Painting Again: Back in a Few Days

I dreamed me another painting, and I did in the midst of working on a new, pretty long and intense blog post. Unfortunately--or fortunately--the painting is calling more loudly just now than the blog post. I need to work on it while it is fresh and alive in my mind.

I think of this as good news.  The blog post is about my longest hospital stay, from late March of 1982 to the second week of May. I went in when the world was brown, and came out when the world was at its height of Monet Spring... after rain, as the sun broke through. I walked into all that bright, started to tremble and began to sob. My father held me as I tried to absorb the cacophony of color. There were about six down pillows in the back seat so that I would be able to be reasonably comfortable for the two hour ride home. I had 37 staples in my back, as well as a raw scar from the left side of my stomach just above the hip around my side and just reaching the left side of my back, the deepest incision capable in the body, they said. And I wore a body cast as well. I had nearly died four times during the stay, and had endured three spinal operations and ten days in a striker bed.

It was a stay that changed my life. And the grayness, the sterility, the metallic harshness of those seven weeks made walking into light nearly unbearable.

So I dreamed me another painting of too much bright, of flowers that seemed to explode their beauty in my brain with such an intensity that I thought my heart would cry.

The story will appear when it is done.

****

In the meantime, I am including a few more blogs I follow. This may be a mish-mash of old and new, but that's fine. And, as was the case last week, some of the blogs I've found have been stumbled into because they are followers of shared blogs. Small world in here, but that is comforting to me. Bear in mind that my ordering of the blogs I show is nearly random. I will always try to highlight at least one blog that is newer to me in with older favorites.

Here goes:

Artistic Balance - Carl may have been my second follower. His was one of the very first blogs I found in here. I fell in love with his photography from the get go, as well as his spirit and his love of his family. OH, hush, Carl. His painting's none to shabby either! I'm a particular fan of any shot he takes that involves running water, but the flower on his page this week IS spectacular.

Numinosity - Kim is one of those people who has traveled to other countries, and has a way with describing those travels. She is also an artisan who works with found objects and creates just beautiful jewelry and more. Her site is about more than her work. If you go back a few months, I believe you will find an entry that shows you just how varied and rich her life has been. I'm prejudiced. Her big sister was one of my best friends in high school.

Lines and Shade - Aparna is in India. Photography and poetry (or prose poetry, if you prefer). Aparna's work is just lovely. I think so at least. She says that sometimes she makes no sense. I don't care--and I am not at all sure that I agree with her. I hope you find that your breathing slows in a GOOD way, as I do.

In Search of White Space - Well. Erin. I'm at a loss as to what to say about Erin. Her poetry hurts my heart more often than I know how to say. Sometimes the beauty simply makes me smile. Or tear up. Then, too, she has been known to make me laugh outright. She is a poet. Many of you already follow her; I know this because it's how I found you! Enjoy.

And finally,
ein klage-himmel - James Owen is a photographer. His single photograph posts with some short line or two below amount to poetry to me. I have not been following him long, but I love his work and hope you will, too.

Please note that there are plenty of other "old favorites" of mine that are not here. I'll save them for another time--Jo, Donna, Dave, and Brian, to name four. And a quick note--I believe that I follow every person who comments, and exploring blogs has led to finding others, as each of you already knows.

I shall return when I have finished writing my entry and have enough of my painting done that I'm confident the image in my mind will not fade.

Happy Sunday one and all. I just came up from the studio and am covered in spring green, pink and purple paint. Just like a kid, right down to a spot of purple on my nose. HOPELESS.

Word Verification: Apology, but reinstituted for Now

Ten anonymous spam, some of which was obscene in my email today. One or two were tolerable; not ten. For whatever reason, spammers are reading old blogs and trying to send comments which, though they do not show up on the blog comments themselves, show up in my Inbox. And whether or not I do not open them, I do not trust that information is not being mined even more because of them.

So, I hate two word verification myself, but it will not keep me from reading your blogs. I had complained about the system before because of my eyes, but now I realized what it keeps from my mailbox.  I'll be more patient with my old eyes and with the system.

Anyway, I hope it will not drive you away from mine.  Sorry guys. I will try again in a couple of months. Perhaps there will be updates in blogger.

