All posts by X Teri

Behavior, Death, Lemon Moment, Mental Health

A Morning

08/11/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

This isn’t my story to tell. But I’ll trespass because it blankets the lines of odd convergences of the things we all experience. Regard it as fiction and find whatever value that words can convey.

She seemed to melt against the wall, her head down, with a cell phone pressed against her ear. “Margaret died this morning,” she said, her voice flatter then the plains of Iowa. It was the flatness that conveyed an overwhelming emotion behind her words. Numbness, like a whisper, sometimes telegraphs greater information.

He stopped and was about to ask her what she needed. A woman walked up to her and put her hand on her shoulder as she ended the phone call.

“She’s in a better place,” the late arrival told her. Though he looked indirectly at her, he watched her face wrinkle with conflicting emotions. He could read her mind.

They spoke a few sentences back and forth. The woman returned her verbal volleys with diminished enthusiasm and volume.

As the late arrival walked away, he asked her what she needed. “To be about 200 miles from here. None of these people knew my Aunt.”

Because it’s what he does, he hugged her. He wasn’t going to add vacuous words.

When he stepped back and away from her, she told him that she didn’t think she could stand listening to people talk about her aunt.

“Then don’t. The person you loved is gone. Your debt is paid.” He didn’t quite say it in so few words because he was surprisingly caught off guard by nervousness. His entire morning was a bout of unidentifiable anxiety. His arms still quivered with the exertion expended to quell what had saved insurmountable at the time.

“I hate it when people say someone’s in a better place.” The irritation in her voice was evident.

“They mean well. None of us know what to say. I put my foot in my mouth a lot. We’re not thinking about where they are. We’re thinking about going on without them. That’s what grief is.”

She looked at him directly. “That’s a really good way to put it.”

“I learned the hard way. When people are grieving, they say and do almost anything.”

She nodded. He walked away, hoping that time would warp for her. Time is one of the few things that helps. But sometimes, it remained fresh forever.

He wondered how the universe sometimes finds a way to overlap lessons that superficially have nothing in common.

X
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Behavior, Mental Health

Thought

08/10/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

“I hope you heal from all the things you don’t talk about” is probably one of the most caring things you can say to someone. Love, X

Lemon Moment, Personal

August Rain

08/05/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

The man put his window down and asked me if I needed a ride anywhere. I told him Bentonville. There was a long, awkward pause. I laughed as he realized I was yanking his chain. I told him I was out enjoying the storm and rain. He told me he hadn’t intentionally been out in the rain in a lot of years. After I asked him how old he was, I asked him to guess how old he thought I was. Very early 40s was his reply. I told him I was 56, 5 years older than him. I’m pretty sure he left wondering why he doesn’t go for a barefoot walk in the rain.

When the storm rolled in, I helped the neighbors pick up a variety of plants and items the wind tried to kidnap as it traveled above us.

Even though I had already taken two walks this morning, I knew the rain was not going to be another missed opportunity. I stripped down and removed everything. Phone, watch, glasses, and common sense. And took off around the neighborhood for a walk in the rain. Barefoot. In the open spaces, I could see the expanse of the sky and the galloping clouds as they dumped rain.

It was a stolen moment, one particular to a warm August morning.

I wrapped my wet shirt around my head upon my return.

Despite it feeling like this hot summer might be interminable, I know that there will not be many more warm rainy mornings to enjoy the subtle pleasures of walking in the rain. Not to mention that I have no idea of how many more rotations around the sun I might get to enjoy.

This morning was mine.

Love, X

Brother, Family, Humor, Nostalgia, Personal

A Little Friendly Violence & Homework

08/04/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

This is a personal story. Some humor, some violence – but most of all, it contains a thread of nostalgia for people no longer walking the earth with us.

My brother Mike is no longer here to add the details to the story. He was older and larger than me. He reminded me of this easily observable fact quite often. For some reason, he was at the bar with Dad. I’m 92% sure it was the Red Door. During a relatively short stretch of time, Mike often accompanied Dad to the bar during one of our several residencies in Tontitown. Mike was trying to do his homework. Mike used to like to tell the story of how the barfly would hit on him. His account of her appearance was hilarious. Whenever he brought up the story I would ask him, “Yeah, but if she had been good-looking, you would have acted differently.” Sometimes he would punch me in the arm and sometimes he’d say, “Duh. I’m dumb but not stupid. But there’s no way I’d engage with someone who might have been with Dad.” Mike often told a repertoire of versions of this story, full of detail and exaggeration. The bones of the story are true, though.

