Being who we are, even if FOO is different and doesn't like it

[New Leaf]

I am a little bit better with my back, maybe 50 percent. I can get up and sit down without screaming. I became so afraid that my body is so shot that this will be ongoing. My neck hurts too. That is more chronic. And I get migraines when my neck is bad.

I so want to get my body back in shape. Whatever it takes: Yoga, Biofeedback, Pilates, Tai Chai. Massage. Walking and Dancing and Swimming, if I can. I have so let myself go and fear I cannot get my physical well-being back.

Thank you for responding, everybody.

Oh Copa, I hope you are feeling better, here is some inspiration-

Heal first, then baby steps, Copa, baby steps.
You will get there.
I have a hip problem to heal.
We will both get there.

leafy

 

[Copabanana]

I have a hip problem to heal.
We will both get there.

It's a deal, Leafy.

I am worried because I am almost immobilized. How are you dealing with your hip?

Have you gone to the doctor?

I would love to be like Ernestine. I will try.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

New Leaf,

Do you think you can do what she does even with pain? I just do not know the steps to take. Sorta, kinda.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

It's a deal, Leafy.

I am worried because I am almost immobilized. How are you dealing with your hip?

Have you gone to the doctor?

I would love to be like Ernestine. I will try.

Yes, I went to the Doctor, Copa, the problem was I worked my body too hard without stretching. Please go to the Doctor for your back if it does not get better soon. So much pain is not good, your body is trying to tell you something. Maybe because you went too fast Copa.

Do you think you can do what she does even with pain? I just do not know the steps to take. Sorta, kinda.

Well, I have really bad arthritis and get swollen. So I have to watch myself closely. If I am swollen I do not push myself, it is easier to get injured. If you cannot afford to go to a gym, like me, there are exercise tapes suited for certain age groups. If you can go to a gym, there are personal trainers to help.

There is always a way, Copa, where there is a will, there is a way.

I wake up sore, whether I exercise or not.
More sore, though not exercising.

I suffered a frozen shoulder a few years back,
I thought I would never paddle again.
I fought it and worked through it
the next year I crossed the Molokai Channel
with my paddling sisters.

We can do this Copa.
First, you need to find out how hurt your back is.I know it is hard going to the doctors, it is scary to think what is going on.
But it is a part of loving and caring for yourself. You know when you need to go. It is up to you.

There is so much more to you Copa, the best is yet to come.....

happy music
leafy

 

[New Leaf]

I just love Tony Bennet, he's 85-wow. A duet with Aretha Franklin??? Beautiful!

How Do You Keep The Music Playing (from Duets II: The Great Performances)

leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Yes, so very expressive, and different.
I attend the powwow here most every year. I am drawn to indigenous people, from a very young age. I read "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee" at 16, and was very disturbed of the mistreatment of Native Americans. That is another story.

As is my daughter, to this day. She has loved and been loved by the Native grandmothers, and heard their terrible stories. And she knows their senses of humor and though their reputation is for stoicism, they are so funny and deeply sincere, and with a different concept of time and value than our own.

Two of my grands are Native. One of the grandmothers has died, but I know the other. It was her son who beat daughter. When things were going well for them, he taught me a beginning drum refrain. It was very hard for all of us when this happened to all of us. And somehow we got through that horrible time and it is still a horrible time, for the other grandmother and for me and for him and for all of us. So, we are just as we are, two grandmothers flying by the seats of our pants with our hearts in our mouths and doing the best we know.

I have never been to a pow-wow. But I have been to a Native Health Fair. And oh, there was a Wind when the Medicine Man gave his blessing.

I was still very prejudiced then, but I didn't know it.

Cedar, at what point did you realize he had used meth? At what age was he?

When I looked up ice pipe, Copa. Son swore he hated meth heads and they were stupid and was offended when I learned about crack and asked him about that. He said he would never use crack, only cocaine.

He says he does not use drugs. But when his fiancee left him, she brought him home first and made him confess to us. And I was just so sure he was responding to our rotten parenting and I believed his drug use was recreational, was something having nothing to do with why he was so changed. And the ladies on this site worked so hard with me, Copa. And I just kept not believing. And when I finally did believe, that is when D H tried that last time.

