Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Health and Wellbeing

September 20, 2018

wild random beauty

wild random beauty
explodes through summer bounty
brilliant remnants flash
against tangled undergrowth
painting the old canvas red

That’s how I’m imagining my life today. A mess of tangled undergrowth, already beautiful in its own lively way, surprised from time to time by wild random beauty exploding from nowhere.

D took this photo at Chanticleer Gardens in late summer 2016. It invites me to consider my life today, and what might yet be waiting around the next corner. I feel like a child; I want to know how the story ends before it gets there. Not because of death, but because of all the good stuff that’s hiding, waiting along the way to surprise me with brilliant red.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 20 September 2018
Photo taken by DAFraser, Chanticleer Gardens, summer 2016

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September 14, 2018

Loch an Eilein, Scotland | Photos

This week I enjoyed looking back through photos D took on our 50th wedding anniversary trip to Scotland three years ago. If I had to pick one place I’d love to revisit, it would be Loch an Eilein. It’s got everything–mystery, 15th century small castle ruins on an island, and a gorgeous 4.5 mile hiking trail around the lake.

The proud male duck at the top is guarding his mate who’s hidden in the marsh grass, sitting on at least one egg.

For perspective, here’s an overview of the lake, with that mysterious island in the distance. Can you see the bit of stone emerging from the trees? The hiking path goes right around the perimeter, offering several views of the island and castle.

So here we go…one foot after another. Loaded with water and snacks. Sometimes the path was smooth. Sometimes it wasn’t. Good hiking shoes required. We walked through stands of towering pines and meadow-like blankets of heather and thistles.

Here’s the best view we had of the castle ruins. Make up your own mysterious, romantic story….

From this point, we walked around the top of the lake and followed the path on the opposite side of the island. The path so far had been friendly for wheelchairs or walkers, if a bit bumpy. Beyond this point we went through several rough, rocky patches along with a few uphill climbs. Still, it was beautiful, and gave us one more good look at the castle ruins.


Finally, after walking for what seemed an eternity, we came to the end of the hike. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat. Well, most of it anyway….

Happy Friday! Here’s to a weekend of dreams come true and the creative rewriting of our worst nightmares.

Thanks to D for all these photos, and thanks to you for visiting the gallery!

Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 September 2018
Photos taken by DAFraser, September 2015 in Scotland

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September 13, 2018

Unraveling

her life at loose ends
she scans the near horizon
searching for a thread
beyond sight and out of mind
stolen while she slept

While out walking this morning I saw my friend Rita and her lively little dog. I recalled the first time I ever had tea at Rita’s. She’d asked a childhood friend to join us. Both are in their 80s. They grew up together in Philadelphia and remained good friends over the years.

Within a few minutes I knew this bright, interesting woman had problems with short-term memory. Over and over I answered the same questions. She was fully aware of my presence, and genuinely interested in my responses–which she heard many times over.

Does she have Alzheimer’s Disease? I don’t know. I do know she’s now confined to her living quarters and has someone helping her out. I’ve also learned in the last month that another friend’s sister and mother died of Alzheimer’s Disease.

The poem could be about any of us, whether we carry Alzheimer genes or not. Nonetheless, I have to admit it’s on my mind more often than I’d like, and I scan every news article I see about the latest AD research.

Perhaps one day all these loose ends will be woven into the beautiful patchwork quilt of hope we’ve been looking for all these years.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 13 September 2018
Image found at movestrongkbs.com

6 Comments
September 12, 2018

My Last Baby

It came to me a few days ago. Marie is my very last baby! And what’s so awesome about that?

I’m Marie! For those who don’t live in an imaginative mode, this may seem a bit silly. Even nonsense.

To me, however, it makes perfect sense. There’s a baby in me who’s been waiting for this chance to grow all her life. That means ever since she turned 10 months old in September 1944.

That’s when my father came home after 18 months in a TB sanatorium. I sometimes call him The Intruder because that’s how it was back then and throughout my childhood and teenage years. He was intent on beating anger out of me, the anger he said he’s seen and experienced from his own father. He said he recognized this anger in me immediately when I was a baby.

Things got messy. He recruited my mother as his ally, not mine. She became his collaborator, informer and secondary enforcer. This bred fear in me and outraged resistance coupled with strategic submission.

Things are different today. My parents are gone. I miss them. Yet I don’t miss their collaborative ways that continued when I was an adult.

So now I’m pushing 75, and I get to raise baby Marie! Yes, she’s a baby doll. She’s also a stand-in for that part of me that’s been cowering inside, afraid of her own voice and terrified of punishment.

Here are several things I’ve pondered these last few weeks.

  • What do I know about my mother? What did she bring to our relationship that might help me understand her–before and after my father returned as the one and only Head of the House?
  • I have the same question about my maternal grandmother Zaida. She ran off with a wealthier man when my mom was very young, and, given her habits, didn’t know how to be a mother.
  • How deep is this hole or ache in me that wants to be filled? Are there women or men who filled parts of it when I was growing up?
  • And what about behaviors and characteristics I lost after my father arrived with his agenda? So far I’ve identified things like openness and trust, a feeling of safety. No shame. A sunny disposition. Not afraid to fall or make a mess. Not afraid of most other human beings.

