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 |   Poetry and Prose about life, family, thoughts & Lesbian concerns of heart |
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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Come in for a visit. I write about my life as a daughter, mom, grandmother, friend and life partnership with my lesbian wife. You may smile, laugh or cry, either way you'll have learned about life in America since 1938. ANN And, my friend, I understand because all my silent years I was so deep into my church and Christian activities and feared 'sin' and felt shame when 'sex' was mentioned. Nobody spoke of the "horrible" sin they would not name (the rape of a child); At the same time, I watched ministers and deacons and Sunday School teachers sneaking around committing adultery, while I desired and lived 'without sin' as I knew sin to be as I was taught. I thought and studied the Bible and realized how today's preachers and teachers condemn only what they don't do or what a church leader has said to condemn; I've seen the woman run out of the church but not the man; I saw enough, and I knew the heart of love within me, from all through my life had its focus; it was never about 'having sex'. ...Heck, I didn't know about homosexuality until my college years; then I understood my heart and there was never a sexual thought associated with anyone before my marriage to the man who 'chased' me three years then almost murdered me 16 years later as my children heard the physical fight. After that I stayed single Mom, never dated, just had many friends and my children. Finally after raising my grandson, and knowing my own heart would never ever seek love from a man, I acknowledged that all my life, all of my relationship experiences and feelings clearly showed I had a heart that was drawn romantically with deep love that I could not ever express. Then I moved to Portland, came out and you know you can read the rest of the story. I know how God created my heart. If I don't believe God created me as I am, how could I live? It has nothing to do with 'doing' anything at all; it is 'being' as my Creator created me. ............................................................................................................................................................................................................ I retired in Idaho then moved to Oregon to show my pride as a member of the latest hated group across America: I am a lesbian and when I came "Out at Sixty", I came with pride and joy that I no longer had to hold the secret or carry the shame thrown at gay men and lesbians. With that same pride, I accept all persons and their right to be who they are and live with joy, peace, and the pursuit of happiness. I took a writing course at age 69 and began to write short stories, poems, essays, Op-ed comps and I found Writing.com where I am an Advocacy Writer, writing as an advocate for every person to have Civil and God-given rights each day as they pursue happiness for themselves and their families. Yes, most of my writing has been about gays and lesbians, however, I believe every person in the world shares the same heart and spirit to live peaceably with all peace loving people; while seeking to change the minds of those who live with anger, hatred, prejudice, racism and such. |
| LIGHTNING STRIKES AT HALLOWEEN Halloween in rural Oklahoma was usually a time for tricks more than for trick-or-treating. It was far different in the 1940’s than is in the 21st century. Then, costumed children who lived in rural America, could not walk in the dark from house to house with their plastic pumpkins and paper bags. Houses were far from each other and usually located on the hills instead of the downhill hollows between them. Often, fathers would drive the children to certain neighbors’ homes to trick or treat. It was exciting every year when my father did that. As kids then, we weren't old to figure out tricks to play on the neighbors. Only the older kids and young adults would talk about their tricks on the neighbors during the days following Halloween night. The primary event in our rural area was held at the schoolhouse on the hill just beyond us. All of the kids would arrive in costume and the adults were judges of the best costumes. The first activity was for all the kids in costume to line up in front of the crowd. Most people knew all the kids first through eighth grades. Parents helped keep it a secret which kids were theirs. The people in the crowd had to name the child behind the costume. My little brother won that contest one year by dressing like a girl. After the school event, out family went to visit with a family with kids who were our best friends. I was in sixth grade that year when old Uncle Lightning was tricked and so were others. While we were visiting with the kids, Mother and Daddy visited with Doug and Ruby Whatley at their house on a hill not far from Paoli, Oklahoma. The adults played cards, a game called Pitch, while the five Whatley kids and four of us played outside in the moonlight or just sat and ate the Halloween treats that we had gotten at the celebration at the school. Late into the evening, Daddy and Doug ask us if we wanted to trick-or-treat