I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Flanagan’s Run
I love Reader’s Digest Condensed Books. I have never, ever bought one new. I always find them at yard sales for 25 to 50 cents each. I love them because there are about four books condensed in each edition and I can expose myself to a variety of authors and stories that I might never have found. I have discovered authors in these books that have become favorites.
One book I found in a Reader’s Digest Condensed Books years ago is called Flanagan’s Run by Tom McNab. It’s not a bad story, but I think I might have read it once and forgotten it if it hadn’t been about a grueling journey across the country. It caused me to ponder a lot. If I were to make a list of books that changed me, this one would be on it.
The book is available at Amazon.com, which describes the story this way:
It is depression-era America and notorious huckster, Flanagan, plans the ultimate race, reeling in contestants with the promise of a glittering jackpot prize. Two thousand audacious hopefuls line up at the starting line from every walk of life and all ends of the globe, each with something to prove. As they run themselves ragged across America, they come up against numerous hazards, including the precipitous Rockies, shady mobsters and crooked officials. Their different stories, ambitions and dreams converge through a shared determination which will inspire you to push on to the finishing line.
As the race began, participants formed mostly informal alliances–small groups of runners who joined together to encourage and support each other through the race. The story centered on one of those alliances, which was headed by old Doc Cole, a veteran of other marathons. He advised the members of his group on what to wear, the necessity of keeping hydrated, how to pace themselves, and how to care for their bodies. As the race continued, the teammates formed a close bond and they provided encouragement and support to each other. Sometimes teammates ran together for several hours and sometimes one gave a word of encouragement as he ran past the other.
The book made me ponder the importance of having a group of friends to provide encouragement and support. I know that my family gained a lot of strength from friends all around the world who prayed for us, encouraged us, cried and laughed with us, and provided us with practical help while JJ was battling cancer. They even took pictures of themselves in silly hats to make JJ laugh. Even their pets wore silly hats. We couldn’t have made it without our friends.
I also understand the importance of not just receiving support, but also giving it to others who are going through difficult times. I have known several people who were so focused on their own struggles that they became very self-absorbed and without compassion toward others. These “poor me victims” are miserable to be around.
I love a story a family friend tells of a time when he was complaining about all his struggles and problems to a co-worker. The older man listened and then said, “That is a sad story. Everyone has a sad, sad story.” Then he shared his own sad story, and the tale was so heartbreaking that our friend was ashamed for complaining about his own problems. He realized that all his problems were as nothing compared to those of this other guy.
One time an on-line friend asked advice at a forum about a situation she was struggling with. I had similar struggles, so I messaged her to encourage her and we began to share our experiences with each other. When I heard her story, I emailed “Wow. Your story is very horrible. Compared to what you are going through, my own struggles are minor.” As I sent the email to her, I received one from her in my inbox. When I read it, I laughed because she had pretty much written the same thing as I had: “Wow. Your story is very horrible. Compared to what you are going through, my own struggles are minor.” We laughed.
Things things all taught me that I’m not the only one struggling, and that while sometimes I need the support of others, they also need my support. Reaching out to others helps keep our own problems in perspective. I’ve also observed that sometimes people are in our lives for years and sometimes people enter our lives to give brief encouragement before they disappear–like medical staff in the hospital or a stranger who stops to help change a tire.
Another thing that Flanagan’s Run taught me is that every participant ran their own race. When a runner in the story was struggling with a foot injury, a teammate ran alongside her to help her pace herself so she could reach the next checkpoint on time, but he didn’t attempt to carry her and he didn’t risk disqualifying himself by keeping beside her the whole way. They both were responsible for running their own race. They were both in it to win.
This is important.
EJ and I are both compassionate people who love to help others. Once we let a guy who was going through a difficult time live with us for a while. The guy, who was about our age, had lost his wife (divorce) and his job. After he moved in with us, he spent his time sleeping, reading, playing on the computer, and sometimes talked about digging up my gardens, planting vegetables, and using our house for a soup kitchen. Uh….no.
We talked to a counselor we knew about this and she said the guy was living like a teenager with no responsibilities. She counseled, “You need to tell him that he can only stay with you if he agrees to spend every week day looking for a job. Looking for a job needs to be his eight-hour-a-day job.” She continued, “If he is serious about getting his life back on track, he will readily accept these boundaries. If he only wants to live off you without responsibilities then he will manipulatively threaten to move out in hopes that you will beg him to stay.” So EJ went home and told the guy that he needed to look for a job starting that Monday. The guy threatened to move out, blah, blah, blah, everything the counselor had warned he would try. Forewarned, EJ did not allow himself to be manipulated and the guy moved out the next day.
I’ve also had other friends who were wounded and struggling. I have compassionately listened to them for hours, we have rearranged our schedules for them, and we did all we could to help them. But all they really did was moan about their problems, and they never changed anything, and when I couldn’t fill the empty places within them, they moved on to others who tried to support them…and then on to others. All my help and encouragement didn’t do much of anything for them.
I began to learn that although we can give encourage, advice, and support, we all really are responsible for running our own races. We can’t run others’ races for them. The guy who lived with us needed to take responsibility for his own life. We couldn’t support him for the rest of his life. Neither did we want a soup kitchen in our home. Our one friend needed to stop expecting people to financially and emotionally prop her up, and she needed to get a job, get out on her own, and provide for her children even though that was hard. She’s hurting herself by not reaching for independence. My other friend needed to stop focusing only on her own emotional wounds. She needed to begin the hard work of healing and to reach out in compassion toward others. These people are all emotionally crippled and living miserable lives because they wanted to be carried by others.
At the same time, I always try to keep in mind that no one can carry me either. Yes, I have gone through some difficult things in my life, and, yes, I sometimes need the support of friends, but it’s my responsibility to face problems courageously and with faith, to overcome difficulties, and to reach for growth and healing. No one can do this for me.
I can’t carry others through life and they can’t carry me. We can advise and encourage each other, but in the end, we each must run our own races. We each run alone together.
That is what I learned from Flanagan’s Run.