And after that, son would come home. And clean up. And fall again.

But I believed him about the never using meth. And I knew meth was bad for teeth, so I would always look at his teeth and they were fine.

But I have heard horrible things about meth.

Horrible things.

Remember, for a very short time I used a form of meth too. Bennies they were called. But I would still stay up for days and sleep for days. As far as you know has he stopped or not?

I say yes, he has stopped Copa because he told us he is fat, now. The last time he was in trouble (for driving into a lightpole while high enough on whatever it was he woke up in the psychiatric unit ~ he said xanbars and Captain Morgan while the kids were at home) (!)

Where was I.

He had to be on probation for a long time and have urine tests and he has been clean since, I think that is true.

So, I think that was last year or maybe, the year before.

But he tells us he is very fat now, and so is his person. Who is a beautiful girl. And who got fat too, so she tells us.

Remember, for a very short time I used a form of meth too. Bennies they were called. But I would still stay up for days and sleep for days.

So is meth speed? I think it is something worse than that, Copa. They smoke it. But it could be speed, I suppose.

Huh.

Yes. Except I believe that they are taught that they are more special, in general, at the expense of others, not just me.

Yes. The eye rolling and brand names.

I will. It has been hard because my son tries to reach out to them, and I am sure he presents his woe as me, humiliated self. Where did he learn this? This only came to the fore after we learned of his illness, when it worsened.

This is what I know about this: My children were raised believing everyone is our people. Aunty Attilla is weird, but she is your aunt and she loves you. Cousins Attilla #1 and Attilla #2 are prone to public performance and to kissing adult a** but they are your cousins and blah, blah, blah. But as it turns out now Copa, my sister taught her children very, very different truths.

So your son believes he has cousins...but the cousins may have been taught to view him very differently. For instance, the issue of the wedding clothes. Those are the kinds of things I mean.

That is how it worked in my FOO and you could have blown me over with a feather when I realized it.

It still surprises me. But the pieces fit. The kids (ours) will have been taught the strangenesses of their relatives are to be overlooked and forgiven. In this, we were remiss. The cousins will have been brought up to believe they are better than. The mother sees herself as loving and kind because that is part of this.

Someone has to be in the dungeon at the center of the town.

It works, for them.

Maybe this is not true for your sister, Copa.

Do you really believe she taught them this, specifically using my name?

I am being so mean about your family. I am sorry Copa. I could be wrong in every way that matters. Based on what I have learned these past months about my sister, I do not believe they need to mount an attack. Instead, there will have been subtle emotional shifts created through eye rolling and alliances with new husbands and presentations of us as less than through our mates, who will have been berated viciously and openly.

I saw the same pattern of attack on the man who wanted to marry my mother.

Watched my mother lie to and about him and eventually, come to believe her own stories.

That is why, when my mother had the man in her home again during the summer months, my sister called to tell me "we'd" been "duped".

She believed her own stories, even to believing my collusion in them.

***

This pattern seems to have held true for each of the three of us who began these explorations on FOO Chronicles.

Whatever plans are made, the sisters will behave inappropriately and we will, once again, have forgiven and forgiven and torn into ourselves over how we went wrong.

Eventually, as the sisters solidify their power bases, there will be open ridicule and secret accusation. In my sister's case, there was targeted contempt in her response to my daughter's situation and my sister's blatant communication to me to let me know that she "knew everything already". But there was no effort to support me through what was happening to my daughter then or before that or afterwords and worse still, there was active scorn for my drug addled, brain damaged, homeless daughter.

Blood in the water and any attempt at subtlety is gone.

D H believes they do not realize they are lying.

This could be true.

In any event, the children will believe the mother.

The only evidence you will have is that, no matter what you plan, things just never seem to come out right.

That is not an accident.

It is Happy Hour here, Copa. We are having company for dinner.

I will write more tomorrow.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

Well, I have really bad arthritis and get swollen.

Me too.

the next year I crossed the Molokai Channel
with my paddling sisters.

Wow. How great is that!

I just love Tony Bennet, he's 85-wow. A duet with Aretha Franklin??? Beautiful!

Me too. I just love him. Do you know he was a D C kinda? He was a heroin addict for years and years. I think I remember he tried to suicide. He is also an extremely kind and humanistic man. And at one time politically active, for left wing causes. A real role model for all of us.

