While She Was Rubbing My Ankle

I'm now halfway through with physical therapy, and it has helped. The people at the rehab hospital are very nice, very patient, and they listen. From my experience, the stories of "pain and torture" are myths. The therapists I've worked with all say that if real pain starts, the exercise should stop. The goal is not to hurt me, or reproduce the pain, but to strengthen the ankle. It's begun to hurt a bit on the outside now, instead of the inside, which to me is good. When the inside and Achilles tendon hurt, it was a reminder that the two small bones there had ground together, pinching nerves, ligaments, etc. between them. Outside ankle pain is something I've experienced numerous times before; it seems to dissipate quickly, so it's not a problem. I'm almost starting to remember what my real walk is like.

Anyway. My first session was an evaluation, after which they outfitted me with one of those fat rubber bands you use for resistance while exercising at home. The next two sessions this week were actual supervised exercises. The first time I wore my standard work outfit and regretted it as soon as I started perspiring. Next time I wore my church t-shirt under my work clothes and stripped down to it, changing back before heading back to the office.

The therapist wore a tiny cross on a chain. She noticed the discreet logo on my shirt and asked me about it. I was happy to give her a general sort of description of a Unitarian Universalist church, but had no intention of launching into any kind of a spiel. I assumed she was just making small talk. But at one point,
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There's This Guy

He's a single dad, apparently not at all well-off financially, and he's in my neighborhood. Talking to him briefly, he seemed like the sort of person who might feel comfortable at my church. Since this is a small city and people tend to know who's who, even when someone's been here a short time, I mentioned him to one of the ladies I went to the Florida church conference with.

Sure 'nough, she knew him. She knew all about him. She warned me to keep a distance.

According to her, he had come to church a few times and brought his child. He had raised a huge fuss with the religious education people because they offered his child a snack, as is customary. It was the opinion of my church friend that the guy was borderline abusive toward his child.

From her observation, it wasn't the fact that the child had a food allergy or dietary restriction of any kind -- it was because the food wasn't home made -- it was store-bought and therefore had ingredients that came from factories or non-union corporations, where workers are exploited, etc.

It's not clear whether he notified the staff beforehand that no snacks were allowed; my impression is that he landed on them with both feet, as though the idea of giving kids snacks is so "out there" he couldn't believe it.

Now, I know perfectly well that N.D. (Neighborhood Dad) is hardly alone in his ideology. But here in this li'l corner of the world, he's more alone than he would be in, say, Seattle or Portland or some parts of New England. Not only is this very much the South, but our neighborhood isn't exactly known for its vegan population! I recycle, vote Democrat and attend a liberal church and I'm sure some people around here would consider me kind of fringe-y, despite my otherwise conventional ways.

At this evening's neighborhood meeting, N.D. and the youngun were on hand. We discussed an upcoming outdoor event and one of the organizers said "We'll have a crew there ahead of time to spray for mosquitoes so we won't all suffer." N.D. spoke up as if on cue, asking if she was talking about bug repellent or bug killer. "I don't like poisons," he said. A perfectly admirable sentiment, but again, this is the kind of place where people drive cars that rolled off the line when Iaccocca was actually president of Chrysler; they dump motor oil down the sewers and throw old pork bones out in the yard for the "dawg." Most of the folks 'round here would agree that "the only good bug is a dead one." I wager that N.D.'s anti-poison stance is the first such thing many people in the room had ever heard.

Finally, the meeting adjourned and we were invited to collect our food to either eat on-site or take home. They had box lunches which were probably either fried chicken or BBQ, and grilled chicken salads in plastic clamshell boxes (along with cookies & chips). N.D. steered his child out the door quickly; when someone invited him to at least take a salad, he informed them that he was vegetarian, and left. I heard someone say, "Well, what's the big deal? You get a salad, throw out the meat and eat the rest." Again, these are people who believe that to be fussy about food is to reject God's bounty -- which is why so many are obese, hypertense, and/or diabetic.

So what we've got here is two very different cultures trying to speak to each other. I see N.D. as someone who strives to make a political statement at every possible opportunity. I'm not sure he's looking to "convert" others to his way of thinking, but he holds his worldview so very sacred that he will not compromise one iota, ever, and feels compelled to spell it out whenever the question arises. On the other side you've got your basic salt-of-the-earth people who believe that if something was good enough for their great-grandparents it's good enough for them and their great-grandchildren.

And of course, there's me in the middle, Ms. Go Along to Get Along. I see the validity of both sides. I love the environment; hate the mass-production consumer culture we're in, yet understand that when you don't have a lot of money, you tend to buy cheap stuff and settle for convenience over principle.

Being in the middle has been the story of my life. Click Here to Read More..

OK, I got inspired. It happens sometimes.

I attended a church conference this past weekend. This humanist attends church and this was the first time I'd gone to General Assembly. It's something everyone in our denomination ought to do at least once -- kind of like making the pilgrimage to Mecca...now if THAT isn't a warped little analogy!!

