don’t have or pretend to be someone I’m not). I do not ask, Is this person “damaged”? Should I hang out with them and risk “contamination”? My friendship with Joy has been both rewarding and distressing. I met her mother and sensed a reluctance to express affection or approval that reminded me somewhat of my own mother, though there were probably different causes. As a young girl Joy was molested by her stepfather’s sons. This is definitely “damage,” but it does not fully define a person. I am amazed by the changes Joy has weathered, and she seems settled now, un-partnered, self-sufficient, politically active, still writing poetry.

I’m unable to cite any general principles here. My tactic has been to reveal details of my own friendships so that I can explain to my younger sister why I seem to surround myself with people who appear (to her) to be "damaged." But there are at least two things wrong with this view: one is the lack of a criteria to measure the extent to which these people are actually “damaged” (or simply unconventional and quirky); another is that I have not consciously pursued these friendships. I gravitate toward people who have approached me and seem intriguing, not because they have a prestigious job or are conventionally attractive. Often I am interested because they, too, are writers; or they, too, are musicians. Much to talk about! My friendships include men, especially now that flirtation would be a parody amongst us elders. My circle of friends, with its offshoots, has been a gradual development and has as much to do with my husband’s choices as with mine. Russell has told me recently that his response to requests for rides and other sorts of help from his “damaged” friends Dave and Kim is simply that: a response to a request. He doesn’t refuse to help them. It’s that simple. He has had to take a break at times, but rarely for long. Russell likes to drive; he also enjoys Dave’s conversation when Dave isn’t drunk. Kim is safe in a “halfway house” now, but Russell has sent her things from her storage unit upon request.  Russell also responds to Vicki, a long-ago friend of ours from the Unitarian Church who is now struggling with bipolar disorder. I have backed away from this friendship because I do not have tolerance for her rantings. So there ya go: I won’t put up with TOO MUCH “damage.”

Speaking of bipolar disorder, my own family is quite “damaged,” I dare say. My sister Camille came down with bipolar disorder in her mid-thirties. This was disconcerting, and I did my best to help. She had to give up her busy Seattle life of teaching philosophy and working as a forest ranger during the summer. Her brief marriage to an Army buddy had already fallen apart. She’s now doing OK on medication and has returned to Wellesley where she lives in a government-subsidized apartment. She still reads philosophy books that most of us would not want to tackle.

My one-year-younger brother Michael eschewed anything “respectable,” and now lives and works on a farm, but owns very little. He managed to have three sons, however, during his long relationship with their mother. He has farming skills. This is nothing to sniff at (although he might occasionally smell of manure).

Our youngest sibling, Ray, has a touch of “Asperger’s,” and did not finish college, but has made the most of the opportunities he did have. He’s a bicycle enthusiast and has bonded with his fellows in that arena. Our sibling Brian has clearly been “damaged,” but no one is sure how except for his being left with our father in Huntsville, Alabama for two crucial middle-school years. Brian also dealt with too many deaths of close friends and lovers in too short a time. He took his decades-ago divorce very hard. He’s gentle and scholarly by nature, but uses that passivity to reject and dismiss all attempts to communicate and help, at least from family. He does not take basic care of himself. He recently moved out of my house after nearly four years (at age 64) and is living down the street. I have no answers to his problems, and he won’t seek answers elsewhere. If you met him in a coffeeshop, he would seem to be the most personable, undamaged socializer ever. He’d ask you lots of questions. He’d call you friend and find things you had in common. The only clue that he was “damaged” would be his lack of teeth (if he let it show). Something happened there, and it was not taken care of until it was too late. But he hides it if possible.

There was an “ideal” time in the late 1980s and early 1990s, perhaps, when all my younger siblings were having what I saw as a great, fascinating lives. I was so proud of all of them. Felicia (the sister who criticizes me for having “damaged” friends) was establishing herself as an English professor in Seville, Spain. Camille was thriving in Washington state. Brian was pursuing internships in industrial geography and public history in exotic locations. Ray was participating in the annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. I was simply living and working in Huntsville, Alabama with Russell, and enjoying my own activities, but I admired my siblings and thought it would last forever. I idealized them as I would new local friends whose lives I thought interesting and creative, and who I wanted to continue to know. But as life goes on, “damage” either occurs or surfaces. Nothing goes well (or stays hidden) forever!

Felicia has spoken of choosing her friends carefully, and making sure they are people she’d want to “emulate.” I never had that notion at all. I have let my friendships just happen. I have let some people go, but I’ve clung to others. I’m good at making temporary bonds based on proximity or shared projects. I don’t aspire to join social circles that I cannot fit into without strain, and that would include people with considerably higher incomes. I will tolerate differences of opinion up to the point where a potential friend seems to approve of political cruelties inflicted by the current administration.
    Since moving to Huntsville in 1981, I’ve realized that I am not going to fit into the general Southern populace, so I’ve had to find friends where I can, and that would be out of the mainstream. Wealthy people, seemingly attractive people, conventional people, have some advantages when it comes to being able to hide any “damage” that they’ve suffered or continue to suffer. They can put on a good show (as brother Brian does sporadically).
    People who have had to scramble to make a living (Jane), or who have never been asked to marry (Joy), or who have difficulty making themselves understood (Paige), are all friends of mine BECAUSE of the way they’ve dealt with their “damage.” They remain interesting to me, and they remain creative, and my affection toward them (though not effusive) is not faked. This is an achievement on all sides, and I feel that I, too, deserve some accolades.

