The Gypsy on Adventure

How is your humanity doing?

'Once upon a time there was humanity' Art by Pam Walder

I feel like I am working really hard at keeping my core intact and losing traction. That whole decision I made in 2000, "Be Better, not Bitter", from 2016 through today,  the hard truth of how so many people in our society that were hiding in plain sight, are just nasty, unkind, unloving, refuse to walk in any one else's shoes, makes out full races as "other" and browbeat them with their anger and fear because they are not, or don't look, white. Violence against them when they are weaker than them, I am talking about the murders of black people and about the Asian hate spewed at elderly Asian's beaten in the streets. My heart is wrenching for them and it makes me feel angry and my warrior rears her ugly head!  

I am trying REALLY hard not to judge them harshly, but I have to tell you it is SO painful to hear them talk...and I feel with the hate spewed all over us in the Country since 2016, I really feel shut down and in a full blown PTSD response to them.

I know that people judge the world by who they are at the core. And like Maya Angelou taught us "Believe them the FIRST time they tell us who they are".  Struggling with HOW do we keep lines of communication open when all we hear are vile things against us? Or worse yet, when they ASSUME I think like them and they have NO idea who I am, let alone that I have Mexican roots because I "look" white.  That I am homophobic and not understanding of transgender struggles, not knowing how many family members and friends I have that are LGBTQ. That I have always been an advocate for them. I am still that teenager being called a 'fag-hag' because I had gay friends, and I still don't understand the hate.

People think they can say horrible things and I am supposed to just agree and shut up. I struggle with how to be kind when I am confronted with issues like this, without losing my shit, without being wordless, without being in shock. Why do I always go into shock and just shut down?

I can remember having this conversation with WGB while in Montana 4 years ago and the bane of everything are those damn Mexicans. As I sit there...wondering what the fuck...angry white man...what am I supposed to say to that? WGB thought maybe it was a moment for me to teach them, I said fuck no, and I think part of that was being the ONLY "other" at the table and to hear more foul things come out of their mouths, and quite honestly being a woman doesn't help in that situation either,  I just wasn't in a space to take that on. And then later wondered if I should have anyway...

I have that happen in my own damn family. The side that isn't Mexican...like they totally don't know who the hell I am. Well in honesty, I guess they really don't. I wasn't raised with them, and now I am SO grateful I wasn't. It has been a complicated relationship since I was abandoned at birth.

Even my father has said deplorable things about "Mexican's" and I was like, Dad! You DO KNOW WHO YOU ARE TALKING TO RIGHT????? My half brother, shaking my head,  the last text, I was asking him if he got vaccinated yet, (He had covid early on, before Delta) he was in the hospital with a horrible infection in his leg and his response "Got the first round. Mixed feelings about it but too many migrants, hate to do it but not much choice"... so of course it is ALL the "migrants" fault, nothing to do with white people in the South and Midwest REFUSING to follow science. Taking horse de-wormer when they get it and if they survive that then it was the cure! But they want to take credit for getting the vaccine so fast under the last person in the White House but refuse to take the vaccine and take everything but that! I am left shaking my head wondering what the fuck a lot.

Seriously I know of a woman who won't get vaccinated, took the de-wormer, is getting better and every one praying is thankful for that medicine working! SERIOUSLY?

Total vaccinations in the Unite States:

2nd dose administered

166,839,776 (50.3%)

 

1st dose administered

211,776,515 (63.8%)

 

Total population

331,996,199

 

Out of all those people being vaccinated it isn't safe? It is better to take a horse de-wormer? And "their" President got vaccinated...do they refuse to acknowledge that the Liar and Chief did get vaccinated after he left the White House when it was available??? I am confused by their logic. 

WGB and I talk all the time about not understanding people and where they get their information. And we know that even some of the information we get is skewed but I find it really hard to believe that intelligent people follow such harmful information.

