The Difficulty Of Letting Go

This is a subject that I've been thinking about a lot lately:  why we hold on so tightly to the things that make us angry or unhappy or exhausted, why we cling to something in our past even if it is a lifeline to sadness, why we can't let go of the things that no longer matter from our past to make more room for the things that make us happier today and going forward from there.

Sometimes it is an old wound that has festered over a lifetime of tending and nursing.  Something you have pulled out over time, examined from every angle and thought about, until it seems to loom larger than it did in its original setting.

Other times, it is an obsession with perfection which can never, will never, be achieved no matter how hard you try.  Or someone else's expectations for us that can never be reached.

So many things that we accumulate as burdens over a lifetime of living, that drag at our heels as we try to move forward in our day to day lives, or jump out at us unexpectedly when we think we have already let them go free.

We all have something we are carrying around like a sack full of rocks.  And we'd almost certainly be a lot happier if we'd just put it down and walk away for good.

But sometimes we come to define ourselves as the person who survived that sack of rocks, and we carry it not as a reminder of something bad to avoid but as a badge of honor to be admired.  Or to wield like a weapon.  Or as a shield or talisman to protect you from further harm.

The truth is that perception is reality in so many ways in our internal landscape.  If we see ourselves as broken in some way, as permanently burdened or loaded down or miserable about something or other, then we are.

Until we are not.

Until we make a choice to let it go, put it down, and create a whole new perspective and reality going forward.

This is something I am trying to master.

Finding Your Voice Is So Important

One of the movies I truly love is The King's Speech. The universal humanity of the film -- the quest to find your own voice, whatever the odds or obstacles -- is so compelling, and the vulnerability and determination that Colin Firth injects into his character is perfect.

All the major performances in the film are wonderfully done, and I highly recommend watching it.  That is especially true if you have a stammerer or a shy, non-verbal child in your midst.  Or if you know someone who was that child at some point in the past.

They get it right, down to the inaccurate assumptions and outright nastiness of the people around Bertie who have no patience for his verbal pauses.

The above YouTube shows a similar awakening for a student in England, whose teacher had seen the film and tried the method of playing music via headphone while his student was trying to speak.  The results are nothing short of miraculous for the student, and the end is guaranteed to make you sniffle a little bit.  Well worth watching this.

What struck me was something the teacher was saying before the boy goes down to speak in the auditorium, that he had ended up at that particular school, the one where he found the help he needed to find his voice, because he had been so severely bullied in his prior school.  That out of a bad situation was this miracle made.

Serendipity often has a way of finding us when we need it to the most, doesn't it?

Shining A Light Into The Dark Corners Of Domestic Violence

Folks who know me are aware that I worked as a lawyer for many years, including a stint as an assistant prosecutor in a local county office many years ago.  What I saw during my years of legal work still haunts me today, as I still find myself waking up nights worried about abused children or various other individual cases that were not entirely tied up in the neat little resolved package that I might have wanted in a perfect world.

I think that is true for everyone who has worked in the criminal justice field in one way or another:  most people I have known who were decent and dedicated prosecutors or police officers and such worry -- even years and years down the road -- about the cases that remained not fully resolved for the better.  But sometimes, it cannot be helped:  you do the best you can with what you are given, facts, evidence, circumstances and so on, and then you have to move forward once a verdict is reached or a case is closed.

What you are often left with, though, is that unsatisfactory, nagging fear that you have still left a child or an adult in a situation that is going to continue to be abusive in some way.  Even if it is less so than it might have been without intervention, that is still a very, very difficult outcome to accept even when the law dictates that this is the way that things must be.

In the above video, Patrick Stewart eloquently and incredibly movingly talks about his own childhood in a home permeated with domestic violence.

So often, families facing this sort of fear feel as though they must hide in the shadows, keeping the secrets of the beatings and the terror and all of this away from the light of public scrutiny.  There is still shame attached to being a victim of domestic violence and, worse, far too often a fear of escalation or death.

So often, this continued silence is because of overwhelming fear -- of judgment from those outside of the home itself, or a fear that the violence will escalate, even to murder, because that is exactly what is threatened and far too often carried out by the abuser.  It is a terrifying way to live your life, every day, day in and day out, so drenched in fear that you cannot breathe or even conceive of a way out.