The Summer of the Long Walks
Every day I take my dog Danny for a walk. Usually we just walk around town. I used to walk him a mile out into the countryside and a mile back, but a few years ago we had a really hot summer and on one of our walks Danny laid down in lawn sprinkler puddle and it took forever to get him to move again.
One summer several years ago–none of us can remember just how long ago–I started walking long distances.
I think I started taking longer walks because one morning I looked out the window and saw that EJ had bought another beater truck. I had told him I was tired of old beater vehicles and, yet, here was another parked in the driveway. I was upset so I took a long walk to work off my anger.
I must pause to explain that most of the time I didn’t mind EJ’s old vehicles. They were cheap vehicles and sometimes they were kind of fun. For example, one of our first vans reminded us of an old aunt, so we named her “Aunt Myrtle.” From that time forward, every time we bought an old van, we gave her an “Aunt” name. We had Aunt Mable, who wheezed and gasped up every tiny incline. We would hold our breath and encourage, “Come on, Aunt Mable, you can MAKE IT!” She was a persevering old dear who faithfully got us wherever we needed to go until one day EJ looked at her and said, “Dang, you are UGLY!” After that, Aunt Mable refused to drive in anything other than first gear or reverse so EJ drove her to the junk yard. He still feels bad about insulting her.
Our favorite Aunt was the red van EJ bought from his friend’s brother, who had used it in his llama shearing business. She had a strong engine and was very spunky. We thought it was uniquely funny that she smelled strongly of llama. I mean, how many people can brag about driving a smelly llama van? Of course, most people probably wouldn’t want to brag of such a thing. Anyway, we named her Aunt Dolly Llama. Regretfully we had to get rid of her when exhaust fumes started rising up through the holes rusting in her floor. I think EJ sold her back to the llama-shearer.
As I said, most of the time I didn’t mind the old vehicles, but that one day I did. So I was angry and I went for a long walk. I might have still been a bit angry the next day so I took another long walk. After that, I started enjoying pushing myself to take longer and longer walks each day: 2 miles, 3 miles, 4 miles. EJ thought it would be fun to see how far I could walk by the end of summer so he suggested that rather than walk a ways and then turn back, I just keep walking and walking and when I got tired, he said he’d come pick me up. We had two dogs at the time: old Jake and young Danny Boy. EJ said that if one dog got tired, he’d come get him and bring me the other dog. I love walking with dogs, and walking with a dog is safer than walking without one. I always carried water for myself and a small container so I could pour water into it for the dog.
So I walked. My goal was to walk to the next town 10 miles away by the end of the summer…and maybe even further.
I always tried to walk further each day, but if I couldn’t walk further then I at least tried not to walk less than I had walked the day before.
I started out each morning with a goal: “Today I am going to walk to this place, this road, this many miles.” Sometimes I wasn’t sure I would make it to my day’s goal, so I would “throw the shoe” and say to myself, “Ok, so I will just walk to that big tree.” When I reached the tree, I’d say, “Now I will just walk to that sign a little further down the road.” Sometimes, if I was especially tired, I’d tell myself, “I will just walk one more step…and one more step…and one more step.” No matter how tired, I could always take just one more step. To paraphrase a famous quote, “A journey of a thousand miles…is made one step at a time.”
Sometimes I’d wake up in the morning and groan, “I just cannot walk miles today.” If I thought that, I would just walk one of the dogs around town. I had learned that if I didn’t believe that I could walk for miles then I really couldn’t make it. Victories are won first in the mind or willpower. This supports what the Bible says about taking captive every thought, and renewing the mind, and thinking about things that are good…because as a man [or woman] thinks, so is he.
My most difficult day of walking was the day I decided to walk to our church, which was 9 miles away. I always checked the weather report before I set off so I could dress appropriately. The weather forecast was for a coolish day so I wore jeans, a t-shirt, and a sweat shirt. I walked for a few miles and then called EJ and traded Jake for Danny and continued on my way. The day heated up so I took off my sweatshirt and tied it around my waist. The day heated up more, and I got hot and overheated which zapped my strength. Finally, I called EJ to tell him that I couldn’t make it and I needed him to pick me up. He said he’d be right there.
Rather than just sit at the side of the road and wait for my support vehicle to pick me up, I kept walking. EJ didn’t arrive and I began to grumble under my breath. “Where are you, EJ? I need to you pick me up. I can’t walk anymore. Why aren’t you here?” I kept walking. Eventually, I got closer to the church and my mutters changed into pleas: “I hope you don’t come yet, EJ. Please, EJ, don’t pick me up yet. I am almost at the church. I will make it. Don’t pick me up.” And finally I made it to the church. I felt so victorious. I had made it! I staggered into the church and drank deep from the fountain, then refilled my water bottle and gave water to Danny.
EJ pulled into the parking lot a couple of minutes later. He told me that he purposely delayed picking me up because he knew that I really wanted to reach my day’s goal, and he knew I could do it, and he wanted me to have victory rather than defeat. This made me think of all the times I have complained to God that He was not helping me and I needed His help NOW–then later I looked back and realized that He actually tremendously enabled me to overcome difficulties and grow stronger by delaying His help.
The difficult walk to the church helped me overcome a psychological barrier. The next day I easily walked to the next town. Then I walked six miles into the country and turned around and walked six miles home. No problem. Danny got too tired and insisted on EJ picking him up, but I walked twelve miles that day. By that time summer was nearing its end and I completed my summer of long walks.
As I walked through the summer, I thought about journeys and adversity and faith. I pondered that there are four types of challenges a person encounters whenever he goes on a journey, and each needs to be faced and overcome:
- There are different types of terrain. Sometimes a person travels through pleasant countryside, but other times the path leads through deserts, or rugged mountains, or raging seas.
- There are different types of weather. Sometimes the weather is perfect–not too hot and not too cold. Other times the sun blazes down, or the storms rage, or a blinding snowstorm hits, or it’s freezing cold.
- There are personal battles that must be won. There are times a person walks with confidence and joy and strength, but other times there are battles with illness, or injury, or discouragement, or fear, or loss of confidence.
- There are also encounters with other people. There are people who are friendly, supportive, and helpful, but there are also people who are negative, toxic, and harmful.
