Let’s go Fly a Kite
“When you send it flying up there, all at once you’re lighter than air…”
My daughter and I watched
Mary Poppins a couple of nights ago. That was after we watched “Saving
Mr. Banks,” how Walt Disney persuaded P.L. Travis the author of Mary Poppins to
allow him to make the movie.
Neglected kids had a
magical nanny come to take them on outings, play games, never be cross or cruel,
never give them castor oil or gruel and never smell of barley water…. They got
to laugh on the ceiling, jump in and out of chalk drawings, and Mary Poppins, instead
of allowing Mr. Banks to fire her, tricks him into taking this children, Jane
and Michael, on an outing to the bank where he works. The father, George Banks, gives Michael, his
son, a tuppence to start a bank account.
On the walk to the Bank, Michael
sees the old Bird Lady at the Cathedral and wants to spend his tuppence to feed
the birds as the old Bird Woman pleads but is dragged along reluctantly to the
bank.
The bank wants the money,
the tuppence. They want it enough to grab it from the boy’s hand. In the tussle,
noise and confusion there is a run on the bank.
Any reference here to us?
The movie was about
saving Mr. Banks, about personal crisis and redemption. It takes Travis’ tragic
childhood and writes a happy ending to it.
The healing value of Art.
When you don’t know what
to say, say a nonsense word like "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.”
Take a sad story and
write a happy ending.
And go fly a kite.
"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,”
Jo
I took my book Your Story Matters off my
blogs and decommissioned it. That is removed it from Amazon. It will come out
as a new version.
However, you can read Chapter
57 here:
Art
is Anything You Can Get Away With*
*Andy
Walhol
Although I
look back and see the beautiful scenes of my life, and I was an obedient child,
I never gave my folks any problems that I know of, yet I carried a lingering
sadness. And I would come home from school every day with a headache. My body
was telling me something.
One day,
later on—after I was married, I said, "The headaches are gone."
I could
say I have a problem with low blood sugar, and I know that all through high
school, I would leave the house with little on my stomach and probably little
protein. At around twelve, when I was about to have my tonsils removed, they
found I was anemic.
Yes, they
removed tonsils in those days—I remember waking up with a throat that felt
ripped, and I thought the nurse who kept telling me not to roll over on my back
was my mother. My mother was there, though. And that sage doctor and
parent’s ploy trying to cover the hurt with ice cream is a crock of bull.
By taking
away my tonsils, they took away my defense mechanism, for after that, I got
strep throat and had to guard against getting it every winter.
But back
to the headaches. How much was physical, and how much was psychological?
We can
paint rosy pictures of our lives, remembering the good times and the
highlights, or we can dig deeper and say, "What was bothering a child that
she would have a headache every day?"
I didn't
dwell on things. I put my love on the animals. I did wonder if my father ever
thought of me. Grandma was gone. Tiny was gone. It appeared as though that
didn't matter.
It
mattered.
Mike
molested me.
It
mattered.
Sometimes, it is as simple as that. Acknowledging that it mattered.
Your Story Matters.
We lived
in the town of The Dalles for about a year and a half, and I remember that as
good. I played with the neighbor kids and the little boy next door and went
fishing in Mill Creek, near our house.
The day I
caught a two-inch fish and ran home all excited, I stopped short when I found
my Aunt Marie from Illinois there. Dear Marie. I loved her. Mom was a bit
embarrassed for Marie to see that I was such a tomboy, which surprised me, for
Mom was not a girly girl. Tomboy isn’t a word we use anymore. But then there
was an issue with a girl wanting to do what I wanted. I wanted to ride bikes,
play with toy cars in the dirt with the boys, and read comic books. But then,
didn't everybody?
I loved
being a tomboy. But did it bother me?
Yes.
Within
that first year after leaving Illinois, we got the dog mom promised. Somebody
shot it while he was still an adolescent pup because it reared up on his rabbit
hutch. I was home and off my feet because I had gotten stitches in my ankle
from a teeter totter swinging into my ankle as I was on the swing. This was a collision
on a swing set in someone’s back yard. The kids from the neighborhood ran to tell me
that Mike had hit the dog in the head with a hammer to put it out of its
misery.
I know
Mike did what he thought was right because he didn't harm the animals.
It was a
year or so later that I got Silver.
I became
friends with a little girl from a Catholic school whose parents were both
doctors. A woman doctor of her age was rare as she was quite a bit older than
my mother. But I thought those doctors must be a bit cuckoo, for their son,
younger than the girl, had ulcers. Mrs. Doctor wanted her kids to have the same
birthday, so she had a cesarean section with her son. And I wondered why both
parents made such a fuss if one of their kids was injured in the slightest
way.
