For those of us who are writers, it seems the proverbial writing has been on the wall for a while now with books being replaced by e-publishers and internet downloads for e-readers.  Now it seems more and more people are obtaining their music, movies and television shows via internet download as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I have downloaded a lot of books, music and movies.  Where my issues come in is, first of all, books.  I do use my iPod Touch as an e-reader to make it easier to carry books with me, but there is nothing like the feel of holding a book in your hand and smelling the pages as you turn them to discover the treasure on the other side.  For me, it is also much easier to study with an actual book.  I can highlight and make notes in the margins for future reference especially if I am researching for a piece I am writing.  I can then flip through the pages to find those notations easier than having to scroll through page after page of pixels.

The rest of my objections come from my being hearing impaired.  I am sitting here typing this and popped in the DVD I just picked up at the library on sign language.  While I do scan lips when speaking to people to be able to better understand them I am finding that as my hearing gets worse I need to brush up on my ASL (American Sign Language).  One would think that a DVD teaching sign language would have Closed Caption (CC) for hearing impaired.  This is not the case.  There is someone speaking while another is signing and since I am not fluent in ASL I need to see the person’s lips to know fully what is being said.  The person speaking is off camera.  I am now very frustrated.

When I had Netflix, I complained because many of their DVDs and none of their downloads had CC.  I was advised that they were attempting to make that available and I would have to go to a different site to download and it would take twice as long.  It seems that to provide CC for a digital download you need two feeds – one for the video and audio and one for the CC.  None of the movies or television programs I have downloaded from iTunes are equipped with CC although my iTunes preferences dose allow for it and I have it turned on.

Music is something I have already become accustomed to in this modern world we live in.  If there is a song I have known since before my illness which is taking my hearing, then I have no problem and can still sing along.  However, if it is a new song or one I don’t recall from before, I need to Google the lyrics to be able to understand what is being sung.

So what does the future hold for us?  Several generations ago families would gather around the fire while one read or played a musical instrument.  It was a time for families to be together and share.  Not long after that with the incoming of the radio, families would sit around the radio and listen to music and dramatic presentations over the air waves.  Then, when I was young, the family would gather around the television and watch favorite programing.  With the changes coming, people will gather around the computer or completely detach from the family gathering and everyone will have their own iPod, computer or viewer to sit in their own corners and watch what they choose.

Since so many options are not including CC for the deaf and hearing impaired, my options will diminish.  I just hope that families will find new and creative ways to maintain that precious family time without something to gather around and enjoy books, music and programing.

Grandmaw and Papaw - 1967

A Love Like Yours

As the world was going to war
You found love
When our country was leaving depression
You found love
Though your ages differed by the number twelve
You found love
Your kin thought you’d marry others, but still
You found love

Four years of love and
You saw your first child
But you could not, nor would not
Stop with just the one
After twelve years and three girls
A boy bounced your way
Four beautiful children are
Your true love on display

In six and twenty years
Your love it would not die
A baby boy was born, as were
Grandparents with a sigh
Through the decade hence
Five girls became your glory
Six grand-ones in all became
Your very pride and joy

For three and forty years
You had love
Through four lovely children you showed
You had love
In every argument resolved, still
You had love
Within my heart you live on because
You had love

August 12, 2009

Grandmaw

Today you would have been
ninety and then the two.
This isn’t the only reason
my thoughts, they turn to you.

The color of your laughter,
a radiant blue, calm and keen.
The sound of your smile,
ever, a pitch-perfect sheen.

Proudly you wore your crown,
t’was brown than silver-gray.
Then with care you did teach me
to live; to work; to play.

Everything that is in me
resonating in tones of gold,
I know it is your influence;
being born in the family mold.

Standing close to your side,
firm upon a crate from milk,
your worn-cotton apron,
in my eye a gown of silk.

Your recipes, tried and true,
these, I learned to make.
The potatoes we would whip
while the cornbread it did bake.

The aroma of the lily
enveloped and swirled to billow;
while hanging wash in the yard
you showed me the pussy willow.

When at first it came to be
my voice heard through the rhyme,
you said you were so proud
and in your eyes I saw a shine.

To imagine you’ve been gone
thirty and one year,
my heart becomes wholly sad
and rivers fill with my tear.

Never could I ever finish,
this remains incomplete;
for you and your love
within me, will e’re repeat.

