Fault Line

I have a friend who has fallen on hard times.  As in very hard times, the kind where he could lose everything.  He is a good person with a good heart that has made some remarkably bad decisions.

In speaking about him with another friend, we both shook our heads meaningfully and said unhelpful things like, "what was he thinking?" and "well, what did he expect would happen?" and "I really thought he was smarter than that" and other smug criticisms of how our mutual friend got himself in hot water in the first place.

We contemplated the various consequences that he is likely to face, and we arrived at the consummate cliche that everyone uses to sum up similar conversations:

"Well... it's his own fault.  He brought it on himself". 

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Think about it - it's so tempting, almost irresistible, to dismiss a bad outcome by determining fault or assigning blame.  He lost his car because he missed two payments;  she got pregnant because she doesn't take the pill;  they had to find a new church because he had an affair with the choir director;  she lost her job because she was always running late;  his liver is failing because he drank too much.

I gained 5 pounds because I ate too much pumpkin pie and didn't exercise.  It's my own damn fault.  I brought this on myself.  (Literally!)

This compulsion for fault-finding and blame-placing is a natural human response to negative outcomes.  We have an innate demand to know the "why" behind bad things.  While this is due in part to our desire for safety and control over outcomes, I generally want to know "why" for two reasons.  First, because I'm nosey, and second because I want to feel better about myself by judging you.  After all, it's your own damn fault.  I would never do what you did.

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Now I have given myself a little jolt of superiority (what can I say, my ego gets hungry), the buzz of being better than you. I can go on with my day with a spring in my step and a nearly palpable sense of relief that I'm not you.  What were you thinking, anyway?

I don't admit any of this, of course, to myself or to anyone else, because that would make me a really shitty person.  But secretly, inside the very core of my heart, I know that I'm being a jerk.  What kind of asshole is relieved - maybe even a little joyful - over someone else's pain?

The German word for this all-too-common experience is "schadenfreude". "Schaden" is the German word for harm, and "freude" means joy.  I hate to think about how many times I've danced a little jig of schadenfreude in my spirit because someone finally got what was coming to them.  Heck, even if it's someone I like, I still feel that little tingle of "better you than me, my friend!"

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But.

Where is the mercy?  Where is the grace?  Where is compassion, forgiveness, kindness?

These little comforts are candles in the darkness, warmth in spite of the cold.  They're not hard to muster up because they too are natural to us - after all, it's what we crave from one another.

We need it from ourselves as well - so what about the damn pie?  I can kick my ass about it all day long from here until next Labor Day and it won't change a thing other than make me feel worse.  How about a little kindness and forgiveness, from me to myself?  It's PIE, for heaven's sake.

And now a specific word to people of faith - cut it out already.  I get it, I do it too but we've got to stop it.  Today, as in right now.  I don't mean that we should forget wrongdoing, but we need to stop judging and criticizing the wrong-doer.  Besides, the rightness or wrongness of whatever was done is between that person and God and is none of my business or yours.  Judge not that ye be not judged and all that.

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Take just a minute and imagine that you have screwed up.  BIG TIME.  You've pulled a doozy (or doozies) and you are about to be up shit creek without a paddle.  Oh, and everyone at your office and in your neighborhood and at your church is going to hear about it.

Wouldn't it be nice if someone hugged you anyway?  Or stuck up for you when you weren't even around?  Or brought you a cookie?  Or just gave you a warm smile instead of a cold shoulder?

What if it didn't matter to anyone that you screwed up and you're facing some tough consequences - what if no one cared that you brought them on yourself?  

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What if we give it a try... the next time I hear myself say (or think), "he/she got what they deserved" or something along those lines, I'm going to TRY and come up with a warm thought and maybe a kind gesture instead.  Maybe I will break this ugly habit once and for all.

It's what I hope you'll do for me;  I will do my best to do it for you.

