Cave Life

September 29, 2014December 22, 2014 / Lisa / 6 Comments

Elizabeth Peters once wrote that there was something about a pair of hairy legs next to you in bed, even if they were attached to someone completely useless.

Last week there was a discussion between myself, another woman, and a couple guys in uniform, about why so many women like men in uniforms. The person I was with said it was because the men represented safety, someone who knew what to do in an emergency and could take care of you when zombies attacked. I said it was because I coveted their guns.

Another woman, a while back, told me she thought my husband was ‘hot’ because he looked like the type who would know what to do when ‘the world went to shit’.

All of this has made me think about something other than writing. Such as:

Hey, I know what to do when the world goes to shit. I know what to do in an emergency. I might be terrified, but I know what to do. In most emergencies. I admit to not knowing how to replace a transmission in a car.

The kid.

But hey, I got ‘Firefighter of the Year’ once. My pantry is stocked. I can bake bread. I know how to shoot. I may not be able to hit much, but that’s why I have a shotgun.

But if I’m honest, I do feel safer when Art is around. More secure. I do trust him completely to hold it all together. He told me once on a fire I was nervous about, that I was his highest priority. I asked him how he’d tell me apart from everyone else in bunker gear. His response – he’d look for the shortest firefighter.

I am not someone who believes women are helpless little women, and I dislike it when women think that. One of the stupidest things I heard a woman say, during a boat fire at Disneyland, was ‘I don’t know what to do, I’m a woman!’. Seriously. She said that. While the boat’s engine belched smoke and the boat was full of children. While she was the tour guide responsible for those children that she ran right by to get to the far end of the boat. My husband put the fire out.

So if I feel self-sufficient and capable, why is there still that tiny piece of me that wants the scruffy guy to save the day? I mean, I don’t even read romance novels. And obviously there are a lot of women who think the same way, even if we are ashamed to admit it. Look at the post-apocalyptic movies out there. How many have women saving the world? I wish there were a few more.

Is it some sort of inherited genetic programming from cave-man days when reliance on the hunter meant survival? I’ve read that the male who could guarantee survival of offspring was the preferred one.

Is it that women are not as independent as we think we are? I refuse to admit that. Not only because I don’t think it’s true, and for reasons above, but also because there are plenty of guys out there who wouldn’t have a clue how to fish.

I don’t get it. I can stand on my own two feet, but admit to admiring a man in a uniform. Heck, I’ll admit publicly to admiring scruffy men no matter what they’re wearing. Just like I admire a nice looking truck when it goes by.

Seriously though, I wonder what the reason is. My personal opinion is that this has nothing to do with gender or uniforms. I think it has to do with companionship, a sharing of responsibility, a person to take away our fear and tell us it’s all going to be okay. A deep-seated desire to not face life alone.

What are your thoughts?

Or maybe the dog saves the day…

Action vs. Soul

September 4, 2014December 22, 2014 / Lisa / 9 Comments

After getting quite the talking-to from my oldest sister last night, I decided to tackle another question. Several posts back I listed some that people felt were too hard to answer, and thought it might be easier to take them one at a time, answer them myself, and see if that primed the pump. Well, everyone’s right. These are hard.

So, can I say who I am, without saying what I do? I’m sure you’re all familiar with my point here. That every time you meet someone new, the first thing they want to know is what you do, as if that defines all that you are.

Okay, following the theme of the bawling out I got (that I am pondering, honestly), I will start by saying I’m probably closer to the thorn than the rose.

More rose than thorn

I’m someone more at peace around less.

I relate to trees more than to some relations.

It’s obviously tempting here to start listing things I like versus things I don’t. Things that make me happy, or sad, or mad. All of that is part of who I am, but they don’t take the question to a broader scene.

I am residual genetics filtered down through generations of Germans and Scots. I am descended from Montana pioneers. I could go on with history, but it makes me realize that I am trying to say who I am by saying where I came from, and that isn’t right either.