It was exhausting but there were a number of very profound moments. I half expected to find myself surrounded by ideological extremists ... and quite possibly 5 or 10 years ago, it would have seemed that way. The political shift that's occurring now just continues to build momentum like a tsunami, whereas previously it was just random gusts blowing over the water. And so, the feminists, the environmentalists, the BGLQT and everybody else who sees an urgent need for a massive overhaul of our society now seem a lot more mainstream to me.

I've mainly stayed in the moderate-to-left group most of my life, but truth be told, I have nary an edgy bone in my body. I've strayed to the right a couple of times, but I now realize that the years I spent in the evangelical Christian realm were akin to time put in by an investigative reporter looking for the inside scoop.

One of the many things I like about this group I'm in now is that they're a WYSIWYG bunch, and they are more likely than any other kind of people to reach out to other generations. We had a bridging ceremony, in which high school age kids were welcomed into the adult community. The Good Asian Drivers were among the featured performers, and if you ever longed for a dash of pure glacier water right in the face to wake you up to what's in people's heads RIGHT NOW, you must check them out.. I have a choice here -- I can give in to the urge to feel "old," to say I'm past the point of being able to relate to 20-somethings, and in doing so become old overnight, or I can put the brakes on the age thing and drink it in until it makes a real difference in my life. Which brings me to another little factoid: Of the 8 people from my church on this jaunt, I was the youngest ... and quite possibly the one most in need of growing down a bit.

Then there was Van Jones. Check out his message. He didn't say one thing in his lecture last night that didn't resonate with me -- especially in the last couple of years that I've been working with my neighborhood association. The far right's rapidly dying paradigm -- the Strict Father model -- doesn't help anyone. It doesn't work. The world around me now -- not just me, but the whole world, all of life, the life I read about on cnn.com every day -- feels like a plant that hasn't been watered lately and is on the brink of turning yellow and dry and folding in on itself.

This political crystallization has been working in me for the past six years -- this weekend helped speed the process. Click Here to Read More..

Different Kinds of People

My life as it currently is takes me into different segments of society and sometimes it's a little confusing to get them all sorted out.

I meet a lot of religious Christians, and they assume I'm one because I don't make a habit (other than HERE) of announcing the fact that I don't currently line up with any particular conventional theology. I do go to a liberal church, though, so 2-3 days a week I am in close contact with people whose worldview is way different from people I meet other days.

Case in point: As part of my involvement with my neighborhood association, I have had the opportunity to attend local law-enforcement meetings. At the one I went to last week, there was a woman who was completely, unabashedly rabid on the subject of prostitution. She described how, when she sees a man inviting a young lady into his car, she will get behind the car, make a show of taking down the tag number, and sometimes follow one or both occupants if they later go into a nearby establishment. The police officer there had to urge her, more than once, to behave in a more circumspect manner, for her own protection. He said the local hookers are armed with two things most of the time: A blade, and a sexually transmitted disease, and very often they're high on some potent substances that make them much less likely to be intimidated by Joe or Jane Citizen. She is much better off, he said, just keeping her cell phone handy and calling the PD. Her descriptions were so vivid, it was truly fascinating.

So the following night, at a church meeting, I mentioned to a fellow congregant with whom I'm very friendly about how she ought to try attending some of these meetings -- they are true eye-openers. I mentioned that apparently our town's prostitution problems are quite something. My friend pretty much blew me off without listening to much more of what I had to say. She said, in effect, that with all that's going on in the world, people should have more to worry about than what prostitutes are doing.

This is a live-and-let-live attitude, and I share it about 75% of the time. But after having attended the meeting the night before, I had become slightly, temporarily, infused with the sense that I should, at all times, be looking out my window, prepared to call the police and report the slightest irregularity.

At work, everyone's white, respectably middle- or upper middle-class and they live in the "nice" part of town. Many of them ask me how it feels to live in my neighborhood. I look them straight in the eye and say "Well, it only takes me 10 minutes to get here every morning."

But if I internalize this and jokingly mention to someone at church that I live in "the 'hood" [ALL my neighbors call it that, unashamedly], I get disapproving looks. as in, how can you be so un-PC?

My fellow church-goers, most very well educated and mostly quite liberal politically, are of a very different mindset from my neighbors and co-workers. And as usual, I'm pretty much in the middle. Story of my life. I definitely believe that "the drug war" is making a mess of things. ~But~ I'm also happy when I hear stories of meth labs being busted, because the drug clearly devastates the users.

At least, that's what all the news stories say. But then you read columns in the off-the-beaten-track websites and papers that say no, the "meth epidemic" is simply the 21st century's version of "reefer madness," and that people really, truly need to be left alone to deal with their own vices rather than turning harmless junkies into criminals.

And where am I in all of this? I've never used pot, other than the one time someone passed me a pipe, I inhaled and felt absolutely nothing. No other drugs whatsoever. I like to drink but don't get to do it very often because more often than not, I'm the designated driver.

Oh, before I sign off, one more thing. It stopped raining a few hours ago. Now I hear gunshots. Click Here to Read More..