A friend challenged me to write a Dr. Seuss rhyme about the immigrant / pet eating Trump kerfluffle, and I think I understood the assignment. (Also, Ollie knows he is a whole snack, but would like to remind you that he is mostly fat and fur.)
By: JANA GREENE
They’re eating the dogs, They’re eating the cats, And like Ozzy Osborne, Prolly the bats. Would they, could they Make a frappe From a house cat (Or is that Trump’s toupee?) We Americans, The tall and the small, ‘Spose to lock up our pets, Cats and dogs and all? “Pass the horseradish sauce,” The immigrants say. “I feel like a beagle sandwich today!” Green eggs and ham? Nah, dog on toast. Or Cat brûlée, Or a hedgehog roast? Don’t leave out the exotics, What about meats Made out of lizards And pet parakeets? Could Trump, would Trump, Make America great, By spewing venom, And dishing out hate? Making it up as he goes along, where in the heck did it all go wrong? He would not, could not Serve up on a plate basic decency in the debate. And what happens, then? Well in ‘Murica we say, Trump’s small heart shrunk three sizes that day. Perhaps the real meaning Of a patriot’s truth, is that Harris showed the class Of a leader, times two.
Can we talk honestly about denial in the name of religion?
For most of my marriage, I have unintentionally masked. I told my husband everything, but not everything. Not intentionally by sin of omission, but because I couldn’t – I had stuffed it so far up my own ass for survival’s sake, I had built up a memory meltdown. Let’s just move forward. But you can’t move forward until you switch the gearshift from reverse. Otherwise, it’s just idling.
And it worked, for many years. If I was upset, I’d stuff it. Or banished it in the name of JESUS. Traumatic memory would surface, but I would rebut it with but you’re happy NOW. And to be honest, if some of it hadn’t happened to me, I wouldn’t believe it. It’s a got-damn wonder I am not locked away somewhere to protect me from myself, much less sober.
One of the reasons I am estranged from members of my family of origin is that they know. They know, they remember, and so long as there is distance, they don’t have to make amends. I have accepted that they can’t. I only write about the least violent incidents. I polish it up pretty nicely. I am not saying all that I could say, I promise you that. My intention is not to make anyone uncomfortable, but if it does, maybe it should. I am writing this transparently because I know so many, many souls are walking wounded here, being told that their trauma has been Houdini-ed in the name of Jesus, but still feeling bereft.
But I will admit I remain damaged, and that is okay. It all took a toll. How silly to expect growing up in an environment of daily screaming, physical violence – and indeed the worst thing that can be done to a little girl – is expected to be taped over by some of the laughs and good times, like an unfortunate VHS performance. That’s what a lot of people won’t tell you about growing up in an abusive home. There were good times too. I suppose they are supposed to override the bad? But the bad was bad, and it’s stuck in my gray matter, petrifying until solid, since childhood. I was steeped in it.
I dealt with it by Denial by Religion and Busyness. I engrossed myself in ALLTHETHINGS, all the distractions, the past 20 years. Raising three teenagers. Battling a chronic, as-of-then undiagnosed illness. Pretending to give a rat’s ass about my “career” – ANY “career.” Launching two city-wide recovery programs. Getting Recovery Coach Certification.
Need a greeter at the church? OKAY! Need a prayer person to pray with people crushed by their own abuse and pain? I’m ON IT. Fuck my own damage, let me weave sincere and elaborate prayers for the hurting. God is good. Amen?
I was getting up early every day to have coffee with Jesus and Joyce Meyer. Just feels like the devil is stompin’ me when I miss Joyce! I would say (and sincerely mean it.) Later, be the best wife, because you have the best husband. Your marriage is proof that miracles still happen. Don’t fuck it up with your trauma and neediness! Be the best friend, mother, warrior, Bible-reader. Smile, even though the physical pain is searing. Smile, even though you have unresolved trauma like some people have freckles. It’s all in your head anyway, you’re crazy. (It’s all in your head may be the gaslightiest self-gaslight of them all.)
I mentored the crap out of anybody with a heart-wound in those years. And for that, I am not sorry. Everyone broke my heart. Everybody got a little piece of me. Every ounce of trauma was healed in the NAME OF JESUS, AMEN?! God gave me permission to stuff it, what with all the Christian counseling I’d gotten that taught me to “pray it out!” It’s been CAST OUT, as far as the EAST from the WEST! God’s ways are not our ways, brethren.
In other words, GET OVER IT.
So, the trauma sat. Because whether by flaw of character or complete ignorance, I couldn’t seem to get over it. It took residence in my body, every tissue marked by it.
In all of us lives a whole preschool of children. Not in a multiple personality way, but layered like a cake of a hundred of layers. As many layers as went into our development, as many memories went into the batter at that time. We live in the frosting – the Present – but we sit upon years of joys and sorrows, expectations and traumas. Without it, there is no reason for the frosting. But frosting is no good all on its own.
My inner 4-year old’s pain hasn’t been cast out – ironically, because she had been cast out all her little life. Just try telling your 4-year-old that memories aren’t ghosts, and POOF! they are all gone because words were said over her, named and claimed. That’s not fair to her.
Joyce Mayer’s loud, booming voice frightens her. The Lord comforts her, but not in a magical instant as advertised. She used to hide in her toybox, when things got loud at home. The lid to the box slowly lifting with a great creak, and a hand of assistance is offered. It isn’t a “one and done” experience, though – that lifting. Every day, she hides in her toybox to some degree, and every day, the lid is lifted, the sun pours in, and a hand is offered. So, I, in my 4-year-old wisdom, take the hand again and again, and sometimes, that is what grace looks like – what miracles look like. We want out of the toybox altogether, but we do it by taking the hand every day, even when things are scary.
Getting the chance to nurture her with the help of The Greatest Therapist of All Time (PERIOT!) is an honor and privilege. I hope to hear out all the past versions of Me, with a little more compassion now. And I am writing raw for the first time, instead of just idling.
