Daily Prompt – Page 13 – My World With Words

July 4, 2016April 4, 2017

By What Authority My Decisions Are Made

I’ve gotten used to making my own decisions, and managing their consequences. It’s what I expect out of my life, and I can’t imagine another way of living.

In recent years I’ve seen first hand what happens when a person is no longer in control of his or her life, when others control every aspect of it and let power overtake their better qualities. It’s frightening, insidious and happening every day, all around us.

It happens in jails and prisons. Clearly, there’s a reason the deputies and guards must be in control, but when the jail tells you when to use the bathroom and controls whether or not you have toilet paper, a big part of your humanity is taken away. Yes, these people have committed a crime, and some would say, “they’re getting what they deserve.” But jail and prison are meant for confinement from society, not beating one’s spirit until it is destroyed.

It happens, sometimes, between husbands and wives. Men who beat their wives, whose behavior is so erratic and unpredictable the women live in constant fear their simple comments will trigger a violent attack, have taken away a vital part of their spouse’s heart and mind. It doesn’t get better, not in the marriage. The women have to leave to regain their soul, and it takes a long time.

And it happens in some countries whose leaders make a mockery of human rights and dignity. Where you are born with infinite worth yet no one will ever let you fully express your own essential self.

Today, as Americans celebrate their independence, I am thankful for my rights to make my own decisions, whether wise or foolish, to explore my options in my choice of career and even hobby, to freely write what I choose on this blog.

I know many of you who read what I post here live in other countries, and it’s important to me you know I respect and admire many of the nations on this earth and the people who are loyal to them. Patriotism doesn’t mean you reject all others, for me, it’s an appreciation of what I have and a commitment to protect those rights.

God bless us, everyone.

Autonomy

Image Credits: (hands in jail) © zurijeta — Bigstock; (drawing of woman) © retroclipart — Bigstock; (globe) Pixabay; (fireworks) © Carlos Santa Maria — Fotolia

March 25, 2016March 29, 2017

A Grown-Up Fairy Tale or Two, Please

No one had greater belief he could slay dragons than my late cat Montero when he was a mere six weeks old.

So brave was he I gave him the nickname “Mighty Montero.” It stuck, even when he mellowed with age and stopped facing obstacles seemingly too big to overcome. At some point, his greatest concern was getting prime position on the sofa. No dragons there.

Anyone who’s spent much time with kittens will tell you they’re fearless. Their little tails fly high, until they think all humans are out of sight, when they relax and let down their guard. But they never doubt they’re in charge. And thus they are.

Fearless in the Face of a Dragon — Now, if you think the dragon is going to win this showdown, you don’t know kitties.

Of course harm can come to kittens, and so we protect them. Harm can come to children as well, and we do the same there. In centuries past part of protecting your child included telling stories of danger in the woods such as Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel & Gretel. It doesn’t take too much imagination to figure out what those tales were really about.

I still take that kind of danger to heart, but now I’m responsible for protecting myself. I’m cautious, perhaps overly cautious, in some areas. Unfortunately, in other areas, I don’t always know when it’s safe to take risks, when the dragons can be slain without chance of them rising again and quenching me with their fire.

I weary, at times, of getting hurt, of making the same damn mistakes over and over again. I tire of gathering the courage to do what I need to do, only to have it whip me back into solitude. I need an old-fashioned grown-up fairy tale, one that tells me dragons can be vanquished, to believe in happy endings again.

dragon fire extinguisher sm — Well, why didn’t I think of this before?

I need to know I have the power to do it and make it work.

Tomorrow, I know, I’ll be back on my feet again. I’ll get past the pain and I’ll start to see the good.

Damn dragons.

Image Credit: (lady and dragon) © wickerwood — Fotolia (cat and dragon) © ya_mayka – Fotolia

Fearless

March 7, 2016March 25, 2017

Our Simple Home a Place Divine

Great-Gram's Poetry Book I have few family heirlooms, and none have value outside of my home. Still, what I have, I treasure, and what I treasure most, perhaps, is the book of poetry my great-grandfather gave my great-grandmother on their wedding day in February, 1905.

Inscribed inside from him to her is this verse from one of the poems of Riley’s Love Lyrics, long out-of-print:

And have the shine/of one glad woman’s eyes to make, for my poor sake,/Our simple home a place divine/Just the wee cot–the cricket’s chirr–/Love, and the smiling face of her.

Okay, maybe long out-of-print for a reason.

I would like to say their marriage was a love story for the ages, but it wasn’t. It was as good or bad a union as any of its time, with one exceptional result: all of their children, including all four women, received a college education. (My grandmother, I believe, was the only one who didn’t graduate, but in her day, women going to college was the exception, not the rule, and she was as smart, and ultimately, as educated, as any of them.)

And their children were good people. I speak of them and not my great-grandparents only because they were the people I knew, and I respected them.