Imagine growing up in that sort of home as a tiny child.  Now imagine becoming involved with an abuser as you get older -- it would seem to you, in so many ways and for far too many people to count, that this is just the way the world is for everyone or, worse, that you somehow deserve to be treated as "less than."  It is a painful, painful thing to watch, and requires an enormous amount of will and courage and even luck to break free from this wretched start to life for far too many children.

As Patrick Stewart says so well here, "Everyone suffers.  No one escapes the trauma of those experiences."

Cramped

Sometimes, the universe really is trying to tell you something.  In a way that is undeniable and immediate.

This morning, it was a charley horse in my calf that yanked me out of a deep sleep in an instant.

Yeeeeeooouuuch.

The last week or so has been a slog, and as a result my self-care has been neglected significantly.  My legs would like me to stop that, please.  And find something with significant potassium and magnesium in it as well as drink more water.  Now.

Most of life is about what choices we make.

Eat something healthy or grab the ooey-gooey donut on the run and try to make up the nutrition deficit later.  If and when I can find the time and the veggies.  (Big if, some days.)

Get the desperately needed exercise, or make peace with the extra poundage on my thighs and hope diabetes doesn't catch up to me before I can catch up to taking care of myself.

To sleep or do the dishes, the laundry and the rest of the to do list.

It is all a trade-off, isn't it?  When I concentrate my efforts on a task, I see how much more effective and efficient I can be.  How I can plow through an enormous mountain of work in a smaller period of time when I put my mind to getting things done, and doing them properly and with an eye toward excellence.

Far too often, though, I reserve this level of effort for work or for the things that I do for others.   For the care that I try to give to The Peanut and Mr. ReddHedd and every other person in my life.

But not for myself.

As I sit here, I cannot honestly recall many times that I have concentrated my full effort on something that was just for me. I don't think I could count the times that has happened using all the fingers on one hand, quite frankly. That just is not right, is it?

Shouldn't we put as much effort into our own well-being, our own day-to-day care, the things that bring us and only us joy or challenge us to personally move our own internal compass toward our true north regardless of what it does for everyone else?

Dear Members of Congress...

Dear Members of Congress:

How about taking a walk in someone else's shoes?

You know, the folks who aren't dining out for lunch on lobbyist expense account dollars or dinner at some fancy foundation-palooza?

Instead, take a walk on the other side of the tracks.  In the honestly worn to a frazzle shoes of the hardworking folks in your constituency who are sometimes working two or three part-time jobs to make ends meet and still barely scraping by or the tattered hand-me-down sneakers worn by children in your districts or states who go to bed hungry every night dreaming of the free school breakfast that will once again fill their belly the next day when there is nothing left to eat in their own house.

And then think about this:  summer is coming for those children who, unfortunately, did not get to select the house into which they were born.  By threatening to cut off food program subsidies, what kind of summer will they have through no fault of their own but an accident of birth?

Do you think these children can afford to buy a lobbyist to badger you about their hunger and offer you campaign cash to get your attention?  Does that mean that their needs are less important if they can't?  Or does it make them more important?

Does that sort of question even get asked any more in D.C.?

I've written time and time again about children's hunger and poverty issues in this country.  They are real and they are incredibly difficult...and they touch a lot of families in this nation of ours.

Open your eyes and your hearts just a crack, Members of Congress, and honestly take a walk in the shoes of a child whose family has to live on a food stamp budget.  And then tell me that child's hunger isn't worth helping out.

This is my challenge to every elected official in DC:  live on a food stamp budget for a week.  Have your whole family do so.  No cheating.  No fundraising dinners at star-studded mansion soirees filled with canapes and cocktails subbing in as a meal unless you tally the costs in your total weekly food budget.

On The Subject Of Manners And Hosting

Below the Mason-Dixon line, social graces are still drilled into the heads of youngsters by any momma or granny worth her salt.  At least, that's how things have always worked in my family - you learn "yes, ma'am" and "no, ma'am" and "please" and "thank you" as soon as you begin to talk.

Sadly, though, I think basic manners and hostess pride have begun to wane with far too many folks.  Case in point:

In front of me in line stood a harried professional looking forty-something mother, her tween, her teen and her teen daughter's friend.

Teen daughter and tween daughter order. Mother orders. Mother pays for her spawn, and ignores the daughters' friend. . . .

And the mother-daughter trio walk to the tables and start eating.

Daughter's friend orders something tiny (an egg roll) and a cup of water. She was clearly unprepared to have to pay her own way. . . .

