Bit of a Long Post

I come from a long line of co-dependents and enablers, and the more I love someone, the more I act true to form, though I’m not as bad about it as I used to be. Left to my own devices, I probably would wallow in sadness until Hell became an ice-skating rink. But there is some little voice of common sense that always yells in my psyche’s ear, “ENOUGH! Move on, willya?!”

That voice of reason has jerked me up short and pointed out that my actions, conceived of love and compassion, have--in fact--enabled my daughter to continue her self-destructive behaviors. What complicates my response to her are my feelings for my grandson, who has no control over how his mother chooses to live.

I have evicted my daughter and her son from my home for the second time in his short life. The first time was when he was seven years old. They went to a shelter for the homeless. As I drove away after dropping them off, I made the mistake of looking in my rear-view mirror. Donovan was waving good-bye, his little face struggling not to cry. That was the first time my heart broke into a billion shards, and I cried for a week afterwards, was depressed for months. I vowed then that I would never do that again, leave him at a shelter.

My daughter said later that kicking them out was the best thing I could have done, because it made her wake up to how she was hurting herself and her son. She managed to take care of the two of them fairly well for three or four years after they moved from the second shelter they lived in. Then life overwhelmed her again, only she tried to hide how hard a time she was having. She struggled on for a couple more years, then had a breakdown last year and checked herself in to a crisis psychiatric center last August. Donovan came to live with me while his mother was away.

When she was released, she came to my home, as well, because she had lost their apartment, again. I set some ground rules for living here, to which she agreed to adhere.

Soon thereafter, Donovan was placed in a residential treatment facility that specializes in children with emotional and developmental-delay problems, such as Asperger’s Syndrome. This move, which I initially protested, turned out to be exactly what he needed, and served him well. (My protest was based on my recognition that my daughter didn’t want to deal with his problems. This is part of the reason she was adamant about having him admitted, but not all of it. In her depressed state of mind, she was trying to do what was best for her son, and she did, as it turns out.)

My daughter went back to work after a brief medical leave. For a couple of months, everything was working well, and I began to think this time would be different for her. The rules I established for her to live in my home again included placing her earnings and other monies she receives into a joint account and we both would have to sign any checks she wrote. She was to pay her bills, on time, rebuild her credit rating, and save money for a new apartment, which she was to find before school was out the following spring. She set up a reasonable time table for accomplishing her goals, which I thought she was working to achieve.

She began overdrawing the account, using her bank ATM card. I took my name off the account and told her she was on her own, that I could not allow my credit rating to be damaged by association. We had a long discussion about getting money management counseling, along with therapy, so that she could get a handle on her life. She did begin therapy.

I asked several times over the ensuing months how things were going for her, did she need any help with setting up a budget, so on. But I didn’t push. I wanted her to take control of her own life. I didn’t want to be her caretaker, or do the work for her. At almost 39-years-old, I figured she was old enough to take care of all aspects of her life, including money management. I butted out.

After the new year began, I started reminding her that she needed to think about where she wanted to move when Donovan was released. I suggested that she spend some time on the weekends checking out potential neighborhoods, and schools that would work well with Donovan’s needs. I reminded her of her stated goal to be in a home of their own by the time school ended in May this year.

In late March, we learned that Donovan would be released sooner than expected. I think that’s when my daughter’s life began overwhelming her again. She lost her job. Her money management problems grew worse. I learned that her account was chronically overdrawn, that she had no savings, nor had she been paying her bills.

That loud voice of reason started yelling again. I wasn’t helping her, I was enabling her. I provided food and shelter, and she had no reason to leave. I took from her some of the pressure and strain she feels having to deal with Donovan’s condition. I had become an intermediary in their squabbles, acting as a buffer for both of them.

I wasn’t doing any of us any good. The strain of being their go-between and the financial hardship of having two more people to provide for on my part-time income were wearing me down. I became anxious and depressed.

So the voice of reason bellowed at me that it was time for them to leave, again. It was time for ‘tough love’ again.

My daughter chose to move to a motel. Staying there takes almost every cent she has, and it isn’t the best place to live. This is her choice, and we all have to learn to live with it.

It isn’t a homeless shelter, but having them there broke my heart again, just the same. I hope this is the last time, for all three of us.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps...

...please go visit Mary, those of you who are interested in healthcare reform in the US.
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See you all soon, and thank you for your kind words.

Martha

On Leave

I'm going on hiatus from Blogland for a bit while I get through the rougher patches of a few domestic problems that I'm not handling all that well right now. See you farther down the road.

Listening

As if I weren't spending too much of my life at this keyboard already, I've been surfing the web for music I remember from my younger, hipper, hotter days; music that reminds me of New Orleans (for which I still mourn); music I've never heard before - I have got to get a life beyond this hard drive, monitor and keyboard, but not right this minute.

There is a piece of music by Duke Ellington, king of the suites, that I couldn't find on the 'net: from his New Orleans Suite (1970), "Portrait of Mahalia Jackson," that makes me weep every time I hear it. I found this other one, though, that I'd never heard before, titled "Newport Jazz Festival Suite." It's about 10 minutes long.