Dad was drinking too much, which is like saying don’t wash your dishes in the washing machine. I don’t know Tiny’s real name. His nickname derived from the allegedly hilarious observation that he was the exact opposite of diminutive. He probably weighed 350 lb and was about 6 ft tall. Tiny was at the bar, which was a rarity. He preferred to drink an entire case of beer at home. Mike surmised that he and Dad undoubtedly had been working on a truck at some point in the day. And ran out of liquor. In Dad’s world, that was as serious as skipping seven consecutive dialysis visits.

A couple of rednecks came into the bar. They weren’t regulars. Their faces were anything but regular too. Mike liked to quip that both of them could have been a carnival attraction based solely on their faces. Dad was playing pool and acting like a fool to amuse himself. The rednecks wanted the pool table. Back then, we didn’t have Appleby’s, where you could drink too much and pick on an urbanite for amusement. Dad called them his favorite word: “++++suckers.” One of the rednecks came up behind him and knocked him down with a pool cue. When my brother Mike turned around to take another look, he saw Tiny pissed off and getting up from the bar. Tiny was probably more pissed off that he had to leave his beer unattended than he was about my dad BobbyDean getting clobbered. The redneck swung the pool cue at Tiny. Tiny raised an arm and took the blow across his forearm. In a move regarded as one of the most foolish in human history, the rednecks did not take the opportunity to run out of the bar. Tiny walked towards them both. They both started swinging at him. Tiny pushed one of them so hard that it looked like an invisible tether yanked him backward. He grabbed the other redneck by the arm and swirled him around. Despite Tiny’s size, he grabbed the raucous redneck by the belt and picked him up, and threw him in the general direction of the other redneck. He bent down and helped my Dad get back to his feet. Mike did add that Tiny was breathing really hard but otherwise hadn’t changed expression during the entire altercation.

The rednecks took their time getting up. Nobody had anything broken. Dad was bleeding a bit but since it wasn’t gushing, the old rule of “If you can stand up, it ain’t that bad” applied. It’s a version of “Walk it off” that parents told people of our generation – even if an arrow protruded from our thigh.

When the two interlopers had regained the ability to understand English, Dad told them if they would stop acting like Mississippi refugees, he’d buy them both a shot. It’s anybody’s guess whether they accepted the offer for fear of another round with Tiny, or they understood that that was the way these things were supposed to be handled.

My brother Mike ended up sitting at the bar, surrounded by two redneck strangers, Tiny, and Dad. They acted like old friends who just finished trying to kill each other. Mike noted that the barfly was still making geriatric eyes at him. I’m sure that on some nights, Mike probably had a drink, whether he’d easily admit it or not. Knowing Dad, he probably insisted on it. It was a violation of his code of conduct for anyone claiming to be a man to decline a drink in the presence of other men. Later in life, Mike adopted the same outlook, for better or worse. Dad often required me or Mike to drive us all home if he was particularly drunk. We never understood what gauge determined this, as Dad drove even when his breath was flammable.

I’m sure Mike learned more from observance that night than he ever could by staring at his textbook. Mike was brilliant but also brutal in his approach to certain situations. If you doubted him, he’d bend your thumb backward or hit you precisely in the neck in such a way that you were immobilized long enough to regret it.

PS The picture is a composite of their approximate appearance at the time.

Love, X
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Family, Lemon Moment, Nostalgia, Personal, Springdale

Rainy Nostalgia at 1 a.m.

