What can I say to someone bullying her kid over the phone?

Let me just ignore the 20 items on my to-do list for a minute because I can't do anything while I'm sitting here with my stomach churning and my hands trembling...except write it out.

My writing spot of choice is unfortunately limited to a not-so-local Starbucks, so I overhear a lot of things I'd rather not.  A few moments ago, I overheard a "preppy" mom telling her son over the phone that if she ever hears him cuss again, she'll punch him in the face, because he is a CHILD, and therefore he doesn't get to cuss.

So...what can I say to a mom who bullies her kid over the phone that will make things better for everyone?

Should I tell her how I felt when my mother spoke to me that way, how my mother died when I was 12, and 18 years later all I remember are the mean things that she said?

It feels great to be talked to as if your feelings don't matter, don't ya think?

Is it my place to pull a seat up to her table and ask her and her friends, who were laughing encouragingly as they listened to her side of the conversation, to really think about what they are teaching their kids when they threaten their children with violence, how they create either bullies or victims rather than healthy, happy young people who become happy, healthy adults?

It's a tempting thought, but I'm afraid I would just burst into tears out of empathy for their poor kids, for the poor kid that I was.

What can you say to someone you don't even know that might open their mind just a little bit, maybe inspire them to treat their children with love and respect?

Thanksgiving and the Not So Angry 95% Vegan

A few years ago, I was a student at UCF, walking to the student union for lunch. It was the week before Thanksgiving, and I passed a vegan friend of mine, who tried to convince me to go into a makeshift cavern plastered with pictures of the suffering of turkeys and other animals, designed to raise awareness of animal cruelty and shame meat eaters into quitting cold turkey (hee hee, couldn't resist the pun.)

I refused to enter the den of horror. Turkey was my absolute favorite meat, and I didn't want to feel guilty about it, or have my pleasure diminished by memories of horrible images. The anger of the vegan and vegetarian protesters made me feel unsafe and uncomfortable, so I avoided them.

Last week I experienced my first Thanksgiving as a vegan, and I wasted no time trying to guilt anyone into eschewing turkey. I have to say that horrible stories and images of animal cruelty have nothing to do with the fact that I am vegan now. Though I am vegan, I do not believe that people who eat meat are evil murderers. I do tease friends and family about their meat consumption, but I don't berate them for supporting animal cruelty or the destruction of the planet. I know that I cannot make positive change with negative behavior, or by evoking negative emotional responses.

I am not an angry vegan. I am vegan because it makes me happy. My friends and family see how effortlessly I've lost 80 pounds (so far!) They taste the delicious, nutritious food that I cook, notice my glowing skin, great mood...and how badly my health suffers when I fall off the no-dairy wagon. I inspire people to take better care of themselves...I don't try to bully them into changing their behavior or way of thinking.

I planned to bring my own meal to Thanksgiving dinner, but didn't plan well, and failed to bring anything. Never fear - my younger brother went to a great deal of effort to make sure that there was a vegan version of every side dish served that night, and even made a special portabello, spinach, and sun dried tomato dish just for me! He made me my own green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, stuffing with cranberries and apples, a stuffed baked apple, baby carrots, butternut squash, corn, dinner rolls, and sweet potato casserole (I pretended the marshmallows were vegan...how could I turn down any part of that meal, when he went to so much trouble? I did tell him that vegan marshmallows exist, though.)

I admit, my brother's consideration moved me to tears.  I have so many things to be thankful for this year, and my brother is definitely top of the list.

And while I'm on the topic, I am also thankful for:

• Reconciling and building a better relationship with my father
• The warm and wonderful connection I have with my sister
• The joy of motherhood and the precious blessing that is my son
• Having a home with my new sister, niece, nephew, and...baby-daddy/sorta-brother-in-law
• The opportunities to make my dreams come true one by one
• FINALLY earning my MFA
• Achieving my first publishing contract
• The love and support of my friends in Orlando and beyond
• and much, much more. :D

Happy Holidays! <3

<-insert Xena's warrior cry here->

I need to talk about just how messed up I was up until not even a year ago.

It amazes me that I could be an inspiration to other people, such a help to other people, while simultaneously hating myself.  It amazes me that I was so out of it, so off-balance, that the only self-worth I could garner came from trying to please everyone else.

This face about sums it up.

For context, in case you haven't read my earlier blog posts, let's summarize my childhood with a single word: abuse.  Let's summarize my young adulthood with another word: rape.  Okay, I can summarize my life up until November 2010 with one word: victim.  Or, survivor.  Depending on how you look at it.