I see people asking on social media if anyone they personally know has died of Covid, are you kidding me? Yes, 4 of my friends died... How many people have to die for them to KNOW it is a serious situation. Over 600,000 people who died in the United States is not enough for you to get vaccinated? Masks are for protection not for political bullshit.  But every where we go, so many people are unmasked! Like we are not in a pandemic! That 2,544 children hospitalized currently nationwide. They don't have a vaccine and I am terrified for my 6 year old grand who is sweet and reliant on the adults around her!

• The unvaccinated are 5x likely to get an infection
• 10X likely to be hospitalized 
• 11x likely to DIE

And they are angry that our current President is making an unpopular and needed decision to mandate vaccinations?

• 17 Million health care workers
• 4 Million Federal Government employees and contractors

I cannot even imagine a health care worker NOT getting vaccinated seeing what is happening, but I know some are. With people refusing to do the simplest things to get back to normal life, I understand the stance that is being taken by the administration! We cured Polio! Everyone stood in line for vaccinations! 

The Re-call of our Governor Gavin Newsome...this has been stressful for me. I am not a huge fan of Gavin, but in all honesty I stand by the decisions he made with this pandemic.  70.6% of California's population is vaccinated that is 39,283, 497 people! Was it great everything was shut down? No. Was it necessary, yes! Is it a hard restart, yes! Shit is not easy ever, but trying to do the right thing should be the number one thing we are actively doing. Honestly WGB and I think we are the only weird ones still doing everything we are supposed to.

Yesterday I just posted on FB that "You still have time to go vote until 8 pm" and I received a comment from someone that doesn't know me in real life, "You tried", I raised my eyebrow and thought about what I was going to write about on this post...assuming I wanted to throw Gavin out and have a trumper take his place. No thank you, I have had enough of that since 2016. 

Honestly now I don't feel safe going out and doing the things I want to because people are still refusing to get a vaccine or wear masks in public. I have no thyroid, I am vaccinated but I don't want to get sick. I am trying to reengage, but I am struggling with trust issues. I am struggling...and I am starting to get angry that people didn't do things they should be doing, and that is why I am still in lock down. People are still dying and being hospitalized at rates that we haven't seen in 7 months and people are still refusing to believe! I am angry now. I am sad. I am wanting my life back too...but I am not willing to run around where there are a lot of people not wearing masks and how do I know if they were vaccinated? If you are sick around me 99% of the time I get it. I have since both my thyroids were removed when I was 23 years old. I struggle with all the effects of not having them, I don't need to add anything to the struggle.

 

Memories don't fade

This is a hard time of year to be on social media or to watch any TV.  It started this week...the 20th Anniversary of 9/11. Every single year the going over of the horrendous day for the Country. The visual images on repeat. The collective pain. It is all too much for me, and I don't know how people who lost loved ones get through the day. Especially those that still to this day have not been able to "find" their loved one in the wreckage. No closure.

I won't be on socials tomorrow, I won't be watching the news. With the shit show that has been 2020-21 I just can't carry more pain, even old pain right now. It is just too much.

And yet, there are children and young people that have no idea what 9/11 was like. That to me is unfathomable. But I suppose that is how my grand parents felt about Pearl Harbor. But they always gave me a sense of what had happened. I paid attention. I listened. I learned. I hope for those coming behind us that they won't carry the deep pain, but will remember incident and what it means to our history and still to our future.

I was in the shower that morning when my boyfriend yelled at me to get out and come watch this, I knew from the sound of his voice it was bad, I didn't know how bad...the first tower was hit, and I saw the 2nd plane hit the 2nd tower. We both stood there in shock, I was shaking from being in a towel and wet and in horror. I was numb getting ready for work and don't even remember how I was able to drive there.

I remember going to work and telling my boss we should lock up because it was an act of war. He looked at me like I was crazy. I locked the door to our office...and a couple of hours later the City Manager contacted Department Heads to lock the City Buildings down, so then the entire building was on lock down and he was in the lobby to ask people coming in what their business was for that day. It was unnerving, and I don't think many of us got our work done with much cognition, we were all in shock and grief, and comforting one another.

