THOUGHTS ABOUT DADDY AND MOMA December 3, 2005
My circumstances had placed me in a moldy, cold, one-bedroom rental. It was a dark, unwelcoming house that seemed to issue a feeling of foreboding. In the mornings, the sunshine was through the window of the one bedroom which was on the back-side of the house. The back of the house was pushed right into a wet, steep bank that seemed to threaten the house's stability. To look out this window you had to crane your neck and look straight up into trees. Gaining footing to climb this bank was very difficult. The soil and stones in this bank seemed to be pushing on the house as if they resented it being in their way and one day would achieve pushing the house over. To walk between the house and the bank, you had to walk on the sides of your feet. It was that tight.
I was in a funk this particular morning and decided to sit on the floor in that little piece of sunshine that came through the bedroom window. My heart ached for a home that was mine and was full of friends and music with the sunshine coming through all the windows. I had been uprooted from a place that held friends and familiarity. I had been oriented, grounded. Now I felt like I had no connection to anything. I felt like my tethers to the earth had been snipped and I was vulnerable to the slightest wind. I was filled with fear and depression. I felt so utterly alone. And then I felt a change enter this bedroom. The feeling was familiar and comforting. I felt the presence of both my mother and daddy in the room with me. Each of them had completed their journey in this realm and gone on to brighter places filled with music we cannot hear.
I then began to think about things my parents had given me that I could give thanks for and ease my aching heart also. I would fill my mind and heart with precious memories that would bring me joy.
I said, "Welcome Daddy, I love you." I said this out loud. Daddy I thank you for always providing us with a home that was ours. It was not ever fully heated. We were cold in our beds and we very often did not have enough to eat. We stood waiting on the school bus in the winter with inadequate coats and hats. But we had a home. You did your very best with 8 children. When coming home on the school bus I remember looking ahead up the road seeing our house waiting there for me. Always there. It was a treasured sight. And when I stepped off that school bus at my house I felt protected and safe. Daddy you were never a rentor and I appreciate that. You taught us the value of owning a home.
You set the example of reading by sitting for hours at night with the Geographic, newspaper, electronic manuals. Anything in print interested you. I am that way today.
You were an excellent gardener and you taught me to love the earth. The smell of fresh-plowed ground; the feel of it falling through my fingers as I picked up handfulls. I still put my nose into fresh-plowed ground and savor the smell. The different smell the earth took on after a Spring sprinkle fell on freshly planted seed. I would walk with you up and down the rows to see what was pushing through first and wonder at how quickly these tiny green plants became wonderful things to eat. I hoed and weeded with you but I could not last as long as you could. You would work your garden until it was so black dark I didn't understand how you could see what you were doing. Then you came in and ate a bite and went to bed and got up and went to work at the hosiery mill. You always left for work at 5:30am. I would hear the truck leave but I didn't get up that early.
My love of the earth and what it can give back to you was given to me by you, Daddy. Not only will the earth give you food, it will also give you strength and a pride in seeing the results of your labors. Working the earth also gives me a wonderful, therapeutic peace. I feel like I am blended into the earth, the sky, the trees, the wind, the rain, the fragrances. I feel whole. Thank you Daddy.
"Moma, welcome. I love you so. Please stay the day with me." You taught me so many precious and practical things. You taught me to wash my underpants while in my bath and then wring them out in a towel and they would be dry for the next day. Having 6 girls in the house we were fortunate to have 2 pair of underpants each. My moma's precious sisters gave us almost all the underwear we ever had. They were married and had husbands that could buy them such things. They gave us their whole slips when they bought new ones. A whole slip was a wonderful thing to have back then. We couldn't yet wear pants.