This isn’t the funniest season of my life, that’s for sure. So my writing hasn’t been the comedy-filled yukk-fest I’d hoped it would be. It’s been absolute clown shoes for a while now, but not in a mirth-making way.
When I decided to start this blog, instead of totally rehabbing my old blog, I did it for reasons that might seem obscure to some. The truth is that I wanted to write more humor; humor about everyday life that perhaps the 2014 version of myself might find in poor taste. I’m kind of into poor taste right now, to be honest.
I wanted to write about being a follower of Christ from here, not from there. I have been “there” most of my entire life, but in this new place, there is curiosity. Questioning. Observing. Laughing. And most of all the thing I’d tried to write about for twenty years but didn’t fully grasp: Grace.
Especially grace toward myself, can I get an AMEN?
“Wouldn’t it be easier to switch up thebeggarsbakery.com, where you have nearly 2,000 followers?” said my husband, who is right-brained and makes actual sense. It can be frustrating to explain total nonsense to a sensical person, because they have logic on their side, and all I have is a handful of glitter and some unrealistic expectations.
“I have new things to say,” said I.
“I know. You’ve just worked so hard to gain your following.”
“And I won’t ‘build my career?” I say. We laugh, because I am not career-driven. I have no competitive nature, absolutely no “drive” or “hustle.” No calling higher than sharing my mind and welcoming the sharings of others’. It’s a crappy career path, but a fulfilling endeavor.
When I was a kid, longing to be a proper writer, I believed I would make a living by writing, which is totes hilar, as my kids used to say. My 10th grade Journalism teacher, Ms. Flowers, wrote in my yearbook, “See you on the Johnny Carson Show one day!”
What an amazing compliment! I hugged the words of that prophesy close to my chest, choking the life into it. I carried it everywhere I went and still do.
Now I know that reference is lost on several generations, but if you are Gen X, that is prime adulation. That’s the pièce de résistance of success. Only the most amazing writers were interviewed by Johnny Carson. Stephen King! Danielle Steel! JUDY BLUME!
As compliment like that from a Journalism teacher? That’s like saying, ‘You’ll win the writing Olympics, Kid!’
Spoiler alert: I did not win the Writing Olympics, because that’s not a thing.
When in my 20’s, I wrote for a small, local paper, crafting community news pieces for 5 cents per word. Do you know how many 5-cent words you must write to put your kid through dance class as a single mom? Or even spring for a few Happy Meals? Many. SO many words.
I then wrote community news for the newspaper in my little city. I was paid the stately sum of $12.50 an hour. This – the pinnacle of my earning – ensured that I made exactly enough every month to contribute one-third of the mortgage payment each month.”
But hold up, y’all. Because THEN, a major magazine (it was 2016, magazines were still a thing; stay with me here) happened across a Beggar’s Bakery blog post I’d written about addiction, and asked if they could pick it up for their issue next month?”
HOLY SHITBALLS, BATMAN! Yes of COURSE you can! Send over the contract! Hurry up before you change your mind, In Recovery Magazine!
The contract was for zero dollars, ya’ll.
But think of the exposure! That’s what they told me. The EXPOSURE!
Now, exposure means you’ll be compensated for your talent, just not today. It means, we see you, Boo….but maybe the next publisher will see you and pay you!But probably not, to be honest, you’ll be a pauper if you try to survive on writing. The odds aren’t really in your favor. But thanks for the free work!
I self-published a couple of little books after that, which ended up costing me hundreds of dollars and making me none. I poured my soul into the first book, my little evangelical soul. I gave countless copies away.
I spoke on recovery in front of large groups of people, which I hated. I know they said the Lord wants me to “stretch” and “grow,” and that public speaking was another way to share the gospel, but I did it with bile rising in my throat and a hankering for a Xanax to get through speaking on recovery.
I now know that God “growing” me by torture is not his bag. But when giving my testimony, I could never wing it. I carefully wrote out every word and read it with all the passion of a kid reading a term paper about state capitals. Not because I wasn’t passionate about it, but because I’m better at bleeding my words than reading my words. Please look away, people. The vulnerability is making me so naked up here.
But see, I’m a prolific writer, if not a successful one. Doesn’t that sound impressive? PROLIFIC. But “prolific” really just means that I write A LOT. Obsessive-compulsively, some might say. Stephen King is a prolific writer. But so is the guy off his meds driven to write a hundred-page manifesto because he is on a mission. “Driven” can mean lots of things!
To me, it means that if I don’t find a home for my thoughts outside of my brain, they’ll stage a coup, and I will be prolifically in a fetal position forever and ever, amen. Since I could hold a crayon, the page has done nicely. It rolls out like a red carpet, welcomes my words, and rehomes the scary ones.
So anyway, thanks for reading my work. Because it affords me connection – with you guys and with myself – and with whatever sanity I have left. Life got heavier with the diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia in June. I haven’t really yukk-yukked it up in my blog posts lately. But don’t worry, I majored in Writing for Free, but I minored in Gallows Humor. So, I’ll get there.
In a way, pain and cancer and struggle and anxiety are all surmountable, because a kind teacher told my 16-year-old self that she’d be on Johnny Carson one day. Ms. Flowers would want me to write honest and raw. Prolifically. Imagine that. Kind words have power.
In conclusion, life has been humbling. Would you agree? Humbling and not at all what the travel guide promised. But still full of surprises, blessings, and BS.
I hope your dreams land you at the pinnacle of your happiness, hustle be damned. There are more ways than one to “make a living.”
A couple of months ago, when I was young and full of hope, I mentioned that I was going to try to write a little something here every day. Yesterday, I did not, because I used most of my energy decorating for my daughter’s family birthday party. I really felt bad about myself for not writing. Not because it’s writing – but because it is a thing I fizzled out on.
