Kicked By The Goat Shidu

 Kicked By The Goat Shidu

I went to a local farm yesterday in Trenton, SC, investigating intentional communities.  We paid for a brief tour and enjoyed it tremendously.  I’ve always wanted a farm, and have had a small one in the past when I was home schooling my son.  On the small farm I had we raised chickens, goats, ducks, with a half an acre vegetable garden where I grew corn, squash, tomatoes, and beans, and there was also a large pond for fishing.

Looking back on our lives, as we are prone to do, that time on the farm was in many ways idyllic.  I was with my son all day, every day, and it was a time that was the inspiration behind the book Kicking The Goat Silly and if you read the book you know there were some dark times, but overall I miss the farm and I really miss my son.

Yesterday, part of our tour included feeding the animals on the farm.  The horses were beautiful, but since they are bigger than me I didn’t step into their pasture, the sheep were sweet, and of course, I loved the ducks and chickens, but the goats got to me.  I learned how to milk a goat, which is something I was happy and grateful to experience, but the large male goat, with the huge horns, awoke something inside of me.  I’ve heard the term olfactory memory since my friend, a psychology major, introduced me to it about thirty years ago, and I’ve experienced many over the years, scents reminding of elementary school or my grandparents kitchen, but that damned goat opened a door of memories that left me crying for hours.

I suppose I haven’t really smelled a goat or a true barnyard since our lives changes and my son and I moved off the farm.  He was ripe into adolescence and the often-accompanying rebellion when we moved, and I suppose that time on the farm was the last calm place before he died a few years later. 

When I saw the goat, a large Nubian-mix goat, very reminiscent of my own goat, Silly, I wanted to go to the pen immediately.  The lady giving the tour took me through the maze of gates and into the pen.  As I scratched between his horns, smelling the musky odor, I was transported to a different time.  I remembered trying to wash the musky scent out of my son’s clothes as he often played with and wrestled with our goats, growing stronger after many brain surgeries and infections, and I could never quite get the smell out of his clothes, or the cloth-covered chairs where he’d sit to play video games.  The musky smelling furniture, the clothes, and my son are all long gone, but for just a moment, with the scent, it was as though time had reversed and I was there again. 

I didn’t wash my hands for a long time, and I am an avid hand washer, because I didn’t want to lose the scent, the transformation through time, but life moves forward and those days are gone, and are never to be returned to unless I can find someone with a time machine.  Who knew a goat could trip your world up so desperately?  I should have known, but I was caught unaware as the scent on my clothes and hands kept reminding me of days long gone.

I lamented the fact that my son was dead, I cried over the fact that I tried to be smart and didn’t have more babies, I snuffled over the fact that I will never have grandchildren, and am soon looking into my fifties.  I worried over being alone with no kids stopping by and checking in or just calling to chat.  I wrapped myself in a quilt and cried like a baby.  I should have known the power of a goat, having written Kicking The Goat Silly, but I was caught helplessly unaware as I imagine a deer feels when the headlight shine on him.

Shidu is the word for the childless parent; thanks to a very good friend I now know this word, and I am totally grateful for discovering there are other folks struggling under the weight of being childless.  We are not like others who have never had a child, we had a child, but for one reason or another, we are now childless.  I miss my son, and wonder how he would be as a man as his 31^st birthday approaches. 

My brothers have children and grandchildren now, and I can’t help but wonder how my life would be different if my son had lived.  I was smart about the bearing children thing, I didn’t have another because I knew the weight of that rest solely on my shoulders, but now, looking back, I declare myself a fool.  I listened to the world and decided pets were a cautious attempt at living, and bearing more children made me weak.  Now, as I view my life going into my fifties with no children, and although I have some awesome nieces and nephews, I know I made a grave mistake.  I tried to be wise, and smart, and took my birth control pills, but life has shown me that I should have procreated. 

I try not to jealous of families, but I have to admit it hurts, the stupid goat reminded me of how it hurts, and I was pleased to see that people like me have a name, if not much recognition on Mother’s and Father’s Day.  A noble laureate, Mo Yan, has spoken out for a need to support Shidu parents, and coming from China, with their one child law it makes sense that there is a need for support.  I am just grateful that there is a name, because I have long lamented the rules in the Bible that widows and orphans should be taken care of, but we who tried, loved, and lost have no mention.

So here’s to the nameless goat I met yesterday, I thank him for reminding me, and I thank him for his gentle way and the musk on my skin.  Although olfactory memories can leave you crying like a baby, I am grateful for the heartbreaking memories, tears, and snuffling like a little kid, at least it’s a reminder that I’m still alive and that is a good thing.