07/31/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

One disadvantage of trying to sleep not long after 7 p.m. is that my body begins to stir by midnight. I was up at 1 a.m. It was fortuitous, as I witnessed the light rain sweep the parking lot shortly after. Not wanting to miss it, I crept down the landing stairs wearing only swim shorts. The rain pelted me with drops much cooler than I anticipated. I walked out by the road as my skin begged me to retreat to the protection of the landing or inside the apartment. Knowing I was in a moment that would be impossible to recapture, I remained there, smelling the singular scent of rain stirring the dirt and foliage. It was another stolen moment, one owing to sleeplessness, adventure, and pictures. My computer was on, with six or seven folders open, ones mostly mausoleum now, smiling and posed faces, many filled with people now moved on. I was attempting to both commemorate the past and repay a debt of shared pictures from years ago.

The problem with opening these windows is that they are often literal windows into nostalgia, penitence, and even happiness. “I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.” Andy from The Office quipped those words. Nostalgia often warps the sense of reality. We simultaneously fondly remember what we experienced while also catching slivers of memories that camouflage the chaos and pain that often characterize our lives.

It all started a couple of days ago when I revived an old photo of my sister. My cousin, who was older than my cousin Jimmy and I, commented, and our orbits intersected because of him. She commented that a man named Frenchie was her first love. I knew I had a picture of them, standing on Ann Street (Peaceful Valley) where I spent so many days, nights, and weekends. My Uncle Buck and Aunt Ardith were my refuge other than the Hignites’ trailer. I don’t remember much about Frenchie. When I think of Diane, I think of her husband Bob, who was a witty, kind person to me. I enhanced the picture of Diane and Frenchie. In the background, you can see what was once open fields and emptiness in that part of Springdale. I’ll put it in the comments. Strange how a picture taken for the purpose of celebrating people can also drag us into a memory of how the places around us used to be.

I love the video. Not because I’m in it. The video exists because of a long, circuitous technology trip, one which required conversion, editing, and keeping on my part. Aunt Barbara recorded us with a large camcorder, the kind that once rendered even strong shoulders a bit fatigued. I do laugh because, at one point, I used one of my favorite phrases at the time: “Hi, honey.” Later, at the very end of the video, you can hear me ask Aunt Barbara, “Who did you say, Aunt Barbara?” She called me “Little Bobby.” As people passed, the frequency of hearing my old name being used precipitously dropped. The joke was that if you threw a rock anywhere near the families, you’d hit six people named Bobby, Robert, or some variation. My birth name was supposed to be BobbyDean, like a mumbled run-on of a moniker.

When I watch the video now, I think that there should have been another sister in attendance, one who was kept secret. She would have been in her early-20s at the time. Lord, the fun we would have had scandalizing our older kinfolk.

At any rate, heading toward three decades later, I’m lucky to still be able to wake up too early, walk in the rain, drink the bitterest of coffee, and open windows into the past. I work to remember to avoid looking back out of those windows too long. It was bittersweet to live those moments. Dwelling on them too long robs me of remembering that the good old days are still here and that it just takes a large dose of time to render today’s moments as amber.

Love, X
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Behavior, Mental Health, Personal

Choked

07/28/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

The premise of the STFU method is sound: not every thought needs to be expressed and many feelings are transitory and not necessarily real. Keeping the lid on is an effective strategy most of the time. At some point though, you’re going to have to open the lid or haul it away. A wiser person once said, “It stays buried only if it’s dead.”

Allegory, Behavior, Mental Health, Opinion, Personal, Social Rules

On The Edge

07/25/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

If I had a way to tell every young person in the world one of the best ways to be ahead of most people, it would be to be able to stay calm when everything is going to hell around you. Not in a trauma-response way. When I was growing up, I didn’t realize that I was often reacting to the violence and craziness In such a way that it would imprint a foolish cycle onto my adult life. It’s difficult to remain calm and fearless because we are biologically wired to be adrenaline filled. Our endocrine system is our enemy in this modern world. Much of our anxiety stems from a lack of control, both for the things that swirl around us and our response to it. Letting it flow around us without internalizing it is a superpower. If you’re observant and prone to introspection and overthinking, you will have a bad time. Anyone living in this modern mess has ample fodder to wonder if we’ve all lost our minds. We are supposed to be spirits, yet it’s more likely we’re collectors, feathering our own nests at the expense of whatever passes for the greater whole.