I fizzle out on a lot of things, but it turns out that today – after blowing up a scadzillion balloons – all my “hot air” has not all been relegated to party festivities. So even though I didn’t write yesterday, here is today’s post.
I am very good at two endeavors: Starting things and losing interest in things. Now you’d think a substantial bit of time would have to be passed between those two, but not for me. I can lose interest almost instantly. Not people, mind you. People I love for life. But just about everything else? MEH.
I won’t half-ass the starting of things, of course. I go in whole hog, as we say here in the South. For example, when I took up yoga, I swore I would make it a consistent practice. Two weeks later, I subluxed a hip trying to do a downward dog and had to quit. And I can’t really blame the injury, I was already getting bored.
I have done this with crafts, business ideas, dieting, religion. Unrealistically saying to The Thing, “you better fix my whole damn life.” And out of ignorance or denial – I’m not sure which – I will low-key believe that ridiculous shit.
The problem is that I come at The Thing with both barrels blazing, shooting until I’m out of ammo, click click click that trigger anyway, until I collapse on the floor and tell myself, you can’t even shoot right. Lather, rinse, repeat with every hobby, jobby, or political lobby, until it holds absolutely no interest to me.
The Thing will be the antidote to life. The Thing is going to be so fulfilling, I will forget that I’m neurotic and flaky and stand triumphant for once on the monument to my completed task! The Thing is going to save/help/make me worth the air I breathe.
Holy shit. I am expecting The Thing to dole out my worthiness. That’s too big a job for yoga. That’s too big a job for me. It’s too big a job for anyone but God.
Perhaps, for example, The Thing is not writing; it’s the joy and pain expressed in the writing. It’s the purging, sharing, heartache and laughter.
The Kingdom of God lives within us. We cannot find it anywhere else. We cannot summon it. We cannot find it IN anything else. It can’t be imported, exported, structured, organized, or unfulfilled. It exists in energy so divine; the glorified hustle has to take a seat.
Perhaps “going inward” is the only consistent practice we require to find The Thing. And if the venue of my spirit is good enough to house God, I guess it’s good enough for me…wild and unfocused as it may be!
If you’d never even seen a Bible, where would you find evidence of God?
It isn’t heresy to wonder, friends. He put the wonder there, in our spirits.
Think on it a second. If you’d never been “formally” introduced to the concept of God, would you believe in a higher power?
While we were busy paving paradise and putting up a parking lot, we decided Eden was all that great and that we could do better.
I see God as the vastness of the ocean, not fully understandable to us, but too full of life and wonder to be random occurrence.
But he is also made obvious by the minutia.
Tiny, insignificant plankton feed the krill, which in turn feed the whales. Imagine explaining to our ancestors that the largest animal on Earth subsists on the smallest!
And here’s the hook – phytoplankton exist because they turn sunshine into energy. Sunshine. In the great trickle-up of nature, we are made of sunshine, too. Not just anxiety, and angst, and sciatica pain.
If you had never read the words of a tome highlighted in red, would you walk through a forest and find evidence of his majesty? Knowing every bit of flora and fauna was making breathable air to sustain us all? I know we have been apt to describe the Spirit of God as “wind,” but what of his breath?
In a brick-and-mortar church, I learned that God made the earth, and it was good. It’s right there in the Bible.
In 9th grade biology, I learned that photosynthesis is the process of plants turn light energy into breathable oxygen. And that’s also good.
But both of those things, while true, can be dry as kindling or old bones, if Spirit is taken for granted. If the wind doesn’t reach us.
Do we know God beyond book-learning?
Because that’s where the synthesis in us takes place. As in every seed, we carry a holy blueprint. As in the lungs of the trees, we are continually provided refreshment and life. The sometimes slow, indivisible forces sustaining us are forever turning us from sunshine to being. And it is in the trusting of this that we are able to grow.
I pray you find God outside of the Bible today. I hope you smell a flower, hug a tree, or swim in the incredible proof of God that we call “water.” I hope a switch clicks in the recesses of your soul, and you realize the same care taken to create the world, went into making you.
God is real. He is majestic in the minutia of even this shit show, lending us his light to make our energy sustainable. His breath our existence. Our existence his breath.
There is no consequence to not tweezing your brows even though you can see two errant hairs close up when you look in a magnified mirror.
Your family will not fall apart if you have leftovers three days in a row.
If you wash whites and colors together, nobody has to know. Nobody. Will. Know.
A three-hour trash TV marathon is good therapy.
A nice, well-timed depression nap can make all things new.
Your kids can eat an all-beige diet for all their preschool years and be fine (Flintstone Chewable’s cover a multitude of nutritional sins.)
Listening to really good, really loud music is CHURCH.
Staring off into space for extended periods of time is not a waste of it.
Holding hands is not just for children.
Don’t forget to lollygag and dilly-dally on the regular.
Store-bought is fine, if you can’t make your own serotonin and dopamine.
Paper plates are a mom’s best friend.
Animals are kind of superior to (a lot of) humans.
Remember that “no” is a complete sentence.
Cut ties with people who make you feel less-than important. Or LESS THAN, period.
Buy the concert tickets. You’ll almost never be sorry.
Not a single soul on this planet is better than you. Straighten your crown. You deserve to be wearing it.
Straighten your sister’s crown too, and remind her she’s a queen.
Hit the meeting. (If you know, you know.)
Be sloppily thankful for blessings, and ardently prayerful for troubles.
Shave your legs. Or don’t. No one cares.
Tomorrow is a fine day to start what you put off starting today.
Write the words, paint the picture, sing loud and badly, laugh until you pee yourself a little. And then laugh again.
And remember you are hurtling through space in a big, blue marble through an infinite, ever-expanding universe, and you yourself are made out of stardust and moxie for the express purpose of learning to love and be loved.