This next musician is totally unknown to me, but I like his work (the pieces I listened to, anyway). Maybe some of you know about him - Django Reinhardt, a jazz/swing guitarist.

These guys are legendary blues men, who influenced a whole lot of other artists, including the Beatles, the Stones, Clapton, you name a rock and roll group from the 60s on up: John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson.

Music from my teen years in New Orleans: Fats, Louis, Dr. John, Irma, among many others.

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New guys (to me, anyway) - Forro in the Dark, Brazilian musicians.

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Other favorites, from different decades in my life:

Springsteen

Otis

Neil Young

Etta

Edith (I didn't understand a word she was singing, but it did not matter - she had me hooked.)

Nina, Nina, Nina

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The list goes on and on, but I have to quit and get some sleep.

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Yes, those are the give-away earphones that came with the t-shirt.

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore

New Duds

(In the category of Small-things-please-small-minds, this post fits right in. As a matter of fact, this likely would be better done with Twitter, but I don't think you can twit pictures. Besides, I don't Twit. I might be one, but I don't have an account.)
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Kareema (daughter) took Donovan shopping for new clothes for school, an annual ritual repeated to some degree or another all over the world. While in the men's department, she found several t-shirts (uniform du jour with the high school set), some jeans and other stuff he needs. One t-shirt came with a set of earphones, a promotion to get you to buy the shirt. Donovan found one he liked and away they went to the registers to check out.

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A couple of days later, we were back in the store for another purchase forgotten earlier. We walked past the men's department, where my crow's eye and heart were snagged by the shirt, shown above. Crows love shiny objects and this old crow is no exception. That I gained a cool set of earphones for listening to music while online was a bonus, but I had to have that shirt. It has bling, peoples! Bling in the form of shiny platinum-color mylar, which will eventually be lost after so many washings.

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Now, the sad part is that I didn't have my reading glasses along, so I thought the motto across the chest said "ROCKSTAR." It doesn't. It reads ROCKSTER, as in rock-star-wanna-be, as in she's-too-old-for-this-shirt, as in "Oldster-trying-to-look-hip." However, considering the kind of music I listen to most - heavy-metal, rock-and-roll, acid-rock, et cetera - the motto fits me to a T...to a T-shirt, in fact. (Okay, so I don't make such good puns.)

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I dress for comfort nowadays: elastic-waist jeans, t-shirts or other knit pullovers, sneaks. I never was a fashion plate, and as I have gotten older - and rounder - I have difficulty finding dresses that fit and look nice, so I don't bother. I have a few pairs of dressier slacks and nice blouses I wear to work, one or two pair of good leather shoes, but that's it. Most of the time I look like hell (by my late mother's standards), but I'm comfy.

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This post was inspired, in part, by blog-friend BB's poem about clothing, but mostly, I wanted to show off my new shirt.

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Like I said, simple things for simple minds...

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore

For Joe Spado

Tagging along...

You will notice, if you click on the photo above, that I have doctored the image a bit. Crows don't have white eyes. Their eyes are blue when they're first hatched, but their eyes turn deep brown by the time of their first moult. Anyway, I chose this photo to symbolize my spirit's desire to be on the ride that Joe Spado and company are undertaking soon, if they haven't already gone. Someday...someday, I will hit the road; I will honor the wild child I was born to be. For now, I ride in spirit with folks like Joe, who really do head out on the highway, looking for adventure.

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Also, to honor Joe, I found a video made in Germany. In the background you hear Steppenwolf's iconic "Born to Be Wild." In the foreground, you hear...well, you'll see.

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Enjoy your ride, Joe. Ride hard, ride free, ride safe and sound. See you when you get back. Looking forward to reading all about your ride, friend.

(c)2009 Martha McLemore

September, At Last

Fresh

September is my favorite month of the year, and this one has arrived after weeks of hot, sultry, humid August breathing down my neck. Oh, I know we probably will have a week or two more of warm weather before the days are as cool as the nights again, but September has arrived and I am deliriously giddy about it. My spirits have picked up with the chilly mornings of the last several days - right after the storm, in fact.

The crickets now rival the birds and the last of the cicadas with their incessant song, which I also await every year. The tiny songsters invade my basement beginning around the 20th of August until the first hard frost in October. They are the Gryllus pennsylvanicus, field crickets, and they come in from the chill evenings for a bit of warmth, camaraderie and song before their little hearts give out and they die...or they become live food for the multitude of spiders which await their arrival almost as much as I do, but with sinister reasons.

I visited Whiskey River blog this afternoon and found a poem by American poet W. S. Merwin, a poet unknown to me. His poem is "To the Light of September," a love poem if ever there was one. In reading more about him, I found a video of him talking about poetry, which some of you might enjoy viewing.

Ever since I was a young girl, I have loved the painting, "September Morn," by French artist Paul Chabas. While reading Merwin's poem, I thought of the painting, which is why poem and painting are in this post. (Is that too much alliteration in one sentence?)

While there is still light out, I'm going to take a walk around the neighborhood, to enjoy the changed light and the delicious chill in the air. Maybe I'll get lucky and find another Viceroy butterfly on its way south.

(c) 2009 Martha McLemore