Moma, you taught me how to cook in ways that preserved the vitamins and nutrients of foods. You taught me the various healthy properties of certain vegetables. You taught me how to eat right. You told me years before it was ever written in medical research that onions and garlic would protect your heart. You told me that if you didn't have any dairy products in the house that dark, leafy greens would provide plenty of calcium. We never had milk in the house. Occasionally Daddy would buy a box of powdered milk and I remember mixing glass after glass and going outside to sit in the sun and drink it, loving it's taste on my tongue. You seemed to always be running about the house. So much to do with 8 children. But, you would stop in your tracks and pick one of us up and hug and kiss us till we begged down. You taught me unconditional love. You taught me that all living things are to be considered a small part of God. Harm nothing, malign noone, love without bounds, trust without proof, and always, always, show kindness. This philosophy has worked against me a few times; has gotten me hurt and fooled, but I don't know how to approach mankind in any way but with trust and love. Moma you were my salvation. You prevented me from living a life of mistrust and cynicism and I thank you for that. You gave me a view of the world that causes me to find wonder and beauty in the night sky, a summer thunderstorm, a first fallen snow, a tree waltzing with the wind, a ray of sunshine on the floor, wall, ceiling. You taught me to sit on the floor in a spot of sunshine and make it mine. You found beauty in the sun dancing on the dishwater, playing off the spoons. It made little spots of light dancing on the ceiling that you could change by putting your hand in the water.
You endured so much grief watching your children go hungry and cold, but you always found ways and reasons to laugh and smile. And you always made us sure that we were dearly loved. Thank you Moma.
Clydean Stillwell Jackson
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
I CHANGED MY MIND
April 28, 2010
I CHANGED MY MIND
I changed my mind. I decided I would go to Wal-Mart for bicycle tires before going to the produce market. I needed to turn the car around. I was right in front of the county health department and other social offices with a huge parking lot and an in-and-out circular drive. So I whipped the car into the parking lot and starting crossing it cautiously to reach the exit. It is a half-moon circle. I was cautious because there are always so many people walking back and forth, going in and out of the offices. Almost always there are 1 to 3 children with each adult traversing this parking lot. The adult is almost always female. Often one of the children is still in the uterus of the mother, but pushing hard at the world making it known; I am coming soon. These are children whose parents didn't get the opportunities to gain skills and knowledge that would preclude them from having to be at these offices. Reared in homes with often screaming, fighting, frightened parents whose frustrations and angers stem from realizing that their lives have been winnowed down to 'just getting by'. These parents did not have the capacity to give their children (now these adults walking across the parking lot with their children) the necessary 'tools' for making choices and decisions that would enable them to be self-sufficient and to be smart about the world and how it works. They weren't taught how to make the world work in their favor. They weren't taught how to keep this unjust world from trampling them. They weren't encouraged to think about 'what college do you want to attend?', they weren't told they were 'smart enough' to go to college, (what is 'smart enough'?) they weren't taught how hard parenting is, they weren't taught how not to become parents until they were capable and ready, they weren't taught that they could CHOOSE not to become parents, they weren't taught how to stay healthy, they weren't taught not to smoke, they weren't taught how to manage money, they weren't taught much of anything because the parents didn't know much about these things either. The parents were too busy going to work each day and coming home exhausted due to the type of work they did which left little time for the nurturing and educating of kids. In fact, these parents weren't given much education nor taught how to effectively parent . And if you could look back a generation you would probably find that the parents of the parents lived a very similar life. Just managing to pay the bills and make it until 'next payday'. At the mercy of what the world threw at them. None of them were ever taught how to throw back.