I kind of love this image that WordPress so generously offered me. Never mind I would break both ankles (plus probably fall off of the dang mountain) if I tried hiking this. It also occurred to me that every journey we take in life is perilous, and every hike takes us somewhere. Might be the Garden of Eden. Might be the Donner Party encampment. Wheeeee! *insert inappropriate laughter here *
It has easily been the longest summer in my entire life. Punctuated by triggers and glimmers and rolling thunder, it rains almost every afternoon. The day will be sunshiny (albeit, hot!) and from a great distance, you will hear the thunder.
At first, you wonder if the noise was a motorcycle or a garbage truck in the neighborhood over. But if you listen closely, there is the thunder cadence – a low vibration awakened, that you feel in your chest before your ears can confirm its source. And then the building growl roiling over the clouds: Yep, that’s thunder. Again. Here we go.
Nobody wants thunder at the beach. Thunder is a rude affront to the vacationers. It means get out of the pool, pack up your sand buckets. Might as well eat lunch out; the beach requires flexibility. But everyone has the same idea, so every restaurant is crowded and has an annoying wait. The kids are whiny, there’s sand in unmentionable places, you just want your ass in a beach chair, your kids in the pool and out of your hair, and BY DAMN you’re going to enjoy this experience in spite of the thunder and rain. All of this started with a little thunder.
When I received the diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia on June 13, when the summer was still fat with promise and completely benign. A lot of people freshly diagnosed with cancer describe the new diagnosis as a kind of hurried chaos. “For a while, it was a blur,” is a common sentiment.
But for me, it has not been a blur. It has been a sloth racing a snail and losing. It has been much pacing through my house, wandering aimlessly. It has been too much time on my hands, angry outbursts, crying seshes, and doomscrolling. I am wishing time away, and then chastising myself for wishing time away.
Because I could have 20 years with this cancer, although that’s the exception. I could also have five. Talking openly about the possibilities is therapeutic for me but makes everyone else uncomfortable. I’m not trying to make anyone else uncomfortable, but I’m trying to accept that we all have an expiration date, and if nothing else gets me first, this cancer will. That’s not fatalistic. That’s realistic. Cancer is not the only chronic health issue I deal with, but it’s a doozy.
Nobody wants thunder at the beach. But every day it comes – the realization- a rude affront to all the plans I’ve made for my life. The doctor’s visits mean crowded rooms where people wait, annoyed. I really just want my ass in a beach chair. Summertime means a season of heat and rain, that’s just the nature of the season.
And it occurs to me today that its exactly what depression feels like. I’ll be swimming with my floaties on under clear skies, when I will feel the rumble in my chest. At first, its mostly vibration, but by the time it’s all said and done, there are torrential tears and terrifying cracks of doom. They show up every day, like clockwork, suffocating me with humidity, impossible to ignore.
So, I write. And that helps. I talk to people I love and to the GTOAT (Greatest Therapist of All Time,) and that helps too. I listen to music loud enough to drown out the claps of thunder, and throw paint on a canvas, or fitfully meditate. The practice doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to be practiced. But Jesus help me.
Please help me with the episodic depression that pops my floaties and sucks me under as soon as I hear thunder. Expect it to visit at least once a day. I can hide like a frightened animal in a storm or do a little rain dance; that’s entirely up to me – triggers, glimmers, and rolling thunder – all. Help me to accept that it’s just the nature of the season, and to keep my joy, all while realizing yep, that’s thunderagain.Here we go…
If we were close once, I still think about you. I want you to know I think about you with reverence, no matter what life threw at us to sever our tie. The things you told me – profound and trivial – still come to my mind as random thoughts are apt to do, and my face breaks out in a little state of happy. Please forgive me if I’ve hurt you in any way. I was only learning, as you were.
If we bore and raised our babies together, we were blessed. We did the “Mom Circuit’ together – lazy days of trips to Gymboree, the park, McDonald’s ball pits, endless breastfeeding sessions and diaper changes, co-rejoicing with one another over the milestones our babies reached, because they were our milestones too. That gave me an identity; it gave us an identity, together.
Perhaps we were friends as teenagers, furiously cutting out pictures in old magazines and making collages of our “futures.” We would turn page after page of handsome men we’d marry, fancy cars we’d drive, and families we would raise perfectly. We made vision boards before there were vision boards, and many a glue stick lost its life in our hands in the name of naiveite.
If we made friends as young adults, you were dear to me at a chaotic time. I pulled back from you because I was ashamed of my alcoholism. If you were with me when I came out the other side (24 years ago)? Your friendship is priceless. Not all of the people I love stuck around in my recovery.
If over the years, we laughed until we peed, I feel a poignant pang in my soul when I remember our laughter, even still. (Bonus points for shooting beverages out of our noses.) Yes, if we laughed together, you are tethered to my heart eternally.
Friend, just so you know – nothing that cemented our relationship ceased to exist just because time marched away from us. The prayers we held hands and petitioned to God over? Nothing went to waste.
God didn’t follow our instructions in the least, of course. Disregarded most of our magazine plans and perfect-mommy dreams. Nothing turned out like we thought it would (thank God, but also dammit) No matter. All the weaving became who we are: The smiles, the jokes, the heartache, the lessons we painfully teach each other and ourselves. The music we share, the memes we post.
All of it.
As as we reached middle age, friendships took on new importance. No longer were they relationships to be sandwiched in between the chaos of parenting and busy marriages, but tantamount to every aspect of our lives, our very selves. Friends become family at this stage. We finally know who we are, and that helps us bring our best selves into our fold. And when we’re our worst? You help me stay grounded. It’s so obvious now that we are – cliché notwithstanding – on a journey for real. As the kids say, for real for real. Nobody warns you that in mid-life, you get weepy and sentimental.
Maybe life got away from us, but I remember our bond. I wish you all the best, Old Friend.