I don’t think this just describes physical journeys–like walks to the next town. It also describes life and spiritual journeys. There, too, a person often encounters rugged paths, difficult storms, internal battles, and difficult people. And as I learned during my summer of the long walks:
- Always try to push forward…or at least not lose ground.
- Focus on both short- and long-term goals.
- Commit to the journey.
- Take one step at a time.
- Allow people to give support.
- Understand that sometimes unwanted delays can help me reach my goal.
- Don’t give up.
Throwing the Shoe
I really love stories about long walks and journeys because they are so filled with metaphors about life and adversity and faith. In the next few posts, I thought I’d share thoughts and observations about my own experiences as well as stories about journeys that have inspired me.
This first story is my own personal experience.
Michigan is a beautiful state filled with many beautiful forests and lakes. Surprisingly, Michigan also has miles of sand dunes–some 400 feet high. In 2011 viewers of the television program Good Morning, America voted the Sleeping Bear Sands Dunes to be the most beautiful place in America.
When I was about 19 years old, my parents, younger sister, and I camped at Silver Lake, which is a campground at the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes. My sister and I heard that Lake Michigan was only a three-mile hike across the dunes from our campground so we decided to make the trek.
We started out in good spirits. Three miles is not far and we didn’t expect the hike to take long. However, I suspect that “three miles” was “as the crow flies” and did not figure in the huge mountains of sand we had to climb.
We wore sandals, which are not good sand-climbing shoes. For every three steps we climbed, we slid back two. The day was sunny and hot. With much effort we finally made it to the summit of a dune expecting to see Lake Michigan. To our dismay, all we saw was another huge mountain of sand that was taller than the one we had just climbed. “Well,” we encouraged each other, “when we get to the top of the next dune, we will be within sight of Lake Michigan.” So we climbed and slid and sweated up the next dune. No Lake Michigan. Only another dune. My sister wanted to give up and turn back. I convinced her to keep going. We climbed the next dune. More sand. I can’t remember how many dunes we climbed, how many times my sister wanted to turn back, or how many times I convinced her to keep going. I hated giving up. I felt that if we turned back, we’d return to the campground in sweaty defeat, all our efforts wasted. If we kept going, we could jump into cool Lake Michigan in victory.
Finally, my sister firmly declared that she was turning back. An idea suddenly popped into my head. I have no idea where it came from “Give me one of your shoes!” I urged my sister. “Why?” she asked. “Don’t argue, just do it. Give me one of your shoes.” She took off her sandal and handed it to me. I also took off one of my sandals and I threw them up the sand dune out of reach. “Why did you do that?” my sister shouted in disbelief and anger. “Well,” I explained calmly, “We now have a choice. We can either climb up and get our shoes or we can return to the campground without them.”
We scrambled up the sand and retrieved our shoes. “Now let’s throw our shoes again,” I said. My sister understood what I was doing. We kept throwing our shoes up the dune, climbing up to get them, and throwing them again. In no time at all, we had reached Lake Michigan. After the hot journey, it was awesome jumping and splashing into the cool Lake before heading back to the campground.
What I learned that day is that sometimes a long journey over mountains of hot sand can seem too far to reach, but it takes no effort at all to climb a few feet to retrieve a shoe. That applies to life as well. Sometimes situations can be so difficult and dark that it can seem impossible to make it through. However, a person can shorten his focus and make it through one day. Or an hour. Or five minutes. Or even just this one moment. Anyone can make it through this one moment, this one second. Sixty seconds add up to an hour. Twenty-four hours adds up to a day. Seven days add up to a week. Four weeks add up to a month….and soon a person makes it through the suffering into victory on the other side.
Years later, I told EJ about this journey. Whenever we need to reach a distant goal by focusing on a shorter obtainable goal, we encourage each other, “You can make it. Just throw your shoe.”
Recovering Dreams
I have not done very well about writing lately. It seems to me that the more complex the thoughts I have in my head, the less I am able to put them into words.
Over the weekend EJ developed some sort of respiratory infection. He felt so nasty that he stayed home from work on Monday. He is still not up to par but was able to go to work on Tuesday. He generously gave his infection to me and now I am battling it. JJ might be coming down with it too. Yuck.
Last Friday I had my colonoscopy. Bleah. I got through it. One thing that amazed me is that the anesthesist told me that the drug she gave me would put me to sleep in 30 seconds. I had sort of thought that the “drug putting someone out within seconds” was merely a movie exaggeration. Not so. One minute–or, rather, half minute–she put the drug in the IV and the next I was waking up as the wheeled hospital bed was entering the room where EJ waited for me.
Anyway, the doctor said that the colonoscopy revealed three minor problems, but NOT anything serious like cancer. The most serious is that I have a pre-condition that could develop into diverticulitis, which is small pockets in the intestine. Yuck.
I kind of wonder if it’s all due to stress because I have felt heightened stress increasing–especially over the last year–and often I can feel its turmoil in my “gut.” Of course, it was stressful and tiring to help JJ through his battle with cancer. It’s been stressful for EJ at work and JJ is trying to get back into life, and I struggled last Spring and through the summer with a friend’s mistreatment and the loss of her friendship.
As I struggled with the friendship, I thought, “Ok, so sometimes friends grow apart and friendships die, and I need to just get over it and move on.” Good advice, but the problem was that I had known this friend for years, and deeply loved her, and her unkindness triggered emotional wounds that have forced me to re-process emotional abuse which can get messy. It’s the messiness that I was really struggling with. It was very difficult…although at the same time, it has helped me continue my journey toward recovery and healing. Difficult situations don’t always mean “bad.” Many times they lead to growth.
Mental health professions have described a 7 stage process of working through grief after a loss. You can read about the stages in detail at the website, Recovery-From-Grief.com. Briefly, the stages of grief are
- SHOCK & DENIAL
- PAIN & GUILT
- ANGER & BARGAINING
- “DEPRESSION”, REFLECTION, LONELINESS
- THE UPWARD TURN
- RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH
- ACCEPTANCE & HOPE
I believe that these stages don’t just apply to the death of a loved one. It applies to any loss (job, health, relationship, etc.) as well as to recovery from abuse. Within this framework, an abuse victim’s journey involves denying that she is being abused, to feeling pain and guilt as the abuser demolishes her identity, to trying to please and please the abuser, to learning more about abuse, to making positive changes, and finally acceptance and hope and growth.