Thank you so much New Leaf. What a pleasure to listen to Tony while posting. It reminds me how much beautiful there is to live for.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

I have never been to a pow-wow.

I have.

When I looked up ice pipe, Copa.

I know, but when was that? How old was he or how long ago was it?

He says he does not use drugs. But when his fiancee left him, she brought him home first and made him confess to us.

When was that? How long ago?

So is meth speed? I think it is something worse than that, Copa. They smoke it. But it could be speed, I suppose.

Yes. It is a form of speed. Bennies, whites were methamphetamine too. It was almost 45 years ago, so what is now is much stronger, and altered, and street made. But it is essentially in the same class as diet pills. Even Ritalin. That is what makes Ritalin dangerous.

The cousins will have been brought up to believe they are better than. The mother sees herself as loving and kind because that is part of this.

Yes.

Maybe this is not true for your sister, Copa.

Of course it is true about my sister. It is that I cannot believe the lack of subtlety, let alone slightly abusive tone, of teaching your children to have contempt for their grandmother and aunt.

I do not think I am in denial. I just cannot believe it. Smile.

subtle emotional shifts created through eye rolling and alliances with new husbands and presentations of us as less than through our mates, who will have been berated viciously and openly.

Yes. Of course, you know this is true.

My mother covered for my sister, when I told her how every one of them stayed quiet as mice about the husband's Hep C, when I disclosed about my son's Hep B. All of them colluded so that I would be out there hanging in the wind so they could appear pure as the driven stone. When he had been an addict and my son had only been a fetus.

Eventually, as the sisters solidify their power bases, there will be open ridicule and secret accusation.

Like what they did to M in the hospital? Except M could care less.

Blood in the water and any attempt at subtlety is gone.

Why in the world did I send the email?

I think it has to be to be strong. Like now she is the one who is cowering. Of course she can tell herself that I am worth and so was my Mother. But let her. I know the truth. I do not want to cower anymore.

D H believes they do not realize they are lying.

This could be true.

Well, if they do not know they are lying, they are very sick indeed. It could be that they have a pact whereby they believe each others lies, and therefore can claim to themselves they tell the truth.

Who cares? They are hateful people. The more I think about it I was sticking my tongue out at my sister with my hands at my ears saying, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Catch me if you can. You chicken.

The only evidence you will have is that, no matter what you plan, things just never seem to come out right.

Yeah. And I end up with a stiletto in my gut.

It is Happy Hour here, Copa. We are having company for dinner.

Have fun, Cedar.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

I just skimmed an article. Meth is a variant of Amphetamine. As are Ritalin, Adderol, Whites, Diet Pills, and Bennies. Evidently Hitler and John F Kennedy had amphetamine injections, the latter for pain related to chronic illness.

 

[InsaneCdn]

@Copabanana Back pain? Unless there has been an identifiable acute injury, I wouldn't start there. Try a good medical massage therapist. Or physiotherapy. If those don't help, chiro is another option. Medical doctors don't have many good answers for back pain - muscle relaxants, pain killers... if your spine is falling apart, its a different story of course.

Our family gets injuries all the time - at least one of us at any one point in time is needing "something". Best success with soft tissue damage has been physio.

 

[Copabanana]

Insane, what is physiotherapy?

I am feeling a lot better. Still in pain. But better. I got so scared I am going to change my ways. For 4 days I was immobilized. Never happened before in my life. I vow to take care of my skeleton and body.

I was not aware of an injury. I was a bit more active just moving stuff in my house, after a long time inactive. But not heavy duty.

I have arthritis/lower back and cervical spine/mainly.

Thank you Insane. I know you are right. I want to be active and healthy. Not sick and medicated.

Thank you again, Insane.

What a certified massage therapist be a medical masseuse? I have found an Asian Massage place where I am that I may check out.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

Cedar, my mother looked like a Jewish Ernestine. With all the style but younger looking. Even in her 80's. I need to get into shape.

Most all of that "me" I suppressed. I want to be a star.

COPA

 

[InsaneCdn]

Physiotherapy: here's a good website that tells you about it:
http://www.physiotherapy.ca/About-Physiotherapy/What-to-Expect?lang=en-ca

Yes, medical masseuse would be similar to certified massage therapist.