In the interest of transparency, today sucks a little. I share when I have good days and get gussied up – admittedly those are fewer and further apart. And I share when I’m struggling because I don’t want to pretend I have my shit together for social media. That benefits no one. I don’t. And I won’t. Life is messy (and also great and awful, in turn. So who can give up yet?) But today the fatigue is crushing me, literally feels like a smothering blanket I can’t get out from under. And my pain level is crazytown. People get tired of hearing about my pain, I’m certain. But I’m tired of feeling it. So I spent some time meditating. And some time worshipping. And crying. And that’s the truth. That’s me, pulling myself up by my bootstraps. Leukemia sucks. Ehlers Danlos sucks. I’m tired of physical weakness making me feel less strong as a whole person. It’s just a hell of a day.
Thor’s Helmet in Canis Major. This image captures NGC 2359, a nebula shaped like Thor’s helmet in the constellation Canis Major (the Greater Dog.) Behold the absolute majesty of such creation!
By: JANA GREENE
I have always loved space. I think maybe I was born the year of the moon landing, that event which eclipsed my birth but began my own personal Age of Aquarius. I am also from Houston, where NASA was cause celebre – a field trip destination when I was a child, a portal to the great unknown.
I am 55 now, much more jaded about the conditions here on this planet, and a little obsessed with the beauty of the unknown. And now BEHOLD! The James Webb Telescope is capturing all of the glory I felt was surely “out there.” It’s like a great confirmation that our every day is not just every day in the vast universe. And that is super comforting to me.
Because here we mostly just see what’s here now, and experienceable through a finite number of human senses. It’s easy to forget we are divine beings living in a mousetrap of sorts.
Our daily lives are driving to work and driving past long, rectangular shopping strip malls, each less remarkable than the last. We shop in grocery stores that shelve our sustenance; items stocked neatly in a row, affordable by only some of us, while others go hungry. Traffic lights telling us when we can move, stop signs telling us when to stop. Hospitals housing our infirm, and despondent. Skyscrapers places to while away the time in order to make this thing we have made our god called “money.”
We worship vacations, because they set us free from the mundane for a fleeting time. We marvel at theme parks, because they make us feel like we aren’t ants marching on a big, blue marble. They are fantasy, and we have made fantasy the be-all end-all, another god altogether – who will whisk us away from working, and strip-mall shopping, and boredom.
The two places that seem most like home to me are space and ocean. Something about the mystery of the unexplored, the hope of otherness. Two of my hyper fixations that shape my daydreams and my dream life. Every new image from the telescope making me swoon.
Can you imagine I mean seriously; can you imagine? The colors, thick with stars, speckled with other worlds. Worlds where maybe gravity isn’t such a drag, sucking us to the good Earth. It makes me starry-eyed, morphing me into a child again, who wishes to soar through the cosmos and escape this realm. Escape all of the violence that exists here, and the poverty that breaks my heart, and the man-made monuments we make to celebrate ourselves.
I’d like to astronaut myself right out of this earth suit of mine, with of its maladies and humanity, and soar through endlessness.
But Houston, we have a problem. My feet won’t seem to leave this plain. They are heavy with purpose here, even as my mind likes to travel “out there.” Out there where my mind will quiet, maybe. Out there where God himself decides the order, which celestial bodies to spin where, what galaxies should resemble earthly things. I think some majesty of the universe is that we recognize some of it in ourselves.
A compulsory Google search will show us the Helix Nebula, which appears like a giant eye in outer space. It is often referred to as “The Eye of God.” The “Butterfly Nebula,” captured in 2009 by the Hubble Telescope. The “Horsehead Nebula,” looking for all the world like the profile of a steed. The list is endless.
The ancient stargazers knew that the Universe ties itself to us, even without modern telecopy. It reflects our world so that we know we are a part of it.
Carl Sagan has famously said: “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” A way for the Universe to know itself.
We are literally made of stardust – from the elements God used to create everything. Our good earth in its natural, perfect state. And the great mystery of miracles we call the “sky.” There is so much more glory.
Look up from your day job. Look up from your pain. See that there is so much more! And I will try to keep looking up, too. To quote Carl Sagan again, “Some part of our being knows this (space) is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us.”
Star stuff, mind you. Made for bigger things, better things. Don’t give up hope that God can fix this world through us, through a much bigger reality. I will hold that hope too, as I obsess over the Great Beyond that we call “outer space.” And be reminded we – all of us, and the whole Universe too – are connected.
Listen, friends. I feel passionately too. But I am writing this as a simple observer, stepping back and noticing what is happening. And what’s happening is so ugly. Blessed be, and remember that you are a light worker in a dark world. Open doors for people, compliment a stranger, be sloppy generous with the love you put out in the universe, and I will too. And hopefully we can make a difference as we flounder through this dystopian nightmare. Amen?
Today it’s raining like God has something fierce, like God has something to get off his chest. A bone to pick with humanity. Not a sprinkle but a torrential downpour, and like everything else right now, it comes hard and heavy.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of “hard and heavy.” As I sit sipping coffee on the front porch of a little log cabin, I consider society and watching its apparent downfall. And I let my mind play pretend for a bit. I am a pioneer woman, hearty and fulfilled with the simplest of pleasures.
Never mind that there were no Airbnb’s on the “Oregon Trail,” (Blue Ridge highway?) only thoughts of sustenance and probable dysentery. Never mind that I would be long dead if that were the case, because childbirth proved nearly fatal for me bringing my two biological children into the world. I come from weak, generic- European stock. We are sickly, pale, and given to dying in childbirth.
But I consider my surroundings as if it were 1847 and I had arrived here by hiking on sturdy legs and enduring hardship, not by Honda Insight. There are berries in these woods probably, and the soil would be fertile for growing vegetables. There are deer for venison (I’m certainly not hunting and killing it – I’ll leave that to the menfolk) and other rodent-based meat – squirrel and rabbit, which I’m also not killing, but would eat if there was no Chick-fil-A nearby.