Becoming a mother was the beginning of healing for me, though things got a lot worse before they got better.  In June 2008, at the age of 27, I found out I was pregnant.  At the time, I was in a co-dependent "friendship" with a woman who conned me out of $14k over the course of six or seven years, who was also mooching off of me, living in my apartment with her then-boyfriend. 

I discovered my unplanned pregnancy the same week that I was laid off from my job, high school teacher, the thing I had always wanted to be when I grew up.  I had just started a new relationship, but was impregnated by a different man, the only "friend-with-benefits" I'd ever had. 

The moocher "friend," a woman I trusted and loved with all my heart, took off a few months into my pregnancy, leaving me a 10 page letter about what a horrible person I was and how sorry she was for my child because she was sure I'd be a horrible mother.  My baby's sperm donor had no interest in our child.  My boyfriend started treating me like crap early on, but I had already broken the lease on my apartment and moved in with him.  I felt helpless.  I felt trapped.

Don't we all look so happy together?

I tried to focus on the positive.  I had my heart set on a happy ever after...with a misogynistic deadbeat who sexually assaulted me every single night for two years - and I didn't recognize it as sexual assault until last month, when a friend who had read my memoir called it what it was!  I kept making excuses for my ex, to myself as well as to my friends, until the night he left me and my one year old son penniless and homeless, in November 2010.

Hello, rock bottom.

I was an exceedingly lucky homeless person.  I didn't have a home for a few months, but I always had a bed to sleep in, people to help me search for work and to watch my son while I searched, people giving me whatever they could spare, even if it was just love and support over the internet.  My son and I never had to sleep on the street, never went hungry, and never went without knowing that we were loved.

It still amazes me how empowering an experience it was for me.  There were dozens of people helping however they could, many of whom I barely knew, all cheering me on, encouraging me, telling me I could do it, pushing me to prove to myself that I could.  I couldn't let myself fall to pieces or give up, because I had a precious toddler depending on me.

It probably goes without saying that I was depressed as all hell during all that.  I was so scared, and so angry, but I suppressed all my negative feelings as well as I could.

Holding it all in was killing me.  The optimistic, light-hearted, playful, affectionate, nurturing woman I had been locked herself away in some hidden corner of my heart.  I felt like a hollow automaton, just going through the motions, doing whatever I had to do.

My love for my son, and my determination to give him the best possible start in life, kept me from killing myself.  My beliefs about positive, conscious parenting drove me to seek out methods of self-healing so I could be the best mother I could be.  My spiritual path and experiences provided the tools I needed to put myself back together, piece by piece, and pure Divine Love provided me with a home in the last place I ever would have thought to look.

In this home, I am loved, supported, valued, and given the space I need to heal.  Gratitude really isn't strong enough a word to express how I feel.  I truly am blessed beyond my fondest dreams.

Now, having finally learned to love myself, having finally healed to a point that I feel like a whole new person, no longer either a victim or a survivor...now I have too many friends suffering the same kinds of crap I suffered.

My inner warrior princess is shrieking her battle cry, ready to throw her chakrum and cut through all their chains, if they would just hold up their wrists at the right angle.

I want to help.  I want all that I suffered and all that I've learned from that suffering to help others, to empower them.  I wish I could just hold them in my arms and overwhelm them with self-worth, confidence, and determination to make their lives even better than they can imagine.

But I can't.  I can't make anyone feel, think, or believe anything.

All I can do is offer my unconditional love and support, guidance when they ask, and keep praying that one day soon when they look in the mirror they will see themselves as the beautiful, loved, powerful beings that they are.

But...dammit, people!  Life is too short to waste on misery!

If he's laughing, he's listening.

My seven year old nephew screams at my two year old son, then runs into his room, slamming his door.

One night, when this happens, I’m not in the best of moods. I yell through my nephew’s closed door, asking him what’s wrong. He ignores me, and I get angry, but he’s not my kid, so I feel powerless and resentful. Meanwhile, my son is crying his heart out, banging on my nephew’s door, trying to get in. Angry, frustrated, exasperated, I pick my son up and bring him into our room, calming him down and distracting him.

My nephew learns that his behavior is acceptable. More importantly, he does NOT learn an alternative behavior. As for me, I don’t finish cleaning the kitchen or cooking dinner because I’m so angry and exasperated, leaving everyone more hungry and more frustrated for hours.

