Jones To The Grindstone

The distance between you and me

is hard to be judged

from our viewpoints.

relevant?

maybe

not.

Our line of communication

is like a tightrope

My mind and Yours

perched at sure

polar

ends.

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1992,  before email, affordable international calling plans, the Internet, cell phones, and texting commonly existed.

The young  American Air Force officer and newlywed, Peter, was making sure he visited  relatives before he headed out to his first duty assignment, a 12-month remote tour in South Korea. A stint in Korea usually means that the wife and children are not invited along, a bachelor assignment, and Peter’s was the norm.  As expected, friends and family were concerned that this year-long separation would damage the new couple. Questions on how they would communicate and other routine long-distance relationship issues were being addressed in the open. The young couple eschewed or glossed-over the obvious rumples, yet skirted around the uncomfortable, unspoken questions in the air.  Frankly, all the polite anxiety and burgeoning undercurrents surrounding them was approaching alarming levels. 

While relaxing on Grandma’s splashy floral-print couch, watching TV, and surrounded by the scent of  senior mustiness, Peter was surprised by his grandmother’s solid entry into the room. She was holding a sealed envelope with his wife’s name scrawled on it, confronting her grandson with care and love, and bursting with something pressing on her mind. Grandma’s bony finger shut-off the TV. She was in her mid-70′s and her voice sounded like it–a woman who had lived those years. “Peter, I want you to know I love you and your wife,” she started, “and I know that this year apart will bring hardship upon you. When your grandfather was away in WWII, it was difficult… but, it is important to not have sex with other people while you are separated.” 

Peter’s hair stood on end, his eyes widened, and he felt queasy.  But, he remained quiet, ruffled, and continued to listen, with a goofy grin on his face. Grandma continued to express the weight of fidelity, but Peter could not stop staring at the envelope in her hand. She was expressing with hand gestures, too, and Peter’s eyes tracked the envelope’s dynamic locations all around. Finally, she ended with, “I clipped out an article for you to give to your wife [holding up envelope]. It’s on female masturbation. That is a way for her to meet her sexual needs without turning to another man.” Grandma gave him the envelope and quickly left the room. 

 Peter dared not open it. And it practically burnt a hole in his luggage.

 After settling in Korea, the officer mailed the envelope to his bride and the story along with it. Peter’s wife opened the envelope and read the article to its juicy end.  All she could do now was, what, try out the suggestions out of respect for Grandma? Should she write a thank-you note to Grandma citing that she had, “tried #3… it was explosive…what a new twist…thanks for thinking of me,”? Somehow the tradition of acknowledging thoughtfulness via a handwritten note seemed unfitting.

That article was never discussed with Grandma who has since passed on. However awkward, it was appreciated that she was willing to scratch beneath the surface and endeavor to offer some sincerely meant advice. No matter the delivery, people need that at times of high-stress. Honestly, those gestures are what matter the most.

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A conversation between friends—

Karen Jones: Do you know Can’t? Well, he never did anything. Fool.

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After thirty minutes of evaluating my five-year-old son behind closed doors, the psychologist rendered an assessment. She said, “Cullen* is negative, controlling, and stubborn, but he does not need to see a psychiatrist at this point.”

Cullen was showing signs of intense loneliness and severe depression. After he wouldn’t stop talking about wanting to be dead, I became concerned. In fact, it had gotten so bad that he had even developed a plan on how to kill himself—with his daddy’s rifle. I was relieved to hear that he didn’t need to go see a shrink, but I was mortified to realize that I could attribute all those unpleasant adjectives to my bloodline.

Great. I had procreated (and passed down my familial bad traits) only to bring a child into this world who wanted out already, at age five. My Kindergartener had a death wish and I didn’t want anybody to know it.

Growing up in the South, I was raised to think any inkling of mental problems was a sign of weakness. This weakness should be hidden from the world and kept inside the family. No one else needs to know about such things.

To make this secrecy plot more challenging, we lived in military base housing where privacy is a rare commodity. The reality was that my husband, the active duty member, lived and worked with the same people—almost like a commune. It was nearly impossible for any sensitive information to remain within the confines of his workplace or our home.