Cherry Creek with generations of family

The labels I’ve talked about before start to surface: mom, writer, sister, wife, daughter…but those don’t say who I am. They only say what I am to others, and almost slide into defining self by what I do.

The easy way out right now is to simply write that I am the sum of all these things. That kind of feels like cheating. It also feels like a cliché and all writers hate clichés. Or should.

So whom am I? Someone who is loved. Someone who loves. Someone who also dislikes, and gets pissed, and cusses too much.

Oops. Slipping into defining by listing.

I am part of the earth, I gain balance from the places that feel like bone-deep parts of me: mountains, rivers, forests. I want to return to that earth some day, no coffin, no barriers, just part of the whole.

Dramatic sunset backdrop for dramatic words.

That sounds wonderful, but is rather dramatic. And there’s that pragmatic side of me that’s laughing at the dramatic side.

So who am I? I really have no idea. Someone who tried sandpaper to get rid of freckles so long ago that the majority of the people who remember that are gone. Someone who just realized those freckles have faded like those people.

Who are you? How do you define yourself? Please show me you would answer this.

‘Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is who we are.’ – Jose Saramago

Silverback Fir Cones

Activism Lost

July 8, 2014December 22, 2014 / Lisa / 18 Comments

Road trips meant talk radio. Many late night hours were spent dozing in the back of a smoke-filled car while we crossed miles, the family off on another vacation. Dad would drive, we would sleep, and pavement passed. I’d wake to see headlights shining on the center line, my dad with his cigarette, and the sound of debate. We grew up with debate. If it wasn’t talk radio at two in the morning, it was questions with no easy answer my dad asked at the dinner table.

Now I have these same kinds of talks with my son and husband. I love the feeling of power, the words flowing around something strongly felt, the sense that change is within grasp. And I especially love learning, hearing the other opinion, being swayed to think of things from a different angle, being forced to question my words and make sure I truly believe.

So last week in Vegas my husband and I drove out to the Valley of Fire State Park. Absolutely stunning rock formations, billions of years in the making. And we puny, infant humans driving in air-conditioned cars (it was 111 degrees!) gawking. Art and I started a discussion around the current politics. Well, okay, it was a debate about as heated as the ambient air outside. Our opinions don’t matter here. What does, is I asked him why, if he felt so strongly, did he not do something.

Which brought up the question.

What?

As he said, he couldn’t even see the reason to start a blog because there were so many out there with the same opinions and he didn’t feel he could contribute anything that hadn’t been said before. I laughed a bit at that. What writer doesn’t question how to make their story original when it’s all been done? But he was right.

I was a kid in the sixties, the wrong age for the peace and love revolution. I envied my sisters. Too young to actively take part, I was still convinced they would change the world. I’m not a historian or philosopher so I can’t tell you what went wrong, if anything actually did go wrong. I mean, hey, we got the Grateful Dead out of that period. And the Age of Aquarius. Oh! and the Partridge family!

Parked next to us at the Valley of Fire. Not the Partridge Family bus but appropriate for alien landscapes.

But what about now? You can’t go on Facebook without seeing a lot of photos posted with opinions written across the photo. It’s like the new generation of tee shirts with statements. After talking to Art though, I’ve been wondering what good that does. What physical, tangible change is made? Art said in that very hot valley, that all those thousands of people who posted photos of themselves holding signs saying ‘bring back our girls’ put pressure for action that wouldn’t otherwise have happened. Maybe.

What risk was entailed for those people who had to do nothing but post a selfie? Does activism have to include risk? Can you change the world without risk? Can you change the world at all? I hear stories about children and homelessness and desperation, and wonder, what can one person do? Donate money I suppose, but that’s a degree of separation from reality and is that really activism?

I’m not smart enough to answer questions I’m not even sure how to phrase. In the Valley of Fire Art got pretty upset. He didn’t feel he was eloquent enough to get his point across. He always feels he loses when we debate. Well, he was eloquent enough that a week later I’m still lost in thought. Still on that dark road trip with talk radio as background noise as I try to figure out how to bring back peace, love, no war, and songs like ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’.

It’s going to be a long, long drive.