As I wrote in previous posts, emotional abusers mess with their victims’ reality which makes victims lose confidence and self-esteem. The result of this is that victims tend to struggle to set boundaries, they accept blame for the abuse, they feel as if their every decision is wrong and they second- and third-guess all their decisions. When victims try to set boundaries, abusers and their supporters accuse them of being unloving, unforgiving, bitter, etc.
Emotional abusers are vampires who steal the life and hope from their victims.
Throughout the years, I have battled through the Recovery stages. Growth is not always in a constantly upward line. There are a lot of ups and downs, twists and turns, two steps forward and one step back. I find that each encounter with an abusive person has been very painful and damaging but also has taught me valuable truths and spurred me on to understanding and growth. I mean, either a person is destroyed by the abuse or she fights to overcome it and grows stronger. It’s one or the other. No matter how difficult it is, I am determined to be a survivor.
Over the last five years, I have felt an increase in fatigue as I fought hard to be free of abuse. I was probably in the Depression, Reflection, and Loneliness stage of Recovery. Then last year was really tough with JJ battling cancer, my loss of my unkind friend, and EJ’s situations at work, which included a close work friend being almost beaten to death by her son, and a guy EJ worked with for ten years killing his wife and then himself. We have felt so very drained.
My painful encounter with my friend last spring made me more determined than ever to overcome the abuse. In recent months, I have been renewing my efforts to understand emotional abuse and how to overcome it. Major steps of recovery involve learning to set healthy boundaries (which may include having No Contact with abusers and their supporters) and then working to overcome the false thoughts and beliefs that abusers bombarded us with and to learn to once again to believe in ourselves and gain confidence. I have been working on all these things. I have been understanding that I don’t have to tolerate abusive behavior or friends, I can make decisions, and I can refuse to listen to the lies abusers filled my thoughts with. While I still get hit with waves of discouragement, I am noticing more strength and stability rising within me.
Over the years, EJ and I have often talked about reaching for a life dream, and sometimes we have researched it, but we have never wholeheartedly pursued it. Part of the reason is that we didn’t know exactly what we wanted, or how to accomplish it, and we didn’t think we could swing the finances. Most of the reason is that we didn’t have confidence or belief in ourselves. We second-guessed ourselves. And third-guessed ourselves. And even fourth-guessed. We could think of many good reasons for pursuing the dream, but we also could think of many reasons why we couldn’t. If we swung the bat and missed, life could become very tricky. We kept thinking, “What if this is a mistake? What if it doesn’t work out? What if we miserably fail? What if….” EJ and I would talk and talk and research and research and get excited and then we’d sink back into “We can’t do this.”
After this last very difficult year, it feels as if we are merely existing. If feels as if energy and purpose and dreams are seeping away. Life has almost become a series of plodding on, trying to find energy to overcome daily tasks as they enter our lives. We are living passively. Sometimes we have said to each other, “We have got to do something fun, something to shake this fatigue from us and energize us.” But we aren’t really sure anymore what FUN is–and paying for regular bills, medical bills, car repairs or a new vehicle means we pinch pennies and we don’t have the funds for FUN. A lot of time even the thought of trying to have FUN seems too tiring. We do find pleasure in small things like birds, and squirrels, and walks, but we need a bigger dream before we wither away.
I’m not exactly sure how it happened. Maybe it’s because I am progressing through the stages of Recovery and gaining strength and so is EJ. In the last week EJ, JJ, and I have begun dreaming our dream again. It’s always been EJ’s dream, but it’s also become mine. If EJ and I fulfill our dream, we can also help JJ reach for his so this is his dream as well.
We want it so much that we can taste it.
We are on the very, very edge of being able to financially afford it. In fact, we could do it. There are a couple major challenges but we can think of more reasons to “go for it” then to not. Maybe this is a stupid idea and we can’t do it….but what if we could? I mean, what if we really could? Oh, my goodness, it would be heaven! However, to reach it we’d have to stop thinking that we can’t do it and start thinking that we can. We’d have to start believing in ourselves and each other. We would have to leave “safety” and take risks–like letting go of a trapeze bar and reaching for the next. If we miss the bar. SPLAT! Well, maybe it wouldn’t be the “SPLAT” that it would have been a few years ago.
I’m not going to tell you yet what this dream is because I’m not yet sure we have the strength to go for it. I fear we will talk about it, research it, make plans, and then step back from action. We are trying to encourage each other, challenge each other, motivate each other to keep moving forward. If we stop moving forward we might sink back into apathy. To accept “a life of quiet desperation” because we are afraid to take a risk seems beyond bearing. I’m afraid if we don’t reach for our dream now, we never will.
I’ll let you know how it progresses.
Frozen Fog
Yesterday morning we woke up to cold and beautiful scenery. Overnight the temperature had dropped to -16 (F). Apparently we had had fog and the cold temps caused it to freeze. It covered everything in beautiful little white flakes–not quite snow and not quite frost.
Later in the morning, it looked as if it were snowing even though the sky was deep blue and cloudless. It was actually the frozen frost falling from the trees. I, of course, videoed it. The white flakes were beautiful against the blue sky.
Tuesday morning I watched a squirrel try to access one of our bird feeders. Two times I watched him fall off the feeder in a cloud of snow. I decided to video his antics, but by then he had figured out how to reach the seeds. With the cats, Danny, the birds, and the squirrels, life here is never dull.
Accidental Fireworks
It’s looking more and more like winter here in Michigan. We now have several inches of snow–maybe five inches where we live. As usual, areas closer to Lake Michigan have more snow because of “lake-effect snow.” Lake effect snow is “snow falling on the lee side of a lake, generated by cold dry air passing over warmer water, especially in the Great Lakes region.” (Oxford Dictionary)
Overnight the fire in our woodstove burns down to embers. When I wake up in the morning, I get the fire going again–unless EJ wakes before I do. Before the wood had a chance to really get burning this morning and make the wood stove too hot, Luke found a “just warm enough” place to sit: on the “chin” of the woodstove. Leave it to a cat to find the most perfect warm place in the house.