Screaming In The Wind

 Screaming in the Wind

 I was having dinner on an outside patio at a restaurant yesterday as I was going over the new book with my editor, and as smokers are prone to do, I lighted a cigarette.  I wasn’t the only one on the patio smoking, but immediately the table next to us got up and moved seats, giving the harsh looks that non-smokers love to give those who are still smoking.  I noticed, as they settled at a table across the way, a long discussion with the server and a couple pointed fingers in my direction. 

The patio on which we were seated had a nice breeze coming through and was filled with shrubs, trees, and birds looking for scraps.  It was also only about a hundred feet away from the road with much idling traffic stopped by a red light as people were trying to get home as weekend was beginning.  Those people, though, weren’t concerned about the fumes from cars filling their lungs and nostrils, no, they were only worried about a little pipe tobacco stuffed into a paper tube. 

I don’t buy or smoke store bought cigarettes filled with chemicals and carpet glue that are now called “fire safe”.  I buy loose tobacco and roll my own, but even if I did buy prepackaged cigarettes, I feel sure that my little bit of smoke is not as harmful as fumes coming from hundreds of cars idling at a red light.  I am also sure a whiff of my smoke is not as harmful as allowing children to drink artificially flavored sodas and all the preservatives that go into restaurant food.  The only difference is how the media has declared smoking to be the most harmful thing, while ignoring that the caramel coloring and other additives in a soda are cancer causing. 

A recent article has declared that over 500,000 people a year die from psychiatric drugs, and in a day when one in five children are on such drugs, whyare we still worried that a little smoke from a cigarette will send them to their deathbeds?  Maybe it’s because the media and the news channels aren’t pushing the message day after day, and there are no PSAs declaring how dangerous those drugs are, and the reason there are not is because the pharmaceutical companies run the world.  Just watch your evening news, every commercial is about a new drug or at least that was the case when I last watched TV.

As much as the world declares that smoking is harmful, many, many studies show that it is not as harmful as the media wants you to believe.  Did you know that smokers rarely get Parkinson’s disease and they are less likely to get Alzheimer’s?  Did you know that irritable bowl, ulcerative colon, and even high blood pressure are less in those who smoke? 

In a world that doesn’t tell you the things in the vaccines, like mercury, aluminum, formaldehyde, animal cells, and aborted fetus cells, yet insists you put them in your blood stream; in a world that puts more chemicals than food in the things you put on your dinner table, and pays millions to advertise how healthy they are; in a world where arsenic is found in our chicken meat and water, but is declared healthy; in a world where pharmaceuticals and doctors kill more than guns and car wrecks per year - one must sit back and question. 

Did you know those who smoke have less breast cancer?  And have you noticed that as American’s quit smoking in the last decades the incidents of lung cancer have increased?  Did you know that in the countries with the highest numbers of smokers, like Greece and Japan, they have lowest rates of lung cancer?  I’m sure you haven’t noticed because your news channels haven’t told you.  Pancreatic cancer has increased with sales and advertising of diet sodas, and colon cancer has increased with most eating at fast food restaurants because they are too busy to cook natural foods at home.  

And being as cancer is the biggest money maker in this country, when the ACS pulls in billions, yes billions of dollars a year, and when doctors are being tried all over the country for treating people for cancer when there was no cancer, we have to sit back and question.  Can you imagine a cure for cancer?  Not in this world, because there are billions of dollars and this world is money hungry, not cure hungry.

Did you know asthma has increased since smoking has decreased?  Did you know they used to tell asthmatics to smoke?  Do you know many food flavorings can increase attacks? 

I grow tired of writing these types articles as everyone wants links so they can decry that the info provided isn’t “acceptable” information because it’s not coming from the forces that are hurting us and making the decisions for profit, and not health.  Truth is truth, though, and truth is hard found down here, and you’re not a popular person for declaring such hidden truths.  I suppose there are popular truths, which aren’t actually truths, and then there are the unpopular ones, which no one discusses for fear of offending someone, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t rooted in reality.

A recent study has declared that our attention spans, as humans, are now less than a goldfish.  With the introduction of our “smart” phones, our attention levels are less than a fish in a small bowl.  Now the studies all over the world telling how these phones cause brain cancer are ignored, mainly because our news media aren’t pounding them into our heads hourly, between the drug commercials, and with the PSAs of people suffering brain cancer. 

No, what we get pounded into our heads is that smoking kills, even though humans have been smoking and living next to fire since their beginning.  These food additives, gasoline powered motors, vaccines, and phones are new to us, but smoking we have done forever.  It simply doesn’t matter if I provide links, or the testimonies, I know I will change no one’s belief, so I will just leave a statement from one of my favorite fictional characters, Roland Deschain, from Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series …

“Smoking keeps the bugs away.”