A different night, the same situation happens, but I’m in a good mood. I immediately distract and entertain my son, and then talk to my nephew to find out what’s really wrong. He is too angry and resentful to listen to anything I say, so I finish cleaning the kitchen and cooking dinner. Two hours later, I finally get my nephew to smile, and I have an epiphany so obvious I should have a lump on my head from where the “well DUH” stick struck.

My epiphany was simply this – if he’s laughing, he’s listening.

Kids learn from every single thing they witness, but what they learn depends on how they see the world in that moment.

Every moment, every thing we do, or don’t do, teaches our children, but how our children feel colors their lenses.

That’s why it is so important to parent consciously – so we can be aware of what we are teaching, and what we grown-ups need to learn, as well as how our children are feeling and what they need help with.

When kids feel resentful, angry, or hurt, they can’t be considerate or patient. Positive and negative feelings can’t occupy the same space at the same time. But you CAN nullify one with the other. You can be patient with your child, and considerate of his needs, and thus help him let go of his unpleasant emotions.

The three P’s of Effective Parenting (according to me,) are Positive, Present, and Patient.

You have to be in a Positive space yourself. You can’t teach positive behavior with negative behavior. It’s just not possible. No, really. Think about it.

You have to be Present – if you are thinking about stuff you need to do or things that already happened, you are missing what’s going on right now. When you do one thing with your hands while your mind is elsewhere, you mess up, you lose things, you get confused. It’s like typing a text message while applying mascara and driving 55mph down the freeway…a disaster waiting to happen. Be present in everything thing that you do, and you will be amazed at how much calmer you feel, how much easier life is, and and how much you’ve been missing out on.

Patience is a requirement for effective parenting. You have to be patient with yourself, because you are going to make mistakes, and you are going to learn things that will totally change the way you see your kids and your role I their lives. You have to be patient with your kids, because they don’t see the world the way you do; they don’t have the experiences that you do, and even when you experience things together, I guarantee you that they got something different out of that experience than you did.

Getting back to my epiphany – if he’s laughing, he’s listening. If he’s laughing, he’s in a positive state of mind, he is present in this moment (not thinking about what went wrong in the past or what he wants in his future,) and he is patiently waiting for you to make him laugh some more…which means he’s receptive to learning. While he’s laughing, I have the opportunity to slip a lesson in there with the joke. As long as I keep the mood light and fun, he’ll keep listening.

Next time this scenario repeats, I plan to be present in the other room so I can see what exactly is setting my nephew off. I plan to be patient with him, and positive overall. And hopefully, I’ll have another epiphany and figure out how to solve the issue. Wish me luck!

Sink or Swim Parenting

I remember learning to swim at the YMCA, slipping gently into the cool water, clinging to the wall as my coach gently encouraged me to swim toward him.  "You can do it," he said.  "Just let go, and move your arms and legs just like we practiced."

I trusted that he wouldn't let me drown, and that he wouldn't get angry, or worse, turn his back on me, if I forgot what we practiced, or if I was too scared or self-conscious or distracted to do what I was supposed to.  And he rewarded my trust by catching me, steadying me, and encouraging me to go further.

 My uncle taught his daughter to swim by throwing her in the deep end when she was five, and telling her she could figure it out.  Her eyes bugged and her face turned purple as she splashed, reaching for the wall, too scared to cry until she reached the wall, and then she couldn't stop crying.

My cousin and I both learned how to swim, but we also learned a lot more.  I learned that there were other people in the world that I could trust, who would help me if I needed it, and who would encourage me to meet my goals and to go even further.  She learned that she had to take care of herself, because no one else was going to help her, especially not the people she loved.

I was lucky that my mother hired a coach to teach me to swim, because my father had the same parenting philosophy as my cousin's father.  When I needed help, as a child, a teenager, and even as an adult, my father thought I should just know what to do, and turned his back on me.  "Tough love," some call it.

Withdrawing love is not "tough love."  Love is an exchange of positive energy, of happiness, encouragement, comfort, trust, and time.

I am lucky that I grew up exposed to adults who didn't buy into the "bully them into behaving" paradigm, because I grew up knowing there was a better way, and slowly but surely, I taught myself what my parents should have taught me - that I deserve love without conditions; that there ARE people in this world that I can trust; and that there will always be someone to help me when I need it, even if it's not the person that I expect.

My Birth Story (Excerpt from my thesis, "Birth of a Mother")

My Birth Story – Excerpted from my memoir, Birth of a Mother

Me as a newborn with my proud parents.

