The Truth, As I See It

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Aug

made some new friends on the twitter playground today & you can, too

some days the galaxy conspires with me.

either that, or i’m so self-absorbed i see whatever i’m looking for.

whichever way it is, i’ll enjoy it, appreciate it, and tell you about it . . .

to sneak up on the day, i opened the book An Altar in the World by Barbara Brown Taylor who captured my attention and affection with just the title of her first book, Leaving Church. anyway, the book fell open to page xvii where barbara writes about being asked to go speak to a church in alabama. when she asked the priest what he wanted her to preach about, he said “come tell us what is saving your life now.” well, that must’ve ignited something cause when i sat down to write in my journal about 30 minutes later, i pitched a written hissy fit. a good, old-fashioned out-and-out hissy fit. then i tweeted about it, and wound up twalking to some gals i’ve either never twalked to before or don’t get to talk to that much. @happinessinside twasked what my plans were for the day, and when i told her i did have plans for the day, but i just didn’t know what they were, she asked if i was perhaps on the cusp of writing my story today. which tells me she was lurking closeby.

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@efloraross, asked if i felt better to which i said that starting the day off with a hissy fit gives a whole new meaning to the term morning constitutional. then later i gave her advce on dressing for preschool interviews:

@efloraross: Taking DD to tour another preschool today. Guess I’d better brush my teeth and put on some makeup, huh?

@whollyjeanne: for preschool: yes. for high school: no.

@efloraross: A bra would probably be in order, too.

@whollyjeanne: ditto for what i said about makeup.

she’ll no doubt be consulting me daily about what to wear.

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@mrsmediocrity said she has volumes filled with her hissy fits. (she’s usually much pithier, but she had trouble waking up this morning.)

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@nicholebernier said: “Venting 301. The FDA recommends it.” now i want you to click on and visit her web site. go ahead. i’ll wait. did you see that she’s working on a book about a woman who leaves behind a diary? well, naturally, i couldn’t let that slip by, so i asked her if elizabeth d ever had hissy fits in her journals to which she replied: “There’s nothing good about a journal unless you can pitch a few fits & tell where the bodies are buried. Probably early 2012.” (you’ll note that she didn’t answer my question about elizabeth d recording her hissy fits, but in answer to my question about when her book would be out, she did tell me that i’m gonna’ have to wait over a year on her book. which is okay cause i’m sure it’ll be worth the wait. i mean go back and read about it. and look at those pictures while you’re there.

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@abccreativity told me: “i love starting my days like that! those hissy fits sparked big life changes for me.” and that got me remembering a tweet from my friend @angelakelsey the other day when i showed a picture of my still-new zafu made of brocade with dragons spitting fire and said i got it on account of wanting to sit on my dragons. “@wholllyjeanne,” she said, “the best part about dragons is the fire.” then she said, “write, speak, paint, photograph, quilt, sing the fire.”

now that made good sense then, and it made good sense to remember it today cause we all know that throwing a hissy fit is a lot like exhaling fire.

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before long, i spied a tweet from @Wendy_Tokunaga mentioning a new lit review called The Sharp-Tongued Woman’s Review, and since i seem well on my way to becoming a class-a sharp-tongued woman, i visited the site and helped spread the word a bit cause i sure liked what i found there. (you oughta’ take about 5 minutes and read meg’s schneewittchen.)

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the morning was capped off with a tweet from @elizabeth_stark with a link here. i once again copied my friend @angelakelsey and took down the sticky note on my computer saying “comma” and replaced it with one saying “write like a mf.” which is what i really want to do anyway, you know.

Category: flapdoodle, my inner smartass, my life depends on this, planet jeanne, postcards, the truth, as i see it, the world is my mirror, togetherness
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Jun

today’s s’es

wholly jeanne

“i just feel so sorry for her.” those words just chap my butt – they really do – and i just now figured out why: feeling sorry for or pitying somebody holds them back. “i just feel so sorry for her” = “bless her heart. she just can’t do any better.”

now bring on empathy, and we’ve got ourselves a different ball of wax. empathy is a way of saying “i feel your pain” or “i know, sugar, i’ve been right there myself.” empathy supports. empathy props somebody up till they can push themselves off the couch and get on with it. pity stops em cold and mashes them down.

okay, now that we’ve got that cleared up, let’s move on to giving and receiving . . .

if you’re like me, you’d rather have a root canal without anesthesia than ask for help. but you know, i’ve been rubik-cubing this around, and i’m sensing that while helping others can sure enough be a gift, asking for and accepting help can be a sure-enough gift, too. sometimes, it seems, the gift is in the taking, in the allowing others to experience the satisfaction and all the other fringe benefits of helping someone else.

short, sweet, and sassy, succulent and succinct are my little lightbulbs – my s’es – du jour.