A Feminist Child: Were You?

I have been wondering, ever since I read Tess Kincaid's Blog about  Anne Bradstreet's poetry on February 18th, how many of my fellow woman bloggers were feminists long before you heard the word. Or perhaps some of you men were, as well. Perhaps some of you wondered why on earth girls you knew as buddies outside of school had to wear dresses and play jump rope in school.

How many were labeled "Tomboys" but the name didn't set right? How many of you balked at the differences you were told to respect?

My dad said it went back to my birth. "You came out the chute going, 'Oh, Yeah?' and you've been saying it ever since." He was so refined, my dad.

I do know that ever since I can remember I felt as if I never got it "right." I did not know how to be a girl "right." That's a sad thing to feel, but as I look back, it stood me in good stead, except in my love life. And, well, my love life was one confusing fiasco after another--but it was never boring!

My Blasphemous Youth--We're talkin' REALLY "Youth"
When I was told "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son," my first question was why wasn't it a girl? My Sunday school teacher had no answer and was annoyed. My  minister talked about how long ago baby girls were killed at birth because people valued sons. And then I learned, that this still happened in the world, even in the 1950s! And it was a shocking revelation.

I had overheard my  mother and father over breakfast. As was my custom, even when I was school aged, I would wake up when Daddy changed from hot water to cold in his shower. After I heard him go downstairs, I would follow with some book and curl up on the end of the couch closest to the kitchen.  Mom and Dad discouraged me from joining them because this was the time they had together without everyone around. What they didn't understand was that this was my time to be near them without everyone else around, too. So form me, the compromise was to be very still, and read on the couch.  They knew I was there, but a)they often forgot that I was right there,and b) they would forget that I listened to their conversations. And that day, I heard them discussing some country that killed unnecessary girls. Unnecessary girls?

I was already on overload of school admonitions that "boys will be boys," and "Really, Jeannette, can't you play with the girls just once?" and "Well of COURSE your dress is dirty when you insist on playing kickball instead of jumping rope like a good girl!"  I was already fed up with having the teacher calling on Walter first, even when I raised my hand first. It seemed as if the boys always got to do the really cool things first. I hated it. And I had already decided, in all humility, that every girlfriend I had and I were smarter than the smartest of the boys. Unnecessary girls?

This put me over the top. I leaped up and bolted into the kitchen, knocking inot mom's chair as I rounded the table corner to stand between them. I could feel the heat of my face. "I bet God had tried to give begotten daughters a few times, but people were so mean and stupid they drowned the babies at birth! God just gave up and tried a son, so maybe someone would listen. NO ONE listens to GIRLS!" I pounded the table and knocked over Dad's creamer, which he caught in an unusual demonstration of manual agility. He was nonetheless stunned silent.

Mom reached over and stroked my tear-heated face.  She did not correct me though. Instead, all she did was open her shining blue eyes wider, smile a little sadly and say, "Honey, I never thought of that. I wonder how many people have thought of that." She barely brushed a strand of hair wandering across face, using one finger. I could feel my lower jaw trembling as I tried to unclench it.

"Dear, you just be Jetty. We understand that you don't like girls' games. We know you hate dresses and that you don't understand why boys seem to get all the fun. You are a tomboy."

I was only seven at most, so that word only made me vaguely  uneasy. Eventually, however ...

I was not an Anything-BOY!
After a few more years of being called a Tomboy and being told that most everything I did for fun was wrong, I Snapped one day. "I'm not Tom. I'm not a boy. I'm a girl but I don't LIKE doing all those things everyone tells me I'm supposed to like. I DON'T! WHY isn't that OKAY?  I just like what they do better. BUT. I. AM. A. GIRL!"

Daddy said, "Okie doke, Snigglefritz."

Mom smiled.

They never called me that again. Breakfasts with me around must have been such a relaxing treat.

I have no doubt at all that there are many women over fifty who resented being told we must wear dresses and do girl things when we were at school. Or under fifty, for that matter. I know that the word "tomboy" is still used, though there are not the gender restrictions on clothing or on what girls choose to do on the playground.

