Overheard

 I about 15 or 16 the first time I realized that everyone else in the world did not walk around thinking about suicide at least once a day. The revelation came after a school assembly on the subject when our class was herded into separate rooms where intimate groups of 50 or so giggling, super-sensitive teenagers were invited to play a quiet game of True Confession.

The assembly leaders asked us if any of us had ever contemplated taking her own life, and I raised my hand. I was only one dumb enough to do it.  My candor earned me a private session with one of the leaders who assured me I wasn’t normal and offered me a pamphlet to a nearby church. I decided not to tell him about the coupon for the box of sleeping pills that I carried in my backpack every day. I decided not to tell anyone because I already had a few labels at that school – ugly, strange – and I wasn’t excited about adding loony tunes to the list.

A few years and suicide attempts later a shrink helped me pin the manic-depressive (as bi-polar disorder was more commonly called back then) label on myself, but it wasn’t something I wore around in public.  I was worried about being able to get a job. I was worried if I ever had kids, I wouldn’t be allowed to keep them. And I worried I’d be put on some kind of government list.

Now the State of Vermont is getting ready to do just that to people with mental illness.  Under the guise of gun safety and protecting people from themselves, they have pushed a law through the senate that will put people with mental illness who have been deemed (by a court) to be a danger to themselves or others on a special FBI ‘pre-crime’ watch list of people who are not allowed to own guns , even though mentally ill people are rarely violent and many may never actually go to buy a gun.

I got a little nervous when I read this.

I’ve been out about my bi-polar situation for many years. It was harder to hide it than be honest about it, but as anyone whose stood at the kitchen counter, gripping a knife during a manic episode and seeing visions of their own amputated wrist can tell you, being a danger to oneself kind of goes with the manic-depressive territory.  I called a shrink the last time that happened, knowing I would find help and a medication adjustment.  I do know that one thing, however, that would keep me from walking into his office and talking openly about an urge to hurt anyone (myself or anyone else) is the fear of getting on some government list.  It might keep me from going at all.

Now, I’m not saying that if I walk into my shrink’s office next week and tell him that voices from the planet Crapulon have told me to kill everybody whose name ends in ’s’ that he shouldn’t report me and take steps to prevent a clear and present danger to someone else (which, by the way is already the law).  He should probably help me get into an institution at that point which would certainly keep me from getting a gun.

I don’t think, however, someone who has never actually committed a crime should be put into some national pre-crime database simply because they are mentally ill and because they might one day buy a gun.

You can call me paranoid to worry about a government that has never passed a law  data to prevent crime or terrorism that ended up drag-netting the private communications and records of thousands of innocent citizens into databases that kept them from getting on planes or had them erroneously detained without counsel before, if they want off the government watch list, requiring them to prove their innocence (and nobody is innocent) because they’ve been assumed guilty, but in my addle-pated mind, nothing says stigma like putting a mentally ill person into a national FBI database.

Never mind that this doesn’t keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people living with mentally healthy people – unless we want to add them to the list. It also doesn’t keep hands out of the hands of mentally ill people who don’t seek help because they don’t trust shrinks – unless we just want to add a random 5.3 million people to the list to be on the safe side (Do you feel safer?).  But it does do something.  By creating a special database just for mentally ill people at the nation’s largest crime investigation organization, it is taking the first step toward classifying them (us) as criminals.   Excuse me, pre-criminals.  I’m not sure if that’s much better.

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Over Time

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I stole this apple from the pantry a month ago.  It was perfect,  part of a still life contrived to resuscitate my creative life.  In it’s current state, it’s a better representation that life.

It’s tax time, and that’s meant overtime for most of the winter for me and my co-workers.  The kids, being nature’s perfect parasites (needy AND cute), took what they needed of our time, money  and body, regardless of how busy, broke or hungry we were.  The blog, however, have been showing signs of neglect, with creativity giving way to the demands of bread winning and bread serving.

Tonight was the official end of overtime, but I decided to stick to that schedule, with a few changes on the priority list.

Today, Saturday became story day with 5000 words, good or bad, hammered out.  Some may see the light of day, others may end up in a drawer with the rest of my rejects. Sunday became Sunday Funny day.  One cartoon every Sunday because, let’s face it, Sunday is meant for funny pages. Wednesday became HOGA because Hugging Yoga is really needed in the middle of the week. The other days became generic blogging days, but it all became part of a commitment to spend that extra time doing something that, over time will hopefully produce something that’s at least as satisfying as a slightly bigger paycheck.

 

A Growing Man

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Fourteen-year-old Thing-One started learning to duck in doorways almost two years ago, but no one would look at his face or hands and mistake him for a grown man. His voice, low and still hesitating, belies any maturity suggested by his broadening shoulders and long legs.
There are times, however, when even I, who has been carefully guarding my time with this child, am fooled. The confusion doesn’t stem from his size or matching appetite or even the flashes of independence he displays when refusing to do his homework.
I have been flummoxed more frequently over the last two months as an injured leg has forced me to delegate more physical activities to others. Thing-One, always charged with bringing in some firewood, has taken responsibility for the few loads I used to bring in, and he has stepped up in other ways.
He fetches. He hovers when I walk from car to door, constantly watching to make sure the person who taught him to walk doesn’t fall. I still need to sit on him to get homework done, but a few days ago as we drove home in a snowstorm, I realized what I’d been seeing for a few weeks. The windshield wiper was shredded from the ice, and Thing-One suggested pulling over.  A few minutes later, he was out of the car and scraping the window before I could get my seat belt off. I started to open the door, but he yelled you’re the windshield, “Mom, I got this! You just stay there and be careful.”
And in that moment I knew I might not be seeing a fully grown man,but the person on the other side of the windshield was no boy. He was a growing man, and one who was doing a great job of it.

March Common-Thread Give-Away

Welcome to the end of Winter.  Okay, okay, officially it’s a few weeks away, but I dare you to look at this blanket and not think of something warm.

This month’s Common-Thread Give-Away Artist is fiber artist Maria Wulf.

Maria’s offering for March is making this Common Thread’s artist wish she could be in the running.  This 50″ by 60″ fleece blanket is a replica of a quilt she made for  Blue Star Equiculture, a Working Horse Sanctuary.  Maria described the design as a symbol of the ancient bond between people and horses and the importance of keeping that relationship alive.  The proceeds of the sales of these “Restore-the-Bond” blankets were given to support the horses at the Blue Star Sanctuary and horses around the country, and this month the lucky winner of the Common-Thread Give-Away Drawing will receive one of these special blankets!

To register for this drawing visit Maria at Full Moon Fiber Arts and leave a comment for her anytime Monday through Wednesday. The winner will be announced at the end of this week!

Then take a moment to check out our other Common-Thread Artist’s websites:

Jon Katz, Bedlam Farm

Jane McMillen, Little House Home Arts

and Kim Gifford, Pugs & Pics

T’is the Season

I don’t like to repost things, but it’s March 1rst, there’s a few inches of fresh snow on the way to cover up the few feet that are already out there, and I really needed to satisfy my quest for something really dirty.  That’s right, it’s seed catalog time.

So what spring flings are you dreaming about?