This is my first vacation since receiving a Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia diagnosis. It’s good medicine to sit in the woods and contemplate your fate, it turns out. I walk barefoot on the dewey grass. I hug the big oak tree that shades the cabin and thank it for its shade. I listen to Teddy Swims and old Van Morrison on the cabin porch, rocking and blissed out.
I literally stood outside in the pouring rain with my face skyward with the intention of screaming into the void, but ended up thanking him for showing up and washing away my attitude with his tears.
The air is God-breathed, my ears are filled with birdsong. And even though is it’s pouring rain; I am glad for it. I watch the clouds tuck the mountains in goodnight. I love a good tucking-in.
I think this property was a Christmas tree farm at some point. Frasier Firs line the property. I guess we were all something else at one time or another. Each phase subject to its own rejoicing; each phase subject to hardness and heaviness. I reckon the land groaned as it weathered changes, just as I do now.
Every journey we find ourselves on – whether involuntary or self-led – is too much at some point. Things are a little too much now. So I groan. Oh how I groan. Oy vey!
We are home from our long weekend getaway now. I’m trying to carry some of the contentment that came so easy in the mountains into today. Nature made an investment in me during he course of our mini-vacay, and I’m trying not to squander the peace it gifted me.
Turn off the news and quiet the weeping and gnashing of teeth long enough to remember that God is close to the broken-hearted.
I am sick, but I am surrounded by love – even in the suburbs where the air does not carry the scent of God’s breath. Even when I’m spiking a fever at the least opportune times, or angsty about the state of the world.
Pain is a constant companion, but I’ve found it is more effective to run a three-legged race with it than to deny it altogether.
It is a part of me, and hating it ultimately ends in hating myself. So, I walk with it daily, with it. Running with it ends up tripping me up. Go one day at a time – the same way I got through getting sober.
Now that I think of it, perhaps pain is like my conjoined twin; one that dislikes all the things I love. We have to compromise, or nothing gets done. At any rate, it’s here to stay, and that can be the hardest, heaviest thing of all. This might sound defeatist, but it’s just acceptance. And as long as there is still nature and hugs and the Spirit of God, I can accept it with some measure of grace. Even as this land groans.
I hope your hard and heavy era passes soon, and you can find some peace in this crazy world.
Yesterday was a very, very good day. It had been exactly a month since my diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, and my husband and I met with my oncologist to get staged and get a prognosis, after a battery of tests.
I am stage ZERO! CLL begins with stage zero, unlike most other cancers. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I don’t have cancer – it just means that it’s in my marrow and blood but hasn’t spread anywhere else. My bone marrow biopsy confirmed that I definitely do have CLL, but the PET scan was clear!
My prognosis is good! We wait and watch now. I will go to the cancer center every three months forever to monitor my white cell blood count, lymphocytes, and web blood cells. But until my WBC doubles within a span of six months or I start to have lymph node problems, I am treatment free.
Will I need it someday? Most likely yes. CLL never entirely goes away. But I’m already on the one day at a time plan with my other chronic illnesses, I manage the POTs, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and about another half dozen chronic conditions.
Life is crazy, man. Yesterday morning I was praying for the diagnosis of CLL rather than ALL – chronic vs. acute. Chronic has to be managed, acute is trouble. Funny that a month and a day ago, I would never been so flippin’ happy that I have any kind of cancer. Now I’m praising God that it is not acute, or do I require any treatment right now.
I didn’t need another major health concern, but I feel like my training wheels are off in this regard. I already live illness every day. And whatever this brings, I intend to rise to the occasion. Probably while doing a lot of bitching now and then, and maybe some crying, and a whole other layer of frustration…
But I’m pretty scrappy.
Thank you for all of you who have been praying for me. It is truly the best case scenario. I love my medical team and I’m so grateful for them as well.
I see a nasty headache has decided to show up, which means (a) this will be a very short meeting, and (b) I’m in a crappy mood. So, LISTEN UP!
Migraines, did you NOT get the memo that debilitating headaches aren’t the THING at this time- that getting confirmation that Leukemia is joining our team overrides your meddling right now? That’s a write-up, mister.
*Nods to Leukemia, who is perplexed and unwelcome, and would like a word with the head-hunter than assigned it to someone whose health is already chaotic – the Grand Central Station of Medical Dysfunction, if you will – when it’s painfully (haha) clear that some of this should have been outsourced.
And Ehlers Danlos, you pipe down too, with your pain first thing in the morning. Did I participate in the circus as a contortionist in the middle of the night, and that’s why my joints are on fire? (Speaking of joints on fire, I can see we will be starting this day with a little of the Lord’s Lettuce.) Did I dream I was a middle-aged, chubby Rockette and pull my hip out in a pair sequined pantyhose whilst sleeping? Did a little cereal elf come replace my kneecap with cornflakes when I was sleeping, so that I woke up with a knee that functions like its made of cornflakes, sounds like it’s made of cornflakes, and has the stability of cornflakes a ‘plenty but not a damn kneecap?
POTs, I really don’t want to fall today. And yes, I know you hate the heat and it’s June in the South. And frankly, you don’t give me the physical energy to move me somewhere cooler, so you see my conundrum. Also, I’d really appreciate NOT getting dehydrated now, as it makes everything 100x worse. Lord God, why am I always dehydrated, make it stop.
Sweet, hard-working Immune System, remember: Germs are not our friends. Stop fraternizing with the enemy. I know aren’t armed with much equipment, but try to fight, ok? I know Leukemia moved in. Stand your post. I believe in you.
Migraine, EDS, POTs…Ya’ll act like you’re toddlers at a petting zoo – cutting line in front of each other to get to get to something that’s loud, demanding, only mildly interesting, and shitty. Calm down. There’s plenty to go around.
Whoever is taking the meeting minutes, please note that the next person who sweetly tells me that the Lord never gives us more than we can handle is getting a throat-punch, and I am a very non-violent person. Ditto “God’s ways are not our ways,” and “Just pray harder.” Maybe two throat punches for praying harder.