November 25, 2011

About a year or two before my grandmother passed away, my aunt began hosting the annual fun-fest.  I say this with tongue-in-cheek as things began changing when my grandmother got sick and could no longer host the family events.  Bitterness set in and that brought lots of bickering.  Since I was a young teen, I was not privy to most of the issues at hand.  One constant was those who presumed they did most of the work were angry that others were partaking without even offering to lend a hand.  Funny, as a child I recall it was Grandmaw who did most of the work, but I do not remember her ever complaining as she enjoyed the time with her family.

I came to dread the holidays and spending time with the family, especially after my grandmother passed.  It seemed the holidays were the appropriate time to bash each other and hurl the worst insults that could be found.  I thought holidays were supposed to bring families together and, especially Thanksgiving Day, finding all the reasons to be thankful.  I must have had a grave misconception in this area.

The happiest Thanksgiving I recall following my grandmothers death was the year my long-time friend Denise invited me to spend it with her and her family.  I was probably about 19 at the time and expected to feel very claustrophobic as she comes from a rather large family.  At the most, growing up, we had about two dozen coming and going from my grandparents home.  With Denise’s parents, siblings, their spouses and children alone they had over two dozen.  Then you sprinkle in an odd uncle and aunt or two.  That is a lot of people.

Denise knew how miserable I was contemplating another Thanksgiving dinner with my family and being the main source of abusive entertainment for everyone.  Therefore, she suggested with an insistent tone that I come to her parents house and spend the day with them.  I knew her family quite well and admired them for their closeness and love for each other so I graciously accepted the invitation.

I walked up the block to the Fulton abode and almost before I could knock on the door I was greeted heartily by a couple of the children.  Everyone else filtered in and made me feel welcome.  One thing I really enjoyed was they treated me, not like a guest, but as they treated each other, like family.  There was no difference with any other time I had been to their home, except ALL of them were there at one time.

Dinner was very animated with all the lively conversation.  It was filled with respect for each other and very comfortable as if they had been acting this way all their lives.  I knew they had, because this is how they behaved any other time of year when I would have the honor of being within the warmth of this home.  Mr. Arness (my name for Denise’s dad due to a photo of him resembling James Arness the actor) reminded me a lot of my grandfather, except he was more vocal than my grandfather.

After the feasting came the festing.  Christmas music was put on and everyone just had fun with each other.  I was sitting there watching the whirlwind of excitement and entertainment going on around me and comparing it to my own family.  Denise came over and grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet to begin dancing to the upbeat holiday music swelling the air with the lingering aromas of turkey and pie.

As tears fill my eyes remembering times long since committed to the archival parts of my brain, I ponder my more recent Thanksgivings.  I have not had a full thanksgiving dinner since 2005, the last time since being sick that I was still able to cook it.  As this dragon makes life more and more difficult for me, I spend most of my time resting and doing little things.  I also try to use it to get some writing done as I know I will not be receiving IMs or anything from anyone since the majority of my US friends (who all live in my computer) will be with their families and loved ones.

For this Thanksgiving, provide your kin with reasons to be thankful, not regret.  I bid all y’all a wonderful time with your loved ones giving thanks for each other and letting them know you are grateful for them being in your life.

I spent last night in and out of sleep.  When I was out of sleep I was thinking about everything that still has to be done.  I woke up thinking about this post.

There are those who will wonder why I didn’t come to them with all of this.  Well, how could I bring you my tears when you didn’t want to share in my laughter?  In my life I have had one thing in my heart that I have striven to bring forth to the world in my meager words and that is peace through understanding and acceptance.  The world has not listened.  My heart is not to be heard.  The world is not ready to hear what is in my heart, for it would rather hold onto its anger and hatred.

Perhaps in my next life, the world will be ready to hear what is in my heart.  I believe that the intent of the heart follows you into your next life, so perhaps I have been trying to get the world to hear my heart for generations.  Not this life, but hopefully the next.  If you desire to me honor after I am gone, then remember the message of my heart and learn to accept others no matter the differences and understand that everyone is a human being above all else.

True peace will come when people move beyond the fears of what is different and accept everyone as individual human beings without the anger and hatred that continues to bind this world through ignorance.

Winston Churchill once said, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  I have always liked this quote until I read an update but cannot recall who said it.  This has become my favorite quote; “Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it.  Those who fail to learn history properly are just doomed.”  I will not get started on all the ways that we as American citizens have distorted history to suit our own desires.  That is not what this is about.  Here we will remember.

