Veterans

Today is supposed to be a day that veterans are honored.

It is a far reach in my family to get to a veteran. My father managed to avoid the Vietnam war draft under all of the technicalities, he even married my mother a few days early so that he could avoid being sent over seas... He was lucky.

Of my grandfather's, only one served in the military. My maternal mother was colorblind (and was unable to be the pilot he wanted to be) and was needed Stateside to build the great Boulder Dam. My paternal grandfather served in the European theater in WWII.

When he was there, he took this bill with him:

 In his handwriting you can read his name and serial number, his regiment and division.
The stops he made along the way;
New York Nov. 1 - 44            Luxembourg   Dec. 13 - 44
Scotland Nov. 9 - 44             Germany Jan. 18 - 45
England Nov. 12 - 44            Belgium Jan. - 45         
France Nov. 14 - 44              Germany Jan.  - 45
Belgium Nov. 29 - 44            France Mar. - 45
Germany Dec. 3  - 44           Germany Mar. - 45

I can't imagine what war in winter must have been like. The locations fit for his being at the Battle of the Bulge and that is certainly what has been shared with me.

When he was alive we never talked about this time of his life, and it was not something I would have thought to ask about. I do know he was a cowboy, was the best shot I have ever met, he taught me to shoot, fish and hunt, and also managed to raise some of the best strawberries ever.

Today, I took Squink and my nephew to be a part of our local Veterans Day Parade. Cub, Boy, and Girl Scouts joined forces and walked before the parade to hand out programs and flags to the people attending. It was a hot day and a long three mile (+) walk.

Near the end, Squink wanted to sit down, he said his legs were tired. So, I told him that when his own great grandfather's (Schatzy's were in WWII as well) had been in the war, they had not really been afforded the chance to sit if they got tired, and that I knew he was not tired enough to excuse sitting the rest of the parade out. So, I set him on a task to thank the veterans on the last leg of the parade by shaking their hand and saying "Thank you for your service". He took the job very seriously, and it was impressive to watch as he would walk to a veteran I would point out for him and he would march directly to them, hold out his hand and say that short little phrase. Every one of them smiled, and said thank you... one even said thank you for doing this in the parade.

This helped the parade seem to end faster and I did not hear another complaint about this legs being tired.

Here is a picture of Squink shaking a veterans hand, just outside of the Veterans Hospital (near where the parade ended):

When we stopped to get something to eat at a diner afterwards, there was a veteran sitting at the counter. Squink went up to him and said the same thing and the gentleman said "Thank you, kid".

(update to add this note from my father which I received via facebook)
Here is some more information for you, Blair. While my Dad served in WWII, he never talked about the violence other than sometimes describing his sorrow when he saw death. He used to tell me and my brothers and sister stories about the camaraderie and how the French appreciated their advances (he was in a scouting unit that went ahead of the main troops due to his map reading and woodsman knowledge.) My cousin and I used to ask him, "Did you shoot any Germans?" and he always said he never aimed at one. He used to talk about the hardships they suffered in the wet and cold and how a broken bone was called "a million dollar wound" since it would get you sent home. He actually called me when I was at work the day they announced that it was the last day that married people would be exempted and told me that he didn't want to lose a son in Viet Nam. I didn't like the idea - I supported the war - but I listened to him and your mom and I were married in a special service that evening.

NaBloPoMo 11

Thoughts about the edge of despair

First of all, I am NOT there on that edge of despair... but, I think someone I was once close to might be.

One of the interesting things about our lives in the day of social media is that you can stay in virtual touch with friends with distinct histories in terms of their place in your life.

There are a group of people that I used to hang out with, they were primarily friends of my boyfriend at the time.  I enjoyed them enough to invite them to my wedding to someone who was not the boyfriend that introduced us to each other. They have moved and many live in different places and they don't get to see each other much. They were always very close and it was no surprise when I saw pictures from something they called a family reunion.  The pictures were lovely and I felt privileged that they were still a part of my life.

However, this got me to thinking about the boyfriend who introduced us since he was absent in the photos.

In the consideration of the totality of our relationship he was awful. Actually, though, he did some really interesting things for me;

First, he often insisted that I was under-employed and that I was super qualified to so much more than I was doing at the time. While I will always remain skeptical about my abilities, it was nice to have someone other than my mother insist that I was worthy of something better.