What we did have that are a thing of the past were handwritten comments on every single quarter of our report card. And while sometimes teachers did write nice things about my grades, there were, every single year of my childhood, the following comments:

• Jeannette pays far too much attention to the boys at recess.
• Jeannette seems to have trouble accepting her role as a girl. (REALLY. This was in third grade)
• Jeannette spends too much time with just one other girl, alone and removed from her fellow classmates.
• Jeannette is too bossy.
• Jeannette tries to answer too many questions, without waiting her turn to be called on.
• Jeannette does not participate appropriately in class.
• Jeannette needs to remember she is a girl and that kick ball is not an entirely appropriate recess activity for her at school, as she wears dresses and can get a little rough! (That was first grade)

Dreams Dashed
I believe I have mentioned some of this before, but it fits in nicely into the discussion. Y.A. Tittle, a quarterback for the New York Giants, was one of my heroes. I'd found some black and white picture of him and put it on the wall above my sister's and my desk. By third grade she was off to college, so she didn't care what I put up. I also had a picture of Sam Huff, who was with the Giants first.  He was a star.

The guys likened me to him when we played touch or flag football, and called me the blitzkrieg. Jerry Griffin, the fastest of our gang of twelve, used to smirk at me when he would run away to try to pass to one of his brothers. He said I was like a bulldog because I would doggedly go after him. I was not fast, but I did not give up, and I was agile, so a change of direction did not stop me. So when they said I was like Sam Huff, I thought it was a compliment.

A girl I knew said it was because I was chunky and that hurt me, and I thought maybe I was all wrong. When I told Jerry, five years my senior, he looked upset and he pat me on the head and said, "No, Jet. It's because you are a really good player, and you get in the way of every play I try to make. You're a little blitzkrieg. Don't listen to them."

By fifth grade, however, my mother put an end to my play and my career dreams all in five minutes.  She had been watching us play and noticed that the boys' "Touch" had a little too lingering a quality, she said. She told me that life was hard, but sometimes a girl really could NOT play some games with the boys, and that I was too old to play football with them. I knew what she meant, but I was mad anyway, and would not talk any more about it.

Then I blurted somewhat desperately, "But if I'm going to be a linebacker, I gotta take it, Mom."

She simply looked at me. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah. I'm going to be like Sam Huff."

"Oh, honey. Oh. No, you can't do that. You--"

I burst into tears. I remember the day so clearly. I leaped out of the kitchen chair so hard, the chair flew backwards into the sink. I could not look up and simply focused on picking up that chair. "Right. GIRLS DON'T PLAY FOOTBALL. Right. Okay. Right. I can't be a major league football player. Right. Okay."

I think my mother was as heartbroken as I was. She did not laugh at me. She stood there, as did I, sort of limp, just looking at one another.  We never spoke of it again and I never played football again.

It was when I really began to notice how unfair it was in our culture to be a girl, and the resentment set in: Thanksgivings of being stuck polishing silver while the boys watched t.v. with dad; the hatred of Easter dresses, hats, white gloves; the fact that Daddy didn't want Mom to work, even though she wanted to; the way it was considered such a big deal when I beat Walter doing the number facts, talking about a girl beating the boy, almost as if I were a freak. Dozens of things, blatant and subtle.

I did not resent the boys for it; I did resent my teachers. Oddly enough, I didn't hide it very well. I'm sure you all find that hard to believe...

Yet I do wonder why my sister never minded any of it. One day when I was perhaps thirteen, I pointed out to her that Jim was given a later curfew than she had been, and she simply shrugged and said it was because she was a girl. I believe I made a rather rude sound, accompanied by swearing.

She laughed, shook her head at me and said, "The difference between us is that I never met a rule I did not follow and you never met a rule you were not tempted to break."

"ONLY when it's a STUPID rule," I snapped.

Imagine how delightful I was when the dating years began a couple of years later!

That's for another day...