On selfishness in the age of constant solicitation...

I’m starting to get aggravated by the proliferation of events that email senders and Facebook algorithms think I should be aware of or attend. My immediate environs are, I’m told, teeming with activities and presentations and shows and opportunities for participation. Just hearing/seeing about these planned disturbances makes me tired, but also makes me worry that I am missing something—certainly not real pleasure or entertainment, but the approval of insignificant others for showing up. 

That I am distressed by this implies that these “others” are not, in fact “insignificant.” And I suppose that’s true, although they’re not individually identifiable. 

Sure, I used to volunteer for things, the Film Co-op being the primary beneficiary of my efforts, back in the 1980s and early 1990s. Although I eventually began extracting $50 per month from them for my popcorn and publicity services, I believed in the “mission.” Make available to the public worthy independent films that would never appear in commercial movie houses! I hope the Film Co-op’s offerings gave people some communal alternatives as we all awaited (unwittingly) the coming of the serve-yourself streaming system that wound up isolating us in our silos-of-interest. It began with video cassette rentals, of course, but quickly metastasized. I can no longer distinguish between invitations distributed for egotistical (though artful) purposes, and solicitations that, if heeded, would make me part of something that actually helped specific communities or the “world.”

 

It’s definitely silly to imagine that a person like me could shift a situation toward positivity, or shift it at all. As a volunteer, I had a tendency to insist upon, the “right” way to do things, almost to the point of chastising newer volunteers for nonconformity. This benefits no one. There are organizations that raise money to “help” people, and then there are organizations that actually help people. I am not good at actually helping people directly. (To wit, I’m delighted to now be shoving money at my recently-moved-out brother rather than facing him directly. I cannot hold my own, and am easily distracted. He seems to be missing some qualities that I take for granted, like curiosity about what others around him are doing. Like the instinct to respond, even minimally, to personal communications.)

I may respond too much, however. Seeing all the local “Events” I’m missing; seeing FB pages about projects that I am admittedly not-at-all interested in, makes me wonder who I am, and who these other people are. Mere knowledge of something going on, particularly if it’s purported to “help” people, triggers a low-level of guilt in me, because in truth, I do not care. But I’m supposed to care. This is a conflict that’s been going on all my life. I cannot let myself be. In the past, I often could not tell the difference between my genuine interests and pleasures, and what I was supposed to be interested in. When first moving here to Alabama, I understood the importance of “making friends” immediately. I did not want to be isolated. But did that mean I had to participate in the belly-dancing club for as long, and as sincerely, as I did? Or to cater to people with whom I probably had nothing in common, or with whom I had to suppress large chunks of my “personality”? Chalk it up to my desire to perform, I suppose.

Most of those women have disappeared from my life, but one or two show up on Facebook occasionally. We are all so much older now, and would not dare show our bellies for love or money.

As a “fellow” musician, I tear a few hairs out each time I see that a beginner or an old-timer is playing somewhere, or hosting an open mic that I don’t have time for. I have my schedule, I need my rest. I’m friggin’ older than I look! I also dont necessarily enjoy

much of the music that is emitted by many of these persons. I pay my listening dues twice a week at the open mics I’ve settled upon. I cater to my own impulses to write songs and practice at home, and I have other non-music projects and relationships that take up some time. I refrain from promoting myself and my few minimal public appearances because I do not want anyone to feel obligated and/or be disappointed! (as I have been on occasion.)

What I want (and need) to be told by someone I respect is: “You’re doing the right thing! You’re OK! You are doing what you should be doing! Pay no attention to the man or woman, priest or nun, mob or in-crowd, behind the curtain of the psyche!”

Navigating the strait of jazz-schmooze

What is writing to me? Is it self-expression? Is it a search for a self to express? Is it a plea for attention from an imaginary reader? I don’t know, but sentences form in my head to try to explain things, particularly when things aren’t to my liking. As were many things today at the jazz jam.

I had come up with some wise general statements a short while ago as I tried to meditate, all of which I’ve forgotten. I have only this: Other people are often the cause of annoyance for me, not always through behaviors, but because I feel they cannot “see” me as they go about their activities. Likewise, I cannot “see” them. These personalities all around me—they seem insignificant, in the long run. As, of course, do “I.” I’m more torqued about my own insignificance than theirs. After all, I can give them some significance if I want to; I can pay some attention, make some comment, pretend they are real. These are good moves, because my existence depends on these others, in a way. If I acknowledge them, they might acknowledge me. However, sometimes they don’t, despite my ministrations.

I wonder why I was in such a bad mood though? Granted, I wasn’t as enthusiastic about going to the jam (which was at The Dish today) as I have been. It’s been three weeks since a jam, due to a fifth Sunday followed by Easter Sunday. (Of course there have been open mics, but that’s a different set of “other people” with its own problems.)

I’m supposed to (in my own mind) “love” Kirby. And I’m supposed to (in my own mind) “care” about Wil (who seemed in a very positive frame of mind last night when we saw him at the VBC after the Bela Fleck concert, and gave him a ride home). I remember feeling glad that he seemed to be doing better than he had been, and that he was actually exercising some, he said. I wondered if he’d be “dressed up” today or not.