     "I spend a couple of hours in the tub, alternating positions from reclining on my back to squatting, to lying on my tummy, getting restless. My three hundred and twenty pound body does not fit as well in the deep plastic tub as I would have liked, and I start letting my legs hang over the sides to stretch my calves and feet to keep them from cramping.
     As endorphins and other hormones flood my body, relaxing me, opening me, and preparing the way for my son's entrance, I want nothing more than to go to sleep. After every rush, I relax against the tub and close my eyes, feeling like I could start dreaming if I wasn't afraid I'd drown in the meantime.
     The nausea hits me without warning. Then my entire body feels flooded with restless energy, even though I simultaneously feel heavy and unable to move. The sensation suddenly morphs into feeling like my body is about to split into two, or explode. I remember from Gaskin's books that just before the pushing phase, mothers “transition” into it by experiencing feelings ranging from nausea and discomfort to panicking and losing confidence in their ability to survive the birth. To relieve the tension, and head off the panic, I facetiously announce, “Well, this must be transition, because I feel like I'm going to die!”
     As Kelli and Maggie burst into laughter, Kelli's assistant, Kristie, walks into the room, also laughing. “I knew she'd make me laugh as soon as I walked in the door!” she says, grinning at me.
     I appreciate Kristie's presence in the next moments, first because she rubs my feet while Rose puts a cold washcloth over my eyes, and Maggie has me sip more juice from a straw. Transition passes, and my body moves itself into squatting position without my conscious effort, and with the next rush, my bellow turns into a grunt, and I find myself pushing.
     Kelli looks up from knitting my son's hat and stares at me a moment, before asking, “Am I going to finish this in time?”
     My laugh is cut short by another rush that ends in pushing.
     I'm vaguely aware of my sister running around, helping the midwives and encouraging me, following their lead. I hear her telling the men in the other room that they need to watch the way they feel or think, because I might pick up on their worry or tension, and my heart overflows with love and pride for her, but I am too far gone in labor-land to tell her so.
     The urge to push is relatively weak at first. I roll onto my side, my other side, to my hands and knees, squatting and leaning over the tub, and squatting and leaning back against it. The last three positions feel best. A couple contractions even find me on my back, because my legs are cramping, and my feet are wrinkled and numb, yet throbbing. Someone rubs my feet and calves at some point, which feels like a wonderful release of blocked energy.
     After pushing for what feels like twenty minutes, Kelli checks me with her fingers, and finds a little bit of cervix still holding back my son's head. She pushes at it while I bear down, and it's much easier to figure out what muscles with which to push when I can feel her fingers. We get the last of the cervix away in that fashion, and the endorphins are making me crave sleep again. I hear myself saying, “a nap would be heaven” after every contraction, and finally, I decide to move back to my bed so I can rest between pushes without inhaling water.
     In a flurry of activity, all the ladies run around me, moving the birthing stuff back into the bedroom on the other side of the house, while Kelli helps me out of the tub. I notice my birth team blocking view of my body from the men as we make our way through the house, and feel like that was thoughtful of them, though I couldn't care less about being seen naked right now. Before I went into labor, I had a birthing outfit picked out, but once labor really started, naked was the only way I wanted to be. I am no longer ashamed of this large, incredible body, the body that conceived, housed, nurtured, and protected my baby as he grew.
     On the bed, I discover that lying on my side makes the contractions hurt, so for the most part, I stay in the chest and knees position, which lets me rest between contractions and almost sleep. I feel so out of it that I can't figure out how to sustain the pushes to move my baby out.
     I become frustrated, and the sound of the men talking in the other room distracts and irritates me, so I ask Rose to shut the door, not realizing that Dolphin is standing in the hallway.
     Kelli says, “How about we move you to the birthing stool, and let gravity help?”
     I stare at her like she's speaking in tongues for a moment, and when my foggy brain finally deciphers her question, I say, “Okay.”
     The birthing stool looks like someone turned a rocking chair on its side, but cut off the chair part, and then cut handles into each end of the curved runners. It's sturdy, though, and gives my birth team much more room to help me. Maggie and Kristie help me spread my thighs as far as they will go, and Kelli kneels between them, while Kristie contorts herself on the floor with her head under my butt to keep a hot compress against my perineum with one hand, and wipe away fecal matter with the other. They are all my heroes, and I am grateful at the matter-of-fact comportment of these experienced ladies, keeping me confident in my most vulnerable moments.
     On the birthing stool, with Kelli's assistance, I finally figure out how to push effectively, and then how to sustain it. I ask Kelli to use her fingers to guide me, so I can focus on pushing against them. I smell clary sage oil punctuated by occasional whiffs of my own feces at different points, and feel impressed all over again at how efficient the ladies are at keeping me clean and the floor and bed covered. I am so grateful that I feel so comfortable with them that I can poo on them and not feel bad or embarrassed about it.
     They know I can do it, and encourage me over and over. Incredibly attentive and intuitive, they know what I need and want before I do, half the time. Rose is also a huge help, just by helping them. She becomes an active member of my birth team, even though she's never witnessed a birth before. I could burst with pride for her.
     […]
     In the last fifteen minutes, the pushing urge becomes all consuming. I grunt louder and longer than I ever have before, pushing until I think I can't possibly push anymore, surprised when my body adds an extra, stronger push at the end of what I thought was all I could do. My throat is raw and I taste mucus from the grunting, as if I'm coughing up phlegm rather than vocalizing as I move my baby's head down my birth canal.
     I don't feel the infamous “ring of fire” when he crowns, just an itchy, stretchy feeling. My birth team sets up a mirror so I can see his head, but my glasses are still in the kitchen, so I reach down and touch him instead. His head feels like a slimy hairball, and I almost laugh, but suddenly, I can't think or do anything but push. My body totally takes over. His head comes out, and Kelli wipes his nose and mouth, then turns slightly to put down the cloth, whirling back around just in time to catch my baby as he shoots out of me, seconds after crowning. I almost laugh again at the wide-eyed expression on Kelli's face, which is the only face close enough for me to see without my glasses.
     But then she puts his warm, slippery body on my belly, and I cradle him to me, and the rest of the world ceases to exist. His head is covered in short brown hair, looking darker in the birth gore. His eyes are dark and almond-shaped, his nose flat and round, his lips full and perfect in his scrunched up, beautiful face. He could be any ethnicity in this moment. He is the entire human race, the past, present, and future. He is the entire universe, my universe, the overwhelming precious answer to every prayer I'll ever make.