My friend Marjay might tell us to “look for the helpers” when things go to hell. It’s good advice as far as it goes. It also belies the fact that we need to be helpers. When you’re on a plane and trained to use the oxygen masks that fall during an emergency, you’re also told to ensure that your own mask is on first. Otherwise, you’re useless. And so it goes with the mundane yet herculean task of navigating your own day. Be your own helper. It’s not a reassuring feeling to know that after decades of witnessing the casual avalanche of surprises in life, that I’ve failed to be my own helper. I’m not being glib; I’m being honest in the acknowledgment and nod toward my own deficiency. It was easier to look back to my childhood and shift the blame to the people masquerading as adults. It’s not their fault. They were broken. Using them as a template for either blame or guidance is stupidity. I might stretch the comparison to include how we collectively manage our society.

Every few years, I watch the 1993 movie “Fearless.” I watched it Sunday. It always triggers a wild parade of ideas and emotions in me. It used to do so because of my own plane encounter a couple of years prior to the movie. As my life progresses, it increasingly morphs into an analogy about how I’ve responded to crisis as it comes along. The main character survives a plane crash, during which he experiences a zen-like moment of clarity that detaches him from worry. The obverse side of his coin is that while it gives him an almost supernatural ability to detach and help other people, it damn near destroys him in the process. Enlightenment is personal; living is a task that requires immersion into the craziness.

“If you are what you do, when you don’t, you aren’t.” A convoluted way for Wayne Dyer to remind us that we are what we do and think. He also said, “How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.”

The “Try That In A Small Town” controversy is fascinating. It seems like people are using it to defend their identities with it, on both sides of the spectrum. That such a song can be true for both polar opposites should remind us of the danger of ideology and certainty. On a side note, I laughed my ass off looking at all the memes on both sides of the argument. People are clever, and many used it to satirically make their point. Satire and snark are two of my favorite nutrients to deal with the world. For me, the song also brought back my childhood and one of my harshest criticisms of it. A small town or parochial lifeview can be a comfort. That same circumstance can also hide a lot of violence and misbehavior. Families, like communities, often rubberstamp things that would be better served with a dose of sunlight and scrutiny. A lot of children walk around in a world where God doesn’t rescue them from senselessness – and family members turn a blind eye or don’t get involved.

How you react to what’s around you is your decision. You either float peacefully on the river, or it sweeps you downstream. It’s the same river regardless. As with the protagonist of “Fearless,” you might find yourself on the edge of the roof, looking a mile below you. The danger remains, whether you’re on the high roof’s edge or standing on the street below. You are your own biggest danger.

Love, X

Behavior, Humor, New Word, Personal

Coupon For Socks? (Random Title)

07/23/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

Complaining is easy, much like opening a two-lb bag of Doritos and finding yourself licking the empty bottom corners of the bag.

I’ve had my apartment for two years today. I miss the two known drug dealers who once graced us with their presence. They don’t even send me Xmas cards anymore. If you have 14% of your apartments occupied by those, leaving your box of Barbie dolls unattended in the car is difficult. People who sell drugs aren’t dangerous by themselves; they do, however, often attract people you’d see on the Washington County detention roster. (You know the ones. They often look like they’ve spent the entire night in a carnival porta-potty.) I miss my huge mismatched art project that once dominated the fences outside. I took it down a year ago. Earlier this week, I pulled the commemorative purple tile I’d made to remember it. I’ve occupied myself otherwise by leaving strategically placed items in a LOT of different places over the last year. Somewhere, my large tile with a secret message on the back still towers above the ground, high up in a tree that I probably should not have climbed.

One such secret prank I did still amuses me, though I’m not proud of it. A particularly angry person at some point walked out of their residence to discover a gift certificate to Shakes, in hopes that it might lessen their angry, aggressive attitude. I left a note encouraging them to be silent if they couldn’t ever say anything nice. But I also wrote that there is hope for everyone if they’ll just slow down long enough to see that there are blessings and people around them worthy of appreciation. I doubt my attempt helped them. I would call it catharsis, but fancy words like that violate standards in the South.

The last two years seem tenuously stretched to accommodate five times as many days as they contained. That’s a good thing. Time flies, but it also distorts, like bargain-bin yoga pants.