I ain’t mad at God about this anyway. When he pours our souls into these Earth Suits, he never said they weren’t prone to disease and disaster. The warranty on the vessel leaves much to be desired, but we instead can rest knowing our Spirits are locked up tighter than a bull’s butthole in fly season. (Sorry for the joke, but laughter is going to be ESSENTIAL in getting through this!)
Seriously, guys. Ya’ll are going to have to take turns. Your presentation is sloppy and there is entirely too much overlap.
Thanks for attending this (mandatory) meeting. I know you’re all working so effing hard, just to keep going. To which I say, thank you. A harder working bunch there never was.
Hello, friends. I have decided to share my current situation, in the hopes it will help me to process what’s going on, and maybe give someone else hope who is struggling similarly.
I kind of hate that about myself – I want to be mysterious and private, I am just really bad at handling things alone, and there’s nothing worse than feeling like you’re in a sinkhole by yourself, (and nobody will even admit there IS a sinkhole, much less throw you a rope.)
So, I’m sharing this in the hope that you guys will lob some prayers and hope and good vibes my way. I could use it. I also hope by sharing this, maybe someone else facing a difficult diagnosis will feel less alone. I have decided to blog about my journey. Feel free to follow here at wordsbyjanagreene.com if you want to keep up.
Thursday, I saw an oncology hematologist at the Zimmer Center, because I’ve had whacky labs and a ridiculous WBC count for a while now. I have been feeling extra run-down. I already have a host of other major medical issues. Why was I being sent to an oncology specialist? Huh. I figured it was just a mix up. It was not. I was told to expect bad news, which was actually helpful to my mental health, even though was the longest weekend of my life.
Today I got the call that confirmed that I have Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. “CLL” is sometimes described as “the kind of leukemia you want, if you MUST have leukemia.” It is the only cancer that never goes away – there is no getting rid of it, it’s in my marrow. Many people live 10-20 years with it, sometimes without needing continual treatment. It is also extremely slow-growing and highly treatable. And I’m hanging my hat on that. But it’s still cancer. The next step is a bone marrow biopsy, and a PET scan to make sure it hasn’t spread. The doctor suspects it has not, and I hope he’s right.
On the one hand, I have answers. Mystery pop-up fevers all the time? Oh. Excessive bruising? Well, that makes sense. Mind-melting fatigue? Whelp. On the other hand, I have a long road ahead and I’m organically TIRED. Not just physically, but in every way.
I am pretty sure I have done all five grief stages in the past few days. Denial – poring over my labs determined to find some easy, benign explanation for all of it. And hitting a wall with obvious markers all weekend. Anger – WHAT THE ACTUAL F&%$? Bargaining – well, maybe not so much. At the end of the day, God is in control, and I am not, and I trust that he knows better than me. I feel his presence so intensely that I know the Spirit is buoying me up. I seem to be teetering between Depression (it’s a bummer any way you slice it,) and Acceptance currently. And the notes of acceptance are starting to be the dominant flavor.
I plan on letting my feelings have their say in all of this, even though it feels like my brain is being operated by untrained carnie workers right now.
The very hardest thing about this has been breaking the news to my three precious daughters yesterday. Literally the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I am so fortunate – they are all such incredible people and so supportive. And my husband is my ROCK. And I have such beautiful friends surrounding me.
Some people might think I’m the unluckiest woman in the world, what with so many health issues. But I see it differently – how lucky am I to be surrounded with so much love? So lucky. This is not going to steal my faith. Or my sense of humor. Or hope. It can’t. I won’t let it.
I don’t know her backstory, but I wish I did. I’d like to know what made her decide to become a teacher, especially to high schoolers who resent the fact that she was making them write assignments. She was a Journalism teacher, you see. Also, a Creative Writing teacher. And she published the school newspaper and yearbook.
She loved words too. And considered every story a little sacred.
I know that I was going to write this blog series in a humorous vein, with pieces about what things from childhood germinated a sense of anxiety, but how about a piece about something that actually quelled my anxiety? A great teacher makes a big difference indeed.
She reminded me of “Miss Honey” from the movie, “Matilda,” except for her dry wit and constant smoker’s cough. Back in the eighties, teacher lounges were smoking places. Hell, even us kids had a “smoking tree” in the school courtyard.
You’d be walking to class by the teacher’s lounge, and smoke would LITERALLY billow out of the door like Cheech and Chong’s magic bus. Ms. Flowers smoked like a freight train, and that was worrisome. I suspect she was also a sad soul, but a good one – one that used a lot of humor to cope.
I wanted to be a writer since the time I could hold a crayon. I’ve been using written words to soothe myself in this format or that, as long as I remember. And while other teachers had recognized my talent, Ms. Flowers saw me. She. Saw. ME.
“I need you on the Viking Venture,” she said to me in 10th grade, referring to the school newspaper. Out of the clear blue, just like that. She needs me. So, I wrote for the paper. My beat for a while was Girl’s Golf news. Now, I cannot tell you how badly I did NOT want to write about the Girls Golf Club. “I don’t know anything about golf, ” I told her.
“You will after today!” she chirped.
Now, sports and I don’t mesh. Having had a connective tissue disorder that had not been diagnosed yet. I dislocated joints, rolled my ankles, and injured pretty much everything all through high school. As Ms. Flowers was my very favorite teacher, PE teachers were my arch-nemesis. They hate that I had to “sit out” many things. They’d roll their eyes and accuse me of trying to get out of the class. Miss Ma’am, maybe I would participate in PE more if I wasn’t subluxing/dislocating. Can you not see that my knee is facing sideways? Ugh.
But we are talking about Ms. Flowers here, who I still adored, even after she gave me Girl’s Golf. I was the worst sports reporter EVER because female athletes intimidated the bejeezus out of me, and I didn’t know the different between a golf club and a dang baseball bat, barely.
One day, in her Creative Writing class, she asked me to stay after school. OH NO! Being the nervous Nelly I was, I thought she was going to “fire” me. But no.