After the Civil War ended, Reunification Day was celebrated.  It was near this time that the country first enacted a day to remember and pay honor to all the Union soldiers who gave their lives in the war between the states.  At first this day was called Decoration Day having the first national observance May 30, 1868 and the graves of the fallen soldiers were decorated.  Later this was extended to include all US military personnel who died during WWI.  With each war the United States entered, the fallen during the war were to be included in the remembrance of Memorial Day (a term first used in 1882).

Years ago I wrote a song about how we gained our independence.  It was the blood, sweat and tears of so many who lived and died before us.  These are the ones we pay homage to on Memorial Day.  Had it not been for the brave men and women who put on a uniform and went to battle and died, we would not know this life we have today.  I say uniform, but it is a broad term, because during the Revolutionary war, most of the colonial soldiers just wore their every day clothes.

So often today people confuse Memorial Day with Veteran’s Day.  Veteran’s Day does not afford us the summery day off from work.  In fact, most companies do not observe it as a holiday at all.  No matter the observance,  it is still an official federal holiday set aside to honor ALL US veterans of ALL wars.  Those living and those gone on.  This weekend, we pay special tribute to those who have given their lives on the battlefield to make sure we have the freedoms we now take for granted.  In short, they all died just so we can eat grilled hamburgers.

I have been wanting to write a special poem for Memorial Day and to include not only US soldiers who have given their lives to defend this country, but I wanted to pay homage to the fallen in all countries who have bravely and proudly entered battle to defend their homeland.  After watching the PBS special National Memorial Day Concert I knew the direction I wanted to take.  I wanted to pull up the fight songs of each of the branches of the US military.  I stopped after reading the lyrics to the first song I pulled up – The Marine Corps Hymn.  The last stanza really struck me.  The last four lines in particular; “If the Army and the Navy, Ever look on Heaven’s scenes; They will find the streets are guarded, By United States Marines.”  I knew I had my poem for today.  I remembered watching yesterday as they showed scenes of the military burial sites around the world where fallen US soldiers lay in rest.  From all of this I wrote the following:

Gone On To Eternal Duty

Lost in a dream
of days gone by
Searching for answers
through heart’s eye

Up and down
neatly groomed rows
trimmed with flags
sprinkled with bows

The names and dates
all a blur to me
looking out across
a flag waving sea

Stepping sure, crossing
barriers of space and time
no more markers or flags
but, soldiers in line

Wearing uniforms
both new and old
they died for others
as history’s told

They entered battles
as men full grown
they fought hard, reaping
what others have sown

I study the faces
reason to find
they are all the same
it boggles my mind

Walking up one
then down two
in a distance I spy
an ocean of blue

Turning to see
the picture full
my heart is pricked
there’s a tug and a pull

From every nation
they stand as one
their tour long past
but yet just begun

These soldiers gone before
stand on land and on sea
they guard the world around
they guard you, they guard me.

May 31, 2010
© DL Bach

Some of you know of my disregard for Katie Couric.  I used to admire her as I watched her as an anchor on NBC Today.  It was heartbreaking to watch as she struggled with her husband, Jay Monahan’s fight against cancer and then his ultimate death.  It was even more disheartening that he left two young daughters behind as well.  The turning point for me as a fan of Ms. Couric’s was when she would whine and complain about how she struggles financially trying to raise two daughters alone.  Yes, it is a struggle being a single mother.  However, considering Ms. Couric makes more in a month than most single mom’s make in a year working two and three jobs, I don’t see how she can, in good conscience, bemoan her situation.  I have seen so many single moms struggle trying to make a good life for their children.  They sacrifice and work sometimes 12 – 16 hours a day not getting to spend much time with their children.  I know it is difficult losing a mate and suddenly having to do everything yourself, but when you make that much money and so many make at and below poverty level and they keep going, come on already.  She is the reason I stopped watching NBC Today and switched to CBS This Morning.

Single moms and dads should be held in the highest regard.  Especially the ones who aren’t financially secure.  I have worked along side some of these wonderful people.  They love their children so much and have to sacrifice to provide food, shelter and clothing for them.  It is so easy for some to have babies and then go and get welfare money and food stamps.  But so many people don’t believe in this.  They prefer to take care of their families themselves by working and providing the best they can.  People who were raised during the depression will be the first to tell you that they didn’t even know they were poor, everyone was.  Today we have movies and television that show a different life style and people believe if they do not have these luxuries, like cable television, cell phones and computers then they are living in shame.  Somehow, these wonderful single parents actually make things work and they do it all without complaining.  I raise my glass to each and everyone of who make things work everyday with so little.