Lastly, he showed me what it was that I did not care for in a spouse. It turned out that he had a serious problem with controlled substances. And when he lost control of them he was a nightmare to be with. One time we were at dinner with another couple and were sitting on couches opposite each other. I do not recall the conversation, but he was saying something about me and slapped his hand down on my thigh. It was pretty hard, it left a red mark and impressed the woman of the other couple to seek me out in the restroom and ask me if he hit me like that often. He didn't, but it was a clear marker of how angry he was. I don't think he was angry with me,  I think he was just angry.

He grew up in an upper class home as the second adopted child. His father was an Automaker executive and he never wanted for anything. His parents divorced and I think he was angry about that as well. He did not like to talk about his adoption other than to make jokes about it. In hindsight, I think he was very distraught with a concept of being given up. There was a time when he seemed interested in finding his birth-mother and I helped him make the contacts he needed to start the process of opening up paperwork. And it was around this time that substances became a priority for him, and I will say that I think it was not the first time he had struggled with this. But, I was and am naive about these things.

After the slap on the thigh, there were situations when I got so angry I threw plates at him because he was under the influence of things. He once passed out in a bath-tub with the water running. Several other experiences like this brought me to that place that I knew, without a doubt, that I was not interested in a life that continued with him any longer and began to sever the ties as much as possible. I think in some ways I even allowed him to think he was dumping me, but I think I was a bit afraid of him and wanted his ego to be as un-angry at me (as a target) as possible. I am pretty sure he was resentful, though I am sure it was the nature of his addiction. I knew I was stronger and more resilient than he was, but I think he was doing hard enough drugs that he would have hurt me had he been given a chance while under their influence. My relationship with him was probably one of the darkest in terms where I was emotionally, especially at the end. But, it showed me that I had a resilience I did not know I possessed. He became a huge burden, it was painful and I hated myself for letting our relationship to the place it had gotten.

Thank goodness, I muddled through and I probably owe some people a serious apology for how I had to manipulate situations so that he thought he had left me, thankfully, his friends helped. At one point at the end, we held an intervention and checked him into rehab. What an interesting process... one I care to never repeat.

So, my friends reunion did not include pictures of him and I was curious so I goggled him. Nothing was revealed in places like Facebook or other social media avenues... but I was shocked to find a very recent mugshot due to parole violation... that all speaks so much to the place he is and to where I might have been if I hadn't known that I did not and could not ever be with him.

I can't say that I was surprised that he still is suffering, but in some ways I was. I always hope that people end up in better places and it deeply saddened me that he had not.

But, I am so grateful that he did manage to teach me what it was that I needed to value in the man that I love.


NaBloPoMo 10

Within the darkness there is always light.

Out of our greatest moments of discomfort come the epiphanies of joy.

For some reason this NaBloPoMo has appeared to taken an introspective turn. It appears that my mother and my aunt and even my husband (and my friend Debi in another non-direct way) have all reacted strongly, to one extent of another, to a recent post. They have each made an extra effort to talk to me about it (though some more overt than others).

Since I know most of them get an email with my posts, I wonder how purposeful any of the things I have written down have been. I *think* that I have been putting down things that have crossed my mind rather than create a series of statements meant to solicit some response.

I don't know, I am very consciously thinking of them as I write this and am deeply concerned that they might take this wrong or make inferences that I think I am not prepared to deal with. What is interesting is that I am very aware of them this time. Usually I can pretend I am putting things out there for a blind cohort of people that come across my blog because of some unfortunate keyword... But these things are public, this is not my grade school diary that had a grossly ineffectual lock and key that protected my thoughts and meanderings. So, I feel guarded and am trying to get to the meat of the thoughts going through my head today.

And so I begin...

I hate Descartes.
and it is because of this turn of phrase:
je pense, donc je suis  

or as he later coined it in what I believe was an move to appeal to some sort of even broader scholarly audience:

Cogito ergo sum

I suppose that my biggest complaint is that any one individuals  "thinking" is the root of things "being". And while I have entered into epistemological arguments about this... what disturbs me the most is that Descartes claimed religious devotion and that I think this disproves he felt so.

The central piece about notions of the existence of some God is that there must exist an element of faith in thinking. The faith is secondary to a being. It is the premise to believing something like God exists.

Descartes moved that (something I would call) important aspect of faith, no longer was faith a requirement to existence but merely thinking it was enough.