It is not that I will not remember tomorrow. It is that I have to protect myself right now, I am too tender to bear it right now...the world is too heavy, we are no longer together as a Nation, we have been polarized since the 2016 election...getting worse every single year. And yet part of our problems came from the Patriot Act that George Bush Jr put through, Afghanistan that October and a 20 year war...and now having the region unstable again.

It is a layered grief...and still a layered fear of terrorism. Because it can happen again.

These photos are on the New Jersey side and the memorial of 9/11 from there facing New York and the new building replacing the 2 towers. And as we both stood there in silence, our memories went right back to the very day that it had happened. All I can tell you is, WGB and I both felt we were on sacred ground, all the feelings, the memories and just sending love to those families who lost someone on that day. Truly it is a moving memorial as you walk through slowly taking in everyone name and seeing the New York coast line as you walk out. It took my breathe away.

250-acre fire sparks beneath Foresthill Bridge, prompts evacuation orders near Auburn

I think all of our nerves are on edge...this is down the hill from us, but I have a friend who lives and works in Foresthill and it is such a beautiful area...it is hard to see this happening. And since our fire I am just jumpy. All day long yesterday the air support was flying over our house, Grass Valley has an air strike team. It is good to hear but sad at the same time and makes me nervous. If it wasn't for the air strike teams we would be fucked here! They changed the way they tackle these fires now, thankfully they throw a lot of air support at them! 

Our Firefighters and Law enforcement are tired...this has been a brutal year! 3 fires are still going in our area. The Dixie fire, The Caldor fire and now the Bridge fire.  I just feel raw.

The wildfire, dubbed the Bridge Fire by Cal Fire’s Nevada-Yuba-Placer Unit, started just before 1 p.m. and grew to about 250 acres by 7 p.m.

Crews spent Sunday night lighting backfires in the area to help improve containment lines. Cal Fire on Monday said crews would work to strengthen those lines and also be on the lookout for spot fires in the American River Canyon drainage.

Wind-thrown embers on Sunday caused the fire to hop across roads and trails and forced people recreating in the area to evacuate, along with nearby residents. While the community of Foresthill was not under evacuation orders, the road closure cut the area off and law enforcement officers were continuing to escort residents who live there were being escorted to their homes.

The fire was 5% contained on Monday morning and no structures had been damaged or destroyed, according to Cal Fire.

One firefighter was injured. Details on the injury were not immediately available.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. -Sacramento Bee

The Forest Hill Bridge is 730 feet high...it is the 4th tallest bridge in the U.S. And I can tell you it makes me super nervous going over it! I personally hate driving it...and I close my eyes when I am a passenger.

Blog along with Effy Wild

Here we go again!

Here we go again. Church and State is not being separated, stepping on other people's rights, religious bullies,  rhetoric for the sheep. Texas is disturbing.

Look it, you do not have the right to decide for other people HOW they will live their lives. It is not up to you! And I am really starting to be angry with how our Country is going. Am I passed having children, yes, but this is still very personal!

First off, at 17 years old I had my first baby, I had the options all laid out in front of me, and for ME, I wanted to keep him. I always say that having him saved my life. I made better decisions, looked after myself while pregnant, and had the best delivery I could do. I did lamaze and had him natural, I was a hippie mom, every thing natural. I got married when I was 18, I was on the pill and got pregnant (those were they days when you got sick and on  antibiotics would screw up the pill but we didn't know that), I was flabbergasted to find out I was pregnant again! We chose to keep her.

We were struggling. My ex was a year older, he wasn't making a lot of money, we struggled for everything. Every single day was drama and struggle. It was HARD. The wolf was always at the door, always.

I put my foot down. He was going to have a vasectomy. Why should "I" have a major surgery to prevent children when I had just gone through the worst birth ever with my second! 42 hrs of labour, she was feet first and I had her natural, 2 hours in I couldn't even talk and I had bruises down my back from holding on to the bed so tight, I almost died! I was a mess! AND clearly the pill did not work for me! I wasn't going to be pregnant again!