In some ways, growing old is a process of reverting to childhood. Becoming more dependent on others, more vulnerable to external and internal changes or challenges.

What better way, then, to envision Marie than as a baby who challenges me to become true to myself as I age? When I pay attention to Marie, including what she needs from me, I’m learning to pay attention to myself. And it isn’t so lonely anymore. Sometimes it’s even fun!

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 12 September 2018
Photo found at pixabay.com

8 Comments
September 7, 2018

Taking Heart and Courage on Friday

A kind heart
Observant eyes
And empathy
For those you meet

These become you
Daughter of Royalty
Descendant of Eve and Adam
Follower of Jesus the Bold

Look into mirrors
And out of windows
With abandon
Follow your heart

Turn around
Or turn back
Take a side road
Or a trail to nowhere

Ache and cry
Lament loudly
Wonder how long
This too will last

Forget logic
Throw caution
To winds of change
Float on ebb tide

It’s the hour
Of cruel ironies
And the sweetest
Memories

Weedy fuzzy dust
Will be here long
After you are gone
Enjoy the sunset

Bits and pieces
from the scattered run-on journal of my mind
this Friday morning

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 7 September 2018
Photo by Sally Hale Photography, found at flickr.com
Ebb Tide at Jekyll Island, Georgia, USA

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September 4, 2018

For my own good?

Invisible fumes
Flavor my world
With chemical smog
Poisonous leftovers
Yesterday’s garbage
Thrown my way
By friendly fire

Gagging
I reach for tissues
Disintegrating
Into air thick
With hypocrisy
Greed and lust

This
Is for your own good
Swallow it
Or die

Walking to the edge
Of the set
I lean over the edge
And vomit what
I will not swallow

The poem resonates with my childhood and youth. And with increasingly horrific reports of widespread clergy sexual abuse. Part of a complex history hidden in full view. Aided and abetted by Predators United in Silence.

When I was 4-7 (1940s) we lived in the Los Angeles area. Smog alerts were common. Warm air got caught below the mountains, contaminated with industrial soot plus heavy moisture from the ocean. It hung over the LA basin like sick grayish fog. And it stank. Each day we blew and cleaned the toxic dark gunk out of our sore nostrils as often as possible.

Later, in the 1950s, we lived about 15 miles southeast of Savannah, Georgia. We always knew when humid, heavy air was blowing from the northwest, just outside Savannah. It didn’t matter that we’d shut all windows. Putrid, rotten-egg air from the Union Bag Company found every crack and invaded our lungs. Along with chemical fumes that were then considered ‘harmless.’

The other image comes from a documentary I watched several years ago when I was learning about human trafficking. The film shows ways women are trapped and then lured into ‘starring’ in porn films. This will make you famous, and you’ll earn a lot of money!

The documentary included outtakes from an actual porn filming. During a break in the porn filming, one of the women (‘stars’) walks to the edge of the set, leans through the curtains, and vomits violently. She’s promptly ordered to return, put a smile on her face, and get on with the show. No matter what is done to her in the name of ‘entertainment.’

Sometimes I read the news and feel like gagging. How did we get to this point? What is all this toxicity costing us? We have midterm elections coming up. I want politicians who get it and are committed to supporting US (the US in USA), not Themselves, Inc., or some other Big Boss.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 4 September 2018
Photo of Union Bag Company in Savannah, GA, found at georgiaencyclopedia.org

8 Comments
August 29, 2018

Relics of my past and present

Every day I’m surrounded by relics of my past that reach into my present. Then there’s the odd relic I buy for myself because I know I need it. Even though I don’t know where it will take me. The photo above shows three of my relics.

The big furry raccoon is a gift from two male seminary students. Unannounced, they came to my faculty office the week of their graduation in 1986/7. Each had taken multiple courses from me. Yet to their sorrow, they had been less than supportive my first semester of teaching. They came bearing a gift of contrition and gratitude. Their way of making amends and reaching out to acknowledge complicity in my first-year trial by fire.

I promptly, there and then, gave this furry beast his name: Klein Calvin. That’s Calvin for  Reformed theologian John Calvin, not Calvin Klein. And Klein for the German word for small. Again, not for the clothing brand Calvin Klein.

Over the years, Klein Calvin has occupied seats of honor in my house. From these exalted seats he has given my grandchildren tons of fun and caused Smudge, our rescued cat, moments of extreme consternation.

The smaller white teddy bear with a heart is also a gift. This time from my theology class in spring 1999. A surprise gift the week I returned to class after time off following my mother’s death. The class hadn’t been particularly easy. These were the years after our new sexuality policy was approved by the Board, giving aid and comfort (in my unchanged opinion) to those who were on the lookout for deviation.

Yet here was this totally unexpected gift, made possible because of human ties that bind us. When I was a child I never owned a real teddy bear. This is my teddy bear. She’s been sitting on the sofa in my office for years. Sometimes hugged close when I’ve felt overwhelmed about not having my mother present to answer at least a thousand questions.