Category: essential, fine lines, on the grow again, ruminations, the truth, as i see it
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Jun

vestiges die hard

wholly jeanne

when you wrestle with a pig, you both get dirty and the pig likes it.

she’s just jealous.

turn the other cheek.

play nice.

be good.

behave.

rise above.

i’ve dealt with enough bullies in my lifetime to be absolutely certain that there is no one single right way to deal with a bully. there are bullies who will push you into a wall, backing down only when you stand straighter than ever before, look them square in the eye, and say “enough.” there are bullies who will back off only when you scream and shine a light on them for all to see. there are bullies who will wrestle you to the ground, twisting your extremities into unnatural and painful positions and holding you there until you cry “uncle, already.” there are bullies who never get tired and never run out of tactics. there are bullies who will never backdown. ever.

when it comes to guidelines for conduct becoming a female when dealing with bullies, i’ve heard it all. most of them sound real pretty – noble even. but my best how-to-deal-with-a-bully advice came from a kenny rogers song about playing poker: you’ve gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.

i dealt with a bully last week. a man who’s old enough to know how to behave himself. a man who has enough letters before his name indicating rank that’s impressive enough to make me think he was out the day they taught the Army Core Value of respect. all that talk of wrestling with pigs and turning the other cheek and rising above flew right out the window as i dealt with this guy in what sure felt like my native language. i wasn’t rude, wasn’t aggressive, didn’t bully him, but i didn’t let him wipe his feet on me, either.

and it was exhilarating. it felt good.

afterwards, two men who overheard the conversation commented on how i’d conducted myself with “civility, discipline, and showed great restraint.” those were conversations i played in my head the rest of the day – to the point that i felt silly that i even remembered it, let alone put that one 15 minute period on such a lofty marble, diamond-encrusted pedestal. why did it feel so good? why were these 2 incidents of validation so incredibly important to me?

[insert lightbulb]

years ago, as a teenager still learning how to navigate my way through life with non-related others, i was in an abusive relationship. every minute of every day was a huge eraser as i made myself invisible to others because for something as simple as talking to another person in the hallway between classes, there was hell to pay. the confident, carefrree, kickass girl i had been up to that point had to go.

it was the ultimate ambush makeover, and vestiges die hard.

so last week when the bully started into me with his condescending tone and his berating, belittling words, my spirit said “never again a doormat” and balanced all those admonitions about pig wrestling with what i learned – what i still carry: visceral memories of from that one abusive relationship.

when the bully on the phone interrupted me, i called him on it, then finished my sentence. when he smartassed me, i asked him to choose different words and use a different tone. when he asked, “are you finished?”, i answered “for now.” and i did it from my core so there was no hysteria (even though he resorted to the dominating eraser phrase “calm down” more than once.) i never raised my voice, i never cried, i never wrung my hands. though i had never spoken with this man before and had no idea what he was like, i intuitively stood up at the beginning of the phone call when he uttered his first words.

one thing that abusive relationship taught me is keen sensitivity as a means of self-defense and survival.

though it seemed endless, the phone call actually lasted only about 15 minutes, and when i hung up, i smiled. big.

okay, self, i said later that day, i get why you feel such a rush having dealt so efficiently and effectively with this man. but why do you continue to shamelessly replay the comments from the two men who were impressed enough with the way you handled conducted yourself on this phone call to say something?

[insert another lightbulb right about here]

when i look back on that abusive relationship, i realize that he was one of the most congenial, affable, friendly guys you’d ever want to meet . . . publicly. but in reality, that friendly, affable persona was methodical, designed to make me a liar before i even thought about talking to anybody. with his public image of mr. congeniality, he made quite sure that nobody would ever believe anything i said about the way he behaved privately.

but last week, two men whose opinions i happen to value saw this man through my eyes. with no convincing from me and without hearing his side of the conversation, they recognized him as a bully – their positive remarks about my side of the conversation proved it. they didn’t dismiss me or erase me, they validated me.

with their words of support and validation, i’ve turned a page in my life story. it’s big, i tell you: big. that validation is so big, it’s all i can do to resist the urge to embroider their words on a pillowcase marking the day i was a pencil with no eraser.