We went to the doctor together thankfully, to talk about him getting a vasectomy. The doctor said no! I raised my eye brow! What are you saying? He is too young the doctor said. He was 20 and I was 19. I said, we have 2 children! We are done! He was like no, I won't do it. Then the stupid reasoning. What happens if one of your children die and you can't have more children? Raised eye brow again. I am sorry but you CANNOT replace one child with another child! They are NOT the same child! That is stupid.

I said ok, then this is how it is going to go. I am going to hold YOU responsible for ALL the other children we have, and I expect YOU to send us money monthly to help feed all of the children that will come after we leave this office! I was on the pill and my children are 18 months apart! I expect in about 9 months there will be a third.

The doctor looked at me horrified. I wasn't kidding. I wasn't budging. I was 19 fucking overwhelmed and I was not leaving without an appointment for my ex husband. We got the appointment! He had a vasectomy!

I am fucking sick of people telling other people HOW to live their lives! They don't help those women when the babies are born! And if they do get State aid, they shame them for being on it! So shut the fuck up! I don't see compassion for those that have to deal with a child in incest or rape. I don't see the punishment for men that are JUST as responsible for making a baby. And then have your neighbors turn on you for money! This is the lowest of the low, especially to poor women who have limited choice as it is! Lets face it, women with money can leave the State and deal with the issue any where. Poor women cannot, you are boxing them in and putting them at more risk! And why should ANY woman be trapped because you don't like something!

If it is not YOUR choice, that is fine! You live with the choices YOU make! Do not force others to live by YOUR choices!  

Like Mr. Rodgers said, I am looking for the helpers!

Blogging with Effy Wild

 

Grief is getting hard

Facing our Demons. Be fearless your nerves will thank you.

Every so often when the world becomes so triggering, I remind myself to have a tea party across from the old Demons that can pop up. Look them in the face, recognize where they are truly coming from, we all have a past with tendrils that can try to over take our great one and only life, like Mary Oliver reminds us, our life is in the tiny details of a plant that we notice on a walk. We have to do maintenance and trim those tendrils back to see and let the light come in during the day!

Oh 90% of the time I can handle when memories are triggered, hard times, sad times, life changing moments...but then other times it becomes painfully clear that our brains can put us right back in the moment of when things went so wrong, even down to the smells of that day, the lightening, the agony.

I fight to be open. I fight to be vulnerable. I fight to never keep things secret, because I believe that secrets keep us sick. And like Maya Angelou said "when you know better you do better". We all come into information at different times and ways, it makes us all unique. 

One of the things I find as a trauma response is not being able to fully feel some times. It takes awhile for me to process all the feels. And that is annoying because I want to address it, feel it, and fucking move on from it. But that isn't how it works.

We had a wildfire coming straight at us on August 4th, it was terrifying...and in order to feel in control we packed what we could and put it all in the truck. My journals are still packed, I can't seem to feel comfortable enough to put it all away. These were taken from the window where I art in my livingroom.

I still have not processed all of the feels and panic I had with this incident. And it became a little more muddled the day after. We have no control over how our feelings will avalanche on us and trigger old wounds we thought we lanced and cleaned out.

I have talked about this before, but I was abandoned at birth and my grandma Carmen and Uncle Richard who was 16 when I was born raised me until my bio mother literally pulled me from them. I felt another deep abandonment and thought my uncle no longer wanted me because he was starting a new life being recently married. I never knew he had spoken to lawyers and wanted to fight for me, but thought he was doing the best for me by letting her take me.

Oh how hind sight is 2020. But that little kid with the gaping wound showed up when he called me to make sure I was alright with the fire happening. Weird right? He is calling in concern and my body goes to abandonment and loss. He is in his 70s now and doesn't remember some things we talked about, but it brought me back to that little kid. Weird since here I sit a grown ass adult who turned 60 last month! But those triggers are that...and you cannot control them.