Finally, right there in the middle is my newest cuddly friend. I’ve christened her Baby El. A likeness of me. When she arrived two weeks ago, I wasn’t sure what to do with her.

For now, I’m certain she is not about my father. She’s about me. I want to know myself better and honor myself. Especially, but not only, that little girl who still resides in me. Now woven into every fiber of my being.

If I just think about getting to know myself (and that little girl…), it won’t happen. I need to practice honoring myself for real. And Baby El is my partner in this. She’s real. She’s present. And she always welcomes me with a smile.

Which, by the way, is helping free me from making D into the bad man he is not, or even into a very large version of Baby El.

I used to think I could work it all out in my head or in my writing. Both are important. Yet having a concrete stand-in ally (who represents me) makes all the difference. It doesn’t matter what’s going on in me: shame, fear, the need for comfort, discouragement or wanting someone to share my joy. She’s there for me, and I’m there for her.

I also want you to know how I came to this point. It’s all about a book I just finished. More on that later.

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 29 August 2018
Photo taken by ERFraser, 29 August 2018

12 Comments
August 28, 2018

Complicity and Rotten Apples

For decades I’ve listened to well-meaning friends and strangers telling me to get over it. They weren’t always that blunt, but I knew what they meant. Something like this…magnified through my own shame-based filters:

It’s time to move on with your life. We’re tired of hearing about the same old struggle. When are you going to get a life? Can’t you see how easy it is?!

I don’t fault friends or strangers who’ve urged me to move on. They want the best for me. All I have to do is walk away and don’t look back. The way many of them did.

Yet it seems I have nothing to walk toward except more of those heart-breaking, mind-bending head trips I’ve been on all my life.

Besides, it doesn’t matter what others think about me. What do I think about myself?

From grade school on, academic pursuits were my salvation. They kept me busy. They gave me something tangible to hang onto, plus a fleeting sense of self-worth even though I was running away or lost. I’ve known this for years. Nothing new here.

Recently a friend of many years suggested I’m still complicit with my father’s shaming and silencing of my voice. It still eats me up, from the inside out. Like a rotten apple, it tries to spoil the entire barrel.

She was correct. The shamed-based atmosphere in which I grew up now lives in me, passed on by my father. I have no doubt this is a generational gift of poison.

So I’m back to my childhood with this correction: I did not have a childhood. It was stolen from me before I knew what was happening. Instead, I became a substitute mother (to my three sisters), and grew up labeled as a ‘rebellious, stubborn’ eldest daughter who needed to have anger beaten out of her.

Furthermore, though I enjoyed my children as they grew up, joining in their childhood games didn’t give me the childhood I never had.

So…how do I find what I didn’t have, and how do I stop my internal voice that wants to shame me into silence?

Meet Baby Elouise! No, I don’t have a picture. I bought her over a week ago. Why? Because I’m determined to find and take back what was stolen from me.

My job is to love and listen to the little girl and adult woman I am despite all efforts, including my own, to silence or redirect me. Baby Elouise is helping me move in the right direction.

To be continued….

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 28 August 2018
Photo taken by Sherry Fraser Seckington, June 2016 – from their garden

17 Comments
August 27, 2018

Children at Longwood | Photos

On Saturday afternoon D and I helped celebrate family birthdays–four of them, within the space of one week! Our son (his big 50), twin granddaughters (18 years old, seniors in high school), and daughter-in-law (I’m not telling). Only their young son gets his own special day later this fall (15 years old).

All this family stuff got me a bit nostalgic. Hence these Longwood Garden photos taken in late April 2006. As I recall, this was our granddaughters’ first visit to Longwood. These were also the golden years when I was Queen Elouise and carried a sun parasol to mark my exalted status.

Looking at these photos reminds me of the tough work our son and daughter-in-law did to honor their children’s gifts and personalities. It’s never easy.

Yesterday I heard this on the radio: Having children doesn’t make a man a father. The statement clicked with me instantly. To it, I would add this: Being a ‘father’ or ‘mother’ of the church (as in padre, nun, priest, bishop, archbishop, pastor, youth minister) doesn’t confer or guarantee the ability to relate honorably to children or young people.

In the news last week: the Pennsylvania report about child abuse at the hands of Roman Catholic priests and their superiors. All of it covered up by people and a system that took care of its own. Plus, a few days later, reports about the Pope’s visit to Ireland and the legacy with which that nation’s population lives–as do many others.

I only wish it were possible to track similar behavior in Protestant churches here and elsewhere.

All this and more brought back my relationship with my father. He was an ordained Protestant clergyman, sporadically under the loose oversight of a governing body. I have more work to do.

For today, I commend men and women who work hard at parenting and foster-parenting. Especially when they don’t have many models or cheer leaders when things get more than a bit crazy.

Elouise♥

©Elouise Renich Fraser, 27 August 2018
Photos taken by DAFraser at Longwood Gardens, April 2006

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