They
weren't Catholic but thought the Catholic school was the best in town, and thus
sent their kids there.
My mother
got a job cleaning Mrs. Doctor’s house. Once, they took us to an island for summer
vacation. I often went home with the girl after school—we were both in the
second or third grade. When they served a meal, they used more than one fork.
However, often, when I went home with the girl, her mother would fuss at her to
practice the piano. I loved piano music, but I thought if that's the way it is,
I'm not taking piano lessons.
Later in
life, I met the girl at a high school reunion. The Catholic kids transferred to
The Dalles High when they reached high school age, but we had not seen each
other since the fourth grade, and in high school, we hardly knew each other
existed. Had she not introduced herself, I wouldn't have recognized her—a Burnette
had become a blond-that’s common, but her entire countenance had changed. The
last I heard she lives on a Hog farm. Fascinating. Who would have thought? And
she seems to be someone I would like to get to know.
When I was
in the fourth grade, we moved from the town to a more rural area called Chenowith.
I rode the bus to Catholic school for a year. There are nearly always some
comments, however small, against the new, the strange, the different, and there
I was a Catholic in a pack of Protestants.
I’m sure
the same would happen the other way around.
After the
fourth grade, I joined the Chenowith public school and soon joined the
Protestant church.
I was an
only child, which was okay; I like time alone. And I like having friends. And I
had Silver.
Once we
joined the Protestant church, it occupied many hours each week. There was
church service on Sunday mornings and youth meetings at night. I joined the
choir, and we had a Wednesday night choir practice. I met my first boyfriend at
church and my future husband there.
Changing
churches felt much like moving from Horace Mann to a Catholic School. I felt as
out of place in Sunday School as I did in Catholic school. I didn’t know the
books of the Bible and couldn’t recite verses as the other kids did. Odd, that
doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, to quote my mother, but it shows how we want
to fit in and feel left out when others are more advanced in some subject.
I went to
church camps and sat at a camp meeting, doubting that there was a God. And I
wondered about all the "true believers" and how believing seemed so easy
for them. I couldn’t mix the vengeful God of the Old Testament with the loving
God of the new, and why did people attempt to mesh the two? Jesus clearly
stated that he came to put aside the law.
I thought those people never doubted. I wondered what happened to the miracles. And why couldn’t I be as sure as the true
believers appeared to be?
I saw
Billy Graham in a tent meeting once when I was Catholic and thought he was full
of it. Later, as a Protestant, I saw him again. At that time, I thought he was
arrogant because he said he knew he was going to heaven. I'm sorry, Mr. Graham.
I believe you were a nice man. I just couldn't stomach some of the religious
aspects.
But I set
off to find God and found that he/she lives in all of us. How we express that
concept is up to us. Finding people with whom you can agree, discuss, and have
a great relationship is fine and dandy; if not, travel your own road.
Almost
everyone could go over their childhood, and each would have different
experiences but with similar wonderings, longings, disappointments, and
questions. We were, after all, babes in the woods. Looking back, I can see why
so many feel different or left out, as though they don’t fit. I was a country
girl in a sea of professional people’s daughters. Those girls shopped at
Williams Store, the upscale one, while we shopped at Penny’s. And I could tell
the difference. Isn’t it strange that that matters?
A great
number of people now take antidepressants—like one-third of the American
population. Why?
We have
friends, a couple, who used to work at an Elder Facility. They told us that the
same cliques occur there as they did in high school. That reminds me of a refrain
I often heard at The World Healing Center, “If you don’t
work on yourself, as you get older, you get worse.”
We have
yet to learn that a smorgasbord of life is laid out for us, and we must choose
what we want on our plate. We think something on the smorgasbord is going
to jump onto our plates, when in truth, we must pick it up and place it there. Leave
that liver, which I can’t abide, for someone else.
How can I
say you are good enough? How can I tell people they aren't
broken and need to be fixed?
Experiences
come and go; happiness comes and goes. We search for meaning, fulfillment, and
our place in the world.
You might
have noticed that I do not have much written about how to change your life or
how to become a Baddass. (read Jen Sincero’s book, You are a Badda**)
I want to
offer a tease to say, yep, the world is out there for you to grab. Take a
chance. It’s possible. Go find a way.
Once you
declare that you want to achieve something, believe it’s yours, and take action
to get it, you will be amazed at how the universe fills in the blanks. God, the
great Spirit, the Force, the Source, the Universe, you name it, has your
back.
But
there’s a glitch. You don’t just sit on the couch, yawn, and wait for magic to
drop. You need to ask for what you want, believe it is possible, and start
walking, driving, rowing, flying, whatever moves you.
Andy
Warhol said, "Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone
else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they
are deciding, make even more art."