old Uncle Lightning, a single old alcoholic, who lived down in the hollow across a small creek. Uncle Lightning was not a relative to either family. Of course, every kid was excited about Doug and Daddy’s suggestion. Daddy told us that he would stay at the Whatley house and let Doug drive us down to Lightning’s home. All of us piled into the back of Doug's old pickup and he drove slowly instead of his usual thirty-five miles per hour. We were laughing and talking about the adventure and wondering if Uncle Lightning would even be home. It was a dark night; the moon was a true Halloween moon and we couldn't see anything beyond the headlights. In our excitement, we had not wondered why Daddy hadn't come with us. What we did not know was that, while Doug drove slowly, Daddy took Doug’s shotgun and walked through the pasture, down the hill, across the small creek and got to Uncle Lightning's house before we did. Uncle Lightning lived alone in a tiny little house by the creek in a pasture. He had gotten his name because of the liquor he used to make during Prohibition days of the 1920's. His liquor was called "white lightning" so he was named Lightning. Daddy and Doug had intended for Lightning to be at home and could easily be awakened when Daddy knocked on the door. They intended to enlist him to play a trick on us kids. That's not what happened. When Daddy arrived there, he knocked several time. Lightning didn’t answer the door. Daddy assumed he was in town at the little bar celebrating Halloween so he stood behind the house to wait for us to knock on the door with the gun loaded and ready to shoot.. He planned to shoot the gun at just the right moment to give us the scare of our life that Halloween. When Doug parked the pickup. All of us, ages six to thirteen, climbed out of the pick-up and crawled under the barbed wire fence strung along the property to keep the cows in. The oldest kids raced to Lightning’s door. Like kids still do every Halloween, we knocked on the door. There was no answer. Then, to scare us, Daddy shot the gun. A place like that below a hill, along a small creek, was called a "hollow". When that gun went off, it echoed through the hollow and sounded extremely loud. We cried out and started yelling, “It’s just us Uncle Lightning.” And, we were running back toward the fence, scared to death that Uncle Lightning might shoot that awful gun again. Suddenly, the trick turned Daddy and Doug. Lightning was at home and in his loudest voice yelled and cussed in his drunken voice, “Who the hell is out there?” As soon as he yelled, Daddy ran toward the fence with us. He knew that Lightning could easily grab his own gun and shoot into the dark at all the people yelling and running. Climbing under that fence was no small task. Being in a hurry, I tore my jeans and am sure some of the other kids did too. My brother scratched his hand on the barbed wire. We had either crawl on the ground under the first fence line, or carefully but quickly climb between the first and second line of wire; or, do like Daddy. He was running so fast that he put one foot on a lower line, then threw the other leg over the top. He was as scared as we were. I still think he ran the fastest. I don't think a herd of kids and their Daddy ever ran faster than we did that night. Later on, when Lightning was sober, Daddy and Doug told them about the trick. Lightning laughed the hardest, Daddy said, because he scared those two grown men that night. |
March 30, 2013: It's Spring in the northern hemisphere, and traditionally time for spring cleaning! Is there anything in your life that needs to be cleaned up or cleaned out? What in my life "needs to be cleaned up or cleaned out?" I know my basement needs lots of cleaning up and out so I can have room for the things that need to be there. A year ago, the mortgage company was intending to foreclose and take our home from us because my wife was too ill with diabetes, the brittle kind wherein the pancreas does not produce more than one percent of the insulin she needs to survive daily. Without her income and with the years of working with Social Security for her to receive disability income, we could not keep out home. (she's still waiting) I packed everything, sorted and gave away many things, had a yard sale to earn a few dollars, and waited for our home to be taken away. By then, the basement was filled with items in boxes and packed for moving. I had removed the wonderful shelves my brother had made, taken them outside and put rollers on them; so they could be used to fill the moving truck to take our things into storage. Without the shelves, very heavy and bulky and cut in half to get them out of the basement, the basement then became cluttered; as it still is. Fortunately, a realtor talked us into having a Short Sale; to put the house up for sale and get an offer from a potential buyer then hope the finance company would accept the offer,leaving us with nothing owed and no home; or, for the finance company to offer us lower interest and lower payments so we could keep the home, we've been buying since we met fourteen years ago. (I had recently come out as lesbian, at age sixty, and fell in love with Molly; we've lived 'married in our hearts, while hoping Oregon grants