Now to address working mothers.  I have been watching CBS This Morning for a while.  Starting with anchor Julie Chen, it seems all the women were getting pregnant.  Julie Chen began her maternity leave in September 2009.  She returned from maternity leave this past week.  Well, sort of.  After eight months leave to have her baby and spend time with him, she returned to CBS This Morning working an hour a day.  Yes, she only works the second hour of the two hour program.  During a segment this past week she made a comment about admiring someone because she was a working mother and now Julie herself is a working mother.  Um, HELLO.

In years past a girl was raised to finish school, maybe go to college and get married and have babies.  The woman did not work outside the home.  A side note here, I believe all mothers are working mothers, especially if they are the ones who take care of their children.  This is not about that. As years have gone by things have changed.  World War II found women having to go into the factories and businesses to work and do things the men had once done since the men were off fighting in the war.  When the men returned home, the women didn’t want to go back to staying in the home.  They wanted to keep on working.  Also, financial status’ changed.  Prices kept going up but wages could not keep up.  Therefore, households require two incomes.

I have a friend who recently had a baby.  Her maternity leave was six weeks.  For the most part, maternity leave is about six weeks and is unpaid unless the woman has accumulated sick/annual leave.  Some companies also offer paternity leave which is much shorter in duration and again, unpaid unless you have accumulated leave.  Basically, all this leave affords is security that your job will be there when you return.    Ms. Chen went on maternity leave 9/09.  My friends baby was born January 2010.  My friend was back to work her normal hours in the department store she has worked at since 2004 months before Ms. Chen returned to work only one hour a day for CBS.  Since her husband is president of CBS, Ms. Chen doesn’t have to work.  She could have extended her maternity leave indefinitely.  So many women in this world have to work just to help make ends meet in the home.

I would never begrudge anyone anything they have worked for.  I just think that those parents who are single and working hard every day as well as home with two working parents who nave to work and keep the family going, deserve mucho kudos.  To my many friends who are single parents and those where both parents work hard every day to raise healthy, wholesome children who will grow up to run this country one day, I humbly bow to your excellence.  If I could I would take care of all of your children and give you each 24 hours to do nothing but pamper yourselves.

My poll on WDC was only open to members and I desired a more global allowance of participants.  It seems that writer’s have interesting thoughts concerning love.  The way I pose my question and the selection of options caused many to pause before replying.  On the surface the question seems quite simple.  Then you view the options and begin to question what you really think.  I can not recall exactly why I designed this poll, except that I wanted to write an article.  What my prompt was I do not know.  As I ponder this I am sure that I was brought to this poll due to my own thoughts about love.  I actually put my response in the options – “A word in the dictionary”.

The first nine years of my life all I knew of love was that it had to hurt.  If someone said “I love you” then they wanted to hurt you, physically and/or emotionally.  Then I found religion and thought I was heading in the right direction when it came to love.  Yes, there were still those in my life that would continue to hurt me, but I thought I had found a different kind of love.  Then I got sick with a chronic illness that has no known cause/no known cure and all of that seemed to vanish.

I love teddy bears.  I love to write.  I love to read.  I love, love, love mangoes.  I love music.  It has been more years than I can count since I have said “I love you” to anyone.  In Second Life, I do occasionally say “I love my SLamily”, but it is usually said a bit facetiously when the crew are acting all silly and goofy.  I have noticed that most folks use that line very rapidly.  In the beginning of romantic relationships it can be a bit explosive.  But those who know each other a long time or are related in any manner say it all the time.  They end telephone and IM conversations with it and even sign cards, letters and e-mails with it.  Sometimes I think it is out of habit or expectation.  It isn’t that I have no feelings for the person I am speaking with.  I just don’t like using such powerful words on a whim for one.  I also have such negative memories for those who have used those words with me and I do not want to use something for someone I care about with ugliness attached to it.

So, take the poll and give it some real consideration when you answer, “What is love?”  Then look at how it applies to you and your life in respect to those you care about.

Random House begins their definition as such; “Reliance on the integrity, ability, etc. of a person or thing.”  But, doesn’t reliance mean trust?  OY!  The English language is confusing.  Maybe the part I have trouble with in this definition is “of a person…”  Roget didn’t even attempt to tackle the word trust.  They went from ‘truss’ straight to ‘trustee’.  Smart people they have working for them.

