Month: April 2015

21st century travel and far away places

The first time I flew on an airplane was 1977.  I did have a passport as I was going to Europe, but not much else was the same.  There were no rolling bags – only heavy Samsonite luggage loaded with enough stuff to last me for 30 days in the south of France.  I have a clear memory of bolting through JFK with 3 other friends to try to catch a flight.  Back in those days the thought of flying was pretty terrifying – and I was easily made motion sick.

Today it literally takes about double the time to fly.  Bags have to be checked 45 min prior to departure.  Despite TSA Pre-Check, multiple forms of ID and careful packing of every conceivable element – there are delays.  In cabin liquids are limited to 3 oz (help me) all of which must be packed into a quart sized ziplock bag (what happened to sales of that product when Homeland Security decided on that requirement).  Sometimes you can wear a jacket and shoes, other times not.  Sometimes computers go out.  This last time plastic ear plugs (like you’d see on a construction site) were banned from around my neck – like the foam posed some threat.  The underwire in my bras no longer sets things off, but eyeglasses perched on top of my head will.  We wait in lines to wait in lines.  People drag bags into the cabin to save $25 to have them travel out of the way in the baggage compartment.  Gas is half what it was 2 years ago, but flight costs are up about 40%.

There is a lot more variety in the airports when it comes to food and beverages.  Of course, it comes at a price.  And then there is just the uncertainty of everything.  Will someone go nuts on the plane?  Will it be the pilot?  Are the mechanics overworked and frustrated?  Hell, the last flight I was on this week was delayed 37 due to insufficient toilet paper – which is deemed a mechanical failure and requires documentation of such mechanical failure.  However, none of us wanted to be on a 4.5 hour flight without TP so we sat patiently while they worked it out.  I wondered if the pilot was suicidal.  Wondered about the mental status of a passenger with odd affect and poor eye contact.

Flip side – I’m in sunny California where the weather is perfect, the people are thin and beautiful, and workplaces are literally so tricked out that they rival high end hotels.  Technology is king and youth is celebrated.  Cars plug in to charging stations and veganism is rampant.  Local university students are not lost with their noses in books, but rather in smartphone screens.  They don’t talk to each other, they type at some nameless person who could be 6 inches or 600 miles away.  Do they know what they are missing? Do I fully understand that which they know and I see only from the outside?  Questions.  No answers.

Family and such

Son has been to court (without me) and regained 50/50 custody (without me).  The “without me” part is an enormous relief.  I have little energy left for the drama that falls in the wake of his life.  I guess this has triggered this line of thought.

I didn’t meet my birthmother until I was 35 years old.  She was dead 2 months after I turned 36.  The story behind that is one for a “based on true events” movie, but the telling is for another day.  Even now, I don’t know the identity of my father, except that his first name (I think it’s his first name) was unusual (I know it) and that so many conflicting stories about what happened have been told that the truth is now lost to those who no longer are among us.  I also know that I really like to listen to Tanya Tucker sing “What’s Your Mama’s Name.”

I spent perhaps 24 hours (yes, hours) in the company of my biological mother during my entire lifetime.  She’s been dead for many years.  Despite this, I have to acknowledge that my relationship with her (or lack thereof) has served as the major driving force in my lifetime.

My “mother” – the woman who adopted me – could have no children.  Blame was tossed back and forth between my parents silently, but in that day and time there was no stigma to adopting nor to mothers who gave up their babies for someone else to raise.  People in general were expected to have families, and there was an assumption that if it just so happened that you couldn’t have one, that didn’t mean that you wouldn’t be a great parent.  The same is true now.  That said, the reverse is true as well.  People want kids for a variety of reasons.  In the 50’s and 60’s it was an expected part of life, a right of passage, and not much thought went into whether you’d be a good parent or not short of making sure you had a job, hadn’t been to jail, and weren’t actively in psychiatric treatment.  So, a lot of kids ended up in homes that were better than the ones they were born to, but sometimes still very, very problematic.  That sums up my situation.  My Mom had some very serious, undetected problems. Hell, in the years before I left I still didn’t put my finger on it and call it what it was – mental illness.