He was not. He seems to have embraced the dark-colored androgynous turtlenecks and soft pants he bought for his trip to Florida. There’s still the wig, though—unkempt, inappropriate, odd. That is always enough to annoy me all by itself. His impulse to perform is as healthy as ever, and I always wonder why he doesn’t see himself as I see him, and try to improve his appearance and disorganized approach to music before getting up there and singing. I attribute his bizarre confidence to being brought up as a male and to having made a more-than-adequate living with his math smarts so that he worries not about paying for his new Subaru. Which makes his apparent wish to be female (in a mostly superficial way) more than a little ironic. One thing, perhaps, that trans women don’t understand or try to adopt (who would?!) is the constantly nagging internal perception of oneself as a second-class citizen, a basic (early) feminist-observed phenomenon, and probably still a reality for many women.

I had been planning on singing “Close Your Eyes,” and asked Pete if he still had the music. He said he did. Though I am frequently hesitant, I thought, well, I’ll SING it, then, when I get the chance. Kirby got up first; a microphone was brought and produced such horrendous feedback that I rose from my chair and left the room (but not in time to save my ears). Kirby sang and I played some harmonica (which I’m getting weary of on “Stormy Monday”) and Ted sang, and then Kirby sang again, and then Sharla arrived.

I am sweet to Sharla, despite my internal grumblings. She’s a semi-innocent diva with pitch troubles, but a great tone and of course, beauty, which she is very conscious of using and maximizing. And she also plays flute on instrumental numbers, so I knew she’d do more than one song. Therefore, I essentially gave up the idea of singing my song, and said so to Ted (who was sitting alone behind us (me, Wil, Kirby) in a black hat and exuding a vaguely Napoleonic air). I was surprised and not pleased when he rushed up there immediately after Sharla’s “set” to sing “Blue Skies” (his second song!) without encouraging me to sing instead. (I suppose I really am depending on the kindness of (relative) strangers! My attitude was slightly passive-aggressive.) I went so far as to hold the lyrics for Ted since there was no music stand. He had no idea how pissed off I was.
    Kirby had some more guests (from the mosque) come in, so of course she had to sing another one, and I got to play melodica. But I had really wanted to sing.

Additionally, Tom Branch began bashing the drums so hard, I got up and almost left the room again, muttering something. It doesn’t cause actual pain in my ears, but it creates some sort of shock.

I usually have some “kindness” (that is, calculated acknowledgement) to dispense to Rick Pappas and Deborah Saylor, but today I had none. I had no energy for goodbyes, either, so I just left. Inside I was pouting, but I try not to whine in front of anyone. I merely start thinking how rinky-dink this whole enterprise is. And how rinky-dink I am as a participant. This harsh judgment of my own pastimes may have originated with Felicia, but it wormed its way into my brain, and will poison almost everything if I let it. It’s related to the more general idea that nothing we humans do means anything—because of impermanence and death (not to mention unstable value/meaning systems). Also, Felicia accuses me of pouting as part of her persistent treatment of me as if I were an unsatisfactory child. That said, our family zoom today was probably the better part of my day, since we didn’t overtly argue.

Back at home after the jazz jam, I ate something-or-other and then went through a few minutes of WHAT-THE-HELL-IS-WORTH-DOING?! In these golden years, mindless exercise is frequently my answer to that question, since it contributes to so-called health, but this time it seemed pointless. So I meditated for ten minutes, because I’d just watched an interview with the writer George Saunders, and he said he was a meditator. (I do imitate others, more than I like to admit.)

To top it off, Russell is anxiously getting ready for his drive to Knoxville tomorrow to visit with Widower Bob for a week, so he’s not listening to me when I speak, and continues to be distracted by Facebook and YouTube while also trying to wash clothes and pack. There are many times lately (maybe it’s always been this way?) that I feel do not get what I “need” from him. But who says he has to provide for my psychological/emotional “needs”? What if he simply can’t? What if I can’t for him? What if neither of us can for ourselves?

And then there’s Brian, who pretends he has no needs; look where it got him! Living in an alcove behind a curtain in the cluttered little house of his older sister. Strangely, today I have not worried about Brian very much at all, so he has been the one person who has not gotten on my nerves. But I’m sure his existence will trouble me tomorrow, though, which would be normal.

 

The terrible, horrible, no good night...

What’s missing these days is that urge to write. I used to have an eagerness to get typin’ especially when it was about myself. But now I see myself as a helpless peon dismayed and fearful like everyone else who’s paying attention—as far as the outside world goes—and worrying about my mortality and my life’s worth on the inside of me. All while compulsively playing and singing songs over and over again at meagerly-attended open mics.

Tonight’s open mic was a disaster for me, mentally. I’d yelled at Brian earlier in the day, and thought I wasn’t disturbed by it, but I must have been. Everything was wrong at Liquor Express. Everything around me, what people did, said, looked like. Kirby was there, with Roy and Andrea, which flummoxed me. They’re JAZZ people! Wrong scene, clash of cultures, or perhaps my inability to play both roles at once. And I had nothing much to present musically. So I wound up doing “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” and “Easy Street” on the acoustic, which I wasn’t used to doing. Later, after Kirby left, I noodled on that weird electric thing from Australia, to an open tuning…while Tim was packing up. I’d soothed myself last night with that.

While I was at the open mic, Debbie texted me to suggest her and Rob taking me and Russell out to dinner TOMORROW. Not enough notice, and I can’t do that sort of thing anyway. (Just as I won’t be able to take her up on her offer to accompany me on a day excursion out of Huntsville). So I texted back how busy I was. And she got upset because I didn’t THANK HER FIRST for the offer. I tried to explain but she didn’t want to talk about it. And here I thought she was a counselor.