Wind and blowing snow made visibility low today and caused two huge accidents. They were terrible. The first involved about 150 vehicles with many injuries and one fatality. A truck carrying at least 40 lbs of fireworks exploded resulting in fireworks going off in all directions. I heard that the news cameraman taking the video left his camera running and leaped into a ditch when the fireworks began going off. Here are a couple videos of this accident. The first one was taken by a witness. It shows vehicles running into each other. The second one is of the fireworks exploding.
The second accident happened a couple hours east of the first accident. More than 40 vehicles were involved in that pile up.
I’m glad that I didn’t have to go anywhere today because it certainly was a good day to stay home and off the roads. Fortunately, EJ doesn’t have to travel far to work. Still, I will be glad when he is home!
True Fiction
We are under a Winter Weather Advisory in my area of the world. We are experiencing very low temperatures and even lower windchill temps–as low as minus teens and twenties. Soon high winds will blow in and we will get several inches of snow. We won’t get as much as areas along Lake Michigan, who are expecting more than a foot of snow, but we could get enough to make life interesting. EJ backed an emergency kit in case he gets stranded along the road on his way home from work tonight.
The birds are really flocking to the feeders, perhaps doing their own winter storm preparations. Because of this, I made sure to fill the feeders this morning so the birds would have plenty to eat. I didn’t wear gloves because they were too bulky and I had to be able to open the feeders. I thought I’d be super quick, out and in again before I got too cold. I was wrong. I was out for no more than five minutes–maybe less–but in that time the cold made my hands hurt. When I got back inside, EJ warmed my aching hands with his warm ones.
Later EJ helped me bring in the day’s supply of firewood. With both of us working, we finished quickly before we got too cold. He also lent me a pair of his heavy work glove mittens so I didn’t have to wear my thinner work gloves.
Needless to say, I did not take Danny for his walk. It’s too cold for (wo)man or beast. When Danny wanted outside, I set our digital timer for ten minutes so he would not stay too long in the cold.
Our digital timer is very new; we only bought it a week or so ago. The first time it went off, it was scary(ish) because it is the exact rhythm of the Master’s drumbeat on the science fiction series Doctor Who. The Master is a Time Lord like the Doctor, but he is an evil psychopath who takes over the world. All his life he hears a constant drumbeat in his head and he uses the sound to telepathically cause the world to trust him. Here is a link to the rhythm of the drumming and here is a link to a segment of the episode that features the Master. Our timer goes beep-beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep-beep, beep-beep-beep-beep. Scary.
Doctor Who has a way of making common things scary. Like stone angels. And silence. And tally marks. And shadows. And scarecrows. And….now even digital timers.
I love science fiction and fantasy stories. I know people who hate it. I even know people who think that a person cannot love science fiction and fantasy and still be a good Christian. I think it’s perfectly fine that people are different, no one is the same, people have different likes and dislikes. I also think that not every story–in any genre–is worth reading or watching. However, I think a person can have different tastes and still love God.
I love science fiction and fantasy because I think deeply and complexly and metaphorically and these types of stories are overflowing with complex metaphors about life. I see them as almost parables. For example, fantasy stories, in my opinion, are not merely about wicked queens and evil witches and sorcerers. They are not merely about dragons, enchantments, heroic princes and beautiful princesses. They are about good and evil, about light and darkness, about recognizing and fighting evil, about being brave and doing what is right even if you face a powerful enemy and are scared.
And science fiction stories aren’t merely about technology. They are very often about exploring who we are and who we are becoming. They are about soullessness vs humanity. Many times they are about faith. For example, Star Wars had a lot to do with choosing good when tempted with evil and trusting in a higher power (faith). The original Star Trek series had several episodes about emotional abuse. The Matrix was about faith and choosing truth rather than comfortable lies. The Stargate SG-1 series was about breaking free from false gods. Battlestar Galactica was much too sexy, but explored faith and the question of “What if the evil robots were more human than the humans? What if they understood God’s love and plan more than humans?” And Doctor Who is drawn to humans because even though they often act stupidly, he also finds them fascinating in their courage and uniqueness. To him, people are “fearfully and wonderfully made” and they awe him.
I suppose that even horror stories can be deeply metaphoric–although horror stories have always scared me and I don’t watch them. (Of course, the line between Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror can sometimes get blurred.) Some of my family used to watch the B-grade horror movies when I was growing up and they scared me because those threatened by monsters never seemed able to escape. The woman either stumbled and fell, the car wouldn’t start, the road was blocked, the doors to the spooky mansion always slammed shut and locked. Also, modern horror movies tend to be too gory.
I do think monsters exist. Not walking mummies or Frankenstein monsters or the creatures from the swamps, but people who have lost their humanity and who abuse others.
And that is a good segue into my next topic.
I am going to very deliberately not write about JJ for a while because he is dealing with a Situation. Without going into details, he started sensing some Red Flags about the girl he met a month ago. It made him uneasy so he told her he wanted to slow things down. She refused and pressed harder so he ended the relationship. Since then she has been…well, it’s called Hoovering. Hoovering is a tactic of emotional abuse. So is ignoring personal boundaries. When a person refuses to accept that “no” means “no,” he or she is ignoring personal boundaries.
Because the girl has been reading this blog, I will not write about JJ or her because I don’t want to fuel a thirst for information. However, I will occasionally write about emotional abuse in general. It’s something that I have been contemplating writing about for a long time because I have been working to understand and recover from the emotional abuse in my family for years. Since emotional abuse is on the rise in the world, I think it’s important to understand. It’s important to learn about this abuse so you can recognize it, so you avoid it, so you can escape it, and perhaps even so you can stop doing it.
Emotional Abusers are what psychologists call “Cluster B disorders.” They include antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, and histrionic disorders. Narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths fall within these disorders. Emotional Abusers are often referred to as Emotional Vampires because they feed off their victims’ strengths and weaknesses and destroy them in the process. I will describe the abuse in this post as a Vampire story.