My seven-year old daughter, Eve, required a sitter while I took my son to his psychologist’s appointment. Her father couldn’t take time off from work to take care of this. I asked my closest friend in the housing area to take care of my daughter while I took Cullen to his (as I labeled it) generic “doctor’s appointment.” Having to ask someone to watch Eve was creating an opening for some prying questions about my plans.  I was nervous.

Not only was Mary my closest friend in the neighborhood, but she was also my friend closest to the school bus stop. The plan was to have the kids get off the bus, have Eve slip into Mary’s home, and simultaneously have Cullen glide into the car.

Cullen didn’t want to go talk to the psychologist. He thought the idea sounded awful. But, I pictured simplicity at its finest moment—that despite his expected hesitancy, he would easily cooperate like we were only going to a regular doctor’s appointment. No one would be the wiser.

The school bus was supposed to arrive in minutes and I had already parked my car right in front of Mary’s home. I didn’t want to look like an ingrate, so I went up to her stoop to chit-chat and thank her for watching my daughter.

While I was talking with Mary, another neighborhood mom came up and started conversing with us. Then another one did, too. Everybody wanted to know why I had shifted from my usual pattern of being at home. Why was I standing on Mary’s front porch? I explained it was Cullen’s regular check-up and that Mary would be babysitting Eve. That seemed to satisfy the peanut gallery.

I turned to look over at the sound of the bus’s brakes. For some reason, that afternoon there was practically a mob of community moms standing around the bus stop. The twenty or so kids filed off the bus and mine saw me at Mary’s home.

Eve skipped over, happy to play with the other kids in Mary’s front yard. Cullen saw  the moms, including his own, socializing on the porch and knew it was time to go to his specialty appointment.

Cullen froze in Mary’s yard and looked at me like he wasn’t going to take another step towards the dreaded psychologist’s appointment. He made an anxious face, threw down his backpack, and started loudly crying. He blaringly yelled, “But I don’t wanna go to the PSYCHOLOGIST’S!”

I closed my eyes for an extended pause. Once I popped them open again, I could see that every person’s head there had swiveled in my direction. Silence had blanketed the neighborhood bus stop. All eyes and ears were on the Jones family.

Turning to look at Mary, I uttered that we would be going now and I would be back in a little over an hour. I told Cullen to pull himself together, gather his belongings, and to get in the car.

To hold true to another Southern code, I remained stoic and went on my way. I’m sure tongues were wagging as we pulled off to take care of our business. There was nothing I could do about it now. Even with all of my efforts to make it a sly dance and a smooth move, the jig was up.

*All first names have been changed.

**This occured years ago.

***I was having a bad hair day when that picture was taken.

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Annie Dillard wrote in her essay, “Seeing”, “If we are blinded by darkness, then we are also blinded by light. When too much light falls on everything, a special terror results.”

Reading Dillard’s essay made me think back to an art class I took more than twenty years ago. What I learned in that class still lives in my daily thinking. The instructor was adamant about retraining his students to see what we truly saw before us as opposed to what we thought we saw before us.

For example, when drawing a bowl of mixed fruit, one may be fairly certain what a typical apple’s shape is; but, maybe the apple in that particular bowl of fruit does not look like the average apple. Take a longer look at what is in the light and draw what is truly there, like blemishes or absolute perfection. When a focused effort is made on a subject–analogous to Dillard’s “light,” the reality—like Dillard’s “special terror”—of what is in front of one’s eyes can be exceptionally revealing, even frightful.

That notion was true when it came to sketching what was in plain sight. As an assignment, the class was told to draw what was directly in front of us in the classroom. I saw the back of a “skater boy’s” head. He had a dark mullet for a hairstyle and acne on the back of his neck. That drawing turned out realistic, detailed, and accurate. Drawing one little piece of his head at a time produced a much clearer portrait, down to the correct direction his cowlicks grew and the thin, wavering line of a small scar. Viewing the scar made me wonder how he had cut his head. It made me think deeper into his existence, like if he had been a victim of an act of violence, or “special terror.”