But, is going out to eat with another couple a normal thing? Whether it is or not, it’s not something Russell and I have done in the past twenty years. We tried earlier in our marriage, and nothing went wrong, but it was not fun. The thought of it NOW scares me. (And this is after bragging to Paige last night that I was so at ease, socially.)
    Perhaps all this “ease” is another masking. I certainly will only actively socialize if the time frame is limited. Three hours (open mic length) is just about too much. A crowded party is a little better because one can seek out a variety of conversations. But the forced “good behavior” of dining with another couple?! Without alcohol? I cannot consider it. And that was foremost in my mind when declining the invitation. Too bad, because apparently expressing appreciation was THE most important thing to Debbie. She doesn’t want to talk about it, but I do. Maybe at Allana’s.

I am neither aghast at my own neglect of “manners” nor proud of my quick, rotten responses. But where can I be “myself”? How much of what I have been thinking lately as MYSELF unmasked really is that? Am I only myself at home? And intermittently? Russell is always chiding me for some verbal faux pas or other. We discuss, I rationalize. Is it that I don’t KNOW what other people want and/or how I should treat them? Or that I don’t care? Some of both?

Being in a pissed-off mood, I made a loud remark toward Tim’s girlfriend (or ex-wife) about being “substituted for” when I returned from the Liquor Express restroom and found Tim playing harmonica with Mike Perry. But it was half insincere. I apologized to Tim’s girlfriend (ex-wife?) once Mike’s set was over (and I’d played on “Beautiful Boy” anyway), but then she insisted on trying to cheer me up or boost my “self-esteem” or something and she was really getting on my nerves. I told her it would all have been better if I’d been drinking. She said, “So have a drink!” I had to explain, and that was more than I wanted to share. With her anyway. She left later and sat at the bar. I had told her straight up that I was a JERK, and I was. People may need to start accepting that about me, because apparently, I screw up the simplest of interactions.

 

I’m inclined not to take all this heavily, but part of me does. I tell myself that it’s OK to yell at Brian because the less comfortable he feels here, and the crazier he thinks I am, the sooner he’ll find a place to live and leave. But that’s probably not the way it works. The source of my anger seems obvious, but not to him. How can I say, “I don’t want you here and I never did!” So it has to be about something else, in this case, his dismissal of my good deed in putting his bike behind the gate when he’d left it out in plain sight. “I think you remember when it was almost stolen,” I said. He said, “So you said.” I yelled that he was saying I lied. But the best thing I said was, “No, we can’t talk about this later. You can’t just slip on a rainbow coat of rationality— we’re HUMAN.” His mild-mannered, calculated calm in all matters drives me nuts. I did make him slam the door slightly, and I think that might have been good for him, but what do I know?

You know, I want to be “right.” I really do. I bristle when people disagree with me about certain observations I might make or about things I think are self-evident. With an emphasis on “self.” I bristle when I’m told how to do things. I bristle when Brian interjects into every overheard conversation his encyclopedic “knowledge.” I just bristle all the time. I try to keep it at a low boil when I’m “out” or relating to non-intimate friends. But today I simply failed. Is this the beginning of the end? Both Mike and Ted texted me later to see if I was “OK.” Well, that’s nice. But I can’t really TALK at length to either of them. And now I probably have (even more of) a reputation as a “difficult” person.
    Fuck it. Nothing great was ever going to happen with this scene anyway. I’m either not good enough, or too weird. And I wouldn’t want a bar gig anyway. Nor would I want a “house concert.” My specialty is hit-and-run; I can only be “inspired” for short bursts. Four songs is almost too many (although I slogged away for four hours at the Green St. Market last summer, but that was different).

I’m losing my impetus to practice my old songs. But I’ve written a new song to that open tuning mentioned earlier, though I didn’t play it tonight. It might need memorizing, it is so fast-paced (which reminds me—all Eric’s songs tonight were awfully slow, which yes, made me bristle aesthetically, but I’m not going to mention it to him). To what end all these attempts to maintain acquaintanceships though? And to what end all these songs, which in my case are really poems in disguise, set to music to make them more palatable?

Felicia questioned (by email) why I didn’t pursue a lucrative “career” starting in my twenties, but I just wanted to laugh in her face. If I try to explain about the times, the hippie ethos, the REAL underlying causes of the women’s movement whose achievements she benefited from, she just asks more questions. Unfortunately, I like to answer those questions, and so it goes on forever. She’ll never understand. Is she alone in that? Does anyone around me understand me? Russell “manages” me, but does he sympathize? And when I tried to ask Felicia some questions about herself, she said she’d already answered them years ago. She is a person who doesn’t enjoy writing about past. How can that be?! Does that mean she’s less selfish? I don’t think so, because in Zooms she’s impatient, critical, and likes to direct the conversation.

About focusing on one thing, though—how do I ever know it’s the RIGHT thing? Plus, I don’t enjoy anything enough to do it all day and all night, and when I anticipate getting something done “in a minute” and then open Facebook, I am easily distracted by the impulse to comment on things that stir a thought or two, as if people needed my input. (This occurs in person, too, though I don’t address every damn topic as Brian does). I am not sure this has anything to do with my imagined struggle to get any serious consideration of my “work” in this Huntsville music scene (small portions of which are all I dabble in anyway). Maybe more gigs with Mike? I don’t know. Maybe it’s the ukulele. Also, I’m almost 76 years old. What can happen NOW? Only decline. And naturally, invisibility, even if I sing loudly and include “bad words” in my lyrics.