Heat helps, too.

 

[New Leaf]

That is what I ended up doing, Copa.

Here, I had to go to my regular Dr. first to identify the problem, and he had to prescribe physiotherapy in order for insurance to cover it. It may be different where you are, depending on your coverage.
My PCP is trained in sports medicine, so I trust him to not "medically" manage, but work with the body.
Health care systems are different everywhere.

What attributed to my injury was pushing myself to the limits, exercising my major muscles, paddling, jogging using body weight exercises, push ups, crunches, etc. to build strength. The physiotherapist explained to me the importance of working the small muscle groups, because they support the larger ones. If we do not work them together, the small muscles stop working, yet they support the larger muscles.
I neglected stretching, which as a dancer, you know is huge. A tight muscle is a weak muscle.

Weeds. Injury. These are all weeds we can fill our "pukas" with.
For me, when life becomes heavy, I can shut down and stop moving. I need to stop this, and find my strength. Movement helps with the heaviness, the depression. Movement lifts the spirits.

The body has an amazing capacity for healing.

I have not been good, and going walking, so I will start up again. It is very healthy, and helps clear my mind.

I need to seek a diet that stops inflammation, this leads to swelling, and makes joints ache.

I am sure you will find a remedy, Copa. But do not tarry.
Your body is talking to you, telling you it needs something.
You will find the answers. Next is to apply the remedy.

Me too. Apply the remedy.

A moving body, keeps moving. I want to keep moving as long as I possibly can.

leafy

 

[Copabanana]

I need to seek a diet that stops inflammation, this leads to swelling, and makes joints ache.

New Leaf, have you seen Cedar's thread on diet? She is doing a type of Fast Oxidizer Diet Anti-inflammation diet.

It is largely what you can tolerate of these foods:

meat, poultry, fish, eggs, high fat cheese, full fat dairy, butter, olive oil.
Salmon is especially good. Wild.

Green vegetables/low starch. No potatoes, rice, noodles, pasta. No wheat. No processed foods.

No sugar. No honey. No sweeteners.

I think coffee is OK.

No citrus, including tomatoes.
Ltd fruit. Apples, pears, are the best. Hard fruits.
Apple Cider Vinegar OK in salads.

Grains like rye, barley, oatmeal OK in moderation.

My son follows this diet and swears by it. He drinks olive oil. Yuck.

I went on it about 15 years ago and did great. I may well do it again.

Thank you very much New Leaf and Insane. I will ask my doctor about physiotherapy.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

OK. Physiotherapy is the same as Physical Therapy. I was going. It helped if I did my exercises, too. I will go back. Thank you Insane. Thank you New Leaf.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Thank you Copa, I shall look into this. I have been naughty, my school has too many yummy things that taste good, but are not good for me.
When I trained for the channel race, I was focused and had the willpower to avoid the yummy stuff.

I will do better.

I think I will start to keep a journal of my diet and exercise.

Thank you Copa, we shall get better together.

I am concerned for Feeling, she has not checked in at all.

Feeling-thinking of you sister, please check in.

leafy

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I love this site, love it that we are supportive of one another in every way. I have seen Ernestine on television. She moves with grace and strength. She began lifting weights when she was already elderly because there was no reason not to begin.

***

I have been thinking about this imagery Leafy posted for us. About how we tend not to see bravery or courage. About how much intent matters. The chicken broaches no questions. She does not allow fear.

This is where we are with our children, too.

Surely the hen suffers over the chicks that are endangering them all, just as we suffer over our children.

I just keep thinking about this.

The hen does not care that she is only a chicken.

She is a Mother.

And that changes everything.

She is in grave danger on the ground, protecting her chicks.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

This is why in cousin in laws story, they did not turn tail and run from the old rock throwing aunty. It was a deserved scolding, they had been remiss in visiting her, in maintaining that connection.

This piece awakened fierce nostalgia and such pain for me, Leafy.

Thank you.

I needed to know that; I am stronger, because of it.

***

We had a thread on shunning earlier in the year. And one on the hatred that finds its external reality in racism and prejudice of every kind, and in slavery, and on cruelty in all its myriad shades and colors. Isolation and then, ridicule. Next, the Yellow Star.