I never talked to that boy, but I still have that drawing stashed away in my box of keepsakes. It serves as a reminder of how to look at what is in front of me with an eye for the small, exposing details.

At the end of the semester, we had a final exam. The class expected a culmination of all that the instructor had hoped to instill in his students. At each pupil’s desk, he placed a black piece of construction paper and a small circle of white lace on top of it. Instead of being asked to draw the lace, the class was asked to draw the black colored pattern behind the lace. I painstakingly drew the black spaces and not the glaring white lace on top. It was amazing to see how accurate the drawing of the lace turned out–or how the cluster of black shapes looked–depending on one’s point of view.

Dillard’s essay is about seeing what is beyond the surface and deeper into what is hidden in the details, much like my art final. I made a “96” on that exam. Yes, I remember the numerical grade all these years later. This teacher graded with high standards and I knew that he did not thoughtlessly hand out “A’s.” I am still proud that I was able to see beyond the overlay of lace and draw the alternative shapes that hid underneath. In art and in everyday living, one can retrain their eyes to not gloss over what they think is apparent, but to instead look deeper into the reality of what is beneath the glaring lace on the surface.

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When I say, “I don’t care,” I want to mean it. Problem is, I can announce that and it’s not the truth. The times I can think of that I’ve said it and it rang true, is only after a huge blow-out, a dramatic yelling scene, where it all got said, no holds barred. Both parties were left depleted and bruised like boxers ending a match. And, of course, I felt that I completed the event with a verbal K-O punch. There was nothing left to feel; hence, the authentic, “I don’t care.”

Those volcanic-level eruptions of emotions and remarks that are impossible to take back cannot be the level reached every time someone angers, hurts, or disappoints you. You’d be a ridiculous person, locked-up in a white room, and no one would want to deal with you, ever. If I could invent an electro-therapy device that would zap that care away, I would. I relish it when I really don’t care anymore about the instigating person or issue. That lack of feeling, I want to master on demand.

Fried the hair, but it worked! I DON'T CARE! Bravo!

I have heard of the effective method of convincing yourself that you intensely hate something or someone to the point of not caring. I received an email from a person who witnessed the results of violent, sometimes fatal, crimes on children many times. She wasn’t prepared for it and couldn’t deal with it. It was her job to try to make the mess better. She had to learn how to function in that environment, get the job done, and move on. This is an excerpt on her choice of how to make herself not care:

“I still don’t talk about that stuff because I don’t think anyone should have to relive that, even in a re-telling…I have an enormous, gargantuan, classical, reaction formation to children that results in me trying to convince myself that I do not like them. This is so I can keep how I felt about what I saw happen to those little kids in the hole [of things to not be dealt with ever, just ignore]. If I hate them, then there is nothing to feel.”

Making myself hate is nothing I take lightly. Hating takes a lot of energy. I tried to ignore a woman in my neighborhood for a whole day and it was exhausting. I was there turning my head in unnatural directions and gazing off for too long to avoid eye contact. I abandoned that back then. However, I am considering revisiting this technique. My emailer said her way of handling things turned her into an emotionless robot. But wouldn’t that make life easier? I am sick of caring about people or situations that are slowly killing me.

Signing off—my sleeping medication is ready for pick-up now.

This not caring feeeels sooo goood!

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“Facebook (FB) Friends aren’t real.”

 I’ve been told that plenty of times. I’ve also been persecuted for using FB too much and for taking it “too seriously.” All of you fellow FBers out there, please pinch yourself to see if you’re real. Ouch! I’m real, too, and now have a little red mark on my wrist.

About a year and a half ago, I came down with a mid-life crisis. Almost everything felt wrong, that things were not what they should be and I was generally unhappy. I’d been a stay-at-home mom for more than a decade, an active military officer’s wife for more than 15 years, and I was living in yet another horrible town the government said I must live in. I had no life of my own. Not unlike many unhappy people, I started playing on the Internet more and more, searching for a new path, a purpose. I called it “career of the week” that I would fixate on. Not only did I diligently research escape plans, but I increasingly found myself on FB. There was a whole world of people out there that I felt like sharing ideas with more than any flesh-and-blood body within a 50 mile radius of me. My local reality was crappy, but I had FB to cling to for my social life. Pathetic-sounding, I know. I was pathetic, pathetically lonely, and FB helped me out of the quicksand.