God is (insert any variety of adjectives and nouns) and VOILA it is so.

God [a priori] (in any way one wants to claim) requires the thought [a posteriori], that I cannot deny. But it is not the origin of God. And that is my problem. God is unknowable. My thinking about God is merely an interpretation of something that just is, absent any of my required thought.  It is with this that I can confidently argue that even an atheist like Richard Dawkins actually believes in God. It is his thinking (and what I call his atheist dogma) that changes the word into other things, but he has faith in something... call it science, call it mathematics, call it reason.

So, this brings me to something Squink said out the blue this evening:

Everything has a purpose, so anything without a purpose doesn't exist.

~ Squink

This gets much closer to the root of "being" than any of this notion of Cogito ergo sum does. It takes into account purpose, be it to be a messenger of some divine gospel or even of some mathematical or scientific construct. It becomes previous to "thinking" and causes "being" to become about our role.

A role takes into account a whole, which brings in an idea of a collective so in space it can be those forces that holds our universe together or on earth about our relationship with others and the space we inhabit.

When Squink and I talked about what he meant when he said it, I asked what would the purpose of moon dust be? And we talked about a variety of things... one of the ideas that I took away is that purpose can be unknown and that it is not about one individual experience. I may not know what the purpose of moon dust is, but I do know it is not directly about me.

So, this brings me to my purpose. I don't know what it is. It is probably not something grandiose but it is a part of a whole, it has a role in a scheme of things that might be religious or science based but that are a part of something so much bigger that I am not able to comprehend it, it goes beyond what I can think.

And this brings me back to my navigating through life with these feelings about being stupid.

My dear loved ones who worried and reached out. I love you all for doing that. Thank you, you made me feel a part of my community. I love you for it. You brought me joy through my great discomfort.

And yet, I hit publish still feeling vulnerable and stupid.

NaBloPoMo 9

I love watching Squink make sense of the world

Last night, I was snuggling with Squink at bedtime. We usually talk about things that are interesting to us and last night we had the following conversation:

Squink: Mom, do you know anything about acularness?

Me: What is acularness?

Squink: You know Acular, about the eyes?

Me: Oh, you mean ocular? and I don't think Ocularness is a word, though it might need to be.

Squink: Well, do you know about that?

Me: I think I might now enough, do you have a question?

Squink: Well, you know how some people can't see far, and some people can see close... so if people have both why doesn't it fix each other so they see normal.

I explained that it doesn't work that way, though it would be wonderful if it would.

NaBloPoMo 8

What I like about me, or how I should focus on the positive

A while back I shared a post about the way I was feeling as the seasons change... it is a pretty standard thing and I try to prepare for that to some extent (with some years faring better than others).

In general, I think that I usually reside in a place where I am rather comfortable with who I am. There are things that can set me off on a spiral of self-doubt. One of those is alluded to in my post yesterday. I have a huge tendency to think that I am stupid.  It is the one thing that people can impart to me that will render me feeling low, extremely low. I can recall the day it reared its ugly head and hit me in the gut so hard I wanted to fall off of the chair I was sitting on.

But I don't want to talk about that day.

One of the things that is my biggest source of pride and joy is my family, all of my family... I include my immediate as well as extended family and then include those whom have been adopted. They are all, without a doubt, some of the smartest people I have ever met, known and loved. Most have accomplishments that are not in the standard. My family includes Olympic caliber athletes, rocket scientists (at the dawn of the space programs), chemists, knitters, interior designers, artists, teachers, engineers, technology specialists, photographers, teachers, musicians, professors, and bullfighters to name but just a few. All of them excel at something that is unbelievably dynamic. I see them and am so proud of them and their glory. However, it is terribly intimidating. I don't think I excel at anything. I am often accused of dabbling, and it is the truth. I explore things and learn about them, I enjoy them, but I never ever excel at them. It is a rut of my own making. Nothing that interests me does so to the level that makes me want to excel at it. Which casts a huge cloud of failure over me, especially in light of the excellence of those I love...

I really am working to try to move past that, but I am not sure I can. For one, I am related (both by gene and by spirit) to some of the most amazing and excellent people. And then, there is so much out there to learn that being left in the darkness (of being a mere dabbler) seems like the only place to be that is possible for someone like me.


NaBloPoMo 7