us the privilege of marrying under the law.) Hooray! A buyer made an offer at half of what our loan was; Within the hour after they were notified of the offer, the same mortgage company representative called me and asked, "Do you want to sell your home or keep it?" Of course, I said "I've been asking you for five months to let us keep it, by you reducing the 8% interest lower so our payments are lower; then we can truly keep our home. He did, we are still here. But the basement needs the shelving replaced and the clutter cleaned, cleared away. I will be doing that as we get summer warmth. Is there anything else in my life that needs cleaning? No, I don't think so. For the past thirty years, since during and after I got magnificent counseling as the Child of an Acloholic during my life in my father's home, I've been 'cleaning out' the pain and scars in my being/soul/spirit/me. During that period and since then, I have dealt with the emotional scars and pain in my heart and life, and cleaned it out of my emotional heart. I've dealt with the lifelong impact of sexual assault as a ten year old child in the same way; the memory never goes out of the mind, but good counseling helped me get rid of the pain. I have found that here at writing.com, all the writing I have done about the past life scars, have also helped to sweep out the vestiges of those terrible moments of my growing up years. I have acknowledged that getting a divorce when I did was the correct, and best thing to do for my children and for me. Just today I wrote another story that pulled outside of me, the drama and trauma that led to my divorce. It's in my folder with other short stories, "The Last Time", what could have happened thr night that my husband pinned me to the floor with his knees and strangled me; that was the third and the last time I allowed him to do that; the next day, I left to get a divorce and save my life and my children. I find now that when an old memory haunts me, I write about it and it fades with no further power or pain inside me. So, I keep 'cleaning out' the painful matters of my life, any regrets, by writing about them; then they are cleaned out of my soul. As a Christian since I was six years old, written about in "Dry Ice and Jesus", means my spirit does not have blots that need cleaning. I say that knowing that it was God who created my spirit and my heart the way my heart is: my heart is the heart of a lesbian; a heart that has had romantic love toward girls or women all of my life. My heart of loving Molly these fourteen years romantically and fully, is as God created my heart. I have absolutely no doubt that God LOVES Gays, the men who romantically love men, and lesbians, the women who love women romantically. God is in my heart according to John 3:16, that 'whosoever believeth has everlasting life in heaven with Jesus and Father God. I am clean. ann |
PROMPT: If you could be any fictional character in the world, who would you choose to be? Why? Which fictional character even counts in terms of this question? Detective Olivia Benson of Law and Order SVU is a fictional character who has personal power, police power, a beautiful smile, a gorgeous body, and she is an excellent detective with great intellect and wisdom. She stands tall among her peers and garners respect from all whom she meets; even the tough guys learn that she deserves respect or can show more power than any of them have. Who wouldn't choose to be respected, strong, beautiful and have power over the bad guys in our world? I'd be happy to have another life being Detective Benson, in real life. Otherwise, I'd choose to be The Easter Bunny because he gets to make children gleeful, delightful and happy every spring. Who wouldn't enjoy that? ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
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| MOTIVATION March 28, 2013: The Easter Bunny wants to know: what is it that motivates you in your life? My response to the question, "What motivates me in my life?" has been different at various phases of my life. When I was a child, I thought as a child. I loved my parents. I lived for my mother who was in my life every day and cared for me. Those days, my father was gone from our home far too much; said he was looking for work when actually, he just wanted to be 'on the road' without a commitment to anyone but himself. I believe he was a young man trying to slough off the negative and hurtful things that had happened the first nineteen years of his life; his father was a mean man. When I was a teenager, I thought for myself. I loved my parents. I lived to please my mother because my father's alcoholic behavior, at times, disrupted our otherwise peaceful home. Research later in my life, showed that in dysfunctional homes like ours, the children take on a set of defined roles hoping to reduce the power of the alcoholic behavior, especially during and after traumatic events. I took the role of the "responsible" child and responded by doing the things that would please the affected parent: my mother. I tried to never do anything that might disappoint her. I was so "good for her" that I lost myself; by putting her feelings first, I failed to think and do what would "please' the person I was born