FB came to the forefront of brightening my social life once again on July 7^th, my fortieth birthday. If I did not have a FB account, as far as birthday greetings from afar go, I know I only would’ve received a card from my mom (Who made my dad sign it, too. He doesn’t like to spend money on such nonsense as greeting cards.), my childhood best friend, and a surprise from a high school classmate who is known for her thoughtfulness. If that was all that happened to acknowledge me being on Earth for another year and the official bridge into the second half of my expected lifespan, I would’ve lived with it and thought it was “nice.”

But, instead, it was much more intense—I was able to spend the day delighted with the outpouring of birthday wishes from my FB Friends! These figments of my imagination type of people out there posted on my wall. Some just typed a simple birthday greeting while others wrote the kindest passages I’ve ever been lucky enough to receive. I got private messages in my inbox, too. And, I got a huge, lovely floral arrangement from a FB Friend. All of these unreal people that I should be suspicious of and not take seriously made me feel wonderful, appreciated, and loved. Thank you very much, my fake friends, you made my 40^th an unforgettable day.

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“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.”
Orson Welles

Being hardwired to find partners is undeniable. The need to feel partnered is overwhelming at times. The anxiety over being alone can bring one to his knees. But a person doesn’t make a good half of a couple if she can’t tolerate being by herself. A person who is glomming on to someone to feel more safe, less scared, is a head case, disaster, waiting to happen, even if years off in the future.

Some people think that being married solves the loneliness issue. There are plenty of married people who are actually going through life, emotionally, alone. Being in a relationship does not solve an individual’s deep-seated fear of loneliness or the other conditions of self-loathing and lack of self-love. Those problems are baggage to be sorted through later or ignored and swept under the rug only to bubble up at inopportune times.

Happily married people may feel immune to being alone. Not true. One of the pair is going to end up alone at some point. One half of the couple will die first, in most cases, leaving the other to redefine their life on their own. Alone again. This situation of being alone is more of who is alone the longest.

There is a way to help soothe this malady, this undesirable condition, of loneliness: learning to love oneself and enjoy one self’s company. It sounds simple or even ludicrous, but accomplishing that is cumbersome if one’s life has been spent being put down and spun into insecurity’s cocoon. It seems easier to avoid this ugly scene with denial, but it’s not. This fog may seem to get lost in the everyday chaos, but it never lifts completely.

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I saw a snippet from a documentary discussing whether or not bloggers are journalists. I don’t really care about that, but it provoked me otherwise. The talking head said, “I can write whatever I want and no one stops me,” or something to that effect. That man arrogantly rejects the services of an editor, or being appropriately submissive. My countrymen often suffer from this.

This dates back, at least, to refusing to follow the Crown’s rule. I live in Boston, home of the first battle of the American Revolution. I see the graves of the fallen Revolutionary patriots and wonder what they would think about Great Britain being our biggest and closest ally, but I digress. We are a country of scrappers; it is part of our DNA. We like to deny someone telling us what to do and sometimes (if not more than less these days) lack the diplomacy of pulling that off with aplomb.

I went to Texas A&M for my bachelor’s degree, where there is a full-time ROTC program. I observed their lifestyle and used to think it was absurd way of life for co-eds unless they wanted a military career or simply to be in the band. However, as a full-fledged adult I can now see the benefits of their program. There is something about their training that all Americans could benefit from: appropriate submissiveness, or obeying others while putting aside selfish reflexes.

For example, those lower in the chain of command, like the freshman, must follow the upper-classmen’s orders simply because they, by age and experience, are their superiors. It has nothing to do with being smarter or who is more right. You can have a boss that is no where as smart as you and completely wrong, but they are still running the show. This is a lesson in humility.

Recently when going through passport control when entering the U.K., there was a big sign directing passport holders which line to stand in.

World? I thought I was the center! ;^D”]

Rest of [the

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