Category: 21.5.800, be, essential, grow, my native language, on the grow again, planet jeanne, ruminations, the truth, as i see it, togetherness
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May

SELECTING A NEW CARdiologist

wholly jeanne

when it’s time for a new car, i go through a grieving process because i love my cars - love them, i tell you. i drive my cars an average of 14 years, and log hundreds of thousands of miles on them. we have a relationship, my car and me. i take good care of my car, really good care. i keep her clean inside and out. i deal with only the finest mechanic - someone i was referred to by someone i love, someone who loves me back. my car gets her oil changed the first week of every quarter, regardless of what the little sticker says. i keep her in new shoes, new brakes, new batteries. i keep my car happy and she, in return, gets me and people i care about where we want to go and back. safely.

as much as i value my wheels, i find it odd that folks spend more time looking for a new car than they spend looking for a doctor . . .

when my husband’s blood pressure spiked for no apparent reason, we headed to the primary care office because the insurance company says we don’t know a thing about shopping for a cardiologist, and we might choose one that, given our particular policy, is out of our price range. we made an appointment, arrived 15 minutes before the appointed hour on the appointed day, then waited 45 minutes beyond the agreed-upon time to get some face time with the primary care doc. (not necessarily eye contact, mind you, but we do catch a glimpse of his face.)

in the precious 10 minutes allotted us, we asked for the name of a good cardiologist because obviously hubby’s heart’s gone wonky, and we didn’t study the heart in this context, in the classes we took, or in the lives we’ve led.

“give us a name,” we asked, ”tell us who can help us.”

primary care filled out the paperwork and gave it to his “scheduling girl” without telling us the name or phone number of the person who will be calling us. we didn’t even talk about what criteria he used to decide that this one particular person is The One We Should See. does he beat you at tennis once a week, primary care? did she graduate at the top of her class? do you belong to the same church or investment club? or does this person you’re sending us to pay the highest referral fee?

we want the name of the person you’d send your mother or your dad or your wife or yourself to see.

a week goes by, and we’ve heard nothing, so we call the primary care office and we’re told oh, they’ve been trying to call, but well, they’re just so busy, you know. when i point out that is the very last thing we want to hear, they are dumbfounded. (yes, i did take the time to explain.) hours later, we are informed that we have an appointment with somebody 2 weeks from now. oh – and by the way, it’s an hour away. nobody ever asked us if that would be a good day and time for us, if we’re even going to be in town, if we’re willing to drive. our time is obviously not valuable. our health and peace of mind of no concern.

primary care dude and crew, here’s the thing that’s overlooked far too often to suit me: we are your customer.

that’s right: i said CUSTOMER. i know you prefer the word ”patient” because it’s familiar, and there’s something so elevated about it. ”customer” is so common, and there’s not the embedded hierarchy as in the word ”patient.”

well, we’ll take it from here, thank you very much. we’ll find our own cardiologist. we’ll ask family members who they would suggest we see. we’ll get a suggestion from knowledgeable people to whom we are more than a car payment.

we get permission from the insurance company, we make our own appointment, getting in more than a week earlier at a time that’s mutually convenient. yes, we’re still driving an hour, but it’s our decision. a choice we made.

we’ll see you soon, joe the cardiologist who studied the other workings of the heart. we’ll see you tomorrow, actually, and i want you to know this: i have spent more than half my life with this man. we have a mere 36 years’ worth of miles on us at this point. and we have miles to go before we sleep. miles, i tell you. chunks of miles.

consider our first meeting an interview. we’re not committing to a lifetime together - at least not yet - and you should probably know that i’m not afraid to fire doctors. i’ve done it before when my loved ones weren’t being well cared for. oh, and i should probably mention that we’re auditioning your staff tomorrow, too.

i’ve been told i have authority issues with the medical community. call it whatever you want, but i am not afraid to ask you to call me by my first name, and i’m equally unafraid to call you by your first name in return because that levels the playing field. i am not afraid to remind you that our differences right here, right now come down to the fact that we took different courses in college. i know you were taught differently, but then maybe you had an incomplete education. maybe they should have taught you the basics of customer service.

you are providing a service we are in need of. you have knowledge we can use. you weren’t born with this knowledge, you weren’t annointed with it. you simply did what the rest of us did to learn the invaluable things we know: you studied, you read, you took notes and tests, then you went out into the world and that’s when the real learning started.

some of the best business relationships are pillared by the same things that support other lasting, mutually-beneficial relationships: empathy, respect, listening, and genuine caring. those other workings of the heart that we‘ve studied, read about, took notes, and been tested on.

we may appear cool, calm, and collected tomorrow, but make no mistake: we are afraid. you’ve been around this block many times before, but it’s our first time on this particular corner. we want and need your knowledge. we want and need at least one good reason to feel confident in your abilities. we want and need a reason to trust you, to feel comfortable following your suggestions, and we don’t build that kind of relationship just by looking at the framed certificates hanging on your walls or the top of your head as you remain bent over your clipboard.

when we show up at your office tomorrow, here’s a little something to keep in mind: we’ll be kicking tires and taking you out for a test drive. i don’t care how many cup holders you have or if you have sirius radio, but i do want to give you some idea of what we’re looking for. i sure do hope you’re The One We’re Looking For, joe the cardiologist, because there’s not much i hate more than car shopping.