One of the parents starting across this parking lot was a very thin, bleached blonde woman who looked to be in her late twenties. Her face was dry and colorless. It had the wrinkles of a woman twice her age. She was exiting the offices. She was weeping. She struggled to hold a small child with her left arm looped under it’s belly as it bounced on her hip, it's blanket flailing in the wind, the child uncovered . Her purse hung from her right arm in the crook of her elbow. She had a cigarette sticking to her bottom lip and a lighter in her right hand. She struggled to bring the lighter up just far enough to set fire to her cigarette and put out the fire in her brain. No doubt the time she had been in the offices was long enough for her nicotine craving to be screaming for a feeding. It refused to wait for her to get to the car (hopefully) and put the child down. She turned her back to the wind, giving the child a jolt, flicked the lighter quickly and pulled on the cigarette in relief. This mother looked like a skilled juggler while performing these tasks; hanging onto the child, carrying her purse, and lighting a cigarette. The smoke curled across the child’s face. I thought about that child being in a vehicle with cigarette smoke, a home filled with cigarette smoke and it's mother teaching it each day how to smoke and that it is acceptable. I reigned in my judgment of this precious mother as I thought about how that cigarette may be the only pleasure she finds in her everyday existence of juggling her life in a circus of uncertainty. I lifted a prayer that the child would not smoke and turned it loose.
And then I thought about the 'circus' going on in Congress as I write these words. The hearings which are probing the practices of Goldman-Sachs. Despicable, deliberately unethical practices which put many others in the same plight as this young struggling, juggling mother. They arrogantly deny their wrongdoing as they defy our Congress of These United States. "How dare you ask us for accountability? We are rich! We made ourselves rich by making many others poor. We put people out of work and out of their beloved homes. We put a horse in the race that we bet against! How smart are we to think of that! And before goldman-sachs there was bear-stearns, lehman brothers, aig , washington mutual, countrywide, wachovia found to be laundering drug money (which they admitted to and paid $160 million in fines) (1.). Sub-prime mortgages granted to thousands as the mortgagors knew these thousands could not pay back their loans. All of them practiced deceit in order to make the poor poorer and themselves richer. I use lower caps because these entities do not deserve to be recognized with capital letters. They are little, lowly, lying crooks.
Many of those who are in the circumstances that brought this young mother to these offices and to her tears are the Men who fathered the infants and children. The men who are now out of work and out of options. Men define themselves through their work. These men no longer view themselves as providers. They feel helpless and out of control and in a despair that they cannot voice to anyone because of (ironically) what they were taught by their parents; "You are a man. Be strong. Never admit defeat. Never show weakness." This despair leads to an anger that cannot see a way out. Since the 2008 beginning of the sharp rise in unemployment and loss of homes and jobs, (directly related to the crooks at the banks and the ‘Snydley Whiplash’ mortgage brokers), domestic violence has spiked nationwide. This blinded anger (which is masking fear), takes on a physical life which strikes out at those closest to these men: the women and the children.
He reaches for the one pleasure he has left. She holds the baby on her hip and lights her cigarette through tears. He goes outside, squats out of sight and weeps in regret as the smoke from his cigarette curls across his face.
Clydia Stillwell Jackson
1. cbs4.com/business/wachovia.money.laundering
I CHANGED MY MIND
I changed my mind. I decided I would go to Wal-Mart for bicycle tires before going to the produce market. I needed to turn the car around. I was right in front of the county health department and other social offices with a huge parking lot and an in-and-out circular drive. So I whipped the car into the parking lot and starting crossing it cautiously to reach the exit. It is a half-moon circle. I was cautious because there are always so many people walking back and forth, going in and out of the offices. Almost always there are 1 to 3 children with each adult traversing this parking lot. The adult is almost always female. Often one of the children is still in the uterus of the mother, but pushing hard at the world making it known; I am coming soon. These are children whose parents didn't get the opportunities to gain skills and knowledge that would preclude them from having to be at these offices. Reared in homes with often screaming, fighting, frightened parents whose frustrations and angers stem from realizing that their lives have been winnowed down to 'just getting by'. These parents did not have the capacity to give their children (now these adults walking across the parking lot with their children) the necessary 'tools' for making choices and decisions that would enable them to be self-sufficient and to be smart about the world and how it works. They weren't taught how to make the world work in their favor. They weren't taught how to keep this unjust world from trampling them. They weren't encouraged to think about 'what college do you want to attend?', they weren't told they were 'smart enough' to go to college, (what is 'smart enough'?) they weren't taught how hard parenting is, they weren't taught how not to become parents until they were capable and ready, they weren't taught that they could CHOOSE not to become parents, they weren't taught how to stay healthy, they weren't taught not to smoke, they weren't taught how to manage money, they weren't taught much of anything because the parents didn't know much about these things either. The parents were too busy going to work each day and coming home exhausted due to the type of work they did which left little time for the nurturing and educating of kids. In fact, these parents weren't given much education nor taught how to effectively parent . And if you could look back a generation you would probably find that the parents of the parents lived a very similar life. Just managing to pay the bills and make it until 'next payday'. At the mercy of what the world threw at them. None of them were ever taught how to throw back.