If I listened to my sensible side, I’d quit this racket and start farming in my backyard. We might need the food.

Just the usual nest of brain-vipers...

The mood I’m in today is one of barely-suppressed anxiety, guilt, and disappointment—multiple, ever-fresh springs within my psyche in which swim the usual brain-vipers.

I just returned from a sparsely-attended jazz jam at the Huntsville Community Drumline building (jams are scheduled for four Sundays a month now) without getting what I apparently needed, and had the (perhaps erroneous?) impression that it hadn’t mattered at all that I was there. I do understand that I’m NOTHING in the great scheme of jazzy things, but I’d wanted more “recognition” than I got. I probably am incapable of conjuring an objective estimation of myself. My initial pleasure in a well-done harmonica solo (on “Autumn Leaves,” of all things) was not validated by anyone but Kirby. She’s my friend, and an incorrigible encourager and booster of amateurs, so I’m not sure I believe her. We did have a guest pianist, Tim Springer, who was not as verbal or versatile as Pete Hamilton. Now I’m pondering getting Pete some sort of gift, but I cannot imagine what. He’s pompous, yes, but he’s also absolutely foundational for these events and so accommodating of all of us.

My guilt bubbles up mostly from the situation with Wil. I admit I am painfully ambivalent about his “trans” appearance. If he had stayed the nerdly, awkward, but normal-looking man that he used to be, I’d be much more inclined to help him out socially. He dresses “femme” now, but makes no effort to BE womanly, and has not insisted on “she/her.” There is no difference in personality whatsoever. I fear others’ opinion of him, others’ disapproval (of which I have no proof) will spill onto me. Two weeks ago at the jazz jam at the Valley Conservatory, his dress stuck to his underpants when he got out of his car, exposing his pale, wrinkled legs and flat ass. Renee (the school owner) happened to be outside and pointed it out. I quickly swiped down Wil’s dress while Wil himself seemed oblivious of what was happening. I think Renee found it funny, and I’m sure she would never say Wil cannot attend the jam! It’s a public event! But what is my responsibility here?! When I send Wil info about possible things for him to do, nothing happens; he doesn’t leave his house. Then he calls me to ask what’s going on. He depends on me, but he’s a grown person my age. What the fuck?! Does he think we’re best girlfriends now?! Clearly, I am a horrible “girlfriend” for not caring enough about him to vociferously include him in every damn thing I do.

Lately, Russell has been hinting that he views me as narcissistic. I try to examine my speech and behavior, and yes, I do talk a lot about myself, think a lot about myself, and wonder what OTHERS think of me. It’s all true. If I’m not getting positive vibes, then I immediately think I’m hated. I have to talk myself out of this perception, which takes a few seconds, but still, the thought, having been in my brain for a moment, leaves a sticky residue. Am I liked? Or are people just pretending? Does Kirby, in reality, think I’m a jerk with a few redeeming qualities? Have I failed Russell in this marriage by not paying enough attention to him or asking him enough questions?

He always appreciates it when I do ask questions (but then I let myself in for 20 minutes' discourse on sleight-of-hand or the history of certain magic posters). He never has to ask ME questions because I just go ahead and talk about myself and my interests. I wish both of us knew better questions. I feel that we still don’t know each other well, though we do have much in common and have learned to get along (I suppose). Of course some things about me he probably wouldn’t want to know. And it seems, from what he says, that the “world” views him as the saintly, helpful one—and views me as the selfish, self-absorbed, disruptive one. But then there’s the matter of his behaving one way in his charitable activities and another at home, where he lets boxes pile up and has no regard for the condition of the house we both live in.

Brother Brian claims to have had a job offer from Publix, but has not said if he’ll take it. He still needs a photo I.D. We get no progress reports, only hints. It’s wearying. Sister Felicia provoked me this morning during our Sibling Zoom meeting; I flashed her the finger, then lied and said I didn’t. She definitely has less respect for me than she used to, or maybe it’s that she no longer disguises the fact that she never really thought much of me in the first place. And now I’m scheduled to “analyze” myself in terms of “archetypes” at this “workshop” that Allana from Debbie’s “spirituality” group is giving for the two of us (me and Debbie) tomorrow. Although I’m happy to talk about myself, of course, I don’t know if I'll like the format. Allana is very smart, but I will probably try to derail her “instructions” anyway. That’s what I do. (All those quotation marks above? I meant every one of them!)

My biggest disappointment, I hate to say, is that Don Henry, Grammy-winning co-songwriter, has not replied to my email yet again. I wish he’d just explain UP FRONT that he doesn’t do that sort of thing (comment on people’s songs) without payment. 

I’m a fool, I suppose, if I continue to think I’m worth communicating with just because I can write a decent email, share a fun song, and had a three-day songwriting workshop with him TWICE. I’m nobody to him. I ran into him because he was in town to play a few songs (all of which I’d heard before) at Jim Parker’s Songwriters’ Series, which Russell and I spent three freezing hours attending in Mars Music Hall. The other two songwriters (old men also) were quite amusing. Jim Parker, who usually deigns to at least make a snide-ish remark to me in other situations, did not notice me at all. We sat with Jani and Greg, and also Wayne and Deb from Harmony Sound. I suppose it was Wayne and Deb’s table; maybe I should thank them in person tomorrow, just in case they hate me too.