Goodbye, Little Goats

As children, we learn what love is (and what it isn't) from adults.  For most of us, it was our parents who modeled what love looks like in the way they cared for us and for each other.

This explains a lot.

Yet I believe we all come out of the womb with certain emotional hardwiring that sets the stage for how we will experience and demonstrate love, anger, fear, etc.  You know, the age old "nature vs. nurture" debate.

My own mother loved me with an unfair dependence - I grew up feeling responsible for her happiness or lack thereof.  As an adult, I came to understand that her own emotional hardwiring was distorted from the get-go, plus two concussive injuries in her childhood and a series of life's gut punches made her cling to her children like life preservers in a hurricane.

(I used to wonder if Dad left because she was crazy or she went crazy because he left.  Now I think it was both.  But I digress).

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Our firstborn, has been out of the house for a couple of years now, and his departure was not of his own volition.  I love him fiercely;  his own brain chemistry set the stage for some film-worthy family drama that shattered all of our hearts.  I used to get angry just thinking about the things he put us through, but it turns out that the anger was actually grief in a Halloween mask. It is a grief for the things that were lost in our relationship over the years.

Here's the confusingly wonderful thing about grief - you don't grieve people or things that don't matter to you.  The experience of grief is the most painful aspect of love, yet love is the best thing about living.  If you care about anything or anybody, then grief is inevitable.

Since we are generally averse to pain, physical or otherwise, one could conclude that this could all be avoided if we stop giving and receiving love.  Maybe we could freeze our hearts so that we're still reasonably nice people but we just don't really love anyone or anything anymore because the pain of it is too damn expensive.

I couldn't do it even if I wanted to - love is inherent to my nature, and I guess the only way I could stop showing and experiencing love would be to stop breathing.  Yet my sensation of love is definitely naive;  even here in my middle age, I am still sometimes slow and wounded to recognize when it's not reciprocal or at least not to the same degree.  I suspect I'm not alone here.

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I worry that I love my children too much.

My mother was crushed and furious when I left home and even now I have my own residual guilt and anger about that.  When my own children were just toddlers, I resolved that when it came time for them to leave the nest one day, I would be a supportive, loving encourager holding the door open for them to go.

Last Friday I took our daughter to college to start her freshman year.

I'd been emotionally prepping for this day for months;  not only is she a funny and charming little person, but she's also my best friend.  My grief began building the day we ordered her high school graduation announcements, but I steeled myself against any hand-wringing or overt displays of sadness.

We both talked about how much we would miss each other but we expressed sincere enthusiasm for this next chapter in her story.  In the last few weeks before the big move, we were intentional about spending quality time together and making great memories.

We live out in the country between Lincoln and Omaha, and a trip "into town" means passing by horses, cattle, donkeys, and goats.  Grace has never liked goats;  one took a little nip at her finger in a petting zoo when she was a toddler, plus she thinks they have cold crazy eyes and are emissaries from hell.  Sometimes when we'd pass by them, Grace would remark that they looked evil and remind me once again that she didn't like goats.

But the day before she moved, as we were returning from some last-minute shopping I heard her whisper "goodbye, little goats" as we passed them.  And I choked on a sob.

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The move-in itself was uneventful, emotionally speaking.  Her dorm room is on the third floor of a building with no elevators, so I was mostly focused on not embarrassing her by having a heart attack while hauling boxes up the stairs in the August heat.  I was sweating so profusely nobody would have seen any tears anyway, but it still wasn't entirely real yet.  Not yet.

The school had organized a luncheon in the cafeteria for families to join their freshmen for one more meal after the move-in and before saying goodbye.  Grace and I sat by ourselves, occasionally glancing at each other across the table.  I felt the train in my heart accelerate to a hundred miles an hour, whistle blasting a warning that I was in grave danger of being destroyed.