One of the parents starting across this parking lot was a very thin, bleached blonde woman who looked to be in her late twenties. Her face was dry and colorless. It had the wrinkles of a woman twice her age. She was exiting the offices. She was weeping. She struggled to hold a small child with her left arm looped under it’s belly as it bounced on her hip, it's blanket flailing in the wind, the child uncovered . Her purse hung from her right arm in the crook of her elbow. She had a cigarette sticking to her bottom lip and a lighter in her right hand. She struggled to bring the lighter up just far enough to set fire to her cigarette and put out the fire in her brain. No doubt the time she had been in the offices was long enough for her nicotine craving to be screaming for a feeding. It refused to wait for her to get to the car (hopefully) and put the child down. She turned her back to the wind, giving the child a jolt, flicked the lighter quickly and pulled on the cigarette in relief. This mother looked like a skilled juggler while performing these tasks; hanging onto the child, carrying her purse, and lighting a cigarette. The smoke curled across the child’s face. I thought about that child being in a vehicle with cigarette smoke, a home filled with cigarette smoke and it's mother teaching it each day how to smoke and that it is acceptable. I reigned in my judgment of this precious mother as I thought about how that cigarette may be the only pleasure she finds in her everyday existence of juggling her life in a circus of uncertainty. I lifted a prayer that the child would not smoke and turned it loose.
And then I thought about the 'circus' going on in Congress as I write these words. The hearings which are probing the practices of Goldman-Sachs. Despicable, deliberately unethical practices which put many others in the same plight as this young struggling, juggling mother. They arrogantly deny their wrongdoing as they defy our Congress of These United States. "How dare you ask us for accountability? We are rich! We made ourselves rich by making many others poor. We put people out of work and out of their beloved homes. We put a horse in the race that we bet against! How smart are we to think of that! And before goldman-sachs there was bear-stearns, lehman brothers, aig , washington mutual, countrywide, wachovia found to be laundering drug money (which they admitted to and paid $160 million in fines) (1.). Sub-prime mortgages granted to thousands as the mortgagors knew these thousands could not pay back their loans. All of them practiced deceit in order to make the poor poorer and themselves richer. I use lower caps because these entities do not deserve to be recognized with capital letters. They are little, lowly, lying crooks.
Many of those who are in the circumstances that brought this young mother to these offices and to her tears are the Men who fathered the infants and children. The men who are now out of work and out of options. Men define themselves through their work. These men no longer view themselves as providers. They feel helpless and out of control and in a despair that they cannot voice to anyone because of (ironically) what they were taught by their parents; "You are a man. Be strong. Never admit defeat. Never show weakness." This despair leads to an anger that cannot see a way out. Since the 2008 beginning of the sharp rise in unemployment and loss of homes and jobs, (directly related to the crooks at the banks and the ‘Snydley Whiplash’ mortgage brokers), domestic violence has spiked nationwide. This blinded anger (which is masking fear), takes on a physical life which strikes out at those closest to these men: the women and the children.
He reaches for the one pleasure he has left. She holds the baby on her hip and lights her cigarette through tears. He goes outside, squats out of sight and weeps in regret as the smoke from his cigarette curls across his face.
Clydia Stillwell Jackson
1. cbs4.com/business/wachovia.money.laundering
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