It was a deserved scolding. They had been remiss in not visiting the old auntie, in not maintaining that connection.

In my family of origin, there is shunning. There is ridicule and a sly kind of unacknowledged power over, and isolation to establish a designated "other" and accomplish a gathering of allies. A clarification of the rules, as when my mother gave the tire rimming machine away between one day and the next to establish, so clearly, that my brother had no right to complain about the way his grands were being treated.

There is eye rolling at elderly lady drivers, and public humiliation in their being sent unexpectedly away.

It could be that there is jealousy, which is a kind of fear, at the heart of it.

There is nothing to do but stand up, and throw rocks at the car that, for me, does not come. I am not posting about my children. We will come through this. I am posting about my mother, about my sister, about the whole terrible dynamic churning away at the heart of my family of origin. If I were not being shunned, it would be one of the others. (Each of whom are, in a wide and ever-expanding variety of ways, being shunned in place to the degree they allow it. It is a steep and slippery slope.) I am being shunned in unison because I refuse it. My refusal endangers the validity of the game, which is a fear-based game. I am forever posting about exclusion and I think no one gets what I mean, but exclusion is the glue that makes my family of origin work, at all.

Someone has to be the one imprisoned in the dungeon at the center of the town. It isn't even necessary anymore. Everyone knows and accepts their roles so well. Still, they insist upon it. It is comforting to know the dungeon is fully occupado lest, one morning, one of them find themselves there.

In my family of origin the shades and colors of imprisonment and power over and grandiosity and the culture of scarcity at the heart of it flow like water.

Nonetheless, it stings to know that car will not be coming down the road, for me. And that if it ever did, I would mount immediate defense.

They hurt my child, Leafy.

That is what it took, for me to take them seriously.

And time stopped. And there are a million years between every second, and no sound in this place where I am now, at all.

Which makes me sound like I am not afraid of them.

I am.

It very truly is like loving a nest of snakes; fascinating, deadly. Venomous.

Beautiful.

My family of origin has hurt me very much. They have weakened me, distracted and disparaged me, when I needed to be strong. It is essential for me, and for those raised as I was, to forever forego the comfort and strength of family other than those we create for ourselves with our families, with our friends, with our people. There is neither strength nor comfort for us in the eyes of our initial abusers. We find strength and comfort in abundance only when we refuse to see ourselves through their eyes.

Then, and only then, are we able to see who we are, really. Human people who love and hate and fall down and get up and make what sense we can of things and do the best we know and sometimes, have to acknowledge that wasn't enough and go on, anyway.

That's who we are, really. Not perfection; not disgust, either. Just human being people. I think that is why I fell so under the spell of IZ. Not perfection, but so beautifully human in the joy in him, just being the center of where he was, sort of watching the world and observing and finding it to be a good and amazing place.

Man, I keep seeing the album cover where he floats in that blue, blue water.

It is healing to me somehow, Leafy and everyone.

Kind.

A kindness I can accept.

***

They are too fascinating to me. My mother, my sister, my brothers, my nieces and nephews and that envisionment of those faces so like my own around my table.

I love them too much to love them this way.

I really like that I came up with that phrase.

Perfect.

Pray for their peace and therein, find our own.

Cedar

It makes me feel the loneliness of it, to imagine that car that will never come up the winding dirt road that leads to my house.

That's okay.

I will scream and roar and cry and spit in the dust and throw rocks at the wind.

And play my violin in bare feet in the moonlight, raucous and raw and very, very real.

It is best to acknowledge the pain of it.

 

[New Leaf]

I cannot make a long reply, heading to work. Cedar you are beautiful and you are strong, right and true. To come from such a thing and to see it, for what it is.
There is a dividing line, and it has been crossed, this shunning. What a shame, not yours, theirs. Their loss, Cedar it is more their loss, not yours. You are no longer in the dungeon at the center of town, they are.

All of them.in the dungeon with their shunning and false pretenses. UCK.UCK. UCK!

Cluck at them Copa.

Cluck until the sun goes down.
Then have your happy hour. I will make a toast to you for your thinking powers and your brave heart bravery.
What to drink?
Something on the ROCKS!

Leafy