Tears pooled in my eyes and my nose reddened - I couldn't hold it back another second.  Of course she began weeping too and I remembered the other times that I'd left her in tears in places she didn't want to be;  kindergarten, first grade, third grade, freshman year in Iowa, sophomore year in Nebraska... in each instance, she'd pleaded with me not to leave her.  Yet each new experience helped her to grow and mature;   I know that college will further shape her into a confident, educated and capable young woman.

There was no choice but to leave her once more.  It was - it is - the right thing to do for her, regardless of how hard it is for me.

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We said our goodbyes, and I headed to the truck.  I watched other parents getting into their cars after saying their own goodbyes to their kids.  They all seemed so calm, to me anyway... perhaps there were a few random tears here and there, but for the most part they appeared cool and collected.  Time for Junior to start his college life!

I, on the other hand, sat rigidly gripping my steering wheel and trying not to scream or vomit.  Didn't they know?  Had they not yet realized that we were leaving our children, our BABIES, with strangers in a strange town?

My grief threatened to drown me right there in the parking lot.  

Leaving her behind;  leaving with an empty passenger seat and nobody but me to squeal in delight at all the newborn calves I would pass on the trip back home.

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Driving through the rural countryside, I sobbed like a madwoman.  Long and hysterical sobs, the kind that make you feel dizzy and at risk of hyperventilation.  The last time I'd cried that hard, I'd been resting my cheek on my dead father's chest before they took him away for cremation.

The voice of reason chided me for overreacting... "Good lord woman, she's just going off to college, for Pete's sake.  She's an hour from home, not in another time zone a thousand miles away.  Get your shit together already".

And then the still, small voice in my heart whispered, "You are a good momma, one that loves her enough to let her go - to learn who she is and how to live her own life. It's natural to grieve her physical presence... her hugs, the way she snuggled up on the couch for a nap with the dogs, the daily ritual of 'I love you more'... of course it is sad to see her go, but today you have done a good thing".
   
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And it IS a good thing!  She's called a few times to tell us about her classes and the new friends she's making.  She has been hanging out in the dorm lounge with other freshman who are away from home for the first time in their lives - she's even been comforting other girls who are trying to navigate being homesick.  I know she is homesick as well - she said so last night - but the tears of her new friends have helped her realize that she's stronger than she believed.

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I passed the goats on Friday and smiled.  Hello, little goats.

Say Cheese

I have loved photography for as long as I can recall.  I’ve had a camera in hand since elementary school.  I remember my first one; it was a Kodak Pocket Instamatic I got for either Christmas or my birthday.  Dad was also an aficionado of amateur photography; only later in life have I learned that he too inherited it from his father and grandfather.

Anyway… my Instamatic traveled with me to the zoo, to Washington D.C., to Disney World;  I captured wild animals, classmates on our Trailways bus trips (arguably wild animals ourselves), and everyday moments with my little group of friends, or my pets.  I arranged my Madame Alexander dolls having a tea party, and my Barbies living it up in the Dream Camper, and I took lots of pictures.  

Basically, I took hundreds of photos.

In the 70s, film processing for amateur photographers was a protracted exercise in patience.  Back then, there certainly was no such thing as one-hour processing at a local pharmacy, much less a home printer.  No, I would badger my parents until someone took me to drop off my little Kodachrome 110 film cartridges at the local Fotomat kiosk or at Thompson Photo.  And then I'd wait.  And wait.  And wait.  

(Side note:  “Honest Ed” Thompson was a friend of my dad’s and it wasn’t until high school that it occurred to me having Honest Ed develop my party pictures was both risky and short-sighted. But I digress).

Once I learned that it was an option, I started getting double prints of every roll I developed. After all, there were some real gems in there and surely people would want their own copies especially if they were the subject matter.  Triple prints were an option too!  Today I have shoeboxes filled with multiple copies of grainy, weak contrast pictures of my family, my pets, zoo animals, bedroom posters, friends, the Smokies – why, I even have a few copies of my first selfie!  I think everyone in my generation has one of these shots… a giant flash in the mirror and a kid’s body underneath it holding the camera.  