I’ve had several friends lose their parents this past week in a somewhat shocking series of losses, and in each case I’ve been struck by this: the legacy they left behind in their children, some despite themselves, others because of a lifetime of sacrifice for their children.

panzram wedding — My great- grandparents on their wedding day.

My great-grandparents clearly started out their marriage with all the hope and anticipation of any newlywed couple, and over the years that youthful belief in each other grew into a deeper knowledge of their spouse’s faults and failings, strengths and unique qualities.

Life is a journey, and not an easy one. We have our benchmark moments, but mostly we have day to day experiences that little by little define us, both to ourselves and others. We look for inspiration in the things around us, but we do the best we can with the power we have at any given moment.

And that’s okay. Our choices evolve, we grow, we’re inspired by others and suddenly we see ourselves in a whole new light. It starts a new path without requiring much thought at that point, because it’s who we want to be.

We want to be better, and we find ourselves seeking that good we know is there inside our souls, to show it to the world. As if the world hadn’t seen it already.

Sentimental

February 9, 2016April 6, 2017

Please Don’t Name Him “CheeseDoodle”

I’ve always stood up for parents’ right to name their children whatever they choose, although admittedly, that stand is hard to maintain sometimes. Still, when your own name has been so controversial within the family your grandparents never, in the thirty-plus years of your life they were alive, called you by it, you get a little defensive.

My name isn’t that unusual — Belinda — although it had fallen off of the Top 2000 list sometime in the 70s. It’s making a bit of a comeback, not surprising given how closely related it is to so many other relatively popular names out there.

(My dad’s theory — although these weren’t his parents — was my grandma in particular was offended by the connection to the 1948 film Johnny Belinda, about a deaf-mute woman named Belinda who was raped and as a result, had a son, Johnny, out of wedlock. Controversial and uncomfortable topics for the time.)

me & Grandma — Me and my Grandma Stella Ostrowski, aka Anastasia, the one who *would* call me by name.

The popularity of names tends to cycle. Growing up, the names “Stella” and “Claire” equaled “old lady” to me. Now they’ve made a comeback. My other grandmother (the one who would call me by name) was christened Anastasia, but sometime after that — possibly around the age of two — her mother began to call her Stella (hence the old lady association for me).

Grandma’s given name was so secret, even her four sons didn’t know it was different until she died, nor did some of her younger siblings. I asked my dad about it, and he thought maybe my great-grandmother (Eva) had been pressured to name her baby one thing, perhaps after a saint, but changed it as soon as she could to something she actually liked.

I like the name Anastasia, and so did my cousin Mark, who named his daughter Ana after our grandmother. Now I prefer his choice over Stella, but it wouldn’t be fair for any of us cousins to run screaming if that’s what he’d named his baby instead, just because we could immediately picture that child in her dotage.

(Let me say here, I think Stella is a pretty name, or I wouldn’t be using it as an example. We all have people we associate with certain names, and no doubt right now there are some saying “hell if I’ll ever name my baby Belinda” because of some nasty babysitter or snippy neighbor. Or you just don’t like it.)

Me and Beth 1962 or thereabouts — Me and Beth

My parents stood by their controversial choice with me, and I’m glad. A year after I was born, my sister Beth arrived. Not Elizabeth, but Beth. My grandparents weren’t too thrilled about that either, yet if you know my sister, she is not an Elizabeth. She is a Beth.

I have a good friend who, when pregnant with her son, had picked out the name Jason. However, when baby boy J arrived, mom & dad looked at him and immediately said, “he’s not a Jason.” A mere 24 hours after his birth, they named him Nathan instead. Now, some of us weren’t sure what the difference between a “Jason” and a “Nathan” would be, but funny thing is, 28 years later, it’s clear they made the right choice.

Controversy isn’t always with unusual names. If I had been a boy (and I was born pre-ultrasound, so gender was a surprise), I was to be named Mark. Lucky for my aunt and uncle I was a girl, because that was the name they’d picked out for their son, born a month after me. However, my other aunt and uncle caused a seismic stir in the family when, a few years later, they named their son Marc. “The potential legal problems…” As you might guess, this was all on my dad’s side of the family, so our last name is the same.

Tiny Baby — Aw, what’s the perfect name for this perfect baby with the ten perfect toes?

I’ve read studies that show what you name your child affects his or her psyche in ways that can never truly be defined (well, of course, what would the control group be in such a study?) and most parents expecting a child no doubt take that to heart. Still, given all the weird nicknames we come up with for each other over a lifetime, maybe it’s more the way you say it that counts.

There is no right conclusion to make here, except to say, the perfect name doesn’t exist. The right name might, however, and that’s for parents to decide. And unless we’re sincerely asked for our opinion, the rest of us should just keep quiet.

Daily Prompt — Say Your Name

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