Is it a good sign that I am thinking so hard about other people’s opinions of me? Ha, ha. At least I am not isolated. In fact, there is altogether too much People Stuff going on. Recently agreeing to work on a few songs with Ted Alexander isn’t helping. My energy level is down. Lately I look forward WAY TOO MUCH to lying in bed and reading and then falling asleep, and sometimes I don’t want to wake up. But, being the Dutiful One (that will be one of my “archetypes”),

I do wake up each morning (around 10:30) and then actually GET UP, so as to perform my self-inflicted exercise routine and at least consider buying some meat with which to make dinner. And I ain’t gonna skip the open mics. I have to prove myself if it kills me. (Hope that’s not a prediction.) Also, I miss my cat. 

2026 and/or bust...

Among the conceptual scavengers rummaging around in my brain lately is the idea that my life is rushing to a mostly-unsatisfactory close. A few months ago, I was intermittently haunted by the number 76, which is the age I’ll be—not this April, but next—in 2026. I toyed with the notion that it might be my last year on earth, although I don’t know why. I have felt something approximating this for a while now. Perhaps once I stopped being able to have a few beers, relax, and provide my consciousness with a sense of ease rather than the almost constant worry it soberly hosts nowadays, it made sense to believe that the end was likely near. Both parents having lived past 90 doesn’t guarantee anything. Every day it crosses my mind that I’d better make that last will and testament.

Since the election there has been plenty of non-personal stuff to worry about. Any aspect of that could easily be the cause of my vaguely anticipated demise—from a carelessly started nuclear war, to climate-change tornadoes and fires, to inflation making healthy food unaffordable, to the yanking away of Medicare and Social Security benefits. I’m already anticipating having to work some job, give up my songwriting and other “hobbies” due to the resulting time constraints. That will lead lead to stress and medical issues that I’ll find no help for. Sister Felicia would say I’m paranoid. I say, be prepared for the worst.

I do not fail to notice that my concerns are, for the most part, personal. I do not share my friend Joy’s emotional identification with Mother Earth. I know my empathy for others exists, because I feel it looming when I think about Gaza, or the homeless, or those who’ve recently been dismissed from their government jobs for no good reason. It’s painful to indulge those feelings for more than a minute or two, but they are always in the background.

And I seem to have lost the will to acknowledge, let alone pursue, invisible connections to the “divine.” Yes, it’s true I attend a monthly “spirituality” discussion with some women friends of my fellow jazz enthusiast Debbie Preece (Debbie wants to spread the word of Reverend Moon but is very open to others’ ideas and conducts the meeting with a light hand). Four meetings so far—Saturday mid-day events—and I’ve only just now learned these ladies’ names: Vanessa, Alana, Dixie, Jodie. They know it’s going to be my birthday soon, and will be bringing me an apple pie. They might be surprised to find out I’m 75. I’ve been strangely tolerant while listening to their talk of Jesus and God, or cosmic guidance via serendipity and coincidence. My turn always comes around, and I talk about other things, and they seem to enjoy it. I’m funny, they say.

Oh, these different clubs I’m in! Sometimes I think I’m losing my grip! Jazz jams, open mics, Monkeyspeak, the women’s group, a writers' group, exercise at the gym, and the domestic scene. Not to mention ukulele lessons which are not connected to anything. So many casual promises I fail to follow through on. So many texts on my phone that I don’t want to deal with. At my age, it takes willpower to head out into the world of an evening. It takes the very real threat of screwing up in public to motivate the practicing of songs. And it takes some kind of faith to be politically active, which I am not, although I did go to one organizational meeting of “Indivisible.” I do not think anything can stop the autocratic juggernaut, but I don’t say that out loud. https://indivisible.org/

I seem to become very angry for a few days every month, as if I were still having PMS. I know I’m constantly (semi-secretly) angry toward Brother Brian, simply because he’s still here. And now I’m constantly angry toward Open-Mic Eric because I thought I’d made a music friend, and he turned out to be a Trumper. Once in a while I let this anger out, and then feel guilty. It’s my life’s theme, apparently. The inability to really enjoy myself is another theme.

Songs keep coming, thank goodness. If I weren’t making something I’d feel useless. It doesn’t matter a whole lot that no one pays much attention. I actually like almost every song I’ve written, and some of the newer ones I’m very delighted with. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HcAl_VYF-eUQwwY9IC6eZK3NdWMe00An/view?usp=sharing 

Sometimes my delight is marred by obligation; I can’t forget about all the duties I’m neglecting if I am at home and those things are in my face. Escape for more than an hour or two is not possible.

The future is now, an extended now, day after day. I miss my dog Maggie. My feet are numb and compromise my balance. My hearing and voice are not what they once were. But my marriage is a 40-year best-friendship with benefits, and I guess that’s good. When I think about it, in the long-ago past when such things were said to be possible, I never really experienced a romance where both people were equally mesmerized for any length of time. I suppose this one comes closest. Maybe I’m lucky.

A Mockery of Earworms

Trapped in my individual brain with bits and pieces of my own songs appearing now and then and refusing to leave me alone (like the flies in our kitchen), I try to fill my consciousness with better stuff. This includes Early Music, samples of which I enjoyed at a recent concert in the Church of the Nativity; and portions of Hannah Arendt’s “The Human Condition,” which I confess I do not understand. That is, I comprehend what she’s saying, logically, but I don’t understand why she’s saying it. What is the ultimate purpose of going over and over the history of society’s definitions of “work” vs. “labor,” and of “public” vs. “private”? I become impatient. 