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I’ve wondered why we say we are “taking” a photo.  The verb implies that we are acquiring something – and as is the case with all things acquired, there is some degree of value attached thereto.  

Arguably, in this case the value is in limited to the eye of the amateur photographer unless you win some photo contest or you get an exceptionally great and likely rare photo that’s appreciated by other friends or family members. The pros have other incentives – while the technical composition and subject matter of their photographs are certainly important, the quality of their work correlates directly to their livelihood.  In other words, they have a whole other kind of skin in the game.

But at least in my case (and I suspect I’m not alone here), the taking of photographs for nearly 50 years gave me validation, documentation.  After all, if it looks good, then it is good… right?  

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I’m not talking so much about my own personal appearance (although if I’m honest, there have been many photos of me that I hope no one ever saw besides Honest Ed and me).

I’m talking about life. What did – does – my life look like? Was it as f*cked up as I remember or did it look fairly normal?  Was my mother crazy or not?  Did my friends truly like me or was I just tolerated in exchange for the free Double Bubble I bought on the way to school EVERY. DAY…

Wikipedia calls the camera an “image-forming device”, and a photographic plate, photographic film or a silicon electronic image sensor is the “capture medium”.  An image-forming device.  How about that - image-forming.  Since memory and imagination often inconsistent with factual reality, cameras made it possible to get just the facts, ma’am.

Yet it seems both naïve and unlikely that chemical emulsification of an image onto a special type of paper can ever provide an accurate depiction of what life was and is like.  We want our photos to be the best they can be – because if it looks good, it is good.

…. Right…?

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Thanks to American scientist Edwin Land’s daughter Jennifer, Land built and unveiled the first commercial instant camera in 1948.  Jennifer had repeatedly pestered her father about how tiresome it was to have to wait for film processing; she’s quoted as saying, “But Father, why can’t I see them now?” Dr. Land henceforth began assembling the solution to her complaint, no doubt to shut down the whining. 

The proliferation of instant-gratification Polaroid cameras in the mid-70s whetted my appetite for documenting a normal life, but the film itself was cost prohibitive for a pre-teen. This was a season of unprecedented f*cked-up-ness in our no-longer nuclear family, so capturing evidence of "normal" was more important than ever.  Mom had a Polaroid SX-70 that I hijacked and then annoyingly begged for film packs over and over.  

Such a thrill to seize a moment, push a button, hear the whirrrrrrr of machinery in my hand… and the immediate output of an initially unformed image on a square piece of film which included all the necessary components for development. The photo took a few minutes to process and I perhaps mistakenly believed that if I shook the film really hard, the picture would develop more quickly. 

Today, these photos are still among my collection, but time is no friend to Polaroid instant photos. The images contained therein are cracked and faded; no amount of Facetuning can sharpen features or provide a clearer image.  Maybe there are programs that would do a better job but I am too lazy to go look for them, at least at this point.

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I love my photo collection.  With the arrival of social media and digital photography, I've had the opportunity to share some of these treasures with a vast array of friends and family literally around the world.  I honestly don't care if they're "good" pictures or not;  they are like little boxes of memories that we can pass around and enjoy together.  

(But God help you if you post a bad picture of me.  Just sayin.)

What Was... and What Is

Just over a year ago... December of 2017 ranked in the top three worst months of my life.


Our beloved oldest child had been kicked out of the house in an effort to wake him up to his own self-destruction.  If you’ve ever had to make that decision yourself, then you will understand the exhaustion and terror and searing heartache that goes with it.


My better half was in the wound/burn unit at St. Elizabeth’s again with an indescribably horrible leg wound that refused to heal despite some mega-powerful IV antibiotics.  The wound care unit is a secure area where family members and visitors have to “scrub in” - meaning that you have to wash your hands vigorously with a special soap then don a mask and gown before you can enter the unit. After you’ve visited you have to remove the mask and gown and then re-wash your hands before you can leave.