So for me, I have invited the demons to the table to have tea and talk over old wounds and tell them, "Look you can whisper all you want that he doesn't love me, or care about me, but it is bullshit. He called me the minute he found out that I was in the path of the fire! so shut the fuck up, you hear me past demon?! I am serious. That wound has been acknowledged and clean out once again. You have no hold here to make me feel like shit anymore! I am glad you had tea with me, but you need to go now and leave me in the truth of love."

Blog along with Effy Wild.

We've seen days like this.

Any motivation to write is a good thing.

 

 

When I interviewed Maya Angelou, she told me to write this sentence in my notepad and to never forget it: 

"Every storm runs out of rain."

I still think of that line to this day.  Alex Banayan

I am trying to keep my eye on that line. That this terrible experience we are all in will run out of power and stop, eventually. The pandemic, Delta Variant, Covid deniers, Mask resisters, Science haters, California Wildfires, Hurricane Ida, New Jersey and New York flooding, Greenland losing the ice, Global warming deniers,  the attempt to recall our Gov. and costing the tax payers of California Millions of dollars, Good people doing nothing, Afghanistan, Rep. McCarthy threatens tech and telecom firms that comply with the January 6th insurrection committee's request,  and Texas...

I sure hope that the storm runs out of rain soon.

 

 

 

I know I have a really hard job, to stay better and not bitter. It is up to us to keep voting. Keep educating ourselves. Keep speaking out. Keep being kind. Keep our humanity. Keep creating art. Keep being thought provoking with our art. Keep standing up for people who cannot stand up for themselves alone. Keep believing in the separation of Church and State. Keep believing in our Constitution. Be willing to learn and grow.  What a time we are living in. 

The one good thing I noticed today, my point of joy was the blue sky out my art desk window. I haven't seen a blue sky in weeks due to the Wildfires. My soul felt a burst of hope while I looked out my window today.

 

Shifts

Since being in this pandemic over a year...I feel like this!

It has been a tough year, and my word for 2021 is "Re-Engage" because I am having a really hard time being around people. It is a VERB which means you have to DO IT. Starting is hard. But there are a few things I am looking forward to.

I have to start inviting people to do things again, it is easier with my friends being vaccinated now, so feeling hopeful about that. Small steps but starting to do it.

Today we ventured down the hill to get WGB his second vaccination, we went to Trader Joes, and SO MANY PEOPLE, thankfully all wearing masks! But SO many cars every where! I could not live in a big city again...and like I said being home so much it was difficult being around so many people!

Moving forward

WGB got on me about finding an appointment for the vaccination. I have been looking on the California website, and he directed me to our health insurance website, and it had to be on the app on the phone (which I didn't want to put on my phone), and it took about an hour and I got an appointment!!!!

My appointment is for 1:10 pm TOMORROW!!! But we have to go to Roseville, CA to get it. Which is fine...so we will leave early since I don't know how the traffic will be. It's about an hour away from us...but while we are there I am sure we will go some where to pick up a good lunch/dinner!

Luckily I have really been drinking a lot of water today, the research I have been doing tells you to be super hydrated and to take tylenol when you get the shot. 

I am nervous about side effects. I always react so poorly to things...but I do the normal yearly flu shots ok, but it still makes me nervous. I am allergic to everything.

So I am scared to get the shot but more scared NOT to get the shot! sigh

Grieving hard

I am quiet because I am having a really hard time....

We miss our girl. This is the first time we are real Empty Nesters. The house is too quiet. I was owned by that sweet girl for 36 years, in March she would have been 37. She was like one of my kids. But also heartbreaking is the bond that WGB and Crackers had. She loved him so much! True story, the first year we were living together and he went to Montana to visit his family, he had to talk to her EVERY DAY or she would not eat! Same with my oldest cat at the time, they refused to eat until he talked to them.

Good Bye Sweet Girl

We are devastated.

Cracker's died this morning at 10:00 am.

March 1984 -December 19, 2020