Trust is so overrated.  People use the word without really understanding it, like ‘love’.  They say “just trust me” or “you have to trust me”.  Why?  Every time I have put blind trust into another person, I alone have been hurt.  One should be able to trust the folks who gave them life.  Mine abused me physically and emotionally; and they allowed another parental figure to physically, emotionally and sexually abuse me.  Why trust?

I trusted my grandparents who had me most of my childhood.  They protected me until they wanted to make it permanent.  When they were denied this by my mother, they too gave me away.  They gave me back to the very person who wanted nothing more than to hurt me.  Why trust?

I trusted a man.  I gave him my heart and two years.  However, after a year and a half engagement, he decided to marry someone he knew for only two weeks, pretty much leaving me at the alter by sending me a letter one week and three days prior to our wedding.  Why trust?

I have trusted doctors who wrongly diagnose me and put me on medication that I do not need and which causes other more severe problems.  Doctors think they have all the answers and look at me as a troublemaker of sorts because I know more about me than they do.  Just be cause you have a degree is not a reason for me to trust you.

I used to trust myself.  But now Meniere’s is in play.  I never know if I am going to have a bout of vertigo or perhaps a drop attack.  I stagger along my way running into walls and furniture.  I can’t trust me or my body to do what I want them to do.   How can I trust me when I am laying sprawled out on the floor in pain from an illness that I cannot control nor vanquish.

Long ago, I would trust those who were, or at least seemed, different from my parents.  Until they proved I couldn’t trust them.  Now I trust no one.  I try to, but it just never comes.  I am finding more and more that there is a lot to be said for cynicism.  Maybe there is a future in it.  Or perhaps just a nice side venture till I can at least trust me once again.

So, why trust?  I still have not found any truly viable reason to trust flesh and bones.  When I have to rely on others, I suffer and always feel that it is not from goodness that they help me, it is for good old fashioned currency or some other form of repayment.

WHY TRUST?

I don’t remember the last time I fully grieved.  Maybe it was in 1981 when Grandmaw died.  I remember the pain when I went through it and how stifling it was.  Now I remember Grandmaw and I am sad because I still miss her, however, the memories are sweet.

There are so many that I have lost since Grandmaw, but I don’t remember fully grieving.  I remember the pain at the loss, but when I try to go further in my memories there is anger – so I stop.  I stop and bury the feelings.  Yes, I know everyone has a right to their feelings and they should be expressed, but not me.

To be the good one, I always desired, but never was.  I have, through the years, learned to repress my feelings.  When I was angry, I was punished.  When I would cry because I was unhappy, I was punished.  When I would be happy, I was turned away.  When I would show love or affection, I would be hurt.  So the easy thing to do was to repress.  The English have it right – don’t display what you feel.  This I can do.

I am neither a masochist nor a sadist.  I have virtually no tolerance for pain, nor do I enjoy inflicting pain, especially on myself.  This is reason enough for me not to grieve.  If I start, I may not stop at this point.  And then again, there is no one there to catch me as I fall.  So I repress.

Recently I have discovered a new tool to add to my repertoire –cynicism.  Although I am new to this concept I am finding it to be just another useful mechanism to keep from dealing with the hurt, pain and anger that keeps coming my way.  When posed with the age old question “is the cup half full or half empty?” I would always respond half full!  Now I retorted, “It’s not my cup.  I don’t care.”

I can cry. I do cry — when I am alone. I scream -– when I am alone.  I yell and fuss — when I am alone.  To bring my anger against me means much frustration. To bring my anger against others could mean they retaliate and well… So I remain angry and frustrated while displaying to the world that all is well. It has to be.  Debbie is always fine.  Debbie needs no one.  Debbie will always be fine. At least that is what the world will always see.

Pain, I am resolved, will always be part of my life.  My deductions for now are that I am only meant for pain; be it physical or emotional.  So, for now at least, cynicism is a means to escape the pain, anger and drudge of life.

Will this to become my sole way of dealing with things?  Probably not. Will cynicism always be in my life?  Probably not.  However, for now it is useful.  Maybe someday someone will enter my life and I will be able to trust them enough to let them be there as I open the floodgates and feel the pain. For now, the cup it isn’t mine, find the owner yourself.