My dad - my best friend - had died three months earlier from complications following a stroke.  I NEEDED to talk to him, dammit, I needed him to tell me what I should do next and that it was all going to be okay and that he was proud of his baby girl for being strong.  It was completely unfair that he was dead and I was pissed at God for his cruel timing.


Our brave sweet daughter was probably the strongest person in our family during this season;  she stayed close to me and we sort of held each other up.  She too would faithfully put on her mask and gown and we’d go visit Daddy and try to make each other laugh.  She said she wanted one of those ugly yellow gowns for her prom dress.


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My sister and her kids came to visit during this time which was a wonderful slice of home, a little oasis of normal.  Well, as normal as we can be, anyway.  We’ve always been oddly pleased with our own weirdness... “normal” is for lemmings.



Oh yes, and I was working full time as well. I brought my laptop to the hospital with me when I couldn’t be in the office, and I kept all the balls in the air to the best of my ability.  Thankfully I was also surrounded by capable individuals who kept the oars in the water even when the captain was absent or even just absent-minded.



In summary - I was a mess.  My throat felt constricted most of the time and I would cry at the drop of a hat.  I worried about our son constantly - Was he cold?  Was he eating?  Was he even alive?  I was worried sick about Dave - how much more can he possibly stand?  How much more can I possibly stand?


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Between Christmas and New Year’s, the inevitable decision was made to amputate Dave’s left leg below the knee.  He’s already lost his right leg back in April 2017; but in both situations, the infections his body tried to fight were otherwise fatal. Surgery was scheduled for the morning of New Year’s Eve.



I talked to my friend Tammy back in Tennessee... since June of 1994, she has been my primary counsel for rational distinction between what is self-pity versus self-care.  She is a tiny little person but her unwavering faith gives her an almost super human strength, especially when things feel like they’re blowing apart.  She’s really generous with that strength when someone else needs to borrow it.



Upon learning of Dave’s impending surgery, she dropped everything and came to Nebraska, to sit with me during the surgery and hand me Kleenex and listen to all of my troubles... and then told me she was proud of me and that everything would be ok.



Through what can only be described as a divine series of events, Tammy helped me make arrangements for our son’s admission to one of the country’s best rehab programs.  I was able to reach him, and he begrudgingly agreed to go.  And on New Year’s Day of 2018, my friend Tammy literally picked up my kid and took him to Atlanta where he caught another flight to California and started a new chapter in his own story.


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And now we've just celebrated New Year's 2019.  Dave is downstairs making brunch and balancing the checkbook;  he has gotten comfortable with his prostheses and is getting around on his own really well.  He’s had a couple of scary infections which have required additional hospitalizations in 2018...
But he's had a good long healthy stretch since November, and we’ve had a storybook Christmas.


Jamie came home for a week, clear-eyed and remarkably mature, and Grace is excited about her  last semester of high school because she has several classes with her bestie.


What's new with me?  Well, I mentioned earlier that I was working full time - I have since I was 22. Thirty-three years later, I can say that I’ve surprised myself and others with a long and successful career.


But you know that saying... nobody lies on their deathbed regretting that they didn’t work enough.  I haven’t done a great job of keeping all the balls in the air for a while now anyway, and I think we have a tough season ahead with Dave's health.


So I have formally resigned from what I’ve considered to be the best job of my life... and now I’m taking some time to just be Mrs. Rubel. To just be Mom.  To just be me, whoever the hell that is. Kind of looking forward to finding out.


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It’s been a minute since I’ve blogged.  That canyon business (see previous post) has been a hard thing to climb out of and I can’t say whether I’m out yet or not.  I honestly don’t know.



But it's 2019 - and by GOD I’m going to start writing every flipping day this year.  It may not always be a blog post, but I am going to write something every day.  EVERY DAY.



Who am I kidding?  I can’t promise what I’ll do tomorrow.  Let’s keep it reasonable - I will write today.