I have read theories that people become Emotional Vampires because they have trauma in their past (abused, not nurtured, abandoned, rejected, etc) that caused unmet needs and unresolved pain. It causes them to have a great emptiness and a deep hunger for love, acceptance, and nurturing. It is not their fault that they were abused, wounded, damaged–anymore than it was the fault of the unfortunate victim who was bitten by a Vampire in the stories. However, a person is responsible for his own actions and a person is responsible for the pain he inflicts on others.
I think the reason that Emotional Vampires target those who are deeply empathetic, compassionate, and forgiving is that these people have exactly what the Vampires are hungry for. The problem is that no human can ever give them the love and acceptance that they crave. Their emptiness is too immense, too consuming for any person to fill. It is sad, really. However, if a person does not overcome the damage, I think he loses his humanity. He begins to care only about himself, he lies and accuses, he sucks the life from people, he destroys.
Vampires tend to feed off victims’ strengths and weaknesses and they destroy their spirit and identities. When the victim is consumed, the Vampire moves on to another victim. However, just like in the stories, Vampires also don’t like their victims to escape.
Many people counsel victims to “love and forgive” an unrepentant abuser, meaning that they should be sort of all sweetness and niceness, just let things go, and never confront them. But it’s not real love to enable the abuser to continue his evil. It’s not love to counsel a victim to try harder to please the abuser and to “forgive him even if he doesn’t say he’s sorry.” It’s evil. Actually, the more a victim tries to satisfy an unrepentant Vampire, the more the Vampire will feed off him. Vampires are so hungry they will get their needs met no matter how much they damage others. Most of the abuse sites say that emotional abusers are so deceptive and manipulative that if you find yourself to be a target of one, the only thing you can so is RUN! Don’t have contact.
The scary thing is that everyone has the potential to become a Vampire. It’s easy to try to get unmet needs satisfied by taking from others. And those who have been wounded by a Vampire can become so empty that they become a Vampire who preys on others.
It’s interesting that in the stories, Vampires do not see their reflections in mirrors. It’s true for Emotional Vampires in real life too. They destroy with lies and deception but they do not acknowledge any problem within themselves. They refuse to see or acknowledge wrong-doing. They refuse to repent. As the Bible says, “For whoever hears the Word but doesn’t do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror, who looks at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. (James 1:23-24)
A person can choose not to become a Vampire or his prey by having the courage to look at himself in the mirror. All the abuse sites I have read said that to be free, a person must face the truth. He must face the truth about the abuse and the abuser. He must face the truth about the damage done to him as well as the damage he has done to others. He must be willing to see both the strength and beauty of himself as well as the weaknesses and ugliness. He also must stop looking to others to fill his need and learn to accept himself. And, most of all, he must look to God. I think only God is big enough and strong enough to fill the empty hunger. The Bible is true: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. ”
I know this all sounds like unbelievable fiction. But, then, in the stories, no one ever believed that there were Vampires and monsters either.
Don’t believe me about this form of abuse? Do your own research. You can read more about Emotional Abuse in the links I’ve posted along the left side of my blog. Also, I’ve written a bit about my thoughts and story in the About Me tab at the top of my blog.
Clever Cats
After an unseasonable warm November and December, we finally are getting wintry weather. Last weekend we had a little freezing rain. It was just enough to make the roads a bit slick but not enough to cause major problems. Since then we have gotten several inches of snow and the temps have dipped into the single digits–with wind chill temps near -20.
I don’t mind wintry weather. I love the coziness I feel when it’s cold and snowing outside and I’m wrapped in a quilt near the wood stove with cats on my lap and Danny at my feet.
Poor Danny didn’t get his walk today. It was too cold. Brrrr. Usually when EJ leaves for work, Danny gets excited about his walk, but he seemed to know that we would not be going for a walk today.
Last night Timmy was sitting on my lap and he streeeetched out so his paws were on my laptop. He pressed a few keys and suddenly everything on my screen turned sideways. It took me a long time to figure out how to get it back to normal. I tried pushing buttons, restarting my computer, and searching for help. It’s very difficult to operate a computer when everything is sideways, especially since the mouse operated as normal. I mean, to get to the top of the screen (which was now to the left), I had to move my mouse up toward the top of the monitor as normal so to move the mouse to the left I had to move it up. It was sort of like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.
Anyway, nothing worked. I finally got on EJ’s computer and googled the problem and found the answer. To rotate the screen, a person has to push CTRL + ALT + plus an arrow key in the direction you want the screen to rotate. Since I wanted up to be up, I pushed the up arrow. I am still trying to figure out how Timmy knew exactly which three keys to push in order to mess me up. He’s a clever cat.
Speaking of clever cats, this morning I walked into the bathroom to get something. I didn’t turn on the light. I heard a trickling water sound and looked around for the source, thinking that maybe someone had accidentally left the faucet running. Then I saw that Luke was using the toilet. It’s always amazing to me that he taught himself to use the toilet a year or so ago. But then I realized that the profile wasn’t correct. I turned on the light and saw that it wasn’t Luke using the toilet, it was Little Bear. So now we have TWO cats using our toilet. Luke is an amazing cat because not only did he teach himself to use the toilet, he also taught Little Bear. I didn’t get a picture of Little Bear this morning, but here is a picture of Luke that I took a year or so ago.
Goodbye 2014
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I cannot believe that 2014 is coming to an end already. It’s seems like yesterday that we were entering the NEW MILLENNIUM…and now here it is 15 years later. I feel as if I’ve been sucked into a time vortex or something.
I must say that I am not sad to see 2014 go. It was a difficult year filled with difficult experiences–most of all our son’s battle with cancer. However, there were good things in it too, such as friends who were very supportive during this difficult time.
EJ has had almost two weeks off from work during this holiday season. We have relaxed…and got a few things done, and bought a used Nissan Xterra. When one of my friends–who is a fellow Doctor Who fan–saw the picture of our new vehicle, she exclaimed, “It is Tardis blue! Are you going to call it the Tardis?” I thought that was a splendid idea. So thanks to my friend, the Xterra is now officially “The Tardis.” I found a sonic screwdriver flashlight keychain on Amazon and am hoping to get it when I have extra money to keep with the Doctor Who theme. I figure, hey, why not?