It’s also depressing to be informed that in ancient times (at least in Greece and Rome) women and slaves were equivalent, serving “the body” and not higher purposes), and a life lived in the “private” space of the home might as well not have been a life at all. But in modern times, this situation has reversed itself somehow, Arendt claims. Though I feel obligated to finish Arendt’s classic, I prefer my forays into William James’s “Talks to Teachers” (1892), which explores the psychology of children and the learning process. He was a friendly writer/lecturer. Wish I’d been there.

But no one I know is interested in discussing any of this, and my posts on Facebook that mention my reading are not “popular,” but I’ve not been “popular” anyway, except amongst certain women my age. It makes me want to take a philosophy class just to have company in my not-so-serious intellectual pursuits. It also makes me impatient when I encounter annoying New-Agey or religion-tinged or psycho-babbly memes posted by “friends” who think they are being deep and wise but are merely spouting cliches, usually with grammatical errors, misspellings and misattributions. Some of what they do is meant to soothe, and I do not condemn that, but it has been decades since my response would be, “Yeah! That’s right! I never thought of that! Thanks!” My response now is anger, whether or not the meme-monger is on “my side” politically. And I know that anger is wrong and could be damaging (to me, mostly), so I step back and quell it. 

The constant self-promotion of some of my music-scene acquaintances is also becoming profoundly irritating. Perhaps the answer is to avoid Facebook. Would Arendt consider Facebook “public” or “private”? Is being active on Facebook actually being part of the world or not? I am pretty sure social media is not entirely illusory, since in many cases it interacts with the “real” world. After all, those selfies and videos must have a physical location—isn’t that the point? To announce “Here I am, or was, and this is what I looked like in that environment, and you can see all the other people that saw me, too!” I simply cannot bring myself to produce anything like that, even during the few times I make an appearance on the “real” world local music scene. 

I think I had a decided aversion to solo public performances from the start (“House of the Rising Sun” at summer camp). I recall being fine with accompanying Drew on harmonica, or singing with Larry and Nick during the short duration of our trio, “Woodsmoke” in 1970-71. These performances happened at tiny coffeehouses where alcohol was not served; there was an intimacy, and as far as I can recall, no amplification. And I was helping others with their performances, not out for myself, or, god forbid, asking others to help with MY performances! I enjoy singing, but having to accompany myself has not been easy, and having to push myself forward alone does not feel natural; it almost feels “sinful.” During the ‘90s, with “The Lonesome Lovers,” it was a no-brainer. I had three, sometimes more, other musicians expecting my participation! I had an excuse to be there. And I could rely on them for accompaniment when I sang or played harmonica or elementary-level lead guitar. At the time, I dared to think I was “good.” There was no social media to worry about then. 

So, the problem is, I’m old. Old, old, old. At 74, I keep thinking I’m 76, because it feels like it. Or maybe my spidey-sense is telling me the world’s going to end in two years (or I myself will end in two years despite my parents living to ages 90 and 92). Physical and social efforts take a lot out of me these days. I can’t accomplish more than one outing per day (though grocery shopping doesn’t really count) and would prefer days with none required. But something in me (the desire to exist in public space, a la Greek and Roman standards?) makes me continue to try to have a presence “out there.” Though I know my age is a handicap; no one wants to contribute to a soon-to-be-defunct cause. Perhaps that’s why no one wants to commit to putting down a vocal track on any of my songs for the “musical.” I still dare to think the songs are pretty “good.” 

I am not-so-secretly (in my private self-awareness, anyway) verging on childishly jealous and angry that others (like Amber C.) are in the spotlight constantly, having done little new or interesting musically to warrant it. But youth is the attracting ingredient, and perhaps “new and interesting” artfulness is not called-for in today’s “real” world local bar-and-restaurant jungle. Amber’s actual achievement is self-promotion, which she does extraordinarily well and with an endearing goofiness. And she is kind, offering opportunities for others to share her gigs and get some “exposure.” She is also troubled in ways that provoke what little genuine caring and concern I can muster for someone I don’t know very well. But I don’t have much opportunity to show it to her. There’s no room for me in her world. But when I think about my behavior at Amber’s current age (32) I realize I am not a good example. I was trying to finish college at UAH and working part-time, but there were ungovernable episodes of emotional upset and drinking binges and attractions to uninterested persons. I was writing fiction and poetry, even a song or two, but it never occurred to me to energetically pursue any one activity to “get somewhere” with it. I did what I could; I was involved with others in various extra-curricular enterprises (The Exponent, Brick, senior art shows). My goals at that point were in line with “the establishment”: to get my degree and get a job. 

I am appalled when I review what I see as my life-long lack of imagination when it came to BIG life-plan types of things (e.g. my late 1970s’ delusion of becoming a stay-at-home wife-and-mother with alcoholic womanizer Barry), and my need for others to encourage, support, and provide an obvious context for my so-called “creativity” (like the first iteration of Monkeyspeak did). I am not a born “star.” I have been somewhat prolific considering the long years that went by with NO context except for my jobs (hence the accumulation of promotional writings that I keep in a box somewhere). But I have never actively sought more attention as an individual than I got in the normal course of artistic or musical events prior to cell phones, the internet, and social media. Mailing postcards for The Lonesome Lovers was for “us,” not for “me.” 