Confession time...

I've been feeling pretty ashamed of myself since last night.

Ten years ago, while I worked on my MFA but before I started my eight years of thesis hours (no joke,) I had a couple of classes, one fiction, one poetry, in which we volunteered at the local homeless shelter and taught some of the "residents" creative writing techniques.

We learned a lot about life that semester, about pedagogy, and about human nature.  The couple of months I spent homeless, I got to hop from a bed in one friend's house, to a bed in another, while people I knew and trusted watched my son and other friends drove me around town helping me search for jobs, aid, and more permanent shelter.  I had a whole posse of mamas watching my back, all peers, most of whom I barely knew before all this happened, and thanks to them, my son and I never had to sleep in a shelter, or beneath the open sky.

The people we taught that semester were not so fortunate.  They had no real friends or generous acquaintances to help them.  They had no family, or their families turned their backs on them.

That semester, listening to these amazing people tell their stories using the techniques of storytelling and poetry that we taught them, changed me forever.  Perhaps someday I'll be able to better describe it.

The thing that stayed with me most after that class was my professor, Terry Thaxton's, lecture about how many homeless people are treated as if they are invisible.  All they want is for someone to SEE them, to recognize them as human, as beings deserving of acknowledgement, respect, and compassion.

And then, last night, I was busy trying to write and organize at Starbucks, getting the Moody Mamas Support Network going on Facebook...totally ignoring the homeless man who came in and sat on the couch across from me.

When he was walking past me, his hand hit one of the chairs and my table and he said, "ow!" then, "Sorry!"

I threw a half-assed smile at him without taking my eyes off my computer screen as I typed, and muttered, "No problem..."

He stopped and stared at me for a long moment.  At the time, I thought he was trying to see what I was typing, and I turned my back to him ever so subtly more.

After that long moment, he sat down, commenting loudly to himself about the food he had in a bowl smelling bad, he definitely needed to throw it out, good GOD that stank, definitely bad, stinks stinks stinks...

I was getting irritated because he was distracting me, so I picked up and went home to finish writing in the car.

It wasn't until after I went to bed that I realized what happened, and what I'd done.

That man so desperately wanted someone to see him, to look him in the eye, to recognize that he was there.  I'm actually crying right now because I feel so bad that I was so absorbed in my own world that I couldn't even spare him a full-on smile.

This isn't him, but he looks similar.  I think.  *hangs head

Next time I see him, I'll make sure to look him in the eyes and ask him how he's doing.

Even if it means giving up some of my writing time so he can talk.

I owe the world that much.