We have been especially busy the last couple of days getting the house cleaned, and meals planned, and projects completed because tomorrow JJ’s new girlfriend and her mother are coming to visit for the first time. They live about four hours away in a nearby state. Everyone is somewhat nervous. I have never done this “meeting my son’s girlfriend and her mother” thing before. I’m sure we will all survive….right?
I have spent several days writing about emotional abuse. I wrote first about emotional abuse and then a brief-ish summary of my story. It was kind of difficult to write, but I felt that it needed to be done for some reason. Maybe because it is another step in my recovery and maybe because it might help others. I know that I have been helped by the stories of others, and by their support. The post is in the About Me tab at the top of the page, but you can also click here: TJ’s Story.
2014 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,800 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
December Mix
I hope you all had a wonderful holiday!
I haven’t written much in December because it’s been a busy month filled with a mixture of difficulties and tremendous blessings.
JJ began Chemo last year in December. As the anniversary of his Chemotherapy approached, he found himself getting stressed. It didn’t help that he had four medical appointments: a CT Scan, his port flushed, a blood draw, and then his follow-up appointment with his oncologist. He kept his sense of humor for the CT Scan but couldn’t summon a smile when he had his port flushed because he has to sit in the infusion chairs at the Cancer Center, which feels to him like being sucked back into a nightmare. However, the month became much easier and more enjoyable when he met a girl. Enough said.
Not long after JJ’s port flush, I began experiencing intense pain. It was so excruciating that I cried, which worried EJ and JJ because I can endure a great deal of pain with little more than a whimper. EJ took me to Emergency and although the doctor found a slight problem, he couldn’t find anything that would cause me such pain. He prescribed pain pills and scheduled an appointment with a specialist. Even with the pain pills, I felt a lot of pain, and I knew they wouldn’t last until the specialist appointment (which was more than a week away) so a day or two after my trip to Emergency, EJ took me to our family doctor. She also couldn’t really find the problem although she didn’t think it was cancer since there is usually no pain with cancer. She gave me stronger pain pills to help me last until the appointment with the specialist. I had intense pain for about a week and then it went away.
I was going to accompany JJ to his appointment with his oncologist, but he insisted that he and his Dad could handle it and that I should stay home. So I did. The oncologist was very surprised that I wasn’t with my guys so EJ explained why I wasn’t there and described my symptoms. The oncologist was extremely concerned and urged EJ to take me to Emergency without delay. EJ explained that I had already been to ER and our doctor and I had an appointment with the specialist. The oncologist said that if I need chemo to let him know and he will get me in ASAP. It’s sort of scary when the oncologist is that freaked out.
I went to the specialist last Friday and he asked me questions and did a brief exam and said that he wanted me to have a colonoscopy to make sure everything is ok. I expected that he would say this so I wasn’t surprised…Yuck. I asked him if he had any thoughts about what is wrong with me and he repeated that there is usually no pain with cancer and that with other major conditions the pain continues so the fact that my pain stopped is a good sign. The procedure is scheduled for mid-January. I will be glad when it’s over, and hopefully the oncologist’s concerns are unfounded.
We know this awesome couple–EJ works with the husband and his wife works at our bank. The guy shot an extra deer and they decided to give it to us. EJ and JJ got it from the guy and drove it to the meat market, which also does deer processing. The venison was ready on Dec. 23rd so EJ and I drove to pick it up. EJ said that the deer was small so he wasn’t expecting much venison–maybe a grocery bag full. Instead, the guy at the processing place loaded two big boxes into our car. All the way home EJ marveled that we had gotten so much venison from such a little deer. When we got home, we immediately unpacked the boxes and put the venison into the chest freezer. The next day, EJ happened to look at the boxes and saw that we had mistakenly been given one box of someone else’s venison. EJ called the processing place this morning to explain the error and said that we’d return the venison…but we’d need help to figure out what belonged to us and what belonged to the other guy since it was all mixed up in our freezer. The owner of the company said that they had already caught the error and the guy wasn’t worried because he has tons of deer on his place and we could just keep the extra venison at no charge. So instead of one small deer, we got as much venison as two big deer. Our freezer is filled with venison burger, steaks, roasts. It is such a gift!
Earlier this month, our HHR started developing some problems. I felt like, great, we don’t need this. We had planned to buy a vehicle next summer so we could give the HHR to JJ and he could have transportation to get to a job and/or school, but we were saving to pay off other bills first. We are working hard to be debt free. Since the HHR was our only car, we couldn’t get it fixed until we had another vehicle to drive….so we thought that we might as well buy one now. EJ has been searching and search for a good, not-too-expensive used vehicle for several weeks. He has several days off for the holidays so today he called about a few cars he had found on the Internet and we drove to a small dealership about an hour away to look at a small blazer he liked. After test driving the blazer, we decided it against buying it, but we found a Nissan Xterra at the dealership and we took it for a test drive and then decided to buy it. It is in very good shape and not very expensive at all so it won’t take long to pay it off. EJ drove it home while I followed him in the HHR. We have never bought a foreign car before–both our Dad’s worked automotive manufacturing plants and they were strongly pro-American. However, these days cars are made all over the world so I don’t think it’s the same. Anyway, when we got home, EJ said he loves the car.
Now we can get the HHR fixed. We’ve been discussing trading it in and getting a different vehicle for JJ. The HHR is a good car, but it has a lot of blind spots. We’d prefer getting him a vehicle that’s a bit safer. We don’t want him to have survived cancer only to be killed by a vehicle he couldn’t see. But first we will pay off some bills.
December had some tough spots in it, but mostly it was filled with blessings.
Happy Holidays!
This December has been very busy so I haven’t sat down to write. I will try to get back to writing as soon as I can and fill you in on all that’s been happening. Meanwhile, I thank you all so much for reading my blog this last year. I appreciate you all.
May you have a
Happy Hanukkah
or
Merry Christmas!