But I knew some things were off.  I guess the first time I realized there was a real problem was when I was 4.  I recall living in a large city in a high-rise apartment – 11th floor.  I was permitted to go down to the playground with my brother (2 years older) and play.  I have no idea what my mother was up to in the apartment, except to say that I was happy to go.  There had been a couple of mind-blowing incidents of bizarre abuse and Mom was high-strung.

Flash-forward in my memory and I’m talking to some lady on the bench at the park, telling her in all earnestness that my mother had been in a terrible car accident – she might even die.  I knew this was a lie – I just really wanted to believe it so much.  I know, those are not nice thoughts.  Oblivious, the woman then accompanied me back to the apartment only to find my Camel smoking, otherwise apparently healthy mother answer the door.  This was the last time I remember my mother having any control whatsoever when she got truly angry with me.  I think she had no idea what to make of it – this subliminal line of thought coming from her preschool daughter that she simply could not understand.  She tried to talk to me, but I was 4 and really wasn’t much in touch with my subconscious mind.  I promised Mommy I would tell no more lies.

More craziness would come.  I’ve got images of my mother screaming in agony while Dad and Mom’s best friend pulled her nude from a hot bath and wrapped her up on my parent’s bed.  Her expansive happiness when she thought she was pregnant once, and the raging anger and depression that fell behind it.  She never, ever reconciled the fact that she could not make her body reproduce.  She blamed my father’s low sperm count more than her blocked fallopian tubes and thyroid problems.  And through it all, her mental illness grew worse, and worse, and worse.  Her rage when I got my period.  Most of the crazy came my way.  At least I think it did.  I realize now that Dad would have never said.  He’s been gone for a long, long time now.

My brother escaped through drugs and alcohol.  I escaped through school and at one point, religion.

My whole childhood I dreamed that out there was my “real” mother – the one who if she only knew, would come and save me.  At one point I believed it was Liza Minelli – but she was too young.  I never thought about my father coming to save me.  I had a Dad who didn’t hurt me.  Anyway, no one came to save me.  Never happened.

When I did meet this person – this “real” mother who was to have saved me from everything, amongst all the questions she had was “Are you looking for a mother?  Because I can’t be that.”  I just told her, “I have a mother, but it hasn’t worked out very well so far. So I’m good with that.”

Mom is 80 this year.  I last saw her in 2008.  It took me until 2004 to really, really get over it.  My life.  That neither she nor I could ever be who the other one needed or wanted.  I wonder how much time people waste on what are supposed to be really important relationships in a life, only to discover this is their hard truth?  Some waste a lifetime.

April

I missed March – well, didn’t really miss it, but didn’t post about it.  In the long run, it was pretty confusing.  April is definitely coming in like a lion, too.

Heard from son in a reasonable way for first time in over 7 years.  Saw a grandchild with his permission.  I know he wants something from me – he is in a battle with his ex regarding custody.  I don’t have much to offer him after so many years of hatred toward me.  I’m trying to be there for him on some level without being consumed by him.  This is very, very difficult

My oldest grandson’s mother has decided to abandon her house and her existing life in favor of another one without real form or substance.  It is substantially farther away and will make seeing my pre-teen grandson difficult.  But hey, pre-teens aren’t exactly into the grandparent scene anyway.  As it should be.

Sales are terrible, but that’s given me a much needed break for taxes, sorting, organizing and some thinking.  Formulating a marketing plan in my head.  Going to break out a couple new products in 2015.  Just need to keep enough drive to bring them to fruition.

Kitchen is done – sort of.  A week after we signed off on it one of the cabinets is lilting badly.  Sent a second message this morning to the contractor – waiting to hear back.  Has to be fixed.

In my world, Saturdays are typically dedicated to cleaning because I have wicked allergies, we live with 3 cats, and folks and coming and going in and out of the house all the time.  These past few weekends, my time has been dedicated to taxes.  This weekend is a split – part tax, part cleaning, part hair coloring.

After what is essentially a lifetime of cooking and cleaning, I can honestly say that I am over it.  If I had my way, I’d have daily help for pickup, clean up and meals.  No justifying that expense though.  Funny how in the end, we have it sometimes.  Thinking of retirement homes, facilities, etc.  Of course, all that for a price – loss off control over your life and your body.

But today, I whine:  I really am sick of spending at least one full day off cleaning, doing laundry, and foraging for weekly food.  Meh.