***  Wonderings ***
I do wonder whether others of you were acutely aware of gender expectations as kids? I'm not looking for an equal rights diatribe. I guess I can't help but wonder why it bothered me so, as it bothered others of my girlfriends. We girls in my elementary school, wound up filling half of the top twenty spots in our class of over six hundred in high school. (Our town had four or five elementary schools.) No one spoke of women's rights, but we did hear about civil rights a great deal. My mother helped organize a sympathy march in our town, since most of the moms could not attend any Civil Rights march in Washington. But my rebellion began young.

I don't believe I was that special in noticing these things. I just don't. And if any of you have stories of your own confusion about these things, I would love to read them. I know that guys found me, well, odd, to say the least. Off-putting is putting it kindly. As I said, that's for another day, perhaps. It's the childhood memories that I wonder about--whether other boys and girls found it as confusing and, well, wrong as I did in those days before the Movement.

That's all for today.

I lied. I'm finding the comments really interesting--as interesting as the blogs of the commenters are! It feels like an actual discussion, even though I have an outdated format. Anyway, I DO love it when people comment about their--your--own histories and feelings. Sometimes a post is just as much, to me, about the readers' experiences as mine. Okay, NOW that's all for today. Happy March.

Friday Blogs--Promoting other Sites

 Friday is not usually a day that I post. I have enjoyed either seeing or writing on other people's sites when they are meeting challenges for poetry or "55 word Stories," or simply asking people their opinions.  Since people are so kind to me without exception, one thing I hope to start doing on weekends will be to refer folks to other blogs for whatever reason strikes me. It seems sort of like a courtesy I can extend to bloggers I follow as well as those who follow me. And if sometimes I do it on a different day, well, that's me I'm afraid.

Some are artists/artisans. Some are poets or writers of other sorts. Some are photographers and/or painters. I read their blogs for all sorts of reasons, so it is an ecclectic bunch. But, then, a committee of wackos inhabits my brain, so why wouldn't my collection reflect that?

Because today(Friday) is busy for me, I'm simply going to cite two.
1. I have just had fun doing this exercise over on One Minnesota Writers' Blog. She Calls it "First Five Fragments for Friday." I don't know why in particular this struck me--perhaps because it was light, and so much of what we see on tv and read in the papers is anything BUT.

2. And as fort Pearl, Why You Little ...? I don't know what to say except that she just often makes me guffaw. Clearly she does this for her million plus followers, but I don't care. I had to list her.

That's all for today, most likely. I had a re-run of unremitting pain for about twenty-four hours. Laughter got me through, and launched me for today.  I know I follow many other bloggers I find funny, but for now? For now, I'll just stick with these two, one because her entry today gave me something simple to do for myself, the other because most days, I am assured a laugh or six.

And I'm not looking for comments-- I simply hope to find ways to group every one of the bloggers I follow and/or who follow me, to promote the tremendous talent and kindness I run into every day I am at my computer. It will take me a while, but giving back should be part of blogging ... at least for me. It is not likely that I will promote more than three in any one day. I simply feel that each of the blogs I follow has something that hits me--sometimes witty, sometimes funny, or profound, or touching, or beautiful. Or it just satisfied some quirk of mine. These two did it for me today.

Have a wonderful weekend. My niece, a freshman in college, is coming to get away from it all for tomorrow and Sunday. My focus will be, naturally, on her.

Two Others on Saturday--Then I'm Done (Gotta Get My Niece)
I talk about my having the chance to view other lives, and to meet kind people.
1.) Sometimes she is quirky and entirely nuts--qualities you know I enjoy. Sometimes her pictures simply give me peace, as can the life she writes about. Kerry's Farmlass is the blog.  Her life is very different from mine, yet there are points of overlap. I simply like her. She makes her living through photography, painting, and felt work. I have to promote people who take the plunge to pursue their art to make a living. I just have to!

2.) Finally, Sian. Life on a Small Island is simply about that. She lives on one of the Orkney Islands and her photographs and stories of her life hit a place way inside. She soothes my soul. Period.

Now I really WILL stop with the blog promotion for the week. I'm picking up my niece at noon and we are having art time together. She has a special big white shirt that was my dad's that she loses herself in. Already she has found that she can forget all about it with painting and being dopey with her aunt for a day. You can well imagine how easily I can lose myself with her, too. I can never lose when she is here overnight.

Have a wonderful weekend.