to be. Years later, during psychological counseling, I was to acknowledge that it was important to be the child, the adult, that I was born to be instead of setting my self aside to make someone else happy. It's a depressive way to live, not being who you are inside with every life decision including who to marry and when to divorce. It wasn't until my thirties that I learned to live my life on my own terms, not so my mother would feel personal success because one of her kids lived the way she wanted. This second half of my Iife, I have been motivated by my goals for myself. My children have blessed me with their words, "Mom, I'm glad you raised me as a single Mom. You set me free to be myself, who I was born to be, and to make my own decisions." Today, in my November years, I continue to be motivated by my goals, especially my goal of being a successful writer. While I care for my health, love my family, be a good wife to my sweet Molly, speak for the rights of gay and lesbian Americans, trust my God and live a good life, I write. I don't know if my writings will be published beyond Writing.Com or not, but I do know my words will not be erased when I die. My daughter, now forty-two, is writing on Writing.com, reads my work, encourages me happily as my cheerleader to "write on, Mom". She will see that what I've written for family is read by new generations and passed to later generations by her daughter. "I'm writing as fast as I can" because I know I'm closer to the end than I am to the beginning of my life. And, I'm loving as much as I can because my heart motivates me to love my family, wife, friends, my readers and my God. |
| March 27: what is your favorite home-cooked holiday meal? Daddy's holiday dressing with turkey and the trimmings is the first thing that comes to mind when I'm asked about a favorite dish. Daddy didn't always step-up and cook a meal when the rest of us were at church or at holiday time. It was Thanksgiving 1955, my senior year in high school when he decided to try to cook the holiday dinner. Thanksgiving Day was always the "Turkey Day Football Game" between Modesto High and Turlock High schools. That particular Thanksgiving, Mother had gone to visit her parents for a few days; we did not expect a Thanksgiving traditional meal. In fact, I expected to have to cook dinner after getting home from the game in Turlock. My sister and I drove to pick up four good friends. Of course, I was the driver. It was a fun drive to and from the game which our school won; we won the League Championship that year, Turlock didn't have a chance against our guys. I drove our friends and sister to our house, expecting to cook dinner for Daddy and my brothers as well. Surprise! Surprise! Daddy had the turkey baked, cornbread dressing made and added other items to the table: turkey gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans and sweet candied yams with marshmallows. No dessert needed. It was a delicious meal for each of us kids and our friends. He was so proud of what he had done; and was even more proud that all of us ate with gusto and totally enjoyed the dressing that he had worried over. Daddy died at the young age of forty-seven of a sudden brain aneurysm. I think that Thanksgiving dinner, especially the dressing, was the ultimate of his cooking days. From that Thanksgiving day in 1955 until his death, Daddy always had Sunday dinner cooked when Mother and us kids got home from Church. (sometime I'll write about his green chicken and dumplings...my fault, not his   Just three months before his death in 1965, he and Mother had visited from California to Idaho to have Thanksgiving with me and my family. He cooked the traditional meal and, as he made the dressing, I wrote the Recipe, his special way, in my cookbook. Now, when i turn to that page, I remember him with a smile. It was my last visit with him. NOTE: I've shared with many people about the cause of his death, and by knowing about it, I personally saved a coworker's life: He had a headache that "nothing eased the pain" for eight months; even while cooking our Thanksgiving Dinner. He suffered so long those months in 1964 and doctors could do nothing. Even the only test available could have killed or left him disabled. Ten years later, my employee came to a meeting, said "I have a headache that nothing helps ease the pain." I told Barbara to leave the meeting, call her doctor and get an appointment immediately. She did, had surgery the next day, healed and was back at work six weeks later. Remember this story if someone ever says to you that their "headache won't go away"; You may save a life because physicians can sew the artery to stop the aneurism. ANN |
My friends of the Blogging Circle: on this subject I wrote about 'stepping up' to get a divorce for the benefit of my three children when my ex, for the third time, pinned me to the floor in serious anger and strangled me. I did not want to die nor to have my children live in such a home. Last evening, I accidentally deleted and purged the complete Blog you've been reading. I can't retrieve it now but will be continuing to write to Cindy's daily prompts. ANN ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
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