Back to complaining. Complaining serves us in small doses. It allows us to vent and release pressure. It works until we find ourselves beyond the wall of negativity. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Or altitude. (Go lie down for an hour.) Continuing to spew negativity past that point infects the people around you. Do what normal people do: drink excessively or dive into capitalism by collecting penguin trinkets to fill your walls. It’s easier to cure alcoholism than negativity. You can hide the alcohol, but there’s always going to be a reason to bitch and moan. Or moanbitch, if you need another invented word. As you read this, I’m sure you have such a person in mind. If it’s me, I will take the news better if you write it on a $100 bill and hand it to me.

It seems like I started with a unifying point. But I’ve been listening to political speeches and can’t seem to conclude anything. I noted that it gave me the urge to tell many other people what to do and how to live their lives while simultaneously becoming wealthy at taxpayer expense.

Have a happy Sunday.

Love, X

Behavior, Diet, Exercise, Health, Personal, Weight Loss

Consistency & Goals

07/21/2023 X Teri Leave a comment

People have noticed how dark my skin has become. There’s no secret. The fascinating part is how much people talk about it. No matter what you do, people talk. When I lost 100 lbs, people convinced themselves that I was doing something crazy to achieve it; whether it was stimulants or starving myself, there ‘had’ to be something other than dedicating myself to my goal through radically changing my diet. While I started doing push-ups months into my weight loss, I lost 70-80 lbs without adding any exercise. I joked that I couldn’t write a book to capitalize on my weight loss. A book that said, “Eat differently,” wasn’t going to sell a million copies. People still fight the idea that most of us can lose weight only by eating fewer calories than we consume. After all, there m-u-s-t be some secret that I’d tapped into. It couldn’t be that straightforward. I still walk around and listen to people talk about wanting to lose weight. Even though they have me to convince them that they can do it without up-ending their lives, most don’t want to hear that it’s the foods you choose that keep your weight up, regardless of how much exercise you attempt. People are largely unaware of how many calories they eat versus how much they burn. If you upend the equation on a long enough timeline, you will lose weight if you’re not suffering from a medical condition that impedes it. I’m still in my target range for my weight. Which should be all I need to demonstrate that I’m doing something right. It is all summed up by the word “consistency.”

Genetics plays a huge role in weight loss, body mass, skin color, and a variety of other things. The trick is to find a way to capitalize on whatever you’re working with.

When I went to Pennsylvania in early June, I was often outside in the pool. I started getting darker. When I was young and spent summers with my grandma and grandpa, I was like a wild native, spending a lot of time outside in the intense summer sun. I got darker, running barefoot and wild.

When I returned from the trip early last month, I started taking Vitamin D and beta carotene. I was also eating a lot of dark, leafy vegetables. Even the protein-rich casserole I eat most nights contains a huge amount of tomatoes, spinach, and kale. Guess what? Those foods coincidentally contribute to melanin production. I’d read that a diet rich in such things rapidly contributes to darker skin.

I also started doing intense cardio each day. I wrap my hands and throw punches. I still have “V Minutes” on my chalkboard in the living room. It reminds me that while I can’t do everything if I trick myself into doing something for five minutes, I usually can keep doing it. I started with small mitts for my hands but didn’t like their soft feeling. Blue painter’s tape and cloth worked much better. Do I look crazy doing it? Probably. My hands, if you look closely, are significantly harder than they were. I like experimenting. It’s been over a year now, but when the idea of trying to run a mile in under 6 minutes got stuck in my head, I kept trying to see if I could do it. I did the same when I wondered if I could do 100 push-ups a day. Or 500. Or a 1,000.

Well over a month into the effort to see if foods could also make me darker, in combination with consistent sun exposure, the obvious answer is yes. I’d been asked if I used tanning lotion to artificially look bronzed. Yesterday, I read a version of this post I had written to post at some point. Because I knew, at some point, it was going to be like my weight loss journey; people would want to know the secret. And when I told them, they’d want to know more, as if the simplest explanation couldn’t be true.

People talk. And instead of listening to me about weight loss or darker skin, they want a magic solution. There isn’t one. It’s equal parts experimenting and dedication. I’ll write a book with a kinky, expensive secret revelation about how to do the things you want. I’ll autograph a copy if you want to buy it.

Love, X

The above isn’t unusual for me, especially during the week.