Childless Mothers on Mother's Day

Childless Mothers on Mother's Day

I wish a happy Mother’s Day to every mother.  I wish a happy Mother’s Day to those who have lost their mothers.  I wish a happy Mother’s Day to those who never knew their mothers. 

And most especially, I wish a very Happy Mother’s Day to those who no longer have children to celebrate their motherhood. 

In the last few days I’ve been trying to write this article, this statement, this thing without a proper name that lurks inside me. 

There is a name for a woman or man without a spouse, they are called widows, which is a strange name, but yeah, that is what they are called.  There is a name for children without parents – those folks are orphans, and God be with the orphans of this world. 

What is the word for childless parents?  We once had children, but now we are a bit lost and we struggle.  In this world that has been at war since I was born, shouldn’t there be a name for us?

I am not the only childless mother on Mother’s Day.  What is the word for that?  Am I missing something? 

I lost my son in an accident, others lost their sons and daughters in wars or car wrecks or fires or sickness or disease or murder or addiction or any number of ways our children can die. 

What is our label?  We are not widows or orphans, which Jesus made clear we should pray for and help and I firmly believe we should, but now we are simply childless and there is no name for us.

Childless parents are a reality for many people on this brutal earth, wars have been raging since I first became aware of the television during the Vietnam War, then there was the Gulf War, and other wars, and I read 1984, and we’ve always been at war.

I am a childless mother on Mother’s Day, and I know I am not the only one. 

I am not asking for special favors, but studying history, and reading the Bible, and checking my etymology dictionary as often as I can, I can’t find our word and I’m pretty sure history dictates that we should have one – look in any cemetery, we’re not that rare.

I do feel sorrow over the people without their mothers, I am blessed to still have my own.  I also ache over those who never knew their birthplace or their roots; I can’t imagine the difficulty of attempting to find your place. 

I especially feel for mothers out there who are not going to get a phone call or flower or gift or dinner with their child on Mother’s Day, but may visit a cemetery. 

Crabs in a Bucket

 Crabs in a Bucket

I read something on the Internet the other day, it was a psychological study that mentioned many dos and many don’ts, and the thing that stood out to me is “never mention your goals”.  It seems by mentioning your goals aloud or by posting them in any number of social media or simply discussing your dreams at dinner with friends, it lessens the likelihood of your desires even seeing fruition.  I’ve known this about dieting since I was young; I never spoke of going on a diet.  Most of my secretive diets were successful, but once I told someone they would encourage me to cheat.  What is it about humankind that encourages someone to cheat?

A crab in the bucket is all I can say.  I remember my father talking about the phenomenon from when I was a child when we spent lots of time at the beach.  A crab will pull down any crab it sees escaping, and I suppose if I had lots of education I could clarify it in big words, but simply - no one wants to see the other escaping the bucket.  Any intuitive person can experience this simple part of humanity when viewing the educational system or the riots that are happening in the United States these days or a quick view of social media.

Maybe I am an odd one in that I hope and pray people will do better, that they will get the golden ring, and that they will meet their goals, but according to the study, going back into the 1940s, I am the rare one.  I honestly pray that friends and family, and sometimes odd strangers who decide to talk to me, will find what they are looking to achieve.  I would like to think that those who know my goals are praying and cheering my attempts, but the studies going back nearly seventy years say that I am a hopeless optimist.

The term hopeless optimist has never been a description ascribed to me.  I am swampy, green, a little dark, and always below the surface.  I have lamented surface dwellers as something I don’t quite understand, but even knowing that I wish the best for everyone and wish for their dreams and visions to come true.  So in this day of social media where people post their deepest thoughts, and their dreams, it disturbs me that folks aren’t encouraging, and aren’t pushing their friends, their follow crabs, out of the bucket.

I have goals, a new novel coming out, my husband’s new CD released, and I would only want the encouragement and prayers that we succeed with our endeavors, but this study, perhaps older than time, tells me I am still a babe in the woods in understanding a fundamental part of humanity. 

We want to overcome, we all want to do better, but maybe, just maybe, many want that without putting in the effort.  I suppose most humans are focused on themselves, their pains, losses, and condemnations, but how are we to grow without giving something of ourselves?  Without joining together to push that crab away and then beginning the struggle that is totally personal, how do we expect another to succeed when we’re holding them down?  How do we expect to succeed when we’re not giving the push to get the other over the rim?

So as I go squirrel up my chickens, and cut the grass in the yard that is far too long, I’d like to ask that even if you don’t admire your “friends” on social media, even if you are pissed off about your brother or sister or cousin or high school friends, please encourage them to be the best they can be and pray for their dreams.  You never know when there may be a hand reaching over the rim of that bucket helping you along.

Keep seeking and believing.