“Jana,” she said, holding the stack of stapled papers that I had turned in the day prior. “I’m going to see you on the Johnny Carson Show one day. This is terrific!”
“Does he even invite writers as guests?” I asked. “I don’t think he features writers.”
“He will YOU,” was her reply.
Now lest you think I’m boasting about my writing acumen, please know that I am debilitatingly bad at math. Science and English were my favorites, but I barely passed every single math class I ever (was made to) take. My 11th grade Algebra teacher found out I was not taking Algebra II, she said, “I’d reconsider. You will need it for college.” But what she didn’t know is I had no resources to go to college and wouldn’t be going, so PROBLEM SOLVED. Numbers vex me, friends. They vex me.
Ms. Flowers would use big, fancy words when she’d pay me a compliment. Like Pavlog’s dog, I itched for new assignments, because I knew when I turned them in, I would get a word-rich praise.
You write with elegance.
You’re so imaginative.
You’re a natural.
Your words make a difference.
I took every class Ms. Flowers offered, all four years. Creative writing was my favorite, but she taught a poetry class as well. She taught all the right-brained stuff, and so for a few years, I was her shadow – and she didn’t mind a bit.
There was so much chaos in my life then, and the only way I could cope was to write to process angst and ALLTHEFEELS. She saw I was a ball of anxiety, and she encouraged me to do what came naturally – write. It wasn’t a struggle to write. It had a flow, always. It was my saving grace.
I think maybe because she was a ball of anxiety most of the time, too. I would see peeks of it all the time. Kindred spirits. We knew she was going through a divorce and single motherhood. I’m sure she was going through even more than that.
I never did get invited to the Johnny Carson Show. Or any other show, for that matter. And the (sad?) truth is that I’ve never made a dime at writing. So maybe she poured it on a little thick?
I love her for that, too.
But the notion that she believed in me to that degree? Priceless. A great teacher can change lives, and I’m so grateful she saw in me what I had difficulty seeing in myself.
Several years after I graduated, I heard through the grapevine that Ms. Flowers had passed away – lung cancer. I was not surprised, but I was terribly sad. Did I ever tell her the difference she made in the life of an awkward, insecure kid? I wish I had. I pray she knows now.
Ms. Flowers, if you’re listening…
Nobody presented the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and the poetry of Robert Frost with more elegance.
You gave us permission be imaginative, and a safe place to experiment with words.
You were a NATURAL as a teacher. Your own love of learning was infectious.
And you were interested in what we – a gaggle of unhinged teenagers – thought about prose, and our own potential to create it. More importantly, you took the time to find out how we felt about other things – school news, political happenings, our lives at home.
I hope you and Geoffrey Chauser are hanging out with Kurt Vonnegut and William Shakespeare, exchanging those glorious words you loved so. And I hope you’re relaxing in that big Teacher’s Lounge in the sky.
I hope you’re being lauded as one of the greats as well. Thank you for seeing me.
Photo by Jou00e3o Vu00edtor Heinrichs on Pexels.com
By: JANA GREENE
I believe we will all share a Christ-consciousness. I believe that we are all sharing communal birthing pains – periods of big intensity, followed by what could be misconstrued as God’s silence and withholding, if you didn’t know better.
We are all in spiritual labor, that’s why it’s so hard, I think.
I believe the same God who expands the universe and paints the cosmos envelops us in Love and one day – when we are past the bullshittery of politics, fighting amongst ourselves, dealing with pain in our Earth Suits and in our hearts – there is only goodness and mercy waiting for us.
For us ALL.
When the husk of physical being falls away, only universal love and acceptance remain. We can do nothing to enable it, and nothing to suppress it. It’s our birthright. It’s the ultimate reality.
So be encouraged, dear one. Lift your chin. Leave space in your expectations for good things.
Leave space in your ego to accept those good things humbly.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives, spilling over and splashing other humans who are lost in the dark.
Here, take my hand, and we will get through this intensity together, one itty-bitty step at a time.
Let us strive to have a dry-run here and now. Let us learn how to love and accept here and now.
You can say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. ❤️
How often do I feel like I’m spiritually “getting things right”? About as often as we see an eclipse. So let’s not lean on on our “understanding” of God and lean instead into Love (which is really just another name God goes by.) And yes, this is my lame attempt at photographing the eclipse.
By: JANA GREENE
If it’s God’s will, it will come easily. That’s how you know you’re operating in the Spirit. Things will click. Things will flow. His yoke is light, etc and so on.
But also, if you are in God’s will, it will be hard.
You’ll know you have holy favor when you’re downtrodden and at the end of your rope. That’s the ol’ devil, don’t you know. And he wouldn’t mess with you if you weren’t doing God’s work.
Well, which is it? Do you see the conundrum?
This is life, and it’s both and neither. It is, so far as I can tell, it’s ALLTHETHINGS, dammit.
I can’t trust a God whose mind I have to pick apart to get it “right.”
I don’t tell my adult children, “Okay, I’m feeling some type of way about you…but WHICH way? Let’s see if you can correctly guess based on interpretation of an ancient text and my jealous, vengeful nature. May the odds be ever in your favor!”
I learn alongside my children, you see. For everything I learn about them, they learn about me. And in the process, and I feel like we are all learning alongside God, with curiosity and wonder and grieving and suffering.
It will be easy, there will be times of flow.
It will be brutally difficult.
It’s all holy favor, you see, and that’s the confounding part.
God only feels ONE type of way about you.
We need not wring our hands in an attempt to earn love, because that’s the way we have been taught to please a world of broken people and an unpleasable diety.
In actuality, the odds are always, always in your favor, Beloved. Even (especially?) when you’re most hurt, downtrodden, and at the end of your rope.
Whether you invite God to a celebration of the soul or an old-fashioned pity party, just invite him. The Spirit shows up for both.
Words by Jana Greene 