Friday Link-Around

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

-- Yesterday, there was a segment on the Today Show that resonated with my long-term interest and work on children's poverty and hunger issues. (See here, here, here, here, here and here just for starters.) Giada De Laurentiis from the Food Network was on discussing a program that has been started in the Rock Hill, SC area to combat childhood hunger issues called "Back the Pack."  It is similar to something that communities all over the country have been doing to help kids in need on the weekends --and over the summer as well -- when they can't get meals at school, and the segment is well worth a watch.  We need to be doing more all over this country -- because these kids did not ask to be born into poverty, and they should not be consigned to doing poorly in school because of it.  I was really surprised -- and very pleased -- to see the Today Show feature this issue so prominently.  I'd love to see them do a follow-up on summer hunger as well, and talk about threatened budget cuts on hunger programs for children and especially the $500 million cut for WIC -- that needs a much, much brighter spotlight.

-- Speaking of school food, Marion Nestle is helping to advocate for better foods being served to kids.  She has put together some interesting resources on the issue that are worth a peek.  Also worth a read?  Take a peek at Marion's spotlight on members of Congress lobbying the FDA to change the name of "high fructose corn syrup" to "corn sugar."  A bad food by any other name is still a bad food, though, right?

-- I don't know about all of you, but I could use some better food myself.  It's been so crazy busy here this week that I've been eating horribly.  Just got Tosca Reno's latest cookbook in the mail -- The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook 2: More Great-Tasting Recipes That Keep You Lean -- and I'm going to put some of those recipes to use next week when life slows down to a more manageable sprint.  The sauteed scallops with four-herb pesto and quinoa on page 148 sounds especially nummy to me at the moment.

Making Sense Of The Unthinkable

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan occurred while I was away at my writing seminar, and closed off -- intentionally, so, honestly -- from any current events news while I was there.

It wasn't until I was on the way home and saw a newspaper headline at a gas station that I heard the news.

The sheer scope of tragedy and devastation is impossible to really grasp all at once.  Entire villages seemingly wiped off the map, the ongoing struggle with the nuclear power plant and its potentially long-term devastating impact on the region, or the incredible bravery of the engineers who are working so hard to save their own towns and families and homes from further damage at a plant where they know their own lives are most definitely at risk minute by minute?

How can anyone possibly wrap their brain around all of it, or understand the exhaustion and incredible loss of the people who live there?

My heart aches, but there truly are not enough words. 

World AIDS Day

For all those lost.

For all those struggling.

For all those who have lost loved ones, friends and family.  Today is World AIDS Day.

Let us all remember...in hopes that some day there will be a cure.

We must do better.

Because the children of this world deserve better than indifference or outright hostility.  May we all find true compassion, reaching out with the whole of our hearts, educating ourselves and making better decisions going forward...and may we all never have to face what AIDS orphans are living with -- through no choice of their own -- every single day of their young lives.

Most of all?  May we all find hope as we work, together, toward a cure.

One Of My Favorite Christmas Treats

Every year, our family picks out several needy kids through our local Salvation Army, and we put together stockings filled with toys, warm gloves and assorted other fun things for them. 

It's one of my very favorite things to do for Christmas. 

Today was my annual shopping day for stocking goodies, and I had a blast.

We had four children to shop for this year:  two tiny babies (so fun!), a little girl about The Peanut's age and a boy who was just a few years older.   So it was a very mixed group of shopping, but a fun one nonetheless.

I managed to find some lovely baby toys, including a few teething items that doubled as learning toys, and the most adorable hat and mitten sets -- a pink bunny one for the baby girl and a brown bear one for the baby boy.  Too cute!

Powerful Message About Bullying And Prejudice

Powerful stuff.

Good on Ellen for saying it with such emotion. Very effective.

Day O' Yard Sale Update

We finished the second day of the school fundraising yard sale yesterday.  It was a long, hot, sweaty slog.

We raised close to $6500 dollars.  Boo yah!

The kids and their lemonade stand raised over $330 of that by themselves.

The Peanut turned out to be a serious force at selling lemonade and water -- she did an awesome job, appearing to have inherited both our work ethics (poor kid).  She was absolutely amazing -- so we are taking her out for ice cream this afternoon as a reward.

Things I learned?

First, the same old lesson: that a few of the people end up doing all of the work, even though everyone else gets to benefit from it.  How to change that?  Wish I knew, but it has been that way for a while and I'd love thoughts on how other school parent groups or others have motivated people to get off their butts and help out more.  Thoughts?