I could go on and on. Just wanted to get these thoughts down. And when I go to post this, I’ll probably discover that I’ve already written these things over and over. As it was in the Beginning (of this post), I am “trapped in my individual brain with bits and pieces of my own songs [and my own memories] appearing now and then and refusing to leave me alone,” like the elderly cat following me around the house with her endless variety of loud, mournful cries.

Milestones and millstones

As I hack away the remnants of my first experience with COVID, I'm forced to contemplate once again my declining capacities. There wasn't a lot of difference in my activities of the last day or two, and my activities on any given day. I can still cook (I did not do so on the first two days of this illness, though). I did my mild morning exercises eventually except for the balance ones, which seemed too daring for someone in recovery. It's days like this that are not possible to explain to younger people. I maintain my appetite for typing up a storm, as long as I can sit comfortably, but going out and doing things and talking with people? That appetite, never sturdy, may have vanished permanently, just like my sense of smell (I thought, until I detected the spilled fish oil in the pet-food cabinet). 

Russell had it too, and Brian. I seem to have gotten it from Brian.

My post of mid-June is long and accurate and covers a lot of ground. It'll make a great read for me in another year. Now here I am ten weeks later (too soon?) with one nice event and two complaints. A week ago, on Sunday the 18th, Russell and I drove to Clarksville, Tennessee, to pick up the ukulele being made for me by Jonathan Mann: the "Raptor" jazz baritone electric, lacquered a deep green. It plays beautifully, as I'd hoped it would. My fingers slip around less. The action is slightly easier, the tone is fine. Best of all, it's not intimidating, and I almost feel I deserve it. The thing cost me $1,750. I do realize it will not solve my playing problems. I don't practice much, and my aging fingers are not as reliable, especially when I'm playing in public. But it's already proven itself at an online open mic, and it will be a treat to write songs on it.

Russell and I had a fun road trip--I'm not being facetious. We got along, we enjoyed the drive, the visit with the luthier, and a brief spell at a kitschy emporium called "Sweet Charlotte," where I had a terrible taco salad served in a Dorito bag. We even stopped and took pictures of a weird building we spied. It gave me hope for us as a couple. I think what also gives me hope is that we are sharing the burden of having Brian here with the same helpless but hopeful feelings, partial proof that we have a similar world view. Then again, I could be deluded. There are times when I detect the same oblivious male condescension coming from Russell that I experience from Brian, and have known in many other times and places. Condescension and being humored are not as bad as being ignored, however.

I have, for the last day (since I accidentally found out about it), had to consider that I might be suffering from being ignored as a child, which supposedly causes something called "Complex" PTSD. I watched someone's video; I did a meditation. So far, so good. And yet I know that I was decidedly NOT ignored. At times I was micromanaged! It's not exactly psychobabble, but these earnest attempts to categorize What Ails a Person are so clumsy and general. What I think now is that I was ignored at a certain crucial point, around the time Michael was born. I have evidence of ancient feelings of abandonment, one being the overwhelming crying jag I went on when Russell stayed out with Steve Linney late one night early on, maybe the first year we were married. It was an irrational response, and I'd had such responses before, with Bob Brattvet in the 1970s. I sobbed until I choked. It went on for what seemed like hours. (They weren't even at a bar, they were at an all-night coffeeshop.) There was another time a two decades after that when someone I'd been talking with at work acted as if I did not exist once we'd arrived at a cafeteria line and other people were around. My response was one of terror and loss of identity, which I managed to cover up. Again, irrational. (That I felt a tinge of that two weeks ago at an open mic when I looked up and no one was looking my way does not bode well.)

I try to be "normal," but I do lack self-control occasionally, and I have never felt secure within myself. However, I do not come across as insecure; in fact, it's the opposite, unless a person knows my secret triggers, which not even I know! Tell you who does--Felicia. She's turned into a real manipulator. When did this start? Was it when I had some beers and confessed some insecurities to her back in 2017 when she dropped Tomas off for his year at New Century High? But long before that there were times she tried to get my attention, and I never understood, and she was very disappointed in me. Resentment can grow. The collapse of her marriage must have had an effect; she's almost viciously independent now, and full of mockery of women (like me) who are less so.

Along with CPTSD, I found something more applicable: "reactive abuse." That's when someone we apparently have to label "the abuser" provokes a "victim" into lashing out abusively themselves. This has been happening with Felicia and me on Zoom meetings since 2020. The descriptions are uncanny, as if the writer had witnessed me and Felicia interacting. And yet, as with the syndrome discussed above, I know that she is not "the abuser" all the time. We do not have a domestic situation; this is a role she perhaps subconsciously adopts only on Zoom meetings with the other siblings. And I certainly do not consider myself a "victim" except during those moments. It has been painful enough, though, that I talked to a social worker about it in 2022, and was given tips, tricks, and the reminder that I can just STOP talking with her--that I was under no obligation to talk with her EVER AGAIN if I was being attacked, or felt as if I would be.

But the thought of not talking with Felicia, for some reason, makes me almost cry (and I haven't actually cried since my mother's funeral in 2014, and that wasn't about my mother, but about Michael). Maybe I'm a sentimental fool, remembering the good times when we were all in our twenties and thirties. Maybe I don't like the idea of losing the chance to play "big sister" once more, although she's more "worldly" than me at this point. There's nothing I can help her with; she has made it evident that she finds my life's stories pointless and sad, and my "creative" activities incomprehensible.

At least writing all of this down makes me feel less sick at heart, even if I am still slightly sick from COVID.