The Rivalry

The Iron Bowl - Alabama vs. Auburn is today. The whole state of Alabama is at a stand still or so the fans would like to think. When I lived in AL I use to do my Christmas shopping on this day because the stores were practically empty. Now that I live 3000 miles away I am glued to the TV to watch any time Alabama is playing. But, today I am off to a clothes swap some friends are hosting and the DVR is set to record the game for watching at a later hour. What kind of FEM would I be if I turned my back on a clothes swap for a football game, even this football game.

Upthight

When are we as a country, a people, going to realize that breast feeding a child is not something that should be hidden in bath rooms or under blankets? As a breast-feeding mom I was always, always interested in being as discreet as possible. I didn't want my breast exposed to the whole world, but I was feeding my child and sometimes a little something showed. Being kicked off a airplane for breast-feeding your kid is yet another example of how uptight backward we are in this country.

For me and for her

Writing so frankly about how I am feeling lately seems to have helped. Saying it out loud seems to be for me the first in a long line of steps to take control of this disease, depression, that seems to plague me. Don't ever ever believe anyone who says it is not a disease, this does not exist. Again, for those of you who don't know, I have a wonderful psychiatrist who has me well medicated. I thought this fact might put some minds at ease.

I am starting to talk about it. It feels like maybe the core to all this rests in how I see myself and how I think those outside myself see me. I really want to figure this out and change my perception, my personal reality.

I don't want Lucy to grow up ever thinking she is not good enough or not a valuable person. I want her to be strong and have a healthy sense of her worth in the world and to herself. I want to protect her from my own self loathing.

Several years ago before I really settled in a place of wanting to have kids I talked a lot to my therapist at the time about infecting my child with that which I had been infected. Passing on a legacy of sadness and anger, of boundaries being crossed that never should be, of feeling like personal private space is bad. I could go on and on. The crux of this is that my therapist said because I think so hard about this because it scares me so I will be vigilant to protect my child from it. She said I might not always succeed but I will certainly be better than those who raised me. I am not sure this is true but I like to think it is. I like to think that I am going to be able to raise a proud strong woman.

I hope I can figure this out for myself. Perhaps it will take me the
rest of my life to do it, but by god I intend to try, if not for myself
then for her.

Depression

As some or even most of you know I have battled mental illness most of my adult life. Like my cancer it seems to be hereditary. I find myself now, again, in what seems to be a downward cycle. It's different than the others I have experienced. Before I never saw it coming, this one I saw coming a mile away and did nothing to stop it. It seems I need to wallow for a while in my sadness, feel sorry for myself, be angry that all of this happened to me, to my family. The thing is I can function even though I am profoundly depressed. I get up every day, take care of my kid, get through the day without crawling in the back of the closet and hiding.

I am sure that Marnie saw this coming also. She always does, usually before I do. I wonder as I write this what she will think when she reads it. I have found myself in the last few weeks trying to reach out for help from her from girl friends, but each time I do we always get interrupted by something, or I just don't know what to say about it, or what to ask for.

I just feel so crappy about myself. I don't feel good enough, I never have. And no matter how many people love me and tell me how great they think I am I just never seem to believe them. This is all such a mystery to me.

Perhaps writing about this so publicly is one of the first steps to dragging myself out of this dark place that seems to be consuming me.

Folk Art

I really enjoy outsider/folk art. Growing up in Alabama I had the honor of being exposed to, what I think and many other think, are some of the best folk artists of our time. People like Mose Tolliver and Howard Finster. My brother and I had the honor many years and what seems like a life time ago to participate in a juried arts festival with these 2 men and several other well known folk artists.

Mose Tolliver (he signed his painting moset) died last Monday at 80ish. My mother many years ago and very generously gave me one of his painting. A cross, crucifix really, with birds kind of like this one.

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I also remember that back when my brother was a photo journalist he spent a day with Mose at his home outside of Montgomery Alabama. As I recall it took some doing but Richard got him to agree to be photographed for the day. There are some really great photos from that day. I remember one in particular of Mose sitting on his bed where he painted, his bedspread covered with paint. He used to use it to wipe his brushes off. He was needless to say quiet a character.

I also, in my own wisdom, years ago visited Howard Finster's Paradise Garden located in a little town in north Georgia. There I purchased a wine bottle he painted. His work has been featured on a Talking Heads album cover, REM shot a video there. He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to complete a pathway through his garden. When he was alive and in good health you could travel on Sunday mornings to a little house (he use to live in) just on the edge of his garden and hear him preach.

Both of these men were self taught artists. Both were motivated to make art even though they had no formal training. They, to me, are in a nut shell what makes the south such a interesting place to live. You could wander in and around there art, talk to them with out pretense or arrogance. They were accessible, even after they became "famous", even after folks from the big cities (like me) came in and wanted to buy and sell there work.

The works of folk art I own are by far my favorite things. They connect me to my roots and home unlike anything else I posses. I see them hanging on our walls and sitting on our furniture and I know I am in my house. I see them and I see the south, the south I love and romanticize, not the one that oppresses me and my family.