A Carpet of Birds…and A Cat Scan
Probably good gardeners prepare their yards and gardens for winter, but I am not a good gardener. I don’t do anything to prepare for winter–except, sometimes, raking leaves into the garden as a blanket for the plants. (I didn’t do even that this year.) Mostly I just let everything be in order to provide cover and seed for the birds and hawks and squirrels and snakes and, yes, probably even mice. The only thing I do is keep the bird feeders filled. Our yard is filled with hundreds and hundreds of birds feasting at the feeders.
After walking Danny or walking to the post office or bank, I always enjoy nearing my home. All the other yards look like normal yards should look…with grass and trees and occasional birds flying through. But our yard looks different. Our yard is teeming with life–with hundreds of feasting, swarming, swooping birds. When we get close enough, the birds all rise up in a cloud and fly around before settling again after we passed. I think it’s sort of magical, like a small oasis of wild life in the midst of a quiet neighborhood. It always fills me with delight and I want to shout with joy and join the birds in their flight. Too bad I don’t have wings.
I’d like to get a video of this, but haven’t managed it yet. However, I did take a video of the many birds at the feeders the other day. This is just one bird feeder. I have several other feeders nearby with just as many birds around them.
JJ had a CT scan this morning.
I often don’t sleep much the night before a medical appointment because I’m the one who has to wake us all up for these appointments and I’m always afraid I’ll oversleep. I set my alarm for 7:30 a.m. but I slept fitfully and got up earlier than the alarm. Not long after I came downstairs, JJ came downstairs. He also hadn’t slept because he was very stressed. Poor guy.
We all got to the imaging center on time–in fact, we arrived a little early. As always, I provided comic relief to make JJ laugh and help reduce his stress. I made him laugh by telling jokes and taking ambush pictures of him while EJ dozed. EJ works second shift so it was a bit early for him to be awake. JJ tried to block my camera but I got a few shots of him.
After the scan, as we were driving away, JJ said that unlike usual, this time the CT machine backed up and re-scanned part of his body. That made him worried that maybe the cancer has returned. He said he didn’t think he could endure more chemo. I’m not sure we could either….although we all agreed we’d endure what we must.
The barium shake JJ has to drink before his scan always makes him feel a bit sick, so the rest of the day he didn’t feel all that well. Friday will be another stressful day because he has to return to the Cancer Center to get his port flushed.
On the way home today, EJ said that the car was acting weird. I can’t remember what he said he thought might be wrong with it, but it sounded major. And expensive. Bleagh.
It’s sort of been one of those days.
Hidden Hawk
EJ had three days off for Thanksgiving.
On Thanksgiving we went out to eat at Denny’s. The day after Thanksgiving, we cooked a turkey in the roaster so we could have leftovers. I enjoy Thanksgiving leftovers at least as much as I enjoy the actual feast.
We kind of talked about doing “something fun” on the days that EJ had off–like maybe a return to the bird sanctuary. However, Wednesday night EJ slipped and fell as he was headed for the car after work. He was in even more pain than he usually is so we encouraged him to take it easy and we had a two-day Doctor Who marathon on Netflix. We watched the whole first season of the modern series.
Today was very cloudy, gloomy, and damp. It was also almost 60 degrees outside. When I walked Danny this afternoon, I wore only a jacket.
Before EJ left for walk today, JJ glanced out the window and suddenly exclaimed, “There’s a HAWK!” We rushed over to the window to see it. JJ saw it fly down into our yard or I doubt we’d have noticed it at all because the hawk was so camouflaged. It took me a while to see it. The hawk was beautiful and awesome and it was thrilling to watch it. All the other birds made themselves scarce while the it was in our yard. They didn’t want to be lunch. Although I don’t enjoy watching the hawk actually catch a songbird, I really enjoy observing all the wildlife that visits our yard. The hawk remained in our yard for quite some time before it flew up onto the telephone wire. It sat there for a few minutes before finally flying off.
Of course, I took pictures. Can you see it?
I also took a few short videos of the hawk. Here is one:
Happy Thanksgiving
EJ and I spent the morning quietly. I listened to classical violin/piano music as we browsed the Internet and enjoyed the warmth of the wood stove. We sipped our coffee surrounded by cuddly cats and watched the birds and squirrels at the feeders.
At about 11 a.m. I woke JJ and he leisurely took his shower at got dressed.
At around noon–give or take a few minutes–we drove off to have Thanksgiving dinner at Denny’s in a nearby town. I know that most people would be horrified that we had Thanksgiving dinner at a diner because it carries a stigma of family-less, friend-less loneliness. However, we had the Thanksgiving we really wanted. JJ doesn’t really feel up to large social gatherings and EJ is exhausted from many hours of overtime. The thought of a hectic large gathering felt exhaustingly overwhelming. Also, trying to cook a turkey dinner with all the fixings for just the three of us felt like too much work. Going to a restaurant felt as if we were doing something special AND relaxing. We got to enjoy the dinner without the work. Even though we were among strangers, we felt a great deal of togetherness.
We had never gone to this particular Denny’s before. The Denny’s we usually go to in the bigger city is a nice restaurant. This Denny’s was a classic retro diner, which felt funky and fun. The wait staff were all cheerful and relaxed. Unlike in the movie The Santa Clause, the waitress’ name was not Judy. However, I was thrilled when I asked if they had eggnog and the waitress replied, “No, I’m sorry.” We ordered turkey dinners, of course. Usually we don’t ever order desserts at restaurants because we are too full after the meal…but, hey, this is Thanksgiving, right? We decided to order desserts that we don’t make at home….so we all had shakes. EJ and JJ ordered chocolate and peanut butter shakes. I was tempted because I love peanut butter flavored food, but I decided to order a cinnamon apple pie shake. It was very good. EJ let me taste his shake and I let the guys taste mine.
As we left the diner, it was snowing hard. The snow was actually graupel, which is small round snow pellets rather than flakes.
When we got home, we had a quiet afternoon. I took a nap. It actually was a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Sometimes I think the deeper meanings of holidays get buried under the weight of busyness and expectations and obligations. Sometimes “simple” feels more meaningful to me. On the way home, I told EJ and JJ that maybe every Thanksgiving we ought to go out to eat or do something nontraditional. It was fun.
