Author: Melanie

Don’t laugh at me, don’t call me names
Don’t get your pleasure from my pain
In God’s eyes we’re all the same
Someday we’ll all have perfect wings
Don’t laugh at me
— Mark Wills, Don’t Laugh at Me

Something happened last Friday night, and though I vented about it on Facebook that evening, I still can’t shake it.

There is an elderly man in my neighborhood who has some kind of spine or neck curvature that causes him to walk with his head and shoulders hunched over and facing the ground.  I see him out on walks fairly regularly, and I always worry about him.  He shuffles slowly along and has to turn his whole body to look both ways before crossing the street.

Last Friday evening, David and I were at the gas station where the entrance to our subdivision meets the main road.  I saw the man walking on the sidewalk parallel to the main road.  When he came to the entrance/exit to the gas station, he stopped and turned his whole body both ways to check that there were no cars coming before continuing on his way.

As he made his way slowly, a white van on the main road slowed down, and the woman in the passenger seat stuck her whole body out the window and took a picture of the man with her phone, then the van sped up and drove off.

As I realized what was happening, I felt shock and sadness and, more than anything, anger.  I was sitting in our car and I yelled out, “You fucking bitch!  You goddamned asshole!”  Hot tears filled my eyes and fell down my cheeks.  I’m crying now just thinking about it again.  I was in the car with the windows up and it all happened so fast that she wouldn’t have heard me anyway, but I just wanted to keep screaming and throw things at the van.  I felt so, so helpless.

I don’t think the man saw her or knew what was happening, but that doesn’t make me feel any better.  Like I said, I worry about him when I see him out, because people can be so terrible, but I hoped that he was always ok.  Having seen what that woman did – took a picture of him for no other reason than her own sick amusement, surely to be shared with others and laughed at later – I’m reminded that there are people in the world who don’t seem to understand that every single person is a human being entitled to his or her dignity and to be treated with compassion and respect.  And I’m angry about that.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
— from Daffodils, by William Wordsworth

Well, hello there, friends.  Is it really possible that, after blogging nearly every day for the month of February, I let nearly all of March go by without writing once?  Indeed it is.  Things were a little rough around the homestead and in my family at the beginning of the month, and I was dealing with a lot of things that aren’t entirely mine to share, but because they were/are so big, it often felt impossible to write about anything else, so . . . I just didn’t write at all.

Anyway, things on the homefront have improved a bunch, and while things in my family remain unsettled, I feel like I have some space and distance to be able to focus on other things.

If we’re pals on Facebook, you know that one of the biggest house issues got solved last Friday – we finally got seating for the great room!

I love them so much I could cry.  We’d looked everywhere we could think of for furniture and we found at least one L-shaped set up that we loved but that was way too big.  Then, a few weeks ago, my brother was here, and out of the blue I asked him, “Where else can we look for furniture?”  He said, “Bassett.”  Which we hadn’t even remembered existed.  We found one nearby, went that day, picked out this set up, came home and taped out the dimensions on the floor to be sure they would fit, and went back and bought it, just before the end of a 15% off sale.  They are so super comfy, and I haven’t spent an evening downstairs in the family room since these arrived.  I can’t wait to find a rug to really tie the room together.

A couple of weekends ago, Karen and I took an overnight trip to Virginia Beach, just because.  We got a room right on the beach, and I finally got to fly the kite that’s literally been in my trunk for going on 6 years now.

After we sat in the hot tub for a while, we got dressed up and headed to Macaroni Grill, where Karen had almost TWO whole alcoholic drinks, made besties with our waitress, and flirted shamelessly (and expertly) with every male employee her BFF (our waitress) called over to our table.  I haven’t laughed so hard and so long in a really long time.  It was awesome.  We also saw a ton of high school juniors dressed in prom gear eating dinner before heading to a ring dance, which made us feel about 100 years old because they looked like babies.

So that was my March.  How was yours?

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that crushed it.
— Mark Twain

Wednesday’s Writing Group prompt: What is the most difficult thing you have had to forgive?

I am not going to go into details on this (so maybe I’ve picked the wrong thing for this prompt?). Something happened to me – or, more accurately, someone did something to me – many, many years ago. It fucked me up in a lot of ways for a really long time, and probably still does, to an extent.  But the person responsible is not a monster; I don’t hate this person, and I’m not angry at this person. I forgave this person a long time ago and, honestly, it wasn’t even that hard to do.  I’m responsible for me, and any anger or hurt or resentment I carried over what happened only hurt me, kept me from moving forward, so it had to go. And that was the end of that.

“I’m the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It’s awful. If I’m on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I’m going, I’m liable to say I’m going to the opera. It’s terrible.”
— Holden Caulfield, in The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

Tuesday’s Writing Group prompt: Tell us about a lie you’ve told.

I am a terrible liar and so, as a consequence, I rarely lie.  As an adult.  As a kid? Different story.

The very first lie I can remember telling happened when I was 4.  I was in pre-school and some of the other kids were talking about some tv show – a cartoon, I think – that had recently aired.  I hadn’t seen it, because I wasn’t really allowed to watch tv, but I desperately wanted to be part of the group, so I said, “Well, when I saw it, . . . ” and proceeded to make up something that probably didn’t make any sense.  I don’t remember what I said happened, but I know the other kids were not buying it.

I am fooling around with categories trying to make things more accurate.  When I change categories (or anything else, including typos) on posts that went up before February 2012 (when I bought my domain name), they repost in readers as new posts.  My apologies, but a talk with WP last year confirmed there’s nothing I can do about it.  Just take it as an opportunity to revisit some old posts!